Sourdough Creek is a town without slow music. By and large, it is also a town
without pity. Mayor Jeb Carver is mostly to blame on both scores. Much to his
consternation, a traveling slide guitarist challenges Carvey’s authority in
director-animator-producer Bill Plympton’s Slide, which screens today
during the 2024 Santa Fe Film Festival.
He
is only known as “Slide,” because that is what he plays. Slide is the sort of
journeyman guitar slinger who illustrates the Americana-roots music fraternity
between the blues and old school country. It is the 1940s, but the former
lumber town of Sourdough Creek still looks and feels like the old frontier. However,
the modern world comes calling, when a Hollywood producer decides to shoot his
next epic on-location in and around Sourdough Creek.
Slide’s
arrival is much less heralded. His visit nearly ends prematurely, when Mayor Carver
threatens to shoot him for playing slow tempos in his sin-soaked saloon.
Fortunately, Carver’s twin brother Zeke intercedes, because he notices Slide’s
sad songs sell more booze. They need the money for the ridiculously grandiose casino
they are building, to cater to the Hollywood jet-set.
They
still don’t like Slide—and he recognizes them for what they are. As a result,
he befriends their sworn enemy, the human-sized insectoid avenger known as “Hell
Bug,” and one of their victims, Deliliah, a sensitive vocal stylist, forced to
work as a bargirl and, you know, other stuff.
Essentially,
Slide is a Western, but in a gothic Americana kind of way. There are
also a lot of weird fantastical elements that are perfectly suited to Plympton’s
style of animation. Frankly, he is probably one of the few animators whose work
is instantly recognizable. Slide is him through and through, which is
cool.
ART COLLEGE 1994 lacks the biting social criticism of Liu Jian's previous film (HAVE A NICE DAY), but its nostalgia for youthful idealism and ambition is still quite potent. CINEMA DAILY US exclusive review now up here.
It is always super-awkward running into an ex, but especially so during a
hostage crisis. Mason Goddard could simply release Amelia Decker if she were
one of the hostages, but since she is the FBI negotiator, he is stuck with her.
She almost busted him once, but she is the least of his problems in [just
plain] Ives’s Cash Out, which releases tomorrow in theaters and
on-demand.
Goddard
really digs Decker until she foils his plan to steal a collection of rare
sports cars. He escapes justice, but lands in a deep depression. As a result,
he is not paying sufficient attention to the hair-brained caper his idiot
little brother Shawn cooks up for the gang until it is too late. He tries to
abort, but things just spin out of control too quickly.
Supposedly,
they are looking for a crypto-wallet in a certain safety-deposit box, but it
soon becomes clear they were set up. There is still a fateful box, but it is
very different from what they were led to believe. The owner also happens to be
the kind of shady billionaire smart crooks avoid crossing. However, the payoff
could be huge.
The
bank job-hostage crisis business in Cash Out is surprisingly well done.
This is definitely another VOD thriller for John Travolta, but it could have
been one of his better ones. Frustratingly, the film loses massive credibility
points when the CIA and Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) take control of
the response away from Decker, at the billionaire’s behest. Repeat after me:
the CIA has no domestic operating authority, so if they took over an FBI
operation, the Attorney General would be in the Oval Office raising H-E-double
hockey sticks. This is what happens when public schools stop teaching civics.
Nevertheless,
Travolta looks like he is having a good deal of fun playing Goddard. He also
has decent chemistry with Kristin Davis, as the reasonably competent and intuitive
Special Agent Decker. Frankly, it is rather nice to see a mainstream commercial
film featuring a romantic couple who are both over fifty.
Arguing with Islamist Iranian bureacrats can be an uncomfortably Kafkaesque experience, but the drama is profoundly compelling in TERRESTRIAL VERSES. EPOCH TIMES exclusive review up here.
No matter how powerful they might be, your political connections cannot
protect you from an enraged Mamma bear. An ambitious politician’s money-man
learns that the hard after killing Eun Soo-hyun’s son. He beat the wrap, but he
was no match for her car. However, there will be further consequences for
everyone in Wonderful World, which premieres today on Hulu.
Congressman
Kim Joon’s fundraiser hit Kang Gun-woo with his car, drove around with him
hidden in the backseat, and then tried to secretly dump his body while he was
still living. It was too late by the time Eun found him, but if he had been
taken directly to the hospital, he probably could have been saved. Kim puts in
the fix during the trial, but when he still refuses to apologize afterwards,
Eun dispenses some poetic justice.
Apparently,
Alvin Bragg is also the DA in Seoul, because a murderer like Kwon gets
released, whereas the victims are prosecuted to the fullest extent. Of course, the
bereft Eun hardly cares, at least initially. However, Jang Hyung-ja, an older
inmate, takes Eun under her wing and revives her spirit. She too is a
murderess, but her circumstances were much less extenuating. While committing a
crime of passion, Jang also accidentally killed Kwon Seon-yool’s parents, for
which she has always been deeply sorry. Knowing she will soon die from cancer,
the older inmate convinces the soon-to-be released Eun to find Kwon and convey
her contrition.
It
turns out Kwon is a rather shadowy figure in his own right. In addition to his black
bag jobs, Kwon has some game-changing secrets of his own. Yet, Eun starts to
develop a strange rapport with him, based on their shared experiences as the
victims of violent crime—unless someone is getting played.
Wonderful
World has
some of the elements of Gillian Flynn/Liane Moriarty thrillers, but they are often
subservient to the angst and melodrama that are stereotypically associated with
K-drama. Perhaps, it is worth noting the series’ enormous domestic popularity.
However, straight thriller fans will find each episode is conspicuously
padded-out with overwrought dramatic moments for Eun to shine. Each installment
could easily lose fifteen minutes, oftentimes more.
This
is indeed a showcase for Kim Nam-ju, who makes the most of Eun’s agony and
outrage. Given the circumstances, it is impossible to not sympathize with her,
even when she is dealing with her somewhat hypocritical jealousy over Kang
Su-ho, her husband, who refused to move on from her, even though she refused to
see him throughout her imprisonment. More to the point, Kim taps into some deep
and dark emotions, while still staying relatively grounded.
They hold a dancing contest in this small Java village that is a lot like the
1930’s dance-offs seen in They Shoot Horses, Don’t They. However, in this
case, the sooner dancers collapse, the safer they will be. The lucky “winner”
will be damned to dance with demons forever. Mila will be lured back to her mother’s
ancestral home, just in time to see the sinister ritual revived in Kimo
Stamboel’s Dancing Village: The Curse Begins, which opens this Friday in
theaters.
Rather
suddenly, Mila’s mother was stricken with a mysterious, debilitating illness. According
to a shaman, the affliction will lift if Mila returns the ancient bangle her
mother took from the so-called “Dancing Village.” This would be the same
village seen in the KKN films, the top-grossing Indonesian horror
franchise based on SimpleMan’s novel. Since this is a prequel, you don’t need
to worry about those earlier later films.
With
her cousin Yuda, his friend Arya, and their reluctant guide, they find the
village, but they do not receive much of a welcome. The village headman has inconveniently
passed away and their spiritual leader, Mbah Buyut is out of town. Almost
immediately, Mila starts having visions of Badarawuli, the demonic femme fatale.
Rather ominously. The mother of her host, Ratih, also exhibits similarly severe
mystery symptoms.
There
is some blood and guts, but Dancing Village depends more on mood and
atmosphere for its scares. This is folk horror and its folkiest. It is chillingly
effective in a slow-burn kind of way. In fact, Dancing Village is
probably Stamboel’s most suggestive and quietly eerie film to date, either as a
solo director or working with Timo Tjahjanto as the Mo Brothers. Admittedly, some
of the dancing damnation scenes are almost campy, but in a way that is still
deeply creepy.
Once again, everything that is about to go wrong is the fault of Gen Z’ers,
but readers are supposed to identify with them anyway. They are the ones who
get lost in an in-between dimension and they are the ones that lure a cosmic
kaiju back to our world in Kelly Thompson’s graphic novel, The Cull, vol.,
which releases today.
Cleo
still blames herself for her little brother Jake’s disappearance and presumed
death, so her four best friends humor her, agreeing to meet at Black Water
Beach, supposedly to film one of her final “short films” before they graduate. As
they follow her into a cave in one of the massive geologic formations, they
discover a portal into what they deduce is a kind of “liminal” space between
dimensions.
Of
course, Cleo insists on venturing inside, hoping to find Jake there. Instead,
they encounter a hive mind ecosystem that welcomes Cleo’s friends and rewards
them with super-powers reflective of their personalities. However, the hive
mind recognizes Cleo’s emotional damage and thereby deems her a danger to the
ecosystem that it must eradicate.
Her
friends take exception, protecting Cleo from the collective environment.
Unfortunately, when they flee back through the portal they find a kaiju-like
monster terrorizing their world. They also discover time passed much slower in
the liminal dimension, so they fear their families probably assume they are long
dead.
Although
the cosmic portal travel is somewhat different, The Cull feels very much
like Paper Girls, but with less distinctive characters. Aside from Cleo,
everyone in the first five collected issues sound and act like cardboard
cutouts from any generic YA novel. Yet, it is the dialogue, riddled with
recovery and empowerment cliches, that really grows annoying.
It is time again to "live, die, repeat." However, unlike in The Edge of Tomorrow, each
time you die, a little of you maybe dies for real—in all of the you’s. Of
course, the one that dies is definitely dead. Max Walker is a little boy with
the ability to shift between dimensions. In each one, his ex-Marine step-brother
Leon tries to rescue him from an evil cyberpunk corporation. Unfortunately, in
every dimension, Walker’s captors manage to stay one step ahead of the rescue
attempts in Hasraf “HaZ” Dulull’s animated feature Max Beyond, which
releases tomorrow on digital VOD.
It
is no accident the first third of Max Beyond feels like a video game. It
was developed concurrently with an upcoming game. For prospective gamers, the
feature serves as an introduction to the world. For viewers, we get to see Leon
Walker blow dozens of Axion guards to smithereens before the company’s super
mecha enforcer invariably kills him. Of course, the robotic killer is getting
inside information from Ava Johnson, Max’s “doctor” (and a dead-ringer for Sarah
Palin), who has him record all his “dreams” in a journal, so she can study them
and anticipate his brother’s attacks.
Each
time his brother is killed, Walker “resets,” jumping into a new dimension. It
looks like each reset produces a cataclysmic explosion that anyone living in
his current dimension ought to want to avoid. However, the various Ava Johnsons
appear to be playing a collective long-game. Each reset clearly weakens Walker.
She also starts to notice a cumulative ill-effect on Leon too. In fact, Max is
looking so bad, she starts to have a change of heart, but she remains beholden
to her evil multinational corporate masters.
There
are a lot of repetitive action sequences in Max Beyond and even more questionable
motivation. A good 80% of what happens in the film seems poorly thought-out. It
is a shame, because when it finally starts to seriously address its multiverse business,
Dulull and co-writers Paula Crickard and Stavros Pamballis have some fresh ideas
to offer, particularly the personal linkage between dimensions.
Walerian Borowczyk could have been another Roman Polanski. The acclaimed Polish
filmmaker came to Paris looking for artistic freedom and found free love
instead. The Sexual Revolution devoured many of its children, including
Borowczyk’s career. The controversial auteur’s admirers look back on his
inconsistent body of work in Kuba Mirkuda’s documentary, Love Express: The
Disappearance of Walerian Borowczyk, which premieres Tuesday on OVID.tv.
Initially,
Borowczyk was considered a fresh, new star of the avant-garde, thanks to films like
Goto: Island of Love and Blanche. The boldly “transgressive” Immoral
Tales was probably his biggest hit and masterwork, but it was a double-edged
sword, pigeon-holing Borowczyk with producers and critics. During the years
that followed, Borowczyk could only secure funding for sexually-themed films.
If he did not shoot enough sex scenes, they would commission some of their own
and splice them in.
Despite
the nature of Borowczyk’s output, Love Express is not a naughty film,
per se. It is more of a chronicle of artistic frustration. The title itself is
taken from the film-within-the film of Emmanuelle 5, which was the only
scene Borowczyk actually directed before walking off the shoot in a rage. As
you might expect, the softcore sequel was definitely a career low-point.
To
their credit, Mirkuda and company are refreshingly honest in their appraisals of
Borowczyk’s films. In fact, they are quite harsh on The Beast, despite
its relative success. He assembles an impressive cast of commentators,
including Bertrand Bonello, Neil Jordan, Patrice Leconte (an assistant director
on Blanche), Mark Cousins, and the late, great Andrzej Wajda, who knew
Borowczyk way back in Polish art school.
Perhaps
some of the best commentary comes from Terry Gilliam, who was clearly inspired
by Borowczyk’s highly textured early animated shorts. On the other hand, it is
hard to imagine the avant-garde Borowczyk operating under the Communist state
film authorities, so it is frustrating Mirkuda glosses over his early years in
Poland.
They are like the Dirty Dozen, except there are only four of them. Perhaps
you would compare them to Snake Plissken instead. Of course, filmtwitter hacks
would only know the Suicide Squad (whom the title deliberately echoes), as a
point of reference. Pocketfish’s team is just a bunch of thieves, whom the Shogun
regularly dispatches on suicide missions, because they are expendable (so to
speak). However, when they need someone to steal a lock of hair from a demon,
it makes sense to send some thieves in Ryosuke Kanesaki’s Harakiri Squad,
which screens again today at Fantaspoa in Porto Alegre.
Pocketfish
is a pickpocket. Dr. Poison is a questionable sawbones. Suicide Squid is the getaway
expert and, when need be, their torturer. Supposedly, Geishafish is an expert
in disguise, but the ambiguous genderbender always makes a point of standing
out. Mizuno Heima is not part of the Squad, but he teams up with them to fight
the demon, who is secretly leading his sister’s religious cult.
It
turns out the demon is planning to consume all the souls in the capital, using
amulets spread by the cult. Not surprisingly, Pocketfish and his gang are
really out of their depth. However, their survival rate is better than that of
Fox Team, the Shogun’s varsity squad.
Technically, Twenty Years After was the sequel to The Three Musketeers.
However, the previous film only told half the story of Dumas’s first D’Artagnan
novel, even though both parts of the story were shot together, Lord of the
Rings-style. War has broken out, but fighting is what the King’s Musketeers
do best. For them, spycraft and courtly treason are more dangerous in Martin
Bourboulon’s The Three Musketeers Part II: Milady, which opens today in
theaters.
The
Three Musketeers saved the King at the end of Part I: D’Artagnan, but
Athos awkwardly suspects his Protestant brother was involved. More ominously, they
conclude there must be a traitor in court, very near the King. D’Artagnan’s
lover Constance Bonacieux discovered the conspirator’s identity, which is why
she was kidnapped at the end of the first film.
Much
to his shock, D’Artagnan is also abducted by the Comte de Chalais, whose
position as the leader of the Catholic League had placed above reproach. His
henchmen cannot hold a good Musketeer for long, but when D’Artagnan rescues the
Comte’s other captive, he is shocked to find Milady instead of Bonacieux. Of
course, he is disappointed, but maybe not as disappointed as he should be.
Even
though Part I seemed to be headed in a Queen Margot direction,
when seen in its entirety, Bourboulon’s Three Musketeers is surprisingly
faithful to the Dumas novel. Part II delivers more rousing swordplay and
musketry action, while Bourboulon and cinematographer Nicholas Bolduc make
spectacular use of the Bordeaux scenery. The second film is even more dynamic
than the first, so it would be preferable to see it on a bigger screen.
Much like the documentary BEYOND 'THE COVE' did in Japan, INDEPENDENT LENS' ONE WITH THE WHALE exposes the online bullying and death threats that targeted an indigenous Alaskan teen, for providing for his community through their traditional (and legal) whale hunts. CINEMA DAILY US exclusive review up here.
Even if you did not follow jazz in the 1990s, you might recognize, or at
least have heard Joshua Redman from his musical appearances in Robert Altman’s Kansas
City and Louis Malle’s Vanya on 42nd Street, two great
films with famous American places in their titles. That was also the theme of
Redman’s latest album, Where Are We. Each track refers to a specific
city or state, often combining several geographically related songs into medleys.
Redman performs selections from the album live-in-concert during the latest
episode of Next at the Kennedy Center, which premieres tomorrow on PBS.
Somewhat
counter-intuitively, the broadcast starts with its strongest performance, an
appropriately bluesy rendition of Count Basie and Jimmy Rushing’s “Chicago
Blues.” Redman’s quintet (the leader on tenor, Aaron Parks on piano, Brian
Blade on drums, Joe Sanders on bass, and vocalist Gabrielle Cavassa) definitely
takes down the decibel level compared to the roaring Basie Band, but Parks’ rhythmic
comping still gives it a snappy groove.
Inspired
by the George Floyd killing, “After Minneapolis (Face Towards Mo[u]rning)” has
a Spartan, plaintive vibe that somewhat recalls some of the recordings by
Redman’s father, Dewey Redman, a giant of the free jazz movement—and also one
of its most accessible artists. There are some beautiful moments, but, somewhat
ironically, the “message” sometimes literally gets lost in Cavassa’s breathy
delivery, which almost sounds like wordless vocalizations.
“Streets
of Philadelphia” and “Hotel California” both have similar tempos, emotional
vibes, and themes of alienation. However, they great “enticements” for non-jazz
listeners, reinterpreting Springsteen and the Eagles, but in ways their fans
can recognize and relate to.
Probably,
the other highlight of the one-hour program is the concluding medley, which combines
“Stars Fell on Alabama” with Coltrane’s “Alabama,” which he composed following
the Alabama church bombing that murdered four little girls. It is considered his
only “protest song.” Coltrane’s “Alabama” is complex and challenging, but there
is also a lot of “church” in there, which Redman gets at nicely. (Reportedly,
Coltrane based it on the cadence of Martin Luther King’s eulogy).
This kidnapping will be a lot like “The Ransom of Red Chief,” but with lots
more blood. The gang has no idea who they are kidnapping until it is way too
late. Instead of paying to return her, these criminals will pay with their
lives in Abigail, the latest horror movie from Matt Bettinelli-Olpin
& Tyler Gillett, the filmmaking tandem known as Radio Silence, which opens tomorrow
nationwide.
Most
of the crew did not know they were abducting a “child” and none of them knew
the identity of her father. They did not know each other, either. Lambert, their
boss, is against giving them code-names, but he reluctantly assigns them Rat
Pack handles. Amusingly, but all too believably, the significance is lost on
most of the lowlifes.
“Joey”
has military medical training, so she will be Abigail’s babysitter. The “young
girl” will definitely not need medical treatment from her. The gang soon freaks
out when “Frank,” their swaggering team leader, figures out Abigail’s father is
a notorious Keyser Soze-like crime-lord. However, he is the least of their
worries. It turns out the Rat Pack was intentionally trapped inside Lambert’s
haunted mansion-like hideout, with the predatory Abigail.
The
exact nature of Abigail’s lethalness is basically an open secret, but reviews
are still supposed to refrain from spelling it out. Regardless, it is pretty
clear she is more than a “Bad Seed.” She is an entire bad farm.
The
fake Rat Pack also gets a good deal of laughs for their sociopathic snark and
moronic meatheadedness. Dan Stevens (Cousin Matthew in Downton Abbey)
delivers a lot of the former, dipping back into his psycho trick bag from The Guest. Kevin Durand supplies most of the latter as the hulking “Peter.”
William Catlett is appropriately hardnosed as the ex-military sniper, misnamed “Rickles.”
The late Angus Cloud does another Eminem impersonation as “Dean,” but his
obvious personality-dysfunction helps further complicate the poisonous group
dynamic. The same is true of Kathryn Newton’s impressive freakouts as
high-strung hacker “Sammy.”
Unfortunately,
Melissa Barrera is supposed to slow-burn as the guilt-wracked Joey, but she is
definitely the weakest, least defined member of the Rat Pack. She looks credible
in the blood-drenched fight scenes, but that is about all she brings to the table.
Frankly, the producers of the Scream franchise really did not give up
much when they fired her from their next film, because of what they justifiably
described as her antisemitic “hate speech.” There are monsters in real life
too.
SPY X FAMILY CODE: WHITE leaves no lasting impact on the overall anime-manga franchise, but the action-oriented Forger Family's self-contained feature is still a lot of light-hearted fun. Who doesn't love a Bond movie? That's Bond, Bond Forger, a big, furry Great Pyranean mountain dog who can read minds. Exclusive CINEMA DAILY US review now up here.
Arthur Spiderwick's field guide to the fairy world is the bestiary to rule all
bestiaries. The old eccentric wanted to catalogue his discoveries, but the
secrets it holds would be dangerous in the wrong hands. Mulgarath, the shapeshifting
ogre, certainly qualifies as the wrong hands. He wants to eat all the humans in
the world, basically because he is an ogre. If he successfully revives the baby
dragons suspended in amber (like a fantastical Jurassic Park), nothing
will stop him. Unfortunately, his primary antagonist is a troubled teen who
cannot even count on his siblings in creator Aron Eli Coleite’s eight-episode The
Spderwick Chronicles, adapted from Holly Black & Tony DiTerlizzi’s YA
novels, which premieres Friday on the Roku Channel.
Reluctantly,
freshly divorced Helen Grace relocates her three kids to Henson, Michigan (it
is New England in the books), because of Jared’s “troubles.” He is the bad twin,
whereas Simon is the good twin. Their older sister Mallory largely fends for
herself. Both resent Jared for forcing them out of Brooklyn, where their
deadbeat dad still lives, but Simon still tries his best to defend his brother.
Of
course, everyone blames Jared for the strange things that happen in the old
Spiderwick manor. Mostly, they are the work of Thimbletack, an annoying winged
fairy-beast who lives in the Spiderwick walls. Supposedly, he is a good friend of
Helen’s institutionalized Aunt Lucinda Spiderwick, Arthur’s widow. As you might
assume, she is not as crazy as she looks.
In
fact, she is the one who hid the pages of Uncle Arthur’s field guide around
Henson and then charmed herself into forgetting, so Mulgarath could not trick
her into revealing the locations. Instead, he lured the Graces to Spiderwick,
so they would find them for him.
That
gets to one of the biggest problems plaguing Coilete’s adaptation. Arguably, the
Graces should be able to foil Mulgarath by simply sitting on their hands and doing
nothing. Since the pages are magically protected, they are only vulnerable to
Mulgarath once Jared collects them for “safe-keeping.” It is sort of like Mayim
Bialik’s awkward criticism of Raiders of the Lost Ark on The Big Bang
Theory, except it is much more glaringly obvious.
That
is a shame, because Christian Slater is a lot of fun to watch playing Mulgarath,
who has a big, evil DNR to spring on viewers. He is definitely the best part of
the series, which is particularly ironic, since a lot of his business is
original to Coleite and company (but not the ogre character).
Lyon
Daniels will also drive most viewers to distraction as Jared, while Noah
Cottrell’s Simon often expresses the audience’s exasperation with him quite
aptly. Helen Grace’s unintuitive obliviousness stretches credulity, but Joy
Bryant somehow manages to work out some interesting chemistry with Slater (in
ways that cannot be revealed). However, the way the character of Thimbletack feels
under-developed and often shoehorned into scenes, suggests a good deal of his screentime
was cut for budgetary reasons.
On
the other hand, the Spiderwick manor looks very cool, in a family-friendly
gothic kind of way. Kat Coiro even creates some nicely creepy moments helming
the initial episode, but she cannot match them in the second, nor can any of
the subsequent directors.
Everyone thinks Canadians are always mild-mannered, but they have had plenty of
violent gangsters. You just can’t mention them anymore, or Justin Trudeau will
send you to jail. While there was still Canadian freedom of speech, Edwin
Alonzo Boyd’s crimes were chronicled in Citizen Gangster and Vincent
Cassel portrayed the notorious French import in Mesrine: Killer Instinct.
Donald Lavoie’s biopic came in just under the wire. He killed a lot of people
for his Quebecois gang, but even he has trouble whacking his own brother in
Raymond St-Jean’s Dusk for a Hitman, which releases Friday on VOD.
Lavoie
has long been estranged from his drunken father, but he somehow tolerates his
messed-up brother Carl. Even though he has a wife and young daughter, he still considers
Claude Dubois and the Dubois gang “like family.” That will be a mistake.
Usually,
Lavoie is the one executing unsuspecting gang-members Dubois deems liabilities.
However, Lavoie (not to be confused with the accomplished Austrian School
economist, Don Lavoie) is in for a rough patch. First, due to bang-bang circumstances,
he and his questionable partner kill a witness in an especially gruesome manner.
Then his deadbeat brother starts making trouble for him. To make matters worse,
organized crime investigator Roger Burns keeps coming around, asking if he
wants to have a friendly chat.
Dusk
for a Hitman is
a super-grungy late-1970s-early-1980s period gangster movie, but it also has
some style. St-Jean’s screenplay, co-written with Martin Girard, is pretty
predictable, but in the way of almost every other hitman and mobster movie.
Even
though Eric Bruneau has frequently worked with French Canadian auteurs like
Xavier Dolan and Denys Arcand, he does not well-established image with most
American audiences, but that serves the film well in Dusk. He definitely
puts the “anti” in antihero with his more-than-slightly unhinged lead
performance.
“B”
is the sort of film character Garry Kasparov would probably approve of,
and possibly relate to, as both a chess master and a human rights activist. Arrested
during the Soviet crackdown on the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, the Catholic
priest is being held in conditions of extreme mental and physical isolation.
His only distraction is a slim book about chess. If that sounds familiar, it is
because this film is also based on Stefan Zweig’s novella, “The Royal Game,”
just like Philipp Stolzl’s recent Chess Story. However, Barnabas Toth
takes Zweig’s themes in a very David Lynchian direction, while revisiting Hungary’s
traumatic Communist history in Mastergame, which screens during this
year’s Fantaspoa in Porto Alegre.
Istvan
and Marta are two young anti-Communist lovers desperately trying to leave
Hungary, before the Soviets seal the borders. Normally, you want to be on the “last
train out,” no matter the cost, but there is something ominous about this
train, beyond its Casablanca like collection of former revolutionaries,
Communist spies, and petty criminals. A mild-mannered priest is also aboard (who
maybe not so coincidentally bears some resemblance to Cardinal Mindszenty).
The
priest is only referred to as “B” during the interrogations that make up Mastergame’s
other timeline. According to his file, B withstood extraordinary physical
torture while he was a prisoner of the Nazis, so they opt for different
methods. They forbid the deeply humanistic cleric any human contact, even
hiding the faces of his captors. His interrogator wants to break his spirit by
severing his connection to humanity. However, the chance discovery of the chess
book gives him something to occupy his mind.
If
you know Chess Story or “The Royal Game,” you have a good idea of what
is really going on, but the addition of the Marta-Istvan subplot adds an
intriguing new dimension. In terms of tone, Mastergame feels very much
like vintage Lynch ostensibly working in the mystery genre, as in Mulholland
Drive. In fact, the skullduggery on the train is so well executed, Mastergame
will be keenly suspenseful, even for the world’s greatest authority on
Zweig. On top of that, setting the story amid the Hungarian Revolution adds a
greater sense of grand historical tragedy.
More Polish citizens have been recognized at Yad Vashem as Righteous Among
Nations than any other nationality. Ninety-nine of them were named Irene. Gal
Gadot is working on the story of one: Irene Sendler, who saved over 2,500
children from the Warsaw ghetto. Irene Gut [Opdyke] “only” saved twelve Jews during
the occupation, but she did it literally under the nose of a senior National
Socialist officer. Screenwriter-playwright-novelist-reserve duty IDF officer
Dan Gordon adapted his own hit Broadway play for the big-screen, in time for it
to release amid escalating antisemitic attacks, here and abroad. The rescuer’s
story comes at a particularly urgent time, when Louise Archambault’s Irene’s
Vow screens nationwide tomorrow and Tuesday, via Fathom Events.
Having
been brutalized by Russian soldiers, Irene Gut had no love for the Soviets. She
had little reason to like the National Socialists either. After occupying Poland,
they confiscated her home and forced the student-nurse to labor in a factory
overseen by Wehrmacht Major Edward Rugemer. However, her “Germanic” features
led to transfers, first to a luxury hotel catering to officers and then to Rugemer’s
newly commandeered villa. Witnessing the SS sadistically murder a mother and
her infant on the streets horrifies Gut, but it later motivates her to devise an
unlikely plan to save the hotel’s Jewish slave labor, ahead of their liquidation.
Under
the dark of night, uot smuggled her former co-workers into Rugemer’s villa,
first hiding them in the cellar, before they eventually discover the hiding chamber
specially constructed by the dispossessed Jewish owners. To avoid exposure, Gut
promises Rugemer she can handle the household single-handedly, using her
traumatic history with the Red Army as an excuse to keep soldiers out of the
villa. Of course, that means she must cater his receptions on her own, but she
will actually have quite a bit of help from the basement.
Archambault
definitely brings out the thriller aspects of Gut’s story more than the
Broadway production, which was presented as memory play, showcasing Tovah
Feldshuh. Sophie Nelisse is also considerably younger than Feldshuh during the
Broadway run. Feldshuh could probably draw the tourist buses, but Nelisse’s younger,
more naïve look and slight frame leads to a greater sense of vulnerability.
In
fact, Nelisse portrays Gut with tremendous sensitivity. Thanks to her, the
audience really understands why she did what she did. (Frankly, her work in a
key scene truly makes Irena’s Vow a “pro-life” film in both past and
present contexts.) Yet, Dougray Scott really elevates Irena’s Vow,
proving he can do more than sniff and sneer his way through a film, portraying sinister
blue bloods. His performance as Rugemer (an intriguing historical figure) is as
complex as Gordon’s treatment. Plus, Andrzej Seweryn adds a lot of color and
energy as the sly and sophisticated old Shultz, the only other serving staff
Gut allows inside the villa.
The Iranian port city of Abadan is perched near the Iraqi border, along the
Persian Gulf. It was a precarious place to live during the 1980 War, but the
locals are really at the mercy of the sea. The entire area largely revolves
around the fishing (and shrimping) industry, so when catches are good, business
is good. When catches are bad, times are tough. Filmmaker Shahab Mihandoust closely
observes their work off and on-shore in Meezan (Scale), which screens
during this year’s New Directors/New Films.
It
has been over forty years since the Iran-Iraq War, but it is still a common
point of reference for the hardscrabble fishermen and longshoremen. The work is
hard and probably smelly, but what really comes through in Meezan is the
ambient sounds. Mihandoust takes great efforts to immerse viewers (who are
almost more listeners) in Abadan’s aural landscape. The intention is almost to
create an ASMR ethnographic documentary.
Cineastes
who are intellectually fascinated with process and craft will be enraptured by
Mihandoust’s sound design. However, those hoping to delve into the sociology of
Iran’s marginalized working class, they must mostly glean what they can from
the Wiseman-esque presentation. Mihandoust incorporates some interview snippets,
but they are more conversational rather than probing.
If you think your dad is overprotective now, just imagine what he would be
like after the monster-apocalypse. Paul’s two teenaged sons do not have to
imagine. Thomas and Joseph have basically been grounded their entire lives. To
be fair, there really are insectoid mutant creatures roaming around their farmhouse
after dark. The tightly wound dad understands they grow up eventually, but when
they show a little defiance, it leads to desperate peril in Benjamin Brewer’s Arcadian,
which opens today in New York.
Judging
from the prologue, there was some kind of war and now everyone fears the
bug-monsters. The details are sketchy, but it can’t be helped, regardless. Paul
has protected his sons with Papa-bear intensity, but they are teens now, which always
means trouble. He does not have to worry so much about studious Joseph, the
low-stress brother. On the other hand, brother Thomas acts like a character on Dawson’s
Creek. He would rather be flirtatiously hanging with Charlotte, the only
teen girl within miles. Her parents seem to like him, but the other residents
of the compound are not as friendly.
One
day, Thomas bails on his salvaging expedition with Joseph, jaunting off to visit
Charlotte instead. When he fails to return that night, Paul goes out looking
for him, leaving Joseph to defend the house against freaky big monsters.
Arcadian
is
the sort of film that is greater in the sum of its parts than its whole. There
are a handful of brilliant scenes, including one showpiece that starts out as a
War of the Worlds homage and turns into Home Alone. However, the story
and characters are pretty thin. Weirdly, Arcadian shares some
similarity with Sting, because the horrors of both films are
largely made possible by conspicuously bad decisions made by minors.
Charley Barrett wants to be the righteous amateur investigator fighting the evil
real estate developer, like in China Town, or thousands of other movies.
Instead, he is a werewolf, like Larry Talbot in The Wolf Man. Heck, he
even lives in Talbot Falls. Since cleaning up, he no longer gets blackout drunk,
but he still has no memory of full moon nights. A serial killer has been
stalking Talbot Falls and Barrett knows he is the beast in Larry Fessenden’s Blackout,
which releases today on VOD.
Even
though his old man was Hammond’s lawyer, Barrett has long crusaded against the
local real estate tycoon. To make things even more awkward, he was dating
Hammond’s daughter, Sharon. He cleaned himself for her, only to break things
off for her protection when he became a lycanthrope. Compounding Barrett’s
guilt, Hammond has been accusing an innocent immigrant of his werewolf murders,
to demonize the local Mexican community. Yes, Blackout is really that
in-your-face didactic.
Blackout
starts
slow and craters towards the end, but it has some decent werewolf stuff in its
bloody mid-sectiont. Much to Barrett’s horror, he learns it is not just the
full moon that transforms him. The moon is also sufficiently luminous to do the
trick on the nights before and after. Of course, he seeks a tragic but necessarily
final solution like Lon Chaney Jr. in the Universal Monster movies, but his plan
crumbles into a comedy of horrors.
Horror
genre diva Barbara Crampton looks half her age in her all too brief scene as
Kate, an attorney advising Barrett. However, horror dabbler Joe Swanberg is largely
wasted as Sharon’s bland new boyfriend. Yet, arguably the most memorable “cameo”
comes from the late William Hurt, lead actor Alex Hurt’s real-life father, who
is pictured in photos of Barrett’s deceased dad.
This is a film built around real people, who, like reality TV stars, constantly
embarrass and disgrace themselves. In the case of these Russian soldiers, they repeatedly
confess to war crimes, wanton cruelty, jingoistic prejudice, and just generally
getting their butts kicked on the legitimate battlefield by Ukrainian soldiers.
They were calling home, but Ukrainian intelligence was listening. The resulting
recordings reveal the depravity and demoralization of the invading Russian
military in Oksana Karpovych’s documentary, Intercepted, which screens
during this year’s New Directors/New Films.
It
is easy to understand why Russian soldiers are not supposed to phone home. They
reveal a lot, but the intercepts the Ukrainian government chose to release to
the world expose the Russian militarist attitude rather than sensitive
intelligence. For instance, nearly every caller uses the terms “Khokhols” and “Banderites,”
which are Russian slurs for the Ukrainian people.
Several
calls frankly describe the intentional mass murder of Ukrainian civilians. They
are literally talking shooting people in the head and then dumping them in a
ditch. Much like the harrowing 20 Days in Mariupol, Intercepted should
be entered into evidence during a future war crimes tribunal.
The
confessions are truly damning, but the attitude of the Russians back home might
be even more disturbing. Their girlfriends, wives and mothers express outrage
that the Ukrainians are not welcoming the Russian invaders into their home,
even while literally cheering on the torture and killing of non-combatant
Ukrainians.
The execution and performances of Apple TV+'s FRANKLIN are inconsistent, but it is shocking how well Michael Douglas captures the look (and the charm) of old Ben Franklin. EPOCH TIMES review up here.
Bruce Lee was so powerful, he created a new subgenre after his death. It was
also proof of how many tickets he could sell, even posthumously. Bruceploitation
was definitely exploitation, often at its sleaziest, but fans just couldn’t
help hoping the next one might include some legitimate lost Bruce Lee footage.
David Gregory looks back on the Bruceploitation films and the sometimes
reluctant imposters who made them in Enter the Clones of Bruce Lee,
which starts a nationwide screening tour this Friday.
Fans
knew Lee had shot some scenes for Game of Death before he died, because
they had seen the publicity photos that made his yellow track suit iconic.
Initially, the Hong Kong studio Golden Harvest assumed their incomplete film
was unreleasable, which left the field open to enterprising (and ethically
flexible) exploitation producers to deceptively fill the void.
Soon,
they released a slew of supposed Bruce Lee stories, which often rather ghoulishly
incorporated footage of his funeral. Many of these films had a conspiratorial
tone, promising to expose the real “truth” of his death. Another frequent trick
was the inclusion flashbacks, using scenes Lee shot as a child actor in Hong
Kong. For their own footage, they often hired vague lookalikes, whom they gave
screen names that might deceive patrons if they were not paying close
attention.
Ironically,
many of the Bruce Lee clones were skilled martial artists, who might have
otherwise had a distinctive screen identity of their own. Bruce Li was one of
the first and he is still widely considered one of the most talented Bruces.
Dragon Lee was Korean, but that hardly mattered. Burmese Bruce Le could have
been the toughest, since knocked several actors silly during his first fight
scene. He is also the only Bruce clone to appear opposite Enter the Dragon bad
guy Shih Kien in his “Bruce Lee Story.” Not so shockingly, Yasuaki Kurata did
not know he was a Bruce Lee clone until he saw the foreign distributor for one
of his Japanese movies had dubbed him Bruce Lo on their English-language
poster.
After
watching Enter the Clones it is easy to understand why the Lee family is
so protective of his image. Some of the things these sketchy outfits did were
beyond tacky. However, the film also suggests some of the films designed to
appeal to Bruce Lee fandom were not so exploitative. Gregory’s talking heads
convincingly argue the popularity of both Jim Kelly and Angela Mao films were
largely built on their appearances in Enter the Dragon. Gregory even
scored an interview with Mao herself, which was a real coup.
Like most people working in [tabloid] journalism, Santiago takes a flexible approach to
ethics. He often bends the rules and bribes cops, but at least his news is not
fake. The dead bodies he photographs really are dead, except for the most
recent one. Nobody understands how the senator could still be alive in his
condition, but Santiago will learn from hard experience in Luis Javier Henaine’s
Disappear Completely, which starts streaming tomorrow on Netflix.
Even
though Santiago takes lurid crime-scene photos, he sees himself as an artistic
chronicler of urban decay, sort of in the tradition of Arthur “Weegee” Felig. He aspires to hold
a proper gallery show, but his livelihood depends on his crass editor, who does
not appreciate his talent. As a result, Santiago’s relationship with his
girlfriend Macrela has suffered, even before his rather unenthused response to
the news of her pregnancy.
He
really should have stayed with her, rather than rushing to his next front-page
crime scene. The responding cops assumed the prominent senator was already
dead, since the rats had been eating him. Then he suddenly groans. At that
moment, the startled Santiago snaps a partial, shadowy shot of something else
in the room.
In
the next few days, Santiago experiences seizures and strange dreams or visions.
Slowly, he starts to lose his sense of taste and smell. His medical tests come
back negative, but the discovery of some kind of cursed fetish leads him to seek
more occultic help. According to the spiritualist, Santiago has been cursed to
lose all five of his senses, at which point he will essentially succumb to
nothingness, or, you know.
It
turns out Mexican politics are really scary—and so is this film. It is an
eerie, unsettling kind of fear rather than rip-and-slash terror. Frankly, Disappear
Completely is one of the more accessible horror movies for non-fans. It is
smart and moody, but the tension builds steadily, from decidedly occult
circumstances.
People conveniently forget the genocidal Slobodan Milosevic was formerly a
Communist Party official in the unified Yugoslavia and he was the leader of Serbia’s
Socialist Party. Stefan’s single-mother Marklena Nikolic was certainly aware of
that fact, because she serves as a high-profile Socialist Party spokesman in
Vladimir Perisic’s Lost Country, which screens during this year’s New Directors/New Films.
Even
in Serbia, the name “Marklena” is unusual, so she must often explain it is a
contraction of Marx and Lenin. Not surprisingly, she is a Socialist—and she sternly
informs her teenage son Stefan that he must always be one too. However, as the
1996 protests against Milosevic and his Socialists intensify, Stefan finds it
is not such a fun time to be a Socialist at school, especially when his friends’
relatives start disappearing.
Stefan
pretends his mother is another “Marklena Nikolic” and not the hated woman on
the government broadcasts, but with a name like that, nobody believes him. With
his peers freezing him out, Stefan increasingly lashes out their slights and
insults. He must believe they are lying about her and her role in the Socialist
Party, but the more he sees and overhears, the harder that gets.
Lost
Country illustrates
how the crimes of socialist regimes compound in tragic and unexpected ways.
This is ultimately a bracing and profoundly sad film, but Perisic’s severe aesthetic
might put off some viewers. His pacing is slow, but the intimate focus has a
hypnotic effect on those who are open to it.
RESISTANCE: THEY FOUGHT BACK is an inspiring documentary about the proactive (and often armed) Jewish resistance to the National Socialists. It should not feel as timely as it does. Regardless, the stories are highly compelling and the history needs to be preserved. EPOCH TIMES review up here.
Maybe the original name of this lethal space-spider was Gordon Sumner, before
the little girl who adopts it dubs the creature “Sting.” Why would you pick up
a spider of this size, like stray dog? Needless to say, young Charlotte is
feeling a little alienated and she will soon be feeling pretty guilty, because
it really is sort of all her fault when the spider starts biting in director-screenwriter
Kiah Roache-Turner’s Sting, which opens this Friday in theaters.
The
spider landed with such velocity, it only bored a small hole through Charlotte’s
window pane, but it somehow landed softly enough. It is big and ugly, even by
tarantula standards, but she decides to keep it anyway. (The name “Sting” is
actually a Hobbit reference.) Charlotte has been sulky since her infant
brother was born, because it seems like her mother Heather and stepfather Ethan
no longer have time for her. Indeed, neither has much time for anything. He
works days as their building super and nights struggling to complete a high-profile
freelance comic book commission, while she has restarted her architectural
career.
Charlotte’s
relationship with Ethan is especially complicated because she assumes her
deadbeat birth-father is still abroad, rather than avoiding her. Having more
extended family nearby is not helping much. Charlotte still adores her dementia-stricken
grandmother, Helga, but Gunter, the mean old aunt who owns the building, is a
real pill. The other neighbors are a mixed bag, but she assumes Erik, the
self-styled science geek, might be able to help, when Sting starts to be a bit
of a handful.
There
is considerably more character development in Sting than you get from
typical creepy-crawly flicks. There is also some tension-breaking comedic
relief provided by Jermaine Fowler as Frank, the exterminator, whose uniform
probably intentionally somewhat vaguely resembles that of a Ghostbuster.
However,
Charlotte’s 12-year-old angst is maybe too realistic. Honestly, which would you
rather deal with, a large alien spider or a moody preteen girl? If you said the
arachnid, you’re probably not alone. Still, the attempt to balance credible
characters, mostly (but not entirely) practical gross-out effects, and jaded
New Yorker humor is appreciated. This is definitely an improvement over Roache-Turner’s
disappointing sequel Wyrmwood: Apocalypse, but not as entertaining as
the original Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead. The mix needed more tweaking,
but Roache-Turner is going in the right direction with his first feature not
co-written with his brother, Tristan.
Before
he could be a Rough Rider, he had to be a greenhorn. Teddy Roosevelt led
such a storied life, his years as a cattleman in the Dakota Territory are often
overlooked, but it was still a significant period for him. TR’s later service
as New York City’s police chief made him an intriguing supporting character in The Alienist, but Roosevelt the rancher is the central protagonist of creator
Craig Miller’s Elkhorn, which premieres Thursday on INSP.
The
future president is not quite the garrulous “Bully! Bully!” Rough Rider yet. As
the titular “Greenhorn” of the pilot episode, he has toughened himself up, but
he still looks like a Northeastern intellectual, which he also was. Roosevelt’s
fame as a wealthy progressive reformer proceeds him to the Dakota Territory,
but many of the locals assume he will be easy to push around. However, they
quickly learn he is made of stern stuff and has wisely chosen his associates.
Roosevelt
partnered up with his former hunting guide, William Merrifield, who knows the
terrain better than anyone. For his chief lieutenants, TR imported his friend,
Bill Sewall, a brawny lumberjack from Maine and his nephew Wilmot Dow. They
will form the nucleus of the Elkhorn ranch, protecting the herd from the
Marquis de Mores, an unscrupulous French cattle baron.
At
least that last part seems like a fair assumption from what we see in the pilot
episode. So far, the Marquis is ostensibly polite, but he clearly rubs TR the
wrong way. At this early stage, TR is more bedeviled by his own demons,
including his grief over the death of his wife, Alice Hathaway Lee, and guilt
from essentially abandoning their daughter, Alice Lee Roosevelt.
The sleazy truck stops and lonely highways of the remote Karachay-Cherkessia
region are not fit places to raise a teen girl, but is there anyplace in Russia
where it is safe for families? At least the father and his daughter keep
moving, screening DVDs in their makeshift projected cinema. Inevitably, she starts
to realize it is not much of a life in Ilya Povolotsky’s Grace, which
screens during this year’s New Directors/New Films.
Evidently,
this area of Russia is so economically depressed, people cannot even afford names.
The end credits simply refer to her as “Daughter,” him as “Father,” and the
rest as “Characters.” Clearly, there is no mother, leaving all parental duties
to the father.
Unfortunately,
her father is stuck on auto-pilot, unable to envision anything else but their
hardscrabble nomadic life. She is starting to question him, just as boys are beginning
to notice her.
The
central father-daughter relationship would ordinarily be relatable across
cultures, but Povolotsky depicts it in such an emotionally reserved manner, it
will freeze out the vast majority of viewers. Instead, the audience mostly
takes a slow cinema tour of the Balkar-speaking Russian boondocks. The film
thoroughly establishes the economic stagnation, environmental degradation,
infrastructure decay, and police corruption of provincial Russia. Of course,
most people over the age of twelve years-old not named Tucker Carlson were
already reasonably cognizant of this reality.
It
is really hard to understand who this film was programmed for, beyond a small circle
of Slow Cinema devotees. Povolotsky is admirably committed to immersing the
audience in the circumstances of the Daughter’s life, but his esthetic approach
is distancing, to put it diplomatically. However, it can safely be screened
without violating any institutional sanctions against Russia, post-Putin’s
invasion, because it was clearly produced far outside the state cinema establishment.