"Motor City" Review

 Netflix reportedly wants the screenplays for their original movies to be dumbed-down for their presumed audience of doomscrollers, who are more focused on their devices than the movie they're supposedly watching, by having characters constantly restating what's going on for the attention deficient. Well, if there was ever an example of NOT doing such a anti-cinematic thing it would be Motor City, a revenge-action flick which is almost entirely devoid of dialog yet doesn't miss it much.

Alan Ritchson (Reacher) stars as John Miller, a parolee who works in a Detroit factory and lives with his waitress girlfriend Sophia (Shailene Woodley, The Secret Life of the American Teenager). His parole officer gives him his discharge and to celebrate he proposes to her. Unfortunately, the drug lord who used to be her boyfriend uses that moment to have crooked cops bash down their door and arrest him for drugs planted in his car which had been stolen then dumped after being loaded with incrimination. Sentenced to prison, she ends up back with the crook, Reynolds (Ben Foster, Pandorum), and Miller plots his revenge.

There are only a handful of understandable dialog lines in the entire movie and none of them are important to the plot, yet director Potsy Ponciroli effectively makes what's happening clear even with flashbacks and intercuts between scenes. A few years back John Woo attempted a very similar trick with Silent Night but in that case the contrivance was annoying and unsuccessful, but here the style, performances, and needle drops make it work. While better, it's still not a great thing but I've added a point for the positively gonzo last act with spectacular fireworks and the grisliest kills. 

As long as I've been a movie reviewer I've taken special umbrage at how inaccurately Detroit is portrayed my movies in a manner they would never allow to happen for NYC or LA. (Four Brothers finale with a confrontation on a lake at Thanksgiving supposedly frozen solid enough to support huge SUVs is a particularly bad example.) For a movie set in 1976-77 where they went through all the trouble to source a lot of period-appropriate cars and do the production design, costumes and hairstyles Seventies-like, the establishing shots of the city show buildings and features that weren't present until much later.

The Ally Detroit Center (formally One Detroit Center) is shown in aerial shots as well in the background of a funeral scene. Ignoring the whole "there are no cemeteries in that area" detail, the filmmakers composited a skyline including the Detroit Center which was not completed until 1993! It's not like they forgot to erase a modern building from location footage; they added something that wasn't there.

Bonus stupidity is showing people leaving the landmark Fox Theater with the modern marque that was added during restoration in 1998 and then updated in 2015 showing the Ramones headlining. The Ramones never played the Fox in 1976 or 1977 and both their Detroit-area performances were opening slots. Especially howl-worthy is the Fox being portrayed as on a narrow one-way side street when it sits on Woodward Avenue, the main artery running from the Detroit River to Pontiac, 27 miles north. Very wide. Not like they show it on a street narrower than 4th Street in Royal Oak where the Royal Oak Music Theater (where the Ramones DID play in 1976) looks.

These goofs are especially weird because Jack White is an executive producer and cameos as a piano player in one scene.

Grousing about local inaccuracies aside, Motor City is a solid watch as long as you commit to watching it on your first screen.

Score: 6/10. Catch it on cable/streaming.

"Freefall: A Reckoning for Boeing" Review

 If you're nervous about flying already, you'll be downright panicked if you're booked onto one of a couple Boeing models after watching the Netflix original documentary Freefall: A Reckoning for Boeing, which details how a string of bottom-line obsessed CEOs dismantled the previous culture of safety and quality in favor of outsourcing, inexperienced workers, ignoring quality problems, and retaliating against those who tried to blow the whistle, even after a pair of 737 Max crashes which killed hundreds of passengers and crews.

A sequel to the 2022 Netflix documentary Downfall: The Case Against Boeing (which I didn't even know existed until I mistyped the title of Freefall into Wikipedia) which covered the 737 Max crashes, Freefall focuses on troubles with the 787 line which the bean counters decided would have various sections fabricated all over the world to save money then assemble them in America only to find many things didn't fit and subcontractors didn't observe the same quality standards, not that Boeing was as well. 

The death of Boeing whistleblower John Barnett, who was testifying against his former employer, who'd forced him out after his constant attempts to save his company from cheap bosses is played up as a murder (it was ruled suicide) for drama, but other former and current quality managers also appear to bemoan the crash dive profit chasing has put the firm in.

While it's tempting to read the slant of these documentaries as the usual Leftist attacks on capitalism and the ever-popular "corporate greed" - presented on a streaming platform that keeps jacking up their prices to the point where many are forced to drop it - the reality remains that forgetting that you make a product with the potential to kill hundreds of innocent people at a time and billions rely upon for travel to chase more profit is a sin that needs to be called out and shamed into correction.

Score: 7/10. Catch it on Netflix.

"Travis Barker: Louder Than Fear" Review

Filmed over a nine year period from 2017 to 2026 (which is why Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins, who passed away in 2022, briefly appears), Travis Barker: Louder Than Fear profiles the life and drama of the Blink-182 drummer. From his childhood where his mother died when he was 15 through his rapid ascent in bands due to this monster chops and subsequent descent into such heavy drug use that when he survived a plane crash in 2008 with burns over 2/3rds of his body, doctors had difficulty managing his pain due to his elevated tolerance due to all the drugs he'd taken. In the aftermath of the crash he refused to fly, resorting to taking the Queen Mary to get to Europe for gigs. Most recently, he's best known to non-music fans as Khloe Kardashian's latest husband/baby daddy.

While I'm not a fan of Blink's juvenile mall punk music, I know Barker's regard amongst drummers. I didn't know what all he was doing beyond Blink and how bad his injuries were from the crash, though I knew his fellow crash survivor, DJ AM, struggled with survivor's guilt and fell off the wagon, eventually ODing less than a year later. I had no idea the stylized F logo with a star in it was for his Famous Stars & Straps clothing line. I'd ignored the Kardashian relationship because that entire family is a cancer on society and it's insane that they all got wealthy off Kim banging Brandy's brother on tape. 

For some reason the doc makes it sound like he's still angry about his childhood when he patched up his relationship with his father, has established an enduring musical career, has wonderful children and even began flying again. Little, if anything, is wrong with his life.

While not particularly essential, Travis Barker: Louder Than Fear is a decent basic primer for those unfamiliar with the subject.

Score: 7/10. Catch it on Hulu.

"Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass" Review

 After watching the box office flop, Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass, which grossed only $1.6M on a tiny $3.5M budget, I have to believe that part of its poor showing was the title which probably went on theater ticket boards as Gail Daughtry (which is like Michael Clayton or Jay Kelly) and not something snappy like Celebrity Sex Pass. It's too bad, because like Pizza Movie earlier this year, it's a bonkers, silly comedy treat.

Zoey Deutch stars as Gail Daughtry, a perky, chirpy hairdresser from Kansas who is engaged to her high school sweetheart, Tom (Michael Cassidy, The O.C.). They're due to be married in two weeks, but the long march down the aisle hits a snag when they go to a celebrity book reading - I'm not going to spoil who like the Plex blurb did and isn't in the trailer - and Tom decides to cash in his celebrity sex pass at that time, much to Gail's chagrin as she catches him in the act.

Upset, she agrees to tag along with her co-worker Otto (Miles Gutierrez-Riley, Smile 2) to LA where a hairstyling convention is going on. She also decides she will settle the score with Tom by finding and boinking her sex pass pick: Jon Hamm. In her quest she teams up with a wannabe talent agent, Caleb (Ben Wang, Karate Kid: Legends); a washed-up paparazzi whose "white whale" is Hamm, Vincent (Ken Marino, who also co-wrote the script); and John Slattery, Hamm's co-star from Mad Men, as they try to get to Hamm so Gail can ride that hog, so to speak.

Also complicating matters are a pair of thugs (Joe Lo Truglio & Mather Zickel) who mistakenly switched briefcases with Gail at the airport and whose boss, Ludovica (Sabrina Impacciatore, The White Lotus S2), really wants its contents back because she has big plans for them.

It's not too hard to pick up on the parallels with The Wizard of Oz - Gale was Dorothy's last name, Gail has sparkly red sneakers and is from Kansas, everyone she meets needs something to fill a hole in their lives and feel only Jon Hamm can provide them - but what elevates Celebrity Sex Pass (let's fix that title too late for them) is just the sheer goofy craziness and "Wait, who?" cameos which it's nice to see the trailer doesn't give away except for one.

Director/co-writer David Wain is probably best known for Wet Hot American Summer  (which I really didn't care for) and its two Netflix sequel series and as a co-founder of The State (never watched it), so fans of his should be an automatic for this and those familiar with his previous casts will know why they show up here. (Seriously, do NOT read the cast list before watching!) I've only seen Role Models of his, but whatever else he's done is irrelevant because he kills it here.

Deutch can be annoying - the missus can't stand her - and the most memorable line in Zombieland: Double Tap is when Emma Stone ask whether they can drop Deutch off at a no-kill shelter, but here she's appropriately adorable and guileless. You want her to go full ham on Hamm. The rest of the cast is fun though the stuff with the goons drags a tad.

Comedies have often been to scared of the woke crybullies to be funny lately, but Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass is a refreshingly raunchy rebuke to the killjoys and delivers the laughs in spades for those who like when things get randomly wild and crazy. 

Score: 8.5/10. Catch it on cable/streaming.

"The End of Oak Street" Review

It's been a loooooong time since Steven Spielberg has made a decent movie and the Jurassic Park/World series has become tedious and stupid when all we want is dinosaur fun. So, it's kind of weird that the best Spielberg and/or dinosaur flick we've had in ages turns out to be the not-great-titled The End of Oak Street from writer-director David Robert Mitchell whose sex horror flick It Follows was a cult fave.

Set in July 1982, we meet the Platt family during a neighborhood block party. Parents Greg (Ewan McGregor, Trainspotting) and Denise (Anne Hathaway, Ella Enchanted) are experiencing marital tension due to his work or lack thereof and she is secretly writing an semi-autobiographical novel in the basement. Son Brian (Christian Convery, Sweet Tooth) is getting in trouble, smoking and broke a boy's arm and daughter Audrey (Maisy Stella, My Old Ass) is a Carl Sagan fangirl reading books about astronomy. (The least believable detail in a movie about dinosaurs.) Things are simmering under the surface of suburbia.

Weird things begin to happen - a strange plant (Audrey III?) appears in a neighbor's yard; Brian sees bright lights flashing; a huge pile of poop appears in the next door neighbor's yard who thinks it's a prank by Brian - until one night the power and water goes out. The next morning they realize something has gone really amiss when they realize freaking DINOSAURS are roaming their neighborhood. As they try to flee they discover the road just ends with them at the top of a cliff and the surrounding looking like the Jurassic Era. As the neighbors begin getting eaten by the dino predators, the family has to pull together to try and figure out what happened and what can be done to escape. Dino hijinks ensue.

What Mitchell does well is keep the pacing taut, but not hectic. Clocking in at under 100 minutes in an era where 150-180 minutes seems standard, the movie doesn't expend superfluous time setting things up and getting things moving. The hide-and-seek presentation of the dinos is also smart as well as probably cost effective, keeping the VFX heavy film to a relatively bargain $85M before promo, etc. He also deploys some split-diopter shots that make All the President's Men look Little League.

The characters feel sufficiently fleshed out though McGregor's Greg could've used a little more explanation as he veers close to being just another failed weak man whose suffering girlboss wife has to compensate for. But as events transpire, their relationship solidifies as they appreciate what they do when necessary. The running bit about Brian's dog, Starbuck (named after the original Battlestar Galactica series and not the coffee chain), disappearing then reappearing as a doggo ex machina is a tad weak and causes Brian and Audrey to get suicidally stupid at times to facilitate things. (Maybe I just don't get it being a cat person. BTW, cats don't fare too well here. Boo.) There's also a quibble or five to be had about the resolution which seems to believe you can order and get a pizza delivered in under 20 minutes which even Domino's didn't offer. 

Earlier this year Speilberg flopped with the alien movie Disclosure Day which I've heard enough about to be especially unenthused about watching it and there really hasn't been a good Jurassic World movie in 2015 and that wasn't that great but the three subsequent sequels have been varying degrees of mediocre to bad. It's into this environment that The End of Oak Street steps and manages to succeed where Spielberg and his dinosaur creations have fallen short. Not a life-changing experience, but a nice throwback to classic escapist movie fare. And any movie with Yummy Girl (Anne Hathaway) as a suburban MILF shooting dinosaurs can't be bad!

Score: 8.5/10. Catch a matinee.

"My Grandfather Charles Manson" Review

As far as true crime documentary premises go, My Grandfather Charles Manson has a heck of a hook: The father of filmmaker Sophia Maddox (who co-directs with Alexandra Orton), Daniel Arguelles, who never knew who his father was, discovers via a half-brother who finds him via Ancestry.com that their father is Charles Manson, thus Sophia is Manson's granddaughter. (Free Band Name!) Wondering whether this connection explains her father's moods or her creativity, she embarks on a quest to research the origins of the notorious cult leader upon whose orders seven people, including actress Sharon Tate, were murdered in 1969.

Using her genetic relationship, he travels to Indiana, Manson's childhood home and where his life as a career inmate in reform schools and prisons, subjected to brutal corporal punishment as well as rape - both as victim and perpetrator - began twisting him into the infamous figure he became. This also begins to hint at forming an apologist case for Manson, that he's a victim of the system so it's really the system to blame. Uhhhhhhhh... She also interviews former members of the Manson Family along with a surviving prosecutor of the case and an author who met Manson hundreds of times and wrote about him. 

While some of the backstory stuff is illuminating, the bulk of the film consists of Sophia crying while talking to an unseen therapist as she "processes her feelings" and navel-gazes about What It All Means. Dad, who had no idea his mother had hooked up with Manson in the late-1950s for a one/two-night stand or why she was beating him with a lamp cord when Manson and Fam were arrested, reacts especially badly to what she's doing, storming out of an interview he sat in on and cutting off his daughter, blocking her phone number, prompting more crying.

I've always had an aversion to documentarians who put themselves in front of the camera as if they're the subject (e.g. Michael Moore's slovenly obese presence in his fabricated scenarios) but considering Sophia is as much of the subject as Manson, it's inescapable. But it's also meaningless when it's not being annoying. Where's her mother in her backstory? What's the deal with the footage of dad screaming at her in the backseat which initially appears to be part of the current drama but then seems to be from her teenage years?

Most baffling is how after 1-3/4 hours of crying and obsessing over how she will be perceived as Manson's granddaughter, she decides to reclaim her identity by changing her surname from Arguelles, which was the name of Daniel's adoptive father, to Maddox, which was Manson's mother's maiden name (Manson was his stepfather). That's right - after agonizing about what it means to he the descending of a monster, she ditches her father's name for her grandmother's. What a self-absorbed brat.

Could My Grandfather Charles Manson been better if it had been directed solo by Orton so that Sophia's constantly being the center of things been more understandable and potentially better contextualized? Perhaps. But as it stands, like most self-obsessed Zoomer twits, Sophia mistakes her feels for her importance.