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Tag Archives: Screen Wolf
Primal Scream
Gully
by George Wolf
Well, that escalated quickly.
Ron Burgundy may have played that line for laughs, but when the boys in Gully give in to their rage, things couldn’t be more serious.
Or devastating.
Jesse (Kelvin Harrison, Jr.), Calvin (Jacob Lattimore) and Nicky (Charlie Plummer) are three teens in a rough L.A. neighborhood who don’t have much use for anything besides violent video games and partying, or anyone besides each other.
They skip school, do drugs, and only seem enthusiastic when they’re trashing a store or living vicariously through video violence.
In fact, through the film’s first act you’re tempted to label this as a hackneyed attempt by director Nabil Elderkin (a music video vet helming his first feature) and writer Marcus J. Guillory (a TV vet with his first screenplay credit) to blame video games for society’s ills.
But hang on and strap in, that’s far from what these filmmakers have in mind.
To say the three friends have had traumatic upbringings is being far too polite. Each has weathered a uniquely hellish situation, leaving them all on the precipice of manhood with little hope for the future.
As Nicky fights with both his mother (Amber Heard) and his pregnant girlfriend (Zoe Renee), Jesse dreams of life without his abusive father (John Corbett) and Calvin struggles with his mental health and the meds pushed on him by his mother (Robin Givens), the boys make a shattering discovery and the fuse is lit.
They begin a 48-hour rampage of wanton violence and calculated revenge, and it will not end well.
Elderkin makes sure the violence is in your face and packed with stylish grit, often blurring the line between reality and video game action. It’s an ambitious play that’s worthy even when it seems over the top, much like the contrasting tones brought by Greg (Jonathan Majors), an ex-con returning home determined to stay clean, and Mr. Christmas (Terence Howard), a homeless neighborhood philosopher.
This film is messy, angry, brutal and defiant, a primal scream that doesn’t much care if you think it’s nihilistic. Elderkin and Guillory have blazing guns of their own, and while they don’t hit every bullseye, there’s enough here to make you eager for their second act.
The world of Gully isn’t a pleasant place to be, and that’s no accident. But a confident vision and three terrific young actors leading a solid ensemble will make sure you’ll be thinking about what goes down here, even if you look away.
Faith. Family. Football.
Under the Stadium Lights
by George Wolf
Which is more likely to embrace the cliches inherent in sports: interviews or movies?
The sheer number of daily opportunities pushes the scale toward the Q&A, but while we’re waiting on the next superstar baller to “take it one game at a time,” Under the Stadium Lights scores one for the big screen.
Based on the book “Brother’s Keeper” (also the movie’s original title) by Al Pickett and Chad Mitchel, the film takes us inside the 2009 high school football season with the Abilene Eagles. The bitter taste of their playoff defeat the year before fueled the players and coaches as they made another run for the Texas state playoffs.
Mitchel (played by Milo Gibson, 6th son of Mel) was not only an Abilene police officer that year, he was also the Eagles team Chaplin. Through his “safe space” program, the players were encouraged to share the tough times they were going through off the field, and to lean on their football brothers for the strength to persevere.
That’s a commendable story. But director Todd Randall and screenwriters John Collins and Hamid Torabpour tell it with no regard for human shades of grey, which is a problem.
No doubt these mostly black and brown players did have troubling patches in their young lives, but the film paints the young men as one dimensional vessels strengthened by the good word of this white man. These are high school seniors, and there’s nary a word or thought about girls, sex or anything other than remaining vigilant in their virtue.
Don’t expect even a whisper about any systemic causes for the problems at home, either. While no one would argue the value in making good life choices, this is a bootstrap fantasy, where what isn’t talked about amounts to tacit approval of blaming the needy for just not working hard enough.
Often hamstrung by preachy and obvious dialog, the the cast does very little to elevate it. Save for the welcome presence of veterans Laurence Fishburne, Noel Gugliemi and Glen Morshower in small roles, performances alternate between hyperbolic over-emoting and emotionless cardboard.
Early on, though, the football scenes are a surprise bright spot. It’s actually charming that Randall forgoes cheesy reenactments for the real game films, but when he reverses that decision in the third act, the resulting clash gives the new footage an even more sterile and pretend quality.
A big congrats to the 2009 Abilene Eagles on what must have been a great season. But with Texas high school football on its mind, “lights” in its new title and no roster spot for nuance, the movie version will have you longing for Friday Night.
Screening Room: Cruella, Quiet Place II, Amusement Park & More
Senior Discount
The Amusement Park
by Hope Madden and George Wolf
This long-lost film from the legendary George A. Romero is an awkward, clumsily-assembled metaphor with a glaring lack of subtlety.
And armed with the proper context, you should probably see it anyway.
In 1973, Romero was far from a legend. He had lost the copyright to Night of the Living Dead, and he was a nearly broke filmmaker that needed work. So he was more than happy to accept a commission from right in his own hometown. Pittsburgh-based Lutheran Services wanted a film to explore societal discrimination of the elderly, and turned to the local boy who’d hit it big a few years back.
But they weren’t at all interested in the Twilight Zone treatment that Romero and first time (only time) screenwriter Wally Cook gave the subject, so they passed. Each party put the film behind them, and it sat unreleased for nearly fifty years.
The 52-minute feature stars Lincoln Maazel (who would co-star in Romero’s classic Martin four years later) as an affable, white-suited man who greets a beaten down and disheveled version of himself in an empty waiting room. The out-of-breath Maazel advises the energetic one not to go outside.
“There’s nothing out there. You won’t like it!”
The warnings go unheeded, and the nattily-clad Maazel begins his day at the amusement park, where he is subjected to nothing but torment, ridicule and abuse.
Some of the vignettes are rooted in solid ideas. The grim reaper wandering the park and riding coasters is a striking juxtaposition, and a fortune teller’s unpleasant premonition for a couple of young lovers manages to deliver confrontational cynicism with a somewhat lighter touch.
The elderly gentleman’s metaphorical trip through the carnival of agism is flanked by footage of Maazel, as himself, explaining what we are about to see, and later, what we have seen. No doubt someone thought a late-addition prologue/epilogue would help an audience make sense of the narrative’s structureless string of abuses, but the Serling-on-steroids material is so lengthy and so at odds with the otherwise experimental nature of the core content that it only serves to make the entire film even less enjoyable.
For completists, The Amusement Park is available in select theaters and on Shudder, and merits consideration. For anyone thrilled by the idea of George A. Romero siccing amusement park horror on unsuspecting old people, be warned: you will be sorely disappointed.
The Rubber Meets the Road
Plan B
by George Wolf
Even before theaters shut down, there was no shortage of solid R-rated comedies getting woefully ignored. One of those was the wonderful Booksmart – which put a female friendship at the center of a Superbad-type coming-of-age romp.
Hulu’s Plan B takes the Booksmart model, mixes in some trusty road movie hijinx and even more sexual honesty than Blockers to concoct a teen sex comedy with plenty of smarts and sustained laughs.
South Dakota teens Lupe (Victoria Moroles) and Sunny (Kuhoo Verma) are best friends on slightly different social levels. The confident, outgoing Lupe is, ahem, “dating,” while the reserved Sunny has zero prospects and just pines for her crush to come over for a “Disney Plus and thrust.”
But then Sunny’s Mom goes out of town, so party! After Lupe’s cheery advice to “make good choices!” an impatient Sunny wants to get it over with already, leading to a very awkward bathroom hookup and an unfortunate condom accident.
Trading puke buckets and talking it over the next morning, the girls decide the best thing to do is get Sunny the morning after pill. This turns out to be a lot harder than they expect.
Moroles and Verma are both terrific, each finding distinct ways to give their characters authentic levels of the angst, curiosity, self-doubt and cautious confidence that are perpetually bouncing off teenage walls.
Once the search for Plan B involves a road trip to Rapid City, the script from Joshua Levy and Prathiksha Srinivasan delivers welcome surprises alongside inspired silliness and moments of outright hilarity (like the bit about Footloose and a doll museum).
There are some dry stretches along the way, but director Natalie Morales shows good instincts for when to pivot, and for making sure this teen sex comedy ends up speaking to some mighty serious issues.
So expect Rachel Dratch teaching abstinence by way of driver’s ed, but also young women exploring their sexuality amid an onslaught of mixed messages, double standards and threats to their freedom of choice.
Don’t let the dick jokes fool ya, there’s heart and brains here, too, and a sweet friendship illustrating the importance of unconditional love from your family, as well as the ones that feel like family.
And also dick jokes.
Fright Club: Dolls in Horror
Hard to believe we’ve been doing this so long and have never gotten into creepy doll horror! Well, with help from our friend Phantom Dark Dave, we do just that. Here is our salute to creepy-ass dolls!
Our focus is on the best movies with creepy dolls (rather than the creepiest dolls themselves), and we have a bunch to cover! Dave brings his list, we have ours, and of course, there are also-rans and left-overs. Take a listen!
5. Dead Silence (2007)
Somewhere between their career-defining Saw and their even leggier Insidious and Conjuring franchises, director James Wan and writer Leigh Whannell dropped a plastic-headed thud with this ventriloquism horror.
It’s kind of a shame because although the story meanders in and out of consciousness, the actual dolls are creepy as hell.
Mary Shaw (Judith Roberts) had all 100 of her “children” buried with her. So why does Buddy keep showing up? And why does Donnie Wahlberg insist on this weird Columbo impression?
No matter. We somehow end up crossing a moat into a gloomy old haunted house filled to bursting with ventriloquist dummies of every shape and description. Dead Silence pays tribute to their own Jigsaw doll as well as that creepy clown in Poltergeist while predicting Goosebumps and Toy Story 4 scares.
Are all those movies better than this one? Yes, but it gets points anyway.
4. Pin (1988)
Who wants something weird? Because, man, does Pin deliver on weird.
Leon and Ursula have always felt close to their dad’s anatomically correct anatomical dummy. Sure, he uses it for doctor’s office stuff (and his nurse uses it as she sees fit!), but to the kids, he’s kind of a member of the family.
He means an awful lot to lonely recluse Leon (David Hewlett), who’s no hit with the ladies. It doesn’t help matters that Ursula (Cynthia Preston) is his favorite lady. I wonder what kind of advice Pin might have? He’s got a real knack with Dad’s nurse…
The point is, people die, people have sex with medical dolls, and Terry O’Quinn (The Stepfather) is again really not showing any natural paternal instincts.
3. Annabelle Comes Home (2019)
Writer Gary Dauberman, who’s penned every installment (as well as It, which seriously amplifies his credibility), takes on directing duties for the first time with the third film in the standalone franchise.
From that opening gag by the cemetery, the movie brings the high-spirited, popcorn-munching goods. It is fun, with generous writing that does not ask us to root against any of the kids, and performances that are far superior to the content. Plus a couple of real laughs, mostly thanks to a randomly hilarious pizza delivery guy.
2. Magic (1978)
Anthony Hopkins has made more horror movies than you realize, and no matter how much you may assume that a ventriloquist horror will be dumb, Magic is actually pretty creepy.
It helps that Hopkins is so effortlessly creepy. It also helps that the film was penned by William Goldman (Marathon Man, The Stepford Wives, All the President’s Men) and directed by Richard Attenborough (Gandhi).
It’s still goofy as all hell. Burgess Meredith sees to that. But Hopkins is fully on board, Ann-Margret was still a dream, and there is just something not right about Fats.
1. Child’s Play (1988)
Let’s be honest, it could probably have been any of the films in the original series, but Chucky had to be on this list. Hell, he had to be #1.
We went with Tom Holland’s original because that’s what it was—original. Brad Dourif and writer Don Mancini evolved the character over the next half dozen installments, but the original benefits from newness as well as Holland’s focus on the peril of little Andy (Alex Vincent). With a maniacal doll on one side and an unrelenting cop (Chris Sarandon) on the other, this kid’s in big trouble.
Still, it all begins and ends with that freckle-faced devil.
Screening Room: Army of the Dead, Rights of Justice, Dream Horse & More
Brother’s Keeper
Blast Beat
by George Wolf
The most effective way a film can lead us to look at a complex issue from a new angle – or look at it at all – is to narrow the focus. Introduce the issue through characters worth caring about, and suddenly individuals make the stakes more tangible than memes and hot takes.
In his feature debut, Blast Beat director/co-writer Esteban Arango shows fine instincts for just this type of socially aware storytelling.
It is the summer of ’99, and brothers Carly and Mateo (real life siblings Mateo and Moises Arias, respectively) are spending their last few days with high school friends in their native Columbia. They’re moving to the U.S. with their mother (Diane Guerreo), where they will finally join their father Ernesto (Wilmer Valderrama) and build a new life in Atlanta.
A metalhead who’s also a science prodigy, the older Carly sees the move as getting him one step closer to the Georgia Aerospace Institute, and then to his dream job at NASA.
Ne’er do well Teo, though, feels differently. He’s a talented artist, but only seems happy when he’s acting out to show his unhappiness.
Both Arias brothers are terrific, and it is the strength of their performances that keep the film from collapsing when Arango pulls convenient and predictable pages from the Young Adult playbook. Each brother begins making friends, with Teo remaining the fuckup while Carly poses as a student at the Aerospace Institute so he can audit a class taught by a former astronaut (Daniel Dae Kim).
But when Ernesto is suddenly faced with deportation, and when broken promises and unscrupulous lawyers threaten all the family has planned, the film’s investment in character pays dividends. We’re pulling for this family, and these boys in particular.
The immigration question in America is a messy one. But beneath the heated rhetoric and political posturing are real families with complicated stories. Even in the moments when it chooses well-worn paths, Blast Beat brings that message home.
Cabin. Woods. Uh Oh.
The Retreat
by George Wolf
Does it matter that The Retreat is a “gay” horror film?
Well, no. And then yes.
Renee (Tommie-Amber Pirie) and Valerie (Sarah Allen) are on the verge of making their relationship permanent, but feel like some time away would do them good. The plan is to meet Val’s friends Scott (Turbo Kid‘s Munro Chambers) and Connor (Chad Connell) at a picturesque “gay BnB” for some quiet time in the Canadian countryside.
Or let’s just call it what it is: a cabin in the woods.
Uh oh.
Right, things escalate quickly. Scott and Connor are nowhere to be seen, and with just a touch of contrivance, the girls soon realize they’re being hunted by some sadistic Rambros (Aaron Ashmore, Rossif Sutherland).
From the minute Renee and Val stop for gas, director Pat Mills builds an air of dread and tension minus the usual gimmickry. And once the women are truly fighting for their lives, Mills keeps the adrenaline pumping with a quick pace and crisp editing that helps you forget the distractingly dark tones of the cinematography.
Writer Alyson Richards pens a lean, mean, bloody survival thriller that boasts some welcome surprises and a smart social conscience. Realized via strong performances from Pirie and Allen, Renee and Val’s relationship feels perfectly authentic, with a sexuality that’s never exploited by a leering camera. And while you may be reminded of 2018’s What Keeps You Alive, there is a critical difference.
The couple in that film could have been heterosexual, and it still would have worked. But here, the fact that it is a same sex couple being hunted matters very much to the story at work. It enables Richards and Mills to anchor a revenge horror show with a satisfying metaphor for the violent threats LGBTQ folks continue to face every day.
A big part of that satisfaction is from the blunt force trauma being reserved for the action, not the message. And for those who might be ready to accuse the film of doing some undue stereotyping of its own, take a breath.
A nifty little coup de grace proves The Retreat has seen you coming all along.
