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Mike Schulz, Dave Levora, and Darren Pitra discuss Schulz’s recent reviews as well as the Oscars, airing this Sunday — and breathe out. Owing to technical issues, however, what should be an audio three-way sounds like one of the participants — in this case, Darren — has been mixed waaaay down in the feed. Technical issues in the studio left the three with only two working mics, so Levorac, mensch that he is, elected to give Schulz his mic. Bear that in mind as the discussion proceeds, ‘kay?
On to the movies, then! Wagons ho!
- Dune: Part Two, directed by Denis Villeneuve and starring Timothée Chalamet, Rebecca Ferguson, Josh Brolin, Stellan Skarsgård, Dave Bautista, Zendaya, Charlotte Rampling, Javier Bardem, Austin Butler, Florence Pugh, Christopher Walken, and Léa Seydoux, looks stunning, though the battle scenes feel interchangeable with those of David Lynch’s 1984 adaptation.
- Spaceman, directed by Johan Renck, written by Colby Day, and based on the 2017 novel Spaceman of Bohemia by Jaroslav Kalfař. The film, which is streaming on Netflix, stars Adam Sandler, Carey Mulligan, Kunal Nayyar, Isabella Rossellini, and Paul Dano. The very premise is absurd: Sanders is Jakub Procházka, a Czech astronaut who’s been sent into space to investigate an interstellar cloud and has to deal with a four-foot being who grows out of his nose and takes an incessant interest in the astronaut’s marriage to Lenka (Mulligan), who is carrying his baby. You keep expecting laughs around every corner, but they never arrive. Nope: This is one of Sandler’s serious turns. He has to show audiences and colleagues from time to time that he has acting chops, baby, and this is one of them. Don’t say you weren’t warned.
Concerning the previews:
- The animated martial-arts comedy film Kung Fu Panda 4, directed by Mike Mitchell with Stephanie Ma Stine, the film is voiced by mainstays Jack Black, Dustin Hoffman, James Hong, Bryan Cranston, and Ian McShane, and joined by Awkwafina, Ke Huy Quan, Ronny Chieng, Lori Tan Chinn, and Viola Davis. If you enjoyed the previous three films, there’s no reason why the fourth should fail to stick the landing.
- Imaginary, directed by Jeff Wadlow and starring DeWanda Wise, Tom Payne, Taegen Burns, Matthew Sato, Pyper Braun, Veronica Falcón, Betty Buckley, and the voice Dane DiLiegro, the film is a supernatural horror film that features a sinister teddy bear. For those who felt Seth MacFarlane failed to properly exploit the Ted concept to its logically horrific end, Imaginary may be your film.
- Cabrini, directed by Alejandro Gómez Monteverde and starring Cristiana Dell’Anna, David Morse, Romana Maggiora Vergano, Federico Ielapi, Virginia Bocelli, Rolando Villazón, Giancarlo Giannini, and John Lithgow, the film involves the life of Catholic missionary Francesca Cabrini (Dell’Anna) in late-Nineteenth-Century New York City. This may be good, but one’s brain kind of turned off after hearing Levora’s impersonation of Lithgow’s agent. Good stuff, Dave!