Driven by a fiercely invested and touchingly deranged performance from Emma Booth, Hounds of Love makes a subtle shift from horrific torture tale to psychological character study. In 108 grueling minutes, writer/director Ben Young’s feature debut marks him as a filmmaker with confident vision and exciting potential.
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. This isn’t nearly as dumb a move as is accepting a ride from Evie White (Booth) and her husband John (Stephen Curry).
As the couple dance seductively and drink to celebrate, Young disturbingly conveys the weight of Vicki’s panicked realization that she is now their captive. It is just one in a series of moments where Young flexes impressive chops for visual storytelling, utilizing slo-motion, freeze frame, patient panning shots and carefully chosen soundtrack music to set the mood and advance the dreadful narrative without a spoken word.
And then, just when you might suspect his film to wallow in the grisly nature of the Whites’ plan for Vicki, Young turns to dialog sharp enough to upend your expectations, and three vivid characters are crafted in the suffocating dread of the White’s neighborhood home.
Slowly, Vicki realizes her best hope may be outsmarting the insecure Evie, and, much like Catherine Martin tempting Precious away from Jame Gumb, Vicki sets her sights on driving a wedge between her captors.
The three leads, all impressively committed, find the layers necessary to make the terror resonate more deeply than your standard dose of human cruelty. No slight to either Cummings of Curry, but the film turns on how Booth consistently finds the edges of Vicki’s psychotic worldview to make her the biggest wild card in this horror show.
No doubt, events get brutal, but never without reminders that Young is a craftsman. Subtle additions, such as airplanes flying freely overhead to contrast with Vicki’s captivity, give Hounds of Love a steady dose of smarts, even as it’s shaking your core.
Three years ago, James Gunn and Marvel became superfriends, making use of inspired casting, crisp writing and some classic 70s jams to make Guardians of the Galaxy the most fun to be had at the movies in 2014.
But is that second mixtape ever quite as awesome as the first? Rarely, and that’s the Catch-22 of the original film’s surprising blast of space zaniness. While we never saw that one coming, this new one arrives with weighty expectations.
No, Volume 2 can’t match the ruffian charm of the first, and there are some stretches of not-much-happening-here. But Gunn’s sequel shares a lot of heart, swashbuckling visuals and more than a few solid belly laughs.
But please, stop trying to make Howard the Duck happen.
Peter Quill (Chris Pratt, rugged everyman dufus) and his band of misfits-for-hire run into some troubles here and there across the galaxy. Yondu (Michael Rooker – hooray!) and his crew of Ravagers are still on their tail, and some pompous gold people from Sovereign (so they’re “Sovereign citizens” – well played) want Rocket dead.
But all might be well when Quill finally meets his father, Ego (who else but Kurt Russell?) and learns the surprising news of his lineage.
What – a comic book movie inspired by daddy issues? Stop it!
It may be a logical character arc for Quill, but when one too many tragic backstories build at the expense of fun, the running time starts feeling a bit bloated. Good thing Gunn has a fine instinct for when enough is about to become too much, pivoting from the dramatics with dazzling derring-do or exactly the right gag.
He also knows we’re already invested in these characters, and doesn’t mind spending some of the capital he earned last time out.
Bradley Cooper again offers ripe sarcasm as the voice of Rocket, but Dave Bautista is the breakout comedy anchor of GOTGV2. As the hulking Drax, Bautista’s booming guffaws or deadpan one-liners are a consistent treat. Zoe Saldana’s Gamora seems the odd Guardian out, too often given little more to do than deny Quill’s claim that they’ve got a “Sam and Diane unspoken thing” goin’ on.
And then there’s Groot (Vin Diesel).
As a baby.
Baby Groot.
For the win.
There are more great classic hits to re-discover (or, for you kids, get to know), including a fantastic piece of action set against the backdrop of…wait for it…Jay and the Americans’ “Come a Little Bit Closer.” Stingers? Oh, yes, during and after the credits, so just plan on staying around til the staff sweeps you out with the candy wrappers.
Does Guardians 2 seem like a rehash? Sure, at times, and there’s never any doubt whoever’s shooting at our heroes is bound to have horrible aim. But when a rehash serves up this much wit, eye candy and escapist fun, you know what they say….
Graduation (Bacalaureat) is a film perched on the slope of moral compromise, where people convince each other they “don’t do such things” at the very moment they are doing such things. The latest from acclaimed writer/director Christian Mungiu, it is an intimate film that slowly crafts larger observations.
Eliza (Maria Dragus) is a standout student about to graduate high school in Romania. If she passes her final exams with her usual high marks, she will earn a scholarship to further her education in England, fulfilling her father Romeo’s plan to get his daughter out of Romania where “everything is difficult.”
Difficulties do arise when Eliza is assaulted, and the attack threatens not only Eliza’s ability to concentrate on her exams, but even her attendance come test day. For Romeo (Adrian Titieni), a respected doctor in town, this is unacceptable, and soon he is exploring questionable avenues to make sure Eliza get the marks her scholarship requires.
Mungiu (4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days) is again commenting on modern society in his native homeland, but as Romeo’s mission becomes more complicated, the film asks pointed questions about self-delusion, the limits of parental guidance, and the subtle seeds of corruption.
Employing multiple wide shots with lingering takes, Mungiu returns often to a local playground where the stationary figure of Romeo ponders his daughter’s independence, surrounded by the energetic play of young children. These scenes embody the precise, measured tone that carries the film, as it laments the state of the present while holding out faint hope that the next generation can be a force for change.
Eventually the familiar themes become a bit redundant and the film overlong, but with meticulous craftsmanship by Mungiu and stellar performances from Titieni and Dragus, Graduation remains a moving portrait of the long term consequences of seemingly harmless choices.
Horror is built, in large part, on the concept of the underestimated woman. What else is a final girl? But the label doesn’t just fit the bloody survivor. There are other women you don’t want to sell short. Mrs. Voorhees, anyone? How about Carrie White? Overlook these chicks at your own peril.
Who are the women of horror you should absolutely not, for any reason, underestimate?
5. May (2002)
Lucky McKee’s 2002 breakout is a showcase for his own talent as both writer and director, as well as his gift for casting. The entire ensemble surprises with individualized, fully realized, flawed but lovable characters, and McKee’s pacing allows each of his talented performers the room to breathe, grow, get to know each other, and develop a rapport.
More than anything, though, May is a gift from Angela Bettis to you.
As the title character, Bettis inhabits this painfully gawky, socially awkward wallflower with utter perfection. McKee’s screenplay is as darkly funny as it is genuinely touching, and we’re given the opportunity to care about the characters: fragile May, laid back love interest Adam (a faultless Jeremy Sisto), hot and horny Polly (a wonderful Anna Faris).
McKee’s film pulls no punches, mining awkward moments until they’re almost unendurable and spilling plenty of blood when the time is right. He deftly leads us from the sunny “anything could happen” first act through a darker, edgier coming of age middle, and finally to a carnage laden climax that feels sad, satisfying, and somehow inevitable.
4. The Loved Ones (2009)
Aussie teen Lola (a gloriously wrong-minded Robin McLeavy) asks Brent (Xavier Samuel) to the school dance. He politely declines, which proves to be probably a poor decision.
Writer/director Sean Byrne quietly crafts an atmosphere of loss and depression in and around the school without painting the troubles cleanly. This slow reveal pulls the tale together and elevates it above a simple work of outrageous violence.
Inside Lola’s house, the mood is decidedly different. Here, we’re privy to the weirdest, darkest image of a spoiled princess and her daddy. The daddy/daughter bonding over power tool related tasks is – well – I’m not sure touching is the right word for it.
The Loved Ones is a cleverly written, unique piece of filmmaking that benefits from McLeavy’s inspired performance as much as it does its filmmaker’s sly handling of subject matter. It’s a wild, violent, depraved way to spend 84 minutes. You should do so now.
3. Audition (1999)
Audition is a phenomenally creepy May/December romance gone very, very wrong.
A widower holds mock television auditions as a way of finding a suitable new mate. He is repaid for his deception.
Nearly unwatchable and yet too compelling to turn away from, Audition is a remarkable piece of genre filmmaking. The slow moving picture builds anticipation, then dread, then full-on horror.
Midway through, Miike punctuates the film with one of the most effective startles in modern horror, and then picks up the pace, building grisly momentum toward a perversely uncomfortable climax.
By the time Audition hits its ghastly conclusion, Miike and his exquisitely terrifying antagonist (Eihi Shina) have wrung the audience dry. She will not be the ideal stepmother.
Keep an eye on the burlap sack.
2. You’re Next (2011)
We’ve put this movie down now and again – mainly because it didn’t quite live up to expectations on first viewing. But there is one thing you can absolutely say for You’re Next – no one saw Erin (Sharni Vinson) coming.
Adam Wingard’s film – written by frequent collaborator Simon Barrett – crashes the anniversary of a snipey, bitchy family, celebrating at their isolated, ostentatious country place.
When masked marauders start picking off family members, party plus-one Erin shows off some skills. Level headed, calm, savvy and badass to the bone, she always knows what to do, how to do it, where to nail it, and the most vulnerable spot to land a punch.
No one knew what she had in store for them.
1. The Woman (2011)
There’s something not quite right about Chris Cleek (an unsettlingly cherubic Sean Bridgers), and his family’s uber-wholesomeness is clearly suspect. This becomes evident once Chris hunts down a feral woman (an awesome Pollyanna McIntosh), chains her, and invites the family to help him “civilize” her.
The film rethinks family – well, patriarchy, anyway. Notorious horror novelist and co-scriptor Jack Ketchum may say things you don’t want to hear, but he says them well. And director Lucky McKee – in his most surefooted film to date – has no qualms about showing you things you don’t want to see.
McIntosh never veers from being intimidating, terrifying even when she’s chained. Though she speaks nary a word of dialog, she’s the most commanding presence on the screen. And though Chris Cleek may not yet realize it, the true Alpha is never really in doubt.
Warning: your uploads could have a downside. The cloud? Might get dark and stormy.
Despite noble intentions of The Circle, it’s often this obvious and cheesy in its quest to alert us to the growing invasion of our privacy.
Mae Holland (Emma Watson) is thrilled when her friend Annie (Karen Gillan) get her a foot in the door at The Circle, the gold standard of tech companies. After the most hip of hipster interviews, Mae joins The Circle in an entry level position and is positively starry-eyed to be so close to Circle guru Eamon Bailey (Tom Hanks, GD national treasure) and COO Tom Stenton (Patton Oswalt).
But, in one of the film’s most painfully forced scenes, two Circle employees stop by to tell Mae that even though her work is fine, their records show she’s not taking advantage of the ‘social” aspects of The Circle, and she won’t be a true member of the “community” until she gets with the super happy program!
Do you think she does?
Director James Ponsoldt has impressed with The End of the Tour and Smashed, while writer Dave Eggars, adapting his own novel with help from Ponsoldt, penned Where the Wild Things Are and Away We Go. Those are fine resumes, but The Circle is crafted more like a young adult re-imagining of 1984.
Mae’s specialness is realized right away, and as she rises quickly through the ranks, her previously peppy and pretty friend Annie starts showing up to meetings looking like a zombie in sweats. Subtle. And who’s this new friend Ty (John Boyega)? Apparently all the cameras and data crunchers on campus weren’t alarmed by his constantly suspicious lurking, but one look at Mae, and of course Ty knows he can trust her with his secrets.
Hanks is perfect as the Steve Jobs-like figure Bailey, affably spouting mantras such as “secrets are lies” and “privacy is theft,” with a disarmingly inviting malevolence. Watson, after a solid turn in Beauty and the Beast, is just over-matched to the point where pained faces stand in for real emoting.
While the film takes on a serious and credible subject, it only seems interested in diving surface deep. Altering the book’s original ending doesn’t help, and The Circle feels like a cop out, downplaying any aspect that could have given it more urgency and settling for melodrama that already feels outdated.
I’ve been loud all my life, and not every day caters to us loudies, but Sunday my volume came in pretty handy.
Seems there was some sort of power outage at church, and when the power came back, the sound system would offer nothing but feedback. And so priests, deacons, and the lectors (such as myself) would have to project a bit more so everyone could hear the good word. Somewhere in the pews my wife smiled, amused by the thought of someone suggesting I turn me up.
Hey, the Lord works in mysterious ways.
This time, though, I had plenty of witnesses that the equipment failed before I got to it, which isn’t always the case.
A few years back I was guesting on a local radio talk show, reviewing the big summer movies soon to come. All was fine during the host’s intro, but when I jumped into the conversation the engineer was suddenly flailing around like Scotty during a full-on Klingon invasion.
“I’m backing it down as much as I can, Captain, but I can’t hold her…it’s gonna blow!”
I didn’t get backboard-endangering height, I got tweeter-endangering vocals, all thanks to Grandpa.
My grandfather had a big, booming voice and, much to my grandmother’s chagrin, he wasn’t shy about using it in public.
“Shut the door!” he’d bark to some random person loitering too long in a restaurant entrance, as my brother and I would giggle and Grandma would fire up another cigarette.
“Thank you!” was Grandpa’s equally loud follow-up, as the bewildered door holder tried to recover from the sudden audio beat down.
So I have Grandpa to thank – but not to blame – because angry parents at the next table don’t care about your family tree when your sports cheering just made their baby cry in terror.
Yes, this has happened.
Fine, more than once. But that doesn’t change the fact that the real issue here is good parenting.
Kids, the correct response is “I-O!”
I’m not saying we voluminous people can’t come in handy. Like the kindly tall folks who hand you that last box of Cocoa Pebbles that’s been mocking you from the top shelf, we can be downright useful.
Emergency at my niece’s wedding reception – no DJ for music or mic for announcements? Ta-da! It’s Loud Uncle George and his iPod, dropping fresh beats from the bar.
So “Me and Mrs. Jones” might have been an unusual choice for the father/daughter dance, but the point is not all heroes wear capes.
Some might even be sitting right next to you at, say…a Springsteen show.
And maybe there’s a bootleg CD of that entire concert that I didn’t record but may have a copy of, and maybe if I gave it to you you would clearly hear a certain someone say “yeah!” as the Boss began a favorite song.
And you might say, hey, I know that guy! I was sitting next to him. He’s pretty cool!
Ten years ago, writer/director Nacho Vigalondo made his feature debut with Timecrimes, a wonderfully ironic and wacked-out bit of time travel head gaming.
Nacho is back with Colossal, bringing irony that’s a little sharper, comedy that’s a good bit darker…and a great big scary monster.
Anne Hathaway is fantastic as Gloria, a frequently drunk party girl in New York who loses her job, doesn’t get the wake up call and does gets the boot from her live-in boyfriend. Moving back to her hometown, she reconnects with Oscar (a solid Jason Sudeikis), a childhood friend who happens to own a bar where Gloria is welcome to work part-time.
Wait a minute – what’s this in the headlines? A giant monster has appeared in downtown Seoul, Korea, and after watching all the viral videos of the beast in action, Gloria realizes that she alone is controlling its carnage or, in some cases, its awkward dance moves.
Colossal could also describe the height of Vigalondo’s latest concept, but despite some shaky interludes, it’s one worth the investment. Hathaway and Sudeikis make a compelling pair, and as secrets of the monster’s history are revealed, Vigalondo lands some solid satirical blows about self-absorption and personal demons.
Perhaps best of all is how Colossal works out of the conceptual corner it backs into. Much like the Koreans who keep coming downtown no matter how often the monster appears, Vigalondo is committed to the end, delivering a strange but satisfying in-the-moment fable.
Baby Pandas here! Yawning, sleeping, rolling down a hill!
Disney could put that on the marquee and probably score a box office winner, but they chose a more subtle approach for their latest Earth Day release: Born in China.
China? So…Pandas, then?
Oh yes, plus plenty of other baby animal cuteness to sell a very family-oriented lesson in the circle of life. And while this emphasis on the youngest of the litter extends to the film’s approach to its audience, director Chaun Lu and a team of wonderful cinematographers capture truly stunning images that take us inside habitats still unknown to most humans.
But more than perhaps any other release from DisneyNature, Born in China undercuts the brilliance of its pictures with overly simplistic, often manipulative storytelling.
Alongside the pandas, we follow a snow leopard struggling to feed her cubs, a young monkey feeling jealous of his new baby sister, and a giant herd of migrating antelope. The film’s 75-minute running time feels even more hurried through Lu’s impatience with the very world he is unveiling. Cheesy reaction shots are often spliced in for comic effect, while some dramatic sequences seem manufactured through very selective editing, such as when a baby monkey is under attack from a swooping bird of prey.
John Krasinski’s narration too often carries more annoyance than charm, due mainly to writing that is shallow and forced. The animals aren’t just given names for our benefit, they’re given imagined thoughts and motivations, blurring the actual drama of this rarely seen world. There are natural wonders here, but Born in China reduces its stars to glorified cartoon characters waiting to be marketed alongside Dory and Buzz Lightyear.
It is worth staying through the credits, as some behind-the-scenes footage gives glimpses of what it took to grab such unforgettable footage. By the time you get there, though, you’re wondering how much more powerful the pictures couldhave been without words getting in the way.
Just in the last few months, the smash movie Hidden Figures – plus the death of American hero John Glenn – brought renewed attention to the birth of the U.S. space program. Director David Fairhead moves the spotlight a few years ahead with Mission Control: The Unsung Heroes of Apollo, a fitting salute to both teamwork and an amazing job well done.
And don’t forget those splashdown parties. “We drank a lot of beer.”
After JFK’s “moon promise” of 1961, Project Apollo took the space race baton from Mercury, working overtime to stay on the President’s schedule and get a man to the moon and back before the end of the decade.
Fairhead, in his feature documentary debut, makes the most of some stellar archival footage, often cutting from present-day interviews with mission controllers to decades-old looks at their younger selves moving through an ever-present cigarette haze to get astronauts to the moon.
I’m telling’ ya, these guys could smoke.
And they could work. Despite the eventual gratification of success, the strain on family life became so great that at least one crew member now admits that if given the choice to do it all again, “I wouldn’t.”
As enthralling as the historical footage may be, it’s an equal treat to hear the behind-the-scenes story from the men themselves, and Fairhead lets us glimpse the unique personalities that made up an incredible team. We see men committed to the Apollo mantra of “tough and competent,” and we see hard-nosed flight directors who knew when to step back and let people do their jobs.
In its entirety, the Apollo mission saw tragedy, triumph, and lives in the balance, persevering through situations that were “complicated as hell back then.” Mission Control can’t help but get a bit wonky with the space geekiness, but by the time one crew member gets choked up at the pride and amazement his memories still bring, it’s pretty hard to blame him.
Much has been made of barf bags and fainting during screenings of writer/director Julia Ducournau’s feature debut, Raw.
A festival favorite, the film has been plagued by rumors of aggressive audience nausea, let’s say, as well as ambulance calls. Several theaters recently have offered vomit bags with ticket purchases.
Don’t let that cloud your expectations. Raw is no Hostel, no Human Centipede.
What you’ll find instead of in-your-face viscera and nihilistic corporeal abuse is a thoughtful coming of age tale.
And meat.
Justine (Garance Marillier, impressive) is off to join her older sister (Ella Rumpf) at veterinary school – the very same school where their parents met. Justine may be a bit sheltered, a bit prudish to settle in immediately, but surely with her sister’s help, she’ll be fine.
The film often felt to me like a cross between Trouble Every Day and Anatomy. The latter, a German film from 2000, follows a prudish med student dealing with carnage and peer pressure. In the former, France’s Claire Denis directs a troubling parable combining sexual desire and cannibalism.
Ducournau has her cagey way with the same themes that populate any coming-of-age story – pressure to conform, peer pressure generally, societal order and sexual hysteria. Here all take on a sly, macabre humor that’s both refreshing and unsettling.
A vegetarian from a meat-free family, Justine objects to the freshman hazing ritual of eating a piece of raw meat. But once she submits to peer pressure and tastes that taboo, her appetite is awakened and it will take more and more dangerous, self-destructive acts to indulge her blood lust.
In a very obvious way, Raw is a metaphor for what can and often does happen to a sheltered girl when she leaves home for college. But as Ducournau looks at those excesses committed on the cusp of adulthood, she creates opportunities to explore and comment on so many upsetting realities, and does so with absolute fidelity to her core metaphor.
She immediately joins the ranks of Jennifer Kent (Babadook) and Ana Lily Amirpour (A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night) – all recent, first time horror filmmakers whose premier features predict boundless talent.
