Entertainment
'Pavements' review: A slanted, enchanting documentary-biopic-prank
Every band has its biggest fans. The ’90s slacker/alt rock group Pavement is probably the greatest, most vital musical group in existence to someone, but right from its opening frames, Alex Ross Perry’s Pavements deflates the grandeur of this idea, sarcastically overstating the band’s stature in its opening text. In an age of musical biopic plenty, this semi-ironic, postmodern take — which runs through Perry’s part drama, part documentary, and part mockumentary — may be just what the doctor ordered.
To those with only passing knowledge of the Stockton, California, rockers — Stephen Malkmus, Bob Nastanovich, Scott Kannberg, Steve West, and Mark Ibold — this approach to the band’s concert footage may seem counterproductive, but it also perfectly embodies their lackadaisical, experimental facade. The unique form of Perry’s film has its strengths and drawbacks. However, like Pavement itself, what sets the film apart is its outright refusal to adhere to tradition. It is, for better or worse, unique.
What is Pavements about?
Through split screens that contrast the group’s late-’90s breakup with its 2022 reunion, Pavements establishes a sense of visual and narrative duality early on. While the film eventually chronicles the lives of its members (and the band’s life as a whole) in slightly more linear fashion, this contrast establishes what appear to be the film’s dramatic parameters: an early success story later granted a new lease on life. However, the strange nature of the band’s revival soon begins fading into view, revealing just how idiosyncratic this movie truly is.
Much of the movie unfolds in side-by-side split screen, which has become a common technique in musical docs, from Todd Haynes’ Rothko-inspired The Velvet Underground to the self-generating, new-each-time Eno. However, Pavements uses this visual cue for tongue-in-cheek purpose early on. On one side, the band’s frontman Stephen Malkmus espouses his youthful, perhaps naive philosophies in a decades-old video. On the other, actor Joe Keery (Steve Harrington on Stranger Things) begins reciting the very same words, with remarkably similar intonations. This reveals — amusingly, and acerbically — that the movie’s real subjects exist alongside fictitious versions of them, a group of young actors (including the likes of Nat Wolff and Griffin Newman) who have been cast in a film called Range Life, a prestige biopic practically designed to win awards.
The doc veers between presenting the making of this satirical project and presenting it as a movie within a movie, whose footage is sprinkled sporadically throughout Pavements (rife with its own “For Your Consideration” watermark, as though it were a screener for award voting). Perry really did direct and exhibit this feature-length, Bohemian Rhapsody–style satire in New York last year — starring seasoned performers like Jason Schwartzman and Tim Heidecker in biopic stock roles, like the band’s manager and a record executive — with the intention of including this premiere footage in the documentary.
Soon, Pavements begins documenting not just the band themselves, but the development of three parallel art projects that go hand in hand with the band’s recent reunion: the aforementioned movie, a museum installation dedicated to the group, and Slanted! Enchanted!, a Broadway-style jukebox musical starring Michael Esper and Zoe Lister-Jones that pulls from the band’s discography.
Pavements takes a multifaceted approach to its subjects.
The film cuts between its four aforementioned trajectories — the band and its performance, the biopic and its making, the museum, and the show, each with its own dedicated, roughly equal screen time — with reckless abandon. However, these subjects can be paired up along two interesting axes. On one hand, old footage of the band, when contrasted with their museum commemoration, serves to contrast the past and present, and eventually creates a chronology, albeit non-chronologically. On the other hand, the biopic project is tongue-in-cheek, as though it were more about the biopic genre than about Pavement themselves, and thus, it embodies the group’s ironic musings. But this could not feel more different from the musical theater project, which draws from the group’s lyrics and melodies to create a sincere story (this show also really did premiere, in 2022).
While Pavements might seem like it meanders for the first of its two hours, cutting rapidly between these four trajectories helps weave together a complete fabric — about the band’s story then and now, and about the conflict between their approach and the meaning behind their work. While watching the movie, you may not feel like you’re learning anything about the group or its members, but all that really means is you aren’t learning things according to the linear, straightforward language that most music docs and biopics have established.
However, the film’s most entertaining segments are undoubtedly those featuring Keery, which chronicle his fictitious preparation process in meticulous detail. More than anything or anyone in Pavements, the actor seems to embody the group’s spirit through his Borat-like pranks, in which he sits down with accent coaches to prepare for his role as Malkmus and meets up with various people he thinks might be able to help him stay in character. Fittingly, the only music film Pavements resembles in any fashion is Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping.
What does Pavements actually have to say about the band Pavement?
The film, amidst its head-spinning montage approach, goes to ludicrous lengths with its movie-in-a-movie, all but presenting it in full during its runtime. However, this extended lark isn’t really about the band, per se, the way the other segments are — none of which are individually sufficient to make any viewer a Pavement expert. Beyond a few dates and events, you’re unlikely to come away from Pavements knowing much more about its members and their college disc jockey days than when you went in, which understandably elicits the question: “What’s the point?”
The point, it would seem, lies in the making of the film itself, as an anti-biopic that runs counter to everything a standard Hollywood biopic is — or rather, what it represents. If Pavement was an anti-institution band, then Pavements is its anti-institution movie made with their participation. In presenting a hilariously schmaltzy vision of what a straightforward biopic might have looked like, Perry helps them avoid an overly serious canonization.
In a way, he helps keep them young. Bands, when they reach a certain age or threshold, become nostalgic cover acts for themselves, and Pavements is determined to prevent this from happening at all costs, even if it means crafting a movie on the verge of avant-garde that might alienate half its audience.
Still, even when the various narrative threads in Pavements start to meander, the movie remains an entrancing sensory experience, given just how much screen time is dedicated to performance footage, both real and re-created. At the end of the day, despite the tricks and pranks Perry pulls, he knows full well that the reason people show up to musical biopics in the first place — and the reason they’re made to begin with — is music that connects with people’s sensibilities. This, he delivers in spades, all while maintaining a reverence for Pavement by being, well, irreverent.
Pavements does not currently have a theatrical or digital release date.
UPDATE: Sep. 25, 2024, 4:51 p.m. EDT Pavements was reviewed on Sept. 7, 2024, out of its World Premiere at the Venice International Film Festival. This post has been updated to toast its New York Film Festival premiere.
Entertainment
Ben Stiller Makes The Same Screwball Comedy For The Fourth Time In New Trailer
By TeeJay Small
| Published
Paramount Pictures dropped an announcement trailer for their upcoming film, Focker In-Law, last week, and it immediately caught my attention. As you can probably tell from the title alone, the film is the fourth installment in the Meet The Parents film series, which originally kicked off in 2000. While I loved the original film and enjoyed parts of the 2004 sequel, I can’t help but feel frustrated that we’re getting the exact same movie for the fourth time. From the trailer, it looks like Focker In-Law promises to add some comedic beats from Ariana Grande, but little else.
A Strong Start And Slow Decline
In case you’re not hip to the franchise, the original Meet the Parents tells a very straightforward comedic story of an obnoxious, anxious man named Gaylord Focker (Ben Stiller), as he encounters his girlfriend’s family for the very first time. Focker wants to take this opportunity to get the family’s blessing to propose, but he’s mired by a series of misunderstandings and social faux pas at every turn. To make matters worse, Focker must contend with his girlfriend’s domineering ex-CIA father, Jack (Robert De Niro).
The second film, Meet The Fockers, introduces some fresh talent, flips the script on Jack a little bit by taking him out of his comfort zone, and ratchets up the tension as the happy couple navigate their upcoming wedding and a premarital pregnancy. It’s sort of unnecessary, but it’s a harmless way to squeeze more laughs out of a pretty simple premise. Then, in 2010, we got Little Fockers, which produced absolutely no memorable moments whatsoever. Seriously, Ben Stiller even took to X this week to say “I stand by the first two” installments in the franchise, ignoring the third film entirely.
The Same Old Jokes For A New Generation
Now, it looks like we’re due for the same material a fourth time with Focker In-Law. Greg Focker is still an awkward, bumbling mess, while the aging Jack flexes his people skills and dunks on his son-in-law for having a stupid last name. Meanwhile, a new generation of Focker men have emerged, with Greg’s son Henry (Skyler Gisondo) planning to propose to his girlfriend, Olivia Jones (Ariana Grande). From the trailer, it looks like Grande plays an FBI hostage negotiator, who wishes to pry Focker Jr. away from his emotionally topsy-turvy family in favor of a life of relative normalcy.
Will I watch this movie as soon as it comes out? Almost certainly. But will I have any memory of seeing it within hours of leaving the theater? I’ve got my doubts. The truth is, Focker In-Law could have been an opportunity to completely reshape the characters in fun and exciting ways. We could have had Greg really come into his own with age, assuming a more confident and bullish attitude. We could have even seen him and Jack get on the same page for once, and work together to test Ariana Grande’s worthiness to enter the coveted “circle of trust.”
Instead, it seems like we’re due for another 90 minutes of Robert De Niro rolling his eyes at Ben Stiller, and conflicts driven by characters who refuse to sit down and explain themselves in plain English. The trailer reveals that even minor side characters from the other film are returning to do their same schtick. I’m not mad about Focker In-Law basically recycling the Meet The Parents script for the fourth time, but I am a bit disappointed, since I know for a fact that Stiller, De Niro, and the others are capable of putting out something much stronger.
In fairness, this is all a reaction to a single trailer. There’s an extremely minute chance that Focker In-Law subverts all my expectations, and delivers a new comedy classic that can hold its own. There’s a similarly likely chance that the earth is obliterated by a meteor before the film hits theaters, but I won’t be holding my breath either way. If this film is what Ben Stiller needs to finance a third season of Severance, then I’m content to buy 50 tickets and give Focker In-Law the best damn opening weekend I can.
Entertainment
The Best Sci-Fi Remake Of All Time Is Now Streaming Free
By Chris Snellgrove
| Published
If you’re a movie lover, the phrase “sci-fi remake” likely fills you with dread. After all, Hollywood has cranked out more than a few worthless reboots of nearly perfect genre films over the years. This includes the newer RoboCop, which, amusingly enough, lacked the humanity of the original Paul Verhoeven film. The newer Total Recall was slick and sanitized, lacking the messy charm and charismatic lead of the original. Despite Star Trek (2009) being a wholly original movie, the sequel film Star Trek Into Darkness was a remake of The Wrath of Khan that was worse in every possible way.
Star Trek Into Darkness might very well be the worst sci-fi remake in Hollywood history. Ironically, though, one of its stars is the lead in the best sci-fi remake of all time. I’m talking about Dredd (2012), which features Karl Urban as the popular comic book character who will stop crime at any cost. He fully embodies this complex role and headlines an action film powered by adrenaline, gunpowder, and pure, manic intensity. To experience the thrill ride for yourself, all you have to do is stream Dredd for free on Tubi.
Here Comes The Judge
The plot of Dredd is that future America has become a dystopian hellhole in which highly trained cops have become judge, jury, and executioner to any and all criminals. Judge Dredd is tasked with assessing the skills of a new recruit, one whose psychic abilities may give her a much-needed edge on the battlefield. But she and Dredd will need every advantage they can get to pull off their next mission: a bold raid on a 200-story tower that serves as the base of operations for a local drug lord with a new product that threatens to turn Dredd’s burned-out-berg into a city of junkies.
The central cast of Dredd is as tight as the movie’s script. Game of Thrones veteran Lena Headey plays the ruthless drug dealer who is, honestly, much more vicious than Cersei Lannister ever was. Meanwhile, Juno star Olivia Thirlby is excellent as the psychic rookie getting an unfettered look at what it means to be a Judge in a time of lawless chaos. But nobody is acting their hearts out like Karl Urban, who injects just the right amount of personality into Judge Dredd without turning him into a caricature of himself (something Sylvester Stallone failed to do in the previous Judge Dredd movie).
Urban is an actor who always disappears into his roles. As a veteran of Marvel, Star Trek, and Lord of the Rings, he has more than earned the title of a genre legend. As great as he was in those other roles, though, Urban’s Dredd is the best performance of his career. In another actor’s hands, this performance would have been pure schlock (still looking at you, Stallone) or generic action slop. Paradoxically (and perfectly), Urban finds the sweet spot, conveying his character’s passion for justice while still coming across as a cool and emotionless agent of the law.
It’s Dredd’s World. We Just Live In It
Now, here’s a confession that might cost me my nerd card: growing up, I never really got into the original Judge Dredd comics. Because of that, my only real exposure to this character has been through the medium of feature films. That’s why I was a little intimidated that I wouldn’t be able to fully appreciate Dredd: I had read about how this second film was infinitely more faithful to the comic, and so I worried that I’d be completely lost. Fortunately, I was quite wrong and discovered to my delight that this movie is very accessible to complete franchise newcomers.
That’s because Dredd, like Mad Max: Fury Road, embeds effortless world-building into its narrative without ever bogging down the storytelling or slowing down the action. If you’re a comic fan, you’ll appreciate all of the Easter eggs placed lovingly throughout the runtime. If you’re a sci-fi fan paying close attention to the dialogue, you’ll quickly suss out everything you need to know about this fictional world. Of course, if you’re just an action junkie who just wants to turn your brain off, it’s entirely possible to enjoy Dredd as a relentless movie filled with one action-packed scene after another.
One Action Scene After Another
For all its amazing attention to detail, the plot of Dredd is mostly a paper-thin excuse to shuffle us from one perfect action scene to the next. Like a sci-fi Die Hard, this movie is all about trapping our protagonists in a building where they are outnumbered and must fight wave after wave of well-armed foes. Fortunately, our heroes are driven by something more than their singular thirst for knowledge: the knowledge that all it takes is a single bullet to the leader’s head to utterly destroy this amoral organization.
It really is that simple. Our heroes must fight their way up the huge tower in search of their prey. At every turn, they encounter new foes, new challenges, and new surprises. The result is a visceral movie guaranteed to keep you on the edge of your seat. Dredd is the rare film that is full of surprises, always zigging when you expect it to zag. At the same time, however, it never fails to deliver exactly what its core audience wants: one balls-to-the-wall action scene after another. If you’re looking for something like a lo-fi John Wick crossed with The Matrix, then Dredd is the sci-fi action masterpiece you’ve been looking for.
Even if (like me on my first watch) you’re not very familiar with the title character, you owe it to yourself to watch Dredd. It’s got a small-but-swol cast, amazing costumes, and sweet set pieces. It also has action scenes that don’t stop until multiple bodies hit the floor. Think I’m overhyping the film too much? Fine, you be the judge! To experience the craziness for yourself, all you have to do is stream Dredd for free on Tubi. It’s better than the earlier movie in every way, but if this newer film inspires you to start belting out “I am the law!” in your best Stallone impression, don’t worry: I won’t tell anyone.
Entertainment
Florida investigates OpenAI over deadly mass shooting
Florida attorney general James Uthmeier announced Tuesday that the state launched a criminal investigation into OpenAI and its flagship product, the artificial intelligence chatbot ChatGPT.
The investigation centers on the use of ChatGPT by a gunman who allegedly shot several people at Florida State University in April 2025. The shooting killed two people and injured five others. The suspect, a former student at Florida State University in his early 20s, is awaiting trial for multiple charges of murder and attempted murder.
“Unfortunately, what we’ve seen in our initial review is that ChatGPT offered significant advice to the shooter before he committed such heinous crimes,” Uthmeier said at a news conference on Tuesday, according to NBC Miami.
Uthmeier offered several examples of such exchanges, including one in which the suspect allegedly asked about the gun’s short range power and the type of ammunition the gun used. The New York Times reported that the suspect also prompted the chatbot to answer questions about how the country would respond to a shooting at FSU.
Florida law may consider anyone who aids, abets, or counsels someone in a committed or attempted crime as a principal to that crime.
Mashable Light Speed
In a published statement, Uthmeier said that “…if ChatGPT were a person, it would be facing charges for murder.”
Mashable contacted OpenAI for comment but didn’t receive a response prior to publication.
The criminal investigation follows an initial probe launched earlier this month by Uthmeier into ChatGPT’s links to “criminal behavior,” including the FSU shooting, as well as child sex abuse and the “encouragement of suicide and self-harm.”
The investigation seeks, among other evidence, OpenAI’s policies and internal training materials related to user threats directed toward other people between March 2024 and April 2026.
A recent report published by the Center for Countering Digital Hate found that many AI chatbots, including ChatGPT, helped test users posing as 13-year-old boys plan violence, including school shootings, knife attacks, political assassinations, and bombing synagogues or political party offices.
At the time, OpenAI said it had since introduced a new model different from the one tested jointly by CNN and the Center for Countering Digital Hate. It is unclear which ChatGPT model the alleged FSU shooter used.
Disclosure: Ziff Davis, Mashable’s parent company, in April 2025 filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.
Ben Stiller Makes The Same Screwball Comedy For The Fourth Time In New Trailer
OpenAI teams up with Infosys to bring AI tools to more businesses
