The latest film releases include Freaky Tales, A Minecraft Movie, The Luckiest Man in America, and The Friend. Weighing in are Shawn Edwards, a film critic at Fox 4 News and co-founder of the African American Film Critics Association, and Katie Walsh, film reviewer for the Tribune News Service and the Los Angeles Times.
Freaky Tales
Set in 1980s Oakland, California, this combines real-life stories with tall tales, including former Golden State Warriors basketball player Sleepy Floyd as a skilled fighter wielding a samurai sword.
Edwards: “It's overly nostalgic, and unless you grew up in Oakland … in the 1980s, it's really hard to grasp a lot of the storytelling that takes place in the film. … Freaky Tales is based off of, and named after, a 1987 song by Oakland rapper Too Short. This film drips with cultural references that are all connected to Oakland. There are a lot of ideas, a few cameos. Some of it connects, but most of it doesn't. … But the thing that I really loved about it is that there's this gleefulness in the filmmaking, and it is fun to determine what actually happened and what actually didn't. But unless you were connected to that era, you may scratch your head more times than you want.”
Walsh: “It is so, so specific that I was going, ‘How did this movie get made?’ And I assume that it got made because [directors] Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck made Captain Marvel. They obviously, before Captain Marvel, were these indie darlings. They did Half Nelson, they did Mississippi Grind. So they were these Sundance indie darlings, and then they made this big Marvel movie, and now they're making this really bizarre anthology film. … They cashed in their Disney chips to make this clearly passion project because it is so niche.”
A Minecraft Movie
This is based on the best-selling video game where all you do is basically build things. This is directed by Jared Hess (Napoleon Dynamite) and stars Jack Black, who was also in Hess’ film Nacho Libre.
Walsh: “It's been in development since 2014, so many writer/directors have come and gone. … This game is wildly popular. I've never played it. I barely understand what it is. The children love it. … The last filmmaker to get the hot potato was Jared Hess, who you would know from Napoleon Dynamite, Gentlemen Broncos. And he brings his signature suburban absurdity, like deadpan humor. … Everything is square. The purpose of the game, I guess, is to mine precious resources like iron and diamonds and gold, and then turn it into weapons. So the movie's trying to give this message that's like … ‘you can build things in this world and your creativity is so important.’ And then all they're doing is making weapons and fighting with it. But yeah, this movie is so strange. I don't know that the children will yearn for it. I certainly just had a bad time thinking about what this means for the industry.”
Edwards: “The storyline of this film mimics The Lord of the Rings and The Lego Movie. Like legit, you could almost file a plagiarism suit. … But I will say this: Look, Jack Black deserves an Oscar for actors who continually play themselves but never get annoying or never get boring, because he went above and beyond to keep people entertained with this thing. … Jack Black is so over the top in this film. He makes his character in School of Rock look like Harrison Ford. That's how over the top he is in this thing. … And kudos to Jason Momoa. I had no idea Jason Momoa was this funny. Nothing about this film gels, but because of the individual performances, it's entertaining, so it's not a total train wreck. But I don't understand the lack of story development and character development.”
The Luckiest Man in America
This re-tells the story of the 1984 Press Your Luck scandal, when contestant Michael Larson (played by Paul Walter Hauser) did so well on a CBS game show that network execs accused him of cheating.
Edwards: “There's something about the game show conceit that just creates this automatic drama and this automatic tension. … Paul Walter Hauser … plays this socially awkward guy, but there was something about him that connected with the producers of this game show, who decided that if they put him on the show, he will connect with viewers. Unbeknownst to them, this guy is this con guy figure, and as the movie proceeds forward, everyone's trying to piece all the different elements together to figure out who this guy is — that's about to not only devastate this show, but bankrupt the network. I really, I really like the cast a lot. … The story always moves forward.”
Walsh: “It has this ‘80s retro appeal in the style, but it also has a ‘90s, 2000s retro appeal in that it's this large ensemble cast making a film that is about a weird media occurrence. … It's not just the story of this guy who outsmarted a game show. It's a subtle but sharp critique of these media narratives that are fed to us that say that you can be ‘lucky.’ And then in the back room … as they're freaking out, they say, ‘Oh, no, we can turn this. … This is gonna be a great media narrative, we're gonna go crazy ad sales on this because people love him so much.’ … I think what makes this movie interesting is this idea of how we're sold this idea of luck, and it's never been about luck.”
The Friend
This is an adaptation of the National Book Award-winning novel of the same name. Iris (Naomi Watts) is bequeathed a great dane from a deceased friend, and she’s reluctant to keep the pet.
Walsh: “This is exactly what you might expect from a drama about a woman who unexpectedly inherits a dog. Does she grow to love the dog and does it change her life? And yes, yes. But it's really a movie about grief and mourning. … I think the narrative is a little bit all over the place at times. … But if you love dogs, then you can't help but be won over by this depiction of what it means to have a dog change your life.”
Edwards: “I think The Friend does the impossible. It found a clever way to tell a different kind of New York story. It also found a way to give us another doggie movie, but not overloaded with cliches and saccharin. It's basically the tale of unlikely companionship. And they’re two grieving souls going through the same experience and trying to help each other get it through, although one's a human and one's a dog. I thought Naomi Watts was excellent. … This may be the best screen partnership she's had to date. Yeah, it could have been a little sharper. Yeah, it could have been a little edgier. But … it was comforting. … They didn't dumb things down, and it's just a solid movie for people looking for some adult entertainment.”