MICKEY 17

Mickey 17 (2025) directed by Bong Joon Ho. 

Robert Patterson plays an Expendable, a person attached to a colony ship, who can be reprinted after dying. (And will die and be reprinted and have memories uploaded/downloaded many times.) This comes in handy as the colonizers explore the risks and dangers of their new homeworld. The existential questions swirling around such a concept are interesting. The leader of the colony ship is a failed politician who has most of the rest of the colony under his cult of personality control. But he's a narcissistic dimwit who is himself easily controlled by his wife and the fawning adulation of his closest advisers. This satire hits a bit too close to home. It's less interesting. 

There are echoes and inspirations throughout—Ender's Game, Starship Troopers, Andor (and it's grittier, working class look at sci-fi tropes), Blade Runner, Alien, and much more. Robert Pattinson was having fun in his role(s) and the exploration of mortality and humanity, and I had fun watching him. He makes the movie for me.

Viewed at The Grand Cinema in Tacoma.

A REAL PAIN

A Real Pain (2024) directed by Jesse Eisenberg. 

This is an "odd couple" "buddy film" following Jewish cousins, played by Kieran Culkin and Jesse Eisenberg, on a tour through Poland. Culkin's Benji is a bit unhinged, even though brutally honest and truthful, even to the point of discomfort for others in his presence. This is held in tension with Benji's "other side" which is a sentimental, even endearing, tenderness. Culkin won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, with good reason. I probably would have passed this by if Culkin hadn't won, but I'm glad I saw it.

Streaming on Hulu.