3 Short Paragraphs: The Postcard Killings

2020, Danis Tanovic (No Man's Land) -- download

Flick flick flick. I am regularly in the mood for Generic Crime Fiction, like a long-running TV police procedural, or a low-key British crime drama, or a movie about investigating a strange serial killer. Of late, the lighter fare has been supplanted by dark, moodier pieces such as David Tennant's Broadchurch (and its American counterpart Gracepoint which also starred Tennant and was released around the same time) but I find the unrelenting darkness to those, to be too much when flick flick flicking. Luckily, we have the endless re-runs on ION TV (do cable people get these ION channels? We have OTA so we have a couple of them) but sometimes I find myself trolling the Trailer sections of a couple of sites, to see if anything new-ish movie-ish has come out. Thus this flick (different context) starring fav Jeffrey Dean Morgan based on a novel by James Patterson and Swedish crime writer Liza Marklund.

Have you ever read my posts (i already know the answer) and wondered, "What's with the personal anecdotes, just get to the movie review; this ain't a fricking online recipe!"

Morgan plays Kanon, an American detective who comes to the UK to deal with the unusual murder of his daughter and her husband. The bodies were artfully posed, and a postcard sent to a local journalist, poetic notes implying... something. This is pre-Brexit UK, so it lends itself to quickly crossing borders as the serial murders escalate in other countries. Kanon doesn't care that he doesn't have jurisdiction, he's a NYC cop by God, so he insinuates himself into the investigation, because, of course he does.

Despite the charm of Morgan (yes, I am a fan), the movie never rises from C-grade entertainment. The killers are only mildly interesting and the plotting never really rises above that of the worst episodes of Criminal Minds. His European co-stars, including the reporter who tags along once the Chase the Killers starts, are barely more than sounding boards for Kanon, and fluctuate between interfering with his American bull in china shop approach to policing, and sympathizing with the grieving father. I sensed this was a longshot attempt at creating another The Girl with... franchise, but the lazy production of this movie killed that idea.

3 & 3ish Short Paragraphs: It(s)

It, 2017, Andy Muschietti (Mama) -- download
It Chapter Two, 2019, Andy Muschietti (Mamá) -- download

The more I write this blog, the more I wonder why I keep on writing this blog, and yet conversely, I also wonder why I didn't write about this, that, or the other thing. I get that I didn't write about It the year it came out, as it would have been past October when it was available for piracy (it was a September theatre release) and I would have been drained of all horror. So, that means I saw it in 2018, during That Dark Period. But again, I may know why I didn't write about it, but it doesn't stop me from lamenting that I did not capture my experience. After all, I did write about Mama. And in the end, is the writing of this blog going to end up a nostalgic endeavour where I look back on some sort of futuristic archive and wonder what I was up to in the second era of blogging? So much meta, mama.

I loved Stephen King when I was a kid and quickly absorbed everything he wrote. That was when I could actually read at a decent pace as he was the man of Big Fat Books. But he was such a situational writer, so steeped in the era the book was written, I wonder whether I could successfully finish one of his old books now. Add to that the current emergence of awareness of exactly what is going on in the world and where King fits into all of that (i.e. you said what about an adolescent girl?!?!?) I am not sure if I can be as much a King fan as I was. But, I still love the concept of It. And I will always be quoting, "We all float down here...", and getting chills.

Pennywise the Clown, a thing of nightmares even before you add the rows of shark teeth. Really, these movies are about him. If you don't get him right, you don't get the tone. I never really liked Tim Curry's version in the 90s TV mini-series. I found it too hammy, too over the top, with very little otherworldly horror. But here, Bill Skarsgård plays the creature as both monster and child predator, for that is what it ultimately is, hints of seduction mixed into the sly deceptions. Does that make you uncomfortable? It's supposed to. Given that the first movie, the one that really worked well for me, was about the misfit kids stepping up to deal with a monster, was all about their loss of innocence we are supposed to feel icky in how Pennywise reaches out to them.

We rewatched It in order to follow-up with the sequel, as part of the failed attempt to do a mini-binge of horror movies, in reflection to the pandemic. That now, only a month or so later, they do not stick with me says much about both of the movies. They are capable enough, but the scares are primarily jump scares with a bit of body-horror CGI tossed in for good measure. Once these transported out of time kids (does it ever feel like the 80s in the movie?) age into more familiar faces (Jessica Chastain, James McAvoy, Bill Hader) even more memorable story telling is drained out. Much of the horror is lifted from the movie, supplanted like foggy memories of childhood, with monster hunting & weak-willed adultisms. The movie just seemed like an exercise in Just Getting It Done (much like many of my posts *cough*) instead of a work of passion. If anything sticks, it was Hader as the comedian tainted with great sadness and regret, so much that I am not sure I will be able to see Hader play anything without thinking he is Richie Tozier behind it all.

3 Short Paragraphs: The Old Guard

2020, Gina Prince-Bythewood (The Secret Life of Bees) -- Netflix

That Prince-Bythewood didn't get her chance to make Silver & Black, her Spider-Man spin-off movie with Black Cat and Silver Sable, is disappointing but I am glad it gave her the chance to redirect her energies into this other comic book concept. Based on a graphic novel from, and adapted by Greg Rucka, she basically shoots the comic shot for shot, with enough expansion to fit the cinematic world.

Andy (Charlize Theron) and her team of gun & blade toting mercenaries have been around for a long long LONG time. They are immortals who have been fighting to make the world a better place, the very youngest of them for only a few hundred years, but for Andromache more than 5000. But is the world getting better? Look outside right now, watch the American news. What do you think? Andy is just as disappointed and disillusioned. She is thinking of hanging up her battle axe, but one more job beckons and why not? Well, because it was a ruse to capture their miraculous resurrections on film, that's why. Andy and her crew are being stalked by Big Pharma, run by a Lex Luthor level CEO who has hopes to exploit whatever keeps these warriors alive. Add to the intrigue, the rising of another immortal (they have dreams about her emergence) and Andy's plan to retire has just become clusterfucked.

There are hints of the world-weariness of being around for hundreds and thousands of years at the heart of this movie, but for the most part it is a bullet heavy actioner. Obviously the setup to a franchise, there is much more to be explored, amusingly enough, by Rucka as well, who worked on the second graphic novel only after signing over the film rights to the first. This is not a Highlander level of mythology to setup, much more down to earth, but with so much potential. It is also well worth noting that this is an action movie centred around women, with Andy and Nile (KiKi Layne, Captive State) playing centre place, and there is not even a hint of them relying upon the benefit of a man to make their places.

3 Short Paragraphs: Fantasy Island

2020, Jeff Wadlow (Kick-Ass 2) -- download

Just like we have not seen a reboot of Love Boat, I am sure nobody wanted a reboot of the classic 70s/80s starring Ricardo Montalbán. And not just reboot / re-imagining, but a dark & gritty re-imagining. Marmy had the short lived idea to do a mini-binge of horror movies, sort of a Summer October During a Real Horror, but, have I mentioned a lack of attention span during this event? This was one of the few we did watch. P.S. Does anyone remember the even shorter lived previous reboot starring Malcom McDowell? P.S.S. Squirrel !!

As expected, Mr. Roarke (Michael Peña) runs the resort that claims to fulfill the fantasies of its guests, but under the direction that once they start it, they have to finish it. Arriving are Gwen (Maggie Q) seeking to revisit an old love affair, Melanie (Lucy Hale) who wants revenge on a childhood bully, JD and Brax Weaver (Ryan Hansen & Jimmy O Wang), brothers who want an unrepentant debaucherous weekend and finally, Patrick (Austin Stowell) who needs some reconnection with his dead dad. Initially things start off as expected, with the guests marveling at how detailed and real feeling these fantasies are, especially Melanie who gets to literally torture the girl from her past. But that doesn't stop her from pressing a few pain buttons or pulling a few levers, until she begins to realize that the girl strapped the chair is actually her nemesis, and breaks her out. Melanie senses something is very very wrong on Fantasy Island. Yeah, so do we. Cliche horror movie tropes attached to what was mostly a benign series.

Mostly. The original series, when hitting flagging ratings, did try all sorts of supernatural and horror-adjacent plot lines, even hinting loudly that Roarke was not your average human being. This movie sets up a dark centre to the island, one that generates the places & people needed for someone to go through with their fantasy, and seeking to take something in return. But that wasn't enough, for as our characters discover they are being manipulated, they decided another twist was required and derailed all the continuity of the movie. I won't spoil it for you, because you should be as disappointed as I was. Not even Peña, whose acting I always enjoy, could save this movie which was lackluster in so many ways.

3 Short Paragraphs: Artemis Fowl

2020, Kenneth Branagh (Mary Shelley's Frankenstein) -- Disney+

Another casualty of The Pause (which has morphed into more of an Alternate Universe Play) was this movie based on a popular series of YA books, which I have not read, but Marmy has advised me was about a super-genius rich kid who plays super-spy cum master-thief who runs afoul (*cough*) of Faerie. It was supposed to have been released (last summer) in the theatres but was halted during the Fox-Disney merger, and then further delayed by all the fun we are currently having.  In fact, it has been in one form or another of Production Hell for almost 20 years. But what we ended up getting cannot really be blamed on any of this. What we got was muddled and confused at its best.

Artemis Fowl is the son of Artemis Fowl Sr., a rich philanthropist with a vast fortune. Jr has been raised to believe in Faerie, but doesn't really, and while Sr is on a business trip (that Jr is never allowed to come with) he disappears. Soon after he is accused of being the mastermind behind some the greatest thefts the world has known. They never really say where this evidence comes from, but it leaves Arty Jr disillusioned and angry. He's a snotty angry kid to begin with and is definitely not at all the sympathetic main character. Jr receives a call from a Mysterious Figure who tells Jr he has his father, and wants a particular artifact returned, or else. MacGuffin!!

Then we are introduced to Faerie.

This was hinted at in Thor when Branagh's vast and glorious Asgard was too big a bit to swallow in one movie, but he continues by giving us the vast and intricate culture of Faerie with its multiple races, complicated relationship with the surface (Faerie has been driven underground, literally) and a rather odd militaristic society. The Aculos (the MacGuffin) is something that was stolen by Sr and everybody wants, but of course we don't know why. But Faerie and the Mysterious Figure want it so much so they all come to the surface to take it back from Jr.  Spaceships and Faerie Wings and Laser Guns and Time Stops and Marauding Trolls and Not Short Dwarves that Shart dirt and and and.... there is so much in this movie which runs along at a break-neck pace while accomplishing very very little. If I was 14 I would have loved it, filling in all the blanks where I needed to, but 50ish Pause-tainted moi was just ... made tired.

Horror, Not Horror (again) pt. 3: the Benson and Moorhead trifecta

"Horror, Not Horror" are movies that toe the line of being horror movies but don't quite comfortably fit the mold.  I'm not a big horror fan, but I do quite like these line-skirting type movies, as we'll see.

Resolution - 2012, d. Justin Benson - amazonprime

The Endless - 2017, d. Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead - netflix

Spring - 2014, d. Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead - amazonprime

These films have been in the back of my mind since Toasty wrote about Resolution and The Endless years ago.  The problem is their utterly generic titles are so forgettable that I could never remember what they were called.  Like Coherence I would see The Endless (and, by proxy, Resolution) crop up on lists of "the best sci-fi films you've never seen" (having usually seen most of them).  These became "must watch" features for me, and yet, I think every time I came across The Endless on Netflix or Resolution on Amazon Prime the descriptions sounded so bog standard for a crappy low-budg horror film that they certainly couldn't be those great sci-fi horror movies I had hear about, right?

Armed with some free time, I finally double checked those names and discovered that both films were available on streaming services I had access to (it's pretty much a must watching them together to get the full breadth of the world, though each does stand alone as its own story).  Every article I read about these, again like Coherence, refused to give specific details on what made these films so great as horrorish-scifi, admitting that the discovery is worth it.

The set-up of Resolution has Chris, a crack smoking junkie, squatting at an unfinished cabin in a mountainous desert area about 50 miles from the Mexican border (it's never very specific where this is).  Along with a map to his coordinates, a video of Chris' crack-addled rambling and gun-shooting makes its way to Michael, his best friend since childhood. Mike's wife is a few months pregnant so he's going to make one last effort to help Chris get clean before he lets him go.  Mike shows up, chains Chris to a pipe in the wall and sets into helping Chris through the detox process. 

Mike starts exploring the cabin, and then the area, only to find a lot of wierd shit, film reels, cassette tapes, records, photographs, slides, journals written in French, and all sorts of A/V equipment.  Weird encounters with people from different areas nearby, and even closer encounters with people at the cabin all threaten to unsettle Mike's mission to help his friend, but he has focus and resolve, these other things are all just a curious distraction.  But what's on those tapes, and records, and videos would make anyone's blood turn cold.  Not that those are the only unsettling things, these strangers that keep turning up are their own level of creep factor.  Everything about this place is unsettling.  Chris is too burdened with the DTs to care, and Mike is juggling so much that it's hard for him to directly focus on any one thing other Chris.

It's a wonderfully constructed film, with a very natural rhythm to it.  It's score is gentle and doesn't overburden the picture or try to inform how to feel about what the viewer is seeing, it sits back and lets the performances dictate whether the audience is with them or not.  The pacing, the unraveling of information, is very well timed, negotiating many different threats helps make the more paranormal aspect of the story less intense, but it is more creepy because we're not focusing on it all the time.

The film does take a sudden turn in the last ten minutes, taking a few leaps in the explanation factor that it doesn't quite earn (we're basically with the characters in the revealing of information all the way through, but suddenly Mike seems a few steps ahead of us), but the film then manages to slow things down during this big intense resolution for perhaps the most affecting conversation between Mike and Christ to this point, and then just as rapidly ratchets things up in a bolt towards the finish.  It's really immensely fun, even if it leaves the audience hanging without a real understanding of what happened...but that very same feeling of confusion only invites and entices rewatching.

Or, just jump to The Endless.  While not a direct sequel, The Endless shares space with Resolution and, for lack of a better term, crosses-over with it. It's a shared world but in a way that both films miraculously can stand on their own.  They're very well thought out this way.

Justin and his younger brother Aaron were found as orphans by Hal and raised amidst a "UFO death cult" as he described it when they escaped 10 years ago.  They've been having a difficult time adjusting to the world outside the group, but Justin is just happy to be free of the cult, while Aaron only has positive memories of the compound and loathes the life he feels Justin is forcing him to lead outside of it.  A videotape from the group shows up in the mail and Aaron asks if they can go back for a night.  Justin reluctantly agrees (against the better judgement of their deprogramming counsellor)

At the compound they are welcomed back in, though Justin keeps his distance from everyone a bit.  With a fresh adult perspective, it's not like he remembered, and Aaron seems happy for the first time in years.  But he's skeptical of everything, and then he starts seeing and experiencing things he just can't believe.  Things he remembered from childhood but passed off as products of the fantastical imagination of youth. 

A lot of great dialogue exchanges are made from the dynamics of returning to these people who ostensibly raised Justin and Aaron, and the emotional benefit or toll of being with them again.  They feel like family, but as Justin says at one point, "on tombstones it says, like 'beloved brother', or 'beloved mother' and not 'beloved camp member'."  At the same time, Justin is looking for answers to what he's feeling and experiencing and these cagey motherfuckers are giving him nothing.  So he goes out in search of another familiar face he saw running along the road on their way in, and is horrified by both what he sees and is told.

Just like Resolution which found its main character focused on the betterment of his drug addled best friend (thinking it couldn't get too much worse than that), so too is Justin distracted by his brother's infatuation with the camp, knowing that it's an unhealthy place for him to be, but unable to deny him his happiness.

The journey this film takes is incredible, the giant strides it manages to adeptly take in covering a lot of ground efficiently is utterly impressive.  How it continually dovetails back into things hinted at in Resolution do not necessitate watching the earlier film, and vice versa, but certainly improves the experience of both.

I just utterly love these movies.  Are they horror?  A little bit, yeah.  A little bit.  It comes in from the edges because it's always there looming.  But they're brilliant little puzzles that form their own smaller segments of a larger picture.  There's so many threads left for Moorhead and Benson to pull that the next feature in this world (which is in the works) could be almost anything. That old prospector guy in the tent.  The French students.  The wellness center mentioned in both films but yet to be seen (that's my guess for the next one actually...).  Whatever it is, I'm eagerly waiting for it, and I'll be definitely revisiting these.  This duo is now on my watchlist for everything they do (a movie called Synchronic starring Anthony Mackie and Jamie Dornan was shown at TIFF in 2019 but has yet to receive larger or digital distribution).

But, there's still a third Moorehead and Benson film out there, also on Amazon Prime (thanks to Toast's Resolution review for the tip), called Spring, a very different film from these other two, but just as creative, and much more visually stunning.

The bulk of the film takes place in a coastal tourist town (in the late winter off-season) in Italy and the directing duo seem to just love the place... it's captured gloriously, almost like actually taking a vacation.  The water is a gorgeous blue, everything looks bright and fresh... there's a definite tranquility to it, a pace acknowledged as something much different than California where our lead, Evan, is originally from.

But before we get these gorgeous vistas we spend time with Evan back home, immediaetly following the death of his mom, running into trouble with a potential gang member, and getting fired from his crappy cooking job at a bar.  His dad died a few years earlier and they had planned to go to Italy, so it seems apt that that's where Evan winds up.  But the film still puts us through a few more paces as he connects with a couple of loud Brits who serve zero purpose to the film or character, or his journey really.  Honestly this whole opening 25 minutes could probably have been cut and just stripped down to exposition. 

Winding up in this small, scenic, coastal town, Evan immediately takes notice of Louise, a beautiful young woman with an indeterminate accent. They flirt but their connection doesn't take immediately.  A chance run-in the next day fares better, and Evan finds work at a farm under the tutelage of an older Italian man (not just tutelage in farming mind you, but life and love as well).  The romance between Evan and Louise is immediate (as Toasty noted, there's a real Before Sunrise vibe to how they connect).  And that's basically the movie.  Beautiful Italian scenery and a legitimately charming and romantic tale.  Oh, and she's some kind of monster who can't keep herself fully in check.

Right.

The monster thing.  Oh, man, Benson and Moorhead make it work, and make it work so well.  The monster thing is so baked into the DNA of the film, it's not really a twist, just more of the discovery these two have in the "getting to know you" process, and perhaps the big hurdle they will need to overcome.

This "creature" that Louise actually is is something wonderfully new, a brand new mythos for the screen that doesn't have nearly enough variety.  She's not a zombie, vampire, nor warewolf, not even close.  And the exploration of who she is, who she was, and who she becomes is really just more of a continuation of that wonderful romantic "getting-to-know-you" dialogue.  That may be a spoiler, but I want you to know what you're in for... an absolutely darling little film that wears its heart on its sleeve.  Is it horror? Only in the slightest... there is a threat from Louise, but that's not what this film is about, and it's not what its interested in.  Just marvelous, and a great double feature to go with The Shape of Water (also check out the graphic novel Dear Creature).

[Oh, and just to note, this film may actually be in the same universe as Resolution and The Endless as the character of "Shitty Carl", who is mentioned in the former and appears in the latter is referenced here as well in the opening sequence.]

Horror, Not Horror (again), pt. 2: Let's do the time warp again

"Horror, Not Horror" are movies that toe the line of being horror movies but don't quite comfortably fit the mold.  I'm not a big horror fan, but I do quite like these line-skirting type movies, as we'll see.

Coherence - 2013, d.  James Ward Byrkit - amazonprime    

Time Trap - 2018, d. Mark Dennis, Ben Foster - netflix

In The Shadow of the Moon - 2020, d. Jim Mickle  - netflix

Coherence is one of those whispered-about movies that gets brought up any time there's a conversation about little heard-of, indie sci-fi.  I've been hearing the name mentioned for years but people are always hesitant to really tell you what it's about, just to say that the less you know the more you get to experience the way the film unfolds.  And this film truly unfolds, unfolds like a map.  I mean I thought I caught on to what was happening early on, but even then the film still had a few wrinkles I needed it to iron out for me.

It's a low budget mostly closed-room picture, starring a few sort-of recognizable faces (Nicholas Brandon from Buffy The Vampire Slayer probably the most immediately recognizable).  A dinner party is taking place the night a comet is passing by Earth, but passing the closest a comet has ever passed on record. The guest slowly arrive, giving us time to establish some of the dynamics of the group, though a little more focus is put on Em (Emily Badaloni) as kind of our central figure of observance in all of this.  Her boyfriend has been given an opportunity to work in Thailand for a few months and he wants her to go with him, but she's uncertain. To double down, his ex-girlfriend is now dating another guy in their friend circle and they're both attending the party.

Once everyone arrives and the awkward tension is addressed, awkwardly, dinner is started, but then the power goes out, and strange things start to happen.  Again, could say more, but I won't.

I often got this film confused for It's A Disaster, another dinner-party-set sci-fi movie from around the same time, but that one was dealing with the end of the world, and starring a few more familiar faces and working largely as a comedy (while still taking its premise seriously).  Here, things are a lot more intense, at times terrifying.  This actually skirts the line of horror, as there seems to be someone/something outside, or some force that they cannot see influencing what's happening.  It's wildly engaging though, even though I don't think I really liked or cared for any of the characters, the plot and its execution are immensely well done up to the final minutes of the film.  It then makes a play that seems out of step with the film we've seen until now, and it keeps fumbling forward as if it can't help itself.  It's kind of brilliant, then gets a little too clever for it's own good, but don't let a slightly sour ending spoil everything that's good before it. 

Is it horror? Not really no, but it has a couple good startles in it.

---

Time Trap came recommended from Toasty (directly, but also from his review) because, as he mentioned there, we both love time travel movies, and he thought this was a good one.  Let me start by saying this is a really fun movie, the way the discovery of information unfolds, the little quirks it introduces, and then some really crazy go-for-broke ideas slapped hard on top of it all, but it's not a "good" movie.  The acting is, at its best, descent and the dialogue is (maybe intentionally) super clunky.  Were it not for the really quite good special effects, and some semblance of a logic map to the proceedings, this would be Mystery Science Theatre 3000-grade fodder.

But the story, and the storytelling are well enough done to avoid that fate.  I puzzle at some of the editing decisions made, especially in the first 20 minutes, but once everyone reaches their destination (the cave) it starts moving at a pretty insane clip of revelations and weirdness.  There is definitely a 50's/60's sci-fi adventure throwback vibe, as a trio of college-age kids and a pair of tweens go exploring a cave where people keep disappearing into, doing a lot of expositing along the way. 

If anything I think what would have made this film much better had it been more Goonies like (a film referenced within the film) and had been about a late-teen taking a bunch of younger kids into the cave.  I was really just a couple notches away from being a family friendly adventure...as it already kind of is, but just not quite.

Is it horror? Well, there's a situation there, involving Furby early on that's skirts the boundary of horror, but otherwise, not at all.

---

I'm going to start off talking about In The Shadow Of The Moon asking whether it's horror before talking about anything else, because, yes, it is, marginally, and certainly right in the beginning.  It's also a detective thriller, a science fiction drama, and another half dozen stories rolled together. 

The central conceit is in 1988, someone has killed three different people by injecting them with an isotope that melts their brain.  Patrol cop Locke has dreams of being a detective and starts inserting himself on the case (his brother in law is the lead detective so grants him some leeway).  In the process of the manhunt, Locke comes across the perpetrator and accidentally knocks her in front of a train (in the Toronto subway system attempting to pass for Philly).  Case closed right, except that she said things to him that make no sense, some very personal things.  And then his wife dies in labor.

The case picks up 9 years later, more victims appear with the same distinct  (and unreplicateable) modus operandi.  Another fracas with the perpetrator leaves his partner dead, and him even more confused... the perp is still alive.

Another 9 years and Locke is pretty much a bum, distant from his daughter who is living with his brother in law, but starting to put some of the pieces together, still he doesn't believe it.

Another 9 years and he's ready to close the loop he's figured out about the time traveling perp, but things are much more complicated than they seem.

It's a lot of time to span with one actor in the same role and Boyd Holbrooke does of good job of showing Locke's descent over these time frames, even if the makeup and hair get a little sketchy.  The film with a modern awareness of the Black Lives Matter movement tries to make it a thread in the 1997 sequence but it comes off as a little tone deaf (especially in the face of the more recent defund the police phase of the movement).  It's also using white supremacy terrorism but not really addressing it in anything but a pie-in-the-sky, oversimplified manner on how to solve it.  The film has lofty aspirations but way overreaches, breaking a wrist in the process.

The more the film gets away from its thriller/murder mystery and into the science fiction, the more it starts to come apart.  It never fully falls apart, but by the end it's tattered and barely holding together.  It's certainly not unwatchable but it's a rare case where I think it would have been preferable had the film been a bit more conventional.

Someone on letterboxed said it's like if Looper and Se7en had a baby with a learning disorder.  That pretty much covers it.

[Toast's take on In The Shadow Of The Moon]

Horror, Not Horror (again), pt. 1 - Ketchup-as-blood

"Horror, Not Horror" are movies that toe the line of being horror movies but don't quite comfortably fit the mold.  I'm not a big horror fan, but I do quite like these line-skirting type movies, as we'll see.

The Vast of Night - 2019, d. Andrew Patterson -amazonprime

Vivarium - 2019, d.  Lorcan Finnegan  - crave

Ready or Not - 2019, d  - crave

---

Modern filmmaking tends to be about quick edits, so when a film consists primarily of tracking shots, it stands out if for no other reason than how it begs the viewer to follow along with it.  The Vast of Night opens with a long tracking shot through small town New Mexico in the 1950s, following along with Everett the local radio DJ who seems like the town's key problem solver as he walks through the high school gymnasium being readied for the big basketball game.  He runs into Fay who works as a telephone switch operator, and they have a walk and talk.  They have a playful dynamic but it's clear Fay is sweet on Everett but he only has eyes for getting out of town and implores Fay to do the same. 

He goes to his radio job (even though the whole town is at the basketball game and nobody is probably listening) while Fay goes to her operator job (even though the whole town is at the basketball game and nobody is probably calling).  There, she listens to Everett on the radio, but starts experiencing some weird noise, not exactly static.  Likewise, a phone call comes in about strange lights and gets cut off by a similar noise.  Fay calls Everett and asks about the interference, which he then reaches out to the listening audience and receives a call from a retired military man who explains about some very strange things, lights, sounds, materials, things he's seen.  The camera work throughout this lingers, rarely cutting, occasionally fading out as people talk as if to say "just listen".  It's strange, but effective, lulling you into this almost meditative experience of a possible UFO sighting in progress.

It's an atmospheric movie, with space to breathe, and it tells its story through telling stories.  It's such a unique experience maintaining its own sense of tranquility while simultaneously ratcheting up the tension as Everett and Kay explore these sights and sounds and calls on their own while the town is otherwise largely oblivious to what goes on.

Patterson's direction is confident and masterful, the editing equally purposeful and meaningful.  The attention to detail here, not just the era-specific sets and clothing, but the dialogue, the language of 50's radio, the little details like statements Everett employs in talking with others before putting them on air or how he feeds a reel-to-reel tape extremely quickly, adds a tangible and engrossing believability to procedure.  The stars, Sierra McCormick as Fay and Jake Horowitz as Everett, both unknown commodities to me, nail their roles perfectly, each conveying more in what they're not saying, even though they have so much dialogue.  Just a wonderfully realized movie, astonishingly so for a 700K budget.  Nothing terribly horrifying about it, though it employs "Raimi-cam" at least once during the picture which seemed an obvious homage to me.

---

Vivarium has been on my radar for a while, despite my general aversion to Jesse Eisenberg (see my Art of Self Defense review), but the concept of a couple being trapped in isolation in an endless suburbia seemed too intriguing to me to care about who was starring in it.

Paired with Imogen Poots, he's playing an ex-pat groundskeeper in the UK, while Poots is a grade school teacher.  We don't get much of a glimpse of their life but the film gives subtle displays of their playful chemistry and even hints as their rougher nature underneath.  Jesse, your American is showing.

They decide to have a look at the suburb development of Yonder, an ugly, ugly community of nothing but the same stock green house and same size fenced back yard.  Their guide, Martin, is a disturbingly false-looking person, his mannerisms odd and his smile disingenuous, and he has a nervous habit of mimicking the pair.  He indicates that this is the perfect place for them, the perfect place for their family.  They look around the bland, stale home and when they return from the back yard, Martin is gone...but in leaving the house they find they're unable to leave the community.  There's no way out, they just keep passing house number 9 with the door left open.  After hours of driving, they wind up inside, opening the gift basket in the fridge, eating the tasteless strawberries and drinking champagne.

A box arrives containing all the essentials, but in Yonder labeled packaging.  Getting up on the roof, the skyline is nothing but Yonder as far as the eye can see and the same cloud repeating over and over again, as if they're in an unimaginative simulation.  Days later another package arrives (no one is seen dropping it off) and it's a baby, and the box label notes "raise the child and you may leave".

We step through this couple's life as they raise this child, who seems to grow an a much more rapid clip than they age, but there's definitely something wrong with that boy.  In fact, he looks (and acts) a little like Martin, but also mimicing the words and traits of each of them.  As a couple they start to get more and more distanced, the more she spends time with the child, and he digs a hole in the disturbing soil out front.  Their sanity is in question, but that isn't the test.

The film is absolutely a metaphor for expectations, expectations in getting married, settling down, raising a family, and it has the bleakest of outlooks on this experience...and yet it does intrinsically understand it.  It understands how horrifying it is to see yourself reflected in your child but in a way that feels alien.  It understands how domesticity can come between a couple even though they're in it together.  It understands the desire that men have to escape their situation and understands that while women may have the same desire, they tend to have stronger nurturing instincts prevent them from outright abandoning a child.  There's a commentary on nature versus nurture, and in this reality, nature wins out.

Vivarium's opening credits is basically a montage of the progression of the Cuckoo bird that lays its egg in another birds nest, hatches with its false siblings, and then forces them out of the nest before taking all it can get from the mother.  The child, despite any nurturing, has its nature, and it follows it.  It's a grimy, ugly, film, that serves up a horrifying allegory.  It's not exactly a horror movie, but it's definitely disturbing and weird... which I like more than straight up horror.

---

When I think of "Horror, Not Horror" films, Ready or Not is exactly the kind of film I'm thinking of.  It's a film that takes the tropes of horror but says "not today" and doesn't take said tropes very seriously.  Instead its gruesome gags are more for humour than frights.

In Ready or Not a new bride Grace (Samara Weaving) is compelled by her new family to play a game at midnight on their wedding night, as is tradition, something this family is very big on.  They had made their money on the back of a successful board game empire so there's a sense of logic Grace can't object to.  She's also an orphan and so delighted to have a real family that she's working hard to be accepted.  Her husband, meanwhile, had tried to leave the family behind him, but returned at Grace's request.

The selection of the game first comes with a strange story, a family legend, and a mysterious box.  You place a blank playing card in the box, and it spits out the game to play.  Grace, unfortunately, selects hide and seek, and tensions raise in the room. Grace laughs and heads out in her wedding dress to find a hiding location while the family debate whether to proceed with their ritualistic hunting game.  But of course they have to, for they believe their family to be cursed if they don't follow tradition, and the game is part of tradition. Sacrifice the bride, or they will all die.

And so the hunt begins, and it's a bit like Clue with the help all getting murdered first in shockingly absurd situations.  And not everyone is as into the game as the others, but most are willing to play along.

Ready or Not could have very easily fallen into tedium but it's darkly comedic sensibility, and its faith in the intelligence of its characters provides for more than a few surprises, and definitely some exciting and even tense moments.  But more than anything this is a playful movie, which is perfect for its backdrop.

The cast is surprisingly stacked for what I first thought was just a small little horror movie.  Andie MacDowell is great as the family patriarch, while "that guy" Henry Czerny plays incompetent zealot very, very well.  Adam Brody and Mark O'Brien are believable as brothers, with an affectionate in-it-together attitude, while Melanie Scrofano (the lead of Wynonna Earp, but also Letterkenny's Mrs. McMurry) and Kristian Bruun (Orphan Black) provide the outright comic relief as the sister and her husband (respectively).  Not very horrifying, rather just kind of fun (and a little gross).

[Toast's spoiler-y Ready or Not review: we agree]

Disneat: The "Witch Mountain" Cycle

"Disneat" is a new subcolumn wherein we tackle weird stuff of Disney+

Escape To Witch Mountain (1975, d. John Hough)

Return From Witch Mountain (1978, d. John Hough)

Race To Witch Mountain (2009, d. Andy Fickman)

We have been SO inundated with superheroes and science fiction and fantasy and surreal action movies that it's hard to remember that there was a time where television and cinema did not cater to comic book geeks, and so those of us that took that stuff seriously had to glom onto some real mediocre pieces of entertainment.   Production companies would throw us nerds a bone from time to time, but they didn't make their pictures with the fanatical fanboys in mind (and fangirls weren't even a concept yet), they tried to make them as mass-market friendly, and usually very cheaply because, until the wild success of Star Wars and Superman in the late 70's, there was believed to be no broad appeal to these kinds of films.

The initial Witch Mountain movies were a bit before my time, and somehow never came across my radar until the 2009 soft reboot was launching.  Had I known these existed I'm certain I would have glommed onto them...maybe not hard like I did with Star Wars or Planet of the Apes but, maybe somewhere in the range of disappointed-but-will-take-what-I-can-get also-rans like Condorman or My Secret Identity (in other words, productions that put the least amount of effort into appealing to genre fans, knowing that they would still appeal to genre fans desperate for content).

Poster, better than the movie

The first film is about two children, Tia (future Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star Kim Richards) and Tony, who are living in an orphanage after the death of their foster parent.  They have no memory of their real family, but they do have superpowers, like telepathy and telekinesis.  Of course the stock bully in any pre-Millennium kids movie is there to pick on our protagonists, but the kids flashing displays of their powers out in the open (even though they promised each other not to) help take the bully down.  One day Tia has a premonition and saves a guy about to get in a limo (that guy, none other than Donald Pleasence, desperate for work it seems), which a short while later gets rammed right in the passenger door by a truck. 

Pleasence works for a very rich man who has been searching for signs of the paranormal for years, and in quick order has Pleasence pose as their Uncle and adopt the kids.   He brings the kids to the rich guy's mansion where he promises them the moon and gives them a massive bedroom with its own ice cream bar.  But the kids quickly figure out the man has nefarious intentions (but not before an insufferably long sequence where Tony makes all the toys in their new room dance and Tia dances along).  They run away, finding refuge in the camper van of a grumpy old loner who you can bet will take a shining to these kids.  Along the way Tia has visions about her past and the old loner, in mere hours talking like these kids are his very own, helps them get away from the bad men in pursuit and figure out their past.  They're aliens! But also orphans.  And their Grandpa comes and picks them up in the jankiest looking ufo special effect this side of "Itchy and Scratchy and Poochie" (dig my savvy 1990's Simpsons reference kids).

It's not an unwatchable movie, and thankfully it's not your bog standard Disney live action kiddie fare... there's a bit more adventure to it than that, and it has that same strange undercurrent of loss and darkness that most Disney animated movies have but live action tends to forego.  The effects are stupid, but I could see the nerdy kids of the time being totally into it.  But man the whole "Witch" thing is a real bait-and-switch, when it's all about superpowered aliens and not one iota about witches.  "Witch Mountain" is just a place (and in the mid-1970's people were still ready to take up arms against witches? Oy vey America, oy vey).  Also it should be noted that Kim Richards' Tia is the co-lead of the film, even perhaps with a bigger spotlight than Tony, and she receives FOURTH billing in the "FEATURING" section of the credits.  That's some sexist 70's hollywood bullshit there.

Again, poster better than movie

Three years later, Tia and Tony return to Earth, this time heading to Los Angeles, to take what seems to be a vacation. Within moments Tony has exposed his power to... what the fuck...?  Christopher Lee and Bette Davis?  Oh man, hard times for those two.  They play the bad guys in this.  Lee has developed a mind control technology, with Davis' gambling addict patron footing the bill.  Sensing astonishing potential by mind controlling a kid with telekinetic powers, Lee expects that people will look past the kidnapping and hail him as one of the greatest minds of the modern age.  Davis meanwhile just wants to take the kid to Vegas.

I should mention here, before I keep going, "Witch Mountain" never even enters into play at all in this entry.

Tia, on the search for her missing brother, hooks up with a gang of kids, probably in the 10-12 age range.  When not getting the tar beat out of them by rival kid gangs, these kids are on the run from "Yo-yo", Mr. Yakamoto, the school's truancy officer.  The way these obviously not down-and-out kids so daydream about the gang lifestyle troublesome, especially 15 years before gangsta rap is even a thing for white middle class kids everywhere to fetishize.  Should a kids movie really be promoting this?  Anyway, a "girl" (one at least 2 years older than any of them) becomes their chief ass kicker and they opt to help her find her brother, because even though they're a tough-as-nails street gang, they're just nice kids at heart.

A few misadventures later and Tia and Tony are reunited, the gang kids now promise Mr. Yakamoto they'll stay in school and the alien kids return to their spaceship and grandpa, having accomplished literally nothing in L.A.  It's honestly a bit of an improvement over the previous film, and yet utterly perplexing as to the point.  I can kind of understand why this stopped the franchise dead in its tracks.  Tia and Tony have no motivation... and there's certainly no larger arc about the government tracking aliens, or wanting kids with superpowers to experiment on.  That would take about 30 years for that kind of "mature" storytelling to take hold.

Disney, ever ready to tread on nostalgia, and sensing the superhero craze was just lifting off, decided for an expensive soft reboot of the "Witch Mountain" property.  It would star Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson who was almost a decade past his big screen debut in the Mummy Returns but still hadn't quite made his leading man mark yet (The Rundown in hindsight is easily the start of Johnson's superstardom, but it wasn't a big hit at the time).  This tepid action vehicle, trying to be both for kids and for adults but really feeling like neither, wasn't going to do much to further that status.

Dull poster conveys just how dull
film is

The opening credits to Race To Witch Mountain convey its confusion about what audience its for.  Over an intense score, there is a rapid montage of "real" UFO footage, intermixed with news headlines about UFOs, videos of political figures talking about searching for extraterrestrial life, and even a couple quick hits of alien autopsies and funky skulls.  It's kind of terrifying and I'm sure something that would send younger viewers screaming out of the theatre.

After a "meteorite" crashes in the Nevada desert, a military agent leading a secret project played by Ciaran Hinds tracks down its location and then learns there were bipedal beings on whatever crashed.  Their search, surprisingly takes less than a minute thanks to technology and the nanny state, and they see the aliens in the form of two very norse looking teenagers (are they Asgardians?  Thor's hammer crashed in the Nevada desert too).  They were last seen getting into the cab Johnson drives.  Johnson's character, the cinematically named "Jack Bruno", is an ex-con who is dodging the advances of his former mob boss' goons trying to get him to return to the fold as their wheelman, but he's gone straight.  He's a nice guy and though resistant initially, he sees these kids in need and decides to help them.  It should be noted that Johnson looks more like maybe his own brother or cousin here, as he still has hair and he's about half the size he is now.

The kids are not only trying to escape the US government, but also an alien headhunter, who is trying to prevent them from collecting evidence that their own homeworld can be saved, its employers much preferring to just invade and take over the Earth.  A bunch of action set pieces, all with decent visual effects but bland choreography and cinematography, ensue.  They invariably involve Carla Gugino's "legit" alien researcher (who is presenting to the crackpots at a Vegas convention), who is supposed to help them somehow, but I don't ever really understand why she's involved at all except that the film needed an attractive, adult, female lead.  Then Garry Marshall is involved for some reason, more action set pieces, and yay, day saved.

It's only 98 minutes long but feels like it goes on forever, and yet the film moves too fast to establish any meaningful connection between the characters, and the stakes don't feel organic at all.  The film is dripping with cliches throughout and it never conveys any real sense of danger.  I think Disney was expecting a franchise out of this...but for all the flash and bang, it's just pretty dull.

3+1 Short Paragraphs: Palm Springs

2020, Max Barbakow (a buncha shorts) -- download

Time loops. Love em. I do hate the automatic comparison to Groundhog Day, like I said in writing about Arq, but you cannot get away from it. This movie doesn't even try, embracing the ideal for some of the plot points, if not directly referencing it. Definitely Barbakow and writer Andy Siara are fond of the genre, and they do both an original take on the storyline as well as the appropriate amount of nods. So, thumbs up, guys!

Nyles (Andy Samberg, Brooklyn 99) is the guy in the loop, stuck forever attending a wedding in the desert outside Palm Springs. Its obvious he's been there a while, and he uses his awareness to hit on Sarah (Cristin Milioti, How I Met Your Mother), sister of the bride and loathing every minute she is attending this wedding. Nyles does the artful dance around the reception, knowing everyone's moves before they do, knowing exactly what to say and when. And it catches Sarah's attention, ending up with them in the desert making out. Then Roy (JK Simmons, Law & Order) shows up and shoots Nyles with an arrow. Nyles flees into a cave, Sarah chasing after to assist. Bad move.

The cave is the science-magic catalyst and anyone who goes in stays in This Day, well actually not the day, but for the waking day --- as long as they stay awake they stay in this time. Nod off, and *poof* they wake up back on the morning of Nov 9. Nyles has been doing this for a VERY VERY long time, long enough that he has given up trying to understand or change it, and has become one with the loop. Sarah's not having that shit. She goes through the Stages of Timeloops with Nyles (anger, suicide, resignation, fun) until she ends up at the Fix It stage. But... but... but... Nyles wants to stay!

As much as this movie is about the timeloop, its still a romantic comedy and focuses rather heavily on the metaphor timeloops present for people who don't truly live their lives (*cough*). Nyles and Sarah are stuck together and the loop allows them to really, truly get to know each other. Do they get better as people, do they learn from the endless time they have been given, do they learn to treat time passing as a precious commodity. I really liked the way this movie balanced the concept of the timeloop with what the story wanted to say about the characters. And a dialed-back Samberg is rather charming. If you didn't guess, a definitive enjoyment, this movie was.

3 Short Paragraphs: Black and Blue

2019, Deon Taylor (The Intruder) -- Amazon

I am hesitant to talk about the Black Lives Matter movement. I consider myself a visible ally, but also I am very very aware of my privilege as a Straight White Male. This summer has challenged all of us of privilege, reminding us that we cannot just sit back and hope it gets better. And yet... I still do. I just find it hard to be the person who Acts. But I am not afraid to be confronted by it and acknowledging, especially in the fictional platform. The trailer of Black and Blue came out some time ago, long before the latest atrocities happened, and I liked the Gauntlet aspect it put the main character in, a young black, female cop in New Orleans who witnesses other cops killing someone, and ends up on the run herself.

New Orleans already has a rather checkered past when it comes to police corruption and visible racism. Alicia (Naomie Harris; Skyfall) escaped her past when she was young, but returns to her home town a recently graduated police officer. We're introduced to her being profiled while jogging. "She's blue..." says one of the white officers, by way of apology, as if she is supposed to understand. She doesn't. She shouldn't. But the prejudice of her job also carries over to her old neighbourhood, showing us that the bitterness held against the police is colour-blind. If you are blue, you are blue, and you are tainted. Sounds very very relevant right now. But she wants the faces from her past to see she is different.

Alicia blunders into a killing by some cliche corrupt narcotics cops, and is suddenly on the run. She is trapped behind enemy lines, ratted out to more corrupt cops and also to the gang leader, manipulated into believing his nephew was murdered by her, not the thugs with badges. So many layers of anger and bitterness and prejudice play out in this movie. It was not as much a gauntlet play through as I hoped, but the pit-of-your-stomach stress is there all the way through, as she has so very few people she can believe in, not her fellow officers or familiar faces from her past. But that body cam on her chest holds all the cards, tells all the truth, if only she can get it into the station and into the hands of the right people.

We (Sort of) Agree: Eurovision ...

2020, d. David Dobkin - netflix

A relatively harmless, but also toothless comedy centered around the Eurovision song competition. Will Ferrell and Rachel McAdams play an Icelandic musical duo with a modicum of talent who, thanks to dumb luck and sinister intervention become the de facto entrants for Iceland in the competition. Having never left their small Icelandic town before, they go to Edinburgh where they meet other competitors and have their minds blown at the larger world around them (and yell at some dumb American tourists who they hate). 

There's room for some big comedy in all this but the film nobly takes great pains to not punch down at anyone (Americans excepted) and in trying not to offend it never goes very big. There's a slight absurdist fantasy streak that runs through the film (involving ghosts and elves) that may be the more bizarrely entertaining part of the film or may take you out of it altogether. Your mileage may vary.

There's a lot of accents on display. Ferrell's Icelandic is barely there and comes and goes, McAdams is pretty good most of the time, Pierce Brosnan (playing Ferrell's dad) is awful. There are a lot of Icelandic performers for comparison (a lot of familiar Game of Thrones faces), with the very shouty Johannes Haukur Johannesburg being the highlight. Dan Stevens plays the Russian superstar performer with utter delight, although (as my wife pointed out) with all the dance coordination he had to do on Legion it's a shame he didn't really dance at all here.

The film seems quite overlong at 123 minutes, and you really feel it by the halfway point. The second half clocks along at a brisk pace as the music starts talking hold. A lot of credit to the production for making a lot of genuinely plausible pop songs and really bringing down the house with the closing number. The only true voice to the main actors is Ferrell's (everyone else had amazing ringers) which provides a viable reason why Fire Song wouldn't be a favourite (Ferrell can sing, but, like, karaoke good, not pop star good).

I can't help but think had they not opted for the "Eurovision" branding how utterly silly this film could have gotten with all the international acts. I mean they could have hired regional comedic performers and musicians to create absurd pop music for a fake Eurovision effectively doubling the laughs (which, frankly, it could really use), but as it is it's a fairly earnest and kind of sweet movie.  The film actually seems to earnestly enjoy Eurovision and all its ridiculous pageantry and doesn't throw it under the bus.  It incorporates past winners in a ripoff of the sing-off we've seen in the Pitch Perfect films, so there's something both charming and tedious about it.  Kind of like the entire picture.

Hamilton

2020, d. Thomas Kail - disney+

I am not a frequent theatre goer, but when I have gone it's largely been for either a musical or Shakespeare.  Though I prefer cinema to the stage, I don't dislike the experience of live performance (I've seen enough standup and concerts to affirm that certainly).  There is a power that it has that makes it such a different experience than the movies, and it's such an experiential mode of storytelling that it should resonate so much more strongly than its celluloid counterparts.  But my theatre going experiences, have been a mixed bag, some incredible, most forgettable. 

The musicals stand out more.  It's obvious why.  They're bigger, more lavish, attention-getting productions, plus a catchy tune can go a long way to connecting with the audience, and musicals allow for a little more give performance-wise... a lesser actor can make up for it with stronger singing, and vice versa.  But going to theatre - musicals particularly - comes with a greater expense,  and effort, and build-up, so the experience needs to live up to that investment.  The bigger shows produced obviously need to play to the broadest crowd possible to recoup their own expense, which typically makes for toothless storytelling.  Plus musicals are a music genre on their own, and there are trappings to it that engenders a sameness (like so many genres of music can), and if you're not a lover of those trappings, it can be off putting.

Hamilton both embraces those trappings and explodes them.  It's a hip-hop musical, a rare feat on its own.  Likewise being a musical with a predominantly Black and POC cast seems to be a rarity, certainly one in achieving the heights it has.  It's become a touchstone for this generation of musical theatre and a certifiable pop culture phenomenon, certainly in America but well beyond.

Yet, like all theatre, it's heights can only reach so far.  Even running to sold out shows on Broadway, in Chicago and London and a few American tours it's still only reaching a fraction of the audience that are interested, curious, or intrigued by it due to proximity, availability or expense.  A cast recording has been available for years (I bought a digital copy back in 2017 and didn't really get too far into it, mainly because I couldn't find time to just sit down, listen and focus).  A cover album from rap and R&B stars also exists which I have given a whirl or two on Spotify, but these recordings don't quite have the same potency as seeing a live performance.

Which leads us to July 3, and the release of Hamilton on Disney+.  Disney paid $75million to acquire the international distribution rights to a 2016 recording featuring it's original Broadway cast (there were some roles played by others when it was working off Broadway as "The Hamilton Mixtape").  Originally slated to debut in cinemas in 2021, Disney convinced creator Lin Manuel Miranda to allow them to release it on Disney Plus during these pandemic times.  There are many reasons Disney wanted to do so (foremost being placing high profile content while their new theatrical features are being delayed, thus delayed from releasing on the platform), and likely many reasons why Miranda would agree (as it would likely pull an even wider audience than its theatrical release due to more butts being stuck at home).  But there's no way, after the monumental praise (and a few criticisms around historical accuracy) that this "movie", played at home, of a live performance can live up to the hype...can it?

Yeah, it goddamn well can. Hamilton is incredible.  It's beyond incredible, it's a masterpiece.  It's not flawless, but it's flaws don't influence the overall impact of this incredibly told, amazingly performed story.

First, let's just say that this isn't a stodgy effortless, from-a-distance filming of the musical, it's a very much shot for cinema, with close ups, zooms, pans all very smartly and artfully done to draw the viewer in even more to the performance rather than keeping them at arms length.  It wisely offers an experience the theatre cannot, like seeing Jonathan Groff's spitting as he belts out King George III's spiteful tune "You'll Be Back" (the whitest number in the book, borrowing a little from 60's American sugar pop like the Turtles, accurately annoyingly catchy).

The performances are amazing.  Daveed Diggs, Leslie Odom Jr. and Renée Elise Goldsberry are a powerhouse trifecta with superstar charisma.  We've already been seeing these faces in prominent TV and movies but it's a matter of time before they are massive.  Perhaps this D+ showcase will be enough to break them even wider.  The rest of the cast is great as well, even the ensemble players who are mostly background dancing (one performer plays "the bullet" for each duel in the show).  If there's a weak spot, it's actually Miranda.  There's no doubt why he's playing the lead role...the passion he had to write this carries in his performance, but next to every other performer he falls just a little short in the power.  He has charisma, but at times his voice just doesn't push it over the edge the way Odom or Goldsberry's performances do.  But that would be part of his brilliance, in casting the strongest performers around him, to uplift the overall production, even if it outshines him.

The thing is, the material is so strong, even a weaker, but passionate performance still soars.  There are layers, here, starting from the top with casting a historical epic with a POC cast, touching on but also kind of skirting around slavery.  There's potency in seeing a Black man portray George Washington, knowing that the first President had slaves.  There's a potency in Hamilton's story as an immigrant (albeit a white immigrant) being portrayed and told by the child of immigrants from Puerto Rico. 

Despite being a story about the "Founding Fathers" of America, Miranda also doesn't skirt the role women play in the story of these characters.  This isn't necessarily a direct or focussed translation of the birth of a nation, instead it's a character study of Alexander Hamilton and his friend/nemesis Aaron Burr during this time.  One lyric in "the Schuyler Sisters" (working both mid-80's hip-hop and early 90's R&B together), the first female-led segment of the story, finds them rhyming "I've been reading 'Common Sense' by Thomas Payne/Some men say that I'm intense or I'm insane/You want a revolution, I want a revelation/So listen to my declaration/'We hold these truths to be self evident that all men are created equal"/And when I meet Thomas Jefferson/I'ma compel him to include women in the sequel".  It's a very brief but pointed commentary that women got shafted.  That much of Angelica and Eliza's role is talking about how their place was to find security and comfort in supporting a man, but the play gives them strength in how they parlay, showing that women carried some weight amidst their mistreatment.

It's an absolutely fantastic character study, certainly showing how times changed, where men were uniquely concerned about their legacy and their impact on the world.  Of the 85 essays in the Confederalist Papers defending the new US Constitution, Hamilton wrote 51 of them (when there were originally supposed to be 25 total).  That's the fervor of a man trying to leave his mark.  "I'm not throwing away my shot", "He will never be satisfied" and "History has its eyes on me" are three of the main refrains of the story which tell the story of both the man, the men and their times.

The music is the part I was most worried about when I heard about a hip-hop musical, a label which is a bit of a misnomer, since it incorporates more than just hip-hop, but that is indeed its foundation.  Miranda obviously loves the genre of music, and from a particular period of time as it largely bathes in the early-mid 90's sound of rap and R&B, but it sways back to 80's foundational with allusions to the sounds of Grandmaster Flash, the Sugarhill Gang, Run-DMC, and The Beastie Boys, and stretches forward up to the mid 00's just prior to when the vocorder took dominance for a very painful stretch of time.   There's even a couple of simulated rap battles for the debate floor complete with the choir of "oohs" and "ohs". There's nothing about it that's "hard", this isn't gangsta and isn't pretending to be, it very much leans in on the soulful, consciousness hip-hop tip, and if you listened to rap in the 90's you can hear multiple inspirations coming out of each song.  On top of that there's the language of Broadway still embedded in it, with tips of the hat to Gershwin and others throughout... Miranda's not forgetting to check where either of his inspirations come from.  This may be too much of a bastardization for hip-hop purists, but hey, Busta Rhymes and The Roots (among many others) deeply adore this show.

Believe the hype.

3 Short Paragraphs: Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga

2020, David Dobkin (Wedding Crashers) -- Netflix

When I am having difficulty finishing another post, I find one at random and just say whatever. I should be able to say whatever about the original, but for some reason, my brain won't let me. So, the whatever about this movie is, "Why did I watch this?" Well,  I like Iceland, I like Rachel McAdams, I cringe at Eurovision and for the most part, I don't like Will Ferrell. But I really like Dan Stevens, so watching him as an over-the-top Russian pop singer with big hair was probably the main attract-or. Alas, my original thought proved true -- meh.

Lars Ericksson (Ferrell) and Sigrit Erricksdottir (McAdams) were friends since childhood; they may or may not be brother & sister. Erick Ericksdottir (Pierce Brosnan) is a widower who is quite friendly with the local ladies and has been for quiiiiiite some time. That is the first joke I found kind of amusing yet also off-putting. When you do an entire movie that is based on both being fond of a place & culture, yet depending on making fun of it, there are bound to be some off-colour jokes. Lars and Sigrit have one dream -- to win the Eurovision Song Contest, despite being rather terrible. Given that the contest itself confounds North Americans, by being grandiose and over-the-top but also EXTREMELY popular, its not surprising the main characters have to be the same. Due to some rather unfortunate circumstances, Fire Saga (their band) ends up being Iceland's entry in the contest.

So, yeah they go to the contest and everyone assumes they are terrible (as Lars is) and are going to bomb. And they do, but they also capture the hearts of not only the audience but also many of the other contestants. But not mine. Sure, there are some good jokes, and as expected, Dan Steven's Russian singer who is Not Gay ("there are no gay people in Russia") but so very very Definitely Gay is incredible. But the movie was so by the numbers a Will Ferrell movie, I just could not do much more than chuckle. There was literally only one scene I truly found funny, and Marmy had to point to me the faerie door slamming. So, other than being somewhat chuckle worthy and full of lovely Icelandic scenery, I wish I had given this one a pass.

3 Short Paragraphs: Robin Hood

2018, Otto Bathurst (a buncha TV episodes) -- Amazon

My two buddies, the imaginary movie execs in their bad (but very expensive) suits and definitive hair cuts, show up a lot these days. Their elevator pitches are both hilarious yet likely. For example, this particular Robin Hood started with a "like we are doing a Robin Hood movie set in the same world as Guy Ritchie's King Arthur." (1)  Anywayz, Bad Suit Guys, one old enough to remember A Knight's Tale, conceive of a Robin Hood movie that draws upon many tropes from modern day movies, and convince each other it will be a masterpiece. Also, the only other Robin Hood movie they know is Costner's. And, it was so much a masterpiece, it actually took me three separate sittings to finish.

Robin of Locksley, is a crusader much like the Costner version, in fact I don't think the Bad Suit Guys realized they were not doing a reboot of that movie, in an opening scene that needed a marker saying "Falujah, late 1100s" as they are recreating an Iraq War movie with crusaders armed with bows, instead of M16s. (2) Modern war footage style battle against Saracens with Robin showing his uncanny skill with a bow. He runs afoul of some fellow crusaders when he doesn't stand for the summary executions of prisoners, but not before he gains the admiration of Yahya (Jamie Fox), who actually follows Robin (Taron Egerton) back to England. Of course, back in England, Loxley's estates have been taken from him, and he ends up going against the Sheriff of Nottingham to defend the people against the corrupt ruler. Enter a need to take from the rich (Ben Mendelsohn) and give to the poor.

In bits and pieces it is not all that bad of a movie, more a collection of creative set pieces and costume choices. But as a whole, it is entirely boring and retread. I never really liked Robin, as he was more just a polished, out-of-time Eggsy. Sheriff O'K has a plan, which is convoluted and dastardly but the end game is only hinted at. And I am realizing that I don't really like the chase-the-wagon trope that need to be in these movies. Also, his Merry Men were severely lacking in screen time, making me feel they were trying for the first in a franchise. If I liked anything, it was his quilted hoodie with a Green Arrow-styled peak hood.

(1) That movie deserves a re-watch and a post, as I both rather dislike yet rather enjoy it.

(2) Yes, I know the M16 is no longer a primary weapon in the US Army. Perhaps I should say a SCAR ? I dunno, not a gun guy despite shooting a lot of them in FPS games.