Movie Reviews: The Smashing Machine, Anemone, The Lost Bus and more

Some weeks, there aren’t any new theatrical releases audiences are hyped for, so most stay home and check out something on Netflix or some other streaming service. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t films aren’t worth watching or discussing. So, once a month, I’m going to watch as many of the smaller releases as I can find and give them a tiny review. With that said, here is the inaugural column of Short Cuts. I saw seven movies over the course of two days. Now, I shall sleep.

“The Lost Bus” -- I was born and raised in Paradise, California, so watching a disaster movie about the Camp Fire, which nearly removed the small mountain town from the map in 2018, wasn’t on my bucket list of things to do, but I figured I owed it to the friends and family still there to check it out. I can’t grade the film with any sort of objectivity, but I appreciate that the film solidly places Pacific Gas and Electric as the villain (it was) and that it doesn’t wallow in the horror of those who perished, but instead finds heroism in the ordinary folks who risked their lives to protect others. Director Paul Greengrass is an expert in crafting films about real-life tragedy (he directed “United 93” and “Bloody Sunday”), but “The Lost Bus” feels less like a docudrama and closer to disaster pictures like “The Towering Inferno” or “San Andreas.” That might offend some, but it made the film more palatable for me. I choked back more tears than I expected, for whatever that’s worth.
Grade: B+

“Twinless” -- Go into this blind if possible, as the twists and turns make for a deliriously unpredictable experience. Dylan O’Brian and writer/director/star James Sweeney play two grieving men who meet at a support group for people whose twins have died. They strike up an instant and poignant friendship based on their mutual grief, but things take a strange and dark turn at the end of the first act. That’s all I can say about the plot, but if you like a savagely acerbic, pitch-black comedy with crisp dialogue, strong performances (keep an eye on Aisling Franciosi, she’s a movie star) and one hell of a twist, then check it out. A truly singular work.
Grade: B

“Good Boy” -- A haunted house movie from the point of view of a gorgeously expressive Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever named Indy! If you’re a horror buff, this one works, not just as a love letter to man’s best friend, but as an atmospheric and disturbing Halloween flick as well. “Good Boy” creeped me out to my core and, at only 75 minutes, did so with remarkable precision. While Ben Leonberg directs with impressive grace for his feature debut, due to the low budget, some of the CG effects fall flat and kill the vibe. But that’s nowhere near enough of an issue to derail what will definitely be considered a cult classic down the road. I can’t wait to see this again.
Grade: B+

“The Smashing Machine” -- With Benny Safdie in the director’s chair, I think I expected “The Smashing Machine” to be elevated over the stereotypical sports biopic that we’ve been used to seeing coming out of Hollywood for decades. And while Safdie adds a tactile grain to the direction (he filmed most of it on 16mm film), it doesn’t add a gritty immediacy to a story that feels like the Cliff’s Notes version of the life of extreme fighter Mark Kerr. Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson gives a densely layered performance unlike anything we’ve seen from him before, but Emily Blunt is stuck playing an absolute caricature of a human being. It’s nowhere near a bad movie, but Safdie plays it safe, and that’s not something I ever would have expected from half of the filmmaking team behind “Uncut Gems.”
Grade: C+

“The Strangers: Chapter 2” -- This picks up right where the last one left off, with a trio of masked killers hunting our heroine around a hospital where she was recovering from the stabbings she got in the first film. It’s exaggerating to say that this entire movie is a single chase sequence from beginning to end, which is entertaining for someone as strange as I am, but also exhausting. Did you like the last one? This one is an improvement, but not by much, and you’ll be better served watching the original from 2008. “Chapter 3” comes out next year and hopefully it ties this somewhat pointless trilogy together in a way that feels less perfunctory than it does now. Still, I had some fun watching this.
Grade: C+

“Bone Lake” -- A romantically stagnant couple goes on vacation to a palatial lakeside Airbnb and finds out another couple has been double-booked for the same weekend. It’s 100 minutes of psycho-sexual mind games and bad writing. The interesting central concept about intimacy and trust is undermined by pedestrian execution that never manages to be sexy or scary. However, lead actress Maddie Hasson is a powerhouse and deserves much better projects from now on.
Grade: D+

“Anemone” -- Daniel Day-Lewis came out of retirement to star in his son’s directorial debut and it’s…super weird? He’s obviously magnetic and impossible to look away from, while Ronan Day-Lewis’ direction is painterly and gorgeous, but the script obfuscates the plot so much that the film plays like a mystery when it’s really a straightforward familial drama. Slow and methodical in its approach to storytelling, the film will frustrate most casual viewers, and the third act’s reliance on symbolism and metaphor kept me at an emotional remove from the characters. This should have been a devastating look at broken men and generational trauma, but instead is a puzzling, but pretty, abstraction.
Grade: C-