This Film is Not Yet Watchable – August 2024, Part One

Yes, folks, you read that right. Part. One!

For the first time ever, I am forced to split the monthly preview parodying into two installments. I have to do this for three reasons. One is that I just wrapped up a show I’ve been working on for the last six months (keep an eye out for Flip Side this September, syndicated in your local markets), and the cumulative effect has been mentally taxing, with a particular ramp up over the last few days. Two, as a side effect of spending seven weeks on set with 100 crew members, I am currently super sick. I’ve been fighting it off for two weeks, but since Monday it’s gotten the best of me, to the point where I’ve been pretty much out of commission since I got home from the studio yesterday. As such, I haven’t even been able to make the “Worst Trailer in the World” video yet. I’ll be fine next week, but I still wanted to make sure I got something out before the first batch of releases for August came out.

Third, and most importantly, we’ve broken the record for entries in this column yet again. For a while we never went higher than 14 films to earn a dubious place in this monthly piece. Then we jumped to 18, a mark I figured could never be beaten. However, less than a year later, in the secondary studio dumping ground that is August, we have an overwhelming glut of 21! I wouldn’t have believed it if you told me, but here we are. There are 33 movies coming out this month on one platform or another, all of which have been given MPAA ratings, making them eligible for consideration here. There are about eight other streaming-only features that were excised from the list based on that low benchmark. Everyone is unloading whatever’s in their back schedule before we get to Awards Season, and this time around the output is even more egregious than usual. Normally, if 12 trailers passed the first impression test, we’d call that a success. Instead, it constitutes a nearly 2/3 fail rate.

So for the sake of my sanity and the structural integrity of my fingers, we’re making like your run-of-the-mill Young Adult adaptation and dividing this in two. I’ll handle the first 10 this time around, then get to the rest next week. I apologize in advance for the hurricane force deluge your eyes and brains are about to endure, but that’s just how shitty the industry is at the moment. But hey, don’t worry, there’s a Britney Spears biopic in the works… FUCK!

This is but the beginning of the August 2024 edition of “This Film is Not Yet Watchable!”

The Instigators – August 2

Did you know that Matt Damon and the Affleck brothers are from Boston? And did you know that crime happens in Boston? I mean, it’s impossible to know that… unless you watched The Departed. Or The Town. Or Gone Baby Gone. Or about 100 other films.

So yeah, here we are with Damon and Casey Affleck. They’re bank robbers. And they suck at it, apparently. So we have Hong Chau as a therapist/hostage trying to talk them out of the situation.

To quote another New England douchebag, Peter Griffin, “OH MY GOD, WHO. THE HELL. CARES?”

It’s one thing to go back to a dry well. It’s another to watch a trailer and realize you know exactly what’s going to happen, beat for beat, line for line, because you’ve seen it all literally dozens of times before. Part of the reason the theatrical model is dying is because audiences are sick to death of seeing the same old shit over and over again, and being charged more and more for the privilege. So what’s a studio to do but keep churning out the same crap, put it in theatres for a week so that it has Academy eligibility, then relegate it to Apple so that streaming essentially becomes your only option?

We are so screwed.

The Firing Squad – August 2

The issue of capital punishment is delicate and nuanced, with good faith arguments to be had on both sides, though the prevailing opinion of the civilized world is that execution is inhumane and barbaric. At minimum, most agree it should only be utilized in extreme situations.

So who better to tackle the subject than Kevin Sorbo and the ultra-right conspiracy rag known as The Epoch Times? Ostensibly, The Firing Squad is a “based on a true story” account of prisoners facing execution who seek hope in their faith. Okay, lame, but you can stomach it if its heart is in the right place.

But when you see who’s behind it, and you watch the trailer, you know this is just propaganda thinly disguised as being “inspirational.” Loosely based on the “Bali Nine,” a group of Australian drug smugglers who were arrested in Indonesia with about eight kilos of heroin, the two ringleaders, Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, were executed under Indonesia’s draconian anti-drug laws, while six of the other seven were given life sentences.

So why does The Epoch Times and Kevin Sorbo care about this story? Is it because capital punishment is wrong? Is it because the war on drugs has long been a false pretense to imprison and persecute at-risk people and minorities? Is it because they believe that prison can actually be rehabilitative? No, no, and fuck no. It’s because they became Christians. And you can’t kill Christians, especially if they’re white. Oh, they weren’t white? Well, cast some white people… and Cuba Gooding, Jr. just so we don’t look too racist. And change their names to something more ‘MURICA-sounding so we can sell this to the rabid, salivating Trump denizens that read our paper.

Never mind that Sorbo has been accused of sexual harassment multiple times, that he openly advocates for the imprisonment and torture of those he disagrees with politically, parrots the lies about election fraud and lionized the January 6 insurrectionists, spread disinformation about COVID and vaccines, doubles down on antisemitism in the media, and oh yeah, PUBLICLY SUPPORTS THE DEATH PENALTY! There is no self-serving, sanctimonious avenue to promote himself as a “good” Christian that he won’t go down, no matter how hypocritical it is. He’s a lying piece of shit through and through, and now he’s trying to make money and indirectly martyr himself in the name of fundamentalist Christian nationalism. I guarantee you that if the Bali Nine were Muslims, this movie would be about how awesome and righteous it was to kill them.

Fuck anyone and everyone involved with this movie, especially Gooding. Dude, you should know better than this. I feel gross even linking to the video for this one.

One Fast Move – August 8

VROOM!

VROOM!

VROOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMM!!!!!!!!

Substance?

It Ends with Us – August 9

Yet another Lifetime-esque story about an abused woman that somehow gets a theatrical release because it’s based on a book that sold well. Yawn. But hey, at least we can look at the abuser’s abs for a while at first, as if that somehow justifies anything that happens or places blame on the victim for looking past his flaws for the sake of hotness. Progressive!

Also, your villain’s name is Ryle. Fucking RYLE! How are we meant to take anything seriously when the bad guy is a literal misspelled Kyle. Oh, the man who saves her is named Atlas? I wonder if he’s got the weight of the world on his shoulders. Jesus.

Duchess – August 9

I don’t buy the action for a minute, I have no ability to root for anyone in the criminal underworld, and every second of this trailer is filled to the brim with clichés.

But worst of all, I check out precisely 25 seconds in, when our so-called heroine chimes in with her super thick Geordie accent to tell us this supposedly tense scene is just a setup for the trite, “You’re probably wondering how I got here” in medias res shtick. Sorry, the moment you lean on that crutch, I’m done. Start the story where it actually begins, not when you think it’s finally interesting. It’s one of the cheapest, laziest narrative devices in films, working approximately 2% of the time, and I hate it. I don’t even care how she gets the titular nickname once I see this bit play out for the bazillionth time. NEXT!

Jackpot! – August 15

Awkwafina! John Cena! They’re here because their names rhyme!

What? Do you honestly think there’s another explanation?

Seriously, what the hell happened to Paul Feig? He must have really taken it hard when that terrible Ghostbusters reboot he did turned out to be, well, terrible. Yeah, the sexism of internet trolls was disgusting, but it’s his own fault that he made a film where the entire premise began and ended with, “Ghostusters… BUT WITH LADIES! THAT’S INSTANT COMEDY GOLD!” The problem with the film wasn’t the casting, but the fact that any attempt at creativity stopped as soon as the cast was locked in. There was no substance to ANY of it.

Still, the film’s failure must have sent him into some kind of spiral, because in the aftermath, the only good thing he’s put out is the underrated A Simple Favor (which is somehow getting a sequel). Apart from that, he’s only released the god-awful Last Christmas and The School for Good and Evil. That just speaks to a complete loss of motivation to do anything of substance or quality.

Now we have Jackpot!, which feels like we’re using Shirley Jackson’s The Lottery as a flimsy pretense for a brainless action comedy. In the film, a character played by Misspelled Bottled Water somehow has a lottery ticket in her pocket. I’m sure there’s an explanation in the full movie, but there’s not one in the trailer, which would seem like an important detail, because it appears this character has no idea how this lotto works. Surely if she bought the ticket herself she’d be aware of the dire consequences of “winning.”

Anyway, instead of the original story, where drawing the fateful lot results in a small community ritually sacrificing the unlucky person, here Katie (this is the third character with a variant of that name that MBW has played over the last few years) wins a massive jackpot, but only if she can hold on to the ticket until the end of the day. If anyone takes it from her, by whatever means necessary, they get the money. So somehow the chase is on, and somehow involves Cena and Simu Liu. Shang-Chi has betrayed his friend! (also named Katy)

I’m sorry, is any of this supposed to be funny, compelling, or in any way interesting? What do we know about Katie? How did she get the ticket? What society would allow these lottery rules? Why is she showing up to an audition as the only Asian lady in a room full of blonde models? What agent would even send her there?

This is the problem with modern films, and their advertising. There isn’t a reason for any of this. We’re just supposed to see popular actors and fork over our money and eyeballs. Substitute any unknown actress in the lead role. Hell, substitute any other Asian actress – famous or not – in that role, and ask yourself if you still care. Put any generic stunt actor in Cena’s place. Do you give a crap? The answer is no, and you all know it. Because of that, you shouldn’t care about this either, unless the movie gives you a reason to. And in this case, it just doesn’t. It’s empty, utterly without substance, and you can tell that just from these two minutes and the desperate contest the stars shill to bookend the trailer. We all know better than to fall for this, and I honestly worry that Feig has forgotten that.

Alien: Romulus – August 16

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me with Resurrection, Prometheus, and Covenant? Well, you didn’t fool me specifically on those fronts, but the point still stands that we won’t be fooled again.

Watching this preview, I’m glad that it appears for once like they’re trying. There’s some decent cinematography and lighting design, but ultimately, I just don’t care. It’s still the same old story. We’re stranded somewhere in a space thing. There are xenomorphs. They attack. Everyone but this movie’s Ripley clone (whether literal or figurative) will die. Nothing new is being added. I mean, there’s literally a scene where we try to pretend there’s something tense going on with a guy being all scared and saying “there’s something in the fucking water,” and we all know it’s a face-hugger. It might be scary to the rando about to die, but it’s not scary to us as viewers. We’ve seen it all before, multiple times. And once you see the classic tagline from the original Alien being repurposed here, you start to realize that of all the film genres out there, sci-fi/horror is about the last one that should be used to mine nostalgia.

I’m not saying it won’t be good. I’m saying that nothing in this convinces me that it will. It looks like a cookie cutter version of the original with some more red lighting. That’s it. It might turn out to be enough, and maybe all the good shit is being kept for the full flick as a reward for those who brave it. But on first look, it’s just not there. As a voiceover timidly asks, “Are you sure you want to do this?” my only response is, “No.”

The Union – August 16

Hey, remember when Halle Berry briefly kicked ass in John Wick 3? Remember when Mark Wahlberg briefly kicked ass in some other films? Well know they’re together, at long last, to briefly kick ass in a generic Netflix spy picture where Berry recruits Wahlberg as a nobody to help some mundane, generically named spy agency, and somehow he’ll be expert at fieldcraft in a matter of 90 minutes!

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

The Deliverance – August 16

You know what was missing from The Exorcist? Baptists.

That’s literally the entirety of the premise here. I got nothing else. It’s a southern Baptist version of The Exorcist, only apparently set in Pennsylvania. That’s it.

Skincare – August 16

Look, I hate internet scammers. I hate hackers. I hate identity thieves. I hate every single person who thinks it’s okay to destroy people’s lives for kicks, especially when they won’t direct this fraud towards people who actually deserve it, like corrupt politicians or pedophiles.

But I’m sorry, I can’t bring myself to care about a cosmetics executive. I love Elizabeth Banks, but there’s nothing in this character that elicits any sympathy. If you’re famous for selling creams and go on daytime talk shows, your entire existence is inherently shallow. That’s not to say she should be victimized, but it does make it so easy to ignore her plight. We’re told that she’s “The American Dream,” but we’re not shown that. All we see is a pretty blonde lady, played by an A-list actress.

There’s nothing relatable here, and this is coming from a guy who has been hacked and scammed before. A few years ago, I nearly went bankrupt from a lack of work. And just to add insult to injury, someone got a hold of my debit card number and used it to charge my account for over $2,500 worth of Uber rides, robbing me of my last few hundred dollars and putting me over two grand in the red. Thankfully I could instantly identify the fraud, as I’ve never used Uber for rideshare, only food delivery, and extremely rarely at that. But it still took months to get the money back and reverse the damage, and I had to live off my credit card and drive up the balance to an insane degree while it played out. This is a terrible thing to happen to any honest person, and there’s rarely any justice other than getting a refund for the fraudulent purchases. It’s been five years, and I have no idea if they ever caught the motherfucker. It’s a nightmare.

So you’d think that would make Banks’ character instantly sympathetic. But I’m sorry, I feel nothing. You establish her as being rich and famous, and somehow an example of everything great about this country. Well, surely that means she’s managed her money well and has lots of savings, right? Or at least we can be certain that she’s cultivated her clients and persona to make it so that everyone believes her and takes her side when this happens, right? Or we can at least assume that if she’s built herself up as the movie posits, that she can do it again… right? We’re not given any of that information. Instead we’re presented with a paranoid revenge fantasy with a lead who acts extremely entitled. Again, that doesn’t mean this should happen to her, but it makes it all but impossible to give a shit, and that’s where this instantly fails. I don’t care if it’s “inspired by a true story.” That means literally nothing. My story is true. Did they base it on me, or any one of the millions of others who’ve been robbed like this? What about this story is true, and why should we connect with it? The trailer refuses to answer those two crucial questions, so I’m out.

***

That’s all the energy I have for this week. I promise I’ll handle the back half of August next week, including getting out the next “Worst Trailer” video and the monthly “Redemption Reel.” For now though, I’m tired, sweaty, exhausted, and sick as a dog.

Join the conversation in the comments below! Do you plan on seeing any of these films? Was I too hard on any of them? Can you believe it’s gotten so bad that a two-parter is necessitated? Let me know! And remember, you can follow me on Twitter (fuck “X”) and YouTube for even more content, and check out the entire BTRP Media Network at btrpmedia.com!