If you asked a critic — Pattinson and Cruise big swings, ‘Other Mommy’ avoidance
The late great Roger Ebert used to run the popular Movie Answer Man column, where the critic answered various questions from readers. The Coeur d’Alene Press, with a slightly smaller imprint than Ebert’s website and the Chicago Sun-Times, simply doesn’t field enough reader questions to spawn a regular mailbag feature.
So, we make up the questions. The fake people are very rude to me.
After all these years, do I really need to explain it?
Critics seem to hate “Digger,” and the movie could be the biggest box office bomb of Tom Cruise’s career. It seems like you’re just the kind of idiot to defend it. What on Earth did you like about it? – Brian Flanagan, Athol.
Well, Brian, I AM the kind of idiot to defend it! Sorta. I’m not here to tell you “Digger” is some unappreciated masterpiece. It’s a huge mess, and more than half the movie exists to make the audience deliberately uncomfortable. “Insufferable” would be the word to describe much of the runtime.
That said, the movie contains an undercooked-but-fascinating twist after the first 40 minutes, and it allows Cruise to play a character with a more subtle dimension compared to the blustery oilman featured so prominently in the marketing.
While other movies do this particular type of twist better, “Digger” raises a few intriguing ideas about the state of the world and how people cope with disaster that can’t be fixed. It desperately needs more of that introspection, but director Alejandro González Iñárritu was never one for subtlety.
I don’t like the movie, but I appreciate the swing, and Cruise engrossed in such an intense character after years of playing stoic action hero brings back fond memories of his late 90s run that included “Magnolia” and “Eyes Wide Shut.”
Just don’t ask me why anyone thought it’d be a good idea to spend $175 million dollars on such a deliberately antagonistic movie.
Robert Pattinson is having another incredible year. Does the fact that he starred in the “Twilight” series prevent him from earning Oscar nominations and other accolades? Connie Nikas, Post Falls.
Without “Twilight,” we never get the period of Pattinson’s career where he took crazy roles in niche movies. “Good Time” and “The Rover,” “The Lighthouse” and more were so anti-Edward Cullen that Pattinson established a versatility unmatched by most former “heartthrobs.”
Plus, Kristen Stewart, another “Twilight” alum, is an Oscar nominee and basically now an institution in A-list indie fare.
Pattinson, realistically, should be in the conversation for awards for three different movies this year already (he’ll appear in “Dune Part 3” as well). He stole scenes as the sniveling wannabe-king in “The Odyssey,” controlled a delicate comedic tone alongside Zendaya in “The Drama,” and radiates off the screen as an, um, elevated Chris Hansen in “Primetime,” a feverish, exaggerated expose of the “Dateline” series “To Catch a Predator” and other early 2000s reality show staples. Even if the real Chris Hansen claims hogwash on the whole endeavor, he knows the power of a meme-able Pattinson performance.
Why didn’t the filmmakers of “Other Mommy” call the movie “Other Mother”? – Murphy Cooper, Kellogg.
For the first time in “If You Asked a Critic” history, I must decline answering the question. That’s because when I took my teenage daughter to see “The Odyssey” this summer, we experienced the piercingly LOUD trailer for “Other Mommy” and were both subsequently traumatized by one particular jump scare. The trailer opens like an innocuous commercial for children’s clothes or something before being pummeled by the sight of, well, the other mother.
While it opened to big box office last week, the reviews and audience scores for “Other Mommy” are atrocious, suggesting that it may not be as scary as advertised. I won’t decide for myself anytime soon, not until I can watch it on a second screen on my phone while playing solitaire. Not the best method to watch “Backrooms” on HBO, by the way.