Monthly Archives: August 2020

New In Theaters

Looking for a Miracle

Leave a comment

Fatima

by Rachel Willis

Director Marco Pontecorvo (Pa-ra-da) seeks to bring the “Miracle of the Sun” (also known as the “Miracle of Fatima”) to life with his newest film, Fatima.

In 1917, in the midst of World War I, ten-year-old Lucia (Stephanie Gil) has a vision of the Virgin Mary. Along with her two young cousins, Lucia is asked by the Virgin to return to the same spot every month to pray for peace. When word of this vision spreads, people from all over flock to the small village of Fatima, Portugal to receive the message each month from the Virgin.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, there is a lot of conflict in a film about a miracle. Young Lucia faces skepticism from those around her. The local mayor (Goran Visnjic) is man of science and fears the influence of a young girl on the religious population. The area priest doubts her. Even Lucia’s mother (Lúcia Moniz), a humble believer, thinks her daughter is lying. Why would the Virgin Mary bestow this message on Lucia?

It’s a question posed to the adult Lucia (Sonia Braga), a nun, when a professor (Harvey Keitel) visits her at her convent to ask about the events of 1917. A nonbeliever, Professor Nichols listens to the story as Sister Lucia relives it. The audience is privy to the conversations between Professor Nichols and Sister Lucia, as well as the Sister’s reminiscence on the past.

The film is primarily concerned with the events of 1917. The few moments between Sister Lucia and Professor Nichols are shallow question-and-answer sessions in which neither convinces the other of their position.

This is a movie for believers, to reward their devotion with a “faithful” portrayal of the events in Fatima. There is some neat imagery during some of Lucia’s visions, but most of the moments are unbelievably cheesy.

Pontecorvo’s effort is a messy, one-dimensional film. Characters, particularly the nonbelievers, are stereotypes portrayed in the simplest terms. Lucia’s family members pop in and out of the film at convenient moments to voice concern or disbelief. It’s unclear how many sisters Lucia has. If their names are given in the film, it doesn’t really matter since they don’t really matter.

Though Lucia’s cousins are also witness to the Virgin, they’re not interrogated the same way as Lucia who, for some unexplained reason, is the instigator.

Strong acting, particularly from Lúcia Moniz, keeps the movie watchable, but it’s not enough to save it from poor writing.

I don’t doubt this latest retelling of the “Miracle of Fatima” will be held in high regard by many, even though, at best, it’s a mediocre movie.

Shudder Premiere, Slider

Shed’s Dead, Baby

Leave a comment

The Shed

by Hope Madden

The 2008 film Deadgirl tested me. Boasting solid performances across the board, it told of a bullied teen who pined for the bully’s girlfriend. He and his even more damaged best friend find a monster, which one sees as a curse and the other sees as a gift. The resulting 95 minutes took me three tries to complete, not because it was scary or gross or troubling, but because it was unwatchably hateful.

Co-writer/director Frank Sabatella builds The Shed on similar terrain.

Stan (Jay Jay Warren), still stuck on his middle school crush Roxy (Sofia Happonen), is in trouble at school, with the sheriff’s department, and with his abusive grandfather, not to mention the local bullies—who have a real field day with his best friend Dommer (Cody Kostro).

So far so familiar, but Sabatella zigs when you think he’ll zag in a couple of important ways. The monster in question—that thing stuck in the shed, at least until sundown—used to be his neighbor, Mr. Bane (Frank “Big Brain on Brad” Whaley, nice to see you).

What Sabatella mines with just a handful of excellent, tense, gory scenes is a certain isolated, rural anxiety. He mixes childhood terrors with adolescent angst with smalltown rebellion with something aching and lonely. All of it, in these few scenes, speaks to something authentic in terms of wrong-side-of-the-tracks coming of age.

Everything else is borrowed, from the Night of the Living Dead and Fright Night, that old Michael Fassbender Nazi zombie thing Cold Creek and, of course, the morally bankrupt Deadgirl. Maybe just a touch of Stakeland.

Still, it’s fun.

Kostro is particularly effective as the best friend who’s far more f’ed up than Stan realizes and Warren offers a strong emotional center to the film. There are about a dozen too many nightmare sequences and the end is simply nonsense, but for horror fans, it’s not a bad time.

New In Theaters

The Boy With the Thorn in His Side

Leave a comment

Benjamin

by Seth Troyer

Benjamin is one of the most uniquely brilliant indie films I’ve come across in some time. It’s a film that could have easily been yet another Woody Allen clone, yet another romp where a director shares his thoughts on love, nervous breakdowns, and how cool and complex he is just before the film cuts to credits. Benjamin is something much more.

While the core of the film seems born from director Simon Amstell’s autobiography, what really makes it stand out is the duet Amstell has with his star. Colin Morgan’s lightning fast delivery and realistic portrayal of Benjamin, a young gay man who endlessly gets in his own way, makes the film more than just a mouth piece for a director, but a unique character study.

Benjamin is a filmmaker who recently failed to live up to the promise of his debut movie. In the aftermath, he falls in love with a beautiful French musician named Noah, but their relationship is constantly threatened by Benjamin’s increasingly erratic mental state.

In less capable hands such a plot would make for a rather unoriginal film, but here, the events that unfold feel realistically random and unpredictable. Plot points begin, end abruptly, and then pick back up all over again in surprising ways that create a true to life experience. Even the minor characters are fleshed out yet mysterious, creating unique human beings rather than lazy stereotypes.

The film’s fast paced, dark humor is never contrived or pretentious. Amstell’s incredible ear for dialogue coupled with Morgan’s gift for delivery feels like a comedic team at the top of its game.

Though far more lovable, Morgan’s portrayal of an erratic, untrustworthy protagonist calls to mind David Thewlis’s darkly genius incarnation of Johnny in Mike Leigh’s Naked. Indeed, Benjamin seems to have much in common with Leigh’s everyday dramas in the attempt to flesh out believable characters rather than convey easy moral judgements.

It is an aching portrayal of a person who seems either on the brink of transformation or immolation. Benjamin is a cry for the mind to just shut up for once, and let the heart take the wheel for a change.

New In Theaters

Angel of Death

Leave a comment

DieRy

by Darren Tilby

As far as psychological thrillers go, this is a peculiar one. An odd concoction of glaringly obvious plot twists and contrived diegesis; of excellent performances but inconsistent characters; of an implied take on influencer culture leading, bizarrely, into The Manchurian Candidate territory, Diery can be best described as—a bit of a mess.

Marie (Claudia Maree Mailer), a popular Instagram model with over one million followers. She is well on her way to getting her masters degree in comparative religion, leaving an abusive relationship and moving on from childhood trauma that saw her hospitalized. She seems to have a perfect life. As, indeed, everyone keeps telling her. However, Marie is haunted still by the events of her past, and when her cherished diary goes missing and letters, seemingly from an obsessed fan, begin turning up at her apartment, things take an extraordinary and deadly turn.

My chief complaint here is John Buffalo Mailer’s writing: there’s a lot of ideas floating around, too many in fact, and nothing comes of any of them. Is this a cautionary tale about the dangers of sharing our lives on social media? Is it a tension-filled spy thriller? There’s even a suggestion of witchcraft at one point. The answer is that it’s all of those things and none of them. To be honest, I’m not overly convinced filmmaker Jennifer Geifer herself knows.

This feels like a committee has put it together, several different concepts mashed together to form some semblance of a complete narrative. It fails. And it’s a real shame, too. Performances are pretty good across the board, even if the characters are a little generic – with standout displays from Claudia Mailer, Ciaran Byrne and Philip Alexander. But very little here occurs naturally. Almost everything feels manufactured, except, maybe, for the chemistry between the central cast, which is wholly organic.

Diery certainly isn’t without its charms: the characters are likable, the performances are solid, and Julia Swain’s cinematography exudes atmosphere. But it’s let down, badly, by several plot contrivances and its inability to stay on the rails for more than 20 minutes.

And when it ended with an enormous Sleepy Hollow-like exposition dump, I was done.   

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0P1JRs9b6Pw

New In Theaters

Caught in the Crosshairs

Leave a comment

The Prey

by Brandon Thomas

Co-writer/director Jimmy Henderson’s The Prey doesn’t waste any time giving action fans what they want. Fight sequences that are plentiful and inventive. A hero who cuts through adversaries with brutal punches and kicks. Villains that chew the scenery with otherworldly malice. It’s everything we’ve seen dozens of times before, but that doesn’t stop The Prey from being a fun 90 minutes.

Xin (Gu Shangwei) is an undercover Interpol agent who finds himself arrested in a police raid. Thrown into a particularly dangerous prison, Xin catches the eye of a group of murderous hunters who use the jail to select their stock. Released into the nearby jungle, Xin has to rely on his training to evade the heavily armed pursuers. 

The “Humans Hunting Other Humans” genre is a well-worn path. From The Most Dangerous Game to Hard Target and The Hunt, the idea that we’re the deer is something that seems to never get old. With The Prey, Henderson delivers a film that doesn’t really offer anything new to the genre, but it does gleefully revel in it. 

The action sequences have a nimbleness that allows each fight to remain fresh. Along with exciting fight choreography, Henderson keeps the camera constantly moving during these scenes. While not reaching John Wick level heights of technical prowess, Henderson creates sequences infused with passion, wit and contagious energy.

The winking at the audience doesn’t stop with the action. The Prey’s villains are gloriously over the top. From the sadistic music-loving Warden to the compensating youngster who doesn’t quite have the stomach for killing, our bad guys check certain archetype boxes. Watching these characters ooze a kind of comic sadism helps solidify the film’s playful tone. 

Shangwei as Xin doesn’t fare as well as the villains. Like many action stars before him, Shangwei was obviously hired for his martial arts skills, not his acting skills. He delivers in the film’s long fight takes, but struggles to muster much charisma when focusing exclusively on dialogue. 

While not breaking any kind of cinematic new ground, The Prey celebrates a decades old genre through technical prowess and excitement. 

New In Theaters

Your Favorite Band Sucks

Leave a comment

Other Music

by George Wolf

The store was called Other Music because it was directly across the street from a Tower Records in the East Village of Manhattan. So from day one, the message was clear: if you’re looking for other music, come in here.

For twenty years, they did. And they often came in droves, trusting recommendations from the eclectic staff, seeing great new bands such as Vampire Weekend perform live in-store, and coming to feel like they had “found their people.”

But like so many other parts of society, “the way people consume music changed,” and Other Music closed up shop in 2016.

The first directing feature from music video vets Puloma Basu and Rob Hatch-Miller is a bittersweet ode not just to a beloved record store, but to a type of community that now seems longer gone than it actually is.

This film is funny (notables such as Jason Schwartzman and Regina Spektor speak on the staff’s intimidation factor), it’s touching, and it has a good handle on how to rise above the field of similar “last day” docs by not forgetting the valuable context available outside the actual store.

You can file it under “music nerdery,” but spend some time with Other Music and you’ll find a mix of celebration and eulogy. Both are worthy, for a small business in NYC and the similar culture of community disappearing from just about everywhere else.

New In Theaters

Don’tcha Think?

Leave a comment

The Unfamiliar

by Hope Madden

The first thing you’ll likely notice in writer/director Henk Pretorius’s supernatural thriller The Unfamiliar is that the distant hero— the one who comes home from war only to shut down emotional or psychological answers to problems, instead relying on power tools and car repair to soothe a wounded mind—is a woman.

Izzy (Jemima West) returns from a tour in Afghanistan and immediately feels out of sorts at home. It’s as if she doesn’t even know her husband or oldest daughter, her son’s turned into some kind of lurking weirdo, and she’s weighed down by guilt for leaving home while her youngest was just an infant.

So, when the hallucinations start, PTSD seems a likely culprit.

The truth is, the gender swap draws attention to some of the laziest horror clichés that we’ve come to simply accept without dissection.

It is absolutely fascinating to watch a man carry a baby around, no real purpose but to stare with furrow-browed concern as his wife struggles to come to terms with the situation. By enlisting a female character to behave so erratically in service of a weak story, Pretorious seems to be intentionally pointing out the idiotic leaps in logic audiences are willing to make.

You cannot miss every hackneyed beat, it’s brilliant. If only that were really the purpose.

If it’s ironic that Pretorious’s fresh approach to casting only draws attention to his clichés, wait until you see what he does with cultural appropriation.

Why is Izzy’s family having supernatural problems? It seems her husband may have disturbed something sinister by researching native Hawaiian culture. You see, his family must pay for the fact that he steals their stories to make a buck. (Note: This is where Pretorius makes up a bunch of disconnected “native” stories, abandoning the logic of PTSD in favor of a woefully underdeveloped and racially insensitive subplot, all with the hope of making a buck. It’s like rain on your wedding day, people.)

If there is one movie trope that we simply must retire—and there is clearly more than one—but if we can retire only one, please can it be that of the magical brown person who sacrifices themselves for the benefit of the whiteys?

Please, Jesus, please? Can we just let whitey figure it out for herself or die trying?

Not today, it seems. But if no one spends money on films like The Unfamiliar, maybe, slowly, the cliché will die on its own.

New In Theaters, Slider

Rage Inside a Machine

Leave a comment

Unhinged

by George Wolf

I remember watching that classic TV movie Duel with my mom in the early 70s. It was tense and exciting (a young Spielberg directed!), but the thing that most unnerved Mom was the fact that…SPOILER ALERT… you never find out why that truck driver was terrorizing a frazzled Dennis Weaver.

Unhinged offers no such ambiguity. Russell Crowe is just really pissed off.

Well, the unnamed driver Crowe plays is, anyway. The Man has lost his wife, and his job, and now he’s in traffic getting beeped at, passed and gestured to by a woman in a big hurry.

The Man catches up, rolls down the window and calmly explains civility to young Kyle in the back seat (Gabriel Bateman from Lights Out and the Child’s Play reboot) while asking Rachel in the front for an apology. She declines, so The Man vows to show Rachel (Slow West’s Caren Pistorius) what a bad day really is.

Things get nasty in a hurry. And though the script from Carl Ellsworth (Red Eye, Disturbia) often flirts with ridiculous, it offers more clever construction that you might expect. The premise certainly recalls Falling Down, but Ellsworth isn’t interested in darkly comic social commentary. This is an overt explosion of murderous male rage, one that also manages – almost as an afterthought – to deliver a blunt cautionary tale about smart phone addiction as effective as any we’ve seen on film.

Director Derrick Borte (The Joneses) keeps the pace moving nicely with tension and bursts of brutality, which is perfectly fine for a disposable thriller. What’s even better, he knows what the real point of all this is.

Russell on a rampage. That’s it.

You want some of that? Crowe and Unhinged deliver it, with all the when’s, why’s, and how’s right up in your face.

You know, so Mom won’t be left hanging.

New In Theaters

Chemicals React

Leave a comment

Chemical Hearts

by Cat McAlpine

Henry Page is a romantic. He’s also unremarkable, he muses in moody voiceover. But senior year of high school might just be the year that something interesting finally happens to him. When Grace Town transfers on the first day of class and joins the school newspaper, Henry is immediately smitten. But people are rarely the things we imagine them to be.

Richard Tanne (Southside with You) wrote and directed this adaptation of Krystal Sutherland’s novel, “Our Chemical Hearts.” Tanne’s camera haunts dusk and after-dark more often than not, with even his daytime shots heavily shadowed. He finds gorgeous lighting in an abandoned warehouse and develops a grittier finish to this YA romance that’s rare for the genre.

But no matter how often Grace (Lili Reinhart) promises she’s “fucked up,” the film doesn’t go as dark as it wants to. In the end, Chemical Hearts is about a middle-class kid pining after a broken girl. While some twists and turns make the story more interesting, the narrative is distracted by Henry (Austin Abrams) who is as he promises to be – unremarkable.

Chemical Hearts also suffers from a heavy serving of quirky character traits. Henry’s not normal, he practices the Japanese art of kintsukuroi – repairing broken pottery with gold seams. Grace stands thigh deep in a koi pond, monologuing about humanity’s fate to be briefly rearranged motes of start dust. How did the koi end up in an abandoned warehouse? Spoiler alert, we never find out.

For all its false depths, Chemical Hearts also ruminates on death, guilt, and suicide in fair measure. But the grief is twice removed and mostly mystery. Grace’s healing process is constantly measured by her capability to fully love Henry. We don’t get the opportunity to explore her growth outside of him.

Chemical Heart’s constant insistence that being a teenager is the hardest part of life will fall flat for older viewers who have already survived the gauntlet of adolescence. Meanwhile, the younger audience will likely appreciate a story that reminds them that life doesn’t always go the way you want it to.