Whew! That is a lot of movies. We will talk you through all of them: Shazam!, Pet Sematary, The Best of Enemies, The Public, The Wind, The Aftermath and Diane—plus all that’s fit to watch in new home entertainment.
Listen to the full podcast HERE.
Tag Archives: Hope Madden
Sometimes, Reboots Are Better
Pet Sematary
by Hope Madden
There is a lot of love out there for Mary Lambert’s 1989 hit Pet Sematary.
Why, again? Was it the wooden lead performances? The adorably sinister villain? Massive Headwound Harry? Come on—there was a lot wrong with that movie and only two things were really right: The Ramones and Zelda.
Zelda was creepy AF.
Fear not! Directors Kevin Kölsch and Dennis Widmyer (Starry Eyes) were obviously also affected by Zelda because she (Alyssa Levine) delivers again. On all other items, the directing duo improve.
Except The Ramones, but they are here in spirit.
Jason Clarke leads things as Louis, big city doc transplanted to quiet, rural Maine. Apparently he and his family—Rachel (Amy Seimetz), Ellie (Jeté Laurence), Gage (Hugo and Lucas Lavoie) and Church the Cat—didn’t ask a lot of questions about that 80-acre lot they bought. Lotta nasty stuff out back.
John Lithgow takes over for the tough to replace Fred Gwynne and his over-the-top Mainer accent. Lithgow’s more subdued Grumpy Old Man neighbor falls victim again to the pull of that “sour ground” out back when his beloved little Ellie’s cat gets hit by one of those semis speeding down the nearby road.
The film really tests your ability to suspend disbelief, but it also layers a lot of history and creepiness in tidy fashion. The superior performances alone make the reboot a stronger film, although familiarity means it has to try a little harder to actually scare you.
One help is a change screenwriters Matt Greenberg and Jeff Buhler make to the story. It’s a big alteration and not everyone will be thrilled, but it limits the laughability once things turn ugly. The film also lessons spiritual guide Pascow’s (Obssa Ahmed) screen time and gives his presence a spookier, less comedic feel. There’s a new ending, too—meaner and more of a gut punch. Nice.
The movie looks good, and Clarke (playing a grieving father for the second time this weekend, after his WWII drama The Aftermath) anchors the events with a thoughtful, believable performance that helps Pet Sematary overcome some of its more nonsensical moments.
It is not a classic, but it delivers the goods.
I still missed The Ramones.
Whispers and Wails
The Wind
by Hope Madden
There are not enough horror westerns. And why not? The whole Wild West thing feels like a terrifying, isolated, dangerous adventure—especially for women.
Director Emma Tammi’s first narrative feature, The Wind, pulls together all those ideas and more into an absorbing little nightmare.
Lizzy and Isaac Macklin (Caitlin Gerard and Ashley Zukerman, respectively) are relieved to see smoke coming from a distant chimney. The only other cabin for miles has been empty a long while, and the prairie does get lonesome.
But companionship and burden go hand in hand for Lizzy, and company won’t chase away all the demons plaguing this harsh land.
Working from a spare script by Teresa Sutherland, Tammi develops a wonderfully spooky descent into madness. Throughout Lizzy’s isolation, Tammi swaps images onscreen from present moment reality to weeks earlier, to months earlier, to a present-day hallucination or specter and back again. The looping time frame and repetitive imagery turn in on themselves to create a dizzying effect that echoes Lizzy’s headspace.
Gerard spends nearly as much screen time alone as she does with co-stars, and her turn is haunting. There’s nothing showy in this performance, Gerard slyly betraying one emotion at a time through the character’s well-rehearsed stoicism and reserve.
It’s a feat of imagination and execution for both Gerard and Tammi, turning this small production—only five principle actors and two sets—into a hypnotic ordeal. Tammi’s confident pacing and Gerard’s masterful performance ensure a gripping trip through a merciless slice of prairie life.
House Divided
The Aftermath
by Hope Madden
While there are a number of fine points to James Kent’s The Aftermath, novelty is not among them.
You don’t need to know the plot, you just need to glimpse the movie poster: Jason Clarke is married to Keira Knightly; Alexander Skarsgård lives in their attic.
What happens, do you think? Any guesses?
It’s a love triangle you’d have to have your eyes closed to miss. No, the plot is not going to surprise or, to be honest, particularly entertain. Give Kent and Aftermath credit, then, for mining its backdrop for genuine tension, not to mention fascinating historical detail.
Knightly is Rachael Morgan, wife of a British colonel (Clarke, obv). She joins him in his post-victory assignment in what’s left of Hamburg, 1946. He’s been given the home of a German architect, Herr Lubert (Skarsgård), and in Morgan’s compassion (and naivete), he invites the former owner and his teenage daughter to stay on rather than face the harsh realities of the camps.
Clarke—who too often plays cuckolded husbands to waifish beauties and handsome houseguests—offers a sympathetic turn as a grieving man coming to grips with both a crisis of conscience as well as profound grief. Through him we glimpse the chaos of a divided city, conflict and hatred still echoing through rubble-strewn streets.
He’s intriguing, as are those minor characters who orbit his military life: the rogue Aryans still loyal to the cause, comrades taking pleasure in continuing to punish Germans, and the teenage girl lurking in the shadows of his own home.
Though the film continues to direct your attention to the beautiful people struggling against their desires, it’s angry adolescent Freda Lubert (Flora Thiemann) whose silent contempt compels attention. She’s wonderful, creating a spoiled, misguided character who’s hard to like and harder to predict.
It’s a nice distraction from a film that is otherwise as unsurprising as any you’re likely to see. Knightly and Skarsgård perform admirably in blandly familiar roles. And, of course, they look glorious. But pretty as they are, every moment they’re onscreen you’ll wish to be back out in the ruins of Hamburg with the actual characters.
I Don’t Want to Go Out—Week of April 1
Couple of flicks worth your time coming home this week. One you probably saw, one you probably didn’t. Here is the skinny.
Click the film title for the full review.
Vice
Rust Creek
(DVD)
Screening Room: Dumbo, Hotel Mumbai, Beach Bum, Hummingbird Project, Woman at War
Join us as we divvy up the good and the bad this week in theaters: Dumbo, Hotel Mumbai, The Beach Bum, The Hummingbird Project and Woman at War. We also run through what’s new in home entertainment.
Listen to the full podcast HERE.
Elephant Ears
Dumbo
by Hope Madden and George Wolf
There was something so terrifyingly perfect in the idea of Tim Burton reimagining Disney’s 1941 circus tearjerker Dumbo. If anyone could rediscover, perhaps even amplify the grotesque tragedy lurking at the heart of this outsider sideshow, it should be Burton.
He seems at home with the material.
Burton’s Edward Scissorhands is basically Dumbo: an innocent misfit, safe only with the one who birthed him, tragically loses that protector and must face a cold, ugly and abusive world that accepts him only because of what it can gain from the very oddities it mocks.
Dumbo is maybe the most emotionally battering film Walt Disney ever unleashed on unsuspecting families. But Burton seems thrown off course by a hero seeking release over acceptance, and instead of that macabre sense of wonder that infuses Burton’s best efforts, he seems content to bite the white-gloved hand that is feeding him.
Dumbo, the wing-eared baby elephant himself, does come to impressive CGI life – all grey wrinkles, long lashes and big, beautifully expressive eyes.
The film’s other squatty little character – Danny DeVito – is also a joy to watch. As circus owner Max Medici, DeVito charms every moment onscreen, and seeing him face to face again with Michael Keaton (as the shady, badly-wigged amusement park magnate V.A. Vandevere) is a nostalgic hoot.
The balance of the cast—Colin Farrell, Nico Parker, Finley Hobbins, Eva Green—fluctuates from passable to painful while staying consistently detached, and any true emotional connection just cannot take root, despite the inherent head start.
Because let’s be honest, many parents will be carrying an emotional connection into the theater with them, perfectly ready to surrender to the ugly cry moment they know is coming.
And it does…but it doesn’t, the scene strangely cut off at the knees to serve a bloated narrative that adds nothing but running time. True movie magic, heartbreaking or otherwise, is nowhere to be found.
The only interesting thing Burton and screenwriter Ehren Kruger (The Ring, several Transformers installments) do, via the Vandevere character and his theme park, is deride the film’s parent company. It’s nearly impossible to view “Dreamland” as anything but a Disneyland stand-in, and equally difficult to decipher the purpose.
Are they calling out rampant consumerism, unsavory Disney memories such as Song of the South or none of the above? Whatever the answer, it only adds to the confusion found in the center ring of this misguided update.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7NiYVoqBt-8
Finished with Final Girls
by Hope Madden
I am done with the final girl.
You know why? Because it’s a diminishing title.
Laurie Strode, Ellen Ripley and Sidney Prescott were not final girls. They were heroes.
Laurie Strode, Ellen Ripley and Sidney Prescott were the point of view characters for their films, not random females we were surprised to see survive. Had any of these three perished, that would have been the surprise.
The phrase “final girl” suggests that, from a smorgasbord of victims, one female emerges victorious. How does she do it?
1. She is smarter than the rest and outwits the killer.
2. She is more virtuous than the rest, so fate is on her side.
3. She endures pain, grief, terror and hardship and comes out the other side a stronger person.
If those are not the steps in a hero’s quest, I don’t know what are. (No, seriously, I don’t know what the steps are in a hero’s quest. I should probably have looked it up, but still, I feel confident they’re similar.)
The characteristics of the final girl are simply the characteristics of the hero, and her perspective is the audience’s perspective.
She’s the lead.
To disregard this and assume that this would-be victim didn’t die because she holds in her bosom certain character traits is to actually belittle the character. John McClane outwitted terrorists, showed integrity and grit, and endured a ton of hardship in his bare feet. Is he not the hero?
What about Schwarzenegger in Predator? Not a lot of dudes made it out the other side of that one – does that make Arnold the Final Boy?
And how about Captain America? Smart, virtuous, endurance – hell, he’s probably even a virgin.
Are you here to tell me The Cap is not a hero?
So what’s the difference? Why label the badass who sends Pinhead back to hell nothing more than the last girl onscreen? Why does’t she get to be the hero? Hasn’t she proven herself? I’d like to see you try your luck with Pinhead.
I’m overgeneralizing, you think. Are there heroes who do not carry with them these vital characteristics, you wonder.
No. Those damaged, dangerous and layered leads are anti-heroes. Someday when the slutty Goth girl with a heroin jones is the last one standing, then the slasher will finally have its anti-hero. But for now, Jason and Pinhead and Leatherface and Michael Myers and all of them are undone by the hero.
Of course.
I Don’t Want to Go Out – Week of March 25
Whole bunch of yes and one very big no coming home this week. Allow us to walk you through your options.
Click the film title for the full review.
If Beale Street Could Talk
Capernaum
(DVD)
Dragged Across Concrete
Stan & Ollie
Aquaman
(DVD)
Second Act
Screening Room: Us, Gloria Bell, Dragged Across Concrete
Not a lot of waste in this week’s Screening Room! Whether theatrical releases or home entertainment, every film is a recommendation: Us, Gloria Bell, Dragged Across Pavement and more.
Listen to the full podcast HERE.
