natewatchescoolmovies

Josh Trank’s Capone

May 16, 2020 by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

Tom Hardy and Josh Trank have some big collective nuts in pulling off a stunt like this, but they’ve crafted a bold, original and ghoulish piece of work with Capone, aka The Man With The Golden Tommy Gun or Zombie Tom Hardy Putrefied In Florida. This is a fucking bonkers film like no other, approaching the historical character study from an angle few would dare to try but the borderline experimental process and beyond weird stylistic choices combined with Hardy’s positively extraterrestrial performance as Al Capone and references to everything from Twin Peaks to The Shining make this a winner and my favourite film of the year so far.

Most filmic chronicles of real world crime figures focus on the up and coming rise to power of any given person, it’s a safe-bet, tried and true Hollywood formula that always raises pulses. Trank diverts from that route, instead showing us Capone in the last few miles of his twilight years, slowly rotting away both physically and mentally from neurosyphilis in his drafty Florida mansion while his family looks on in exasperation. Not once in the film do we see Capone as a younger man, at the height of his power and only for one brief moment is he anything that resembles sane, delivering a peppy anecdotal barb to his granddaughter at thanksgiving dinner before passing out of coherence and into a surreal, purgatorial twilight zone of his own wrought. His loyal wife (Linda Cardellini is fantastic as always) stays by his side but is increasingly more upset by the drooling spectre her husband has become. His twitchy doctor (Kyle Maclachlan, terrific as well) grasps at straws to plug the leaks in the once sharp gangster turned ghost and Al’s old friend Johnny (Matt Dillon) appears to him on elliptical vignettes. His son (Noel Fisher) struggle with the reality of his condition and everyone is pretty much there to bear witness to the deeply troubling unravel of a once iron fisted patriarch.

Hardy’s performance must be given special note; since his inception as a minted Hollywood star his performances have gradually edged off the face of what may be considered ‘normal’ in some circles, his portrayals getting more eccentric, each new vocal character choice becoming more bizarre. He’s barely human here as Al, a shambling, defecating, mumbling, scaly, bloodshot eyed phantasm who wanders about in a delirium, haunting his own house and trapped in a horrific, kaleidoscopic nightmare of his own violent past. He shits himself (twice), chews his cigars harder than the scenery, rants and raves at nothing in particular and has now patented the ‘Tom Hardy dialect’ that consists of grunts, guttural utterances, half formed syllables and rumbly noises so odd that it’s tough to tell what sounds are being made by his vocal chords and what ones are from his voiding bowels. You’re either onboard for this very disturbing character or not, but there’s no copping out by calling it a gimmick. Capone really did die a dishevelled mess and I’m pretty sure that nothing Hardy does here is too far from the grisly truth of a soul near death, which Hollywood nearly always shies away from showing in full splendour, or squalor.

Many people are going to hate this film with a passion, and I get it. It’s very different, frequently uncomfortable to watch and oh so terminally weird. Trank plays around with distorted reality and hip hop artist El-P composes a strange, otherworldly score that places Capone in a twisted, freaky haunted house of his own mind and there’s no baseline narrative to easily return to from the madness. What I took from this was an unflinching look at how a life of crime, violence, lies and fear ultimately leads to an anticlimactic, sadly ironic, deteriorated final episode of misery. The feds are on Al’s case but he barely knows what fucking planet he’s on anymore and his poor family, relegated from collateral damage to picking up his pieces must now deal with them as well as looming destitution. Ultimately a life of crime as prolific as his leads to dead ends, demons of torment and the slow, inevitable encroach of mortality like the alligators Al screams at as they unnervingly approach from the swamps surrounding his broke-down palace. This is a spectacular film and whether or not it’s ultimately your thing, there’s no denying the craft and vision put to work here.

-Nate Hill

Actor’s Spotlight: Nate’s Top Ten Christopher Lee Performances

May 15, 2020 by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

Christopher Lee was the kind of guy that came to mind whenever you heard the term ‘commanding presence.’ He had a legendary career that bridged the gap from 70’s Hammer horror fare all the way to being a regular in Tim Burton films as well as memorable voiceover work and a handful of instantly recognizable roles in iconic Sci-Fi/fantasy franchises. The one aspect to this wonderful actor was his strikingly deep voice, like molasses poured over mahogany and put to use in countless treasured performances. These are my personal ten favourite!

10. Victor in Disney’s Return From Witch Mountain

This is an admittedly lacklustre sequel to a magical Disney classic but it’s on here for a reason. I grew up with Escape To Witch Mountain, I’ve seen it a trillion times and I waited forever for Disney to release this one from the vault. It’s enjoyable if not as amazing as the first but I really loved seeing Lee as the darkly charismatic mad scientist who wants to harvest the hero’s supernatural powers, stepping in for Ray Milland’s maniacal billionaire antagonist from the first film.

9. Rochefort in The Three Musketeers

This is a totemic role for me because many actors I adore have played it including Michael Wincott in the 90’s as well as Tim Roth and Mads Mikkelsen more recently. This 1973 musketeers film is admittedly a silly version but Lee makes an imposing incarnation of the one eyed anti-musketeer.

8. Mohammed Ali Jinnah in Jinnah

I’ve admittedly only seen part of this on TV in Europe but it’s one of Lee’s personal favourite roles that he himself cherishes and an important piece of acting/filmmaking. Jinnah was the political founder of Pakistan and a man who believed that all human beings everywhere have the right to worship whichever god they choose and can coexist and be free. It’s a stunning performance from the man and if you YouTube any interviews where he is asked what roles he cherishes most in his career he always brings it up and you can feel how important it is and how much it meant to him playing that historical figure.

7. Dr. Catheter in Joe Dante’s Gremlins 2: The New Batch

If there’s one thing Lee was great at it was keeping a straight face in the midst of sheer lunacy. He’s a maniacal scientist hellbent on weird experiments here as the huge high rise building he works in becomes infested with nasty Mogwai, and he plays it pricelessly deadpan.

6. Burgomaster in Tim Burton’s Sleepy Hollow

He’s only in this for like two minutes right at the beginning but he basically singlehandedly sets the mood with a couple lines. I’m not sure what a ‘burgomaster’ is but he appears to be some kind of austere judge who dispatches Johnny Depp’s Ichabod Crane to Sleepy Hollow and is the first character in the film to actually say the town’s name in that iconic voice.

5. Lord Summerisle in The Wicker Man

The legacy of this awesome British cult horror film is obviously now scarred by the obnoxious Nic Cage remake but seek it out anyways, Lee plays the deeply philosophical and extremely unnerving head of a pagan cult with supernatural proclivities and a hostile attitude towards puritans. He embodies this charismatic fiend with affability that swiftly turns into menace, a very fascinating antagonist.

4. Dracula in a bunch of Dracula films

Lee in the Vampire getup is such totemic symbol of 60’s/70’s horror, what can I say. I haven’t seen all the Dracula stuff he did but the image of him as the character is imprinted in my pop culture subconscious as I imagine it is for many.

3. Francisco Scaramanga in The Man With The Golden Gun

One of the classiest, most dangerous and cool Bond villains, an assassin for hire with a literal golden gun and a… uh… third nipple. Lee is calm, sociopathic and deadly as the guy, who enjoys killing people a lot and is good at it too.

2. Count Dooku/Darth Tyranus in George Lucas’s Star Wars Episode II: Attack Of The Clones

My second favourite Star Wars antagonist after Darth Maul, Dooku is a no good scheming arch-baddie who incites a war, pits intergalactic factions against each other and masterminds one of the most memorable gladiator arena matches in cinema history. He gives the guy an ever so slight air of aristocracy and swings around a cool curve handled lightsaber like nobody’s business.

1. Saruman The White in Peter Jackson’s The Lord Of The Rings

This was the first film I ever saw him in and will always be the character I remember him for. He’s unbelievably intense, measured in line delivery and incredibly malevolent in an implosive portrait of power hungry mania. Saruman is the wizard gone bad, and Christopher takes full advantage of that arc, not to mention nailing the stark look of the character wonderfully.

-Nate Hill

Clive Barker’s The Midnight Meat Train

May 13, 2020 by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

More like The Midnight Mess Train. Man this was a royal disaster. I get that there was a Clive Barker short behind it and yeah it’s probably a cool one as he’s a great storyteller but man if you’re going to adapt something that scant you at least have to give it more than just a vague blueprint and an endless, grinding parade of gratuitous, painfully CGI gore that serves no other purpose other than to perpetuate itself in scene after scene of disgusting, unsatisfying carnage. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a gore-hound and a horror nut but there’s something called pacing, context and artistic style and the violence in this has none of that, it’s as flat, drab and unpleasant as I’d imagine the meat slaughterhouse we see multiple times is.

Bradley Cooper used to do a ton of cool genre stuff before he went Oscar titan on us and he’s engaging enough as an NYC art world photographer who is searching for those perfect, edgy shots of the city’s underworld, a vocation that pushes him into nocturnal escapades where he inevitably sees something he shouldn’t. That something here is well dressed, mute, homicidal bulldozer Mahogany, a spectacularly violent serial killer who rides the late subway train and literally butchers people like cattle for some unseen, hidden purpose. Of course he starts to notice Cooper tailing him and isn’t too stoked. His life begins to unravel as he becomes obsessed with finding out Mahogany’s deal to the point that it affects his relationship to his girlfriend, played by the lovely Leslie Bibb in one of the rare times they actually give her a role deserving of her untapped talent.

The problem with this is it makes not a goddamn lick of sense. Why is Mahogany killing people on the train? Does he have an employer or is he just a wild card loner? The film makes a half assed attempt to answer those questions but unfortunately it’s way too preoccupied with torture porn to tell it’s story clearly, succinctly or even remotely in a way that grabs us. There’s only so many shots of Jones bashing people’s heads in with a giant meat tenderizing hammer before our brains turn to the same mush it inflicts and we just. Don’t. Care. And the gore is often done in this really weird, closeup/slo-mo/lame way like the film was meant to be seen in 3D or something but they never bothered to even finish the process and we’re left with video game cutscene gore. It’s a shame because there are aspects that shine. Jones is incredibly menacing, he’s always had a terrific presence as an actor and the Mahogany character on his own terms is pretty frightening, until the film does his shtick to death. Bibb is terrific and I really felt for her as the poor girlfriend dragged into a nightmare, it’s also not one of those horror flicks where the significant other doesn’t believe the protagonist’s wild predicament to the point of abandoning them, she actually tries to help and I liked that character choice. I really liked Brooke Shields as an art world shark who talent scouts Cooper’s work, there’s a directness and genuine intelligence to her acting that turns a quick cameo into something very memorable. But holy shit man, most of the film is just ridiculous, poorly lit bloodshed and I get they’re on a dark subway train underground but even then dude… find your angles, set up your lighting, set aside time to colour grade… have some fucking pride in your craft. And for god’s sake know when enough gore is enough and your audience just wants to tap out and go watch Candyman again, another film based on Barker lore that knows when to use violence to shock or frighten, not to beat us over the head with it like Mahogany and his hammer until we’re in a vegetative state and just want to turn the tv off. A midnight meat train wreck if I ever saw one.

-Nate Hill

Basketball porcupines from outer space: Nate takes a look at the Critters franchise

May 12, 2020 by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

This one kind of demands to be observed and reviewed as a quadrilogy instead of four separate films because they flow into one another and so do many horror franchises that spawned a ton of sequels, but each of the Critters films are under ninety minutes and therefore easy to binge. Add to that the fact that there’s a handy DVD four pack floating around out there for extra convenience and you’ve got one cool little package. It would be easy to dismiss these films as a giant ripoff of Gremlins and indeed there are discernible parallels but there is both enough anatomical and characteristically different features to these creatures as well as narrative originality in the films themselves to make them a franchise worthy of distinction. Plus, ya know, Leonardo DiCaprio in his first movie, like, ever.

So what are Critters? They’re an extremely troublesome, destructive race of outlaw aliens that kind of resemble a hybrid between porcupines, gorillas and… basketballs. They arrive on earth and quite literally roll around like basketballs with no real plan other than to evade a couple shape shifting cosmic bounty hunters dispatched to exterminate them as well as bite, chew, maim and terrify every human being they come across. The first film would kind of have an Amblin/Spielberg vibe if the critters weren’t so savage and R rated in nature, which is a perfect example of why this isn’t simply a Gremlins rehash. The evolved Mogwai were nasty little shits, no doubt, but these things are positively murderous and inflict the kind of gore that Romero would be proud of. The first two films take place in wistful Grover’s Bend, one of those sleepy little American towns where nothing bad ever happens until it does and then the town is never known for anything else *except* that incident. An apple pie rural family headed up by the great Dee Wallace must confront them and defend their farmhouse from critter advances in super gory, chaotic fashion. Oh and Billy Zane shows up with a painfully 80’s ponytail too, before being quickly dispatched in a barn. The second film is more of the same although they thought they could sneakily recast the great M. Emmett Walsh with decidedly less iconic Barry Corbin as the town Sheriff, nice try. The third film is the most effective and not just for Leo Dicaprio but also because the setting change from rural county to dilapidated big city tenement building is way more spookily atmospheric, and allows for some hilarious hijinks with a laundry chute. The fourth film should be great because it’s that obligatory horror entry that’s set in space (like Jason X or Leprechaun In Space or.. wasn’t there even a Hellraiser in space?) but it kind of plods along in humdrum territory, the critters don’t even show up until like over halfway through and the only really memorable work comes from the ever awesome Brad Dourif and the luminous Angela Bassett.

The one character besides the Critters that holds these four flicks together is a town drunk turned intergalactic warrior played by Don Keith Opper, who is kind of a weird, aloof dude but provides each new film with eccentric gusto while new supporting players surround him. DiCaprio shows signs of his career to come and carries the highlight third entry nicely, while the first two feel very much akin to one another in a sort of Halloween and Halloween 2 kind of way. Low budget slapdash cheese like this is my bread and butter, I’m very fond of 80’s trash horror franchises like this and was beyond stoked to see the DVD at Walmart last second before going through the til and be able to binge all four films in one night. They’re great fare of this shit is your cup of tea, and they have this maniacal, almost Evil Dead style comedic sensibility to them that I greatly appreciated. My favourite scene of the whole thing: Dee Wallace brandishes a giant double barrel shotgun out her front door to ward off two Critters incoming up the driveway. Suddenly they speak to each other in some Furby gibberish with subtitles, one observing “They have weapons!” “So?”, his buddy retorts. Dee fires off a round that obliterates one of the two beasts into a puddle of fur and blood. The other one looks over and exclaims “Fuck!” in their weird little outer space creole dialect. I love that warped sense of humour gifted unto these scrappy little flicks, they’re a ton of fun.

-Nate Hill

HBO’s Westworld: Season 3

May 11, 2020 by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

HBO’s Westworld is a show that explores evolution, both humanity’s and that of an emerging new species with uncommon innovation, beauty and ferocious destruction. As such the evolutionary process that should be most captivating is that of the show itself, as the storytelling flows and blooms from one season to another and their third instalment has surpassed my expectations. This is groundbreaking, cinematic level world building with deep psychological exploration, sweeping special effects, pools of philosophical introspect, musical genius peppered throughout the episodes and a sense of great progression in scope, spirit and sound from the womb of season one and birth canal of two. With three we see the hosts, human beings and overall tone break free into a brave, scary, different new world and I couldn’t be more overjoyed or awestruck at the avenues of exploration taken with this piece of television.

These next two paragraphs will get a bit spoilery in regards to the first two seasons so if you haven’t been on this wagon train since the get-go then maybe hang back. The Westworld park is all but ashes, it’s creators, attractions and shareholders scattered to the wind. Ed Harris’s self destructive maelstrom William is relegated to a batshit crazy (more than usual anyways) version of himself, antiquated in a now all-bets-are-off chessboard. Evan Rachel Wood’s fiery farmer’s daughter turned revolutionary is whipping up an explosively covert war against humans in order for her and the other hosts who made it out, banding together with ex-soldier Caleb (Aaron Paul) for a bitter battle against mega CEO Serauc (Vincent Cassel) and his golden egg, a complex orb of artificial intelligence that has held humanity in a secret stranglehold for decades. Others return here and there including Thandie Newton’s Mauve (my personal favourite character <3), Tessa Thompson’s Charlotte Hale, Jeffrey Wright’s Bernard while new and welcome faces show up including Tommy Flanagan, John Gallagher Jr., Thomas Kretschmann, Marshawn Lynch, Pom Klementieff, Lena Waithe, Rafi Gavron, Russell Wong and rapper Kid Cudi.

Season one and two were very much governed by boundaries; the park’s borders constantly loomed and whatever realms which lay beyond remained largely a mystery. Godlike Dr. Ford (Anthony Hopkins) hovered over everything with opaque benevolence and knew more than he let on, especially about the true nature of the world. The atmosphere felt contained, bound by dreamlike tendons that inevitably disintegrated and led to something new, the genesis of an entirely new race of beings. Season 3 blasts apart the shackles and throws us headlong into a strange, unforgiving, futuristic world, a world ruled by technology and automation that is ready for Dolores and her cohorts to hijack for their own ends. Aaron Paul is fantastic here, worlds away from his Breaking Bad persona, a fallibly human totem of change and uprising who is unsure of himself yet best suited for the job than for reasons I won’t spoil here. HBO has their very own Hans Zimmer-esque composing prodigy in Ramin Djawadi, a hugely talented artist who continues his ethereal, haunting covers of iconic classic rock artists like Bowie and Guns N’ Roses while crafting intense, gorgeous pieces of his own electronic revelry to accent the story. Production designers keep up their arresting retro-futuristic portrait of the future with nods to everything from Blade Runner to Metropolis to Kill Bill while painting their own bold, original canvas of costumes, aircrafts, weaponry and tech interface while the impossibly cool, prophetic opening credits take on sweeping newfound meaning with a thrilling update. One of my favourite sequences sees Caleb take a weird street drug that sees his consciousness pass through several different states of awareness from psychedelia to black and white noir, the episode is titled ‘Genre’ and is an achingly beautiful, dynamic shoutout to the very medium of visual storytelling itself. Dolores and all her kind really broke the mould when they revolted and escaped, and so too does this brilliant third incarnation of one of the greatest television series ever made. Bring on season four and whatever new beats, revelations and rock remixes will come with it.

-Nate Hill

To Wong Foo Thanks For Everything Julie Newmar

May 8, 2020 by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

What a title for a film, and what a wonderful film therein. To Wong Foo Thanks For Everything Julie Newmar feels way ahead of its time for 90’s Hollywood, it’s subversive, witty and although super bubbly and energetic it’s incredibly down to earth, compassionate and sympathetic, not just to the three heroines but every character who shows up. I mean I’ve always known about this one, there was always ‘that movie where Patrick Swayze, Wesley Snipes and John Leguizamo play drag queens’ out there in my awareness but I could never get a DVD and it seemed to be kind of a rare find. It’s on Netflix now and I’m pissed I waited this long to watch it because it’s a dime piece. Swayze and Snipes are Vida and Noxeema, two drag queens who tie in a pageant that sends them off on a road trip to Hollywood as their prize. Via kindness and mentorship they bring along Chi Chi (Leguizamo), a fiery Latina who just wants to win something for once in her life. As they make their way through those less evolved States where the kind of lifestyle they pick isn’t received too well their ragtop breaks down in a tiny one horse town and much of the film is spent on them interacting with, educating and forming bonds with the local townsfolk who are, for the most part, lovely people. Chi Chi falls for a local kid (Jason London, whatever happened to him?) who has eyes for her, Vida does her best to help a battered housewife (Stockard Channing) escape her abusive prick of a husband (Arliss Howard) and Vida forges a strong friendship with eccentric Clara (Alice Drummond) over golden age Hollywood lore. This is all while a homophobic, rapey Sheriff (Chris Penn, RIP) pursues them over a past incident while failing to realize that he himself is buried so deep in the closet that not even a near two hour character arc can get him out. I mean this thing on paper or in the studio pitch meeting could have gotten nervous reactions, it’s not easy to sell. But the three leads do just that, and I’ve never seen performances quite like this from any of them. They are three very masculine tough guys in Hollywood, which is perhaps why they were chosen for this but they are utterly and completely believable as these characters, always seeming larger than life but never ever veering into caricature or parody of this delicate matter. They’re kind, learned, feisty, compassionate, no nonsense role model material and I applaud whoever is responsible for the writing, direction and their performances for taking this seriously and giving three characters who are an absolute joy to spend a film with. Gotta throw a shoutout to Blythe Danner too as one of the townsfolk, she is always so candid, honest and adorable. Oh, and Robin Williams randomly too as some sort of off the books travel agent named (and I’m not even making this up) John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt. Fantastic film.

-Nate Hill

Walter Hill’s Bullet To The Head

May 6, 2020 by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

The last time Walter Hill made an ultraviolent crime flick set in New Orleans it starred Mickey Rourke and was a lot better than this one, but I’ll take all the Hill I can get and his Bullet In The Head is a bit of B grade fun in its own way. Sylvester Stallone is Jimmy, an angry mob hitman who goes postal when he’s set up and his partner (Jon Seda, short lived) is murdered following the dispatch of a troublesome corrupt cop (Holt McCallany in sleaze mode). The cop, it turns out, has a partner (Sung Kang) who is a lot less corrupt but still seems vaguely interested in why his former colleague was killed and comes gunning for him, putting them both squarely in ‘attempted buddy movie’ territory, a shtick that Hill also did way better in another one with Nick Nolte and Eddie Murphy. Anyways the two of them are on the run from a nasty African war criminal turned real estate developer (Killer Croc from Suicide Squad, because I’m too lazy to look up the spelling of his unpronounceable name) who dispatches impossibly badass mercenary Keegan (Jason Momoa) to kill basically anyone who looks at him wrong. If it seems like I’m explaining this sloppily or without my usual elegant vernacular its because the film itself barely rises to the occasion in terms of plot and feels hasty, ragged and rushed. Stallone is actually kind of awesome as the pissed off antihero, sporting dope Yakuza style tattoos that even top the ink he had in The Expendables. Christian Slater shows up randomly as a wise-ass gang boss who finds himself on the wrong end of Stallone’s temper while Momoa is genuinely threatening as the whack-job ex warlord who just wants to fuck shit up, he and Stallone literally showdown in an axe fight that provides the last five minutes of the film with more energy and imagination than the rest of the eighty nine minutes of it combined. It’s a souped up B movie with little thought or innovation put forth, and it works well enough but I honestly expected more from a guy like Hill making a Stallone flick. At least it lives up to its title as multiple people do indeed get bullets to their heads, which was satisfying enough.

-Nate Hill

HBO’s The Leftovers

May 3, 2020 by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

Are you content enough in your beliefs to set aside the big questions of what we are, where we come from, where we go when we die and what it all means? Do you strive endlessly across all fields of existence for answers to these questions or are you, for the most part, happy to live your life and just let the mystery be? Whichever side of that fence your soul sits on will have a lot to do with how much you enjoy and what you take away from HBO’s The Leftovers, a confounding, fiercely individual three season showstopper from Lost’s mad storytelling brewmaster Damon Lindelof, a series I just reached the finale of last night and am honestly sheepish about even tackling a review as the thing is so dense and pockmarked with events that take a while to process.

Outlining the show’s general premise does zilch in imparting it’s essence, but here goes: one day, all at once, all over the world, three percent of the world’s human population vanishes into thin air. Just like that. Where did they go? Well.. refer to the first few lines of my above paragraph. This show isn’t really about how or why these people left, it’s about the people left behind, how they live now, how the world has been reshaped and altered by such a huge event, and where to go from it. We meet people like small town police chief Kevin Garvey (Justin Theroux in probably the encore performance of his career), his daughter (Margaret Qualley), his mentally unstable yet weirdly charismatic father (Scott Glenn, awesome as ever), deeply wounded Nora Durst (Carrie Coon, excellent), God himself or at least a dude claiming to be him (Bill Camp taking a whack at an Australian accent), a strange drifter (Michael Gaston) with a penchant for shooting dogs, Kevin’s ex wife Laurie (Amy Brenneman), passionate preacher Matt (Christopher Ecccleston), wayward housewife turned cultist Meg (Liv Tyler) and many, many more. The one who resonates the strongest might just be the great Ann Dowd in a ferocious, affecting and often downright hilarious turn as Patty, figurehead of a spooky cult called the Guilty Remnants who wear all white, chain smoke and take a vow of silence. They serve to represent the splintered remains of humanity who have deliberately renounced many of their ways in recognition of their collective trauma, while the rest of society chooses to bury it, soldier on but are no less afflicted.

Season one is kind of like the dry run, based on an existing novel by Tom Perrotta and serving as a deeply felt series of dramatic and interpersonal revelations revolving around the upstate New York town of Mapletown, and those that live there. Season two and three however are where the cart flies off the rails (in the best way imaginable) and the magic really happens because it’s all brand new material spun by Lindelof and Perrotta himself who signs on as co-creator. These seasons traverse from Mapleton to an eerie Texas town called Miracle, on to Australia and even to dreamy purgatorial planes of inter dimensional space that defy description or logic. There are a wide variety of human beings here who all react differently to this mass departure as they grow, learn and suffer into the future at their own paces, turning to everything from religion, crime, messianic devotion, ..uh… shooting dogs, mind bending near death experiences, time travel, metaphysical pseudoscience and more. I’ll admit I struggled with this one because of its purposeful ambiguity, and not in the impenetrably surreal way of, say, Twin Peaks or even the offhand arbitration of Lost, two narrative vernaculars which I have always been able to accept and intuit. No, here the mystery is different, it’s like a dream where the riddle is so specific and clearly drawn yet the answers are so squarely out of reach, and for the most part remain so until the haunting, emotionally resonant and appropriately hazy finale episode. I began watching this looking for clues, stockpiling them for later, paying attention to behaviour and profiling these folks so that I might get to the centre of the mystery before the show itself did… but I didn’t, and neither did the story. It’s just not that kind of piece, and one need only look at the artistic expression and music of the opening credit sequence to see this. Season one always starts with a baroque, austere and Michaelangelo-esque vision of humans ascending in great discomfort, it feels decidedly biblical and somehow organized. Then in season two the visual aspect of the credits is far more esoteric and less classically spiritual… human beings are caught in candid snapshots of day to day activities with their loved ones, many of whom aren’t really present in the frames, their silhouettes replaced with nebulous stars and open space while Iris Dement’s delightful song ‘Let The Mystery Be’ warbles along in the background. These people are gone and that’s the first mystery, but it leads to many more and it’s almost not even our business or our right to impose so many questions and demand explanations in a story like this. This is *their* story, these brilliantly written and acted humans we see onscreen and it’s an intensely personal, at times indescribable story. We bear witness and can draw our own conclusions as to what it all means, but at the end of the day we have no way of knowing and such as it is in this show, so too is the case in our very own existence, we kind of don’t have a choice but to do just what every episode gently reminds us: just the mystery be.

-Nate Hill

Don Siegel’s Escape From Alcatraz

May 2, 2020 by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

For such a measured, introspective and anti-Hollywood prison break film, Don Siegel’s Escape From Alcatraz is a fantastically entertaining and unbearably suspenseful thriller. This isn’t a film with action sequences, huge set pieces, scenery chewing wardens, shanks in the shower fight sequences, extreme near misses or anything you’d expect from a studio escape film. The warden (Patrick McGoohan with malfeasance on a low burn) is a terrifyingly strict piece of work to be sure, but he’s curt, to the point and buttoned down. Our hero Frank Morris (Clint Eastwood) isn’t a preening rapscallion or rascally rogue but a straightforward, quiet, surprisingly compassionate and determined fellow. The obligatory aggressive inmate (Bruce M. Fischer) he clashes with isn’t some contraband adorned gang chess piece but rather a hulking bruiser who gets right to the point. The escape itself is a dank, claustrophobic trek through corroded crawl-spaces and could be considered anticlimactic of it didn’t feel so darn authentic. Like, this is what it would *really* be like to bust out of that joint of all joints in the curiously tranquil San Francisco harbour and I both admired and greatly enjoyed this film for its down to earth, by the book presentation. That’s not to say it’s dry or boring, despite being remote. Most of the story is told through quick glances, offhand mannerisms and clipped dialogue, but beneath that, if one intuits it out, are carefully placed pockets of psychological depth, wellsprings of human behaviour buried under the blunt aspects that are a wealth to anyone who loves complexities not readily apparent. Just look at Frank’s carefully cultivated relationship with stone-spirited bookkeeper English (Paul Benjamin) and the payoff that comes later, given their subtle interactions. Or examine the cold heartbreak and mental unravelling of Doc (Roberts Blossom) when the warden takes away his painting privileges, an activity that singlehandedly fuels his will to survive behind bars. That sequence cuts deep in a way that’s tough to impart in words. This film treats the day to day life in prison with the same dutiful care and attention to craft as it does the eventual escape and the result is something that feels lived in, mature, effortlessly magnetic and so simple that one might need to do several double tales to soak in the yawning profundities tucked in behind every monosyllabic utterance, every deliberately chosen camera placement, every flick of the eyes towards the prison walls that seem like dimensional barriers and the skies above them, somehow so close and so far. Few Hollywood prison films reach for heights in such a direct way, and succeed in doing so. Great film.

-Nate Hill

Evil from Page to Screen: Nate’s Top Ten Comic Book Villains in Film

May 1, 2020 by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

I always say a comic book movie is only as good as its villain and come to think of it that applies more broadly too whether it’s a Bond, Seagal, Batman, Van Damme or any other franchise outing. Conflict must arise long before there’s ever a hero to battle it and said conflict must be colourful, engaging, lively and personified by a being you can aptly hate, (or love depending on the complexities), laugh at, perhaps even relate with and live vicariously through. These are my top ten favourite film villains based on comic book characters! Keep in mind I’ve read virtually zero of the source material here and am basing my choices on their cinematic incarnations alone! Oh and there’s gonna be spoilers too so watch out !

10. Ego/Kurt Russell in James Gunn’s Guardians Of The Galaxy Volume 2

Kurt Russell as an entire planet! Or… something like that. He’s this cosmic deity who can sow seeds of himself all over the universe and essentially spread like an organism, but he’s also personified in humanoid form as Kurt Russell lol. It’s a really unique idea for an antagonist who appears affable enough off the bat (Russell is great at that) and begins to go mega-maniacal pretty soon.

9. Norman Osborne/Green Goblin/Willem Dafoe in Sam Raimi’s Spider Man

This pick is mostly thanks to Dafoe who seems born to play the part and milks it for all its worth in a demonic, cackling portrayal of psychotic break and violent menace. I can’t decide which is more effectively scary, the Goblin mask or his own contorted visage leering around at people.

8. Harvey ‘Two Face’ Dent/Tommy Lee Jones in Joel Schumacher’s Batman Forever

I know, I know, it’s a ridiculously over the top performance more akin to the Joker and there’s reasons for that stemming from Jones and Jim Carrey’s dysfunctional set relationship. However, this was the first Batman film I ever saw and I straight up idolized Jones’s ballistic take on Two Face for some time. He’s a loon but the costume and makeup is so garish, pimped out and played to the hilt the character is a blast.

7. The Violator/John Leguizamo in Spawn

Gangly Latino Leguizamo is a left field choice to play an obese, trash talking demon clown from hell but he has always been an actor to shirk the expectations and do whatever he pleases, always successfully. The Violator is a hyperactive lunatic monster dispatched by Satan to babysit unholy warrior Spawn (Michael Jai White) and crack a bunch of dirty jokes while he’s at it. He steals the damn film with amazing lines like “I’ve been doing this since you were soup in your Momma’s crotch.” Good times.

6. Senator Roark/Powers Boothe in Robert Rodriguez’s Sin City

No one abuses power and loves it more than Roark, a psychotic corrupt politician who has so many people in his pocket and shitting their pants in his shadow that he’s almost made it an institution to the point that he has his own mantra about it, delivered to a hospital bed ridden Bruce Willis in a thunderous monologue. That’s his only scene in the first Sin City film but Rodriguez wisely brought Boothe back as the central villain in the sequel where he *really* tears it up and chews fucking scenery like a monster.

5. Kesslee/Malcolm McDowell in Rachel Talalay’s Tank Girl

McDowell is no stranger to evil megalomaniac villains but this dude takes the cake in a severely underrated, subversive and very ahead of its time gem. Kesslee is the depraved, sadistic CEO of Water & Power in the distant post apocalyptic future, a dude who spends his time enslaving and exploiting innocent people, psychologically breaking down dissidents, offing his employees with casual abandon and.. uh… walking across broken glass barefoot just for fun. He’s a fucking piece of work and Malcolm knows just how to play him with equal parts genuine menace and sheepish tongue in cheek.

4. Lucifer/Peter Stormare in Constantine

Of all the Devil portrayals in film, Stormare’s kooky, creepy, laconic and terminally weird rendition has to be my favourite. He’s got one extended scene with Keanu Reeves’ John Constantine and it’s a hoot, a highlight of this overlooked horror/noir that I enjoy greatly.

3. Selina Kyle/Catwoman/Michelle Pfeiffer in Tim Burton’s Batman Returns

Michelle is still the best movie Catwoman and I doubt anyone will ever top her. Sexy beyond compare, darkly comic, unstable and so much goddamn fun, she fills out that kinky Catsuit, relentlessly flirts with Michael Keaton’s Bruce Wayne and just has this scary, seductive edge that is so magical.

2. The Joker/Heath Ledger in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight

I had to include this legendary piece of acting. For Heath, for the vivid and arresting vision of the Joker he gave us and for every little improvised tic, organic mannerism and off the cuff moment that make him such a memorable villain.

1. Top Dollar/Michael Wincott in The Crow

Overlord and supreme chieftain of a city in decay, Top Dollar is a strange, brooding sort with a taste for baroque flair, elegant antique weaponry, creepy occult sadism, a whole bunch of cocaine, sexual urges towards his witchy half sister (Bai Ling) and ritualistic tendencies. Wincott is one of the great underrated and makes this guy a villain for the ages with a haunting penchant for poetry and a ruthless, unforgiving edge.

-Nate Hill