HALLOWEEN (2018) - FILM REVIEW

Halloween (2018)

Cast

Jamie Lee Curtis as Laurie Strode
Judy Greer as Karen Strode
Andi Matichak as Allyson Strode
Will Patton as Hawkins
Virginia Gardner as Vicky
Nick Castle as The Shape
Miles Robbins as Dave
Toby Huss as Ray
Jefferson Hall as Martin

Director

David Gordon Green

Writer (characters)

John Carpenter
Debra Hill

Writer

Jeff Fradley
David Gordon Green
Danny McBride

Cinematographer

Michael Simmonds

Composer

Cody Carpenter
John Carpenter
Daniel A. Davies

Horror

Rated R for horror violence and bloody images, language, brief drug use and nudity.
 

109 minutes

 

As much I hate to say this, I’m not sure that David Gordon Green, Danny McBride and the people behind a new sequel to John Carpenter’s “Halloween” really understand what made the first film a masterpiece. Their highly anticipated take on the legend of Michael Myers is admirable in its thematic relation to Carpenter’s vision, but the no-nonsense, tightly-directed aspect of the influential classic just isn’t a part of this one. Carpenter’s movie is so tautly refined that the sometimes incompetent slackness of this one is all the more frustrating. As is the complete lack of atmosphere, another strength of the original. In that first movie, you can hear the crunch of the leaves and smell Fall in the air. This one always feels like a movie, never transporting you or offering the tactile terror of the story of The Shape. Green and McBride are playing with some interesting themes and there’s a female empowerment story of trauma here that’s interesting (but underdeveloped), but do you know the biggest sin of the new “Halloween”? It’s just not scary. And that’s one thing you could never say about the original.

What I like most about the new “Halloween” is that its message could be boiled down to something as simple as “Don’t Fuck Around with Evil.” Don’t try and study it, or understand it, or do a podcast about it, or whatever—just kill it. Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) learned this lesson the hard way the night she survived an attack by Michael Myers, who has been incarcerated for the 40 years since (this movie pretends all of the sequels never happened, even number two, and even has a character make fun of the stories about Michael being Laurie’s brother and things like “revenge” and “curses” in a way that comes off as snarky more than clever). Laurie has lived as her own kind of prisoner since that night, completely terrified of the day Michael would come home, basically becoming a doomsday prepper, turning her home into a heavily armed bunker. She also obsessively taught her daughter (Judy Greer) how to fend off the ultimate attacker, so much so that she’s nearly estranged from her.

“Halloween” opens with a pair of podcasters going to meet Michael and Laurie for a piece they’re doing, allowing for a lot of the last paragraph’s “what have they been up to” exposition. Michael has been completely silent for four decades, never saying a word, but the podcasters think it a good idea to bring him his mask on the day of the interview, meaning they (and it) will be nearby when Mike later escapes and beats them to death. As he makes his way back to Haddonfeld on Halloween, a dozen or so victims stand in his way, including Laurie’s granddaughter and some of her teenage friends, some hapless cops, and a few other locals. There’s an excellently staged sequence as Michael’s killing spree starts and Green’s camera stays mostly outside of homes, watching the icon go about his work through windows.

And yet even this moment feels almost too precious. Green makes a number of explicit references to Carpenter’s film with dialogue and even shots, but there’s a difference between referencing something and actually incorporating it into a new vision. The former is just an echo, and that’s often what I felt watching “Halloween”—the echo of the original is loud, but that’s ultimately hollow compared to sequels that truly build on what came before instead of just expressing how much they love it.

Worst of all, Green bungles the ending. I would never spoil it, but you might imagine that an evening massacre that its central characters have been anticipating for four decades has to really stick the landing. At its best, “Halloween” is about a woman dealing with trauma for more than half her life, and only able to exorcise her demon when she faces him again. That sets up a great deal of pressure on the closing scenes, and—other than one nice twist—“Halloween” just doesn’t deliver when it needs to most of all.

I walked into “Halloween” wanting to feel the magic of the original again in some form. Carpenter's film is one of my favorite films of all time. And David Gordon Green and Danny McBride are clearly smart guys, bringing a higher pedigree than nearly any other horror sequel, allowing for optimism. And there are, of course, elements that display Green’s craftsmanship more than, say, Dwight H. Little (director of “Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers”). I’ve heard a number of people say that it’s the best “Halloween” sequel, to which one almost has to laugh at the low height of that bar. And shouldn’t we expect more from a project this high profile than “better than H20?” Especially when the answer to that question is "just barely."

This review was filed from the Toronto International Film Festival.

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THE NUN (2018) - FILM REVIEW

The Nun (2018)

Cast

Bonnie Aarons as The Nun / Valak
Demián Bichir as Father Burke
Taissa Farmiga as Sister Irene
Charlotte Hope as Sister Victoria
Ingrid Bisu as Sister Oana
Manuela Ciucur as Sister Christian
Jonas Bloquet as Frenchie
Jonny Coyne as Gregoro
Jared Morgan as Marquis
Sandra Teles as Sister Ruth
Boiangiu Alma as Demon Nun

Director

Corin Hardy

Writer (story by)

James Wan
Gary Dauberman

Writer

Gary Dauberman

Cinematographer

Maxime Alexandre

Editor

Michel Aller
Ken Blackwell

Composer

Abel Korzeniowski

Horror, Mystery, Thriller

Rated R for terror, violence, and disturbing/bloody images.

96 minutes

 

 

A little bit of The Nun goes a long way.

With her cheekbones jutting like daggers from her chalky-white skin, her eyes a piercing yellow beneath her habit and her ravenous, bloody fangs, The Nun served as a deeply unsettling image in brief but potent glimpses throughout various films in “The Conjuring” universe. Now, we get an entire film devoted to her: the appropriately titled “The Nun,” which simultaneously serves as an origin story for the entire franchise. And a presence that initially was disturbing grows repetitive and almost predictable over the course of an entire film.

It’s sort of like the Minions. (Hear me out on this.) The Minions were the best part of the “Despicable Me” movies. They provided quick blasts of adorable insanity with their denim overalls and dazed expressions, their gibberish and their general incompetence. But a whole movie about them—again, the appropriately titled “Minions”—grew tedious pretty quickly when it came out on 2015.

I’m not saying that The Nun is literally like an evil version of a Minion, although she does run around in a uniform, wreaking havoc and doing her master’s bidding. But there is a similarity to the shallow nature of these crucial supporting characters that reveals itself when a feature film focuses on them.

But director Corin Hardy’s movie, based on a screenplay by “It” and “Annabelle” writer Gary Dauberman, has no shortage of mood. Set at a remote abbey in 1952 Romania, “The Nun” grabs you with Gothic dread from the get-go with its candlelit stone passageways, creaky sound design and the mesmerizing tones of deep, droning chants. Fog shrouds the overgrown grounds, which are dotted with makeshift wooden crosses. The feeling of foreboding is inescapable throughout. This place is cursed, and no amount of prayer from well-intentioned, young nuns can redeem it. 

But after one of these devout, promising ladies hangs herself from her bedroom window at the film’s dramatic start, the Vatican sends demon hunter Father Burke (Demian Bichir) and Sister Irene (Taissa Farmiga), a novitiate on the verge of taking her final vows, to determine what forces are plaguing this holy site. Young Irene has been plucked for this dangerous assignment because she has a history of experiencing visions; in a clever touch that unifies the series, she’s played by Farmiga, younger sister of Vera Farmiga, who starred as supernatural seer Lorraine Warren in the original “Conjuring” movies. The younger Farmiga has a similar steely presence and a quietly authoritative way about her.

Burke and Irene are joined by local farmhand Maurice (Jonas Bloquet), a flirty French-Canadian who goes by the nickname Frenchie. He serves as their guide, provides necessary comic relief and warns them that they’re about to enter the Dark Ages. But he has no idea just how dark the situation will get.

The Vatican’s emissaries have the Sisyphean task of trying to interview the remaining nuns to determine how such a sad and sinful fate could have befallen one of their own. But they get stuck in one section of the abbey when giant, metal gates shut for the night, or they find that the sisters are in the midst of mandatory silence until sunrise. They’re spinning their wheels, and we feel like we are, too. Through it all, The Nun (Bonnie Aarons) wanders the dark hallways, an elusive yet menacing force. Seeing a glimpse of her habit is good for a jolt here and there, at first. But Hardy goes to that tactic repeatedly, showing us The Nun—or maybe just A Nun—kneeling in prayer from behind or from the side, or sneaking up on someone, hidden by reams of black material. This cheap thrill happens over and over, like clockwork.

Hardy employs some visual acrobatics to liven things up in this cramped and clammy place; a couple of overhead shots are inspired, especially one in which Irene, in her white habit, is surrounded by her fellow nuns dressed in black and kneeling in desperate prayer. But by the end, “The Nun” has become an almost entirely different kind of movie, a puzzly “Da Vinci Code”-light, which sounds redundant, I realize. We eventually get full-frontal Nun—more Nun than you can shake a cross at—but even while she’s all up in our faces, it’s unclear what exactly she wants beyond run-of-the-mill possession.

The “Conjuring” movies—especially James Wan’s original two, and not so much the “Annabelle” prequels—stood apart from so much demon-themed horror with their well-drawn characters, strong performances and powerful emotional underpinning. “The Nun” feels like an empty thrill ride by comparison. Once it stops and you step off, you may still feel a little dizzy, but you’ll have forgotten exactly why.

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PEPPERMINT (2018) - FILM REVIEW

Peppermint (2018)

Cast

Jennifer Garneras Riley North
John Gallagher Jr.as Detective Stan Carmichael
John Ortizas Detective Moises Beltran
Juan Pablo Rabaas Diego Garcia
Annie Ilonzehas FBI Agent Lisa Inman

Director

Pierre Morel

Writer

Chad St. John

Cinematographer

David Lanzenberg

Editor

Frederic Thorval

Composer

Simon Franglen

Action, Crime, Thriller

Rated R for strong violence and language throughout.
 

102 minutes

 

 

There's a morbidly hilarious dark comedy buried not-so-deep inside the lousy revenge thriller "Peppermint." It's just probably not the movie that director Pierre Morel ("Taken," "District B13") and screenwriter Chad St. John intended to make. In "Peppermint," a newly-widowed mother seeks revenge on the cartoonishly evil Latino drug-dealers who killed her husband and young daughter. This generically traumatic event sets former bank employee Riley North (Garner) on a rampage despite glaring psychological trauma that she refuses to treat (she's prescribed Lithium and anti-psychotic medication, but doesn't take them). Riley's instability is so prominent—represented periodically through sped-up, out-of-focus, and over-exposed subjective camera-work—that nobody in a position of power believes her when she says that she remembers the faces of the three men who killed her family.

Still, moviegoers are supposed to root for Riley because her husband and daughter's killers—a bunch of joint-smoking, booze-drinking, gun-toting monsters—are still on the loose, and the system is rigged, and other complaints that were made before (though not necessarily better) in the 1980s by lackluster sequels and ripoffs to "Death Wish." Somebody's got to pay, even if Riley's PTSD-like breakdowns suggest that she probably shouldn't be venting her spleen by murdering every complicit and therefore ostensibly deserving person she can. But again: "Peppermint" isn't a critique of Riley's privilege. She's just a white woman whose sole purpose is railing against a broken justice system and slaughtering a group of stereotypically ruthless Latino gangsters who literally work in a piñata store (as is announced three times during a news report within the film). How is this not a black comedy about our troubled times?

The producers of "Peppermint" may be French and Chinese, but the film's heroine still (unintentionally) exemplifies an ugly strain of contemporary American thought that insists that you are the one who is really being bullied if somebody tells you that you are bullying them. You don't even need evidence to support your counter-claim. Just look at all the ways that Riley's creators excuse their decision to use racist caricatures as straw men antagonists.

Riley's actions are supposedly justified by her self-image as a working class martyr. She's not as rich as Peg (Pell James), a snobby rival mother who, during a flashback, tells off Riley and her daughter Carly (Cailey Fleming) by saying that they aren't real Girl Scout material. But we're supposed to think that Riley's anger speaks for Los Angeles' fed-up, disenfranchised residents, as we see based on a flurry of tweets (showcased during the cops' official investigation of Riley's crimes) and one wall mural that's erected in the "Skid Row" part of town (identified as such by a Google Maps-like search, also during a police investigation). Riley's an underdog since she's fighting untouchable crook Diego Garcia (Juan Pablo Raba), a high-powered crime boss who's protected by an LAPD mole, a high-powered lawyer (Michael Mosley), a corrupt judge (Jeff Harlan), and dozens of gun-toting heavies. So it's up to Riley to do what a corrupt system won't: the exact same things that were already done by Frank Castle, Paul Kersey, Harry Callahan, John Rambo, the Duke, the Boondock Saints, and everyone else in the pantheon of Red-Blooded American Avengers.

The only problem with cheering Riley on is that there's more evidence to suggest that she's a highly effective (but also kinda goofy?) monster than there is proof that she's an antiheroic voice of the people. Riley threatens Peg at gunpoint until James' character urinates all over herself. She also stabs Harlan's character and then blows him up. Riley also carries a gun that's about at least half of Garner's size. When she breaks into Garcia's home, she stalks her prey like Steven Seagal at a buffet table, hoisting her gigantic rifle in front of her like a, well, you get the idea.

Almost everything about Riley's backstory and circumstances should make her seem more sympathetic. Unfortunately, Morel often seems more desperate than eager to please. In a flashback, we see that Riley's boss hates her, and made her work late on her daughter's birthday. Mere days before Christmas, at that! How could you not root for Riley, whose husband (Jeff Hephner) is asked to participate in a crime, but is so innocent that he backs down moments before so he can spend time with his family, making his death that much more tragic? And again, just look at the bad guys she's fighting! Garcia's men are defined by their tacky surroundings, whether it's the Las Vegas-chic (marble tiles and glass decanters) of his home or the Grim Reaper-like Santa Muerte effigy that ostentatiously looms over his various warehouses.

Morel also tries to preempt accusations of racism by making the two cops and an FBI agent that investigate Riley's case—played by John Ortiz, John Gallagher Jr., and Annie Ilonzeh—a racially integrated and gender-balanced group. And don't get me started on the inevitable unmasking of the double agent who's secretly working for Garcia. Ortiz even delivers an unbelievable line about how "the difference between [the cops and Garcia's men]" is that the cops should care while the criminals simply don't.

All of this pitiable self-victimization is significant to the film's plot and message, but probably not in the way that Morel thinks. His lip service apology for the film's inherent sketchiness doesn't justify the icky spectacle of Garner shooting and stabbing her way through a legion of stick figure villains, but rather suggest that the film's heroine is unwittingly perpetuating the same imbalanced system of power that she's railing against, no matter how many dead family members, and POC allies have her back. "Peppermint" is kind of funny, but never intentionally.

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THE PREDATOR (2018) - FILM REVIEW

The Predator (2018)

Cast

Boyd Holbrook as Quinn McKenna
Trevante Rhodes as Nebraska Williams
Jacob Tremblay as Rory McKenna
Keegan Michael Key
Olivia Munn as Casey Bracket
Thomas Jane
Alfie Allen
Sterling K. Brown
Jake Busey
Yvonne Strahovski as Emily

Director

Shane Black

Writer

Fred Dekker
Shane Black

Director of Photography

Larry Fong

Action, Adventure, Horror, Science Fiction

Rated R
101 minutes

Shane Black’s “The Predator” is a fun, brutal, fighting machine that wastes no time getting down to business—not unlike its title character. It’s not big on wasted dialogue or too many attempts at meta humor, playing both like an homage/throwback film to the action of the ‘80s and something that feels new and fresh. There’s nothing pretentious or whimsical here as we so often see in films that almost parody ‘80s action instead of trying to figure out why these movies have endured in the first place. It’s easy to mimic or mock something. It’s much harder to ask why the first “Predator” captured lightning in a bottle and then try to catch it again. With a fantastic cast and razor-sharp pacing, the fact is that this is what you want from a movie called “The Predator.”

Black wastes no time, actually opening the film on a predator ship hurtling towards Earth. A sniper named Quinn McKenna (Boyd Holbrook) is on a job when he’s practically hit by an escape pod containing one of the legendary creatures. McKenna gets his hands on some of the alien’s gear, sending some of it home and hiding one particularly bad-ass piece, well, somewhere nowhere will find it. Instead of going to his P.O. box, the mail ends up on his doorstep, where his son Rory (Jacob Tremblay) opens the package, finding a predator weapon and mask.

Meanwhile, a science teacher named Casey Bracket (Olivia Munn) is brought in to examine the predator that McKenna incapacitated, pushed around by a smug asshole named Traeger (a fantastic Sterling K. Brown, proving he should play villains more often). While that’s about to go predictably haywire, McKenna is put on a bus of fellow military prisoners, including Nebraska (Trevante Rhodes, who should be an action star if there’s any justice), Coyle (Keegan-Michael Key), Baxley (Thomas Jane), Lynch (Alfie Allen), and Nettles (Augusto Aguilera). Nicknamed “The Loonies,” the gang eventually connects with Casey, and they all try to catch up with the predator before he gets to Rory to retrieve his stuff.

Co-written by another ‘80s icon in Fred Dekker, this is a movie that keenly understands what its audience wants and endeavors to provide that, which is something more action filmmakers could learn from Black. There’s a rhythm and a structure to “The Predator” that’s easy to take for granted but much harder to pull off than people will probably give this film credit for. It’s in the way Black jumps from scene to scene and beat to beat, giving each character just enough dialogue and development for them to register as more than bodies for the predator to hunt but not lingering long enough for viewers to get impatient. Black is assisted greatly by an incredibly charismatic cast, and he knows how to use them to amplify their strengths. Holbrook and Rhodes are the buddy action movie duo you never knew you wanted, Munn holds her own (although her character kind of takes a back seat in the second half), and Jane and Key are fun comic relief.

Casting aside, what really elevates “The Predator” above the disaster that it easily could have been is the way Black and Dekker manage tone. They lean into the old-fashioned aspect of “The Predator” in that they’re clearly trying to recreate the ragtag crew from the first movie to a certain extent, but they also play with a few other staples of ’80s action movies like “the kid who knows more than the adults about aliens” and “the initially-difficult government guys who will eventually need our hero’s help to survive.” And yet “The Predator” never plays like a pure parody. So many '80s-inspired movies look back at that era with something like mockery. You get the sense that Black loves these tropes, and so he never mocks them as much as he tries to figure out why they worked and still work for so many people.

By the time “The Predator” gets to its climax, it has lost a little bit of steam. Some of the final scenes are a bit messy in terms of editing, especially when compared to what came before. I liked some of the earlier set pieces more, as we are getting to know the characters, especially the initial predator breakout and a great scene with…wait for it…predator dogs. Yes, this movie has predator dogs. Dear reader, you probably know if you want to see a movie with predator dogs or not. If you do, I can’t imagine you won’t be happy with this one.

This review was filed from the Toronto International Film Festival.

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DESTINATION WEDDING (2018) - FILM REVIEW

Destination Wedding (2018)

Cast

Winona Ryderas Lindsay
Keanu Reevesas Frank
DJ Dallenbachas Ann

Director

Victor Levin

Writer

Victor Levin

Cinematographer

Giorgio Scali

Editor

Matt Maddox

Composer

William Ross

Comedy, Drama, Romance

Rated R for language throughout and sexual content.
90 minutes

 

 

 

A lot of people are not going to like “Destination Wedding,” because the characters never shut up and complain all the time. But I thought it was a hoot. Winona Ryder and Keanu Reeves, in their fourth film together, are clearly having a blast, and they won me over.

Lindsay (Ryder) and Frank (Reeves) meet at the airport, waiting for an eight-seat plane to take them to California wine country for a wedding. After they have bickered at the airport, the hotel, the rehearsal dinner, through the games and activities and the wedding itself, and are now back at the hotel, they are at the moment when love should be triumphing over all with a tender embrace. But this isn’t that movie. Lindsay asks Frank, “What if the real destination is falling in love?” Frank’s response is, “What if you never say that again?” He means it.

The title of “Destination Wedding” may make it sound like a Hallmark Romance film, but this is a romantic comedy with very little romance, and the comedy is not based on gentle misunderstandings. It is strictly in the hyper-verbal, twisted category.

Frank and Lindsay start arguing seconds after they meet, when he steps in front of her at the airport gate. She accuses him of trying to get a better seat and compares him to “investment bankers, politicians, terrorists,” and everyone else with no manners. He says he stepped away just to get farther from her. It begins to dawn on them that they may be going to the same event. Lindsay: “How many destination weddings can there be in Paso Robles?” Frank: “I was hoping there were two.”

The music shifts from low-key but cheery jazz from the charming score by composer William Ross to a trumpet trill like the opening of a bullfight as we see the film’s title, followed by its more telling alternate: “A Narcissist Can’t Die Because the Whole World Would End.” Subsequent chapter title cards let us know that we are not here to be beguiled by the ostensible charms of the countryside or the festivities, by the welcome baskets or the tour of the winery. The real feelings of Lindsay, Frank, and the movie itself about the various events are revealed because what they think is shown but scratched out: “Just what the world needs – Another Goddamn sunset wedding.”

Lindsay is the groom’s ex. Frank is his half-brother. Neither of them wants to be there. They don’t like the couple getting married. They don’t like anyone at the wedding. In fact, they pretty much don’t like anything, except maybe for not liking people, gatherings, or the idea of love.

Professionally, they appear to be opposites. Frank works for JD Power, which gives out excellence awards to corporations. Lindsay goes after companies for bias and poor citizenship, or what Frank terms “a career in reverse fascism.” But their jobs have something significant in common. They both judge everyone. And at the tedious rehearsal dinner, they find a companionable rhythm in coming up with wordy but hilarious comments on the other guests, who exist in the film only to be insult fodder.

Frank and Lindsay are the entire movie. The rest of the cast is dressed in neutral tones and hardly get a chance to say a word. Ryder and Reeves stand out in dark clothes and never stop talking nonsense and complaining about everyone, even in the midst of what has to be one of the most ridiculous sex scenes ever filmed. But when Frank and Lindsey are annoying each other most, Reeves and Ryder still have an easy charm and a sparkling chemistry together that gives their characters’ anxieties enough good humor to keep us on their side.

Writer/director Victor Levin (“Survivor’s Remorse,” “Mad About You”) has clearly suffered through cutesy weddings where the welcome basket includes fun facts about the history of the area and coupons for foot massages. You know, the weddings where the couple puts out helpful baskets of flip-flops labeled “Walkin’ Shoes,” because guests have to trek through mud and grass in party clothes to get to the picture-perfect ceremony. This is his revenge, like your snarkiest friend’s nasty commentary on a wedding video, or the romantic comedy version of David Foster Wallace’s essay on cruises, “A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again.” As with Wallace’s cruise, the destination wedding might not be fun, but seeing Reeves and Ryder suffer through it is. 

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THE LITTLE STRANGER (2018) - FILM REVIEW

The Little Stranger (2018)

Cast

Domhnall Gleeson as Dr. Faraday
Ruth Wilson as Caroline Ayres
Will Poulter as Roderick Ayres
Charlotte Rampling as Mrs. Ayres
Kate Phillips as Diana Baker-Hyde
Alison Pargeter as The Maid
Josh Dylan as Bland
Lorne MacFadyen as Dr. Calder

Director

Lenny Abrahamson

Writer (novel)

Sarah Waters

Writer

Lucinda Coxon

Cinematographer

Ole Bratt Birkeland

Editor

Nathan Nugent

Composer

Stephen Rennicks

Drama, Horror, Mystery

Rated R for some disturbing bloody images.
111 minutes

 

 

With his profound, Oscar-winning 2015 drama “Room,” Lenny Abrahamson illustrated the horrors of domestic claustrophobia through an unflashy yet unwavering handle on restrictive spaces. With “The Little Stranger,” his elegant, cold-to-the-touch blend of drama and gothic horror, the filmmaker proves his specific artistry around confinement was no coincidence. In this slow-burn psychodrama of visceral majesty—craftily adapted from Sarah Waters’ novel by Lucinda Coxon—he brings to life a stately mansion frozen in time, unearthing its bygone beauty and ghastly appeal beneath its frigid, decaying surface. Along the way, as he also did in “Room,” Abrahamson allows the airless interiors to inform an ensemble of characters, all suffocated by layers of trauma in their respective predicaments.

The manor in question is the once-glorious Hundreds Hall, where Dr. Faraday (Domhnall Gleeson, alarmingly icy with a steady expression) has countless memories, having been raised by a mother working there as a maid nearly three decades ago. On a random day in the scorching summer of 1948, he unexpectedly gets summoned to the storied English countryside home—not to attend the kind of party the venerable Ayres family used to throw once upon a time, but to tend to the ill housemaid Betty (Liv Hill). The sad, crumbling state of the post-war Hundreds Hall isn’t the only unpleasant surprise that awaits Faraday. He quickly learns that Betty has faked her sickness to get sent home urgently. Something frightens her, Faraday discovers. An unexplained evil presence runs through the veins of Hundreds Hall, aiming to rid it of its few remaining inhabitants: the young heir/disfigured WWII veteran Roderick (Will Poulter), the frustrated loner Caroline (Ruth Wilson, intensely acidic and vulnerable) and the calculating matriarch Mrs. Ayres (Charlotte Rampling, underutilized).

Slowly, the lives of the Ayres family begin to interweave with Faraday’s. The doctor’s frequent visits to the mansion, from which he once secretly plucked away an ornate piece of molding (that perhaps metaphorically started its downfall), leads to his romantic involvement with Caroline—frumpily dressed out of nonchalance (through brilliant costuming choices by Steven Noble) and ever-irritated with her dead-end life prospects. The closer Faraday gets to the ill-fated Ayreses, the severer their troubles seem to become. The family’s beloved dog Gyp mauls the young daughter of a guest one evening and seals his unfortunate fate (a special warning for dog people—be prepared.) The restless Rod, now living out of the ground floor library and threatening to sell the mansion, grows increasingly distraught by a curious burning smell with no source. Service bells incessantly ring for no reason and strange sounds continue to disturb the peace of the household. Could it be Caroline’s long-deceased sister Susan causing all the paranormal activity? Savagely haphazard engravings of the letter “S” the inhabitants discover around the house certainly suggest as much.

Though Coxon’s script (admittedly, faultily) postpones the tale’s meaty segments, it cleverly navigates the flashback-heavy source material in a mostly screen-friendly manner, juxtaposing the dispassionate affair of Caroline and Faraday against the post-war realities of a splintered Britain. But throughout “The Little Stranger,” the social divide between the upward working class and the vanishing aristocrats receives a thoughtful portrayal. There's even ample blood and a handsomely puzzling twist to round off the gothic story; one that will bury many in deep thought long after the credits roll. Equally lingering will be Gleeson’s portrayal of Dr. Faraday, a poker-faced man of destructive obsession and leachy persistence. Easily among the actor’s best work, Gleeson’s brilliantly haunting performance gets under your skin.

The film’s genuine frights take their time to arrive, but a consistently ominous mood, present in dusty, mahogany-heavy rooms and shadowy hallways, proves worthier than the petty jump scares “The Little Stranger” sidesteps for the most part. This might initially frustrate viewers who may have gravitated towards Hundreds Hall for chills akin to Peter Medak’s “The Changeling” or Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining.” But those who submit themselves to the film’s unhurried pace and distancing coldness (aided by a splendid, ghostly production design by Simon Elliott) will be treated to a sophisticated yarn, closer to Robert Altman's “Gosford Park” in its mysterious thrills and social class themes than to any customary haunted house flick. 

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KIN (2018) - FILM REVIEW

Kin (2018)

Cast

Jonathan Cherry as Clerk
Myles Truitt as Eli
Mark O'Brien as Jake
Ian Matthews as Snick
Romano Orzari as Lee Jacob
James Franco as Taylor
Dennis Quaid as Hal

Director

Jonathan Baker
Josh Baker

Writer (based on the short film "Bag Man" by)

Josh Baker
Jonathan Baker

Writer

Daniel Casey

Cinematographer

Larkin Seiple

Editor

Mark Day

Composer

Mogwai

Action, Science Fiction

Rated PG-13 for gun violence and intense action, suggestive material, language, thematic elements and drinking.
 

102 minutes

 

 

The promotional materials for “Kin” hail it as being from the producers of “Arrival” and “Stranger Things,” and while that may be true, it's highly unlikely most viewers will come away comparing it to those previous efforts. Moviegoers with longer memories, however, may find themselves contemplating the similarities between this film and “Laserblast,” a super-cheesy 1978 exploitation movie that somehow managed to simultaneously rip off both “Carrie” and “Star Wars,” and which is perhaps most famous today for being the subject of an especially memorable “MST3K” riff than anything else. At least that movie, for all of its artistic sins, knew exactly what it was trying to do—supply undiscriminating viewers with 90 minutes of low-grade explosives, sheet cake and a sub-Leif Garrett hero who seemed to have had his entire body feathered before each take. That's more than can be said for “Kin,” a disjointed and at times off-putting mess that veers wildly and unconvincingly between a road movie, a family drama, a violent crime film and an offbeat sci-fi thriller before arriving at a finale so loopy that even if I spoiled it here and now, many of you would just assume that I was kidding.

Eli (Myles Truitt) is a troubled 14-year-old African-American kid growing up in a rough Detroit neighborhood with his tough-but-loving adoptive father Hal (Dennis Quaid), who is trying to raise the kid right in the wake of the death of his wife and the imprisonment of his biological son, Jimmy (Jack Reynor). One day, Eli sneaks into an abandoned building to find copper wire to sell and stumbles upon the dead bodies of what appears to be a group of futuristic soldiers along with a mysterious hi-tech gun that responds automatically to his touch. Although Eli initially flees the scene, the lure of the weapon is too great to resist and when he returns later on, the bodies have vanished, but he finds the gun and brings it home with him. Meanwhile, the just-released Jimmy returns home as well and brings a new set of troubles along with him—having borrowed $60,000 from local crime lord Taylor (played, perhaps inevitably, by James Franco), he now has to pay the money back immediately or bad things will happen, not only to him but to his father and Eli as well.

When Dad refuses to look the other way while he robs the safe at the construction company he runs, Jimmy, Taylor and some of the latter’s goons break in to grab the money for themselves. Not surprisingly, things quickly go south, and Jimmy decides to hit the road with both the money and Eli, telling the kid they are going on a road trip to Tahoe for a few days. Naturally, Eli brings his new possession along for the ride and when Jimmy, just as naturally, gets into a scrape at the strip club where he has taken his brother for a good time (not that good of a time—this is one of those PG-13 strip clubs where no one takes anything off), Eli pulls it out and gives off a brief demonstration of its incredible destructive power before the two escape, accompanied by friendly stripper Milly (Zoe Kravitz). The three continue on, not realizing that they have numerous parties in pursuit of them—the cops, who want to bust Jimmy for what happened back in Detroit; Taylor, who wants to kill him; and a pair of those otherworldly soldier types who have traced the weapon and will do anything to get it back.

The film is based on “Bag Man,” a 2014 short film by Jonathan and Josh Baker that combined impressive visual effects with a certain dramatic lyricism in an effective manner. In trying to expand the basic premise of that short into a feature, the Bakers (making their feature directing debuts) and screenwriter Daniel Casey have instead cluttered things up with a narrative whose ambitions far outreach their collective grasp. It is possible to make a successful film that combines the variety of elements on display here—Jeff Nichols did a pretty magnificent job of it with the criminally under-seen 2016 film “Midnight Special”—but rather than complement each other, they end up clashing here in increasingly obtrusive and confounding ways. Another problem is the remarkable lack of tension—the pacing is so languid at times that the film comes across as not so much exhausting as it does exhausted. Then there's the borderline crazy finale, which offers up mounds of clumsy last-minute exposition, a blatant setup for a sequel and a prominent celebrity cameo with more chutzpah than style. The only possible explanation for this is that the filmmakers may have hoped that audiences would leave thinking more about this crazy finale, and not the fact that they just watched what's essentially the story of a troubled teenager who finally finds some form of power and purpose in his life once he gets his hand on a gun—a dubious concept under any circumstance and one that rings especially hollow at this particular time.

The lone bright spot here is Truitt, who invests Eli with a soulfulness the film itself never comes close to matching. As for the other actors, Quaid is effective enough as the gruff father but isn’t around long enough to make much of a difference, Kravitz’s talents are wasted on a nothing part and Carrie Coon pops up so arbitrarily during the final scenes that you’ll find yourself wondering how much of her role wound up on the cutting room floor. Then there's Reynor, who is supposed to be playing an obnoxious jerk but does so in such a stridently irritating manner that many viewers will be actively rooting for Franco’s character to catch up with him and lower him into a stump grinder. As for Franco, he plays yet another one of the self-consciously quirky white-trash thugs that he loves to essay in his spare time (Taylor may be a vicious murderer, but he loves listening to Joni Mitchell), this time in a batch of scenes that feel as if he just decided to make things up as he went along. That said, Franco does figure in my favorite moment, a bit where he punishes the bad behavior of one of his minions by making him stand in the corner for a time-out. By the time “Kin” stumbles to its conclusion, moviegoers may want to do the same thing to the filmmakers.

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THE HAPPYTIME MURDERS (2018) - FILM REVIEW

The Happytime Murders (2018)

Cast

• Melissa McCarthy as Connie Edwards
• Elizabeth Banks as Jenny
• Maya Rudolph as Bubbles
• Joel McHale as Agent Campbell
• Leslie David Baker as Lt. Banning
• Jimmy O. Yang as Officer Delancey
• Cynthy Wu as Brittenie Marlowe
• Pamela Mitchell as Topaz
• Colleen Smith as Cara
• Dorien Davies as Sandra
• Mitch Silpa as Tommy
• Bill Barretta as Phil Phillips
• Allison Bills as Carol
• Brekkan Spens as Dick
• Drew Massey as Goofer - Vinny

Director

• Brian Henson

Writer (story by)

• Dee Austin Robertson
• Todd Berger

Writer

• Todd Berger

Cinematographer

• Mitchell Amundsen

Editor

• Brian Scott Olds

Composer

• Christopher Lennertz

Action, Comedy, Crime

Rated R for strong crude and sexual content and language throughout, and some drug material.

91 minutes

 

 

 

If you feel that the contemporary cinema isn’t serving up enough dirty-talking puppets to suit your proclivities and tastes, have I got a movie for you. “The Happytime Murders,” directed by Brian Henson under the aegis of a production company called “HA!”—for “Henson Alternative,” with an exclamation point!—is a movie in which Muppet-style felt characters (for yes, Brian is the son of Jim and Jane Henson) cuss and smoke and have sex to ostensibly comedic effect.

Dirty-talking puppets are nothing new; a history of Vegas entertainments would turn up dozens if not hundreds, and the recent Broadway hit “Avenue Q” has proven that they WORK, or can work. Executive produced by human star Melissa McCarthy and her husband Ben Falcone, “The Happytime Murders” is an indirect outgrowth of Henson’s “Puppet Up!” an improv show that had a prosperous run in, Las Vegas and New York a couple years back. In that show, puppeteers and their puppets presided over a traditional audience-suggestion set, the more outrageous the suggestions the better.

For “The Happytime Murders” writer Todd Berger world-builds a society inspired by that of “Who Framed Roger Rabbit”; tensions between toons and humans are here replaced by a society in which “meatbags” are entertained by but distrust “fluff”-filled felt-faced sentient beings. The conceit doesn’t work here nearly as well as it did in “Roger Rabbit.” The self-reflexive absurdity of that classic’s concept, epitomized by Jessica Rabbit’s famous line “I’m not bad, I’m just drawn that way,” doesn’t translate so automatically to this scenario. You don’t have to exercise your brain too hard to get a palpable sense of how an autonomous puppet is literally an oxymoron.

But “The Happytime Murders” isn’t so much interested in immersing you in a comedic world so much as it is in having its puppets do the most outrageous things you’ve never seen or heard puppets do in a movie. The plot is as fluffy as any of the puppets’ insides. Puppet P.I. Phil (Bill Barretta) gets thrown a case by femme fatale Sandra and soon, wherever he goes, another cast member of a once-famous puppet TV show, “The Happytime Gang,” gets the stuffing blown out of him/her. Turns out Phil was once a cop, a good one, until a mishap destroyed the force’s trust in him. The new string of murders puts him back together with his human partner, Connie (McCarthy), a good but now-bitter cop with a sugar monkey on her back. Just so you know, in puppet culture, sugar is pretty much heroin.

One doesn’t need to concern oneself too much with plot, what with all the puppet hijinks. They begin with the foul language, but in due time, we see puppets whose forms are pretty familiar—fluffy bunnies, frisky doggies, a porn shop proprietor that looks like a relative of Sam The Eagle gone severely to seed, and so on—doing generally unexpected things, like flashing pubic hair and ejaculating. Is this funny? The screening I attended did not exactly rollick with laughter, and I found scenes of humorous human interaction, such as an evidence hunt embarked on by McCarthy and Maya Rudolph, playing Phil’s loyal secretary, more amusing than the puppet stuff. But I don’t want to come down too hard on this movie, because even though it doesn’t work, the high spirits with which it was made seem unaffected. Which means that if you’re susceptible to such an atmosphere, particularly such a one as McCarthy and friends can create (other human cast members include Elizabeth Banks and Joel McHale; among the puppeteers is Kevin Clash, one of the original handlers of Elmo), you might get a kick out of it. But don’t bring the kids. Seriously. Just don’t.

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