It was a three day weekend here in the States, so I obviously had to get out to the cinema a couple of times. This weekend’s offerings were a little unconventional for different reasons. I saw a movie that had been shelved for two years due to lack of distribution, and a movie from one of my favorite directors that seemed to be completely different than anything he had ever made based on the marketing.
The Toxic Avenger directed by Macon Blair
The story behind this film is baffling to me. It was completed and screened at festivals in 2023, but it was unable to find distribution. I can understand companies being wary about any movie that can’t get an R rating without major cuts to appease the MPA, but it’s not like this was some wholly original property. This is a reboot of a franchise with a diehard cult following that has spawned multiple sequels, comic books, and a children’s animated series. Plus it has legitimate star power with actors like Peter Dinklage, Elijah Wood, and Kevin Bacon. On top of that, you have Macon Blair writing and directing. This was bound to be a good movie, and it is! It hits all of the notes you would expect from a Toxie movie. It’s gross, it’s crass, it’s funny, it’s absurd, it’s gruesome, and it never takes itself too seriously. Peter Dinklage is great as Winston Gooze/Toxic Avenger. He could have easily mailed in his performance knowing he would spend the majority of the film providing just the voice while Luisa Guerreiro is in the suit, but he really sells it as a dad who just wants to be supportive of his son. Kevin Bacon is great as always as a piece of shit CEO whose products are literally poisoning the community. Elijah Wood is also fun as the manager of a “monstercore” music group called the Killer Nutz that also serves as a death squad for Kevin Bacon’s evil company. I had a blast with it, and the audience I saw it with clearly did as well.
Caught Stealing directed by Darren Aronofsky
I wasn’t sure what to make of this film based on the trailers. Aronofsky has long been one of my favorite directors (Pi, Requiem for a Dream, The Wrestler, and Black Swan are my favorites), but this looked like something completely different. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I went in with an open mind. Having now seen it, I can safely say that this film is actually a throwback to some of Aronofsky’s earliest work. Of all of the films he has made, Pi is probably the one most similar to Caught Stealing. I certainly did not expect that from the trailer, so I was pleasantly surprised. This is a gritty descent into the bowels of New York City in 1998 that sees a former Major League Baseball prospect (played by Austin Butler) getting caught up in a neo-noir criminal mystery. It’s an adaptation of a novel written by Charlie Huston, and it certainly feels like his brand of crime thriller. Butler is the star of the show, but the supporting cast is also out of this world. There’s Zoe Kravitz as Butler’s girlfriend, Regina King as a detective trying to figure out Butler’s role in the events, Matt Smith as the neighbor who accidentally gets Butler involved in the first place, Liev Schreiber and Vincent D’Onofrio as a pair of Hasidic Jewish mobsters, Yuri Kolokolnikov and Nikita Kukushkin as a pair of Russian mobsters, Bad Bunny as a Puerto Rican mobster, and a truly shocking uncredited actor in a cameo as Butler’s mom. I thought this was a really strong film with believable and sympathetic characters with plenty of twists and turns to give the film an almost frantic pace at times. It’s one I would recommend seeing on the big screen.