This Saturday at 11:30pm, when local aspiring filmmakers Gus Dieker and Max Wilson will debut their new feature at the Grandview Theatre (1247 Grandview Ave., 43212).
Entitled Bundeloafe II: The Return of Jaffar, the “no budget” feature tells the story of an anatomically unique young man (Dieker) who is taken into outer space and told the survival of the universe hinges on his movie-making skills.
Dieker and Wilson will conduct a Q&A following the screening, and promise the evening will feature everything from giveaways to beautiful women and more.
Admission for the screening is, in the filmmakers words, “5 U.S. dollars.”
Fifteen minutes in, The To Do List has the feel of something assembled from one. That list must have been titled “teenage girl sex comedy,” with the filmmaker checking off the elements required to get her point across.
It is the debut feature for writer/director Maggie Carey, a TV and web series veteran. Twelve years ago, in one of her first credited projects, Carey directed Ladyporn, a documentary about making porn films that center on female sexual fulfillment.
Clearly, women’s sexuality in film is an issue close to her heart, which is justifiable, but The To Do List only proves weak sex comedies can go both ways.
It is the summer before college for uptight, brainiac Brandy (Aubrey Plaza), and meeting a hot older guy at a party prompts her to make a list of sexual acts she needs to experience before finally losing the V card.
Those acts, save for one scene of She Boppin‘, aren’t overly graphic, but the language gets down and dirty. That’s expected of a sex comedy, but alongside the cliched characters and their obvious situations, it all reaches a point of protesting too much, trying too hard to prove that a women’s point of view has been neglected in these types of films.
Not that Carey isn’t right, she is. But the best of the male centered “virgin” films, such as American Pie or Superbad, featured memorable characters that were at the very least funny and a bit unpredictable. The To Do List features none of that.
The film’s timing isn’t much help, either, as Brandy takes a lifeguard job at a pool with an older, unconventional boss (Bill Hader). That’s also a pivotal setting in The Way, Way Back, a far superior coming of age film that hit theaters just last week.
Maybe the biggest surprise is Plaza, fresh from her terrific breakout performance last year in Safety Not Guaranteed. She can’t seem to make Brandy much more than a caricature, but seeing the same fate befall the always solid Connie Britton and Clark Gregg (as Brandy’s parents) leads the trail right back to weaknesses in script and direction.
Pardon the pun, but Carey may have been trying too hard the first time.
Writer/director Sally Potter’s poignant semi-autobiography Ginger & Rosa comes out on DVD today. Elle Fanning flawlessly leads a wonderful cast through the crises of adolescence, terrible parenting, and Cuban missiles. Her exceptional talent appears almost effortless, and her vulnerability in this role is heartbreaking. If we’re taking bets on the next Meryl Streep, the smartest money may just be on Fanning.
For more proof, have a look at Somewhere, writer/director Sofia Coppola’s tale of a spoiled movie star (Stephen Dorff) getting a surprise visit from his estranged daughter (Fanning). It is a sparse film, as Coppola returns to the detached style she showcased so beautifully with Lost in Translation. Though you may wonder where it’s headed, stick with it. Coppola has crafted a beautiful mediation on the value of being needed, and it might one day be remembered as the watershed film of a legendary actress.
Still high from Sharknado? Has it opened your eyes to the brilliance of terrible, terrible filmmaking? Are you jonesing for more ineptly crafted, heinously scripted, poorly acted waterborne malevolence? We thought so. Here are five of the best worst water terrors ever made. You’re welcome.
5. Jaws: The Revenge (1987)
Michael Caine has argued that this is not his very worst movie. He may be right, but this delusion of a great white shark who figures out the exact flight Ellen Brody is taking to the Bahamas and follows it so it can continue the Sharks’ gang war against the Brodys sure is bad.
4. Piranha (1978)
An absent minded investigator and the town drunk unintentionally unleash mutant piranha just upstream from a water park on the river. Given that it’s all their fault, they’re pretty self righteous about the whole thing. The fish themselves seem to be flat paper cutouts pasted to popsicle sticks, which is just as terrifying as it sounds.
3. Piranha 2: The Spawning (1981)
James Cameron, everybody! That’s right, his first deep sea adventure did not involve a capsized romance, but flying man eating piranha. That’s right – they fly. Sure, it might look like they’ve just been tossed by someone standing just off camera, but no. Cameron regular Lance Hendrickson should be glad he’s not a black man or a topless woman on this island, because those are these fishies’ favorite flavors.
2. Super Shark (2011)
Eventually, the best of the worst mutant animal films made the leap from the big screen to SciFi network, and few things leap as well as a Super Shark! John Schneider tarnishes his reputation (yep, it’s that bad) that pits a flying, hopping shark against a tank with legs. It kicks the shark. That’s worth seeing.
1. Sharktopus (2010)
This is the one film on the countdown most likely to quench the thirst left by Sharknado. Roger Corman – the producer responsible for most of the films on this list, most of the films on SciFi, and quite possibly most of the worst films ever made – gave us this epic tale of a killing machine that’s half great white, half giant octopus. It’s enormous, unrealistic, and it brings an unsatisfying hunger for bad actors.
Those should keep you busy while you wait for Sharknado 2!
Writer/director/Dane Nicolas Winding Refn’s follow up to the magnificent Drive drops viewers in a Bangkok straight out of Dante’s imagination for a revenge thriller like few others. It’s Only God Forgives, and love it or hate it, you will be amazed.
Julian (Ryan Gosling) finds himself obliged to avenge his brother’s murder. Problem is, his brother was a very nasty man. But Julian’s mom wants vengeance, and Julian’s mom (Kristin Scott Thomas, as you have never seen her) is much, much worse.
It’s a slight premise. What’s more, the characters are profoundly one-dimensional, the dialogue is borderline nonexistent, and what verbiage there is will hardly stick with you. Plus, Winding Refn’s pacing makes the slow boil of Drive look like a madcap romp – all of which feeds into the trancelike quality that makes the film so unusual.
Only God Forgives is a nightmare in red. The tale unspools as if you are inside a dream, saturated in colors and patterns and flowing into ever darker and more awful areas of Julian’s mind.
The filmmaker channels Lynch and Kubrick, but crafts something undeniably his own. Few directors are so bold with color, and he’s an absolute madman with score. For this, his ninth film, he strips away the more traditional elements of storytelling to rely on the image to affect us. Given the vulgar themes and percussive violence, it may not be an image you want, but it is never less than mesmerizing to look at – every shot a brutally gorgeous image.
Gosling’s strong, silent smolder is on high in this one, but it’s the always formidable Kristin Scott Thomas and her unsavory cruelty who steals the picture. It’s unlike anything she’s done in the past, perhaps because it’s unlike any other part out there. And a bad mom will fuck you up, I’ll tell you what.
These are bad people, all of them, with nasty business to attend to. Awash in righteous indignation, defilement and spoiled masculinity, the film is little more than a dream sequence of death. The battle is not good versus evil, though, because Officer Chang’s (Vithaya Pansringarm) tidy, tight-lipped sadism shows no moral justification.
Only God Forgives is not a film for the squeamish, the impatient, or the sleepy – as the deep and hearty snores from the seats behind me attest. Too bad, because they missed one wallop of a movie.
Welcome to 1971, the year the Perron family took one step inside their new home and screamed with horror, “My God, this wallpaper is hideous!”
Seriously, it often surprises me that civilization made it through the Seventies. Must every surface and ream of fabric be patterned? Still, the Perrons found survival tougher than most.
The farmhouse’s previous residents may be dead, but they haven’t left, and they are testy! So the Perrons have no choice but to look up paranormal investigators Lorraine and Ed Warren – the real life couple linked to many famous American hauntings, including one in Amityville, NY. The Conjuring is allegedly based on one of the couple’s cases.
Yes, this is an old fashioned ghost story, built from the ground up to push buttons of childhood terror. But don’t expect a long, slow burn. Director James Wan expertly balances suspense with quick, satisfying bursts of visual terror.
Wan cut his teeth – and Cary Elwes’s bones – with 2004’s corporeal horror Saw. He’s since turned his attention to something more spectral, and his skill with supernatural cinema only strengthens with each film.
Ghost stories are hard to pull off, though, especially in the age of instant gratification. Few modern moviegoers have the patience for atmospheric dread, so filmmakers now turn to CGI to ramp up thrills. The results range from the visceral fun of The Woman in Black to the needless disappointment of Mama.
But Wan understands the power of a flesh and blood villain in a way that other directors don’t seem to. He proved this with the creepy fun of Insidious, and surpasses those scares with his newest effort.
A game cast helps. Joining five believably terrified girls in solid performances are Vera Farmiga, Patrick Wilson, and the surprisingly well-suited Ron Livingston as the helpless patriarch. The usually sublime Lili Taylor is uncharacteristically flat as the clan’s loving mother, unfortunately, but there’s more than enough to distract you from that.
Wan’s expert timing and clear joy when wielding spectral menace help him and his impressive cast overcome the handful of weaknesses in the script by brothers Chad and Carey Hayes. Claustrophobic when it needs to be and full of fun house moments, The Conjuring will scare you while you’re in the theater and stick with you after. At the very least, you’ll keep your feet tucked safely under the covers.
When I was young, my brother and I called it “the way back,” that place at the rear of an old station wagon just big enough for a kid to take refuge.
Nat Faxon and Jim Rash call that same area, and their new film, The Way, Way Back, a poignant and often very funny look at the bittersweet awkwardness of adolescence.
Faxon and Rash actually wrote the script years ago, but couldn’t get it sold. Then they won an Oscar in 2011 for co-writing The Descendants, and decided to spend their new Hollywood capital by resurrecting the old project and directing it themselves.
The centerpiece is 14 year old Duncan (Liam James), who is truly underjoyed at having to spend summer vacation with his mom Pam (Toni Collette), her tool boyfriend Trent (Steve Carell) and his daughter.
Things start to look up when Duncan stumbles into a job at Water Wizz, the local water park (Water Wizz!). Falling under the tutelage of Owen, the Wizz manager (Sam Rockwell) Duncan gets a fresh outlook, as well as confidence enough to chat up cutie Susanna (AnnaSophia Robb).
Faxon and Rash establish themselves as a team with a bright future. Though less assured than The Descendants (the lack of director Alexander Payne might have something to do with that), The Way, Way Back is full of crisp dialogue, well formed characters and situations that, for the most part, ring true.
The ensemble cast (which also includes Maya Rudolph, Allison Janney, Amanda Peet, Rob Corddry, Faxon and Rash) is splendid, with Carell impressively playing against type, and the young James crafting Duncan as the wince-inducing personification of teenage nerdery.
As good as everyone is, this is Rockwell’s show to steal, and he’s hilariously guilty. A freewheeling mix of Bill Murray and Hawkeye Pierce, Owen unleashes a barrage of one liners and real world philosophy. As Duncan becomes more comfortable with his water fun family, a nice dichotomy is created between the d-bag father figure Trent smugly thinks he is, and the supercool one Owen easily becomes.
Some moments are a bit forced, but on the whole, this is the rare coming of age story that feels fresh. With a big heart that both adults and teens should find relatable, The Way, Way Back is the surprise gem of the summer.
RED was not a great movie, but a clever script and an extremely likable cast made it a helluva fun ride and a mildly surprising hit.
So, for RED 2, then..more of the same?
You bet, and it works just as well.
This time around, ex-CIA badass Frank Moses (Bruce Willis) is determined to stay Retired Extremely Dangerous, living the domestic life with his sweetie Sarah (Mary-Louise Parker) in the suburbs. Sarah, though, kinda liked her introduction to the spy game, so when their old buddy Marvin (John Malkovich) shows up with an invitation, she pushes Frank to accept.
And with that, we’re off to the races. Sure, they’re ridiculous races, but that hardly matters with old friends (Helen Mirren) and new friends (Catherine Zeta Jones, Anthony Hopkins) as cool as these.
Screenwriters Jon and Erich Hoeber return from part one, again providing plenty of snappy dialogue for their veteran actors, while director Dean Parisot (the underrated Galaxy Quest) has no trouble staging globe trotting action sequences or blowing things up.
Parisot is also smart enough to know that with a cast such as this, sometimes you just stay out of the way.
Malkovich and Parker are deliciously droll and often hilarious, and Mirren, well really, don’t we all want to grow up to be Helen Mirren?
Even Willis seems rejuvenated, after sleepwalking through the latest G.I. Joe and DieHard installments. This is a tough guy character with a softer shade, and he seems to relish it.
It’s at least twenty minutes too long, and the novelty of aging asskickers may not survive future installments, but right here, right now, RED 2 pegs the fun meter early and often.
Oh glorious day, everyone – it’s here! Today we can take home and forevermore enjoy Fede Alvarez’s update to the Sam Raimi cult favorite Evil Dead. Groundbreaking amounts of gore accompany this sly reimagining of the beloved cabin in the woods horror. Expect bloody fantastic results.
One of the reasons Evil Dead works as well as it does is that there is already a “cabin horror” shorthand we all know, based on the array of stellar existing films. If you haven’t seen the film’s originator, do so now. If you haven’t seen Drew Goddard’s ingenious Cabin in the Woods, again, go do it right now. We’ll wait.
But for a hilarious, frightening, bloody mess you may have missed, try Dead Snow. Nazi zombies, everybody! Hell yes! Co-writer/director/Scandinavian Tommy Wirkola embraces our prior genre knowledge to mine for comedy without ignoring the scares. Wirkola’s artful imagination generates plenty of startles, and gore by the gallon.
Despite Serena’s stumble at Wimbledon this year, the Williams sisters have been making tennis history for so long, its easy to forget they were once, just like a young Tiger Woods, wide-eyed African American phenoms attracting much curiosity from within a white-dominated sport.
The documentary Venus and Serena follows them both during the 2011 season, mixing that footage with archive video from their youth, as well as interviews with family, tennis personalities, and a curious amount of Chris Rock and Bill Clinton.
Directors Maiken Baird and Michelle Major, in their debut feature, keep things fairly by the numbers, providing a quick overview of the sisters rise to domination, and the ups and downs of the 2011 tour. What can’t be denied is the bond that Venus and Serena, born just 15 months apart, continue to share. Though the film offers few unguarded moments, glimpsing their love of karaoke, or the worry that their closeness could threaten any aspirations of marriage, is truly charming.
Any possible areas of negativity, such as Serena’s famous meltdowns, their father’s domineering ways or the racism they all faced, are briefly touched upon and then swatted away, giving no voice to anyone very far outside the Williams camp. With this type of approach, it might have been better just to focus on the 2011 season in a singular manner, without the biographical portions. As it is, Venus and Serena seems crafted with the approval of the Williams family in mind.
Still, as Venus strives to return to form and Serena continues her assault on the title of Best Ever, Venus and Serena is a perfectly acceptable reminder of their greatness.
