Disappointments and surprises this week.

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga

Theaters are likely going away, at least how we’ve known them for the past 100+ years. Streaming is here, and everyone has a big T.V., so even though we can’t replicate the theater experience exactly in our homes, we can come close. This means studios have to try harder to produce movies that are big hits, leading them to make safe choices and rely on impressive visual effects spectacles that are more difficult to replicate at home, even on the most advanced equipment. They’re so desperate that they ultimately deliver completely uninspired work. Unfortunately, despite director George Miller‘s raging visual creativity and good actors doing fine work, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga is a bit of a slog to get through.

Miller‘s fifth film in the decades-spanning Mad Max series is a prequel origin story of the franchise’s most interesting character – Furiosa, brilliantly played by Charlize Theron in the last film, Mad Max: Fury Road, a near masterpiece of action filmmaking. That film was a relentless, giant chase sequence that somehow told a story while speeding down the road at 100mph, piecemealing the audience context clues about the world and all the personalities that inhabit it. Furiosa, on the other hand, slows down the pace and attempts to over-explain everything in the world at the cost of the momentum that makes the best entries of this franchise work. It doesn’t even deliver on adequately fleshing out Furiosa as a character, as most scenes are really about the violent men surrounding her, going from location to location only to do a talking heads scene about bartering. My buddy Collins, with whom I saw the movie, had a great way of putting it – it’s like Miller decided to make a movie based on the pre-production world-building notes he had taken for Fury Road. Everything you needed to know about Furiosa was communicated through Theron‘s performance in the last film. Part of the fun was not knowing the exact details of her past but having clues that allowed the audience members to at least understand the gist of it. Furiosa takes away all the fun ambiguity and misunderstands what makes a Mad Max movie work – breakneck pace and nonstop action. Story has always taken a backseat to vibes in this franchise.

There are some impressive elements of Furiosa. The effects are spectacular, and the action scenes we get are stunningly choreographed. The cast is solid for the most part, with Anya Taylor-Joy doing everything she can with a character that barely speaks. The real standout is Chris Hemsworth as the gleefully sociopathic warlord Dementus; he’s the only person in the movie who looks like they’re having fun. There’s also a cameo appearance by that Australian little person teenager who became famous for being bullied, and his mom posted a video of it. He went viral. Anyway, he plays one of the war boys who uses his short stature to climb in between things and shit. There’s also George Miller‘s knack for creative visual flourishes – sand parasailing, a parachute that looks and moves like an underwater squid, and Jenny Beaven‘s costume design remains top-notch.

However, this becomes a sporadically tedious watch at two and a half hours, especially the middle 45 minutes without Hemsworth‘s Dementus. It’s one half a riveting action film and the other half a boring movie where toothless men dressed as pirates stand around in a room and argue about trade, while Furiosa stands silently in the background, probably thinking, “Hey, wtf, I thought this was supposed to be MY movie!” Grade: C+ (In Theaters)

P.S.: There’s also a Mad Max stand-in played by Tom Burke, who was so fabulous as Tilda Swinton‘s daughter’s heroin-addicted boyfriend in The Souvenir. Here he’s an underwritten, dull, utterly lifeless character, and they try to force this heartfelt relationship between Furiosa and him that just doesn’t read.

Baby Reindeer

Only time will tell whether everything presented in Baby Reindeer is 100% factually true. I don’t know if characters were combined for thematic purposes, if the timeline of events was sped up, if anything false was thrown in as a narrative convenience, etc. I can only judge from the dramatic standpoint of what was presented to me on my mom’s Netflix account in the packaging of a seven-episode limited series. What it ended up being was an extremely intense but always watchable character study of how external and internal abuse can fuck up somebody’s will to be an actual person and cause them to so profoundly lie to themselves that they’re walking around on auto-pilot.

Based on his one-man stage show, Baby Reindeer tells a harrowing real-life experience of Richard Gadd, here renamed Donny Dunn, a struggling Scottish comedian who makes ends meet as a bartender in a London pub. One day, a very lonely woman named Martha (Jessica Gunning) slinks into Donny’s bar and quickly becomes obsessed with him. What begins as awkward flirting quickly transitions into 40,000 emails and her actively stalking/violently threatening him. However, there’s a trick up the narrative’s sleeve – a spectacularly well-done midseason flashback episode reveals a big part of why Donny is so reluctant to take drastic actions against Martha’s stalking.

It would be shitty of me to tell you any more of the plot other than it goes in mostly predictable directions, but the level of execution of both the writing and especially the acting is what makes it feel special. Jessica Gunning, in particular, is absolutely riveting as Martha, the most toothsome role in the series, while Richard Gadd delivers some impressive work. I’m curious to see him in a role other than a character based on himself to confirm if he’s indeed a great actor or just good at playing himself. He’s undoubtedly an excellent writer, and while Baby Reindeer might be a tad too stretched out and lengthy, especially in the show’s final episode, as a whole, it’s some of the most thrilling television I’ve seen all year. Grade: B+ (Netflix)

I Saw the TV Glow

Writer/Director Jane Schoenbrun is more or less my age, which means they were actually there for the mid-90s period, albeit experienced through the glossy, hopeful eyes of a child. I Saw the TV Glow begins in 1996 when Owen (Ian Foreman), an extremely timid seventh-grader with a strict mom, meets a ninth-grade loner girl, Maddy (Brigette Lundy-Paine), at some school event. Maddy is off in a corner, reading a book that’s more or less an episode guide of an indie TV show, The Pink Opaque. It’s kind of like a weird cross between Charmed, Wonder Showzen, and Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!, The Pink Opaque is a young adult fantasy drama about two teenage girls with magical powers and a telekinetic link that helps them fight The Moon, yes, the Moon in the sky, who appears to be the show’s villain. Since 1996 was a time before streaming or even TV on DVD, and the show is well past Owen’s bedtime, Maddy invites young Owen to come to her house to watch it sometime. An unlikely, 100% non-romantic bond begins to form between the two, with Maddy going as far as to tape every episode of the show for Owen and sneakily drop it off for him. A forbidden pleasure.

We then cut to two years later where Owen is played by an older actor, the great Justice Smith from last year’s Dungeons & Dragons. He and Maddy still have an awkward as hell friendship held together by the fact they’re fans of the same cult show. From there, a long string of weird shit happens that’s unclear whether it’s actually happening or simply serving the closeted trans allegory at the film’s center. I Saw the TV Glow is among the most frustrating movies I’ve seen all year because it’s such a unique and compelling visual experience held back by a downright glacial pace and a flimsy plot with little to no forward momentum.

I also think it’s important, not to mention timely, to create a dramatic window into the struggle of a person slowly realizing they’re trans, but at times, this is handled so on the nose that it feels more pandering than authentic. This is never truer than during Maddy’s long, drawn-out monologue where Zodiac astrological signs are projected behind her. Other times, it’s handled through stuff as simple as its pink and blue (and everything in between) color scheme (gorgeous, BTW), and the crushing isolation Owen experiences from his over-protective and cancer-stricken mom (Danielle Deadwyler, a phenomenal actress, pretty much wasted here) and his intimidating stepdad (a dialogue-free Fred Durst). There’s a scene where Owen comes home late, and Durst stares at him while the ominous pink colors from the television set cast dark shadows on his face. One of my favorite comedians, Connor O’Malley, also has a tiny part and of course delivers the only big laugh of the movie.

This movie is at least 30 minutes too long, and it’s only 100 minutes. I do not want to be too on-the-nose as a movie critic, but it feels like an excellent short film trapped inside the body of a meandering feature-length movie. It’s evident so much talent and skill went into this, especially on Shoenbrun‘s end, but it’s just not realized in a way that makes it a satisfying watch. Individual moments are superb but can’t save a movie missing a driving narrative force. Grade: B- (In Theaters)

Snack Shack

“They just don’t make movies like this anymore” is something I’ve heard a lot recently, as if audiences are annoyed or just flat-out bored by the current state of mainstream movies. Characters seem to be either near Saint-like heroes, extremely sympathetic victims, or incredibly twisted, almost cartoonish villains. These archetypes feel more lifted out of a comic book than any reality actual human beings live in, and most moviegoers are starting to realize this. It seems the only place to get somewhat realistic and flawed characters is in films made outside the industry. Heavy introduction for 2024’s Snack Shack, a simple little throwback to 80s and 90s best-summer-of-our-lives teen comedies, but this was an incredibly refreshing experience compared to the last ten or twelve mainstream comedies I’ve seen this year. It’s not a great film or anywhere near a perfect one, but it’s very entertaining for 112 whole minutes.

Nebraska, summer of 1991: Two incredibly resourceful and foul-mouthed fourteen-year-olds, super shy A.J. (Conor Sherry) and crafty little bastard Moose (The Fabelman‘s Gabriel LaBelle), are making money by gambling across state lines (no doubt with fake I.D.s) and brewing beer in Moose’s basement to sell to their underage friends. When the city council opens up bidding on who wants to run and profit off of the community swimming pool’s snack bar, A.J. and Moose win the bid and plan to sell their homemade brew there. From there, the story takes a few unpredictable turns and a few very predictable ones as well, but it really doesn’t matter. This is a very familiar teen comedy set up by design. What makes it unique is the specificity of how the two main characters are written, both through their amusing and realistic banter with each other and how their behavior clearly establishes their personalities. It also helps that the chemistry between the two actors (Sherry and LaBelle) is outstanding, and you totally buy these two having known each other their whole lives. There’s almost a type of shorthand to how they communicate with each other.

The only poorly conceived character is the “girl next door,” with which both boys fall in love. It’s certainly not actress Mika Abdalla‘s fault, who does all she can with an overly simplified and super male-gazey role. This miscalculated characterization is ultimately Snack Shack‘s most glaring flaw and would threaten to throw the whole movie off track if you weren’t so invested in the two leads. The supporting cast is also solid here, with David Constabile (Breaking Bad‘s Gil) and Gillian Vigman (Jack Box’s wife from several Jack in the Box commercials) delivering two hilarious performances as A.J.’s parents. Nick Robinson (Love, Simon, Jurassic World) is also great as A.J. and Moose’s older friend/DIY big brother, who is back home after Desert Storm and undoubtedly carrying around some understated trauma from the experience.

This is only the second film from relatively new filmmaker Adam Rehmeier, a middle-aged Midwestern dude who spent years as a camera operator before realizing he could make movies himself. His first film, Dinner in America, was also a comedy, although a much more vulgar and dark one, also set in the 1990s. That film was more unique in its approach than Snack Shack, but Snack Shack is ultimately the better, more confident film. A super familiar but well-made comedy that puts its characters first because it realizes that’s what you care about. They just don’t make movies like this anymore. Grade: B+ ($3.99 rental on Amazon, GooglePlay, AppleTV+, YouTube, and Vudu)

Conan O’Brien Must Go

Conan O’Brien is undoubtedly one of the funniest famous dudes alive. While his new international travel show is consistently engaging and contains a few truly inspired moments in every episode, it isn’t quite the pristine slam dunk I anticipated. The first episode where he visits Norway is slow despite some good bits like his I-Catch-the-Cod Man and his ridiculous techno performance. The show peaks in its second and third episodes, where Conan visits Argentina and Thailand, two exceptional episodes with only inspired bits, my favorite being his boat shenanigans in Thailand. Then it dips a bit in the finale, where he visits his ancestral homeland, Ireland, which should be more funny and outlandish than it ends up being. Conan certainly doesn’t reinvent the travel show wheel, but he does it better than perhaps anyone I’ve seen who isn’t named Anthony Bourdain. It’s very good just not groundbreaking television. Grade: B+ (Max)

The Contestant

It’s not an excellent documentary or piece of investigative journalism by any stretch of the imagination, but The Contestant is still worth recommending because the story it tells is so fascinating and unbelievable. In early 1998, before the height of reality TV and Peter Weir‘s The Truman Show, there was a reality show in Japan, Susunu! Denpa Shōnen, that put ordinary folks through outrageous pranks and practical jokes. Their first and perhaps biggest prank was keeping an aspiring comedian (Tomoaki Hamatsu, better known as “Nasubi” or eggplant) in a small apartment, naked and without food. To survive, Nasubi had to win or earn his clothes, food, etc, through magazine sweepstakes prizes. When he reached 1 Million Yen, he would be let out. He knew they were filming him but was told by a sadistic producer (Toshio Tsuchiya) that they maybe wouldn’t even use the footage when, in reality, it was being broadcast in Japan every week. Over time, Nasubi had become the biggest celebrity in the country. Of course, Nasubi didn’t know this; he was completely cut off from the world, naked and alone in a tiny apartment, desperately trying to win food and clothing from magazines. The documentary juxtaposes the footage that made it to air, which presents a goofball just being weird, and the footage they didn’t use, which is Nasubi going through intense depression and loneliness and even contemplating suicide. The Contestant as a documentary doesn’t say anything new about depression, but there are plenty of unexpected twists and turns and an ending that doesn’t leave you cold. Ultimately, the story it tells is so harrowing it doesn’t matter that it’s more or less a digitized Wikipedia page. Grade: B (Hulu)