Coyote Vs. ACME: A smash riot

Coyote Vs. ACME (2025) • View trailer

Five stars (out of five); rated PG, for cartoon violence

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 9.6.26

Chuck Jones would be thrilled to bits.

 

When he and writer Michael Maltese co-created the Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote, for the 1949 Warner Bros. cartoon short “Fast and Furry-ous,” they likely thought this pairing would be a one-off.

 

Paige (Lana Condor) and her Uncle Kevin (Will Forte) are about the experience the
chaos that results from even a seemingly innocuous ACME product ... and they'd also
better be careful with what's inside that box.

As if.

That ingenious tribute to the silent-movie slapstick efforts of Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd became — at the risk of citing the infamous oxymoron — an instant classic. 

 

Jones went on to direct 25 more theatrical shorts featuring the doomed efforts of Carnivorous Vulgaris (the Coyote) to catch Accelleratii Incredibus (the Road Runner), up to 1980’s “Soup or Sonic.” While the first dozen or so arguably are funnier and more clever than what followed, as a whole it’s still an awesome body of work.

 

I’m therefore delighted to report that director Dave Green and his team of writers — Samy Burch, James Gunn and Jeremy Slater, inspired by Ian Frazer’s hilariously deadpan 1990 humor piece in The New Yorker — have faithfully adhered to Jones’ wit, style and frenetic comedy pacing with this phantastic feature film.

 

Full disclosure: What follows is an unapologetic and shamelessly biased five-star review by someone who has, from the moment I was old enough to appreciate his work, long worshipped at the altar of All Things Chuck Jones ... and I now have no trouble adding this marvelously chaotic blend of live action and animation to that pantheon of cartoon comedy.

 

The premise here is as golden as it is simple. After the film opens on Wile E.’s most recent attempts to catch his prey — each failing, due (as always) to faulty engineering — the Coyote finally realizes that the blame, all these years, is not his. No, he has been the victim of dangerously defective ACME products.

 

The obvious solution: a product liability lawsuit.

 

But something even more sinister is afoot here. A prologue reveals that longtime ACME scientist Dr. Lorre — an intentional caricature of Peter Lorre, one of numerous movie stars lampooned in early Looney Tunes and Merry Melodies shorts — has become convinced that the work he has been doing, on the clandestine “Project Sisyphus,” is unacceptably dangerous. He manages to box up one mysterious item before being caught and — true to ACME form — forced to step into a small circular black hole. He vanishes, after which the hole is carefully rolled up and placed in storage (!).

Sitting in Bars with Cake: Scrumptious!

Sitting in Bars with Cake (2023) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, for profanity, drug use and sexual candor

Available via: Amazon Prime

By Derrick Bang 

You wouldn’t know it from the title, or the needlessly chaotic initial 10-15 minutes, but once director Trish Sie’s modest little film settles down, it becomes one of the warmest, most touching odes to friendship I’ve seen in years.

 

Jane (Yara Shahidi, center) and her posse — from left, Alex (Charlie Morgan Patton),
Nora (Simone Recasner), Corinne (Odessa A'zion) and Liz (Maia Mitchell) — discover
that "cakebarring" is a great way to attract guys. (Note the cake at table center.)

Credit scripter Audrey Shulman, who clearly wrote from the heart; credit also the persuasively authentic performances by stars Yara Shahidi and Odessa A’zion.

This film’s back-story is equally enchanting. Shulman, a Nashville transplant who wound up in Los Angeles as a twentysomething, was celebrating best friend Chrissy Osmulski’s birthday in a bar in the summer of 2012. Shulman, an avid baker, brought along a cherry cake to share with Chrissy and several other friends; the tasty dessert drew the attention of other patrons, and Shulman suddenly realized that this could be a great way to meet guys.

 

Hence the beginning of what she dubbed “cakebarring.” Starting the following January, she vowed to bake a different cake each week, bringing it and her friends to a different venue each week, with the ultimate goal of 50 cakes by the end of the year. She recorded this tasty campaign in what became a popular blog — complete with recipes — which in turn led to an equally well received 2015 book.

 

Now, working alongside Sie, Shulman has adapted her adventures into a charming film. Shahidi’s Jane is Shulman’s alter ego, while A’zion’s Corinne stands in for Chrissy. They’re best friends totally into each other’s groove, despite being polar opposites. 

 

The bookish Jane, whip-smart but introverted, pursues law school studies apparently dictated by her imperious parents; baking becomes a respite during study breaks. By day, she works as an obsessively organized mailroom clerk in an office run by the somewhat grandmotherly Benita (Bette Midler, in a fleeting part that should have been expanded).

 

The wildly extroverted Corinne, in contrast, is a force of nature: an irrepressible free spirit who embraces any occasion at 15 on a 10-point scale, while bouncing from one joyous experience to the next. (“A human sparkler, a flash of color and light,” as Shulman described Chrissy.)

 

We can’t imagine Corinne keeping a job for more than two weeks. She likely regards sleep as a waste of time, and bemoans the fact that her shy roomie doesn’t work harder at “putting herself out there,” particularly when it comes to what she wears.

 

“If it works for Mr. Rogers,” Jane says defensively, at one point, “it works for me.”

 

Corinne groans … and A’zion is just as marvelous at exasperation, as every other emotion.

 

Let it also be said that costume designer Ciara Whaley obviously had a great time with Corinne’s wild outfits.