{"id":13342,"date":"2023-12-03T17:36:57","date_gmt":"2023-12-03T22:36:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/?p=13342"},"modified":"2023-12-03T17:36:57","modified_gmt":"2023-12-03T22:36:57","slug":"weekly-movie-roundup-54","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/?p=13342","title":{"rendered":"Weekly Movie Roundup"},"content":{"rendered":"<table>\n<tr>\n<td><a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt15679400\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/1-200x300.jpg\" alt=\"Knock at the Cabin\" width=\"200\" height=\"300\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13336\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/1-200x300.jpg 200w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/1-683x1024.jpg 683w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/1-768x1152.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/1.jpg 1000w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px\" \/><\/a><\/td>\n<td><a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt14781036\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/2-203x300.jpg\" alt=\"Inside\" width=\"203\" height=\"300\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-13337\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/2-203x300.jpg 203w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/2-691x1024.jpg 691w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/2-768x1138.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/2-1037x1536.jpg 1037w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/2.jpg 1080w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 203px) 100vw, 203px\" \/><\/a><\/td>\n<td><a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt13849558\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/3-218x300.jpg\" alt=\"Corner Office\" width=\"218\" height=\"300\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-13338\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/3-218x300.jpg 218w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/3-743x1024.jpg 743w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/3-768x1059.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/3.jpg 1088w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 218px) 100vw, 218px\" \/><\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt15679400\/\">Knock at the Cabin<\/a> isn&#8217;t bad. I&#8217;d argue it&#8217;s actually M. Night Shyamalan&#8217;s best movie in years, although that&#8217;s at least partly because he hasn&#8217;t made another good one in almost twenty. But it&#8217;s hard to see what it adds, since none of the changes it makes from the novel\u2014from the title on down\u2014are for the better, and some are actively for the worse. It&#8217;s often clunky and not especially scary, in typical late-Shyamalan fashion, but it holds together a lot better than his other recent efforts\u2014maybe because it has a stronger base, or because it&#8217;s focused more on real human characters than high-concept, allowing at least Dave Bautista the room to portray the conflicting emotions of his scenes really well. (Spoiler: he&#8217;s the best thing in the movie.)<\/li>\n<ul><\/ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt14781036\/\">Inside<\/a> isn&#8217;t always what I would call <em>pleasant<\/em> to watch, but it does more or less exactly what it says on the tin\u2014the one in which Willem Dafoe&#8217;s character is trapped. It&#8217;s a little like <i>Cast Away<\/i>, if that was weirdly set in a luxury high-rise apartment with a malfunctioning thermostat, and it&#8217;s interesting enough as far as that idea goes. Dafoe certainly gives it his all. But it&#8217;s hard to say what, if anything, else the movie is trying to say about isolation and hardship and creation.<\/li>\n<ul><\/ul>\n<li>I&#8217;ll say this much for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt13849558\/\">Corner Office<\/a>: everything it does feels very deliberate. Very little of that is interesting, and none of it is especially funny. If the movie is supposed to be satire, it&#8217;s both toothless and tired; if it&#8217;s absurdism, it annoys more than amuses. Jon Hamm&#8217;s performance and (constant) narration feel very intentionally pitched at <em>something<\/em>, but what that something is, I wouldn&#8217;t care to guess.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<table>\n<tr>\n<td><a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt14813150\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/4-169x300.jpg\" alt=\"Manodrome\" width=\"169\" height=\"300\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-13339\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/4-169x300.jpg 169w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/4-576x1024.jpg 576w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/4-768x1365.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/4-864x1536.jpg 864w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/4.jpg 1080w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 169px) 100vw, 169px\" \/><\/a><\/td>\n<td><a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt21979910\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/5-203x300.jpg\" alt=\"The Passenger\" width=\"203\" height=\"300\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-13340\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/5-203x300.jpg 203w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/5-691x1024.jpg 691w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/5-768x1138.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/5-1037x1536.jpg 1037w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/5-1382x2048.jpg 1382w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/5-scaled.jpg 1728w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 203px) 100vw, 203px\" \/><\/a><\/td>\n<td><a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt1462764\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/6-203x300.jpg\" alt=\"Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny\" width=\"203\" height=\"300\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-13341\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/6-203x300.jpg 203w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/6-691x1024.jpg 691w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/6-768x1138.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/6-1037x1536.jpg 1037w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/6.jpg 1215w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 203px) 100vw, 203px\" \/><\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt14813150\/\">Manodrome<\/a> isn&#8217;t exactly subtle in what it has to say about toxic masculinity, repressed homosexuality, and incel culture&#8230;but it also isn&#8217;t exactly wrong about any of it. If the movie eventually feels as confused Jesse Eisenberg&#8217;s main character, that doesn&#8217;t diminish from the uncomfortable rawness of his performance.<\/li>\n<ul><\/ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/reviews\/the-passenger-movie-review-2023\">Nick Allen at RogerEbert.com<\/a> described <a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt21979910\/\">The Passenger<\/a> as a &#8220;queasy, then curious, then underwhelming embrace of extremes.&#8221; The movie is helped enormously by Kyle Gallner&#8217;s performance, even if it quickly runs out of anything to say.<\/li>\n<ul><\/ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt1462764\/\">Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny<\/a> feels almost completely airless. I only wish I could say that felt unexpected. At the end of the day, I think I agree with most everything that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=gnookNtRRd0\">Darren Mooney said<\/a> in his review.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I also re-watched <a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0091059\/\">Flight of the Navigator<\/a>, which I hadn&#8217;t seen since it was in theaters and I was nine. The movie doesn&#8217;t have much of a story beyond its central time travel concept, which is all I remembered from when I was a kid, and it resolves that story very quickly without much fuss. The movie is kind of endearing despite that, and Joey Cramer was a pretty good child actor, but it&#8217;s also nothing special. I can see why the time travel part of it rattled around in my head for almost forty years, but also why I remembered nothing else.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Knock at the Cabin isn&#8217;t bad. I&#8217;d argue it&#8217;s actually M. Night Shyamalan&#8217;s best movie in years, although that&#8217;s at least partly because he hasn&#8217;t made another good one in almost twenty. But it&#8217;s hard to see what it adds, since none of the changes it makes from the novel\u2014from the title on down\u2014are for &#8230; <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/?p=13342\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13342","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13342"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13342"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13342\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13344,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13342\/revisions\/13344"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}