Every year or so there’s a film that simply should not work, but does. Machete. Kick-Ass. Hot Tub Time Machine. And every year or so, Hollywood leeches what it can from the fresh, silly, undemanding body of that film with a lifeless and inexplicably mean-spirited sequel. I give you: Hot Tub Time Machine 2.
Lou (Rob Corddry) turned his miserable life around at that ski resort in 2010/1986. Or not. Turns out, Lou is still a big problem in that he’s a toxic asshole, so someone shoots him and it’s up to his remaining friends (Craig Robinson, Clark Duke – John Cusack is noticeably, wisely absent) to fire up the hot tub and stop the murder before it happens.
The fact that the hot tub sends them to the future hardly matters in this lazily scripted semen joke of a film.
Gone entirely, along with Cusack, are the charm and good nature of the original, the light heartedness that offset the darker edges and made the toilet humor and sex jokes almost endearing. It was a nostalgiafest, complete with “I want my two dollars!” shouted at John Cusack from a ski slope. Priceless.
With no such built in fondness for 2025, and Corddry in the lead, the sequel is just a smattering of self-referential gags held together with homophobia and misogyny.
Corddry is a magnificent, unseemly talent, but he’s not a lead. With Lou in the center of the film, rather than the charming, curmudgeonly everyman of Cusack, the movie substitutes an anchor for flailing misanthropy. That’s hard to build on.
The lack of a lead is one of the film’s larger concerns. Corddry, returning time-tripper Craig Robinson, and new 4th wheel Adam Scott are all comic talents, but also all side characters.
With Steve Pink returning to direct another script from Josh Heald, you might think lightning could strike twice, right? No. Let’s be honest, no one thought this film would be any good. We’re all still stunned that the lightweight goofiness of the original was as entertaining as it was. Who knows how that worked, but whatever ingenious, low-brow magic put Crispin Glover (two arms or one) at that ski lodge, it’s missing from the sequel.
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 has been lovingly reanimated by Spike Lee.
Da Sweet Blood of Jesus follows wealthy academic Dr. Hess Green (Stephen Tyrone Williams) through a very life-altering couple of weeks.
As in G&H, Hess suffers an addition to blood after being attacked with one of the ancient African artifacts he collects. He soon falls for his attacker’s brassy ex-wife Ganja (Zaraah Abrahams).
Though Lee’s film is nearly a shot for shot remake of Gunn’s, he wisely cuts and tweaks certain scenes to effectively update themes and improve pacing.
Vampire tales are always metaphorical, and Lee certainly keeps with this tradition. While Gunn’s original used the traditional vampire movie tropes to examine the era’s racial and cultural tensions, Lee’s film grounds the same examination with more modern concerns.
The object of Gunn’s wrath was, among other things, the cultural imperialism of the white majority. Lee puts this on the back burner in favor of more parasitic epidemics. Lee likens the spread of vampirism to irresponsible sex, leaving its own form of neglected children and disease in its wake.
Lee’s version also has a little more sly fun with race relations, injecting the picture with welcome comic relief now and again. Rami Malek, for instance, is an understated hoot as Hess’s uptight, formal butler.
Lee has less luck with the rest of his cast, though.
Gunn’s titular characters – Duane Jones (Night of the Living Dead) and the stunning Marlene Clark – were charismatic romantic leads. Abrahamson has all the swagger but none of the smolder, while Williams lacks the passion and gravitas Jones wielded so naturally.
Williams is the larger problem. The film opens with breathtaking footage of the actor dancing across NYC – his fluidity and grace are gorgeous. His acting, on the other hand, is as rigid and unbreathing as anything you’ll ever see.
There are also simple storyline problems that Lee neglected to address, and without the compelling romantic relationship to distract you, they are more glaring now than they were in ’73.
It’s not Lee’s first or worst misstep with a remake, and Sweet Blood certainly holds up better than his 2013 remake debacle of Chan-wook Park’s classic Oldboy. That film may have suffered from Hollywood entanglements, a problem Lee sidestepped this time around by crowd funding. But his limited budget likely led to actors who were not quite up to the task.
Valentine’s Day came and went, but we are still in a romantic mood. Why not celebrate those great, doomed romances so often found in horror? Surely, The Bride of Frankenstein may be the all-time best, but we wanted to share some of our lesser-appreciated favorites, beginning with one of the very best horror films of the last decade.
The Loved Ones (2009)
Brent (Xavier Samuel) is dealing with guilt and tragedy in his own way, and his girlfriend Holly tries to be patient with him. Oblivious to all this, Lola (a gloriously wrong-minded Robin McLeavy) asks Brent to the school dance. He politely declines, which proves to be probably a poor decision.
The Loved Ones is a cleverly written, unique piece of filmmaking that benefits from McLeavy’s inspired performance as much as it does its filmmaker Sean Byrne’s sly handling of subject matter. It’s a wild, violent, depraved to spend 84 minutes. You should do so now.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olB5Wrg8Sxc
Thirst (2009)
Leave it to the great Chan-wook Park (Oldboy) to think of turning the Postman Always Rings Twice storyline into a vampire tale. Thirst would be a weird movie regardless, but the steamy/guilty romantic entanglements with an ailing friend’s young wife take on a peculiar tone when the other man is not just a vampire, but a former priest to boot.
Father Sang-hyeon (Kang-ho Song) volunteers for a medical experiment, but instead of a cure the procedure creates vampirism. The poor guy’s barely wrapped his head around his new drinking problem before he falls for his buddy’s scheming wife. Park’s visuals are a sumptuous wonder, and his romantic bloodletting is as curiously humorous as it is creepy.
May (2002)
Few horror films are as touching, funny, heartbreaking or bloody as May. Lucky McKee’s 2002 breakout is a showcase for his own talent as both writer and director, as well as his gift for casting. As the title character, Angela Bettis inhabits this painfully gawky, socially awkward wallflower with utter perfection. McKee’s screenplay is as darkly funny as it is genuinely touching, and we’re given the opportunity to care about all the characters: fragile May, laid back love interest Adam (a faultless Jeremy Sisto), hot and horny Polly (a wonderful Anna Faris).
McKee’s film pulls no punches, mining awkward moments until they’re almost unendurable and spilling plenty of blood when the time is right. He deftly leads us from the sunny “anything could happen” first act through a darker, edgier coming of age middle, and finally to a carnage laden climax that feels sad, satisfying and somehow inevitable.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=es0HnQqCqg0
The Signal (2007)
A transmission – a hypnotic frequency – broadcasting over TV, cell and landline telephones has driven the good folks of the city of Terminus crazy. David Bruckner, Dan Bush and Jacob Gentry created a film in three segments, or transmissions. Transmission 1 introduces our lover heroes as well as the chaos. Can Mya and Ben remain sane, reunite and outrun the insanity? Transmission 2 takes a deeply, darkly funny turn as we pick up on the illogical logic of a houseful of folks believing themselves not to have “the crazy.” The final transmission brings us full circle.
The movie capitalizes on the audience’s inability to know for certain who’s OK and who’s dangerous. Here’s what we do know, thanks to THE SIGNAL: duct tape is a powerful tool, bug spray is lethal, and crazy people can sure take a beating.
Hellraiser
Here’s an alternative to Fifty Shades of Grey. Clive Barker’s feature directing debut worked not only as a grisly splatterfest, but also as a welcome shift from the rash of teen slasher movies that followed the success of Halloween. Barker was exploring more adult, decidedly kinkier fare, and Hellraiser is steeped in themes of S&M and the relationship between pleasure and pain.
Hedonist Frank Cotton solves an ancient puzzle box, which summons the fearsome Cenobites, who literally tear Frank apart and leave his remains rotting in the floorboards of an old house. A gash on brother Larry’s leg spills blood on the floor, which awakens the remains of Frank, who then requires more blood to complete his escape from the underworld. Larry’s wife (and Frank’s lover) Julia, both repulsed and aroused by her old flame’s half-alive form, agrees to make sure more blood is soon spilled.
Matthew Vaughn and Jane Goldman work well together. The writing/directing team produced two new era superhero movies – Kick-Ass and X-Men: First Class – and now they want to create a new kind of spy movie with Kingsman: The Secret Service.
Based on comics by Mark Millar and Dave Gibbons, their screenplay hips up the old Bond-style gentlemen agent when Code Name: Galahad (a very fit Colin Firth) introduces a talented street kid to the world of espionage.
Eggsy (Taron Egerton) is Galahad’s candidate to join the Kingsmen – a nation-agnostic spy organization as old and as prim as they come. If Eggsy makes it through training and beats the other candidates, he will take his place alongside Galahad as the group’s newest member, Code Name: Lancelot.
Unless, that is, some lisping billionaire (Samuel L. Jackson) takes his super villain role too seriously and ends the world before training is over.
Firth is a charmer and a joy in the mentor role, and though Jackson’s lisp comes and goes, he makes for a fun villain and his odd-couple onscreen chemistry with Firth is priceless. Egerton, who shoulders much of the film, is an effortlessly likeable presence.
But Vaughn is the star of this film. Kingsmen is often vulgar and crass but always fun and sometimes shockingly funny. The whole affair feels a tad like a British version of Kick-Ass: lovable loser turned unexpected hero, affectionate nods to cinematic forebears, brash new ideas taking familiar genre tropes in excitedly sloppy new directions. Aaah, the refreshing chaos of youth.
The comic timing is fresh and the action sequences are a blast There’s one scene in particular of hillbilly church service carnage set to Skynyrd’s redneck classic Free Bird that is magnificent.
Not every joke lands well. Some fly off in crass directions, but none more than the Bond-esque romantic entanglement that finishes the film. It starts off a saucy little homage, turns questionably but forgivably rank, then, quite unfortunately takes that ugly joke two steps further. Maybe you always thought Bond has too much respect for women? This is not that film, bro.
But, you know, leave after that last bit with Jackson and this movie is really good!
Unless something goes terribly amiss Julianne Moore will finally win an Oscar this year, and that’s simply good news. She probably should have won one for Savage Grace, Magnolia, Boogie Nights, Far From Heaven, Safe and maybe half a dozen other films. Moore is among the most versatile and talented performers of her generation, and Still Alice represents that talent well. Too bad it’s just not that great a film.
Moore plays Alice Howland, a psychology professor at Columbia University who suffers from early onset Alzheimer’s.
Perhaps the best film on Alzheimer’s is Michael Haneke’s brilliant and devastating Amour, a breathtaking journey into one couple’s struggle with the disease. By comparison, Still Alice feels under developed and tidy, particularly as the disease affects the minor characters in the piece. Alec Baldwin, in particular, is hamstrung with an underwritten role as Alice’s husband. Only Kristin Stewart manages to uncover a real character arc as Alice’s daughter, much thanks to an intriguing chemistry with Moore.
The film too often feels like a made for television tragedy, with the only really interesting choice being the decision to make the victim of the disease the point of view character. In Amour as well as Away From Her and other films treading similar ground, our vehicle into the medical tragedy is a loved one. Still Alice wants to give us the first hand sense of what it is like to watch yourself disappear.
It’s a risky choice, but thanks to Moore’s impeccable, understated handling of the role, Still Alice avoids a maudlin, self-congratulatory or sentimental fate. She’s more than up to the challenge.
Moore establishes a character that is more than the irony and heart tugging on the page. Characteristically nuanced and honest, it’s a performance that makes up for many of the weaknesses in the rest of the film.
Moore’s understatement keeps the film from melodrama, but unfortunately, everything else about the movie needed a bit more drama. It’s a superficial tale with contrived bits of tension that end in uninspired resolutions. The lack of insight into the marriage itself is probably the film’s most noticeable failing, but aside from Moore’s ability to show us how the disease ravages a once sharp mind, we don’t get to know Alice – her relationships, her past, her passions – well enough to really understand what she’s losing.
Match opens on a ballet instructor – smilingly supportive yet rigorous, the kind of mentor with a joy for teaching that inspires. He is Tobi, an aging Julliard ballet instructor played with confidence and enthusiasm by the wonderful Patrick Stewart.
Director Stephen Belber adapts his own Broadway play for the screen, and though Frank Langella originated the role on stage, it feels custom made for Stewart.
Tobi craves his solitude, yet he’s agreed to meet with Lisa (Carla Gugino), who, with her husband Mike (Matthew Lillard) in tow, wants to interview Tobi for her dissertation on classical dance choreography.
Like the Richard Linklater film Tape, also penned by Belber from his own stage play, Match is a three-way dialog about the effects of the past. But where Tape was a grim exercise in regret, Match pairs regret with celebration, and the entire effort is buoyed by Stewart’s nervous showman’s energy.
Gugina and Lillard are solid as well, she conveying the depths of tenderness and heartbreak with an expression, and he capably animating his character’s pain and its protective layer of anger. Their chemistry with the lead, particularly in more intimate, one-on-one scenes, packs a punch. But the show belongs to Stewart.
Tobi is a character, not a type, and Stewart so fully inhabits this fascinating, multi-dimensional man that the actor ceases to exist.
Belber’s casting is spot on, and his dialog is sharp and insightful. How could Stewart do anything but soar with such magnificent lines? But the film feels trapped, confined. Belber is rarely able to open up, take advantage of the opportunities cinema offers that the stage cannot. His film feels like a play.
And though the second act, surprisingly fresh and raw as Lisa and Tobi get to know each other, is very strong, the entire effort feels just slightly stale, a bit contrived, and inevitably predictable.
Still, it’s a lovely film about chance, consequences, choice. If nothing else, it’s a magnificent showcase for an underappreciated talent.
A dozen years after the world defeated an alien invasion, sending their mother ship back to the heavens in retreat, a handful of surviving aliens – “heavies” – are still holed up here and there around the world. The global military force established outposts to eliminate the remainders. We journey with a documentary crew – Oh, God, another found footage movie about aliens? Seriously? How many low budget found footage genre films must we endure?
Sorry. The documentarians of Alien Outpost embed with three reinforcements sent to Outpost 37, sandwiched between Afghanistan and Pakistan. And though inter-human combat ceased when the aliens arrived more than a decade ago, the locals are suddenly armed and skittish. What gives?
It’s a recipe for disaster, truth be told, and I don’t just mean for the documentarians. But truth be told, director/co-writer Jabbar Raisani knows how to make the most of his tight budget.
No, there is no integrity to the found footage angle, but he doesn’t draw enough attention to the gimmick to make it unbearable. He spent some cash on a helicopter sequence and a handful of explosions and made up for it with low rent sets, cinematography, and unknown actors. The verite style of the faux-documentary helps obscure some of the weaker sets, and the storytelling gives fresh enough twists to genre clichés to keep you from nodding off.
The film’s real spark comes by way of Raisani’s background in FX. The aliens on the ground are impressive and the battle carnage is believable.
While none of the acting is worth a note home, none of it embarrasses anybody, either.
Alien Outpost won’t leave you breathless, but Raisani invests well, pouring attention and cash in the right places, keeping the pace and story tight, and getting us in and out before we lose interest. As low budget, independent genre filmmaking goes, this is as solid as they come.
J. C. Chandor knows what he wants to say. He knows the content, the concepts, and the situations, and while you may not, do not expect to be spoon fed. His 2011 debut Margin Call wasted no time getting audiences up to speed on Wall Street’s inner workings, nor did Chandor preface last year’s All Is Lost with a tutorial on yachting. Chandor believes you are wise enough to keep up, which is a daunting but wonderful change of pace.
Like the filmmaker’s previous work, A Most Violent Year drops you in the center of an episode in progress, and while you may know little of the crime in New York City in 1981, and less still about the fuel business, Chandor hopes you’ll push all that aside to take in the kind of period drama we haven’t seen since Sidney Lumet.
Oscar Isaac plays handsome, proud, honorable man Abel Morales, who bought his father-in-law’s heating oil business and is brokering a deal that will allow him to break free from that shadow and control his own fate – if he can complete the payment in 30 days.
Meanwhile, a gunman’s been prowling his property, hijackers are taking his trucks, his terrified drivers want to arm themselves illegally, and the DA promises coming indictments.
A Most Violent Year is a film about the merits versus moral compromise of the American Dream, and Chandor’s slow boil of a film keeps you on edge for a full 125 minutes because there is absolutely no guessing what is coming next.
Isaac and Jessica Chastain, playing his wife Anna, are measured perfection – an impeccable, in-control Abel balanced by a volatile Anna. They become a force, survivors who check and balance each other. Their chemistry is amazing. Co-stars David Oyelowo and Albert Brooks are also excellent.
The film is satisfyingly untidy – a fact that makes it unpredictable and genuinely life-like. No flashbacks remind you of one legacy or explain another character’s behavior because that doesn’t happen in life, either. People are as they are, situations complicate and unravel, marriages take shape and morph in to something else.
It’s also a piece of atmospheric perfection, a provocatively gritty and realistic image of NYC in 1981. As much authenticity as you’ll find in Chandor’s screenplay, his wide shots, subway graffiti, lighting and wardrobe complete the picture. It’s just another reason you feel as if you’re watching an old Sidney Lumet film, and wishing there were more filmmakers willing to make a location and point in time as grand a character as anyone in the ensemble.
A woman wakes from a nap due to a phone call. She’s baking for the kids. It seems like a lovely way to spend your afternoon, really, drowsy and surrounded by the smell of baked goods. So why does Sandra (Oscar-nominated Marion Cotillard) sound defensive about the nap and too enthusiastic about the treats with whoever is on the phone?
Because there are layers and layers to the most ordinary of circumstances, a point Two Days, One Night explores so effectively.
Sandra’s co-workers were faced with a vote: each stands to gain a large bonus in return for eliminating one salary – Sandra’s. She has the weekend to convince them to give up their bonus and save her job.
If it sounds contrived, rest assured that writing/directing brothers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne embrace their characteristically naturalistic style to great effect. The films lacks any hint of melodrama, thanks in part to the brothers’ honest style and in greater part to a lead performance utterly absent of artificiality.
Cotillard is a master, and this film is no exception, it’s a highlight. Her gestures, her gaze, her posture, every syllable of dialogue simply convince you this is a woman fighting for her dignity as well as her job. She’s aided by a large, capable cast and buoyed by the Dardennes’ fly-on-the-wall camera work.
The film has larger goals, looking at ideas as concrete as corporate indifference, as amorphous as depression, and as grand as human nature. Grounding all this examination in the intimate and mundane details of one woman’s struggle keeps the film anchored in the reality so precious to the filmmakers.
Two Days, One Night is not as touching as the Dardennes’ Kid with a Bike or as gripping as L’Enfant – two of their finest efforts. It feels more contrived than those films, its craftsmanship more obvious. But Sandra’s challenge and her personal journey are so beautifully articulated that you won’t care. The film is a small, potent wonder.
Pioneer braids claustrophobia, conspiracy and political intrigue to create a compelling, often uncomfortable thriller. Set in 1980 Norway, the film follows a Norwegian/American collaboration to create an oil pipeline at then-unattempted depths.
Norway is eager to own the project and, by extension, the oil itself, but they need American “know how” to train divers to work at depths of up to 500 meters. Tragedy strikes, and one diver puzzles through layers of deception, cover up, greed and corporate shenanigans to uncover its cause.
Director Erik Skjoldbjaerg crafts a tight but rich thriller, thanks in part to the savvy work of cinematographer Jallo Faber. His camera heightens every sensation: the paranoia of being followed, the thrill of the chase, the lead character’s panic. More effective than anything is the way Skjoldbjaerg and Faber develop tension by exploiting the sinking, oppressive claustrophobic nightmare of the depths.
The look of the film is also spot-on for its time period, but without a compelling story, all the set decoration and camera tricks in the world couldn’t keep you interested. Co-scriptor Skjoldbjaerg – working with a team of writers – keeps you in the head of diver Petter (a wonderful Aksel Hennie). You feel his confusion, empathize with his desperation, and work out the details as he does.
It’s a cagey approach, one that works as well as it does because of Hennie’s keen performance. The solution to the mystery is always just out of reach, which can’t help but compel attention.
The supporting cast is very large, though it boasts a few standout performances. Wes Bentley is fun in a change of pace role as an American thug diver and Ane Dal Torp’s enigmatic performance is weirdly fascinating.
Ensemble mystery/thrillers can be hard to stay on top of, especially if they’re primarily foreign language efforts. While Pioneer is never impossible to follow, it can get slippery here and there. On the whole, though, it’s a suspenseful surprise.
