A Few Indie Films that Netflix Offers
"Between Us"
starring: Alison Sudol, Analeigh Tipton, Olivia Thirlby, Ben Feldman, Lesley Ann Warren, Adam Goldberg, Betsy Brandt, John Ross Bowie, Peter Bogdanovich, Cherilyn Wilson
written and directed by: Rafael Palacio Illingtonworth
This is another indie film about a relationship on the rocks, in the same vein as "Blue Valentine" where a young couple is dissecting their relationship individually and questioning whether or not they actually belong together. The difference with this film's storyline though is that the writer/director really sets up the male character, Henry (Feldman), to be the bad guy because let's face it, when we think of infidelity we think of guys never being able to keep it in their pants. But, here, that's a red herring and it's actually Dianne (Thirlby) who turns out to be the bad one, the one who takes things too far one night after a significant fight.
They are each struggling to find themselves individually in L.A. Henry is a filmmaker struggling to make a worthy second feature to live up to expectations after his first film. Dianne is some kind of hipster event planner with no other real direction in her life, like how to be an adult with an adult-type of a job.
Henry and Dianne have more in common than they realize, even though they seem to have drifted towards different wavelengths. They share a severe (and occasionally screwy) sense of humor, which helps sell the illusion that we’re spying on them behind closed doors; after coming to a major agreement, they begin chanting and dancing around their apartment, less like they’re celebrating and more like they’re trying to appease King Kong. Thirlby and Feldman are both on the same page, and the affection they share is just as convincing as their distress. For anyone who’s ever lived with their partner, watching this movie will be like staring into a very flattering funhouse mirror.
And yet, just because Henry and Dianne live in the same house doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s not a long-distance relationship. They both recognize the space between them, they just see it differently. He’s an optimist, and she’s not. He’s petrified of the future, and she’s not (no wonder his new script is about time travel). He’s anxious that people think Dianne is too good for him, and she would never entertain the thought. Watching the movie, it feels like they’re mutually responsible for the rift that forms between them — reflecting on it afterwards, it’s hard to deny that Henry is at fault. When Dianne falls in love with a new apartment and asks Henry to buy it with her, to become property owners together, he’s the one who starts to asphyxiate.
It's interesting to watch them decide to get married, seemingly on a whim, and it seems like a terrible decision and that apex to when things start to go wrong for them, immediately after. Is that how most marriages/relationships end up after marriage?
Henry gives Dianne a speech that is thought-provoking and relationship-defining talk and perhaps the best moment of the film:
“The lively girl you were when I first met is still inside, I just can’t have her anymore. If you met a new guy tomorrow you would just fuck everywhere, and you wouldn’t care if he had health insurance, or a good job — he’d be your top priority. That’s what kills me: Someone else can have it, but not me. Because I’m here.”
It's this moment that sends each person in separate, familiar directions which catapult the film into the third act.
Henry meets a tall girl with a pixie cut (Analeigh Tipton) who’s the physical manifestation of second thoughts. Combative, down for orgies, and rocking a little heart tattoo under her right ear, she’s younger than Henry has ever felt in his life. Dianne, for her part, goes down a similar road (one that ultimately leads her to Adam Goldberg).
I really enjoy films like this because they present the stories as "real" as real can be, almost a bit too real, especially when most people watch films as a form of escapism, but for me there is pleasure to watching a story that could be happening in real life. You almost feel like an uncomfortable voyeur.
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"Beyond the Gates"
starring: Graham Skipper, Chase Williamson, Brea Grant, Barbara Crampton, Matt Mercer, Justin Welborn, Sara Malakul Lane, Henry LeBlanc, Caryn Richman, Pierson Ryan
written by: Jackson Stewart and Stephen Scarlata
directed by: Jackson Stewart
This is one of those great indie horror films that allows the story to build up, the spooky atmosphere being like one of the characters first, before revealing the "horror" villain to us. It's also one of those indie horror films that isn't afraid to expose its influences (re: B-grade VHS horror films of the '70s and '80s) while paying homage to it throughout the film. Thanks to Netflix's original show "Stranger Things" and its clearly '80s influence and homage-paying-tribute, I think we can all appreciate when things like this are done, and done well.
The seven-month disappearance of their hard-living father (Henry LeBlanc), now presumed dead, has forced a strained reunion between his two now-adult children. Gordon (Graham Skipper) is the bespectacled, straight-arrow nerd, albeit one apparently in recovery from a history of drinking and anger-management issues. John (Chase Williamson) is the moderate bad boy whose current status re: housing and employment is murky as usual. Not particularly happy to see each other — especially since Gordon turned down ne’er-do-well John’s latest request for a “loan” — they nonetheless settle down to the business of boxing up dad’s long-dormant video store, which stubbornly clung to all-VHS stock well into the DVD era and beyond.
Meanwhile, Gordon uncomfortably takes up temporary re-residence in the padre’s abandoned house, where he’s soon joined by supportive, surprisingly hot girlfriend Margot (Brea Grant). While she spends each night knocked out on Ambien, Gordon immediately begins seeing and hearing disturbing, fleeting nocturnal phenomena there. By day two, they’ve got an extra housemate in John, who of course turns out to have already worn out his welcome under whatever roof he was crashing most recently.
After locating the key to dad’s hitherto off-limits back office, the sons discover the last thing their widower parent apparently watched was “Beyond the Gates,” a “VCR board game” of the type that represented a primitive early form of “interactive” gaming: You plugged in the videotape, and it guided you through some dumb fantasy scenario otherwise largely controlled by chance (i.e. dice). This one’s glamorously sinister video hostess (Barbara Crampton, also a producer here) promises players can “step into the ultimate nightmare” if they follow instructions to acquire four keys. Upon further investigation, however, it quickly becomes clear that something is more than a little strange about this particular game. Not only does the on-tape hostess seem impossibly attuned to what the real-world participants say and do, she drops heavy hints that the brothers’ dad is a captive held “beyond the gates,” and only their possibly life-endangering intervention can save his life — or, at least, his soul.
As the three play the game, that's when things start to get interesting and very "The Craft"-like, almost in a witchcraft/voodoo way, things start to happen to people in their lives while they play the game. Through the game, deaths occur, as the three complete tasks willingly and unwillingly in order to gain access to the four keys of the game in order to unlock the gate and get beyond it, to where their father is apparently being held.
The deaths are very B-grade horror and the filmmaker attempts no apologies at showing them that way. It's light and fun that way, not to mention humorous.
I really enjoyed this horror film and appreciated it for what it was.
.....................................................................................
"Mindhorn"
starring: Essie Davis, Andrea Riseborough, Steve Coogan, Russell Tovey, Jessica Barden, Harriet Walter, Simon Callow, Juian Barratt, Nicholas Farrell, David Schofield, Simon Farnaby
written by: Julian Barratt and Simon Farnaby
directed by: Sean Foley
You can always rely on British comedy to do one thing right almost every single time- the deluded narcissist. Julian Barratt has made a name for himself in the British comedy with his show "The Mighty Boosh," which is comedy gold in its own right.
Here, Barratt plays the deluded narcissist. Richard Thorncroft, an out of work actor struggling to make it. He spends his time between his flat in Walthamstow, and mistakenly being put forward to play Jamaicans in Kenneth Branagh’s latest production. This wasn’t always the case though, as Thorncroft was once Mindhorn a successful TV cop with a bionic eye that could tell the truth. As fate would have it, deranged suspected killer Paul Melly (Russell Tovey) is on the loose on The Isle of Man, and will only speak to Detective Mindhorn, who he believes to be real.
Thorncroft is a very archetypal British comic creation. He has far too much belief in himself, talks down to others, and makes the most incorrect of assumptions. Barratt is perfect for the role, adding a complete lack of self-awareness which aids in making Thorncroft more relatable.
Thorncroft is a tragic character whose lack of understanding adds to the film's frustration and empathy, which is a fine line to tread.
This is a great, funny at all the right times, kind of movie. You'll have fun and enjoy watching it. It's very similar to Will Ferrell's character in "Anchorman." So, if that's your bag, baby, you'll dig this one, much like I did.
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"Embers"
starring: Jason Ritter, Iva Gocheva, Greta Fernandez, Tucker Smallwood, Karl Glusman, Dominique Swain
written by: Claire Carre and Charles Spano
directed by: Claire Carre
Here is an example of a film school, pretention-heavy, boring film that tries to say something but really cannot get a message out, as it seems bogged down by its metaphors and allegories.
The simple question the film's story poses revolves around the idea that who we are is defined by our memories and our experiences, so then, what happens (to us) if we cannot remember any of it.
The characters are born again every time they open their eyes.
Two people (Gravity Falls' Jason Ritter and Iva Gocheva) convinced they must be lovers; a researcher (Tucker Smallwood) who attempts to apply logic to his situation; a violent, screaming barbarian (Karl Glusman) who flails through the chaos; a lost boy (Silvan Friedman), wide-eyed and innocent; and a daughter and father (Greta Fernandez and Roberto Cots). That final pair are the only ones that know what is going on: A virus destroys all memories. End a conversation, go round a corner, leave someone behind, and everything prior to that moment is erased.
Writer/director Carre explores the duality between the nature of what it means to be human with themes of memory being both a burden and an enlightenment, moral boundary and source of pain- all things I think we can relate to, but it is in the poetic and far too artistic way that she chose to explore the subjects that lost me. These themes could have been dissected in conversations between two characters sitting somewhere, instead of in a more cerebral sense.
Each character seems to be traveling along their own path of an amnesiac's version of Dante's "The Divine Comedy."
It's a depressing, boring journey.
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"The Woodsman"
starring: Kevin Bacon, Kyra Sedgwick, David Alan Grier, Eve, Benjamin Bratt, Carlos Leon, Michael Shannon, Kevin Rice, Mos Def, Hannah Piikes
written and directed by: Nicole Kassell
A very interesting and taboo subject matter to tackle (originally a play, and this film makes me want to see the play version, if it's still around)- rehabilitation and re-introduction into society of a child molester. The moral/ethical question being: if someone has been convicted, served their time for perhaps one of the most horrific crimes against another human being, do they deserve another chance at life? Do they forever remain a "child molester" no matter what they are attempting to do with their second chance?
Bacon delivers a carefully measured performance as a child molester who has just been released from prison after serving 12 years for his felonious conduct with a young girl. Based on a play by Steven Fechter, The Woodsman charts the path of Walter’s arduous reintegration into society. His sister rejects him and refuses to see Walter, although his brother-in-law (Bratt) occasionally stops by Walter’s spare apartment to show some familial concern. In addition to his parole officer, there is also the watchful eye of a local detective (Mos Def, in a strong performance), who shows up at Walter’s door from time to time. A proficient carpenter, Walter lands a job at a local lumberyard, where he meets the fearless forklift driver Vickie (Sedgwick). She’s a take-no-guff kind of gal, comfortable working around the male employees, and soon takes a shine to taciturn Walter.
It was interesting to see real-life husband and wife, Bacon and Sedgwick play opposite each other, especially with these difficult roles. Her character, in essence, answer the question of whether or not someone deserves forgiveness and a second chance, as she falls in love with Bacon's character, despite his past.
There are 2 conflicts going on in this film, clearly Walter has an internal struggle. And then, there's an external character, played out by Walter witnessing another child molester preying on boys in the park across the street from Walter's apartment, as he watches from the window of his apartment, you can see his internal rage. Should he report the molester/predator? Should he take the law/justice into his own hands?
The primary problem with The Woodsman, in fact, is Walter’s quietness. Bacon plays Walter as bottled-up loner, and as such it’s impossible to know what’s going on in his head. We watch him as he silently sits on the bus going to work and wonder what he’s thinking as he observes the other passengers, or when he looks out his apartment window at the playground below. In another scene he sits on a park bench with a young girl and we wonder if Walter will succumb to his demons, but we never actually witness his interior struggles. It may be a survival instinct that keeps these demons so buried from view, however it creates an uninteresting screen character who has no inner life.
This is the type of story that needs far more character development in order for Walter to become anything of a sympathetic character to the audience, which is a difficult task anyway, given the only things we know about him. It's a film that needs more heart.
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"The Perfect Host"
starring: David Hyde Pierce, Clayne Crawford, Tyrees Allen, Cooper Barnes, Helen Reddy, Joseph Will, Nathaniel Parker
written and directed by: Nick Tomnay
Now, this is an entertaining film! Dark humor done near-perfectly well. And, you get to see David Hyde Pierce playing a complete different character form his tenure on "Frasier."
For reasons fleshed out in somewhat unevenly presented flashbacks, John (Clayne Crawford) finds law enforcement in unexpectedly hot pursuit after robbing an L.A. bank. Desperate to get off the streets, he cons his way into an upscale residential home, pretending to be a friend of owner Warwick's (David Hyde Pierce) gal pal Julia. Warwick's casually strategic questioning quickly exposes John's subterfuge and he's forced to escalate the encounter into a full-scale home invasion, holding Warwick hostage with a kitchen carving knife while he tries to devise an exit strategy.
Distracted and drinking too much wine, John underestimates his host's resourcefulness and shortly finds himself drugged and bound as Warwick's helpless captive. Has he stumbled into a well-appointed serial killer's lair? Or are Warwick's multiple-personality issues just run-of-the-mill psychosis? Regardless, events are going to take quite a few more twists before John finds any answers.
I don't want to give too much away from spoilers, so I'll just say, the film has many twists and turns, one after another that make it rather entertaining. The story is well written and plays itself out rather well on the screen. Crawford and Pierce play well off each other, too.
starring: Alison Sudol, Analeigh Tipton, Olivia Thirlby, Ben Feldman, Lesley Ann Warren, Adam Goldberg, Betsy Brandt, John Ross Bowie, Peter Bogdanovich, Cherilyn Wilson
written and directed by: Rafael Palacio Illingtonworth
This is another indie film about a relationship on the rocks, in the same vein as "Blue Valentine" where a young couple is dissecting their relationship individually and questioning whether or not they actually belong together. The difference with this film's storyline though is that the writer/director really sets up the male character, Henry (Feldman), to be the bad guy because let's face it, when we think of infidelity we think of guys never being able to keep it in their pants. But, here, that's a red herring and it's actually Dianne (Thirlby) who turns out to be the bad one, the one who takes things too far one night after a significant fight.
They are each struggling to find themselves individually in L.A. Henry is a filmmaker struggling to make a worthy second feature to live up to expectations after his first film. Dianne is some kind of hipster event planner with no other real direction in her life, like how to be an adult with an adult-type of a job.
Henry and Dianne have more in common than they realize, even though they seem to have drifted towards different wavelengths. They share a severe (and occasionally screwy) sense of humor, which helps sell the illusion that we’re spying on them behind closed doors; after coming to a major agreement, they begin chanting and dancing around their apartment, less like they’re celebrating and more like they’re trying to appease King Kong. Thirlby and Feldman are both on the same page, and the affection they share is just as convincing as their distress. For anyone who’s ever lived with their partner, watching this movie will be like staring into a very flattering funhouse mirror.
And yet, just because Henry and Dianne live in the same house doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s not a long-distance relationship. They both recognize the space between them, they just see it differently. He’s an optimist, and she’s not. He’s petrified of the future, and she’s not (no wonder his new script is about time travel). He’s anxious that people think Dianne is too good for him, and she would never entertain the thought. Watching the movie, it feels like they’re mutually responsible for the rift that forms between them — reflecting on it afterwards, it’s hard to deny that Henry is at fault. When Dianne falls in love with a new apartment and asks Henry to buy it with her, to become property owners together, he’s the one who starts to asphyxiate.
It's interesting to watch them decide to get married, seemingly on a whim, and it seems like a terrible decision and that apex to when things start to go wrong for them, immediately after. Is that how most marriages/relationships end up after marriage?
Henry gives Dianne a speech that is thought-provoking and relationship-defining talk and perhaps the best moment of the film:
“The lively girl you were when I first met is still inside, I just can’t have her anymore. If you met a new guy tomorrow you would just fuck everywhere, and you wouldn’t care if he had health insurance, or a good job — he’d be your top priority. That’s what kills me: Someone else can have it, but not me. Because I’m here.”
It's this moment that sends each person in separate, familiar directions which catapult the film into the third act.
Henry meets a tall girl with a pixie cut (Analeigh Tipton) who’s the physical manifestation of second thoughts. Combative, down for orgies, and rocking a little heart tattoo under her right ear, she’s younger than Henry has ever felt in his life. Dianne, for her part, goes down a similar road (one that ultimately leads her to Adam Goldberg).
I really enjoy films like this because they present the stories as "real" as real can be, almost a bit too real, especially when most people watch films as a form of escapism, but for me there is pleasure to watching a story that could be happening in real life. You almost feel like an uncomfortable voyeur.
.............................................................................................
"Beyond the Gates"
starring: Graham Skipper, Chase Williamson, Brea Grant, Barbara Crampton, Matt Mercer, Justin Welborn, Sara Malakul Lane, Henry LeBlanc, Caryn Richman, Pierson Ryan
written by: Jackson Stewart and Stephen Scarlata
directed by: Jackson Stewart
This is one of those great indie horror films that allows the story to build up, the spooky atmosphere being like one of the characters first, before revealing the "horror" villain to us. It's also one of those indie horror films that isn't afraid to expose its influences (re: B-grade VHS horror films of the '70s and '80s) while paying homage to it throughout the film. Thanks to Netflix's original show "Stranger Things" and its clearly '80s influence and homage-paying-tribute, I think we can all appreciate when things like this are done, and done well.
The seven-month disappearance of their hard-living father (Henry LeBlanc), now presumed dead, has forced a strained reunion between his two now-adult children. Gordon (Graham Skipper) is the bespectacled, straight-arrow nerd, albeit one apparently in recovery from a history of drinking and anger-management issues. John (Chase Williamson) is the moderate bad boy whose current status re: housing and employment is murky as usual. Not particularly happy to see each other — especially since Gordon turned down ne’er-do-well John’s latest request for a “loan” — they nonetheless settle down to the business of boxing up dad’s long-dormant video store, which stubbornly clung to all-VHS stock well into the DVD era and beyond.
Meanwhile, Gordon uncomfortably takes up temporary re-residence in the padre’s abandoned house, where he’s soon joined by supportive, surprisingly hot girlfriend Margot (Brea Grant). While she spends each night knocked out on Ambien, Gordon immediately begins seeing and hearing disturbing, fleeting nocturnal phenomena there. By day two, they’ve got an extra housemate in John, who of course turns out to have already worn out his welcome under whatever roof he was crashing most recently.
After locating the key to dad’s hitherto off-limits back office, the sons discover the last thing their widower parent apparently watched was “Beyond the Gates,” a “VCR board game” of the type that represented a primitive early form of “interactive” gaming: You plugged in the videotape, and it guided you through some dumb fantasy scenario otherwise largely controlled by chance (i.e. dice). This one’s glamorously sinister video hostess (Barbara Crampton, also a producer here) promises players can “step into the ultimate nightmare” if they follow instructions to acquire four keys. Upon further investigation, however, it quickly becomes clear that something is more than a little strange about this particular game. Not only does the on-tape hostess seem impossibly attuned to what the real-world participants say and do, she drops heavy hints that the brothers’ dad is a captive held “beyond the gates,” and only their possibly life-endangering intervention can save his life — or, at least, his soul.
As the three play the game, that's when things start to get interesting and very "The Craft"-like, almost in a witchcraft/voodoo way, things start to happen to people in their lives while they play the game. Through the game, deaths occur, as the three complete tasks willingly and unwillingly in order to gain access to the four keys of the game in order to unlock the gate and get beyond it, to where their father is apparently being held.
The deaths are very B-grade horror and the filmmaker attempts no apologies at showing them that way. It's light and fun that way, not to mention humorous.
I really enjoyed this horror film and appreciated it for what it was.
.....................................................................................
"Mindhorn"
starring: Essie Davis, Andrea Riseborough, Steve Coogan, Russell Tovey, Jessica Barden, Harriet Walter, Simon Callow, Juian Barratt, Nicholas Farrell, David Schofield, Simon Farnaby
written by: Julian Barratt and Simon Farnaby
directed by: Sean Foley
You can always rely on British comedy to do one thing right almost every single time- the deluded narcissist. Julian Barratt has made a name for himself in the British comedy with his show "The Mighty Boosh," which is comedy gold in its own right.
Here, Barratt plays the deluded narcissist. Richard Thorncroft, an out of work actor struggling to make it. He spends his time between his flat in Walthamstow, and mistakenly being put forward to play Jamaicans in Kenneth Branagh’s latest production. This wasn’t always the case though, as Thorncroft was once Mindhorn a successful TV cop with a bionic eye that could tell the truth. As fate would have it, deranged suspected killer Paul Melly (Russell Tovey) is on the loose on The Isle of Man, and will only speak to Detective Mindhorn, who he believes to be real.
Thorncroft is a very archetypal British comic creation. He has far too much belief in himself, talks down to others, and makes the most incorrect of assumptions. Barratt is perfect for the role, adding a complete lack of self-awareness which aids in making Thorncroft more relatable.
Thorncroft is a tragic character whose lack of understanding adds to the film's frustration and empathy, which is a fine line to tread.
This is a great, funny at all the right times, kind of movie. You'll have fun and enjoy watching it. It's very similar to Will Ferrell's character in "Anchorman." So, if that's your bag, baby, you'll dig this one, much like I did.
.....................................................................................
"Embers"
starring: Jason Ritter, Iva Gocheva, Greta Fernandez, Tucker Smallwood, Karl Glusman, Dominique Swain
written by: Claire Carre and Charles Spano
directed by: Claire Carre
Here is an example of a film school, pretention-heavy, boring film that tries to say something but really cannot get a message out, as it seems bogged down by its metaphors and allegories.
The simple question the film's story poses revolves around the idea that who we are is defined by our memories and our experiences, so then, what happens (to us) if we cannot remember any of it.
The characters are born again every time they open their eyes.
Two people (Gravity Falls' Jason Ritter and Iva Gocheva) convinced they must be lovers; a researcher (Tucker Smallwood) who attempts to apply logic to his situation; a violent, screaming barbarian (Karl Glusman) who flails through the chaos; a lost boy (Silvan Friedman), wide-eyed and innocent; and a daughter and father (Greta Fernandez and Roberto Cots). That final pair are the only ones that know what is going on: A virus destroys all memories. End a conversation, go round a corner, leave someone behind, and everything prior to that moment is erased.
Writer/director Carre explores the duality between the nature of what it means to be human with themes of memory being both a burden and an enlightenment, moral boundary and source of pain- all things I think we can relate to, but it is in the poetic and far too artistic way that she chose to explore the subjects that lost me. These themes could have been dissected in conversations between two characters sitting somewhere, instead of in a more cerebral sense.
Each character seems to be traveling along their own path of an amnesiac's version of Dante's "The Divine Comedy."
It's a depressing, boring journey.
.......................................................................................
"The Woodsman"
starring: Kevin Bacon, Kyra Sedgwick, David Alan Grier, Eve, Benjamin Bratt, Carlos Leon, Michael Shannon, Kevin Rice, Mos Def, Hannah Piikes
written and directed by: Nicole Kassell
A very interesting and taboo subject matter to tackle (originally a play, and this film makes me want to see the play version, if it's still around)- rehabilitation and re-introduction into society of a child molester. The moral/ethical question being: if someone has been convicted, served their time for perhaps one of the most horrific crimes against another human being, do they deserve another chance at life? Do they forever remain a "child molester" no matter what they are attempting to do with their second chance?
Bacon delivers a carefully measured performance as a child molester who has just been released from prison after serving 12 years for his felonious conduct with a young girl. Based on a play by Steven Fechter, The Woodsman charts the path of Walter’s arduous reintegration into society. His sister rejects him and refuses to see Walter, although his brother-in-law (Bratt) occasionally stops by Walter’s spare apartment to show some familial concern. In addition to his parole officer, there is also the watchful eye of a local detective (Mos Def, in a strong performance), who shows up at Walter’s door from time to time. A proficient carpenter, Walter lands a job at a local lumberyard, where he meets the fearless forklift driver Vickie (Sedgwick). She’s a take-no-guff kind of gal, comfortable working around the male employees, and soon takes a shine to taciturn Walter.
It was interesting to see real-life husband and wife, Bacon and Sedgwick play opposite each other, especially with these difficult roles. Her character, in essence, answer the question of whether or not someone deserves forgiveness and a second chance, as she falls in love with Bacon's character, despite his past.
There are 2 conflicts going on in this film, clearly Walter has an internal struggle. And then, there's an external character, played out by Walter witnessing another child molester preying on boys in the park across the street from Walter's apartment, as he watches from the window of his apartment, you can see his internal rage. Should he report the molester/predator? Should he take the law/justice into his own hands?
The primary problem with The Woodsman, in fact, is Walter’s quietness. Bacon plays Walter as bottled-up loner, and as such it’s impossible to know what’s going on in his head. We watch him as he silently sits on the bus going to work and wonder what he’s thinking as he observes the other passengers, or when he looks out his apartment window at the playground below. In another scene he sits on a park bench with a young girl and we wonder if Walter will succumb to his demons, but we never actually witness his interior struggles. It may be a survival instinct that keeps these demons so buried from view, however it creates an uninteresting screen character who has no inner life.
This is the type of story that needs far more character development in order for Walter to become anything of a sympathetic character to the audience, which is a difficult task anyway, given the only things we know about him. It's a film that needs more heart.
.......................................................................................
"The Perfect Host"
starring: David Hyde Pierce, Clayne Crawford, Tyrees Allen, Cooper Barnes, Helen Reddy, Joseph Will, Nathaniel Parker
written and directed by: Nick Tomnay
Now, this is an entertaining film! Dark humor done near-perfectly well. And, you get to see David Hyde Pierce playing a complete different character form his tenure on "Frasier."
For reasons fleshed out in somewhat unevenly presented flashbacks, John (Clayne Crawford) finds law enforcement in unexpectedly hot pursuit after robbing an L.A. bank. Desperate to get off the streets, he cons his way into an upscale residential home, pretending to be a friend of owner Warwick's (David Hyde Pierce) gal pal Julia. Warwick's casually strategic questioning quickly exposes John's subterfuge and he's forced to escalate the encounter into a full-scale home invasion, holding Warwick hostage with a kitchen carving knife while he tries to devise an exit strategy.
Distracted and drinking too much wine, John underestimates his host's resourcefulness and shortly finds himself drugged and bound as Warwick's helpless captive. Has he stumbled into a well-appointed serial killer's lair? Or are Warwick's multiple-personality issues just run-of-the-mill psychosis? Regardless, events are going to take quite a few more twists before John finds any answers.
I don't want to give too much away from spoilers, so I'll just say, the film has many twists and turns, one after another that make it rather entertaining. The story is well written and plays itself out rather well on the screen. Crawford and Pierce play well off each other, too.
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