Tag Archives: Mason Gooding

Movie Review ~ Scream VI

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The Facts:

Synopsis: The survivors of the Ghostface killings leave Woodsboro behind and start a fresh chapter in New York City, only to again be plagued by a streak of murders by a new killer.
Stars: Melissa Barrera, Jasmin Savoy Brown, Mason Gooding, Jenna Ortega, Hayden Panettiere, Courteney Cox, Jack Champion, Henry Czerny, Liana Liberato, Dermot Mulroney, Devyn Nekoda, Tony Revolori, Josh Segarra, Samara Weaving
Director: Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett
Rated: R
Running Length: 123 minutes
TMMM Score: (8/10)
Review: Despite winding up raking in a cool $140 million at the box office, the resurrection of the Scream franchise in January of 2022 was a regrettably sloppy affair. Although it was nice to see the return of OG cast members Neve Campbell, David Arquette, and Courteney Cox, the three were primarily relegated to the sidelines until they either needed to be killed (RIP Dewey) or kick butt (the film’s most significant thrills were derived from Campbell’s iconic character demonstrating her final girl moxie). That left the bulk of the fifth installment to be carried by weak leads and a mediocre script laced with the kind of juvenile dialogue you’d overhear the next booth over at an Applebee’s. 

That’s why I wasn’t hoping this sixth chapter would be anything better. Moved into production quickly and losing Campbell just as fast to a pay dispute, the newest round with Ghostface would find Cox the longest-surviving cast member. At the same time, fan-favorite Hayden Panettiere’s Kirby from Scream 4 would fill some of the nostalgia quotients Campbell vacated. Moving locations was another risk returning writers James Vanderbilt, and Guy Busick took, shifting coasts from the warm coast of Woodsboro, CA, to the shadowy streets of NYC. 

It turns out that a change of scenery was the magic touch needed to kick Scream VI into the high gear necessary for a more aggressively entertaining entry than its predecessor. Almost from the beginning, you can feel a greater focus on developing the characters past the surface, making it mean something when they are dispatched through grueling and gruesome methods. As is often the case with sequels (according to Randy’s “rules”), the body count is higher, the production is more extensive, and anyone is fair game not to make it to the final credits.

Have no fear – the remainder of this review is spoiler-free and will only speak to the essential plot elements. I will assume you’ve seen 2022’s Scream, though. I would caution you to avoid any/all trailers released so far for this new installment. I went in completely blind to Scream VI, and I’m glad I did. Watching the trailers after the fact made me realize how many of the film’s surprising moments or interesting reveals are spoiled in advance, thanks to the marketing materials. If only studios would have more faith in their audiences and keep something hidden for paying customers!

A year after the horrific events in Woodsboro, sisters Samantha and Tara Carpenter and twins Chad and Mindy Meeks live in New York City while the twins and Tara attend Blackmore College. As Sam (Melissa Barrera, Carmen) deals with the knowledge of her link to original killer Billy Loomis and subsequent internet rumors regarding her involvement with the slayings, she remains protective over Tara (Jenna Ortega, X), who is just trying to hold down a typical college experience. A shocking set of murders disturbs whatever peace they seek, though, and soon their friend group is dwindling as a cunning killer dropping clues from the past slices their way closer and closer. 

Clocking in as the longest Scream film to date gives directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett (aka Radio Silence, responsible for the fun Ready or Not) more breathing room to let the movie’s first half build up the characters and interpersonal relationships more. That means when the violence does occur, it’s all the more shocking because it’s crashing through this continued healing the self-named Core Four are attempting to achieve. Thankfully, Sam and Tara’s new roommate Quinn (Liana Liberato, To the Stars) has an NYC cop (Dermot Mulroney, The Inhabitant) for a dad, and he teams up with FBI Agent and fellow Ghostface survivor Kirby Reed (Panettiere, Remember the Titans) to check out the potential killer. 

The list of suspects is long…at least at the beginning. No sooner does Mindy (Jasmin Savoy Brown, Sound of Violence) start taking a hard look at the potential killers than the natural process of elimination gets real bloody real quick. Stopping by to help out is legacy survivor Gale Weathers (Cox, You Cannot Kill David Arquette), now based in NY and eager to get to the bottom of who has started up another cycle of killings she is all too familiar with. Vanderbilt and Busick have several nice twists at the ready, keeping the viewer second-guessing whodunit it right up until the reveal, and it’s to everyone’s credit that the film has more than enough steam to keep the suspense high as it builds to a satisfying finale.

More than the previous three entries, Scream VI feels like a sequel that has matured dramatically from one installment to the next. It’s quite like Scream 2 in that regard (in several ways, actually), and perhaps that’s why I think Scream fans will respond to this one so well. There’s more emphasis on suspense here than violence, with a return to the nail-biting terror that served the first two Wes Craven-directed entries so well. I’m well aware this isn’t the last we’ll see of Ghostface, or these characters, so let’s hope this trilogy builds on the strong note Scream VI has struck.

Movie Review ~ Fall

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The Facts:

Synopsis: Fear reaches new heights as two best friends find themselves at the top of a 2,000-foot radio tower
Stars: Grace Caroline Currey, Virginia Gardner, Mason Gooding, Jeffrey Dean Morgan
Director: Scott Mann
Rated: PG-13
Running Length: 107 minutes
TMMM Score: (6.5/10)
Review:  Why is it that when we’re young and don’t know any better, we dash headfirst into adrenaline-rich experiences and seek out high-up views, but once we reach a certain age, a hesitant develops? Some never get that momentary pause of caution that tells them to look before they leap or take a breath before they ascend. A swirling rollercoaster is a welcome challenge, and a sheer glass surface on a double-digit floor of skyscrapers in the clouds is a great place to stand and stare down. I used to be a person who could handle all that and wasn’t bothered by those thrills. Over time I’ve found it more difficult to step to the edge of a balcony, queue up for a speeding cyclone amusement park ride, or, lately, even watch movies that center on those walking the razor’s edge of extreme sports.

The set-up of Fall is marvelous. I’m sure when the director and co-writer Scott Mann pitched the movie to Lionsgate alongside fellow screenwriter Jonathan Frank, he barely had to finish the first sentence before a deal was on the table. Filmed during the pandemic with a minuscule cast from the producer of the (very) similar 47 Meters Down, Lionsgate invested in a ringer. Amid a moderate rise in the popularity of free climbing (no doubt due to the Oscar-winning doc Free Solo), the film would ostensibly put two women on top of an abandoned radio tower and then let them find their way down. 

I could describe the plot of Fall almost entirely by throwing out titles of other films instead. That might spoil it for you, but it illustrates how much it manages to lift directly from other movies. A quickie opening establishes the trauma that leaves Becky (Grace Caroline Currey, Annabelle: Creation), a young widow, and her best friend Hunter (Virginia Gardner, 2018’s Halloween) dealing with her pain by publicly pushing herself to often-dangerous physical limits. Unable to be comforted by her father (Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Rampage, filming his scenes with a double for Fulton), Becky spends 51 weeks (yes, the movie makes it that specific) wallowing in grief before Hunter arrives to snap her out of it.

What better way to exorcise her past demons than by literally and figuratively climbing out of her despair? Hunter has challenged herself and extends an invite to Becky to scale a decommissioned TV tower in the California desert. The structure stands 2,000 feet in the air and is well-worn but has held together, and Hunter wants Becky to conquer it with her to prove to herself that this pain will pass and life will go on. Reluctantly, Becky agrees, and before you know it, the two have made the tense ascent up to the top and selfied themselves at the pinnacle. The climb has loosened the rusty ladder from its screws, though, and one wrong step sets off a chain of catastrophic events that trap the women on their sky-high perch. With their route down impossible, it eventually becomes a life-or-death struggle for survival where they’ll have to innovate to survive the elements and make it back to solid ground.

While Mann and Frank’s conception of Fall is a gleeful doozy of high-stakes survival, the execution hits some rough patches. Anyone who saw the almost entirely CGI-generated original teaser trailer can attest that if you ask the audience to sit on the edge of their seats, they must believe what they see—at least a little bit. The best actors and screenplay aren’t going to save lousy everything else. What tends to weigh the Fall production down more than anything are computer-generated backgrounds that look like off-brand Windows 95 screensavers. An opening scene on a large rock face features many distance drone shots circling the mass, but you can barely spot the actors on it because they either a) weren’t there to begin with or b) are on a smaller mountain, and the effects team filled the rest of the rock in later. The scene played strangely on my large screen at home; I can’t imagine how it would look in a theater – maybe better?

Budgetary and filming restrictions necessitated the filmmakers to get inventive in how they shot the actors, and kudos to them for coming up with ways to rely on the CGI as little as possible. These unobstructed shots come off the best and give you those beads of brow sweat the rest of the film is missing. Often in movies like this, viewers can become active participants by shouting at the characters making unwise choices. Still, for Fall, the screenplay doesn’t play Becky and Hunter as foolish, aside from climbing up a structure they shouldn’t and not telling anyone where they were going. Once they are stuck, the women show themselves to be quick thinking and resourceful, not blanking on the best idea we all know they should be undertaking until the final act. I do wish a late-in-the-game plot twist wasn’t outright stolen from a similar film, though. Viewers with a keen eye (well, ear) will catch on quickly if they miss any earlier clues. 

Like that CGI teaser and frequent use of computer-generated backgrounds, Fall feels like a film engineered for an audience rather than made. Even the dialogue has been changed after the movie was shot, with over 30 expletives replaced with PG-13 friendly words by AI company Flawless and the TrueSync technology. Wouldn’t you know that the director is the co-CEO of that company? That’s why you’ll hear heavy use of the word “freaking” throughout. It’s all part of the algorithm the film fits into, which makes it feel less like an organic bit of energetic entertainment and more like a calculated effort to hit as many target audiences as possible in one swoop.

Here’s the truth, though. While parts of Fall are hokey and could be refined or outright tossed, it delivers on its mission. For all my talks about engineering to target audiences, it accomplished that with this viewer. I absolutely found myself covering my eyes as one or both women were hanging by their fingernails under the blazing Mojave sun. Whether avoiding menacing vultures that smell blood or risking a deadly drop to access necessary supplies, I was on the edge of my seat while in the moment. I can nitpick all I want after, but that’s not fair to the overall movie experience or the filmmakers that did their job. Once we get past some iffy opening drama and bypass the unnecessary strife between the ladies later on when the focus is survival, Fall rises to the occasion.

Movie Review ~ I Want You Back

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The Facts:

Synopsis: Newly dumped thirty-somethings Peter and Emma team up to sabotage their exes’ new relationships and win them back for good.
Stars: Charlie Day, Jenny Slate, Scott Eastwood, Manny Jacinto, Clark Backo, Gina Rodriguez, Mason Gooding, Dylan Gelula, Jami Gertz, Isabel May, Luke David Blumm
Director: Jason Orley
Rated: R
Running Length: 111 minutes
TMMM Score: (7/10)
Review:  With Valentine’s Day racing toward us, many will be looking for that perfect movie to mark the day, one that matches with the mood they feel best fits the situation. Some may feel drawn to the weepy romance of true love lost, others prefer a madcap comedy that sends lovebirds on the run from a rogue they’ve crossed paths with, or maybe your kind of movie has nothing to do with Cupid’s biggest day of the year. February 14th might be the time you decide you finally need to check Lawrence of Arabia or Cujo off your list. Whatever your target is, libraries, theaters, and streaming services have you well covered. 

As is typical whenever a holiday is near, there’s even last-ditch effort fresh content making a play for your attention, and I Want You Back is one of those movies, and I think it’s one worth considering. Available for free to Amazon Prime Members, this Amazon Studios production features a familiar-sounding set-up that manages to rise above recognizable cliches based almost solely on the striking appeal of its two stars. While the new Jennifer Lopez and Owen Wilson film Marry Me is opening in theaters and PeacockTV, this easy-to-like production should find a sizable audience who spot it on the Prime Video homepage.

Screenwriters Isaac Aptaker and Elizabeth Berger get the awkward stuff out of the way first, with Emma (Jenny Slate, On the Rocks) and Peter (Charlie Day, Vacation) getting dumped by the respective partners, much to their total shock. Peter’s long-time girlfriend Anne (Gina Rodriguez, Kajillionaire) is an elementary teacher longing to pursue her passion for acting but feeling like it’s Peter’s lack of ambition which is the main factor holding her back. Personal trainer Noah (Scott Eastwood, The Longest Ride) has tired of his years pushing Emma to figure out what she wants to do with her life and has met someone new, a pastry chef (Clark Backo, No Running) who has her own bakery. Neither dumpee takes the split very well, and that’s how both find each other nursing their wounds in the stairwell of the generic office complex where both work generic 9-5 jobs.

Realizing quickly they are bonded when it comes to being broken up with most egregiously, Emma and Peter make a pact to support one another through this challenging time. It’s an arrangement that morphs into a plan to block their exes from being happy with their new partners. So, Peter will befriend Noah and, through that bro-ship, remind him what he gave up. Emma will, in turn, ingratiate herself with Anne’s drama teacher boyfriend (Manny Jacinto, Bad Times at the El Royale) by working on his production of Little Shop of Horrors and seduce him away. 

Going into the film, I didn’t think it would be possible to hold my interest for nearly two hours because these movies always tend to end in the same way. The question is always then how will the script keep the ones we know are meant to be together apart just long enough for them to conclude it’s not someone else they want but the person closest to them all along? That lack of suspense can make everything that happens between the first meeting and walk into the sunset feel like filler if you don’t have the right combination of actors, but director Jason Orley (The Intern) has found gold in Slate and Day. 

I’ll be the first to admit that I haven’t been Day’s biggest fan so far in his film career. While I know he carries a dedicated fan base from his long run with TV’s It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Day’s raspy-voiced chirp hadn’t won me over quite yet. The opposite was true of Slate, who I came into the evening enjoying quite a lot. In a strange reversal, I found Day to be the stronger of the two and responsible for more of the heavy lifting and feeling more comfortable with it. We know that Emma has issues around being serious, but a little too much of that acidity can wear an audience down.   Day applies the right amount of bite to his feelings on their situation, making his journey as detailed but allowing audiences to continue to empathize with his broken heart. 

Helping everything along are a few inspired moments of comedy supplied by both stars. Even Day’s typical nervous uncomfortable banter comes across as well-tuned to the character he’s playing, and Slate takes that and plays off it nicely. Not to be outdone, Slate gets a surreal sequence when she finds herself stepping in at a last-minute technical rehearsal of the junior high musical she’s faked her way into working on. The hilarious image of her singing a duet with a boy half her height and not nearly old enough to drive is one that will stay with me (in a good way) for some time.

Where I Want You Back cuts some corners are the supporting players. It’s not an issue with the actors, but how the exes are written. It’s much easier to root for Emma and Peter to wise up and see they don’t need the people who dumped them if the characters are sour, and that’s mostly how Aptaker and Berger have sketched them. Anne lacks faith in Peter and projects her lack of drive on him, which then causes him to question his own goals. Did Emma need Noah to remind her she hasn’t done much with her life, or did she need a supportive partner that walked alongside her? It’s bad enough in movies when one character is blinded by a love that has long since burned out, but here we have two. At least Rodriguez and Eastwood soften some of those coarser edges. Eastwood has a strong showing here, and it’s one of his best screen roles so far in a career that hasn’t been as dependable as his famous father.

I know that not everyone embraces Valentine’s Day as the happiest of holidays, and maybe it is one of those days that’s been craftily promoted through the years by the greeting card companies. There is a way to take back the day, and that’s through making Valentine’s Day about you more than any commercial product. If you find yourself single, celebrate “you.” Those with significant others should have something up their sleeve. I’m not saying that surprising them with a movie night on the couch with I Want You Back wouldn’t earn major brownie points…but a brownie couldn’t hurt either.

I Want You Back will be available on Prime Video
Friday, February 11

Movie Review ~ Scream (2022)

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Just when you thought it was safe to stop #Scream -ing…

The Facts:

Synopsis: Twenty-five years after a streak of brutal murders shocked the quiet town of Woodsboro, a new killer has donned the Ghostface mask and begins targeting a group of teenagers to resurrect secrets from the town’s deadly past.

Stars: Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox, David Arquette, Melissa Barrera, Jenna Ortega, Jack Quaid, Mikey Madison, Dylan Minnette, Jasmin Savoy Brown, Mason Gooding, Sonia Ammar, Marley Shelton, Kyle Gallner, Reggie Conquest, Chester Tam, Roger L. Jackson

Directors: Matt Bettinelli-Olpin & Tyler Gillett

Rated: R

Running Length: 114 minutes

Trailer Review: Here

TMMM Score: (5/10)

Review: “What’s your favorite scary movie?” may now be a cultural touchstone phrase forever related to the classic film Scream, but it’s always been a litmus test to see where the person being asked falls on the scale of horror fandom.  If the answer is a deep cut, something from the Italian Giallo master Dario Argento or French cult vampire director Jean Rollin, you know you’re dealing with someone that has ventured further than the confines of their neighborhood video store.  Answering with a more commercially minded offering like a Friday the 13th or a Halloween tells you you’re in the presence of a person that doesn’t mind some blood, gore, and jump scares.  Get a response from a Frankenstein fraidy-cat and you may want to reconsider suggesting anything stronger than a black and white Universal classic.

For many, the answer to the question posed by the killer to Drew Barrymore’s doomed character in 1996 is, in fact, the very movie that asked it to begin with.  Scream opened to soft business in Christmas only to grow into a word-of-mouth hit, so much so that by the time the enjoyable sequel was released in 1997 both films had the distinction of being 1997’s top earners.  Fans of the franchise are legion, and after two more sequels (one in 2000 and the last one in 2011) it has amassed a devoted base that can and have spent much time arguing over the official order of quality, though you’d be hard pressed to find a list that doesn’t put the one that started it all in the prime spot. For the record, I’m a 1, 2, 4, 3.

Though the title lived on in television under the guise of an MTV scripted series with no ties to the original cast or setting, the first two seasons attempted to tell a continuing tale before killing off much of its YA cast.  I didn’t even bother with the third, standalone season, and from what I’ve heard that was for the best.  After the success of the continuation of Halloween in 2018, it still was a surprise when it was announced in March 2020 that Radio Silence, a filmmaking collective which found success in indie horror before making a snazzy showing in 2019]’s impressive Ready or Not, would direct and executive produce a fifth Scream movie incorporating original cast members with a new group of teens stalked by a vengeance-seeking killer.  As a dedicated fan of the films and the franchise in general (not to mention a number of the previous films Radio Silence has produced), I was thrilled for another gathering of my favorite cast members and a return to the whodunit slasher film that I have a true fondness for. 

Needless to say, as we move forward into the meat of the movie, this is a spoiler-free zone.  Aside from watching the first trailer for the movie the day it was released, I haven’t watched any other marketing for the film so can’t say what may be in the previews that could be a potential spoiler…but I won’t be giving away anything that could ruin your experience.

Well…maybe one thing.  And that’s my feeling toward the finished movie.  Surprising myself, I left the theater after my screening of Scream (which, it should be strongly stated, is Scream 5, no matter how the filmmakers and studio try to spin it) sort of aghast at how much against it I felt.  The more I heard how many people did like it, the more I was wondering if I just saw something different or my tastes had changed…but this was almost directly after gleefully binge-watching the previous four films.  Delivering on the “goods” if you will (read: killings, blood, and guts) but shortchanging fans that know their Woodsboro ins and outs with a number of discrepancies and head scratching choices, the screenplay from James Vanderbilt (White House Down) and Guy Busick attempts to make connections to the past at the outset but abandons its own efforts by the messy end.  Worse, the film suffers from a strong case of the unlikeables, characters and cast members that either don’t appear long enough to create much of an impression before they’re sliced or grate on the nerves to the point where you feel like paging Ghostface stat to get on with the show.

It’s been twenty-five years since the original murder spree changed the sleepy town of Woodsboro forever.  The survivors of the attack a generation ago have encountered several copycat slayings over the subsequent years but for the last decade there has been a peaceful silence which has allowed lives to be led without much fear.  Then Tara (Jenna Ortega, Insidious: Chapter 2) gets a phone call while alone in her house and hears a voice familiar to us but unfamiliar to her.  Remember, Stab (the movie within Scream 2 based off of the events in Scream 1) came out over two decades before and its sequels have long since fizzled out.  Poor Tara should have stayed up to date on her old-school horror trivia because things don’t go well for her when quizzed on her knowledge of Stab and Woodsboro’s sordid history.

Hearing the news about her sister from a town far outside of Woodsboro, Sam (Melissa Barrera, In the Heights) returns with her boyfriend Richie (Jack Quaid, Rampage) just as secrets from her family’s past and a clever killer targeting those with ties to the 1996 murder spree emerge from the shadows.  Teaming up with Tara’s friends, among them Amber (Mikey Madison, It Takes Three), twins Mindy (Jasmin Savoy Brown, Sound of Violence) and Chad (Mason Gooding, Booksmart) and Wes (Dylan Minnette, Prisoners), Sam and Richie eventually realize they’ll need the help of the remaining few who’ve experienced this before if they have any hope of surviving the game plan of a killer (or killers?) always several steps ahead of them.  Enter Dewey, Gale, and Sidney.

To say the film feels lighter the moment even one of the legacy cast members is on screen is an understatement.  Originally meant to be killed off in the first film and then set to die in the sequel, original director of the first four films Wes Craven and his producing partners had such a strong reaction to David Arquette’s (You Cannot Kill David Arquette) portrayal of Deputy Dewey Riley (not to mention his popularity with fans) that they made sure to shoot endings where he lived.  And you’ll be especially glad he did because his presence in this entry is so useful, bringing not only that trademark goofiness to the role but an emotional sweetness that has always defined the role and made it unmistakably his.  Noticeably absent for much of the film are Courtney Cox (Masters of the Universe) and Neve Campbell (Skyscraper), but they’re like that time Madonna made all of us at her concert wait two hours after the opening act before she went on.  By the time she showed up, we were more than antsy but when she did…it was completely worth it.  Same goes here and not only do Cox and Campbell fit right back into their characters like no time has passed, they highlight the biggest problem with the movie for me.  The acting.

I’m not sure what’s up with this cast but I think each and every one of them I’ve seen and liked far better in other projects.  Here, it’s like no one was acting in the same movie or playing off of one another to any winning effect.  It’s never more evident than with Barrera who has some of the strangest line readings, coming off as emotionless when the scene calls for drama and often absent as strong support for those she is acting opposite. I felt for Ortega who is acting her face off, performing the role like it’s the last thing she’ll ever do.  I wish the performance (which, to be clear, is solid) was in a different movie she was headlining.  Brown is another standout, finding herself a nice match for the dialogue which has some hints at original scribe Kevin Williamson’s quick meta banter but never reaches that same smirking bar which made Williamson’s screenplays, for lack of a better word, iconic.

Which brings me to another low-ish point.  Vanderbilt and Busick don’t have Williamson’s knack for snappy phrasing, relying much more on accessing the characters F-Bomb portal than having them volley back-and-forth.  While Brown gets those nice moments to explain the rules surrounding a ‘requel’, too many references are made to fifth entries not living up to their potential, being ill-advised, not being titled correctly, etc…. basically heading off all the naysayers at the pass and beating the critics to their punches.  In that way, the script starts to feel like it’s apologizing for itself instead of creating its own playing field. A few missed opportunities along the way exist, making you wonder if there wasn’t more to the story that was left on the cutting room floor or if the screenwriters are saving something for potential sequel routes. 

Perhaps you can tie some of it back to that Wes Craven touch which guided those first four films.  Dying of brain cancer in 2015, Craven was never going to be a part of this new film and while no one is claiming the previous sequels to be flawless (let’s face it, as fun as Scream 3 was, it was also silly and falling apart at the seams) or that Craven was a can’t miss director, he set the look and feel of the franchise from the start…down to Marco Beltrami’s score which I was also sad to see wasn’t back. Yet…you just can’t divest yourself from feeling that if directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin & Tyler Gillett were attempting to honor Craven they would have displayed some of his knack for spotting acting talent on the cusp of greatness. Going into more details is definitely tipping the scale toward spoilers…but we can chat after you’ve seen it and I can explain more.

I’m disappointed for myself that I didn’t like the movie a little more than I did.  This isn’t about living in any kind of past because onward we must travel, especially if we want the things we hold dear to continue to thrive.  Personally, I hope this Scream makes huge bucks (all signs point to a big YES in that department) and more films in a similar vein are made.  I would ask, please, that the same kind of focus is put on the key pieces that elevate a movie to classic status though.  The original cast and script of 1996’s Scream simply can’t be beat, even all these years later.  I can’t say the same for this continuation…but trust me, I wanted to. 

Now…I’m a 1, 2, 4, 5, 3 person.

31 Days to Scare ~ Scream (2022) – First Look Trailer

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Synopsis: Twenty-five years after a streak of brutal murders shocked the quiet town of Woodsboro, a new killer has donned the Ghostface mask and begins targeting a group of teenagers to resurrect secrets from the town’s deadly past.

Release Date:  January 14, 2022

Thoughts: It’s been 10 years since we’ve heard that familiar voice on the phone calling the latest batch of doomed flavors of the month (quick…how many of the teenage cast members of Scream 4 are still a ‘thing’?) and so the return of Ghostface is being met with an expected marked frenzy.  Going the 2018 Halloween and 2020’s The Grudge route and leaving off any numerical suffix, 2022’s Scream is the first not to be directed by Wes Craven who passed away in 2015.  In the hands of Matt Bettinelli-Olpin & Tyler Gillett (also known as Radio Silence, the team behind 2019’s Ready or Not), we’re back in Woodsboro for a new series of murders that tie into the events from a generation earlier. 

As excited as I am for this new installment, I almost wish I hadn’t watched the lengthy preview because…boy does it show a lot more than I wanted to see.  I know this cast is huge and the body count has the potential to be plentiful but seeing the fates of several characters (and perhaps a healthy bit of the opening) feels like we’re being served far too much before we’ve even sat down to eat.  Fingers crossed the twists make up for the trailer spoilers, but this is the last time I’ll watch any promo materials for the film before it is released.

Movie Review ~ Booksmart

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The Facts:

Synopsis: On the eve of their high school graduation, two academic superstars and best friends realize they should have worked less and played more. Determined not to fall short of their peers, the girls try to cram four years of fun into one night

Stars: Beanie Feldstein, Kaitlyn Dever, Jessica Williams, Will Forte, Jason Sudeikis, Lisa Kudrow, Mike O’Brien, Molly Gordon, Billie Lourd, Skyler Gisondo, Noah Galvin, Diana Silvers, Mason Gooding, Victoria Ruesga, Austin Crute, Eduardo Franco, Nico Hiraga

Director: Olivia Wilde

Rated: R

Running Length: 102 minutes

TMMM Score: (8.5/10)

Review: We’re right at the crest of the wave where the end of the school year is about to crash into full blown summer and there couldn’t be a better time for a movie like Booksmart to arrive in theaters.  True, being released in the midst of a bevy of bombastic blockbusters might make its chances of doing big business opening weekend a tad slim but this has sleeper hit/future cult classic/definite midnight screening written all over it.  It’s a movie meant to be discovered and then shared, not one you necessarily make an appointment to see.

I’d heard about the film for a while after it received a positive reception at March’s South by Southwest Film Festival in Austin, TX and deliberately avoided watching the trailer or reading anything more about it until I saw it. This is one I wanted to come to on my own without any ideas on what it should be, or pre-conceived notions on what to expect.  The way we are inundated with information on content it’s hard to go in blind to something but thankfully, I was able to come to Booksmart with a blank slate.

So now, after all that talk of going into the movie with little knowledge, of course I’m going to ask you to read a review of what I think about it – makes total sense, right? Really, I won’t be offended if you stop now and come back after you’ve seen the movie.  Seriously – it’s AOK.  But come back!  Promise?

You’re back? Great!  Wasn’t it good?  I know, right?

It’s the last day of school and Molly (Beanie Feldstein, Lady Bird) is ending the school year on top.  She’s class president and set to go to an Ivy League school in the fall.  By keeping her nose to the grindstone and focusing on her studies she has achieved all of the goals she’s set and has her future planned out not only for her but for her best friend Amy (Kaitlyn Dever, Beautiful Boy).  We all either knew a Molly in high school or were a Molly so it isn’t hard to completely get this character – and the way she looks down on those that didn’t put the same effort forward in school, or at least the effort she’s deemed worthy.

When Molly finds out that several key people she originally had written off as destined to be losers for life are also moving on to luxe post-high school careers, she realizes she could have had fun all four years of high school and still made it big. Thus begins a quest for Molly and Amy to get their party on by any means necessary, leading them through a seemingly endless night of encounters with oddball characters and a journey of self-discovery before their graduation ceremony the next morning.

Much of Booksmart follows a typical trajectory of high school comedy that feels safe and familiar but the movie is as unpredictable as they come.  You have your stock characters that flow through (jock, tramp, brain, etc) but all are given a neat little bounce by screenwriters Emily Halpern, Sarah Haskins, Katie Silberman (Isn’t it Romantic), and Susanna Fogel.  No one is quite who you expect them to be…and no one ends the film in quite the same way they start out.  Actress Olivia Wilde (The Lazarus Effect) makes her feature directing debut and shows a real knack for establishing a tone and a rhythm for Molly, Amy, and the strange people they find themselves hanging out with over the course of the evening.

Aside from introducing us to a host of interesting characters (and fresh-faced actors), the film is routinely laugh-out-loud funny as the girls find themselves in increasingly bizarre situations. These moments spring forth naturally and the comedy never feels forced, while there is a lot of physical humor there’s quite a bit of verbal banter that elicits laughs.  Audiences are used to being shown what’s funny but it’s rare for a movie to ask them to listen – you’d almost need to see it twice to get all the humor that is thrown in, though I don’t think it would be a hard sell to get people to screen this one a second time.

The movie wouldn’t work at all if the two leads hadn’t had the kind of chemistry they do. As much as romantic chemistry plays a part in convincing viewers that people are in love, chemistry between friends is almost harder to generate because it requires an intimacy that isn’t always physically shown but more emotionally present.  You buy that Feldstein and Dever would be friends in the movie and in real life and while Molly is the more alpha of the two, Amy is no shrinking violet at the end of the day.  We know from the start that Amy is a lesbian and the film wisely starts with the whole “coming out” story long since told – now she’s just finding her way and I appreciated that she was treated like everyone else in the movie looking for love and just as confused as the rest of them.

With so many memorable performances in the movie, from Billie Lourd’s (Star Wars: The Last Jedi) scene-stealing party girl to Skyler Gisondo (Vacation) as a try-hard looking to impress Molly, it seems wrong to single out just one actor but Feldstein is the true breakout star of Booksmart.  Ably holding her own against Bette Midler on the Broadway stage in Hello, Dolly! two years ago and proving a good foil for Saoirse Ronan’s Lady Bird (a role quite similar to Molly) in 2017, Feldstein finally steps fully into the spotlight and earns her place in the sun.  As much as Molly deserves to be taken down a notch or suffer through an embarrassing situation…if it weren’t for Feldstein’s irrepressible charm you’d be ready to push her off a cliff but instead you completely get where she’s coming from.

If we must talk negatives, I can drudge up a few. Personally, I wasn’t a fan of the soundtrack to this (sorry/not sorry) or an unnecessary subplot involving a teacher-student relationship and that’s what ultimately keeps the movie from being in the true upper echelon of high school comedies. Even that being said, Booksmart almost instantly earns a right to walk the hallowed halls of high school fame.  It’s fun, it’s riotously funny, and I enjoyed having absolutely no clue how it would end — that’s saying a lot for a genre comedy that’s been done many times before.