Category Archives: Film

The Witch (2015)

MV5BMTY4MTU2NjMyNV5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwMzUwMDk4NzE@._V1__SX1859_SY893_For reasons not known to me, The Witch was brought back into broad release this weekend, and I finally managed to find company to see it on Monday night (extremely late, but that’s what 5 hours of energy in a tiny bottle are for). It’s a thin movie, lacking quite a bit in plot and premise, but extremely meaty on execution. All of the actors were solid and believable, even when their motivations or reactions to what was happening around them bewildered me, and the young twins were just incredibly creepy.

In case you don’t know anything at all, this is a moody 17th century piece about an isolated family dealing with a number of severe setbacks all at once, as the last dregs of harvest season threaten to give way to winter. They may or may not (but definitely will) suspect deviltry and witchcraft is behind the string of ill fortune, and then… but, like I said, it’s a thin movie, so any “and then” I could follow this up with pretty much completes the film.

Between the lingering shots of the small farm and the forbidding forest beyond it, the total isolation, and the spare, screeching soundtrack, it feels like horror by way of the ’70s art film scene, or maybe Kubrick if he’d ever made a movie where every single shot failed to contain an onion’s worth of hidden meanings. Other than an ending that outstayed its welcome, I have basically nothing bad to say about this self-described New England folktale. Mood, acting, and cinematography can carry a thin plot a long way.

10 Cloverfield Lane

MV5BMjEzMjczOTIxMV5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwOTUwMjI3NzE@._V1__SX1859_SY893_Friday was movie day, as occasionally comes around. And unexpectedly, 10 Cloverfield Lane was the new movie of the weekend. I’d been interested in this since I heard about it, and the lone preview I’ve seen helped that interest along, so.

Short answer: I liked it. But, here’s the problem with naming your movie after Cloverfield[1]: if the new movie is a direct sequel or shared universe sequel or prequel of the original, then the tension of the unknown is greatly reduced by this knowledge. Yet, by contrast, if the new movie is not directly related in some way to the original, then you’ve squandered this reduction in tension for no apparent reason. Or, even worse, tried to trick people into thinking they should be worried about the tension of the unknown when they shouldn’t be. No matter which thing is going on, my real point is this: if your audience is sitting there thinking about relationships to other movies and whether they make sense or even exist instead of fully paying attention to the movie you made, probably the title should be different.[2]

In a valiant attempt to avoid spoilers, I’m not saying which of those possibilities occurred, but I’m definitely saying I was thinking about this more than I would have liked. Especially because, late act revelations that the movies are linked or not, this one easily had the legs to stand on its own. The first 5-10 minutes in a nutshell: The second most successful alumnus of the old NBC soap opera Passions wakes up to find herself chained up in a fallout bunker by creepy John Goodman, but the good news is that “chained up in a fallout bunker by creepy John Goodman” is currently the safest place she could possibly be, because the world is ending. Just ask creepy John Goodman!

Who wouldn’t want to watch that movie, I ask you? I’ll tell you a movie you probably haven’t seen that this was a spiritual successor to: After.Life. Man, I should watch that again. For at least two three reasons.

[1] Really, after any previous movie whose tension relied in part on the unknown; this point is broadly applicable.
[2] Or else if you did it on purpose to get people into seats and that’s the only reason, you are a bad person who should feel bad.

My Bloody Valentine (1981)

MV5BYmQ5MWI1ZGMtZThkYi00YTFmLWEzMjctNmJmNDliMzg0MTdlXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMTQxNzMzNDI@._V1__SX1859_SY893_After I got off work on Valentine’s Day, we went out to the Alamo for a third time to see My Bloody Valentine, because I am nothing if not romantic. And to my surprise, although I saw the remake some years back, this is a movie I’d never seen before.

The plot is as follows: Twenty years ago, some miners were trapped in a collapse in the Canadian mining town of Valentine’s Bluffs, because everyone was busy at the annual big deal Valentine’s Day dance and forgot to check methane levels I think? One of the miners survived, went crazy, and killed a bunch of people the next year at the same party. So they’ve never held that party since, but hey, it’s been twenty years and there’s a new generation of horny post-teens who would rather drink and party than honor the dead of the past, and even the old people are thinking, hey, it might be nice to get back to what made our town great. Only, there’s a note from Harry Warden (the insane killer miner in the gas mask) saying, “Hey, bitches, you hold a party, I go back to killing everyone, just like old times!”

After the movies takes ten minutes or so to establish that summary, it commences to being an ’80s horror movie, so I think more or less you know what’s up from here. Important differences, though: the teens are actually grown-ass adults instead of being teens, with jobs (mostly down the mine) and actual relationships. I mean, they’re barely more than teens, but the difference shows, what with adult conversations that extend further than the “which of us will bang next?” you might get from, say, Friday the 13th. Then again, the prankster jerk is just as much of a teenager as ever, so maybe the differences aren’t as vast as all that after all. And there are certainly plot holes wide enough to drive a mine cart through.

Like I said, I think you know what’s up from here. Ultimately, I think I liked the remake better? But I appreciate that someone behind the camera wanted to make a serious movie that happened to include an insane murder miner instead of a horror movie. Not all dreams can come true, of course, but effort matters.

Majo No Takkyûbin

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MV5BOTc0ODM1Njk1NF5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwMDI5OTEyNw@@._V1__SX1859_SY893_The second outing of the weekend was to catch the one Miyazaki movie playing this month at the Alamo Drafthouse that I both had not seen and could fit in my schedule[1]. Hence, Kiki’s Delivery Service, about a 13 year old girl sent out on her own to make her way in the world for a year, in the traditions of her people. Who are witches, I should probably add.

Based on the vehicles and architecture, and other clues, I’m guessing that the never specified timeframe for the film is in the late 1950s or early ’60s, and I’m also assuming the locale is Japan. The latter is more strongly implied than the former, but neither is by any means definitive. For most of the movie, I assumed the point was mostly to showcase the gorgeous animation and soundtrack, via long, contemplative shots of Kiki flying across the countryside on her broom, or walking through her new city, and that the job (she delivers things for people, as you might expect) and relationships she was forming were mostly beside the point.

But then my mental jokes about making a 13 year old run off and earn her own living were translated seriously onto the screen, as she quickly lost her [Japanese phrase that means joie de vivre] in the humdrum grind of using her heritage and passion as a means of keeping herself fed and housed. From that turning point and throughout the final act, the story turned into more of a meditation on whether and how she could come back to herself and find her happiness, and now I think the movie is a love letter to post-war Japan, unsure of herself and finding her footing after a resounding defeat.

But maybe it’s just a feel-good movie about a witch and her sarcastic cat. That’s cool too.

[1] The only other one I’ve actually seen was the only other one that matched up schedule-wise, sadly. (Mononoke.)

Deadpool

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MV5BMjM3MjEwODA3MF5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwNzI4MzM1NzE@._V1__SX1859_SY893_Full disclosure: I am still years away from reading anything about Deadpool, and what I know about him could fit on someone’s palm as their cheat notes. He’s super violent, aware that he’s a character (or some other form of fourth-wall-breaking thing if not that), and he thinks he’s hilarious. I don’t even know if he’s actually hilarious, although the evidence points to yes.

Because, yep, I saw Deadpool (the movie) on Thursday night, with a delightful plate of chimichangas[1] in front of me, and here’s the deal. I’ve loved far more of the Marvel movies that have come out this century than not, and can only rate them correctly with distance. I therefore won’t say more than that this is definitely good. What I can say unreservedly is that it is by far and away the funniest superhero movie I’ve ever seen. If you ever wondered what a superpowered fight would really look like, or wished they didn’t censor themselves so heavily, or wanted the characters to be noticing the same dumbass discrepancies you do? This right here is your movie.

If you don’t like comics, I doubt this would bring you around, though. But also, while I’m dealing in irrelevancies: man, Ryan Reynolds has been a in a lot of comic book movies. (I bet this is the one he’s remembered for.)

[1] New knowledge: he likes chimichangas I guess?

Horns

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MV5BMTQ2Nzk5NzIxMF5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwNTM2NTc5MjE@._V1__SX1859_SY893_Mary picked Horns for movie night, a film about which I knew very little. Basically, just an image in my head (not dissimilar to the one in front of you) of Daniel Radcliffe with some, y’know, horns growing out of his forehead. It turned out to be pretty interesting, though! Mainly by that I mean that its philosophical / religious underpinnings were thought-provoking. If your very presence brought out people’s darkest secrets and basest impulses, who would you hang out with? Who would you avoid?

Unfortunately, the actual story above said underpinnings was not really worth holding up. What started as a moody murder and identity mystery quickly lost track of itself in an admittedly compelling relationship history, and by the time it found its way back, all of the moodiness had been lost in a generic anti-feminist fist fight between two guys over the fate of a dead girl.

It’s too bad, though. The principle actors were solid, and I think there’s a really excellent movie buried in the premise. This just wasn’t that movie.

The Hateful Eight

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MV5BMTY4MTMxNTMxM15BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwODcyNjMzMjE@._V1._CR4,4,554,751__SX1859_SY893_I saw The Hateful Eight at the Alamo Drafthouse this weekend, partly because I want to see all Quentin Tarantino movies but mostly because that was the best of the buy one get one deals this week. (I still need to see Star Wars there.)

Here are the things this movie definitely delivers on: 1) Title accuracy. It is probably almost a spoiler to say that I do not know for sure which eight characters the title refers to, but there’s no doubt that there were some extremely hateful bastards up in this film. 2) Being a Quentin Tarantino movie. Somewhat stylized despite it being a period piece (the period is the post-Civil-War West), ultraviolent, as obscenity laden as it is probably possible for a movie to be, and full of detailed but meaningless digressions.

I don’t want to get into the plot, because it works pretty well coming in cold, but what it most reminded me of was Tarantino’s version of The Canterbury Tales. I’ll say this in its favor: I did not feel like I was in the theater for three hours.

Limitless

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MV5BMTY3NjczNzc5Nl5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwMzA2MzQyNA@@._V1__SX1859_SY893_I kind of wanted to see Limitless a good long time ago, because of how I like Bradley Cooper and the plot seemed cool in a wish-fulfillment kind of way, but I never did. Then recently CBS released a show about it, which I did watch, and it turned out a) to be good (and more importantly, fun) but also b) a sequel to the movie rather than a reimagining of it. So at that point, I had to watch it. Which I have!

And, yeah. Wish fulfillment is the name of the game. You just take this pill, and suddenly you can remember everything you’ve ever seen or learned, not to mention how easy it becomes to learn new things and make new connections. And the downsides are… well, fairly minimal.[1] From there, high stakes cats and mice, criminal enterprises, stock markets, genius books that capture the public imagination: you know, the kinds of things people would do if they had, er, limitless potential.

Recommended to people who like brain wish-fulfillment or Bradley Cooper. Not recommended to people who like Wars on Drugs. Oh, and the show is definitely better, if for some reason you feel a need to choose between them.

[1] There are more realistic downsides in the show, which is early on often a remake of the movie after all, but smarter.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens

MV5BMTkwNzAwNDA4N15BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwMTA2MDcwNzE@._V1__SX1859_SY847_I’ll start off slowly, but with matters of import nevertheless. It was weird, the lack of 20th Century Fox fanfare. 38 years and six movies worth, you know? Plus, for ages upon ages, these were the only movies to play the extended fanfare. I could be in a Blockbuster any time in the ’90s and know to at worst a coin toss not only that it was in the trilogy but which specific movie was coming on, by halfway through the trumpets. So, definitely weird to feel the lack. That said, Disney had enough respect for the ceremony of the thing not to replace it with their own studio logo and jingle. I hope that carries through, but even if it’s only this once: good on you, $Disney_Exec.

For the rest… man, it’s hard to say what I want to say without spoilers. Maybe impossible. I’ll minimize the damage as much as I can until the comments, but if you want to leave now and see the movie (the 30% of America that hasn’t already by now, I mean) without reading the rest, all I’ll say is, damn. Yes. Go see it, and see it with no fear. The Force Awakens is a Star Wars movie, and if you like those, you’ll like this.

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The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2

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MV5BMzg4OTcxNzAyNV5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwOTc4MTEyNjE@._V1__SX1859_SY847_You know the drill by now. Some people trapped in a dystopic nightmare got tired of sending their kids off to the annual deathmatch, and once Jennifer Lawrence came along and showed them that the Capitol could be defied through the power of teamwork, they all came together to act on this new knowledge / long-standing grievance.

Other than mentioning the second act’s surplus of death traps[1], anything at all I could discuss about the plot would be a spoiler, so I’ll just say that the second half of Mockingjay’s adaptation continued to deliver on the promise of the rest of the series: to remain as faithful as possible to the original story while jettisoning everything that held it to the level of teen melodrama rather than realizing its potential greatness. I don’t know that I’ve ever said, “Naah, just go watch the movie.”

[1] Because if you can’t have teens killing each other, you can at least still have the environment trying to kill a lot of folks to make up for it; this is still a Hunger Games movie, after all!