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Angry Neighbors (2022)
Lots of tell, little to show
Angry Neighbors is one of the most clueless adaptations I've seen in a while, a desperate attempt to make a commercial feature out of something that was more think-piece oriented than plot driven.
In more skillful hands, it might have worked. But the screenplay, by yes, three writers spiraling in Rewrite City, couldn't figure anything that nuanced out. The result is to adapt a metaphorical source literally, close their eyes and just hope it makes sense.
It's one thing to have a talking dog as a projected narrative voice in a book, another to have the dog actually talk. Cheech Marin voice might eventually drive you to turn this off early. Thank him for that.
Angry neighbors does manage one achievement... it makes John Avildsen's butchery of Thomas Berger's Neighbors seem harmless by comparison.
The Completely Made-Up Adventures of Dick Turpin (2024)
Not edgy or original enough, Dick Torpor might be more apropos
I love British comedy but there's a middling, meandering quality to this latest Apple misstep that --- as many of the streamer's offerings are plagued with --- reek of a kind of PG-13 desperation, more focused on not offending anyone and aiming for the most casual kind of absent chuckle. It's the palest imitation of Monty Python, Blackadder, or Ricky Gervais at his most potent.
I was intrigued by the trailer as Highwaymen stories have so much potential in all directions and are ripe for parody or straight-ahead pulp glory. But the premise here --- sensitive, wacky Dick Turpin falling into a swashbuckling vocation after accidentally killing off the leader of a gang of "serious" highwaymen --- isn't compelling in the least.
I had hoped the addition of Hugh Bonneville (wasted here, but who can play a really smug villain when he has the chance) would add something to the mix, but he's barely on screen to generate much of an impression.
Many of the passable jokes are pounded into the ground until you're bored --- a technique that though classic only works if the joke is very funny to begin with. It's like the creators dug up some old comedic handbook from the '70s or '80s and then couldn't translate it.
6:45 (2021)
Ground Slog Day
It doesn't get more amateurish or pointless than this. In the timeline of the movie, it lasts about four months. If you make it that far (and I wouldn't recommend it), it will feel like four lifetimes.
What's most galling about this movie, when you get past the pitiful acting and Z-grade effects, is the sheer "who cares" in the "payoff".
When 6:45 isn't copying another, better movie, it's sucking the life out of the people on screen and ours at the same time. Even the setting of this film seems badly conceived and about as scary as a trip to a kiddie pizza parlor with stuffed singing animals.
If you want to get the creeps over seaside gingerbread houses, give Ti West's "The InnKeepers" a watch instead.
The Golden Age of Television (1981)
Well-rounded and expertly curated '50s teleplays from Criterion
This still-in-print sampler of 8 groundbreaking ;50s teleplays is a great addition to your collection if you're curious about some of the live broadcast renderings of classic dramas (and one comedy) that aired on the likes of Kraft Playhouse, US Steel Hour, etc.
These original kinescopes are quite rare and while the prints are scratched, they're in pretty good shape considering their age, and Criterion has done its best to preserve them. They're packaged with a fantastic book and full introductions from the PBS series of the title.
Included are original live broadcasts of Marty (1953) with Rod Steiger and Nancy Marchand, a performance of Rod Serling's Patterns (1955) that is jaw-dropping in its intensity, Days of Wine and Roses, Bang the Drum Slowly, and more.
What's really intriguing here is how border-pushing much of this material still is and the irony in that all of these productions had corporate sponsors as opposed to commercial network backing. A great value and a fascinating history and drama lesson on 3 discs.
I Care a Lot (2020)
The heroine(?) isn't the only one with Borderline here
It's painful when a film has such potential and then flushes itself down the crapper in the third act, but unfortunately that's what happens in "I Care a Lot".
The premise --- that a long con operator unwittingly runs up against the mob is a good one, but. J. Blakeson somehow thought his anti-hero Marla Grayson (Rosamund Pike) needed superpowers which only distances us from her already appropriately chilly performance.
After being given a fatal dose of meds, strapped into a speeding car and driven off a ravine to plunge into what looks like hundreds of feet of water... she survives then apparently has the tools and resources (including poison dart guns) to go after the "bad guys" (quite stupidly).
The film is a very good symbolic representation of the level of moral depravity currently in existence but that's all it ends up being... a big flashy symbol. When it turns itself into a comic strip all engagement falls away. The ending was clever but I was past caring by that point.
Technically a well-made film, but the writing is a mess for the last third. Did Blakeson decide what he wanted this film to be? It smacks of a novice trying to please everyone and failing miserably. This isn't an entry in the Marvel franchise but with the addition of a superhero it could pass for one.
And please do us a favor and stop casting Dinklage in heavy roles. That novelty reached its expiration date about fifteen years ago and it reeks of desperation. He and we deserve better.
The Speedway Murders (2023)
Intimate dissection of a senseless, complex case
Adam Kamien and Luke Rynderman take a lot of risks with "The Speedway Murders", a true crime doc that posits five diverse theories on a cold case that's baffled authorities for over 45 years.
On an evening in November 1978, four Indiana teenagers were abducted at gunpoint from closing a robbed Burger Chef only to be found in a nearby county, days later, apparently shot and stabbed in an almost execution-style manner.
Nothing about this case is clear cut. The motives are murky, the suspects are myriad, theories extending into drugs and massive debts are tossed out and debated hotly by cops, ex-cons, and family and friends of the victims. It's a lot to digest, but fortunately Kamien and Rynderman manage to laser in and lay bare the emotionalism and attendant PTSD of the tragedy without inordinate exploitation.
This is a documentary that makes no bones that its focus is on the four young employees of the restaurant rather than on the possible suspects, living or dead, maybe even more than the actual crime itself --- an approach likely to annoy many hard true crime addicts. It's a wise choice, though, because without that accent on humanism the film would never keep one's attention due to its many contradictory theories and suppositions. It's a unique, gripping experience because unlike a lot of crime docs, you're almost thrust into the position of actively solving the case as you watch the film. It's not a reductive set of flashbacks.
The structure is unique yet somewhat repetitive, but I actually found that to be more stabilizing than distracting. You really get a feel for the "Burger Chef Four's" individual personalities and their connections with each other, even though much of their interrelations are speculative. In perhaps the most unique facet of the film, instead of relying on strict, vague reenactments, the kids often recount the events of the night, debate the clues, examine the suspects in longer-than average takes, almost but never completely breaking the fourth wall (which might have been more interesting, actually).
The actors who play the teens aren't striving for drama as much as authenticity, and if there's any shortcomings to this approach it's more in the clinical nature of their lines than in the line-readings themselves. This borderline Verite approach is not going to fly with many conventional doc audiences, I don't think, but if you're in the mood for something a little more unconventional, I think you'll enjoy it.
This isn't a case with a scope or sensationalism on par with the Manson murders or the Zodiac, but in its own way it's as immediate and disturbing, if only for the length of time it has taken for it to come to a plausible resolution and how many lives it touched and fractured in the process.
Promising Young Woman (2020)
Too safe for it's own good
Emerald Fennell's debut feature is an extremely fractured mix of rape-revenge thriller and black comedy that has a lot of important things to say, and some amazing performances, in particular from Mulligan (perhaps a career best?) and her co-star Bo Burnham.
Its biggest problems lie in its off-the-charts tonal shifts (particularly in the first half of the film). Some scenes aim for thrills and deliver, other aim for laughs and fail. The second pick-up scene, early in the film, is a good example, where the sheer dorkiness of Mulligan's hipster mark should have provided some laughs, but it's played so badly and broadly that any humor to be had just hangs itself in mid-air.
For this movie to really work, you have to be 100% on Mulligan's wavelength (not "side"), yet the script doesn't give her enough exposition to make that connection early on.
Mulligan plays Cassie, a thirty-year-old med school drop-out who is on the edge of either a complete psychotic break or on the verge of a recovery. She kills time by verbally and emotionally terrorizing (would-be?) rapists (or just horny creeps) on the weekend at various clubs. We are never given any real information about what she's actually "doing" to these literal HUNDREDS of men. It's vaguely implied that in some cases, the retributions are violent. While I understand that Fennell doesn't want this film to become an "I Spit On Your Grave" hack fest, the obscurity only makes Mulligan's character harder to get a handle on, and to ultimately understand, until the film's last half hour. I don't want to say IDENTIFY with, as in "like"... I don't need to "like" a protagonist, but Cassie is too much of an enigma, at times almost a schizophrenic one (but she's not playing as a schizo or borderline personality here).
When this movie works, it's gripping, intense, emotional, gratifying. But then afterward you have another scene that feels incredibly contrived, as when Cassie confronts a lawyer, who (unconvincingly) bursts immediately into tears of remorse... prompting HER to cry as well...???? What did I miss? Ditto the scene where she's head-on-a-steering-wheel traumatized following her confrontation with her former med school dean, and then goes into Ms .45 mode, wielding a tire iron.
Sometimes the strength of the actors stranded in these oddball scenes --- many of which simply don't make sense or stretch plausibility to the point of distraction --- can mask the deficiency somewhat. For example, Alison Brie is fine as always, but would her character REALLY stick around Cassie's house after Cassie admits to having set her up to "imagine" she'd been raped... and then turn over collateral for her to continue her rampage. And where does Cassie find all these rent-a-thugs? At the boutique coffee shop she works at? These sorts of plot devices break any spell that Mulligan and Fennell have worked (slavishly) hard to achieve.
I actually watched this twice because I did enjoy the last half the movie and wasn't sure if maybe the tonal shifts and logic gaps were something I was projecting onto the film. But no, I actually only found more plot holes.
Promising Young Woman is still a very unique watch, and worth your time, but it's a rough ride and not an entirely captivating or satisfying one. In the end, I wish Fennell had got off the post and made more hard choices that really defined Cassie. I can't say I really knew or understood her.
Fade to Black (1980)
Could have been, should have been
I watch this movie occasionally for nostalgic value, as I'm in love with the idea of it, more than the film itself. It's really all that made it to the screen, in the case of Vernon Zimmerman's Fade to Black.
It's an oddity in so many ways --- Zimmerman was a fairly well-respected innovator of slightly-off B-movies, somewhere left of Roger Corman; and Christopher, a smashing emotive actor, just coming off a BAFTA for his indelible turn in Breaking Away. What happened?
I suspect the film's lead producer, Irwin Yablans, had a hand in muddying the vision, but have only stories of his "suggestions" about incorporating elements of a prior script that he had written (?!) when Zimmerman approached him with the idea for FTB. You have to remember that in 1980, Yablans cash-cow, Halloween, had barely become the classic that it is today, being released in 1978 on a relatively small scale, only becoming a phenomenon a few years later.
Fade To Black's unevenness reeks of rewrite-city, starting out as a perceptive, deeply involving character piece of movie obsessed loner Eric Binford, who's been dealt every rotten hand in life's playbook. When he gets up the nerve to approach Linda Kerridge's Marilyn Monroe lookalike character, sparks fly. The two have a nice chemistry that could have maintained the strong emotional throughline this film badly needs.
There are other strong supporting performances, among them Eve Brent, who manages to balance her otherwise over-the-top line readings with facial cues revealing true pathos, and Mickey Rourke delivering his second screen turn with a fierce visceral flare, even when his lines are dopey. Up through an amazing first kill, it's an intriguing film. After that, it quickly devolves into Yablans' patented hack-em-and-sack em formula that ruined Halloween II (among other factors) and it's many pointless sequels. Yablans, even in interviews, made it plain for years that he has no real interest in film other than in the revenues they produce.
Kerridge is saddled with a lunkheaded Psycho spoof and then is off-camera for a good half hour, along with any real trace of Binford's inner turmoil.
That's not to say this film isn't worth your time --- the more you're into movies and horror in particular, the more you'll love it. If nothing else, the murders are interesting and occasionally superb in their brutality, matching Christopher's tornado-like fury --- or they collapse, tottering on bad crutches like fuzzy slow-mo. And there are a few great moments --- one where Eric looks into a make-up mirror, creating a surreal triptych, along with the now infamous split-face painting scene, that are breathtaking in their audacity.
What puts the nail in Fade to Black's coffin as a classic B-flick horror, though, is the entire absurd premise that "films are causing kids to go psycho", and the huge amount of time wasted on the Cop subplot --- helmed by marginal to inept actors (Tim Thomerson virtually wreaks this film with his pseudo indignant soap-opera schtick).
But look on the bright side. If John Carpenter had yielded to similar script compromises on Halloween '78 --- a film that was anything but formulaic and predictable at the time --- where would we be now?
Oh yeah. Crazy. I almost forgot.
Killers of the Flower Moon (2023)
If only the first 3.25 hours had been as good as the ending....
Martin Scorsese's latest film --- an adaptation of David Gran's knockout-punch true crime bestseller about the ritualized murders of the Osage in the '20s --- is so structurally flawed and reverse engineered for maximum Double "D" star power that it dilutes itself on-screen. It's like watching a much-anticipated bouquet of roses wilt in an excruciatingly slow, slow time-lapse.
It's hard to believe the change in POV narrative voice --- to that of the criminals than their victims --- was due to studio pressure, considering the length of the film's cut. Maybe because it was so "surprising" that DiCaprio would play such an unflattering part? In the book, the Osage come off as anything but passive victims. It's not easy to be locked into the first two hours with the villains, who are about as subtle as a gang of terrorists in wreaking their havoc. Even if you haven't read the book, the identity of the criminals is revealed almost immediately. In this age of famously arrogant and stupid public criminality, Scorsese might be drawing a parallel back to these felonious, greedy idiots (another problem for me, the villains are quite simply, just morons). DiCaprio and DeNiro's performances never make these maroons remarkable.
The movie doesn't really spark until way past the two-hour point, when Jesse Plemons' G-Man character drops a super-cool Dirty Harry-esque four-word retort as to his mission ("See who's doin' it") to DiCaprio's question as to why he's on his doorstep. Yet even then, the cat and mouse game proceeds in somewhat slow-motion. There are a lot of long pauses in many of the line readings... why, who knows? ("Quiet, I'm acting?")
This is not a bad film by any means. I just prefer Scorsese's movies when he's more in show-off mode ("After Hours", "Taxi Driver", "The Departed"). And there's some of that inventive virtuosity here --- several marvelous zooms and sweeping pan-outs, the ingenious double-eye motif at the start and glorious finish. And the radio show coda is both phenomenal and tear-inducing. Sixty years on, Martin Scorsese's films deserve every bit of the A-list attention they get.
Who knows? Maybe there are layers here I haven't uncovered. I hated Kubrick's The Shining when I first saw it 43 years ago and think now that he meant to subvert the source material rather than interpret it. But the Shining was fiction. A watershed book like Gran's seems to merit a more faithful transition to the screen, at least on first viewing, for me.
Totally Killer (2023)
Totally filler
It's really a shame that Kiernan Shipka got sucked into this half-to-no baked retread of an '80s slasher pic inbred with a time-travel subplot that's neither funny or scary. Was the script written by a Chat Bot?
The premise, that Shipka travels back to 1987 in order to prevent a death in present day, is mildly interesting, but could have sustained more power had the creators (or the bot) decided what they wanted to create.
As it teeters largely on absurdity, comedy/horror would have been the better way to go, but aside from Shipka's character's occasional caustic one-liners, there's no humor to be had here. Even the kill sequences mix highly stylized brutality (something Blumhouse seems to be tilting toward in the last few years, with a bit too much relish) and Bruce Lee acrobatics, with the result being fast-cut incoherence.
You can see the ending coming a mile away, as the clues are laid out in what might as well be hot pink neon. It's another case of the filmmakers having no innovative vision beyond a check the boxes marketing strategy, and leaving us with a pure product, and not a very good one, in the end. To make it even more irritating a massive dose of political correctness is dashed over the film, leaving a bitter, hypocritical aftertaste.
Totally killer, no. Total vaporware, to the max.
In Treatment (2008)
Groundbreaking, despite the disastrous reboot
The best way to determine if you'd like In Treatment is to ask you if you're a fan of theatrical 2-character dramas. If you are, then In Treatment delivers the goods, with enough realism and plot twists to make each 20-25-minute dose as hard to stop popping as eating your favorite snack. And with over 120 episodes, it'll keep you glued for months.
Gabriel Byrne is the cement that grounds the first three seasons and it's this show that really opened my eyes to his range of talent. He brings endless layers to an already conflicted and complex role that's generally even more interesting than any of his client's characters, even though they're also played with aplomb by some of the best dramatic actors on TV. As a bonus, you get Michelle Forbes as his put-upon wife (spectacular) and the unsinkable Dianne Wiest as his supervisor, whose character is just as deep as Byrne's and maybe a bit more mysterious. That role was later filled by Amy Ryan in Season 3, so you get the idea... not exactly amateur night.
Until Season 4, that is, which tried to surface in 2021 and quickly sank. But the fault there lies almost entirely with the production and writing, which strives for a relevancy it never earns, due to uneventful, hackneyed storylines and giving Byrne's replacement (a capable Uzo Aduba) a weakness that long passed its expiration date in melodrama in about 1964. But it's passable, barely.
But this is one of those shows that (other than its Israeli predecessor, which In Treatment just Americanizes) is truly nothing like anything else on modern TV --- it's closest relative is probably Playhouse 90 from the '50s, when theatrical (rather than musical) theater was gladly welcomed by mass audiences. No catchphrases, no laugh tracks, just good solid drama and the acting to pull it off.
Skinamarink (2022)
House of Inserts. Eeek.
I really like Art House movies, low-budget indies, or anything that breeds engagement over patched-in jump scares and so-sleek-they're-fake VFX. I thought I'd love the film, especially since the trailer looks like it's from 1973.
Actually, the whole movie looks like that, but that's not the problem with Skinamarink. That lies wholly with the "style" Kyle Edward Ball chose to shoot this 100 minute ponder-fest. He has a strange gift of being able to instinctively point the camera at the exact spaces that don't interest us: On the ceiling, on the floor, on the walls, rarely if ever on any of the "actors".
So maybe that's because Ball wants us to engage with the house, which is the malevolent force here. I guess evil really is banal. If you notice almost every so-called creepy occurrence is essentially an insert, a cutaway, an object being manipulated by someone off-screen. Yeah, I'm sure these low-budget techniques have been used before in much better movies, but the viewer shouldn't be figuring that out while watching the movie.
But the lack of energy, script, character, motivation, plausibility... and on and on and on make vivid engagement with this thing virtually impossible.
In the end, I wasn't sure if what I was seeing wasn't some big joke. One critic said that Skinamarink was "what David Lynch's Poltergeist might have looked like" --- wrong. Though Lynch shot in a very similar style with Eraserhead, that was never boring... for all the reasons I listed before. Everything Skinamarink lacks, Eraserhead had, in spades. And not much more to make it, either.
I never thought I'd say this about any new movie, much less a Horror picture... it leaves too much to your imagination, to the point where after about an hour, you just want to get on to something an adult might have made.
Monsters (2022)
Bloody pulp fiction
This is basically a big cash grab freak show with the real events either drastically tainted and twisted, or not on screen at all.
The most egregious of these falsehoods is Niecy Nash playing Glenda Cleveland (now deceased over a decade) standing in for Pamela Bass, Dahmer's real next-door neighbor, who actually got along *well* with Dahmer. Cleveland did try to save a real victim of Dahmer's but in reality, occupied less than a footnote in the true story. This is all very well-known and has been elucidated in at least 4 other movies, almost all of which are better than this crappy Ryan Murphy dupli-series.
Not all of it is abysmal. Richard Jenkins has Lionel Dahmer down to his facial tics and speech rhythms, and the other bigger name actors provide similarly strong support.
But how could any of them --- especially Niecy Nash! --- go along with this rancid fictionalization? There are a few odd events that make it in here due to the long long running time but very few are completely accurate.
Without more than a shred of truth, this becomes just a long morose Lifetime trash fire.
If you're really interested in the horror show of Dahmer, watch "The Jeffrey Dahmer Files" --- an experimental documentary with the REAL neighbor, Pamela Bass. Or Jeremy Renner's early portrayal in the indie movie Dahmer (before he became famous). Both knock the crap out of this pablum.
And Evan Peters really just sleepwalks through the title role here, providing no real insights. I think Netflix was terrified to portray Dahmer as anything but one-dimensional, so here we get Peters doing Martin Starr's Bill Haverchuck from Freaks and Geeks for ten episodes straight. No offense to the great Martin Starr of course.
Pass.
Dashcam (2021)
I actually liked how it pushed all the Don't Push buttons
To call Dashcam a polarizing film is like calling Trump a polarizing president- words just can't sum up how off-the-wall it is and it's obvious Rob Savage intends this reaction from mainstream audiences.
It's that element of subversion I liked the most. After all, what could be more subversive than making a freaking SATIRE about Covid-19? This is what a lot of people miss -- and Hardy's character (yes she is playing a character here or, more precisely, a caricature) is intended to be as glib as possible. It's kind of a push pull problem. If Savage had scripted (most of Hardy's lines were improvised) a compassionate character there would have been no room for the chaos and special effects. Not a bad idea, actually.
Hardy's impossible to censor stream of consciousness psychobabble and extremely hilarious white girl raps and beats are really the only thing that kept me returning to Dashcam, in an effort to puzzle it out. To me it seemed as if she was deliberately lampooning a MAGA diehard, which in itself is pretty amusing, and risky.
Dashcam's weakest link is its story. It's not particularly original or inventive, and the overly frenetic "camera" work (this is really mostly post, right?) just adds to the confusion. The bones of the story are kind of cool, but there's never enough to ground you into taking the leap into all the supernatural nonsense that follows after about the half hour mark. The script just doesn't earn any real scares.
What little creeps there are come from the cast, especially Angela Enahoro, who should have been given some kind of endurance award here.
Rob Savage has a way to go as a filmmaker. It was stunning to me how good the reviews of Host were. It was Okay.... But again nothing you haven't seen before unless you've never seen a computer screen horror film before -- they've been around awhile. To me the ridico 100% RT score on Host is really just a case of pandemic timing, or more cynically, calculation.
So from Host's perfect 100 score, many flocked to Dashcam only to discover a film with the complete opposite ethos -- where Host tried to ingratiate itself, Dashcam strived to irritate you, or maybe just provoke -- which is how I ultimately choose to digest it. Another interesting thing is how much better it plays on your phone, than your home TV. Of course you can't read the comments, but I always found Savage's "the plot is in the comments" gag a bit of a gimmick/excuse for the barely coherent plot.
In an odd way, Dashcam might be a slightly better film than Host, as it's not force feeding you anything. It's also more visually immediate and arresting with regard to Covid madness, triggered by isolation, paranoia, or death.
Maybe that's why I've seen it three times now.
Nah. I think it's just Annie.
Soft & Quiet (2022)
Timely and well-intentioned but winds up consuming itself
Beth de Araujo's Soft & Quiet is getting a lot of positive buzz since Blumhouse picked it up and is mass distributing it. I've seen the film twice now --- just to make sure I'm not missing something really revelatory --- but it consistently appears to fall apart at about the halfway mark, after a squirm-inducing, provocative, and relatively well-performed first half. It's really kind of a shame.
Unfortunately, movies that are this high-minded and well-intentioned --- it's obviously intended as somewhat of a microcosm of the 1/6 riot at the Capitol --- often wind up writing themselves into corners.
Stephanie Estes gamely plays Emily, a kindergarten teacher (not by chance, you'll see) who we follow to an inaugural meeting of like-minded white women in the deep south. Their first meeting is definitely the best thing in the movie, and by far more frighteningly (and saddeningly) real than anything that follows it.
After the meeting... conveniently enough... the only women left are the lower-income ones with less than squeaky-clean rap sheets and demeanors. While stopping to get wine on the way back to her house to continue venting, Emily and her gang run into the victim of her rapist jailbird brother and proceed to bully and harass the Asian woman and her sister.
At this point, you know two things: Em and her posse are not exactly rocket scientists and they're not playing with full decks, either. Their combined IQs might barely edge into the triple digits. And this is a huge problem, as their group psychosis drives them off a metaphorical cliff from which there is no return. Oh yeah, for us either.
So, in creating this parable against hate, racism, etc.... de Araujo has invited us --- via her script and her characters --- to form more stereotypes against women in particular (like they're irrational, emotional, reckless), and against low-income "white trash" types as well... to what purpose? That's what I can't figure out.
Let's be clear. There is no stimulating, edgy, or otherwise "deep" interplay between these women after they transform into The Gang Who Couldn't Pillage Straight. The guys of Reservoir Dogs would get Nobel prizes in comparison. This isn't David Mamet or Neil Labute... it's not even Camille LaPaglia. Without any further character development or dialogue, what we're left with is a plausible plan of organized carnage, incompetently executed by reprehensible characters, that devolves into a painful-to-watch, though well-shot, trash fire.
The twist ending does provide a bit of satisfaction, but by then, I was past the point of caring. It was refreshing though, as many have stated, to see something not drowning in Hate-Male, for a change of pace if nothing else. But the fact that only the men in this picture seem less crazy and even occasionally decent... that makes Soft & Quiet even more confused and disturbing.
Broadcast Signal Intrusion (2021)
Complex and ingenious, but lacking in backstory
Harry Shum Jr.'s cryptic introverted performance pretty much drives this entire film, which is something of a miracle because the plot structure is akin to a Russian Doll puzzle designed by a psychopath. If Shum weren't so completely immersed in this part, it would be a tough sell --- it's an impressive piece of understated acting, and his character's obsession insinuates itself into your subconsciousness throughout much of the picture. He might actually do too good a job here.
Shum plays James, a video and photography geek who's so self-immersed, he can't even tell you what his hobbies are. In truth, he has none, and his "job" is nothing short of what a room full of video duplicating equipment could do, even in 1999, in which this film is set. That should provide some clues that something isn't "quite right".
I recently learned about the unsolved WGN Max Headroom hijackings in the late '80s prior to watching "Broadcast Signal Interference". That helped pique my interest, but I also thought the Kabuki-like nightmarish images and sequences that James is pursuing (supposed broadcast hijacks), were creepy and effective. The fact that the images are cribbed from a supposed pat schlock sitcom about an android wife is also sneakily subversive and another neon sign-post about James' relationship with his wife, who disappeared three years earlier.
There are plenty of articles out there that explain this film in detail, but I'll be honest with you --- I didn't put it together, yet I still kind of liked it, even after the surreal last quarter. Director Jacob Gentry does a fine job with his cast of minor characters, none of which are throwaways.
I only wish the film's script gave us more of a backstory to Shum's character that might have made what Gentry was going for more accessible. I had suspicions throughout the film of what was really happening, but never enough confirmation to convince me. It would have made this film even more suspenseful and powerful. It's not like "Jacob's Ladder" for instance (Adrian Lyne's original of course) which made a more effective visual split between the real and the imagined.
But it did engage me, and it's really "out there" in a genre of thrillers that for the most part has been done to death, like a marathon of CSI reruns. I just can't penalize a film for being "smarter" than I am.
X (2022)
Death is Sex
"X" is an odd, almost intentionally off-putting homage to '70s/'80s Slasher tropes, designed to induce a queasy sense of self-conscious dread. I think most people have either forgotten or are too young to remember that sensation while watching a horror film --- and half the fun of this movie is watching West play with and ultimately turn these by now ancient tropes on their heads.
Ti West's films always polarize audiences in general, usually more die-hard old-school horror fans lean more towards them, as they rely more on suspense than shock value. If you're used to the clockwork jump scares and overly amped sound mix stings of most modern horror films, you probably won't like it. There's really only one such JS (well done), and another with no "sting" on the audio, because it's so obvious a set-up, almost as if West is mocking the jump-scare trope, in general.
"X" follows a group of rag-tag pornographers, mostly culled from a low-brow Texas strip club (seen briefly in the opening) whose producer (Martin Henderson) has his eyes locked on the burgeoning home video market of the early '80s. Henderson's performance is actually the weakest of the lot, hung more on aw-shucks self-parody --- his lines come off more like a circus barker and it seems at times that the actor *needs* us to like the character (WHY?).
They take off for the sticks in a cargo van (one of many "Texas Chainsaw" refs) minus windows and psycho hitcher and come to a large pastoral farm on the outskirts of Houston owned by two crotchety oldsters, intending to conceal their free location grab, though things don't go as planned, of course.
Thankfully, the rest of the cast acquits themselves nicely, and their back-stories resonate with thoughtful authenticity. The casting of Brit Mia Goth in the lead is a good, albeit daring move, given her Maxine plays (again) as something of a self-parody. When Henderson says she has that "X factor" you kind of just shake your head. It's not Goth that's the problem, but the character she's playing, though West is again toying with our expectations. Maxine's caked-on blue eyeshadow and overly studied line readings in the "film within a film" play as tragedy more often than not. Brittany Snow and Jenna Ortega, by contrast, seem to be having five times the fun in comparison and their energy is badly needed. Ortega lets loose with what is probably the Best Scream that I've seen/heard in twenty years (wrenching and heartbreaking at the same time) and Snow's death scene is priceless and expertly executed in the effects department.
At about the mid-point you know the carnage is coming and each kill delivers something a little more off-putting than you expect --- a tad more gore and suffering, maybe a strange angle or creepy lighting effect added to the mix. It's definitely a horror film for people who enjoy the nuances of film --- literally none of the frames play as haphazardly planned or shot.
And the ending pulls out a nice twist (and delivers what is the funniest final Tarantino-esque line of a horror film I've seen, maybe ever) to make it worthwhile.
There's a lot going on in "X" at the sub-textual level --- most specifically with the "you have wanton sex, you gotta die!" saw. But even that is not slung around thoughtlessly. It actually makes some subversive statements about personal choices and consequences of lives lived or unlived without getting too moral high-horsey.
It's a nice balancing act of thriller and homage that takes some time to appreciate, distinctly absent of any and all cheap thrills. But if you've seen and liked West's "House of the Devil" and "The Innkeepers", two earlier works that rely almost entirely on their build-up for effectiveness --- it's safe to say you'll like "X". Even "The Sacrament" (which had as many lows as highs) still built suspense and dread as few horror films bother to do any more. And that's the main reason I continue to follow and enjoy Ti West.
Master (2022)
Courageously grim, dead-on summary of where we're at
This is the sort of movie that Sofia Takal wanted to make for feminism when she helmed the umpteenth remake of Bob Clarke's Black Christmas a few years ago (what a mistake that was), and I dreaded the same kind of heavy-handed retread with racism in Mariama Diallo's debut film "Master". I had nothing to worry about, it turns out, as this film expertly walks a tightrope between the psycho-thriller and supernatural genres, but isn't satisfied with pinning all our attention on plot points.
The strength of the film lies in its subtlety in portraying racism in some of its most banal and toxic forms, from simple snubbing to complete lack of empathy, and beyond to destructive projections of self-hatred and victimization.
Diallo has structured the film in an intriguing, if not overly-studied, way --- alternating (almost without interruption) the journeys of a tenured teacher just promoted to a prestigious Hall Master/advisory position (Regina Hall, rarely better), and an incoming freshman (the almost painfully fresh-faced Zoe Renee). Each are seemingly being harassed and tormented by unknown and possibly "unearthly" forces, most of the latter originating from a legend of the hanging of a suspected witch centuries earlier.
But Diallo is too smart to take any of the supernatural contrivances very seriously --- oh, this movie still has some good horror film moments and effects to show you, but she's hoping you'll see beyond the obvious artifices and look at the story thematically. There really isn't much in the film that can't be explained away by sheer exhaustion on the part of the victims or sheer hatefulness on the part of the oppressors. I liked how there were no SFX demons rearing their ugly day-glo heads and steering us into fantasy world --- this film has too much to say to sidetrack itself in such a predictable and lazy manner.
The real horror in "Master" extends beyond the upper-class status quo's failure to make any real strides to remedy the problem of racism in any way except cozy-sounding slogans and lip service. Diallo nicely slams this home by juxtaposing a Benneton-lite ad for the college next to a scene featuring a burning cross that Renee finds outside her dorm.
And the twist at the end (involving a very fine Amber Gray) is extremely daring in its outrageousness, though not *that* implausible, sadly, in our sell-out culture.
Some might look at the film as ultimately defeatist in tone, but that's a little too convenient. I think it's a film that does what lots of good works of art attempt to do... hold up a mirror and make us look at the state of things. If we don't like it, it certainly doesn't mean a failing on the artist's part.
Hurt (2018)
They don't make horror this Old School anymore.... or do they?
I really did think that before I saw Sonny Mallhi's latest thrill ride "Hurt". Ignore the bad reviews on this one... the trailer got me and for once, it's not better than the film.
Mallhi has a reputation as a love-em-or-hate-em horror maven. None of his films really "follow the rules"... a lot of his characters are quiet and unconventional (think his debut "Anguish"), and some are so downright insane they're alienating.
"Hurt" offers up a bare-bones classic slasher structure in a nicely doomy Halloween setting that stuns you and keeps you guessing with cool shape-shifting false fronts.
It's actually got more in common with some of the pioneering '70s slashers than you might care to admit or notice: a withdrawn, slightly sullen high school sweetheart Rose (played with grim realism by Emily Van Raay), traumatized back-from-war hero Tommy, (a simmering Andrew Creer), a minimal score, some inventive out-of-the-box editing, long brooding tracking shots, no real motives, kills that aren't extended blood fests.... Yeah, think 1978, not 1998.
But that's exactly why "Hurt" is so effective and unnerving, and unlike most anything in its horror subgenre that you've seen in 20 years or more. This isn't self-referential Scream-type stuff or gut-shredding Hostel butchery.
"Hurt" actually makes you work for your scares. It forces you to live the loneliness and alienation both Rose and Tommy have been tortured by and then feeds that vacancy into something quite sinister. Van Raay and Creer have a disturbing, unspoken casual chemistry that fills out the backstory that the script only hints at, and it's better that way.
The early scene around the picnic table where Tommy and Rose talk, smoke, and drink with Rose's sister and husband is shot not with coverage but in a series of quick, oblique edits: mouths moving, hands gesturing, but few (if any) shots of eyes or complete faces. It's flashy, but not enough to be distracting. These characters want to talk; they don't really care what it's about, and they really don't want to "see".
Mallhi isn't afraid to let the camera linger on eerie just-out-of-frame tableaus either, as when Rose half sleeps, half works at a convenience store counter while the camera slowly pans over to a security camera, with... hey, WTF IS that exactly?
The low-key, slightly sardonic tone of the film is really what carries it and us through to the (while not wholly original) neatly shocking conclusion.
Again, there are a lot of shout-outs to past Bertino films, like the LOOK graffiti from Mockingbird and the Strangers-esque masks in the cable knock-off Rose is channel surfing through, but "Hurt" is really in a category all its own: a horror movie that dares to go a bit deeper, into an unknown that offers no feel-good escape from the traumas of real life.
The Unspeakable (2021)
Quietly powerful, possibly the most humane 9/11 doc ever made
Anyone who has done research into 9/11 knows the facts. If you don't, check out David Ray Griffin or Paul Thompson's work. Or a number of other legitimate homemade docs on YouTube with enough undeniability to make any thinking person pause.
The Unspeakable, however, which borrows its title from James Douglass, another famous debunker, doesn't go down the usual rabbit holes, replaying the same footage, or espousing theories that might seem very wild to those who know little about 9/11. Hard to believe, yes, but ask someone under the age of 18 - such people exist. And not many older people are even curious. This is partly why 9/11 is so glossed over, in general, and it's where many of the lesser, more sensational, docs fail by limiting their audience to the people who can spout page numbers in the Commission Report to you.
Instead, Unspeakable -- which is shot and edited on a par with any A grade theatrical doc -- takes the unorthodox route and focuses primarily on the many brave families of the victims interviewed here and their very touching, genuinely real quests for truth and justice.
Once their unadorned testimonies are heard, the alternate theories to what was reported on that horrible day are introduced with just enough grace to make you want to know more. It doesn't force feed you or hand-hold you. It does what the really powerful, really good documentaries do... it shows you real life, and real death, and then leaves the next steps up to you.
It's impossible to overstate how well made this film is. It will move you, no matter what you know or what you don't.
Small Engine Repair (2021)
Maybe this was better ten years ago?
John Pollono's Small Engine Repair might have been shocking, clever, or surprising a decade ago, as it's glued so heavily to social media and millennial vs. Old school modes of thought.
Today, though, all that novelty is gone and what is left is not substantial in either dialogue or emotional heft to garner any sort of engagement with audiences not satisfied with surface "thrills".
I will only say the "shocking twist" is very enmeshed in Web Culture but even if you subtract that angle, it's not something you don't see coming. More accurately, you "don't want" to see it coming because it's been done to death, and in films much older than the Internet. You keep hoping Pollono's a better writer than that, but he's just not.
That isn't to say his performance, and that of the rest of the cast, aren't very good to excellent in spots, but his script never goes deep enough to generate any genuine engagement through plot or surprising character development.
Small Engine Repair, despite having a great title, is about as deep as a wading pool. It revolves around three best friends from childhood, stuck in the same New Hampshire small town, whose bad behavior and generally idiocy keep them trapped in various man-child modes of entropy. They blow up at each other frequently, raz each other pitilessly, then one day Pollono's character calls them together for a celebratory night after a period of estrangement that takes several dark violent turns.
Who did Pollono write this for? It's an odd blend of a Reservoir Dogs-esque crime thriller and a wannabe David Mamet takedown on toxic masculinity. But Dogs brought action and surprising plot/structure, not to mention sharp memorable dialogue, certainly not at a Mamet level of rhythmic brilliance and cadence.
The biggest problem with "Repair" is that none of the characters are remotely original or appealing, nor are their plights. They're pretty much stereotypes of lower-class men stuck in the same poverty-driven cycle of a tech-driven world that's passed them by. Do you *really* want to spend onscreen-time with guys who routinely go to jail, make off-color gay jokes, get in bar fights, have the active interests of 12-year olds, and can't even think of creative insults for one another? These guys aren't exotic, they're just boring. The whole film feels "forced" as in "this is the way we are, and aren't we honest for exposing our bland subculture, warts and all"? Maybe it *is* "real" but it doesn't make the movie any more appealing.
Despite what others have said about it being talky... there really isn't ENOUGH dialogue in this movie (or enough good dialogue) to generate honest tension or to make you think these guys are above lunkhead- level.
You don't have to have affluent characters for them to be intriguing. Look at the interest Michael Cimino stoked in the very brief scenes "back home" in the Deer Hunter. Those guys weren't going to set the world on fire either, but they were about 30 times more complex than the guys in Small Engine Repair. Yeah, I know the actors were world class but the guys in "Repair" aren't bad actors.
On the opposite social spectrum end, the character of Chad isn't fleshed out well, either. As with the rest of the cast, I'm sure there are tons of rich frat boys that are this vapid, but wouldn't it have been interesting if at least one person transcended the stereotype? Someone unexpected would have been even better.
But none do, and what's most irritating is that the large studio producers behind this movie that thought it worthy enough to film, probably love it because it confirms those trashy cut-outs of "these people" in their minds. In that respect, it shares a lot of bad karma with movies like The Boondock Saints which tried to rip-off Tarantino without going the extra mile by giving us an original plot or unforgettable people --- not people to root for, just people that you care about, enough to not bore you to death.
Conductor (2021)
Stupefying, sick, and utterly pointless
Sound of Violence is a film that's so inept on so many levels that it's truly disturbing --- not in the way horror films are meant to be, either. It's a product of a truly deranged mind. There are more vomit-inducing films out there (Salo, Blood-sucking Freaks), but I'm not so sure Alex Noyer understands that Sound of Violence is repugnant. That's the disturbing part.
The premise is interesting, but the execution is haphazard and sadistic, the acting is marginal, and (most of all) the script just doesn't make sense. Things occur in this movie that defy logic and rationality, and I'm talking about how events just seem to "happen" with no lead-in, background, or reasoning barring that maybe the anti-heroine has super-powers. That leaves the possibility that it's a black comedy.... no, that's not it either. Sound of Violence would have to have something to parody, and it doesn't, except maybe itself.
Alexis grows up deaf and to add to her trauma, she witnesses her PTSD-addled father brutally bludgeon her mother to death. Then she grows up to go on a killing spree of her own to (I guess?) relive the trauma in some euphoric attempt at self-healing through the sound of her victims being beaten, cut up, and tortured to death in a variety of twisted but not very interesting ways (think of a dull version of "Happy Birthday To Me"... wow).
Why does she have this sadistic psychopathology? No one knows, or seems to care except for the ridiculously stapled-in cop character and Alexis' best friend, Marie (I actually felt sorry for Lili Simmons here. Her performance is the only one in the movie that feels genuine).
Alex Noyer apparently gets off on gross-out special effects. There's literally nothing else to enjoy here unless you're a serial killer. A shame someone who could actually craft a script wasn't in the budget. The last time I saw something this amateurish was a film called LA Slasher, another Cali-made home video cheapy with no sense of style, sense, or coherence.
This is more a warning than a review, and I echo others here. Please, stay away. Unless snuff movies are your idea of a fun time.
Funny Face (2020)
Mask without a face
OK, I'm done watching Tim Sutton movies.
It's not that Sutton isn't talented, but since his visually stunning debut "Pavillion", his creative vision keeps battering the same one wall, like a stymied writer-blocked film student.
Especially after "Dark Night", Sutton drew a lot of comparisons to Gus Van Sant, whose "Elephant" was similarly structured and themed. Sure, "Dark Night" meandered, as all of Sutton's films do, but it did it in such a curiously intriguing way, showing you characters and situations that when they weren't odd or slightly askew in a way you had to work to articulate, the film was at bare minimum striking to look at. On a macro level, it had a lot to say.
"Funny Face" has a premise that seems intriguing, but it's hung on a cast of the dullest characters Sutton has yet created. They aren't exactly unlikable, and for brief periods the boy-girl protag's relationship and shared grief over lives lost/ abandoned does work.
But then it's as if Sutton remembered he's also got a plot to run. This constant down and up shifting in the pacing only emphasizes Funny Face's threadbare conceits --- it's attempts to draw parallels between the protagonist and antagonist, and the few sledgehammer blows of symbolism (the pink neon sign was laughable) make it self-conscious and embarrassing. The limited character palettes guarantee all the performances come across as either stilted or overplayed (especially by the villain).
If Sutton's previous films did nothing else, they carried a bit of subtlety and grace. Funny Face's repetitive nature and lack of any substantial dialogue, combined with the basic ordinariness or ugliness of it's surroundings and leaden juxtaposition add up to nothing, at least nothing worth sitting still for at 93 minutes.
The Swerve (2018)
Easily one of the best leading performances of the year
Azura Skye has been around for awhile, quietly amassing a resume filled with countless supporting roles, mostly in TV and minor-to-major league horror and thriller pics. Few actors work as regularly as she does, and if you've noticed her low-key yet emotion-laden work, you know she's extremely good at milking a slow boil for all it's worth.
It's just one more reason to see The Swerve, writer/director/editor Dean Kapsalis' feature debut. It's one of those rare indie-league pictures that has so much going for it, I've got my fingers crossed that it will reach a larger audience. It's an offbeat, deliberately genre-bending thriller that's grounded so much in reality and the razor-thin line that separates everyday stress from off-the-wall madness, it will stay with you for some time.
Skye is in virtually every frame of this movie and it's hard to imagine it having half the impact if that slot were filled by a more high-profile actor. In The Swerve, Skye plays Holly, a maxed-out mom and dutiful daughter and wife. She's a high school English teacher who takes her job very seriously (in a good way), but wears a hard, wrung-out look, yet she never comes off as "unstable" or "crazy" --- no more than anyone you know, at least. If you met her a few times you might say she's a little repressed but "stable" or "steady"... "dependable". An ideal citizen, right?
Yet the volcano is building every day, fueled by such minor annoyances as her sullen, bratty sons; her perpetually 12-step-recovering resentful sister (Ashley Bell in top form), a mouse infestation, and the unshakable suspicion that her husband is staying at the supermarket he manages for more than Inventory Night.
Probably the most disturbing thing about The Swerve is how well it portrays the consequences of one rash, violent act, subconsciously benign in it's execution, and how that reaction can completely derail you, setting off a trigger effect whose repercussions resonate for years.
Driving home after a particularly humiliating birthday dinner, Holly finally fights back when she's accosted by a few wasted punks out for a joyride (not a spoiler, it's in the trailer). It's a brash, if reckless, act of self-defense and she wakes up on her couch the next day, drool pouring, her sons chuckling and gaping at her.
Kapsalis doesn't spend a lot of time on the titular act, because it really doesn't matter that much in the scheme of the movie. It's *almost* a McGuffin of sorts. In fact, there are a lot of things that occur in The Swerve that have you questioning if they *really* happened or if they're Holly's paranoid wish fulfillment fantasies. But you'll figure it out. Holly does too, eventually.
There's enough plot in The Swerve to keep audiences who can't relate to character-focused dramas engaged, which is rare. It's also a beautifully composed and shot film, one that takes it's time building up and tearing down it's fragile suburban jungle until you (and Holly) notice suddenly that it's in flames.
But see this movie for Skye. Throughout it all, she walks the very difficult border between effusion and concealment, at times so transparently, that it's almost impossible to discern her intentions and motives. Yet it satisfies and you "get it." Oh, you get that and much more. The Swerve has a payoff that's so bizarre and surreal yet so "right" --- it's stranger than fiction; it's life.
It could happen to anyone. And that's scarier than anything most filmmakers could ever dream up.
Rent-a-Pal (2020)
Despite the gimmick... it REALLY works
It takes a lot of chutzpah to put as much into a film as Jon Stevenson's obviously put into Rent-a-Pal, a radically left-of-center psych horror/thriller in the mold of Repulsion and Mark Hanlon's 1999 Buddy Boy, with a little Videodrome dashed in for extra queasiness.
What I most liked about this film --- and what makes it very unique in the horror genre --- is that it dives unflinchingly into the realism of some very disturbing subjects: loneliness, depression, hopelessness, dementia, but also hits genuine notes of contentment, comfort, true love, redemption and yeah, back to hope, if only briefly. In short, it goes *everywhere*, like any legit character-driven drama, never short-changing or short-cutting despite that it's entire premise revolves around what should be a very tedious gimmick. That can only happen if everyone on cast and crew is at the top of their games, and Rent-a-Pal's band of indie shoestring nomads crush this dark gem with sledgehammer relish.
Brian Landis Folkins is mind-blowing as David Brower, a desperate, terminally isolated basement dweeb with a bad addiction to cheap bourbon, tacky VHS dating service cassettes, and a truckload of toxic childhood scars from abuse suffered at the hands of his now 73-year-old mother, who in the early 1990s is unraveling from the most horrifically realistic portrayal of dementia I've ever seen. Kathleen Brady as Mom brilliantly captures the vivid swerving between reality, fantasy, and incoherence. But Rent-a-Pal is really a showcase for Folkins, who gets more engaging as he gets less verbal, his tortured face a relief map of pain and suffering.
Yeah, everything pretty much sucks for David, although he can't even admit that to anyone, least of all himself. Then he finds "Andy" (Wil Wheaton) or actually a bargain bin cut-out video of Andy--- a bizarro dude who looks sorta like a life-size ventriloquist's dummy, complete with creepy sweater vest. Sitting on or near a chair and talking directly to the screen, Andy alternates insincerity with comments that run from patronizing to downright sadistic. At first David is amused, then intrigued, as Andy peers into the screen with his oh-so-interested active listening poses and nods and laughs enthusiastically. Then David starts to talk back, play cards, and offer up his deepest most painful memories to his new video friend.
This is where a lesser movie would have jumped ship and pulled out "the twist" --- as in... Andy is really monitoring David in his home in real time and is in reality a twisted psycho stalker... or.... Andy's video performance is *new* each time David cues up his tape. But no, nothing like this happens in Rent-a-Pal... only a few times does the film veer to the surreal or hallucinogenic. Stevenson seems to understand that would diminish his film's hypnotic spell.
When David finally meets his literal soul-mate (Amy Rutledge in a fragile heart-rending performance), Folkins has you so wrapped up in David that you're cheering him on, even as you secretly know something REALLY bad is going to happen.
It does, and that's where Rent-a-Pal will lose some people. It actually *is* a horror movie, but one whose role model is more Jeff Dahmer than Michael Myers. It did remind me a lot of Buddy Boy in tone and content, but Rent-a-Pal has much more heart. And that heart only makes it more painful when it's ripped out of you.
Watch at your own risk, but more likely great reward, if you're up for this kind of a dark journey.