The Substance, Short Takes on some other cinematic topics

What Lurks Within

Reviews and Comments by Ken Burke

I invite you to join me on a regular basis to see how my responses to current cinematic offerings compare to the critical establishment, which I’ll refer to as either the CCAL (Collective Critics at Large) if they’re supportive or the OCCU (Often Cranky Critics Universe) when they go negative.  However, due to COVID concerns I’m mostly addressing streaming options with limited visits to theaters, where I don’t think I’ve missed much anyway, though better options may be on the horizon.  (Note: Anything in bold blue [some may look near purple] is a link to something more in the review.)

My reviews’ premise: “You can’t please everyone, so you got to please yourself.”

(from "Garden Party" by Rick Nelson and the Stone Canyon Band, 1972 album of the song’s name)

 The Substance (Coralie Fargeat)   rated R   141min.

Here’s the trailer:

       (Use the full screen button in the image’s lower right to enlarge its size; 

       activate the same button or use “esc” keyboard key to return to normal.)

If you can abide plot spoilers read on, but this blog’s intended for those who’ve seen the film or want to save some $ (as well as recognizing those readers like me who just aren’t that tech-savvy).  To help any of you who want to learn more details yet avoid these all-important plot-reveals I’ll identify any give-away sentences/sentence-clusters with colors plus arrows: 

⇒The first and last words will be noted with arrows and red.⇐ OK, now continue on if you prefer.

 (This will be a long plot summary because there’s a “hell” of a lot going on here.)  Former movie star/current TV exercise guru Elisabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore)—which we know about immediately by seeing her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and a scene from her televised workout routine—has just turned 50, finds herself being pushed off of her show by sleazy/ratings-hungry producer Harvey (Dennis Quaid), who wants a younger, sexier presence for the format.  As Elisabeth’s driving away from the studio she becomes distracted by seeing a billboard of herself being torn down, crashes her car, is sent to a hospital for evaluation.  She’s deemed medically-fit but quietly receives a flash drive from a young nurse which is about a process called The Substance which promises a “younger, more beautiful, more perfect” version of her so she acquires it only to find out the required injection doesn’t make her younger but instead results in a younger version of herself emerging from her back, causing her to go unconscious as the nude younger woman (Margaret Qualley) sews up Elisabeth’s gaping back skin, then knows she must inject her older self with a weekly liquid food supply and take out from Elisabeth’s spinal column a daily stabilizer fluid to inject in herself, with the absolute admonition each woman can only be conscious for 7 days before switching back with the other, as a male voice on their phone line to Substance HQ emphasizes these 2 are actually truly 1. 

 The younger woman calls herself Sue, goes to the audition for Elisabeth’s replacement, gets the job with the proviso she needs to be off every other week to care for her sick mother (may not fully be a lie, as Elisabeth—in a near-mythological manner [see Zeus and Athena]—gave “birth” to Sue).  Sexy Sue becomes an overnight sensation, with Elisabeth's downside when Sue wants more than 7 days awake at so she siphons off extra doses of her older self’s stabilizer fluid to inject into herself, giving her more days in control.  When Elisabeth next comes into consciousness she sees 1 finger aged noticeably, so she contacts Substance HQ only to learn there’s no reversal process, she has to accept she and Sue are one with the need for them to work out their problems (how they’re supposed to do this when one of them is comatose isn’t explained).  As time progresses, Elisabeth continues to age, becomes a recluse, sits around her elaborate domain gorging on junk food (in a grotesque scene, this causes Sue to pull a cooked chicken drumstick out of her navel) as the two women come to detest each other, even as Sue is scheduled to host a major New Year’s Eve telecast; Elisabeth's forced to continue the situation because if she stops her body will remain aged, even as Sue continues to abuse the process with those ongoing extra doses of Elisabeth's stabilizer.

 However, 3 months later just before the big event Sue no longer has any more stabilizer to steal.  Substance HQ says she must switch with Elisabeth again in order for the older woman to produce more fluid, but when Elisabeth awakens she finds herself as hideous: near-bald, a hunchback, other deformities.  ⇒She gets a serum intended to terminate Sue, then stops halfway through the injection awakening Sue; they fight, with Sue killing Elisabeth, then she’s off to the TV spectacular even as she begins to deteriorate as well as teeth, fingernails, and a ear fall off.  She rushes back home, desperately uses the original activator in an attempt to produce a better version of herself, but what comes out is even more hideous than older Elisabeth, a grotesque monster (a screen title calls it Monstro Elisasue [just as the previous 2 protagonists—who serve as their own antagonists—had been identified]); if you wish to know more about how it was created, go here) who tears a face photo of Elisabeth from a poster to hide her own face (actual faces of Elisabeth and Sue also protrude from the malformed body), takes the stage in front of a full auditorium, but the mask falls off, the audience is horrified, the creature is attacked which spews blood all over everyone, then it escapes but outside its body explodes, with just Elisabeth’s face and some body goo sliming its way to Elisabeth’s Hollywood star.  Next morning a sidewalk cleaner guy just washes this muck away.⇐

 Recently, I reviewed It's What's Inside, which I discussed as a mad-scientist horror film, not sci-fi, due to the technology being employed to shift a person’s consciousness into another body, with tragic results for all involved.  Likewise, The Substance is often called sci-fi because of the deadly technology involved (with clear warnings about dire consequences if procedures aren’t properly followed), but I’d put it in that same horror category due to the unnatural adjustments to a human body (Frankenstein, anyone?) which take their toll on both Elisabeth and Sue as they reject their supposed-“oneness” with dire consequences for both.  In this video (14:50) Lucas Blue goes into extensive analysis of this film (SPOILERS, of course), augmented by statements from Fargeat and Moore about society’s insidious, misogynistic expectations of women which become so engrained in far too many of our population (especially those in the public eye or who wish that for themselves, even on just a local level) that older women would sacrifice aspects of themselves for cultural recognition just as younger ones would do the same to achieve/maintain such a manufactured fame.

 In part, this challenging film is a quite depressing story because it speaks to truths that shouldn’t need to exist, along with being hard to watch when Monstro emerges, but if you can stomach the disturbing visuals that increase with the various deteriorations I think you’d find The Substance to be a marvelous cinematic achievement with intense acting, powerful visuals (especially closeups on the faces of the women, fisheye-lens exaggerations of Quaid’s disgusting character), and a worthwhile message even if you have to endure surreal circumstances to understand it.  Certainly, the CCAL joins me in highly recommending this disturbing experience, as the Rotten Tomatoes positive reviews are at 90% while the Metacritic average score is a hefty (for them) 78%.*  Need further incentive?  At the 2024 Cannes Film Festival it was nominated for the Palm d’Or top prize, won Best Screenplay for Fargeat.  If you’re interested, you have several options to see it: The Substance still plays in 205 domestic (U.S.-Canada) theaters, down from a high of 1,949, having made about $16 million so far ($48.5 globally); you can buy it for $19.99 from Apple TV+ (this platform’s free for 7 days, then $9.99 monthly if you stay); it’s also free for 7 days on MUBI (again, $9.99 a month if you stay) or there’s a MUBI-Amazon Prime Video combo free for 7 days (it's $10.99 monthly if you stay).

*Which, by my interpretation, brings me in line with these more-acknowledged critics in that my 4 of 5 stars, 80%, essentially matches the current MC score while with RT numbers the question isn’t how good but just is it good or bad so their results are usually higher than the MC reviews' average.  With RT the highest they can go is into the 90s up to the extremely-rare 100%; yet, for me, my normal highest is the aforementioned 4 stars (saving 4½ and 5 stars for truly medium-defining-cinema), so my usual highest I find to be plausibly similar to what RT pushes into their highest level, as an RT 95% simply means one of the best offerings of a given year whereas my 95% (4½ stars) is based on the entire sweep of cinema from the early 20^th century.  So, of 52 releases both I and RT/MC have reviewed this year, by my rationale I’ve agreed with at least 1 of these critic-compilation services for 32 of them with at least 1 match of those 2 sites (where we diverge in these, I’m often higher, although it’s about 50/50 regarding higher or lower when we don’t converge our results at all).

 By now, you may have sensed a similarity between this film and the famous Oscar Wilde novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891)—adapted into a play and a few films including one by Albert Lewin (1945), another by Oliver Parker (2009)—where a handsome, aristocratic young man sells his soul so he’ll stay young while the image on his painted portrait ages over time, but, hidden away, no one sees it—while Dorian lives a life of debauchery—until circumstances lead to tragedy, so there are certainly parallels with, or at least allusions to, Wilde’s narrative and our current film.  Yet, the ultimate focus of Wilde’s book is on the dangers of moral transgressions by anyone whereas The Substance is a harsh critique of how women are marginalized in contemporary media content, brainwashed to actively buy into such dehumanization.  As with my recent review of Woman of the Hour about a serial killer who preyed on females, The Substance isn’t an easy experience to watch, but both are quite well-made (especially the latter) with lessons to be learned that aren’t truly fictional.  To bring all this to closure, here’s my Musical Metaphor, Pink Floyd’s “Time” (1973 The Dark Side of the Moon album) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEGL7j2LN84, not only because of lyrics such as “The sun is the same in a relative way / But you’re older / Shorter of breath / And one day closer to death” but also in this video what you have is an edited compilation of band members David Gilmore and Roger Waters from separate concerts after Waters left in an acrimonious manner so it would seem they’re again one but actually are as separated as Elisabeth and Sue.  Even if you don’t explore this film I hope you’ll enjoy the song which may help with “Ticking away / The moments that make up a dull day” (or an awful election nightmare, as the case may be).

                

SHORT TAKES

                

Related Links Which You Might Find Interesting:   

Some options: (1) Paramount adds 3.5 million streaming subscribers despite TV, movie losses; (2) Sony Pictures profits slip in second quarter; (3) IMDb's November screening calendar; (4) IMDb's 5 Things to Watch on the week of 11/11/2024 (help yourself; I’m not all that interested).

We encourage you to visit the Summary of Two Guys Reviews for our past posts* (scroll to the bottom of this Summary page to see additional info about your wacky critic, Ken Burke, along with contact info and a great retrospective song list).  Overall notations for this blog—including Internet formatting craziness beyond our control—may be found at our Two Guys in the Dark homepage.  If you’d like to Like us on Facebook (yes?) please visit our Facebook page.  We appreciate your support whenever and however you can offer it unto us!  Please also note that to Post a Comment below about our reviews you need to have either a Google account (which you can easily get at https://accounts.google.com/NewAccount if you need to sign up) or other sign-in identification from the pull-down menu below before you preview or post.  You can also leave comments at our Facebook page, although you may have to somehow register with us there in order to comment (FB procedures: frequently perplexing mysteries for us aged farts).

*Please ignore previous warnings about a “dead link” to our Summary page because the problem’s been manually fixed so that all postings since July 11, 2013 now have the proper functioning link.

If you’d rather contact Ken directly rather than leaving a comment here at the blog please 

use my email address of kenburke409@gmail.com—type it directly if the link doesn’t work.

           

OUR POSTINGS PROBABLY LOOK BEST ON THE MOST CURRENT VERSIONS OF MAC OS AND THE SAFARI WEB BROWSER (although Google Chrome usually is decent also); OTHERWISE, BE FOREWARNED THE LAYOUT MAY SEEM MESSY AT TIMES.

           

Finally, for the data-oriented among you, Google stats say over the past month the total unique hits at this site were 3,779—a huge drop-off from the marvelous 40-50K of some recent months; never overestimate yourself! (As always, we thank all of you for your ongoing support with our hopes you’ll continue to be regular readers.)  Below is a snapshot of where those responses have come from within the previous week (with appreciation for the unspecified “Others” also visiting Two Guys’ site):

Brothers plus Short Takes on some other cinematic topics

Brotherly Love … Sort Of

Reviews and Comments by Ken Burke

I invite you to join me on a regular basis to see how my responses to current cinematic offerings compare to the critical establishment, which I’ll refer to as either the CCAL (Collective Critics at Large) if they’re supportive or the OCCU (Often Cranky Critics Universe) when they go negative.  However, due to COVID concerns I’m mostly addressing streaming options with limited visits to theaters, where I don’t think I’ve missed much anyway, though better options may be on the horizon.  (Note: Anything in bold blue [some may look near purple] is a link to something more in the review.)

My reviews’ premise: “You can’t please everyone, so you got to please yourself.”

(from "Garden Party" by Rick Nelson and the Stone Canyon Band, 1972 album of the song’s name)

11/6/2024 In Memoriam: Farewell to what I’ve for (too) long thought were the enduring, decent values of the U.S.A.; I’ll also mourn the loss of sanity in many of the deluded American electorate.  Oh well, back to the irrelevant issues this blog was intended to address, beginning with a silly movie.

             Brothers (Max Barbakow)   rated R   90 min.

Here’s the trailer:

        (Use the full screen button in the image’s lower right to enlarge its size; 

        activate the same button or use “esc” keyboard key to return to normal.)

If you can abide plot spoilers read on, but this blog’s intended for those who’ve seen the film or want to save some $ (as well as recognizing those readers like me who just aren’t that tech-savvy).  To help any of you who want to learn more details yet avoid these all-important plot-reveals I’ll identify any give-away sentences/sentence-clusters with colors plus arrows: 

⇒The first and last words will be noted with arrows and red.⇐ OK, now continue on if you prefer.

 Fraternal—but vastly different—twins, Moke (Josh Brolin) and Jady (Peter Dinklage) Munger—not their actual given names, but these mistaken pronunciations from their early-childhood days seem to have stuck—come from a line of criminals, including their mother, Cath Munger (Jennifer London), who drove away with her lover, Glenn (Joshua Mikel), 30 years ago, seemingly disappearing from their lives forever.  I forget how these getaways had possession of some stolen emeralds, but those gems set the rest of this plot in motion as Glenn swallowed them as the pursuing cops closed in although Cath managed to elude them even as Glenn suddenly died.  She dumped his body into a sort of freshly-dug grave in a field (?), hid herself, mostly in Mexico, for decades.  Meanwhile, the brothers were in the midst of a heist when other cops almost caught them, yet Moke escaped as Jady was sent off to prison.  However, he got out early due to a plot by corrupt guard Jimmy Farful (Brendan Fraser) and his even-more-corrupt Dad, Judge Farful (M. Emmet Walsh in what seems to be the final role prior to his passing earlier this year) to retrieve the emeralds, sets it up so Moke can’t get hired at a fast-food franchise (due to his past convictions) so the brothers team up again for one last job, despite Moke trying to go straight, especially with a wife, Abby Munger-Jacobson (Taylour Paige), and baby.  Then things get more complicated when Moke finds Mom’s been writing letters to Jady in prison so the guys end up meeting with her, despite Moke’s anger at both of them.

 Nevertheless, after some bottomless margaritas in a karaoke bar they reconcile, head off to get the emeralds as Cath (now played by Glenn Close) knows the location’s now a golf course.  On the way, though, Jady wants to visit a woman who also corresponded with him, Bethesda Waingro (Marisa Tomei)—shares her home with Samuel, a cigarette-smoking orangutan—resulting in a stolen I.D. badge from her allowing them to get access to heavy equipment needed to dig up Glenn’s long-decomposed-body.  Moke finally gets up the gumption to reach into the gut cavity to retrieve the emeralds, followed by a chase from some golfers angry about their torn-up fairway, then Mom absconds with the jewels, takes them to a fence for a $4 million payout.  Eventually, her boys catch up with her, lawmen (including Jimmy) chase all of them to an empty mall, she volunteers to give herself up so the sons can get away.  ⇒Moke takes half of the cash to the judge (Jimmy died in a burning Xmas tree in the mall—don’t ask) in exchange for a gun with Jady’s prints on it, a clear parole violation, but then finds Jady gave the other half away setting up a trust fund for Moke’s baby.  As this all wraps up, the boys and Abby visit Cath in prison, then as they’re leaving we learn (as best I recall it; I try to treat these streamers like in theaters with no rewind to verify anything) there were a few other stones that had been secretly swallowed by Cath, then passed on to Jady.⇐ Admittedly, there’s a lot of intentional silliness in this movie, but it’s entertaining to watch with all of the big-named-stars holding up their end of the bargain quite well, along with other actors in solid support.

 So, here I am again with something for you that’s been panned by the OCCU, with the Rotten Tomatoes positive reviews at 41%, the Metacritic average score at a surprisingly-higher 50%; however, that’s based on only 22 responses from the former, a mere 10 for the latter, and while that may be enough votes to determine the U.S. Presidency in a purple battleground state it’s not a very big sample for assessing the quality of a movie,  so I say you can trust me as much as you might trust these other critics.  (Really, how often have I been wrong?  Oh, well if you’re going to go by “fake media” facts, then anything might be possible!)  I mainly watched it due to a vote by my viewing companions (beating out a long-overdue re-screening of All the President’s Men [Alan J. Pakula, 1976—which, along with Network {Sidney Lumet, 1976}, would have led to tough choices from me for that year’s Best Picture Oscar, with either being better than the actual winner, the not-bad-but-not-superior Rocky {John G. Avildsen, 1976}], which my wife, Nina, and I did watch last Saturday as a reminder justice can come to Presidential abuses so we’d be sure to have something to feel good about as the reality of Election Day 2024 came upon us).  I had no problems with the choice, though, given my curiosity to see what kind of vehicle these top performers had entered into, with a decent sense of satisfaction about what transpired.  Nevertheless, you might be thinking “Haven’t I seen this movie before?,” a reasonable thought given the prior existence of Twins (Ivan Reitman, 1988) also about fraternal twin siblings, one (Arnold Schwarzenegger) noticeably bigger than the other (Danny DeVito), $4 million worth of stolen stuff, and the sons' mother missing from their lives for years.  Otherwise, there are a lot of differences between these 2 movies, but I have to wonder how much—if any—inspiration the older one might have provided for storywriter Etan Cohen (not to be confused with another notable brother, Ethan Coen, even though Brothers in many ways does resemble some of the kind of tales the Coens have long been associated with) and screenplay author Macon Blair.

 As to how Brothers compares with Twins I’ll have to plead “no contest” because it’s been far too long since I’ve seen the latter, but it did make lots of cash ($216 million, a huge amount that long ago) for all concerned even though it too was castigated by the OCCU (RT 42%, MC 50%). Sorry, but I can’t offer you the option for a comparison because while Brothers is free to Amazon Prime Video subscribers (or you can get 30 days free, $8.99 monthly after that if you like) Twins doesn’t seem to be available for streaming, even as I vaguely remember enjoying it.  What I’m even more vague about, though, is a reasonable choice for my usual review-ending-tactic of a Musical Metaphor which hasn’t connected for me yet (suggestions in the Comments box very far below are always welcome, even if a better choice needs to be an after-the-fact edit in this posting), so I’ll just go with Roy Orbison’s “Blue Bayou” (on his 1963 In Dreams album) at https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=HiMl4yX1JiA, which basically has nothing to do with the events of Brothers, but the filmmakers used a bit of it in their soundtrack toward the end (maybe referencing Moke, Jady, and Mom Munger’s dreams of better days in the future … maybe) so if they can incorporate it so can I; plus, for me, it’s never a waste to hear Roy’s gorgeous voice again (yeah, I know, Linda Ronstadt had an even bigger hit with it, but I’m going with Roy here) in marvelous memory of seeing him live once, in Houston about 1965.  If you ever “feel so bad,” you’re “so lonesome all the time,” I hope you can someday be “Looking forward to happier times” when “dreams come true” wherever you may be.

          

SHORT TAKES

               

Related Links Which You Might Find Interesting:   

Some options for your consideration: (1) What's new on Netflix in November 2024; (2) What's new on Amazon Prime Video in November 2024; (3) What's new on Hulu in November 2024; (4) What's new on Disney+ in November 2024; (5) What's new on Max in November 2024; (6) IMDb Staff Picks for November 2024 in theaters and streaming; (7) 24 movies new to steaming in November 2024; and (8) IMDb's 5 Things to Watch in the week of 11/04/2024. 

We encourage you to visit the Summary of Two Guys Reviews for our past posts* (scroll to the bottom of this Summary page to see additional info about your wacky critic, Ken Burke, along with contact info and a great retrospective song list).  Overall notations for this blog—including Internet formatting craziness beyond our control—may be found at our Two Guys in the Dark homepage.  If you’d like to Like us on Facebook (yes?) please visit our Facebook page.  We appreciate your support whenever and however you can offer it unto us!  Please also note that to Post a Comment below about our reviews you need to have either a Google account (which you can easily get at https://accounts.google.com/NewAccount if you need to sign up) or other sign-in identification from the pull-down menu below before you preview or post.  You can also leave comments at our Facebook page, although you may have to somehow register with us there in order to comment (FB procedures: frequently perplexing mysteries for us aged farts).

*Please ignore previous warnings about a “dead link” to our Summary page because the problem’s been manually fixed so that all postings since July 11, 2013 now have the proper functioning link.

If you’d rather contact Ken directly rather than leaving a comment here at the blog please 

use my email address of kenburke409@gmail.com—type it directly if the link doesn’t work.

               

OUR POSTINGS PROBABLY LOOK BEST ON THE MOST CURRENT VERSIONS OF MAC OS AND THE SAFARI WEB BROWSER (although Google Chrome usually is decent also); OTHERWISE, BE FOREWARNED THE LAYOUT MAY SEEM MESSY AT TIMES.

               

Finally, for the data-oriented among you, Google stats say over the past month the total unique hits at this site were 3,881—a huge drop-off from the marvelous 40-50K of some recent months; never overestimate yourself! (As always, we thank all of you for your ongoing support with our hopes you’ll continue to be regular readers.)  Below is a snapshot of where those responses have come from within the previous week (with appreciation for the unspecified “Others” also visiting Two Guys’ site):

The Estate plus Short Takes on some other cinematic topics

And You Think Your Family’s Dysfunctional?

Reviews and Comments by Ken Burke

I invite you to join me on a regular basis to see how my responses to current cinematic offerings compare to the critical establishment, which I’ll refer to as either the CCAL (Collective Critics at Large) if they’re supportive or the OCCU (Often Cranky Critics Universe) when they go negative.  However, due to COVID concerns I’m mostly addressing streaming options with limited visits to theaters, where I don’t think I’ve missed much anyway, though better options may be on the horizon.  (Note: Anything in bold blue [some may look near purple] is a link to something more in the review.)

My reviews’ premise: “You can’t please everyone, so you got to please yourself.”

(from "Garden Party" by Rick Nelson and the Stone Canyon Band, 1972 album of the song’s name)

😱 HAPPY HALLOWEEN! 😱

(Yes, today's just the eve of All Hallows' Eve, but post I must.  Although the real horror show comes next week with the U.S. Presidential election—and associated control of Congress—as roughly half the country will be in mourning, no matter who wins.  I’ll see then if I feel like saying anything more.)

      The Estate (Dean Craig, 2022)   rated R   96 min.

Here’s the trailer:

        (Use the full screen button in the image’s lower right to enlarge its size; 

        activate the same button or use “esc” keyboard key to return to normal.)

If you can abide plot spoilers read on, but this blog’s intended for those who’ve seen the film or want to save some $ (as well as recognizing those readers like me who just aren’t that tech-savvy).  To help any of you who want to learn more details yet avoid these all-important plot-reveals I’ll identify any give-away sentences/sentence-clusters with colors plus arrows: 

⇒The first and last words will be noted with arrows and red.⇐ OK, now continue on if you prefer.

 It’s normally my policy to only review releases from the current year (unless I’m dipping into the past for something truly special), so it’s time once again for an attempted justification of using something in this posting that was shot and sent to limited theaters in 2022, then released on DVD in 2023.  My flimsy rationale is that The Estate has just now come to streaming—free to Netflix subscribers, $3.99 rental on Apple TV+—so that marginally makes it a sort-of-2024 release, especially because it was the one chosen by my viewing companions last Friday over a couple of other less-intriguing choices, even though the OCCU has little good to say about it, with the  Rotten Tomatoes positive reviews at a miserable 32% even as the usually-lower Metacritic reviewers are a bit (but not impressively) better with a 37% average score.  Nevertheless, we all enjoyed it quite a bit, certainly much better than these “noted” critics, so I don’t hesitate in recommending it to you as long as you’re OK with a small cluster of cousins trying to kiss up to their grouchy Aunt Hilda (Kathleen Turner—not that you’d recognize her if you haven’t seen much of her since her seductive turn in the magnificent Body Heat [Lawrence Kasdan, 1981]) who’s dying of cancer.  Plus, I might as well get this out (so to speak) with another possible turn-off, which I decided not to bury in the Spoiler alert, the sight of an old man’s actual penis poking out of his pants (in a flaccid condition, as he’s almost passed out from too much booze, certainly one of the reasons for the R rating, although had it been erect surely we’d find this movie as an NC-17, to “protect the children” of course).  Want to continue?

 So, if you’re still with me, here’s a brief rundown on what you’d see in The Estate.  Close-to-destitute sisters in New Orleans, Macey (Toni Collette) and Savannah (Anna Faris), are about to lose the rundown bar left to them by their late father (who’s buried across the street) due to an eminent-domain move by the city (further, twice-divorced Macey has a boyfriend, Geoff [Gichi Gamba], but he’s about to be sent by his job to Alaska, a move he can’t afford to reject given his obligations of alimony and a daughter in college) when they decide to try to make nice with dying Aunt Hilda who doesn’t care for them or their mother, Diane (Patricia French).  However, when they get to her grand home they find their cousins, Beatrice (Rosemarie DeWitt), with husband James (Ron Livingston), and Richard (David Duchovny)—“Call me Dick”—are already there with the same intentions, although these others are not only already more in Hilda’s good graces but they also have given her some presents she appreciates so Macey and Savannah fear they’re to be left out of the will entirely.

 As Hilda’s looking through a photo scrapbook that (seemingly-devoted-but-truly-smarmy—she’s not really much appreciative of James either) Beatrice put together, Hilda reminisces about a guy she drooled over in high school, Bill (Danny Vinson), so Macey and Savannah use the Internet to find Bill’s actually close by, leading them to visit him in hopes of connecting him with Hilda for some senior shenanigans, upping their status in the will.  The only snag is that he’s living in a halfway-house for sex offenders as he’s had a tendency to expose himself when he’s drunk so he’s sworn off both behaviors in his old age.  The sisters bring him to meet with Hilda (she’s delighted), so Beatrice schemes to find some way to make him disgusting (he’s been honest with Hilda about his past, but she’s forgiving as long as he maintains his vows).  Beatrice and Dick (James leaves, finally disgusted with his wife’s actions) agree to trick Hilda into signing a new will that will share her wealth equally as long as the sisters help in setting Bill up for a fall, getting him drunk, then put in the company of their other sister, Ellen (Keyla Monterroso Mejia), so he’ll unzip, which Ellen agrees to as long as her siblings will finally play a round of her passionate Dungeons and Dragons game with her.

 ⇒It all goes as planned except Bill gets too drunk, can’t respond much to Ellen so Macey gets the task of pulling out his penis, is about to help stiffen it up when Hilda comes out on her balcony, screams at Bill, sends him away.  Hilda soon goes away as well, with the probate reading of her holdings showing $17 million; however, debts reduce it to a mere $38.17 so all of the cousins’ efforts have been in vain.  Macey does get possession of a dog painting, though, which, in the final scene, is about to be trashed until a paper falls out of the back showing it’s been appraised at $4 million, leaving the sisters (and Mom) in comfort after all.⇐  No, none of these folks are likable (although Macey does have her decent moments while James comes off as a stooge for Beatrice but finally stirs up some gumption; Bill’s actually trying to better himself until he sees the financial windfall he’ll get if he goes along with Hilda’s impetuous desire to immediately marry him), so you’re easily excused if you find the humor only in their competing wickedness—or am I just trying another rationalization, that of experiencing pleasure while dismissing the motives of these scoundrels.  If nothing else, I can honestly say the acting’s marvelous, especially by Collette, Faris, Duchovny, and Turner with the rest of the cast meshing nicely.  Yet, what’s so damn bad in the eyes of the OCCU?

 One answer to that comes from Katie Walsh in the Los Angeles Times (admittedly, written in 2022): “Watching ‘The Estate’ feels like being gaslit as we attempt to understand the purpose of anyone’s actions, or find any humor in these morbidly bleak antics, when there is simply nothing there. It’s not funny, it’s not satirical, and it’s not worth your time, or Toni Collette’s. Hopefully it was a nice trip to New Orleans.”  But I’m not totally alone here, as evidenced by Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian (his 3 of 5 stars parallels my rating), who responded in 2023: “This is a very silly and fantastically crass film, and there is something magnificent and horrible in the scene when the old flame’s penis does indeed make an appearance outside his trousers; despite or because of these things it is often funny. Added to which, the very impressive cast give it everything they’ve got; nothing with Collette in it can be bad.”  See it or not, a choice I'll leave for you.  I'll move on to my standard trope of closing out a review with a Musical Metaphor: I’m going a bit sideways again with the song “Me and My Uncle”—which has nothing directly to do with the events of The Estate, but I think the closing sentiment of these lyrics does speak directly to the nature of the family being explored in this movie, although I’ll have to leave that sentiment to be discovered directly by you when listening to it because I wouldn’t want to spoil that ending.  The song was written in 1963 by John Phillips (of the soon-to-be-famous group, the Mamas & the Papas) was recorded by many, became a standard concert tune of the Grateful Dead so I’ll use their 1981 performance at https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=Rt-vdU781as in tribute to their recently-deceased former bassist Phil Lesh; however, the lyrics are a bit muffled in this video so, for clarity, here’s Phillips' version, and, if you want to find it on an album seemingly the earliest appearance was here, on The Judy Collins Concert (1964).*

*In the 1960s I wasn’t aware of any recording of this song, yet I did hear it as an undergrad at the U. of Texas at Austin in my role as one of the managers (and occasional performer) of The Basement coffee house (located, naturally, in the basement of the U.T. Catholic Student Center) where one of our regular singers was a fellow undergrad, Jim Ritchie.  I don’t know who he got it from, but it was impactful when he sang it, the ending coming as a surprise to new audience members, an irony to those of us who’d hear it before.  I don’t directly know much of Jim after roughly 1970 (although this site is about him in 2020, but you have to subscribe, as I did, if you want to read it), except I know his song, “Tennessee Bottle,” was recorded by Kenny Rogers (1978 album The Gambler, which went 5x platinum), though through a legal complication Jim got his scant songwriter royalties from it.

         

SHORT TAKES

              

 Here’s another of my non-cinematic inclusions in the SHORT TAKES section, this one about my marginal connection to a couple of major athletes.  Considering I’ve never been athletic at all (my best “accomplishments” have been to barely break 100 in golf, barely get over 100 in bowling), my tie-ins to these guys would have to do with similar injuries, where I can truly relate.  Last Saturday in the second 2024 World Series game (LA Dodgers went up 2-0 games over the NY Yankees that night [won the Series tonight, 4 games to 1]) superstar Shohei Ohtani—the likely National League 2024 MVP—partially dislocated his left shoulder attempting to steal second base (he stole 59 of them during the regular season) when he did the same thing I did some years ago, slammed his left wrist on the ground pushing his arm bones up a bit out of the socket (I had a complete dislocation, requiring the painful pulling of the arm back into place, but my injury came as an accident as I was gawking at some architecture, didn’t see a bump in the sidewalk I banged into, fell down; big ouch!!).

 A difference between us, though, is that 2 days later he’s back in the lineup for game 3 (did nothing spectacular, though) while I had to wear a sling for awhile, take pain killers, go through extensive physical therapy.  Somewhat similarly, I can also empathize with basketball’s Golden State Warrior Stephen Curry (2-time NBA MVP, 2024 Olympics gold medalist) who sprained his ankle in a game on Sunday night, just as I did years ago (prior to my shoulder splat), although mine was from over-imbibing at a party, taking a tumble while walking outside; I’m a bit more like Curry than Ohtani, nevertheless, in that he’s going to miss a few games while I also limped around for awhile, had to wear a sneaker on that foot rather than my usual boot, did a lot of Epson Salts soakings, but when I was back to normal I probably still couldn’t have run the length of a basketball court while keeping up a dribble even if I were the only one there.  Still, it’s nice to know I’ve been able to share something with these 2 monumental men; now, if I could only get even a fraction of their multi-millions salaries!

Related Links Which You Might Find Interesting: 

Some options: (1) Recent theatrical releases you can stream or rent (I'll pass on most of these, seen a few); (2) 5 body horror movies; (3) Directors with the most Oscar wins; (4) IMDb's 5 Things to Watch on the week of 10/28/2024 (see any of them if you like; I’ll pass on all 5).

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