Holland 2025 * * 1/2 Stars

DUTCH TRIP

"Here here the best part because you get to make up a story and control everything". Gee, if only that worked in the cinematic world consistently, like when Rob Reiner got behind the lens and told Kathy Bates to let er rip. 

Anyway 2025's Holland is a stoner fever dream, the type of movie that relies on visual symbolism and grisly palate as opposed to actually delivering a story that is not cut and dried. A dorky husband who is suspected of being unfaithful to his wife is actually a serial killer. And said wife jots around stakeout-style while acting a little cuckoo bird herself. What, we're supposed to think this is out of the box stuff just because Holland's hook is that it takes place in a small burgh via the state of Michigan? Get reals.

So OK, Holland stars Nicole Kidman, Gael Garcia Bernal, and Matthew Macfadyen, actors who give raw, disciplined performances despite the final, work-shy result. Lots of match cuts here, a hallucinatory image there, dazed nightmare sequences everywhere, some cognitive freak-outs. Holland isn't an awful flick but it's certainly an off-center one, looking like TV swipe from the 70s, taking place in the early 2000s, and feeling like 1950s suburbanite, h-e double hockey sticks. "It may seem like we have everything all together but right under the surface it's like we're being strangled." You don't say Australia's favorite Oscar victor. You don't say. 

I'd say (pun intended) that Holland is a director's pic if there ever was one, with helmer Mimi Cave committing to every shot even if her diegesis is about as stale as every 90s satire a la Kathleen Turner or some black comedy from decades ago starring Roseanne Barr. I mean do you want nuclear family noir or Stepford Wives avant-garde. I myself can't decide. "Great lakes okay times."  

Written by Jesse Burleson

Black Bag 2025 * * Stars

FADE TO BLACK

"What's on the menu?" That's a good question, especially when maverick helmer Steven Soderbergh is coming out of his cinematic, Howard Hughes phase. 

Anyway every time I think Soderbergh has retired from directing, the dude just keeps nearing back, like Jason Voorhees, Chucky, or The Terminator. He's basically saying to his audience, "did you miss me?" So what's Stevie up to in 2025? Well he's almost on holiday making Black Bag, a pseudo thriller that's so compact, last-minute, and terse it might just wither away. 

I mean it, man this is "pretty thin" stuff (to quote Danny Glover's Roger Murtaugh). A slither of violence here, a small interrogation scene Clue-style there, a couple of flashbacks toward "Bag's" coda. You take away the brilliantly ominous music of David Holmes and Black Bag is basically an afternoon table read with some really good actors. It's also occasionally slick and uncharacteristically shiny by Soderbergh's routine standards. Yup, just think the opposite of his Traffic shot with a more spherical lens. 

93 minutes is the runtime of "Bag" and that's with credits, something about some SIS operatives who are being investigated for betraying the nation by leaking some top-secret, software application. Michael Fassbender, Cate Blanchett, and Naomie Harris star and even good old Pierce Brosnan rolls in for an extended cameo. Unfortunately they are trapped in a flick that feels more like a verbose short than a full-length feature. 

Black Bag (the title is referenced once in the first half-hour) is one talky SOB, and I wasn't quite sure what everyone was "talking" about. Because the film is so brief and ends so abruptly, you probably need multiple viewings to figure out the intentions of these deft, British intelligence officers. This is not for entertainment value mind you, it's for you know, the latter. Mixed "bag". 

Written by Jesse Burleson

Chelsea Handler: The Feeling 2025 * 1/2 Stars

ILL FEELING

Chelsea Handler is not really funny these days. She's just not. I mean maybe she once was about ten-plus years ago, on her celeb talk show or in that box office bomb This Means War as Reese Witherspoon's best bud Trish. Heck, I almost forgot about her threadbare existence until she showed up in 2025's commonly-directed comedy special, Chelsea Handler: The Feeling. Yup, I didn't chuckle or snort once mind you, prompting me to think "Chels, you should've left well enough alone." 

So yeah, do I think Chelsea Handler however is mildly attractive and/or aggressively astute? Oh fo sho. That sandy blonde hair, that decent, 5' 6" frame, that raspy voice, that potty mouth. Sure, why not. But do I think she can tell a joke, overcome a laugh track, or deliver a solid punchline? Nada, not in this lifetime. Uh, just because you spew the F-word, talk at full volume, embrace the fans of the LGBT, or get your self-centered on doesn't make you a legendary farceur, it just makes you reek of being pesky. Handler, well she could learn a lesson or two from stand-up sensation and gross out monger Nikki Glaser. Chelsea, yeah I'm talking to you, ditch the shiny outfit and not try so darn hard. Come on miss thang, embrace "the suck", for reals.  

Whether Handler's waxing on about auto-eroticism, possibly getting busy with the governor of New York, having uncomfortable coition, or the vacancy of her siblings with whom she obviously doesn't like, her "Feeling" meanders, goes off on tangents, and becomes downright unrelieved. I mean the woman isn't much of a storyteller, just a professional pie-eye-r who despite not being wasted, still seems to say whatever pops in her head. Now did I ultimately get "the feeling" in regards to Chelsea Handler: The Feeling? H-e double hockey sticks no!  

Written by Jesse Burleson

Novocaine 2025 * * * Stars

DON'T THINK DON'T WORRY EVERYTHING'S JUST FINE

"Oh my gosh, you're a superhero". That's right boys and girls, eat your heart out Mr. Fantastic. 

Anyway 2025's Novocaine is about a main character who can't feel pain. So hey, why not make it one of the most barbaric and violent movies ever made. I mean Nathan "Novocaine" Caine (played by star in the making Jack Quaid) gets put through the almighty ringer here, battered, bucked, and bruised like some human pinata filled with ichor. "So what's your deal?" Uh, more like what's your deal bonebreaker? Natch.

Novocaine, well it puts the action comedy in action comedy, parading around like some warped B-movie playing at the kung-fu grindhouse. It's bloody fistfight clip then payoff then quip then bloody fistfight clip then payoff then quip. Rinse, rinse, repeat. Continued echo. "Hey bleep-hole, feel this!" Uh we feel ya Caine, boy do we feel ya. 

So yeah, as something about an assistant credit union manager who uses his special set of skills (and malady skills) to save his would-be girlfriend from the throes of some jag bank robbers, Novocaine is nearly the antitheses of being parlous and fraught with danger. Yup, it's the type of vehicle that has you squirming one minute and snorting the next, with its tongue clearly planted in cheek (or corn syrup-soaked cheek and just about everything else). 

Starring the likes of Quaid (mentioned earlier), Amber Midthunder, Ray Nicholson, and Spider-Man character actor monger Jacob Batalon, Novocaine carries a huge plot turn of events (which I won't mention) and about five or so endings where its black hats come at you relentlessly like The Terminator. The flick obviously doesn't have an A-list cast but its hook of mild-mannered dorko-s with a sense of badassery and CIPA to the hilt might carry it to ten years after cult status. Comfortably "numb". 

Written by Jesse Burleson