Unlike his successors, The Tonight Show during the Johnny Carson era really
was a show for everyone. He regularly featured jazz musicians, like Buddy Rich
and Joe Williams, as well as opera singers and classical musicians. It was hard
to compete against his broadly based appeal, so his fictional second-place
rival, Jack Delroy will try something desperate. Of course, horror fans know it
will be a bad idea to invite a demonically possessed girl as a live studio
guest, but he does it anyway in director-screenwriter-tandem Cameron &
Colin Cairnes’s Late Night with the Devil, which opens in theaters this
Friday.
In
the 1970s, Delroy quickly became a strong second-place late night talk show host,
but lately his show has been stagnating. Even the burst of sympathy that followed
his beloved wife’s death was not enough to challenge Carson. Lately, the show
has gotten somewhat Jerry Springer-ish. However, this special Halloween show
will take it to a whole new level. In addition to Christou the psychic, Delroy
has invited Lilly D’Abo, a girl who allegedly carries a demon inside her.
Thanks to author and parapsychologist Dr. June Ross-Mitchell, she supposedly has
control over the evil entity trying to possess her.
To
add further stress, Carmichael Haig, formerly Carmichael the Conjurer, a former
magician turned paranormal debunker (clearly inspired by James “The Amazing”
Randi) is also invited to be the obnoxious voice of skepticism. Right, what
could possibly go wrong?
Essentially,
Late Night is a found footage film, showing the chaotic events as
recorded by the show’s cameras, including the live feed during commercials.
However, it does not feel like found footage. Instead, it is more like watching
a “real” movie. The art and production direction are incredible. This is a
crazy horror film, but it still manages to inspire nostalgia for the
couch-sitting talk shows of the era. Delroy’s backstory, as a member of a
reputed ritualistic “old boy’s” club adds even further dimensions of sinister
intrigue.
Some jobs are supposed to be boring or you are not doing them right. Late-night
security guards are a good example. That is what Tom does for a living and he
does it really badly. He starts to hatch all sorts of suspicions during the
long nights he works at a 24-hour storage facility in director-screenwriter Max
Neace’s Shift, which screens as part of the 2024 Cinequest.
Tom
is a loser, who wants a job that will help him embrace his loserness. Your
Storage in Washington Park, Chicago looks like just the ticket. His boss Hal seems
a bit shifty, so to speak, but it is hard for Tom to pin down exactly how.
Aside from a little mopping, Tom can just sit on the creaky office chair Hal
dubbed “Grace Kelly” and watch the security monitors. Since it is the late
1990s, he does not have a smart phone to distract himself. Instead, he listens
to Iris Keen, a DJ, who combines true crime talk with soul and adult
contemporary.
Being
relatively conscientious, Tom notices one of the cameras has slipped out of
position. It happens to cover the unit rented by Mr. and Mrs. Jones, two of
their regular customers. That is suspiciously convenient, because Tom knows he
saw Mrs. Jones bring a younger man into the Your Storage one night, but he
never saw him left.
As
Tom’s voyeuristic paranoia escalates, Grace Kelly offers her commentary like a
sarcastic Greek chorus. Yes, the chair talks, via silent subtitles. It might
sound questionably eccentric, but the subtitles are unobtrusive and they are
often archly droll. Frankly, “she” is funny enough to earn Shift a lot
of extra goodwill.
There is a reason Putin thought he could get away with invading Ukraine. It is
because Russia already got away with sabotaging a democratically elected
government in Georgia. Zviad Gamsakhurdia was elected Georgia’s first president
with 87% of the vote. Less than a year later, he was toppled in a coup
orchestrated by former Communists and street thugs. Filmmakers Elene Asatiani
and Soso Dumbadze show it going down in real-time, through primary video
sources foraged from the internet in the documentary, Limitation, which
screens during this year’s First Look.
It
starts out triumphant and full of hope, as Gamsakhurdia’s campaign smoothly
segues into a victory lap. Yet, simultaneously, the anti-democratic elements
immediately started demonstrating on the streets, with a vehemence that quickly
crossed over into violence. Western critics argued Gamsakhurdia’s nationalist
rhetoric was not sufficiently inclusive towards non-ethnic Georgian minorities,
but you do not hear any such arguments from the Russian-backed
coup-instigators.
Eventually,
Gamsakhurdia and his supporters barricade themselves in a government building,
eerily paralleling the 1993 Russian coup attempt, but the results were
different. All the footage was apparently recorded by eye-witnesses and
bystanders, but two clips feature “behind-the-scenes” footage of Western
journalists, recorded by third parties, rather than their camera crews. ABC’s
Sheila Kast gets credit for asking the putsch-promoters a tough question, but
Christiane Amanpour largely peppers Gamsakhurdia with “your-detractors-charge-you-with-this”
style questions, basically recycling their propaganda.
Poor Dounia desperately misses her father. You can blame Iran and Putin for
that, because they enabled and encouraged the carnage Assad unleashed on his
own country, particularly her hometown (as seen in her first film, Dounia:
The Princess of Aleppo). Fortunately, Dounia and her grandparents found
safe refuge in Quebec, where they have been largely welcomed by their new
northern provincial community. Her mother died in Syria, but they still hope to
be reunited with her father, whose fate remains unknown at the start of Marya
Zarif & Andre Kadi’s Dounia: The Great White North, which screens
during the 2024 New York International Children’s Film Festival.
Dounia
and her grandparents never come out and say it, but it seems like they find it
weird that they must learn French after coming to Canada. Hopefully, the local
version of identity politics-tribalism never turns violent, because Dounia’s
family has seen more than enough of that.
Dounia
forged a fast friendship with Rosalie, the girl next-door, who also happens to
be the daughter of the school teacher. Even though she is starting to fit,
Dounia worries constantly over her missing father, so their classmate Miguizou
introduces them to her grandmother, whose Atikamekw wisdom might help the Dounia’s
spirit animal guide her father to sub-Arctic Quebec. That might sound like a
longshot, but this is a fable, not an expose or a white-paper report.
The
Great White North is
also a quickie, clocking in just under an hour, making it highly appropriate
for the under-10-year-old target demo. The animation might be a bit simple for
serious connoisseurs of the medium, but it captures the look and feel illustrated
children’s books.
If you wonder what a Pax Putania might be like, look at the Caucasus.
Spoiler alert: it isn’t very peaceful. Despite its security pact with Russia,
Armenia was routed by Azerbaijan, a more “allied” Russian ally, during the 2020
fighting over Nagorno-Karabakh. Most of the breakaway Artsakh region were
Armenian speakers who more readily identified with Armenia, which makes Russian
pretenses for invading Ukraine even more hypocritical. Tragically, Shoghakat
Vardanyan’s brother Soghomon was a casualty of the conflict. Perhaps even more
cruelly, Soghomon’s fate remained unknown when his sister picked up a camera
and started documenting the family’s Kafkaesque anguish in 1489, which
screens during this year’s First Look.
Soghomon
Vardanyan was a musician, not a fighter, but he answered his nation’s call.
Unfortunately, Armenia will be forced to accept humiliating terms after their
military defeat. Vardanyan and her parents have few illusions, because they
know Soghomon’s unit was nearly decimated in a disastrous engagement. They
still try to hold onto some hope, but they feel mixed emotions when the body
they are summoned to identify turns out to be another false alarm.
1489
(titled
after an identification number related to Vardanyan’s brother) is a quiet,
intimate long-take film. Intuitively, Vardanyan develops the sort of embedded
documentary filmmaking techniques Wang Bing has perfected over a two-decade
span. She captures some heart-breaking family drama, while also participating
in it.
They did it the hard way, which was the right way and the American way. The
100th U.S. Army Air Force Bombardment Division flew in broad
daylight, carefully bombing legitimate military targets. As a result, they
suffered tremendously high mortality rates. In contrast, British Bomber Command
flew night missions, largely dropping their payloads anywhere in the vicinity of
large urban areas. You can directly compare the Hundredth’s conduct during WWII
to that of the IDF’s today, conscientiously striving to minimize civilian
casualties, despite the elevated risks for their own. The Hundredth’s service
and heroism have been dramatized in the amazing nine-part series Masters of the Air. In addition to the concluding episode, Laurent Bouzereau &
Mark Herzog’s one-hour companion documentary, The Bloody Hundredth also
premieres today on Apple TV+.
Sadly,
neither Maj. Gale “Buck” Cleven or Maj. John “Bucky” Egan, the two most
prominent Airmen featured in Masters of the Air, are still with us. However,
Robert “Rosie” Rosenthal and Harry Crosby, who also played significant roles in
the series, discuss their wartime experiences at length.
The
veterans of the 100th make a critical point that is not readily
apparent from the series. The skeleton of the famous B17 consisted of aluminum
rather than steel, so any kind of ordinance would cut right through it. They
took a lot of fire and a lot of flak—and did not always live to talk about it.
Bloody
Hundredth provides
a concise but descriptive recap of the missions chronicled in the series. At
times the scenes of aerial combat are so impressive and immersive in Masters
of the Air, viewers might lose sight of the bigger picture, with respect to
the overall tides of war. Bloody Hundredth provides wider context,
explaining how the Hundredth needed to control the skies of Europe, to secure
the Normandy landing.
In John Ford’s classic Prisoner of Shark Island, Dr. Samuel Mudd is
portrayed as an innocent man unjustly convicted of abetting the assassination
of Abraham Lincoln. That view has predominated in the media, thanks to the
efforts of the Mudd family, who elicited a letter from Jimmy Carter attesting
to their ancestor’s innocence. Not so fast argued historian James L. Swanson, who
linked Mudd to John Wilkes Booth well before the assassination. Edwin Stanton
makes the case against Mudd and the rest of the co-conspirators, even including
Jefferson Davis, in creator Monica Beletsky’s seven-episode Manhunt,
adapted from Swanson’s book, which premieres tomorrow on Apple TV+.
Lee
has just surrendered, so Pres. Lincoln will finally enjoy an evening at the
theater, against the advice of his Secretary of War, Edwin Stanton. For those
wondering, Lincoln’s friend and bodyguard, Ward Hill Lamon, the subject of Saving Lincoln, does not appear in Manhunt. Obviously, Lamon’s substitute
that night was not as diligent.
Grieving
his friend, Stanton immediately takes charge of the investigation. Given Booth’s
apparent involvement in an underground Confederate fifth column network, the
manhunt falls under his jurisdiction. However, Stanton also understands the
need to assert and maintain his authority, because he mistrusts the new
president, Andrew Johnson, a unionist Southern Democrat, who was put on the
ticket to shore up border state support. Right from the start, Johnson clearly
signals his intention to scale back Reconstruction. However, he supports
Stanton’s relentless hunt for Booth, especially since he was also one of the
cabal’s targets.
The
Mudd family is not going to enjoy Manhunt, because it unequivocally
portrays him as an accomplice, at least after the fact, as well as a racist and
often violently abusive former slave-owner. Indeed, it would be a mistake to
call Manhunt revisionist history. It is more like
revisionist-revisionist history. After years of portrayals of Mudd as a railroaded
Samaritan and Johnson as the victim of partisan politics, Beletsky and company,
by way of Swanson, argue they were both villains who profoundly damaged our
country. Frankly, after watching Manhunt viewers will wonder why Kennedy
and Ted Sorenson included one of the Republican Senators who voted against
convicting Johnson in Profiles in Courage.
Beyond
that, Manhunt is a decent dragnet-thriller and even better political
thriller. Stanton’s pursuit of Booth is just as important as his efforts to maintain
the scope of Reconstruction. They are different manifestations of the same desire
to preserve and defend America. Series directors Carl Franklin (One False
Move and Devil in a Blue Dress) and John Dahl (Red Rock West and
The Last Seduction) clearly know how to build suspense on both the large
and small screens, which definitely broadens the accessibility of Manhunt.
However, the history and politics are never dumbed-down.
Tobias
Menzies is also terrific as Stanton, portraying him as a keenly intelligent man
of principles, who does not suffer fools gladly. However, he also expresses all
the grief and idealism that made him so compatible with Lincoln. Glenn
Morshower (Agent Pierce in 24) is appropriately slimy as Johnson, in a
flamboyant but not cartoony kind of way. In contrast, Patton Oswalt is badly
miscast as Union Army intelligence chief Lafayette Baker. He looks
conspicuously out of place, because he lacks sufficient gravity.
Feng Shui is one of those things you can’t help believing in when its bad. At
this secluded grave site, it is really, really awful. A shaman, a geomancer,
and their crony-partners (walk into a bar and then) rather ill-advisedly
disinter the remains, but that will be a profound mistake in
director-screenwriter Jang Jae-hyun’s Exhuma, which opens tomorrow in
theaters.
Something
is tormenting the latest infant scion if a wealthy Korean-American family. Apparently,
it recently finished off the father’s older bother and has moved on to the
firstborn of the next generation. At least that is what Hwa-rim sensed. She is
the shaman recruited by the Korean wing of the family. It turns out the great-grandfather
is the likely supernatural culprit, but she will need the help of a veteran
geomancer, like crusty old Kim Sang-deuk, to fight him.
Lately,
Kim and his undertaker-sidekick Ko Young-geun have been scraping out a living
by selling Feng Shui-vetted grave-sites, but he knows his stuff. According to
the boy’s father, the mean old man was buried in an unmarked grave on eerie-looking
mountain, on the advice of a dubious Japanese monk. Frankly, Kim never scouted
there, because the vibes are so bad. However, Hwa-kim and her assistant/vessel
Bong-gil are convinced the four can
perform a cleansing ritual and then whisk the body away for cremation, but, of
course, it will not be so easy.
Along
with Na Hong-jin’s The Wailing, Exhuma proves Korean Shamanic
horror can be as potent as Catholic demonic horror. Exhuma is not quite
as unhinged as Na’s film, but it has a quite slow-building eeriness that is
distinctive. There are no jump scares, just loads of atmosphere and creepy
lore.
Peacock's new Liane Moriarty domestic thriller APPLES NEVER FALL is essentially a soap opera-style mystery, but it is fun to watch the great Sam Neill scowl his way through it. EPOCH TIMES review up here.
Sir Nicholas Winton has been called the British Schindler, but his heroic
rescue work went almost completely unrecognized until 1988. Of course, hardly
anyone knew who Oskar Schindler was before the 1993 film. To this day, few
people have heard of Varian Fry and the noble Raoul Wallenberg died in a Soviet
prison, most likely sometime in the late 1950s. The modest Winton never sought
fame, so he is surprised when it belatedly finds him in James Hawes’s One Life,
which opens Friday in theaters.
When
the National Socialists invaded the Sudetenland, most of the UK government buried
their heads in the sand, but a young stockbroker of Jewish German heritage
sprang into action. Hinton arrived in Prague as a representative of the British
Committee for Refugees from Czechoslovakia, who believed his expertise in
finance and bureaucratic paperwork could come in handy. The local chair Doreen
Warriner was focusing on the most at-risk political refugees, because she
barely had the bandwidth to handle them.
However,
Winton is so struck by the appalling conditions endured by the largely but not
exclusively Jewish children in makeshift camps, he launches an ambitious
campaign that becomes known as the Kindertransport. British immigration authorities
are not quite as obstructionist as the notoriously antisemitic Breckinridge
Long in the U.S. State Department, but they require a fifty-pound deposit to
insure the children would not burden the state, in addition to visas and
pre-arranged foster parents to care for them. Back in England, Winton starts
plugging away, with the help of his committee colleagues and his mother Babi,
who was hard to say no to.
It
is pretty mind-blowing Winton and his colleagues conducted this major
fundraising campaign and logistical challenge using type-writers and regular
mail service. However, the anti-Jewish hatred they encountered is depressingly
commonplace in 2024. What would Winton think about his Labour Party’s persistent
scandals involving antisemitism?
Screenwriters
Lucinda Coxon and Nick Drake go out of their way to point out Winton’s
left-leaning politics. Yet, the film takes on a new sense of urgency post 10/7.
(In a twist of fate, its UK debut came less than a week after Hamas's savage mass murders, abductions, and weaponized rapes.)
Whether
or not you can push outside events out of your mind, Sir Anthony Hopkins is
still a marvel as the late-1980s Winton. He portrays the righteous rescuer with
deep sincerity and humility that is very moving. You might not pick Hopkins and
Johnny Flynn out of a crowd and assume they were related, but he plays 1930s
Winton with similarly keen earnestness. We quickly believe they are the same
man, seen decades apart.
Cineastes sometimes forget Tarkovsky’s Solaris was not the first adaptation
of the Stanislaw Lem novel. It certainly wasn’t Soderbergh’s either. In 1968
there was an early Russian film released, often referred to as Solyaris.
Even before that, there were Polish radio productions in 1962 and 1970, each
predating Tarkovsky and Soderbergh. Filmmaker Kuba Mikurda samples audio from
both Polskie Radio plays in this hybrid documentary that in a very abstract way
also condenses the themes and story of Lem’s novel in Solaris Mon Amour,
which screens during this year’s First Look.
For
those who know the book (which Lem started writing in 1959, the same year
Resnais’s Hiroshima Mon Amour was released, so there you go) and films, Mikurda’s
audio excerpts are readily identifiable as Solaris-ian. The images are
culled from vintage 1960s Polish industrial and educational science films that
have nothing to do with Lem, but marry-up rather aptly with the audio passages.
Scenes of protozoa and microscopic cell structures fittingly match discussion
of the sentient “sea” on planet Solaris, while protagonist Kris Kelvin’s
alienation is nicely represented by star fields and remote figures traversing
alien-looking terrain, or the like.
As
a result, Solaris Mon Amour sort of is Solaris, but you need to know
some of the various Solarises to fill in the gaps. Ironically, that now makes
Tarkovsky’s Solaris one of the more “accessible” versions.
Ironically, this late comedic actor is probably most beloved for one film that was a
flop when it first released and another that was a huge hit, but its director
admits it would be almost impossible to produce in today’s “problematic” Puritanical
climate. Those films are Willie Wonka & the Chocolate Factory and Blazing
Saddles. Of course, he also starred in Young Frankenstein, co-written
with his good friend and creative collaborator, Mel Brooks. Fittingly, Brooks
has much to say about his late comrade in Ron Frank’s documentary, Remembering
Gene Wilder, which opens Friday in New York.
Frank
incorporates extensive excerpts from Wilder’s narration of his memoir’s audio
book, but Brooks is still one of the most prominent voices in the film. He met
Wilder through his future wife Anne Bancroft, when they were both appearing on
Broadway together. Both Brooks and Bancroft thought Wilder would be perfect for
a film he was developing, which would become The Producers.
At
the time, Willie Wonka was seen as a career setback, but he rebounded
with Blazing Saddles. Then, Wilder started writing a treatment for Young
Frankenstein, rather fortuitously meeting Marty Feldman and Pete Boyle
through his new agent.
Frankly,
it is rather amazing how huge Wilder looms in our collective cultural memory,
based on less than 40 on-screen credits. Of course, there were the films
co-starring Gilda Radner and his collaborations with Richard Pryor. Their
final, under-appreciated film together, See No Evil, Hear No Evil introduced
Wilder to his second wife Karen, who taught him lip-reading and coached him how
to respectfully portray a deaf character.
He was an artist, but not a bohemian. Heaven forbid, anything but that. He
is considered an early Impressionist, but he was really a bridge between the
grubby “bohemians” like Monet and the hidebound Academic school. He genuinely
respected few colleagues, but the similarly “in between” Manet was one. The
American Mary Cassatt was another. Cassatt looks back on her difficult,
ambiguous relationship with Edgar Degas in Salva Rubio’s graphic novel Degas
& Cassatt: A Solitary Dance, illustrated by Efa (Ricard Fernandez),
which goes on-sale today.
Degas
was a man of contradictions. He essentially made Impressionism with a series of
exhibitions, even though he decidedly never identified with the movement. He remains
best known for his paintings of ballerinas, who were largely considered “women
of questionable virtue” at the time. Yet, he was suspected to be celibate or
even sterile.
Cassatt
wondered too. She found him trying, but there was still a strong rapport
between them. Yet, nothing of a romantic nature ever happened between them. She
will try to puzzle out why that was, Rosebud-style, as Rubio’s narrative
unfolds.
Do not call Toshiro Takuma “Jackie,” like some of these Yakuza do. He
prefers ‘Bruce,” in honor of the Master (who stayed true to Hong Kong). Realism
is important to Takuma. That is why he is only now working on his second film. Due
to twist of fate, Takuma happens to be scouting a remote location where two
rivals Yakuza clans happen to be fighting over a hidden cache of cocaine. Of
course, Takuma is way too much for either of them to handle in Yudai Yamaguchi’s
One Percent Warrior, which releases tomorrow on BluRay.
Takuma’s
skills are so legit, real-life martial arts schools would gladly hire him. (Only one percent of martial artists truly master their discipline, he sneers.) However, his commitment to authenticity is largely lost on the film industry.
His first film has become a cult hit, but producers prefer flash and sizzle
over his guts and grit. When a possible funding opportunity arises, Takuma heads
out on a scouting mission with Akira, his last remaining apprentice.
Instead,
the ruthless Takenouchi dragged Maria, the daughter of a recently deceased
Yakuza chairman, to the deserted zinc factory, in search of his cocaine stash.
Of course, Takuma quickly rescues Maria, leaving her in Akira’s care, as he
picks off Takenouchi’s henchmen one by one. Soon, a rival faction led by
Shishidou also barges in. They share Takenouchi’s determination to recover the
old man’s drugs, but Shishidou’s daughter Ami also seems to have an unhealthy
interest in Maria as well.
If you want to be depressed, search X/Twitter for “Anne Frank” and
“ballpoint pen.” Then report everything that comes back for “violent event
denial,” because attempts to question the legitimacy of Anne Frank’s diary are
just another manifestation of Holocaust denial. A film about Frank should not
necessarily be timely, but in today’s climate, it is. Sadly, Ari Folman’s
latest animated feature takes on even greater significance, post-10/7 than when
it first started screening. Folman re-introduces Frank to viewers from a
different perspective, that of Kitty, her imaginary friend, in Where is Anne
Frank (produced with the cooperation of the Anne Frank Fonds), which
screens during the 2024 New York International Children’s Film Festival.
Like
most intelligent pre-teens, Frank had an active imagination. She created Kitty
to serve as her muse in many of her diary entries. In a manner worthy of
superhero origin stories, Kitty will come alive when lightning breaks through a
window, striking the original diary displayed in the Anne Frank Museum. She
recognizes the building, but since she only knows what Frank told her, Kitty
has no idea what happened to her friend or the other residents of the famous
attic.
Initially,
she huddles in the corner, invisible, as zombie tourists shuffle in and out.
However, Kitty is shocked when Peter, a Dickensian pick-pocket starts talking
to her. As she approaches the diary, she becomes more visible to others. Or
something like that. Frankly, the rules of who can see her and when are vague
and inconsistently applied. Initially, this feels like a credibility issue.
However, as we watch the confused Kitty struggle with the unpredictability of
her new existence, it becomes another unlikely source of sympathy for her.
Regardless, Kitty will search all the landmarks of Amsterdam that bear Anne
Frank’s name to learn the fate of her late friend.
Through
flashbacks, Folman visits many of the incidents recorded in Frank’s diary, but
Kitty’s perspective gives them a fresh twist. It is sort of like seeing events
referenced in Virginia Woolf’s The Waves from Percival’s perspective, or
Charlie’s Angels from that of Charlie Townsend, depending on your
preference for high or low culture.
One
aspect that lands much differently post-10/7 is the way Kitty befriends and
champions a squatter community of Malian immigrants. Folman’s film reminds us
of the Jewish people’s history of progressive humanism. Yet, the world did not
reciprocate their compassion after Hamas’s mass-murder, gang rapes, and
abductions. Quite the contrary.
Retail analysts keep predicting the extinction of the department store. If that
happens, the Hokkyoku Department Store would then match its clientele. Somehow,
the store exists somewhere outside of time. Inside, humans wait on customers
who entirely consist of extinct species. The newest employee is a bit clumsy,
but she is earnest and conscientious. Nevertheless, retail is still tough work
in Yoshimi Itazu’s anime feature The Concierge, based on Tsuchika Nishimura’s
manga, which screens during the 2024 New York International Children’s Film Festival.
Akino
once stumbled into the Hokkyoku as a little girl, finding herself dazzled by
the elegant concierge. Now life (or is it afterlife? The film and manga keep
discreetly vague on that point) has come full circle for her, since she was
hired as the Hokkyoku’s newest concierge. Her colleagues recognize her kind
heart, especially Eruru. Akino thinks he is a customer she literally keeps
stepping on, but he is really the president. He is also a great auk, so don’t
call him a penguin, even though he enjoys sliding across the polished floors of
the mall, as if they were ice flows (which is a pretty cute bit of business).
Unfortunately,
Toudou, the Snidely Whiplash-like floor manager is constantly on her case. The
pressure keeps mounting with each nearly impossible request, like the customer searching
for a discontinued fragrance. Fortunately, a lot of her co-workers are willing
to pitch in to help, including Eruru behind-the-scenes.
This is not The Most Dangerous Game. These women will not be hunted for
sport. They are not the subjects of a contest produced for the pleasure of
dark-web viewers either, although Karla Dodds’ husband will rely on techniques
he developed as a reality TV producer. He simply wants to kill her and he
assumes the husbands of her three friends feel the same way in Marco Deufemia’s
Hunting Housewives, which premieres tomorrow night on Lifetime.
Dodds
and her three besties, Joli Symons, Sharrell Bouvier, and Rebel Carron-Whitman
think they are being whisked away for a weekend getaway at an exclusive,
unlisted spa. Instead, her husband paid the pilot to crash their private plane
and then hunt down the survivors. He can’t shoot straight, but he can down the
plane exactly in the remote area of forest where the arrogantly entitled and
menacingly manipulative Mark Dodds set up all his surveillance cameras.
Then
the creepy TV guy invites the other three husbands over to watch the drama
unfold live, in his man-cave. Evan Whitman is so shocked and violently
outraged, Dodds is forced to lock him in the panic room. Andre Bouvier and
Jared Symons are also shocked, but they stifle their outrage, so Dodds will not
draw his gun on them as well.
Hunting
Housewives is
no Hard Target or The Hunt. It isn’t even Hunted. Frankly,
it doesn’t even fit in the “people-hunting-people” sub-sun-genre. Despite Mark
Dodds’ voyeuristic glee, this master plan is not about sport. It is simply a ridiculously
overcomplicated murder scheme, probably more befitting a supervillain wearing
tights. Seriously, you would think there would be an easier way to go about it.
Of
course, we could roll with a dubious premise, if it came with solid action or
suspense, but Hunting Housewives has too many execution issues, starting
with the fact nobody can even hold a gun in a competent, credible manner. For
Denise Richards, this is a step back from credible VOD action work in Altitude
(not a great movie, but she helped elevate it).
Richards
still delivers all the housewives’s best lines with appropriate attitude. Yet,
most of the relatively limited entertainment comes from Mark Ghanime snarling
his way through the unlikely scheme. Along with Richards, Kym Johnson Herjavec,
Melyssa Ford, and NeNe Leakes serve up plenty of reality-TV-worthy rich
housewife sass, which is probably what the target audience is looking for, but
that is about it.
This Michael Morpurgo novel is sort of like Island of the Blue Dolphins with
primates. You can also think of it much like The Cay, but in this case,
the pre-teen boy is marooned with an elderly Japanese soldier and a dog (who is
definitely a trade-up from a cat). Either way, young Michael will learn a lot about
mother nature’s creatures and human nature in Neil Boyle & Kirk Hendry’s animated
adaptation of Morpugo’s Kensuke’s Kingdom, which screens during the 2024 New York International Children’s Film Festival.
After
they both lost their jobs, Michael’s parents decided the responsible thing to
do would be buying a boat and sailing around the world, with him and his
sister. Their logic is hard to follow (isn’t school supposed to be important
for kids?), but this is a movie, so, fine, so be it. Yet, it turns out to be a
questionable decision when Michael and his dog Stella are washed overboard
during a storm.
Miraculously,
both Michael and Stella land on the beach of a remote desert island. Without
any visible means of foraging for food or fresh water, they would die were it
not for the provisions mysteriously left for them each morning. Despite his
mercy, Kensuke wants nothing to do with the boy and his dog. When they do
finally meet, Michael’s awkward clumsiness angers the old Japanese man.
However, an understanding grows between them, especially when Michael deduces
the fate of Kensuke’s family in Nagasaki. They will also join forces to protect
the island’s orangutans and gibbons from evil outsiders.
Morpurgo’s
story (from the author of War Horse and Private Peaceful) is very
much in the tradition of the aforementioned young adult novels, but the island
setting and the primate characters make it particularly well suited for an
animated treatment. The lush tropical environment and Kensuke’s Ewok-baroque bamboo
home are visually striking. The animals also look great. Honestly, it is hard
to go wrong when you give the audience a clever dog and a bunch of monkeys.
1989 was a great year for most Americans. The Berlin Wall came down, we had a
president we could respect, and the movies were consistently entertaining.
However, Lou is going through some tough times, largely because of her beyond dysfunctional
family and its criminal activities. She finally meets someone she really likes,
but the stranger has plenty of her own baggage in Rose Glass’s Love Lies
Bleeding, which opens tomorrow in theaters.
In
1989, the steroid scandals had yet to rock cycling and MLB. Yet, juicing was already
a fairly open (if dirty) secret in the bodybuilding world, even in the grubby
desert-town gym Lou manages. One day she notices Jackie, a drifter with
ambitions of competing in an upcoming women’s contest in Vegas. The attraction
is indeed mutual. Unfortunately, Lou introduces Jackie to steroids during their
early courtship, which will have dangerous implications when their relationship
comes under stress.
Much
of that stress will come from Lou’s family, particularly her brother-in-law
J.J., who physically and emotionally abuses her sister Beth, and her slimy
kingpin father Lou Sr. The old man runs a lot of highly illegal business out of
his gun range. Jackie happens to work there as a waitress in the canteen. All
that pre-existing family tension will soon boil over, leading to one-darned-thing-after-another,
including murder.
There
is some deep grunge in Love Lies Bleeding—like Grand Canyon deep. This
is sleazy, lurid stuff, just as Glass intended it. However, she takes viewers
on a wild third-act flight of fancy that is a bridge too-far-out there. She
should have stuck with what was working, because all the needles and grime are
massively provocative.
Of
course, the great Ed Harris makes a terrific villain, strutting through the
picture as Lou Sr. Glass gives him a lot of color, like his massive hair
extensions and a weird love of bug-collecting, but Harris plays him with shrewd
understatement. As a result, his quiet hardnosed-ness is absolutely magnetic
on-screen. Likewise, Dave Franco is exceptionally slimy as the irredeemable,
mullet-sporting J.J.
There is a good reason why so many horror films are set in hotels. You never
know what might be behind all those doors. There is The Shining and The Innkeepers, but obviously it all started with Psycho. As it happens,
the All Tucked Inn rather resembles the Bates Motel. It is a sleepy motor inn
off the highway, with about twenty rowhouse-style rooms and considerable
taxidermy mounted on the office walls. This will be Gwen Taylor’s first night
as the overnight clerk and it might also be her last in the China Brothers
(Benjamin & Paul)’s Night Shift, which releases tomorrow in theaters
and on VOD.
Teddy
Miles, is a little weird, but in awkward horndog kind of way, rather than in a
creepy Norman Bates fashion. Once he leaves, the strange happenings start,
leading Taylor to suspect the motel is haunted. Her fears will be confirmed by
Alice Marsh, one of the few guests, who explains she wanted to stay in the All
Tucked Inn, because of its uncanny reputation. Taylor sees several ghostly
figures that come and go, but the stalkerish car that keeps cruising around the
motel might be entirely mortal, but even more dangerous—especially because she
thinks she might know who it is.
Initially,
Night Shift is an effectively ambiguous mixture of supernatural and
psycho-killer elements. Unfortunately, the China Brothers’ screenplay falls
back on one of genre fans’ most despised plot twist. We have seen this one many
times before, but this time it feels like a particularly cheap contrivance.
If you like the idea of Hua Mulan, but are put off by the way the Chinese Communist
Party has exploited her legend in propaganda, then it is time to embrace
Princess Khutulun. The celebrated warrior was far more distinguished, as the
great-granddaughter of Genghis Khan and the inspiration for Puccini’s Turandot,
and she has the extra, added advantage of being real. In contrast, the legend
of Mulan is largely considered to be exactly that—a legend. Khutulun’s father Kaidu
wanted to marry her off to shore-up political alliances, but she knows that
would be a waste of her talents in S. Baasanjargal & Shuudertseg
Baatarsuren’s The Princess Warrior, which releases Friday on VOD and Film
Movement Plus.
Despite
their illustrious lineage, Kaidu’s enemies launched a sneak attack against the
house of Ogedei. They successfully stole the clan’s relic and nearly
assassinated Kaidu. Ironically, he was saved by the clumsiness of Abatai, a
former Ogedei servant boy who was banished by a capricious high official. Of
course, it really wasn’t clumsiness, as he will eventually explain to Khutulun.
Unfortunately,
Kaidu’s eldest son is an impetuous idiot, so Khutulun takes it upon herself to
chase down the relic, while brother #2 raises an army for the anticipated
battle. She sets off chasing the thieves with her trusty band of comrades, who
sound like a menagerie: Bear, Hawk, Wolf, and crusty old Eagle. Although the
Zoo Crew is initially skeptical, Abatai will join their ranks, when Khutulun understands
his true identity.
There
is a lot of rock-solid hack-and-slash action in Princess Warrior. Somewhat
surprisingly, screenwriters Baatarsuren and Boldkhuyag Damdinsuren play down
Khutulun’s super-heroic fierceness, portraying her in very fallible and human
terms. Nevertheless, Tsedoo Munkhbat is clearly more comfortable in the action
scenes than the romantic melodrama.
Puffins look like they share the same tailor as penguins and they have a similar
charm, but they are not as overexposed in pop culture. So far, the Netflix
series Puffin Rock, co-created by Irish animator Tomm Moore, has been
the best place to find puffins. After two seasons, the inhabitants of Puffin Rock
get a feature of their own in Jeremy Purcell’s Puffin Rock and the New
Friends, which screens as part of the 2024 New York InternationalChildren’s Film Festival.
Oona
is still a bright and curious young puffin, who often gets into adventures with
her friends, but always dutifully cares for her younger brother Baba. Even
after two full seasons, he still looks like he is freshly hatched. Mossy the
pygmy shrew and May the rabbit remain her besties, but she is about to make
some new pals.
Initially,
Isabella is rather standoffish when her colony relocates to Puffin Rock. The
narrator blames climate change, but viewers will suspect it was the rising
crime and punitive tax rates of blue-state puffin colonies that drove them out.
Regardless, Isabella is reluctant to putdown roots again. That includes making
friends.
In
contrast, Oona and her buddies form a fast friendship Marvin, a youthful otter
who also found his way to Puffin Rock. Quick thinking Oona realizes Mavin is
such a prodigious digger, he can help the expanded puffin colony dig warrens to
protect their new-comers from an approaching storm. Unfortunately, Isabella
will completely torpedo the plan and endanger the entire colony. First, she
misinterprets Marvin’s intentions when he burrows up near her mother’s egg, so
she removes it from the nest. That is a big puffin no-no. When the colony
freaks out over the missing egg, she is too embarrassed to come clean, so she
blames Marvin.
See
how much trouble unchecked immigration can cause. Of course, New Friends is
trying to make the exact opposite point, but at times, the narrative almost
contradicts its sentiments. It hardly matters though, because Oona is such a
likably plucky character. She is just a darned good puffin kid, which makes
spending time with her a pleasure.
As
was also true for the series, Chris O’Dowd’s narration is wildly charming. Although
omniscient and off-screen, his voice becomes another character. He has a touch
of blarney and a touch of sarcasm, but his tone is always gentle and warm.
It is hard to figure what the cheapskate Hamelin villagers were thinking. Maybe
targeting their kids was a bit unexpected, but obviously he could always just
drive another swarm of rats back into town. They were tragically
penny-wise-pound-foolish, which understandably angered the Piper. It sounds crazy,
but a musician suspects he is still ticked off in director-screenwriter Erlingur
Thoroddsen’s The Piper, which releases this Friday in theaters and on
digital.
Renowned
composer Katharine Fleischer is in a rather agitated state, trying to burn the
last surviving copy of her infamous first concerto, but she immolates herself
instead. It had not been performed since its infamous premiere, which caused
fatal rioting within the concert hall. This was bad news for Melanie Walker,
because Fleischer was her patron at the orchestra. As a single-mother, she
needs her chair for the insurance, to cover her young daughter Zoe’s treatment
for her hearing impairment.
Gustafson,
the pretentious maestro wants to perform Fleischer’s “Children’s Concerto” as a
tribute, even though the composer always refused his requests while she was
alive. Walker was supposed to use her connection to the family to secure the
manuscript, but she resorts to pilfering it from Fleischer’s attic.
Unfortunately, Fleischer managed to burn several pages, including the third
movement, so Walker must channel her mentor to reconstruct the lost passages. While
working on the score, she experiences lost time and weird visions. Strange
things also start happening around her, including the disappearance of her
colleague’s son Colin, who usually spent rehearsals with Zoe, whether they
wanted to or not.
Fleischer’s
concerto is sort of like the musical equivalent of the forbidden films that
lead to madness in Fury of the Demon and the “Cigarette Burns” episode of
Masters of Horror. There are similar examples of evil, overpowering
records, like Black Circle and Dead Wax, but Thoroddsen still offers
some reasonably distinctive variations on the theme.
The
late, great Julian Sands also brings a lot to the party, preening and chewing
the scenery as the arrogant Gustafson. Sands really was an underappreciated
horror master, who will be missed. Charlotte Hope is a decent horror heroine,
but Alexis Rodney is more memorable as her brainy ethnomusicologist platonic
friend, Philip, who helps provide a framework for understanding the uncanny
power of the Piper’s music.
Where is that “toxic masculinity” when we need it? You will ask too, after
spending time with Marc Becker, an overly sensitive man-child, whose
self-centered artistic pretentions will cause more angst and frustration for
those around him than any macho swaggering ever could. Becker has a twee
artistic vision for his work-in-progress film, but he appears psychologically incapable
of finishing it, despite the labors of his inexplicably loyal enablers in
Michel Gondry’s The Book of Solutions, which screens during this year’s
Rendez-Vous with French Cinema.
The
indie production company bankrolling Becker’s debut film just got a look at his
incomprehensible four-hours-plus cut and understandably decided to re-edit it
themselves, to hopefully salvage something. Instead, Becker, Charlotte, his faithful
editor, and Sylvia, the producer he treats like an assistant, go rogue, bundling
up all the hard drives, so they can finish the film guerilla style in the
country home owned by Becker’s Aunt Denise.
Lovely
Aunt Denise immediately sympathizes with the other two women, because she has
been putting up with Becker’s delusional self-indulgence for years. Unfortunately,
returning to her welcoming farmhouse exposes Becker to a host of fresh
distractions, like his old “Book of Solutions” an amateurish collection of
aphorisms intended to serve as a blueprint for life, but in fact, consists of a
laundry list of counterproductive instructions, like “always drive in second
gear.”
This
“love-letter” to cinema desperately needed a sternly worded studio memo. Book
of Solutions is so quirky and precious, it will make you retch your guts
out. Apparently, the running time is only 103 minutes, but it feels like it
drags on for four or five hours. This is not what love for cinema should look
like. In contrast, Kim Jee-won also follows a difficult filmmaker struggling to
realize an idiosyncratic vision in Cobweb, which considerably bolder,
smarter, edgier, and more visually striking (as well as infinitely more
watchable).
If a Saudi prince is willing to (allegedly?) assassinate a prominent
journalist like Jamal Khashoggi, what do think the royal family might do to
punish a working-class gang from a French housing complex? The poor knuckleheads
do not realize the implications of stealing from the royal family until it is
too late in director-screenwriter Rabah Ameur-Zaimeche’s The Temple Woods
Gang, which screens during this year’s Rendez-Vous with French Cinema.
Bebe’s
gang are small-time criminals, but they are not such bad guys. In fact,
Monsieur Pons rather likes his lunkheaded fellow residents of the Temple Woods project.
They were always polite to his recently deceased mother and despite some
good-natured ribbing, always show respect to the veteran. Yes, Pons served in
Africa, as a sniper—a fact that might be significant later.
While
Pons mourns his mother, Bebe’s crew plans and successfully executes a hold-up of
the prince’s courier. They were interested in the suitcases full of cash, but
the prince is more worried about the cache of sensitive documents. In fact, he
is so offended by their disrespect, he has his fixer call in Jim, the family enforcer,
to teach them a lesson. Frankly, the blokes do not even notice the papers until
things get ugly and brutal. (If there is one lesson to draw from Temple Woods
it is if you ever find yourself unexpectedly holding secret Saudi
documents, head directly to the Israeli embassy, which these guys never think
to do.)
Temple
Woods is
not really a heist or a payback movie. Instead, it is an extremely moody
exploration of urban angst and violence. Ameur-Zaimeche de-emphasizes action, quickly
staging the carjacking, but devoting considerably more time to two musically-focused
scenes. There is method to the madness, because real-life vocalist Annkrist’s rendition
of her song “La beaute du jour” during the funeral for Mother Pons is
arrestingly beautiful. Watching the
prince get down to an Algerian Rai DJ is far less potent.
In
fact, Annkrist might just qualify as the star of Temple Woods, but Regis
Laroche is memorably both humane and steely as the sad, middle-aged Pons. Although
played by thesps with widely varying degrees of professional experience, the
Temple Woods guys all look and sound like real knock-around street toughs.
Blanche Renard’s husband is so controlling, you have to wonder how he keeps his
job. The constant calls and surprise visits must take time away from his banker
work. Regardless, he definitely keeps her under his thumb, steadily depleting
her resolve to resist. Of course, he was initially all charm as viewers see in Valerie
Donzelli’s Just the Two of Us, which screens during this year’s
Rendez-Vous with French Cinema.
Blanche’s
identical twin Rose was a little skeptical when Gregoire Lamoureux swept her
sister off her feet, but she mostly kept her doubts to herself. Of course, the
courtship was appropriately romantic, but soon after their marriage, he
relocates them to a northern provincial town, blaming an unwelcome transfer. The
arrival of their young daughter distracts Renard, but around young Stella’s
fifth birthday, she decides it is time to go back to work. Clearly, Lamoureux
does not approve, but she still has enough will of her own to apply for and
accept and teaching position.
From
then on, things are different. Lamoureux obsesses over every perceived flaw and
guilt trips her relentlessly. He calls her at work relentlessly (to such an
extent her co-workers really should be suspecting something). The controlling
and emotional abuse grows so severe, Blanche secretly arranges a date with a
stranger via an app, as a desperate act of defiance and a reality check.
Indeed, she confirms not all men are like Lamoureux. Unfortunately, Jerome
Vierson is such a decent guy and attentive lover, Renard gives herself away.
Just
the Two of Us (no
connection to Grover Washington Jr.) sounds like a conventional kitchen sink
drama, but stylistically, it feels very different. Labeling it an “erotic
thriller” is wildly misleading. However, cinematographer Laurent Tangy’s
extremely intimate framing and washed-out color palette gives the present-day
film a 1970s vibe. At times it almost resembles found footage. It is
distracting for five minutes or so, but over time, the claustrophobic
atmosphere creates a feeling of entrapped solidarity with Renard. Frankly, it
is difficult to breathe during the stressful third act.
Frankly,
Donzelli engages in some shameless manipulation, but she maintains such an
elevated level of tension, she gets away with it. The celebrated cast also completely
shed their famous images and submerge themselves into the domestic pressure
cooker. Virginie Efira creates two very distinct personas as the Renard sisters.
Rose is refreshingly forceful, whereas Blanche desperate descent is absolutely
harrowing to witness.
These candies are actually good for you. We do not know whether they are sugar-free,
but they do wonders for the heart. It turns out they are the perfect pick-me-up
for a sad little boy in Japanese anime filmmaker Daisuke Nishio’s animated
short film adaptation of Heena Baek’s Korean children’s book, Magic Candies,
which screens today as part of the 2024 New York International Children’s Film Festival.
Dong-dong
is too shy to make any new friends on his own, so he tries to convince himself
he is happy playing by himself. A wise old shopkeeper knows better, so he sells
the young boy a bag of magic candies. Dong-dong has no idea what to expect, but
when he starts munching on them, he discovers each has an unexpected power.
Soon he has a conversation with his beloved pet dog, listens to his over-worked
single-father’s thoughts, and receives a much-needed message from his dearly
departed grandmother.
Somehow,
the candies give him exactly what he needs. It is all really quite beautiful. Baek’s
book may have been written for a kindergarten audience, but its deceptively
simple and deeply wise story could make it a popular children’s-book-for-adults.
Nishio renders it into 3D animation with warmth and grace, retaining the spirit
of its fantasy and the look of the original illustrations.
Historians are convinced the legend of highwayman Dick Turpin was significantly enhanced
by sensationalistic writers (including Daniel Dafoe). He wasn’t even considered
a Robin Hood-figure until his image was tweaked again for a late-1970s TV
series. Arguably, that makes him fair game for any new revision, reboot, or re-conception
that comes along. A new Turpin should still at least make sense or get laughs.
The first does not apply to this spoof, but, unfortunately, the humor is often
rather iffy in creators Claire Downes, Ian Jarvis, and Stuart Lane’s
six-episode The Completely Made-Up Adventures of Dick Turpin, which
premieres today on Apple TV+.
Turpin
is still the son of a village butcher, but instead of a life of crime, he
aspires to be an artist or a designer. However, when the ruthless leader of the
Essex Gang essentially kills himself through freak misadventure, Turpin gets
the credit and thereby inherits leadership of the gang. The burly Little
John-ish Moose Pleck immediately takes to Turpin, identifying a kindred
metrosexual soul. The frustrated poet Honesty Barebone also immediately accepts
Turpin, because he is an idiot. However, the most competent member of the gang,
Nell Brazier resents Turpin for taking the leadership role she deserves—while
simultaneously hating herself for being attracted to him.
Naturally,
the Essex Gang quickly falls in the official Highwaymen standings, even though
(or maybe because) they have an aspiring pamphlet scribe documenting their misadventures.
Turpin also alienates Jonathan Wilde, the corrupt Thief-Taking General, by
refusing to pay his hefty kickbacks. Instead of feeding them tips, Wilde is now
determined to apprehend the Essex Gang. Left to his own devices, Turpin has a
knack for picking the worst possible targets, like the “Unrobbable Coach,” a
riff on England’s phantom coach lore, in episode two.
Episode
four, “Curse of the Reddlehag,” also has a supernatural theme, in which Turpin
unleashes chaos after he unwittingly releases a witch from her prison coach.
Arguably, this is the funniest episode. Perhaps not coincidentally, Turpin gets
the least screentime in this installment, thanks to the spell that turns him
into a chicken.
Hugh
Bonneville is aptly pompous as Wilde, but Tamsin Greig is even more fabulously
villainous chewing the scenery as Lady Helen Gwinear, the leader of Wilde’s
secret criminal society. Throughout the series, Ellie White probably gets the
most laughs as Brazier, because she is the only one who regularly undercuts
Turpin’s impractical dandy stylings and his complete lack of common sense.
Everyone should be ripping on Turpin, but usually it is just her.