Teeth (c) Chelcie Parry
The Interested Bystander
"New York is my Personal Property and I'm gonna split it with you." I review mostly movies and New York theater shows. I am also an awards prognosticator. And a playwright.
Tuesday, March 19, 2024
Wednesday, March 13, 2024
Film Reviews: In the Multiplex, a Sports Drama x Shaggy Dog Film = Family Fun (“Arthur The King”) While Two Wildly Different Queer Love Stories (“Love Lies Bleeding” and “Glitter & Doom") Should Satisfy the Art House Crowd
Arthur the King (c) Carlos Rodriguez, courtesy of Lionsgate
Film: Arthur The King
In Cinemas
Mark Wahlberg is becoming the John Wayne of the 21st Century in a way that he always seems to pick “Dad-film” projects, which occasionally Venn diagrams with family fare. Arthur The King is probably the best example. This film is an uneasy gerrymandering of a sports movie (an Adventure Racing endurance competition, which this film equates to whatever it is that Bear Grylls is known for) and a shaggy dog story, the kind where Michael Light (Wahlberg) and the dog he dubs Arthur (because like all kings, he lets his subjects eat first – umm, ok) appear to know exactly what the other is thinking. So, there’s a lot of shots of Mike looking concerned at Arthur or Arthur barking portentously at Mike’s team to not go down a path. But in-between these dog cuteness overloads are testosterone-filled sections in which Michael feels he is not a complete man unless he wins this Adventure Race marathon in Costa Rica, which he humiliatingly lost during a team meltdown a few years back. So, he assembles a ragtag team of underdogs (pun intended), like expert rock climber Olivia (Nathalie Emmanuel) and the veteran, injury-riddled Chik (Ali Suliman), who people keep asked about his Chekov’s knee. Mark also has to eat crow and try to recruit his former teammate (the one involved in the meltdown) now influencer Liam (a self-deprecating Simu Liu, the film’s VIP of the two-legged variety). The best sequence of this first half is this breathtaking scene that takes place on a zip-line, expertly executed by director Simon Cellen Jones. But then a shaggy stray Arthur (played by the “who’s a good dog” Ukai) joins the group as the honorary fifth member of the team, and the corniness factor is exponentially ramped up. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but the tonal shift is a bit jarring. The dog sections work, but it takes up so much oxygen in the last half of the film that the finale of the race is almost an afterthought. There’s a lot of fudging to make this a Mark Wahlberg joint (the real Mike Light is Swedish), but ultimately it delivers what it promises: a film the whole family will enjoy, with the only queasy, ick moment being a popped blister (I looked away), although your tolerance for a dog in peril may also be tested.
Side note: Mark Wahlberg’s Michael is probably as manically driven to win as Annette Bening’s Nyad but somehow, we still find him likable even when he’s driving his friends crazy. It seems like a sexist double standard to me, but maybe if Nyad swam with a dog telepathically linked to her on the boat, cheering her on, the audience would have embraced her as well.
Thursday, March 7, 2024
The Interested Bystander's Final 2023-24 Oscar Predictions: Up Your Odds to Win Your Oscar Pool
Oscar's Class of 2023 (c) Richard Harbaugh
After Sunday’s Oscar ceremony, it will either be a huge Oppenheimer blow-out with it winning statues in the double digits or the Academy members decide to spread the wealth. It will feel obvious after the fact, but at this moment in the before times, I am overthinking it to the nth degree. So, I am hedging my bets and predicting other movies to win awards that Oppenheimer is nominated in, but something tells me Oppenheimer’s sweep could be as big as it was projected on the IMAX screen. I am also giving the odds of each category of who I am predicting so you can make your own decision when you fill out your own Oscar pool ballot.
Enjoy.
Tuesday, March 5, 2024
Film Reviews: This Year’s Oscar-Nominated Shorts May Be Dominated by Grief, But They Can Still Entertain and Educate
Nǎi Nai & Wài Pó (c) Disney+
In the week leading to the Oscars (Sunday, March 10), you may want to catch up on the nominated short films, packaged together in cinemas or found on streaming services like Netflix (Henry Sugar, The After), Paramount+ (The ABCs of Book Banning), Disney+/Hulu (Nǎi Nai & Wài Pó, The Last Repair Shop) and YouTube (Island In Between, Knight of Fortune, The Barber of Little Rock).
Monday, February 26, 2024
GALECA LGBTQ Critics’ 2024 Dorian Film Awards Declares 'All of Us Strangers’ Its Best Picture, Greta Gerwig wins Director of the Year
Killers of the Flower Moon (c) Apple TV+
For its 15th Dorian Film Awards, GALECA: The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics fully embraced All of Us Strangers, writer-director Andrew Haigh's fantastical and tear-inducing tale of two troubled souls falling for each other in lonely London. The 500-members strong GALECA, one of the largest entertainment journalists organizations in the world, named Strangers both Film of the Year and LGBTQ Film of the Year as well as LGBTQ Screenplay of the Year.
“Twelve years ago, Andrew Haigh’s fresh and observant queer romance Weekend ruled our Dorians as well,” said GALECA President Walt Hickey. “So, the fact that Strangers obviously touched many of our members’ hearts as well counts as sort of a sweet homecoming to our organization.”
Indigenous (Blackfeet/Nimiipuu) actress Lily Gladstone followed their historic win at the SAG Awards this past weekend with their Film Performance win at the Dorian Awards for Killers of the Flower Moon. Charles Melton won Supporting Film Performance for May December.
Some honors unique to the Dorian Film Awards include LGBTQIA+ Film Trailblazer “for creating art that inspires empathy, truth and equity” which went to Colman Domingo while May December director Todd Haynes landed the Wilde Artist Award, going to “a truly groundbreaking force in entertainment.”
Jodie Foster, who at age 61 is earning raves for her work in the feature film Nyad and HBO smash True Detective, was named Timeless Star. The career achievement honor, hailing "an exemplary career marked by character, wisdom and wit,” has in years past gone to the likes of Sir Ian McKellen, Angela Lansbury, Jane Fonda, George Takei, Nathan Lane and Meryl Streep.
GALECA’s Dorian Awards go to the best in film, TV and Broadway/Off-Broadway, mainstream to LGBTQ+, at separate times of the year. The group’s members work for a wide range of notable media outlets, and vote on their favorites in entertainment in purely democratic fashion. For more info, visit galeca.org and search for GALECA’s official Dorian Awards pages on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook and more.
The Interested Bystander is a member of GALECA.
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