On this week’s screening room—after we kick around our Oscar predictions—we get down to business with How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World, Fighting with My Family, Arctic, Lords of Chaos and all the new stuff in home entertainment.
Listen to the full podcast HERE.
by Hope Madden
Rarely, if ever, has WWE PR been as charming as Stephen Merchant’s biopic Fighting with My Family.
A traditional underdog tale, the film is also savvy enough to know how to wield its source material to broaden its audience beyond your traditional WWE fanatic.
Saraya Knight (Florence Pugh) — or Britani or, later, Paige — takes part in her family’s business. Mornings, she hands out flyers to their wrestling events, mainly to passersby who look down their noses at the notion.
Afternoons she helps her brother Zak (Jack Lowden) coach local kids on the arts of grappling. Evenings, she gets in the ring with her brother, mum (Lena Headey) and dad (Nick Frost) to entertain amateur wrestling enthusiasts in Norwich, England.
Then the call comes inviting Saraya and Zak to audition for WWE at an upcoming London Smackdown event.
The set-up is there and, for any sports story, it is golden. Scrappy working class upbringing? Check! Sibling rivalry? Check! Opportunities for montage? Everywhere!
Better still is a madcap supporting cast you can’t help but love. Frost and Headey share a really lovely and incredibly goofy onscreen chemistry as the Mohawk-sporting ex-con patriarch and former homeless drug addict turned devoted mum. Merchant’s sharp direction and even sharper script avoids condescension or sentimentality.
The solid first act dovetails nicely into a less comedic journey for Saraya, the only sibling the WWE actually hires. Additional supporting players cannot live up to the charisma of Saraya’s family, but Dwayne Johnson plays himself and he has enough charisma for an entire cast.
Vince Vaughn, adding one more to a string of solid performances, plays the recruiter/drill sergeant/coach who helps Saraya find her individual strength for the journey to WWE Diva.
Pugh is the spark that makes the engines go, here. Though Saraya’s wigs are not always believable, her inner conflict and fighting spirit are.
While Fighting with My Family manages to sidestep or subvert a lot of genre clichés, it hardly breaks new ground. Instead, Merchant elevates the familiar with a more authentic feeling backstory and a winning cast.
by Hope Madden
“Based on truth and lies and what actually happened.”
One of the founders of Norway’s black metal sound and scene, Mayhem benefited and eventually suffered from a series of very black metal-ish crimes and misdemeanors—mostly crimes, including arson and murder. A cross between punk rock ethos and early metal imagery, Norwegian black metal espoused a love of Satan and a deep and fiery hatred of Christianity and the Christian moral framework. In keeping with those philosophies, Mayhem became known for far edgier behavior than, say, biting the head off a bat.
Director (and former drummer for Swedish black metal band Bathory) Jonas Åkerlund’s image of art and commerce, fanaticism, metal and death follows Mayhem’s ascension to global notoriety.
Rory Culkin anchors the film as band leader and spinmeister Øystein Aarseth, AKA Euronymous. He narrates with some of Åkerlund and co-writer Dennis Magnusson’s least convincing material—not to mention an absurdly American accent—but the performance itself is the perfect blend of bored teen and insecure leader vulnerable to attack. Inside Culkin’s quietly convincing performance, deadpan cynicism battles with genuine tenderness in a way that gives the film an affecting yet appropriately faulty soul.
Did Euronymous take advantage of early tragedy to create a persona, or did he live his message?
In its smarter moments, Lords of Chaos is a film about poseurs. Who is and who isn’t? And what do you do if you find that you have become the poseur in the circle of your own creation?
How much of it was all for show? Maybe a lot, but when you become a magnet for those who embrace your bullshit, hopefully that bullshit does not require a lot of bloodshed.
Enter Varg (Emery Cohen), a novice and admirer who would become a disenchanted disciple. Cohen’s arc from sycophantic insecurity to narcissistic sociopathy impresses, and as Euronymous’s grasp on the position of Alpha weakens, the dynamic between the two actors sparks.
Culkin’s slippery performance in these scenes works well within the true crime context, but Åkerlund has trouble as he shifts back and forth between crime drama and comedy of manners. There is a consistent “kids sure are stupid” theme a la Alpha Dog or River’s Edge that he can’t fit into his larger themes. While most scenes taken on their own work (if you can forgive the unexplained and hard-to-miss cacophony of accents), Åkerlund can’t pull them together for a cohesive whole.
In recreating a series of increasingly more unfortunate events, Åkerlund never manages to shed new light on the crimes at hand. And maybe he can’t—maybe that’s the point. Perhaps it’s impossible to entirely differentiate between philosophy and promotion, but what the filmmaker was trying to accomplish is just as tough to tease out.
by George Wolf
I usually like to steer clear of spoilers, but I really need to warn you…this film contains gratuitous dragon flirting.
And full-on nuzzling.
It’s cute, but The Hidden World offers so much more than just cute, and more than enough substance to solidify the entire Dragon saga as a top tier film trilogy.
Writer/director Dean DeBlois is back to finish what he started in 2010, and continued in 2014. He picks up the tale one year after the close of HTTYD 2, when our hero Hiccup (voiced by Jay Baruchel) finds that his pal Toothless isn’t the only Night Fury dragon, after all.
This new one is a Light Fury, she’s a charmer, and Toothless is in love.
But all of Hiccup’s dragon friends are in danger, none more than Toothless, thanks to the bloodthirsty Grimmel (F. Murray Abraham) and his batallion of dragon hunters. To continue living in peace, Hiccup and his entire village must find mythical dragon birthplace The Hidden World before Grimmel does.
This franchise has delivered true visual wonder since the original film’s opening frame, and part 3, taking natural advantage of enhanced technology, ups the ante. The aerial gymnastics and high seas swashbuckling are propelled by animation that is deep and rich, while new details in the dragons’ faces bring wonderful nuance and expression.
There is real tension here, along with warm humor, thrilling action pieces and resonant themes backed by genuine emotion.
As you realize Hiccup is leading a group of wartime refugees, the bittersweet coming-of-age tale moves to the forefront. We’ve watched Hiccup move from losing his father (Gerard Buter) to finding his mother (Cate Blanchett) to becoming a father figure for the orphaned Toothless. Now, he may have to let his best friend go and remember that “with love comes loss, it’s part of the deal.”
These themes may not be new, but DeBlois handles them with an understated poignancy that hits the feels, leading to a breathless emotional high point reminiscent of Toy Story 3‘s classic “holding hands” throat-lumper.
Packed with excitement, sincerity and visual amazeballs, The Hidden World ties a can’t-miss ribbon on a wonderful trilogy.
Love is in the air! God help us, especially those who are throwing themselves into the love game. It’s horrifying, right? Scary, vulnerable, awkward, and really bloody once the power tools come out.
Horror filmmakers know a good subject when they see one. Here are our five favorite films focused on the quest to find and secure love.
Aussie photographer Clare (Teresa Palmer, better than she’s ever been) is looking for some life experience. She backpacks across Europe, landing for a brief stay in Berlin where she hopes to make a human connection. Handsome Berliner Andi (Max Riemelt) offers exactly the kind of mysterious allure she wants and they fall into a night of passion.
What follows is an incredible combination of horror and emotional dysfunction, deftly maneuvered by both cast mates and director Cate Shortland. The mental and emotional olympics Palmer goes through from the beginning of the film to the end showcase her instincts for nuanced and unsentimental performance. Clare is smart, but emotionally open and free with her own vulnerability. The way Palmer inhabits these characteristics is as authentic as it is awkward.
Even more uncomfortable is the shifting relationship, the neediness and resilience, the dependency and independence. It’s honest in a way that is profoundly moving and endlessly uncomfortable. Riemelt matches Palmer’s vulnerability with his own insecurity and emotional about faces. The two together are an unnerving onscreen pairing.
Wes Anderson with a Black Mass fetish and a feminist point of view, Anna Biller wrote/directed/produced/edited/set-designed/costume-designed/music-supervised this seductive sorcery headtrip.
Elaine (Samantha Robinson – demented perfection) needs a change of scenery. Driving her red convertible up the seacoast highway toward a new life in northern California, her troubles – and her mysteriously dead ex-husband – are behind her. Surely, with her smart eyeshades and magic potions, she’ll find true love.
Expect a loose confection of a plot, as Elaine molds herself into the ideal sex toy, winning and then tiring of her trophies. This allows Biller to simultaneously reaffirm and reverse gender roles with appropriately wicked humor.
In 2004, Belgian writer/director Fabrice Du Welz released the exquisite Calvaire, marking himself a unique artist worth watching. Ten years later he revisits the themes of that film – blind passion, bloody obsession, maddening loneliness – with Alleluia. Once again he enlists the help of an actor who clearly understands his vision.
Laurent Lucas plays Michel, a playboy conman who preys upon lonely women, seducing them and taking whatever cash he can get his hands on. That all changes once he makes a mark of Gloria (Lola Duenas).
Du Welz’s close camera and off angles exaggerate Lucas’s teeth, nose and height in ways that flirt with the grotesque. Likewise, the film dwells on Duenas’s bags and creases, heightening the sense of unseemliness surrounding the pair’s passion.
Duenas offers a performance of mad genius, always barely able to control the tantrum, elation, or desire in any situation. Her bursting passions often lead to carnage, but there’s a madcap love story beneath that blood spray that compels not just attention but, in a macabre way, affection. Alleluia is a film busting with desperation, jealousy, and the darkest kind of love.
Writer/director/Tasmanian Sean Byrne upends high school clichés and deftly maneuvers between angsty, gritty drama and neon colored, glittery carnage in a story that borrows from other horror flicks but absolutely tells its own story.
Brent (Xavier Samuel) is dealing with guilt and tragedy in his own way, and his girlfriend Holly tries to be patient with him. Oblivious to all this, Lola (a gloriously wrong-minded Robin McLeavy) asks Brent to the end of school dance. He politely declines, which proves to be probably a poor decision.
Byrne quietly crafts an atmosphere of loss and depression in and around the school without painting the troubles cleanly. This slow reveal pulls the tale together and elevates it above a simple work of outrageous violence.
Inside Lola’s house, the mood is decidedly different. Here, we’re privy to the weirdest, darkest image of a spoiled princess and her daddy. The daddy/daughter bonding over power tool related tasks is – well – I’m not sure touching is the right word for it.
The Loved Ones is a cleverly written, unique piece of filmmaking that benefits from McLeavy’s inspired performance as much as it does its filmmaker’s sly handling of subject matter.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olB5Wrg8Sxc
The prolific director Takashi Miike made more than 70 movies in his first 20 or so years in film. Among the best is Audition, a phenomenally creepy May/December romance gone very, very wrong.
Audition tells the story of a widower convinced by his TV producer friend to hold mock television auditions as a way of finding a suitable new mate. He is repaid for his deception.
Nearly unwatchable and yet too compelling to turn away from, Audition is a remarkable piece of genre filmmaking. The slow moving picture builds anticipation, then dread, then full-on horror.
By the time Audition hits its ghastly conclusion, Miike and his exquisitely terrifying antagonist (Eihi Shina) have wrung the audience dry. She will not be the ideal stepmother.
by George Wolf
Arctic is a survival film that wastes no time getting to the survival.
Director/co-writer Joe Penna drops us somewhere in the Arctic Circle long enough after a place crash that lone survivor Overgård (Mads Mikkelsen) has had time to construct a makeshift camp. We get no backstory, no thrilling crash effects and no time to assess the situation, which is perfect on two fronts.
1) The situation is pretty damn clear, and 2) so are the film’s unflinching parameters. There’ll be no spoon-feeding here, are you in or are you out?
Mikkelsen is all in, with a supremely committed performance full of both strength and vulnerability. In a film that’s nearly dialog-free, Mikkelsen sparks a curiosity about his character that the film is in no hurry to indulge. Overgård is clearly meticulous and intelligent, cautious and resourceful, but it is after an early rescue attempt goes awry that Mikkelsen delivers the layers of humanity that add an ethereal beauty to the sterile, potentially deadly climate.
Suddenly, there is the safety of a badly injured woman (Maria Thelma Smáradóttir) to consider. As Overgård weighs the options of waiting for another rescue or striking out on foot, Mikkelson excels in making the emotional weight authentic, along with some simple joys that come from supplies found in the woman’s downed helicopter.
While it might be tempting to label this a snow-covered Castaway, the experience is closer to Robert Redford’s 2013 vehicle All is Lost. In his feature debut, Penna displays majestic wide-angle vistas without any photographic glamour that might betray what Overgård is up against. In trimming away all excess narrative, he immerses you only in the often gut-wrenching journey.
The result is never less than believable, a no muss, plenty of frigid fuss endurance tale that feels real.
And real cold.
This week’s home viewing options run the gamut from Oscar hopefuls to Razzie shoe-ins, plus some bare knuckle brawlers and Nazi zombies. That’s what we call variety!
Click the film title for the full review:
Lots of stuff coming out this week in theaters and home entertainment. We talk through Alita: Battle Angel, Happy Death Day 2U, Isn’t It Romantic, Capernaum and Donnybrook.
Listen to the full podcast HERE.
by Brandon Thomas
“I want to sue my parents!” a defiant pre-teen child exclaims inside of a crowded courtroom. Everyone – his parents, the judge, the attorneys – appears stunned. As his initial outburst lingers in the air, the boy explains further:
“Because I was born.”
Our world can be a horrific place. Unfortunately, children aren’t spared from these horrors. Capernaum follows one child as he tries to make sense of his place in a world that’s constantly placing greater and greater hurdles in front of him.
The streets of Beirut are the playground for headstrong Zain (Zain Al Rafeea). When not selling cheap cups of juice in the gutter, Zain spends his days working in a small shop to appease his parent’s landlord. Even at such a young age, Zain has been tasked with providing for his large family. The abrasiveness of Zain’s demeanor is quickly overshadowed by his need to take care of his siblings and keep them all together.
Capernaum isn’t subtle about where it lays blame. The neglect from adults is directly responsible for the misery these children endure. Zain and his siblings are only valuable to their parents because of what they can provide for them; not because they’re human beings. Even the lone caring adult in Zain’s life puts him in a situation that no child should be in.
The movie isn’t a miserable experience by any means, but it doesn’t shy away from the hardships these characters suffer. In fact, that honesty is what makes Capernaum so compelling. Knowing there are real children like Zain who live this kind of bleak existence helps give the story weight.
Al Rafeea is a revelation in his acting debut. A real life Syrian refugee, Al Rafeea conveys a weariness that cannot be faked. He plays Zain as a hardened, street-smart kid, but allows the cracks in that facade to show. Zain wants the chance to be a regular kid, and those few moments when he is truly happy are simultaneously joyous and heartbreaking.
The honesty of the story and the lead performance make Capernaum a riveting experience.
by Rachel Willis
In 1943, the infamous Joseph Goebbels declared Berlin was “free of Jews.” However, 7000 Jewish residents remained in hiding in Germany’s capital. Director Claus Räfle brings this dark history to life with his docudrama, The Invisibles.
Focusing on the lives of four young Jewish men and women, Räfle showcases their struggles through a combination of dramatic reenactment and interviews.
The dramatic elements of the film play like any well-written, well-acted drama. The actors enliven the words of the survivors, whose interviews are interspersed throughout the film. Newsreel footage from the days of the war also help paint the picture for modern viewers.
It’s an interesting choice to retell the more dramatic elements of history through reenactments, but because of Räfle’s attention to detail and the actors’ commitment to the story, it works fairly well. Räfle understands how to balance the dramatic with the interviews, frequently reminding us we’re watching a story about real people.
The strongest performance comes from Max Mauff, who portrays Cioma Schönhaus. By forging documents, Cioma manages to stay behind in Berlin when his parents are sent to a concentration camp. Because of his skills, soon friends ask for help with their own documents. His work gains the attentions of Dr. Franz Kaufmann, a member of the Third Reich, who assists Jewish men and women in escaping Germany., and he enlists Cioma’s help in creating fake passports and papers. Cioma’s work saves the lives of scores of other Jewish men and women.
Räfle tries to balance Cioma’s story with the stories from his other interviewees, Ruth Ardnt, Hanni Lévy and Eugen Friede, but he never quite manages to bring the same level of detail to their histories. Though Eugen participates in a resistance movement distributing leaflets to citizens, that fact almost feels like an afterthought. Ruth works in the house of a Nazi officer, who knows who she is, but the tension of such a situation is never fully explored.
In addition to the four survivors profiled, there are a number of men and women who assist in hiding Ruth, Hanni, Cioma, and Eugen. It’s hard to keep track of the names of those who risked their lives to do the right thing, which is unfortunate since their actions were critical in keeping people alive.
The Invisibles might have been better served by simply letting the survivors tell their stories in their own words, but even with the choice to dramatize the history, it’s a sensitive, emotional portrayal of one of the darkest times in human history.
