Alex's 2024 Cinema Corner: Week of January 29th

Before you read I know the question you all have... "am I on the right website?". "Rouge Eye SPORTS having an article about cinema?".

I assure you, there has been no typo in your search or no issue in your hyperlink.

Although sports has always been the main focus of this brand and honestly, my life, movies/television has become another massive passion in the past year or so. In 2023, I dove right into the world of cinema and was able to reach a deeper appreciation like I've never had before. It was a whole new avenue of enjoyment for me and allowed me to connect with a lot of new people. I'm glad I picked up this interest again and I plan on continuing it even more in 2024.

'Alex's Weekly 2024 Cinema Corner'  will consist of my thoughts on every bit of movie and television I watched in the past week, what I'm currently in the middle of watching(if anything) and some short thoughts on some movie news from the past seven days.

As I was hinting at earlier, I do have two rating apps that allow me to keep up with what I watch. My letterboxd account is aps12359 and my serializd account is alexschlerf. These will have every movie or TV show I've rated, ever, and also some lists beyond the ones I share here. Feel free to follow and keep up the discussion past this article! As always, comments on this article and on Twitter/X are open if you want to peacefully debate about anything I say!

Lastly, just please don't get mad if I don't rate your favorite movie five stars or don't talk about a bit of news that you read from the past week. The beauty of cinema is that everyone can enjoy certain aspects in different ways; the reason why we don't all have the exact same opinion on everything. This is MY column, meaning it will end up leaning towards the movies/TV shows that are on my list and the movie news that appeals to me the most. Let's just all have fun.

January 30th, 2024: Mission Impossible 2(Directed by John Woo)

Credit: IndieWire

Rating: 1.5/5 Stars

The best way to describe this film would be disaster. The way I described it in my letterboxd review was that it feels like the somebody watched the first film and decided to make a low-budget parody version. The action sequences, cinematography and tension is all so bland. It features a cast that is mostly talented but is clearly being force fed material that is not up to the standard of this franchise. There's just a lot of questionable moments. I understand that a common action movie trope is to have the main character have a new love interest every movie, but this movie didn't even try to hide how forced this was. Ethan Hunt meets this girl in the beginning of the movie and it takes him practically five seconds to completely fall in love with her. This would be fine if they just dropped it after the first twenty minutes of the movie, but his love for her is threaded in the plot of the entire movie. This allows you to never feel the stakes because you aren't really rooting for this romance to work out. Additionally, what was with all the slow motion in this movie? It could've probably been 20 minutes shorter if they would have just removed every slow motion shot entirely. It's not even like they are only using it in action sequences, it's used even in scenes where it's just characters talking. I'm all for slow motion in movies, but this was excessive to the point where you are rolling your eyes by the third or fourth time it happens. The final action sequence is so incredibly goofy and I'm curious how anyone could've greenlit that to show in theaters worldwide. There's really only so much that Tom Cruise can do when the writers are giving him material that basically prevents him from continuing his character arc from the first film. I know this will probably be the low point of the franchise because of how widely well regarded it is, but that doesn't mean I can't critique when they screw up. Very disappointing.

Currently Watching: Welcome to Wrexham Season 2

Credit: Rolling Stone

If you missed last week's column, I noted that I had started the second season of Welcome to Wrexham. However, I am not really far in enough to give a notable review. Entering this week I was two episodes in and I am now four episodes in. The show continues to deliver though, especially in the sense that it doesn't follow the general format of Season 1. The first season was mostly focused on each match week-by-week, while occasionally focusing on the stories of the players or some of the staff within the club. This season, so far, has been a lot more about the stories of the members within the club compared to watching Ryan Reynolds react to the matches in his house. That is a hilarious dynamic and very welcomed by me, but the show knows that they can shine a light on a town that has been so neglected because of what Reynolds and McElhenney have done. The people in this town seem like misfits at first, but when you get a deeper dive in each episode it just grows to a place you really want to root for. I said this last week and it didn't happen so take it with a grain of salt, but I'm again going to try this week to put a good dent in the show so I can give a better capsule in this article.

Onto the Cinema News Section...

When I first read this news, I was very disappointed. Edebiri is one of my favorite female actors right now due to her work on The Bear and it made me really excited that she was going to work on an MCU film. Then reading that she had to drop out because of the project moving back after the strike, it just really sucked to read. It still does, but I'm hoping this means that Edebiri can potentially get a bigger role down the line in Marvel. According to some insiders, her role was set to be very small in Thunderbolts and maybe it's for the best that she exited here to get a much larger role in the coming years. Regardless, the MCU has already lost two great actors due to the strike(Steven Yeun also dropped out from the same film due to scheduling conflicts). Hopefully Geraldine Viswanathan can fill the role well. I absolutely love the concept of Thunderbolts and the cast is still great, but I would be lying if I said I wasn't worried with how the film is developing. Losing multiple great actors, filming being pushed back many times and a lineup that could be easily improved aren't exactly ingredients for a fantastic movie.

I'm not going to flat out lie and say I've seen every leading role that Christian Bale has had, but I just wanted to use his birthday on Tuesday as an excuse to note how he's probably the most versatile actor out there right now. From playing Batman, to a serial killer, to a race car driver, to a god-killing villain and many more. There's plenty of articles out there that you can find about his weight transformation for each film he does and it's genuinely one of the most impressive feats I've seen from any actor. To think that he is only 50 years old and he's already made this big of an impact on the film industry just proves this point even more. Even when he's in films that are terrible, he still tends to stand out. I absolutely despise Thor: Love and Thunder(maybe we can discuss this further at some point in the future), but his performance of the villain in the film is fantastic and probably one of the best acting performances in the entire MCU. Here's to more great performances from the fifty year old!

Listen, I'm excited for Squid Game Season 2. I really enjoyed the first season and the prospect of more content from that franchise is really good to hear. However... do we really need this? After finishing the first season, I can't say I really expected anything more. Sure, they kind of leave you on a cliffhanger at the end, but there are plenty of shows out there that end on a dilemma that is just left up to the audience to decide what happens next. This could've easily been a standalone project that never really needs any additional seasons or spin-offs. I guess with the success of Season 1 they felt they needed to produce more, but I'm just worried it won't do justice to the original story. It's hard to make any conclusions from a seventeen second trailer, but it looks at least somewhat similar to the tone of where Season 1 left off. I'm just begging that they make the first season still mean something and they don't completely disregard it to make this new season it's own thing. We'll check back in when we get an actual trailer and not just a short look from a sizzle reel.

I'm not going to claim to be the president of the Megamind fan club, but this is just flat out disrespectful. When Dreamworks learned that Will Ferrell wasn't going to return in the title role, they should've just scrapped the project entirely. Without him, any new film or TV show with the character is going to be playing catch up. I'm sure they thought that with the name brand and excitement from the first film, people will watch no matter what the content of the show is. After the reaction online to this trailer, that may not be true. People are, rightfully, ripping into the animation, the fact that the main cast isn't returning, forced humor and much more. This trailer drop was a complete mess and I'm not sure many people will be tuning in on March 1st. I was kind of iffy about if I was going to watch anyway because I was just a casual fan of the original, but now I think I'm completely out. A question we've asked a couple times in this article already... why is this even being made?

Unfortunately we have to end on a sad note... Carl Weathers has passed away at the age of 76. Weathers is known most to me for his amazing performance as Apollo Creed in the Rocky franchise. I've lived in the Philadelphia area for most of my life, so the Rocky movies have always been a big part of my life and the culture around me. Weathers' performance as Apollo is iconic and is unlike anything we've seen in any media of the similar kind. If you have not seen these films, now would be the time. There are too many iconic scenes to count involving Weathers in the franchise and I was tearing up rewatching at all of them on Friday. This is not even mentioning his other fantastic performances in Predator, Happy Gilmore and The Mandalorian. There's been an outpour of love for him since the news released on Friday and it's been awesome to see. It's clear he had a great presence and influence to every single actor he worked with. We lost a good man on Friday. Rest In Peace.

To finish, here's the film and television projects that I are next on my list.

Next Movie On My List: Mission Impossible 3

Next TV Show On My List: Currently Watching Welcome to Wrexham Season 2

See you next Sunday!