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Hillbilly Antidote

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Holler

by Hope Madden

It is incredibly rare to see a worthwhile film that deals with American poverty. Nomadland certainly broke through, and recent movies including Winter’s Bone, Frozen River and Little Woods also made the case that resilience and poverty need not condescend or patronize.

Hillbilly Elegy missed that memo.

Holler, the feature debut from filmmaker and Ohio native Nicole Riegel, sugarcoats nothing, patronizes no one, and does not need a Mamaw to explain the facts of life.

Instead, Ruth (a bristlingly confident Jessica Barden) figures things out on her own. A high school senior who spends most of her time collecting scrap metal with her brother – both just one step away from eviction – Ruth has very little time for contemplation, though.

Riegel’s Rust Belt winter offers a malevolent backdrop for Ruth’s coming of age, and the illegal scrapping—the tearing down of the disused industries that once kept Ruth’s family and town afloat—is eerily fitting.

Barden gives the film a grainy bleakness, Ruth’s red hat and her brother Blaze’s (Gus Halper) pickup the only bursts of color in the dreary Southern Ohio grey. Compelling and authentic, it all often feels mainly like a showcase for Barden’s talent.

That’s not to say that the film is in any way weak, simply that Barden’s performance is that strong. Willful and bursting with anger, her Ruth is a force—destructive, sure, but strong and powerfully determined.  

Barden’s not alone. Her supporting ensemble delivers nuance and grit in equal measure, from Halper to Austin Amelio’s sketchy scrap metal entrepreneur to a remarkably humane turn from Becky Ann Baker. Riegel’s script, dreary though the vision can be, hints at forgiveness and hope in nearly every scene.

If you seek an antidote to Hillbilly Elegy, Riegel has what you’re looking for.

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Enter Sandman

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Awake

by Hope Madden

There are so few things I enjoy more in this life than sleeping. Sleeping is the best. I love sleeping. This is one of the reasons director Mark Raso’s apocalyptic Awake got under my skin.

But it’s supposed to, after all. It’s not a comedy. It’s a spare, clever idea about some kind of celestial happening that throws off our hard wiring enough that we lose the ability to fall asleep. This power surge affects more than just our own circadian rhythms, though. It also shuts down all electric power, including car engines.

Jill (Gina Rodriguez) was tired already. She just finished the late shift as security at a local hospital when she picked her kids up for their day together—her son Noah (Lucius Hoyos) goes more reluctantly than her young daughter Mathilda (Ariana Greenblatt). By the time Jill understands what’s happening, she realizes the kind of danger her daughter is in—from religious zealots as well as government officials—because Mathilda can sleep.

So, there you have it. There’s a fight against the clock (the film outlines in great detail exactly how this will disorient and then eventually kill you) for this mother to figure out how her daughter will 1) survive the apocalypse and 2) continue to survive once everyone else is dead.

Rodriguez drives the film with a believable mix of savvy, grit and growing brain dysfunction. Several of the population-gone-mad set pieces are eerie and smart, although others are underdeveloped and unsatisfying.

Raso, working from a script he co-wrote with brother Joseph as well as Gregory Poirier, picks at one or two modern-day concerns but truly breaks new ground only rarely. Moments from The Mist, War of the Worlds, and just about every outbreak movie make their way into Jill’s family adventure. Borrowed as much of this is, it still comes together in a way that feels fairly fresh.

Support work from Barry Pepper, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Frances Fisher and Shamier Anderson offers the adventure shape and character while Rodriguez gives it a pulse. And some really heavy eyelids.

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Block Party

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In the Heights

by George Wolf

I know there’s still plenty of bad out there, but it’s summer, people are getting out in the heat, and it feels like maybe we deserve a few minutes to celebrate.

How about 143 minutes? In the Heights makes them all count, with a summer celebration practically bursting with joyful exuberance.

It’s been 13 years since the stage production won 4 Tony Awards – including Best Musical, on top of Best Original Score and Best Actor for Lin-Manuel Miranda. Since then, Miranda conquered the world with Hamilton (maybe you’ve heard it), so now what seems like a follow up is really a return to his roots.

Miranda’s aged out of the starring role, so Anthony Ramos (Hamilton, A Star Is Born) answers the bell with a breakout turn as Usnavi – the Washington Heights, New York storekeeper with a dream.

As the days until a blackout wind down and the temperature ramps up, Usnavi’s block is buzzing with welcome arrivals, planned departures, and romance in the air.

Nina (Leslie Grace) is home from Stanford with major news to break to her father Kevin (Jimmy Smits) while she reconnects with Benny (Corey Hawkins), a dispatcher at Kevin’s neighborhood car service.

For his part, Usnavi has finally scored a date with his crush Vanessa (Melissa Barrera), but it might be too late – she has her sights set on leaving the block behind with a new apartment uptown.

So while the gossip is raging at the hair salon, and the piraqua guy (Miranda) tries to compete with Mister Softee (Hamilton‘s Chris Jackson, who played Benny in the stage version) as the king of cool treats, fate intervenes. Usnavi discovers his bodega has sold a winning lottery ticket – a stroke of luck worth 96 G’s – and then the lights go out.

Director Jon M. Chu (Crazy Rich Asians) proves a worthy choice to move the project from stage to screen with magic intact. The most accomplished of directors (see Attenborough and Eastwood) have fallen hard trying to make musical numbers pop on film, but Chu gives Christopher Scott’s choreography the space to be graceful and the intimacy to be gritty.

Miranda’s music meshes irresistibly with the sounds of the street, and from swimming pools to rooftops, more than a few of Chu’s grandly-staged set pieces nearly soar off the screen. And it won’t be just fans of this show who will be giddy, as the Wicked faithful will find plenty of reason to be excited Chu is already in pre-production on that long-awaited film adaptation.

Source writer Quiara Alegría Hudes pens the screenplay here as well, with a heartfelt, character-driven ode to cultural strength and sacrifice. Bookended by Usnavi telling the story of his block to a cute group of youngsters, the tale of Washington Heights is layered with respect for immigrant families just fighting for a place to belong.

And while they may be fighting against gentrification and bigotry, the film’s heart remains unquestionably hopeful, so downright wholesome that even the lack of sweat-stained bodies in the 100-degree heat feels like part of the movie magic.

In the Heights has been saving that magic for the big screen experience, and now that it’s here it is indeed worthy of celebrating – in a theater, with a crowd.

Are we really “back to normal?” Can the American dream still be alive?

For 143 minutes, it sure feels like it.

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Random Acts of Comedy

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Monuments

by Hope Madden

Random is good. Random is fun. It can be frustrating after a while, but it certainly isn’t boring.

Writer/director Jack C. Newell takes us on a not-boring road trip alongside Ted (David Sullivan) and his wife Laura’s (Marguerite Moreau) ashes. He stole the ashes from Laura’s weird family who never did like him, but they’d stolen the ashes from him in the first place so it probably wouldn’t have become a police matter if Ted hadn’t stolen that car while he was at it.

The thing is, Ted keeps seeing—even talking with—Laura, and he thinks she’s here to help him figure out what to do with her ashes.

So, that’s the gist: Ted does not know how to move on without Laura and this road trip will move him toward some kind of closure. It will also involve near-Lynchian dance numbers, shadow puppet displays, and no real sense of direction.

The aimlessness suits the character—Ted is lost, metaphorically and often literally. It works less well for the film. The final moments of Monuments leave you with the sense that something has been accomplished. Its meandering nature and basic structurelessness leave you wondering what.

Sullivan gives off a charming, goofy Nathan Fillion vibe—rarely a bad thing, and certainly the style of performance best suited to this laid-back, screw ball, existential comedy. Still, those are a lot of adjectives for one film, and they don’t necessarily fit together that well. Here’s where Newell gets himself in trouble.

There should be sadness here. Underneath all the zany moments and haphazard adventures, a rumble of grief should constantly threaten to break the surface. Without that genuine human soul, the humor doesn’t ring true and the random setups feel forced.

As solid as Sullivan is, when it does finally come time for Ted to mourn, to face his own desperate lonesome loss, the actor fails. Worse still, his insincerity feels like a joke itself, mocking what is ostensibly the entire core of Ted’s breakdown and the catalyst for his behavior.

If this irony led to some kind of absurdist “What’s really the point of it all?” theme, maybe it would have been worth it. Instead, it just feels random.

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Satanic Panic

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The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It

by Hope Madden

It’s been a long wait for a lot of movies. The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It has been baiting horror fans with its provocative trailer for well over a year. It is finally here.

We open on an exorcism going awry. The torment of wee David Glatzel, (Julian Hilliard of WandaVision, relentlessly cute in oversized glasses) brings the Warrens (Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson) to Brookfield, Connecticut. But it isn’t they or the generally useless Father Gordon (Steve Coulter) who rid the boy of his affliction.

No, David’s not free until his sister’s boyfriend Arne (Ruairi O’Connor) tempts the demon to take him instead. And here’s the thing. Children in peril are heartbreaking but grown men can do a lot more damage.

Arne’s story is pulled from the Warrens’ files. Ed and Lorrain Warren were real people. (They did not look like Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga, although Farmiga’s costume work is spot on.) They were ghost hunters who profited from and fed the flames of the Satanic panic of the 1980s. That’s not really anything to be proud of, but it has led to several solid haunted house movies including any number of Amityville Horror films, as well as James Wan’s excellent 2018 film The Conjuring and its adequate 2016 sequel.

Based loosely on the real-life trial of Arne Cheyenne Johnson, whose murder defense claimed demonic possession, director Michael Chaves’s film takes a different approach to its scares than the previous efforts. Rather than trying to expel a demon from a home or a person, Ed and Lorraine go sleuthing to find the sinister Satanist responsible for cursing poor Arne.

Farmiga and Wilson remain the heartbeat of the franchise, their skill and rapport offering something akin to believability that grounds the utter ridiculousness of each story. We believe that Lorraine and Ed believe, which makes it easier to suspend our own disbelief.

Even though it’s hard to believe a gifted clairvoyant could fall for some of the human treacheries afoot in this film. There are some fine performances, creepy images and a few inspired frights, but they don’t make up for the film’s weaknesses. The investigation gives the narrative a sprawling, disjointed structure and the Satanism angle makes the whole film feel silly.

Chaves joined this universe with perhaps its weakest effort, 2019’s The The Curse of La Llorona. He’s hit about the same middling mark with this one.

The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It takes on the legal system but unfortunately abides by the law of diminishing returns.

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Primal Scream

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Gully

by George Wolf

Well, that escalated quickly.

Ron Burgundy may have played that line for laughs, but when the boys in Gully give in to their rage, things couldn’t be more serious.

Or devastating.

Jesse (Kelvin Harrison, Jr.), Calvin (Jacob Lattimore) and Nicky (Charlie Plummer) are three teens in a rough L.A. neighborhood who don’t have much use for anything besides violent video games and partying, or anyone besides each other.

They skip school, do drugs, and only seem enthusiastic when they’re trashing a store or living vicariously through video violence.

In fact, through the film’s first act you’re tempted to label this as a hackneyed attempt by director Nabil Elderkin (a music video vet helming his first feature) and writer Marcus J. Guillory (a TV vet with his first screenplay credit) to blame video games for society’s ills.

But hang on and strap in, that’s far from what these filmmakers have in mind.

To say the three friends have had traumatic upbringings is being far too polite. Each has weathered a uniquely hellish situation, leaving them all on the precipice of manhood with little hope for the future.

As Nicky fights with both his mother (Amber Heard) and his pregnant girlfriend (Zoe Renee), Jesse dreams of life without his abusive father (John Corbett) and Calvin struggles with his mental health and the meds pushed on him by his mother (Robin Givens), the boys make a shattering discovery and the fuse is lit.

They begin a 48-hour rampage of wanton violence and calculated revenge, and it will not end well.

Elderkin makes sure the violence is in your face and packed with stylish grit, often blurring the line between reality and video game action. It’s an ambitious play that’s worthy even when it seems over the top, much like the contrasting tones brought by Greg (Jonathan Majors), an ex-con returning home determined to stay clean, and Mr. Christmas (Terence Howard), a homeless neighborhood philosopher.

This film is messy, angry, brutal and defiant, a primal scream that doesn’t much care if you think it’s nihilistic. Elderkin and Guillory have blazing guns of their own, and while they don’t hit every bullseye, there’s enough here to make you eager for their second act.

The world of Gully isn’t a pleasant place to be, and that’s no accident. But a confident vision and three terrific young actors leading a solid ensemble will make sure you’ll be thinking about what goes down here, even if you look away.

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Sex and the Sitter

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Deadly Illusions

by Rachel Willis

Something I’ve learned from movies is that if you’re going to hire a nanny, expect some professional lines to be crossed.

Such is the dynamic between Mary (Kristin Davis) and Grace (Greer Grammer) in writer/director Anna Elizabeth James’s erotic thriller, Deadly Illusions.

Mary is a novelist with a series of successful murder mysteries under her belt, but she hasn’t written a new one in a while. Her publisher is desperate to bring her back to pen a new addition. Mary’s reluctant, until her husband’s serious financial blunder makes the decision for her.

But who will take care of her kids while she writes? Enter sweet, innocent nanny, Grace.

The film’s set-up is slow to get going. It’s light on the eroticism and doesn’t feel like much of a thriller. The first act plods along, dropping the pieces into place as if aware we already know where this is going to go. It’s not a very compelling watch.

Things heat up in the second act, though not by much. We’re still waiting for the water to boil. The initial relationship between Mary and Grace quickly crosses into inappropriate territory. Mary takes Grace bra shopping and enters the dressing room with her. It’s predatory, though it seems the movie wants us to feel Grace is the aggressor in the scene.

As we simmer through, Mary’s creativity begins to interfere with her reality. As she loses herself in her new novel, she fantasizes about inappropriate activities with Grace. Or do those things really happen?

Things get weirder, and several clunky red herrings are dropped into the mix. This movie wants to keep us guessing, but it’s never enticing enough to make much of an impact.

Along for the ride is Dermot Mulroney as Mary’s husband, Tom. Mulroney is a capable actor, but doesn’t have much to do here – though his contribution to the film is more than that of the children whom Grace is hired to care for. You might forget Grace is a nanny and not Mary’s personal assistant.

Davis and Grammer have some fun with their roles, and their dynamic is curious if not entirely convincing. Grammer doesn’t have the chemistry with Davis that we need to be caught up in their relationship.

There are moments of enjoyment as the situations get stranger and the mystery more absurd, but overall, Deadly Illusions inspires more tedium than thrills.

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Unchained Melody

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Caveat

by Hope Madden

The room is dark, decrepit. A wild-eyed woman with a bloody nose holds a toy out in front of her like a demon slayer holds a crucifix. The toy – what is it, a rabbit? A jackalope? – beats a creepy little drum. Faster. Slower. Hotter. Colder.

This is how writer/director Damian Mc Carthy opens Caveat and I am in.

The woman is Olga (Leila Sykes), and we’ll get back to her in a bit, but first, we’re part of a conversation between the hush-voiced Barrett (Ben Caplan) and the foggy Isaac (Jonathan French). What can we tell from the conversation? They seem to know each other, Isaac’s had some kind of an accident, Barrett needs a favor.

The favor involves Olga, that house, and a long stretch of tightly fastened, heavyweight chain.

Dude, how good is Mc Carthy at this?

An expertly woven tapestry of ambiguity, lies and misunderstanding sink the story into a fog of mystery that never lets up. Isaac’s memory can’t be trusted, but he seems like a good guy. He looks like a good guy. Surely, he is a good guy! He’s just not making good decisions right now.

French shoulders the tale, and you hate to compare anything to Guy Pearce in Memento because who can stand up to that? No one, but still, Mc Carthy and French draw on that same type of damaged innocence and unreliable narration to stretch out the mystery.

Meanwhile, the filmmaker unveils a real knack for nightmarish visuals, images that effortlessly conjure primal fears and subconscious revulsion.

Caveat is not without flaws. Once or twice (when possibly channeling Mario Bava) Mc Carthy dips into camp unintentionally. OK, twice. These moments feel out of place in the unnerving atmosphere he’s created, which makes them stand out all the more. But it’s hardly enough to sink the film.

Mc Carthy does a lot with very little, as there are very few locations and a total of three cast members—all stellar. You won’t miss the budget. Mc Carthy casts a spook house spell, rattling chains and all, and tells a pithy little survival story while he’s at it.  

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Faith. Family. Football.

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Under the Stadium Lights

by George Wolf

Which is more likely to embrace the cliches inherent in sports: interviews or movies?

The sheer number of daily opportunities pushes the scale toward the Q&A, but while we’re waiting on the next superstar baller to “take it one game at a time,” Under the Stadium Lights scores one for the big screen.

Based on the book “Brother’s Keeper” (also the movie’s original title) by Al Pickett and Chad Mitchel, the film takes us inside the 2009 high school football season with the Abilene Eagles. The bitter taste of their playoff defeat the year before fueled the players and coaches as they made another run for the Texas state playoffs.

Mitchel (played by Milo Gibson, 6th son of Mel) was not only an Abilene police officer that year, he was also the Eagles team Chaplin. Through his “safe space” program, the players were encouraged to share the tough times they were going through off the field, and to lean on their football brothers for the strength to persevere.

That’s a commendable story. But director Todd Randall and screenwriters John Collins and Hamid Torabpour tell it with no regard for human shades of grey, which is a problem.

No doubt these mostly black and brown players did have troubling patches in their young lives, but the film paints the young men as one dimensional vessels strengthened by the good word of this white man. These are high school seniors, and there’s nary a word or thought about girls, sex or anything other than remaining vigilant in their virtue.

Don’t expect even a whisper about any systemic causes for the problems at home, either. While no one would argue the value in making good life choices, this is a bootstrap fantasy, where what isn’t talked about amounts to tacit approval of blaming the needy for just not working hard enough.

Often hamstrung by preachy and obvious dialog, the the cast does very little to elevate it. Save for the welcome presence of veterans Laurence Fishburne, Noel Gugliemi and Glen Morshower in small roles, performances alternate between hyperbolic over-emoting and emotionless cardboard.

Early on, though, the football scenes are a surprise bright spot. It’s actually charming that Randall forgoes cheesy reenactments for the real game films, but when he reverses that decision in the third act, the resulting clash gives the new footage an even more sterile and pretend quality.

A big congrats to the 2009 Abilene Eagles on what must have been a great season. But with Texas high school football on its mind, “lights” in its new title and no roster spot for nuance, the movie version will have you longing for Friday Night.

Hope Madden and George Wolf … get it?