Welcome to another edition of the Ambassador Almanac. This week I’m trying play with the format a little bit and make it a little more casual. While the movie essay stuff is pretty cool and I want to do more, they do require a bit more research and can be time consuming so while I work on the next one I wanted to talk about my most anticipated movie of May as well as a new addition to my physical media collection plus a new movie I saw this week.
There is something happening in Hollywood. If you even pay half attention to the movies and what has been coming out the last few years I think it’s hard to ignore the fact that the amount of superhero movies has gone down.
There are a few things that can account for this two of them being that DC underwent a leadership change and off the back of Superman last year they are laying the groundwork for a brand new cinematic universe. Over at Marvel meanwhile…well things could be better. Much like the Star Wars conversation the MCU moved heavily into TV with the arrival of Disney + to varying levels of success. They too are feeling a narrative strain between that and a simply botched storyline after Jonathan Majors was removed from his role as Kang the Conqueror. Though the MCU feels confident that it can launch their way back to a billion dollar box office with this year’s Avengers: Doomsday. Will Robert Downey Jr. as Doctor Doom work? What about the return of Chris Evans and the 20th Century Fox X-Men? There are a lot of question that need answering around the movie but we will save it for another time.
In the meantime we’ve seen Hollywood start to look for other options. Video game adaptions are becoming more frequent and profitable for studios. The Super Mario Galaxy Movie and Minecraft were both smash hits and we are seeing more things in development like a Resident Evil movie from Zach Cregger, a live action Legend of Zelda project and a Taylor Sheridan written Call of Duty movie.
But this other new idea of a studio giving a creator from Youtube a real budget and real actors to adapt a video into a feature is fascinating. We’ve seen it work a few times already and there is a trend of Youtube sketch comics getting horror. Horror movies are a great place to test this idea because they have always drawn crowds regardless of IP status. People just show up either way. Plus a horror movie is generally on the cheaper side to make so take that into account and a lot of those movies -even the bad ones- make their money back. It is this very idea that was the genesis for one of my most anticipated movies of the year.
Four years ago on the YouTube channel Kane Pixels a video was uploaded titled The Backrooms (Found Footage). It’s a pretty spooky video to be honest. It opens with friends in masks making a very rough short film. We are seeing them through the video camera that is being used. The person behind the camera then suddenly clips through the ground and lands in what we now know is the Backrooms. Yellow wallpaper and floors, it’s an office space vibe. The issue of course being that the rooms go on and on lasting for who knows how long. The protagonist of the video encounters arrows on the walls, artwork and other markings indicating that someone had been there before but we have no idea when or where they are now. I’ll save the rest so you can see it for yourself because it’s pretty interesting. There have been a number of uploads that followed and in that time some lore starts to develop. But obviously it’s unclear how much of this Youtube series is in the script for the feature.
A24 has since swooped in and picked up the creator, Kane Parsons to direct the 105 minute feature film. This was exciting news from the jump because when the first video dropped online I found myself swooped up in the moment. I was following the uploads then watching people react and break them down to try to figure out what was going on. So to see that A24 was interested was exciting. Then we find out he got a $10 million dollar budget on top of it. With that money he was able to put together a strong cast with a big name for cinephiles at the front.
Renate Reinsve is a pretty known actor to anyone who follows contemporary cinema. She was just nominated for her role in Sentimental Value last year and was the lead in one of the more popular movies around cinephiles of the decade, 2021’s The Worst Person in the World. Now she is smack dab in the middle of the poster of this new A24 horror movie. I think it’s a move that benefits everyone involved. The studio gets a well known actor to come aboard and while her reach is modest at the moment it will bring a more Criterion Closet audience that wants to see her work. For Renate this is an opportunity to take on a higher profile project in terms of potential box office. I could be way off on this but I do except this movie to be a hit. The Youtube series was adapted into multiple video games on various platforms not to mention the insane amount of viewership on the videos. No disrespect to Joachim Trier he is one of the great working filmmakers we have, but this is a chance to get Renate in front of way more people in a different type of movie from what she’s been up to lately. It’s such an inspired choice by her to take a chance on a young filmmaker and a project that she surely wasn’t familiar with before the script was in front of her. But it also brings higher floor of performance and credibility to the movie. Even when I first heard they were doing this I was always going to see the movie but one has to wonder about just how legit it was going to be. At the very least we have steady hands performing in front of the camera.
Funny enough on Letterboxd it has the great Chiwetel Ejiofor top billed. He isn’t an actor thats done prestige work trying to break into the mainstream. But he is a guy who has appeared in many mainstream movies and franchises. He has done great movies like Children of Men and The Martian. But has also been in the MCU and live action Disney remakes as well. He’s an actor that you probably wouldn’t be able to name but could point out and sort of know him without knowing him.
As you can tell I’m really excited for this one and have bought my stock. I wouldn’t be surprised if this movie ends up being one of the biggest success stories of the year.
What I saw this week:
The lovely AMC theater I frequent provided us with the opportunity to see Curry Barker’s feature Obsession. It’s a story of a young named Bear played by Michael Johnston and his crush Nikki played by Inde Navarrette. The movie starts as a teen love story of sorts. Bear has always had feelings for Nikki but doesn’t have the courage to tell her how he feels. When he botches his best chance to do it he makes a wish by breaking a “One Wish Willow” in the hopes that he will win her over.
Not only does it work in making Nikki fall in love with him, but it works so well that his friends start to question the ethics of this new relationship. Naturally Bear gets far more than he bargained for as the movie goes from a teen romance with strange undertones into a full blown Exorcist style horror movie that is increasingly deranged by the minute. It’s an incredible piece of work with the performance from Navarrette being one of the best I’ve seen in recent memory. It honestly has shades of Mia Goth in Pearl.
The thing that makes the movie work for me beyond her performance is how she’s shot. There is a clear sign that possession or voodoo or something is afoot and she has moments where she is acting “normal” and others where she is acting out. When things get weird and creepy she’s often shot in silhouette. Her face is hidden from us and her voice cadence changes. It’s pretty spooky stuff.
I don’t want to give too much away but if you are into horror I’d definitely recommend checking this one out before it leaves theaters.
The Physical Media Pickup:
I was watching an episode of The Big Picture and they had an episode dedicated to physical media. Someone on the show talked about how they are more motivated by getting their hands on films that they’d be worried would disappear from a streamer one day. So naturally when they talked about this movie I had no choice but to copy them and pull the trigger.
Red Rooms from 2023 was directed by Pascal Plante and was one of my favorites of the year. It follows Kelly-Anne a young woman who has been camping outside a courthouse so that she can have a seat for the trial of a serial killer that she’s taken an interest in. As the trial plays out however it is clear that her interest is far beyond one that is intellectual and is something much darker. It is a commentary on our obsession with tragedy media as well as true crime wave in home entertainment.
I remember being floored by it the first time I saw it. It was one I heard about through word of mouth and was waiting for my chance to see it. There is a lot to like here but another one that feels like a crime to spoil so I hope you check this one out as well if you’re into psychological horror.
It’s been a pretty modest start to the year. I’ve seen a few movies that have stuck out like 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple and Project Hail Mary as well as some discoveries new and old. When it comes to new stuff it has felt like the calm before the storm when it comes to what we will remember the year for. This summer is the start of what will be an exciting stretch all the way into awards season at the end of the year. May doesn’t have many big hitters but it does have interesting movies from new voices that reflect the ever changing Hollywood landscape. It will be interesting to see how their work will perform.
All of this is happening while I work to take my physical media collection to its next phase and work on my Martin Scorsese filmography project (more on that next week) so I hope y’all stick around and see what I’m up to.
Thanks for reading and have a great weekend.
The Ambassador Almanac 