Two killers lie on a kitchen floor, gently singing along as the radio plays “I’ve Never Been to Me,” surely on of the cheesiest songs of all time. Only one of the men will get up.
It’s a fascinating sequence, one of many in Lynne Ramsay’s bloody and beautiful You Were Never Really Here.
In 2011, Ramsay turned We Need to Talk About Kevin, a spare novel that was not especially big screen friendly, into one of the most devastating yet necessary films in recent memory. Her gifts keep on giving, as here she adapts Jonathan Ames’s brisk novella into a dreamy, hypnotic fable, an in-the-moment pileup of Taxi Driver, Taken and Drive.
Joaquin Phoenix delivers an intensely powerful performance as Joe, a combat veteran who has been wounded in various ways. Joe lives with his mother in suburban New York, whetting his appetite for violence as a vigilante for hire who specializes in rescuing kidnapped girls and exacting brutal justice.
A New York senator (Alex Manette) wants his daughter’s (Ekaterina Samsonov) disappearance kept quiet, so Joe gets the call, only to find this case comes with unexpected complications.
Together, Ramsay and Phoenix ensure nearly each of the film’s 89 minutes burns with a spellbinding magnetism. While Phoenix lets you inside Joe’s battered psyche just enough to want more, Ramsay’s visual storytelling is dazzling. Buoyed by purposeful editing and stylish soundtrack choices, Ramsay’s wonderfully artful camerawork (kudos to cinematographer Thomas Townend) presents a stream of contrasts: power and weakness, brutality and compassion, celebration and degradation.
Much like Ramsay’s Kevin,YWNRH is no feel good garden party. It is darkly surreal, and ironically exacting in its impressionistic study of taking hits, and hitting back. Still, it offers a rich cinematic experience, with a filmmaker and actor working in glorious tandem to soak each frame with meaning.
If you’ve been holding your breath for another Super Troopers, let’s face it, you’re long dead.
But after 17 years, the Broken Lizard gang is back with more of the same stupid gags from that doofus crew in the Vermont Highway Patrol.
Well, technically, the crew has been relieved of duty since the “Fred Savage ride-along incident,” but destiny finds them at the Canadian border. After a rare border reassessment, a small Canadian town (with a winning Rob Lowe as the local mayor/bordello owner) must begrudgingly accept that it will soon become a small American town. To ease the jurisdictional switch from Mounties to VHiPs, Captain O’Hagan (Bryan Cox) reaches out to his old cohorts with the defiant cry of “stoners assemble!”
He really doesn’t do that, but you get the idea. The guys are still stoners.
Apparently inspired by an actual border situation, the film digs in for plenty of sophomoric antics about polite Canucks, boorish Yanks, body parts, bad puns and how each side pronounces “sorry.” There are easy targets and cheese aplenty, but some laughs do get squeezed out, mostly from sheer commitment to the familiarly low bar of the original.
The writers/director/stars in the BL gang are aiming to please, and understandably so. They’re here thanks to cultish fans and a crowdfunding boost, so giving the Troopers troop what they want, including at least two inspired callbacks to that first film, is a sound strategy. It’s just not a consistently hilarious one.
The verdict is pretty simple: if you liked the first one, you’ll like Super Troopers 2.
Trainwreck, the 2015 big-screen break out for comic Amy Schumer (and LeBron James and John Cena) offered a wise about-face for the rom-com.
Written by Schumer, the film simultaneously embraced and subverted tradition by basically casting a female in the traditionally male role of eternal adolescent who accidentally finds love and, therefore, adulthood.
She returns to the romantic comedy with I Feel Pretty, film that is neither romantic nor comedic, unfortunately.
Schumer plays Renee Bennett, a perfectly attractive woman.
So there’s your first problem.
I will give writers/directors Abby Kohn and Marc Silverstein credit for one thing. When Bennett hits her head at a spinning class and wakes up believing she’s traffic-stopping gorgeous, at least the film does not stoop to showing us the flawless physical image Renee sees in the mirror. Thanks for that.
So, it’s only after a traumatic brain injury that Amy Schumer can consider herself attractive.
Now she has all the confidence she needs to go after that receptionist gig at the big cosmetics firm. (Wait! A romantic comedy where a receptionist can afford a small but cool NYC apartment? Yes, that checks out.)
Things take a turn for the better whenever CEO Avery LeClair (Michelle Williams) appears onscreen. Her weirdly spot-on performance as the baby-voiced heiress is a riot—and the only unpredictable moments in the film belong to her.
Schumer does what she can with this superficial, blandly rote script. She has excellent chemistry with her co-stars (Busy Phillips, Aidy Bryant, Rory Scovel), regardless of their underwritten roles. But when you have a comic talent like Schumer on the bill and you still cannot think of anything funnier than seeing a pretty woman fall down, your writing is weak.
Let’s not even address the fact that all Renee wants in life is to work for a cosmetics company and maybe, if we all dream big enough, she might be the new face of a cosmetics line!
Jesus.
In summation, I Feel Pretty is Big meets Shallow Hal, if those films suggested that all Tom Hanks needed was confidence enough to believe he should be objectified, then all would be well.
Can Amy Schumer just write the next Amy Schumer movie? Please?
Two-word titles available for home viewing this week. Do you want to watch a slick, important movie about that reminds you just how far America has fallen? Spielberg for you. Rather watch that same Liam Neeson movie you’ve grown to need somehow in your life? That’s here, too.
Some big and bad—and some small and good—covered in this week’s Screening Room Podcast. We talk through Rampage, Truth or Dare, Where is Kyra? as well as what’s new and amazing in home entertainment.
Sssshhhhh! We get too excited to keep our voices down, talking about A Quiet Place, Blockers, Isle of Dogs and the less exciting The Leisure Seeker, plus everything worth checking on in home entertainment.
Do people over the age of 8 still honestly play Truth or Dare? This idea surprises me. Aren’t there video games kids can be wasting time with?
I suppose the real surprise is that it took four years for a film to rip off It Follows. The new PG-13 horror from Blumhouse, Truth or Dare, takes a stab at it.
No, it’s not sex. But it is a curse that you pass on to other people to save yourself. A super lame curse that blends the clever concept of It Follows with the by-the-numbers structure of one of the later Final Destinations and wraps it all up in a faux-contemporary cautionary tale about the digital age.
Yawn!
I’d point out that co-writer/director Jeff Wadlow was primarily lifting from his own 2005 film Cry Wolf, but I decided to go with movies you might have seen—movies that merit imitation.
So. Goody two-shoes Olivia (Lucy Hale) plans to spend her final spring break as a college student building houses with Habitat for Humanity, but her trampy bestie Markie (Violett Beane) and their binge-drinking roomie Penelope (Sophia Ali) have other plans. They guilt Olivia into spending the time with them, their boyfriends and an ethnic minority/gay sixth wheel in Mexico.
Hooray! Six slasher stereotypes—I mean, six best friends!—head south to flirt with alcohol poisoning and make bad decisions. Like playing grade school sleepover games and going to that decaying old mission.
Truth is, there are moments when one performance or a single intriguing notion or a clever call-back threatens to save a scene, by the final reveal you realize how heavy-handed the film really is.
Performances are bland, kills lack inspiration, there aren’t even enough of the prerequisite jump scares to keep the target PG-13 audience interested.
If you are of-age, hopefully you bought some beer with that ID because you’ll need the lubrication to help you glide past the lapses in logic, sometimes comical dialog and one laugh-out-loud moment at the vending machine.
Brad (Hayden Szeto, who deserves better) hears the ominous sound of an otherworldly voice calling out his name.
Except that it sounds exactly like some stoned guy hiding on the other side of the candy machine trying out his spooky voice and stage-whispering, “Braaaaaaaaadddddd!”
My entire row laughed.
So, there you go. There is some enjoyment to be had.
The relationship between mothers and daughters informs an awful lot of great horror films from The Exorcist to Black Swan. Frightmare suggests that becoming your mother is inescapable. The Woman tells us that if we can’t raise our daughters right, a more alpha mom might show up and do it for us. The Ring and Mom and Dad remind us that moms aren’t perfect. They have bad days. Sometimes they may want to drop you down a well.
We focus on five horror films where that relationship between mother and daughter informs and impacts the storyline in a substantial way.
5. The Bad Seed (1956)
The minute delicate Christine’s (Nancy Kelly) husband leaves for his 4-week assignment in DC, their way-too-perfect daughter begins to betray some scary behavior. The creepy handyman Leroy (Henry Jones) has her figured out – he knows she’s not as perfect as she pretends.
You may be tempted to abandon the film in its first reel, feeling as if you know where it’s going. You’ll be right, but there are two big reasons to stick it out. One is that Bad Seed did it first, and did it well, considering the conservative cinematic limitations of the Fifties.
Second, because director Mervyn LeRoy’s approach – not a single vile act appears onscreen – gives the picture an air of restraint and dignity while employing the perversity of individual imaginations to ramp up the creepiness.
Enough can’t be said about Patty McCormack. There’s surprising nuance in her manipulations, and the Oscar-nominated 9-year-old handles the role with both grace and menace.
4. Hounds of Love (2016)
It is the late 1980s in Perth, Australia, and at least one young girl has already gone missing when the grounded Vicki (Ashleigh Cummings) sneaks out her bedroom window to attend a party. She doesn’t like staying with her mom, who left her dad and ruined the family and her life.
So she sneaks out, which isn’t nearly as dumb a move as is accepting a ride from Evie White (Emma Booth) and her husband, John (Stephen Curry).
Writer/director Ben Young’s amazing feature debut works on so many levels and showcases a master visual storyteller almost as brilliantly as it shines the light on three phenomenal performances.
What is it that may finally undo the evil the Whites have planned? One mother’s relentless devotion to her daughter and another mother’s sudden, stabbing empathy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNEurXzvHqE
3. Eyes of My Mother (2016)
Francisca’s mother had been an eye surgeon back in Portugal.
“We used to do dissections together. She always hoped I’d be a surgeon one day.”
Though Mom appears only in Act 1 of writer/director Nicolas Pesce’s modern horror masterpiece Eyes of My Mother, her presence echoes throughout the lonely farmhouse Francesca rarely leaves.
Yes, the skills her mother imparted coupled with the trauma Francesca faced bleeds together to create a character whose splintered psyche keeps her from seeing that she’s taking some extreme measures to cure her lonliness.
This is one of the most beautifully filmed horror movies ever made, and as impeccable as the cinematography, the sound is even more important and magnificent. Together with restrained performances and jarring images, Eyes of My Mother is a film that sticks around even after it’s gone. Like a mom.
2. The Witch (2015)
There is a lot going wrong for poor Thomasin (Anya Taylor-Joy). But it all starts when the baby goes missing on her watch. Her mother (Kate Dickie) never forgives her for it and soon Mother is finding faults with Thomasin, making accusations that even Father, who knows better, won’t defend.
For The Witch to work, for us to tentatively hope that Black Philip talks back, Thomasin has to basically lose everything, and it all starts with her mother’s love and respect. Soon her mother’s bitterness turns to competition for the affection of the menfolk, accusations of all sorts of wrongoing, all of which spirals out of control until Thomasin has no one left, no one who will love her and look after her, except that goat.
Robert Egger’s unerringly authentic deep dive into radicalization, gender inequality and isolation is all sparked with one act that irrevocably ruptures one relationship.
1. Carrie (1976)
There is nobody quite like Margaret White. Oscar nominee Piper Laurie saw the zealot for all her potential and created the greatest overbearing mother film has ever seen. (We never did see Mrs. Bates, did we?)
Sissy Spacek (also Oscar nominated for her performance) is the perfect balance of freckle-faced vulnerability and awed vengeance. Her simpleton characterization would have been overdone were it not for Laurie’s glorious, evil zeal. It’s easy to believe this particular mother could have successfully smothered a daughter into Carrie’s stupor.
De Palma and screenwriter Lawrence D. Cohen streamline King’s meandering finale. Wise, because once the dance drama is done, we just want to find out what happens at home, and Mrs. White doesn’t disappoint.
Even if you hated last year’s polarizing mother! (let’s argue about that later), Michelle Pfeiffer’s bracing performance was a reality check for anyone who doubted her chops.
But that was a supporting role well-suited for scene stealing. Pfeiffer takes the titular lead in Where is Kyra?, the latest from director Andrew Dosunmu, and not only carries, but elevates a film anchored in some grim realities of American life.
Her Kyra is an increasingly desperate woman struggling to keep her deceased mother’s apartment in Brooklyn. Though Kyra continues to look for work, nothing pans out except a dive-bar romance with Doug (Kiefer Sutherland – solid), a cabbie trying to turn his own life around.
Mom’s government checks keep coming after the funeral, and the job offers don’t, so Kyra begins a secret life with slim hopes for happy endings.
Dosunmu, in his first film since the heartfelt and wonderful Mother of George five years ago, re-ups with screenwriter Darci Picoult and again utilizes a stirring lead performance to study a woman faced with shrinking options and tough choices.
But in contrast to the culture clash that drove Danai Gurira in Mother ofGeorge, Pfeiffer’s Kyra personifies the perils of aging in America, and how quickly the slope to desperation can become quite slippery. Pfeiffer is masterful, giving Kyra’s tailspin an authentic center even as Dosunmu and Piccoult box her into a corner with questionable credibility.
Frequent partial shots through doorways, lingering close ups and selective slo-motion enable Dosunmu to move gracefully from monochromatic grit to dreamlike lenses and back again, each trip reinforcing the reality Kyra can’t wish away. The pace may seem achingly slow at times, the message a tad too manufactured at others, but Pfeiffer is always there to keep your attention from wandering.
She pays it small, with an intimately sorrowful center both sympathetic and fascinating, holding Where is Kyra? steady whenever its knees get shaky.
Like a fly on the wall, Raymond Depardon takes his audience inside a world most will never see, and many may never want to see again.
In France, anyone committed to a psychiatric hospital without consent must be seen by a judge within 12 days. At that time, the judge will decide whether to continue their treatment or release them from care. Each patient’s doctor, or group of doctors, provides recommendations to the judge. In every case Depardon is privy to, the doctors never recommend release for their patients.
Only one woman is okay with this decision. She admits she needs additional care and seems happy with the judge’s decision to continue her treatment for another six months. For the rest, they desire their freedom.
Many of the patients are lucid. They argue their cases before the judge, promising to seek treatment from their own doctors, find jobs, and do what they can to lead healthy lives. When they’re remitted back into the care of the hospital, they promise to appeal the decision (they have ten days to appeal any decision made by the judge).
For others, it is clear their mental health is poor. One man is unable to answer questions from the judge; it’s as if he is having a separate conversation, one that only makes sense to him. Another man begs the judge to find his father and have his father come visit him. Only after he leaves the room does the judge comment on why his father will never visit.
It’s an interesting conundrum for the judges, who must rely on the recommendations of the doctors to make their decisions. Do they struggle with their decision when patients have clear goals for their lives outside of the hospital?
Depardon doesn’t give us any answers. He remains an unbiased observer never offering a narrative to sway the viewer. We’re never given any information outside of what we see inside the small, claustrophobic courtroom. This may irritate some viewers who may wish to know more about each of the individuals seen before the judges or the circumstances surrounding their care. For those open to simply taking what Depardon gives, the film is likely to raise many important questions about the nature of mental health care.