ANACONDA (2025)

In the comedy Be Kind: Rewind, Jack Black and his sidekick make homemade movies to replace real ones, which is exactly what happens here, only in this case, the two comic actors are usually the comic leads: so each one is each other's equal sidekick, basically... or something...

While Jack does his usual thing, including singing beautifully as if he's making fun of beautiful singing because it's a surprise he sings so beautifully in the first place, Paul Rudd is basically playing Paul Rudd, only he looks older than usual, painted with a strange spray tan... perhaps intentional... And when they were kids they made Super 8 horror movies (trope city), and for nostalgia they go to the Amazon to film a remake of the cult classic Anaconda since Rudd, as a loser D-rate extra-actor, acquires the rights to the 1990's film, which makes no sense... What results is a semi-meta slog where one minute the group (including two ladies, of course, including young and hot Daniela Melchior) are trying to stay out of actual trouble (the usual THREE AMIGOS "this is real" device that most people credit to TROPIC THUNDER), and the next they're acting in their movie-within-a-movie that, who knows, might have turned out more interesting had the actual movie been their own fake movie... As in, it could have been worse, more fun to bag on, which this otherwise mediocre sendup of a sendup needs to be... To be anything at all, that is, if so-bad-it's-good movies like Anaconda are what they were really after anti-celebrating. Or something.

SPIDER-NOIR (2026)

For the last decade, Nicolas Cage has been in a never-ending cycle of "almost comeback" status: Every single movie that comes out are said to be game-changing roles... Here's another; following the original voice-over for the surprise Spiderverse hit that featured Spider-Noir as a side-character, now he's the Live-Action focal-point: A full-blown attempt to combine the old 1940's gumshoe device into modern times: and frankly, it doesn't always work... While always a cool cat on screen, Cage is too old now, and his voice, his narration needed for the typical pulpy cadence, is faltering and not edgy like it should be... Had this been 2010 Cage, it might work...

The special effects, like a villain with a face lighting on fire, is not only too CGI, but takes away from what's attempting a more hands-on/old-school approach... Within such an otherwise antique forum, the expensive special effects simply stand out too much... And the overall timing is mostly off (and fans of Spider-Man in general would not last 10 minutes watching those classic movies, or anything made before the 1990's, and they probably think that Christopher Nolan invented Noir): Cage's Girl Friday secretary over-acts and seems part of a sit-com; the femme-fatales are too breathy and hissy and cornball... And the several culprits (like the usual crooked politician) are too modernized to seem like the Golden Age of Hollywood story-telling that Spider-Noir sometimes tries too hard to replicate, while seeming awkwardly burdened from bringing something old to something new... Overall, despite the nice look and some neat thrills, the time period that should enhance the series is ultimately more of a story-structure bulwark. Basically, Spider-Noir worked best as the best character in an ensemble than when given his own picture. Episode 1 Rating: **

RISE OF THE RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS: OUR BROTHER, HILLEL

Hillel Slovak and Cliff Martinez in TOUGH GUYS Documentary Date 2916 Rating: ****

At the end of THE RISE OF THE RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS: OUR BROTHER, HILLEL, both lead singer Anthony Keidis and bassist Flea say that people won't forget original lead guitarist and co-founder Hillel Slovak... 

Which would actually be impossible, because no matter what era of the band you listen to, his colorful punk/funk strumming fervor sustained with initial replacement Jack Sherman and eventual semi-permanent replacement John Frusciante, who's 11th hour praise of the late guitarist is one of the most beautiful interviews in any rock doc, punctuating how much of an influence the late funky player was... he set the pattern of the band's sound forever...

Hillel Slovak and the Red Hot Chili Peppers in TOUGH GUYS

And yet, beginning in a kind of old school prog-rock band, we never really learn how Slovak went from that 1970's chunky power-chord rock sound to the new wave techno sound of his in-between band What Is This to the funk-filled discovery of what glued the band together... 

That's most likely because he had passed away after their third album (HIS second with the band), and what's left are sporadic diary entries and a few words from his former girlfriend (a widow of sorts) and a lookalike brother... But mostly this doc centers on both Kiedis and Flea about how the band formed, and it all began with seeing Slovak playing in that band in high school... before either were musicians, or even wanted to be...

Hillel Slovak and the Red Hot Chili Peppers in TOUGH GUYS

Then kind of wisping through the beginning stages of the band's formation that included hanging out and getting stoned... which inevitably leads to a few rushed recollections of drug abuse by band members... Which isn't bad since things don't drag or get too wordy or preachy or melodramatic... nor does the doc rely on that kind of new author-intrusive device of the interviewees pretending to be shocked about something revealed by the interviewer...

The only genuine perspective comes from the two survivors of a band that blew up after a decade of LA nightclub punk-rock beginnings shown in a collage of interesting artwork and just enough music for what's both a tribute and testament.

Hillel Slovak and the Red Hot Chili Peppers in TOUGH GUYS

Hillel Slovak and the Red Hot Chili Peppers in TOUGH GUYS with Flea and Anthony Kiedes

Hillel Slovak and the Red Hot Chili Peppers in TOUGH GUYS with Flea and Anthony Kiedes

Hillel Slovak and the Red Hot Chili Peppers in TOUGH GUYS with Flea and Anthony Kiedes

Hillel Slovak and the Red Hot Chili Peppers in TOUGH GUYS

Hillel Slovak and the Red Hot Chili Peppers in TOUGH GUYS

 

HARLEM NIGHTS (1989)

According to the trivia for Eddie Murphy's time-period gangster flick HARLEM NIGHTS, the humor on set between himself, Richard Pryor, Redd Foxx and Della Reese were funnier than anything in the movie... That's more than trivia, it's an outright admission that NIGHTS suffers from being too complicated a plot for these comic actors to be able to pull off their characters while at the same time, being funny...

In BEVERLY HILLS COP, the fact that Eddie Murphy's best friend was murdered meant nothing during scenes when he would, for example, argue with a hotel manager about getting a room, or argue even harder with employees at a warehouse about why he's snooping around... There aren't many pockets within the rather cliche old-school gangster flick involving gangsters and crooked cops wanting to move in on the main characters (THE GODFATHER ring a bell?) for comedy geniuses like Pryor, Murphy or Foxx to do their thing... Being constantly stuck within the story, HARLEM NIGHTS is as claustrophobic to the audience as it was to the actors... a shame since there are some worthwhile moments and potential to be had... But Murphy was obviously over his head, mainly as director... His timing was off in both the performance and cadence/timing of the overall picture... So John Landis would have been a far better choice to put everyone else's pressure off Murphy so he can shine: see COMING TO AMERICA, another Eddie Murphy production, for all the proof you'll need...Or watch Ted Demme's LIFE, set during the same era only taking place in prison, and with a dream sequence involving a similar nightclub and you'll see that Murphy's juggling too many plates to serve-up a satisfying main course. Rates: **1/2

THE HUNTING WIVES (2025)

The Stepford Wives meets Twin Peaks meets The L Word  meets Desperate Housewives meets A Simple Plan (and some Gypsy, another Netflix series, thrown in)... About rich Texas Republicans who use every cliche (and red state reference) in the book, which is obviously overly deliberate, and thankfully the characters thaw out of their formidable shells into seeming more human than hackneyed... With a frame story about a gorgeous blonde teenage cheerleader whose death rocks the town, straight from that famous David Lynch series, but THE HUNTING WIVES isn't really ironical or weird, just extremely sexual...

The two main characters are Malin Akerman and Brittany Snow: one's older and hot and confident; the other's shy and mousy-cute, looks 22 when she's 40... Their lesbian romance is so overly hinted at and teased, there's not the necessary tension in their inevitable hooking up... Overall, despite the high-class-suburban conservative setting, things are so sensuously liberal that there's really no shock value in the nighttime soap opera elements... it's like lighting up a fuse that's already sizzling... But these two ladies are good enough in their opposites-attract attraction to keep the pulpy/page-turning (eventually neo-noir inspired) cadence worthwhile. Rating: ***1/2