It’s a good week, people! On this episode, we talk through some of the best films of 2018, including Roma, The Favourite and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, as well as The Mule, Vox Lux, Mortal Engines and a whole lot of new stuff in home entertainment.
Listen to the full podcast HERE.
by Hope Madden and George Wolf
What does a serial killer have in common with an indie filmmaker? Quite a lot, or so suggests indie filmmaker Lars von Trier.
We’ll say this with all sincerity: The House that Jack Built—a 2+ hour peek into the mind and methods of a murderer—is von Trier’s most lighthearted picture to date.
It’s also as tedious and self-indulgent as Nymphomaniac: Vol. II.
LvT’s artistry lies in his ability to make the viewer uncomfortable. His films are punishing, which is why his first foray into horror, the brilliant and wildly unnerving 2009 film Antichrist, was such a perfect fit. He returns to the genre with Jack, here allowing a sadistic murderer the opportunity to shed light on the filmmaker’s own discomforting artistry.
Which can work—Julian Richards’s The Last Horror Movie and Remy Balvaux’s Man Bites Dog both offer blistering achievements on the theme. But Jack falters, and von Trier falters, in two important ways.
The film does deliver sadistic glory, yet in terms of violence or depravity, it feels oddly safe. Not safe for all viewers, mind you, but horror fans and von Trier fans have seen far more envelope-pushing than what Jack depicts. There is one sequence—the picnic sequence—that is among the most perfect horror movie episodes ever filmed. Beyond that, much of this movie is competently made but ultimately tired.
We follow Jack (Matt Dillon, making the most of a surprising casting choice) through various instances of homicidal mania. As voiceover conversations with the mysterious Verge (Bruno Ganz) pay homage to Dante’s Divine Comedy, Jack’s bloody exploits become less darkly comedic and more brazenly sadistic, testing his claim that “the soul belongs to heaven and the body to hell.”
Just as the Nymphomaniac films traded provocative ideas for fist-shaking admonishments from filmmaker to critics, Jack devolves into an instrument wielded even less bluntly. Again, von Trier channels his tale through two voices: the protagonist and a straw man. Verge serves up the proselytizations on art and morality so Jack can knock ’em down, with snippets of von Trier’s previous films peppered in for anyone who still isn’t getting it.
Not that LvT’s ideas on this topic aren’t interesting – far from it- but the line between personal and self-indulgent is the same one that separates uncomfortable questions that resonate (as in von Trier’s own Dogville) from spoon-fed answers that do not. One side makes for an engaging film experience while the other falls short, no matter how impressive the visual set pieces (which Jack does indeed provide).
Von Trier has unapologetically wallowed in depravity his entire career, and those themes have served the narrative in amazing ways. Now he seems more interested in narratives that serve grandiose debates of his own artistic value.
Let’s hope that road has reached an end. While von Trier remains an artist worthy of attention, The House That Jack Built stands as another missed opportunity.
by Hope Madden and George Wolf
No doubt you’re hip to the talent of Natalie Portman.
But if you only know Brady Corbet as an actor (Funny Games, Melancholia, Simon Killer), or maybe don’t know him at all, get to know Corbet the visionary filmmaker.
Corbett writes and directs an astute and unusual pop ballad about celebrity—American celebrity, at that.
Vox Lux opens in 1999 as young Celeste (Raffey Cassidy, The Killing of a Sacred Deer) and her high school class are visited by a disgruntled young white male. Corbet’s camera plays with the horror of the scene as it dawns on those in the classroom as well as the audience what is about to happen.
As Celeste heals from a bullet to the spine, she and her older sister Eleanor (Stacy Martin) work through their collective grief and trauma by writing a song, which Celeste later performs at a memorial vigil.
Thanks to the astute strategy of a no-nonsense manager (Jude Law) and straightforward publicist (Jennifer Ehle), the song becomes a healing anthem and Celeste—her protective sister at her side—is launched into pop stardom.
Corbet’s chaptered “21st Century Portrait” (the proper subtitle to his film) offers infrequent omniscient narration from Willem Dafoe, a glib narrative device that’s part “Behind the Music” and part sociological commentary. Tragedy is commodity in modern America, a fact that can only mean more tragedy.
When the timeline shifts forward and Portman takes over in the lead, we see a new character fully formed from years of living that are only hinted at. Celeste is now a veteran megastar with a daughter of her own (also played by Cassidy) and strained relationships with everyone around her.
Portman’s performance is such an all-in tour de force it effectively divides the film into parts: with and without her. She commands the screen with such totality you’re afraid of what Celeste might do if you dare to shift your focus somewhere else.
Corbet knows better than to do that. With Portman as a mesmerizing guide, he crafts a fascinating fable with two uniquely American pillars – gun violence and celebrity culture. Vox Lux is shocking, funny, sad, and haunting, with plenty of visual flourish and even some new songs by Sia.
It’s a statement, and coming from a relatively unknown writer/director, a pretty audacious one.
Keep ’em coming, Corbet.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dolxUIZzb3w
by George Wolf
Should we really be surprised a spider-based franchise has so many legs?
It wasn’t that many years ago when Spider-Man 2 was the conventional wisdom pick for all time best superhero flick. Then last year, Homecoming erased the memories of some disappointing installments with a tonally perfect reboot.
And now, Spidey gets back to his animation roots with Into the Spider-Verse, a holiday feast of thrills, heart, humor and style that immediately swings to the very top of the year’s animated heap.
Teenager Miles Morales (voiced by Shameik Moore from Dope and The Get Down) is juggling a lot of teen drama. He’s trying to make friends at a new school, make nice with his dad (Brian Tyree Henry), and practice graffiti art with his cool Uncle Aaron (Mahershala Ali), so he really doesn’t need to be dragged into an alternate universe with Spider-Man (Jake Johnson) right now, okay?
But, thanks to an evil plan from Kingpin (Liev Schrieber) and Doc Ock (Kathryn Hahn), that’s just what happens. And before you can say quantum theory, Miles is meeting kindred heroes from all over the Spider-Verse, including another Spider-Man (Chris Pine), Spider-Man Noir (classic Nicolas Cage), anime version Peni Parker (Kimiko Glenn) and Spider-Ham, a hilarious Looney Tunes-style crime fighting pig (John Mulaney).
Writer Phil Lord follows his winning scripts for Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs and The Lego Movie with an even bigger bulls-eye, one that manages to honor franchise traditions as it’s letting in some fresh, hip, and often very funny air.
In the hands of directors Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey and Rodney Rothman, the story bursts to vibrant life. The dazzling animation gives a big soul kiss to comic books and pushes nearly every frame to its action-following limit.
This Spider-Man is filled with everything you want in a superhero flick today. There are compelling characters and engaging conflicts within a diverse climate, and a vital, clearly defined message of empowerment that stays above the type of pandering sure to bring eye-rolls from a kid’s b.s.detector.
And man, is it fun. That still works, too.
Bunches and bunches of options for home viewing this week. Oscar hopefuls to definitely-not-Oscar-hopefuls, take your pick. But let us help you out, will you?
Click the film title for the full review.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwgtDHISXtQ
It’s a great week to take a break from Hollywood bombast and invest in something independent. In the podcast this week we break down Tyrel, Maria by Callas and Divide and Conquer: The Story of Roger Ailes. Plus, a few quick thoughts on the Golden Globe nominations before heading out to the lobby to sort through new releases in home entertainment.
Listen to the full podcast HERE.
by George Wolf
“Hey, Tyrone.”
“It’s Tyler, actually.”
“Oh, my bad.”
The subtle discomforts start early in Tyrel, writer/director Sebastian Silva’s perceptive and slyly intense slice of racially tinged mumblecore, a film that benefits greatly from yet another standout turn from Jason Mitchell.
Mitchell stars as Tyler, an African-American man who is grateful to escape a houseful of in-laws by joining his friend John (Christopher Abbott) on a birthday getaway in the Catskills.
But it’s not John’s birthday. It’s John’s friend Pete’s (Caleb Landry Jones) birthday, and it isn’t long before Tyler is meeting plenty of new faces and realizing his is the only one that isn’t white.
Plus, it just happens to be the weekend of Trump’s inauguration. Perfect.
Amid heavy dialog that’s fast and free-flowing with an improvisational feel, the crowded mountain home becomes a nerve-wracking metaphor for the state of race relations. Silva, the unconventional Chilean filmmaker who mined social anxieties effectively in Nasty Baby and The Maid, continues to subvert expectations through intimate, thoughtful characterizations.
After a long stream of memorable supporting roles (Straight Outta Compton, Mudbound, Detroit, Kong: Skull Island), Mitchell carries this film with a performance that is sympathetic from the start, a key factor Silva leans on to turn our insecurities against us. With each slight, appropriation and assurance that “he didn’t mean anything by that,” Tyler’s feelings become more conflicted, raising the level of concern we have for what might happen.
As is his wont, Silva steers clear of expected plot turns and veers in surprising directions, one of them concerning a friendly Catskills neighbor down the road (Ann Dowd).
Though it’s understandably easy to compare this film to Get Out (especially with Jones in the cast), that comparison itself may be one of the scabs Silva is picking. Why did Jordan Peele’s horror story resonate so brilliantly?
With a focus on casual affronts to identity and the privileged confidence that everything is fine, Tyrel‘s Catskills weekend offers some clues.
It’s a big-ass week in lounge around in your jammies movie watching. For some of these, you will want a very large TV.
Click the movie title for the full review.
Only Women Bleed? Sunday Bloody Sunday? Let It Bleed? What song would we have chosen to open the new podcast? There are more possibilities than we might have imagined—in song and in film—as we celebrate the monthly curse with a talk about the best horror movies concerning menstruation. Do you have the stones to listen?
We open with some impressive aerial shots of the smoking, neon ruin of the Las Vegas strip. Cut to another gorgeous aerial of a sports car zipping up a desert highway. In it, a couple of coked-up strip club lowlifes, Molly (Brittany Allen) and Nick (Merwin Mondesir), are escaping to an airfield where they’ll meet with other lowlifes and head to an island off Mexico.
Naturally, this isn’t going to work out. But what co-writer/director Colin Minihan has in store will surprise you. He’s made a couple of fine choices with his film. The point of view character is not only an unlikely protagonist – an unpleasant thug with a drug habit – but she’s also female.
Soon the car goes off the road and one meathead catches her scent, and suddenly Molly’s stripper shoes are not her biggest problem as she faces a 30-mile trek across the desert to the airfield.
What develops is an often fascinating, slow moving but relentless chase as well as a character study. With a protagonist on a perilous journey toward redemption, It Stains the Sands Red takes a structure generally reserved for the man who needs to rediscover his inner manhood and tells a very female story.
Very female. Menstruation and everything.
Writer/director Jee-woon Kim (I Saw the Devil) spins a hypnotic tale of family and ghosts—both literal and metaphorical. Tale of Two Sisters is a deep, murky and intensely female horror.
A tight-lipped father returns home with his daughter after her prolonged hospital stay. Her sister has missed her; her stepmother has not. Or so it all would seem, although jealousy, dream sequences, ghosts, a nonlinear timeframe and confused identity keep you from ever fully articulating what is going on. The film takes on an unreliable point of view, subverting expectations and keeping the audience off balance. But that’s just one of the reasons it works.
No line of dialog, no visual is wasted. The seemingly simple moment of one daughter needing to borrow a feminine product from her stepmother works in a dozen ways: to introduce blended identities, to exacerbate the uncomfortable familiarity, to foreshadow future horror.
Tale masters the slow reveal in large and small ways. Whether you’ve begun to unravel the big mystery or not, Tale always has something else up its sleeve. Or, under its table.
Outcast Pauline (a very committed AnnaLynne McCord) is a budding surgeon. She’s not much of a student, actually, but she does have an affinity for anatomy. Especially blood. Pauline really, really likes blood.
A horror film focused on an adolescent girl as antihero is likely to involve 1) menstruation, 2) a mom. Excision is no different. Well, it is a little different.
The mom is Traci Lords, in what is certainly her most assured dramatic performance. Her arc is interesting: overbearing and cold and, eventually, probably correct in her unfavorable assessment of her eldest girl.
Writer/director Richard Bates, Jr. takes more of an unusual course when bringing in Pauline’s cycle, though. I’m not sure we’ve seen it handled quite like this before, although to be fair, it’s definitely in keeping with the peculiar and beautifully realized character he and McCord have created.
Sisters Ginger and Bridget, outcasts in the wasteland of Canadian suburbia, cling to each other, and reject/loathe high school (a feeling that high school in general returns).
On the evening of Ginger’s first period, she’s bitten by a werewolf. Writer Karen Walton cares not for subtlety: the curse, get it? It turns out, lycanthropy makes for a pretty vivid metaphor for puberty. This turn of events proves especially provocative and appropriate for a film that upends many mainstay female cliches.
Walton’s wickedly humorous script stays in your face with the metaphors, successfully building an entire film on clever turns of phrase, puns and analogies, stirring up the kind of hysteria that surrounds puberty, sex, reputations, body hair and one’s own helplessness to these very elements. It’s as insightful a high school horror film as you’ll find, peppered equally with dark humor and gore.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zoa1A987A_k
What else? Nobody did moms, the pain of adolescence, the horror of the onslaught of womanhood, or period quite like Brian De Palma’s 1976 original. Is there a more tragic scene? Is there a scene that better establishes a character, a context or horror?
De Palma films the scene in question, appropriately enough, like a tampon commercial, all cheese cloth and beautific music. And then Carrie White (Oscar nominated Sissy Spacek) desperately claws at her classmates, believing she is dying. It’s the most authentic image of vulnerability and terror you can imagine, matched in its horror by the reaction she receives from those she seeks: laughter, mockery and contempt.
Beyond the epitome of adolescent mortification that the scene represents, it also clarifies the unspoken relationship between Carrie and her as-of-yet unintroduced mother, who has never told her teenaged daughter that this was coming.
The result is the ultimate in mean girl cinema and an introduction to a nearly perfect horror film.
Wow! Hollywood unloaded last week for Thanksgiving, but the pickings are slim this weekend. We cover The House that Jack Built – director’s cut, The Possession of Hannah Grace, Burning, Mirai and Meow Wolf: Origin Story, plus we dig into what’s new in home entertainment.
Listen to the full podcast HERE.
