The VHS Graveyard Meets the Chattanooga Film Festival – Day Two (Part One)

Tags

Anieya Walker, auteur theory, Brandon Cole, Casey T Malone, CFF, Chad Crawford Kinkle, Chattanooga Film Festival, cinema, cults, Dementer, film festival favorite, film festivals, film fests, film reviews, films, foreign films, horror, Joelyn Dormady, Johannes Nyholm, Katie Groshong, Koko-di Koko-da, Larry Fessenden, movie reviews, Movies, psychological horror, Rebecca Sue Button, Stephanie Kinkle, surreal, surrealism, Swedish films, The Chattanooga Film Festival, The Ringing Bell, writer-director

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After a slower start to Day One than I expected, it was time to step my game up for the remainder of the festival: I only had three more days to get through 23 films, after all. To that end, I screened six films on the second day, including another one of those pesky “instant classics.” Like I mentioned earlier: there was no shortage of quality films at this year’s Chattanooga Film Fest…just a shortage of hours in the day.

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Dementer

Indie writer/director/producer Chad Crawford Kinkle first landed on my radar with his excellent, backwoods creeper Jughead way back in 2013, so I was pretty excited to find out he had a new film hitting the festival circuit. When I saw indie auteur Larry Fessenden’s name in the cast, well, let’s just say that pretty much sealed the deal: one of the titans of independent cinema reuniting with one of its most promising indie up-and-comers? Done and done.

Kinkle’s ultra-naturalistic new film follows a troubled young woman (Katie Groshong) as she tries to piece her life together after a truly horrible trauma ripped it to shreds. Living out of her car and with no resources, Katie finds a job at a care facility for adults with special needs and comes to care deeply for one of her charges, Stephanie (Kinkle’s real-life sister), a young woman with Down Syndrome. Just as Katie begins to become comfortable in her new life, terrible flashes of her past begin to interject themselves, leading her to wonder if a truly evil figure (Fessenden) has returned to target poor Stephanie or whether Katie has finally lost the last frayed edges of her sanity.

Unlike Kinkle’s more polished debut, Dementer is pretty much the definition of no frills, low-budget indie filmmaking. Cinematographer Jeff Wedding shoots the film in such a way that, when combined with the mostly non-professional cast (the film is set at what appears to be an actual care facility and features the staff and residents), achieves a startling degree of realism. At times, I was reminded of something like Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, if for no other reason than their shared ability to completely demolish the barrier between film fiction and reality.

This is also an extremely personal project for Kinkle since his real-life sister, Stephanie, stars as the woman that Katie tries to save from sinister forces. As such, the film never feels disrespectful of the residents of the home and nothing about it feels forced or exploitative. If anything, the various residents all receive ample opportunities to express themselves in the film, resulting in a work that feels notably character-driven for an ultra-low budget horror film. It’s something that I wish all films took the time to do, regardless of genre or finances.

All that being said, I must confess that I did not love this film, despite my deep respect for it. While the setting provides for an unbeatable atmosphere of reality, too much of the film involves Katie’s various duties around the care facility, broken up with regular interjections via flashback. After a certain point, it develops a pattern and becomes rather predictable, making the film seem repetitive on a narrative level. I also felt that the drama elements worked better than the horror ones: they felt more authentic and, ironically, interesting (workday routines not withstanding), although Fessenden was a force to be reckoned with whenever he was on-screen. Call this a near miss for me, although I eagerly await Kinkle’s next film.

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The Ringing Bell

Poor Judah (Brandon Cole) has a bit of a problem: he’s a lucid dreamer and having an impossible time telling his vivid waking dreams from reality. This inability to tell fact from fantasy is messing with not only Judah’s ability to process grief (someone close to him is gone) but also with his participation in an ill-advised bank robbery concocted by his cousin, Brona (Anieya Walker), and her on-again/off-again lover, Orva (Joelyn Dormady). Will the contents of the mysterious box they seek have the answers that Judah is looking for or will the pursuit of forbidden knowledge be the downfall of them all?

It’s quite obvious that The Ringing Bell is a very personal project for multi-hyphenate filmmaker Casey T. Malone. He says as much, in a festival intro, but he also serves as writer/director/producer/editor/score composer and cinematographer: that’s a lot of hats  to wear, especially when the subject is personal pain, grief and loss. As such, there’s a weight to The Ringing Bell that you don’t often get in low-budget genre films, especially those rare ones that are fantasy-leaning.

The other thing you will remember about this film long after it’s over is how amazing so much of it looks. Combining animated sequences, surreal live-action and stop-motion effects, The Ringing Bell is, without a doubt, a truly singular, imaginative, mind-boggling film. I’m not sure if Malone was involved in the animation and effects or if that was the work of John Baker (creature designs) and Fred Franczak (production design) but whoever did it absolutely blew my mind, especially when you consider that this was most likely another very low-budget production. There’s a monster effect, at one point, that’s easily in my Top 20 moments of the year. Not all indie films have a discernible sense of style and design but The Ringing Bell brought enough for the whole class.

Here’s the thing, though: as much as I loved the film’s look and sense of surreal imagination, I’m pretty hard-pressed to tell you what it was actually about. Despite watching the film closely and being fully engaged, I still have no idea who Judah was mourning (or why), which made it difficult to get into his mindset. I have a feeling that much of the film was supposed to exist in a dream logic realm but I found myself along for the ride more than actively engaged. When combined with a particularly quiet sound mix that made it difficult to hear dialogue, too much of the film became the equivalent of visual interludes strung together.

Perhaps repeat viewings would prove beneficial in this case: I’m sure that I missed something that would have cleared up a few loose ends for me. It’s obvious that Malone and company brought a lot of passion and innovation to The Ringing Bell, even if it never fully clicked with me. I’m more than willing to see what they have up their sleeves next time around.

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Koko-di Koko-da

As I mentioned earlier, most of the films playing at this year’s CFF were complete unknowns to me, but there were a few exceptions, chief among them being Swedish writer-director Johannes Nyholm’s Koko-di Koko-da. While I had purposefully avoided spoilers, I’d read enough advanced press on the film to know that it was being heralded as disturbing and surreal. Turns out, the critics hit it right on the nose.

Existing in the same general vicinity as the works of Alex van Warmerdam, Lars von Trier, Michael Haneke and Yorgos Lanthimos, Nyholm’s thought-provoking sophomore feature plays out like a truly horrifying, demented fairy tale. Tobias and Elin (Leif Edlund and Ylva Gallon) take a camping trip and try to work on their collapsed marriage three years after a horrible tragedy destroyed their family and future happiness in one, fell swoop. As if trying to repair a fractured relationship isn’t hard enough, however, they soon discover that they’ve chosen a rather unfortunate place to set up camp, managing to cross paths with a trio of demented individuals who are only too happy to teach them a truly twisted lesson. And then things get really strange.

Right off the bat, let me issue a gentle warning: this is one severely fucked up film. Engaging in the same sort of psychological terrorism that’s been von Trier’s stock in trade for his entire career, there are elements of Koko-di Koko-da that will stick to your brain like plankton, whether you want them to or not. By turns powerfully sad, disturbing, odd, disgusting and eye-opening, Nyholm’s film makes a perfect compliment to works like Funny Games, Borgman, Antichrist and The Killing of a Sacred Deer. If there are not moments in this film that don’t absolutely sting you to your core, I daresay that you didn’t pay much attention.

From a production standpoint, the film is immaculate: Nyholm achieves a completely immersive sense of icy-cold magical-realism that makes one feel as if they’re taking an (unfortunate) look into a parallel universe that’s as beautiful as it is terrible. Cinematographers Tobias Holem-Flyckt and Johan Lundborg shoot some gorgeous images, including plenty of amazing overhead shots that turn the film’s repeated theme into something of a museum diorama: it’s awesome stuff and something I never got tired of. Combine this with Pia Aleborg’s insanely detailed production design and Koko-di Koko-da is a world that you never tire of looking at, even if it’s never a place you want to visit.

The acting is all top-notch, with heart-breaking performances from Edlund and Gallon that are almost too real and painful to be anything close to entertaining. The ghastly trio, bemusing as they are, are perfect antagonists, coming off as a bit of a marriage between Rob Zombie’s Firefly clan and van Warmerdam’s invasive Borgman. While the cast is small (essentially five people, two dogs and a cat), it plays in perfectly with the film’s general sense of isolation and alienation.

Is Koko-di Koka-da a well-made film? Without a doubt: in fact, I daresay it’s one of the best films of the year, from a purely technical standpoint. Is it a good film? Depending on your tolerance-level, I’d go so far as to say that it’s a great film: Nyholm has a singular vision and executes it perfectly. Is it a film that I intend to revisit any time soon? Not a chance, friends. Even as I type this, images and scenes keep popping into my head, none of which I’d prefer to remember. Like the best (most difficult?) works of the aforementioned filmmakers, Koko-di Koko-da is an uncompromising, unpleasant and unforgettable deep dive into the misery of the human condition. You won’t see much gore on display here but the characters are skinned and filleted, nonetheless.

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This takes us through the first half of Day Two: in service of trying to break up a rather considerable chunk of text, I’ve opted to split the screenings into two posts. Tune in for the remainder as we continue to move through our experience at this year’s Chattanooga Film Festival. As always, boos and ghouls, stay safe and remember: there’s always room for one more at The VHS Graveyard.

The VHS Graveyard Meets the Chattanooga Film Festival – Day One

Tags

2020, animated films, Attack of the Demons, Brian Emond, CFF, Chatanooga Film Festival, cinema, directorial debut, Eric Power, film festival favorite, film festivals, films, homage, horror, Jeffrey A Brown, mockumentary, movie reviews, Movies, new movies, The Beach House, The Chattanooga Film Festival, The Vice Guide to Bigfoot, writer-director, Zach Lamplugh

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As usually happens at festivals, Day One is all about getting your bearings, making plans and easing into the serious business of having fun. As such, my first day at the Chattanooga Film Fest only involved three full lengths, four shorts and about 45 minutes of a filmmakers’ commentary session (full disclosure: I guess I’m not super fond of talking during a film regardless of who does it). I’d make up time in the following few days, however, and that’s really all that matters when you’re playing the long game.

Ultimately, though, it’s about quality and there was no shortage of that on display. Let’s start everything in earnest now, shall we? With no further ado, in order, I present my Friday screenings from this year’s Chattanooga Film Festival.

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Attack of the Demons

As outsiders descend on the small Colorado town of Barrington for its annual Halloween/battle-of-the-bands festival, we see that all isn’t quite as hunky-dory as it seems. In particular, one robed stranger has literally brought Hell to town in the form of a virulently infectious demonic plague that brings gruesome death and even more gruesome rebirth to all it touches. The only hope for the world lies in the hands of a group of survivors brought together by fate and a desperate need to escape…the Attack of the Demons!

As with nearly every film I screened during the festival, I knew nothing about Attack of the Demons before I actually sat down to watch it, aside from the fact that is was animated. Within moments, I was hooked. By the end credits, the film had entered that rare ground that I like to call “Instant Classics.” There haven’t been many of them but this is most certainly one of those.

What makes director Eric Power’s homage to horror of all eras so unforgettable? In this case, the answer is in the attention to detail. While Attack of the Demons utilizes the same sort of “moving paper” style that South Park has made so famous, the filmmakers have packed every inch of the film with so many lovingly rendered details that it makes the whole thing feel impossibly alive and practically demands repeat viewings. From the intricacies of the various humans, demons and animals presented to all the truly amusing in-jokes that reference not only horror but music (the obviously Misfits-inspired Banshee Riders are as brilliant as the amazing ’70s Italian horror flick that we glimpse), there’s almost too much to take in on the first go.

None of the cool details would mean a thing if everything else in the film wasn’t firing on all cylinders but this is the complete package: the voice acting is excellent and nuanced, the score is brilliant (one of the best Carpenter clones I’ve heard yet), the editing, writing and production elements are all top-notch, the humor and horror halves are perfectly balanced (the film is consistently funny) and it’s quite obvious that the filmmakers dearly love horror. While I’ve heard this described as “South Park meets Evil Dead,” I actually got more of a Demons vibe (lots of references to Italian horror) mixed with lots of The Thing. For all you gore-hounds out there, just know that this thing is so splattery, if it were live action, it might out-do Peter Jackson’s immortal Dead Alive.

This was the kind of movie that I never wanted to end which, if you think about it, is really the best kind of film. Suffice to say that I’ll keep my beady eyes fixed on Power and company from now on: this is as close to a perfect film as it gets, at least as far as I’m concerned.

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The Vice Guide to Bigfoot

Opting to keep the mood light, I decided to follow with one of my favorite sub-genres: the mockumentary. As with the best of these kinds of films, the plot is as streamlined as necessary: egotistical, jackass Vice reporter Brian (co-writer Brian Emond) and his put-upon producer/cameraman/friend Zach (director/co-writer Zach Lamplugh) are sent to the wilds of Georgia to meet up with cryptid hunter/YouTube celebrity, Jeff (Jeffrey Stephenson), and hunt for Bigfoot. The problem? Smart-ass Brian thinks this is all a bunch of click-bait bullshit while goofy Jeff truly believes. When strange things start to happen in the woods, will this be the proof that Jeff needs or Brian’s chance to finally crack a “real” story?

Finding the perfect balance between snide and sincere, Lamplugh and Emond’s film is not only smart and well-made but genuinely funny and full of plenty of surprising, organic twists and turns. The characters all end up being so well-developed and likable that the film develops real stakes by the seat-of-your pants finale, something that many horror-comedies struggle with: you come to care about all of these idiots so much that you really don’t want anything bad to befall them, regardless of how stupid they behave. The horror aspect, while not overpowering, was still nicely realized with some surprisingly effective touches of gore.

Where the film really excels, however, is with the deftly handled humor. Whether coming from Brian and Zach’s push-me/pull-you relationship, the subtle skewering of YouTube/Soundcloud celebrities, Jeff’s general buffoonery or Brian’s essentially caustic view of anything that isn’t him,  there’s a lot of funny stuff being thrown at the screen and the vast majority of it works, especially once we get to that bonkers finale.

Perhaps the highest praise that I can give The Vice Guide to Bigfoot, however, is that I would love to see this become a franchise: while the film isn’t perfect, these are the kinds of characters I want to spend more time with. Hell, The Vice Guide to the Jersey Devil is playing in my head, as I type, and it’s great. Talk about the power of cinema!

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The Beach House

After a couple of comedies, it was finally time to get into the serious stuff and writer-director Jeffrey A. Brown’s The Beach House was one that had me intrigued based on the synopsis alone. It promised to be weird and creepy, two things that have me responding faster than Pavlov’s pooch.

A couple with relationship issues decide to get away from the world at a secluded beach house owned by the guy’s family. Once there, however, they discover that they aren’t alone: a couple of family friends are already there, although they’re only too happy to share the gorgeous ocean view. While this seems a little odd, the intense bio-luminescence and gathering fog outside seem even odder still. And then things get really weird.

Recalling films as diverse as Richard Stanley’s recent adaptation of The Color Out of Space, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Darren Aronofsky’s Mother! and The Mist, Brown’s feature-length debut is quite the accomplished bit of filmmaking. In fact, cinematographer Owen Levelle might just have provided us with some of the most singularly gorgeous shots of the whole year: there are moments in The Beach House, like the opening deep dive to the ocean floor, that truly take your breath away. The sound design, editing, production design and performances are all apiece with the camerawork, making this one of the most immaculately crafted movies I’ve seen in some time.

And yet, for all that, I didn’t love The Beach House. Despite being thought-provoking and visually lush, I also found it a bit overlong and repetitive: I also wasn’t fond of a particular story element, something that I felt was a little below the film’s overall reach. If the worst thing you can really accuse a film of is doing things that you don’t agree with, however, than the film must inherently be doing something right. There was a lot to like here and somethings that I’ll never forget: the scenes with the bio-luminescence, for example, probably rank with some of the most awe-inspiring things I’ve ever seen in a film. I predict a very interesting career for those involved: this was a helluva calling card.

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While I didn’t get through quite as many features as I wanted and barely even scratched the surface of the other content, this first day of the CFF would bode well for the days ahead. At this point, there was still 23 films to go: who knew what was in store? Stay tuned, dear readers, and find out.

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.

Weekly Screenings: 11/21-11/27

Tags

2016 films, cinema, film reviews, films, Intruder, Isaac Ezban, Los Parecidos, Movies, November, The Similars, Travis Zariwny, weekly screenings, writer-director

Welcome to the penultimate week of November here at The VHS Graveyard. This was another light week, just like the week before, and consisted of only two screenings: Isaac Ezban’s The Similars (Los Parecides) and Travis Zariwny’s Intruder. Both films were as different from each other as possible, making this quite the varied week, despite the lack of quantity.

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The Similars

On a rainy night, in October 1968, a group of strangers wait hours for a long-delayed bus to Mexico City. Martin (Fernando Becerril), the bored station attendant, gives them all the same stock answer but it’s getting a little hard to contain the restless masses: hot-headed Ulises (Gustavo Sanchez Parra) needs to get to the hospital for the birth of his child; panicked Irene (Cassandra Ciangherotti) is pregnant and may have just killed the baby’s father; Alvaro (Humberto Busto) is a passionate college student who may or may not be involved in the violent protests that are currently sweeping across Mexico; Roberta (Maria Elena Olivares) is a native woman who doesn’t speak the same language as everyone else and is prone to loud pronouncements and yelling; and Gertrudis (Carmen Beato) needs to constantly administer special medicine to her twitchy young son, Ignacio (Santiago Torres), who may or may not have been responsible for a recent attack in a diner.

As the hours wear on and tempers and patience wear thin, the frustrated travelers are faced with another problem: for some strange reason, certain people are beginning to look like Ulises, right down to his beard. With paranoia and fear running high, no one knows who to believe or what is actually going on: is this part of some government conspiracy, a curse or some odd paranormal occurence? As time runs out, the answer may come from the unlikeliest source of all but the terrifying truth may be more than anyone is prepared to handle.

Shot in atmospheric black-and-white (albeit shot through with color, in a truly cool effect) and opening with a portentous, genteel voice-over, there’s going to be one parallel that long-time genre buffs will pick up on right away: writer-director Ezban’s The Similars is an homage to classic Twilight Zone episodes and a fantastically realized one, at that. Everything about this reminded me of Rod Serling’s tales of mystery and terror, in the best way possible, making this one of the most ingeniously executed homages of the entire year: even if the rest of the film fell as flat as a bad souffle, the concept and look, alone, would vault it high, in my book.

The good thing, of course, is that nothing about Ezban’s brilliant film falls short, in the slightest: this is fresh, original and genius filmmaking at its finest, recalling nothing less than Nacho Vigalondo’s head-fuck Time Crimes or, at times, the warped glory of Cronenberg. The script is consistently sharp, the acting is fantastic (it truly is an ensemble effort) and the film manages to keep you wrapped in such an all-encompassing fog of confusion, bizarre revelations and delightfully wackadoodle shenanigans (how else to describe that godforsaken dog?!) that there really is no telling what’s coming around the corner.

Very few films genuinely surprise me, which is probably one of the greatest problems with watching an abnormally high amount of films. The Similars genuinely surprised me, however, and on a pretty consistent basis. This might only appeal to a particular kind of viewer (the kind raised on copious amounts of The Twilight Zone, Outer Limits and Tales From the Darkside, to be very specific) but everyone should give this film a try: I wager that it’s one of the smartest films you’ve seen this year, too, regardless of how many movies you’ve seen.

Isaac Ezban is one of Mexico’s finest young filmmakers (he also contributed to the excellent Mexico Barbaro anthology) and The Similars serves as notice that he fully intends to take over the rest of the world, too. A few more films as good as this one and I’m gonna have to make a shrine to this guy, stat.

Intruder

On the other end of the spectrum, we get writer-director Travis Zariwny’s Intruder, a positively gorgeous stalk-and-slash that fails to ever do much more than go through the motions. Elizabeth (Louise Linton), a British ex-pat who now plays cello for the Portland Orchestra, becomes house-bound during a particularly violent storm. The problem, of course, is that there’s a maniac running around killing young women and he just might be hanging out in her apartment, unknown to her.

The entire film is a fairly elegantly paced game of cat-and-mouse that starts off fairly enthralling but becomes tedious and obvious well before the obnoxious “fake” ending. The acting is pretty good, across the board, with lead Linton being the absolute best (she really was fantastic) and electro-god Moby (as Elizabeth’s shithead conductor) being the absolute worst, possibly of the entire year (and this includes Kato Kaelin as a caveman…), which helps to make the whole thing easier to swallow. Intruder really is too well-made to ever call a failure (it’s no lie to call it one of the best-looking genre films I’ve screened this year, including The Neon Demon) but it’s also about 20 minutes too long, very obvious  and rather unpleasant: opponents of the Male Gaze will find much to object to here, including a ridiculously gratuitous shower scene that’s straight out of Porky’s.

Zariwny also helmed this year’s Cabin Fever reboot (which I’ve yet to see) and is obviously a filmmaker of no inconsiderable talent: much of the film comes off as a lesser version of the recent Hush, which is no small praise considering how efficiently the former executed the stalker format in a modern context. I would be interested to see what the former production-designer/camera-operator (both skills of which are plainly evident in the best aspects of Intruder) can do with a more original concept and/or script. Intruder is a miss but it’s a near-miss that hints at much brighter things to come.

Coming soon: the final week of November, which also happens to be the week we’re currently about to vacate. Join us as The VHS Graveyard ushers in the merry month of December and sets its sights on the end of the year.

11/22/15: Two is the Loneliest Number

Tags

Americans abroad, backpackers, based on a short story, Bidzina Gujabidze, Caucasus Mountains, cinema, dramas, Eastern Europe, film reviews, filmed in Republic of Georgia, films, Gael Garcia Bernal, Hani Furstenberg, Inti Briones, Julia Loktev, Movies, relationships on the rocks, Shalva Kirikashvili, The Loneliest Planet, writer-director

What do you call a film that features gorgeous cinematography, beautiful locations and almost no sense of dramatic tension, character development or desire to propel the narrative forward? While I would have accepted either “a travelogue” or “vacation footage shot on a RED camera” as correct answers, the one that I was actually going for was The Loneliest Planet (2011), writer-director Julia Loktev’s examination of a relationship pushed to the breaking point. Despite being a genuinely lovely film to look at, The Loneliest Planet ends up as the cinematic equivalent of a postcard: flat, one-dimensional and utterly static.

Engaged cutie-pies Alex (Gael Garcia Bernal) and Nica (Hani Furstenberg) are on a picturesque backpacking expedition through the gorgeous, green countryside of the Republic of Georgia and they couldn’t be happier. So in love with each other that they not only spend every waking minute together but also gleefully discuss each other’s bowel movements, this is the couple that every rom-com meet-cute in existence was founded on.

Trouble eventually (very, very eventually) shatters their happy existence, however, when the couple and their local guide, Dato (Bidzina Gujabidze), run afoul of a few grumpy, armed locals. In one moment of complete, unblinking cowardice (think Ruben Ostlund’s Force Majeure (2014), for comparison), Alex destroys their complacent happiness and reorients the relationship along a much more antagonistic route. With the joy and innocence completely bled from their formerly care-free trip, will Alex and Nica be able to make things right between them or has their relationship been damaged beyond repair? Once you’ve seen your significant other in a new, unfavorable light, is it ever possible to go back to “the good old days”? Can innocence lost ever be regained?

First of all, let’s speak to the film’s obvious selling point: cinematographer Inti Briones shot some impossibly beautiful, genuinely stunning footage and it’s showcased here in all its glory. The vistas are sweeping and verdant, the numerous wide shots are suitably evocative and all of the locations, whether wide, open fields or ramshackle, abandoned buildings pop off the screen in bright, vibrant colors. This is a film that could function just as well with the sound turned off (perhaps better, in some cases), honest testament to the beauty of the imagery here. Despite whatever else I felt about the film, my admiration for the look and camera-work are truly heartfelt.

The downside, unfortunately, is that the excellent cinematography and beautiful locations do nothing to conceal the fact that The Loneliest Planet is dull, devoid of tension, lacks any kind of character development and runs on for at least 40 minutes too long. The film is obnoxiously repetitive, to the point of seeming almost parodic: the scene where Nica sings the odious “Don Gato” song goes on for so long and is so straight-faced that I half-expected Seth McFarlane to pop up at some point. Repetition to make a point is one thing: letting scenes drag on well after the point has been made is something else altogether.

In a nutshell, that might be The Loneliest Planet’s Achilles heel: almost every shot, scene and beat in the entire two-hour run-time is held for much longer than it needs to be. Not only does this inflate the film to an unnecessary degree (trim the shots and I’m willing to wager the film wraps-up around a much more manageable 90-100 minute time-frame) but it also robs the tension out of everything and grinds the film to a complete standstill even during those (brief) moments where it should be sprinting. Sure, there’s definitely an art-house aesthetic going on here, an aesthetic which generally encourages longer, more static shots. That being said, Loktev holds everything here just long enough to cross from “effective” to “irritating”: it’s no hyperbole to say that almost every shot and scene needed much more judicial use of the trimming tool than they ultimately received.

To compound issues, the film manages to criminally under-use Bernal (one of our most expressive, interesting modern actors) and Gujabidze (the real emotional center of the film), while tipping the scales in favor of Furstenberg, who more often than not radiates blankness more than any kind of relatable emotion. Chalk this up to the script, which saddles poor Furstenberg with scenes like the aforementioned “Don Gato” monstrosity, but there were few times that I ever felt she was more than another “quirky manic pixie girl.” While Bernal gets the odd moment to shine, here and there, Furstenberg gets an equal amount of camera-time and far less to do with it. For a film that is, fundamentally, about a relationship between two people, The Loneliest Planet often feels like only one of the principals is doing any heavy lifting.

Lest all of the above suggest that I hated The Loneliest Planet, let me lay that to rest: I never really became invested in it enough to feel strongly one way or the other. More than anything, I was disappointed, since there are plenty of moments that hint at what the film actually could have been: the inciting incident is genuinely tense, even if Force Majeure used that particular plot device in a more effective manner…the campfire scene where Dato relates his hard-luck story is a real gut-punch, much more powerful and emotionally resonate than anything that came before…the impromptu volleyball game is genuinely cute and fun, the exact tone that the first half of the film tries (and fails) to nail…those eye-popping visuals…the problem ends up being that Loktev introduces some genuinely interesting elements and then proceeds to focus on the most uninteresting, repetitive parts of the narrative.

Ultimately, my biggest beef with the film isn’t that nothing (literally) happens until almost the midpoint of a two-hour film: I’ve seen plenty of films where it seems like nothing is going on until nearly the conclusion and liked them just fine. My biggest beef with the film is that any moment of forward momentum or genuine interest exists only as momentary up-blips on a generally inert lifeline. The Loneliest Planet takes its time getting to its destination, only to, ultimately, never arrive. It’s the equivalent of someone taking the time to careful arrange the letters on a poster-board sign, only to run out of room with half the word still missing. There’s a good film nestled in The Loneliest Planet’s bloat, like the tiny center of a set of Russian stacking dolls: whether you want to take the time to get to it, however, is a question only you can answer.

12/26/15: Daisy, in the Snow, With Violence

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70mm, auteur theory, Best of 2015, bounty hunters, Bruce Dern, Channing Tatum, cinema, Dana Gourrier, Demian Bichir, Ennio Morricone, Film auteurs, film reviews, films, Fred Raskin, Gene Jones, isolation, James Parks, Jennifer Jason Leigh, John Ford, Kurt Russell, Lee Horsely, Michael Madsen, Movies, mystery, paranoia, Quentin Tarantino, Robert Richardson, Samuel L. Jackson, suspense, The Hateful Eight, Tim Roth, Walton Goggins, Western, writer-director, Zoe Bell

Since the dawning of the ’90s, few filmmakers have so ably embodied the “love ’em or hate ’em” aesthetic as Quentin Tarantino has. If you’re in Camp QT, you consider him to be a bona fide auteur, a stubborn iconoclast whose complete love of everything under the sun has led to some of the most unforgettable, indelible films of the last 20-some years, films which have burrowed their way into the very fabric of pop culture in ways that few other films have. If you’re a fan, there are few things in life quite like getting the next Tarantino flick: his unique blend of ultra-violence, cutting dialogue and fractured narratives are the rare “art” films that play to all four walls of the multiplex, immersing viewers in an almost overpowering sense of watching films that are vitally, potently, alive. That’s one side of the coin.

If you’re not a fan, however, you’ll tend to lean a different way towards QT. On the flip side of the coin, Tarantino is a ridiculously self-indulgent enfant terrible who confuses style for substance (or, worse, doesn’t care) and is, at best, ruthlessly unaware of the problematic nature of some of his material. At worst, critics can call QT racist, misogynistic, homophobic (in Tarantino’s cinematic universe, male-on-male sexual assault is still the scariest thing that can happen to a guy), vain, a windbag, a thief or, worse yet, the luckiest hack in the biz. That’s the other side of the coin.

The thing is, Tarantino is both sides of the coin: the artist and the ego-maniac; the wish-fulfiller who appropriates cultural elements as needed, yet gives avenue for satisfying revenge, in return; the misogynist who creates fascinating, three-dimensional female characters only to put them through hell and back; the gore-hound who understands restraint. He’s a guy who loves movies, all kinds of movies: the good and the bad, the forward-thinking and the repulsively backwards, the trash and the art…this ability to bring absolutely everything to the table, for better or worse, is what makes Tarantino films actual events. In a world where everything is carefully crafted to reach the widest possible paying audience, QT feels like one of the few who’s willing to say “Fuck it” and just do what he feels like.

This exceptionally long-winded preamble is by means of bringing us to Tarantino’s newest film (his eighth, overall), the star-studded, ultra-violent, relentlessly grim and audaciously funny old-school Western, The Hateful Eight (2015). Coming on the heels of another film with a decidedly Western setting, Django Unchained (2012), Tarantino’s current offering couldn’t be further from his previous one. This is a huge, sweeping film (shot and screened in 70mm, for the first time in 40 years), that kind that looks to John Ford for inspiration even as it utilizes legendary Spaghetti Western composer Ennio Morricone for the exquisite score. It’s a film that trades in the hard-edged wish-fulfillment of Django and Inglorious Basterds (2009) for the kind of weary fatalism more associated with Cormac McCarthy. It’s a film that takes an awful lot of chances, many of which fall flat as a bad souffle. It’s also a minor masterpiece and proof positive that Tarantino remains one of our most interesting, surprising and uncompromising cinematic voices. Love it or hate it, there’s no way to ignore (or deny) The Hateful Eight.

Encompassing six chapters and some three-hours of run-time, The Hateful Eight takes its time in the early stretches, yet pays off patient viewers by the final third. Beginning with a stage-coach racing across the pristine, snow-covered desolation of Wyoming, ahead of a crippling blizzard, the film wastes no time in blowing minds with Robert Richardson’s jaw-dropping, wide-screen cinematography. From the very first shot, this is a film that announces its epic intentions and then (for the most part) fulfills them: you have to admire that sort of conviction.

The stagecoach contains two of the titular Eight, along with the driver, OB (James Parks), who’s probably the least hateful person in the entire film. The passengers, however, are a different story: John “The Hangman” Ruth (Kurt Russell, channeling latter-day John Wayne) is transporting vicious murderer/casually-virulent racist Daisy Domergue (Jennifer Jason Leigh, absolutely feral and quite wonderful) to the town of Red Rocks so she can hang. Ruth is a bounty hunter and pretty much the antithesis of every Russell role ever: he’s mean, has a hair trigger, revels in watching his wards hang and genuinely enjoys smacking the shit out of Daisy, which he does as frequently as possible. Daisy, for her part, is pretty much just an awful human being, spitting, cussing and hocking loogies (and nasty insults) at anyone within easy reach.

Along the way, the merry company picks up another couple members of that illustrious Eight: Major Marquis Warren (Samuel L. Jackson, in the apex of his history with Tarantino) and Chris Mannix (Walton Goggins, simply phenomenal). Warren (a former slave-turned-Union soldier-turned bounty hunter) and Mannix (a former Confederate raider/outlaw supposedly turned sheriff of Red Rocks) are seeking shelter from the impending storm and the stagecoach presents a much better option than freezing to death.

Arriving at renowned half-way spot Minnie’s Haberdashery, the five uneasy companions find the place all but vacant, save for an additional four individuals: foppish, smarmy, Oswaldo Mobray (Tim Roth, having a blast); surly, silent cow-poke, Joe Gage (Michael Madsen, with a ridiculous hairpiece); aging, nasty former-Confederate General Sandy Smithers (Bruce Dern, impish as ever); and “Mexican” Bob (Demian Bichir, completely surprising and consistently wonderful), the guys who’s in charge of the way-station.

Snowed in, the eight strangers (plus poor OB), must strike up an increasingly unsteady live-and-let-live arrangement, as they wait for the blizzard to pass and the road to Red Rocks to reopen. As several characters make a point of saying, however, transporting a live, desperate criminal is a lot more dangerous than transporting a dead one. Will Ruth’s insistence on seeing Daisy swing prove his downfall? Are these various varmints and rascals really strangers or is there more going on here than meets the eye? As suspicions grow and lies begin to surface with disturbing regularity, one thing becomes quite clear: there will be blood…lots of it.

Posited as a bracing combination of John Ford and Agatha Christie, The Hateful Eight definitely stands as Tarantino’s most straight-forward (barring a few customary flourishes) narrative, a film that’s more mystery than fractured narrative, ala Pulp Fiction (1994). It’s also his most accomplished, fully realized film, a work that displaces the aforementioned Pulp Fiction as the pinnacle of his career (at least to this humble reviewer). It’s by no means a perfect film, as I’ve mentioned earlier. In fact, let’s address those issues right now.

Many of Tarantino’s stylistic quirks fall flat: the narrator is completely ill-advised (for many reasons) and manages to change the tone instantly, while some of the effects (the slo-mo on Jackson during one scene, for example) just don’t work: they pull us out of the story completely rather than accentuating what’s going on.

The constant racial slurs and casual misogyny become all but unbearable, over time. Unlike the “necessary evils” of Django Unchained or Death Proof (2007), the virulence in The Hateful Eight seems to exist only as shorthand for how awful these people are. These are “hateful” individuals, ergo it’s only understandable that they’re all racist (pretty much to a person). Likewise, Daisy is a really shithead, so no harm/no foul when Ruth constantly clocks in her in the face. One can make the case that Tarantino is just presenting these aspects and letting the audiences decide but why did Daisy’s truly awful racial slurs and subsequent beatings always produce the biggest crowd reactions? Hateful people deserve to get beat down, obviously…but you have to show how hateful they are first, right?

The film is slightly too long. Not drastically too long, mind you (even at three hours) but slightly too long: there are pacing issues, late in the film, that make it seem longer than it is and the finale features more false endings than a Terminator film. This wouldn’t really be a problem except that it’s obvious Tarantino would rather sacrifice flow and pacing instead of trimming any of his goodies.

And now, to reference the dear, departed Roger Ebert: let me find my other list. The Hateful Eight is a beautiful, exquisitely made film, maybe one of the loveliest of the last few decades. There’s an art and poetry to Richardson’s imagery that is, to beat a dead horse, simply stunning. When viewed in the theater, in glorious 70mm, The Hateful Eight feels more cinematic and epic than anything I’ve seen in my three-decades of going to theaters. Toss in the “Overture” and the “Intermission” and it’s clear this isn’t just something to have on in the background: this is an honest to god event.

Ennio Morricone’s score is simply amazing, possibly his single best work since The Good, The Bad and the Ugly. When that impossibly epic theme kicked in, blasting out of the surround speakers, I actually teared up. This is what films should feel like: they should rattle every one of your senses, smack around in your skull like a pinball and rocket out of your over-loaded brain cavity like a gilded rainbow.

The performances, to a tee, are sheer perfection. Even though several of the characters are nothing more than broad stereotypes (Bichir’s take on Bob is so ridiculously, sublimely cliched that he was able to bring the packed crowd to a road by nothing more than his intense pronunciation of Spanish swearwords, while Roth’s Oswaldo is one feathered-cap away from a Musketeer), every single actor commits to their roles with a dedication that borders on the psychotic.

To be frank, The Hateful Eight has one of the most fascinating groups of characters since…well…since Pulp Fiction. From Kurt Russell’s “John Wayne as a wife-beater” impersonation to Jackson’s stellar, multi-facted turn as Major Warren (Jackson finally gets to lead a Tarantino flick AND play Sherlock Holmes…a two for one!) to Leigh’s spiteful Daisy, these are characters that either Ford or Peckinpah would have killed for.

Chief among greats, however? Walton Goggins knockout portrayal of the former rebel/current (maybe?) sheriff is a study in contradictions that actually works, leading to one of the great “odd couple” match-ups of recent years. Goggins has been proving himself, more and more, over the years but The Hateful Eight should stand as proof that he need prove himself no more: Goggins has fully arrived and it’s glorious to behold.

Biggest surprise here? The Hateful Eight is genuinely, subversively funny, maybe Tarantino’s most inherently humorous film since Basterds. Going in, I expected this to be a fairly grim, relatively po-faced film: nothing could be further from the truth. Whether indulging in some of that patented “talk about nothing” that Tarantino revels in or setting up sight-gags that pay off outrageous returns (never before has one filmmaker wrung so much merriment out of people being shot in the face), this is primo, tongue-in-cheek Tarantino all the way.

Ultimately, how does QT’s newest stack up with what came before? Obviously, individual results may vary but I honestly think this is his best film yet. While there’s plenty of room for continued discussion here (folks can and should continue to examine Tarantino’s insistence on racist characters, particularly in light of this film), there should be no debate as to the actual merits of the film: this is a modern classic, from start to finish. All one has to do is take a look at the film’s disparate elements (that iconic score, the groundbreaking cinematography, all-in performances, intricately-plotted storyline) that so that: whether judged on its parts or as a whole, The Hateful Eight is as rock-solid as the icy ground its characters trod.

Love him or hate him, one thing is abundantly clear: The Hateful Eight is not a film that you’ll forget anytime soon. Is it the best film of 2015? I think it might be. As mentioned before, however: individual results may vary.

11/21/15 (Part One): The Hole Truth and Nothing But the Truth

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Anne Sorce, artists, cinema, Deep Dark, Denise Poirier, feature-film debut, film reviews, films, horror, horror films, John Nielsen, Monica Graves, Movies, Sean McGrath, Tabor Helton, tortured artists, writer-director

Inspiration is a funny thing. A great idea can strike at any time, as sudden and organic as a rain storm, as torrential and disruptive as a tornado. One can be doing nothing more intensive than walking across the street when…bam! A random passerby sparks an idea, someone drops their handbag and the next Catcher in the Rye is born.

The ancient Greeks and Romans viewed inspiration as coming at the hands of some sort of external “muse,” the physical manifestation of that wholly inexplicable genesis of a genuinely great idea. With the proper muse, any poet, sculptor or painter of ancient renown could produce works that would impress not only their current generation but last the test of time. Every artist needs their muse.

Writer-director Michael Medaglia’s exceptionally disturbing Deep Dark (2015) examines this notion of the creative muse from a view slightly askew, resulting in one of the more interesting, dark and illuminative films I screened this year. If anything, Deep Dark established itself as the more grounded, (slightly) respectable version of another of my favorite films of the year, Motivational Behavior (2015). To coin a new phrase: Approximating greatness can, in its own way, become a sort of greatness.

Our guide through this particular patch of strange ground is Hermann Haig (Sean McGrath), the sad-sack mobile-artist who serves as our source of identification and empathy (what little there is). Hermann is, for lack of a better word, kind of a loser: he still lives at home with his mother, produces increasingly shabby installations to an increasingly uncaring public and seems one certain decision away from blowing his brains all over the back wall. In other words, Hermann is the epitome of the misunderstood artiste.

After hitting rock bottom when a planned installation sprays arterial blood all over the glitterati, Hermann finds himself in the rare position of approaching his “sell-out” artist uncle, Felix (John Nielsen), and asking for whatever manner of assistance he might provide. Uncle Felix offers to rent Hermann the apartment (shabby though it might be) that provided him the inspiration to become a self-sustaining artist. Hermann might consider himself the ultimate outsider artist but the desire to provide a roof over his head proves too much and he ends up relenting.

This, of course, leads us to the film’s central conceit, as Hermann discovers a hole behind an excessively strange painting of a peacock in the dreary, run-down apartment. This hole, as you might surmise, isn’t the usual kind of hole one might find in a wall. For one thing, it has a voice: an alluring female voice, as it turns out. For another thing, the hole appears to lead into some sort of strange, fleshy organic material: certainly not the sort of thing one usually finds insulating walls in older residences. Finally, the hole promises to turn Hermann into the buzz-bin artist that he’s always assumed he would be…no mean feat, if you think about it.

In no time, Hermann has used the mysterious hole to get a head-up on his competition, creating mobiles that seem to drive viewers absolutely mad with admiration. All he needed, as it turns out, is the strange, fleshy material that the hole produces after…well…let’s just say, after being “stimulated” and leave it at that. When gallery owner/failed artist Devora Klein (Anne Sorce) gets wind of Hermann’s “assistance,” however, she becomes determined to use the strange hole to further her own frustrated art career. Will Hermann be able to remain true to his (decidely strange) muse or is inspiration more a question of proximity than need?

As any long-time readers of The VHS Graveyard will note, your humble host prizes strange, difficult and outre cinema beyond all else. As especially astute viewers might recall, we previously visited an exceptional little film called Motivational Growth (2015) earlier in the year and were completely blown away. If it helps, consider Deep Dark to be “Motivational Growth: Take Two.” While nowhere near as strange and wonderful as that prior film, Deep Dark dives deep enough into the deep end to satisfy our weird itch and there’s nothing wrong with that.

Let’s get one thing out of the way, right off the bat: Deep Dark is a fundamentally strange film and that’s definitely part of the appeal. Whether we’re witnessing Hermann’s failed attempts at “art” (hope you like spraying blood) or an unbelievably disturbing human/wall sex scene (yeah, it goes there), this is a film that revels in throwing strange and disturbing shit at the wall. Luckily (?) for us, most us it sticks.

Whether Hermann’s ultra-disturbing dream where he pulls a chain from his navel (spoiler: there will be blood) or pretty much any of the scenes involving the wall (I don’t know about you but “fingering” a wall to ecstacy is just weird, no matter how you look at it), Deep Dark is absolutely genius at burrowing under your skin and staying there. Like the best (?) fever dreams, Deep Dark has an insane logic all its own, a logic that’s genuinely painful to minds more accustomed to a straight-forward A-to-Z narrative.

Here, gentle readers, is where we get into the trust portion of this particular exercise. As with Motivational Growth, nothing about this general description of this film should inspire any assurance of quality: after all, this is a film where a highly disturbed artist fucks a wall in order to receive the ickily organic “flesh balls” that he needs to complete his mobile installations. If you just backed-up your breakfast, I’m gonna go ahead and assume that this isn’t for you.

If, however, you can get on the right wavelength…if you can choke back your gag reflex and just go with it…Deep Dark is one helluva film. Really. From the all-in performances to the genuinely disturbing effects (the stuff involving the wall is, to use a scientific term, “way gross”) to the mind-blowing ultimate revelation (you’ll never think about “true love” in the same way), this is one impressive film.

With a visual aesthetic that splits the difference between “grimy” and “whimsical,” a score that accentuates the above and performances that ride the line between “realistic” and “way out there,” it’s easy to view Deep Dark as a particularly twisted fairy tale and that’s not far off the actual mark. Like the best films, Deep Dark asks you to take a pretty big leap of faith and then pays off the sacrifice ten-fold: love it or hate it, it’s impossible to have anything approaching a “whatever” attitude regarding this strange little film.

Ultimately, Motivational Growth is going to be my go-to, totally inappropriate source of  personal advice for calendar year 2015. If that little gem didn’t exist, however, I have a feeling that Deep Dark would easily take its place. If nothing else, this prove the time-old adage: Believe half of what the hole shows you and none of what it says. Keep this is mind, friends and neighbors, and I think you’re gonna do just fine.

 

11/19/15: Love The One You’re With

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Adam Brody, Amy Schumer, asteroids, bittersweet, cinema, Connie Briton, Derek Luke, directorial debut, end of the world, film reviews, films, Gillian Jacobs, Keira Knightley, Lorene Scafaria, Mark Moses, Martin Sheen, Melanie Lynskey, Movies, Nancy Carell, odd couple, opposites attract, Patton Oswalt, road trips, Rob Corddry, Rob Huebel, romantic-comedies, Seeking a Friend For the End of the World, Steve Carell, T.J. Miller, Tim Orr, Tonita Castro, William Petersen, writer-director

When faced with the impending end of the world, there are lots of appropriate responses. One might wallow in abject despair, collapsing in the corner in a wretched ball of sobbing sorrow, lamenting all that could have been: perfectly acceptable way to meet Armageddon, no two ways about it. One might attempt some sort of last-minute, all-or-nothing push to save the day, giving every plan a shot, regardless of how far-fetched: if you have nukes, this is probably where you wanna use ’em. Will turning on every fan in the world blow the asteroid back into space? You won’t know ’til you try it. If you’re gonna go down with the ship, after all, make it count.

One might use the threat of upcoming doom as impetus to attempt things one’s never tried: after all, if the world is ending at noon, why not try deep-sea diving at 11? If you really like drugs, sex, video games, movies, chocolate, whiskey or huffing oven cleaner, there’s no better time to indulge than right before the whole world goes up in flames, right? Bottoms up, sport! Alternately, the overly pious and religious might use the countdown as an opportunity to double-down on their faith, making sure that they’re as “nearer their God to Thee” as possible.

Writer-director Lorene Scafaria’s Seeking a Friend For the End of the World (2012) showcases all of these possible reactions to an imminent extinction-level event but there’s one possible angle that the film is much more interested in: the need for closure and the quest for true love in the twilight hours of humanity’s stint on this big, ol’ ball of water, rock and air. With only days to live, would you try and make the most of the life you have or take a wild shot at getting the life you always wanted but we’re too afraid to go for?

SAFFTEOTW begins, ironically enough, with humanity’s ultimate end: a last-ditch effort to divert a massive asteroid’s collision course with Earth has failed and we are, to put it quite rudely, massively fucked. In three weeks, the enormous space rock will pulverize our former home planet, turning it (and us) into so many cosmic memories. There are no second, third or fourth chances, no last quarter Hail Marys or hope for intergalactic intervention: this is the way the world will end…with a big, ol’ “bang” and a cut to black.

As the denizens of Earth rush about, doing all of those last-minute things that we previously mentioned, we’re introduced to mild-mannered office drone, Dodge Petersen (Steve Carell). His wife, Linda (Carell’s real-life wife, Nancy), has just left Dodge after receiving the thoroughly bleak news about humanity’s future. Stunned into a sort of blank acceptance, Dodge continues to putter about the remains of his life, even as everyone around him indulges their whims to the best of their abilities.

Dodge’s time to stretch his wings comes soon enough, however, when he ends up in the orbit of his quirky neighbor, Penny (Keira Knightley). Not only is Penny one of those vaunted “Manic Pixie Dream Girls” that will kick-start Dodge out of his boring rut, she also holds the keys to his (assumed) happiness in another major way: she’s been collecting his mail for years and one of the letters just happens to be from his long-ago girlfriend/one-that-got-away Olivia. Seems that Olivia wrote him a note a few months back in which she explained how Dodge was the love of her life and she regretted letting him go. For our hapless hero, that’s all the information he needs in order to undertake a mission to reunite with Olivia and find true love in the waning hours of our collective existence.

As is always the case, however, this is easier said than done. Once Dodge and Penny hit the road together, they’ll have the usual adventures (an esctacy-fueled orgy in an Applebees-type family restaurant is an easy highlight), meet the usual quirky people (CSI’s William Petersen has a blast as a weirdo trucker, in one notable instance, while the party scene is stuffed to bursting with comedians like Amy Schumer, Rob Croddry and Patton Oswalt), learn the usual life lessons (sometimes, what you really need is right under your nose the whole time) and learn what it means to truly be happy.

Full disclosure: I’ve never been the biggest fan of either Steve Carell or Keira Knightley. In Carell’s case, I’ve found the actor to be distressingly one-note: as far as I’m concerned, most of his roles are just variations of his Michael Scott character from The Office, including his much vaunted “serious” turn in Foxcatcher (2014). I was never particularly charmed by indie-efforts like The 40-Year-Old Virgin (2005), Little Miss Sunshine (2006) or Dan in Real Life (2007), while films like the Get Smart (2008) remake, the Ron Burgundy films and the Despicable Me flicks really aren’t in my wheelhouse.

Ditto for Knightley, who always strikes me as embodying the worst excesses of the “Manic Pixie Dream Girl” trope: regardless of the film, Knightley has a particular gift for letting her “quirky” persona overpower the proceedings, similar to someone like Zooey Deschanel. While I’ve seen performances of hers that were less grating (such as The Imitation Game (2014)), I’ve never really been fully on board.

To my immense surprise, then, Scafaria’s low-key dramedy (with much more emphasis on the drama than the comedy) not only presented performances from Carell and Knightley that were tolerable, it offered performances from the two that I genuinely enjoyed and got behind. Quite frankly, the two are pitch-perfect in the film, handily portraying characters that are equal parts damaged-goods and hopeful human beings. There’s a sense of world-weariness to Carell’s performance that’s perfectly balanced by Knightley’s acid-tinged optimism: too much of one or the other might have tipped the scales but the co-stars end up providing the best kind of checks-and-balances on each other’s performances.

For an actor that’s made a cottage-industry out of portraying lovable doofuses, Carell’s performance as Dodge marks one of the few times (for me, at least) where I actually like the character he’s portraying. Dodge isn’t perfect, mind you, but that’s part of the charm: he’s a (generally) nice guy who has made a few bad decisions, over the years, but who still takes a real “do no harm” view of society. The impending end of the world might have made him angry, depressed, or even selfish: any and all are perfectly acceptable outcomes. At the end of the day, however, Dodge is just a pretty normal dude who makes some pretty hard decisions and there’s nothing about that that’s hard to relate to.

For her part, Knightley’s Penny serves as the perfect foil for Dodge’s rather glum straight arrow. She’s quirky, yes, but not in the outrageously showy, self-centered way that…well, that previous Knightley performances were. There’s an underlying sadness and reliance to Penny that’s as much a by-product of Knightley’s performance as it is Scafaria’s script. Whereas similar films might try to shove Penny’s square peg into a round hole, Knightley grounds her just enough to make her seem like a genuine rebel rather than an obnoxious attention-seeker. She also expertly conveys Penny’s growing attraction to Dodge, a relationship that’s pretty much a foregone conclusion yet one that’s still allowed a little room to breathe and grow.

The one thing that I fully expected going into Seeking a Friend For the End of the World was a full-on goofy affair, full of silly, broad characters, pratfalls and endless dismayed looks from Carell (patent pending): what I ended up with, surprisingly, was the exact opposite. Rather than a loud, blaring multiplex “adventure,” SAFFTEOTW is a relatively low-key, morose affair, full of subtly strange characters, odd situations and some surprisingly astute commentary on human foibles. To be honest, the film is much more drama than comedy: even the film’s obvious comic setpieces, like the aforementioned restaurant bacchanalia or the house party, are shot through with just as much melancholy and quiet sense of loss as they are outrageous knee-slappers.

Ultimately, Scafaria’s end-of-the-world rom-com is a pretty rare bird: a mainstream, wide-release, popcorn flick with a big heart, sly sense of humor and bittersweet tone that never panders to its audience, yet manages to be both fun and thought-provoking. There’s an honesty and sadness to the film that you just don’t see in these kinds of things (suffice to say that the ending compromises nothing and gives not one inch on the film’s overall thesis): it’s the very epitome of “laughing through the tears” and, without a doubt, one of the film’s greatest strengths.

From the outside, Seeking a Friend For the End of the World might look like a dozen other films but it’s got a secret weapon that none of the others possess: it genuinely cares about the characters that haunt its reels and it wants you to genuinely care about them, too. In an all too disposable culture, that’s a pretty tall order for a romantic-comedy. Scafaria understands, however, that this is probably how the world will end: with a little hand-wringing, some quiet resolution and, hopefully, a bit of true love.

11/11/15 (Part Two): Mr. Cage Goes to Washington

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Austin Stark, based on true events, BP, Bryan Batt, cheating husbands, Christopher Berry, Ciera Payton, cinema, Connie Nielsen, crooked politicians, directorial debut, extramarital affairs, film reviews, films, husband-wife relationship, Kerry Cahill, Movies, Nicholas Cage, oil spills, Peter Fonda, Sarah Paulson, set in 2010, sex scandals, The Runner, Wendell Pierce, writer-director

Is the phrase “honest, self-effacing politician” equitable to “jumbo shrimp” or “deafening silence”? Is it actually possible for someone who makes their living brokering deals, securing power structures, rewarding patronage and constantly campaigning to do what they’ve been elected to do and serve the average, every-day citizenry? Sure, there are plenty of examples of good, necessary actions taken by politicians stretching all the way back to the dawn of our political system: the concept of absolute evil is convenient for pop culture and entertainment but rarely plays out that way in real life. Even the very worst, most self-serving and vilely corrupt glad-hander out there is still capable of doing good…provided, of course, that it also benefits their bottom line.

Is there really such a thing as an incorruptible, sincere and tireless proponent for the average tax-payer, however? Are there really politicians who see their choice of career as a personal calling and chance for advocacy rather than a convenient way to achieve power, influence and wealth? The answer, at least based on writer-director Austin Stark’s The Runner (2015), is a resounding, firm “yes and no.”

We begin with Rep. Colin Pryce (Nicolas Cage), from Louisiana, and his passionate, fiery condemnation of “Big Oil” in the aftermath of the BP oil spill of 2010. There’s definitely a lot of Mr. Deeds in Pryce, especially as portrayed by Cage, whose intense earnestness has been a sort of cottage industry for the past few decades. There’s no denying that Pryce wants the best for the fishermen and blue-collar workers that compromise the electorate in his predominately African-American precinct: his speeches before the House and to the locals bespeak commitment and conviction far more than carefully planned rhetoric.

While Pryce might have all the best intentions as a political representative, however, it turns out that his personal life is much more of a shambles. The son of an alcoholic, philandering, former mayor who was known as a public mess as much as a civil rights pioneer (Peter Fonda, doing solid support work), Pryce shares a few too many genes with his daddy for comfort: chief being, of course, that he’s currently shtupping Lucy (Ciera Payton), the wife of one of the local fishermen that he’s supposed to be advocating for. Doh! Even better, Pryce is also married (Connie Nielsen, essentially reprising her role from the TV show Boss), which means that the whole situation is a powder-keg just waiting for an appropriate match.

That match ends up coming in the form of one whopper of a political scandal, the fall-out of which promises to thoroughly thrash whatever remains of Pryce’s career. As Pryce scurries around, attempting whatever measure of damage control he can, he finds that his proposed good deeds have become eclipsed by the mountain of negative press that surrounds him. Once “Big Oil” comes sniffing around the mortally-wounded Pryce, will he be able to hold on to what little values he has left or will he sell out the people who believe in him (along with his own soul) in order for one, last desperate chance to stay in the game?

Earnest, focused, deadly serious and, unfortunately, more than a little dull, Stark’s directorial debut (after serving as a producer for several years) doesn’t make a lot of obvious mistakes but also never rises above anything more than a passable time-waster. The story’s beats are overly familiar, by this point, much more capably echoed in TV shows like House of Cards or the aforementioned Boss: in fact, there were so many points during the film’s 90-minute run-time that directly reminded me of not only House of Card’s plot points but also its characters, cinematography and sound design that the film often felt like some sort of indirect homage to the series.

While the infidelity angle comes across as over-heated and melodramatic (Stark lacks the finesse to paint these scenes with anything less than the broadest brush strokes), the political machinations pack a little more punch, even if they’re given rather short shrift overall. Mad Men’s Bryan Batt turns in a great performance as a gently slimy BP executive whose attempts to court Pryce have the subtlety that too much of the rest of the film lacks.

It’s this schism, in the end, that probably does more to harm The Runner than any of the myriad minor issues that plague it: by splitting the focus between the scandal and the political maneuvering, neither aspect is explored to its fullest potential. There are some nice bits involving the apple not falling far from the tree, as far as Fonda’s character is concerned, and some generic “dark night of the soul” stuff from Cage (who pretty much specializes in that) but none of its interesting or novel enough to keep audience attention from wavering.

Ultimately, that’s kind of a shame: buried beneath the stereotypical sex scandal aspect, it’s clear that Stark’s film does, indeed, have something to say. While the story of a well-intentioned, but flawed, politician attempting to atone for his past transgressions is certainly nothing new under the cinematic sun, it’s not like that particular tale ever goes out of fashion, especially during our current political climate.

Craftwise, The Runner does what it needs to do in fairly unspectacular fashion: it looks and sounds fine and the large cast turns out a collection of performances that run the gamut from “getting the job done” (Nielsen, Payton, Wendell Pierce) to “fully invested” (Cage, Fonda, Batt, American Horror Story’s Sarah Paulson). The biggest problem, at the end, is that the whole thing is so predictable that it never subverts, tweaks or upends our expectations: if you’ve seen one film like The Runner you have, quite probably, seen much of what’s being offered here. Even Cage, widely recognized as the “wild card” of mainstream film, turns in the kind of subdued, middle-of-the-road performance that will, undoubtedly, remind one of at least half-a-dozen other, similar performances.

With little individual identity, The Runner manages to go the distance, yet never separates itself from the rest of the pack. We might remember the folks who are the first to cross the finish line…hell, we’ll probably remember the folks who are the last to cross it, too. All the other ones clustered in the middle, however? Just like in real life, it’s kind of hard to tell them apart.

11/11/15 (Part One): Let the Punishment Fit the Crime

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Adam Sliwinski, Andy Thompson, Bernadette Saquibal, Canadian films, cinema, Claudia Morris, co-writers, crime and punishment, Cruel & Unusual, David Richmond-Peck, feature-film debut, film reviews, films, Groundhog Day, husband-wife relationship, independent films, Kyle Cassie, low-budget films, Mark Korven, Mary Black, Merlin Dervisevic, Michael Eklund, Michael John Bateman, Michelle Harrison, Monsour Cataquiz, Movies, multiple writers, repentance, Richard Harmon, sci-fi, science-fiction, writer-director

When it comes to crime, what, exactly, is the most effective form of punishment? Incarceration is obviously a popular option, given the exponential increase of bodies in prisons (at least in the U.S. of A.) but how effective is it really? There’s also execution, of course, with all of the moral quandaries, philosophical issues and inability to correct mistakes that come with that particular path in the woods.

While incarceration and execution can have varying degrees of effectiveness as far as recidivism goes (execution, in particular, makes it difficult for criminals to re-offend unless, of course, they happen to be Horace Pinker), is there actually a form of punishment that could make a criminal truly regret their transgressions? Is there some way to make a murderer feel sorrow for their actions, a way to make a monster realize their own monstrosity?

Writer/director Merlin Dervicevic takes a look at one potential (albeit far-fetched) form of punishment/rehabilitation with the low-budget, Canadian export Cruel & Unusual (2014). In this modest little film (confined to a couple of interior locations and a few exterior locales, with a small cast), Dervicevic and co-writer Claudia Morris posit a scenario that’s part Cube (1997), part Groundhog Day (1993) and never less than engrossing. While Cruel & Unusual is far from a perfect film, it manages to be effortlessly thought-provoking, which is far more important.

When we first meet schlubby, unassuming Edgar (David Richmond-Peck), he seems like the kind of stock, cinematic character who’s only one small step away from a crippling midlife crisis: he frequently argues with his “out-of-his league wife,” Maylon (Bernadette Saquibal), and accuses her of sleeping with his boss; Maylon’s son, Gogan (Monsour Cataquiz), is a holy terror at school and a tremendous discipline problem; and Edgar’s blue-collar brother, Lance (Kyle Cassie), constantly drops by unexpected and seems to show an unhealthy interest in Maylon.

Just when it seems as if we’ve stepped into a particularly depressing domestic drama, however, Cruel & Unusual drops the other shoe: after walking into a room in his house, Edgar emerges in some sort of anonymous-looking facility. He has a strange tattoo on his arm and quickly finds himself in a room full of assorted strangers, sort of like an AA meeting but even grimmer. As Edgar soon discovers, this is some sort of alternate form of punishment: not only has he has been accused of killing Maylon, Edgar is also informed that he, himself, is now dead.

As per the rules of the facility (explicated by literal talking heads on high school AV-type rolling TV carts), Edgar and the other “prisoners” must constantly relive the days of their crimes, bearing witness to their actions over and over until they finally realize the gravity of their sins and are properly repentant. The crimes run the gamut from murder to suicide (those who kill themselves are derogatorily labeled “suies” and looked down upon by everyone else) but the process is the same: face your shame, over and over, until you’re finally “rehabilitated” and allowed to “move on.”

The only problem, of course, is that Edgar didn’t kill Maylon…at least, he doesn’t think he did. As our bespectacled protagonist tries to desperately prove his innocence and escape from the facility, he meets a trio of like-minded fellow prisoners: William (Richard Harmon), who cold-bloodily killed his parents; Julien (Michael Eklund), who drowned his own children during a custody dispute with his ex-wife; and Doris (Michelle Harrison), who hung herself from a tree and let her young children discover her swinging body.

Seeking answers, Edgar repeatedly delves back into that fateful day, replaying the scenario between him and Maylon over and over, trying to get some sense of the truth behind it all. As new layers are unwrapped and new information is learned, however, Edgar will come to understand the terrible truth about the day he and Maylon died, a truth that will either set him free…or damn him forever.

Despite an incredibly familiar set-up and execution, Cruel & Unusual still managed to pull the rug out from underneath me in the final third, making this one of the better, more capable sleepers I’ve seen in some time. Similar to Circle (2015) in that it takes a very basic sci-fi concept and then proceeds to fill in the outlines with some exceptionally thoughtful examinations on morality and humanity, Dervicevic’s film is never particularly flashy, yet still manages to pack a hefty punch.

In fact, I’d go so far as to say that the film’s final reel is not only “quite good” but “damn good,” sending the movie out in the best possible way, with a genuinely emotional, gut-punch of a final revelation/conclusion. Prior to the finale, Cruel & Unusual is undoubtedly well-made, if familiar: the acting is solid, the score is nicely evocative and the cinematography helps to establish the mood quickly and economically. Had the film maintained this level of quality throughout, I’d still have no problem recommending it, albeit more as a pleasant time-waster than anything else. The finale is so smart and impactful, however, that it manages to cast everything that came before it in a different, better light: Cruel & Unusual is proof positive that it (almost) always pays to see a movie through to the bitter end.

With its themes of self-sacrifice, acceptance, repentance and letting go, Dervicevic’s Cruel & Unusual ends up being my favorite kind of modern sci-fi film: smart, subtle, low-key, full of piss and vinegar and ready to take on our preconceived notions of how a polite society really acts. This doesn’t belong in the storied company of recent mindblowers like Automata (2015), Ex Machina (2015) or Circle (2015) but there’s nothing wrong with that, either: they can’t all be headliners, after all, and Cruel & Unusual proves that the openers can be just as interesting and revelatory, in their own ways.