WLR #17
(Give me a bullet) Between the Temples
Directed by Nathan Silver
Who is this movie for? And who in their right mind thought, “Yeah, people will rush to the theater for a good laugh to see this one?” Whoever greenlit this, I’d love to know what they were thinking, because they deserve no beautiful tidings for inflicting this on us. In fact, Wendy Lee wants a piece of them. This isn’t just bad for the acting or the script, like normal bad—it’s sheer, obnoxious pretension at an unforgivable level that makes it one of my most hated films of all time.
I can’t stand these wannabe Safdie-bro filmmakers who think that the "nauseating but it’s on purpose" aesthetic works. Even the Safdie brothers can barely pull it off sometimes, and this film feels like a parody of that style. The shaky, headache-inducing close-ups, the out-of-focus shots—it's all passed off as some kind of Cassavetes-style cinema verité, but in reality, it’s just vomit-inducing garbage. Watching it felt like a Guatemalan nanny was shaking a baby behind the camera while someone shouted “action.”
I never leave movies early, but this time I did and I did so without remorse. Before walking out, I tried a last-ditch experiment: closing my eyes for a few minutes, hoping the dialogue would make me laugh if I could block out the sinning visuals. No such luck. And the worst part? I was the only one in the theater. That should’ve been my first warning sign. No one should have to pay to endure something like this—in fact, they should pay Wendy Lee for sitting through it.
Honestly, I’d have needed four figures to make it to the end credits. And that’s saying something, because I’m broke with nothing but time.
Zero stars
It Ends with Us
Directed by Justin Baldoni
This must be like Citizen Kane for anyone who unironically enjoys the Fifty Shades franchise. It’s definitely more credible than those films, though still pretty bad. I will say, it was miles better than Between the Temples—at least you can look at this movie, as in, watch it with your eyes without fleeing the theater.
But the message? Wow. Art can be subjective, and sure, a film has the right to say whatever it wants, but this one seemed determined to convince men that the reason their single is because they’re simply not striking their women hard enough. Apparently, that’s how to show real love, but only sometimes? The movie hammers that point home in a way that’s not just troubling but downright bizarre and confusing because it also rallies against it.
Because what might be the most baffling 10 minutes of film since Anakin Skywalker’s sudden turn to the dark side comes in the third act. It Ends With Us goes from “The harder he hits, the more he loves me” to Blake Lively’s character standing up to him while he’s holding their daughter. But right after that, she takes the same daughter to visit Grandpa’s grave—who was notoriously a vicious abuser. The tonal whiplash is real. It took 72 hours to heal. I’ve never seen a film so unsure of its message. Maybe not quite as embarrassing as Fifty Shades, but its characters are just as one-dimensional, just as shallow, and just as soulless.
One-and-a-half-stars
Speak No Evil
Directed by James Watkins
There’s not much new here. In fact, it’s literally a remake of a foreign film, and if I’m not mistaken, it’s practically a shot-for-shot reimagining. The film didn’t really scare me, nor did it offer anything for me to intellectually chew on. But there’s something undeniably entertaining about watching James McAvoy play a full-blown maniac.
The crazier he gets, the better the film becomes, to the point where you’re just waiting for him to do the most unhinged thing he can think of and forget about the rest. And when he does, the ride is worth it, any plot issues are rendered pointless. By the time the credits roll, you leave feeling oddly satisfied, even if the movie itself didn’t break any new ground.
Three stars
