The Month in Theaters February 2023

I watched a lot fewer movies this month than the previous one, much to the relief of the editors. I managed to get to the theaters eight times in February, with one repeat, and seventeen movies otherwise, with one repeat, for a total of twenty-three reviews. The reason? Lots more prestige television, which I’ll get to later, and a desire to watch better movies. Quality over quantity. I watched a lot of mid movies in January. The best movie in theaters award was difficult to make, largely because a few movies fall around the same rating. Mild spoilers below.

Knock at the Cabin

M. Night Shyamalan has another movie. It is well-acted; with the signature goofy dialogue he is known for. It concerns a gay couple and their adopted daughter on a vacation at a cabin in Pennsylvania (almost every single one of his movies takes place in my home state) when a group of apocalypse-predicting whackadoodles with crude melee weapons show up. As per the trailer (my spoilers will not go much further than that,) Drax the Destroyer plus three others (including Ron Weasley) tell King George III from Hamilton and his husband that the family must choose one of them to be willingly sacrificed to prevent the end of the world. The entire movie is attempting to either get you to believe these whack jobs or doubt them. It’s an insane story, but are they telling the truth? B to B+. I wouldn’t quite put it in the A range, but it was an enjoyable time. I liked the ending, but there’s a few things the movie could have left out to have it hit home better. In the story this movie is based on, a scuffle for a gun results in it going off accidentally and killing the child. Since the sacrifice wasn’t taken willingly, that death doesn’t satisfy the requirement. And the two men decide not to kill one or the other. That ending is better and more ambiguous.

Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey

This wasn’t a great movie. It’s a fascinating concept; what with the original Winnie-the-Pooh book entering public domain, a random movie or show was inevitable. I didn’t quite think a horror movie was where it would go. The best part of the film is the storybook-like opening animation. Essentially, Christopher Robin leaves for college, making the inhabitants of the Hundred Acre Wood fend for themselves. They are driven mad, but beyond the opening animation, only Pooh and Piglet are in the film. The kills are at times brutal, but the movie is so dimly shot, happening almost exclusively at night, that you can barely see anything. This film almost surely had a shoestring budget, and it shows. All the budget seemed to go into the Pooh and Piglet masks, which are genuinely very cool. The acting is horrible from everyone. Because the concept is interesting, I give this a C- to C. The biggest issue with the movie is making it a Fathom Events exclusive. That was dumb.

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania

I seemingly liked this movie a lot more than most. The main reason? Jonathan Majors as Kang the Conqueror is top-tier casting. He delivers so hard; the rest of the movie’s problems are small. He is genuinely menacing, not quipping or cracking a joke. He’s all business. B+. I wish there were more consequences for the heroes. Paul Rudd is charming, although the rest of the cast other than him and Jonathan Majors didn’t impress me much. MODOK was incredibly goofy, but that should be expected. Bill Murray was just kind of there, only showing up in one scene. The only expectation I had going into this was nailing Kang the Conqueror, which I believe they managed to do. I saw this movie a second time with family.

Marlowe

This one is technically a 2022 movie, and it was so much better than I thought it would be. Set in 1939 Los Angeles, it matches the tone and pacing of a classic noir film. No wasted scenes, unrelenting momentum pushing the story forward. Basically no fat to cut. I thought about this a lot, but I think this is the best movie I saw in theaters in January. A to A+. Two months in a row, two movies that technically came out in the previous year get the top honors. Strange, that. Liam Neeson leads a cast of mostly character actors. There’s Nightcrawler from the second X-Men movie, Mr. Eko from Lost, and the love interest from National Treasure, among others.

Cocaine Bear

A ridiculous concept for a movie that mostly delivers. The true story is much less crazy, being that the bear probably died like five minutes after consuming several pounds of cocaine, but the conceit is fun. Like the previous film, it is stuffed to the gills with character actors, from Margo Martindale to young Han Solo to Ice Cube’s son to Ray Liotta. A- to A. The kills are incredibly brutal. What hurts the movie from a higher rating is they kill one character off screen to the point where they barely mention it, doing a random flashback to show the body. Very odd creative choice. The movie is directed by Elizabeth Banks, whose name is left completely off the marketing (for presumably obvious reasons.)

Jesus Revolution

A movie I expected very little from but somehow managed to bring the heart. A- to A. The trailer made it look like the Kelsey Grammer show, but he’s one of three principle main characters. Based on a true story, covering the Christianity revival among the hippies of the ‘60s and ‘70s, the film genuinely surprised me. I had never heard of this story before, but I was fascinated by it.

Champions

Regal did that $5 Mystery Movie thing again, giving me, for the second month in a row, a final movie of the month that technically won’t be officially released until the following month. It’s not even out as of time of writing. Woody Harrelson plays a basketball coach who gets a DUI and must satisfy a 90-day community service requirement to avoid prison. He is assigned to a team of intellectually disabled adults. The story is at times too cute by half, but is fun just the same. B. They treat the subject matter with the appropriate tact.

EVERYTHING ELSE

As I mentioned earlier, I watched a lot of television in February. I got into Poker Face over on Peacock, which is essentially Columbo with a twist. The audience sees the murder, the murderer, and their reasoning for it before the lead character shows up. The show is all catching them, not who it is. I also got into The Last of Us, which is pretty good, although Poker Face is probably gonna be my favorite new show of the year. Columbo is my second favorite show of all time. And Rian Johnson nails the concept. South Park came back and is as good as ever, especially the episode making fun of the British royal family. Beyond new shows, I also watched the entirety of A Pup Named Scooby-Doo in one day. That was a fun time. It has aged incredibly well. The last show of note I watched was the first episode of Maigret, a show following a French detective in the 1950s. It stars Rowan Atkinson of Mr. Bean fame. It only got four episodes, but each episode is about an hour and a half long. I will watch the rest when I have time. The repeat movie this month was The Menu, as my fiancée had not seen it.

I finally watched The Lighthouse. Holy Hell, is this a great movie. A+. Robert Eggers is a fantastic filmmaker. All three of his films are amazing. This may be his best one. It follows two lighthouse keepers who get stuck on their island past their scheduled four weeks due to a storm. They both slowly devolve into complete madness. Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson are fantastic.

UHF is one of my favorite absurdist comedies. “Weird Al” Yankovic is the main character. It even has pre-Seinfeld Kramer. A man with a daydreaming problem keeping him from holding down steady employment is given a UHF station to run after his uncle wins it in a poker game. It is incredibly silly and charming, with loads of pop culture parodies, from Indiana Jones to Rambo. A+.

A movie I hadn’t really heard of that my fiancée wanted to watch. World’s Greatest Dad stars Robin Williams as a father with a reprobate of a son. A writer who never made it, Williams is a languishing high school poetry teacher. When his son accidentally kills himself playing the choking game, he stages a suicide and turns his son into a mythic figure by writing his suicide note and a fake journal. The movie eventually devolves, but has more heart than I expected. B to B+.

What turns out to be “Weird Al” Yankovic’s favorite movie, Top Secret! was Val Kilmer’s first starring role. A Zucker, Abrams and Zucker production, it is delightfully silly. Much like UHF, it doesn’t have much of a plot but it is so much fun. A to A+.

I watched John Wick as my fiancée has never seen. Still just as good as I remember it. A+. It is my tenth favorite movie of all time. What else needs to be said?

Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy is just awesome. A script loaded with improv and a bunch of actors who hadn’t really made it yet. Fun times. You shouldn’t need me to recommend this, but do see it. The theatrical cut is better than the unrated version. A+.

My fiancée had never seen the live-action Scooby-Doo movie, so we checked it out. It’s not great, but it isn’t terrible. B-. Matthew Lillard played such a good Shaggy; he voices him to this day in animation. Linda Cardellini also delights as Velma.

Scooby-Doo! Return to Zombie Island is a recent sequel to Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island, a sort of meta commentary on the supernatural elements of that film. This is a B. It tries to make it seem like the supernatural elements of that movie didn’t actually happen. Matthew Lillard does voice Shaggy in this.

I love this movie. James Cameron’s last good movie, True Lies is a fantastic action film. Arnold and Jamie Lee Curtis both bring it. Tom Arnold is also there. A+. It is finally getting a Blu Ray release later this year. It took long enough.

My fiancée had also never seen the sequel, so we watched Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed. I had never seen it either. Slightly better than the first one, so B- to B. James Gunn actually wrote both of these, oddly enough. A lot more references to old monsters from past incarnations of Scooby-Doo, including Chickenstein from A Pup Named Scooby-Doo.

My sixth favorite movie of all time, The Dark Knight is awesome. Heath Ledger brings it as The Joker, as does Aaron Eckhart as Harvey Dent. A+.

A movie I noticed on HBO Max that intrigued me. My Bodyguard features a bunch of young actors, like Matt Dillon and Adam Baldwin but also Martin Mull. The conceit of the movie is sort of dumb. A bullied kid hires the kid his bullies are afraid of to be his bodyguard. There’s a big throwdown between four characters in the final act that feels out of place but is appreciated. B- to B.

My fiancée wanted to watch The Hunchback of Notre Dame, mostly for the Belle Easter egg/cameo. “Hellfire” continues to be one of the greatest Disney villain songs of all time. This is a B.

Superbad is a great time. A to A+. A coming-of-age comedy focusing on two high school best friends based on the writers’ real lives. It came out when I was in high school. I liked it then; I like it now. Jonah Hill and Emma Stone stand out, as well as Bill Hader and the actor who played McLovin.

A movie I thought I talked about before, but I somehow had not. Little Giants is a ‘90s children’s sports movie. Rick Moranis plays the main character and coach of a team of rejects. B to B+. My nephew had never seen it, so I watched it when I visiting family.

X-Men: Days of Future Past is probably my second favorite ensemble X-Men film (Logan and Deadpool are both better than any of those,) but I watched The Rogue Cut version, which is greatly inferior. Rogue is barely in the movie, adding basically nothing. I don’t know why this movie exists. The original cut is a solid A from me, but this is a B at best.

And that’s everything. March is the month of sequels, as the first four weekends of the month all feature a sequel. Weird that they’re all just stacked on top of each other.