Movies, movies, movies
"Twelve"
starring: Chace Crawford, Rory Culkin, Philip Ettinger, Esti Ginzburg, 50 Cent, Zoe Kravitz, Billy Magnussen, Emily Meade, Emma Roberts, Ellen Barkin, Kiefer Sutherland,
written by: Jordan Melamed
directed by: Joel Schumacher
"Twelve" is the kind of movie you could probably watch if there was absolutely nothing else on, you were tied to a chair and forced to watch, and/or didn't know that there were far better movies made with the same general concept in mind. I think this movie suffers from trying to be like all its predecessors like the amazing "Traffic" or "Requiem for a Dream" "Gossip Girl" and "St. Elmo's Fire" and "Kids" as well as "Less Than Zero" (see what I mean about way better movies) and any other movie about drugs and teens and partying and privileged society. The thing that is most infuriating about this film is the narration )by Keifer Sutherland) from an omnipresent position. I generally cannot stand narration but will accept it if it's coming from the main character as it allows us in their head (re: "Juno").
It takes place in Manhattan's Upper East Side, which just automatically makes you think, oh geez, these privileged teens are going to think their lives are so bad, but really you'd just like to slap them.
The self-absorbed teens of Twelve appear to be the spiritual godchildren of Bret Easton Ellis (Less Than Zero) and Larry Clark (Kids). Back from their elite private schools on spring break, these characters enact their stylized dramas over the course of one weekend. In an even earlier decade, they would have been the sort of prep-school “phonies” despised by Holden Caulfield. Now they are social climbers who harbor little more ambition than a mention in the “Page Six” gossip column.
It doesn't help the film's case that "Gossip Girl" actor Chace Crawford plays the main character, White Mike (really?! are you kidding me with the name?!)
After his mother’s death from cancer, White Mike becomes a drug dealer instead of going to college. He’s good at his job, but he broods a lot and is unwilling to deal the new fictional drug called twelve, which appears to be instantly addictive. Twelve is dealt by Lionel (Jackson, aka 50 Cent).
The most trouble with this film is that everything we learn about the characters comes through the narrations, not the actions or dialogue, a big no-no. And the film's violent crescendo is way too predictable and been-there-done-that.
Skip this one for what its worth.
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"The Fitzgerald Family Christmas"
starring: Kerry Bishe, Edward Burns, Heather Burns, Marsha Dietlin, Caitlin Fitzgerald, Anita Gillette, Tom Guiry, Ed Lauter, Michael McGlone, Nick Sandow, Noah Emmerich, Connie Britton
written and directed by: Edward Burns
Full disclosure: I absolutely love Edward Burns' films, like all of them, from the first one I saw for the first time, back in high school (re: She's the One, I know I know, I went back and watched The Brothers McMullen after, because that was his first one, but I had such a crush on Jennifer Aniston and Cameron Diaz that this one struck me first). Burns is an excellent actor, in all his own films, writer, director (and sometimes producer). To wear that many hats, be so invested in his own films, and still have them come out so well, it's just an awesome treat for anyone who enjoys films.
Look at his history:
The Brothers McMullen
She's the One
No Looking Back
Sidewalks of New York
Ash Wednesday
Looking for Kitty
The Groomsmen
Purple Violets
Nice Guy Johnny
The Newlyweds
and The Fitzgerald Family Christmas
This film finds him returning to what made him a star on the map of fame, the Irish-Catholic roots, for this "family" film set at Christmas time. There is a reason why Burns has been compared to Woody Allen, sometimes dubbed the Irish Woody. His films and characters can be very similar, in vein, to Allen's films and characters. The dialogue is so crisp and flows so well you'd almost wonder if it was actually scripted or simply improvised, while also wondering if these characters were actually real and we were invading on their lives, as everything happens so intimately.
The story:
Burns plays Gerry Fitzgerald, the eldest of seven children parented by Josie (a superb Anita Gillette), a single mom since her husband, Big Jim (Ed Lauter), walked out on them 20 years ago. Now Big Jim has been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. He wants to come home for Christmas. Josie wants no part of the rat bastard. His adult children are divided on the issue. That's the movie. It sounds like a Hallmark card, but Burns and a bracingly fine cast play it for real. Lots of grit and comic grace notes. Burns introduces so many characters at once that the movie begins to feel like a Tolstoy novel. But we know them soon enough, without a scorecard. Gerry is the family caretaker, the responsible one. Brother Quinn (Michael McGlone) wants to propose to younger girlfriend (Daniella Pineda). Sister Sharon (Kerry Bishe) hooks up with a father-figure (Noah Emmerich). Sister Dottie (Marsha Dietlein Bennett) dumps her husband for a hottie gardener. Sister Connie (Caitlin Fitzgerald) is pregnant by an abusive boyfriend. The youngest brother Cyril (Tom Guiry) is just out of rehab. Sister Erin (Heather Burns), allegedly the normal one, has married up and looks down on her family, except for daddy. Emotions run high. But Burns never plays it cheap and cheesy.
I love the addition of Connie Britton into the Burns' film world, because she is just absolutely amazing as an actress, thanks in large part to her turn on "Friday Night Lights" which cemented my love for her as a strong actress.
Burns knocks it out of the park with this holiday-family-themed indie film and has always been one of the major reasons why I love indie films way more than big Hollywood films.
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"Let's Go to Prison"
starring: Dax Shephard, Will Arnett, Chi McBride, David Koechner, Dylan Baker, Michael Shannon
written by: Robert Ben Garant, Tom Lennon
directed by: Bob Odenkirk
It's way too that this film just sort of fails right out of the gate and never regains itself or allows itself to take a break or take a chance; and it certainly does not help that it's not funny at all, because it's definitely supposed to be a comedy. It's too bad because the director is Bob Odenkirk, who made "sketch" comedy great with David Cross and "Mr. Show" as well as the Cartoon Network's cartoon comedy show "Tom Goes to the Mayor." Unfortunately for him though, I think many people forgot that he was a comedian after his well-done and highly praised performance in "Breaking Bad" as Walter White's buffoon lawyer, and then again in "Better Call Saul." It's too bad, also, because the film was written by the same team responsible for "Reno 911!" which is a show made of comedy gold and really help rebrand the sit-com.
"Let's Go to Prison" has the look and feel of a much shorter bit of sketchy shenanigans brought up to feature running time; it's not so much funny as sporadically amusing. For long stretches of time, however, it's just a flat-out bore, milking prison gags that were ancient when Alcatraz was new and never connecting with the audience's funnybone in any way other than the "Funny, I thought this was supposed to be a comedy" brain teaser. Shepard plays John Lyshitski, an in-and-out con who decides to take his revenge on the judge who long ago sealed his hoodlum fate by casting him to the juvie wolves. As it turns out, the object of Lyshitski's ire has shuffled off to that big night court in the sky, and so Lyshitski schemes His Honor's self-important and thoroughly white-bread son (Arnett) – as well as himself – into the pokey instead. Predictably, Junior soon has the inmates eating out of his, um, stainless-steel toilet, roping a lovesick behemoth (McBride) into his personal circle, and winning the loyalty of the local white-supremacist gang by accidentally offing their unloved leader.
It's just a pointless comedy (of so many errors) that it falls on its face several times.
Skip it.
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"Satanic"
starring: Sarah Hyland, Steven Kruegger, Justin Chon, Clara Mamet, Sophie Dalah, Anthony Carrigan, Marc Barnes, Stevin Knight
written by: Anthony Jaswinski
directed by: Jeffrey Hunt
The plot is horror film fodder: five friends decide to take a road trip to Coachella (a music festival for anyone who doesn't know), while making a stop for some occult sightseeing because who doesn't want to be scared shitless from voodoo and satanism and all that, while on a road trip.
They rent a room that housed a Satan-worshipping girl who slit her throat in the name of Satan awhile back and now haunts the room. For sightseeing purposes, they make stops at the Church of Satan, the site of the Manson Murders, and an occult thrift shop. Oh, and they also happen to "save" a girl from being sacrificed by a group of satan worshippers and form a friendship/bond with her when she comes to hang out with them in their hotel room, where all the weird shit happens.
I think this film could've been better, if it didn't play itself off as something written for a network liek the CW, just a longer and gutsier episode of one of the many teen-centered shows.
The story itself isn't all that bad; it's the typical "Idiot teens get stalked and slashed" kind of story, and those can be entertaining enough, even if most of them are generic as hell. Satanic though, doesn't do what most Teen Terror flicks do to make themselves tolerable, which is show a bunch of kids getting naked and getting killed in horrific ways. When people die in this movie (which save for one, doesn't happen until the last 20 minutes or so), we see nothing. One of them goes into a port-a-potty, and disappears; another goes off alone, only to show up dead later; yet another simply disappears; and the Final Girl, which you can probably guess is Sarah Hyland's character... well she gets to be a part of a cheesy twist that leads to an ending that is open to interpretation.
The acting is pretty bad. Poor Sarah Hyland, I just don't think she'll ever outshine her turn on "Modern Family" and make it as a movie star, or at least a girl who can lead a film, even written as the Final Girl for a horror film. The star of the film ends up being the Satanist, played by Sophie Dalah. Her acting is stellar and she steals the show.
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"The Retrieval"
starring: Ashton Sanders, Tishuan Scott, Keston John, Bill Oberst Jr., Christine Horn, Alfonso Freeman
written and directed by: Chris Eska
This is an excellent period piece, small, indie film that is superbly written and the performances are very subtle but heartbreakingly done so well. It's interesting that another white writer-director is tackling the Civil War-era and slavery topic (I'm looking at you Quentin Tarantino) like "Django Unchained" and "12 Years a Slave", both Oscar caliber films in their own rights by different filmmakers, but with a much much different approach. And it's also interesting that the black filmmaker, Nate Parker, got attacked for his antics (albeit they were serious, sexual assault is never something that should be taken lightly) outside of the film industry, and distracted everyone from how well his film about the same topic, yet through the eyes of Nate Turner (a black slave that led a rebellion).
Here, Chris Eska tackles the oft-made story about coming-of-age, through the eyes of a thirteen year old slave in a very unique way.
Thirteen-year-old Will (Sanders) is a Southern black kid, who, seemingly, has no relatives apart from his uncle Marcus (John). Together, during the waning months of the Civil War, the pair work for a white bounty hunter (Oberst), who captures and returns escaped slaves. The moral quandaries faced by Will are laid out in The Retrieval’s opening sequence: During the dead of night, with the ominous sound of cannons booming in the near distance, Will knocks on the door of a white woman, who leads the boy to her barn where several runaway slaves are camped for the night. Will lies down among them, and even accepts a morsel of food offered to him by one of the fugitives. The night quiet soon erupts into mayhem when the bounty hunters raid the barn and torch the woman’s property. For their efforts in betraying their race, Marcus and Will receive some coins as payment and are tasked with a new mission: crossing over to the North to lure back the freedman Nate (Scott), who has an especially high bounty on his head.
Coaxing Nate back with a fabricated story about his fatally ill brother, Marcus and Will insist on accompanying the former slave on the dangerous journey. Wartime dangers surround them and the muffled cannon roar is a constant reminder of the war’s proximity. Although wary of these strangers, Nate eventually adopts a protective attitude toward Will, the fatherless boy who yearns for a male role model.
This is a slow, quiet, subtle film that forces you to pay close attention to because of all its nuisances. This is a great indie film about a touchy subject, but it's definitely worth watching and appreciating, especially given the climate of our society's culture at the moment.
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"The Hole"
starring: Chris Massolgia, Haley Bennett, Nathan Gamble, Teri Polo, Bruce Dern, Quinn Lord, John DeSantis, Douglas Chapman, Mark Pawson
written by: Mark L. Smith
directed by: Joe Dante
It seems like Joe Dante is known for these supernatural, teen-based drama-horror films, looking at his resume which dates all the way back to the 1980s with such widely loved and superb films:
Gremlins
Explorers
InnerSpace
The Burbs
Gremlins 2
Small Soldiers
The Hole (here)
as well as Burying the Ex (which I loved and reviewed maybe a couple of years ago)
His films like this one seem to follow a similar theme of displaced teens looking for a connection with someone, while finding themselves as their parents are not necessarily central parts of their lives because adulthood is complicated and tough most of the time and kids just don't understand. So, the kids find refuge within themselves and with each other as they can comisserated. Then, they discover something supernatural which gets them interested and distracted from whatever is troubling them, but only to discover that this adventure will help them figure things out.
The film follows a woman named Susan Thompson (Teri Polo) who relocates from Brooklyn to a suburban home in Bensonville with her two sons Dane (Chris Massoglia) and Lucas (Nathan Gamble) in tow. Given that the kids have been moved around a lot, neither are particularly happy about having to relocate again, with the older brother Dane taking it unusually hard. Things change for the better when they meet their new neighbor, a beautiful young lady named Julie (Haley Bennett) who they immediately hit it off with. Before you know it, there's a little spark of something sweet going on between Julie and Dane and understandably his mood starts to improve.
Things seem to be going well enough for the boys once they settle in until they're exploring the basement with Julie one day and come across an entrance to... something in their basement. Secured with a bunch of locks that they are eventually able to remove, the three open it up and find what they believe to be a bottomless hole - light does not reach the bottom and when they drop a few things down into it, they hear nothing. They even go so far as to tie a camcorder to a rope and lower it down as far as they can to try and figure out what this is all about, but there's no luck. Soon, however, strange things start happening around the house: a creepy little girl appears to Julie, Lucas' fear of clowns comes into play and a strange old man named Creepy Carl (Bruce Dern) arrives, claiming to have once been the caretaker responsible for sealing the hole. As the kids learn more about the hole, they try to seal it once more, but it seems to be fighting back...
This is an entertaining film for exactly what it is. It's not bad, but it's also not great, but then again, Joe Dante's resume really has a lot to live up to when you're the same guy that made "Explorers" and "Gremlins" and "InnerSpace" specifically.
I really enjoyed it, as it grabbed my attention and kept it, which is important for all movies but I think supernatural films in particular can sort of get lost in explanations and in attempts to impress with graphics and such. Everything about Dante's filmmaker is simple.
And Haley Bennett really shows herself to be quite an up-and-coming actress with her performance, even though she is a secondary character to the two boys. She's got the looks of Jennifer Lawrence and the acting chops to carry herself well. She hasn't been in many films, nor has she been the main vehicle for films, but she's putting in her time and I think people are starting to notice.
This year, alone, she was in "The Girl on the Train," "The Magnificent Seven," and "Rules Don't Apply." I'll be keeping an eye on her, for sure.
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"Before I Go to Sleep"
starring: Nicole Kidman, Colin Firth, Mark Strong, Ben Crompton, Anne-Marie Duff, Adam Levy
written and bdirected by: Rowan Joffe
This film attempts to unravel the suspense in the same way that "Momento" did masterfully over a decade before it, except with this story, we find Nicole Kidman in the lead role, as a woman who wakes up every morning with a form of amnesia (which we never fully grasp or come to understand), her memory completely wiped out and she attempts to find answers before she falls asleep again, and she videotapes herself in the bathroom, in order to hopefully keep track of her findings. In "Momento" the character tattooed himself until he put the puzzle pieces together. The only trouble here is that Kidman's character is being told different stories by different people and she does not necessarily know who she can trust and who she cannot trust. The suspense is in finding the answers but also hopefully bringing justice to whoever has done wrong to her.
Thrillers and suspense films have an obligation to the audience to provide twists and turns, to misdirect and provide a false sense of a lead with red herrings here and there, but where this film fails is in providing believability of the characters and the lies they are providing, which is supposed to lead Kidman's chracter in the wrong directions.
It begins with Christine (Kidman) waking up, seeming startled and a little disoriented by the man sleeping next to her. Rubbing her eyes, she goes into the bathroom where she encounters a stalker's wall of photos focused on the man and herself. Returning to the bedroom, she finds him sitting on the edge of the bed waiting for her. Patiently, he explains that he is Ben (Firth), her husband, but she doesn't recognize him because, as the result of a terrible accident years ago, she has a form of amnesia whereby each morning she wakes with her memory completely wiped clean.
Unfortunately, Nicole Kidman and Colin Firth were miscast because there is a lack of chemistry between them. There isn't really much tension provided between the two of them.
The ending is more insult and a solid wrap up to a confusing story that seemed to go nowhere, anyway, which is all unfortunate, because this is coming from the writer of a great film a few years ago, "The American."
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"Intruder"
starring: Steven Beckingham, Teresa Decher, Louise Linton, Susannah Mars, Moby, Zach Myers, John Robinson, Aaron Trainor
written and directed by: Travis Zariwny
Here's another thriller that is meant to make us feel uncomfortable with what we are watching. An intruder, hence the title, invades a young woman's home and sees everything she does, from intimate things like showering, to the more mundane, simple everyday activities like making dinner, oh and sleep. It's voyeuristic in nature, but you also feel like an intruder as well, because of how the film uses POV sometimes, you are seeing it through the intruder's eyes.
The uncomfortable factor ups the ante because you never know when the other shoe is going to drop and at every turn, you are wondering when or if he is going to kill her. What is the point of intruding? Is it just to simply violate someone's privacy?
Elizabeth (Louise Linton), a beautiful cellist, spends an ample amount of time at home, curled up on her couch, living her simple and mundane life the way most of us do. As a violent storm rages outside and Elizabeth drifts from room to room in her humble abode, we learn someone is watching her every move. From inside the apartment.
Unlike most home invasion films though, our time is dutifully split between Elizabeth and her presumed perpetrator. As Elizabeth goes about eating her dinner, sleeping, showering – our hunter is omnipresent. Always cautiously waiting, and watching.
What the director/writer relies on are the questions the viewer asks themselves: when the killer will strike? will he make a mistake? and who it is? The trouble with relying solely on these questions and the mystery is that the audience can grow tired of the near-misses and close-calls of almost being found out. Audiences want some action to keep their attention. After a strong start, the film sort of drags on until the strong and balls-out ending of a risk.
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"Mercy"
starring: James Wolk, Caitlin Fitzgerald, Tom Lipinski, Dan Ziskie, Michael Godere, Michael Vincent Donovan, Constance Barron, Hilary R. Walker
written and directed by: Chris Sparling
This is a Netflix-produced film that has a lot going on, many layers to unravel as it appears to be a film about one thing- the slow release and death of a family member and the family coming together to come to terms- but then, you realize it's about something else entirely, in an almost M. Night Shyamalan-twist kind of way, when a group of masked man are introduced just as the family comes together. That's when the real mystery unfolds itself.
Two groups of characters are motivated by two very different reasons; neither motivation is very honourable, however. Playing out like a mystery initially, events take a darker turn, at the film's mid-point. It is here where a point-of-view is changed, as well. Grace's (Constance Barron) relationship with a cult-like religious sect, also creates some of the film's mystery.
The film's story plays out straight-forwardly, at first. Act I involves one family coming together, over the death of their mother or wife. Grace is completely housebound. The brothers, two from a previous marriage, argue over an inheritance, while forgoing any feelings for the death or the suffering of their mother. A second husband, to Grace, is also uninterested in bringing the family together. This family is only interested in Grace's financial holdings.
A group of masked men bring events to a head. They infiltrate the home and quickly dispatch two characters, one by accident. The masked characters speak very little to each other as they go about their murderous work. They are there for Grace, too, but for a very different reason. The differing motivations of the brothers (greed) and the masked characters (salvation?) cause a lot of the trouble, leaving few characters untouched. There are no happy endings here as these mysterious cultists move about a remote country farm and home.
There are videotaped conversations that act as segues between what's happening in the present and who these masked men might be and their motivation for being there. The film also presents us with a test of morality in two ways: 1) the family members are clearly motivated by the greed of who gets what when their matriarch passes away and how exactly she'll eventually pass, by their hands or by their hands of doing nothing- and then 2) the experimental cure that could potentially save her life, for a little bit longer at least, presented by the cult of these masked men.
I won't give things away, instead, I will say you can certainly sit and watch this film, as Netflix rarely misses the mark (so far) with their productions. It's a good story with good acting.
starring: Chace Crawford, Rory Culkin, Philip Ettinger, Esti Ginzburg, 50 Cent, Zoe Kravitz, Billy Magnussen, Emily Meade, Emma Roberts, Ellen Barkin, Kiefer Sutherland,
written by: Jordan Melamed
directed by: Joel Schumacher
"Twelve" is the kind of movie you could probably watch if there was absolutely nothing else on, you were tied to a chair and forced to watch, and/or didn't know that there were far better movies made with the same general concept in mind. I think this movie suffers from trying to be like all its predecessors like the amazing "Traffic" or "Requiem for a Dream" "Gossip Girl" and "St. Elmo's Fire" and "Kids" as well as "Less Than Zero" (see what I mean about way better movies) and any other movie about drugs and teens and partying and privileged society. The thing that is most infuriating about this film is the narration )by Keifer Sutherland) from an omnipresent position. I generally cannot stand narration but will accept it if it's coming from the main character as it allows us in their head (re: "Juno").
It takes place in Manhattan's Upper East Side, which just automatically makes you think, oh geez, these privileged teens are going to think their lives are so bad, but really you'd just like to slap them.
The self-absorbed teens of Twelve appear to be the spiritual godchildren of Bret Easton Ellis (Less Than Zero) and Larry Clark (Kids). Back from their elite private schools on spring break, these characters enact their stylized dramas over the course of one weekend. In an even earlier decade, they would have been the sort of prep-school “phonies” despised by Holden Caulfield. Now they are social climbers who harbor little more ambition than a mention in the “Page Six” gossip column.
It doesn't help the film's case that "Gossip Girl" actor Chace Crawford plays the main character, White Mike (really?! are you kidding me with the name?!)
After his mother’s death from cancer, White Mike becomes a drug dealer instead of going to college. He’s good at his job, but he broods a lot and is unwilling to deal the new fictional drug called twelve, which appears to be instantly addictive. Twelve is dealt by Lionel (Jackson, aka 50 Cent).
The most trouble with this film is that everything we learn about the characters comes through the narrations, not the actions or dialogue, a big no-no. And the film's violent crescendo is way too predictable and been-there-done-that.
Skip this one for what its worth.
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"The Fitzgerald Family Christmas"
starring: Kerry Bishe, Edward Burns, Heather Burns, Marsha Dietlin, Caitlin Fitzgerald, Anita Gillette, Tom Guiry, Ed Lauter, Michael McGlone, Nick Sandow, Noah Emmerich, Connie Britton
written and directed by: Edward Burns
Full disclosure: I absolutely love Edward Burns' films, like all of them, from the first one I saw for the first time, back in high school (re: She's the One, I know I know, I went back and watched The Brothers McMullen after, because that was his first one, but I had such a crush on Jennifer Aniston and Cameron Diaz that this one struck me first). Burns is an excellent actor, in all his own films, writer, director (and sometimes producer). To wear that many hats, be so invested in his own films, and still have them come out so well, it's just an awesome treat for anyone who enjoys films.
Look at his history:
The Brothers McMullen
She's the One
No Looking Back
Sidewalks of New York
Ash Wednesday
Looking for Kitty
The Groomsmen
Purple Violets
Nice Guy Johnny
The Newlyweds
and The Fitzgerald Family Christmas
This film finds him returning to what made him a star on the map of fame, the Irish-Catholic roots, for this "family" film set at Christmas time. There is a reason why Burns has been compared to Woody Allen, sometimes dubbed the Irish Woody. His films and characters can be very similar, in vein, to Allen's films and characters. The dialogue is so crisp and flows so well you'd almost wonder if it was actually scripted or simply improvised, while also wondering if these characters were actually real and we were invading on their lives, as everything happens so intimately.
The story:
Burns plays Gerry Fitzgerald, the eldest of seven children parented by Josie (a superb Anita Gillette), a single mom since her husband, Big Jim (Ed Lauter), walked out on them 20 years ago. Now Big Jim has been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. He wants to come home for Christmas. Josie wants no part of the rat bastard. His adult children are divided on the issue. That's the movie. It sounds like a Hallmark card, but Burns and a bracingly fine cast play it for real. Lots of grit and comic grace notes. Burns introduces so many characters at once that the movie begins to feel like a Tolstoy novel. But we know them soon enough, without a scorecard. Gerry is the family caretaker, the responsible one. Brother Quinn (Michael McGlone) wants to propose to younger girlfriend (Daniella Pineda). Sister Sharon (Kerry Bishe) hooks up with a father-figure (Noah Emmerich). Sister Dottie (Marsha Dietlein Bennett) dumps her husband for a hottie gardener. Sister Connie (Caitlin Fitzgerald) is pregnant by an abusive boyfriend. The youngest brother Cyril (Tom Guiry) is just out of rehab. Sister Erin (Heather Burns), allegedly the normal one, has married up and looks down on her family, except for daddy. Emotions run high. But Burns never plays it cheap and cheesy.
I love the addition of Connie Britton into the Burns' film world, because she is just absolutely amazing as an actress, thanks in large part to her turn on "Friday Night Lights" which cemented my love for her as a strong actress.
Burns knocks it out of the park with this holiday-family-themed indie film and has always been one of the major reasons why I love indie films way more than big Hollywood films.
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"Let's Go to Prison"
starring: Dax Shephard, Will Arnett, Chi McBride, David Koechner, Dylan Baker, Michael Shannon
written by: Robert Ben Garant, Tom Lennon
directed by: Bob Odenkirk
It's way too that this film just sort of fails right out of the gate and never regains itself or allows itself to take a break or take a chance; and it certainly does not help that it's not funny at all, because it's definitely supposed to be a comedy. It's too bad because the director is Bob Odenkirk, who made "sketch" comedy great with David Cross and "Mr. Show" as well as the Cartoon Network's cartoon comedy show "Tom Goes to the Mayor." Unfortunately for him though, I think many people forgot that he was a comedian after his well-done and highly praised performance in "Breaking Bad" as Walter White's buffoon lawyer, and then again in "Better Call Saul." It's too bad, also, because the film was written by the same team responsible for "Reno 911!" which is a show made of comedy gold and really help rebrand the sit-com.
"Let's Go to Prison" has the look and feel of a much shorter bit of sketchy shenanigans brought up to feature running time; it's not so much funny as sporadically amusing. For long stretches of time, however, it's just a flat-out bore, milking prison gags that were ancient when Alcatraz was new and never connecting with the audience's funnybone in any way other than the "Funny, I thought this was supposed to be a comedy" brain teaser. Shepard plays John Lyshitski, an in-and-out con who decides to take his revenge on the judge who long ago sealed his hoodlum fate by casting him to the juvie wolves. As it turns out, the object of Lyshitski's ire has shuffled off to that big night court in the sky, and so Lyshitski schemes His Honor's self-important and thoroughly white-bread son (Arnett) – as well as himself – into the pokey instead. Predictably, Junior soon has the inmates eating out of his, um, stainless-steel toilet, roping a lovesick behemoth (McBride) into his personal circle, and winning the loyalty of the local white-supremacist gang by accidentally offing their unloved leader.
It's just a pointless comedy (of so many errors) that it falls on its face several times.
Skip it.
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"Satanic"
starring: Sarah Hyland, Steven Kruegger, Justin Chon, Clara Mamet, Sophie Dalah, Anthony Carrigan, Marc Barnes, Stevin Knight
written by: Anthony Jaswinski
directed by: Jeffrey Hunt
The plot is horror film fodder: five friends decide to take a road trip to Coachella (a music festival for anyone who doesn't know), while making a stop for some occult sightseeing because who doesn't want to be scared shitless from voodoo and satanism and all that, while on a road trip.
They rent a room that housed a Satan-worshipping girl who slit her throat in the name of Satan awhile back and now haunts the room. For sightseeing purposes, they make stops at the Church of Satan, the site of the Manson Murders, and an occult thrift shop. Oh, and they also happen to "save" a girl from being sacrificed by a group of satan worshippers and form a friendship/bond with her when she comes to hang out with them in their hotel room, where all the weird shit happens.
I think this film could've been better, if it didn't play itself off as something written for a network liek the CW, just a longer and gutsier episode of one of the many teen-centered shows.
The story itself isn't all that bad; it's the typical "Idiot teens get stalked and slashed" kind of story, and those can be entertaining enough, even if most of them are generic as hell. Satanic though, doesn't do what most Teen Terror flicks do to make themselves tolerable, which is show a bunch of kids getting naked and getting killed in horrific ways. When people die in this movie (which save for one, doesn't happen until the last 20 minutes or so), we see nothing. One of them goes into a port-a-potty, and disappears; another goes off alone, only to show up dead later; yet another simply disappears; and the Final Girl, which you can probably guess is Sarah Hyland's character... well she gets to be a part of a cheesy twist that leads to an ending that is open to interpretation.
The acting is pretty bad. Poor Sarah Hyland, I just don't think she'll ever outshine her turn on "Modern Family" and make it as a movie star, or at least a girl who can lead a film, even written as the Final Girl for a horror film. The star of the film ends up being the Satanist, played by Sophie Dalah. Her acting is stellar and she steals the show.
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"The Retrieval"
starring: Ashton Sanders, Tishuan Scott, Keston John, Bill Oberst Jr., Christine Horn, Alfonso Freeman
written and directed by: Chris Eska
This is an excellent period piece, small, indie film that is superbly written and the performances are very subtle but heartbreakingly done so well. It's interesting that another white writer-director is tackling the Civil War-era and slavery topic (I'm looking at you Quentin Tarantino) like "Django Unchained" and "12 Years a Slave", both Oscar caliber films in their own rights by different filmmakers, but with a much much different approach. And it's also interesting that the black filmmaker, Nate Parker, got attacked for his antics (albeit they were serious, sexual assault is never something that should be taken lightly) outside of the film industry, and distracted everyone from how well his film about the same topic, yet through the eyes of Nate Turner (a black slave that led a rebellion).
Here, Chris Eska tackles the oft-made story about coming-of-age, through the eyes of a thirteen year old slave in a very unique way.
Thirteen-year-old Will (Sanders) is a Southern black kid, who, seemingly, has no relatives apart from his uncle Marcus (John). Together, during the waning months of the Civil War, the pair work for a white bounty hunter (Oberst), who captures and returns escaped slaves. The moral quandaries faced by Will are laid out in The Retrieval’s opening sequence: During the dead of night, with the ominous sound of cannons booming in the near distance, Will knocks on the door of a white woman, who leads the boy to her barn where several runaway slaves are camped for the night. Will lies down among them, and even accepts a morsel of food offered to him by one of the fugitives. The night quiet soon erupts into mayhem when the bounty hunters raid the barn and torch the woman’s property. For their efforts in betraying their race, Marcus and Will receive some coins as payment and are tasked with a new mission: crossing over to the North to lure back the freedman Nate (Scott), who has an especially high bounty on his head.
Coaxing Nate back with a fabricated story about his fatally ill brother, Marcus and Will insist on accompanying the former slave on the dangerous journey. Wartime dangers surround them and the muffled cannon roar is a constant reminder of the war’s proximity. Although wary of these strangers, Nate eventually adopts a protective attitude toward Will, the fatherless boy who yearns for a male role model.
This is a slow, quiet, subtle film that forces you to pay close attention to because of all its nuisances. This is a great indie film about a touchy subject, but it's definitely worth watching and appreciating, especially given the climate of our society's culture at the moment.
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"The Hole"
starring: Chris Massolgia, Haley Bennett, Nathan Gamble, Teri Polo, Bruce Dern, Quinn Lord, John DeSantis, Douglas Chapman, Mark Pawson
written by: Mark L. Smith
directed by: Joe Dante
It seems like Joe Dante is known for these supernatural, teen-based drama-horror films, looking at his resume which dates all the way back to the 1980s with such widely loved and superb films:
Gremlins
Explorers
InnerSpace
The Burbs
Gremlins 2
Small Soldiers
The Hole (here)
as well as Burying the Ex (which I loved and reviewed maybe a couple of years ago)
His films like this one seem to follow a similar theme of displaced teens looking for a connection with someone, while finding themselves as their parents are not necessarily central parts of their lives because adulthood is complicated and tough most of the time and kids just don't understand. So, the kids find refuge within themselves and with each other as they can comisserated. Then, they discover something supernatural which gets them interested and distracted from whatever is troubling them, but only to discover that this adventure will help them figure things out.
The film follows a woman named Susan Thompson (Teri Polo) who relocates from Brooklyn to a suburban home in Bensonville with her two sons Dane (Chris Massoglia) and Lucas (Nathan Gamble) in tow. Given that the kids have been moved around a lot, neither are particularly happy about having to relocate again, with the older brother Dane taking it unusually hard. Things change for the better when they meet their new neighbor, a beautiful young lady named Julie (Haley Bennett) who they immediately hit it off with. Before you know it, there's a little spark of something sweet going on between Julie and Dane and understandably his mood starts to improve.
Things seem to be going well enough for the boys once they settle in until they're exploring the basement with Julie one day and come across an entrance to... something in their basement. Secured with a bunch of locks that they are eventually able to remove, the three open it up and find what they believe to be a bottomless hole - light does not reach the bottom and when they drop a few things down into it, they hear nothing. They even go so far as to tie a camcorder to a rope and lower it down as far as they can to try and figure out what this is all about, but there's no luck. Soon, however, strange things start happening around the house: a creepy little girl appears to Julie, Lucas' fear of clowns comes into play and a strange old man named Creepy Carl (Bruce Dern) arrives, claiming to have once been the caretaker responsible for sealing the hole. As the kids learn more about the hole, they try to seal it once more, but it seems to be fighting back...
This is an entertaining film for exactly what it is. It's not bad, but it's also not great, but then again, Joe Dante's resume really has a lot to live up to when you're the same guy that made "Explorers" and "Gremlins" and "InnerSpace" specifically.
I really enjoyed it, as it grabbed my attention and kept it, which is important for all movies but I think supernatural films in particular can sort of get lost in explanations and in attempts to impress with graphics and such. Everything about Dante's filmmaker is simple.
And Haley Bennett really shows herself to be quite an up-and-coming actress with her performance, even though she is a secondary character to the two boys. She's got the looks of Jennifer Lawrence and the acting chops to carry herself well. She hasn't been in many films, nor has she been the main vehicle for films, but she's putting in her time and I think people are starting to notice.
This year, alone, she was in "The Girl on the Train," "The Magnificent Seven," and "Rules Don't Apply." I'll be keeping an eye on her, for sure.
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"Before I Go to Sleep"
starring: Nicole Kidman, Colin Firth, Mark Strong, Ben Crompton, Anne-Marie Duff, Adam Levy
written and bdirected by: Rowan Joffe
This film attempts to unravel the suspense in the same way that "Momento" did masterfully over a decade before it, except with this story, we find Nicole Kidman in the lead role, as a woman who wakes up every morning with a form of amnesia (which we never fully grasp or come to understand), her memory completely wiped out and she attempts to find answers before she falls asleep again, and she videotapes herself in the bathroom, in order to hopefully keep track of her findings. In "Momento" the character tattooed himself until he put the puzzle pieces together. The only trouble here is that Kidman's character is being told different stories by different people and she does not necessarily know who she can trust and who she cannot trust. The suspense is in finding the answers but also hopefully bringing justice to whoever has done wrong to her.
Thrillers and suspense films have an obligation to the audience to provide twists and turns, to misdirect and provide a false sense of a lead with red herrings here and there, but where this film fails is in providing believability of the characters and the lies they are providing, which is supposed to lead Kidman's chracter in the wrong directions.
It begins with Christine (Kidman) waking up, seeming startled and a little disoriented by the man sleeping next to her. Rubbing her eyes, she goes into the bathroom where she encounters a stalker's wall of photos focused on the man and herself. Returning to the bedroom, she finds him sitting on the edge of the bed waiting for her. Patiently, he explains that he is Ben (Firth), her husband, but she doesn't recognize him because, as the result of a terrible accident years ago, she has a form of amnesia whereby each morning she wakes with her memory completely wiped clean.
Unfortunately, Nicole Kidman and Colin Firth were miscast because there is a lack of chemistry between them. There isn't really much tension provided between the two of them.
The ending is more insult and a solid wrap up to a confusing story that seemed to go nowhere, anyway, which is all unfortunate, because this is coming from the writer of a great film a few years ago, "The American."
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"Intruder"
starring: Steven Beckingham, Teresa Decher, Louise Linton, Susannah Mars, Moby, Zach Myers, John Robinson, Aaron Trainor
written and directed by: Travis Zariwny
Here's another thriller that is meant to make us feel uncomfortable with what we are watching. An intruder, hence the title, invades a young woman's home and sees everything she does, from intimate things like showering, to the more mundane, simple everyday activities like making dinner, oh and sleep. It's voyeuristic in nature, but you also feel like an intruder as well, because of how the film uses POV sometimes, you are seeing it through the intruder's eyes.
The uncomfortable factor ups the ante because you never know when the other shoe is going to drop and at every turn, you are wondering when or if he is going to kill her. What is the point of intruding? Is it just to simply violate someone's privacy?
Elizabeth (Louise Linton), a beautiful cellist, spends an ample amount of time at home, curled up on her couch, living her simple and mundane life the way most of us do. As a violent storm rages outside and Elizabeth drifts from room to room in her humble abode, we learn someone is watching her every move. From inside the apartment.
Unlike most home invasion films though, our time is dutifully split between Elizabeth and her presumed perpetrator. As Elizabeth goes about eating her dinner, sleeping, showering – our hunter is omnipresent. Always cautiously waiting, and watching.
What the director/writer relies on are the questions the viewer asks themselves: when the killer will strike? will he make a mistake? and who it is? The trouble with relying solely on these questions and the mystery is that the audience can grow tired of the near-misses and close-calls of almost being found out. Audiences want some action to keep their attention. After a strong start, the film sort of drags on until the strong and balls-out ending of a risk.
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"Mercy"
starring: James Wolk, Caitlin Fitzgerald, Tom Lipinski, Dan Ziskie, Michael Godere, Michael Vincent Donovan, Constance Barron, Hilary R. Walker
written and directed by: Chris Sparling
This is a Netflix-produced film that has a lot going on, many layers to unravel as it appears to be a film about one thing- the slow release and death of a family member and the family coming together to come to terms- but then, you realize it's about something else entirely, in an almost M. Night Shyamalan-twist kind of way, when a group of masked man are introduced just as the family comes together. That's when the real mystery unfolds itself.
Two groups of characters are motivated by two very different reasons; neither motivation is very honourable, however. Playing out like a mystery initially, events take a darker turn, at the film's mid-point. It is here where a point-of-view is changed, as well. Grace's (Constance Barron) relationship with a cult-like religious sect, also creates some of the film's mystery.
The film's story plays out straight-forwardly, at first. Act I involves one family coming together, over the death of their mother or wife. Grace is completely housebound. The brothers, two from a previous marriage, argue over an inheritance, while forgoing any feelings for the death or the suffering of their mother. A second husband, to Grace, is also uninterested in bringing the family together. This family is only interested in Grace's financial holdings.
A group of masked men bring events to a head. They infiltrate the home and quickly dispatch two characters, one by accident. The masked characters speak very little to each other as they go about their murderous work. They are there for Grace, too, but for a very different reason. The differing motivations of the brothers (greed) and the masked characters (salvation?) cause a lot of the trouble, leaving few characters untouched. There are no happy endings here as these mysterious cultists move about a remote country farm and home.
There are videotaped conversations that act as segues between what's happening in the present and who these masked men might be and their motivation for being there. The film also presents us with a test of morality in two ways: 1) the family members are clearly motivated by the greed of who gets what when their matriarch passes away and how exactly she'll eventually pass, by their hands or by their hands of doing nothing- and then 2) the experimental cure that could potentially save her life, for a little bit longer at least, presented by the cult of these masked men.
I won't give things away, instead, I will say you can certainly sit and watch this film, as Netflix rarely misses the mark (so far) with their productions. It's a good story with good acting.
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