Birth/Rebirth opens on two different women performing two different tasks in a hospital. Their paths will cross, but at the moment, Celie (Judy Reyes, Smile) and Rose (Marin Ireland, The Dark and Wicked) are revealing something of themselves to us.
Celie’s environment: chaotic, human. A prenatal nurse used to comforting and nurturing patients in need while navigating an emergency, Celie is a tight balance of empathy and control.
Rose – alone with a cadaver in a pathology lab in the bowels of the hospital – is a fastidious loner, cold, logical. She is pure science.
Their story, like Barbie’s, is about how impossible it is to be a woman. Director Laura Moss moves seamlessly from short to feature with this modern take on Frankenstein and motherhood.
Tragedy strikes early in Moss’s film. Overworked and under rested, Celie blames herself for her daughter Lila’s death. And now the hospital can’t even find the girl’s body.
But Rose can.
Little by little, with motives simultaneously opposed and identical, Celie and Rose become a duo. An odd couple, if you will, each with her own responsibilities, both with the same goal: bring Lila back.
Ireland’s Rose is an exceptional ghoul because her every behavior feels rooted in reality, which makes her both repugnant and sympathetic. However cold her behavior seems, there’s logic behind it. Her joy, those rare flashes, hit harder. She’s like a macabre Spock.
Reyes is her equal and opposite, compassionate but hard-headed. And as their relationship thickens, you see each woman changing thanks to exposure to the other. Rose slowly warms and becomes more human. Celie inches closer and closer to ghoul.
The film amounts to a profound parenting nightmare, and each actor takes on the role of parent to create an unnerving dynamic again guided by authenticity. All of it pulls the psychological scabs of exhausted parenting.
Moss can’t quite stick the landing, but their shoestring Frankenstein fable feels closer to the truth than most of them.
I give people credit for finding new ways to tell the Dracula story. And I’m always up for whatever director André Øvredal (Trollhunter, The Autopsy of Jane Doe, Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark) wants to show me. So, I was in for The Last Voyage of the Demeter, even though the trailer didn’t do that much for me.
If you’re familiar with the Dracula story, the Demeter was the derelict ship bound from Varna found outside London, nothing left but a dead captain who’d lashed himself to the wheel, and his fateful captain’s log.
Øvredal’s film, written by Bragi F. Schut (Escape Room, Samaritan) and Zak Olkewicz (Bullet Train, Lights Out) from a handful of Bram Stoker’s pages, confines itself almost exclusively to that watery passage. So, the writers have their work cut out for them, since we know the shape the ship’s in when it hits England.
First things first. Let’s get acquainted with the crew. Can’t connect to a scary story unless you’re invested in those trapped on the high seas with a bloodthirsty monster. Corey Hawkins (The Tragedy of Macbeth) is Clemens. He’s a man of science, so has no patience with the inevitable “devil on board” nonsense.
David Dastmalchian (The Suicide Squad) plays against type as the one guy who is not weird, the second in command after Captain Eliot (Liam Cunningham, elegantly authoritative as ever). His grandson Toby (Woody Norman, C’mon C’mon and Cobweb) brightens and tenderizes the crew.
Most importantly, Javier Botet plays Dracula. The 6’7” actor (and he can act – please see Amigo for proof of that) brings tremendous presence to the beastly creature rationing crew until he can get to the smorgasbord that is London. The monster looks pretty good, too – kind of a cross between Neil Marshall’s crawlers (The Descent) and Tobe Hooper’s Mr. Barlow (Salem’s Lot).
Øvredal’s camera lurks and leers around corners, from above, through rigging, creating a constant unease while offering great visual variety, given the limited location options. Performances are strong, FX are solid, and there’s a mean streak to the carnage you may not see coming.
But the writing is not The Demeter’s strength. The plot does nothing intriguing, the story offers nothing new nor does it do anything to deepen or enrich the Dracula legend. The inevitability of the story doesn’t help, nor does the full 2-hour run time.
Turns out there may be a reason no one’s told this part of the story before. There’s just not that much to say.
After a series of short films, writer/director Thomas Hardiman should have no problem getting noticed with this first feature. Medusa Deluxe is a finely constructed neo-noir mystery that is visually engaging from the opening minutes.
The setting inside a hair styling competition feels unique, full of well-drawn characters, a lively ensemble, and dialog that dances in and out of camp. But a good whodunit also needs a good reason to care who done it, with a feeling of well-earned satisfaction once the big reveal hits.
Hardiman takes us backstage as the stylists and models are prepping for the show, and reeling from the news that Mosca (John Alan Roberts), one of the favorites to win, has been found dead.
And not just dead, but scalped. Yikes.
Cleve (a completely dazzling Clare Perkins) is working on a model’s multi-layered ‘do while leading the discussion about just what the hell is up and worrying about what they’ll all tell the cops. And Mosca’s husband Angel (Luke Pasqualino) still hasn’t been told, so Rene (Darrel D’Silva) is preparing to break that news, along with another secret he’s been keeping.
There’s a lot going on!
Hardiman and cinematographer Robbie Ryan stay just as busy, with a free-flowing, faux single-take approach that’s pulled off with some pretty nifty precision. And while the attention to technical craftsmanship mirrors what’s happening with the hair, you eventually start itching for more substance in this mystery.
The long, tracking shots that follow characters as they walk begin to feel excessive, and resonant moments of character building get upstaged by histrionics. As accusations about bribes and black market Propecia are thrown around, the killer’s unmasking lands as a bit anticlimactic.
There’s little doubt Hardiman has camera skills. When his storytelling catches up, watch out. For now, Medusa Deluxe is an interesting blast of hair-raising madness that could use some more volume.
Milton (Ben Kingsley) walks to every town council meeting to recommend, when the time comes for citizen suggestions, that the town change its motto from “a good place to call home” to “a good place to refer to as home” in case it confuses people looking for somewhere to phone home.
He’d also like to see a crosswalk on Trent Avenue between Frost and Allegheny.
Oh, and an alien spaceship crash landed in his backyard and took out most of his azaleas, so if anyone knows what to do about that…
Director Marc Turtletaub, working from a script by Gavin Steckler, reimagines E.T. with his charming suburban sci-fi, Jules. Rather than a group of kids determined to hide their alien friend from grownups, its Milton, Sandy (Harriet Sansom Harris) and Joyce (Jane Curtin) – three elderly singles – doing the same.
Because the truth is, it would be hard for kids to pull something like this off nowadays. In the Eighties, sure – nobody was watching us then. But today? No, the innocents who go unnoticed these days are in their eighties.
The cleverness of the concept is bittersweet, as are the performances. Curtin’s a hoot and Kingsley’s characteristically spot-on, but it’s Harris’s open, joyful performance that holds the story together.
The veteran actors immediately gel as three lonesome individuals who come together over the shared fascination and protectiveness brought out by their new friend, Jules. Or Gary. Joyce thinks he looks more like a Gary.
A line running through the film parallels the wild circumstances with aging, and in particular, with dementia. Naturally, Milton’s behavior is not taken seriously and rather considered proof that he may need to be looked after. The fact that there is some truth to that worry haunts the film and adds texture to the otherwise lighthearted antics.
Turtletaub can’t quite pull those threads together, though. While Jules is a lovely film, its big-hearted take on mental health and science fiction made me just want to watch Colin West’s somewhat similar but vastly superior Linoleumagain.
Still, Jules is a dear, gentle film that gets in some decent laughs.
There are some scary implications to be found, but The Pod Generation is no horror show. In this near future world, couples – and women, specifically – willingly line up for the chance to get pregnant outside the womb.
Writer/director Sophie Barthes (Cold Souls, Madame Bovary) cooks up a smart, darkly funny and satirical look at the many faces of “progress” that still gets stuck on repeat in the third act.
Rachel (Emilia Clarke) has a well-paid gig monitoring influencers (that’s a full-time job!) at a tech firm. Her husband Alvy (Chiwetel Ejiofor) is a botanist and teacher. And from cognitive assistants to breathing bars and nature “sessions,” Rachel’s fine with all the comforts provided by technology, while Alvy is much more comfortable keeping things actually natural.
So there’s a conflict when Rachel gets an unexpected message from tech giant Pegazus. After years on the waitlist – there’s an opening at The Womb Center! Do Rachel and Alvy want to be next to grow their baby in a pod?
Alvy is plenty wary, but Linda, the Womb Center director (Rosalie Craig, terrific) is mighty persuasive. In a speech that feels like the cynical sister to America Ferrera’s truth bomb from Barbie, she wins the couple over with the reasons why women are no longer “victims of biology.”
We’ve seen films about the hidden dangers of technology for years now, but Barthes brings a slyly vital approach to the discussion, and gets a big assist from production designer Clement Price-Thomas. Everything in this world is sleek, futuristic and creepily intrusive, but just close enough to our own surroundings that we have no problem accepting it as possible (even probable).
Pair that with the excellent work from Clarke and Ejiofor, and Barthes has fertile ground to dig in. She peppers the outside with some dry, funny barbs about relationships and work life, while the meat in the middle takes on gaslighting and the slippery slope of trading control for convenience.
And yet, as big and worthy as these ideas are, you expect the pregnancy arc to end with a little more bite. There’s more than enough to keep us engaged while a desperate couple is weighing their options, but once it’s decision time, The Pod Generation doesn’t offer much beyond what we’ve known since we were amazed by the click wheel.
Writer/director Corey Stanton (Robbery) gets a great return on his investment with his one-actor/one-location movie, Trader.
Well, primarily one actor.
While she occasionally talks to some folks on the phone, the majority of the film falls on Kimberly-Sue Murray’s (Freeform’s Shadow Hunters) shoulders. She plays an unnamed sociopathic loner in a dingy, unfurnished apartment, who starts off the film by scamming an older man out of his credit card details.
She’s ambitious. And with the seven grand in her bank account, she educates herself about the stock market and becomes a day trader. After her bets start to pay off, she craves a seat at the “high-rollers table” and wants to get a face-to-face meeting with the bosses at a major brokerage firm.
And she’s willing to assume a lot of risk to do so.
Stanton and Murray manage to keep the momentum of the piece up despite the potential for audience fatigue at seeing the same person/location for an hour and a half. As her fortunes rise, the Trader revamps her apartment, which helps. She invests in programable lights that shift from green to red to reflect the changing market. The Trader also slips in and out of different personas with distinctive accents as she chats on the phone to set various scams in motion.
And then there’s her inner life, which is depicted in moody black and white and provides a contrast to the usual look of the film. And, of course, there’s the trip she takes on some sort of new mind-altering drug to get a stock tip via vision quest. Any scene that starts with someone blending raw eggs, tomatoes, wasabi, a loose-leaf sheet of paper filled with inspirational quotes, and three times the amount of an experimental hallucinogenic in a bullet-blender and downing it like it’s a shot is bound to be memorable.
Despite Stanton’s best efforts to educate me on how day-trading works and the terminology involved, I did feel somewhat adrift on what exactly was happening from a financial perspective as the film neared its climax. But it was easy enough to get the gist.
Overall, this movie was a winner and an inspirational example of how to get a big bang for your buck.
A compelling documentary providing context for the Očeti Šakówin’s[1] Land Back movement, Lakota Nation vs. the United States aims to help viewers understand the past so that remedies can be made to redress historical wrongs.
If I can beg your indulgence for a moment, I’m going to break the fourth wall of movie reviewership a bit.
I graduated high school in the late 1900s (as my kid would say). At that time, the school’s mascot was the Redskin. A six-foot-tall mannequin dressed in buckskins and feathers stood in the lobby opposite the administration offices to greet the almost entirely (at the time) White student body. There was a vocal minority of folks who viewed the mascot as pretty tasteless at the time, but it didn’t get retired and exchanged until 2021. You’d think that would be a sign that the district was moving in the right direction. And things did seem hopeful.
Until the school district passed a resolution banning so-called “critical race theory” in 2022.
Teachers there are no longer allowed to give assignments that ask students to question (among other things) their race, ethnicity, or culture in a way that might be “derogatory.” They can’t ask kids to question possible privilege or reflect on oppression. And this kind of thing is happening in other districts around the country.
How, then, can we talk about the history of the United States? How can we grow as individuals and as a nation without reflecting on our past? Identifying what worked and what didn’t and trying to make better choices as we make contemporary decisions?
Directors Jesse Short Bull and Laura Tomaselli lay out why it’s important to look critically at the past as it relates specifically to the Očeti Šakówin’s ownership of the area around the Black Hills in Lakota Nation vs. the United States.
See, in 1868 the US made a nation-to-nation treaty with the Očeti Šakówin to wrap up a war that the indigenous folks were doing really well at. In the treaty, the US specified a territory that was for the exclusive use of the indigenous folks and that US citizens had no right to step foot on.
But, shortly thereafter gold was discovered in them thar’ hills and the US started breaking its word so folks could weasel their way back in there and start pocketing shiny rocks. Land was stolen. To mark their supremacy over the land, four white guy’s faces were carved into the Očeti Šakówin’s sacred Black Hills. The US still wants that land, but this time it’s more for fossil fuels.
In Part 1, Extinction, the directors explain how initial contact with White settlers impacted native people and how the educational system and White-created pop culture helped reframe a story of invasion as a White self-defense narrative. In Part II, Assimilation, they describe how systematic economic destabilization, land allotment, and an abusive boarding school system tried to destroy Lakota culture so that it would be easier for Whites to take the land and resources. In Part III, Reparation, they describe the development of the modern Land Back movement and how the Očeti Šakówin’s refused a meager offer from the US to pay them for the stolen land. They want the land itself.
Short Bull and Tomaselli weave together vintage educational film strips, old Hollywood movies, news clips, poetry, interviews with members of the Očeti Šakówin, and stunning views of the Black Hills landscape to create a beautiful visual essay about the value of reflecting on the mistakes of American history.
Does it address uncomfortable truths? Yes. Does it require thinking about privilege and oppression? Yes. But it’s also an opportunity to look back, understand a different point of view, and try to do better moving forward.
It’s an invitation to think about the land differently. It’s an opportunity to learn how to treat people better. It’s moving portrait of a resilient, hopeful, people. It’s a movie that should be shown in schools.
It’s just too bad that the history teachers at my high school and schools in similar districts around the country are now banned from showing anything like it.
[1] The name for the Lakota, Nakota, and Dakota indigenous peoples.
That’s a great tag line, one that promises just the kind of campy fun that Meg 2: The Trench delivers…….eventually.
But for the first 60 minutes, director Ben Wheatley treads water with a cliche-riddled setup that could easily pass for an undersea Aliens knockoff.
Jason Statham returns as Meg-conquering hero Jonas Taylor, who’s since become an eco-warrior out to shut down the dumping of toxic waste. But a visit to the research lab quickly escalates into Jonas joining a team that’s diving through the Thermocline and into “the Trench” – home to many dangerous creatures and one illegal mining operation.
And, of course, some Megs.
And the Megs are looking to mate.
And they have lasers on their heads. No, they don’t, but you’re wishing they did, because by this time Wheatley (Kill List, Sightseers, Free Fire) and screenwriters Erich Hoeber, Jon Hoeber and Dean Georgaris (all back from part one) are playing it much too straight.
“This is some dumbass shit,” says our old buddy DJ (Page Kennedy) as we nod in agreement.
But once Jonas and team are left for dead by some double-crossing scene chewers, Meg 2 leans into its ludicrous groove and starts to have some fun.
The trench is breached! And the escaping horde turns an exclusive beach resort into an all-inclusive Skull Island as Jonas becomes some sort of water-breathing superhero who can ride waves on a Jet Ski and hunt Megs with a helicopter blade!
Damn right he can! Plus, DJ has been taking lessons on badassery and catch phrases since the first adventure, and Mac (Cliff Curtis) is as reliable as ever because Cliff Curtis.
Did I mention the Gaspar Noe-approved POV shot from inside the Meg’s maw as it’s enjoying the all-you-can-eat beach buffet?
At the halfway mark, The Trench is a water-logged snooze. But if you ride it out, Wheatley delivers a second half rally that becomes a funny, over-the-top romp with multiple wink winks to Jaws, Jurassic Park, Piranha and more.
A modern celebration of classic Japanese V-cinema (their version of DTV genre fare), director Kensuke Sonomura’s Bad City unleashes a furious, fist-flying tale of crime, corruption, and righteous retribution. The story is a tale as old as time: a diabolical businessman (Lily Franky) is in league with the Korean mafia and local politicians. His goal? To bring “prosperity” to Kaiko City by bringing in casinos that no one but the rich wants. His methods? Bribery, blackmail, and murder. All that stand in his way are a handful of good cops and some honorable Yakuza with aligned interests.
At the center of it is 60-year-old genre stalwart Hitoshi Ozawa (Dead or Alive, Gozu), who also wrote the screenplay. His knowledge of and experience in Yakuza cinema comes in mighty handy here, as does his charisma and still-formidable physical prowess. He’s an absolute powerhouse as the unflappable Captain Torada and he’s surrounded by equally great supporting castmates including Tak Sakaguchi, Masanori Mimoto, Katsuya, Mitsu Dan, Akane Sakanoue, Masaya Kato, and the aforementioned Franky.
There’s nothing wholly original on display in terms of narrative, but that matters not, as Sonomura and Ozawa are aiming for grandiosity over complexity, even amidst their low budget. The plot is still filled with twists, turns, and double-crosses, but the pace moves with breakneck speed. It plows through subplots and arcs like it’s tearing through an entire season of television, ultimately offering up a narrative that is as dense as it is straightforward.
Any danger of monotony in terms of pulp crime storytelling and exposition is wiped away by the action itself. While there is the occasional moment of gun violence, the bulk of the fighting is brutal hand-to-hand combat. Fists, knives, baseball bats, pipes, and even a loudspeaker are utilized as criminals and cops wail on each other to the point of exhaustion. The fights constantly swing back and forth between martial arts, vicious groundwork, and barroom-style brawls. Said action is further punctuated by some absolutely stellar foley work, making each punch, kick, and stab sound even more painful than it looks. Throw in the fact that many of the characters are wearing sneakers – one has to be comfortable on the brawling move after all – and the bouts often sound like a massacre playing out on a basketball court.
Simply put, this is a killer slice of low budget action cinema.
Stop if you’ve heard this one before… good-hearted, small-time criminals get caught up in a web of violence and forces far beyond their control, with a dash of social commentary and vague nods toward the senselessness of the universe and fate.
Mob Land, the feature film debut from Nicholas Maggio, could at a distance be mistaken for any number of neo-noirs it borrows heavily from. Strong, silent Shelby Conners (Shiloh Fernandez) relies on what work he can get—legal and otherwise—to support his family in rural Alabama. When his brother-in-law Trey (Kevin Dillon) comes up with a plan to rob a local pill mill, Shelby tags along as wheelman.
Both men of course end up over their heads and soon have to tangle with the ruthless New Orleans mob outfit that runs the clinic, as well as local law enforcement, headed up by a sheriff who exudes “too old for this” with each gruff word.
When it comes to showing its influences on screen, Mob Land is as unlucky as Shelby and Trey. The movie has the guts to take from more incisive forebears, and it’s hard not to make running comparisons. It’s also hampered by a script from Maggio that always feels right on the cusp of making a point about its characters and the hands they are dealt. But here again, it lacks the follow-through to turn its stars into more than the slightly off-discount versions of the brand name version.
The dialogue and character choices are likely too great for any ensemble to overcome, but Mob Land has brief flashes of a world where a less restrained pastiche might have worked. John Travolta’s performance as the tired sheriff is reserved to the point of redundancy. It serves mainly as a reminder that he deserves to find the right vehicle for this stage of his career.
But it falls to Stephen Dorff’s mob hitman Clayton as the prime example of how Mob Land stretches out the seams of the influences it wants to inhabit. Clayton is the AI output of an Anton Chigurh text generator. An unstoppable force with questionable morals who speaks almost entirely in empty aphorisms for the whole movie, Dorff tries valiantly to add dimensionality to the part. That it almost works is a testament to the actor, whose eclectic filmography belies how good he is in the right part.
Story aside, credit to Maggio as a director. Along with cinematographer Nick Matthews, Maggio elevates the film’s limited settings to deliver a believably lived-in southern noir. As by-the-numbers as much else seems, Mob Land takes an effective approach to the creeping dread and violence that tear apart Shelby’s world.
These touches aren’t enough to salvage the film, but they do keep it from being outright bad. Worse, Mob Land is mostly forgettable, perhaps the greater sin for a noir. There are echoes of the poverty porn of Hell or High Water, and more than a few heaping doses of the Coen brothers.
It’s all thrown together too haphazardly, and with little room left for Mob Land to have something to say of its own that we haven’t already heard before.
