Martin's Musings

Here we are in August, the dog days of summer. If you’ve already seen big movies like Deadpool & Wolverine (entertaining fan service, minus a plot), you may be looking for something else to watch while you enjoy some air conditioning.

Two new releases promise entertainment, but only one of them delivers. Here are my reviews of Sing Sing and The Instigators.

We’re nearing the end of the second quarter, so here’s a roundup of all the new movies I’ve seen in the last three months — including a few I didn’t formally review when they were initially released — in reverse chronological order of when I saw them. How I saw them (in a theater or via streaming) is also noted.

One thing that always confuses me about modern-day movies is why characters choose to take cabs when Uber and Lyft exist. Especially when the character is a savvy city dweller who’s clearly comfortable with their iPhone. It just doesn’t seem realistic.

But as the new film Daddio illustrates, there can be value in hitching a ride in a car where the driver and passenger know nothing about each other, not even the other’s name, and everything is left more to fate. Writer/director Christy Hall certainly uses that anonymity to her advantage as the film’s two characters find comfort in a stranger and open up to each other during a late-night yellow-cab ride from JFK airport to midtown Manhattan.

There’s no new Mission: Impossible movie this summer, but that’s alright, because in its place, we have the absolutely delightful new film Thelma, in which June Squibb (Nebraska) plays a senior citizen out for revenge after she gets scammed out of $10,000. 

Inspired by writer/director Josh Margolin’s relationship with his own grandmother, Thelma introduces us to the kind 94-year-old title character, whose relationship with her slacker grandson, Daniel (Fred Hechinger, Eighth Grade), is as sweet as they come. Thelma has been a widow for two years now, and Daniel visits her daily at her home in Encino, California, to check in, to show her how to use her computer, and to watch movies. But he’s worried about his grandmother — so much so that every time he leaves her, Daniel has to talk Thelma into wearing a bracelet that tracks her location, just in case something happens to her. 

Meanwhile, Thelma’s daughter Gail (Parker Posey) and son-in-law Alan (Clark Gregg) think maybe it’s time for Thelma to move into an assisted-living facility and not be on her own.

Watching The Bikeriders, it’s hard to know what writer/director Jeff Nichols had in mind.

The film’s first third is kind of like an unintentionally comedic take on Goodfellas, with Nichols introducing us to a crew of bikers, each with one wacky nickname after another. There’s Cockroach, Funny Sonny, Big Jack, Wahoo … you get the idea. Meanwhile, while classic 1960s tunes play on the soundtrack, Jodie Comer’s Kathy sets up the story in what may be the heaviest Midwestern accent you’ll ever hear — or maybe it just seems that way because nobody else in the film is using one. 

It’s the mid-1960s, and Kathy is telling us about a gang in Chicago called the Vandals, which is led by Johnny (Tom Hardy, The Dark Knight Rises), whose second-in-command, Benny (Austin Butler), Kathy falls for instantly. And who could blame her? As portrayed by Butler, Benny is the coolest one in any of the rooms. Good looking, soft-spoken … the strong, silent type. 

If you’ve ever thought to yourself: Julia Louis-Dreyfus should make a movie about death, then have I got a film for you.

In Tuesday, the erstwhile Elaine Benes plays Zora, a single mother whose teenage daughter, Tuesday (Lola Petticrew), is on the verge of dying of a terminal illness. When Death arrives in the form of a size-shifting, talking macaw (yes, really), Zora begrudgingly learns to let go and accept her daughter’s fate — but not before going on an emotional journey the likes of which I couldn’t spoil even if I wanted to.

Richard Linklater’s latest film, Hit Man, deserved better.

Starring Glen Powell in his umpteenth breakthrough performance, it tells the story of Gary Johnson, a dweeby college professor in New Orleans, who bores his students with lectures about philosophy and psychology. As a side hustle, Gary moonlights as a technical adviser for sting operations alongside police officers Claudette and Phil (Retta and Sanjay Rao).

Then, one day, Gary is asked at the last minute to pose as a hit man after undercover cop Jasper (Austin Amelio) is suspended for misconduct. His assignment is to entrap someone looking to hire him by getting the client to tell Gary their intentions. To everyone’s surprise, Gary is good at it and he settles into the role quite easily. Or should I say roles, since he keeps doing it, and with every job, he adopts a different persona, amusingly changing his name, his attire, his hair, and his attitude. 

Complications arise when, posing as a cool contract killer named “Ron,” Gary immediately hits it off with a hottie named Maddy (Adria Arjona), who’d like Ron to off her abusive husband. Maddy and Ron’s first interaction starts off as a business meeting, but it’s clear they’re both into each other, and somewhere along the way, it turns into a date.

I won’t spoil any of the twists or turns that result from this, but suffice it to say, it’s here that the film’s main premise of self-discovery really takes off. As Gary keeps shifting between personas in order to pursue a secret relationship with Maddy, the lines begin to blur and it’s unclear to him and to others who he is at any given time. Everyone seems to like Ron more than Gary — even Gary. Heck, even his students begin to pay attention more when they realize their professor has gotten better looking and more confident. So, which identity will eventually win out?

In the new film The Fall Guy, a producer character played by Ted Lasso’s Hannah Waddingham describes her formula for making a successful movie. She says you have to surround the meat of the film with “sexy bacon,” those aspects that make the whole thing more attractive.

Here, the sexy bacon is Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt, and it’s that pairing that makes this film loosely based on the 1980s TV show so much fun.