Monthly Archives: March 2022

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Is This Thing On?

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Heckle

by Brandon Thomas

You’ve only had to pay half attention to the entertainment world during the past few years to know that a lot of high-profile comedians have been outed as scumbags. It’s probably the worst kept secret in the industry. From Louis C.K. to Bill Cosby, a lot of comedy titans came under fire for their bad – or even criminal – behavior. 

This landscape seems ripe for a darkly comedic horror flick. Unfortunately, Heckle lacks the laughs or the scares to do this topic justice. 

Stand-up comedian Joe Johnson (Guy Combes) is riding a wave of success. His tours are popular and he’s about to star in a major film playing tragically murdered comedy icon, Ray Kelly (a supremely foul-mouthed Steve Guttenberg of Police Academy and Cocoon fame). All of that starts to crash as a particularly nasty heckler worms his way into Joe’s psyche. As his mental state begins deteriorating, Joe starts to believe that his physical well-being is also in danger from the obsessive heckler. 

Heckle spends a lot of time easing the audience into Joe’s world and his inner circle. Joe’s supposed to be this “big deal” comedian, yet the character is never really shown to be funny. The same process is used for Guttenberg’s character. The abrasiveness of the characters becomes the focal point to the detriment of everything else. It’s hard to buy this grand world of comedy legends if none of them are actually that funny.

The horror aspect suffers in the same regard. Nothing much happens for the first two-thirds of the film. There are some weak attempts to show Joe’s psychological decline, but none of it is particularly scary or thrilling. Mostly, these scenes come across as wheel-spinning to pad out an already short running time. By the time the actual carnage begins in the last act, it’s too little, too late. 

Heckle is full of starts and stops. The movie never quite knows if it wants to be a full-on horror film, a biting satire of the stand-up world or a comedy. Unfortunately for the audience, Heckle never truly succeeds at doing any of the three. 

New In Theaters, Shudder Premiere

Mojave Monster

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The Seed

by Hope Madden

It’s got a little Brian Yuzna, definitely some Larry Cohen, a touch of Eraserhead, and the exact set of Revenge. Plus, sci-fi/horror flick The Seed maintains maybe the single most used premise of the last few years: three friends rent a place to stay and bad things happen.

There’s nothing necessarily wrong with that. A small cast and limited locations are just smart plays for an independent filmmaker working with budget confinements, and there are moments when writer/director Sam Walker transcends such trappings.

Just not many.

Vampy social influencer Diedre (Lucy Martin), her somewhat vapid bestie Heather (Sophie  Vavasseur), and their down-to-earth pal Charlotte (Chelsea Edge) head to a luxurious, isolated spot in the Mojave desert and witness a meteor shower.

It’s gorgeous, but now their phones are on the fritz, which means they can’t call an uber or get in touch with civilization at all. Worst of all, there’s some stinky dead armadillo bear thing oozing all over their pool deck.

There’s no question Walker is a fan of late 80s horror. The social media angle is the only element of The Seed that feels like it wasn’t hatched in 1985, actually. Walker goes for a sharpness in the color that does call Yuzna to mind, and attempts at social satire by way of body  horror link Cohen as well.

Walker just doesn’t seem to know where to go with it all.

Martin does. She elevates tired mean girl dialog and cuts an exceptional narcissistic presence. Both she and Vavasseur find the comedy in the script, and their bickering buddies often entertain.

Edge is the weak link, which is unfortunate because – given the 1980s roots and the wholesome character – she’s telegraphed early to be the film’s hero.

The fact that The Seed is set in the exact house Coralie Fargeat used to gorgeous, bloody extremes in her 2017 treasure Revenge only makes you want to see Walker do more with his location.

So little about this film feels fresh and that retro vibe only carries it so far. The beast itself is sometimes laughable, but not often enough to be fun, which is par for the course with the film. Walker wades into dark comedy/satire territory for the first two acts, then abandons it entirely for a dusty, predictable, humorless finale.

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My Panda, My Choice

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Turning Red

by George Wolf

With baseball still on hold for this year, it’s safe to say the most impressive batting average out there still belongs to Pixar. Twenty-four films in, and seeing that name at the top of the poster still has me expecting excellence.

Turning Red – Pixar’s twenty-fifth – keeps the winning streak alive with a frisky, meaningful and culturally rich update of a well worn message.

Meilin Lee (voiced by the completely captivating Rosalie Chiang) is a 13 year-old honor student in Toronto circa 2002. She loves math, her besties (Miriam, Priya and Abby), and the 5 singers in “4-Town” (the boy band craze is the most likely reason for the early 2000’s time stamp).

But above all, Mei lives by one rule: honor your parents!

Yeah, um…that rule is going to get tested when 4-Town comes to Toronto just as Mei’s world turns completely upside down.

Mother Ming (Sandra Oh) has never disclosed the “quirk” in their family history, and now it’s staring back at Mei from the bathroom mirror. The mystical powers wielded by ancient ancestor Sun-Ye promised that one day Mei would awaken as a giant red panda. That day has come, and once Ming understands it’s not that other red visitor that has her daughter locking doors in panic, Mom explains.

Strong emotions will release Mei’s inner panda, so she must keep a calm demeanor until the family can gather and perform the ancient Chinese ritual that will banish that bear forever.

Stay calm? Now? The 4-Town show is coming up, and the girls have to score some tickets without helicopter Ming finding out! And there’s this bully at school that needs to be taught a lesson! Plus, that dreamy Devon at the Daisy Mart has Mei feeling some strange new feelings…

Sure, the panda is a cute metaphor for the raging hormones of puberty, but director Domee Shi (who also co-writes with Julia Cho) has much more to offer in her feature debut. Here, the often generic moral of “be true to yourself” plays out with stakes that will feel authentic to both kids and parents. Pixar has a long history of finding true poignancy amid big laughs, but Turning Red feels like a turning point.

Not only is it the first Pixar film with a female director, women are also in leadership roles throughout most areas of the production. The mission was clearly to begin speaking to a slightly older target, with a tender honesty that adolescents – girls especially – could appreciate.

Mei’s feelings of pressure and confusion are laughed with, not laughed at, and her first fantasies of physical romance are presented with a refreshing, relatable warmth.

There’s also fresh air blowing through the animation department, realizing Shi’s self-described “Asian ‘tween fever dream” with an aesthetic that yearns for the big screens the film is not getting. Mei’s world is alive with modern vibrancy, yet full of bursts that recall more classic animation styles, including hand-drawn and slo-motion sequences, as well as eyes and mouths that suddenly pop open wide with anime homages.

Effervescent pop songs by Billie Eilish and Finneas O’Connell (who also voices 4-Town’s Jesse) blend joyously alongside Ludwig Göransson’s more traditional score, completing the film’s perfect ecosystem of subtext.

Respect the past, but embrace the possibilities of the future. That future is going to include parts of your true self that are messy, and that’s okay. In fact, accepting those awkward, messy parts is the first step to being okay.

Really, the most disappointing thing about this film is that it’s going straight to Disney+. A theater experience might make the promise of mother-daughter bonding feel even more memorable, if not downright eventful (as the trips to see the first Toy Story were for my son and me).

But Turning Red finds Pixar with a healthy and welcome new approach to its lineup. So wherever it’s found, that’s more than okay.

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A Slow Slack through China

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Striding into the Wind

by Christie Robb

Director Shujun Wei starts this film with a shot of identical white sedans slowly completing a set driving course. The cars follow each other down the established path until one jerks to a stop for a moment before peeling away, erratically weaving in and out of the course until the driver jumps out and runs away.

It’s a metaphor for the protagonist Kun’s (You Zhou) approach to life. A film school student studying to be a sound engineer, Kun takes his dad’s money and invests in a ’97 Jeep despite failing to obtain a license. The film, co-written by Shujun Wei and Gao Linyang, follows Kun as he and the Jeep erratically weave in and out of the life path others attempt to set.

As is the case in other slacker films, it’s clear here what Kun doesn’t want. But it’s unclear if he has anything in the way of a vision for himself and his future. Like a toddler having a tantrum, Kun wants to break what he doesn’t like, but he lacks the ability to envision what would make him happy. So all his flailing around results in quite a bit of self-harm.

Eventually, Kun, his mullet, and his Jeep make their way out of Beijing and out into the countryside of Inner Mongolia for a film shoot, suffering an escalating series of misadventures and indignities along the way.

Very slow in its pacing, the film’s best moments are Shujun Wei’s wry presentation of the Chinese film industry. It serves up amusing caricatures of crew members—the video guys who can’t be quiet enough to capture ambient sound, the needy director requesting reassurance that his aesthetic sensibilities are up to snuff, and the lead actress trying to make sense of vague instructions while rebuffing the advances of her co-workers.

In the end, it’s a solid enough entry in the manchild coming-of-age genre, even if the ending tends toward the bleaker edge of the spectrum.

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Jacking and Jilling

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Adventures in Success

by Rachel Willis

Fair warning – this film may be the most unpleasant experience you’ll ever have with the female orgasm.

Writer/director Jay Buim, along with co-writers Susan Juvet and Rachel Webster, has crafted one of the most uncomfortable, meandering and sometimes funny mockumentaries with the film Adventures in Success.

Focusing on the group Jilling Off, we follow “energy transformationist” Peggy (Pegasus) Appleyard (Lexi Mountain) as she leads a group of men and women to the Catskills to harness the energy of the female orgasm in “the womb room.”

Joining this group is newbie Erica (Yaz Perea-Beltran). At first, Erica’s seeming skepticism makes her feel like our straight woman among these guys and gals who use terms like “economic ejaculate.” A hilariously uncomfortable scene involving the extreme invasion of Erica’s personal space by another member is one of the film’s highlights.

There are several scenes that are so uncomfortable you can’t help but laugh. Otherwise, you might spend most of the film squirming in your seat.

As Peggy, Mountain embraces the role of sex goddess guru, and the film is better for it. A personal highlight was Peggy’s cover of Bruce Springsteen’s I’m On Fire, but it’s mostly a moment that doesn’t fit well into the overarching story. The movie is full of these, as if the writers didn’t know how to fill 90 minutes about a group whose sole purpose is ‘jilling off.’

Another downfall is the fairly large cast of characters – not just the Jilling Off members, but townspeople who pop up from time to time (many more than once), usually to give their two cents on the group who’s descended on their town. It’s hard to keep track of everyone.

The film tries to make you care about the members of the cult, but so much time is spent making fun of them it’s hard to feel sympathy for their struggles. Some films can strike a good balance, but Success never manages to do so.

The film sometimes offers a strangely empowering message about women’s sexuality and female pleasure. It’s too bad the filmmakers’ mocking tone buries it beneath a lot of silliness.

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Mean Boys

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Mother Schmuckers

by Brandon Thomas

My relationship with gross-out humor is hit-or-miss. Like millions of other people around the world, I laughed uproariously as Cameron Diaz used the wrong “hair gel” in There’s Something About Mary. For 20 years, I’ve enjoyed the increasingly dumb antics of the crew from the Jackass films. On the other hand, Tom Green’s weirdo pet project Freddy Got Fingered remains one of the few movies I almost walked out of. Even revered cult classic Pink Flamingos has never been much more than a cinematic endurance test in my eyes.

Unfortunately for me, Belgian import Mother Schmuckers is less Mary and more Freddy with its unfunny bits and horrifically unlikable characters.

Brothers Zebulon and Issachar live a life of debauchery and chaos. When the two lose their mother’s beloved dog, they have 24 hours to find it or risk being thrown out on the street. Along the way, the two run afoul of a grocery store security guard, kill birds with a handgun, and parade a dead body around.

Mother Schmucker’s approach to comedy is throwing everything at the wall and seeing what sticks. Directors Harpo and Lenny Guit definitely aren’t afraid to try anything and everything, even if it means the vast majority of the gags (pun fully intended) fall flat. Everything from force-feeding feces to animal kink shows up at one point or another. This “anything goes” attitude might work for a prank or other kind of reality show, but as a narrative feature it just comes across as unfocused and lazy.

There’s a chaotic energy to Mother Schmuckers that’s undeniable. The movie’s visual aesthetic feels closer to a mid-90s skateboarding video than it does a traditional comedy. The camera moves around almost as fast as the brothers as they scurry from one catastrophe to the next. While it doesn’t necessarily make the movie any better, it does keep it from becoming a complete bore.

I don’t want to sound too puritanical, but brothers Issachar and Zebulon are two of the worst degenerates to ever grace the big screen. I doubt the Guits intended for audiences to embrace these moronic characters, but the lengths to which they go to make us actively hate them is almost impressive. I don’t for a second believe that movie characters need to be likable to be relatable, but these two live on a completely different plane of obnoxiousness and cruelty.

Mother Schmuckers is a pointlessly mean-spirited endeavor. Gross cinema can be good – heck, it can even be great! What it should never be, though, is cruel.

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Tinker Tailor Stylist Spy

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Huda’s Salon

by Matt Weiner

Western political thrillers have taken a big hit since the Watergate era and the fall of the Soviet Union. Not that there’s anything wrong with our homegrown paranoid style, but then a film like Huda’s Salon blows that all up with a shocking blend of tight suspense and cogent—and immediate—politics.

Emphasis on tight: After a few brief explanatory cards recapping what life in occupied Palestine is like for West Bank residents, director Hany Abu-Assad jumps right into an opening confrontation between two women that starts the clock on a lethal game of cat-and-mouse that brings together resistance fighters, spies, the Israeli secret service—and the women in society who are fighting a war for full independence on multiple fronts.

Salon owner Huda (Manal Awad) blackmails her clientele into sharing information with an Israeli secret service handler. Her latest victim, Reem (Maisa Abd Elhadi), has the same qualifications as Huda’s other unfortunate choices: her husband “is an asshole.” Reem spends her days taking care of her baby daughter, while her nights seem to be spent tolerating the boorish Yousef (Jalal Masarwa), who treats her more as an object of ridicule than an equal partner.

Where Huda is aloof and fatalistic about her small part in the broader conflict, Reem’s emotional range is played to great effect by Abd Elhadi. From vulnerability and terror to rage and her own fight for dignity, Abd Elhadi’s Reem is a remarkable woman—victimized by both the occupation and the events Huda and the men in her life have forced on her, but unwilling to stop fighting to be free from it all and simply live her own life with her daughter.

It becomes an urgent fight for her life when Huda’s treason is uncovered by a band of resistance fighters, with Huda taken in for interrogation and Reem trying to keep her identity (and compromising photos) secret, lest she be considered a traitor as well. As Huda and her interrogator Hasan (Ali Suliman) come to a begrudging mutual understanding, Hasan’s men fan out to track down Reem based on her cell phone location.

Abu-Assad, who also wrote the film, pulls off a delicate balance between intrigue and message. As a heart-pounding espionage thriller, Huda’s Salon is a contemporary heir to vintage le Carré, with the Berlin Wall giving way to the West Bank barrier. The constant hum of helicopters and jets provide an omnipresent soundtrack of anxiety, along with the tight framing around Reem as her world starts to collapse.

But the personal, as anchored by the two lead actresses, is just as engaging as the political. The film’s point of view isn’t subtle, but it’s not heavy-handed either. As Huda says of events during her own interrogation, it is what it is. If that reflection makes you uncomfortable in the current moment, so be it.

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Love Story

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Lucy and Desi

by George Wolf

You’ll see famous faces expressing some well deserved admiration for the legendary subjects of Lucy and Desi, but none come close to eclipsing the voice of the face you never see: director Amy Poehler.

The love and respect Poehler has for Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz is evident in every frame, as she leans on a goldmine of archival footage to inform, entertain, and giddily geek out.

And the key to the family vault comes from daughter Lucie Arnaz Luckinbill, interviewed poolside while explaining her parents’ fondness for filling countless audio tapes with thoughts and recollections.

What a gift for Poehler and veteran documentary writer Mark Monroe, who weave Lucy and Desi’s own voices around home movie footage, news reports, both classic and rarely seen TV clips, and those raves from admirers to cast a spell that nearly glows with warmth.

Poehler, in her debut doc, shows a fine instinct for knowing killer from filler. She’s able to remind us of Lucy and Desi’s trailblazing show biz greatness, teach us some things we may not know (they aired the first “re-runs”), and take us behind the scenes of both their work and home life, without wasting even one of the film’s ninety some-odd minutes.

And yet, whether or not you’ve seen Aaron Sorkin’s Being the Ricardos (and if you have, this is a necessary companion), it’s hard not to feel like Poehler is pulling one big punch. Here, the end of Lucy and Desi’s marriage is attributed to the pressures of running their iconic DesiLu studios. Desi may admit to late nights “at the track” and a general lack of moderation in life, but the rumors of his affairs are never addressed.

But it’s clear that to Arnaz Luckibill, her parents’ journey together (one that ends with a very touching phone call) is only about “unconditional love.” So it may be that getting her on board (Desi, Jr. is heard from briefly, and seen only in old clips) came with a stipulation.

If so, that’s a deal Poehler had to take. Much like Linda Ronstadt’s first person storytelling made The Sound of My Voice so compelling despite a refusal to discuss her relationships, seeing and hearing Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz narrate their own lives is what gives the film the intimacy that enables it to soar.

Two people loved each other deeply, ’til the end. Those two people are legends for some damn good reasons. That’s the point of Lucy and Desi, and it’s one well taken.