Review

Here

The plot of Here, the dreadful new formal experiment from director Robert Zemeckis, is fixated on a plot itself — a plot of land, to be more specific. The film begins millions of years ago when dinosaurs roamed the Earth and as their extinction comes to pass and the ice age takes hold, the camera stays fixed on that location as large swaths of time come and go. The bulk of the Zemeckis’s focus is on a house that’s built on the land around the turn of the 20th century, which is eventually purchased by Al (Paul Bettany) and Rose Young (Kelly Reilly) after World War II. We see their lives unfold, specifically as their oldest of three children Richard (Tom Hanks) grows up and takes the house over for his parents as he and his wife Margaret (Robin Wright) raise children of their own.

Based on a groundbreaking 2014 graphic novel by Richard McGuire, Here is a feature-length movie that could have worked as a short film or even a Super Bowl commercial. At 105 minutes, it’s positively intolerable. If Robert Zemeckis wanted to make this concept of an unmoving camera work, he could have at least composed his vignettes linearly. We start at the chronological beginning in the first few minutes but after that, Zemeckis and his Forrest Gump co-writer Eric Roth choose to interrupt the story of the Youngs with other periods of time. There are scenes of Native Americans roaming the land hundreds of years before and sequences with other inhabitants of the house before and after them. There are even brief moments in colonial times outside the estate of Benjamin Franklin’s illegitimate son William. Instead of Zemeckis treating each of these sections as their own chapters, he opts for a nonlinear storyline where we spend no more than a handful of minutes at a time in each era.

Not only does this method of storytelling undercut any sort of narrative momentum but it also corners the characters into paper-thin caricatures who only get a few minutes to share who they are and what they want. Worse yet, Here makes copious use of digital de-aging (courtesy of new generative AI tech) to make the actors playing the Youngs match whatever age they’re supposed to be. We’ve seen this technique and face swapping and other visual effects of the like pop up in recent blockbusters but because of the story he’s telling, Robert Zemeckis forces himself to put this CG effect front and center. Even though this isn’t nearly the worst de-aging effects I’ve seen, the amount of screen time that utilizes it eventually draws attention to how much the effects are being used and deteriorates the illusion.

As unconvincing as the AI-assisted effects can be, they’re nothing compared to what Zemeckis and Eric Roth have brewing in their cliche-riddled screenplay. Thankfully, some of the chronologically early segments play out wordlessly, with Alan Silvestri’s overbearing music score doing the heavy lifting instead. If the golden rule in screenwriting is “show, don’t tell”, the pair of scribes break it early and often. It’s not enough for Zemeckis to set the scene for each of these vignettes; the characters have to loudly explain when and why we are in any given point of time. It’s an enormous disservice to the actors, who are doing their best to establish their roles while having to spew weapons-grade pablum about how quickly time passes, how important it is not to have regrets and other hoary platitudes.

It’s not like Zemeckis has been immune to cornball sentiment in the past but in the case of previous winners of his like Forrest Gump or The Polar Express, at least we can be distracted by the creakier elements of the presentation. Here, there’s nowhere to go and nowhere to hide. Locking the camera down in a fixed position of course is both compositionally dull — no matter how often you try to switch out the set design — and emotionally unengaging. Potentially poignant moments and mundane glimpses of domesticity are treated with the same exact framing and thus, their dramatic impact is dulled. The camera is unmoved and so are we. Compelling camerawork isn’t always about lush cinematography or showy hyperactivity; it can crucially aid the filmmaker in telling smaller stories-within-stories through close-ups, two shots and really everything else that isn’t just a static shot. Here’s hoping Here is the last time Zemeckis chooses to limit himself with ostentatious obstructions.

Score – 1/5

New movies coming to theaters this weekend:
Heretic, starring Hugh Grant and Sophie Thatcher, is a horror thriller about two Mormon missionaries who are drawn into a game of cat-and-mouse in the house of an Englishman while trying to convert him to their faith.
The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, starring Judy Greer and Pete Holmes, is a Christmas comedy adapted from the 1972 novel of the same name about a group of juvenile delinquent siblings who inadvertently find themselves starring in the town’s Christmas pageant.
Small Things Like These, starring Cillian Murphy and Eileen Walsh, is a historical drama about a devoted father who discovers disturbing secrets kept by the local convent in his small Irish town and uncovers shocking truths of his own.

Reprinted by permission of Whatzup

Reel Views, Review

Conclave

Following up his much-lauded remake of All Quiet On The Western Front, director Edward Berger returns with another stirring ensemble piece that will likely garner attention as we enter awards season. Conclave, adapted from the Robert Harris novel of the same name, is technically a more hushed affair than Berger’s war epic from a couple years ago but no less subtle in its thematic ambitions. Fortunately, the obvious allegorical parallels go down easier when the story is pulpy papal pap and not a deadly serious wartime fable. Peter Straughan’s screenplay isn’t aiming for an entirely plausible and comprehensive step-by-step account of what happens within the walls of the Vatican during times of transition but proves that you don’t have to do so when you give a talented cast delicious barbs to volley at one another.

When the pope is found dead after a heart attack, there’s a vacancy in the Vatican and it’s the job of Cardinal-Dean Thomas Lawrence (Ralph Fiennes) to gather the College Of Cardinals to select a new leader of the Catholic Church. Sequestered until a majority vote of 72 is reached, the clergymen convene and several lead candidates naturally emerge. Lawrence’s vote is for Aldo Bellini (Stanley Tucci), a progressive whose views Lawrence feels will be a relatively smooth transition from the liberal-leaning former pope. An early favorite hailing from Nigeria is Joshua Adeyemi (Lucian Msamati), certainly more conservative socially than Bellini but not as much as staunch Italian traditionalist Goffredo Tedesco (Sergio Castellitto). Also in the running is Canadian Cardinal Joseph Tremblay (John Lithgow), who worked very closely with the pope before his unexpected death.

The stellar cast of almost all male performers, also including Carlos Diehz and Brían F. O’Byrne in small but crucial roles, gets a sliver of gender diversity with Isabella Rossellini as the nun in charge of feeding and housing the Cardinals during the conclave. Most of the runtime — believe it or not, the fastest 2 hours you’ll spend in a theater this year — is dedicated to shifty-eyed, zucchetto-wearing men whispering about alliances and strategy. By contrast, the scenes with Rossellini’s Sister Agnes have an openness and even empathy to them, which breaks up the ministerial maneuvering nicely. Having said that, most of the fun of Conclave is in seeing how these Cardinals scurry off to their corners to quietly decide the fate of the Church’s leadership and Peter Straughan’s dialogue is juicy without being preposterous.

Though the plotting, with its potboiler provocations, seems fitting for seedier surroundings, Conclave is nothing if not a first-rate production from any aesthetic aspect. Because of Vatican City filming restrictions, the production couldn’t actually take place within the Sistine Chapel but thanks to set designers who worked tirelessly, a replica was crafted for shooting. The results are extraordinary, as ornate and thorough as you would expect from the pope’s actual ancient residence. The pristine cinematography from Stéphane Fontaine revels in the marvel of this hallowed space, often contrasting hues of red and white to imply the conflict and reverence associated with the duty these men are taking on.

It’s no secret we’re in the middle of a contentious election season and while Conclave isn’t partisan in its political proclamations, it doesn’t make a secret of tying its events to the selection of the US President. “No sane man would want this papacy,” an anxious Bellini remarks at one point, the irony of course being that he is one of those men. Though it’s done under the guise of humility and grace, the Cardinals participate the same kind of gamesmanship and blackmailing that we’ve seen in countless election cycles before and will no doubt see in the future. While Edward Berger and Peter Straughan aren’t saying anything especially profound with this commentary, it undoubtedly lands better when politics already seem to be on the top of everyone’s minds. Paradoxically, Conclave could also function as a diversion for those seeking reprieve from endless campaign texts and phone calls.

Score – 4/5

New movies coming this weekend:
Playing in theaters is Here, a family drama starring Tom Hanks and Robin Wright, covering the events of a single spot of land and its inhabitants, spanning from the past to well into the future.
Streaming on Netflix is Time Cut, a sci-fi slasher starring Madison Bailey and Antonia Gentry, following a high school senior student and amateur inventor as she accidentally finds a time machine and travels back to 2003, the year her sister was murdered by an unknown killer.
Premiering on Disney+ is Music By John Williams, a documentary about the life and career of the titular composer and conductor, responsible for countless classic pieces of film music.

Reprinted by permission of Whatzup

Reel Views, Review

Smile 2

Narrowly avoiding a straight-to-streaming release two years ago, the surprise hit Smile opened wide to over $200 million at the box office. Inevitably, the series continues this fall with Smile 2, a satisfactory sequel that picks up both atmospherically and chronologically right where its predecessor left off. After a bravura cold open paralleling a high watermark sequence in the True Detective episode “Who Goes There”, returning writer-director Parker Finn begins setting the table for a similar story in a very different setting. More than most sequels, this follow-up is particularly burdened with recreating the element of surprise from which the original benefited. While it doesn’t outdo Smile in the scare department, it provides another spooky tale set in this demented universe and makes a case for itself as an ongoing franchise.

Smile 2 centers around international pop star Skye Riley (Naomi Scott), who’s about to kick off a worldwide comeback tour a year after a car crash that took the life of her actor boyfriend Paul Hudson (Ray Nicholson). Left with residual pain from the accident, Skye has secretly been scoring painkillers from high school acquaintance Lewis (Lukas Gage), who commits an act of violence against himself similar to the brutal event that kicked things off in Smile. In the days following, Riley begins experiencing horrifying hallucinations that she’s unable to explain to her mom and manager Elizabeth (Rosemarie DeWitt) or her close friend Gemma (Dylan Gelula). With her first show just days away, Skye has to race against the clock to figure out what’s behind the grinning visions that are haunting her day and night.

Much of Smile‘s success as an effective horror outing came from Sosie Bacon’s terrific lead performance and Smile 2 similarly strikes a chord with a female lead bolstered by outstanding acting. Naomi Scott is asked to do quite a bit here, convincingly singing and dancing to several original songs in a way that falls in line with how megastars like Billie Eilish and Lady Gaga likely prep for their elaborate shows. Her Skye is not always the most likable character either and that’s even before the “smile curse” is passed on to her, often impatient and demanding with those on her crew while still saving face with her fans. But Scott roots these imperfections in her character’s unresolved trauma stemming from the fatal car crash that forever altered the trajectory of her life and career. Mental health details, like the depiction of trichotillomania and self-soothing practices, give her performance layers of authenticity that make it easier to get lost in the story.

As can be the case with horror sequels, Smile 2 tries a bit too hard to dissect its conceit and the mechanics of the “Smile Entity” and its curse are fuzzier this time around. Psychologically, it’s scarier when the malevolent force affects relatively smaller occurrences to make the protagonist question their sanity. Compared to its predecessor, this movie opts for more elaborate scenes and subplots of unreality that make it more frustrating for us in the audience to track what’s happening. There are several swaths where we have to subconsciously backtrack and figure out what actually happened to Skye versus what she experienced. Certainly some of this is expected and warranted for a psychological horror film but Parker Finn plays a little too fast-and-loose with some of his storytelling this time.

While both Smile films exceed the two-hour mark (atypical of lower budget horror fare), the pacing continues to be crucial in allowing the psychological dread to build. This time around, it also accommodates a subplot with Peter Jacobson as a nurse with a cock-eyed plan right out of Flatliners; his Taub character from the long-running medical show House would be proud. Like the first entry, Smile 2 is handsomely shot and features an unnerving detuned music score from composer Cristobal Tapia De Veer, in addition to the aforementioned pop tunes. Depending on how Smile 2 does at the box office, we may find this series bearing its teeth in theaters for years to come. As long as Finn has strong ideas for how to keep the franchise fresh, I’m all smiles.

Score – 3/5

New movies coming this weekend:
Playing only in theaters is Venom: The Last Dance, a superhero sequel starring Tom Hardy and Chiwetel Ejiofor, which finds reporter Eddie Brock and his symbiote alter ego on the run from both humans and alien members of Venom’s home planet.
Also coming to theaters is Conclave, a religious drama starring Ralph Fiennes and Stanley Tucci, following a cardinal tasked with organizing the election of the successor to the deceased Pope, who discovers the former Pope had a secret that must be uncovered.
Streaming on Netflix is Don’t Move, a horror-thriller starring Kelsey Asbille and Finn Wittrock, depicting a seasoned killer who injects a paralytic agent into a grieving woman, who must run, fight, and hide before her body completely shuts down.

Reprinted by permission of Whatzup

Column, Midwest Film Journal

No Sleep October: Possession

Originally posted on Midwest Film Journal

When it comes to horror, I’d like to think that I’ve seen my fair share of both the bonafide classics and the most chattered-about of recent entries. But there’s a title that I’ve seen name-checked more and more in interviews and reviews over the past several years and that’s Andrzej Żuławski’s Possession. Up until last year, it was a bit difficult to access the film (at least in the US) but the cult film finally arrived on streaming for the first time in 2023, thanks to the horror service Shudder. This past summer, it was also announced that Robert Pattinson and Smile 2 director/writer Parker Finn are in the process of remaking the movie, which should widen the original’s audience even further. So it seemed a fitting time to go back and remedy a horror blindspot whose reputation has improved considerably since its initial release in 1981.

At its most fundamental level, Possession is the story of a struggling marriage devolving past the point of recognition. It begins with Anna (Isabelle Adjani) asking Mark (Sam Neill) for a divorce, a request that he doesn’t take especially well at the outset but at least tries to remain civil about. The pair discuss living arrangements and shared custody for their son Bob (Michael Hogben) but after causing a scene at a restaurant, Mark turns to booze to distract himself from the pain of losing his wife. While picking Bob up for school one day, Mark notices that Anna has seemingly left him by himself for days and things get stranger when Mark meets Bob’s teacher Helen (also played by Adjani) and she looks almost identical to Anna. Suspicious of Anna’s goings-on following their separation, Mark hires a private investigator to see what’s keeping Anna from taking care of their son.

The aspect of Possession that usually comes up first when it’s discussed is the intensity of the performances, particularly the dual role by Isabelle Adjani. A flashback sequence set in a subway station showcases spasmodic acting from Adjani so manic and visceral that it went on to inspire homages from a Massive Attack music video starring Rosamund Pike to a similar one-take scene in The First Omen earlier this year. While this is unquestionably Adjani’s most unhinged sequence in terms of physical performance, there are several other scenes of confrontation with Sam Neill’s character that aren’t far behind in terms of ferocity. An argument earlier in the film leads Anna to slap Mark in retaliation, presumably for the first time in their marriage. When he turns back to face her, the fear in her eyes slowly softens and gives way to a demented smile that she unsuccessfully tries to wipe away.

Sam Neill is still best known for his role as Dr. Alan Grant in the Jurassic Park series but he’s many, many miles away from that paleontologist’s placid personality in Possession. Even in the quieter scenes, Neill has a crazed sort of look in his eyes that never makes us feel certain he won’t lash out in a violent rage at a moment’s notice. As his journey into Anna’s troubled psyche and concerning activities creeps along, there’s little question that Mark is losing his grip on reality and sense of self in the process. Even when he rocks back and forth in a chair we see him sit in during several different points in the movie, his body is so rigid that it doesn’t even register that he’s getting any benefit or comfort from the activity. The makeup used on Adjani and Neill makes them appear as pale as ghosts through most of the movie, making it easier to view their characters as a pair of incensed apparitions haunting each other.

Given the personal nature of the narrative, it shouldn’t be a surprise to learn that Andrzej Żuławski wrote and directed Possession — which he describes as “essentially a very true-to-life autobiographical story” — on the back of a messy divorce. Not only does this inform the numerous scenes of explosive domestic strife but it also underlines Mark’s paranoia about Anna’s lover Heinrich (played by Heinz Bennent) and why she chooses to be with him. Without giving too much away, the inclusion of a Kafkaesque creation and the evocation of doppelgängers later on in the film point to Mark’s fear of the unknown and neurotic insecurity about his own shortcomings. Even without much context into Żuławski’s personal life, it’s fascinating watching him work out his troubled thoughts through this bizarre and beguiling beast of a film.

There are so many movies about demonic and supernatural possession that horror fans may go into Possession expecting familiar narrative beats of the subgenre but the film certainly doesn’t adhere to any such formula. In fact, the simple title generates several questions about which characters in Żuławski’s story are actually possessed and who or what is possessing them. On first viewing, I can’t say I have concrete answers for those questions and yet still feel that it’s a perfect title to sum up the essence of the picture. The acting, not just from the two leads but from all of the performers, feels like it was the product of humans whose spirits temporarily left their body so they could house otherworldly spirits that move and speak in ways that can’t be easily deciphered. If you want to know what it feels like to be in the grips of madness, spending two hours with Possession may just be the ticket.

Reel Views, Review

Woman Of The Hour

Anna Kendrick steps behind the camera for the first time to take on misogyny and murder with Woman Of The Hour, a chilling true crime tale debuting on Netflix starting this Friday. In September 1978, photographer Rodney Alcala was the winning Bachelor on an episode of The Dating Game. What producers and viewers of the show didn’t know at the time was that he was in the middle of a killing spree that already claimed the lives of several young women throughout southern California. Weaving back and forth through time, Kendrick uses the taping of the now infamous game show entry as an anchor point to underscore just how deceiving appearances can be. Backed by a sharp script and even more incisive editing, her directorial debut is a bracingly fresh take on the serial killer genre.

Kendrick also stars as Cheryl Bradshaw, a struggling actress who schleps fruitlessly to auditions, where casting directors barely even look up from their notes to acknowledge her when running scenes. Desperate for work, she reluctantly takes a spot on the hit game show The Dating Game, in the hopes that her appearance will spark more TV roles for her in the future. After throwing the three male contestants unscripted questions, to the chagrin of host Ed Burke (Tony Hale), Cheryl chooses the charming and intelligent “Bachelor #3” Rodney Alcala (Daniel Zovatto). Anxious for the all-expense paid trip to Carmel, Rodney asks Cheryl for a drink right after the show but during their date, she can’t ignore the nagging feeling that something isn’t right with the newly-minted game show winner.

In addition to the unsettling encounter Cheryl has with the murderer, whose victim count was estimated to be 130 by the time he died in 2021, Woman Of The Hour depicts a handful of the atrocities Alcala committed. While these scenes are terrifying and can be difficult to watch, they certainly don’t indulge in brutality against these women and are intended to convey just how casual the transition from flirtation to violence can be at the hands of a monster. Daniel Zovatto is appropriately unnerving as the calculatedly charismatic creep, connoting confidence and conscientiousness atop his psychopathic impulses. In each of the sequences that show Alcala on the hunt for vulnerable women, Zovatto reveals aspects of his character that make him even more deplorable but no less fascinating.

Concluding right at the 90-minute mark, Woman Of The Hour does come across as somewhat underdeveloped despite its weighty subject material. Kendrick devotes a portion of the narrative to an audience member, played by Nicolette Robinson, who recognizes Alcala during the taping of the episode after a previous encounter that left her shaken. I imagine her inclusion in the film is Kendrick taking artistic liberties, as there isn’t any evidence someone who had a brush with Alcala was in the audience for the show. But in comparison to Cheryl’s perspective of events and Rodney’s murderous interjections in the narrative, the scenes of Robinson’s character desperately trying to warn a top producer of The Dating Game about Alcala don’t resonate with the same level of intensity.

What Kendrick makes clear is how the sexism of the era, the residue of which is still on display today, allowed murderers like Alcala to carry out horrendous crimes undetected. Using The Dating Game, a long-running game show that positioned women as prizes to be won, as a backdrop drives home the point that a literal serial killer can be championed if they say the right thing. During commercial breaks, Cheryl chats with a tenured makeup artist who quickly touches her up and imparts bits of wisdom for the nervous contestant. In the years she’s been on the show, she says the real question under all the different questions that are asked is “which one of you will hurt me?” Of course, the line takes on a more literal meaning in context but even outside this story, it points to how unsafe women have been made to feel by men throughout the years. It’s a premise that Kendrick unpacks brilliantly as both the lead actress and director of Woman Of The Hour, an impactful evocation of quiet dread.

Score – 3.5/5

More new movies coming this weekend:
Coming to theaters is Smile 2, a horror sequel starring Naomi Scott and Rosemarie DeWitt, following a pop singer begins to experience a series of increasingly disturbing and daunting events as she is about to go on a new world tour.
Also playing in theaters is We Live In Time, a romantic drama starring Andrew Garfield and Florence Pugh, telling the story of an up-and-coming chef and a recent divorcée who find their lives forever changed when a chance encounter brings them together.
Streaming on Shudder is MadS, a one-take horror movie starring Lewkowski Yovel and Lucille Guillaume, involving a teenager whose night takes a surreal turn when he picks up an injured woman after driving back from seeing his drug dealer.

Reprinted by permission of Whatzup

Column, Midwest Film Journal

Gimme Toro: The Devil’s Backbone

Originally posted on Midwest Film Journal

“History is ultimately an inventory of ghosts.” – Guillermo del Toro

“What is a ghost?” These are the first words we hear a voice ponder at the outset of The Devil’s Backbone, Guillermo del Toro’s breakthrough work that scored him the strongest critical reviews of his career up to that point. As the voiceover continues to consider if a ghost can be “an emotion suspended in time, like a blurred photograph, like an insect trapped in amber,” we understand that del Toro is not setting up a traditional horror movie or ghost story. Set towards the end of the Spanish Civil War, it’s a film that wades in the melancholy generated by senseless violence and the ripple effect of irreversible acts. In keeping with a motif del Toro continues to evoke in his work, human beings in his tales can act more monstrous than the actual monsters (in this case, apparitions) themselves.

We meet young Carlos (Fernando Tielve) as he is taken to an orphanage in the Spanish countryside after his father is killed in action. The orphanage’s headmistress Carmen (Marisa Paredes) is reticent to take on one more child, as they’re already struggling to take care of the orphans in their care already, but the head doctor Casares (Federico Luppi) convinces her to take Carlos in. At first, the orphanage bully Jaime (Íñigo Garcés) is needlessly cruel to Carlos and leaves him alone in the dark after the pair go to fill pitchers of water overnight. It’s here that Carlos first sees the ghost of Santi (Junio Valverde), a boy who died at the orphanage under mysterious circumstances years ago. As the conflict between the loyalists and nationalists rages on outside the confines of the orphanage, the violence threatens to make its way through the gates.

The first drafts of The Devil’s Backbone date back to Guillermo del Toro’s college days in the 1980s, even though the project wasn’t fully realized until many years for its release in 2001. Given this, along with the fact that del Toro felt the need to return to his roots after the commercial failure of 1997’s Mimic, it doesn’t seem a stretch to call The Devil’s Backbone his most personal work. While he wasn’t around in the 1930s when the movie takes place, he did go to an all-male Jesuit school with conditions similar to an orphanage and recalls hearing disembodied voices on the grounds. Much in the way that the audience finds its way into this story through Carlos, del Toro must have found his voice most clearly through the protagonist (who he’s described as a “force of innocence”) as well.

Del Toro also explores a surrogate father role for Carlos by way of the kindly Dr. Casares, who gives him the nickname “Carlitos” and looks out for him when his peers give him a harder time. Whether he’s reciting poetry or listening to music on his phonograph, his gentle disposition is a respite from the harsh realities of Carlos’s world. By comparison, the lead administrator Carmen is much colder and more cynical, burdened by a wooden artificial leg that causes her constant pain. Both supporters of the Republican loyalists, Casares and Carmen speculate on the outcome of the war, with the former characteristically optimistic that the loyalists will triumph and the latter dour about what she perceives as an inevitable victory for the nationalists. When discussing how dispiriting the war’s outcome looks, she laments, “Sometimes, I think that we are the ghosts,” a line that carries unintentional metatextual significance, as The Devil’s Backbone was released the same year as fellow ghost story The Others.

As much as the war is a metaphor for the ghost story and vice versa, The Devil’s Backbone contains several spine-chilling moments that stand on their own. The majority of these are courtesy of Santi, an eerie composite of ghoulish makeup and special effects that are still hauntingly effective more than 20 years later. My favorite detail is how Santi is surrounded by murky particles that aren’t easy to see when he moves but when he stands still, they float and coalesce in a way that calls attention to his ghastly presence. He also has a head wound with blood that slowly trickles up, another clue as to how Santi met his untimely demise. The sight of him is unnerving as is but his voice alone can make the hair on your arm stand on end; his portentous refrain of “many of you will die” tap us into the fear that Carlos feels in his midst.

As scary as Santi is, del Toro makes it clear that Carlos has other threats to his life that aren’t of the otherworldly or supernatural kind. In addition to the cruelty of some of the orphans and the threat of violence from the war, there’s also a groundskeeper (played by Eduardo Noriega) who lashes out at the kids from time to time. When he finds them sneaking around in the basement of a supply house, he grabs Jaime by his hair and viciously chastises them for trespassing. He then cuts Jaime across the cheek and then runs the children off, warning Carlos, “A single word about this and I’ll rip you in half.” Those who have seen Pan’s Labyrinth, which del Toro has called a “spiritual successor” to The Devil’s Backbone, may find parallels between Noriega’s character and the brutal Captain Vidal from that film.

Del Toro masterfully bookends his tale with an expansion on the opening line, musing that in addition to simply being a spirit of the dead, a ghost can also be an embodiment of a past mistake or residual energy of tragic events that replay over and over. We’re also given more context into who is narrating and at what point in time they’re doing so, leading to a powerful denouement and unforgettable final image. The Devil’s Backbone is a pivotal work in del Toro’s career when he found the courage to tell stories his own way.

Reel Views, Review

Joker: Folie à Deux

What do you get when you cross a loosely-adapted comic book movie with a billion dollars at the box office and 11 Oscar nominations? Well, you get Joker: Folie à Deux, a sequel borne not of artistic necessity but of financial potentiality. On paper, it doesn’t seem like a lazy effort; after all, it’s a full-blown musical that spends most of its runtime either in a prison or a courtroom. But it’s clear that director and co-writer Todd Phillips is simply out of his element here. It’s no secret that Phillips borrowed heavily from two Scorsese classics (Taxi Driver and The King Of Comedy) when creating Joker. It’s ironic (or perhaps fitting) that his follow-up seems to track so closely with Scorsese’s New York, New York, a dolefully nostalgic musical so poorly received that it sent the director into a downward spiral. Don’t be surprised if we see a black-and-white boxing epic from Phillips 5 years from now.

It’s two years after the events of Joker and Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix) has been committed to Arkham State Hospital while awaiting trial for the murders he committed. Taking up his case is attorney Maryanne Stewart (Catherine Keener), who plans to argue that Arthur’s crimes were the result of a split personality over which he had no control. The conditions of Arkham are bleak — courtesy of thuggish prison guards like Jackie Sullivan (Brendan Gleeson) — but a bright spot appears in the form of fellow inmate Lee Quinzel (Lady Gaga), whom Arthur meets in music therapy. Despite the unusual circumstances, the pair fall for one another but as the media frenzy around Arthur’s hotly anticipated trial continues the swirl, will their burgeoning bond survive the madness?

To be clear: Joker: Folie à Deux isn’t bad because it’s a musical; it’s bad because it’s not a good musical. Instead of crafting original songs, Todd Phillips opts for standards like the ones Lady Gaga sang with Tony Bennett on the albums they collaborated on before his passing. Obviously the songs are in her wheelhouse and she belts them out well, but Phillips doesn’t even try to stage cogent musical numbers to feature her towering vocals. Understandably, Joaquin Phoenix doesn’t match her vocally but you could make the argument he’s singing “in character” more as Arthur, where Gaga doesn’t register as playing a character during her songs. Aside from a few cheek-to-cheek reveries, the choreography often seems haphazard and almost improvised in the rest of the sequences. The switches to song-and-dance mode often feel perfunctory and there are periods where the film seems embarrassed to admit that it’s a musical.

As underwhelming as Joker: Folie à Deux is as a musical, its ultimate undoing is that it’s a narratively inert courtroom drama as well. Putting Arthur on trial may have seemed like a satisfying narrative arc in theory but for the purposes of this sequel, it anchors its ambitions down with callbacks and reframing of events from the first film. It also puts front and center how little Todd Phillips actually understands or cares about Arthur in the first place; most of the testimony is centered around how awful his character was to people around him in Joker. Borrowing from the “God’s lonely man” mold from the aforementioned Scorsese classics, Phillips was at least able to feign empathy for his central character the first time around but here, he has no idea what to make of him and his actions. This aimlessness affects Joaquin Phoenix’s performance too, whose work here is still passable but not nearly as arresting as it was in his initial Oscar-winning role.

Aside from an opening animated sequence that feels like it’s trying too hard to throw the audience off kilter, the early stretch of Joker: Folie à Deux is its most promising. If the end of Joker positioned the titular rogue as a folk hero for the downtrodden, Folie à Deux provides a sobering counterpoint to infamy with its dispiriting prison sequences. Even though the guard characters are inconsistently written, Phillips reliably hits the prison drama beats with cinematographer Lawrence Sher, returning from Joker with camerawork that’s more claustrophobic than the predecessor but no less compelling. Frankly, someone more talented than Phillips would’ve had more success with this project but since he was never going to turn down the paycheck, why not play to the director’s strengths and make this a road movie? Phillips directed Road Trip, Due Date and three The Hangover films, so why not have Arthur and Lee hit the road like Bonnie and Clyde?

Score – 2/5

Coming to theaters this weekend:
Saturday Night, starring Gabriel LaBelle and Rachel Sennott, is a biopic based on the true story of what happened in the 90 minutes prior to the 1975 premiere of NBC’s debut of Saturday Night Live.
Piece By Piece, starring Pharrell Williams and Morgan Neville, which documents the life and musical career of producer Pharrell Williams, incorporating his faith and expressing his artistry by means of Lego.
Terrifier 3, starring David Howard Thornton and Lauren LaVera, continues the saga of the murderous Art The Clown, as survivors of his Halloween massacre struggle to rebuild their shattered lives during the holiday season.

Reprinted by permission of Whatzup

Reel Views, Review

My Old Ass

In the spring of 2020, popular YouTube comedian Julie Nolke started a sketch series called “Explaining The Pandemic To My Past Self”, in which a version of herself a few months in the future checks in with herself in the past. Being a tumultuous pocket of time, there’s a lot to go over and the comedic conceit is centered around just how much can change in a short period. The new coming-of-age dramedy My Old Ass from writer/director Megan Park, expands this premise out to feature length and in the process, stretches out the amount of time between the two versions of the same person. In doing so, it speaks more broadly to the desire everyone has to use fantastical foresight to have more control over the future of their personal lives. The potential poignancy of the scenario seems like it would be easy to mine for pathos, so it’s strange that this movie fumbles the weightier aspects of its story.

On her 18th birthday, Elliott (Maisy Stella) takes a boat with her friends Ro (Kerrice Brooks) and Ruthie (Maddie Ziegler) to a nearby island, where they plan on celebrating with psychedelic mushrooms. After drinking the spiked tea, Elliott’s friends go off on their own “typical” trips and while Elliott waits for the effects to kick in for her, a future version of herself (played by Aubrey Plaza) appears out of nowhere. Though initially skeptical, teenage Elliott soon feels convinced that she’s not just hallucinating but is actually being reached across time by her future self. After imparting some bits of wisdom about their family and their future career, the 39-year-old version of Elliott gives a vague but stern warning before she disappears to avoid anyone named Chad. Sure enough, a boy named Chad (Percy Hynes White) starts working at Elliott’s family’s cranberry farm and she has to decide whether to ignore her own advice or pursue a relationship with him.

One of My Old Ass‘s major miscalculations is in sidelining Aubrey Plaza for the majority of the movie, as younger and older Elliott primarily spend the story communicating via phone by voice or text. Even though they don’t look especially similar to one another, Plaza and Maisy Stella have a fun rapport with one another and I’m not sure why Megan Park doesn’t feature them on-screen together much. Oddly, Maddie Ziegler’s character isn’t present much in the film either, a shame since Park directed her and Jenna Ortega to great effect — drastically different subject material aside — in her previous feature The Fallout. Stella and Percy Hynes White certainly have enough chemistry to make the romantic thrust of the narrative work but there isn’t much about watching their mutual crush develop that feels unique to this movie.

Outside of the relationship between Elliott and Chad, Park also spends time fleshing out Elliott’s relationship with her family, particularly her mom and her younger brother (played by Maria Dizzia and Seth Isaac Johnson, respectively). While the screenplay does its best to imbue these bonding moments with heartfelt meaning, the sentiment just doesn’t land as well as it does in other coming-of-age tales like Dìdi from just a couple months ago. Where that film had a distinct sense of time and place that directs the protagonist’s evolution, My Old Ass grasps at millennial touchstones with era-specific music cues and a flashback sequence evoking a mid-aughts pop music heartthrob. It’s a cute scene but it doesn’t ultimately tell us much about the character or why this particular memory is important to her.

Despite this, My Old Ass is amiable enough and with a runtime under 90 minutes, it certainly doesn’t outstay its welcome. There are nuggets of wisdom to be found about the passage of time and how Gen Z is dealing with growing up. My favorite scene involves Elliott confessing to Ro that she has a crush on Chad, when she’s previously only seemed to be interested in pursuing relationships with girls. The pacing of the conversation is considered but comedically compelling all the same; Ro reminds her that she told her to use labels when they’re useful but to ditch them when they no longer feel useful. I wish Megan Park was able to string more scenes like this one together to give the kick My Old Ass in the pants it needed to make a bigger impact.

Score – 2.5/5

New movies coming this weekend:
Coming to theaters is Joker: Folie à Deux, a musical thriller starring Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga, which finds the protagonist of Joker institutionalized while awaiting trial for his crimes and falling crazy in love with a fellow inmate.
Also playing in theaters is White Bird, a coming-of-age period drama starring Ariella Glaser and Orlando Schwerdt, about a troubled young student who is struggling to fit in at his new school after being expelled for his treatment of a disfigured student at his previous school.
Streaming on Netflix is It’s What’s Inside, a horror comedy starring Brittany O’Grady and James Morosini, following a group of friends who gather for a pre-wedding party that descends into an existential nightmare when an estranged friend arrives with a mysterious game that awakens long-hidden secrets, desires, and grudges.

Reprinted by permission of Whatzup

Reel Views, Review

The Substance

If the body horror subgenre has a guiding principle, it’s in the terror of our infinite consciousness being inextricably tethered to malleable mortal flesh. Most films in the category find humans attempting to circumvent their natural form and being punished in gruesome ways for their transgression. The Substance, the provocative new satire from writer/director Coralie Fargeat, abides by this thesis — “you can’t escape from yourself,” as a sinister voice on the phone warns at one point — but pushes the subgenre into thrilling new territory by taking on the beauty industry and the impossible standards society places on women. In the protagonist’s quest for physical perfection, imagery is evoked that isn’t merely ugly but downright horrifying. It’s as gnarly a parable about self-acceptance as you’re likely to see this year, or any other year, for that matter.

The opening shot of The Substance makes it clear that the star of Elisabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore) is fading. As the cracks of her respective Hollywood Walk of Fame emblem have manifested over the years, she too finds the passage of time difficult to take when her long-running aerobic TV show is canceled on her 50th birthday. After a car accident, she learns of a mysterious serum known as “The Substance”, which promises Elisabeth a “younger and better version” of herself. Upon first injection, a new being is birthed out of Elisabeth’s spinal column, a younger counterpart who chooses the name Sue (Margaret Qualley) and shares Elisabeth’s interest in sexualized fitness routines. Sue parlays with Elisabeth’s skeezy TV producer Harvey (Dennis Quaid) and she seems to be well on her way to stardom but there’s a catch: the regimen for The Substance dictates that Sue and Elisabeth switch bodies every week.

Inevitably, this protocol is abused and the equilibrium between Elisabeth and Sue is irrevocably thrown off. The temptation of staying in Sue’s body beyond the week-long timeframe proves too great and the results become dire in short order. It’s difficult to pick a favorite stretch of The Substance, easily one of 2024’s finest, but the initial fracturing of Elisabeth and Sue’s journeys provides the film’s most biting commentary. While Sue spends her week titillating viewers with her new show Pump It Up, Elisabeth desperately grasps for fulfillment through overindulging on junk food. She even accepts a date with a high school acquaintance who is, frankly, not nearly as good-looking as she is, but thanks to the humongous Sue-featuring billboard outside her window, Elisabeth spirals into debilitating insecurity. It’s a heartbreaking scene and Demi Moore pulls it off perfectly.

If The Substance was primarily just scenes where we’re asked to have sympathy for Elisabeth, Moore would already be doing the best work of her career but what puts this over the top is how much more is asked of her. At the outset, she has to sidestep the grotesque behavior of demeaning male executives who no longer see her as relevant and by the end, she steps into corporal grotesqueries that are best for viewers to experience for themselves. To an extent, I imagine Moore brought personal experience from aging in Hollywood to this role and it requires so much vulnerability and rawness to make the narrative cohere. It’s as compelling and committed a lead performance as I’ve seen all year and my hope is that Moore is in talks for Best Actress when Oscar season kicks in.

Following up her brutal debut Revenge, Coralie Fargeat demonstrates impeccable control over a story that could go terribly wrong in the hands of someone who wasn’t as passionately intelligent about the material. She’s making a movie that is, in large part, about the female form but the nudity is clinical and considered in the way that Jonathan Glazer was for 2013’s Under The Skin. The sexually-charged imagery is intentionally over-the-top and draws attention to the futility of pursuing physical perfection, as Margaret Qualley herself is performing with prosthetic enhancements. Fargeat also tips her hat to a handful of classics, with liminal spaces right out of The Shining and a pivotal music cue from Vertigo, another movie that involves female doppelgängers under intense male scrutiny. The Substance is a shot in the arm for those who have been bored by recent horror offerings.

Score – 4.5/5

New movies coming this weekend:
Coming to theaters is The Wild Robot, an animated sci-fi film starring Lupita Nyong’o and Pedro Pascal, about an intelligent robot who is stranded on an uninhabited island after a shipwreck and subsequently bonds with the island’s animals.
Also playing only in theaters is Megalopolis, an epic science fiction movie starring Adam Driver and Giancarlo Esposito, centering around an idealist architect in a decaying city, who is granted a license by the federal government to demolish and rebuild the city as a sustainable utopia.
Streaming on Paramount+ is Apartment 7A, a psychological thriller starring Julia Garner and Dianne Wiest, involving a struggling dancer who finds herself drawn into dark forces by a peculiar couple promising her fame in 1960s New York.

Reprinted by permission of Whatzup

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