by ·Comments Off on Bad Times at the El Royale (2018, Drew Goddard)

The intro shows Nick Offerman getting killed after burying some stolen money under a hotel room floor, and between this and The Sisters Brothers, I’m having a Coen Brothers-reminiscent double-feature. Ten years post-Offerman, four guests meet in the hotel lobby: false priest Jeff Bridges, pissy Dakota Johnson (A Bigger Splash, daughter of Melanie Griffith), salesman Jon Hamm, and downtrodden singer Cynthia Erivo (Tony-winning star of The Color Purple musical), along with lobby boy Lewis Pullman (The Strangers 2). Four of these people are not who they seem (the singer is exactly who she seems), and the movie will cut back and forth in time introducing each of their backstories as they violently collide in the present day of 1970-something. I heard this movie was a fun Tarantino knockoff, and it’s kinda Four Rooms-meets-Hateful Eight, maybe not up to the high standard of Goddard’s Cabin in the Woods and The Good Place, but it looks excellent and is a fun way to spend two long hours (each scene deliciously stringing you along, knowing you ain’t got nowhere better to be).

Chris “Thor” Hemsworth is introduced in the second half. After so much violent duplicity it seems like overkill to suddenly introduce a sex/death-cult leader, but I was busy being distracted by thinking he was definitely Chris Pine, but knowing he couldn’t be since Pine has bright glowing eyes and the only person in this movie with bright glowing eyes is Jeff Bridges as the false priest. Bridges was Offerman’s partner, seeking the money after a decade in prison, and Johnson and her psycho-killer younger sister Cailee Spaeny (Pacific Rim 2) are escapees from the Hemsworth Manson/Morrisson cult. Hamm is an FBI agent looking for God knows what but stumbling across the surveillance system in the hotel, run by self-hating Vietnam sniper-turned-heroin addict Pullman. Everyone kills everyone else, but Cynthia is too sympathetic to die, so she makes it out, possibly with the cash and/or Jeff Bridges, I don’t remember. Desplat lays down some fun music, but most of the entertainment comes from the jukebox songs and the ones Cynthia sings, sometimes in fragments, pausing and backing up.

by ·Comments Off on Hearts Beat Loud (2018, Brett Haley)

The one where Nick Offerman and his daughter (Kiersey Clemons of Flatliners Remake) start a band, and he takes it really seriously, wanting to take the act on tour, while she just wants to start college like a normal person. I am easily irritated by lightweight feelgood indie dramas and by auto-tune indiepop, and mostly didn’t mind this at all, except when Offerman’s record store had a going-out-of-business sale selling new vinyl at ridiculous low prices and the people who showed up only bought a few records each – that’s just unrealistic.

by ·Comments Off on Infinity Baby (2017, Bob Byington)

A somewhat-sci-fi movie that sets up an interesting premise – a genetic engineering mishap has created a thousand babies that will never age – then perversely dances around it, devoting most of its time to two morons who kidnap one of the babies, and their boss Kieran Culkin, a metaphorical infinity-baby. Starts in the middle, sociopath Kieran meeting an older woman (Martha Kelly of a Zach Galifianakis show about a clown college) on a first date and quickly rejecting her, then backs up to him dumping a girl with help from his “mom” Megan Mullally. For the bulk of the movie he’ll date Alison (Trieste Dunn of Cold Weather), who laughs a ton, and is too sweet for Megan to help Kieran break up with, so he manages on his own.

Meanwhile, the morons are drunken unhealthy asshole Larry (Kevin Corrigan) and gentle bowl-cut Malcolm (Martin Starr of Silicon Valley and NTSF) who goes blind when sprayed in the face with cleaning products by Larry. They nearly kill the baby, taking it to Stephen Root for disposal, but it turns out alright. And everyone is working for Nick Offerman, whose Infinity Baby business model is unclear.

As with Byington’s Somebody Up There Likes Me, it likes to jump forward in time. Kieran ends up with his dream girl, someone young who’s into drugs and partying. Larry is in bad shape, and Blind Malcolm turns out to be a good father to the stolen baby, who is growing older (I’ve forgotten the explanation for that). Writer Onur Tukel made Catfight last year. Music by Aesop Rock!