7/23/17: The Bad Batch

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2017 films, A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night, Ana Lily Amirpour, cannibals, cinema, cults, dystopian future, film reviews, films, Giovanni Ribisi, Jason Momoa, Jayda FInk, Jim Carrey, Keanu Reeves, Lyle Vincent, movie reviews, Movies, revenge, romances, spaghetti Westerns, Suki Waterhouse, The Bad Batch, writer-director, Yolonda Ross

Some films have such an impossibly fascinating premise that they demand your attention: writer-director Ana Lily Amirpour’s debut, A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night (2014), was one of those films. Billed as “the first Iranian vampire film,” this gorgeous, black-and-white homage to everything from John Hughes to Roman Polanski more than lived up to the premise, showcasing a fresh, exciting new voice that promised a truly fascinating career.

For her follow-up, The Bad Batch (2017), Amirpour moves the action from Iran to the badlands of west Texas, hammering down harder on the spaghetti-Western leanings of her debut to craft something that is far more visceral but no less gauzy, in its own way. One thing remains abundantly clear, however: Ana Lily Amirpour is an amazing filmmaker whose craft continues to impress at each new turn.

We find ourselves in a world that’s recognizably ours, yet smeared with a heavy coating of grease and grime: think early Mad Max, pre-Fury Road. “Undesirables” are processed through some vague penal system, dubbed the Bad Batch, tattooed with an identifying number and tossed out into the unforgiving, scorched Texas badlands. Your choices, at that point, are pretty slim: you can try to get to the frontier town of Comfort, led by smarmy New Age guru/Ibiza part host The Dream (Keanu Reeves and one seriously choice mustache) or you can try to avoid being dinner for the roving cannibals known as Bridgers, while surviving on whatever you can eke out of the cracked earth.

Arlen May Johnson (Suki Waterhouse), as it turns out, opts for more of an “all of the above” approach. She gets captured by cannibals, loses an arm and a leg, escapes and makes it to Comfort, only to realize that the grass isn’t always greener on the other side. One day, while target shooting in the wastelands outside the town’s walls, Arlen comes upon a pair of cannibals, a mother and daughter, and makes the fateful choice that will put her into direct contact with the formidable Miami Man (Jason Momoa). Arlen will come to learn that when you’re already on the fringes of society, questions of “right” and “wrong” don’t mean much and that people with the least often have the most to lose.

To get the gushing praise out-of-the-way: I really loved The Bad Batch, part and parcel. I’m more than willing to admit that the film isn’t perfect, mind you, but the sheer level of invention on display here should more than gloss over some narrative wheel-spinning or any nitpicking. We need more filmmakers taking risks and this, if nothing else, is one helluva risky film.

Risky, you say? Let’s see…you have a gritty, revenge-oriented, spaghetti-Western, complete with all the stock characters and trappings you would expect. You also, of course, have a Mad Max-style, post-apocalyptic film where people live in junkyards and a messianic guru holds court from atop a giant, neon boom box. Let’s not forget what could arguably be called a traditional, ’50s teen romance where kids from the wrong side of the tracks somehow find true love. Oh, yeah: it’s also got elements straight out of The Hills Have Eyes. Easy sell, right?

As with her debut, however, Amirpour is a natural when it comes to taking all these disparate elements and blending them into a completely organic, believable whole. Although the scale is certainly smaller, The Bad Batch definitely evokes some of the wonder of the Fury Road world: with its cannibalistic body builders, DJ-led cults, baroque prison system and dystopian wastelands, it’s not hard to place this in the same, general universe. I left the film wanting to know more about its world and denizens, always the biggest compliment I can pay any film, especially a stand-alone movie.

From a craft standpoint, The Bad Batch looks and sounds phenomenal. The cinematography, courtesy of Lyle Vincent (who also shot A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night), is simply gorgeous, full of rich wide shots and eye-popping, vibrant colors. The score and sound design make excellent use of songs to highlight scenes, in much the same way as AGWHAAN did, but puts a greater emphasis on sparse arrangements: for much of the film, there’s no score at all and it’s a powerful, well-executed choice.

For her cast, Amirpour collected a pretty diverse group of performers and manages to make the choices look like anything but stunt casting. Suki Waterhouse, equally great in last year’s Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, is simply superb as Arlen, turning in the kind of kickass turn that would make spiritual forebears like Clint Eastwood proud. Equally great is Jason Momoa, giving us the kind of tragic character that would be exceedingly hard to pull off with so little (largely garbled) dialogue, let alone as a violent cannibal. Keanu Reeves, continuing his latter-day trend of quirky roles, brings the proper amount of genuine pathos and complete sleaze to his cult/town leader role and is never less than magnetic when he’s on-screen.

To that core trio, let’s add a roster that includes: the always incredible Yolonda Ross as Miami Man’s wife, Maria; Jayda Fink, doing a fair amount of heavy-lifting in only her second performance, as the little girl; Jim Carrey, doing some of the best acting of his life, in a completely silent role (and I’m not being snarky, in the slightest); and Giovanni Ribisi, as a possibly prophetic madman. It’s a cast that looks odd, on paper, but plays together beautifully. In a film with plenty of sublime joys, the acting is certainly one of the foremost ones.

When all is said and done, The Bad Batch is an incredibly smart, self-assured experience. The film is about many things – one need only look at the marked contrast between the serious, family-oriented cannibals and the party-hardy, hedonistic townies to know that Amirpour has a few things to say about a few different subjects. From a purely cinematic viewpoint, however, she’s created a completely immersive experience and, as an avid cinephile, that’s something I just don’t get enough.

From the first spoken words, as the Bad Batch are processed, to that final, amazing campfire shot, Amirpour’s sophomore film holds your attention like a bear trap. It’s not always an easy film (shit gets hacked off and there will be blood) but there’s a genuine beauty to the ugliness and grime that’s undeniable. As someone who grew up on films like The Good, The Bad and the Ugly, I appreciate that glorious combination of the panoramic shot and the gut shot…the decision of the individual to shrug, say “the hell with it,” and wade back into hell just because…the way that death is an ever-present given but life and love still manage to carve their own paths through the wilderness.

The Bad Batch might not be a perfect film but I’ll be damned if I didn’t feel close to perfect on at least a dozen times while watching it. That’s just about all I need to know, friends and neighbors.

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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.

2/10/15: A Badass and His Dog

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action films, Adrianne Palicki, Alfie Allen, Best of 2014, Chad Stahelski, cinema, Clarke Peters, co-directors, David Leitch, dead pets, dead wife, Dean Winters, Derek Kolstad, directorial debut, Edge of Tomorrow, father-son relationships, favorite films, feature-film debut, film reviews, films, hitmen, Ian McShane, John Leguizamo, John Wick, Keanu Reeves, Lance Reddick, Michael Nyqvist, Movies, revenge, Russian mobsters, stolen car, stunt performers, The Matrix, The Raid 2, violent films, Willem Dafoe

In a way, you almost have to feel a little sorry for the Russian mobsters in John Wick (2014): all they want to do is steal a guy’s sweet Mustang and kill his adorable puppy…you know, nothing too outrageous or outside the bounds of polite society, especially when you’re rich, crooked and used to getting your way. And how do these unsung heroes get repaid? Why, the ungrateful bastard up and massacres every last one of ’em with extreme prejudice…what a jerk!

As singular of purpose as its titular “boogeyman,” John Wick, the movie, is streamlined, relentless, fearless film-making at its very best. It has but two goals: to kick your ass and melt your fucking face off, not necessarily in that order. It’s the best comic adaptation ever, despite being based on an original screenplay by Derek Kolstad. It’s a flawless, extravagant live version of the Hitman video games, despite having nothing whatsoever to do with that property. It would be the single, greatest action flick of 2014 if it weren’t for Edge of Tomorrow and The Raid 2…even then, it still might be. John Wick is a worthy successor to that other little film that Keanu made once, The Matrix (1999), featuring some unbelievably epic, instantly classic action setpieces. It’s a near flawless bit of filmcraft, equal parts beautiful and brutal, as if Takashi Miike and Nicolas Winding Refn decided to collaborate on an update of old spaghetti Westerns. In other words: John Wick is one helluva movie.

Plot-wise, the film is as streamlined as the mean-spirited ’80s revenge flicks that it draws so much inspiration from: former mob hitman, John Wick (Keanu Reeves), has been out of the “biz” since he met and married the love of his life. After pulling off one last, “impossible” assignment for Russian mob lord Viggo Tarasov (Michael Nyqvist, coming off like a fiendish combo of Bond super-villain and Dos Equis’ “Most Interesting Man in the World”), John is granted “early retirement” and left to enjoy his newly peaceful life. After his beloved wife dies, however, poor John is despondent, left to mope around in the sad wreckage of his lonely lifestyle. In the best spirit of strong, silent heroes, John is inwardly broken, even if he’s outwardly as serene as a still lake.

Relief comes in the form of a posthumous gift from his wife, an adorable, little puppy that comes with the heartfelt request that John “learn to love something else.” He does, of course, and the scenes involving the playful little critter and the gruff former hitman (he gives his new puppy a bowl of cereal, complete with milk, since that’s what he’s having, natch) are impossibly sweet without coming off as overly saccharine. John’s happy and life is good. This, of course, can’t last: we’re not in that kind of a universe. Instead, John ends up running into a group of Russian thugs at the gas station, including Viggo’s worthless, hot-headed, shit-heels of a son, Josef (Alfie Allen). Josef has his eyes on John’s kickass black Mustang (who doesn’t?!) but John’s not looking to sell. After leveling a veiled threat against John, Josef and the others take their leave. The issue, of course, is far from over.

That night, as he lets his puppy out to do its business, John is ambushed by a group of masked intruders, led by Josef. After being knocked unconscious, John wakes to find his beloved puppy murdered and his car missing: his eyes go hard, a placid lake freezing into jagged ice. From that point on, John has only one mission: find and destroy every last person involved with killing his dog. This, of course, doesn’t sit well with Josef’s father: he might think his son is a worthless shit, too, but he’s his worthless shit and he’ll be damned if any “former employee” is going to wear his skin like a pelt. Offering a $2 million reward for John’s head, Viggo sits back, happy to watch the sparks fly. The problem with sparks, of course, is that they often start fires: in no time flat, Viggo is watching his precious, privileged world burn to cinders before his eyes. You see, John Wick is the very personification of Death…and Death is coming for each and every one of them, one bloody, dead body at a time.

And that’s it, folks. Sure, we get introduced to subsidiary characters like Aurelio (John Leguizamo), the faithful chop-shop owner; Marcus (Willem Dafoe), John’s old friend/peer and Ms. Perkins (Adrianne Palicki), the deadpan assassin who shoots first and smirks later. In a nutshell, though, this is Keanu’s movie, through and through. With a sense of physicality and sheer badassitude that’s been sorely missed since the glory days of his performance as Neo, Keanu is a complete force of nature, a dour, lethal, balletic blur of violence who shoots, stabs, bludgeons and mauls his way through a seemingly endless array of heavily armed foes. In the same way that Clint Eastwood was the very personification of violent death in his glory years, so, too, is Keanu’s John Wick: part Man With No Man, part Terminator, all killer, no filler.

As an action film, John Wick is practically peerless, so “next-level” as to be casually groundbreaking. During one amazing setpiece, John fights a never-ending wave of attackers in the foyer of a busy nightclub: the scene is set to a pounding EDM score and everything is so immaculately choreographed and timed that it feels like the world’s most killer music video. As the musical beats collide with the gun shots and bone breaks, the whole thing assumes an organic totality that positively intoxicating. Watching the scene, I experienced the same sort of heady thrill that I got when I was a kid and pounded through Eastwood, Bronson and Bruce Lee films like they were going out of style. Unlike most modern action films, all of the fight sequences in John Wick feel real and impossibly solid: despite the hyper-kinetic flow of the film, there’s nothing headache-inducing about the style, whatsoever. To be honest, I sort of wish that other action filmmakers would study under the apt tutelage of Wick’s dual directors, Chad Stahelski and David Leitch: this, as far as I’m concerned, is how you shoot action/fight sequences.

As for Stahelski and Leitch, suffice to say that I was blown away when I discovered that the filmmakers responsible for this utterly mind-blowing treat were former stuntmen (they worked with Keanu on The Matrix, along with roughly a billion other projects over the last 20 years): aside from some second-unit credits, this was their debut feature. In a word: wow. With credentials like that, it makes sense that the film would be filled with fantastic fight sequences: that’s their bread and butter. The amazing thing about John Wick ends up being how consistently strong the entire film is: certain sequences reminded me of nothing less than Refn’s Drive (2011) and that’s high praise, indeed. The film has a great, evocative look, thanks to Midnight Meat Train (2008) cinematographer Jonathan Sela (Meat Train was another film that looked like a billion bucks) : all cool colors, dusky blues and red neon, John Wick is a real feast for the eyes. Add in a tense, pounding electro score by soundtrack maven/Marilyn Manson bandmate Tayler Bates and you have a film that looks and sounds like the equivalent of a finely tuned, vintage muscle car: the dictionary definition of badass.

If it wasn’t rather obvious from all of the above, let me sum up my feelings on John Wick thusly: I absolutely adored everything about this movie. As someone who feels that Alex Proyas’ The Crow (1994) is pretty much the apex of comic book films (sorry, folks: Keaton’s Batman or bust, for me), John Wick checked off every single item off my “must have” list. Hateful, evil, over-the-top villains? Check. Ruthless, avenging angel hero? Check. Terminally cool production design? Yep. Underlying element of sadness? Gotta have it. Matter-of-fact, unflinching attitude towards violence? Uh huh. Watching John Wick, I felt like I was 10-years-old again: sitting on the edge of my seat, shouting at the screen and throwing my fist in the air every couple of minutes, this was the most fun I’ve had watching a movie in a while.

If you grew up on ’70s, ’80s and ’90s action flicks, you’d be hard pressed to find a better modern representation of said films than John Wick: in every way, the film is an instant classic and deserves its own place in the canon, with the rest of the greats. While I felt that Edge of Tomorrow was a rip-roaring good-time, John Wick is, at heart, much more my type of film. Apparently, the scuttlebutt around the water cooler is that a sequel is already in the works: in this case, the only thing I can say is…bring it on. If Stahelski, Leitch and Keanu have another film like this in them, it runs a very real risk of knocking the earth off its axis: no way I’d miss that!

2/2/15 (Part Two): No Justice…Just Us

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Alejandra Yañez, Alejandro Fernández Almendras, Ariel Mateluna, based on a true story, bullies, Cape Fear, Chilean films, cinema, Daniel Antivilo, Daniel Candia, Death Wish, divorced parents, family, family in crisis, father-son relationships, fighting back, film reviews, films, foreign films, forest ranger, guilt, harassment, ineffectual cops, Inti Briones, Jennifer Salas, justice, masculinity, Movies, Pablo Vergara, rape, revenge, set in Chile, Straw Dogs, thugs, To Kill a Man, vigilante, vigilantism, writer-director-editor

Most of the time, cinematic evil is pretty flashy, memorable and, let’s face it, kinda cool: it’s the Bond super-villain plotting the world’s destruction from the comfort of his high-tech, fortified island estate…the suave, dastardly mustache-twirler butting heads with the hardy hero…the badass monster with acid for blood and a hankering for humans…the evil genius who’s constantly building killer robots, turning people into zombies and infecting the water supply with some sort of designer mega-virus. Take a minute to think about which characters in any Nightmare on Elm Street film are more interesting: the bland, anonymous victims or wise-crackin’, ultra-cool Freddy? Evil may be something to overcome (most of the time) but that doesn’t mean it can’t be gussied up with some sweet duds and an enviable haircut.

In the real world, however, true evil is rarely as “cool” as movies make it out to be. In fact, true evil, for the most part, is exceptionally banal: it’s the bureaucrat moving “casualties” from one column to the next…the terrorist who kills based on dogma…the egomaniacal dictator who rules by virtue of having the most guns, not the best plan…the bored thrill-seekers just looking for something to do…the bullies who indiscriminately target the weak in an effort to make someone’s, anyone’s life more miserable than their own…the fat cats who relentlessly pad their own wallets at the expense of those around them…the companies dumping pollutants into the water and air. Real evil, for the most part, is boring, beige. True evil is also all but impossible to eradicate: you may be able to send in Rambo or Jason Bourne to take care of the cinematic baddies but it doesn’t work quite like that in the real world. Most of us are in no position to eliminate the day-to-day evils of the world: evil, like good, is just a fact of life.

Alejandro Fernández Almendras’ To Kill a Man (2014), which the Chilean director also wrote and edited, takes us right into the thick of real evil, showcasing the casual cruelty, misanthropy and harassment that often leads to violence, heart-break and death. There are no heroes here, just a desperate, broken-down father who tries (and fails) to protect his family. There are no super-villains, either, no suave harbingers of cool chaos for us to vicariously live through: the evil in To Kill a Man is earth-bound, sweaty, stupid and ugly, the product of generations of degradation, not a special serum or radioactive infection. There is nothing rousing, fist-raising or “epic” about the fight between good and evil in Almendras’ film: this is real evil, in all of its slouching, misshapen glory. There are no happy endings here because, in the real world, evil is seldom vanquished: it simply returns to the soil, like so much rot, in order to spring anew elsewhere. By removing feel-good notions of cosmic justice and the supposed balance between good and evil, Almendras lifts up the rock that is our world and let the hidden things spill out into the light: in the process, he creates one of the most powerful, tense and unpleasant films of the year, a funeral dirge for our modern age.

The protagonist of our little film, Jorge (Daniel Candia), is a mild-mannered forest ranger, father of two and loving husband. He’s soft-spoken, diabetic, gets his family whatever they want at the drop of a hat and seems like a genuinely nice guy. As with Paul Kersey in Death Wish (1974), however, this is not the kind of world for a meek, kind-hearted push-over: this is the jungle and the weaker animals are always prey for the stronger. In this case, the stronger animal is one Luis Alberto Alamos Alamos (Daniel Antivilo), also known as Kalule. Kalule and his gang of reprobates have recently taken over a small park in Jorge’s neighborhood and currently “rule” with an iron fist. No one is safe from their harassment, petty larceny and thuggish violence: think a meaner, stupider and crasser version of Alex’s droogs and you’ve on the right track.

One night, while passing through the park on his way home from work, Jorge happens to run afoul of Kalule and his “boys.” At first, the thugs just harass the poor guy, kicking a soccer ball at him, calling him names and cheerfully menacing him. When Jorge is forced to go back through the park later, however, in order to buy his son, Jorge (Ariel Mateluna) and his friends some beer, his second meeting with the gang isn’t quite as “pleasant.” The creeps surround Jorge, push him around and snatch his wallet, taking what they want and throwing the rest into the dirt. The scene is terrible and humiliating, with Jorge as defenseless as a small child, despite his status as patriarch of his household. To add insult to injury, Kalule refuses to take Jorge’s credit card (“I’d probably have to pay your bill,” he laughs) but does take the expensive blood tester that Jorge needs to help control his diabetes.

When Jorge gets home, he’s too devastated to even look his family in the eyes. His wife, Marta (Alejandra Yañez), and daughter, Nicole (Jennifer Salas), seem mortified and his son is pissed off and ready for action: he wants his dad to give him 5000 pesos so that he can go to the gang and, at the very least, negotiate the return of his dad’s tester. Jorge tells him to drop it which, of course, has the opposite desired effect: young Jorge sneaks out while his parents sleep and attempts to get his dad’s stuff back. When he finds out, Jorge rushes after his son, only to get to his side right after Kalule has shot him. While he watches, Kalule calmly shoots himself and then calls the police, claiming that Jorge’s son attacked him and he only shot in self-defense.

At the trial, Kalule continues to plead his innocence, even as he accepts a plea deal that would put him in prison for 1.5 years. Jorge’s family, for their part, is heartbroken: young Jorge has survived but his injuries have put an end to his schooling, dooming him to the same sort of lower-class life as his parents. Marta, meanwhile, has never stopped blaming Jorge for their son’s injury and the couple have since divorced, with the kids staying with their mother and Jorge taking up residence in a flea-bag motel. Faster than you can say “Cape Fear (1991),” however, Kalule is out of jail and looking to even the score with Jorge and his family. The thug begins a campaign of terror and harassment against the family that includes obscene phone calls, throwing rocks at their house and stalking young Nicole everywhere she goes. The police, so unhelpful during the original crime, are just as unhelpful now: regardless of how many complaints the family lodges, how many protection orders they get or how much they try to avoid Kalule and his gang, the authorities merely shrug their shoulders, leaving the family completely on their own.

As the pressure begins to wear on him, Jorge finds himself changing in subtle ways. After a confrontation with an asshole in the forest ends with Jorge chasing him off with a shotgun, however, the beleaguered father begins to feel empowered, if only ever so slightly. After Kalule and his men commit a shocking, vile and humiliating act against his daughter, however, Jorge finds himself at a crossroads: will he be able to continue taking the “high road,” hoping that the police will eventually do their job, or will he take matters into his own hands and try to make his own version of “justice?” When he finally does make a choice, Jorge’s decision will have a terrible, lasting impact on all those around him: there are no winners, here, only various shades of losers and wrecked human beings.

Lean, mean and consistently down-trodden, To Kill a Man is one of the finest examples of “feel bad” cinema I’ve seen in some time. Everything about the film is calculatedly to make the viewer feel as tense and uncomfortable as possible: the ominous score, all deep-voiced wind instruments and droning, low tones crawls under your skin and stays there…the violence, when it happens, is sudden, shocking and all-too realistic…the gang seem all-powerful and absolutely immoral, lending the film an overriding sense of futility…in every way possible, To Kill a Man is the epitome of a stacked deck.

Jorge, as portrayed by Candia, is a sympathetic, yet largely pathetic, character, a man who wants to believe in some notion of balance and justice yet keeps getting kicked in the nuts by the universe at every turn. Yañez, for her part, serves as surrogate for anyone taking the view that bullies need to be stood up to: the scene where Marta sneers at Jorge and warns him to beware of “mean kids in the park” is a real heart-breaker, since it just reinforces the notion that Jorge was too weak and not “masculine enough” to protect his family. We witness young Jorge go from the traditionally supportive son to a bitter, jaded shell of a man who holds his father in the same contempt that his mother does. And poor Nicole, so hopeful and positive, is absolutely destroyed by the violence and misogyny that swirls around her like a toxic cloud. This isn’t a family so much as three horses which, along with Kalule, are striving to pull Jorge to pieces.

While the acting is consistently strong and nicely understated, the cinematography, courtesy of Inti Briones, is a real thing of beauty. Time after time, Briones comes up with some truly gorgeous images: the shot of an automatic door slowly closing, only to stop midway, works on a number of levels, as does the awesome shot of Jorge’s truck disappearing backwards into the night, its wan headlights gradually swallowed in the same manner as Jorge’s rapidly dwindling humanity. The sense of framing is exquisite and the frequent close-ups, shot from odd angles, keep the constantly shifting power relationships as off-kilter as possible. As difficult as To Kill a Man is to sit through, content-wise, the film always looks and sounds amazing, a razor blade wrapped in a candy shell.

Ultimately, I was pretty blown away by Almendras’ film: while I’ve never been the biggest fan of what I like to call “hopeless cinema,” it’s impossible to deny the raw power of To Kill a Man. In many ways, the film is a modern successor to Death Wish, a searing, jagged examination of the destructive power of vengeance and what it means to be a “protector” in these violent times. While Jorge’s measured march to his own annihilation is painful to watch, it’s the kind of pain that any cinephile should force themselves to endure. At its core, To Kill a Man peels back humanity’s skin, revealing the coal-black heart that beats beneath. You may not necessarily “enjoy” the film but truth, like life, is often painful. Sometimes, you need that pain to appreciate everything else. Sometimes, that’s all there is.

1/30/15: Toecutter’s Last Jam

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'70s action films, '70s films, A Clockwork Orange, action films, Australia, Australian films, auteur theory, Brian May, children in peril, cinema, co-writers, cops, cult classic, David Bracks, David Cameron, David Eggby, Death Wish, dramas, dystopian future, feature-film debut, Film auteurs, film franchise, film reviews, films, gang rape, gangs of punks, Geoff Parry, George Miller, highway patrol, Hugh Keays-Byrne, iconic villains, James McCausland, Joanne Samuel, law and order, Mad Max, Max Fairchild, Max Rockatansky, Mel Gibson, motorcycle gangs, Movies, Paul Johnstone, post-Apocalyptic, revenge, road movie, Roger Ward, set in Australia, Sheila Florence, Steve Bisley, The Warriors, thrillers, Tim Burns, Toecutter, vendetta, vengeance, vigilante, Vince Gil, writer-director

When George Miller first introduced the world to Max Rockatansky in 1979, I wonder if he could have predicted that the character would be popular enough to warrant reexamination almost 40 years later. With three films in the Mad Max canon and a fourth coming this year, however, it’s pretty clear that Miller’s Australian “Road Angel of Death” has had some serious staying power. While the upcoming Fury Road (2015) appears to follow the template set by latter-day high velocity outings like Road Warrior (1981) and Beyond Thunderdome (1985), the original film, Mad Max (1979), was a much leaner and meaner affair, albeit no less over-the-top and prone to some particular comic-book affectations. Drawing inspiration from sources as diverse as Death Wish (1974) and A Clockwork Orange (1971) while bearing more than a passing resemblance to The Warriors (1979), Miller’s initial outing is a real doozy and one that would go on to influence generations of action and post-apocalyptic films to come.

Kicking off with an epic, 10-minute smash-and-bash car chase between the howling mad Nightrider (Vince Gil) and a group of unfortunate highway patrol officers, we’re thrust into the middle of the action with no info-dump or warning. As things gradually settle down, a bit, we come to discover that this appears to be a rather lawless, possibly post-apocalyptic, society, where cops and criminals duke it out on the dusty highways that stretch across Australia. At first, Nightrider seems unstoppable, a Tazmanian Devil behind the wheel who handily out-runs, out-drives and out-bravados every cop he comes across. Cue our hero, Max Rockatansky (Mel Gibson), the coolest, toughest and most badass patrol officer of the bunch. Max shows up, mirrored shades reflecting back the blistering sun, and proceeds to drive Nightrider straight into an early grave. This, ladies and gentlemen, is his business…and business is very, very good.

Max’s partner, Jim Goose (Steve Bisley), is a good egg and loyal as the day is long, while his superior officer, Fifi (Roger Ward), treats Max like royalty and holds him up as shining example for the rest of the officers. At home, we get to see the softer side of Max: his loving wife, Jessie (Joanne Samuel) blows a mean sax and he’s got a cute baby named Sprog. Life seems pretty darn groovy for this Down Under Dirty Harry but there’s big trouble brewin.’

This big trouble arrives in the form of the dastardly Toecutter (Hugh Keays-Byrne) and his marauding biker gang. Seems that the gang has a bone to pick with Max for snuffing out their beloved Nightrider and Toecutter has sworn vengeance, the bloodier the better. When the gang blows into town to retrieve Nightrider’s coffin, they end up trashing the place, ala an old-fashioned Western, and chase a couple out onto the open road where they destroy their car, chase the guy away and gang-rape the young woman. Max and Goose arrive in time to pick up the pieces, finding the chained, traumatized woman and one of the gang members, Johnny (Tim Burns), so drugged-out that he forgot to run away when the others did.

Faster than you can say Dirty Harry (1971), however, the case gets tossed out and Johnny is released because none of the victims, including the young woman, will come forward to testify. Johnny walks, after taunting the cops, and Goose is furious. When the gang ambushes and attacks Goose in a particularly terrible way, however, Max will have to decide which path to follow, the one that leads to his family or the one that leads to revenge. As Toecutter, his cold-blooded lieutenant, Bubba (Geoff Parry), and the rest of the gang get closer and closer to Max, they will learn one very important lesson: you can do a lot of things to Max Rockatansky but the last thing you wanna do is get the guy mad.

Despite the often grim subject matter (children in peril, rape, collapsing society) and the often intense violence (immolations, dismemberments, semi driving over people), there’s a sense of buoyancy and energy to Mad Max that makes the whole thing a lot closer to a comic-book movie like RoboCop (1987) than to something more serious like, say, The Road (2009) or The Rover (2014). In addition, Miller uses several techniques, such as the wipe transitions between scenes and the jaunty score (courtesy of Australian composer Brian May) that help to elevate this sense of action-adventureism. To be honest, Mad Max often feels like a synthesis of Lethal Weapon (1987) (not specifically because of Gibson’s involvement but more for the depictions of Max’s home-life and the way in which the film’s action constantly toes the “silly/awesome” dividing line) and A Clockwork Orange (the gang’s affectations, slang and Toecutter’s casual brutality all reminded me explicitly of Kubrick’s adaptation), as odd as that may sound.

While never completely serious, aside from the film’s handful of heartstring-pullers, Mad Max never tips all the way over into campy or silly. This isn’t quite the novelty of The Warriors: Toecutter’s gang has an actual air of menace to them, an air that’s not helped by their propensity for rape and assault on innocent civilians. Keays-Byrne is marvelous as the insane gang leader, easily going down as one of the most memorable villains in these type of films: his polite, slightly foppish mannerisms are completely off-set by his hair-trigger barbarity, making for a bracing combination. Nearly as memorable is Geoff Parry’s turn as Bubba Zanetti: his laconic delivery perfectly contrasts with his hot-headed personality making for a character who would’ve been perfect going up against Clint Eastwood in a spaghetti Western.

In fact, more than anything, Mad Max is like a spaghetti Western, albeit one filtered through all of the influences listed above. The interplay between the gang members, between Max and his superiors, between the law and the lawless…the setpieces that could have easily been chases on horseback or wagon…the lonesome, wide-open devastation of the Australian landscape…Sergio Leone might have been proud to call any of them his own.

As one of his first roles, Mad Max set a course for Mel Gibson’s career that would serve him quite well, right up to the point in time where he self-detonated it. Here, however, we get Mel before the headlines, stupidity and career suicide: he’s rock-solid as Rockatansky, bringing just enough vulnerability and indecision to the role to prevent him from ever seeming as completely callous as someone like Eastwood’s Harry Callahan. He also brings a physicality to the role that helps make the whole enterprise seem that much more authentic: Gibson’s performance is so “all-in” that the scene where he limps and drags himself down the pavement genuinely looks like it hurts like hell. It would be the easiest thing in the world to play Max like a video game character but it’s to Gibson’s immense credit that he makes him both so human and so completely badass: it’s easy to see why this became a franchise so quickly, as the magnetism is undeniable.

In some ways, the differences between Mad Max and its predecessors is the same as the difference between the first two Alien or Terminator films: Mad Max is more of a small-scale revenge drama (very similar to Death Wish, particularly in the final reel) whereas the films that followed it are more wide-screen, adventure epics. Despite this, however, I was genuinely surprised to note how honestly cartoonish the film is. Perhaps I picked up on this when I watched the film in the past but it was more apparent now than ever before that the first film fits in perfectly well with the more OTT vibe of the other films. While it may be smaller scale, it’s definitely of a piece with The Road Warrior and Beyond Thunderdome: Toecutter would have fit in nicely in either of those.

With Fury Road on the horizon, I thought it might be useful to go back and revisit the film that started it all. As always, Mad Max doesn’t disappoint: from the rousing action setpieces, astounding car chases, cool-as-a-cucumber lead character, colorful villains and genuine sense of danger and tension, Mad Max is an absolute blast from start to finish. Here’s to hoping that Miller manages to maintain this classic feel with his newest: the world has been without a Rockatansky for way too long now…we need our Mad Max now more than ever.

1/17/15 (Part Two): The Horns Know What the Heart Hides

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Alexandre Aja, based on a book, cinema, Daniel Radcliffe, dark comedies, David Morse, dead girlfriend, demons, fantasy, film reviews, films, flashbacks, Frederick Elmes, friendships, Heather Graham, High Tension, Horns, horror movies, Ig Perrish, James Remar, Joe Anderson, Joe Hill, Juno Temple, Kathleen Quinlan, Keith Bunin, Kelli Garner, literary adaptation, Max Minghella, Michael Adamthwaite, mirrors, Movies, mystery, Piranha 3D, rape, revenge, secrets, small town life, suspicion, telling the truth, The Hills Have Eyes, vengeance, voice-over narration

When French writer-director Alexandre Aja first exploded onto the scene with the feral, jaw-dropping ode to unmitigated carnage that was High Tension (2003), it looked like the horror world had found their next uncompromising dark master. Red-lined, kinetic, non-stop and a veritable workshop in on-screen brutality, High Tension may have made an imperfect kind of sense (think about the central twist too much and the whole thing collapses into dust) but there was no denying the terrible power of the images and ideas contained within. Rather than capitalize on this bit of extreme nastiness, however, Aja appeared to have doubled-down in the opposite direction: his next two projects were both remakes – The Hills Have Eyes (2006) and Mirrors (2008) – while his most recent directorial effort was Piranha 3D (2010), which either counts as another remake or a sequel, depending on how generous you’re feeling.

This, of course, ended up being massively disappointing: here was another seemingly unique voice who appeared to have shackled himself to the remake train, foregoing any notion of “new” or “original” for the much safer territory of “been there, done that.” When Aja was announced as the director for a big-screen adaptation of Joe Hill’s bestselling novel, Horns, this seemed like a step in the right direction: at the very least, this was a literary adaptation, not another re-do of someone else’s earlier work. As it turns out, Aja’s version of Horns (2014) is good: well-made, full of clever moments, good acting and some genuine surprises, there’s a lot to like here. On the other hand, the film feels about 30 minutes too long and much of what’s on display here feels distinctly old-hat. This might not be the Aja who slept-walked through Mirrors or Piranha 3D but it also bears precious little resemblance to the Aja who blasted out frontal lobes with the sheer insanity that was High Tension.

Beginning with some voice-over and a suitably cool scene set to Bowie’s unbeatable “Heroes,” we’re quickly introduced to our hero, Ig Perrish (Daniel Radcliffe), and his current predicament. Seems that Ig’s girlfriend, Merrin (Juno Temple), has turned up dead and everyone in his small town, including Ig’s family, thinks he’s guilty of the crime. Shunned by everyone, publicly accused by Merrin’s father (David Morse) and given the cold-shoulder by all of his childhood friends, save his lawyer buddy, Lee (Max Minghella), Ig has become the town’s pariah, a social leper that everyone wishes would just disappear.

After he drunkenly desecrates the makeshift shrine that the townsfolk have set up for Merrin, Ig ends up with the local barkeep and wakes up in her bed the next morning. In a decidedly alarming development, poor Ig appears to be sprouting rudimentary horns from his head. Even stranger, however, is the way in which the bartender uncharacteristically gorges herself on food, in his presence: she seems to act as if possessed by some powerful force, unable to control herself. After several more awkward/humorous scenes involving overly honest medical personnel, clergy and his own parents, Ig comes to the startling realization that his new horns have the ability to force people to act on their deepest, darkest secrets.

In no time at all, Ig has decided to use his new power to conduct his own investigation into Merrin’s death: wandering the town like a scraggly, sardonic avenging angel, he “interviews” one person after the next, piecing together the details of Merrin’s last days as he goes. While the investigation takes place in the present, we also get copious flashbacks to Ig and Merrin’s youth, where they first fell in love and hung out with their friends Terry, Lee and Eric. These flashbacks hold little clues to the current mystery’s resolution, although Ig won’t know the full story until the final reel (astute viewers will probably figure this out way ahead of our intrepid sleuth). Once the truth is revealed, Ig becomes hell-bent for revenge, as he finds himself transforming into an increasingly powerful, unhinged and demonic force. Will Ig be able to bring his girlfriend’s killer to justice or will the flames of his own burning anger incinerate him long before he can make his final move?

There’s a lot to like about Horns: the cinematography is, in general, quite good and the soundtrack, full of nicely evocative songs like the Pixies’ “Where is My Mind?” and Bowie’s “Heroes,” works spectacularly well: the film actually had one of the best soundtracks I’ve heard in a while, with the score being equally memorable. The acting is also quite good, with Radcliffe being especially impressive: if The Woman in Black (2012) hadn’t marked Radcliffe’s transition from the world of Harry Potter to more “adult” genre roles, his performance as Ig certainly makes this clear. There’s a certain charisma that’s never far below Radcliffe’s performance, informing every snarky comment, confused squint and determined glower that crosses his face. He sells the concept of the horns by virtue of not looking goofy wearing them, which says a tremendous amount about his performance.

Also on the plus side, it’s nice to see David Morse in a rare “good guy” role: all too often, the veteran character actor is the equivalent of a twirling mustache but he gets a chance to stretch out, a little, and play a genuinely conflicted, human being. I’ll be the first to admit that Morse’s very presence seemed to signify the guilty party but I’m giving nothing away by saying that his grieving, angry and rather irrational Dale comes down distinctly on the side of right in this issue. I was also rather impressed by Minghella, who brings a little bit of depth to an odd character. While I thought he could be a bit bland, there was always a great interplay between him and Radcliffe, which helped sell the friendship.

On the negative side, we get some rather dodgy special effects (the CGI snakes are particularly offensive) and the final transformation bears an uncanny resemblance to Tim Curry’s Darkness, which ends up injecting a rather unintentional level of hilarity into what’s supposed to be a very climatic moment. There are also some patently stupid scenes in the back half, such as the ones where Ig induces someone to take “all the drugs” and another where he makes a couple of characters act on their latent homosexual urges. The tone on these is pitched all wrong (the drug scene features a “trip” that would’ve seemed stale in the ’60s) and they come off eye-rolling rather than impactful.

The biggest issue I had with Horns, however, ended up being how damn familiar the whole thing was. While I haven’t read Hill’s novel, I found myself predicting so much of the action that it definitely felt like I had. Chalk it up to screenwriter Keith Bunin or the original source material but there were precious few times that I was caught off guard and I couldn’t help but feel that I’d seen this same story (minus the horns, obviously) many times before. Hell, squint and the whole thing looks a bit like Rian Johnson’s Brick (2005), again, minus the horns.

I didn’t dislike Horns: ultimately, the film is too slick and well-made (minus the damn snakes and poor Heather Graham’s bug-eyed cameo) to invite any kind of easy derision. When it all works, there’s a pleasant sense of del Toro-lite that, coupled with Radcliffe’s natural charisma, makes the film highly watchable.  When it goes off the rails, however, it’s actually pretty silly, which certainly tempers the stormy mood established by the rest of the film. Bar a few tell-tale moments, however (the shotgunned head and the pitchforkin’, for example), the film never approaches the oomph that characterized Aja’s earliest films (remake or not, The Hills Have Eyes was the furthest thing possible from a placid lake). More than anything, this feels like another multiplex horror, something to enjoy with some popcorn and a date. There are a lot worse things in the world but I can’t help but be disappointed, nonetheless.

1/3/15 (Part One): Throwing the Baby Out With the Bathwater

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Alexa Havins, Alexia Rasmussen, cinema, co-writers, confusing, convoluted plots, drama, Erika Hoveland, Faust Checho, film reviews, films, insanity, Joe Swanberg, Kevin Donner, Kristina Klebe, lesbian relationship, lies, mental breakdown, mental illness, motherhood, Movies, Proxy, revenge, single mother, support groups, twist ending, writer-director, Zack Parker

Until it goes completely off the rails in the final third, sort of like a speeding train missing a dead-man’s curve and plummeting into a bottomless ravine, Zack Parker’s Proxy (2014) is a tricky, endlessly fascinating and constantly frustrating experience. As the film progresses, however, the numerous plot holes, leaps of faith and contrived scenarios begin to pile on fast and furious until audience members have but two choices: embrace the chaos and go down with the ship or jump overboard and swim for land as fast as possible. While I ended up going with the first option, wise readers would be well-advised to practice up on their backstroke: this is two hours you will never get back.

We begin with Esther (Alexia Rasmussen), a sad-sack, mopey single mother-to-be who’s on her way back from her gynecologist when she’s suddenly and brutally attacked by an unseen assailant: the attacker knocks her out with a brick and proceeds to bash her stomach until the unborn baby is just a memory. After she wakes up in the hospital, Esther is truly alone: she has no family, no friends, no significant other…even her pregnancy came courtesy of a sperm bank donation. As various authority figures like Detective Allen (Faust Checho) and Mary Wilkins (Erika Hoveland) hover and bustle about her, Esther keeps pulling back into her own world, even more isolated than she was before. As Mary warns her, however, Esther better get help while she’s still “in the system,” so to speak: once she leaves the hospital, no one is going to care a damn about her or offer her any help whatsoever.

Esther ends up taking the advise and finds herself in a “mothers in mourning” support group. While there, she happens to meet bubbly, blonde Melanie (Alexa Havins): still mourning the deaths of her husband and young son at the hands of a drunk driver, Melanie is, nonetheless, at least 1000% times more outgoing than Esther and the demure loner ends up hanging out with her, as the two stumble towards a tentative friendship. When Melanie begins to blow off Esther’s calls, however, the other woman begins to feel marginalized and depressed all over again. While filling out a job application at a department store, Esther happens to see Melanie, although the other woman seems way too occupied to notice her: when she spies her, Melanie is making a huge fuss about losing her son in the store, which strikes Esther as a neat trick, since the kid is, supposedly, dead.

As it turns out, Melanie’s husband and son, Patrick (Joe Swanberg) and Peyton (Xavier Parker), seem to be quite alive and quite well: when Esther confronts her friend with this information, Melanie freaks out and tells Esther to get lost. At about this time, we also meet Esther’s tough-as-nails girlfriend, Anika (Kristina Klebe): we’re introduced to her in a rather bracing scene that begins as what appears to be a rape but is later revealed to be very rough, albeit consensual, sex. Anika is both paranoid and constantly suspicious of Esther’s fidelity, neither of which make a particularly good combo with her violent temper.

Just when it appears that all of these disparate folks are headed for a violent, smash-up confrontation, ala Simon Rumley’s  Red, White & Blue (2010), Parker and co-writer Kevin Donner throw in a huge twist at the mid-point that spins the film off in a completely different direction. Unfortunately, this represents the first of many twists and turns that have the effect of jerking the film from one side to other erratically. As new plot points develop, bigger and bigger holes begin to appear in the film and, by the final 30 minutes, the whole thing has begun to disappear into a sinkhole of its own creation. By the time we get to the ending (yet another damn twist), so much of what came before has either been contradicted, forgotten or made redundant that it feels as if Proxy were actually three separate films stitched together: on their own, any of them might have been able to stay afloat. Shackled together, however, the disparate elements of Parker’s film pull the whole production down into Davy Jones’ locker.

Suffice to say, by the time it was over, my primary emotions were relief (this is an awfully long two hours, trust me), frustration and more than a little irritation: there were seeds of an intriguing idea here but nothing was developed in any satisfactory way. To this problem, add some truly erratic acting (Rasmussen is great as Esther, pretty much everyone else in the film is astoundingly awful and awkward), some painfully stilted dialogue and some enormous plot holes and contrivances…mix, bake at 350 and voila…you have one Proxy.

The hell of all this is that, at times, Parker’s film is actually pretty good. Rasmussen does a great job with a particularly tricky character (at various points, Esther earns both our sympathy AND our revulsion, which makes her a sort-of spiritual descendant to Travis Bickle, believe it or not) and definitely marks herself as someone to watch. The Newton Brothers’ moody, tense score is a mini-marvel: the duo was also responsible for Oculus’ (2014) excellent score and are handily establishing themselves as go-to guys for modern-day genre film scores. There were also some nicely realized visual flourishes and stylistic tics (my favorite being the slo-mo water dripping in the bathtub) that were definitely appreciated, even if the film’s general messiness and chaotic structure made it a little difficult to really focus on them.

Ultimately, Proxy ended up being one of the most disappointing 2014 films I saw all year: there was so much potential here, which made the results even more unfortunate. I’m not quite ready to write-off the production team, however: there were enough good ideas here to bode well for the future, provided that some measure of order is restored. As it stands, however, Proxy just isn’t very good, even though it could have been so much more.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

10/16/14 (Part Two): What a Blockhead

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31 Days of Halloween, Amber Valletta, Bob Gunton, Charlie Clouser, cinema, Dead Silence, Donnie Wahlberg, evil dolls, evil old lady, father-son relationships, film reviews, films, ghosts, horror film, horror movies, industrial score, Insidious, James Wan, Judith Roberts, Laura Regan, Leigh Whannell, Mary Shaw, Movies, mystery, Ravens Fair, revenge, Ryan Kwanten, Saw, sins of the fathers, small town life, The Conjuring, True Blood, ventriloquist, ventriloquist doll, ventriloquist dummies

If you think about it, there’s something inherently creepy about dolls: their tiny little hands…those dead, glassy eyes that seem to follow you around the room…the way they always seem to have just stopped moving, right before you happen to look at them…small wonder, then, that dolls, like clowns, make such great subjects for horror films. If dolls are inherently unsettling, however, ventriloquist dummies are just shy of existentially terrifying: after all, these little fellas are just like regular dolls but they can talk. You can keep your masked slashers, fanged vampires and walking dead: when hard-pressed, I’m not sure that I can think of anything more horrifying than animate, ventriloquist dolls with evil intentions.

Although it will probably never be regarded as the “definitive” ventriloquist film – that honor presumably goes to Richard Attenborough’s ultra-creepy Magic (1978) – James Wan’s Dead Silence (2007) is probably the best modern example of this (decidedly) niche sub-genre of horror film. While the film is far from perfect, there’s enough good material here to warrant attention from horror fans, although the film definitely falls short of living up to its full potential. More importantly, Dead Silence serves as a bridge between Wan’s torture-porn beginnings as the creator of the Saw franchise and his latter-day films, the widely acclaimed, mainstream-baiting Insidious and Conjuring franchises.

After kicking off with a rather bombastic, industrial-tinged credit sequence (frequent Nine Inch Nails collaborator Charlie Clouser provided the film’s score), Dead Silence introduces us to our protagonist, Jamie (Ryan Kwanten). Jamie has been sent a strange ventriloquist doll, by the name of Billy, from some anonymous benefactor. Since this is a horror film, the doll introduces itself by slaughtering Jamie’s loving wife, Lisa (Laura Regan), and setting Jamie up to take the fall for the murder. In order to clear his name, Jamie hightails it back to his boyhood home of Ravens Fair, which also happens to be the return address for the evil doll. Once there, Jamie falls into the local legend of Mary Shaw (Judith Roberts), a supposedly murdered ventriloquist who was involved in some pretty dark doings when she was alive. Billy was one of Mary’s star puppets when she was alive but was supposedly buried alongside her when she died.

As Jamie continues his investigation, he finds himself back with his estranged father, Edward (Bob Gunton), who happens to be wheelchair-bound after a recent stroke. While father and son might not have much use for each other now, the secret to Jamie’s current situation, as well as the future of Ravens Fair, lies in Edward’s past. In a town where the living keep the secrets of the dead, Jamie will discover that not everything dead stays buried…and revenge is always a dish best served cold.

In many ways, Dead Silence seems like a test-run for Wan’s big hit, Insidious (2010). Both films share a similar aesthetic, feature imaginative setpieces (although Dead Silence is a much gorier film than Insidious), an emphasis on mood over action (although Dead Silence features about 200% more obvious jump scares than Insidious and The Conjuring (2013), combined) and feature plots that focus on “the sins of the fathers,” as it were. For all of this, however, Dead Silence ends up being a much sloppier film than Insidious: the subtler, low-key moments end up jammed next to some thoroughly stupid jump scares that tend to devalue the whole affair.

Truthfully, the whole film feels just a little sloppy, as if Wan couldn’t be quite bothered to dot the Is and cross the Ts. For every scene like the excruciatingly measured bit where Billy turns, inch by inch, to stare at Jaime, we get obvious schlock like the clichéd ‘scary-face” effect that gets superimposed over Mary’s dolls, ruining an otherwise ultra-creepy look (note to Wan: dolls that turn and look at you are terrifying…dolls with crappy CGI faces are the exact opposite). Dead Silence ends up looking very expensive and polished but often plays like a lowest-common-denominator B-movie. In particular, the film starts to get supremely silly once we get to the obligatory “humans into dolls” bit, an idea that would seem to be ripe with nightmare intent but just comes across as goopy and kind of nonsensical, in practice. Add to this a truly over-the-top score that manages to not only telegraph but belabor some of the film’s scarier elements and it’s easy to see how the film falls short of its own goals.

Which, ultimately, is a bit of shame, since there’s so much truly great stuff here. Ryan Kwanten, from TV’s True Blood, is a thoroughly likable hero, even if he can occasionally blend into the woodwork and Judith Roberts is perfect as the venomous, demonic Mary Shaw: it’s easy to see where the “old lady demon” in Insidious got its genesis, although I dare say that Mary’s backstory and puppet army make her the infinitely more frightening of the two. Donnie Wahlberg’s Det. Lipton is a complete asshole but he’s an entertaining one, proving that it would be entirely possible to get one complete actor out of the Wahlbergs if one could combine Donnie’s over-the-top mannerisms with Markie’s studiously underplayed style.

While the effects are, for the most part, quite good (there also seems to be several practical effects bits, which are always appreciated), Dead Silence’s sound design ends up being the hidden MVP, helping to accentuate the atmosphere of key scenes while contributing to the finale’s nightmarish sense of unreality. It’s the kind of subtle sound design that would be used to much greater effect in Insidious but it’s kind of cool to watch Wan take baby steps with the notion here. For the most part, Dead Silence looks and sounds great, even if the film can, at times, have all of the weight and importance of a Twinkie.

Despite not quite living up to its full potential, Dead Silence is a lot of fun: Mary’s backstory is pretty great, the film moves quickly and the ending, while a little obvious, is still nicely realized and manages to pack a bit of a gut-punch. It’s just too bad that the film often comes across as lazy, more content with throwing out a tedious jump scare than maintaining a consistently oppressive atmosphere. If anything, think of Dead Silence as a test-run for Insidious: while Wan and screenwriter Leigh Whannell might have lit the fuse with their first attempt at a more mature, mainstream horror film after Saw (2004), they would need to wait a few years to truly appreciate the explosion that was Insidious.