Whuddup, nerds?

I’ve been MIA for about a month and a half. There are a couple of reasons why. 

First, the last Star Wars movie really burnt me the fuck out. At least a dozen people in my life felt attacked by my position on TLJ and like, passionately or aggressively debated their position on the movie with me. Okay, maybe “attacked” wasn’t the qualifier for all of them, but it was still a lot. I have spent what amounts to several hours listening to people making the same arguments, presenting my own complaints, and then having those complaints mischaracterized, or misunderstood, or downplayed. I’ve had someone on a fb movie group I use straight up call me out as “not a real Star Wars fan” on the basis that (in their words), I “only like 2 of them.” The worst part of this: I have disagreed with people on movies before and have been able to see things from their perspective and appreciate their opinion- I literally cannot comprehend how anyone watched TLJ without total disgust, shock and hatred. Not for nothing, but I have some serious issues with feelings of depersonalization and derealization and the fact that 2/3 of the people I’ve discussed this movie with are apparently not living in the same plane of reality as me really fuckin’ freaks me out and makes me feel like I’m going insane. I watched several great 2017 films in the first two weeks of January and have a massive list of movies I’m excited for in 2018, and I have been so freaked out by this TLJ experience that I get actual panic and anxiety when I think about sitting down and talking about my movie feelings. For anyone in my personal life who is pondering a debate on this topic with me, please take this as my polite request to refrain from doing so. For anyone who has already engaged- don’t worry, we cool. We are gonna still talk movies. But I need to redact TLJ from my life for the foreseeable future. Tangible damage has been done. 

Which brings me to the second reason, which is, I have a really appropriate name for my internet presence. I have been effectively immobilized by my level of anxiety for the last three weeks. I can’t totally place the blame on TLJ but... it played its part. It’s not just reviewing, it’s watching movies in general, or trying to read, or working on writing projects that are promisingly close to completion. This has happened before and it will pass, but for now I’m mostly just trying to recuperating my nerve. I do plan on returning to reviewing, and I have lots of plans for video production that I’m extremely excited about experimenting with. I’m feeling pretty good about making more videos talking about movies, and I’m thinking a little beyond that as well. We’ll see what happens. Usually when the weather starts to turn around at the end of the month my inner sweatpants-wearing-bed-dwelling-Gollum-like-poor-unfortunate-soul gets shoved back into its swamp in the back of my brain and shuts the fuck up until next winter. It’s generally safe to plan around this. 

Anyway, we’ll be seeing more of each other very soon. 

SOON.

CAF’s Best of Streaming Recommendations for November 2017!

Netflix decided to not allow me to view my queue from any platform just as I decided to write this up, so any titles I’ve forgotten this time around, I’ll add to the next streaming list I make. Don’t fuck me on this, Netflix. 

“What do you recommend that I can stream?” is a question I get pretty frequently, so I think I’m going to start doing a regular post every couple months featuring things I’ve seen on various streaming services and liked. In this list I’m going to focus on Netflix and Shudder. In future lists I’m going to strive for variety, but this one is going to have a lot of horror and indie... and indie horror!

Misunderstood (Incompresa), 2014 dir. Asia Argento

Where you can find it: Netflix US

I’ve hard a hardcore obsession for Argento’s 2004 film The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things since I saw it over a decade ago, and I’ve both recommended and defended that film to nearly everyone I know with an open mind. An absolutely batshit and disturbing ensemble piece based on the (fake) autobiography of the same name by JT LeRoy, The Heart is Deceitful features a pretty iconic lead performance by Argento as an abusive, white trash, drug addict mother, as well as appearances by Jeremy Renner, Marilyn Manson, Peter Fonda, Winona Ryder, Ben Foster, and Michael Pitt. Two pre-Disney Sprouse twins star opposite Argento as her traumatized son. It’s gritty and daring and shocking as hell. For a first effort, it’s a little sloppy and it does take some effort at disbelief suspension to buy Argento’s portrayal of an American through her Italian accent, but if you can get past that, it’s such a wild trip. Like Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, but about child abuse. 

Misunderstood is Argento’s first full-length directorial effort since The Heart is Deceitful, and she has seriously grown so much as a director between these two films. 

This quirky and engaging film chronicles 9-year-old Aria, a girl growing up in Rome in 1984. Her parents are rich celebrities who are too self-obsessed to properly parent her, and Aria is often left up to her own devices. Charlotte Gainsbourg delivers a great performance as her absent rockstar mother- and speaks perfect Italian throughout much of the film. The film is loosely based on Argento’s own childhood; her real-life father is Dario, the disturbed visionary behind Italian horror classics like Suspiria, Inferno and Tenebre. 

Misunderstood is a darkly memorizing film about girlhood. Argento possesses such an amazing skill for procuring absolutely stellar performances from the child actors in her films, and Giulia Salerno is fantastic as Aria. I hear people singing praises for the child actors in Stranger Things or the new It, and I laugh smugly comparing those performances to Salerno’s in Misunderstood. It’s such a compelling drama; a great foreign language film for people who have a tough time with subtitles. It totally blows Boyhood out of the water as a film about childhood. 

The Eyes of My Mother, 2016 dir. Nicolas Pesce

Where you can find it: Netflix US

If you’re maybe looking for something like The Girl Next Door but classier, The Eyes of My Mother is a prisoner/torture film you can take to dinner at Dorsia. 

Shot in beautiful black-and-white, this is a nice little serial killer making-of that is both grotesque and visually-pleasing. The story follows Francisca, a young girl whose mother, formerly an eye surgeon in Portugal, has fascinated her with vivisection and human anatomy. But this fascination has an unintended consequence when Francisca must cope with senseless tragedy. 

This film has a deliberate pace and convincing performances that seem out-of-place among typical torture-horror. The photography is really lovely, and it confidently supports the bygone era setting that feels like 1950s rural America. 

For such a small film, the writing and performances are impressive. Specifically, I thought the visiting serial killer was profoundly interesting for someone who only appears as a supporting character. I felt a real effort for this film to be respectable and taken seriously, and that isn’t something that I would generally say about other films that cover this topic and material. It’s in the same category as the likes of The Girl Next Door or Hostel and it is just leagues ahead of those films in quality. 

If you like “Fucked Up but Upper Crust” films like Antichrist, Under the Skin or The Witch, this little horror-drama about extreme alienation will be a good fit for you. 

Take Shelter, 2011 dir. Jeff Nichols

Where you can find it: Shudder

I finally got to watch this movie after maybe two or three years of waiting for an opportunity. It’s available on Shudder, which my household recently subscribed to. It’s $5/month (or $4/month if you buy a whole year at once) and has a yuuuge selection of horror movies that is extremely diverse- everything from Battle Royale to Cannibal Holocaust to Beyond the Black Rainbow. Even if you paid $10 for a couple months of it, any horror fan will easily find enough of their catalog to make the investment worth it. I SWEAR THIS IS NOT A PAID ADVERTISEMENT BUT SHUDDER HMU IF YOU WANNA BE MY SUGAR DADDY 

Where was I? Ah yes. Take Shelter is a great drama/psychological horror film that succeeds mainly on Michael Shannon’s jaw-dropping performance. He plays a man plagued by disturbing apocalyptic visions, and he isn’t sure if they’re true prophesies or emerging schizophrenia. It’s an excellent piece on mental illness in rural America. Michael Shannon is quickly becoming one of my favorite actors and I think this may be the best performance of his. I’ve heard Tarantino just finished his script for his Charles Manson movie, and if he doesn’t cast Robert Pattinson in the lead role (dude, just think about it), Michael Shannon is my second pick. The guy is just so genuine and talented. 

I would have liked for the ending to go in a different direction, but I seem to be the only person I’ve talked to with this opinion so take that with a grain of salt. 

Take Shelter has an interesting take on the weird convergence of prophetic conviction and mental illness. I would probably recommend it to fans of We Need to Talk About Kevin, Melancholia, or Jacob’s Ladder. 

The Transfiguration, 2016 dir. Michael O’Shea

Where you can find it: Netflix US

I can’t believe how few people have seen this film! It’s sensational!

This is a vampire movie for people who love gritty indie shit like Gummo or White Girl. It follows a teenage boy who’s absolutely captivated by vampire lore, to a horrifying degree. He’s coping with the recent death of his mother when he meets an equally traumatized teenage outcast, Sophie, whom he drags into his bizarre fantasy world. 

The Transfiguration goes places that horror hasn’t really been gutsy or diversified enough to go, with themes like child murder, 13 or 14-year-old kids dealing with fucked up shit, and inner city violence. Another deliberately paced film, the gritty and realistic tone makes the horror more realistic and shocking when it appears, in the same way that Drive lulls you into a sense of calm before assaulting you with car chases and Christina Hendricks’s fucking head getting blown the fuck off. 

The ending is perfectly ambiguous for a film so tethered to reality. Whereas something like Take Shelter doesn’t leave you wondering whether Michael Shannon’s visions were real apocalyptic prophesies or schizophrenic delusions, The Transfiguration respects you enough to leave you hanging on the final shot. 

This is a surprising film that left me a little damaged and disturbed for a few days. It goes to some very dark places, some that are so generally taboo for horror it’s like having a finger jammed into a wound you didn’t know you had. If the notion of a gritty independent film crossing over effectively into horror excites you, check this one out as soon as you can. 

A Dark Song, 2016 dir. Liam Gavin

Where you can find it: Netflix US

This is a nice little surprise of a horror film that I haven’t seen get much attention. An aggrieved woman and an occultist shut themselves in a creepy house to perform a strict, months-long black ritual. 

A Dark Song conjures up a balanced mixture of psychological horror, haunts and black magic. The two leads far exceed the horror standard and do an excellent job of maintaining the pace for an otherwise subtle and slow-burning film. A healthy amount of human drama between the characters paired with the strong performances makes you care a bit for both of them, which helps immensely to amplify the dread and horror when the movie gets scary. And, thankfully, it is fairly scary!

The only true weakness of this film is an ending that doesn’t quite live up to what my expectations were, but it’s not enough of a failing to subtract from the overall quality of the film. I know a few folks who are into ~~“THE OCCULT”~~ that liked this film quite a bit, and the atmosphere kind of reminds me of The Others, if The Others was a more serious and deliberate film. It’s a surprise in the same way that The Invitation was last year. Highly recommend for most horror fans. 

Hell House LLC, 2015 dir. Stephen Cognetti

Where you can find it: Shudder 

I mentioned this in my Creep 2 review, but I’m very open-minded toward found footage and I think it’s a much better genre than people give it credit for. I’ll make a list or video eventually talking about the ones I think are great, but today I want to recommend this relatively underrated found footage flick from 2015. 

Hell House LLC is starts off with newsreel and cell phone footage documenting a Halloween haunted house tour that ended with the unexplained deaths of 15 people. What follows is the newly discovered footage shot by the tour organizers leading up to the mysterious disaster. 

There are two things I’m looking for with found footage: why they have cameras, and why they continue to shoot when shit gets real. Hell House LLC nails both of these: they have the cameras to both document the set up and to manage the haunted house during operation. They continue to stay and film here because they have an understandable financial commitment keeping them there. Additionally, you get the feeling that these people are used to being around creepy stuff for a living and when you hear them expressing skepticism about the sp0ooo0o0oky things happening, their rationale for sticking around makes sense and is believable. 

The movie is pretty scary! I watched it in the dark with headphones and definitely jumped, shouted, and whipped my headphones off in terror a couple times. It does a good job of using limited light and perspective to make you dread shadows and dark corners. 

The film isn’t quite perfect, and suffers minorly from inexperienced actors, but it wasn’t enough to take me out of the movie. I really liked the concept and I hear a sequel is in production, so you might wanna get in on this. Recommend for fans of Grave Encounters or The Poughkeepsie Tapes. 

Blade Runner 2049, Creep 2, The Foreigner

If you’re wondering where I’ve been, my crippling anxiety and depression have been better managed lately so I’ve been out of my house a lot more, which means I’m not sitting in front of a screen as much, and ultimately that means less time spent writing up reviews and watching films. I’m hoping to post a lot more soon, and have a pretty long video planned for a Netflix series I hate. Don’t worry, it’s not Stranger Things. 

I have THREE movie reviews backed up, so I’ll try to keep this as brief as possible. 

First off, I saw Blade Runner 2049 last month, and I fucking loved it. I’ve been defending this film to the doubters and haters (woah there, Donald Trump) for the last year and a half and boy, do I feel vindicated!

2049 was a god damned masterpiece as far as I’m concerned. If we’ve ever talked at length about movies, then you know I’m ride-or-die for Denis Villeneuve. I’ve seen all of his films except for Maelstrom and they’ve all been, basically, five-star films. In fact, I just watched Incendies for the first time last week and it left me speechless and devastated. I will admit that the events of that particular film are a little beyond belief, but it doesn’t matter. See it if you have the opportunity, it’s well worth the time. 

Villeneuve has produced, probably, one of the best sequels ever made; I would confidently rank it with The Godfather Part II, Empire Strikes Back, and Aliens. 2049 improves on its predecessor in every conceivable way. Whereas the original suffers quite a bit from its pacing issues, 2049′s two hour and forty-three minute runtime felt like it went by in an hour and a half. The philistine troglodytes of the movie community have claimed this movie is slow and boring, but I think they’ve misunderstood the haunting, deliberate, meticulous pace of this film. The film makes a professional effort to present everything as is, for your interpretation, rather than through unnecessary exposition. I’m looking at you, 1982 Blade Runner theatrical cut featuring the most draining and unenthusiastic voice over, maybe ever! To give you an example, the movie clearly takes place in Los Angeles, but the climate is cold, damp and dark like Seattle, and there’s a massive wall along the coast that seems to be holding back the sea. Here we have the effects of climate change, without a single mention of it. It just is. 

Finally. Thank you for treating me like a higher-than-room-temperature-IQ individual, Denis. Love you.

Which brings me to the universe of this new film. It is, in my opinion, completely consistent with the progression of technology of the 1982 film, instead of “adapting” this technology so that it makes sense in the context of our modern technological developments. Any other director might have said, “well hey, the original takes place in 2019, but we don’t have flying cars and our computers are better. We should change the tech for 2049 so it’s more consistent for a modern viewer.” Nope. Blade Runner 2049 looks like it takes place exactly 30 years after the original film. In fact, things seem even more dirty, grimy, and in further disrepair. The world of 2049 has trudged on and has continued on a path of miserable, dystopian decay as a direct and consistent continuation of the original film. In this sense, here is another arena where this film is a significant improvement on the original; the harsh, dystopian reality is magnified beautifully and effectively. 

In this way, 2049 meaningfully expands on this universe. We meet Joi, the digital girlfriend of Ryan Gosling’s detective character. Every scene that incorporates Joi is a poignant and moving statement on the shallowness of technology and our digital interactions in the modern age. Case in point: Gosling gets a new mobile platform for Joi that allows him to take her out of the apartment and enjoy a rainy evening on the roof. This sweet moment between the two characters is shattered when Joi’s program freezes as Gosling receives an incoming call, the projected notification plastered over her. 

I don’t want to go to far into characters and story at the risk of spoiling the magic for those of you who didn’t get a chance to see this one before it was ripped out of theaters, but I do want to say that I thought Gosling’s performance was very good, and the character suits his trademark silent performances that convey feelings with the pursing of lips and the twinkling of eyes rather than forced melodrama. I think Jared Leto was a little over the top, but it was fine in the context of the film. I was on the fence with Robin Wright’s performance for a couple of weeks after seeing this, but for the most part, I liked her and the role her character serves. Everyone was generally good and consistent. And as far as the writing of the characters, it was nice to have a detective character who, you know, actually spends the film investigating shit and solving mysteries. 

The last thing I want to touch on is the music and cinematography. Deakins is well utilized in this film; it is shot beautifully. The visuals and photography are probably the biggest strength of the film, and there’s a perfect and balanced synergy between what the film wants to convey and what the cinematography does to support that. The sound design is incredible and further compliments the visuals. I was surprised and impressed with Hans Zimmer’s score, which takes all the right cues from the Vangelis score from the original and really augments the film’s depressing majesty. Once again, this film improves on its predecessor in every way, and the new score manages to capture the futurism and cyberpunk atmosphere of the original and crank it up to 11 to match the increased level of dystopian despair. I loved that this movie manages to convey this feeling organically, without coming off as forced, and without the entire movie coming off as completely miserable, although the misery is beautiful to watch and hear and feel. And for what it’s worth, I believe the movie has a happy end, albeit bittersweet. 

If you have any interest in seeing this movie, go check the showtimes for theaters near you. I would drive at least an hour out of my way to see this one in a decent theater again. If not, it’s worth the rental fee, at the very least. I will certainly be adding this film to my Blu-ray collection. All things considered, I enjoy this sequel even more than its source material. Denis Villeneuve has an adaptation of Dune coming up and after seeing this film (and, really, the rest of his work), I have high expectations and a lot of anticipation. And hey, Ryan Gosling is a gorgeous man to look at and you don’t need to ask me twice to watch him in all of his brooding glory for three hours. 

★★★★★

I also got a chance to see Creep 2, the highly anticipated follow-up to Mark Duplass’s low-key 2014 found footage flick. I won’t spend too much time analyzing this one, but if you enjoyed the first film, there’s a decent chance you’ll like this sequel. 

While I admit that I think the first film is scarier, this one is smarter and a more interesting watch. It digs a bit deeper into the character of Aaron, the fascinating, bizarre and lonely serial killer from the original. As with its predecessor, Creep 2 meets my found-footage benchmark: a believable reason as to why a camera is present, as well as an acceptable reason as to why the character or characters continue to film. I found Creep 2 to be interesting, weirdly charming, intentionally humorous, and didn’t feel like I was rolling my eyes about the obvious set-up for a continuation of this series. 

I certainly wouldn’t recommend Creep 2 if you haven’t seen the first one (or if you hated it), and if you’re a total nay-sayer on found footage, this one probably isn’t going to change your mind. I am generally pretty accepting of found footage films, appreciate the medium, and think that it can be a much more immersive presentation for horror. About 50-60% of the ones I’ve watched have been scary and enjoyable, and although this one isn’t particularly scary, it’s a satisfying expansion to the first film. I would have liked more horror and scares, but given the context of the film, I can live without them. 

It’s pretty nutty and very awkward, but in a good way. 

★★★ ½

I opted out of predictable trainwrecks like The Snowman and Geostorm these past couple of weeks, and ultimately cancelled my plans to see Suburbicon after seeing the brutal reviews for it. I am truly disappointed considering that movie had literally every reason to be good and managed to, according to critical consensus, eat a massive amount of shit while also managing to be some unpleasant mixture of socially tonedeaf and tactlessly racially insensitive. On that note, I instead saw Jackie Chan’s answer to Death Wish, The Foreigner, which was smartly retitled from the book it was based on. The Chinaman is not gonna fly in 2017, thankfully. Do I thank Trump for this era of heightened racial awareness, or are we actually growing because we’re not such bad humans after all?  

The Foreigner is film about a traumatized old man’s quest for vengeance after his daughter is killed in an IRA terrorist bombing. The strength of this film is the performances delivered by Chan and Brosnan, as well as the action sequences. As mentioned previously, I was reminded of Death Wish, and felt like this film might have been an alternate universe’s answer to the need for a version of Rambo that stars Jackie Chan. Man, I didn’t know how much I wanted a Chan-led Rambo, but here we are! 

This is a pretty dark and gritty film for Chan, and he also displays a range of grief that I can’t say I’ve seen in any of the several dozen other Jackie Chan films I’ve watched over the years. It’s nice to see this kind of change in his long career, and if he decides to embark on an Eastwood or Bronson-esque journey of morally-compromised vengeance and redemption in his old age, I fully endorse it. 

The Foreigner suffers a bit from a pretty standard action-thriller formula, and I think the film would have benefitted from a more consistent tone and tighter writing. That being said, Chan and Brosnan are compelling to watch, and the fight sequences are not only satisfying, but genuinely impressive considering Jackie Chan is a 63-year-old man who has probably broken every bone in his body over his career. 

If you’re a fan of Chan, I’d recommend this one. Otherwise, you may get bored by the political drama. The story is a bit... well, it’s average, but the two leads more than make up for it with their performances and the action sequences help to balance out a movie that might have otherwise been unremarkable. It’s an interesting and unexpected direction for such an established master of physical comedy. 

★★★½

GUEST FEATURE: STRANGER THINGS 2

(This review was contributed by Mark B. If you are interested in becoming a contributing reviewer, drop me a message and we’ll chat. If you’re a friend and are interested in participating in upcoming video reviews, please let me know.)

The recent, much-anticipated release of Stranger Things 2 conflicted me as a viewer, a fan, and an endorser of the "Indie-meets-mainstream" ethos that Netflix claims to have cornered the market on.  Contrary to almost every other global giant in the entertainment industry, Netflix had promised a hands-off approach in their content development, allowing directors and real fans of niche genre to produce compelling, organic love affairs with their subject matter.  It was in this time that Stranger Things was released.

Stranger Things was an unpretentious, genuine nostalgiafest from real 80s movie nerds who aimed not for the gimmicky "80s throwback" references that your brother's frat based theme parties on, but that gorgeous, inspiring sense of wonder and charm that 80s cinema made us feel, which is so frequently missing in modern entertainment.  Stranger Things was perfectly cast and written, using its setting admirably to incorporate just the right amount of campiness to feel like an 80s piece but still be taken seriously as a narrative.  The characters were compelling, developed, and perfectly weaved together a story that, despite being just close enough to 80s prototypes to solicit Goonies and E.T. nostalgia, never felt gimmicky or redundant.  Most importantly, however, it had soul.  The Duffer Brothers had struck a nerve that had been eluding directors for decades by making a throwback series that held its own weight; using its 80s setting perfectly to tell a deep story, to develop distinguished characters, and most importantly, to not feel like a B-movie or a cheap gimmick.  You get the feeling that this might have been what Ghostbusters could have looked and felt like if they had the benefit of modern CGI effect techniques (not to mention the young, energetic cast, all of whom seemed to be born to play their parts).

In the years that have followed since Netflix began producing its own content, sometime after the honeymoon phase had ended, Netflix lost sight of what had made their renaissance so endearing in the first place.  Daredevil evolved from a promising show to one about a bland, blind ninja with a flat personality; complete with forced, cheesy dialogue from most of its supporting cast, writing that was hellbent on attempting, in vain, to make Elektra an important part of the storyline, and saved only by the introduction of the Punisher.  Netflix had turned it's Marvel contract into 4 separate shows, which seemed to clunkily step on each others' toes (with the exception of Luke Cage) and drove the whole arc into a forced team-up series.  They bought up contracts for cancelled or struggling quality shows, for better or worse and it was a fun to catch up with the Sunnyvale crew and the Bluth family, but these were less “Original Programming,” rather only further franchise buy-ups.  Some of the earlier programming was still going strong, but whether it was disappointing follow-up seasons, forced character entrances, or just the sheer volume of shit that they collectively threw against the wall to see what would stick, Netflix seemed to have lost its soul.  Cue Stranger Things 2.

After initially viewing the trailer, I was excited to see how things had progressed in Hawkins, as the original series had left a lot to be answered, and Stranger Things 2 had the potential to be exactly what I was looking for.  The immediate, impulsive, antagonistic side of me was a little worried about the chosen title for season 2- "Stranger Things 2".  It felt like it was immediately treating itself as if it were a sequel film, rather than allowing itself to be a continuation of an already well-established narrative.  Was it a reference to 80s films, which felt entirely comfortable with slapping a numeral on the back of a film title for its later installments without supplementing the title with anything new?  I was conflicted.  I existed somewhere between fanboy and skeptic.  

I was wrong for feeling this way, as I often am.

Stranger Things 2 is a sequel film, and that is a beautiful thing.  The scope of everything; cinematography, story, cast, antagonist, character depth, everything is far larger in scope. The vision for the sequel is unbelievably vast; complete with gorgeous, wide-shot cinematography, two new antagonists that are justifiable and brutal and exist on different planes, and character development and interactions that would have seemed impossible in the first season but work perfectly here.  

The Upside Down is now ruled by a much larger, more menacing creature as experienced only through the often misunderstood eyes of Will and Eleven, until it is much too late for those who cannot see what they do, and Hawkins High is now ruled by a newcomer who is constantly punking and abusing our beloved cast, including dethroning the last installment's antagonist-turned-hero, Steve Harrington.  The Party has a new female inductee, and while she is charming and interesting in her own right, more importantly, she illuminates the jealous characteristics of Eleven as the duality of her vigilant psychic vs. coming-of-age pre-teen hemispheres of personality begins to take hold and develop.  Sean Astin plays a new love interest for Joyce, who is seeking a stable relationship, seemingly due to the trauma that unfolded for her family in season one.  The casting choice here is an interesting one, (Sean Astin being of 'The Goonies' fame), but he quickly establishes himself as an important character in both the storyline and the lives of the Byers family.  His addition doesn't feel forced, and The Goonies references (which I'd assume took some restraint to not go overboard with) are used sparingly, and subtle enough that they feel more like easter eggs than distractions.  Among the many strong points of Stranger Things 2 is the fact that even though everything has grown so much, there is still a quaint, small-town, 80s vibe throughout its entirety.  The growth in scope has not resulted in a loss of detail or a cheapening of character. Despite its lofty vision, the story remains intact and organic.

The storytelling is, again, top notch.  The use of foreshadowing is weaved deeply enough into the fabric of the story as to not render it predictable, but rather to impress repeat viewers.  There is a give and take in their choice to (or not to) satisfy the viewers' obvious desires.  Most notably, the choice to keep Joyce and Hopper from pursuing a romantic relationship- which would have been predictable but may have scored points with the casual viewer.  Instead, Joyce has found love elsewhere, and the dynamic of her relationship is more complicated but ultimately rewarding. It serves as a good contrast with other decisions that are included in the narrative.  Pop culture references are incorporated in naturally throughout the story arc- the right characters are obsessive about the Ghostbusters release, and exchange authentic dialogue about it.  The video games referenced are chronologically relevant and serve as literary devices.  The use of Dungeons and Dragons is both relevant to the story and a clever allegory for it as well.  Character development exceeds expectations, and unlikely character arcs and alliances dominate the storyline.  These are better than I could ever have imagined in both their usage and their actual portrayal by the cast, whose performances were generally impressive and even awe-inspiring. 

  In a market where movies and TV shows are perpetually getting bigger and louder (and simultaneously more sterile and lifeless), Stranger Things 2 shines brightly.  If all is right with the world, it should be the gold standard for sequel seasons of series that have already captured your heart.  It is quintessential "watching a loved one grow up, but stay true to themselves" cinema.  It is bigger, better, more in-depth, but consistent with the first season all the same.  It feels like one of the few Netflix follow-ups to truly meet audience expectations faithfully.  It is easy to fall in love with the entirety of Hawkins, Indiana, because the creators themselves are, too.

LOL

BIG CHANGES!

All, 

Personal friends are already aware but I just wanted to announce that I will very soon be converting my review format to video! No longer will you have to read through four pages of text to hear my thoughts... because you’ll be able to physically hear them and maybe get a laugh out of my goofy voice and face. These videos will (hopefully) have decent production quality, but I’m an amateur so there will be a lot that I learn as I produce them. I will be creating a Youtube account to host these where you will be able to subscribe as well. Look forward to it!

Cheers, 

- fvckmovies

I saw IT.

The time has finally arrived. IT was released to theaters last Friday and so far, it’s broken a lot of records in a time when we’re all talking about a disastrous summer season for theaters (down 7% from the summer of 2016), and pretty piss-poor theater attendance in general. The $35 million dollar film made over $50 million in its first day in theaters and has generated $123 million in its opening weekend. IT can now lay claim to both the largest-ever opening for a horror film and the largest-ever opening for a film released in September. That’s a pretty big deal, but even before viewing the film, I wasn’t surprised by the success. The reputation the IT miniseries has generated over 27 years and the cultural phenomenon it sparked, in my mind, has played the largest role in selling $123 million in tickets. It isn’t the objective quality of the film driving this, but I’ll get to that in a bit.

In terms of millennials and based on my own anecdotal observation, the IT miniseries serves as a lot of people under 30’s first horror movie experience. Usually dad rented the two VHS tapes from Blockbuster because hey, it was on TV, it can’t be too bad. Or someone tuned in on a sick day in elementary school during a re-run. A lot of people in their early 30s and late 20s saw IT between the ages of six and ten, in the prime age for childhood post-traumatic horror movie stress. I would argue that the original IT has claimed the largest number of childhoods out of all horror films, maybe more than The Exorcist, Dawn of the Dead, or The Shining.

Speaking of which, I’m not in the demographic of adults that were scarred by IT as a child. I can’t precisely recall when I first watched it, but I was between 10 and 12 and by then I’d already had my shit wrecked watching The Omen on AMC home alone on a sick day when I was 8. To this day, the moments in the miniseries that spooked me were a few instances of weird practical effects, like the shower scene with the clown parting his way through a drain, but other than that, I came out of it mostly bored. The spider ending was pretty weak even for someone with arachnophobia. While Tim Curry did his best with an absurd premise and he did deliver a memorable performance, it’s hard for me to take the whole thing seriously. It’s a flamboyant, quipping clown, for fuck’s sake. On that note, I’ve never really understood the appeal of Stephen King, to be really frank. You can argue the absolute best adaptation of his work is Kubrick’s The Shining, and King himself has come out and said he dislikes it because of the liberties Kubrick took to make it a watchable, serious film. You can say what you want about that, but I look at that and compare it to King’s work on and praise for the 1997 Mick Garris miniseries adaptation for The Shining, and it’s hard for me to take him seriously. I respect his work ethic, but I don’t find the work itself appealing or compelling most of the time.

It takes some skill to make a cohesive film about an angry, child-murdering, supernatural clown that also can take the form of someone’s worst fear. The miniseries tried, and I think it was a mixed bag. The first half is pretty good and above average from what I would have expected for a TV special in the early 1990s, but the second half is quite disappointing. There are some good scares and quite a bit of effort made in terms of practical SFX, but it definitely suffered from the campy atmosphere and bad acting from the adults. The writing, particularly in part two, was kind of weak. The script wasn’t brilliant, and sometimes it was downright awful. The whole product is pretty cheesy and really didn’t age well. I won’t comment on the book because I read a bit of it in middle school and disliked it enough to put it down, and also because I don’t want to talk about the underage gangbang. FYI really refine your fucking Google search on that one if you’re curious. 

Coming out of the newest incarnation of IT, I think it was about what I expected. The closest comparison I can make is something like The Conjuring- not brilliant, certainly above the average wide-release horror film, but far too reliant on jump scares and sudden noises. And of course, plenty of CG effects to take you right out of the moment.

That’s the first thing I want to talk about with IT. The CG is my biggest complaint. Maybe a couple of years ago I would have said that CG is a foregone conclusion to have a successful, major horror movie, but after Get Out made $252.4 million dollars earlier this year on a $4.5 million budget without any major computer effects, I no longer think that’s a valid excuse. Sure, IT is much more of a spectacle film, but that makes me feel even more disappointed in the pervasive use of CG. A few times, I suppose it was justified, but it largely cheapened the film. There are many sequences with Pennywise rushing the screen that look awful, even laughable in some cases. The woman in the painting was another good example of bad CG being overused. We already know that minimal CG used to augment or distort faces can be great for horror, and a very relevant example I can think of is the very slight facial distortions used for the vampires in the film 30 Days of Night. Special effects were used to slightly narrow faces, to tilt eyes a few degrees; and the effect is a very creepy, almost uncanny valley effect that benefited that particular film greatly. I think something as subtle as skewing a woman’s face would have been more effective than what we saw in IT, which looked like a low-end video game monster. But that brings me to my next point.

This movie has zero subtlety. Yes, a movie about a pun-making killer clown can’t be expected to be a subtle film; that’s not what I’m getting at. Subtlety is a really important aspect of making something scary. IT fell victim to the same plague that most other horror films can’t seem to fight off, and that’s the total lack of subtlety in the scares. I feel like I saw Pennywise at least every five minutes, if not more, and it very much diminished his presence. Instead of being selective when showing him to maximize the dread and tension when he is visible, the movie spends a good chunk of its time and budget showing him off. Even worse, they don’t often make it count. Whereas many of Tim Curry’s Pennywise appearances in the miniseries are very memorable and stand out well, there were 3 instances where they let Bill Skarsgård do his thing: once at the very beginning, once in the middle of the film when Bill, Richie and Eddie enter the wellhouse for the first time, and at the very end of the film when they vanquish him back into the well. I think that the vast majority of Pennywise’s appearances outside of those three were meaningless and only served to desensitize viewers to the scare he would otherwise be able to generate. It was like they crammed 4 hours worth of Pennywise appearances into half the time. I feel that the film offered Skarsgård very few opportunities to carve his own path and make his performance iconic and memorable, and that’s pretty unfortunate. I think he is more than capable of delivering a good performance without being smothered with a disorienting kaleidescope of bad and unnecessary CG. He shows up so often, and yet it felt like Skarsgård had so little time to make it count.

On the note of subtlety, we need to talk about jump scares, and what makes a good jump scare and what makes a bad one. Jump scares are not inherently bad in horror films, but they are often overused and they’re almost always sloppy. A really good example of a perfect, organic jump scare can be found in the first fifteen minutes of the film Suspiria. Don’t call me a snob, there’s a reason why it has its reputation. We see a frightened young woman standing near a large, dark window. The Goblin score is hammering away and giving you a bizarre anxiety about what is about to happen. She looks out the window into the darkness, like she’s certain something has to be hiding in it. And it makes sense, because minutes earlier she’s running for her life through the woods and you’re still wondering what she was fleeing from. She lifts a lamp to the window, and we look into the darkness, and a pair of yellow bulging eyes appear with a subtle invocation from the Goblin score. The music then quiets, the shot pulls away, and suddenly a hairy arm smashes through the glass and grabs her head. The movie has already spent several minutes generating tension between the images and the score, and when the jump scare happens there is no added audio effects to augment what is already there. We have the sound of breaking glass and the woman’s screaming to do that already. Often times everything a film needs to generate a jump scare is already present, but all too often, directors don’t make the effort to cultivate the atmosphere to precipitate an organic jump scare. The audience is constantly cued into expecting one due to the framing of the scene, and they add unnecessary effects like loud, sudden noises to make you jump anyway. It’s a huge cop out! You can actually see a real example of this right in the IT teaser, and they kept in the movie. I think it’s enough to see Pennywise’s glowing eyes appear in the darkness of the sewer as Georgie tries to retrieve his boat, but in the teasers, they’ve added a loud noise like you’re too stupid to know when to be scared. It’s so unneeded, and lazy, and it was all over the film. Every time something spooky was about to happen, you fully expected it, and they threw in a loud clattering noise to scare you so that they wouldn’t have to try harder to generate tension or anxiety or to truly take you by surprise. I fully expected this from a major studio horror film but was surprised by how heavily IT relied on this low hanging fruit.

The writing was pretty uneven, but when it was good it was great, and the comedic timing worked well. However, it seems like Finn Wolfhard and Jack Dylan Grazer’s lines had all the effort put into them, but everyone else was pretty unmemorable. If the other kids are great actors, it wasn’t always easy to see. There’s a moment when Mike says something along the lines of “Guess I really am just an outsider” as his excuse for leaving the group, and it was so out-of-place and dumb. I hated the scene with Beverly cutting her hair and saying “this is what you did!” Speaking of whom, Sophia Lillis was pretty terrible and often felt extremely ingenuine when delivering her lines. Most of the other kids were alright, but not great. My bar for great child performances in horror movies has been set by films like The Innocents and more recently The Witch, so maybe I’m asking too much. But I went into this movie hearing all this buzz about how the strongest part of the film is the kids, and I’m just not seeing it. Do not even get me started on Nicholas Hamilton, who played Henry the bully. I could not stop rolling my eyes.

If anything about IT impressed me, I respected its willingness to show child dismemberment and death. It certainly was surprising when it happened and I am always talking about how the last frontiers of horror are showing kids being murdered and child molestation, and this movie covered both of those things. Kudos for being daring, and kudos for doing an R-rated film horror film, especially when big studio horror always goes for a PG-13 to get that sweet, sweet middle-schooler and teenager money. I think that Bill Skarsgård tries very hard with the opportunities he’s afforded, and I appreciate that he tried to do something different than what Tim Curry did. I’m not sure if I liked the cutesy-ness incorporated into of some of that approach, but he tried, and it shows. Two of the child actors (mentioned above) were great and charming, and I really wish that the casting was more consistent. I like that it didn’t try to cram the adult storyline into the run time and as much as I’ve disliked this film, it’s probably a good idea to have a sequel for the rest.

But I think that’s it for what I enjoyed. Maybe I’m jaded and maybe I’ve watched too many horror films, but IT felt like a totally unnecessary venture. I think that most of the positive reviews are 1) reviewers that are used to seeing mostly garbage low-effort horror blockbusters and 2) people that are huge fans of the miniseries or book and were happy to see it get a facelift. That’s the only way I can explain the buzz to myself. I don’t recall being scared at any point other than being afraid I was going to see a 15-year-old’s character get raped by her pervy dad. I think if you’re a big IT or Stephen King fan, or you’re not a prolific horror movie consumer, you’ll probably have a fine time watching this film. If you’re a horror snob, or hold your horror to reasonable standards, there’s a good chance you’re gonna have a bad time. I’ve seen a lot of great, effective horror movies in the last couple of years, and literally all of them cost $2-5 million to make and had little or no CGI. I really wanted to enjoy this movie and I did get myself excited to see it, but having slept on it for a night I’m baffled by the positive reviews. I wish I had enjoyed it more. IT isn’t brave enough to do anything outside of an extremely conventional, predictable approach, and unfortunately for this viewer, slightly above average writing with expensive production quality does not make a great horror film.

★★ ½

Special Feature: Good Time and Heaven Knows What

This is a LONG overdue review I’ve been meaning to write. Well, rather, it is overdue in that I’ve been trying to see this movie for the last two weeks. I actually rushed home from the theater because I couldn’t wait to start talking about it. 

Unfortunately, I seem to be the only person in my network of Facebook friends who has watched Good Time, and I’m one of two other people I know who have watched the Safdies’ previous film Heaven Knows What. Both of those facts are a travesty. An absolute affront to humanity. Because I adore both of these films.

Let me start with Ben and Josh Safdie’s 2014 film, Heaven Knows What, which popped up a couple of years ago on Netflix. The legend behind this movie is that Josh Safdie met Arielle Holmes, who stars in the film and whose writings about her life were adapted into the film’s screenplay, while he was doing research for another film about the Diamond District in NYC. Something sparked Josh Safdie’s interest and Holmes agreed to meet with him on several occasions. When they spoke at a cheap Chinese restaurant, Holmes frankly detailed her life as a homeless heroin addict, now working as a dominatrix. Intrigued, Safdie began paying her to write her story. The full backstory of this movie is really interesting and kind of inspiring, and can be read here: http://www.vulture.com/2015/05/arielle-holmes-heaven-knows-what.html

Heaven Knows What details the life of Harley, a homeless NYC heroin addict played authentically by Holmes, and her real-life sociopathic addict boyfriend, who is portrayed convincingly by Caleb Landry Jones. The film is so credible, pure, organic voyeurism into the dramatic lives of addicts. The actors and actresses don’t feel like people playing roles, but rather real humans who are the subject of a documentary (and I suspect at least a few of the people in the film are actual addicts or are legitimately homeless). It feels like being at one of those parties where you suddenly realize, “I really shouldn’t be hanging out here with these people.” Heaven Knows What feels so real, and naturally broadcasts powerful vibes of hopelessness and destroyed lives that sticks in your head like death anxiety. As someone who frequently watches downward spiral drug and addiction cinema, this is part and parcel the most realistic, poignant, powerful film about drug addiction I think I’ve ever seen. 

Another interesting and kind of loosely related anecdote I have about this film: I instantly recognized NYC horrorcore rap artist Necro in this movie from a set he played at a 2007 Sounds of the Underground tour date I attended. The reason why I remembered him was because he was a rapper that showed up at a deathcore event who left after a couple songs when the audience turned into a sea of middle fingers and flying bottles and trash. While I won’t comment on his skills as a musical artist, it was very surprising to see that he could act well and I’d be happy to see him show up in another Safdie venture if it’s in the cards.

Heaven Knows What haunted me for weeks after I watched it. While the movie speaks for itself, learning about the film really contributed to its captivating, disturbing effect. While the real-life Ilya passed away from an overdose in 2015 after attending the premiere of the film, Holmes was able to attend a rehabilitation clinic on the Safdies’ dime after filming was completed and she has since added two additional acting credits to her name, including last year’s American Honey. It’s made me a fan of Caleb Landry Jones’s shtick that many people seem to be viscerally repulsed by. The film also gets a lot of credit from me for featuring the electronic music of Isao Tomita. It’s an ambitious movie that appeals to the basest instincts of fans of Larry Clark, and Harmony Korine’s earlier films. However, whereas Kids had moments of feeling like actors playing troubled kids, Heaven Knows What feels like you’re watching the disaster lives of actual troubled kids... because that’s exactly what you’re watching. It’s mainlined, freebased, fully pure drug cinema as it’s most raw. The more I think on it, the more I realize that I have no real complaints about it. If you can stomach it, I highly recommend that you check it out. I’ve watched this hypnotic, immersive horror movie three times now and I am more impressed and terrorized with each subsequent viewing.  

★ ★ ★ ★ ★ 

On that note, I think it’s clear why I was excited about Good Time. I finally got to a theater to see it this afternoon for a solo viewing, and I am so thankful that I was able to get the theater experience. 

Good Time is about small-time criminal Connie Nikas (Robert Pattinson) who involves his developmentally challenged brother Nick (director Ben Safdie) in a bank robbery that goes catastrophically wrong. Connie evades the police, but Nick is caught and sent to prison, where he is brutally beaten and ends up hospitalized. The film is about Connie’s attempt to break his brother out of the hospital, and the ensuing chaos and ruined lives he seems to leave everywhere he goes. 

This film perfected what Heaven Knows What excelled at, and improved significantly on the things from which the previous film suffered. It still feels like a voyeuristic, graphically personal survey of the lives of society’s castaways, but this time we have professional actors like Pattinson and Jennifer Jason Leigh participating and it seems like the Safdies are equally capable at directing pros as they are with amateurs and non-actors. Pattinson erased all the Twilight cringe compilations stored in my brain within 20 minutes, delivering a really unexpectedly great performance in a role that is pretty counterintuitive to the roles he tends to get pigeonholed into. Buddy Duress returns as a excess-addicted parolee, after serving real time in jail for drug-related charges after the filming of Heaven Knows What was completed. Also featured is first-time actress Taliah Webster, who impressed me as Crystal, a “16-year-old” who gets swept up into the storm of bullshit Pattinson spends the duration of the film orchestrating. 

While it’s not a conventional “good time,” Good Time is brilliantly written, and it’s consistently engrossing. There’s not one dull moment; not a single second of wasted time in an hour and forty minutes. The shots are claustrophobic and the film is incredibly loud, which really ramps up the frenzied atmosphere. While it maintains a pretty dramatic atmosphere, there’s a balance of humor that makes sense and doesn’t cheapen the rest of the film. The electronic soundtrack fits well, especially with the quick and startling pace of events. What I really appreciated most about it was the end, which was surprisingly bittersweet and touching for such a dark and generally miserable film. Connie may seem like a troubled but caring older brother desperate to get Nick out of trouble he doesn’t deserve, but the film does well to show you that Connie is more inclined to keep himself out of trouble but compulsively causes it and leaves a trail of broken (or dead) people effortlessly. He’s a destructive, manipulative criminal and Good Time makes sure that you understand that. 

I know there is a bit of a stigma against the non-disabled playing those with special needs, but I think the identity politics argument has no place in this film. I don’t believe Ben Safdie’s portrayal of Nick was distasteful- in fact, I think it would be fair to say that it’s one of the most respectful performances of a person with a mental disability by someone without one. It feels pretty pure, and it didn’t bother me in the least. Whereas performances from the likes Forrest Gump, I Am Sam or Gilbert Grape can be kind of obvious and condescending (and laughable, at worst), I don’t think that can be remotely said about this movie. Safdie is both compelling and convincing in ways I haven’t really seen before. I can see why some people were frustrated with tight shots that rarely lingered on the background and remained hyper-focused on the characters, but this was no mistake. It was done with full agency and it matters; it makes a dramatic difference in this film, and it works. I walked out of Good Time thinking it might be the best film I’ve seen this year and I think anyone who can’t make it out to a theater to see it is poorer for it. It won’t appeal to everyone- the young woman and her mother who looked like Twilight fans sitting in front of me left with whiplash, looking shocked and lost after seeing such a loaded piece of cinema. Nevertheless, please try to get out and view it and do expect to see this title featured in my year’s end Best of 2017 list. I’m looking forward to more films from Ben and Josh Safdie. I think they have a keen eye for drama and realism, and it makes their films feel like documentaries that leave you feeling like you just railed a line of pure cinema. 

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Quick Update: Atomic Blonde and What Happened to Monday?

I finally got out to the theater to watch Atomic Blonde to put a small dent in the mountain of movies I want to review this summer. While it wasn’t a mindblowing or particularly spectacular piece of film-making, I thought it was pretty enjoyable and had a few things that were done really well. 

Firstly and most importantly, the soundtrack to this movie is excellent and very appropriate. The movie takes place shortly before the fall of the Berlin Wall, so it’s loaded with great 80s hits from the likes of Til Tuesday and New Order. I would have liked to see a lot more of the whole East Berlin music scene, but what was featured was pretty enjoyable. The music pairs well with the film and greatly enhances several scenes. 

Another aspect that I found impressive were the fight scenes and how they were photographed. I read that Charlize Theron does most (if not all) of her own stunts in Atomic Blonde. It’s kind of refreshing to see a decent action movie with a female lead with good stunts and impactful fighting. This was accentuated by competent fight coordination and cinematography. The film doesn’t suffer from the quick-cut, muddled, blurry action sequences that plague many modern American action films. The fights look great and fairly realistic and easy to visually process and follow. 

I had a few minor complaints. I really would have liked more fight scenes, and I was a bit disappointed that Charlize Theron’s heroine never really went head-to-head with James McAvoy’s jacked up anti-hero character, when it seemed like that’s what the film was ultimately building up to. I think that the writing felt a bit weak; I don’t recall appreciating any particularly brilliant lines or jokes being delivered, and I feel like when it tried to be funny, it came out a little bland. However, the comedic timing present in some of the action sequences compensates for this and helps keep the film a little more balanced and pace-driven. 

Atomic Blonde is above average for an R-rated action flick, and while the twist at the end feels a little convoluted and I would have appreciated a stronger script, it doesn’t damage the rest of the film to a large degree. It looks good and sounds even better. After Valerian, it was pretty refreshing to watch something in which the production doesn’t scream, “THIS WAS PRODUCED SPECIFICALLY FOR A CHINESE RELEASE.”

★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

A few months ago a trailer for the film What Happened to Monday was released, and I made a note of it to watch for later. While it looked like pretty standard dystopian sci-fi action flick, I like Noomi Rapace and want her to succeed, especially after being so disappointed about her absence in Alien: Covenant. The trailer was throwing off some Snowpiercer vibes, so I had a little bit of interest and optimism. Much to my surprise, I noticed the film had just been added to Netflix last night with basically zero buzz. I should have taken some caution from that. 

What Happened to Monday, or Seven Sisters when the film is released internationally, is basically about a dystopian future where the human population is increasing by 4 million people every 24 hours because GMOs caused women to give birth to a freakish increase of multiples, which started to strain resources and complicate climate change. This caused society to institute a 1-child policy, and any additional children are cryogenically frozen for a thousand years until the population balances out. The film centers around septuplet sisters who were raised by their uncle, played by Willem Dafoe. He names them after the days of the week, and they work out a schedule where one of them goes out on the day of the week that corresponds with their name and they just pretend to be one person under a single identity. The premise is absurd. 

This was not a good film. Other than some very competent visual effects, and a fairly impressive effort made on Noomi Rapace’s part to play seven characters with distinct personalities, this movie was a bewildering experience. My main issue is the writing, which turns the event of screening this film into a 2 hour 7 minute question session. 

If the problem is multiple births and not that people are having too many separate pregnancies, why didn’t they just start selectively terminating excess zygotes? If they saw the correlation, why didn’t they just stop using that particular type of GMO? Wouldn’t it make more sense to let only one of the daughters leave the house with an external identity and let the others stay at home? How has no one seen 7 identical children through the window or heard 8 kids stomping in a top-floor apartment at any point in time? Would septuplets really all share the same exact identical retinas on a retinal scan? Why didn’t they plan for a contingency where one of them has an accident or dies when it’s their day to leave the house? Why does it take the government like almost an entire day to send a SWAT team to kill them after the first team fails? How do these SWAT guys always manage to shoot literally everyone else other than the fleeing sister? Why the fuck is this sex scene happening? Why would Monday throw all of her sisters that she’s known her whole life under the bus for 2 fetuses she’s never met? 

(Pictured above: me running the fuck away from this dumpster fire film)

That’s what watching What Happened to Monday is like. It’s unreal. It immediately made sense why I saw literally no promotional material for the film’s release to Netflix streaming. It is a ridiculous movie with a ridiculous premise that has already been addressed by better films and books. If I’ve gained anything from this disaster of a viewing experience, it’s that we truly are living in the darkest possible timeline where Noomi Rapace doesn’t get her Alien franchise and ends up getting screwed with terrible, embarrassing direct-to-VOD projects. This is what Alex Jones’s fever dreams look like, and it’s horrible.  

★ ½ ☆ ☆ ☆

Quick Update: I saw Okja

Hey guys! You may have noticed Joon-ho Bong (director of Snowpiercer) has a new movie out available for streaming through Netflix, called Okja. 

It was the first movie I got to watch in high definition with my new glasses, and it was a great choice... in that sense! Okja features some really fantastic, hyper-realistic CGI effects that I found to be extremely impressive compared to its contemporaries. Whereas a lot of CG looks like it isn’t tactile and doesn’t correctly interact with the live action elements in a realistic way, the CG “super pig” in Okja is incredibly tangible and rendered in a very thoughtful way. You see Okja’s body parts brush the hair on Seo-Hyun Ahn’s head, or ruffle trees and bushes in an extremely believable way. In addition to some really spectacular CG, the film is shot quite well and is (generally) very pleasing to the eye with both bright colors and gorgeous deep blacks and shadows. 

I was a big fan of the ensemble cast. I thought the leading lady was very charming and believable, and everyone else was consistently good. Tilda was wonderful as always (and playing a dual role!), I was excited to see Giancarlo Esposito outside of my Breaking Bad experience, Jake Gyllenhaal was effectively cartoonish and repulsive as TV zoologist. 

Before I get into the meat and potatoes (I’m so fucking sorry), I have two warnings: 1) it’s best if you see this one without too much prior research, BUT 2) I can’t think of a title more deserving of a CONTENT WARNING for animal cruelty than this one, and I’ve seen Cannibal Holocaust, White God, and PETA slaughterhouse footage. I’ll be happy to explain. 

Okja is basically, at its core, weaponized vegan propaganda- and before you dismiss me or the film outright on that basis, I mean that in the best way possible! It’s a viciously effective film. The director does a fantastic job establishing the fictitious animal for which the film is named as a feeling, thinking, loving creature that has all of the same kinds of behaviors as your dog or cat, and he goes even further to make it very clear to you that Okja is evolutionary leagues ahead of dogs and cats in its emotional development. This is something that is apparent throughout the film but completely cemented in the last seconds of the movie. You see all of this, knowing that the animal is bred en masse for meat production. And the really deceptive thing about this film is that other than a few scattered f-bombs during the first half, it feels like a whimsical- albeit dark- children’s film. It’s funny and charming and sentimental. Then about halfway through, it takes a really dark turn. It involves a super pig raping another super pig, and it’s traumatically awful. There’s animal torture that is quite prolonged. And just when you think that the movie can’t get more dark and upsetting, it turns that knob up to 11 and you will see things that you will wish you could un-see. Often I found myself mortified or upset in an incredibly traumatic and visceral way, particularly during the slaughterhouse sequence near the conclusion. I was in shock by the end of the film, and my husband weeped and had to be consoled for some time after it was over. And obviously I couldn’t tell him, “Shhh, it’ll be okay, it’s not real,” because any given second there are hundreds and thousands of pigs, cows and chickens living miserably and meeting gruesome ends to be delivered formless and unrecognizable to our dinner tables around the world. It was incredibly graphic and upsetting. If you are the type of person who is teetering on the edge of going meatless and you’re looking for something to push you over the cliff, I think watching this movie will do the trick for you. Even if you’re quite secure in your chosen role as an omnivore, you are probably not going to feel great after watching this. If you’re a vegetarian or a vegan I think this is going to be a really depressing and difficult thing to sit through. And all of this horror and vile abuse is directed toward a CG animal that isn’t real. It’s that effective, and I find that brilliant. The movie does an excellent job convincing you of the animal’s authenticity with the dazzling special effects and convincing you of the animal’s capacity and emotional depth, and does so with the specific intention of having the last half of the film tear you up on the inside like nothing else. I said this after it was over, and it bears repeating: Okja has its “I ate babies” moment- and that’s nearly (at least) a quarter to a third of the film instead of a quick revelation as seen in Snowpiercer. This movie was brutal.

I don’t know if this will ultimately push me into a lifestyle free of all animal products (although I’m already very much aligned with it in many ways), but it’s been about a week since I watched it and I haven’t looked at the meat in my freezer the same way since. I don’t think I’ve looked at my cats the same way since. It’s a difficult viewing experience, but I felt entirely enriched by it. I am beguiled by movies that are able to evoke a powerful emotional reaction from me- movies that make me sick (Irreversible), movies that shock me (To Live and Die in LA), movies that make me feel like I’ve been mentally molested and traumatized (Mysterious Skin). If a stranger can tap into the dark places in my mind and really make me feel something, even if it was something horrible, I will always leave impressed- and I was incredibly impressed by the raw power of this film. While I’m not sure I will ever feel comfortable watching it again, I highly recommend Okja. But only if you think you can handle it, because you won’t come out without a few choice sounds, images and feelings burned into your grey matter. 

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

I saw Valerian.

If you’ve ever spoken to me at length about movies, there’s a good chance my thoughts on “headache cinema” have come up. It’s an umbrella term I’ve come up with that encompasses the deluge of loud, obnoxious, brainless, neutered, hundred-million-dollar-budgeted trashfests that are destroying theater culture as we know it. I’m talking about the Disney’s Marvel franchises, the post-Matrix Wachowski migraines, the Transformers films- head-exploding visual fuckfests that leave the average adult feeling like they’ve crawled out some hellscape version of a McDonald’s play palace birthday party. This brand of film is easily my least enjoyed and most disliked. The vast majority of the time these movies are castrated down to a PG-13- or worse, a PG!, they’ve got bloated budgets, dumb plotlines, stupid dialog, and best of all: punching, loud noises, explosions, TOTAL SENSORY OVERLOAD. 

For many years I have hated superhero movies and glazed over at Hollywood’s air-horn retreads of movies like Clash of the Titans and Independence Day: Resurgence and the recent Ghost in the Shell mishap. I hate movies like this and I find them at least majorly to blame for the death of the hard R-rated action flick. There are exceptions to the formula, like Mad Max: Fury Road, the 2014 Godzilla, and Dredd, but generally speaking, they’re unwatchable. I will be the first to admit that I’m not a big fan of whimsy, but I will be happy to defend my position on this. Giant blockbuster action movies are generally dumb and boring if you’ve got more than two brain cells to rub together. I do try to balance my feelings about people who like brain-dead, ham-fisted, infantile PG-13 sci-fi action movies with my penchant for unrepentantly trashy, low-brow 70s and 80s exploitation horror films. I know for a fact that there’s a certain segment of cinema elitists who would see my interest in that subgenre as an undeniable sign of being a philistine troglodyte, which slightly tempers my extreme prejudicial judgment of those who love headache cinema. 

I can pick up the hanging thread to unravel this tapestry. It’ll lead you through all of the recent loud crashing DC fiascos and the rainbow of annoying apocalypse and disaster films and CG shitshows. Once you hit the Star Wars prequels, you’re getting close. But the film that started all of this hatred is Luc Besson’s The Fifth Element, easily in my top five most despised films of all time (that’s a list for another day!). 

It feels a little bizarre for me to say that I hate Luc Besson. Léon: The Professional is one of my favorite films of all time, and easily my favorite film of 1994. But aside from that and 1990′s La Femme Nikita, I find Besson wholly intolerable. His movies tend toward obnxious, incomprehensible, overwhelming, anxiety-inducing horse shit. And while many people are happy to agree with me, it seems no one outside of myself is willing to slaughter the sacred cow that is The Fifth Element. Some see a sci-fi fantasy classic, I proffer that it’s a grotesque panacea of ADHD, loud noises and cringey acting. To Besson’s credit, most of the time his films don’t take themselves seriously, and that’s fine. But The Fifth Element is the first film in my memory where I felt literally assaulted and invaded by the unfettered gaudy head-spinning madness of big, loud, overwhelming movies. My level of general calmness could be compared to a that of a frightened rabbit with combat shock, so I try to be cognizant that this dislike has less to do with objective quality and more to do with my personal preferences and tolerance levels. Let’s be real- I’m a person with severe, crippling anxiety. Headache cinema is not made for me. 

That being said, I saw the trailers for Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets, and I immediately started getting Vietnam flashbacks of Chris Tucker in a wig and leopard print jumping out of my television and screaming into my face. My significant other has a much more relaxed attitude toward these things and a seemingly endless well of patience for Luc Besson, so I had a feeling I was going to end up seeing this film in theaters and I started mentally preparing for it. And I’m really glad that I did all that emotional gestation, because I found Valerian to be surprisingly tolerable, aside from being a chaotic discombobulation of ideas that all generally have the potential to be good but fail because Luc Besson must have the attention span of a squirrel. And squirrels plant trees because they literally can’t remember where they’ve left their nuts. I couldn’t dream of a better summation of why Luc Besson turns nearly everything he touches into abject shit.

Valerian is essentially a very straight-forward narrative about a couple of federal agents (?) in space (???) who uncover a conspiracy involving a group of displaced aliens. They spend the film unraveling a mystery surrounding an enigmatic void in the middle of a space ship (?) or man-made planet (???) that contains thousands of different species from throughout the universe that live in surprising harmony. The alien refugees and the void on the ship or planet are related, you will later find. 

That’s basically it. It’s a simple storyline with simple elements like “war is bad” and “the powerful oppress the powerless” and “love is universal and always wins.” If you dig down past all of the color and noise and distraction, that’s the basic bedrock. I think I was expecting this movie to be a convoluted mess, and to a great extent it absolutely was. But I wouldn’t say that the story was the weakest part of the film. 

What did some substantial damage was the acting and dialog. The two leads had no chemistry and the actor playing the title character (Dane DeHaan) had a stunning drought of charisma. I think that his opposite, Cara Delevingne, has the potential to be a fun leading lady, but she never had a chance in this movie. The love angle was hackneyed and totally unnecessary to the point that the film would have fared much better if Valerian and Laureline were friends instead of a ~~will they or won’t they???~~ couple. I thought it was insulting to my sensibilities, and that sucks since the romance thing was such an ingrained aspect of the movie. I couldn’t tell if they were even in a relationship with each other or if Valerian had puppy love and Laureline has simply spent their entire careers fighting off his advances only to reluctantly agree to marry him after the film’s climax. This film could have really used a competent screen writer. I think I even could have lived with some of the eye-rollingly dumb but baseline-acceptable dialog you hear in Disney’s© Marvel™ Avengers Part 2: Electric Boogaloo. The villain (played by Clive Owen) was such a stupid caricature of literally everything that is wrong with Bad Guys in major American cinema- instantly hate-able, predictable, no angle or point of sympathy, stupid rationale for his actions-type of shit. And what’s really frustrating is that the Owen’s villain had a completely rational and utilitarian motive for his actions. But that gets torpedoed by the giant flashing neon signs that say “HE’S THE BAD GUY” and “EVIL PIECE OF SHIT” hanging over his head in every scene he’s featured in. It absolutely felt like the characters were totally empty and needed to be reworked from the ground up. I even thought Rihanna’s character had more depth than either Valerian or Laureline. Valerian’s a by-the-books soldier with a heart of gold? Could have fooled me! Laureline’s a toughgirl with a penchant for violent overreaction but still maintains a balanced moral compass? Hard to see through the horse shit nonsense they wrote for her. Character development and the script were both a total, unmitigated disaster.  

Another thing that I think the film failed at was building tension. Everything felt a little too whimsical and inconsequential. In the beginning, a bus full of mercenaries (?) is attacked by a violent hexapedal alien and Valerian and Laureline watch all of them die savagely with nothing more than a smirking “glad we made it outta that scrape!” reaction. It never really feels like they’re in any danger or that there’s any emotional peak or valley for the characters, with maybe a single, small exception. You watch a lot of people get shot to death and even a head get blown clean off and another cut right in half, but it all seems so cartoonish and trivial that you can’t help but feel like nothing really matters and it’s all just a low-stakes video game. 

But I don’t want to give you the impression that this movie is a complete trainwreck (it tries, believe me). There were things that I liked and appreciated. The visuals and alien designs were inventive and there was never really a moment where you couldn’t get lost in the scene. It kind of felt like Rick and Morty without the nihilism and good writing. Everything was very colorful, the universe felt very inhabited. Around halfway through, Valerian and Laureline have an almost brilliant run in with a species of giant food-obsessed frogs (I actually went through the trouble of looking it up; they’re called Boulan-Bathors) and I found the whole scenario to be kind of charming and cute. I didn’t really mind Rihanna’s cameo. The refugee aliens, the Pearls, were cool and appealing in the same translucent way as the Engineers of Prometheus. While I definitely felt some Avatar vibes, the whole opalescent, iridescent aesthetic was visually pleasing and I really liked the semi-androgynous thing they had going on. 

I think the strongest part of this film is the first several minutes that lays out Earth’s journey into space. It was beautiful and touching and enough to make you feel really depressed about the state of our space exploration programs and the hopelessness and polarization of our world affairs. I would liked to have seen more of a thematic connection to the introduction because it felt extremely dissonant with the rest of the movie, which, by comparison, is hard to feel particularly emotional about. If you’re not planning on seeing Valerian, I would at least recommend watching the first few minutes. If the movie had come full circle to it, you can see how it could have been brilliant. 

Overall, Valerian is kind of a giant mess, and by all means I should have absolutely hated it, because it is textbook headache cinema. I think that there was a wide dearth of missed opportunities with the material, and with a more competent screenwriter, a better cast, and maybe someone else in the director’s seat, we’d be talking about a viable start to a franchise. But too often Valerian ties its own shoelaces together and eats shit and expects us to be engrossed and entertained. The relationship between Valerian and Laureline- both as a friendship, coworkership and romance- either needed to be reengineered from the ground up or scrapped entirely. I think Dane DeHaan was totally wrong for the part of Valerian and I could see this movie succeeding in more ways had someone with more charisma been the leading man. Valerian desperately needed some tension, and the total absence of crisis or consequence left an unbridgeable emotional void. It’s beautiful- but it’s a mess, and that seems to be Luc Besson’s calling card. I doubt we’ll ever see another Léon, but if Besson’s next film is as much of an improvement on Valerian as Valerian was on Lucy, then we might have the potential to see something really special. And maybe in five to eight years when everyone has forgotten about this spectacle, we’ll get a decent reboot for the Valerian material. 

★ ★ ½

Hey all! I promise I haven’t abandoned this review blog; just a mixture of being really busy and quite sick. I’m not sure when I’m going to be getting out to the movies next, but my spouse is very interested in the new Luc Besson movie, so it’s likely you can expect a review for that in the next couple of weeks. I’m not sure how that one’s going to go over with me taking these factors into consideration: - I usually hate big, loud, PG-13 sci-fi action movies  - I fucking hate The Fifth Element But also: - Léon: The Professional is one of my favorite films and certainly the best film of 1994

So we’ll see how that goes. I’m also kicking my own ass trying to go to The Beguiled... I’m not expecting an Oscar-winner, I’m just in love with Nicole Kidman. 

That’s basically all I got. Stay tuned. 

I saw It Comes At Night

It Comes At Night has been in theaters, at the time of this writing, for about two days, and already it seems to be the most polarizing film of the year thus far. I’m sure anybody who saw the way it was marketed and then watched the film can understand why. I decidedly only watched the initial teaser trailer for this movie, didn’t read about it on the internet other than that Joel Edgerton would be the lead and Trey Edward Shults would be directing. This is, in part, because I did that recently with The Void, and I’m really thankful for it, and I’m trying to make a bigger effort to continue to go into things blind with few or no expectations. 

If you haven’t seen Joel Edgerton’s other fling with the “horror but not like horror horror” genre, The Gift, I highly recommend you do so now. Another film I saw in theaters without seeing literally any promotional material, The Gift is a sadly overlooked gem from 2015 about a childless couple who move into a new house and run into someone from the husband’s past. The husband conveys to the wife that he doesn’t want this stranger (played by Edgerton) hanging around, and it’s basically up to the wife to find out why. It’s an excellent, very fucked up thriller with a pretty shocking end that I certainly didn’t see coming. Edgerton is great as the creepy, stalking stranger, and he’s also a total surprise as the film’s director. I mean it. I didn’t know he directed it until I Google fu’d it a minute ago. 

Another film I would consider “required viewing” going into this is Trey Edward Shults’ first movie, Krisha, which I included on my list of favorite films I watched in 2016. While it’s categorized as a drama/dark comedy, I put it in my horror list- because for those of us with a little dysfunction in our families, it is mind-numbingly, hand-wringingly horrifying. Krisha stars mostly non-actors, including the director’s aunt (IIRC) in the title role. It details a recovering alcoholic’s return to the family she ghosted on for a Thanksgiving dinner. It doesn’t go well. When I say this is required viewing, I mean it. Krisha is as non-traditional as horror films go, and I feel very similarly about It Comes At Night. 

I suppose, based on the trailer, that I expected some kind of supernatural/walking dead aspect to the film going in. Let me take a second to outright demolish that preconception- this is not a monster movie, it’s not a ghost movie, it’s not got anything fantastical or even out of the realm of possibility in it. In fact, it’s a fairly stripped-down, barebones outbreak film. And, for what it is, it’s great.

The film is about Paul, his wife Sarah, and their teenage son Travis. They live with their dog, and Sarah’s father, in a big boarded-up cabin in the woods. Right away it becomes pretty clear that Grampa’s got a potent superbug, because they have to handle him with gloves and respirators, and quite early on, they’ve got to take him out back and shoot him like Ol’ Yeller. Father Paul is utilitarian, practical, a little controlling, and does what needs to be done to avoid infection and ensure survival. When a looter, Will, breaks in, he’s caught and explains himself to Paul- that he also has a family in need of supplies, that he thought the house was abandoned, that he means no harm, and that he’d be happy to trade food for some water. Paul and Sarah reason that they shouldn’t kill him in case he’s got people waiting out, they shouldn’t send him on his way lest he come back with a posse to kill them, and reason that the best option is for Paul to leave with Will and bring Will’s family back to the cabin so that they can share resources and work together. When Paul and Will come back with Will’s wife and son, Kim and Andrew, the real horror of the film unfolds- not the disease that seems to have decimated society, but the nature of humanity itself. 

It Comes At Night is a horror film, but further down the Antichrist end of the spectrum and not remotely close to the land of The Conjuring or Insidious. It’s a psychological thriller that uses muted, dreamy photography and contemplative scenes (long shots of dead bodies lying in a ditch, mundane conversations between normal people) to build dread and tension. Already there is precariously placed trust between Paul’s family and Will’s, and it seems just a matter of circumstance before these people become desperate and murderous. There are very few jump scares (maybe two or three), and they aren’t ones that I think most horror fans will roll their eyes at. Paul’s son Travis has trouble sleeping and lots of nightmares that make it hard to distinguish how much of the fear and distress is real and how much is imagined. He has dreams of his dead grandfather oozing black blood from his dead face and dreams of becoming infected that seem prophetic. Outside of Travis’s dreams, there is nothing that happens on screen that couldn’t happen in real life during a catastrophic epidemic. All of the horrors are real and fully human- murder, betrayal, mercy killing, etc. The film is exceptionally dark- as in, what an old house looks like at night when the power goes out. If you’re uncomfortable wandering around with no light and a germophobe like me, this movie is going to kick your ass. 

I’m about to get into some critical details of the movie and don’t recommend reading further if you’re planning to watch it. 

One aspect of this movie that people are really up in arms about is the matter of the open door(s). Who the fuck opened the door? Shults leaves this completely and utterly up to the imagination of the viewer. The cabin has a “clean room” that has one exterior door, and one interior door into the house, and Paul claims to have the keys to these doors, and that he always keeps them locked. However, they also have sliding bolt latches. Near the end of the film, Travis wakes from a nightmare, walks through the dark house to find that Andrew, who is probably about four or five, has wandered away from the room Will and Kim are sleeping in, and has fallen asleep in the grandpa’s old bedroom. Travis leads Andrew back to his parents, but as he is returning to bed, he sees that the red door that leads into the makeshift clean room is open. The whole house is alerted, and Paul and Will discover the dog, Stanley, is hemorrhaging blood and dying on the floor within the room. Both doors are now open, and there’s no telling who opened them, how the dog got in, or if Andrew or Travis touched the sick dog. This event is what leads to a bloodlessly violent and dour ending for everyone involved, but the question remains- WHO OPENED THE FUCKING DOOR!?

I think, first of all, that we have to assume Paul (probably unintentionally) left both doors unlocked with just the bolt latches secured, if at all. I think it’s likely that Andrew or Travis opened both doors, although I’m leaning toward Travis. I think that, as established throughout the film, Travis was having a nightmare, heard the dog at the exterior door, and let him in. I think it’s likely this is where he became infected, and he then possibly infected Andrew when he found him misplaced and led him back to his room. The other possibility is that Andrew was just barely tall enough to reach the latches and opened the doors while sleepwalking. I think that it’s also possible that Will opened both doors and let the dog in hoping that Paul’s family would become sickened, and his family would be able to take the house and supplies for themselves. After all, they never show that Will’s son Andrew is sick, and his family is in an incredible rush to leave the house shortly after the dog is found. Perhaps they wanted to leave and hide out in the woods until Paul, Sarah and Travis are dead. Even further, it is possible SOMEONE ELSE ENTIRELY got the dog into the house hoping to sabotage the inhabitants. After all, we never actually see what Stanley the dog went running after in the woods and we never see what Travis thinks that he heard. Any one of these things is a possibility, and I think it was a bold choice on Shults’ part to leave it ambiguous and up to the viewer. I guess that, realistically, it doesn’t really matter WHO actually opened the doors. What matters is what happens after, when no one trusts anyone else, and no one knows who might be infected and who isn’t. We never actually find out if Andrew is infected, however we do find out by the end that Travis was. Therefore, at this point I think Travis is the most likely culprit. I think that Shults tries to lay enough clues to lead to this assumption, and if there is one weakness in the film, it is here- that perhaps a little more could have been done to make any of these inferences a little more likely. After all, why did Paul leave the doors unlocked at all in the first place? If Andrew opened the doors, why didn’t he mention the dog to his parents while Travis is eavesdropping? If Travis opened the doors, how is it that he didn’t react to his dog being in such a tragic state, even if he was sleepwalking? If it was someone else, how might it have happened if the latches were shut? I loved that this was left up in a dizzying, mysterious place, but I would have liked a slightly thicker trail of breadcrumbs for me to get there. 

At any rate, I think the creepiest part of the movie is that Travis essentially predicts his death, by dreaming about all the most impossible of horrors, even though the real threat seems so mundane and unlucky by comparison. It’s not a reanimated corpse that kills him. It’s SOME contact with the plague that we never see, because that’s how plagues work. I like that we never find out if Andrew was truly sick. I love how hopeless and depressing the whole thing is. It seems really fitting for the times we’re living in. 

I can’t recommend this movie enough if you like your horror movies atmospheric, preponderous, suggestive and difficult to digest. If you’re sick of artificial jump scares every eight and a half formulaic minutes, this might be right in line with your needs. If you need exposition and spoon-feeding, I wouldn’t spend a cent to watch it and recommend instead that you spend the evening screening Wonder Woman or Guardians of the Galaxy, which I’m sure are entertaining and likely to give you a good time. It Comes At Night may seem deceptively titled (I don’t think that it is) and deceptively marketed (absolutely). I think the title fits because Travis’s prophetic nightmares are where the horror is. It is still one of the most uncomfortable, effective horror movie experiences I’ve had in a while and would place it a shelf below the likes of The Witch and Get Out. It’s a straightforward movie with an unsettling score, photography that brings to mind the term “brain fog” (I’m a chronic sufferer, if it’s not evident in my scatterbrained reviews) in the best way, and it feels very vividly real. Not a single thing in this movie is outlandish or supernatural. While I appreciated the care taken to let me figure things out on my own, even I would have liked a few more definitives. I also would have liked a longer film; I think it wouldn’t have suffered from an extra 29 minutes, but all things considered it’s a minor complaint. I highly recommend it, if only to those who don’t mind the lion’s share of the detective work placed in their hands and those who are tired of the standard horror narrative. It’s not perfect but it’s pretty close to what this particular asshole likes in a movie. 

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

I saw Alien: Covenant.

I’m starting to notice a trend in a few of my reviews where I tend to clarify something about myself or my expectations in relation to the film I’m talking about. I guess I do this in an effort to illuminate certain things about why I like something or why I hate it in a way that maybe otherwise wouldn’t be evident from my words. 

So let me start off by saying I’m a pretty devoted fan of the Alien franchise. I have Xenomorphs all over my office, I’ve owned several HR Giger yearly calendars and artbooks. My husband and I will likely name our firstborn in honor of Ellen Ripley. 

And as of quite recently, I’ve never seen an Alien film I didn’t, at the very least, enjoy watching. I would prioritize the original Alien as the best film (as I assume most do). Aliens and Prometheus come in second place- in that I enjoy Aliens and think it’s a fine film, and that I greatly enjoy Prometheus as something I accept I have to turn off all critical thinking facilities in order to fully appreciate. I rank Alien 3 and Alien: Resurrection on the same level; as films that I didn’t hate and can actually watch to gain some minor degree of pleasure, but also acknowledge their glaring flaws. I’ll even go so far as to say that I liked what David Fincher was trying to do with Alien 3. It had the guts to try something totally new like Aliens did, and had the balls to give the audience a giant, veiny middle finger right in the first few minutes. Admittedly, I haven’t seen Alien vs Predator or Alien vs Predator: Requiem since seeing Alien and Predator maul, disfigure and murder each other would feel like watching a full length film of dogs being kicked- and yes, I realize this is an issue that is likely unique to me. I truly haven’t seen an Alien feature that I didn’t like. 

Until now. 

What the fuck, Alien: Covenant? What the fuck, Ridley Scott? What the fuck was going on here? 

I’m gonna start talking about the plot, so prepare your anus for spoilers. If you’re doubting the fortitude of your sphincter, skip past the next image. The basic premise of this film is that there’s a ship with couple dozen people as crew schlepping 2000 colonists out into deep space to start terra-forming a new planet. The crew consists of a lot of sexual partners and I assume that they are planning to help populate, but I can’t recall if that was addressed at all. Maybe in the future, spaceship crews are allowed to bring out the wife. Whatever. Anyway, an android named Not-David Michael Fassbender accidentally fucks the ship up and wipes out a little chunk of the crew. This fuck-up results in Captain James Franco getting incinerated in front of his wife inside a stasis capsule, before he ever has a chance to deliver a line. 

In fact, had I not watched the promotional material beforehand (which features a scene that I assume precedes the one I’m talking about and also clarifies it better than the movie gave a shit to attempt), I don’t think I would have even known the schmuck getting torched by explosive oxygen in the capsule was James Franco. Nice.

This leaves the ship with a new captain, Passive Billy Crudup, who they mention a few times is a Christian, just like Dr. Shaw in Prometheus. The inclusion of his religion is even more stupid and pointless in this new iteration. He is also fairly incapable, which makes me wonder who put this booger-eater as second in line. This whole fuck up by Not-David Michael Fassbender is just a plot vehicle to get Danny fucking McBride outside the ship on a repair mission, where he receives a mysterious distorted transmission of a woman singing a John Denver song. The source of the transmission is traced back to a planet which happens not to be the planet that the crew is headed to to terraform.

Obviously, the crew decides to divert to the planet from which the signal came from instead of the planet that they are supposed to travel to, because why the hell not? 

Like the idiots in Prometheus, the idiots in Alien: Covenant decide not to wear oxygen-fed helmets or PPE because who ever heard of aspirating deadly microbes and bacteria? However, this time, that’s addressed, and predictably two of the crew members manage to get infected by the flora on this planet within 5-10 minutes of setting foot on land. They become sickened and spew white baby Xenomorphs (not chestbusters, for whatever reason). Then the crew is dispatched unceremoniously as a pack of CGI Xenomorphs whip the shit outta them in ways that will be too fast to actually see. But aren’t you happy with 0.9 seconds of digital blood? 

The remaining survivors are rescued just in time by a cloaked Actual David, who leads them back to his lair. Let me just say that Actual David confirms to one of the crew members that this lair is safe a few short minutes before a deformed Xenomorph casually enters and decapitates someone. Actual David pretends to be a bro, then makes it very clear he is NOT in fact a bro, and he carries on fucking up everyone’s shit until the end of the film, in a final twist that most viewers will see coming about 20 minutes in advance. 

This installment of the series is a colossal pile of shit, and it really pains me as an Alien fan to lay it out like this. 

The first issue I became painfully aware of is that there is no main character. Is the plucky captain’s widow the protagonist? Is it Danny McBride? Is it Actual David? Not only is there no attempt to establish a protagonist, there is little effort in place to ensure that you know the names of any of these people. How the fuck am I supposed to be horrified, disgusted and invested when these people are dismembered if I don’t even have a name to pair them with? I actually had to check the IMDb page to recall that Plucky Captain’s Widow’s name is Daniels. Nobody matters and I didn’t give a shit about anyone. I barely gave one for Danny McBride, who seems like a likable crew member but makes some really piss-poor risk/benefit analyses. 

Because of the way Actual David’s underlying prerogatives were portrayed, I wish they hadn’t included him or anything from Prometheus. It’s become readily apparent that the only reason why this film ties into Prometheus or includes Actual David is because they couldn’t think up a fucking decent plot device to get these new people killed by an alien threat. Actual David’s story made me feel like I was watching an excruciatingly dull Star Trek: TNG three-parter where Data has some banal interaction with Noonien Soong because half the cast was on vacation that week. It felt cheap and like the screenwriters really had to push themselves over a massive hump to even write this trash. Instead of being a flawed and curious creation of sociopathic humans, Actual David becomes just another bad guy. There’s a really dumb scene where he’s trying to become friends with a Not Xenomorph that is given almost no explanation into. Did he kill all the engineers on the planet because he was mad at them for making the humans, and now he wants to be an engineer by creating inbred Xenomorphs? If they explained this, I wasn’t paying attention because I was bored to tears every time Actual David was explaining things to other characters.

After producing something like Prometheus, which I would argue has some of the best modern visual effects for its time, I can’t imagine how anyone thought Alien: Covenant was an acceptable final product. The Xenomorphs/creatures looked incredibly fake and were shown far too often. The digital blood and gore effects were wholly unsatisfying: not particularly graphic and shown only very briefly- maybe because they realized too late that CGI gore is completely unimpactful? People were screaming in disgust during the cesarean scene in Prometheus. I don’t think I heard a solitary gasp at any of the featured gore effects. I’ve read other reviews claiming “the gorehound will be sated” but I can’t imagine that unless the gorehound’s a 12-year-old with limited experience. The suits are ugly, the ship is unremarkable, and the CGI looked cheap and slapped together into the film by people who seemed to be generally unfamiliar with the franchise. I mean for fuck’s sake, if you’re going to give me a CG Xenomorph it better knock my pants off with a firm stream of shit. 

I came out of this one feeling like I’d seen some cheaply-made bullshit teen-demo weekend matinee flick from the mid-2000s, like a Final Destination or an Anacondas: Hunt for the Blood Orchid. You know what I mean, the type of movie you go see and completely forget about after a week. This film wasn’t scary, it never gave me cause to feel invested. It was utterly inconsequential, whereas Prometheus felt like it was trying to build something new, fresh and mythical. In fact, my anxiety spiked as I was leaving the theater because I remembered that Ridley Scott took a fairly active role in the production of Blade Runner 2049. That fucking movie is going to have sexy, smoldering Ryan Gosling starring and extremely competent and capable Denis Villeneuve directing and this fucking orphanage fire of a movie has me WORRIED about it. If that doesn’t discourage you from watching Alien: Covenant, I don’t know what will. I can’t even recommend it as So Bad it’s Good because it is so monumentally boring. I could write a book of all the things I would have done entirely differently. Don’t pay any more than Wednesday matinee prices for this foul, backstabbing tripe. If you told me I’d be scoring this movie an entire half a star lower than the Ghost in the Shell movie I would have shat right in your mouth. You know what? This is what we get for electing Donald Trump. 

★ ½

UPDATE - Things I’m keeping an eye on:

Hey all. Thought I’d share the list of movies I’m hoping to see this year. I’m also going to include why I’m interested, unless it’s obv. 

The Blackcoat’s Daughter - April Horror, A24 is distributing.

T2 Trainspotting - April

Logan (don’t hold me to that)

Song to Song Ryan Gosling is hot.

Alien: Covenant - May

It Comes At Night - June Another A24 film. I was really impressed with Joel Edgerton in The Gift, and Trey Edward Shults’ last film Krisha absolutely blew my mind and horrified me. This looks even more scary.

All Eyez on Me - June I’m fascinated. 

The Beguiled - June 

A Ghost Story - June Hi A24. 

Okja- June Joon-ho Bong (Snowpiercer) directing, with Tilda, Paul Dano, Jake Gyllenhaal, and Giancarlo Esposito. 

Baby Driver - August From Edgar Wright. Also- mmmmm... Jon Hamm...

Kingsman: The Golden Circle - September

It - September (I’M NOT SURE YET!) I really hate the miniseries, so I’ll probably wait to see how other people respond to it. 

Blade Runner 2049 - October

The Snowman - October Mmmmm, Michael Fassbender

Mother! - October I really, really, really want to see Darren Aronofsky return in triumph after Noah. I’ve never been so shocked by a great director putting out such an incomprehensible product.

Untitled Cloverfield movie - October

Darkest Hour - November Hoping this’ll scratch my constant WWII itch. 

Suburbicon - November “A home invasion rattles a quiet family town.“ George Clooney directing. Also, mmmmmm, Oscar Isaac. Screenplay by Joel and Ethan Coen.

Star Wars: The Last Jedi - December

Untitled Paul Thomas Anderson project - December Duh. 

Annihilation  Dir. Alex Garland (Ex Machina), starring Oscar Issac and Natalie Portman. “A biologist signs up for a dangerous, secret expedition where the laws of nature don't apply.”

Under the Silver Lake Dir. David Robert Mitchell (It Follows). “Modern noir crime thriller set in Los Angeles,” starring Andrew Garfield. 

Wildlife Dir. Paul Dano (who has starred in Swiss Army Man and Prisoners), starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Carey Mulligan. 

Good Time  From the directors of Heaven Knows What, one of my most favorite fucked up, gritty independent movies about drug users with miserable, horrifying existences. “A bank robber finds himself unable to evade those who are looking for him.”

The Florida Project Dir. Sean Baker (Starlet, Tangerine) starring Willem Dafoe. Looks like Florida Man: The Movie. 

You Were Never Really Here Dir. Lynne Ramsay (We Need to Talk About Kevin, one of my favorite films of all time) starring Joaquin Phoenix. And who could get past a synopsis like this??? “A war veteran's attempt to save a young girl from a sex trafficking ring goes horribly wrong.”

Happy End  Dir. Michael Haneke (Funny Games, Cache, The Piano Teacher) 

Raw The French “cannibal sex movie.”

Kuso  The biggest WTF project: directed by Flying Lotus, with Hannibal Buress, George Clinton, and DAVID FIRTH, the fucking guy that does the Salad Fingers and Burnt Face Man cartoons!

The Disaster Artist  The second biggest WTF project: a movie about Tommy Wiseau and The Room, with a star studded cast led by James Franco. What. The. Fuck. 

I saw The Void.

For my anniversary, I got to check out The Void with some close friends in a tiny screening room in Salem, Massachusetts. I saw the trailer a couple of months beforehand but hadn’t yet read any further details, so I went in fairly blind. If you’ve not yet seen The Void and have some interest in doing so, I definitely recommend that you read no further and go check it out where it’s streaming VOD. 

So we were in a tiny screening room with about a dozen and a half seats. I gotta start this review off by mentioning that I did nearly pass out about 30-40 minutes into the movie because of a strobing light, so if you’re sensitive to that kind of thing, you might want to prepare yourself because it’s pretty extreme. 

Anyway. Holy hell, what a creative, fun-to-watch, low budget horror flick. The Void feels like a relic from the bygone era of weird, low-budget 80s horror movies conceived with love. One of the greatest strengths is the traditional SFX. They were occasionally obscured in a way that enhances them, so do somewhat temper your expectations if you are anticipating the next Carpenter’s The Thing. The film isn’t particularly gory (at least in my opinion), but what the budget permitted to be shown is done effectively and, in some instances, impressively. There are some “void” sequences that I thought were unusual and cool- like, there’s a straight-up Star Trek: TOS-looking set that shows up every now and then. I also appreciated most of the humor, which is surprisingly plentiful throughout the duration. I do want to bring up that near pass-out moment for me. There’s a sequence with a mutated tentacle monster that involves a broken fluorescent light panel, and I’m not sure if it was the size of the screening room, where I was sitting, the minor amount of dread I was feeling from the movie, or if I’m just a stoned idiot that gave myself a panic attack, but holy shit! I can’t remember a time when I nearly fainted during a movie. I had to drop my head down for about a minute and a half and my pulse didn’t slow down until about 4-5 minutes later. As previously stated, I was balls deep in a pot lozenge, so I sat through the next scene thinking, “oh man, thank god that flashing light shit is over,” only to transition to: “oh fuck, there’s a shit ton of movie left.” I was pretty scared! Good job, guys! From time to time, I did feel like the gore and special effects had slowed drastically, but the reject-baby swarm scene really made up for that fleeting feeling. Try to think back on the blood orgy flashes from Event Horizon and you will kind of have an idea what I’m talking about. 

I have a few complaints. While I don’t really fault the filmmakers for this, the movie suffers a little bit due to the budget. There’s an off-camera axing/bludgeoning that’s a little cheesy and could have used an on-camera treatment. I would have liked to see the monster fetus actually dragging the dead girl around with it from her baby-having organs. But hey- the suggestion was pretty brutal without it. I think a synth soundtrack might have been more appropriate given some of the visuals and the aesthetic of the marketing, but I wouldn’t say that the soundtrack was distracting or bad. The story felt a bit underdeveloped, but not to an extent where you wouldn’t be able to enjoy yourself. I really would like to change those opening credits. Also... I might have axed the last 30 seconds- though I’m not sure! The movie really had a campy feel at some points, so the end sort-of fit with that narrative, but at the same time, it elicited such an extreme giggle out of the screening room, and that didn’t quite feel right. 

I’ve seen a lot of comparisons to John Carpenter’s work (namely The Thing and Assault on Precinct 13), as well as Event Horizon, Yuzna’s Society, and the works of H.P. Lovecraft. The Void is essentially a fanboy’s wet dream of all of these things coming together in a movie that would play well at a party or a room full of inebriated gorehounds. It’s really different from what I was expecting, but I think I came out more impressed than I thought I would be. It’s available for streaming via Fandango Now, VUDU, Google Play, Amazon, ITunes, etc- please go support independent filmmakers who appreciate the value of traditional SFX because I would really like for that to go back in style industry-wide. 

★ ★ ★ ½ 

I saw Ghost in the Shell.

Last year, news came out that we lucky Americans were getting a live action adaptation of the 1995 anime classic Ghost in the Shell. Cue an eyeroll from me. Not long after, it was revealed that Scarlett Johansson would be taking the lead role, playing Major Matoko Kusanagi. That’s when I really started to panic. 

You might be wondering why! As of writing this review, I have seen two (technically one) Scarjo performances that stand out as being unique and worthy of adulation, one of which features only her voice. I thought she was the right fit for the voice of the computer that Joaquin Phoenix falls for in Her. But far more consequential was her performance in Jonathan Glazer’s Under the Skin, which featured one of the most emotional performances I’ve ever seen from a character who essentially operates with no recognizably human affect. Johansson played an alien come to Earth, who, through her mission-oriented interactions with human beings, starts to emote human behaviors and feelings in a way that makes the viewer experience alien perception. And by interactions, I mean luring men into a shithole in the outskirts of Scotland with the presumption of sex so that they may be trapped in a suspended state before being fucking liquified, presumably “for science.” Under the Skin topped my best of 2014 list, and instilled within me the strong belief that Johansson requires near-masterclass direction to truly shine. You can imagine the concern cultivated when I noticed that director Rupert Sanders’ only major directing credit was Snow White and the Huntsman. Yikes. 

Before I go any further, I should mention that for a period of time in my life between 1999 and about 2007, I fit the description of the type of people you see at anime conventions. I taught a popular elective on the history of Japanese animation at a charter school. This is my shit. I believe that there are two camps of anime viewers- those who view Akira as the pinnacle of adult Japanese animation, and those who believe Ghost in the Shell takes that title. I happen to fall in the former category; my SO falls into the latter. I had a bit less invested in this movie being great, so I believe that my take on the live action adaptation is, all things considered, fairly removed from any passionate bias. Then again, I have hated every iteration of the Ghost in the Shell franchise outside of the 1995 film, so make of that what you will. For what it’s worth, my SO enjoyed it for what it was, having likely gone in with tempered expectations. For him, I think it was a throwback popcorn flick; kind of like how kids who grew up on the Transformers cartoon tolerate and find enjoyment in the Michael Bay films despite an objective understanding that they’re utterly ludicrous movies.

To my SO: Don’t worry, I think you’re better than the Transformers crowd. 

Having said all of that... this movie was borderline mortifying for me. I was so overwhelmed and inundated with shifting stages of outrage, confusion and stupefaction, I’m not even sure where to start. 

This new live-action “reimagining” of the original Ghost in the Shell film suffers most from a muddled screenplay, in my opinion. At least as far as general audiences are concerned. That is to say, viewers who aren’t familiar with this story are probably going to be lost. Why does Takeshi Kitano speak Japanese to the other characters, but yet they all respond in English? What is the explanation behind any of the villain’s actions? What exactly is going on here? For those familiar with the source material, I suspect an entirely different reaction will happen: indignity. Where an adaptation like The Departed took a scalpel to the original Japanese film Infernal Affairs, carefully lifting the skeleton of the story and basic themes and meticulously implanting them in a story about corrupt cops and sadistic criminals in Boston- Ghost in the Shell employs a meat cleaver and chainsaw. It inexplicably incorporates pieces from additional areas of the franchise. It outrageously omits some of the best material from the 1995 film. It adds things that are unnecessary and ridiculous in the context of the story. I couldn’t explain to you why or how they made these decisions if I tried. The writing is unfathomable. The direction is capricious. If you’re a purist, I think you have a very good chance of coming out of this experience with rage in your heart. I particularly had my sensibilities offended by the absolute bastardization of the final scene with the Puppet Master. What was an eerie and disturbing end to the original film was an absolute remodel devoid of meaningfulness or gravity in the new film. In fact, the only things these two scenes have in common are visual throwbacks; the storyline has been changed to the point of being unrecognizable. It’s enough to leave you feeling marooned in the uncanny valley. Many characters who had some basic depth in the film are just names and faces in this one. We get a callback to the garbage truck scene without the humor and wit of the “... I love my wife” line. This movie is full of callbacks misappropriated to otherwise distorted and unfamiliar scenes. 

The acting in this film was frustrating, to say the least. Johansson channels Lucy when she really needed to tap into her Under the Skin zen mode. This Major is full of fear and sadness and angst, where 1995′s Major was measured and fittingly robotic. One might wonder if she made time to watch the original film with the apparent wholesale misunderstanding of the character she is playing. Lines are delivered miserably. Juliette Binoche doesn’t belong in this movie. Michael Pitt seems like his indie spirit doesn’t suit this blockbuster shell. Our villain, the existence of whom I am not entirely sure the purpose of, is embarrassingly cartoonish and evil for the sake of being a salty bastard. Pilou Asbæk and Takeshi Kitano seem fairly suited to their roles and do their best considering the circumstances, and for their sakes I really wish this film had been managed better. 

If you’re losing your patience with me because I haven’t addressed the elephant in the room, here it is. The aspect of whitewashing in this film is the absolute least of Ghost in the Shell’s problems. In an almost ironic act of self-preservation, the Japanese brain of Matoko Kusanagi is implanted into a white woman who is now called Mira Killian, which in and of itself helps knock this film off kilter for the remainder of the runtime. Other than a seemingly haphazard approach to choosing which pieces of Japanese culture to incorporate and which to toss, these are the only things that stood out. Trust me when I say that if whitewashing was the film’s only issue, it would probably be a fine film. 

I will admit that the strength of this movie lies in its visuals. While it isn’t quite the approach I would have taken, it works- and it works beautifully. Ghost in the Shell is full of clear, beautiful colors and stark industrial towers and complexes. The visual effects are impressive and competent. While the action sequences are stereotypically American- fucking impossible to see what’s going on- I think most audiences aren’t going to notice or care. The aesthetic is carefully engineered and maintained throughout the movie. While I was sitting there puzzled by everything else imploding in this film, I was nonetheless satisfied with the impressive smorgasbord of visuals. In this sense, it really utilized its budget well. 

There are many things I would have changed had I orchestrated this project. Using Mike Erhmantraut terms, this movie took many half-measures where it should have taken full measures. First, this absolutely should have been an R-rated film. There was no gore. There were no breasts or nudity, something that was made iconic in the original film. It seems so stripped down for a cheap grab at teenager appeal. Despite the resounding outrage from the internet, I wouldn’t have changed names; the Major deserves to be Matoko Kusanagi. I never would have cast Johansson. Because of the new film’s mythos, I say this not because she is a white woman. I say this because she projected completely unfit ranges of emotion on a character that simply doesn’t line up with them. I would have remained faithful to the basic premise of the original film, rather than altering it until it was unfamiliar. I absolutely would have kept that pivotal, second-to-final scene I mentioned earlier. I would have kept the Puppet Master himself, rather than adhering a completely new character onto him with the subtlety of a nailgun. I would have taken an Ex Machina approach instead of trying for a dumbed-down, hammed-up blockbuster. I would have made a conscious effort to ensure that the characters on screen had enough depth to make them consequential. I’m not entirely sure who this film is made for. I don’t know why it exists. If you’re a fan of the anime, all I can advise is to approach this movie with tempered expectations and a readiness to be disappointed. It is possible to enjoy this film, and I do have a history of being unfair to this franchise, so I welcome you to see for yourself if I’m being hyperbolic and unreasonable. If you are unfamiliar with Ghost in the Shell, I have a feeling you’re going to leave this film with your eyes permanently rolled into the back of your head. Approach with caution and low prospects.

★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆