The Week That Was - May 5, 2025

Bye-bye Gemstones, La Crosse natives getting blacklisted, Nick Cave, and some heavy doses of action

This is a little later than usual because we went to see Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds last night at the Armory in downtown Minneapolis. I’ve seen them five times now, though this was the first time I’d seen him with the Bad Seeds since 2017. Great show, as always, as the shows with the Bad Seeds always play like he’s a dark preacherman. The new songs play great live. I would’ve liked a little more from Ghosteen (I totally didn’t weep during “Bright Horses”…) but very minor quibble, and I can understand why he may not want to play a ton from that album as a lot of that album is very raw, emotionally.

TV

The Righteous Gemstones (Season 4) - One of the most ridiculous shows in recent memory goes out with some bangs this season. So much helper monkey, jet pack, and tree house action this season, putting HBO money to great use. A lampooning of megachurches, this is one of the most consistently ribald, gratuitous, and hilarious shows on TV, and my only complaint is that the show is going away. I love this show and these terrible Gemstones and the ridiculous stuff Danny McBride, Edi Patterson & Co. have come out of these characters’ mouths. You’ll be missed, Gemstones. Max

Film

Employee of the Month (2006) - I’d seen this ages ago but had 1) blocked out most of it, and 2) forgotten just how bad it was. I woke up a few minutes into this after it autoplayed on Prime and somehow rode this to the finish line. This movie is truly awful. Set in Not Costco, this is a workplace “comedy” where Dax Shepard plays Dwight Schrute (Season 1 iteration, on steroids) to Dane Cook’s much more selfish version of Jim whose slacker warehouse-retail life is turned on its head when Jessica Simpson walks in to be his Pam, only here, Dax, the best checkout guy in the history of the store, also wants Jessica’s character. This is like if Waiting… was even more tonally obnoxious, but then doubled down on its choices and decided that it was going to gamble its likability on the audience being able to root for a character played by the unctuous, loathsome Dane Cook. Awful, unwatchable stuff. Prime

The Last of the Mohicans (1992) - I’d only seen this once or twice and definitely hadn’t seen this in at least 25 years, so I remembered very little of this—basically the waterfall scene and snippets of the climax. The most surprising thing about this film is how lean it is. It jumps right into the action, and despite being a period film, it’s smartly set—this wasn’t Michael Mann’s choice, but he did choose the source material to jump on to adapt—on what was then the frontier, so they’re able to pare the scope down a bit from other epics. That’s not to say there’s not some impressive stuff going on here, but a lot of it happens from afar—thinking specifically of the nighttime battle scene set across a hillside that the camera pans across—another ingenious way to show scope of battle while lighting it well enough to see things while having it be dark enough to not show the warts. Even though this would have been the first time I saw Daniel Day-Lewis, seeing him as the ostensible action star was a little discomfiting after so many years of him not playing this sort of character. It was also interesting seeing Michael Mann’s style play out in the epic period piece genre, his style understandably a little muted but still unmistakably present, especially in how certain scenes are lit. This is far from my favorite Michael Mann film, but it’s very good. Criterion, Hulu

The Big Night (1951) - This is La Crosse native Joseph Losey’s last film before being blacklisted, whereupon he moved to Europe—never to return—to direct further subversive films outside of the studio system. This coming-of-age film noir is rife with homoerotic subtext and idle exploration of a softening of post-war racial boundaries. For an American film from 1951 operating under the Hays Code, it’s quite subversive, as much of Losey’s American output was. Of course, this also presupposes a world in which cane-using sportswriters could be intimidating figures in the criminal underworld, which is utterly hilarious; and it features John Drew Barrymore (yes, Drew Barrymore’s father) as the lead in a situation where he’s over his skis for 75 minutes. It’s far from perfect, but it’s interesting in a way that overcomes its shortcomings. Criterion, Prime

Fast and Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw (2019) - Somehow, this isn’t currently streaming on any subscription platforms that normal people have. Just like every F&F film since Fast Five, we saw this in the theater, but I’m not sure I’d seen this more than one other time. This one is like if 48 Hrs was reborn in the NOS Era but had all the racism excised. We’re given the gift of a full team-up movie with Jason Statham and Dwayne Johnson, and it’s not wasted. NOS (and a tow-chain) also takes down a Blackhawk helicopter, which obviously makes sense. Come for the bombast, stay for the bombast. VOD

Den of Thieves 2: Pantera (2025) - I’d intended to see this in the theater, but it never came to fruition. I saw Will Menaker liken this to Le Cercle Rouge “for the Monster Energy/Affliction-demographic,” and I can’t get that out of my head. This really does feel like Den of Thieves and writer-director Christian Gudegast are paying homage to the work of Jean-Pierre Melville, not unlike Dominic Sena paying homage to Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal in Season of the Witch, though this is a better film than that. With very few left standing from the first film in the series, this does a good job of taking the pieces that remain (basically O’Shea Jackson Jr. and Gerard Butler) and setting them off in a new direction, taking cues from the later Fast & Furious films in putting lawman and outlaw on the same side of things for the heist. I don’t know that this is as good as the first one, but it’s fun, and I’m curious to see where the franchise goes from here (yes, a third entry is in development). Netflix

Phantasm (1979) - This had come up in discussion once or twice on Unkind Rewind, and I’d been meaning to watch it. Don Coscarelli’s independently financed horror film was a strange ride. I know this is a 46-year-old film, but I don’t want to get too far into the film’s ending. I’ll just say that I didn’t love how this film ended, and that sort of soured what was otherwise a mostly fun experience. Criterion, Prime, Peacock, Kanopy, Plex, Roku Channel, Fubo

Key Largo (1948) - My memory of this film was definitely a fonder one than was probably deserved. This one is just all right, relying far too much upon Edward G. Robinson being an intimidating figure. 90% of this takes place in the Hotel Largo as a hurricane is bearing down on the Florida Keys. Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall are both rock solid, as you’d expect, but they’re not given a ton to do here, as most of the time they’re being told what to do or not to do by Robinson and his lackeys. Building tension while everyone is on lockdown in a single setting can work, but I’m not sure John Huston ratchets up the tension enough, at least not through a present-day lens. I also got another dose of Barrymore, this time Lionel. Criterion, Prime