Tag Archives: Kate Hudson

Movie Review ~ Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery

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The Facts:

Synopsis: During the COVID-19 pandemic, billionaire Miles Bron invites his five closest friends and detective Benoit Blanc to his private island mansion, the Glass Onion, to participate in a “murder mystery.”
Stars: Daniel Craig, Edward Norton, Janelle Monáe, Kathryn Hahn, Leslie Odom Jr., Jessica Henwick, Madelyn Cline, Kate Hudson, Dave Bautista
Director: Rian Johnson
Rated: PG-13
Running Length: 140 minutes
TMMM Score: (7.5/10)
Review:  As much as the penny-pinching algorithms may tell the heads of movie studios that only established property franchise fare does well at the box office in this more restrictive movie-going environment, I still have a feeling that viewers crave more original work than the tired, conventionally familiar films arriving in theaters. After all, you can see the numbers for superhero movies, and long-running series start to dwindle and crack, leaving room for new material to have the breathing room it did in the late ’90s and 2000s. The timing couldn’t be better.

It’s partly why 2019’s Knives Out was such sweet relief, and I think it set the stage for what was to come, even though it came out pre-pandemic. Here was a film packed with stars in an old-fashioned murder mystery chock full of trickery and misdirects. Fun to see with a large audience, it provided the same adrenaline rush of the superhero movie without having that dull sameness of knowing what to expect at each turn. A box-office hit that nearly founds its way to a nomination for Best Picture, it still landed writer/director Rian Johnson a justified nod for Best Original Screenplay. Further, Johnson and star Daniel Craig had worked to create such a memorable character in Southern detective Benoit Blanc that both signed up for additional features in a new deal with Netflix.

The second Knives Out Mystery featuring Blanc, Glass Onion, has been one of the most anticipated releases of the year for Netflix. The streaming service has chosen to release it for a week in theaters before its debut later in December. This gives audiences wanting that in-house experience the opportunity to get off the couch and make it happen, while others can hedge their bets on not having plot elements spoiled for them. Rest assured, you’ll get nothing from me but the bare minimum of details. While Johnson’s follow-up isn’t as delicately weaved as his original, it’s another fun nut to crack because of an entire production overly eager to please.

As the COVID-19 pandemic is in full swing, four friends receive a puzzle box from their friend Miles Bron (Edward Norton, Alita: Battle Angel), which, when opened, contains an invite to their yearly gathering at whatever exorbitant paradise retreat he has planned. Friends since their early days before they were successful, they each owe some debt to Miles, or perhaps they are in debt to Miles – it’s not clear at first. Two more boxes have turned up at the doorsteps of Cassandra “Andi” Brand (Janelle Monáe, The Glorias), Miles’s former business partner recently unceremoniously bumped out over a dispute on the future of the company, and Benoit Blanc (Craig, No Time to Die), the legendary detective who had been lamenting his boredom to a quartet of cameo-ing celebrities playing themselves (the first four of many either appearing onscreen or shamelessly name-dropped throughout as a running joke). 

Arriving on the island, online influencer Duke Cody (Dave Bautista, My Spy), fashion designer Birdie Jay (Kate Hudson, Mother’s Day), scientist Lionel Toussaint (Leslie Odom Jr., Murder on the Orient Express), and governor Claire Debella (Kathryn Hahn, A Bad Moms Christmas), acquiesce to their gauche hosts’ every whim, fawning over his theories and tacky tastes while ignoring how out of touch he is with the real world. Many monetarily benefit from his support, so why upset the apple cart? Andi isn’t there to make nice, though and takes every opportunity to stir up trouble. The observant Blanc mostly sits back in the sun and, like most good mystery sleuths, happens to be listening in on conversations that reveal more information than they should.

A series of events place a dead body on the ground and cast one party member as the murderer. Clues point to them, but an extended flashback fills in plot holes we’d noticed in the movie’s first half. This is when Johnson finally turns on the zest in Glass Onion and makes the film start to zing forward. Until then, it’s been a formal gathering of unlikable snooties demonstrating why they should be the ones to get the axe first – we aren’t sure who deserves it most. Johnson wisely focuses the flashback on an interesting character and takes the film in a direction I didn’t see coming. There are some subtle elements of cheating, and eagle-eyed viewers will be able to spot one huge clue that gets contradicted almost immediately. This is one place where watching the movie at home may extend the mystery a while longer. Watching it on the big screen made this clue stand out like a spotlight was shining on it.

Mostly, Glass Onion’s enjoyment comes down to the cast, and for all of the hoopla surrounding the casting, Johnson has gathered the right mix of talents for this dish. Craig’s original creation for Knives Out was smooth and fun, with his accent dripping like molasses. In Glass Onion, he’s leaned in even further, which didn’t always work for me. Now, the accent is ‘seyw theyyywick Iowa hahd a hud tyme taykewin heym seeereuuuslee”. Kudos to one major reveal (with the aid of another acting cameo) that gives Blanc some personal backstory. Norton goes a bit over the top, as only Norton can, and Hudson is quite fun as a ditzy designer that had to be drawn a bit from Paris Hilton.

The film hinges on Monáe’s performance, and that’s all I can say. I had heard the same thing going in and was just as frustrated as you are by the lack of additional info. Trust me when I tell you, you’ll be glad to know as little as I did. Monáe continues to be someone you want to see more of onscreen, and Glass Onion is another level up in a career ascent that has been steady but not so rapid that it blows up before she’s ready. It’s the trickiest part in the film and, like the Ana de Armas character in the original, almost the entire crux of the evening depends on what you think of them. 

Denouements are the satisfying conclusions of the murder mysteries created by celebrated mystery authors and screenwriters. As strong as Glass Onion is, I felt its finale doesn’t have quite the bite it wants. Or I wanted. There’s some convenience included in the ending that felt out of alignment with the orchestration of the work, and I’m not sure if the way that Johnson had crafted the screenplay if he’d have ever gotten to a perfect conclusion. You’ll want to take a bite out of this Glass Onion, though, because the Knives Out Mysteries are just getting started, and this is a fine follow-up to a stellar opener.

31 Days to Scare ~ The Skeleton Key (2005)

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The Facts:

Synopsis: A hospice nurse working at a spooky New Orleans plantation home finds herself entangled in a mystery involving the house’s dark past.
Stars: Kate Hudson, Gena Rowlands, John Hurt, Peter Sarsgaard, Joy Bryant
Director: Iain Softley
Rated: PG-13
Running Length: 104 minutes
TMMM Score: (8/10)
Review:  Released in mid-August of 2005, it’s easy to see on reflection why The Skeleton Key didn’t unlock much business at the box office. Back then, summer was about those critical months for blockbusters between May and July. That final blazing hot month of August was usually reserved for bold swing comedies which studios pushed out with their fingers crossed. So, understanding that this Kate Hudson thriller came out a week after The Wedding Crashers was knocked off the #1 slot by the big-screen adaptation of The Dukes of Hazzard gives you more context to its early reputation as a flop that sunk fast. Let’s not forget it barely had time to gather momentum before The 40-Year-Old Virgin arrived the following weekend.

Good movies eventually find their audiences, though, and over the last 17 years, The Skeleton Key has often meandered its way to a deservedly high position on the “Best Scary Movies to Watch Now” lists you may have searched for. Written by Ehren Krueger, hot off the American adaptation of The Ring and still contributing to success in 2022 with Top Gun: Maverick, this Universal Studios film boasts a small but mighty cast of strong actors and a reliably spooky setting. Despite some slightly cringe-y and questionable cultural missteps in writing and some phoned-in directing (by the amazingly named Iain Softley), it’s an assured good time for those seeking a firmly PG-13 scare.

Coping with unresolved issues with her late father by dedicating herself to hospice care work, Caroline (Hudson, Mother’s Day) accepts a live-in job for Ben, a recent stroke victim (John Hurt, Jackie) at a remote plantation home in the New Orleans bayou. A lawyer (Peter Sarsgaard, The Guilty) hired by the man’s wife Violet (Gena Rowlands, The Notebook) to oversee the estate assures Caroline that the work will be easy; it will be dealing with the headstrong Violet that will be the biggest chore. Supposedly the last nurse hired quit, but Caroline is determined to stick it out no matter the personality differences, especially after seeing Ben’s state of despair.

Moving into the isolated house and given a skeleton key that opens its numerous rooms, Caroline is immersed in the couple’s lives and quickly learns their strange ways. Violet has her routines with Ben and expects Caroline to stick to her prescribed “remedies” to keep him calm. Of course, when finding a locked door in the dusty attic, she can’t help but be curious as to what may be behind a space meant to be off-limits. Using her key and a suitable time when Violet is otherwise distracted, she discovers remnants of local occultism and evidence of the conjuring and rituals used by previous house inhabitants.

Convinced Ben’s stroke-like state is due to one such ritual likely inflicted by Violet, Caroline delves into the tradition of Hoodoo and how it may have come to target her patient. The closer she finds the source, the more the target of a growing evil appears to point in her direction. Learning a few simple tricks of her own may stave off a casual conjuring, but it can’t compete with practitioners with a plan, a plan bigger than Caroline could ever imagine.

I remember seeing The Skeleton Key when it was released in theaters and reacting like many then, finding it to be serviceable entertainment with an ending that’s difficult to unpack in the moment. By the time you returned to your car, you’d nearly forgotten it all. What changed over the last two decades? Well, it is one of those movies that’s better on a second watch once you know the ending and can see how Krueger drops hints along the way of what’s to come. Understanding that going in makes subsequent viewings of The Skeleton Key incredibly fun. Just the other night, when I watched it with friends, we could pause it after the big reveal and connect some dots, something audiences couldn’t do in theaters back in 2005. Naturally, not understanding how it all fit together (and not being given enough time to do so) would leave you frustrated.

Not seeing it in so long, you also forget how good the performances are. Even six years into her career, Hudson was riding her peak rom-com wave, so The Skeleton Key was seen as a bit of a left-turn change-up. She’s good here, and while I would have liked to see some more diversity overall in the cast (Parenthood’s Joy Bryant is frustratingly just the black best friend who conveniently is there to explain the ethos of Hoodoo to her white pig-tailed roommate), Hudson is more than appropriate for the role. She pairs nicely with Rowlands as an aged Southern belle type that says things like “Fiddlesticks” and ends most phrases with “child,” No one can switch from sweet to menace and back again quite as pointedly as Rowlands and this is a great example. The late Hurt impresses as usual with an essentially non-verbal but physically demanding role, while Sarsgaard’s Southern accent is less present than he is in the movie. 

Worth a rewatch in October or any month you feel the urge, The Skeleton Key has already had its history rewritten by viewers who have discovered it again at home. It’s an excellent model for how a movie can open with a whimper but roar back over the years on good word of mouth. If you’ve never seen it, make sure to take your time to absorb the finale. If it’s been a while, welcome back. You’ll be glad you came back for a return visit.

Movie Review ~ Mother’s Day

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The Facts:

Synopsis: Three generations come together in the week leading up to Mother’s Day.

Stars: Jennifer Aniston, Kate Hudson, Julia Roberts, Jason Sudeikis, Britt Robertson, Timothy Olyphant, Hector Elizondo, Jack Whitehall

Director: Garry Marshall

Rated: PG-13

Running Length: 118 minutes

Trailer Review: Here

TMMM Score: (1/10)

Review: At one point not too far into the two very long hours of Mother’s Day I became convinced the movie was created by space aliens branching out into the film industry. No, really. I mean, how else to explain away this stinker which is an utter black hole of laughs, common sense, and good taste? The third of director Garry Marshall’s ensemble movies comes after the equally stinky Valentine’s Day and the dead on arrival New Year’s Eve; one shudders at the thought of Bastille Day getting the greenlight in a few years.

I’m a fan of ensemble movies that weave together multiple storylines to show the cross currents of life for a group of people. Robert Altman did that to perfection in Short Cuts and I’ve always had a fondness for Willard Carroll’s surprisingly wise Playing by Heart. Marshall, on the other hand, is no Altman and aside from snagging two solid leading ladies to roll around in this slop fest he’s compiled a cast of questionable talent ranking high on the nepotism meter. Stick around for the credits, not just for bloopers much funnier than anything that came before it but to count how many Marshalls show up in the cast roster.

If the acting is overall dreadful, the script from Anya Kochoff-Romano, Matt Walker, & Tom Hines is a poo-ey potpourri of archaic lameness, saddling Oscar winner Julia Roberts (Secret in Their Eyes) with meeting the daughter (Britt Robertson, Tomorrowland) she gave up for a career and somehow making her seem like a “less-than”, and having poor Jennifer Aniston (Cake) play yet another divorcee with an ex-husband that’s married a younger woman worried about losing the affection of her kids to her barely legal replacement. Jason Sudekis (on his fourth outing with Aniston after We’re the Millers) is a widowed dad of two girls that’s shocked when his eldest daughter asks him to buy tampons…nevermind that their mom (played in an embarrassing cameo by someone that’s already had a pretty tough year on the marriage front) has been dead for nearly a year.  Did she just have a box from Costco that lasted that long? Let’s not forget Kate Hudson (The Reluctant Fundamentalist) being surprised by her backwards-thinking parents who blaze into town in a Winnebago, only to find one daughter (Sarah Chalke) is a lesbian and their other daughter has married a, wait for it, “towelhead”.

There’s no reality or time to speak of in Marshall’s fantasy-land where people can not only select, finance, and purchase expensive cars overnight but have personalized license plates made (at the all-night license plate store?) and don’t even get me started on how a character living in Las Vegas can fly to Atlanta in under an hour. Then there are the extravagant parties planned in the time it takes to boil water, the curated wedding that happens mere moments after a proposal, the appearance of Kate Hudson’s gigantic ear, and that famously terrible wig Roberts is sporting.

No doubt about it, this is one surreally awful film and likely (hopefully?) the last time Marshall will sit in a director’s chair. From the annoyingly bouncy soundtrack, obviously produced by someone who last picked out the tunes for a JC Penney’s in Tucson, to the outright gaffes that show how rushed this film was, I’m constantly reminded what a hack director Marshall is…when he does get a film right (Beaches, Pretty Woman) it almost seems like a mistake. The only mistake you can make here is seeing this…and I’ll say this right now: if you take your mom to this you’re a terrible child.

Movie Review ~ Wish I Was Here

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The Facts:

Synopsis: Aidan Bloom is a 35-year-old man who finds himself at major crossroads, which forces him to examine his life, his career, and his family.

Stars: Zach Braff, Kate Hudson, Mandy Patinkin, Josh Gad, Joey King, Pierce Gagnon

Director: Zach Braff

Rated: R

Running Length: 120 minutes

Trailer Review: Here

TMMM Score: (3/10)

Review:  I’m nothing if not entirely honest in my film likes and dislikes so back in May when I reviewed the trailer for Zach Braff’s Kickstater-funded (sorta) dramedy I let the cat out of the bag that Braff’s critical darling of a directorial debut (2004’s Garden State) wasn’t my cup of tea.  It’s true that I’ve only seen that film once and probably owe it to myself to try it again to see if a more world-weary version of me responds better to Braff’s overly angsty exploration of twenty something (im)maturity.  Then again, after seeing his sophomore picture, I’m not sure I really need to.

Though While You Were Here is a totally different story, it’s filled with similar characters to his previous effort that lead a perfectly fine life but seem to only focus on what’s missing…and proceed to talk about it for two hours.  I’d liken the film to an overly tired toddler…vacillating between happy and sad but mostly just populated with the sound of whining.

Co-writer and director Braff (Oz, The Great and Powerful) plays a mid thirties out of work actor living with his wife (Kate Hudson, The Reluctant Fundamentalist) and children (Joey King, White House Down and Pierce Gagnon, Looper) in a California home he’s too busy to put much time into.  Right off the bat the film feels like a cheese grater on sunburned skin as Braff and family pithily argue over the breakfast table about a jumbo swear jar that will factor into events later in the picture.

When Braff’s father (Mandy Patinkin, The Doctor) selfishly can’t continue to uphold his agreement to pay tuition for his grandchildren to attend an Orthodox private school because he’s, oh, dying, Braff is treated to a wake-up call that he needs to focus less on his dreams in order to support his family financially and emotionally.  Thus begins a series of scenes featuring the aimless father home schooling his children, first in a make-shift classroom in their den and then, when that doesn’t work, by taking them into the schoolroom of life including, but not limited to, a desert camping trip and making them read poems while they fix up their ramshackle house.

Braff and his co-writer/brother Adam have filled their script with so many clichéd moments that one wonders if they weren’t attempting a farce of some sort.  This type of melodramatic dreck had a place in the early 2000’s when sappy pontificating was de rigueur in young filmmakers but now its lack of justified sincerity is mostly just aggravating.  Famously funded initially by 3 million dollars worth of contributions on Kickstarter before a major film financier kicked in an extra 7 million bucks (causing a bit of a dust-up around why Braff resorted to Kickstarter in the first place) I wonder if anyone would have donated their hard earned money had they read the script.

If Braff’s script fails him, he’s equally off the mark in his acting.  With hair in a constant state of weed whacker mess (obviously no money was devoted to combs or Chap-stik for his alarmingly chapped lips), he moves through the film with a tightly puckered look suggesting he’s just tasted a Mega Sour Warhead.  Though Patinkin is usually king of melodramatic line readings, he isn’t able to eek out even a passing interest in his obtuse father figure…even when he’s on his death bed.  I can’t for the life of me get the appeal of Josh Gad (Frozen) who plays another version of the slacker socks-with-sandals comedic relief character he’s unfortunately called on too often to replicate.  His entire contribution could have been excised from the proceedings, saving the film 20 minutes and the audience a grossly superlative storyline involving Comic-Con and sex with furrys.

Only Hudson as Braff’s put-upon wife and King as his daughter coming into her own deserve praise for their performances, if only for the fact that they manage to make some awfully trite material seem valuable.  Hudson suffers through an unnecessary subplot involving a co-worker talking to her as his penis and several embarrassingly awkward romantic scenes with Braff to speak some truth to her hospitalized father-in-law.  King sheds some tears and shears her locks, valiantly rising above Braff’s heavy handed attempts to hold her down.

It’s a film where every scene seems to end with a declarative statement followed by the opening acoustic guitar strains of an indie rock song.  The soundtrack to Garden State was a phenomenon all its own and it becomes clear as the film and its songs play on that Braff was trying to recreate his entire experience from a decade ago.  Problem is, film has moved on while Braff has stayed put.  Wish I Was Here?  Yeah, Mr. Braff, we wish you were here too.

The Silver Bullet ~ Wish I Was Here

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Synopsis: Aidan Bloom is a struggling actor, father and husband trying to home school his two children when his father can no longer afford to pay for private education. Through teaching them about life his way, Aidan gradually discovers some of the parts of himself he couldn’t find.

Release Date: July 25, 2014

Thoughts: Though I’m sure this will damage my overall cred, I was decidedly ho-hum about Zach Braff’s (Oz the Great and Powerful) freshman directorial effort, the critically praised Garden State. A decade later found Braff famously launching a Kickstarter campaign to help finance his follow-up, Wish I Was Here. Family dramas are a dime a dozen but I’m curious to see if Braff’s writing has matured over the years because the first preview for Wish I Was Here caught my interest. Featuring Kate Hudson (The Reluctant Fundamentalist), Josh Gad (Frozen), Ashley Greene (The Apparition), and Joey King (White House Down) and set for later this summer, it remains to be seen if you’ll wish you were somewhere else.

MIFF Movie Review ~ The Reluctant Fundamentalist

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The Facts:

Synopsis: A young Pakistani man is chasing corporate success on Wall Street. He finds himself embroiled in a conflict between his American Dream, a hostage crisis, and the enduring call of his family’s homeland.

Stars: Riz Ahmed, Kate Hudson, Kiefer Sutherland, Liev Schreiber, Om Puri, Martin Donovan, Shabana Azmi

Director: Mira Nair

Rated: R

Running Length: 130 minutes

Trailer Review: Here

TMMM Score: (5/10)

Review:  Every now and then a smaller movie rolls around that you feel like you should get a gold star for choosing to see over a more mainstream feature.  There’s a certain sense of back-patting that goes on for plunking down your cash to see something more intelligent and timely than the latest 3D action adventure film playing on nineteen screens.  The Reluctant Fundamentalist is one such movie, a film that feels very prescient in our world that is still reeling in a post 9/11 culture…but it’s also a movie that you exit feeling you should get at least two gold stars for sitting through.

Now let me say that I had high hopes for this one going in, though I’m weary of these types of international relations dramas I’m a fan of director Nair (Monsoon Wedding, The Namesake) and of many of the people involved with bringing this adaptation of Mohsin Hamid’s novel to the screen.  The end result of this collaboration, however, is a densely worded rehash of a plot that feels overly familiar and a little late to the party.

Not that Nair hasn’t delivered a decently oiled product for audience consumption because much of the film is rich with her trademark stylistic use of color and controlled narrative.  Told in flashback between 2001 and 2011, the movie lives and dies with its lead performance and star Ahmed ably handles the role of a conflicted man torn between his ideal life in the US and possibly more important obligations at home.  Ahmed is onscreen for nearly every frame and he fills up the space nicely.

As he moves from college campus to the offices of a Wall Street corporation, he develops a relationship with a troubled photographer and that’s where the film takes the first of its missteps.  I generally like Hudson and though she has a dynamite scene late in the film, for most of her short time on screen she seems lost in the role and abandoned by her director.  I don’t think Hudson is necessarily wrong in the role but she looks so washed out and idle that it’s hard to pinpoint what our lead character sees in her.

Schreiber’s character feels constructed to give Ahmed’s fundamentalist an outlet to spill his life story to and though we gradually see that there’s some complexity to the person Schreiber is portraying, the film never makes a case for why the two dialogue for so long with increasing unrest/danger outside their door.  The best performance in the whole film is Sutherland as Ahmed’s superior, a bulldog of a businessman so tightly wound you can practically hear the gears grinding against each other when he walks.  It’s through Sutherland’s scenes that the film has the biggest impact but sadly he’s not on screen as much as the audience wants him to be.

This is a talky film that requires a lot of your attention – and maybe it asked more of me than I was willing to give in the screening I saw at the Minneapolis/St. Paul International Film Festival.  It’s not a film I’d choose to see again and not one I could recommend to anyone that doesn’t have more than a passing interest in political films of this nature.  It could use a slick trim of excess scenes (mostly Hudson’s) and a more focused approach to some final act business that feels unresolved.  Reluctantly, I say this was a disappointment.

The Silver Bullet ~ The Reluctant Fundamentalist

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Synopsis: A young Pakistani man is chasing corporate success on Wall Street. He finds himself embroiled in a conflict between his American Dream, a hostage crisis, and the enduring call of his family’s homeland.

Release Date:  April 26, 2013

Thoughts:   Director Mira Nair has given us some of the most visually sumptuous films in the last several decades; I loved the popular Monsoon Wedding and still wish that The Namesake had received more notice when it was released.  Now comes The Reluctant Fundamentalist and its shows the director moving away from themes that involve family relations and on to more political overtones.  Nair has assembled a surprising and diverse cast, couple that with an intriguing plot and you have a movie I won’t be fundamentally reluctant to see.