THE WOMAN IN THE YARD

I don’t think it’s any mystery that Jordan Peele’s influence has a grip on modern day Black-centered horror films and television. And for those that don’t know what I’m talking about or want to play dumb, just look at the last few years alone: Lovecraft Country, Them, Ma, Queen & Slim, Run Sweetheart Run, Opus, The Front Room, Tyrell, Master, Alice, Tales From The Hood Part 2 and more. Whether you like it or not - all these movies have Get Out’s DNA in them in one way or multiple ways.
And to be clear - it’s more than just “scary stories with Black people in them”. All of these movies are some variation of “watch out for the white boogeymen/boggeywomen”. Even Sinners sort of falls in to that category/genre of film. I have a personal issue with this because it’s like Black films can’t exist without white people haunting us. I don’t need a history lesson on the relationship between Black and white people in this country either. I get it. Trust me. I’m a large young Black male. I’ve experienced plenty discrimination and racism. But these days so much of our identity is tied to being scared of white people. I just think that gets a little tiring. And in an abstract kind of way, it’s reverting back to the bugged sweaty Black caricature from old Hollywood who’s always scared of something…

(I’m a little conflicted using this image of Stepin Fetchit because he was a talented man that absolutely paved the way for Black actors of today and often doesn’t get his recognition because he played a part in stereotyping Black people on film)


I thought The Woman In Yard was fine at best. More importantly, it served as a sign that perhaps we’re sort of moving in the right direction. It certainly has elements of Jordan Peele in the story but this time it isn’t some variation of Get Out. It’s more in line with US. Jordan Peele’s sophomore feature didn’t have the same impact as Get Out but it’s still part of the modern day Black film canon. It’s been memefied, parodied and referenced in pop culture in more ways than one. The story of The Woman In The Yard is pretty similar to US. A frightened family stays inside of a house due to a boogeyman/woman making their presence known on the outside. US is hardly the first movie with this basic premise. It’s the fact that US and The Woman In Yard are grief-heavy Black-centered horror stories where the mother is keeping a major secret from the rest of her family which is the reason they are being terrorized. I think it’s pretty hard to deny the similarities even on a surface level.

US / The Woman In The Yard

There are major differences. US is more fun and entertaining with jump scares and needle drops while The Woman In The Yard really plays up the grief and depression angle. *Spoiler alert* the movie is a very heavy-handed story about a grim reaper type figure trying to convince the mother to commit suicide after she accidentally caused the death of her husband.


US/Jordan Peele comparisons aside, my biggest gripe with this movie is that it could have been a short film. The first 10 minutes and the final 30 minutes could have been condensed to a 20 minute short film about grief, depression and loss with some cool references to german expressionist films...

Nosferatu / The Woman In The Yard

The film also sets up some interesting roadblocks/restrictions for the main character that don’t really go anywhere. The protagonist of the story is crippled and there’s no male presence to provide that stereotypical safety net of protection. Had this been a more straightforward horror film with those elements, it would have been more interesting to watch.


At the end of the day this a horror movie that isn’t some allegory about Black people being scared of white people so that’s a plus in my book. I need more of that.

NEVERMORE: THE RAVEN EFFECT

The idea of looking at professional wrestlers as artists is a tough sell even in 2025. There’s still a large faction of people that don’t even consider them athletes even when they’re literally doing athletic feats. So the idea of them being artists is still difficult to process for some. Believe it or not - there is a psychological element to wrestling both in front of and behind the camera. Filmed/televised matches and vignettes bring out all kinds of emotions in viewers. That’s an art whether you like it or not. Raven might not be as known to casual fans, but he is the epitome of a wrestling psychologist. He’s someone other wrestlers in the business would call a high IQ wrestler. Raven stands out from the likes of Hulk Hogan, The Rock, Ric Flair, Macho Man and more because his character/“gimmick” was a violent nihilist. The best single image to describe who and what Raven was is the image of him sitting in the corner of the ring with a scowl on his face. Typically, when wrestlers make their way to the ring they feed off of the audience and make their presence big. Raven was the opposite. He took his time to walk to the ring, he didn’t interact with the fans and intentionally sucked the energy out of the building. All of this is an art.

I know's it's somewhat lazy to look at a wrestling film through the lens of The Wrestler but there are real life events that happen even today that the film captures. Early on in the documentary we see a very uninterested Raven interacting with fans at a wrestling convention which is straight out of The Wrestler (this is sort of a reflection of the Raven character which has sort of become the real life persona of Scott Levy).

  

The Wrestler / Nevermore: The Raven Effect

Even with all the accessible information we have on professional wrestling today, Raven is often left out of the conversation of greatest ring psychologists or greatest cerebral wrestlers like Dean Malenko, Arn Anderson, Randy Orton and even Triple H. By not rightfully acknowledging Raven’s importance, it lessens his influence on the wrestling business. Nevermore delves in to the typical documentary stuff like archival footage, interviews from peers and delving in to the subject’s troubled upbringing, but the most important aspect of the film is Raven’s importance to the wrestling business and his insecurities around not being recognized enough. Before antagonistic antiheroes or likable bad guys like Steve Austin, CM Punk or Bret Hart in the late 90s, the Raven character was doing an iteration of that years before in ECW (eastern/extreme championship wrestling). Saying someone is ahead of their time is an overused compliment but it absolutely applies to Raven. Nevermore also doubles as a nice gateway in to the history of ECW and its influence on the wrestling business. By the mid 90s, wrestling was on a decline. The most exciting stuff was taking place in ECW. Not everyone could get it on television at the time making it easy for bigger companies to steal, copy and borrow from them without casual wrestling fans realizing it (I know hardcore wrestling fans don’t like to hear this but the casual fan is always considered the most important demographic to cater to). The idea of hardcore wrestling and using chairs and trash cans as excessive weapons in the ring was popularized by ECW and found its way in to the Attitude era of WWF/E and the NWO era of WCW. Obviously hardcore elements existed in wrestling prior to the 90s but ECW really innovated all of that (again - that’s an art). 

Undertaker’s crucifixion angle in the late 90s (right) came from Raven and ECW (left).

Steve Austin's beer drinking gimmick (right) came from Sandman in ECW (left)...

It is heavily speculated that Steve Austin (right) also got his finisher from ECW legend Mikey Whipwreck (left)...

The idea of total chaos in the ring being a weekly occurrence and not a special event came from ECW.

Successfully executing all of this on television and influencing others to imitate it is an art.


Thankfully this isn’t a WWE produced film so things aren’t hidden or sugarcoated to save face. Imagine a feature-length episode of Dark Side Of The Ring that takes its time to tell a somewhat lesser known but important story.

SISU *UPDATED*

Deleting Nazis is always a good thing. I think what draws so many of us to movies like Sisu is that we get to cheer on grotesque over-the-top violence because Nazis are on the receiving end of it. That was certainly one of the reasons I watched it. Violence against murderous racist nationalists wasn’t the only reason but it was certainly thee biggest selling point. As “gritty” and violent as this movie is, it’s still very cartoonish and intentionally silly. It isn’t rooted in reality. Outside of the basic plot involving a retired mercenary/gold prospector murdering Nazis that are trying to steal his gold, this movie owes a lot to the western genre which is also rooted in fantasy.

If you aren't a fan of movies with lots of references & homages then this may not be for you. The references aren't as obvious as a Tarantino or Robert Rodriguez movie, but there are still plenty...

The biggest influences style-wise were a lot of old Western movies - Jalmari Helander, loudandclearreviews.com

Stagecoach / Sisu


Stagecoach / Sisu

Hang 'Em High / Sisu

Sisu also owes a lot to First Blood...

I could talk a whole day about this. What First Blood did to me when / was 10 years old basically changed my life - Jalmari Helander, Collider.com

First Blood / Sisu

First Blood / Sisu

While There will Be Blood isn’t a gun-slinging cowboy movie, it is technically a western that’s about striking it rich much like Sisu...

There Will be Blood / Sisu

Even western-influenced films like the Mad Max saga seems to have rubbed off on Sisu. This could, and probably is, coincidental but the similarities are still there...

You could argue Mad Max is a western with wheels - George Miller, cinemadaily

Mad Max: Fury Road / Sisu

Mad Max: Fury Road / Sisu

Mad Max: Fury Road / Sisu

Mad Max: Fury Road / Sisu

The Road Warrior / Sisu

This is a movie that many have jumped to compare to Inglorious Basterds. I get it. On the most surface of levels these are two movies set during World War II that use the same loophole where we’re allowed to cheer on violence & murder because it’s against Nazis. Again - I’m totally ok with that. The problem is Inglorious Basterds goes too far and misses the mark because they try to rewrite history by murdering Adolf Hitler with machine guns. It sort of cheapens history and makes it cartoonish when it wasn’t. This is nothing new and I wouldn’t put this entire criticism on Inglorious Basterds. For decades the media has made Hitler out to be this cartoonish villain when in reality he was a very real person that was very very evil. Again - this is bigger than Quentin Tarantino. Movies have been doing this with Nazis and Hitler for a very long time. One minute they're fumbling idiots and the next minute they're evil masterminds (JoJo Rabbit is good example of this).
Tarantino does the same thing with Django Unchained and slavery. And folks ate it up. Especially Black folks. Jaimie Foxx whips a white plantation owner so somehow that makes everything even (I'm obviously joking but the way people cheered that movie on you would have thought that was the case). Making chattel slavery out to be a blaxploitation story just cheapens and almost lightens the atrocity that was American chattel slavery. Again - Django Unchained is hardly the first movie to do this with, but its existence certainly doesn’t help. I just don’t like revenge fan-fiction with real life events (that’s why I took issue with ending of Once Upon A Time In Hollywood)

There are some super obvious visual comparisons that can be made between Inglorious and Sisu but what I find most interesting are things like both directors using chapters/title cards the break up their respective stories...

Inglorious Basterds / Sisu

Tarantino's potential influence/connections aside, this is a fun movie with some fun scenes and good movie references/homages. Fans of all the movies I mentioned in this post will get a kick out of it.

Dr Strangelove / Sisu

THE ACCOUNTANT 2

The most fascinating thing about The Accountant 2 is that the tone and overall vibe is quite different from the first film. And it works a whole lot better this time around! It’s obviously a sequel but also feels like a redo/reinterpretation with some of the same characters. The first film certainly had a few lighthearted moments but the tone was mostly serious (there’s a whole separate piece of writing to be done on how autism and/or the spectrum are portrayed in the movie but that’s not what we’re here for right now). Instead of a serious action thriller where Affleck’s Christian Wolff is trying to protect a nosey accountant from being killed after uncovering an embezzlement scheme - we get a sort of buddy cop movie with Affleck’s Wolff and Jon Bernthal’s Braxton. The director is still the same which makes the movie’s tonal shift even more strange. Anna Kendrick doesn’t return this time around and JK Simmon’s “Ray” is only in the opening scene. There is still a similar operative this time around. Wolff and Braxton are tasked with trying to save a group of trafficked migrants (one specific migrant has a special set of gifts).

In addition to the buddy cop genre, visually, The Accountant 2 took from a lot of fun classic action movies: Bar fights, desert shootouts, bodies crashing through plate glass windows, intense standoffs with bad guys, etc.

Lethal Weapon 2 / The Accountant 2

Lethal Weapon / The Accountant 2

The Terminator / Lethal weapon
Blue Steel / The Accountant 2

This is nowhere near as good as Lethal Weapon or Terminator or even Blue Steel but it’s still a fun watch (you would think that goes without saying but I’m letting it be known just in case).

My only gripe here is that the movie is 132 minutes. All the aforementioned classic movies that The Accountant 2 borrows/steals/copies from are all under two hours. A 2 hour and 12 minute Account sequel is just unnecessary (there’s an entire subplot that could have been condensed or completely removed). If Lethal Weapon 2 could do everything in under 2 hours then The Accountant 2 should be able to do the same. Runtime aside, this is still a pretty ok movie that I expected to be pointless yet left me entertained.

TRAIN DREAMS *UPDATED*

Train Dreams is a careful balance of visual poetry and the harshness of World War One-era America (the film spans 50 years but the majority of it takes between 1917 through the late 1920s). Director Clint Bentley certainly romanticizes old America in a very Terrence Malick-ian kind of way but he doesn’t shy away from showing the ugliness of chasing the American dream. A large chunk of the movie deals with loggers and railroad workers over a hundred years ago. People died horrible deaths in that line of work and Train Dreams straight up shows this. Another storyteller would have made this a tale about unionizing or the corrupt inner workings of the American labor force. Instead we get straightforward scenes of workers breaking bones or getting crushed to death by trees.
In the film Joel Edgerton plays “Robert” - a logger & railroad laborer that struggles with the loss of his family. While this is technically a light spoiler, the voiceover narration hints at the tragic event in the opening minutes of the film. The story is less about the tragedy (which happens before we even get to the halfway point) and more about how Robert deals with everything. No one can ever fully recover from the loss of a wife and child but he eventually moves on with his life to some degree. 

Earlier I mentioned Malick’s influence which is more than just visual (Will Patton's voiceover narration is right out of the school of Malick). Tree Of Life was an obvious visual reference point for Train Dreams but so are the earlier works like Days Of Heaven...

Days Of Heaven / Train Dreams

With Tree Of Life there are some vague/general visual similarities which look nice when placed next to each other…

Tree Of Life / Train Dreams

but then there's other super specific moments between both movies that really raised an antenna…

Tree Of Life / Train Dreams

Tree Of Life / Train Dreams

Tree Of Life / Train Dreams

Malick’s filmography isn’t the only thing Train Dreams evokes/borrows from/steals from. This fits in line with other films like Matewan or The Assassination of Jesse James…

Matewan / Train Dreams

The Assassination of Jesse James... / Train Dreams

The Assassination of Jesse James... / Train Dreams

In addition to following Robert as he moves through the different stages of grief and depression, Train Dreams’ secondary plot is about a fast changing America. The movie starts in 1917 and ends in 1968. Throughout the film Robert witnesses and struggles with everything from the chainsaw replacing the handsaw in his specific line of work to the accessibility of the modern television.
This is the type of movie that could potentially get hijacked for the wrong reasons by the wrong audience (chronically online right-wingers that incorrectly romanticize old white-centered America for the wrong reasons), but if you’re a fan of Malick-esque visual poetry and non-biased American history, this is definitely for you.

I went in to this with almost zero expectations and came out pleasantly surprised. This is definitely one of my favorite movies of the year. Next to films like Eddington, Sinners and One Battle After Another, this is one of the most interesting films about America to come out this year (America seems to be the biggest exploration/topic of 2025). The difference is Train Dreams is a good movie while the others have varying degrees of issues in my opinion. That doesn’t mean I dislike Sinners and Eddington but they are far from perfect. You can read my rant on One Battle After Another by clicking here.
With so many “nothing” movies clocking in at well over two hours, Train Dreams gets it’s point across in under 100 minutes (and I would have gladly taken a three hour version).

LURKER

This wasn’t what I was expecting but I still dug it. About a third of the way in to Lurker I knew this wasn’t going to be the queer stalker movie that the trailer made it out to be. If anything this was sort of a combination of Almost Famous and Nightcrawler. I know these influences to be true because director Alex Russell admitted this…

the first 15 minutes of Lurker plays out like a toxic rendition of Almost Famous...

Almost Famous / Lurker

Matthew and Lou (Nightcrawler) have a lot of similarities as well...

Almost Famous / Lurker

I know some folks are getting tired of new movies constantly being collages of other movies but the tone and overall look of Lurker is very different from Almost Famous and Nightcrawler. 

I know this is a lazy comparison but the way Lurker handles obsession, voyeurism and one very specific scene in the desert towards the end of the movie - one might be reminded of Lynch's Lost Highway...

Lost Highway / Lurker

Lurker certainly has elements of traditional stalking and hints at queerness between the two main characters but this was really about the toxic relationship between a rising indie pop star and his entourage/hanger-oners. If anything, this is less about the way we obsess over celebrities (there’s plenty off movies that explore this), and more about the dangers of who you let in to your circle at a very pivotal and/or vulnerable time. In the film we follow a popular up & coming indie musician (“Oliver”) who forms a friendship with an amateur photographer (“Matthew”). Almost overnight, the fickle and flighty Oliver asks Matthew to be a part of his entourage as a documentarian/photographer without realizing that Matthew is quite unstable. As you can imagine, Matthew’s instability and Oliver’s flightless clash and their relationship turns psychologically abusive on both sides (I say both sides because while Matthew is certainly the unstable one, we soon learn that Oliver is also kind of jerk and inconsiderate to the people around him).

Lurker shows how easy it can be to infiltrate a rising young celebrity's entourage as long as you calculate each move and say the right things like Matthew. At first, Matthew doesn’t tell Oliver everything he wants to hear. Instead of being a “yes man”, Matthew is honest and offers seemingly honest criticism about Oliver’s music which makes him stand out from the rest of the “yes men” and vultures trying to latch on to his success. It should be noted that Oliver’s pre-existing entourage of yes-men and yes-women are also to blame for the events in the movie. Early on they see how unstable Matthew is and instead of warning Oliver, they say nothing and invite this weirdo in to the group.
Eventually Oliver starts to realize how “off” Matthew is but instead of completely cutting him off, they develop this weird on again/off again toxic friendship that continues after the credits role. The last 10-15 minutes might turn some folks off. I’m not completely sold on the ending myself.

In a year of unnecessarily long movies with 2-1/2 hour runtimes, it was nice to finally watch something that sticks the landing in under 100 minutes (I have no issue with long movies when the story calls for it but there’s no reason for movies like The Accountant 2 or Weapons to be over two hours long).

EDDINGTON

If you’ve been a regular reader of this blog for the last 7-8 years then you know the constant negative criticism I have of cinema in general is that most movies appear to be made out of surface level twitter activist talking points for Twitter activists to debate about on Twitter. It’s all so formulaic and anti-art. Genuine art and coherent stories takes second and/or third place on the checklist of forced representation, pandering, catering to every possible personal problem, etc.
Eddington is absolutely one of those movies. But it kind of work this time! It plays out like a director poking fun at someone’s overly sensitive chronically online fever dream. Kind of working is saying something considering most movies these days do not work for one reason or another (pandering to the audience, not looking/feeling like an actual movie, really stupid plot twists, etc). I don’t think a movie like Eddington can totally please everyone or totally hit every mark but I respect Ari Aster for taking the big swing and getting a good piece of the ball.

Yes this is a Covid movie set during the height of the first wave of lockdown. Yes it touches on issues like empty disingenuous BLM activism perpetuated by young white people and the fake outrage/care that conservatives have when it comes to wearing a mask or protecting abused children. But it works. It works because Ari Aster doesn’t actually take a side. Some have called Eddington's approach "centrist" but I don't see it that way. He shows just about everyone as a fake bullshit artist.

Who and what is being poked fun at or referenced in Eddington is obvious…

While Eddington is somewhat different from the rest of Aster’s films, his regular cinematic influences and references are still there…

Psycho / Eddington

Lost Highway / Eddington

Robocop / Eddington

At its core - Eddington is about the disingenuous political motivations between two people that just don’t like each other. On one side you have the pretentious Democratic mayor that thinks he’s above everyone. On the other side you have the local sheriff who decides to run against the current mayor because he’s sick of all the Covid mask mandates. As the film unfolds we discover the real motivation behind each side’s campaign. Besides the classic “right versus left” rivalry, Aster injects subplots concerning Qanon, cultism and BLM activism headed up by all white people.

There’s literally a scene in the movie where a white liberal activists tells a Black police officer how to feel about anti-Black racism. If that doesn’t sum up a huge part of the current social political climate I don’t know what does (it should be noted that there is a certain type of liberal/left-leaning Black person that is to blame for allowing liberal white people to speak out of pocket to Black people about the Black experience).

This scene really stood out to me because I grew up in a town where white liberals/left-leaning folks could sometimes get a little too comfortable speaking deeply on cultural issues that don’t concern them. I don’t really care for police (Black police at that) but I’ll be the first person to side with that Black cop if it’s between them and a clueless white liberal that thinks they can brow beat another Black person about Black issues.

*UPDATE*

Well, well, well. Whatdya know...

For those that are unaware, a Black ICE agent was called a "house n*gger" recently by a protestor and it was caught on camera. This sort of mimics the scene in the film and proves my point. In no way do I support ICE, but I also don't support anyone calling a Black person a "house n*gger".

The only reason I even bothered to finally watch Eddington is because it’s being compared to One Battle After Another in an abstract kind of way. Folks are comparing the two movies under the umbrella of “definitive movies representing the current state of America”. I figured Eddington has to be better than OBAA (click here to read my rant on One Battle After Another). I understand the comparison between the two movies in a coincidental kind of way. Both are set in the American west which, when shown a certain way, can be a very old timey American setting that calls upon a certain type of nostalgia only Americans can relate to. Neither movie is a traditional western but they do take from the genre on a surface level (snakeskin boots, Cowboy hats and shootouts in the desert). Both movies also have tense explosive finales.
In my opinion, Eddington is a far better film than OBAA because Ari Aster pokes fun at some of the people that Paul Thomas Anderson desperately tries to pander to in his film.

It also took me a while to watch this because I’m not in to Ari Aster’s movies. I have a weird personal vendetta against the large majority of Ari Aster’s filmography (please note that I said personal). I came from a good family, grew up around good families and I’ve produced a new generation of a good family. I like healthy upbringings. So I’m not really a fan of the “families mess us up, don’t they??!” I especially don’t like the type of overly heightened/romanticized films in that genre that Aster has given us so far. I’m not denying that family absolutely can and sometime does cause mental illness, trauma, harm and all the other standard online therapy keywords people use. It’s just not interesting to me. Especially when it gets co-opted by people with no personality outside of “my parents messed me up” when in reality they had a pretty solid upbringing (these people exist).
So it makes sense that I like this! It’s so much different than Hereditary or Beau Is Afraid or aspects of certain aspects of Midsommar. 

Eddington is far from perfect but I really liked it. Unfortunately, and this isn’t really the film’s fault, Ari Aster gives the audience a little too much credit and assumes they’re smarter than they really are. I think folks without nuance or an understanding of middle ground or grey area could watch this movie and walk away with the wrong idea about most of the characters in the movie with the exception of Austin Butler’s “Vernon” who is clearly a scumbag predator the minute he shows up on screen.

In summation - this is the movie that everyone thinks One Battle After Another is.

THE SMASHING MACHINE *UPDATED*

If you can put aside the fact that a 53 year old Rock is playing someone between the ages of 29-32, this movie is surprisingly good. I say surprisingly because I’ve never been a big fan of the Safdie’s films and I never expect much from a Rock performance outside of maybe being entertained. But this exceeded my somewhat low/non-existent(?) expectations. Benny Safdie made a solid movie after splitting off from his brother and The Rock (finally) gave a performance that wasn’t some version of his wrestling persona. To be clear - there are definitely some parts in the film where the pro-wrestler Rock starts to creep out but for the most part he keeps it at bay. And could you blame him? Part of the reason he was cast in this role was because of his pro-wrestling background. I’m sure he had to tap in to that persona for all the physically demanding parts.

Instead of trying to imitate Mark Kerr and do an impression of his unique high-pitched mid-western accent - he just acts. This is something a lot of veteran actors need to do when it comes to biopics. From Viola Davis as Michelle Obama to Sean Penn as Harvey Milk, it seems like actors are more focused on nailing an impression of the subject rather than give a genuine performance. And it usually ends up being an embarrassingly bad SNL skit-level portrayal. That’s not the case here.
At the end of the day this is a mostly single-performance driven movie and The Rock does a fine job of carrying everything on his back for the most part.

The Smashing Machine, based on the 2002 documentary of the same name, follows a 3-4 year period in the life of mixed martial arts legend; Mark Kerr. We follow the ups & downs of his fighting career and the toxic relationship between he and his girlfriend.
Again - most of this falls on the performance of the Rock but it isn’t the only highlight. The Smashing Machine is an interesting mix of brutal fighting scenes and the almost boring day-to-day routine of Kerr (arguing with his girlfriend, training, injecting steroids in secret, doing chores around the house etc). That formula worked for me. The movie goes back and forth between incredibly violent to mundane (the relationship between Kerr and his girlfriend was the most uninteresting part of the story for me).

The Rock wasn't the only performance of note here. I can already feel the snarky comments from the readers forming but I found Ryan Bader’s portrayal of Mark Coleman to be almost Bressonian (monotone, deadbeat, dry, etc). Prior to acting, Bader was a seasoned fighter (this movie only cast real life mixed martial artists). Because his forehead/brow and nose are so beaten up from years of fighting, his performance is lacking certain emotions because he can’t move his face like the average person. And it works! It adds to the realism of it all. There’s even sort of an entire second movie within the movie where we follow Coleman juggling his time between being Kerr’s cornerman/trainer/support system and an aging fighter with only so much time left.

Folks might roll their eyes at this one but all the scenes of Emily Blunt and The Rock doing chores around the house reminded me of Jeanne Dielman…

Jeanne Dielman... / The Smashing Machine

Jeanne Dielman... / The Smashing Machine

Goodfellas / The Smashing Machine

Punch Drunk Love / The Smashing Machine

There's a lot of nostalgia that comes along with The Smashing Machine. Throughout the movie Safdie reminds us that The UFC was a relatively new organization. I remember renting UFC vhs tapes with my friends in the early/mid-90's and following it early on. So when the film namedrops folks like Don Frye and Dan Severn, I'm reminded of my friends, the sleepovers and all the people telling us how UFC will never come of anything. I don't follow UFC at all these days because it's such a massive entity that's too multifaceted to follow. But every time Safdie hints at the early days of UFC I'm reminded of how I was one of the earlier followers decades ago.  

I kind of criticized the casting of The Rock earlier on due to his age but who else could have played a physical role like this? The Rock and Mark Kerr both fall under that racially ambiguous category. When it comes to known/established actors - The Rock was the only person that could have done this. Sure, Benny Safdie could have taken a chance on a no-name and/or up & coming actor but right now it’s about putting butts in seats at the movie theaters and we all know The Rock is going to do that. Even for an "indie" film. This is a separate conversation that’s much bigger than this one movie but we really have no big/physically imposing young leading men right now. Decades ago, 6’-1” actors like Anthony Quinn, Robert Mitchum or James Earl Jones played boxers & wrestlers and made it look believable. Unless I’m forgetting someone I can’t think of too many physically imposing young actors right now. There's also a venn diagram between modern pro-wrestling and mixed martial arts. It makes sense that a former pro-wrestler would play the part of Kerr.
Given how guys like Bautista, Cena and The Rock are used in films today, I can’t help but think how much the ball was dropped by the movie industry by not utilizing old school wrestlers like Harley Race or Nick Bockwinkel as tough guys in the 70’s & 80’s. Imagine Killer Kowalski or Buddy Rogers squaring against Clint Eastwood or Burt Reynolds. I know we had the occasional old school pro-wrestlers like Tor Johnson and Kola Kwariani pop up every now and then but the well was untapped (guys like Hogan & Piper paved the way but they weren't exactly draws). 

I think because we aren’t seeing The Rock pull off the same performance we’ve seen in almost everything he's been in, a lot is being made of this so-called “gritty” performance that's out of his comfort zone. Some are even talking Oscar-worthy. I don’t think The Rock’s acting was that good, but it works. 

If you're a fan of The Safdie's and weary of Benny going off to do his own thing, rest assured that The Smashing Machine has the same style as their previous movies (just slightly more subdued). If you're indifferent towards or not a fan of The Safdie's, I'd still give this a chance even out of curiosity.