Tag Archives: film

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I’ll Be You

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JT LeRoy

by Hope Madden

Do you remember the JT LeRoy hubbub? Maybe you confuse it with the similar hullaballoo surrounding James Frey, author of A Million Little Pieces, the memoir that turned out to be highly fictional?

Please don’t. LeRoy’s bizarre fake nonfiction and ensuing scandal is so much more interesting.

Jeremiah Terminator LeRoy is a hoax perpetrated on an almost grotesquely willing public. Laura Albert, a frustrated writer, master manipulator and likely sufferer of mental health issues, invented LeRoy.

More than the nom de plume used to pen Sarah and The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things, LeRoy became Albert’s literary persona. Albert herself didn’t exist in this world. She became LeRoy, the writer of lurid “autobiographical” pieces that, together with a mysterious nature, won the hearts of readers, media and celebrities alike.

In fact, Jeremiah Terminator LeRoy became so popular that he had no choice but to show his nonexistent face.

Enter Albert’s sister-in-law, Savannah Knoop.

The weird true-life tale of LeRoy’s fake-life tale has been documented twice in works of nonfiction (the documentaries The Cult of JT LeRoy and Author: The JT LeRoy Story, both worth viewing). Director Justin Kelly is the first to make fiction of the fiction with his aptly cast film, J.T. LeRoy.

Though the film doesn’t offer a great deal of insight beyond what you can glean from the two documentaries, it takes Knoop’s point of view for a refreshing change of pace. But its real strength is the film’s cast.

Kristen Stewart makes the ideal choice to play Savanna/JT. Effortlessly androgynous, moody, sensual and conflicted, Stewart gives the character a vulnerable center, balancing Knoop’s motivation between a sense of duty to Albert and a personal longing for artistic expression.

Naturally, Laura Dern shines, stealing scenes and oscillating between free spirit and opportunist. She does a fine job of illustrating Abbot’s view of creating this other personality who can take on her own pain, can amplify that pain and turn it into both an escape and art. At the same time, Dern’s the schemer, the survivor manipulating those around her. It’s interesting the way the veteran character actor weaves between artist and manipulator in a context that questions the difference between fiction and fraud.

The two leads become a great point/counter point and the film is strongest in their shared scenes. When JT wanders off alone, burdened by puppy love or struggling to keep up a persona of another’s creation, a certain spark goes out.

That’s not to say that the balance of the cast falters. Diane Kruger is particularly slippery as Eva, a thinly veiled version of Asia Argento. But as intriguing as her interplay is with JT, you miss the constant push and pull of wills when Stewart and Dern work off each other.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_UdqhTF9Fo

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All In

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Family

by Hope Madden

On occasion, film reps send us links to preview their film for review. Often, these links are password protected. Once, the password was bouncehouse.

Yes, please.

The film in question is called Family, writer Laura Steinel’s directorial debut, and it plays like a fun update of Uncle Buck with Juggalos.

That’s right!

We open on an uptight executive sprinting, face painted, through an Insane Clown Posse gathering and reflecting, “It’s kind of like a fun county fair where you could also, potentially, be stabbed.”

That reflective exec is Kate, and Kate is maybe Taylor Schilling’s best cinematic character. She takes to Steinel’s dialog with a flat affect that’s entirely, awkwardly enjoyable.

Kate is Uncle Buck, basically. Only she’s not. She’s a driven businessperson who actually got where she is because she has literally nothing else in her life to draw her attention or energy. And then she has to babysit her 11-year-old niece Maddie (Bryn Vale, spot on) and next thing you know—right, life lessons. We’re all familiar with the John Hughes handbook, but Steinel updates it with less schmaltz and more belief in nonconformity. And juggalos.

When Maddie says, “Magic is my passion,” I had to hit pause because I was afraid my snorting would drown out the next piece of comedy gold.

There are problems with Family (besides that inanely generic title). It is funny, and its comical scenes are delivered by an entirely winning cast (which includes the unreasonably hilarious Kate McKinnon and the unreasonably talented Brian Tyree Henry). That’s not the problem.

Steinel also inverts and subverts the tropes of the genre. There are two upended “makeover” scenes that are both funny and insightful. It’s also just a savvy look at being socially awkward.

No, the problem here is that the many colorful and fun scenes are strung together more than they are foundational to a whole. And the keen insight Steinel uses to sharpen individual jokes softens when the time comes to finish the story.

She John Hugheses it.

But a well-placed “sorry for your loss” is surprisingly funny and there are at least a dozen scenes here that I kind of love. Family is smart, R-rated comedy that ultimately caves to the pressure to conform, but its struggle to be itself is laudable.

Plus, those juggalos. They have hearts of gold.

PS, this is what all my sisters thought I would be like as a parent. And I wasn’t. Entirely.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7_oMbzymUA

The Screening Room

Screening Room: La Llorona, Penguins, Breakthrough, Amazing Grace & More

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Damn, there are lot of movies to talk about this week. Join the conversation about The Curse of La Llorona, Amazing Grace, Hagazussa, Little Woods, Peterloo, Stuck, Penguins, Breakthrough, Teen Spirit and everything new in home entertainment. Whew!

Listen to the full podcast HERE.

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The Mancunian Candidates

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Peterloo

by Matt Weiner

It should be a match made in heaven: British director Mike Leigh channeling an uprising that pitted reactionary government leaders against a working-class population with radical demands for reform.

And for a historical drama that revolves around grain tariffs as a pretty important plot point, Leigh succeeds on one key front: Peterloo abounds with righteous indignation, from start to finish. This comes at the cost of Leigh’s usual nuanced character sketches, though.

The radical reformers, journalists and magistrates inhabiting 1819 Manchester still benefit from Leigh’s verbal fireworks. On one side, there are the aristocrats and rulers living in real fear that even the British triumph at Waterloo might not be enough to quell the spirit of the French Revolution. And then there is the unruly mob: disparate factory workers, reformers and women’s groups seeking a number of Parliamentary reforms and representation.

Agitators are literally read the Riot Act. Harrumphs and harangues come in equal measure. There’s even an impassioned debate about the merits of centrism vs. proto-Antifa at political rallies. Peterloo isn’t wanting for passion, but where the whole thing falls short isn’t that it’s a polemic—Leigh is still a formidable talent when it comes to making a period piece feel relevant, even urgent.

Which makes it all the more frustrating to see the film so weighed down by its singular, bluntly fired message that much of the cast doesn’t get a chance to inhabit their roles as much as they mostly bluster through them. Real-life figures Henry Hunt (Rory Kinnear) and Samuel Bamford (Neil Bell) are among the more memorable orators, but it is Karl Johnson who looks like he’s having the most fun as the cruelly indifferent Lord Sidmouth, the Home Secretary.

The cast of characters to keep straight is large but they’re drawn in absurdly broad strokes so you can easily track who’s under the boot and who’s wearing it. For all the impassioned speeches, it’s ironic that Peterloo winds up feeling far less humane than Leigh’s other historical masterpieces, especially 2014’s Mr. Turner. (That film owes much to Timothy Spahl’s tour de force lead, but Leigh’s generous script also balanced grace with uncompromising characters in a way that’s sorely missed in Peterloo.)

Long-time Leigh cinematographer Dick Pope comes back along for the ride, but his presence is also missed for much of the 150-minute runtime. I assume the working-class Manchester milieus are sufficiently gritty, but it doesn’t really matter. Most of the (copious) meeting scenes feel as perfunctory as the characters themselves.

Thankfully, the film at least delivers on the rage that has been set to a nonstop boil for so long. Leigh captures the confusion and senselessness of the tragedy. It’s just a shame that the massacre itself is the only thing in the film that ever really takes on any dimension.





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The Hills Are Alive

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Hagazussa: A Heathen’s Curse

by Hope Madden

Making a remarkably assured feature debut as director, Lukas Feigelfeld mesmerizes with his German Gothic poetry, Hagazussa: A Heathen’s Curse.

Settled somewhere in the 15th Century Alps, the film shadows lonely, ostracized women struggling against a period where plague, paranoia and superstition reigned.

Young Albrun (Celina Peter) and her mother (Claudia Martini) make their way back to their isolated cabin before darkness falls. With a minimum of dialog and a maximum of atmosphere, Feigelfeld quickly establishes the dangerous isolation facing mother and daughter.

It’s an episode that will haunt Albrun well into adulthood, where she (Aleksandra Cwen) is now the single mother, still an outsider, still isolated from the village.

It would be easy to mistake the story Feigelfeld (who also writes) develops as a take on horror’s common “is she crazy or is there malevolence afoot?” theme. But the filmmaker’s hallucinatory tone and Cwen’s grounded performance allow Hagazussa to straddle that line and perhaps introduce a third option—maybe both are true.

Isolation, shunning and bullying lead to one tragedy upon the next. The village and its priest having deemed Albrun a witch, the line that defines the reality of the situation and the spiritual ugliness blur for both Albrun and the audience.

The film lends itself to a reading more lyrical than literal. Feigelfeld’s influences from Murnau to Lynch show themselves in his deliberate pacing and the sheer beauty of his delusional segments. One goat milking episode, in particular, is both startlingly erotic and disturbingly articulate of Albrun’s state of mind.

MMD’s ominous score strengthens the film’s overall sense of hypnotic menace, echoing sounds we’re not sure will frighten or comfort this mysterious woman at the center of the film.

Albrun’s is a tragic story and Feigelfeld crafts it with a believable loneliness that bends toward madness. He’s captured this moment in time, this draining and ugly paranoia that caused women such misery, with imagery that is perplexingly beautiful.

He’s cast a spell and you should submit.





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Crash: The Musical

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Stuck

by Rachel Willis

Based on the musical of the same name, director Michael Berry’s film Stuck is the story of six strangers trapped on a subway car who change each other’s lives in meaningful ways.

Or at least, that’s what the movie tries to achieve. Unfortunately, it doesn’t accomplish its goal.

The characters are all one-note stereotypes. During their time trapped on a subway car, they reveal their own prejudices toward each other, as well as huge details of their lives. The personal stories, the elements that attempt to make each character unique, are all shared through song. However, it’s easy to guess who each character will be because they’re roles we’ve seen many times before.

As each person shares a little more of themselves with the others, the characters’ facial expressions are meant to convey internal change. There are sympathetic looks, a few words of apology, but none of it feels like true growth. The characters who enter the subway car are the same characters when they leave the subway car.

One of the most frustrating elements of the film is the “all is forgiven” attitude toward one character who has been stalking another character for several days before the events of the film. Though we learn the intentions are “innocent,” it’s angering to watch as the other characters give him a pass because he’s a good artist.

The musical aspects here are the strongest elements. The choreography, the lyrics, the musical arrangements, and the performances are all effective, with the individual character songs among the only moments where genuine emotion is conveyed. The musical styles are unique to each character, giving them more depth than the dialogue conveys.

All the actors are strong singers, which is refreshing since several movies lately have featured actors who can’t sing well, or at all, in singing roles. It’s one of the areas where Stuck succeeds. Ashanti is particularly powerful in her vocal performance, though Giancarlo Esposito also stands out as an impressive vocalist.

Though Esposito sings several of the film’s songs, his character is the least explored. He isn’t given a backstory like the others, and it’s unclear if he’s meant to be a conduit for the others to reveal themselves or a character in his own right.

In a film like Stuck, the point is to never judge a book by its cover. The people we pass on the street everyday are dealing with things about which we will mostly likely never know. Hardships in their lives may be the reason why they’re impatient or cruel, so it’s a reminder to treat everyone with kindness.

It’s not a bad message. But it’s one that’s been delivered before in more effective ways.

 

 





For Your Queue

I Don’t Want To Go Out — Week of April 15

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It’s the week of one-word movie titles. One of these couldn’t meet the high bar it set for itself, but it’s not such a bad movie. The other one is a bad movie. No question. Which is which? We’re here to clarify.

Click the title for the full review.

Glass

Replicas

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y77HoE4TtCg





Slider, The Screening Room

Screening Room: Missing Link, Hellboy, Little, After, Master Z

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Lots and lots to cover in the Screening Room this week: Missing Link, Hellboy, Little, After, and Master Z: Ip Man Legacy.  Plus just as many new home entertainment releases. Strap in!

 

Listen to the full podcast HERE.





New In Theaters, Slider

Boy, Oh Boy

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Hellboy

by Hope Madden

It has been 15 years since Guillermo del Toro and Ron Perlman first brought Mike Mignola’s cat loving, iron fisted, soft hearted son of Satan to the big screen. You’ve got to feel for any filmmaker tasked with following in del Toro’s steps, especially when the film in question is a monster movie brimming with innocence and wonder. That is really his wheelhouse.

But Neil Marshall is no slouch. His first film out the gate back in 2002, Dog Soldiers, offered a wickedly funny war movie with werewolves. This gem he followed in 2005 with what may be contemporary horror’s scariest monster movie, The Descent.

Since then? Nothing to write home about. But that means he’s due for a comeback, eh? And Hellboy’s ready for a reboot. Right?

No to both.

The first difference you’ll note, maybe 15 words into the film with the first of many f-bombs, is that Neil Marshall’s Hellboy is rated R.

It’s also a horror movie, make no mistake. Hellboy is lousy with limb severing, blood gushing, intestine spilling action.

Also, it’s just lousy.

Hellboy (Stranger Things’s David Harbour, who does an admirable job) struggles against a prophesy and a lifetime in the shadows to decide his destiny for himself. Milla Jovovich is a witch. There is a boar monster, a scrappy teen medium, a were-cheetah and some seriously sketchy CGI.

Yikes, this movie looks bad.

There are those who will complain about Marshall’s gleeful gorefest, but not me. Demons ripping the flesh from the faces of innocents? Others may be hiding their eyes from the carnage, but what they’re mercifully missing is digital animation on par with Disney’s The Haunted Mansion (the 2003 film or the amusement park ride, take your pick).

Aside from two creepy images—one of Jovovich’s Blood Queen in flowing red robes beneath a shadowy, skeletal tree; the second a quick sideways glance into Baba Yaga’s pantry—Marshall’s vision is weak.

His storytelling is not much stronger. Working from a script by Andrew Cosby, the film opens with exposition, repeats that exact exposition midway through Act 2, and halts at least three additional times for one character to stand still and articulate a big block of story for us.

Often that character is dead and attached to the mouth of a young girl via a long, gurgly, worm-like body, which probably the most laughable element of the film.

Probably.