Daddy Had To Work

Welcome to Cinema Sickos, a new weekly publication from Matthew Strickland & friends. Here we will write about films, pics, flicks, movies, and the silver screen. We will try to embody the true cinema sicko, someone who loves to talk, think, and dream about movies.

We are less than a month away from the 2026 Academy Awards and if you google “academy award snubs,” that infallible arbiter of truth, google AI, will tell you that “Dwayne Johnson (The Smashing Machine) failed to secure an expected nomination.” I have yet to see the film, but I’m sure Johnson avails himself adequately in his most prestigious role to date. I’m sad for Rock that he did not get a nomination, but not for The Smashing Machine. I’m sad because he didn’t get a Best Supporting Actor nom for his role in Furious 7.

The plot of Furious 7, such as it is, already pushes the franchise further into the realm of soap opera (the campiest that television gets). It involves amnesia (a classic), a terrorist army looking to get their hands on the surveillance device Batman uses at the end of The Dark Knight, The Transporter himself, Jason Statham, hunting the Toretto family for some reason, The CIA, Kurt Russell, cars crashing through skyscrapers, cars flying out of planes, and many many close-up shots of women’s butts in bikinis.

Beyond that, I’m not sure I could accurately explain the plot of this film, as plot isn’t really what’s on its mind. The most important part of the “plot” is that, early on in the film Dwayne Johnson’s Hobbs falls out of a seven-story building, pancaking the car he lands on. The human body is capable of magnificent feats in the Fast franchise, but Hobbs is hurt. Hobbs is so hurt in fact he has to go to... the hospital! He broke his whole arm! Sure, this would liquefy any normal human, but Hobbs is no normal human. It does, however, lay Hobbs up for most of the aforementioned terrorist fighting. Dwayne is absent for the vast majority of the second and third acts, but his absence has a purpose.

How does one make a triumphant return if one is not first absent?        

Because of its close relationship with queer culture, specifically the drag scene, I think there has been a reluctance by mainstream movie critics to call action movies camp. In searching around on the internet the action genre is constantly called “cheesy” but camp is shied away from. No matter how many oiled up male bodies we’re shown or lingering stares, the word “cheese” is much more synonymous with action cinema than the word “camp.” It would make sense then, that the man who firmly and overtly is bringing capital C, Camp, to action movies is a former wrestler.  

An in vogue thing to say at the moment among progressive wrestling fans is that, of all the art forms the one professional wrestling has the most in common with is drag, and why not? If drag is a kind of performative femininity than what is wrestling if not a kind of performative masculinity? They both have aspects of vaudevillian performance complete with heroes, villains, comedy, makeup, and most importantly, persona. I would not expect much argument if I said, “wrestling is camp,” so I don’t want to hear any arguing about action movies. There is even a sort of revolving door among the WWE/AEW stable of wrestlers and action movie casting, especially amongst the lower tier straight to VOD action flicks where camp reigns supreme.

So, if A = B and B = C, then A = Camp.

When we finally make it to the third act of Furious 7, we reach the low point of our heroes’ journey. The evil terrorist organization has our heroes pinned down. They are out numbered, out gunned, and it’s looking like they will soon be outlived. Who is left to come save them? Well in a nearby hospital Hobbs sits. Mindlessly flipping channels, he stumbles upon a news update. His eyes widen as he realizes his friends are in trouble. But what can he do? Is arm is broken in a cast. He has just fallen 7 stories to the street. Surely, he’d be of no help in his weakened state. Is that what you think? You fool. You utter fool. This is Hobbs you’re talking about! Hobbs stands up and cements Dwayne The Rock Johnson as the camp king of the universe. He flexes his cast off. He flexes so hard his cast shatters to dust. He flexes FLEXES! off his cast. He flexes off his cast, turns to his daughter and quips – “Daddy’s got to go to work.” The crowd cheers, the world is grand, my brain has melted. Honestly the film could end right there and it would still be one of the greatest ever made, but no – daddy work. 

Half of Los Angeles is destroyed. A helicopter is flying around shooting missiles at buildings and cars alike. The LAPD is completely ghost, nowhere to be seen. A foreign terrorist army is invading LA and there is not a cop, national guardsmen, army reserve, or volunteer sheriff’s deputy to be seen. There is only one government employee on the case, and as a predator drone is bearing down on our heroes, an ambulance flies out of nowhere crashing into it. It creates a huge explosion. One that would level a city block, one no one could survive, though someone sure does. A man walks from the wreckage which prompts the following dialogue: 

Some character we don’t care about:
Who is that?

Letty:
That’s Hobbs.

That’s! HOBBS! The way Michele Rodriguez’s Letty delivers her line is as if she has just named dropped the most famous man on the planet. “Oh that? That’s Bono.” “Oh that? That’s Air Bud.” As far as I’m concerned, she has just name dropped the most famous man on the planet. Hobbs then does a lot more shooting and killing and at one point tears the door off of a car like a human version of the jaws of life. It’s a series of some of the most amazing scenes I’ve ever seen. Two Ru Paul contributions come to mind as I watch this cinematic perfection. First his famous quip “you’re born naked, and the rest is drag.” Second, naturally, is his famous single “Supermodel (You Better Work).”  

Daddy worked.

I spent the last month prepping to have opinions on the Oscars by catching up on some of the nominees I missed. Richard Linklater’s Blue Moon is equal parts delightful and devastating. Ethan Hawke is incredible playing Lorenz Hart and capturing the paradox of self regard and self loathing that lives in a great artist. He squirms with desperation interacting with Andrew Scott’s Richard Rodgers, trying to suppress his superiority complex and disdain for Rodgers’ new play Oklahoma! while hopelessly trying to rope his old colleague into a new collaboration. It’s been a long time since I've seen loneliness portrayed this painfully, and yet without pity. Hawke probably won't beat Chalamet, Leo or Michael B. Jordan for best actor but if he does it won’t be a career achievement award, it will be correctly honoring a great performance.

Which leads me to Timothée Chalamet in Marty Supreme. It may have borne the weight of unfair expectations after I waited too long to see it, but I found myself wanting a more straightforward sports movie about ping pong. Chalamet was great and the ping pong scenes were thrilling, but the long criminal digressions involving the ransoming of a dog left me cold. The anachronistic music didn’t work for me at all. I wanted a little more Color of Money and a little less Uncut Gems.

It’s too bad The Phoenecian Scheme didn't get any nominations, because it’s Wes Anderson’s best work since The Grand Budapest Hotel. The three leads’ - Benecio Del Toro, Mia Threapleton & Michael Cera - chemistry is amazing and they have the Anderson cadence down perfectly.