All posts by maddwolf

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Every Breath You Take

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Lurker

by Hope Madden

Like 2021’s Poser, Noah Dixon and Ori Segev’s thriller of fandom gone feral, writer/director Alex Russell’s Lurker hangs on the cringey relatability of its awestruck lead. Who hasn’t dreamed of being taken into their hero’s inner circle?

Théodore Pellerin is Matthew. Working in a hip LA clothier, Matthew meets rising pop phenom Oliver (Archie Madekwe, Saltburn, Gran Turismo). Quietly, expertly, Matthew manipulates the situation to become the opposite of what he really is: sincere, oblivious to Oliver’s fame, an outsider with taste. Smitten, Oliver invites Matthew to a show.

What follows is a series of steps in Matthew’s budding friendship with the emotionally unfaithful Oliver. Russell never overplays the sleights of hand, the seeds sown, as Matthew the opportunist situates himself within Oliver’s posse.

Russell’s nimble screenplay delivers something sharp, bright, and delightfully morally murky. Though Matthew possesses a dorky, humble charm, we recognize his deception the moment he meets Oliver, so we’re never expected to fully empathize with or root for him.

At the same time, Oliver’s fickle affection makes him hard to pity. The whole entourage swirls with narcissism and insecurity. There’s something a touch Shakespearean about the drama that gives it a timeless quality, while its situation within the “attention as currency” climate lends it immediacy and relevance.

Madekwe is the perfect blend of charm, arrogance, insincerity and vulnerability. His character arc is wild, but the actor never misses a step.

Pellerin delivers a subtly unnerving performance, endearing one moment, volatile the next. The anxiety seething just below Matthew’s smiling surface informs an insecurity that recognizes itself in Oliver. It’s here that Russell’s perceptive screenplay does the most psychological damage, fully separating Lurker from other poisonous fan films.  

It’s a quietly effecting study of the way the desire for fame alienates and isolates, whether you’ve achieved some level of fame or you’re happy to siphon it from someone else. Russell’s direction and his cast keep you anxious and keep you guessing.

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Candy Colored Clown

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Somnium

by Hope Madden

Hollywood is one big nightmare. That’s essentially the plot of writer/director Rachel Cain’s feature debut, a dreamscape where you’re never certain what Gemma (Chloë Levin) is experiencing and what she’s imagining.

Levine’s cinematic presence, no matter the film, is wholly natural, utterly authentic. There’s nothing uncanny about her. Her humanity and vulnerability inform every moment she’s onscreen. That may be why she’s such a perfect central figure in horror films like The Ranger, The Transfiguration, and The Sacrifice Game. However unnatural the plot or nemesis, Levine is a profoundly human anchor.

In this surreal Hollywood fable—part Neon Demon, part Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, part Inception, part The Substance—Gemma leaves a small town in Georgia to chase her Hollywood dreams. Lonesome, rejected, lost and always one step away from homelessness and failure, she takes a job at an experimental sleep clinic where people dream their way into believing they can achieve their ideal future.

Gamma works nights, studying scripts and babysitting sleeping clients. By day she auditions, faces rejection, daydreams about her old life, and flirts with the possibly creepy, possibly benevolent Hollywood insider, Brooks (Jonathan Schaech).

But the daydreams are leaking into her waking moments, huge chunks of time keep disappearing, and there’s this contorted figure with a twisted spine she keeps catching in her peripheral vision.

Cain’s script lacks a little something in originality—hers is hardly the first cautionary tale about striking it out on your own in Hollywood. Still, in subverting the idea of big dreams, playing with the notion that perception is reality, and mining the vulnerability and predatory nature of those with and without power in Tinsel Town, she hits a nerve.

She leaves too much unresolved, which is frustrating. But scene by scene, Cain casts a spell both horrifying and hopeful. Though the entire ensemble is strong, Levine is her secret weapon. The film falls apart if you don’t feel protective of Gemma, if you don’t long for her to succeed. Characteristically, Levine has you in her corner, even when lurking doom waits behind her in the shadows.

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Why Can’t We Be Friends?

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Love, Brooklyn

by Matt Weiner

The early 2000s and its attendant malaise were fertile ground for the Judd Apatow manchild, romcom fixtures who enjoyed their blithe aimlessness between 9/11 and the Great Recession. Now as more films grapple with Covid—directly or, more often, by conspicuously dancing around the lacunas left behind in cities—Rachael Abigail Holder’s debut feature Love, Brooklyn points the way toward a new archetype: the mid-life coming of age crisis.

Roger (André Holland) is a writer and New Yorker in vintage Sex and the City mold. That is, he keeps landing the last media jobs on the planet that allow him to live in a nice apartment without a roommate while doing almost no writing (let alone research or reporting).

But no matter. There’s the ticking clock of Roger’s looming deadline for a new piece about the changing city, but that’s just a convenient device for Roger to bounce back and forth between his modern love triangle. Roger is casually dating Nicole (DeWanda Wise), a massage therapist raising a daughter and still processing the death of her husband. But he still maintains an uncomfortably close relationship with his ex-girlfriend Casey (Nicole Beharie), an art gallery owner facing mounting pressure to sell her space to larger developers.

Roger’s casual relationships have served him well, but it becomes clear to everyone else involved (and, at last, to him as well) that it’s time to commit to a solid future rather than hold onto the past—and that goes as much for his notions of the city as it does the people in it.

Holland, who was electric in The Knick, is more subdued as the indecisive Roger. There’s no quiet rage here, only the quiet resignation that comes with looking up one day and realizing everything and everyone else around you has changed. Gentrification is the more visible issue that his social circle grapples with, but it’s the atomization post-Covid that is the unspoken elephant in the room.

But then, so much goes unspoken in this mostly gentle slice of city life. The otherwise complex and emotional love triangle gets overly tidy when it’s time to wrap up the more existential loose ends—complete with classic SATC column voiceover to drive the metaphors home. Screenwriter Paul Zimmerman treats the three leads with such empathy and maturity that it’s a shame there’s so little time given to interrogate the changes and forces that the film alludes to.

What we do get, however, are sumptuous shots of Brooklyn, as seen through the eyes of those who love it. The characters may be conflicted on what the future holds for a city constantly in flux, but Holder and cinematographer Martim Vian make a strong visual case that community, not just love, is what we need to keep the soul of a city intact.

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Don’t Waste It Living Someone Else’s Life

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Everything to Me

by Rachel Willis

For a young woman growing up in Silicon Valley during Apple’s heyday, the role model for her coming-of-age journey is none other than Steve Jobs.

Writer/director Kayci Lacob has a new take on the perils of growing up in her film, Everything to Me.

The film opens on an adult Claudia (Victoria Pedretti) at a reading for her new book, The Book of Jobs. What starts as a reading turns into voice over narration as we follow Claudia through several life stages.

The most impactful iteration occurs with tween Claudia (Eliza Donaghy), who uses the words of her idol to not only navigate her parents’ tumultuous divorce, but to correctly insert a tampon for the first time. There is a lot of heart and warmth in these moments.

However, the bulk of the film follows teen Claudia (Abigail Donaghy). It’s apparent that Claudia’s hero worship has become off-putting to her best friend (Lola Flanery), reflecting, unfortunately, the way it feels to the audience as well. Claudia’s hero-worship no longer feel like a natural extension of her character, but a script she follows rather than lives.

This is a theme throughout the film: live life as it happens rather than trying to live by someone else’s bucket list. However, our teenage Claudia never quite comes across as someone who truly believes in what she does and how she lives.

But the film comes alive in other ways, mostly in the characters who surround Claudia. Particularly vibrant is way she navigates her relationships—with her mom (a winning Judy Greer), her dad, a favorite teacher, and the boy who likes her.

In these moments, the film excels, making it easier to brush aside less interesting and less believable scenes.

Growing up is never easy, Claudia’s journey toward finding herself delivers a memorable reminder of that..

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Say Yes to This

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Hamilton

by George Wolf

Five years after Hamilton hit streaming, who ever could have predicted its lesson of resisting a dictator would feel even more urgent?

I know, plenty of people. Still, after all the sold out performances, the Tony awards, the historical debates and a Pulitzer, the worldwide phenomenon that is Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton finally comes to theaters.

Number one, if you’re somehow new to Hamilton, you’re going to discover what a fantastic show it is. But then the exhilarating nature of this movie is how well it translates the live theater experience to the big screen. And they are two totally different entertainment experiences, so what director Thomas Kail pulls off here is not easy.

The difference between seeing something live and feeling the energy exchange between cast and audience, as opposed to watching it on a screen where you’re removed from the human element of it, is often hard to overcome. (Remember Cats?) But Kail – who also directed the 2016 Broadway shows that were recorded for this film – has crafted a near perfect mix of spatial movement and character intimacy.

This original Broadway cast, including Miranda, Leslie Odom Jr., Phillipa Soo, Renée Elise Goldsberry, Anthony Ramos, Daveed Diggs, Jonathan Groff, Chris Jackson and even a pre-Oscar Ariana DuBose in the ensemble, is spectacular. Miranda’s sing-through soundtrack is littered with highlights from “My Shot”, “The Schuyler Sisters”, “Say No to This”, and “Helpless”, to “Satisfied”, “The Room Where It Happens”, “Burn” and King George’s delightfully mad trilogy.

The technical craftsmanship here never suffers a misstep. Kail makes sure we get close enough to see the sweat (and sometimes the spittle) on the actors’ faces, before pulling back to showcase choreography, set construction and the artful, hypnotic movement of the entire production. Jonah Moran’s editing is downright masterful, displaying a wonderful instinct for layering intimate moments and energetic flow.

And even more so today than when it first hit Disney+, the film reminds us how hard it was to birth this country. Of course Miranda took creative liberties, but time has only increased the weight of this lesson in the price of democracy, and the importance of fighting for it.

Half a decade later, Hamilton still stands as a high water mark for bringing a stage musical to the screen. It’s hard to imagine it being done any better.

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Baseball Metaphors and Drug Money

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Caught Stealing

by Hope Madden

Watching the trailer for the new Austin Butler actioner Caught Stealing, it’s easy to forget it’s a Darren Aronofsky film. Yes, the guy who swung from Requiem for a Dream to Noah has an interest in varied material, but a zany, sexy, urban action romp? None of those words feel right for an Aronofsky.

Fitting, because that’s not at all what Caught Stealing is. Based on the Charlie Huston novel, the film trails a good-looking, well-intentioned New York alcoholic named Hank (Butler). Hank sometimes looks after his punk rock neighbor Russ’s (Matt Smith) cat, and Russ has to rush back to London on account of his dad’s stroke. In his rush, Russ seems to have forgotten that a whole bunch of very bad people are looking for something he has, and they assume Hank knows where to find it.

Yes, that does sound like it could be sexy and zany. The wild bunch that populates the tale—Hank’s girlfriend Yvonne (Zoë Kravitz), his hard rockin’ hippie boss (Griffin Dunne), the Russians (Nikita Kukushkin and Yuri Kolokolnikov), the Hebrews (Liev Schrieber and Vincent D’Onofrio), and the cop (Regina King)—certainly carry a madcap vibe. But the film turns on a dime with an act of shocking violence, and Aronofsky reminds us again that we’re never fully safe in his hands.

It could feel like a mismatch—the hyper serious, even sometimes punishing auteur helming a glossy mistaken identity action thriller. It’s not. It’s probably the best thing that could have happened to the property.

It’s fun to see Aronofsky—who scarred us so deeply with Requiem, and Black Swan, and The Wrestler, let’s not even talk about Mother!—cut loose a little bit. Laugh. Shoot some people.

But we never really lose him. His camera is trained on all the details a more glamorous version of the film might skim over: the blood and urine pooling under Hank after his first beating., for instance. Who but Aronofsky would have chosen to film Hank’s drunken, projectile vomit from the point of view of the window it slaps against?

It also helps that the hijinks are driven by such remarkable talent. Smith and Dunne are both a riot, and King toes the line between comic foil and badass like the professional she is.

The depth and the darkness, the broken humanity and festering shame, those are the themes that might surprise folks looking for the new Austin Butler blockbuster. They’re lucky.  

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War Rooms

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The Roses

by George Wolf

If you’re anything like me, you’d pay to see Olivia Colman and Benedict Cumberbatch do anything from cranking up polka music to telling a story about a rucksack full of coke and a sword. Well, good news for both of us. They do all that and plenty more in The Roses, a fun and funny update of The War of the Roses from 36 years ago.

Director Jay Roach starts with a flashback (and some nifty de-aging) to give us the impulsive and passionate start to Theo (Cumberbatch) and Ivy’s (Colman) relationship. Ten years later and the married Brits have moved to California where he’s an architect, she’s a part-time culinary artist and they have two pre-teens.

Life is good, until the worst night of Theo’s professional life also gives Ivy a springboard to becoming a celebrity chef. Three more years go by, and she’s the jet-setting breadwinner while he’s staying home and raising the kids via a regimented, competitive style that Ivy always resented.

Colman and Cumberbatch are perfection, with an instant chemistry that lets the cracks in the marriage seem organic and relatable. Trouble is brewing, and it’s sensed by their group of friends Including Zoe Chao, Andy Samberg and a priceless Kate McKinnon as a woman not shy about awkwardly exploring social boundaries.

It’s all very clever and witty in an acerbic and oh-so-British sort of way, until screenwriter Tony McNamara adds some good ol’ American meanness to the mix. From then on, The Roses gets laugh-out-loud funny. McNamara (The Favourite, Poor Things) serves up a riotous contrast between the American and British ways of arguing, and this cast brilliantly turns his phrases into moments of joyful vitriol.

Then, for the push over the cliff, Alison Janney strolls in with a fire-breathing cameo as a brutal divorce lawyer, and the down-and-dirty battle we’ve been waiting for finally begins.

Anyone who remembers the original will appreciate the subtle twist of this war’s end. But The Roses has no trouble standing on its own. Sharply written, nicely paced and impeccably performed, it’s a winning adult comedy that finds big laughs inside some all too familiar modern foibles.

Outtakes

Scenes from the Opioid Epidemic

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What We Hide

by Hope Madden

At 19, Mckenna Grace has racked up 71 TV and film acting credits, with 11 more movies currently in post-production. That’s insane. Naturally not every project was a winner. But from her earliest film work, like Marc Webb’s 2017 drama Gifted, Grace’s control and authenticity make her memorable, even when the projects are not.

Writer/director Dan Kay’s streamer What We Hide benefits immeasurably from Grace’s presence. She plays Spider, 15-year-old daughter of an addict. With her younger sister Jessie (Jojo Regina), Spider discovers the overdosed corpse of her mother in the opening moments of the film.

Recognizing that foster care would almost certainly mean splitting her from her sister, Spider decides to hide the body and say nothing. Now all the girls have to do is steer clear of their mom’s volatile dealer (Dacre Montgomery), the town’s goodhearted sheriff (Jesse Williams), and the latest case worker, whom they not-so-affectionately call “Baby Thief” (Tamara Austin).

Grace is terrific, and the chemistry she shares with Regina buoys some otherwise clunky dialog. The cast around them does admirable work with even more obvious characters. The always welcome Forrest Goodluck (Revenant, Blood Quantum, How to Blow Up a Pipeline) carries love interest Cody with a naturalism that gives his scenes an indie vibe that comes close to offsetting the after school special tenor delivered by the rest of the effort.

Commendable performances from a solid cast don’t make up for Kay’s uninspired direction. Bland framing marries banal plotting to leech some of the vibrance this cast injects into scenes.

It doesn’t help that the story veers so rarely from the obvious that the occasional flash of originality—the couple from the motel, the case worker’s phone calls—stand out as opportunities left unexplored.

Had Kay been able to situate his tale from the opioid epidemic in a recognizable place, given the community some personality, or found a less by-the-book way to complicate What We Hide, he might have had something. Instead, the film is a well-intentioned waste of a good cast.

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Some Dude with a Mop

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The Toxic Avenger

by Hope Madden

My friend has photographed Lloyd Kaufman’s testicles. That means that in a game of Six Degrees of Lloyd Kaufman’s Testicles, I would win.

In other news, a bunch of talented, funny humans have rebooted Kaufman’s iconic 1984 Troma classic, The Toxic Avenger. There are few films I have more impatiently anticipated than this, plagued as it was by a two-year delay in distribution. But now you can see writer/director Macon Blair’s reboot in all its goopy, corrosive, violent, hilarious glory.

Though the story’s changed, much remains the same (including Easter eggs a plenty!).

Winston (Peter Dinklage), single stepfather to Wade (Jacob Tremblay) and janitor at a factory that makes wellness and beauty supplements, finds that he’s dying and his platinum insurance doesn’t cover the treatment that could save his life. Attempting to steal the money to cover the treatment, he saves a whistleblower (Taylour Paige) from a group of horror core hip hop parkour assassins but winds up in a pool of toxic sludge.

Let’s pause for a second to marvel at this cast. Dinklage is one of the most talented actors working today, and as Winston he is effortlessly heartbreaking and tender. He’s also really funny, and this is not necessarily the kind of humor every serious actor can pull off.

Paige, who has impressed in Zola and Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, among other film, also seems built for Blair’s particular brand of Troma comedy. And Tremblay, beloved since his excruciatingly perfect turn in Room as a small boy, gives the film its angsty heartbeat.

Plus, Kevin Bacon as the narcissistic weasel owner of the wellness and beauty empire killing the planet. He hates to be called Bozo (IYKYK).

Blair made his directorial debut with 2017’s underseen treasure, I Don’t Feel at Home in This World Anymore, though he’s better known as the lynchpin performer in many of Jeremy Saulnier’s films (Blue Ruin, Green Room, Murder Party). He and Kaufman both deliver laughs in small roles, but he impresses most as the mind behind the mayhem.

His vision for this film couldn’t be more spot-on. Joyous, silly, juvenile, insanely violent, hateful of the bully, in love with the underdog—Blair’s Toxic Avenger retains the best of Troma, rejects the worst, and crafts something delirious and wonderful.