The Month in Theaters September 2023

Photo of Meridian 16 Cinema, downtown Seattle. 2012 by Sea Turtle on Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

This was a much larger month in theaters than I ever anticipated. I saw fifteen movies in theaters (likely a personal record,) with two repeats, and an additional fifteen movies otherwise, for a total of twenty-eight reviews. One of those repeats was The Hill, as I mentioned in the August rundown, while the other was Gran Turismo. A few standouts, a disappointment or two, a few that came out of absolutely nowhere, and one I assumed wouldn’t be good and wasn’t. I’m at 92 movies for the year at this point. Triple digits are in sight.

Golda

Starting out the month on the very first day of the month, I saw this Oscar bait picture. A biopic (sort of) of Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir, largely following the events just before, during, and after the Yom Kippur War. Not a stable time in Israel, that goes without saying. Helen Mirren was excellent, assuredly getting a Best Actress nomination for this but probably not winning. She has at least two already, and the Rotten Tomatoes score for the film isn’t stellar. Enjoy the nominee SWAG bag, Helen. A-. I don’t know why the critics didn’t enjoy this film. Golda Meir likely saved the country. In war, mistakes are inevitably made. But expecting every leader to make the correct decision 100% of the time during war is asking far too much. She still won the war. One of the last major conflicts involving a ground war in Israel. It led to peace agreements that inevitably won Jimmy Carter an undeserved Nobel Peace Prize.

It Lives Inside

The first of two $5 Regal Monday Mystery Movies this month, we get this first-time director horror movie that was presumably made on the thinnest of budgets. Largely about and involving the experiences of first and/or second-generation Indian immigrants to America. Spooky and unsettling mythos related to curses and such within what Indian religion is at the heart of the film. I will plead ignorance. I studied Chinese and Japanese religions in college, so my knowledge of the Indian religions that were not in some way related to Buddhism is thinner than those. You know me; I’m not looking it up to know for a fact. I judge movies as they are when I see them. I leave hindsight analysis for the end of the year review article. This may be why last year three movies from November were in my top four films of the year. The tension was there, but the acting from most wasn’t the best. I give horror movies a pass on this normally. Most horror movies are filled with unknown actors who may have never been in an actual movie before. There is a slight mystery aspect to the movie, but it isn’t very good. And there are almost no deaths in the film. Only one of which we fully see on camera. And why that particular character died and what they did to deserve it is never justified while others survived. I never really even understand why the character was a target of the entity at the heart of the horror. But I enjoyed myself. This is B to B+. As I’ve mentioned before, horror movies are graded on far more of a curve than, say, an Oscar bait drama would be of similar quality.

Miss Shetty Mr Polishetty

Yes, the lack of punctuation in the title is intentional. This is a Telugu language film, even though a large part of the plot takes place in London (probably not filmed there, though.) This is an Indian film. I don’t know if it is technically Bollywood or not, but I didn’t enjoy the movie enough to care. This felt like it was five hours, largely because the conflict at the center of the film is one of stupid stubbornness from one of the characters that they are never held accountable for nor does the movie make me feel it was all worth it. The lead female character, a seemingly successful chef (but take the movie’s word for it as they do very little to establish that or show much of her career throughout the film,) wants a child but wants nothing to do with romance or marriage. Seeking a sperm donor for IVF, she decides to go her own way and find that donor on her own instead of just pulling a donor from a sperm bank. The lead male character in this romance movie is a hopeless romantic, but also a “gifted” comedian (he reaches wild international success in a plot that seems not much longer than a couple of months, before the gestation period, out of basically nowhere in a completely unbelievable fashion) with a dead-end job and still lives with his parents. She somehow thinks this guy is the perfect match after catching his stand-up at a glorified open mic night. He thinks they’re dating when she is merely getting to know if he’s good enough to use him for her own selfish desires. She is a terrible person. He falls in love with her anyway. There is virtually zero chemistry, but not for lack of trying on the lead male’s part. The lead actress is just so bad. Flat in emotion the entire film. I want to see the lead actor in something after this. He was wonderful. But basically the only actor in this movie who came to play. This is a C-, but not passing by much. I only saw this movie in the first place because it was showing at my local AMC during a weekend when the only two wide releases were sequels to movies I hadn’t seen (more on that later…) I still think the experience was better than nothing. I didn’t expect it to be good, and it wasn’t.

The Retirement Plan

This would have been movie of the month had two movies I saw after this not happened. The third to last film in theaters was around parity with this, but the last film I saw blew both out of the water. And there was also a 2023 movie I saw on streaming that got close as well. More on that later… The action was awesome, the (usually dark) comedy was really well done, and the acting from all involved did everything that was needed of them. Nicolas Cage plays a retired assassin when his daughter, who has no idea about his former profession, gets in a spot of bother with some Miami gangsters due to her husband’s job. When the husband sends her and their daughter off to where her father is, the Cayman Islands, things inevitably devolve when the husband gets tortured and she gets captured and interrogated. The one plot hole in the movie that bothered me is after the daughter sees her husband being tortured in front of her, we never see that dude again. It can be assumed he’s dead, as him being alive provides no leverage for Nic Cage’s character (he didn’t even know he had a granddaughter until she showed up at his house,) but there is zero confirmation of this. This movie, other than Nic Cage being awesome, has Rorschach and Hellboy/Slade from Teen Titans, as well as Owen from Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story for some reason… I greatly enjoyed myself. This is likely the third best action movie I’ve seen this year, which easily tops last year without a doubt. A+. I do not wish to spoil anymore of the plot, so I will move on. I will say I was the only person in the theater the Thursday night I saw this. No one is talking about this movie it would seem…

A Haunting in Venice

The best of the current Poirot films that Kenneth Branagh has done. The reason? Unlike the first one, where the solution was stupid (I know it’s the same as the one in the book,) or the second one, where the murderer was blindingly obvious, this one had a murderer who made sense as far as the plot goes and wasn’t too obvious. Lots of red herrings that turned out to be just suspicious actions not related to murder. Lot of sketchy goings on in the movie. The horror elements are also very well done, especially the camera work. It is not easy to impart claustrophobia and impaired senses from a first-person perspective, but they managed that in one of the best examples I can think of in any visual medium. A to A+. I love murder mystery. While this isn’t the best example of it from this year, that is still the Peacock streaming show Poker Face, it is the best movie of that genre this year. Of course, I can’t recall if there even was another movie of that genre this year, but I guess that is beside the point. The acting from all involved, a pretty decent ensemble cast with some playing against type, was much better than it needed to be. A couple child actors even impressed me; not all that common for there to be more than one good child actor in a movie. Since getting into the plot would almost surely spoil something, I will move on. The trailers don’t even show who gets murdered, which I personally appreciate.

Bottoms

An indie absurdist comedy film that is a mash-up of American Pie and Fight Club but with lesbians that is frankly so strange I am glad someone had the altered mental state to think it up in the first place. The absurdist nature is made plainly obvious early in the film. The two main characters, the lesbian best friends who have zero romantic tension at all (which I thank the filmmakers for not giving them,) feature a good-natured introvert and a horrible person extrovert. The movie even makes it clear in outcomes that this dichotomy is important. The horrible person basically gets nothing for all her shady dealings (although no real consequences either somehow) while the good person gets a sort of happy ending. The movie at many points ramps up to eleven out of nowhere and comes back down like some sort of time release acid trip. I mean that as a compliment. Absurdity is rarely done in live-action filmmaking and is even rarer still done well. A to A+. This is probably the best comedy I’ve seen this year, unless I’m forgetting something. I went in mostly blind, as I recommend anyone else to. I do not believe I even saw the trailer. If I did, I just don’t remember it. Someone just described the movie as being what I said in the first sentence, just without the absurdist part. I love absurdist comedies, so I’m glad I gave this one a shot at my local indie theater. I wish I could say that for one of the two other movies I saw there this month.

Dumb Money

The second and last $5 Regal Monday Mystery Movie this month. It is a brilliant film based on events that happened less than three years ago. I don’t want to spoil the plot, as the movie is worth seeing and should still be in theaters by the time this article comes out. Although, I have a feeling it will be on Netflix or whatever before the end of the year. There is Oscar potential here, although mostly from Paul Dano and the adapted screenplay. This is based on a book that was somehow written and published in time for it to be adapted in less than three years. Crazy fast turnaround, considering how good it turned out. TO THE MOON!! A to A+. Taking down rich greedy bastards always feels good, although the real-life aftermath didn’t leave me feeling quite as warm and fuzzy.

The Inventor

This was a disappointment. Stop-motion animation is one of those animation styles I very much love. This movie had about twenty minutes of plot stretched to an hour and a half. After the first half an hour, almost nothing happens for the rest of the movie. It looked beautiful, but like the Avatar movies, that means little to me if the plot, script, and everything else are lackluster. The primary issue is that the antagonist at the center of the movie is only in the first half an hour outside of one scene where he doesn’t even interact with the main character. Leonardo da Vinci is the main character, played well by Stephen Fry but nothing really to write home about. The main villain, if I can even say that, is the Pope at the time of the Protestant Reformation. Who did bang heads with Leonardo, but is primarily known for excommunicating Martin Luther. He is played expertly by Matt Berry, someone who readers of this article series damn well know I like. He needed to be in the film more. I mostly saw the movie because I saw that he was in it. The rest of the voice cast is just there, as are most of the characters. The movie is attempting to say something about scientific inquiry and technological advancement being necessary even if the powers that be find it unpopular. But it doesn’t really stick the landing. This is a C. I wanted to love this movie. And I just didn’t. My local indie theater only showed this for a week, which probably says something about its staying power. Only one other person was in theater when I saw this, but Bottoms only had two others (an older couple.) Matt Berry deserved more than like three scenes in the entire film. He stole the show whenever he was speaking. No one else did.

Expend4bles

Yes, that is the official title of the movie. I checked. This was so much better than it should have been. It might be the best in the franchise, which, granted, isn’t really saying all that much. This movie had less “action heroes of old” cameos and more was a movie with a solid beginning, middle, and end, unlike much of the rest of the franchise. Also, it isn’t that long either. The twist is very obvious. You should see it coming well before it happens, but the action is fun. Most of it is of the shooting persuasion, but when the primary fighting antagonist is Iko Uwais, who keeps trying to break out in in Hollywood, you know you’re in for at least some magic. Tony Jaa also delivers. Jason Statham definitely excelled more here than Meg 2: The Trench. Megan Fox managed to somehow not be all that annoying. None of the people in the movie (outside of maybe Andy Garcia) can be called great actors, as Terry Crews is conspicuously absent from this outing, but they do the part they have to. The day before I wrote this article, a trailer for The Beekeeper dropped. Another Jason Statham action flick. It looks amazing. This movie, though? A solid B+ to A-. I liked it a lot more than some people did. But I love action movies. The movie kept the pace and didn’t waste much time. Unlike a lot of action movies with bigger budgets (and much longer runtimes) than this.

My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3

The weekend this movie came out I had yet to see the second movie in this now trilogy. I managed to see it before seeing this a couple weeks after it came out as my fiancée wanted to see it. While I will cover that movie more later below, both are about the same quality. The one aunt played by Andrea Martin continues to be the best part of this franchise. This series is very contrived but funny for what it is. Boilerplate comedies that I could conceivably watch again. Still not as good as the first movie in the franchise, but that isn’t a favorite rom com of mine anyway. That is probably my least favorite “popular” film genre, the rom com. This is B- to B. It didn’t piss me off, but it didn’t really impress me much. The movie doesn’t go anywhere you don’t expect it to. Somehow, while releasing seven years after the second movie, it only takes place about a year later in universe. Which makes the ages seen in the faces of some of the older members of the cast a little jarring. They didn’t even try to hide that. If this movie does well enough, the fourth movie will inevitably involve the daughter getting married (which somehow did not happen in either this movie or the previous film.) This movie needed more of the wider cast of the first movie. The second movie didn’t have enough of them either. But I’ll get to that eventually…

Saw X

The second-best movie in the entire Saw franchise. A+. Possibly the best horror movie I’ve seen this year, unless I decide Talk to Me is better (or another horror movie from later this year beats both of them.) Only Saw II is better in my mind. Tobin Bell is a central part of the film, as this takes place sometime after Saw but before Saw II. How much time even passed between those two movies is anyone’s guess. And the filmmakers probably don’t care. They will keep putting Tobin Bell in these films until he no longer wants to do them. Washed the bad taste of Spiral right out of my mouth. Why they thought that movie would work, even if the traps were pretty cool, I don’t know. Even with the anti-cop message (even though the primary antagonist was also a cop,) that movie is probably the worst in the franchise. And that is saying something. Jigsaw, the eighth installment and the first of now three soft reboots, also had that kind of message. What makes this movie work is that, for the first time, John Kramer, the Jigsaw Killer, is the main character. And the people he tests in his traps are somehow worse than him, a serial killer. This did occur in Saw VI, but that movie had a very muddled message, as some of the people tested were completely innocent. Jigsaw caused the deaths of at least two completely innocent people in that movie. Their only “crime” was working for the scummy main character. Very odd. Saw VI and the two previous films before this one are my three least favorite in the franchise. I can wax poetic about this franchise for hours. The Jigsaw Killer is easily the most interesting of the franchise slashers. Scream is still probably overall my favorite franchise (and the first one is my favorite horror movie of all time,) with Jason being my favorite slasher, but Saw occupies a space all its own. We will almost surely be getting more of these, what with it costing less than it grossed in its opening weekend.

The Creator

A movie that is a lot dumber than it lets on. The idea of doing a cerebral version of The Terminator, which is what this essentially is, is not a terrible idea. The execution fails at times, although the ending is both predictable and enjoyable. The problem is we are meant to believe that the AI robots are benevolent. They do not have to be fully destroyed, which is fair, but when they kill lots of humans, that part starts not to make much sense. You can make a self-defense argument, but that also makes little sense. We have to trust that the AI nuking Los Angeles (which is in the trailer) that sets off the entire plot was an accident. Something the AI robots never try to convey or argue outside of one random bit of dialogue. One dude, a very good character actor, makes this point to Denzel’s son (the main character) about an hour into the movie. He even blames humans for it, that it was a coding error. Why should we trust the AI on this when that makes the AI look so much better and makes humans look awful? There appear to be other allegories going on, including I imagine the Vietnam War. Every leftist’s favorite war to talk about because they are incredibly ignorant of history. (That’s a subject for another day, I guarantee you.) It is still an enjoyable movie, but it is not as profound in message as the heart it brings. There are also a ton of contrivances in this movie. Denzel’s son is somehow the only person with the required knowledge for a special mission, so he must go. Even though, as we learn very late into the movie, he’s about the last person they should have sent. The people who hire him knew this and sent him anyway. Also, his desire to back the AI robots over humanity was very stupid and didn’t make any real sense. This is still a B+, but the stupid worldbuilding keeps it from being better.

Stop Making Sense

This is technically a remaster of an older film, but because a different studio handled the remaster and the distribution, I will count it as a 2023 release. This is movie of the month and has cracked my top five of the year. Talking Heads is not a band I had ever listened to intentionally before, really only knowing of their style from a “Weird Al” Yankovic style parody. But this concert recording was a fever dream from start to finish in the best way possible. Like The Sparks Brothers before it, I have a new band I love. I will be purchasing the soundtrack, which was remastered as well with additional never before released tracks, in the coming days. I have about two or three other albums I need to purchase first, TWRP’s 2023 LP and Steel Panther’s new album being of the utmost priority. I will also likely buy their greatest hits album at some point in the near future. A+ without a doubt. If this is showing anywhere near you or you have the capacity to see it on streaming or physical, do so. My local indie theater was showing this. I still need to see The Last Waltz, but this concert film was a revelation. So damn good.

EVERYTHING ELSE

Four shows to talk about before we get into fifteen additional reviews. Sorry, editors. Peacock has been killing it this year. My favorite new show of the year is still Poker Face, but I watched two Peacock shows this month. Killing It, a sitcom comedy of errors about a down on his luck dude played by Craig T. Robinson (Darryl on The Office,) was brilliant, with two full seasons out now. Some of the politics are annoying (the first season takes place right before the 2016 election for no real reason that was narratively necessary,) but the general conceit is awesome: Those who haven’t made it have so fewer opportunities than the rich. And way fewer safety nets. The other show, The Continental: From the World of John Wick, is a three-episode miniseries that serves as an origin story for Winston, played by Ian McShane in the four John Wick films. This takes place in the 1970s and, as established in the marketing of the show, a reality that isn’t quite like ours. Yet all the awesome music still exists. Mel Gibson is the only actor I recognized by name. He plays the corrupt leader of the Flatiron Building NYC Continental hotel. The third episode comes out the day after I’m writing this, so I will discuss the whole thing, which almost surely ends with Winston as the new leader of the hotel, in the October rundown. The first live-action spin-off of The Boys came out, debuting with three episodes right before the end of September. Gen V has many of the same problems that The Boys has, but almost all of its strengths. It is a fun show that I am looking forward to the conclusion of, especially how it will tie into the next season of The Boys. I imagine that trailer will be tacked onto the season finale of this show. I also watched the entire first season of the live-action Netflix One Piece series. I was adamant on skipping it until everyone who watched it said it was awesome. It isn’t better than the anime, but they did a great job truncating the entirety of the pre-Grand Line arcs (other than the holdover arc at the pre-Grand Line island) into eight hour-long episodes. Also, my favorite character, Zoro or Zolo, is played by Sonny Chiba’s son. Which is awesome. Zolo is my second favorite anime character of all time, second only to Future Trunks. I love swordsmen, especially anime swordsmen… Bosch: Legacy returns in October, having already been greenlit for a tenth overall season before this one even had a premier date. Bosch is my favorite show of the streaming era, likely cracking my top five of all time, maybe. Definitely at least top ten. Expect my thoughts on the first few episodes of the season in the October rundown.

I don’t know if I watched this in August or September, but I definitely watched Drive for the first time at some point. I realized I neglected to write it down on my notepad somehow… Ryan Gosling is amazing in it, and Slade from Teen Titans and Albert Brooks are also spectacular. Christina Hendricks is also there; this being filmed right around the time Mad Men got big. She is given very little to do. But a really good movie. A+. I see why a lot of terminally online men pretend to make this movie their entire personality.

They Cloned Tyrone is a weird movie; urban science fiction is probably the best name for what it is. There is a political message, but said message is dumb as a bag of hammers. The movie itself is enjoyable, but it has quite a lot of pacing problems. The movie is way too long for the amount of plot it has. But all the actors in it do a great job, especially Jamie Foxx and John Boyega. The ending also sucks pretty badly. Like they just didn’t have one. The Stepford Wives (the original, not the terrible remake) it is not. B- to B.

Another Netflix movie, this time White Noise. Another movie with a weirdly political message that doesn’t stick the landing. And was about a train derailment in Ohio that involved toxic chemicals, which oddly enough happened in real life within a year of this movie releasing. Just insane coincidence, man… Adam Driver is delightfully weird, as he is best when he does that. The rest of the cast is fine, but I don’t remember any of them immediately off the top of my head and don’t care enough to look it up. B to B+. The plot doesn’t completely come together, so it’s a little bit of a mess.

The Faculty was a fun alien invasion movie with a thriller element to the horror. It’s sort of like The Thing mixed with a teen drama. I won’t spoil any large parts of the movie, but the cast is stacked, including Jon Stewart for some reason. The somewhat bad CGI alien effects actually look nostalgically quaint these days. I didn’t realize until I started watching it that Robert Rodriguez directed it. Interesting… A.

I found a special edition DVD of True Romance at a Big Lots while traveling. I gobbled that up. The movie that got us Reservoir Dogs, as Tarantino sold the script for this movie to fund that movie. It has a lot of Tarantino-isms, but, as it was directed by Tony Scott, has some of his usual flairs as well. The main character is an anti-hero who loves Elvis and works at a comic book store. I’d honestly love Tarantino’s take on this script. But he will apparently only make one more movie. I doubt he sticks to that, but I also doubt if he is serious that he’d make this his last effort. A.

Before I saw the third one, I watched My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2. Incredibly contrived, but is funny enough. B- to B.

A movie written by a guy that loves writing plays called THE [INSERT NAME OF A FAMILY MEMBER HERE] for some reason… The Son is a movie by the same dude who wrote The Father, a much better movie than this one. Both based on plays of his, apparently. He also has a play called “The Mother” that will inevitably be made into a movie eventually. The problem is the ending. It is shocking but also incredibly stupid. It involves a literal Chekhov’s Gun. Hugh Jackman’s character is an absent father and a complete moron. Laura Dern plays his now ex-wife. Their teenage son is having developmental issues that also involve depression and suicidal thoughts. They badly fail him. This is a C. It only doesn’t fail because the acting is excellent. But the script is awful, the pacing is glacial, and the ending is horrendous.

I managed to pick up a DVD three pack of The Thing. The original, the John Carpenter sort of remake that is one of my favorite horror movies of all time, and the 2011 The Thing prequel. It really follows the breadcrumbs well, but there are a few narrative gaps in order to get there, one of which is incredibly stupid. But how they come to realize the alien is hiding among them was clever. How they tested themselves for who is “among us” was also fun. The acting is superb, especially for the type of movie this is. There are way too many people who speak English in this movie. And the greed of the guy who causes all of the problems is so blindingly stupid, it defies belief. I do find it weird, and this was true of John Carpenter’s film as well, that the alien can speak English without skipping a beat. How? But, as it stands, a very fun horror movie. A to A+. I will watch the OG film at some point, maybe in October.

I finally saw The Lost Boys. The twist is incredibly stupid and only matters to the plot for all of like five minutes. The explanation for it is also dumb as Hell. But it is a fun vampire movie with an incredibly fun third act other than the stupid twist. I can see why this got a bunch of terrible sequels, which I presume were all direct to physical. A remake of this movie could easily do well. Set it in a different location or at a different time period. Disco vampires could be fun. A.

I did not enjoy this movie as much as I thought I would. The Rocketeer is pretty boring and slow. Expert costume design, but the lead actor is not very good. The plot is slow, making the movie feel so much longer than it is, while the conveniences of the plot and mysteries surrounding it are more annoying than anything. C+ to B-.

Guy Ritchie’s The Covenant was awesome. I was burned on his other movie that he released this year, like a month before this released theatrically, so I decided to skip it in theaters. This was incredible. Political, as you imagine it would be, but a message movie that struck a chord with me. A+. It’s on Amazon Prime Video. Go watch it. I do not want to spoil a single thing.

Another 2023 movie, this time on Hulu, No One Will Save You is not as clever as it thinks it is. Mostly because of the completely strange ending that leaves so many unanswered questions. It’s an alien invasion Body Snatchers-type affair but there’s only one real line of spoken dialogue in the entire film. The acting from the youngest daughter from Tim Allen’s Last Man Standing is superb. But the ending is weird, never giving us any explanation for what the aliens are even trying to accomplish. Or what is happening outside this tiny backwoods rural town. It’s worth seeing, but it isn’t making my top ten of the year. A.

I finally saw Donnie Darko, a movie that has been on my to-watch list for over a decade at this point. I believe I got the movie on DVD from the $5 bin at Wal-Mart in either 2012 or 2013. I finally watched it on YouTube for free when my fiancée picked it. Excellent film. A+. The ending is a little strange and messed up, but fits the tone of the film. I won’t spoil anything else.

A movie Sonny Bunch recommended when Oppenheimer came out, Sunlight is currently free on YouTube. Brilliant from start to finish. With an incredibly stacked cast. A+. Watch it now. It was a box office bomb, so I probably would have seen this earlier if it was in any way cheap on physical media.

There were about three direct to DVD Recess “movies” made after the theatrically-released movie that served as a conclusion to the TV series. Only one of them was fully original. Recess: All Growed Down (yes, that is the official title, I checked) had all of one original bit, which I did watch after skipping to it. But I watched Recess: Taking the Fifth Grade; both “films” as well as the entire original series, are on Disney+. This one was fine, but wasn’t absolutely stellar. It served as the final conclusion to the show, as it takes place after the core group started fifth grade. The theatrically-released movie (which I should probably rewatch at some point in the near future) concerned them graduating from fourth grade and their summer vacation afterwards. I give this a B to B+. I would have liked it had it tried to tie the three stories together more. I feel like most of it was just unreleased episodes they expanded and edited to make them fit a fifth-grade storyline. The heavy exposition narration at the beginning and throughout is why I suspect that.

And that’s everything. October has so few wide releases that I am currently aware of. I hope my local indie theater gets some stuff to make up for that or some movies go wide at my local AMC that technically released earlier. I hope to hit 100 in October, but I might not.