Jackpot!: No winners here

Jackpot! (2024) • View trailer

No stars: TURKEY. Rated R, for violence, vulgar sexual content, and pervasive profanity

Available via: Amazon Prime

By Derrick Bang

I thought Trap would be the summer’s worst movie.

 

But no; this abysmal, live-action cartoon defies description. (I’ll nonetheless give it a shot.)

 

Although Katie (Awkwafina) and Noel (John Cena) cleverly think to hide in a rich
musician's panic room, there's still the matter of closing the door before their hundreds
of pursuers force their way inside.

The budget apparently came from what all involved pooled from their weekly lunch money. Sets and locations are limited to existing Los Angeles-area venues, each briefly closed for the 15 minutes required to shoot one take of each scene. Most “costumes” go no further than street clothes.

Aside from the top half-dozen roles, all other characters appear to have been cast with random folks snatched from the streets; they certainly can’t act a whit. They aren’t even granted names in the cast list; they’re instead billed as Scary Goth Guy, Baby Puppeteer, Asshole Dad, Food Truck Guy, Bald Alley Cop, and so forth.

 

Paul Feig hardly warrants his credit as director; he appears to have told cinematographer John Schwartzman to point the camera, turn it on, and film whatever each untrained idiot felt like doing at that particular moment.

 

Rob Yescombe similarly doesn’t deserve to be acknowledged for his so-called script, because most — all? — of the dialogue appears to have been improvised on the spot. And quite badly, in most cases. It’s the sort of “banter” that regards relentless F-bombs as the height of comedy.

 

This may be the worst case of lunatics running the asylum ever foisted on an unsuspecting public. Grade-school theater productions are more convincing.

 

Until now, I’d have believed Awkwafina incapable of making a bad movie, and possessing the good sense to avoid anything that smelled of one. (Wrong again.)

 

As a sidebar, I’ve never cared for the tasteless “state-sanctioned murder as a cathartic escape valve” subgenre that has become popular of late. Japan’s Battle Royale, unleashed in 2000, started this dystopian trend;  2013’s The Purge and its (thus far) five sequels turned it into a deplorable franchise. By the time South Korea’s Squid Game came along, three years ago, the concept had become mainstream ... which doesn’t say anything good about human nature.

 

This pathetic turkey joins their ranks. It might be the most shameful yet, since it’s supposed to be a comedy.

 

Fly Me to the Moon: An engaging touchdown

Fly Me to the Moon (2024) • View trailer

3.5 stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, for fleeting profanity

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 7.17.24

Aside from a few sophisticated montages that are clearly cutting-edge-today, the bulk of this film feels like it could have been made when the action takes place, in 1969.

 

Kelly (Scarlett Johansson) and Cole (Channing Tatum) prepare for one of the many key press
events designed to "bring the Apollo program to life" in the eyes of the American public.

That’s no accident; director Greg Berlanti wanted this edgy, sorta-kinda rom-com to feel authentic to its tumultuous era. To that end, cinematographer Dariusz Wolski and editor Harry Jierjian employed cinematic techniques that’ll be familiar to those old enough to remember 1960s techniques: wipes, split screens and a slightly “grainy” looks wholly unlike the sharpness of today’s films.

Although the story takes place against the exciting and suspenseful six months leading up to the launch of Apollo 11, the lengthy first act’s tone — thanks to deft writing by Keenan Flynn, Bill Kirstein and Rose Gilroy — hearkens back to the sharp banter that characterized 1950s Spencer Tracy/Katharine Hepburn comedies.

 

That said, the story’s core moral is the necessity of truth: a message that can’t be emphasized enough these days. It’s therefore ironic that this film’s scripters have taken cheeky liberties with established fact, in order to make that point; indeed, they’ve even borrowed a notorious conspiracy theory that some people believe to this day (and I dearly hope this film doesn’t further fan that fire.)

 

On top of which, we’ve been here before: 1977’s Capricorn One dramatically milked that urban legend ... but Berlanti and his writers have gone in a different direction.

 

Channing Tatum stars as Cole Davis, a former Air Force pilot who now serves as NASA’s launch director. He’s stiff, true-blue and rigorously by-the-book; he also believes that the 400,000 people working on this project — scattered at facilities throughout the country — are doing the most important thing America ever has embraced.

 

Trouble is, NASA has a serious image problem, in these turbulent days of early 1969. The Vietnam War is an unnerving, polarizing and wholly dominating news presence; the Civil Rights movement is in full swing; and people are questioning the money being spent by NASA. The initial excitement generated by President Kennedy’s September 1962 speech — “We choose to go to the Moon!” — and the earlier Gemini space program have become old news. 

 

Worse yet, the disastrous January 1967 Apollo 1 accident that killed three astronauts — Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger B. Chaffee — has left a pall on the entire program.