The Lobster

I hated this movie, but I’m not sure why, because it seems like something I would like. I’m okay with quirky, but I’m annoyed by quirky for quirky’s sake. When the rules of the quirky universe don’t have inner logic, then it’s really just an artistic jerk-off with no real point. There are laughs and the performances are astute. But when the themes and motifs contradict one another and can easily be deconstructed and ripped apart, than I start getting angry. I hate leaving the theater angry.

Nice Guys

Funny, and lot of throwback, signature Shane Black-isms, if there is such a thing. There’s a great physicality to this film, and excellent, action-movie cause and effect. There are times when it almost feels like a Warner Brothers/ Coyote and Roadrunner cartoon; the McGuffin bounces around from person to person and bullets fly and guys go careening through plate-glass windows, cracking wise the whole time. It’s all good fun.

Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping

Andy Samberg has proven himself to be consistently funny in Brooklyn 99. So with nothing to “prove”, he can just go out and be as silly as possible. Last summer’s HBO movie Seven Days in Hell did just that, and it acts as a precursor to this: a still R-Rated but more mainstream spoof. Like most of the Lonely Island sketches on SNL, the appeal of the songs was always that they were a little bit catchy, actually somewhat competent. The same is true here, especially a love/booty jam about Osama Bin Laden. Like The Rutles and CB4, there’s interviews and performances with real popstars, doing their best to play it straight. Pink is great here. It’s everything you’d expect from a Lonely Island movie, it’s funny and catchy, and it might inspire you to get on Youtube and look back at their old catalog.

X-Men: Apocalypse

Underwhelming and unremarkable. Performance wise, Lawrence and Fassbender do the heavy lifting, but unfortunately they find themselves standing around waiting for Oscar Issacs to finish his long speeches. Funny enough, there’s not a lot of action for an action movie. Like the last movie, Quicksilver gets his solo, which works, and the cameo from Wolverine kicks ass, as it should. It’s not terrible, but it feels a bit phoned in.

X-Men always seems to work best when it serves as an  allegory for discriminated-against minorities. There’s little smatterings of that here, especially with Cyclops’ origin story. But there needs to be more. Weird, blue Egyptian Gods bloviating entertains only for so long.