Unfrosted 2024 *1/2 Stars

TARTLET PANIC

How bad is 2024's Unfrosted? Um, as a sort of befuddled SNL skit and/or pappyshow of veracious events, it's liver and onions bad, cucumber ice cream bad. Unfrosted, well it's a flick about 60s Michigan (Battle Creek to be exact). Two cereal adversaries (Kellogg's and Post) compete against each other to come up with the ultimate breakfast pastry, Pop-Tarts. Unfrosted clocking in at ninety-three minutes, is directed by none other than Jerry Seinfeld, a dude who has been literally under the radar for almost three decades. To quote his megahit TV show, "Oh I got to get on that internet, I'm late on everything". You said it Jerry not me. 

Distributed by Netflix and based loosely on true events (I freaking hope so), Unfrosted is labeled a comedy but couldn't be further from it. I mean just because you have four writers (which include Seinfeld himself) penning a bunch of jokes and quips about the conch of multinational companies doesn't mean they ain't gonna flop and die in that almighty wind. Oh and look for Unfrosted's outtakes and line flubs at the end (or don't). Other than '81's The Cannonball Run, said outtakes usually indicate a lousy movie. "We're about to have some very powerful people very upset". I'm thinking that refers to the suits at Skyview Entertainment (one of Unfrosted's three undefined production companies). 

Now don't get me wrong, helmer Jerry Seinfeld knows where to put the camera, knows how to provide Unfrosted with an especial look (Truman Show meets 1960s nuclear family), and can easily create a sense of time and place (the "Wolverine State" in the midst of Camelot). But why his film is so unfunny, so unwitty, and so incredibly turgid is beyond me. TV's Seinfeld, well it felt like a gazillion years ago. I mean even a bunch of Jerry's buds come in to make cameos (Hugh Grant, Christian Slater, Bill Burr, and Jon Hamm to name a few). Um, did they not bother to see the disastrous Movie 43, you know that other big-cast Razzie fest from ten years back? Guess not. "Frosted" flaky. 

Written by Jesse Burleson

3000 Miles to Graceland 2001 * * * Stars

JAILHOUSE GETS ROCKED

2001's 3000 Miles to Graceland refers to a line from the film. Oh and uh, there's plenty of nods to the late Elvis Presley moreover, whether it be impersonators, ditties, or nostalgic thoughts about that almighty "King".  

"Graceland", well it stars Kevin Costner and Kurt Russell, two heavyweights who go mano a mano on each other. One of their characters sadistic, the other rather imperturbable. They both want to leave the country and reclaim over $3 mil from a Las Vegas, casino robbery sort of gone amok. "You ready to play?" Ha, if that was even a question. 

Along with Costner and Russell (who play Michael Zane and Thomas J. Murphy respectfully), 3000 Miles to Graceland has a bunch of known actors who pretty much make pseudo cameos (Ice-T, Christian Slater, Courtney Cox, and Howie Long to name a few). Everyone seems to be doing this swipe for the paycheck but at least they're having fun slumming it. Oh and I almost forgot, Jon Lovitz is in "Graceland" too and he plays a money launderer hanging out at a taxidermy establishment in Idaho. I mean you see it everyday. 

So OK, 3000 Miles to Graceland is the movie equivalent of an abstract painting where everything is thrown at the canvas to see if it sticks. The pic along with being completely outre, is violent, nearly misogynistic, and laced with remorseless, offhanded humor. Director Demian Lichtenstein, well he makes you squirm one minute and then gets your heart fluttering the next. He uses every cinematic trick in the book to film his shootout sequences and yeah, it doesn't hurt that his heavy metal/techno soundtrack fits the rhythms of said sequences perfectly. Full disclosure: I've seen "Graceland" at least 50 times. It's not considered a cult classic but I think it should be. With every viewing, there's more bloody, B-movie mayhem to snicker at, more to nervously enjoy. Going the extra "miles". 

Written by Jesse Burleson

Take Care of Maya 2023 * * * Stars

CARE LADEN

"Our family was falling apart". Those are words you never wanna hear, especially when said family member can't walk without a total pang effect. 

Anyway most documentaries show archive footage from an optical standpoint. 2023's Take Care of Maya, well it concentrates on what you don't see, through audio recordings of phone conversations and inmost doctor visits. And uh, the pic doesn't go back too far, just various moments from early 2015 to late 2016. "But they didn't listen". That refers to Maya Kowalski and her devastating illness.

Obviously based on true events (you can't stage this swipe), Take Care of Maya is about 10-year-old Maya and how a trip to the emergency room forced the hospital workers to believe she was becoming a victim of child abuse. Kowalski gets taken from her parents by social services, her mom eventually commits suicide, and she still seems to show signs of (CRPS). That's complex regional pain syndrome, which means swelling, limited range of motion, and/or partial paralysis of virtually all body parts.

Dysautonomic disorders and safe homes aside, Take Care of Maya is directed by Henry Roosevelt in his fifth feature. Distributed by Netflix, "Maya" has Roosevelt fashioning his docu as a downer but a necessary downer, exposing our haphazard medical system and its proverbial coldness as a veritable cry for help. Featuring a sterile and rather numbing look (no pun intended), Take Care of Maya has flashbacks and zoom depositions and doting fathers breaking down. There's no happy ending, no come to realize moment, and no one wins (that includes the baddies wearing those white coats and the parental units they ruined). Basically Take Care of Maya is like a modern-day Forensic Files episode on the come up, stretched out to 103 minutes that hit you like a Mack Truck. Respite "care".

Written by Jesse Burleson

Brothers 2024 * 1/2 Stars

BROTHERS UP IN ARMS

Two twins go on one final heist before retiring via a lifelong wave of crime. Oh and uh, they're not identical twins cause one is 5'10" and the other is under 4 and a half feet. That's the gist of 2024's Brothers, a possible pseudo black comedy with a pseudo, southern-fried sapor. 

So yeah, as "Let Your Love Flow" plays during the trailer of Brothers your ears perk up (I know mine did) and you sense that what's on screen might be a rollicking romp. No such luck. The film fizzles out as you watch it and you realize the bros in Brothers are about as interesting and likable as Brennan Huff and Dale Doback (um, that's not saying much). 

Shot in Hotlanta and starring the likes of Josh Brolin, Marisa Tomei, Glenn Close, and Brendan Fraser (that's two Academy Award winners and two Academy Award nominees y'all), Brothers runs 88 minutes with the barest bones of a plot and some real weedy characterizations. I mean you can hardly call it a movie let alone a collection of situational, farce dailies that somehow snuck into the final cut. "What is wrong with you?". Uh, that's a question only the collaborators of Brothers could answer and I'm not sure they even know. 

So OK, why does Brothers want to trick you into thinking it might be a cult classic wannabe? And what was the point in putting out a flick that was made over 3 years ago? I mean that seems like a red flag to me if you had to shelve Brothers while it collected that proverbial dust. Sure it's got a cast that's game and sure, it's giddily violent while being fairly well-paced. But do we really need extra scenes of grossness complete with a clip of an ape persona smoking a doobie while yearning for sexual advances from Brolin's sad sack family man, Moke Munger (what?)? Didn't think so. "Sibling abused". 

Written by Jesse Burleson

Wind Chill 2007 * * Stars

CHILL FACTORED

Two college students embark on a trip to Delaware via a rideshare. It's winter, they're complete blow-ins (or so you think), and they become sidetracked a la a shortcut on some bummed out road. It all goes down like some choked soft drink in 2007's Wind Chill, my latest write-up.

So yeah, one character in "Chill" quips, "are we lost or something?" Something like that, in the middle of nowhere, with damaged car in tote, in the company of temps about to dip to below freezing. Wind Chill, well it seems like a fitting title don't you think?

Anyway "Chill" takes place in snowy Pennsylvania, playing it straight as a thriller until it doesn't, getting all Strangers on us. Minus a standard opening twenty minutes of boy meets girl banality, the film eventually becomes cloaked in supernatural mumbo jumbo, lacking in suspense yet gaining in ennui. First you see some ghosts, then you don't. Sometimes there's a creepy dream sequence, then it's back to spent materiality. Maybe there's a flashback, or maybe it's just a flash in the pan (natch). "They say when you freeze to death, it's just like going to sleep". The sleep part I can attend to.

Wind Chill stars Emily Blunt and Ashton Holmes as nameless non-denizens, one miserable, the other kooky and rather stalkerish. As they try to hold out among the specters, the food rationing, the pink elephants, and the frozen tundra, we the viewer sadly experience a psychological slog, an endless exercise in total horror-filled manipulation if you will. I mean it just goes on and on and well, gets more misguided with the Blunt persona surviving with ne'er a scratch on her. Movies, well they shouldn't be exhausting and emptily dapper, they should be entertaining. That's two sheets out of 4 to this "wind". 

Written by Jesse Burleson

Trouble 2024 * * Stars

WOE

What I learned from 2024's Trouble, is that the filmmakers really need to figure out what their focus is. I mean is this vehicle a comedy, a violent action thriller, or a prison drama. Uh, make up your mind guys and um, next time try not to cast your leads in the future form of a poor man's Isla Fisher and/or a poor man's Zach Braff (if there is such a thing). 

Some bad dubbing here, a split screen or two there, bumbling, Keystone Cops everywhere, some offhanded humor, Trouble is a total mutt of a movie. And it's hard to care about anyone involved when the themes of wrongly convicted murder and imprisonment are presented in such a dispassionate way. I mean after 98 minutes I didn't expect to have seen a burlesque version of something along the lines of say, The Fugitive. "Something is not right". Uh, to the hilt my friend. To the hilt.

So yeah, in Trouble some of the characters wink to the audience (when they shouldn't), some of the gags and jokes flop and die (as they should), and director Jon Holmberg at least uses Stockholm, Sweden decently as a locale (for some reason I thought Trouble took place in Paris but whatever). 

Starring Filip Berg, Amy Deasismont, and Eva Melander, Trouble isn't awful but as a caper with lightning-quick editing and a few surprising red herrings, still manages to evaporate right after you see it. That's probably because it's difficult to believe the actions of an innocent man trying to clear his name by breaking out of prison, breaking back into prison, and parading around Stockholm as if no one would notice he's a felon fresh from the can. Heck, the diegesis of this flick in general is about as plausible as palm trees in North Dakota. "Trouble" spotted. 

Written by Jesse Burleson

Airborne 1993 * * Stars

BORNE ILL WILL

"Let it go man". They wish they could. Uh, high school ruffians don't take certain levels of advice so easily, especially when a surfer dude from Cali is honing in on all their female, worldly goods. 

Anyway I've never heard of 1993's Airborne (have you?). But it's amazing what films you can find on YouTube, just browsing the web for that next, wistful write-up. Airborne, well it's like some teenybopper, coming-of-age vehicle, spruced up passably for the Saturday morning crowd who flinched and decided that maybe cartoons needed a short break. You have the main character (Shane McDermott as Mitchell Goosen), forced to go from sunny California to live with his cousin in Cincinnati, Ohio, just so his parents can get their grant work on in Australia for a few months. While in Cincy, Mitchell has to deal with the local high school bullies who can't seem to adapt to his easygoing demeanor, his way with the girlies, and/or his "cool breeze" inclination. "I need traffic, smog, heatwaves". Good luck getting that on a regular basis via The Queen City Mitch. 

So Airborne is a bully movie and well, it's a pretty thin premised one at that. Sans McDermott who gives a pretty decent performance as Rollerblade whiz and smooth, surf monger Goosen, the flick has rather weak characterizations, some ball-bearing production values, some dorky parent personas, and dialogue exchanges that ramp up the squirm factor (pun intended). I mean what were Seth Green and Jack Black thinking, co-starring in swipe that's just too Afternoon Special for its own good. Oh wait, Airborne came out long before their careers started to blossom so thank god for that. Give me Dazed and Confused and 1999's She's All That any day as opposed to the unintentional, situation farce that is Airborne. Off "air". 

Written by Jesse Burleson

Doomsday Prophecy 2011 * * * Stars

DEVINATION

"What the heck is going on?" Uh dude, the end of civilization is near as the ground gradually sinks from beneath your feet. Time to contact mass communication even though they might be lying dormant somewhere. 

Anyway, 2011's Doomsday Prophecy is more than just some early 2000s disaster fodder, some Roland Emmerich breadth of view, or some popcorn, disaster movie blockbuster starring Bruce Willis. Yup, "Doomsday" is a thriller with brains, scatter brains for better or worse. You have a scientist and an archaeologist, racing against time to save the world from destruction via earthquakes and other nasty, mother nature shenanigans. They're wanted for murder, they're on the lam, they possess some neoteric rod, and the Feds are um, doing them dirty. "So you're telling me you can see the future now?" Oh yeah, might want to reassess those shades y'all.

Starring the likes of Jewel Staite, Alan Dale, and AJ Buckley and feeling like a product of distributor Syfy (I was right again), "Doomsday" is military and standoffish, the type of flick where it's the doctors vs the Army and/or the government vs the denizens. Director Jason Bourque, well he builds tension inch by inch, providing clips of earthy ruination in bits and bobs that intercut with moments of radical precognition. Sure Doomsday Prophecy is a TV movie but hey, so was Flight 90: Disaster on the Potomac and well, that turned out okay. I mean I dug it. 

Some airbrushed special effects here, a car chase there, some moments of sci-fi mumbo jumbo almost everywhere, Doomsday Prophecy still has a level of poignancy, a level of revelatory cursory. I mean when other TV pics would rather have you lather in the almighty cheese factor, "Doomsday" makes defined Armageddon feel like the thinking person's, think piece Day of Judgement. Un-false "prophet".   

Written by Jesse Burleson

Under Paris 2024 * * * Stars

KNUCKLE UNDER

Most shark movies have an uber-happy ending or fruition moment. They just do. I mean even Jaws had a contented windup (didn't it?). 2024's Under Paris, well it doesn't possess that untroubled trait mind you. It concludes like some lukewarm Twilight Zone episode or a setup for a sequel, telling the audience that the nightmare ain't over yet. "It will be carnage". Oh fo sho. 

So yeah, we've seen these kinds of flicks recycled and reclaimed relentlessly for the past 50 years. Yup, filmmakers always have a need for um, a bigger boat. Whether it's digital video (Open Water), mother nature (Sharknado), or deep cage diving (2017's 47 Meters Down), there's always room for more swipe about long-bodied marine fish salivating to get their kill on. Under Paris, well it's about a deadly shark and her kin hanging out for blood in the rivers of the "City of Light". Hey, you see it every day, like Don Lino chilling in Lake Huron (har har).   

Starring the likes of Berenice Bejo, Nassim Lyes, and Lea Leviant, Under Paris is more of a shark drama than a shark horror fest. I mean sure there's some barbarity with monster, shark attack payoffs in the second and third act (pun intended). But for much of "Under's" 101-minute runtime you rarely see the darn thing, like Hitchcockian stints on overload. 

Director Xavier Gens, well he helms Under Paris as if he's giving the viewer a slick action thriller a la VOD. It also appears like he's occasionally fashioning a pseudo talkie with decent acting, nice French locales, and some nice, Seine river tracking shots. Hey, don't fret though, the whole shebang is worth recommending anyway. Just grab a beer, a slice of gooey 'za, and become infested, I mean invested in the genre tonic that is Under Paris. Natch.  

Written by Jesse Burleson

Buried: The 1982 Alpine Meadows Avalanche 2021 * * * 1/2 Stars

BURIED TREASURED

"It was snowing sideways". I can only imagine what that entails. The heavy stuff falls rapidly and devastates a ski resort via northeast California in 2021's Buried: The 1982 Alpine Meadows Avalanche. Seven people passed, one survivor emerged, PTSD eventually kicks in, the base area destroyed. In the end natural forces as a house always wins.

With honest interviews and a shrewdness from those interviewees that were there (center employees, lift operators, local denizens, local media), "Buried" is a wounding documentary that just gets more wounding as it goes along. I mean you watch the body language of the people that witnessed what went down in March of 1982 and well, the events of that famous avalanche really stick in their craws. For reals. Almost forty years later and a nudge and that throb just never goes away. "The grim work went on". Uh-huh.

Arduous accounts, unconscious gesturing, and unwounded time aside, Buried: The 1982 Alpine Meadows Avalanche cuts its time between present day stuff to emulsion-like archives to reenactments to sequences of loud music pouncing in at weird moments (rock ditties, standard and/or otherwise). Despite an opening thirty minutes that carries a certain smugness, a "young and free" turn of mind, and an overload of bed surface technobabble, "Buried" does eventually win you over. Yup, the flick's 96 minutes finally come to a close and you feel cinematically bone-weary. 

I mean the docu has a certain edge to it, a certain numbing severity if you will, with the parables of death and suffering by rocks and ice being almost too intense for a younger viewer to handle (the film is not rated but I'd go with a hard "R"). Heck, in the spring Lake Tahoe wasn't all roses and sunshine. Talk about the snow squall to end all snow squalls. "Buried" is alive!

Written by Jesse Burleson