A lot of films have tried to do their own version of the plot of 1993’s “Groundhog Day,” the first Hollywood feature that combined videogame-play rules (the hero is stuck in a time loop, and if the clock runs out or he dies, he starts over) with earnest fantasies of self-improvement (he learns from his mistakes and carries that knowledge into the next go-round). There’s also been a related mini-trend of small-scaled science fiction movies that deal with ruptures in time and/or space and apply them to the lives of everyday people. There were several such films at South by Southwest last year, including “The Greatest Hits,” “Things Will Be Different,” and “Omni Loop,” all of which I reviewed. This year brings “One More Shot,” which is set on New Years’ Eve, 1999, during the Y2K panic.
Directed by Nicholas Clifford and written by Alice Foulcher and Gregory Ernstein, it’s about a young woman named Minnie (Emily Browning) who goes to a party that’s also attended by her beloved ex-boyfriend Joe (Sean Keenan) and his new girlfriend Jenny (Aisha Dee). Jenny is one of the only people at the party who wasn’t part of the same university clique. Another is a hospital orderly who calls himself C-Word (Hamish Michael) and who, to the delight of other guests, brought cocaine. C-Word keeps hitting on Minnie throughout the party, and you start to wonder if eventually Minnie is going to start liking him in that way, just because Joe is such a mess in so many ways (and so is she). She does give him a chance, but not in that way.
It’s hard to describe the events in this movie without killing whatever surprises it might hold, because the entire story is fragmented by the introduction of a time travel element: Minnie brought a special bottle of tequila with her, and once she discovers that drinking it presses a cosmic reset button and starts the night over, she begins treating the event the way Bill Murray’s character treated the eponymous holiday in his movie: as a real-life videogame to be played over and over and over in hopes of claiming the ultimate prize, a reunion with Joe.
It would be nice to report that there’s more to it. But there barely is, aside from some brutal bits of slapstick violence that temporarily mar the heroine’s face and body with bruises and blood. The characters, Minnie especially, learn things about themselves and each other as Minnie relives New Year’s Eve. Maybe you could argue that they’re all the wiser by the end, through some Einsteinian-humanistic equation. But each timeline is its own thing and ends abruptly, and there’s no indication of whether events in a given timeline continue beyond Minnie taking another swig of tequila, so you probably can’t draw any larger philosophical or cosmological inferences, except that Minnie starts to get incrementally closer to what she wants, then starts to understand why she shouldn’t want it.
I’ve seen many SXSW debuts that seem like they might have played better as short films (some started out that way). For all its virtues, including game performances and a catchy period soundtrack, this is another. At the halfway mark you start to feel like all the cards in the movie’s deck have been played. “One More Shot” (a title with a creakily obvious double meaning) grapples with its own version of a problem that afflicted one of the time travel movies at SXSW 2024, “The Greatest Hits,” a romantic comedy-drama about grief in which hearing a particular song triggers the heroine’s plunge into the past and brings her dead boyfriend and their relationship back. I can apply a bit of that review to this movie: “[it] quickly becomes repetitious, and there isn’t enough real-world messy specificity to make the repetitiousness the point, and the reward, of watching.”
Writer-director Tyler Cornack’s “Mermaid” is a hybrid of a horror film, a twisted and doomed romance, a satire on American spiritual emptiness, and a tale of a schmuck who has failed in life but believes that caring for someone (or something) might redeem him. The schmuck in question, Doug Nelson (Johnny Pemberton), lives alone in his late father’s house, depends on alcohol and pills, and has a miserable job cleaning the dumpster-sized tropical fish tank at a strip club. When the boss tells him they’re getting rid of the fishtank and fires him, Doug seems as if he’s lost even the most perfunctory sense of purpose. He already had to give up custody of his daughter—the byproduct of the only time he ever had sex—and owes money to his dad’s menacing friend Ron (Robert Patrick). What’s the point of going on? Why not jump in the ocean?
He finds a mermaid. This isn’t the typical mermaid from a children’s book or the Fourth of July Mermaid Parade in Coney Island. She looks like the tail-finned aquatic cousin of a giant vampire bat, with razor-sharp teeth, milky eyes, and a corpse’s bluish-grey skin. But Doug still takes her home, nurses her back to health in his bathtub, drugs her to keep her from tearing his face off or skittering back to the ocean, names her Destiny, and starts thinking of her as his girlfriend. Destiny projectile-vomits black goo after eating. Of course, Doug dresses her in his mom’s old clothing, props her up in a wheelchair and brings her to his daughter’s birthday party. Imagine “Splash” combined with “Weekend at Bernie’s” and then add projectile vomiting and gory fish-eating.
“Mermaid” is at its best when Doug and Destiny are alone in that oppressively quiet house and we get to observe Doug’s desperate desire for a twisted facsimile of connection. Destiny can’t speak because she’s a fish lady, and even if she could, she’s drugged up and marooned on land, so it’s hard to say whether there’s a real connection to be had, and that’s not the point of the movie. But it’s hard to say what the point is; “Mermaid” starts out an edgy, unnerving, borderline repugnant loser comedy that will do anything to get a reaction from us. It has a strong midsection that says a lot about modern loneliness and male delusion. Then it pivots to a crackpot’s fantasy of saving his true love from bad guys (much like other popular films about extraordinary aquatic creatures held hostage by people who view them only as assets, including “The Shape of Water,” “Splash,” and “Free Willy”). It feels a bit padded, and its shagginess means that Pemberton’s mesmerizing, slack-jawed man-child performance loses impact as the story goes on.
But Cormack has a rapport with actors and a knack for finding beauty in decayed Florida textures, and he’s helped by Joel Lavold’s luminous images as well as on-point work by other key department heads (including production designer Allie Leone, set decorator Alyssa Franks, and costume designer Sara Lukaszewski). In the end, “Mermaids” is more a promising first effort than a fully satisfying experience. But the fact that you need multiple genre labels to even begin to describe it confirms that it’s made by artists who don’t care about stuff like that, and we need as many of those as we can get.
“Sweetness” is a Gen Z answer to “Misery.” But instead of a prudish but ultimately terrifying middle-aged woman kidnapping her favorite writer and imprisoning him in a cabin in snowy mountains, the main characters are a suburban high school girl named Rylee (Kate Hallet) and her favorite pop star Payton (Herman Tømmeraas), whose music Rylee credits with emotionally rescuing her after her mother died.
The first part of the movie details Rylee’s world and her fragile emotional state. Her dad Ron (Justin Chatwin), a cop, is sleepwalking through life and seems more invested in his relationship with his new girlfriend than with his duties as a father. Rylee is bullied and ignored at school and feels like nobody loves or understands her except for her best friend Sidney (Ara Furukawa). A series of coincidences (so unlikely that even the two girls have to marvel at it) brings Payton into their orbit. After a drugged-out Payton nearly crashes his car while driving Rylee home from a concert, Rylee takes him into her house (her pop is temporarily away) and tries to take care of him and (she hopes) detox him.
The plot is strangely similar to that of “Mermaid,” which otherwise has nothing in common with “Sweetness,” and there are affinities with Craig Brewer’s “Black Snake Moan,” another “I am holding you hostage for your own good” thriller. There’s a long stretch where you start to wonder if “Sweetness” is actually going to insist with a straight face that Rylee really is Payton’s unlikely angel of redemption even though she has to chain him in a basement to accomplish her goals.
The polite way to describe the screenplay is to say it doesn’t make a lick of sense. A lot of wild, loud, at times extremely violent action occurs in broad daylight and the middle of the night in a suburban community, and yet no one but the main characters notice. The movie can’t seem to make up its mind if Kylee is deranged by grief and other issues or if she truly is God’s blunt instrument. The final stretch contains some cold-blooded horror movie violence, and given how Kylee has been presented up to that point, you might have a hard time believing it. The movie gets sillier and more panicked as it goes, and there are sequences where it seems like it’s contriving excuses to keep going.
But it’s worth watching for the assured direction (lots of Robert Altman-style long takes with 1970s-style zooms) and the central performance by Hallet. Her work here doesn’t merely hold a patchy movie together, it’s so eerily assured that at times it truly does seem as if the character is channeling a higher power. Remember her name. You’ll be seeing it a lot.
ADVERTISEMENT:
Hai, sobat pengemar slots Pernah denger semboyan “slot demo”? jika belum, siap-siap jatuh cinta sama konsep ini. slot gaco merupakan mesin slot yang selalu kasih win. Yup, mesin-mesin ini bisa dikatakan adalah jagoannya buat bawa pulang cuan. any way, cemana sih
tekniknya jumpain slot gaco yang benar? Tenang Bro and Sis, kita beri tenang saja di tempat ini
Games terbaik saat sekarang satu-satunya di Indonesia hanya di yang menyediakan ROI terbesar
Daftarkanlah dengan di :
Informasi mengenai KING SLOT, Segera Daftar Bersama king selot terbaik dan terpercaya no satu di Indonesia. Boleh mendaftar melalui sini king slot serta memberikan hasil kembali yang paling tinggi saat sekarang ini hanyalah KING SLOT atau Raja slot paling gacor, gilak dan gaco saat sekarang di Indonesia melalui program return tinggi di kingselot serta pg king slot
slot demo gacor
slot demo gacor permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama kdwapp.com
akun demo slot gacor
akun demo slot gacor permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama kdwapp.com
akun slot demo gacor
akun slot demo gacor permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama kdwapp.com
akun demo slot pragmatic
akun demo slot pragmatic permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama kdwapp.com
akun slot demo pragmatic
akun slot demo pragmatic permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama kdwapp.com
akun slot demo
akun slot demo permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama kdwapp.com
akun demo slot
akun demo slot permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama kdwapp.com
slot demo gacor
slot demo gacor permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama jebswagstore.com
akun demo slot gacor
akun demo slot gacor permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama jebswagstore.com
akun slot demo gacor
akun slot demo gacor permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama jebswagstore.com
akun demo slot pragmatic
akun demo slot pragmatic permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama jebswagstore.com
akun slot demo pragmatic
akun slot demo pragmatic permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama jebswagstore.com
akun slot demo
akun slot demo permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama jebswagstore.com
akun demo slot
akun demo slot permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama jebswagstore.com
slot demo gacor
slot demo gacor permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama demoslotgacor.pro
akun demo slot gacor
akun demo slot gacor permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama demoslotgacor.pro
akun slot demo gacor
akun slot demo gacor permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama demoslotgacor.pro
akun demo slot pragmatic
akun demo slot pragmatic permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama demoslotgacor.pro
akun slot demo pragmatic
akun slot demo pragmatic permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama demoslotgacor.pro
akun slot demo
akun slot demo permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama demoslotgacor.pro
akun demo slot
akun demo slot permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama demoslotgacor.pro
slot demo gacor
slot demo gacor permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama situsslotterbaru.net
akun demo slot gacor
akun demo slot gacor permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama situsslotterbaru.net
akun slot demo gacor
akun slot demo gacor permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama situsslotterbaru.net
akun demo slot pragmatic
akun demo slot pragmatic permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama situsslotterbaru.net
akun slot demo pragmatic
akun slot demo pragmatic permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama situsslotterbaru.net
akun slot demo
akun slot demo permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama situsslotterbaru.net
akun demo slot
akun demo slot permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama situsslotterbaru.net
situs slot terbaru
situs slot terbaru permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama situsslotterbaru.net
slot terbaru
slot terbaru permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama situsslotterbaru.net
adu88 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama adu88.asia
agoda88 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama agoda88.asia
aryaduta88 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama aryaduta88.com
bajaringan permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama bajaringan.asia
bangkit88 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama bangkit88.biz
bangor88 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama bangor88.com
bangor88 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama bangor88.info
bangor88 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama bangor88.net
bangor88 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama bangor88.org
basket88 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama basket88.net
batu88 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama batu88.biz
berita88 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama berita88.biz
best88 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama best88.asia
booking88 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama booking88.org
ceria88 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama ceria88.biz
cipit888 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama cipit888.asia
dinojp88 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama dinojp88.com
dosen88 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama dosen88.org
eyangslot88 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama eyangslot88.biz
f88bet permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama f88bet.asia
forwin777 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama forwin777.biz
gacoan888 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama gacoan888.biz
gacor666 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama gacor666.biz
gambar88 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama gambar88.org
gemoy888slot permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama gemoy888slot.info
gercep888 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama gercep888.asia
gitar88 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama gitar88.asia
gmail88 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama gmail88.org
grandaston88 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama grandaston88.com
grandmercure88 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama grandmercure88.com
hermes88 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama hermes88.biz
heroslot888 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama heroslot888.info
hoki222 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama hoki222.biz
holidayinn88 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama holidayinn88.com
hotelharis88 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama hotelharis88.com
ibis88 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama ibis88.asia
ibisbudget88 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama ibisbudget88.com
indonesia88 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama indonesia88.info
inspirasi permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama inspirasi.info
janjigacor88 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama janjigacor88.org
jitujp88 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama jitujp88.com
jokiwin88 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama jokiwin88.net
juragan66 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama juragan66.biz
jwmarriott88 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama jwmarriott88.com
kedai88slot permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama kedai88slot.biz
kilau88 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama kilau88.biz
kimjongun permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama kimjongun.asia
kiw88 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama kiw88.biz
koi777 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama koi777.biz
kucing permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama kucing.info
kudaslot88slot permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama kudaslot88slot.com
kuncigitar permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama kuncigitar.org
kuta88 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama kuta88.asia
madu888slot permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama madu888slot.net
maniaslot88 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama maniaslot88.pro
maxbet888slot permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama maxbet888slot.com
mercure88 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama mercure88.com
mitra777slot permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama mitra777slot.biz
mobilelegends88 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama mobilelegends88.com
moris88 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama moris88.org
motivasi88 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama motivasi88.com
nagacc88 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama nagacc88.com
nasigoreng88 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama nasigoreng88.com
neng88 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama neng88.biz
neototo88 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama neototo88.com
newslot888 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama newslot888.biz
ngopibet88 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama ngopibet88.org
nibung888 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama nibung888.biz
nonstop888slot permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama nonstop888slot.com
nova12 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama nova12.net
novotel88 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama novotel88.com
oli88 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama oli88.org
omset88 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama omset88.com
orientalplay88 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama orientalplay88.com
oxwin88 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama oxwin88.com
oyo88 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama oyo88.live
pahala88 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama pahala88.biz
paris777slot permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama paris777slot.biz
parsel88 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama parsel88.com
pesiarbet88slot permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama pesiarbet88slot.net
pizzahut88 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama pizzahut88.net
planet777slot permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama planet777slot.biz
pmg888 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama pmg888.biz
pohon88 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama pohon88.biz
polaris888 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama polaris888.info
prediksi88 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama prediksi88.biz
puas88 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama puas88.com
pubg88 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama pubg88.info
pulaujudi88 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama pulaujudi88.info
puma888 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama puma888.info
pusakajitu88 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama pusakajitu88.com
qqhok88 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama qqhok88.org
quiz88 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama quiz88.biz
quiz88slot permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama quiz88slot.com
rajah permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama rajah.asia
reddoorz88 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama reddoorz88.com
registrasi88 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama registrasi88.com
ribut88 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama ribut88.net
roblox88 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama roblox88.org
rockygerung88 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama rockygerung88.com
rumah permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama rumah.asia
microvip888 permainan paling top dan garansi imbal balik hasil besar bersama microvip888.com
