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Insidious

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Where’s My Roy Cohn?

by Hope Madden

There’s a tendency in horror cinema, after a villain has established his evil nature in a film or two, to turn the story around and find out what made him a monster. In that vein, Matt Tyrnauer’s documentary Where’s My Roy Cohn? is the madman’s origin story.

Horror fan that I am, I’ve still never been intrigued by what made Jason Jason, why Michael Myers was driven to murder, what caused Leatherface to don the mask. But it turns out, this horror story is more about the sequel, Son of Cohn.

“Where’s my Roy Cohn?” is a tantrum yelped by Donald Trump, unhappy about his attorney general at the time. And the title speaks volumes, about the kind of attack dog Cohn had been as a lawyer, and about the toxic legacy he’s left behind, right down to the oval office.

A fastidious student of the unlikely individual and his or her cultural impact, Tyrnauer made fascinating docs for years about little known citizens with big stories (Scotty and the Secret History of Hollywood and Citizen Jane among them). And though his latest certainly bears some of the markings of Tyrnauer’s previous films, the only person who saw Roy Cohn as a little guy with big ideas was Roy Cohn.

 It’s tough to overstate the ruthless, amoral impact Cohn has had on American politics and culture. Though Tyrnauer shows traces of compassion when underlining Cohn’s self-hating behaviors (whether as a Jew or a homosexual), the filmmaker’s assessment of his cancerous affect is evident.

Cohn was the prosecuting attorney who pushed the Rosenbergs toward the electric chair before he became McCarthy’s advisor, mouth piece and thug. Then on to New York, where his mafia entanglements (he represented John Gotti, Tony Salerno and Carmine Galante) only aided in his close professional and personal relationship with Donald Trump.

A bizarre connector between the worlds of Studio 54, the mafia and the Archdiocese of New York, Cohn’s party photos articulate some kind of bacchanal populated by members of each of these affluent, influential and decadent groups. It would be impressive it weren’t so ominous and seedy.

He also owned the news, dictating stories to the New York Post from his kitchen table and bringing Rupert Murdoch to the oval office with his own dear friend, Ronald Reagan.

Roy Cohn is dead, but as Where’s My Roy Cohn? makes dismayingly clear is that his ghost still haunts us.

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Beyond the Sea

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The Lighthouse

by Hope Madden and George Wolf

It’s easy to fall into the trap of believing that there are no new ideas in modern film, that everything coming out is a sequel, reboot, adaptation or biopic. And then you spend an hour and 49 minutes with two men and a lighthouse.

What did we just watch?

Director/co-writer Robert Eggers follows The Witch, his incandescent 2015 feature debut, with another painstakingly crafted, moody period piece. The Lighthouse strands you, along with two wickies, on the unforgiving island home of one lonely 1890s New England lighthouse.

Salty sea dog Thomas Wake (Willem Dafoe) keeps the light, mind ye. He also handles among the most impressive briny soliloquies delivered on screen in a lifetime. Joining him as second is one Ephraim Winslow (Robert Pattinson)—aimless, prone to self-abuse, disinclined to appreciate a man’s cooking.

Eggers’s film is a two-man show, a dizzying, sometimes absurd and often flatulent descent into madness.

The atmosphere is thick and brisk as sea fog, immersing you early with Jarin Blasche’s chilly black and white cinematography and a Damian Volpe sound design echoing of loss and one persistent, ominous foghorn.

For everything Eggers brings to bear, from the Bergmanesque lighting and spiritual undertones to the haunting score to the scrupulous set design to images suitable for framing in a maritime museum – not to mention the script itself – The Lighthouse works because of two breathtaking performances.

Dafoe may be one of the few actors alive who can take this manic-eyed, gimpy-legged version of the Simpson’s sea captain and force us to absorb his every eccentricity. When Winslow finally screams “You’re a parody!” it both wounds and reassures, as by then we’re eager to accept any bit of confirmation that we can trust anything we’re seeing.

As our vessel into this waterlogged nightmare, Pattinson impresses with yet another fiercely committed performance. Winslow comes to “the rock” full of quiet dignity, only to become a soul increasingly tempted by mysterious new demons while running from old ones.

Winslow’s psychological spiral has so many WTF moments, it would crumble without the sympathetic anchor Pattinson provides from the film’s opening moments. Twilight seems like a lifetime ago, and in case you’ve missed any of the impressive indie credits he’s racked up the last few years, we’ll say it again: Pattinson is the real deal.

So is Eggers. His mastery of tone and atmosphere carries a weight that’s damn near palpable. The Lighthouse will leave you feeling cold, wet and woozy, as Eggers trades the literal payoff from The Witch for a series of reveals you’ll be struggling to connect.

This is thrilling cinema. Let it in, and it will consume you to the point of nearly missing the deft gothic storytelling at work. The film is other-worldly, surreal, meticulous and consistently creepy.

And we’ll tell you what The Lighthouse is not. It is not a film ye will soon forget.

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The Long Way Home

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Midnight Traveler

by George Wolf

“How do you say ‘help’ in English?”

A harrowing first person account of one family’s flight from a death sentence, Midnight Traveler frames the refugee debate with honest, heartbreaking intimacy.

In 2015, the work of Afghan filmmaker Hassan Fazili earned him a call for death from the ruling Taliban. Fazili and his family sought asylum in neighboring Tajikistan, only to be denied after 14 months.

Midnight Traveler joins Fazili, his wife Nargis and two young daughters the night before their scheduled deportation back to Afghanistan. Filmed only on three iPhones, the movie documents the family’s years and thousands of miles-long journey in search of a safe place to call home.

In last year’s Oscar-winning doc Free Solo, the filmmakers expressed angst over the effect their cameras might have on the decisions of free climber Alex Honnold. As the dangers mount for Fazili and family, we begin to feel the same, worrying our intrusion might somehow cloud their judgement.

As the Fazili family deals with smugglers, broken promises and spur of the moment evacuations, we also see smaller moments of daily life. The daughters manage to laugh and play, and there is tenderness between Hassan and Nargis, as they smile over past memories of a much simpler and safer time.

Even with a verite nature that is often frantic and understandably desperate, Hassan’s footage reveals an unmistakable eye for form and structure.

This is a family literally crying for help in real time, and a human rights issue that can suffer from anonymous enormity transforms before our eyes, consistently adding strength to the touching impact of Midnight Traveler.

Refugees are more than statistics and political footballs. They are human beings with families, dreams and dwindling options. Within the reams of names on a waiting list are urgent, personal stories of survival.

This is one.

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Say My Name

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Dolemite Is My Name

by George Wolf

Can’t you just hear Dolemite now?

“I’m so m*&^@f#$@!^*’ bad they got that m*&^@f#$@! Eddie Murphy to play me in a m*&^@f#$@!^’ movie!”

They did, and Murphy could very well ride it to an Oscar nomination in this brash, funny, and often wildly entertaining look at the birth of a cultural icon.

“Dolemite” was the brainchild of Rudy Ray Moore, who created the character for his standup comedy act in the early 70s. Moore’s raw material was much too adult for record companies at the time, but the success of his early underground comedy albums (sample title: “Eat Out More Often”) finally gave Moore the cheering crowds he longed for – and the urge to take Dolemite to the big screen.

Moore’s string of so-bad-their-good blaxploitation classics not only became important influences in the expanding independent film market, but also for rappers and young comics like Murphy himself.

Screenwriters Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski, who penned the scripts for The People vs. Larry Flynt, Ed Wood and Man on the Moon among others, are certainly at home fleshing out the stories behind creative legends, and their script fills Dolemite Is My Name with heart, joy and raunchy laughs.

Director Craig Brewer (Hustle & Flow, Black Snake Moan) keeps the pace quick and energetic, crafting a bustling salute to the creative process that never forgets how to be fun.

Two pivotal and very funny scenes bookend the film’s biggest strengths.

Early on, Moore and his crew leave a movie theater dumbfounded by the white audience’s love for a popular feature that had “no titties, no funny and no kung fu!”

Then, during filming of the original Dolemite, Moore doesn’t feel right about his big sex scene until his character’s prowess is pushed to ridiculous levels. We’re laughing, but there’s no doubt we’re laughing with Moore, not at him. And while we’re laughing, we’re learning how Moore took inspiration from the world he lived in, and why he wouldn’t rest until his audience was served.

At the Toronto International Film Festival last month, Murphy said he wanted this film to remind people why they liked him.

Done.

Leading a terrific ensemble that includes Craig Robinson, Keegan-Michael Key, Kodi Smit-McPhee and a priceless Wesley Snipes as the “real” actor among these amateurs, Murphy owns every frame. This film wouldn’t work unless we see a separation between Moore and his character. Murphy toes this line with electric charisma, setting up the feels when Moore’s dogged belief in himself is finally rewarded.

Dolemite Is My Name tells a personal story, but it’s one that’s universal to dreamers everywhere.

And it’s also m*&^@f#$@!^* funny, suckas!

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Phone Shaming

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Jexi

by Hope Madden

Jexi is the Captain Obvious of comedies.

We’re on our phones too much. We’re failing to take in the beauty around us. We’re not making human connections. We’re more comfortable isolating ourselves. The online world we create is false and sad.

Jon Lucas and Scott Moore, the insightful filmmaking team skewering society with cultural commentaries like Bad Moms and Bad Moms Christmas, wants to help you see the absurdity of living this phone-dependent life. They drag poor Adam Devine, Alexandra Shipp and Rose Byrne down with them.

Devine is socially isolated Phil—good guy, smart, but incredibly uncomfortable socially. He’d rather cozy up afterwork with take-out and Netflix, all of it brought up via voice commands. Then he meets gorgeous Cate (Shipp) who works with her hands, likes the outdoors, owns a brick-and-mortar shop and finds Phil’s cowardly self-deprecation charming. He’s so distracted he breaks his phone.

The defective operating system on the new phone promptly ruins his life, thereby setting him free. Jexi is like Spike Jonze’s 2013 masterpiece Her, only dumb.

Devine gives his all to a minor twist on his familiar character, the lovable dumbass. As the lead in the film, his edges are softened this go-round, and he settles into a nicely amiable schlub you can root for. Shipp doesn’t get to do much beyond be the girl you wish you were or you wish you were dating, but Byrne delivers some laughs.

Rose Byrne is one of the most reliable comic actors working today. Here she’s basically a jealous, controlling, psychotic Siri and her deadpan delivery is priceless. It’s just not enough to salvage the film.

Get off your phones. Kiss a girl. Ride a bike.

Duh.

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More Spooky, Less Ooky

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The Addams Family

by Hope Madden

Has anything ever embraced the outcast narrative with as much macabre panache as Charles Addams’s single-panel cartoons, The Addams Family?

Their pride in themselves and obliviousness to the reaction of those around them continue to offer opportunity to pick at society’s weakness for sameness. Rooting a story of individuality versus conformity with the two pre-adolescent characters (Addams children Wednesday and Pugsley) makes good sense.

This should totally have worked.

The voice talent ensemble is a thing of envy: Charlize Theron, Oscar Isaac, Chloe Grace Moretz, Bette Midler, Allison Janney, Finn Wolfhard, Nick Kroll, Elsie Fisher, Martin Short, Catherine O’Hara and Snoop Dogg. That’s two Oscars, three nominations and one Snoop.

The standouts here are Janney and Moretz, each the funhouse mirror opposite image of the other. Janney’s zealous believer in conformity, Margaux Needler, is a home improvement guru with a reality TV show and a motto: “Why be yourself when you can be like everyone else?”

Moretz delightfully counters that energy with an entirely deadpan Wednesday. Moretz’s every line is delivered with the emotion of a month old corpse. She’s perfect.

Wednesday chooses public middle school, Pugsley (Wolfhard) preps for a family ritual of manhood, Margaux plots to rid her perfect neighborhood of that eyesore mansion on the hill in time for her TV show’s big season finale. The collision of those three stories bogs and slogs, though, each of the subplots championing individuality.

Which is fine. And that’s what this film is. It’s fine.

Kroll gets a funny bit about where his Fester is and is not allowed to travel. Lurch is reading Little Women. Thing has a foot fetish—that bit’s kind of priceless, actually. But on the whole, the film just kind of lays there. Like a cadaver, but not in a good way.

Co-directors Greg Tiernan and Conrad Vernon (who also lends his voice) proved they could envision a highly irreverent cartoon with 2016’s Sausage Party, but have trouble finding solid ground between fornicating lunch meats and Thomas the Tank Engine (Tiernan’s claim to fame).

Co-writer Pamela Pettler (writing here with The Christmas Chronicles’ Matt Lieberman) offers a resume more in line with the concept: The Corpse Bride, Monster House, 9. Yes, she has her goth bona fides. But she struggles to give the story any bite.

The Addams Family is unlikely to charm longstanding fans and will likely bore young moviegoers. It might entertain a slim swath of tweens, but this family deserves better than that.

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Welcome to the Jungle

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Monos

by George Wolf

On a mountaintop that rests among the clouds, eight child soldiers guard an American hostage and a conscripted milk cow.

They play what games they can manufacture and train for battle under the exacting eye of The Messenger (Wilson Salazar), whose visits bring supplies, decisions on permitted sexual “partnerships” among the group, and orders from the commanding Organization on how to carry out an ambiguous mission.

While The Messenger is away, one bad decision creates a crisis with no easy solution, becoming the catalyst for Alejandro Landes’s unconventional and often gut-wrenching Spanish-language thriller.

Yes, you’ll find parallels to Lord of the Flies, even Apocalypse Now, but Landes continually upends your assumptions by tossing aside any common rulebooks on storytelling.

Just whose story is this, anyway?

The Doctora (Julianne Nicholson)? She’s the hostage with plenty of clever plans for a jungle escape, and a sympathy for some of her captors which may be used against her.

What about Bigfoot (Moises Arias, impressive as usual)? He’s got plenty of ideas on what’s best for the group, but without Messenger’s blessing as squad leader, limited power.

Wolfie, the “old man” of 15? Shy, baby-faced Rambo? Lady? Boom Boom?

Landes never gives us the chance to feel confident about anything we think we know, as the powerful score from Mica Levi (Under the Skin, Jackie) and an impeccable sound design totally immerse us in an atmosphere of often breathless tension and wanton violence.

While Monos has plenty to say about how survival instincts can affect the lines of morality, it favors spectacle over speeches. Even the gripping final shot, containing some of the film’s most direct dialog, conveys its message with minimal force, which almost always hits the hardest.

It does here. Landes, in just his second narrative feature, crafts a primal experience of alienation and survival, with a strange and savage beauty that may shake you.

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Shipwreck

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Mary

by Hope Madden

I am having a hard time figuring out Mary.

Some of my befuddlement has to do with Gary Oldman’s involvement.

Is it just me, or is there a part of everyone’s brain that says, “Wait, Gary Oldman’s in this? I will definitely watch it!”

Gary Oldman is a tremendous talent. You know what he’s not? Choosy.

Here Oldman plays David, an aging boat captain carting tourists around for a fishing company. He has big dreams, though—dreams of owning his own craft. So naturally, when a ghost ship washes ashore, he cashes in everything he owns to buy her at police action. Then he promptly loads his squabbling family and a couple of deckhands aboard and sails toward the Bermuda triangle.

Of course he does!

What exactly happens once he sets sail is a mystery David’s wife (Emily Mortimer) explains throughout the film’s running time from an interrogation room.

The police interrogation framework is very tired at this point. It’s lazy. As are dream sequences and voiceover narration. They’re cinematic crutches, ways of telling the audience what should be coming organically from the narrative.  

Director Michael Goi (Megan Is Missing) relies on these devices to explain what the action should detail, just as he falls back on ominous music to create dread or signal character development. I’m not sure this script gave him loads of options, though.

Writer Anthony Jaswinski (The Shallows) sketches characters, action and a ghost story, but clarifies very little. His script is an unfocused mess and Goi’s pacing does not help. We skip CliffsNotes style through the family’s crisis, none of it feeling authentic, before discovering the hidden facts about Mary (the ship and, presumably, the ghost) sitting in a box in the hallway.

What’s this, ship ledgers and newspaper clippings? How convenient!

At 84 minutes (including credits), Mary feels simultaneously rushed and bloated. It’s a remarkable waste of both Mortimer and Oldman’s talent and the only true mystery—left unsolved, by the way—is how it drew these actors in the first place.

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Punch Drunk

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First Love

by Hope Madden

Few directors can consistently surprise you, can show such control and create such chaos, as Takashi Miike.

Miike makes Yakuza movies, he makes samurai movies, he makes horror movies, he makes kids movies. But it’s when he makes a mashup of a couple of those that he really defies expectations.

First Love is Miike’s tenth collaboration with writer Masa Nakamura. Their shared vision takes us through one night in Tokyo with a prostitute, a boxer, a cop, a mobster who wants out, and two warring gangs.

As one wistful participant of the evening’s adventure points out, nothing’s ever simple.

Masataka Kubota (Tokyo Ghoul S) cuts a forlorn, otherworldly figure as Leo, the lonesome boxer. He fights for pay, but has no greater purpose. That actually puts him ahead of everyone else he’ll meet tonight because they all serve the wrong purpose.

As Leo stumbles headlong into an action flick in progress, Miike does what he does best. He zigs when you think he’ll zag, jukes when you expect jive. In First Love, Miike paint-by-numbers a romance film into the Jackson Pollack of a gangster shoot out.

Silly in its own way, as many of Miike’s greatest films are, First Love feels like an off-handed goodbye to the Yakuza drama. In between absurdities and viscera, the filmmaker’s tone feels pensive as characters look to their undetermined future in a profession that’s changing, even probably ending as they know it.

And then he switches to anime.

Because, honestly, if you’re willing to suspend  disbelief enough to buy these gun fights, sword fights, fist fights and hallucinations, why not a one-time transition to comic book art?

In another filmmaker’s hands, this jarring one-off nuttiness might seem contrived or off-putting, but not on Planet Miike. His profession may be shifting sand beneath some feet, but Takashi Miike flies wherever he wants to go.