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Downeast

by Rachel Willis

Coastal Maine is beautiful country, but there is a seedy underbelly of drugs, gambling, and crime that’s explored in director Joe Raffa’s film, Downeast.

Refining a story written by native Maine resident Greg Finley, Raffa’s focus is on a lobsterman named Tommy (Finley). Following a life-changing incident in which he ran afoul of area mobsters, Tommy tries to live with his head down, following his own moral code. The return of his ex, Emma (Dylan Silver), reopens old wounds.

The ‘townies’ are wary of Emma, whose questions threaten the tenuous balance the mob holds over the residents. Even Tommy’s loyalty lies with the town over his budding relationship.

There aren’t many new stories to tell, and if this one sounds familiar, that’s because it is. However, the film boasts compelling characters and wonderful attention to detail that help keep us invested.

From a technical standpoint, this is a well-made movie. Edwin Pendleton Stevens’s cinematography juxtaposes the coastal vacation town against a gritty, cold world that feels lifeless when summer ends. The empty winter boardwalk seems sinister compared to scenes of a beach crowded with summer tourists.

The actors inhabit their roles so organically that often you feel like you’re sitting with them in the local watering hole. Finley is at home with his character, but the others alongside him are just as natural. The only one who stands out as different is Silver, but it works because Emma is an outsider to this world—she talks tough like the rest of them, but she isn’t one of them, and her world view doesn’t align with the townies.

The film’s biggest issue lies with the characters’ motivations. While things seem straightforward in the beginning, they take a turn toward the unusual. Characters’ decisions make zero sense given what we know of them. Even the background players behave strangely. Plotlines resolve in head-scratching ways. It all detracts from the strong chemistry the actors create as members of a close, if tenuous, community.

There is a lot crowded into the plot, so some characters are shallow compared to others. The mobsters are one-dimensional villains, and while a case could be made that’s the truth in real life, it doesn’t make for compelling storytelling.

Downeast shows how important a strong screenplay is because, without it, you’re left with a beautiful, forgettable film.

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No Reply at All

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The Loneliest Whale

by George Wolf

Ask any rando what their favorite Star Trek movie is, and you’ll get plenty of the same response.

“The one with the whales!”

To save the universe, Kirk and the gang have to make sure a whale’s song gets answered. It was touching, right?

The Loneliest Whale: The Search for 52 finds a similar nerve, chasing a legendary animal seemingly alone in the vastness of the ocean.

The U.S. Navy first heard the whale in 1992, calling out at 52 Hz, a unique frequency no other whale could understand. And so the songs of this lonely whale – dubbed “52” – went unanswered, until the Navy stopped listening ten years ago.

A New York Times article about 52’s plight ignited a global community of souls who could relate to feeling alone in a sea of noise. One of those was director Joshua Zemen, and his film attempts to separate the facts from the legend while documenting a weeklong expedition to actually track down 52 in the open ocean.

52’s story is certainly a compelling one, and Zemen gives it more context through background info on the history of whaling and how 1970’s “Songs of the Humpback Whale” began to change the way we thought about these majestic creatures.

Zemen’s approach may be far from stylish, but it is earnest, ambitious and respectful, which seems fitting for a story anchored in a love of science and nature. And while the correlations between a friendless whale and a sea of people increasingly detached through technology are hard to miss, Zemen finds the restraint to avoid boldly going there once too often.

The Loneliest Whale captures its most effective feels in the epilogue, when we catch up with Zemen and members of his team getting some surprising news two months after their expedition came to an end. It’s a surprise that not only brings hope for 52, but for anyone warmed by nature’s little victories.

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This Looks Familiar

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Dachra

by Hope Madden

Any break from Judeo Christian supernatural horror is always welcome. That’s not to say that your traditional Western religious zealotry can’t make for a fine scare, but it has certainly been done. From The Exorcist to The Omen to the entire Conjuring universe to the best horror of 2021 so far, St. Maud, cinema is forever teeming with the biblical unholy.

Why not try something else?

Tunisian filmmaker Abdelhamid Bouchnak does what he can with a tale of North African witchcraft in Dachra.

The grim story follows three journalism students trailing the origins of a wild urban legend about a witch found on the highway decades ago. They track the source of the legend to Dachra, a tiny, backward village unlocatable via Google.

Yassmine Dimassi plays Yassmine, headstrong and clearly the leader of the trio of investigators. Still, once they find the village, Yassmine and her bickering sidekicks Walid (Aziz Jebali) and Bilel (Bilel Slatnia) are hard-pressed to find their way back out.

Dimassi’s angry, unyielding performance drives the film, giving it a blind urgency that can’t help but push things onward. Jebali and Slatnia counterbalance, their dunderheaded sibling-esque rivalry creating sweet but organic opportunities for Bouchnak to get in the way of that forward momentum.

This is how filmmaker and crew generate tension, but it’s always upended by contrivance. Like so many films that rely on characters’ inability to leave someplace, unexplained lapses in time and delays that strain believability puncture whatever dread the film has built.

Perhaps what’s most disappointing about Dachra—Tunisia’s first official horror movie—is how uninspired it is. Unlike Baskin, for example—one of the very few horror films to ever come out of Turkey. Can Evrenol’s meat-loving mindbender positively reeks of originality. Bouchnak, on the other hand, pieces together every cliché he can think of, winding up with a film both clumsily familiar and unpleasant.

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Assassins Assemble

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Black Widow

by Hope Madden and George Wolf

Avenger Natasha Romanoff had to wait a while to get the green light on her own standalone origin story, and then even longer for the big screens to carry it. Now Black Widow is finally here, and Natasha’s not even the most interesting character in her own show.

And the film is better for it.

Director Cate Shortland and writer Eric Pearson surround Natasha with uniquely compelling personalities that become important parts of a whole, while surrounding star Scarlett Johansson with a supporting ensemble skilled enough to make this one of the MCU’s most character-driven successes.

Oh, there’s action, too, but we start with a prologue set in 1995 Ohio, when Natasha’s family is trying to flee the country at a moment’s notice. Father Alexei (David Harbour), and mother Melina (Rachel Weiss) were prepared for this day, so they scoop up young Natasha (Ever Anderson) and sister Yelena (Violet McGraw) and put the escape plan into action.

An overlong, Watchmen-style montage mixing music and news headlines brings us up to 2006, when the family is long estranged. Natasha is on the run since the Avengers “divorce” (between Civil War and Infinity War), Yelena (Florence Pugh) is taking names in Norway, Alexei is in prison and Melina’s loyalties seem tied to some talented pigs. Meanwhile the villainous Dreykov (Ray Winstone – nice! His accent – not so much) has plans to build an army of mind-controlled “Black Widow” assassins.

That means females only, but while the reveal lands as a clear metaphor for sex trafficking, Shortland (Berlin Syndrome, the underseen gem Lore) and Pearson (Godzilla vs. Kong, Thor: Ragnarok) never belabor any well-taken points. Even better, they fill the entire adventure with enough organic, self-aware humor about posing, too tight supersuits and the need for pockets that very few of the 133 minutes seem laborious at all.

The core foursome is uniformly terrific, as you would expect from actors of this caliber. Performances blossom and surprise, their chemistry buoying the familial longing required of every superhero backstory while anchoring action in characters you can care about.

Pugh—sympathetic, comedic and badass—is the standout, but Johansson shines, especially in a climactic bout with Winstone that lands satisfying jabs about weak men.

Shortland never forgets the point of a superhero film, though. The breathless action in Black Widow impresses as much as it entertains, whether hand-to-hand or aerial.

And it is a Marvel film, so be sure to stick around post-credits for an intriguing stinger and a welcome addition to the universe.

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Run Like Hell

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Marathon

by Hope Madden

“Runners are a stupid breed.”

That is a direct quote from my doctor after I re-injured myself for the 11th or 12th time from running. He may have consulted on Anthony Guidubaldi and Keith Strausbaugh’s screenplay for their new mockumentary, Marathon.

Amateur documentarians follow five runners as they train for an off-brand marathon organized by Ed Clap (Jimmy Slonina), the owner of a shoe store, equally off-brand.

In much the way the master of the genre Christopher Guest used dog shows and community theater to explore particular personality types, so do Guidubaldi and Straugsbaugh set a group of oddballs loose inside the idiocy of marathon training.

For Shareef Washington (Tavius Cortez), this is about sibling rivalry. Unfortunately, he has to do all his training on a treadmill because whenever he runs outside, he gets arrested by white cops. Jenna (Natalie Sullivan), on the other hand, wants to break the world record for marathon runners dressed as fruit.

Crews also tail a woman (Anais Thomassian) trying to remember life before motherhood and an insecure man (Andrew Hansen) hoping to prove himself to his ex-wife by qualifying for the Boston Marathon.

So, the runners range from desperate to lunatic, sometimes in insightful and often in amusing ways. Hansen’s quickly deteriorating relationship with Jeff, the cameraman we never see, delivers the film’s funniest moments.

The keenest insights may come by way of Emilou (Kimia Behpoornia), who drops out the moment she realizes marathons are 26 miles long. Her crew stays with her through race day, though, just to prove how much better life is when you’re not training for a marathon.

Though Hansen is clearly the film’s brightest spot, the filmmakers pieced together an entirely solid ensemble. Droll performances suit the script and keep your attention, but the story itself lacks much real punch. Worse, the police oppression subplot feels tone-deaf at best.

Still, Guidubaldi and Strausbaugh understand something my doctor saw perhaps too well, and that’s why their affectionate ribbing rings so true.

Shudder Premiere

In His Name

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Son

by Hope Madden

Back in 2014, Irish filmmaker Ivan Kavanagh wondered what to do about a dad who may be his son’s only salvation, or may be his one true danger. Canal had a lot going for it—it looked creepy, performances were solid, and it wasn’t afraid to bang up its cast.

It just couldn’t quite make the leap from good to great.

Same goes for the filmmaker’s latest, Son.

We open on a filthy, barefoot, rain-soaked young pregnant woman (Andi Matichak, Halloween) hoping to warm up with a coffee in a roadside diner. Two men walk in, she exits in a hurry.

Cut to eight years later. Same woman, clean and wholesome now, buckles in precocious little David (Luke David Blumm) to drop him off at school. They’re adorable. They’re happy, hard-working, loving, and about to face some ugly stuff once Kavanagh establishes the paradise to be lost.

An awful lot of movies want to know how far a mother is willing to go to protect the son who may or may not be the real villain. This has been especially true in the last five years. (See The Hole, The Prodigy, Brahms: The Boy 2, Z, Brightburn — it’s a long list.) Does anything set Son apart?

Kavanaugh roots the story in hysteria and conspiracy, sketchy memories of a cult versus police reports of sex trafficking. All of it feels mildly of-the-moment, but the real purpose is to throw skepticism toward the seemingly lucid mother and her claims.

Which is another common horror trope (is she crazy or is she right?), especially in the subgenre where a mother is trying to figure something out that may or may not be supernatural.

So, no, Kavanaugh does not bring much that’s new to the table.

Son does boast solid performances, and the filmmaker once again flexes his strong instincts for unsettling locations and atmospheres. The writing, pacing, and imagery all work together as they should to generate anxiety and dread. Son gets gory now and again, too.

It just doesn’t do anything you don’t expect it to do.

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No Place Like Home

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Rock, Paper and Scissors

by George Wolf

Three characters, and one big house. That’s all that directors/writers Martin Blousson and Macarena Garcia Lenzi need to conjur up a good bit of creepy in Rock, Paper and Scissors (Piedra, papel y tijera).

Jesus (Pablo Sigal) and Maria Jose (Augustina Cervino) are isolated siblings living alone in the family home after the recent death of their father. When their paternal half-sister Magdalena (Valeria Giorcelli) arrives from Spain to discuss the inheritance and plans for the house, Jesus and Maria offer to put her up for the length of her stay.

Magdalena doesn’t want to trouble them for any more than one night, but a nasty fall down the stairs the next morning means little sister isn’t going anywhere.

Suddenly, Magdalena is a captive, and at the mercy of her siblings’ eyebrow-raising eccentricities. Jesus is an aspiring filmmaker filled with questionable inspirations, and Maria is a Wizard Of Oz-obsessed nursemaid who hopes to co-star with a guinea pig named Toto in Jesus’s upcoming film.

Magdalena’s only hope for escape seems to be separating her brother and sister, and probing for ways to work one against the other. Could Maria have pushed Magdalena down the stairs, or is Jesus the real danger in this house? And how did their father really die, anyway?

Blousson and Lenzi move past the Misery-like premise in short order, piling on some surrealistic Lynch-meets-Lanthimos weirdness and bathing it all in a stylistic visual pastiche of earth tone Goth.

The trio of actors reveals their characters’ true motivations at a languid pace that keeps us guessing, right up to the gorgeous closing shot that will leave you looking twice. Maybe three times.

Rock, Paper and Scissors is available on VOD beginning July 6th

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Wanna Take You Higher

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Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)

by George Wolf

According to Amir “Questlove” Thompson, the first time he saw some of the digitized footage from the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival concerts, he nearly wept.

How could this event have been ignored to the extent that even a musical aficionado such as himself had never heard of it? And why had all these hours of stunning performances gone unseen for decades?

The free concerts ran for six consecutive weekends at Harlem’s Mt. Morris Park in the summer of 1969, attracting over 300,000 fans. That same summer, the Woodstock festival was held about 100 miles away, but even when producer Hal Tulchin tried to market his reels of video as “the Black Woodstock,” there were no takers.

And so the boxes sat in a basement for 50 years.

Once Thompson committed to directing his first film, he immersed himself in the footage nearly 24/7, and Summer of Soul emerges as a triumphant testament to the music that drove a “Black consciousness revolution.”

From the gospel of Mahalia Jackson to the blues of B.B. King, from the 5th Dimension’s smooth pop to Sly Stone’s psychedelic funk, the musical styles blend gloriously in the summer sun and the goosebump moments mount.

A young Mavis Staples and an aging Jackson share one microphone; Stevie Wonder unleashes a furious drum solo; Marilyn McCoo and Billy Davis. Jr. tear up recalling how important it was that the 5th Dimension’s perceived “white” sound be accepted as “black enough;” Nina Simone strikes a commanding presence as she challenges the crowd’s commitment to social change; and on and on and on.

But even more impressive than Thompson’s musical direction is the way he frames the entire festival through the context of time, place, and population.

Embraced by New York’s Republican mayor and sponsored by corporate giant Maxwell House, the festival was seen as a way to keep the Black community calm after the rising tensions of 1968.

But ’69 was – in the words of Rev. Al Sharpton – “the year Negro died and Black was born,” and Thompson layers the archival footage with new interviews that are equal parts poignant and timely.

We see festival attendees telling stories of what lengths they went to for a chance to be in the crowd, and how being there changed their lives. Starkly contrasting footage of white and black crowds being interviewed for reactions to the 1969 moon landing put a fine point on how sadly relevant yesterday’s civil rights struggles remain today.

And while the defiant cries of revolution and equality pulsate through Summer of Soul, they never eclipse the festival’s unbridled joy.

One man who was just a young boy in 1969 and had come to doubt his own memory over the years, cries with joy at seeing proof positive on film.

“I’m not crazy! And it was beautiful.”

It still is.

Hope Madden and George Wolf … get it?