{"id":19660,"date":"2023-02-07T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-02-07T17:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/?p=19660"},"modified":"2024-03-02T21:11:35","modified_gmt":"2024-03-03T05:11:35","slug":"vodepths-what-to-see-and-avoid-on-demand-this-week-58","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/vodepths-what-to-see-and-avoid-on-demand-this-week-58\/","title":{"rendered":"VODepths: What to See (and Avoid) On Demand This Week"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This week\u2019s low-profile VOD releases involve apocalyptic cults, unhinged cops, and oozing blood, but nothing is as frightening as the new movie from the director of Money Plane<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Who Invited Charlie?<\/a><\/em> (VOD and select theaters February 3):<\/strong> A pandemic-set take on movies like What About Bob?<\/em> or You, Me and Dupree<\/em>, this amiable but listless comedy alternates between awkward humor and awkward sentiment. Adam Pally plays the title character, an affable loser who crashes the Hamptons pandemic retreat of his former college roommate Phil (Reid Scott). Soon Charlie is meddling in Phil\u2019s business and his relationships with his wife (Jordana Brewster) and teenage son (Peter Dager). It\u2019s weird to watch a movie that seems nostalgic for the early days of lockdown, from wiping down groceries to job furloughs to banging pots and pans for healthcare workers. Director Xavier Manrique and screenwriter Nicholas Schutt rely on the pandemic for easy pathos but ignore it when it\u2019s not convenient. Charlie proves to be less wacky and abrasive than he first appears, and the filmmakers tone down the humor in favor of sappy drama in the plodding final act. Grade: C<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Frankie Meets Jack<\/a><\/em> (Tubi February 3):<\/strong> Actor-turned-director Andrew Lawrence secured a place for himself in the bad-movie hall of fame with 2020\u2019s hilariously inept Money Plane<\/em><\/a>, and this bland Hallmark-style rom-com is disappointingly tame in comparison. Lawrence\u2019s brother Joey stars as Jack, a veterinarian with a cartoonishly narcissistic fianc\u00e9e who\u2019s obviously wrong for him. Jack and perpetually single reporter Frankie (Samantha Cope) connect over their shared love of dogs, and the movie mostly just marks time until their inevitable coupling. Director Lawrence borrows shamelessly from more popular rom-coms, interspersing When Harry Met Sally<\/em>-style testimonials from long-term couples and casting himself as an inscrutably accented wedding planner straight out of Father of the Bride<\/em>. Stars Lawrence and Cope, who wrote the screenplay themselves along with Jen Bashian, have minimal chemistry, and only the late Anne Heche livens things up as Frankie\u2019s roommate\u2019s eccentric mom. Somehow, even the dog acting is bad. Grade: C-<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Woman of the Photographs<\/em> (Select theaters February 3; VOD February 7; Blu-ray March 14):<\/strong> Solitary photographer Kai (Hideki Nagai) has a mundane, ordered existence until social media influencer Kyoko (Itsuki Otaki) literally falls into his life. That may sound like the set-up for a cute romance, but everything about Japanese writer-director Takeshi Kushida\u2019s film is surreal and disquieting, from the cranked-up sound design full of whooshing and slurping sounds to the almost parasitic central relationship. Kyoko goes home with Kai and moves right in, and he never objects (or indeed says anything at all). Injured from her fall, Kyoko discovers renewed online attention by posting pictures of her cuts and scrapes. Kai and Kyoko are both consumed by the act of staging and retouching her photos, and Kushida blurs the lines between the aesthetic and the erotic. The sexualization of open wounds recalls David Cronenberg\u2019s Crash<\/em>, but Woman of the Photographs <\/em>is more meditative than intense. Sometimes it\u2019s a little too opaque, but it\u2019s compelling even when it\u2019s baffling. Grade: B<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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