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Teddy

by Hope Madden

Even a man who is pure in heart

And says his prayers by night

May become a wolf when the wolfbane blooms

And the autumn moon is bright

Teddy (an exceptional Anthony Bajon) may not be all that pure in heart, but he’s not such a bad kid. What he is, is a loser. He knows it. “We’re the village idiots,” he tells the uncle he lives with.

Teddy’s an outsider in his very small French hamlet, a ne’er-do-well who seems harmless enough. He has a job —one he hates. And he has a girlfriend, Rebecca (Christine Gautier) — but how long can that last? Her family can’t stand him, and she’ll graduate at the end of the term. Then what?

Before we can find out, Teddy’s bitten by something in the woods. Suddenly, by the light of the moon (which seems to forever coincide with some kind of angry humiliation Teddy faces), he loses consciousness and then wakes up naked and covered in blood.

Writers/directors/brothers Ludovic and Zoran Boukhera tap into classic monster movie mythology (and sometimes score, with fun results) to mine lycanthrope lore for metaphorical purposes.

Which is usually what werewolves are used for in movies, including the 1941 classic that spawned that poem. Anyone can be cursed, it seems, and under the right circumstances, anyone can become a monster.

In this case, Teddy represents the marginalized, angry white male. The havoc he wreaks? Well, it’s not hard to figure out what that represents. Truth be told, Teddy is almost off-putting in its empathy for the aggrieved male so disillusioned by disappointments and limitations that he becomes monstrous.

I suppose that makes Teddy feel a bit transgressive, but the reason it works is Bajon’s amiably brutish performance. A horror film is rarely worth its weight in carnage if it can’t engender some empathy, provoke some tragedy. Thanks to Bajon and a strong ensemble around him, the film makes you feel something for an enemy you might rather just hate.

It’s not often you get an official Cannes selection on Shudder. I guess that’s one more reason to watch Teddy.

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Eye in the Sky

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Whirlybird

by Rachel Willis

If you were paying attention to the news in the early 1990s, you’ve likely seen the aerial footage from Bob (now Zoey) Tur and Marika Gerrard-Tur that came out of Los Angeles. Even now, some of the captured footage is embedded within the American culture.

Collating hundreds of hours of footage, director Matt Yoka has assembled a fascinating and poignant documentary about the quest to be first on the scene of breaking news and about the heartbreak of one family behind the camera.

Zoey Tur talks in-depth about her experiences behind the camera in LA, starting in the late 1970s and running through the late ’90s. Her enthusiasm for the chase – whether following police cruisers in the family car (with wife and children in tow), or hovering over the city in her helicopter – is infectious. It’s not hard to see why she pursued the stories with such zeal.

The other half of the duo, Marika, was instantly caught up in the adrenaline rush after her first date with Tur. She describes Tur as being unlike anyone she had known before – a thrill seeker who sucked her into a world of breaking news.

Yoka is not interested in mining the ethical grey area that surrounded the early days of breaking news. Instead, he is more interested in looking at what happens to the people behind the camera – how are they affected by the crime and violence they capture, sometimes as it’s happening?

One of Tur’s most infamous captures was the beating of Reginald Denny. Broadcast on live television (Tur behind the camera in her helicopter), Denny was dragged from his truck and beaten by several men during the LA riots that followed the acquittal of the four officers responsible for the attack on Rodney King.

Tur cannot help but pass judgment on the violence recorded from above, and this is something Yoka focuses on: the influence, not only of the images captured, but the opinions from those recording the footage, on society.

As we watch the seemingly increasing violence in LA, we also watch it reflected in Tur. Violence and anger well up within her, and she lashes out at her family.

Yoka’s sensitive examination of a family and a culture that hinges on the precipice of breaking news is well worth making time for.

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Mondon’t

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Mondo Hollywoodland

by Christie Robb

Janek Ambros’s Mondo Hollywoodland is a play off a 1960s documentary called Mondo Hollywood by Robert Carl Cohen. The original aimed to depict the more extreme elements of life behind the scenes in Hollywood and included appearances by hippies, strippers, psychedelic pioneer and Tim Leary’s buddy Ram Dass, and both victims and perpetrators of the Manson Family killings.

Ambros’s Hollwoodland is part mockumentary part narrative story narrated by a dude from the 5th dimension who visits a magic mushroom dealer named Boyle to understand modern Hollywood and explore the concept of “Mondo.” (Which I guess, like pornography, is something you’ll know when you see.)

Boyle’s life intersects with three archetypes of Hollywood life: the Titans, the Weirdos, and the Dreamers. Each of the archetypes is personified by a few characters and gets its own section before they come together in a somewhat bewildering act four.

The Titans are represented by paranoid, cocaine-fueled, egomaniacal producers and starlets who are catered to by various fawning assistants. The Weirdos are a hodgepodge of political activists, New Age seekers, and untalented artists. The Dreamers are a group of folks who desire financial success or fame, but are unaware that they lack the business acumen or talent necessary to realize their vision.

There’s no nuance to these characterizations. They are the broadest sketches of common tropes. If Ambros was going for a Christopher Guest-style mocumentary or drug-addled comedy, he forgot to make it funny. If there was supposed to be a message to walk away with, it was lost along the way. There certainly wasn’t much new to learn about Hollywood. And if there was any Mondo contained therein, I didn’t see it.

The nods to the original Mondo documentary from the 60s (trippy music, colorful filter effects, swingy camera movements, and the title) seem derivative, if not downright exploitative of a cult classic. The groovy nostalgia vibe doesn’t reflect life in the 2020s and the focus on southern California stereotypes doesn’t add anything that Saturday Night Live couldn’t provide.

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Choosing Wisely

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Nine Days

by George Wolf

Will (Winston Duke) is a selector. Inside a modest home situated in the middle of nowhere and surrounded by nothing but flatland, he monitors the progress of his past selections while he carefully prepares to fill a new vacancy.

At the end of nine days, Will must choose wisely. His one selection among a new group of unborn souls will move on the “real world” and experience human life. The rest will not.

In his feature debut, writer/director Edson Oda presents an impressively assured vision of transfixing beauty and gentle poignancy. While the current run on “appreciate every day” films is hardly surprising in today’s climate, Oda brings an organic originality to the mantra of seeing the world through someone else’s eyes.

Will does exactly that, via the television monitors (and VHS tapes) that allow him to view the world as his past selections are living it. The monitors also play a role in the selection process, as Will gives his candidates (including Zazie Beetz, Tony Hale and Bill Skarsgård) daily assignments to write down their reactions to the world views they see.

Duke (Us, Black Panther) is phenomenal as a “cog in the wheel” who becomes caught between the clinical completion of his duties and the emotional weight of his responsibilities.

Unlike many in this otherworld – including his assistant Kyo (Benedict Wong) – Will actually spent time living in the real one. And while he won’t discuss details of his life experience, his charming reliance on VCRs and Polaroid cameras gives us a clue about the timeframe. Duke brings touching authenticity to the barrier Will has put up around his past, while also letting us glimpse how Will is haunted by the fate of a past selection, and by the chance he may have chosen poorly.

Oda’s writing and direction exhibit solid craftsmanship. His framing and use of light often work wonders together, conjuring an existential outpost full of strangely comfortable trappings.

The screenplay is finely tuned for each distinct applicant in the process, allowing a standout Beetz and the terrific ensemble to find intimate resonance in the alternately joyous and heartbreaking moments of a life.

Yes, Nine Days often has a lilting air of pretension, but with such a philosophical anchor, it would be more surprising if it did not. Give Oda credit for being unafraid of the moment. He’s taking some big swings at mighty heavy concepts here, with an originality of voice and attention to craft that is welcome any day.

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Fright Club: Workout Horror

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An ode to cautionary tales, this episode points out all the great reasons to just skip the gym. Those muscles aren’t going to do you any good if you are dead—seriously, hideously broken, bloody and dead. We enlist the aid of Rewatch Podcast’s Cory Metcalfe to help us work through the best in workout horror.

5. Final Destination 3 (2006)

Director James Wong returned after missing Episode 2 and picked up right where he left off: fun and horrifying Rube Goldbergs of Death.

A young Mary Elizabeth Winstead stars ad Wendy Christensen, she of the premonition about shoddy workmanship on that roller coaster. Naturally, those she saves are on Death’s list now. These films are not rocket science. A group of people cheats death. One by one, Death comes a callin’.

The fun is seeing how each demise works itself out. And Lewis (played by Texas Battle – that is a name!) gets it good.

4. Happy Birthday to Me (1981)

Director J. Lee Thompson had seen better days (Cape Fear, Guns of Navarone), but this switcheroo slasher boasts a weird vibe that makes it compelling.

It also contains a very early workout death scene. We all knew Greg had to go, and how fitting that this vane elitist got his on a workout bench. If he’d thought for one second just to drop the weights on the ground over his head…but Greg wasn’t exactly known for smarts.

3. Tragedy Girls (2017)

DirectorTyler MacIntyre’s whole approach in this film is pitch-perfect. Stars Brianna Hildebrand and Alexandra Shipp bring these bestie characters to vibrant life and the story around them is whip-smart and funny.

Speaking of funny, Craig Robinson has little more than a cameo, but he brings that Craig Robinson vibe, making this particular workout scene an uncomfortable comedic gem.

2. The Toxic Avenger (1984)

Melvin Junko’s whole life was a workout horror. Put upon and picked on, this little janitor only wanted to get his work done.

The Troma classic—awaiting an unbelievably well cast reboot from director Macon Blair—clearly had to be part of this list. Seeing Toxie finally get revenge on those Tromaville health club bullies.

1. Final Destination 5

Director Steven Quale’s prequel may be the best of the Final Destination bunch. The 3D horror takes full advantage of the intricate death sequences—especially the opening bridge set piece. Nice!

It helps that writer Eric Heisserer (Arrival, Birdbox, Lights Out, The Thing remake) knows how to write. The 5th installment feels less like a return to the well and more like an interesting riff on destiny. It also has some great support work from Tony Todd, Courtney B. Vance and David Koechner.

But we’re here to watch Candace die.

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Not Easy Being Green

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The Green Knight

by Hope Madden

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.

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American Dad

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Stillwater

by Hope Madden

A couple weeks back, Nicolas Cage played a man desperate to reclaim a loved one that was lost to him, a man who might stop at nothing to do just that. His film Pig hit every beat of a John Wick or Taken, subverting the genre trappings to create one of the most beautiful films of 2021.

Matt Damon has not lost his beloved bovine, but in Stillwater, he leads a film equally bent on messing with audience expectations.

Damon plays Bill Baker, out-of-work oil rigger headed to Marseilles to see his daughter, Allison (Abigail Breslin). It’s not your ordinary visit, though. Allison has been in prison for five years for a very Amanda Knox type of incident.

What does Bill want? To get his little girl out of prison. What does he need? To prove himself to himself, and to the world, but most desperately to Allison. There is an aching humility undergirding this performance, giving it richness and tenderness. That humility alone is enough to separate Stillwater from other fathers-desperate-to-save-daughter films like Taken.

But co-writer/director Tom McCarthy does not stop there.

This filmmaker is hard to figure. McCarthy followed up his early indie treasures (The Station Agent and The Visitor among them) with the high profile, catastrophically terrible Adam Sandler movie The Cobbler. Bounced back pretty well, though, with his Oscar-winning Spotlight. Still, his filmography swings back and forth between masterpiece (he wrote Pixar’s Up) and misfire (he wrote Disney’s Million Dollar Arm).

Stillwater falls somewhere between.

The film opens with the threadbare premise of an earnest All American Dad taking justice in his own hands to save his daughter. It picks up that thriller storyline late in the second act with a jarring right turn you simply did not expect. In between, though, in what could easily feel like a self-indulgent side plot, is the real meat of the film.

Bill decides to stay semi-permanently in France, moving in with the French woman who’s willing to help translate and sleuth with him. While he’s drawn to Virginie (Camille Cottin), it’s really her 9-year-old (a fantastic Lilou Siauvaud) that draws him in. And here McCarthy—along with a team of writers, both American and French—betray the real theme of the film.

Stillwater is a tragedy about second chances. Its sloppy construction is both its downfall and its strong point. The film works against your expectations brilliantly to deliver a film that refuses to satisfy. The result is an often brilliant, ultimately unsatisfying work. And that seems to be the point.

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They Call Me…

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Mr. Soul!

by George Wolf

Who do you think of when you hear the title “Mr. Soul!”?

James Brown? Otis Redding? Marvin Gaye?

Give writer/director Melissa Haizlip 104 minutes, and she’ll more than convince you the correct answer is her uncle, Ellis Haizlip, the trailblazing producer and host of the first “Black Tonight Show.”

Ellis and his team televised the revolution on Soul!, a landmark “love affair with blackness” which ran on New York public television from 1968 to 1973.

Under Ellis’s guidance as visionary producer and thoughtful host, Soul! confidently promoted the liberation of Black people. Tossing a truth bomb into the lily white television landscape of the late 60s, the show brought a focus on Black arts never before seen on screen.

Melissa Haizlip presents it all in absolutely riveting fashion. She primes us with the fascinating story behind the birth of the show and Ellis’s somewhat reluctant ascension to host, and then drops our jaws with a litany of archival performances that make the past crackle with new urgency.

Of course there are rousing musical segments from Stevie Wonder, Al Green, Gladys Knight, Billy Preston, Earth, Wind & Fire and more, but Ellis made sure Soul! also brought an overdue showcase to the “original avant-garde” of Black dance, writing and poetry.

Ellis’s goal was to share the Black experience first, and then educate and entertain. Bringing the brilliant work of Toni Morrison, the Last Poets, Nikki Giovanni and James Baldwin to television audiences cemented Ellis’s vision, and Melissa provides context to transcend the decades and allow the voices to speak their truth to current power.

And as you would expect, Melissa makes sure we see the caring soul of her uncle. With help from Blair Underwood often narrating Ellis’s writings (Ellis died in 1991 at the age of 61), we get to know an openly gay man who raised the topic of homosexuality with his audience and guests, and filled his own production team with a majority of female staffers.

Of the new interviews that Melissa weaves into the history lesson, hearing from Amir “Questlove” Thompson seems especially fitting. Though Mr. Soul! was completed 3 years ago, a more widespread release now makes it the perfect complement to Thompson’s own Summer of Soul.

This is Black history coming thrillingly, vibrantly alive, through the life of an enigmatic man earning that exclamation point.

Mr. Soul! Get to know him.

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Sirens Sing No Lullaby

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Lorelei

by Hope Madden

Dolores (Jena Malone) is a mess. Her past, her present, even her future: a mess. Shacking up with her high school boyfriend – just released from a 15-year stint for armed robbery – hardly seems like it will improve things for Dolores or her three children.

But bubbling beneath the surface of filmmaker Sabrina Doyle’s messy, sometimes frustrating feature debut Lorelei is enough magic to make redemption possible.

It helps immeasurably that Jena Malone plays the single mom who named each of her children after a different shade of blue. Wayland (Pablo Schreiber) had held out a hope that the eldest—a 15-year-old boy named Dodger Blue (Chancellor Perry)—might be his, but the truth is that none of Dolores’s kids are Wayland’s. All three should have been, but Wayland, in his own way, got out and Dolores did not.

Malone’s commitment is mesmerizing. In her hands, Dolores is never one-note white trash, nor is she by any means an example of the noble poor. Instead, she’s all love and resentment, wonder and self-destruction.

Schreiber (Liev’s brother) balances her electricity with quiet awe. He’s a physically imposing presence, especially opposite the petite Malone, but he never falls back on the gentle giant cliche. He fills Wayland’s inner conflict with remorse, loss and tenderness.

Though Dolores’s trio of Blues (Perry, Amelia Borgerding and Parker Pascoe-Sheppard) showcase genuine talent from three young performers, the same can’t be said of the entire ensemble. Many struggle with Doyle’s sometimes stilted dialog and her tendency to toss in minor characters with little purpose but exposition. Between that and the film’s sometimes frustrating structure, Lorelei can be cumbersome.

But there’s no denying the central performances or the beautifully messy image of family the film delivers. Though at its heart Lorelei offers a blue-collar romance, this is less a traditional love story—albeit one on society’s fringes—than a declaration about unconventional families.

In fact, in that way alone Doyle manages to make Lorelei’s flaws work in its favor.

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Maybe Pass on this Additional Helping of Oliver Twist

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Twist

by Christie Robb

Have you ever found yourself reading a classic Victorian novel and wondering, “What if this was more like Ocean’s Eleven as directed by Guy Ritchie, but with parkour?”

A modern-day update of the Charles Dickens classic Oliver Twist, Martin Owen’s Twist imagines Oliver as an orphaned parkour enthusiast and Banksy-esque street artist. Oliver is swiftly recruited into a gang of art thieves and tasked with stealing a previously stolen Hogarth painting to salvage the reputation of Fagin (Michael Caine), who was a legitimate art dealer back in the day until his partner stole the Hogarth and pinned it on him.

The movie’s strength is in its depiction of parkour. The practitioners make the London cityscape into their playground, skipping across rooftops like stones on a still pond.

The plot and character development are handled with less dexterity. The teenage thieves are given highly specialized technical skills with no attempt at an explanation of how, for example, a minor might know how to clone a cell phone or fake the credentials of a fine art gallery. The characters are very thinly portraited, with each seeming to get about one emotion to embody.  Raff Law (song of Jude) as Twist is unflappably earnest with no undertone of the emotional baggage that a kid who was orphaned at 10 or 11 and lived alone on the streets of London would have accrued.

Even Lena Headey, who gives a very convincing depiction of rage, can’t overcome the script’s lack of an explanation of why she’s there and what exactly she has to do with everything except being an obstacle because the plot demands it.

Headey and Caine lend the film a certain gravitas it otherwise doesn’t really deserve. There’s certainly none of the concern with crushing, systemic poverty and the social class disparities contained in the source material. Oliver and the other young thieves are dressed stylishly, are glowing with good health, and get to hang out in a clubhouse furnished with classic arcade games, jukeboxes, and foosball tables. The morality of their lifestyle isn’t questioned as much as it is explained away as a romantic Robin Hood kind of thing where Fagin plays Hood and the kiddos are his Merry Men.  

Overall, the film is a rather lackluster adaptation of a classic that misses much of the original’s point. If you want to see young people executing artful feats of athleticism, dodge this flick and put on the Olympics.