Don’t bother trying to guess where Queen of Earth might be going, you’ll miss the beauty of getting there.
It’s a wildly enigmatic take on the dynamics of female friendship, ambitiously (and surprisingly?) told by writer/director Alex Ross Perry, who laces the character studies with descents into madness and subversive humor.
Catherine (Elisabeth Moss) is reeling from a traumatic breakup that hit not long after her father’s death. Her longtime friend Virginia (Katherine Waterston) offers the family lake house for some girl time, much like their getaway a year earlier when it was Virginia who was suffering.
As the women meet at the picturesque setting, it is clear they have grown apart from their days as BFFs, and Perry is no hurry to tell you why. Catherine’s ever-present sketch pad is an apt metaphor for the narrative structure at work here. Perry utilizes extreme closeups, shaky cameras, out of focus shots and quick fades to provide beautiful glimpses into a complicated relationship.
Slowly, the often combative dialogue and the out of sequence flashbacks provide some possible answers, even as more questions are raised. With a Gothic soundtrack and a constant sheen of despair, you begin to wonder if Perry’s vision will ultimately include a murderous rampage.
But that would be too easy, and a betrayal of all that’s been building. Perry presents a perceptive tableau of emotions, all driven home to perfection through wonderful performances from his leads. Moss is downright electric, rolling through a spectrum of emotional outbursts and withdrawn silences with an authenticity that leaves you nervous to look away. Waterston may have the more “straight woman” role, but she gives Virginia a steely resolve that grounds the film, and invites curiosity into her side of this story.
Perry (The Color Wheel, Listen Up Philip) makes the comedy less overt and the psychological warfare more pointed this time out, but his familiar elements remain. Queen of Earth brings unlikeable characters who struggle with alienation, disenchantment and dangerous depression, and leaves you glad you didn’t pass on the chance to spend time with them.
That’s an amusing bit, and a great example of the wit that Slow Learners leans on to try and elevate a strikingly unoriginal premise.
Jeff (Adam Palley) and Anne (Sarah Burns) are desperate and dateless. He has women tell him he looks like a “lesbian newscaster” while she needs friends to remind her not to wear “the cat sweater.”
They’re buddies! They can’t get together because, you know, they just don’t think of each other that way! It would be weird…nervous laughter…ewww!
So of course they hatch a plan to help each other break out of their respective ruts, and before long Jeff is juggling more women than he can handle and Anne is finally catching the eye of that hottie who was always ignoring her. But still, they’re just not finding happiness, what ever will they do?
It is nice that for once, the can’t-find-lovers don’t look like Anne Hathaway or Jake Gyllenhaal. Palley makes you squint because he might be Jimmy Kimmel and Burns seems like that new SNL cast member you can’t name. They’re perfectly fine looking and likable enough, just not matinee idols, which becomes ironic when you think of the possibilities that the film leaves unexplored.
In his debut screenplay, writer Matt Serwood ignores the satire potential for a straightforward rom-com, managing consistent smiles, if only a couple laugh out loud moments. Directors Don Argott and Sheena M. Joyce, documentary vets behind the excellent The Art of the Steal, seem equally tentative about branching out. Too many scenes reek of improv class, while many production elements seem better suited for a small screen sit com.
Slow Learners is all in good fun, I guess, but you wonder if the effort might have been saved for something a little less stale.
Who says a sequel can’t be better – or at least as good – as the original? If you look closely, there are loads of excellent horror sequels: New Nightmare, Scream 2, 28 Weeks Later, Ringu 2, The Devil’s Rejects. But which are the best of the best? We have the answer!
5. Exorcist III (1990)
William Peter Blatty wrote and directed this dialogue-dense sequel to the 1973 phenomenon William Friedken had made of his novel. Blatty starts strong enough, garnishing shots with vivid, elegantly creepy images. He enlists George C. Scott to anchor the tale of a cop drawn back into a supernatural case. In other inspired casting, New York Nicks great Patrick Ewing plays the angel of death in one of Kinderman’s freaky dream sequences, joined by romance novel coverboy Fabio as another angel. Also, the always great character actress Nancy Fish plays the bitchy but reluctantly helpful Nurse Allerton.
There are also two of the scariest scenes in cinema. Eventually the story moves into a hospital and stays there, but just before that move, there’s a terrific confessional scare – crazy spooky voice, effective cackle, blood – that elevates the entire project.
And then there’s that insane flash of terror as one nurse crosses the narrow hallway in front of the camera, quickly followed by some gauze-draped figure, arms outstretched. Eep!
4. Dawn of the Dead (1978)
Romero returned to the land of the undead in ’78 with a full-color sequel to Night of the Living Dead. The film follows a news producer, her chopper pilot boyfriend, and two Philly SWAT cops ready to abandon the organized zombie fight and find peace elsewhere. The four board a helicopter, eventually landing on the roof of a mall, which they turn into their private hideaway.
Romero, make-up legend Tom Savini, and Italian horror director Dario Argento teamed up for this sequel. You feel Argento’s presence in the score and the vivid red of the gore. Bloated, dated, and suffering from blue zombie make up, the film does not stand up as well as the original, but it still packs a punch.
Ken Foree and Scott Reiniger as the buddies from SWAT create the most effective moments, whether character-driven tension or zombie-driven action. Romero’s politics are on his sleeve with this one. He uses the “z” word, digs at Eighties consumerism, shows full-color entrails, and reminds us again that the undead may not be our biggest enemy once the zombie-tastrophe falls.
3. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (1986)
Tobe Hooper revisited his southern cannibal clan 12 years after unleashing The Texas Chain Saw Massacre on an unsuspecting world, and he had the great Dennis Hopper in tow. Hopper plays a retired Texas Marshall. He joins forces with a radio host, played gamely by Caroline Williams. Together they flush the Sawyer family out of hiding. And just in case we’d missed how Leatherface got his name, the act of removing someone’s face to wear as a mask is revisited in a kind of weird wooing ritual.
TCM2 certainly gets weird, and boasts an unhinged performance by Hopper as a lawman willing to make some ugly choices to follow his obsession. Jim Siedow (The Cook) returns, and veteran genre favorite Bill Moseley adds a quirky ugliness to the proceedings. There’s also an awful lot of screaming, even for this kind of a film, but it’s a worthy genre flick. It pales in comparison to the original, but it deserves its own appreciation. Hold it up against any other low-rent horror output of 1986 and it’s a standout.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUyEaYxTI2U
2. Evil Dead II: Dead by Dawn (1987)
In 1981, Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell crafted the single bloodiest film ever made. Six years later, Raimi gets a little Ray Harryhausen and Campbell gets a makeover in a sequel that’s mostly a remake. An even broader comedy, with clay-mation monsters aplenty, Evil Dead II works harder for laughs than for scares.
Expect a lot of the same: Necronomicon, possessed friends, demonic woods, dismemberment, and fun. Plus hundreds of gallons of black, green, and red goo. Nice.
The wide eyed, romantic Ash from episode one slowly morphs into the ass kicking, catch phrase spouting, boom-boom stick toting badass we’ll see in all his glory in the third installment. Ash would finally learn how important it is not to listen to tapes left by the owners of the cabin you’re secretly squatting in for the weekend. And we’d eventually learn never to wear Michigan State paraphernalia when camping with Bruce Campbell.
1. The Bride of Frankenstein (1935)
James Whale and Boris Karloff returned to Castle Frankenstein for an altogether superior tale of horror. What makes this one a stronger picture is the dark humor and subversive attitude, mostly animated by Frankenstein’s colleague Dr. Pretorius (Ernest Thesiger).
Thesiger’s mad doctor makes for a suitable counterpart to the earnest and contrite Henry Frankenstein (Colin Clive, again), and a sly vehicle for Whale. This fey and peculiar monster-maker handles the most brilliant dialogue the film has to offer, including the iconic toast, “To gods and monsters.”
The sequel casts off the earnestness of the original, presenting a darker film that’s far funnier, often outrageous for its time, with a fuller story. Karloff again combines tenderness and menace, and Elsa Lanchester becomes the greatest goth goddess of all film history as his Bride.
In honor of our next Fright Club Live – where we unspool the unhinged French horror show Sheitan (French for Satan) – we decided to pick through all the performers who’ve played the dark lord onscreen. George Burns to Dave Grohl, we considered them all. Here, though, is our list of the best of the best.
5. Jack Nicholson (The Witches of Eastwick– 1987)
Old Jack really breathed life into the idea of wretched excess in this one, coming across equally as frightening and charming. Appropriate. He seems to be playing off of his own persona, but given the comedic nature of the effort, and the absurdity that this slovenly old cuss could seduce three stunning, intelligent women (Susan Sarandon, Cher, Michelle Pfeiffer) – well, it’s a charm Nicholson seemed to come by naturally, so why not exploit it here?
4. Peter Stormare (Constantine – 2005)
There are two reasons to remember this film – Tilda Swinton and Peter Stormare – and luckily they have one epic scene together. But Stormare manages to even outdo the effortlessly glorious Swinton – androgynous perfection as Gabriel – and that’s something to crow about. He’s been preparing to play the dark lord ever since he pushed Steve Buscemi into that wood chipper in Fargo. Once he got the shot, he was sinister, funny, frightening…and eventually undone by Keanu Reeves, which was almost enough reason to leave him off the list, but not quite.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rVFse1LLQs
3. Viggo Mortensen (The Prophecy – 1995)
There is no question this film belongs to Christopher Walken – as do all films in which he graces the screen. His natural weirdness and uncanny comic timing make the film more memorable than it deserves to be, but when it comes to sinister, Viggo Mortensen cuts quite a figure as Lucifer. Unseemly, gorgeous and evil, he seethes through his few scenes and leaves the celluloid scorched.
2. Robert DeNiro (Angel Heart – 1987)
De Niro’s well manicured and articulate Louis Cyphre perfectly balances Mickey Rourke’s handsome slob, and both fit beautifully into this sultry version of 1955. It’s really a beautifully made film, courtesy of Alan Parker, who adapted William Hjortsberg’s novel Fallen Angel and directed the film. Deceptively bloody, unusually classy, effortlessly creepy, Angel Heart stays under your skin. Maybe it’s the casual evil, the lurid atmosphere. Maybe it’s De Niro’s understated menace, with those long nails and that hardboiled egg.
1. Tim Curry (Legend – 1985)
Best Satan Ever. That voice, the sultry way he drawls out every syllable, the sweltering inappropriateness of his seduction, the look. Wow. This image clearly influenced both South Park‘s vision, as well as the Dave Grohl part in Tenacious D’s Pick of Destiny. But Curry pulls it off like no one else. Tim Curry is the world’s greatest sweet transvestite, the world’s greatest terrifying clown, and the world’s greatest Satan. Too bad the character is trapped in such a crap film.
by George Wolf
It was the insult heard ’round the world, and it just might have given birth to an entire industry of blowhard political pundits, talking loud and saying nothing.
Which is ironic, because Gore Vidal and William F. Buckley, Jr. did neither. Both seasoned intellectuals who proudly sat poles apart on the political spectrum, they came together during the presidential campaign of 1968 for a series of legendary, highly volatile debates.
Best of Enemies, a rich and entertaining documentary from directors Robert Gordon and Morgan Neville, gets inside the battles and studies their lasting effects on politics, the media and the men themselves.
In ’68, last-place ABC needed a spark for their coverage of both the Republican and Democratic conventions. They turned to Buckley, the conservative hero, and Vidal, the liberal champion, to end each day’s coverage with a spirited tête-à-tête.
“Spirited” was being polite, as the wordplay escalated to name-calling and a shocking (for the times) moment on live TV that Buckley regretted the rest of his life.
No less a TV icon than Dick Cavett sums it up succinctly: “The network nearly shat.”
Regardless of your political leanings, you can’t help but be impressed by what each man brings to the skirmish. Intelligence, wit, biting humor and thinly veiled disgust are all on display, conveyed with such a beautiful command of the language you can’t help but smile in the midst of their blood sport.
The debates, of course, were a ratings winner for ABC, instantly revealing the insatiable American appetite for argument.
Perhaps the most striking aspect of Best of Enemies is how little those arguments, and the divisiveness surrounding them, have changed. We have these same debates today, with sides that are just as clearly drawn.
The rulebook? That’s another story.
Best of Enemies lives in a time before you could “ignore the other side and live in your own world.”
If only for 87 minutes, it’s a welcome bit of time travel.
Where are you most vulnerable, if not in the hands of doctors? You don’t know what they’re doing. It’s likely to hurt. There are needles, saws maybe. Suturs. Staples. Blood. Is there more fertile, gory ground for horror? We say no, and today we celebrate the very best there is in medical horror.
5. American Mary (2012)
Twin sisters, Canadians and badasses Jen and Sylvia Soska have written and directed a smart, twisted tale of cosmetic surgery – both elective and involuntary.
Katharine Isabelle (Ginger Snaps) stars as med student Mary Mason, a bright and eerily dedicated future surgeon who’s having some trouble paying the bills. She falls in with an unusual crowd, develops some skills, and becomes a person you want to keep on your good side.
Were it not for all those amputations and mutilations, this wouldn’t be a horror film at all. It’s a bit like a noir turned inside out, where we share the point of view of the raven haired dame who’s nothin’ but trouble. It’s a unique and refreshing approach that pays off.
4. Re-Animator (1986)
Stuart Gordon’s Re-Animator reinvigorated the Frankenstein storyline in a decade glutted with vampire films. Based, as so many fantasy/horror films are, on the work of H. P. Lovecraft, Re-Animator boasts a good mix of comedy and horror, some highly subversive ideas, and one really outstanding villain.
Jeffrey Combs, with his intense gaze and pout, his ability to mix comic timing with epic self righteousness without turning to caricature, carries the film beginning to end. His Dr. Herbert West has developed a day-glo serum that reanimates dead tissue, but a minor foul up with his experimentations – some might call it murder – sees him taking his studies to the New England medical school Miskatonic University. There he rents a room and basement laboratory from handsome med student Dan Caine (Bruce Abbott).
They’re not just evil scientists. They’re also really bad doctors.
Re-Animator is fresh. It’s funny and shocking, and though most performances are flat at best, those that are strong more than make up for it. First-time director Gordon’s effort is superb. He glories in the macabre fun of his scenes, pushing envelopes and dumping gallons of blood and gore. He balances anxiety with comedy, mines scenes for all they have to give, and takes you places you haven’t been.
3. Dead Ringers (1988)
This film is about separation anxiety, with the effortlessly melancholy Jeremy Irons playing a set of gynecologist twins on a downward spiral. Writer/director David Cronenberg doesn’t consider this a horror film at all. Truth is, because the twin brothers facing emotional and mental collapse are gynecologists, Cronenberg is wrong.
Take, for instance, the scene with the middle aged woman in stirrups, camera on her face, which is distorted with discomfort. Irons’s back is to the screen, her bare foot to his left side. Clicking noises distract you as the doctor works away. We pan right to a tray displaying the now-clearly-unstable doctor’s set of hand-fashioned medical instruments. Yikes.
Irons is brilliant, bringing such flair and, eventually, childlike charm to the performances you feel almost grateful. The film’s pace is slow and its horror subtle, but the uncomfortable moments are peculiarly, artfully Cronenberg.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xmheE3L19c
2. The Skin I Live In (2011)
In 2011, the great Pedro Almodovar created something like a cross between Eyes Without a Face and Lucky McGee’s The Woman, with all the breathtaking visual imagery and homosexual overtones you can expect from an Almodovar project.
The film begs for the least amount of summarization because every slow reveal is placed so perfectly within the film, and to share it in advance is to rob you of the joy of watching. Antonio Banderas gives a lovely, restrained performance as Dr. Robert Ledgard, and Elena Anaya and Marisa Paredes are spectacular.
Not a frame is wasted, not a single visual is placed unconsciously. Dripping with symbolism, the film takes a pulpy and ridiculous story line and twists it into something marvelous to behold. Don’t dismiss this as a medical horror film. Pay attention – not just to catch the clues as the story unfolds, but more importantly, to catch the bigger picture Almodovar is creating.
1. Frankenstein (1931)
Obviously, any exploration of medicine in horror cinema – no matter how amateurish that exploration – must begin with Frankenstein.
James Whale’s genius was in finding the monster fascinating, rather than the doctor. Nearly every other Frankenstein made before or since has been preoccupied with the doctor, but Whale understood that it was this unique beast, baby and man, evil and innocent, that should compel our interest. Who cares about one more doctor with a god complex?
Luckily for Whale, he had Boris Karloff. Karloff’s gift was in seeing the monster as a neglected child. His monster is sweet and tragic, characterized by the terrible freedom of a loosed child full of fear, unbridled excitement, and shame. Karloff nails this childlike energy and ignorance married to a grown man’s strength in a way that no other actor truly has.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=McUce_xwxeA
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If you thought director Noah Baumbach was turning all populist after While We’re Young, take heart! At my recent screening of Mistress America, five people walked out within the first twenty minutes, apparently put off by hilariously flawed characters who talk to themselves, but at each other, without mercy.
Their loss.
It’s a charming, wonderfully offbeat, fast-paced dialogue fest, and a perfect vehicle for Greta Gerwig, who co-wrote the script with Baumbach.
Gerwig stars as Brooke, a busy New Yorker who seems happy to get a visit from her soon-to-be stepsister Tracy (Lola Kirke – impressive), an 18 year-old student at a nearby college. Brooke bombards Tracy with stories of her exciting life and social calendar (“He’s the kind of person I hate – except I’m in love with him!”), instantly gaining an admirer. Tracy’s reserved demeanor is no match for hurricane Brooke, and soon Tracy and two friends are joining Brooke on a mission to persuade her rich old boyfriend Dylan (Michael Chernus) into bankrolling her plan for a new restaurant/hair salon/cool place to be combo.
The gang ends up crashing a party hosted by Dylan’s wife (loves these names) Mamie-Claire (Heather Lind). Mamie-Claire may or may not have stolen Brooke’s idea for a line of t-shirts, and the visit descends into a madcap frenzy of incidents and allegations. As characters move throughout the rooms of Dylan’s lavish house, Baumbach stages it to perfection, much like a high school play directed by a coked-up Woody Allen.
Underneath the inspired insanity, though, lies a love letter to the written word. Tracy desperately wants to join her school’s literary club, and she uses Brooke as the basis for a short story that she hopes will be accepted into their magazine.
As the characters’ continue their rapid fire, often non-sequitur dialogue, it’s offset with Tracy’s voiceover reading of the measured, wonderfully flowing prose of her short story. This not only puts a spotlight on the art of writing, it cleverly reinforces the film’s undercurrent of self-delusion.
Brooke lives to define herself, as Tracy so eloquently puts it, as “a beacon of hope for lesser people,” regardless of how well her definition aligns with reality. “Lesser” people’s descriptions aren’t as welcome, a fact beautifully illustrated by a scene where Brooke is recognized by an old high school classmate. Gerwig is a true wonder in the role, combining comic timing with the depth needed to make Brooke sympathetic no matter how much you want to dislike her.
Will Mistress America be the movie where the masses (minus those five party poopers from my screening) get hip to Gerwig’s unique talents?
Restless young men try to make their way in the city. They party, chase girls, work boring jobs and start to wonder about the bigger picture. Hopes seem dim, but one of the guys has an extra spark. Maybe it’s disco dancing, bartending, or more recently, stripping, but the point is this guy’s gonna learn some life lessons and make his mark!
This time, that mark starts with “just one track.”
We Are Your Friends gives us Cole Carter (Zac Efron), who pours over his music editing software, mixing beats that he hopes will lead him to the top of the club DJ scene in Los Angeles. James Green (Wes Bentley, nice to see you) is already there, so what luck that he takes Cole under his wing for no reason whatsoever, showing him the ropes as well as his very tempting girlfriend/assistant Sophia (Emily Ratajkowski).
This is the feature debut for director/co-writer Max Joseph, and there are certainly familiar trappings, requisite cliches and even a couple cringeworthy moments (Cole defending Sophia’s honor to some loudmouth assholes – ugh). But other times, there’s some real skill here looking for a good home.
Joseph utilizes slow motion, text graphics, animation and even flirts with the fourth wall, essentially providing an entertaining EDM for Dummies class for those of you (ahem, those of us) who are a bit late to the party. Breaking out such a bag of tricks is often just for show, but Joseph seems to have good instincts for storytelling with style. Once he can eliminate the sudden lapses where those instincts vanish, he’ll be fine.
Efron doesn’t show a ton of range, but honestly, he’s not asked to. He still displays the charisma of a budding star and Ratajkowski (SI swimsuit issue, Gone Girl) shows promise for a successful transition from modeling to legit acting career. Bentley, despite a Kenny-Loggins-in-the-Danger-Zone look, is the real treat. After numerous smaller supporting roles, he gets a more vital one here, and manages to give James some unexpected depth.
Like many of the films with this formula, the problem is what to say, not how to say it. We Are Your Friends doesn’t tap into a cultural zeitgeist as successfully as, say, Saturday Night Fever, but if you’re ready for a modern-day Cocktail with some thumping beats, serve it up.
Perhaps any living thing’s most primal fear is that of being eaten, and horror cinema has taken advantage of that built-in tension with every zombie movie and creature feature ever made. But there’s an added element of the macabre, the unseemly, when it isn’t some “other” preying on us for our own tasty flesh. Today we celebrate those brave, carnivorous souls who crave the other, other white meat. You are what you eat.
Who’s hungry?
5. Trouble Every Day (2001)
Writer/director Claire Denis doesn’t offer a great deal of exposition, relying instead on startling images to convey themes. Her approach, and her provocative film, may do a better job of linking not just sex and death – which is commonplace to the point of being a bore in horror – but lust and bloodlust, carnality and hunger.
Beatrice Dalle’s Core – lovingly held captive by her husband – routinely escapes to seduce and consume unsuspecting men. Meanwhile a honeymooning groom seeks her because of his own obsession and/or similar sexual disposition.
This is a tough film to watch. The murder sequences are particularly bloody and profoundly uncomfortable, but the film gets under your skin and stays there, which is the point of horror, right?
4. Ravenous (1999)
The blackest of comedies, the film travels back to the time of the Mexican/American War to throw us in with a cowardly soldier (Guy Pearce) reassigned to a mountainous California outpost where a weary soul wanders into camp with a tale of the unthinkable – his wagon train fell to bad directions, worse weather, and a guide with a taste for human flesh.
Pearce is great as the protagonist struggling against his own demons, trying to achieve some kind of peace with himself and his own shortcomings, but Robert Carlyle steals this movie. As the wraithlike Colonel Ives, he makes the perfect devil stand-in. Smooth, compelling and wicked, he offsets Pearce’s tortured soul perfectly. The pair heighten the tensions with some almost sexual tension, which director Antonia Bird capitalizes on brilliantly.
3. We Are What We Are (2010)
Give writer/director Jorge Michel Grau credit, he took a fresh approach to the cannibalism film. His Spanish language picture lives in a drab underworld of poverty, teeming with disposable populations and those who consume flesh, figuratively and literally.
Grau’s approach is so subtle, so honest, that it’s easy to forget you’re watching a horror film. Indeed, were this family fighting to survive on a more traditional level, this film would simply be a fine piece of social realism focused on Mexico City’s enormous population in poverty. But it’s more than that. Sure, the cannibalism is simply an extreme metaphor, but it’s so beautifully thought out and executed!
We Are What We Are is among the finest family dramas or social commentaries of 2010. Blend into that drama some deep perversity, spooky ambiguities and mysteries, deftly handled acting, and a lot of freaky shit, and you have hardly the goriest film on this list, but perhaps the most relevant.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQ4-UOB3Y-U
2. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)
Not everyone considers The Texas Chainsaw Massacre a classic. Those people are wrong. Perhaps even stupid.
It is classic because Hooper masterfully enlisted a low rent verite for this bizarre story to do something utterly new. The camera work, so home-movie like, worked with the “based on a true story” tag line like nothing before it, and the result seriously disturbed the folks of 1974. It has been ripped off and copied dozens of times since its release, but in the context of its time, it was so absolutely original it was terrifying.
Friends on a road trip pick up a hitchhiker, played with glorious insanity by Edwin Neal. The Hitchhiker is part of a family of cannibals, and the youths will eventually stumble upon their digs. Here we find this unemployed family of slaughterhouse workers just teasing and mocking each other with little mercy. Like Sally Hardesty, we’ve entered a lived-in world belonging to them, and their familial bickering and cruelty only reinforce our helpless otherness. This inescapable absurdity is one of the things that make TCM so unsettling.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vs3981DoINw
1. The Silence of the Lambs
Everyone loves this film, even people who hate horror films. Those pretentious bastards call the film a “psychological thriller.” But to clarify, any film about one man who eats human flesh helping to track down another man who wears human flesh is a horror movie.
It’s to director Jonathan Demme’s credit that Silence made that leap from lurid exploitation to art. His masterful composition of muted colors and tense but understated score, his visual focus on the characters rather than their actions, and his subtle but powerful use of camera elevate this story above its exploitative trappings. Of course, the performances didn’t hurt.
Anthony Hopkins’s eerie calm, his measured speaking, his superior grin give Lecter power. Everything about his performance reminds the viewer that this man is smarter than you and he’ll use that for dangerous ends. He’s toying with you. You’re a fly in his web – and what he will do to you hits at our most primal fear, because we are, after all, all part of a food chain.
Here’s the pitch: what if Brad Pitt’s Flintstones-watching stoner from True Romance was actually a highly trained government operative who can kill you with nothing but a spoon and a cup of soup?
Intrigued? Me, too.
So why can’t American Ultra fully capitalize on that promise?
Okay, its not really Floyd from True Romance – he’s baking comfortably in the stoner Hall of Fame – it’s Mike (Jesse Eisenberg) from the Cash and Carry mini-mart in Liman, West Virginia. Mike plans to propose to his live-in girlfriend Phoebe (Kristen Stewart) during a romantic trip to Hawaii, but they never make it on the plane.
Mike suffers strange panic attacks anytime he’s about to leave town, but that seems like a minor problem once CIA agent Victoria Lasseter (Connie Britton) visits Mike at work and keeps repeating a strange phrase. Turns out Mike is really a sleeper agent who’s been suddenly branded a liability, and Victoria needs Mike to wake up before he’s taken out.
Writer Max Landis, much as he did with Chronicle, pieces together a winning premise from parts of differing genres. We think we know what to expect from weed-soaked characters, but breaking out the MacGyver shit to bust open some heads is not on the list. Throw in plenty of spy game skullduggery, and there’s ample opportunity for black comedy that the film only partially explores.
Director Nima Nourizadeh (Project X) seems equally caught in a pattern of two steps up and one back. He unleashes stylish, well-paced bursts of action, followed by slow-moving exposition and then back again, sometimes punctuated by isolated bits of sharp comedy just looking for a home.
On paper, Eisenberg seems miscast, but he’s able to make both extremes of Mike’s character blend surprisingly well. Stewart continues her recent winning streak in the film’s early going, excelling as Mike’s sweetly sympathetic love. Once Phoebe’s true motives come to light, though, it’s back to the well worn K-Stew pained expression once too often.
A little too slow to be action packed, a bit too nasty to be fun-filled, American Ultra seems held back in a familiar haze. It’s got plenty of good ideas, but just when they really start to gel, it decides to just watch some cartoons instead.
