Mike Schulz reflects with Dave Levora (the presence of Darren Pitra not in evidence) over his nearly-thirty-year-long writing stint as a film critic for the River Cities’ Reader (“the mid-Nineties were the worst. . . Forrest Gump has not aged well at all. . . I hate Bravehart; I really hate Bravehart”) before discussing Fast X, either the tenth or the eleventh installment in the Fast and the Furious franchise — eleven if you count the Hobbs and Shaw spin-off with Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham. For some reason, none of the characters in Fast X convert to the Nation of Islam, as the title doubly suggests — which, like Jason X back in 2001, is a shame of a missed opportunity, story-wise. Even more unfortunately, Fast X isn’t as good as the last two, maybe three cinematic offerings, at two hours and maybe change. Jason Mamoa is great (“He’s clearly having a blast, because he’s just playing a big, swishy gay stereotype who looks and talks like Jason Mamoa — which was really inspired in a way I didn’t expect”). The other actors, however, caught up as they are in their own meaninglessly-kinetic subplots (Ludacris and Tyrese Gibson doing light comedy, John Cena and Vin Diesel’s kid on the road, Michelle Rodriguez and Charlize Theron trying to escape a CIA black site), are just marking time, lamenting the absence of Paul Walker all the more, as he should be the one taking the brunt of these exercises in plot-furtherance and slap-happy action sequences. A million miles away from any of this is Master Gardener, which was playing at the Film Scene in Iowa City. Directed by legendary director/screenwriter/auteur-nominee Paul Schrader, the film features Joel Edgerton as a former neo-Nazi in hiding whose past threatens to re-emerge and engulf him. Schulz didn’t think Master Gardener to be up there with earlier works by Schrader as First Reformed (2017) and The Card Counter (2021), though it does have great performances, in particular Sigourney Weaver as a wealthy dowager who exploits Edgerton in all sorts of ways. With the Memorial Day weekend peeking over the horizon, the Little Mermaids corporeal remake of the 1989 animated original threatens to waste our time: A shot-for-shot recreation with very little new material, but longer still. (“I think it’s partly because humans just can’t move as fast as animated people.”) There’s also The Machine, featuring the ever-shirtless Bert Kreischer, with director Peter Atencio recreating one of Kreisher’s stand-up routines from 2016 — that WARNING light you see blinking? It might be Hollywood signaling it’s about to run out of ideas. Kandahar, yet another Afghanistan-war film, sits at its extraction point, waiting to take us awaaaaay, much like those Calgon commercials of old. (Remake that, producers!) About My Father, starring Sebastian Maniscalco and Robert DeNiro as father and son (guess who’s who here) learning to bond anew, despite cultural and life experiences yawning chasm-like between them — speaking of yawning. . . The Starling Girl, directed by Laurel Parmet, features Eliza Scanlen as a Kentucky teenager who must reconcile her Christian-fundamentalist faith with her love of dance — rather like Footloose, but with more torment and less catharsis. Schulz is especially enthusiastic about You Hurt My Feelings, a dramedy directed by Nicole Holofcener, which, pace Schulz, sounds fun, but, given its premise — the discomfort of codependent relationships — could very well turn out not to be. You’ve been warned, viewers. Happy Memorial Day weekend.