cinema – Page 47 – Podcasting Them Softly

SYLVAIN DESPRETZ: Los Ángeles by Kent Hill

May 10, 2020 by Kent Hill, posted in Interviews

I don’t profess to be anything except a guy who really loves his movies. So I was, needless to say, humbled when Sylvain Despretz, illustrator extraordinaire and Hollywood veteran, asked for my opinion on his new book Los Ángeles .

The thoughts (abridged) I rendered unto him are as follows:

“Right off the bat I concede we have a very similar taste in movies, beginning on the opening page where you count James Mason among your idols. You have a free-flowing narrative style here – mixed in with a little distain for certain elements of ‘The Industry’. Yet there, embedded in your frankness, and if you know the lyrics to Billy Joel’s Piano Man, you strike me in predicament alone, to be like John the bartender; sure that he could be a movie star . . . if he could get out of this place.

So in that I feel your journey is unique – in the sense that you have been surrounded by the business, yet are melancholic, purely because you are no different than any other kid who wanted to run off and join the circus – you longed to be a lion tamer – you wanted to be a director.

Still I can’t wait to see this all come together. As I read your words I heard your voice and am reminded of great quotes from the towers of their fields from days past. Well, two in particular. One I heard Peter Guber say: “Success has many fathers and failure is an orphan.” And the other comes from Harrison Ellenshaw, “Shakespeare never had a word processor . . . and now we word processors we have no Shakespeare’s.” Your life is extraordinary and the tapestry upon which your weave this tale is rich in texture and bold in attack.”

Los Ángeles is a book that is much about one man’s love of cinema as it is his adventures in the screen trade. It might get personal, and it does…in the best sense. This separates it from the generic ‘greatest hits’ compilations which would merely be satisfied showing you only the art from the films and pictures of the movie masters Sylvain has been privileged to rub shoulders with.

But this is not a film book. It’s about art, life, and loving movies so deeply you feel them at the source of everything that inspires one to create. Sylvain and I always have the most engaging and complex conversations, which are always nice to have with like-minded cineastes, especially when we share a similar perspective on what great films are and how they touch us.

Life like cinema is about a series of moments. We all know the films we like, still, when asked, we find ourselves recounting the scenes which really spoke to us. Robert Altman once told his wife about his first viewing on David Lean’s A Brief Encounter. She recalled that, though Altman was initially just casually watching the movie, by the end, he had fallen in love with the films leading lady, Celia Johnson, and was utterly moved by the story unfurled.

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Thus is the power of cinema, and the heart of Sylvain Despretz’s Los Ángeles.

As it has been written, so has it been done.

FOR MORE INFORMATION ON Los Ángeles, VISIT THE PUBLISHER’S WEBSITE HERE:

https://caurette.com/?fbclid=IwAR1Y5EdeVzKGdCZ1o2G-VExxykJR8ejEgEuphdnMHYkBiS7Frk2CbVHT5J8

“LET THE GIRL GO!” (PART 2): Remembering King of the Kickboxers with SHERRIE ROSE by Kent Hill

May 8, 2020 by Kent Hill, posted in Podcast

The whole story of how I came to love King of the Kickboxers is something I am still working on. But what will say here dear reader is that I have of late been afforded greater insight into the making of the movie than I had ever hoped to obtain. For behind each of these movies are multitudes of individual artists and craftspeople that in many ways go to war to bring the images that we finally witness to the screen.

I first contacted participating members of the Seasonal Film family when compiling my anthology Conquest of the Planet of the Tapes. Now most folks aren’t unaware of the Seasonal catalogue, but it has its place in cinema history – the golden age of the martial arts/action movie. One of the main players involved was a gentleman named Keith W. Strandberg who served as writer and producer on the films which began with the movie that brought Jean-Claude Van Damme into public consciousness: No Retreat, No Surrender.

In time, two films would continue the NRNS series in the form of Raging Thunder and Blood Brothers. In acknowledging these I sought the participation of martial arts legend Keith Vitali (star of Blood Brothers & Superfights) and Loren Avedon. Loren has close to a three decade long career as a martial artist and is a 5^th Dan black belt in Tae Kwon Do and 8^th Dan black belt in Hap Ki Do. He received his big break when he was contacted by producer Roy Horan about a three picture deal with Seasonal. Aside from the NRNS series he would also star in the film King of the Kickboxers.

Now I must be careful here not to go ballistic and write the whole story, however, once upon a time I found myself on an 18 day bus trip through the wilds of Indonesia. It was clear from the first day we had been royally screwed by the company who was coordinating the adventure and so we spent a majority of the trip on the bus. There were three video tapes on that bus to help pass the time. One was Speed, the second was Michael Jackson’s Moonwalker, and the third was a film called King of the Kickboxers. It was fun, funny and had awesome fight sequences. Needless to say it quickly became the default movie on the bus and during the course of those 18 days I saw it many, many times.

So what is it about King of the Kicboxers that is, to me, so enduring? I suppose one could say that it was because of all the Hong Kong actioners and television (MONKEY every afternoon) I saw as a kid. KOTK, as with all the Seasonal productions, were among the first western audience films to employ the eastern style of filmmaking. Sure the reason for this is that they were co-productions and had American and international performers, but the way in which the productions were carried out and the methods employed during filming were right out pages of the eastern action movie play book. I guess the short answer is I just have a tremendous affection for straight to video movies like this. They came thick and fast once upon a time; lots of junk. Amongst all that product thought there were gems to be found. This was one such precious stone.

I recommend you take a look at KOTK before listening to the above interview, as I believe it will give you a better insight. But if you are already a fan of all films Seasonal and are like me, a devotee of KOTK, then press play above and listen along as the star of the show takes us behind the scenes of a movie that may have been forced upon me initially, but which now I watch over and over with both a warmth nostalgia and ever-increasing fondness.

I was delighted to finally get in touch with Molly, the beautiful and multi-talented Sherrie Rose (who also appeared with Keith Vitali in NRNS 3: BLOOD BROTHERS), this time round to find out what filming the movie I find most glorious was like from the perspective of the girl Jake so adamantly insisted Khan LET GOOOOOOOOOOO!

I CARE, JACKSON!

SHERRIE ROSE

She has starred in over 60 films and television shows and is best known for her starring role in the feature film Me and Will (1999) opposite Patrick Dempsey and showcasing the talents of Keanu Reeves and Seymour Cassel which she also co-produced, directed and wrote. The feature opened The Women in Film series for Sundance.

She has been involved with the creation, writing and development of 100’s projects from conception to distribution and accomplished the unprecedented feat of writing, directing, producing and starring in her own film and has sold numerous scripts as a writer and has been published in magazines and books.

She has a camaraderie with actors and directors which has allowed her to hire and work with such incredible talents as Jada Pinkett Smith and Billy Zane who acted with her in Tales from the Crypt: Demon Knight (1995), Mickey Rourke in the feature Out in Fifty (1999) that she co-produced, Jonathan Kaplan from The Accused (1988) with Jodie Foster that she acted in the feature _Unlawful Entry (1992)_ qv with fellow actor Ray Liotta and Michael Bay from Transformers (2007) that she worked with on commercials and music videos. She was entered for an Emmy Nomination for her role in the television series Tales from the Crypt (1989) opposite Yul Vazquez from Magic City (2012) that William Friedkin, from The Exorcist (1973) directed her in.

She appeared in such hit show’s as the pilot episode of FX’s, Sons of Anarchy (2008) opposite Charlie Hunnam and Married… with Children (1987) with Ed O’Neill and Katey Sagal and Miami Vice (1984).

She is an activist working with IFAW and other non-profit organizations concentrating on children, animals and the environment. She lives on a ranch with her son and their rescue animals.

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

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

John Dahl’s Red Rock West

April 30, 2020 by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

Ever drive past a dusty one horse town on the edge of some forgotten interstate in the middle of nowhere and wonder what kind of crazy shit the shady locals get up to with too much time on their hands? So does John Dahl and his terrific neo-noir/Western hybrid Red Rock West is a diabolical good time at the movies. It’s one of those deliciously twisted narratives where everyone is out to kill each other, they all are angling for the Money McGuffin buried somewhere out there (in this case a graveyard) and everyone is a deeeitful, sociopathic piece of work. This differs from other such similar noirs out there because Nicolas Cage’s forlorn, weather beaten protagonist is a fundamentally decent guy, a righteous dude who has a terrible case of ‘wrong place wrong time’ syndrome. After meandering around looking for work to no avail he wanders into the town of Red Rock and more specifically into the local bar owned by Wayne (J.T. Walsh), a man who looks perpetually suspicious and nervous at the same time. Wayne has called in a contract killer from Dallas to murder his wife (Lara Flynn Boyle) and inadvertently assumes that Cage is the guy before, you know, checking his ID or something but in a town that sees like one drifter or newcomer a year we can forgive his oversight. Cage becomes hopelessly embroiled with Wayne, his wife, the rest of the local police force and even the actual hitman who shows up a week late like a tornado in the form of Dennis Hopper, having a scene stealing blast in Frank Booth Lite mode. There’s double crosses, murders, hidden identities, shootouts, sexy seductions and all manner of naughty fun as only a noir can provide, given low key yet somehow terrifically pithy verve by Dahl and his wonderful quartet of actors who are all clearly having a party. Cage smoulders yet ultimately is a force of conscience and reason amongst such wanton bad behaviour, Boyle does the same slinky, sly sexpot thing she’s done in other hard boiled flicks, Walsh was just so damn good at playing contemptible scumbags and Hopper is off the chain as ‘Lyle from Dallas.’ I enjoyed how he and Cage are two of the many, many US veterans scattered to the wind following any given war, left to their own devices and somewhat abandoned by the system, and they both have tread very different paths that have somehow led them into each other’s orbit once more. Cage is decent, low profile and hard working, Hopper is a rowdy, morally bankrupt assassin and it’s quite fascinating to see the two clash royally. If you like your short, sweet and offbeat, this is the ticket, one of the most fun crime films the 90’s has to offer.

-Nate Hill

Matthew Vaughn’s Layer Cake

April 27, 2020 by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

Layer Cake is a British gangster flick whose posters say ‘from the producer of Snatch and Lock Stock & Two Smoking Barrels’ and indeed director Matthew Vaughn did work on those sub-genre defining films but it’s a bit of a sneaky ploy to splash that across the poster because this film is galaxies away from those two in terms of tone, style, pacing and overall fibre of content. Guy Ritchie’s Brit crime films (which I adore) are akin to Wonka’s factory all colour, swirl and flash but this one exists in something more like an upscale steakhouse and provides solid, grounded content to digest and work over later on. That’s not to say it isn’t without flair or flourish, there’s a lot of propulsive mayhem, cheerful dark humour, peppy British dialogue and menacing extreme violence but it just somehow feels… more down to earth.

Daniel Craig is a London coke trafficker credited simply as XXXX, a wry gesture that hits the mark because this guy, although far from anonymous, could be any one of us: a strait-laced, level headed dude who thinks he can tread around dangerous waters without getting his feet wet. Well there be dragons in those waters, dragons who have big plans for him in the form of various London underworld figures from brain dead, peacocky underlings to Machiavellian figureheads of immense, baroque and frightening power. His operation is funded and mother goosed by a wealthy thug called Jimmy Price (Kenneth Cranham in a study of pigheaded volatility), who scoffs at Craig’s plans of early retirement and tasks him with two seemingly simple tasks: 1) mediate a sizeable ecstasy transaction that is in danger of flying off the rails and 2) babysit the wayward druggie daughter of his own boss Freddie Temple (Michael Gambon basically playing the devil to the point of self referential glee), a man with whom you never want to fuck. Of course neither of these errands are cakewalks and things begin to viscously spiral spectacularly out of control in ironic, deliciously karmic fashion until it ain’t readily clear who’s betraying who, who wants what and who is simply wandering about in a narrative haze wondering what they did to deserve such a conniption fit of cacophonous roundabout shenanigans.

I don’t want to give the impression that this is an overly confusing or messily told tale because it’s not, it makes perfect and clear sense (like all these mad dash crime flicks) if you’re paying rigid attention or spin it through the DVD player more than once, it’s just refracted through a stylistic prism whose purpose is to befuddle, but that’s half the fun. Craig’s character is a terminally busy guy once things all kick off, so much so that not even getting to third base with a gorgeous lady friend (Sienna Miller) can stop him getting hauled out the door back to work (been there). He’s a smart guy in a sea of other guys who are either way smarter than him or way dumber, both species proving equally as dangerous. There’s his two mates Clarkie (a boyish Tom Hardy) and Morty (George Harris is superb) who race to keep up, Jimmy’s hotheaded righthand man Gene (Colm Meaney, who can’t sit still for two seconds, love his energy), one very angry Serb (Marcel Iures), a dirty cop (Dexter Fletcher) who comes in quite handy and all manner of other cretins and oddballs for our hero(?) to contend with. At the end of it you kind of sit there, in a daze and in the dust, wondering what kind of speeding locomotive just hit you, and kind of wishing it would turn 180 degrees on the tracks and come back for more as it was so much fucking fun. And the end? Well, let me just say that no American studio film would have the balls to pull a stunt like that and I was admittedly stung by it at first but when you think back to what kind of lifestyle Craig’s character leads, who he associates with (on purpose or by circumstance), his profession and exactly the kind of thing all these seasoned criminals warned him of, it makes sense as a sort of brutally poetic final thunderclap to his arc. Brilliant film.

-Nate Hill

Fritz Böhm’s Wildling

April 26, 2020 by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

It’s always neat when a filmmaker gets to direct a feature for the first time and gain traction with their debut, one can sometimes get a sense of a fascinating career to come from an artist’s initial output. German director Fritz Böhm scores huge points in this arena with his debut feature Wildling, a wonderful concoction of folk horror sensibilities, a coming of age tale, lycanthropic creature effects, moody ethereal atmospheres and odes to Grimm Fairytale lore. It’s a lot to take on but never feels like too much for him or his accomplished cast of actors who all give beautiful performances.

Ana (Bel Powley) is a young girl who is raised alone in a remote cabin by a man she knows only as Daddy (Brad Dourif). He tells her her she cannot go outside for fear of the Wildling, a monster who eats children and hunts for her as she is the last of her kind. When she becomes a teenager things get complicated and through circumstance she finds herself in the outside world, a small town whose Sheriff (Liv Tyler) takes her in. She’s changing though and as the encroaching Northwest wilderness surrounds the town like an elemental spirit, so too does her emerging true nature haunt these people and cause fear and hatred, especially in a few folks who have hunted her race in the nearby mountains for generations while a mysterious, silent woodsman (cult actor James LeGros is right at home in this type of thing) hover around the woods around them.

This is an absolutely gorgeous film and hits hard for a number of reasons. Powell is a great find and turns confused naïveté into fearsome, raw primal power in a very physical performance. Brad Dourif is legendary and pretty much incapable of work that is not astonishing, and here too he provides a tragic, violent, conflicted and very intense portrayal of a man whose actions and decisions follow him like a storm. The film is beautifully shot, fluidly edited, the story is rich, deep yet never over complicated or stuffed with any stale exposition. Paul Haslinger, formerly of Tangerine Dream, composers an earthy, ambient and altogether classic original score full of nature’s essence, the danger of forests at night and the visceral thrill of discovering ones very own identity for the first time. It’s drama, horror, folklore and more in one seamless package and I love it.

-Nate Hill

Clio Barnard’s Dark River

April 25, 2020 by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

Isn’t Ruth Wilson incredible? I think so, and I haven’t even seen her in all that much but she makes such a vivid impression each time and fills the screen with her presence, like this generation’s s answer to Meg Foster. She stole the show in Gore Verbinski’s underrated Lone Ranger update and made a terrific Marissa Coulter in BBC’s impressive His Dark Materials but her work in the quietly devastating Dark River from filmmaker Clio Bernard is my favourite thing she’s done so far and is an uncommonly good, intuitively calibrated piece of organic acting.

Dark River sees her play Alice, a guarded, introverted woman who returns home to the farm near Yorkshire where she grew up after learning that her father has passed away. There she finds ghosts that linger in the squalid air, the half remembered recollections of sexual abuse at the hands of her own father, events that the homestead seems to somehow hold in the space like memories out of place and time yet still languishing about the place just to haunt her. She clashes with her troubled brother (Mark Stanley) over who will inherit the property as her father seemed to want her to keep it, and they both have different ideas on both how to run it and what to eventually do with it. This film didn’t go over with some people because of how ambient and naturalistic it is but if you need your thematic and narrative sustenance spoon-fed to you in an accessible form you’ve really picked the wrong film. This is a story about the things unsaid, the pauses between words, the feelings that sensory recall evokes and the way a place, so specific in setting and atmosphere, can dredge up memories never thought to be felt again.

Ruth is transcendent and heart wrenching as Alice, who harbours deep trauma from her father’s abuse and confused resentment towards her brother for never intervening. Her path is a tragic one, full of rain soaked sheep pastures, introspective turmoil and dread laced flashbacks. Yet despite all this gloom and sadness there’s a brightness and vitality to her performance, opposite notes found in a sea of woe that provide blooms of hope and retribution if only she can put the past to rest. Her story is an immediate, intimate and deeply affecting one, provided one has the proper attention to invest as it is meditative and not readily spelled out for us, the viewer but rather felt on a deeper level.

Her father is seen fleetingly in fragmented impressions of the past and is for some reason played by none other than Sean Bean in a sombre, cloudy cameo that really could have been played by anyone but I’ll never say no to an appearance from him, however brief and ghostly. Director Clio Barnard shows uncanny skill around the camera, giving us melancholy, sustained pictures of the English countryside resplendent with misty hillsides to mirror the restless mental fog that Alice must wade through on her journey home, a journey taken both inward and external. PJ Harvey’s absolutely gorgeous, elemental song ‘My father left me an acre of land’ plays ethereally in the opening and exodus of the film to appropriate effect. An acre of land unfortunately isn’t the only thing he left her and seeing her grapple, overcome and try her best to move on from it is one of this story’s great gifts. Phenomenal film.

-Nate Hill