Movies to Catch This Spring
Drive-Away Dolls
The Cohen Brother’s are doing their own things now, which means double the fun… and a lesbian trilogy of goofy B movies?
It turns out that when you let the Cohen Brothers off the leash to do their own things they end up doing some pretty wild ventures. Joel Coen’s first solo film came out in 2021 starring Denzel Washington in a black and white retelling of The Tragedy of Macbeth earning a respectable 92% on Rotten Tomatoes. Now it’s Ethan Coen’s turn with Drive-Away Dolls starring Margaret Qualley, Pedro Pascal, Matt Damon, and Beanie Feldstein. Qualley plays a free spirited loose cannon who’s bemoaning her latest breakup while her co-star Geraldine Viswanathan is an uptight girl who just needs to relax. A road trip is in order. A mistake at the car rental is made and the pair find themselves in possession of The Goods belonging to an inept gang. Hijinks ensue.
Cooked up alongside his wife Allison Anders, the movie finds inspiration in the early 1970s exploitation romance films Ethan grew up on as a kid. It’s easy to see this reflected in the wardrobe choices alone. The film was originally titled Drive-Away Dykes and has scored itself an R rating for crude sexual content, full nudity, language and some violent content. Cohens not pulling any punches on this one, and if it does well he expects it to be the first in what he has loosely described as his “lesbian B movie trilogy”.
“Over the past 20 years, we’ve been writing this lesbian B movie trilogy,” Cooke told Collider. “Not really a trilogy, but the idea was to write three queer B movies that I always thought would just kind of sit in the drawer and our kids would look at one day when they were old and get some laughs. And now we’ve made one of them.”
“And we have another one written,” said Coen. “The problem with writing two is then you’re obliged to do a third because nobody does two. You gotta do a trilogy. I don’t even know the word for two corresponding to a trilogy”.
In his defence “duology” really doesn’t have the cool ring to it that “trilogy” does.
In Cinemas 21 Sep
Force Of Nature: The Dry 2
That awkward moment when your new franchise is based on one very specific climate, but your next film is set somewhere wet but you need “The Dry” in the title anyway.
The previous Rural Australian murder mystery was a real cracker and directed by Robert Connolly is looking to go two for two with this sequel once again starring Eric Bana. A city slicker federal agent heads into the Victorian mountains to find out why five women entered and only four came out.
In Cinemas TBA
The Equalizer 3
Denzel Washington is still trying to equalize everything with bullets. Third time’s a charm as he sets off to Italy to start a new life. Unfortunately the quaint village he’s living in has gotten mixed up with the local gang. Unfortunately for the mob Denzel has very few ways of helping his friends out apart from killing everything in sight. Set to be the final movie in the trilogy it’s been a great run once again directed by Antoine Fuqua (Bullet Train, South Paw)
In Cinemas 31 Aug
Retribution
“Hey Liam Neeson, we got a movie for you?”
“Yeah?”
“A bad guy is threatening your family an-”
“you son of a bitch, I’m in.”
Remake of the Spanish thriller El Desconocido, Neeson is stuck in a car set to detonate if he leaves it. His kids are in the back seat and the cops think he’s the car bomber vaporising all his bank executive buddies. Directed by Nimród Antal (Predators, Metallica: Through the Never).
In Cinemas 24 Aug