Welcome to Trust Me, I Watch Everything, a weekly guide to all the new movies out each Friday, and where to find them. This week’s buzziest release is Obsession, a twisted dark horror-comedy that’s the mainstream debut of YouTuber and sketch comedian Curry Barker. (Alas, Guy Ritchie’s latest, In the Grey, starring Jake Gyllenhaal, wasn’t screened for press ahead of its May 15 release.)
If you’d rather have a movie night at home, you can rent or buy Project Hail Mary, the Ryan Gosling-starring sci-fi epic and one of the biggest box office hits of the year. Or, check out the not-quite-a-remake of Faces of Death.
And on streaming services you’re likely already paying for, there’s a wonderful and very personal documentary about Martin Short on Netflix.
Let’s get into it!
🎥 What to watch in theaters
The biggest release: Obsession
Why you should maybe see it: Ever since Jordan Peele broke the glass ceiling and then rolled around bloody in the shards, other sketch comedians have begun making their way to the horror genre, most notably The Whitest Kids U’ Know’s Zach Cregger, the man responsible for Barbarian and the Academy Award-winning Weapons.
Then came the YouTubers, like Markiplier, whose self-distributed Iron Lung immediately changed pretty much everything we know about how box-office hits work, and YouTube film critic Chris Stuckmann, whose crowdfunded Shelby Oaks was bought and distributed by Neon.
Enter Curry Barker, a hybrid sketch comedian and YouTuber who gained notoriety after self-distributing a found-footage horror film on YouTube called Milk & Serial. His debut feature film, Obsession, is out in wide release and set to gross many millions of dollars this weekend on a scant production budget.
Obsession is a pitch-black horror-comedy that takes a Tales from the Crypt or The Twilight Zone-sized “be careful what you wish for” monkey’s paw tale and brutally stretches it to feature length. In the film, Bear (Michael Johnston) is firmly in the friend zone with a girl he’s madly in love with, Nikki (Inde Navarrette in a fantastic, star-making debut performance), and can’t bring himself to let his feelings known, no matter how hard he tries. In frustration after almost telling her, he breaks a “One Wish Willow,” and wishes for her to love him “more than anything in the world.” He gets exactly what he asks for, and soon discovers that some desires come at a dark, sinister price.
The extremely dark comedy comes from the fact that, as it becomes clearer and clearer that something is wrong with Nikki, at every turn, “nice guy” Bear ignores obvious warning signs and is happy to have his way, no matter what the real Nikki wants, which surely is not this. He’s happy to go on having sex with and building a life with this woman who, before the wish was made, we’re told was completely uninterested in him.
It’s a movie that takes aim at a certain breed of selfish man who couldn’t care less about a woman’s personhood and agency as long as he gets what he wants, pushing that idea to extremes over and over again. She duct-tapes his door shut so he can’t leave, and he just pries it open as if it’s no big deal. By the time she gets rather … let’s say jealous, when he’s in a car with another woman, he may have finally learned his macabre lesson.
The film is at its best whenever Navarrette is onscreen. Her transcendent performance from the sweet and kind girl next door to the demonically obsessive, jealous, co-dependent-to-a-fault girlfriend is chilling and unsettling, and she really nails the assignment.
The most upsetting aspect of Obsession is an element that is relegated mostly to the background: how Barker makes clear that something else has taken control of Nikki and implies that the real Nikki is stuck in some Get Out-like sunken place. The bits that really get under your skin are when the real Nikki breaks through for a fleeting moment, only to go back to her wish-fulfillment mode, and I wish the film dove deeper into those terrifying details rather than gory provocations and uncomfortable laughs. That said, those scenes are appropriately messed up, and the jokes are pretty funny.
Obsession may become a little repetitive by the end of its nearly 2-hour runtime, but it’s still a worthy horror debut that plays like an announcement of multiple talents to watch despite some pacing issues. At 26, Barker has already lined up several high-profile projects, including a remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre! Expect to see newly anointed scream queen Navarrette dominating the genre for years to come, too.
What other critics are saying: It’s easily netting the best reviews for a horror movie in quite some time. The AV Club’s Monica Castillo writes, “With a simple premise and one unassuming wish, Barker immerses his audience in a dark scenario that only escalates in tension and carnage. It’s the kind of horror movie that makes a viewer uneasy almost from the start and doesn’t let up.” William Bibbiani at TheWrap declares, “Barker understands, if nothing else, that everything he’s doing is wrong and people need to suffer for trying to enjoy it. And if that includes the audience, well … it’s no wonder.”
How to watch: Obsession is now playing in theaters nationwide.
Another great option: Top Gun and Top Gun: Maverick
Why you should see it: Top Gun is celebrating its 40-year anniversary with a re-release of both the original film and its more recent blockbuster sequel, Top Gun: Maverick, in theaters nationwide this weekend and booked through the end of the week.
I feel that I don’t really need to sell anybody on watching Tom Cruise fly around in actual military jets on the biggest screen possible, with the most state-of-the-art sound system roaring around you.
It’s hard to imagine movies that are more perfectly constructed to be viewed on the largest screens possible. Some theaters are showing both films in IMAX, so check your local listings!
How to watch: Top Gun and Top Gun: Maverick are now playing in theaters nationwide.
💸 Movies newly available to rent or buy
The biggest release: Project Hail Mary
Why you should see it: Ryan Gosling and his ample reserve of charming movie-star energy help power the extremely familiar Project Hail Mary to recommendable status, despite some elements that occasionally get in the way.
Science teacher Ryland Grace (Gosling) wakes up on a spaceship light-years from home with no recollection of who he is or how he got there. As his memory returns, he begins to uncover his mission: to solve the riddle of the mysterious substance that is causing the sun to die out. He must call on his scientific knowledge and unorthodox ideas to save everything on Earth from extinction. But an unexpected friendship may mean he doesn’t have to do it alone.
If it sounds like you’ve seen this all before, though, that’s because Project Hail Mary is essentially a mash-up of several popular works of science fiction, including the decade-old Matt Damon flick The Martian, which was based on a book written by Andy Weir, the same guy who wrote the bestseller on which Project Hail Mary is based.
Gosling does commendable work throughout, carrying the movie on his back so thoroughly that I hope he checked in with a chiropractor after filming. It’s essentially a one-man show, and he does an excellent job of guiding the audience through it all. By the time a spider-like rock creature is introduced, he plays off his scene-partner puppet with gusto. Sandra Hüller of Anatomy of a Fall fame is also great in her scenes on Earth as the no-nonsense head of the expedition.
The movie pays lip service to classic sci-fi films like Close Encounters of the Third Kind while simultaneously stealing the plot of Christopher Nolan’s masterpiece Interstellar. It ultimately morphs into an E.T.-style story about a human befriending an alien creature and discovering we’re not all that different. There’s also a spacewalk scene that reminded me of Gravity. No, you’re not crazy to reference Armageddon or even Cast Away!
In addition to its plot similarities to The Martian, Project Hail Mary also emulates that film’s Obama-era hopecore ideal that if all the smartest people in the world put aside their differences and work together, nothing is impossible. Come to think of it, that sounds a lot like Arrival, too. Also, am I the only person who remembers that bad Netflix movie, Spaceman, starring Adam Sandler, from a few years ago? How did we end up with two movies about a guy talking to a spider-like creature in outer space?! That movie must’ve ripped off this book!
Anyway, as the movie goes on and on (and on and on, it ends about 15 times), it’s as if you’re watching the filmmakers attempt to convince themselves as well as the audience that the movie is an Important Work of sci-fi grandeur on the level of classics like 2001: A Space Odyssey, which it’s somehow longer than.
Filmmakers Phil Lord and Chris Miller have good reason to want to prove themselves — they became in-demand after the popularity of their 21 Jump Street reboot and The Lego Movie, but were famously fired mid-movie while making Disney’s Han Solo Star Wars spin-off before beloved director Ron Howard took over.
And on a technical level, the movie looks great; I was especially taken with the alien creature’s ship. It’s the storytelling that falters. The movie aims to please so much that it undercuts any potential drama; it’s preordained that everything will work out fine. It’s so desperate to entertain that it constantly undercuts tension with jokes, which gets irritating even if Gosling is good at selling it.
Part of the problem here is the flashback structure, which kills momentum by doubling back to fill us in on the story, which isn’t all that compelling because we’ve all seen the movies it’s ripping off. It is also a reminder of the incongruity between Gosling’s character as presented in space and as portrayed on Earth, where he’s a meek science teacher.
Despite the movie constantly joking about his lack of space captain abilities, he’s able to fly the ship when the movie needs him to, and there’s little point in spending so much time with his character refusing the mission. I’ve seen the future — he’s already there!
In short, Project Hail Mary mostly delivers as an IMAX-sized spectacle, anchored by Gosling’s terrific work despite the movie’s increasingly derivative nature and protracted finale. And now, you can find out how it plays at home on your television!
What other critics are saying: It’s well-reviewed, which is partially why I felt I had to level-set expectations. There’s something so tryhard about it to me! David Fear at Rolling Stone writes, “Gosling can actually sell us on an everyman thrust into extraordinary circumstances while still beguiling us with old-school snap, crackle, and pop.” Mashable’s Kristy Puchko writes, “Imagine The Martian meets Half Nelson meets E.T., and you’ll get some idea of the mirthful mash-up that is Project Hail Mary.“
How to watch: Project Hail Mary is now available to rent or buy on Apple TV, Prime Video and other VOD platforms.
Another option: Faces of Death
Why you should see it: This cleverly conceived update of the infamous 1978 mondo horror film, which became a video store backroom staple and, as a character in this film describes, “the first viral video, before the internet invented them,” is far better than any movie bearing the Faces of Death title thus far. It’s a genuinely insightful, dark satire about the nightmare that is our online existence and how desensitized to violence we’ve all become as a result of our algorithm-ruled lives.
In the film from Daniel Goldhaber and Isa Mazzei — who are behind the 2018 Netflix film Cam, another smart movie about the internet, as well as the more recent How to Blow Up a Pipeline — a content moderator (Barbie Ferreira) stumbles upon a series of violent videos that appear to reenact death scenes from the 1978 film Faces of Death. In an online world where nothing can be trusted, she must determine whether the violence is fake or unfolding in real time.
Faces of Death brilliantly incorporates the original film into its text, using the IP as a jumping-off point to craft a suspenseful and upsetting modern slasher movie, leaning into its exploitation origins just enough to satisfy genre fans while also delivering thoughtful commentary on how social media and the “everything is content” era have changed our relationship to horrific imagery.
It’s common nowadays to see actual footage of human suffering and death as you scroll on the app where you watch makeup tutorials and “get ready with me” videos. The movie’s crass juxtaposition of these images isn’t their invention; it’s literally what it’s like to scroll social media, now with the added layer of “is this fake/AI or real,” which the movie also delves into, despite being filmed in 2023, before the current discourse. It’s prophetic!
The film not-so-subtly suggests that the killer (Dacre Montgomery, who is chilling and totally committed in this role) and the tech companies that enable the spread of gruesome viral content operate under the same principles. There’s a great scene in which the protagonist blocks actually helpful content, such as a Narcan instructional video (flagged for “drug use”) and a video of a woman showing how to put a condom on (flagged for its sexual nature), vs. the footage of actual murders, because the algorithm loves stuff that people can’t resist digitally rubbernecking. “Give the people what they want,” says the boss man at the tech company that hosts the videos, a line also spoken by the film’s killer.
I also appreciated the several ways in which the film provokes and confronts its audience; younger viewers may, unfortunately, relate to the dopamine hit the killer gets as likes and comments pour in on his latest post. It’s quite scary in its depiction of how easily someone with bad intentions can use the internet to their advantage, as in the scene where the killer adds a tracking link to a URL and quickly baits the protagonist.
By the time we get a creepy third-act monologue from the killer explaining his motivations, it hit me that Faces of Death is essentially doing Scream better than the last few Wes Craven-less sequels. It also uses the film’s legacy — specifically, the “is it real or is it fake?” aspect — to great effect.
Faces of Death may be more traditional than you’d expect, solely based on its title, but it’s also far more cogent and relevant than you’d ever expect from a movie in this series. It’s not a remake but rather a contemporary horror film that engages with the original and feels like it’s in active conversation with it. Thankfully, this meta approach pays off big.
Whatever you consider it to be, there’s a roadmap here for filmmakers looking to update memorable works without resorting to the usual tropes and nostalgia. Let’s hope they follow it!
What other critics are saying: It’s getting great marks! Amy Nicholson at the Los Angeles Times writes, “The most terrifying element in a web-based thriller isn’t the people onscreen. It’s the desensitized, anonymous messages in the chat box devouring the carnage.” IndieWire’s David Ehrlich says, “It’s to the credit of Goldhaber’s film that Faces of Death is able to satisfy on a basic, audience-forward level even as its concept has clear priority over the more visceral expectations of its genre.”
How to watch: Faces of Death is now available to rent or buy on Apple TV, Prime Video and other VOD platforms.
But that’s not all …
One half of the Farrelly Brothers is back with Driver’s Ed. (Courtesy of Vertical Entertainment/Everett Collection)
Driver’s Ed: This throwback charmer, directed by Bobby Farrelly, one-half of the legendary comedic filmmaking duo, plays like an ‘80s teen comedy à la The Breakfast Club or Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, despite a plot straight out of something more early 2000s like Road Trip. (It’s decidedly less raunchy, though.) What it lacks in big-swing laughs, it makes up for in earnest observations about a very specific time in life, the transition from high school to college, and the relationships that wind up as unintended casualties of that situation, no matter how strong the bond between the two people involved. The plot involves a group of teens stealing their school’s driver’s ed car for a road trip to help a high school senior track down his college freshman girlfriend and win her back. The teens learn valuable life lessons along the way, as Molly Shannon, Kumail Nanjiani, and Tim Baltz earn lots of laughs as the adults trying to get them home without involving the authorities. It’s nowhere near the level of Farrelly material, but it’s warm, honest, and funny enough to recommend because it treats its characters like real people rather than archetypes. Rent or buy
The Christophers: Steven Soderbergh’s latest film sees the prolific filmmaker dropping all pretense and making the “it’s about making art!” element the text instead of the subtext. In the film, the estranged children of a once-famous artist (Ian McKellan) hire a forger (Michaela Coel) to complete his unfinished works so they can be “discovered” and sold after his death. It’s a moving examination of the aging artist: what inspires you and what stops you from seeing it through, as well as the meaning hidden in the work that maybe even the artist wasn’t cognizant of, but is absolutely there. McKellan is sensational as the ornery reclusive artist, and Coel is equally brilliant as the one who forces him to reckon with the unfinished works and why exactly they’ve been stuck in the attic for years. In a just world, McKellan would be an Oscar frontrunner here, and Ed Solomon’s clever screenplay would be nominated as well. Rent or buy
📺 Movies newly available on streaming services you may already have
The biggest release: Marty: Life Is Short
Why you should watch it: This moving documentary from legendary filmmaker Lawrence Kasdan is a must-watch for fans of Martin Short and comedy.
In the film, Short looks back on a life fueled by joy with classic clips, fresh interviews and candid, never-before-seen home movies that feature everyone from the late Catherine O’Hara to Tom Hanks to Steven Spielberg.
It’s exciting and fun to see such intimate, personal footage featuring larger-than-life celebrities, and that gimmick never gets old. Short has home videos that he shot himself over the years, and it’s a real treat to see them. One example: There’s footage of him and Hanks both in character in two of their iconic roles, re-enacting a famous scene from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.
And the actual material that makes up his career — the numerous uproarious characters he’s created over the years, the memorable films he’s starred in, the TV shows he appeared on briefly but stole every scene — is just as hilarious as the new “behind-the-scenes” footage. Everything from SCTV to Clifford to The Three Amigos gets a moment.
Marty: Life Is Short is also very sad once the film reveals the personal tragedies he’s had to deal with, including the loss of his wife, Nancy Dolman. You can tell from their home videos that the couple were madly in love and as close as two human beings can be. Short living through all of that, and still choosing to make us laugh after all these years, makes it all quite inspiring and deeply affecting.
What other critics are saying: Most critics recommend it, including Monica Castillo at The AV Club, who writes, “Marty: Life Is Short gives a fresh perspective on Short’s acting and all the preparation he does to give an electric performance every time he’s in front of a crowd, whether that’s at the movies or in the living room among friends.” The Hollywood Reporter’s Daniel Fienberg writes, “I’m sure there’s a dry, professionally distanced documentary to be made about Short’s career, his varied professional arc and his myriad achievements, but Life Is Short mostly isn’t that documentary.”
How to watch: Marty: Life Is Short is now streaming on Netflix.
Another option: Zodiac Killer Project
Why you should watch it: Zodiac Killer Project is a darkly hilarious and quietly cutting takedown of the true crime documentary and all the tropes and tricks and unethical actions therein, in the form of a … true-crime documentary being described to you via the director narrating what he would have done had he actually secured the rights to make this movie, which fell through at the last minute.
It plays like a feature-length commentary track for a movie that was never made. He was aiming to adapt a memoir of a former California Highway Patrol officer, but he ultimately wasn’t allowed to, so this film is the end result. In the process, filmmaker Charlie Shackleton deconstructs the conventions of a “true crime” documentary and delves deeper into the ethical questions surrounding them.
It’s kind of brilliant — axe-to-grind cinema at its finest — and it’s highly entertaining and idiosyncratic. God bless whatever lawyers had to sign off on this.
What other critics are saying: They love it! Robert Abele of the Los Angeles Times writes that the filmmaker’s perspective is an “intriguing, worthy provocation regarding our cultural bloodlust,” and David Fear at Rolling Stone calls it “an oddball, puckish, highly forensic side-eyed look at the True-Crime Entertainment Complex.”
How to watch: Zodiac Killer Project is now streaming on AMC+.
That’s all for this week — we’ll see you next week at the movies!
Looking for more recs? Find your next watch on the Yahoo 100, our daily list of the most popular movies of the year.
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