New In Theaters

Pez Mania

Leave a comment

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?

New In Theaters

Game Night

Leave a comment

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!

New In Theaters

Chaos Reigns

Leave a comment

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.

New In Theaters

Deadpan on Arrival

Leave a comment

The Loneliest Boy in the World

by Daniel Baldwin

Oliver has had a rough go of it. He’s lived in isolation for the bulk of his life. His father has long since passed away and his mother died recently in a freak accident. If that weren’t enough, he just got out of a stint in an asylum and is likely to be headed back there if he cannot prove to his caseworkers that he can function properly on his own. In short, Oliver needs to make new human connections. He needs a friend.

So he digs a few up. Literally. Against all odds, his newfound, freshly-deceased pals come to life and attempt to help the poor boy get his life in order. If there is an answer to the question “What do you get when you throw Tim Burton, Wes Anderson, and a pinch of John Waters into a blender?”, the answer is The Loneliest Boy in the World.

An intriguing list of ingredients, no? Unfortunately, the parts are far greater than their sum. The cast is largely comprised of British characters actors, and they do their darnedest to (pardon the pun) liven things up, but the premise is stretched too thin, even at 90 minutes. Gags that might have been funny in smaller doses often become interminable and there’s an unfortunate amount of repetition at play. In the end, it feels like a script for a 30-minute short that’s been padded to triple that length.

There are some positives, however. Max Harwood is charming as our quirky lead and Tallulah Haddon is adorable as his would-be first living friend. Alex Murphy and Hammed Animashaun make for a fun pair of oddball cemetery caretakers.

Of course, the film’s greatest feature is the flashback sequence revealing the accidental death of Oliver’s mother. The event is so sweetly dark in its humor that it makes one wish the rest of the film had kept to a similar tone.

Kudos to director Martin Owen and writer Piers Ashworth for trying a new recipe. The flavor profile didn’t quite come together, but that’s always the risk when one takes wild swings. If you like quirky genre-bending comedies where undead folks watch ALF together and have heart-to-hearts with their human pal, this might still do it for you. Otherwise, you might not want to exhume this one.

New In Theaters

Unjustified

Leave a comment

Halloween Ends

by Hope Madden and George Wolf

In 2018, director David Gordon Green and writer Danny McBride did the almost unthinkable, something often tried but rarely accomplished. They made a good Halloween movie. Three years later they did what a lot of people have done. They made a bad sequel.

But the second film in a trilogy is tricky business. The origin story is out of the way and you can’t kill the villain – everyone already knows a third installment is coming. Some filmmakers thrive in that middle space, but most tread water until the big climax.

Well, that big climax is here. Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) and Michael Myers (James Jude Courtney) face off in the final piece of Greene’s trilogy, Halloween Ends.

The bad second installment was better.

Rohan Campbell is Corey, a misunderstood outcast with tousled hair, bee stung lips and a motorcycle. The Strode women take a shine to him, Laure introducing him to granddaughter Allyson (Andi Matichak). But Haddonfield is pretty tough on Autumn romance, and this story is too rushed to resonate, too dull to be truly angsty.

Green has made some really good movies: George Washington, All the Real Girls, Undertow, Snow Angels, Pineapple Express, Joe, Halloween. One of the most impressive things about that list is the way it crosses genres like there is no border from one to the next. His first episode in the series was a mash note to the original. He wisely ignored all the other sequels and reboots and just brought us a clear vision for an Act 2.

Then, in lieu of a cohesive story, Green caves to some desire to pepper a sequel with odes and easter eggs in honor of all the franchise installments. He and co-writers McBride, Chris Bernier and Paul Brad Logan pick up an idea hinted at in two earlier episodes across the full constellation of films. An honest to god original thought would have been better.

It’s a sidetrack that some longtime fans might embrace, but the execution is littered with missteps. The new relationships do not feel authentic, much of the internal logic is questionable, and forget about scary, the film is too tired to even develop effective tension. There aren’t even any good kills.

We do get the final Laurie v Michael showdown that the title promises, which is a welcome return to giving the legendary Curtis some opportunity for badassery. But while Green & company manage a couple late-stage surprises, this is ultimately a disappointing end, with the highest of hopes limping to the finish for only lukewarm satisfaction.

New In Theaters

R+R4E

Leave a comment

Rosaline

by Hope Madden

Sometimes it’s fun to reconsider a Shakespearean story from the perspective of a side character. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern got their own play. Juliet’s nurse got her own book. So why not Romeo’s first love, Rosaline?

Director Karen Maine takes Rebecca Serle’s YA novel When You Were Mine back to Verona for a savvy, fun if slight reimagining of the Bard’s tragic love story. Kaitlyn Dever (who also produces) stars in a comedy that pokes holes in old-fashioned concepts of romance.

Devers is Rosaline, beloved of Romeo (Kyle Allen, your future He-Man, here sporting an eerily Heath Ledger look). He climbs her balcony at night, brings her roses, speaks such poetry – so when he finally tells her he loves her, why does she freeze?

It doesn’t matter. She’ll make it up to him at the masquerade ball, where Montagues and Capulets can dance together without anyone ever knowing. Brilliant! But she’s held up by one of her dad’s stupid suitors, Dario (Sean Teale, of the strong jawline and perfect teeth). By the time she gets to the ball, everyone’s gone. Romeo is long, long gone.

But soon enough she realizes it’s her young cousin Juliet (Isabela Merced) he’s fallen for. So, Rosaline takes Juliet under her wing in an attempt to undermine the new romance, to comedic ends.

The best bits come by way of Rosaline’s nurse, played with droll perfection by Minnie Driver, but the entire supporting cast is rock solid. Bradley Whitford is a charmingly befuddled father, Nico Hiraga gives good reason that Steve the Courier never seems to deliver packages properly, and Spencer Stevenson gets off a couple of chuckles as Paris. Anachronistic dialog fits the fun.

Maine’s film, written for the screen by Scott Neustradter and Michael H. Weber (who together penned The Spectacular Now, 500 Days of Summer, The Fault in Our Stars), is intentional in the way it dismantles damaging tropes of romance. Classic romantic stories pit women against women. And the best-known romance of all time ends with two youngsters making the dumbest decisions ever put to paper.

Rosaline recognizes this and makes light entertainment of it all. Dever is more than strong enough to carry the comedy. Her heroine offers stubbornly wrong-headed reasons for resilience and it’s hard to root against her. There’s nothing profound here, but it’s a breezy bit of fun.

New In Theaters

Worn Retread

Leave a comment

The Visitor

by Hope Madden

Four years ago, filmmaker Justin P. Lange used our preconceived notions against us to carve out a fresh horror with something meaningful on its mind. He followed his impressive feature debut The Dark with the subpar 2021 exorcism flick The Seventh Day.

This third outing, The Visitor, falls somewhere between the two.

 A young married couple moves back to the wife’s hometown when her father dies and leaves her his big, old gothic house. So far, so garden variety.

The pair’s not even unpacked yet when the husband starts hearing noises, then he’s having nightmares, and then he discovers a painting in the attic bearing his own unmistakable likeness.

Still pretty familiar. The truth is, not a single beat in The Visitor feels truly fresh. The film looks great and performances – especially from the supporting cast that includes veterans Dane Rhodes, Thomas Francis Murphy and Donna Biscoe – keep it lively.

Leads Finn Jones and Jessica McNamee benefit from a genre gender reversal. In nearly every film of this ilk, it’s the female who senses that something in this house and this town is amiss while her husband’s too stoic and dismissive to buy in. Here it’s Londoner Robert (Jones) who sees menace in the overly friendly townsfolk, who dreams of cackling old women. His wife Maya (McNamee) grows more and more hostile to his nonsense, especially now that she’s pregnant and they’re ready to start fresh.

Lange does a serviceable job of mashing together solid elements from better films and packing them in gorgeous autumnal shades. His set designer deserves applause for understated Gothic elegance. But it’s not enough.

Lange’s film boasts no real scares, not a single surprise, little dread. It’s a bland if attractive facsimile of other films we’re already kind of tired of.

New In Theaters

Blood, Sweat and Fears

Leave a comment

Stars at Noon

by George Wolf

Just this past summer, Claire Denis explored psychosexual politics with the moving Both Sides of the Blade. Now, she has sex, lies and global politics on her mind, as Stars at Noon examines sweaty intimacies and slippery alliances.

Adapting Denis Johnson’s novel with co-writers Andrew Litvack and Léa Mysius, Denis keeps the Central American setting but shifts the timeline from 1984 to nearly present day. The threat of COVID-19 adds a relatable layer of suspicion to every interaction, in a part of the world where suspicious minds are easy to find.

Margaret Qualley is sensational as Trish, a young woman staying in a low-rent Nicaraguan hotel while working plenty of angles. There isn’t much to back up her claim to be a journalist (despite a late night call to magazine editor John C. Reilly in a wild cameo), and other details about her life are kept brief and ambiguous.

Trish seems to benefit from at least a couple friends in high places, while new friend Daniel (Joe Alwyn delivering some perfectly smoldering mysteriousness) could benefit from at least one person he can trust.

Daniel says he’s in town from London as an oil company consultant, but Trish is quick to let him know he’s become “a person of interest” with some powerful locals.

But how can this silly American girl know what’s what?

Qualley crafts Trish’s disarming persona beautifully, with a performance that shows a new depth to her talent. While the film’s dialog is often precise and enticing, Qualley makes sure Trish’s non-verbal ques do plenty of talking as well. That gives authenticity to Daniel’s seduction, and the dangerous complications that arise when another mysterious stranger (Benny Safdie) makes Trish a tempting offer.

The humidity of the region feels palpable, laying down a subtle air of oppression that pairs nicely with the more surface level dirty dealings while another wonderful score from Denis favorite Tindersticks works its magic.

Denis is in no rush here, and the narrative can meander through some awkward juggling of tones. But the journey of these characters and their moral posturing is always engaging, and Stars at Noon serves a hypnotic cocktail of intrigue mixed with lust, feminine power and cutthroat colonialism.

New In Theaters, Shudder Premiere

Fire Walk with Me

Leave a comment

She Will

by Hope Madden

There is nothing quite like an excellent set of cheekbones.

The effortlessly elegant and formidable Alice Krige and her fine cheekbones deliver another quietly powerful performance in director Charlotte Colbert’s bewitching horror, She Will.

Krige is Veronica, an actress seeking some time away from prying eyes. She and healthcare aid Desi (Kota Eberhardt) will seclude themselves in the Scottish Highlands so Veronica can convalesce from a double mastectomy. She’ll also be able to escape the media frenzy around a proposed remake of the controversial film that made her a star back when she was only 14.

It’s hard to say which of the two traumas haunts her more.

The traveling pair find, thanks to a self-help guru (Rupert Everett) leading his own little squad of guests, that the rustic getaway inhabits a spot used to burn witches in older, more barbaric times. Witty feminism doesn’t overwhelm but enlightens a tale with vengeance on its mind.

Colbert, who co-wrote the script with Kitty Percy, crafts a moody shapeshifter of a film, allowing atmosphere and images to drive the narrative. The result is hypnotic. Clint Mansell’s transfixing score spills into Jamie Ramsay’s dreamy cinematography and suddenly you can’t tell whether you’re in the woods or in Veronica’s headspace or neither or both.

Eberhardt’s thoughtful turn creates a lovely opposite to the brittle Veronica, their growth offering an enduring image of the strength in companionship and sisterhood.

Colbert peppers the film with unexpected humor that serves it well. She seamlessly blends styles and ideas into a singular vision – no minor feat for a first-time director.

On top of the controversy surrounding the Hocus Pocus sequel, it is nice to be reminded, however artfully, of the legacy of witchcraft: the powerful tormenting and in many cases torching the powerless. Colbert shows us how lovely revenge can look when those women have a little power.

Hope Madden and George Wolf … get it?