Madame Robinson

Last Summer

by Matt Weiner

The word “provocative” gets thrown around a lot in art, but French director Catherine Breillat has at least earned it over her storied career.

Last Summer, Breillat’s first film since 2013’s Abuse of Weakness, lives up to the label with an age-gap stepmother/stepson romance that dispenses with titillation to become a sharp, complicated and morally fluid examination of its leading lovers.

Anne (Léa Drucker, without whom none of this would work) is a successful middle-aged lawyer with a comfortable bourgeois life—business owner husband Pierre (Olivier Rabourdin), two adorable young children who enjoy their horseback riding and trips to the cabin—just the sort of luxurious ennui that’s ripe to be upended.

And upended it is, when Pierre’s wayward son from a first wife comes to stay with the family after troubles at his boarding school. Théo (Samuel Kircher) is a stranger to his father almost as much as he is to Anne, but it falls to her to integrate the rebellious 17-year-old into the family.

Casual secrets and moments of raw openness between Anne and Théo quickly progress from emotional intimacy to a passionate affair. It’s a salacious premise, and the adaptation, written in collaboration with Pascal Bonitzer, is a natural fit for Breillat’s boundary-pushing explorations of sexuality.

Breillat’s rewrite of the Danish original takes almost sadistic pleasure in the unresolved ambiguity and hypocrisy on display from Anne. Drucker gives a performance that credibly swings from feminist advocate to abuser to… well, something Breillat leaves up to the audience to decide.

Last Summer is also a far more artful way of grappling with complex subjects like abuse and agency than Breillat’s blunt interviews on Harvey Weinstein in the wake of the #MeToo movement.

Anne is a compelling subject, and Last Summer refuses to condemn her as a one-note monster. In many ways, she is all the more fascinating for the way she seems unable to come to terms with her own deeply flawed behavior and actions toward Théo.

It can be an intense artistic exercise to bear the full force of Breillat’s provocations with none of the pitch-black humor of the similarly confrontational May December. There’s no clear-cut legal satisfaction here, by design. Breillat’s unsettling study of Anne and her motivations is ultimately an artistic one—and all the wallowing in moral uncertainty that goes along with that.

Purple Haze

Harold and the Purple Crayon

by Rachel Willis

Director Carlos Saldanha gets a lot of mileage from a children’s picture book about a boy whose drawings come to life. In his live-action adaptation of Harold and the Purple Crayon, a now-grown Harold becomes concerned when the narrator, also known as Old Man (Alfred Molina), suddenly disappears from his story.

Knowing that Old Man comes from the “real world,” Harold (Zachary Levi) draws a door which acts as a gateway into our world. His two best friends, Moose (Lil Rel Howery) and Porcupine (Tanya Reynolds), join him on his adventure.

Upon entering the real world, Moose and Porcupine become inexplicably human. Of course, logic is not necessary in a kid’s movie and it’s fun watching both characters learn to adjust to their new human forms.

Harold meets single mom Terry (Zooey Deschanel) and her son Mel (Benjamin Bottani), and finds in Mel a friend willing to help him in his search for Old Man. With an imagination just as big as Harold’s, Mel is the perfect companion for our creative hero.

The best part of Harold is the reminder that imagination is a doorway to an inspired, joyous life. Levi imbues Harold with a marvelous sweetness and naivety. Often, naïve characters feel clownish, but the film treats Harold more gently. His innocence is what opens him up to the pleasures of the “real world.” Though it has its challenges (such as the soul-sucking reality of working in retail). the world around Harold offers him plenty of possibilities.

That’s not to say the film doesn’t see a potential downside to unbridled creativity. The movie’s villain, Library Gary (played with wicked charm by Jemaine Clement), seeks to steal Harold’s magical crayon for selfish reasons. It’s a bit of a mixed message that may fly over the heads of many kids. Or perhaps, I’m just reading too much into it.

The movie has a few weaker moments. Certain scenes are a bit too long, dragging down the film’s overall fast pace. But on the whole, Saldanha captures the spirit of the original story. Creativity is a magical gift that should be embraced, nurtured, and enjoyed. A message worth repeating.

The Snoozual Suspects

Detained

by Daniel Baldwin

Midbudget movies used to be Hollywood’s bread and butter for decades, especially procedural thrillers. They were all the rage in the ‘90s and ‘00s in particular. The Silence of the LambsKiss the GirlsThe Usual SuspectsDouble JeopardyPrimal FearThe FirmTwisted. If it involved Thomas Harris, John Grisham, and/or Ashley Judd, it was practically a guaranteed smash.

At some point in the 2010s, studios drifted away from such fare, in favor of a core focus on blockbuster franchises. Fans of such films were forced to get their fix almost exclusively from network television and low budget independent features. They filled the void that Hollywood left behind and one of the latest entries taking up residence in that gap is Detained.

Co-writer/director Felipe Mucci’s Detained centers around a confused and disoriented woman (Abbie Cornish) who awakens in a rundown police station. She doesn’t know why she is there and cannot remember what has happened to her recently. The two detectives (Laz Alonso, Moon Bloodgood) that are interrogating her are not much help. They’re more interested in beating around the bush and playing mind games with her to see if they can luck into a confession. What follows is a conversational game of cat & mouse between not only our lead and the detectives, but the other denizens of the dilapidated jail as well. Who will come out ahead as secrets are revealed and alliances are shifted? Well, you’ll have to watch it for yourself to find that out.

While Detained might fill a cinematic void created by bad Hollywood decisionmaking, it does not fill it well. Visually, the film is in line with many of the television procedurals within the genre: well-made, but very paint-by-numbers. It is also punching above its weight in the casting department, which helps smooth over a lot of its dialogue deficiencies.

Unfortunately, not even the likes of Cornish, Alonso, Bloodgood, or the ever-underrated Breeda Wool can overcome a narrative that is chock full of nearly every single twisty-turny mystery cliché imaginable. Even the most dedicated fan of this subgenre is likely to be five steps ahead of the story throughout the film’s running time. What is meant to be an engaging thriller that keeps viewers guessing is far likelier to have them checking the time to see how soon it will wrap-up.

Medical Malpractice

Dr. Jekyll

by Hope Madden

You can’t blame a film for not being what you hoped it was going to be. The fact that your goals don’t match the filmmaker’s goals doesn’t mean the film is less than it should be, just that the filmmaker had their own plan and if you want to see the movie you hoped for, it’s up to you to make it.

The idea of Eddie Izzard playing Dr. Jekyll is tantalizing, bursting with possibilities as a statement on being trans—sort of I Saw the TV Glow but goth. This is an amazing idea and a movie I’d like to see. And Dr. Jekyll is a Hammer Horror, which makes it sound like even more fun.

It is not. Not a meditation on being trans—an unfortunate waste of an opportunity, but if that wasn’t in the filmmakers’ plans, so be it. But it’s also not fun, not anything worth your time. What a waste.

Izzard does all she can with the role of reclusive Big Pharma billionaire Dr. Nina Jekyll. Jekyll’s assistant and only connection to the outside world—the always welcome Lindsay Duncan—is looking for a live in caregiver. Somehow, Rob (Scott Chambers) lands an interview. It was a mistake, never meant to happen, can’t imagine how he wasn’t vetted.

Jekyll takes an immediate shine to the goofy ex-con and hires him, against her assistant’s stern warning. But is it really Jekyll at all?

Izzard has a bit of fun with both characters and all’s well enough as long as she’s on screen. But at no time does director Joe Stephenson offer any reason to have revisited Robert Louis Stevenson’s old id/superego story.

First time screenwriter Dan Kelly-Mulhern tosses the source material in the bin but can come up with no relevant or interesting new twist, even though a tantalizing possibility is staring him in the face.

Chambers is certainly likeable enough in the role of doofus caregiver, but ex con with a guilty conscience and dark past? Not buying it for a second, which makes the character’s arc borderline ridiculous and Chambers lacks the chops to elevate the material.

The story itself is nothing but holes. With nary a coherent thread of story line to cling to, Izzard’s charm and wicked humor are in service of nothing. It’s almost offensive that RLS gets a writing credit.   

Trust the Process

Sing Sing

by George Wolf

Learn a bit about the genesis of A24’s Sing Sing, and you’d be tempted to view it as some sort of social experiment, a project where success is defined just by completing the assignment.

But to see the film is to witness a filmmaking vision brought to transcendent life by director/co-writer Greg Kwedar, and a tremendous ensemble cast that features many formerly incarcerated members of the Rehabilitation Through the Arts (RTA) program at Sing Sing maximum security prison.

Inspired by a 2005 article in Esquire magazine, the film brings us inside the RTA theatre troupe led by drama teacher Brent Buell (Paul Raci, Oscar nominee for Sound of Metal). Buell’s star pupil is John “Divine G” Whitfield (Colman Domingo), who is serving a 25 years-to-life sentence for manslaughter.

Via another endlessly sympathetic and award-worthy performance from Domingo, Whitfield comes to personify the soul-stirring effects of the RTA. As he meticulously prepares for one clemency hearing to the next, Whitfield throws himself into the work of the RTA troupe, and to mentoring a restless new member.

Clarence “Divine Eye” Maclin (Maclin, playing himself in a debut of undeniable power) has his violent guard up at all times, but Whitfield slowly starts chipping away at the anger that consumes him. He urges Maclin to commit, “trust the process,” and allow himself to feel human again.

Whitfield also counsels Maclin on his own quest for parole, creating a compelling dual B story that adds even more resonance to a deeply emotional journey. Colman, Maclin and the stellar supporting players (including former inmate Sean Dino Johnson and Domingo’s longtime creative partner Sean San Jose) fill every scene with a raw authenticity that can be as heartbreaking as it is hopeful.

The film’s surface-level message of healing through the arts is well-played and well-earned, but a more universal subtext is never far from the spotlight. Sing Sing soars from the way it invests in the need for expression and inspiration, and in the very souls who found a path to redemption by stepping onstage.

Another Opera Phantom

The Bohemian

by Christie Robb

A sumptuous candlelit romp through 17th century Europe, The Bohemian will reward those already familiar with the classical opera and life story of Czech composer Josef Mysliveček, but may leave the uninitiated a little lost.

Writer/director Petr Václav (Skokan) begins near the end. Mysliveček  (Vojtěch Dyk) is at a pawn shop, trying to scrape together funds. He’s turning his sword in, so you know things are bad.  He’s wearing a mask to disguise a face disfigured by syphilis, the wages earned by a life of hedonism in an age before antibiotics.

From there it’s a series of flashbacks following a young unknown Josef as he nurtures his talents, meets the right people, has love affairs, contracts a devastating STI and is generally completely upstaged by a child prodigy (Mozart, duh).

The movie contrasts the ethereal beauty of the music with the ugliness of the society that gave rise to it. Art patrons are presented as morally degenerate, uneducated, often violent monsters. The artists (and pretty much every female character) are at their mercy.

The story flashes back and forth, not spending much time on any particular character. The outfits are ornate, the hair and makeup so spectacular that it makes it a bit difficult to follow who is who throughout the film, especially if you aren’t particularly familiar with the era.

Visually and aurally, it’s an outstanding film. Many actors do their own vocal work, Simona Saturova dubs in for the film’s prima donna La Gabrielli. But, it lacks a strong narrative through line and the necessary historical exposition that would make this operatic biopic really sing.

Fright Club: Descent into Madness

What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger? Not according to these filmmakers. The lingering dread, the confusion and horror, the madness! So much great horror has sprung from that fear of losing your mind. In fact, there are so many great options that we got a little crazy.

We want to thank our special guest Scott Woods as well as our partner Ginger Nuts of Horror for this mad, mad episode!

5. Vampire’s Kiss (1988)

Sure, Nicolas Cage is a whore, a has-been, and his wigs embarrass us all. But back before The Rock (the film that turned him), Cage was always willing to behave in a strangely effeminate manner, and perhaps even eat a bug. He made some great movies that way.

Peter Lowe (pronounced with such relish by Cage) believes he’s been bitten by a vampire (Jennifer Beals) during a one night stand. It turns out, he’s actually just insane. The bite becomes his excuse to indulge his self-obsessed, soulless, predatory nature for the balance of the running time.

Cage gives a masterful comic performance in Vampire’s Kiss as a narcissistic literary editor who descends into madness. The actor is hilarious, demented, his physical performance outstanding. The way he uses his gangly mess of limbs and hulking shoulders inspires darkly, campy comic awe. And the plastic teeth are awesome.

Peter may believe he abuses his wholesome editorial assistant Alva (Maria Conchita Alonso) with sinister panache because he’s slowly turning into a demon, but we know better.

4. In the Mouth of Madness (1994)

Sutter Cane may be awfully close to Stephen King, but John Carpenter’s cosmic horror is even more preoccupied by Lovecraft. The great Sam Neill leads a fun cast in a tale of madness as created by the written world.

Neill is an insurance investigator out to prove that vanished author Sutter Cane is a phony. He just needs to get to Hobb’s End and prove it. There’s a scene with a bicyclist on a country road that boasts of Carpenter’s genre magic, as madness and mayhem collude to keep Neill where he is, at least until he can serve a greater purpose.

What if those horror novels you read became reality? What if that sketchy writer with the maybe-too-vivid imagination was not just got to his own page, but god for real? This movie tackles that ripe premise while ladling love for both of the horror novelists who made New England the creepiest section of America.

3. Black Swan (2010)

Based on the ballet Swan Lake, which itself is inspired by German folktales The White Duck and The Stolen VeilBlack Swan takes a dark turn.

The potent female counterpoint to Darren Aronofsky’s 2008 gem The WrestlerBlack Swan dances on masochism and self-destruction in pursuit of a masculine ideal.

Natalie Portman won the Oscar for a haunting performance—haunting as much for the physical toll the film appeared to take on the sinewy, hallowed out body as for the mind-bending horror.

Every performance shrieks with the nagging echo of the damage done by this quest to fulfill the unreasonable demands of the male gaze: Barbara Hershey’s plastic and needy mother; Winona Ryder’s picture of self-destruction; Mila Kunis’s dangerous manipulator; Vincent Cassel’s other dangerous manipulator.

The mind-bending descent into madness and death may be the most honest look at ballet we’ve ever seen at the movies.

2. The Shining (1980)

The hypnotic, innocent sound of Danny Torrance’s Big Wheel against the weirdly phallic patterns of the hotel carpet tells so much – about the size of the place, about the monotony of the existence, about hidden perversity. The sound is so lulling that its abrupt ceasing becomes a signal of spookiness afoot.

It’s having an effect on Jack.

As patriarch Jack Torrance, Jack Nicholson outdoes himself. His early, veiled contempt blossoms into pure homicidal mania, and there’s something so wonderful about watching Nicholson slowly lose his mind. Between writer’s block, isolation, ghosts, alcohol withdrawal, midlife crisis, and “a momentary loss of muscular coordination,” the playfully sadistic creature lurking inside this husband and father emerges.

What image stays with you most? The two creepy little girls? The blood pouring out of the elevator? The impressive afro in the velvet painting above Scatman Crothers’s bed? That freaky guy in the bear suit? Whatever the answer, thanks be to Kubrick’s deviant yet tidy imagination.

1. The Lighthouse (2019)

Robert Eggars has gone to sea. The Lighthouse strands you, along with two wickies, on the unforgiving island home of one lonely 1890s New England lighthouse.

Salty sea dog Thomas Wake (Willem Dafoe) keeps the light, mind ye. He also handles among the most impressive briny soliloquies delivered on screen in a lifetime. Joining him as second is one Ephraim Winslow (Robert Pattinson)—aimless, prone to self-abuse, disinclined to appreciate a man’s cooking. Both enjoy a bit of drink.

This is thrilling cinema. Let it in, and it will consume you to the point of nearly missing the deft gothic storytelling at work. The film is other-worldly, surreal, meticulous and consistently creepy.

And we’ll tell you what The Lighthouse is not. It is not a film ye will soon forget.

Diver Down and Out

The Last Breath

by George Wolf

You’ll notice some form of the word “shark” has not been worked in to the title, which is your first clue that The Last Breath wants to be taken more seriously than much of the sharksploitation fare.

It’s still a shark movie, just one that tries to be a little more based in reality.

Tries. A little.

Noah (Jack Parr) works at a dive shop in the Caribbean that’s owned by the deep-in-debt Levi (Julian Sands, in his last role). The two have recently discovered the wreck of the USS Charlotte, which went down thanks to an enemy torpedo during WWII.

So Noah has some exciting news to share with his college friends, who have just come in for a reunion party. One of the group, Brett (Alexander Arnold) is a rich douche, and he offers Noah and Levi big money to hold off reporting the find for one day, so they can all be the first to dive the Charlotte.

As a certified scuba diver who has gone on a few wreck dives, I can tell you that this is suicidal idiocy. But I get the lure of the premise for writers Andrew Prendergast and Nick Saltrese. It sets up a saltwater take on The Descent, where monsters are waiting in unexplored territory.

And of course, these divers must be equipped with full face diving masks and integrated microphones so that we can see more of the actors’ faces and the characters can speak to each other underwater. Yes, I’m again picking nits on these tourist dive shops offering such expensive equipment, but the bigger problem is the inane dialog and forced exposition that follows.

Director Joachim Hedén, a veteran of diving adventure films, does exhibit a fine command of underwater space and framing, creating a decent amount of tension with visual checks on remaining air supply or a frayed guideline. But while the footage of lurking great whites may integrate sufficiently, the shark attacks themselves offer less than thrilling CGI effects.

On the sharkin’ scale, this is indeed a step up from the ‘nados and the Megs. But if you’re waiting to hear The Last Breath belongs among the rare air of The Shallows or Open Water

Don’t hold it.

A Farm in England

Starve Acre

by Hope Madden

Perhaps it’s impossible to create a folk horror film that feels truly fresh. Maybe freshness is at odds with the very idea of folk horror. What director Daniel Kokotajlo, adapting Andrew Michael Hurley’s novel Starve Acre, manages in lieu of freshness is an enigmatic slow burn enlivened by memorable performances.

Richard (Matt Smith), Jules (Morfydd Clark) and their young son Owen (Arthur Shaw) are settling in. They’ve recently moved into Richard’s childhood home out in the bleak and foggy British countryside circa 1970-something. The fresh air will do Owen good, surely. I mean, nothing maleficent ever happens in situations like these. What could go wrong in a place called Starve Acre?

Unless Richard’s late father—and maybe rugged old neighbor Gordon (Sean Gilder, stellar)—dabbled in child abuse and the occult. Or the old tree trunk that Richard obsessively digs around is some kind of gateway. But what are the odds?

So much of Kokotajlo’s film pulls from existing genre fare: unhappy couple, new home with an ugly past, familial tragedy, father numbs himself with work while mother loses grip on reality.

But a handful of intriguing scenes and conversations, as well as an entire ensemble of strong performances, ensures that the creeping storyline captures and keeps your attention.

Little Arthur Shaw is a heartbreaker, so be prepared. Kokotajlo sidesteps overt gruesomeness to leave an impression that’s even more menacing. Gilder’s a solid salt-of-the-earth presence, offset admirably by Erin Richards. As Jules’s sister Harrie, she’s civility-meets-hardiness and her character feels deeply human and relatable.

But it’s Smith and Clark (the latter who was so astonishing in Rose Glass’s 2019 genre masterpiece, Saint Maud) who carry the film. Both deliver characteristically flawed but tender performances, each commanding the screen without an ounce of showiness.

Careful writing, some fine genre direction and misdirection, and these compelling performances help Starve Acre rise above its spooky familiarity. It’s not enough for Kokotajlo to leave you lying awake and hoping for dawn, but you won’t regret watching.