It’s 2045. The studios have gone mad, it’s been ten years since the last non-IP based film broke the top five at the box office, and John Deere: The Movie is set to go head-to-head with Trojan on the prized July 4th release date. A dystopian future for cinephiles, and perhaps even casual filmgoers, but it’s not that unlikely. Supposing Christopher Nolan and James Cameron won’t be making films in 2045, it’s difficult to imagine the current system of studio-IP servitude will enable a new auteur-king-of-the-box-office to come forth. Oppenheimer’s $100,000,000 budget will be part of our cinematic past. Or, perhaps even worse, we will be on our fourth film in the dark-IP, J Robert Oppenheimer-verse. 

Whatever sadistic future awaits us in 2045, I believe it because I saw the slate of films in 2023. This was the year marked by Barbie, Blackberry, Air, Tetris, and the most unbelievable of all, Flamin’ Hot. And if you add in sequels, prequels, spin-offs, and, of course, comic-book adaptations, the war over the American box office has been lost to the marketers. Corporate and brand recognition have replaced movie stars as the main attractions of the multiplex. 

Eva Longoria’s feature directorial debut Flamin’ Hot, a film that will surely be no more than a vapor in our societal memory in just ten months, is more interesting as a symbol of our national film programming than it is as a movie. As far as the movie itself goes, it’s one of those feel-goods that plays out exactly like the trailer promises. Flamin’ Hot is adapted from Richard Montañez’s book  A Boy, a Burrito and a Cookie: From Janitor to Executive, in which the author tells tells the story of how he rose from a janitor at Frito-Lay to vice president of multicultural sales & community promotions. Montañez’s claims to have invented the flavor behind the Flamin’ Hot Cheetos, though the company and journalists both dispute this essential factoid. Truth be damned, Flamin’ Hot plays like The Blind Side (2009) but for the snack industry, with Jesse Garcia playing Montañez in his biggest role to date. 

Longoria must either be a true believer in the American meritocracy for this to be her feature debut, something industry veterans normally reserve for passion projects, or strapped for cash. With the exception of some probable inclusivist revisionism, in which Frito-Lay’s decision to launch the project is caked with the language of an ethical responsibility rather than a cash grab—“voices need to be heard,” and that sort of stuff—the film is missing an original voice. Flamin’ Hot is the kind of movie one could design in the halls of a marketing convention, where DEI marketing, market shares, and social justice buzzwords dictate practice. 

The Cheeto story gets hard to watch as Richard begins to worship Frito-Lay, breathing in the factory fumes his workplace offers like fresh air. He’d rather work part-time for them (never stated explicitly, but a competing job offer is specified as full-time) than to accept a full-time job somewhere else doing the same thing for more and with a direct line of promotion. He reasons like a person stuck in a non-profit instead of in a janitorial role at one of the largest snack producers in the world. He works extra hours—potentially even off the clock(?)—because, for some unclear reason, he has a destiny here. The only reason he avoids layoffs is because he sold his soul to Frito-Lay in exchange for job security. 

I sure as hell can’t wait to catch Prime in 2030, where a delivery driver works his way up to factory manager after delivering his firstborn to corporate headquarters in Seattle, WA!

Flamin’ Hot
2023
dir. Eva Longoria
99 mins

Now streaming on Hulu and Disney+.