This Film is Not Yet Watchable – April 2024

Right off the bat, I should apologize for the relative lateness of this month’s column. Today, April 5, is the first day of the month for new theatrical releases, and typically I have this piece out well in advance of that. However, two variables came into play that I did not expect. One is that the post-Blitz hangover was stronger than anticipated, and I REALLY needed to catch up on as much sleep as possible, especially as I’ve been working two jobs for the past 10 weeks (one of which concludes today). The second is that, in anticipation of this month’s “winner” of the title of “The Worst Trailer in the World,” I noticed some trends on Rotten Tomatoes that I wanted to monitor for as long as possible. The title-holder for April comes out today, but I needed to wait until the proverbial 11th hour to get as much data as I could before writing this.

So if you were waiting with bated breath for this entry, I am truly sorry for the delay. However, your patience will be rewarded, in a sense, because we have got a fucking doozy this time around. While the winter months had their usual insults to cinema, they were relatively tempered and easy to avoid. Now that spring is upon us, you’d think we’d be gearing up for the tentpole releases. I still think that’s the case, but if so, it appears the studios are unloading as much garbage as humanly possible beforehand. We are looking at a staggering 16 trailers that have earned a spot here, one short of the record we set last year.

That’s insane, and it’s not because there was a surprising glut of well-intended misfires. You can just scan the list of upcoming releases and see the shit just piling on. None of this is subtle or out of left field. Every single one of these films has a massive, glaring flaw (and some much more) that anyone with functioning brain cells would instantly raise a red flag and say, “NO!” And yet, the powers that be pressed on, and now we have the second-longest list of pre-failures ever featured in this space. How does no one stop this crap?

We’ve got a LOT to get to, so let’s not waste any more time. This is the April 2024 edition of “This Film is Not Yet Watchable!”

Música – April 5

I give Rudy Mancuso all the credit in the world for his musical talent, but this movie just feels insanely derivative. The plot is just a basic love triangle that I find insulting (oh no, a guy has TWO hot girls who want him, however will he cope?), the rhythmic style looks like it was lifted directly from Stomp, and the visual presentation comes off like a hybrid of In the Heights and tick, tick… BOOM!

More importantly, though, I just have a hard time dealing with this motif of overmodulating and amplifying quieter sound effects. I know a lot of people enjoy ASMR, but it causes me physical pain. My “nails on a chalkboard” is intentional tapping noises next to a microphone, whether it’s overly loud typing or that commercial where Zoë Kravitz (I think) tapped on a beer bottle. The trailer says that Rudy himself is “tortured by music,” well that shit tortures me. It’s even worse when you try to edit it into a song, kind of like how the Argylle trailer tried to insert a succession of gunshots into David Bowie’s “Let’s Dance.”

I’m not judging you if this is your favorite thing. I know I’m in a minority on this. But I just can’t get past the audio profile. Some people are really sensitive to different forms of sensory overload. This is mine. Sorry.

The Greatest Hits – April 5

One of my favorite movies of all time is High Fidelity. It’s John Cusack’s finest performance, it made Jack Black into a superstar, and it’s one of the funniest films ever made. But most importantly, it was a devastatingly brilliant treatise on arrested development and how music – or any form of media – has a profound effect on our lives, filtered through the lens of a deeply flawed but still lovable protagonist.

This film, The Greatest Hits, is not that, though it definitely wraps itself in that movie’s record sleeve. Instead, the love of music is just a framing device for an absolutely insipid-looking doomed romance story where Lucy Boynton doesn’t get over a previous relationship, but uses their favorite records to literally travel back in time to try to save him from dying.

What?

Never mind that Boynton doesn’t appear to have any chemistry with the dead character played by David Corenswet, but when we introduce a potential new beau (Justin H. Min), she has even less chemistry with him. And this is supposed to sustain an entire fake love triangle with a memory or something? The fuck outta here! What an insult to one of the few truly great rom-coms. This is like when Fall Out Boy covered the Ghostbusters theme for the Paul Feig reboot. It’s just completely tone deaf and wrong.

Strictly Confidential – April 5

There’s not much you need to know about this one. It just looks like a bland, generic, feature length soap opera where rich, beautiful people bemoan their problems about being rich and beautiful, with an uninteresting murder mystery in the background.

There’s only one thing you need to be told as reason to avoid this like the plague.

Elizabeth Hurley has a sex scene. And it – like the rest of the film – was directed by her son.

EEEEEEEEEWWWWWWWWWW!

Oh God, that’s so grody! I feel dirty just thinking about it. How in the hell does this even happen? No! Just no. This is almost as bad as Judd Apatow directing his daughter in a naughty scene in The King of Staten Island. The only reason this is less disgusting is because there’s no Pete Davidson. How is this even allowed?

Model House – April 5

I’ll concede that there might be a degree of giddy, B-movie fun to be had here. But that only happens if we go full Slumber Party Massacre, because there’s not a single character worth rooting for in this, and I want all of the them to die.

Also, not for nothing, but can we please dispense with this stereotype of models being vapid bitches? I know people like that still exist, but we don’t need to exploit a cheap trope for horror cannon fodder. A lot of them work really hard and are under a lot of pressure based on their body image. But sure, let’s reduce them to only caring about their tits and their Instagram following.

Again, this very clear Purge ripoff might be fun for the pure slaughter, but just because a movie is low-budget doesn’t mean you don’t have to try. There’s a great indie horror film I covered for a festival a couple of years ago called Influencer, that you can watch on streaming right now, and that essentially covers this ground so much better.

Damaged – April 12

I’ve mentioned this before, but somehow, some way, Lionsgate went from being the premier distributor for independent films to being little more than a factory that mass produces shitty action films and shitty religious films. So why not do both? For reasons known but to God, we have Samuel L. Jackson in a shitty action thriller based on a religious cult. Why?

Honestly, watching this, I don’t know which is worse, the fact that Jackson is clearly sleepwalking through his moronic dialogue where he spouts exposition through mangled scripture, the fact that his character is somehow allowed to travel way out of his jurisdiction to the U.K. to solve the case, or the fact that it’s advertised as being “from the director of Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul,” as if episodic prestige TV is comparable to a two-hour film. It might actually be that last part, especially when you watch this preview and realize that it’s closer to a low-rent version of True Detective.

“What is wrong with this picture?” asks Jackson. Based on this trailer, quite a lot.

The Absence of Eden – April 12

Oh goodie. A Sicario-style movie about immigration and human trafficking. I’m sure it’ll be thoughtful and even-handed in its messaging.

*Zoe Saldaña screams “AND TAKE!” with crazy eyes*

Never mind.

There is one chance at entertainment with this, but it’s only from an ironic meta perspective. I get a slight chuckle out of the idea of how those Sound of Freedom maniacs might react to an ACTUAL story about human trafficking, one not funded by a literal human trafficker. Apart from that, I’ve got nothing. When your best selling point is the fact that Zoe Saldaña got a Critics’ Choice nomination years ago (Best Actress in an Action Film for Guardians of the Galaxy; she lost to Charlize Theron for Fury Road), you’re clutching at straws.

Sweet Dreams – April 12

This was my first choice for “The Worst Trailer in the World,” but I ultimately decided against it because it’s only getting a minimal theatrical release before going to VOD. There’s no point in devoting an entire video for a flick that’s never going to be seen.

Still, that doesn’t save it from being mocked here, because man this looks awful. I’m all for skewering sports movie clichés. Hell, my senior thesis was a screenplay doing exactly that. But it just doesn’t work if you’re trying to legitimize the tropes with lazy R-rated humor on the periphery, especially when that humor is as dated as carbon. No one finds Bobby Lee’s shtick funny anymore. No one does anything other than roll their eyes at the thought of Kate Upton being in a skimpy outfit to be the team cheerleader. And for God’s sake, even when Johnny Knoxville is pretending to be earnest, he still needs a gratuitous nut shot joke.

If you want to go for cheesy sentimentality, then do that. It’ll be lame, but you have absolutely no chance of anything resonating if you do that while also engaging in rejected bits from the worst seasons of MadTV. This is a case where you definitely need to pick a lane to have any hope of success, and this just plain doesn’t.

Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead – April 12

No.

They didn’t.

You cannot be serious.

Oh my God, they did.

They remade Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead. They remade a movie so bad (though admittedly with a cult following for us 90s kids), that its failure was literally used as a joke in the first episode of Animaniacs back in 1993. And who dared to resurrect this embarrassment? BET?! And they basically just did it to have a cast of characters act like stereotypes while they hand a legitimate role to *checks notes* NICOLE RICHIE?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

What the hell is going on here? Who ever thought this would be a good idea? Why won’t they share the drugs they’re so clearly on? Why in God’s name is June Squibb lowering herself to this? She was nominated for an Oscar for Nebraska for fuck’s sake.

I want to know. I want an explanation. Make it make sense!

Sting – April 12

This was the second candidate for “The Worst Trailer in the World,” but I turned away from it for the same reasons as Sweet Dreams. The movie doesn’t even have a Wikipedia page. It is apparently getting a full release, but it’ll be buried in a deluge of a dozen pictures premiering next week.

Essentially a remake of Arachnophobia in all but name, I was able to get a few decent jokes out of the trailer, like in how Jermaine Fowler screams at the giant spider but it could just as easily be interpreted as the old lady sauntering in the room naked, or the fact that spiders don’t sting but bite, or the idea that I could recycle some of my bits from the Madame Web video I did two months ago.

But really, there’s no need to kick this movie when it’s so clearly down. It’s a dumb premise, presented in a dumb manner, that will ultimately lead to more dumb laughs than scares. It’ll be swept under the rug quicker than an actual spider caught in the path of the broom, so my heart’s just not in it to drag it further. Now, if you want to make a horror movie where the musician Sting goes around eating people like a giant spider, then I’d be on board.

Rebel Moon – Part Two: The Scargiver – April 19

Nope. Just nope.

I held my nose and watched the first part of Zack Snyder’s blasphemous Star Wars imitation last year because a) my friends recommended I see it for camp value, and b) it was inexplicably shortlisted for the Visual Effects Oscar. It was easily the worst movie of all of 2022 thanks to its horrid visuals, slap-you-in-the-face messaging, braindead action, cavalcade of ripoffs of far better films (there’s a hippogriff, for fuck’s sake!), awful acting, plodding repetition of exposition, and enough slow-motion shots to extend the runtime by at least 37 minutes.

Not again. I’m not doing it. Unless it somehow gets a slew of nominations next year, I will not be fooled again. Thankfully, nothing in this trailer gives any such indication. That the opening is just Sofia Boutella disinterestedly murdering fodder characters on a CGI set before dodging Snyder’s knockoff lightsaber is all the info you need to cancel your Netflix subscription entirely.

The only faint glimmer of hope is that it appears that Anthony Hopkins’ hippie deer antler robot will have a bigger role. It was literally the only thing even remotely interesting in the last movie before he was shelved in the first act, so maybe there’s a chance that his presence will elevate this to a D-. Beyond that, I truly could not care less. The first film alone should have been used as evidence to tear up Snyder’s Directors Guild membership (assuming he has one) and ban him from the industry. I can’t imagine this will restore any confidence.

Blood for Dust – April 19

Serious question, folks. What the fuck happened to Kit Harington? Dude became one of the biggest stars in the world after Game of Thrones. He could pick basically any role he wanted. He was cool, charismatic, and could clearly pull off some action, comedic, and dramatic heroics in a given scenario. He should have had the world on a string. But for whatever reason, he took just the worst possible movie roles, one after another. Look at his cinematic output over the years. Pompeii? Seventh Son? Fucking Eternals? My man, you are so much better than this. Somehow the only good movies he’s done are the last two How to Train Your Dragon flicks, and those were just voice roles.

This latest effort offers little hope of righting the ship, as Blood for Dust (what a stupid title) sees him as a shit-kicker arms/drug dealer affecting the worst western American accent imaginable in what appears to be an aggressively generic crime story. I did get a brief chuckle out of the fact that his character’s front business is snow removal, causing me to fantasize a scenario where someone says, “You know nothing about snow removal.” That’s it for any kind of intrigue, though. When the most interesting part of the trailer is the Burger King ad that YouTube forced me to watch beforehand, that tells you all you need.

Downtown Owl – April 26

You know how you can sometimes tell that someone is trying too hard? That’s what this movie feels like. It’s trying far, far too hard to be a quirky indie comedy about stifled creativity and missed opportunities. Every scene looks like one tired “small town” cliché after another, with the soundtrack trying to force whimsy rather than letting it happen naturally.

It’s a shame, too, because the cast in this is very strong. You’ve got Lily Rabe in the lead role, surrounded by the likes of Ed Harris, Vanessa Hudgens, Finn Wittrock, Jack Dylan Grazer, and Henry Golding. This is a great group, and they all look like they signed on to this project not knowing how underwhelming it actually is.

Of all the entries on this month’s list, this is the one I genuinely hope I’m wrong on, especially for Rabe. She’s a tremendous actress who rarely gets a chance to shine, and if this does well, she could finally get the recognition she richly deserves. There’s just nothing in the preview that looks like anything beyond what Richard Linklater would have passed on 30 years ago, which is ironic because this is co-directed by Rabe’s partner, Hamish Linklater (no relation).

Unsung Hero – April 26

Remember what I said about Lionsgate being the home of shitty religious movies? Just in case you weren’t sure, here’s Unsung Hero, one of the most dishonest looking films of the year to date.

Directed by and starring Joel Smallbone, a Christian worship musician, the film is about the “true” story of how his family moved to America to become famous singing for Jesus. I’m sure there won’t be any embellishments whatsoever. Given the most focus is daughter Rebecca (Kirrilee Berger, apparently named when a cat ran across a keyboard), who performs under the stage name Rebecca St. James. A lot of emphasis is put on how much literal God-given talent Rebecca has, and how it’s her divine path to write and sing the praises of the Almighty.

So how do we express this in the trailer? With a neutered cover of “Dreams” by The Cranberries, a song that the Smallbones had nothing to do with. Nothing says “Christian Family Values” like licensing a song from a dead woman who can’t object, even though the song has literally no connective tissue to the plot and themes.

Fail. I’m sorry, if you’re not willing to prime the audience with some of the very music you claim God Himself ordained for her to make, why should anyone even bother giving you money? Also, if you’re really as Christian as you say, why are you even shilling yourself and your family for profit? Doesn’t that fly in the face of your so-called altruism? To be clear, you can make all the money you want, no skin off my ass. Just don’t pretend to be holier than thou while doing it. In that respect you’re no better than the charlatans that bastardize faith for personal gain that you see in our most craven of politics.

Humane – April 26

We’re going to have two horror films this year directed by the daughters of genre greats. In June we’ll have The Watchers, the debut for Ishana Shyamalan. This month we have Humane, the feature debut for Caitlin Cronenberg. After seeing the preview, I can only hope Ishana does better.

From what I can see, this at least looks competently produced, and you’ll always get points from me for casting Enrico Colantoni, one of my favorite actors from Person of Interest back in the day. But just like Model House, you can clearly see the Purge influence, and just like that franchise, it fails even a surface level logic test.

In a dystopian future where climate change and overpopulation have resulted in global famine, somehow our government has come up with the ideal solution where a certain percentage of the public can volunteer to be euthanized in order to preserve resources for those who remain. Two aging parents sign up, but when Colantoni comes to collect the bodies, the family patriarch backs out and runs away, somehow not wanting to die. What a concept!

However, instead of just moving on with the understanding that humans have a survival instinct, Colantoni insists that someone else in the family take his place, and won’t leave until someone dies. I’m sorry, what?

That’s just stupid. This makes no sense. It’s like an extreme version of Interstellar, a film I greatly enjoyed, but which was built from a faulty premise. As Neil deGrasse Tyson and Bill Nye pointed out on their podcast, in what universe would the situation get so bad that finding another planet to live on becomes the more viable choice than just fixing this one? The same principle applies with The Purge (in what reality could anyone determine that a night of legalized crime and murder to sate our baser impulses is an acceptable option?), and it applies here. It is simply a bridge too far to suggest that anyone would consider a culling of society to be a valid solution to environmental problems, or that any system could exist to say that if a volunteer backs out, one of their loved ones who most certainly did NOT volunteer should be killed in their stead.

There’s suspension of disbelief, and there’s pure nonsense, and this is the latter. I mean, even basic reason would dictate that if Colantoni shows up and demands a corpse, he’s one against half a dozen. What’s stopping them from just killing him and sending the body bag brigade on their way? How is this stretched into a feature-length film? There’s no explanation that could possibly be satisfying.

I hope Caitlin Cronenberg gets a mulligan on this and comes up with something much better next time. Because the last thing Hollywood needs is another nepo baby getting by on family influence rather than actual talent.

Cash Out – April 26

Hey, look, Saban Films is putting out yet another straight-to-video quality bullshit action film, this time with John Travolta. Seriously, I love that Saban distributes Kevin Smith’s films for limited theatrical runs, but everything else is as cheesy as the editing in Power Rangers (also a Saban property). I’m not even going to bother giving this any more of my energy. There’s just so much crap this month. Let’s move on.

***

We’re almost done, folks. I know this has been exhausting, but we’re very nearly there. After two other films had to be discarded due to a lack of prospects, we can finally come to this month’s honoree as “The Worst Trailer in the World.” For this go-round, we have a project that has all the earmarks of a failure, but the reason I held off on the column until tonight is because it might, despite all indications, actually show some promise.

The First Omen – April 5

In addition to the fact that nearly every horror franchise reboot/remake/sequel/prequel over the last several decades has been utter trash, the biggest red flag for The First Omen came in the form of a studio embargo on reviews. This is happening more and more in the digital age.

Before the internet allowed for a massive expansion of content and critique – including for yours truly – most film critics worked for major newspapers and magazines, and studios regularly screened films in advance for them, so that audiences could get a well-written recommendation from a trusted local or national source. Back in the heyday of Siskel & Ebert, this was the accepted practice, to the point that their typical “Thumbs Up/Down” gimmick was replaced by “The Wagging Finger of Shame” whenever a studio declined to screen for the press. It was understood that in doing so, the studio was conceding that the movie was crap, and that the only way it could make money was to advertise the hell out of it and not let anything counter their messaging. It was acknowledged that this was a bad faith exercise in corporate cynicism, and was always frowned upon.

However, with the advent of social media and a chorus of new voices, the studios regained a lot of their power to control the narrative. It’s all too common these days for advance screenings to be curated by PR firms so that only friendly audiences will watch and rave on their platforms, and as added security, they set embargo dates for actual journalists to review in official publications. The closer to the release that hold is, the more likely it is that the studio has no confidence in the quality of the picture, and thus must rely entirely on the marketing team to make it work. We saw this happen just last week with Godzilla x Kong. Trolls were encouraging me to kill myself for daring to make fun of what was sure to be a perfect movie, but Warner Bros. wouldn’t allow reviews to be posted until the day of the flick’s release. The result? A brief early surge that put it at 61% on Rotten Tomatoes – meaning barely passable – before falling down to the 54% where it now resides.

I honestly don’t understand how this is allowed, as no other industry could get away with it. Film criticism is essentially Consumer Reports for the cinema audience, and they have a right to know what’s worth seeing and what’s not, so they can make an informed decision. Imagine if General Motors decided to sell a car with a massive design flaw, but not allow Car and Driver to review the vehicle and tell the people until AFTER it was being sold. There’d be massive lawsuits and possible jail time for those involved. There’s far less danger of injury at the movies, but the principle should be the same.

This same advertising strategy was employed for The First Omen, including the fake “test screening” night vision audience reaction clips (it’s fairly common to stage these with actors), and buying tons of banner space on RT itself to sell the film before the reviews were allowed out. With the film officially debuting today, it of course had “early access” screenings yesterday, and thus the reviews were held until that exact moment. More often than not, this means the movie is the smelliest of smelly doo-doo, and thus I felt comfortable giving it the playful mockery treatment.

But then a weird thing happened. The reviews turned out to be pretty good. When they were released yesterday, the RT score peaked at 87%. The site was even super quick to release a “Critical Consensus” summation that lauds the picture. No doubt this was a result of the fact that Disney bought the ad space. Rotten Tomatoes is often the best resource for critical aggregation, but they are still a for-profit company (under WB ownership) and are thus still able to be manipulated. As long as you keep that in mind, you can take the requisite salt and trust the results.

A day later, the score dropped down to as low as 72%. However, in the hours since I’ve started writing this, it’s bounced back up to 80%, and RT has already given it “Certified Fresh” status, which is supposed to be reserved for films with a “sustained” rating over 75%. Twenty-four hours does not meet the definition anyone would have for “sustained,” but again, I’m guessing they were paid to make that call as quickly as possible.

Still, I am intrigued, as this appears to be the exception that proves the rule about horror franchise expansion, the one Snickers bar in a pool full of turds. And to be fair, I found a couple of moments in the trailer to acknowledge as being well done. I can also respect the fact that the filmmakers intentionally made an R-rated film (they had to fight off an NC-17 rating), meaning they’re willing to take some risks to legitimately scare. It’ll be interesting to see if it’s genuinely good or just being graded on a curve. But that still doesn’t mean the preview itself inspired any confidence. The movie might end up being great, but the sales pitch was a failure. As I say in the video, I’m not saying it can’t work, but nothing in the trailer convinces me that it will, and I stand by my jokes.

***

Finally, at long last, we end on a note of hope as we always do, with this month’s “Redemption Reel.” For April, the winner is a film where I intentionally skipped the trailer every time YouTube tried to force me to watch it while interrupting the actual videos I was viewing. That said, when I finally sat down and looked at it for real, my jaw dropped at how batshit crazy and awesome it looked.

Sasquatch Sunset – April 12

I love it when a film is unreservedly weird and bonkers. It signals a willingness to take risks for the sake of something great and memorable. So you can imagine my delight when gorgeous nature photography smash cuts to a scene of sasquatches humping and glamor shots of Jesse Eisenberg and Riley Keough in full makeup as if we’d ever be able to recognize these stars.

This is just so delightfully goofy, and it does exactly what a trailer is supposed to do. Whether you love or hate the premise, I defy you to watch this and not think to yourself, “What the hell is this? I kind of want to see it just to figure out what in God’s name is going on!” That should be an easy feat, but as we see month in and month out, it very much isn’t. It may be a complete waste of time, but the filmmakers have certainly got my attention and piqued my curiosity. In that respect, the studio has done its job properly.

***

That’s all for this month’s edition. As always, I hope you enjoy your time at the movies, no matter what you see, and hopefully these April showers will bring some higher quality May flowers.

Join the conversation in the comments below! Do you plan on seeing any of these films? Was I too hard on any of them? Should studios be forced to allow advance reviews for their projects? Let me know! And remember, you can follow me on Twitter (fuck “X”) and YouTube for even more content!