Tag Archives: MaddWolf

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Orchestral Maneuvers

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Woman at War

by Rachel Willis

One of the best things about Woman at War is the hero, Halla (a superb Halldóra Geirharðsdóttir). Not often do we see a heroic middle-aged woman, but that’s exactly what we get in director Benedikt Erlingsson’s odd, charming, thrilling comedic fairy tale about a female warrior fighting against the devastating environmental effects of a local aluminum plant.

Like any superhero, by day Halla is a model citizen protecting her secret identity as the “Mountain Woman.” A choir director who rides her bicycle to work, she lives a seemingly routine life. But her inner turmoil compels her to fight the environmental destruction she sees happening in the name of greed.

A wrench is thrown into Halla’s life when she learns that her dreams of adopting a child are finally coming to fruition. A little girl in Ukraine needs a home, and Halla wants a chance at motherhood as much as she wants to fulfill her mission.

Emphasizing the film’s heroic theme, musicians play the score onscreen. In terms of stage theater, it’s reminiscent of a choir that typically opens a play by setting the scene. Then by popping up throughout the acts, they keep the audience apprised of things happening “off stage.” Erlingsson uses these musicians to similar, if not exact, effect, and it’s a unique way to demonstrate Halla’s internal conflict.

To underscore the motif of the importance of environmental preservation, we’re treated to many scenes of Iceland’s vast natural beauty. Halla uses the environment to her advantage, finding out of the way locations to sabotage power lines (skillfully using a bow and arrow), effectively cutting power to the plant. She hides from authorities in natural fissures in the ground, and earns her media-branded nickname by being of the earth that she seeks to save.

Interesting questions are raised in connection with Halla’s mission. When does activism become extremism? What actions will we accept as the effects of climate change become more and more drastic? What will we do to protect our home?

Because Woman at War is interested in these questions, and it’s time we make a serious attempt to answer them.

New In Theaters

Slow Down, You Move Too Fast

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The Hummingbird Project

by Christie Robb

Director Kim Nguyen’s contributes a meditation into the nature of success in the modern world.

Wall Street traders and cousins Vincent and Anton Zaleski (Jesse Eisenberg and Alexander Skarsgard) resign from their jobs as high-frequency traders and embark on a quest to build a ramrod-straight fiber-optic cable joining the servers of the Kansas and New York stock exchanges. The objective: to make stock trades a millisecond faster than their competitors and make millions in the time it takes for a hummingbird to flap its wings.

Obstacles block their path—mountains, swamps, health issues, reluctant property owners, and a vengeful ex-boss played by Salma Hayek.

The technobabble in the film feels like it is based-on-a-true story. But, it isn’t. Eisenberg plays Vincent as a monomaniac. He’s almost as focused on his line as Ahab is consumed by destroying Moby-Dick. Skarsgard disappears into the role of Anton, contorting his height into an excruciating stoop and delivering a genius-on-the-spectrum performance that is nuanced, funny, sad, and kind of inspiring.

The Hummingbird Project is often beautifully shot, with frequent use of slow motion footage. However, it struggles in focus. It could easily have been tweaked into several different movies. One can imagine editing it into a comedy like Office Space. It could have been Hitchcockian corporate thriller by expanding Hayek’s role. Or it could have shone more of a spotlight on the relationship between characters to flesh out what seems to be the movie’s purpose: questioning whether racing for wealth is really a better use of time than downshifting to spend time with the people around you.

As it is, the movie tries to be too many things and ends up being an ok entry rather than a good one.

 

Outtakes, Slider

Finished with Final Girls

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by Hope Madden

I am done with the final girl.

You know why? Because it’s a diminishing title.

Laurie Strode, Ellen Ripley and Sidney Prescott were not final girls. They were heroes.

Laurie Strode, Ellen Ripley and Sidney Prescott were the point of view characters for their films, not random females we were surprised to see survive. Had any of these three perished, that would have been the surprise.

The phrase “final girl” suggests that, from a smorgasbord of victims, one female emerges victorious. How does she do it?

1. She is smarter than the rest and outwits the killer.
2. She is more virtuous than the rest, so fate is on her side.
3. She endures pain, grief, terror and hardship and comes out the other side a stronger person.

If those are not the steps in a hero’s quest, I don’t know what are. (No, seriously, I don’t know what the steps are in a hero’s quest. I should probably have looked it up, but still, I feel confident they’re similar.)

The characteristics of the final girl are simply the characteristics of the hero, and her perspective is the audience’s perspective.

She’s the lead.

To disregard this and assume that this would-be victim didn’t die because she holds in her bosom certain character traits is to actually belittle the character. John McClane outwitted terrorists, showed integrity and grit, and endured a ton of hardship in his bare feet. Is he not the hero?

What about Schwarzenegger in Predator? Not a lot of dudes made it out the other side of that one – does that make Arnold the Final Boy?

And how about Captain America? Smart, virtuous, endurance – hell, he’s probably even a virgin.

Are you here to tell me The Cap is not a hero?

So what’s the difference? Why label the badass who sends Pinhead back to hell nothing more than the last girl onscreen? Why does’t she get to be the hero? Hasn’t she proven herself? I’d like to see you try your luck with Pinhead.

I’m overgeneralizing, you think. Are there heroes who do not carry with them these vital characteristics, you wonder.

No. Those damaged, dangerous and layered leads are anti-heroes. Someday when the slutty Goth girl with a heroin jones is the last one standing, then the slasher will finally have its anti-hero. But for now, Jason and Pinhead and Leatherface and Michael Myers and all of them are undone by the hero.

Of course.

For Your Queue

I Don’t Want to Go Out – Week of March 25

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Whole bunch of yes and one very big no coming home this week. Allow us to walk you through your options.

Click the film title for the full review.

If Beale Street Could Talk

Capernaum

(DVD)

Dragged Across Concrete

Stan & Ollie

Aquaman

(DVD)

Second Act

New In Theaters

Dancing Queen

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Gloria Bell

by Hope Madden

Six years ago, Chilean filmmaker Sebastian Lelio released a vibrant and unapologetic look at aging and living with his magnificent Gloria. He re-images that gem with Gloria Bell, his second English language film, placing the incomparable Julianne Moore at the center of a different kind of coming of age story.

Moore is Gloria, a single fiftysomething who’s starting to feel her mortality. The film itself is a character study of the type Lelio does best. His films nearly always focus unflinchingly on the struggles of a woman trying to live freely and authentically.

As with his Oscar-winning A Fantastic Woman, his underappreciated Disobedience, and the original Gloria, Lelio’s observational and unobtrusive direction trusts the lead to carry the weight of the film. Moore characteristically rises to the occasion.

In Moore’s hands Gloria is perhaps a tad more reserved, a little more tentative than the firebrand depicted by Paulina Garcia in the original, but she’s no less wonderful. As Gloria struggles between the freedom and the loneliness of independence, and as she comes to terms with her own mortality, Moore’s tenderness and vulnerability will melt you and her sudden bursts of ferocity will delight.

John Turturro offers impeccable support as Gloria’s love interest. The performance is slippery and unsettlingly believable. He’s joined by strong ensemble work from Michael Cera, Brad Garrett, Alanna Ubach and Holland Taylor, each of whom delivers the spark of authenticity despite limited screen time.

But make no mistake, Gloria Bell is Moore’s film.

Is this just another in a string of brilliant performances, one more piece of evidence to support Moore’s position among the strongest actors of her generation? No.

Gloria Bell is a beautiful film, one that fearlessly affirms the potency of an individual woman, one that recognizes the merit of her story.

 

New In Theaters, Slider

Shotgun Safari

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Dragged Across Concrete

by George Wolf

Songwriter Jim Steinman, best known for baroque and dramatically verbose musical epics often belted out by Meat Loaf, has said in interviews that he would love to write 3-minute pop toe tappers, he just doesn’t know how.

Filmmaker S. Craig Zahler can probably relate. Dragged Across Concrete is his third feature as writer/director, and he’s still clearly invested in the long game. Like Bone Tomahawk and Brawl in Cell Block 99, Zahler’s latest is full of strangely indelible characters and memorable dialogue, a film anchored in creeping dramatic dread that finally explodes with wonderfully staged brutality.

Brett (Mel Gibson) and Anthony (Vince Vaughn), street-smart cops in a fictional urban jungle called Bulwark, get popped when a bystander captures one overly zealous interrogation on video. A suspension without pay is something they’re forced to accept, but it isn’t long before Brett has a plan to make up for the lapse in funds with a little “proper compensation” on the side.

But of course, they’re not the only ones looking for a score.

Henry (a terrific Tory Kittles) is fresh out of the joint and needs money for his family. His old friend Biscuit (Michael Jai White) hooks them both up as drivers for a lethal bank robber (Thomas Kretschmann), and the long fuse to a standoff is lit.

This is Zahler’s slowest burn yet, but he keeps you invested with a firm commitment to character, no matter the screen time. From a new mother with near-crippling separation anxiety (Jennifer Carpenter) to a loquacious bank manager (Fred Melamed) and a shadowy favor-granter (Udo Kier), nothing in the film’s 159 minutes feels superfluous.

In fact, quite the opposite.

As Zahler contrasts the cops with the robbers, the sharply-defined supporters orbiting the core conflict only add to its gravity, despite a few moments than seem a bit too eager for Tarantino approval.

Gibson is fantastic, drawing Brett as the real bulwark here, defending what he feels is his with a savage, unapologetic tenacity. Vaughn, re-teaming with Zahler after a standout turn in Cell Block 99, again shows how good he can be when pushed beyond his default setting of “Vince Vaughn.”

Finally, the steady march of battered souls, desperate measures and eclectic soundtrack choices comes to a bloody, pulpy head, staged with precision and matter-of-fact collateral damage.

Zahler’s command of his playbook is hard to ignore. Though the glory of Concrete‘s payoff never quite rises to the breathtaking heights he’s hit before, his confident pace and detailed observations make for completely absorbing storytelling.

And two out of three ain’t bad.

 

New In Theaters

Starry Eyes

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Starfish

by Rachel Willis

Still reeling from the loss of her friend, Grace, Aubrey (Virginia Gardner) finds herself facing the end of the world in director A.T. White’s film, Starfish.

After breaking into Grace’s apartment in an attempt to connect to her friend, Aubrey hears a walkie-talkie spring to life. The static coming from the device implies someone might be listening, and Aubrey is momentarily compelled to speak to whoever is on the other end. This is our first hint that not all was well in Grace’s life, with more hints coming before the film takes a deep dive into its world-ending scenario.

There’s a mystery involved that’s best not spoiled, and it isn’t always clear what’s real and what’s imagined, but it works well to us engaged, and haunting images feed the increasing unease.

As a metaphor for grief, Starfish is a curious, interesting take. Aubrey moves through the stages of grief while, outside the apartment, the world is falling apart. She spends time in an apathetic cycle, her only companions a box turtle and a couple of jellyfish (who eat desiccated starfish, apparently). Aubrey’s anger manifests in violent ways, and she’s utterly alone with her sorrow.

Gardner does an excellent job conveying the gauntlet of emotions roiling inside her character. Her performance is easily the film’s strongest element.

There are also a number of exciting and tense scares, and the effectively oppressive score amplifies the more terrifying elements. However, where the score is effective at producing tension, the soundtrack doesn’t always fit the mood. Some of the song choices are out of place. While many of them are meant to represent Aubrey and Grace’s friendship, they disrupt the film’s intensity.

The film takes risks. Some of them work, and some of them don’t, but it’s always intriguing to watch something different, something that challenges us to think outside the box on what a movie can be.

Slider, The Screening Room

Screening Room: Climax, Captive State, Five Feet Apart, Wonder Park & More

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This week in the Screening Room we run through the many little movies that come out the week after Captain Marvel: Climax, Captive State, Five Feet Apart, Wonder Park, Birds of Passage, Ruben Brandt Collector plus everything new in home entertainment.

Listen to the full podcast HERE.

New In Theaters

Resist

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Captive State

by Hope Madden

Imagine, if you will, that someone bullied their way to a takeover of the government. Imagine that they exploited the poor for labor while gutting Earth’s natural resources for their own gain, leaving a husk of a planet behind.

Imagine that they enacted blunt order with no thought to human rights, as they built walls, separated families and cordoned off neighborhoods to keep the poor a safe distance from the wealthy.

Let’s say they also passed themselves off as some almost holy enterprise that rewarded compliance and adoration.

Right, not such a stretch.

Oh, it’s aliens? That would actually be a lot easier to accept.

Filmmaker Rupert Wyatt returns to the theme of his greatest success, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, with his latest SciFi adventure, Captive State.

Wyatt drops us into the heart of Chicago some ten or so years after an alien invasion. Earth has long since accepted the aliens as their new legislature, and terrestrial natives are now either blindly following command with the hope of reward, or they are not.

Gabriel Drummond (Ashton Sanders, Moonlight) can’t quite make up his mind. His brother Rafe (Jonathan Majors) is the symbol of the revolution, but Gabriel just wants to get out of Dodge and try for a new life.

Lawman William Mulligan (John Goodman, wonderful as always) won’t let him. What emerges is an intricate and often clever thriller about submission and resistance.

Though Wyatt’s allegory is clear, it doesn’t drown the story itself. Even the most thinly drawn character has purpose and dimension, the ensemble talent assembled here delivering memorable but understated turns.

Vera Farmiga offers a particularly poignant performance, though her screen time can’t reach past 2 minutes. Likewise, James Ransone, Alan Ruck and Lawrence Grimm balance desperation, courage and hope in brief episodes that help Wyatt create the bleak but almost optimistic tone.

The look is a bit murky, the 1984-style occupations a tad convenient and the lack of one single point of view character limits audience investment in character, and therefore, in the outcome. But the aliens look pretty cool, John Goodman offers a twisty, melancholy performance that’s worth seeing, and there’s rarely a bad time to be reminded of the power of resistance.