Category: Film Review

Misunderstood Oddity: Lindsay Lohan in I Know Who Killed Me

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

Imagine if Paul Verhoeven and Dario Argento co-directed a deranged, kinky, surreal sequel to The Parent Trap by way of the Black Dahlia but called it the Blue Dahlia instead and you have something vaguely approximating the essence of I Know Who Killed Me, a truly bizarre Lindsay Lohan film that is one of the worst reviewed universal flops out there. Is it really that bad? I’m not sure to be honest, this isn’t really a film you watch, it just sort of… happens to you, and then leaves you in the dust to reconcile your feelings about it.

There’s a scene in Martin McDonough’s comedy classic Seven Psychopaths where Sam Rockwell asks Christopher Walken for feedback on his totally outlandish script pitch and Walken, without saying whether he liked it or not, dryly replies “I was paying attention, I’ll tell you that.” That’s kind of how I feel about this one, there was never a dull moment but I still can’t really decide whether it’s my thing. I’ll tell you one thing though, out of the ten dozen or so reviews on IMDb, they are ALL one star heckle jobs and NO film out there deserves that no matter the quality, there can always be found in any film some element that keeps it from complete and utter dead sound flatline. Even the worst film I’ve ever seen (which we won’t speak of here) at least has some cool costume design in one segment. Anyways that level of barbaric hatred just tells me that a lot of folks weren’t irked by the film itself but rather Lohan, who was going through some shit at the time and was cruelly splashed all over the tabloids in a flurry of exaggeratedly negative light. I’ve always loved her, found her to be a fantastic talent, full of charisma and organic personality and she does a fine job here playing two roles for the third time in her career.

As the film opens she’s straight A, good girl Aubrey Fleming, who is swiftly ensnared by an especially nasty serial killer (seriously this guy is one overkill piece of work) who also took another girl in the area some time before. When the Feds find and rescue her she’s different than before, both physically and psychologically. The killer left her horribly mutilated to amputee levels and she also claims to not even be Aubrey at all but a street smart, smoky voiced stripper called Dakota Moss. Her parents (Julia Ormond and Neal McDonough) play along while an FBI appointed psychiatrist (that duplicitous US President from 24) is stumped as to what’s going on. The only one who’s stoked is Aubrey’s horn-dog boyfriend (Brian Geraghty), as Dakota is far more promiscuous than he remembers Aubrey being. And naturally the killer is still out there, inevitable soon armed with the knowledge that Aubrey got away, or there’s another one of her, or whatever is going on, which is somehow really obvious yet also crazily convoluted.

This film wants to be a lot of things and I admire its relentless can-do spirit in trying them all, but as I get to the last paragraph of my review I must concede that it’s kind of a fucking hot mess. As anyone who has dated a hot mess knows, however, they can be a lot of fun provided you get to the exits in time before the projector catches fire and luckily this thing doesn’t overstay it’s welcome, and is never boring. It wants to do the sultry David Lynch luridly noir thing (there’s more blue roses on display than David ever used in Twin Peaks and watch for a cameo from the Mulholland Drive evil hobo who’s also The Nun), it strives for the shocking, stark gore and colour splashes of an Italian Giallo horror film and isn’t half bad at that, then it tries it’s luck at slinky Brian De Palma thriller territory, all the while struggling to retain a vastly uneven vibe of sexual madness, esoteric horror atmosphere, cryptic (then not so cryptic) mystery, stigmata subplots, saturated transitions that look like the cat walked across the colour timing keyboard and just… so much stuff crammed into one film that is supposedly ‘one of the worst films ever made.’ It’s certainly bad, both in quality and the kinky nature of its R rated content, but it’s in no way as terrible as you’ve been made to believe since it’s release in 2007, in the heyday of Lohan’s career meltdown. That just goes to show you how the public often look at any given film from the perspective of ‘celebrity star status’ and what’s going on in entertainment news rather than the work itself isolated from all that sensationalist bullshit, which is a shame really because there’s more than enough sensationalist shit in this film to go around without hounding Lohan about her personal life and addiction issues and deliberately damning a film that doesn’t deserve it, but that’s sadly the brainless, shallow nature of most of North America. Grisly B movie madness with a touch of something I can’t even explain and I bet the film itself couldn’t either, but that’s part of the loony charm.

-Nate Hill

Peter Segal’s Anger Management

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

Adam Sandler’s career is composed of a few key elements: unfunny trash, comedy gold and a small handful of serious dramas. Anger Management falls into the second category and is an absolute blast but it’s mostly thanks to a batshit crazy, scene stealing virtuoso Jack Nicholson rather than anything Sandler does. It doesn’t hurt that the film is packed to the brim with hilarious cameos and supporting talent as well. Sandler is Dave Buznik, a meek businessman who gets walked all over by his toad of a boss (Kurt Fuller) and constantly reminded by his girlfriend (Marisa Tomei, about a hundred acres out of his league) to stand up for himself. After finally losing his cool (sort of) on a plane he gets slapped with a court order to do twenty hours of anger management treatment under the deranged supervision of unconventional therapist Dr. Buddy Rydell (Nicholson). Rydell is a thoroughly weird dude who insinuates himself into Dave’s life, hits on his girl, frequently loses his cool and displays a near constant stream of bizarre, inexplicable behaviour. There’s a reason for all that, revealed in the film’s monumentally implausible twist that falls apart under any scrutinizing back down the chain of events in this narrative, but this isn’t the type of film to nitpick like that. Nicholson is a goddamn treat here and gets so many wacky moments I wish the film was more centred on him, he’s hilarious to watch whether having a volcanic tantrum and launching his plate of breakfast against a wall, forcing Sandler to sing ‘I Feel Pretty’ from West Side Story or obliterating some poor dude’s car with a baseball bat just because he boxed him into a parking spot. The ironic thing about Sandler is that he’s touted as a comedian but he’s just not funny, and the appeal from any film he stars in always comes from the other actors in it who steal it from him without fail. There’s quite a few here including Heather Graham, Allen Covert, a hotheaded John Turturro, Luis Guzman, Krista Allen and January Jones as a pair of rambunctious lesbian porn stars, Kevin Nealon, Rudy Giuliani, Derek Jeter, John C. Reilly, Harry Dean Stanton and Woody Harrelson in a hysterical encore cameo as a transvestite named Galaxia. The film works with its manic energy, hectic ensemble cast and Nicholson’s dysfunctional tirade of a performance, and is one of the funniest comedies I’ve seen recently.

-Nate Hill

Guy Ritchie’s The Gentlemen

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

It’s nice to see that Guy Ritchie still has it in terms of his personally patented, now iconic British gangster arena. Experimented with in Lock Stock & Two Smoking Barrels, cultivated further in Snatch (my personal favourite of his) and tooled around with in other directions for his extremely underrated RocknRolla, here he returns to that drawing board for The Gentlemen and although this isn’t a film that breaks the mould or comes up with anything bright n’ shiny new, I had way more fun than I thought I was going to and it’s a winner for me. Carrying on the nice culture clash element we have a ferocious Matthew McConaughey as Mickey Pearson, a self made marijuana billionaire looking to sell his lucrative empire to a cunning Jewish businessman (Jeremy Strong) while the young hothead boss (the dude from Crazy Rich Asians, who is way richer and actually crazy here) of a London based Asian syndicate seeks to muscle in on both of them. Pearson’s cool cucumber left hand lieutenant Ray (Charlie Hunnam in the first performance I’ve believed and enjoyed his work) tries to keep all the pieces on the board where they should be instead of running amok and causing havoc, which they inevitably do and would it really be a Ritchie film without wanton chaos and a string of hysterical fuck-ups? Hugh Grant looks up the Oxford definition of ‘fucking scene stealer’ and proceeds to steal the fucking scene every minute he’s onscreen as Fletcher, a super fabulous, highly sleazy wild card tabloid reporter looking to line his own pockets via blackmail most foul. Add in perennial oddball Eddie Marsan, Sting’s visually striking daughter Coco Sumner, an informant named ‘Phuc’ (snigger), Michelle Dockery as Mickey’s leggy and disarmingly badass cockney wife/partner in crime and Colin Farrell in character actor mode as a rough n’ tumble Irish boxing coach with a heart of gold and you’ve got one solid roster. Ritchie has a way with dialogue that might not be lifelike but never fails to have me hanging on every syllable, it’s like musical protein for me ears and he didn’t disappoint here. I mean it’s probably bottom of the list in terms of the other gangster stuff but his career so far is kind of tough to top and this one struck me as a ‘hangout movie’ of sorts with some action and trademark visceral violence peppered in here and there. Terrific costume work too, I saw at least five suits I would love to get my hands on. Easy, breezy, vividly characterized, laidback, refreshingly and deliberately anti-politically correct humour (always a plus), banging soundtrack, this one rocks! Oh and it’s not the first Ritchie film to promise us a sequel that feels like it’ll never show up, but that may just be a cheeky running joke from the guy.

-Nate Hill

Gaming with Nate: Turok for PlayStation 3

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

Dinosaurs in space!! That’s a great pitch for a story across any mediums of entertainment and provides wicked fun in Turok, a game that’s quite literally about dinosaurs in space and samples flavours of everything from Aliens to Predator to Apocalypse Now to The Wild Bunch to Jurassic Park. You play as mercenary Joseph Turok (Gregory Cruz), a badass combat veteran who travels deep into the galaxy with a team of soldiers looking to find his former mentor, war criminal Roland Kane (Powers Boothe), so he can exterminate him. Unfortunately the planet he’s chosen to hide out on is going through a primordial age and is home to hundreds of different dinosaur species, none of which are happy to see these loud, unruly warriors show up in their jungles. Turok and his men have armed themselves with enough heavy artillery, extreme firepower and excessive weaponry to blow up a whole city so you get to blast, shoot, stab and wrestle your way through countless raptors, winged pterodactyls and more including one very angry female T Rex called Mama Scarface who has a personal vendetta. Not all the men on Turok’s team are loyal and trustworthy though, and he has to deal with a nasty dude named Slade (Ron Perlman) who has a grudge against him from way back as well as the squirrelly Logan (William Fichtner) who has a PTSD episode and becomes highly volatile and unpredictable. There’s also a marooned survivor named Cowboy (Timothy Olyphant) who causes his own brand of trouble. The actors are all excellent with Boothe and his deep rumble of a voice faring best as the maniacal Kane who has seriously lost his marbles but none of his nerve or keen edge, making him very dangerous indeed. The planet’s terrain is lush, gorgeous and picturesque yet quite deadly as it’s not all that terra formed and getting around requires a shit ton of bushwhacking as well as keen eyes to spot predators lurking around you before they shred you to bloody ribbons (fair warning: there’s a few well placed “clever girl” moments featuring the raptors that are tough to dodge). This game didn’t make much of a splash when it came out but it’s pretty damn solid, stocked with cool voice talent, big heavy loud guns, and it’s got fucking dinosaurs in space man, how can you beat that.

-Nate Hill

Gaming with Nate: The Thing for PlayStation 2

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

Ever wonder what happens after the perfectly ambiguous ending to John Carpenter’s The Thing? I mean that film is pretty much perfect and never did really need a sequel, however.. in 2002 there was a follow up game for PS2 set directly after the film and its actually way goddamned better than it has any right to be, and miles better than that stagnant 2011 CGI turd. This is an appropriately atmospheric shooter that takes place almost immediately after the film as a battle hardened group of soldiers descends on US Outpost 31 to investigate what happened to RJ Macready and everyone in his team. You play as Captain Blake (Per Solli), a stressed out military man trying to stay in control of the situation as the Thing creatures begin to wake up and prey on his men one by one, just like they did with Macready’s people, and the Norwegians before them. There’s all kinds of gooey nastiness here, scuttling arachnid inspired beasties, giant glistening behemoths and evening disfigured humanoid cretins who unnervingly chase you around. This is a shooter so primarily it’s running and firefights so not quite as much delicious terror and suspense as the film but one cool thing is the level of distrust and unease they’ve injected into the gameplay in several different ways. Your comrades can turn on you at the drop of a hat and get hostile or suspicious, and likewise any one of them at any given time can be revealed as one of the things and fiercely attack you, so in that sense the dread from the film carries over nicely. It’s good stuff, it retains the hard, cold edge we remember from the film too and is exciting in spades. John Carpenter himself has a cameo too as a doctor and has gone on record saying this game is canon to The Thing mythology, which is pretty cool. Listen for William B. Davis (The Smoking Man from X Files) too as a Colonel with no time for anyone’s bullshit. Solid game and interesting chapter in this story.

-Nate Hill

Gaming with Nate: Larry Fessenden’s Until Dawn for PlayStation 4

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

Any fans of the classic 80’s slasher aesthetic will appreciate Until Dawn, a complex yet simplistic mystery horror game with some very unique twists on the medium. A group of young friends are in for quite the weekend when they decide to reunite one year after two of their friends disappeared mysteriously on remote, snowy Mount Washington. Ringleader Joshua (Rami Malek before he blew up big time) has a family chalet lodge up there, which is in rough shape with no power, and as they settle in for the night, bicker, hook up and deal with the kind of petty drama you only get at that age, someone else on the mountain starts to stalk and murder them, someone connected to their friends disappearing a year ago. The cool thing here is you don’t play as just one single character, but all of them and there’s at least like six from what I recall. As you rotate through their ranks you make many psychological choices as each character that affect not only your relationship to others, but your shelf life as a member of the team and even how your immediate environment changes over the course of the night. There’s curious talismans to pick up, each associated with a quick audio visual ‘clue clip’ that can be accessed in the menu anytime to decipher the mystery and find out what’s going on. Elsewhere in dreamy vignettes you’re sitting POV style as a mystery character while a very odd psychiatrist (Peter Stormare in full on kooky Peter Stormare mode) probes you for answers, his methods becoming increasingly bizarre with each new cutscene until it becomes apparent he’s probably not anything close to a licensed professional. The game is written and created by horror veteran Larry Fessenden (Wendigo, The Last Winter) so the wintry atmosphere is excellently, eerily done, plus he also plays a character called Flamethrower Guy who factors into the story in ways you might not expect. The visuals are breathtakingly gorgeous, from a stunning, dead quiet gondola ride up the mountain that sets a mood of desolation nicely to almost photorealistic motion capture work on the actors that is impressively lifelike. The technique allows each character to look identical to their respective actors so aside from spitting image versions of Malek and Stormare we get scene stealer Hayden Panetierre too as the tomboy of the group. Evocative setting, strong horror elements in terms of both gore and suspense, intricate innovation in design and gameplay that allows you to play through the game nearly a hundred different ways based on choice and consequence, a haunting rendition of Ralph Stanley’s O Death by Amy Van Roekel over the opening credits, this has a lot going for it and is one of the coolest horror games you can find out there.

-Nate Hill

Gaming with Nate: Run Like Hell for PlayStation 2

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

Today’s video game is RLH: Run Like Hell, a spectacular SciFi horror survival story whose main influence is most noticeably the Alien franchise, right down to the involvement of some of the same actors. So basically there’s a station somewhere way out there in deep space, where a bunch of individuals both human and alien must survive against a terrifying extraterrestrial menace who basically decimate anything they come across and are constantly mutating, learning from the trial and error ways of their prey and always, always hunting up and down those classic dimly lit, eerie space station corridors. You play as seasoned badass marine Nick Connor (the great Lance Henriksen, Bishop from Aliens), who thinks he’s seen it all until he’s up against this marauding race of monsters. He forms a shaky alliance with alien mercenary Dag’Rek (Clancy Brown, always awesome) and there’s other work from Michael Ironside as a hard bitten commander, Star Trek’s Kate Mulgrew and Brad Dourif as a kooky little Doctor which is basically the same role he had in Alien Resurrection. This is a very cinematic game not just for the inclusion of genre seasoned actors or oh so subtle film references but because the cutscenes evoke a true feeling of cosmic isolation and dread, and the gameplay demands a lot of both your reflexes and adrenal glands. There’s countless close quarters battles, chases, near misses and quick escapes that take full advantage of very narrow hallways littered with dangerous obstacles for these creatures to use against you and hunt you down if you’re literally a second too late hitting those buttons. There’s gorgeous galactic visuals in the numerous sweeping cutscenes, detailed creature design, gruesome gore and a real sense of style too. It feels like the Alien films but swaps out the green and black palette for a grey/purple mashup of hard, cold surfaces splattered with blood and organic swirling nebulas of starry colour outside the space station windows to marvel at in between blasting monsters and running like hell for your fucking life. Terrific game.

-Nate Hill

Gaming with Nate: NARC for PlayStation 2

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

Here’s something fun (I hope). I’m going to expand the focus of my reviews to include video games, which should be interesting because my knowledge and expertise on them is nowhere close to what I know about film and your average dedicated gamer would probably refer to me as a ‘fucking casual,’ and hey they wouldn’t be wrong. But there’s a handful of games that mean a lot to me and I’ve enjoyed playing over the years, mainly ones with a deep, rich sense of story and cinematic atmosphere and lots of cool niche character actors providing voiceover work!

First up is NARC, a hectic, rambunctious shooter based on some old arcade game from even further back in the day as it was already released like ten years ago for PlayStation 2. This one creates a seedy urban environment where two cops, a go-getter rookie (Bill Bellamy) and an arrogant renegade (Michael Madsen) work to take down a ruthless international drug syndicate that takes them from stateside streets all the way over to Asia. It’s a scrappy game with very unrealistic physics and fighting but that kind of calls back to its arcade roots I guess. Madsen is fun as the asshole rogue cop who is addicted to both drugs and beating the shit out of perps, while Ron Perlman blusters his way through the obligatory Greek chorus role of their hard nosed precinct captain. Best of all is underrated Michael Wincott as the big bad, whose name is literally Mr. Big. He’s this weirdo paraplegic mega-villain who sits in a giant mechanized swivelling chair adorned in 50 caliber cannons that make quite the epic and goddamn frustrating final boss fight.

The coolest thing about this game is that you can actually do a bunch of drugs when you find them; coke makes you run super fast, ludes do something strange to your perception of time, LSD makes people’s heads get all funny and huge while weed (my favourite) puts you in this hazy dreamscape as Rasta music warbles out gently all around you. Speaking of music this has one amazing soundtrack too, sampling the likes of Peter Tosh, Cypress Hill, Curtis Mayfield, Lynrd Skynrd, The Stranglers (whose hit song Golden Brown dreamily plays whenever you shoot up heroin), The Toyes, Happy Monday’s, DMX and more. This is a cheeky, nihilistic, extremely violent, morally bankrupt, hilariously over the top piece of urban exploitation gaming and one of my absolute favourites from back in the PS2 era which, let’s face it, will probably be the main focus on these gaming reviews considering I’m all about the old school when it comes to any area of media entertainment.

-Nate Hill

Arthur Penn’s NIGHT MOVES

by Frank Mengarelli, posted in Film Review, Podcast

 

70s cinema was at its absolute best when it birthed softly nihilistic, introspective films where the protagonist lived within moral ambiguity and hard shades of grey – wherein this picture, Gene Hackman gives his finest, most low-key performance as a former football player turned private investigator who takes on a case of a missing girl that lands him in Florida from LA, and uncovers a well-layered and richly defined plot of smuggling, lies, and deception all the while discovering who he really is, as well as the world around him.

With a taut script from Alan Sharp, a groovy score by Michael Small, director Arthur Penn crafts a remarkably quiet film; which plays more like a documentary where the camera just follows Hackman through his journey, all scenes from the film are of Hackman’s point of view, and there are not any overt, showy set-pieces or flash edits, popular music; the film just lives.

Night Moves 1975

Sharp’s screenplay, coupled with Penn’s vision and the actors performing his written words, is perfect. There are so many memorable lines of dialogue that have staying power, so much of the characters are revealed through the brief, yet potent, exchanges. This truly is a masterclass in writing.

A lot can be said for Hackman, being one of the longstanding true craftsmen of his profession; being one of the finest actors to ever grace the screen. In this picture, he is noticeably muted and brings a striking weariness to the role, he is not the self-righteous and volatile Hackman, he is just here to observe, and internalize his emotions. He gives a remarkably raw performance that is more about self-discovery than anything.

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Harris Yulin, Jennifer Warren, Edwards Binns, Kenneth Mars, Janet Ward, John Crawford, Susan Clark, James Woods, and Melanie Griffith round up the supporting cast, and Hackman plays off of each one magnificently. The characters in the film are very real, as are their homes, places of work and so on. There is a deep-seated reality to the film, where it doesn’t take place in the movie world, it takes place in reality.

The film’s narrative is remarkable, not only with the overall detective storyline, but also with how defined Hackman’s character and life is; and how his two worlds begin to blend together; where he is just not solving the case, but also solving who he is as well.

Night Moves Gene Hackman

NIGHT MOVES is a film that came out at the right time, the mid-70s, while everything was in flux, and people were just trying to understand how to be in the world. In actuality, the film is timeless with its themes, making an excellent time capsule of a picture that came from an era of film, that is so universally well regarded. 70s cinema might just be the best decade of American cinema, and NIGHT MOVES is one of the best films to come from that time and place.

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Rob Bowman’s Elektra

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

Okay I know I always say that guilty pleasures don’t exist for me and I wholeheartedly own my tastes in film without a shred of winking irony and for the most part that’s true… but there *are* a few that kinda fall into the ‘sheepish enjoyment’ realm despite me being well aware that they’re dumb as shit, the Jennifer Garner Elektra film being one of them. I know one is a mess but it just somehow keeps me glued every time and I don’t even know why, but it might start with Garner, who I loved in the Daredevil movie and is just as hot and engaging here reprising the role sometime after, or before Daredevil.. I’m not sure which because she totally died in that one but this also doesn’t really have a ‘prequel feel so who tf knows, really. She’s in exile or something in a remote location, a location that just happens to really be the Sea-to-Sky/Salish coast area of BC where I’m from and all that lush PNW cinematography is probably an atmospheric contributor to why I enjoy this. So what’s the story? She’s in exile sort of, but uses her badass pseudo supernatural warrior skills to protect a father and daughter (Goran Visnjic and Kirsten Zien) from a horde of X-Men type assassins dispatched to kill them by.. I don’t even remember. They’re a weird bunch, one can morph into animals, another dude has tattoos that kinda come to life and help him fight, that type of shit. And that’s basically the story but honestly you could watch this on mute and just appreciate the scenery and strange, colourful CGI visuals with your own choice of music and you’d probably get more out of it. Terence Stamp shows up as blind martial arts guru Stick, a character played far more satisfyingly by Scott Glenn in Netflix’s Daredevil effort but Stamp is cool just for showing up so why not. Honestly my favourite part is a moody prologue where Elektra storms the well guarded mansion stronghold of some Bond villain type dude named DeMarco played by Jason Isaacs, and takes him out, it has a cool video game cutscene feel. Isaacs inexplicably does a lot of random two second cameos in huge budget Hollywood stuff (Resident Evil, Grindhouse, Abduction, Fury etc), it’s become an aesthetic in itself just to see him show up briefly and either get shot or walk out of the scene again randomly, so that’s always fun. I can’t really explain my fondness for this one other than the loose jumble of attributes I’ve listed above, but I’ve seen it a bunch of times, I remember every set piece and Canadian wilderness shot, yet I couldn’t begin to tell you what it’s specifically about in comic book lore terms. Still a fun one though.

-Nate Hill