Summer is the season for amusement parks, and in that spirit Disney rolls out the closest thing cinema has to a theme park ride – Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales.
Pros: New directors Joachim Rønning and Espen Sandberg (Kon Tiki) keep the pace tighter, the tale more seafaring and the visuals more interesting than in the last few (almost unendurable) installments.
Cons: Disney has brought the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise back.
The series began as a pretty enormous gamble, taking a popular Disneyland ride and turning it into a movie.
Brilliantly, this put the not-yet-self-indulgent talent of Gore Verbinski behind a camera, but let’s be honest, it was Johnny Depp’s Captain Jack Sparrow that made the film.
All swoozy and splishy, drunk and dodgy, hilariously rock and roll, Sparrow made all of us wish for the pirate’s life. It was fun. It was ingenious, even a bit subversive. It was nearly 15 years ago.
In the meantime, Cap’s adventures have taken on the stench of bloat.
By 2017, Depp is a has-been with a terrible drinking habit. Sure he’s still cute, but there’s something a tad pathetic about him and the consistently bad choices he makes.
As Jack Sparrow, I mean.
Obviously.
Geoffrey Rush returns as Barbosa – intriguing as always. He’s joined by Javier Bardem, arguably one of the three or four best actors working today, wasted here in an underwritten, toothless role. He plays about 2/3 of dead sea captain Salazar, blandly bent on revenge.
What – zombie pirates? Next you’ll tell me Jack’s about to be executed in a town square, or find himself stranded with crazies on a desert island. Or that there will be a pirate cameo from a classic rock star.
Oh, Paul McCartney…
The accursed Salazar wants Sparrow. Henry Turner (Brenton Thwaites) – son of Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) – wants Sparrow too, to help him find Poseidon’s Trident, which can break all the curses of the sea and save ol’ Dad.
Also there’s a young female love interest (Kaya Scodelario) – a woman of science mistaken by society as a witch. It’s a storyline that could have been interesting, I suppose, but Jeff Nathanson’s screenplay uses it to nod toward feminism while glimpsing a corset-pushed bosom.
Dead Men Tell No Tales (they do, by the way – tons of them) might seem to some an affectionate wrap up of a once-beloved and now tolerated family film series. Don’t believe it – Rønning and Sandberg are already tapped to direct Episode 6.
Can Poseidon’s Trident put an end to this franchise?
One special girl + a solitary, attentive, very cute boy + contrivance that keeps them apart = every single adolescent drama made in the last decade.
Director Stella Meghie can do that math. For Everything, Everything, she works from the YA novel by Nicola Yoon, adapted for the screen by the adequate emotional manipulator J. Mills Goodloe (Best of Me, The Age of Adaline).
The film updates that Boy in a Plastic Bubble TV movie John Travolta made back in the day, here with a perky adolescent girl named Maddy (Amandla Stenberg) whose rare immune deficiency keeps her locked away inside her sterile home.
Then Dreamboat Olly (Nick Robinson) moves in next door.
Meghie and her cast deserve credit because their film has a sweet if utterly artificial charm to it. The handful of fantasy sequences set inside Maddy’s architecture models are appealing, as is the awkward and innocent chemistry between the leads.
Not one human being on earth has ever been this wholesome and adorable, but as YA lit flicks go, it could be much worse.
Tragedy looms darkly over most young adult romances – like a watered down Nicolas Sparks movie. Maddy’s ailment keeps death always in the periphery, but the film zigs when you think it will zag.
Meghie keeps almost everything restrained, which is both the film’s blessing and curse. Too often in movies of this ilk, the drama becomes so soapy as to be intolerable. Maddy’s coming-of-age choices feel more self-empowering than love struck, and her easygoing, forgiving nature keeps the tone just this side of angsty.
Thank you.
On the other hand, when the narrative takes a bizarre – almost diabolical – turn, that laid back approach feels neutered. Real rage is called for. Police intervention. A good slap, anyway.
But Meghie doesn’t indulge our lust for drama, which would be admirable if her film weren’t so bland.
“Do you want to serve in heaven or reign in hell?”
That’s just one of the big, existential questions Alien: Covenant has on its mind, though there’s plenty of blood as well, for those who thought Prometheus was a bit too head-trippy.
Director Ridley Scott returns to the helm of the iconic franchise he started, proving the years have done little to erode his skills at crafting tension or delivering visceral thrills.
Covenant picks up roughly ten years after the events of Prometheus, and this many sequels in, its inevitable that the franchise would fall victim to formula: a crew, most of whom we get to know only through intercom banter, lands somewhere, picks up an alien (or several), tries to get it off the ship. Quarantine protocol is rarely followed. (It is there for a reason, people!) Folks die in a most unpleasant way.
When Scott made Alien back in ’79, he made a straight genre flick, working from a script by horror go-to Dan O’Bannon. It gave Scott a career, though he didn’t return to the horror game for more than another two decades.
Meanwhile, the franchise took the action path, devolving eventually into the modern day equivalent of Werewolf Versus the Mummy.
Scott redirected that ship in 2012 when he regained control of the series, throwing off any ugliness in the sequel universe by making a prequel – one less interested in monsters than in gods. Prometheus may have been a mixed bag, but if there’s one thing this franchise delivers, it’s a great synthetic. Hello, Michael Fassbender.
Fassbender returns in Scott’s latest, bloodiest Alien effort, and he’s a lunatic genius. Playing both David, the synthetic from Prometheus, and a newer model named Walter, Fassbender delivers weighty lines with tearful panache, becoming more colorful, layered and interesting than anything else onscreen.
Strange then, that his charismatic performance almost hurts the film.
Why? Because we’re here for the aliens!
Yes, it is tough to keep a good xenomorph fresh for eight episodes, and Scott gives it a shot with new alien forms that wade into Guillermo del Toro territory . But there are too many variations, the incubation and bursting process is too expedited, the sources are too numerous – basically, there’s too much going on here and it’s diluting the terror.
And it is terror Scott is going for. There’s more carnage in Covenant than in Scott’s previous two Alien films combined, but he hasn’t entirely thrown the existential crisis overboard. Suffice it to say that we’re lead to a crossroads where a dying species is “grasping for resurrection.”
Scott wants us to ponder those themes of death and creation while we’re running from bloodthirsty monsters. It’s not always a perfect fit, but Alien: Covenant combats the overreach with enough primal thrills to be satisfying.
Filmmaker David Lynch is nearly as enigmatic a cultural fixture as his films. Indeed, as is the case with most of his cinematic output, you might be tempted to assume that his own folksy exterior covers something dark and lurid.
The new documentary David Lynch: The Art Life does what it can to confirm that impression. While it hardly resolves anything in a concrete way, if Lynch’s art imitates the artist, then this film imitates both.
Co-directors Jon Nguyen, Rick Barnes and Olivia Neergaard-Holm recorded Lynch as he mused on childhood stories and the events that led him into the world of art and film. The audio is used to narrate footage – some recent, some archival – working together to illuminate the artist and his work. To a point.
Nguyen, who produced the doc Lynch about the making of the auteur’s 2006 film Inland Empire, has created another appropriately Lynchian film.
Once again there is a sweetness, almost innocence, about the filmmaker that feels wildly at odds with the darkness and macabre of the art we watch him create – and at the same time, seems fitting.
Much of the film is spent with Lynch in his studio as he molds, spreads and sculpts materials for art pieces. His artwork is far more immediately disturbing than his films, which tend to situate the horrifying inside a landscape of beauty. On canvas, the horror is right up front.
The work and process behind it give the film a wonderfully tactile quality and the team of directors frame and shoot the proceedings in a style Lynch himself would appreciate.
The doc takes us through Lynch’s artistically formative years and ends somewhat abruptly around the time of Eraserhead. The goal is not to document his life’s work, nor even to truly shed light on the conundrum of his particular artistry.
Instead it is a fascinating and beautifully filmed piece of what you might expect. You’ll find a lot of cigarette smoke and Coke bottles, unassuming odd-duckery and gruesome imagery.
But if you’re hoping for insight into what exactly inspires David Lynch’s fears, obsessions and grim work, be warned: The Art Life does more to continue the mystery than to solve it.
Next weekend we finally fit George’s Harley with a sissy bar. For me. The sissy.
So George is already planning our open road getaways. One option he’s suggested is the Easy Riders Rodeo.
We went several years ago, and I don’t recall that it went well enough to recommend a return visit.
Back when George was on a country station (in that time I now blissfully call the past), a listener learned that George was a licensed rider without a bike. This generous soul offered to lend George his own motorcycle, but there were strings.
George sprung their idea on me, saying Easy Riders was a big biker holiday kind of thing, and that the listener thought we might drive to his house, borrow his bike for the weekend, head out to Easy Riders on Saturday, and camp with him and his.
I adore strangers, country music and camping. I was totally in.
I said no.
If there is one thing I will not do for love or money, it is camp.
Eventually we compromised. We decided to borrow this generously offered loan, get the chance to ride a motorcycle on a beautiful late summer weekend, meet this man and his family, hang out for a few hours, try not to get killed, and then go home.
George mentioned our plans to attend the Easy Rider festival to our friend Richard, who responded with terror.
“You’re going there?” he queried, his face drained of color. “I’ve heard it gets pretty rough.”
My mind immediately flashed to that scene in the cinematic classic Pee-wee’s Big Adventure, with Harley dudes shouting, “I say we stomp him, then we tattoo him, then we hang him, and then we kill him!”
George was sure it wouldn’t be so bad. He could protect us with the Big Shoe Dance, if need be.
We got a little lost finding the event, somewhere in the Chillicothe area of southern OH, so we pulled into a gas station where several very hard looking couples on motorcycles were fueling up.
Thinking we were all headed in the same direction, George asked.
“Oh, no,” one grizzled, scary man answered, eyeballing me with a smirk. “That place gets a little wild for us.”
Oh, this sounded promising.
He wasn’t going, but he did direct us to the fairgrounds that would be scene to a sea of campsites and a midway with food, tattoo artists, vendors of assless leather goods – that kind of thing. Outstanding people watching.
We lined up with other incoming traffic, and as we moved slowly between the chain link fences outlining the fairgrounds, my eyes wandered to some of the officially posted signs.
They said things like
no in and out on a single ticket
no firearms
no below the waist nudity
I’m sorry, what?
That last sign was reposted about ever 50 feet or so.
Below the waist – should that level of specificity be necessary? And how comfortable are we with above the waist nudity?
Apparently, quite comfortable.
As my mind pondered what it could possibly mean that this crowd would need so many reminders to keep their junk covered, I saw the day’s first visual encounter with out-in-the-open intercourse, just the other side of the chain link fence.
Perhaps they’d forgotten about the holes in that specific type of fencing?
The balance of the afternoon went far more mildly. We enjoyed fun carny food, looked at some nice bikes, shared the company of the very friendly family and the man who’d lent us his ride, and basked in the beautiful weather.
Everyone was very polite. I wouldn’t quite call this my crowd, but who is, really? I must admit I was on the receiving end of an awful lot of weird smirks, but still, every person there was exceptionally nice, chatting pleasantly and passing out beers.
Then, at about 7pm, a parade of sorts hit the midway, and those interested in showing off their wares hopped on a bike and made the circuit.
By wares I mean breasts.
Every single female – young, old, matronly, overweight, mild mannered – every last one took her shirt off. Boobs ahoy.
Mardi Gras has nothing on Easy Riders.
You have never seen me run for an exit so fast.
So, I have found the one thing that freaks me out more than camping.
Horror has not always treated the mentally ill very well. Many filmmakers twist notions of “crazy” into varying degrees of evil, but rarely with any real thought to the pathology behind it.
Some films and filmmakers make an attempt to examine illness and mine it for both humanity and fear, since nearly all illnesses of any kind are marked by both. Here are our five (OK, maybe six) favorite films dealing in mental illness.
5. The Crazies (1973/2010)
We’re cheating here, but George Romero’s 1973 insanity plague flick offers much, as does its 2010 reboot by the otherwise useless Breck Eisner, so we’re combining.
Just three years after Night of the Living Dead, the master found himself interested in taking his zombiism concepts in a different direction. Two combat veterans are at the center of the film, in which a chemical weapon is accidentally leaked into the water supply to a Pennsylvania town. Those infected go helplessly mad. Military incompetence, the needless horror of Vietnam, and the evil that men can do when ordered to do so are all central conceits in this film.
Romero may not have always had the biggest budget, best actors, or best eye for composition, but his ideas were so far ahead of their time that modern horror would not exist in its current form without him. His ideas were not far-fetched, and they fed the imaginations of countless future filmmakers. You can see Romero’s ideas and images from this film repeated in 28 Days Later, Return of the living Dead, Signal, Cabin Fever, Super 8, even Rambo – and, obviously, in the remake.
Eisner’s version offers solid scares, inventive plotting, and far better performances than expected in a genre film. Both films begin by articulating humankind’s repulsion and fear of infection before introducing the greater threat – our own government. Eisner’s greatest strength is his cast. The eternally under-appreciated Timothy Olyphant and Radha Mitchell, unerringly realistic as husband and wife, carry most of the grisly weight, aided by solid support work from folks who are not afraid to be full-on nuts.
4. Split (2017)
A transfixing James McAvoy is Kevin, a deeply troubled man harboring 23 distinct personalities and some increasingly chilling behavior. When he kidnaps the teenaged Casey (The Witch‘s Anya Taylor-Joy) and her two friends (Haley Lu Richardson, Jessica Suva), the girls are faced with constantly changing identities as they desperately seek an escape from their disorienting confines.
Meanwhile, one of Kevin’s personalities is making emergency appointments with his longtime therapist (Betty Buckley, nice to see you), only to show up and assure the Dr. everything is fine. She thinks otherwise, and she is right.
The split personality trope has been used to eye-rolling effect in enough films to be the perfect device for Shyamalan’s clever rope-a-dope. By often splitting the frame with intentional set designs and camera angles, or by letting full face close-ups linger one extra beat, he reinforces the psychological creepiness without any excess bloodshed that would have soiled a PG-13 rating.
Still, it all might have gone for naught without McAvoy, who manages to make Kevin a sympathetic character while deftly dancing between identities, often in the same take. He’s a wonder to watch, and the solid support from Buckley and Taylor-Joy help keep the tension simmering through speedbumps in pacing and questionable flashbacks to Casey’s childhood.
3. The Voices (2014)
Director Marjane Satrapi’s follow up to her brilliant animated Persepolis is a sweet, moving, very black comedy about why medicine is not always the best medicine.
Ryan Reynolds is Jerry. And Mr. Whiskers. And Bosco. Which is appropriate, because all three characters are all the same, too. Jerry hears voices. They are the voices of his pets a kindly dog (Bosco) and an evil cat (Mr. Whiskers).
As Jerry sees it, his house is a cool pad above a nifty bowling alley, his job is the best, his co-workers really like him, and his positive disposition makes it easy for him to get along. Bosco agrees.
But Mr. Whiskers thinks Jerry is a cold blooded killer, and though Mr. Whiskers is OK with that, Jerry doesn’t want to believe it. So he should definitely not take his pills.
An outstanding cast including Anna Kendrick, Jacki Weaver and Gemma Arterton join Reynolds in a really touching film that looks sideways at mental illness. While the film certainly find reason to fear the outsider, it’s also surprisingly sympathetic to his plight.
2. They Look Like People (2015)
Christian (Evan Dumouchel) is killing it. He’s benching 250 now, looks mussed but handsome as he excels at work, and he’s even gotten up the nerve to ask out his smokin’ hot boss. On his way home from work to change for that date he runs into his best friend from childhood, Wyatt (MacLeod Andrews), who’s looking a little worse for wear. Christian doesn’t care. With just a second’s reluctance, Christian invites him in – to his apartment, his date, and his life.
But there is something seriously wrong with Wyatt.
Writer/director Perry Blackshear’s film nimbly treads the same ground as the wonderful Frailty and the damn near perfect Take Shelter in that he uses sympathetic characters and realistic situations to blur the line between mental illness and the supernatural.
Wyatt believes there is a coming demonic war and he’s gone to rescue his one true friend. Andrews is sweetly convincing as the shell shocked young man unsure as to whether his head is full of bad wiring, or whether his ex-fiance has demon fever.
The real star here, though, is Dumouchel, whose character arc shames you for your immediate assessment. Blackshear examines love – true, lifelong friendship – in a way that has maybe never been explored as authentically in a horror film before. It’s this genuineness, this abiding tenderness Christian and Wyatt have for each other, that makes the film so moving and, simultaneously, so deeply scary.
1. Psycho (1960)
Was Norman Bates psychotic from the start? Or was he smothered into madness by his mother?
Hard to say – Mrs. Bates can’t speak for herself, can she? Although Norman’s mother is not a character in Hitchcock’s classic, her presence is everywhere. But to be fair, we don’t get to see her as she was, we only get to see her as Norman sees her.
Whatever the case, Norman has an unhealthy attachment to his late mother, a single parent whose relationship with her son may have driven him to some very bad deeds. Part of Hitchcock’s skill in this film is to play with our expectations of the characters.
The heroine has done some questionable things. The villain is the most sympathetic character onscreen. The most relevant character in the story isn’t even in the film. Was Mrs. Bates really a bad mom, or does she just seem like that to us because we see her through Norman’s eyes, and he’s a psycho?
Who’s idea was this? Because this was super fun. Horror filmmaker can get positively inspired by what they find in a tool box or garden shed.
But where to even start? Every Friday the 13th movie, every Sleepaway Camp – basically, every camping movie.
Plus, some films really give it away with their title: Driller Killer, Toolbox Murders (both), Saw (all of them), The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (all of them).
It’s a good beginning. To narrow down the list of best horror scenes using tools, we started by categorizing. Here’s what we came up with.
5. Saws: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)
Saws are big in horror. Lots to choose from:
Pieces (1982) – a lot of chainsaw action here, but the girl in the bathroom is the best/worst
Tucker & Dale Versus Evil (2010) – bees and chainsaws! Hooray!
Evil Dead reboot (2013) – after Mia tears her own hand off, she tears into Evil Mia’s head with a chainsaw
Evil Dead 2 (1987) – Ash puts Linda’s head in a vice, then accidentally knocks a chainsaw into her re-animated body
Winner: Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)
– You hated Franklin, admit it. You should probably feel bad about that, but the point is that he is the only one who actually takes the chainsaw in TCM.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTlDmehDmsQ
4. Drill: The Loved Ones (2009)
Again, a power drill is an excellent go-to for onscreen carnage. It’s like being at the dentist, only far bloodier. Several films made great use of it.
Driller Killer (1979) – basically every death scene
Body Double (1984) – our favorite scene here: Jake runs across to save the woman he’s been peeping on, and gets there in time to see the drill come through the ceiling above him, then all the blood
Winner: The Loved Ones (2009)
Bonus – also nails!
Lola (Robin McLeavy) and her dad make some effective use of several household items, but it’s the moving father/daughter bonding over the power drill that really makes an impression.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hakZ4o5FPA
3. Hammer and Nail Family: Misery (1990)
A lot to work with here! Crucifixions, genetical spiking, Home Alone style shenanigans.
Evil Dead (2013) – nail gun to the face!
Serpent and the Rainbow (1988) – a serious nightmare scenario
You’re Next (2011) – underestimated Erin knows how to make use of all kinds of household wares, including that jug of nails she finds in the basement
Winner: Misery (1990)
Yes, it’s a mallet, but that’s in the hammer family, and no scene made 1990 movie audiences more uncomfortable than this. Poor James Caan. You know he’ll badass his way out of this situation at some point – but homey ol’ Annie (the BRILLIANT Kathy Bates) will have her way for a while.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Zzg3UP-x8k
2. Lawnmowers: Dead Alive (1992)
Fewer options here, and most of them goofy.
Dr. Shock’s Tales of Terror (2003) – Here’s an obscure one, and not a great film. But, in one of the shorts (Garden Tool Murders), someone’s buried to their neck has their head’s run over with a lawnmower.
Friday the 13th VII: The New Blood (1988) – Yes, it’s a weed whacker. Close enough.
Winner: Dead Alive (1992)
This is the scene that made us realize we needed this countdown. Not just because it is an utterly inspired piece of splatter gore, but because it’s really the turning point for poor, sweet, milquetoast-y Lional Cosgrove.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RC1d7dw24Gg
1. Scissors/Shears: Antichrist (2009)
Toughest choices here. So many outstanding possibilities!
The Burning (1981) & Friday 13th: The Final Chapter (1984) use gardening shears, but it’s your ordinary house scissors that do the most inspired damage.
May (2002) – sweet May’s first kill is an impressive piece of action with her sewing scissors
Felt (2014) – that puppet making is all leading somewhere…
Oldboy (2003) – if you haven’t seen this, we don’t want to ruin it. Suffice it to say, Dae-su wants to make sure he never says.
Inside (2007) – Oh, what Beatrice Dalle can do with a pair of scissors. They’re used repeatedly and really well.
Winner: Antichrist (2009)
If you haven’t seen Lars von Trier’s one all out horror show or the scene in question, we’re not going to tell. We’re not going to show you, either. We want you to be as effected by the act as MaddWolf writer Christie Robb was. We lent her the screener and she watched it while she was on a treadmill. She fell off and did herself an injury.
Not as bad as the injury in the film though, thank God.
Right, Guy Ritchie’s medieval-ish sorcery fable King Arthur: Legend of the Sword is bad.
But how bad is it?
Or more to the point, how Guy Ritchie is it?
The filmmaker mixes his trademark hypothetical-scenarios, quick-cut montages and period anachronisms with video game quality CGI, and it’s hard to decide which approach is more ill-suited to the material.
Or is the bigger issue the fact that this story – among the oldest, simplest, most re-told in the history of the English language – is befuddled beyond recognition once Ritchie and his team of co-writers have their way with it?
The film opens appealingly enough: King Uther (Eric Bana) hands his crown to his brother Vortigern (Jude Law) to hold while he single-swordedly defeats the villainous wizard Mordred – who controls super colossal elephant beasts with his mind!
This makes Jude Law’s nose bleed, so we know something’s up. Next thing you know, there are hungry sea-serpent siren things, Uther’s attacked, and little bitty Arthur finds himself floating Moses-like toward Londinium and the waiting arms of some golden-hearted prostitutes.
Flash forward through the first of several watch-him-become-a-man montages and Charlie Hunnam appears. Street savvy, tough, flippant and boasting what can only be the work of the most stylish barber in all of Londinium, he runs afoul of the king and accidentally pulls Excalibur from its stone. He’d just as soon put it back.
He’s reluctant! He doesn’t want all this! He’s just a regular guy – who looks like super-cut Charlie Hunnam and says things like “ya big, silly, posh bastard.”
And if you think he seems out of place in about-to-be-Arthurian England, check out Jude Law and his leather blazer and matching skinny jeans.
But what did you expect – that he wouldn’t Guy Ritchie this thing? It’s Game of Thrones meets Sherlock Holmes (the Ritchie version). And that wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing.
The Arthurian legend can be a stiff slog, and a little shot of style could enliven things. Unfortunately, Ritchie buries every stylistic choice he makes under charmless and pace-deadening CGI.
Years ago, we took the family tour of Orlando theme parks. Much to the chagrin of my son and me, my husband, George, declared this the vacation to volunteer. Every attraction in need of a villain to shoot Indiana Jones or a handsome prince to dance with the princess, George was their man.
I’m not a volunteer by nature. I like to mind my business in the stands and enjoy the show. Not that it actually matters to George. You see, at Nickelodeon Studios, when the emcee announced he was looking for “some brave soul to volunteer,” George’s hand shot up.
Then the emcee finished his sentence with the words “their spouse.”
Wait a minute, what?
I’d been volunteered.
They dressed us like giant beavers, or more specifically, like the “Angry Beavers” in the Nick cartoon. I swear to God. I wore a beaver head and tail and my team battled a squad led by a similarly, ridiculously clad George in building a dam using giant Lincoln Logs.
My team won. George remembers it differently.
What brings this memory back? George volunteered me again.
This time it was during a Columbus Clippers baseball game.
Barely into the first inning, as George and I were trying to tune out the annoying banter from the teenage date going on behind us, a representative from the Clippers’ promotion team approached me to enter a contest.
They needed three participants with long hair.
Move along, sir. This is not for me.
But George was so excited!
“What would she do?” he asked.
“She’d just need to pull her hair up into a hat, and then take the hat off,” he explained.
“You could do that!” George encouraged.
“I don’t want to do that.” I thought I’d been clear.
He pursued the issue. “What would she win?”
“A bottle of Pert,” explained the Clippers guy.
A bottle of Pert.
“Come on!” George urged. “We’re low on shampoo!”
George often persuades me to do things I don’t want to do just because of his giddy enthusiasm. But I also felt a little sorry for the Clippers guy who had to try to lure contestants to look like idiots, all for a $4 toiletry item.
Plus, George was right. We were low on shampoo.
I caved.
The staff was lovely. They even moved us to seats directly behind the dugout – despite the fact that George had just finished directing his loudness at the chatterbox teens, “I’ll buy you the damn lemonade if you’ll just stop talking!”
As we waited for the fourth inning, when the Clippers rep would return to lead me and two other contestants to the field, George coached me on how to make the most of my time in the spotlight.
He urged me to do my impersonation of Cousin It.
Sometimes, I’ll pull all my hair in front of my face and put a pair of sunglasses on top, transforming into the old “Addams Family” character. It’s a big hit with kids. It’s nothing I’m willing to do in front of several thousand people, however.
Eventually, the time came and I headed onto the field to face my fate. As they fetched me from our new seats, George shouted: “Do the Cousin It!”
And then he said, “Show no mercy! Don’t stop with shampoo. Hold out for the creme rinse!”
“It’s called conditioner, George,” I shot back. “We’ve talked about this!”
“C’mon, stay focused! Eye of the tiger!”
I ignored him, fearing a complete medley of 1980s “jock jams” was next.
As I walked to the holding area, I met the other contestants: Barbara, a cute blonde with her wee grandson in tow, and Mark, a sweet mountain of a man. Mark had more beard than I have hair, and on his head was a glorious mane: long, thick, shining, dense, gray and spectacular. I had no chance.
Clippers fans would vote by applause for their favorite contestant: Grizzly Adams, an adorable grandma with a cute kid or some lady who did not do the Cousin It.
We are halfway through 2017 already – whew! It’s been a sucktastic year in many respects, but not when it comes to horror movie output. The young year has already seen so many great flicks that we had to leave some real gems off this list, but we’re pleased to say that Senior Filmmaking Correspondent Jason Tostevin returns to keep us honest.
5. The Girl with All the Gifts
It is the top of the food chain that has the most reason to fear evolution.
Isn’t that the abiding tension in monster and superhero movie alike? The Girl with All the Gifts explores it thoughtfully and elegantly – for a zombie movie.
So, what’s the deal? A horde of “hungries,” each infected with a plant-based virus, has long since overrun the human population. Dr. Caldwell (Glenn Close), her researchers and the military are holed up while trying to derive a cure from the next generation, like Melanie (Sennia Nanua) – the offspring of those infected during pregnancy.
But much of the film’s success sits on Nanua’s narrow shoulders, and she owns it. The role requires a level of emotional nimbleness, naiveté edged with survival instinct, and command. She has that and more.
Cirector Colm McCarthy showcases his bounty of talent in a film that knows its roots but embraces the natural evolution of the genre. It’s not easy to make a zombie film that says something different.
But what Girl has to say is both surprising and inevitable.
And she says it really, really well.
4. The Blackcoat’s Daughter
Winter break approaches at a Catholic New England boarding school. Snow piles up outside, the buildings empty, yet Kat (Kiernan Shipka) and Rose (Lucy Boynton) remain. One has tricked her parents for an extra day with her townie boyfriend. One remains under more mysterious circumstances.
Things in writer/director Oz Perkins’s The Blackcoat’s Daughter quietly unravel from there – although quiet is not precisely the word for it. There is a stillness to the chilly, empty halls. But thanks to the filmmaker’s brother Elvis, whose disquieting score fills these empty spaces with buzzing, whispering white noise, a sinister atmosphere is born.
Perkins repays your patience and your attention. You can expect few jump scares, but this is not exactly a slow-burn of a film, either.
It behaves almost in the way a picture book does. In a good picture book, the words tell only half the story. The illustrations don’t simply mirror the text, they tell their own story as well. If there is one particular and specific talent Blackcoat’s Daughter exposes in its director, it is his ability with a visual storyline.
Pay attention when you watch this one. There are loads of sinister little clues to find.
3. Hounds of Love
Driven by a fiercely invested and touchingly deranged performance from Emma Booth, Hounds of Love makes a subtle shift from horrific torture tale to psychological character study. In 108 grueling minutes, writer/director Ben Young’s feature debut marks him as a filmmaker with confident vision and exciting potential.
It is the late 1980s in Perth, Australia, and at least one young girl has already gone missing when the grounded Vicki (Ashleigh Cummings) sneaks out her bedroom window to attend a party. This isn’t nearly as dumb a move as is accepting a ride from Evie White (Booth) and her husband John (Stephen Curry).
As the couple dance seductively and drink to celebrate, Young disturbingly conveys the weight of Vicki’s panicked realization that she is now their captive. It is just one in a series of moments where Young flexes impressive chops for visual storytelling, utilizing slo-motion, freeze frame, patient panning shots and carefully chosen soundtrack music to set the mood and advance the dreadful narrative without a spoken word.
And then, just when you might suspect his film to wallow in the grisly nature of the Whites’ plan for Vicki, Young turns to dialog sharp enough to upend your expectations, and three vivid characters are crafted in the suffocating dread of the White’s neighborhood home.
No doubt, events get brutal, but never without reminders that Young is a craftsman. Subtle additions, such as airplanes flying freely overhead to contrast with Vicki’s captivity, give Hounds of Love a steady dose of smarts, even as it’s shaking your core.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNEurXzvHqE
2. Raw
What you’ll find in writer/director Julia Ducournau’s notorious feature debut is a thoughtful coming of age tale.
And meat.
Justine (Garance Marillier, impressive) is off to join her older sister (Ella Rumpf) at veterinary school – the very same school where their parents met. Justine may be a bit sheltered, a bit prudish to settle in immediately, but surely with her sister’s help, she’ll be fine.
Ducournau has her cagey way with the same themes that populate any coming-of-age story – pressure to conform, peer pressure generally, societal order and sexual hysteria. Here all take on a sly, macabre humor that’s both refreshing and unsettling.
In a very obvious way, Raw is a metaphor for what can and often does happen to a sheltered girl when she leaves home for college. But as Ducournau looks at those excesses committed on the cusp of adulthood, she creates opportunities to explore and comment on so many upsetting realities, and does so with absolute fidelity to her core metaphor.
She immediately joins the ranks of Jennifer Kent (Babadook) and Ana Lily Amirpour (A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night) – all recent, first time horror filmmakers whose premier features predict boundless talent.
1. Get Out
Opening with a brilliant prologue that wraps a nice vibe of homage around the cold realities of “walking while black,” writer/director Jordan Peele uses tension, humor and a few solid frights to call out blatant prejudice, casual racism and cultural appropriation.
When white Rose (Alison Williams) takes her black boyfriend Chris (Daniel Kaluuya) home to meet the fam, she assures him race will not be a problem. How can she be sure? Because her Dad (Bradley Whitford) would have voted for Obama’s third term “if he could.” It’s the first of many B.S. alerts for Peele, and they only get more satisfying.
Rose’s family is overly polite at first, but then mom Missy (Catherine Keener) starts acting evasive and brother Jeremy (Caleb Landry Jones) gets a bit threatening, while the gardener and the maid (both black – whaaat?) appear straight outta Stepford.
Peele is clearly a horror fan, and he gives knowing winks to many genre cliches (the jump scare, the dream) while anchoring his entire film in the upending of the “final girl.” This isn’t a young white coed trying to solve a mystery and save herself, it’s a young man of color, challenging the audience to enjoy the ride but understand why switching these roles in a horror film is a social critique in itself.
Get Out is an audacious first feature for Jordan Peele, a film that never stops entertaining as it consistently pays off the bets it is unafraid to make.
