The Month in Theaters January 2024
Photo by Photo by Harrison Keely, CC BY 4.0
In the month of January, I managed to get to the movie theater ten times and watched an additional nine movies (with one repeat,) which is a total of eighteen reviews. This month, like a typical January, did not lend itself to many great movies. Subpar and disappointing in many ways.
Founders Day
The first of three $5 Regal Monday Mystery Movie this month, although, for some reason, this one was only a dollar. This screening did occur on the first of the year. This is a horror movie built around a small town’s mayoral election. As it stands, a lot of people didn’t like this movie. I enjoyed it. In a month filled with disappointments, a movie I didn’t know existed until a few hours before I saw it gets movie of the month. B+ to A-. Maybe this is a function of me having zero expectations going in, but it is what it is. Unlike a lot of other horror movies, this one has an interesting twist with the ending.
Night Swim
A boring PG-13 horror movie. F. The script is terrible. Finding out this was based on a short film makes a whole lot of sense. Just not enough there for a full movie. Wyatt Russell, the progeny of Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn, is given so little to work with. I know he can put in solid work. But there’s only so much a good actor can improve.
Origin
This movie is based on a book that doesn’t really have a three-act narrative, basically a scholarly work. The second $5 Regal Monday Mystery Movie this month. While it has some gripping scenes, two in particular, I cannot abide the historical revisionism surrounding the death of Trayvon Martin. Why did they think it was a good idea to lie so blatantly? C. I probably would have failed it without those two gripping scenes.
Mean Girls
A poor imitation of the original film. Based on the stage musical that is based on the original movie. The characters are given less depth to make time for the songs. Certain characters are just excised entirely, like the main character’s father who is not mentioned at all. The songs are not memorable in the least. The couple of character changes they make don’t really end up having much narrative significance. C- to C.
The Beekeeper
I was jazzed when I saw the trailer for this. I wanted it to better than it was. The ending is also sort of disappointing. It just kind of ends. The action is fun, though. The twist is sort of ridiculous in a bad way and ends up not really mattering. B. The action, the kills, and Jason Statham are all pretty great, though. Narratively, it needed some work.
The Book of Clarence
This was better than I thought it was gonna be. I had a feeling the movie would just piss me off, which did not happen. It looked like a cheap rip-off of Life of Brian from the trailer. While it has some elements of that, the plot diverges a bit. And also has a happier ending. One particular actor has a really good cameo. B. It wasn’t amazing, but I never expected it to be.
I.S.S.
A thriller with a good premise that doesn’t land the execution. And then just sort of ends. Three Americans and three Russians are aboard the International Space Station when the United States and Russia go to war. That sort of premise should have led to a better film. C. There was one moment that really pissed me off, but I will avoid spoilers here.
Land of Bad
The third and final $5 Regal Monday Mystery Movie of the month. It is a very boilerplate American military film. Liam Hemsworth and Russell Crowe are the only actors I recognized by name. It’s gripping at times, but there’s nothing really new here. Russell Crowe plays the drone operator assisting Liam Hemsworth and a few others on a mission in a country I can’t even remember. B- to B. A few convenient things happen to either raise the tension or to move things along. Both very noticeable. Random scene in a grocery store, seemingly out of nowhere.
Poor Things
Weird. That’s a good word for this movie. The trailer didn’t fully spell out the plot, but the movie doesn’t really have that deep of one anyway. This is mostly Emma Stone’s movie, so I understand the praise she’s getting. B. There’s at least one plot event that could have been removed from the movie with no loss. Willem Dafoe gives a delightfully weird performance. Still annoyed that he does not have an Oscar.
Out of Darkness
AMC is doing their own version of the $5 Regal Monday Mystery Movie. Screen Unseen. Or, when they do a horror movie, Scream Unseen, like this movie. This takes places 45,000 years in the past and follows a very down on their luck group of nomads. They get attacked at night by something. What that something ends up being is unsatisfying. And the ending is pretty weak. C+ to B-.
EVERYTHING ELSE
I watched fewer movies outside of theaters than usual because of the sheer amount of prestige television I watched. Ten different shows to talk about… Reacher finished its second season and was really fun. I look forward to where they take it next. Slow Horses was awesome. It has three seasons right now. It’s a British spy thriller series. Highly recommend it. I got caught up with Yellowstone. About half of the final season left, premiering late this year. I enjoy it, but I have a feeling they may be stretching out the season’s plot a bit. Ted premiered on Peacock, a prequel series to the movie series of the same name. Nothing stellar but fun. Echo, the most recent Disney+ MCU show, was not very good. Daredevil is in it for all of one scene. A scene that really doesn’t add anything to the story. Just there to be there. My fiancée is on a real Cold Case kick, so I watched several episodes with her. There is this two season show on Amazon Prime Video called Patriot. It was good, but the way it ended was almost surely not meant to be a series finale. I watched the first season of True Detective but did not watch anymore. I was told the rest of the series doesn’t stack up, but maybe I check it out later. The first season was excellent, if a little slow at times. Blue Eye Samurai, an adult animated series on Netflix, was incredible. Binged it in one day. Highly recommend. I started but did not finish I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson, a sketch comedy series on Netflix. Not every joke lands with me, as it sometimes leans too heavily into “How uncomfortable can we make this?” but it has its moments. Killers of the Flower Moon was the repeat film, as my fiancée wanted to watch it when it hit streaming.
Good Time was, uh, a good time. A bad person and his many failures to escape his bad decisions. And they keep snowballing. B+ to A-.
This is an interesting movie I finally watched. Sideways has the same director as The Holdovers and also stars Paul Giamatti, this time as a wine snob. B to B+.
This is probably the weakest of the South Park specials so far. South Park (Not Suitable for Children) I felt didn’t have enough jokes or things to say to justify itself. It was still funny. I just expected more. B.
The New Barbarians is an Italian B-movie made by the same group that made the other two I watched near the end of December. It’s the worst one. C+ to B-. It’s a Mad Max rip-off, from the looks of it. I expected little going in, so the score is largely reflective of that. Fred Williamson is fun, though.
I finally saw Draft Day. B+. Kevin Costner and Chadwick Boseman are great. Weird choice to pick the Browns to focus on for a fictional movie about the NFL draft, but whatever.
On the other side of the coin, we have The Underdoggs, a Snoop Dogg sports comedy vehicle. It’s like a lazy version of Little Giants and The Mighty Ducks with a sprinkle of last year’s Champions thrown in. F. The only positive thing about this mostly unfunny film is that Snoop Dogg actually has a youth football charity that has done a lot of good. That organization was sort of the basis of this movie.
Nyad was boring and slow as well as avoiding the uncomfortable truth behind this based on a true story movie. F. I suggest checking the Wikipedia article for it. It makes me wonder why they made the movie at all.
Self Reliance was fun but the ending sort of undercut a lot of the movie. It’s a Hulu comedy film starring and directed by Jake Johnson and produced by The Lonely Island. B+.
And that’s everything. Let’s hope February gives me some better movies.
