6/1/15 (Part Two): The Mournful Cry of the Lone Wolf

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absentee father, Adrian Garcia Bogliano, Alex de la Iglesia, auteur theory, blind, blind protagonist, Caitlin O'Heaney, cinema, Cold Sweat, Eric Stolze, Ernesto Herrera, Ethan Embry, father-son relationships, Film auteurs, film reviews, films, Here Comes the Devil, horror, horror movies, Karen Lynn Gorney, Karron Graves, Lance Guest, Larry Fessenden, Late Phases, Movies, Nick Damici, old folks home, Penumbra, practical effects, retirement communities, Robert Kurtzman, Rutanya Alda, The ABCs of Death, Tina Louise, Tom Noonan, Under the Bed, Vietnam vet, war veterans, werewolves, Wojciech Golczewski

In the modern world of cinematic monsters, werewolves sure do seem to get the short end of the stick. Sure, they may have factored into the mega-colossi that were the Twilight and Underworld franchises and they’ll never be able to take Lon Chaney, Jr. away from us but, to quote the parlance of the time, “What have they done for us lately?” Compared to peers like zombies, vampires and space aliens, there’s a notable shortage of lycanthrope films to choose from but, ironically, some of the best werewolf films have also been some of the best horror films, period: the aforementioned classic The Wolf Man (1941), An American Werewolf in London (1981), The Company of Wolves (1984), Ginger Snaps (2000) and Dog Soldiers (2002) are not only shining examples of tortured folk howling at the full moon but they also hold fairly esteemed ranks within the horror genre, as a whole.

While it’s been some time since I’ve seen a werewolf film that’s good enough to howl about from the rooftops, it looks like the dry-spell has finally been broken: not only is Spanish auteur Adrián García Bogliano’s Late Phases (2014) the best werewolf film to come out in over a decade, it’s also one of the very best horror films I’ve seen this year. While it’s tempting to say that I’m surprised, I’m really not: with a track record that includes such essential cinema as Cold Sweat (2010), Penumbra (2011) and Here Comes the Devil (2012), I fully expect any and all Bogliano films to kick major ass over and above their daily allotted allowances. Truth be told, I can’t think of a better filmmaker to tell the story of a legally blind Vietnam vet who goes to war with the werewolves terrorizing his seemingly serene retirement community. In the simplest way possible: Adrián García Bogliano has done it again.

The fearless, tough-as-nails protagonist of our little tale is Ambrose McKinley (the always amazing Nick Damici), the aforementioned blind war veteran who has just been moved into a retirement community by his disapproving, micro-managing son, Will (Ethan Embry). Ambrose is a difficult guy, no two ways about it: with a perma-scowl affixed to his face, Ambrose’s unseeing eyes seem to peer right through everyone he meets, cutting through any societal pleasantries and exposing the rest of us for the bullshit artists we really are. Call him the AARP Holden Caulfield, if you must, but for god’s sake, don’t do it to his face.

As Ambrose settles into his new home, he immediately meets some of his new neighbors: his next-door-neighbor, Delores (Karen Lynn Gorney), and the local “welcoming committee” of Emma (Caitlin O’Heaney), Gloria (Rutanya Alda) and Clarissa (Tina Louise), as well as local preacher Father Roger (genre vet Tom Noonan) and church benefactor James Griffin (Lance Guest). As befits his nature, Ambrose does absolutely nothing to curtail favor with anyone, leading Delores to view him with something approaching puppy-dog infatuation, while the others react in ways ranging from extreme amusement to extreme suspicion.

Practically before he’s completely unpacked, however, Ambrose finds himself knee-deep in a grisly mystery: as he listens, helplessly, from his room, he hears Delores being savagely attacked on the other side of the wall. The local authorities blame it on vicious dogs, saying that “old people make good targets” and should be more aware of their surroundings. Ambrose is the furthest thing from stupid, however, and none of this makes sense to him, especially after he finds himself under attack from the same monstrous creature that mutilated his neighbor. Once he discovers that these attacks seem to occur once a month, around the full moon, Ambrose launches into his own investigation, much to the dismay of his put-upon son.

As he pokes around the retirement community, Ambrose begins to uncover the threads of a larger conspiracy, one that may or may not include the community’s quiet, slyly watchful man of God. Despite being blind, however, Ambrose can actually “see” better than anyone around him: he’s also a pretty damn good shot, a fact which certainly comes in handy when you’re hunting monsters. Before it’s all over, Ambrose, armed with a sharpened shovel, more moxie than a mob of Eastwoods and a studied disdain for morons, will become a one-man army. He’d better move fast, however: there’s another full moon on the horizon and it’s bringing a very hairy, very hungry beast with it. As Ambrose knows all too well, you don’t come to places like the retirement home to live: you come to places like this to die.

For his English-language debut, Bogliano turns in his most streamlined effort to date: not surprisingly, Late Phases ends up being the best film (thus far) in an extremely impressive body-of-work. Gone are the occasionally tedious flourishes and unnecessary camera zooms of his previous effort, the otherwise excellent Here Comes the Devil. Bogliano also minimizes the darkly humorous elements of previous films like Penumbra and Cold Sweat, making Late Phases seem more like a serious cousin to Don Coscarelli’s Bubba Ho-Tep (2002) than the natural successor to his earlier works. Despite being his most straight forward film, however, Late Phases is a virtual embarrassment of riches, thanks in no small part to a great script, fantastic performances and some truly amazing werewolf effects, courtesy of legendary SFX guru Robert Kurtzman.

One notable difference between Late Phases and Bogliano’s previous films is that he relinquishes the pen here, handing writing duties over to Under the Bed’s (2012) Eric Stolze. At first, this change carried the most potential for disappointment: after all, Bogliano’s earlier films were tightly plotted and often rather ingenious, whereas Stolze’s prior genre effort was disjointed and, frequently, kind of a mess. As it turns out, however, I had very little to fear: short of one completely unnecessary and confusing red herring involving certain characters coughing, the script and plotting for Late Phases is air-tight and easily comparable to Bogliano’s scripts, albeit without his (usually) overt political sensibilities.

From a technical aspect, Late Phases looks and sounds great: frequent Bogliano cinematographer Ernesto Herrera turns in some beautifully autumnal imagery, even managing to imbue the film’s frequent gore with a lovely, burnished quality that makes the entire film feel almost impossibly lush. He does some truly great things with light and shadow, not least of which is the quietly powerful scene where Ambrose slowly moves backwards into darkness, his craggy features slowly subsumed by inky nothingness. The gorgeous imagery is handily tied together by Wojciech Golczewski’s understated score: each aspect helps to elevate the film past its simple indie horror roots, taking it into the territory of something like Jim Mickle’s classic Stake Land (2010).

One of the main issues with any creature feature, dating all the way back to the Universal originals, is the actual depiction of said creature. In many cases, monster movies are inherently disappointing because whatever promise is set up by the movie’s mythology is usually dashed once we actually get to see the creature: anyone who grew up on old horror flicks will be more than familiar with that reliable old game of “spot the zipper.” Not so here, in any way, shape or form: Late Phases’ lycanthropes are brought to roaring, terrifying life by SFX pioneer Kurtzman (if you’re a horror fan and aren’t familiar with KNB, you need a refresher course, stat) and they’re easily the equal of any werewolves that came before, including Rick Baker’s iconic American ex-pat wolf man. Equally important for werewolf films are the obligatory transformation scenes: as expected, Late Phases knocks this out of the park with one of the goopiest, most painful-looking transformations ever put to film. If you’re not gritting your teeth by the time our monster rips his own skin off, like a snug t-shirt, well…you have more iron in your blood than I do, neighbor.

As a werewolf/horror film, Late Phases meets and exceeds pretty much every requirement: what really sets the film into its own class, however, is the high-quality performances that ground everything, starting with the film’s protagonist, Ambrose. Quite simply, Nick Damici is one of the greatest, unsung treasures of our modern era and Bogliano uses him to spectacular effect here. Ambrose is easily the equal of Damici’s iconic Mister (from Stake Land) and ends up being one of the most effortlessly cool, kickass heroes since Eastwood lost his name and donned his serape. The concept of a blind protagonist always brings issues with it: in many cases, plot developments like this are usually just ways for filmmakers to shoehorn in gimmicks involving dark rooms, night-vision, what have you. In Late Phases, however, Bogliano and Stolze do the best thing possible: they just establish Ambrose and then let Damici sell us on the character. In the best example of “show don’t tell” I’ve seen in years, he does just that. If there were any justice, Nick Damici would be a household name along the lines of Jason Statham or Scott Glenn.

Ably supporting Damici are a handful of some of the most accomplished character actors currently treading the cinematic boards: indie MVP Larry Fessenden has some nice scenes as a slightly bemused headstone salesman; Ethan Embry does great work as Ambrose’s son, with some genuinely touching moments between the two; Tom Noonan gets to don a priest’s collar, again, and his performance is his typically assured combo of quietly reptilian intelligence and paternal concern; and, of course, genre fans should recognize Lance Guest from more things than they can shake a stick at, including Halloween II (1981), The Last Starfighter (1984) and any number of ’80s and ’90s-era TV shows. We also get the phenomenal tag-team of Tina Louise (Ginger from Giligan’s Island), Rutanya Alda and Caitlin O’Heaney (who also appeared in the ’80s-era cult classic Wolfen (1981): between these three actresses, you’ve got more amazing horror and genre history than most films have in their entire casts.

Ultimately, there’s one big thing that separates Bogliano’s Late Phases from any number of pretenders: genuine passion. At no point in the proceedings is there ever the notion of “phoning it in” or “making do.” Unlike Álex de la Iglesia’s severely disappointing English-language-debut, The Oxford Murders (2008),  Bogliano’s film feels like it belongs squarely in his canon: it’s a natural progression from what came before, not a watered-down reminder of what worked better in the native tongue. At this rate, Adrián García Bogliano is quickly establishing himself as one of modern horror cinema’s foremost artists: with another potential masterpiece, Scherzo Diabolico (2015), on the horizon, I have a feeling we’re going to be seeing a lot more of Bogliano in the future. I, for one, can’t wait.

2/22/15: Growing Up, Moving On

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2014 Academy Awards, 87th Annual Academy Awards, absentee father, abusive relationships, Andrew Villarreal, Barbara Chisholm, Best Director nominee, Best Film Editing nominee, Best Original Screenplay nominee, Best Picture nominee, Best Supporting Actor nominee, Best Supporting Actress winner, Boyhood, Brad Hawkins, brother-sister relationships, Cambell Westmoreland, Cassidy Johnson, Charlie Sexton, cinema, coming of age, divorced parents, dramas, dysfunctional family, Elijah Smith, Ellar Coltrane, Ethan Hawke, father-son relationships, film reviews, films, Jamie Howard, Jenni Tooley, Jessi Mechler, Libby Villari, Lorelei Linklater, Marco Perella, mother-son relationships, Movies, multiple award nominee, Patricia Arquette, relationship, Richard Linklater, single mother, Sinjin Venegas, Steven Prince, Tom McTigue, Zoe Graham

From the outside, indie film wunderkind Richard Linklater’s Boyhood (2014) seems like a pretty impossible endeavor: filmed over the course of 12 years with the same cast, the film purports to follow young Mason (Ellar Coltrane) from his childhood all the way to his 18th birthday, as he leaves for college. Along the way, we get to witness Mason (and his family) growing up before our very eyes, the passage of time marked by such, real-world indicators as growing taller, sprouting facial hair or any of the endless ways in which children become adults. It’s an impressive bit of filmcraft, no two ways about it, the kind of thing that would, no doubt, earn an appreciative thumbs-up from an experimental filmmaker like Terrence Malick. While the final result ends up being no different from a thousand other coming of age tales, it does nothing to take away from Linklater’s achievement: as the press states, there really hasn’t been another film like this and it’s doubtful there will be another quite like it in the future.

Structured in a loosely chronological manner, albeit one devoid of any easy time demarcations (there are no “Two years later” notes, time/date indicators or anything so obvious, although the use of pop music and culture helps to ground the film’s time-frame in a thoroughly organic manner), we follow young Mason, his slightly older sister, Samantha (Lorelei Linklater), his single mother, Liv (Patricia Arquette) and his absentee father, Mason Senior (Ethan Hawke), as they all go about the process of living their lives. Samantha begins as a shrill, obnoxious kid and grows into a smart, droll and laid-back young woman. We watch Liv’s journey as she progresses from divorced, single mother to new college student and, later, college professor: along the way, she bounces from one bad, abusive relationship to the next, first with her alcoholic professor/husband, Bill (Marco Perella), later with a damaged, former soldier (Brad Hawkins). We see how Mason Senior moves from an aimless, perpetually restless, politically-active roustabout to a centered, responsible fellow with a new family and a desire to get it all right, at least the second time around.

The majority of our focus, of course, is reserved for the film’s subject, young Mason. We follow him through all the vagaries of childhood: first love, schoolyard bullies, family problems, sibling rivalries, making (and losing) friends, developing his own interests and viewpoints (albeit with more than a little influence from his father’s fiery rhetoric) and, finally, leaving the nest to strike out into the world and make his own mark. Through it all, Coltrane proves to be a more than capable actor, as comfortable with the film’s bigger emotional beats (the abusive home situation) as he is with the subtler ones (the scene where he hangs out in an abandoned house with older boys and talks about girls, for one). It’s to Coltrane’s great credit that the young performer always feels authentic: there’s an inherent danger with child actors that they’ll come across as stiff or unrealistic but that’s never a problem here.

To be honest, aside from the over-familiarity of the film, there’s very little to complain about here. The acting is uniformly solid, even if none of the performances really distinguish themselves from the others: while Arquette won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her performance here, all of the acting is similarly realistic…there were no real standouts, at least from my perspective. The film looks great, with some nice, vibrant colors and the sound design is quite exceptional: the film is very music-oriented (as is much of Linklater’s output) and the use of pop music to establish the time-frame is nicely realized.

Personally, I’ve never been the biggest Linklater fan: I’ve always found Slacker (1991) to be thoroughly underwhelming and Dazed and Confused (1993) has always placed well behind Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982) in my personal playbook. To be honest, my favorite Linklater film is actually Bernie (2011), which is probably the least representative film in his canon. My major issue has always been that his films seem more content to keep up a constant verbal barrage than to actually mean anything: it’s always come across as a ridiculously pompous combination of Kevin Smith and John Cassavetes, at least to my non-discerning ears. While Boyhood is less guilty of this than past films, there’s still plenty of wheel-spinning, especially once we get to Mason’s numerous “philosophical” discussions with girlfriend Sheena (Zoe Graham).

Ultimately, I enjoyed Boyhood, although I certainly wouldn’t rank it as one of the best films of 2014: minus the “twelve years” gimmick, there really wasn’t anything here that I hadn’t seen before, certainly no great “insights” into growing up. In many ways, this was very much a basic coming-of-age film with a slightly glossier top-coat. I was also rather unhappy that Arquette’s character, essentially, was summed up by her various bad relationship choices: it seems slightly mean-spirited that the film allows her to progress from single mother to student to college professor, only for her to keep making the exact same relationship mistakes at each and every turn. It’s almost as if the film is saying that no matter how much Liv progresses, learns or grows, she’s still just a woman who needs a guy in order to feel complete…and can’t even pick a “good” one, to boot. Her final breakdown seems even more reductive, in this light, as if her entire life is defined by others, whether husbands, boyfriends or her own kids.

There’s a lot to like here, without a doubt: very rarely has a family/relationship drama felt this realistic and the actors all have tremendous chemistry together. At the end of the day, however, Boyhood is not appreciably better (or more insightful) than any number of similar films: at the end of the day, I have to wonder…was it worth the twelve years?

12/31/14 (Part Three): Bless Me Father, For You Have Sinned

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absentee father, Aidan Gillen, Best of 2014, Brendan Gleeson, Calvary, Catholic church, child molestation, Chris O'Dowd, Church sex scandal, cinema, dark comedies, David McSavage, David Wilmot, Domhnall Gleeson, dramas, Dylan Moran, estranged family, father-daughter relationships, favorite films, film reviews, films, foreign films, forgiveness, Gary Lydon, Irish films, Isaach de Bankole, John Michael McDonagh, Kelly Reilly, Killian Scott, Larry Smith, M. Emmet Walsh, Marie-Josee Croze, Movies, New World in the Morning, Orla O'Rourke, Owen Sharpe, Pat Shortt, Patrick Cassidy, revenge, Roger Whittaker, secrets, set in Ireland, sins of the fathers, small town life, The Guard, writer-director

In a small, dim confessional, Father James (Brendan Gleeson) is calmly told by one of his parishioners that he is to be “sacrificed” the following Sunday, made to die for the sexual abuse that the unknown man suffered at the hands of another priest when he was a boy. The offending priest has since died but the man isn’t interested in making a “bad” priest pay: he wants Father James, a “good” priest, to take a bullet, since the Church will feel his loss harder. “Nothing to say, Father?,” the mysterious man asks, when he’s finished passing his judgment. “I’m sure I’ll think of something in a week,” Father James sardonically replies.

The week leading up to that fateful Sunday forms the crux of Irish auteur John Michael McDonagh’s amazing Calvary (2014), the stunning follow-up to his masterful debut, The Guard (2011). During that time, Father James will reflect on his own life, his failings, his victories and his faith. He’ll spend the time wandering about his tiny, coastal town, making small-talk with the parishioners, these “friends” and neighbors who secretly wish him dead, despite their smiles and condescending good natures: after all, he immediately knows who the wannabe assassin is, even if we don’t…in a town that small, everyone knows everyone else, regardless of the supposed “anonymity” of the confessional window. Despite his knowledge, however, Father James will go through the motions, investigating each “lead” as if it were a Holmes-worthy clue, biding his time until that inevitable, fateful meeting on the beach. Despite his own innocence, Father James is more than willing to become a victim, a sacrificial goat, if that’s what his town needs to heal…to keep on with the drudgery of life under the age-old grip of the Church, Ireland’s bloody past and its uncertain future.

From the jump, McDonagh’s Calvary grabs a hold of you and never lets go: from the great opening quote, by St. Augustine, to the haunting, empty Irish landscape shots that play over the final credits, this is a film that is so exquisitely crafted that it’s almost a Swiss clock. There’s an overarching sadness to the film, a sense of fate and inevitability that cuts across any of the film’s many joyful moments (there are plenty) and underlines all of its most dramatic ones (likewise, plenty). Truth be told, Calvary is one of the saddest films I’ve ever seen, although its sorrow is a mechanical heart, beating deep within the film’s chest and nearly invisible to the naked eye.

There’s a lot going on in Calvary, although McDonagh’s excellent script manages to make everything fit, even if it doesn’t always tie it all together with a big, red bow: the estranged relationship between Father James and his grown daughter, Fiona (Kelly Reilly)…the way in which the entitlement of the upper-class continues to determine the fate of the poor working stiff, as embodied by Dylan Moran’s boozy lord, Michael Fitzgerald…the way in which the terrible economy and bad housing market have conspired to marginalize the middle class nearly to the point of extinction…the importance of forgiveness in a world that would rather focus on punishment…the way in which the Catholic church’s priest sex scandals continue to influence and change the complex relationship between the clergy and the common people, slowly turning blind devotion into something more closely resembling abject hatred…the necessity of sacrifice as a form of healing…despite this wealth of themes and big ideas, Calvary never feels weighted down or overly preachy (no pun intended).

One of the things that helps Calvary stay afloat when other films might have sunk under this much ambition is the way in which McDonagh subtly uses humor (sometimes bright and laugh-out-loud funny, other times so dark and mean-spirited as to be practically unrecognizable as such) as a means of guiding us through the dark. As previously mentioned, Calvary is an intensely sad, unrelenting film: the characters that haunt its halls are such twisted, wretched, damaged individuals that this streak of gallows’-humor is an absolute necessity. When one character melodramatically describes how his “whole life has been an affectation,” Father James quietly responds that “that’s one of those lines that sounds good but doesn’t make much sense.” We need to know that Father James is keeping his chin up and taking it all in stride because, otherwise, we would never be able to take this journey with him. At one point, Freddie (Domhnall Gleeson), one of James’ former students who’s now locked up for killing and cannibalizing a young girl, plaintively asks the priest: “God has to understand me because he made me, right?” After a beat, Father James replies, “If God can’t understand you, no one can.” The dark streak of humor functions in the same way, reassuring us that things in Father James’ world are never quite as grim as they seem to be, even when our heart tells us that they’re actually much worse.

As with The Guard, McDonagh populates his film with a host of impressively individualistic characters: stellar actors like Dylan Moran (of Black Books fame), Chris O’Dowd, David Wilmot, Aidan Gillen, Gary Lydon and even good, old M. Emmet Walsh (looking positively ancient but sounding just as great as ever) all show up and help weave the intricately intertwined tapestry that forms the fabric of the film. Kelly Reilly does some great work as James’ estranged daughter and I must admit to rather loving Killian Scot’s ridiculously over-the-top performance as Inspector Stanton’s gay, tough-guy lover: it’s a blustery, obnoxious performance with just enough underlying sadness and vulnerability to sell the whole thing, part and parcel.

Towering over everything like some sort of enormous, cassock-clad, bearded Colossus of Rhodes, however, is Brendan Gleeson. Easily one of the best actors working in film today, Gleeson seems to spit out amazing performances like this in his sleep: he’s like the male, Irish Meryl Streep, completely incapable of phoning anything in or giving any less than 1000%. Gleeson isn’t acting: he IS Father James, from head to foot, inhabiting the character so completely that any notion of mimicry goes out the window. There’s not one moment in Gleeson’s performance, one single iota, that ever hits as anything less than completely authentic and genuine. It’s a heartbreaking performance for a number of reasons but the main two are pretty simple: Father James seems like a genuinely nice person and Gleeson brings him to life in a way that makes us know and feel for him. We don’t need to take a side, one way or the other, to feel the tremendous tragedy, the complete unfairness of Father James’ fate: Gleeson makes us feel it because we don’t have a choice.

Craft-wise, Calvary looks and sounds amazing: cinematographer Larry Smith, who also shot Nicholas Winding Refn’s Bronson (2008) and Only God Forgives (2013), turns the emerald greens and azure blues of the Irish countryside into one of the film’s main characters. There’s an impressive sense of space and isolation that perfectly meshes with Father James’ own “man without a country” status in the town and some of the sweeping vistas are so gorgeous that they resemble something out of a travel program. The score and sound design are also expertly realized: one of my very favorite scenes, ever, has to be the one where Father James prepares to leave town, set to the tune of Roger Whittaker’s soaring “New World in the Morning.” The scene is such a perfect synthesis of song and visual, so emotionally wonderful, that it, literally, took my breath away…even thinking back on it now, I find myself getting a little emotional, which is surely the mark of an indelible moment.

All in all, Calvary stands as yet another absolute home-run for McDonagh, a filmmaker who has quickly established himself as one of the most formidable around. Truth be told, I still find it hard to believe that this is only his second film: quality like this should be the result of a lifetime spend honing one’s craft, not the span of four or five short years. From beginning to end, Calvary is a nearly flawless character study and one of the very finest films of this year (or many others, for that matter). For anyone lamenting the lack of quality, “adult” entertainment, look no further than Calvary: it just doesn’t get much better than this, folks.

12/18/14: My Son, My Son…What Have Ye Done?

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absentee father, auteur theory, bad mustaches, based on a book, Brogan Hall, children in peril, cinema, co-writers, Cold in July, conspiracies, crime thriller, Don Johnson, drama, father-son relationships, Film auteurs, film reviews, films, Jim Mickle, Joe R. Lansdale, Lanny Flaherty, Michael C. Hall, Movies, Mulberry St., Nick Damici, revenge, Sam Shepard, self-defense, set in the 1980's, snuff films, Stake Land, video stores, Vinessa Shaw, We Are What We Are, writer-director-editor, Wyatt Russell

Expectations can be funny things. Before I sat down to watch writer-director Jim Mickle’s new film, Cold in July (2014), I was all but positive that it would be one of the year’s best films, hands down. After all, I’ve been a hardcore fan of Mickle and writing-partner Nick Damici ever since their exceptional debut, Mulberry St. (2006): over the course of three full-lengths, they’d yet to let me down once. In my mind, there was no way this could go wrong, even if it was the first explicitly non-horror related film for the pair. As luck would have it, however, I didn’t even really end up liking the film until roughly the midpoint and, despite a rousing finale, felt soundly disappointed by the time the end credits rolled. What, exactly, happened here? Let’s see if we can get to the bottom of it, shall we?

Cold in July, based on the novel of the same name by cult author Joe R. Lansdale, concerns itself with the aftermath of a home shooting. Specifically, nebbishy frame-store owner Richard Dane (Dexter’s Michael C. Hall) and his wife, Ann (Vinessa Shaw), are woken late one night by the sound of an intruder in their home. With his young son, Jordan (Brogan Hall) sleeping in another room, Rich springs into defense mode, even if his hands are shakier than a drunk at an open bar: he grabs his gun, heads downstairs and ends up face to face with a masked burglar. As the tense, silent stand-off stretches into minutes, the sudden shock of a clock going off blows Rich’s cool and causes him to blow a fist-sized hole in the intruder’s eye: exit one “bad guy,” enter one “reluctant hero.”

Since Rich killed the intruder in self-defense (despite the fact that the burglar was only armed with a flashlight), local sheriff Ray Price (co-writer Damici) tells him that he doesn’t have anything to worry about: just another low-life taken off the streets, do not pass Go, do not collect $200. According to the sheriff, the dead guy was a career criminal by the name of Freddy Russell: with his record, the sheriff figures Rich did the county a favor. When pressed about possible surviving relatives, the sheriff mentions that Freddy had a deadbeat father, Ben (Sam Shepard), who’s currently doing hard time in prison. Or he was, that is, until just recently: he’s been paroled. Cue the ominous music…cue Rich’s panicked eyes.

Faster than you can “trope,” Ben shows up in town with an intent that seems pretty crystal clear: he wants vengeance for the death of his only boy, even if he hadn’t seen him for at least a decade. Rich has a boy of his own, which Ben sees as a pretty fair trade for his own dead kid. When Rich goes to the sheriff, however, he’s met with the standard response: we can’t do anything until he actually does something. This, of course, isn’t quite what Rich wanted to hear: he knows that it’s only a matter of time before Ben makes his move and it’s scaring the living shit out of him.

Just when it seems as if the film is headed in a pretty obvious, revenge-based direction, ala Blue Ruin (2013), however, a huge twist throws everything on its ear and ends up resetting the various relationships. I wouldn’t dream of spoiling the twist, although the film ends up treating it like a bigger mystery than it actually is (think more Hardy Boys than Chinatown (1974)). Needless to say, Rich and Ben find themselves on the same side, albeit reluctantly, as they face down what seems to be a very odd conspiracy. With the help of Ben’s old war buddy, private eye Jim Bob Luke (Don Johnson), they may just have a shot at getting to the bottom of it all…or they may just die trying.

Up until the twist that turns the film in a completely different direction, I was extremely lukewarm on Cold in July. While the film looks amazing (the blue color scheme really drives home the film’s noir elements), there’s just something distinctly off about the first half. I definitely lay part of the blame on Hall, who never seems to inhabit his character in any realistic way but comes across as particularly awkward during the first 40 minutes or so: maybe it’s the weird accent that he’s trying or that ridiculous mustache that he’s saddled with but it always seems like Hall’s trying to keep character while dealing with some sort of constant technical difficulty. I’ll admit to not being as familiar with his work as others (I’ve seen some episodes of Dexter but have never seen Six Feet Under) but I always like what I saw: here, however, he just seems uncomfortable.

The beginning of the film is also so straight-forward as to be rather dull: it hits every single beat of the standard “sinister person hanging around and waiting to cause trouble” scenario and does nothing new with it whatsoever. To make matters worse, Vinessa Shaw’s portrayal of Ann is so aggressive and angry that it really throws the film for a tonal loop: as the couple are supposed to be worrying about a possible case of retribution, Ann is fixated on getting a new sofa and yells at Rich for seeming to take too much interest in the other situation…you know, the one that involves someone trying to kill them? Suffice to say that it was pretty impossible for me to suspend disbelief for the first reel, at least, of the film.

Once that twist gets introduced, however, the film sort of morphs into a gritty, ’80s-styled action film and the pulpy thrills are pretty undeniable. Finally, at this point, we end up getting some of that trademark Mickle/Damici insanity, including a real showstopper of a scene that manages to combine The Evil Dead (1981) and Natural Born Killers (1994) into one pretty (red-tinted-package). The final 30 minutes or so of the film are pretty much one big gunfight and I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t thrilling as all get out. There’s also a really nice, genuinely emotional resolution to the main conflict that reminded me of classic Mickle films like Stake Land (2010): the film takes a long time to get there, mind you, but the payoff is nicely realized.

For my money, aside from the outstanding production values, there’s really only two reasons to see Cold in July: Sam Shepard and Don Johnson. Shepard is duly great as Ben, a genuinely scary individual who ends up being a lot more like Rich, by the end, than any of us could have thought possible. Shepard is so understated, yet epically powerful, that we buy him part and parcel as an unstoppable asskicker: the scene where he teaches the obnoxious local mailman (Lanny Flaherty) to be polite is a real fist-raiser, as is his transformation into a virtual Angel of Death by the finale. The real star of the show, however, is Don Johnson. Not only does he steal each and every scene he’s in but he’s one of my favorite characters in years: most of the good will the film built up with me was pretty much wholly down to Johnson’s performance. He’s funny, sweet, smart, ruthless and all-around awesome: Johnson hasn’t been this charismatic since the good old days and this should stand as proof that we need a lot more of him in the movies…let’s let the Don Johnson career resurgence start here!

Ultimately, it was hard for me to leave Cold in July without the nagging suspicion that this was all a sort of film exercise, similar to Gus van Sant’s shot-for-shot remake of Psycho (1998). In this case, it often felt to me as if Mickle and Damici were attempting to replicate uncompromising, hard-edged and mean ’80s action films like The Evil That Men Do (1984) and Kinjite (1989): everything from the cinematography to the Carpenter-esque synth score to the snuff porn storyline seemed to point backwards towards these kinds of films, especially once we get to the action-packed climax. This impression is also driven home by the fact that the film is set in 1989 and prominently features video stores and VHS tapes: with all of the ’80s hints, it was kind of impossible for my mind to not get stuck in that particular decade. This could, of course, only be my reading of the film but it was an impression that never left me for nearly two hours, so I have a feeling my intuition might be on to something.

For the record, lest my words seem a bit too critical, Cold in July is not a bad film: to be honest, I’m not really sure that Mickle and Damici can make a bad film. It’s extremely well-made, features great performances from Johnson and Shepard and has some truly stellar action set-pieces. It’s also, without a doubt, a much lesser film than either Stake Land or its follow-up, Mickle and Damici’s remake of We Are What We Are (2013). As someone who pretty much worships the ground the duo walk on, I couldn’t help but be let down by a film that’s better than a lot of current movies but so much emptier than what they’ve done in the past. Needless to say, however, I’ll keep watching whatever they put out as long as they keep putting it out: despite the disappointment of Cold in July, Jim Mickle and Nick Damici are one of the most formidable teams in the business. My intuition tells me the next one is gonna be legendary.

12/15/14 (Part Two): In the Kingdom of the Crow

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absentee father, bad schools, Best of 2014, Brandon Oakes, Canadian films, cinema, Cody Bird, coming of age, crooked government officials, death of a child, dramas, drug dealers, dysfunctional family, father-daughter relationships, favorite films, feature-film debut, film reviews, films, ghosts, Glen Gould, heist films, Indian agents, Indian Residential School, Jeff Barnaby, Kawennáhere Devery Jacobs, Mark Antony Krupa, Michel St. Martin, mother-daughter relationships, Movies, Nathan Alexis, Native Americans, Red Crow Indian Reservation, Rhymes For Young Ghouls, Roseanne Supernault, set in Canada, set in the 1970s, stolen money, strong female character, suicide, the Mi'kmaq, truancy officer, writer-director-editor

Every once in a while, a film comes completely out of nowhere and knocks me on my ass like a ghost train ripping through grand-pa’s house. It could be something I’ve never heard of, something that I’m not expecting to like or something that just completely blew away my expectations. While this has already been a pretty great year for film (compiling my Best of…lists has been harder than ever), leave it to one of the underdogs to sneak up and slap the complacency right off my stupid face. In this case, I’m talking about writer-director Jeff Barnaby’s feature-debut, the instantly classic Rhymes For Young Ghouls (2014). Only time will tell but, once the dust has settled, this may very well end up being in my Top Five of the year. Hell…it might even end up leading the parade.

Beginning in 1969 before jumping forward seven years, we find ourselves on the Red Crow Indian Reservation, in Canada. We first meet our hero, Aila, as a young girl (played by Miika Whiskeyjack). While her family life may not be the most conventional (her parents, Joseph (Glen Gould) and Anna (Roseanne Supernault), grow and sell marijuana with the help of Aila’s uncle, Burner (Brandon Oakes)), they seem like a loving family. After a night of drinking leads to a terrible tragedy, however, Aila’s life is torn asunder: with her brother dead, her father in prison and her mother a suicide victim, the poor girl’s life seems over before it begins.

Or it would, if Aila wasn’t such a completely kick-ass, resilient person. When we meet her seven years later, at the ripe-old age of 16 (played by the absolutely amazing Kawennahere Devery Jacobs), Aila is now running the grow operation on her own, with the able assistance of Burner and her friends, Sholo (Cody Bird) and Angus (Nathan Alexis). Completely self-assured and wise beyond her years, Aila is the glue that holds everything together, especially since her uncle is such a pothead wastoid. She’s a problem solver, a no-nonsense adult trapped in a teen’s body and she’s always quite the sight whenever she’s wearing her gas-mask and rolling her specialty blunts.

Along with running the operation, Aila and the others must also be wary of the odious, corrupt and infinitely shit-headed Indian agent, Popper (Mark Antony Krupa), who actually went to Catholic school with her now-imprisoned father. Popper runs the local “Indian Residential School,” a terrible place that’s more prison than educational establishment and where the kids are beaten and placed in solitary confinement at regular intervals. As we’re told at the beginning of the film, all Native American children between the ages of 5 and 16 are required to go to the school: truant officers (such as Popper) are authorized to use “whatever force is necessary” to get wayward kids back to school, including beating them senseless. The truant officers are also able to arrest, without warrant, any guardians who don’t make sure their kids go to school.

There’s always a loophole, however, especially when government officials are as evil and corrupt as the Indian agents: for a regular fee (a “truancy tax”), the truant officers will look the other way, allowing any kids who can pay the opportunity to run free. Thanks to her successful grow operation, Alia has always had plenty of money to pay the “taxes” for her and the others. When they end up losing all of their money in a trumped-up raid by Popper and his men, however, Alia is now facing the terrifying prospect of losing her freedom and individuality, all in one fell swoop. Things get even more chaotic when her father is finally released from prison and returns home, intent on being the father that he couldn’t be before. As he surveys the mass of drunk, stoned people crashing all over their house, however, the disappointment in Joseph’s voice is unmistakable: “How long has this been going on?,” he asks Alia. “About seven years,” she snaps back and the point is clear: if “dad” is expecting a Hallmark-style reunion, he better lose elsewhere.

With a host of outside forces closing in on her, Alia also must deal with her increasing nightmares, nightmares which feature her mother as a rotting zombie: since suicides are buried without grave markers, her mother is now “nameless” and stuck between the world of the dead and the world of the living. Facing pressure from all sides, Alia must do everything she can to avoid cracking and preserve the unity of her family. Popper won’t make any of it easy, however, which is just fine by her: as Alia learned long ago, sometimes the only thing you can do is put your head and charge forward, victory be damned. In the Kingdom of the Crow, no one is safe…least of all, the young.

Watching the film, I was frequently reminded of another showstopping dark-horse, Debra Granik’s stunning Winter’s Bone (2010), the film that first introduced the world to Jennifer Lawrence. Fitting, in a way, since Rhymes For Young Ghouls should serve to introduce us to yet another amazing young actor: Kawennahere Devery Jacobs. I don’t have praise enough for her performance but will say that I was completely and absolutely blown-away by her. If she’s not a huge star in 5 years or so, I’ll buy a haberdashery and eat every damn hat in the place.

Part of the sheer joy of the film is how completely unpredictable it is, so I’ll say as little about specifics as possible. Suffice to say that Barnaby’s killer script manages to seamlessly work in a heist subplot, as well as a beautifully-realized moment where Alia’s “grandmother” tells her a story and we see it visualized in a graphic-novel style. The film is in constant motion and is endlessly inventive, never dull or tedious. There’s also no sense of being force-fed emotional pabulum: the film deals with some very big issues (the stability of families; children caring for their parents; the suicide of a parent; institutionalized racism; class-warfare; traditional Native American ways versus the “modern world;” children working…it goes on and on, to be honest. Rhymes For Young Ghouls is one of the few films I’ve seen lately that actually feels important: these are issues that folks should be discussing and Barnaby’s film doesn’t shy from any of them.

From a filmmaking standpoint, Rhymes For Young Ghouls is nothing short of astounding. In fact, I daresay that a handful of sequences reminded me of nothing less than some of Scorcese’s best work: the opening slo-mo raid, in particular, was so fabulously “Scorcese” that I’m pretty sure I squealed in joy. There’s a synthesis of music and image that’s both flawless and extremely effective: one of the best, most subtle moments is the one where an angelic choir underscores a decidedly devious scene. Barnaby also traffics in a kind of magical-realism that can be pretty head-spinning: there were at least a few points in the film where I questioned the reality of what was happening, thanks to a combination of tricky camera-work and forced perspectives. Even divorced from its amazing cast and excellent script, Rhymes For Young Ghouls is one of the best looking, most well-realized film I’ve seen in ages.

At this point, all I can realistically continue to do is praise the film endlessly, so let me wrap it up thusly: Rhymes For Young Ghouls is a nearly perfect film, one that I absolutely can’t get out of my head after seeing it. While there are a handful of very minor issues spread throughout the film, overall, I absolutely adored it. This, as far as I’m concerned, is the reason we should all keep going to the movies and supporting strong, individualistic filmmakers. It’s almost impossible for me to believe that this is Barnaby’s debut, since it’s so self-assured and impressive. There’s not much time left in this year and I still have quite a few films to see but, if you’re a betting person, I’d wager money that you’ll see Rhymes For Young Ghouls on top of at least one of my lists. Watch the movie and I’m willing to bet that it’ll top your lists, too.

11/10/14: Never Mind the Bollocks…Here’s Dom!

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A Clockwork Orange, absentee father, bad decisions, bad fathers, best films of 2014, black comedies, British films, cinema, Clockwork Orange, colorful films, crime film, dark comedies, Demian Bichir, doing time, Dom Hemingway, Emilia Clarke, England, estranged family, father-daughter relationships, favorite films, film reviews, films, foreign films, Giles Nuttgens, Guy Ritchie, hedonism, Jude Law, Jumayn Hunter, Kerry Condon, Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Madalina Ghenea, Movies, Richard E. Grant, Richard Shepard, Rolfe Kent, safe-crackers, stylish films, UK films, voice-over narration, writer-director

When we first meet the ubiquitous Dom Hemingway (Jude Law), he’s framed from the waist up, delivering a lusty monologue about the incredible power of his “manhood,” all while getting serviced inside a stark prison cell. As Dom celebrates his “personal victory,” as it were, he gets the call that he’s being released: onscreen text handily informs us that “12 years is a long time” before we witness him sauntering freely down the street like the biggest badass in the Western hemisphere, all on his way to beat his ex-wife’s new boyfriend senseless. And with that, ladies and gentlemen, we’re off to the races.

And what a magnificent sprint writer-director Richard Shepard’s Dom Hemingway (2013) ends up being, a ridiculously bright, vibrant, colorful and alive film that comes across like an ungodly combination of A Clockwork Orange (1971) and Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels (1998). Endlessly inventive, flashy, beautifully shot and with a heart as coal-black as the night sky, Dom Hemingway is a modest marvel anchored by the impossibly feral, brilliant performance of Jude Law, a portrayal so white-hot and intense that Law absolutely deserves the Oscar nomination that he will undoubtedly be denied this year. Make no bones about it: Dom Hemingway is rude, crude, nasty and guaranteed to offend as many folks as humanly possible. It’s also (barring a slightly soggy third act), one of the single most essential films of the year and easily one of my favorites, thus far.

Dom is a man out of step with the modern world, a meat-eating, whiskey-swilling, walking hard-on, a Cro-Magnon throwback to the days when fighting, fucking and raising a ruckus were the calling-cards of the “alpha male.” He’s just done twelve years of hard time for a crime-boss, Mr. Fontaine (Demian Bichir), keeping his mouth shut the whole time like the good soldier he is. Problem is, Dom has “anger issues” and his steadfast refusal to spill his guts has more to do with lording it over Fontaine than it does with any real sense of loyalty: Dom always is and always will be loyal to but one guy and that’s the jackass in the bathroom mirror. Once he’s free and clear, Dom lays into Fontaine in a truly jaw-dropping display of “biting the hand that feeds you,” calling into question everything from his boss’ management skills to his masculinity, culminating with the jaw-dropping demand that Fontaine offer up his stunning girlfriend, Paolina (Madalina Ghenea), “with a bow on,” as payment for his silence.

Attempting to keep Dom in some semblance of control is his best friend/whipping boy Dickie (Richard E. Grant), a one-handed stooge who’s constantly between the rock and a hard place of Fontaine’s reptilian power and Dom’s raging id.  He’s the closest thing Dom has to a “friend,” which is roughly equivalent to the wolf chatting up the lamb prior to digging in to some good old shank. Dickie is fighting a losing battle, however, and when a night of drunken debauchery ends in abject disaster, Dom is sent scuttling back to the one person he hoped to avoid: his estranged daughter, Evelyn (Emilia Clark).

After abandoning Evelyn and her mother to do his prison term, Dom has been persona non grata to his grown daughter, who’s currently living with a large Senegalese family and working as a night-club singer. While he licks his wounds and plots his next move, Dom decides to try to reintegrate himself back into his daughter’s life, with predictable results: she’s managed to make it for twelve years without him and she’s perfectly happy to make it another twelve years without talking to him, thank you very much. Dom is nothing if not persistent, however, and he’s now in the enviable position of having nothing to lose, especially when he ends up on the wrong side of a youthful crime lord, Lestor Jr. (Jumayn Hunter), who still holds a grudge from the time Dom killed his childhood pet. Will Dom be able to tear into fatherhood with the same passion that he has for his vices or is this one caveman who’s well-past his expiration date?

Until the aforementioned third act, Shepard’s Dom Hemingway is damn near a perfect film: uncompromising, dazzling, joyously vulgar and exquisitely cast, I found myself with a big, stupid grin pasted to my dumb mug for the better part of an hour. It’s a film that absolutely reminded me of Guy Ritchie’s best work, with the added benefit of being a mighty fine character portrait. While Law is absolutely marvelous (more on that later), the film is stuffed to bursting with memorable characters. Richard Grant’s Dickie is a great foil for Dom and gets some of the film’s best lines, no mean feat when the script is so consistently sharp. Jumayn Hunter, meanwhile, is a complete blast as the dapper, fundamentally childish Lestor, a man-boy who’s been thrust into leadership of one of England’s largest criminal enterprises while still basing life-or-death decisions on his long-dead cat. Emilia Clarke, for her part, is a fiery presence as the estranged Evelyn: there’s a real authenticity to her scenes with Law that finds a perfect balance between long-held disappointment and anger and her inherent need to seek (however unconsciously) her father’s approval.

The real star of the show, however, above and beyond anyone else, is undoubtedly Jude Law. With a performance that’s a blast furnace of raw emotion, Law is never anything less than spell-binding: until the very end (and even that’s sort of a toss-up), Dom is an intensely unlikable individual, with so few redeeming qualities as to be one pencil-thin-mustache twirl from a complete cad. Just like that other great British bad boy, Alex, however, it’s impossible to tear your eyes from Dom whenever he’s on-screen, which is pretty much the entirety of the film. Truth be told, the only complaint/criticism that I can find regarding his performance is the unfortunate tendency for his big emotional scenes to come across as a bit leaden: even this isn’t necessarily a deal-breaker, although it does turn the film into a bit of a rollercoaster as it roars through the first two acts, hits the brakes for the third as it chugs up the incline and then speeds through to a truly bravura finale that manages to match the opening in terms of sheer energy.

It’s long been said that actors have a better time playing bad guys and, if Dom Hemingway is any indication, that certainly seems to be true. Jude Law seems to be having such a great time snarling and flipping the world the bird that it becomes completely infectious: by the time the end credits roll, you might not agree with Dom but you sure as hell won’t forget him. Vibrant, utterly alive and completely show-stopping, Law’s performance as Dom Hemingway is a vivid reminder of why he’s a genuine movie star. For my money, Law’s performance as Dom is one of the very best of the entire year: fitting, of course, since Dom Hemingway is one of the year’s very best films. Take a walk on the wild side and spend a little time with a genuine scalawag: he’s not the kind of guy you want to invite home for dinner but he’s exactly the right kind of fellow to spend 90 minutes with at the multiplex. Utterly essential.

9/7/14: Anywhere But Here

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absentee father, Amanda Anka, Benicio del Toro, boredom, Chris Pontius, cinema, coming of age, divorced parents, dramas, electronic score, Elle Fanning, ennui, film reviews, films, Harris Savides, Hollywood actors, independent film, indie dramas, living in a hotel, Lost in Translation, Movies, parent-child relationships, Phoenix, Sofia Coppola, Somewhere, Stephen Dorff, The Virgin Suicides, writer-director

If there’s one big take-away we can get from Sofia Coppola’s Somewhere (2010), it’s that being young, rich and famous is just about as tedious and dull as it gets. Sure, Johnny (Stephen Dorff) may be a famous actor who indulges in endless partying, drinking and womanizing, attending one gala overseas movie premiere after another but it’s the in-between moments that are particularly telling: when not surrounded by paparazzi and sycophants, Johnny’s life seems to entail sitting alone in his hotel room home, drinking and smoking one cigarette after the other. Entitled? Absolutely. Glamorous? Not on your life.

Since this is the movies, however, we know that it won’t be that simple: there’s got to be some sort of catalyst for change. And there is, of course, in the person of Cleo (Elle Fanning), Johnny’s 11-year-old daughter. Johnny’s ex-wife has sent Cleo to spend some time with her absentee father and he’s reluctantly agreed, despite the monkey wrench it will throw into his wastoid lifestyle. Somewhere along the way, however, a funny, cinematic thing starts to happen: Johnny and Cleo begin to connect and the lay-about actor starts to feel the first stirrings of some pretty alien emotions – love, responsibility and a new-found sense of purpose. Perhaps there’s more to life than empty partying and pleasure-chasing. Perhaps it will be 30-something Johnny who finally begins to grow up, rather than his pre-teen daughter. Perhaps it’s actually up to the child to teach the adult the real ways of the world. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps…

As someone who thoroughly enjoyed Sofia Coppola’s first two films, the gauzy, hazy The Virgin Suicides (1999) and Oscar-winning Lost in Translation (2003), I was really looking forward to seeing Somewhere. While I haven’t kept up with Coppola’s career in the same way that I have her father’s, for example, I’ve long felt that she was a ridiculously talented writer/director who was managing to develop her own unique, distinctive vision, a vision that didn’t look quite like anyone else’s (least of all, her father’s). Alas, I found Somewhere to be something of a mess, alternating between deadly dull non-action and bizarre, awkward, vaguely nonsensical “arthouse” elements, none of which sit comfortably side by side. It’s a film that opens with a terribly tedious, repetitious static shot of a car racing around a track and then manages to one-up this tedium at every possible opportunity.

While there’s undoubtedly an intriguing film to be made out of the skewering of movie star lifestyle clichés, Somewhere just doesn’t have a whole lot to say. Sparse and spare to the point of feeling underdeveloped, the film comes across more as a series of tedious vignettes than any kind of organic, cohesive narrative: Johnny watches in abject boredom as awkward twin dancers perform a strange pole-dance to the Foo Fighters’ “My Hero”; Johnny watches Cleo figure-skate for what feels like 10 uninterrupted minutes; Johnny shares an elevator with Benicio del Toro (playing himself, natch); Johnny sits for a lengthy makeup session that involves the application of an old man mask; Johnny has an awkward encounter with a male masseuse who drops his own drawers since “if his clients are naked, he should be, too”; Johnny and Cleo attend an Italian awards show; Johnny and Cleo lounge by the pool…it (literally) goes on and on and on. Of the various “scenes,” most are deathly dull, although the bits involving the awful twin dancers and the naked masseuse are, at the very least, more entertaining than the mind-numbing figure-skating routine.

There are a few nods to an actual storyline buried in here (Johnny keeps getting mysterious texts from someone who asks him not to be an “asshole,” pushy paparazzi keep tailing him) but nothing ever develops past the most basic level: in essence, Somewhere is 90-odd minutes of minutiae and ennui. There’s no character development, even if Johnny, technically, finishes the film with a different mindset than he began it (never mind that his character arc ends with his car breaking down and he merrily walking into the horizon because, you know, “regular” people walk places): Cleo never seems to serve as more than a plot device, save for one nicely realized scene where father and daughter share room-service gelato and watch Italian-dubbed episodes of Friends on TV.

It doesn’t help that Johnny is kind of a shitty person to spend any amount of time with: he’s moody, disinterested in everything to the point of being disengaged and seems to exist in a constant state of horny boredom. At a certain point, his non-stop womanizing becomes unbelievably silly (Johnny is so desirable that anonymous women flash him, in public, and he always seems to be coming home to a new, mysterious, nude woman in his bed), although there’s something undeniably creepy about his tendency to follow strange, attractive woman around. Is it only considered stalking if the creep isn’t rich and famous? Inquiring minds want to know.

From a craft standpoint, Somewhere is decent but certainly nothing to write home about. While the cinematography, courtesy of frequent Fincher collaborator Harris Savides, features some truly beautiful night shots, it just as often simply revolves around medium close-ups of Stephen Dorff looking bored. The minimalist electro-score, by French electronica-pop band Phoenix, is so restrained as to recede almost completely into the background, providing the kind of generic score that could have been contributed by any number of faceless soundtrack pros. The acting is just fine throughout, although none of the actors, in particular Dorff, ever seem to display much beyond passionless disinterest and melancholic acceptance.

I really wanted to love Somewhere but I’ll be honest: the tedious opening set a tone that, unfortunately, the rest of the film was only too eager to fulfill. Although I’ve yet to see Coppola’s take on Marie Antoinette (2006) or her critically acclaimed recent film The Bling Ring (2010), I must admit that Somewhere has made me extremely wary. While one less than stellar film does not a career break, necessarily, Somewhere felt like an expansion and doubling-down of the worst affectations in Coppola’s first two films. I’m still curious to see what Coppola has in store for the future but count me as someone who would rather have been anywhere than Somewhere.

5/6/14: It’s His World…We Just Live Here

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absentee father, American Beauty, Ann Magnuson, Arizona, Catcher in the Rye, Chris Klein, cinema, coming of age, depression, developmentally disabled, divorced parents, Don Cheadle, drama, drug abuse, drug dealer, dysfunctional family, fate, films, flashbacks, Holden Caulfield, independent films, indie dramas, infidelity, James Glennon, Jena Malone, Jeremy Enigk, juvenile detention facility, Kerry Washington, Kevin Spacey, Leland Fitzgerald, Lena Olin, Martin Donovan, Matthew Ryan Hoge, mentally challenged, Michael Pena, Michael Welch, Michelle Williams, Movies, murder, Nick Kokich, prison films, revenge, romance, Ryan Gosling, shattered families, Sherilyn Fenn, Sunny Day Real Estate, The Notebook, The United States of Leland, troubled teens, vengeance, voice-over narration, Wesley Jonathan, writer-director, youth in trouble

Grainy, home movie footage of a yard gives ways to a slow pan across the bright, vibrant green grass, as Ryan Gosling’s familiar, rather bored voice talks about “not being able to remember that day.” The pan continues, as deliberate as a lazy summer day, before finally ending on the obviously dead body of a young man. Gosling stands there, looking pensive for a moment, before jogging off as the Pixies’ iconic “Gigantic” bursts from the soundtrack. It’s a dynamic, effective opening and as a good a way as any to pull us into The United States of Leland (2003), a coming-of-age downer that often plays like a lesser American Beauty, despite having a few extra tricks up its sleeve.

After the opening, we get the meat of the situation: Leland Fitzgerald (Gosling) has just admitted to his mother, Marybeth (Lena Olin) that he killed Ryan Pollard (Michael Welch), the developmentally disabled brother of his girlfriend, Becky (Jena Malone). The whole thing comes as even more of a shock since Leland is so easy-going and seemed to genuinely care about Ryan. His admission is emotionless, distant and he’s locked up post-haste. While inside the juvenile detention facility, Leland meets the usual, stock “guy in prison” characters: a kindly Hispanic inmate (Michael Pena) who tries to strike up a friendship with Leland and a young, black inmate (Wesley Johnathan) who is initially hesitant of the “devil worshiper who killed the retard,” but gradually warms to him. More importantly, however, Leland meets Pearl Madison (Don Cheadle), an aspiring author who teaches classes at the facility.

Pearl sees something in Leland and convinces him to keep a journal, which the boy dubs “The United States of Leland.” Seeing the perfect subject for his long-gestating novel, Pearl tries to get to the essence of Leland, hoping to figure out what drove such a seemingly nice guy to do such a terrible thing. Meanwhile, on the outside, the dead boy’s family is falling apart: father Harry (Martin Donovan) is obsessed with the idea of killing Leland, mother Karen (Bongwater-member Ann Magnuson) has completely shut down, sisters Becky and Julie (Michelle Williams) are a wreck and Julie’s boyfriend, Allen (Chris Klein) is doing his best to hold everything together. He can’t, of course, because the situation continues to spin out of control, even as Leland seems to get some semblance of peace behind bars. As the reasons for Leland’s actions become more clear, including life-long issues with his absentee, famous writer father, Albert (Kevin Spacey), and Becky’s backsliding into heroin addiction, via her slimy ex-boyfriend, Kevin (Nick Kokich), everything seems to move along the most fatalistic path possible. When Allen decides to make the ultimate sacrifice in order to heal the wounded family, his actions bring everything to a boil, changing all of their lives, forever, in the process.

Released the year before Gosling would find super-stardom with the romantic hit The Notebook (2004), The United States of Leland is an odd role for the burgeoning superstar. While an argument can be made that many of Gosling’s performances hinge on his handsome, slightly bemused face taking stock of the situation (any situation…every situation…), it seems a rather unfair criticism to say that he spends the entire film staring off into the distance. Yet, essentially, this is what he does for the better part of the film’s almost two-hour-run-time. There’s not a whole lot of acting going on here, to be honest, more like a studied attempt to under-act whenever possible. While this affectation may have worked wonders in films like Drive (2011) and Only God Forgives (2013), where Gosling served more as an enigmatic symbol than an actual person, it only serves to strip any chance of relating to his character: in most cases, Leland seems about as alive and “with-it” as someone in a semi-catatonic state.

With Gosling effectively out of the picture, then, the “heavy emotional lifting,” as it were, needs to come from American Pie’s Klein as Allen, one of the most obvious “white knight” characters in recent memory. Allen is such a ridiculously nice guy that he never seems to do anything for self-serving reasons: coupled with his kindly demeanor, soft-spoken strength and determination, Allen is just about the nicest nice guy you’d ever meet. Yet, time after time, the movie takes care to shit on Allen from a great height, beginning with the rather callous way that his girlfriend, Julie, kicks him to the curb when things get bad and culminating with his spectacularly terrible plan to “make everything better.” The film never makes any attempt to explain away Julie’s change of heart, which is actually pretty par for the course in a film where characters seem to make arbitrary decisions that are designed to propel the narrative forward.

Pearl cheats on his girlfriend with a co-worker, seemingly for the sole reason of giving Leland some moral high-ground on him. Leland’s father, Albert, is nothing but contradictions: the character seems so mercurial that it almost feels as if Spacey is playing two separate people, super-glued together. Becky, despite being a junkie (those folks aren’t normally known for being reliable), is a complete mess: none of her actions seem to go together and her motivations range from unknown to insane. While Malone is a more than capable actress, I felt a massive disconnect with her character: she seemed so arbitrary and calculatedly cruel that she was completely unrealistic: uber-nice guy or not, I find it hard to believe that Leland would put up with too much of her shit.

The film makes a few rather sharp points about the human tendency to mess up, something which Pearl repeatedly blames on human nature. In one of the most thought-provoking lines in the film, Leland smiles and tells Pearl that he thinks it’s amusing that people always blame bad stuff on human nature but not good stuff: that’s all us. It’s a smart observation and one of the few times in the film were we seem to get a (mostly) conscious Gosling. By contrast, the film’s coda, which purports to explain Leland’s mindset, is a complete muddle. There’s an allusion made to a family that he met years before, the Calderons, and we’re made to believe that sleeping with the mother opened Leland’s eyes to the sadness of the world. While it’s an intriguing thought, it’s also an underdeveloped one, coming as it does in the final few moments of the film. It’s not a revelation, per se (hence I don’t feel the need to warn about potential spoilers), mostly because it’s difficult to see how it actually influences the course of the narrative: it’s equivalent to finding out that someone wore a blue shirt on the day they killed someone. Since the color of the shirt, specifically, doesn’t have anything to with the killing, knowing this bit of information doesn’t provide us any further insight. It’s a sort of MacGuffin, if you will, but for character development.

One of my biggest issues with the film has to do with its structure. For most of the movie, The United States of Leland utilizes almost continual flashbacks: often, it’s difficult to figure out exactly what time-frame we’re currently in, especially with some of Becky’s drug activity. This seems particularly unnecessary since the actual plot of the movie is pretty straight-forward: the flashback structure just seemed like a way to “gussy up” the proceedings, some way to make the film stand out a little more. Ultimately, the flashbacks feel as unnecessary as Gosling’s constant voice-over, which does little to add to either his own motivations or the actual story at hand. Whenever I complain about voice-overs (which I constantly do) I’m complaining about superfluous ones like this. For the most part.

Most of the cast does just fine with their roles, although Spacey’s screen-time really amounts to more of a glorified cameo than anything else, which is kind of disappointing. During those few scenes, however, Spacey is a nearly perfectly pitched alpha-male asshole, a pretentious word-cruncher who can’t stop his compulsion to correct someone’s grammar even as they’re offering him help. Cheadle is reliably solid as Pearl but I can’t help feeling that much of his actions and characterizations were just as arbitrary as those of Becky and Julie. At least Albert’s actions all fit with his obnoxious personality but Pearl was always something of an enigma.

One notable aspect of The United States of Leland would definitely be the soundtrack and score. Beginning with the Pixies song in the opening, music plays a pretty big part in the overall design of the film. This isn’t surprising when you consider that Jeremy Enigk, the frontman for ’90s-era emo-band Sunny Day Real Estate, handles the score duties here. Considering that veteran cinematographer James Glennon – whose resume includes Flight of the Navigator (1986), Citizen Ruth (1996), Election (1999) and About Schmidt (2002) – was behind the camera, The United States of Leland has a consistently good look, especially with some nicely saturated colors. While the film isn’t particularly original, it’s never a chore to watch.

Ultimately, The United States of Leland is a decent effort but one that breaks no new ground whatsoever. Despite a decent ensemble cast, there just isn’t much here to write home about. If you’ve always wondered what a less-focused, more vague take on American Beauty would feel like, The United States of Leland might just fit the bill. Otherwise, it’s a pretty basic drama about dysfunctional families, our dysfunctional society and the million little ways we find to make ourselves truly miserable.

3/17/14: Belly Laughs and Bathroom Breaks

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abandonment issues, absentee father, Bad Milo!, bathroom humor, cinema, demons, Duncan, Erik Charles Nielsen, fear of fatherhood, fertility doctors, film reviews, films, Gillian Jacobs, horror-comedies, Jacob Vaughan, Ken Marino, kooky psychiatrist, Kumail Nanjiani, Mary Kay Place, Milo, Movies, Patrick Warburton, Peter Stormare, puppets, pushy mother, Stephen Root, Steve Carell, stomach problems, stress, Toby Huss

There are some film concepts that just sell themselves easier than others. Tell people that The Godfather is about mobsters and at least a few folks will be interested. Tell folks that The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is about cannibals and, dollars to doughnuts, someone’s gonna take the bait. It’s not necessarily that the world is full of mobster and cannibal lovers (although the continued success of these types of films says otherwise) but these are concepts that are fairly easy to wrap our collective heads around. Despite the actual content of these individual films, when we hear the words “mobster,” “cannibal” or “zombie,” we have a pretty good idea of what’s in store.

Once things become significantly higher (or lower) concept, however, preconceived notions become a bit more difficult to manage. If I were to tell you that The Dark Backward is about a stand-up comedian who grows a third arm out of his back, what would you say? Or that Septic Man is about a man who becomes a monster after falling into a sewer system? How about The Visitor, which can best be described as a low-budget sci-fi Western with angels, eagles, super children and John Huston? Sometimes, the basic idea behind a film can tell us almost nothing about the film, least of all whether we will actually like it or not. As Exhibit A in this notion, I present the recent horror-comedy Bad Milo, which bears a pretty simple premise: a nice, normal, average guy has a cute and cuddly demon that crawls out of his ass whenever he gets stressed and proceeds to massacre the (various) sources of said stress. At first blush, Bad Milo seems to be squarely in the Troma camp of over-the-top gore and gross bodily functions. Pass this one by, however, and you’ll be missing one of the sweetest, most unassuming and funniest films yet made about impending parenthood, absentee fathers and irritable bowel syndrome.

In short order, we’re introduced to our hero, Duncan (Ken Merino), one of those modern-day schlubs that Steve Carell specializes in. He’s got a shitty, passive-aggressive boss named Phil (Patrick Warburton), a baby-obsessed wife named Sarah and a constant yearning to know the father who abandoned him and his mother (Mary Kay Place) when Duncan was just a tot. Duncan, as with most modern folks, has got a lot on his plate, although his specific problems are all best suited to a broad big-screen comedy: his mother and her boyfriend Bobbi (Kumail Nanjiani) are perpetually horny, his fertility doctor (Toby Huss) is a crass jerk, his psychiatrist (Peter Stormare) is a loony and his new office is a bathroom, complete with urinal (one of the film’s numerous high points is the moment where Duncan’s imbecilic office-mate stares in wonder at their new “digs” and hopes that the urinal still works). With all of this going on, it’s no surprise that Duncan has quite a few health issues, not the least of which is his near crippling stomach ailments. For lack of a better (or more elegant) descriptor, Duncan has a particularly terrible form of IBS, leading him to spend hours in the bathroom and driving a bit of a wedge between him and Sarah: it’s a little hard to get romantic, after all, when your significant other is always on the can.

Duncan’s life becomes even more complicated, however, when his idiotic cubicle-mate Allistair accidentally deletes months of his work. Duncan experiences the worst pains of his life, blacks out and reawakens to the knowledge that Allistair has been shredded by a “raccoon.” Were it that simple, however. After a hypnotherapy session with his shrink Highsmith goes awry, Duncan is unceremoniously introduced to Milo, the demon who happens to live in his bowels. Milo is a cute little cuss, looking akin to a Muppet crossbred with one of the Ghoulies, and he takes a shine to his “father” Duncan. Only problem, of course, is that Milo has a tendency to “emerge” whenever Duncan is stressed…which is, apparently, all of the time. As Highsmith tries to help Duncan control Milo, other forces begin to emerge that will test Duncan’s new-found sense of zen: his boss has been draining the company dry, Sarah is still looking for a baby and Duncan’s long-gone father, Roger (Stephen Root), is reluctantly back in his life, with a secret of his own and a big piece to the puzzle that is Duncan’s life. Will Duncan be able to tame Milo? Can he forgive his father? Should he? How slimy will his boss get? And, most importantly, will he ever settle down and accept fatherhood?

Although Bad Milo’s concept is entirely predicated around bathroom humor and violence, the film is actually much sweeter and more wistful than this would imply. For one thing, Ken Merino is such a completely lovable puppy dog that you’re inclined to follow him anywhere, regardless of the absurd or disturbing situations: he’s an incredibly gifted comedian whose work in the TV shows Reaper, Party Down and Burning Love are practically  master-classes in making a doofus lovable. Bad Milo is completely and totally Merino’s film and wouldn’t be half as successful (or good) without his contributions. This isn’t to denigrate the quite capable supporting cast, however, which features a veritable who’s-who of character actors. We get Mary Kay Place, Patrick Warburton (always a favorite), Kumail Nanjiani (his infuriatingly condescending manner of speech is perfect for the character of Bobbi), Peter Stormare (as weirdly intense as ever) and Stephen Root. Root, in particular, is great in what amounts to yet another notch on a mighty impressive belt full of roles. Although he’ll always be Milton, Root’s resume looks particularly impressive by anyone’s standards.

Bad Milo focuses on several pretty deep issues, not the least of which are the abandonment issues that can fester late in life and affect one’s chances of raising a family. Without being fully aware, Duncan has been gravely damaged by his father’s absence and is taking these invisible wounds with him into his own developing family situation. He’s got a lot of love to give but it isn’t until he’s forced to serve as “father” to Milo that he’s able to focus this love unto anything besides his wife. He is his father’s son, after all, and there’s always the omnipresent fear that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Manifesting these feelings of guilt, anger and disappointment as a physical entity may not be unique to this film (the nutso ’70s-era oddity The Manitou got there first) but Bad Milo manages the nifty hat-trick of being both thrilling and sentimental.

In reality, Bad Milo is the furthest thing possible from a Troma film, although there are various elements/scenes that would fit in nicely in any of Uncle Lloyd’s old “classics.” The gore effects aren’t particularly gratuitous but they are plenty juicy and do we get more than the recommended daily allowance of Milo returning to whence he came (if you get my drift). That being said, I’m really not sure what one could expect out of a film that could easily (if reductively) be described as “a man must learn to live with his ass demon.” Above all, Bad Milo is surprisingly and genuinely sweet. Duncan and Sarah have a quite lovely relationship, ass demons and parenthood issues notwithstanding. Duncan’s mom seems to genuinely love him and his friendship with his shrink, while hard-earned, becomes quite genuine by the film’s end. The reconciliation with his absentee father is also quite nice, helped in no small amount by an understated Root performance that reminds of Bruce Dern’s work in Nebraska.

As a comedy, Bad Milo also ends up being genuinely amusing. In particular, Warburton is perfect as Phil, the biggest dickhead to ever graduate management school. His constant degradation of Duncan approaches the level of sociopathic (the bathroom office is so perfect that I almost stopped the film after that point: why risk ruining it?) and good ol’ Patty is just the jerk for the job. In a similar vein, Toby Huss is quite good as Dr. Yeager, a “professional” whose bedside manner consists of telling Duncan that he has “a trooper in his pooper.” In order to make the central concept work, we’ve really gotta feel Duncan growing frustration and Warburton and Huss help make this happen.

Ultimately, Bad Milo is about something that we can all relate to, regardless of the relative health of our bowels or our personal lives: it’s about the need to be heard in a world where your voice is increasingly marginalized. At every possible opportunity, Duncan is over-ridden, over-shouted, over-turned and ignored. When he finally manages to find his voice, it doesn’t necessarily take the most productive form (ass demons rarely are) but it’s a voice, nonetheless. By refusing to be ignored and stomped on, Duncan gives the rest of us poor morons some sense of hope, no matter how faint. As the film makes explicitly clear, it’s always better to let things out than to keep them inside. We all have our own Milos: some good, some bad and some indifferent. Embrace yours today.