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Poison Pen

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A Savage Art: The Life & Cartoons of Pat Oliphant

by George Wolf

“If Pat Oliphant couldn’t draw, he’d be an assassin.”

That quote gets your attention, even if you don’t know the name Pat Oliphant. Either way, you’ve probably seen some of his work, and A Savage Art: The Life & Cartoons of Pat Oliphant is a broadly effective intro to a legend of political cartooning.

Oliphant wielded a revolutionary artistic style and the kind of cynical mind that had him rebelling against the very committee that awarded him the Pulitzer Prize in 1967. Aided by his alter ego “Punk” the Penguin, Oliphant skewered the political landscape through five decades and ten U.S. Presidents.

In his feature debut, director Bill Banowsky keeps things pretty standard, rolling out a succession of Oliphant’s best cartoons, and chatting with family members and colleagues to provide some personal details that Oliphant himself seems averse to.

And though today’s political and social climate carries some issues that are very relevant to Oliphant’s legacy, Banowsky doesn’t dig in. We do get mentions of the increased threats to a free press, and to the rise of internet memes as a shallow imitation of cartoon commentary, but those seem to be conversations for another day.

Banowsky’s aim is to give a legend his due and maybe spur some interest in learning more. A Savage Art hits that target square.

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Slippery

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The Ice Tower

by George Wolf

Fifteen-year-old Jeanne doesn’t want to build a snowman. What she wants is an escape, but finds plenty more than she expected in The Ice Tower, Lucile Emina Hadzihalilovic’s dreamlike re-imaging of “The Snow Queen.”

In 1970s France, Jeanne (a wonderful feature debut for Clara Pacini) is among the oldest children in a foster home, where she comforts the younger ones and silently longs for a better life. She finally leaves one evening, taking refuge in an empty warehouse to sleep.

But in the morning, Jeanne finds the warehouse is home to a movie crew, with director Dino (Gaspar Noé, Hadzihalilovic’s husband) filming a new adaptation of the Hans Christian Anderson classic. Mistaken for an extra, Jeanne becomes part of the production and is instantly captivated by the star of the show, Christina (Marion Cotillard).

The Oscar-winning Cotillard is, of course, perfect as the detached and demanding diva who begins to take an equally strong interest in the young Jeanne. But to what end? Hadzihalilovic explores that question with a cold, barren beauty. The aesthetic is tactile and intoxicating, a perfect playground to envelope the film in strange fascination.

The Ice Tower casts an undeniable spell. Despite lingering a bit too long in some dry spots, it crafts an enriching trip to the darker floors of a fairy tale.

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No Wake Zone

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Bone Lake

by George Wolf

Not long after we meet Sage and Diego, they’re talking about his idea for a novel, debating about what qualifies as “gratuitous” and lamenting that cancel culture has neutered artistic expression.

Okay, intriguing. And then you remember that one poster for Bone Lake features the strategically large “R” rating positioned right after the first word in the title.

Alrighty, then, we’re gonna push some limits with both blood and lust, are we? Have some devilish fun with hot button topics and take no prisoners?

No, we are not. We’re going to play it safe and predictable, borrow heavily from better projects and hope some late stage blood splatter stops the questions about why that poster doesn’t read BonePG-13 Lake.

Sage (Maddie Hasson) and Diego (Marco Pigossi) have booked an incredible lakeside mansion for the weekend. Diego’s even brought a ring along to pop the question, but there are two very big complications. Will (Alex Roe) and Cin (Andra Nechita) have also booked the mansion for the weekend! What are four good-lookings gonna do except share the space and really get to know each other?

The character development is rushed but adequate. Will and Cin are openly sexy free spirits, Diego is more buttoned-up and Sage seems to be settling for the comfy life while missing some walks on the wild side. But more than anything, Diego and Sage both seem like a couple of first class idiots.

Writer Joshua Friedlander and director Mercedes Bryce Morgan want to sprinkle some White Lotus sensibilities over a mashup of Funny Games and A Perfect Getaway. But the inspirations are painfully evident, the revelations overly telegraphed, the internal logic gets shaky and the frolicking more silly than sexy.

None of it goes anywhere worth caring about. The marketing angle, an attention-getting prologue and that early art debate make some promises that are never kept, and this trip to the lake is more bore than bone.

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We Rate Dogs

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Good Boy

by Hope Madden

I have a theory that the best way to make a horror film terrifying is to put children in peril. How better to ensure viewers are compelled, hearts in their throats, desperate for the heroes to prevail?

Co-writer/director Ben Leonberg may have discovered a more sure-fire way.

Meet Indy, a Nova Scotia Duck Trolling Retriever and an undeniably Good Boy. The dog is played by Leonberg’s own pet, also named Indy. I am not one to talk to the screen, but there were several times during Good Boy’s mere 72-minute running time that I heard myself saying, “No, no, no, no. Don’t do that, buddy.”

Because Indy and his dude, Todd (Shane Jensen), have just moved into Grandpa’s (Larry Fessenden) old place out in the woods. Todd’s in bad shape, physically. And even though folks say the old place is haunted, and even though Grandpa died here and his dogs all ran away or disappeared, Todd and Indy should be fine. Right?

The film works as well as it does because of Leonberg’s great gimmick. The story is told from Indy’s point of view. We know what he knows, which allows metaphor and supernatural to fold together seamlessly since no real exposition can be given. It also means that we never take our eyes off this beautiful dog, so we never stop worrying about his wellbeing, if he’s sad, is he cold out in the rain, is he scared?

Yes, Leonberg is out to break your heart, and his gorgeous retriever does just that.

There’s something unsettling in real life when your pet stares deeply at nothing and whines. Leonberg contemplates those shadows, the silence, the movement just outside the frame, along with Indy. The atmosphere he creates is deeply creepy and tinged with unendurable tenderness.

But a metaphorical supernatural horror story is tough to resolve satisfactorily when all we have to work with is the communicative abilities of a dog. No matter how darling that dog is.

Good Boy feels longer than its 72 minutes, and the metaphor at the heart of the story leeches away the true fear. It leaves you with heartbreak, which isn’t quite enough. But Leonberg’s film is an audacious feature debut and a worthy experiment.

Outtakes

Slim, Sick and Sorry Looking

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Coyotes

by Hope Madden

Colin Minihan’s a fun filmmaker. Not everything hits, but nothing ever entirely misses. His latest, the horror comedy with heart Coyotes, is one of his more pleasant, less memorable efforts.

Justin Long is a comic book writing dad living in the Hollywood Hills. His wife (real life wife Kate Bosworth), daughter (Mila Harris), and schnauzer Charlie life comfortably enough but they think they hear rats in their walls.

Rats won’t be their biggest problem once a pack of bloodthirsty coyotes stands between Long’s family and escape from the raging wildfire the neighbor inadvertently set after coyotes gnawed through his carcass.

Trip (Norbert Leo Butz), the neighbor, and his girlfriend-for-hire (Brittany Allen, frequent Minihan collaborator) balance the neighbor family’s earnestness with bawdy, slapstick humor. Allen’s comic sensibility is especially strong, her presence creating a consistent sense of random humor that elevates everything.

Allen’s wrongheadedness bounces beautifully off Long’s likeable dufus, leaving Bosworth the somewhat thankless straight man role. But she carries it with the right balance of dignity and impatience to give the character flavor.

The chemistry among the actors goes a long way to strengthen a slight script. The character motivations we’re told about don’t match the footage we see, and coyotes come and go with little rational explanation.

As for horror, nearly every death, even nearly every attack, is off screen. Reaction shots fill in for carnage, each intended more for a laugh than a scare. But there just aren’t that many outright laughs.

Still, it’s hard not to root for Justin Long to survive a horror movie. Here, he’s at his most likeable and goofy, plus he’s rightfully preoccupied with keeping Charlie from coyote clutches. Because screw the neighbors, protect that dog!

Coyotes is not one of Minihan’s strongest, and it certainly doesn’t measure up to Long’s better genre titles. The writing can’t measure up in logic, fun, humor or horror to what the cast deserves. But it’s a pleasant enough waste of time for horror fans.

Shudder Premiere

Bite Size Frights

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V/H/S/Halloween

Screens Sunday, October 19 at noon

by Hope Madden

“Hey, aren’t you a little old for trick or treating?”

If you’re looking for bite sized horror to match your fun size Butterfinger, the long running found footage franchise delivers a grab bag of options with V/H/S/Halloween. The anthology of shorts focuses on tales of Halloween. Expect costumes, pranks, chocolate, and a surprisingly high amount of child carnage.

Director Bryan M. Ferguson’s wraparound tale Diet Phantasma may mean more to me than it will to you. It would be hard for me to articulate how much I love horror movies or diet pop. In both cases, it’s an alarming amount of love. So, a tale of haunted diet soda and, beginning the theme, child slaughter?

Yes.

David Haydn is a particular riot as the exec who really needs to get this beverage on the shelf by Halloween.

Paco Plaza’s Ut Sup Sic Infra (As Above, So Below) follows a traumatized young man and a host of cops to a crime scene. This is an efficient little gem with a mystery to solve. Performances are solid all around, and the climax packs a frightening surprise.

Anna Zlokovic’s Coochic Coochic Coo and Alex Ross Perry’s Kidprint are the weaker episodes in the group. Zlokovic’s film follows two high school seniors who make consistently ridiculous choices leading to a nonsensical finale. Kidprint is a nasty short without the clever writing needed to elevate it.

Casper Kelly’s Fun Size gets off to a rough start—full grown adults who decide to be zany and trick or treat. But as soon as that “take one” bowl makes its presence known, things get weird. The balance between brightly colored confection and human dismemberment is impressive. This one’s wrong-headed in the best way.

Likewise, Micheline Pitt-Norman & R.H. Norman’s Home Haunt is a lot of fun. There’s a wholesome charm to this short that could draw your attention to the, again, sheer number of children being murdered. But the concept is sort of darling, and the performances are equally dear. The Normans strike a comedic tone that’s hard to manage, and the result is equal parts nostalgia, cringe, and terror.

You can’t get a Twix every time you dig into that bulk candy assortment bag. But V/H/S/Halloween’s ratio of choice treats to forgettable-but-edible is strong enough to leave you with a little sugar high.

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Viva la Revolution

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One Battle After Another

by Hope Madden

Paul Thomas Anderson, still batting 1000.

This f’ing guy! He spends four or five years directing obscure music videos, hits us with a masterpiece of modern cinema, then back to the tunes. The Phantom Thread, The Master, Boogie Nights, Punch Drunk Love, Licorice Pizza, Hard Eight, Inherent Vice, Magnolia, There Will Be Blood—you get whiplash from genre and stylistic hopscotch. But in each is a gorgeous pathos, a meticulous cinematic experience, and ensemble piece teeming with dozens of the most stunning performances you’ve ever seen.

So, you know what to expect when you sit down to One Battle After Another.

Anderson based the film on Thomas Pynchon’s Vineland, which contrasted the revolutionary spirit of America of the 1960s with the era of Ronald Reagan’s reelection. Anderson finds parallels in the generational necessity for revolution with Bob (Leonardo DiCaprio).

Years ago, Bob and Perfidia Beverly Hills (Teyana Taylor, owning the screen no matter who she shares it with) were revolutionaries disrupting W.’s ugly border policies, among other things. But everything went to hell, much thanks to Col. Steven J. Lockjaw (great name!). And about 16 years later, Lockjaw comes looking for Bob and the baby he disappeared with off-grid all those years ago (Chase Infiniti).

Sean Penn is Lockjaw, and he hasn’t been anywhere near this compelling or transformed since Milk (although he was a ton of fun in Licorice Pizza).

Though the massive cast is characteristically littered with incredible talents crackling with the electricity of Anderson’s script, Benicio del Toro stands out. He brings a laidback humor to the film that draws out DiCaprio’s silliness. While much of One Battle After Another is a nail-biting political thriller turned action flick, thanks to these two, it’s also one of Anderson’s funniest movies.

It may also be his most relevant. Certainly, the most of-the-moment. A master of the period piece, with this film Anderson reaches back to clarify present. By contrasting Bob’s paranoid, bumbling earnestness with the farcical evil of the Christmastime Adventurer’s Club, he satirizes exactly where we are today and why it looks so much like where we’ve been during every revolution.

But it is the filmmaker’s magical ability to populate each moment of his 2-hour-41-minute run time with authentic, understated, human detail that grounds the film in our lived-in reality and positions it as another masterpiece.

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Everyday People

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The Lost Bus

by George Wolf

Paul Greengrass loves him a true survival story. And with Captain Phillips, United 93, Bloody Sunday and more, he’s shown great instincts for bringing those stories to the screen. That craftsmanship is on display again in The Lost Bus, a harrowing retelling of a heroic rescue from Northern California’s catastrophic Camp Fire that killed 85 people and destroyed ninety percent of a city’s homes in 2018.

Adapting Lizzie Johnson’s book, Greengrass and co – writer Brad Ingelsby get us up to speed early and effectively. The town of Paradise has not had rain for over 200 days, and the threat of wind gusts up to 90 mph bring multiple wildfire warnings.

Kevin McKay (Matthew McConaughey) is begging for extra shifts as a school bus driver, trying to keep his life together amid an aging mother (McConaughey’s mother Kay), a rebellious son (McConaughey’s son Levi), a disappointed ex-wife (Kimberli Flores), an impatient boss (Ashlie Atkinson) and a dying dog.

He’s also struggling with guilt after his father’s death, and it’s only McConaughey’s skill with grounding the character that keeps Kevin from collapsing under the strain of an overly tortured and reluctant hero.

A faulty power line ignites a small fire that quickly grows to overwhelm firefighters, and as evacuation panic sets in, a call goes out to any bus drivers able to rescue a group of stranded schoolchildren. McKay answers, picking up teacher Mary Ludwig (America Ferrera) and her class of 22 kids. The radios are out and the bus is unreachable, adding even more anxiety to the frightened parents waiting at a shelter.

Ferrera also does wonders with a broadly drawn character. She and McConaughey create effective snapshots of everyday heroes pushed to the brink, the perfect anchor for Greengrass’s frenzied shaky-cam plunge into the fire. What the effects team accomplishes with the mix of embers, wind and flame is just spectacular, and though none of the bus’s perilous moments surpass the white knuckle nerve-shredding of Sorcerer, just the fact that Greengrass can bring Friedkin’s classic to mind is a high-five in itself.

McKay and Ludwig certainly deserve plenty of those. And the bluntly titled The Lost Bus gives them their due in grand, appropriately no-nonsense fashion. Unimaginable circumstances bring on an unparalleled fight for survival, and heroes emerge. Hold on tight for a gripping ride, especially if you can catch this Apple TV release on the big screen.

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She’s Investigatin’…Darn Tootin!

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Dead of Winter

by Hope Madden

Emma Thompson and Judy Greer go head-to-head in a kidnaping thriller set in a forsaken Northern Minnesota snowstorm? Dude, I am so in!

With Dead of Winter, Brian Kirk relies on nuanced character work, gorgeously isolating cinematography, and the desperation of human nature to keep you guessing. Thompson, who executive produces, is Barb. Barb with that Minnesota “r”. She’s hearty for a mature gal. And despite the weather forecast, she puts on the ol’ snowsuit, warms up the even older pick up, and heads to faraway Lake Hilda to do some ice fishing. And maybe something else.

But she gets a little turned around and hears chopping in the distance, so she goes to ask directions. Nobody else for miles around, what else is she to do? Barb finds a bearded man in camo (Marc Menchaca, excellent), who—very startled by the sight of her—directs her to the lake. But blood on the snow has Barb a little troubled, and soon enough, she sniffs out a kidnapping. Is she hearty enough to save that poor girl in the wood chopper’s basement?

In some ways, Dead of Winter—written by first time screenwriters Nicholas Jacobson-Larson and Dalton Leeb—feels like little more than a welcome update to a well-worn plot. A handful of flashbacks to Barb’s youth, which flesh out the film’s B-story and deepen Barb’s character, are just this side of Hallmark Channel. But Thompson, from her first determined sigh, is so utterly convincing that you’re hooked.

And that’s all before the glorious Greer makes her entrance. It’s hard to justify saying that the most versatile and employable character actor of a generation is playing against type, since Greer has played every imaginable type of character. But the blind desperation behind her unnamed (she and Barb never really get on chummy terms) character’s cruelty is so precisely wielded by this actor that you would believe this film no matter how farfetched it became.

There’s a simplicity to the storytelling that matches Kirk’s determined avoidance of cynicism. Like Barb, this movie marches on, not necessarily seeing the worst in this world even when it wouldn’t be too hard. Hard with that Minnesota “r”. But he never loses track of his chosen genre. Dead of Winter sidesteps cliché, delivers thrills, and finds new ways to showcase two tremendous talents.

Hope Madden and George Wolf … get it?