Tag Archives: Brandon Thomas

Yo, Ho, Ho and a Bottle of Fun

Lake Michigan Monster

by Brandon Thomas

Sometimes, you stumble upon a movie so farcical and so nonsensical that you can’t help but sit up and pay extra attention. With its over-the-top cast, flamboyant direction, and zany plots, Lake Michigan Monster is exactly that kind of movie. 

Eccentric nautical extraordinaire, Captain Seafield (played by director, writer, producer Ryland Brickson Cole Tews), has hired a crew of professionals to help him kill the sea monster that murdered his father. Along for the ride are “weapons expert,” Sean Shaughnessy (a name that will stick with you in its repetition), “sonar person”, Nedge Pepsi, and former Nautical Athletes adVenture Yunit (NAVY – get it?) officer Dick Flynn. Together, these heroes scour the shores of Lake Michigan hoping to reel in and kill the vicious creature. 

There’s a crackling energy to Lake Michigan Monster that’s reminiscent of the early films of Sam Raimi and Peter Jackson. The devil-may-care attitude that led The Evil Dead and Bad Taste to cult royalty is present in every frame of this entertaining creature feature. Tews begins his movie at a sprint and never lets up on the gags, monster attacks and cheesy jokes for the next 78 minutes. 

Have I mentioned how funny this movie is? The jokes have a juvenile charm to them that keeps the tone light-hearted. Mean humor doesn’t appear to be in Tews’s vocabulary. Yes, characters die, but they do so with such whimsey way that you end up smiling and laughing more than weeping. 

The characters in the film are essentially live-action cartoon characters. Leading the pack is the director himself as Seafield. Tews’s comic timing is impeccable as he plays the fearless sea captain as a mix between Popeye the Sailor and Homer Simpson. 

It would be a mistake not to mention the incredible look of the film. Shot on grainy, black and white 16mm film stock, Lake Michigan Monster looks right at home next to the old school monster movies it’s paying homage to. The film’s visual effects often look way better than its $7,000 budget should allow. Sure, these aren’t Lord of the Rings level effects work, but they more than suffice for this B-movie throw-back.

Lake Michigan Monster manages to make the most out of its limited resources. What the movie lacks in budget, it more than makes up for with old fashioned ingenuity and enthusiasm. 

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Triumph of the Kiwi

Jojo Rabbit

by Brandon Thomas

Fargo and No Country for Old Men director Joel Coen has described directing movies as “tone management.” New Zealand filmmaker Taika Waititi obviously feels the same way as his new film Jojo Rabbit walks a tonal tightrope between irreverent, melancholy and playful.

Few other filmmakers would be able to deliver a Nazi dramedy that opens with a German cover of The Beatles’ “I Wanna Hold Your Hand” over the opening credits. 

Young Jojo Betzler (Roman Griffin Davis) is a bright and excitable boy. More than anything in the world, Jojo wants to be a good little Nazi. His dream is to eventually become best friends with the Fuhrer himself. Due to his inability to wring the neck of a cute little bunny, Jojo finds himself on the outs with the rest of the young Nazi trainees. Thankfully, Jojo’s imaginary friend, Adolph Hitler himself (played by director Waititi), is there to reassure him, indulge his worst musings, and generally crack wise. 

Jojo’s carefree reality, where the war lacks any kind of seriousness, is suddenly changed when he finds that his mother (Scarlett Johannson) is hiding a young Jewish girl (Leave No Trace‘s Thomasin McKenzie) in their home. As the indoctrination of the Third Reich begins to wear off, Jojo comes to realize that the world around him is larger and more complex than he ever knew.

Waititi’s ease at telling stories about the difficulties of growing up isn’t new. His previous works, Boy and The Hunt for the Wilderpeople, dealt with young men coming to terms with life’s hard lessons, and Waititi’s inherent playfulness again allows him to recall the wonder the world holds when you’re young. Anything and everything is possible. Waititi’s same understanding of our humanity grounds the characters inside of these silly worlds he concocts.

Jojo Rabbit asks a lot of its audience. Nazis aren’t supposed to be funny. Anything that even touches how the Jewish people were treated during World War II must be handled with the utmost care. This is the fine line Waititi walks through the entire film, as he manages to acknowledge the horrors of the past while making fun of the perpetrators in the same breath. It’s an amazing feat.

The stacked cast helps carry so much of the film’s burdon. Young Roman Griffin Davis is tasked with making us care about a blonde-haired, blue-eyed Nazi. His fervor is icky, to be sure, but his compassion overwhelms everything else. Likewise, Johannson amazes as Jojo’s mother. She hasn’t played a character this spirited in a long time, and her connection with Jojo serves as the film’s moral center. She abhors what her son wants to be, but also sees through the facade he’s constructed.

Jojo Rabbit, like all good satire, doesn’t pull punches. The film firmly places its finger right in the eye of Europe’s troubling past, but it also manages to show that even amongst the death, bombardment and xenophobia, not everyone gave up their soul to hate. 

Muted Fury

The Furies

by Brandon Thomas

Horror and social commentary are synonymous with one another. Fifty years ago, Night of the Living Dead tapped into America’s anxiety about the Vietnam War. 1978’s Dawn of the Dead used the zombie apocalypse to attack consumerism. More recently, Jordan Peele’s Get Out looked to horror to comment on race in America. These are all top-shelf examples of horror tackling social issues. 

Of course, not everyone can be George Romero or Jordan Peele. The new Shudder exclusive, The Furies—screening as part of Australia’s Monster Fest in October before its release in Australian cinemas from November 7—is a stark example of that.

After being kidnapped right off the street, Kayla wakes up in a coffin-sized box somewhere in the Australian outback. Before she can get her bearings, she finds herself hunted by someone wearing a horrific mask. As Kayla makes her way through this hellscape of murder to find a friend, she and the other hunted girls start to succumb to their form of savagery.

The Furies starts strong with a visually impressive prologue. Director Tony D’Aquino gets everything on the screen – from production design to some top-notch gore effects. Visually, the movie is a feast. 

Content-wise?

It’s a tonally confused mess.

There’s a weak attempt at commenting on women’s treatment in horror. When these characters aren’t being hunted down by armed slashers, they’re assigned another one of these ghouls as a protector. On paper this sounds like a novel idea: “Women are either fodder or in need of protection in these movies!” Unfortunately, D’Aquino never does anything more than set those ideas up.

Complicating things more is the way these women are written as merely paper-thin caricatures. They run, scream and die. Rinse, repeat. Kayla’s journey of “discovery” has the depth of a red Solo cup. Instead of looking inward at her own darkness and allowing that to come through in the performance, the movie settles for wearing a dark hoodie and saying tough things while handling a taser.

The messy ideas continue into the movie’s overall tone. The horror elements are strong, but there are also some half-realized sci-fi threads peppered about. Instead of exploring these nuggets in any meaningful way, D’Aquino treats them like the first episode of a network series to be explored later.

Despite some impressive visual sleight of hand with excellent cinematography and practical gore effects, The Furies can’t overcome the inherent shallowness of its story and execution. 


So Much Drama in the NYC

After the Wedding

by Brandon Thomas

The adult drama has all but vanished from American multiplexes. Sure, the occasional Oscar-baity title sneaks through around the holidays, but those mom-pleasing, bring your hanky dramas of yesteryear are pretty much a thing of the past. 

Despite the presence of A+ talent and an overall intriguing story, After the Wedding isn’t the shot in the arm the genre was looking for.

A retread of Susanne Bier’s 2006 Oscar nominee for foreign language film, After the Wedding follows Isabel (Michelle Williams), who is living a fulfilling, productive life running a small orphanage in Kolkata.

After an extremely generous donation offer is made to the orphanage, Isabel travels to New York to meet Theresa (Julianne Moore), the benefactor. Unexpectedly invited to the wedding of Theresa’s daughter, Isabel finds herself face-to-face with a man from her past (Billy Crudup), and a 20-year-old decision that will shake her to her core.

After the Wedding trips up right out of the gate by leaning so heavily into melodrama. Instead of an emotionally weighty dramatic piece anchored by an amazing cast, this film latches on to genre cliches and doesn’t let go.

Deep, dark family secrets? Check. Mystery illness? Check. Sneaky motivations? Double check. The movie is one evil twin away from being a bad episode of General Hospital.

Did I mention the amount of teary-eyed yelling? There is plenty.

The only real sense of urgency comes from the movie being in a rush to get to that next dramatic reveal. The characters, and likewise the audience, are never given the chance to dwell on what just happened. The experience feels cheap and anticlimactic.

Moore and Williams continue to show that they’re national treasures, but even they can only do so much with the material afforded them. The two actresses share multiple scenes together, but any emotional weight is often deflated by the scattershot script—co-written by director Bart Freundlich (Moore’s husband)— jumping from one unearned character beat to the next. These people feel like a blended mix of every character seen in indie dramas instead of being fully-formed individuals.

Despite reeling in a Who’s Who of a cast, After the Wedding never becomes anything more than a Who Cares.


Truth and Injustice

Brian Banks

by Brandon Thomas

Anyone with two working eyes knows that the criminal justice system in the United States is far from perfect and rarely yields actual justice. The situation is even bleaker for young men of color. Even after their time is served, people convicted of a crime have a hard time finding work and maintaining new relationships.

As unfair as this is for everyone that goes through it, it can be especially grueling for people convicted of crimes they did not commit.

Brian Banks (Aldis Hodge) was once a star high school football player. He and his mother (Sherri Shepherd) had planned for Brian to attend college and hopefully make it to the NFL. All of that changed with a chance encounter that led to an accusation of kidnapping and rape. The barriers Brian faces after his release from prison lead him to a lawyer (Greg Kinnear) who might be able to clear his name and give him back his future.

Brian Banks is an interesting look at incarceration in that the film never once questions Brian’s innocence. In fact, the audience is clued in early on that Brian is a character we can trust. This film isn’t one that dwells on twists and turns. It’s more interested in Banks himself and what his plight says about our justice system. Unfortunately, that look tends to be one dimensional, and pushed through the lens of a mediocre TV movie-of-the-week.

Hodge (Hidden Figures, Straight Outta Compton) brings a humanity to this role that makes it easy to cheer for Banks despite the over-abundance of cliche. He does a wonderful job showing Brian’s frustration, hurt and disappointment all at once. It’s a tightrope performance, and Hodge pulls it off beautifully.

But there’s a cheapness to Brian Banks that makes it look like it would be right at home on the Lifetime cable channel. This is especially surprising since director Tom Shadyac spent the majority of his career making huge studio movies like Liar Liar, Bruce Almighty and The Nutty Professor. None of these films is exactly Lawrence of Arabia, but they still had a distinct visual flair. 

Despite a strong lead performance, Brian Banks can’t overcome its reliance on age-old courtroom cliche and melodrama that ends up bringing the movie down. It’s a film that had something to say, but the message became muddled and/or lost along the way.


Be a Man

The Art of Self-Defense

by Brandon Thomas

“Name?”

“Casey Davies.”

“That’s a very feminine sounding name.”

This humiliating exchange happens between Casey (Jesse Eisenberg) and Sensei (Alessandro Nivola) as Casey excitedly signs up for karate lessons. Casey suffers from a severe lack of confidence. He leads a drab, boring life. His house? Boring. His job? Boring. Even his dog is boring. No one respects Casey. His coworkers barely register his existence. The final demeaning moment is the night he’s viciously attacked while walking home from the store. Karate seems like the perfect antidote for this life of mediocrity.

Eh – not really.

Watching The Art of Self-Defense made me think of Fight Club. A lot. Fight Club overflows with masculinity. Brawny men beating each other to a pulp while waxing philosophical is the film’s bread and butter. Fincher’s movie definitely comments on the toxicity of masculinity, but it also spends a heck of a lot of time glorifying it, too.

The Art of Self Defense is interested in what it means to be a “real man.” Outside of Casey, the men in this dojo operate through sheer brute force. Violence, intimidation and blackmail are how they make their world work. Casey’s gravitational pull to these figures is a tale as old as time. Writer/director Riley Stearns isn’t interested in reveling in this world Sensei has created, he’s more interested in pushing the audience to share in Casey’s horror as he experiences it.

It’s easy to look at many of Eisenberg’s roles and lump them into the same narrow category. Yes, he plays a lot of isolated losers that stammar and shuffle around, but he also plays those roles with varying degrees of nuance. There’s a level of fear and anxiety he brings to Casey that feels different from his other loveable nerds. Casey is a rubber band about to snap at any moment, and Eisenberg does a fantastic job of keeping the audience guessing as to when that will happen.

Nivola’s Sensei has an air of false machismo to him at all times. He speaks in a low, gruff voice, and his words feel precisely selected, but fake. Nivola gets that this movie is a stark black comedy, and he completely goes for broke. He is able to walk this fine line of playing a scene straight, yet has it come off as a comedic masterstroke.

Armed with biting satire, excellent performances, and more on its mind than cheap laughs, The Art of Self Defense delivers a bold, original dark comedy. Minimal flexing involved. 


Art for Art’s Sake

Pasolini

by Brandon Thomas

Abel Ferrera, the filmmaker behind Ms. 45, The Driller Killer, and Bad Lieutenant, was maybe too perfect of a choice to depict the final 24 hours in the life of Italian artist Pier Pasolini. While this love letter to Pasolini never quite succumbs to standard biopic syndrome, it also doesn’t fully rise above being anything more than hero worship.

After Pier Pasolini (Willem Dafoe) puts the finishing touches on his masterpiece, Salò, the provocative writer, critic, activist and filmmaker returns to Rome to visit with his family. During the course of this relatively normal day, Pasolini takes part in an interview, meets with fellow artists, and cruises the evening looking for a lover. While the day’s events seem mundane and boring for someone typically known as a notorious hellraiser, all of this leads to a tragic outcome on a beach outside of Ostia, Italy.

It’s evident early on that this movie is in awe of Pasolini. The film doesn’t depict Pasolini’s last day as much as it observes it. Ferrera treats the banal dealings of this 24-hour period with reverence. Pasolini’s life and work is church. The man himself is Jesus. 

Where the spirit of Pasolini is sincerely felt is when Ferrera brings the artist’s works to life. A segment from a novel he’s currently working on is realized with graphic depiction as Pasolini’s character, based on the author himself, has an intense sexual encounter with a young man. Another segment finds two men looking for the famed Feast of Fertility Festival where gay men and women come together for one night to procreate. Neither segment adds to Pasolini’s plot (or what exists of one), but they are so categorically Pasolini in tone, spirit and theme that the stillness of the movie is finally shaken alive.

While the lack of narrative momentum causes the film to stumble, Dafoe stuns as the titular character. He doesn’t play Pasolini as much as he channels the spirit of the late artist. Pasolini’s cool and equal indifference flows through Dafoe’s body language and speech like second nature. His Pasolini is a man equally at home with who he his, but also incredibly bored with the person he has become.

Ferrera’s biggest mistake with Pasolini is that he cares too much about the man himself. While Dafoe’s equal admiration leads to a strong anchoring performance, Ferrara’s unwillingness to push the narrative leaves the film largely lifeless and inert. 


How the Heck Are Ya, Bill?

All Is TrueA

by Brandon Thomas

Kenneth Branagh and William Shakespeare have become synonymous with one another in the world of cinema. As a director, Branagh has made five of The Bard’s plays into movies, and in many of them, he’s joined the cast. It’s fitting that Branagh finally ends up playing Shakespeare himself in All is True.

In 1613, Shakespeare’s beloved Globe Theatre burned to the ground. Left without a homebase to stage his momentous plays, William Shakespeare returned to his country home. There, he’s “greeted” by the wife (the always amazing Judy Dench) and daughters he left behind while making his name in London. Away from the stage, Shakespeare struggles to come to terms with the legacy he’s created. The loss of a child haunts him, and the inadequacy instilled in him through his father bubbles to the surface and forces the famous playwright to face a life of personal mistakes.

Shakespeare was known for having his distinct tragedies (MacBeth, Othello) and comedies (Much Ado About Nothing, As You Like It). The beauty of All Is True is how well Branagh intertwines both genres. The tragedy of losing a child never threatens to overwhelm the film nor do some of the “sillier” elements, such as the fascination a neighbor’s dog finds in William. The balance in tone doesn’t come easy, but it certainly keeps the film interesting.

There’s a casualness to All Is True that is very inviting. It’s a film that’s never in a hurry, but also doesn’t overstay its welcome. Scenes are allowed to breathe in a way that feels like you’re watching an intimate stage play—the epitome of this being a breathtaking scene between Branagh and Sir Ian McKellen. It’s a scene that consists mostly of tight close-ups, set in one location, and it’s riveting.

It’s no surprise that Branagh nails his portrayal. His William Shakespeare is a man that understands his legacy even if he hasn’t completely come to terms with it. Without his work, he’s a man that’s chasing happiness—a happiness he’s never been able to find as a husband or father.

By humanizing the world’s most famous playwright, All Is True tries to move past the legend of William Shakespeare and comment on the inner workings of the man himself.