KWIF: Tootsie, plus Do Revenge (+3)

 Kent's week (or two) in film #5:
Tootsie - 1982, d. Sydney Pollack - Criterion Channel
Do Revenge - 2022, d. Jennifer Kaytin Robinson - Netflix
Caro Diario - 1993, d. Nanni Moretti - Tubi
Tampopo - 1985, d. Juzo Itami - Criterion Channel
Sharper - 2023, d. Benjamin Caron - AppleTV+

---

From moment one, something didn't sit right with me about Tootsie. I mean, it's Dustin Hoffman, an actor I've never particularly cared for, playing a character that is recognizably Dustin Hoffman the actor, ergo a very difficult person nobody wants to work with (I'd forgotten about the multiple accusations of sexual predation which makes the irony of the film's intent even more distasteful). That unease I started into the film with never left me throughout the viewing.

It's the early 80's, and there's still a battle of the sexes going on, and Sydney Pollack wants to tackle it head-on by putting a womanizing, arrogant, self-involved actor in the shoes of a woman, in order for him to play a female character role on a soap opera, because the actor thinks he can do it better than any woman could. Throughout the film, Hoffman's character uses his disguise as armour while he performs his perception of a tough (but not in a manly way), independent (but not in a manly way), no-nonsense (but not in a manly way) woman. In the most unbelievable reach of the film, Pollack asks us to buy into Hoffman going off-script on a soap opera on.the.regular. They wouldn't have lasted a day in reality. One warning at best before they were turfed.

In its day I'm sure its very binary perception of gender roles and gender politics seemed progressive, but at the same time we had "nerds" who were "revenging" on the cool kids by having non-consentual sex with women for comedy. This is an equally unamusing and toxic film. 

The binary perception of gender roles here cannot sustain with a modern lens, and I cannot turn off my modern lens in watching it. There are trans, drag and other queer lenses this film is unintentionally filtering through, and since I don't think for a moment Pollack had them in mind, he's not addressing these demographics in any satisfactory way. Nor is he even having the characters reasonably question their own roles and identities, at least not beyond a knee-jerk-reactionary homophobic/transphobic-for-comedy way. It's ugly. But also, it's the 80's, so ugly is expected. So of course we wind up with a story about a cisgender, heterosexual white male who lies and uses pretty much everyone around him and succeeds as a result. It's probably the most truthful thing about the film.

Taken even at just a base, binary comedy with a love story sub-plot, it fails. I don't want Jessica Lange to be with him. I want her to despise him and let him know that he abused her trust, her dad's trust and the trust of everyone they work with for his own selfish gain, and that his love means nothing to her. There's nothing he can do to repair that trust except to respect her wishes and leave her alone. But who am I, a cis-het white man to tell another cis-het white man what the woman he's writing should or shouldn't do with her love life.

Really, kinda fuck this film, y'know. The soundtrack and score are godawful, it's not funny, it's certainly not romantic, and I just don't buy into it. But also fuck this film mostly because it's pretty insidiously watchable despite everything I said...but maybe I kept watching just hoping for a comeuppance that never really happens because 1980s.

---

With Do Revenge, I found myself with mixed feelings watching upper-crust high schoolers "do revenge" on one another, in what could be an expanding whirlwind of destroying people's possible futures and trajectories in life. It can happen so simply. But at the same time these are the asshole kids of rich asshole parents (parents we never meet or see) who generally cannot see past their own wants, amusements and ambitions. They are, as reiterated numerous times, sociopaths, and it's hard to feel sorry for them for having to experience any sort of complications in life.

So the film relies upon us seeing these charismatic leads (twenty-something-year-old stars from Riverdale and Stranger Things) as complex people, not just snobs or psychos (though they are respectively each that), despite their Strangers on a Train-like bargain.

Camila Mendes' Drea, despite being the "poor kid" at school, has entrenched herself as a queen bee academically and socially, but her boyfriend Max (Dash and Lily's Austin Abrams)-- the most elite of the elite offsprings attending the school-- coaxes her into sending him a cam vid which he then shares with everyone. But, being the elite of the elite, he successfully spins himself as victim leaving Drea an outcast. During summer tennis camp she meets Eleanor (Maya Hawke), an outcast lesbian who will be transferring to Drea's school in the fall which means she will encounter the girl who maliciously branded her a sexual predator a few years earlier. The plan is to do revenge on each other's offenders.

Though we recognize Drea's elitist, selfish tendencies, we see what she has done to survive, thrive and elevate herself above her contemporaries, with none of the resources they have. She's an inspiring figure, though one clearly having lost perspective and empathy as a result of their status, but earning our support as victim of what is an actual crime. Yet her casual ability to just destroy mean girl Sophie Turner at tennis camp is a really frightening side to her personality. Eleanor has developed anxiety and keeps herself at a distance from most people so it seems like a real coup for her to befriend Drea, but the unease sets in when she becomes too comfortable blending in with Drea's old crowd. Are they a bad influence on her? Is Drea? 

The film doesn't sit with these questions for too long as it has a few tricks up its sleeve, as the revenge they do don't go so according to plan, and they have unintended consequences... but not enough for my liking. This film is entertainment, not a morality play, but I wish there was more fallout to the events at hand. Even nth degree shitheel Max, upon receiving his comeuppance, will probably just wind up backpacking around Europe with his camera (likely coaxing many European women into nude photography that he'll share without their permission) and dad's money and (unfortunately) be just fine.

Both Drea and Eleanor provide voiceover during the film, but its used inconsistently and not always effectively, and I wonder, if I actually paid attention on a rewatch, if these POV shifts would actually break the film.

Do Revenge is fun, surprising and quite engrossing, but I question if it is smartly using its elite-class setting or if it just thinks it is.

---

I thought for the longest time that Caro Diario was a film I first watched on the Canadian cable channel "Showcase" back in the late-90's.  It's a small Italian film with no real narrative, just kind of a travelogue/slice of life, and I really connected with it back then.  Rewatching it on Tubi (of all places), I had a potent sense memory of sitting in the theatre watching certain scenes and realized that Caro Diario was one of the movies I watched at Thunder Bay's first film festival held by the North of Superior Film Association (which I'm happy to see is still a thing) back in 1994.

'94 was a big year for me in film. It's when both Clerks and Pulp Fiction hit and my brain exploded, realizing there was more to movies than I ever thought or new, and the NOSFA film festival was another big part of that awakening. Caro Diario holds a special place in my heart and brain as a result.  

It's a sweet, often funny picture that finds director/writer Nanni Moretti playing a version of himself as he, through narration of his diary entries, first, rides his Vespa around Rome, contemplating architecture, dance and cinema, and having a chance run-in with Jennifer Beals.  His second diary entry finds him trying to find escape to focus on work, jumping from one island to another, never to find peace (but with comedic results).  The third entry is more serious and personal as he finds himself sleepless and itchy only for it to take a year of medical examinations before a cancer diagnoses is given. This isn't documentary, it's not a drama or comedy, but somewhere in the center of the venn diagram of these.

It's not the monumental, life changing picture I remember it being, but I'm not in that same place or time I once was. It's a charming, often amusing, and serene picture that doesn't ask much of the audience except to try and enjoy the world as Moretti sees it.

--- 

Directors du jour The Daniels (Kwan and Scheinert of Everything Everywhere All At Once) have cited Tampopo as having a direct influence on their filmmaking style, which I guess we could call an "anything goes" style.  But "anything goes" undersells the craft of actually selling the "anything goes" style, of telling a story where "anything goes" but within the frame or context of the story so that it all hangs together.

Tampopo is, as far as I know, the sole entrant in the subgenre of "ramen western", and I think that label does the absolute best job, simply so, of describing what this movie is. It's set in an unnamed city in Japan in its current-day 80's, following a truck driver who inadvertently becomes "sensei" to a ramen shop widow who wants to figure out what she's doing wrong and become the best ramen shop she can.

This is a food porn movie before food porn was a subgenre, but it maybe invented it? There are interstitial scenes, disconnected from the main plot, that feature bizarre eroticism involving food (among other, non-erotic adventures in enjoying one's meal), including one particular moment where an egg yolk is sensuously(?) passed from mouth to mouth between two lovers until the female climaxes from the sensation, breaking the yolk's membrane and dripping yellow goo everywhere.  But it's mostly about finding the ramen recipe, the Japanese noodle soup I can not partake in due to onion and wheat sensitivites (one makes me barf, the other I break out in hives). In total, it's about the pleasures of food, but with a spaghetti western pastiche. (Disclaimer, there are scenes of a turtle and prawn being killed on screen but for the purpose of food preparation...still, rough stuff).

---

If the opening sequence, "Tom", were a stand alone short film starring Justice Smith and Briana Middleton, it would be a pretty compelling piece. The attractive leads have great chemistry but also there's a sense of "why are we watching this" that just underlines the whole thing. Knowing the basic plot of the film from trailers, it unfortunately cuts this seemingly stand-alone bit right off at the knees. And there's a reveal, a reveal you know is coming from almost moment one as this type of film has you questioning everything you're seeing all the time. 

Sharper stars Smith, Middleton, Julianne Moore, Sebastian Stan and John Lithgow, which is a curiously intriguing cast. If you know nothing about the film and have not seen a trailer, and this cast does curiously intrigue you, maybe stop reading, and go watch it.. as I think it might play fairly well if one watches with no prior knowledge.

Buuuut...[now spoilers] even then, once you catch onto what the film is, which is a movie about grifters who are just scamming, scamming, scamming one another, it becomes somewhat obvious to see where it's going. It's the inevitable flaw in a film about grifters, it becomes a very binary picture where you either trust everything you see on the screen or you trust nothing. After its first three acts (of five), the film has taught you not to trust anything about it and so whenever it tries to surprise you, you're never surprised because you're already anticipating it.

It's a really good, often great looking film (director Caron, comes into his feature debut after working on expensive and ambitious TV projects like Sherlock, The Crown, and Andor), often cloaked in hard black shadows contrasting against the fairly spare and flat aesthetic of the nouveau riche.  The contrast between Tom's cozy bookstore and his father's sprawling, contemporary, sterile apartment are so telling of the differences between the characters. It's got an interesting structure, but the nature of the story makes it hard to invest in almost any of the characters (save Tom who disappears for a long stretch), and thus makes it difficult to really enjoy the film.  Caron surely will have much better features in the future.

Can You Ever Forgive Me

Twenty-for-Seven #19 (Day7)
2018, d. Marielle Heller (A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood) - Crave

The wife and I had intentions to go see this film in the theatres back in 2018, but just never made it out.  As it usually happens, if it's not a big blockbuster Marvel or Star Wars film, we have a much harder time making the effort to get out of the house for an evening.  After seeing it garner a whole host of award nominations, it remained fairly high on the "to watch" list, but even once we had access to it, finding the right time to watch meant we put off watching it for months. 

This is a great movie about a genuine curmudgeon and gifted writer Lee Israel who famously had forged over 400 celebrity letters, written in their voice, and sold them to book shops and memorabilia stores around New York.  Writers and performers would save their showmanship for their writing and the stage, so their communications with friends and acquaintances were likely a lot drier than people would have hoped.   So Lee's ability to find the voice, especially the tone of humour, meant she was providing people more of what they wanted out of such treasures than what they usually got with the more authentic items.

The film is a wonderful profile that doesn't just examine Lee Israels' crime, but her desperation, her insecurity, her depression, and most of all, her talent.  Her sardonic nature may be difficult to engage with face-to-face but from an outside perspective she's absolutely hilarious.  Comedy loves a curmudgeon.

In the time that she started forging letters, she also formed a friendship with Jack Hock, a post-middle-aged gay man, surviving life on the streets with fabulous energy and vigor.  Lee generally has a hard time connecting with people, but Jack is so her speed.  His energy seems contageous and he is just as quick with a barb as Lee.  Plus they like their drink.

But forging letters, especially at the pace Lee seemed to be doing, it was only a matter of time before suspicions were raised.  Things fall apart for Lee and Jack, both with their duplicitous gig and with their friendship. 

Melissa McCarthy and Richard E Grant both deliver award-worthy performances here, real captivating, fully inhabited chararacters.  Both won many critics awards (as did the screenplay) and despite high praise and Oscar Nominations, it made little to no impact at the box office (barely making its budget back).  It's a terrific film that will no doubt grow in reputation and appreciation as time rolls on.

I Saw This!! What I Have Been Watching: 2019 Edition: Pt A

I Saw This (double exclamation point) is our feature wherein Kent(!) or Toasty attempt to write about a bunch of stuff they watched some time ago and meant to write about but just never got around to doing so. But we can't not write cuz that would be bad, very bad.  Smells bad, bad.

What I Have Been (or Am) Watching is the admitted state of me spending too much time in front of the TV. And despite what I said above, I have been avoiding telling you about what I have been watching. But let's try with what's on right now, and stepping backwards in time until I get entirely lost. The bad smell should help me find my way back.

Let's start with not-yet-completed Carnival Row, likely by the time I get around to finishing this, I will have completed the 8 episode Amazon series of Faeries in a pseudo-Victorian England but let's lead the paragraphs with initial impressions and see where they end up.

And this is NOT the "new Game of the Thrones", more "the new Penny Dreadful".

Let's just say this up front -- I've been looking forward to this one for a good while now. The trailers really caught me; I actually put something on my horizon that I knew I would love. The trailers were tight and emotive, highlighting the world and the leads and and all the wyrd darkness the show would have. Fairyland is real, and has been beset with war. Refugees end up in The Burgue, an analog for London (edit: whoah, NYC actually), to be mixed up in a Victorian-style murder-mystery where star-crossed lovers reunite amidst chaos and xenophobia.

Aaaand done. After only eight episodes, a very very VERY big world is barely scratched. This is one of those times where the New Order of TV got mixed in with the Old Worlde. By that I mean, that this new streaming service style of high budget, great looking, challenging but short-seasoned TV got stymied by a writing style that was meant for 13-21 episode season style.

Carnival Row introduces a world where the Land of Fairy, or Tirnanoc, is real. Its across the ocean from The Republic of the Burgue. A pair of other humanocentric countries (the Pact) invade Tirnanoc to conquer and loot. The Burgue sends soldiers under the auspices to protect the Fae, but its more about keeping them out of the hands of the Pact. The war is a failure and ends with Burguish soldiers abandoning the land, but not before soldier Rycroft Philostrate or "Philo" (Orlando Bloom; Lord of the Rings) and Faerie Vignette Stonemoss (Cara Delavingne; Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets) meet & fall in love. When The Burgue abandons northern Anoun to the Pact, Philo has to abandon Vignette, for her own good.

Years later finds them both in The Burgue, the capital city. Philo is a cop who works Carnival Row, the bad side of town full of Fae, and Vignette is a refugee who naturally falls in with this wrong side of the city. Not that they can help it. Despite Burgue's intervention in the war, its not like anyone there likes Fae (or Pix, or Puck, or Critch; choose your slur). And I mean nobody. Oh, some tolerate and work along side, or hire Fae as servants, but there doesn't seem to be a single person who actually is not racist, besides Philo, which doesn't ingratiate him with his peers. And when a series of horrific murders put Philo on a dangerous path with personal connections to his past, his situation only gets worse.

There's a lot going on in this show. But its wrapped up in a classic TV formula, with a broad cast of characters and unexciting tropes. Not being based on anything prior, its all TV. Given a full traditional season, I think we could have said so much more about the world and its people. But while I really enjoyed watching this show, I didn't come away seeing anything astounding, besides the incredible design. Everything from the sets to the flying faerie effects to the look & feel of the city had me enraptured.

Meanwhile, the OTHER big Amazon show re-imagines a world of superheroes being utter shite and who has to deal with them.

The Boys was also a short season, but utter binge worthy, based on comics by Garth Ennis (The Preacher), starring Karl Urban as Billy Butcher, a brutish British man who takes "wee" Hughie under his wing after the love of his life is killed before his eyes. Not just killed, but horrifically destroyed by a coked up speedster superhero who runs right through her. Right. Through. Her. Hughie is left holding only her hands.

Billy's proposal is that the supes have to be spanked (punished). Someone has to hold them accountable. They are untouchable celebrities in this world, backed and protected not only by their powers, but by the most powerful corporation on the planet, that covers up their indiscretions and worse. On the outside, The Seven in that  world's Justice League of America. Behind the scenes they are debaucherous, hedonistic and amoral, at best. Psychopathic at worst. How does Billy intend on doing this? Via some backing from the government, who is afraid the supes will be sanctioned for war actions, and lots of illegal activities to gather info hoping to reveal to the public some of the things they get onto.

Entering into this point in the game is a right proper superhero, utterly sweet and innocent Starlight. She is not aware of the true nature of The Seven, but learns quickly. But she still wants to do Good, so she stays, hoping to weather the storm and find a place. She and Hughie connect in ways that can only be about sharing their mutual disillusionment, and cannot end well. Which is exactly how the bitter, manipulative Billy would have it.

This show is diabolical, to quote Billy. It doesn't really hold back and powers through the plot at a break-neck pace. It takes the comic telling format, and tweaks it enough to generate TV format, but keeps enough of the source material to make this actually fresh viewing. That is what was lacking from Carnival Row in that nothing felt fresh, while this show kept on surprising and often just plain SHOCKING. I don't expect every show to be as daisy fresh as Legion but I like the attempt at least. The Boys more than succeed.

3 Short Paragraphs: You Might Be the Killer

2018, Brett Simmons (Animal) -- Shudder

A couple of years ago Chuck Wendig (author, Zer0es)) and Sam Sykes (author, Aeons' Gate series) wrote an epic Twitter conversation that went viral. The format was Sam, a new camp counsellor, was reaching out to his friend Chuck on how to deal with a murder spree at his camp. Through the pithy back n forth inherent in Twitter, they explored and subverted the tropes of the summer camp slasher movies. It was kind of brilliant and right down my dark, dead end alley.

And then someone decided to make a movie about it, starring Fran Kranz (Cabin in the Woods) and Alyson Hannigan (BtVS) as Sam and Chuck, respectively. Kranz gets to be Sam the (now) seasoned camp counsellor and Alyson is Chuck, who works at a local popculture store -- you know, those places that have evolved out of the neighbourhood comic store, selling all sorts of genre collectibles, games and comics. She's the horror trope expert being sought advice from. Someone is killing all of Sam's fellow camp counsellors, and he is not sure what to do. There is also the issue of his headaches and that he is covered in blood.

This is a fun little movie, about par with much of the genre it is exploring. Being all meta like, it is more chuckle worthy than scary, but it still is able to pull a good amount of tension and anticipation from what should be a pretty straight forward story. Without giving too much away, we end up not really sure if we should root for Sam (the idiot who put on the evil mask) or let him become the "victim" of the Final Girl. Given that I am treating horror-focused streaming service Shudder like my corner video store, where spending $3.99 for an OK movie was fine & dandy, I was happy with the movie even if it was not revolutionary.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2

2017, James Gunn (Super) -- cinema

I have decided that each cinema viewing will never get relegated to the "3 Short Paragraphs" nomenclature, whether I have more or less than three paragraphs to say about the movie.

If you recall, I wasn't a huge fan of the first one. And no, that is not the typical passive aggressive way of saying I didn't like it; its just that, not a huge fan. The best thing about the movie is that it generated a lot of conversation between Kent and I. In his own write up, he says it best, "it was just the condensed, Reader's Digest-light version of what felt like it should be a much longer story." I have seen it half dozen, half paying attention times on Netflix since; I have softened to it, more enjoying bits than the movie as a whole.

But surprise surprise, I really completely fell into this one.

Where the first one introduced the characters, letting them save a planet from a Big Bad, and established themselves as the self-named Guardians of the Galaxy, this one picks up with them hiring out on that name. In a brilliant opening sequence, where Baby (but growing up!) Groot does a dance number to E.L.O. while the team (badly) fights a toothy alien monster in the blurry background, we are reminded to smile when we watch this movie. James Gunn wants us to have a good time.

If they didn't really save the galaxy in the first, they do this  time round. This is a truly grand scale movie, that doesn't just explore Peter Quill's mysterious past (why was he taken from Earth) but also shows how this team will fit well into the cosmic story coming. Even if we accept that the characters are not their mega-powered counterparts from the comics, they show they can hold their own against cosmic powers here.

<spoiler>Do I really have to say this now?</spoiler>

And that cosmic power? Ego, the Living Planet. Yup, Peter's dad was a god (small 'g') who wandered around the galaxy impregnating aliens. Based on his name (apt) and his attitude, I wouldn't be surprised if he stuck with planets where he could be male, and could be portrayed as a handsome example of such. Ego's life-force is tied to the planet of his origin, whereas his humanoid body is just an extension, as he desired to understand these beings that were everywhere.

He reconnects with Peter, dialing into Quill's desire to have familial connections, a past and a family. That is why I connected with the movie; because of the emotional quotient it allowed itself to have. From Peter and his dad, to Peter and Gamora exploring what they have, to Rocket and his anger, to Gamora and Nebula and finally, shifting Yondu and the Ravagers from background characters, to the forefront. In case you don't know, Yondu is actually a member of the original Guardians, in the comics. There was just so much emotion in this movie, and that roped me in.

I also found that Gunn balanced the humour and the action better in this one. I found that the humorous elements were more extensions of the way the characters would really act, instead of funny bits to make us chuckle. The way Rocket deals with the Ravagers was pure Rocket, and of course, Groot is always am Groot.

Its funny, where Kent saw this one as the lesser of the two, I saw this as the better. I think they were able to dispense with the setup the first required, and just dive into the characters and their dynamic. That didn't require them to be together the entire time, but when drawn together for the final battle with Ego, they all worked together like the dysfunctional machine they are.

And and and, Ego had legit, fleshed out motivations for his properly galaxy wide actions. So, this time they really guarded the galaxy from a proper super villain.

P.S. Would someone explain to me why rainbrow brite colours are so prevalent in this one? Why is the galaxy so neon?

P.S.S. What's wrong with a Zune? I love mine. But really, Peter just needs to get over it and visit Earth properly to grab an iPod and someone's external HDD with thousands of songs.

31 Days of Halloween 2015: The Voices

2014, Marjane Satrapi (Persepolis) -- download

What makes a good horror comedy? Subverting the tropes?  Working entirely within the tropes but putting a good comedic spin on it? Good jokes? Wry humour? Gross outs? Of course, we know the answer is never one of those things specific. Maybe Kent can weigh in more, as he is the comedy guy, but I always find myself not sure whether a premise is going to work. And even if it makes me laugh, its not always a good comedy, let alone a good movie.

If you run with the premise, The Voices is about a schlep of a guy working at a factory who hears his dog & cat talking to him. The cat, standard marmalade tom has a Scottish accent. The dog, a big rolly polly mastiff with drooping eyes and jowls, has a cartoony big galoot voice. Both are just the our main character Jerry's voice, i.e. Ryan Reynolds having some fun. Jerry is a little unbalanced, and not because the pets talk to him, but because of what they ask him to do. The dog is a nice guy, and the cat is expectedly an asshole, a sociopathic one to boot.

This movie looks like it wants to be set in North England, in a small factory town with all kinds of outrageous characters working there. Yet, its probably just somewhere in the midwest. Gemma Arterton is the extroverted office worker he has a crush on. Anna Kendrick is the introverted office worker who has a crush on him. Neither seem to notice Jerry is not just a handsome nice guy but very very much off. I am not sure if I bought into the fact Kendrick could like him in that way, despite that being Ryan Reynolds.

On a fateful night Jerry has to drive Gemma, ok her name is Fiona, home from a night out. Its pouring and she has no choice. She is flirty, dismissive and drunk. When she sees him deal with the deer they hit on the slick, rain obscured road, she really really sees how off Jerry is. And he has to kill her.

The movie is funny. The cat is funny. The talking heads in the fridge are funny. The acting is decent and the script is as well, if familiar. But it is just not a very good movie. Again with the not so good, not so bad. I am getting a bit frustrated. Even the break with the splendor of Spring, we are getting shelved with bad attempts to do out of the ordinary, comedy horrors.

And I am not really sure why the movie had to end with a song & dance number. Really really not sure, other than to highlight, "Hey look at us, a fun quirky movie! Songs! Dance! Those are fun right!"

Another celebrated director saddled with a crappy followup American movie.

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.

One Episode: Salem, Fargo, Resurrection

Interestingly enough, the dark, moody & somewhat sexy series about the Salem witch trials was not CW-ized. In other words, the focus characters are not all pretty people in their early to mid 20s. This is a show meant for those enjoying American Horror Story and some of the lighter spooky genre fare like Grimm and Sleepy Hallow.

Beginning Salem, John Alden (Shane West; Nikita) and Mary Sibley (Janet Montgomery; Human Target) are in love amidst a growing Puritanical movement in their hometown. Then John goes off to war (French/Indian I believe) and she is left pregnant. She never hears from him, so assuming him dead, is given a choice between facing the Puritans as an unwed mother or doing something... darker. She chooses the latter and sells the fetus, and her soul, to a dark spirit in the forest, with the coaxing, soothing help of Tituba, the slave girl.

But John returns many years later, a soldier who "saw things", a tortured soul, bitter that Mary forgot about him and married the wealthiest man in town. She now stands on her balcony looking over the town while John pines. Meanwhile Cotton Mather (Seth Gabel; Fringe), John's boyhood friend, is a full blown raving Puritan preaching Hell and Damnation while spending good coin at the brothel. When Cotton is not partaking, he is warning the good townsfolk about witches. The thing is, he is not wrong. There are evil witches in town, Mary Sibley being the gothy leader of them. With her toad familiar and third nipple (between her thighs) she controls her husband, and by extension, the town.

The show doesn't actually label a bad guy. Mary may be an evil witch, but we can see she is being manipulated by Tituba, and probably whatever dark powers want the town. Cotton may be a hypocritical Puritan finding evil where none resides, but there are witches and he may be the only one who can ferret them out. I imagine the show is going to be about John stuck between the two warring factions, trying to extract his love from either of their clutches, first the witches that have Mary as their leader and later on, the Puritans who have learned of her evil duplicitous ways.

I was looking forward to Fargo, it being one of my favourite Coen Bros movies. Like Hannibal is rewriting the books to create a series, I expected Fargo the TV show to rewrite the movie, but keep its quirky American mid-west sentiments and random shocking meets humorous violence. And seeing it was starring Martin Freeman (Sherlock, The Hobbit) how could I not believe this would be great.

It was meh, IMO. First up, it is not a re-creation or retelling, more an ode to the sentiment of the movie. So, new characters, new story, same quirkiness. Secondly, try as he may, Freeman butchers that mid-western "yah" accent.  Freeman's Lester Nygaard is meek, mild and bullied by everyone. He beyond unfortunate and also not very likeable. He is ripe for the manipulations of Billy Bob Thornton's (Armageddon, Love Actually) Malvo, seedy and intuitive with a fondness for fucking with people. You see immediately things are going to go very wrong when these two connect. Meanwhile, we are still wondering about the half-naked man who froze to death after running way from Malvo at the beginning of the episode, and is now discovered by the local cops.

And that is as far as I got before turning to Marmy, "Are you feeling this?"  Nope?  OK.  Click.  But I will have to go back and re-watch as Kent said it gets much better.

Resurrection joins that convoluted collection of movies and books and TV shows, tenuously connected by the idea of the dead returning. No, not zombies, but *blink* a person is back, exactly the way they were on the day they died. No explanation, though we know in American TV, this must lead to a why.

The TV show Resurrection is based on the book The Returned by Jason Mott (2013). The book has the same basic premise as a TV show out of France called Les Revenants (2012).  The French TV series was in turn based on an older movie (2004) with the same title.  Next year, probably, A&E will be presenting its own adaptation of the French TV series, called They Came Back. Unrelated, there is a post-zombie movie called The Returned (2013) which is about people cured of the zombie plague but dealing with prejudice and suspicion, which in turn is the same basic premise as the British TV series (2013) called In The Flesh.

So, this TV series. A young boy, Jacob, wakes up in a rice field in China. He wanders into a local market place speaking no Chinese but somehow communicates enough that an immigration agent is sent to pick him up and find out where he is from. The kid plays with the agent's smart phone and writes out Arcadia on the screen. Somehow, the agent connects that word to a missing child story from Arcadia, Missouri but not catching the fact it happened 32 years ago.

Can I just state my annoyance at the fact the kid figured out a smart phone? As a viewer we are not supposed to know he died in the 80s, based on plot points, but EVERYONE would know this. So, its ludicrous.

Agent Bellamy (Omar Epps, House) returns Jacob to his parents, a little nonplussed when they tell him the circumstances. This is the real only gem of the show, depicting the reactions by his parents now in their 60s. Suspicion, fear but a deep seated knowledge this is their son. Thus the mystery begins, one that draws out questions about the details around the boys death, his childhood friends now adults and by the end of the episode, the return of more people.

This show needed more style. The details are chilling enough but not for me. I am saturated by weird mystery shows, strange supernatural occurrences. I need something a little more in genre fiction to keep my attention. I never did return to this show but I imagine its something I might revisit should it appear on Netflix. I suspect the A&E series will be more captivating.

3 Short Paragraphs + A Couple More: Doomsday Book

2012, Pil-Sung Yim, Kim Jee-Woon -- Netflix

This is a trilogy of science fiction stories from Korea, well made and incredibly well told. All three stories involve the possibility of complete destruction of mankind, via familiar speculative fictions means: zombies, the emergence of robotic intelligence and alien intervention. Each story has a distinct style and tone that lend themselves well to the story being told.

The first is Brave New World, a zombie origin story that starts with rotting apple in a research scientist's home. We follow the apple through the compostable waste system all the way to its re-feeding to cows. We the viewers know a virus is travelling with it and back into the realm of human consumption. As an analogy for Adam & Eve in the brave new world, its kind of heavy handed but as a generic zombie ground-zero story, its brilliant. As we follow the main character, the inadvertent source of everything, we are bombarded with the news flashes and responses by the media to what is happening, in all its lunacy. There is a tinge of farce and comedy as Korea quickly dissolves into a zombie state. Is there hope when Eve gives Adam an apple? Who knows as the point of the metaphor is lost.

Next came Heavenly Creature, a 20 minutes into the future story where household robots are common. It's obviously inspired by the Alex Proyas I, Robot movie as well as real robotic inventions this last decade. A repair engineer is brought in to inspect a servant bot at a Buddhist Temple. The bot has basically become the Buddha, a state of perfect enlightenment. The engineer believes it to be a fault in the electronics but cannot find anything wrong, but still believes he should bring the thing back for repairs. His further investigation is stymied by the arrival of the founder of the company that manufactures the robots. He fears what will become of humanity should they accept the bot as Buddha and suddenly the engineer is set between his own company and this enlightened (but soulless?) creature.

The final story is lighter, if the end of the world can be lightened. A comet is streaking (they always streak don't they) towards the planet and there is little time left. Our family is stocking the bomb shelter hoping to live out the terrible times after the comet strikes. But when the scientists show, TV up to the last minute of course, that the comet has an eerie similarity to an 8-ball from billiards, the young daughter is stricken with fear. You see, not so long ago, in a fit of rage she destroyed her father's cherished 8-ball, as the family runs a billiards hall. In desperation she ordered it online, but by chance a UFO was passing over at the same time. So, the nice aliens are sending what she asked for, if a little too big for the table. And the order cannot be cancelled.

As all anthology movies should be, the stories entertain and leave you pondering a bit. Considering we spec fic fans are fed an endless supply of short films via YouTube, it was nice to see some of the short ideas expanded upon as proper movie elements.

Catching Up: Guys Getting Older

I don't see as many dramas as I used to. There was a stage in my movie viewing life, when I was pretty deep in the perceived snob era, where I saw little else worth viewing but for dramas and foreign flicks.  Oh, I was still a closeted genre watcher but there was so very very little that I could say was good.  Now I rather find myself white washing everything with the not-so-good brush or more accurately, not that impressive to me, whether drama or comedy or action or foreign or thriller.

But there are movies that I know I want to see.  I wanted to see The Descendants (2011, Alexander Payne) in the theatre but it escaped me.  It sat on my HDD for ages before I spontaneously put it on one evening.  That may not sound like much but you don't see what it takes for me to put on anything other than toss-away genre and action flicks these days.  When I could be watching movies I actually want to see, I always end up re-watching Netflix Nick Cage movies (Next) or one of my disaster movies (2012).

I like when Clooney does a flick where he is not the Sexiest Man of the Year.  Here he is the dad of two, wearing his grey hair and his flip flops and not a really decent outfit in his closet.  This is not dapper Las Vegas Clooney or even clean and even hitman Clooney.  This is why I like the man; that he is not afraid to play a very deflated version of himself.

It is a light movie but not a light subject.  His wife has been injured and lies in a coma when he finds out she has been in an affair with a local real estate celebrity.  Well, if having your face on a bus poster makes you a celebrity.  Clooney's Matt King is a bit of a celebrity himself, if you consider descended from Hawaiian royalty as celebrity status. He and his family own a massive amount of untouched land and live off trust money, though none as carefully as Matt.  Most just want Matt to finish a big land deal and give them their share of the money.

So, Matt is left dealing with his wife's impending death, his children's reactions to it all and his squabbling family afairs.  Life is not easy even when you are living in paradise.  The movie sweet and touching and generally enjoyable and I got to experience something I enjoy about movies set in paradises -- what it looks like in an average life, instead of all beaches and resort life. Clooney is allowed a sobre role where he is a father and simple man experiencing hard circumstances with dignity despite slapping flip flops.

Michael Caine has been a guy getting older for quite some time of my movie watching life.  I never really got to experience him as the young, vibrant guy of the 60s and 70s.  But Harry Brown (2009, Daniel Barber) is one where he is not a guy getting older, but an old guy.  An ex-military man living in the project towers of London, a widower and living a quiet life of not much more than his old friends (those who are left) and a local pub.  This is the part of getting old that is never glamorous; when everyone else has moved on and you are just biding your time.

Bided time is interrupted by the violent death of his one last pub mate at the hands of hoodie wearing thugs who terrorize the whole project unchecked.  Harry tries to absorb it, let it pass but enough is enough and he resurrects his past skills, to play vigilante.  That is when we see it is not age that slows people down but how society treats you.  If you are thought of as useless then you end up playing useless.  Scary that what makes Harry useful are the local actually, truly wastes of life that plague his community. We are not expected to have sympathy for those he kills but we are left a bit unnerved by how good he is at it. Makes you wonder what Taken 5 will be like when Liam Neeson carries his particular set of skills to the pensioner home.

And then we actually went to see a sweet movie about real people getting old.  The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2011, John Madden) is a British comedy about a number of aging brits who end up together in a hotel in India.  No, not a nice resort where the experience the beauty and exotic nature that India has to offer to people brought up on A Passage to India but a small run down hotel re-opened by the owner as a ... well, a pensioner home.  For one reason or another each of our seniors are forced into this cost effective choice that leaves much to be desired.

Each and every one of the "seniors" being played in this movie are not people I ever perceived as old.  Oh I know they are all aging actors but I never saw them play roles where their age impacts the character.  Maggie Smith was in Harry Potter and Dame Judy Dench has been M for a while.  Bil Nighy was an aging rockstar in Love Actually and Penelope Wilton was Harriet Jones in Doctor Who.  And Tom Wilkinson seems to be always playing mature politicians or bureaucratic roles.  But none of these people are what I would call old and feeble.

Dev Patel brings them together in something they never really expected.  His never ending enthusiasm bolstered by deception and sometimes downright delusion keeps everybody on course, but for a few disheartened, to realize a next stage in their lives.  Some find love, some find purpose and others find closure.  Each plays a character who considers themselves as aged but they all end up living more of a life than I probably am at 45.  Perception is the rule.

Days of Halloween Redux: Dance of the Dead

2008, Gregg Bishop -- Netflix

Zombies seem to have two places in movies, one is as a terrifying unrelenting force and the other is as a comedic antagonist not the least terrifying.  You can probably break it down to the zombies that ask to eat your brains and those that don't do much other than moan while they rip you to pieces.  Strangely enough, the brain eaters also seem to generally get created by toxic waste, normally a green oozing stuff that comes from labs or nuclear facilities, while the moaners normally don't have much of an explanation, while ambiguous viruses are commonly used.

Dance of the Dead is a much loved indie flick of the comedic type.  Yep, right down to the oozing green stuff, these guys are not so much terrifying as they are a vehicle for a bunch of townsfolk to be converted into antagonists for the heroic teens.  This is Mary Sue land where geeky kids rise above their pariah status to save (what's left of) the town. The local steaming nuclear plant is oozing its green residue into the water supply and the effect waits until the night of the big prom to take hold.  Strangely enough its not so much that the ooze affects the people drinking the water, as it does wake up the dead in the local graveyard (literally being spring-boarded back to life) which in turn infect the rest of the town. But the movie was not so much concerned with logic or continuity as it was laughs and low budget monster effects.

I said much loved, and a Google of the movie will reveal that is ran through all the horror film fests before getting some tiny LA theatre release and then straight to DVD.  It seemed to have been loved at them, but I will say that in having attended a lot of those fests, they are pretty forgiving.  The horror fests are often as much about having a good time as they are showing good movies.  So entertaining will make up for schlock.  This fit that bill, being mildly amusing, decently shot and with OK acting.  Its more about the fun of making a zombie movie than it is about adding a serious entry into the genre.

3 Short Paragraphs: Tucker and Dale vs Evil

2010, Eli Craig -- download

This weekend I was re-watching Dollhouse on Netflix (yes it will get its own treatment) and I again sat and pondered how much I loved watching Alan Tudyk play a not-so-nice character.  He plays the nice-guy soooo well, it was a joy to see him present such a nasty, complex character in Alpha.  But, really, why I like Alan Tudyk so much is how much he comes across as a likeable guy.  And in Tucker and Dale vs Evil he is the patient, thoughtful Tucker, friend to insecure Dale.  Even after he accidentally gets involved in the death of quite a few deaths of clumsy college students, he remains the nice guy.

Tucker and Dale are hillbillies, in the classic sense. They wear overalls and plaid, they talk with funny accents and have a truck full of power tools and sharp objects.  In most movies they would be the scary guys at the rest stop freaking out the college kids  are on their way to the cabin in the woods (yes, later, its own treatment as well) for a weekend of debauchery.  But of course, the college kids just don't get that Tucker and Dale are also headed to the cabin in the woods, having just purchased it as their new summer home.  Dale establishes himself in the kids' minds, as a scary psycho, when he tries to talk to a pretty girl. Dale is a bit socially clumsy so it doesn't go well.  Meanwhile the kids are showing that they have their own psycho.

This is a great comedic send up on the classic tropes of a horror movie, in the way The Cabin in the Woods is a serious twist on the same tale.  This time we see most of the story from the point of view of the "scary" hillbillies at the "last gas station before hell" not quite harbingers of doom.  They are just nice, well-meaning guys who get mixed up in the terrified delusions of the college kids.  It doesn't help that there are a few clumsy run-ins with wood chippers and long pokey sticks.  In heavy swipes of slapstick mixed with great dialogue, Alan Tudyk and Tyler Labine (another of my favourite comedy actors), use the cliche chainsaw and tool shed for of sharp objects and even have time to toss in a saw mill before they vanquish the actual evil of the title.

3 Short Paragraphs: The Extraordinary Adventures of Adèle Blanc-Sec

2010, Luc Besson (La Femme Nikita, Leon, The 5th Element) -- download

This movie is based on a 70s french comic book series from Jacque Tardi, a contemporary of Mobius.  In a time when Barbarella was the height of female comic stars, Tardi wanted to do something for female empowerment without the heightened sexuality. The stories are about a female fiction writer and investigative journalist who gets mixed up in mystical mayhem with a wink-wink-nod-nod to historical events.  From pterodactyls to egyptian mummies to demonic cults, she does have a knack for finding the weird.

Luc Besson, who these days is normally playing producer for things like The Transporter and Banlieue 13, directs this cheerful flick that most will dub as being Amelie meets Indiana Jones but that is a little disingenuous as I am sure there was more tomb robbing going before Indie.  As for the Jean-Pierre Jeunet comparison, that is a little more apt as the crazy characters and whimsy the movie carries makes us smile like Jeunet does. Besson just has fun with this movie, drawing a thousand connections between characters, delivering CGI and exaggerated makeup in droves but without depending on it to attract the viewers.

The heroine Adele is trying to revive her sister from a coma that came about during a feverish game of tennis and an unfortunate encounter with a hatpin. Of course, where else would you look but in the skills of the mummy of a doctor that served Ramses II ?  Add to that a friend who can revive the dead with psychic capabilities and an unhatched egg of a pterodactyl and she causes quite the stir in early 20th century Paris.  Louise Bourgoin as Adele is absolutely enchanting and I admit that fully as I would have probably been as smitten as Zborowski was upon meeting this confident, adventurous woman that it seems only Paris can create.  Le sigh.