5/3/16: Twain of Consequences

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Aaron Nee, Adam Nee, based on a book, Becky Thatcher, Beth Grant, childhood friends, cinema, co-directors, co-editors, co-writers, Cooper Huckabee, Creed Bratton, Daniel Edward Mora, dark comedies, Eric Christian Olsen, film reviews, films, Hannibal Buress, heist films, Huck Finn, Injun Joe, Johnny Pemberton, Kyle Gallner, Lee Garlington, literary figures, Mark Twain, Matthew Gray Gubler, Melissa Benoist, Movies, Noah Rosenthal, Stephen Lang, Tom Sawyer, writer-director-actor-editor

If you’ve ever gotten really wrapped up in a good book or story, you’ve probably wondered what happened to the surviving characters after the last page has been turned.  Do they continue to live on, experiencing life and having adventures that you’ll never be privy to? Are the unwritten/unseen adventures as good as what made it to the page? Could they possibly be better? Or is this the proverbial case of the unseen tree in the woods: if we’re not reading, do they cease to exist?

Working from this basic question, filmmaking siblings Aaron and Adam Nee offer up Band of Robbers (2016), a droll, indie-crime caper that wonders, aloud, what would happen if Mark Twain’s classic rapscallions Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn were a couple of young roustabouts in our modern era. Lest they get lonely, the Nees have also brought along old friends like Becky Thatcher, Muff Potter, Aunt Polly, Sid Sawyer and, of course, that old ne’er-do-well, Injun Joe. When all’s said and done, however, do these timeless characters survive their modern makeovers or is this one of those “better in theory” type of deals?

Tom Sawyer (co-writer/director/editor Adam Nee) and Huck Finn (Kyle Gallner) are childhood best friends who are pretty much attached at the hip until life sends them down two very separate paths. Tom ends up joining the police force, where he navigates around both the disapproving eye of his stern aunt, Lt. Polly (Lee Garlington), and the over-sized shadow of his over-achieving half-brother, Det. Sid Sawyer (Eric Christian Olsen), all while keeping the most ridiculously sunny disposition this side of Mary Poppins. For his part, Huck has chosen a life of crime and spent a stretch of time in prison. As he nears his release date, Huck has no family, no friends, no real relationships and a huge question mark over his future.

The old friends reconnect when Tom picks Huck up from prison and whisks him straight away to a thoroughly pathetic “welcome home” party that doubles as a meeting for Tom’s latest brilliant idea. To whit: he wants Huck to join his “Band of Robbers,” which includes perpetually bleary Ben Rogers (Hannibal Buress), eager-to-please Joe Harper (Matthew Gray Gubler) and squeaky-clean Tommy Barnes (Johnny Pemberton), who just happens to be married to Tom’s old girlfriend, Amy (Maria Blasucci).

Tom’s plan is a complex, convoluted and fairly nonsensical one that involves ripping off a pawn shop in order to steal a hidden fortune in gold that has, according to Tom’s source, “Muff” Potter (Cooper Huckabee), been left there by none other than the nefarious killer, Injun Joe (Stephen Lang). The plan is a harebrained one, sure, but it still ends up going to shit in some pretty spectacular ways, mostly centered around Tom suddenly acquiring a wet-behind-the-ears, rookie partner, Becky Thatcher (Melissa Benoist). When the dust clears, Tom, Huck and their bumbling “band” must avoid not only the long arm of the local podunk police force but also the murderous attention of Injun Joe and his partners. Throw in some love lost and found, old wounds healed, old friendships reconciled and destinies fulfilled and you might have something that would make ol’ Samuel Clemens crack a grin.

If it were possible for films to skate by on nothing but a fresh concept and good intentions, Band of Robbers would be a massive success from start to finish. Indeed, the vast majority of good will that the Nees amass here is usually centered around the clever ways in which they manage to insert Twain’s various creations into the fabric of what turns out to be a fairly hum-drum caper film. Devotees of the original source material will be able to play a pretty fun little game of “Spot the Reference/Character,” which adds a little replay value to the proceedings, along with creating a fairly immersive world for Tom, Huck and their cohorts to play in.

The performances are generally enthusiastic, which gives the film a nicely propulsive quality, although some actors/characters fare better than others. At the top of this particular pyramid sits Kyle Gallner’s nicely understated take on Huck Finn and Stephen Lang’s all-in performance as one of the literary world’s greatest villains. Completely unrecognizable (I actually had no idea it was him until the end credits), Lang seems to be having more fun than the entire case combined and it’s pretty easy to give yourself over to the film whenever he holds the reins (which is, admittedly, not often enough). For his part, Gallner gives us a fairly standard “troubled dude with good intentions” but the performance is nuanced and Gallner is charismatic enough to make it work.

We also get sturdy performances from Gubler (quickly becoming a modern-day, genre film go-to-guy), Garlington, Olsen and Huckabee, all of whom run the gamut from suitably grounded to outrageously over-the-top. At the very least, however, each one brings enough individuality to the portrayals to make the characters seem (at least superficially) like fairly well-rounded creations. We’re not talking the typical Andersonian “cast of dozens,” mind you, but the aforementioned actors do a fine job of keeping us in Band of Robbers peculiar little world.

Less successful, unfortunately, are Hannibal Buress’ odd, spacey performance as Ben (was he actually stoned during the shoot, on cough medicine or a combination of both?), Adam Nee’s thoroughly grating, obnoxious take on Tom Sawyer and poor Melissa Benoist’s completely wasted take on Becky Thatcher. Buress’ performance isn’t as much of an issue due to his relative lack of screen-time but Nee is in roughly 90% of the film and he’s all but impossible to ignore. When working in tandem with Gallner and the others, Nee’s spastic performance feels, at the very least, tethered to something. Whenever he’s allowed to dominate the proceedings, however, he Hoovers up scenery like some sort of human-shaped black hole, giving everything a hectic, rushed and unnecessarily madcap feel that seems at odds with the rest of the film’s tone.

Perhaps no one gets the shorter end of the stick than Benoist, however, whose Becky Thatcher is such a non-entity that she might as well wear a big sign that says “Plot Device” around her neck. Where the original Becky was a more than suitable firebrand foil for Tom Sawyer, this version is just a moon-eyed, bumbling green-horn, a character who exists only to complicate the already complicated caper and serve as a standard-issue love interest. Hell, Becky’s “big” moment comes when she reveals that she asked to be Tom’s partner because she “sensed that he was headed for big things.” It would probably be easier to forgive the waste of a character if Benoist (so good in Whiplash (2014)) didn’t throw her all into the thankless character, giving her a giddy, effervescent quality that absolutely deserved a better outlet. Maybe next time, Melissa.

More than anything, however, Band of Robbers suffers from being simultaneously too familiar (despite that great central concept) and too disjointed and manic. When the film works, it works just fine. When it doesn’t, however, it actually becomes something of a mess. Take the pawn shop heist, for example, which should be one of the film’s primo setpieces. Instead, the scene devolves into a seriously unfunny mix of silly situational comedy, exaggerated performances and sub-Ritchian, overlapping dialogue. It was tiresome practically from the point it began, grinding the entire film to a halt at just the exact point when it should have been reaching take-off speed.

This sense of missed opportunities is repeated ad infinitum, right down to the ridiculously lackadaisical way in which the film dispatches its one legitimate threat (suffice to say that low stakes are but another constant issue here): it’s the notion that cutting off loose ends is much easier and less time consuming than tying them into neat bows. It’s a bit of a shame, too, since the film generally looks and sounds top-notch: at times, cinematographer Noah Rosenthal’s camera-work even approximates the arty loveliness of the Nees’ obvious influence, Wes Anderson, although it’s never more than a surface touch, at best.

Ultimately, despite its good intentions and handful of genuinely smart stylistic quirks, Band of Robbers never really makes good on the inherent interest of its premise. Rather than being something fairly original and new, this is just another zig-zagging crime caper about odd-couple friends who must set aside their differences in order to pull off one last, big haul. If that sounds familiar…well, it certainly is. There are plenty of films worse than Band of Robbers and an equal amount that are much, much better: problem is, no one ever stood out by standing in the middle of a crowd. I think ol’ Tom Sawyer would agree with that, too.

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11/7/15: Doc Sportello and the Manic Mutton Chops

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auteur theory, based on a book, Benicio del Toro, caper films, Chinatown, Christopher Allen Nelson, cinema, crime film, dark comedies, Eric Roberts, Film auteurs, film reviews, films, Hong Chau, Jena Malone, Joanna Newsom, Joaquin Phoenix, Jonny Greenwood, Josh Brolin, Katherine Waterston, Keith Jardine, Leslie Jones, literary adaptation, Los Angeles, Martin Donovan, Martin Short, Maya Rudolph, Michael Kenneth Williams, Movies, Owen Wilson, P.T. Anderson, Paul Thomas Anderson, private detective, Reese Witherspoon, Robert Elswit, Serena Scott Thomas, set in Los Angeles, set in the 1970s, Southern California, The Long Goodbye, Thomas Pynchon, voice-over narration, writer-director

Say what you will about writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson, love him or hate him, it’s impossible to deny his status as one of the pivotal filmmakers of the past two decades. Ever since exploding into the public conscience with surprise hit Boogie Nights (1997), Anderson hasn’t crafted “films” so much as he’s created “events”: his fussy, overly-complex character studies have marked him as the modern-day Robert Altman and his relatively small output (seven full-lengths in 19 years) insures that a hungry public is always ready for the next course.

When Anderson’s films click with the zeitgeist, they go over like gangbusters: Boogie Nights, Punch-Drunk Love (2002) and There Will Be Blood (2007) all made their fair share of coin at the box office, without bending one inch towards anything approaching easy conformity. They also managed to enter into the pop culture vernacular, which may just be the greatest measure of a film’s indelible mark (for better or worse). When Anderson’s films don’t click with the general public, such as Magnolia (1999) or The Master (2012), they’re still afforded the respect due previous generations of auteurs like Coppola, Scorsese or Altman. Again, love him or hate him, any new Paul Thomas Anderson film is a big deal, precisely because he’s yet to turn in anything compromised, easily digested or disposable.

This, of course, brings us to Anderson’s newest film, a cinematic adaptation of Thomas Pynchon’s acid-etched love letter to ’70s-era Los Angeles, Inherent Vice (2015). On the outside, Pynchon and Anderson seem to be as natural fits as a hand in a glove: after all, who better to bring Pynchon’s notoriously thorny prose, subtle satirical edge and often outrageous characters to the big screen than the filmmaker who made Dirk Diggler and Daniel Plainview household names? With his ability to expertly balance the dark and light sides of characters, to find the comedy in the tragedy and vice versa, who better to bring the misadventures of Doc Sportello to the eager masses?

Our erstwhile protagonist and guide through the neon-lit proceedings is Doc Sportello (Joaquin Phoenix, re-teaming with Anderson after The Master), the perpetually confused, constantly pot-befogged private detective who seems to float, unscathed, through one potentially lethal situation after another, a literal babe in the woods whose inherent naivety just may be his greatest weapon. After old flame, Shasta Fay Hepworth (Katherine Waterston), pops back up in his life with a plea for help, Doc is thrust into the shadowy underworld of ultra-hip 1970s L.A., rubbing shoulders with shady dentists, dangerous foreign drug traffickers, corrupt cops, sinister New Age healing centers and white supremacists.

As Doc tries to figure out just what the hell is really going on, he runs afoul of his former partner from his days on the police force, Lt. Det. Christian “Bigfoot” Bjornsen (Josh Brolin), a genuinely strange individual who believes Doc to be part of some sort of Manson-esque cult, even as he seems to know more about Doc’s situation than he lets on. With new factions and players being revealed at seemingly every turn, it’s up to Doc to (somehow) blunder into the truth, unraveling the overly complex machinations to reveal the surprisingly simple core.

From the jump, one thing is plain and clear about Inherent Vice: it’s easily Anderson’s lightest, funnest and funniest film since Boogie Nights. Brisk, colorful, full of quirky, memorable dialogue and equally memorable characters, Inherent Vice is the epitome of a cinematic “good time,” a film that’s as eager to please as a friendly puppy. In many ways, Inherent Vice is more The Long Goodbye (1973) than Chinatown (1974), a cheerful, slighty hazy, shaggy-dog story that never feels oppressive, despite its film noir trappings.

Like most of Anderson’s films, Inherent Vice features a cast that’s almost an embarrassment of riches. There’s Phoenix, of course, doing his dependable best (more on that later) but he wouldn’t have nearly the impact without the rest of the exceedingly game cast. First and foremost, Brolin is an absolute blast as Bigfoot, providing the film with many of its most explicitly funny scenes/moments (the scene in the sushi restaurant is a comic masterpiece, with Brolin’s shouted “Molto panacayku!” being the brilliant cherry on top). The interaction between Brolin and Phoenix is endlessly fascinating, a giddy mixture of absurd violence, mopey nostalgia and genuine insanity that powers the film like a generator, along with providing just the right amount of emotional gravitas (when needed). Always a dependable actor, Brolin has rarely been more fun than this.

Waterston is great as Doc’s one-true-love, bringing just the right amount of angelic etheriality and earthy sexuality to the role: it’s easy to see why Doc is so obsessed with her (always a key element to this kind of thing) and their scenes together perfectly play up their largely unspoken past. As somehow who usually finds cinematic sex scenes to be largely unnecessary and…well…largely unsexy…I also must admit that the scene where Waterston graphically describes her sexual adventures before Phoenix spanks her (among other things) absolutely smolders. I’ll stand corrected: sex scenes can be sexy, after all.

Really, though, the role call of great performances could continue for some time: Owen Wilson is perfect as poor Coy Harlingen; Benecio del Toro pretty much reprises his role from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998) and the second time is just as much a charm; Martin Short is ruthlessly smarmy as the Golden Fang’s “legitimate” business front; Reese Witherspoon gets to play against type as Doc’s growly D.A. girlfriend; singer Joanna Newsom has fun as the film’s narrator/Doc’s imaginary muse; and Hong Chau is pure nitro as diminutive masseuse/Golden Fang employee, Jade.

Above and beyond it all, however, slouches the inimitable shadow of Phoenix’s Doc Sportello. For all intents and purposes, Phoenix doesn’t play Sportello: he BECOMES Doc, slipping into his amiable, doped-out shoes with such ease that it’s less acting than channeling a past life. Similar to Elliot Gould’s unflappable, off-the-cuff take on Philip Marlowe, Phoenix’s Doc is the living embodiment of “the reed bends so that it doesn’t break.” Regardless of the situation, whether faced with a loaded firearm, a skinhead with a lethal dose of heroin or the sudden reappearance of his dream girl, Doc (and Phoenix) approach it all with the same sense of wide-eyed, innocent befuddlement. It’s an approach that could have come across as needlessly comedic, in the wrong hands (I shudder to imagine what Johnny Depp might have done here, for example), but works like a charm here. Phoenix is one of the era’s most esteemed actors for precisely this reason: his ability to imbue the material with the proper amount of weight, regardless of how lightweight it might (or might not) be is virtually unparalleled.

From a filmcraft perspective, Inherent Vice is undeniably lovely, featuring a burnished, warm tone that befits the era (cinematographer Robert Elswit has shot all of Anderson’s films, with the exception of The Master) and another one of those chock-a-block musical scores that are so emblematic of Anderson’s films (Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood does the honors here, just like he did for There Will Be Blood and The Master). The film’s neon-and-pastel aesthetic perfectly fits the slightly goofy material, culminating in a neon-bedecked credit sequence that just might be my favorite way to end a film in years.

After all of that’s said and done, however, one question still remains: how does Inherent Vice stack up against the rest of Anderson’s formidable filmography? Despite how much I, personally, enjoyed the film (it’s easily my second favorite Anderson movie, after Boogie Nights), I won’t deny that it’s also a surprisingly slight offering. Despite the overly complex nature of the plot and the endless ways in which the large cast maneuver in and around each other, the resolution is surprisingly, almost smugly simple: it’s the machinations of Chinatown minus any of the actual import.

Not to say that this doesn’t dovetail neatly with Pynchon’s source material (the “so convoluted it’s simple” structure is one of the novel’s best jokes, along with the patently ridiculous character names like Doc Sportello, Bigfoot Bjornsen, Michael Wolfmann, Sauncho Smilax and Rudy Blatnoyd) but it also makes for a film that’s the equivalent of a heaping helping of cotton candy: colorful, fun and capable of giving a mighty sugar rush but patently devoid of any nutritional value. Unlike the angle Anderson took with Boogie Nights, there’s precious little in the way of genuine emotional weight here and the whole thing feels relatively low stakes. We never really fear for Doc since he’s such a charmed idiot, similar to how no one ever really worried that Buster Keaton was going to blunder into actual physical danger.

Ultimately, however, these are probably more the quibbles of an ultra-fan than any damning criticism: regardless of how lightweight or disposable the film often feels, it’s still a Paul Thomas Anderson flick through and through and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. Sort of a spiritual little brother to the Coens’ immortal The Big Lebowski (1998) (if you cross your eyes just right, you can see a lot of The Dude in Phoenix’s bewildered performance), Inherent Vice is an utterly alive, cheeky and cheerful good time. Smart, groovy and as breezy as a warm, tropical day, Inherent Vice may be one of Anderson’s least thorny creations but I doubt you’ll be thinking about that much once you get caught up in the insanity.

As Doc’s muse notes, at one point: “Doc may not be a ‘do-gooder’ but he’s done good.” To piggyback on that sentiment: Inherent Vice may not be perfect but it’s pretty damn good, nonetheless.

11/3/15: He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother

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Adam Chernick, adopted siblings, brothers, Charles Manson, cinema, comedies, dark comedies, Davie-Blue, dramas, estranged family, estranged siblings, feature-film debut, feuding brothers, film reviews, films, first-time director, independent films, indie comedies, J. Davis, Jay Duplass, Leonora Pitts, Linas Phillips, Manson Family Vacation, Movies, road trips, Sean McElwee, Tobin Bell, writer-director-producer

What does it actually mean to be someone’s “brother”? Is it a purely genealogical notion, a biological distinction marked by nothing more than one’s parentage: the male offspring of your mother and father is your brother, nothing more or less? Is it a societal notion connected to a sense of deep kindred and mutual reliance: the soldiers that you live, train and die with are your “brothers,” regardless of whether you’re blood-related or not? Does biology always guarantee kinship, at some level, or do you have to actively work to achieve that kind of relationship?

What about adopted siblings? Society tells you that your adopted brother is just as much kin as a blood relation, a bond which is doubtlessly reinforced by each and every family that welcomes adopted children into their homes. But is he? Can adopted siblings ever develop the deep-seated bonds of blood relations? Can someone ever truly and unconditionally embrace their adopted sibling, take them into their heart and call them “brother” with the complete and utter conviction of one that they actually share genetic material with? At the end of the day, what does it really mean to call someone “brother”?

First-time writer/director J. Davis’ Manson Family Vacation (2015) takes a stab at this question via two brothers: straight-laced family man/contract lawyer, Nick (Jay Duplass) and his restless, nomadic, uber-hippy, adopted brother, Conrad (Linas Phillips). After Conrad suddenly pops back up in Nick’s life, while en route to a new job in Death Valley, the two brothers get a chance to reconnect and work on their often contentious relationship. At his wife’s urging, Nick swallows his own misgivings and attempts to reconnect with his estranged sibling.

When Conrad’s obsession with Charles Manson and his cult leads to the brothers touring various “murder houses,” however, Nick finds it harder than ever to see eye-to-eye with his “weirdo” brother, especially since he’s now dealing with antisocial behavior from his own teen son, Max (Adam Chernick), and is worried that Conrad is going to provide the worst sort of role model possible. When he comes in to find Conrad gleefully showing Max his favorite grisly crime scene photos from Helter Skelter, it kinda seems like he may have a point.

As the brothers check off “must-sees” on Conrad’s list, though, they find themselves settling into an uneasy balancing act that might, given time, actually blossom into something approaching “love,” if not quite “respect.” Nothing is ever quite as it seems, however, and a secret regarding Conrad’s real parents threatens to tear apart the brothers’ tentative relationship before it’s had a chance to fully heal. Will Nick and Conrad be able to put aside their differences and embrace one another or is it finally time for them to cut ties and burn all their old bridges to the ground?

Despite a gloriously goofy presence and some delightfully comic setpieces (the scene where Nick and Conrad finagle their way into the old Labianca house, under very false pretenses, is a minor comic masterpiece, for one), there’s a big, dramatic heart that beats at the center of Manson Family Vacation and some genuine emotional resonance to the scenario. This is a film that could have easily devolved into pointless whimsy and sub-Andersonian dramatics but manages to effortlessly balance the lighter and darker aspects with a particularly deft hand.

While writer/director Davis deserves no end of credit here (the script, for one, is exceptional), especially considering his first time status, Manson Family Vacation is an acting showcase, first and foremost: the film wouldn’t have nearly the impact without the combined power of Duplass and Phillips’ extraordinary performances. Watching Nick and Conrad feint around each other, coming cautiously closer and sniffing around before bolting back to the safety of their respective hard-set world views, is a pure and unmitigated pleasure, perhaps the greatest since Matthau and Lemmon made such a memorable odd couple on the silver screen.

In other hands, either character could have become a one-dimensional cliche: hell, “uptight, married lawyer in need of cutting loose” and “hippy burnout with dreams of making an impact” are practically commedia dell’arte stand-bys in the modern cinematic world. Duplass and Phillips don’t stop with the short description, however, imbuing their performances with enough nuance and shading to make them seem like real people, not production notes in the margin of a film pitch.

There’s an authenticity to their interactions that’s not only refreshing but infinitely more interesting than the usual cookie-cutter treatment of the same: while the relationship (and film) hit plenty of the expected beats, it does so organically rather than as carefully delineated points on a plot breakdown. When Nick rips the phone from Conrad’s hand during his welcome party with “the Family” and ruins his “reunion” with his father, the combined sense of jealously, pain, anger and the terrible need to lash out against someone, anyone, bursts out of the screen like heat from a blast furnace. Ditto the incredible, subtle moment where Conrad finally gets to witness his tireless devotion to Charles Manson from the inside and doesn’t seem to like it one little bit. They’re the kinds of scenes that would be standouts in any film but, here, they have plenty of good company.

Ultimately, what J. Davis and his exceptional cast (including the single most restrained performance by Tobin Bell since his delightful surprise appearance in the U.S. version of Wilfred) have done is created a cinematic Trojan horse: Manson Family Vacation’s goofy, lighthearted and slightly silly exterior hides a surprisingly powerful, deep and thought-provoking interior. While the comedic material is constantly fun and frequently laugh-out-loud funny (Conrad’s description of his travel memoir as “On the Road: Part 2” is a real gem), the dramatic material has real bite to it.

As Nick and Conrad lay their relationship out bare, rehash childhood wrongs and debate what it actually means to be someone’s “brother,” as Conrad comes closer to the father that he never knew and as Nick finally realizes the responsibility that he bears regarding his relationship with his own son, Manson Family Vacation manages to do something quite difficult and equally wonderful: it makes you absentmindedly wipe away the tear that’s traveled down your cheek, even as you guffaw at the next ridiculous situation. J. Davis’ Manson Family Vacation has real heart and I’ll take that any old day of the week.

8/16/15 (Part One): A Little Stake, A Lotta Whine

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Alex Karpovsky, Anna Margaret Hollyman, awkward films, bad boyfriends, cinema, commitment issues, Dakota Goldhor, dark comedies, Dustin Guy Defa, film reviews, filmed in New York, films, hipsters, horror-comedies, independent films, indie films, indie horror film, Jason Banker, Jason Selvig, Jerry Raik, Juliette Fairley, Max Heller, Melodie Sisk, Movies, obnoxious people, Onur Tukel, rom-com, romances, set in New York City, sex comedies, Summer of Blood, unlikable protagonist, vampires, Vanna Pilgrim, Woody Allen, writer-director-actor-editor

On paper, multi-hypenate filmmaker (he writes, directs, produces, edits and stars) Onur Tukel’s Summer of Blood (2014) seems like a pretty winning idea: take the neurotic, relationship-based comedies of Woody Allen but insert a vampire protagonist. Et voila: instant horror-comedy goodness! There’s obviously a rich vein to be mined here: imagine one of Allen’s schlubby, lovable losers trying to navigate the choppy waters of not only a terrifying dating scene but also their newly acquired vampirism. If you think about it, the comedy almost writes itself.

In practice, however, Tukel’s Summer of Blood is actually quite a pain in the ass (or neck, if you prefer the punny version). This has less to do with the oftentimes awkward, amateurish performances from some of the cast than it does with the film’s one towering problem: not only is Tukel’s Erik a thoroughly obnoxious, odious jerk, he’s also a massively unlikable, irritating protagonist. As portrayed by S.O.B.’s resident auteur, Erik is a tone-deaf, ridiculously self-obsessed hipster nitwit, a constantly schticking human hemorrhoid who’s never funny, sympathetic or, for the most part, remotely interesting. While the film that surrounds him has its own issues, Tukel’s Erik is the super-massive black hole at the center that sucks the good stuff right into oblivion.

We first meet our hapless “hero” as he and long-suffering girlfriend, Jody (Anna Margaret Hollyman, much better than the film requires), are having one of their customarily awkward dinners at their favorite outdoor restaurant. Jody proposes to her schlubby, commitment-phobic beau only to be summarily rejected: not only is it “cliche” to propose at a restaurant, it’s too “post-feminist” for the woman to propose. Since this little routine has been going on for some time, Jody finally gets fed up and ends up leaving with an old friend, Jason (Jason Selvig). On their way out, Jason offers some pretty valuable advice: “Shave, button up your shirt and get a fucking job.” Well played, Jason…well played.

Turns out that Jason does have a job, although he applies himself as little as humanly possible. He works in an office of some kind where his one and only friend, Jamie (Alex Karpovsky, who’s always a breath of fresh air) tries to keep him on the right side of the boss, Carl (Max Heller). For the most part, Erik just uses his time in the office to hit on comely co-worker, Penelope (Dakota Goldhor, turning in a truly baffling performance). When she spurns his advances due to his age and “not being her type,” Erik swipes a photo from her desk and proceeds to jack off in the bathroom. If you thought romance was dead, you’d better think again, pardner.

After Jody breaks up with him, Erik goes on a trio of awkward, mostly unsuccessful blind dates (all at the same restaurant, natch), two of which end with him getting summarily rejected after saying some truly stupid things. He does manages to seal the deal with one young lady, however, although the thoroughly unspectacular sex (in the most bored way possible, she keeps imploring Erik to go “deeper,” “harder” and “faster,” none of which he’s capable of doing). She only does “great sex,” however, so our hero gets the heave-ho here, as well.

While wandering the streets of his hip, New York neighborhood (Bushwick, natch) one night, Erik happens to bump into the mysterious, debonair Gavin (Dustin Guy Defa). After another awkward, schtick-filled encounter, Gavin bites Erik on the neck, turning him into a child of the night. Rather than be overly concerned, however, Erik is actually kinda over-joyed: he feels great, he’s more confident, can hypnotize his stereotypical Jewish landlord into letting him stay for free and, most importantly, can now fuck like some kind of Roman god. Using his new “powers,” Erik returns to each of his previous “strike-outs” and proceeds to knock their socks off…and turn them into vampires, of course.

As Erik adjusts to his new lifestyle, a lifestyle that includes vampire threesomes, feasting on stoners in the park and being an even bigger jerk at work, he finds himself constantly nagged by one little issue: turns out he really, really misses Jody. In fact, he might actually be in love with her, after all. With only Jason standing between him and presumed happiness, Erik must use all of his vamp skills to try to win Jody back. Can a vampire ever find true love? Only in New York, baby…only in New York.

For the most part, Summer of Blood is a pretty typical, low-budget horror comedy: the film looks okay (the frequent blood-letting is well-done), the camera-work is decent (cinematographer Jason Banker is actually the writer/director behind Toad Road (2012), one of the very best, most ingenious films I’ve seen in the last several years, although his work on S.O.B. certainly isn’t revelatory) and the actual storyline is kind of intriguing. The acting ranges from pretty good (Hollyman and Karpovsky are definitely the best of this bunch) to much less impressive (Goldhor brings such a weird energy to Penelope that I could never figure out if she was disgusted by Erik’s frequent advances or actually flirting with him and the two hipsters that Erik runs into are the very definition of non-actors), with most performances falling in the “decent” spectrum.

As mentioned earlier, the single biggest, critical issue with Summer of Blood ends up being our protagonist, Erik: to put it bluntly, any scene he’s in is a chore to sit through, which becomes a bit of an issue when he’s in every single scene. Erik is never anything more than an intolerable shitheels, a whining, obnoxious jerk who’s endless self-awareness and constant schtick gets old by the three-minute mark and then just keeps going and going, like some kind of Hell-spawned Energizer Bunny.

In any given scene, at any given moment, Tukel’s verbal diarrhea is so overwhelming that it’s impossible to ever focus on the content of any particular scene or moment. He finds a guy dying in the street from a slashed throat, he does a stand-up routine. He runs into a couple of hipsters, he riffs on how he looks like Jerry Garcia. He has an orgy with his three vampire ladies, we get schtick about how he’s not a misogynist because he genuinely likes having sex with multiple women at the same time. To make it classier, however, he lets one of the vamps read from Ginsberg’s “Howl.”

The entire film becomes one massive, never-ending bit of (largely unfunny) schtick, some of it so moldy that it’s practically vaudevillian. It’s pretty obvious that Tukel modeled the film after Woody Allen’s oeuvre and, as stated earlier, there’s nothing wrong with that idea whatsoever. There’s no denying that Woody can be a bit of a “schtick-up” guy, himself: he’s also pretty well-known for portraying the kinds of neurotic asses that most people wouldn’t willingly associate with in the real world. For all that, however, Allen is still able to make his characters at least somewhat likable: he’s a schlub but he’s our schlub, dammit.

The problem with Tukel’s performance is that Erik begins the film as an off-putting creep and finishes that way: there’s no arc, no “dark night of the soul,” no sort of internal change, no notion that anything that transpires has any sort of effect on him whatsoever. Oh, sure, he talks about how he’s a “changed” man at the end but the revelation is immediately given the raspberry by the film’s ridiculously flippant final moment. I’m not sure if Tukel actually meant Erik to come across as a lovably shaggy rogue or if he actually meant to portray him as a hatefully obnoxious dickhead: whatever the intent, the end result is a character that wears out his welcome in three minutes and then sticks around for another 83. Talk about the guest from hell!

The real disappointment with Summer of Blood is that the film isn’t devoid of good ideas. In fact, the ultimate observation about vampirism and commitment issues (Erik doesn’t want to turn Jody into a vampire because then he’d be “stuck” with her for all of eternity, rather than just her lifetime) is a really sharp one and could have been spun into something much more thought-provoking, even within the context of a silly sex comedy. There are moments during the film, such as the great scene where a dejected Erik tries to “comfort” strangers on the subway, that are genuinely funny: the key here, for the most part, is that they’re the ones where Tukel gives his motormouth a rest and just lets his filmmaking do the talking.

I didn’t hate Summer of Blood, although I won’t lie and say that I particularly liked it, either: I’ve seen plenty of worst films, both micro and mega-budget. For the most part, the constant, unfunny schtick just wore me down, like being trapped with an incredibly tedious observational comic in a stuck elevator. I still think that the idea of mashing together Woody Allenesque comedy and vampires is a good one, even if Summer of Blood makes it seem as natural as mixing oil and water. No need to wear your garlic necklaces for this one, folks: Onur Tukel’s Summer of Blood is all schtick, no bite.

8/8/15: Find Your Swan

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Alan Tudyk, awkward films, best films of the year, best friends, Best of 2015, borderline personality disorder, casinos, cinema, dark comedies, David Robbins, dramas, Eric Alan Edwards, favorite films, film reviews, films, independent films, indie comedies, indie dramas, indie films, instant millionaire, James Marsden, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Joan Cusack, Kristen Wiig, Linda Cardellini, Loretta Devine, lottery winner, mental illness, Mitch Silpa, Movies, narcissism, obsession, Oprah Winfrey, patient-psychiatrist relationship, psychiatric care, Shira Piven, talk shows, therapists, therapy, Thomas Mann, Tim Robbins, Welcome to Me, Wes Bentley

If there’s one unifying theme to this crazy, modern era that we live in, I’m willing to wager that it’s narcissism. Never before in the history of humanity has it been so easy to be as completely self-absorbed as it is now. Not only easy, mind you, but also immensely profitable: when average, normal, “every-day” people can clear millions of dollars in ad revenue via YouTube channels devoted to everything from watching them play video games to watching them taste-test sodas, well…it doesn’t really seem to get more “me”-oriented than that, does it? This isn’t even the same thing as watching celebrities shill products: this is watching your next-door-neighbor do the same thing with (presumably) none of the resulting name recognition.

Thanks to the continued explosion of social media, technological advancements, “reality TV” programs and “the 24-hour news cycle,” the unwashed masses now have as direct a pipeline to the cultural zeitgeist as the glitterati. One need not release the “next, great American novel” in order to vault to the top of the literary heap: one need only draw as many curious visitors as possible to their newest blog entry. Want to be a world-famous pop star? Forget paying your dues on the club circuit: start uploading as many videos as possible of you covering that Florence+the Machine song and wait for the offers to start rolling in. In the past, anyone who wanted to “break through” to mainstream fame had a much steeper uphill climb: nowadays, it’s never been easier to shout your opinions to the rafters and actually have someone pay attention. Warhol wanted to give everyone 15 minutes but, nowadays, is there anyone actually watching the clock?

Actor-turned-director Shira Piven tackles this particular phenomena head-on with her spectacular new film, Welcome to Me (2014), a bittersweet ode to wish-fulfillment, mental illness, friendship and self-interest that might just come to define this era in the same way that Easy Rider (1969) would come to define the transitional time between the ’60s and the ’70s. Across the span of 87 minutes, Piven and screenwriter Eliot Laurence put us through the wringer, moving from extreme pathos to extreme hilarity with such stop-on-a-dime dynamics that the whole film becomes a masterclass in how to move your audience. In the process, Piven, Laurence and comedic wunderkind Kristen Wiig present us with one of the greatest cinematic creations of the 2000s, a performance that all but assures Wiig a shot at some genuine award-season gold: Alice Klieg. To paraphrase that most inimitable of comic book possums: we have seen Alice and she is us.

Opening with a quote from French philosopher Michel de Montaigne that might be the best modern mission-statement ever (“I study myself more than any other subject. That is my physics. That is my metaphysics.”), Welcome to Me wastes no time in plunging us into the day-to-day routine of Wiig’s Alice. We see her obsessively arranged house, everything organized by color, shape and whatever random internal qualifiers make sense to her. We witness Alice’s obsession with swans of every size, shape, make and model, along with the seemingly endless rows of videotaped TV shows that seem to fill every available bookshelf in her patently crammed home.

We see her recite every line from a taped episode of Oprah in the kind of off-hand manner that indicates she probably has every line from every Oprah episode memorized. We see her ask a complete stranger if there’s any “rape” in A Tale of Two Cities, a question which is as esoteric as it is mildly disturbing. We watch Alice as she goes about her lonely, oddly structured life, a ghost-like presence in a world that doesn’t quite make sense to her, a world that seems to have no more interest in her than it would any other roadside curiosity or “quirky” bag-lady. She doesn’t even seem to have any friends or casual acquaintances, aside from her mousy BFF, Gina (Freaks and Geeks’ Linda Cardellini). From our first glimpse of Alice, it’s painfully obvious that she has mental health issues, possibly more than one. She seems harmless, however, like so many others, so we just leave her alone to her own devices: what we don’t see can’t affect us, after all.

Alice, however, is destined for much grander things: in a modern era where everyone wants to be heard, why should she be any different? After winning a whopping $86 million lottery, Alice finally gets her chance: she’s going to make a difference in the biggest way possible, all while paying tribute to her greatest idol and influence, Oprah Winfrey. She approaches brothers/TV station owners Gabe (Wes Bentley) and Rich Ruskin (James Marsden) with a proposition: for $15 million, she’ll get her own TV talk show (100 two-hour episodes) and a chance to become as famous/watched/influential as Oprah. The subject? Why, Alice Klieg, of course, in all of her boundless glory.

From the jump, Alice’s show is as insane as expected. She’s wheeled out in a massive swan boat to a pre-recorded theme song that she, herself, croons. Her show features segments like the one where she cooks and consumes a meatloaf cake while the audience watches in confused silence or the numerous reenactments of various moments in her life (the one where she calls out old enemy Jordana Spangler ends with Alice bawling and screaming “Fuck you to death, Jordana!”as the crew frantically cuts to commercial). “Why doesn’t it look like Oprah,” Alice tearfully asks, only to be given the only sensible answer: “Because you ate a cake made out of meat and cried?”

The whole thing is a mess, obviously, the kind of talk show you might expect from someone who proudly discusses her borderline personality disorder as if it were a gluten allergy. It’s not like Alice isn’t seeking professional help, after all: she was happily seeing shrink Daryl Moffet (Tim Robbins) before she decided to quit her meds and regulate her moods with string cheese (always sound medical advice). Now that she’s finally getting what she most wants out of life, she’s happy enough to mitigate the need for mood stabilizers: living well, as always, is its own reward.

But the show is still a mess. Program director Dawn (Joan Cusack) thinks that Alice is a loose cannon waiting to go off, Rich thinks she’s the answer to all of his financial woes, Gabe isn’t quite sure what to make of her (but he kind of thinks he’s falling in love, at least a little bit) and Gina is almost super-humanly supportive, even as Alice seems openly dismissive of anything that doesn’t have to do with her. Hell, Gina even uproots her everyday routine in order to move into a reservation casino with Alice and several dogs…that’s friendship, ladies and gentlemen, no two ways about it!

In order to make her show “better,” Alice throws more and more money at it, all while Rich rubs his hands together and salivates like Scrooge McDuck at an estate sale. And then, of course, the expectedly unexpected happens: “Welcome to Me” starts to gain a following. Before she knows it, Alice has a full studio audience, her ratings are up and she even has her own super-fan, in the person of Rainer (Thomas Mann), an odd man-child who studies Alice in college and wants her show to air five times a week rather than once: he really hates to wait, after all.

And then, of course, the other shoe drops, like an airborne piano through a skylight: as Alice’s show gets bigger and she gets more of a platform, she becomes increasingly unstable and problems begin to crop up everywhere. Alice’s talk show becomes bigger, stranger and more controversial, as each and every whim from her extremely fertile imagination is given life, for better or worse (usually the latter), right through to her decision to spay and neuter dogs on-camera…with Alice actually performing the procedures.

As our erstwhile hero is battered about by any number of external (and internal) forces, Alice finds herself standing on the precipice of the most important, painful decision she’s ever made: embrace the anonymity of “normal” life and give up on her dreams or boldly forge her own path, disregarding the desires, wishes and feelings of all those around her in order to create a more complete version of herself. After all, as the lyrics from Rodgers & Hammerstein’s “Happy Song” inform us on the soundtrack, “if you don’t have a dream, how you gonna have a dream come true?” Like all of us, Alice has a lot of dreams…will she have what it takes to make them come true?

Let’s get the obvious stuff out of the way: Welcome to Me is a helluva film, easily one of the year’s best (thus far, at least). Piven, who has only one other directorial effort in her background (2011’s Fully Loaded, which she also co-wrote) is a sure hand with the material, guiding the film (and audience) through its/our paces with an exceptional amount of subtlety and skill. There are plenty of big, laugh-out-loud moments in Eliot Laurence’s excellent screenplay, no doubt about it, but some of the most effective parts of the film are also the simplest, quietest and most subliminal: the powerful scene where we see Alice framed within the solitude (and virtual imprisonment) of her own home…the heartbreaking look on Gina’s face when she sees her secrets laid bare before a television audience…the impossibly beautiful, uplifting moment where we finally see how much faith the crew actually has in Alice…these would be genuinely impactful moments in any film but hit especially hard here.

Indeed, one of Welcome to Me’s greatest strengths is its ability to make us laugh like idiots one minute (the scene where Alice tries to push an ornery dog into a carrier is absolutely sublime) while ripping our hearts out the next (Alice’s “dark night of the soul” moment, in the casino, has to be one of the rawest, most painful and devastating scenes I’ve seen all year and that’s saying quite a lot). Like the very best films, Welcome to Me wants to entertain us but it also wants to make us think: think about the strangers we pass by every day, think about the world around us, think about our own hopes, fears, dreams and inadequacies. Piven isn’t interested in easy, dumb laughs, although there’s still kneeslappers aplenty here: she knows that you can’t have comedy without tragedy and Welcome to Me is tragic, in the very best way possible.

On the technical side, Welcome to Me packs plenty of firepower behind the scenes. Veteran cinematographer Eric Alan Edwards’ resume reads like a virtual ‘who’s who’ of some of the most iconic films of the ’90s (My Own Private Idaho (1991), Even Cowgirls Get the Blues (1993), Kids (1995), Cop Land (1997) and Clay Pigeons (1998), to name but a few) and he presents some immaculately framed, beautifully composed shots here. There’s an almost fairy tale quality to the film’s narrative that’s handily echoed by Edward’s camerawork.

We also get an appropriately whimsical, well-utilized score by David Robbins, the composer behind films as far-flung as Bob Roberts (1992), Dead Man Walking (1995) and Cradle Will Rock (1999). The score is never obvious and manages to downplay clumsy emotional cues in favor of mood-setting that always feels organic, especially in regards to Alice’s wacky TV show. Between the narrative, cinematography and score, Welcome to Me has a complete singularity of vision that reminded me of another of my favorite films of the year, Marjane Satrapi’s The Voices (2014): both films utilize the lush visuals of someone like Wes Anderson, while tweaking them in some pretty impressive ways.

Then, of course, there’s that cast…I mean, seriously…get a load of this mob of unduly talented performers: Joan Cusack, Tim Robbins, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Wes Bentley, Thomas Mann, Linda Cardellini, James Marsden, Alan Tudyk, Loretta Devine, Jack Wallace…that, friends and neighbors, is how you cast your film! Regardless of the amount of screen-time, each and every member of the cast comes together to form an absolutely unbeatable ensemble. I hate to pull out the “Wes Anderson” card, again, but there’s certainly a similarity between his high-octane casts and Welcome to Me’s featured players. Hell, Cusack and Cardellini turn in two of the year’s brightest performances and neither of them has a tenth of Wiig’s screen time.

The glittering, dazzling star on the top of this particular tree, however, is the one and only Kristen Wiig. While she’s been a reliably great comic presence since her formative years on SNL, Welcome to Me marks a huge leap forward as far as her dramatic performances go. To not put too fine a point on it, Wiig is absolutely flawless as Alice: this is the kind of organic, well-rounded and utterly human performance that deserves to be lauded by every awards organization under the sun. There are no seams, no notion of where the actor ends and the character begins: like Leland Orser and Mary Elizabeth Winstead in the similarly amazing Faults (2014), Wiig isn’t playing Alice…she IS Alice, at least for the 90 minutes that we spend we her.

Whether she’s bawling uncontrollably, propositioning Rainer in the most awkward way possible, throwing a temper tantrum after she gets cut-off for mentioning “masturbation” on-air or sweetly making amends to everyone she’s wronged, Wiig’s Alice is the undisputed master of this particular universe, the sun around which everyone else orbits. Fitting, of course, since the film is all about the eternal struggle for self-validation and personal worth: this is a film about Alice and Wiig towers over the proceedings like the Colossus of Rhodes. Mark my words: Welcome to Me is where Wiig picks up the dramedy mantle dropped by the recently departed Robin Williams and it fits her like it was tailor-made.

Ultimately, the true mark of an unforgettable film is how hard it hits you: from the first minute to the last, Welcome to Me was like a never-ending barrage of body blows, albeit in the best way possible. I’m not ashamed to admit that the final 10 minutes turned me into a bit of a mess: the film’s payoff is undeniably bittersweet but there’s a life-affirming quality to it that’s anything but depressing. Throughout the film, Alice only really wants one thing: to be just like her idol, Oprah Winfrey. While she tries mightily (and fails wretchedly) to emulate her TV show, there is one aspect of her hero that Alice manages to internalize: in the same way that Winfrey derived joy from giving her audience things and helping them, so, too, does Alice learn that the real value of her platform is in her ability to make a difference in the lives of others. Alice’s show is called “Welcome to Me” but, in the end, it could just as easily be called “Welcome to Us.”

As we continue to find new and improved ways to make our own, personal impacts in an increasingly chaotic, cluttered world, it might help to keep one thing in mind: we may all have our own stories, our own triumphs, despairs, victories and losses but, in the end, they’re all part of the same autobiography…the story of humanity, in all its beautiful, terrible, wonderful and hideous forms. We may want to tell our own stories but, in the end, it’s all part of the same narrative. Like Alice, all we can do is strive for happiness and ride our swan boats into the horizon.

7/15/15 (Part One): Peachfuzz Still Loves You, Little Buckaroo

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awkward films, Best of 2015, cinema, co-writers, confessions, Creep, dark comedies, disturbing films, feature-film debut, Film, film reviews, found-footage, found-footage films, Funny Games, horror, horror films, insanity, isolated estates, lake house, Man Bites Dog, Mark Duplass, Movies, multiple writers, obsession, Patrick Brice, Peachfuzz, psychopaths, small cast, The Puffy Chair, trilogy, unsettling, videographer for hire, writer-director-actor

Suppose that you’re a freelance videographer and you’ve just stumbled upon one of those “too-good-to-be-true”-type Craigslist ads: you know, the ones that promise lots of money for what seems like a surprisingly small amount of work? In this case, the job offers a cool grand for just a few hour’s work…not too shabby, eh? When you get to the address, you find out that it’s in a really picturesque, isolated mountain town, at the top of a long, wending hill. Once there, you discover that your prospective employer is the dictionary definition of a meek, unassuming guy…basically, the kind of guy that no one would cross the street to avoid, although they might do so to steal his lunch money.

This guy, he seems like a nice enough dude but he has a few quirks: he really likes to hug, for one thing, and he has a rather unsettling propensity for jumping out from around corners and trying (and succeeding) to startle you. He also keeps a wolf Halloween mask in his closet, which he’s named “Peachfuzz” and written a jaunty tune about. No biggie, though: the guy’s house is really nice, modern, well-lit and comfy…no piles of bodies, bone chandeliers or Sawyer-approved home decor to be found here, doncha know! In every way, shape and form, this guy is the poster-boy for middle-of-the-road, plain-ol’-vanilla normalcy.

After talking to this friendly, unassuming fella, he makes a pretty good case for needing your services: turns out that he’s been diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor and he wants you to make a “My Life (1993)-esque” video document for his unborn son. He may not be around to raise him, but this dedicated soon-to-be-dad wants to leave his child with as much of his wisdom and attention as he can: get the life lessons out of the way right now, while he’s still around to give them, and leave his son a legacy for the future.

All well and good, no alarm bells whatsoever…if anything, this guy might be in the running for “Father of the Year,” unborn child or not. After paying you upfront (talk about a totally upstanding dude!), your humble host decides that it’s time to get down to business: you were paid to film, so film you will. The first thing on the agenda? This totally normal, average guy wants to walk his son through the mechanics of “tubby time,” so he strips naked and jumps in the bathtub, all while you keep filming. And then things get really weird.

This, in a nutshell, is Patrick Brice and Mark Duplass’ intensely awkward, genuinely disturbing Creep (2014), a two-person, found-footage examination of obsession, insanity, loneliness and the often terrifying “real faces” that supposedly normal folks hide from the world at large. Despite the inherent simplicity of the set-up and format (Brice and Duplass co-write the film, as well as starring in it, while Brice also served as the director…at no point do we ever get another actor on-screen aside from these two), Creep is endlessly engaging and so tightly plotted that it’s almost seamless. Creep is not only a first-rate found-footage film, it’s also one of the best, most unsettling films of the year.

The secret weapon here, as in many other indie productions, is wunderkind Mark Duplass. Although perhaps best known for his pioneering work in mumblecore and for his role on the relentlessly hilarious TV show The League, Duplass and his brother, Jay, have been involved with an almost dizzying variety of projects, either as writer, director, actor or all three: The Puffy Chair (2005), Baghead (2008), Cyrus (2010), Greenberg (2010), Jeff, Who Lives at Home (2011), Your Sister’s Sister (2011), Safety Not Guaranteed (2012), Zero Dark Thirty (2012) and Mercy (2014), to name but a few.

In this case, Duplass has teamed with Patrick Brice, whose follow-up to Creep, The Overnight (2015), made big waves at various film festivals this year. Described as the first in a trilogy, Creep is as low-budget and bare-bones as it gets: in essence, the entire film consists of Duplass’ Josef creeping out Brice’s Aaron in every way imaginable, with the tension slowly ratcheting up until the entire film threatens to explode like a busted water heater. To make things even odder and more uncomfortable, Creep is also full of pitch-black, deadpan humor, much of which walks an incredibly thin line between making one burst out laughing (Josef’s “Charlie Day-worthy” Peachfuzz song is an easy highlight) and making one cringe down in their seat, attempting vainly to become invisible.

Perhaps the greatest triumph, here, above and beyond the masterfully economic production (“anyone” can do this…provided, of course, that they’re as talented as Brice and Duplass) is the way that the film sinks its hooks into us and refuses to let go. Unless you’re a complete horror neophyte, you’ll probably be able to predict where the film eventually ends up. The route to get there, however, is a particularly thorny one, full of red herrings, dead ends, misplaced assumptions and cinematic slight of hand: at one point, we seem to be witnessing the natural progression of what we assume will happen, only to have it be revealed as recorded footage from earlier. Brice and Duplass don’t engage in the same sort of meta-mind-fuckery that Haneke did in Funny Games (1997) but they’ve managed to set up show just one door down, which is a pretty neat trick all by itself.

Creep is a strange film, no two ways about it. It’s a surprisingly complex narrative for such a short, deceptively simple film: Brice and Duplass seem to be telling a pretty straight-forward genre story about a creepy guy (think Psycho (1960) stripped down to a two-person drama) but constantly throw in allusions, asides and nods to much bigger, darker things happening in the background. The film could be about the hidden dangers lurking behind any potentially smiling face but it could also be about the very nature of truth and perception, sort of a Schrodinger test to see if “absolute truth” exists outside of our individual understandings. It could be about loneliness and mental illness but it could also be about the horrifying randomness of the universe, the howlingly unknowable cosmic coin toss that puts some folks on the road to happiness while others end up mulch.

There are moments in the film (the harrowing bit involving Josef’s ringing cell phone, that amazing final long shot) that are as classically “horror” as the genre gets, while other scenes (tubby time, the unpleasant Peachfuzz story, the visit to the healing spring) would be odd fits in any film, regardless of the generic focus. Creep is such an amazing piece of work because it somehow makes all these disparate elements fit together in a wholly organic way: Brice and Duplass’ film could be about any or all of these things or it could be about none of them.

While Brice has a few off moments, acting-wise (some of his close-up asides to the camera feel more like delivering lines than just “being”), Duplass has such a singular focus that it’s difficult to see where the actor stops and the character begins. At times, I was reminded of Duplass’ archly awesome asshole from The League, a totally cool dude who fucks with people just to watch their reactions. At other times, however, that odd combo of sweetly goofy happiness and reptilian, dispassionate reserve would chill me straight to my blood cells: it’s always difficult to get under a lifelong horror fanatic’s skin, especially where more modern horrors are concerned…Creep makes it seem distressingly easy.

As the first film in a proposed trilogy, I’m deathly curious to see where Brice and Duplass go from here: while the film ends in a way that seems to “pan back” and give us a wider overview of the evil we’ve witnessed, I’d hate to think that Brice and Duplass might get lazy and just give us more of the same in future installments. As it stands, Creep was one of the most uncomfortable, unpleasant, powerful and astounding little films I managed to see this year: I’d love to be able to say the same thing about the next two, whenever Brice and Duplass decide to unleash them upon the world.

For now, however, I’m going to double-down on my long-standing paranoia regarding other people: the world might be full of totally nice, cool individuals, but as long as there are Josefs out there, I think I’ll be a little more comfortable behind my locked door, thank you very much. As for answering Craigslist ads? Fuggedaboudit.

 

7/9/15: Sheep In Wolf’s Clothing

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Ansel Roth, Beth Grant, brainwashing, character dramas, Chris Ellis, cinema, cult leaders, cults, dark comedies, deprogrammers, dramas, dysfunctional family, fall from grace, Faults, feature-film debut, film reviews, films, Heather McIntosh, hotel rooms, Jon Gries, Lance Reddick, Leland Orser, Leonard Earl Howze, living in a hotel, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Michael Ragen, Movies, Nicholas Tucci, parent-child relationships, Riley Stearns, Sarah Beth Shapiro, surreal, The Cub, washed-up, worried parents, writer-director

Cinema has a long, proud tradition of anti-heroes, although few are quite as memorable (or reprehensible) as Ansel Roth (Leland Orser). When we first meet Ansel, the de facto protagonist of writer-director Riley Stearns’ incredible Faults (2014), he’s trying to use a previously used voucher to scam a free breakfast from a hotel’s in-house restaurant. The confrontation turns physical after Ansel refuses to leave, eating ketchup packets with a fork while the restaurant manager and waiter attempt to wrestle him to the ground. The capper to the whole fiasco? Turns out Ansel pulled the voucher out of the trash in the first place. The cost of the meal that he refused to pay? $4.75. That, my friends, is conviction.

Ansel is a scruffy rat, a washed-up, defeated con artist who no longer believes in the bullshit he peddles but doesn’t really have a lot of options, at this point in time. Shuffling from one hotel conference room to the next, he discusses cult deprogramming to tiny groups of largely disinterested people, all while trying to sell a book that no one wants. Despite having a former best-selling book and television show, a professional fall from grace and ensuing divorce have left Ansel a broken, wretched schlub, trading on former glories that are in danger of being completely forgotten, leaving his entire existence in question.

After a particularly disastrous “seminar,” Ansel is approached by Paul (Chris Ellis) and Evelyn (Beth Grant), a couple of salt-of-the-earth types who want the former deprogrammer’s help in rescuing their beloved daughter, Claire (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), from the clutches of a cult. Despite initially blowing them off, Ansel is forced to change his tune after his publisher, Terry (Jon Gries), drops him as a client and sends the menacing Mick (Lance Reddick) to collect what Ansel owes for his latest flop of a book. Ansel agrees to “kidnap” and deprogram Claire, undoing the cult’s brainwashing and giving the couple back their daughter…all for an incredibly steep price, of course.

Ansel and his lunk-headed partners snatch Claire off the street and spirit her away to a motel room, where Ansel plans to spend the next five days deprogramming her. While Claire, at first, seems more than a little shell-shocked, in no time at all, she’s engaging in a philosophical back-and-forth about her life, her involvement with the cult and, to a great extent, the abject worthlessness of Ansel’s own existence. Things really get interesting when Ansel reveals that Claire’s parents are staying in the adjoining room.

As Paul’s aggressive, “my way or the highway” attitude threatens to wreck Ansel’s progress (along with giving us plenty of good reasons for Claire’s initial departure), Terry and Mick continue to hover in the background, promising to take the grubby deprogrammer apart and put him together backward if they don’t get their promised cash. Will Ansel be able to keep his own wreck of a life together long enough to save Claire or will it all end up being the straw that broke the camel’s back?

After gaining some measure of notice with the clever “raised by wolves” short The Cub (2013), Stearns really kicks down the door and blowtorches the joint with his debut full-length, Faults. As with John Maclean’s similarly excellent Slow West (2015), Stearns’ film is a perfect synthesis of form, theme, performance and technique, each element blending into and leading into the next like Ouroboros eating its tail. The script is tight, taut and full of exceptional dialogue, giving the film the feel of a really good stage play, a feeling reinforced by the tendency to confine the action to small, contained locations (the motel room, the van, Ansel’s car). Faults is the kind of film that can hold an audience rapt with nothing more than two characters talking, a definitively old-fashioned notion in this era of sensory overload.

Cinematographer Michael Ragen shoots some incredibly beautiful, evocative images, doubly impressive when one considers that Faults is his full-length debut, as well, after a series of shorts and music videos. Ragen was also responsible for shooting The Cub, so here’s to hoping that his relationship with Stearns continues to bear such impressive fruit. Ragen’s often dreamlike images are perfectly complimented by Heather McIntosh’s whimsical score: the score helps to leaven the film’s darker edges and accentuates the more absurd comedy elements quite nicely. Faults looks and sounds consistently great, making it one of the more attractive films to come down the pike this year.

Towering over everything like a pair of Titans, however, are the astounding performances by Leland Orser and Mary Elizabeth Winstead. Despite how great the script and production is, despite the raft of solid supporting performances (Ellis and Grant are particularly good as Claire’s parents) and the tight sense of economy, Faults is, at its heart, a two character study and those two characters are Ansel Roth and Claire, Leland Orser and Mary Elizabeth Winstead. If there are any cracks in this foundation, any failure on the part of the principals to take us “all the way,” than Faults would become just a curiosity, a kindred spirit to Jane Campion’s odd Holy Smoke (1999). Luckily for us all, Orser and Winstead turn in two of the very best performances of the entire year.

Orser, a character actor whose career encompasses everything from walk-ons in The Golden Girls and Se7en (1995) (he was the male half of the “lust” setpiece) to more substantial roles in films like Alien: Resurrection (1997), Saving Private Ryan (1998) and Liam Neeson’s Taken franchise, is an absolutely mesmerizing presence here, demanding our attention like an immutable black hole. There’s no notion of separation between actor and character, here: no zippers or seams in this particular “costume.” Rather, we get a complete portrait of an impossibly fractured, miserable man, a loathsomely smooth-talking snake-oil salesman who believes in nothing whatsoever, including his own bullshit. From that opening introduction in the restaurant all the way to Ansel’s shocking “evolution,” there’s not one missed note or misstep in Orser’s performance. I fully expect him to be snubbed come awards’ season but know this: he absolutely deserves to be represented when they announce the short-list for Best Actor in a Leading Role, hands-down.

Winstead, who first came to prominence via performances in genre pictures like The Ring 2 (2005), Final Destination 3 (2006), Black Christmas (2006), Death Proof (2007) and The Thing remake (2011), is nothing short of a revelation here, giving us what surely must be the trickiest, most subtle performance of her entire career. The co-mingled sense of naive innocence and steely determination is a heady one and watching Claire slowly assume control of the whole messy situation is one of the greatest cinematic pleasures I’ve experienced in some time. Winstead is completely invested in the performance, giving Claire the kind of multi-dimensionality that marks the very best cinematic creations. Immense kudos to Winstead for her fearless performance: Stearns is her real-life husband and I’m assuming that their relationship allowed her to open up in ways that might not have been possible with another filmmaker. Regardless of the reason, Winstead is quite marvelous as Claire, from her parking lot intro (she puts up a pretty good fight!) all the way through the film’s multiple surprise revelations and twists.

The aforementioned twists, another facet of Stearns’ fantastic script, are yet another reason why I found myself falling in fast love with the film. Quite simply, Faults is the furthest thing from a predictable, run-of-the-mill film as possible. While I’m sure that many audience members might call some of the surprises, I seriously doubt whether anyone will be able to predict them all: the last 20 minutes of the film was a constant barrage of “rug-pulling” that was as exhilarating as it was unpredictable. For all of that, however, Faults still feels completely organic: any and every twist revelation is earned, nothing is unduly telegraphed and the whole film feels as smart as advanced trigonometry, albeit much more fun.

So, here I stand, my application in hand to become a devoted acolyte of the transcendent Faults (no “the,” if you please, as Claire patiently informs Ansel). I’m fully ready to give myself over to flawless filmmaking, extraordinary performances and a casually brilliant script, ready to take that next step and “progress” to quality filmmaking. I’m here to recruit you in this endeavor, as well, to take your hand and lead you to the same light I found. No need for deprogrammers here, my friends: let the Church of Stearns show you the way.

 

6/28/15: Livin’ the Life

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based on a book, caper films, Charlie Tahan, cheating husbands, cinema, Clea Lewis, crime film, Daniel Schechter, dark comedies, double-crosses, Elmore Leonard, Eric Alan Edwards, film reviews, films, heist films, held for ransom, husband-wife relationship, Isla Fisher, Jennifer Aniston, John Hawkes, Kevin Corrigan, kidnapped wife, kidnapping, Life of Crime, literary adaptation, Mark Boone Junior, Mickey Dawson, mistress, Movies, partners in crime, ransoms, Supporting Characters, The Newton Brothers, The Switch, Tim Robbins, Will Forte, writer-director-editor, Yasiin Bey

A couple of criminals who don’t quite trust each other…a wealthy husband who doesn’t exactly want his kidnapped wife back…a kidnapped wife who doesn’t really want to go home…a Nazi-obsessed associate who’s not completely sane…a love-struck friend who’s almost an idiot…a conniving mistress who’s everything but an idiot…1970s Detroit…sounds like quite the predicament, eh? In the wrong hands, this many disparate elements and plot threads would be an easy recipe for disaster: good thing that all of the above was the handiwork of one Elmore Leonard, the patron saint of quirky crime fiction for over 50 years.

With a battalion of classics under his belt, Leonard’s novels have been a go-to for filmmakers for some time: indeed, one need only look at the tremendous box-office success of adaptations like Get Shorty (1995), Jackie Brown (1997) and Out of Sight (1998) to see what a perfect fit Leonard’s hardboiled, if tongue-in-cheek, prose and instantly memorable characters are for the silver screen. The latest Leonard adaptation, based on his 1978 novel The Switch, is writer-director Daniel Schechter’s Life of Crime (2013). Thanks to a pitch-perfect cast, a great script, exceptional production values and one of those patented twisty-turny Leonard plots, Life of Crime sits comfortably next to the aforementioned classics, proving that good writing never goes out of style.

Louis (John Hawkes) and Ordell (Yassin Bey, formerly known as Mos Def), a couple of small-time crooks plying their trade on the streets of late-’70s Detroit, think they’ve stumbled upon the perfect crime: they’re going to kidnap Mickey Dawson (Jennifer Aniston), the trophy wife of notorious drunk/golfer/real estate baron Frank Dawson (Tim Robbins) and hold her for a $1 million ransom. With the assistance of their Nazi-obsessed associate, Richard (Sons of Anarchy’s Mark Boone Junior), the pair pull off the kidnapping without a hitch, spiriting their captive away to Richard’s “safe house.”

The problem, of course, is that Frank is a real asshole: he’s currently canoodling with his mistress, Melanie (Isla Fisher), in the Bahamas, and could really give two shits about his wife’s situation. Even worse, he’s actually planning to divorce Mickey and marry Melanie: as such, Frank and Melanie decide to call Louis and Ordell’s “bluff” and refuse to pay for Mickey’s safe return. This, obviously, isn’t quite what they had in mind: after all, what use is a kidnappee if no one wants to pay for said person?

As Louis and Ordell try to figure a way out of their situation, complications arise exponentially. Creepy Richard develops an unhealthy interest in Mickey (he’s particularly fond of peeping on her via numerous hidden holes throughout his house), Frank and Mickey’s family friend, Marshall (Will Forte), is secretly in love with Mickey, blundering his way into the sticky situation and Melanie is working some angles on her own, constantly keeping an eye on the ultimate prize of lifelong financial security. To top it all off, Louis finds himself developing feelings for Mickey, who proves herself to be made of much steelier stuff than all of them put together. Will Louis and Ordell get their “just rewards?” Will Frank get the comeuppance that he so richly deserves? Will poor, pathetic Marshall ever get a clue? As our hardy group of oddballs knows, living a life of crime may not be easy but it sure as hell ain’t dull!

There are a lot of moving pieces to this particular game and, to Schechter’s immense credit, he manages to make the whole thing look rather easy. Working from his own script (he also edited the movie), Schechter proves a steady hand with not only the acting and dialogue (paramount to any Elmore Leonard adaptation) but also the film’s numerous setpieces: the opening scene where Ordell runs over a thug with his van, the kidnapping and Richard’s SWAT team stand-off are all top-notch action scenes, executed with a maximum of efficiency and a minimum of flashy nonsense. One of the film’s best moments is the fist-pumping scene where Marshall escapes from Richard, set to the tune of “Don’t Pull Your Love”: it’s a brilliantly executed, fun and endlessly thrilling scene, recalling nothing so much as the giddy heights of Tarantino’s trash-culture aesthetic.

Production-wise, the film looks and sounds fantastic: cinematographer Eric Alan Edwards gives everything a crisp, colorful burnish and the ’70s-era mis-en-scene is effortless, as far from gimmicky as a period piece can get. The score, courtesy of the Newton Brothers (who also did the score for Oculus (2013)) is equally great, accentuating the action scenes while keeping us right in the funky, swaggering heart of the 1978 Motor City.

As good as everything looks and sounds, however, the acting is what really vaults this particular production over the top. To put it bluntly: there isn’t a bad apple in the whole batch. Hawkes and Bey are absolutely fantastic as the untrustworthy partners, so symbiotic in their performances that they come across as a well-oiled, decades-in-the-making cinematic team. Aniston is extraordinary as the kidnapped wife, finding not only the vulnerability but the inherent strength of her character: the scene where she pokes a lit cigarette into Richard’s peeping eye isn’t just an awesome moment (which it certainly is) but it’s a perfect representation of Mickey’s growth as a character. Robbins and Fisher are equally great as the slimy philanderers, with Fisher bringing a miniature universe of subtle tics, quirks and facial expressions to her performance: it’s a role that could have been utterly thankless but, in Fisher’s hands, becomes something much more interesting.

On the supporting side, Boone Junior is a revelation as the kooky supremacist, finding the perfect balance between empty-headed animalism and a slightly sympathetic doofus: it’s nothing whatsoever like his role in Sons of Anarchy and makes me wish more filmmakers utilized him in better roles. Forte is typically great as the simpering, slightly confused friend who holds an unrequited torch for Mickey, showing that he slips into dramatic roles with the same ease that he does comedic ones. And, of course, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that one of my all-time favorite actors, Kevin Corrigan, even gets a bit part as a put-upon police detective: he may not get much screentime but he hits an absolute home-run with what he gets.

All in all, I was massively impressed with Schechter’s version of this particular Leonard story: not only does he hit all the right beats and tones (the film is actually much more serious than it at first seems, winding up in the same general tonal area as Tarantino’s Jackie Brown, rather than Sonnenfeld’s Get Shorty) but he really makes the material his own, no small feat when we’re talking about Leonard. When the film wants to make you laugh, it has no problem doing so: the interactions between Ordell, Louis and Richard are absolutely priceless, culminating in the fantastic scene where Mickey finally gets a wide-eyed look at Richard’s assorted Nazi paraphernalia, to which Louis deadpans, “What’s the matter: don’t you like history?” When the film wants to thrill you and keep you on the edge of your seat, it has no problem doing that, either: the actual kidnapping scene is one of the best I’ve seen in recent years.

As a filmmaker, Schechter has been on my radar ever since his low-key, clever treatise on film editors, Supporting Characters (2012), first crossed my path some years ago. At that time, the writer-director-editor definitely seemed like someone to keep an eye on: his latest film only confirms my original belief. Here’s to hoping that Daniel Schechter finally earns a spot at the Hollywood “big kids table”: in an age where multiplex action films are big, loud and dumb, Schechter’s brand of subtle, smart thrills sounds like the perfect antidote. At the very least, someone needs to get him funds for another Leonard adaptation: when the iron is this hot, you damn well better keep striking.

6/27/15 (Part One): The Unreality of Modern Life

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absurdist, Adaptation, Alain Chabat, art films, auteur theory, Élodie Bouchez, breaking the fourth wall, Charlie Kaufman, cinema, confusing films, dark comedies, dream-like, electronic score, Eric Wareheim, experimental film, Film auteurs, film reviews, films, hogs, Hollywood producer, Hollywood satire, husband-wife relationship, insanity, John Gallagher Jr., John Glover, John Heder, Jonathan Lambert, kooky psychiatrist, Kyla Kenedy, life imitating art, Lola Delon, loss of identity, Matt Battaglia, meta-films, Movies, Mr. Oizo, Patrick Bristow, producer-director relationships, Quentin Dupieux, Reality, Rubber, surrealism, Susan Diol, Synecdoche New York, Thomas Bangalter, videotapes, writer-director-cinematographer-editor, Wrong, Wrong Cops

Many filmmakers merely flirt with the weird and “out there,” toeing a carefully demarcated line in the sand between material that genuinely challenges viewers and material that upholds our own, personal status quos. These films may seem impossibly strange, from the outside, but cracking them open, as it were, tends to reveal their decidedly mundane inner workings. Gussying up a traditional narrative with stylistic tics and quirks, complex timelines and pseudo-philosophical meanderings doesn’t make it genuinely challenging any more than slapping a suit on a dog makes it the chairman of the board.

Standing on the fringes of these “politely difficult” films, however, are another batch of filmmakers: the agitators, the genuinely strange and the patently difficult. These are the filmmakers, artists like Charlie Kaufman, Yorgos Lanthimos, György Pálfi, Guy Maddin and Gaspar Noé, who possess singular visions that sit so far outside the mainstream as to seem almost alien. From films like Adaptation (2002) and Synedoche, New York (2008) to movies like Taxidermia (2006), Enter the Void (2009), Dogtooth (2009) and Tales From the Gimli Hospital (1988), these headscratchers are as far from popcorn multiplex features as one can get, immersing audiences into bizarre worlds that look strangely like our own, albeit twisted through a fractured mirror.

And, just to the left of that particular group, stands French auteur Quentin Dupieux. With a body of work that includes some of the most genuinely bizarre, out-there films I’ve ever seen, Dupieux has quickly become one of my very favorite modern filmmakers. As a firm believer in the auteur theory, Dupieux is sort of my gold standard in this day and age: not only does he write and direct his films, he also shoots, edits and performs the electronic scores (Dupieux is also a world-renowned electro-musician who goes by the name Mr. Oizo)…talk about a one-man band! Any new Dupieux film is cause for celebration, which leads us to the subject of our current discussion: his newest oddball creation, Reality (2014). Did I expect the unexpected? But of course. Did Dupieux deliver? Between my aching cranium and over-stimulated imagination, I’m gonna have to answer in the affirmative.

Coming across as a bizarro-world take on Adaptation, threaded through with elements of The Truman Show (1998) and left to melt in the noonday sun, Reality deals with three separate individuals and the ways in which their lives eventually crisscross each other, leading to no small amount of pandemonium, confusion and inner turmoil. Reality (Kyla Kenedy) is an inquisitive young girl whose hunter father (Matt Battaglia, bearing an uncanny resemblance to a young Paul Newman) has just killed a wild boar in the woods and pulled a blue videotape from its carcass. She also seems to be the star of some sort of film being shot in her room, while she sleeps, by a kooky director named Zog (the always-kooky John Glover)…you know, your basic kid stuff.

The next corner of our triangle is inhabited by Dennis (John Heder), the mopey, downtrodden host of a TV cooking show who wears a moth-eaten rat costume and scratches his (possibly imaginary) eczema like it was going out of style. All that Dennis wants is a little relief from his constant irritation but a trip to outrageously obnoxious Dr. Klaus (Patrick Bristow) makes him out to be either a liar, an idiot or both.

The final point of the triangle, preternaturally nice cameraman Jason (Alain Chabat, who featured prominently in several Gondry films, among many others), also ends up being our defacto protagonist. After working his way up from receptionist to cameraman on Dennis’ show, Jason now wants to take the next step and secure funding for his own film, a strange little sci-fi movie about evil, sentient televisions called Waves. When Jason goes to pitch his idea to mega-producer Bob Marshall (Jonathan Lambert), however, the Hollywood exec is only interested in one, single aspect of the proposed production: if Jason can come with the best, most “Oscar-worthy” groan of all time, Marshall will fund his film, sight unseen.

From this point, it becomes a madcap dash as our three corners all attempt to achieve their goals: Reality needs to find out what’s on the videotape, Dennis needs to cure his skin condition and Jason needs to find the ultimate expression of pain and present it to his increasingly unhinged producer. Did I also mention Henri (Eric Wareheim), Reality’s school superintendent, whose cross-dressing dreams appear to be bleeding into reality? How about Jason’s wife, Alice (Élodie Bouchez), the shrink who’s treating Henri in between disparaging virtually every aspect of her husband’s life? Somehow, all of these disparate elements come together to form a real tsunami of the strange, culminating in a truly mind-melting meta-commentary on the nature of authorship, the terror of identity and the inherent insanity of the Hollywood movie machine. In other words: par for the course for Dupieux, the crown-prince of impish cinematic provocateurs.

As an unabashed fan of anything and everything Dupieux (last year’s Wrong Cops was my pick for best film of the year), approaching any new film of his is always a bracing mixture of anticipation and nervous optimism: I haven’t been let down, yet, but I’m the kind of gloomy gus who always expects disappointment around every potential corner. As luck would have it, however, Reality isn’t the film to break Dupieux’s hot-streak, although it definitely doesn’t rank as high as Wrong Cops or Wrong (2012) in my personal metrics. Despite being a much more baffling, confounding experience than any of his prior films, Reality handily displays an outsider filmmaker in full control of his faculties, bound and determined to submerge us in his particular flavor of “reality,” whether or not our poor minds are equipped to handle the experience.

One of the most notable differences, right off the bat, is the more austere, “realistic” vibe of Dupieux’s newest film. In fact, it isn’t until nearly 30 minutes in where it really “feels” like a Dupieux: the scene where Wareheim is introduced, driving a jeep down the street while wearing a gray dress and red scarf, all scored by that subtle “Oizoian” brand of simmering electronica, is quintessential Dupieux and one of his most striking scenes yet. While the film goes on to blend the more serious vibe with some of the goofier elements of his past films (Klaus is the kind of character that can pretty much only exist in a Dupieux universe), there’s a much different vibe here than either Wrong Cops or Wrong. If anything, Reality plays like a more under-stated, low-key take on the existential insanity of Wrong.

As befits Dupieux’s films, he gets some extraordinarily great work out of his cast. While Heder doesn’t get quite as much screentime as I would have liked, he gives the role his all: at times, his performance reminded me of Michael Keaton’s outstanding work in Birdman (2014), albeit without many of Keaton’s subtle shadings. Kenedy does a great job as Reality, disproving the old adage that child actors can’t hold their own amongst the grownups. Glover is predictably odd as Zog, while Lambert has an obscene amount of fun as the batshit crazy producer: whether he’s forcing cigarettes on poor, non-smoking Jason or sniping surfers with a high-powered rifle (complete with scope), Marshall is an absolute force of nature.

For his part, Wareheim turns in my second favorite performance of his ever, the first being his role in Wrong Cops. I never actually liked anything Wareheim was a part of until he got involved with Dupieux’s films: needless to say, I still don’t care for any of his other roles but I’ll be damned if he’s not an integral, necessary part of this particular world. Any and all of Wareheim’s scenes here are easy highlights (the dream sequence where he yells at an old man is, hands-down, one of the funniest sequences of the entire year) and he fits the overall ethos like a glove: as strange as it seems, Wareheim just might be Dupieux’s muse.

While the ensemble cast does remarkable work, however, Alain Chabat’s performance as Jason Tantra is the beating heart of the film. Reality would frequently collapse into chaos if we weren’t so invested in poor Jason’s quest: as he tries to satisfy not only his work and home commitments but his inner, artistic ones, it’s easy to see Jason as a kind of “Everyman” (albeit one focused on the entertainment industry), an avatar for a modern world lost in the clang and bustle of its own progress. The scenes where Jason fights to retain not only his sanity but his very identity are so fundamentally powerful because Chabat cuts through the inherent absurdity and shows us the real, scared and confused individual beneath.

As befits the rest of Dupieux’s oeuvre, Reality looks and sounds amazing: he really has an eye for crisp, colorful cinematography that pops on the screen and that trademark score elevates and enhances everything it comes into contact with. Dupieux may wear an awful lot of hats but he wears them all like a champ, not a chump: he’s a true auteur, in every sense of the term.

While Reality is a typically strong film, I would also be remiss if I didn’t admit that I found the whole thing rather baffling and confounding: this is the kind of film where logic and narrative cohesion mean a great deal less than mood and intention. Although none of Dupieux’s films could ever be called “simplistic,” Reality layers level upon level of meta-commentary until the only natural response for one’s brain is to yell “Stop!” and pull the dead man’s switch. While I’m fairly confident that I understand aspects of the film (the commentary on authorship is pretty difficult to miss and it’s rather easy to see the character of Jason as a surrogate for Dupieux’s own filmmaking experiences), there’s much that remains a complete mystery to me, at least until I’ve managed to watch the film several more times. Suffice to say that Reality is such an experience, I don’t mind doing the heavy-lifting: much better to imperfectly understand a clever film than to be endlessly bored by a dumb one, methinks.

At the end of the day, there’s really not much to say here that I haven’t already said about the rest of Quentin Dupieux’s films: the French filmmaker is a true marvel, one of the freshest, most ingenious voices operating today and just the kind of filmmaker who can help push the industry into a higher plane of existence. If Reality doesn’t rank as my favorite Dupieux (it actually ranks towards the bottom, perhaps tied with Rubber (2010)), it still manages to stand head-and-shoulders above most of what’s out there, proving that the most fascinating things are still coming out of the fringes. Here’s to hoping that if Dupieux ever gets co-opted by the mainstream, he manages to retain more of his identity than Spike Jonze did: I’d love the chance to see him play in a bigger sandbox but only if he got to do it on his terms and his alone.

6/20/15 (Part Two): Leaving the Sunlit World Behind

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'90s films, Alice Drummond, anthology films, based on a short story, Christian Slater, cinema, Creepshow, dark comedies, David Johansen, Deborah Harry, Dick Smith, Dolores Sutton, film reviews, films, gargoyles, George Romero, horror, horror anthologies, horror films, James Remar, John Harrison, Julianne Moore, KNB Effects, Mark Margolis, Matthew Lawrence, Michael McDowell, Movies, mummies, Philip Lenkowsky, Rae Dawn Chong, revenge, Richard P. Rubenstein, Robert Draper, Robert Klein, Robert Sedgwick, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Stephen King, Steve Buscemi, Tales From the Darkside, Tales From the Darkside: The Movie, The Crying of Lot 249, vengeful cats, William Hickey, witches

As eerie music plays, we witness various pastoral scenes: a picturesque country road…a covered, wooden bridge…a heavily wooded area. As the camera continues to show us imagery that should be soothing but is the farthest thing from it, a narrator begins to speak, drawing out his lines with almost ghoulish relish: “Man lives in the sunlit world of what he believes to be reality.” As the narrator speaks, the image on-screen spins slowly to reveal its negative side: “But there is, unseen by most, an underworld…a place that is just as real but not as brightly lit…a dark side…”

If you were a horror fanatic who came of age in the ’80s, I’m willing to wager that you were more than familiar with the above opening: this, of course, is the now iconic credit sequence to one of the most important TV shows for formative fiends…this, of course, was Tales From the Darkside.

While The Outer Limits and The Twilight Zone were always reliable standbys for me, Tales From the Darkside and its successor, the gorier, goofier Monsters, were really where my heart was at. When Tales From the Darkside was good, it could be absolutely astounding, especially considering the era it came out of. They weren’t all classics, of course (even less so for Monsters), but individual episodes and storylines have still managed to keep a summer cottage in my brain, after all these years, proving that the stuff you get exposed to as a kid tends to hang around the longest in your subconscious, for better or worse.

When Tales From the Darkside went off the air in 1988, its legion of horror-obsessed fans must have really had some sleepless nights: lucky for us all, however, that the series’ producer, Richard P. Rubenstein, and several of its creative personnel, including director John Harrison and cinematographer Robert Draper, would see fit to bring the eerie anthology series to the big-screen, no doubt hoping to capitalize on the success of Creepshow (1982) a few years earlier (in a telling bit, Rubenstein also served as producer for Creepshow). While Tales From the Darkside: The Movie (1990) isn’t quite the encapsulation of the series that I wanted, there’s still plenty of good, fun material here, much of which would have fit in quite nicely on my living-room screen.

Tales From the Darkside: The Movie consists of three separate fright tales, along with the standard wraparound story that’s so integral to anthology films. The wraparound involves a modern update of Hansel and Gretel, in which new wave icon Deborah Harry plays a polite, suburban witch/cannibal who plans to fatten and slaughter a young boy (Matthew Lawrence, who could go on to front a bakers’ dozen of kid-related TV shows). In order to forestall his inevitable death, the boy reads the witch stories out of one of her own books. Turns out the book is called “Tales From the Darkside,” so I’m imagining you can guess where this goes.

The first tale, “Lot 249,” is an adaptation of the classic Sir Arthur Conan Doyle mummy tale, “The Crying of Lot 249.” In this version, set in the sort of collegiate environment that might best recall Lovecraft’s Miskatonic U, Edward Bellingham (Steve Buscemi) has just been cheated out of a grant by the combined team of Lee (Robert Sedgwick) and Susan (Julianne Moore, in her feature film debut). When Edward decides to get a little revenge using an ancient, Egyptian resurrection scroll and the mummy he’s just received in a crate (the “Lot 249” of the title), it’s up to Susan’s brother, Andy (Christian Slater) to even the score.

Our second story, “The Cat From Hell,” is an adaptation of a Stephen King story done by none other than George Romero, himself. This particular tale involves a mercenary, old billionaire (William Hickey), a super-cool hitman (New York Dolls frontman David Johansen) and the seemingly invincible cat that he’s been hired to kill. Once the villainous billionaire (who made his fortune from a global pharmaceutical empire) reveals that the cat may be seeking revenge for all of the poor cats that were killed during testing of their newest, hit pain-killer, however, we can see the gleeful comeuppance coming from a mile away.

The final (and most “serious”) story, “Lover’s Vow,” is a modern take on the ancient myth of the sailor who ends up with a beautiful, mysterious bride, yet loses everything because of his inability to keep a promise. In this case, troubled, down-on-his-luck artist Preston (James Remar) comes face to face with a ferocious, living gargoyle. After the monster makes Preston promise never to tell another soul about its existence, he ends up running straight into Carola (Rae Dawn Chong), the woman of his dreams. This being Tales From the Darkside, of course, things don’t go quite as planned, resulting in the most bittersweet, mature short in the film.

All in all, the big-screen version of Tales From the Darkside is a fun, if slight, horror anthology, sort of like the tag-along kid brother to Romero’s much more interesting Creepshow. While none of the stories really pack much of a wallop, although the final one does have a genuine sense of poignancy to it, they’re all well made and well-acted, leading to a nice, breezy experience. One of the biggest joys in the film comes from spotting a rogues’ gallery of future/current stars in their more formative years: Slater, Moore, Buscemi, Hickey and Johanson give it their all and the results make this all but required viewing for fans of any of the above. For their part, Remar and Chong get the most dramatic heavy-lifting and acquit themselves nicely, even if the story, itself, is a bit too predictable.

While many of Tales From the Darkside: The Movie’s elements are top-notch (legendary makeup guru Dick Smith served as a consultant and the equally legendary KNB Effects handled the SFX), the whole thing suffers by comparison with that elephant in the room: Creepshow. In most cases, the film comes off as a pale imitation of its predecessor, right down to the comic book-esque wipe transitions and multiple frames that adorn the various segments. To compound the problem, none of the shorts are either particularly surprising or particularly weighty: in particular, the wraparound is so slight as to almost non-existent, although it’s always nice to see Harry in anything.

Ultimately, Tales From the Darkside: The Movie will probably appeal most to horror fans looking to scratch a nostalgic itch from their childhoods. While the film is fun and well-made (aside from the terribly muddy picture/transfer in the middle tale), it definitely doesn’t earn a pole position in the pantheon of great horror anthologies, although it’s arguably light-years ahead of the fairly rank Cat’s Eye (1985). For horror fans that like their frights bite-sized and tongue-in-cheek, Tales From the Darkside: The Movie has plenty to offer. It might not be the kind of car that ages into a classic but it still turns over when you put the key in and that, my friends, has to account for something.