We Agree: The Babadook

2014, d. Jennifer Kent (no relation) - TMN

As David writes at the start of his 31 Days of Horror (you really need a "31 days" tag for that Toasty!) each year "Kent is not that much of a horror fan".  It's true.  I don't hate it but I also don't really enjoy it.  Large parts of "horror" exist only to try and out gross-out the viewer, most other parts of horror exist to jump scare an audience through a series of convoluted or obvious set-ups (like action set-pieces, both of these are the horror set-pieces a film builds itself around).  In both cases story and character are largely dispensed with.  Rudimentary frameworks for gags and boos.  I find most horror off-putting or tedious.  The horror I like most is ones that are mythology heavy, crossing into fantasy/sci-fi conceits with the level of exploration.  The 80's were rife with these, where horror creatures became icons...Michael Meyers, Freddie, Jason, Alien, Gremlins, Ghoulies, C.H.U.D.s, Critters, Leprichauns, Poltergeists, Chucky dolls... too many franchises to count.  Even still most of the big franchises would offer only the smallest amount of mythos-building.  What the average fantasy or sci-fi story would do in one film, you're often lucky to get half that over the run of an entire series of a horror franchise.  So, because I get bored, or put-off, or generally feel unfulfilled by horror, I stay away from it.

There have been some horror movies in the past 20 or so years that I really liked.  Most of them have been very meta in nature, such as Cabin in the Woods or Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon.  Even Bride of Chucky which was mid-90's alongside Scream, Wes Craven's New Nightmare or Halloween H20...those are kind of my stand-out horror flicks.  They're the ones that look at the genre and say "well this is stupid, we know it's stupid, we're going to fully acknowledge how stupid it is, and we're going to scare/entertain the pants off you anyway".  I mean, the scares are fairly light in these kinds of meta flick, but they are entertaining.

Every now an then I'd get suckered into watching some "new, great thing" in horror only to find it direly like all the old, tired horror I've seen before.  I assume this is what people who get bored by action movies feel like every time someone tells them how great The Raid or John Wick or the latest Fast and Furious are and how they take things to another level.  The Babadook was my latest suckerpunch.

For starters, it stars the great Essie Davis (star of the wonderful Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries available on Netflix), second it's directed by a woman (with my surname no less) which usually infers a different viewpoint for a genre film (since they're so male-dominated), and third it's Australian, so perhaps the tropes of horror aren't the same Down Under.  Now that the Babadook has become a pop-culture icon (with all that Pennywise/Babadook slash fiction and meme-ery blossoming) , I figured it was time to watch.

And jeebus was I bored.  Davis plays a single mother with a child who, to put it lightly, is a handful.  But he's no more a handful than most kids out there, she's obviously been depressed for a long, long time and as such has been light on discipline with the boy (I don't mean punishment, I mean more in setting boundaries and holding him accountable to them).  As a parent I can attest how hard it is to be mindful of your kid all the time. Even with a dedicated partner in parenting it's still brutally taxing, so as a single mother battling depression it's got to be utterly crushing when your child refuses to easily cooperate.

It probably doesn't help that this mother character reads her child ghoulish tales at bedtime.  I'm not sure why she thinks this is a good idea.  Pulling an unfamiliar book off the shelf, a scratch-line-illustrated, black and white pop-up book called the Babadook, she reads it to the boy and sends him off to his restless, nightmare-filled slumber.  She doesn't sleep well either.  Soon the boy is seeing the Babadook everywhere, and her world starts to fall apart.  Is it the sleep deprivation or the depression, or is there really a mythical entity that's trying to get in?

This is a tedious movie, one which I really struggled to get the message of.  Yes, parenthood, especially single parenthood is hard...doing it while combating depression probably makes it so a hundred fold.  But what is the Babadook supposed to represent?  The personification of you "not being yourself"? The biggest failure of the film is to establish the Babadook's mythology.  The children's book is irritatingly opaque in its story to suggest anything about what its motivations are (it wants to take over people..."Let me in" it screams... or is it "Let me out"?  This movie didn't leave much of an impact). 

I left the Babadook, as I do with most horror, feeling unfulfilled.  Effective horror for me leaves me either entertained or contemplative, or both.  I like a romp of action-horror, or a strong metaphor (still need to do that Get Out review), or a rich mythology to process.  Like David, I found the boy to be more irritating than sympathetic.  Davis does an excellent job appearing beaten down by her depression and lack of sleep and general life situation, but the editing and camera techniques designed to sell it even further are distracting, sometimes looking like cheap television. 

When Davis' character is finally overcome by the Babadook,it doesn't feel right... it's too overt.  The film's riding on subtlety, so that when it finally cracks, and the monster reveals itself, it's too cartoony, too over-the-top.   The resolution is similarly pat in a way that feels like cheating.

I wished I liked it. I wanted to like it, but it just didn't click.

Justice League

With Toasty taking an internet hiatus I better pull up my socks and post with regularity.  He's been keeping this thing floating for a couple years now, suppose it's my turn.  Come back soon David, I'm tired already...
 
2017, d. Zack Snyder (*cough*andJossWhedon*cough*)

Is this the real life, or is this just fantasy
Caught in a landslide, no escape from reality

The biggest problem Justice League had facing it was everything that Zack Snyder established before it.  Man of Steel was a big enough problem on its own: Snyder produced a decently interesting film, but his fundamental lack of understanding/dislike of the character made for a terrible Superman movie, one where a beacon of hope and altruism became a dour, glowering, brooding, put-upon Christ-like figure.  For the sequel, rather than tone shifting, Snyder basically doubled down on the brooding otherness of Superman, and pitted this sickeningly gloomy version of the character against a bitter and broken Batman.  If there's a bright spot to the 150+ minute Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice,  it was Gal Gadot's Wonder Woman, something even more recognizable when Wonder Woman finally got her own film on the big screen (in fact the only not great part of Wonder Woman was the wholly unnecessary prologue/epilogue that shoehorned it back into the Snyder-verse).

The events of Man of Steel are integral to the plot of Batman V Superman, and likewise the events of Batman V Superman are integral to the plot of Justice League.  But Warner Brothers, following the wild success of Wonder Woman, and the critical lambasting of every other DC Comics-centric film they have made, determined Justice League needed to course correct...and since Justice League had already finished principle photography by that point, it was like making a U-turn on a cliffside highway.  Snyder had a vision for a 3-hour Justice League acting as "Part 1" set-up for an even greater "Part 2" menace.  The 3 hour run time would have given enough time to properly introduce three core members to the cast in Cyborg, Aquaman and Flash (as well as establish their own smaller realities and supporting casts) while also running through the gathering of the team and (blowing yet another possible Superman solo outing) shoehorning in the rebirth of Superman. 

By the time Snyder left the project (due to a personal tragedy) this past summer, he had already expressed that Justice League would be lighter AND that it was no longer going to be a two-parter.  When Warner Bros. brought in Joss Whedon as a replacement to handle the reshoots, everyone became very aware that the Warners were likely undercutting, if not attempting to eschew entirely the Snyder aesthetic.  The film that made it to theatres bears that out.

Justice League is a hot mess.  It's a film that's less cobbled together than stripped down.  Gone is the 3-hour runtime, in place is a rather brisk 1h 50 (plus 10 minutes of credits).  The film opens with the world facing the weight of Superman's death (though what it signifies completely flies in the face of what Snyder established in films previous), it tries to catch us up on Batman, Wonder Woman and Lois Lane some time later, but it's all quite rushed.  There's no time to think about the weight of prior events, something else is happening. 

All the dream sequences and all the foreshadowing of Batman V Superman were not for naught, but almost for naught.  They have no real weight or relevance in this film.  What was supposed to be a tried and true sequel now feels like the cinematic equivalent of a U.S. politician distancing themselves from a campaign aide who was discovered to have ties to Russia.  They would just rather you forget about the past altogether, but it's hard when the past keeps creeping into the film.  Despite only having 4 months to reshoot, edit, score and animate, I'd guess about anywhere from 1/4 to 1/3 of the film is made up of the reshoots, so there's totally a rushed feeling to this at times.  I'm sure if this had been all Whedon's vision it would have been completely distanced affair from Batman V Superman.  Likewise if this had been all Snyder's vision, it would have been much more polished (and utterly laborious).

What Whedon brings to the table is an understanding of comic book superheroes and what makes them fun. Snyder wants them to be capital-i "Important" while Whedon mostly thinks you should enjoy their adventures.  What Whedon also brings to the table is relentless quipping.  Every damn character now has quips edited in as asides (Batman has far too many, and while it humanizes Bruce Wayne, it demystifies Batman), to the point where it's always obvious and often annoying (it was pointed out to me that these were probably extracted from longer scenes in the editing process).  Ezra Miller's Flash is almost all quips, with not much else to his character.  At the same time, I appreciate his enthusiasm.

Whedon also brings us a Superman we actually recognize.  Death was probably the best thing to happen to Snyder's Superman, because he came back a much happier, sunnier, uncannily-vallier person.  Almost every scene of Superman is obviously from the reshoots, as evidenced by the now infamous CGI mustache-mask (Cavill was working on the latest Mission Impossible as the villain when the reshoots call came in, and the MI producers refused to let him shave it, so the producers had to edit it out with not enough time to make it look anywhere close to natural).  But in spite of Superman's creepy upper lip, damn, this is the Superman we've wanted Henry Cavill to be for 6 years now.

In fact all the main Justice Leaguers wind up coming out of this okay.  Everyone's getting the short shrift, here, especially supporting cast, but of the main team there's enough there to like, and even want more of.  The same can't be said for the villain, however.  Steppenwolf might as well just be a sharknado that the Justice League is fighting, he's just a force of nature.  There's no personality, no defining traits, nothing remotely close to drive or real motivation beyond plot necessity, and almost no emotional connection for the characters.  Think of the worst of the Marvel Cinematic Universe villains... he's right in league with them, and probably beneath them. 

It's almost the worst case scenario.  While it would have been awful to have two bloated, Snyder-directed Justice League movies, at the same time at least it would be presented as a whole saga alongside Man of Steel and Batman V Superman.  No matter how bad it was, at least the vision would be fulfilled.  Like, imagine if Guy Ritchie stepped in for Christopher Nolan to complete The Dark Knight Rises... it's a flawed series but the consistency of vision makes up for it.  I don't even like Snyder's vision, and somehow I still kind of wish it were allowed to be completed.  Because otherwise we get this, where Steppenwolf, meant as the set-up for Darkseid, but is now just a generic nobody that closes out half of the damn point of Batman V Superman with such a whimper.

Justice League isn't a film you suffer through -- it's actually somehow kind of fun -- but I've been waiting for a Justice League film for almost 40 years (and others have waited much longer than I), and this is just barely serviceable.  This is a starting point, albeit a highly unfortunate one.  This is the WB recognizing that they were wrong and course correcting.  They messed up Superman, twice, they messed up Green Lantern, they've messed up the Joker, and they damn nearly messed up the Justice League (the box office is so underwhelming that, in reality, they did mess it up).  If it weren't for the resounding success of Wonder Woman (and the fact they have an Aquaman feature already finished shooting), I'd be certain they would plan yet another universe reboot in two years time.  But they're committed now.  They so desperately wanted to play catch up with Marvel that they've done just about everything wrong.  The fact is, even with the Wonder Woman/Justice League course correction, the entire DC Cinematic Universe is situated on an foundation that will always taint it.  No matter how good it might get (and let's be realistic, the odds are kind of against it getting really good), it's going to still have Man of Steel, Batman V Superman, Suicide Squad, and, yes, Justice League to answer for.*

(*unless the Flash-based "Flashpoint" movie completely reboots the Universe)

A Netflix Thursday : November 2017

A day off work.  What to do?  Do I waste half my day traveling to and from a theatre to watch a movie?  Do I binge watch a season of a TV show I've been meaning to check out (or finish)?  Do I play some solo board games? Do I read some of my stockpile of comics? Do I continue slowly plodding through my current book? Do I fart around on my phone and the internet, just killing time?  Or do I work through my all-too-long and ever-growing Netflix queue?  A real Sophie's Choice?  Ooh, should I watch Sophie's Choice?

Colossal - 2016, d. Nacho Vigalondo

The film opens with brief prologue of a giant monster suddenly emerging in Seoul.  25 years later,  party-girl Gloria (a bewigged Ann Hathaway) gets dumped by her boyfriend after yet another night of, well, partying and kicked out of his New York apartment.  She returns to her parents furniture-less rental home upstate to help find herself, hoping that perhaps distancing herself from the wrong people will change her behavior.  She reconnects with Childhood friend Oscar (Jason Sudekis) who has never left, now running his father's bar.  After a night drinking at the bar with his friends and an awkward interaction, she passes out at home.  When she wakes up she learns that a monster (the same one from 25 years earlier) has attacked Soeul.  It dominates the news, and everyone's world is a little different.  The next night, she gets blackout drunk, and the monster emerges again...not attacking so much as making weird gestures, and Gloria sees her own actions mimicked by the creature, but she's not certain if she's the cause, and her guilt weighs upon her.  She investigates and finds the manifestation is tied to a specific location and a specific time in her hometown.

I thought perhaps this was some form of allegory or metaphor, that the manifestation of the monster was reflective of Gloria's self-destructive behavior.  And in a way it is.  On another drunken night she shows Oscar and friends what happens, and it's confirmed, but she stumbles and she's the cause of more deaths.  Her recklessness affects more lives than her own, but in the process Oscar learns that he becomes a giant robot in Seoul as well.

To this point, Oscar has been very helpful to Gloria, very sweet and giving.  But after Gloria leaves the bar with his friend Joel, he takes a very sudden and very dark turn.  At first Gloria sees a reflection of her own self-destructive behavior in Oscar's actions, and then Oscar starts manipulating and controlling her by threatening lives.  It's here where the film falls apart, the rather light touch the film had to start turns ugly and dark in a very unpleasant way.  There's a backstory as to why Gloria and Oscar are connected like this to Seoul, why they manifest the monster where and when they do, but it's terribly silly and doesn't make a lot of thematic sense.  Oscar's statement "I'm the robot, you're the monster" doesn't hold water, metaphorically.

As Gloria has to fight Oscar to protect Seoul, it becomes really ugly (as, inexplicably Joel just kind of stands by to watch...Gloria gets no real support from any man in this story...and it's rather unpleasant once I realized that there's no other female characters in this film either).  Yeah, I get that some people are not good people, that their inner demons get the better of them, and that some people can wrest control from those demons while others succumb to them, but the way the film turns the metaphor into physical conflict is ham-handed.  I was hoping this would be all drama, all the way, that Oscar were truly a robot that needed to be reminded about his heart and that Gloria would see that she's not the monster.  In a way the latter happened with her becoming the hero, but it's unrewarding to see what seemed to be a metaphysical light-drama become a muddle drama-action.


---

Okja - 2017, d. Bong Joon Ho


Lucy Mirando (a perky Tilda Swinton) has taken the lead of the troubled Mirando Corporation from her unlikable sister, and seeks to reinvent the company with a new super-piglet found in Chile.  They've reproduced 26 of them and scattered around the world to be raised by local farming traditions for 10 years, ending with the Best Super Pig competition prize winner and the debut of new Super Pig food products.  Given the animal's size, yet low consumption, are meant to revolutionize food consumption and ecological footprint.

10 years later we meet Okja, a sweet and gentle giant, we first meet one with a bramble stuck in its paw, and gently begging for food.  She is raised by Mija (Seo-Hyun Ahn) and her grandfather live on a conservation in the mountains of South Korea.  A moment of Mija in peril highlights the creature's intelligence and cleverness, and also her heart, compassion and bond with others.  I think Bong drew a lot of inspiration from My Neighbour Totoro in presenting Okja and her relationship with Mija.  It's certainly effective.

But Okja is not Mija's to keep, and with the 10 year anniversary up, the Mirando corporation takes Okja to Seoul before transporting it to New York for the big competition finale.  Mija runs away to rescue her leading to a big farcical romp in Seoul where activists from the Animal Liberation Front hijack Okja's transport, setting the creature free.  Mija manages to run off with the creature through town, causing much havoc.  In the end the ALF has designs to use Okja to expose Lucy Mirando's white-faced lies to the world, exposing their "natural super pig" as an actual genetically modified aberration.


Lucy is not a cackling supervillain, Swinton gives her a real well-meaning intentions, a real desire to help change the world, but through a through small deceptions.  It's when things fall apart and we meet her sister, who reasserts control, that we realize the machinations of big corporations, whether openly honest or deceitful, tend to succeed regardless as a result of the consuming populace's own willful ignorance.

Is this an anti-meat movie?  Not at all, actually.  What it instead is preaching, if anything, is awareness.  Just be mindful of what you're consuming.  The second half of the final act takes place in a slaughterhouse, a place where Bong could have turned the film into a real horror-show, with stark angles and lighting and skreetchy soundtrack, but it's all presented very matter-of-factly.  Though the animals are fictional, it's pretty true to the reality of mass-production slaughterhouses.  It's a film that doesn't pretend to have the answers...how do we feed the world with compassionate farming.  It knows the conundrum.  It ultimately is merely the story of a girl and her super-pig.  The weight of the reality surrounding it is up to the viewer to decide what to do with it.

It's a sweet, enjoyable, exceptionally well-crafted adventure film, which is always to be expected from Bong.  With a few tweaks (language mostly, but the extremity of a couple of scenes) it would practically be a children's film, although I imagine the heavy dose of reality might be somewhat traumatic for children, which is why it's not a kids film.

---

It Follows - 2014, d. David Robert Mitchell

A young woman runs out of the house at dusk in her underwear and high heels.  She keeps looking behind her.  Her neighbour is concerned but she dismisses it.  Her dad is concerned, she avoids him and runs back in the house.  The soundtrack, a pulsating, crunchy electronic score, kicks in, riddled with momentum, and Annie takes off with her family car.  The chase is on.  It ends on a beach in the middle of the night.  There's nobody else around.  At dawn Annie's body is in the same spot, horrendously mutilated.

Jay (Maika Monroe) has been on a couple dates with "Jake".  She has sex with him, after which he chloroforms her.  She wakes up tied to a chair in a run down garage where a clearly paranoid Jake explains the premise...it was passed along to him the same way he passed it along to her, it's something following him, it can look like anyone - friend, family, a complete stranger, a face in the crowd - but it follows.  Never go anywhere without two exits, don't let it touch you, and don't let it kill you or it will come for him again...try to pass it along.  Jake drops Jay off on her curbside at home and runs.  A police investigation reveals he's not Jake and that Jay didn't contract anything from him, not anything science can detect, but it's not long before Jay begins to understand his paranoia.

Goddamn this film is freaky.  No matter where she is...at school, in the house, in her room, there's no safety.  She can't sleep, always on guard.  Her neighbour Greg takes her to a "Jake's place"...an abandoned house that seems set up for hiding out from ...it.  Cans and bottles hanging in front of the covered windows, a bed and supplies among the dirt and detritus, a stock of pharmaceuticals in the drug cabinet.   As Jay, her siblings and friends Scooby Gang their way through finding Jake, the camera pans around the premises, just scanning.

There's an awesomely weird sense of style to this film.  The grinding 80's synth score, the differently advanced technology (an e-Reader that looks like a make-up compact), the lousy black&white sci-fi films on TV, clothes that are modern and retro from multiple generations, the old picture tube TVs, the 70's decor of Jay's family home, the station wagon... as if it's reflecting upon horror films from across decades.

It Follows is an amazing suspense/horror film... an absolute classic of the genre.  It doesn't just live in the suspense of Jay's predicament, but establishes an awkward dynamic among the Scooby Gang.  The film builds a metaphysical entity with a past, and no clear method of stopping it.

(David's take)
---

Shimmer Lake - 2017, d. Orin Uziel

Oddly writer-director Uziel conscripted a bunch of typically comedic actors in a crime drama.  Rainn Wilson, Adam Pally, Rob Coddry, John Michael Higgins, and Ron Livingston are the most notible names in a solid cast of character actors muddling their way through a series of murders and betrayals after a bank robbery in a small Ohio town.

The film is told in four chapters, begining on a Friday and works its way back to Monday, the story starting out as fragments, but the puzzle eventually filling itself in the further back we go.  There are so many characters, so many common family names, it's initially a bit of a maze, but by Wednesday the connections and motives start to gel.  A bank robbery, a schlubby Joe on the run, two dull feds, a dead Judge, and the town sheriff, and a meth lab explosion all intertwine to form a rather engaging story, even if the mystery of it is rather obvious.

There's a bit of a Fargo feel (more the TV series rather than the Movie) except there's something off about our lead Sheriff played by Benjamin Walker.  Where in Fargo the Sheriff is our moral compass, the most upstanding person in the town, here Zeke is "the smartest person in the room" but there's an edge to his placid demeanor.  Small moments - a vile distaste for his sister-in-law's cooking for example - doesn't inspire the same smooth calm that we got from Frances McDormand, Allison Tollman, Carrie Coon or Patrick Wilson.  But then it's not Fargo, it's just Fargo-esque.

There's a sense of humour to the proceedings (with all these comic actors there would have to be), odd exchanges of inane banter, more than a bit of bumbling from our crooks after the robbery and even during.  I enjoyed how each day starts with a character waking up with a start, and the running gag of Pally's Deputy having to sit in the back seat of the squad car every day made me wish there were more than just four days being covered.  It's like jeopardy comedy where the big payoff comes first, and then the joke slowly builds to it's starting point.

It's a film that could've tried to be too clever for its own good with its structure, but it's just the framework it hangs an enjoyable story upon...I'm not certain it's ever even really trying to outsmart its audience or be too impressed with itself.  If anything the downside to its structure is its inability to have a coda, to see how things worked out for the schemers.

The Hiatus Post: Blade Runner 2049

I am taking a break from the web. Not being on the web, but contributing. I have been posting something to something blog related since 1999. I have had unintended extended breaks, but I always felt the pressure to do something. This time, I am under far too many other pressures and I just need one fewer thing that I feel compelled to do. The photoblog is paused, this blog will be paused. On my side, at least; Kent will do as Kent's life allows him to do.

2017, Denis Villeneuve (Sicario) -- cinema

Disclosure. I haven't felt compelled to watch Blade Runner in quite sometime. Disclosure. I actually enjoy the original version, with it's noir over-dub. Disclosure. I never really liked the idea of Deckard possibly being a replicant himself. Disclosure. While I never avoided spoilers, apparently I did because I never caught the first one, till the opening footage.

So, thirty years since the last movie took place, 35 years since the last movie came out. And Villeneuve still wonders why this movie didn't do better. To me its obvious; the original's fanbase was not only late in coming (the original didn't do well either) but they are now old & jaded. Sure, the younger fanbase of all things scifi and retro is there, but again... jaded. As for the rest of the world, the world that makes up the population that determines a movie being a success or not? Despite "hey girl" Ryan Gosling being the lead, its slow paced, atmospheric scifi. And it cost a fortune to make. So, really, not so much of a mystery Denis.

But still dude, I loved it. Fucking loved it. But get it, this is not big grins and rush-right-out-to-see-it-again loving it. This is knowing my expectations and having them met, if not exceeded. It is a lush, colourful (no, really it is) homage to the original while being a powerful, standalone movie. I just wish the plot had been tighter, as in the end, after all the exposition about the powerful central theme I still couldn't really tell you anyone's motivations beyond Joe's. Why exactly did the Bad Guy need Deckard? The replicant underground? Hell, other than the option of tossing the old pigskin back n forth, why did Joe need Deckard? But meh, who cares, I just watched the fuck out of this movie.

The visuals, the aging anachronistic world (remember, now was The Future of the original) where the decay of mother earth is apparent. Is that snow? Ash? Ashen snow? Isn't this LA ? No plants, no real animals no nothing but industrial decay and bodies everywhere. One can assume that the humans left on earth exist for no other reason than to fuel the off-world colonies exodus, through labour and spending. At some point that spending will be done, and ... abandonment.

Speaking of the visuals, I must admit, I am in the camp of being disappointed about the female centric sex machine of the movie. C'mon, I get it, you think the girls get Gosling so we get Joi, the Not Real Girl. But, what about the background? Wouldn't the Joi advertising try and appeal to all ? Unless they didn't want to interfer with the whole Joe-Joi unreal couple thing. The how about the pleasure droid brothel? There wasn't a single sexual exploitative male image, and that just seems ... unrealistic.

In the end, after two-plus hours, I was left satisfied. And more than eager for another part of the story, even moreso than after the dozen plus times I have seen the original. I want to see where the offworld colonies go, what is left with Earth, and now that Replicants know they can procreate, what is next for them?