The city might not spring to mind as a cinematic crime capital. But The Quiet Ones from director Frederik Louis Hviid is here to rectify that with a taut retelling of the largest heist in Danish history.
In both direction and tone, with a suitably lean script by Anders Frithiof August, The Quiet Ones brings the spirit of Michael Mann to Scandinavia. Kasper (Gustav Giese) is a boxer who is too much of a loser to even be a contender. (He can’t even rise to “coulda been the guy the contenders knock out on the way to better matches.”)
He yearns to be something more, and Giese lends the stoic Kasper enough ambiguity that it’s never fully clear if he wants to succeed more for his family or himself. Although part of that also stems from the script having little time for motivation or character development that extends beyond criminal shorthand and quick tropes.
Kasper has ties to the criminal underworld through his brother-in-law, and gets tapped by a ruthless killer (Reda Kateb) to help plan the daring robbery of a cash-handling business that holds tens of millions of international currency in a nondescript warehouse.
There is little that exists in the world of The Quiet Ones outside of the planning and execution of the heist, but then that’s not the movie it wants to be. Instead, Hviid delivers a series of gripping, highly effective action sequences. Long takes and inspired framing never shy away from brutality, especially the heart-pounding opening that sets the tone for what to expect from the robbers.
The film excels at what it’s there to deliver, but has much less in the way of compelling connective tissue for anything else. And that’s even more so for the cops side of the cops and robbers equation.
Maria (Amanda Collin, the only person called on to flash even more pained silent grimaces than Kasper) is a security guard at the warehouse that gets robbed. As an aspiring police officer, her singular focus puts her on a collision course with the thieves. But there’s just not enough time with most characters, and the inevitable confrontation comes across as overdetermined rather than climactic.
There’s also the financial crisis of 2007-2008 that hovers over the heist through news reports and imbues the film with some occasional social commentary that the script itself doesn’t have time to get to. But this is ultimately a heist movie. The Quiet Ones and its crew are there to do one job, and they do it well.
Filmmaker Jon Gunn makes inspirational movies. Some of them are overly faith based (The Case for Christ, Do You Believe?). Others are of the less overt, true story style (Ordinary Angels). The Unbreakable Boy is of the second variety.
Zachary Levi is Scott, a dad out of his depth with a young son who is on the spectrum and suffers from brittle bone disease. The ebullient Austin (Jacob Laval) is not bothered by his condition or anything else. But middle school approaches, and as Austin transitions to adolescence, other fractures within the family begin to make themselves known.
Based on a true story, the film demands that you recognize that while Austin would be exhausting, he is also an absolute joy. Laval is adorable. His indominable spirit fuels the film and when Gunn’s focus changes to another family member, Laval’s presence is missed.
What the film gets right is the heartbreaking difficulty of parenting, rarely giving into unidimensional characterizations and allowing for weakness and weariness as well as joy.
Levi’s a natural charmer and Meghann Fahy impresses, carving an honest character of the underwritten loving wife role. Likewise, young Gavin Warren makes the most of his limited screentime.
Levi is considerably less convincing when it comes to the more emotionally difficult scenes. This weakness is paired with a weird imaginary friend situation. Though Drew Powell (the friend) brings welcome levity and opportunity for insight—and, per post-film snapshots of the real family, this was an actual part of their lives—he’s used as a narrative convenience and feels like unnecessary nonsense.
Gunn’s script, co-written with Scott LeRette and Susy Flory, lacks focus and it’s never clear whose story we’re trying to tie up. Needless, often cloying voiceovers from multiple characters compound the problem, without completely sinking the film.
The Unbreakable Boy is more evenhanded than most of Gunn’s movies, although subtle it’s not. It’s tidy and predictable and suffers under the weight of sentimentality. But it’s undeniably sweet, and if an inspirational film appeals to you, you could do worse than to let Jacob Laval charm you for 90 minutes.
Aaah, the old “video nasties” — movies banned from view to protect us from the untold damage they would do, their ruinous images. The idea that watching something could be our end is a fantastic source for horror. Horror filmmakers have taken that idea and run wild with it. Watching could make you mad. Making one could make you mad. Hell, just listening could do irreversible damage!
Thanks to Greg Hansberry of The Empty Coffin podcast for filling in for George this week! Today we celebrate the nasty videos that have propelled some of our favorite flicks.
6. Red Rooms (2024)
True crime culture. Serial killer groupies. The Dark Web. Does all of it seem too grim, too of-the-moment, too cliché to make for a deeply affecting thriller these days? Au contraire, mon frère. Québécois Pascal Plante makes nimble use of these elements to craft a nailbiter of a serial killer thriller with his latest effort, Red Rooms.
Plante expertly braids vulnerability and psychopathy, flesh and glass, humanity and the cyber universe for a weirdly compelling peek at how easily one could slide from one world to the other.
His real magic trick—one that remarkably few filmmakers have pulled off—is generating edge-of-your-seat anxiety primarily with keyboard clicks, computer screens and wait times. But the tension Plante builds—thanks to Juliette Gariépy’s precise acting—is excruciating. They keep you disoriented, fascinated, a little repulsed and utterly breathless.
5. Berberian Sound Studio (2012)
Madman Peter Strickland (In Fabric) made an entire film about sound, and it gets so much right. Not just about sound—about the era, the equipment, giallo sensibilities and moviemaking.
Strickland, working with a sound department of 34, creates a psychological experience through sound almost exclusively. The amazing Toby Jones plays Gilderoy, flown in specifically to helm the sound in a horror movie.
“This isn’t a horror movie. This is a Santini movie!”
Gilderoy’s arc is profound, and sound is our only window into what is changing him. We don’t see what he sees, only his reaction to it and the sound of it that makes his psychological breakdown believable.
4. The Ring (2002)
Gore Verbinski’s film achieves one of those rare feats, ranking among the scarce Hollywood remakes that surpasses the foreign-born original, Japan’s unique paranormal nightmare Ringu. Verbinski’s film is visually arresting, quietly atmospheric and creepy as hell.
This is basically the story of bad mom/worse journalist Rachel (Naomi Watts) investigating the urban legend of a videotape that kills viewers exactly seven days after viewing.
The tape itself is the key. Had it held images less surreal, less Buñuel, the whole film would have collapsed. But the tape was freaky. And so were the blue-green grimaces on the dead! And that horse thing on the ferry!
And Samara.
From cherubic image of plump-cheeked innocence to a mess of ghastly flesh and disjointed bones climbing out of the well and into your life, the character is brilliantly created.
3. Censor (2021)
Writer/director Prano Bailey-Bond crafts such a stylish, unsettling film with her ode to Britain’s “Video Nasty” era and the theme that censoring something ugly can somehow make it disappear.
Naimh Algar astonishes as Enid, a film censor whose childhood trauma and guilt resurface when a producer (Michael Smiley) invites her to watch a movie. A mystery—and Enid’s fragile sanity—unravel as Bailey-Bond develops a murky, fantastical and wildly horrific atmosphere that leaves you guessing and disturbed.
2. Videodrome (1983)
Videodrome was the last true horror and truly Canadian film in David Conenberg’s arsenal, and it shows an evolution in his preoccupations with body horror, media, and technology as well as his progress as a filmmaker.
James Woods plays sleazy TV programmer Max Renn, who pirates a program he believes is being taped in Malaysia – a snuff show, where people are slowly tortured to death in front of viewers’ eyes. But it turns out to be more than he’d bargained for. Corporate greed, zealot conspiracy, medical manipulation all come together in this hallucinatory insanity that could only make sense with Cronenberg at the wheel.
Deborah Harry co-stars, and Woods shoulders his abundant screen time quite well. What? James Woods plays a sleaze ball? Get out! Still, he does a great job with it. But the real star is Cronenberg, who explores his own personal obsessions, dragging us willingly down the rabbit hole with him. Long live the new flesh!
1. Peeping Tom (1960)
Director Michael Powell’s film broke a lot of ground and nearly ended his film career. People tend to react badly to horror movies that unnerve them, which is really odd given that this is the entire point of the genre. Peeping Tom pissed everybody off, maybe because—like Michael Haneke’s films Funny Games—Peeping Tom implicates you in the horror.
Mark (Karlheinz Bohm) had a difficult childhood, developing a bit of a voyeuristic hobby to help him cope. He starts off with prostitutes, filming them, capturing their terror as he kills them. He’s a voyeur, but who can throw stones? Didn’t every one of us who’s ever watched this film— or any other horror movie, for that matter—sign up to do exactly what Mark was doing?
Bohm’s great success is in making Mark unsettlingly sympathetic. Powell’s is in using the audience’s instincts against us. Bohm makes us feel bad for the villain, Powell makes us relate to the villain. No wonder people were pissed.
Set in the “every fabric is patterned” Seventies, Little Bites drops us into one really horrifying relationship.
Widowed mom Mindy (Krsy Fox) has sent her 10-year-old, Alice (Elizabeth Phoenix Caro), to stay with Grandma (Bonnie Aarons, The Nun franchise)—an overbearing, hypercritical shrew. That’s not the problematic relationship, though. Mindy sent Alice away because of the demon living in her basement, the one who rings a dinner bell a few times a day, then takes a couple of bites out of Mindy.
The mythology is interesting if undeveloped, but whatever the reason Agyar (Jon Sklaroff, excellent) came to live off of Mindy’s flesh, it’s a solid and troubling concept. Sklaroff’s weary superiority and dark wit create a fascinatingly nightmarish villain.
It’s a metaphor concerning the life draining sacrifice motherhood can be—something Babadook explored so beautifully and startlingly. It’s a provocative idea executed poorly.
Writer/director Spider One (Rob Zombie’s youngest brother) strings together some memorably disturbing ideas made weirder and better with some (not all) of his dialog. And a slew of veteran actors (Aarons, Barbara Crampton, Heather Langenkamp) strengthens the effort. Chaz Bono (who Executive Produces with his mother) delivers a sweetly bruised performance.
Fox is the weak link. She lacks chemistry with the rest of the cast and struggles mightily with the filmmaker’s more overwrought sections of dialog (any conversation between Mindy and her mother, for example).
At least as problematic is the stiff direction. There’s precious little variety in shot selection, at an hour and 45 minutes, the film is in desperate need of a good trim. Every scene goes on for an awkward length, far longer than the actors are able to maintain any sense of naturalism. Tightening scenes would certainly have made carrying the film an easier task for Fox.
There’s something here, something unseemly and a little tragic. If the filmmaker could have trimmed the fat, Little Bites might have been a pretty tasty horror.
There were three reasons to be optimistic about Old Guy, the latest from director Simon West. West used to make big budget, memorably bad actioners (Con Air), then middle budget middling actioners (The Mechanic, The Expendables 2), and now low budget actioners that have to find a way to capture attention. Hence, the three reasons for optimism.
Number one, two-time Oscar winner and all around magnetic onscreen mischief maker Christoph Waltz plays the lead. He’s Danny Dolinski, an aging hitman with a penchant for drink, drugs and threesomes (and hideously patterned short sleeve button downs).
Dolinski’s recovering from hand surgery—his trigger hand—which is slowing him down. Thus, he’s been tasked with training a new man, Wihlborg (Cooper Hoffman). Reason number 2. The actor’s handful of onscreen performances—particularly, his remarkable lead turn in Paul Thomas Anderson’s 2021 Licorice Pizza—mark him as an actor I’m anxious to see in anything.
And reason 3, Lucy Liu, whose recent work finds edges and scars that give characters intriguing dimension. She’s particularly wonderful onscreen right now in Steven Soderbergh’s inverted ghost story Presence.
What’s most fun about the casting is that all three talents are playing entirely against type. And though not one of them is entirely convincing as their own particular fringe-of-society misfit, each is deeply charming.
West’s direction is frantic enough to do service to both the action and comedy Old Guy is trying to convey. Greg Johnson’s script is not helping. The dialog is not especially funny and worse still, the plot itself falls entirely apart under the lest scrutiny. But the veteran popcorn-and-car-chase director injects a bit of tension and giddy humor with image juxtaposition and punchy editing.
And there’s just a silliness in the cast that’s engaging. Liu’s character is an absolute afterthought, but the performance compels interest nonetheless. Hoffman’s been handed less a character than a handful of tics in dark nail polish, but he gives the guy a heartbeat and you find yourself rooting for him.
And Waltz, so charmingly miscast, characteristically finds insignificant moments to turn into cinematic highlights. You’ll forget Old Guy the minute those catchy looking credits stop rolling, but sometimes a brain needs to turn off and wallow in three solid performers having fun and making the most of a bad situation.
The sexual revolution of the early 70s pushed the American culture forward, but not without some bumps and awkwardness on the way. Three Birthdays focuses on those bumps and shows how the revolution could wreck a family.
Co-writer and director Jane Weinstock breaks her film down into three segments, focusing on each member of a family’s birthday in 1970. This family of three lives in Ohio and both parents, professors at a local university, pride themselves on how progressive they are, despite the obvious contradictions that begin to bubble up.
Their daughter Bobbie (Nuala Cleary, The Crowded Room) wants to lose her virginity just to get it over with but ends up discovering her parents’ secret – they have an open relationship. Kate (Annie Parisse, House of Cards) has made a deal with her husband that they could have an open relationship as long as they are honest with each about it (they are not). She wants to explore sex outside of their marriage but is conscious that her husband is struggling with his career and generally feeling inferior. Rob (Josh Radnor, How I Met Your Mother) has been cheating on Kate since well before they decided to experiment and also wants to drive a wedge in the relationship between Kate and Bobby so that he can be the better parent.
All of this makes for a pretty unpleasant watch with some deeply unlikeable characters. Everyone is lying and embracing any opportunity to inflict emotional harm upon the other. Bobbie hates her mom for cheating on her dad, Kate seems to be enjoying watching her career rise while Rob’s stagnates and he suffers, and Rob is just a terrible person.
Radnor really leans into the darker parts of Rob to make him such a despicable character. It seems that the lesson to be learned through all of this is that people suck.
If you have been paying attention to the dates presented on screen for each birthday, you are going to have a good idea about where the finale is headed. Seriously, this is one of the most groanworthy endings since Robert Pattinson went to work at the end of Remember Me.
Look out! There’s a bloated menace wreaking havoc at the White House, throwing temper tantrums, creating enemies of allies, and ruining everything he touches.
But wait, could there be some nefarious, nerdy, unelected mastermind behind the villainy destroying the United States of America?
Art imitates life in Marvel’s latest big screen attempt, Captain America: Brave New World. Anthony Mackie picks up the shield as Cap. We’ve known Mackie could act since his 2009 breakout, The Hurt Locker, but can he carry a franchise film?
As a rule, franchise films are helped by the addition of Harrison Ford. He loses the mustache and picks up the mantle carried by Sam Elliott and William Hurt, playing Thaddeus Ross, newly elected President of the USA.
The President has done some pretty horrible things, though, and should really be in prison. Instead, he’s in the White House. Pair that with a mysterious villain trying to orchestrate a war, and the end of the world could be in sight.
But the movie has bigger problems, starting with its script. Writers Rob Edwards, Malcolm Spellman and Dalan Musson stuff the film with repetitive dialog and endless exposition. Not sure what just happened or what’s about to happen? No need to fret, somebody’s about to explain it again.
Director Julius Onah (Luce, The Cloverfield Paradox) strings together a few impressive action sequences, but the momentum always gets derailed by needless explanation and – especially in the third act – some bland CGI visuals. Even the cameos and end credits scene are less than inspiring.
From the beginning, the Captain America character felt like the moral compass of the MCU. The best films in the franchise have found ways to balance the super-heroics with timely questions about power and responsibility. Brave New World creates the opportunity but never allows Cap to follow through. Instead, complexities are neutered in favor of easily digestible answers and the next weakly earned plot point.
That’s what makes the film so disappointing. A deserving new hero and a solid cast are given a narrative treatment usually suited to streaming audiences who are looking at their phones or getting up to feed the dog.
Above all, this new world seems satisfied with playing it safe. And that’s not brave at all.
So what has Paddington bear been up to in the eight years since the classic Paddington 2?
Well, he’s got a new director (Dougal Wilson in his feature debut), a new Mrs. Brown (Emily Mortimer steps in for Sally Hawkins), and a brand new British passport (with an unusual photo)! And that legal ID comes in mighty handy when Paddington (perfectly voiced again by Ben Whishaw) gets a mysterious letter from Peru.
Aunt Lucy is missing!
So what’s there to do except pack up the Browns, Paddington, and Paddington’s brand new deluxe umbrella and head out to solve the mystery. After meeting with the Reverend Mother (Olivia Colman, always a plus) and collecting clues at the Home for Retired Bears, the gang hires dashing Captain Hunter Cabot (Antonio Banderas) and his daughter Gina (Carla Tous) to take them up river and straight into a jungle adventure.
Because while Paddington and family may be searching for Aunt Lucy, certain other parties are searching for El Dorado, the mythical lost city of gold!
The bar set by Paddington 2, an honest to God masterpiece, is very high. Dougal and team had their work cut out for them, and the Browns’ Peru visit is never quite as intricate, clever or transcendent as the last installment. But Colman’s comedic genius, lushly crafted scenery, meticulous CGI, and the cast and filmmakers’ commitment to the earnest charm characteristic of the franchise guarantee a delightful cinematic experience for every member of the family.
Dougal keeps the pace and perils lively, while the new screenwriting team (Mark Burton, Jon Foster and James Lamont) delivers sweet family fun that weaves in some warm furry feelies before the credits roll and a surprise guest appears.
After losing her job as IT support staff for a dental supplies company, Lucía (Malena Alterio) seeks employment as a taxi driver in Antonio Méndez Esparza’s Something is About to Happen.
I’ll admit I was immediately intrigued by the opening credits. The black text on red background and the string-heavy score sets a compelling tone for the film.
Following the energetic opening, things slow down a bit. We follow Lucía through several day-to-day tasks, including supporting her elderly father. But a fleeting conversation with a taxi driver sets Lucía on a new path.
And what could very easily be a mundane venture into new territory for Lucía is anything but. It sometimes starts to feel a little like Taxicab Confessions, but rather than something tawdry and banal, instead we watch a woman opening herself to a new world in exciting, curious, sometimes dangerous ways.
The film’s naturalism helps ground it as sinister elements weave their way into the fabric of Lucía’s life. There’s a haunting melancholy underneath Lucía seemingly boundless enthusiasm. As her façade slips, we can’t help but watch in fascinated horror.
There are some scenes that are a bit too long, but on the whole, each one compliments the next as we follow our hero as she navigates life, love, and loss in the driver’s seat of her taxi. More often than not, we’re given new information with each scene, learning more and more about Lucía and what makes her tick.
Crows populate the film, sometimes in unexpected ways. The birds have often been used as symbolism, and it’s not too difficult to tease out what they represent to Lucía and the film overall. Their appearance in the film, however, fluctuates between non-existent or heavy-handed. It’s a bit much when they could have been utilized in subtler ways. It’s hard to anticipate what might come next for Lucía, which makes the film and enjoyable watch even as it meanders off course from time to time.
If you’re the parent of young children, your first reaction to troubling accusations against them is likely to be denial.
There must be some mistake, right? My child would never do such a thing.
It’s a catalyst that almost demands taking sides, and one that writer/director Halfdan Ullmann Tøndel explores to unique effect in Armand.
The mesmerizing Renate Reinsve (The Worst Person in the World, Handling the Undead, A Different Man) is Elisabeth, a Norwegian actress who is summoned to her son’s school for an urgent conference. Six year-old Armand has been accused of bullying his friend Jon in the boys restroom. The incident apparently involved acts of “sexual deviation.”
Jon’s parents, Sarah (Ellen Dorrit Petersen) and Anders (Endre Hellestveit) are waiting at the school with two administrators and the boys’ teacher. And what begins as a calm attempt at fact-finding slowly dissolves into a fascinating unraveling of mystery, fantasy, and outright curiosity.
Ullmann Tøndel and cinematographer Pål Ulvik Rokseth keep us inside the sterile school building for nearly all of the film’s two hours, puncturing the strained decorum with an array of devices. There are persistent nosebleeds, the sound of heels echoing on hard floors, moments of psychological performance art, and one alarming fit of laughter that purposely strains your patience.
It all helps to distinguish the film from similarly themed dramas such as The Teacher’s Lounge or even Mass, but also threatens to keeps us detached through self indulgence. The can’t-look-away excellence from Reisve never lets it happen, and Armand – which won the Caméra d’Or, for Best First Feature last year at Cannes – rewards audience commitment with a satisfying, if not exactly revelatory, resolution in Act Three.
The characters may be talking about children, but the film is talking about adults. Armand presents a challenging, but ultimately haunting take on the lingering dangers of convincing ourselves that everything is fine.
