People driving through this neighborhood like it was a racetrack

Friendship (2024, Andrew DeYoung) has this understated intensity that wonderfully adorns the diegesis with enough stuff beyond Tim Robinson’s schtick that it avoids becoming dull or too predictable. It’s maybe heightened comedy. I almost wanna use the term surreal, but I don’t like throwing that around too easily.
     It works as a comedy built around a comedian. And that’s what links it to the earliest of Hollywood’s most effective genres. But instead of merely being a Tim Robinson vehicle, Friendship can be looked at as this psychological cautionary farce about a man whose family life and career are close to perfect, but nevertheless allows his fatal flaw to get the best of him. It’s interesting to ask yourself what is this flaw of his? Do you think he’s a nut? 
     I kind of identify with Robinson’s character. To those who would say he’s got stress management issues I would say who doesn’t? His stress levels are cathartic so ours don’t have to be. Without spoiling anything, I’ll just say that what made Friendship work so much better than I expected it to for me is the overall tone; slightly subverting what you’d expect in original, oddly creatively satisfying ways. Pay attention to everything that happens at the phone store. Or his son’s birthday. 
     And more than anything this thing stayed with me long after watching. It reminded me of 50s Buñuel. Except Friendship, again, isn’t surreal. None of the scenes are fantasy. Or unreliable narrator illusions. Those are cop-outs. Okay, maybe there’s one. At the end. With the guys in the garage. Only more of a reason to commend the restraint and impressive blend of serious storytelling with escalating uncomfortable humor.
 
5/16/25 AMC Phipps Plaza 14
Atlanta, GA

Life is meaningless. You have nothing and no one cares about you

Thunderbolts* (2025, Jake Schreier) is a psychological-action comic book movie about a bunch of losers who get thrown in our face by a desperately opportunistic manipulative tyrant who can be read to symbolize Marvel Studios itself. Ultimately we empathize with the Thunderbolts and in doing so want to kill ourselves. Gen x is back and this is what appeals to us. 

     This movie is all about being down on yourself. I love it. Thunderbolts* is a lame rip-off of the far superior The Suicide Squad (2021, James Gunn) first of all. And there’s nothing to do with YELENA that we hadn’t already seen in Black Widow (2021, Cate Shortland), or ALEXEI either for that matter; and everything to do with Florence Pugh delivering a performance where she plays someone dealing with grief-guilt over trauma is redundant in the shadow of the far superior Midsommar (2019, Ari Aster).
     And the plot device that serves as vehicle offroad into the subconscious is so much a rip-off of Eternal Sunshine that there’s even a scene where Yelena breaks into another room through a wall that cuts to her climbing through it and up out of a hatch in the floor complete with tracking gimble tilt. All orchestrated by a villain whose design isn’t that much different than the forest ghost from Uncle Boonmee.
     The score mostly feels like it takes its refrain straight from that Kid Cudi “Pursuit of Happiness” with a bit of the Largo – Finale of Schumann’s Symphony no. 4. And here is where Thunderbolts* won me over. It’s like the oppression is authentic enough to vindicate the mediocrity. The emotional underscoring is rousing. I’m pulling for them. And I realized all of the subpar indistinct flavorless Marvel style is filling in for the feeling of not fitting in and underwhelming disconnect with the spread of the corporation that is social media/pop culture = society. 
     Thunderbolts* manifests an existential gloom so tangible and modern that it connected with me. And the power loneliness has to leave nothing behind of someone but a dark streak is a profound aesthetic flourish, albeit one already done in Pulse (2001, Kiyoshi Kurosawa). This thing’s got emotion. And to top it all off there are a these three bait and switch gags where I’m sentimentally about to go misty or vengeful when right at the last second it’s a trap loaded with a trick unexpected emotional reaction of a completely unexpected variety. I’m at the very least intrigued here. 

 
5/4/2025 AMC Madison Yards 8
Atlanta, GA