A24
The Smashing Machine (2025)
On the heels of their breakout, “Uncut Gems,” the Safdie brothers are headed for a breakup. Both have solo stuff coming out this awards season via A24. First up is Venice International Film Festival competition title “The Smashing Machine,” written and directed by Benny Safdie, the younger sibling who has been in the public eye a lot more thanks to his side job acting in films like “Licorice Pizza” and “Oppenheimer.”
The new film is a biopic on early mixed martial arts star Mark Kerr, who was also the subject of John Hyams’s 2002 HBO documentary, “The Smashing Machine: The Life and Times of Extreme Fighter Mark Kerr.” Aside from the shared title, there’s quite a bit of overlap in terms of narrative.
Continue reading “Hit Where It Hurts” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Fast & Furious 6 (2013)
Universal Pictures
Expectations are naturally low when you enter the sixth part of a franchise, unless you’re a J. K. Rowling fan and you’re watching "Harry Potter," and with "Fast Five" being such a lackluster affair, the expectations here are rock bottom.
To attempt to offer an outline of the plot would not only be pointless, but in a way would do the film a disservice. There is a story of sorts, involving some military bad guys and a MacGuffin (in the form of a world-ending microchip) but it’s so thin and clearly only there to allow the ridiculous action to happen, that it’s barely worth mentioning. All the gang are back — including one that was supposedly dead — and they’re all needed for one last job . . . again.
Continue reading “Driving, a Hard Bargain” »
MOVIE REVIEW
The Other Guys (2010)
Macall Polay/Columbia Pictures
In the pre-Judd Apatow era, bromance blossomed only in the buddy-cop genre. The rationale must have been that sexual tension in a homosocial environment would seem a lot less gay if these characters could kick some ass. Come to think of it, you could even get away with bestiality in the buddy-cop genre. As you might recall, the dog in “K-9” got jealous and barged in to cause coitus interruptus between James Belushi and his human romantic interest.
Continue reading “Bum’s Rush Hour” »
MOVIE REVIEW
The Tooth Fairy (2010)
Diyah Pera/20th Century Fox
For a cruddy kids’ movie-vehicle for Dwayne Johnson, “The Tooth Fairy” required a lot of screenwriters. Apparently Lowell Ganz, Babaloo Mandel, Joshua Sternin, Jeffrey Ventimilia and Randy Mayem Singer were all needed to come up with lines such as “may the tooth be with you,” “you can’t handle the tooth” and “thank you fairy much.” Okay, I don’t actually remember the last line in the movie, but spend enough time with puns being beaten into your brain (what primarily passes for dialogue here) and they’ll remain there mutating like a terrible disease.
Continue reading “Biting the Fairy Dust” »