Movies Galore. Some Good. Some Bad.
"Bound to Vengeance"
starring: Richard Tyson, Tina Ivlev, Bianca Malinowski, Stephanie Charles, Dustin Quick, Nihan Gur, Kristoffer Kjornes
directed by: Jose Manuel Cravioto
https://youtu.be/JKFy82lkLnc
Imagine a less sexually graphic film than "I Spit on Your Grave," but still a strong female empowerment/vengeance film in which the lead actress escapes the horrible man that has kept her captive and enslaved. It seems like many of these films are being made nowadays, so they seem to simply try to outdo each other with each new variation.
"Bound to Vengeance" takes the approach as its predecessor(s) in that we are presented with a role reversal, after the female lead escapes captivity, and as with the title you expect to see plenty of vengeance.
There's a p.o.v. camera introduction to the female character, Eve (played well by Tina Ivlev), on a beach with her boyfriend and her sister (as we find out later). This introduction seems out of place, but it comes back throughout the film and at the end. Then after about five minutes, we are brought to a nondescript, out of the way, dingy house- into the basement where we now find Eve chained to a bed. Although we never witness any sexual misconduct, it is certainly implied. It's not too long before Eve whacks her captor, Phil (Richard Tyson), with a brick and frees herself. She cannot kill him, though, because he has admitted to holding other girls captive in separate houses. Eve and Phil strike up a deal where Eve will take him to the hospital after he takes her to all the locations so Eve can free the girls. So, Eve sets about from place to place, setting free each girl, but it does not start off well for her at all, mishaps here and there abound. Nothing much is really mentioned about the apparent sex ring that Phil and Eve's boyfriend, Ronnie (Kjornes), have been either running or included in.
A lot of things are left open and it's rather frustrating for the viewer. The dialogue leaves a bit to be desired, for sure; and the story is not as imaginative as it could be. This is a film that could have had potential, but it squandered it almost immediately.
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"The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio"
starring: Julianne Moore, Woody Harrelson, Laura Dern
written and directed by: Jane Alexander
Julianne Moore is the prize in this film. She plays Evelyn, a housewife in the 1950s America. She is alarmingly perky, almost annoyingly happy, given her circumstances. She's married to a machinist who drinks far too much which gives him quite a temper. But, really the kicker is, since he's the breadwinner of the family, he does not take too kindly to witnessing his wife and the mother of his children winning all these jingle contest. That's the catch here, Evelyn has a gift for writing commercial jingles, which provides for the family in cash and other prizes.
Not only is Evelyn great at writing jingles, she's apparently a wonderful actress, putting on a charade of happiness for the well-being of her family (including their ten kids). Her family is fragile and she has to do her best to keep it together. The kids help take care of each other. Evelyn's mantra throughout the film is "everything is all right" and it's like she has to say it out loud to believe it herself.
It's interesting that Evelyn's talents, nowadays, would have gotten her a top position at an advertisement agency, but back then it was a Mad Men world, where men ruled and women stayed quiet. Evelyn's husband, Kelly (played by Harrelson), is a typical man in this era, and the screenwriter and director do their best to not portray the man as a terrible ogre, a villain. Kelly is a typical guy and with Harrelson playing him, he's more likable than perhaps he should be.
It is a pretty heartwarming, inspirational story about a woman in the 1950s and 1960s who gets rewarded for her hard work.
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"Entity"
starring: Dervla Kirwin, Charlotte Riley, Branko Tomovic, Rupert Hill, Oliver Jackson, Michael David Worden
written and directed by: Steve Stone
A British documentary crew led by Kate Hansen (Charlotte Riley) for ‘Darkest Secrets’ travels to a remote Siberian woodland to report on a grisly find decades earlier; dozens of unidentified bodies shot dead and buried in shallow graves. Joining the established film crew are renowned psychic Ruth Peacock (Dervla Kirwan) and local guide Yuri (Branko Tomovic), who escorts them to the location and narrates the backstory to their cameras. Hopes are that Ruth can give a unique insight into the the identity of the victims and why they were killed. However they soon stumble across a vast, dilapidated research facility that harbours far more sinister secrets
At first glance, "Entity" comes off as just another found footage film like the godfather of the genre, "Blair Witch Project." But, then the director focuses on the supernatural feel rather than the horror. The tone of the film favors and leans heavily more on atmosphere and chills, that the characters feel, rather than graphic violence. The film touches on interesting themes like regret, loss, and memory. It all takes place in an abandoned military facility with an intense background and history.
The acting is pretty good and they all play well off of each other. It's an interesting story, which is quite a bit different than other found footage films.
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"Virginia"
starring: Ed Harris, Jennifer Connelly, Carrie Preston, Barry Shabaka Henley, Harrison Gilbertson, Paul Walter Hauser, Emma Roberts, Paul Boocock, Yeardley Smith Toby Jones
written and directed by: Dustin Lance Black
It's kind of hard to believe this mess of a story and film is coming from the same person who wrote "Milk" and won an Oscar for it. He also wrote Clint Eastwood's "J. Edgar" but I have not seen that film, so I cannot necessarily judge it.
Set in Oceana, a fictional Virginia beachside community, the film romanticizes writer-director Black’s own Southern upbringing through the story of big-city-bound dreamer Emmett (Harrison Gilbertson) who leaves behind his unwell mother (Jennifer Connelly) and controlling Mormon father figure (Ed Harris) so that he can pursue his true potential. The film serves as a prequel of sorts to Black’s debut, “The Journey of Jared Price,” about a corn-fed kid who arrives in Los Angeles wanting to make movies and discovers his homosexuality in the process — the sort of potential the writer-director doesn’t imagine possible in a straightjacketed small town like Oceana.
The film plays like one long jailbreak, with freedom being anywhere but here. After putting an ironic, white-trash twist on the “Far From Heaven”-style opening credits (there’s an old mattress in the driveway of that otherwise perfect suburban home), Black begins his quasi-retro story at the end, with Sheriff Richard Tipton (Harris) carrying Virginia out to a waiting squad car, where she deliriously spills her story to an imaginary confidant (Barry Shabaka Henley). A mile or so down the road, her son makes a break for it, sharing his story with an imaginary companion of his own, race car driver Ward Burton (playing himself), whom he irrationally believes to be his father.
Seems there’s a question of paternity, since Tipton’s been cheating on his Mormon wife (a sad, soulful Amy Madigan) with Virginia for years, and Emmett’s in love with Tipton’s daughter Jessie (Emma Roberts); it just wouldn’t be right if Emmett and Jessie turned out to be half-siblings — a reasonable theory Emmett uses high-school genetics to disprove as the narrative shifts back into the past. With his enigmatic opening, Black implies that some sort of big crime awaits his characters, but even the promise of fireworks isn’t enough to sustain the rat’s nest of a plot that follows (involving pregnancy scares, S&M secrets and history’s most amateur bank robbery).
Watching everything unravel, you cannot help but think that Virginia is simply not a fit mother for her son and her unborn child. But, it seems to be the complete opposite point that writer/director Black and Jennifer Connelly (playing Virginia) are out to prove. Deep down, Virginia is willing to do just about anything for her son to be happy.
It's a very convoluted script that is really trying way too hard. It's definitely a film that the writer/director holds close to himself and seems to be more autobiographical linking to his debut film, as well, which perhaps is a bit of a warning to him as he finds his footing as a filmmaker to separate himself from his projects.
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"Ned Rifle"
starring: Aubrey Plaza, Parker Posey, Liam Aiken, Robert John Burke, Bill Sage, Martin Donovan, James Urbaniak, Lloyd Kaufman, Jefferson Mays, Gia Crovatin, Thomas Jay Ryan, John Ellison Conlee, Karen Sillas
written and directed by: Hal Hartley
Here is the finale to Hal Hartley's trilogy of the Grim family that began all the way back in 1997 with "Henry Fool"(a film I have to admit I still have not seen, but now that I've seen both sequels I feel compelled to go back to where it all started). Hal Hartley gives us "Ned Rifle" which focuses on Henry and Fay's son, Ned (played by a grown up now Liam Aiken, whom I still remember as the little boy in "Stepmom"). Fay Grim (Parker Posey, underused here) is in jail serving a life sentence in a federal penitentiary for crimes against the state, thanks to her involvement with Henry (Thomas Jay Ryan), the incorrigibly hedonistic would-be author and Fay's husband. He's been in hiding for years. Their son, Ned, has been in foster care under the Witness Protection Program, with Rev. Gardner (Martin Donovan) and his family. Thanks to the religious upbringing, Ned believes in hellfire and brimstone, retribution instead of forgiveness. And so, on his 18th birthday, he sets out to find his absent father, a fugitive from the law, and kill him because Ned believes his father has ruined his mother's life and he should pay for his sins.
But first he has to find him. After visiting Mom in lockup (“You’re religious?!” she exclaims, baffled), he pays a visit to reclusive former-poet-laureate uncle Simon (James Urbaniak), who suspects Henry might be hiding out in Seattle. Tagging along without an invitation is Susan (Aubrey Plaza), who’s written her graduate dissertation on Simon Grim’s work — but as the pic goes along, her real agenda is revealed as something far more complex than mere obsessing over an admired writer.
Though lacking the emotional depth and almost epic scope that made “Henry Fool” loom so large after Hartley’s anecdotal, idiosyncratic early features, “Ned Rifle” is a far more satisfactory extension of its memorable characters than the misbegotten “Fay Grim.”
It's the two younger actors, Liam Aiken and Aubrey Plaza, that the film really focuses its story on this time and both of them are up for the challenge. I especially enjoyed seeing Aubrey Plaza play outside of her box of the sarcastic, deadpan funny girl (although, there's still her deadpan wit throughout the film). Plaza plays a character, Susan, who clearly has a deeper connection to Henry than she's willing to admit (at first). Her interactions and intentions with Henry make everything clearer and the film takes a turn from retribution to forgiveness because Ned is the kind of character that needs to grow for the film to succeed.
This is quite an entertaining film and I think it's a new trilogy that could and should be watched back to back to back.
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"She's Lost Control"
starring: Brooke Bloom, Marc Menchaca, Dennis Boutsikaris, Laila Robins, Tobias Segal, Roxanne Day, Robert Longstreet
written and directed by: Anja Marquardt
I have not seen "The Sessions" with John Hawkes, but it apparently covers the same subject matter and theme that "She's Lost Control" covers, and apparently Ben Lewin's film does a much better job. Both films deal with the emotional terrain and involves the complex relationship between a man with intimacy issues and the sex surrogate who tries to help him. This film, though, takes a much more clinical approach and focuses on the surrogate, who happens to be a master's degree student working on her thesis. Ronah (Bloom) does exude warmth and sympathy for her clients, and is happy when they can have a breakthrough, but it's clear she's using it as a facade to psychologically probe her clients. Ronah's life seems to be unraveling, personally, too, which makes what she does for work and her studies all the more intriguing. For example, there's a leak in her bathroom shower which leads to a hole in her bathroom wall that goes unfixed for awhile; concerns about her wanting to start her own private practice once she graduates and what exactly that entails; and finally, the concern that she may not be able to form intimate connections, as viewed by her interactions with her mentally unstable mother and resentful brother who ends up taking care of her most of the time.
Much of the intrigue that develops between her and one especially volatile patient, Johnny (Marc Menchaca), lies in the ambiguity between Ronah's sincerity and her observational distance—an ambiguity Johnny, also a doctor (an anesthesiologist, specifically), can't help but grasp until he eventually vents his frustrations in a destructive manner. Sex, of course, is considered by many to be a deeply emotional act, so there's a natural irony in the idea of approaching such a Dionysian act from an icy Apollonian remove. In that sense, the title is wholly, ironically appropriate: Ronah seeks control in an emotional world that arguably demands the release of it. Marquardt's film, thus, functions as a case study of a woman teetering on the edge of a psychological abyss, torn between a line of work that demands emotional detachment and an inner desire for human warmth.
The film definitely presents some thought-provoking questions, but it never really allows itself to finish the thoughts. It seems like the things presented in the third act of the film are simply vehicles to prove the story was going in the right direction, that there was a point, but it also seems contrived, and like it's trying to hard to prove itself to us. This was not enough for me.
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"Machete Kills"
starring: Danny Tejo, Mel Gibson, Demian Bichir, Amber Heard, Michelle Rodriguez, Sofia Vergara, Charlie Sheen, Lady Gaga, Vanessa Hudgens, Alexa PenaVega, Cuba Gooding Jr., Antonio Banderas, Walton Goggins, Tom Savini
written and directed by: Robert Rodriguez
Danny Trejo returns as the scowly, deadpan, musclebound master of edged weapons in this unruly, occasionally silly, but ultimately grindhouse-fun sequel to Robert Rodriguez’s 2010 actioner Machete (which itself is based on a faux, 90-second trailer in the Rodriguez/Tarantino doubleheaderGrindhouse from 2007). Think of it as a homage to some of the wilder Chuck Jones Looney Tunes of the Forties and Fifties – with a lot more leg and enough comically outrageous gore to satisfy even the most die-hard fan of Rodriguez’s increasingly crimson output.
I loved the Rodriguez-Tarantino Grindhouse double feature a few years back, which spawned this "Machete" series with Danny Trejo, who is the perfect actor for these types of films. I know exactly what to expect going into watching these films- they are purely and strictly for entertainment purposes only, not to be taken with more than a grain of salt they were borne from. Being a sequel, Rodriguez adopts the whole more manic, over-the-top chaos, with more guts, blood, violence all around than the first film. It's also just ridiculous enough to be taken lightly. The storyline is definitely a convoluted mess, but it works extremely well as a drunken, late-night mess.
In case you need to know the plot:
This time out, the former Mexican federale is called to duty by the president of the United States (Charlie Sheen, billed under his given name Carlos Estevez) to kill the insane Mexican revolutionary Mendez (Bichir). For that selfless act toward U.S. national security, Machete Cortez will receive a full presidential pardon for prior bloodbaths and, as a bonus, U.S. citizenship. The only things standing in his way are a bevy of bullet-laden, brassiere-blasting babes, Mel Gibson’s Voz (seemingly a psychotic riff on Space-X founder Elon Musk), and Lady Gaga. Yikes.
It has been interesting seeing Alexa PenaVega grow up and have roles like hers in this film. Alexa was a child star in such films as the "Spy Kids" franchise, as well as the television series "Ladies Man." Most recently, she turned to the sexier roles for "Sin City: A Dame to Kill For" and the first "Machete." It's also been announce that there will be a third film "Machete Kills in Space" which is bound to be just as ridiculous as the title suggests. But still, I can't wait to see what it is.
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"Ondine"
starring: Colin Farrell, Alicja Bachleda, Dervla Kirwan, Tony Curran
written and directed by: Neil Jordan
Full disclosure: I've never really liked Colin Farrell as an actor. I always thought he was more overrated and overused than he should have been. I never thought he should have gotten the big film roles that he got and he always seem way too arrogant. But, I did like him in the films "In Bruges" and "The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus" and "Crazy Heart" (I can't wait to watch the second season of "True Detective," as well).
This is a decent film, but I'm not so sure the credit belongs to Colin Farrell. Neil Jordan is a writer/director that seems fascinated by the idea of myths and legends, but mostly fairy tales. Deep down his films are fairy tales. This is the same person who brought us "The Crying Game" and "The Brave One." He seems fixated on the myths, but updates them for our modern times, while retaining the unique moral and psychological quintessence.
This film begins with an Irish fisherman named Syracuse (Farrell) lifting a beautiful woman, seemingly dead but brought back to life, in his fishing net.
Trying to rationalize the mysterious woman’s arrival, he tells his daughter a bedtime story. It begins, like most fairy tales do, with “Once upon a time.” Syracuse’s daughter, a sweetheart on the brink of kidney failure who too-precociously diagnoses her father with a case of “wish fulfillment,” responds, “Does it always have to be ‘Once upon a time’?”
Is Ondine (Alicja Bachleda) just a woman or is she a selkie, a seductive, skin-shedding creature found in Irish and Scottish mythology? Because she needs a miracle, little Annie (Alison Barry) would like to think so, delving into the local library’s puny archive for more information about what this enigmatic woman could have brought with her to their seemingly remote corner of the world—besides, that is, a beautiful singing voice that helps to fill the fish traps Syracuse lifts from the sea. Though you don’t doubt that this woman is just that, seemingly on the run from an equally mysterious man lingering in the film’s periphery, her pained secrecy, serenity, and stunning goodness transfixes all who come in contact with her.
Along with the mythical storyline, there's real beauty to the ambiguous sense of detail and understanding of how people relate to one another. It also presents some existential questioning for Syracuse as he struggles to understand the chaos this woman, Ondine, has brought into his life, yet at the same time, the fact that she's also given him more of a reason to live a better life with her in it. It's interesting when we find out the truth to Ondine's story.
Jordan never really harps on Syracuse’s past or alcoholism, but you understand his agony and get a tangible feel for the bitterness of his relationship to his ex-wife when, after she suffers a terrible accident, gets him to take a drink for the first time in years. Jordan understands guilt as one of our more powerful weapons. Jordan delights in subverting the clichés of the fairy tale. Ondine may be some kind of damsel in distress, but she saves Syracuse as much as he saves her—from the grime his deceased granny can no longer clean, the allure of drinking, and the hatefulness of his ex-wife. And what makes Annie’s “once upon a time” line so exceptionally beautiful is what it reveals about our complex relationship to fairy tales. All such stories—no matter how unbelievable they’ve become the longer they’ve passed from generation to generation—were once based on some kind of truth, and believing in them becomes a gesture of faith, and for Annie, a matter of life and death.
starring: Richard Tyson, Tina Ivlev, Bianca Malinowski, Stephanie Charles, Dustin Quick, Nihan Gur, Kristoffer Kjornes
directed by: Jose Manuel Cravioto
https://youtu.be/JKFy82lkLnc
Imagine a less sexually graphic film than "I Spit on Your Grave," but still a strong female empowerment/vengeance film in which the lead actress escapes the horrible man that has kept her captive and enslaved. It seems like many of these films are being made nowadays, so they seem to simply try to outdo each other with each new variation.
"Bound to Vengeance" takes the approach as its predecessor(s) in that we are presented with a role reversal, after the female lead escapes captivity, and as with the title you expect to see plenty of vengeance.
There's a p.o.v. camera introduction to the female character, Eve (played well by Tina Ivlev), on a beach with her boyfriend and her sister (as we find out later). This introduction seems out of place, but it comes back throughout the film and at the end. Then after about five minutes, we are brought to a nondescript, out of the way, dingy house- into the basement where we now find Eve chained to a bed. Although we never witness any sexual misconduct, it is certainly implied. It's not too long before Eve whacks her captor, Phil (Richard Tyson), with a brick and frees herself. She cannot kill him, though, because he has admitted to holding other girls captive in separate houses. Eve and Phil strike up a deal where Eve will take him to the hospital after he takes her to all the locations so Eve can free the girls. So, Eve sets about from place to place, setting free each girl, but it does not start off well for her at all, mishaps here and there abound. Nothing much is really mentioned about the apparent sex ring that Phil and Eve's boyfriend, Ronnie (Kjornes), have been either running or included in.
A lot of things are left open and it's rather frustrating for the viewer. The dialogue leaves a bit to be desired, for sure; and the story is not as imaginative as it could be. This is a film that could have had potential, but it squandered it almost immediately.
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"The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio"
starring: Julianne Moore, Woody Harrelson, Laura Dern
written and directed by: Jane Alexander
Julianne Moore is the prize in this film. She plays Evelyn, a housewife in the 1950s America. She is alarmingly perky, almost annoyingly happy, given her circumstances. She's married to a machinist who drinks far too much which gives him quite a temper. But, really the kicker is, since he's the breadwinner of the family, he does not take too kindly to witnessing his wife and the mother of his children winning all these jingle contest. That's the catch here, Evelyn has a gift for writing commercial jingles, which provides for the family in cash and other prizes.
Not only is Evelyn great at writing jingles, she's apparently a wonderful actress, putting on a charade of happiness for the well-being of her family (including their ten kids). Her family is fragile and she has to do her best to keep it together. The kids help take care of each other. Evelyn's mantra throughout the film is "everything is all right" and it's like she has to say it out loud to believe it herself.
It's interesting that Evelyn's talents, nowadays, would have gotten her a top position at an advertisement agency, but back then it was a Mad Men world, where men ruled and women stayed quiet. Evelyn's husband, Kelly (played by Harrelson), is a typical man in this era, and the screenwriter and director do their best to not portray the man as a terrible ogre, a villain. Kelly is a typical guy and with Harrelson playing him, he's more likable than perhaps he should be.
It is a pretty heartwarming, inspirational story about a woman in the 1950s and 1960s who gets rewarded for her hard work.
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"Entity"
starring: Dervla Kirwin, Charlotte Riley, Branko Tomovic, Rupert Hill, Oliver Jackson, Michael David Worden
written and directed by: Steve Stone
A British documentary crew led by Kate Hansen (Charlotte Riley) for ‘Darkest Secrets’ travels to a remote Siberian woodland to report on a grisly find decades earlier; dozens of unidentified bodies shot dead and buried in shallow graves. Joining the established film crew are renowned psychic Ruth Peacock (Dervla Kirwan) and local guide Yuri (Branko Tomovic), who escorts them to the location and narrates the backstory to their cameras. Hopes are that Ruth can give a unique insight into the the identity of the victims and why they were killed. However they soon stumble across a vast, dilapidated research facility that harbours far more sinister secrets
At first glance, "Entity" comes off as just another found footage film like the godfather of the genre, "Blair Witch Project." But, then the director focuses on the supernatural feel rather than the horror. The tone of the film favors and leans heavily more on atmosphere and chills, that the characters feel, rather than graphic violence. The film touches on interesting themes like regret, loss, and memory. It all takes place in an abandoned military facility with an intense background and history.
The acting is pretty good and they all play well off of each other. It's an interesting story, which is quite a bit different than other found footage films.
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"Virginia"
starring: Ed Harris, Jennifer Connelly, Carrie Preston, Barry Shabaka Henley, Harrison Gilbertson, Paul Walter Hauser, Emma Roberts, Paul Boocock, Yeardley Smith Toby Jones
written and directed by: Dustin Lance Black
It's kind of hard to believe this mess of a story and film is coming from the same person who wrote "Milk" and won an Oscar for it. He also wrote Clint Eastwood's "J. Edgar" but I have not seen that film, so I cannot necessarily judge it.
Set in Oceana, a fictional Virginia beachside community, the film romanticizes writer-director Black’s own Southern upbringing through the story of big-city-bound dreamer Emmett (Harrison Gilbertson) who leaves behind his unwell mother (Jennifer Connelly) and controlling Mormon father figure (Ed Harris) so that he can pursue his true potential. The film serves as a prequel of sorts to Black’s debut, “The Journey of Jared Price,” about a corn-fed kid who arrives in Los Angeles wanting to make movies and discovers his homosexuality in the process — the sort of potential the writer-director doesn’t imagine possible in a straightjacketed small town like Oceana.
The film plays like one long jailbreak, with freedom being anywhere but here. After putting an ironic, white-trash twist on the “Far From Heaven”-style opening credits (there’s an old mattress in the driveway of that otherwise perfect suburban home), Black begins his quasi-retro story at the end, with Sheriff Richard Tipton (Harris) carrying Virginia out to a waiting squad car, where she deliriously spills her story to an imaginary confidant (Barry Shabaka Henley). A mile or so down the road, her son makes a break for it, sharing his story with an imaginary companion of his own, race car driver Ward Burton (playing himself), whom he irrationally believes to be his father.
Seems there’s a question of paternity, since Tipton’s been cheating on his Mormon wife (a sad, soulful Amy Madigan) with Virginia for years, and Emmett’s in love with Tipton’s daughter Jessie (Emma Roberts); it just wouldn’t be right if Emmett and Jessie turned out to be half-siblings — a reasonable theory Emmett uses high-school genetics to disprove as the narrative shifts back into the past. With his enigmatic opening, Black implies that some sort of big crime awaits his characters, but even the promise of fireworks isn’t enough to sustain the rat’s nest of a plot that follows (involving pregnancy scares, S&M secrets and history’s most amateur bank robbery).
Watching everything unravel, you cannot help but think that Virginia is simply not a fit mother for her son and her unborn child. But, it seems to be the complete opposite point that writer/director Black and Jennifer Connelly (playing Virginia) are out to prove. Deep down, Virginia is willing to do just about anything for her son to be happy.
It's a very convoluted script that is really trying way too hard. It's definitely a film that the writer/director holds close to himself and seems to be more autobiographical linking to his debut film, as well, which perhaps is a bit of a warning to him as he finds his footing as a filmmaker to separate himself from his projects.
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"Ned Rifle"
starring: Aubrey Plaza, Parker Posey, Liam Aiken, Robert John Burke, Bill Sage, Martin Donovan, James Urbaniak, Lloyd Kaufman, Jefferson Mays, Gia Crovatin, Thomas Jay Ryan, John Ellison Conlee, Karen Sillas
written and directed by: Hal Hartley
Here is the finale to Hal Hartley's trilogy of the Grim family that began all the way back in 1997 with "Henry Fool"(a film I have to admit I still have not seen, but now that I've seen both sequels I feel compelled to go back to where it all started). Hal Hartley gives us "Ned Rifle" which focuses on Henry and Fay's son, Ned (played by a grown up now Liam Aiken, whom I still remember as the little boy in "Stepmom"). Fay Grim (Parker Posey, underused here) is in jail serving a life sentence in a federal penitentiary for crimes against the state, thanks to her involvement with Henry (Thomas Jay Ryan), the incorrigibly hedonistic would-be author and Fay's husband. He's been in hiding for years. Their son, Ned, has been in foster care under the Witness Protection Program, with Rev. Gardner (Martin Donovan) and his family. Thanks to the religious upbringing, Ned believes in hellfire and brimstone, retribution instead of forgiveness. And so, on his 18th birthday, he sets out to find his absent father, a fugitive from the law, and kill him because Ned believes his father has ruined his mother's life and he should pay for his sins.
But first he has to find him. After visiting Mom in lockup (“You’re religious?!” she exclaims, baffled), he pays a visit to reclusive former-poet-laureate uncle Simon (James Urbaniak), who suspects Henry might be hiding out in Seattle. Tagging along without an invitation is Susan (Aubrey Plaza), who’s written her graduate dissertation on Simon Grim’s work — but as the pic goes along, her real agenda is revealed as something far more complex than mere obsessing over an admired writer.
Though lacking the emotional depth and almost epic scope that made “Henry Fool” loom so large after Hartley’s anecdotal, idiosyncratic early features, “Ned Rifle” is a far more satisfactory extension of its memorable characters than the misbegotten “Fay Grim.”
It's the two younger actors, Liam Aiken and Aubrey Plaza, that the film really focuses its story on this time and both of them are up for the challenge. I especially enjoyed seeing Aubrey Plaza play outside of her box of the sarcastic, deadpan funny girl (although, there's still her deadpan wit throughout the film). Plaza plays a character, Susan, who clearly has a deeper connection to Henry than she's willing to admit (at first). Her interactions and intentions with Henry make everything clearer and the film takes a turn from retribution to forgiveness because Ned is the kind of character that needs to grow for the film to succeed.
This is quite an entertaining film and I think it's a new trilogy that could and should be watched back to back to back.
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"She's Lost Control"
starring: Brooke Bloom, Marc Menchaca, Dennis Boutsikaris, Laila Robins, Tobias Segal, Roxanne Day, Robert Longstreet
written and directed by: Anja Marquardt
I have not seen "The Sessions" with John Hawkes, but it apparently covers the same subject matter and theme that "She's Lost Control" covers, and apparently Ben Lewin's film does a much better job. Both films deal with the emotional terrain and involves the complex relationship between a man with intimacy issues and the sex surrogate who tries to help him. This film, though, takes a much more clinical approach and focuses on the surrogate, who happens to be a master's degree student working on her thesis. Ronah (Bloom) does exude warmth and sympathy for her clients, and is happy when they can have a breakthrough, but it's clear she's using it as a facade to psychologically probe her clients. Ronah's life seems to be unraveling, personally, too, which makes what she does for work and her studies all the more intriguing. For example, there's a leak in her bathroom shower which leads to a hole in her bathroom wall that goes unfixed for awhile; concerns about her wanting to start her own private practice once she graduates and what exactly that entails; and finally, the concern that she may not be able to form intimate connections, as viewed by her interactions with her mentally unstable mother and resentful brother who ends up taking care of her most of the time.
Much of the intrigue that develops between her and one especially volatile patient, Johnny (Marc Menchaca), lies in the ambiguity between Ronah's sincerity and her observational distance—an ambiguity Johnny, also a doctor (an anesthesiologist, specifically), can't help but grasp until he eventually vents his frustrations in a destructive manner. Sex, of course, is considered by many to be a deeply emotional act, so there's a natural irony in the idea of approaching such a Dionysian act from an icy Apollonian remove. In that sense, the title is wholly, ironically appropriate: Ronah seeks control in an emotional world that arguably demands the release of it. Marquardt's film, thus, functions as a case study of a woman teetering on the edge of a psychological abyss, torn between a line of work that demands emotional detachment and an inner desire for human warmth.
The film definitely presents some thought-provoking questions, but it never really allows itself to finish the thoughts. It seems like the things presented in the third act of the film are simply vehicles to prove the story was going in the right direction, that there was a point, but it also seems contrived, and like it's trying to hard to prove itself to us. This was not enough for me.
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"Machete Kills"
starring: Danny Tejo, Mel Gibson, Demian Bichir, Amber Heard, Michelle Rodriguez, Sofia Vergara, Charlie Sheen, Lady Gaga, Vanessa Hudgens, Alexa PenaVega, Cuba Gooding Jr., Antonio Banderas, Walton Goggins, Tom Savini
written and directed by: Robert Rodriguez
Danny Trejo returns as the scowly, deadpan, musclebound master of edged weapons in this unruly, occasionally silly, but ultimately grindhouse-fun sequel to Robert Rodriguez’s 2010 actioner Machete (which itself is based on a faux, 90-second trailer in the Rodriguez/Tarantino doubleheaderGrindhouse from 2007). Think of it as a homage to some of the wilder Chuck Jones Looney Tunes of the Forties and Fifties – with a lot more leg and enough comically outrageous gore to satisfy even the most die-hard fan of Rodriguez’s increasingly crimson output.
I loved the Rodriguez-Tarantino Grindhouse double feature a few years back, which spawned this "Machete" series with Danny Trejo, who is the perfect actor for these types of films. I know exactly what to expect going into watching these films- they are purely and strictly for entertainment purposes only, not to be taken with more than a grain of salt they were borne from. Being a sequel, Rodriguez adopts the whole more manic, over-the-top chaos, with more guts, blood, violence all around than the first film. It's also just ridiculous enough to be taken lightly. The storyline is definitely a convoluted mess, but it works extremely well as a drunken, late-night mess.
In case you need to know the plot:
This time out, the former Mexican federale is called to duty by the president of the United States (Charlie Sheen, billed under his given name Carlos Estevez) to kill the insane Mexican revolutionary Mendez (Bichir). For that selfless act toward U.S. national security, Machete Cortez will receive a full presidential pardon for prior bloodbaths and, as a bonus, U.S. citizenship. The only things standing in his way are a bevy of bullet-laden, brassiere-blasting babes, Mel Gibson’s Voz (seemingly a psychotic riff on Space-X founder Elon Musk), and Lady Gaga. Yikes.
It has been interesting seeing Alexa PenaVega grow up and have roles like hers in this film. Alexa was a child star in such films as the "Spy Kids" franchise, as well as the television series "Ladies Man." Most recently, she turned to the sexier roles for "Sin City: A Dame to Kill For" and the first "Machete." It's also been announce that there will be a third film "Machete Kills in Space" which is bound to be just as ridiculous as the title suggests. But still, I can't wait to see what it is.
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"Ondine"
starring: Colin Farrell, Alicja Bachleda, Dervla Kirwan, Tony Curran
written and directed by: Neil Jordan
Full disclosure: I've never really liked Colin Farrell as an actor. I always thought he was more overrated and overused than he should have been. I never thought he should have gotten the big film roles that he got and he always seem way too arrogant. But, I did like him in the films "In Bruges" and "The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus" and "Crazy Heart" (I can't wait to watch the second season of "True Detective," as well).
This is a decent film, but I'm not so sure the credit belongs to Colin Farrell. Neil Jordan is a writer/director that seems fascinated by the idea of myths and legends, but mostly fairy tales. Deep down his films are fairy tales. This is the same person who brought us "The Crying Game" and "The Brave One." He seems fixated on the myths, but updates them for our modern times, while retaining the unique moral and psychological quintessence.
This film begins with an Irish fisherman named Syracuse (Farrell) lifting a beautiful woman, seemingly dead but brought back to life, in his fishing net.
Trying to rationalize the mysterious woman’s arrival, he tells his daughter a bedtime story. It begins, like most fairy tales do, with “Once upon a time.” Syracuse’s daughter, a sweetheart on the brink of kidney failure who too-precociously diagnoses her father with a case of “wish fulfillment,” responds, “Does it always have to be ‘Once upon a time’?”
Is Ondine (Alicja Bachleda) just a woman or is she a selkie, a seductive, skin-shedding creature found in Irish and Scottish mythology? Because she needs a miracle, little Annie (Alison Barry) would like to think so, delving into the local library’s puny archive for more information about what this enigmatic woman could have brought with her to their seemingly remote corner of the world—besides, that is, a beautiful singing voice that helps to fill the fish traps Syracuse lifts from the sea. Though you don’t doubt that this woman is just that, seemingly on the run from an equally mysterious man lingering in the film’s periphery, her pained secrecy, serenity, and stunning goodness transfixes all who come in contact with her.
Along with the mythical storyline, there's real beauty to the ambiguous sense of detail and understanding of how people relate to one another. It also presents some existential questioning for Syracuse as he struggles to understand the chaos this woman, Ondine, has brought into his life, yet at the same time, the fact that she's also given him more of a reason to live a better life with her in it. It's interesting when we find out the truth to Ondine's story.
Jordan never really harps on Syracuse’s past or alcoholism, but you understand his agony and get a tangible feel for the bitterness of his relationship to his ex-wife when, after she suffers a terrible accident, gets him to take a drink for the first time in years. Jordan understands guilt as one of our more powerful weapons. Jordan delights in subverting the clichés of the fairy tale. Ondine may be some kind of damsel in distress, but she saves Syracuse as much as he saves her—from the grime his deceased granny can no longer clean, the allure of drinking, and the hatefulness of his ex-wife. And what makes Annie’s “once upon a time” line so exceptionally beautiful is what it reveals about our complex relationship to fairy tales. All such stories—no matter how unbelievable they’ve become the longer they’ve passed from generation to generation—were once based on some kind of truth, and believing in them becomes a gesture of faith, and for Annie, a matter of life and death.
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