Sicko Movie Mode: Five F**ked-Up Features to Close Out the Summer

'Blink Twice'Zoe Kravitz's directorial debut

Blink Twice 2024

The weekend's biggest earner at $7.3 million, which isn't saying much. Kravitz co-wrote it with E.T. Feigenbaum; Naomi Ackie is the cocktail waitress swept off to a tech billionaire's (Channing Tatum) private island, with Christian Slater, Simon Rex, Adria Arjona, Haley Joel Osment, Kyle MacLachlan, Geena Davis, and Alia Shawkat filling out the guest list. Sean's verdict: right ingredients, wrong recipe. A tightly edited debut that leans on technique to hide a thin, obvious Epstein-island metaphor. The two-elixir twist (a memory-wiping perfume, a snake-venom antidote) lands somewhere between Get Out and Promising Young Woman, and its takeaway seems to be that the only answer to power is to seize it.

'Cuckoo'Tilman Singer's Euro-horror

Cuckoo 2024

Hunter Schafer's first starring role, opposite a gleefully strange German-accented Dan Stevens and Jessica Henwick. A teenager shipped to her father's Bavarian Alpine resort, where guests vomit in the lobby and a pulsating-throat screech warps time. Sean places it in the Dario Argento / Zulawski / Wicker Man tradition where dread outranks plot; Amanda checked out the moment the movie started explaining birds. He wanted to love it and mostly admired the craft; she questioned whether anyone from Euphoria can act or is just coasting on vibes.

'The Crow'Rupert Sanders's remake

The Crow 2024

A remake of the 1994 Brandon Lee cult film, aiming to be truer to James O'Barr's graphic novel. Bill Skarsgård and FKA Twigs star, with Danny Huston signposting the villain on arrival. Eric Draven was once circled by Bradley Cooper, Luke Evans, Jack Huston, and Jason Momoa. Sean thought the script was bad and the movie poor: a telegraphed back-from-the-dead revenge story built on a villain whose whisper-them-to-suicide power is never made cinematic, capped by a self-parodic opera-house shootout. Amanda skipped it; almost no one saw it.

'Borderlands'the summer's likely biggest bomb

Borderlands 2024

The video-game adaptation with Cate Blanchett, Kevin Hart, Jack Black, Edgar Ramírez, and Jamie Lee Curtis. Started as a Craig Mazin script (credited to the pseudonymous 'Joe Crombie') and an Eli Roth movie; when the studio balked, Tim Miller came in to salvage the footage. What shipped is a bland fourth-wave Guardians of the Galaxy knockoff (87 minutes, $100M, no personality) that plays like the fake movie inside a real one. Sean pegs it as the year's biggest bomb; Amanda's Blanchett fan account still had a fine time with the press run.

'Strange Darling'JT Mollner's cat-and-mouse thriller

Strange Darling 2024

A serial-killer thriller told out of order, shot on 35mm by Giovanni Ribisi, with Willa Fitzgerald and Kyle Gallner opposite Barbara Hershey and Ed Begley Jr. Jason Patric narrates the setup. Sean loved the surprise going in cold; Amanda, having rewatched Gone Girl the night before, saw the reveal coming: the movie sets you up to think the man is the killer and it's the woman. She was irritated by the loud, over-announced style before deciding it was so intentional she admired it. A well-made stunt, effective at wrong-footing you, with not much underneath beyond 'women can do it too.'

In conversationSean with writer-director JT Mollner (an earthquake hits mid-interview)

JT Mollner on

Strange Darling 2024

Mollner (heir to a Las Vegas haunted-house company) wrote it in 2021 from a single image: a woman in hospital scrubs running through the woods in slow motion to 'Love Hurts.' The nonlinear chapters weren't shuffled after the fact; the story came to him that way. An 85-page exercise in Mamet-style minimalism, financed by Miramax three minutes into his pitch after Roy Lee and Steven Schneider's Spooky Pictures came aboard. Cast Fitzgerald off unreleased dailies his editor showed him; neither lead was a first pick.

JT Mollner on

Outlaws and Angels 2016

His prior feature, a divisive Sundance 2016 revenge/exploitation film that opened doors but that some actors watch and never call him again.

JT Mollner on

Love Lies Bleeding 2024

His last-great-thing pick and favorite film of the year so far: Rose Glass so in his own head he was jealous he didn't make it. He offers it as a double-feature partner for Strange Darling.

Also mentioned raised along the way

In the news MegalopolisGone GirlSupersonicApocalypse NowThe GodfatherBram Stoker's DraculaLost HighwayJack

Around the house MoanaMoana 2FrozenThe Princess and the Frog

Touchstones Get OutPromising Young WomanHit ManA Cure for WellnessLuzPossessionThe Wicker ManThe WatchersSnow White and the HuntsmanFly Away HomeLonglegsThe Silence of the LambsMidsommarBarbarianThe HoldoversTárWhitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody

The August dump It Ends with UsAlien: RomulusKneecapBetween the TemplesDeadpool & Wolverine

On Cate Blanchett's slate Black Bag

In the JT Mollner interview The Long WalkAlien: RomulusGoodfellasGone with the WindThe Wizard of OzThe Other Side of MidnightHanover StreetThe ServantQuadropheniaHalloweenDinner in AmericaThe Goldfinch

Not films filtered out: TV, games, ads

TV EuphoriaReacherThe Last of UsChernobylDisclaimerVeronica Mars

Podcasts Break Stuff: The Story of Woodstock 99The Hollywood HackTable MannersJMO

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