Category Archives: Movies

Movie Review: The Night House

There are lots of different types of horror movies. Giant Kaiju monsters may stomp, fly, and smash their way through cities, aliens may menace earthbound and space travelers alike, demonic possession may turn a young girl in specter of degradation, the recently dead may stalk the land consuming the living, or masked and disfigured killer may stalk promiscuous teens, but my favorite form of a horror movie is the ghost story, like The Night House.

In the story Rebecca Hall’s character Beth struggles to accept the sudden and inexplicable suicide of her beloved and apparently devoted husband Owen. Attempting to power through her grief and refusing to recognize it Beth tries to carry own with her life, going to work as a public-school teacher, having drink with her co-workers, but alone in the lakeside house that she and Owen built, strange visitations and events intrude on her solitude. Investigating these strange occurrences leads Beth to discover that Owen had secrets and bring them to light reveals truths she is unwilling to confront.

The Night House is a slow-burn ambiguous ghost story of a horror film. This is not the type of horror movie that presents the audience with an elaborate special make-effects ‘kill’ every fifteen minutes but rather one that lives in the liminal spaces between what is clearly happening and what may be happening. Like Robert Wise’s The Haunting it is a film that can be interpreted as the work of malevolent spirits or the hallucinations of a troubled mind. For my money there is a single two shot sequence that lands the project on the it really happened interpretation, but your mileage may vary.

Rebecca Hall, who also acted as one of the final executive producers, carries the entire film. The story is told solely through her viewpoint with only a couple of sequences in the final moments breaking this convention to give as another characters view of the scene. I have been a fan of Hall’s performances since I first saw in in Christopher Nolan’s The Prestige and here as the center of The Night House she doesn’t disappoint. The direction by David Bruckner is solid and executed with a firm hand on the ambiguity needed for this production. Elisha Christian’s cinematography is lush shifting comfortably between daylight scenes of peaceful tranquility to the night’s deep and dark shadows filled with unseen dread. Screenwriting team Ben Collins and Luke Piotrowski have crafted a tale of grief and depression’s ability to drown us that utilizes horror as a method of exploration those themes. The Night House’s development of those themes of loss and what it does to us is reminiscent of 2014’s The Babadook without being derivative but rather so complimentary that the pair would make a most excellent double-feature.

The Night House is currently playing theatrically.

My SF/Noir Vulcan’s Forge is available from Amazon and all booksellers. The novel is dark, cynical, and packed with movie references,

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The Baron of Arizona: A Disappointment Years in the Making

 

Some years ago, in the before time when streaming wasn’t a common way to locate and see film I chanced upon a fragment of a broadcast of 1950’s The Baron of Arizona, a western starring horror icon Vincent Price.

The film’s central plot, loosely adapted from a historical event, is how James Addison Reavis (Vincent Price) with forged documents nearly swindled the government of the United States out of almost all of the territory of Arizona.

That idea is so grand and so daring that I really wanted to see the film adaptation of it, particularly since it starred Vincent Price and was written and directed by Samuel Fuller. This month The Baron of Arizona is streaming on The Criterion Channel, and I have finally watched it.

It’s hard to remember an anticipated film that disappointed me more than this one. The film about a swindle of nearly unimaginable scale is told with dull plodding voice over and all the excitement of long boring day at work on a Monday. We follow Reavis as he takes the steps to work his forgery and swindle, a globe-trotting series of events that includes infiltrating a monastery to gain access to ancient Spanish records and manipulating a Roma Tribe to gain access to a noble’s library. After putting the grift into operation Reavis faces angry ranchers and locals who look less than kindly upon the man now calling himself their Baron and demanding rent for lands that thought they had own. but even when the plot escalates into action with hurled sticks of dynamite and federal government sending forgery experts to investigate the pace remains glacial and not even Price’s magnetic screen presence can make the movie interesting or compelling.

 

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Movie Review: Free Guy

 

Free Guy is the story of how a background non-player character, Guy, played with able comic chops by Ryan Reynolds, in an open-world video game, with decidedly strong Grand Theft Auto vibes, becomes self-aware while learning that his world is nothing but a sandbox for sociopathic players unleashing carnage and cruelty.

Free Guy is also the story of two brilliant computer/software geniuses, Mille, played by Killing Eve’s award-winning actor Jodie Comer, and Keys, played by Stranger Things’ Joe Keery, as they struggle to prove that the original code for the massively successful and profitable game that acts as Guy’s world, was stolen from them by cartoonishly villain Antwan, played by the brilliant Kiwi Taika Waititi.

The twin plotlines intersect when Millie’s avatar in the game world, Molotov Girl, intersects with Guy hurtling them on a collision course that ultimately will decide everyone’s, virtual and otherwise, fate.

The trailers and promotion sell Free Guy as an action/comedy and they much is very true. The tone and style of the humor is very much in keeping with Ryan’s Deadpool, though here toned down for a PG-13 rating, and with the gags referencing other properties held off until the film’s final act when we are reminded that Disney owns everything.

But, beyond the gags, jabs, and cameos from the real world of on-line game and streaming, Free Guy also has a theme that we are the architects of our lives and routines can be non-living. The movie doesn’t descend into full ‘message’ mode, but neither is it particularly subtle with its theme, striking instead the right balance between the two poles.

There are plenty of great visual gag and surprisingly cameos. (Do not visit IMDB before seeing this, let the surprise arrive and please you.) While Free Guy will never be counted among the great films of cinema’s canon it is fun, entertaining, and full or unironic heart making it well worth seeing. If you are vaccinated and comfortable heading out into public do see this in a theater.

Final observation, I do not know if this was an effect from the pandemic but two of the trailers before the movie, The House of Gucci and The Last Duel were both directed by Ridley Scott and I don’t think I’ve ever seen the same director pop up twice, as director, in the same trailer block.

Also remember that my SF/Noir Vulcan’s Forge is available from Amazon and all booksellers. The novel is dark, cynical, and packed with movie references,

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The Cohen Brother Film

 

Sorry for no posting yesterday, eye exams and a general malaise robbed me of motivation. Good news is I have now fully recovered from my cataract surgery, and all is well with my eyes.

The brother Ethan and Joel Cohen have been responsible for some entertaining, irreverent, and darkly cynical films everything from the fable and silly The Hudsucker Proxy to the grim examination of the human condition in No Country for Old Men. What these films had in common was the team of Joel and Ethan a cinematic team that seems to have reached their end.

Ethan has of late been writing short stories, plays, and directing live theater and apparently have fallen in love with the live stage world. Joel is remaining in the cinematic arts and luckily, I have seen no reports that this spilt represents animosity between the brothers but solely a differencing of artistic desires.

The question is just how much like a Cohen Brothers film is there is only one present? Christopher and Jonathan Nolan often but not always work together and when Jonathan is part of the project the storylines turn darker and more cynical. It will be interesting to see what, if any, detectable tone shift arrives by the departure of Ethan. We shall have a chance soon. Later this year will see the release of Joel Cohen first truly solo direction feature film The Tragedy of Macbeth. (One thing I can say is that it seems Joel does not share superstitions about ‘the Scottish Play.’ An A24 release, a studio I have come to admire for its bold commitment to artistic films, and my favorites play by the Bard, there is no doubt that I am there for this feature.

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Movie Review: The Suicide Squad

 

In July 2018, the happy before times when we knew nothing about the coming pandemic, James Gunn having provoked the ire of Trump supporters was fired from his position as the director of the 3rd installment of the Guardians of the Galaxy franchise, the first two under his writing and direction had clear more than 1.5 billion at the box office, when Disney panicked over a faux twitter outrage generated by said Trump supporters fixated on Gunn’s years aged and already apologized for shock and bast taste humor on that platform.

Meanwhile Warner Brothers Studios licked their wounds from the critical disappointment that was their feature release Suicide Squada superhero film where the featured characters were in fact villains pressed into government service in a dangerous mission to save the world. Wb desperate for a win compared to the juggernaut that is Disney’s Marvel Cinematic Universe, a license to more money than many countries, they wasted no time and hired Gunn for the sequel to their villains turned heroes series and thus was born The Suicide Squad.

If you are expecting a clone of Guardians in tone, humor, or even needles drops, then you may be disappointed by The Suicide Squad. The humor is darker and more cynical, the action more violentand quite graphic compared to Marvel’s generally bloodless combat and the music ques trend to more modern selections in contrast to Guardians favor for classic rock.

With the exceptions of fan favorite Harley Quinn and Colonel Flag, Gunn, given a free hand by the studio, selected a new roster of villains to constitute his world saving anti-heroes, and that line-up to is too extensive to fully detail here but includes; Ratcatcher 2, who inherited tech to control rats from her father, Polka-Dot Man, who throws polka-dots of disintegrating energy, Bloodsport and Peacemaker a pair of high trained, testosterone-poisoned mercenary assassins and of course King Shark, a humanoid barely speech-capable walking super-strong and always hungry shark.

This assorted murderer’s row along with a number of other are dispatched of a fictional island nation of the coast of South America to destroy a facility and its secret project “Starfish” that has landed in unfriendly hands due to a recent coup. Things go wrong and a great deal of curing and violence erupts and the villains are faced with a threat that far outmatches them and one that no all of them will survive. After all it is titled The Suicide Squad.

I enjoyed but did not love this movie. It is fun, it revels in its R rating, and Gunn let the characters be themselves without bogging the pacing down with excessive set-ups. That said there were elements, usually style induced ones that kept rubbing against my suspension of disbelief. For example, instead of a simple title card or subtitle to inform us we were jumping back three day in the story to show us something vital Gunn would place the letters in the scene, such as in foam forming on a toilet seat, or in billowing flames and that was too self-ware for my own tastes.

That said I am glad I watched this in a theater where giant action set pieces played out far larger than life. So, my recommendation is see it, but be aware it doesn’t work for everyone.

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Parsing Empowerment from Exploitation

 

I just saw a tweet extolling the cinematic excellence of the film Revengeand while I am not going to respond directly to that tweet, I have no interest in dumping on someone for something they enjoyed, the movie was one I found lacking and I wanted to quickly compare to a similar film that handled the subject matter so much better, American Mary.

Both movie, Revenge (2017, France) and American Mary (2012, Canada) are centered on attractive young women who are sexually assaulted by older powerful men and the consequences of those attacks.

Revenge is an exploitative movie, fond of the ‘ass cam’ where the lens of the camera follows the woman close and low reducing her to a body part without the benefit of being from a clear point of view. The film utilizes nudity heavily and while it doesn’t film the assault in a particularly titillating manner nor does to capture the character’s full sense of horror and objectification. Following the assault, the movie descends into a series of set pieces of attacks and escape as she takes her revenge all while maintaining minimal or even absent entirely of clothing.

 

 

 

 

American Mary never falls into the ‘ass cam’ mode of cinematography. Its star is equally as attractive as the star of Revenge, young leading ladies are rarely unattractive, but the filmmakers never reduce her to simply her secondary sexual characteristics. The assault also avoids titillation along with nudity and captures the horror, loss of control, and the character’s objectification bur her assault. Following the attack, the character also seeks and gains a measure of revenge but unlike Revenge this is not presented as a sequence of violent murders but something more methodical and more extreme while maintaining a focus on the character’s mental state and her disintegration emotionally. We see the continuing price she pays from the assault and the ultimate hollowness and emptiness of her revenge. American Mary is a more complex and subtle film that explores the lingering harm of trauma and not simply the gratification of vengeance.

Both films are streaming on Shudder. Watch them and make up your own minds on the difference between exploitation and empowerment.

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A Pair of Micro Reviews

Messiah of Evil

This is a 1973 independent horror movie that managed to scrap up enough money for a day or two’s work from Elisha Cook Jr but not enough to a competent screenplay. Marianna Hill plays Arletty a young woman who comes to a seaside community in search of her artist father who has gone silent. She teams up with a womanizer and his harem of two who also are seeking her father. A sinister force seems to inhabit the town and gruesome murders result. Despite a decent set-up the screenplay is clumsy, the cinematography is bland, and the acting uninspired stretching the film’s 90-minute run time into tedium. Messiah of Evilis currently streaming on Shudder.

Masters of the Universe: Revelations

Kevin’s Smith’s revisioning of the second-rate animated series that couldn’t bother to produce actual names for character but referred to them solely by the story function is smarter and had more emotional depth than it deserves. I have watched just the premier episode but already there have been surprising twists and honest emotional reactions from characters discovering that their most loved and trusted companions have been lying to them for years. A special call out needs to be given to Sarah Michell Geller’s vocal work as Teela who is shaping up to the be the series most important viewpoint character.

This is currently streaming on Netflix

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Movie Review: G. I. Joe: Snake Eyes

 

When the 80s animated television series G.I. Joe, in reality a 30-minute toy commercial masquerading as entertainment in a recently deregulated space, originally aired I was too old for its key demographic but young enough to enjoy the campy, winking-at-the-camera, fun the show presented. Stalwart heroes and arch-villains can be a hell of a lot of fun in the right context and mindset.

It’s really no surprise that in 2009 I went to and thoroughly enjoyed G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, the first live action attempt to bring the franchise to the silvered screen. That film took liberties with the source material even losing The Baroness’, one of Cobra’s lead villains, delightfully euro-trash accent. That film’s sequel looked half-hearted, and I skipped it.

Now, twelve years later, studios are again interested in reviving the franchise and have started with an origin story for one of the show’s most popular characters, the ninja Snake Eyes.

Henry Golding, a talented and charismatic Malaysian actor, plays the titular character Snake Eyes. After being orphaned by the murder of his enigmatic father Golding’s Snake Eyes grows to
adulthood as an underground cage fighter until he is recruited by a mysterious patron who promises to deliver his father’s murderer in return for Snake Eyes services as a spy and combatant.

Snake Eyes becomes entangled in a deadly contest within an ancient ninja clan, the Arashikage and is soon torn between his thirst for revenge, his growing bond with the members of the clan, and the realization that forces far greater than his personal grudges are at play forcing him into irrevocable choices that will not only decide his fate but nearly everyone’s around him.

G.I. Joe: Snake Eyes is an enjoyable cartoon of a movie. It is not a film to be taken seriously, though the stakes and emotions are played straight, and the actors involved give the characters real emotional weight. As to be expected there are a lot of ‘set pieces’ or action and martial arts fighting which are marred by an editing that is a little too quick robbing the audiences of stunt performances that need to be fully seen to be fully enjoyed. The films greatest failure comes in the movie’s final act as we follow several groups of character though the near continuous fight for resolution. The fact that it is near continuous is not the issue with fights and the action but rather that each group doesn’t possess a clear goal defined to the audience. In Marvel’s Captain America: The Winter Solider we also follow different characters through a very action-packed final act, but for each set of characters we understand exactly what they are trying to achieve. The Falcon must get the chips into the right slots to realign that craft’s targeting system, Black Widow and Fury have to infiltrate and subvert to command level of SHIELD, now controlled by Hydra, and Captain America must not only get the chips to the right slots like same but must find a way to save his friend Bucky, now the Winter Solider, from Hydra’s brainwashing. BY know their goal the audience knows when the characters have wins that bring them closer and losses that set them back on their heels. In G.I. Joe: Snake Eyes most of the character groups do not have well defined goals so the fights carry less weight, and we are never sure how big any particular win or loss matters and as such are less invested in them.

That said if you enjoy action, martial arts, and stories of betrayal and redemption served with melted cheese then G.I. Joe: Snake Eyes may be a movie for you.

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Movies Are Back

 

At least for me anyway.

 

With the release of Black Widow my sweetie-wife and I returned to the theaters for movie but before that I had gone back to see Cruella. This weekend I will be heading out for a bit of what I expect to be mostly mindless fun with Snake Eyes. (While I was too old to be in the actual target demographic for the 80s G.I. Joecartoon series, I did enjoy the campy fun it produced.)

Looking ahead I can see a number of films that I want to see, and I want to see them in a proper theater. I’m not going to bother mentioning the MCU entries, just consider them a given.

The Green Knight. This looks to be trippy and bizarre and interesting.

The Suicide Squad. Right Wing internet trolls may have delayed Guardians of the Galaxy 3 by getting writer/director James Gunn temporarily sacked but, in the end, Disney restored him and as a bonus we’re getting his unique take on this DC property.

Free Guy. Odds are this is not going to live up to expectations, but it might, and Ryan Reynolds is fun and I’m looking forward to Taika Waititi as the bad guy and more Jodie Comer is always good.

Speaking of Jodie Comer brings us to The Last Duel a rich and luscious period piece from master filmmaker Ridley Scott. Scott, given a good script makes masterpieces, and given a bad one makes films that look great. I am going to see The Last Duel and hope the script is great.

Venom: Let There be Carnage. Should be fun.

Dune. Yes. I want to see this so much.

No Time to Die, the last outing for my favorite Bond even is all his entries haven’t exactly been good.

Last Night in Soho. Edger Wright doing a multi-period ghost story of a horror film. I’m sold.

A couple of film that I do not know the release dates for that are certainly on my radar.

Lamb an atmospheric moody piece about an Icelandic couple that finds an infant that may be a changeling.

The Tragedy of Macbeth from A24 that has so far always given us interesting films that are not budget busting spectacles but thoughtful artistic films.

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Neo-Noir: The Long Goodbye

 

After hearing it praised and discussed on the Junkfood Cinema podcast and knowing it was part of the Criterion Channel’s current Neo-Noir I decided to 1973’s adaptation of Raymond Chandler’s novel The Long Goodbye a viewing.

In the film Marlow is awakened in the middle of the night by his friend who needs an emergency car ride to Mexico from Los Angeles following a fight with his wife. Marlow, apparently a very good friend, complies and later when the wife turns up dead finds himself considered a co-conspirator in her murder kicking off the plot.

Sadly, I can’t say the film was an overwhelming success for me. Elliot Gould’s mumbling and seeming distracted take on P.I. Philip Marlow never fully engaged me as a character but only as an affectation. In addition to that Marlow in the script jumps to correct conclusions for the next stage of the mystery but seemingly without have seen or discovered the clues that would actually lead to such a leap of logic. For example, he asks a woman if she knew a particular couple that lives in the same gated community as she. She answers that she vaguely knew them and later he’s asking the woman’s husband if his wife was having an affair with the husband of the pervious couple and nothing in the film established or hinted at such a relationship. Marlow simply knew somehow. The gangster sub-plot, apparently an invention of the screenplay, is jarring both tonally and logically to story. It’s odd and absurdist but never fully explored or explained.

Directed by hailed filmmaker Robert Altman with a screenplay by the legendary Leigh Bracket, The Long Goodbye should have been a film I loved but instead it slots in as a piece of film history I can now say I have watched but I have desire to see again.

 

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