Screening Room: The Creator, Saw X, Deliver Us & More
Tag Archives: Madd at the Movies
Getting Jiggy with It
Saw X
by Hope Madden
Whenever someone states specifically that they do not like horror movies, there is a better than average chance they’ll namedrop Saw as what’s wrong with the genre.
Of course, the Saw franchise is not really that typical of horror, especially today. But you wouldn’t know that if you didn’t like horror, would you? And to be fair, most of the films in the series are awful. James Wan’s 2004 original was clever and grim. But then a sequel came out every Halloween, each less clever and more grim until they became lazy, threadbare embarrassments. And then in 2021, an infusion of money and star power threatened to turn the tide with the refocused Spiral, which was so bad it felt more like a parody than a retooling.
So why bother with the tenth installment, Saw X?
- Badass poster
- That AMC ad
Yes, some marketing genius got behind this episode in a big way, but how’s the movie?
If you hate the Saw films, Saw X will not convert you.
If you don’t, it’s probably the best since Wan’s original.
Director Kevin Greutert, who directed the mediocre-at-best Saw VI, is back working with franchise writing regulars Josh Stolberg and Pete Goldfinger (responsible for two of the worst: Spiral and Jigsaw).
Also returning, Tobin Bell as John Kramer. You may know him better as Jigsaw, but he spends the majority of the film as the tender if zealous life coach, if you will. Series favorite Shawnee Smith returns as acolyte Amanda Young, and suddenly you may be wondering if there is anything fresh or new about the tenth episode.
Yes and no. Though the tenth installment, the timing of this film would technically be the third in the cinematic timeline (after 2017’s unbearable Jigsaw, followed by the 2004 original). John’s no novice when it comes to traps, but he takes a break – may indeed have a complete change of heart – when he finds a miraculous clinic that may be able to cure his terminal brain cancer.
It turns out to be an elaborate con. Can you guess what happens when you con Jigsaw? It ain’t good.
But the movie’s not bad. It is bloody AF, with organs and limbs and eyeballs and brains, self-mutilation, others-mutilation, general nastiness and an abundance of bad behavior.
Saw X spends nearly half its runtime leading up to the carnage with John (except for one fake-out early trap) in a kind of character study that doesn’t really pan out because we don’t dig very deep. Worse, Smith is painfully underused.
It’s not the reawakening it may want to be, but for fans of the franchise, it’s finally an installment worth watching.
Adult Education
The Re-education of Molly Singer
by Hope Madden
I feel a little sorry for The Re-education of Molly Singer because No Hard Feelings exists. Not that we don’t need multiple tales of helicopter parents paying aging party girls to help their socially awkward sons prepare for adulthood and college.
OK, we may not. But that JLaw one was funny as hell, so maybe?
There are definite pluses. For one, Britt Robertson has genuine talent. She was the best thing about both Tomorrowland and The Space Between Us. And she’s quite good here as an ambitious lawyer saddled with college debt and an obvious drinking problem. Molly manages to miss a court date and lose her job on the same day that her boss Brenda (Jamie Pressley, highlight of the movie) drops her only son off at college.
Brenda needs to simultaneously fire Molly and help her son, so why not hire the now-unemployed Molly to handle the latter task? Molly will go back to college and nudge Elliott (Ty Simpkins) out of his shell.
There is some funny dialog – mainly throwaway lines and pseudo sports commentary – but Todd M. Friedman and Kevin Haskin’s writing is otherwise a bit stale. It’s no No Hard Feelings.
Director Andy Palmer delivers a hodgepodge of moments from Eighties comedies, each one drawn out to a painful length. Molly Singer feels too traditionally staged, almost like a reimagining of Revenge of the Nerds, minus the homophobia and rape.
In the end, the biggest disappointment is not that it devolves into a hodgepodge of obvious hijinks but that it does not tell Molly’s story. The film opens on a montage that clarifies the obstacle she must overcome during the course of the film, but by the time the credits roll, the film has lost its way and its focus, and we have no real idea who she is, why she does what she does, or whether she’s in any real way changed.
Mama Mia
Nightmare
by Hope Madden
What happens if a woman reconsiders Rosemary’s Baby?
This is not to say that writer/director Kjersti Helen Rasmussen’s Nightmare is the masterpiece of Polanski’s 1968 Oscar winner. It is not. But this Norwegian horror delivers an intriguing pregnancy nightmare, one that benefits from a somewhat merciless female perspective.
Eili Harboe (Thelma) is Mona. She and boyfriend Robby (Herman Tømmeraas, Leave) just bought an apartment. It needs a lot of work, but it’s all theirs and now they can be grown-ups. Mona isn’t sure she and Robby have the same definition of grown up, though, and here’s where things begin to break down.
Mona begins having nightmares that escalate into sleepwalking, sleep paralysis and hallucinations. Could it be stress over abandoning a burgeoning career to focus on renovations and – if Robby has a say in things – starting a family? Or maybe it’s the creepy neighbors and their screeching infant?
Whatever the case, Robby’s sexy, shirtless doppelganger comes to Mona every night. The relentlessness of it all has Mona questioning reality.
So do we. Rasmussen rarely clarifies what is really happening and what is nightmare. She mines the dreamy fact that what we see in our sleep is often an image of our waking troubles, particularly those we hide from ourselves. Mona wants to please, as so many women do, and the men around her take casual advantage of this. One scene in a doctor’s office pinpoints the moment Mona finally is moved to begin to act on her own.
Microagressions blend into bigger dangers as Mona’s life blurs with her nightmares. Rasmussen fills the reality with details and beautifully executed moments that fully outline Mona’s struggle. The darker fantasy world of the nightmares is given far less attention, and the medical world that bridges the two feels slapped together.
But Harboe’s understated turn, particularly in a handful of breathtaking scenes, helps Rasmussen blisteringly articulate an everyday horror women face.
Screening Room: Dumb Money, Expend4bles, It Lives Inside, No One Will Save You & More
You Know, Billy, We Blew It
Anchorage
by Hope Madden
Anchorage invites you on road trip through a depleted America, ghost town upon ghost town, as two drug-riddled brothers follow their destiny from Miami to Anchorage, Alaska. What’s left of Miami amounts to hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of opioids in the trunk of Jacob’s (Scott Monahan, who also directs) car. What awaits Jacob and John (Dakota Loesch, writer)? Fortune and glory, kid.
Anchorage has been likened to Easy Rider, and the comparison is valid. A wild cross-country ride through the American Dream inevitably exposes it as a nightmare.
Monahan’s structure is deceptively sound, though his film plays like an improvisational string of sights and blights to see. But themes introduced early only strengthen as the duo spiral toward destiny. Hyper aware of their own mortality yet playing at being immortal, the brothers’ drug-fueled mania that fuels the journey turns more and more desperate with each rest stop.
The actors wade into that bleary real estate between playfulness and danger. Each mile they make toward northern glory wears on them, changing their dynamic and tainting the spirit of their journey. The 4954-mile drive from Miami to Anchorage analogizes addiction in much the way Burt Lancaster’s back yard swims did in Frank Perry and Sydney Pollack’s 1968 classic The Swimmer. It’s all a party at the start, but reality can’t be kept at bay long enough to make it home.
Aside from a handful of extras and one additional speaking role (Christopher Corey Smith), the entire film belongs to Monahan and Loesch. The slow, inevitable arc the characters take is authentically delivered, tense and heartbreaking. Monahan dwells in Jacob’s waning innocence, while Loesch’s performance is a celebration of innocence lost.
The two make a fascinating cinematic pairing and their film slips easily into your memory to stay.
Chump Change
Dumb Money
by Hope Madden
Do you remember when GameStop stock became newsworthy? I, Tonya director Craig Gillespie does, and he thinks you will enjoy learning a bit more about that slice of American economic history.
Channeling Adam McKay’s rage with none of his snark, Gillespie spins Dumb Money into a laid-back tale of sticking it to the rich guy.
Which are always the best stories.
Paul Dano plays Keith Gill, an underemployed new dad who took a shine to GameStop and shared his lowkey enthusiasm via videos on Reddit. His earnest goofiness, absolute transparency and love of cats drew an audience. That audience grew into a revolution.
Gillespie cuts nimbly from storyline to storyline, introducing us to many of the Average Joes who took Gill’s advice. Anthony Ramos is the most fun, playing Marcus Barcia, a GameStop employee who liked Megan Thee Stallion and did not like Brad (Dane DeHaan), his manager. America Ferrera gets another righteously indignant character to bring to vivid life, while Seth Rogen, Nick Offerman, Vincent D’Onofrio and Gillespie favorite Sebastian Stan relish the rich dick roles.
The film never talks down to its audience, doesn’t over-explain or under-explain its financial underpinnings. We understand about as much as our main characters. Writers Lauren Schunker Blum, Rebecca Angelo and Ben Mezrich may be a bit precious about the long-term impact of the revolution, but they stay focused on character without losing the financial specifics that make the justice that much sweeter.
Dumb Money is a crowd pleaser, partly because the writing team keeps the script simple, and partly because Gillespie keeps the energy high. But mostly because it’s never not fun to see somebody stick it to the man.
Screening Room: Haunting in Venice, Love at First Sight, Canary, Cassandro, Satanic Hispanics & More
Mucha Lucha
Cassandro
by Hope Madden
There’s rarely a good reason to miss a performance from Gael García Bernal. Even when the material around him doesn’t exactly work, he always does. His performances tend to be marked with a quietly observant, charming resilience.
In Cassandro, the narrative feature debut from documentarian Roger Ross Williams, Bernal amplifies that charm and resilience with an energy and magnetism that dares you to look away.
Bernal plays Saúl Armendáriz, a real life El Paso amateur lucha librador. Saúl loves wrestling, loves his mother, quietly loves another closeted librador, but wants more. Because of his size, he’s been pegged a “runt” which means, in the pre-determined and choreographed matches, he must always lose.
He doesn’t want to lose.
What Williams and Bernal channel is lucha libre – this unusual and rarely represented world – as a microcosm for society. The odds are stacked against Saúl. He cannot win. It’s not allowed. It’s not the role he gets to play.
So, he decides 1) to find a really good trainer (Roberta Colindrez, understated and excellent), and 2) play the “exotico” – that is, a wrestler who performs in drag.
Exoticos never, ever get to win.
And yet, the persona allows Saúl to be a little bolder, a little louder, a more vivid version of himself. It’s empowering. Cassandro still has to lose to the likes of El Gigántico because “lucha libre is a fairy tale and good must always triumph over evil.” But as his skill and charisma earn him fans, suddenly that old fairy tale feels less important to the promoters who decide match outcomes.
Ross’s documentarian instincts serve the film beautifully, as the world of lucha libre is never treated as a sideshow. There’s humor here, but we laugh with characters rather than at them. And though Cassandro hits the beats you’d expect from a dramatic biopic journey, moments feel authentic rather than manipulated for dramatic effect.
The entire ensemble shines, but Bernal owns the screen, his ever present smile a heartbreaking and beautiful image of the resilience and determination that fueled an icon of wrestling and LGBTQ culture.
Blood in an Elevator
Elevator Game
by Hope Madden
Urban legends, paranormal hunter shows, teens making bad decisions – Rebekah McKendry’s Elevator Game rehashes a lot of ideas but banks on a new game and villain to elevate the familiar.
Elevate, get it? It’s in an elevator.
Which, to be honest, seems like the first missed opportunity because McKendry chooses not to heighten claustrophobic tensions by trapping anyone with a monster in a tiny, enclosed box suspended in midair.
Huh.
Instead, gullible thrill seekers (and the hosts of a paranormal investigation show) follow the rules of the online sensation, the elevator game. Press a specific sequence of floors. When it’s finally time to press the button for floor #5, keep your eyes closed the whole time. Do that and the 5th Floor Lady will pull your car up to the 10th floor for a glimpse of her red world.
Sneak a peek instead of keeping your eyes closed and you – and anyone else sorry enough to ride the elevator with you – will face nasty consequences.
There’s an effective backstory explaining the origins of the 5th Floor Lady and an occasionally impressive use of shadow. But McKendry’s network TV style staging and drama leach all tension from the story.
Not one actor convinces as a high school student, nor do most of them convince as long-term best friends or even as frightened prey. David Ian McKendry and Travis Seppala’s dialog doesn’t help.
Nazarly Demkowicz comes off best, playing the gang’s occult-nerdy camera operator, Matty. His performance borders on comic relief, but offers more nuance than what you can expect from the balance of the cast.
McKendry’s 2022 WTF horror Glorious, while flawed, spilled over with imagination and sewage in equal measure. Elevator Game is in want of more imagination. (The sewage would really be out of place, though.)
