LINOLEUM

Directing: B+
Acting: B
Writing: B+
Cinematography: B
Editing: B+

Linoleum is my kind of mystery. What’s going on with Cameron (Jim Gaffigan)? He’s just checking his mail, minding his own business, and suddenly a red sports car falls out of the sky onto the street next to him. He walks around, and the person inside the smashed car looks uncannily like a younger version of him.

Cameron is also the host of a struggling children’s show, focused on science. It’s very low-fi, which gives it an undeniable charm, and we are subject to a great many fun clips from it—including the opening scene. We shift from there to the falling car in short order, with pleasant cinematography and clever editing, and we immediately wonder if this film is going to be playing with time or space or both, or perhaps the supernatural.

I won’t spoil it. Linoleum is best experienced, I suspect, the way I experienced it: knowing almost nothing about the content or the tone. I’ll tell you this: Gaffigan is competent in not one, but two parts; Rhea Seehorn is lovely as his frustrated wife; Katelyn Nacon charms as his daughter, Nora; Gabriel Rush is a bit stoic as Nora’s love interest. Roger Hendricks Simon plays the elder man we are clearly meant to assume is Cameron’s father, ailing with dementia. Curiously, when asked “Who are you?” Cameron doesn’t say, “I’m your son,” but rather, “You know me.” If you clock that, you’ll know something odd is afoot.

And you wouldn’t be wrong. By the end of Linoleum, how all these characters are connected is revealed to be something different from how it initially appeared—both confused and clicking pieces together, making everything make sense. I was somewhat relieved by this ending, actually, as I can’t imagine everything seen prior to be as satisfying in any other way.

Linoleum is a special kind of movie that has a peculiar charm threaded through its melancholy. It’s sort of an exercise in blending nostalgia and wistfulness, a longing for great times that can no longer be. Writer-director Colin West offers a slightly abstract portrait of complicated love and longing, revealing how simple seemingly complex things can be, and vice versa. “It’s not that simple” is a line uttered several times, always clear that it really is.

There is a running theme of unrealized dreams in this movie, with Cameron mentioning how he always wanted to do “something fantastic.” This film itself is something fantastic, in the literal sense of the word. It doesn’t seem to be getting much traction in theaters, and I can only hope it will soon on one streamer or another. I found it quite lovely, and surprisingly moving.

It will take you to unexpected places you’ll be glad you went.

Overall: B+

JOHN WICK: CHAPTER 4

Directing: B
Acting: B
Writing: B-
Cinematography: A-
Editing: B
Special Effects: B

It may surprise you to learn that the John Wick franchise has a key commonality with the Toy Story franchise. Who knew! Namely, the both had the surprise of a third installment that was the best in the series, followed by a fourth that was . . . fine, but still begged the question: did we really need it?

To be fair, I am out of step with the critical consensus on the John Wick films. Going by their respective MetaScores, John Wick Chapter 4 is the best in the series (MetaScore 78), followed by 2017’s John Wick: Chapter 2 (75), then 2019’s John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum (73), with the 2014 original ranking last (68).

What I seem to have forgotten is that I gave every single one of these movies the exact same grade: a solid B. Fully acknowledging that I did actually enjoy this film, I must also admit that I got at least moderately duped by the critical hype in regards to Chapter 4.

What I found myself thinking about while watching this film was, it’s really just more of the same. This isn’t even the first installment for which it may actually be worth watching for the cinematography and production design alone. These movies are very pretty to look at, and Chapter 4 continues that tradition.

The action itself, though? There’s only so much you can do with so-called “gun fu,” mixing martial arts with gun battles. A lot of people die in this movie, nearly all of them faceless and expendable, like red shirts in old Star Trek episodes. Then suddenly you’ll see Keanu Reeves standing in front of red neon and next to a blossoming cherry tree and you can’t help but think, Whoa—that’s beautiful!

There’s one new element here that comes with mixed results, however: the special effects. Several of the shots in Chapter 4 have the unmistakable quality of barely-off, visual artificiality. And we’re talking about pretty common sights. A sunrise. Traffic. I’ll admit the extended sequence with Wick battling assassins in between passing cars on Paris’s Place Charles de Gaulle is gripping and fun, but also: you can tell a lot of those cars weren’t really there.

Speaking of which, that sequence feeds into the many questions I have about this film. Would regular traffic just keep passing by in such heavy thickness during an obvious gunfight between countless men? Why does no one seem to care that this is happening?

The same happens in a packed nightclub, in which a bunch of would-be assassins come at John Wick with guns, knives, even axes. The dancers move a bit out of their way, but otherwise just keep on dancing. There does come a point at which the crowd finally panics and clears out, but only after many minutes of carnage, and with no clear trigger point (so to speak).

At least the Osaka hotel where the first extended action sequence takes place is conscientiously (or “discreetly,” as Hiroyuki Sanada’s character Shimazu puts it) evacuated. This sequence moves from room to room, each one a carefully curated work of art, featuring glass patterns and neon outlines. There’s no denying how cool it looks.

That seems to be where the logical action ends, though. In a climactic scene involving an old-school duel, it’s sunrise in front of a church, two guys attempting multiple times to shoot each other to death. Where are this church’s caretakers, anyway? I suppose we are to assume the “High Table” is so globally powerful they can be sure everyone who needs to hear it should keep a wide berth. Or maybe they don’t care? I don’t know.

Just before the duel in front of the church, John Wick Chapter 4 becomes almost self-aware in its ridiculousness, and is still legitimately entertaining on its own merits. Wick battles would-be assassins up a long, concrete staircase for several minutes, only to wind up thrown all the way back own them again. Of course, this rampant gunfire the likes of which does not tend to be encountered outside of a war zone apparently does nothing to rouse any of the sleeping neigbors. Maybe the French are just all really deep sleepers.

I’m fully aware that all of this is beside the point in any John Wick movie. Other critics have stated that the plot, such as it is, doesn’t matter in the slightest. This seems ironic to me, as I found myself engaged by the plot, even though the whole shtick of countless assassins coming at our hero because of a frequently increased bounty was just done in the previous installment. These movies never really have anything new to say. They just attempt to up the ante on the action set pieces to varying degrees of effect. There is a fun sequence in a building undergoing renovations, in which the camera glides with a birds-eye view over the walls as John Wick makes his way from room to room. I wonder how many people will remember Steven Spielberg doing the exact same thing, with greater visual wit, twenty years ago in Minority Report.

In spite of this movie’s many flaws, and its truly excessive 169-minute length, I still found myself invested in its characters—not just John Wick himself, but the few key supporting characters, both friend and foe, a couple of them shifting from one to the other. This franchise famously started with a man seeking revenge for the murder of his dog, and the dog lovers should be happy to learn that another dog character figures prominently here. It even gets used as a pivot point in the plot. It’s a little contrived, but you know, come on. This is a John Wick movie.

I suppose that could be the tag line: Come on. It’s a John Wick movie. What else do you need to know, really? I can nitpick all I want, especially about this really being the same as any other superhero movie, with our protagonist taking astonishing beatings and consistently just getting right back up again, limping a couple of times and then seemingly fully recovered in seconds. These movies are all of them action fantasies, which is what we come to them for, and they provide what the viewers want.

Oh did I mention he wears a bulletproof suit?

Overall: B

EMILY

Directing: B+
Acting: B+
Writing: B
Cinematography: B+
Editing: B+

I’m not sure much could be said to sway potential viewers either way regarding Emily, which is a fairly standard, and competent, period piece about a famous writer from the 19th century—in this case, Emily Brontë. As written and directed by longtime actor Frances O’Connor, in her feature directorial debut, I found myself both engaged, and wondering—maybe she should write and direct a couple of sequels about Emily’s also-famous writer sisters, Charlotte Brontë (who wrote Jane Eyre) and Anne Brontë (who wrote Agnes Grey).

Emily, along with second-born and only son Branwell, was a middle child, a black sheep of the family, and very much depicted as such in Emily. She’s the one who wrote Wuthering Heights, but it is very late into the film before Frances O’Connor gets to that. As portrayed, rather convincingly, by Emma Mackey, we are meant to understand she is an oddball, so “different” that people in town talk about her, although she never struck me as all that strange. I suppose it makes sense that the bar for such things would have been very different in the mid-nineteenth century.

Ultimately, Emily is a love story, on multiple fronts: the love between her and her aspiring-writer brother (Fionn Whitehead); the fictionalized love between her and morally conflicted preacher William Weightman (a dashingly handsome Oliver Jackson-Cohen). On both fronts this movie offers a lot: heartsickness, betrayal. On some levels the same goes for Emily’s relationship with sister Charlotte, who judges her for the “base” content of her novel.

To this movie’s credit, it made me think maybe I should re-read Wuthering Heights. I’ve read it at least once, but not since I was in school, and I really can’t remember any of it at all. Not that I would get any genuine insights from this film going into it, what with its many fictional liberties.

Not that I’m complaining. No one is claiming this is a true story, and Emily stands as solid, if hardly groundbreaking, storytelling on its own merits. There is something a bit uneven about the cinematography by Nanu Segal, offering many striking images of English countryside in various states of weather sprinkled alongside a lot of pointlessly shaky handheld camera shots. I suppose this is meant to evoke Emily’s volatile state of mind.

Emily’s sister criticizes her book by dismissing it as full of selfish characters who only ever think of themselves. I’m not sure if that is also supposed to be a self-assessment by Emily itself, but it seems to come close. I wouldn’t write it off for that reason, though. I wouldn’t write it off at all. I just wouldn’t particularly recommend it to anyone not already into period pieces either.

The performances are solid, the movie is fine, the costumes are nice.

Overall: B

COCAINE BEAR

Directing: B+
Acting: B+
Writing: B
Cinematography: B+
Editing: B+
Special Effects: B

If you enjoyed the 2019 alligator-monster movie Crawl, then you’ll certainly enjoy Cocaine Bear.

I did, and I certainly did.

Both films have a very similar sensibility, with a healthy self-awareness that never takes itself too seriously, plenty of hilarious gore, and a sprinkling of genuine suspense. To be fair, Crawl has a bit more of the suspense and Cocoaine Bear has a bit more of a subtle wink at its audience.

It does seem to make a difference that Cocaine Bear was directed by none other than . . . Elizabeth Banks. Wait, what? This is her third feature film as director, but the others were Pitch Perfect 2 and Charlie’s Angels. Those movies have their own metatextual layers, with varying success: Cocaine Bear seems to be where she has hit her stride. Banks knows exactly what kind of movie she’s making, and exactly what audiences expect from it.

Too often, a movie like this tries to hard to mix the comedy and absurdity with sweetness and earnestness (see: Violent Night). Banks, along with writer Jimmy Warden, knows there’s no need for that shit. Instead, we get Keri Russell yelling “I’m a mom!” before intercepting a tossed rifle.

That’s not to say the characters in this movie are complete caricatures. Cocaine Bear successfully walks a fine line, offering characters that are real enough and with distinct personalities, all of them converging from disparate narrative threads onto a mountainous area of the woods where a bunch of duffle bags full of cocaine were tossed out of an airplane. What none of them know, but all of them discover eventually, is that a bear discovered the coke and ate a bunch of it, turning it into a ravenous killer.

This story is “inspired by true events,” although to say it takes liberties would be an understatement—liberties all taken in the best way. That said, “murdurino” listeners of the wildly popular My Favorite Murder podcast minisodes, in which the hosts read stories sent in my listeners, will be very familiar with the original story. Fan favorite Nick Terry even animated their retelling of it. They take very similar, truly hilarious liberties with the story, which Elizabeth Banks is effectively doing on a grander scale.

I expected to enjoy Cocaine Bear just based on its absurd premise, and yet it actually exceeded my expectations. I thought this would be a B-minus at best, and yet still a good time. But the movie we’ve actually got is surprisingly well executed, with a stacked cast, in addition to Keri Russell: Solo: A Star Wars Story’s Alden Erenreich as a depressed criminal with a conscience; O'Shea Jackson Jr. as his exasperated cohort; Isiah Whitlock Jr. as a cop on their tail; Margo Martindale as a park ranger with a trigger finger; a wildly unrecognizable Jesse Tyler Ferguson as a “wildlife expert” who is the object of her crush; even Ray Liotta, in his final film role, plays Erenreich’s drug dealer dad. (The film is dedicated to his memory.)

All the performances are great, by actors who know what kind of movie they are in and are having a blast. What it all comes down to, though, really, is the bear itself, who also takes up a perfect amount of screen time—never overdone, never gone too long. The thing is quite clearly CGI rendered, but for a movie with a paltry $35 million budget, it’s actually fairly impressive. This movie is of an ilk that has never been known to be visually groundbreaking. As long as the effects aren’t hilariously bad, then the film can succeed on its own terms. And boy, does this one succeed.

The key, really, is its lack of earnestness. There is a bit of sweetness, but only in ways that serve the movie’s purpose, which is to entertain and amuse. I laughed a lot, and at consistently regular intervals. That was clearly the goal. This movie’s promise is quite straightforward, and it delivers.

The biggest coke head you’ll ever come across.

Overall: B+