Jamie
The American Society of Magical [Shut your mouth!]. You could see this movie coming a mile away. It feels a lot like a Black List script. These are scripts that circulate Hollywood and get high marks but for whatever reason don’t get produced. They used to have a podcast where they would act them out and I have to say… it was usually pretty clear why they didn’t get made. As I recall one of them prominently featured Tom Cruise playing himself in a kind of Nic Cage style action-comedy (note: can we use Nic Cage instead?). Another was a rude-crude comedy that seemed like it was written when Porky’s was all the rage (note: do you have a time machine?). Another was a lesbian romance set in the Hasidic Jewish community of NYC (note: how good are you at marketing?). This… well, I think you can see why I might think that would fit the mold.
To recap, Aren is an artist. More specifically he is a struggling artist. He’s struggling with his voice and standing up for his art. Roger, a bartender at one of his shows, takes a liking to him and lets him in on a little secret. He’s part of the American Society of Magical Negroes. Like the trope from film they are tasked with saving the world from sad white people. Sad white people do terrible things and make terrible mistakes. The happier the white people are, the safer the world is. Ultimately, Aren takes on the task of making Jason, a tech bro, happy by helping him get together with his work crush, Lizzie. Easier said than done when Aren realizes that Lizzie is pretty cool and maybe he kind of likes her. Also Jason, while affable and well-meaning, is also selfish and self-centered. He idolizes the idiotic boss of their tech company and is prone to taking credit for things that he didn’t do. It becomes harder and harder for Aren to justify helping this dope get with this super cool, smart and talented girl of his dreams. However, Aren is reminded that they are saving the world. But when Aren is invited to co-present a new diversity program with Jason, an off-hand offensive remark by Jason emboldens him to set the record straight on their companies bad policies. Before he is kicked out of the Society, he ends up revealing the secret to Lizzie by using his powers to teleport her. Ultimately, after Lizzie is able to return to LA following the teleportation, they get together and smooch hard… also she’s part of her own society or whatever. THE END.
I actually think this movie is better than fine. It’s bordering on good, even. I read a lot of reviews that were like “really pulled the punch. Should have gone further.” I mean, I guess if you mean it should have been 100% biting satire and not be a romantic comedy. Sure… but I liked the two leads well enough and as a rom com it was perfectly serviceable. I don’t know. I was unexpectedly taken with this film and actually thought they went pretty far with the idea. I mean, their meter for whether they are doing a good job measures white tears. It’s a bit of a fluffy movie. Definitely feels like a streaming movie. But I actually thought it was fun enough, the acting was fine, and they took the concept where it needed to go. My primary critique would be that the girl almost certainly should have been part of the American Society for Manic Pixie Dream Girls. If there was one pulled punch, I think it might be that. It’s so obvious and the character fits the stereotype. But given how the term has fallen out of favor it feels like it was abandoned for something else that made no sense. So why even do it?
Hot Take Clam Bake! So like… now the guy he was supposed to help becomes a mass murderer or something? He failed, right? The dude is super sad because he was called a racist on a public live stream… fine, he wasn’t exactly called racist, but it was implied. The white tears were a-flowin. That’s not good. Or at least that’s what I was led to believe. So pretty sad movie in the end. Hot Take Temperature: Warm wool sweater art.
Patrick?
Patrick
‘Ello everyone! *Gif of me definitely, totally watching this film. I definitely totally watched it* Let’s go!
Fun fact: I didn’t watch this movie until March 2025. For real. Just never really felt like or of felt the need to as we ended up very far behind on the emails. So there it sat, burned onto my phone, waiting for me to watch it.
The Good? I mean, the movie? It is wild that this is considered (by most metrics) one of the worst films of the year. It’s fun. I suppose it depends a bit on how much mileage you get out of all the Justice Smith of it all, but for real: the movie is fun and kind of good. If you are up for it and go into it with a clear mind.
The Bad? The movie isn’t funny per se. It is a comedy that is clever. It makes you go “that’s funny.” Or maybe smirk a bit and think “that’s funny.” And even those moments are few and far between. The two main characters I think are very good though and I think both are going to end up doing things in the future. Well, Justice Smith already is, he’s quietly one of the biggest young movie stars we got.
The BMT? Hell naw. I’m never watching this film again. I’m never thinking about this film again. This film was a checkbox for 2024 and that is all. Good luck to everyone involved. Personally I think your movie was pretty funny and good.
So if you are following the recaps you’ll know the saga of the batch image processing. Well, I’m almost there … maybe, kind of. Anyways, the current issue is that the models don’t seem to be able to accurately bring back indices. So let’s help them along:
Besides the one instance where it was probably like “I’m busy” or something, this worked flawlessly. As in the example, all I did was add the index to the top of the posters. There is a slight concern still (what if the title is quite near the top and also has a number?), but that feels quite fixable (which I’ll explore next). I am quite close to getting this to work.
In a way there is Product Placement (What?) for VR stuff in general, so I’m going to count it. A very Setting as a Character (Where?) L.A. film. I do think the whole movie has a MacGuffin (Why?) of the dream girl in general, which they play off of in the end. And in the vein I liked the twist actually, I thought it was clever, although it was a bit too little too late. The movie is Good, don’t at me.
Read all about uh … secret societies? Probably, in the Quiz. Cheerios,
The Sklogs
Bad Movie Twins 