🍿89: Drive-Away Dolls
This week, a guest review and two trailers on opposite sides of the genre spectrum.
“I really value when people use violence for me, it's actually one of my love languages.”
~ Bottoms, 2023
Shhh, Shai-Hulud…
I’ve developed a new love for waking up early, going downstairs with my pillows and a blanket in tow and putting on a film. I don’t set an alarm, but if I wake up at 5 am, it’s unlikely I’ll get back to sleep. So, I put a film on instead of tossing and turning in bed for three hours.
It may well be the perfect time to watch a film too. It’s still a little dark outside (in the winter at least), it’s quiet and you don’t ‘lose’ your usual daytime hours to a film — you’re just swapping out some sleep to lay on the sofa.
So, when I couldn’t sleep last weekend, I rewatched Dune. Then, later that evening we headed to the cinema to watch Dune: Part Two, which was good — though not quite as good as the first one.
I don’t want to spoil it for anyone who hasn’t seen it yet, as it is worth watching and the near-three-hour runtime goes by pretty fast, but fellow fans of the book might share my feelings for the second film.
If you’ve seen Dune: Part Two, let us know your thoughts in the comments.
Also, a big thank you to our resident sweet-popcorn apologist
for stepping in to write this week’s feature review — a huge help while I have other deadlines piling up.Now for the headlines:
A film adaptation of the renowned computer game ‘The Sims’ is in the works, with Margot Robbie’s production company LuckyChap at the helm and Kate Herron set to direct. Read more.
A teaser trailer just dropped for Fede Álvarez’s Alien: Romulus, the latest film in the franchise that Sir Ridley Scott actually approves of. Read more.
The NeverEnding Story is getting a new film adaptation Read more.
Following the success of Poor Things, Yorgos Lanthimos’ new film Kinds Of Kindness is confirmed for a June release. Read more.
And finally, Brian Cox is slated to voice Father Christmas in the upcoming Netflix animation That Christmas. Read more.
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Upcoming Releases
In Violent Nature
UK: 22 March // USA: 22 March
Written and directed by Chris Nash, this Canadian film has been described as an “ambient slasher”, that follows a mute killer who targets a group of teenagers in the Ontario wilderness, with the events observed largely from the killer’s perspective.
The Wild Robot
UK: 18 October // USA: 20 September
Shipwrecked on a deserted island, a robot named Roz must learn to adapt to its new surroundings. Building relationships with the native animals, Roz soon develops a parental bond with an orphaned gosling.
Fact of the week
Love it or hate it, Superbad was a huge hit with audiences (especially teenagers) when it was released in 2007, just a year after Blu-ray discs were brought to the market. That might seem like an odd detail, but in an interview with the YouTube channel First We Feast, Michael Cera talked about how he danced for an hour in front of a green screen to prank a minority of home viewers…
According to Cera, co-writer Evan Goldberg found out that the menu screen for a Blu-ray disc can last an hour before it loops. Cera said:
“He was like: ‘With a Blu-ray, we can have a DVD menu screen that can be an hour long and it won’t loop it. I want you to dance for an hour, so that somebody will watch the DVD menu, waiting for a loop and it never will — until after an hour.’”
So that’s what they did. If you don’t want to watch the full 25-minute interview, skip to 12:29 to hear Cera talk about it. Or, you can skip that entirely and watch the behind-the-scenes footage of him dancing.
Review: Drive-Away Dolls
Star rating:
1 (out of 5)
Where to watch:
USA: Only in cinemas
UK: Only in cinemas
Runtime:
1hr 24m
Director:
Ethan Coen
Blurb:
In search of a fresh start, Jamie (Margaret Qualley) and Marian (Geraldine Viswanathan) embark on an impromptu road trip to Tallahassee, Florida. However, things quickly go awry when they cross paths with a group of inept criminals.
The review (NO spoilers):
Ethan Coen’s second solo film tries a little too hard to deliver its quirkiness, as whimsical nonsense lands with a thud. I’d hoped for an easy, effortless film that could provide some simple escapism. Instead, Tom and I spent the film giving each other quizzical expressions, baffled by the GCSE drama-esque plot and PowerPoint transitions.
The characters, though well-acted, are one-dimensional. Geraldine Viswanathan portrays the uptight Marian, while Margaret Qualley’s Jamie is a flamboyant free spirit (complete with a questionable Texan accent) fresh out of a messy breakup. I adored Margaret Qualley in the Netflix series Maid, so this performance was a letdown — her forced eccentricity is simply jarring. The only highlight for me was Jamie’s ex Sukie portrayed by Beanie Feldstein, who is always brilliant.
Miley Cyrus appears for a brief hallucinatory scene where she plays Tiffany Plastercaster, a character loosely based on Cynthia Plaster Caster, an artist who gained fame for creating plaster casts of celebrity penises. As fun as that sounds, it’s flung in carelessly. It seems the entire budget (estimated to be $20m–$30m) was spent on cameos from Cyrus, Pedro Pascal and Matt Damon — but even they couldn’t salvage the film.
While nothing in this film wants to be taken seriously, that doesn’t make its silliness any more enjoyable. It is, for the most part, deeply unfunny with complete Lesbian Vampire Killers energy. I’d expected a little more depth from a script written by Coen, and I’m still unsure what he was trying to achieve.
As a ‘comedy/thriller’, Drive Away Dolls failed to find its feet. It reminded me of late-night films you might watch at a teenage sleepover, toffee popcorn sticking to your pyjamas, the film giving little more than background noise.
Scroll down for The Critic’s Cut and to see what’s in the next issue.
If you liked Drive-Away Dolls…
Bottoms
2023 | UK: Prime Video (free for subs) // US: Prime Video (free for subs)
Rachel Sennott and Ayo Edebiri star as two queer and unpopular high schoolers that start a fight club in an attempt to get laid before graduation.
For friendships that feel real and one-liners that will actually make you laugh out loud. It’s kind of like Booksmart, but more violent — just be ready for a similar amount of oddness as Drive-Away Dolls.
In the next issue:
Baltimore
UK: 22 March // USA: 1 March | Watch the Trailer
Could not agree more! Watched it last night and walked out utterly baffled