natewatchescoolmovies

Miranda July’s Kajillionaire

September 23, 2021 by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

I wanted so so badly to love Kajillionaire, and I tried many times but each new plot turn, scene of impenetrable human behaviour and sequence of forced eccentricity drew me further and further out of it until I felt wholly excluded from its brand of off kilter weirdness, an unearthly indie timbre that I could personally find no rhyme, reason or discernible profundity in. It’s sad because there’s four wonderful actors and an attempt at some kind of story full of existential meandering and humour drier than a soup cracker left in the sun, but simply none of it landed for me. Richard Jenkins and Debra Winger play a couple of terminally odd career petty thieves who have raised their daughter Old Dolio (Evan Rachel Wood) to be just like them, and as such have a strange, stilted codependency dynamic. They rent out an empty office space next to a, um, ‘bubble factory’ and called their kid Old Dolio after a homeless dude of the same name as part of some legal con. They live a bizarre outsider’s existence until a newcomer they meet on a plane (Gina Rodriguez) drives a wedge between them all as the parents recruit her for their latest scheme. Wood plays her role with a husky voiced, awkwardly tomboyish approach, someone who is clearly the product of unconventional parents who didn’t raise her quite right. Rodriguez, so effective in stuff like Annihilation and Deepwater Horizon, is lovely here and the closest we get to a real human performance but she’s mired in obtuse dialogue, brittle character interaction and the overall deliberate strangeness of the narrative. Nothing quite makes sense, none of the people speak, act or intermingle like actual human beings would and it all just feels… off. There’s something in here about how stiff pragmatism and emotional coldness can derail a life and how it takes someone with an actual personality to ground someone back to planet earth, as we see in the sometimes sweet, sometimes brusque but ultimately perplexing relationship between Wood and Rodriguez but it’s lost in a sea of puzzling acting choices, nonsensical dialogue and peculiar editing. In attempting something along the lines of a quaint Wes Anderson-y, Michel Gondry-esque bit of whimsy, filmmaker Miranda July has wandered into a dimension whose vernacular, cosmic laws and artistic language I could simply not identify with and as a viewer I felt stranded in a void. I’m sure to many this dimension rang true to and they were able to get enjoyment from it. I certainly hope so, but it sadly did little for me.

-Nate Hill

Villains

September 23, 2021 by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

Some films are good, some are bad and some are great, but there are those that can only be described as an utter delight and Villains fits that bill. It’s one of those demented, go for broke horror comedies that doesn’t always add up or coalesce it’s various tones together symmetrically but goddamn of it isn’t a blast of pitch black humour, blessed practical gore effects and four lead performances that truly push the boundaries of the craft of acting into something else. Maika Monroe and Bill Skarsgard play two unbelievably dumb petty criminals, a sort of dimestore Bonnie & Clyde, who run out of gas as they’re on the run after robbing… wait for it… a gas station. Their only option is to break into the nearest, and only, house in the area to look for more options and it’s there they find a five year old girl chained up in the basement, and must contend with the homeowners, a deranged pair of loons played with American Apple Pie hospitality and charm by Jeffrey Donovan and Kyra Sedgwick. These two chipper darlings are as crazy as they come and have soon ensnared the two wayward youngsters in their bizarre antics, while the two race to outsmart them and free the poor mute girl below. The plot can be kind of random and wanton, but the real treasure here lies in the meticulously calibrated, phenomenal acting work from all four and the razor sharp, diabolical scriptwriting to back them up. Monroe is already horror royalty from modern classics like It Follows and The Guest, while it goes without saying that Skarsgard is squarely in the pantheon for his portrayal of a certain evil clown. They work brilliantly together because they both lose their trademark moody, withdrawn and wistful styles of acting for a bubbly, effervescent, mile-a-minute-slapstick concoction that is joyous to watch, and manage manage to find a genuine sweetness and caring for each other that shines through all the more madcap, lurid elements and makes them rough yet lovable and blessedly bumbling characters to invest in. Donovan has slowly been building a repertoire of darkly sarcastic, terrifyingly dangerous villains in stuff like FX’s Fargo, Let Him Go and more, his work here is a class act in balancing insanity, southern charm and sudden bursts of punishing sadism. Sedgwick is a natural beauty who has this spotless Miss America aura to her that she turns on its head and plays to full effect as the mot certifiably bonkers character in the story, she’s at once scary, pitiable, sultry and hysterical. This is one of those specific, special flicks like Raimi’s Evil Dead or Friedkin’s Killer Joe where the story might not always play by the rules or stay on the tracks but you really don’t care because the actors just tear the scenery to shreds, the laughs and violence come fast and furious, there are even a few arthouse flourishes sprinkled in and it’s just such a wild fuckin ride. Great film.

-Nate Hill

John Carpenter’s Escape From L.A.

September 22, 2021 by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

I don’t know about Escape From L.A., man. It’s kinda like when someone tells you a really funny joke and just tells it perfectly, and then somewhere down the line you’re like “tell that awesome joke again” and they do, but they just don’t quite encapsulate or get it right a second time and the magic goes sour. Escape From NY is that first time and this sequel… well let’s just say the magic was lost on me this time around. I get that John Carpenter wanted to expand the lore, his first film was definitely popular enough to warrant a sequel and Kurt Russell’s Snake Plissken for sure deserves many more films, but this… was just not a great time at the movies. Snake once again finds himself in a near identical predicament as the first film: infiltrate futuristic Los Angeles, now also a cordoned off no fly zone for dissidents, find and neutralize a Che Guevara clone (kind of a weak villain, I might add) with plans on rebel terrorism who is in cahoots with the daughter of the US president (Cliff Robertson) who is about as corrupt, evil and unscrupulous as you can get. So a ponytailed Stacy Keach handles his mission and he ventures into LA where he meets a motley gaggle of freaks, criminals and outliers including a renegade surfer (Peter Fonda), a twitchy guide (Steve Buscemi), a Botox saturated mad doctor (Bruce Campbell, but you’d only know by the voice) and more. Poor Pam Grier shows up as a gang commander but they’ve dubbed her voice over with a different dude to make her sound like a man, which was a huge WTF, like is the character supposed to be transgender or just fuckin really husky? There’s fights, shootouts, hang gliders, betrayals, but none of it happens with the sheer Grindhouse joy of the first film, and it all feels very strained, try-hard and disingenuous. Even Russell as Snake falters here and there, his whispery tough guy shtick that was SO effective in Escape from NY feeling a tad silly here. The obligatory final ‘fuck you’ Snake gets here is fun and appropriately cathartic but it’s too little too late after an entire film of subpar antics that just don’t cut it. Not impressed.

-Nate Hill

Adam Salky’s Intrusion

September 22, 2021 by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

Home Invasion thrillers are pretty much their own genre by now, and another has entered the fold with Adam Salky’s Intrusion, a sleek, nerve wracking, fairly predictable yet really well oiled piece that Netflix funded and just added to their lineup last night with little fanfare or marketing. This film doesn’t necessarily spend too much time on the invasion itself, but rather on what comes after and the motivation behind the crime. Logan Marshall Green and Freida Pinto are an affluent yuppie couple who have moved into a swanky post modern home that seems absurdly out of place in the flat, humdrum prairie county they’ve moved to. One night a group of masked men breaks into their house and tosses the place, clearly looking for something. After they are shot in self defence by hubbie, it seems as if the case is closed and it’s time to move on… right? The suspicious local sheriff (always nice to see Robert John Burke) doesn’t seem to think so based on details from the investigation that don’t add up and soon Pinto doesn’t either as she notices her husband’s odd, elusive behaviour and secretive ways. Why did these guys choose their house, and just who were they anyways? That’s the fun, and if the unfolding plot veers frequently into easily predicted beats, that’s made up for with some truly breathtaking tension and innovative camera work, some fluid visual dynamics in shot composition that clearly echo the work of Brian De Palma and add layers of atmospheric dimension to the film. Pinto, beyond being one of the most drop dead beautiful women I’ve ever seen onscreen, is also a terrific actress and owns the role here, never devolving into hysterics or going into stoic autopilot mode and always coming across as a real human being in a terrifying situation. The score by Alex Heffes adds another layer of spooky electronic beats and pulses too, especially in breathless sequences set inside their large, spacious and inherently eerie home. It isn’t anything groundbreaking in terms of thriller material and you can pretty much guess where it’s going midway through the first act but it’s very well executed, slickly produced and suspenseful like nobody’s business.

-Nate Hill

Dominic Sena’s Season Of The Witch

September 21, 2021 by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

Dominic Sena’s Season Of The Witch is one of those glossy, noisy supernatural medieval romps that somehow hovers on the line between feeling like a big budget blockbuster and a direct to video outing. It stars Nicolas Cage and Ron Perlman as two veteran knights of the crusades who become disillusioned with their often brutal cause and the unfortunate civilian casualties that accompany it. They set out on their own as freelance mercenaries and are soon hired by a plague-ridden Cardinal (a near unrecognizable Christopher Lee) to transport a suspected witch (Claire Foy)… somewhere, I wasn’t really paying attention but it involves lots of snowy mountains, dangerous bridge crossings and eventually a spooky old castle for the grand finale. This is pretty run of the mill stuff, the CGI is really weak, the plot is inexcusably thin, historical accents are dodgy and the PG-13 rating pretty much guarantees a lack of genuine bite or edge as far as horror is concerned. It’s mediocre on almost every level but for some reason I found myself enjoying bits of it, despite my best efforts. I think that it has to do with Cage and Perlman, who are both terrific here and really deserve to be in a better film. They’ve never acted together before but they have effortless bromance chemistry here, they take full advantage of the writing and simply seeing them bantering, bickering or slinging tavern pints together is kind of a small delight. Aside from them it’s generic, the supporting cast includes familiar faces like Stephen Graham, Ulrich Thomsen, Rory ‘The Hound’ McCann, Brian F. O’Byrne and Robert Sheehan who all try valiantly to make impressions with… varied results. The problem too is that the film promises us a witch and when it comes time to deliver they reveal that this chick isn’t really a witch at all, she’s something far worse and unfortunately something that the film just didn’t seem to have enough budget bucks to properly present onscreen, and it hurts its chances. Still, it’s worth a look for the beautiful, rugged scenery (filmed mainly in Austria) plus Cage and Perlman, who are legitimately engaging and perhaps someday will get a better film to do their buddy-cop knights edition routine.

-Nate Hill

Larry Cohen’s The Stuff

September 19, 2021 by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

The Stuff is all the rage and people can’t seem to get enough lol, in a dusty, hazy old Larry Cohen flick that Shudder has salvaged for a VHS quality transfer. This is a great little schlock flick as long as you ignore the sheer, hilarious lack of a proper beginning or ending, seriously this thing just… starts without any sort of introduction and then when it’s had it’s fun it just… ends, quite unceremoniously as if there were multiple reels missing from the original print. What’s in between is top shelf schlock with bizarrely earnest performances from a terrific cast and some gloriously gooey, visually stimulating practical effects. Hollywood character actor royalty and Cohen regular Michael Moriarty plays some kind of corporate investigator who is mighty suspicious of The Stuff.. what is ‘The Stuff’, exactly? It’s a sentient, gelatinous white goo that literally bubbles up from crevices beneath the earth and has now been patented by a food processing conglomerate and marketed as a tasty ice cream style dessert, to massive popularity and demand from the public. Only problem is, this stuff has a malicious agenda and not only inspires dangerous cravings and maniacal addiction in its indulgers, it takes over their minds and even physically attacks them. As in all Cohen flicks there is deft social satire woven in amongst the slime and there’s something in here about mad consumerism and the unchecked corporate greed that fuels it, brought to deadpan life by some truly great actors having a blast of hammy fun. Moriarty is always on his A game and rocks it here, with a crisp suit and cowboy boots as oiled up as his attitude, while we are treated to great supporting work from Paul Sorvino as an impossibly patriotic army colonel and the late great Danny Aiello as a smarmy company man who gets his just desserts. There’s a genuinely creepy sequence where a young boy’s entire family, now mentally enslaved by The Stuff, cajoles and coerces him into eating it, it’s a terrifically suspenseful midsection interlude that’s most effective in raising tension. My favourite aspect of the film are the effects used for The Stuff, which are brilliantly tactile, wonderfully animate and really do feel like a disgusting 7-11 dessert full of horrible ingredients that has somehow come to life, like they melted down the Stay Puft marshmallow man from Ghostbusters and the remaining ectoplasmic goo started running about the place Terminator 2 style. I don’t know if a Blu Ray or even DVD transfer exists for this but the version Shudder has gotten it’s hands on is so shockingly low quality it’s tough to understand everything that’s happening onscreen but on the other hand it adds atmosphere and ‘lo-fi VHS’ vibes that are appropriate considering the tone of the film. Good Stuff.

-Nate Hill

Jonathan Hensleigh’s The Ice Road

September 17, 2021 by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

The Liam Neeson ice road trucking movie might not top any 2021 charts (including mine) and is admittedly an outlandishly hectic thriller but I’ll be damned if I didn’t enjoy every tension soaked, amped up minute of it. Neeson plays a down on his luck trucker with a special needs brother (Marcus Thomas) who is recruited by a powerful trucking boss (Laurence Fishburne) for a near suicide mission: deliver excavation parts to a remote Winnipeg mining quarry where a handful of workers have been trapped underground following a tunnel collapse. This involves navigating miles of ruthless ice road terrain with giant 18-wheel semis and someone who is trying to sabotage their mission with brutal corporate espionage at the behest of the corrupt mining company underboss (Matt McCoy). The stakes are high, the ice is thin and the sensationalism runs thick with this one; it’s not just a trucking survival thriller although those elements are handled well, it also incorporates elements of classic Neeson action fare too as their crew does battle with an almost invincible company assassin (Benjamin Walker) trying to bring them down. Neeson is reliably gritty and even displays some vulnerability while Fishburne, although sadly underused, goes by the porn-star name of ‘Jim Goldenrod’ here which alone hilariously makes up for his lack of screen time. Others make nice impressions including Amber Midthunder as a badass indigenous trucking prodigy who moonlights as a fierce activist and the always awesome Holt McCallany as the foreman of the trapped workers. The film is hectic as all hell, over-plotted and packed with incident, in addition to the hair raising ice trucking episodes we also get gunplay, snowmobile chases, surprisingly effective dramatic heft, hand to hand combat, a dynamite fuelled avalanche and the film even somehow finds time to throw in some social commentary on veterans with PTSD, the opioid crisis and stolen native land. It’s a LOT, but it somehow kind of works in a big jumble of plot, action and incident that while definitely too cluttered, could never be accused of not being anything but 100% ambitious from stem to stern.

-Nate Hill

Sion Sono’s Prisoners Of The Ghostland

September 14, 2021 by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

Nicolas Cage has a big laundry chute from his agent’s office that goes right to his mancave at home, wherein various wild, weird and wonderful scripts are just hurled through, whereupon he can evaluate them from the safety and comfort of his pad, and agree to do absolutely amazing, one of a kind cinematic celebrations of unconventional spirit and innovation like Sion Sono’s Prisoners Of The Ghostland, a psychedelic arthouse dream-poem that I promise you is unlike anything you’ve ever seen Cage do and sits atop the mighty crest of other such curios in his recent career like Mandy, Willy’s Wonderland and Colour Out Of Space. This is my baptism by fire, so to speak, in Sono’s work, a Japanese mad scientist of celluloid whose work here is as wantonly jagged and subconsciously nebulous as it is specifically calibrated and lovingly detailed as he tells the story of one lone hero recruited by a sinister southern dandy called The Governor (Bill Moseley, curdled to hammy perfection) to rescue his ‘granddaughter’ Bernice (Sofia Boutella) from a vague netherworld called the Ghostland where she is being held by forces unknown. Cage is outfitted with an explosive device suit that looks like a hand-me-down from Snake Plissken, complete with little bombs to detonate each testicle, should he get frisky. I’m not sure why I’m describing plot here because there really isn’t one, but there also kind of is. Ever have one of those dreams where you’re in a narrative that should make sense from an earthly, rational perspective yet everything is somehow… off, somehow topsy-turvy and abstractly bizarre? This film literally functions within the logic of a dream, and you have to shift gears of perception before you’re in tune with it, there’s just no sense to be made of it beyond the intuitive on a subconscious level. Cage’s character here is nameless beyond the archetypal moniker of ‘Hero’ but I suppose if we wish to put a name to this stranger we can refer to the actor’s own comments, as he has said this guy is supposed to be a spiritual amalgamation of his work as Sailor Ripley in David Lynch’s Wild At Heart and Castor Troy in John Woo’s Face/Off. How awesome is that? It’s fitting because there’s a reunion of sorts for him and Nick Cassavetes, playing his hulking partner in crime here. The film is much less of a manic action spectacle than the trailers might show; there is action, yes, but mostly there’s just atmosphere, and heaps of it. Cowboy/samurai hybrid goons, giggling geisha girls overflowing with bizarrely effervescent personality, animalistic scavengers who roam the Ghostland, all adorned in breathtaking costumes and inhabiting some of the most arresting, beautifully otherworldly cinematography I’ve ever seen, something like post apocalyptic kabuki with vivid splashes of steampunk and shades of zombie horror peppered in too. Characters behave free from inhibition and careen wildly about at the mercy of their own impulses and those of Sono’s who is one hell of a visual artist. There are random pauses in the narrative as the cast breaks out into song for no apparent reason other than they feel like it, including a haunting group rendition of Burl Ives’ ‘My Grandfather’s Clock’ led by Moseley and tons of hectic Greek chorus exposition in blessed unison from background cast. This is cinema distilled straight from REM sleep mode and blasted onto a screen, strikingly unique dream logic storytelling disguised as a latter day Nic Cage gonzo picture, the stuff of beautiful nightmares that will lull you into a hypnotic trance with it’s relentless, all encompassing alien energy. One of the best films of the year.

-Nate Hill

James Wan’s Malignant

September 13, 2021 by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

James Wan has some balls, I’ll say that much. He’s pioneered various chambers of the horror genre several times over in his career so far with game changers like Saw, Insidious and The Conjuring, quickly becoming a household name with the talent, innovation and passion to back it up. If his newest film Malignant is going to have any kind of the same ripple effect then buckle the fuck up because this is one wild, demented, bonkers, stir crazy oddity and the best time I’ve had with a horror this year. This will be one of those reviews where I will mention almost nothing plot related because it’s just too much tantalizing fun unwinding this ball of yarn for yourself with fresh eyes. The film focuses on a woman (Annabelle Wallis) who begins to have terrifying waking nightmares where she observes a shadowy figure committing heinous acts of murder. The rest I’ll leave be, just see this thing and experience its WTF, nonsensical yet balls-out wonderful third act that truly transcends the boundaries of coherency, decency and convention for something so weird you’ll laugh, cry and shit your pants in unison. Wan is clearly well versed and a fan of many sub-genres and in this we see sly, loving nods to many other artists, most notably Dario Argento and 70’s Italian horror, so if some of the acting comes across as campy or silly just know that was most assuredly his intention and simply bask in the nostalgia. Some of the gore is real and some is CGI and while CGI blood is never ideal in my books the melding is done pretty well here, and it’s understandable that given a story with this much movement, commotion and visual kinetic madness it would have been tough as hell to do all the effects in a practical fashion. To cement the retro vibes we also get a showstopper of an original score composed by Wan’s go to guy Joseph Bishara that’s resplendent with shrieks, howls and heart-pounding synth chords that, for me at least, heavily echoed Goblin’s iconic electronic work in Argento’s films. Wan has worked in PG-13 realms quite a bit and been incredibly successful at making effective horror within those constraints, but he’s gone full R rated here, about as far as you can go into R rated territory in fact, for a no holds barred, rip snortin, unbelievable gong show of blood, violence, mayhem, schlock and a third act twist that’s so beyond anything rational or sane that I’m not even sure it makes sense but I loved every minute of and deeply admire the sheer audacity of. One of my personal favourites of the year so far.

-Nate Hill

Spiral: from the book of cheap, lazy Saw rip-offs

September 12, 2021 by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

There’s a part in Spiral, the new attempt to resuscitate the Saw franchise, where Samuel L. Jackson’s tough guy police captain bellows out something to the killer like “You wanna play games mothafucka, alright, I’ll play!” I was immediately reminded of the part in Scary Movie 4 that parodies Saw with Shaquille O’Neill and Dr. Phil trapped in one of Jigsaw’s dungeons, played for utmost comedic effect. Now, if I make that kind of association to a Saw film that’s supposed to be taken seriously it’s really not a good sign and is a dead indicator of just how inexcusably, punishingly bad this film is, a true spiral of the downward variety. If you’re going to take property like Saw, which has an incredibly detailed and specific lineage and one of the most die-hard franchise fandoms out there, if you’re going to rework that and fashion it into something that’s supposed to nostalgic yet fresh, something that must hold the connective tissue to the lore steadfast yet also open up new neural pathways in the mythology you better make sure you’re on your A-game and come up with something special and…. this is what they fucking did? Really? First of all, Chris Rock and Sam Jackson just don’t fit the bill, I’ll say it. As a father son duo of detectives who work in a precinct packed with morally shady cops (them included) they just seem to stand out in the worst way. Rock is alternatively manic and withdrawn, every note he chooses is off-key, while Jackson just seems bored and confused. Everyone else is miscast, from Hungarian-American bombshell Marisol Nichols as their worried lieutenant to MacMurray from freaking Letterkennny as an ill fated cop from their team who looks like he just walked out from a high stakes poker game aboard a Mississippi paddle-wheeler boat. And as for the identity of the killer? It’s fairly obvious who it is in the first ten minutes of the film, which was a massive letdown. Also the thing is just so bizarrely over-lit, like every scene is just weirdly bright, and even the underground or dungeon scenes that should feel murky and shadowy still have this odd fluorescent sheen, it’s like their gaffer was packing every illuminating device from an aircraft carrier in his gear trailer. As far as ties to the John Kramer jigsaw murders go and any respects paid to the franchise overall, it’s just lazy coincidental conjecture and bad, half assed writing. Like, why did this even need to be a Saw related film? Why did they need to shoehorn the trademark vicious booby trap aesthetic into their dumb, overcooked, predictable cop killer whodunit? And furthermore who thought it was a remotely good idea to add a bunch of silly rap songs to the soundtrack and smother any atmosphere they hoped to generate almost as badly as the lighting does? I suppose they knew they needed some kind of brand name to juice up their lifeless script and try to distract viewers from how much they didn’t even try. Pure shit.

-Nate Hill