 Movie Review: The Naked Gun
By Jeff DeRouen Let me be absolutely clear: I adore disgusting jokes. For folks like me, there is no bar too low when it comes to what will elicit fits of laughter from us so jolting we struggle to contain our loud accidental farts like the character on screen trying to hilariously outrun the chili dog runs. I know this truth about myself because I am the primary source, the living data, telling you that The Naked Gun is so funny, the aforementioned “hypothetical” could happen to you. Liam Neeson and Pamela Anderson lead a pack of serious actors like Paul Walter Hauser, Danny Huston, and CCH Pounder, who completely commit to some of the stupidest, funniest, bits and jokes I’ve seen in a movie in years. A reboot like this could have been a lazy retread, but director Akiva Schaffer manages to stick to the old playbook (smartly) and keep the material fresh. Please don’t think I’m hailing this movie as a comedy masterpiece or a work of cinematic importance; it’s not, and that’s part of the charm. The Naked Gun isn’t meant to change your life, just your day. I hope that folks use this film as an opportunity to forget about all the pain in the world, the difficulty of making ends meet, and the constant onslaught of political propaganda. It’s ok to step out of the real world for a bit to find some joy, and The Naked Gun is a surefire way to make you smile – especially if you think poop is funny.  Fantastic Four: First Steps
Review by Jeff DeRouen Again, I’m not really the guy to analyze comic book movies because (aside from some obvious cinematic masterpieces) I look at them as pretty much all the same, really: little fables with a bunch of action, awesome special effects, and perfect entertainment for a Saturday afternoon. While Superman certainly delivers a more compelling and sharper script, Fantastic Four is the one for the WHOLE family to enjoy. The acting is fine, the script is on the nose but gets the job done, and there are truly exceptional elements in the movie. The effects are the best we’ve seen in a Marvel flick in a good while (Galactus, the villain, is huge and so cool to look at on the big screen) and folks are positively raving about the incredible production design by Kasra Farahani. He makes retro look fresh, and the colors pop off the screen. It’s slick and fun, but I disagree with the folks who are likening it to The Jetsons – this looks to me like if Disney’s Tomorrowland (the park, not the movie) got it right. By the way, Disney’s Tomorrowland got nothing right: we all want to kill each other, and the billionaires are gonna make that easier by unleashing AI overlords; no happy robots and moon colonies here. Look, if comic book movies aren’t your thing, there’s plenty out there to choose from. Adults who are looking for more substance should go see Eddington or 28 Years Later. Folks who want something a little smarter than the regular Hollywood fare, and also big and loud, should see Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning or even F1, but The Fantastic Four: First Steps is unabashedly for all ages. What I mean is it adequately covers all the bases: it’s perfect for the family unit, the young middle schoolers going on their first date, and college kids on mushrooms. There’s something for everyone. So get up, comb your hair, grab the nice underwear, and get out to the picture show!  Review by Jeff DeRouen
The question of how to use Covid and the reality of those “lockdown” days in entertainment has plagued the industry and artists since our collective masks came off. How do you portray a miserable time in everyone’s life where each day brought a new catastrophe in the world, a fresh social media battle, and hours of Andrew Cuomo talking out loud to no one on CNN. How do you begin to explore what all of that was and what it means now? If you’re Ari Aster, one of our greatest living filmmakers, you make Eddington, the story of a tiny town during the Covid epidemic and use that town as an allegory to show us exactly how insane we all really were and, sadly, still are. Aster’s brilliant new movie is hilarious, shocking, and guaranteed to join the ranks of great American satires like Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove and Altman’s Nashville. Joaquin Phoenix embodies Joe Cross, the Sherrif, who runs for mayor against his arch enemy and incumbent, Ted Garcia, played pitch perfectly by Pedro Pascal. Sheriff Cross is anti-mask where Mayor Garcia and the majority of folks in Eddington (who are not afraid to shame the maskless in public) want the mandates enforced. Add Black Lives Matter protests and performative white people to the mix and you get a VERY funny movie that no one knows if they should laugh with (you absolutely should). The movie feels and is shot like a modern western with echoes of legendary director John Ford and action maestro John Woo. After films like Hereditary, Midsommar, and the criminally underseen and appreciated dark comedy masterpiece, Beau is Afraid, Aster has become a master storyteller and changes the stakes of the film constantly. He keeps us on our toes trying to figure out who’s good and who’s bad or who’s right and who’s wrong: the answer is no one and everyone. The heat under the narrative gets turned up slowly until all the worst parts of ourselves and the conspiracies we believe and promote play out for us in the delightful third act that can only be described as “full blown bat shit”. We always say, “Hollywood needs to make more original movies” and here is one to support. I absolutely adore Eddington, but I understand it may not be everyone’s bowl of chilli. You may not like it (and that’s ok!) or even understand it, but you will not deny that Eddington is wildly imaginative, unpredictable and, good or bad, will have folks talking – the way good art is supposed to. And I just want to end this review by mentioning the magnificent Deirdre O’Connel who plays Joe’s mother-in-law. She was recently seen on HBO in a sensational performance as the Penguin’s mother and she does stellar work here as Joe’s mother-in-law, a delusional (maybe?) conspiracy believer. Go see this movie.  Superman
Review by Jeff DeRouen The thing is, I enjoy just about every comic book movie I see. I’m not a reader of the literature, so I don’t have an emotional connection to these characters. It doesn’t upset me when they “get it wrong” because I don’t really know what “getting it right” looks like. My day will never be impacted over what actor they pick or whether they explore the “awesome World War II storyline where he goes back in time – it’s so REAL, man!” period of the late sixties. In my eyes, what the filmmakers do with these properties comes down to one question: is it entertaining or not? Yes, filmmakers like Richard Donner took this story about flying people who can shoot rays out of body holes and created something beautiful and cinematic. Christopher Nolan took the pages of these comic books (by and large intended for children) and made three compelling, violent, and decidedly adult movies. They were heavy. Heavy is not what James Gunn is doing here: he’s taking us back to the books and embracing the ridiculous child-like world depicted there and in the cartoons. That doesn’t mean the film isn’t serious – there are moments, but Gunn’s Superman is fun, bright, and full of toy ideas. When Superman does get serious, it explores timely themes but certainly isn’t as heavy-handed or 'woke' as it’s been accused of being. It’s hard to justify calling how the film depicts immigrants and a pending ethnic cleansing something NEW or only of today. The struggle of the immigrant has been depicted in art since the beginning of, you know, art. In fifty years, the people who watch this movie will not think of Israel and Palestine, or the policies of the current presidential administration. They will think of whatever conflicts are happening then and reflect on how their world treats those seeking refuge. The themes Gunn explores in Superman are universal and timeless. Superman has always been a symbol for truth and justice – for morality and kindness – if you see yourself or your ideology in the BAD GUYS on screen, that’s on you, boo. Superman is the kind of movie where we get to let go, be entertained, and feel good about life – and we need that. If you want serious cinema, you’ll want to skip this one. If you’re a dad in his forties looking for a movie to take your kids to on a Saturday afternoon, boy, are you about to have a good time. This movie was made for you.  Checkered flagging: F1
Review by Jeff DeRouen When a studio wants to make a big, loud, fun summer movie, Joseph Kosinski is the guy to call. He made Top Gun: Maverick, so they know Joe is gonna bring the spectacle and pure entertainment – and if that’s what you’re looking for (who isn’t?!), F1 is perfect. However, if you like your beautiful sports car movie to have a very nice alternator or maybe transmission, then F1 needs a lot more under the hood. Or F1 is like driving a Corvette with a lawnmower engine. Or something like that. The movie stars the always charming Brad Pitt as aging race car driver, Sonny Hayes. Sonny agrees to race for his friend whose team needs help (the friend is embodied honorably by Javier Bardem wearing a blazer in every scene). There, Sonny meets the beautiful scientist (Kerry Condon) who’ll become his love interest and the cocky, young hothead played by Damson Idris, a rising talent that proves here that he can command a cinema screen. Damson’s character, Joshua Pierce, will hate Sonny, learn from him, then love him the way all the men in these movies do. The question: is it interesting? The answer is yes! Kind of. There are effective moments here, but nothing new to offer in the way of character objectives or development. The movie passes, and smartly never lets a scene run too long, but Ehren Kruger is a good writer, so it’s a shame that studios make scribes play these scripts so predictably. I know the guy who gave us Arlington Road can cook, and I wish studios would empower artists like him to break new ground or, at the very least, push boundaries with these narratives. The result would be better movies. The bottom line is that you’re gonna have a good time with this play-by-the-numbers action sports drama because what you’re there for is the racing and, oh boy, is it good. Kosinski and cinematographer Claudio Miranda do with the racetrack what they did with the sky in Top Gun. These guys put the audience in that car with those drivers, and it’s thrilling. See this movie (I say this every week because it’s TRUE) on the biggest screen possible and, I assure you, you will be white knuckling it through every turn. The technical innovations they employed and allowing their stars to ACTUALLY DRIVE the cars (thank you insurance!) gives the movie a fresh energy that can be exhilarating. I give F1 a confident green light and think it’s worth putting pants on and going to the theatre for the big screen experience. However, I wonder why Hollywood (with ALL of the writers in that town) can’t seem to offer something fresh with the characters in their tentpole scripts. It tells me what the studios think about the audience: that we don’t want them to deviate from the norm. They think we want that standard Hollywood structure filled with all the predictable Tinseltown clichés. I hope the enormous success of Sinners shows executives and bosses that we actually crave originality, because the hits are getting harder to sit through.  Brainspotting: 28 Years Later
Review by Jeff DeRouen Aren’t we tired of zombies by now? We’ve come a long way from George Romero’s slow-walking and moaning dead to the sprinting flesh eaters of today’s pics. I know, I know, some folks absolutely LOVE this stuff and are seated for the four hundredth spinoff of The Walking Dead (now in its SEVENTY-THIRD SEASON), but it’s been quite a while since we’ve experienced anything new in the undead category. Leave it to the guys who reinvented the genre two decades ago to do it again by bringing us back to what made Romero’s films classics: they were about something bigger than eating brains. Director Danny Boyle (Trainspotting, Slumdog Millionaire) and writer Alex Garland (recent writer/director of Civil War), return to the land of “infected” with their follow-up to 2002’s 28 Days Later, 28 Years Later, 23 years later. Look, time has passed, and we meet a cast of new characters: a small family who are part of a community living behind the walls of a fort protecting them from the “infected” - crazed rage monsters (zombies) living on the mainland. Apparently, there is a part of the world that’s progressed with things like Amazon package delivery separate from the diseased area – why everyone doesn’t just live there is never answered, but it doesn’t matter. We follow young Spike (expertly played by gifted newcomer, Alfie Williams) who begins the film with his father, Jamie, making his right-of-passage trip to the mainland to kill infected for sport the way Sarah Palin kills moose. Aaron Taylor-Johnson is a man’s man here and plays the hunter and drinker out loud, but also gives Jamie a quiet nurturing quality that makes us root for him and his family; despite the issues, we know they care about each other. That care is what makes Spike set off with his severely ill mother to the mainland to find a notorious doctor (who apparently loves barbecuing dead people) without his father. 28 Years Later is unique, exciting, and technically thrilling to a nerd like me. They shot the movie with iPhones (with some truly innovative moves for the kill scenes), giving the whole thing an urgent and very real tone. It doesn’t look or feel like standard Hollywood fare, making this a welcome, punk-rock addition to the summer blockbuster season. We’re in good hands with storytellers like Boyle and Garland and I can’t wait to see where the next chapters take us to, especially after that ending. So, thumbs up, go see it, it’s one of the best of the year so far, but I want to end this review spotlighting Jodie Comer. She plays Isla, Spike’s mother, and I’ve been a fan of hers for years from Killing Eve to the criminally underseen The Last Duel. There’s enough evidence now to say she is one of the greats – it’s undeniable. Her power on screen has few rivals, and I can’t take my eyes off her when she’s acting. Trust me when I say her towering performance is worth the ticket price alone (along with the arrows through heads, the ripping out of spinal cords, and giant zombie dongs).  The Materialists
Review by Jeff DeRouen Folks, you will probably never see a scathing review from me in this publication. That’s because I am an artist, a filmmaker myself, and I know how hard it is to make a movie. I can usually find something I like (or even love) in every movie I see whether the whole thing works for me or not. Also, I don’t take time to go see movies I don’t think I’ll enjoy (my apologies to How to Train Your Dragon), so a full-on castration of someone’s art is not something I will ever do. That being said, I wish I loved Celine Song’s new movie, Materialists. Her previous film, Past Lives, was on every critic’s “best of” list and was nominated for a ton of awards. It’s well-written, funny, and deeply emotional. It’s a beautiful film, a masterpiece even, so I was really looking forward to this one, and Materialists starts out great. It’s fast, fun, funny, sexy, and manages to play on our expectations of a romantic comedy – and it does it EXCEPTIONALLY. The actors absolutely swim in Song’s terrific dialogue while basking in the beautiful glow of cinematographer Shabier Kirchner’s lens. Everything is here – it’s the perfect setup: the story of a matchmaker who thinks of relationships in terms of graphs and spreadsheets and boxes is torn between two men and then hijinks ensue – should be a slam dunk for an adept filmmaker like Celine Song, even with a genre-subverting approach. The movie rocks for over an hour and then something bad happens. Something that abruptly changes the tone and, instead of being a one and done development, becomes a full-blown extremely clunky and heavy-handed subplot that runs through the VERY LONG third act. I won’t say what the something is, but whether it works or not is being hotly debated between the cinema experts in the blessed marketplace of ideas. Some folks like where the movie goes, but it derailed the whole train for me. I could be totally wrong about all this and I’m seeing it again this week to make sure. Different points of view can often make me look at something differently, and, who knows, maybe that’ll happen here. I’m open to that. But my first impression is that the story is undercooked, the tone is all over the place, and at two hours, the film feels about thirty minutes too long. There is a world where the 90-minute version of Materialists is considered a romantic comedy gem, because the bones and first hour of this movie are impressive and captivating. So, ultimately, I was disappointed, but I’m gonna keep buying tickets to Celine Song movies because I love that we live in a world where she gets to make her films her way. And I would take Materialists over a How to Lose a Man in Four Hours (or whatever it would be) any day. She’s taking big swings, and I love watching when artists get to play that ballgame.  Review by Jeff DeRouen
When my Southern dad became a grandfather, he lost all connection with the often emotionally unavailable “men don’t cry” parent of my youth and turned into a giant softie who says “I love you” and cries during Folgers Christmas commercials. I mention this because, at its core, I feel like Wes Anderson’s new movie, The Phoenician Scheme, is about that kind of personal transition. Benicio Del Toro (in yet ANOTHER brilliant performance) plays Zsa-zsa, an oligarch they (yes, THEY) call “Mr. 5%” because of his reputation in the global industrial trade game. He is wealthy, powerful, and under constant threat of assassination - a running gag that plays out in hilarious and often cartoonishly violent ways. He reconnects with his estranged daughter (Mia Threapleton in a star-making turn) for an important mission where Zsa-zsa hopes to repair their relationship and talk her into taking over his business/estate before she makes her vows to become a nun. Watching this pair of moral opposites make their way along this journey is incredibly entertaining and laugh-out-loud funny, not to mention a supporting ensemble boasting the kind of all-star roster they used in 70’s disaster movies. These are great actors having fun and turning in top-notch performances without the threat of the ship sinking around them or the airplane they’re on going into the ground like an exploding earthworm. Wes Anderson mainstays like Tom Hanks, Geoffrey Wright, and Bill Murray (as GOD) are just some of the players here and Michael Cera, in particular, is positively brilliant as Bjorn, the tutor who joins Zsa-zsa and his daughter on their quest. Look, either you dig what Wes Anderson throws down or you don’t – and I REALLY dig what he does. The Phoenician Scheme fits perfectly into Wes’s wholly original filmography, both thematically and visually (it’s gorgeous – see it on the big screen), so if his style of storytelling is something you’re drawn to, you’re gonna have a really great time at the movies. It’s an endearing story about family and the crucial life requirement of changing who we are, becoming better people so that we can experience happiness. It’s a true delight, and a perfect movie to take your parents to.  MISSIONARY IMPOSITION: MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – THE FINAL RECKONING
Review by Jeff DeRouen For me, 1996 was the best summer of movies ever. My hometown of Lake Charles, Louisiana, had finally leveled up its theatrical experience and I spent those months sitting in the brand spankin’ new United Artists Theatres air-conditioned auditoriums. I was surrounded by Dolby and SDDS sound and lost in the perfect picture quality of hits like Twister, The Nutty Professor, Independence Day, The Rock and more. It was banger after banger that summer and, for a college- aged movie nerd like me, it was absolute cinematic paradise. I specifically remember shoveling popcorn into my mouth and drinking real Coke when I was introduced to agent Ethan Hunt in a stylish action thriller called Mission:Impossible – starring an actor who always delivered, based on a TV show I had never seen, and directed by a guy I really loved because I was a video store geek. I was hooked. I needed to pee, but didn’t dare leave my seat as Ethan hung there, suspended above the floor in the much-publicized Langley heist. This safe and insurance-friendly display of a movie star doing impressive gymnastics was awe-inspiring and would evolve into Cruise becoming Hollywood’s best stunt man, constantly risking his life for our enjoyment. I won’t bore you with specific plot elements of the new installment and it’s fine if you get lost like a five-year-old in a Wal-Mart. All you need to know is Ethan and his crew must stop the Entity or it’s the end of the world. It’s a shame, though, the movie slogs along for over an hour with Ethan being driven and flown from conversation to conversation, exposition-heavy scene after scene in place of plot-driven sequences, until FINALLY he’s under water doing something and The Final Reckoning kicks into gear. With his team (and collaborator/director Christopher McQuarrie), Tom plans, builds, and executes, the kind of grand and complex stunts that give him the rush he craves while flying through the air, making the audience squeal with pleasure knowing he could hit the side of a mountain at any moment because it’s ACTUALLY him. And boy is it exciting when we see Tom hang off a real airplane for the climax of The Final Reckoning - hundreds of feet in the air in one of the most exhilarating action sequences ever put on film. The sheer size of it all begs to be experienced on the biggest screen possible and it was specifically filmed for IMAX, so it periodically opens to the full aspect ratio of that giant screen – see it there if you can. Alas, Tom and I have both aged since 1996 – one of us better than the other – and he seems ready to bow out as Ethan Hunt. This movie may not be the best in the series, but it’s a fitting send off to one of the more consistently dependable popcorn properties. And, on the bright side, there’s plenty of opportunities to pee before it starts to cook. Mission : Impossible - The Final Reckoning plays across the city  The New Orleans Museum of Art (NOMA) presents a new film series, in collaboration with award-winning producer and filmmaker Meryl Poster. Each film screening at NOMA will be accompanied by a conversation with Poster and other leading figures. Discussions will draw connections to art more broadly and celebrate cinema as an essential art form.
The museum kicks off the series on Wednesday, May 21, with a screening of director Anthony Minghella’s The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999) followed by a conversation with actor Jude Law and producer Meryl Poster. Full schedule:
A limited number of tickets are available for each screening. Tickets are $10 for NOMA members and $15 for the general public. More information is available at noma.org/producerschoice. |
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