Thomas Vinterburg’s Another Round

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

Alcohol and the culture, customs and traditions surrounding it have permeated society to a saturation point over the years (cinema included), whether we want to admit it or not. I myself am a bit of a self proclaimed lush, and as such I always gravitate towards films that tackle the issue head on, whether the context be cautionary, celebratory, purely unbiased anthropological study or other. Beerfest, Leaving Las Vegas, Flight, Barfly, 28 Days, A Star Is Born. They’re as varied and illuminating as in any sub-genre stable and now we have Thomas Vinterburg’s Another Round, one of the best films of the year and one that manages to do a carefully calibrated dance between comedy and tragedy while showing us the shortcomings, shattered dreams and collective woes of four high school teachers from Denmark, with the focus resting primarily on Mads Mikkelsen’s Martin, an introverted, emotionally stunted man who was perhaps not always this way, but the years have made it so. He and his three buddies decide during a booze soaked night out to follow in the footsteps of an unconventional philosopher who says that any human being will fare better in life with an average of 0.5 blood alcohol level… 24/7. This little experiment proves invigorating at first when each of them finds themselves a little looser, a little more effervescent in both their work and personal lives… until such an endeavour inevitably careens towards a downward spiral, for each in gravely different ways. The thing is, alcohol is a bandaid, not a magic curative elixir for all problems psychological and interpersonal. One can use at first, even at as benign a level as this experiment suggests, but the incremental nature of how it affects our bodies soon takes control and self destruction can be imminent. We see Mikkelsen’s already inert marriage detonate like a dying star, his younger colleague can’t act appropriately around his wife and young children anymore and their older friend seems to suffer from some kind of repressed pain that he and the film are too scared to even unpack, it’s so bad. I don’t want anyone to label this as a ‘midlife crisis’ film because that’s a cheap and patronizing term; anyone at any point in their life can not be okay and their struggles shouldn’t be relegated to labels like that. These are simply four human beings who naively experiment with alcohol and realize that not only will excessive use *not* fix their problems, it will emblazon them further into the forefront of their psyches and force out a fierce reckoning from each, whether they’re ready for it or not. Some are, some aren’t, and that’s the beauty of this narrative. Mikkelsen has never been better, he’s got that observant subtlety we’ve come to know him for but there’s also a vivacity and deepest emotional burn to the work that is a new and mesmerizing formula from him as an artist. Also he’s rocks some dance moves I never expected him to have in a joyous, blessedly cathartic ‘jazz ballet’ sequence near the end that nails the film’s desire to be thoroughly bittersweet but ultimately uplifting. Like the best cocktails, the mixture has to be in utmost equilibrium or the flavour is off. The same can be said for a film that wants to bridge genres or simply evoke multiple complex emotions at once: Another Round is jubilant, compassionate, loving yet doesn’t shy away from the dark, bleak and dysfunctional corners of life, using alcohol as a narrative avatar to unearth what was already there in its human characters. Masterful film.

-Nate Hill

Marvin Kren’s Blood Glacier

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

Now this is how you do a monster movie. Blood Glacier is a terrific Euro-Schlock horror about scientists at a remote research station in the snowy Austrian Alps who discover a spectacularly troublesome micro-organism that arrives in the glacial thaw and stirs up all kinds of cryptozoological shit. The thawing out of creatures from ice, research station and gooey prosthetic effects will draw obvious comparisons to John Carpenter’s The Thing which are of course fair, but the biological modus operandi of the organism differs from that of The Thing and this film finds its own suitable groove. Here’s the hook: this life-force invades the cells of multiple creatures at once, stores the genetic data and creates multifaceted hybrid creatures, so you get a big ass fox/beetle cross, a strange goat/human fucker and wood-bug lice things the size of basketballs that attach themselves to humans like face-huggers and devour their heads. The special effects are obviously limited somewhat by budget but are still incredibly creative, blessedly free of CGI and elaborately slimy enough to be aesthetically pleasing. The human actors/characters are an interesting bunch, as the research scientists join forces with a German family unlucky enough to be hiking in the area and go postal on these pseudo-Lovecraft aberrations which Mother Nature has hurled forth at them. A word of caution though: if you have trouble watching animals in pain, getting hurt or killed onscreen you may want to think twice. The research camp has a dog (similar situation to The Thing) that passes away in the kind of heart wrenching, hyper-emotional sequence I haven’t seen the likes of since Will Smith sang his pupper to permanent sleep in I Am Legend, it’s a tough scene for animal lovers to fight through. This is an impressive effort though with a very cool premise, extremely creative monster effects and a cool wintry atmosphere to boot. God times.

-Nate Hill

B Movie Glory: Hypothermia

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

An ice fishing trip goes horribly wrong for Michael Rooker and his family in Hypothermia, an impossibly cheap winter Schlocker that I probably wouldn’t have bothered with had it not had Rooker in it, but here we are. It’s not that this film is bad on ‘low budget B-horror flick’ terms, it’s just that it commits one cardinal sin that can assuredly either make or break a creature feature: it’s monster is unforgivably lame. Rooker and his cutesy pie middle class family are on their annual ice fishing family holiday when they realize that some sort of giant fish man thing is stalking them from under the ice, and are forced to band together with another rowdy father son duo to survive, and kill this walking filet if they can. Rooker is clearly the only professionally trained actor here and is very good, but he always puts in 110% no matter the material, one of the reasons I’m such a fan of the guy. The rest of the cast.. not so much. This is the kinda thing that plays on SyFy channel at 2am for us night owl schlock aficionados to drowsily absorb, and it would be a perfect example of that done successfully… if it weren’t for this godawful, clunky and outright embarrassing monster they’ve made. Having a low budget is no excuse either; you can make a pretty convincing ‘fish man monster’ with little to no funds using elbow grease, prosthetics and ingenuity. Check out Blumhouse’s Sweetheart from this year for proof of that, which has a terrific fish-man monster and couldn’t have had much higher budget than this. I’ve included a picture of this thing and don’t bawk about spoilers because it’s just not even impressive enough to spoil, it looks like the Lego version of Swamp Thing or some shit. This could have been a decent monster flick if they’d, you know, bothered with the actual monster, but they didn’t and as a result the whole thing kinda buckles and capsizes in the ice like multiple characters do in the film. Lame.

-Nate Hill

The Lodge

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

Here’s a hypothetical for you: let’s say you’re a middle aged male widower mourning the loss of your severely mentally ill wife who shot herself mere months ago, in front of your two young children no less. You’re grieving, your kids are all kinds of fucked up, and you’ve decided to date again. Your new young girlfriend has recently been rescued from a whacked out, abusive doomsday cult and is adjusting to normal life again with utmost fragility. You take a vacation to a secluded ski lodge in the winter, thinking it will be nice for your equally traumatized children and girlfriend to get some bonding time in. Now… in this scenario, all things considered, how would it be responsible, intuitively practical or remotely advisable in any way whatsoever to take off and leave your kids alone with this girl for an extended period of time? The Lodge is based around this premise and while it’s very well acted, shot and quite atmospheric, the entire film didn’t work for me because I just couldn’t bring myself to take stock in such a ludicrous narrative gambit such as this. Richard Armitage is solidly haunted as the father, Riley Keogh an unsettling porcelain waif as the disturbed new girlfriend, Jaeden Martell and Lia McHugh capable as the two kids. Alicia Silverstone (of all people) gives the best performance of the film in her quick turn as the ailing mother, I didn’t think I’d ever give high dramatic praise to the Clueless girl but here we are, she owns her cameo with disconcerting resolve. This film’s issues aren’t with acting, cinematography or even music, which are all exemplary. It’s the script that doesn’t ring true, and offsets the entire thing. Besides the dad leaving them alone together (facepalm), the kids pull some weird shit on the girlfriend that spurs the horrific final act into motion. I mean I know these kids aren’t in their right minds, they’re grappling with life and death at a young age etc etc, but they *still* should have intuitively known better, on a deep level, than to pull the kind of cruel, damaging stunt they do here. I think every beat in the story after the mom’s suicide just felt false, discernibly orchestrated and hollow to me, and the film majorly loses its way before it even has a chance to get going past the prologue. Misfire overall.

-Nate Hill

3 for 3: John Carpenter

by Frank Mengarelli, posted in Podcast

We’re pleased to bring you our next installment of 3 for 3, this time discussing the works of John Carpenter. Carpenter is one of our favorite filmmakers who is responsible for many classics ranging from HALLOWEEN, ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK, BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA, to STARMAN. Please stay tuned for our next 3 for 3 regarding our favorite character actors, as well as a 3 for 3 – For Your Ears Only crossover where we pay tribute to Sean Connery, and talk about his diverse contribution to film beyond James Bond.

B Movie Glory: 4Got10 aka The Good, The Bad & The Dead

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

In always game to give a B movie a day in court but it’s gotta at least put in a game effort and ‘4GOT10’ (whatever the fuck that means) is just the film equivalent of an hopelessly flaccid penis. It’s also called “The Good, The Bad & The Dead” on some posters which is marginally more coherent and is a good indicator of how dumb and dead on arrival this thing is. It’s sad because it has a great cast, who for the most part are stuck moping, drawling, clawing their way through terminally bloated scenes with nary an editor in sight and spewing scant, anemic dialogue. Johnny Messner is a terrific actor who seems to be permanently stranded in this kind of fare of late, which isn’t always the worst thing (paycheque is a paycheque) but not even his engaging presence can do anything for this hastily cut turd. He plays some sort of ex convict who awakens in the desert with amnesia, surrounded by dead guys, guns and cash. Some kind of deal clearly went south and it gets worse with the arrival of a corrupt scumbag sheriff (Michael Paré) who tries to finish Messner off and steal all the leftover cash. Also eventually on scene is a bored looking Dolph Lundgren as a rogue DEA enforcer, Vivica A. Fox as his blathering station chief, Danny Trejo as the angry cartel boss who I guess was trying to facilitate the deal and all kinds of other forgettable cutouts. This film makes the grave and silly mistake of introducing each character with a freeze frame title card like ‘the outlaw’, ‘the enforcer’, ‘the sheriff’, ‘the braud’ (I’m not even kidding on that one) etc and I don’t know about you but I fucking hate that obnoxious stylistic contrivance, it was never cool and certainly still isn’t now. I realize that these actors have families to feed, mortgages to pay off and whatnot but like… could they have at least aimed a *bit* higher than something as wantonly awful and as this? Like… I’ve participated in entry level student film productions that were literally better than this, this crew should all just quit their profession and work at McDonald’s if that’s the way they’re going to behave. It’s tragic and embarrassing, and this is from someone who loves watching an endless string of B grade trash just to see actors I like. It doesn’t even make that cut, and you should avoid it lest risk slipping into a diabetic fugue state at the sheer cinematic malnourishment this fucker exudes.

-Nate Hill

Wonder Woman 1984

by tfuglei, posted in Film Review
One thing we can all agree on: People do enjoy their strong opinions on superhero movies. Love them, hate them, hate the genre, see them as the death of cinema itself, everyone has a take, and more than likely it’s a hot one. Somewhat overlooked since Tony Stark launched a seemingly endless parade of men and women in tights on the big screen is the fact that these films currently serve as a rare cultural lingua franca in this fractured day and age. You could sit down next to a stranger (summer 2021, fingers crossed) and find nothing in common to discuss in music, politics and tv—but you’d likely both have seen Endgame and would share a sigh over Chadwick’s being gone too soon. In the 1980s everyone had the same national jukebox with MTV, a measly 3 major networks dictated almost everyone’s viewing habits, hell, people even read and discussed the same bestselling books. With the plethora of streaming and listening options available today, the cadre of familiar characters from our childhoods flying around cinemas and our living rooms is one of the few things we collectively inhale, usually right around the same time to boot. Of course this leads to heady opinions and passionate discussions about what is ultimately only high dollar kiddie fare; they’re a lot more fun than talking about anything else happening in the world anymore.

Which brings us to the latest installment of what some refer to with the clunky DCEU moniker, Wonder Woman 1984. We’ve hopped ahead the better part of a century from the earnest and entertaining first film, with our heroine working in antiquities and pining for her lost love, Steve Trevor. Kristen Wiig is a new friend at the office, like the rest of us wishing she was half as cool as Diana Prince. Pedro Pascal sheds his Mandalorian helmet for a truly odd look as an empty husk of a capitalist dream, attempting to hustle away from his ethnicity into a red white and blue vision of wealth and influence that of course isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. The three characters are brought together by one of the most delightful Macguffins I’ve seen in a film in some time, which I won’t spoil here but suffice to say is responsible for a variety of circumstances that spiral out of control for each of them and is cleverly responsible for Trevor’s seeming return from the grave—a gleaming drop of mid movie romance, spiked with a thrilling bit of fan service, that plays out as it only can, which is to say as bittersweetly as it must. Of the two antagonists, surprisingly we end up developing more affection for Pascal’s misplaced motives and ultimate arc than Wiig’s; her Barbara Minerva takes a somewhat standard nerd to badass arc and keeps chipping away at her own humanity until she’s barely recognizable. Gal Gadot remains as charismatic a presence as she’s ever been, and the film gives her many opportunities to shine as both a heroine and as a humanist. She even achieves the magic trick of convincing us 80s fashion was somewhat respectable at times.

It was a big deal when Patty Jenkins was announced as director of the first film, and her touch continues to bring a special shine to the franchise. I was struck at the end of the somewhat lengthy run time by how many problems were not hastily solved with a punch or a kick, perhaps the sign of a comic book film being truly managed by a feminine touch. The focus is on a fun story and the evolution of characters, so much so that after a relatively brief scuffle in the third act, the denoument itself is resolved with empathy and appeals to humanity, not bullets or a magic lasso. While you’ll get your fair share of action of course, it’s the rare superhero movie that doesn’t feel like it’s merely plowing toward the next fight or chase sequence, which to me marks it as something rare and special in the genre. Is the film perfect? Hardly. One could make a modest list of problems, starting with the glaring lack of any actual 80s music to be found, although the fact that the film isn’t particularly concerned with constant nods to the time period is in itself refreshing. One significant era appropriate vibe baked into the conclusion is the haunting fear of nuclear annihilation; for those of us who were there, that feeling held a much greater sway over us than usually alluded to in glossy nostalgia trips like Stranger Things. It’s a pity that the obvious spectacle promised by a movie like Wonder Woman 1984 will be seen by most eyes on televisions thanks to circumstances well beyond the filmmaker’s control, but considering the modest goals set out by the premise and genre, Jenkins’ movie is a crowd pleaser, no matter how small that crowd in the living room is.

Dead End (2003)

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

You think your family has dysfunctional issues around Christmas, try spending a supernatural road trip to nowhere with the Harringtons in the hidden gem holiday horror flick Dead End, a clever, gory, darkly hilarious and altogether deranged piece that should have gotten way more attention. This family has packed up to head to the in-laws for Christmas dinner and headed out onto a shortcut off the interstate that proves to be anything but convenient. In fact it doesn’t seem to lead anywhere except in one never ending straight line cutting through a vast forest, and soon they are preyed upon by a mysterious lady in white (Amber Smith) and a sinister black hearse that glides through the night. Mom and dad Harrington (Ray Wise & Lin Shaye) constantly bicker about nothing in particular, their son and daughter (Mick Cain & Alexandra Holden) are also at each other’s throats and soon the rising tension of being lost in an endless netherworld of road and trees really starts to put a collective damper on this clan’s capacity for Yuletide cheer. This is low budget and as such has a down to earth, tactile and modest feel to the special effects but where it really excels is in script and acting. The dialogue is impossibly juicy, intimidatingly sarcastic and relentlessly funny. Each cast member goes through a complete mental breakdown at some point in the story and the manic meltdowns one might experience in a heightened situation like that eerily mirror those of simply being forced to eat Christmas dinner sat with your relatives. Ray Wise and Lin Shaye are old pros and have a blast going absolutely holiday bonkers in their roles, they are both known for being kind of larger than life and outlandish in their portrayals (he works for David Lynch frequently, she’s a longtime Farrelly brothers collaborator) but this little unknown indie horror might just showcase both at the height of their scenery chewing glory. It’s a spooky, atmospheric little piece that has just the right amount of holiday themed black comedy without veering into actual Christmas movie territory and still retaining a mostly horror-centric flavour. Great film.

-Nate Hill

B Movie Glory: Breach aka AntiLife

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

Alright, the Bruce Willis space movie. Breach (aka AntiLife) isn’t terrible, it’s just not super inspired or original and if you go in with your nose already turned up at it, well that’s on you bud, you silly cinephile you. However, if you’re a periodically undemanding moviegoer who enjoys a nice schlocktastic cheapie once in a while you may just get a kick out of it. This thing riffs on everything from Doom to The Thing to Pandorum and if you don’t have expectations higher than Bruce Willis and Johnny Messner clearly got while filming their scenes then you’ll have just as much fun as the two of them clearly did. So it’s sometime in the future and earth has been all but decimated by a plague, the remnants of humanity are packed into a giant space station and hurtled towards a distant exoplanet called ‘New Earth’ under the stern, hambone stewardship of The Admiral (Thomas Jane). Most of the passengers slumber in tranquil cryogenic sleep save for a barebones maintenance crew managed by Willis’s once great colonel turned disgraced alcoholic janitor. They’re watched like a hawk by a military man (Timothy V. Murphy) that Willis literally refers to as a ‘space Nazi’ (to his face), but somehow a doomsday zealot manages to smuggle some freaky alien parasite onboard which quickly begins infecting the crew and turning them into ink spewing, putrefied space zombies. Willis and his team that includes Cody Kearsely, Corey Large, Callab Mulvey, Continuum’s Rachel Nichols and scene stealing Messner are stuck fighting off legions of what I suppose would count as the undead in a way but they’re more like a hive minded organism, really. Willis is cool here and actually looks like he’s having a modicum of fun compared to other B flicks he’s recently done. He also plays against type as kind of a reverse action hero and I never thought I’d see the day he plays a character that gets referred to as a ‘lover, not a fighter.’ Jane only has a few atypical military A-hole scenes but he fires off his lines with glib, cavalier flair and I find it hysterical how intensely he insists on wearing his pitch dark tinted aviator shades *indoors*, in a dimly lit spaceship no less. Look, it’s junk, I won’t call pretend it’s a great film, but as an avid lover of cinematic junk food it did the trick for me, and I had fun with it.

-Nate Hill

Shawn Linden’s Hunter Hunter

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

I doubt you’ll see a more gruesome, harrowing, WTF horror film this year than Shawn Linden’s Hunter Hunter, a sly deconstruction of several sub-genres including the wilderness creature feature, breathless survival thriller and serial killer suspense tale. It’s orchestrated around a simple premise that evolves into something not so simple until the final act takes a battering ram to the audience’s nerves and expectations alike and you sit there as the credits roll frantically looking for your heart pills before you slide off the couch in full coronary. Somewhere out in the bush a man (Devon Sawa), his wife (Camille Sullivan) and their daughter (Summer H. Howell) live a rugged, simple life as off the grid fur trapper survivalists. One year a rogue wolf returns to their line and threatens to eat both them and their livelihood unless they can track, hunt and kill it before it does the same to them. Only thing is, there’s something way worse than wolves out in those woods, something each family member will come face to face with in a series of white knuckle horror sequences that generate true suspense thanks to nervy, close quarters editing, tension soaked acting from all especially Sullivan and a spooky, atmospherically earthy score by Kevin Cronin. Most of the film is a clever blend of chills, dark humour, scenery and mystery… until that ending rolls around and it goes completely berserk, hog-wild, deranged and etches a fucked up, primally violent conclusion into the viewer’s psyche. Not many films have the big ol’ nuts to pull an ending like this off, but this one does it with grinding, cheerless yet stylish confidence set to a soundtrack song I can’t find on google, but it’s a cool one. Director Linden is responsible for one of my favourite hidden gem films, a metaphysical, Dark City-esque noir from circa 2007 called Nobody, and I always wondered what he’d follow it up with, if ever. Hunter is a lean, mean, bleak, pitilessly cruel picture in all the best ways, and quite the effective, aesthetically pleasing horror film. Just bring your barf bag and your anxiety meds and you’re all set.

-Nate Hill