The latest film releases include Old Guy, The Monkey, Picnic at Hanging Rock, and Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy. Weighing in are Alonso Duralde and Dave White, film critics and co-hosts of the movie podcast Linoleum Knife.
Old Guy
Christoph Waltz stars as an aging hitman who trains a young prodigy (Cooper Hoffman), but things go awry and they have to fight off other hitmen in Northern Ireland.
Duralde: “This is a super generic action movie with a cast that deserves better, because in addition to Waltz and Hoffman, you've got Lucy Liu. And if this were plot-free but character-centric, that'd be great. And these performers could do it, but it's not that either. It's just a lot of cliches about boomers v. Gen Z, and it's a waste of time.”
White: “It's a 90-minute movie, and there are no fewer than three sequences of Christoph Waltz raving at the club with all the young honeys. It's so ridiculous. … And then they repeat one of them over the credits. There is nothing here but lazy generational animosity.”
The Monkey
This is based on a Stephen King short story about twins who get a wind-up monkey toy that kills.
Duralde: “This movie, while it is scary, is also really funny in a very, very dark way. This is Osgood Perkins’ follow-up to last year's hit Longlegs, and this is grotesque comedy in the Final Destination school, in terms of people don't just die in this movie, they die via crazy Rube Goldberg, elaborate, horrifying setups. … The movie is making a point about familial trauma, because the good Theo James twin has a son from whom he is rather estranged for the son's benefit. He doesn't want the son to get tied up into all of this monkey business, if you will. But [he] ultimately realizes that you can't run from this stuff. You have to face it head-on. So yeah, this is grimly hilarious, but it is quite gory and terrifying.”
Picnic at Hanging Rock
This is a 4K re-release of the 1975 Australian film about a tragic and mysterious incident that befalls girls on a school trip.
White: “It's Valentine's Day. It is the year 1900. A group of young women from an Australian college go on a picnic, several of them disappear, and that's it. Now, is it about colonialism and its consequences? Is it about nature reaching out and grabbing what was stolen from it? Is it about repressing young women's identities and sexuality? All of the above? Maybe it's a puzzle with no solution, except the one you walk out of the theater arguing with your friends about. … Fifty years later, it is still incredible. It is impeccably composed. It is quietly unnerving at times. It is a maddeningly mysterious object, one that gets under your skin, and even gets under the skin of the characters on screen.”
Duralde: “There is a lush, dream-like quality to the film, whether it's the girls huddling and reading valentines to each other, whether it's this young Englishman who becomes obsessed with trying to find the missing girls. … It is a breathtaking movie, and certainly one … that benefit from being seen on the big screen. For all the conveniences of streaming and even physical media, there's just nothing that compares to being in that dark room with strangers and having that shared experience.”
Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy
In this fourth installment, Renee Zellweger returns as Bridget Jones — with a few new flames in her life and an old rakish one.
White: “She married Mr. Darcy, that's Colin Firth, and they had two children, and then he dies. Now that's the very beginning of the movie. It's not a spoiler. … We are well into her widowhood when the film begins, to the point where she is ready to give men a chance again. She finds one, a 20-something young man played by White Lotus star Leo Woodall, and then perhaps maybe also one of her children's teachers, played by Chiwetel Ejiofor. Okay, this is not show-stopping filmmaking. It feels very at home on my television. … Now my personal experience of the Bridget Jones films is one of comfort over comedy. … It's not unlike sitting down to watch old episodes of Gilmore Girls. This one, having said all that, caught me a little by surprise because it too is somewhat less interested in comedy. … Quite often it spends its time exploring her grief and that of her children also. So those are the moments that felt most affecting to me.”
Duralde: “It is shot in that beautiful London that never rains. And Renee Zellweger has managed to convince us over the years that she is somehow both British and plump, even though she's neither. And so Bridget lives, and if you've been down for this, you will be down for another serving.”