Tag Archives: movie reviews

New In Theaters

The Specter Haunting America

Leave a comment

The Big Scary “S” Word

by Matt Weiner

With a list of thank you credits that acknowledge the last few decades of leftist entertainment from Michael Moore to Chapo Trap House and the Jacobin set, it’s almost a minor miracle that a documentary about socialism manages to unite so many voices on the left into a united clarion call for economic justice as the only way to save America.

More surprising is that The Big Scary “S” Word, a new documentary from filmmaker Yael Bridge, manages to press its case while forgoing the more combative antics of Moore. Which isn’t a knock against Moore’s style, but Bridge’s staggering array of leftist academics, authors and politicians creates the atmosphere of a lively college course with your favorite professor. The academic-heavy roster, including professors Eric Foner, Cornel West, Vivek Chibber and Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, often tilts toward more education than inspiration—but it’s a compelling education.

An education for which audience, though, is a trickier question. It’s hard to imagine the nation’s right-wing uncles coming together this Thanksgiving to bond with their dirtbag nieces and nephews over how everyone can get behind sewer socialism.

But Bridge seems to be aiming her sights (wisely) at the MSNBC left—the well-educated, professional set that might not realize they’ve watched half a decade of “left-wing” cable news peppered with more retired generals and contrite Republican operatives than capital-s socialists. And with barely a mention of labor unions, let alone hosts making a passionate case night after night for how the history and future of labor are inseparable from a successful liberal project. Bridge provides a much-needed counterbalance to the corporate vision of liberalism, and she makes the case without the vitriol of Twitter fights.

The film’s thorough focus on the history of socialism doesn’t leave as much time to go out on a practical note. (And it’s unfortunate, although not the film’s fault, that one of the main politicians they follow flamed out spectacularly in 2021.) Other times, the film’s prescriptions seem at odds with the title mission. Should the left be destigmatizing socialism, so it’s no longer the big, scary “s” word? Or should politicians focus on policies that improve people’s lives, and let the pundits argue over whether we are becoming Venezuela just because people shouldn’t face bankruptcy when they get cancer.

In fairness to Bridge, the documentary doesn’t demand an all-or-nothing answer. That’s up to those who respond to the film’s message. (If you like your state-owned bank, you can keep it.) What’s not left in doubt, though, is the looming crisis of climate change. It might be a loaded question, but it’s still a fair one: Is a wholesale restructuring of society really more radical and unrealistic than continuing down our current path? It’s a question everyone will need to answer at some point, hopefully before it’s too late.

New In Theaters

Serial Snoozer

Leave a comment

Ted Bundy: American Boogeyman

by Brandon Thomas

Ted Bundy: American Boogeyman is another movie in a long line of higher-profile Bundy films to come out in the last few years. Netflix’s Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile offered an intriguing look at Bundy’s crimes through the eyes of a long-time girlfriend. No Man of God has the pedigree of Elijah Wood both starring and producing. 

What interesting angle does American Boogeyman take on Bundy’s crimes? 

Well, nothing really unless you count turning the notorious serial killer into a standard slasher “interesting.” 

The bulk of American Boogeyman follows Ted Bundy (Chad Michael Murray from House of Wax) as he moves from town to town, stalking and killing beautiful young women. If that sounds instantly one-note and monotonous to you – it is. The lead-up to the murders never feels especially tense or suspenseful. They simply happen.

The other half of the film observes law enforcement agents Kathleen McChesney (Holland Roden) and Robert Ressler (Jake Hays) as they track Bundy’s crimes. This section of the film is the filmmaker’s answer to Zodiac or Mindhunter. Except here, the authenticity and thoroughness of that film and series are completely lacking. None of the cast feels convincing as police. They awkwardly stumble through police jargon – stopping only to see who can “out tough” the other. 

Writer/Director Daniel Farrands (Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers) doesn’t seem to have anything on his mind other than exploitation when it comes to American Boogeyman. Ripped-from-the-headlines exploitation cinema certainly has its place (Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer anyone?), but it feels a little harder to defend when the lives and deaths of real people are used for cheap, gratuitous entertainment. There’s very little separating the Ted Bundy of this film from Jason Vorhees in any of the Friday the 13th films.

Murray does well enough with the material provided. Mostly, though, he’s asked to brood and sneak around like a typical neighborhood pervert. Despite Bundy’s actions throughout the film, Murray never feels especially menacing. The porn stache he sports during the back half of the movie certainly doesn’t help. 

Ted Bundy: American Boogeyman has nothing new or profound to say about the prolific killer. The movie tries to shock through its graphic depiction of violence, but instead of pushing the envelope, American Boogeyman feels like reheated slasher leftovers. 

New In Theaters

Occupied!

Leave a comment

We Need to Do Something

by Hope Madden

We’ve all felt a little trapped lately. But the pandemic was completely different depending on your situation. Were you trapped and utterly alone, like Bo Burnham? Because that seemed sad and reflective, funny and inspirational and wildly successful. (See Inside if you haven’t.)

Or were you trapped with your family?

We Need to Do Something is a parable about being stuck for a long time with the people you  know best and were probably sick of in the first place. The world outside your doors offers a high possibility of death, but the world inside might be even worse.

Parable is a strong word. We Need to Do Something is a nightmare.

Mel (Sierra McCormick, The Vast of Night) made it home from her friend’s house just in time to miss the tornado. Her mom (Vinessa Shaw) ushers everyone —Mel, her little brother Bobby (John James Cronin) and their dad (Pat Healy) — into the safest room in the house, the bathroom. Here they will wait out the storm.

The storm damages the house, and they are pinned in. Days go by. Why hasn’t anyone come for them? Why is their dad such a dick? What are those noises outside the door?

Director Sean King O’Grady, working from the screenplay Max Booth III adapted from his own novella, mixes claustrophobic dread and adolescent angst with few enough contrivances that he never loses your interest.

Hints dropped early in the story come to hideous life later on (as ugly secrets sometimes do at things like family holidays and vacations or when you’re stuck for a long time in the bathroom). And though the “theater of the mind” component, piquing interest in what exactly lay outside that door, could be stronger, the performances are enough to keep your attention.

Healy, in particular, delivers a characteristically unpleasant performances, feeling very much like a trapped rat.

The hallucinogenic subplot about guilt and trauma and adolescent experimentation with pink goth suggests that the more time you spend with your parents, the more overwhelmed you’ll be by nameless shame and guilt. That feels right.

There’s no real story here. The whole film is essentially Act 2: no catalyst, no resolution. That doesn’t make for a deeply satisfying story, but it does feel a lot like the pandemic.

New In Theaters

Nerd Wanted

Leave a comment

It Takes Three

by Rachel Willis

The time seems apt for another modern adaptation of Cyrano de Bergerac. But throw in a few social media-obsessed teens, and you might wonder if It Takes Three isn’t exactly what Edmond Rostand had in mind when he wrote his play.

That’s giving the film a little too much credit for its cute update to a classic work.

Director Scott Coffey, working from a script penned by Blair Mastbaum and Logan Burdick, uses our current social media reality to craft a film one part Cyrano and one part every other teenage rom-com.

Today’s world, where people painstakingly craft the perfect online persona, lends itself well to the story of a man (in this case, teen) who uses the words of another to woo his lady love.

Chris (David Gridley) – star of the internet sensation HiYA! – is enamored with feminist art lover, Roxy (Aurora Perrineau). Realizing his action star/ bro persona doesn’t mesh with Roxy’s, Chris offers to pay awkward teen, Cy (Jared Gillman) to create a new, “nerd” online persona for him. Cy wants the money for plastic surgery (though the filmmakers chose not to affix any kind of embarrassing nose to Cy’s face), so he agrees.

Predictable hijinks ensue as the real Chris tries to reconcile who he is with who Cy has created online. The scenes where he spends time with Roxy offer some awkward hilarity.

But this isn’t merely Cyrano retold, and we spend plenty of time with Cy, who, when he isn’t pretending to be someone else, spends his time with best friend, Kat (Mikey Madison). But as Cy falls deeper into his role as Chris’s online ego, he loses track of who he really is.

Because of so many elements, the movie spreads itself too thin. Cy’s moms have quite a bit of screen time during the film’s first half (mostly to reassure Cy that his face is perfect), but then they are gone. Coffey relies on numerous teen rom-com tropes, which is good for a chuckle or two, but leaves the audience following characters never given much depth.

Perhaps it’s a commentary on the unreality of modern teenage life, but more likely it’s just an oversight. Still, there’s a sweetness to the characters, and you find yourself hoping they’ll figure out how to embrace who they are in a world obsessed with perfection.

New In Theaters

Evil (Corporate) Empire

Leave a comment

Behemoth

by Brandon Thomas

The intersection of corporate greed and evil incarnate feels like a match made in cinematic heaven (I know, I know). While the idea itself is teeming with possibilities, the execution in director Peter Szewcyck’s Behemoth leaves a lot to be desired.

Joshua Riverton (Josh Eisenberg) was once a top sales rep for a massive chemical company. When his daughter became mysteriously ill, Joshua believed his employer to be responsible and became an outspoken whistleblower. As his daughter gets sicker, Joshua’s need for answers intensifies into obsession. After a chaotic altercation with his former employer, Dr. Luis Woeland (Paul Statman), an injured Joshua is forced to hide out in a seedy motel with two friends and a captive Woeland. As the night progresses, Joshua begins to lose his grip on reality and question whether his horrific visions are in his head or caused by the malevolent Woeland.

First thing’s first: Behemoth is a mess. Szewcyck and co-writer Derrick Ligas’s script erratically bounces back and forth between corporate thriller and demonic sfx extravaganza at a moment’s notice. The problem is that the movie doesn’t do either sub-genre very well. The thriller side is preachy in a “college freshman discovering politics for the first time” kind of way, but lacks subtext surrounding corporate America. 

The horror elements aren’t any stronger. There’s a notable attempt to create interesting creatures throughout the film, but the dodgy effects work does more harm than good. The creatures have interesting designs and might have worked if made practically, but as they are, these digital counterparts look silly and don’t fit within the film’s more serious tone. 

As flimsy as the material itself is, the acting isn’t any better. The majority of the cast delivers the script’s clumsy dialogue with a mix of histrionics and forced exasperation. Chemistry is wholly absent between the main trio. Only Statman knows how to handle the material he’s working with. He walks an impressive line between corporate sleaze and evil minion with grace. 

Behemoth makes a noble attempt at infusing a standard-ish creature feature with timely real-world issues. However, the weak script and subpar acting never allow the film to live up to its aspirations. 

New In Theaters

Profiler and the Mad Man

Leave a comment

No Man of God

by Hope Madden

True crime is quite a phenomenon, isn’t it? It’s been a staple of watch-at-your-own-risk entertainment for generations, but podcasts have set a genre fire that seems unquenchable. Filmmakers have taken notice.

Still, do we need more Ted Bundy? Joe Berlinger made a miniseries (2019’s Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes) and a feature (Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile, also 2019). Then there was 2020’s miniseries Ted Bundy: Falling for a Killer, which, like Extremely Wicked, told the Bundy tale with the voice of a former girlfriend. And in a few weeks, Daniel Farrands kicks off his American Boogeyman serial killer film series with a feature on Bundy.

Is it even possible for filmmaker Amber Sealy to tell us anything fresh? And even if she could, is there any legitimate reason to continue to rehash the behavior of such human garbage?

Working from a script by Kit Lesser, Sealy attempts to demystify Bundy, focusing not on his crime spree at all, but on his final years on death row. No Man of God spends most of its time in a confined, colorless chamber where Bundy (Luke Kirby) and FBI profiler Bill Hagmaier (Elijah Wood) converse.

Both actors deliver nuanced, unnerving performances. Their interplay and the evolving relationship help Sealy overcome the limited action, institutional color palette, and dialog-heavy run time.

Hagmaier is essentially the vehicle for the audience. Why is he spending his time with this heinous being? He just wants to understand.

That’s our excuse too, right? And that’s also the danger — at least it is in every movie ever made concerning an FBI profiler trying to get into the head of a serial killer, and No Man of God is no different. Is good guy Bill really Bundy’s opposite, or is he capable of the same acts of violence against women?

There are flashes in Sealy’s film where she nearly punctures her rote though well-acted tale with genuine insight about misogyny. But the film is never as interested in the women harmed by Bundy’s narcissism, insecurity and psychosis as it is in those traits he bore.  

New In Theaters

O Brave New World

Leave a comment

The Colony

by Christie Robb

Director/co-writer Tim Fehlbaum’s The Colony (originally titled Tides) is a new entry into science fiction’s grand tradition of working out issues of the past and present in imagined future contexts.

In this one, Earth’s elites packed into spacecrafts and blasted away from a planet wrecked by climate change, pandemics and war. (Imagine!)

They settled on a planet called Kepler 209, which provided a temporary refuge. While they could survive there, radiation had an impact on fertility and, two generations in, no children were being conceived by a now-aging population.

So, once the Keplerians got some data from beacons they’d left back on Earth that their home planet may have healed somewhat, they sent a reconnaissance party called Ulysses 1 to scout out the situation and see if Earth was safe to return to and, hopefully, procreate on.

They never heard from U1.

Some years later, they scraped together the resources and sent U2 with a small crew including Louise Blake (Nora Arnezeder), the now-grown daughter of a missing astronaut from U1. Blake’s crash to Earth is where the Colony begins.

From the moment she impacts the surface, things are grim. Crewmembers are inured. Some die.

There’s a perpetual and inhospitable fog that obscures the landscape rendering Blake unable to get a clear picture of her surroundings. And this thematically fits, as this initial slow-burn of a movie is all about Blake charting the lay of the land on this new Earth.

She’s not alone.

But exactly who she is sharing space with and whether their interests are aligned is something that Blake has to explore and uncover. As the movie progresses, the pace increases incrementally and the stakes get higher as Blake needs to decide what she stands for and whose side she is on.

It’s interesting how it works with the themes of colonization in a tweaked context.

The Colony is a good offering. It’s not perfect. Communication between different groups is managed with way too much ease. The plot is somewhat predictable. One character is so much without agency that he may as well be a Force ghost urging Blake to heroic action. And, for a movie that mentions pandemics in the intro, it really missed an opportunity to add a novel disease transmission subplot.

But the cinematography, particularly the play between extreme wide shots emphasizing the characters’ vulnerability in the forbidding landscape and the close-up point of view shots giving us Blake’s limited access to snippets of the action, is wonderful. As is Arnezeder’s portrayal of Blake’s full emotional range.

Of special note is Iain Glen (as Jorah Mormont), who manages to effortlessly show the violence lurking just beneath the veneer of civilization.

New In Theaters

Bad Decisions

Leave a comment

Echoes of Violence

by Rachel Willis

Alex (Heston Horwin) is having a terrible day. While trying to sell a leasing office in the middle of the Sedona desert, he hears a gunshot. When he hears a second shot, rather than calling the police, he runs off to investigate.

This is the first of several bad calls that Alex makes.

However, we might be able to get on board with this terrible decision because the lead-up to this moment is intriguing. From a funny opening, we’re then placed in this jarringly violent moment. Alex, endearing in his suit, waiting for his clients, is the right kind of naïve to help the film get underway.

It’s too bad this great opening is followed by such a weak story. But what writer/director Nicholas Woods delivers in Echoes of Violence is a juvenile take on the humanitarian crisis of human trafficking.

Upon meeting Marakya (Michaella Russell), Alex makes one more dumb decision after another as he’s caught up in her violent existence. A sex slave on the run from her immigration lawyer/human trafficker (another good idea that fails in the execution), Marakya enlists Alex’s help on a mission of revenge.

We never quite understand why Alex is so taken with Marakya, which is a problem. There’s no reason or explanation why he doesn’t call the police – or even just walk away – as it’s clear he’s in over his head.

Another poor choice on the film’s part is an attempt to create a sympathetic character out of a man who is part of the sex trafficking ring. Though we’re given reasons why this guy is ‘okay,’ it feels like a gut punch to root for someone who previously ignored the horrors around him. That his redemption arc is given the same weight as Marakya’s story is as unsurprising as it is disappointing.

But the film’s weakest element is the dialogue. Some of it is so bad it’s funny, but mostly it’s just bad. There’s too much needless exposition, too many lines that try to offer profound wisdom (when no one talks like that), and not enough time to let the characters come to life.

The actors are good, particularly Russell, but even the best actors will stumble around clumsy dialogue. And Sten Olson’s cinematography is spectacular, but there isn’t much else holding up this movie.

A weak script will nearly always tank a film, and this one is no exception.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_0PjTtXLJU

New In Theaters, Slider

Teacher’s Pet

Leave a comment

The Protege

by Hope Madden

For one of those hired assassin thrillers to work, it helps to have a convincing lead who has chemistry with the bad guy. Martin Campbell’s The Protégé delivers on both fronts.

And yes, in these films story often takes a backseat to fight choreography, writing rides shotgun to action. This also sounds a lot like Campbell’s latest, although it would be more forgivable if the action stood out enough that you could overlook the shortcomings in story.

Maggie Q is protégé assassin Anna, and while her inner conflict never breaks the surface, Q convinces as she moves bewigged from one set piece to the next. Anna’s mission this time is personal, natch, and her soft spot comes from her mentor, played by Samuel L. Jackson.

How is he? Well, he’s, you know, Sam Jackson. He’s exactly Sam Jackson. That works in almost every other movie, and it works just as well here.

But the real shining treasure in The Protégé is Michael Keaton. His talent, charisma, easy charm and natural good humor elevate every scene. Luckily, he’s in a lot of them, so he elevates most of the film.

Campbell (Casino Royale) stages capable though uninspired action sequences. His script, by action veteran Richard Wenk (The Equalizer), can’t tie character motivation to mystery elements to location or conflict. Instead, it stitches together ideas from a smattering of other films with little concern for coherence.

Perhaps this is why Campbell struggles so mightily with tone. This thing swings back and forth between buddy picture and revenge fantasy, international espionage thriller and romance. The bit that generally drives a film like this—you know, when the steely lead finally faces their demons—feels almost coincidental, leaving it no room to resonate.

The Protégé is not a terrible film. At worst it’s just a waste of your time.