Inside the Rain

Ben is tired of explaining that it’s NOT the Coronavirus.

(2019) Dramedy (Act 13) Aaron Fisher, Rosie Perez, Eric Roberts, Ellen Toland, Catherine Curtin, Paul Schulze, Donnell Rawlings, Rita Raider, Natalie Carter, Katie Claire McGrath, Jesse Means, Jaz Goodreau, Ryan Donowho, Kerri Sohn, Thom Niemann, Alex Emanuel, Christina Toth, Jacob Wheeler, Chelsea Watts, Miriam Morales, Jowin Marie Batoon. Directed by Aaron Fisher

 

I always feel a bit guilty reviewing movies that are autobiographical. It’s like reviewing somebody’s life; “Sorry, your life isn’t interesting enough. Your life could have used a few more car chases.”

There are no car chases in Aaron Fisher’s life. Here he plays Ben Glass, a young man who has an amazing array of mental issues, including ADHD, personality disorder, and the crown jewel, bipolar disorder. He takes a staggering array of drugs to essentially function. He is under the care of brash New York psychiatrist Dr. Holloway (Perez) who thinks she can make a significant difference in his life in only six weeks.

While at a party, the often-socially awkward Ben hooks up with Daisy (McGrath), a comely co-ed but when she makes it clear that the one-night stand is just that, he goes into a downward spiral that leads to a suicide attempt. While he is welcomed back to the University following what is, judging from the reaction of his Mom (Curtin) and Dad (Schulze) not the first time he’s tried it, Daisy stops by his dorm room just as Ben is organizing his array of pills into a weekly pill container. She mistakes this for a preparation for another attempt and the police are called. The university, having a strict two-strike policy, moves to expel Ben.

Ben feels the injustice of the thing and won’t go down without a fight, despite advice from his parents and shrink to do just that. Ben plans to appeal and when Dad won’t provide a lawyer, Ben hits upon the idea of filming a dramatic recreation of events which he feels sure will convince the board of appeals of his innocence and get him reinstated immediately. He even has a female lead – Emma (Toland), an escort/stripper/sushi girl who he grows sweet on after rescuing her from some boorish Wall Street types. If Ben’s parents and therapist thought fighting the expulsion was a bad idea, wait until they get a load of this idea…

I’m not sure how much of the material here is fictional and how much is based on actual incidents in Fisher’s life; certainly there are elements of both in the movie. There are times it’s hard to watch Fisher self-destruct as he goes off his meds; it gives viewers a hint of what the families of those with severe mood changes can go through. Amazingly, Fisher remains for the most part sympathetic throughout, although Ben can be profoundly unlikable at times. How willing you are to tolerate those phases are going to really inform how much you like the movie. Some folks simply won’t have the patience for it.

I can’t give this an unqualified recommendation though; at times this feels very much like Fisher made this for himself and without regard for a potential audience. Some of the humor doesn’t exactly hit the target squarely, although there are some really genuinely funny bits here.

In some ways this is a frustrating movie; there is tons of potential here but the missteps and perhaps the ego of the director keep it out of our grasp. Leaving a film feeling frustrated is never a good thing and that’s essentially why I didn’t give the movie higher marks. That doesn’t mean I don’t respect what was being done here.

REASONS TO SEE: A nifty surf guitar soundtrack.
REASONS TO AVOID: Spending time with Ben can be exhausting.
FAMILY VALUES: There is profanity, sex, drug use, and violence.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Former welterweight world champion Zab Judah makes a cameo as one of Dr. Holloway’s patients, much to the delight of boxing fan Perez who wasn’t aware he would be on set.
CRITICAL MASS: As of 3/23/20: Rotten Tomatoes: 82% positive reviews, Metacritic: 51/100
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Aspie Seeks Love
FINAL RATING: 5.5/10
NEXT: Ema

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Kin

Some ordinary boys hide extraordinary secrets.

(2018) Science Fiction (Summit) Myles Truitt, Jack Reynor, Dennis Quaid, Zoë Kravitz, James Franco, Carrie Coon, Ian Matthew, Gavin Fox, Stephane Garneau-Morten, Michael B. Jordan, Lily Gao, Lukas Penar, Carleigh Beverly, Milton Barnes, Michael Grisley, Khalid Klein, Sean Fowler, Carson Manning, Dave Lewis, Bree Wasylenko. Directed by Jonathan and Josh Baker

Some movies create their own genres by being something original. Others try to create their own genres by taking aspects of others and forcing it into a mold. This film is one of the latter.

Eli (Truitt) is the adopted son of construction boss Hal Solinski (Quaid) whose biological son Jimmy (Reynor) has just gotten out of jail. Hal is full of hope for the 14-year-old Eli (who is smart but introverted) but disappointed on the older Jimmy. However, it is Eli who discovers an alien weapon when scrounging around for scrap metal in an abandoned factory near his Detroit home.

Jimmy owes crime boss Taylor (Franco) a whole lot of money and in order to protect his dad and kid brother (whom he genuinely cares for) decides to steal the cash to pay Taylor. Things don’t go according to plan and soon Jimmy and Eli end up on the road (with Eli blissfully ignorant of the real reason why) being chased not only by vengeful gangsters but also by mysterious aliens who want their gun back.

This late summer sci-fi action crime road coming of age film actually has some things going for it. For one, the special effects – a combination of the digital and the practical – aren’t half-bad. For another, Franco makes for a truly hissable villain. A late-film cameo by A-list habitue Jordan is also a welcome sight.

But the movie is, oh, so predictable. The plot feels unnecessarily manufactured and none of the characters seem particularly personable. They’re all pretty one dimensional without much depth to them at all. The story feels like something you’ve already seen – and yeah, there haven’[t been a lot of alien weapon movies in the archives, but there have been a few.

There isn’t a lot here to recommend it but then again, there isn’t a lot here either to discourage you from seeing it. This is the kind of movie you watch and forget about ten minutes later. If that sounds like something you need, have at it. Otherwise, there are plenty of much better sci-fi action films out there to occupy your time.

REASONS TO SEE: Decent special effects.
REASONS TO AVOID: Predictable plot and generic characters.
FAMILY VALUES: There is violence of both the gangster and sci-fi variety, some sexually suggestive material, profanity and adult thematic material.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: The Solinski home in the film was the same one used for the 2005 John Singleton film Four Brothers.
BEYOND THE THEATERS: Amazon, AppleTV, Fandango Now, Google Play, HBO Go, Microsoft, Vudu, YouTube
CRITICAL MASS: As of 1/6/20: Rotten Tomatoes: 32% positive reviews: Metacritic: 35/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: A.X.L.
FINAL RATING: 5.5/10
NEXT: Crazy Rich Asians

Stevie D

Torrey DeVitto lights up the screen.

(2016) Comedy (Candy Factory) Chris Cordone, Torrey DeVitto, Kevin Chapman, John Aprea, Spencer Garrett, Al Sapienza, Hal Linden, Robert Costanzo, Phil Idrissi, Darren Capozzi, Guy Camilleri, Jason E. Kelley, Alma Martinez, Alex Fernandez, Seth Cassell, Shawn Carter Peterson, Eric Edelstein, Bree Condon, Emma Jacobson-Sive, Sarah Schreiber. Directed by Chris Cordone

 

When you’re a parent there isn’t anything you wouldn’t do to protect your kid, no matter how old they are or what they’ve done. It’s just part of the deal. Sometimes you’ll go to great lengths to keep them out of trouble, even pushing the boundaries of ludicrous.

Stevie DiMarco (Cordone) a.k.a. Stevie D. is the scion of construction magnate/mob guy Angelo DiMarco (Aprea). Angelo is well-aware that he was too “soft” on his son who has turned out to be a spoiled self-centered jerk balloon. He has recently latched onto Daria de Laurentis (DeVitto), the comely daughter of his father’s lawyer (Garrett) who is new to L.A. and working at her daddy’s law firm as a lawyer until she gets herself settled. Stevie D. has pestered her to the point that she would prefer the company of cockroaches to his.

Stevie gets into an altercation at a strip club with the son of mob boss Nick Grimaldi (Sapienza) which ends up with a hit being put out on Stevie. Despite Angelo’s attempts to guy Stevie out of his mess, Nick is too furious to listen to reason. Angelo’s right hand man Lenny (Chapman) comes up with the idea of hiring look-alike actor Michael Rose (Cordone again) to be Stevie’s body double. Then, when the actor gets whacked, Stevie could safely return home after a little plastic surgery.

Michael is in a bit of a pickle; his long-time agent (Linden) is retiring and Michael’s career has been stalled for years. A good-paying job is just what he needs. However, Michael’s basic charm and genuine humanity differentiate him from Stevie like chocolate from vanilla and soon the “new” Stevie D is assisting with Angelo’s bid to get an NFL team in Los Angeles and Lenny with a career in acting but also in romancing Daria, whom Michael has fallen in love with. Hit men Big Lou (Idrissi) and Little Dom (Capozzi) keep missing opportunities to fulfill their contract, although to be honest they’re enjoying L.A. so much they aren’t trying too terribly hard.

The concept is as old as The Prince and the Pauper (and probably older still) but I don’t think it’s ever been tried in a mob comedy. Los Angeles isn’t a city exactly known for Mafiosi (although it’s had its share of organized crime over the years) and maybe goombahs in the City of Angels wasn’t exactly the wisest choice but I’d be willing to overlook that although quite frankly this would have been better suited for a New York or Boston setting. That’s just me, though.

The cast is riddled with veteran supporting actors who acquit themselves nicely, particularly Chapman (from TV’s Person of Interest) who has a career ahead of him as a tough guy with a good heart since he does those sorts of roles so well – as he does here. DeVitto who is best known for Chicago Med and Pretty Little Liars is luminous here and has a bright future as a cinematic leading lady.

Cordone is a good-looking guy who may have bitten off a bit more than he can chew; not only is he playing dual roles in the film but he’s also the writer, director and producer of the project. That’s a lot of pressure for one guy and it might account for the sometimes stiff performance that he delivers here, particularly as Stevie. Cordone also would have benefitted from a little editing; at two hours, the movie is at least half an hour too long. It’s a case of too many subplots spoil the soup; there’s just a little too much business proving what a jerk Stevie is and what a nice guy Michael is that could have been trimmed.

There are some pretty funny moments, particularly closer to the end of the film – the banter between the hit men is priceless – but the length of the movie really makes it hard to recommend. This would have fared better as something a little more frothy, a little lighter and a little less cliché when it comes to the romance between Michael and Daria which follows the Rom-Com 101 textbook a little too closely. I’d like to see Cordone as an actor where he has a different director and I’d also like to see him as a director with a different lead actor. I think that both roles would have benefitted from a more objective eye.

REASONS TO GO: The veteran supporting cast does a fine job.
REASONS TO STAY: This is way, way, way, way too long.  Cordone is a bit too stiff in the lead roles.
FAMILY VALUES: There is plenty of profanity throughout.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: The film debuted at the Sedona Film Festival, where it won the Director’s Choice Award.
CRITICAL MASS: As of 12/11/16: Rotten Tomatoes: No score yet. Metacritic: No score yet.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Dave
FINAL RATING: 4/10
NEXT: The Late Bloomer

Meet Monica Velour

Truer words were never written…even accidentally.

(2010) Comedy (Anchor Bay) Dustin Ingram, Kim Cattrall, Brian Dennehy, Keith David, Daniel Yelsky, Jee Young Han, Sam McMurray, Elizabeth Wright Shapiro, Jamie Tisdale, Tony Cox, Henry Yuk, Lauren Mae Shafer, Peter Carey, My-Ishia Cason-Brown, Nicole Stober, Kathi J. Moore. Directed by Keith Bearden

The problem with meeting our idols is that they rarely live up to our expectations of them. They are all, without fail, human beings every one, all of whom are imperfect and in some cases, downright awful – which is how they got to the pinnacle in the first place. That goes for ’80s porn legends as well.

Tobe (Ingram) has been dealt a pretty raw hand by life. His parents are both dead and he lives with his aging cantankerous grandfather (Dennehy) and drives a weenie truck, the “Weenie Wiz” which he is now having to sell. Unprepossessing in the looks department, Tobe hasn’t had a lot of experience in l’amour. His ideal woman is a beautiful porn star from the 80s named Monica Velour (Cattrall).

But that was a quarter of a century ago and she’s more or less disappeared from the porn scene. Tobe is driving the Weenie Wiz to a collector (David) of American kitsch in Indiana who’s buying it. Tobe learns that his idol is making a live appearance at a strip club not far from where the collector lives. Tobe figures that this might be his only chance.

However when he gets there he discovers that not everyone has the same admiration for his idol that he does. A group of drunken frat boys heckle her unmercifully and when Tobe asks them to stop, they beat the holy crap out of him.

Monica takes him home and he discovers to his…shock? surprise? I’m not really sure…that she is pushing 50 and lives in a trailer, recovering (and not always fully) from a drug habit and embroiled in a bitter custody suit with her asshole of an ex-husband who forbids her any contact with her daughter and uses that as a means of torturing her.

Monica is a tough broad who’s survived one of the most heartless and cruel lives imaginable but her kid is her Achilles heel. Tobe wants to do something for his idol that will prove his devotion and savvy readers will have an inkling of what that just might entail.

For a comedy this movie is a bit of a downer. The two characters at the heart of the movie lead fairly bleak lives and yes, they’re played for laughs but when you look at it in black and white you kind of feel that sense of quiet desperation that are the lives so many of us lead. That doesn’t mean there aren’t legitimately funny moments which the filmmakers are trying to juxtapose with genuine pathos. They succeed only part of the time on that score however as some of the plot points feel a bit contrived.

Cattrall does some of the best work of her career. One of the most beautiful women in the world (still), she allows herself to be photographed sans make-up and with her hair left pretty much the way she woke up with it. That takes some guts in an industry where glamour is everything and its lack can set your career back some, particularly if you’re an actress pushing middle age.

What makes Monica Velour successful as a character is that she’s no angel, no hooker with a heart of gold and certainly no role model. She makes some pretty self-destructive choices and there are times you really want to give her a good “WHAT WERE YOU THINKING” rant nose to nose with her. She’d probably head-butt you though so do be careful if you decide to take me up on it.

Cattrall brings that aspect of her to life, makes Velour a survivor – in some ways barely but a survivor nevertheless – and believable in that role. She has been chewed up and spit out in some ways but she has most of her fight left in her although when it comes to her daughter again…Achilles heel, remember?

I wish I could say the same for Tobe. He’s played as a kitsch worshipping outsider who loves jazz from the ’30s, cars from the ’50s and porn from the ’80s, golden ages all. He has the gangly mawkishness of Napoleon Dynamite which isn’t a good thing. The trouble with using that kind of quirky indie eccentric as a main character is that those sorts of people only exist in New York and Los Angeles and their only friends are writers. I’m convinced of that because I’ve never met these sorts of folk anywhere else. Tobe is a sweetheart sure but there’s also a creepy stalker aspect to him and I don’t see someone as cynical and guarded as Monica really succumbing to a guy like this. It doesn’t seem to be in her nature.

Like Meat Loaf warbling “I’d do anything for love but I won’t do that,” so the right-minded critic can see a movie he or she wants to love but just can’t quite bring themselves to recommend their readers see it. I liked the individual elements to this movie just fine but it didn’t jell into a cohesive whole. I would have liked to see more story and less quirkiness and more humor along the lines of the opening credits in which Monica’s porn career is seen through posters and clippings. It turns out that Monica’s career choice as a porn star is unfortunate for the movie overall; not because I have anything against porn stars but because the filmmakers used it as a license to be quirky. The irony is that they were trying to show Monica as a down to Earth decent sort with problems that down to Earth decent sorts tend to have. Unfortunately they use Monica as an excuse to be quirky in a story that would have been better served with a couple of ordinary folk in a situation ordinary folk tend to have.

WHY RENT THIS: Cattrall puts on a brave performance. Gets the 80s era porn right.

WHY RENT SOMETHING ELSE: Too much of a Napoleon Dynamite vibe. Worships the low-brow a bit too lustily.

FAMILY VALUES: There is a good deal of sex and nudity, plenty of bad language and a bit of drug use.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: The “Weenie Wiz” hot dog truck was stolen shortly after production wrapped. It has yet to be recovered.

NOTABLE HOME VIDEO EXTRAS: None listed.

BOX OFFICE PERFORMANCE: $33,042 on an unreported production budget; this was not a box office money maker.

COMPARISON SHOPPING: Miss March

FINAL RATING: 5.5/10

NEXT: Cinema of the Heart 2013 Day Three

X-Men: First Class

You can tell it's the 60s: they're playing chess on an actual chessboard.

(2011) Superhero (20^th Century Fox) James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, Kevin Bacon, January Jones, Rose Byrne, Nicholas Hoult, Oliver Platt, Jason Flemyng, Alex Gonzalez, Zoe Kravitz, Matt Craven, Lucas Till, Caleb Landry Jones, Edi Gathegi, James Remar, Rade Serbedzija, Ray Wise, M. Ironside, Bill Milner, Hugh Jackman, Rebecca Romijn. Directed by Matthew Vaughn

It is a failing of humanity that the things we don’t understand, we tend to fear and the things we fear we tend to destroy. This is what leads to genocide, and that kind of hatred and malevolence can have unintended consequences.

Erik Lensherr (Milner) is the son of Jews who have been taken to a concentration camp, displaying great power over magnetism when angered. A Nazi scientist (Bacon) notices this and determines to find out how he can use Lensherr as a weapon for the Third Reich. In order to force Lensherr’s co-operation, he executes his mother in front of him.

After the war, the adult Lensherr (Fassbender) goes on a rampage, hunting down Nazis who had anything to do with his torture, with emphasis in particular on the scientist who now goes by the name of Sebastian Shaw. His powers still only manifest when he’s angry but he’s not yet grown into the powerful mutant he will become.

Charles Xavier (McAvoy) is graduating from Oxford and has become an expert on human mutation, o much so that he is approached by Agent Moira MacTaggert (Byrne) of the Central Intelligence Agency to give expert testimony to the higher-ups of the CIA, including a skeptical agency chief (Craven). It seems that MacTaggert has been chasing Sebastian Shaw as well, and witnessed the telepathic powers of his associate Emma Frost (J. Jones) and the teleportation powers of Azazel (Flemyng), one of the associates of the Hellfire Club that Shaw runs. Xavier brings along Raven Darkholme (Lawrence), a young orphan his family adopted. When Xavier’s scientific presentation fails to impress, he reveals that both he and Raven are mutants; he a powerful telepath and she a shape-shifter.

They are taken charge of by an eager, jovial section chief (Platt) who has built a facility for the study of mutants, only without any mutants. That changes when one of the scientists working for them, Hank McCoy (Hoult) turns out to have hands for feet and has animal-like powers. He discovers a kindred spirit in Raven, who like Hank longs to be normal-looking (Raven in her natural appearance has blue skin, golden eyes and brick-red hair).

During a government attack on Shaw’s boat, the government is foiled by Azazel and Riptide (Gonzalez), a mutant who can generate tornado-like windstorms. Shaw, Frost, Azazel and Riptide escape on a submarine that Shaw had built inside his boat despite the efforts of Lensherr who arrives mid-fight in an attempt to murder Shaw, who recognizes his old pupil.

Xavier rescues Lensherr from drowning and recruits him to be part of the government team. Lensherr really isn’t much of a team player, but his growing friendship and respect for Xavier keeps him around. They realize that since Shaw has a mutant team that can easily wipe out even a military attack, a mutant team of their own will be needed. Using Cerebro, a computer that enhances Xavier’s telepathic abilities and allows him to “find” mutants, he and Lensherr go on a recruiting drive, allowing him to find Angel Salvadore (Kravitz) – a stripper with wings, Darwin (Gathegi) who can adapt to any survival situation, Banshee (C.L. Jones) who can project sonic blasts that allow him to fly and also act as sonar, and Havoc (Till) who fires lethal blasts out of his chest.

Shaw finds out what Xavier and Lensherr, who are now going as Professor X and Magneto (suggested by Raven who’s going by Mystique, while McCoy is Beast), are up to and orchestrates an attack on his new recruits, killing one and recruiting Angel to his cause. Shaw, who sees the mutants as the next step in evolution, is up to no good – he is the one who has through subtle and not-so-subtle influence in both the Soviet Union and the United States, created the Cuban Missile Crisis in hopes of starting World War III, from which he and his fellow mutants would rise from the ashes to rule the world. Xavier and his X-Men (a play on G-Men bestowed on the group by MacTaggert who is their CIA liaison), must stop it despite the group’s youth and inexperience.

Vaughn, who has done the superhero thing before with Kick-Ass (he was originally supposed to direct the third X-Men movie but dropped out because he didn’t think he could finish it in the time allotted by the studio) and is also the man behind Stardust, one of my favorite movies of recent years, does a pretty spiffy job here. He has a great visual eye and has done this as essentially a James Bond movie from the 60s with superheroes. It’s a brilliant concept that he doesn’t always pull off but manages to enough to make the movie interesting.

One of the main reasons the movie works is the chemistry between McAvoy, Fassbender and Lawrence. These are three talents rising in the industry – Lawrence already has an Oscar nomination for her stellar work in Winter’s Bone – and all have enormous potential to be stars. McAvoy plays the contemplative Xavier with an even keel, rarely raising his voice or seemingly getting excited but that doesn’t mean he isn’t emotional; it is amusing to watch him trying to pick up girls with his line about mutations at various Oxford pubs.

Fassbender is much more intense as Magneto, making the pain of his childhood palpable but well-covered by layers of anger. His need for revenge has driven him to hate all humans, wanting to forestall another Holocaust-like fate for his fellow mutants. The leadership of the CIA and the military will certainly not assuage his paranoia much.

Lawrence does Mystique as a troubled soul, whose power is wrapped up in deception but yet yearns to be perceived as normal. She develops an attraction for Magneto despite Beast’s obvious crush on her, and she is very much attached in a sisterly way to Xavier.

The movie goes a long way into showing how Xavier and Magneto went from the best of friends to the most implacable of foes. It also depicts how Xavier was paralyzed and shows the founding of his school where the X-Men would eventually be based. While Wolverine and an adult Mystique make cameos (both very playfully done I might add), the mutants from the first trilogy of the X-movies largely are absent.

Fox has made no secret that they plan to make a new trilogy starting with this one. The question is, will I want to see the next one? The answer is a resounding yes. While the 60s atmosphere that was created was rife with anachronisms (the miniskirt, which is clearly worn by several characters and extras during the film, wasn’t introduced until a few years after the Crisis for example and the soundtrack is rife with music that wasn’t recorded until afterwards either), the feel of the Bond movies is retained and that makes the movie special.

The action sequences (particularly the battle with the Russian and American fleets with the mutants that ends the film) are well done. As summer superhero movies go, this is definitely a cut above, although lacking the epic scope of Thor earlier this year. It certainly is a promising reboot of the franchise and continues the run of quality Marvel films that we’ve been getting over the past five years. Hopefully Fox will continue to follow Marvel’s lead and keep the quality of this franchise high.

REASONS TO GO: Great action sequences and good chemistry between McAvoy, Fassbender and Lawrence.

REASONS TO STAY: Doesn’t capture the period as well as it might have.

FAMILY VALUES: There’s some partial nudity and a few mildly bad words, along with some action sequence that may be too intense for the youngsters.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Fassbender and McAvoy both appeared in the HBO miniseries “Band of Brothers” early on in their careers but haven’t appeared together in the same project since.

HOME OR THEATER: The action sequences are huge and need a huge canvas.

FINAL RATING: 7/10

TOMORROW: Outlander

Halloween II (2009)

You can’t keep a good supernatural serial killer down.

 

 

(Dimension) Scout Taylor-Compton, Tyler Mane, Malcolm McDowell, Danielle Harris, Brad Dourif, Howard Hesseman, Sheri Moon Zombie, Chase Vanek, Margot Kidder. Directed by Rob Zombie

 

Sequels can be very problematic. They’re almost never as good as the original, and when you throw in that it’s the sequel to the reboot of one of the classic horror series of all time, things get even more dicey.

 

Halloween II picks up where Zombie’s reboot left off, with Laurie Strode (Taylor-Compton) being pulled out of the house in an ambulance, while serial killer Michael Myers (Mane) is being carted off to the morgue, courtesy of a gunshot to the face by Miss Strode. However, you can’t keep a good serial killer horror film franchise down and Myers turns out to be not quite dead yet, escaping the ambulance that is transporting him to the county morgue when the unlucky ambulance hits a cow. Hey, Haddonfield is farm country don’tcha know.

 

He shows up back at the hospital where Laurie is being treated – a hospital that seems unrealistically understaffed – and hacks a few people to death, particularly a nurse whom he seems intent on pounding into hamburger. He corners her in a guard shack and – voila! – She wakes up from a dream. Actually, the sequence was an homage to the original Halloween II which took place entirely in a hospital. Zombie serves notice that this isn’t gonna be your pappy’s Michael Myers.

 

It’s two years after the events of the first film (although, strangely, the theatrical release portrayed it as being one year, but what’s a year between fiends) and Laurie is now living with Sheriff Brackett (Dourif) and his daughter Annie (Harris) who was the only other survivor of the Michael Myer’s previous Halloween rampage.

 

Halloween is approaching once again and Laurie has been beset by strange dreams. She confesses to her therapist (Kidder) that she’s concerned for her sanity, but she has no idea what kind of shellacking her sanity’s in for. That’s because Dr. Loomis (McDowell), Michael’s therapist from the first film, is on yet another book tour and in his new book he reveals that Laurie is actually Michael Myers’ sister (and Darth Vader is their father…but that didn’t make it into the movie). Since Laurie wasn’t aware of it, she goes bonkers and storms out of the Brackett’s happy home which is bad news for Laurie but good news for Michael, who is coming out for a family reunion, egged on by the Gothic ghost of his mom (Zombie) and the specter of his younger self (Vanek, taking over from Doug Faerch who had a growth spurt and became literally too big for the role).

 

All of this means there’s going to be mayhem in Haddonfield on Halloween, complete with strippers getting their face jammed into a mirror numerous times, a bouncer getting his head squashed in by Michael’s brogans, a couple of rednecks finding out the hard way why it is a very bad idea to mount antlers on the front of their pickup and a whole mess o’ carnage too disturbing to get into here.

 

There’s no doubt that Zombie is a visionary director – The Devil’s Rejects proved that beyond a shadow of a doubt as one of the best horror movies of the last decade. However, he seems oddly hamstrung here, which might have been due to the incredibly tight filming schedule (something which he mentions in the commentary track) or perhaps due to his own reluctance to do a sequel which he changed his mind about at the last moment, leading to said tight schedule. Either way, the movie doesn’t live up to most of his other work and has to rank as a disappointment.

 

That’s not to say it’s totally without redeeming qualities. For example, the violence here is excessive and realistic. When Michael Myers plunges the blade into a body, it is with full force, punctuated with an animal grunt. While that might make some queasy, it truly does work within the context of the movie and brings a new dimension of realism to the proceedings.

 

Where the movie doesn’t work is in the endless psychobabble that Zombie sees fit to insert, trying to get at the core of what drives Michael Myers. Now while I’m all for attempting to get inside the head of a serial killer, it gets a little too artsy fartsy for my way of thinking, with his mom showing up as a kind of Goth chick ghost in flowing white robes, accompanied by a white horse. It derails the oeuvre of the movie and takes audience right out of the mood.

 

He goes out of his way to make Laurie Strode shrill and unlikable. While this may be a realistic way of depicting someone who’s been through the kind of ordeal she has, what it also serves to do is alienate the audience from identifying with the heroine and that’s just bad juju. If the audience thinks the heroine is a whiny bitch, they’re not going to care what happens to her and if they don’t care what happens to her, there’s no reason to see the movie other than to watch Michael Myers carve up the citizens of Haddonfield and environs.

 

I also have to comment on the set design which is often incomprehensibly busy. Laurie’s room looks like the inside of a mental hospital cell, with a huge poster of Charlie Manson and spray painted graffiti reading “In Charlie We Trust.” This in the home of a town sheriff  mind you. Apparently Rob’s sense of realism and mine differ by quite a bit, so we’ll just leave it at that. In any case, you wind up with sensory overload in quite a few of the scenes, focusing in on the minutiae of the set design that you almost lose track of what the filmmaker’s trying to get you to notice. It kind of works at odds with Zombie’s vision.

 

I’m a big fan of Rob Zombie and the Halloween franchise both, so it is with a great deal of regret that I have to give this a poor review. I really, really wanted to like this movie and I just flat-out didn’t. While there is a third movie in the rebooted franchise slated for release next year, Zombie won’t be a part of it which may well turn out to be a good thing for both Zombie and the producers of Halloween – Zombie took an enormous amount of crap from the horror film fandom for this movie, much of it undeserved (for example, Michael is unmasked for much of the movie which many fanboys found to be sacrilegious) but some of it justified. I’m hoping his next project blows me away. This one didn’t do the job.

 

WHY RENT THIS: Some very effective scares, and a lot of insight into the background of Michael Myers. The violence is brutal and realistic.

WHY RENT SOMETHING ELSE: The set design is a bit of a mess, often so busy that it distracts from what’s going on onscreen. The plot meanders and gets a little too murky with the symbology.

FAMILY VALUES: The violence here is particularly brutal which works for the movie but may be difficult viewing for sensitive souls. There is also a good deal of crude language, female nudity and much sex. For teens there are scenes of teen drinking and implied drug use. All in all this is not for kids or for most teens.  

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Tyler Mane becomes only the second actor to play Michael Myers in more than one film (George Wilbur is the other one). 

NOTABLE DVD EXTRAS: There are six music videos from the fictitious band Captain Clegg and the Night Creatures. There are also some standup comedy performances from Jeff Daniel Phillips, a blooper reel and audition tapes.

 BOX OFFICE PERFORMANCE: $39.3M on a $15M production budget; the movie made money.

FINAL RATING: 4/10

TOMORROW: Day Four of the Six Days of Darkness

Powder Blue

Ray Liotta looks for redemption in the seedy underbelly of L.A. where it is seldom found.

(Speakeasy) Jessica Biel, Ray Liotta, Forest Whitaker, Lisa Kudrow, Patrick Swayze, Kris Kristofferson, Eddie Redmayne, Sanaa Lathan, Alejandro Romero. Directed by Timothy Linh Bui

Big cities are a terrible place to look for redemption. Cities are impersonal, seedy, uncaring and mean. Still, redemption can be found in places where you least expect it.

Charlie Bishop (Whitaker) is a former clergyman who is carrying a load of pain greater than he can bear. The death of his wife has left him overwhelmed and looking for release. He drives the city streets of Los Angeles in the dark of the night with a bag containing his life savings of $50,000. He intends to give this to whosoever can deliver him from his pain – with the gun that is also in the bag.

Rose-Johnny (Biel) is a stripper but not because she wants to be. Her son lies in a coma in a hospital bed and is unlikely to ever come out of it. She rails against the doctors and the world that is insensitive to the needs of a single mom who only wants to hold her laughing son once again. Her boss (Swayze) is more interested that she makes it to work on time than in the heartache she feels for the only one in the world she cares for.

Qwerty Doolittle (Redmayne) has inherited the mortuary that his father started and is barely keeping his head above water. He has no time for dating and partying and is intensely lonely, generally only kept company by the dead. He wanders through life knowing he wants more than just existing and also fully aware that he is unlikely to get what he wants.

Jack Doheny (Liotta) has just been released from prison after 25 years behind bars, but not because his sentence is up or because of good behavior. He has terminal cancer and nowhere to go, nobody to be with. An old buddy (Kristofferson) gives him a briefcase full of money and the name “Rose-Johnny” written on a piece of paper. What this is for is anybody’s guess.

Sally (Kudrow) is a waitress who is separated from her husband. She, too, is lonely and scared and wants to reach out to somebody but working the night shift in a coffee shop isn’t exactly conducive to meeting a nice guy. She remains cheerful and upbeat, but deep down she has needs and fears that are colliding in her heart.

For those who have seen movies like Crash and Traffic, these stories are meant to be separate but related, interweaving until the very end when they are theoretically supposed to be tied together with a nice big bow. It’s a means of storytelling that Robert Altman was a master at and that many independent filmmakers of the first decade of the 21^st century have tried to imitate with varying degrees of success.

There’s not a lot of success here. Liotta fares the best out of all the actors, bringing dignity and pathos to a character who is Mickey Spillane-tough. Kudrow is also likable and sympathetic in her mostly supporting role.

The problem here though is not the actors, who do their best, but with a script that is scattershot and sometimes senseless, giving the actors lines to say like “You’re not a doctor! Doctors cure people! You’re not curing anybody!” Some of the dialogue is equally cringeworthy. You have to feel for the actors in cases like that, especially for Swayze (whose final screen appearance this is) who is made up in excessive eyeliner and looks like a transvestite version of his character in Road House had that character been castrated early on, and Biel who went to great lengths to learn how to be an exotic dancer and does indeed go topless. Not many actresses of her caliber are willing to do that these days.

Bui has a good eye for color and tone but at times he goes for style over substance. The strip club in which Rose-Johnny toils is a neon palace where the strippers are lit like rock stars and the patrons cheer, whistle and throw dollar bills like confetti on cue. Not that I spend my time in strip clubs, but I’ve seen my share and I’ve never seen one like that.

The problem with these kinds of interweaving stories is that you have to care enough about the characters to want to follow them through the weave of the tapestry that is being unfolded before you. That doesn’t happen here; even the great Forest Whitaker chews his scenery like he hasn’t eaten in weeks. The only thread I cared about was Liotta’s and I found myself wishing he was in more of the film. That’s a bad sign for a movie with this means of storytelling. Considering the top-of-the-line cast Bui assembled, this should have been a far better movie than it turned out to be.

WHY RENT THIS: Liotta does a solid job as the dying ex-con.

WHY RENT SOMETHING ELSE: A scattershot script and some wacky over-the-top performances submarine this effort.

FAMILY VALUES: Much foul language, plenty of nudity and sexuality and some scenes of graphic violence. All in all, much more suitable for mature audiences.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: The color blue is featured in some way in every scene.

NOTABLE DVD EXTRAS: None listed.

FINAL RATING: 4/10

TOMORROW: Don’t Tell (La bestia nel cuore)