Erin Moriarty – Podcasting Them Softly

What’s everyone’s beef with Kong: Skull Island? Not tophat n’ coattails, high-tea cinema enough? I’m joking but I’ve waded through so much negativity surrounding this film over the years that I avoided it, and when I finally came round to watching it I found a perfectly thrilling, super entertaining monster flick that I have little to no issues with. The 70’s Viet Nam CCR aesthetic is an interesting choice for the Kong myth and I think it works, as John Goodman’s half insane journalist leads Samuel L. Jackson’s all the way insane military commander and his platoon on a voyage to fabled Skull Island, joined by Tom Hiddleston essentially playing a cross between Indiana Jones/James Bond and badass Brie Larson? How could that not be fun? Throw in and all the way insane and then some John C. Reilly as a downed WWII pilot surviving on the island and heavily channeling his Steve Brule character from Tim & Eric and I once again ask you, how could this not be fun? Then there’s Kong himself, who is an absolute unit here and way huger than I ever remember him being, measuring in at several hundred feet tall at least and fiercely protecting his kingdom from an armada of weird giant reptilian dragon things. There’s also giant water Buffalo, spooky natives and these bizarre stilt-walking arachnid nightmares that had me on edge and demonstrated some really impressive VFX. Jackson steals the show as far as human talent goes, playing a soldier who never saw enough combat in Nam to satisfy him before the war ended, is looking for a good old fashioned dust up and lives to regret being so eager before going completely, certifiably bonkers and trying to singlehandedly take down the big guy, on his own home turf no less. Throw in a solid supporting cast including Shea Wigham, Toby Kebbell, John Ortiz, Erin Moriarty and a sly cameo from Richard Jenkins and you’ve got one all star lineup, with the MVP moment going to Reilly as he hilariously delivers the film’s best line and one allowed F-bomb in true Steve Brule fashion. Kong delivers the goods too, he’s an angry, very physically lethal sonofabitch big ass monkey who doesn’t take kindly to anyone threatening his homeland, be they big scaly monsters, the US military or other. It’s also very subtly antiwar, but just enough so that it does feel preachy and still knows how to have a blast. Pulpy in the dialogue realm, brilliant red n’ orange tinged in the cinematography department, retro steampunk vibe to some of the costuming and deadly fucking fun on the giant creature mayhem side of things. While Peter Jackson’s monumental 2005 version will likely always be my favourite version of King Kong, this Skull Island iteration is a flippin’ knockout of popcorn entertainment, audacious visuals and rock em sock em jungle war-games. Great stuff.

-Nate Hill

Blood Father is the best I’ve seen from Mel Gibson in years. Between extended cameos in the Machete and Expendables franchises and the underwhelming Get The Gringo, there just hasn’t been a film in a while that I thoroughly enjoyed and felt that cinematic rush I used to feel when watching his older, classic stuff. This has it all: a rough, rugged story line, an older, grizzled and disarmingly jacked up Mel, and a surprising rose of an emotional core that’s embedded in a violent bed of thorns which serves as our narrative. Later in his career Mel has been playing older, meaner versions of antiheros from his past, and one gets the comforting feeling that any of these jaded brutes could be the unofficial versions of those very same characters. Desert dwelling excon tattoo artist John Link could easily be an older Porter, the protagonist from my favourite Gibson film, Payback. I’d like to think that such parallels are deliberate on the filmmaker’s part. Whoever he is, Link has a long and checkered past of broken bridges and incarceration, etched like a road map onto his shaggy visage. When his troubled teenage daughter (Erin Moriarty, terrific here as well as this year’s Captain Fantastic) re-enters his life on the run from her psycho cartel brat of a boyfriend (Diego Luna), the fire in Link is kindled. Taking her on the run, he goes into ultimate protective dad mode and let’s the old forges of violence burn bright once again, in hopes of finding some kind of redemption. William H. Macy hangs around as Link’s AA sponsor, but the real supporting gem comes from legendary Michael Parks as Preacher, a vile neo nazi scumbag and former associate of Gibson’s. He’s icky and repellant, but coos with Park’s patented purr and steals his sequence of the film menacingly. The action is down and dirty, reigned in by an obvious small budget, but that comes as a welcome gift in a genre hampered by big style fireworks that smother story. Not here. The crucial part of it is Link and his daughter, and their glib back and forth that just hides the pathos we get to see in full bloom near the end. We wouldn’t give a damn about the whole deal if their relationship, and the actor’s chemistry, didn’t work. Gibson and Moriarty knock it out of the trailer park. I couldn’t give a laminated shit about whatever Gibson did or said to piss so many people off. That’s seperate from the work he does and should be treated as such. Everyone who stifled and shunned him professionallly for something which occurred in his personal life should be flogged. Nevertheless, I hope we get to see more stuff like this from him moving forward. He’s a bit older, a bit more rough around the edges, but goddammit he’s still our Mel.