A bunch of movies to cover this week in The Screening Room, including Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw, The Farewell, Luz, Sword of Trust, Leo Da Vinci: Mission Mona Lisa as well as a whole slew of new movies available to watch at home.
Listen to the full podcast HERE.
Today we talk through movies that do not make European trips seem wise. We also talk through the ten best films of the first half of 2019 and what’s new in home entertainment.
Listen to the full podcast HERE.
In today’s podcast, George considers doing the whole show with a fake British accent and Hope says no. Also, we cover Yesterday, Annabelle Comes Home, Ophelia and Echo in the Canyon, plus all that’s new in home entertainment.
Listen to the full podcast HERE.
Moviegoers in toyland this week as we run down Toy Story 4, Child’s Play, Anna, The Spy Behind Home Plate and all that’s new and exciting in home entertainment.
Listen to the full podcast HERE.
We are beyond delighted to have been allowed to screen Jim Jarmusch’s new zombie classic The Dead Don’t Die two days in advance of its national opening. To honor this remarkable film and its amazing cast, we look at the best other horror movies that star these actors.
Just when Shaun of the Dead convinced me that those Limey Brits had created the best-ever zombie romantic comedy, it turns out they’d only created the most British zom-rom-com. Writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick take the tried-and-true zombiepocalypse premise and sprint with it in totally new and awesome directions.
And the cameo. I cannot imagine a better one. I mean that. I’m not sure a walk on by Jesus himself could have brought me more joy.
That’s not true. Plus, in zombie movie?! How awesome would that have been?!
Jesse Eisenberg anchors the film with an inspired narration and an endearing dork characterization. But Woody Harrelson owns this film. His gun-toting, Twinkie-loving, Willie Nelson-singing, Dale Earnhart-number-wearing redneck ranks among the greatest horror heroes ever.
I give you, a trip to a loud and well-lit amusement park is not a recommendation Max Brooks would make during the zombiepocalypse. Still, you’ve got to admit it’s a gloriously filmed piece of action horror cinema.
The Dead Don’t Die is not Jim Jarmusch’s first foray into horror. In 2013, the visionary writer/director concocted a delicious black comedy, oozing with sharp wit and hipster attitude.
Great lead performances don’t hurt, either, and Jarmusch gets them from Tom Hilddleston and Tilda Swinton as Adam and Eve (perfect!), a vampire couple rekindling their centuries-old romance against the picturesque backdrop of…Detroit.
Not since the David Bowie/Catherine Deneuve pairing in The Hunger has there been such perfectly vampiric casting. Swinton and Hiddleston, already two of the most consistently excellent actors around, deliver cooly detached, underplayed performances, wearing the world- weariness of their characters in uniquely contrasting ways.
There is substance to accent all the style. The film moseys toward its perfect finale, casually waxing Goth philosophic about soul mates and finding your joy.
It is 1977 in “a divided Berlin,” when American Susie Bannion (Dakota Johnson, nicely moving the character from naivete to complexity) arrives for an audition with a world-renowned dance company run by Madame Blanc (Tilda Swinton, mesmerizing).
This “cover version” (The Tilda’s phrase, and valid) of Argento’s original lifts the veil on the academy elders early, via the diaries of Patricia (Chloe Moretz), a dancer who tells psychotherapist Dr. Josef Kiemperer (also The Tilda, under impressive makeup) wild tales of witches and their shocking plans.
Guadagnino continues to be a master film craftsman. Much as he draped Call Me by Your Name in waves of dreamy romance, here he establishes a consistent mood of nightmarish goth.
But even when this new Suspiria is tipping its hat to Argento, Guadagnino leaves no doubt he is making his own confident statement. Women move in strong solidarity both onstage and off, dancing with a hypnotic power capable of deadly results. In fact, most of the male characters here are mere playthings under the spell of powerful women, which takes a deliciously ironic swipe at witch lore.
A giddy hatchet to the head of the abiding culture of the Eighties, American Psycho represents the sleekest, most confident black comedy – perhaps ever. Director Mary Harron trimmed Bret Easton Ellis’s novel, giving it unerring focus. More importantly, the film soars due to Christian Bale’s utterly astonishing performance as narcissist, psychopath, and Huey Lewis fan Patrick Bateman.
There’s an elegant exaggeration to the satire afoot. Bateman is a slick, sleek Wall Street toady, pompous one minute because of his smart business cards and quick entrance into posh NYC eateries, cowed the next when a colleague whips out better cards and shorter wait times. For all his quest for status and perfection, he is a cog indistinguishable from everyone who surrounds him. The more glamour and flash on the outside, the more pronounced the abyss on the inside. What else can he do but turn to bloody, merciless slaughter? It’s a cry for help, really.
Harron’s send up of the soulless Reagan era is breathtakingly handled, from the set decoration to the soundtrack, but the film works as well as a horror picture as it does a comedy. Whether it’s Chloe Sevigny’s tenderness as Bateman’s smitten secretary or Cara Seymour’s world wearied vulnerability, the cast draws a real sense of empathy and dread that complicate the levity. We do not want to see these people harmed, and as hammy as it seems, you may almost call out to them: Look behind you!
As solid as this cast is, and top to bottom it is perfect, every performance is eclipsed by the lunatic genius of Bale’s work. Volatile, soulless, misogynistic and insane, yet somehow he also draws some empathy. It is wild, brilliant work that marked a talent preparing for big things.
Opening with a brilliant prologue that wraps a nice vibe of homage around the cold realities of “walking while black,” writer/director Jordan Peele uses tension, humor and a few solid frights to call out blatant prejudice, casual racism and cultural appropriation.
When white Rose (Alison Williams) takes her black boyfriend Chris (Daniel Kaluuya) home to meet the fam, she assures him race will not be a problem. How can she be sure? Because her Dad (Bradley Whitford) would have voted for Obama’s third term “if he could.” It’s the first of many B.S. alerts for Peele, and they only get more satisfying.
Rose’s family is overly polite at first, but then mom Missy (Catherine Keener) starts acting evasive and brother Jeremy (Caleb Landry Jones) gets a bit threatening, while the gardener and the maid (both black – whaaat?) appear straight outta Stepford.
Peele is clearly a horror fan, and he gives knowing winks to many genre cliches (the jump scare, the dream) while anchoring his entire film in the upending of the “final girl.” This isn’t a young white coed trying to solve a mystery and save herself, it’s a young man of color, challenging the audience to enjoy the ride but understand why switching these roles in a horror film is a social critique in itself.
Get Out is an audacious first feature for Jordan Peele, a film that never stops entertaining as it consistently pays off the bets it is unafraid to make.
Not the strongest week in theaters, sad to say. This week we break down Dark Phoenix, Secret Life of Pets 2, All Is True, The Tomorrow Man and all that’s fit to watch in home entertainment.
Listen to the full podcast HERE.
Our friend is looking to buy her first home and our only advice was probably the same advice she got from everyone: check the basement for the gateway to hell. That always causes trouble for new homebuyers, doesn’t it?
Indeed, these netherworld exits and entrances don’t exist only in suburban basements. Nope, you can find them anywhere. In fact, you can even create your own. No idea why you would want to do that, but (assuming horror films are how-tos), it can be done. Which are the best gateway to hell horror movies, you ask? Luckily, we’ve done the math.
A bunch of films nearly had this fifth slot: Amityville 3D (mainly so we could make fun of Laurie Laughlin), The Gate and its Harryhausen influences, Event Horizon’s blackhole to hell. But we landed on The Ninth Gate because we love Frank Langella and Lena Olin.
Johnny Depp plays a sleazy rare books dealer in Roman Polanski’s adaptation of Arturo Perez-Reverte’s novel. Depp’s Dean Corso falls into a mysterious adventure of finding and appraising three volumes allegedly co-authored by Satan himself (or herself?).
Maybe the element of this film that makes it more interesting than it might be is that, while the humans longing for the knowledge in these volumes are terrible people, the film doesn’t seem to find Satanism (the real worship of an actual Satan, not today’s activism branch) a potentially worthwhile activity. Satan (Emmanuelle Seigner, Polanski’s wife) is also an interesting character—in concept, anyway.
Plus, black masses! Love those!
Lucio Fulci was really preoccupied with the gateway to hell. He produced an entirely worthwhile trilogy on the topic. And while City of the Living Dead and House by the Cemetery have their charms (well, for one of us), The Beyond is by far the most entertaining of the three.
As is always the case in Fulci films, the dubbing is half the fun, here unintentionally aiding in the overall surreal quality of the picture. Liza Merrill (Catriona MacColl, who stars as different characters in each of the three Gateway films) has inherited an old Louisiana hotel from her dead uncle.
Guess what’s in the basement?!
Silly, gory as hell, hypnotic and oh-so-Fulci, The Beyond is a dreamy peek into hell. The clashing accents and lack of logic only strengthen the vibe.
Yes, technically this one takes place in “The Further” – but we don’t buy that this creepy red guy plays organ in limbo or purgatory. We’re going with hell.
Director James Wan and writer (and co-star) Leigh Whannell launched a second franchise with this clever, creepy, star-studded flick about a haunted family.
Patrick Wilson (who would become a Wan/Whannell staple) and Rose Byrne anchor the film as a married couple dealing with the peculiar coma-like state affecting their son, not to mention the weird noises affecting their house.
But what makes this particular film so effective is that we get to go into The Further to reclaim the lost soul. It’s a risky move, but these filmmakers do what few are able to: they show us what we are afraid of.
Journeyman writer/director Michael Winner helmed this weird little gem about a damaged young woman and her journey toward the only destiny that can save her.
It starts, as these things so often to, with the search for a new place to live. New York model Alison (Cristina Raines) is offered an incredibly great rate for a gorgeous NY brownstone apartment.
Is it the gateway to hell? Yes, but NY real estate being what it is, she takes it.
Look at this cast: Burgess Meredith, John Carradine, Christopher Walken, Ava Gardner, Jerry Orbach, Jose Ferrer, Beverly D’Angelo and Chris Sarandon, mainly playing the various and fascinating demons hoping to throw poor, fragile Alison off her path.
Meredith in particular is a magnificent Satan.
Welcome to hell! Turkish filmmaker Can Evrenol invites you to follow a 5-man police squad into the netherworld, where eye patches are all the rage, pregnancy lasts well under the traditional 40 weeks, and you don’t want to displease Daddy.
The serpentine sequencing of events evokes a dream logic that gives the film an inescapable atmosphere of dread, creepily underscored by its urgent synth score. Evrenol’s imagery is morbidly amazing. Much of it only glimpsed, most of it left unarticulated, but all of it becomes that much more disturbing for its lack of clarity.
As is always the case, the real kicker is the Satan character. Here, central figure Mehmet Cerrahoglu’s remarkable presence authenticates the hellscape. Evrenol’s imaginative set design and wise lighting choices envelope Cerrahoglu, his writhing followers, and his victims in a bloody horror like little else in cinema.
Why fear the sea? The same reason to see menace in the deep, dark unknown of space or the dense and dizzying claustrophobia of the forest: because it’s really hard to see what’s in there.
That leaves us to our imagination, and when is that ever a good idea? Here, then, are some of the most imaginative ways horror filmmakers terrorized us with tales of what lies beneath.
Up from the depths, 30 stories high, breathing fire…you know the rest. Surely we had to have a Fifties science run amok beastie on this list, and while there was some stiff competition, nothing really bests Godzilla.
As Japan struggled to re-emerge from the 1945 bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, director Ishiro Honda unleashed that dreaded kaiju—followed quickly by a tidal wave of creature features focused on scientists whose ungodly work creates global cataclysm.
Far more pointed and insightful than its American bastardization or any of the sequels or reboots to follow, the 1954 Japanese original mirrored the desperate, helpless impotence of a global population in the face of very real, apocalyptic danger. Sure, that danger breathed fire and came in a rubber suit, but history shows again and again how nature points out the folly of man.
Jaws wasn’t cinema’s only powerful shark horror. In 2003, young filmmaker Chris Kentis’s first foray into terror is unerringly realistic and, therefore, deeply disturbing.
From the true events that inspired it to one unreasonably recognizable married couple, from superbly accurate dialog to actual sharks, Open Water’s greatest strength is its unsettling authenticity. Every element benefits from Chris Kentis’s control of the project. Writer, director, cinematographer and editor, Kentis clarifies his conception for this relentless film, and it is devastating.
A couple on vacation (Blanchard Ryan and Daniel Travis) books a trip on a crowded, touristy scuba boat. Once in the water, they swim off on their own – they’re really a little too accomplished to hang with the tourists. And then, when they emerge from the depths, they realize the boat is gone. It’s just empty water in every direction.
Now, sharks aren’t an immediate threat, right? I mean, tourist scuba boats don’t just drop you off in shark infested waters. But the longer you drift, the later it gets, who knows what will happen?
Here’s a great Eastern European take on reimagined Eastern European fairy tales, like Norway’s Thale (2012) and Czech Republic’s Little Otik (2000).
Gold (Michalina Olszanska) and Silver (Marta Mazurek) are not your typical movie mermaids, and director Agnieszka Smoczynska’s feature debut The Lure is not your typical – well, anything.
The musical fable offers a vivid mix of fairy tale, socio-political commentary, whimsy and throat tearing. But it’s not as ill-fitting a combination as you might think.
The Little Mermaid is actually a heartbreaking story. Not Disney’s crustacean song-stravaganza, but Hans Christian Andersen’s bleak meditation on the catastrophic consequences of sacrificing who you are for someone undeserving. It’s a cautionary tale for young girls, really, and Lure writer Robert Bolesto remains true to that theme.
The biggest differences between Bolesto’s story and Andersen’s: 80s synth pop, striptease and teeth. At its heart, The Lure is a story about Poland – its self-determination and identity in the Eighties. That’s where Andersen’s work is so poignantly fitting.
Visionary director Joon-ho Bong’s film opens in a military lab hospital in 2000. A clearly insane American doctor, repulsed by the dust coating formaldehyde bottles, orders a Korean subordinate to empty it all into the sink. Soon the contents of hundreds of bottles of formaldehyde find its way through the Korean sewer system and into the Han River. This event – allegedly based on fact – eventually leads, not surprisingly, to some pretty gamey drinking water. And also a 25 foot cross between Alien and a giant squid.
Said monster – let’s call him Steve Buscemi (the beast’s actual on-set nickname) – exits the river one bright afternoon in 2006 to run amuck in a very impressive outdoor-chaos-and-bloodshed scene. A dimwitted foodstand clerk witnesses his daughter’s abduction by the beast, and the stage is set.
What follows, rather than a military attack on a marauding Steve Buscemi, is actually one small, unhappy, bickering family’s quest to find and save the little girl. Their journey takes them to poorly organized quarantines, botched security check points, misguided military/Red Cross posts, and through Seoul’s sewer system, all leading to a climactic battle even more impressive than the earlier scene of afternoon chaos.
What else – honestly?
Twentysomething Steven Spielberg’s game-changer boasts many things, among them one of the greatest threesomes in cinematic history. The interplay among the grizzled and possibly insane sea captain Quint (Robert Shaw), the wealthy young upstart marine biologist Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss) and the decent lawman/endearing everyman Brody (Roy Scheider) helps the film transcend horror to become simply a great movie.
Perhaps the first summer blockbuster, Jaws inspired the desire to be scared silly. And in doing so it outgrossed all other movies of its time. You couldn’t deny you were seeing something amazing – no clichés, all adventure and thrills and shocking confidence from a young director announcing himself as a presence.
Spielberg achieved one of those rare cinematic feats: he bettered the source material. Though Peter Benchley’s nautical novel attracted droves of fans, Spielberg streamlined the text and surpassed its climax to craft a sleek terror tale.
It’s John Williams’s iconic score; it’s Bill Butler’s camera, capturing all the majesty and the terror, but never too much of the shark; it’s Spielberg’s cinematic eye. The film’s second pivotal threesome works, together with very fine performances, to mine for a primal terror of the unknown, of the natural order of predator and prey.
Jaws is the high water mark for animal terror. Likely it always will be.
Dogs and more dogs this week! Join us in the Screening Room to talk through all that’s new in theaters and home entertainment.
Listen to the full podcast HERE.
Woah – loads and loads of new movies out this week. Some of them good, some bad, all discussed on the podcast.
Listen HERE.
