The latest film releases include Kung Fu Panda 4, Love Lies Bleeding, and American Dreamer. Weighing in are Christy Lemire, film critic for RogerEbert.com and co-host of the YouTube channel Breakfast All Day, and Witney Seibold, contributor to SlashFilm and co-host of the podcast Critically Acclaimed. They also predict who will take home Oscars for Best Picture and Best Actress.
Kung Fu Panda 4
Jack Black voices a panda named Po as he takes on a villainous chameleon voiced by Viola Davis. Rapper-turned-actress Awkwafina is also part of the cast.
Lemire: “Much of what made the first three movies really special and really magical is gone here. This movie is not good. And a lot of what is a bummer about it is it’s lacking the really beautiful, delicate, detailed artistry of the first few. The first one in particular, there's a great mix of different kinds of animation, some looks like paper puppetry that's lit up from behind. It's gorgeous. And just the overall sense of spirituality and peace that these movies are about is missing here. This just feels like a very standard Dreamworks Animation film. From a visual perspective, from a tonal perspective, it's really rushed.”
Seibold: “It feels like a placeholder kind of a movie. Every single line of dialogue has cribbed from other screenplays. Every single plot detail is contrived from other screenplays. It is told with a great deal of energy. It's not incompetent, but it is one of the least interesting animated films I've seen in a long time. Here, we’re back to the usual CGI slop.”
Love Lies Bleeding
From A24, this queer romance thriller is set in the bodybuilding world, starring Kristen Stewart, Katy O’Brian, Ed Harris and Dave Franco.
Seibold: “Things get very, very strange in an almost fantastical way. It is incredibly intense. The sex is very frank. Kristen Stewart is fantastic. She's always been fantastic. I love the chemistry between these two characters because it's a romance, but they're also really desperate. They're clinging on to each other in this weird metallic universe. I like that this is a film that's transposing a lot of the muscularity and machismo that we would see in male-dominated films and giving it to these two queer women. And that's really fantastic. It reminds me a lot of that wave of crime films that came out after Pulp Fiction made it big.”
Lemire: “It’s like The Iron Claw for women. … It is exciting and it's sexy, not as tragic. … I love the vision of this because yes, it does borrow from other kinds of traditions. There's a lot of noir to this and a lot of Coen Brothers-style noir to this. The setting in New Mexico reminds me of the West Texas setting of No Country for Old Men and the weird oddball characters on the fringes, but you really feel the intensity of that connection that they have.”
American Dreamer
Peter Dinklage plays an unhappy economics professor named Phil Loder who receives an incredible deal to buy an estate from a lonely widow (Shirley MacLaine). Donald Glover and Matt Dillon also appear in the film, which is based on a true story from Chicago Public Media’s This American Life.
Lemire: “This is just all over the place in terms of tone, and the writing is terrible. And even excellent actors like Peter Dinklage and Shirley MacLaine can't really fix characters that don't make any sense.
… [Phil’s] dream is to own a house, he looks at $10 million homes he can't afford. And then he finds this deal in the paper that seems too good to be true, to buy one room in this beautiful stately mansion on the edge of a lake. But supposedly, Shirley MacLaine, who lives there, is on the verge of death. … So the whole place will be his. But of course, it's not that simple.
All the characters in this, and all the women especially, they all throw themselves at Peter Dinklage in ways that don't make sense. He's just a miserable, grungy dude. And there's no charisma to him, nothing that he is doing warrants that kind of attention. But it's a bizarre, almost sexist trope that these women who will be strong and make sense otherwise — are weak. It's very odd.”
Seibold: “This movie kind of sucks. … In fact, it's kind of pathetic. … Women are just throwing themselves at this Peter Dinklage character, to a point where it feels like we're witnessing the screenwriters’ sex fantasies. … What I understand is this is a gender-swapped version of the This American Life story. It was originally a young woman who moved into a home with an elderly man. They decided to switch it around, and in so doing, revealing a lot about what the screenwriter really wanted to do, which is tell a story of a sad, unattractive man who somehow attracts all of these women through some kind of charm, I guess.”
Oscar predictions
Ten films are nominated for Best Picture. Oppenheimer has racked up a ton of accolades, including the BAFTA Award for Best Film and the Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture. Could it take home the Oscar?
Seibold: “If you're not sure, bet on Oppenheimer. … There's Oppenheimer and there's all the films that are going to lose to Oppenheimer. There are too many wildcards. The only thing we can really look forward to on Oscar night is a surprise.”
The Best Actress category is more up in the air. Emma Stone took home this year’s BAFTA for her performance in Poor Things. But Killers of the Flower Moon star Lily Gladstone won the Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Leading Role. Who might win on Sunday?
Lemire: “I think it could go either way between Lily Gladstone and Emma Stone. The smart money is on Lily Gladstone at this point. I prefer Emma Stone’s performance better, but they're both excellent.”
