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OK with Age

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Aged

by Brandon Thomas

The subject of aging has become a popular trope in the world of horror. Films like M. Night Shyamalan’s Old and the Aussie favorite Relic used our own fears of natural mortality to tap into something more supernatural. Ti West’s X comments on how aging – and the supposed loss of beauty – can have deeper psychological implications. Director Anubys Lopez’s Aged may not reach the highest highs of the aforementioned films, but what it lacks in originality it more than makes up for with old school things that go bump in the night.

Veronica (Morgan Boss-Maltais) has recently taken a temporary job as a caregiver for the elderly Mrs. Bloom (Carla Kidd). Shortly after arriving at Mrs. Bloom’s remote home, Veronica begins to sense a presence in the house. As the strange events in the house escalate, Veronica also begins to suspect that Mrs. Bloom herself might be harboring a sinister secret.

Aged checks a lot of low-budget horror boxes right off the bat. 

Single location? Check. 

Small cast? Check. 

Simplistic story that requires little in the way of production value and special effects? That would be a check. 

These aren’t detriments by any means. The simplicity of Aged is actually the film’s greatest asset… well, except for Kidd’s old-age makeup. That gag is right out of a Spirit Halloween and pretty wince-inducing. 

Lopez aims high with the film’s visuals. The low-budget still manages to shine through here and there, but the emphasis on production design and shooting every nook and cranny of the desolate farm house helps create a real sense of place. Lopez has a good eye – so good, in fact, that it’s a shame much of Aged was filmed in the brightness of day. 

Boss-Maltais and Kidd spend nearly all of their scenes together. Kidd chews up an enormous amount of scenery as the venomous Mrs. Bloom. Boss-Maltais’s Veronica is your standard bland non-personality-having lead. Veronica’s role is to walk the audience through the plot of the movie and not to have any real arc of her own. 

Aged isn’t the first movie you should seek out this weekend – heck it might not even be the 10th – but it is an entertaining enough haunted house flick that’ll keep your attention for 90 minutes.

The Screening Room

Screening Room: The Flash, Elemental, The Blackening, Extraction 2, Maggie Moore(s) & More

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The Flash, Elemental, The Blackening, Maggie Moore(s), Extraction 2, Moon Garden, Peppergrass, Persian Lessons, Dry Ground Burning, Aged

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Some Pig

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Peppergrass

by Hope Madden

The pandemic was tough on everybody. Eula (Chantelle Han) lost her grandpa, made a bad decision with her bartender friend (Charles Boyland), and may lose her restaurant if things don’t turn around.

So, at the height of lockdown, these two restauranteurs takeoff into the night with a mysterious letter sent just after Grandpa died by a recluse he saved during the war. They decide to drive that letter 20 hours to the recluse’s acreage where they hope to find him and some truffles.

Really, really valuable truffles.

In the hands of co-directors Han and Steven Garbas, Peppergrass is, on the surface, a kind of backwoods culinary heist movie – which is more than intriguing enough. But the film, which Garbas co-wrote with Philip Irwin, delivers more than that.

The film is beautifully shot, from the somber color and framing of the urban opening act to the purposeful camera and sound work throughout the balance of the forest-heavy second and third acts.

Han’s Eula – in charge, no nonsense, desperate – anchors the film beautifully. The perfect counterbalance, Boyland plays at being the harmless dumbass. Thanks to a lived-in chemistry between the two actors and Boyland’s committed performance, you never root against his Morris no matter how much you want to smack him.

The script is clever, sometimes roughly funny, often surprising. Tonal shifts can be a problem, but generally Garbas and Han move smoothly, their framing and pace matching the swiftly shifting genre. Peppergrass swings from heist to horror to survival tale and back again, losing its footing only rarely.

Fear of contagion timestamps the film, but it also generates a kind of paranoia that heightens tension – the kind of tensions suited to backwoods survival tales. But Peppergrass’s greatest strength is how deftly it tells its real story – the one motivating the heist, which is never discussed outright, though it haunts the film.

Tense, surprising and delightfully unusual, Peppergrass is a gem of a thriller worth seeking out.

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Steam Building

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Elemental

by Hope Madden

As soon as Ember earns her dad’s trust, he can retire and she’ll run his shop in Fire Town. Unless her hot temper ruins everything. Or she falls for that sweet guy from Water Town. Or both.

Daddy issues. Romance. Coming of Age. There’s a lot about Pixar’s latest, Elemental, that feels familiar. Common, even. And if there’s one thing the animation giant’s managed to avoid for most of its almost 30 years in the business, it’s being predictable.

It doesn’t help that the characters immediately put you in mind of Pixar’s wildly imaginative Inside Out. But there’s little about the film that will strike you as wildly imaginative, although the animation is sometimes breathtaking, beauty spilling off all four sides of the screen. Animators explore and exploit all opportunities to find wonder in the glow and fluidity of characters and the magnificent 3D experience is well worth annoyance of the glasses.

The magic in this story’s telling lies less in an inspired, imaginative plot and more in the nuances of the execution. Ember, a child of immigrants, is seen as a danger to most of the rest of the city. And yet, as she traverses a landscape of people made of water, she’s the one who’s actually in danger.

John Hoberg, Kat Likkel and Brenda Hsueh’s crisp writing deftly navigates microaggressions, misunderstandings, and the anger associated with helpfully advising someone to “water down” their culture.

Back in 2015, Elemental  director Peter Sohn made the unduly overlooked The Good Dinosaur. It was a beautiful piece of visual storytelling, charming and well-acted, although, like this one, the plot itself lacked imagination. I hope more people give Elemental a chance. It lacks the uniqueness of Pixar’s greatest or most enduring efforts, but it’s a touching, gorgeous, emotional and forgiving tale.

Don’t be late ­or you’ll miss perhaps the best reason to see Pixar films, the shorts that precede the feature. In Carl’s Date (which will also appear as episode 1, season 2 of the Disney+ show Dug Days), our beloved Carl (Edward Asner) from Up! needs a little courage to go through with his first date since Ellie. Crushingly lovely.

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Moore Than a Woman

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Maggie Moore(s)

by George Wolf

Maggie Moore(s) is nestled in a quiet little neighborhood between the Coen Brothers, Taylor Sheridan, and any mid-lfe rom-com. Expect engaging characters getting caught in dangerous games and possible romances, and reacting with clever witticisms, charming flirtatiousness and occasional bursts of violence.

And though the film doesn’t rise to the best of any genre, it patches together enough winning moments for a worthwhile caper-com.

With an opening declaration that “some” of the events actually happened, Paul Bernbaum’s first script since 2007’s Next takes us to a small desert town in Arizona that’s suddenly rocked by two murders in one week.

And both victims are named Maggie Moore. WTF?

Is there a connection between Maggie 1 (Louisa Krause) and Maggie 2 (Mary Holland)?

That’s what Police Chief Sanders (Jon Hamm) and deputy Reddy (Nick Mohammed) aim to find out. And pretty soon they’re finding out that Maggie 2’s husband (Christopher Denham) has a girlfriend (Bobbi Kitten) and a life insurance payout coming, while Maggie 1’s man (Micah Stock) has been passing photos for a pedophile food supplier (Derek Basco) in exchange for cheap and moldy cold cuts for his sub shop.

Oh, and Maggie 1’s neighbor Rita (Tina Fey) says the couple’s fights had recently been escalating.

Director John Slattery (God’s Pocket) exhibits fine juggling skills, giving his Mad Men pal Hamm plenty of room to craft Chief Sanders as the easy-to-root-for heart of the film. He’s a widower who takes a creative writing class at night, and his rebuff of a classmate’s overtures only makes us more hopeful when he and the divorced Rita find reasons to meet.

Of course, it helps that Hamm and Fey are real life buddies, with enough natural chemistry and snappy barbs (Him: “Wash your car.” Her: “Wash your ass!”) to make their time together a treat to watch.

Yes, putting a wannabe romance in the middle of Hell or High Fargo can bring a disjointed feel, but the orbit of distinct characters and cutting dialogue around it never lets the crime-solving grow tiresome.

Don’t look to Maggie Moore(s) for trail blazing or ground breaking, it will come up short. But for an hour-and-a-half of breezy, sometimes messy entertainment, it’s plenty capable.

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Slip of the Tongue

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Persian Lessons

by Rachel Willis

A random trade in the back of a transport van gives Gilles (Nahuel Peréz Biscayart) a chance to survive the Holocaust in Vadim Perelman’s film, Persian Lessons.

The trade – a book in Farsi for a sandwich – seems inconsequential, even poor, but it prevents Gilles’s death when the van is unloaded in a field and everyone is executed. There’s a deputy commandant, Klaus Koch (Lars Eidinger), looking for someone who speaks Farsi, so Gilles is spared – the book used as evidence of his nationality.

The problem is that Gilles is not Persian (Iranian) and doesn’t speak Farsi.

The situation creates immense tension as there are several soldiers who suspect Gilles (known to the soldiers as Reza) is lying. One makes it his goal to reveal the deception. As Gilles tries to create a language to fool Koch, we watch as he struggles to remember the words he’s invented. He keeps them straight using a pneumonic device based on the names of the prisoners entered into a register.

Because of Gilles’s peculiar status, he spends almost equal time with his fellow prisoners and the Nazis around them, but he is a part of neither group. And because of his unique access to Koch, and the fury this incites in some of the soldiers, we spend more time with these men and women than we do the prisoners around Gilles.

We watch as soldiers and officers flirt and gossip and attend parties, humanizing them in a way that makes them more sinister. These are the actions of people you might know – those who view what they do with enthusiasm or indifference. They form relationships with each other while dehumanizing the Jewish people around them. It adds an ominous realism to these characters.

Koch is the most disturbing. He helps Gilles on several occasions, but it’s clear if he were to ever find out Gilles is lying about his identity, the retribution would be swift and cruel. There is no real affection between the two; Gilles is fully aware of his precarious situation, even as he takes advantage of it. Koch is a means for Gilles’s survival, but never a friend.

As the film progresses, there is a constant tension. As prisoners are transferred from one camp to another, Gilles is physically spared, but the emotional toll of watching so many men, women, and children shipped to their death wears on him. His physical and emotional demeanor deteriorates throughout the film.

Perelman’s striking and terrifying portrayal of one man’s experience is one that will resonate for some time.

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Tomorrow Is Another Day

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Dry Ground Burning

by Matt Weiner

Billing itself as a blend of “documentary and narrative fiction,” Dry Ground Burning succeeds wildly on all fronts, turning the Sol Nascente favela in Brazil into a feminist battleground that mixes light science fiction with immediate real-world consequences.

Léa (Léa Alves da Silva) is just out of prison, and reunites with her half-sister Chitara (Joana Darc Furtado). Chitara has become a local hero as the hardened leader of an all-female gang that makes money refining stolen oil and selling gasoline.

Under Chitara’s leadership, the gang defies local authority, a presence that pervades the characters’ lives even if the direct police response to Chitara is only briefly shown. (The directors make the most of this screentime by giving them and their “state-of-the-art” armored vehicle the full Verhoeven treatment.)

The gang’s ambitions run deeper than just survival, although the film argues that even that is worth celebrating in the face of authoritarian resistance. The women have mounted a political challenge with their People’s Prison Party, advocating a platform that speaks to the needs of the city’s working class and disenfranchised.

Directors and writers Joana Pimenta and Adirley Queirós chose to cast two local women (not actors) to play versions of themselves. The docu side of the docu-drama comes into its sharpest focus when the women are out campaigning. Their voices are sometimes literally drowned out by Bolsonaro supporters. And a political rally for the now former president of Brazil takes on the look of a green and gold descent into the Inferno.

In that scene, and in so many others in Sol Nascente, Pimenta and Queirós allow the narrative part of the story to fade away. Long, uninterrupted shots bring us both the grotesque horrors of a fascist rally and the unbowed joy of a DIY dance party.

There’s also a heartbreaking moment in the story when the narrative suddenly breaks the fourth wall and it is revealed just how many real-life elements from these women have been brought into the film. Despite these setbacks, or in the face of them, Chitara and her gang continue to demand an alternative future for the country that sees them in it.

Speculative documentary, narrative fiction… why not add hopeful dystopia to the genre list?

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Sentimental Journey Home

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Moon Garden

by Hope Madden

If you are looking for a wondrously macabre fairy tale, a nightmare that’s both fanciful and terrifying, writer/director Ryan Stevens Harris has a tale to tell.

Moon Garden delivers a journey through the fertile imagination of 5-year-old Emma (Haven Lee Harris). We know from Act 1 that she funnels what she picks up from the world around her into delightfully odd, even spooky fantasies for her toys to act out. So, when trouble that’s been brewing at home (and spilling into Emma’s playtime fantasies) unexpectedly puts the tot in a coma, that fantasy world drowns out reality and Emma finds herself on a very big journey indeed.

Of its many successes Moon Garden can boast set design, creature design and stop motion work at the top. All are very solid, and all collaborate to evoke a big, dark, scary world where logic bends but wonder never dies.

Creature design – particularly the first creature – lives up to the expectations set early when we see Emma’s toys. And the film benefits immeasurably from a charming and believable central performance by young Harris. Excellent editing helps to make her physical journey seem more plausible, but her laughter and tears never feel less than genuine.

Augie Duke, playing Emma’s distraught mother, and Brionne Davis as Dad Alex are less impressive, although it may be that the artistic vision is so much stronger in the fantastical storyline that the real-world of the parents received short shrift.

Other characters glimpsed briefly within the otherworldly realm are more compelling, aided by stagey old school costuming. Wisely, the filmmaker blurs lines between good and evil, giving the story itself a kind of fluidity that feels appropriate to a dreamscape and also keeps you constantly surprised.

The story, and to a degree the entire film, is hokey but Moon Garden generates more than enough of the macabre in old school fairy tales to evoke a wondrous nightmare energy.

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Ashes to Ashes

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Elemental: Reimagine Wildfire

by Tori Hanes

Fire, as the ultimate threat, has laid heavily in the public’s mind for a handful of years. West Coast dwellers live in near constant fear of ill-contained flames. With a significant spike in ravenous flames throughout the past decade, how can a government possibly triangulate and identify a solution to the rapidly progressing problem? As much as it postures, Elemental: Reimagine Wildfire doesn’t offer that fix. 

Director Trip Jennings knows how to accost audiences right in their vulnerable ethos. Jennings thrusts us into Paradise, California during an autumn day in 2018. With ash blocking the sun and blazes destroying the city, an unbelievable loss of 85 lives and 18,000+ properties result from the string of ravaging forest fires the year produced. Firsthand iPhone video accounts of shaken parents throwing sobbing children into the back of cars as fires overtake their once sleepy streets is haunting. However, Jennings relies on this initial emotional connection to keep audiences engaged through a scientific and roaming remainder.

The film is a heavily logistical view of attempts to mitigate the impact of fire-based disasters on the human population. What is so deeply interesting and perplexing is the film’s failure to speak on the cause: climate change. It feels like a well-formulated dance around a concrete base. Elemental: Reimagine Wildfire makes no mystery that a rapidly changing climate is to blame, but also does no due diligence of explanation or exploration. It seems to unintentionally avoid the topic, which is incredibly strange. Ultimately, you end up wondering what the purpose behind the snub really amounts to. 

This is not to say Jennings is an untalented filmmaker. The documentary itself is interesting, and digestible in its heavy scientific musings. The daunting subject matter is presented fairly and accurately, but a call to arms is missing. Beyond the begrudged idea that West Coast landowners should investigate fire-proofing their homes, no massively hopeful or inspiringly pessimistic conclusions are made. 

Even in the lovely landlocked region of the Midwest, fire threat has become a permanent and harrowing dilemma. Elemental: Reimagine Wildfire offers no solutions, although it will thoroughly explain half hearted ideas. For a some, it’ll result in more confusion than comfort.

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Across the Universes

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The Flash

by George Wolf

Remember the utility belt on the Adam West version of Batman? Whatever the situation, there was always something on that belt that was perfect for bailing him out of it.

Decades later, it’s starting to look like “the multi-verse” may be the new Get Out of Jail Free card for superhero adventures. It certainly is for The Flash, a movie that scatters impressive moments across a landscape of fan service that’s searching for a truly compelling story.

Ezra Miller returns as Barry Allen/The Flash, who discovers this time out that he can hit speeds fast enough for time travel. Bruce Wayne/Batman (Ben Affleck) warns him against messing with the past, but Barry is convinced that simply putting one can of tomatoes in a shopping cart can bring back his murdered mother (Maribel Verdú ) and in turn, free his father (Ron Livingston) from a murder charge.

Of course, that can of tomatoes carries plenty of butterfly effects. The changes are enough to put Barry face-to-face with a non-super version of himself, in a universe where Bruce Wayne (Michael Keaton) has hung up his cape, Eric Stoltz never got canned from Back to the Future, and General Zod (Michael Shannon) is still an imminent threat to destroy the planet.

That Stoltz name drop (along with Affleck’s priceless line about the size of his ego) are just two of the moments where screenwriters Christina Hodson and Joby Harold inject some lighthearted fun that never seems forced. Ironic, though, that the Stoltz backstory just reminds you that the controversial Miller didn’t get dropped from this franchise.

But beyond the many offscreen troubles, Miller is impressive here, effectively crafting two distinct Barry Allens who play off each other quite well. Keaton’s return is a nostalgic kick, and as much as he’s clearly enjoying getting back in the Batsuit, Keaton steers clear of scenery-chewing. His Batman is a perfectly weary version of the one he left in the 90s, a disillusioned hero ready for one more ride.

And as the Barrys and Bruce search for an imprisoned Superman, we get our first look at Sasha Calle as Kara/Supergirl, who provides an intriguing glimpse of what we might expect from the character’s upcoming standalone film.

Director Andy Muschietti (It, It Chapter Two) hooks us with an exciting and visually impressive – except for the computer-generated babies – opening sequence, but the pace begins to drag almost immediately after. Threads of other time travel films from Timecrimes to Looper are bandied about, leading to the puzzling centerpiece that is the Chrono-ball.

Inside the ball, any past version of a superhero can be trotted out for a fan service bow, often with GCI that’s less-than-super enough to recall DC’s embarrassing experiment with Superman’s mustache. You would think that after that debacle, the effects bar would be higher. Apparently not, which only exacerbates the feeling that the point here is not The Flash, it’s how many flashes of the past can be manufactured – before and after the credits.

Both the animated and live action Spider-Man films have shown us how delightful the multi-verse can be. The Flash never gets there, but it shows us enough of Barry Allen to wonder what might be possible if the DCEU can trust him enough to carry his own weight.