Title: Notice to Quit (2024)
Director: Simon Hacker 👨🏼🇺🇸
Writer: Simon Hacker 👨🏼🇺🇸

Reviewed by Li 👩🏻🇺🇸

Technical: 3.25/5

In a solidly built feature debut by writer-director Simon Hacker, Notice to Quit follows a simple premise: A deadbeat dad who hasn’t seen his daughter in months suddenly finds himself saddled with her care. Said daughter, 10-year-old Anna (Kasey Bella Suarez), is distraught over her and her mom’s impending move from New York City to Florida (a “swamp,” Anna gripes). On the child’s last day in the city, she runs away to spend time with her dad, Andy (Michael Zegen).

The emotional beats of this fast-paced dramedy won’t surprise anyone. Across genres, from kids’ movie Despicable Me (2010) to the grittier Logan (2017), a cantankerous father figure is forced into babysitting a precocious young girl before softening towards her by film’s end. In Notice to Quit, washed up rental agent/hustler Andy and whipsmart Anna play their roles dutifully.

While it’s not the familiar plot that carries this film, Hacker deftly creates a bursting love letter to working class New Yorkers, in all their brash and unscrupulous swagger. Viewers find themselves thrown onto a roller coaster ride of chaos and city hijinks, recalling the punishing pace of Uncut Gems (but without the debilitating sense of dread). From finding a cockroach in a diner to arguing with your gruff-but-secretly-kind immigrant landlord, to having your financial solvency center around the city’s housing market, the movie taps into a very real New York experience—and splashes it on screen for audiences to laugh at (or commiserate with). 

Gender: 3.5/5
Does it pass the Bechdel Test? YES

Although Anna has a headlining role with plenty of screentime, Hacker clearly has his sights set on main character Andy. It’s Andy’s hectic day we follow, and Anna is simply the comet that’s come crashing into his punishing routine of showing apartments and ducking shady colleagues to whom he owes money. Anna does have a positive role as a kid who’s balanced as both street-smart yet vulnerable, but she remains two-dimensional throughout the film.

In a key role (albeit one that’s mostly offscreen), Anna’s mom Liz (Isabel Arraiza) avoids the tiresome stereotypes often applied to the exes of main male characters. Sure, she does gripe about Andy being a useless father, but viewers are given good reason to agree with her. (Andy is a mess.) So many scripts subtly chastise women for working full time, seen in Mrs. Doubtfire’s (1993) judgment of Sally Field’s career-oriented character, not to mention just about the entirety of the Christmas movie catalog. Notice to Quit never falls into the trope of suggesting that Liz is somehow overbearing, or needs to change.

But in the end, the cast is filled mostly with men. Brokers, butchers, landlords, doormen—working class New York looks like a man’s world. The only minor characters we see with more gender balance appear in expected places: caregivers such as Liz, who works as a hospital nurse, and Anna’s babysitter Maria (Feiga Martinez), plus a smattering of former and would-be tenants looking to rent from Andy. On the plus side, this depiction of the city doesn’t ring untrue; it just makes for another movie that doesn’t bother sketching outside gender conventions.

Race: 4/5

On the other hand, even with its white main character, Notice to Quit embraces the racial and ethnic diversity of its setting through supporting and background roles. This isn’t Sex and the City’s whitewashed brunch utopia, nor is this the “urban” (read: Black and Latino) hellscape regurgitated by so many movies centering around white leads from the 1980s and ‘90s. Having lived in New York City myself for over a decade, it’s hard to specify what makes Notice to Quit’s racial inclusivity so potent beyond the fact that it just “feels right.”

In the most prominent roles for people of color, Latina Suarez and Puerto Rican Arraiza play Anna and Liz, respectively. Their ethnicities are naturally woven into the film: Whether it’s speaking occasional Spanish, to Liz’s no-nonsense but loving approach to parenting Anna, cultural markers feel neither exotified nor ignored. Hacker’s comfort level around this comes into sharp focus when Anna translates for a man speaking Spanish to Andy. It’s a small but effective bit of scripting that puts control in the hands of Latinos as Andy is left out of the conversation—a subtle power shift that mirrors how, in most parts of New York City, white people are in the minority. Even if this only happens briefly, it’s a positive (and realistic) setup that doesn’t resort to dull cliches about Latinos being potentially violent or “scary” in order for them to briefly have the upper hand around a white protagonist.

Mediaversity Grade: B- 3.58/5

For a simplistic story about a guy struggling to balance the demands of work and family, Notice to Quit stands out more for its Technicolor rendering of New York City, and the way it paints its hustlers with humor and affection. As lead actor Zegen succinctly puts it himself, “It’s not a deep movie. It’s just a good time.”

For better or worse, late September this year is certainly the time for animated robot movies. Fortunately, we got the “worse” out of the way last week with “Transformers One.” Now we can sit back and enjoy the “better” with “The Wild Robot.” Many people did indeed sit back and enjoy this movie, as the theater at my screening was more crowded than usual. The added cheering and laughter made the experience all the more endearing, and it was heartwarming to think of all the families bonding over their shared love of this movie.

Lupita Nyong’o stars as Roz, a robot programmed to help with tasks on a distant space colony. Something goes wrong with the delivery, and she winds up stranded on an island on Earth. Eager to help, but unable to find any humans to give her orders, she instead looks to the local animal population. She even takes the time to learn how animals communicate, to the point where she can filter their various squeaks, squawks, and other utterances into English in real time. And that’s how this becomes a talking animal movie.

Roz is eager to help, but the animals don’t necessarily want her help. Okay, they “decidedly” don’t want her help. At first, they’re all afraid of her, given that she’s gigantic, made of metal, dangerously confused, and relatively clumsy (she moves nimbly for a robot of her size, but isn’t built for the unpredictability of nature). Then they fight against her, knocking her down and stripping her of gears and features. She’s even attacked by her closest physical match, a bear named Thorn (Mark Hamill), who knocks down a cliff, causing her to crush a bird’s nest.

Roz sees that a single egg has survived, and the lifeform inside must be protected. She saves it from getting eaten by a fox named Fink (Pedro Pascal) by launching the predator into a porcupine, though she instinctively helps him remove quills afterward. The egg hatches, and the gosling, named Brightbill, doesn’t see why Roz can’t be mother material. Roz is prepared to be a helper, but not a primary caregiver. In other words, she doesn’t have any programming that makes her fit to be a mother. “No one does,” says opossum Pinktail (Catherine O’Hara), who becomes her mentor.

The rest of the movie is Roz trying to raise Brightbill (Kit Connor) as best as she can, knowing that she’ll have to teach him to swim, then fly, then leave for months on migration. The other geese tease him for coming from an unnatural family, but leader Longneck (Bill Nighy) sees that he only lives to help others, just like his adoptive mother. The migration makes for an adventure unto itself, as does Roz and the rest of the forest trying to make it through an unexpectedly harsh winter. On top of all that, Roz still recognizes an obligation to try to get to the human colony, and tracking robot Vontra (Stephanie Hsu) could arrive at any time. That the last matter probably should have been saved for a sequel is my only real gripe with the movie.

“The Wild Robot” came to theaters riding the single biggest wave of critical praise I’ve seen all year. The quantity of praise is well-deserved, as I can’t imagine anybody disliking this movie, but it might make it a tad vulnerable to expectations. I consider it “among” the best movies of the year, but I was never quite ready to hand it the top spot (still “Dune: Part Two,” by the way). Still, my heart melted at several points, whether it was from cuteness (the opossum family), sadness (the straining of the Roz/Brightbill relationship), or the sheer amount of love on display. By all means take the family to see this movie, turn it into a success, and encourage Hollywood to make more movies with this much heart.

Grade: B

“The Wild Robot” is rated PG for action/peril and thematic elements. Its running time is 101 minutes.

Robert R. Garver is a graduate of the Cinema Studies program at New York University. His weekly movie reviews have been published since 2006.

MOVIE REVIEW: FRANKIE FREAKO

Your enjoyment of the new horror/comedy “Frankie Freako” may be partially dependent on whether or not you have a fondness for 80s cult classics like “Ghoulies.” As it happens, I do. True, for a movie about mischievous little creatures crossing paths with unsuspecting humans, the strange but fittingly low-fi vibe at the heart of “Frankie Freako” is more akin to something like “The Garbage Pail Kids Movie” then “Gremlins” but I certainly don’t say that as a knock. On the contrary, that’s part of this movie’s bizarro charm.

“Frankie Freako” weaves its story around Conor (Conor Sweeney), a clueless workaholic  who sort of lives his mundane life by the book. He has a decent enough job, he has a drop dead gorgeous soulmate (Kristy Wordsworth), and he has everything in the world going for him except for one thing; A clue. To call this clean-cut yuppie oblivious would be quite the understatement. It’s also clear that Conor is having a bit of an existential crisis and ultimately, what he really needs is a little bit of adventure in his life alongside a good swift kick to the ass. Well, he eventually gets both of those things after calling a party hotline that leads him to a demonic little goblin called, you guessed it, Frankie Freako. After conjuring Frankie and bringing he and his trouble-making cohorts into the world of humans, all sorts of hijinks ensue. 

“Frankie Freako” was written and directed by Steven Kostanski, the wonderfully creative effects man behind “The Void” and “Psycho Goreman.” As was the case with “Psycho Goreman” in particular, there’s a kind of childlike sense of glee that Kostanski brings to this movie. It’s rambunctious, irreverent, weird, and left of center but at the same time, it’s oddly charming. Funny, too. It should also be noted that while “Frankie Freako” doesn’t look to have an official rating yet, it’s clearly more along the PG-13 rated lines of the 80s movies that inspired it.

Kostanski’s old school practical creature work is a lot of fun here and again, from a style standpoint, this movie evokes the spirit of those 80s and 90s Empire productions (think the “Ghoulies” and “Puppet Master” franchises) more than anything else. Kostanksi even goes so far as to name one of his lead characters Mr. Buechler (Adam Brooks), named after the late, great John Carl Buechler, a makeup effects man and creature creator of the 80s who would go on to direct “Troll,” “Ghoulies Go to College,” and the underappreciated “Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood” (say what you will about this divisive entry in the over bloated franchise, but it gets bonus points for bringing Kane Hodder into the fold as Jason and for delivering the ultimate “Friday” kill in the form of death-by-sleeping-bag.)

Look, “Frankie Freako” isn’t going to be a movie for the masses but if you like those aforementioned low-fi creature films of the 80s, this one is likely to bring a smile to your face. It certainly did for me. I loved the goofy humor and further still, even though Conor is kind of an insensitive, oblivious, and altogether clueless dumb-dumb for much of this movie’s runtime, I still really liked the guy.

Also, at the risk of going into spoiler territory, I really loved that Kostanski doesn’t turn Conor’s love interest Kristy (played by a very likable and easy on the eyes Kristy Wordsworth) into a shrill bitch with a hidden agenda. There’s a strange but sweet authenticity to their relationship and I really responded to that. Likewise, the bond that develops between Conor and the hell-raising goblins at the center of this movie is a heartfelt and good-natured one. Call me a freak if you want to but I had a really fun time with this film!

Shout! Studios is set to give “Frankie Freako” a limited theatrical release on October 4th. If you happen to reside in the Southern Utah area, you’ll have an opportunity to see a special screening of this wildly entertaining movie on the evening of Thursday, October 17th during the 2024 HorrorFest International Film Festival. For more details, go to fmasu.com/horrorfest.