7/18/15: The Shadow That Trails Behind

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Afflicted, casual sex, cinema, coming of age, Contracted, Daniel Zovatto, David Robert Mitchell, Disasterpeace, electronic score, film reviews, films, gorgeous cinematography, horror, horror films, hot pursuit, It Follows, Jake Weary, Keir Gilchrist, Lili Sepe, Maika Monroe, Mike Gioulakis, Movies, Olivia Luccardi, rape, Rich Vreeland, sexually transmitted diseases, supernatural, The Babadook, The Myth of the American Sleepover, thriller, writer-director

Gorgeously shot, lushly atmospheric and as funereal-paced as a Sabbath song, writer-director David Robert Mitchell’s sophomore feature, It Follows (2014), has already been pegged as this year’s The Babadook (2014): in other words, the mature, intelligent and well-made antidote to the seemingly endless horror remakes and sequels that clogged multiplex arteries for over a decade now. A hit on the festival circuit, It Follows managed to kick up quite a bit of dust with both critics and fans alike, leading to early calls of “neo-classic” and “the next Halloween (1978).” As someone who was quite taken with Jennifer Kent’s Babadook, I approached this with no small amount of excitement and trepidation. Does It Follows live up to the hype, propelling the horror field into a bold, exciting new era? Follow me and we’ll find out.

Jay (Maika Monroe) is, for all intents and purposes, a pretty normal young lady: she likes to sun in the pool, enjoys hanging out with her friends, Paul (Keir Gilchrist) and Yara (Olivia Luccardi), and sister, Kelly (Lili Sepe) and is just wasting away the lazy days before they all have to head off to college. She’s also dating a “really nice guy” named Hugh (Jake Weary) and, despite some obvious jealousy vibes from “friend-zoned” Paul, Jay and her beau are about to take their relationship to the next level.

After a tender lovemaking session in their car, in the middle of the woods, Jay’s post-coital glow is rudely interrupted by her “nice guy” knocking her out with chloroform. Upon waking, Jay is tied to a chair in the middle of a gutted building and Hugh, albeit apologetically, fills her in on her very grim future. It would seem that Hugh “contracted” some form of curse/demonic STD from a one-night stand and has slept with Jay in order to save himself and pass it on to her.

The “rules” are simple, if somewhat less than consistent: Jay will be followed relentlessly by “something” that has the ability to look like anyone it wants. It will walk after her, slowly, literally willing to pursue her to the ends of the earth. If the “presence” touches Jay, she’s DOA. If it kills Jay before she passes it on, Hugh is DOA, meaning he has an obvious stake in keeping her alive. The only thing that Jay can do is stay on the move and find some unlucky guy to screw (literally and figuratively).

As she rushes about, always keeping one eye behind her, Jay and her friends, along with some dude named Greg (Daniel Zovatto), try to unravel the true nature of Hugh’s identity and get to the bottom of the curse that threatens to end Jay’s very young life. No matter where they go, however, “it” is always just over the horizon, slouching towards Jay like that “rough beast” towards Bethlehem. Will Jay opt to meet her doom head-on or will she, like Hugh, decide to damn another innocent? She’d better make her mind up fast: it follows and it has no intention of stopping.

Writer-director Mitchell first appeared on my radar via his feature-debut, the surprisingly exceptional teen relationship drama The Myth of the American Sleepover (2010). Mitchell’s first film was exquisitely shot (the cinematography, alone, was worth the price of admission), realistically acted and full of some genuinely thought-provoking moments: the script, alone, was probably one of the better ones to come down the pike in some time and the film established David Robert Mitchell as “someone destined for great things.”

Flash-forward a few years and we arrive at It Follows, Mitchell’s next major step into the public consciousness. Like his debut, Mitchell’s follow-up looks absolutely beautiful: Mike Gioulakis’ cinematography has a warm, panoramic quality that makes every single frame look immaculately composed, framed and presented for maximum visual impact. The score, courtesy of Disasterpeace (aka Rich Vreeland), is pretty damn awesome, handily recalling both John Carpenter and Goblin’s moody, synthy masterpieces: when combined with the astounding camerawork, It Follows is reminiscent (in mood and look) of something like Richard Kelly’s Donnie Darko (2001), albeit filtered through a neo-slasher aesthetic.

The acting is solid across the board, with Maika Monroe proving that her fantastic performance in last year’s The Guest (2014) was anything but a fluke: endlessly likable, strong, intelligent and utterly human, Monroe’s Jay is the epitome of the “final girl” and a massively successful hero. The selfish part of me secretly wishes that she’d get pigeonholed into horror roles for the next several years although, realistically, Monroe is way too talented to get stuck anywhere for long: if It Follows marks her big leap into prestige pictures, it’s still a win-win for everyone.

Despite her commanding performance, Monroe has plenty of able support in the backfield. Gilchrist, perhaps best known as the son on United States of Tara but possessed of a resume that includes stellar performances in everything from Dead Silence (2007) to It’s Kind of a Funny Story (2010) to Dark Summer (2015), is great as the love-sick Paul, bringing just the right combo of frustration, obsession, disappointment and infatuation to the role. Paul is a character that could have come across as kind of a creepy perv but Gilchrist makes him as eminently likable as Jay.

While Luccardi, Sepe and Zovatto all turn in strong performances, Jake Weary really surprises as Hugh, the “nice guy” who does a very bad thing. On paper, Hugh could’ve come across as a real villain, a callous, vaguely threatening presence (his chloroforming of Jay carries more than a little hint of rape, despite coming after the actual sex) who exists only to jumpstart the action. Onscreen, however, Hugh is much more sympathetic and seems genuinely concerned about Jay: he’s not a bad guy, per se, just an exceptionally desperate one. While stepping over Jay to “get to safety” will never wash as the “gentlemanly” response to the situation, nothing about Hugh (or Weary’s performance) bespeaks of douchebag bros or raging misogynists.

So: It Follows is beautifully made and features a great cast…how does it actually stack up as a horror film? To be frankly honest…it’s good but definitely not exceptional. Unlike The Babadook, which possessed more than its share of genuine scary moments but was also appropriately knotty and weighty, It Follows is a much more obvious, straight-forward kind of monster. The entire film consists of sinister figures appearing in the background, usually without the main characters noticing, and proceeding to slowly advance to the foreground. There’s certainly a variety of “stalker” represented here (one of my favorites was the exceptionally odd zombie-cheerleader who appears to urinate all over the place) but that’s about it, as far as the “monster” goes.

In fact, one of the places where It Follows stumbles the hardest is with the actual mythos/rules surrounding the sinister presence. To be blunt: the rules end up being vague, inconsistent and more than a little nonsensical. We’re told that the presence walks everywhere (slowly, to boot) and that driving away is a good way to get a head start. No matter how far Jay drives, however, the presence is always just over the horizon: for an exceptionally slow walker, that damn thing sure can sprint, when necessary. There’s also the matter of traveling to someplace like, say, Australia: would the presence need to walk through the entire ocean to get there or would it hop a plane, too? While I realize that the “always there” factor of the monster is a nod to classic slashers like Freddy and Jason, it’s kind of undone when the film goes out of its way to hammer home the whole “walking” aspect.

There’s also the question of the creature’s forward momentum. Hugh makes it a point to say how the creature never stops moving but, time after time, we’re treated to atmospheric shots where the presence is just standing there, looking menacing (chief among these being the rather silly bit where it appears on top of a nearby roof). For my money, the notion of an endlessly moving threat is pretty terrifying: take a minute to catch your breath and kiss your ass goodbye! Here, the creature seems to be given to so much inactivity that, at one point, Jay even goes into the woods and falls asleep on top of her damn car: while I never expect perfect logic from horror films, this silly scene pulled me right out (if only briefly).

A third issue lies with what the creature actually does. Hugh tells Jay not to let it touch her but, at several points, it does and she seems to be just fine. At one point, it appears to fold its victim into something resembling a human pretzel (which is, admittedly, a really nice touch): at another point, it appears to violently “hump” someone to death. There’s also the notion that the creature is only hazardous to its intended victim, since no one else can see it: despite this, however, the others are able to attack it, shoot it, throw blankets over it, et al, while it can handily toss them around the room with impunity. Again, the details of the actual creature become so foggy that it’s hard to ever get fully invested. In a zombie film, we know that a headshot kills, so we automatically tense up when a character shoots anywhere else and assumes it’s groovy: in It Follows, we’re never quite sure what needs to happen (aside from the passing it on part), so it becomes difficult to know when a character is truly in danger.

Thematically, It Follows splits the difference between a coming-of-age story (ala Mitchell’s own Myth of the American Sleepover) and a thinly-veiled metaphor about sexually transmitted disease, ala Contracted (2013) or Afflicted (2013). As such, the coming-of-age aspect actually works a little better: Contracted was much better at portraying the inner turmoil and anxiety of not only the act of sex but the acquiring of an infectious disease, whereas It Follows really shines when it comes to the interactions between the various characters.

Ultimately, I really enjoyed It Follows but definitely didn’t find it to be the “genre savior” that others seem to have. While the film never looks or sounds anything less than gorgeous, it’s also got more than its fair share of problems, including that aforementioned dodgy mythos and a few too many plot holes for my liking. The film is also a little long, which only becomes problematic in the final half where too many scenes devolve into what seems to be time-killing and foot-shuffling. I worship at the altar of slow-paced films but there’s a balance and, too often, It Follows had trouble with the ratio.

Despite all of this, however, I eagerly await David Robert Mitchell’s next foray into film, whether it be horror or something closer to his debut. He’s an obviously talented filmmaker and writer with a real knack for capturing eye-popping visuals: in certain ways, he reminds me of an up-and-coming Adam Wingard, which is certainly no insult. When It Follows is good, it’s pretty damn great: at times, it seems to so perfectly evoke the spirit of J-Horror films that it could almost be an import. It’s a smart film that features realistic, likable characters relating in ways that feel authentic, never phoned-in or phony. It’s also a fairly original film, which is certainly nothing to sneeze at: even if the mythos is inconsistent and vague, it’s obvious that Mitchell put lots of thought into the overall feel. It Follows may not be the next Babadook (and it’s certainly not the next Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), despite the scuttlebutt) but it’s a more than worthy entry in the modern horror sweepstakes and deserves the attention of any discerning fan. Best of the year, though? Not by a long-shot.

6/6/15 (Part Two): Picking Your Poison

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13 Sins, Bardi Johannsson, Brittany Snow, Charlie Hofheimer, cinema, Daniel Hunt, David Guy Levy, dinner party, director-producer, dramas, dysfunctional family, Eddie Steeples, Enver Gjokaj, father-son relationships, film reviews, films, games, isolated mansion, Jeffrey Combs, John Heard, Jonny Coyne, June Squibb, Lawrence Gilliard Jr., Logan Miller, Movies, psychological torture, rich vs poor, Robb Wells, Robin Lord Taylor, Sasha Grey, self-mutilation, Shepard Lambrick, Steffen Schlachtenhaufen, Steven Capitano Calitri, thriller, torture, Would You Rather

In many ways, Iris (Brittany Snow), the protagonist of David Guy Levy’s Would You Rather (2012), is like a lot of folks in this modern economy: stuck between a rock and a much heavier, sharper rock. She’s the sole caretaker for her cancer-stricken younger brother, Raleigh (Logan Miller), it’s getting harder and harder to make ends meet and the future is looking increasingly grim. When she’s passed over for a hostess job that wouldn’t dig her out of the hole but would, at the very least, allow her and her brother to keep eating, it’s safe to say that Iris has slipped from the rarefied ranks of the “getting by” to the much less desired “left behind.”

All’s not lost, however: Raleigh’s kindly doctor, Barden (Lawrence Gilliard Jr.), arranges a meeting between Iris and mysterious aristocrat/philanthropist, Shepard Lambrick (Jeffrey Combs). It seems that Lambrick and his equally mysterious “foundation” hold regular “games” where groups of needy people are brought together: the winner of these games gets whatever support they need from the foundation for the rest of their lives. In Iris’ case, winning the game would mean getting an instant bone marrow transplant for her brother, along with enough money to set them up for the rest of their lives. When offered the chance to have all of our financial problems simply “vanish,” who among us would turn down a similar offer?

Canny genre fans, of course, will recognize this for the worst kind of sucker’s bet: historically, we know that nothing comes for free and if it’s too good to be true, it probably involves torture. Once Iris gets to the Lambrick mansion and meets the other seven participants, ranging from the obligatory conspiracy theorist (extra points for also making him the token recovering alcoholic) to a kindly, wheelchair-bound old lady and a sullen Iraq war vet, it becomes clear that this probably won’t be a winner-takes-all Pokemon tournament. By the time Lambrick’s obviously nutso son, Julian (Robin Lord Taylor), has made his entrance, we begin to get the idea that this particular royal-blue bloodline is a little compromised. Once Lambrick’s formerly MI-5-employed butler, Bevins (Jonny Coyne), wheels his old torture rig in, however, the full measure of madness becomes much clearer. This won’t end well…for anyone.

If horror and genre films are a good indicator of what particular fears are running rampant in society during any given era, it’s especially telling that the last five years or so have seen such a proliferation in two rather specific subgenres: the doppelgänger film and the “rich people using poor people for sport” film. If you think about it, though, it makes perfect sense: in this era of the social media “identity,” it’s only natural for folks to assume that, somewhere out there, an alternate version of themselves is having a much better time. What is social media, after all, if not a great opportunity to present a carefully cultivated persona to the outside world, regardless of how much it might (or might not) resemble the actual person?

By that token, perhaps no subgenre bears as much current relevancy (at least in the United States) as “rich people using poor people for sport.” One need only look at the current state of income equality to see that this particular pyramid has an extremely small apex and a ridiculously wide base: when so few individuals hold so much wealth and power, it’s understandable that the less fortunate might begin to view these wealthy as virtual deities, capable of doling out both misery and good fortune with equal aplomb. If the game truly is rigged, perhaps the best course of action is to make friends with the dealer and hope for the best.

In many ways, Levy’s film (written by Steffen Schlachtenhaufen) is a much grimmer, more stage-bound version of Daniel Stamm’s 13 Sins (2014) (or vice-versa, since Would You Rather preceded the other by a few years). The action, here, is confined almost exclusively to the mansion and its grounds (mostly the dining room), unlike the more free-roaming 13 Sins. The focus in Levy’s film is also on the psychological torment of the characters rather than Stamm’s focus on the often shocking stunts. To that end, Would You Rather definitely comes off as the more serious and “austere” of the two, despite its eventual descent into the kind of blood-soaked madness that we expect.

As grim and relentless as a freight train, Levy’s film gains much of its impact from another typically excellent performance by Jeffrey Combs (can’t someone just give him the Lifetime MVP award, already, and get it over with?), as well as an exceptionally sturdy turn from Pitch Perfect’s (2012) Brittany Snow. Unlike protagonists like 13 Sins’ Elliot or Cheap Thrills’ (2014) Vince, Iris is a much more likable, relatable character. We’re pulling for her every step of the way, which makes her inevitable bad decisions even more painful to watch. The relationship between Iris and her brother is also nicely depicted in the film, gaining some genuine resonance from Snow and Miller’s intuitive interactions: they actually feel like a brother and sister, which is quite refreshing.

While the cast is consistently solid (it was a real hoot to see Eddie Steeples – better known as Crab Man from My Name is Earl – in a rare serious role and he really kills it), there are a few lead weights: Sasha Grey, who turned in a pretty great performance in the recent Open Windows (2014), is as obnoxious as possible and as abrasive as fingernails on chalkboard with her “performance” as Amy and Trailer Park Boys’ main-man Robb Wells feels decidedly out-of-place with his broader take on the character of Peter. I usually really enjoy Wells (he was outstanding in Hobo With a Shotgun (2011), for example), so it was doubly disappointing to find him so tedious here.

For the most part, though, Would You Rather is stuffed with lots to like: Jonny Coyne’s congenial sociopath is a great character and almost steals the film from Combs, which is no mean feat. Taylor has fun playing the sleazy Julian, although his broad performance almost goes off the rails, at times. While the film can be slightly repetitive in the early stages of the “game” (all participants must do the same trials, which significantly cuts down on the “what’s coming?” factor that can work so well in keeping our hearts in our throats), Levy and Schlachtenhaufen display an admirably dark wit once it gets to the penultimate phase, where contestants must choose between spending two minutes underwater or the unique, unknown test on the cards before them: it’s here where Would You Rather really takes off, featuring some truly inspired, twisted setpieces.

All in all, it’s hard to find much fault in Would You Rather: the script is solid, the performances are generally top-notch, the cinematography (courtesy of Steven Capitano Calitri) is quite evocative and well-staged and the ’80s-inspired score (by Daniel Hunt and Bardi Johannsson) is a real knockout. The film manages to maintain a fairly high degree of tension, throughout, and if the subplot involving the kindly doctor racing to save Iris never amounts to anything, it does give the filmmakers a chance to make a Shining (1980) reference, which is always appreciated. Even the (by now) de rigueur downbeat ending fits the film like a glove, highlighting the extremely arbitrary nature of life: you can do it all right and still get fucked. C’est la vie, eh?

Despite being top-notch entertainment, I’ll freely admit that Would You Rather won’t be for everyone: in specific, if you’re the kind of person who avoids torture films (either psychological or physical) like the plague, you’d probably be best served avoiding Levy’s latest. For those who don’t mind taking a walk on the dark side, however, Would You Rather will probably be right up your alley. Just remember: the next time a filthy-rich plutocrat wants to offer you a hand up, make sure the other hand isn’t holding a knife.

12/26/14 (Part Four): Letting the Idiots Speak

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actor-director, animal masks, Boris Mojsovski, children in peril, cinema, co-writers, disappointing films, dysfunctional family, father-son relationships, film reviews, films, horror, horror movies, isolated estates, isolation, Jordan Barker, Katherine Isabelle, masked intruders, Michael Foster, Movies, Peter DaCunha, Robin Dunne, Stephen McHattie, stepmother, Thomas Pound, thriller, Torment

For roughly the first half of Jordan Barker’s Torment (2013), all signs point to an above-average little chiller: effectively shot, tense and extremely atmospheric, this little “family in peril” flick doesn’t break a lot of new ground but it ferociously stakes claim to the terra firma that’s already there. Creepy, relentless and with an absolutely ruthless sense of forward momentum, Torment (at first) seems like it’ll be one of those “horror sleepers” that worms its way into my sub-conscious, complete with some very eerie, animal-mask-bedecked baddies…again, not original but highly effective, nonetheless. But then, unfortunately, something rather terrible happens, something that cuts the legs out from under the film and leaves it to die a slow, miserable, humiliating death, flopping around and about like that poor fish from Faith No More’s “Epic” video: the creepy, masked bad guys speak and the whole thing heads straight to Hell in the proverbial hand-basket.

Until the film manages to completely squander all of its accumulated good will, there’s actually quite a bit to like here. The central story, about a pair of newlyweds who vacation in the country with the husband’s extremely difficult son (from his first marriage) opens up some nice avenues for drama: there’s a genuine sense of tension between bratty Liam (Peter DaCunha) and his trying-too-hard stepmother, Sarah (Katherine Isabelle), and a few quietly astute observations about the ways in which step-parents and their families interact. The familial relationship feels fairly authentic (in particular, you really feel for poor Sarah’s attempts to bond with her step-son) and none of the acting gets in the way.

From a horror level, Torment’s first half is a real slow-burn that still manages to include some fairly nasty, abrupt violence, including a very memorable scene involving some sharp garden shears and an astoundingly creepy shot involving shadowy figures in the basement (to be honest, one of the creepiest shots of the year: bravo!). There are some really tense action setpieces, including a marvelously executed cat-and-mouse chase involving Sarah and the masked baddies. Hell, Stephen McHattie even shows up as the lackadaisical sheriff and that’s always a good thing.

Once the film hits the midpoint and decides to let the masked intruders talk, however, the whole thing instantly collapses like a castle made of wet tissue paper. Gone is the tension, mystery and atmosphere, replaced by some of the most tedious, obnoxious and straight-up stupid “tough guy” talk this side of a dinner-theater production of Glengarry Glen Ross. The question of whether to have your masked bad guy speak is always a tough one: in most cases, any mood and mystery goes right out the window as soon as any formerly “strong and silent”-type tests the mic and Torment is absolutely no exception. Suffice to say, that my burning interest in the film was almost instantly doused and the resulting 40 minutes became as awkward, terrible and stupid as the first 40 minutes were effective and chilling.

Hard to pinpoint exactly where to lay the most blame here, but I’ll go ahead and toss a heaping helping of scorn onto the film’s two scribes (that’s right, two screenwriters for this drivel), mostly because the dialogue in the latter half of the film is so painfully stupid and contrived as to stick out like a neon sign. The whole thing ends with an obvious setup for a sequel, which, of course, begs one enormous question: who in the hell wants seconds from this particularly rancid smorgasbord?

Ultimately, Torment is that most terrible of films, at least for me: a scrappy little coulda-woulda-shoulda contenda that ends up as just another cauliflower-eared, empty-headed palooka. There’s plenty of potential here but precious little follow-through: “Torment” might not accurately reflect one’s experience with Barker’s film but I’m wagering the more accurate title wouldn’t have looked as good on the box art: “Tedium.”

11/23/14: Snowbody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen

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accidental death, Andreas Windhuis, Anton Weber, black comedies, bungled job, Carpathian Mountains, cinema, crime boss, crime film, Detlef Bothe, double-crosses, Eva-Katrin Hermann, Fargo, film reviews, films, foreign films, German cinema, hitman, hostile locals, isolated estates, isolation, Jürgen Rißmann, Luc Feit, Luke Lalonde, Movies, Ralf Mendle, Reiner Schöne, Snowman's Land, Thomas Wodianka, thriller, Tomasz Thomson, voice-over narration, Waléra Kanischtscheff, wilderness setting, writer-director

Poor Walter (Jürgen Rißmann): he’s just screwed up an important job assignment, been yelled at by his boss, compared to an old, broken-down horse and told to just get the hell out of sight. He’s constantly struggling against his younger, more “eager” peers (Anton Weber) and any setback feels like starting from the bottom of the hill all over again. Tired, worn-out and jaded, all Walter wants to do is crawl in a hole somewhere, drink himself stupid and try to forget about how mean the world can be: which of us can honestly say we haven’t been there at least once in our lives? The thing is, Walter is a hitman working for the mob and his botched assignment involved killing the wrong target…for the vast majority of us, I’m assuming the parallel ends there.

Writer-director Tomasz Thomson takes this rather familiar premise and feeds it through the mulcher with Snowman’s Land (2010), a Teutonic take on “hitmen with problems” films like In Bruges (2008) and Fargo (1996). In the process, he comes up with something genuinely entertaining, an ice-cold, bleakly humorous look at the way in which fate flips all of us the bird, at one time or another, and how losing it all is sometimes the only way to come out on the other side.

After getting a tip about an “easy” job up North from a colleague (he’s told that he’ll just be sitting around “building snowmen” all day), Walter heads to the isolated estate of local crime boss Berger (Reiner Schöne), nestled deep in the foreboding Carpathian Mountains: the plan is to lick his wounds, collect an easy paycheck and head back to the city after the heat has died down a bit. While navigating the twisted path leading to the estate, Walter happens upon Micky (Thomas Wodianka), an old “friend” of his. Turns out that Micky is also going to be working the job with Walter, much to his consternation. Within moments of meeting Micky, we get a distinct whiff of “potentially unhinged asshole” and there’s an unspoken tension between the two belied by their laddish back-and-forth.

Upon reaching Berger’s mansion, the duo discover that he appears to be away. They also, to their future detriment, make the unfortunate acquaintance of Berger’s wife, the lovely, uncontrollable Sibylle (Eva-Katrin Hermann). She politely informs the men that “it’s not a hotel” and she’s “not a fucking maid” before telling them that they can go into the living room and kitchen but nowhere else. As she’s about to leave for the night, Micky remarks on Sibylle’s revealing outfit: “Don’t tell me they have a disco around here.” “I am the disco around here,” she shoots back without missing a beat and the message should be loud and clear, by this point: we’re firmly in film noir femme fatale territory here.

Ignoring the lady of the house’s direct orders, Micky (and Walter, by reluctant extension), poke around the empty house and discover, among other things, a giant, gated vault filled with drugs. This, of course, finally jogs Micky’s befogged brain enough for him to realize that Sibylle is the local “drug godmother” responsible for all of the area’s operations: her husband provides the protection and infrastructure while she handles everything else. After a night of drug-taking, dancing and near-sex between Micky and Sibylle leads to her shocking, accidental death, however, the pair’s life is flipped upside down. This, of course, is the perfect time for Berger and his extremely scary bodyguard, Kazik (Waléra Kanischtscheff), to return from their journey: as mentioned, fate is nothing if not a practical joker.

As Walter and Micky find out, Berger is not only a violent, insane and potentially delusional man, he’s also an extremely ambitious one: he plans to develop the inhospitable area and turn it into a tourist destination, much to the consternation of the hostile locals who have been instigating a campaign of sabotage and subversion against his efforts. This, then, is why Walter and Micky have been brought here: Berger wants the two to guard his estate from the vengeful locals until such time as Kazik can come up with a more “permanent” solution. Key point to protect? Why, none other than Berger’s beloved wife, Sibylle, of course! And, by the way…where has his lovely wife gotten off to, Berger wonders, as Micky and Walter sweat bullets.

Stuck between a rock and a hard place, Walter and Micky must carefully navigate around Berger and Kazik, while also trying to avoid the locals, who would just as soon lump them in with the insane mobster. Berger is the most dangerous of individuals, however, a brilliant, paranoid schemer and he already knows that something fishy is going on around his little castle: once he figures out what it is, he’ll be more than happy to give the devil his due.

Between the gorgeously brittle cinematography (DP Ralf Mendle has a deft touch that gives the exteriors an almost fairy-tale quality while playing up the chilly whites and blues in the film’s palette) and the extremely effective score, courtesy of Luke Lalonde, Snowman’s Land is quite the pleasure to watch. Toss in some pretty great performances and a sharp script and Thomson’s film reveals itself to be quite the little sleeper. While it would be a stretch to call the film a “comedy,” by any stretch of the imagination, there’s a gently sardonic tone to the whole thing that helps to smooth across some of the film’s darker edges. One of the most memorable scenes is the one where Berger is about to cut off someone’s toes with an electric carving knife only to have it run out of juice before he can begin his task: sighing, Berger calmly explains that he’ll have to go plug it in and let it charge before he can get back to work…he hopes that his victim will understand and be patient. In many ways, the film’s tone reminded me of the excellent Israeli film Big Bad Wolves (2013), another movie in which men do terrible things yet seem so nonchalant as to render their actions almost mundane.

While all the acting is uniformly excellent (Reiner Schöne makes an absolutely terrifying villain as Berger: the scene where he mercilessly guns down an entire house full of people is a real showstopper), Jürgen Rißmann is definitely the sturdy anchor that keeps the film centered. Walter is an everyman but Rißmann doesn’t play him like a trope or a tired cliché: there’s a sense of authenticity to Walter’s world-weary bearing that manages to cut through the chaos in Snowman’s Land like the clear toll of a bell on a winter day. We like Walter, despite his line of work, and really want him to make it: beyond the opening, everything he does is geared towards redemption and trying to prove himself as someone of worth…can any of us say we would have conducted ourselves differently?

Ultimately, Snowman’s Land takes a familiar plot and twists it into some pretty interesting knots and curlicues. There are interesting hints of bigger issues running beneath the film’s surface, things which make Snowman’s Land a bigger, richer experience: some of the best parts in the film are the ones where our handy narrator gives us the history of the area, explaining that it has, historically, been such a shithole that both Genghis Khan and Napoleon avoided it during their respective campaigns…in other words, just the kind of place you want to turn into a tourist trap. It’s this kind of smart detail that makes Snowman’s Land such an intriguing, fun film, perfect for anyone looking for a quirky crime film, a reason to root for the under-dog or some gorgeous snow-bound scenery.

9/1/14 (Part One): The Coldest Dish of All

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Amy Hargreaves, Best of 2013, Blue Ruin, cinema, Devin Ratray, drama, dysfunctional family, Eve Plumb, film festival favorite, film reviews, films, History of Violence, independent films, Jeremy Saulnier, Kevin Kolack, loners, Macon Blair, Movies, Murder Party, revenge, thriller, vengeance, writer-director-cinematographer

In many ways, movies make revenge seem like not only a good solution to a variety of problems but also the coolest, most thrilling and suitable solution possible. Oh sure, there are plenty of “anti-revenge” films (Cronenberg’s astounding A History of Violence (2005) comes immediately to mind) out there but they definitely appear to be outnumbered and out-gunned by the ones in which an individual gets terribly wronged and exacts bloody vengeance to even the score. Turning the other cheek might help calm a person’s internal struggle but doesn’t seem to produce much heat at the box office: audiences don’t want to see their heroes get stomped on without some sort of recourse.

If you really think about it, however, bloody, armed revenge isn’t quite as simple as the movies make it out to be. For one thing, most people (excepting members of the armed forces, police officers, militiamen/women and soldiers-of-fortune) are woefully ill-prepared to actually “take someone out.” It may be easy to off a virtual stranger in a first-person shooting game but it’s a whole other ball of wax when said stranger is actually standing in front of you, especially if they happen to be equally armed. For another thing, revenge tends to be a circular, Mobius-like concept: after all, if you’re willing to kill someone to avenge someone else, why wouldn’t your “victim” have people behind them who were equally eager to kill you? After all, regardless of how shitty, evil or worthless a person is, everyone has family and friends (or at least acquaintances) who might be willing to avenge them: an eye for an eye, after all, tends to make the whole world blind.

Writer/director/cinematographer Jeremy Saulnier’s sophomore feature, Blue Ruin (2013), is well-aware of all these issues, yet manages to whip this potential moral quagmire into a truly ferocious, unrelenting and bleak monster of a film. In the world of Blue Ruin, there is no wrong or right: there are only varying shades of gray, marginally more caustic “sins” and the nagging notion that the only inevitability in life is the ceaseless march to the grave. While Saulnier’s film has a definite protagonist, it doesn’t really have a hero: as we see, revenge doesn’t solve anything…it just drags the avenger into the muck along with everyone else.

When we first meet our luckless protagonist, Dwight (the endlessly expressive Macon Blair), he looks like the kind of down-on-his luck fella we might find begging for change on a freeway overpass: with his matted, unruly beard and propensity for breaking into houses to bathe and steal clothes, Dwight looks like he fell off the ladder of success and hit every rung on the way down. When Dwight is picked up for vagrancy by a friendly cop, however, she drops a hint to the rest of the puzzle: “someone” is getting released from prison, a someone who Dwight seems to be very interested in. When Dwight buys a map, gets in his beat-up car (his only possession) and attempts to steal a handgun, we get the nagging suspicion that our “hero” might not have been on the mysterious “someone’s” visitor list in prison.

Sure enough, we get validation of Dwight’s intentions when he tracks the recently released inmate to a dingy bar bathroom and stabs him in the head during a horrendously botched assassination attempt. Turns out that the mysterious man is Wade Cleland, the very same individual who mercilessly killed Dwight’s parents. After killing Wade and escaping via a stolen limo, Dwight hightails it to his sister’s place: Sam (Amy Hargreaves) hasn’t seen Dwight in years and is less than thrilled to see him now, particularly once he explains how he just slaughtered their parents’ killer in cold blood. Sam has kids, which adds another layer to her upset at the situation: “I’d forgive you if you’re crazy but you’re not: you’re weak,” she tells him.

As can be expected in situations like this, Wade’s got quite a few folks who are more than a little upset to bury him, not least of which is his equally larcenous family. Brother Teddy (Kevin Kolack) is the first to come hunting for Dwight but sisters Kris (Eve Plumb) and Hope (Stacy Rock) might just be more deadly. Throw in slightly nerdy brother, William (David W. Thompson), and Dwight has quite a stacked house against him. Lucky for him that he also has a friend in the person of Ben Gaffney (Devin Ratray), an old friend who saves Dwight’s life, gets him a gun, a place to hideout and some pretty sage advice: “I know this is personal…that’s why you’ll fail. No talking, no speeches…you point the gun, you shoot the gun.”

With his back to the wall, Dwight must now do everything he can to prevent harm from coming to Sam and her kids. This, of course, isn’t the easiest course of action since the Clelands are now in a complete blood frenzy: they never reported the murder to the authorities, meaning they plan to keep the whole incident in-house. Dwight will have to follow his initial actions through to their logical conclusion, leaving us with this impossible question: how many people must die before the scales are evenly balanced on both sides? Is one life worth more than another? Are “bad guys” really bad when the camera’s not pointed at them or are we all “bad guys” to someone else?

I’ve had my eye on Jeremy Saulnier ever since I fell in love with his debut feature, the outrageously great Murder Party (2007), so I expected really great things from his follow-up. Luckily, Blue Ruin managed to either meet or blow-away all of my expectations. Saulnier’s cinematography is absolutely gorgeous, giving the film a rich, full look that belies its low-budget. He manages to make the film’s color palette an integral part of its theme: true to advertising, the film does have a pretty “blue” look, which ends up being extremely evocative. The script is also extremely tight and well-written: doing away with the needless “placeholder” dialogue that tends to wreck other indie films gives Blue Ruin a lean, mean feel that’s endlessly cinematic: there’s nothing about the film that screams “amateur” or “student” production, unlike many of Saulnier’s peers.

While the film can be intensely violent, there’s no glorification of said violence whatsoever. The scene where Dwight stalks and kills Wade is clumsy, violent and messy: rather than coming across as some sort of “Liam Neeson lite,” everything about Blue Ruin feels as if it’s tied into the real world. When Dwight stares in horror at the mess that Ben’s gun has made of someone else’s head, Ben nonchalantly replies, “That’s what bullets do.” This isn’t the “harmless” violence of old Westerns and gangster flicks where folks get shot and fall down, bloodlessly. These are not trained hitmen spouting pithy quips back and forth, in between the carnage: this is the kind of brutal, no-holds-barred violence that real people might engage in, folks who bleed, sweat and cry in ways that “cinema folk” usually don’t.

While the acting is pretty stellar across the board, Macon Blair’s performance as Dwight is an extra-special treat: there’s nothing about Dwight that feels stereotypical or redundant. Indeed, one of the scenes that could have come across as the silliest (the obligatory “shaving the beard” scene) packs a real wallop since we (literally) see Dwight go from being a completely fucked-up adult to a scared kid in seconds flat: beardless Dwight looks nothing like bearded Dwight, in the same way that his need for revenge has stripped away his former innocence. It’s like stepping into a time machine and ends up being one of the film’s smartest elements.

Truth be told, Blue Ruin is just about as close to perfect as this type of film gets. While the character development could have been a little more subtle (we basically get the entire backstory in one massive info dump, thanks to Teddy), the film throws in some genuinely ingenious twists, including a major one that puts a whole new spin on Dwight’s quest for revenge (sometimes, bad things only look bad from your angle: what may seem like senseless violence might actually be someone else’s quest for revenge). The acting is superb, the film is exquisitely crafted and chugs along with a truly breath-taking sense of urgency. Full of thrilling action sequences but with its head firmly screwed-on, Blue Ruin is that rarest of beasts: an intelligent, grim, relentless action film that does everything in its power to strip the cinematic stardust from previous revenge films.

While there’s nothing glorious about the violence in Blue Ruin, there’s something truly glorious about the film, itself. Be sure to keep an eye on Saulnier: all signs point to this guy taking the world by storm and you’re gonna want to be on his team when he does. Utterly essential viewing and one of the best films of 2013, hands-down.

7/13/14: A Little Dab’ll Do Ya

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Adrian Garcia Bogliano, Argentinian film, auteur theory, Camila Velasco, cinema, Cold Sweat, Facundo Espinosa, Film auteurs, film reviews, films, foreign films, Here Comes the Devil, horror film, Marina Glezer, Movies, nitroglycerine, Omar Gioiosa, Penumbra, political struggle, thriller, youth vs old age

I’m gonna go ahead and declare a winner in this particular race: writer/director Adrian Garcia Bogliano is the current king of South American horror/thriller cinema. There you go: take it to the track, cause that’s the surest bet you’ll get all day. Across the span of ten full-length films and one short in The ABCs of Death (2012), the Spanish-born Bogliano has been quietly, but expertly, making a name for himself. His efforts appear to be paying dividends, since his most recent feature, Here Comes the Devil (2012), has been widely heralded as a modern-day psychosexual masterpiece and he currently has his English-language debut, Late Phases, scheduled for wide release later this year.

Since we’ve already discussed Here Comes the Devil earlier, I thought it might be a good time to take another look at one of Bogliano’s earlier films: in this case, I decided to go with Cold Sweat (2010), perhaps my favorite film of his (up to this point, at least). To be honest, you can’t really go wrong with any of his films but if you want some pure, undiluted Bogliano, this should hit the spot like a sledgehammer smashing a plate-glass window.

We begin with a news-reel-footage-type intro that manages to pack an extraordinary amount of information into a remarkably small space. To whit, the conflict begins in Argentina back in the ’70s, when the Popular Revolutionary Army (PRA) steals 25 boxes of dynamite from a mining complex in Cordoba. Shortly afterwards, their rival group, the Argentine Anticommunist Alliance (AAA), murders several members of a PRA squadron, seizing their weapons, along with the 25 boxes of explosives. The AAA eventually ceased all activity but the boxes of explosives were never found. Smash-cut to the present, in brilliant color, and we’re off to the races.

Our protagonist, Ramon (Facundo Espinosa), has a bit of a problem: it seems that his former girlfriend, Jackie (Camila Velasco), met some hunky blonde guy online and proceeded to kick him to the curb. In order to find out exactly what happened, Ramon uses his new girlfriend, Ali (Marina Glezer), as bait to set up a meeting with the same blonde guy. They end up at a run-down looking tenement building and Ali disappears inside for her scheduled rendezvous. When Ali doesn’t reappear after a reasonable amount of time, however, Ramon begins to get worried and sets off to investigate on his own.

Turns out Ramon was right to worry: as we see, Ali has stumbled into something quite strange and certainly much more hazardous, as she gets captured by a mysterious old man. The old man (I dubbed him Walker, thanks to his walker but the film never actually calls him anything and I’ll be damned if I can actually figure out who the actor is, as great as he is) and his partner, Baxter (Omar Gioiosa), are hold-overs from the old AAA and are, despite their kindly appearances, two of the biggest sons of bitches to walk this earth in some time.

The duo enjoy kidnapping and torturing young people, forcing them to answer riddles and figure out strange coded messages. Their method of choice? Turns out that Walker and Baxter are particularly fond of nitroglycerine: they delight in applying the volatile explosive to their victims and watch as their prey does everything possible to avoid touching, bumping or sweating. As Ali witnesses, one drop is, literally, all it takes to blow an unlucky young woman’s head into a million separate pieces. Walker and Baxter are also really into horrible experiments, as we see from the insane, feral women that are kept locked in the building’s basement.

When Walker and Baxter go off to attend to other business, Ramon is able to get Ali free but refuses to leave until he can also locate Jackie: she may have run out on him, but Ramon is still very much in love with her and can’t leave her to the devices of the insane old terrorists. As Ramon and Ali each set off on their own, one to find an exit and the other to find his former lover, the stakes have never been higher: after all, when all it takes is one drop to blow you sky-high, you tend to be a little overly cautious.

As Ramon and Ali stalk through the house (and are, in turn, stalked), they come upon one horrendous discovery after another. After Ramon successfully locates Jackie, a new wrinkle is introduced: Jackie has been completely slathered in nitro and any sudden move will set her off. As the love triangle grows ever thornier, Ramon and Ali must work together to save Jackie, all while evading the slow-as-molasses but unbelievably dangerous Walker and his hulking partner, Baxter. Unfriendly punks next door…blood-thirsty feral women…stolen dynamite…all this and more greet our intrepid trio as they soon come to discover that the past doesn’t always stay dead and buried…and evil can reappear at any time, in any place.

Here’s the single most important thing to know about Cold Sweat: the film is a complete white-knuckle rollercoaster ride and it doesn’t really let up for the better part of 90 minutes. If you enjoy tense, thrill rides, look no further. There’s a lot of other stuff going on here (the political element, alone, could take up another page or two) but for purposes of this review, let’s get one thing straight: if you’re in the mood for nail-biting, needle-to-the-red excitement, this is your film, right here.

Here’s another thing to note: Cold Sweat is absolutely not a perfect film: in fact, in certain ways, Cold Sweat can be a rather moronic film (the bit where Ramon tries to get help by updating his Facebook page is, to paraphrase the immortal Tap, the very dividing line between clever and stupid). Here’s the thing, though: you really won’t care once you get caught up and the thing starts chugging along like an out-of-control freight-train. And you will get caught up in it, I guarantee.

You see, Bogliano is one of the current undisputed masters of creating and sustaining complete and absolute tension: when he turns the screws, he’s just as invincible as any of the past masters of suspense. There are certain scenes in here (Jackie’s agonizingly slow crab-walk escape from the equally slow but determined Walker; the amazing scene where Jackie constantly bobs up and down in the water, trying to avoid Walker’s acid attack; the scene where Ramon tries to help the nitro-coated Jackie down from the table; the attack of the angry punk rockers) that are so well-made, so perfect, that they deserve to be in a hall-of-fame of some sort. And don’t even get me started on the absolutely wonderful scene where Ramon finally takes down Baxter: shot in slo-mo and equal parts elegant and jaw-dropping, the scene may actually be my single favorite scene in a film…ever. I’m being dead serious, here: as I watched it, I tried to recall if anything else ever provoked that intense a reaction from me and I’m hard-pressed to come up with anything. Perhaps something from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966) but it’s gonna take a lot more rumination to ferret it out. Suffice to say that this particular scene is one of the best ever and leave it at that.

Cold Sweat is an amazing thriller made into a classic by its wealth of small details: Ramon’s Sorcerer t-shirt (for those who might not know, Sorcerer (1977) was William Friedkin’s nailbiter about roughnecks trying to move an unstable shipment of nitroglycerin in the jungles of South America)…the undeniable sexuality of the scene where Ramon tries to help Jackie, right down to the numerous close-ups and zooms onto sweaty skin)…the bickering between Walker and Baxter, who may be insane killers but are also elderly men on a budget…the truth behind the blonde guy who first tempted Jackie…the generational conflict between the decidedly old-fashioned Walker and Baxter and the “snot-nosed kids” that they currently hunt…these (and more) are all of the wonderful little details that help make Cold Sweat so special.

Truth be told, there’s very little bad that I can say about Cold Sweat. Yes, the film does occasionally lean towards the silly and/or unbelievable but trust me: you’ll find that impossible to care about once you realize that you’ve spent the last several minutes holding your breath and praying that no one gets blown up. The film looks and sounds fantastic (the discordant, atonal score is definitely a highlight), has a great cast (Walker and Gioiosa are pitch-perfect and, if Espinosa, Glezer and Velasco can sometimes come across as obnoxious, this is perfectly in line with their characters) and a brilliant script. There’s also something undeniably awesome about a modern thriller/horror film that features a pair of elderly guys as its main antagonists: you’d be hard-pressed to find anything else quite like this. While critics and fans, alike, fawned all over Here Comes the Devil, Cold Sweat is the real deal, possessed of none of the stylistic quirks that sometimes turned me off of the other film.

The greatest compliment that I can really pay Cold Sweat is that I wish it were possible to watch the film all over again, with fresh eyes: when you don’t know where the surprises are coming from, it adds a whole new layer to the film. To that end, however, I’ll just need to try to see the film with as many neophytes as possible: if I can’t experience it fresh each time, at least I can live vicariously through those who are seeing it for the first time. So, if you’re gonna give this one a spin, give me a call: I might just be available. All Hail King Bogliano: long may he reign!

 

7/10/14: A Mediocre Day at Black Rock

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actor-director, Anslem Richardson, battle of the sexes, Black Rock, cinema, disappointing films, Donkey Punch, drama, female friendships, film reviews, films, friends, Iraq War, islands, isolation, Jay Paulson, Kate Bosworth, Katie Aselton, Lake Bell, Mark Duplass, Movies, survival-horror, The Descent, The League, The Puffy Chair, thriller, violence against women, war veterans, Will Bouvier

I really wanted to love Katie Aselton’s Black Rock (2012): oh, boy, did I ever. I went into the film with not only the highest of hopes but also the greatest of expectations, practically willing it to be amazing. How could it lose, after all? The film stars and is directed by Aselton  (a complete gold mine in the uproariously funny TV show, The League), is written by her husband, Mark Duplass (also of The League and equally amazing), features Lake Bell (who may just be this generation’s Crispin Glover) and is a female-centric survival-horror film. A pedigree like this seems almost tailor-made for my sensibilities, especially considering how much I’ve always loved The Descent (2005).

Alas, Black Rock ends up being a pretty major disappointment. From a clichéd storyline and heavy-handed musical score to unrealistic, irritating acting and wooden dialogue, the film ended up deflating all of my expectations, one by one. Rather than being a neo-classic, Black Rock ends up being a distinctly lackluster entry into the survival-horror subgenre, more Donkey Punch (2008) than Wilderness (2006). Even worse, the film manages to fail as both a friendship-oriented drama and a horror film, keeping one foot planted in the worst of both worlds.

All that poor Sarah (Kate Bosworth) wants to do is return to the secluded island that she remembered so fondly from her childhood and relive her girlhood memories with her best friends, Abby (Katie Aselton) and Lou (Lake Bell). The only fly in the ointment, of course, being that Abby and Lou can’t stand each others’ guts. Being a real Kissinger, however, Sarah decides to bring everybody together by just, you know, lying about it and invites them each separately. When they all show up at the dock, ready to board the boat, Abby and Lou look about as excited to see each other as a fly and a fly swatter might. Thinking fast, Sarah defuses the situation by pretending to have cancer. That’s right, Sarah the humanitarian bridges the divide by telling her best friends that she has a terminal disease. Let the good times begin!

From here, we get some pretty sub-Blair Witch arguing in the woods stuff, as Abby and Lou proceed to hash out every bit of their contentious relationship. Rather than seeming like a good way to get the gang back together, this begins to seem like a plot on Sarah’s part to have her friends kill each other: could this be some kind of Hitchcockian twist on the part of screenwriter Duplass? Nah…it’s just a lot of pointless bickering to add some “drama” and “character development.” The big problem? All of the “development” stops at the obnoxious phase and never makes it past that.

While tooling through the woods, our trio are surprised by three hunters: Henry (Will Bouvier), Derek (Jay Paulson) and Alex (Anslem Richardson). Turns out that the ladies all went to high school with Henry’s older brother, Jimmy. After as much awkward hemming and hawing as a junior high formal, Abby invites the guys to hang out and get shit-faced with them. This, of course, doesn’t make Sarah and Lou particularly happy, since Sarah wanted a girls’ weekend and Lou just wants Abby to spontaneously combust, but Abby gets what she wants because she’s Abby, dammit!

After another exceedingly awkward scene where Abby gets trashed and makes fun of Derek’s lack of facial hair while flagrantly coming on to Henry, she excuses herself to go get some firewood, followed shortly afterwards by Henry, who sees a good opportunity to take this to the next level. This, of course, leaves Sarah and Lou alone with Derek and Alex, which is just enough time to learn that the three guys are recently back from Iraq, where they were dishonorably discharged. “Something” happened over there, something that they don’t want to talk about but, hey: these are still probably nice enough guys, right?

Not quite, as we find out once Henry attempts to rape Abby out in the woods. She puts the kibosh on the attack with a large rock, which ends up putting the kibosh on the rest of Henry’s lifespan. This, in turn, makes Derek and Alex fly into a murderous rage: how dare this crazy bitch kill their wannabe rapist/potentially lunatic war veteran/cuddly best friend?! Since any measure of actual thought, at this point, would derail the rest of the film, the remaining guys make what seems to be a pretty reasonable decision: kill the three women.

Being a survival-horror film, however, this is all just set-up for one long game of cat-and-mouse between the three friends and their (presumably) insane captors. It goes without saying that they’ll break free, escape, suffer injuries, fight back, get in touch with their inner warriors and kick a ton of ass: it goes without saying because these are all of the traditional beats in any survival-horror film and Aselton and Duplass are absolutely not interested in doing anything outside of this particular box. Period. This, of course, all leads to an ending that could probably be seen coming from at least the end of the first act, if not the opening credits and the sudden realization that tremendous success in television comedy doesn’t necessarily translate to incredible success in a thriller/horror film.

Not to flog this horse too much but Black Rock really isn’t a very good film. It’s stunningly unoriginal, for one thing, almost seeming like a paint-by-numbers attempt at this particular subgenre. While the cinematography and shot selection is actually quite good, the musical score is eye-rolling, so heavy-handed that it felt like the music was constantly elbowing me in the side, going, “Eh? Eh? Get it? You get it?” The script is consistently awful, filled not only with howlingly bad dialogue but also so many character and plot inconsistencies that it felt unfinished, as if the dialogue was half-scripted, half-improv.

The fatal blow, however, has to be the unrealistic acting and thoroughly unlikable characters. To be quite blunt, all six of these people are shitheads: the men are all homicidal, misogynist, insane, steroidal assholes, while Sarah is a misanthropic, self-centered nitwit, Abby is a bat-shit crazy boozehound and Lou is a unlikeable jerk who spends the entire film making bitter beer faces at Abby. Not only would I never want to be stuck on an isolated island with any of these people, I didn’t want to be stuck in a movie with them, either. By the time folks started to die off, it was too little, too late: I kept hoping this would turn into some sort of alien invasion film and ETs would swoop in and turn these jackasses into ash piles. Alas, it was pretty content to stay a thoroughly pedestrian survival-horror film.

Perhaps the worst thing about Black Rock is how much wasted potential there was here. Aselton, Bell and Bosworth are all more than capable actors, while Duplass was responsible for writing not only the mumblecore films The Puffy Chair (2005) and Baghead (2008), but also the way-excellent Jeff, Who Lives at Home (2011). What the hell happened? Short of any kind of definitive answer, I’m going to have to assume that this all looked a whole lot more promising during the planning stages, kind of like mixing the perfect souffle, only to have the whole thing collapse into mush in the oven.

6/27/14: Looks Great, Less Filling

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Alice Parkinson, Alister Grierson, Allsion Cratchley, Australian films, cave diving, Cave of the Swallows, cave system, cinema, Dan Wyllie, drama, father-son relationships, film reviews, films, Ioan Gruffudd, James Cameron, Movies, Rhys Wakefield, Richard Roxburgh, Sanctum, thriller, underwater caves, unexplored cave system

As of late, James Cameron is more known for his mega-budget event pictures, like Titanic (1997) and Avatar (2009), than he was for the more intimate sci-fi that originally put him on the map: The Terminator (1984), Aliens (1986) and The Abyss (1988). By this point, especially with three more Avatar sequels in the works, we pretty much know what to expect from Cameron: cutting-edge technology, huge budgets and stereotypical characters lurching through melodramatic storylines. In many ways, Cameron is one of the best examples of “style over substance”: while Avatar signaled a bold, new era in Hollywood special effects, the film, itself, was as middle-of-the-road as possible. Cameron’s films have a tendency to look like a million bucks but are usually plotted like something from the $0.99 bin at the video store (when they still had video stores, of course).

With this in mind, I went into Sanctum (2011), which Cameron executive produced, with no small amount of trepidation. Truth be told, I haven’t actually enjoyed one of Cameron’s films since Terminator 2, all the way back in 1991. Despite this hesitation, a few things compelled me to press forward. First of all, Cameron was only the executive producer, not the writer or director, which meant that his creative input might be minimal. Second, Sanctum is about underwater cave exploration, which has been a particular interest of mine (and Cameron’s, apparently) since I was a kid: I very rarely miss an opportunity to watch any underwater thrillers, regardless of who’s involved. Thirdly, with Cameron executive producing, I expected the film to be technically impressive, which would certainly satisfy the fan-boy in me. What I ended up with, ultimately, was a film that managed to meet all of my expectations, for better or worse: the film looks gorgeous, featuring truly stunning underwater cinematography and great locations, but is also melodramatic, with workmanlike acting and trite characterizations. In other words: Sanctum is a real triumph of style over substance…how positively Cameronian!

Josh McGuire (Rhys Wakefield), son of world-famous underwater cave explorer, Frank McGuire (Richard Roxburgh), is late in meeting his father for a dive into the largely unexplored Esa-ala cave system, in the South Pacific. Since father and son already have an extremely contentious relationship, this is just one more issue to add to their already full-plate: the biggest issue, however, appears to be that young Josh just doesn’t care for underwater exploration. Once he gets to the site, we meet the other main players: Carl (Ioan Gruffudd) and his girlfriend, Victoria (Alice Parkinson) and Frank’s team: George (Dan Wyllie), Judes (Allison Cratchley) and Luko (Cramer Cain). Carl is the money-man who’s funding Frank’s expedition, which puts him in constant conflict with the gruff caver. The stage is set for confrontations, conflicts and lots of familial drama…plus some pretty spectacular sight-seeing, of course.

Frank and his crew have a particular goal: they want to traverse the unexplored cave system and find the outlet to the ocean that Frank knows must exist. During the dive, however, disaster strikes and Judes ends up drowning, a tragedy that Josh blames his father for since Frank was the one who had her dive for so long. To add more drama, a killer storm is blowing in and the crew needs to get out of the area before they’re trapped there. Frank is stubborn, however, and the storm rolls in, pinning them down in the cave system. At this point, the path is clear: the only way out is through. With time running out and additional conflicts popping up left and right, Josh and Frank must find their way out of the cave system or die trying. For the first time in a long time, father and son must overcome this issues and work together or the Esa-ala will become their watery tomb.

As mentioned above, Sanctum looks absolutely gorgeous: the film was originally released to theatres in “Real 3D” and I’m sure the experience was suitably eye-popping. The Esa-ala cave system is truly amazing (much of the movie was filmed at the iconic Cave of Swallows) and the underwater cinematography is always crystal-clear. There are also plenty of well-staged action set-pieces, including a genuinely thrilling bit where the crew rappels down a hazardous drop-off. While the film is not always a non-stop rollercoaster, there’s plenty of decent action here. The main problem, as also stated above, is that everything else about the film is strictly bargain-basement. In many ways, the film resembles a really expensive TV movie, full of melodrama, iffy acting and irrational character motivations. Rhys Wakefield is particularly bad, as Frank’s standoffish son: the character vacillates between sounding like an obnoxious, whiny teenager and trying to fill action hero boots that are way too big for him. While Richard Roxburgh is decent, as Frank, Ioan Gruffudd is completely over the top, as the thrill-seeking Carl. Sanctum is full of “low moments” but many of the worst belong to Gruffudd: the moment where he melodramatically leaps into the water is such an eye-roller that I could see the bottom of my brain and his devolution into “stock bad guy” is handled with as much grace and subtlety as a sledgehammer smacking a house fly.

Ultimately, Sanctum is about one-third of a good film and two-thirds of purely middle-of-the-road dreck. For anyone who’s interested in cave or underwater exploration, Sanctum features plenty of great locations and some really exceptional photography. For anyone who’s interested in all of the other things that make a film watchable, however – things like storyline and acting – Sanctum comes up severely deficient. Seems like my original impression was dead on the money: Sanctum looks great but has as much substance as a Twinkie. In other words, classic modern-day Cameron.

6/23/14: Ol’ Hitch Would Be Proud

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Alex Winter, Alfred Hitchcock, Allen Leech, Best of 2013, cinema, classical music, Damien Chazelle, Dee Wallace, Don McManus, Elijah Wood, Eugenio Mira, favorite films, Film, film festival favorite, film reviews, Grand Piano, Hitchcock films, John Cusack, Kerry Bishe, Movies, mystery, pianist, piano, sniper, split-screen, suspense, Tamsin Egerton, thriller, Timecrimes, Tom Selznick

Whenever I think about suspense films, there’s always one name that’s on the tip of my brain: Alfred Hitchcock. It should go without saying that Hitchcock was one of the greatest directors to ever walk this planet, a master craftsman who was probably only equalled by fellow artisans like Stanley Kubrick, Akira Kurosawa and Ingmar Bergman. For my money, however, ol’ Hitch is also the greatest director of suspense films, hands down. Hitchcock films are perfectly wound, intricate clockwork puzzles, designed for maximum audience reaction and as close to perfect examples of sustained/released tension as I think it’s possible to create. His method of operation is best described by his famous example of the difference between “surprise” and suspense.” To paraphrase: if two people are sitting at a cafe table and suddenly blow up, that’s surprise…if the audience sees that there’s a bomb underneath the table but the characters don’t, however, that’s suspense. In one instance, you get the momentary shock of surprise, which is a fleeting rush. On the other hand, however, you can continue to build tension, dragging out the scene until the audience is practically screaming at the screen: this is a longer process and requires more patience but the payoff, ultimately, is that much greater. Hitchcock was practically peerless in letting audiences stew in their own juices.

Hitchcock, obviously, was a pretty one-of-a-kind filmmaker, a true auteur. Despite this indisputable fact, however, why would I begin a review of Eugenio Mira’s extraordinary new film, Grand Piano (2013), with a bunch of praise for an unrelated filmmaker who died when Mira was all of three years old? Regardless of how extraordinary I find Hitchcock to be, how much could he actually have to do with Mira’s film? Let’s put it this way: Hitchcock may not have had anything to do with Grand Piano but his fingerprints, style and sense of humor are all over the film. In many ways, Grand Piano is one of the very best films that ol’ Hitch never made, a meticulously crafted, unbelievably tense and remarkably plotted work of art that showcases a pair of actors at the top of their craft and gives audiences one completely unforgettable thrill ride. I’d heard good things about the film before going in but this was one situation where the hype should have been a whole lot louder.

Master pianist Tom Selznick (Elijah Wood) has come out of a five-year retirement in order to perform for a packed audience that includes his adoring, extremely famous actress spouse, Emma (Kerry Bishe). Tom quit the business after screwing up a complicated piece, humiliated by his public miscue. He’s here tonight, however, and playing his dead mentor’s priceless grand piano: the smell of redemption is in the air and Tom is feeling pretty great. As he turns the page on his sheet music, however, he comes across an ominous declaration, written in red across the page: “Play one wrong note and you die.” Subsequent notes lead him to understand that a mysterious sniper has both Tom and his wife in his sights and won’t hesitate to shoot them if Tom makes any mistakes. After being directed to grab an earpiece from his dressing room, Tom is finally in vocal contact with the mysterious man (John Cusack). The rules are simple: make one mistake, say one thing, try to attract attention in any way at all or disobey a single order…and Tom’s a dead man. But the show must go on: Tom’s audience may be captivated but he’s a captive and will do whatever it takes to get out.

Grand Piano takes an extremely simple, if ludicrous, premise (concert pianist held captive by sniper during live performance) and manages to turn it into one of the thorniest, wildest, most wonderful and flat-out impressive films I’ve ever seen. No joke: the film is an instant classic and, were it not for the prevalence and necessity of modern technology like cell phones, would seem almost timeless. Chalk that up to a few different things. On one hand, you have an outstanding lead duo with Elijah Wood and John Cusack: the two have more chemistry as adversaries than most romantic pairings I’ve seen lately. Wood has been on a bit of a career renaissance of late, with his performance in Franck Khalfoun’s outstanding Maniac (2012) being a particular highlight. His performance as Tom is just as good, although much more restrained (obviously). If anything, he definitely brought to mind the hassled heroism of someone like James Stewart, driving home that whole Hitchcock connection. Cusack has also been shying away from the roles that made him a mega-star in the ’80s and ’90s, becoming a bit of a brooding hero/anti-hero in film’s as diverse as Lee Daniels The Paperboy (2012), The Factory (2012), The Numbers Station (2013), Adult World (2013), The Frozen Ground (2013) and The Bag Man (2014). His performance as Clem is one of his very best “bad guy” roles, easily the equal of his work as the villainous Robert Hansen in The Frozen Ground. Cusack has the doubly-difficult task of being able to use only his voice for the vast majority of the film: it’s to his great credit that every slimy aspect of Clem comes through the earpiece loud and clear, without the benefits of body language or facial expression. Quite simply, Wood and Cusack are extraordinary in the film, each one so perfectly cast that it, again, reminds one of Hitchcock’s meticulous way with his actors.

Despite the film’s remarkably small, intimate set-up, it’s far from a two-man show. More than able support comes in the form of Kerry Bishe, whose Emma manages to seem fully actualized with a rather minimal amount of screentime. Also impressive are Tamsin Egerton, as Emma’s brash sister Ashley, and Alan Leech, as Ashley’s boyfriend Wayne. The duo add quite a bit of genuine humor to the film, as well as some surprising pathos, later on. They aren’t big roles, by any stretch of the term, but they are exceptionally important roles: there are no throwaway pieces in Mira’s intricate jigsaw puzzle of a film. Every actor, just like every camera angle and line of dialogue, is perfectly calibrated to offer maximum impact. One of the neatest touches? Bill and Ted’s Alex Winters as the assistant. As always, it makes me wish he acted more often, since it’s a perfectly nuanced performance. Even a seemingly disposable role like the janitor who shakes his head disapprovingly at Tom is given considerable class when played by a veteran character actor like Jim Arnold: it’s a great touch that really speaks to a rock-solid cast.

Not only is Grand Piano exquisitely cast, however, but it’s immaculately crafted, possessing some truly gorgeous cinematography and an excellent sound design that seems tailor-made for amps that go to 11. I’ve driven home the Hitchcock references time and time again but I’ll hammer it one more time: quite simply, Grand Piano looks like one of Hitchcock’s classic films. There’s a richness of image and color, a vibrancy and life that instantly recalls the Golden Age of Hollywood. As enamored as I was with the story, it would have been impossible to tear my eyes from the screen, regardless, thanks to how great everything looked. There’s one moment in the film where a shot organically becomes a split screen: I’m not quite sure how it’s done but I do know that it’s audacious, eye-catching and completely badass. It’s the kind of moment that makes films so much fun and Grand Piano is full of them.

Truth be told, Grand Piano really knocked my socks off. By the time the film revs up to full speed, it’s absolutely unstoppable, one fist-raising moment after another. It’s no hyperbole to say that I was on the edge of my seat the whole time because I literally was: it would have been impossible for me to sit back if I tried. Like the best of Hitchcock’s films, Grand Piano is imminently watchable, a 90 minute thrill-ride that feels like 45. Not only is Grand Piano tense and thrilling, however, but it’s also whip-smart: this is not the typical “dumb people do dumb things to advance the plot” film. This is much closer to an intricately plotted heist film, where every little detail and tidbit is part of the scheme, every throw-away factoid is actually a clue to the bigger picture. Regardless of how initially ridiculous any one set-piece in Grand Piano is (and there are some real corkers, let me tell ya), the movie handles everything with such a consistent sense of intelligence and rationality that I was inclined to believe all of it: why not?

I’ve tried to be as purposefully vague with plot details as possible so as to preserve as many of the film’s genuine surprises as I can: this is a film that will surprise you, time and again, so the less known, the better. The only things that you really need to know are that Grand Piano is an astounding film, Eugenio Mira is absolutely a director to keep an eye on and that you’re pretty much guaranteed to have a blast while watching. I don’t pretend to speak for Alfred Hitchcock in any way, shape or form but I’m pretty sure that Hitch would give this his seal of approval. At the very least, he’d take one look at Eugenio Mira and say, “Now there’s a man who understands the difference between surprise and suspense.”

5/28/14: Your Life, Minus the Bad Parts

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abused children, Brendan Fletcher, child abuse, childhood trauma, cinema, cutter, Dead Poets Society, film reviews, films, Final Cut, Genevieve Buechner, Jim Caviezel, memories, Michael St. John Smith, Mimi Kuzyk, Mira Sorvino, Movies, near future, Omar Naim, Robin Williams, sci-fi, science-fiction, Stephanie Romanov, Tak Fujimoto, tech-thriller, The Final Cut, thriller, Vincent Gale, Where the Buffalo Roam, writer-director

Wouldn’t it be nice if we could edit our own lives, go back through the “footage” of our years and remove all of the embarrassing, sad, shameful and hateful moments? In a perfect world, perhaps, we’d be able to remember just what we wanted: every golden sunset, ever moment of empowerment, every true moment of happiness, would stand in greater relief without all of the “other stuff” to clog it up. We would be able to remember our first kiss forever, while completely forgetting every racist, sexist, despicable or stupid thing we ever did. It sounds pretty great, on the outside, but it’s also pretty foolish. Indeed, it’s often the bad stuff, the moments that we’re most ashamed of, that help us to grow the most, to form our worldviews and personalities. It’s impossible to know love without knowing hate: good doesn’t exist without the presence of evil. We know all of this, of course, but we’re also humans and humans, by default, are pretty foolish creatures. We’re always looking for the perfect, idealized version of ourselves, sometimes to the deficit (or destruction) of those around us. It’s just what we do, really.

Omar Naim’s Final Cut (2004) examines not only this particularly human phenomena but also the tendency to whitewash (or tar, depending on the situation) someone after they’ve died. Dead people have a difficult time defending themselves, after all, so it’s no difficult thing to proclaim someone as either “hero” or “goat” after they’re unable to do anything about it. While it’s always disheartening to see how quickly people will rush to dig up dirt on a newly dead celebrity, it’s no less worrisome to see how willing some folks are to deify undeserving people. After all, if the memories of a person’s bad deeds can be erased from the public conscience, doesn’t that, in some twisted way, absolve them of their actions? It’s an intriguing idea and one that the film examines, at some length, with rather varying degrees of success.

Alan (Robin Williams) is a “cutter” in the near-future, a craftsman charged with editing the lifelong memories of recently deceased people into attractive, bite-sized pieces that are perfectly suitable for hi-tech memorial services/funerals called Rememories. Alan is one of the best cutters in the business, which means that he’s particularly adept at cutting out all of the nasty little bits that would tend to be upsetting in a public setting: for every life accomplishment, Alan cuts out a memory of savagely beating one’s spouse…for every moment of infidelity, child abuse and hatred that Alan removes, he leaves in the moments of charity, love and joy. Essentially, Alan gives families the “gift” that they think they want: an idealized, pain-free memory of their deceased love ones. It’s similar to history books that skip over the ugly parts, in favor of a more homogeneous, white-washed version of events: if we don’t see them, they couldn’t have happened.

While he may be good at his job, Alan doesn’t seem like a particularly happy person. For one thing, he’s constantly tortured by half-lucid, childhood memories of his friend, Louis, dying: from what he can remember, Alan was explicitly responsible for Louis’ death but he just can’t remember enough about the incident to know one way or the other. As such, he walks around bearing the burden of crushing guilt for an incident that may not have even happened…at least the way he remembers it. Talk about a key to a happy life!

Alan’s life is further complicated when his “boss,” Thelma (Mimi Kuzyk) presents him with a new assignment: edit a suitable Rememory for Charles Bannister (Michael St. John Smith), the recently deceased executive who was intrinsically tied to the implant technology that allows people’s memories to be recorded. Charles was an important person, perhaps one of the most important in the “new world,” but he was also a monster, as Alan discovers when he comes across the terrible footage of Bannister molesting his young daughter, Isabel (Genevieve Buechner). Isabel’s mother, Jennifer Bannister (Stephanie Romanov) seems to be well-aware of the abuse, since he’s careful to keep Alan away from Isabel: she doesn’t want her “muddying” the waters, as it were. Bannister was a very important person and they need to ensure that the public remembers him as a technological innovator rather than the monster who routinely raped his own daughter.

To further complicate matters, there’s a heavily anti-implant faction in society, a group that fights for a return to the days when memories were personal and couldn’t be manipulated by corporations. One of Alan’s former cutting peers, Fletcher (Jim Caviezel), is deeply embedded with the protesters and wants Alan to break the tenets of his profession and get him Bannister’s uncut footage: if the general public can see the truth, Bannister won’t be deified and his horrible actions will be dragged into the light of day. Alan protests, as dedicated to his job as anyone who truly believes in their work but cracks are forming in his smooth veneer. When Alan finds out a secret about himself, a secret which automatically sets him at odds with his own profession and fellow cutters, he must decided whether to do the right thing or to follow the oath he took, regardless of how unjust it may be.

The Final Cut, first and foremost, is a very serious, somber film: just a few minutes in, it reminded me explicitly of Gattaca (1997), another ultra-serious, portentous science-fiction film. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with a serious film, mind you, but The Final Cut ends up slingshoting past serious into a cinematic realm usually reserved for stuffy historical dramas or “big, important” pictures. Unfortunately, the film never becomes quite “big enough” to make these affectations seem anything more than pretentious. It’s kind of like getting Brian Eno to score a Roger Corman boobs-and-aliens-in-space epic: adding gravitas to a pulpy storyline doesn’t make the subject inherently weighty. Likewise, The Final Cut seems focused on big, intellectual issues yet the resolution still hinges on the kind of maudlin, sentimental “feelings” that the film (mostly) avoids for its running time.

The ending, on its own, ends up being a pretty massive problem, since it purports to morph the film into a completely different beast with the movie’s final 10 minutes: never the best place to “flip the script,” as it were, unless you’re going for a “twist ending.” The finale to The Final Cut is no twist: rather, it’s a non-ending that sort of shrugs its shoulders, leaving the audience to pull together any deeper meaning. Worse yet, the ending posits the highly insulting notion that everyone in the film knows what Alan wants more than he does. It’s the equivalent of spending twenty minutes trying to convince the ice cream man that you really do want vanilla and not strawberry before he hands you a double-scoop of strawberry, anyway.

Craftwise, The Final Cut has the exact same look/feel that I tend to associate with most “Dystopia-lite” films, although the presence of veteran cinematographer Tak Fujimoto definitely lends the proceedings some weight. Fujimoto, known for Where the Buffalo Roam (1980) and Silence of the Lambs (1992), among many, many, many others, doesn’t bring a ton of individuality to the film but there’s plenty of nice shots here, including some truly impressive overheads. Again, the whole thing tends to remind me rather overtly of Gattaca, but that could just be a by-product of the whole “independent, intelligent sci-fi” subgenre. The score, as a rule, is always ponderous and somber, as if we need constant reminding that this is a “serious” film with “big issues.” A lighter (or, at least, more subtle) approach might have been more effective but it is what it is.

Robin Williams, as befits his late-career “serious” roles, is completely subdued, almost to the point of blending into the background. It’s definitely not my favorite of his low-key performances but I’ll be honest: I’ll take a hundred “mediocre” performances like this to one of his obnoxiously manic “funny guy” personas. I’ve never been a fan of Williams when he gets truly wound-up and rewatching some of his more “classic” roles, such as Good Morning, Vietnam (1987) and Dead Poets Society (1989) showed me that he’s been guilty of this for some time. While Williams’ performance in The Final Cut is nowhere near as relevatory as his turns in One Hour Photo (2002), Insomnia (2002) or World’s Greatest Dad (2009), it’s still a nicely low-key performance that maintains a consistent pitch throughout the film. I’m not sure that Alan has much of an arc, to be honest, but it’s nice to get through a Williams’ film without getting “mugged” to death.

Aside from Williams, the rest of the cast ranges from capable to fairly anonymous. Mira Sorvino has a rather thankless role as Alan’s on-again/off-again girlfriend, Delila, and Caviezel ends up being less than convincing as Fletcher, the former philistine who’s had his eyes opened to the evils of modern technology. To be fair, I’m rarely, if ever, blown away by Caviezel, who seems to underact to the point of non-acting. That being said, Fletcher is a rather confounding character and I’m not sure that anyone could have made him distinctive.

While The Final Cut isn’t a bad film (although it has a very bad ending), it’s also not a particularly interesting film. Any of the plot’s intriguing concepts (how would you act if you knew that everything you did would be recorded for the rest of your life?) become mundane by sheer repetition (a fact not helped by the tedious aural flashbacks that remind us of things we may have missed) and the whole thing is too glum and joyless to be much fun. While it’s interesting to think of our lives as one big editing project (like with film editing, Alan separates the footage into various categories, although his categories have names like “Masturbation,” “Personal Hygiene,” “Youth,” and “School”), I can’t really see the concept having much interest to anyone who’s not well-versed with the Final Cut editing program. Ultimately, The Final Cut ends up being so similar to other films that you might begin to wonder if someone hasn’t removed your memory of seeing it before. You probably haven’t but you’re sure gonna think you have.