Tag: movie reviews

Arne Glimcher’s Just Cause

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

Just Cause, a sweaty 90’s Sean Connery potboiler, is one of those films that could have had its ducks in a line to be somewhat believable and entertaining but the script is a weird one and the execution of said script.. well to say it goes off the rails would be putting it mildly. Connery plays a hotshot professor who was once a legendary lawyer, lured back into the muck of the legal system by an elderly woman (the great Ruby Dee) whose son (Blair Underwood) has been sitting on death row for eight years for the rape and murder of a little girl. She’s convinced he’s innocent, and begs him to investigate the case, and so he journeys to the sweaty Florida Everglades to nose around. Laurence Fishburne plays the dodgy local sheriff who put the boy away on a brutally coerced confession and doesn’t take kindly to anyone trying to dig old secrets up or overturn convictions. Soon information turns up related to another inmate on the row, a serial murderer played by Ed Harris in such a try-hard, faux intense, maniacally cartoonish performance you have to feel for the guy. Here’s the thing: this film doesn’t work for two glaring reasons. Firstly, there’s nothing wrong with a humdinger of a twist ending, but you have to be honest with your audience and play at their level, not deliberately hide shit, manipulate and mislead us into thinking one thing, then just do a fucking unabashed 180 degree turn and expect us to accept it. The twist is ludicrous, especially when you look back at the editing, composition and overall thrust of the first half of the film. Secondly, the film builds a careful series of events to mount tension and at the last minute decides it wants to be an action movie, throws all story and credibility to the dogs and blares rudely on for an obnoxious, balls out, car chase ridden finale it it doesn’t earn, need or warrant in any way. Connery is kind of bland here, just a stalwart archetype following the breadcrumb trail dutifully. A supporting cast of very talented folks like Chris Sarandon, Kate Capshaw, Ned Beatty, Chris Murray, Kevin McCarthy, Hope Lange and an unrecognizable Scarlett Johannsson are all squandered in underwritten bit parts. Fishburne is the only one who makes a valid and lasting impression, doing his best with the writing as he always does and putting menace, mirth and actual gravitas into his work. Don’t know what else to say, this thing just sucked.

-Nate Hill

Gabrielle Savage Dockerman’s Missing In America

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

War movies are a dime a dozen, but how many filmmakers choose scripts that focus on veterans trying to live their lives years or even decades after, with the lingering trauma of conflict and impressions of violence following them around, now encoded into their psyche? Gabrielle Dockterman’s Missing In America is a very low budget, laid back yet deeply powerful story of how several men who once fought in the Viet Nam war deal with the aftermath in their twilight years, and how sometimes an event that terrible can have ripple effects many years later. Danny Glover is Jake, a reclusive, brittle vet who lives a simple life alone in the misty mountains of the Pacific Northwest. He has little human contact save for kindly yet poker-faced general store owner Kate (Linda Hamilton). One day he gets a visit from old army buddy Henry (David Strathairn), who is dying of lung cancer and leaves Jake with what is most important to him, his half Vietnamese daughter Lenny (Zoe Weizenbaum) in hopes that Jake can take care of her and give her a life when he’s gone. Jake is a stubborn, solitary fellow and things get to a rocky start but the two eventually do bond and the film quietly cultivates a meditative, sometimes stormy and often touching relationship between the two… until past wounds refuse to heal and tragedy strikes. It seems this region is home to several veterans other than Jake, and one in particular who never really recovered from the horrors of war is Red (Ron Perlman), a haunted, disfigured man who resents Lenny and is hostile towards her. This is a quiet, meaningful story of human beings trying their best with collective trauma and I greatly enjoyed it. The ending is horrific though and quickly escapes the trap of being simply a schmaltzy Hallmark type thing. This film, although simple and sentimental in areas, has a dark underlying theme and a difficult, tough-pill-to-swallow message to get across. I’m not going to lie and say this is Hollywood pedigree Oscar bait filmmaking, it’s got an ultra shoestring budget, most of which probably went to paying the wonderful cast, who are all excellent and don’t phone in for a second. Young Zoe Weizenbaum is great too in her first, almost only film role since. The Vancouver-area setting is lush, foggy, atmospheric and gorgeous through and through, naturally. If you like simple, truthful, no frills dramatic material showcasing big name actors doing something unpretentious, genuine and accessible, give it a go.

-Nate Hill

Jon Amiel’s Entrapment

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

Sean Connery and Catherine Zeta Jones are easily two of the sexiest bona fide movie stars to ever burn up the big screen, and in Jon Amiel’s Entrapment they get to do that alongside each other in a sort of Thomas Crown Affair-lite heist romp that’s… well it’s not fair to bash the film overall because the thing only really exists as framework to see these two strut their stuff. Let’s just say that our two leads are the stuff of legends here, while the script and film overall is decent enough, when it isn’t tying its own shoelaces in knots. Catherine is Gin, a skilled but amateur thief also moonlighting as a government employee catching operatives like her. Sean is Mac, a seasoned master art thief who takes her under his wing and the two of them plan some hefty heists while being watched like a Hawk by insurance honcho Cruz (Will Patton in mercurial menace mode). These jobs provide some excellent set pieces including a canal based intrusion into a museum of art and a high wire balancing act atop Malaysia’s Petronas Twin Towers, here a swanky international bank. The supporting cast is peppered delicately with classy talent including Ving Rhames as Mac’s sometimes loyal supplier, Mr. Gibbs from Pirates Of The Caribbean as a vicious cockney fence and the late great character actor Maury Chaykin as an impossibly unpleasant underworld power broker who resembles an angry Buddha crossed with the cigar chewing baby from Roger Rabbit. The main attraction here is Connery and Jones, and in that arena the film delivers wonderfully. He lives in a drafty Scottish castle on an island collecting priceless artifacts where much of the film is spent as they train rigorously for upcoming jobs. Their relationship is obviously tense at first, then warmer until genuine sparks fly and that segues into inevitable conflict later. Both actors are terrific, and the showcase scene sees her practicing a stealthy, unbelievably sexy Catwoman routine to avoid those obligatory security laser beams while he watches with an infusion of guarded pride and rapturous attraction. Me too, Sean. I guess you can brush past the fact that the plot is altogether too breezy and loose to really be considered a thriller, and the chessboard of shifting alliances is not only a bit over the top silly but also not clearly delineated and becomes kinda fuzzy, I mean ultimately I only mention it to be comprehensive in my review and say that as a whole it doesn’t work completely, but most people will watch this to see two of their favourite movie stars in action together and as far as that goes, you won’t be disappointed.

-Nate Hill

David Prior’s The Empty Man

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

It’s rare for a horror film to exceed an hour and a half runtime these days, and if it does it better be something unexpected, captivating and unique. David Prior’s The Empty Man is two and a half hours and not only stands as the best film I’ve seen so far this year but also the scariest horror to come my way since Hereditary and It Follows before that. It’s also one of the most ambitious, ‘out there’ films in terms of high concept in the same way that, for example, Gore Verbinski’s A Cure For Wellness was, another bonkers, reach for the sky horror gem that went well over the two hour mark. First off, ignore the title, trailer and any of the surprisingly scant marketing that might make this out to be another ‘Slender Man’, ‘Bye Bye Man’ or any other cheapie gimmick piece that caters to teens. This is not your garden variety, jump scare laden, watered down young adult fright flick, it’s dark, complex, philosophical, disquieting and altogether soul disturbing. Before the opening title even appears we are treated to an atmospheric, twenty minute opening act set somewhere in the Tibetan mountains sometime in the 90’s, where four ill fated hikers have an encounter with something… well, something so old there’s no name for it in any language we speak. Flash forward to Illinois 2018 where we follow ex cop turned private investigator James Lasombra (James Badge Dale) as he tries to find the missing daughter of a family friend who got mixed up in a spooky urban legend. That’s all I’m going to get into in terms of plot specifics because every viewer deserves to be led down this terrifying breadcrumb trail of a narrative with unspoiled eyes. Badge Dale is a great actor, one who somehow manages to simultaneously subvert and uphold the Hollywood tough guy image with his own charisma, his reactions and methods of finding information are really fascinating to watch from an acting standpoint. What he does find is some of the weirdest shit you’ll ever see in a movie, and some of it so unsettling I almost got up and stood in the hallway of the theatre for a few minutes to decompress. I also saw The Empty Man in an Empty Theatre, I was literally the only person to buy a ticket and that decidedly added to the spook factor. Aside from being fucking scary as all hell, this is a truly intriguing story with imagination, innovation and so many unpredictable surprises it can sometimes feel like a patchwork quilt of ideas, motifs and thematic material stitched together, albeit in a very fluid and naturally flowing way. There’s shades of Lovecraft, references to Nietzsche and other philosophical ideals and even sly references to everything from The Wicker Man to Blair Witch to the Donner Pass Incident to many forms of demonic lore. It’s too bad they barely marketed it and just sort of lobbed it into theatres with nary a whisper of trailers, posters or internet ads beforehand because no one has heard of it d I wouldn’t even have either unless it was recommended to me in a frenzy of enthusiasm, but it deserves to be sought out and, if it’s playing near you and you feel safe, demands to be seen on the big screen. If you like your horror wild, wooly, whacked out, fucked up and worthy of eccentric cult status, this is your bet. I couldn’t recommend it enough.

-Nate Hill

Adam McDonald’s Backcountry

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

Getting hopelessly lost in the woods is a big fear for many people, and one that comes horrifically true in Adam McDonald’s Backcountry, a realistic, breathless, flawed yet ultimately effective survival thriller very loosely based on a true story. Young couple Jeff Roop and Missy Peregrym are off on a camping trip in the gorgeous Ontario wilderness, but things go dangerously wrong when they don’t bring a map, a phone or any means of navigation and find themselves stranded. I know what you’re thinking, how stupid is it to do that, however, the script provides specific reasons for every mistake they make and it’s up to the viewer to decide just how credible their turn of events is. In addition to being lost, they are suddenly faced with a very angry black bear who doesn’t take well to them wandering onto its land. The film isn’t really structured like your average thriller, instead building steadily and slowly with our two leads until it gets really crazy all of a sudden, and the visceral impact of the bear attacking hits very hard. The film is ruthlessly realistic in these scenes and if you thought Leo DiCaprio got it bad in The Revenant, just wait for this mauling. I really like Missy Peregrym, always been a fan of her work in stuff like Heroes, Rookie Blue and the overlooked Reaper. She’s usually cast in more lighthearted characters but she does a terrific job with the emotional heft, panic and despair needed to pull this role off and I wish she’d get cast in more dramatically demanding parts. There’s an odd, inexplicable subplot involving another hiker they come across played by Eric Balfour, who is vaguely threatening to them for reasons unknown but his character’s involvement and attitude towards them is never properly explained nor feels necessary to the story overall, which jams up the otherwise rock steady narrative a bit. Still, it’s a very effective film, the bear attacks are genuinely blood curdling and our two leads, Missy in particular, make their characters humans with depth that we care about. Good stuff.

-Nate Hill

Sarah Adina Smith’s Buster’s Mal Heart

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

Sarah Adina Smith’s Buster’s Mal Heart is one of the best, most striking and unique films I have seen in some time for exactly the reasons it might be one of the most frustrating, maddening experience for other viewers. This film is like a Rubik’s Cube except it’s not square, all the pieces are the same colour and they’re all in different time zones. It’s a complex, dreamy, intangible, non-traditional narrative full of idiosyncratic asides, shifting plane storytelling, non linear abstraction and all sorts of brilliant filmmaking wizardry and it cast a spell on me I can’t quite describe in writing. Rami Malek and his perpetually glazed faraway gaze play Buster, a deeply troubled family man who works night shift at a desolate highway motel, the perfect breeding ground for psychological unrest to creep in and do some real damage. What *does* creep in is a mysterious stranger who calls himself The Last Free Man, played by eternally boyish, gnome looking curio DJ Qualls. This guy pays in cash to stay off the grid, raves about impending Y2K and foretells an event called the Inversion, which will forever alter time and space as we know it. Fast forward some years and Buster is a maniacal bearded homeless waif who breaks into empty vacation homes in the Montana mountains and tries to piece together his identity, his past and future to no avail as authorities close in. You can’t really describe this film in terms of plot because it’s not about that, it’s about mood, feeling, disorientation and atmosphere, all of which are my cup of tea over logic and plot structure. Director Sarah Adina Smith is a brilliant artist who uses strange, otherworldly editing techniques, coaxes bizarre, darkly humorous performances from her actors and whips up a world from which there is no cognitive escape for the duration of your stay. The positively extraterrestrial original score by Mister Squinter is amazing too. This isn’t a film to be understood though, it is one to be felt and later deciphered. You know when you wake up from a particularly elaborate and thoroughly profound dream, then you sit there trying to collect pieces of it using conscious thought processes and you simply cannot get them in line because they are not of this world? That’s how I felt immediately after this film, as the experience washed over me and although I knew deep down where it’s essential what this film means, I couldn’t explain it in waking terms or paint that meaning in anything outside subconscious awareness. If you enjoy challenging stuff like the work of David Lynch, Guy Maddin or other artists who successfully employ dream logic in cinema (not an easy thing to do) then you’ll love this enigmatic, indistinct yet achingly specific gem.

-Nate Hill

Stefan Ruzowitzky’s Cold Hell

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

German cinema is off the hook if this one is any indication. Like some bizarre infusion of Giallo, Transporter style action and quirky family dramedy, this is billed as ‘Cold Hell’ on Shudder where I found it but it looks like the original German title translates to simply ‘The Hell.’ That has a specific meaning relating to the modus operandi of a very, very nasty serial killer who is targeting prostitutes in Vienna. Our protagonist is sullen, haunted Ozgë (Violetta Schurawlow), a Turkish cab driver who moonlights as a kick-boxer and frequent babysitter for her wayward cousin who is stuck in a cataclysmic marriage. One night she witnesses a mysterious Muslim assailant (Sammy Sheik) ruthlessly slaughter a girl in the flat across the street, he pegs her as a witness and they embark on a frenzied pursuit all over the city. I’m not sure if this was the filmmaker’s choice of if Europe is just a little crassly behind the times but there’s a harsh attitude towards women, every other person Ozgë runs into is a profane asshole, and the killer himself is a freaky religious fanatic who thinks he’s sending sinful whores to hell on his own watch, but I suppose he’s allowed to be written that way because he is of course the villain. Ozgë develops a relationship with an extremely stressed out police detective (Tobias Moretti) who seems at first to have the same shitty attitude towards her as everyone else but later we get a diamond in the rough reveal and he turns out to be quite different, quite kind beneath his gruffness and I enjoyed their arc together quite well. This is an amalgamation of sorts, blending different elements but like not blending them seamlessly, it’s very clearly a genre patchwork quilt, in a fun sort of way. There are horror vibes early on that feel distinctly like an Argento or something, then it veers hard left into action movie territory garnished with some oddball eccentricities. Ozgë is such a terrific character, a woman of few words but tons of action. She uses her kickboxing skills to get her out of tight situations, lays some bloody beatdowns on the killer and all the while she’s carrying around the toddler daughter of her murdered cousin. The cop and her form a sort of strange bond, he’s looking after his dad who has Alzheimer’s so they’re both caring for someone vulnerable while trying to catch this gnarly killer and I found myself swept up in both their relationship and collective situation. It’s a scrappy flick and certainly not the greatest thing out there but I was entertained, loved the characters and had a good time with this story.

-Nate Hill

Gary Sherman’s Death Line aka Raw Meat

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

Gary Sherman’s Death Line (aka Raw Meat) is billed as a horror film but they must have meant comedy because I haven’t laughed that hard during a movie for a long time. That’s not to say it isn’t a horror, I’d definitely classify it as one if it twisted my arm over the matter, but holy fuck this is one of the weirdest, most berserk things out there. So get this: sometime in the 70’s, the London authorities discover that far beneath a tube station, there’s a tribe of mentally handicapped, cannibalistic subterranean yahoos living down there, descendants of a group of track workers trapped during a tunnel collapse during the 1800’s. For hundreds of years they have been snatching unsuspecting commuters off the platforms, eating them and also keeping some to reproduce with I guess. Meanwhile Donald Pleasance gives one of the most outright bizarre, unpredictability intense performances of his career as London’s most sarcastic Scotland Yard detective who gets wind of this bonkers situation and, well, investigates is a strong word for the level of effort he puts in, but he’s dimly aware of it anyhow. He plays a guy who is so British that he sleeps with a literal pot of tea next to his bed, has an emotional breakdown if his secretary forgets his cup of Earl Grey and wears a hat that can *only* be described as a tea cozy. This film just kinda meanders until you’re aware of what it’s technically about, yet can’t help but notice it’s slack pace and complete lack of desire tell a story with any sort of cohesion beyond an illusory ‘concept’ of subway dwelling maniacs. Arbitrary diversions abound, such as Christopher Lee randomly showing up as a very rude MI5 spook just so Pleasance can tell him “fuck you” straight to his face in the film’s one cheeky F bomb. At one point the whole thing just stops dead in it’s tracks so Pleasance and his partner (Norman Rossington) can hit up a local bar, get absolutely fucking torqued on beer and scotch, have a drunken pinball tournament and threaten the barkeep by telling him they’ll report him to the police for serving patrons after hours when, ya know, they *are* the police, the only ones still in the establishment and the very ones who made him stay open late to serve them anyways. The scenes underground are super cheesy with enthusiastic yet hilariously messy special effects and one terminally off pitched performance from Armstrong as the last surviving… whatever they are. Seriously this guy is covered in buckets of slime and has this weird way of acting that calls to mind a certain word I won’t use here, but he jumps around, hollers like a loon and makes quite the… campy impression. The pacing is all over the place and could barely be considered thriller structure, aside from a quick third act chase. Add to all of this perhaps the strangest proto-electronic musical score ever ever devised for a ‘horror’ film and you’ve got something that defies description. It’s like one of those movies you see on TV at 3am in a hazy fugue state and later try to explain to your friends, who all think you’re making it up. Weird ass flick.

-Nate Hill

Jaume Balagueró’s Sleep Tight

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

There’s slashers, serial killers and then there’s villains of an altogether more disturbing nature like that of Sleep Tight, a deeply disquieting Spanish psychological oddity that sets in slowly and builds to a devastating payoff. In a sunny Barcelona apartment building, life seems breezy and pleasant. Friendly concierge César (Luis Tosar) greets the tenants kindly every day and does his job dutifully. Little do any of them know, César is a misanthropic, mentally disfigured lunatic whose very mission in life is to covertly make the lives of everyone around him thoroughly miserably because, as he tells us in forlorn inner monologues, he is physiologically incapable of feeling happiness. What does this involve? Well for starters, sneaking rotten fruit into the back of fridges, feeding an old woman’s dog the wrong kind of food to give it the shits, watering rooftop plants at the hottest time of day to kill them and piss off the building’s owner, small petty stuff like that. However, a beautiful young woman (Marta Etruria) living in one of the suites has a sunny disposition that isn’t so easy to breach and he goes to some skin crawling, abominably sociopathic measures to do so. The film chooses to focus on César as a protagonist rather than have him skulking about in the shadows like the villain usually does, so what we get is something that feels like a twisted character study as opposed to outright horror, but that structural augment doesn’t stop this from being one of the most upsetting experiences you could have. César is a sick, sick man and despite how intimate the script allows us to get with him, he’s never likeable, relatable or in any way justified, no inspires sympathy at all in these horrible actions like some black sheep characters in film. Tosar (who I remember as the intense Cuban drug lord in Michael Mann’s Miami Vice) is a stark looking dude, whose severely receding hairline has apparently migrated downward into eyebrow territory for a very, shall we say, otherworldly appearance. He’s great in the role, opaquely amicable on the surface but we can see the malformed creature inside just through his coal burner eyes. Director Jaume Balagueró also made on of my favourite underrated horror films, 2004’s Darkness with Anna Paquin. He knows how to use light, shadow, oppressive architecture and eccentric character traits to create a believably creepy atmosphere with shades of Hitchcock and classic thrillers of the like. This is an expertly told, beautifully produced original story and well worth watching but word of warning, it’s not roses and sunshine. This is a grim tale of a terminally unpleasant, incurably mentally ill monster who commits sustained acts of shocking menace and perverted exploitation that culminate in a sickening final reveal that will have the bile rising in your throat. But it’s not without its charms either, including terrific character work, picturesque production design and splashes of pithy black humour. Great film.

-Nate Hill

Sergio G. Sánchez’s Marrowbone

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

Horror movies always work best for me when the scares are in service of story, when character and emotion come first and the supernatural or horrific elements work their way into the human side organically, which is what we see in Sergio C. Sánchez’s Marrowbone, a wonderful, terrifying, heartbreaking masterwork that I just happened upon while browsing Shudder. You’d think it would have made a bigger splash with how prolific it’s four principle young cast members are, but it’s just as well that it retains hidden gem status. An English family of four children migrate over to America with their mother, running from a dark past and taking up residence in Marrowbone House, a place once owned by vague family. After the mother passes away the four are left on their own to financially keep the house, look after each other and survive demonic trauma that hovers over all of them them. Oldest brother Jack (George MacKay from Captain Fantastic, How I Live Now and 1917) is the natural leader and caretaker, trying his best to look out for younger siblings Billy (Charlie Heaton of Stranger Things), Sam (Matthew Stagg) and Jane (Mia Goth from Suspiria and A Cure For Wellness). They basically have no one in the world now except their friend local librarian Allie (Anya Taylor Joy, The VVitch, Split), who soon falls deeply in love with Jack and has a desire to help him and his family through dark times. Soon they hear eerie noises from the attic and a suspiciously sentient full length mirror draws attention in inexplicable ways as the ghosts of their past rise up to haunt them and memories once long buried begin to surface. I don’t want to say too much because this is such a fun puzzle box of a story to unravel and includes some twists that are tough to see coming (pay attention to the poster, where a big clue hides in plain sight). It’s a sad, forlorn tale about children growing up far quicker than they should have to, familial trauma and violence leaking over into the next generation and the ripple effect that evil and malcontent in a family can have. There’s wonderful romance that is sold effectively by MacKay and Joy, who are both superb, as are Heaton and Goth in roles that are secondary but no less deeply felt and acted. The scares are genuinely, bone chillingly fucking terrifying stuff, and the fact that restraint and subtlety is used make them all the more effective. Seriously, there are a few squirm out of your skin, shudder down your spine moments that push the creep factor past eleven on the dial, which isn’t easy to do. What makes the film work so well for me is that it cares deeply for these kids, their situation and makes each character stand out in their uniqueness, thanks to strong acting work, writing and music. It has a slight gothic feel, and I almost got like a ‘horror version of Narnia’ fantasy feel from these characters and their plight, but that could have just been me. Brilliantly written and directed by Sánchez (his freaking feature debut I might add), vividly and emotionally acted, it’s just a beautiful and frightening story worth immersing yourself in and one of the best horror films I’ve seen in a long time. 10/10.

-Nate Hill