That is a direct quote from my doctor after I re-injured myself for the 11th or 12th time from running. He may have consulted on Anthony Guidubaldi and Keith Strausbaugh’s screenplay for their new mockumentary, Marathon.
Amateur documentarians follow five runners as they train for
an off-brand marathon organized by Ed Clap (Jimmy Slonina), the owner of a shoe
store, equally off-brand.
In much the way the master of the genre Christopher Guest used dog shows and community theater to explore particular personality types, so do Guidubaldi and Straugsbaugh set a group of oddballs loose inside the idiocy of marathon training.
For Shareef Washington (Tavius Cortez), this is about
sibling rivalry. Unfortunately, he has to do all his training on a treadmill
because whenever he runs outside, he gets arrested by white cops. Jenna (Natalie
Sullivan), on the other hand, wants to break the world record for marathon runners
dressed as fruit.
Crews also tail a woman (Anais Thomassian) trying to
remember life before motherhood and an insecure man (Andrew Hansen) hoping to prove
himself to his ex-wife by qualifying for the Boston Marathon.
So, the runners range from desperate to lunatic, sometimes in insightful and often in amusing ways. Hansen’s quickly deteriorating relationship with Jeff, the cameraman we never see, delivers the film’s funniest moments.
The keenest insights may come by way of Emilou (Kimia Behpoornia),
who drops out the moment she realizes marathons are 26 miles long. Her crew
stays with her through race day, though, just to prove how much better life is
when you’re not training for a marathon.
Though Hansen is clearly the film’s brightest spot, the filmmakers pieced together an entirely solid ensemble. Droll performances suit the script and keep your attention, but the story itself lacks much real punch. Worse, the police oppression subplot feels tone-deaf at best.
Still, Guidubaldi and Strausbaugh understand something my doctor saw perhaps too well, and that’s why their affectionate ribbing rings so true.
Back in 2014, Irish filmmaker Ivan Kavanagh wondered what to do about a dad who may be his son’s only salvation, or may be his one true danger. Canal had a lot going for it—it looked creepy, performances were solid, and it wasn’t afraid to bang up its cast.
It just couldn’t quite make the leap from good to great.
Same goes for the filmmaker’s latest, Son.
We open on a filthy, barefoot, rain-soaked young pregnant woman (Andi Matichak, Halloween) hoping to warm up with a coffee in a roadside diner. Two men walk in, she exits in a hurry.
Cut to eight years later. Same woman, clean and wholesome
now, buckles in precocious little David (Luke David Blumm) to drop him off at
school. They’re adorable. They’re happy, hard-working, loving, and about to
face some ugly stuff once Kavanagh establishes the paradise to be lost.
An awful lot of movies want to know how far a mother is
willing to go to protect the son who may or may not be the real villain. This has
been especially true in the last five years. (See The
Hole, The
Prodigy, Brahms:
The Boy 2, Z,
Brightburn
— it’s a long list.) Does anything set Son apart?
Kavanaugh roots the story in hysteria and conspiracy, sketchy memories of a cult versus police reports of sex trafficking. All of it feels mildly of-the-moment, but the real purpose is to throw skepticism toward the seemingly lucid mother and her claims.
Which is another common horror trope (is she crazy or is she right?), especially in the subgenre where a mother is trying to figure something out that may or may not be supernatural.
So, no, Kavanaugh does not bring much that’s new to the table.
Son does boast solid performances, and the filmmaker once again flexes his strong instincts for unsettling locations and atmospheres. The writing, pacing, and imagery all work together as they should to generate anxiety and dread. Son gets gory now and again, too.
It just doesn’t do anything you don’t expect it to do.
Three characters, and one big house. That’s all that directors/writers Martin Blousson and Macarena Garcia Lenzi need to conjur up a good bit of creepy in Rock, Paper and Scissors (Piedra, papel y tijera).
Jesus (Pablo Sigal) and Maria Jose (Augustina Cervino) are isolated siblings living alone in the family home after the recent death of their father. When their paternal half-sister Magdalena (Valeria Giorcelli) arrives from Spain to discuss the inheritance and plans for the house, Jesus and Maria offer to put her up for the length of her stay.
Magdalena doesn’t want to trouble them for any more than one night, but a nasty fall down the stairs the next morning means little sister isn’t going anywhere.
Suddenly, Magdalena is a captive, and at the mercy of her siblings’ eyebrow-raising eccentricities. Jesus is an aspiring filmmaker filled with questionable inspirations, and Maria is a Wizard Of Oz-obsessed nursemaid who hopes to co-star with a guinea pig named Toto in Jesus’s upcoming film.
Magdalena’s only hope for escape seems to be separating her brother and sister, and probing for ways to work one against the other. Could Maria have pushed Magdalena down the stairs, or is Jesus the real danger in this house? And how did their father really die, anyway?
Blousson and Lenzi move past the Misery-like premise in short order, piling on some surrealistic Lynch-meets-Lanthimos weirdness and bathing it all in a stylistic visual pastiche of earth tone Goth.
The trio of actors reveals their characters’ true motivations at a languid pace that keeps us guessing, right up to the gorgeous closing shot that will leave you looking twice. Maybe three times.
Rock, Paper and Scissors is available on VOD beginning July 6th
Bonus content! Mangled dick experts! Iconic freeze frames! Yes, this extra Fright Club podcast has it all, thanks to the glorious Felissa Rose of Sleepaway Camp, who joined us to talk about horror fans, realizing her iconic status, and worries over whether her face will freeze like that.
With a prelude this reminiscent of Edge of Tomorrow and a catalyst that recalls Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises, The Tomorrow War makes itself clear early. This is not going to be a terribly original movie.
Dan Forester (Chris Pratt) is a high school science teacher
who believes he was destined for more important things. His opportunity arrives
when future earthlings show up to recruit present-day earthlings to fight a
battle against the end of the human race.
Some important questions to answer. What is going to be the
end of us?
Aliens.
Do we get to see them?
Yes! Early and often.
How do they look?
Nasty as hell! Dude, the teeth and these tentacle things—nice!
And finally, why is this movie so long?
While there is no clear answer to that, it appears that
director Chris McKay is a big fan of Roland Emmerich, Michael Bay, maybe Stephen
Sommers. The film emits a throwback vibe, conjuring popcorn munchers of the
late 90s—which is about the era when self-indulgent directors started making 2 ½
hour mindless Sci-Fi.
That’s not all bad, right? The film’s logic may be a bit sketchy, but its professed love of science makes up for a lot of that. Naturally, there are also syrupy family dramatics to drive the narrative, because we all remember Emmerich’s 1996 epic Independence Day.
Also, while many of the internal action sequences feel theme-park stagey, the outdoor set pieces are a blast.
Films like this don’t call for master thespians. Good thing,
because Pratt, who also executive produces, doesn’t bring any real depth of
emotion to the role. Luckily, J.K. Simmons cannot give a weak performance, so
the bruised masculinity and daddy issues have somewhere to take root.
Lose an hour and The Tomorrow War is a pretty fun time-waster, but nothing more. Writer Zach Dean doesn’t say anything new and McKay certainly doesn’t find any fresh ways to say it. But if you miss the bloated, 2+hour action/adventure flicks of the late 1990s, The Tomorrow War is your movie.
The pandemic – as it did with everything else – played havoc with our latest half-year list. Because Oscar understandably extended last year’s window of eligibility, films that would normally have been included on the list below (such as Judas and the Black Messiah) technically come down on the 2020 ledger.
Do we have to play by Oscar rules? No. But mainly to avoid confusion when it’s time for the end-of-the-year list come December, we will.
So in alphabetical order, here are our picks for the best films of March thru June, 2021:
A Quiet Place Part II
AQPII is lean, moves at a quick clip, thrills with impressive outdoor carnage sequences and yet commands the original film’s same level of tension in the nerve- janglingly quiet moments. Writer/director John Krasinski had a tough task trying to follow his 2018 blockbuster, one made even tougher now having to prove the sequel was worth saving for a theaters-only release.
On both counts, we’d say he nailed it.
Final Account
The final film for late documentarian Luke Holland, this oral history of Nazi Germany challenges rationalizations. It doesn’t accuse, doesn’t accost, but it also doesn’t let anyone off the hook. What is the difference between being complicit and being a perpetrator? It’s a question that haunts the film and its subjects. It becomes clear that it’s a question that haunts a nation.
Holler
If you seek an antidote to Hillbilly Elegy, writer/director Nicole Riegel’s feature debut has what you’re looking for. Driven by Jessica Barden’s blisteringly confident lead performance, Holler sugarcoats nothing about American poverty, patronizes no one, and does not need a Mamaw to explain the facts of life.
In the Heights
Director Jon M. Chu takes Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Tony Award-winning In the Heights from stage to screen with the magic intact, for a block party worthy of celebrating – in a theater, with a crowd.
Are we really “back to normal?” Can the American dream still be alive?
For 143 minutes, it sure feels like it.
Nobody
The one and only thing that separates Nobody from dozens and dozens of expertly crafted, wildly interchangeable “underestimated badass” films is the utter brilliance of its casting.
And by that, I mean exclusively the perfection of Bob Odenkirk in this role. His placement at the center of the film not only sells the “average guy” masquerade better than Liam Neeson ever could, but it makes his inner struggle and his displays of violence actually stand out.
Regardless of the fact that you’ve seen this exact movie a dozen times, you just don’t expect it to be this good.
Riders of Justice
Men will single-handedly gun down an entire biker gang rather than go to therapy. That’s the premise from prolific writer-director Anders Thomas Jensen, where he reunites with Mads Mikkelsen in the dark comic revenge fantasy Riders of Justice.
But Jensen isn’t nearly as interested in the physical mayhem as the emotional wreckage his oddball characters are all coping with. Riders of Justice treats its characters with such forgiving empathy that it’s easy to forget that the group is also almost certainly responsible for the most murders in Denmark since the Vikings.
Rita Moreno: Just a Girl Who Decided To Go For it
Beyond the treasure trove of archival footage, home movies and interview praises, director Mariem Pérez Riera finds the most resonance in the personal journey told by Rita Moreno herself.
Looking back on the obstacles she faced and the successes and failures of her life and career, Moreno displays a hard-won self-worth and an honest self-awareness that she continues to probe.
This is not just an entertaining Hollywood story, it’s an inspiring American story and a hopeful human story. It’s just a damn good story, from someone worthy of celebrating while she’s still here.
Saint Maud
Maud (an astonishing Morfydd Clark) has some undefined blood and shame in her recent past. But she survived it, and she knows God saved her for a reason. She’s still working out what that reason is when she meets Amanda (Jennifer Ehle), a former choreographer now crumbling beneath lymphoma. Maud cannot save Amanda’s body, but because of just the right signs from Amanda, she is determined to save her soul.
As a horror film, Saint Maud is a slow burn. Writer/director Rose Glass and crew repay you for your patience, though, with a smart film that believes in its audience. Her film treads the earth between mental illness and religious fervor, but its sights are on the horror of the broken-hearted and lonesome.
Shiva Baby
Clearly, much of writer/director Emma Seligman’s sharp dialog comes from personal experience, and if it’s one you share this is a film that will feel like part of the family. But you didn’t have to be Greek to get caught up in that Big Fat Wedding, and you don’t have to be Jewish to see the joy in Shiva Baby.
Seligman flashes an insight that disarms you with sex and humor, keeping its hand at a subtle distance. But by the time we’re leaving the buffet, a breakout filmmaker and star (the irresistible Rachel Sennot) have delivered a fresh, funny and intimate take on the indignities of finding yourself.
Slalom
The sports movie genre is littered with tales of the could-have-been athlete who regains what legitimacy he can by shepherding the next phenom. Slalom is more interested in the havoc that can wreak on the younger athlete.
Writer/director Charlène Favier’s take on the situation is even-handed. She never stoops to melodrama, never paints young skier Lyz (Noée Abita’s) as faultless in her relationship with trainer Fred (Jérémie Renier, great). Lyz’s complexities – particularly given Abita’s assured performance – only ensure that the film leaves more of a mark.
There Is No Evil
Presenting four short films together as separately compelling variations on a theme is impressive. Make those four shorts all from the same writer/director, telling distinct stories that raise the emotional stakes in distinct ways, and you have a stunning achievement.
You have Iranian filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof delivering a political statement of immense weight and moral conviction. You have There Is No Evil.
Each chapter of the film presents a seemingly unique paradox, then quietly mounts the tension before revealing gripping plot turns that unite the strands in memorably devastating fashion.
With four masterful bits of storytelling and the exceptional ensemble cast in There Is No Evil, Rasoulof deftly explores the wages of those decisions, as well as the immoral center of a despotic regime that makes them necessary.
This Is Not a Burial, It’s a Resurrection
Incredibly beautiful and rich with color, light, and shadow, every scene in this film is a haunting painting. The cast, mixed with actors and non-actors alike, brings you to witness the erasure of a real place and real people, and you mourn with them.
Though the people of the film’s central town of Nazareth still live, something about them will be lost forever. They are some of the last of their kind as new roads, and new buildings, and new dams continue to creep into the quiet places of the world. Progress fills up little villages with the walking dead as ways of life are washed away.
Together Together
It takes a full two minutes to get a really good feeling about Together Together. Writer/director Nikole Beckwith delivers witty, engaging dialogue from the jump, defining characters and setting the stakes in a beautifully organic manner.
There’s love and family and funny stuff here, and though none of it is quite the kind we’re used to seeing, all of it is wonderfully real. Together Together is a delivery that somehow feels comfortable and unique, both overdue and right on time.
What happens when The Boss Baby we met in 2017 gets all grown up?
Well, when we catch up with Theodore “Ted” Templeton (voiced again by Alec Baldwin) in the Dreamworks sequel Family Business, he’s a hedge fund honcho who now has a statue in his honor at Baby Corp. But Ted works all the time, doesn’t see much of his family, and has a strained relationship with his brother Tim (James Marsden).
Tim and wife Carol (Eva Longoria) are parents of Tabitha (Ariana Greenblatt), a whip smart but increasingly distant second grader at the Acorn School, and Tina (Amy Sedaris), a new baby with a familiar secret.
Yep, Tina’s an agent from Baby Corp, and they need the Templeton boys to mend fences and work together. It seems Acorn headmaster Dr. Erwin Armstrong (Jeff Goldblum) is cooking up something nefarious at the school, so Ted and Tim need to drink the formula that will – to the tune of “Time Warp” – turn them back into a baby (Ted) and a schoolboy (Tim) for 48 hours. Then they must use that time to derail Dr. Armstrong’s plan for a baby revolution (“cake for everybody!”)
Director Tom McGrath and writer Michael McCullers return from the first film, where they struggled to expand Marla Frazee’s book to feature length without leaning on excess filler.
But this new installment comes together as a more independent, fully formed adventure. The pace is buzzing with often frenetic activity that should keep the kids interested, and though the laughs aren’t hearty LOLs, McGrath and McCullers score with several well-placed and understated asides that parents will appreciate.
Baldwin’s buttery sarcasm is again perfect for the little bossman (“I have a beautiful voice!”), while Sedaris and Goldblum bring some zany Sedaris and Goldblum (both always welcome) to the voice ensemble.
Can the Templeton brothers form a new bond while thwarting Armstrong’s plan? Can Tim return to adult form in time to see Tabitha sing in the Holiday pageant (which also features a song about global warming called “We’re Doomed”)? Is the head on Ted’s statue big enough?
Yes, answering these questions does get both predictable and convoluted, but Family Business stocks just enough inspired nuttiness and warm fuzzies to finish in the black.
Now, I’m not suggesting any of the Purge films were
subtle. Creator James DeMonaco wielded a blunt political instrument from the
start.
Quick recap: In the near future, a far-right government, the
New Founding Fathers, establishes a single night of lawlessness to encourage
Americans to purge themselves of all their hate and anger. And, you know, take
their frustrations out on the homeless, the poor, and the otherwise generally
oppressed.
So, a pretty easy metaphor to figure out, although most installments contained an interesting idea here, some memorable imagery there. Gerard McMurray’s 2018 The First Purge was impressively topical and prescient, and genuinely angry. In it, the filmmakers essentially looked at Trump’s America and asked: How did we get here?
In a way, all of these films have led organically to The
Forever Purge, a film with a premonition of what would have happened if Trump’s
America had been allowed to – or would ever again – continue on its natural course.
It’s hard to blame filmmakers for losing optimism in the face of the national shame of January 6. In this installment, entitled, angry white people have decided that one night is not enough, so they organize online and just take over the country.
DaMonaco returns as writer, while Everardo Gout directs. Gout’s sensibilities lean heavily toward action. The Forever Purge is essentially an action thriller with a social conscience (and about as much subtlety as you’ve come to expect from the franchise).
There is no forgiveness in this installment, and maybe there shouldn’t be. But The Forever Purge loses the humanity of the better episodes in the series. At its worst, it’s a political outcry by way of a predictable horror film that’s pretty light on horror. At its best, it’s a poignant upending of this country’s fundamental, foundational racism.
Even serial killers need someone to talk to. Just hope it’s
not you.
That, in a nutshell, is the premise of Cody Callahan’s
latest, Vicious Fun.
In this 80s-era horror-comedy, sad sack Joel (Evan Marsh in
kind of a Jon Cryer role) is a nice guy. He’s just kind of an idiot who can’t take
a hint.
One evening he drowns his sorrows, passes out, and sobers up
to find himself in a late-night support group for serial killers. He’s not a
member—a fact the others sniff out pretty quickly—and shit goes south post
haste.
Callahan’s script winks with a kind of embarrassed affection
toward the horror nerd. Joel’s a screenwriter wannabe and is perhaps too proud
of his position as horror journalist for a fan magazine.
The serial killers here are not so much your garden variety psychos
as they are typical horror movie monsters. Vicious Fun shows no end of
self-deprecating charm, and Callahan’s solid cast is in on the joke.
Earlier this year, Callahan impressed with the boozy
Canadian hillbilly noir The
Oak Room, where he took advantage of Ari Millen’s versatility and
peculiarity. Here Millen dives more fully into his peculiar side, throwing
shades of McConaughey at his most unhinged for a character who’s never quite
what he seems but is always attention-getting.
The enormous Robert Maillet (Becky)
fits his character, physically and emotionally, to a tee, while Julian Richings
(Anything
for Jackson) surprises in a dual role. Amber Goldfarb cuts an impressive
presence as the film’s badass, and David Koechner is David Koechner, but when
isn’t that fun?
There aren’t enough nice guys in horror movies. Hats off to Callahan for not only finding a unique and fun premise in an overcrowded genre but for appreciating the precious jewel that is the nice guy.
