A Quiet Place Part II

There is no hiding when you can’t make a sound.

(2020) Sci-Fi Horror (Paramount) Emily Blunt, John Krasinski, Millicent Simmonds, Noah Jupe, Cillian Murphy, Djimon Hounsou, Okieriete Onaodowan, Scoot McNairy, Zachary Golinger, Blake DeLong, Stefanie Warwick, Alycia Ripley, Cristalis Bonilla, Domonic Taggart, Silas Pereira-Olson, Alice Malyukova, Ashley Dyke, Dean Woodward, Barbara Singer, Michaela Juliann Pace. Directed by John Krasinski

 

After theaters began to reopen this past spring, one of the first blockbusters to return was this sequel to the surprise hit by former Office star Krasinski. It was kind of an appropriate choice; social distancing was still very much in force, and the forced isolation of the survivors in the film mirrored that which all of us went through – and are still going through, in some cases.

The movie begins with a flashback to the first day of the alien invasion. Krasinski as Lee Abbott appears here as he copes with the first appearance of the aliens, trying to protect his son Marcus (Jupe) as he tries to find his wife Evelyn (Blunt) who is with their deaf daughter Regan (Simmonds). It’s a harrowing scene full of noise and terror.

Then we return to the place where the first film ended, 473 days afterwards, with the survivors of the Abbott family leaving their flooded and burned out homestead. With a newborn baby to carry – newborns aren’t noted for their silence – it is a journey fraught with danger as the family try to apply their hard-won knowledge, including the means of killing the creature, something that they didn’t have earlier. They run into a trap set by one of their former neighbors, Emmett (Murphy) who has been through a hell of his own, but he at least has a sanctuary – a soundproof furnace in an industrial plant. The problem with it is that if you wait too long inside it, you run the risk of suffocating. By this time Marcus has been badly injured, an Evelyn needs to go into town and find medicine which he desperately needs. Regan has struck out on her own and Emmett agrees to go after her, but the two end up running into the sort of humans that would survive an alien apocalypse and find their way to an island which is cut off from the mainland – and the aliens. They need to go back and get Evelyn, Marcus and the baby…and the aliens have also unfortunately discovered away to do some hunting on the island…

Fans of the first film will notice the diminished role that Krasinski plays here, and the movie is less because of it. On the plus side, though, Simmonds blossoms here, making this a showcase role for her. Blunt remains steadfast, but as with the first movie she is not utilized as well as she might be. Murphy is one of those actors who does a good job every time out but doesn’t get enough credit for it, and he is definitely a high point here.

The best thing about the movie is the aliens themselves. Their design is absolutely marvelous, a picture of logic and aggressive behavior. They make perfect movie monsters. Hardcore horror fans will notice that the gore is pretty minimal here, which may irritate some. Of more concern are some of the plot holes that make no sense. The Abbotts, for example seem to have an unlimited supply of batteries. Where are they getting them?

Nonetheless, this is one of those horror films that keeps the tension high throughout. Thanks to outstanding performances by Murphy, Blunt and in particular Simmonds, it is easy to invest emotionally in the main characters. It was a fitting return of movies to the theaters and it’s getting a re-release in some markets even as we speak. Definitely worth seeking out, whether on VOD, streaming on Paramount Plus or in theaters.

REASONS TO SEE: Simmonds does a crackerjack job. Superb creature design.
REASONS TO AVOID: Suffers from Krasinski’s absence. A few general plot holes.
FAMILY VALUES:There is violence a’plenty, some bloody and/or disgusting images, and scenes of terror.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: The film made it’s New York premiere date but the COVID outbreak caused its general release to be postponed almost a year.
BEYOND THE THEATERS: Alamo On Demand, Amazon, AMC On Demand, AppleTV, DirecTV, Google Play, Microsoft, Paramount Plus, Redbox, Spectrum, Vudu, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch As of 10/29/21: Rotten Tomatoes: 91% positive reviews; Metacritic: 71/100
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Signs
FINAL RATING: 7/10
NEXT: The penultimate entry in this year’s Six Days of Darkness!

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Halloween Kills

For Michael Myers, Hell is home.

(2021) Horror (Blumhouse) Jamie Lee Curtis, Judy Greer, Andi Matichak, James Jude Courtney, Nick Castle, Airon Armstrong, Will Patton, Thomas Mann, Jim Cummings, Dylan Arnold, Robert Longstreet, Anthony Michael Hall, Charles Cyphers, Scott MacArthur, Michael McDonald, Ross Bacon, Kyle Richards, Nancy Stephens, Diva Tyler. Directed by David Gordon Green

 

Of the iconic screen horror slashers, only Leatherface predates Michael Myers, who made his first appearance in the 1978 classic Halloween. Jason Voorhees, Freddy Krueger, Chucky and Jigsaw all followed in his bootsteps. But forty years have elapsed since his first appearance and Michael is getting a bit long in the tooth, right?

The movie picks up immediately where 2018’s acclaimed reboot left off. Michael (Courtney) has been left to die in the basement of a burning house. Laurie Strode (Curtis), his sister and the babysitter he went after back in 1978, is being rushed to the hospital with abdominal stab wounds. Officer Hawkins (Patton) is on his way there, bleeding from a stab wound in the neck.

But as firefighters battle the blaze, they discover the one cardinal rule of any horror franchise; the killer isn’t quite dead yet. Michael emerges from the flames and immediately takes out a fire brigade, then exits stage left to commit more mayhem, ostensibly to people both random and convenient. He does have a bit of a plan – to go to his old house, currently occupied by gay couple Big John (MacArthur) and Little John (McDonald) who have tastefully decorated the old homestead which means they are due to be shish kabobbed.

At a Haddonfield bar, Tommy Doyle (Hall) shares his recollections of that fateful night. He was the boy Laurie was babysitting, and the night has left him scarred for life. So he doesn’t react well when the news arrives that Michael is still on the loose. Tommy organizes a lynch mob and leads them into the streets to find Michael, chanting ‘Evil dies tonight,” which makes a mighty fine tagline for a movie poster. It turns out to be the most incompetent mob in history, although I do wonder if there’s any such thing as a “competent mob.”

While Laurie’s daughter Karen (Greer) and granddaughter Allyson (Matichak) fret over telling Laurie that the boogeyman still lives, they both grieve for the departed in their own way (Greer has a particularly poignant scene early on in which she washes blood from her hands, scrubbing around her wedding ring). In the meantime, the body count grows and the mob howls for blood (although they occasionally seem to be pointed at the wrong Michael Myers), will a united mob be able to finally put Michael down…or will this Halloween continue unabated?

Well, considering there’s another sequel in the works for next October, I think you can do the math. This is clearly the middle chapter in a trilogy and it has a feel of non-resolution to it. The ending is supposed to be a bit of a shocker (and it is), but what precedes it is a series of kill scenes that really don’t show a ton of originality or flair, with few exceptions (one of the firemen gets eviscerated by his own saw). While Green’s 2018 reboot showed how the 1978 murders affected Strode and her family, the sequel expands to show how it affected all of Haddonfield. That’s admirable, and I think it provides a little social commentary at how deeply stressed out the country has become, but I don’t think that the mob is supposed to be a stand-in for the Capitol insurrection mob. That seems to be a bit of a stretch to me.

The problem with Halloween Kills is a lack of imagination. Forty-odd years on after John Carpenter yelled “action,” slasher movies have run their course and there isn’t a lot of ways to slice and dice a human body. It becomes predictable – and that’s the last thing you want a horror movie to be. Sure, there are plenty of kids who may be new to the genre who might be impressed, but I would be surprised if they hadn’t already seen the classic slasher films by this point and to be fair, this doesn’t compete well with them. It does have its moments, and Jamie Lee Curtis is always a welcome name on a marquee, but she really doesn’t get to do very much, leaving Greer, Patton, Matichak and Hall to do most of the heavy lifting and they do it with varying degrees of success.

So the long and the short of it is that Halloween Kills doesn’t measure up even to the 2018 predecessor. That’s a shame because I can see what the filmmakers were going for; they just didn’t quite get there.

REASONS TO SEE: A respectable attempt to provide some social commentary on the state of things, 2021.
REASONS TO AVOID: A real letdown after the 2018 reboot.
FAMILY VALUES: As you would expect, there’s a ton of violence (much of it gory), some grisly images, a fair amount of profanity and a bit of drug use.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: With her appearance here as Laurie Strode (her sixth), Jamie Lee Curtis passes Donald Pleasance for the most appearances in the franchise as the same character – he appeared five times as Dr. Loomis. The Dr. Loomis who appears in the flashback sequences here is played by Tom Jones Jr., with the voice supplied by Colin Mahan. Pleasance passed away in 1995.
BEYOND THE THEATERS: Peacock
CRITICAL MASS: As of 10/26/21: Rotten Tomatoes: 39% positive reviews; Metacritic: 42/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Halloween H20: 20 Years Later
FINAL RATING: 6/10
NEXT: Six Days of Darkness, the Sequel!

Man Under Table

There’s no sitting on the fence with this one.

(2021) Avant Garde (Arrow) Noel David Taylor, Ben Babbitt, Danny Lane, James Canto, Robert Manion, Alisa Torres, Frank Perry, Sarabeth Tucek, John Edmund Parcher, Katy Fullan. Directed by Noel David Taylor

 

Hollywood is a place of contradictions. A place built on creativity yet creativity is actively discouraged there. A place where the more pretentious and self-promoting you are, the likely you are to make an impression that you are important (even if you’re not). A place that espouses liberal progressive values in every avenue other than how it treats the people who work there.

Noel David Taylor, a filmmaker who has to this point produced a number of peculiar but funny shorts, comes up with a peculiar but funny feature. In it he plays Guy, a screenwriter in a dystopian neo-futuristic El Lay where the pollution has become almost as toxic as the gladhanding. He is working on a screenplay, but is somewhat put out that his acquaintance Jill Custard (Fullan) has become an indie darling based on an overwritten, pretentious film – could she be related to Lars von Trier?

In any case, Guy gets sucked into assisting on a new project by Gerald (Parcher) whose scenes seem eerily familiar. In the meantime, Guy is beset by executives wondering if his new script is political. They are certain that identity politics is “in” although what that means is anybody’s guess; there is an awful lot of doublespeak in the rarefied air of the film industry. George Orwell would have had a field day there.

Guy describes his script as “not really a movie, just a bunch of scenes about some random guy.” The joke is that the character’s name is Guy. There are a lot of visual puns as well; sometimes Guy is glimpsed under pictures of tables (as well as under literal tables), giving the film its name. Taylor, who starred in, directed, wrote and produced this puppy, has definitely a sense of humor that might not appeal to everybody. The movie doesn’t move in a linear direction per se, although there is a story (of a sort) that it follows (usually but not always).

There’s no doubt that Taylor has a wicked imagination; some of the visuals are really quite wonderful, albeit made on a budget that would befit what Tom Cruise makes in about forty seconds on the average movie he stars in. And while the movie takes aim at the vapidity of the Hollywood indie scene, those who aren’t interested in such things are likely to find this a waste of their time.

This isn’t going to appeal to a large segment of the audience, nor is it meant to. Those who like their movies a bit offbeat, a little more risky than the average Hollywood production are likely to find this intriguing, or something worth obsessing over. In all honesty, that’s not me, but I can see how those who like the movies of Wes Anderson might be caught in the delights of this one.

REASONS TO SEE: There are definitely some imaginative aspects to the film. On-target with its skewering of Hollywood pretentions.
REASONS TO AVOID: Often feels like a grouping of disconnected scenes strung together. Too quirky for its own good generally.
FAMILY VALUES: Some profanity and adult themes.
TRIVIAL PURSUITS: This is Taylor’s first full-length feature.
BEYOND THE THEATERS: Arrow
CRITICAL MASS: As of 8/13/21: Rotten Tomatoes: No score yet; Metacritic: No score yet.
COMPARISON SHOPPINGM: The Player
FINAL RATING: 5/10
NEXT: The Macaluso Sisters

The Oak Room

Not the guy you want to see come into your bar after closing.

(2021) Thriller (Gravitas) RJ Mitte, Peter Outerbridge, Ari Millen, Nicholas Campbell, Martin Roach, David Ferry, Amos Crawley, Avery Esteves, Coal Campbell, Adam Seybold. Directed by Cody Calahan

 

You’ve heard it before. A guy walks into a bar at closing time (or shortly thereafter) with a story to tell. It’s a dark and stormy night and the snow is falling, and the rest of the world is asleep, but those in the bar are very much awake.

Bartender Paul (Outerbridge) is closing up when a masked, hooded figure walks in – not something you want in the middle of a dark and stormy night. After nearly clobbering said figure with a baseball bat, the stranger removes his mask to reveal that he is Steve (Mitte), also someone Paul in particular is not happy to see. See, Paul was buddies with Steve’s Dad Gordon (N. Campbell) – everyone’s dad is named Gordon in Canada – and Steve had left town to go to college, flunked out and promptly disappeared. He hadn’t even come home for Dad’s funeral, so Paul was left to foot the bill. He still has Gordon’s ashes in a tackle box, waiting for Steve. Steve owes Paul, that’s for sure – but Steve wants to repay Paul with a story.

Steve’s not a particularly good storyteller – he tells Paul the ending of the story first, and is eager to tell him the beginning, but Paul isn’t interested. Paul has a story of his own to tell. And so the two men swap stories in the cold, wintery night, and there is something darker taking place in the bar than a winter storm could account for.

There’s a feeling of noir to the film, and that’s a good thing. The movie owes its gestation to a stage play, and there is definitely a stagey feel to the single set production which takes place in two separate bars, including the titularly named Oak Room – which isn’t the bar that Steve and Paul are sitting in. There isn’t a ton of action – how could there be when you’re talking about two guys telling stories, and those stories include stories about guys telling stories – and there’s a ton of dialogue, nor is the dialogue particularly snappy. What the film IS successful at is keeping the viewer’s interest and keeping the tension building, and there’s something to be said for that.

The themes of father-son relationships and their breakdowns, mistaken identities (as a metaphor, or at least that’s what I figured), and the place of stories in modern culture are all well-taken and require a little bit of thought from the viewer. Even so, this is the kind of movie you can sit back and watch on a cold, dark night if you’re looking for a certain type of atmosphere and not necessarily have to think too hard. How much effort you put into the movie won’t necessarily determine your enjoyment of it, which is a rare feat in moviemaking. I don’t always see it in the movies I review, but I try to applaud it when I do see it.

REASONS TO SEE: Your interest is piqued throughout. Has noir-ish elements with a Northern edge.
REASONS TO AVOID: A bit stage-y and may be a bit too dialogue-heavy for some.
FAMILY VALUES: There is profanity, drinking and violence – some of it graphic.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: No women appear in the film.
BEYOND THE THEATERS: Amazon, DirecTV, Fandango Now, Google Play, Microsoft, Redbox, Vudu, YouTube
CRITICAL MASS: As of 4/26/21: Rotten Tomatoes: 89% positive reviews; Metacritic: No score yet.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Catch .44
FINAL RATING: 7.5/10
NEXT: My Wonderful Wanda

Small Crimes

I was just starting to look up to Nicolaj Coster-Waldau.

(2017) Crime Drama (Netflix) Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Robert Forster, Jacki Weaver, Molly Parker, Gary Cole, Macon Blair, Michael Kinney, Daniela Sandiford, Shawn Lawrence, Pat Healy, Eddie Holland, Jasson Finney, Anatoly Zinoviev, Glen Bowser, Larry Fessenden, Tara Yelland, Derek Barnes, Tyrone Benskin, Frank Schorpion, Alex Stines, Stéphane Julien, Julia Dawi. Directed by E.L. Katz

 

There are those who say they make their own luck and I suppose there is some truth to that. Some people absolutely refuse to let themselves get down; they do whatever it takes to succeed. Conversely there are also people who always seem to be on the losing end of life; they self-sabotage through bad decision making. They truly seem born to lose.

Joe Denton (Coster-Waldau) is one such sort. Recently released from prison after a six year stint, he was once a police officer in a rural Midwestern town who was convicted of conspiracy of trying to murder the district attorney Phil Coakley (Kinney). Corrupt and a raging alcoholic as a law enforcement officer, he has found sobriety in the joint and emerges hoping to turn his life around.

He moves back in with his parents Joe Sr. (Forster) and Irma (Weaver). Ma Denton in particular is suspicious of her son; she doesn’t really believe he’s truly capable of change. Joe is looking to reconnect with his ex-wife and resume being a father again but a single telephone call is sufficient for Joe to back off after a half-hearted attempt.

His ex-partner Lt. Pleasant (Cole) has some worries of his own; not so much about Joe who kept quiet about his involvement even in the face of a prison sentence, but against local crime boss Manny Vassey (Lawrence) who is dying of cancer and has found Jesus; Pleasant is concerned that Vassey might decide to unburden his soul before departing this green earth and in the process incriminate Pleasant.

Joe makes a bee line for the nearest bar and before you know it has fallen off the wagon. He begins to sink into old habits, alarming his mother and a botched attempt to kill Manny brings Joe under the watchful psychotic eye of the mobster’s son Junior (Healy). The lone bright spot in Joe’s life is his budding romance with hospice nurse Charlotte Boyd (Parker) who has baggage of her own, but even this potential game-changer may not be what it appears to be; Charlotte’s only client is Manny Vassey. And so things are beginning to spiral down towards a confrontation as Joe struggles to figure out how to get out of this rapidly deteriorating situation. Knowing Joe, things won’t end well for anybody.

This film had a solid debut at South by Southwest last year followed up with a fairly inconspicuous release on Netflix. The streaming giant has been a big player on the film festival circuit, snagging some prestige properties for their service while showing off some of their own original content. This one, while purchased at SXSW falls more in the mold of filler.

Coster-Waldau is best known as Jamie Lannister on the HBO hit series Game of Thrones and has enormous upside. He plays both hero and villain well which makes sense as Jamie is a little bit of both. He’s had a few high-profile roles but none have really put him over that cinematic hump yet. Here the best moments belong to Forster who is absolutely marvelous. Joe Sr. hopes against hope that his son will turn the corner but the guarded look in his eyes tells us that he doesn’t really expect him to.

I was heartened to find out this was written by Macon Blair, who directed the marvelous Blue Ruin and has written a number of highly regarded gritty indie films. Based on a David Zeltserman novel of the same name, the movie is unrelentingly downbeat. Blair has almost no exposition in the movie whatsoever other than some desultory pillow talk late in the movie; mysterious events are referred to and characters pop in and out of the movie that Joe apparently has some sort of previous relationship with but we are never informed about the nature of those events or the relationships with these people.

Blair is outstanding when it comes to writing male-oriented tough guy material but there is a little too much testosterone flowing for my own personal tastes, a little bit too much macho preening. At the end of the day this is a fairly typical “ex-con struggles to get his life back together despite enormous obstacles and a past that won’t let him go” type of film and although there are a few interesting twists and turns here, eventually when all is said and done Small Crimes adds nothing to the genre. The characters across the board are all unlikable and despite Coster-Waldau’s native charm, he isn’t able to make the character rise above his own flaws and be relatable. By the end of the movie most viewers will pretty much have written off Joe much as his parents have, much as everyone else around him has. Some people, this movie seems to opine, are genetically pre-disposed to fail and that’s such a bleak outlook on people that I find it hard to support a movie that believes that.

REASONS TO GO: Coster-Waldau is always engaging and the rest of the cast does exemplary work. The filmmakers pull no punches.
REASONS TO STAY: There’s a little too much testosterone flowing for my own taste. The film is very much a downer.
FAMILY VALUES: There is plenty of profanity, violence, drug use and some sexuality.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: In the novel that the film is based on, Phil Coakley and his daughter are both white; in the film, they’re African-Americans.
BEYOND THE THEATER: Netflix
CRITICAL MASS: As of 1/17/18: Rotten Tomatoes: 62% positive reviews. Metacritic: 60/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: I Don’t Feel at Home in This World Anymore
FINAL RATING: 5.5/10
NEXT: The Justice League

Don’t Kill It

Dolph Lundgren casually gets ready for some non-lethal shooting.

(2016) Horror Comedy (Archstone) Dolph Lundgren, Kristina Klebe, Michael Alan Milligan, Billy Slaughter, Aaron McPherson, Miles Doleac, Elissa Dowling, Sam Furman, Jasi Cotton Lanier, Tony Bentley, James Chalke, Michelle West, Tony Messenger, Toby Bronson, Randy Austin, Chaton Anderson, Milorad Djomlija, Thomas Owen, Kristin Samuelson. Directed by Mike Mendez

 

Demons are notoriously hard to kill. Oftentimes people don’t even believe they exist until it’s much too late and then the demon hunting shmoe sent out to kill the thing gets to say “I told you so.” Among the hardest demons to kill are those that jump from body to body however.

A small, picturesque town in Mississippi is battered by three triple homicides in less than a week. This kind of violent crime spike gets the attention of the FBI who sends Agent Evelyn Pierce (Klebe) who is from the area and was known locally as “Evil-Lyn” which is not a term she’s particularly fond of.

But also attracted to the carnage is Jebediah Woodley (Lundgren) who is – ahem – a demon hunter. Of course, announcing a profession like that meets with a lot of sniggers and of course a lot of incredulity but as the demon continues to pile up the body count, those who are possessed display pitch black eyes and a demonic scream that is unmistakably supernatural. Soon Pierce and the local police Chief Dunham (Bentley) are believers but Pastor Erikson (Chalke) thinks that the only thing demonic are the out-of-towners Woodley and Evelyn, who he has always distrusted.

As it turns out, the demon has a special attraction to Evelyn and the stakes get just a little bit higher but the FBI comes in at just the wrong moment and even worse, the vengeful and decidedly un-Christian Pastor has plans for Woodley and Evelyn that have nothing to do with charity.

This is actually not a bad little horror comedy. The sense of humor here is actually not so broad or over the top as to be cloying. Instead, it is almost subversive and while there is a whole lot of gore and not a whole lot of restraint, there is enough humor to lighten the mood without making the movie silly.

Now pushing 60, Lundgren has come a long way since Ivan Drago. He rarely gets a lot of dialogue (and he even quipped that he has more dialogue in this film than he has spoken over the past five years) and this is a performance that should change that perception that directors have of the man; I’ve actually begun to look forward to his appearances which I never would have thought would be a sentence that I’d actually utter considering some of the truly excruciating performances he’s given in some truly excruciating movies back in the 90s.

I mentioned gore and there’s plenty of it – none of it really groundbreaking but all of it perfectly placed to serve the story. Some might find some of it to be excessive but when you put it up against the horror films of the 70s and 80s it might even be considered a little tame. Sometimes it’s used for humorous effect but for the most part as I said it serves the story.

The story follows a fairly clichéd path but the conceit in which how the demon travels from body to body is clever and makes for a good story so you can overlook the clichés. Lundgren is engaging and funny and while the supporting cast is largely unknown, the performances are at least solid and never detract from the movie. I can understand why some might be reluctant to see this – horror comedies have a tendency to be too much one or the other and rarely are appealing as a complete film. This one is.

REASONS TO GO: The film possesses a subversive sense of humor. Dolph Lundgren has become a welcome addition to a film and whoever thought that would ever be a sentence? There are some nifty gore effects.
REASONS TO STAY: The story follows a cliché kind of path. The ending is a bit over-the-top.
FAMILY VALUES: There is plenty of violence, profanity, some fairly gruesome gore, sexuality and a bit of nudity. There is also excessive vaping.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Once the production got the final green light, there were only 12 days of prep time before shooting started.
CRITICAL MASS: As of 3/1/17: Rotten Tomatoes: No score yet. Metacritic: No score yet.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Shocker
FINAL RATING: 6.5/10
NEXT: Love and Taxes

Catch 22: Based on the Unwritten Story by Seanie Sugrue

A party with macho guys, lots of booze and drugs and a mouthy hooker? What could possibly go wrong?!

(2016) Thriller (108 Media) Brock Harris, Al Thompson, Dónall Ó Héalai, Michael Rabe, Jayce Bartok, Charmane Star, An Nguyen, Phil  Burke, Cameron McIntosh, Gerard Assante, Zachary Clarence, Charles Kennedy, Melissa Crisafulli, Seanie Sugrue, Donald Paul, Malik Uhuru, Josh Folan, Olivia Howell, Zack Auron, Dana Eckley, Gloria Kim, Emma Lieberman. Directed by Josh Folan

 

Sometimes a movie tells you right off the bat what kind of movie it’s going to be. In the case of this one, the opening scene starts with a toilet in which the water is stained with what appears to be urine. In comes one of the characters and throws up into the commode. Eventually he notices that there’s a dead Asian girl (Star) in the bathtub.

There are five guys who have passed out in the living room; Smoke (Harris), Bird (Thompson), Vince (Bartok), Seanie (Rabe) and Mikey (Ó Héalai). Most of them have criminal records; one of them is headed to prison for dealing shortly; in fact, the party is a farewell party to their buddy. And now this happens.

What transpires over the next several hours is an attempt to figure out what happened to the girl. As one of the men says to the others, “We’re not gonna f*** each other.” And that’s just what they proceed to do. It’s a bit like a Bizarro World Hangover in which nobody can remember what happened over the past 24 hours until bits and pieces begin to return to memory in segments that are preceded by a static sound like a old television being tuned on UHF.

This is definitely a micro-budgeted indie and while there’s nothing wrong with that, someone needed to spend a little more of the budget on lighting; much of the film is dimly lit to the point where at times it is hard to tell the difference between some of the actors who with the exception of Thompson all have similar looks.

The relationship between the guys feels genuine to be fair. They talk like guys who have been friends from womb to tomb. They dress similarly in the way that guys who have bonded tend to dress the same. They act like they’ve been friends forever. I don’t know if there was any pre-existing relationship between the actors but it sure feels like they’ve known each other forever. If they haven’t, then all the more kudos to them.

I would have liked to have seen a bit more character development; all five of the guys tended to blend together somewhat to the point that at times I couldn’t remember who it was that was talking. Still, the story is mildly compelling and there is enough here to make me think that the filmmakers have a future, but there’s not enough here that lends itself to an unhesitant recommendation.

REASONS TO GO: The dialogue and male relationships are authentic.
REASONS TO STAY: The lighting is perpetually dim. The flashbacks are annoying. There’s a whole lot of man-posturing and not enough character development.
FAMILY VALUES:  The theme here is plenty adult; there are also graphic nudity, sexual content, a surfeit of drug use, some violence and a whole lot of profanity including racial slurs.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT:  The real Seanie Sugrue appears in a cameo as a vagrant.
BEYOND THE THEATER: Amazon, Google Play, iTunes, Vimeo,
CRITICAL MASS: As of 1/17/17: Rotten Tomatoes: No score yet. Metacritic: No score yet.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Very Bad Things 
FINAL RATING: 4/10
NEXT: The Ivory Game

Sully

Take me to the river.

(2016) Biographical Drama (Warner Brothers) Tom Hanks, Aaron Eckhart, Laura Linney, Jamey Sheridan, Anna Gunn, Valerie Mahaffey, Holt McCallany, Delphi Harrington, Mike O’Malley, Kate Couric, Jeff Kober, Molly Bernard, Chris Bauer, Blake Jones, Jane Gabbert, Molly Hagan, Sam Huntington, Michael Rappaport, Jerry Ferrara, Ann Cusack. Directed by Clint Eastwood

 

January 15, 2009 was a watershed moment for New York City and all of the United States. On that day, US Airways Flight 1549 took off from LaGuardia Airport in New York City bound for Charlotte, North Carolina. It was in the air for just about three minutes when a flock of Canadian geese flew across their path. Several birds were sucked inside each of the two engines and the aircraft lost thrust from both engines. Without power, they had to glide onto a runway but the pilot didn’t think they would make any nearby airport. He determined their best chance for survival was to to make a controlled water landing on the Hudson River. He did so – without a single loss of life. That incident became known as the Miracle on the Hudson.

The pilot, Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger (Hanks) was hailed as a hero by the popular media and the press. He and his co-pilot Jeff Skiles (Eckhart) had done the remarkable and saved a plane full of passengers and crew (155 souls in all) from almost certain death. But there were questions, questions the National Transportation Safety Board had about Sully’s decision making. Flight data showed that one of the engines was still turning, indicating that there was sufficient power in the engine to make it back to LaGuardia. Also, computer simulations showed that the plane could have made it back to the airport.

However, Sully knew through 40 plus years of flying that it wasn’t so. Doubting himself, his career and reputation at stake, he knows he will have to confront his accusers with the only things he has to defend himself with – his experience and the truth.

It would seem that the story of Sully Sullenberger would be the perfect fit for Clint Eastwood; after all, he’s one of the finest directors working and the Sullenberger story has that same resonance that Chris Kyle of American Sniper did. However, whereas that film was a character study disguised as an action film, this is more of a disaster film disguised as a character study.

Hanks doesn’t really resemble Sullenberger facially but he’s a good choice for the role. This is in many ways very similar to his Jim Lovell role in Apollo 13 although there are some differences we’ll get into in a bit. Still, it’s a portrait of a calm professional doing what he does best in a moment of crisis, just like the Ron Howard film. Hanks has that quality of calm and cool that he has projected throughout his career and while he is not as well-known for those types of roles, he still excels at them, quietly.

What I was a little bit disappointed about is that we don’t really get that much insight into Sullenberger himself. Much of the movie revolves around the investigation of the crash, and while we get scenes juxtaposing the hero-worship going on in the media and the public (which Sullenberger seems definitely uncomfortable with) and the questioning of his competence at the NTSB hearings, we don’t get a sense of what Sullenberger was thinking very often. He’s a notoriously private man in real life and so he may not have shared a lot of that (I haven’t read the autobiography this is based on, I must confess) for writer Todd Komanicki to work with.

The scenes of the crash which are mostly told in flashback (as well as nightmares that Sully has of the plane crashing into buildings) are for the most part pretty well-told, although to be honest special effects are not Eastwood’s forte. Still, the scenes are serviceable and give the viewer the “you are there” feel that is needed.

Of course, there were more folks in the cast than Hanks. Eckhart is rock solid as the co-pilot. Jamey Sheridan also shines as the head of the NTSB investigation. Laura Linney plays Sullenberger’s wife and sadly, she is depicted mostly on the phone with Sully which really puts some strain on the dynamic between them – you never get a sense of the relationship between them. I think the movie could have used some time with the two face-to-face onscreen.

Eastwood is much too savvy a director to churn out a movie without at least some merit (although Jersey Boys might well be the exception to that rule) but this one is a bit too clinical to be among his best. Don’t get me wrong – it’s a great story and the depiction of those 208 seconds from the time the birds were encountered to the controlled water landing are harrowing and amazing. Any Eastwood movie – even Jersey Boys ­– is worthwhile viewing. I like Sully well enough but I left it feeling that there could have been more – and should have been.

REASONS TO GO: The performances are terrific particularly among the leads. An inside look at an American hero – and why being a hero isn’t necessarily good news for the hero.
REASONS TO STAY: There’s little insight into Sullenberger himself.
FAMILY VALUES:  A little bit of rough language and scenes of plane crash peril.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT:  Ferry captain Vincent Lombardi, who was the first on the scene to pick up survivors, plays himself in the movie.
CRITICAL MASS: As of 10/11/16: Rotten Tomatoes: 82% positive reviews. Metacritic: 74/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Flight
FINAL RATING: 7/10
NEXT: ARQ

Cafe Society

On the Boardwalk.

(2016) Romantic Comedy (Lionsgate) Jesse Eisenberg, Kristen Stewart, Blake Lively, Steve Carell, Corey Stoll, Ken Stott, Jeannie Berlin, Sari Lennick, Sheryl Lee, Paul Schackman, Richard Portnoy, Stephen Kunken, Anna Camp, Parker Posey, Kat Edmonson, Tony Sirico, Paul Schneider, Don Stark, Gregg Binkley, Anthony DiMaria, Shae D’Lyn, Taylor Carr. Directed by Woody Allen

 

Finding love and a life you can live with are never easy propositions, even in Hollywood during the Golden Age. There are all sorts of detours and obstacles, not to mention the comfortable ruts we find ourselves in from time to time. There is also a question of timing – being in the right place at the right time. No, finding a place where you fit in and a person you fit in with is no easy task, no matter what the era.

Bobby Dorfman (Eisenberg) is a good Jewish boy from the Bronx. It is shortly after the war and America is in its ascendancy and Hollywood defines America. His uncle Phil (Carell) is a high-powered agent with such clients as Ginger Rogers and Adolphe Menjou and studio chiefs kiss his butt to curry favor. Bobby heads out for Southern California to see if he can make a career out there; Phil isn’t enthusiastic about the idea but after some dithering finally gives his nephews a job.

He also enlists his personal assistant Vonnie (Stewart) to show him around town. The two hit it off but when Bobby is eager to take things further, Vonnie gently rebuffs him. However, his sweet charm wears her down and eventually she gives in and the two become something of an item. However, Vonnie has a secret that she’s been keeping from everybody and when it surfaces, it effectively ends their romance. Disheartened, Bobby returns to New York.

There he is given a job by his brother Ben (Stoll), a gangster, to run his tres chi chi nightclub known as Les Tropique. It becomes the place to be seen in Manhattan, with politicians, Broadway stars, sports heroes and gangsters all rubbing elbows. Bobby also meets Veronica (Lively) who charms him and eventually the two get married and have a child. Everything is going exactly the way Bobby envisioned it – until one night Vonnie walks into his joint…

Woody Allen is in many ways the embodiment of a niche filmmaker. His area of interests is fairly narrow compared to some, and he tends to stick with those subjects pretty much without exception. When he is at his best, there are few better. However in the last couple of decades, it has become evident that his best work is likely behind him and some of his worst much closer to 2016 than his best stuff, much of which was made in the ‘70s and ‘80s. He has had flashes of brilliance since then but perhaps his torrid pace – he generally churns out a new film every year – might well have hurt him quality-wise.

Still, Woody Allen’s worst is far better than most people’s best and this is far from his worst. While I found one of the romances a bit disingenuous, there is also one relationship that you almost root for. The problem I have with the movie is that I really ended up not caring about either Bobby or Vonnie. Bobby’s sweetness could get cloying and after awhile he reminded me of a slingshot that had been pulled back just a hair too far back and I was just waiting for him to snap. On the other hand, Vonnie is crazy shallow and despite all of her apparent aspirations towards depth, at the end of the day she chooses the easy path every time. Bobby and Vonnie are a couple far better together than they are individually so this is really a case of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts.

Allen has always known how to make his movies look their best and that starts with hiring the best cinematographers in the business, from Gordon Willis to Darius Khondji to now Vittorio Storaro here. Storaro is one of the most gifted cinematographers in the business and he makes the Golden Age look golden, both in Los Angeles and New York. Like all Woody Allen movies, it is beautiful to look at in ways you wouldn’t think of for a film that is mostly set in a big city of one coast or another.

Mostly you’ll want to see this for the supporting cast, who are wonderful, from the luminescent Lively to Carell in one of his meatier roles, to Stoll as the good-natured gangster but especially Stott and Berlin as Bobby and Ben’s long-suffering parents. They are quite the hoot and supply a lot of the best comedic moments here.

The movie ends up being a little bit bittersweet and doesn’t really end the way you’d expect it to, but then again Woody Allen has never been in making the movies people expect him to make. He’s always been a bit of a maverick and done things the way he wanted to rather than the way the studios wanted him to do it. He doesn’t make blockbusters and I don’t think he’s ever really been interested in breaking the bank from that perspective, but he makes movies that as a body of work will be long-remembered when some of the box office hits of the last fifty years are long forgotten.

REASONS TO GO: It’s Woody Allen and you don’t miss an opportunity to see a master. Beautifully shot and captures the era perfectly.
REASONS TO STAY: The romantic leads are two people you end up not caring about.
FAMILY VALUES: There’s some sexually suggestive content, a little bit of violence and a drug reference or two.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: This is the first movie that Allen has shot digitally. It’s also the first time in 29 years that Allen has narrated a film without appearing onscreen.
CRITICAL MASS: As of 8/10/16: Rotten Tomatoes: 70% positive reviews. Metacritic: 64/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Hail, Caesar!
FINAL RATING: 7/10
NEXT: Ghost Team

The Shameless (Mu-roe-han)

He’s a Seoul man.

(2015) Crime Drama (CJ Entertainment) Do-yeon Jeon, Nam-gil Kim, Sung-Woong Park, Do-won Gwok. Directed by Seung-uk Oh

We are victims of our own circumstances, whatever they might be. Whether we are trapped in our jobs, or trapped by our bad (or even good) decisions, wherever we are in life, that’s where we are. We can break out of our circumstances if we choose to, and if we’re willing to step out into the unknown but it requires a kind of courage that as we get older, we find that we no longer possess.

Detective Jae-gon Jung (Kim) is a lonely man. He is divorced and is hopelessly corrupt; in fact, his entire squad is essentially on the take from organized crime. He gets an assignment and not from his superiors in the police but from members of a criminal organization; Joon-gil Park (Park), a mid-level mobster with a gambling problem, has committed the ultimate sin; he’s murdered one of his own.

By their own rules, the mob can’t kill him, but they can let the cops have him…and if he gets crippled or killed during the arrest, so much the better. Park is on the run, but his weak point is his girlfriend, Hye-kyung Kim (Jeon). She is a madam in what is called a hospitality room but is essentially a brothel. Jung goes undercover, taking over as her head of security under the guise of Park’s cellmate in prison.

Although she’s initially suspicious and antagonistic with him, the two begin to warm up towards each other, finding out that they are kindred spirits. Kim is desperately lonely, her boyfriend on the run and the sexual encounters with her clients meaningless and almost perfunctory. She has accumulated a huge debt, mostly because Park has been gambling away her money and loan sharks have begun to make threatening noises against her.

Although Jung is using her to get to Park, he begins to fall for her and soon the two end up as lovers. Meanwhile, the forces that turned Jung loose to find Park are growing impatient and Park is broke, needing money to get out of the country and Kim is ready to give it to him. With everything stacked up against them, can Jung and Kim actually break away from the life they find each other in and make something better…together?

There is a heavy noir element running through the movie. Initially we see it as a bit of a wink, particularly in the jaunty jazzy score and the references that crop up early. Jung is the kind of role the late Robert Mitchum would have filled admirably and the movie would have benefitted very much by the presence of someone like him – although there really isn’t anyone like him and likely never will be.

While the crime story is really the reason for the film, it is the love story that drives it. The feeling is dark, that it is inevitable that nothing good can happen for the lovers. Regardless of whether Park is arrested or escapes, you realize quickly that it is going to be bad for Jung and Kim. Kim often disappears into the embrace of alcohol, while Jung…well, Jung is a complicated character who leaves maddening glimpses of the guy inside but the script rarely allows Nam-gil Kim to really give us much in terms of who Jung really is. He remains maddeningly enigmatic, a tortured soul who seems at every turn to choose remaining that way.

This is definitely the seedy side of Seoul, where business is crooked and crooked business is business as usual. The corruption is so integrated into every aspect of life that it is almost expected. Everybody is using everybody else to get ahead; the cynicism is palpable and pervasive. In other words, just like any really good noir.

When Jung and Kim have sex is the only time they seem to be truly alive. They both have a kind of dead-eyed demeanor throughout but when passion takes them over, the juxtaposition is really compelling. In that sense, these are masterful performances as the actors seem to be holding their passions in check throughout, waiting for just the right moment to reveal them.

The movie is a bit overly long though and adds a coda which is not only unnecessary but actually hurts the movie. There are some things about the fate of Kim and Jung that really should have been left to the imagination of the audience rather than spelling it out as precisely as it was. That last ten minutes could have been lopped off and the movie would have been better for it.

As noir thrillers go, this isn’t half-bad but the movie could have been made a bit more concise. There are enough elements to recommend it, particularly for fans of the genre and of Korean cinema in general, but it is not an enthusiastic recommendation I’m afraid. Still, that is appropriate for characters like Jung and Kim who have learned to take what they can get – and not to expect much more than that.

REASONS TO GO: Stylish but fatalistic. Sexy in all the right places.
REASONS TO STAY: A little too long. Somewhat convoluted.
FAMILY VALUES: Sex, violence, nudity, drug/alcohol use and a ton of smoking, along with a fair amount of profanity.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: This is Oh’s second feature; his first was 2000’s Kilimanjaro but he has been active as one of Korea’s most sought-after screenwriters.
CRITICAL MASS: As of 11/21/15: Rotten Tomatoes: No score yet. Metacritic: No score yet.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Key Largo
FINAL RATING: 6.5/10
NEXT: Goosebumps