It’s been six years now, have we recovered from the panic and palpitations brought on by Josh Safdie’s Uncut Gems?
Better towel off and grab hold of something, because Marty Supreme serves up another harried drama set at a breakneck pace.
Served up, see what I did there? Marty “The Mouse” Mauser is a table tennis phenom looking to cement his name as the best in the world.
But when we first meet him, Marty (an absolutely electric Timothée Chalamet) is working in a shoe store in 1950s New York. He’s a born salesman, but makes it clear he’s only there to make enough money to finance his next trip to a big tournament. And in that opening few minutes, Safdie and Chalamet gives us a clear glimpse into the Marty Mauser worldview that will grab us by the throat for the next two and a half hours.
Everyone and everything is a means to an end. And Marty is relentless.
It could be an adoring young woman who’s already married (Odessa A’zion), a rich ink pen tycoon (Shark Tank‘s Kevin O’Leary in another bit of Safdie stunt casting) or his bored actress wife (a terrific Gwyneth Paltrow), or even a man out to find his lost dog. It doesn’t matter, Marty will size you up and instantly start working the angle he thinks is most likely to make you an asset.
The entire film, loosely based on Jewish-American table tennis champ Marty Reisman, is a fascinating character study and Chalamet is in mesmerizing, career-best form. Safdie (co-writing again with Ronald Bronstein) might as well just shoot Marty out of a cannon when he leaves that shoe store, and Chalamet makes you afraid to miss anything by looking away.
Like everything else here, the table tennis action is fast, furious and intense, and after an early loss to an unknown, Marty’s singular mission becomes avenging that upset and proving his greatness. But Marty Supreme could be about any type of American unafraid to dream big. It’s another intoxicating ride from Josh Safdie, with an award-worthy Chalamet digging soul deep into a man’s journey toward finding something he values more than himself.
I admit it, I didn’t pay enough attention to the trailer and I really thought Song Sung Blue was a Neil Diamond biopic. And from what I did notice from the trailer, it looked like a pretty bad Neil Diamond biopic.
Wrong on all counts.
The latest from writer/director Craig Brewer leans on terrific performances from Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson for an unabashed feel good salute to the dreamers who won’t be derailed from following their joy.
Jackman and Hudson are Mike and Claire Scardina, a Milwaukee couple who built up quite a following in the 80s and 90s as Lightning and Thunder, a Neil Diamond “tribute experience.” Starting out playing restaurants and small clubs, they worked their way up to bigger venues around the Midwest – even opening for Pearl Jam! – before a terrible accident put the future in doubt.
Brewer (Hustle and Flow, Black Snake Moan, Dolemite is My Name, Coming 2 America) adapts Greg Koh’s 2008 documentary with committed earnestness. There isn’t a cynical note to be found about the Scardinas, the nostalgia circuit they love or the ways any of these people measure success. The moments of joy, pain and perseverance are proudly displayed on all their sleeves, and the film is able to pull you in pretty quickly.
Expect plenty of Neil Diamond music, and a reminder that the man has a ton of hits. Yes, the rehearsal and performance set pieces are too perfectly polished, but even that fuels the vibe of dreams-coming-true that the Scardinas are living. And also yes, Jackman and Hudson do their own singing and both sound terrific, while the ensemble cast (including Jim Belushi, Fisher Stevens, Michael Imperioli and Ella Anderson) carves out some unique support characters.
The leads also make Mike and Claire two people that are easy to root for. Off stage, the two bring hardscrabble pasts and children of various ages to their new relationship. They come to believe they were truly meant for each other, and the blended family dynamic offers many relatable beats that run from tender to tragic.
And ironically, it’s those narrative successes that make the missteps in Act III more disappointing. Brewer ends up veering from true events pretty dramatically, adding twists of high melodrama that land as overly contrived.
They also feel unnecessary for a film so committed to the worth of these people and their journey. Song Sung Blue is unapologetic feel-good filmmaking. It plays the heartstrings, the greatest hits and even the cheesy gimmicks so earnestly that the whole show becomes pretty damn hard to resist, even if sequins aren’t exactly your thing.
Krampus is the anti-Santa, St. Nick’s mean sidekick of lore from the Alpine region of Europe. He accompanies Santa on his rounds, and while Santa hands out treats to good kids, Krampus beats them or bags them and hauls them off to hell. I swear! If you’ve tired of the regular old traumatized youth who grows up to don the red suit and murder townsfolk, then Krampus might deck your log this season. Here are some of our favorites.
5. Mother Krampus 2: Slay Ride (2018)
Who is Mother Krampus? Technically, she’s Frau Perchta, a real legend, also from the Alpine region of Europe, also likely to beat and maim idle or misbehaved youth around Christmastime. And while you’ll find about a dozen micro-budget Krampus slashers to choose from, only a couple give Frau her due. We recommend Mother Krampus 2: Slay Ride.
A few Clevelanders are serving out their community service on Christmas Eve. These include KateLynn E. Newberry as good-as-gold Victoria, and Roger Conners gloriously portraying Lady Athena Slay. Conners’s every moment on screen is a hoot.
The film boasts some effective blood fx, solid performances, and a villain you can get behind.
4. Saint (2010)
What is every child’s immediate reaction upon first meeting Santa? Terror. Now imagine a mash-up between Santa, Krampus, a pirate, and an old-school Catholic bishop. How scary is that?
Well, that’s basically what the Dutch have to live with, as their Sinterklaas, along with his helper Black Peter, sails in yearly to deliver toys and bag naughty children to kidnap to Spain. I’m not making this up. This truly is their Christmas fairy tale. So, really, how hard was it for writer/director Dick Maas to mine his native holiday traditions for a horror flick?
Allegorical of the generations-old abuse against children quieted by the Catholic Church, Saint manages to hit a few nerves without losing its focus on simple, gory storytelling.
3. Krampus (2015)
Hometown boy Michael Dougherty, whose 2007 directorial debut Trick ‘r Treat is a seasonal gem, returned to the land of holidays and horror with his second effort behind the camera, Krampus.
When family dysfunction pushes young Max (Emjay Anthony) too far, he tears up his letter to Santa, unwittingly inviting in his stead, the evil shadow-Santa, Krampus.
The ancient demon and his anti-merrymakers get a fantastic design, and the entire film looks great. Plus an ensemble stacked with A-listers (Toni Collette, Adam Scott, David Koechner, Conchata Ferrell) elevates a script that might feel lacking otherwise.
2. A Christmas Horror Story (2015)
A trio of Canadian directors – Steve Hoban, Brett Sullivan, and Grant Harvey – pull together a series of holiday shorts with this one. Held together by Dangerous Dan (William Shatner), the small-town radio announcer who’s pulling a double shift this Christmas Eve, the tales vary wickedly from three teens trapped in their own wrong-headed Nativity, to a family who accidentally brought home a violent changeling with their pilfered Christmas tree, to a dysfunctional family stalked by Krampus, to Santa himself, besieged by zombie elves.
Yes, there is a second film out this holiday season with Krampus in it. You know what? This one’s better – in fact, it’s almost patterned after Krampus director John Dougherty’s cult favorite Trick r’ Treat and it offers more laughs and more scares.
Plus Shatner! He’s adorably jolly in the broadcast booth, particularly as the evening progresses and his nog to liquor ratio slowly changes. This is a cleverly written film, well-acted and sometimes creepy as hell. Merry f’ing Christmas!
1. Rare Exports (2010)
It’s not just the Dutch with a sketchy relationship with Santa. That same year Saint was released, the Fins put out an even better Christmas treat, one that sees Santa—or is it his evil counterpart, Krampus?—as a bloodthirsty giant imprisoned in Korvatunturi mountains centuries ago.
Some quick-thinking reindeer farmers living in the land of the original Santa Claus are able to separate naughty from nice and make good use of Santa’s helpers. There are outstanding shots of wonderment, brilliantly subverted by director Jalmari Helander, with much aid from his chubby-cheeked lead, a wonderful Onni Tommila.
Rare Exports is an incredibly well-put-together film. Yes, the story is original and the acting truly is wonderful, but the cinematography, sound design, art direction and editing are top-notch.
I saw someone post a question recently, asking when Avatar: Fire and Ash would hit streaming.
He might as well have been asking when he could plan to unload some time and money, because seeing this anywhere else but the big screen is a waste of both.
Right from the opening sequence, writer/director James Cameron pushes us one notch closer to a VR experience. The film’s sensory phaser is set to stun, even as Avatar installment number three suffers from the same narrative misfires that hampered the first two.
The timeline has moved ahead one year, with Jake (Sam Worthington) and Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña) settling in as members of the Metkayina clan. Neteyam’s death has left Neytiri grief-stricken and bitter, particularly toward Spider (Jack Champion), who is a constant reminder of the humans who killed her son.
The clone of Colonel Quaritch (Stephen Lang) is still out for revenge on Jake and his family, only this time he has some hot-tempered help.
Varang (Oona Chaplin) is the leader of the volcano-dwelling Mangkwan clan (aka the “Ash People”), a battle-tested warrior who not only gives Quaritch a valuable ally, she alone makes the film more interesting than The Way of Water.
Chaplin digs into Verang’s talents as a Black Magic Woman, and thanks to her, the film’s complete lack of humor is offset by layers of voodoo, dark arts and the conjuring of fire. Cool.
And again, the 3D IMAX whizbangery is pretty spectacular. The human and avatar worlds blend as seamlessly as the land-to-water transitions, with battle sequences that are more detailed and thrilling than ever.
But also again, Cameron and his writing team can’t hold themselves back from bland excess. Cameron borrows from his own films (The Abyss, especially), story beats are repeated and repeated again while dialog is often awkward and sometimes unintentionally funny – unless he was trying to recall Anchorman?
More than anything, Fire and Ash is out to just batter you with its sheer experience-ness. The running time bloats to an unnecessary three hours and fifteen minutes with unrelenting attempts at crescendo moments that rarely allow any time to breathe.
I mean, come on, if every day was like Christmas, then Christmas Day wouldn’t mean that much, would it? Fire and Ash brings over all the best new toys and throws them at you until you’re feeling both exhilarated and wondering what just happened.
Unless you wait until it streams. Then you’re just watching while your neighbor rides his sweet new bike past your house.
This week in the Screening Room, Hope & George review Ella McCay, Goodbye June, Dust Bunny, Sirat, Silent Night Deadly Night, Influencers—with a clip from our Fright Club interview with filmmaker Kurtis David Harder— & Vision.
Our Christmas gift to you, an extra Fright Club episode! We talk with filmmaker Kurtis David Harder, whose newest feature, Influencers, hits Shudder this weekend. He chats with us about the new film, his Nightmares Film Festival award winning Influencer, making movies, inspirations, and Christmas films. Check it out!
If you saw Influencer three years ago, no doubt you noticed that little smile from CW (Cassandra Naud) in the final shot. If, like me, you were hoping that meant she’d find a way to stir up more social media mischief, it’s a merry Christmas for both of us.
CW has quieted down a bit since we left her on that island, settling down enough with girlfriend Diane (Lisa Delamar) to let her guard down and actually pose for photos. But an encounter with a travel influencer (Georgina Campbell) lures CW back to her old ways, and it isn’t long before she has more bloody tracks to cover.
Again, writer/director Kurtis David Harder has good instincts for knowing what questions we’re asking as this world wide web gets more tangled, and for keeping the beats relevant to the changing landscape of social media.
The introduction of toxic bro blogger Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell) feels right on time, as does the re-introduction of Madison (Emily Tennant), who now has even more scores to settle with old frenemy CW.
Naud gives another terrific performance, as CW remains a smart, slippery and ever intriguing mystery girl. Dancing in and around more gorgeously framed locales, CW makes it fun to try and guess what she’ll do next. What’s even more fun? The fact that we’re not prepared for just how batshit things get in act three.
Harder’s observational nature about social media never feels like finger-wagging, and the continually rising stakes of mystery, mayhem and fun land Influencers as another lethal blast of engagement.
Hope & George review this week’s new releases: Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, Hamnet, Merrily We Roll Along, Oh What Fun, Man Finds Tape, Pig Hill, Reflections in a Dead Diamond, The Wailing, The Lonely Legend and My Mother the Madam!
Stephen Sondheim’s Merrily We Rolling Along may have taken a while to attain beloved musical status, but it’s certainly getting the flowers now.
Closing just 16 performances after its 1981 Broadway premiere, the show got various rewrites and new stagings over the years, a 2016 documentary on the original production, and finally a Tony award-winning revival in 2023.
And while fans wait for Richard Linklater’s adaptation, which is being filmed over the course of twenty years, director Maria Friedman delivers a film pro shot of a June 2024 performance at New York’s Hudson Theatre.
Tony winners Jonathan Groff and Daniel Radcliffe are songwriters Franklin Shepard and Charley Kringas. When we meet them in 1976, the friendship is strained over Frank’s decision to “go Hollywood” and produce movies. Writer Mary Flynn (Lindsay Mendez, 2018 Tony winner for Carousel) – their third musketeer – tries to make peace but is often drunkenly sarcastic about the cost of their quest for success.
Frank’s self absorption and philandering ways have taken their toll on his family and friends, and as Frank confronts the lowest point in his life, the show begins a series of “Transitions” that gradually roll back to the beginning of the three long friendships.
It’s easy to see why musical theatre fans love this show. It’s a salute to dreamers everywhere – Broadway dreamers especially – sporting several Sondheim tunes (“Opening Doors,” “Old Friends,” “Our Time”) that have become favorites.
The ensemble is fantastic, starting right at the top with the three leads. Of course, Groff (Hamilton‘s original King George) and Mendez are longtime musical theatre powerhouses, so it’s Radcliffe’s absolutely charming turn that will be the biggest surprise.
It is Merrily‘s direction that ends up hampering its effectiveness on screen, with a cramped approach that often yearns for room to breathe. Just earlier this year, Hamilton‘s film pro shot achieved a near perfect balance of intimacy and movement. Friedman leans too heavily on quick cuts and close ups, which tends to neuter the live feeling that is essential to the pro shot experience.
Still, this is one that musical fans should make time for, even if it can’t blend stage and screen quite as merrily as we’ve seen before. But for holding us over for the next couple decades? It’ll do.
