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Gridiron Grannies

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80 for Brady

by George Wolf

You’ve seen those close-ups on a movie character pouring out their feelings, right? The ones where the camera pulls back to reveal that the person being spoken to has fallen asleep and missed every word?

If that’s still funny to you, 80 for Brady will deliver some laughs. If not, there’s at least the charm of seeing four legendary ladies coming together for some big screen hi-jinx.

Inspired by the real-life “Over 80 for Brady” fan club, the film follows elderly besties off to see Tom Brady and the New England Patriots take on the Atlanta Falcons back in Super Bowl 51.

Maura (Rita Moreno) is a widow living in a senior center. Betty (Sally Field) is “only 75” and a former M.I.T mathematician, Lou (Lily Tomlin) is a cancer survivor and Trish (Jane Fonda) is a divorcee who writes erotic Rob Gronkowski fan fiction (on one book cover: “football all isn’t the only game of inches!”)

But when Lou gets a new message to call her doctor, she calls an audible instead. Fearing this might be her last chance to see Brady win a title, Lou springs for four Super Bowl tickets, and the gang heads off to Houston.

Thankfully, the film centers on their time actually at the big game. But while this isn’t technically a road movie, writers Emily Halpern and Sarah Jenkins fill it with all the same type of very loosely connected skits that often make that genre so tiresome.

Betty enters a spicy wing-eating contest. Lou throws a football for prizes. They all get invited to a pre-game bash and accidentally take drugs. They get in the coach’s box. And of course there is a dance number. Even the promising cameos from Rob Corddry and Alex Moffat, as a pair of Masshole superfans with a call-in show, come up empty.

It’s all such lazy, old-fish-in-younger-waters humor that’s only mildly amusing at best, which is surprising considering Halpern and Jenkins penned the sly and very funny Booksmart in 2019. They are done no favors by the sitcom-ready treatment from first-time feature director Kyle Marvin, with artificial stadium segments rendered all the more amateurish next to the bounty of actual game film provided by the NFL.

Isn’t it just great to see these icons together, though, in anything? Sure it is, and by the time Brady himself (also a producer here) makes an appearance that manages a nod to his own mother’s cancer battle, you can’t deny the warm fuzzy footballs taking flight.

But as a comedy worthy of this Hall of Fame starting lineup, 80 for Brady feels like a personal foul.

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Campaign Promises

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Little Dixie

by George Wolf

By now, we’ve moved past the “it’s nice to see longtime supporting player Frank Grillo in the lead” phase, haven’t we? He’s established himself as a charismatic actor more than capable of carrying a film.

And while he’s still a reliably galvanizing presence in Little Dixie, the movie itself struggles to carve out its own identity as it vacillates between a generic crime narrative and some seedy sexual underbellies.

Grillo stars as Doc, a no-nonsense intermediary between Texas Gov. Richard Jeffs (Eric Dane) and a ruthless Mexican cartel run by Lalo Prado (Maurice Compte). But when the Gov. goes rogue and ignores the truce that Doc has brokered, Lalo’s bloodthirsty brother Cuco (Beau Knapp) crosses the border looking for payback – and his search starts with Doc’s daughter (Sofia Bryant).

So yes, expect plenty of “If you touch her I swear to God I’ll….,” but also writer/director John Swab’s penchant for hard turns.

This time Swab goes searching for subversion inside a Sicario-like setup, an approach similar to how he attacked truck stop horror in the recent Candy Land. But while that film managed to uncover something surprisingly human amid all the brutality, the persistent posturing and lurid details in Little Dixie do little to raise the resonance of characters or choices – and in at least one instance end up bordering on blood-soaked parody.

But the attempt to firebomb expectations almost works, more evidence that Swab may just need a little more seasoning to find his uniquely compelling voice. Until then, Little Dixie stands as a cluster of eyebrow-raising campaign promises drowned out by a standard stump speech.

Fright Club

Fright Club: Best (Worst?) Hotels in Horror Movies

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You check in. You assume the best. You’d never think, as you doze off in total helplessness, that maybe the last guest is still lingering in spirit, or was fed to gators, or that the hotel itself may be the doorway to hell.

In all likelihood the worst thing you’ll bring home with you is bedbugs, but I’ll take the gators.

For this episode we’re joined by our dear friend Jamie Ray from the Fave Five from Fans podcast and, at his behest, we will run through horror cinema’s best – or worst? – hotels.

Listed below are our five favorites, but honorable mentions go to Eaten Alive‘s Starlite Hotel, Basket Case‘s Hotel Broslin, Hotel Quickie from Killer Condoms and Slausen’s Oasis from Tourist Trap.

5. Motel Hello (Motel Hell, 1980)

It takes all kinds of critters to make Farmer Vincent’s fritters, so swingers looking for a cheap motel in which to swing – be warned! Fifties heartthrob Rory Calhoun plays Farmer Vincent, who, along with his sister Ida (a super creepy Nancy Parsons) rid the world of human filth while serving the righteous some tasty viddles. Just don’t look under those wiggling, gurgling sacks out behind the butcherin’ barn!

Motel Hell is a deeply disturbed, inspired little low budget jewel. A dark comedy, the film nonetheless offers some unsettling images, not to mention sounds. Sure, less admiring eyes may see only that super-cheese director Kevin Connor teamed up with Parsons and Calhoun – as well as Elaine Joyce and John Ratzenberger – for a quick buck. But in reality, they teamed up to create one of the best bad horror films ever made.

4. White Lovers’ Inn (The Happiness of the Katakuris, 2001)

Guests rarely come and a strange fate awaits them.

Takashi Miike is an extremely prolific director. He makes a lot of musical films, a lot of kids’ movies, a lot of horror movies, and then this – a mashup of all of those things. Like Sound of Music with a tremendous body count.

The Katakuris just want to run a rustic mountain inn. They’re not murderers. They’re lovely – well, they’re losers, but they’re not bad people. Buying this piece of property did nothing to correct their luck, either because, my God, their guests do die.

You might call this a dark comedy if it weren’t so very brightly lit. It’s absurd, farcical, gruesome but sweet. There’s a lot of singing, some animation, a volcano, a bit of mystery, more singing, one death by sumo smothering, and love.

3. Hotel Ostend (Daughters of Darkness, 1971)

Seduction, homoeroticism, drowsy lustfulness – this one has it all.

Countess Bathory – history’s female version of Dracula – checks into an all-but-abandoned seaside hotel. The only other guests, besides the Countess’s lover, Ilona, is a honeymooning couple.

Effortlessly aristocratic, Delphine Seyrig brings a tender coyness, a sadness to the infamous role of Bathory. Seyrig’s performance lends the villain a tragic loveliness that makes her the most endearing figure in the film. Everybody else feels mildly unpleasant, a sinister bunch who seem to be hiding things. The husband, in particular, is a suspicious figure, and a bit peculiar. Kind of a dick, really – and Bathory, for one, has no time for dicks.

Caring less for the victims than for the predator – not because she’s innocent or good, but because her weary elegance makes her seem vulnerable – gives the film a nice added dimension.

The accents are absurd. The outfits are glorious. The performances are compellingly, perversely good, and the shots are gorgeous. Indulge yourself.

2. Bates Motel (Psycho, 1960)

It doesn’t look like much, but the old Bates place used to be something before the new highway. Now it’s really just Norman, some dusty bungalows, that ice machine, swamp out back, some stuffed birds and, of course, Mother.

Anthony Perkins was the picture of vulnerability in Hitchcock’s horror classic, but the motel itself is also about as benign as a spot can be. Hardly the downcast, shadowy, menacing lodging you think of today when you think of low-rent motels. It’s bright, clean and empty. Lonesome, but hardly frightening. Just like Norman.

1. The Overlook Hotel (The Shining, 1980)

You know who you probably shouldn’t hire to look after your hotel?
Jack Nicholson.

A study in atmospheric tension, Kubrick’s vision of the Torrance family collapse at the Overlook Hotel is both visually and aurally meticulous. It opens with that stunning helicopter shot, following Jack Torrance’s little yellow Beetle up the mountainside, the ominous score announcing a foreboding that the film never shakes.

The hypnotic, innocent sound of Danny Torrance’s Big Wheel against the weirdly phallic patterns of the hotel carpet tells so much – about the size of the place, about the monotony of the existence, about hidden perversity. The sound is so lulling that its abrupt ceasing becomes a signal of spookiness afoot.

Nicholson outdoes himself. His early, veiled contempt blossoms into pure homicidal mania, and there’s something so wonderful about watching Nicholson slowly lose his mind. Between writer’s block, isolation, ghosts, alcohol withdrawal, midlife crisis, and “a momentary loss of muscular coordination,” the playfully sadistic creature lurking inside this husband and father emerges.

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Parks & Resignation

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Living

by George Wolf

It shouldn’t take a film such as Living to make us realize what a treasure we have in Bill Nighy.

But then it shouldn’t take a grim diagnosis for Rodney Williams to seek true meaning in his life, so maybe Nighy’s long wait for a first Academy Award nomination is somehow cosmically right.

In this adaptation of Kurosawa’s 1952 classic Ikiru (To Live), Nighy earns every bit of that Oscar nod as “Mr. Williams,” the humorless manager of a public works office in 1950s London. Various floors full of buttoned-up civil servants pass on projects to other departments until the papers finally come to rest on one desk or another, with piles always kept as high as possible so co-workers won’t “think you have nothing better to do.”

Mr. Williams doesn’t, until a fateful trip to the doctor makes him realize how sad this is. A night out with that rascal Sutherland (Tom Burke) offers some cheap thrills, but it’s the persistence of the local ladies petitioning for a new public playground that give Mr. Williams the chance to leave a legacy.

Nobel prize-winning writer Kazuo Ishiguro adapts Kurosawa (and lands his own Oscar nom) with a script that shaves about 45 minutes off the running time while it adds layers of beauty and sentiment. Mr. Williams’ distance from his son becomes more heartbreaking, while the relationships with his two youngest employees (Alex Sharp and Aimee Lou Wood) are given more arc and resonance.

Director Oliver Hermanus replaces the original film’s clinical narration and B&W palette with gentle grace and the splendidly picturesque cinematography of Jamie Ramsay. Outside the office confines, this is a gorgeous London of crisp lines among detailed color, light and shadow, all in orbit around a lead performance of endless humanity.

Nighy is just the epitome of wonderful, with every sigh, furrowed brow and slight smile conveying so much about Mr. Williams’ journey to contentment. Nighy’s every moment on screen nearly glows with honesty, and provides the film with a unique and dignified identity.

Kurosawa’s take still hits hard, but Living would have been foolish to follow a similar fight plan. These blows may indeed be softer, but don’t think for a second they won’t leave a mark.

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She Said/She Said

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Women Talking

by Hope Madden

“Maybe sometimes people confuse forgiveness with permission.”

With nuanced writing and what may be 2022’s finest ensemble, Women Talking, the latest from filmmaker Sarah Polley, delivers quiet, necessary insight.

Polley invites us to witness a secret gathering of women. A select group from an isolated religious community has been chosen to make a decision for the entire sisterhood: do nothing, stay and fight, or leave.

For as long as any of them can remember, the women of the flock have been sexually preyed upon and told that they were wrong – they were lying, imagining it, or in league with demons. And they believed this, more or less, until one attacker was caught in the act. Now, while the men are in town bargaining for the release of the attackers, the women must come to a consensus about what to do next.

Think of it as 12 Angry Men, only not all of them are angry and not one of them is a man.

The entire cast is miraculous. Rooney Mara delivers an unusually gentle performance, while Frances McDormand (who also produces) leaves a heavy weight with her few moments onscreen.

Jessie Buckley and Claire Foy are both on fire, one angry at everyone, the second angry enough at the men for everyone. The way Polley, who adapts Miriam Toews novel with Toews, unveils each individual’s motivations is remarkable. Her camera and script linger over moments of compassion and consideration. Women Talking dwells here, as if to point out that these women will offer each other everything the men they know would not.

Polley shows respect for these women – not just for their bodies, their agency, their humanity. She shows uncommon respect for their faith. This is what every faith-based film should look like.

Though dialog-heavy (as you might expect, given the title), the film never feels stagnant. A languid camera emphasizes the lovely tranquility of the community when the men are absent, but Polley generates palpable tension as time ticks away and the women’s opportunity to make a decision draws to a close.

Women Talking is a quietly stunning achievement and a reminder of the power of dialog and respect.

Outtakes

2023 Oscar Nominations…We Have Thoughts

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Well, they’re here, and the 2023 Oscar nominations are a reminder that we actually had some hits this year. Blockbusters are all over this lineup, as are indies, returning favorites, first-time veterans, newcomers, surprises and – say it with us – snubs.

Here are our thoughts on this year’s Academy Award nominations:

Best Film

Sure, people will cheer and/or complain about the love of Avatar: The Way of Water and Top Gun: Maverick. Purists will point out that many, many smaller films boasted better acting and writing (Aftersun? The Woman King? Nope?), while others will be happy that, for once, they’ve seen a Best Picture nominee. Our issue is with Triangle of Sadness, which has too many nominations altogether. For our money, The Menu’s nuance succeeded where the obviousness of Triangle failed, and it did it in half the time.

Nominees:

All Quiet on the Western Front

Avatar: The Way of Water

The Banshees of Inisherin

Elvis

Everything Everywhere All at Once

The Fabelmans

Tár

Top Gun: Maverick

Triangle of Sadness

Women Talking

Best Director

Östlund took a spot that could have more deservedly gone to Sarah Polley (Women Talking) or the criminally unappreciated Park Chan-Wook, whose sublime Decision to Leave was entirely ignored.

Nominees:

Martin McDonagh, The Banshees of Inisherin

Daniel Kwan and Daniel Schenhert, Everything Everywhere All at Once

Steven Spielberg, The Fabelmans

Todd Field, Tár

Ruben Östlund, Triangle of Sadness

Best Lead Actress

Where is Danielle Deadwyler? Easily the biggest snub of the day, Deadwyler deserves to be on this list forher turn in Till without question. And while de Armas was the one saving grace in the 3+ hour dumpster fire that was Blonde, Oscar-worthy she was not.

We’re happy to see the surprise nomination for Riseborough, but we do also miss Emma Thompson for Good Luck to You, Leo Grande, and Viola Davis for The Woman King.

Nominees:

Cate Blanchett, Tár

Ana de Armas, Blonde

Andrea Riseborough, To Leslie

Michelle Williams, The Fabelmans

Michelle Yeoh, Everything Everywhere All at Once

Best Lead Actor

This card looked about as expected, but we couldn’t be more thrilled that Paul Mescal is being recognized for his beautiful turn in Aftersun.

Nominees:

Austin Butler, Elvis

Colin Farrell, The Banshees of Inisherin

Brendan Fraser, The Whale

Paul Mescal, Aftersun

Bill Nighy, Living

Best Supporting Actor

Brian Tyree Henry?! Yes, please! One of the biggest surprises this year is also one of the most welcome. Thrilled as well to see Keogan join Gleeson and, like everyone else, overjoyed that the undeniable Ke Huy Quan will be at the Oscars – even if he doesn’t win, although things are looking good for him.

Nominees:

Brendan Gleeson, The Banshees of Inisherin

Brian Tyree Henry, Causeway

Judd Hirsch, The Fabelmans

Barry Keogan, The Banshees of Inisherin

Ke Huy Quan, Everything Everywhere All at Once

Best Supporting Actress

We would have loved to see literally anyone from Women Talking get acknowledged here, but honestly, we don’t have a lot of nits to pick. Exceedingly happy for every single person who made this list.

Nominees:

Angela Bassett, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever

Hong Chau, The Whale

Kerry Condon, The Banshees of Inisherin

Jamie Lee Curtis, Everything Everywhere All at Once

Stephanie Hsu, Everything Everywhere All at Once

Best Original Screenplay

Oh how we hoped we’d see Nope on this list. Jordan Peele’s genre-bending treasure deserves the Triangle of Sadness spot, and if not him, Charlotte Wells for Aftersun.

Frontrunners have to be Banshees and EEAAO, but honestly, that seems to be the case in almost every single race.

Nominees:

The Banshees of Inisherin

Everything Everywhere All at Once

The Fabelmans

Tár

Triangle of Sadness

Best Adapted Screenplay

All Quiet on the Western Front earned a lot of nominations. It’s clearly frontrunner for Best International Picture, and a worthy screenplay for this ticket. We’d love to see it go to Women Talking, most deserving of all the nominees. But where is Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio? It’s a far superior adaptation in narrative and vision than Glass Onion or Top Gun: Maverick.

Nominees:

All Quiet on the Western Front

Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery

Living

Top Gun: Maverick

Women Talking

Best Animated Feature

Very quietly, 2022 was the best year for animated features in decades. Every last film on this list deserves an Oscar. So happy to see Puss In Boots and The Sea Beast make the list. Marcel the Shell was maybe the most charming film of 2022. Pixar released what may have been the most personal, accessible and needed film of its catalog with Turning Red. But del Toro out del Toroed himself with one of the best films, animated or not, of the year.

Nominees:

Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio

Marcel the Shell with Shoes On

Puss In Boots: The Last Wish

The Sea Beast

Turning Red

Best International Film

Where is Decision to Leave? Because it shouldn’t just have been nominated, it should have won. Not to take anything away from these films, each of which is truly wonderful. (Smart money’s on All Quiet on the Western Front in what is the surest lock of the show.)

Nominees:

All Quiet on the Western Front

Argentina,1985

Close

EO

The Quiet Girl

Best Documentary

We saw a lot of documentaries in 2022, none of which was a brilliant and moving use of the medium as Moonage Daydream. How it managed to go unsung by the Academy is a crime.

Nominees:

All That Breathes

All the Beauty and the Bloodshed

Fire of Love

A House Made of Splinters

Nevalny

Best Cinematography

Good choices, and nice that Bardo is getting a deserved nod here.

Nominees:

All Quiet on the Western Front

Bardo, False Chronicles of a Handful of Truths

Elvis

Empire of Light

Tár

Best Score

Sad to see no nods for GdT’s Pinocchio or Nope.

Nominees:

All Quiet on the Western Front

Babylon

The Banshees of Inisherin

Everything Everywhere All at Once

The Fabelmans

Best Song

We admit it, we were rooting for “Good Afternoon” from Spirited. And we thought TSwift had a shot with “Carolina” from Where the Crawdads Sing. But nominating RRR’s “Natu Natu” makes up for everything.

Nominees

“Applause” from Tell It Like a Woman

“Hold My Hand” from Top Gun: Maverick

“Lift Me Up” from Black Panther: Wakanda Forever

“Naatu Naatu” from RRR

“This Is a Life” from Everything Everywhere All at Once

The 95th annual Academy Awards will air on Sunday, March 12 on ABC.

The Screening Room

Screening Room: Missing, The Son, Alice Darling & More

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Missing, The Son, Alice Darling, Legions, There’s Something Wrong with the Children, Take Back the Night, Devil to Pay, Holy Spider, Back to the Wharf, New Gods Yang Jian, All Eyes Off Me

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Control Group

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Alice, Darling

by George Wolf

Remember the palpable tension in the opening moments of 2020’s The Invisible Man ? We didn’t need visual evidence to believe Elisabeth Moss’s character was desperate to flee an abusive relationship. We felt it simply from the strength of Moss’s performance.

Anna Kendrick delivers similar results in Alice, Darling, reaching new career heights as a woman who has lost all sense of self to a controlling, manipulative partner.

Alice (Kendrick) can’t even join her besties Sophie and Tess (Wunmi Mosaku and Kaniehtiio Horn, both terrific) for happy hour without Simon (Charlie Carrick, politley menacing) texting multiple requests aimed at reminding Alice just who she answers to.

When the ladies rent a secluded lake house for a week-long celebration of Tess’s birthday, Alice tells Charlie her time away from him is strictly work-related. But once they’re at the cabin, Alice’s anxious behavior convinces her two friends that everything is not fine at home.

Kendrick – who also serves as an executive producer – has recently opened up about her regret and shame from letting a previous abusive relationship carry on too long. This is an understandably personal project for her, and she channels her own pain into a compelling portrait of a woman nearly suffocating from manipulation, where every message notification and car wheel on gravel serves as a trigger.

An apt underwater metaphor is just one of those skillfully employed by director Mary Nighy in an impressive debut that benefits from subtlety and confident restraint. Alice’s moments of self-harm are evident but not overdone, and her growing interest in the case of a local girl gone missing is understood simply from Kendrick’s quiet fascination.

Alanna Francis’s thoughtful script does eventually reveal Charlie’s gaslighting methods in action, but never to the point where it seems something needs to be proven, because nothing does.

This is no he said/she said. Kendrick has us believing from the start, as Alice, Darling becomes a healing journey back to self, and an intimate reflection on what love is not.

Fright Club

Fright Club: Best Lakeside Horror Movies

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To some, it’s a lovely spot for a holiday or a proposal or just a little picnic. But we know better. Filmmakers have long taken advantage of the idyllic yet dangerous nature of a lake for horror. Almost always, it’s the irony, of finding death and mayhem exactly where you’re expecting joy and frivolity that makes lakeside horror so compelling.

Here are our favorite horror movies side at a lake.

5. Lake Mungo (2008)

This deceptive slow boil of a documentary is two movies in one: the one you think you’re watching and the one beneath. The obvious film is a clever true-crime bit, constantly introducing new information and fascinating twists, each delivered by incredibly authentic performances.

Alice Palmer drownd. Her parents and brother are having a hard time accepting it, and the noises coming from her bedroom at night promote their skepticism. They investigate, turning up a lot of peculiar intel.

But writer/director Joel Anderson does more than lead you through a surprising mystery. He layers into that the melancholy lonesomeness that any ghost story must have, and the two stories together become one wonderfully sad film.

4. Lake Placid (1999)

Fun! Writer David E. Kelly is known more for his quirky TV series, but he takes the exact same approach –smart, bantering and bickering characters facing a huge challenge – to the big screen with this crocodile hunt.

Veteran horror director Steve Miner (Warlock, House, Friday the 13th parts 2 & 3) delivers thrills and comedy in equal measure, but the film lives and dies with this unbelievable cast.

Betty F. White and Brendan Gleeson! Both! And she tells him to suck her dick!! I don’t know what more you want, but you get Bridget Fonda, Oliver Platt, Bill Pullman and Meredith Salenger in a fun, bloody romp.

3. Friday the 13th (1980)

Before the mask, Sean Cunningham’s 1980 slasher penned by Victor Miller created the splatter-by-numbers blueprint for dozens of horror movies to follow – including 10 of its own sequels. Friday the 13th was a cultural and cinematic turning point that changed horror and the way we thought about summer camp.

With next to no budget but plenty of short shorts, remarkable blood fx by maestro Tom Savini, genuinely original kill sequences, and a masterful twist ending, the film awakened something in moviegoers. It’s been copycatted to death, but upon reinspection, the original is still champion.

2. Funny Games (1997/2007)

A family pulls into their vacation lake home. They are quickly bothered by two young men in white gloves. Things, to put it mildly, deteriorate.

Writer/director/genius Michael Haneke begins this nerve-wracking exercise by treading tensions created through etiquette, toying with subtle social mores and yet building dread so deftly, so authentically, that you begin to clench your teeth long before the first act of true violence.

His 2007 English language remake is a shot-for-shot repeat of the 1997 German language original. In both films, it is the villains who sell the premise. Whether the German actors Arno Frisch and Frank Giering or the Americans Brady Corbet and Michael Pitt, the bored sadism that wafts from these kids is seriously unsettling, as, in turn, is each film.

1. Eden Lake (2008)

The always outstanding Michael Fassbender takes his girl Jenny (Kelly Reilly) to his childhood stomping grounds – a flooded quarry and soon-to-be centerpiece for a grand housing development. He intends to propose, but he’s routinely disrupted, eventually in quite a bloody manner, by a roving band of teenage thugs.

Kids today!

The film expertly mixes liberal guilt with a genuine terror of the lower classes. The acting, particularly from the youngsters, is outstanding. Most impressive, Jack O’Connell’s performance as the young psychopath is chilling.

There’s the slow boil of the cowardly self-righteous. Then there’s this bit with a dog chain. Plus a railroad spike scene that may cause some squeamishness. Well, it’s a grisly mess, but a powerful and provocative one. Excellent performances are deftly handled by the director who would go on to helm The Woman in Black.