Tag Archives: MaddWolf

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Miracle on Ice

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Breakthrough

by George Wolf

As the faith-based genre has grown in recent years, many of the films have suffered from a frustrating lack of respect for their target.

Just hammer home a message for the believers, and they won’t mind if we really don’t worry too much about the rest of it, right?

Breakthrough gives that trend a refreshing buck, surrounding its incredible true story with solid performances, steady direction and more than a few moments of thoughtful, nuanced writing.

In January of 2015, Missouri teen John Smith fell through thin ice on a local lake. After an hour with no vital signs, he suddenly showed faint signs of life.

His doctor’s notes read: “Mother prayed.”

But beyond just a testament to the power of prayer, Breakthrough works as well as it does thanks to a commitment to the strength of John’s mom, Joyce Smith, and the touching lead performance from Chrissy Metz (TV’s This Is Us).

Though the Smith’s close-knit neighborhood is presented in broad strokes of idealism, Breakthrough hits a nice groove with the relationship between Joyce and her pastor (an engaging Topher Grace).

Wary at first of his haircut and attempts to bring “hip” to the church, mother and pastor bond as John (Marcel Ruiz) struggles for life, creating a nice parallel to how the film itself seeks to broaden the faith-based reach.

Director Roxanne Dawson and writer Grant Nieporte (both TV veterans) can’t entirely keep the heavy-handedness at bay, but they are able to find some genuine moments of authenticity. Even a late nod to the “Why him?” crowd, while not fully explored, lands as a worthy ambition.

It truly is an incredible survival story, and by grounding it in the spirit of a distraught mother, Breakthrough finds some solid ground.

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Is That What I Smell?

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Teen Spirit

by Hope Madden

Three years ago, Elle Fanning starred in The Neon Demon, Nicolas Winding Refn’s take on the soul devouring business of show. She played an innocent hoping her natural talent would be enough to carry her far away from her one-horse town.

It’s a threadbare storyline and Refn couldn’t find the same inspiration that drove his earlier efforts Drive and Bronson to such dizzying heights. And yet, for its faults, The Neon Demon is a bold, imaginative and bracingly fresh take on a familiar song.

Writer/director Max Minghella is no Nicolas Winding Refn.

Minghella’s Teen Spirit sees Fanning as Violent, raw singing talent wasting away on the Isle of Wight. When an American Idol-style singing competition hosts auditions on the island, Violet sees her opportunity.

Awash in daddy issues, blatantly judgmental of showmanship (God forbid a girl wear makeup or wigs) and too dependent on Fanning’s mediocre voice, Minghella’s look at the dark side of the entertainment industry can’t find its groove.

Teen Spirit is not a complete misstep. Fanning’s acting is characteristically spot on. Rather than casting Violet as the bashful townie, Fanning presents a sullen, unlikeable character whose aloneness has as much to do with her own adolescent misanthropy as anything.

Equally appealing in his unappealing way is Zlatko Buric playing Vlad, the unsightly mess of a drunk that an underaged Violet drafts into posing as her guardian so she can audition.

The crusty sympathy the two form creates a welcome change to the ordinary—which is what the rest of Teen Spirit bathes in. Catty divas, soulless and posh record execs, temptation, disloyalty, pop songs—all of it’s here in some neutered form or other.

Teen Spirit not only plays like a toothless version of Neon Demon, it also bears an eerie resemblance to Leap, the 2016 animated adventure in which Fanning plays an orphan who longs to dance in the Paris ballet.

She’s also an alien turned punk rocker—with far more interesting performance sequences—in John Cameron Mitchell’s How to Talk to Girls at Parties from 2016.

No wonder Teen Spirit feels so derivative. You haven’t just seen this movie before, you’ve seen Elle Fanning in this movie before.





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La La La La Llorona

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The Curse of La Llorona

by Hope Madden

The Conjuring Universe loves the Seventies, doesn’t it? And why not? So many patterns to distract attention from your evil, so many bell bottoms to hide beneath. It’s also a time period before Catholicism became a horror movie unto itself, which makes it a safer space to depict a more wholesome view of the Church.

Not that Anna (Linda Cardellini, Green Book) would know. Her late husband was more of the religious one. But as Fr. Perez (Tony Amendola, Annabelle) points out, “You don’t have to be religious to have faith.”

Ah, yes, Michael Chaves’s The Curse of La Llorona is burdened by some seriously obvious dialog. That’s to be expected. The two people who wrote the film (Mikki Daughtry and Tobias Iaconis) are the same two people who wrote Five Feet Apart, the latest teen tragedy porn to wheeze its Boy in a Plastic Bubble riff into the hearts of Kleenex-clutching youth everywhere.

And yet, there is something of the old school charm that marks the best films in the Conjuring universe on display here. Simple fun house scares, primarily practical effects, kids in peril—these are all invoked in a quickly paced if somewhat nonsensical and conveniently plotted ghost story.

There is also a quick Scooby-Doo reference (this being 1976). Have you ever wondered why Cardellini always looks so familiar? Because she was Velma in the film series—making her sort of my own personal hero—and I, for one, was thrilled that LLL shouted that out. Plus, good parenting.

The story unfortunately skirts the real tensions to be drawn from questioning her parenting skills. Not that  LLL had a shot at reaching the terrifying heights of The Babadook, but for a moment it takes us down the path of calling a single parent’s fitness for the job into question.

This is quickly abandoned for the safer territory of a fierce mother protecting her cubs, which is too bad because Cardellini’s understated and graceful performance could probably have carried a more challenging script.

Instead we get bits and pieces of other films in the series, stitched together by a folk tale about a murderous mother. This is not inspired horror, but it’s not ridiculous, either.

It’s a spooky time waster.

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Polar Pop

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Penguins

by George Wolf

Temperatures have finally started warming up.

So why would we take a trip to the coldest, windiest place on Earth, where there ain’t no sunshine for half the year?

Because Antarctica is where the Penguins are, and they’re the focus of Disneynature’s latest Earth Day doc for the family!

You might know the drill by now. Expect incredible nature footage, an approach geared more toward accessibility than science, with some easygoing humor and gentle reminders about the harshness of predators and prey.

Ed Helms narrates this adventure, starring an Adelie penguin we’ll call Steve, who’s finally ready for his first mating season as a single-and-ready-to-mingle adult male.

On his long trek to the hookup point Steve passes through a tribe of his Emperor cousins, which reminds us that 1) this is like March of the Penguins, except different, and 2) Steve is a bit of a laggie.

But he catches up to the rest of the migrators, and after impressing a young coldie known as Adelene, Steve finds a mate and a new family. Together, Steve and Adelene must keep their chicks safe until they’re able to fend for themselves in the open sea.

The writing for this installment is less forced, with many of Helms’s asides for Steve (“She smells great! I gotta start working out…”) drawing chuckles without the added weight of manipulation that has hampered previous Earth Day episodes.

Directors Alastair Fothergill and Jeff Wilson (both Disneynature vets) hit all the right benchmarks in their 76 minutes: a penguin adventure that will delight the kids told through often breathtaking footage plus, for the adults, nostalgic odes to parenting and classic hits (Whitesnake! REO!).

And, per usual, stay through the credits for some nifty peeks behind the icy curtain.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VubxHFy7ocE





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The Hills Are Alive

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Hagazussa: A Heathen’s Curse

by Hope Madden

Making a remarkably assured feature debut as director, Lukas Feigelfeld mesmerizes with his German Gothic poetry, Hagazussa: A Heathen’s Curse.

Settled somewhere in the 15th Century Alps, the film shadows lonely, ostracized women struggling against a period where plague, paranoia and superstition reigned.

Young Albrun (Celina Peter) and her mother (Claudia Martini) make their way back to their isolated cabin before darkness falls. With a minimum of dialog and a maximum of atmosphere, Feigelfeld quickly establishes the dangerous isolation facing mother and daughter.

It’s an episode that will haunt Albrun well into adulthood, where she (Aleksandra Cwen) is now the single mother, still an outsider, still isolated from the village.

It would be easy to mistake the story Feigelfeld (who also writes) develops as a take on horror’s common “is she crazy or is there malevolence afoot?” theme. But the filmmaker’s hallucinatory tone and Cwen’s grounded performance allow Hagazussa to straddle that line and perhaps introduce a third option—maybe both are true.

Isolation, shunning and bullying lead to one tragedy upon the next. The village and its priest having deemed Albrun a witch, the line that defines the reality of the situation and the spiritual ugliness blur for both Albrun and the audience.

The film lends itself to a reading more lyrical than literal. Feigelfeld’s influences from Murnau to Lynch show themselves in his deliberate pacing and the sheer beauty of his delusional segments. One goat milking episode, in particular, is both startlingly erotic and disturbingly articulate of Albrun’s state of mind.

MMD’s ominous score strengthens the film’s overall sense of hypnotic menace, echoing sounds we’re not sure will frighten or comfort this mysterious woman at the center of the film.

Albrun’s is a tragic story and Feigelfeld crafts it with a believable loneliness that bends toward madness. He’s captured this moment in time, this draining and ugly paranoia that caused women such misery, with imagery that is perplexingly beautiful.

He’s cast a spell and you should submit.





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American Pastoral

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Little Woods

by Hope Madden

If you already know the name Nia DaCosta, the likely reason may be that Jordan Peele pegged her to direct the Monkey Paws-produced remake of 1992’s horror gem Candyman that’s due next year.

What had she done to so impress the new American emperor of horror?

Little Woods.

DaCosta’s feature directorial debut, which she also wrote, is not a horror film. It’s an independent drama of the most unusual sort—the sort that situates itself unapologetically inside American poverty.

Tessa Thompson anchors the film as Oleander. She has 8 days left on her probation for running drugs across the Canadian border and she means to get the F out of her dead end town the first minute she can. Her sister Deb (Lily James) complicates things.

There is a predictability in the setup that DaCosta uses to betray your preconceived notions. While the traditionally structured narrative does its job to elevate tension, the characters within that tale veer wildly—or, authentically—from the expected.

This is less a film about the complicated pull of illegal activity and more a film about the obstacles the American poor face—many of them created by a healthcare system that serves anyone but our own ill and injured.

Films that honestly explore American poverty are scarce—The Florida Project, Frozen River, The Rider and very few others. Little Woods joins this list, all beautiful gut punch films that choose to present realistic tales with fully drawn characters rather than easy, noble tragedies.

The border crossing scene in Little Woods holds particular resonance, even more than it did back in 2008 when Courtney Hunt put Melissa Leo and her car on Frozen River‘s thin ice. Echoes of images from our own Southern border help to contextualize the nation’s narrative about saving society from the poor families and the criminals out to exploit our riches.

But politically savvy filmmaking is not the main reason to see Little Woods. See it because Tessa Thompson and Lily James are amazing, or because the story is stirring and unpredictable.

See it because it’s what American actually looks like.





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All Hail

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Amazing Grace

by George Wolf

These days, singers made from technology feel more like the rule than the exception. How cosmically right, then, that is it because of improved technology we can finally witness one of the world’s greatest singers at home with her genius.

Already a living legend in January of 1972, Aretha Franklin wanted her next album to be a return to her gospel roots. Over two nights at the New Temple Baptist Church in Los Angeles, Aretha recorded live with the Reverend James Cleveland’s Southern California Community Choir as director Sydney Pollack rolled cameras for a possible TV special.

While it resulted in the biggest-selling gospel album in history, problems with syncing the music to the film kept the footage shelved for decades. Armed with the latest tech wizardry, producer/co-director Alan Elliot finally brings Amazing Grace to a glorious finish line.

Starting out by accompanying herself on piano, Aretha dives into gospel standards and modern medleys with a transfixing joy. As Rev. Cleveland (and later, Aretha’s father, the Rev, C.L. Franklin) sing her praises between songs, the Queen seems shy, almost embarrassed by the attention.

But when the music starts again, her eyes close and the beads of sweat dot her face, Aretha seems to be giving thanks for her gift, singing straight to the heavens with a soul-stirring euphoria that moves in brilliant unison with choir director Alexander Hamilton’s sublime ensemble.

To see her here is to see her at the absolute apex of her powers. taking that voice-of-a-lifetime wherever she pleases with an ease that simply astounds. Even with the recording session stop/starts that Elliot includes for proper context, Aretha’s hold on the congregations (which include the Stones’ Mick Jagger and Charlie Watts) is a come-to-Jesus revelation.

So is the film. It’s a thrilling, absolute can’t-miss testament to soul personified.

 

 





For Your Queue

I Don’t Want To Go Out — Week of April 15

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It’s the week of one-word movie titles. One of these couldn’t meet the high bar it set for itself, but it’s not such a bad movie. The other one is a bad movie. No question. Which is which? We’re here to clarify.

Click the title for the full review.

Glass

Replicas

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y77HoE4TtCg





Slider, The Screening Room

Screening Room: Missing Link, Hellboy, Little, After, Master Z

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Lots and lots to cover in the Screening Room this week: Missing Link, Hellboy, Little, After, and Master Z: Ip Man Legacy.  Plus just as many new home entertainment releases. Strap in!

 

Listen to the full podcast HERE.





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Daydream Believer

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After

by George Wolf

According to my crack research staff (i.e. the twentysomething woman who was nice enough to talk with me after the show), Anna Todd’s After source novels began as fan fiction for the band One Direction.

That actually makes some sense, as Fifty Shades began as Twilight fan fiction, After‘s playbook is Fifty Shades lite (Fifteen Shades?) and I guess this is what we do now.

The smoldering Hardin (Hero Fiennes Tiffin – Harry Potter’s Tom Riddle) is a college student who’s “complicated, be careful!” Incoming freshman Tessa (Josephine Langford, showing moments of potential) isn’t careful, and in an instant is trading in her high school boyfriend and Mennonite-ready frocks for Hardin and one of his multiple Ramones t-shirts.

We’ve all seen this before, and so has Todd, whose story (adapted by Susan McMartin) checks off all the obligatory boxes for what is less a cohesive narrative and more a series of daydreams connected by desperately sensitive pop songs not by the Ramones.

Director Jenny Gage, whose All This Panic mined genuine young adult emotion, is powerless to shape this material into anything more than plug-and-play emptiness.

So after the slo-mo bad boy glances, the disbelief in love, the emotional moment in the rain, the ex who assures her what she did to him was fine, the assurances that someone finally sees her specialness and more, we get to the voiceover essay reading.

Of course we do, and when that essay tells us how deeply one character’s life has been changed by the other, it means nothing unless we’ve been shown some reason, any reason, to believe it.

 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXe4rqxWvqY