BlackBerry

• Director: Matt Johnson
• Writers: Matt Johnson, Matthew Miller
• Starring: Jay Baruchel, Glenn Howerton, Matt Johnson, Rich Sommer, Cary Elwes, Michael Ironside, SungWon Cho, Michelle Giroux

Grade: B+

Director, co-writer, and star Matt Johnson does something simple but effective in the early-goings of his newest film BlackBerry: he shows the titular device’s first prototype being put together. With most films in its genre, the product is shown as almost perfect from the beginning, as if it was destined to be great from the beginning. Johnson portrays the painstaking and frantic process of its creator Mike Lazaridis (Jay Baruchel) Frankenstein-ing the BlackBerry prototype together from various electronics in the waning hours before its first pitch. The rest of the film doesn’t necessarily revolutionize similar films based on fictionalized retellings of corporate disruption, but it’s a small indication that Johnson is dedicated to what really matters within the story.

Peter Pan & Wendy

• Director: David Lowery
• Writers: David Lowery and Toby Halbrooks
• Starring: Jude Law, Ever Anderson, Alexander Molony, Yara Shahidi, Joshua Pickering, Jim Gaffigan

Grade: B

Disney’s live-action remakes of their classic films have largely been an exercise in futility. From the forgettably bland (Beauty and the Beast, The Lion King) to the simply forgettable (Mulan, Aladdin) to the creatively bankrupt (Pinocchio), the projects mostly fail to justify their own existence. They almost exclusively copy the plot of the original films beat for beat, with maybe an extra song thrown in, and utilize shoddy visual effects for the more fantastical elements. So why remake Peter Pan, when countless iterations already exist? Perhaps it was always meant to happen – I imagine that somewhere in the Disney offices lies a deck of cards, and Peter Pan’s was the next one drawn – but there’s an outside chance it’s because director and co-writer David Lowery had something unique to bring to the material.

Showing Up

• Director: Kelly Reichardt
• Writers: John Raymond, Kelly Reichardt
• Starring: Michelle Williams, Hong Chau, Andre Benjamin, John Magaro, Judd Hirsch

Grade: B+

Kelly Reichardt has amassed a loyal following of arthouse cinema nerds over the course of her almost 30 year career, and she’s done so without repeating herself in each of her films. Though the subjects of her films are often vastly different, she’s shown a keen sense of understanding her characters, and the specific places they inhabit. With her latest film Showing Up, she utilizes this ability through the micro lens of the Portland art scene.

The Super Mario Bros. Movie

• Director: Aaron Horvath, Michael Jelenic
• Writer: Matt Fogel
• Starring: Chris Pratt, Charlie Day, Anya Taylor-Joy, Jack Black, Keegan Michael-Key, Seth Rogen, Fred Armisen

Grade: B

Mario has traveled to all sorts of worlds since his introduction in 1985; from the Mushroom Kingdom to the race track to the tennis courts to the Olympic Games, he’s as malleable as any pop culture protagonist. Then again, when your original adventure consists of little more than a side-scrolling series of jumps and sewer pipes, your storytelling options are basically limitless.

Tetris

• Director: Jon S. Baird
• Writers: Noah Pink
• Starring: Taron Edgerton, Nikita Efremov, Sofia Lebedeva, Anthony Boyle, Toby Jones

Grade: B-

“A movie about Tetris” feels a bit like an indication of the empty-headed nature of the Hollywood ecosystem. What could possibly be compelling about a bunch of colorful falling blocks, a game defined by how much of a waste of time it was? Lest we forget, six Transformers movies and The Emoji Movie exist.

Smoking Causes Coughing

• Director: Quentin Dupieux
• Writers: Quentin Dupieux
• Starring:

Grade: C

French absurdist filmmaker Quentin Dupieux knows how to craft a bizarre story with utmost sincerity. His 2020 film Deerskin was the tale of a man going through the most extreme midlife crisis ever by murdering everyone at the command of a jacket. 2021’s Mandibles was about two lovable dopes trying to find fame and fortune by training a dog-sized fly. His latest, Smoking Causes Coughing – which he wrote, directed, shot, and edited himself – sees him essentially throwing everything at the wall and seeing what sticks, for better and worse.

Return to Seoul

• Director: Davy Chou
• Writers: Davy Chou
• Starring: Park Ji-Min , Oh Kwang-rok, Guka Han, Kim Sun-Young

Grade: A-

Where are you from?

It’s an innocent, innocuous question most of the time, but in Return to Seoul, it contains layers of complicated emotions. The film deals with issues of identity (both personal and national) and self-acceptance, and it’s buoyed by a magnificent performance from Ji-Min Park in her first on-screen role. It’s also a kind of cinematic memoir (don’t roll your eyes yet) for writer and director Davy Chou, who gives the film a nuanced look at dual citizenship from the perspective of someone that’s actually experienced the unique phenomenon firsthand.

Cocaine Bear

• Director: Elizabeth Banks
• Writer: Jimmy Warden
• Starring: Keri Russell, O’Shea Jackson Jr., Alden Ehrenreich, Brooklynn Prince, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Margo Martindale, Ray Liotta

Grade: B

Movie titles can be deceptive. Sometimes the title has nothing to do with the content of the film or can only tangentially relate to its themes. That’s not the case with Cocaine Bear, the latest big studio horror comedy that’s designed for a quick cinematic high in the first quarter of the year.