Air Force One – which found president Harrison Ford telling that darn Korshunov to “Get off my plane!” – was a massive hit at the box office, taking in $173 million domestically and another $142 million in the international market to be one of Wolfgang Petersen’s biggest hits. And so, with the influx of sequels in the ‘90s, it’s a bit surprising that Air Force One never had a follow-up. Come on, the vice president literally flies on Air Force Two!
Getting a sequel to Air Force One off the ground was in consideration for a while but as screenwriter Andrew W. Marlowe told SYFY WIRE, it was the repetitive nature of franchises like Die Hard that kept another installment from ever happening, saying, “…every time John McClane goes on vacation or goes anywhere, the terrorists take over.” As such, he and some execs at Beacon Pictures could never come up with a passable idea. It seems the farthest they ever got was having “Harrison as president goes someplace, he’s on an Air Force carrier, it’s attacked, he’s in the middle of an unstable geopolitical situation. And so, there are things he can and can’t do, because you don’t want to inflame it. He’s got to navigate it and he’s the person at the heart of it.”
While we may never see Harrison Ford reprise President James Marshall for an Air Force One sequel, it’s nice to know it at least has less to do with age – a president in their 80s isn’t exactly unfathomable… – than it does a suitable plot. Still, there is always the possibility for a reboot, provided there is a real purpose. “We don’t want to do something that’s just exploitative storytelling, we want to do something that feels like it has a purpose in the world. And when we were doing it, the presidency and that position was not as politically charged as it is today. And so, I think that there are specific challenges about doing it in the contemporary climate that we would have to figure out. But believe me, people keep talking about it.”
Do you think an Air Force One sequel or reboot could work? What could you see the main character tackling? Give us your thoughts below.
January is generally a quiet time at the box office as studios give their big Holiday hits some breathing room while also avoiding the massive draw that is the NFL playoffs. Last year at this time, the record breaking Avatar: The Way of Water was still riding high with a $20.1 million take in its sixth week while Puss in Boots: The Last Wish continued its epic run from a $12 million opening to a $186 million domestic finish. We even had a surprise horror hit with M3GAN entering her third week with just under $10 million while the Tom Hanks starring A Man Called Otto continued to see solid numbers for a drama aimed at adults.
This year sees this third weekend of January hit a bit of a snag with the remake/ Broadway adaptation Mean Girls landing in first place for a second week in a row with $11.7 million. That number represents a 59% drop off, proving that its 65% audience score and B cinemascore are keeping some audiences away. Of course this second week drop off isn’t horrible news for the film because the budget was just $36 million and with $50 million already in domestic grosses, Mean Girls will see a solid profit for the studio. Even though I wasn’t the biggest fan of this movie (it recycled too much from the original), I would love to see a sequel that combined the casts from the two movies to create some sort of meta mash-up comedy masterpiece.
Remaining in second place is the Jason Statham/ David Ayer/ Phylicia Rashad (names I’m sure we all thought would one day share a marquee) film The Beekeeper, with an additional $8.4 million added to its domestic total of $31.1 million. With just a $40 million budget (relatively cheap for an action film in today’s $300 million marketplace), this tale of revenge should see a decent return on investment once international numbers are figured in. You can check out Tyler Nichols’ 7/10 review here.
Third place goes to the holiday heavyweight that is Wonka with an additional $6.4 million added to its stellar $187.1 million domestic total. With over half a billion dollars collected worldwide, this musical prequel has emerged as a genuine hit for the studio. By the end of Monday, Wonka will likely become star Timothée Chalamet’s highest-grossing domestic release ever, as it passes Interstellar’s $188 million (Wonka has a bit of a climb to go if it wants to pass that films $731 million worldwide total.) (For those who may not remember, Chalamet played a young Casey Affleck in the Christopher Nolan film.)
Coming in fourth is Anyone But You which is continuing to draw on its tremendous word of mouth for another $5.4 million added to its solid $64.2 million domestic total. With a budget of just $25 million and a worldwide total nearing the $100 million mark, this movie has been the true surprise of the past month. Personally, I am glad this movie is finding success as I found it to be a solid old school R-rated comedy that knew what it wanted to do and did it.
Rounding out the top five and making our predictions from Thursday spot on is Migration, with another $5.3 million added to its domestic total of $94.6 million. This one is following the model set forth by last year’s Puss in Boots as families continue to flock to it, giving it tremendous legs at the box office. The good news is that it still has a solid runway as the next animated family film to release is Kung Fu Panda 4,which doesn’t drop until March 8.
Sixth place belongs to Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom with $3.6 million, while the Ariana DeBose-fronted I.S.S sees a dismal seventh place opening with just $3 million. This is no laughing matter for the studio, which spent around $14 million on the film before marketing costs and will likely fail to recoup even that as the film has a horrible C- CinemaScore while not enough people saw it to give it an audience score yet! I did actually catch this one last week and thought it was okay. The first half was a decent claustrophobic thriller with an intriguing premise, while the second half just ran out of steam, resorting to space thriller cliches.
Rounding out the top ten is Night Swim with $2.7 million, followed by the George Clooney-directed true story The Boys in the Boat with $2.5 million. Seeing a bit of an awards season bump is the Emma Stone starring Poor Things which actually gained 14% this weekend with around $2 million in receipts. Hopefully, the more people that see the movie will help propel Stone onto that stage come Oscar Sunday, as I think her performance is one of the best we have seen in a while and blows the competition out of the water.
Did you make it to theaters this weekend? If so, let us know what you saw, and don’t forget to take our weekly poll where this week we take a trip to the past and ask: What is your Favorite Movie from 1994?
PLOT: A gym manager, Lou (Kristen Stewart), falls head-over-heels in love with a female bodybuilder, Jackie (Katy O’Brian). But, their bliss is short-lived, as the two end up getting tangled up with Lou’s criminal father (Ed Harris).
REVIEW: Rose Glass’s Love Lies Bleeding is a dark, stylized, ultra-mean-spirited neo-noir. It skates on the edge of perhaps being a little too self-aware for its good in the surreal finale, but it’s still a very entertaining and twisty thriller.
Kristen Stewart is perfectly cast as the laconic noir anti-hero who hooks up now and then with a girl (Anna Baryshnikov), she can’t stand but otherwise leads a lonely life with her cat. Being set in 1989, the constantly smoking Lou is trying to quit with books on tape that have little to no effect, only for her life to be blown up when she sets her eyes on Katy O’Brian’s impressively muscled bodybuilder.
Gender-swapping, the typical noir protagonist, is an intriguing choice, with Stewart playing it in a rough-and-tumble fashion. She’s mostly excellent, outside of a moment or two when she leans too heavily into the anti-hero tropes, allowing the film to border on parody. This includes a moment where Lou smokes a cigarette while trying to seduce Jackie after a fight that felt a bit like she was trying to satirize the kinds of alpha-male roles Mickey Rourke played back in the era this is set in, making it border on becoming a spoof rather than a homage. It feels out of touch with the rest of the film, which is pretty classically styled, outside of a controversial, surreal climax open to interpretation.
Katy O’Brian, who’s a rising star with roles in The Mandalorian and the upcoming Twisters, is impressive as the femme fatale bodybuilder. Both characters are prone to be abusive to each other at times, making this a darker love story than you might think. Glass isn’t interested in creating a fairy tale, with Stewart showing off a cruel streak several times in the movie that I imagine a lot of other actresses wouldn’t dare play. She’s always been brave with her choice of roles, and this is undoubtedly one of her roughest.
Stewart and O’Brian are well-supported by the great Ed Harris, who shows up sporting a Kim Mitchell-tyle skullet as Lou’s gun-dealing papa, with many bodies buried he doesn’t want people digging into. While psychotic, one thing the movie doesn’t do is make him homophobic, with him openly approving of Lou’s sexuality, even if in every other way he’s a nightmare. Dave Franco plays against type as Lou’s wife-beating brother-in-law, although the depiction of Jena Malone as his oft-hit wife is pretty one-note.
Glass has undoubtedly made a beautiful film in Love Lies Bleeding, opting for a pulpy aesthetic that suits the film. The score by Clint Mansel is terrific, as are the eighties new wave needle drops. It’s an interesting second film for Glass, a mash-up of classic neo-noir in the vein of John Dahl’s Red Rock West and the Coen Bros’ Blood Simple, with a synth wave undertone and horror movie-style graphic violence. It’s not perfect, and it won’t be for everyone. But it’s a wild, entertaining ride.
It is hard to believe (for people of a certain age), but the year 1994 was 30 years ago! For this week’s poll, we wanted to step back into the time machine and reminisce about what could possibly be considered one of the best years in cinema history. If, like me, you are in your thirties, 1994 holds a nostalgic place due to movies such as Blank Check, D2: The Mighty Ducks, Major League 2, Clifford, The Flintstones, Getting Even With Dad, Little Big League, Angels in the Outfield, The Little Rascals, Camp Nowhere, Richie Rich and Little Giants. The year also represented the huge breakout of comedy legend Jim Carrey as Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, The Mask, and Dumb and Dumber were all released during that single calendar year.
But it wasn’t just movies aimed at a child’s heart that were released in 1994. The year also saw some genuine masterpieces that have gone on to be heralded as some of the best films ever made. Whether it was the eventual Best Picture winner Forrest Gump or the film currently sitting at number one on the IMDB top movies of all time list: The Shawshank Redemption. 1994 would also be Quentin Tarantino’s true breakout year with his Oscar-winning film Pulp Fiction, while we would also be introduced to a new indie filmmaker named Kevin Smith with his film Clerks.
We would get two now classic Christmas films, The Santa Clause and Miracle on 34th Street,while also getting two films that have been labeled by some as the worst movies ever made with North and Exit To Eden.
1999 often gets hailed as the greatest year for movies ever, but after compiling this list, I’d say 1994 gives it a run for its money. Even though we did compile an exhaustive list of some of the best films from 1994, if you don’t see your favorite listed, click the “Other” button and let us know in the comments.
For us 90s kids, Dick Tracy was an interesting monster of a movie. It seemed to take a lot of cues from Tim Burton’s Batman, which was released the previous summer, but it definitely had a distinct voice of its own. Dick Tracy was another classic pulp adaptation of an urban enforcer that had very dynamic visuals and an over-the-top rogues gallery. It even sported a score by Danny Elfman, which would have his signature atmospheric sound. The movie would introduce a generation of young audiences to the 1930’s film noir/ detective movie genre. Additionally, the movie brought back Warren Beatty after a three-year absence when his last film, 1987’s Ishtar, was a big flop. Having a star like Beatty in a big-budget franchise like this was an enormous asset for the re-budding intellectual property. And the star power wouldn’t even stop there.
Grab your Tommy guns. It’s Dick Tracy on this episode of Revisited.
The big-budget adaptation of the Chester Gould comic strip that originated in the 30s actually started life as a John Landis movie. Landis sought a meeting in the early 80s with writers Jim Cash and Jack Epps Jr., the duo who would eventually pen movies like Top Gun, Legal Eagles, The Secret of My Success, and Turner & Hooch. Landis liked an early script they wrote called Whereabouts and enlisted the two to come up with a Dick Tracy for a new generation.
Before then, Tracy was a film serial in the 30s and 40s. They adapted the character into a cartoon in the 60s with The Dick Tracy Show, where, for some reason, Tracy delegated his detective work to a cast of new police characters, some of which have aged very poorly. Then, the property tried to follow in Batman’s footsteps in 1967, when William Dozier, producer of Adam West’s Batman TV series, tried to recapture that success with a similar show for Tracy. The theme song is not quite as catchy.
Landis’ attachment to the project would end when he faced legal trouble for the unfortunate accident that had befallen his segment in Twilight Zone: The Movie. Then, 48 Hrs. director Walter Hill would step in to be the helm the project. Hill actually met with Beatty to discuss working on the film, but the two clashed when Beatty wanted slightly more control than Hill was willing to give him. When both men fell out with each other, the project was dropped by its former studio, Paramount. However, Beatty would end up buying the rights to the Dick Tracy property entirely. He would take the rights over to Disney and decided it would be easier to direct it himself rather than trying to find someone else.
Beatty is synonymous with prohibition-era crime thanks to his role in the acclaimed Bonnie and Clyde, so his putting on the fedora and wielding a Tommy gun as the lead was an exciting aspect. This project became filled to the brim with notable names. Aside from Beatty, you have Al Pacino, Paul Sorvino, Dustin Hoffman, James Caan, Dick Van Dyke, Mandy Patinkin, Henry Silva, William Forsythe, and of course, Madonna. You even have blink, and you’ll miss it appearances by Kathy Bates and Catherine O’Hara.
The fun of the Dick Tracy comic strips is how it took the popular tradition of gangsters adopting monikers, such as famous ones like “Scarface,” ”Pretty Boy,” “Baby face,” “The Owl,” “Mugsy” etc., except, in the Dick Tracy comic, their names would also serve as their literal physical description. So, you get villains like Flattop, Pruneface, The Brow, Mumbles, and Little Face.
While Beatty got to keep his handsome mug for Tracy’s appearance, make-up artists John Caglione Jr. and Doug Drexler hit the mother load of bringing these caricature drawings to life and amazingly remained faithful to the comics. It’s pretty incredible that the movie assembled a huge cast of name actors but buried them under make-up, rendering them unrecognizable. Caglione Jr. and Drexler would do an outstanding job taking some of the most exaggerated characteristics and making them look like they could exist in a live-action world.
The population of characters may look like they walked straight out of the comics, but Beatty’s hiring of Richard Sylbert really brought out a unique look to the world. As with Batman’s Gotham City, Dick Tracy’s City, which had gone unnamed, has a distinctly comic look. Every shot is very dreamlike. The film combined real elements with paintings to give us a hyper-realistic version of a Chicago-type metropolis. The paintings used are true works of art as you can take any frame and hang it up on a wall. Sylbert would ingeniously stay true to the original comic by emphasizing only 6 main colors for the compositions – black, white, red, green, blue, and yellow. While the vibrancy of these designs can look cartoony, they all work together since there’s no real-world juxtaposition, and it stays grounded enough to where it doesn’t look like a Sin City or Toon Town from Roger Rabbit.
The plot for Dick Tracy is surprisingly basic. Especially when you become more aware of 30s and 40s gangster movie tropes. You’ve got the straight-laced, long arm of the law with Tracy. The big criminal in charge chews scenery like a buffet with Big Boy Caprice. The sultry lounge singer who goes after the man she wants, with the impeccably named Breathless Mahoney. Big Boy makes a power play to take over the Club Ritz and kidnaps the owner, Lips Manlis, in order to do it, so he makes him sign the deed over to him, kills him, and takes his girl. Did I mention this is a Disney movie?
The story is a chess game as Tracy becomes obsessed with taking down Big Boy after he moves in on Lips Manlis’ territory and unites the city’s crime syndicates. Meanwhile, in Tracy’s personal life, he’s got a great dame in Tess Trueheart, played by Glenne Headly from Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. She’s the lady in his life that he’s getting serious about, but can’t quite muster up enough confidence to propose to her yet. While he loves her, his work always gets in the way of spending time with her as Big Boy and his cronies run rampant in the city.
If the romantic tension between Tracy and Tess wasn’t enough, they happened upon a homeless boy whom both had taken temporary custody of. The nameless boy known only as Kid is played by Charlie Korsmo, who will be seen throughout the 90s in movies like Hook, What About Bob? And Can’t Hardly Wait. Get ready to feel hungry during the montage of him catching up on some meals.
And if the forced family tension wasn’t enough for Tracy, Tess, and the Kid, Tracy is faced with good ol’ fashioned temptation when Madonna works her seductive magic all over Warren Beatty’s face whenever she gets the chance. Madonna was at the height of her powers at the time she co-starred in this movie. In fact, she used her Blonde Ambition Tour as a way of promoting the film. Her scenes with Beatty definitely help pushed limits to where Disney felt the need to release this under their Touchstone Pictures banner rather than under the true Walt Disney Pictures banner. Additionally, if you have Madonna in your movie and going for commercial appeal, you gotta have her sing some songs. The film’s music department had the strength of musical legend Stephen Sondheim writing Madonna’s swinging songs and ballads. He even earned an Oscar nomination for the original song “Sooner or Later.”
As Beatty slips into the Elliot Ness-type role so well, Al Pacino would also play the gangster kingpin, Big Boy Caprice, with great ease. Pacino recently bounced back into popularity with the erotic thriller Sea of Love after much of his 80s releases, including Scarface, underperformed at the box office. Pacino rallied his comeback with Dick Tracy, then later the same year, he would return to his most famous role as Michael Corleone in The Godfather Part III. Of the two releases in 1990, Pacino would actually be nominated for an Oscar for his role in Dick Tracy! Dick. Tracy.
Before Pacino went on to seal his signature manic style after Scent of a Woman, Heat and The Devil’s Advocate, Al made a three-course meal of every moment in Dick Tracy. There is seldom a scene where he isn’t yelling. Al may have become famous for his over-the-top intensity, but at this point, it would only break out every now and then. He’s turned up to 11 throughout his entire time in this movie, and his personality is as exaggerated as his make-up. And Big Boy, for how confident and aggressive he is, Pacino hilariously plays him as a kind of simple-minded character whose emotions are all over the place.
The action in Dick Tracy is a mixed bag of cartoony action and some surprisingly edgy gunfights. There aren’t necessarily any big adventure set pieces, but we get spurts of action integrated into the crime story. The coolest sequence comes at the end when a New Year’s party at the Club Ritz is interrupted when the police surround the place, and all of Big Boy’s men attempt to make a run when they escape through a hornets’ nest of cops. The whole sequence is set to a soundtrack of automatic gunfire. The shower of bullets can easily be compared to Beatty’s famous demise in Bonnie and Clyde. This is definitely a scene that was too much for Disney to release under their normal banner.
Despite its relative disappearance into obscurity nowadays, Dick Tracy was actually a huge hit. The movie grossed $162 million worldwide on a $47 million dollar budget. For 1990, that’s quite the blockbuster. Still, unfortunately, Disney wanted to chase the kind of numbers that Tim Burton’s Batman brought in a year before – which totaled $411 million, plus much more in merchandising since it was a huge pop culture staple. While Dick Tracy was the ninth-highest-grossing film of 1990, Disney decided not to pursue a sequel since it couldn’t match up to Batman.
Warren Beatty retains the rights to the property to this day, and while he had somewhat retired from acting, he hasn’t signed off on any sequel or reboot of any kind. The only time he’s followed up with the franchise was when he would make appearances in character when meeting with movie critic Leonard Maltin for an interview on Turner Classic Movies. Early in 2023, Beatty appeared again on TCM for a Leonard Maltin interview, except this time, he appeared via Zoom as both Dick Tracy and himself. The special event featured Tracy speaking to Beatty in a fourth-wall-breaking conversation where Tracy got to confront Beatty about his portrayal of him. It’s like when Sylvester Stallone finally got to meet Rocky.
It’s safe to say that Dick Tracy has a lot of fans out there. It’s not quite a cult following since the movie was such a success, but the vocal supporters are dedicated to ensuring it doesn’t go overlooked or forgotten. Now seems like an ideal time to strike for some sort of resurgence, but even if it doesn’t, this movie is still an entertaining exploration of the property. Unfortunately, Disney hasn’t added it to Disney+ as of now, but thankfully, the movie isn’t a lost film either.
PLOT: A group of college friends reunite for a weekend-long party. When one of the gang shows up with a mysterious suitcase in tow; the group gets to know each other in an unusual – and perhaps even terrifying – way.
REVIEW: It’s What’s Inside presents anyone reviewing it with a problem. Something that happens early in the film is so unexpected that spoiling it would be a crime. Yet, the problem is that this potential spoiler is the instigating event. How do you discuss the rest of the movie if you can’t even really dig into what it’s about? Indeed, the company repping the film begged us in a follow-up email to our screening not to spoil the premise. As such, this review is going to be vague.
I can say that of all the genre films I’ve seen at Sundance this year; it seems the most likely to land a huge distribution deal and become a hit. It seems an easy fit for A24 or Neon, with it a terrific audience movie and an energetic blast from start to finish. However, while it may be marketed as horror, that’s not the genre, as it’s essentially a character-based supernatural thriller with heavy doses of comedy mixed in. It’s similar to Bodies, Bodies, Bodies, in that you won’t sympathize with any of the horrible characters on-screen, so when misfortune sets in on them, you can’t help but enjoy it. It’s THAT kind of movie.
The directorial debut of writer-director Greg Jardin, the film sports a remarkably photogenic cast of young up-and-comers. Brittany O’Grady, from the first season of The White Lotus, plays the closest thing to a lead, with her character, the insecure Shelby, looking to reignite her failing relationship with her college boyfriend, Cyrus (the Virus – in a nice Con Air nod), played by James Morosini. They get the thrill they wanted when they reunite at the palatial estate belonging to their friend Reuben (Devon Terrell), who’s getting married. Other guests include an insufferable influencer named Nikki (played by producer Colman Domingo’s Fear the Walking Dead co-star Alycia Debnam-Carey), a trust-fund bro, Dennis (Gavin Leatherwood), the stoned Brooke (Reina Hardesty) and the bohemian Maya (Nina Bloomgarden).
Their plan gets shaken when a former friend, Forbes (David Thompson), with a grudge against at least two group members, shows up with a game they all find themselves enthralled by when they start experimenting. As the film continues, it transitions from comedy to something darker before going all-out towards the conclusion. But, again, I can’t tell you about any of that.
Needless to say, It’s What’s Inside seems destined for some cult renown. Older genre fans may be turned off by how vacuous the characters are, but that’s the point. Jardin is satirizing the self-absorbed, wealthy zennial. While I wish I could reveal why the instigating accident makes it such an impressive showpiece for the talented cast, I’m gagged by the producer’s fairly reasonable demand. As such, put this one on your radar of movies to see, but do yourself a favour and try not to read too much about it before it comes out. I have my fingers crossed that the trailer doesn’t reveal the big twist.
Anthony Hopkins’ signature role will always be that of Hannibal Lecter in 1991’s The Silence of the Lambs, a performance which nabbed him his first Oscar. There was definitely some category fraud going on there, as he should have won for Best Supporting Actor (sorry, Jack Palance!), but the way Hopkins plays him cast such a mood over the entire film that we believe he has more than just 16 minutes of screen time. Now more than 30 years – and another Best Actor Oscar – later, Hopkins admits that he knew right away that Hannibal the cannibal was one of the best parts he had ever read.
Speaking with People, Hopkins recalled his agent telling him about a script called The Silence of the Lambs, which already had Jodie Foster attached. Initially Hopkins thought it was a children’s story, which must have been well before opening the pages (although there is a cute dog). “So I opened it. I sat in the dressing room in the theater, and I read through the first scene of Lecter. I said, ‘Is this an offer?’ He said, ‘I’m not sure.’ I said, ‘I’m not going to read anymore, because this is one of the best parts I’ve ever read.’”
Hopkins would go on to say that he met with The Silence of the Lambs director Jonathan Demme over dinner (fava beans and Chianti?). “So we talked, but I knew how to play the part…And I don’t know. I do have an instinct about these roles. I could understand Lecter. I could understand the mystery of the man, the loner, the isolated voice in the dark, the man at the top of the stairs who’s not really there.”
The Silence of the Lambs would dominate pop culture in 1991. It would go on to win five Academy Awards and is still one of the few horror films to be nominated for Best Picture, remaining today the only winner. This is especially surprising considering it had a February release (although its October VHS push would help). In addition to Hopkins and the movie winning, Foster took Best Actress, Demme nabbed Best Director and the screenplay scored in the adapted category; it is still the most recent film to win the Big Five.
As for Hannibal Lecter himself, he has also notably been played by Brian Cox and Mads Mikkelsen. But Hopkins’ performance in The Silence of the Lambs, so calculated and precise (but yes, he does blink), remains one of the most riveting in motion picture history.
Hopkins also revealed he is writing an autobiography.
Where does Hannibal Lecter rank in your list of greatest movie characters ever? Has Hopkins ever topped this performance? Let us know your thoughts below.
Lots going on this week! The Xbox Developer Direct event on January 18 gave us a sneak peek at upcoming games like Indiana Jones and the Great Circle and Obsidian’s RPG Avowed. Ubisoft managed to put their foot in it by sharing an unpopular take on subscription services, and Hogwarts Legacy broke a longstanding…
Lots going on this week! The Xbox Developer Direct event on January 18 gave us a sneak peek at upcoming games like Indiana Jones and the Great Circle and Obsidian’s RPG Avowed. Ubisoft managed to put their foot in it by sharing an unpopular take on subscription services, and Hogwarts Legacy broke a longstanding…
PLOT: A year in the life of a family of Sasquatch, as they forage for food, hook up, and narrowly avoid civilization.
REVIEW:Sasquatch Sunset is unique; I’ll give it that. David and Nathan Zellner’s film has two big stars in the leads – Jesse Eisenberg and Riley Keough – but covers them in enough prosthetics to make them completely unrecognizable. The film doesn’t contain a single line of dialogue. Indeed, the whole movie is in grunts and yells because…well… they’re Sasquatch!
While some may find the very idea of this movie tedious, I was surprised by how much I enjoyed Sasquatch Sunset. The Zellner Brothers have a unique voice, as depicted in Damsel and Kumiko the Treasure Hunter. It’s weird to say that a movie with no dialogue or humans could actually be considered their most accessible movie to date – but it’s true. This movie is surprisingly cute and ends before the premise wears out its welcome.
In it, we follow a Sasquatch family consisting of two males (Nathan Zellner and Jesse Eisenberg), a female (Riley Keough) and a child (Christoph Zajek-Denek). Zellner plays the older, more dominant male, albeit the one that’s less favoured by the female both male Sasquatch want to be with. It’s never really clear who the father of Zajek-Denek’s character is. It takes place over a year, as the family roams the Pacific Northwest and narrowly avoids civilization. As the film goes on, nature and the unpredictable hand of fate prove to be their greatest adversary, as the power dynamics constantly shift as tragedy strikes.
The entire cast is heavily buried under prosthetics, which are so good that I honestly couldn’t tell apart Zellner and Eisenberg’s characters until about twenty minutes into the film. It’s a lot funnier than the premise suggests, with the mating rituals, random aggression and near-misses with civilization being quite amusing. But the film also gets downright tragic at times, with a standout scene involving a log in a dam that’s highly reminiscent of a classic sequence from the Paul Newman movie Sometimes a Great Notion.
The film also has a surreal, evocative score by The Octopus Project, which pays homage to one of the Zellner Bros chief inspirations, the old Leonard Nimoy “In Search of” conspiracy theory show – where Bigfoot was a favorite topic.
It’s hard to rate the movie’s performances, but I’ll say this – both Keough and Eisenberg are fearless. Keough especially has a scene where she takes a dump in the middle of the road which eschews any sense of vanity she might have as an actress. Physically, everyone involved delivers excellent performances, although for many viewers this might come off as a one-joke premise stretched too far.
It’ll be interesting to see how Sasquatch Sunset is received when it comes out via Bleeker Street this April. It’s certainly too odd of a movie to ever connect with a mainstream audience, but if you have a tolerance for things that are “out there” you might actually find that you have a good time with this tale of the Bigfoot.
