Summer movie recap: Part 1
This summer featured quite the roster of movies. From continuing franchises, TV shows coming to the big screen, and Youtubers making their directorial debut, this line-up has generated a lot of buzz online.
Seth Barker- Editor-in-Chief
courtesy of Prime Video
Mandalorian and Grogu
After a three season run on Disney+, Din Djarin (Pedro Pascal) and Grogu set their sights on the big screen, in the first Star Wars film to hit theaters in six years. The movie features our titular protagonists taking bounty hunting jobs from the New Republic to help wipe out Imperial Remnants.
The film features little to no originality to it, with many concepts or “new” things feeling more like references to other media. Many of the characters and alien species have appeared in preexisting Star Wars movies and shows, and outside of Star Wars, scenes felt like homages to other films like “Scarface” and “Thor: Ragnarok”. While preexisting characters and homages are not horrible things to include in movies, the movie should still have some substance that makes it a worthy watch- this film does not have that.
Many have complained online of the film feeling like a fourth season of the show rewritten for a feature-length film as the film is fairly segmented where a viewer could sit through and more than likely divide the film into episodic segments, with parts of the film working as mini story arcs for the season.
The fatigue of Star Wars is felt with this film. Despite this return to theaters after a six-year hiatus, Disney has not stopped producing Star Wars shows for Disney+, with one or two shows releasing per year.
Obsession
Having risen in popularity due to his sketch comedy on YouTube, Curry Barker moved into film making, with his latest work getting a theatrical release. “Obsession” sees character Bear having a crush on long-time friend Nikki Freeman. This leads to his discovery of The One Wish Willow, where he wishes “Nikki Freeman loved him more than anyone else in the world.” Bear lives his idealistic life before the signs start to appear that Nikki isn’t herself.
The horror and performance of Nikki by Indie Navarrette have made “Obsession” an iconic horror film launching careers of many people. Navarrette herself has now been cast as Rogue in the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s upcoming reboot of X-Men and Barker’s next film being looked at with anticipation by many.
The highlights of the film are the small details hidden throughout the film that point to the twist before it is revealed. Barker impressed horror fans with a thought-out film that lends itself to rewatchability to pick up little details you might have missed.
Backrooms
A24’s horror film “Backrooms" delivers a chilling psychological horror. The film centers on protagonist Clark where one day he finds a wall that is not physically present in his furniture store, allowing him to walk into the wall, revealing a labyrinth of randomly generated yellow rooms with an eerie fluorescent hum around it. The quiet-stillness of the Backrooms seems like a relief, until it becomes obvious Clark is not the lone venturer of these liminal halls.
The concept of Backrooms originated online and quickly rose in popularity due to the liminal aesthetic of it creating a sense of familiarity that felt uncomfortable. Director Kane Parsons originally began adapting the Backrooms into a story on YouTube under the name of Kane Pixels, where he would use the tool of Blender to create a realistic 3-D animated series in a VHS found-footage style. These videos saw wide success, with A24 taking note and inviting Kane Parsons to bring his vision onto the big screen. While Parsons has stated the film is set within the same timeline as his YouTube videos, he has managed to do a good job at adapting the mythos to an audience unfamiliar to the concept.
Due to the online presence of the Backrooms, there are several different adaptations and reimaginings from the original story, leading to a very complicated mythos as it is open for all to create with. Parsons does a good job at keeping his vision of the Backrooms grounded in the original story’s intrigue, creating the horror largely from the setting instead of entities attacking for most of the film.
“Backrooms” came back into theaters with an additional 15-minute segment titled “Backrooms: Everything Must Go Edition”. The added segment feels more like Parson’s YouTube series than any other part of the film, showcasing a mundane exploration of the rooms that ends in disaster. This portion is added after the credits, however it feels like more of an introduction to the film, explaining more how the Backrooms operate and foreshadowing the furniture store. On the other hand, the segment starts off very slowly, making it understandable why it was not used as the opening scene as many would become disinterested in how long the segment takes in explaining documentation of the Backrooms without action. The segment feels more like it would have acted as a teaser for the film than an additional segment added to an extended edition.
Be sure to check out the next issue of the Cabinet for part two of the summer movie reviews.
