Lords of Chaos

Welcome to my nightmare.

(2018) Biographical Drama (Gunpowder & Sky) Rory Culkin, Emory Cohen, Jack Kilmer, Sky Ferreira, Valter Skarsgård, Anthony De La Torre, Jonathan Barnwell, Sam Coleman, Wilson Gonzalez, Lucian Charles Collier, Andrew Lavelle, James Edwyn, Gustaf Hammarsten, Jon Ølgarden, Arion Csihar, Jason Arnopp, Tom van Hoesch, Dzsenifer Bagi. Directed by Jonas Åkerlund

 

In the mid-90s, black metal rose out of Norway as a reaction to what the practitioners viewed as the trendiness of death metal. The group Mayhem essentially defined the genre, then became enmeshed in it, finally being destroyed by it, even though the band continues to perform even to this day.

Disaffected Norwegian Euronymous (Culkin) forms the band as a means of expressing his dissatisfaction with Norway’s Christian society and to take death metal further than it seemed likely to go. When Swedish lead singer Dead (Cohen) commits suicide, Euronymous – who discovered the body – seems to grow callous towards the grisly end of his friend, even handing out necklaces that contained bone fragments from his bandmate’s skull to the remaining members of Mayhem as well as to musicians that he liked.

He takes under his wing teenage Varg Vikernes (Cohen) who has the zeal of a convert. Varg takes to burning churches, some of them centuries old and Norwegian cultural treasures. Euronymous heartily approves of this behavior, even though he is more of an observer than a participant. Things begin to get dicey between the two as Varg brags – anonymously – about the deeds, even boasting that he had killed someone – to the press. Euronymous is horrified, understanding that this could get them all arrested but Varg feels that they need to be feared, to make a statement that this is not just posing but who they really are. As the two men grow more paranoid, it leads to a fracture within the band – and a shocking crime.

Åkerlund has plenty of insight into the scene; as a young man he played drums for the Swedish band Bathory which was an inspiration to the real Mayhem but strangely enough, we don’t get much. The motivations for these people to do genuinely evil acts seems to be a kind of macho one-upsmanship and a fear of being labeled a poseur. Although the film takes place in Norway, the film is in English with the character of Euronymous providing narration. Cohen sounds a bit like Christian Slater which also is somewhat disconcerting.

Surprisingly little black metal is used on the soundtrack; in fact, the lead-up to the climax utilizes Dead Can Dance – decidedly not a metal band – effectively as the background score. The suicide is graphic as is the final scene and sensitive sorts should definitely steer clear; that final scene is particularly brutal and realistic. The movie is interesting as a character study, but at the end of the day we get the distinct impression that who these guys really were was a bunch of asshats.

REASONS TO SEE: Disturbing in an interesting way.
REASONS TO AVOID: Seems to glorify knuckle-dragging behavior.
FAMILY VALUES: The movie’s chock full of profanity; there’s also nudity, sex, graphic bloody violence and disturbing images.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Euronymous is portrayed here smoking regularly and drinking heavily but in reality he rarely drank anything stronger than Coca-Cola and did not smoke.
BEYOND THE THEATERS: Amazon, AppleTV, Fandango Now, Google Play, Hoopla, Hulu, Kanopy, Microsoft, Redbox, Vudu
CRITICAL MASS: As of 6/29/20: Rotten Tomatoes: 74% positive reviews, Metacritic: 48/100
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Until the Light Takes Us
FINAL RATING: 6.5/10
NEXT: Beyond Skiing Everest

Summer of 84

Just a bunch of teenage badasses.

(2018) Thriller/Horror (Gunpowder & Sky) Graham Verchere, Judah Lewis, Caleb Emery, Cory Grüter-Andrew, Tiera Skovbye, Rich Sommer, Jason Gray-Stanford, Shauna Johannesen, William MacDonald, Harrison Hourde, Aren Buchholz, Susie Castillo, Reilly Jacob, Jaiven Natt, J. Alex Brinson, Patrick Keating, Patrick Lubczyk, Jordan Buhat, Mark Brandon. Directed by Anouk Whissell, François Simard and Yoann-Karl Whissell

We remember our childhood with a certain tinge of nostalgia. The era we grew up in – be it the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s or aughts – live in our memories with a sepia glow of comfort and warmth. Summer nights spent bicycling around the neighborhood with our friends, looking for whatever adventures might be found in the nooks and crannies of where we grew up are precious to us as we grow older, careworn and further away from our youth when anything was possible, before we found out that life isn’t always beautiful.

Davey Armstrong (Verchere) grew up in the 80s in a small Midwestern town which was about as suburban as it got. His dad (Gray-Stanford) worked as a sound man for the local TV news. His best friends were always around the neighborhood and summer was an endless time of hanging out, talking about girls and neighborhood games of manhunt.

It is also a troubling time for his parents who are fully aware that several boys around town have gone missing. Davey is a bit of a tabloid conspiracy nut and most of his friends and acquaintances have heard all about his oddball theories but at least this one is plausible; Davey believes his next door neighbor, Wayne Mackey (Sommer) is a serial killer responsible for the disappearances. His friends – leather jacketed punk Eats (Lewis), rotund Woody (Emery) and smart-as-a-whip Curtis (Grüter-Andrew) are skeptical at first but soon they come to believe in Davey and set out to proving it.

This will involve things like going through his garbage, staking out his house and eventually breaking and entering. But that’s not the only thing Davey is keeping an eye on; his pretty former babysitter Nikki (Skovbye) has a habit of undressing in front of her window which Davey’s bedroom window faces. Her parents are divorcing and she’ll be moving away from the neighborhood shortly; she is upset and Davey becomes her confidante, which ends up dragging her into their detective work. She is also skeptical about Davey’s theory since Officer Mackey is outwardly a very nice guy, but there is also a very creepy side to him. As summer comes to a close and the chill winds of autumn and school beckon on the horizon, Davey and his crew will come face to face with something truly monstrous.

The vibe here is a bit Hitchcock meets vintage Spielberg. While there is very much a tone similar to the hit Netflix series Stranger Things this isn’t exactly the same thing. There are no supernatural elements here and for awhile I had a real hard time convincing myself that this belonged among my Six Days of Darkness collection but then again there’s the last ten minutes which…well, I’ll get to that.

The synth-heavy score certainly sets the tone; the music is reminiscent of John Carpenter’s music from the era. There are also lots of visual cues, from the arcade to the G.I Joe walkie-talkies that the boys use. The parents here are generally well-meaning but clueless which brings in the Spielberg element. The idyllic nature of the environment adds not so much to the era but to the time of life of the protagonists. I think that’s a time of life that we all appreciate.

There are some clichés in the plot and characterization. Those who are familiar with Rear Window or Suburbia will feel like they’re on a well-trodden path and Davey’s group of friends are pretty much standard issue for these sorts of Hardy Boys-type films. Also, the identity of the person behind the disappearances is not that hard to pick out if you’re paying attention.

But then there are those last ten minutes. At a certain point, the movie kicks into overdrive and you will be sitting on the edge of your seat, jaw firmly resting on the floor as you watch these filmmakers whose previous film was the decent Turbo Kid absolutely come of age. The last ten minutes of Summer of 84 may be the best ten minutes of any film you see this year.

REASONS TO GO: The last ten minutes of this movie are as good as any you’ll see. The filmmakers keep you guessing.
REASONS TO STAY: There are more than a few clichés here and the killer is fairly easy to spot.
FAMILY VALUES: There is profanity including crude sexual references and some nudity.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: There are a variety of shout-outs to 80s movies including The Karate Kid, The Thing and the Star Wars franchise.
BEYOND THE THEATERS: Amazon, Fandango Now, Google Play,  iTunes, Microsoft, Vudu, YouTube
CRITICAL MASS: As of 10/28/18: Rotten Tomatoes: 67% positive reviews. Metacritic: 57/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Stranger Things
FINAL RATING: 7.5/10
NEXT: Six Days of Darkness Day Three

Hearts Beat Loud

Isn’t this how Phish got started?

(2018) Dramedy (Gunpowder & Sky) Nick Offerman, Kiersey Clemons, Toni Collette, Ted Danson, Sasha Lane, Blythe Danner, Quincy Dunn-Baker, Alex Reznik, Andrea Morales, Michael Abbott Jr., Harrison Chad, Robert Reed Murphy, Rafael Poueriet, McManus Woodend, Faith Logan. Directed by Brett Haley

 

Sometimes you just need a movie that’s going to make you feel good. More often than not you’ll reach for a favorite from childhood or even young adulthood, something as familiar and as comforting as an old blanket on a rainy day. Other times though you still want to try something new. If this is one of those times, have I got a movie for you.

Frank (Offerman) is the proprietor of Red Hook Records, the kind of store John Cusack would love. He resolutely and stubbornly sells only vinyl in the hipster-infested neighborhood of Red Hook in Brooklyn. When one such hipster scolds him for smoking in his own store, Frank replies acidly that if he’ll buy something, he’ll put out his coffin nail. The hipster counters by whipping out his phone and ordering his record on Amazon. Such brazen acts of douche-ness should be rewarded with a bazooka to the face.

His smart and pretty daughter Sam (Clemons) is heading to med school all the way across the country at UCLA in the fall. Frank is okay with this although the cost for sending his baby to college is staggering; there’s no way he could afford it on what he’s pulling in from the store so after 17 years he’s shuttering the business, despite the attempts by his sympathetic landlady (Collette) and kinda-sorta-maybe love interest to help him out.

One of Frank’s great joys is having a regular jam session with his daughter. Frank, who in his youth recorded an album, recaptures a little bit of his past glory in these sessions. On this night, a tune his daughter had been working on becomes a really good single. Dad wants to start a band with her and tour; she wants to go to med school. He takes the recording of the song and without her knowledge submits it to Spotify. It is added to a curated New Indie playlist. Suddenly things are starting to happen. You can guess where this is leading.

Haley, who directed last year’s excellent The Hero, surrounds these two with a pretty fair cast, including Danner as Frank’s mom who is showing signs of dementia and shoplifts from time to time, Danson as a pothead bartender and Lane as Sam’s girlfriend. There’s not a poor performance in the bunch and Offerman in particular is marvelous – I think this is his best work to date as a matter of fact. While it might seem to be a bit presumptuous for his daughter to tell Frank – often – that he needs to grow up, it’s also true that Frank seems to be spending his time in Just-Out-of-College Land.

There are a few bumps in the road; the relationship between Sam and Rose feels contrived and a bit too ridden with indie clichés to really hold up.. Also some of the roles (in particularly the mom and Rose) that are woefully underwritten and could have used some fleshing out. The soundtrack is really nice – you have to love a movie that gives a shout-out to Jason Molina and Songs: Ohia – and both Offerman and Clemons, who do their own singing and playing in the movie, are actually pretty good.

Some movies try too hard to be charming but this one pulls it off organically. Certainly you’re being manipulated a little bit but in the end if you walk out of the theater feeling good, that’s worth it’s weight in gold in these troubling times. Incidentally while the movie has opened up in major markets like New York and Los Angeles, it is rolling out nationwide and will be making it’s Orlando debut on June 22^nd. You should definitely check it out.

REASONS TO GO: The soundtrack is nifty and the original songs ain’t half-bad. This just might be Nick Offerman’s best work to date.
REASONS TO STAY: The relationship between Sam and Rose is a bit too indie clichéd.
FAMILY VALUES: There is profanity, some drug references and brief sexual content.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Offerman and Danson previously worked together in the second season of Fargo for F/X.
CRITICAL MASS: As of 6/9/18: Rotten Tomatoes: 92% positive reviews: Metacritic: 62/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Band-Aid
FINAL RATING: 7/10
NEXT: The Worker’s Cup

Ramen Heads

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The deliciousness that is ramen.

(2017) Documentary (FilmBuff/Gunpowder & Sky) Osamu Tomita, Shôta Iida, Kumiko Ishida, Katsuya Kobayashi, Yûki Ohnishi, Tom Takahashi, Touka, Hayama, Inoue. Directed by Koki Shigeno

Most of us in the United States know ramen as something that comes pre-packaged and can be made at home in just a few minutes. In Japan, ramen has been around for a long while as a kind of working man’s lunch that was easy and inexpensive that took off in a post-World War II Japan. In recent years there has been a dedicated sub-culture as ramen has been gentrified to a certain extent. Fanatics of the dish have their favorite chefs, each of whom have their own recipe for the broth.

The film concentrates mainly o Osamu Tomita who has been voted the best ramen chef in Japan for four years running. We get to see how obsessed he is with the quality of his ingredients, with boiling the broth for just the right amount of time to get the full range of flavors just right. Shigeno goes into loving detail – maybe a bit too lunch for non-aficionados. Certainly true ramen heads will eat this all up, literally but there may be those who find it a bit too much of a love letter.

The film covers other chefs as well although not in as great detail and things end up with a celebration of the tenth anniversary of Tomita’s restaurant, which has only ten tables, is located in a fairly less-traveled part of Japan and yet lines have already formed by 7am when the restaurant takes reservations for the day. It is necessary because the reservations generally sell out early; it is one of the hardest tables to get in all of Japan.

We then are shown the dizzying array of ramen types, many of which are virtually unknown outside of Japan. I never knew that there were so many; I was aware of tonkatsu but the others? It was to be honest, mind-blowing. I think anyone with an interest in food, especially Japanese cuisine and particularly ramen will find a lot to learn in this doc.

This is very much a man’s world; I didn’t see a single female ramen chef and even the servers were male. I also got the sense that most diehard ramen fans are also men, but this is something not really explored in the film. It should have at least have been mentioned. The fact that this is a Japanese film intended for a Japanese audience leads to them not mentioning that ramen has begun exploding over here in the States, with small ramen shops like the ones depicted here opening up all over the country.

However, there is almost a fawning feel and the voice over narration is a bit florid. Clearly the director is completely enamored of ramen which is all right  but he ascribes to it an almost mystic quality to it, equating it to the first blush of young love. It’s only noodle soup, dude.

REASONS TO GO: These chefs are truly badass! The film lets us into a world of obsession that westerners rarely get to see and are unfamiliar with.
REASONS TO STAY: The movie is a bit long and may be too detailed for those who aren’t into ramen.
FAMILY VALUES: This is suitable for the entire family.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Metastasized breast cancer is incurable and usually fatal; it also only gets about 8% of research funding despite causing the lion’s share of fatalities among breast cancer patients.
CRITICAL MASS: As of 5/28/18: Rotten Tomatoes: 57% positive reviews: Metacritic: 58/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Jiro Dreams of Sushi
FINAL RATING: 7/10
NEXT: Coming to My Senses