Tag: 2018

[31 Days of Horror Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan] Day 21 – Into the Dark: The Body (2018)

Director: Paul Davis
Cast: Tom Bateman, Rebecca Rittenhouse, Aurora Perrineau, David Hull, Ray Santiago, Harvey Guillen, Max Adler
Screenplay: Paul Fischer, Paul Davis
83 mins. Rated TV-MA.

You can never count out Blumhouse for trying new things. Back in 2018, the genre studio tried an interesting film experiment. They began a series on Hulu of horror films, released on a monthly basis, timed for a specific holiday or event during that month, and with a wide array of filmmakers behind the lens. I missed a good chunk of them as they released (due to just too many other film reviews that required my attention), and the two that I did see were a little on the underwhelming side of things, but I’m going to change that by jumping in now that the series of films, 24 in total, has come to an end. Let’s jump into that first film, promptly set on Halloween, called The Body.

It’s Halloween night, and cynical hitman Wilkes (Tom Bateman, Murder on the Orient Express, Cold Pursuit) has just taken out another target. Now, he has to transport the plastic-wrapped body, but Halloween is the perfect time to do so, as everyone around Wilkes believes it to be part of his costume. As Wilkes avoids catching the eye of police, he runs into a group of youths looking to make an entrance at their Halloween party, and things seem to be coming together…until they figure out that the body is real.

The opening to this film promises a rather morbid and jaded little genre thriller featuring a pessimistic killer trying to remain out the spotlight. It’s a great concept and a killer of an opening sequence that calls back to the classic Universal horror movies while pushing forward with its interesting tone. I liked the idea that we were following Wilkes as an unlikable but interesting protagonist as he tries to remain unseen but gets caught up in everyone else’s night.

The problem is that we spend too little with Wilkes as he gets involved with the partygoers. Once the film switches gears into Wilkes being an antagonist and us rooting for them, I lost it. The concept of following the hitman had a strange interest to it, like the classic episode of Nightmares & Dreamscapes, Battleground, following a hitman as he deals with little toy soldiers that have come to life intent on killing him. When you do a movie about a hitman, you can have a little fun with the silliness that comes with the concept. The idea of this guy dragging a body around all night was initially quite exciting, but the movie doesn’t spend time there, immediately choosing to involve some annoying party people that are nothing more than fodder. We should’ve followed Wilkes from moment one as he maneuvered through the bustling city streets with a plastic-wrapped corpse in tow.

Once I learned that this was the direction of the movie, I buckled in, and it was mostly entertaining even though it passed up some great territory for something a little more akin to a mixture of The Purge and any classic slasher film. It was enjoyable, but most of the characters outside of Wilkes were rather one-note (classic slasher, am I right?) and just there for extra gore-padding. I was initially interested in Maggie (Rebecca Rittenhouse, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Unfriended: Dark Web), a young woman who teams up with Wilkes, interested in his killing ways, but she became very predictable, and I knew exactly where her character would end up (and I was right).

All in all, if you temper your expectations, The Body is an interesting and somewhat entertaining start to Into the Dark. It’s got a great idea that gets a little more generic as the film goes on, but it’s not the worst way to spend 80 minutes, though get prepared for predictability as you go on.

3/5
-Kyle A. Goethe

0

Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald (2018)

Director: David Yates

Cast: Eddie Redmayne, Katherine Waterston, Dan Fogler, Alison Sudol, Ezra Miller, Zoe Kravitz, Callum Turner, Claudia Kim, William Nadylam, Kevin Guthrie, Jude Law, Johnny Depp

Screenplay: J.K. Rowling

134 mins. Rated PG-13 for some sequences of fantasy action.

 

Let’s talk everyone’s favorite Wizarding World Film, The Crimes of Grindelwald…wait, people don’t like this one? Well, we’re still going to talk about it.

It’s 1927, and the evil and radical wizard Grindelwald (Johnny Depp, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, Sherlock Gnomes) has escaped custody while being transferred to Europe to be tried for his many villainous crimes. Some time after, Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne, Les Miserables, The Aeronauts), unable to get past his international travel ban, is tasked by Albus Dumbledore (Jude Law, The Talented Mr. Ripley, Sherlock Gnomes: A Game of Shadows) to find Credence Barebone (Ezra Miller, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Justice League), who is shockingly still alive, and save him from the grips of Grindelwald. Lots of other stuff happens too.

This movie’s biggest problem is that is has no real discernible plot by the end of it. Yes, it all comes down to the search for Credence, but there’s too much other stuff happening in this film to keep focus on the main plot. It just gets lost in all that. I’ve seen the film several times and even I have trouble relaying the plot to people who ask about it. There are all these elements in the film that seemingly have no impact on the central plot…yet. Granted, this is a film that may be a lot better when seen in context of the entire series once it’s finished, but it shouldn’t have to be. Each of the Harry Potter films and even the first Fantastic Beasts have been able to stand on their own in some capacity, so even though a lot of individual elements of the movie work, it doesn’t fit together all that well.

The Crimes of Grindelwald has some truly great elements, though. For example, the returning cast is incredible. I love Eddie Redmayne as Newt Scamander, and he’s great here. I wish we had more time with the main four together again because Katherine Waterston is great here, as is both Dan Fogler and Alison Sudol as Jacob and Queenie.

I also was so surprised by Johnny Depp as Grindelwald. I was initially hesitant to see Depp enter the Wizarding World, but I think what we get from him as a villain here is interesting and exciting, but again, I just wanted more. His interactions with his followers and enemies, and specifically in the films finale, are so powerful.

There are some cool creature designs and magical elements to the film, but as with everything else in this movie, there just aren’t enough of these elements in a bloated film. Too much stuff jammed into not enough movie.

Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald is a mess of a movie, but there are still things I really liked in the movie. The ideas are there, but J.K. Rowling was not capably able to make a film that works on its own as well as part of a larger story. So many pieces of this movie could have worked in a stronger shell of a film. The extended cut fixes some of the problems, but not enough to completely save the movie. They need to fix the franchise with a simpler follow-up with the next film, and they need to focus on the few things that worked here.

 

2.5/5

-Kyle A. Goethe

 

 

For my review of David Yates’s Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, click here.

For my review of Chris Columbus’s Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, click here.

For my review of Chris Columbus’s Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, click here.

 

0

[#2020oscardeathrace] In the Absence (2018)

Director: Seung-jun Yi

28 mins. Not Rated.

  • Academy Award Nominee: Best Documentary Short Subject [PENDING]

 

In the Absence is a short film chronicling the disaster of the South Korean ferry, Sewol, which, in 2014, sank nearby Jeju Island. Presented through real footage, texts from passengers aboard, real phone calls and phone call transcripts, and interviews with people involved, In the Absence is a haunting look at this true disaster and loss of life that very easily could have been lessened.

This is a haunting short film, and I struggled to get through it without chucking something at my television screen. Seeing the disaster play out across the initial days and following months while government officials continually made poor choices that worsened the situation is absolutely sickening. This is a hard-hitting piece of documentary film-making that says so much in such a small run-time.

In the Absence is a truly effective little short that hit me very hard. I learned a lot about a situation I knew very little about, and the time I spent was frustratingly powerful. I cannot recommend this one enough. Seek it out and be changed.

 

5/5

-Kyle A. Goethe

0

[31 Days of Horror Part VI: Jason Lives] Day 18 – The Perfection (2018)

Director: Richard Shepard

Cast: Allison Williams, Logan Browning, Steven Weber, Alaina Huffman

Screenplay: Eric C. Charmelo, Richard Shepard, Nicole Snyder

90 mins. Rated TV-MA.

 

I had virtually no knowledge of the plot of The Perfection before viewing it. It was a benefit, so I’m going to be very surface-level in my description.

The Perfection revolves around famed cellist Charlotte (Allison Williams, Get Out, TV’s Girls), who has taken some time away from her talent to care for her dying mother, as she goes to Shanghai to see the charismatic and gifted music teacher Anton (Steven Weber, The Shining, TV’s 13 Reasons Why). There, she meets Lizzie (Logan Browning, Bratz, TV’s Dear White People) and the two end up having sex in Lizzie’s hotel room. The next day, Charlotte joins Lizzie on a vacation through China but as they begin their journey, it seems that things are not as they appear, and Charlotte and Lizzie find everything they know falling off the rails in a series of escalating horrors. I’ll leave it at that.

This movie is bonkers in all the right ways. My best advice is to not try to pick it apart and guess where it’s going because I don’t think you’ll be able to. It’s best just to take the mental mind fuck and roll with it. Director Richard Shepard (The Matador, Don Hemingway) crafts a tightly-packed and constantly evolving horror/thriller that kept me guessing the whole time. This film, like any good film or onion, has a lot of layers, and peeling them away was a great movie experience.

Allison Williams and Logan Browning are both great in the movie. Williams is more the lead than Browning but each is given plenty of opportunity to shine. Their performances as each layer is peeled away in the narrative was exhilarating to watch, and their chemistry was sizzling. Both actresses are steamy as hell whenever they appear onscreen together, my TV practically fogged up.

Not all the surprises worked as well as I’d have liked, but they were definitely unexpected and made me want to watch the film again, and though it doesn’t have the same level of interest on the second viewing, it’s still a damn fine mystery for the viewers.

The Perfection is an arty horror/thriller with plenty of surprises in store as long as you’re paying close enough attention. I really liked it on first viewing but it isn’t, for me, as strong once you know the whole mystery. Led by two amazing actresses and anchored by another standout supporting role from the criminally underrated Steven Weber, The Perfection is damn fun and damn shocking. Not a perfect film (almost no film is, right), but good enough to warrant your attention.

 

4/5

-Kyle A. Goethe

 

 

For more 31 Days of Horror, click here.

0

[31 Days of Horror Part VI: Jason Lives] Day 16 – The Field Guide to Evil (2018)

Director: Ashim Ahluwalia, Can Evrenol, Severin Fiala, Veronika Franz, Katrin Gebbe, Calvin Reeder, Agnierzka Smoczynska, Peter Strickland, Yannis Veslemes

Cast: Birgit Minichmayr, Claude Duhamel, Jilon VanOver, Fatma Mohamed, Niharika Singh

Screenplay: Roberto Bolesto, Elif Domanic, Can Evrenol, Severin Fiala, Veronika Franz, Katrin Gebbe, Calvin Reeder, Peter Strickland, Yannis Veslemes, Silvia Wolkan

117 mins. Rated R for disturbing and violent content, bloody images, sexual material, graphic nudity, and language.

 

I’m seriously not doing this on purpose, but today we’re talking about yet another horror anthology film.

The Field Guide to Evil features eight stories from nine directors from different parts of the world. The Sinful Women of Hollfall is about monsters born of a strong guilt. Haunted by Al Karisi, the Childbirth Djinn tells the story of a demon that steals children and takes on the form of animals and old women. The Kindler and the Virgin is about a man who consumes human hearts to gain knowledge. Beware the Melonheads features violent cannibals reminiscent of The Hills Have Eyes. What Ever Happened to Panagas the Pagan? is a Christmas reversal about a demon taken captive. Palace of Horrors features a story of a man searching for curiosities to serve in a circus. A Nocturnal Breath is another spiritual possession tale. The Cobblers’ Lot is an adaptation of a classic story of two brothers competing for a woman’s love.

So let’s be clear here. These are all quite well made technically. I just didn’t like any of them. There’s not a single one that I think is great or even rewatchable. The best one, to me, is Palace of Horrors because it feels like it is heading somewhere magnificent before heading off the rails. My biggest qualm of each of these stories is relatively the same. Each story seemingly sets itself up well, they all look terrific, and then each one feels like it’s heading somewhere cool, and then they all fail to end on a high note. Each ending sours the entire story.

Unfortunately, The Field Guide to Evil is a complete flop, and I really wanted to love this one. I love the worldwide flavor that an anthology gives, but this one doesn’t do it for me. I really wanted it to be good. I really hoped it would be, but it doesn’t work.

 

1.5/5

-Kyle A. Goethe

 

 

For more 31 Days of Horror, click here.

1

The Biggest Little Farm (2018)

Director: John Chester

Cast: John Chester, Molly Chester

Screenplay: John Chester, Mark Monroe

91 mins. Rated PG for mild thematic elements.

 

The Biggest Little Farm is a documentary about John and Molly Chester, husband and wife who, along with their dog Todd, move onto 200 acres with an attempt to create a farm that is completely self-sufficient. The film is a moving tapestry on the collective complexity and balance of the nature all around us as John, Molly, and Todd try to overcome the numerous obstacles surrounding their endeavor.

If you have seen The Biggest Little Farm’s trailer, then you will know what the movie is like. The trailer sells it quite well. The documentary is a tough but informative viewpoint of a very difficult journey. I saw this family come to their breaking points in the search to be self-sufficient. I learned a lot about waste and the farm life and the difficulties of providing for oneself. It’s a powerful look at this lifestyle, seen on the grandest of scales.

It’s also the story of a family and their dog. Todd is integral to the film, and he is the emotional backbone driving the story. The way John and Molly view their pet as a child that they are unwilling to part with (the driving force of starting a farm is their neighbor’s complaints about barking) drives the central narrative forward with heart.

It’s also maybe a little too unremarkable from a filmmaking standpoint. The animation used to string the film together is rather dull, and the plot does get rather monotonous as problems stack up and solutions are troublingly tough to find. I guess that’s the point, but the film does feel about 20 minutes too long by the end of it.

The Biggest Little Farm is not the most impressive documentary ever made from a technical standpoint, but it also doesn’t really need to be as it tackles an important issue and an interesting story. I love when docs can pull me into a world I know nothing about and teach me without making me feel like I’m being taught. This was a sweet story that may be a little too long but is still quite worth it.

 

3.5/5

-Kyle A. Goethe

1

Gloria Bell (2018)

Director: Sebastían Lelio

Cast: Julianne Moore, John Turturro, Michael Cera, Caren Pistorius, Brad Garrett, Jeanne Tripplehorn, Rita Wilson, Sean Astin, Holland Taylor, Chris Mulkey

Screenplay: Alice Johnson Boher, Sebastían Lelio

102 mins. Rated R for sexuality, nudity, language and some drug use.

 

Gloria Bell isn’t exactly a movie for me, but I found the trailer quite intriguing. I adore Julianne Moore (The Hours, Bel Canto), but part of me will always assume a movie about aging will be terrible. After all, so many of them are, and it wouldn’t have shocked me if Gloria Bell had taken a similar track. Thank God that didn’t happen.

Gloria Bell (Moore) is an divorcee in LA who spends many a night out at the nightclubs for older ladies and gentlemen, clubs that play songs from a more youthful time in Gloria’s life. Gloria seems very unsure of herself when she meets another divorcee, Arnold (John Turturro, Barton Fink, The Big Lebowski), and is quite taken with him. As the two form a budding and affectionate relationship, though, Gloria starts to learn some strange pieces of information about Arnold and she wonders if the two have as close a connection as she is hoping for.

The film is, at its core, an emotionally powerful character piece about a woman searching for love of herself again and love for life. As I watched her in the nightclub scenes early in the film, you can see she is feeling herself in the music but not really letting loose or freeing herself up to it. She knows she loves it, and she loves a great deal of life, but after becoming single again and losing her children to their own respective journeys, Gloria is merely asking an important question: is there a point in starting over now?

This emotionally arresting character arc is made by Julianne Moore’s award-worthy portrayal. For someone like me, who may not truly understand this part of her journey as I haven’t had to experience it, I was taken in by her subtle and nuanced performance. There are layers to the way Gloria uses her line of sight in the film. I kept following Moore’s eyes as she examined the world around her, and I was enthralled by it.

The film, directed by Sebastían Lelio (A Fantastic Woman, Disobedience), remade from an earlier film of his, is a little by-the-numbers, and without a strong central cast, it may not have worked as well, but Lelio is very collaborative with his performers, and that may stand as to why the movie works. He has a vision that is palatable across languages and cultures, and he understands character, and that’s what makes Gloria Bell such an interesting character.

Gloria Bell works because of a director who lets his performers perform and doesn’t offer a ton of flair and a central performance that should not be underestimated. While the story is less memorable that it should be, it’s the journey of its lead that carries the audience, supported by a truly incredible cast that help Moore shine. This is worth checking out if you missed it and need a little self-love.

 

3.5/5

-Kyle A. Goethe

0

ReMastered: Who Shot the Sheriff? (2018)

Director: Kief Davidson

Cast: Bob Marley

57 mins. Not Rated.

 

ReMastered is a monthly music-themed docuseries on Netflix. The first of these documentaries, directed by Kief Davidson (The Ivory Game, Bending the Arc), examines the mysterious shooting of Bob Marley and the possible CIA connection.

For me, Who Shot the Sheriff? doesn’t really scratch the surface of this mystery. They make some interesting claims, but I didn’t feel like they got anywhere deeper than surface-level assumptions based around conspiracy theory without any real discoveries. That’s the real failure of the documentary. I was very interested in the portions of Bob Marley’s life from a purely biographical aspect, but the mystery of the shooting is essentially a non-story based on the doc.

The doc should have focused more on the power of Marley’s music and the effect he had on so many. It spends some time on this portion in the doc but not enough. The power and effect of his music and presence is where the documentary is at its absolute best.

Who Shot the Sheriff? is a so-so documentary. I don’t think the film really knows what it wants to do. It plays itself as a mystery, but it never really delves any deeper into it. This one isn’t worth it for anyone outside of Marley super-fans.

 

2/5

-Kyle A. Goethe

0

[Early Review] Greta (2018)

Director: Neil Jordan

Cast: Isabelle Huppert, Chloe Grace Moretz, Maika Monroe, Colm Feore, Stephen Rea

Screenplay: Ray Wright, Neil Jordan

98 mins. Rated R for some violence and disturbing images.

 

I was told by a pretty reputable colleague who had caught Greta at TIFF last year that I needed to see it when it hit theaters, and earlier this week, I was given that opportunity. I didn’t realize that the film was directed by Neil Jordan (The Crying Game, Byzantium) until the credits started to roll, which raised my expectations considerably, but I did not expect the seasoned director to turn in something quite like Greta.

When Frances McCullen (Chloe Grace Moretz, Let Me In, Suspiria) finds a purse left behind on the subway, she makes a point to do the right thing and drop it off with its owner, a woman named Greta Hideg (Isabelle Huppert, Elle, Eva). Upon meeting the older widow, Frances begins a friendship with her until she discovers that Greta has a number of secrets. She’s a very lonely woman and Frances isn’t able to cut ties with her very easily. As the cat-and-mouse game spirals out of control, Frances finds that Greta isn’t ready to let go.

Let me be clear: Greta is a little cheesy. There are elements of it that fall into cliché. After leaving the film, I began to think more about the nature of the characters and I found a couple of plot holes I couldn’t wrap my head around. But all that didn’t really matter to me. The film sets out to tell a creepy stalker thriller, and it succeeds.

Director Jordan propels himself out of these problems by keeping the runtime as tight as possible. There’s only a moment or two toward the end of the film where the pacing struggles, but there’s no time to think as he rockets the narrative forward.

He’s also placed confidence in his leads. Moretz and Huppert are on fire as they match wits onscreen. Huppert’s Greta turns from a sweet older woman into a mild annoyance before evolving into a menacing terror. Seriously, I had my hands shaking during some of the more intense and tightly plotted scenes. Jordan’s film oozes with tension in large part to Huppert’s performance.

Greta’s filled out nicely with solid performances from Maika Monroe (It Follows, Tau) as Frances’s friend Erica, a woman who is a bit more focused on fun than fear, Colm Feore (Chicago, TV’s The Umbrella Academy) as Frances’s father, who is attempting to rebuild a relationship with his daughter after the loss of his wife, and especially the terrific turn from Stephen Rea (V for Vendetta, Black ’47) as the private investigator who is hired to find out more. It’s amazing how much Rea can do with so little screentime.

Greta is pure cheese at times, but I didn’t mind it because I was so entranced and tense during my experience in the theater. The trailers give away a bit too much but overall, this is a very fun and creepy stalker thriller that kept my nerves tight the entire time. I highly recommend seeing this one in the theater this weekend.

 

4/5

-Kyle A. Goethe

 

 

For my review of Neil Jordan’s Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles, click here.

1

[#2019oscardeathrace] Free Solo (2018)

Director: Jimmy Chin, Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi

Cast: Alex Honnold, Tommy Caldwell, Jimmy Chin, Sanni McCandless

100 mins. Rated PG-13 for brief strong language.

  • Academy Award Nominee: Best Documentary Feature [Pending]

 

I’ll be honest. I had no idea what the term Free Solo meant before I saw this movie.

Free Solo is the documentary covering Alex Honnold’s unprecedented climb of El Capitan Wall in Yosemite. The climb, over 3,000 feet high, was completed without ropes or any safety gear at all, hence the term Free Solo. That means is Alex were to slip or fall, he’s a dead man. A documentary crew followed him on this incredible trek, a dangerous idea adding more stress to the climb.

I’ll put it as simply as I can: Free Solo is one of the most intense and exhilarating experiences I have had in the theater in quite some time. Everything leading up to the big event is shown with such gorgeously captivating cinematography. There were times I felt a little light-headed because you feel like you are up there with Alex. That’s the magic of this cinematic experience. Directors Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi (Meru) depict this insane sport and the toll it has on those around the climbers. They took me on the climb with them. I felt like a fly on the wall.

I really liked what time they spent diving into Alex’s childhood leading to his decision to become a climber and, eventually, a free solo climber, but I do wish we got some more of that in the film. It’s my one nitpick because I really wanted to study the mind of these daredevils and what makes them do what they do. The surface is merely scratched in the film, and I would have liked more.

The most centralized relationship in the film is between Alex and girlfriend Sanni, and it’s really nicely detailed. I felt for her as she tried to reach him and make him understand what this sport was doing to her, and it’s a great emotional argument of the film.

Free Solo’s striking visuals and its intense personal story is a powerful combination, making it one of the strongest documentary features of the year. I feel bad for you if you missed this one in IMAX, but seek it out when you can and experience this incredible feat for yourself.

 

4.5/5

-Kyle A. Goethe

0

Blog at WordPress.com.

Up ↑