Happy Gilmore 2 2025 * * Stars

BOGEY

What I learned from 2025's Happy Gilmore 2, is that star Adam Sandler has a boatload of friends. I mean he actually got club driving legend John Daly to play himself as some weirdo chilling in Sandler's character's car port. "2", well it just skims the surface when it comes to small parts like Daly. "I haven't swung a club in years." Yup, you're right Sandman, it's been at least 25-plus. 

Anyhow Happy Gilmore 2 is a sequel like Aliens is a sequel, or Terminator 2 is a sequel, or Back to the Future Part II is a sequel. Here's the thing though: bigger doesn't always mean badder, bigger doesn't always mean better, more elaborate, well it doesn't always mean streets ahead. "Let them see the Happy I fell in love with". Great, but does it have to be two sloppy, dawdling hours worth of running time? As Shooter McGavin would say, "this is golf people, not a rock concert".  

So yeah, "2" involves hockey player-turned-golf monger Happy Gilmore coming out of retirement to raise money for his daughter's dance classes while teaming up with some PGA players to thwart the newly crazed Maxi Golf (which feels like the equivalent of LIV Golf, hint hint). The usual high jinks ensue, with "the greatest game ever played" turning into an unscrupulous circus, something that almost veers into that 1988 follow-up with Chevy and Jackie Mason (Caddyshack fans sadly know what I'm talking about). 

Happy Gilmore 2, yeah it doesn't just have cameos mind you, it sprinkles them throughout, like mounds of Parmesan cheese on limp spaghetti. I mean if you're gonna insert Jack Nicklaus, Travis Kelce, Eminem, Jon Lovitz, and Steve Buscemi (that's just 10 percent of the assemblage), then have a story that moves things along, not a barrage of personas that fade in and out like wipes in some depraved, fantasy whirl. Let's face it, the first Happy Gilmore from '96 was tighter, funnier, and will endure more as a cult classic. "2", well it's akin to comedic splatter painting, hoping the messiness will be especial. "Happy" medium.  

Written by Jesse Burleson

Brick 2025 * * * Stars

BRICK HOUSED

"Maybe it's like some kind of twisted escape room". Maybe. Or maybe it's just some big-arse wall surrounding your apartment complex and nothing in the freaking world could penetrate it. Don't you hate when that happens. I mean all you wanted to do was leave your hubby in the wind and go outside to get some fresh air. Syke! 

Anyway 2025's Brick is about said wall. It's a thriller that has brains as opposed to showing them splattered on the floor like some sensationalism horror endeavor. Yeah people bite the proverbial dust in Brick but they don't do it in vain, they just do it because they're sick of being trapped like "rats in a cage". Um, thanks for that cryptic lyric Billy Corgan.  

So OK, as something that has a bunch of unknown actors (Ruby O. Fee, Frederick Lau) and was filmed solely in the Czech Republic, Brick is similar to stuff like Cube and Inside and 2017's The Snare, movies where people are hemmed in and have almost no access to any means of survival. 

The only difference with Brick is that it's government fodder, not some supernatural mumbo jumbo or diabolical planning by a random Jigsaw psycho to torture poor millennial-s on the come up. No Brick is meat and potatoes film-making mind you, building tension inch by inch as floors and other barriers are knocked out so the main characters can eventually find their sunlight-ed, Waterloo. "We just need to try everything". Yup, you do boss. You really do. 

All in all, I plan on recommending Brick. Why? Because its premise is simple yet layered at the same time, with director Philip Koch creating situations for his personas where they have to find explications, not impede them. Brick, well it is not overly disturbing, just effectively effective as a Netflix B grader. Sun-dried "clay". Natch. 

Written by Jesse Burleson

Trainwreck: Mayor of Mayhem 2025 * * * Stars

WRECK IT ROBBIE 

Rob Ford was the mayor of Toronto, Canada from 2010 to 2014. He died two years after his term so in 2025's Trainwreck: Mayor of Mayhem, he's obviously not around to defend his controversial self. Oh well, what are you gonna do? 

"Mayhem", yeah it's an effective, sort of transitory documentary, edited lightning quick and almost in a rush to round off, as its 49 minutes could've easily been stretched out to 75-plus. Its title has the word "trainwreck" but could also be associated with the words "car accident". Hey, you can't look away from the aspect of contentiousness.

So yeah, Ford got caught doing drugs on camera, he was an alcoholic, and was accused of giving oral you-know-what to some unknown hooker. But hey, the public kind of dug him and he might've gotten a second shot as "Hogtown's" most powerful politician had he not fallen to a grave illness. 

Trainwreck: Mayor of Mayhem, well it basically talks about Rob Ford in the 3rd person, using archives and accounts from 10-15 years ago plus present-day interviews from the denizens that knew him best. Ford, yup he was the P.T. Barnum of elected heads, a real entertaining pill of a human being. He made defamed Governor Rod Blagojevich look like Romper Room by comparison and made Marion Barry seem rather choir boyish as quiet as it's kept. "He turned City Hall into a circus". Uh, fo sho. Fo sho fo sho.  

Now do I plan on recommending "Mayhem?" I have to. I mean it's so well done and brisk, a mere snapshot of a transmission that PBS might've salivated over had they got the almighty rights. And do I think Trainwreck: Mayor of Mayhem is a perfect way to hark back to what made Ford such a kooky stitch, giving the media the business like a rollicking oaf on hallucinogens? Not quite. The flick feels a little dated and it's so brief it might just float away after one viewing. "Train" fair. 

Written by Jesse Burleson 

My Mom Jayne 2025 * * * Stars

MOM SERIAL 

Jayne Mansfield died in a car accident circa 1967 in "The City that Care Forgot" (New Orleans, LA). But she is remembered as a bombshell Hollywood legend, appearing in over two dozen films and getting her Star on the Walk of Fame. 2025's My Mom Jayne is about the closed book of Mansfield, with heeded direction by her daughter and distribution by the always docu reliable, HBO. "The public pays to see me a certain way". Yeah they do Jayne, or should I say did.

So yeah, I've never viewed a Jayne Mansfield flick but I've taken in plenty of her youngest offspring killing it on the TV show Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (that would be Mariska Hargitay). Hargitay, well she helms "Jayne" in an intimate, sort of experiential way, interspersing archives with present-day revelations and interviews from her siblings about their siren momma who only lived to be a young 34-years-old. 

My Mom Jayne, yeah it shows Mariska to be a rookie born filmmaker when you look at its continuity determinants, its streamlined look, its camera that's always peeking in, and its ability to have Vera Jayne Palmer be a haunting, wistful presence long after her sudden demise. 

It's only in the last twenty minutes or so that the pic loses its focused footing, exposing the forked, Mansfield family tree the same way Natasha Gregson Wagner did with her nurturer in 2020's Natalie Wood: What Remains Behind (paging Dr. Povich, Dr. Povich). I mean think of your momma bear as a celebration of life Mariska, not some mild, personal resentment brought on by your tough-nosed, Olivia Benson persona. 

Overall "Jayne" is a solid piece of dewy-eyed commemoration, an evocative documentary that tries its darndest to veer away from the throes of vainglory and one's own exorcising of brood demons. Alpha "mom". 

Written by Jesse Burleson

F1: The Movie 2025 * * Stars

F-NEAR-BOMB

"We all lose our jobs if you can't pull off a miracle". The "you" refers to Sonny Hayes, a journeyman, drifter race car driver who loves his playing cards, his broke down mini van, and his slick tires on ye olde track. Hey, eat your heart out Frank Capua. 

Anyway F1: The Movie is a movie about Sonny and his 30 years later, alley-like return to the ring of Formula One (duh). "F1", well it's a sports drama that clocks in at a pretty swift 156 minutes. I mean I didn't think that was possible but it is. Semi-heady sequence, race, semi-heady sequence, race, PG-13 love-dovey clip, uh race. Rinse, rinse, repeat. 

So OK, F1: The Movie features Brad Pitt as Hayes and Javier Bardem as his race team owner Ruben Cervantes. Their scenes sometimes crackle with the rest of the film being rather dramatically inert. Bad side character actors with bad acting voices and a rather hackneyed screenplay from veteran scribe Ethan Kruger that has much ado about nothing when it comes to the lingo of motorsports. That's the misguided rub with "F1". I mean all the visceral, loud-arse heck for leather where you feel like you're in the cockpit doesn't compensate for what a hollow spectacle we've got going on here. 

"F1", yeah it only excels when it appears like a promotional video and/or advertisement for Formula One zealots on the come up. Heck, you've got to wonder if "F1's" helmer Joseph Kosinski gave up the reins to Michael Bay later on in production because producer Jerry Bruckheimer said so. That's a pretty scary thought. 

A little Tony Scott here, a little Cole Trickle there, a phoned-in Hans Zimmer score, the most mediocre parts of all tres, F1: The Movie wants to be as compelling as something like Ford v Ferrari but ends up looking about as Academy Award worthy as Gone in 60 Seconds (ouch). Lost "1".  

Written by Jesse Burleson