Review: Hurry Up Tomorrow

Image courtesy of Lionsgate. 

It's somewhat of a rarity these days that I run across a movie that's a total misfire. Sure, I see and review plenty of movies that are mediocre, often technically competent movies that are corporatized art meant to sell new installments or bland films of various genres that are run-of-the-mill. But it's not often that I see something that completely misses the mark.

Mel Gibson's "Flight Risk," out earlier this year and not reviewed by me, is one of them. Trey Edward Shults' "Hurry Up Tomorrow" - you know, The Weeknd movie - is another. This is a movie that starts off with its titular character doing vocal warm ups through lip trills and only gets worse.

The film follows a pop star (Abel Tesfaye, AKA The Weeknd) as he seemingly teeters on the brink of self destruction, all while his manager (Barry Keoghan) offers plenty of bad temptations and while a stalkerish fan (Jenny Ortega) lurks in the background, waiting to pounce.

The Weeknd is known for his self-deprecating persona and songs that touch on angst, depression, hedonism, and a desire to escape celebrity status. While I'm not overly familiar with his entire catalogue, I like some of his most well-known songs - "Starboy" and "Blinding Lights," which is used in what must be the most awkward scene of any movie this year.

But there's self-deprecating and then there's... this. In the film, The Weeknd plays The Weeknd, who spends much of his time offstage crying over a relationship that seemingly fell apart, but also admitting that he treated the woman terribly. Then, we get to see him treat her terribly on the phone as he calls her a "bitch" and a "nothing," and the former insult is later hurled at another female character. He also does a fair amount of cocaine, often at the prompting of his manager.

It's hard to tell if "Hurry Up Tomorrow" is an extended, overly stylish therapy session or just an overwrought and self-absorbed project for its pop star lead. While I've admired some of Shults' work - such as "Krisha" or "Waves" - more than loved it, he really lays the style on thick here. It feels like every other shot is a 360-degrees swirl around his lead or a tight shot of his sweating face. 

Then, about halfway through the film, it becomes a variation on Stephen King's "Misery," sort of, leading to the aforementioned awkward scene. It involves Ortega awkwardly dancing and actually explaining to The Weekend how brilliant his music is and dissecting some of its themes. I think the last time I face palmed this hard is when M. Night Shyamalan wrote a bit part in one of his films for himself in which he played a genius author who wrote a book that would save mankind.

The Weeknd and Shults have both seen better days in the realms of music and film and I'd imagine that they will go on to do better things. In the meantime, this is a film in which its title might become a mantra for those sitting through it.

Review: Secret Mall Apartment

Image courtesy of Submarine Entertainment.

What is it exactly that qualifies something as art? Must it be an object or can it be an act? Is it required to be permanent or can it be fleeting? These are all questions that are posed - but not necessarily answered - in Jeremy Workman's documentary "Secret Mall Apartment," which is about a group of Providence, Rhode Island artists who found a vacant spot in a massive mall in the early 2000s and created an apartment, where they were able to spend time unnoticed by anyone for about four years.

The idea for the apartment was borne during a debate in Providence during the late 1990s over how spaced was used. The city, at that point, had seen better days and its administration thought the best way to revitalize it would be to create a massive luxury shopping center. Many of the communities who lived in proximity to it opposed the mall because, as they argued, they couldn't afford to shop there and would soon be squeezed out of the area when property taxes went up.

All of this turned out to be true, including the demolition of a beloved spot for artists and local musicians known as Fort Thunder, which hosted underground concerts and space for burgeoning local artists of varying kinds. One of the artists associated with the spot, Michael Townsend, noticed a place during the mall's construction that seemed to be empty and was far away from the stores and pretty much everything else. He correctly assumed that the room was intended for storage of some sort, but was later forgotten.

Michael and some friends broke into the room and decided to create an apartment for a select group of artists where they could hang out. A group of eight artists - including Michael's then-girlfriend Adriana Valdez Young - bought furniture in the mall and then lugged it up to the room. There's a harrowing sequence of them pushing a couch up a steep ladder in the upper regions of the mall.

"Secret Mall Apartment" is the story of how these eight artists spent time in the apartment - although none of them actually lived there - unobserved for about four years. As such, it's a well-made and interesting documentary feature. It should be noted that when law enforcement eventually cracked down, it was only Michael who faced any sort of repercussions (they were surprisingly minimal), so it's interesting that all other seven artists basically outed themselves by participating in the film.

But while the story of the apartment is interesting enough, if not quite mind blowing, it's the other endeavors of the artists that are most interesting in the picture - namely, a unique onsite sculpture involving mannequins that Michael put together under a bridge in Providence prior to the mall apartment and his group's "tape art" that they used to decorate a local hospital and then placed all over New York City in the months after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in an effort to honor the lives of every person who died at the World Trade Center site.

Of course, this art's format is tape, making it ephemeral, and there's some interesting discussion in the film about how Michael views art and how many of his own works are short-lived and only live on in photos. There's also an argument made in the film that the apartment itself was a work of art, and one of the less compelling elements of the documentary involves another artist trying to recreate it some years later. 

A film like "Man on Wire" is, perhaps, a more memorable documentary on what exactly can define art - in that case, a tightrope artist walking between the World Trade Center towers in the 1970s - than "Secret Mall Apartment." Perhaps, it's because the stakes are lower in this film. Regardless, it's a mostly interesting documentary about a region-specific art movement that you've probably never heard of, but will likely find compelling nevertheless.

Review: Another Simple Favor

Image courtesy of Amazon.

Paul Feig's "Another Simple Favor," a sequel to the quasi-popular 2018 film "A Simple Favor," is one of those sequels where it appeared that the entire cast wanted to vacation in a gorgeous spot, so they built an entire film around it, kind of like Adam Sandler has been doing in recent years.

Against all odds, the film brings the two lead characters from the original back together again and introduces a slew of new ones - there are Italian mobsters, FBI agents, book agents, twins, creepy aunties whom we didn't know existed, and various others - and plops them all down on the gorgeous Italian island of Capri.

As the film opens, the once-mousy Stephanie Smothers (Anna Kendrick), who is now an author, albeit not quite a best-selling one, and true crime online influencer (is this a thing?), is promoting the book about her experiences with murderess Emily (Blake Lively) when the latter pops up at a book signing and basically threatens to sue Stephanie if she doesn't attend her wedding in Capri. The explanation for why she's no longer in prison for murdering her father and sister is flimsy at best.

Suddenly, Stephanie is in Capri with a book agent (Alex Newell), a character who does not need to exist for the purposes of this movie, and Emily, but also Sean (Henry Golding), the sort-of ex of each of them, as well as Dante (Michele Morrone), the beefy scion of an Italian mob family that is at war with another family that, for whatever reason, will be attending the wedding.

Elizabeth Perkins pops up as Emily's mother, while Allison Janney is a mysterious aunt whose behavior gets stranger by the moment. There's also a bumbling FBI agent (Taylor Ortega) who is following Stephanie around and Portia (Elena Sofia Ricci), Dante's unfriendly and seemingly sociopathic mother. There's also another character who becomes integral late in the film whom I can't discuss without giving away spoilers.

Needless to say, Stephanie is skeptical as to why Emily wants her there, and isn't comforted much when Emily regales her with a tale of a god who brought people to the island to entertain him and, when they didn't, threw them off the cliff.

Shortly after everyone's arrival, a murder occurs - and then another. There's a lot going on in this film - some of it amusing, some of it not so much - and the picture often feels like it's juggling numerous plot lines, styles, and genres. Sometimes it's funny, while at other times it plays up the murder-mystery element Occasionally, a character might be charming or funny, only to be later revealed as a lunatic.

"Another Simple Favor" has its moments - the tete a tetes between Stephanie and Emily are occasionally amusing - and there are some scenes I could have done without, especially a sequence involving the usage of a truth serum. The original 2018 film was one that didn't really need a sequel, yet the finale of this one hints at more to come. 

This is a film that could be described as busy. Juggling multiple storylines can lead to success if each of the plot lines are intriguing. Some of the ones in "Another Simple Favor" are amusing enough, but others fizzle out, resulting in a sequel that's only intermittently successful and, more often than not, running on fumes.