Here are four films for your consideration. Two are new releases; one a new, upgraded re-issue of a classic; a fun 2019 movie you might have missed.
Late to the party myself, I reviewed Trainspotting in the early months of this blog – in August 2011 – fifteen years after the picture’s release. You can read that review HERE.
Among other things Trainspotting launched the careers of its star, Ewan McGregor, who plays RentBoy, and who also the narrates; as well as the careers of Kelly MacDonald, Robert Carlyle, Kevin McKidd and other members of the scruffy Scottish gang of addicts at the center of the film. Likewise, it cemented the reputation and elevated the career of its director, Danny Boyle, whose first feature film, Shallow Grave, came just two years earlier. Boyle, of course, has gone on to direct films like A Life Less Ordinary, 28 Days Later, Millions, Slumdog Millionaire, 127 Hours, Steve Jobs, and Yesterday (reviewed below).
Highly recommended. Trainspotting is not currently available streaming, perhaps pulled from such internet availability because of the theatrical re-release. In any event, it is well worth seeing on the big screen for maximum impact.
Grade: A
In wide release, exclusively in theaters, beginning June 5, 2026. Not currently available streaming.
The story is of two young women, the twins Racine (2-time Tony award winning actress, Kara Young) and Anaia (Mallori Johnson). Both bear prominent, disfiguring scars from burns they experienced in a fire when very young. The twins are like two peas in a pod: they were raised together in orphanages and foster homes, and as young adults they live together, work together, and in fact do most everything together. They are surprised one day to receive a letter from their mother, Ruby, who they believed had perished in that long-ago fire. She is in fact alive but unwell; the letter asks them to come at once to see her. Curious, the twins drive into the deep South to meet this stranger, their mother. When they arrive, she is on her deathbed, surrounded by attendants. Ruby (Vivica A. Fox) explains that when the twins were little their father tried to kill her by emptying a flask of flammable alcohol all over her and setting her on fire. The twins’ injuries arose from their attempts to help her. She, Ruby, was so seriously burned that she’s been an invalid ever since. Her dying wish is that the twins avenge this horrible deed by tracking down their father and “make him dead, real dead”. It’s more a command from on high than a mere request.
So begins the meaty part of the Is God Is, first the odyssey to find their father (simply called “Man” in the credits) and played by Sterling K. Brown). And what happens when they do. It’s dark and at the same time charming, as we get to know Racine and Anaia better. And the people they meet along the way. And how these innocents, our protagonists, try to fulfill their awful assignment of vengeance. Some of this is warmhearted, some parts are funny, and some are brutal - again, in a Tarentino sort-of-way.. The film also features Janelle Monae and Mykelti Williamson, if you are a fan of either or both.
The movie moves along well, it held my interest throughout, and it always felt a little different (in a positive way) from the more typical retribution movie. So I liked Is God Is quite a bit. So have a lot of other critics: Rotten Tomatoes calculates that 98 per cent of critics have rated the movie favorably, as have 89 per cent of movie-goers. The problem is that not all that many people have bought tickets – so it may not stay in theaters much longer. If you’re interested, rush out and see it.
Grade: B+
In theaters. Streaming release date has not been announced.
I quite liked Sorry To Bother You when it came out eight years ago, and I wrote an admiring review of that picture [here’s a link]. I was hoping to like Riley’s new movie as well. In my introduction to Sorry To Bother You, I described it as “An audacious movie that's not afraid to break the rules and that manages to delight and discomfort the viewer at the same time: a broad comedy and surrealistic social satire on the one hand, it's also a critical look at the dark side of what's presented as an amoral, consequences be damned, profit obsessed capitalist system that cares not a whit for the common man.”
I Love Boosters is a broad, rule-breaking comedy too, with a different story but similar themes. It is also a bigger, more expensive production, but I question whether the additional money was put to good use. Much seems to have been spent on CGI effects to add a little pizazz to the science fiction elements of the story, some of which are effective and fun - like an enormous (hallucinated) rolling ball (á la "Raiders of the Lost Ark") made up of bills, eviction notices and other miscellany representing the protagonist’s money anxieties). But other (presumably expensive) effects - like the force fields produced by a secret device, looking like a high-tech toilet seat, that can somehow manipulate time and matter - just come across as cheesy; and worse, they are vastly overused throughout the second half of the movie.
Riley’s sophomore film is also a narrative mess, increasingly hard to follow as the movie progresses. (So much so, that I went back a few days after my first viewing to see whether the problem was my inattention or a sloppy screenplay. It’s the latter.) The story takes too many detours – such as the periodic appearance of soulful-eyed LaKeith Stanfield (who played the protagonist in Sorry To Bother You) as a mysterious, seductive man, who has little or nothing to do with the main plot. (As revealed in the film’s most lascivious scene, he's a Satan who literally sucks the soul out of women.) And the themes of I Love Boosters, however sincere and well intentioned, are unsubtly presented and hardly original (rich people are privileged and uncaring).
That said, for me I Love Boosters turned out to be a dud. And, adding insult to injury, although Riley is famously a huge fan and promoter of Oakland, making his home town (and mine) the center of a story that's sympathetic to and about shoplifters seems particularly inappropriate, given The Town’s recent history of widespread retail crime, which has forced an untold number of businesses to flee. Adding a Robin Hood theme doesn’t much help.
Grade: C+
In theaters.
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