3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): Marlina the Murderer in Four Acts

2017, Mouly Surya (Trigger Warning) -- download

I said during my write-up of Trigger Warning that I wanted to reach back to Mouly Surya's groundbreaking and critically acclaimed (I need another way to say that catch phrase) film. I wanted to see if there was something the director brought from this movie to that Hollywood movie that was.... well, rather uninspired (another common film writing phrase I need to replace). But there were elements, as I mentioned, in the quiet moment where I suspected I saw the director at play, untampered. I think I was right for this movie, also about a woman wronged and taking matters into her own hands, is best during its quiet moments with the lead.

I need to write about this movie with less of the snark I usually use. This writeup needs to be a sobre, mature post considering the topic and the attention/intent used to make this movie. I harken back to Kent's commenting about intentionality in movie making, and I don't always agree this holds true, but in this movie EVERYTHING is done with intent, there is nothing added for the sake of a producer, this is a proper creator's vision movie, and for that at least, it deserves my respect.

I know nothing about the Indonesian film industry; I have probably only seen a handful of horror movies from there. I am saying this because I don't know whether this movie is courageous in their film world, but it definitely is from a general film making experience. Dealing head on with the cultural views of rape and a woman's status in one's own society has to be courageous. And at the same time Surya makes a movie with art and intent that resonates with the rest of the film viewing world.

A bit of the snark floats to the top with me thinking many of the critics gave it high marks just because of the subject matter, and not whether they "liked" the film or not. It did well at film festivals around the world, real well, but I still think most film critics would be... "it was fine."

Marlina (Marsha Timothy, The Raid 2) is a widow who lives in the dry hills of the island of Sumba. Her house is far from even the middle of nowhere, from our western perspective. Sumba has an interesting death ritual which plays a quiet part in the movie, as Marlina's husband sits in her house's main room, posed in a crouch, wrapped in many colourful blankets. People of Sumba often cannot afford "proper" burial rituals and will leave family members in the dry air, essentially mummifying them, until they can complete the funeral rites. In this movie, he is a prop, a reminder that Marlina is alone, entirely. She is now subject to whatever other men want to do with her.

Thieves come to her house, claiming her husband owed them money, and they will take everything, including her. More arrive, with a truck, and load all her livestock into the back. They demand her make them something to eat, they want chicken soup (waingapu) after which they will all ... take her, starting with leader Markus (Egy Fedly, Satan's Slaves). But not before he takes a nap.

She makes the soup with small green & red berries, and from they way she handles them, we know what they must do. Markus is oblivious as each of his fellow thieves die from the poison, and chooses rape over soup. In the act, Marlina grabs his golok, a sword or machete carried by all the men, and beheads him.

This was the first act, called The Robbery.

The next act is The Journey and has Marlina on her way to the police station with Markus's head. She is not hiding the fact she murdered him. Along the way, at the "bus stop", she meets "neighbour" Novi (Dea Panendra, Gundala) who is "10 months pregnant". She is heading to town to find her husband, who has run away because of her constant need for sex. Her mother tells her sex will encourage the baby to come, but the act, and her constant desire for it, disturbs him. Novi is blunt, talkative and... well, not really shocked at what Marlina has done.

Along the way, on the bus, a truck really, into which everyone piles, including two small horses and a family on their way to deliver a dowry, they are hijacked by a pair of surviving thieves. These two men had gone off in the truck with as much livestock as they could steal, and were returning for the rest when they discovered the bodies. They gave chase. But Marlina is able to escape on one of the horses, and she continues her journey, followed by the headless apparition of Markus, playing his small, roughly made wooden instrument, a jungaa.

In The Confession, Marlina arrives at the police station and is told a familiar story. She has no evidence, only her word, and they don't have the funding for rape kits, and they know she won't have funds to go to the hospital for such. It doesn't matter much to them, not even the robbery. Marlina doesn't seem surprised. But its been a long, hot journey and she is just tired. Back to her house.

In The Birth, one of the thieves has forced Novi to come back to Marlina's house, and coax Marlina to return, with Markus's head as well. Novi found her husband but he yelled at her and hit her, convinced she must be sleeping around and that is the reason the baby hasn't come yet. At Marlina's house, again the women are asked to cook for the men who are assaulting them. Novi makes food, while Franz, the youngest of the thieves retrieves the head from Marlina and poses Markus's body in much the same as Marlina's husband, resting his head upon its shoulders, and wrapping it in the blankets he steals from her husbands body. He has much more tenderness and caring for the body of his fellow criminal then for any of the women in the movie. When he attempts to rape Marlina, Novi comes rushing in with his golok and beheads him. In the wash of blood on the floor, the excitement and trauma, Marlina helps her deliver the baby, rather easily, a healthy baby boy.

The movie is a rather matter of fact presentation of what Surya must see women dealing with in Indonesia. Is it rural life? Is it all Indonesia? Its not a stretch to think it could happen everywhere, anywhere, for such things happen here in North America. The movie labels Marlina a murderer, without any doubt that is what she will be seen as in everyone's eyes. What the men did, or intended to do, doesn't matter. There are no "extenuating circumstances". But nothing in the movie is done with any pondering -- they have done what they had to do. It is life, and death.

It is said by many, including Surya herself, that the movie styles itself a Western. From the dry wide-shots of the landscape, to the ever present Sergio Leone style (actually Ennio Morricone but associating it with Leone and his movies makes more sense) music, she knew what she wanted it tone and look. But for me, it was the locked off shots of rooms, the geometry squared, that looked grand. We are left feeling like we are looking in on events, unable to intervene, silent collaborators with the abuse.

I still feel its kind of a shame her next movie would be the easily dismissed Hollywood/Netflix revenge flick Trigger Warning but its important she got the chance, the chance to work in the industry, be exposed to the morass of how things are "done over here". I am curious what she will do next.

31 Days of Halloween: I Remember You

2017, Óskar Thór Axelsson (Black's Game) -- download

Thus another in the posts I finish writing the previous year's posts, left unattended and quickly forgotten. And yes, still post it as if it was written In the Past (ominous music).

This is an Icelandic mystery wrapped in the shroud OF a ghost story that is as much about the loneliness of isolation as it is about death and ghosts. The movie is broken into two stories, one involving three young people who move to an isolated island to renovate an abandoned house, the other about Freyr, a doctor helping the police investigate a mysterious, disturbing murder with connections to a missing boy.

The structure of the story telling came in the style of a familiar Scandinavian murder mystery, all dark & broody, with a weight of emotion about it. The ghost makes an appearance almost immediately, and through it we learn of tragedy and connection and loss. Freyr (Johannes Haukur Johannesson, Atomic Blonde), who suffered his own loss years prior helps the police investigate a series of suicides & deaths linked to an older crime. As he digs further, he is more & more haunted by what he learns, both figuratively and literally. On the other story, the three renovators suffer their own haunting, as one, Katrin, recently lost a baby. She is haunted by her grief, until more than that manifests.

This kind of story comes with an unravelling, one that wants you to revisit the tropes. It ended with a twist, that while not entirely unforeseen, was a rather nice conclusion to lots of cliches.

Horror, Not Horror (Part 4) - Under The Shadow

2015, d.Babak Anvari  - Netflix

As a North American-raised viewer, the idea of living in a war-torn city is not only unfamiliar, but inconceivable, which is what makes Under the Shadow such a potent movie. The setting of the film is mid-1980's Tehran in the midst of the lengthy Iran-Iraq war offers sights, sounds, drama and tension that Western cinema just can't offer without delving into additional levels of fantasy.

But this setting isn't just the backdrop, it's the point, highlighting the psychological impact of the war, the toll it takes on every aspect of someone's life.

Shideh (the compelling Narges Rashidi) is denied her return to school, crushing her hopes of being a doctor, because of her leftist activism years earlier. Immediately we understand that Shideh is living in a world she is unhappy with, but this blow is dealt shortly after her mother passed away, mortality obviously on her mind.

The war looms large as her husband is conscripted into service, placed into one of the heaviest battle zones, leaving Shideh (and their daughter Dorsa) even more alone. Tensions were high when he was home, as they attempted normalcy even as the air raid sirens would send the to the basement on an almost daily basis, but with him gone there is no normal.

The film deftly uses the basement shelter during the air raid drills as a benchmark for Shideh's isolation, going from the building's full tenentcy to just Shideh and Dorsa, the isolation and quiet of the building making every sound and movement more prominent.

Warned to get out of town, Shideh holds steadfast, underestimating the threat, until an Iraqi missile hits their building, but doesn't explode. The impact causes the upstairs neighbor to have a heart attack and Shideh can't save him. Her feelings of inadequacy and ineffectiveness as a result only worsens her anxiety and are doubled when Dorsa starts running a fever that won't break. Is it the fever causing the child to talk to thin air? Or is there truly malevolent forces at play in their building. It gets to a point where Shideh's anxiety is at such height that she can't even did even between her own nightmares and reality.

This film acts as mood piece, cultural document, and metaphor, and does so brilliantly all around. It's scoreless, so it doesn't have the all too typical (and frankly cheap) way of generating tension or scares, it relies on clever editing and outstanding direction (plus great performances) to build up it's suspense and create it's unsettling atmosphere. The sound design is key, placing explosions, creaks, wind, rustling, knocks and so many other atmospheric components, some sudden, some omnipresent, throughout. At the film's apex, the rustling of a tarp ingeniously becomes the manic soundtrack to a struggle.

There are cultural aspects that could be easily overlooked but serve well in informing Shideh's character, including her use of a VHS player is something that needs to be hidden, her Jane Fonda workout (I see both this and the unexploded ordinance as two different impacts of America influence on her life), and her arrest for being outside without a hajib (for a law which she's obviously against, given her activist history). Life in Iran is foreign, but not alien, so it's easy to empathize with Shideh, and to understand why her situation is having such a traumatic impact.

This came as a recommendation from April Wolfe from the Who Shot Ya Podcast, an always fantastic listen with insight from a diverse and delightful cast of reviewers, not just the all too common straight white guy opinion.

31 Days of Halloween 2018: Satan's Slaves

2017, Joko Anwar (Ritual) -- Shudder

OK, this is weird. I did not know that this movie was a remake of a 1980 movie of the same name, but it explained why the movie decided to take place in the 80s. What do you mean, Toasty? Lots of horror movies choose to be set in other periods. What I mean is that usually a current movie chooses a previous time period in order to reflect something of that time period. Some want to draw upon something that era held dear, such as television psychics. Some are just period, as haunted Victorian houses are just a thing. And some like the lack of ubiquitous technology. This one, unless I am lacking in my understanding of culture in Indonesia in the 80s, just chose to be retro, with no real tie to the past beyond the origin movie. No matter, it worked.

This is a complicated movie about a dying matron and the family losing everything in their care of her. It begins with the death of said matron, and how the family deals with her death, in both the release of the burden of taking care of her and the additional financial difficulty it adds. But everyone is dedicated as family should be. But things start getting weirder, with apparitions and poltergeist attacks. Rini, the daughter, starts digging into the family's past to discover a connection to a strange cult of Satanic worshippers.

I imagine much of the impact of this movie depends on remembering its originator, but to the foreign eye and it all being new, it still held up mostly to me. It was eerie and mixed the ghost and cult aspects well, dispensing with many of the tropes I expected. It reminded me of many of the horror movies from this blog's heyday (do we have one?) which were drawing upon the styles of horror movies in the 80s, but only thinly so. It did not depend on them but remembered them fondly.

31 Days of Halloween 2017: Under the Shadow

2016, Babak Anvari -- Netflix

Under the Shadow is a Farsi language horror movie set in Tehran during the Iran-Iraq war, written and directed by Iranian born Babak Anvari and shot in Jordan. Other than the fact it is primarilt British produced, there can be nothing further from Hollywood than this movie. And that's always a breath of fresh air.

The movie is unrepentant in its upset at the political regime at the time, placing at the centre a young woman who was studying to be a doctor when the Iranian Cultural Revolution happened. She is resentful of her loss and her imposed new life as only a wife and mother. Like in The Babadook, she is not presented as a saint, but a woman living through her challenges as best he can, which are not helped at all by the fear of shelling and rocket raids from Iraq. So, her life is a little tense, and probably not the best time to be haunted by a dark spirit.

I love how the idea of a haunting can be transplanted from country to country with pretty much the same structure. The the west, it is a ghost or demon. In Japan or China, we have a multitude of evil spirits to choose from. And in Iran, we get a djinn. But no, not a fancy wind spirit willing to give out wishes, but an evil air sprite that wraps them-self in the image of the dead or a voluminous blanket. But wind spirit, nonetheless -- they are able to switch a gentle night's breeze from the common branches battering window panes to a chilling example of a fluttering curtain. And the jump scares are classic, literally had me diving to the other side of the sofa.

Loved it.

3 Short Paragraphs: The Last King

2016, Nils Gaup (Shipwrecked) -- Netflix

Vikings on skis ! Well, that would be your tagline if you assumed all the Norwegian peoples were vikings. Technically vikings were the sea faring raiders from the Nordic countries, meanwhile at the end of the "Viking Age" there came the civil wars in Norway. Here endeth the history lesson.

Haakon is the illegitimate infant son of the just murdered King. His Birkebeinar loyalists are hard pressed to keep him protected from the assassin Baglers. Skjervald, who only recently retired to become a farmer, is driven to re-join the protective ranks with his best friend Torstein, played by Game of Thrones Kristofer Hivju (Tormind Giantsbane; the only real reason most people are watching the movie), and save the child king.

We've all seen medieval action flicks with chase scenes on horse and with carriage, but have you seen it on skis?  Seriously, the medieval Norse used skis to get around their country, with only a handy spear as a single pole, gliding down serene mountain-scapes, cross-countrying through the pines, and crab walking up the hills. Eventually, the Birkebeinars, made up mostly of farmers and peasant folks, have to stand up against the Baglers, who are backed by the Church & foreign nobility, in order to save their rightful king. Big battle, sacrifices, tragedy, king saved. But I am sure the skis bit will make it into a few adolescents D&D games, if adolescents still even play D&D these days.

Two Booms: The Wave & Deepwater Horizon

I could say I watch a lot of disaster movies, but we are in a lull of them these days, so I watch em when I can get em. Or grab them from The Shelf. Why do I watch them, when they are traditionally badly done and formulaic? I suppose it is the same reason I love post-apocalyptic films -- that when the worst is happening, we can dispense with the treacheries of day to day life and just focus on what needs to be done; survival. And things are pretty bad IRL right now, so naturally...

The Wave, 2015, Roar Uthaug (Tomb Raider) -- Netflix

Bølgen as it is called in Norway, is one of those rare non-American disaster movies. Set in a region of the country that I was recently introduced to by the Slow TV "episode" Northern Passage. In case you haven't experienced it yet, Slow TV is a Norwegian phenomena of utterly glacial TV shows that are airing (in part) on Netflix in Canada. Northern Passage highlighted the best parts of a show that originally ran 24 hours a day for 6 days, as a cruise ship went from Bergen to Kirkenes.

One of the places the ship stopped was Geirangerfjord, with its famously monitored hunk of mountain that could fall at any moment, dumping so much rock into the fjord, it would cause a tsunami that would engulf the towns below it. This movie is about that event actually happening.

This is a classic formula disaster movie. Intrepid hero scientist Kristian Eikjord is about to retire from the monitoring station, and move his family from the small village to the big city. He's a little obsessive and a little paranoid about what could happen, thus a little nervous about abandoning his post. But he has to do better for his family.

I always like the slow build ups these properly done movies give us, as we learn the science or the warning system we know will come into play. Our main character has to be flawed but admirable, tightly connected to his family and the people of his community. Kristian is both those, admired by but constantly annoying his team and family. I also like the little bits of this movie, the regional bits that expose me to Norway and its people & traditions. The cheese on bread, the sitting in a large window watching the sky never get completely dark,

Eventually the rock does fall, the wave does happen and the town is engulfed. Kristian does his best to save the townsfolk, but really, he has to focus on his family. Being a condensed disaster, as in not a section of a country or a continent or even a city, it has to heighten the tragedy by having key characters die unexpectedly. I was rather upset the tourist bus didn't make it. In the end, he does succeed in saving some people and his family, and we get some fantastic post-wave disaster footage that reminded me of The Impossible.

P.S. Uthaug is doing the new Tomb Raider movie.

Deepwater Horizon, 2016, Peter Berg (Hancock) -- download

And from natural catastrophe we move onto completely and utterly manmade disaster. I wondered how this movie would deal with the real details of the oil derrick explosion & the BP oil disaster, when almost 5 million barrels worth of oil were released into the Gulf of Mexico. Surprisingly, the moving is not compromising on the culpability of the oil companies but not surprisingly, the movie focuses on the actual explosion and the men & women affected.

Marky Mark is Mike Williams, the every man, the family man, the lead electrical tech on the oil rig. Our introduction to him makes him the nice guy, the popular guy and the guy willing to open his mouth to the big bosses about how much of the rig is falling apart around them. They say they appreciate his honesty, but you know they don't. Everyone wants the already late drilling job to pay off soon, so they can get what is left of their bonuses. Screw the every man and his desire to do his job right.

One of the key decisions they make is to send home the crew that tests the concrete that surrounds the drill site. They pour concrete under water? I guess they do. And of course, they should have been allowed to complete those tests. The rig blows, the oil ignites and people die.

The drama focuses on Mike and his heroism and calm in the face of danger. Around him are his coworkers and friends, drillers and techs and even oil & drilling executives. Once the blow happens, he wants to rescue as many as possible, especially Mr. Jimmy (Kurt Russell) who is the one man who can quickly asses how bad things are. Things are bad.

This is by the books tension, dread and gut wrenching excitement. That's not a bad thing, and considering the subject matter, the movie does exactly what it intends on doing. Berg handles his cast well and the performances are good, a very clear example of the difference between Straight To and big studio productions. I especially liked the little touch at the end, where ever calm and in control Mike finally collapses on the floor with his wife and daughter, the tension pouring out of him like the oil filling the Gulf, ready to ignite at any moment.

31 Days of Halloween 2015: Hausu

1977, Nobuhiko Ôbayashi (The Girl Who Leapt Through Time) -- download

Back to the terrible (not the future), but finally, we get to see the classic Japanese surreal horror movie that is in turns fascinating and so very very terrible. It is your classic movie to be seen in a rep cinema with friends and copious amounts of alcohol.

P.S. I have called it by the Japanese name, but in reality, it is billed as House even in Japan. I just don't want to confuse it with the 1986 movie, which is apparently not a remake.

So, 1970s Japan. The special effects are not so special but the kink we know well is already in place. As are many of the tropes we know well today. Add to that some references to WWII and atomic trauma, and it actually had some current affairs for a bad movie about heads biting bums.

The girls are named Gorgeous, Fantasy, Melody, Kung Fu, Prof, Sweety and Mac, as translated by our subtitles loosely adapting the descriptive names in Japanese. Its school year's end and everyone is planning their summer holidays. Gorgeous is going with her dad to a resort town and most are joining Mr Togo in summer camp. I am never sure if Mr Togo was a teacher or a boyfriend, but whatever he was, it was wildly inappropriate. But Gorgeous's plans are foiled by her dad's new fiance (a new mom he found in Italy) and summer camp being cancelled. All the girls end up going to Gorgeous's Auntie who she hasn't seen since her mother's death.

The psychadelia begins right away. Nobuhiko is having a ball. The travel montages are a mixture of bad backdrop scenes (you know, badly painted canvasses representing the passing countryside) and scenes where we supposed to think its a backdrop, but its an actual painting on the roadside. This is his hint he will be messing with us.

The house is your typical menacing, rundown place on a hill in the countryside which is hard to find until you go the gas station run by the creepy guy. Sorry, I mean watermelon stand run by the creepy guy. Its Japan; they have their spin on the tropes.

Auntie is old and in a wheelchair, but inviting. In traditional fashion the girls dive to help clean house and prepare dinner, as Auntie makes disconcerting references to how tasty the girls look. The first to go is Mac, who is still hungry and goes after the watermelon being kept cool in the well. When Fantasy goes to find her, she gets bitten by Mac's decapitated but still quite ambulatory head, bitten on the ass. But Fantasy sees things so everyone dismisses her.

And then one by one, things go batshit. Sweety is beat up by futons & bedding to be turned into a doll. The girls sniff her panties to confirm its her. Kung Fu defends herself from chopped wood, loses her skirt and spends the rest of the movie running around in only panties. Gorgeous, who if this was an american movie would be the Final Girl, is... well, it involves her aunt's dressing table, mirror and makeup. And a terrible special effect that is her being consumed by ... fire? I have no idea, but she is missing. All the while Auntie has jumped up from her wheelchair and is dancing. And in case we didn't get it, we get a scene of her chowing down on Mac's limbs.

I forgot to mention the white cat that found her way to Gorgeous's bedroom at the beginning, into the train car when the girls were coming to Auntie's home in the country and finally, into Auntie's lap. Nobody ever asks why but guess what? That cat is Evil with green blinking eyes that initiate a lot of the batshit events.

I am not sure now, as I write this, that things were supposed to have a surreal aspect. I think it was more meant to be scary as all hell but the special effects are so terrible, things seem to drug induced to not be way out there.  I get Melody being eaten by a piano, but what is with the psychedelic lit up keys and her chomped off fingers continuing to play?

The thing that surprised me most about this movie was the familiar kink of current Japan fiction. Fan service, ala panty shots galore, is ever present but some "clothes ripped off" nudity was not expected. I get it, 70s horror movies in America were doing it then, having the bad girls murdered while changing or sexing it up, but this is very much the form we see in all the anime and schlock horror movies of today. Just wasn't expecting it to be a thing of the 70s as well.

In the end, this is a very very bad movie but so enjoyable because you are never sure what is intentional or what is just someone's attempt at shock or eeriness. P.S. We never do get to know why Mr Togo, the creepy old guy coming to find them, was meant to do because he gets turned into a bunch of bananas by Creepy Watermelon Guy.

31 Days of Halloween 2015: La casa del fin de los tiempos

2013, Alejandro Hidalgo -- download

The House at the End of Time -- see, you can literally translate a movie title and have it mean exactly what it said in the original language. Here we have a Venezuela movie that is as much family tragedy as it is hauntings. One that is as touching as it is spooky.

I will have to properly go back and read some of my older posts (cringe) but I am sure another South American flick we saw in Octobers past fit the description of touching and haunting. The tale is done so very well, a story of a family in a house already spooky enough to be haunted, but not so, until Dulce starts experiencing things.

But wait, sorry, I jumped ahead. But not as much as the movie did, for it begins with her face down in her own blood, slashed and scared. Into the basement she goes, to find her husband with an ornate knife buried deep in his shoulder, alive only for a moment, before expiring. She then chases further yelling her son's name, "Leo!!  Leopoldo!!" At the edge of a creepy metal framed door he stands and she begs him to come back. Just as he creeps forward, something reaches from the dark to snatch him away. From basement to tomb like subbasement she searches but never finds him.

She is taken away, for the murder of her husband and son. The boy is never found and she never explains what happened, but is sent away for 30 years. And then the movie picks up with her release, back to the house where it all happened, house arrest maybe for a Venezuelan form of early release? She is allowed to be visited by a priest, and thus begins her tale, to him, to us.

Dulce and her husband were already having troubles, mainly around money but also around something from her past. Her two sons are both perfectly loyal to each other and competitive siblings. She tells the priest of the things that haunted her in the house, seeing figures walking about, hearing thumps and bangs.

The tale is a time jump, going to from current day, as the older lady struggles to live in the house, to her relating the night of her husband's stabbing in detail, to further back, to the real tragedy in her life -- the death of her youngest son. The priest listens to all. We see the more of it. And then things begin to unravel, or possibly spool together.

**SPOILER**

Its all tied, and sweetly so. Not only is this a spooky, jump filled movie of strange ghostly figures, but it is a thrilling time travel movie. For, you see, the house was built by a strange English mason at the turn of the 20th century. And every 30 years, this house causes many of its inhabitants to just disappear. Dulce finds out exactly how and why, as she is carried back and forth to eras of the house, haunting herself, scaring her sons and they, in turn, frightening and influencing each other. In one incredibly heart breaking scene, the older boy gets to embrace his younger brother, whom he has recently seen die. A brother who misses his sibling dearly. And the thrill of how everything ties together makes for the first fully satisfying movie of our seasonal watching.

I highly recommend this one.

31 Days of Halloween 2015: Double Dose of Little Blighters

Cooties, 2014, Jonathan Milott, Cary Murnion -- download
Ich Seh, Ich Seh, Severin Fiala, Veronika Franz -- download

Marmy wanted to catch up to the pure idea of doing 31 movies during the month. Even if I had already filled my own quota with the two TV shows, I was happy either way. So we grabbed two that have been doing the blog circuit, one an Austrian creepy thriller and the other a comedy zombie romp.  Both focus on kids, so consider this our Child Free entry for the month.  *evil grin*

I am not sure why but Ich Seh, Ich Seh gets called Goodnight Mommy in its English release, which is not even a straight translation. I guess the reference to a child's song would not carry any weight in North America, but I still hate when they do that. If its a phrase that doesn't translate into English, then sure, but if the words have meaning, use em.

The movie takes place in the countryside, in an old wood near a lake next too which stands a modern house marking wealthy inhabitants. Twin boys run around, playing by themselves in the woods and lake with no supervision. Mommy is returning home soon, from her surgery in the city. To begin with, the weirdness of them being left alone while mom is away is somewhat jarring, and never explained. It establishes the off kilter place we are presented, and lends itself to our sharing the same belief as the kids -- that the woman all wrapped in plastic surgery bandages might not be their mother. The other weirdness, is that mom only ever addresses one child at a time, and poor Lukas is ignored.

**SPOILER**

It took Marmy about 10 minutes to guess the twist but I was of the idea it was supposed to be telegraphed to the audience -- Lukas is dead; he drowned in the lake. I wanted the movie to be more about how things will progress, and not the sixth sense of only one of the children being alive. Is Mommy their mommy? What the hell happened? Why did she go away? Why were they unsupervised? Why, if she is their real mother, is she so fucking strange?

Alas, the movie indeed seemed focused on the twist, and really, the only way I could explain to myself the oddness of all the dealings and circumstances was that we are seeing entirely through Elias's eyes -- he doesn't understand what has been going on, having been a bit broken since his brother's death. It does explain how the boys end up being quite the horrible little things, doing nasty things to Mommy, when they cannot get her to prove she is their mother. That they would even torture a strange pretending to be their mother, says a lot of about these/this boy(s).

Creepy little fuckers.

Speaking of little fuckers, Cooties is really about how bad kids can get. OK ok, only how bad they can get if infected by some sort of zombie virus. The movie begins with a vegan propaganda film about chicken nuggets being processed. OK ok, maybe not so much propaganda as reality, but the added disturbing bit is something green dripping in and becoming a nugget on its way to a kids cafeteria, to be bitten into by the 'cootie girl'. Dash dash dot dot, she wished she had her cootie shot.

Fort Chicken produces mounds of chicken nuggets. Clint (Elijah Wood) as recently moved back to work on his novel, but really, has just failed at getting away from his hometown. Fate finds teaching at the elementary school where he went. And where his teen crush (Alison Pill) works along with her PE boyfriend (Rainn Wilson) and the other oddballs on the faculty.

The story quickly progresses as cootie girl infects the rest of her class and they all become ravenous monsters that eat most of the staff and leave the rest of the run. Jokes and blood spills forth as all the cliches are broadcast and despite a recognizable capable cast, the plot is humdrum run of the mill by the numbers. As expected as I am to use catch phrases and overused writing idioms, the movie jumps on the expected bits of humour.  Its not offensive or tiresome, except when it wants to be, but there was nothing really new or particularly well done.  All acceptable, popcorn and chuckles.

I did chuckle at the scene where they comment on the montage gearing up scene, before the launched into it. But that was only because all the video games I have been playing, that involve slaughtering zombies, have had their full share of McGyver'd weapons.

31 Days of Halloween 2015: A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night

2014, Ana Lily Amirpour -- download

Yeah, I am not sure what to make of that one. This is one of those times where I need to see what other people said, in order to gel the collection of thoughts racing around up there into something cohesive. But first, the basics.

This is a black & white movie set in an imaginary Iranian world, a run down oil town called Bad City. I say imaginary, because the strict rules we know to be in existence in Iran seem to be... lacking in this movie. A pimp who looks like Ninja from Die Antwoord hassles the handsome young rocker and his father, who happens to be junkie. A young girl in chador and stylish breton stripe top (mod to his rocker) walks the dark streets alone at night, and turns out to be the town's vampire. Hookers, artfully placed (but not plotted) transexuals and kids in beat up tweed jackets also wander the broken down streets. And a balloon and a cat. The cat has the best role.

Its as if someone thought a chador sort of looked like Dracula's cape and ran with it. "Fresh take on the vampire mythos," is the usual thing reviewers say when they have nothing to say about the vampire mythos. There is no mythos here, just a morose "young" girl (remember, vampire main characters are rarely actually young) who eats people and feels a little sad about it. Let the Right One In did it much much better and this just ends up being a stylish bit of pop art.

As slow paced as Under the Skin was, but without the pay off or shock value, I am not sure the incredibly well shot, well acted bits can make up for this being an utter yawn.

The poster is damn nice.

3 Short Paragraphs: What We Do in the Shadows

2014, Jemaine Clement, Taika Waititi (Flight of the Conchords) -- download

Yeah, Taika was the "Pieface" character in the Green Lantern movie. Imagine taking that resume entry to your grave.

Taika and Jemaine are part of the creative force behind the TV show Flight of the Conchords; Taika is not the other half of the comedy duo, but has worked with Jemaine in The Humorbeasts. Its not surprising the New Zealand comedy is small and intertwining. This movie, for example, pairs the two playing vampires living together. Yep, a group of differently aged vampires all doing the roommate thing for convenience and safety. But you know how well roommates get on after a time.

The movie is done mockumentary style, with Taika's Viago, an effete Anne Ricean vampire, trying to hold it together with the other three, while protecting the documentary team. Jemaine is Vladislav, the Dracula analog but not as sexually alluring & scary as he used to be. Deacon is the youngest of the lot, and the dick roommate. And Petyr is 8000 years old, gone all nosferatu in his old age.

Who does the dishes? Who cleans up the bodies? Who gets the blood? What do they do on weekends? How do they interact with the local werewolf bro pack? These are the comedic elements exposed to somewhat success. The movie does well to cover the one liners and standup punchlines early on, so they can drop into a story -- what happens when their Renfield brings her ex over to be food, but he ends up being made into a new vampire. So, new roomie. The comedy is subdued, very non-American, very much clinging to sketch comedy TV roots. Things never really go anywhere, but in enough direction to remind you, "Oh yeah, documentary crew."

I Saw This!! Anxiety (or, I haven't written a review here since April, so here's 8)

I Saw This (double exclamation point) is our all-too regular feature wherein Graig or David attempt to write about a bunch of movies they watched some time ago and meant to write about but just never got around to doing so. Now they they have to strain to say anything meaningful lest they just not say anything at all. And they can't do that, can they?

Okay, time to get back up on this horse.

Noah - 2014, d. Darren Aronofsky -- netflix

Dogtooth ("Kynodontas")- 2009, d. Yorgos Lanthimos --netflix

Zero Dark Thirty - 2012, d. Katheryn Bigelow -- netflix

Nebraska - 2013, d. Alexander Payne -- netflix

John Wick - 2014, d. Chad Stahelski, David Leitch -- blu-ray

Harmontown - 2014, d. Neil Berkeley -- netflix

Blue Ruin - 2013, d. Jeremy Saulnier -- netflix

The Scribbler - 2014, d. John Suits -- netflix

---

When I was becoming a burgeoning cinephile in the mid-to-late 1990s, taking note of writers, directors, actors and actresses, composers and other names on the production roster that were making the movies that I both liked and connected with (sometimes deeply, sometimes superficially), Darren Aronofsky was high on my list of directors to follow, a singularly intriguing creative person worth being devoted to.  What struck me most about Aronofsky wasn't anything he did on screen, but what he did off-screen, which was bridge the worlds of comics and cinema.  With comics obviously being a very integral part of my life, releasing a movie with a comic book tie-in (not just a licensed prequel, sequel or adaptation) was a sure-fire way of getting my attention.  Aronofsky did this with his very first feature, Pi, and I was hooked.  The one-shot comic (published by Dark Horse if I recall correctly) and the feature were both black and white art-house endeavours, cerebral and somewhat impenetrable, but fascinating and puzzling in equal, mostly good measure.

His follow-up was Requiem For A Dream (2000), one of the most profoundly disturbing and intense films I've ever seen.  It's a brilliant piece of cinema, joining the likes of Clockwork Orange and Dancer In The Dark as astounding cinema that can only be watched once.

Aronofsky went back to comics again with The Fountain (2006), his third and highly troubled feature, creating an accompanying graphic novel (with artist Kent Williams) that expands upon the three timelines presented in that film.  I owned the graphic novel for years before read it, as I wouldn't read it until I ha watched the film.  I wound up owning the film on dvd for some time before I actually watched it and subsequently read the graphic novel.  While I appreciated the entire endeavour, it left me somewhat cold.  Despite this, I would follow Aronofsky to The Wrestler (2008) and Black Swan (2010) in the theatres, finding both to be great movies on their own, but again not resonating with me.  I was disappointed when he dropped out of The Wolverine, as I thought he would make a great comic book movie, particularly a great, brooding and dark Wolverine story, and even more disappointed to find out his biggest budget movie would be a biblical adaptation.  How boring.

Yet, Aronofsky's next feature, Noah, would find once more be accompanied by a graphic novel (actually an adaptation of the screenplay by Nico Henrichon) fleshing out his tale at something less directly religious and more disaster/spectacle/epic.  Even still, I waffled with seeing this production, my interest level never reaching past mild.  The graphic novel would be a pricey purchase and the film's subject matter far from enticing, so getting the full experience (as I only assume it was intended) was somewhat off-putting.

It was only its arrival on Netflix that I finally conceded in watching the film, and I found it a curious product.  I'm still not entirely sure I understand why it exists.  It's almost as if it was made in an exercise to see whether the Bible could be mined for blockbuster motion pictures.  The focus seems to be more spectacle than anything resembling religious parity.  This isn't the "true" story of Noah being told, and, not being a religious student of any sort, I'm not even sure what the biblical message of Noah is supposed to intone, but I would be surprised if the biblical moral was at all in Aronofsky's mind when putting together this production.

It is indeed epic, a sweeping tale of birthright and revenge, of fathers and sons, of obedience, love and betrayal, the temptations of evil, righteousness and the gray area between selfishness and selflessness.  Noah is a man convinced in his mission, unwavering in his belief that God has told him what needs to be done, and the climax of the film deals with exactly how unwavering will he be.  Can he perform an unspeakable evil as part of God's will?

Noah is a flawed beast, an awkward behemoth that's both awe-inspiring and teetering on the fringes of being comically laughable.  The key cast of Russel Crowe, Jennifer Connelly, Ray Winstone, Emma Watson, Logan Lerman, and Douglas Booth are extremely serious minded about the events they're participating in (Winstone may be a bit more on the scenery chewing side, though), probably its saving grace from being B-movie camp.  Anthony Hopkins as Methuselah provides the film's brief moments of comic relief...or marginal levity as it were. 

It's still hard to believe this film got made.  It's not unwatchable but it's also not outright entertaining.  It has moments of action and some visual sense of wonder but the characters never settle in as believable people, nor do they reach the height of mystical figures.  They persist as figures in a tale, servicing a specific story with no will the change the outcome of the tale.  The emotion that should be wraught throughout never materializes under the weight of the expectations of the story at-hand.  That tsunami set to encompass the world sort of nullifies almost any other drama the film attempts to build.

As noted in David's take[link], there's a sense that this was supposed to be even more wondrous and metaphysical than it actually was (which perhaps that graphic novel I've yet to read bears out?), and I think the tale could have used a bit more of an alien setting to explore its characters and story, distancing itself from any form of Earth-based history (real or Biblical or allegorical)

---

I had come across (the just defunct) The Dissolve's best films of the decate [so far] list [link] and became somewhat intrigued with seeing all of these movies.  Melancholia, which I reviewed back in April [link], was actually the last of a small streak of these that I watched, but Dogtooth was the first.

The idea behind this Greek film is fascinating, the story of three siblings who are the subjects of lifelong social experimentation by their parent.  They've effectively been held hostage in their family home and yard, unable to view the outside world at all, except through the limited exposure to outsiders brought into the home by their father.  They are taught the wrong words to represent objects, they are told that the land outside of the fence is toxic, and that a sibiling (that likely never existed) escaped and is trapped out there in the land just beyond the fence.  They are kept placated, if not happy, by an endless stream of lies, some elaborate others simple.  Now in their late teens and early twenties, they're starting to become restless and curious, though the outisde world is still a monster.  The main lie, from which the title draws its name, is that they will only be allowed outside the compound once they lose a dogtooth (the parents more than aware that those permanent teeth aren't going anywhere on their own).

The film plays out with deliberate, observational pacing.  It's not interested in celebrating or reveling in the lies the parents are telling the children, nor is it condeming them.  There's a passivity to the camera -- it's of the handheld, mobile, sort, a seeming adherence to the old Dogme '95 aesthetic -- a watchful eye peering in unobtrusively on events with no judgement borne out for what it sees.  In every right these kids parents are monsters (even before dad's heinous act with a VCR) but they're portrayed just as carefully as the kids are.

In my anticipation for watching this film, knowing only the rough plot and a few details, I was expecting something more exploitive, a bit more kitschy or on display for laughs.  I was anticipating looking in with fascination and delight, I wasn't expecting the engrossing curiousity, disgust and intensity with which I watched.  Something like the kids being told that flying planes overhead are actually just toys (and once they've passed out of eyesight they can be found in the grass as mother has thrown a toy in the grass to be found) could be riotously amusing as, say, a Will Ferrell film, but here it's bizarre but certainly not played for laughs.  Likewise, their listening to Sinatra's "Fly Me To The Moon" in English, being willfully mistranslated to Greek by their parents could be comical but sits just as it is...something that happens in this household.  The film ceases to continue so much as it ends.  There's easily more story to be told here, as the criminality of the parents actions, or the psychological implications of what's been done to them are left unexplored.  A second feature following at least one of the kid's journey into the real world is filled with tremendous possibility (just imagine their reaction to a real plane).

---

Zero Dark Thirty was an Oscar winner for the 2012 cinematic year, and a resoundingly successful follow-up for its director Katheryn Bigelow after winning best director for the Hurt Locker.  It's at this point the infamous story of the intelligence tracking and death of Osama Bin Laden, and while many who have seen it focus on the gripping third act's focus on SEAL Team 6 as they invade the compound they suspect is housing Bin Laden, they tend to gloss over the rather fiercly feminist aspect of the film.  The progressively feminist story is purly by its true story nature, not so much by design, as Jessica Chastain's Maya, a recent graduate and recruit into the CIA, is thrust head-first into the war on terror and takes the lead on finding Bin Laden.

All manner of obstacles are in Maya's way, political and organizational are the tip of the iceberg.  Facing down illegal torture methods, possible threats to her life, systemic sexism, and her own novice background are all trial by fire for her.  These things harden her as they threaten to break her, but her resolve is strong, and her persistence, as well as her intelligence and dedication, is enviable.

As a "based on a true story" film, Zero Dark Thirty is a masterpiece.  It's equal parts military and political thriller, as well as personal drama and, in its own way, revenge fantasy.  It juggles many levels of beurocracy, international travel, intrigue, and more with a fluidity that finds no diversion it takes out of place. The story is propelled forward with increasing momentum, the audience already knows where its going but is never made to feel like it's just biding its time before getting there.  Though no doubt there are embellishment, unlike, say, Argo which took extreme (and obvious) liberties with its source material in the name of manufactured drama, Zero Dark Thirty rarely, if ever, steps on its own toes or hits its audience over the head with false notes.

The shame here is Bigelow has crafted an immensely entertaining and successful feature, award-winning and important, delivering the story of Bin Laden's death in just over a year after it happened allowing for some sense of public closure, and yet she did not become a highly sought after, in-demand director.  Bigelow's execution here is deft, navigating multiple genres and wonderful character and world building with defiant ease.  It's a film on the same scale as a Bond or Bourne movie which would make her a natural target for taking on a blockbuster franchise and yet we never hear her name in the rumour mills for the next big feature.  Is it institutionalized sexism of Hollywood studios, or is it that Bigelow is just not interesed in those kinds of films (Point Break, Strage Days and K-19 tell me otherwise).

---

Was Nebraska also on that aforementioned list of best 50 films of the decade so far?  Even if it wasn't, it'd been a film sitting on my "to watch" list for a long time.  I loved the pacing and light humour of Alexander Payne's The Decendents and I had heard great things about Bruce Dern, Will Forte and June Squibb's (award nominated) performances in the film, but seeing as there wasn't a single sci-fi, action, fantasy, or metatextual "gotcha" to the movie, it just took a long time (languishing in my Netflix queue for months on end) for me to get to it.

It's a simple story filled with complex emotions.  Dern is a cantankerous senior citizen who's going senile while also restless as his freedoms are stripped from him.  He's never had a good relationship with his sons (Forte and Bob Oedenkirk), and he and his wife (Squibb) can barely stand one another's company.  When a Publisher's Clearinghouse-esque letter arrives telling him that he "may have already won", he's convinced he needs to make the trip to their home office in Nebraska to claim the prize.  Everyone around him tells him it's just junk mail, but he's dedidcated to the trip.  Eventually Forte concedes to driving him, giving the two men their first ever real moment of togetherness.

It's a road trip movie and a family movie, as they stop and visit elements of Dern's past along the way.  His home town revels in his story of sudden fortune and the extended family gather for an impromptu reunion that goes about as well as any assembly of family goes.  It's frequently chuckle-funny, occasionally awkward and sad, but always rewarding.  There's a depth and truth to the story at play, particularly to the emotions, with Dern being a man who has never cared for showing his, and Forte coming to understand not just who his father was before, but who he is now, and that like most parents, despite the difficulties they have, he has done as best as he knows how.

Forte delivers a perception-shattering performance.  The weirdo/goofball/creepy characters he's played in previous films and in Saturday Night Live sketches fade away almost immediately as Forte's eyes show a knowingness, a maturity and wearyness that he's never earnestly expressed before.  Dern's Oscar winning performance is almost the easier job, being gruff, stoic, and occasionally completely unsure of his surroundings, but he delivers a character that never wavers in identity and provides the framework for everything else in the film to react to.  Squbb, meanwhile, is the overt comic releif, the Oliver Hardy to Dern's Stan Laurel.  She's mouthy, aggressive and uncensored (she even shocked me a couple of times), the perfect counterpoint to Dern's weary silence.  She didn't win the best supporting actress Oscar, but it was a likewise worthy performance.

---

We're not Keanu fan's over at the Kent household.  While I have a greater threshold for Keanu than the missus does, it's not really much of a qualification...it's like saying I can take  cleaning the litter box more better than she can... which is a bad example because she definitely cleans up the cat crap more than I do... but I digress.  Point being, Keanu is not a great actor, in fact he's pretty terrible.  Consistently so.  Limited facial expression, even more limited vocal intonation, the most animated Keanu ever got was in the Bill & Ted movies and the last of those was over 25 years ago.  The perfect role for Mr. Reeves would be Pinocchio because he's a little wooden boy...except that Pinocchio would demand he turn into something resembling human.  Maybe if Pinocchio turned into a T-1000 at the end of that story instead.  Scratch that, just make him a Terminator and be done with it because that's spot on the type of range he displays.

Woah.

Anyway, John Wick.  John Wick showed up in last October in theatres with little hype or enthusiasm (because Keanu's last bunch of pictures were all major duds...to be clear, no, not a remake of Gerald McCraney's Major Dad) but became a rare honest-to-goodness blockbuster success through word-of-mouth.   One friend of ours love the movie so much he saw it multiple times in theatres and continually sang its praises (and waited with baited breath for its Blu-Ray release).  That David even spoke effusively aboutit [link] resonated and, with these collective signs  I began to actually want to see the film.

Woah.

The wife was still far from enthused... she gets that way about things with too much hype and/or starring Keanu.  The aforementioned friend (shout out to Troy-who-doesn't-read-this-blog!) got his copy of the film on Blu-Ray, watched it a couple times over and lent it to us for a viewing.  It was a unique experience.  The wife, naturally, wasn't looking forward to it and chose to distract herself from her lack of enjoyment by live-Facebooking her reaction to the film.  I chose to turn out the lights and have a spiked refreshment at hand. 

At first we gently mocked the movie -- a few "Fuck you, Theon!" comments  (something me and the wife shouting regularly at co-star Alfie Allen's Game of Thrones character) and mimicry of Keanu's stilted acting tossed about for good measure -- but then Allen's character, the entitled son of a Russian mobster, goes and kills John Wick's puppy (after he was denied the acquisition of Wick's sweet ride), and things get goofy/serious.  The puppy was a present form Wick's recently deceased wife, so that he wouldn't be alone, and the ex-mob hitman sees only red, and we're thrust, along with John, back into the world he had hoped to leave behind.

It's this world, it's neutral ground hotels, it's secret society gold coins, and it's weird codes of honour, that make the movie.  Keanu is a vehicle for delivering both this world's nuances and it's brutal yet beautifully orchestrated violence, and the film's directors Chad Stahelski and David Leitch and writer Derek Kolstad seemed to understand the exact type of character Keanu should play, and the limits of what he can play.  This was obviously tailor made for him.  He can't quite handle the sombre hurt of the recently widowered nor can he take on the deep emotion of having a piece of his wife restored with the puppy to any great shakes.  But when he's asked to be a cold, calculating orchestrator of violence, which is 90% of Keanu's role here, he nails it straight on.

The film is beautifully stylized, the fluorescent greens and blues saturate the parts of the screen that aren't bathed in shadows.  It's Michael Mann by way of modern graphic novels.  The action is top notch... it's not "another level" like the big budgets of the latest Fast and Furious or Mission Impossible or James Bond feature, but it's full of John Woo-esque gunplay and throw-down, drag-out fights are close to par with the greatest fight porn of the modern day,  The Raid 2 [link].  My favourite of the battles found John Wick taking on Adrianne Palicki's Ms. Perkins, an assassin more ruthless than Wick... but I enjoyed even more Lance Reddick's reaction to her breaking of the hotel rules.

John Wick was exactly what it should've been, only better.  It's a B-movie ratched up to A-level status thanks to savvy filmmaking and tremendous world building.  I even caught the wife, on more than one occassion, watching the movie intently, forgetting about the Facebook updating for a spell.  Though still hard pressed to admit that a Keanu movie actually entertained her, I'm fairly certain there was a begrudging amount of respect there for the end product, and that's about as big a praise for this film as anything. 

Woah.

---

Harmontown is a documentary about the creator of the beloved cult TV show Community creator Dan Harmon, and the months following his firing from the show as producer and showrunner after its third season.  Harmon had, before his firing, started a live show/podcast that was part comedy show, part confessional, where he would ruminate with his co-host Jeff Davis about his life, his failures and successes, his frustrations, and anything else he wanted to get off his chest, most of which probably better suited for the therapist's couch than a public forum.

After his firing, at his lowest point, he thrust more energy into his podcast, and he started sensing a bit of a groundswell. Not so much a movement, but a cult of personality forming around him.  Taking a risk, he decided to take the show on the road and let a documentary crew follow him.

It's a film about Harmon, primarily, about who he is as a person, and that person is admittedly very, very difficult.  The film highlights the Harmontown podcast and the people who gravitate towards it, embracing honesty and pain and the communal catharsis it provide, but it's all centered around Harmon and his often self-desctructive tendencies.  The people along for the ride are his girlfriend, Erin McGathy, Davis, and the show's resident Dungeons and Dragons gamesmaster Spencer Crittenden, and each has naturally a different relationship with Harmon.  McGathy bears the biggest brunt of Harmon's self-destructiveness which often manifests as lashing out, while Davis more deals with pushing the show forward.  Spencer meanwhile sits quietly, uncomfortably on the outside of it, and observes.

It's with Spencer's story that Harmontown as a documentary justifies its existence as more than a piece of self-glorification/implosion.  Spencer is the fan's way into Harmontown, as he was a man on the outside who innocuously offered to run a D&D campaign and suddenly found himself a man on the inside.  Spencer is a stereotypical outcast nerd, the kind with a quiet, gruff exterior, a shell hardened by traumatic childhood ostracisation, a person who finds comfort in the world of fantasy and its nuances.  But through his role on Harmontown's podcast he's given the opportunity to have a voice in the world he never though he'd have, to be heard and seen and validated.  As he's on tour he has people, not unlike himself, awkwardly approaching him with admiration and adulation, genuine affection for who he is and what he contributes, and the film captures intimately what that discovery is like for him.  Where Harmon, a bit of a self-aggrandizer, is only marginally surprised by his supportive fanbase (there's an expectation of some level of worship going on, like how a televangelist preacher takes the worship of God as his own), Spencer is genuinely shocked.  Though in their own ways both men are grateful.  It's obvious though that Harmon needs the outpouring of support and affection, almost like a drug, for Spencer it's almost an affirmation that his place in the world is okay.

This is a film that's meant for the fans and the outlier fans, all the avid Community watchers and AV Club message boarders, the people who know what a showrunner is.  It's not that it can't appeal to a broader audience, but without having the shorthand of understanding Harmon from his work (and for sure Community is a devastatingly hilarious and often genious personal endeavour with each character a manifestation of his personality) the uninitiated viewer may just wonder "what's the big deal about this guy?"  That difficult personality Harmon displays can rub even the most ardent fan the wrong way at times.

---

Of all the films in this I Saw This!! column, Blue Ruin is the one I enjoyed the most, and yet, it's the one I'm having the hardest time recalling.  I have specific images in mind, a general impression of what the movie is, but a lot of the details are fuzzy.  Perhaps as I write about it, it will come flooding back.  Spoilers will follow.

The film is a low budget revenge thriller (partiall funded via Kickstarter, no less), that's less exactly a thriller, and certainly not your typical revenge story either.  Dwight (Macon Blair) is a drifter living out of a bullet-hole-riddled, tarp-covered car.  He scrounges and survives, but hasn't given up completely on civility, reading novels by flashlight at night.  The police stop by, obviously familiar with Dwight's story, and inform him that the man who killed his parents is being released from jail.  Very quickly Dwight sets up his plot to take his revenge, connecting the battery back to the engine and returning back home, a place it's apparent he hasn't been in a long time.

Where most revenge fantasies find their lead characters frighteningly proficient at stalking and murder, Dwight's plans fumble and falter from moment one.  Clean shaven, wearing stolen oversized business casual clothes, Dwight looks like a soft man, timid, bleary eyed, pudgy, completely unassuming.  He's not cut out for this sort of business, particularly when his target's family begins to hunt him down, and yet, he has no choice.  This is his drive, his mission.  His sister should be the one to talk sense in him, in any other film she would be admonishing him for what he's doing, angry abut how it impacts her life, and yet she's cautiously supportive.

I hesitate to call Blue Ruin a dark comedy, because it's a dead serious movie, and yet it's spin on the revenge tale is so fresh and about face that it's impossible not to laugh unconsciously in reaction to Dwight's failures and botched successes.  Dwight a fascinating character, burdoned by what he does and what he wants to do, but it's the only thing he has left in life to care about.  His time as a vagrant leaves him awkward in conversation, reserved... he keeps to himself, he doesn't make eye contact.  He seems to want nothing more than to slink back into that life of desperate solitude but he has his mission which he has to see through to the end.

Director Jeremy Saulnier tells his film in an extremely straightforward manner, and yet it's exactly the right touch.  There's no distraction, no flashy angles, unusual cuts, or any of the vast variety of tricks indie directors for so long following the Tarantino boom have used to try and distinguish themselves.  Saulnier instead relies upon holding shots, minimal cutting and letting scenes and actors breathe.  It's not as much about mounting tension, but about establishing the natural settings and normalicy that otherwise exists in this unconventional scenario.

Yeah, I'm remembering it well now, but it's certainly worth another watch.

---

And finally for today (in actuality, I've been writing this column over a 5-day period), there's The Scribbler.  I first heard about this film via Bleeding Cool (a comic-book and nerd cinema-related website I write for) as they reported a graphic novel being released for the picture.  A couple days after this report I noticed that the film was on Netflix, so I figured why not give it a watch.  If it’s bad, I can turn it off.

It’s not a bad film, per se, but it’s far from great. It has the same sensibilities of The Crow, a highly stylized, dark and gritty quasi-supernatural/quasi-superhero-esque production, replete with whatever janky emo-style music is fueling the goth teenagers as they brood introspectively in their bedrooms.  Set in a facility that’s home to residents undergoing psychological rehabilitation (long and short term residents), it’s definitely not a Cuckoo’s Nest full-blown lock-down/caged-in situation but more of a half-way home.  But it’s dank.  Extremely so.  Remember that toilet stall Ewen MacGregor dove into to retrieve his suppository in Trainspotting?  Imagine that stall as an entire building.  Yeah, it’s gross.  The city this building resides in seems to be shrouded in perpetual night, or at least whenever it is day it’s like the sun nervously shines as the darkness threatens it’s habitual take over.  Also, rain and lightning seem almost a constant, for mood you see, except when it’s more convenient not to be raining.

Our protagonist, Suki (played by Katie Cassidy) is a young woman with multiple personality disorder who comes to the building recovering from her latest suicide attempt.  There she rekindles a friendship with Hogan (Garrett Dellahunt), a gearhead who pretends to be insane in order to live in the building on the cheap, sex up its desperate/vulnerable women, and liberate their drugs for his own profit.  She also befriends Cleo (Gina Gershon) a long-term resident, who shows her the ropes, including avoiding the stairs where a crazy naked girl likes to push people down them.

The film is so aggressively in your face about how edgy it’s trying to be.  It uses all the cinematic tricks of psychological thrillers and body horror films (oh, those shadows and neons), only never to any great terrifying or suspenseful effect, it’s strictly an aesthetic choice, like it wants to be a horror movie but the story doesn’t facilitate it. The sex scene between Suki and Hogan is kind of disgusting rather than titillating because of how it was shot, edited and soundtracked.  It’s like the film wants you to be repulsed by it because of the style choices it makes, but it’s only a slightly left-of-standard superhero origin story.  It realistically wants you to root for the title character as she comes to understand who she is and how her multiple personalities help her fulfill her true potential but it’s story is at cross purposes with its tone.

The acting in the film is quite good.  I liked everyone’s performances in it (including Michelle Trachtenberg as Suki’s nemesis, Michael Imperioli as her skeevy psychologist, and Eliza Dushku as the detective investigating the deaths in the building), they truly seem invested in their roles, so it’s unfortunate that the director’s vision (which seemed to be “let’s make a Cronenbergian superhero story but with a Zack Snyder pastiche”) clashed with everything else going on.  Honestly, I probably would have liked this in 1993, when comic-to-screen movies were rare, and rarely good, but we’ve moved well past that in the 20 years since. 

[David's Take]

---

Man, this took a long time and over 5000 words.  If I were concerned with page hits and visitors and any sort of monetary-earning angle to this site, I would’ve pushed each review out one-a-day. But even though they have no real connection to one another, beyond the fact that I’ve procrastinated in writing about them, they still feel like part of a whole and belong together in one fell swoop.  I’m rather impressed at my ability to recall how I felt about a film despite not entirely recalling the film (though as I write the specifics of the film tend to re-emerge).  I’m working from the top of the “to review” list with this one, but I may start at the bottom and work up from hereon out, get to the fresher stuff first instead of taking forever and having current releases wind up in yet another I Saw This!!

   

Horror Down Under

The Babadook, 2014, Jennifer Kent -- download
Housebound, 2014, Gerard Johnstone -- download

And yes, New Zealand is considered part of the Down Under colloquialism.

The Babadook is getting a lot of acclaim out there in the wide world, not only as a horror movie directed by a woman but also being a fresh, bright spot in the genre of horror & suspense. Amelia is a single mom to the little terror Samuel. They have a good relationship but you can see immediately, he is a bit of a handful, the nagging, always talking, rather lonely weird kid who leaves his mother's nerves always a bit on edge. And thus the book Mr. Babadook is introduced into their lives, one of those stylish artsy children's scary books about a creature in the closet, knock knock knocking to be let in. Its fucking terrifying!

But to be honest, to me it was just an averagely enjoyable scary movie. Sure, the depictions of the monster are just downright, creepy, icky and actually chilling. The nails on chalkboard voice, the loud hammering is eerie. But the remainder, the tale of a woman beset by insomnia and the stress of single motherhood is rather ho-hum. Sorry, maybe not so politically correct of me to not be impressed, but I found myself more annoyed by the kid then impressed by the story telling.

This struck me as a movie to be credited as a good horror movie by people who believe horror sucks. All the scares are familiar, dancing between reality of her mental breakdown and the unreality that there is really a monster in the house, a very real supernatural danger. Questioning that is nothing new in horror, but I admit, it was very very artfully done in this. In many ways, I cannot credit this as being a extremely innovative horror movie, but it was a very well done one. It was one that ends with well that was OK.

Meanwhile the ending of Housebound had me exclaiming, "That was pretty darn good !"  I may have been a bit more expletive. But truly, it was a darn good horror come comedy. Getting comedy in your horror is a very down under thing. Starting with my introduction with the gleefully gore filled Peter Jackson movies (think Dead Alive or The Frighteners), it was very apparent that heavy dose of uncomfortable guffaw is popular in their horror cinema.

Housebound is about a young woman, Kylie, confined to stay with her mom, after being caught in a hilariously botched ATM robbery. You may think that she doesn't want to stay with her embarrassing mom just because of the obvious reasons, but really its because their house is ... haunted !  Well, sort of. Apparently there was a murder in the house and the spirit is still creaking, knocking and grabbing, since our main character was a kid.

Things dance along forcing Kylie to investigate the murder, first stopping to suspect the creepy guy next door. He is classic bad guy, normally filling in the job of scaring college kids on their way up to the cabin, but spending the rest of the time in his hoard(er) filled house. But no! It was his even creepier, small animal killing adopted son! But no!  You get the point. Every time we think we know where the movie is (typically) going, we are pushed in another direction. It was so much fun building scenarios and immediately dumping them as more clues and misdirections were tossed in our laps.

This is how I like my innovative horror. You can do the typical, the familiar but you have to do something new with them. And if not particularly new, at least fresh enough to have me guessing and laughing or jumping along with the characters. The acting may have been middle of the road, but the story was just fun.

This was the pick between the two, though hearing the cackle of the Babadook is still enough to give me chills.