Hold Your Breath, Short Takes on other cinematic topics

“Remember, man, that you are dust

and to dust you will return.”

(Incantation spoken by a Roman Catholic priest on Palm Sunday [week before Easter Sunday] 

taken from Jewish/Christian Torah/Old Testament Book of Genesis 3:19 when applying ashes 

[from blessed and burned palm fronds] in the form of a cross on the forehead of on a parishioner,

in reference to Adam’s Original Sin, decreeing a life of suffering and death for him and Eve

as God banished them [and descendants] from the Garden of Eden for disobeying a command.)

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)

9/25/2024—As the Northern Hemisphere’s transitioned into autumn I’ll need to note to all present and future readers of Film Reviews from Two Guys in the Dark that my wife, Nina, and I have transitioned into our mid-70s which puts us in the autumn of our years too (winter’s a long way off we’re convinced), which means it’s now taking us longer to get do our daily tasks so some changes are now necessary; for me that means putting more time into meals—shopping/preparation—as time management requires me to cut down on the weekly hours I’ve been devoting to this blog.  There will still be postings on a weekly basis (most of the time), but the reviews will need to be considerably shorter, maybe with fewer Musical Metaphors if trying to figure out what to use becomes too much of a challenge.  I’ll focus on successfully getting to the point in what I write, but extra details and tangents will have to be curtailed.  (Damn!)  Comments on this revised format are always welcomed.

           Hold Your Breath (Karrie Crouse, Will Joines)

                                         rated R   94 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.

 As I explored streaming possibilities for this week’s review I was intrigued by what I read about … Breath; after seeing it, I was not only impressed by what I found but was also fascinated by aspects of this story alluding to others I have high regard for.  There may be other connections besides the ones I’ll note, yet, for me, the most important ones include The Grapes of Wrath (John Ford, 1940) where another Oklahoma Dust Bowl family is made miserable by the horrid conditions of the 1930s due to draught and the constant overwhelming flow of dust from farms gone barren (although in Ford’s classic, based on John Steinbeck’s powerful novel, the Joad family [primarily played by Jane Darwell—Oscars for her as Best Supporting Actress, Ford as Best Director—and Henry Fonda] escapes to different challenges in California whereas in this story Margaret Bellum [Sarah Paulson] won’t leave because she’s staying on the family land with what support her husband, Henry, can send from his construction job back East in order to remain with the grave of her lost daughter, Ava).

 We also find allusions to A Quiet Place (John Krasinski, 2018; review in our April 19, 2018 posting) where 2 parents must work diligently to protect their 2 young children from vicious aliens that have invaded our planet, blind beasts with exceptional hearing so the family must constantly avoid making sounds so as to not reveal themselves to the monsters, just as Margaret must try to cover every crack in her dilapidated wooden shack along with her and her girls wearing face masks to prevent what she understands to be a killer ghost from entering their breathing cavities to keep them from being captured by this evil spirit (I can’t help thinking about COVID-19 in our time, the need for masks to help keep it under control, yet the resistance of so many who just want to wish this horror away), and The Night of the Hunter (Charles Laughton,1955) where an older woman (Lillian Gish) keeps watch, with a shotgun in her lap, over 2 children on the run being stalked by a mad “preacher” (Robert Mitchum) who covets a valuable item the kids have, just as Margaret uses her own shotgun to keep at bay a drifter, Wallace Grady (Ebon Moss-Bachrach)—also claims to be a preacher—who says he worked with Henry but seems to Margaret to be a physical manifestation of The Grey Man, the ghost this family knows about from a book belonging to pre-teen-daughter Rose (Amiah Miller).

 However, despite my fascination with ... Breath, I'm like light years away from the OCCU where the Rotten Tomatoes positive reviews are a paltry 44% while the Metacritic average score is, surprisingly, a bit higher at 47%.  In an effort to see why my reaction is so drastically different from these critics I looked through some reviews, this one from Brian Tellerico of RogerEbert.com as an example of those who found little to appreciate here: “[…] a frustrating work, a sequence of powerful scenes that aren’t tied together with enough tension to make us care. It’s a film filled with moments but no momentum.”  Of course, as Sir Isaac Newton theorized so very long ago, “for every action (force), in nature there is an equal and opposite reaction,” so there must be at least a few reviewers out there who, like me, find some value in this film, as for example Hope Madden: ”Paulson’s performance aches with a pain that is particular to a mother, and it’s this broken heartbeat that keeps Hold Your Breath compelling to its conclusion. Its horror is touched with a melancholy suited to the genre. The tension comes and goes, leaving you with less than promised, but the film has enough going for it to make it worth your time.”  Ultimately, I’ll have to leave it up to your sensibilities as to whether this story would be intriguing for you or not (if so, it’s on Hulu where you can watch it during their 30 days-free option, then maybe stick around for $7.99 monthly [with ads] or $17.99 [no ads]).

 You can get considerably more plot details here, but, briefly building on the foundation I’ve noted above, you’ll find Margaret also has a younger daughter, Ollie (Alona Jane Robbins), deaf and mute after a bout of scarlet fever; Mom’s concerned upon hearing about a drifter who killed a local family, fearful Wallace might be that man, yet finds hope in him when he provides some healing to Rose and the family cow (there’s even some rain after he arrives); then a letter arrives from Henry telling them to be fearful of Wallace, who says he’s The Grey Man even as Margaret uses the shotgun to send him away; ⇒later, she seems to shoot him, but in her sleep-deprived hallucinations she instead kills her sister, Esther Smith (Annaleigh Ashford); with a knife she kills local Sheriff Bell (Arron Shiver) who’d come to take the girls away from her; Rose tricks Mom to go out into a dust storm, then cuts the rope tied to their house as the means to get back to shelter during such a blinding natural attack, leaving Margaret to die, after which the girls take a train to Philadelphia to finally be with their Dad.⇐

 In my review last week of It’s What’s Inside I discussed that film as being a sort of mad-scientist story which pushed it firmly into the aspects of the horror genre that deals with humanity defying the domain of the divine, rather than as some have called it, sci-fi; Hold Your Breath would seem to take us even farther, into the dreaded realm of demonic horror (where demons, vampires, werewolves, evil spirits, etc. dwell), yet it turns out to be psychological horror where the real danger is Margaret as she’s progressively losing her mind, in an environment where death easily awaits as “to dust you will return” is made terrifyingly-manifest as the land turns hostile to its inhabitants, so for my usual review-ending Musical Metaphor I see the clear choice of “Dust in the Wind” by Kansas (1977 Point of Know Return album) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tH2w6Oxx0kQ which also takes Biblical inspirations from Genesis 3:19, along with Ecclesiastes 3:20 and Psalms 18:42 (look ‘em up yourself if you like; I don’t need any more links at this point) as Margaret and her neighbors must confront that “All we do / Crumbles to the ground though we refuse to see / Dust in the wind / All we are is dust in the wind.”  Hold Your Breath isn’t fun to watch, but I find it to be mesmerizing; maybe you will too (if not, at least be aware of the reality of COVID in your life and please take precautions).

             

SHORT TAKES

            

Related Links Which You Might Find Interesting:   

Some options for your consideration: (1) San Quentin Prison to host a film festival; (2) IMDb's October 2024 TV and streaming calendar (341[!] options for you to skim through); (3) Variety's 100 Best Horror Movies of All Time (I’d put their #2 as my #1, move their #100 to much higher on my list, but I admit I haven't seen a lot of what they cite); (4) IMDb's 5 Things to Watch This Week.

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):

It’s What’s Inside and Short Takes on other cinematic topics

Invasion of the Body Switchers

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)

9/25/2024—As the Northern Hemisphere’s transitioned into autumn I’ll need to note to all present and future readers of Film Reviews from Two Guys in the Dark that my wife, Nina, and I have transitioned into our mid-70s which puts us in the autumn of our years too (winter’s a long way off we’re convinced), which means it’s now taking us longer to get do our daily tasks so some changes are now necessary; for me that means putting more time into meals—shopping/preparation—as time management requires me to cut down on the weekly hours I’ve been devoting to this blog.  There will still be postings on a weekly basis (most of the time), but the reviews will need to be considerably shorter, maybe with fewer Musical Metaphors if trying to figure out what to use becomes too much of a challenge.  I’ll focus on successfully getting to the point in what I write, but extra details and tangents will have to be curtailed.  (Damn!)  Comments on this revised format are always welcomed.

    It's What's Inside (Greg Jardin)  rated R  105 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.

 While searching through streaming options for something to explore this week I was intrigued by local San Francisco-area critic Randy Myers' comments about It’s What’s Inside—“Jardin milks the scenario for every creative ounce it’s worth and keeps the audience off-kilter throughout (even camera angles refuse to conform to the norms)”—even though another local reviewer, Carla Meyer, wasn’t so impressed—“[…] confusing storylines involving vapid characters eclipse the previous magic generated by swirling cameras, split screens and black-and-white still images animated in fascinating ways.”—but I decided to watch it anyway (their reactions echo the barely-CCAL-support, with Rotten Tomatoes positives of 80% notably contrasted to the  Metacritic sourpuss response of a considerably-less-enthusiastic 57% average score); I’m glad I did choose to watch because this is a fascinating concept for a film, even if it does get confusing enough at times as to be hard to follow for reasons I’ll attempt to explain.  We start with a series of abstract-like images under the opening credits (later we get lots of cinematic tricks like those split-screens, iris shots, many quick edits, etc.), then we see Nikki (Alycia Debnam-Carey) with her Instagram videos as she encourages her followers to try new things.  One of those followers is her friend Shelby (Brittany O’Grady) who’s up for a new version of sex with her not-so-compliant (despite his denials) boyfriend, Cyrus (James Morosini), who seems to prefer masturbating to porno videos when he thinks she’s gone off on a run.

 Then we get to meet most of the rest of this cast-cluster as they gather at groom-to-be Reuben’s (Devon Terrell) mansion (left to him by his successful artist mother, who made some wicked—actually, deadly—sculptures) for a big party before the wedding tomorrow (we never see the bride-to-be who’s surely thankful she wasn’t part of this intended-fun-gone-horribly-wrong event).  In addition to Reuben, Shelby, Cyrus, and Nikki, we also find Dennis (Gavin Leatherwood), Maya (Nina Bloomgarden), and Brooke (Reina Hardesty), then learn Forbes (David W. Thompson) was also invited even though they haven’t seen him in a long time after he brought his high-school sister, Beatrice (Madison Davenport), to a college party which resulted in Forbes being expelled, Beatrice having a nervous breakdown leading to her lengthy institutionalization.  Surprisingly, Forbes shows up, bringing along a device developed by him and his techie-associates that allows a person’s consciousness (some would say their “soul”; more on that later) to be transferred into another body.

 Despite initial reluctance on the part of some partiers, they all agree to indulge in the body-swap game where the goal is to identify who is now in someone else’s body; if the guess is correct then a Polaroid photo of the “inner” person is pinned to the “outer” person’s body so everyone can better get a handle on the reality that, for example, you may think you’re talking to Nikki, because you know what she looks like, but really you’re interacting with Shelby, despite whatever she says coming out in Nikki’s voice.  (In Meyer’s review she notes the allusion here to Face/Off [John Woo, 1997] where characters played by Nicholas Cage and John Travolta can become confusing to viewers because these guys have plastic surgery to switch faces, so the Travolta man [Sean Archer] is still Travolta but you can get lost in that because the face you see talking is Cage’s [and vice versa].)  In It’s What’s Inside, though, the situations are more complex because body and voice belong, again as an example, to Forbes but the inner-consciousness is actually Cyrus so when he’s talking to Shelby in Nikki’s body she begins to understand he’d prefer to be with Nikki—or at least have her look like Nikki which is what she ultimately accuses him of, despite those Cyrus-denials.  After the first round of this unsettling game, actual personalities are returned to their own bodies, but then they go into round two which leads to unforeseen, then terrible, results for some of the switchers; I’ll get into a little of what happens in my upcoming Spoiler comments, but if you want more details on the full results of these switcheroos I’ll refer you to this site, which goes into considerably more plot details.

 ⇒Cyrus, in Forbes’ body, goes into a panic, demands they call the game to a halt, all back to their own bodies; however, before that can happen tragedy strikes.  Reuben (in Dennis’ body) proves himself to be complexly-unfaithful to his bride-of-tomorrow by having sex on a small balcony with Brooke (who’s in Maya’s body); horribly, though, the balcony collapses, killing them both.  Dennis, in Cyrus’s body, gets angry, calls the police (as if he’s Cyrus), “confesses” he’s responsible for the deaths of whom would appear to be Dennis and Maya, at which point chaos begins to rein as Forbes tries to leave but is stopped by Nikki, then Shelby refuses the swap-back, preferring to remain in Nikki’s body, but the actual Nikki hits Shelby with a peanut-butter-allergy-attack, refusing to give her the needed EpiPen antidote unless all the bodies go back to normal (what becomes of Reuben and Brooke’s consciousnesses in their now-dead borrowed bodies I’m not clear on at all), although that return only happens with Cyrus and Shelby.  The police arrive, arrest Cyrus, but when Shelby visits him in jail she refuses to help clear him of his accused crimes (and I’m sure he’ll have a hell of a time trying to explain it all to the legal system).  The next day Beatrice shows up, talks with Dennis who’s now in Forbes’s body, reveals she’s actually Forbes because the siblings did a body-swap so she (as Forbes, although no one else knew the truth) took the device to the party, pretended to be Forbes throughout the night, then disappeared with the device after transferring herself into Nikki’s body.⇐ 

 I admit you can’t get a good sense of what happens in this weird film without reading the Spoiler material (and even then you’d likely need to also read the Wikipedia article to fully put it all together), so you might not be able to get a clear sense of whether you’d want to watch this or not—and, to add a further complication, if you do expose yourself to the complete details you won’t be able to get the full impact of the unspooling-narrative if you know what’s coming (but even the Spoilers won’t clarify what becomes of Dennis-body/Reuben-soul, Maya body/Brooke soul, unless I’m completely missing an explanation).  So, I’ll leave it up to you (as usual) as to whether to watch this one on Netflix or not.  (Not a subscriber?  You’d need to pay $6.99 with ads, $15.49 without for at least 1 month, but in those days you’d also have access to everything else in their vast collection).

 Despite the confusions (to me, at least), I did find this film to be an intriguing concept (which led me to write much more than I originally intended to, as noted in my opening “autumn” comments) with solid acting throughout as each character has to establish an identity for themselves, then play some trickery with the others once the body-swaps have occurred to extend the game so the new “person” won’t be immediately obvious to the rest of the crowd—and the ending comes as a complete shock, which might be enough to justify wading through the rest of these happenings just to get to it.   While this film might be considered sci-fi because of the crucial persona-swapping device and its complicated results, I’d go more along with those who say it’s a drama-horror mix due to the realignment of what could easily be called the characters’ souls, their inner-essences, which gets us into the realm of humans inserting themselves into the territory supposed to be only the domain of God as explored so chillingly in horror classics like Frankenstein (Mary Shelly, 1818), the Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (Robert Louis Stevenson, 1886), and myriad movies such as The Fly (David Cronenberg, 1986) inspired by these books/other similar stories pushing our human limits.

 Disaster strikes all of these characters due to their curiosity about aspects of existence that are implied should be left undisturbed—except for Beatrice who held this group accountable for the years of misery in her life, leading her to make her own disasters against them—so we’ve got a clear warning here about resisting temptation (another religious theme active in true horror movies of the supernatural type—more so than in psychological horror stories which don’t get into this realm of the divine as such) for the need of protection of your own soul, or at least that’s one way to try to clarify all that’s going on here; another attempt at explaining the film’s ending can be found in this video (5:10), but it’s really more recitation than explanation.  Therefore, as I take (accurately or not) this narrative-ambiguity on the part of the filmmakers to be their underlying intention, I’ll be more ambiguous than usual (if that’s possible) with my choice of a Musical Metaphor to bring all of this ramble to closure, the Santana instrumental “Soul Sacrifice” performance from the 1969 Woodstock Festival (song found on the 1969 Santana album) as captured on film in the magnificent Woodstock documentary (Michael Wadleigh, 1970) found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBG6IaSQC pU (what's in this clip looks much better in the original doc).  Yes, I know, this tune has nothing to do with the film, but if Jardin could mess around as he pleased with his work so can I mess around with mine, especially with the marvelous graphics of how this musical masterpiece is presented on film (and … I just felt like seeing it again, plus many people in … Inside make their own “soul sacrifices,” despite not going in with that intention).  Even if you don’t find interest in the (literal) mind-games of It’s What’s Inside, I hope you’ll still appreciate this musical highlight from a unique yesteryear event.

          

SHORT TAKES

            

Related Links Which You Might Find Interesting:   

(1) IMDb staff picks for October 2024 (most of these aren’t that interesting to me, but you might find them to worth your time); (2) New and upcoming horror movies and shows; (3) Joker: Folie à Deux has poor domestic opening; yet, you find (4) "Joker 2" makes big bucks internationally.

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):

Wolfs plus Short Takes on some other cinematic topics

“Mr. Clean will clean your whole house

and everything that’s in it”

(from a very old TV commercial for a still-popular cleaning product)

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)

9/25/2024—As the Northern Hemisphere’s transitioned into autumn I’ll need to note to all present and future readers of Film Reviews from Two Guys in the Dark that my wife, Nina, and I have transitioned into our mid-70s which puts us in the autumn of our years too (winter’s a long way off we’re convinced), which means it’s now taking us longer to get do our daily tasks so some changes are now necessary; for me that means putting more time into meals—shopping/preparation—as time management requires me to cut down on the weekly hours I’ve been devoting to this blog.  There will still be postings on a weekly basis (most of the time), but the reviews will need to be considerably shorter, maybe with fewer Musical Metaphors if trying to figure out what to use becomes too much of a challenge.  I’ll focus on successfully getting to the point in what I write, but extra details and tangents will have to be curtailed.  (Damn!)  Comments on this revised format are always welcomed.

                       Wolfs (Jon Watts)   rated R  108 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.

 If you remember Harvey Keitel’s role in Pulp Fiction (Quentin Tarantino, 1994), you know what a “cleaner” is regarding erasing evidence of a homicide or any other sort of dubious death; further, if you’ve been remembering how screen-effective the pairing of George Clooney and Brad Pitt were in the Ocean’s Eleven (Steven Soderbergh, 2001), … Twelve (Soderbergh, 2004), and … Thirteen (Soderbergh, 2007) franchise—along with a lot of other great stars in all of these movies—with hopes of seeing them together again, then you’ll likely easily connect with Wolfs (not a typo, despite the normal plural being “wolves,” but maybe this title refers to how independent of each other these characters are initially so you wouldn’t expect to see them working/hunting together, that is until circumstances convince them they need to join forces against mutual-danger).  What we have is Manhattan District Attorney Margaret (Amy Ryan) spending a night in a plush hotel, picking up an attractive young man (known only as The Kid [Austin Abrams]) for a one-night-stand, then horrified when he’s jumping on the bed, bounces onto a glass tabletop, shatters it, seems to be horribly dead.

 Frantic, she looks through her phone contacts, finds a number a friend has given her for a “fixer,” just the kind of clandestine operative she now desperately needs, so soon a guy known only to us as Margaret’s Man (Clooney) arrives, starts to get to work to remove the body along with any sense this young man (or Clooney) was ever in the room (she’s likely OK as she booked the place under a false name, is fairly sure no one she knows saw her earlier in the evening).  However, a guy simply known as Pam’s Man (Pitt) suddenly arrives, functioning as a fixer for the owner of the hotel, Pamela Dowd-Henry (Frances McDormand [just a voice on the phone]), who was aware of the situation because of surveillance cameras in the suite.  The men argue over who’s in charge here, until Pitt convinces secretive Clooney he doesn’t want to be revealed on what’s sure to be footage from the cameras.  They give Margaret a change of clothes (hers are rather bloody), send her home, then haul The Kid down to the parking garage where they’re shocked to find him alert, as he had just been drugged—he wasn't dead—with a mysterious substance (even hid his pulse) somehow earlier.

 Further, in the suite they found a suitcase of drugs he must have brought in, a dangerous cargo because it was recently stolen from the Albanian Mafia; The Kid gets fully conscious, tries to run away in a great chase scene, but is caught by the fixers.  He tells them the location for drug delivery will be sent to a pager at a club, so off they all go.  The Kid gets the pager, but the fixers get caught up in a wedding reception run by Croatian mobster Dimitri (Ziatko Burić), who originally stole the drug shipment.  Kid and fixers go to the planned drug drop, only to find a shootout between Albanians and Dimitri’s thugs where all are killed.  ⇒The fixers take The Kid home, have breakfast next morning at a diner where they first realize how similar they are, followed by understanding how they both were set up to be killed in this convoluted plot; the movie ends with them seeing a half-dozen hitmen waiting outside, so they plan to shoot first, finally exchange names if they survive.⇐  I’ve already noted several movies Wolfs has vague allusions to, with that last scene clearly referencing Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (George Roy Hill, 1969), although what comes of this story may be of a different nature than how we assume those long-ago outlaws have ended up.  

 At times this plot gets considerably more complicated (plus not being fully clarified when it’s all done) than Butch …, but it’s still an active, enjoyable mess as long as you don’t mind encountering a bunch of dead bodies along the way, with Clooney and Pitt as embraceable as ever, delivering some marvelous dialogue as they bicker through most of their adventures. The CCAL is reasonably (but not wildly) supportive with the Rotten Tomatoes positive reviews at 68%, the Metacritic average score at 60%.  If this sounds like a possibility for you, you’ll likely have to turn to streaming (had a limited theatrical release September 20, 2024, probably not easily found now) where it’s available on the Apple TV+ platform (if you’re not a subscriber, you can watch their holdings for 7 days free, then it’s $9.99 monthly if you choose to stay).  While you’re deciding whether to see it or not, I’ll leave you with my usual tactic of a Musical Metaphor (but there are more to be found farther below, with other items) which will be what’s in the movie to accompany the final credits, Bill Withers’ “Just the Two of Us” (on the 1980 Winelight album) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uw5OLnN7UvM, which is a bit of silliness to close that tale as Clooney and Pitt's characters make a peace-pact as the song tells us (and them) “We can make it if we try,” so—to paraphrase a line from Casablanca (Michael Curtiz, 1942), I’ll use it also for my own silliness because “You played it for them, I can play it for me!”

          

SHORT TAKES

         

 As noted last week, I may sometimes put items in SHORT TAKES unrelated to cinematic topics, such as this one about the end of the line for the baseball team known as the Oakland Athletics (1968-2024; originated in Philadelphia 1901-1954, moved to Kansas City 1955-1967); the team will still exist, but their despicable owner, John Fisher (of The Gap family fortune), is moving them out of Oakland to play for at least 3 years in a minor-league facility in West Sacramento, CA while their new stadium is being built (supposedly) in Las Vegas, NV; their final game at the Oakland Coliseum was on Thursday, 9/26/2024, where they won 3-2 over last year’s World Series champs, the Texas Rangers before a sellout crowd of over 48,000 (then went to Seattle for their final games as an Oakland team, lost all 3 of them).  I’ve been attending their Coliseum games on an annual basis (except during the COVID lockout in 2020) since 1987 when Nina encouraged me to take in a game as she’d been a fan ever since they moved to the San Francisco Bay Area, even knew some of the players.  I’ve got a lot of good memories of the team, the ballpark, and some dramatic wins (including Game 2 of the 1989 World Series over the SF Giants; the final game of their record-setting 20-game win streak; an 18-inning afternoon marathon where they finally beat the NY Yankees).  It’s very hard to see this team go, even as they’ve been struggling so much in recent years as cheapskate Fisher kept trading away outstanding players just to keep their payroll at or close to the lowest in the major leagues (while raising ticket and parking prices).  The team always lauded the fans, though, even when there were fewer than 5,000 in attendance.  So, one last time on behalf of the A’s I’ll offer a Musical Metaphor of "Take Me Out to the Ballgame," led by a video of famed Chicago Cubs announcer Harry Caray (who had a brief stint with the A’s; his great-grandson Chris Caray joined the A’s broadcast team this past season) at a "Field of Dreams" game at the ballpark made famous by the movie of that name (Phil Alden Robinson, 1989).  Sad to say, “That’s all, folks!”

 Speaking of Nina Kindblad—as I’ve often done in this blog—I’d like to wish her a Happy Birthday (none of your business how many she’s celebrated) which occurs somewhere around now, but given the ripoffs hackers manage to achieve I’m not helping any of them by providing a date or even a current photo of her (both of us have recently been notified certain of our info has popped up on the Dark Web—no problems, though, at least yet—so I’ll keep them guessing as long as I can).  Instead, I’ll give you this photo of Neil Young (accompanied by the band Promise of the Real, fronted by 2 of Willie Nelson’s sons) from the second weekend of the Desert Trip Festival, October 11, 2016, where we were in attendance to hear Neil sing our signature song, "Harvest Moon," offered to her here as another Musical Metaphor for the 37 years we’ve been together (married for 34 of them) because, my dear, “I’m still in love with you” (always will be) and continue to appreciate all you’ve had to put up with me, including those previous hours I’ve spent pounding away on keyboard keys for this blog when I could have been watching “Downton Abbey” with you (RIP to Maggie Smith, from both of us).

  As long as we’re acknowledging RIPs, let’s also have one for Kris Kristofferson who now leaves Willie Nelson as the only surviving member of the once-supergroup, The Highwaymen, with Kristofferson, Nelson, Waylon Jennings, and Johnny Cash.  I’ll keep this brief, as I realize all of these SHORT TAKES inclusions are pushing my posting back into time-consuming length (for all of us), but the events of some weeks call for such.  So, I’ll close out with one more Metaphor, one of Kris’ best (with so many to pick from), “Me And Bobbie McGee” (1970 Kristofferson album) at https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahpIirW0svY; I guess Janis Joplin’s version may be more soulful, but let’s give credit here to the original songwriter/performer.  OK, enough additions; let’s finish up this rambling posting as I'll try to get more concise next week (please wish me well; it's not an easy task).

Related Links Which You Might Find Interesting:   

Options to consider: (1) IMDb's 5 Things to Watch on the week of 9/30/2024 (I can’t say I agree with these recommendations, but that's just me; take a look); (2) What's new on Netflix in October 2024; (3) What's new on Paramount+ in October 2024; (4) What's new on Max in October 2024; (5) What's new on Disney+ in October 2024; and then (6) What's new on Hulu in October 2024.

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