Tag Archives: George Wolf

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Suspicious Minds

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Eden

by George Wolf

Eden tells a fascinating story. And it tells that story in a star-studded, well-crafted way that’s rarely dull, even when the weight of its melodrama gets heavy enough to be nearly undone by the film’s parting shot.

Director Ron Howard joins co-writer Noah Pink to recount a historical tale “inspired by the accounts of those who survived” as a parable of greed, power, suspicion and annoying neighbors.

“Democracy, Fascism, war. Repeat.” So yeah, still plenty timely.

In the years just after WW1, Dr. Friedrich Ritter (Jude Law) and his partner, Dore Strauch (Vanessa Kirby), left civilization for a hardscrabble existence on the Galapagos Island of Floreana. Convinced that mankind was finished, Ritter became determined to write a new philosophy that would save humanity from itself, and in pain…find salvation.

His writings were picked up by the occasional passing ship, eventually attracting quite a following among others looking for a new life. And that, of course, led to the very thing Ritter didn’t want on his island: more people.

Heinz Wittmer (Daniel Brühl), and his wife Margaret (Sydney Sweeney) arrive first, inspired by Ritter’s vision and hoping for a better climate for their son Harry’s (Jonathan Wittel) tuberculosis.

The Wittmers – especially Margaret – prove tougher than Ritter imagines, but the Baroness Eloise Bosquet de Wagner Wehrhorn (Ana de Armas, scene-stealing and never better) is a larger-than-life problem no one expected.

The Baroness arrives on Floreana with servants/lovers and a grand plan to build an ulta-exclusive hotel for the wealthiest of tourists. De Armas digs in, crafting her as a shameless narcissist, so ruthless and sociopathic that she’d be cartoonishly absurd if not for the gaslighting cult of personality we wake up to every day.

The entire cast shines. And like her or don’t, Sweeney continues to impress with another film that challenges her range and physicality (Margaret must fight off wild dogs and give birth alone…damn!) while eschewing any shades of empty pinup girl glamour.

The running time pushes well past 90 minutes, but Howard keeps things humming right along. The dangerous motives, shifting alliances and double crosses create an over the top, sometimes darkly funny concoction that pulls us in, fascinated by who will emerge the victor in this battle for the unhappy high ground.

And when the inevitable historical update arrives with the credits, we see footage of the actual people who fought this fight…and they’re laughing, smiling, waving! Like the surprising Maria Callas footage in last year’s Maria, you wonder where these happy people have been hiding the last two hours.

Bet they could have shed more light on what life was really like on the island of lost smiles.

But would they have been as much primal, pulpy fun?

Fright Club

Fright Club: Weapons

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Thought we’d veer slightly off course to take a deeper dive into Zach Cregger’s latest horror hit, Weapons. Poet and horror fan Scott Woods joins us!

Weapons

by Hope Madden

I’m not saying that Barbarian was anything less than a creepy, disturbing good time. Writer/director Zach Cregger’s 2022 bizarre, brutal minefield of surprises announced him as a master of misdirection, unsettling humor, and horror of the nastiest sort.

I’m just saying Weapons takes a lot of what worked in that film and sharpens it to a spooky edge. No throw-away laughs, no grotesque b-movie shenanigans, just an elaborate mystery slowly revealing itself, ratcheting tension, and leading to a bloody satisfying climax.

Unspooling as an epilogue followed by character-specific chapters, the film builds around a single event, developing dread as it delivers character studies of a town of hapless, fractured, flawed individuals in over their heads.

Julia Garner anchors the tale as a 3rd grade teacher who arrives to class one fateful morning with only one student in the room. Aside from little Alex (Cary Christopher, heartbreaking), none of Mrs. Gandy’s class made it to school today because every single one of them left their beds at 2:17 that morning to vanish into the night.

Since she’s what the kids have in common, the town suspects that she is to blame. This is especially true of young Matthew’s dad, Archer (Josh Brolin), who also gets a chapter.

As it did in Barbarian, this character-by-character approach allows for new information to bleed into what the audience knows, rather than what the characters know. But as each new tale opens our eyes to the mystery, it also lets this solid cast work with Cregger’s game writing to do some remarkable character work. Brolin’s angry, grieving confusion rings painfully true. And Garner seems to relish the opportunity to explore Mrs. Gandy’s unlikeable side.

Benedict Wong contributes the sweetest, and therefore most unfortunate, performance, but it’s the way Cregger lets each actor breathe and settle into idiosyncrasies and failings that keeps you invested. It’s the dark humor that’s most unsettling.

This is smartly crafted, beautifully acted horror. Those who worry Cregger’s left nasty genre work behind for something more elevated need not fear. As crafty as this film is, there’s not a lot of metaphor or social consciousness afoot. Weapons is just here to work your nerves, make you gasp, and shed some blood. It does it pretty well.

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Feels Like Injustice

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The Knife

by George Wolf

Suspicion, fear, perception and manipulation all converge in The Knife, a briskly-paced thriller that examines action and consequence as it picks at the scabs of modern anxieties.

This is the feature debut as a director and co-writer (with Mark Duplass) for Nnamdi Asomugha, a former NFL star who began a second career in film shortly before his playing career ended in 2013. Asomugha also stars as Chris, a construction worker whose night – and maybe life – is quickly unraveling.

After some very late night flirting that gives us a warm and effective introduction to the characters, Chris and his wife Alex (Aja Naomi King) decide they’re just too damn tired for any sexy time. They’ve got three young kids in the house, and that morning alarm is coming way too soon.

But sleep has to wait thanks to some bumps in the night. Chris gets up to investigate, and finds a strange, haggard woman in his kitchen. By the time Alex arrives for backup, the old woman is unconscious on the floor with a knife nearby, and Chris doesn’t remember what happened.

Alex is plenty wary of inviting cops into the situation, but things could get worse if they don’t. So their “bad” neighborhood gets lit up with cruisers, and Detective Carlsen (Oscar winner Melissa Leo) arrives to ask some increasingly difficult questions.

There are issues raised about memory, medications in the house and whether or not that knife may have been tampered with. Asomugha and Duplass make sure these can seem justified, just as much as the interrogations feel escalated by assumption and profiling.

With a run time of barely 80 minutes, the most glaring weakness in The Knife is its lack of investment in a more satisfying payoff. The tension is relatable and relevant, with complexities of truth-gathering added organically until a nice little pot of motivational stew is boiling. It’s enough to make you eager for a memorable, world weary punch that never gets thrown.

Though it feels unfinished, Asomugha’s step up the film ladder is taut, self-contained and promising. The Knife may ultimately offer more questions than answers, but the conversations it could start are well worth having.

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You Gotta Live It Every Day

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East of Wall

by George Wolf

With a narrative structure that recalls The Florida Project and Nomandland among a few others, East of Wall immerses you in a way of life among the actual people who are living it. Buoyed by two veteran acting talents, a fiercely strong woman and her extended family become a testament to will and commitment.

In the Badlands of South Dakota, Tabitha Zimiga (as herself) runs a broken down ranch where she trains and sells horses, earning a reputation as a nearly unmatched horse whisperer. With tattoos, piercings, a half-shaven head and a take-no-shit attitude, Zimiga cuts an imposing figure. And after the death of her husband John a year ago, Tabitha’s intimidating nature helps her deal with a rowdy mother (Jennifer Ehle) and a houseful of seven teenagers – only some of which are her own.

One of those, Porshia Zimiga (as herself) is a barrel racing champ who helps her mother out come auction time, but the horses just aren’t bringing the prices they should be.

Big time rancher Roy Waters (the always welcome Scott McNairy) offers a way out: he’ll buy all of Tabitha’s 3,000 acres, with a promise that the family can stay. Maybe so, but their birthrite will be gone, and Tabitha has little problem sizing Roy up while she weighs his offer.

This is the feature debut for writer/director Kate Beecroft, and it’s crafted with loving tenacity that echoes the hardscrabble nature of these family bonds. The camerawork is intimate and assured, while Austin Shelton’s cinematography delivers beauty of horses and majesty of land in equal measure.

East of Wall is the type of film that should be sought out by those complaining about sequels and superheroes. It’s a sobering, no-frills story of strong women carving out a life of meaning and a place to call their own, told with an honesty that makes it hard to look away.

Fright Club

Fright Club: Best Black Vampire Movies

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I can’t imagine what prompted us to put together this list. Oh wait, it’s because Sinners is the best film of 2025 and we could tell from its reaction that too many people have not seen nearly enough movies about Black vampires. Because there are tons, and almost all of them are worth watching, even if they’re bad movies. (We’re looking at you, Vamp.) So, here are our favorites:

5. Blade (1998)

Though we love all three Blade movies, and Guillermo del Toro’s Blade II is officially our favorite, for a straight-up vampire movie, we’ll take the original. Honestly, you had us at that opening nightclub bloodbath.

Wesley Snipes is so effortlessly badass in this, and Kris Kristofferson’s grumpy protector sidekick is as welcome as he is heartbreaking. Together they give the action and bloodshed all the heartbeat it needs. This one’s fun.

4. The Transfiguration (2016)

Milo likes vampire movies.

So, it would seem, does writer/director Michael O’Shea, whose confident feature debut shows us the relationship between the folklore and the life of a forlorn high school outcast.

Eric Ruffin plays Milo, a friendless teen who believes he is a vampire. What he is really is a lonely child who finds solace in the romantic idea of this cursed, lone predator. But he’s committed to his misguided belief.

O’Shea’s film borrows ideas from George Romero’s Martin, Tomas Alfredson’s Let the Right One In, and openly gushes over Murnau’s Nosferatu.  Inside and out, the film draws on the best in vampire cinema to help Milo deal with a world in which he is a freak no matter what he decides to do.

3. Blacula (1972)

No, he is not Dracula. He is Blacula – respect him! Fear him! Dig him!! There are few Seventies blaxploitation films that can hold a candle to this one, mostly because of one rich baritone and compelling presence. The great William Marshall is the picture of grace and elegance as Mamuwalde, the prince turned vampire.

Blacula is a tragic antihero and it’s all but impossible to root against him. Though he’s often hampered by FX as well as writing, the character remains true throughout the film, even to his death. It’s the kind of moment that could be brushed aside, in a low budget flick with a lot of plot holes and silly make up. But there’s more to Blacula than meets the eye.

The film is a cheaply made Blaxploitation classic, with all that entails. For every grimace-inducing moment (bats on strings, homophobic humor) there’s a moment of true genius, mainly because of Marshall’s command of the screen and the character. Give yourself the gift of a double feature, Blacula and its sequel, Scream Blacula Scream, co-starring Marshall and Pam Grier.

2. Ganja & Hess (1974)

Back in 1973, sandwiched between blaxsploitation classics Blacula and its sequel, Scream Blacula Scream, Philadelphia playwright Bill Gunn quietly released his own Africa-rooted vampire tale, Ganja and Hess. Critically acclaimed yet virtually unseen at the time, the film follows a woman looking for her errant husband who finds a soul mate in a wealthy vampire.

Dreamlike, with an evocative sound design and gorgeous, hallucinatory framing, the film plays far closer to Seventies arthouse than horror. Gunn, who also co-stars with Marlene Clark (Ganja) and Duane Jones (Hess), never spoonfeeds the audience.

Piece together what you can and let the dizzying experience wash over you. If you like it, check out Spike Lee’s 2015 remake, Da Sweet Blood of Jesus.

1. Sinners (2025)

Ryan Coogler reteams with longtime creative partner Michael B. Jordan to sing a song of a 1932 Mississippi juke joint. The Smoke Stack twins (Jordan) are back from Chicago, a truckload of ill-gotten liquor and a satchel full of cash along with them. They intend to open a club “for us, by us” and can hardly believe their eyes when three hillbillies come calling.

Jack O’Connell (an amazing actor in everything he’s done since Eden Lake) has a brogue and a banjo. He and his two friends would love to come on in, sing, dance, and spend some money, if only Smoke would invite them.

It’s scary. It’s sexy. The action slaps. It’s funny when it needs to be, sad just as often. It looks and sounds incredible. And there’s a cameo from Buddy F. Guy, in case you needed a little authenticity. When Ryan Coogler writes and directs a vampire movie, he gives you reason to believe there is yet new life for the old monster.

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Super Freaky

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Freakier Friday

by George Wolf

The story goes that it was the way-too-early early Oscar talk for Jamie Lee Curtis in 2003’s Freaky Friday that inspired her hubby, Christopher Guest, to make For Your Consideration. No surprise, then, that Curtis is the best thing about the sequel.

Freakier Friday catches us up with Dr. Tess Coleman (Curtis) and her daughter, Anna (Lindsay Lohan). Tess is a therapist working on a podcast and a book, while Anna has moved on from teen pop stardom to become a record exec crafting the career of a new young diva (Maitreyi Ramakrishnan from Never Have I Ever).

Anna is also a single mom to Harper (Julia Butters), who isn’t too fond of Lily (Sophia Hammons), the new girl in school who has recently arrived from London. But Anna is pretty fond of Lily’s dad, Eric (Manny Jacinto), and six months later, the high schoolers are faced with a coming wedding and life as stepsisters.

But a multi-tasking psychic (Vanessa Bayer stealing some scenes) at the bachelorette party spurs a double body swap, and when the two teens wake up in the bodies of Tess and Anna, breaking up the wedding gets a freaky bit easier.

Confusion and hijinx mount, as director Nisha Ganatra (Late Night) and writer Jordan Weiss (TV’s Dollface) can’t equal the clever plotting that drove the original. A sight gag set in the record store owned by Anna’s ex, Jake (Chad Michael Murray), does pay dividends, easily rising above the forced antics of food fights, pickleball games, and dance lessons.

But the charming chemistry between Curtis and Lohan hasn’t waned, and anyone who grew up with the first film will appreciate the fun the stars have with the effects of aging. Curtis, especially, seems to be having a ball.

Yes, the “walk a mile in my shoes” lessons are obvious and the finale is contrived, but the film isn’t really trying to do anything more than feed its target audience some warm and relatable nostalgia. And it certainly does that.

Freakier may not be better, but it still can lead to moments of silly fun.

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Still No Free Drinks

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Ebony and Ivory

by George Wolf

How many “very”s would it take until you were convinced that the journey a movie character had just survived was quite long?

Two? Twenty Hundred?

If you’ve seen The Greasy Strangler or An Evening with Beverly Luff Linn, you know that writer/director Jim Hosking leans toward the latter. And you’re probably wondering about the possibility of free drinks.

Sorry, still no. What you will get is an even greater heap of Hosking’s absurdist world-building, one that’s hampered by limiting the madness to a collab meeting between two unnamed musical legends Unnamed? Yeah, but it’s 1981 on the Mull of Kintyre in Scotland, and the white one (Sky Elobar) is English and into “vegetarian ready meals” while the American (Gil Gex) is Black and blind.

Plus, the movie is titled Ebony and Ivory, so…

The idea does seem like fertile ground for the type of quotable, often brilliantly inspired silliness Hosking has become known for, but nothing really sticks. And it’s not for lack of trying many, many times to sear “shit and fuck,” “Scottish cottage” and “Doobie Woobie” into your pop culture brain. Too much of this just lands like filler set on repeat while it searches for some piece of story to grasp.

The boys do venture outside the cottage where they naturally get naked and fly their merkins in perfect harmony, but by then you’re way past longing for more members of Hosking’s lunatic fringe to join the chorus and push things forward. It’s not exactly Waiting for Godot, more like waiting for Michael St. Michaels to drop in on lead guitar. Two characters and one setting is just too constraining, as if Jim Steinman was hired to write for the Spice Girls.

Look, I’d still take it over Bohemian Rhapsody, but you won’t find much of Ebony and Ivory on any Jim Hosking’s greatest hits playlist.

Outtakes

Drunkula!

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Weary of the nightly chase for a meal, a vampire begins picking drunks off at last call in a neighborhood pub. Though it makes it easier to acquire a meal, eventually the blood alcohol content gets to him.

Behind the Scenes!