X

When you see the price they paid I’m sure you’ll come and join the masquerade.

(2019) Thriller (Cinedigm)  Hope Raymond, Eliza Bolvin, Brian Smick, Zachary Cowan, Valerie Fachman, Hans Probst, Ashley Raggs, Mioyoko Sakatani, Perry Fenton, Vicky Lopez, Mira Gutoff, Hunter Ridenour, George Arana, Jaime Soltys, Tony Clark, Wendy Taylor, Wendy Wyatt-Mair, Trevor Ossian Cameron, Malachi Maynard, Ethan Fry, Amber Tiana, Celina Garcia. Directed by Scott J. Ramsey

 

There are movies that exist in a larger universe, whether it be a shared cinematic universe like Marvel or the Friday the 13^th franchise, or in our own reality. Then there are other movies that seem to exist in their own space, separate from what we know and understand. They create their own reality – that’s not necessarily a bad thing, by the way. It’s not necessarily a good thing, either.

In a beautiful mansion on the rugged Central California coast, a monthly masquerade ball for charity is about to take place. Run by a group called the Foundation (which is also the name of the production company for this and other films, something that might feel a bit uppity to some), the privacy and security of those attending are taken very seriously. The ball is by invitation only. Everyone is required to wear masks and I’m not talking the kind that the CDC recommends. Nobody is allowed to use their own names – they’re all assigned letter-and-number code names, like B7 or G8. I’m not sure if this makes them sound like spies or bingo numbers.

The grand muckety-muck of the Foundation is Christian (Raymond), also known as the Queen, and she and a select few realize that the charity ball is just a pretense; once the checkbooks are put away and the more repressed sorts have gone home for the evening, the party turns into a huge sex party where anything (and everything) goes, so long as those who attend are not forced to do things they don’t want to do. At this particular party, Christian notices an interloper and she eventually susses out the identity of Stella (Bolvin), an old rival from high school. She is now a fairly well-known sex cam performer, although her boyfriend Jackson (Cowan) isn’t aware of that fact – he thinks she’s teaching night school. She was invited by Christian’s right hand man Danny (Smick), ostensibly to add some notoriety to the mix, but in large part to get under the skin of his employer.

It doesn’t seem to faze Christian much, and she ends up inviting Stella to the next one, urging her to bring along Jackson – whom Christian had a serious crush on back in high school. At the next party, things start to go horribly wrong for Christian as her secret perversion is revealed, her mother Lynda (Fichman), a former pop star, and who suffers from dementia, turns up and all of this threatens the entire structure of the Foundation.

This is described – accurately enough – as an erotic thriller mixed in with LGBTQ+ camp with, I might add, some dark comedy thrown in for good measure. But the real meat of the movie is as a character study, as the movie really looks in at the fragile reality behind the façade of a strong capable woman that is Christian.

The movie enjoys some sumptuous production values considering its low budget, and enjoys a really nifty soundtrack. The movie missteps a bit with the acting performances – the acting is like what you might find at a Broadway audition circa 1957 and is a little overly broad and stiff for the movie camera. Some of the dialogue is cringeworthy, even though (I think) it’s meant as satire. The film owes a lot to Kubrick’s final film Eyes Wide Shut in terms of the set-up and the overall air of decadence, but there’s a very thin line between pushing boundaries and coming off as pretentious.

This isn’t strictly LGBTQ+ either – I would categorize the sex more as pansexual than anything else – and while there is a certain amount of fluidity in the lead characters’ sexuality (particularly Christian’s) there is all kinds of hooking up going on that will titillate those of any sexual preference, although there is surprisingly little graphic sexual content considering the setting.

The ending is not at all what you would expect; normally I find that to be a good thing, but to be honest, it didn’t feel earned and the more I thought about it as time has gone by since I screened the film, the less it felt right. To be fair, this was never meant to be a movie for a wide audience; this isn’t going to be everyone’s brand of vodka. If you’re the sort who delights in the erotic (particularly the fringes of same), this might well be the kind of entertainment you’re looking for and then some. For most though, it’s going to be a hard sell.

REASONS TO SEE: The production values are surprisingly strong.
REASONS TO AVOID: Well over the line into pretentiousness.
FAMILY VALUES: There is plenty of profanity and sexual references as well as some violence.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: A companion album featuring music by goth-pop artists The Major Arcana (of which director Scott J. Ramsey is a member) entitled At the Devil’s Ball was released in conjunction with the film.
BEYOND THE THEATERS: Amazon, AppleTV, Google Play, Vudu, YouTube
CRITICAL MASS: As of 2/18/21: Rotten Tomatoes: No score yet; Metacritic: No score yet.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Eyes Wide Shut
FINAL RATING: 5/10
NEXT: Earwig and the Witch

Advertisement

I Melt With You

Never drink alone, Jeremy Piven.

(2011) Drama (Magnolia) Thomas Jane, Rob Lowe, Jeremy Piven, Christian McKay, Carla Gugino, Sasha Grey, Zander Eckhouse, Abhi Sinha, Arielle Kebbel, Tom Bower, Joe Reegan, August Emerson, Rebecca Creskoff, Melora Hardin, Anthony Newfield, Tom Donald, Emma Friedman, David Lowe, Natalia Nogulich. Directed by Mark Pellington

Regret is a powerful drug, more addictive than cocaine and more destructive than heroin. As we reach middle age it becomes a drug we are less and less able to resist.

Four friends from college have reached that plateau. They meet every year for a weekend to party like rock stars and remember the good old days. All of them seem successful on the surface  but are living lives of quiet desperation. Ron (Piven) is a Wall Street hotshot who is under SEC investigation and will doubtlessly be arrested when he returns home. Jonathan (Lowe) is a physician whose practice consists mostly of prescribing drugs to Beverly Hills housewives who don’t need them and whose daughter identifies more with her mom’s new husband than with her dad.

Then there’s Richard (Jane), a published author who did get his book published but has been unable to write anything since and is teaching high school English to make ends meet. Finally there’s Tim (McKay), openly bisexual whose relationship with a couple turned tragic when the other two people in the relationship died in a car accident.

All of these men are at crisis points in their lives and are turning to self-medication, self-loathing and self-examination to try and figure out what went wrong, or better still to numb the pain. They also turn to sex, bringing home a waitress and her friends. During the debauchery, one of the four friends abruptly commits suicide, leaving as a note a suicide pact the four of them made in college to the effect of if they were disappointed by life when they reached middle age, they would agree to kill themselves and thus avoid further disappointments in old age.

After burying their friend, the survivors decide to hide the evidence of his deed just in case the police assigned them responsibility for his action after reading his note. However, his act and the justification for it is weighing heavily on each of their minds.

This is one of those movies that is made with the best of intentions but doesn’t quite make the grade. Pellington and writer Glenn Porter intended this to be a journey into the male psyche, but as a male I can tell you this wasn’t a journey into MY psyche. These guys mistake taking lots of drugs, drinking lots of alcohol and having lots of sex as a trip down memory lane reclaiming their lost youth. While I’ve known guys like that, I’ve never seen anyone with this degree of denial.

Part of the problem is that the dialogue is so bloody pretentious. Real people don’t speak like this. I can have deep conversations with my buddies about the meaning of life and manhood and all that without sounding like Diablo Cody on Quaaludes. The pacing is leaden and the dramatic tension is nil. By the time all the excrement goes down you’re not much caring what happens to who.

I will say that the actors give this thing the old college try. Piven in particular is meritorious, doing some of his best work with his sad, trapped animal eyes. He has a tendency to play characters who are just this side of being a jerk, but who are nonetheless compelling for all that.

The soundtrack, mainly made up of 80s college rock standards, rocks the house. Adam Sandler would get a chubby listening to it. Seriously, if you like the ’80s you’re going to find one or two songs that you’re going to go “Oh yeah, I really need to download that to my iPhone.”

I really wish this had been written a bit better. Pellington spoke in the press notes of wanting to provoke a polarization and I suppose that there is some value in that, in the initiating a conversation sense. After seeing this though, I really didn’t want to talk about any of it; I just wanted to forget it and move on.

WHY RENT THIS: Impressive soundtrack. The four main leads are solid.

WHY RENT SOMETHING ELSE: Cringe-worthy, pretentious dialogue. Ponderous pacing and lacks any sort of reason for the audience to get involved.

FAMILY VALUES: The drug use here is pretty pervasive as is the foul language. There is also some sexual content and a little bit of violence.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: The movie was shot chronologically in order for the actors to see and feel the consequences of their character’s actions.

NOTABLE HOME VIDEO EXTRAS: There are close to six hours of extra features and not a one of ’em rises up beyond the usual, although a couple of guerilla promotional pieces from Piven and Jane nearly do.

BOX OFFICE PERFORMANCE: $6,361 on an unknown production budget; probably didn’t make back the catering costs, let alone the production costs..

COMPARISON SHOPPING: Bachelor Party

FINAL RATING: 5/10

NEXT: Back to the Future II