Lutes and mead, chainmail and sorcery—director David Lowery’s
Camelot is just as rockin’ as ever in his trippy coming-of-age style The
Green Knight.
Dev Patel stars as King Arthur’s nephew, Gawain. He’s a bit of a ne’er-do- well and it looks like he’s ne’er going to actually be knighted. But Christmas warms old Arthur’s heart and he asks the boy to take a seat of honor at the round table. When this menacing giant (think Groot, but sinister) drops in for a beheading game, Gawain offers to play so he can keep his uncle’s respect.
The story itself is more than 700 years old. Credit Lowery,
who adapted the old ballad for the screen, with finding fresh intrigue in the
old bones. He’s slippery with symbolism and draws wonderful performances from
the ensemble.
Joel Edgerton is especially fun as The Lord, just one of
many helpers and hindrances Gawain finds on his journey. Barry Keoghan is
likewise wonderful playing a brash, angry scavenger. But Edgerton and Keoghan
are always good. The real surprise here is Patel.
That’s not to say he’s unproven, just that his performances until now tend to rely heavily and falsely on an earnest streak. Gawain does not. Patel doesn’t shy away from or judge the character’s weakness or cowardice. Instead, he uses those very characteristics to make Gawain human.
It’s the kind of compassionate portrayal rarely depicted in
an Arthurian fable, and it ensures that you care enough for the character to
puzzle through his adventures with him. There’s sorcery afoot, and also psychedelic
mushrooms, so who knows what’s really going on?
Here’s where Lowery really excels, though. His visual storytelling has always been his greatest strength as a director and this tale encourages his most fanciful and hypnotic visual style to date. The Green Knight is gorgeous. The color and framing are pure visual poetry. Together with this exceptional ensemble, Lowery’s created a magical realm where you believe anything could happen.
Filmmakers David Charbonier and Justin Powell know how to do
a lot with a little.
Earlier this year Shudder premiered their tightly packaged
little horror story, The
Djinn—very nearly a one-man, one-set show. Their latest to hit Shudder,
The Boy Behind the Door, is slightly more expansive. A cast of about
five knocks around one big, old farmhouse in the middle of an isolated, wooded
area.
Two of those five are Bobby (Lonnie Chavis) and Kevin (Ezra
Dewey, The Djinn), best friends who were kidnapped on their way to a
little league game. Bobby wakes up in the trunk of a car without Kevin. He
breaks free and makes his way clear of the house, but he can hear Kevin’s
terrified cries and he circles back to try and save him.
The filmmakers leave it to Bobby’s sleuthing—and yours–to
figure out what’s going on and how to end it. They make tremendous use of the
hallways, floors and doors throughout their set, plus a well-placed wristwatch unnervingly
ups the ante in a way the audience understands but Bobby does not.
There are times when the writing here hits too hard. I’m not
sure the boys have to say they’ll always stick together quite so often; their
actions speak to that. But the conundrums the filmmakers throw at Bobby as he
tries to figure out what’s going on and how to get to his friend are
believable.
More importantly, Chavis handles them with honest, childlike
panic and courage. His performance would be enough to carry the film, but the
adults around him offer supremely creepy turns.
Dewey’s less effective in this than he was in The Djinn, but it’s not enough to sink the film. The movie’s solid structure, paired with Charbonier and Powell’s gift for dropping clues and following up on threads make for a satisfying but never lurid horror show.
Stay with me. Remember how bad Mortal Kombat was? Like, bad, but kind of so stick-to-your-guns bad, so full of head-bursting ridiculousness and terrible acting that it somehow felt right?
Take that, neuter it completely so you don’t even see any blood regardless of the wall-to-wall swordplay, invest in great-looking scenery and one A-list actor, and you essentially have the new G.I. Joe movie, Snake Eyes.
Henry Golding is that A-lister, an American with a questionable accent and some barely hidden rage issues. A dice game gone bad left him emotionally scarred (thought it did lend him that cool moniker) and now he fistfights his way from one town to the next.
That is, until a shady Yakuza man offers him a chance at vengeance in return for some labor. The next thing you know, Snake Eyes is mixed up in ninja training, clan warfare and global domination, or some such nonsense.
Director Robert Schwentke is pretty hamstrung with the PG-13 rating. His film is based on a children’s cartoon, after all. Sure, that cartoon promotes armed conflict in every single episode—as does this film—but you can’t show the result of any of that violence.
How cool would this movie be if Takashi Miike directed it? And how NC-17?
A girl can dream. But the reality is that Schwentke does
about as well as he can within the limitations. The clanging swords are shiny,
the motorcycles zip around like the ninjas they carry, and the hand-to-hand
bouts stand out.
The acting, well, you know. And writing. Yeesh. Indeed, the writing is weak enough that both Golding and the proven Samara Weaving nearly choke on it. Andrew Koki as clan heir apparent Tommy struggles mightily, his character at war with what is expected of him. It calls for a lot of inner conflict.
It calls for a better script.
Haruka Abe likewise wrestles to find a character within this loyal security chief who’s unemotional and yet so very emotional. And wearing really high heels for someone called on to run this often.
Weaving at least seems to recognize that she is playing a cartoon character, and her performance is therefore reasonably cartoonish. Koki mopes, Abe whines. And Golding, well, he is very handsome.
The sets look great—from a super cool-looking Tokyo to the secret Arashikage compound to the cement pits for bare-knuckle brawling. That’s not really reason enough to watch it, though.
The great thing about filmmaker Quentin Dupieux is that you
always know what you’re in for and you definitely never know what you’re in
for.
The point of Mandibles, essentially, is that you can never rely on anyone to do a single, simple thing correctly. Manu (Grégoire Ludig, Keep an Eye Out) — homeless at the moment — promises to deliver a suitcase in the trunk of his car from Michel-Michel to Point B. He needs to get it there by noon. Can he be trusted to do that one thing?
Of course he can!
He cannot.
There are the extenuating circumstances of the giant housefly that’s already in the trunk. We could get into what happens with the fly, but it’s not going to make any real sense, so why ruin it? Dupieux films work best when you just go with it.
That’s what Manu does. He and best friend Jean-Gab (David Marsais) take opportunities as they come, remain open to possibilities, and just enjoy their friendship. And their new, giant housefly.
The relatively streamlined plot delivers a fresh change of pace for the filmmaker—not that you could call any Dupieux film stale. But in pairing back the complications and convolutions, the writer/director has crafted maybe his most audience-friendly film to date. Mandibles certainly delivers the filmmaker’s most audience-friendly characters.
Ludig frustrates and charms in equal measure as the doofus Manu, and he and Marsais share an easy chemistry that suggests a lot of miles on this friendship. Here is the filmmaker’s most delightful surprise—a lack of cynicism or existential dread that leaves just an airy, almost sweet, wildly ridiculous comedy.
None of this has anything to do with a jawbone, but the title will become clear if you pay close attention.
In April of 2013, Joe Bell explained his walking trek from
Le Grand, Oregon to New York City. He was doing something. Those who watch
bullying and do nothing about it are as guilty as the bullies themselves.
It makes sense, then, that Reinaldo Marcus Green’s film Joe Bell is more interested in what Joe did and did not do when confronted with his son’s bullying than it is in the bullying and victimization themselves. Because the truth is, this walk is as much a penance as anything.
Mark Wahlberg plays Joe, volatile but loving husband and
father just trying to fly under the radar and still accept, as best he can, his
oldest son Jadin’s (Reid Miller) sexual orientation. Joe’s a blue-collar guy in
a blue-collar town, and neither Wahlberg nor writers Diana Ossana and Larry
McMurtry (both of Brokeback Mountain) let him completely off the hook
for the misery Jadin faces.
Wahlberg performs admirably as a man who’s trying and
failing, but the breakout here is Miller. Warm, bright and brimming with life, Miller’s
work the highlight of the film, although Green puts together a solid ensemble
including a heartbreakingly understated Connie Britton.
Though an early film contrivance threatens to sink things
before they can even really swim, the film eventually finds its lonesome way,
more or less. The examination here is culpability, and it’s uncomfortable,
messy terrain.
Wahlberg’s performance is raw and emotional. He lets the
character struggle, sometimes sinking under the weight of loss and culpability,
sometimes accepting the easy balm of celebrity in lieu of real change. His interactions
with Britton offer the most complex and satisfying suggestions that Green and team
recognize the wide and shattering reach of this kind of trauma.
The film Green builds around Wahlberg never stoops toward
easy epiphanies or patronizing catharsis. There is a simmering anger and barely
checked pain beneath the surface of this narrative, and no cliched structure or
manipulative storytelling gimmicks can entirely cage that.
In the end, Joe Bell does break through the contrivance of familiar storytelling because this story doesn’t fit neatly or cheerily into that package.
Raise your hand if you’ve ever had a crush on Val Kilmer.
I can’t be the only one.
Eighties heartthrob turned Hollywood prick turned reliable character
actor turned working actor turned Mark Twain, Kilmer has seen his ups and
downs. The thing is, he recorded all of them, too. And now directors Ting Poo
and Leo Scott—both primarily known as editors—piece together material from the
thousands of hours of video Kilmer has compiled in his 40-odd years in the
industry.
The result oscillates between self-indulgence and raw nerve,
but it’s never less than intriguing.
Yes, there are behind-the-scenes moments from Top Gun,
pieces from the contentious Island of Dr. Moreau set, Batman Forever
clips and bits of Doors footage. But the film is most relevant when
Kilmer interacts with his son Jack, who also narrates from pages written by his
dad.
Kilmer can’t do his own voiceover because of his fight with
throat cancer, which left him with a tracheostomy that makes speech difficult. The
battle has taken a lot out of him physically in much the way different battles throughout
his career has taken a lot out of him financially. Poo, Scott and Kilmer never
hide those battle scars, and yet their film never feels exploitative or reality
TV-esque.
Much of that has to do with Kilmer’s indominable spirit and
generous nature. Though a costly divorce and what amounts to fraud perpetrated by
his own father left Kilmer strapped for cash, his outlook on both his ex-wife
and his dad are entirely positive. And what he has to say about selling
autographs to pay his bills becomes perhaps the most moving moment in a fairly
emotional film.
At just under two hours the film seems a tad long. There are times when Val feels self-indulgent, but how could it not? We’re here to watch the actor come back then come back again then, dressed as Mark Twain for his shockingly successful one-man show Citizen Twain, make yet another comeback.
In Val, Jack Kilmer quotes his father quoting Twain: Don’t part with your illusions. When they are gone you may still exist, but you have ceased to live. It’s an apt metaphor for a documentary about life and acting, and a springboard for another surprising comeback.
Broadcasting—TV, radio, podcasts—offer plentiful opportunities for horror. You have the good broadcasts, where an important message is being delivered to the right people: The Fog, I Am Legend, A Quiet Place Part II, Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2. And, of course, there are the evil broadcasts: Lords of Salem, Trick or Treat, The Cleansing Hour.
There are also two (well, three really)N utterly brilliant films with very particular broadcasts that are difficult to come by. We narrowed the list to broadcasts aimed at as many people as can be affected, and for that reason alone we’ve left off Poltergeist and Ring/Ringu.
So here are the five best ways horror filmmakers found to wreak havoc over the airwaves.
5. They Live (1988)
More SciFi and action than horror, still John Carpenter’s vision of an elite class using tech to mollify and control the population of the US was eerily prescient. And horrifying.
At the time, though, it was just plain entertaining in a way that married Carpenter’s own iconic Escape from New York vibe with the SciFi horror miniseries of the day, V.
But mainly, it’s Rowdy Roddy Piper chewing bubble gum, and the 6 1/2 minute fight scene between Piper and undeniable badass Keith David that make this film as fun to watch today as it was when it was released.
4. Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982)
Man, people did not like this movie when it came out. After two massive blockbusters kicking off the franchise, somebody decided to make a Halloween movie without Michael Myers. It would go on to be one of the most beloved cult movies of all time.
Is the storyline confused? Well, its mythology—Celts and Stonehenge and shamrocks and Halloween masks and blah blah blah—but the point is Tom Atkins, isn’t it? Plus the main plot points: kids wear the masks, they watch the commercial, they hear that creepy jingle, and their heads effing melt.
Now that’s showbusiness.
3. 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 (Anessa Ramsey) and Ben (Justin Welborn) 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.
2. Pontypool (2008)
Canadian director Bruce McDonald’s shock jock horror film is best appreciated as a metaphor on journalistic responsibility and the damage that words can do. Radio air personality and general pot-stirrer Grant Mazzy (Stephen McHattie) finds himself kicked out of yet another large market and licking his wounds in the small time – Pontypool, Ontario, to be exact. But he’s about to find himself at the epicenter of a national emergency.
McDonald uses sound design and the cramped, claustrophobic space of the radio studio to wondrous effect as Mazzy and his producers broadcast through some kind of zombie epidemic, with Mazzy goosing on the mayhem in the name of good radio. As he listens to callers describe the action, and then be eaten up within it, the veteran McHattie compels attention while McDonald tweaks tensions.
Shut up or die is the tagline for the film. Fitting, as it turns out that what’s poisoning the throng, turning them into mindless, violent zombies, are the very words spewing at them. It’s a clever premise effectively executed, and while McDonald owes debts all around to previous efforts, his vision is unique enough to stand out and relevant enough to leave an impression.
1. Videodrome (1983)
Videodrome was the last true horror and truly Canadian film in David Conenberg’s arsenal, and it shows an evolution in his preoccupations with body horror, media, and technology as well as his progress as a filmmaker.
James Woods plays sleazy TV programmer Max Renn, who pirates a program he believes is being taped in Malaysia – a snuff show, where people are slowly tortured to death in front of viewers’ eyes. But it turns out to be more than he’d bargained for. Corporate greed, zealot conspiracy, medical manipulation all come together in this hallucinatory insanity that could only make sense with Cronenberg at the wheel.
Deborah Harry co-stars, and Woods shoulders his abundant screen time quite well. What? James Woods plays a sleaze ball? Get out! Still, he does a great job with it. But the real star is Cronenberg, who explores his own personal obsessions, dragging us willingly down the rabbit hole with him. Long live the new flesh!
A quick plot synopsis of co-writer/director Michael Sarnoski’s
Pig suggests a very specific image. Nicolas Cage plays a hermetic
truffle hunter whose beloved pig is kidnapped. He uses his particular set of
skills to find her.
You are almost undoubtedly thinking this is John Wick,
swapping Cage for Keanu and a pig for a puppy.
Nope.
This touching film—a tale of love, loss, authenticity and a good meal— is essentially the anti-John Wick. And we are better for it.
Cage’s legacy will rightfully be of an unhinged and singular
talent—and also an actor who never turns down a gig. But every decade or so the
stars align and Cage gets to stretch, he gets to underact. He hasn’t delivered
as nuanced or thoughtful a performance since David Gordon Green’s 2013 film Joe.
Lurking, silent and disheveled, his character hitches a ride with the only soul who contacts him regularly, Amir (Alex Wolff, Hereditary), the slick wholesaler who takes his truffles off his hands each Wednesday.
As the two climb the ladder of potential kidnappers, from other outdoorsy truffle hunters to middlemen to chefs and higher still, Sarnoski mimics the beats of a vengeance thriller like John Wick or Taken, but he does this only to subvert expectations. It turns out, when your only real goal is to retrieve something beloved and lost to you, bloodshed doesn’t rank high in your thoughts.
A uniformly strong supporting cast and their priceless reactions to Cage’s vagabond presence not only illuminate the pretension Sarnoski hopes to call attention to in Portland’s high-end restaurant culture. They give the actor the chance to react.
Cage is almost always the center of attention in every film.
It’s tough to look away from him because you’re afraid you’ll miss some insane
grimace or wild gesture, but also because filmmakers love him and never pull
away. Sarnoski asks you to wait for it. He gives Cage time to pause, breathe,
and deliver his most authentic performance in ages.
I guarantee the folks to my left at this screening were here for Cage Uncaged! ™ Hopefully they appreciated the fact that they didn’t get it.
If the final act of I Carry You with Me has a
documentary feel about it, that makes good sense. Director/co-writer Heidi
Ewing—known primarily for docs including Jesus Camp and The Boys of
Baraka—takes on her first narrative feature by spinning a love story based
in fact.
Ewing’s subjects, Iván Garcia and Gerardo Zabaleta, are NYC
restauranteurs who fell in love in Mexico in the 1990s. Though Ewing grounds
her fable in their present day, the bulk of the film waxes youthful and romantic
back in Mexico.
Young, closeted Iván (Armando Espitia) dreams of putting his culinary skills to use so he can provide for his young son, whose mother rarely allows him to visit. He meets Gerardo (Christian Vazquez) and they fall in love, but dreams of the success that evades him at home propel Iván north.
And though the film’s title aptly captures the longing between separated lovers, it carries with it a great deal more. Ewing conjures the phantom ache that follows Iván the rest of his life without his son, his family and the home he knew.
Yes, the film, co-written with Alan Page, leads inevitably
to the couple’s modern-day dilemma. They’ve worked their way up from nothing,
lived and achieved the American dream, but are essentially caged. Iván’s son
has grown up without him. He will never be allowed to come here, and if Iván returns
to Mexico to see him he risks losing Gerardo and his American dream forever.
I Carry You with Me never feels like a blunt instrument. In much the way Ewing did with her documentaries, she weaves true tales with humanity and honesty so they resonate. A documentary’s best chance of affecting change is by helping an audience see themselves in the lives on the screen. Ewing did that with her many docs. She does it again here.
You think the GOAT debate about hoop gets heated? Just wait ’til your twitter thread blows up with hot takes on the thespian greatness of Jordan vs. LeBron!
Yeah, that’s not likely to happen.
I can tell you Don Cheadle is a great actor, and he’s clearly having a ball as the high-tech heavy in Space Jam: A New Legacy.
Cheadle is Al G. Rhythm, a (what else?) algorithm inside the Warner 3000 computer system that has designed a can’t miss WB idea for LeBron James. But LeBron is not impressed, so Al decides to get even by pitting LBJ against his own 12 year-old son, Dom (Cedric Joe).
Dom is actually more interested in video game design than basketball, but feels pressured by his superstar Dad to follow in the family business. Al seizes on this rift, pulling father and son into the virtual world, stealing Dom’s design for a basketball video game, and offering a deal.
You guessed it: classic Tunes (featuring Zendaya voicing Lola Bunny) vs. some brand new Goons (basketball superstars including Anthony Davis, Damian Lillard and Diana Turasi). A win for the Tune Squad puts the James family back to normal, but a loss means they’ll stay in the “server-verse” forever.
Adding WNBA stars and a new look for Lola are just two of the ways director Malcolm D. Lee (Girls Trip, TheBest Man franchise) and the writing team succeed with an updated premise required for new sensibilities. Sure, the resolution of the father-son tension is predictable, but it manages a schmaltzy level of resonance amid the cartoon nuttiness that we’re really here for.
The antics of your favorite Looney Tunes characters (aside from an ill-advised, rapping Porky Pig) are classically looney, but the script also scores with some topical, self-aware humor aimed at the digital age, a classic Dave Chappelle bit, and LeBron himself (Dom: “Did my Dad leave?” Al: “That’s what he does, isn’t it?”)
And while the original ’96 Space Jam always smacked of product placement marketing, A New Legacy ups that ante, dropping LBJ and friends into any number of Warner properties, from Casablanca to Rick & Morty. Shameless, yes. Fun? Also yes.
As for King James, he follows that standout cameo in Trainwreck with a lead performance that alternates between awkward and decent. He does bring more natural onscreen charisma than Jordan (there’s a reason MJ barely speaks in his TV ads), but I’m guessing the task of acting opposite cartoons didn’t help with James finding a comfort zone in his first lead role.
But LeBron sure looks at home on the court, and once everybody joins him (and I mean everybody – have fun scanning the crowd), Lee rolls out some frantically fun game action with plenty of visual pop. This Space Jam may follow some of the original’s playbook, but there’s enough “new” here to justify the title, and by the time the buckets and anvils start dropping, A New Legacy finds its own fun and satisfying groove.
