Tag Archives: Madd at the Movies

New In Theaters

Nothing Permanent in This Wicked World

Leave a comment

Tron: Ares

by Hope Madden

Tron was a fun idea in 1982. What director Joachim Rønning’s Tron: Ares gets very right is its commitment to simplicity, impressive yet simple visual effects, and soundtrack.

Greta Lee is Eve Kim, head of ENCOM, a tech industry whose whiz kid founder vanished back in the 80s. Kim’s been working on AI that can materialize into something concrete—like an orange tree. But she’s missing the string of code that will make the thing permanent, helping her eradicate hunger and do so many other good things AI will clearly never actually be used to do.

Meanwhile, megatech competitor Julian Dillinger (Evan Peters) is materializing soldiers, of course. But their impermanence is a stickler for him as well.

The race is one to own the permanence code! Natch, Dillinger sends one of his soldiers (Ares, played by Jared Leto) to nab Kim, leading to adventures inside and out of “the grid”.

Is it dumb? Of course it is. Is it fun? Sometimes it really is! There’s a motorcycle chase that looks amazing, a gorgeous opening sequence, and visuals that manage to be both forward thinking and adorably retro—kind of a highly polished version of a tech world as imagined in the early 1980s.

Supporting turns from effortless badass Jodie Turner-Smith and ever glorious Gillian Anderson class up the joint. And did I mention the characteristically jarring, distorted and sorely missed sounds of Nine Inch Nails?

Jared Leto does his best Jared Leto, handsome and wise and weirdly stiff. Whatever. But Greta Lee is clearly better than the material, which can’t help but elevate the few scenes requiring true acting. She runs well too. And Peters is a bit of fun as our favorite punching bag, the spoiled, entitled, weak tech billionaire playboy. (He’s no Nicholas Hoult, but the performance is still solid.)

Is Tron: Ares great? It is not. But it doesn’t suck, either.

New In Theaters

Don’t Wanna Grow Up

Leave a comment

Roofman

by Hope Madden

It’s been nine years since Derek Cianfrance directed a feature, but he’s still drawn to beautifully impossible tenderness and insurmountable longing. This time, though, the story is true.

Roofman, which Cianfrance co-wrote with Kirk Gunn, tells the somehow delightful story of Jeffrey Manchester (Channing Tatum). In 2000, Manchester was convicted of breaking into a series of McDonald’s locations by drilling through the roof. Like the gentlemanly true-life bandit of Old Man and the Gun, Manchester is remembered by his victims exclusively as a good guy.

That didn’t lighten his sentence, but no matter, because by the beginning of Act 2, the real story begins with Manchester on the run and living inside a Toys-r-Us.

Cianfrance and Gunn keep pretty close to the real details of the case, perhaps because the story’s nutty enough as is, or maybe because it’s not the story beats they’re looking to explore. Roofman is a film more fascinated by the human than the criminal, and Tatum’s characterization brims with humanity.

Channing Tatum can be hit or miss, but his strongest performances are those that allow him to find both vulnerability and humor in a character. He’s never been better than in Zoë Kravitz’s Blink Twice, where he tinged his techbro narcissist with just enough amiable doofus to be truly terrifying. But his turn in Fly Me to the Moon sank because he was the handsome, brilliant straight man—not funny, not dumb, not broken.

Luckily, Cianfrance understands Tatum’s strengths and Roofman offers the actor ample opportunity to be all three of those things. The result is an affable, broken sweetheart of a crook you can’t help but root for, even though you know he’ll probably shoot himself in the foot.

Tatum’s not alone. Kirsten Dunst is steal-the-show wonderful as Leigh, the Toys-r-Us employee Jeffrey falls for. Peter Dinklage is a ton of fun as Mitch, unfeeling store manager with a weakness for No Doubt. Ben Mendelsohn turns up in a small but entertainingly off-brand character. And as Jeffrey’s army buddy Steve, LaKeith Stanfield’s weary, wiry performance offsets Tatum’s lovable dumbassedness as a stark reminder of the type of person who can survive as a criminal.

Like Blue Valentine and A Place Beyond the Pines, Roofman is another romantic look at good dads who make bad decisions. Cianfrance may be preoccupied with one story, but he does tell it well.

Uncategorized

Always Been in Meat

Leave a comment

Chain Reactions

by Hope Madden

Not everyone believes Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is a masterpiece of American filmmaking. I find those people suspicious. Luckily, those are not the people filmmaker Alexandre O. Philippe (Memory: The Origins of Alien, 78/52) talks to for his latest documentary, Chain Reactions.

The film is a celebration of 50 years of TCM. The celebrants are five of the film’s biggest fans: Patton Oswalt, Takashi Miike, Alexandra Heller-Nicholas, Stephen King, and Karyn Kusama. It’s a good group. Each share intimate and individual reminiscences and theories about the film, its impact on them as artists, and its relevance as a piece of American cinema. What their ruminations have in common is just as fascinating as the ways in which their thoughts differ.

Heller-Nicholas, an Australian film critic and writer, creates a fascinating connection between Hooper’s sunbaked tale of a cannibal family with desert-set Aussie horrors like Wake in Fright and Wolf Creek. Meanwhile, Kusama sees the story as profoundly, almost poignantly American.

And Miike, genre master responsible for some of the most magnificent and difficult films horror has to offer, including Ichi the Killer and Audition, credits The Texas Chain Saw Massacre with inspiring him to become a filmmaker. And all because a Charlie Chaplin retrospective was sold out!

Philippe’s approach is that of a fan and an investigator. When Oswalt compares Hooper scenes to those from silent horror classics, Philippe split screens the images for our consideration. When Kusama digs into the importance of the color red, Chain Reactions shows us. We feel the macabre comedy, the verité horror, the beauty and the grotesque.

It’s fascinating what the different speakers have in common. So many talk about Leatherface, worry about him, pointing out that from Leatherface’s perspective, TCM is a home invasion movie.

What you can’t escape is the film’s influence and its craft. The set design should be studied. Hooper’s use of color, his preoccupation with the sun and the moon, the way he juxtaposes images of genuine beauty with the grimmest sights imaginable.

Each of these artists came to the film from a different perspective—some having seen it early enough in their youth to have been left scarred, others having taken it in as adults and still being left scarred. But each one sees layers and importance—poetry, even—in Hooper’s slice of savage cinema.

Chain Reactions is an absolute treasure of a film for fans of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.

New In Theaters

Machinations of the Gods

Leave a comment

Deathstalker

by Hope Madden

From the Saturday morning lunacy of Psycho Goreman to the puppet chaos of Frankie Freako, Steven Kostanski has mastered the art of recreating the most ridiculous entertainments of Eighties youngsters. He wasn’t always this way. His 2016 film The Void was an outright, non-satirical horror, and it was great, kind of Halloween 2 by way of H.P. Lovecraft.

But Manborg (2011) and Father’s Day (also 2011) suggested early that Kostanski’s heart is with silly, juvenile retoolings of the crap we watched as kids in the 80s.

His latest, Deathstalker, is another reminder of how we wasted our mornings, middays and late nights. A loose and intentionally silly remake of the 1983 Barbi Benton vehicle, Deathstalker returns to a time when special fx were ludicrous, costumes were Spirit Halloween level authentic, and drama was high.

Like any of those earnest swords and sorcery fantasies, there’s a barely clothed and begrudging hero, a magical sidekick mainly there for exposition and comic relief, and a young one to mentor and learn from.

And, again, really bad masks and Halloween decorations.

Our reluctant hero is the titular Deathstalker, played by longtime action character actor Daniel Bernhardt, who’s played a soldier/assassin/villainous athlete in everything from Bloodsport 2 throughand Nobody 1 & 2.

His soldiering behind him, Deathstalker contents himself with scavenging from dead knights fighting an unholy army. But an amulet he takes from one not-quite-dead knight compels him on a journey to save the universe from endless darkness and torment.

Naturally, he’ll need the help of a wizard who can translate the runes on the amulet and explain long lost history and curses and what not. Doodad’s the name, voiced by Patton Oswalt and performed by Laurie Field. The diminutive wizard is a perfect ode, but two wheels is hardly enough. A brash young upstart is required, and Brisbayne (Christina Orjalo) fits the bill.

Kostanski’s touch is so spot on, and his chosen subgenre is so ridiculous to begin with, that you may forget this is a spoof, or at least a fun romp. His work is too loving to be truly spoof, but there’s little room in this type of film to go over-the-top with anything. There’s no top. Even for all its wild nonsense, Deathstalker could pass for an honest reboot rather than a comedic retooling.

Nothing will ever match Psycho Goreman for inspired lunacy. Deathstalker certainly doesn’t, but it definitely offers a bit of fun.

New In Theaters

Windflower

Leave a comment

Anemone

by Hope Madden

As a young filmmaker, would having arguably the most revered actor of his generation—perhaps of all time—as a father be a blessing or a curse? For Ronan Day-Lewis, directing his first feature with co-writer and lead actor (and dad) Daniel Day-Lewis, it seems to be working out.

Anemone is a tale of fathers and sons, of one generation of men inflicting damage upon the next, and the tenderness that either dies, finds an outlet, or runs to madness.

Sean Bean a is Jem, a good man who strikes out from his dodgy neighborhood in Northern England to the woods, led by the navigational coordinates on the back of a page that reads: Anemone: In Case of Emergency, Break Glass.

The coordinates lead him to his brother, Ray (DDL), a hermit since his time fighting against the IRA. Ray is wanted at home.

Like many of Day-Lewis’s greatest performances, his work here impresses with lengthy stretches of silence punctuated by a couple of brilliantly executed monologues. His lean and scrappy physicality belie the character’s vulnerability in ways that expertly match Ray’s reticent then vulgar speech.

Ray’s a man off the rails, while Bean deftly crafts a character who’s found comfort and strength in structure. Neither actor overplays the brothers’ differences, rather falling into a tenuous if lived-in familiarity.

The great Samantha Morton and an impressive Samuel Bottomley round out the cast, but as usual, all eyes are on Day-Lewis.

RDL knows it, not only providing memorable lines, but crafting an atmosphere that evokes Ray’s troubling inner landscape. Bobby Krlic’s (Eddington, Beau Is Afraid, Midsommar) score conjures an angry melancholy while moments of painterly surrealism deliver flashes of beautiful, hopeful madness. Even when lensing the natural elegance of Ray’s isolated world, RDL and cinematographer Ben Fordesman (Love Lies Bleeding, Saint Maud) evoke a magical splendor.

Anemone feels uncertain of how to resolve itself, to bridge the two worlds it creates. Structure failed Ray, and it nearly fails Anemone. But the film offers more than enough reason to believe in filmmaker Ronan Day-Lewis. And if you needed another reason to believe in actor Daniel Day-Lewis, well, here you go.

New In Theaters

Tall Tales and Fiction

Leave a comment

Killing Faith

by Hope Madden

A raucous opening sequence eventually settles into a classic old Western vibe that keeps you guessing in Ned Crowley’s latest, Killing Faith.

Like Mary Bee Cuddy in The Homesman and Joanna in News of the World, Sarah (DeWanda Wise) is in need of a traveling companion. Her daughter (Emily Ford) needs help that the town doctor (Guy Pearce) can’t offer. Not that the ether-sniffing doc has been much help to his patients of late.

Dr. Steelbender is an ether addict on account of a plague of sorts. Voiceover tells us of a sickness ravaging the countryside almost as savagely as a notorious group of bounty hunters. But Sarah is determined to take her daughter to see Dr. Ross (Bill Pullman) because he deals not just in medicine, but in holy healing.

Crowley’s shot making, particularly in the opening act, is equal parts stunning and unnerving. At his best, he tells the tale like a picture book, images sharing as much of the story as dialog. There’s a grim poetry to the shots that creates an beautifully brutal atmosphere as it delivers information.

Pearce has made a lot of movies, many of them horrible, most mediocre, but he does have a pretty good track record with Westerns. John Hillcoat’s The Proposition is one of the most affecting Westerns of the 21st century. Killing Faith doesn’t nearly reach that high water mark, but it has its moments.

I like the more contemporary Westerns, where no one’s to be trusted and everyone’s a weirdo. Killing Faith is at its most compelling when our little band of travelers finds themselves among unexplained carnage or unexplainable fellow wayfarers. Joanna Cassidy is especially delightful in a macabre way.

But a couple of obvious turns and the general simplicity of the story keep Killing Faith from reaching classic status.

The film loses steam whenever it clings too tightly to its main themes, its hero’s journey. But Crowley elevates that well-worn road with ideas of being haunted by the sight of innocence corrupted, something that connects the Western with dystopian tales, like John Hillcoat’s other Pearce-starring fable, The Road.

All Westerns are about redemption. The best Westerns, new or old, are about hope. Can you allow yourself a flicker of hope? The answer is often what differentiates the classic Western from the contemporary one. Killing Faith toys with those mighty big struggles, sometimes provocatively. The solutions aren’t as interesting as the journey, though.

New In Theaters

We Rate Dogs

Leave a comment

Good Boy

by Hope Madden

I have a theory that the best way to make a horror film terrifying is to put children in peril. How better to ensure viewers are compelled, hearts in their throats, desperate for the heroes to prevail?

Co-writer/director Ben Leonberg may have discovered a more sure-fire way.

Meet Indy, a Nova Scotia Duck Trolling Retriever and an undeniably Good Boy. The dog is played by Leonberg’s own pet, also named Indy. I am not one to talk to the screen, but there were several times during Good Boy’s mere 72-minute running time that I heard myself saying, “No, no, no, no. Don’t do that, buddy.”

Because Indy and his dude, Todd (Shane Jensen), have just moved into Grandpa’s (Larry Fessenden) old place out in the woods. Todd’s in bad shape, physically. And even though folks say the old place is haunted, and even though Grandpa died here and his dogs all ran away or disappeared, Todd and Indy should be fine. Right?

The film works as well as it does because of Leonberg’s great gimmick. The story is told from Indy’s point of view. We know what he knows, which allows metaphor and supernatural to fold together seamlessly since no real exposition can be given. It also means that we never take our eyes off this beautiful dog, so we never stop worrying about his wellbeing, if he’s sad, is he cold out in the rain, is he scared?

Yes, Leonberg is out to break your heart, and his gorgeous retriever does just that.

There’s something unsettling in real life when your pet stares deeply at nothing and whines. Leonberg contemplates those shadows, the silence, the movement just outside the frame, along with Indy. The atmosphere he creates is deeply creepy and tinged with unendurable tenderness.

But a metaphorical supernatural horror story is tough to resolve satisfactorily when all we have to work with is the communicative abilities of a dog. No matter how darling that dog is.

Good Boy feels longer than its 72 minutes, and the metaphor at the heart of the story leeches away the true fear. It leaves you with heartbreak, which isn’t quite enough. But Leonberg’s film is an audacious feature debut and a worthy experiment.

Outtakes

Slim, Sick and Sorry Looking

Leave a comment

Coyotes

by Hope Madden

Colin Minihan’s a fun filmmaker. Not everything hits, but nothing ever entirely misses. His latest, the horror comedy with heart Coyotes, is one of his more pleasant, less memorable efforts.

Justin Long is a comic book writing dad living in the Hollywood Hills. His wife (real life wife Kate Bosworth), daughter (Mila Harris), and schnauzer Charlie life comfortably enough but they think they hear rats in their walls.

Rats won’t be their biggest problem once a pack of bloodthirsty coyotes stands between Long’s family and escape from the raging wildfire the neighbor inadvertently set after coyotes gnawed through his carcass.

Trip (Norbert Leo Butz), the neighbor, and his girlfriend-for-hire (Brittany Allen, frequent Minihan collaborator) balance the neighbor family’s earnestness with bawdy, slapstick humor. Allen’s comic sensibility is especially strong, her presence creating a consistent sense of random humor that elevates everything.

Allen’s wrongheadedness bounces beautifully off Long’s likeable dufus, leaving Bosworth the somewhat thankless straight man role. But she carries it with the right balance of dignity and impatience to give the character flavor.

The chemistry among the actors goes a long way to strengthen a slight script. The character motivations we’re told about don’t match the footage we see, and coyotes come and go with little rational explanation.

As for horror, nearly every death, even nearly every attack, is off screen. Reaction shots fill in for carnage, each intended more for a laugh than a scare. But there just aren’t that many outright laughs.

Still, it’s hard not to root for Justin Long to survive a horror movie. Here, he’s at his most likeable and goofy, plus he’s rightfully preoccupied with keeping Charlie from coyote clutches. Because screw the neighbors, protect that dog!

Coyotes is not one of Minihan’s strongest, and it certainly doesn’t measure up to Long’s better genre titles. The writing can’t measure up in logic, fun, humor or horror to what the cast deserves. But it’s a pleasant enough waste of time for horror fans.

Shudder Premiere

Bite Size Frights

Leave a comment

V/H/S/Halloween

by Hope Madden

“Hey, aren’t you a little old for trick or treating?”

If you’re looking for bite sized horror to match your fun size Butterfinger, the long running found footage franchise delivers a grab bag of options with V/H/S/Halloween. The anthology of shorts focuses on tales of Halloween. Expect costumes, pranks, chocolate, and a surprisingly high amount of child carnage.

Director Bryan M. Ferguson’s wraparound tale Diet Phantasma may mean more to me than it will to you. It would be hard for me to articulate how much I love horror movies or diet pop. In both cases, it’s an alarming amount of love. So, a tale of haunted diet soda and, beginning the theme, child slaughter?

Yes.

David Haydn is a particular riot as the exec who really needs to get this beverage on the shelf by Halloween.

Paco Plaza’s Ut Sup Sic Infra (As Above, So Below) follows a traumatized young man and a host of cops to a crime scene. This is an efficient little gem with a mystery to solve. Performances are solid all around, and the climax packs a frightening surprise.

Anna Zlokovic’s Coochic Coochic Coo and Alex Ross Perry’s Kidprint are the weaker episodes in the group. Zlokovic’s film follows two high school seniors who make consistently ridiculous choices leading to a nonsensical finale. Kidprint is a nasty short without the clever writing needed to elevate it.

Casper Kelly’s Fun Size gets off to a rough start—full grown adults who decide to be zany and trick or treat. But as soon as that “take one” bowl makes its presence known, things get weird. The balance between brightly colored confection and human dismemberment is impressive. This one’s wrong-headed in the best way.

Likewise, Micheline Pitt-Norman & R.H. Norman’s Home Haunt is a lot of fun. There’s a wholesome charm to this short that could draw your attention to the, again, sheer number of children being murdered. But the concept is sort of darling, and the performances are equally dear. The Normans strike a comedic tone that’s hard to manage, and the result is equal parts nostalgia, cringe, and terror.

You can’t get a Twix every time you dig into that bulk candy assortment bag. But V/H/S/Halloween’s ratio of choice treats to forgettable-but-edible is strong enough to leave you with a little sugar high.