The Month in Theaters September 2024
Photo by Photo by Harrison Keely, CC BY 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
I managed to get to the theaters thirteen times in September with nine movies otherwise, including one repeat, for a total of twenty-one reviews. An interesting month, no doubt. At the end of September, I now stand at 117 movies in theaters for the year.
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice
A disappointing legacy sequel that, unfortunately, made a ridiculous amount of money. The plot is incredibly disjointed, with a bunch of small plots that do not overlap much. Most of those plots also tend to resolve very quickly and easily. It pales in comparison to the original, as anyone could have suspected. Michael Keaton is great, though. Much more screentime than the original film. The writing is just very bad. There is one random cameo, which is fun enough. I just wish there was more to this movie. Some plot threads also have bad resolutions. This is a C. It could have been so much better. The lip synch musical number in the third act is nowhere near as good as the one in the first film. It invites comparisons to the other (better) film while having a much worse plot. Although I did enjoy the inventive way they removed Jeffrey Jones (a monster) from the plot.
My Old Ass
The first of two Monday mystery preview screenings this month. It is better than I expected it to be. A girl in modern times, after taking some strong mushrooms, gets visited by her older self, played by Aubrey Plaza. The title is kind of stupid. Probably should have been workshopped a little bit more. The issue becomes that her older self is not merely a hallucination, but a physical presence that other people can see and interact with. Odd choice there. B- to B. We also get small glimpses of the future. Things seem to be very bad. Or, at least, not very good. A dramedy romance story with a minor sci-fi twist. I just don’t have a lot to say beyond that.
The Killer’s Game
A hit man believes he is dying so decides to put out a hit on himself to spare his girlfriend from seeing him deteriorate. But… He isn’t actually dying. A fun concept for a movie that is decently well executed. The action set pieces are quite enjoyable. B+. Terry Crews is particularly delightful. They introduce quite a lot of other hit men who come after Dave Bautista’s character, most of which get their time to shine. I just checked, and this movie horrifically bombed at the box office. I guess I enjoyed this more than most people. Catch it on streaming when it ends up there.
Monsters University
My apartment complex showed this Pixar prequel movie at an outdoor screening. Nowhere near as good as the original. It does feel kind of pointless to see them learn to scare when screams are no longer the energy source for monsters by the end of the first movie. Still, Pixar manages to do a fine job with what it has at this point in its existence. B- to B. A far cry away from the dumpster fire that was Lightyear.
Speak No Evil
A remake of a 2022 Danish film that I’ve never seen. The trailer certainly gave away too much. James McAvoy is very creepy. The couple that are the protagonists make a raft of dumb decisions. They should have left a lot earlier. Or never accepted an invitation to visit from a couple they’d just met. When everything goes mammaries skyward, the just desserts that get delivered hit home. B- to B. Because of the trailer, the twist is pretty obvious from the jump. What makes the movie work is that the protagonist couple is made more and more unsettled quite gradually during their visit, although the husband comes to it much later than the wife.
The Front Room
An A24 “horror” movie with Brandy in it for some reason. F. It is officially labeled a psychological horror movie, but there really isn’t any horror in this movie. Mostly, a dude’s step-mother makes his wife’s life a living Hell intentionally for no real benefit to herself. Brandy has a kid during the events of the movie, so I thought maybe the step-mother would do some kind of body swap shenanigans, but that never materializes. The step-mother mostly just craps herself multiple times during the movie and pretends to be helpless. The problem is that all of this abuse just goes nowhere. The step-mother doesn’t really seem to have an end goal in mind. And then the movie sort of abruptly ends once the husband is firmly on his wife’s side after the step-mother does something that can easily be traced back to her. I didn’t expect much from this movie, but they could have done a lot more with this concept.
Am I Racist?
I didn’t expect this to be good, and it really wasn’t. Matt Walsh keeps pushing unfunny jokes longer than they need to be. Cringe humor that doesn’t land. I wouldn’t say it’s a failure, but it passes just barely. C-. I feel a defter hand could have done much more with this. The segment with Robin DiAngelo was great, though. She clearly did not know who he was. I am very surprised she didn’t Google him before the interview. Earlier in the documentary, he is in some kind of group therapy environment. When he steps away for a bit after being incredibly obnoxious, they all know who he is when he comes back.
The Substance
One of the two best movies I saw this month. We haven’t gotten a body horror movie like this in quite some time. Demi Moore shines as an aging actress who wants to feel young again, back in her prime. That third act is a thing of grotesque beauty. A+. I don’t know if this is better than Strange Darling, but it gets pretty close. The makeup and special effects are damn good. I would assume it is mostly practical, but, man, so good. And the ending is truly poetic. My fiancée adored this movie and took someone else to see it after we saw it together. Dennis Quaid plays a sleazy network executive and does a good job of it, especially one scene where he is uncomfortably gorging himself on shrimp. The camera angles this movie goes for really add to the body horror. Highly recommend this one.
Transformers One
Possibly the best Transformers movie since the ‘80s animated one, although Bumblebee is the only live-action one I really like. A- to A. The trailer made this movie look so bad. Paramount needs to fire this movie’s marketing team. Corporate malpractice, honestly. A story of friends who become enemies. Some jokes do not land, especially one that the robot who will become Bumblebee keeps saying. Yeah, they’re all not named their known names until basically the end of the movie. Why? I have no idea. Prime is a leader moniker, so I understand why Optimus wouldn’t have that as a lowly mining robot at the beginning. But his name isn’t just Optimus either. Weird. The twist is pretty predictable, so they don’t hold that one too long.
Never Let Go
A story about a crazy woman protecting her two children from imaginary problems. Or is it? Well, there’s some weird imagery at the end, but it would appear that Halle Berry was just crazy. C. Her character is under the impression that the world has essentially ended, with a total breakdown of society. And the only thing protecting her and her two sons from some nefarious evil entity is being connected to the foundation of the cabin in the woods where they live. That’s why they wear ropes around them, connected to that foundation, whenever they leave the house to forage for food. The weird imagery in the third act doesn’t make up for the fact that it is revealed society is still perfectly fine. Was it a collective hallucination then? Maybe. It is never really explained.
The Wild Robot
The other absolute standout movie this month. A+. Matt Berry even plays a beaver. He has such a unique cadence. A “malfunctioning” robot in the near future ends up on an island only inhabited by animals. And learns emotion, the ability to understand all animal languages and communicate with them, and how to be a parent through the raising of a runt of the litter goose. This movie surprised me, as the trailer made it seem like the plot would go somewhere completely different. There’s a minor element of it in the third act, but it didn’t lean too heavily into it. Easily in the top three of animated movies this year, likely only behind Spy x Family Code: White.
Megalopolis
Boring. It looks nice, but the plot is very boring. I thought this passed initially but like Borderlands before it, now gets an F. It isn’t as bad as two clear worst movies this year, but it isn’t good either. The definition of a passion project. Francis Ford Coppola would not have been able to make this movie had he not sunk a hundred million of his own money into it. And it is surely not making a profit. I just wish it was better. The plot is filled with contrivances that resolve themselves very quickly, including a plot point where Adam Driver’s character gets shot in the face. He’s perfectly fine a scene or two later. The script badly needed some work.
White Bird
The second Monday mystery preview screening this month. This movie is technically a sequel to Wonder, that movie about the kid with the somewhat messed up face. The plot largely follows the grandmother of the bully from Wonder. She was a Jewish girl living in Nazi occupied France. Her story of survival, essentially. Helen Mirren plays the present-day grandmother and the narrator for most of the story. As can be expected when WWII is involved, there are some very heartbreaking elements. A- to A. The framing of hooking it to Wonder adds virtually nothing to the movie, although this is an adaptation by the same author who wrote the book that movie was based on. I guess it just had to happen that way.
EVERYTHING ELSE
I only really sunk time into two video games, Vampire Survivors and Peglin again. I managed to finish those final two achievements in Vampire Survivors. Took a decent amount of time. I suspect new achievements will be added sooner rather than later. I managed to finish level 20 of the Cruciball with all four characters in Peglin. There was even an update which added three new relics, which I managed to unlock rather quickly. Both games are so much fun. I technically played a bit of two other games, but the amount of time was so minor that I don’t see the point in even mentioning them.
Lots of television this month. I got into Fargo, finishing the first season and starting the second. The first season was pretty damn good, but I got kind of bored with the second. If I return to it, I doubt I do it soon. The Old Man returned but didn’t rock my socks. I have seen three or so episodes as of this writing, but I got bored with it, unfortunately. The Quiz with Balls had a few more new episodes that I watched. Fun. The Floor returned in September, but I did not start watching it again until October. More on that next month. My fiancée and I watched two shows together, Columbo and The King of Queens. The former is my second favorite show of all time, so I had a ball there, primarily watching episodes I had not seen in ages. As for the latter, this was a show I enjoyed when it was on but never saw the whole show. It’s still enjoyable. Agatha All Along is the latest MCU Disney+ show. I watched the first two episodes and have not felt compelled to watch more. It’s merely OK. I watched the first episode of Bad Monkey on Apple TV+. It’s good, but I have yet to return to it. Slow Horses is back and is frickin’ awesome. Highly recommend that one. The other really good show is The Penguin, which is really fun. I am excited to see where the character goes from here. Late Night with the Devil was the repeat, as it finally got released on physical.
Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind is the penultimate Studio Ghibli Miyazaki movie I needed to see, although it was technically before he founded the studio. Most just consider it one anyway. Beautiful imagery. A+.
I had never seen The Notebook. It’s all right for what it is. Predictable twist, standard romantic film beats. B-.
The final one ends up being Castle in the Sky. Also wonderful. A+.
Hellboy II: The Golden Army wasn’t as good as I thought it would be. Still enjoyable, but didn’t knock my socks off. B+. The ending is pretty abrupt.
When I popped in Late Night with the Devil, there was a trailer for this movie, Sympathy for the Devil. I found it on streaming in short order and watched it later that day. It is better than it has any right to be, but isn’t spectacular. B to B+. Nicolas Cage plays unhinged so very well.
Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons was another movie I picked up on physical the same day I bought VFW. This one is nowhere near as good. The biggest problem is that this is the part of Journey to the West before they journey to the west. Annoying to say the least. C. The slapstick was enjoyable, but I wanted the journey itself. This is apparently done in the sequel film, which I have very little interest in seeing.
I had heard of this movie spoken of in high praise but didn’t love it as much as I thought I would. Bubba Ho-Tep follows Bruce Campbell as an aging man in a nursing home who claims to be Elvis Presley who had swapped places with an impersonator shortly before that impersonator died. The primary issue here is that Elvis wouldn’t even have been 70 the year this movie released. Bruce Campbell is wonderful, but the plot needed some work. B- to B.
Wolfs being dumped on streaming without a wide theater release when that was the original plan probably should have clued me into its relative quality. It isn’t great. The primary issue is that there really isn’t much of an antagonist to the film. George Clooney and Brad Pitt play two cleaners separately booked to fix a problem involving a DA. Essentially, cleaning up the scene of an accident that would cause scandal for that DA. The plot takes some leaps, but mostly jogs in place for a good chunk of the middle. C to C+.
And that’s everything. A movie released in October has already deeply disappointed me. But a movie I really want to see comes out a few days after I’m writing this.
