Cha Cha Real Smooth (2022) - Movie Review

 

Last year, I looked at a film called Shithouse (or Freshman Year, as it rather lamely got retitled for its Australian release) as part of my work for FilmInk. I was quite floored by it, as it felt like a genuine expression of what the world looks like through the eyes of an introvert, and it was one of the biggest surprises I got from a film that year. Naturally, when discovering that director/writer/star Cooper Raiff already had a follow-up in the works, I knew I had to take a look at it before the end of the year. With the attachment of names like Dakota Johnson as co-star and producer, I went into this expecting more of the same that Shithouse delivered, but with something of a higher budget. But that’s not what I got. What I got was a film that exceeded how much I fell for Shithouse, but by going in the complete opposite direction.

Millie Lies Low (2022) - Movie Review

Just as Australians know their crime dramas and Italian know their Westerns, New Zealanders sure know their cringe comedies. Only this example is a bit different than what I’ve looked at before. Its depiction of a woman who, after a panic attack, has to miss a plane to New York… but goes to increasingly bizarre measures to try and convince everyone that she didn’t miss it, certainly fits in with that social cringe spectrum, but it’s a lot more anxious this time around. There’s a definite Safdie brothers pace to it, gradually escalating just how much worse things can get for the main character, and with its fixation on social media and social pressure, it fits in with the recent trend towards influencer thrillers.

Thor: Ragnarok (2017) - Movie Review

I never thought I would get to this point but I think I’m starting to get burnt out on all these Marvel movies. I’ve mentioned before how much I love superhero and comic book inspired films, and I still stand by all of that, but as more time passes, I’m beginning to realize that my zeal to see these films in the cinema has severely diminished. Yeah, I’ve still seen all of the MCU to date, but I ended up getting to some of them like Captain America: Civil War and Spider-Man: Homecoming far later than I would have expected. Whether it’s down to the sheer volume of releases per year, the fact that all of them are interconnected so that they all need to be seen to get the full experience, or just down to me discovering other sub-genres that interest me more, some part of my subconscious is hesitant to keep seeing these. Not that it should be; I mean, Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2 is still an astounding work, Homecoming gave us the first real Spider-Man movie and even Doctor Strange has some of the greatest effects work I’ve ever seen full stop.

 

So, yeah, maybe it’s less that I’m losing my love for these films and more that they are starting to feel more like work. No change there then, honestly. Anyway, enough waffle; time to get into this latest MCU offering that seems to be taking the franchise in a different direction. A very weird direction.