natewatchescoolmovies

Edson Oda’s Nine Days

August 18, 2021 by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

I’m just a kid from Canada who blathers on about movies on Facebook, I have no formal literary training or real clout in the journalism foray, and as such every once in a moon there comes a film that’s so good, so powerful, profound and so potentially life changing (what is cinema for, if not that?) that I feel it’s a bit above my pay grade to review it, but in the case of Edson Oda’s Nine Days I feel like I need to or you might miss this unbelievable, perspective shattering indie that seems to have come from nowhere but is here to rock our collective worlds and the lands beyond. The film presents to us a stoic, lone man called Will (Winston Duke, Us). Will lives in a rustic bungalow on a desolation of endless salt flats, and he sits in his house observing a wall of tube TV’s all displaying various human lives unfold in hazy POV. He takes periodic notes, records some of these moments onto VHS tapes and catalogues them in droves of filing cabinets. He’s visited by a colleague and advisor called Kyo (Benedict Wong, Annihilation, The Martian), and the two seem to be the only ones out there. It soon becomes clear that the people on the TV’s are humans living their lives in this world, and that Will and Kyo are in some other plane of existence, their task being to observe those who are alive and when an opening appears, to interview/audition potential new souls for a chance to be born in our world. When, through a heartbreaking tragedy, an opening does show up Will invites several souls into his house for the interview process including a quiet, observant introvert (Bill Skarsgard, It), a gregarious good timer (Tony Hale) and a startlingly observant, intuitive soul called Emma (Zazie Beetz, Deadpool 2, Joker). Now, usually a premise like this in films would be played for satire or just… not taken completely seriously but somehow this very wild concept couldn’t feel more down to earth in the hands of this creative team and, in hushed reverence, I believed every beat of it was happening for real. As Will interviews souls it becomes apparent that he is wounded from his time on earth in a way that is so deep and so painful that even these half formed human souls who aren’t even full beings yet, can somehow intuitively sense it. This goes especially for Emma, who is like an unbelievably precocious child that just picks up on intangible things as a sort of gift. As the selection process unfolds and more souls are eliminated it becomes clear that Will has to fix something broken deep within his own psyche, and this is where the film becomes downright transcendent and also where I just don’t feel qualified to properly convey the messages or themes, which are deep, dense and essential. It’s a film about not taking your time alive as a human being for granted, because there are so many unborn souls who may never get a chance. Not only are the themes compelling and thought provoking, they are multilayered, meditatively introspective and just ambiguous enough to feel like a real and flawed system of beings interacting in a world beyond our own. Wong’s wonderful character comments on the mysterious nature of both our existence and theirs and the aching existential wonder that any sort of being finds themselves in, the forces governing them always just out of reach. Duke and Beetz are unreasonably good here and if the Oscars ever took the time to recognize independent films they would both be front and centre, as would first time writer director Edson Oda (I simply CANNOT comprehending the fact that this is a feature debut, it’s TOO assured) and composer Antonio Pinto who weaves an original score too beautiful for words, full of melancholic, celestial string passages and hypnotic, dreamlike beats in between. One reviewer I saw on IMDb said about this film, and I quote, “After 60 years of watching movies, I’ve finally found the best one.” Well it’s obviously all subjective and personally I could never pick a singular, definitive “best movie ever,” the notion itself is redundant. However, I would consider Nine Days to be just about as close to perfection as one can get in the medium of film, that rare piece that just soars on every level and has the power to change lives. It’s getting a limited theatrical run at the moment and if you notice it playing in your city please go, it’s that one in a million film that lingers in your thoughts and dreams for a long time after, that elusive piece of art that doesn’t just exist onscreen for two hours before fading, but rather lives on in the hearts and minds of those who see it and takes on a soul of its own. Masterpiece and the best film of the year so far.

-Nate Hill

RL Stine’s Fear Street

August 17, 2021 by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

Netflix has tried a somewhat innovative and unique experiment with their film adaptations of R.L. Stine’s Fear Street books, filming an entire interconnected trilogy and then releasing them week by week like a running serial of feature length films. The effect is genius both in terms of marketing and the stories themselves and the only thing that would have made it better is if we got to see them week by week on the big screen, like a triple dip multiplex experience. The films are wonderful, three different slasher flicks set respectively in 1994, 1978 and 1666 with a neat double-back to the 90’s again as the last film wraps up the multigenerational, complicated tale of an evil curse placed on the hard-luck town of Shadyside, OH. As a group of teens in 94 scramble to figure out what’s causing some townspeople to go on murderous rampages, the second film takes us back to summer camp 78’ as the generation before them experiences the same killers who seem to be controlled by some kind of powerful force, and the third goes even farther back to the pilgrim settlers that first came to the region as we finally get to the root of what’s causing these century long killings spurred on by what seems like an evil witch, until we learn the real reason which is far more scary and sad. 94 presents to us a stunning opening sequence set inside an appropriately retro shopping centre complete with neon decorations and a masked killer inspired by Ghostface, while 78 offers a nice riff on stuff like Friday The 13th and Sleepaway Camp and 66 goes for a devilish spin on Salem-esque cultish witchiness. Despite all these stylistic influences and homages and an appropriately nostalgic soundtrack lineup full of crowd pleasing anthems of their day, this trilogy strives to be its own thing and not sink too deep into the waters of retro fan service without having an original voice of its own. The characters here are all terrifically developed and wonderfully acted by a massive cast full of familiar faces and relative newcomers alike and the whole thing is as fun as a gong show Halloween house party, as insanely gory (some of the kills are downright shocking) as we like our slashers to get, as down to earth as our favourite social commentary horrors and as deeply tragic and heartbreaking as horror should often be. Great stuff all round.

–Nate Hill

Kieran Darcy-Smith’s Wish You Were Here

August 16, 2021 by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

How far would you go to keep a secret from your family, the authorities and your whole country if means keeping them safe, even if it also means causing a prolonged international incident? Wish You Were Here is a strikingly well acted and edited Australian dramatic thriller that illustrates how a backpacking vacation can be a once in a lifetime dream experience or spiral out of control into the darkest nightmare. As four people from Sydney venture on a trip to Cambodia together, we observe only three of them return, and the devastating psychological and emotional aftermath the disappearance causes once they get home to Australia with no answers as to what happened. Joel Egerton and Felicity Price are the middle aged couple who have kids back in Sydney, and joining them is her younger sister (Teresa Palmer) and her hotshot businessman boyfriend (Antony ‘Homelander’ Starr) who is the one that eventually goes missing. The opening of the film is a dazzling, uplifting kaleidoscopic montage of beautiful sightseeing, beaches, smiling locals, delicious street food and moonlit beach parties, and as the film progresses we see a threatening veil of unfamiliarity and dread descend over the story as we flash back, forward and in between the trip to beforehand and after in Sydney until we get a real sense of being ‘out of time’ alongside these characters and their prolonged confusion and pain. One of these four knows what happened, why it happened and where the missing boyfriend is, and the intelligent, rewarding narrative shows us four human beings dealing with betrayal, lack of closure, fragile relationships and the ensuing chaos that comes from a vacation in a foreign land gone terribly wrong. Egerton is strikingly raw and vulnerable here in maybe the best performance I’ve seen him in as a man stuck in an unthinkable situation. Price and Palmer are equally affecting and each of the three keystone performances from these leads are simply staggering. The narrative shows us glimpses of the central mystery before doubling back and preparing us all over again with additional flashback information we didn’t have before and now sheds more light on what we’ve seen and then are about to see moving forward into the haunting final act, it’s a shifting puzzle-box experience that drew me right in. I haven’t really heard this film talked about much and didn’t even know it existed until I came across it on Amazon Prime, but I would highly recommend it for fans of mature, emotionally intelligent interpersonal drama with thriller sensibilities and a story that keeps you guessing but also, more importantly, has you feeling deeply for its characters. Brilliant stuff.

-Nate Hill

CBC’s Schitt’s Creek

August 15, 2021 by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

CBC’s Schitt’s Creek was kind of an unassuming watch for me in the sense that I don’t usually go for sitcoms and when I do it’s for breezy background noise, or simply reruns of stuff like That 70’s Show that I’m already intimately familiar with; the genre just isn’t really for me. This show, however, grew on me like no other and from the first quaint little episode to the emotionally uplifting grand finale it has now become one of my all time favourite pieces of television. Ostensibly the story of one disgustingly rich family who is embezzled out of their fortune by a disloyal employee and forced to relocate to a tiny backwater town they once purchased as a prank, this is so so SO much more than just a “riches to rags” comedy lark and such an important piece, and what’s more is it becomes important and essential without even trying to be, which isn’t easy to do. Eugene Levy is Johnny Rose, former video store tycoon relegated to rural life with his frequently hysterical prima Donna wife Moira (Catherine O’Hara) and two adult children David (Dan Levy) and Alexis (Annie Murphy). As they are jarringly propelled from their ultra-bougie existence into a bucolic world of motels, diners and quiet country life we are swept up in a pithy, hyper-satirical slice of life small town dramedy that gradually and cunningly becomes something so good, so well developed and so engrossing the effect is almost profound. Eugene Levy and Catherine O’Hara already have roots in SCTV satire from their days of yore and bring every inch of that pop culture sendup energy here, as Levy’s own kid Dan co-creates with pops and we get the sense that every creative engine involved here is just firing on all cylinders and perfectly in sync. The epic and incredibly dense yet somehow blessedly lighthearted six season run see these four characters go through unbelievable, surprising, touching, hilarious and always realistic arcs as they adjust to life in the sticks, make friends, find love, bicker absolutely non stop in the most lovable of ways and simply just… live their lives. Others orbit them including the town’s incredibly offbeat mayor (Chris Elliott is too funny for words here), his darling of a wife (Jennifer Robertson), the local motel owner (Emily Hampshire, who I fell in love with within minutes), David’s eventual boyfriend and colleague (Noah Reid) and many, many others all portrayed wonderfully. What makes this show so special and such a standout amidst the absolute galaxy of sitcoms out there is a delicious mixture of a few things: it’s relentlessly, consistently funny, like you don’t even get a chance to breathe in between the airtight, intimidatingly verbose jokes especially when O’Hara and her priceless pronunciation is concerned. The characters here are real, developed human beings who you grow with, learn to care for deeply, are frequently exasperated with and the sense of community, family and love permeates everything. The themes are relevant and the tone is compassionate, understanding and candid in terms of LGBT content and the whole thing just hums on every level, it’s about as close to perfect as you can get in the television storytelling world. It’s a bittersweet turn that the show only achieved real, worldwide acclaim near the end of its run because I feel like it could go on to say and do so much more, and influence so many more people with its fun, positivity, empathy, masterclass writing and once in a lifetime performances. Could not recommend this highly enough for how great it is.

-Nate Hill

David Cronenberg’s The Dead Zone

August 15, 2021 by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

The Dead Zone is the combined efforts of three artists who can only be described overall as a trio of the most extreme storytellers of their day, Stephen King, Christopher Walken and David Cronenberg. It’s a bold, counterintuitive and brilliant move on all parts to then make this a restrained, humane and warm-hearted piece of compassionate thriller filmmaking, despite having the aura of a classic horror film. Christopher Walken gives one of his best, most soulful performances as Johnny Smith, a mild mannered schoolteacher who is blessed/cursed with the powers of spooky clairvoyance after a cataclysmic car wreck leaves him in a coma for five years. He can now sense the future, past and ill fated destiny of others around him based on touch, an ability that can save many lives but also has a draining effect on his own spirit forces. As he helps the local sheriff (Tom Skeritt) track a vicious serial killer, tutors the neurologically challenged young son of a rich businessman (Anthony Zerbe) and has growing suspicions about an overzealous, obviously sinister politician (a smarmy as hell Martin Sheen) running for senate, he tries his best to reconnect with the former girlfriend (Brooke Adams) who remarried during his coma and pick up the pieces of his life. Walken is excellent and reins in his usual eccentricities (apart from one brief, shockingly hilarious outburst) for a subtle, restrained and heartbreaking portrayal akin to his award winning turn in The Deer Hunter. Johnny isn’t a warrior, cop, leader or hero, he’s just a quiet schoolteacher who finds himself thrown into this extraordinary situation and has to deal, and Walken’s shy, awkward and otherworldly presence brings this to life wonderfully. The film is shot in rural Ontario during wintertime and as such there’s an icy, eerie blanket of small town atmosphere over everything, made thicker by a beautiful Michael Kamen score that lays on the orchestral swells and quirky, spine chilling experimental cues in perfect musical symbiosis. This is King at his kindest, with an ending that although is appropriately bleak, still has a sorrowful heart to it and not his often cynical, hollow hearted touch. It’s also Cronenberg at his most character based, ditching the body horror to explore the psychological strain a phenomenon like this would exert and taking a long breath in his otherwise hectic, gooey career to compassionately explore a character alongside Walken who is a dark angel revelation as Smith. Sensational film.

-Nate Hill

The Final Girls

August 11, 2021 by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

The slasher sub-genre of horror has consistently and gradually become self aware as it has evolved, reshaping it’s archetypes, going spectacularly meta and immersing the audience in self commentary whether it’s well known blockbusters like Scream or obscure indie treats like The Rise Of Leslie Vernon. The Final Girls is as detailed, referential, loving, meta and rewarding as they come with a disarmingly affecting emotional weight to it I did not expect. Playfully skewering summer camp slasher outings like Friday The 13th and Sleepaway Camp, it stars the lovely Taissa Farmiga as Max, a teen girl whose mother Nancy (Malin Ackerman) is killed in a brutal car wreck. Nancy was once a Hollywood scream queen and starred in the very popular Camp Bloodbath franchise, a claim to fame that she always resented and a legacy that Max now wants nothing to do with. At an anniversary screening of the first Bloodbath film Max and her friends find themselves somehow transported into the film itself through the screen by some sort of magical inter dimensional slasher voodoo, the same kind of cinema themed mysticism that brought that one kid into the Schwarzenegger movie world in another vastly under appreciated meta flick, Last Action Hero. In this pristine 1980’s world they find sunny campgrounds, a glassy lake and knowingly corny writing (the movie counsellors are priceless) and the killer himself, who is set on a preordained murder spree of these characters which include, as a panicked Max learns, her own mother. So begins a breathless, clever and often very funny deconstruction of the classic slasher narrative as these modern kids quite literally interrupt it midway and aggressively rearrange the formulaic turns we’re so used to experiencing beat by beat. There’s an epic, adderall fuelled striptease set to She’s My Cherry Pie, endless tongue in cheek jokes and references that get turned on their head, some wild, colourful and borderline psychedelic set design and cinematography in the ‘movie’ world too. What really makes this such a great film and a strong piece is the deeply heartfelt mother daughter relationship between Max and Nancy, acted stunningly by both. Farmiga is an unbelievable otherworldly talent and, dare I say, more mesmerizing onscreen than her sister Vera, one long stare from her could shatter down walls built by anyone, she makes Max a wounded yet resilient spirit. Ackerman gets shafted a bit as the ‘hot blonde’ archetype but she is far more talented than she gets credit for and does a delicate balancing act here between obligatory campiness with pockets of very candid realism peppered in for a gem of a performance. Now, myself being someone who has used both film and music to cope with the death of a parent, I can tell you that this film is almost too real and near transcendent at accomplishing that theme onscreen. It’s essentially a story about Max working through the unimaginable hurt, and very long lasting pain of losing her mother presented in a mature and heartbreaking way, reflected through the prism of a fun, self aware horror comedy and I think the overall idea and execution are genius, really. Add to the fact that the song that Max and Nancy share as ‘their song’ is Bette Davis Eyes by Kim Carnes which was one of my dad’s favourites so you can say that, for me, this cut really deep (slasher pub heavily intended). A masterpiece, streaming on Netflix now.

-Nate Hill

James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad

August 9, 2021 by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

James Gunn has always been a delightfully rambunctious, perennially irreverent filmmaker whether he’s exploring the realm of sentient alien slugs, sad-sack superhero wannabes or comic book property, which he gets to do once again in The Suicide Squad, one of his very best films yet. He feels more at home in the world of DC than he does in Marvel and it’s not just the larger playground that a hard-R rating gifts him, although that is a *huge* factor given his stylistic tendencies as an artist and his roots in horror, which are on gooey display here as well. The DC stable, particularly villains, just has this dark, perverse edge to it that Marvel can’t match and in creating a maniacal palooza of second tier baddies in a subversive, heavily violent extravaganza he has found a groove and achieved an aesthetic that for the entire two plus hour runtime I wasn’t bored by once. Some of our familiar favourites from the other Suicide Squad naturally return including Harley (Margot Robbie, resplendent in the role of her career), Captain Boomerang (Jai Courtney), Rick Flagg (Joel Kinnaman) as well as welcome new additions like Bloodsport (Idris Elba), Peacemaker (John Cena), Ratcatcher (Daniela Melchior), Savant (Gunn totem Michael Rooker looking like he walked in from a Rob Zombie flick) the scene stealing Polka Dot Man (David Dastmalchian), impossibly adorable King Shark (Sylvester Stallone) and of course Viola Davis as their game warden Amanda Waller, the cunt to end all cunts. Their missions here include the overthrow of a South American country, constant bickering, shocking team casualties, betrayals, clever skewering of American patriotism, a giant alien starfish, bountiful loads of gratuitous and blessedly gory violence and a clever balancing act between lighthearted, frothy banter and a darker undercurrent of thematic heft that sneaks in the back door and lands with an effective, grounded touch. Obvious comparisons will be made to the 2016 Suicide Squad and I’d like to sideswipe that other than to say I love both films, they’re both very different and the 2016 is what it is, it has its reputation. I do believe this to be the stronger film but I think they both have their place on my shelf, they are M&M’s and Skittles, Pepsi and Coke, or Warheads and Airheads to reference a junk food as obscure as the characters on display here. Gunn has made a rollicking, badass, bizarre yet strangely accessible piece of pop art nutso comic book madness here with many standout moments including an emotional monologue by Ratcatcher (she’s the soul of the film), some stunning technicolor gore effects that call to mind Lovecraft and Carpenter, an Easter egg hunt of many hidden film and literary references, a ballsy, nihilism laced opening sequence wherein some of the characters brutally live up to the title of the film, one instance of Waller *finally* getting a modicum of what she deserves, some painfully on the nose political satire and, in my favourite sequence the film has to offer, a brilliantly placed and paced opportunity for Robbie’s ever awesome Harley to work through the trauma of her past and absolutely TAKE DOWN toxic relationships like the badass boss bitch we all know she is. A wonderful, weird, wild and fantastic film.

Jenn Wexler’s The Ranger

August 8, 2021 by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

Park rangers are always kind of benign, often goofy and only vaguely threatening figures in cinema, they’re not quite cops, not quite tradesmen and the archetype for writers has always been a blurred line. Jenn Wexler’s The Ranger brazenly shakes that up and draws a firm delineation in the campfire dirt here for an utterly ruthless, absolutely fantastic grindhouse romp that packs a punch to the gut and a kick to the nuts. Teenage punk runaway Chelsea (Chloë Levine) has fuzzy memories of an encounter with a strange park Ranger (Jeremy Holm) when she was young at her deceased uncle’s cabin, briefly before being carted off to the foster care system. Years later and she has fallen in with the wrong crowd, a group of heavy metal brats who inadvertently kill a cop and drag her on the run, eventually ending up in the same national park her uncle’s cabin is in. Naturally, the Ranger is still there too and has made it his personal mission to hunt and kill anyone who wanders into his jurisdiction which now includes Chelsea and all her friends. This is a grisly, fucked up, jaggedly stylish exercise in knowingly lowbrow horror in the tradition of stuff like Cop Car, Wolf Creek and The Hitcher where one archetypal madman roams the enclaves of his realm and stalks anyone who ventures there. Holm is a twisted revelation as The Ranger, possessive of the kind of stalwart, clean cut, Kennedy-esque aura that is all the more unnerving when we see just how cuckoo bananas mentally deranged and wantonly homicidal he is. I appreciated a really fascinating psychological dynamic between he and Chelsea as well, a mysterious mental link that goes back to her childhood near the cabin and is revealed bit by bit in hazy hallucinatory flashbacks. Set to a brain melting nebula of heavy metal and synth music that clashes wonderfully with the wilderness palette, acted to the nines by Levine and Holm (the rest of the teens verge on camp but that’s half the fun) and wound tightly into a blood drenched, visceral mind-game mentality that’s just scrappy enough around the edges, this is a rip-snortin indie worth it for any fan of raw, torqued up exploitation horror, streaming now on Shudder.

-Nate Hill

Renny Harlin’s Deep Blue Sea

August 8, 2021 by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

Renny Harlin’s Deep Blue Sea is about as loud, silly, gory and hilarious as you’d expect a ‘killer smart shark’ flick to be and is for the most part a lot of fun, even if it sometimes dissolves into eyeball melting pandemonium. The premise is actually a good one: a brilliant and obligatorily sexy scientist (the lovely Saffron Burrows) has developed a potential formula to treat Alzheimer’s using genetic material from shark brains, and she’s gotten a high level executive (Samuel L. Jackson) to convince his CEO boss (a brief, contemplative cameo from Ronny Cox) to sign off on funding, pending an inspection visit to her test facility out in the ocean. There we meet others including shark hunting guru Thomas Jane, gruff scientist Stellan Skarsgard, oddball cook LL Cool J and grunt Michael Rapaport, all who make great cannon fodder for the marauding sharks once they decide they’re too smart to be lab rats for these people anymore. There are some great gory kills here and the timing of them is sometimes genuinely shocking and inspired, including one death scene that is straight out of the book of nihilism and dark humour 101 and had me laughing hard. It’s basically a decent B movie souped up with Hollywood effects, tons of explosions and while it has the misfortune of being released when CGI wasn’t too great (it shows), it also has the advantage of being made at a time when shark horror films weren’t over saturated and done to death like they are these days and as such feels somewhat fresh, especially given its additional premise of sentient sharks. It’s fun, engaging and a bit cacophonous in some instances where it could have employed more stealth and suspense, but overall a good example of the shark sub genre.

-Nate Hill

Burnt Offerings

August 7, 2021 by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

Burnt Offerings (that stellar title deserves a much better film) doesn’t do much as far as innovation goes in the haunted house genre but it’s serviceable enough as an atmospheric diversion and benefits from a very strong and frequently cuckoo bananas performance from the great Oliver Reed as a family man and writer who moves his wife (Karen Black) and son (Lee Montgomery) into a suspiciously creepy manor in the English countryside in a sort of caretakers capacity. Now we all know from collective cinema experience how ill advised it is for writers to move their families into empty large buildings with threatening auras, but hey that’s half the fun. They should have especially known better here though because they’re hired to house sit the place by the weirdest people imaginable, two creepy old goats played by a half mad Burgess Meredith and Eileen Heckart, and let me tell you if these two tried to hire me to look after their weird empty English house I’d run the other way, but then we wouldn’t have a story I suppose. The film hinges on a dynamic that consists of Reed trying to be steadfast and responsible but slowly succumbing to some Jack Torrence level madness while Black’s ineffectual wife blathers on in ditzy mania and the poor kid is stuck between them. There’s a highly effective sequence in the manor’s pool where playful, benign roughhousing between father and son turns unexpectedly violent and grim very fast and is a nice example of tension building and infused menace on Reed’s part. Bette Davis shows up in a rather forgettable role and there’s a spooky grinning valet driver who may or may not be a ghost that sows seeds of narrative and tonal unrest too. It’s nothing fancy, nothing new or noteworthy but as far as routine, atmospheric haunted house flicks with esteemed actors go, you could do worse. Streaming now on Shudder.

-Nate Hill