natewatchescoolmovies

Gerard Johnstone’s Housebound

August 7, 2021 by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

From early Peter Jackson to early Taika Waititi and many in between there has always been a steady low hum of horror output from New Zealand and Gerard Johnstone’s Housebound is a gorgeous little example of kiwi genre gold, an airtight, creaky would-be haunted house jaunt that knows how to be genuinely spooky while splashing just the right doses of dark humour in here and there and leading the audience down a breadcrumb trail of mystery that’s fun to discern alongside the main character. She’s called Kylie (Morgana O’Reilly) and as we meet her the NZ court system has finally reached its last straw as far as her methamphetamine and booze fuelled delinquent behaviour is concerned, placing her under ankle bracelet adorned house arrest with her weak willed mother (Rima Te Wiata) and meek stepfather (Ross Harper) in a rural enclave. The strained family dynamic is a sheepish joy to watch as this brat with a (deeply guarded) heart of gold makes life hell for her parental unit, but there’s something else in the house just waiting to make life hell for the three of them and soon weird sounds abound, creepy movements are observed and it becomes apparent that they aren’t alone. The cool thing is that the location scouts and set builders have created a house atmosphere that feels legitimately dusty, cluttered, oblong, weary and actually *lived in*, which isn’t always the case in haunted house outfits. Reilly is engaging and likeable as Kylie, even when she’s being a pain in the ass we never get the sense that this girl is truly a bad egg, just a lost and confused one who needs a rather intense outlet to channel her anger and pent-up negative energy into, and what better than a sly, possibly supernatural home invasion? I can’t go into too much detail about the central mystery and origins of the poltergeist shenanigans other than to say it’s a fun ball of yard to unravel alongside Kylie and goes to some narrative pitstops that are often fun, shocking and surprising. It’s goofy, it’s gory, it’s very well written and acted, it’s got tons of humour, a little heart, heaps of cobwebbed atmosphere and is just a great damn time at the horror movies. Streaming on Shudder now, highly recommended.

-Nate Hill

Roseanne Liang’s Shadow In The Cloud

August 6, 2021 by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

Some concepts just beg to not be taken seriously and in the case of Roseanne Liang’s Shadow In The Cloud we have Chloe Moretz as a WW2 fighter pilot fighting a nasty sky gremlin while also contending with Japanese planes trying to shoot her down and some incredibly sexist fellow officers who outnumber her ten to one. Surefire recipe for camp, right? Well… kind of, but what makes this film so much fun and so successful is that despite an outrageous premise it manages to feel like a real story and not some high flying Grindhouse lark. I haven’t seen Chloe act in some time so I kind of forgot how talented she is but she gifts this character with cunning, grace, badass physicality and genuine grit. As she boards a fighter plane last minute filled with all male officers and is sent straight to the hull turret, it starts with her being belittled and mocked by them, escalates into a breathless dogfight with enemy aircrafts and finally goes supernatural bonkers when this bizarre bat/rat/alien sky gremlin shows up and tries to kill everyone. The film clocks in tightly under 80 minutes and almost has that old timey radio play feel, especially in the first act when she’s alone in the turret, the camera focuses solely on her for a sequence and we only hear everyone else on the radio, thus some of the action left to our imagination just like entertainment mediums of that day. There are some flat-out spectacular action sequences here including Chloe firing up the turret gun and ruthlessly mowing down a Jap plane with brutal precision, a hair raising forced crash landing, a hilariously unbelievable yet absolutely thrilling instance where she falls out of a hatch and plummets a few hundred feet only to be BLOWN BACK INTO the plane by the force of another one exploding below and finally a bloody, ultra-violent hand to hand mortal kombat smackdown with the ugly little bastard gremlin that is laced with adrenaline torqued choreography. It’s just a damn fun film, Chloe has a blast in the best role I’ve seen her do in years, the score by Mahuia Bridgman-Cooper ditches usual war film orchestral notes for something sleek, electronic and rhythmically modern and just overall is badass, gnarly, r rated, rollicking action war horror hybrid good times. Streaming now on Netflix.

-Nate Hill

Tom Provost’s The Presence

August 4, 2021 by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

The Presence is one of those horror films that sets itself up so perfectly, so evocatively and effectively drew me in so well in the first act that it was profoundly frustrating when the rest of the film kind of loses its way, to some degree anyway. Sometimes simplicity is key and films start off with a setting and aesthetic so pure and distilled they don’t realize their story would just be more powerful if they stuck with that instead of shoehorned over-complication that muddies up an otherwise pristine experience. The first third of this film sees a haunted looking Mira Sorvino as an unnamed woman at a cabin by a lake (cue some lovely Oregon scenery), on solo vacation to wrestle with some personal demons. From the first few frames we learn there is in fact a ghost also in this cabin and about the grounds, a mute and mostly still figure played by the gaunt, angular presence of Shane West, who we remember as the boyfriend in A Walk To Remember. There’s a hushed, hypnotic aura as Mira goes about her chores around the cabin in silence, sleeps alone and wanders the grounds of the island seemingly both searching and at rest, while West’s pale-faced spectre observes her in sentinel stillness from various spots. Then all of a sudden her boyfriend (Justin Kirk) arrives from the city and, like a vacuum, all the atmosphere is sucked out of the frame as a level of dialogue ridden dramatic heft shoves its way into an otherwise unique experience. There is tension between them almost immediately as the ghost continues to observe, she is clearly not excited to have him around and he presses a marriage proposal on her that seems rushed to her. Then as if that whole angle wasn’t enough clutter, another strange supernatural being shows up personified by Scottish actor Tony Curran as some kind of demon who influences both Mira and the ghost while wearing a black suit that seems jarringly out of place amidst the otherwise earthen, elemental tone and the whole thing just speeds up way too fast. There’s also a subplot involving a vaguely sinister shopkeeper (Muse Watson) who delivers supplies to the island by boat, and this ongoing romantic tension that permeates the atmosphere. One aspect I did find fascinating was that Mira’s character was sexually abused by her father as a child and part of her journey out to this childhood property is to confront the memory and trauma of that. But why all this Faustian narrative diarrhea that feels forced into the script somehow? The opening act is SO effective, so eerie and well wrought, why couldn’t we have just coexisted with her and the ghost and the trees for 90 minutes as she grapples with her traumas among a peaceful yet unnerving nature environment? This is all of course just my reaction to the film and some may have gotten a kick out of the ‘whispering demon’ angle but to me it felt like a crippling element to an otherwise engaging and immersive setting and premise. Shame, because the first third is really something worth watching, right up until the boyfriend shows up and the dialogue starts.

-Nate Hill

Overlooked, ahead of its time and incredibly important: Ash Baron Cohen’s Bang

August 3, 2021 by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

What if an ordinary everyday citizen, in this case a woman of colour, found themselves in the role of a police officer for one day, through an extraordinary set of circumstances? Bang is a staggeringly good guerrilla indie film from the mid 90’s that is not only criminally under seen, it feels a hundred times more relevant and important than it already was back then. Filmed off the cuff on about the lowest budget one can have for a feature and without permits or proper sanctions with locations all over LA, it’s a scrappy passion project that contains the sort of class/race and gender commentary, character work, quirky humour and subversive social introspection of a cult classic that has yet to find the audience it deserves, even almost twenty years after its release. Japanese American actress Darling Narita plays an aspiring actress who has fallen on some very hard times. The morning we meet her she’s evicted from her apartment, sexually assaulted by a nasty film producer who tries to take advantage of her at an audition and arrested by a motorcycle cop for something she didn’t do. After the cop tries to assault her as well she grabs his gun, turns it on him, steals his uniform and his bike and wanders around LA in the guise of the law, not as some kind of vindictive crusade but more because she really didn’t know what else to do in that situation, and one thing leads to another after she is simply pushed too far. Her perspective behind the badge reflects how many different factions of society view the police ranging from reverence to fear to abject hatred, and as the day gets longer, stranger, funnier and sadder we somehow cultivate steadfast belief that this station could really be playing out somewhere, helped by the candid, immersive and often heavily improvised nature of the script and a beautifully compiled soundtrack of reggae and ska music. Narita is wonderful in the role and I’m sad she didn’t go on to do much more. She makes this girl angry, scared, vulnerable, empowered, complex and somehow so self assured yet so utterly lost in the space of one day’s time. The great character actor Peter Greene stars alongside her as a hopelessly loopy homeless man who is her friend, companion and sidekick. Greene usually plays villains as a rule and is way against type here as a manic oddball who also has a tragic history with the police and an affecting backstory, the two make a mismatched but perfect pair to share these wild misadventures and together they encounter all sorts of people including other cops, drug dealers, vatos and a prostitute played by a very young Lucy Liu. This is an important film in many regards, it’s not only an exciting, brilliantly acted piece of gonzo filmmaking with a beating heart and something to say, it’s an arresting and incendiary indictment of power dynamics including and up to the relationship between cops and civilians but extends further into the exploitative and abusive nature of Hollywood and inherent sexism within that industry and society itself, the marginalization and neglect of lower class communities overall, the way mentally ill people (Greene’s brain damaged character ducks stereotype and becomes something *real*) are tossed to the wayside and dehumanized and how one woman uses what she’s confronted to fight back for herself and others who need help and attention, even if it’s just for one day. These are heavy, difficult and multitudinous themes for one zero budget guerrilla indie film to tackle but it has been proved time and time again that you don’t need millions of dollars and shiny effects to tell and important and lasting story, all you need is the story itself, and those willing to tell it well. Director Ash, stars Narita, Greene and the whole cast and anyone who crewed this no doubt challenging, at times illegal production should be very proud because the result is something emotionally and philosophically galvanizing, strikingly ahead of its time and altogether remarkable. Available here and there on DVD, and hopefully streaming at some point soon, I’d love to spread as much awareness and exposure to this wonderful film as I can with the resources and network I have.

-Nate Hill

Stephen King’s Lisey’s Story

July 28, 2021 by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

I didn’t really know what to think of Lisey’s Story for the first two episodes or so because it’s so disarmingly, otherworldly strange and surreal, but as the story unfolds in an almost subconscious vernacular, step by step I found my footing and it has become likely my favourite Stephen King adaptation ever undertaken. I think it’s the closest we’re ever gonna get to an ‘arthouse’ King story, and the sheer audacity and bizarro world sensibility of it might be why it’s not being received too well, but make no mistake, this is gorgeous top shelf stuff. The story, told in bold expressionistic strokes, tells of the core relationship between Lisey (Julianne Moore) and her deceased husband Scott Landon (Clive Owen), a famous writer and deeply troubled man who left a series of clues for her before passing that will lead her on a journey to the heart of his unfinished literary work and protect her from deranged homicidal stalker Jim Dooley (Dane DeHaan) who seeks to find his hidden manuscripts. That all sounds very straightforward but the creators opt to tell this story in deep, dense flashbacks, musical cues that take prescience over dialogue and an arresting, dreamlike visual palette that takes over for exposition. In Scott’s books he tells of another dimension called Boo’Ya Moon, a realm of the dead and half-dead that’s full of alien beauty and home to a terrifying monster called the Long Boy. This sort of exotic astral plane proves to be very real and integral in both putting Scott’s spirit to rest and killing Dooley, who becomes quite the force to reckon with for Lisey and her two sisters (Jennifer Jason Leigh & Joan Allen). Moore is fantastic as Lisey, full of emotional intuition and charisma, while Owen has never been better and his level of commitment and intensity to a role that is cast way, way against his usual type is staggering, I have never seen him so raw and vulnerable. There are frequent flashbacks to his horrifying childhood where he struggles to deal with his half mad Viet Nam vet father who is so mentally far gone he can barely get a sentence out. The dad is played by an unrecognizable Michael Pitt who manages to be despicable, relatable, pathetic, chilling and heartbreaking in the same notes, it’s a mad dog, candid performance you don’t usually see in mainstream stuff and he should win all of the awards. The show is just unlike anything I’ve ever seen, from the strikingly intense, almost David Lynch style work from the actors to the stunning mystical dreamscape of Boo’Ya Moon to the languid, formless narrative that’s free of peripherals or structure to the deep, haunting emotional core to the sweet, innocent and life affirming romance between Lisey and Scott to the wonderfully atmospheric, spine chilling score by ‘Clark’, this is just grand, unique storytelling that sweeps you away into its world. You have to be willing to go though, and I think that’s why so many people recoiled at this. Many were likely expecting an accessible, routine King adaptation firmly planted in the ground like we usually see wrought of his work, but this is simply something from another world altogether, it’s one that you feel your way through in images and impression rather than dialogue and drama. If you’re ready for that, I’d highly recommend it. Don’t listen to the hate out there, it’s truly, truly extraordinary stuff.

-Nate Hill

Netflix’s Blood Red Sky

July 27, 2021 by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

You’ve heard of Snakes On A Plane now get ready for Vampires on a plane! Real talk though the new Netflix horror hybrid Blood Red Sky is a lot better, more vicious and effectively made than most gimmicky, chimera-like efforts of its kind. A sort of German American Scottish coproduction that seamlessly blends actors/accents from all three countries, it tells of a young German mother (Peri Baumeister, a dead ringer for Noomi Rapace) who finds herself and her son on a transatlantic flight that has been hijacked by multinational terrorists hellbent on crashing the plane in London and killing everyone onboard. There’s just one slight variable these assholes didn’t figure on: this girl is in fact a vampire, and not a slow, dramatic Dracula vampire either, she’s one of those sleek, terrifying, hyper-vigilant, high strung 30 Days Of Night Vampires, which when you consider the finite, constrained area of a plane interior, is just a nightmare waiting to happen. The big cheese terrorist is a sociopathic mercenary played excellently by Dominic Purcell but the real villain is a German maniac (Alexander Scheer) from his ranks that goes rogue, starts maliciously murdering hostages and is just downright nasty, if there was a German production of Batman he would land the Joker role for sure. The fights, chases, gore and intensity here are so well staged you barely get a moment to breathe and there’s genuine high-level suspense that had me on edge. What helps achieve that is that even amidst all the snarling, throat ripping, bloodletting and pandemonium and even under all that slick vampire makeup, actress Baumeister manages to give her performance a genuine maternal instinct and palpable pathos in caring for her son and protecting him from danger, she basically gives a multilayered, deeply effective performance as both a human being and a pissed off vampire. The film is built around a totally ridiculous premise and they could have made this just the cheesiest thing, but instead they’ve played the situation dead straight and approached this script with the very serious notion of “what IF a vampire found herself on a plane at the same time as a gang of evil terrorists,” and the result is something immersive, beautifully made, spectacularly violent and, in some scenes, surprisingly poignant. Highly recommended, streaming on Netflix now.

-Nate Hill

Tanya Wexler’s Jolt

July 23, 2021 by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

Kate Beckinsale is, quite literally, electrifying in Jolt, a new bubblegum pop action flick from Amazon prime that is already being written off as empty popcorn fluff when it’s so much more fun than that. Yes it is action popcorn entertainment, but Kate’s performance, the writing, character quirks, purply-neon visual dynamics and wry, dark sense of humour totally won me over. There’s a million and one “tough girl assassin with vague superpowers“ movies out there but this one does the shtick with actual talent, sass and good old fashioned storytelling, kinda like if Joe Carnahan did a Luc Besson. Kate plays Lindy, a girl who has suffered from what’s called “intermittent explosive disorder” (it’s a real thing, I looked it up) since she was a child, a condition that causes her to involuntarily burst out in angry, violent episodes which, when coupled with her off the charts cortisol levels and overactive adrenal glands, make her very powerful and very dangerous. She controls this, with a bit of help from Stanley Tucci’s underworld doctor, by deliberately juicing up her nervous system with a jolt of electricity from a handheld control device wired to implants inside her. Does this work, you may wonder? Kinda, sorta, not really… I mean what fun would the film be if we didn’t get to see her lose her shit and beat the absolute piss out of people? The trouble starts when she finally meets a guy she likes (Jai Courtney) and of course he’s murdered under shady circumstances. This puts her on a one woman crusade across NYC to find the ones responsible with two oddball detectives on her trail, a sympathetic one (Bobby Cannavale) and a hard-nosed, unforgiving one (Laverne Cox, a genuine scene stealer). Lindy’s journey is a vigorous, colourful, violent, profane, unexpected odyssey that takes her to nightclubs, fight-clubs, clandestine skyscrapers, a hospital maternity ward where a game of ‘catch the baby’ ensues (don’t ask) and she comes up against all sorts of weirdos including Filch from Harry Potter as some sort of creepy rare animal collecting mob emperor and an unnerving Susan Sarandon as a shadowy figure from her own past come back to haunt her. While this narrative itself has patches that are a tad overplayed and the eventual ‘twist’ struck me as a bit bothersome, what the film has is energy, wit, enthusiasm and pizazz for days. It’s stylish, propulsive, visually gorgeous and peppered with delicious bits of dark, eccentric humour here and there. What’s more, it proves once again that Kate Beckinsale is an absolute diamond of an actress and a natural born star, whether it’s in Underworld, something dramatic like David Gordon Green’s Snow Angels, Van Helsing or even the shitty Total Recall remake that she was the only good part of, the woman just has charisma and talent like no other. She tears into the role of Lindy here with punishing physicality, sardonically droll deadpan attitude and, most importantly, a genuine sense of humanity and character kept aglow amidst all the action and flair. The film sets itself up for a sequel; I say bring it on.

-Nate Hill

Nobody

July 22, 2021 by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

Nobody is a nice riff on the one man army revenge shtick and is not only in the tradition of John Wick, it’s also written by one half of the same creative forces behind it so it sorta has that feel, albeit of a more… suburban dad variety. Bob Odenkirk is a left field choice for the ‘invincible ex-spook’ archetype and while I had my doubts that his physicality could pull off some of the stuff I saw here, he no doubt has the grit and charisma in spades to inhabit this intense role. He’s Hutch, an unassuming family man whose wife (nice to see Connie Nielsen) and kids don’t seem to think much of him, especially after he appears to be totally ineffective at defending them from violent home invaders one night. It turns out this random blue collar family man is an ex government assassination guru and pretty soon that one encounter with burglars leads to an ongoing, cataclysmic feud with the Russian mob, spearheaded by a sociopathic (or soviet-pathic?) piece of work named Julian, played by Aleksey Serebryakov in an impressively rambunctious portrait of pure unfiltered evil, like a Slav kingpin version of the joker or something. The action here is wonderfully choreographed, relentlessly brutal and crisply filmed, especially a bone smashing close quarters fight on a public transit bus that kicks off the central conflict. The great Christopher Lloyd has a nice bit as Hutch’s dad, a veteran living in a rest home who proves he isn’t quite out for the count yet and gets some great kills in alongside his son, and we also get RZA as a former colleague who steps in for some action too. Unfortunately the film chose to include the always awesome Michael Ironside but inexplicably decided to cast him in a wholly inconsequential sideline role that has nothing to do with the plot overall and could have been played by any Joe Nobody, an ill advised casting choice that would have caused me to remove a star from the rating if I were doing that star thing. Don’t hire Michael Ironside unless it’s a memorable, badass, worthy role, it’s just common sense. Anywho, it’s a solid flick, great villain, superb action and while I may not be onboard with the hype as much as some I’ve seen, I still had a good time. I will give it extra credit for one of the most gruesome, satisfying, laugh out loud villain deaths I’ve seen in action cinema.

-Nate Hill

July 20, 2021 by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

It’s interesting to me how the best Disney films, or at least the ones that I connect with most anyways, don’t get talked about too much. Atlantis: The Lost Empire is always one I was kind of dimly aware of, I had the McDonald’s toys as a kid even though I never saw the film and always thought of it as just another rote Princess storyline from the studio. How wrong I was. This is an absolutely sensational SciFi adventure fantasy on all levels, boundlessly imaginative, strikingly mature as far as Disney goes and the kind of intricately designed experience you can get lost in. In the early 1900’s young scholar Milo Thatch (Michael J. Fox in a lovely, exuberant turn) dreams of finding the lost city of Atlantis as his peers and superiors at the Smithsonian mock his efforts. When an eccentric and very rich tycoon (the late John Mahoney) agrees to fund an elaborate deep sea exploration with Milo spearheading the research aspect, it’s off to the races as a beautifully designed mega-craft descends into the Atlantic Ocean with our hero and a whole team of ragtag experts, grunts and grease monkeys onboard. The film is very realistic and fair with its characters and we get an entire fleet of fascinating individuals including an African American former civil war surgeon (Phil Morris) with indigenous roots, a cantankerous cook (Jim Varney), a Mediterranean explosives guru, a vivacious French geologist and the crew’s mercurial captain Rourke, given the commanding, affable yet vaguely menacing voice of James Garner who does a terrific job of the villainous arc. There is a Princess here but she isn’t doe eyed, sing-songy or cloying for romance every second. Her name is Kida (voiced wonderfully by Cree Summer), she’s the daughter of the Atlantean King (Leonard Nimoy, of all people) and she’s assured, strong willed and cares deeply for the plight of her race, who have fallen on hard times. There are eventual romantic sparks between her and Milo but they feel organic, earned and born out of a genuine, character development based relationship as the two get to know each other and she shows him around her striking world. The visual design and animation here is something else, even before we see Atlantis there’s a steampunk vibe to their equipment and vessel, and when we see the otherworldly biodiversity, detailed architectural splendour and tattoos/costume design it’s an atmosphere like no other. Not to mention the ballistic gong show of a climax, born out of capitalist fuelled betrayal, the very fate of Atlantis and every living thing in it at stake. This isn’t your average Disney flick and while there are the usual beats like comic relief and romance etc, it all feels far more down to earth than I’m used to from this kind of output. I’m reminded of another Disney one that has a similarly grounded, spectacularly imagined world, the wonderful Treasure Planet. I think the studio has never been as good or as inspired as their work with that one and now Atlantis too, it has to be up there as my favourite.

-Nate Hill

Rituals

July 19, 2021 by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

I’ve had some gnarly camping trips into the Canadian wilderness myself, but none so brutal, backbreaking and harrowing as the Ontario expedition that five bickering middle aged doctors embark on in Rituals, a punishingly intense, staggeringly effective thriller that despite a low budget, is about as high impact as possible. The cast is headed up by the late great Hal Holbrook and Lawrence Dane, two pack leaders in a team of five career medical professionals who are so far from the white coats and fluorescent lit hallways they usually no doubt inhabit, on a ruthless trek through the harshest terrain made all the more strenuous by the fact that they are being tracked, hunted and terrorized by an unseen individual who knows the region, and the psychological complexity of predator vs prey, far better than these fellows. This obviously has a Deliverance vibe on paper but not only is it a far stronger film than that (Boorman’s piece is a tad over-celebrated in my book), it isn’t just that tired old ‘big city blowhards tormented by inbred backwood yahoos’, there’s an actual believable reason why this person has targeted them, revealed bit by bit as their heinous ordeal unfolds. What also makes this so effective is the writing and performances; every character is fully fleshed out and feels like a real human being instead of a token archetype of your classic group dynamic, thanks to a script that has both compassion and condemnation for its characters in the same complex stroke. These are genuine human beings and the actors, Holbrook and Dane in particular, play them uncannily well in perhaps the performances of their careers. Not to mention the lush, lake speckled Northern Ontario scenery that abruptly turns stark, threatening and very Mordor-esque later on in the third act to mirror the increasingly hopeless plight of the men wandering through this desolate and unforgiving realm. This is an exceptional film, with a few damaged reels (VHS lines and cigarette burns lovingly dot the celluloid landscape) and Shudder has done a great job restoring what it could into Blu Ray quality while retaining a frayed, Grindhouse visual aesthetic at the same time. Highly, highly recommended.

-Nate Hill