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Heart and Soul

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Ragged Heart

by Hope Madden

An aching poem to a culture that once was, Evan McNary’s indie Ragged Heart takes root in Athens, Georgia and blossoms with nostalgia, longing, grief and regret.

One-time musician Wyatt Galloway (Eddie Craddock) now rambles the county with Better Day Salvage, taking the old and disused and finding ways to turn them to art. It’s an apt metaphor – though not overwrought, thanks to McNary’s light touch.

Wyatt’s daughter Miranda (Willow Avalon) is the real talent. After a European tour, she’s back in Athens for her birthday and Wyatt’s hoping to reconnect. She leaves him a song, then leaves this earth.

Avalon’s voice and presence echo the melancholy nature of her character, helping the film straddle the space between natural and supernatural. Craddock offers a rugged, world-weary and deeply human presence, although he’s not always charismatic enough to carry the film.

A supporting cast populated by professionals and nonprofessionals, many of them musicians, contribute to the film’s authentic vibe. Joshua Mikel (The Walking Dead) is particularly strong, embodying the conflict between music and money – the battle for a soul.

Ragged Heart has the organic feel of an unscripted, evolving feature, and on the whole that works. It’s not without its rough patches, but the loose narrative structure suits a tale that values art over commerce, messy as that can be.

It loses momentum more than once, mainly because of its fragmented structure, but it also consistently surprises and never loses its way. McNary’s script, co-written with sister Debrah McNary, offers no easy answers for the grief and regret Wyatt faces. Neither do they pretend that remaining true to your art will bring your joy or peace.

But they definitely develop an atmosphere rich with symbolism, heady with art and music, and haunted with regret.

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Hep Cats & Cool Kitties

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Please Baby Please

by Rachel Willis

A great cast, phenomenal sets, tempestuous music, and spot-on costuming work together to bring life to director/co-writer Amanda Kramer’s film, Please Baby Please.

Together with co-writer Noel David Taylor, Kramer has the elements to craft a successful take on gender identity, sexual politics, and the fluidity of sexuality and gender expression.

But for all these strengths, it doesn’t quite work.

That’s not to say the film doesn’t have its moments. Andrea Riseborough, who plays Suze, is a powerhouse on screen. Her effortless portrayal of a stifled 1950s wife is a masterful balance between feminine sexuality and masculine anger. It’s her performance that really blurs the line on stereotypical gender roles.

Harry Melling (Dudley from the Harry Potter series) plays the less overt, meeker of the husband/wife duo, Arthur and Suze. He rails against the stereotype that to be a man he must have control – over his wife and the less tangible things that supposedly make a man a man.

When the couple runs across the gang known as the Young Gents, we start to see the dynamics of gender and sexuality and their precarious, yet significant, role in society.

While the Young Gents earn their place in the film, there are simply too many characters here. Aside from a couple, most don’t have much of a role to play. They appear on screen to represent the oppressive, toxic masculinity that pervades our culture, less character than caricature.

The film’s choreography is another element that doesn’t always work. A scene involving a split screen divides focus, and it’s hard to successfully take in both performances. Do you watch Arthur or Suze? Whose performance in this moment is more important to the film’s overall point?

There is a lot that can be said about our society’s views on gender and sexuality. Much can also be said about what has and hasn’t changed since the 1950s. Please Baby Please adds its messy but stylish take to the conversation.

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Found in Translation

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Decision to Leave

by George Wolf

“Congrats, it’s a murder case!”

Or maybe more than one. But does detective Jang Hae-joon (Park Hae-il, Memories of Murder and The Host) really want to bring the killer to justice?

Decision to Leave (Heojil kyolshim) unveils a playful, seductive mystery of longing and obsession, masterfully layered and gorgeously framed by acclaimed director and co-writer Park Chan-wook (Oldboy, The Handmaiden, Thirst).

Jang is an insomniac, often plagued by memories of unsolved cases and so driven by his work that he keeps a separate residence closer to the precinct, only seeing his wife on weekends.

The distance between them becomes greater once Jang meets the mysterious Song Seo-rae (Tang Wei from Lust, Caution), a smoldering beauty who doesn’t seem very sorry that her husband is dead. His fall from a mountaintop appears to be a suicide, but Jang is compelled to dig deeper.

Song is quick to point out that she is Chinese, and conversing in Korean can leave her confused in translation. But is this just a ploy so Jang will underestimate her, or is she truly the sympathetic victim she claims to be?

Both Wei and Hae-il are wonderful, wrapping themselves around the delicious dialog and intertwining threads of murder and romance in totally engaging fashion. We hang on the hushed potential of the relationship along with each character, and their choices often alternate between compelling, confounding, and darkly funny.

As the time setting shifts ahead to when Song has remarried and yet another twist is introduced, the narrative air becomes even thicker with neo-noir style. Park (Best Director at Cannes this year) and cinematographer Kim Ji-young create a sumptuous visual palette, full of modern innovation and classic homages in equal measure.

It is a truly intoxicating atmosphere that rarely lets up, and a perfect compliment to the yearning that erodes boundaries between detective and suspect. Decision to Leave attack those barriers with tantalizing precision, leaving a breathless trail of crime and passion that is guaranteed to linger.

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Overstayed Welcome

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The Guest Room

by Tori Hanes

Moody, eerie, and deftly grounded with stellar performances, The Guest Room by director Stefano Lodovichi delights in uneasy chaos. Following the arrival of a gregariously unusual guest (Guido Caprino), divorced Stella (Camilla Filippi) and her estranged spouse Sandro (Edoardo Pesce) balance the visit with their familial issues. 

The narrative, design, and dialogue take an orbital back seat to the shining star of the three lead actors. Caprino plays his all-encompassingly chilling and charming stranger with incredible poise. Filippi rips sympathy and disgust from audiences’ chests. Meanwhile, Pesce embodies the complexities of estrangement. Lodovichi’s talent at drawing a fully realized performance from his actors within their first moments on screen is delightfully wrenching.

Often, even for the most supposedly refined film viewers amongst us, foreign films can leave a gap in performance recognition for American audiences. The Guest Room does not allow for that gap. The marriage between written word and actors is among the most powerful foreign film experiences a viewer can have.

The film’s primary issue comes from its obvious change of tonal heart. It does well to establish itself quickly and efficiently as a grounded, eerily dark drama. Its initial turn into horror remains grounded. As the plot builds, a need for realistic reasoning behind the inevitable twist reaches a fever pitch. It’s here we take a sharp turn into a more fantastical, almost supernatural element, leaving audiences reeling from genre whiplash. This, unfortunately, muddies the ever-important twist and resolution.

Overall, The Guest Room’s mind-bending performances and uneasy plot make for a whirling 86 minutes. If audiences can swallow the motion sickness set on by genre-defying twists, they will be strapped in for a film they won’t soon forget.

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Bittersweet Symphony

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Tár

by Hope Madden and George Wolf

During production of writer/director Todd Field’s terrific 2001 feature debut In the Bedroom, Harvey Weinstein reportedly made life so miserable, Field considered leaving the movie business altogether. He did return in 2006 with the equally impressive Little Children, but Field has been quiet since then.

All these years later, it’s not hard to imagine the Weinstein experience as an inspiration for Tár, a searing character study of art, arrogance, obsession and power that’s propelled by the towering presence of (surprised face) Cate Blanchett.

She is Lydia Tár, the first female music director of the Berlin orchestra. A nicely organic interview introduction runs down Lydia’s impressive resume, immediately cementing the character as one of the greatest living composer-conductors in the world.

And, as is her way, Blanchett (who prepped by learning several instruments and studying conducting) needs mere moments to define Lydia with sharp, unforgettable edges.

Tár is a control master who will converse and condescend with excess pleasantries, all the while keeping antenna up for anyone in her orbit who might contradict her careful plotting. And Field’s use of precise sound design and only diagetic music is a brilliant way to reinforce the maestro’s level of influence on everything around her.

Lydia is in rehearsals for a triumphant performance of Mahler’s 5th symphony, and also has a new book prepping for release. So while there’s much going on professionally, it’s the detailed, yet unassuming way Field narrows his focus to Lydia’s personal cruelty that brings the film to such a resonant point.

She humiliates a young student for daring to question a status quo power structure, takes advantage of her dutiful assistant’s (Noémie Merlant from the exquisite Portrait of a Lady on Fire) ambitions, works to remove an Assistant Conductor (Julian Glover) who dares to criticize, and is routinely dismissive of her wife (Nina Hoss).

The way Lydia handles a child bullying her young daughter is our first glimpse at true sociopathic tendencies, but Field – with moments of both sly humor and biting sarcasm – gradually unveils a familiar culture of predatory behavior.

To say the portrayal is perfection feels almost dismissive or perfunctory considering Blanchett’s mastery of her own art, but maybe that’s why this role stands apart. Maybe it’s her own experience, so unlike nearly anyone else’s, that shapes the organic and human performance. You want to feel for Lydia, or at least recognize how a genius with power begins to believe they are entitled to something. Or someone.

It’s in moments when Lydia dismisses ideas of gender inequality or coyly celebrates the history of patriarchy in her own profession that Field and Blanchett best expose the insidious nature of power. The storytelling is striking in its intimacy, gripping in its universal scope.

Tár is a showcase for two maestros working at the top of their game.

Bravo.

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Tonight We’re Gonna Party

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V/H/S/99

by Hope Madden

It’s been a full decade since the first short compilation V/H/S hit movie screens with its conceit of a single videotape full of horror snippets. Several of these original bits were great, and the directing talent showcased some serious cinematic promise: David Bruckner (Hellraiser), Ti West (Pearl), Adam Wingard (Godzilla vs. Kong), Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett (Scream).

There have been a number of sequels, hitting and missing through the last ten years, but 2021’s V/H/S/94 – with its clear timestamp and shorts from Jennifer Reeder (Knives and Skin), Chloe Okuno (Watcher), Timo Tjahjanto, Simon Barrett and others – generated renewed interest in the series.

Wisely, the next installment also embraces exactly what homemade VHS tapes captured: a specific moment in history. For this installment, it’s 1999. Nickelodeon spewed goop at guests and cameras. The hip and entitled believed they and the music they listened to were punk. The internet made Jackass-style, testosterone-fueled idiocy acceptable. The incredibly popular film American Pie depicted the essentially criminal activity of young men as something to find charming. Those rascals!

1999 also saw the birth of found footage, so setting the new V/H/S film the same year as The Blair Witch Project makes good sense.

A new crop of filmmakers seems to channel their own childhoods for five short films capturing the era. Among the highlights are Maggie Levin’s Shredding, which follows narcissistic teens and the unearned cred they flaunt (to their peril) into the site of a punk concert tragedy.

Writers/directors Joseph and Vanessa Winter (Deadstream) employ the same sense of fun with their short To Hell and Back. The charmer of the bunch, it depicts a couple of best friends hired to record a conjuring on Y2K, to bumblingly catastrophic results.

Johannes (47 Meters Down) Roberts’s Suicide Bid offers fairly predictable sorority hazing horror, while Tyler MacIntyre (Tragedy Girls) turns the most repugnant part of American Pie into the horror it should have been. Neither short is wildly imaginative, but McIntyre does find a unique comeuppance.

The Flying Lotus piece Ozzy’s Dungeon is imaginative enough for everyone. It’s not scary or especially funny, but it’s weird, and sometimes that’s enough.

As with every V/H/S installment – and most short film anthologies, generally – the film hits and misses. None of the segments will stay with you the way Okuno’s Storm Drain from ’94 did. Hail Ratma! Still, it’s a quick, fun Halloween diversion.

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Pez Mania

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The Pez Outlaw

by Brandon Thomas

The world of collectors is an odd and varied one. From baseball cards to ceramic figurines, lunch boxes and even sneakers, virtually every product seems to have someone who collects it. However, the real interest lay not with the items themselves, but with the eccentric people who spend vast fortunes and tailor their lives around collecting. Sometimes, those eccentricities lead to actions that are lawfully “questionable.”

Steve Glew was just a mild-mannered guy from rural Michigan in the early 1990s. Glew was always a collector of odd-ball items, with his pride and joy being an assortment of cereal boxes from around the world. As his collector tendencies increased, so did Glew’s awareness that collecting could be lucrative. With his college-age son, he set off to Europe to snatch up as many hard-to-find and Europe-centric Pez dispensers as he could, and sell them to salivating collectors in the U.S. Along the way, he made hundreds of thousands of dollars and drew the ire of the Pez corporation itself.

A movie like The Pez Outlaw lives or dies by its titular character and boy, does Steve Glew not disappoint. Glew’s meekness is overshadowed only by his desire to commit fully to his interests. Glew didn’t just get into collecting and selling Pez dispensers – the hobby, and eventual business, finally gave his life purpose. Glew’s joy in driving America’s arm of the Pez Company crazy is evident and is a badge of honor for the self-proclaimed Pez Outlaw.

The reenactments of Glew’s ‘90s escapades are where The Pez Outlaw truly shines. Glew gets to show off his (quite good) acting chops by playing his younger self in the reenactments set primarily in Eastern Europe. Everything is told in a tongue-in-cheek manner that perfectly matches Glew’s boyish personality. The cherry on top is how these reenactments play with Glew’s idea of the truth. One is never quite sure if Glew is embellishing, misremembering or flat-out lying. 

Pez collecting is cast in a fascinating light. Glew comes to feel like only one small piece of a world that includes Pez lovers who will spend over $10,000 for a single Pez dispenser or a collector who won’t show off the bulk of his collection at all for fear it will become devalued. From the outside looking in, this Pez obsession can seem weird, but for hardcore collectors, the real end goal is participating in something that makes them happy.

And who can argue with that?

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Game Night

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Dangerous Game: The Legacy Murders

by Hope Madden

Welcome to the murder castle!

That’s the bland first line in the exceptionally derivative Dangerous Game: The Legacy Murders, a mash of up Saw, Ready or Not and And Then There Were None with little of the associated mystery, thrills or gore and none of the humor. Plus the title sounds like a Lifetime flick.

Things begin predictably enough as a wealthy but dysfunctional family arrives on the patriarch’s (Jon Voight) secluded island to celebrate his 80th birthday. He and his manservant (Bradley Stryker) greet the guests in a Mr. Rourke/Tattoo kind of way before ushing them into his sprawling new mansion.

More frustrating than thrilling, the film still entertains in a B-movie way for a time. Rich people on an island who hate each other play a board game called Dangerous Game to pass the time. Why not?

Jonathan Rhys Meyers stars as the son who’s taken over the business from his bitter old man. Remember when Jonathan Rhys Meyers was a whole thing? Velvet Goldmine, Bend It Like Beckham, Match Point – he had a nice roll going there. He got a lot of attention for his TV gigs in Elvis and Tudors about a decade ago.

I’m worried about him. He’s made eight movies in the last two years, with another six in various stages of production. So far, not one of them is worth watching. Indeed, many are unwatchable.

Dangerous Game: Really Tedious Subtitle isn’t unwatchable. It’s just dumb and lazy, at least until this scene on an operating room. Things turn irreversibly stupid on the operating table.

Cardboard performances and silly writing veer toward the ludicrous and the film is never able to recover. Or capitalize.

Here’s the line, “I’m sorry baby, I can’t find it. Can you tell me where it is?”

At this moment, I began to hope that Sean McNamara’s film would surprise me, go full Malignant, or at least Orphan: First Kill. Alas, turns out this was just a ludicrous highlight in an otherwise unremarkable rehash of superior films.

So close, though!

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Chaos Reigns

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Thrust!

Brandon Thomas

It’s impressive when a film is able to tap into genuine chaos. Director Victor Bonacore’s Thrust! is a punk-rock, spit-soaked, guffaw-inducing ode to don’t give-a-shit cinema. Thrust! isn’t the kind of film concerned with narrative cohesion or deeper themes. No, this movie simply wants to take the audience on the kind of ride you’d only get if your brakes failed.

Thrust! follows lovers Aloe (Erin Brown) and Vera (Allison Egan) as they cross a female-ruled dystopian world to confront and kill the vile Dirtbag Mike (Michael Shershenovich). In their quest to vanquish the elusive Dirtbag, Aloe and Vera encounter various girl-gangs that feature the likes of Linnea Quigley (Return of the Living Dead, Night of the Demons) and Ellie Church (Headless, Space Babes From Outer Space).

Thrust! is the kind of movie you want to see in a packed theater with some close friends and probably a beer or two. The risque nature of the movie feels very reminiscent of early John Waters with equal amounts of Mad Max and Switchblade Sisters thrown in for flavor. While the gross-out gags are inventive and plentiful, they never become repetitious or lose their ability to shock or make you cover your mouth with your fist.

Bonacore infuses the entire movie with an energy other features might have in a scene or two. From a rousing rock & roll opening to blood-spattered fights and gratuitous sex scenes, Thrust! produces one cackle-inducing scene after another. This impressive level of chaotic momentum should make an audience feel over-stimulated, but Thrust! throws just enough twists and surprises to keep the movie from feeling monotonous. 

The cast is more than game for the mayhem. As the audience’s entry point to this world of debauchery, Brown and Egan do a good job with two of the less flashy roles. Shershenovich makes a mean impression as the vicious Dirtbag Mike – a role where scenery chewing was probably encouraged on a daily basis. 

Thrust! certainly isn’t for the squeamish, and it might even test the limits of exploitation cinema veterans. Vulgarity aside though, Thrust! is one heck of a fun time at the movies.

Thrust! screens Sunday, October 23rd as part of the Nightmares Film Festival at Gateway Film Center in Columbus, Ohio.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ta65XA-04dY

Hope Madden and George Wolf … get it?