Movie Review: The Banshees of Inisheren

The Banshees of Inisheren (2022) 

Directed by Martin McDonough 

Written by Martin McDonough 

Starring Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson, Kerry Condon, Barry Keoghan 

Release Date November 4th, 2022 

The Banshees of Inisherin stars Colin Farrell as a farmer named Padraic whose life is thrown into chaos when his closest friend, Colm (Brendan Gleeson), randomly decides that they are not friends anymore. Without explaining why, Colm refuses to answer the door when Padraic comes to call at the usual time to go to the pub. Later, Colm returns only to find Colm has left to go to the pub. He assumes this means they will meet for a pint but at the bar, Colm tells Padraic to leave him alone. 

Did Padraic get drunk and offend his friend? He doesn't think so but Colm won't say either way. Eventually, after prodding from Padraic's sister, Siobahn (Kerry Condon), and the local priest, during confession, Colm finally says what is going on. In a blunt conversation, Colm says Padraic is boring and conversations with him are a waste of time. Colm wants to spend what life he has left, however many years that is, building a legacy for himself by writing music and creating art and he can no longer afford to have Padraic wasting his time with nattering, inane conversations about farming. 

The story of The Banshees of Inisherin is set in 1923 on a fictional island off of the coast of Ireland. The tiny village is lined with rock walls and dirt walkways and roads. Everyone is in everyone else's business all the time. Gossip is trade on Inisherin and thus, the unexpected conflict between Colm and Padraic becomes a top conversation. As the story evolves and the sweet, naïve, and sensitive Padraic tries to reach out to his friend, things take a dark and darkly comic turn. I don't want to spoil any of the oddity of The Banshees of Inisherin, the strange and unexpected twists and turns, especially from Gleeson's Colm drive the second start of the third act of The Banshees of Inisherin. 

The Banshees of Inisherin is strange only because it's a story that isn't often told in movies, a story of male friendship and companionship. Director Martin McDonaugh is exploring the complex dynamic of masculinity and friendship in a sensitive and terrifically odd way. The character of Padraic is representative of a group of men who define themselves in their work, they keep their head down and they let the world happen around them. Colm, through his age and experience, is eager to be a man with a legacy, a man to be remembered. He wants to make things happen while Padraic just wants to have a pint with someone. 

The unique dynamic between these two men, one complicated and fraught, the other simple and resigned, is fascinating as much for the heart and soul that Gleeson and Farrell invest in these characters as it is for the unusual topic of complicated male friendships. I'm resisting assigning political metaphors to each character but that is certainly one reading. One man thinking of the future and a legacy, the other wanting the world to stay as it is. One man willing to go to extremes to push forward the other lost in despair at what is being lost. 

Read my complete review on Geeks.Media 

Movie Review Anatolian Leopard

Anatolian Leopard (2021) 

Directed by Emre Kayis 

Written by Emre Kayis 

Starring Ugar Polat, Ipek Turktan, Tansu Bicer 

Release Date November 4th, 2022 

An incredibly sad man visits his daughter as she prepares to play as part of a symphony concert. He's arrived with a gift to give her and ever so briefly we can see happiness in his eyes. He's greeted warmly by his daughter but the camera captures the scene at a distance as the pleasantries of father and daughter aren't all that important. The brief pleasantries are interrupted by the arrival of a woman about the age of the sad man. Context indicates that this is the mother of said daughter. 

Trailing immediately behind the mother who immediately has taken over the scene with excitement and photos and selfies, are another older man and a young boy. Again, just reading the context clues, the dialogue is entirely made up of pleasantries heard from a distance as the camera remains several feet away across a crowded room, we know that this is the mother's new husband and son. The age of the boy indicates that the sad man and the mother have not been together in a long time. 

There is also a slight indication that the marriage ended badly as the two don't share even a minor pleasantry, she pushes past him and in his sadness, the sad man recedes into the background. It's not just the movement of the actors, it's the contrast in the costumes. The sad man is dressed sadly, bland dark colors, rumpled, and indistinct. The mother is dressed in a bright white expensive fur coat and the husband and son, though not dressed in bright colors, they are dressed in shades brighter than the sad man that help to notably set them apart. 

The cherry on top of the scene is the mother handing her daughter a gift. She has purchased a home in London for her daughter who appears to be traveling there to further her career. The sad man decides not to give his far more modest gift, preferring to slink away and leave quietly after the daughter excuses herself to hurry to the stage. The aching sadness of the scenario, the staging, the costume, all of this remarkable detail in this scene from the much hailed Turkish film Anatolian Leopard is delivered in barely more than 2 minutes of screen time. 

I adore this. I am celebrating the remarkable work of director Emre Kayis in this moment. Far too many films lack the skill to deliver this much astonishing yet simple detail without reams of expository dialogue. No one in this scene introduces themselves, we are asked to read the room and color in the details of the moment in our mind. That might seem simple since, as movie goers, we are trained to absorb mundane details, but when you watch as many movies as I do you come to appreciate moments like this where film technique tells the story rather than ham-handed screenwriting. 

This quiet, seemingly unimportant moment provides the back story of our main character, that incredibly sad man we will come to know as Fikret, though everyone calls him The Director. He has a daughter though they aren't close. He's divorced, unhappily so, and his wife has moved on with great success. He's humble, sad, reserved and ashamed. This scene is the thesis statement on the motivation for the rest of the movie, for everything that will come after this scene. It's just over two minutes and a complete statement about the character and this movie is set in place. 

Fikret is The Director of a state run Zoo in his home country of Turkey. The zoo is set to be torn down and replaced by a tacky theme park and The Director's career, the one thing that has defined the past 22 years of his life, is being taken from him. Rather than be bitter, The Director is resigned and simply awaits his fate like a condemned man. His every action is like a last tribute to who he was and goodbye the people he has met along the way. 

The only thing standing in the way of Fikret's condemnation is the Anatolian Leopard, a rare and endangered species of big cat. The zoo cannot be closed and torn down until the Leopard is moved safely to another zoo. Until then, the status quo of the zoo remains in place. Fikret isn't actively keeping the Leopard from being moved but he isn't acting quickly to comply with his orders either. Then, something happens that changes the movie from a bleak character study to a dark comedy of manners and mild murder mystery. 

It's a shift so subtle and ingenious that you catch yourself being surprised by your own smiles and chuckles as the film progresses. All the while, Fikret only occasionally rises from his stupor. The brief and muted comedy and the murder mystery happen around him in the margins, even as he is the catalyst for it all through one big and surprising decision he makes. That decision briefly brings light to his life via his friendship with his assistant, Gamze (Ipek Turktan) who helps him unexpectedly. 

The rest of Anatolian Leopard I will leave you to discover for yourself. I know mainstream American audiences don't see many foreign films but I do hope you will give this film a chance. It's small and thoughtful and incredibly well constructed and it deserves an audience. The performances are lovely and sad, the slow burn story and the quietly developed themes are exceptionally captured by a very skilled and caring director in Emre Kayis. 

Find the rest of my review of Anatolian Leopard at Geeks.Media. 

Movie Review Causeway

Causeway (2022) 

Directed by Lila Neugebauer 

Written by Elzabeth Sanders, Luke Goebel, Ottessa Moshfegh 

Starring Jennifer Lawrence, Bryan Tyree Henry, Linda Emond 

Release Date November 4th, 2022 

Published October 29th, 2022 

Apple TV 

12 minutes 49 seconds into Causeway... 

What have we learned?  Jennifer Lawrence is a former soldier dealing with PTSD. Having been shipped home to recover she'd entered a halfway house facility and was cared for by Sharon, a nurse. We don't know exactly what the nature of Lynsey's injuries are. We don't see any physical scars. We see her unable to walk at first. We see Sharon having to help her do tasks such as use the bathroom. We see her going through physical therapy and learning to walk again. 

And, before she leaves Sharon's care, Lynsey is running again and has recovered her physical capacity to the point where she thinks she's ready to redeploy. Sharon tells her to slow down. At the point where we have stopped, Lynsey is leaving rehab with Sharon and will be returning to her hometown. She claims that her mother will be picking her up at the bus station and that her brother may or may not be around as well. 

In terms of the filmmaking, director Lila Neugebauer favors dark, naturalistic interiors. The darkness of the cinematography is a visual companion to the darkness of Lynsey's mental state. Thus, when seen jogging and driving a car, and seeming happy, the lighting of the scenes is brighter, sun peeking through clouds, if you don't mind the metaphor. On the bus however, as Lynsey is riding home, we are back in the dark interior. Rain on the bus window, no lights on inside the bus, deep black shadows surrounding Lynsey as she takes a pill and darkness dominates the scene despite the fact that she's seated next to a window. 

Is 12 minutes 49 second long enough to be considered an opening act or do we have to wait a little longer to make that determination? These 12 minutes and 49 seconds are important to establishing who Lynsey is and what she's struggling with but are they merely exposition? They do seem to lack energy, though I can't imagine how one might get energy into such scenes. I'm curious but not wholly satisfied with the start of Causeway. 

Lethargy is part of Causeway but I don't mean that as a negative. Indeed, the tone matches the setting, a hot New Orleans summer. Lynsey gets a job as a pool cleaner and the hard work and sweat, paired with how generally tired Lynsey's brain injury has left her, the lethargy makes sense, it's part of the story. It also creates a tone of struggle and catharsis that presents physically while building to the emotional catharsis. 

Click here for my full length review at Geeks.Media. 

Movie Review: Black Adam

Black Adam (2022) 

Directed by Jaume Collet Serra 

Written by Adam Sztykiel, Rory Haines, Sohrab Noshirvani 

Starring Dwayne The Rock Johnson, Pierce Brosnan, Aldis Hodge, Sarah Shahi

Release Date October 21st, 2022 

Published October 21st, 2022

Black Adam is the film version of a shrug. It's a movie that exists and doesn't effect the world in any way. It's a mild, distracting, passing fad. I don't dislike Black Adam, but I am struggling to care about its existence at all. I admire Dwayne The Rock Johnson but he's distinctly average when not working with a great director and Jaume Collet Serra is not a great director. Serra is a serviceable director, a studio hack. Serra is the director you hire if you want a movie to be remarkably average. That's the best description I can think of for Black Adam, remarkably average. 

Black Adam tells the story of the fictional Middle Eastern country Kahndaq. For centuries Kahndaq has been subject to numerous conquering armies and dictators. Only once in history has the country been able to fight back against oppression. This was through the sacrifice of a Champion who stepped forward to destroy a great evil. This came at a great cost however, as the Champion, known as Teth-Adam (Dwayne Johnson), created immense destruction through his God-like powers in his attempt to stop evil. For this destruction, Teth-Adam was imprisoned for centuries in a tomb in Kahndaq. 

In present day Kahndaq, a researcher and professor, Adrianna Tomaz (Sarah Shahi), has discovered Teth-Adam's final resting place. This happens to also be where a crown of ancient evil power is located. Tomaz aims to take the crown and hide it away so that no one can wield its terrifying power. When she and her partners are nearly captured by an invading force, Tomaz uses her knowledge of ancient languages to recite a chant that raises Teth-Adam from the dead. Adam destroys the men who are chasing Tomaz and they begin a tentative alliance. 

Finding out that the 5000 year old meta-human Teth-Adam has been raised from the dead, Amanda Waller (Viola Davis in a minor cameo) dispatches the Justice Society to take Teth-Adam into custody. The Justice Society is led by Hawkman (Aldis Hodge), and his partner Dr. Fate (Pierce Brosnan.). Joining them for this dangerous mission are newcomers Atom Smasher (Noah Centineo) and Cyclone (Quintessa Swindell), meta-humans whose superpowers mirror those of Ant-Man and Storm from the Marvel Universe. 

The middle portion of Black Adam is taken up with The Justice Society facing off with Black Adam while ill-defined baddies take advantage of the chaos to try and steal the ancient cursed crown. The fight between Black Adam and The Justice Society amounts to a lot of chaotic wheel spinning. The one nice thing I can say about it is that Pierce Brosnan as Dr. Fate emerges in this portion of the movie as the most charismatic and interesting character in the movie. The debonair former James Bond plays an aging superhero with magic powers with a strong sense of dignity and good humor. It's honestly one of my favorite Pierce Brosnan performances in some time. 

As for Dwayne The Rock Johnson, well, he's okay. This is not a challenging role for Dwayne Johnson. He already looks the part of a superhero so playing the part was halfway done when he accepted the role. The problem comes in the scripting and direction which has Johnson partnered with a nattering teenager named Amon (Bodhi Sabonguo) whose function is to be a fount of exposition and then to be placed in danger to spark a big action scene. He's also played as a counterpoint to underscore the bravery of Black Adam's son who, in a flashback scene, is shown to have been the true freedom fighter in his family. 

Click here for my full length review of Black Adam at Geeks.Media 

Movie Review Triangle of Sadness

Triangle of Sadness (2022) 

Directed by Ruben Ostlund 

Written by Ruben Ostlund

Starring Woody Harrelson, Harris Dickinson, Charibi Dean, Zlatko Buric 

Release Date October 7th, 2022 

Published October 18th, 2022

I always feel like I am not one of the cool kids when I fail to love a movie that others have hailed as a masterpiece. That's unfortunately, how I feel about the Cannes Film Festival winner Triangle of Sadness. Triangle of Sadness is director Ruben Ostlund's latest examination of toxic privilege. After targeting gender roles in Force Majeure and the pretension of the art world in The Square, Ostlund's prime target this time is a group of very rich people aboard a cruise ship which sinks and leaves several very rich people at the mercy of the elements on a deserted island. I can see where the satire is but it never registers as funny for me. 

Is Triangle of Sadness supposed to be funny? I'm honestly not sure. I know I didn't laugh at any point in Triangle of Sadness though I was slightly amused by moments of it. So, if the point isn't humor, what is the point of Triangle of Sadness? Is it pouring puke and feces all over very rich people in a very rich person environment? That certainly does happen in Triangle of Sadness but I don't think it provides a point beyond how money can't protect you from choppy seas and bad seafood. 

The sight of an incredibly rich woman in agony as her dinner rockets from both her mouth and her backend is perhaps a shot at how money can't buy you a dignified end of your life. That's an idea, and one that is uniquely and gut churningly presented in Triangle of Sadness. Does the idea justify the shocking visual? That depends on your tolerance for bodily activities on the big screen. This happens to a character we don't know very well and can only assume is bad just because she is very rich and remarkably demanding in the few moments we do spend with her. 

There is no central character in Triangle of Sadness. Instead we have character types. Harris Dickinson plays a model on the edge of his career. Carl has had success and been the face of a brand for a time. That however, does nothing for him when he seeks to be the face of a new campaign. Now, he's just another handsome face in a handsome crowd. Carl is struggling and his struggle is reflected in his relationship with a successful runway model turned social media influencer, Yaya, played by Charibi Dean. 

On a date at a fancy and apparently expensive restaurant, Carl can't stop himself from getting into a semantic argument over who should be paying for dinner. Carl's annoyance is stemming from his insecurity both economically due to his seemingly flagging career and perceptivity, he's concerned about being a man who can't afford to pay for a fancy dinner. He couches this in the idea of male-female equality and how women want to be seen and treated as equals until the check arrives. 

Yaya, for her part, is having none of this conversation. She sees right through Carl's insecurity. It's not that she's a better person or smarter than Carl, rather, she's been rendered insensitive by never having had to struggle. Yaya is rich, beautiful and successful to the point that she has no idea how much money she has or when her credit card has reached its limit. The interaction between Carl and Yaya is interesting as a surface level critique of gender roles, privilege and masculine insecurity but the nagging argument lasts a little too long and doesn't have a real payoff leading to this plot petering out as it leads to the centerpiece of Triangle of Sadness, the yacht trip. 

The middle of Triangle of Sadness is about the notion of privilege, those who uphold and enable it, and those who are subject to it. We have Carl and Yaya whose privilege comes with the caveat that they must document their excess in order to remain in excess. Yaya's primary income comes not from her lucrative modeling career but rather as an influencer who wields clout to earn brand deals and must flaunt her privileges in order to remain privileged. It's an interesting dynamic but slightly undercooked in the execution. As with such modern satire, it too easily boils down to simplistic contempt for so-called influencers. 

The remaining rich vacationers are grotesque caricatures or clueless excessives who will have their privilege thrown back at them via Ostlund's vengeful seafood and toilets, as mentioned earlier. Again, if you lack a tolerance for such things being portrayed on screen, Triangle of Sadness is not for you. Ostlund goes all in on the puking, pooping, overflowing toilets and general chaotic grossness of a ship at sea with all things going wrong. I nearly quit watching the film at this point and it is a testament to my desire to experience Ostlund's complete vision that I did not simply walk away at this point. 

This section of the film also serves as an extended cameo for the most well known member of the cast. Woody Harrelson plays the captain of the yacht, a drunkard and a hardcore Marxist. When the Captain insists on holding his Captain's dinner on a night when the crew knows the seas will be choppy and illness inducing, it's this decision that leads to most everyone becoming violently ill. All save for the Captain who forgoes his dinner in favor of more booze. In drinking, the Captain is joined by a passenger and fellow drunkard, Dimitry (Zlatko Buric) who made his fortune in fertilizer, he is King Shit. Together, the two debate Marxist politics versus capitalism and subject the entire yacht to their debate via a loud speaker. 

Is it interesting? Yes, Woody Harrelson is a very compelling actor. That said, the deck is somewhat stacked in his favor as he debates Marxism with the Shit King, a Russian Oligarch on vacation with both his wife and his mistress at once. This sequence is interesting but it's not funny and it doesn't really strike any big chords. The Captain admits that his Marxist philosophy is undermined by his desire for the finer things in life and Dimitry admits that he's cut a lot corners and done a lot of shady things under the guise of capitalism and with an aim towards denouncing Marxism solely for the fact that it benefits him as a capitalist. Interesting but very surface level stuff. 

The final act of Triangle of Sadness occurs on a seemingly deserted island. The luxury yacht capsized after being attacked by unknown pirates and only several characters survived to make it to this island. With the survivors being Carl, Yaya, and several other millionaires who don't exactly have the kind of skills that translate to survival on a deserted island, leadership falls to a lowly maid named Abigail (Dolly De Leon). Because she is the only one capable of catching fish for dinner, starting a fire, and cooking, she has essentially seized the means of production and placed the ownership class in her employ. She decides who earns the right to eat and thus survive and if anyone displeases her, she can cut them off. 

Click here for my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Movie Review Amsterdam

Amsterdam (2022) 

Directed by David O. Russell 

Written by David O. Russell 

Starring Christian Bale, Margot Robbie, John David Washington, Robert De Niro, Rami Malek

Release Date October 7th, 2022 

Published October 11th, 2022 

I'm late to the party on the new David O. Russell film Amsterdam. I didn't get an early preview of the movie and that gave me time to soak in some of what other critics have said. That also means I can look at the current discourse around the film, following its opening weekend at the box office, and offer a fair parsing of the movie as headlines in the online sphere hail Amsterdam as a bomb and a box office debacle and calling for the head of David O. Russell for daring to lose money for a Hollywood studio. 

Yes, Amsterdam is projected to lose around $100 million dollars once the box office dust settles. This means nothing more than the marketing campaign for the film was a flop and doesn't reflect anything about the movie itself. I think Amsterdam has some significant flaws but it is a well accomplished movie, perfectly on brand for David O. Russell and featuring several big stars delivering terrific performances amid a very clever, very funny, and wildly absurd and rage inducingly true story. 

Why is it that the movie as a whole takes the blame when the marketing fails? Let's be clear, the marketing of Amsterdam was a failure. The marketing failed to capture the best and most widely appealing aspects of the movie. For instance, the marketing fails completely at taking advantage of the romance between John David Washington and Margot Robbie and that is arguably the best element of Amsterdam, certainly its the most relatable and tangible element of this quirky tonally awkward absurdist comedy. 

Another reasonable question that is not being asked is why a studio spent so much on a story that was going to be a hard sell no matter how many movie stars are in the cast. Amsterdam is a film that succeeds or fails based on your taste for absurdly wordy dialogue, quirky characters, and other unconventional forms of satire. The studio behind Amsterdam have no excuses to hide behind, they could not have approved this script and this director without seeing the tough sell they had on their hands. 

For me, Amsterdam is a tough sell that I was sold on while experiencing it. I had little idea what I was getting myself into when I saw it, because the marketing campaign does little to prepare you for the movie, and I was won over in the end by the odd yet earnest and passionate film that David O. Russell and his team put together. The film is often mystifying and occasionally frustratingly obtuse but it works thanks to this incredible cast and a story so wild you will have a hard time believing it is true. 

Fans of The Dollop Podcast might recognize the story being told in Amsterdam. General Smedley Butler is a little remembered American hero. General Butler was a bit of an oddball but he proved himself as a leader on the bloody battlefields of World War 1. He, in fact, fought in five wars for his country over the years prior to World War 2. In the 1920s he became a hero of his fellow veterans when he supported the so-called Bonus Army, soldiers who simply asked the government for the money they were promised to go and fight World War 1. 

Butler's passionate defense of veterans made him a leader who could command his own army of former soldiers if he chose to do so. This was the opening that many in the business community, high end CEO's slowly carving up early 20th century America among themselves. They targeted Butler as a man who could displace President Roosevelt whose New Deal politics were taking money from the pockets of the wealthy to bring the poor out of poverty. 

These wealthy men preferred the approach Germany and Italy were taking wherein power was being concentrated at the top and dictators gave favorable deals to those they felt were worthy. Smedley Butler was their choice for puppet dictator of the United States and it is genuinely terrifying just how close to a fascist dictatorship America came. Had it not been for the integrity of General Smedley Butler our country couldd have been changed forever in the worst possible ways. 

Amsterdam is not exactly about what came to be known as The Business Plot. Rather, Russell approaches the true life story through the fictional and comic lens of these three oddballs who met and became life long friends in Amsterdam, in the wake of World War 1. Burt Berendsen (Christian Bale) is a doctor who was urged to join the army and fight in World War 1 by his rich in-laws who felt that a war hero would befit the ideal of the family in the public imagination. Harold (John David Washington) is a lawyer who was conscripted into the military and fought to be treated as equals with white soldiers. 

Burt and Henry are brought together by General Meeker (Ed Begley Jr.) who places Burt in charge the mostly black regimen where Harold is sequestered. Together, they make a pact to watch each other's back. If Burt proves to be a leader who takes care of his black soldiers, Henry will assure Burt that those same soldiers won't shoot him in the back. Burt accepts this as a fair trade and they go to war where they are severely injured. In Paris, the two are treated by Valerie, a volunteer medical worker on the run from her past. 

When the war ends, the three head off to Amsterdam to live the lives of hedonists and friends. In Amsterdam, Burt and Henry are introduced to a pair of secretive men whose work stands firmly between stopping the spread of fascism and the somewhat shady tactics of spy services. Mike Myers ad Michael Shannon play a pair of bird obsessed secret agents who use birdwatching as a cover for what we presume is spy activity. Myers and Shannon's characters protect our trio of friends in Amsterdam in exchange for an unspecified favor in the future. 

After 6 months of partying in Amsterdam and recovering from their wounds, Burt, who was badly scarred and lost an eye in the war, decides to return to America. With his newfound knowledge of European medicine and types of treatments, Burt hopes to help treat soldiers struggling to fit back into society after the war. Henry wishes to stay in Amsterdam with Valerie, the two clearly fall in love at first sight, but she soon vanishes and leaves Henry to return to New York alone to work alongside Burt. 

When the duo are hired to investigate the murder of their former General, General Meeker, the conspiracy plot begins to unfold. Robert De Niro stands at the center of the plot as a General caught between doing the right thing and the wealthy men who hope to use him as their puppet dictator to install a fascist government in the place of President Roosevelt. With the veterans who trust and follow him, De Niro's General has a standing army ready to fight with him and he must decide if he's for sale to sell out his country or if the truth and his integrity is more important. 

Realistically, yes, Robert De Niro has by far the most interesting character in Amsterdam. The characters portrayed by Christian Bale, John David Washington and Margot Robbie are all fine but it is De Niro as the General who recognizes what the underdogs are up against and his place within that conflict. And that is a complicated and lengthy description of a complicated plot. Do you now have a better sense of the marketing challenge of Amsterdam? Exactly how do you reduce this idea to 30 second commercials? I feel it can be done but the marketing team behind Amsterdam appears to have given up far too quickly. 

Click here for my full length review of Amsterdam. 

Movie Review The Good Nurse

The Good Nurse (2022) 

Directed by Tobias Lindstrom 

Written by Krysty Wilson Cairns 

Starring Jessica Chastain, Eddie Redmayne 

Release Date October 19th, 2022 

Published October 16th, 2022

The Good Nurse is a brilliantly moody and thoughtful dramatic mystery. With Jessica Chastain and Eddie Redmayne at the height of their acting powers, and director Tobias Lindstrom smartly giving them space to find and inhabit these characters, The Good Nurse engulfs you in its story. Why is it so rare for a modern mystery to let their characters be smart? The Good Nurse does a wonderful job of letting these characters be properly intuitive and not duped simply because the plot requires them to be. 

The Good Nurse tells the story of a nurse who was followed by death wherever he went. Charlie (Eddie Redmayne) has worked for 9 different hospitals in his relatively short career. Why? He claims it has to do with an ex-wife who moves a lot and his effort to stay near his children. He's not a charmer per se, but a seemingly kind and simple man, helpful and thoughtful. That's certainly the experience of him that Amy Loughran (Jessica Chainstain) has had as his co-worker. 

Amy is a struggling single mother suffering from a heart condition. She needs to remain employed at this hospital for a year before she can get health insurance which will allow here to get the kind of care she needs. Until then, she's risking her life just to work. When she's given Charlie as her new co-worker on the late shift, he's a god send. He helps cover up her physical problems and having a lesser burden at work makes Amy's life at home a little easier. 

Charlie and Amy aren't romantic, they have a platonic relationship even as Charlie becomes enmeshed with her family, hanging out with her and her two young daughters. It appears that Amy will be able to get by the final months until her health insurance benefits kick in and Charlie appears to be a wonderful influence on her daughters. She has no reason to believe anything is wrong with Charlie but there are things happening at the hospital that are unusual. 

Since Charlie started, there has been an uptick in unexpected deaths, even among patients who should have been able to recover. One such death requires the Police to be called. Detectives Baldwin (Namdi Asomugha) and Braun (Noah Emmerich), are smart and observant detectives. When they find the hospital stonewalling them, the red flags become clear and they use good old fashion instinct and determination to uncover why this case is so very strange. 

While Jessica Chastain and Eddie Redmayne are doing incredible work as the two leads, I want to shout out former NFL star Namdi Asomugha and veteran character actor Noah Emmerich. The two have terrific chemistry and detective partners and the smart script by Krysty Wilson Cairns, never betrays the detectives for the sake of creating forced tension or mystery. So many similar movies have characters like these be ignorant in order to force the attention on the main character. Here, the detectives are given believable roadblocks and have to work around them with their wits and intelligence. This is communicated in smartly constructed scenes. 

Click here for my full length review at Geeks.Media. 

Classic Movie Review Halloween (1978)

Halloween (1978) 

Directed by John Carpenter 

Written by John Carpenter, Debra Hill 

Starring Jamie Lee Curtis, Donald Pleasance 

Release Date October 25th, 1978 

Halloween Franchise 

Is it possible that horror fans just like the musical score for Halloween 1978 and tolerate the movie that goes with it? I realize that this is a great offense to fans of the Halloween franchise but I just don't get the appeal of John Carpenter's original Halloween. The film is remarkably dull by the standards of the great horror movies I have seen in my now more than 20 years as a film critic. Halloween is outright boring aside from that remarkable score which is incredible at creating the tension that the characters and the slack scenes fail to establish. 

Halloween 1978 centers on Michael Myers who, as a child, murdered his sister in cold blood. Taken into a mental institution, Michael was locked away until the age of 21 under the treatment of Dr. Loomis (Donald Pleasance). In treating Michael, Dr. Loomis has come to see his patient as the closest thing to pure evil he's ever witnessed. Dr. Loomis has dedicated his career to making sure Michael Myers never gets out of custody. Unfortunately, on the night that Loomis is set to take Michael to an even more secure facility for rest of his natural life, Loomis finds that Michael has escaped. 

Driven by an unspecified motivation, Michael returns to Haddonfield, Illinois, his childhood hometown. There he sets his sights on several people he wants to kill. Among the likely victims is Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis), a teenager with plans to babysit on this Halloween night. Halloween is when Michael killed his sister and it is this night that he hopes to return to killing. Another potential victim that catches Michael's eye is young Tommy Doyle (Brian Andrews), who happens to be the child that Laurie will be babysitting that night. 

It's quite a coincidence that Michael follows first Laurie and then Tommy as he would have no idea that Laurie is Tommy's babysitter but we are supposed to forget about such things. We are also supposed to not care that someone must have taken the time to teach the most dangerous inmate in a mental institution how to drive a car with such care that he can stealthily follow not one but two different, seemingly unrelated children. Halloween fans want us to pretend these inconsistencies don't exist but the movie does little to hide its own flaws. 

The other thing we are asked to ignore is how silly Michael Myers looks each time we see him. My favorite is a moment where Michael is stalking Laurie as she walks home from school. Laurie looks over her shoulder and sees Michael's hulking masked figure standing still and staring at her. She turns away and he's gone. Laurie's friend goes to see who might be messing with her friend and when she arrives at the hedgerow that Michael would seem to be hiding behind, he's gone. The clear indication here, aside from unspecified supernatural powers, is that Michael Myers, the cheeky prankster that he is, appeared in front of Laurie and then quickly ran away so as not to be caught. 

The mental image of a hulking mental patient in a Halloween mask running to hide from a pair of teenagers is hilarious. But then, ask yourself this, why? Why is Michael toying with Laurie? What does a mental patient get out of hiding in the hedges or hiding in Laurie's backyard or appearing to her outside her school? What does this have to do with anything Michael Myers has planned? I'm told that his lack of motivation is part of what makes Michael Myers so scary but then why is the rest of the franchise so dedicated to giving Michael a motivation? 

Halloween fans have hand-waved all of these weird inconsistencies for years. Things like why Michael stole his sister's headstone from her grave only to set it up in a random house where he has elaborately stored several of the bodies of various victims unrelated to his original murder? Nowhere during the original Halloween is it mentioned that Laurie and Michael are secret siblings, that's a retcon from Halloween 2. The fact that we ever found out that Laurie is Michael's sister reveals the cynicism of this franchise continuing beyond the ragingly mediocre original. 

The film was successful and marketers, seeing success, capitalized with a sequel. Fans of the aesthetic of Michael Myers, and John Carpenter's first rate score then dedicated themselves to lore building for the franchise to justify their enjoyment of such a nakedly commercial franchise. It's the calculated, capitalistic cynicism that bothers me about Halloween. John Carpenter made one of his most mediocre movies in 1978 and was roped to that movie by its unlikely success. 

Find my full length review of Halloween 1978 at Horror.Media

Classic Movie Review Halloween 2

Halloween 2 (1981) 

Directed by Rick Rosenthal 

Written by John Carpenter, Debra Hill 

Starring Jamie Lee Curtis, Donald Pleasance, Dick Warlock 

Release Date October 30th, 1981 

Published October 13th, 2022 

So, Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) and Michael Myers (Dick Warlock) are siblings. So now what? Apparently, the answer to so now what was let's do what we did the first time to ever diminishing returns. Halloween 2 is set on the same night as the original, October 31st, 1978. Michael Myers has been shot by Dr. Loomis (Donald Pleasance), but has managed to escape. Laurie is hurt and deeply traumatized. She's taken to a hospital where they plan to treat her cuts and bruises and give her a good night's sleep with some good drugs. 

Unfortunately for everyone at the hospital, Michael Myers is not one to give up. Even with several bullet wounds, he plans on finding his heretofore unknown sister and killing her for some nebulous reason. But, before he can get to her, he needs to mess about killing randos. this means finding a couple having sex in the hospital therapy tub, ewwwwwww, and nearly melting their skin off before knifing them but good. Yes, sure, death to those who have sex in therapy pools, but this seems like an unnecessary detour for Michael Myers. 

If the end goal is killing Laurie Strode then why is Michael constantly achieving side quests like he's playing GTA? When he gets to the hospital Michael takes the time to sabotage every vehicle in the parking lot. And, in case someone tries to call the authorities whose bullets can't stop him, Michael rips out the phone line. Then he wastes time searching for Laurie Strode by murdering random hospital employees and posing them for best horror effect. This is a Michael Myers trope that always boggles my mind, why does Myers feel the need to pose his victims? 

When you think about it, for a guys whose aesthetic is stoic, stalking, methodical maniac, Michael is rather flamboyant in how he poses his kills. For instance, he murders a nurse by having all of her blood drain out of her in a perfect pool while she sleeps the sleep of death. He stabs another doctor in the eye with a needle and leaves him perfectly posed with the needle in his eye for best horror effect. If you want to have fun, just imagine the effort and time it must take Michael to take and crumple the bodies of victims he doesn't pose into the various hiding places he pushes them into. 

Click here for my full length review of Halloween 2 at Horror.Media. 

Movie Review Halloween 3: Season of the Witch

Halloween 3 Season of the Witch (1982) 

Directed by Tommy Lee Wallace

Written by John Carpenter and Debra Hill 

Starring Tom Atkins, Stacey Nelkin, Dan O'Herlihy 

Release Date October 22nd, 1982 

Published October 14th, 2022 

A Halloween movie without Michael Myers was long the vision of creator John Carpenter. For Carpenter, Michael's story ended in Halloween 2 with a massive ball of fire. So convinced of the death of his creation was Carpenter that he reconceived the entire Halloween franchise to eliminate Michael Myers. But, typical of the character, he could not be killed, only briefly detained. Michael Myers may be limited to a stock footage cameo in Halloween 3: Season of the Witch, but the lack of Michael looms over the whole enterprise. 

Actor Tom Atkins takes up the starring role in Halloween 3: Season of the Witch as drunken doctor, Dr. Dan Chellis. Dan has a bit of a drinking problem and a whole lot of ex-wife problems. Michael, late as usual for a visit with his son and daughter, only to find that his gift of Halloween masks was too little too late. Mom, fearing Dad would forget about his kids at Halloween, took the initiative to buy the hottest Halloween costume of the season, the all new Silver Shamrock series of masks featuring Pumpkins, Witches, and Skeletons. 

After getting paged back to the hospital for some drunken doctoring, Dr. Chellis is accosted by a nearly comatose patient. The patient, thought to be dying wakes up after hearing the Silver Shamrock jingle that plays at various intervals at extraordinary volume, on a nearby television. The patient warns Chellis that the bad guys are coming but he dies before he can elaborate further on the matter. The man's death came at the hands of a cold blooded and powerful assassin. Catching a glimpse of the killer, Dr. Chellis is forced to watch as the murderer douses himself in gasoline, killing himself in a subsequent explosion. 

Following the twin tragedies of the death of his patient and the seeming suicide of his patient's killer, Dr. Chellis needs a drink. He retires for the night to a nearby bar where he is met by Ellie Grimbridge (Stacey Nelkin). Ellie has come to identify her father and she wants answers as to how and why he was killed. She believes that the answer has something to do with the shady company behind the season's most popular Halloween masks, the aforementioned Silver Shamrock. 

From there we are treated to a bizarre and not particularly scary series of events in a company town run by a former joke factory. Dan O'Herlihy plays Conal Cochrane, the man behind the masks of the season and a man dangerous enough to build killer robots in order to protect his plan to kill America's child population with his new line of bestselling masks. And, boy, is this a silly premise for a horror movie. What was anyone who participated in making Halloween 3 Season of the Witch even thinking? 

It's clear that someone, be it John Carpenter, Debra Hill, or director Tommy Lee Wallace were watching far too many Twilight Zone episodes but failing to recall what made The Twilight Zone any good. The Twilight Zone was clever and compact. In a mere 30 minutes, Rod Serling could develop characters we care about give them a strange and intriguing plot for us to puzzle about and get out before the premise ever loses steam. The makers of Halloween 3: Season of the Witch have no such luxury. 

Find my full length review of Halloween 3: Season of the Witch at Horror.Media.

Movie Review Halloween Ends

Halloween Ends (2022) 

Directed by David Gordon Green 

Written by Paul Brad Logan, Danny McBride, Chris Bernier, David Gordon Green 

Starring Jamie Lee Curtis, Andi Matichak, James Jude Courtney 

Release Date October 14th, 2022 

Published October 14th, 2022 

It's called Halloween Ends and I do believe Jamie Lee Curtis when she says this is the last one for her. That said, if Halloween Ends makes money, it won't be long before The Shape, Michael Myers, is haunting theaters again. That reason based cynicism has colored my viewing experience of every Halloween movie. No matter how illogical or unnecessary, the owners of the Halloween Intellectual Property will try and wring more cash out of it. Try as they might to make Halloween Ends appear like an endeavor that isn't merely about cash, the makers of Halloween Ends fail as every Halloween movie fails to escape the cynical calculations of Hollywood branding and marketing. 

Halloween Ends picks up four years after the last time that Michael Myers ran amok in Haddonfield, Illinois. Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) is now living with her granddaughter, Allyson (Andi Matichak). Though she remains alert, Laurie has grown comfortable with Michael having been gone for so long. Now, Laurie is working on her memoirs while patiently waiting for the day Michael may return to her life. That she isn't constantly paranoid is a testament to her toughness. 

Meanwhile, in a bizarre and unnecessary other movie, Rohan Campbell plays Corey Cunningham. Corey is a teenage babysitter who, while watching the child of a rich couple, accidentally kills the child. Labelled as a child killer, even though the kid's death was an accident, Corey is blamed by many and he's become a loner and an outcast, preferring to stay home under the watchful eyes of his parents. When Corey does go out he's harassed by teenagers until Laurie rescues him. Because he's a main character, Laurie takes him to meet her granddaughter and the two form a romance. 

Unfortunately, Corey's haunted past keeps getting in his way until he finally snaps. On the run from his tormentors, Corey stumbles over Michael Myers near death and living in the sewer. For reasons that only the FOUR screenwriters might understand, Michael doesn't kill Corey. Instead, the two briefly become partners in killing. Corey begins luring victims to Michael and then they graduate to Corey and Michael as a killing duo. All the while, Allyson is fooled and charmed by Corey into thinking he's just a haunted bad boy and not a murderous psychopath. 

The addition of the character of Corey is an attempt to refresh the franchise one last time but it doesn't work. Rohan Campbell's whiny performance only leaves you to wonder why a character like Allyson would be attracted to this guy. Corey doesn't drive the plot, the plot pushes him along, uses him as a device and discards him when they are ready to move back to Michael as the main villain. Any time spent with the character of Corey feels like a gigantic waste of time. Instead of refreshing the franchise, the character seems to trip the movie, stall its progress and test our patience. 

Find my full length review of Halloween Ends at Horror.Media 

Movie Review Hellraiser

Hellraiser (2022) 

Directed by David Bruckner 

Written by Ben Collins, Luke Piotrowski 

Starring Odessa A'zion, Jamie Clayton, Brandon Flynn, Goran Visnjic 

Release Date October 7th, 2022 

Streaming on Hulu 

Following the twin successes of Prey and Hellraiser I want Hulu to take over all of the 80s horror genre. Prey, a prequel to the Predator franchise was a badass action-sci-fi movie with incredible fight scenes and tremendous effects underlined by perfect casting and excellent performances. Now comes Hellraiser, an equally well accomplished reimagining of a franchise that has inconceivably become a pop culture touchstone. I am no fan of the previous Hellraiser movies but I am a fan of this Hellraiser movie. 

Hellraiser 2022 stars Odessa A'zion as Riley, a recovering addict. Riley lives with her brother Matt (Brandon Flynn), but their relationship is strained. It's clear in just a minimum of dialogue that Matt is concerned about his sister relapsing after being sober for 6 months. His concerns stems from Riley's new relationship with a fellow former addict, Trevor (Drew Starkey). Matt's concerns turn out to be valid as Trevor leads Riley back into her addiction and draws her into a criminal effort to get money to feed that addiction. 

This criminal act involves robbing a seemingly unguarded safe hidden in a shipping container. Inside the safe is something Trevor claims they can sell for a lot of money. The item in the safe is an ancient and ornate puzzle box. When Riley examines it, a sharp knife pops out and cuts her. Her blood is taken inside the box and soon Riley is visited by ancient beings known as Cenobites and here is were Hellraiser really gets good. The costumes and practical effects used to bring to life the horrors of the Cenobites is absolutely spectacular as is the mayhem that ensues from their appearance. 

How the puzzle box came to Trevor and by extension to Riley, is part of a conspiracy involving a billionaire named Roland Voight (Goran Visjnic), but to say more would be too much of a spoiler. It's pretty easy to predict part of that plot but there is plenty of fun unexpected thrills that I don't want to ruin for you. Surprisingly, I am here to recommend Hellraiser (2022) and not to bury it. Admittedly, I went into Hellraiser (2022) expecting to be annoyed and disappointed. That's how I have felt about every other piece of Hellraiser media I have experienced. 

Much credit must go to director David Bruckner. Known for his brilliantly moody horror mystery, The Night House, Bruckner brings his talent for atmosphere and creeping dread to a franchise that had relied only on shock and gore for what little thrills it had elicited. Bruckner establishes a discomfort in the air from the opening moments of Hellraiser and deepens that discomfort into dread and horror as the movie spins toward an exciting conclusion. 

The stand out element of Hellraiser are still the Cenobites, led by the legendary form of Pinhead. Well, Pinhead has always been what fans have called the character. The actual name of the character in this Hellraiser is The Hell Priest, great name, way better than Pinhead. The Hell Priest has the look of David Bradley's Hellraiser character, the original Pinhead if you will, but here is played with eerie cold cool by Jamie Clayton. 

Clayton is a standout choice as her performance is an immediate upgrade over the past Hellraiser movies. Nothing against David Bradley, he did the best he could with an underwritten, under-developed role, that was more about his iconic image than performance, but Clayton with just a few lines of dialogue and improved functionality in her costume, mimicking the original and improving upon it, improves the whole idea. Clayton has a striking presence and a well stated purpose behind her villainy. 

Click here for my full length review of Hellraiser 2022

Movie Review Hocus Pocus 2

Hocus Pocus 2 (2022) 

Directed by Anne Fletcher 

Written by Jen D'Angelo 

Starring Bette Midler, Kathy Najimi, Sarah Jessica Parker, Sam Richardson

Release Date September 30th, 2022 

Disney Plus Sequel to Hocus Pocus 

The cult of The Sanderson Sisters is far more vast and wide than I ever would have imagined. For me, 1993's Hocus Pocus was a completely forgettable experience. It wasn't that the movie was bad, it merely wasn't for me. Watching it again as I got older I was never very impressed by the over top acting of Midler, Najimi and Parker or the wooden blocks posing as human supporting characters. The story was rather mundane, family friendly Disney stuff that to this day holds no interest for me. 

What shocks me however is the impact the film had on so many women, my age and younger. Something about the high camp aesthetic reached an audience that immediately become loyal and dedicated to the preservation of Hocus Pocus in popular culture. The cult of The Sanderson Sisters has grown over the past 29 years to such a degree that the fans have willed a sequel into existence nearly three decades later. It's a sequel that is just as camp and formulaic as the original but perhaps a little more energetic thanks to a supporting cast that can actually keep up with Midler, Najimi and Parker. 

Returning to Salem at Halloween The Sanderson Sisters are still the talk of the town. The legend of the Sanderson Sisters has become something of a tourist attraction thanks in part to the work of Gilbert (Sam Richardson), who has taken over the former cabin of the Sanderson Sisters and turned it into a magic shop. He also happens to be in possession of Book, the enchanted spell book that made the Sisters into a powerful witches coven. The book is under lock and key but, secretly Gilbert has plans to let the book free. He wants to bring the Sanderson Sisters back, unaware that the legends about them eating children and generally being evil are true. 

His plan is coming to fruition on this Halloween night because a teenager named Becca (Whitney Peak) is about to turn 16 and with her dalliance with magic as part of a trio of witch loving friends including lovable Izzy (Belissa Escobedo) and Cassie (Lilia Buckingham), Gilbert believes she is the key to raising the Sandersons. As a birthday gift, Gilbert gives Becca a black flame candle. What she doesn't know is that this is the same black flame candle, returned to life by Gilbert, that brought the Sanders son sisters back to life nearly 30 years ago. 

The improvements over the original Hocus Pocus are many, as far as I am concerned. It starts with the look of the film. Hocus Pocus 2 is filled with crisp bright colors even as it remains loyal to a classically fall color palette. The costumes pop, the locations are lovely and the detail on the production design demonstrates the higher budget that clearly has been dedicated for this sequel. That budget in part coming from product placement for Walgreens that, though it is immensely tacky, it does get used for several quite good gags and an important plot device. If you're going to do such naked advertising in your movie, at least make it appear necessary. Hocus Pocus 2 does that at least. 

Click here for my full length review of Hocus Pocus 2 at Geeks.Media. 

Documentary Review Lynch/Oz

Lynch/Oz (2022) 

Directed by Alexandre O. Phillippe 

Written by Documentary

Starring Amy Nicholson, Karyn Kusama, John Waters, Justin Benson 

Release Date Unknown

Currently Showing at Fantastic Fest 

I love a good niche documentary and topics don't get much more niche than the cross-section between the work of director David Lynch and the movie The Wizard of Oz. Director Alexandre O. Phillippe gathered together fellow filmmakers and critics and pondered the surprising number of ways in which David Lynch used The Wizard of Oz as a reference or a template within the stories he was telling. Whether it was something as crazed and exciting as Wild at Heart or something as somber and meditative as The Straight Story, visual or dialogue references to Dorothy, Toto, The Wicked Witch and, of course, The Wizard, can be found in the work of David Lynch. 

The brilliant critic Amy Nicholson delivers the first essay on the Lynch/Oz crossover, from the perspective of a historian and critic. Nicholson, a vibrant speaker and insightful podcaster is a terrific mind for a work that requires a strong voice and rigorous attention to detail. Nicholson notes a choice made in The Wizard of Oz to evoke the sound of the wind via chorus rather than a wind sound effect came back around when Lynch used a similar trick in, of all movies, Eraserhead. The specificity of this observation and Nicholson's poetic lyricism is lovely and thoughtful all at once. 

As much as I love what Nicholson brings to Lynch/Oz, the two best segments involve directors offering insights into a directors perspective on using homage and incorporating influence into their work. The witty and ingenious John Waters puts his typically acerbic wit on hold to gush about his directorial contemporary, Lynch and how he himself often referred to The Wizard of Oz both consciously and unconsciously. It's Waters who points out how a character acting as a gatekeeper to the goal of a protagonist relates to the gates of Oz and the goal of reaching the Wizard only to find just a man. 

Find my full length review of Lynch/Oz at Geeks.Media. 

Movie Review: The Greatest Beer Run Ever

The Greatest Beer Run Ever (2022) 

Directed by Peter Farrelly

Written by Peter Farrelly, Peter Currie, Pete Jones 

Starring Zac Efron, Russell Crowe, Viggo Mortensen, Bill Murray 

Release Date September 30th, 2022 

Apple TV 

Leave it to Peter Farrelly to take a great story and pull its teeth. In fairness, he was awarded a Best Picture statue for doing just that to the life of Jazz music legend Don Shirley and his longtime friend Nick Vallelonga. There however, Vallelonga takes much of the blame for the mediocrity. It was Vallelonga who wrote the self-serving screenplay, much at the expense of the story of Shirley which was lost amid the eye-rolling, uplifting pap in Vallelonga's script and Farrelly's bland direction. Of course it won Best Picture, Hollywood loves to reward uplifting pap. 

The proof of concept for my theory about Farrelly being the go-to director for taking a good story and rendering it supremely mediocre however, comes with his latest directorial effort, The Greatest Beer Run Ever. Here we have a story so insane, so unbelievable, it should make an amazing movie. The true story has a guy from New Jersey deciding that he's going to take cases of Pabst Blue Ribbon to his buddies fighting in Vietnam in 1967. John 'Chickie' Donahue really did this! It's impossible to believe right? It should be an amazing movie. 

Sadly, The Greatest Beer Run Ever is directed by Peter Farrelly, a director whose movies could be sold as baby-proof for their remarkable lack of hard edges. That's not to say that Farrelly's movies aren't controversial, rather they are controversial for all the wrong reasons. Green Book is an almost complete fabrication, a vile white washing of the life of Don Shirley in favor of burnishing the egotistical legend of Nick Vallelonga. Similarly, The Greatest Beer Run of All Time should be a sharp elbowed rebuke of America's involvement in Vietnam. Instead, it's a soft headed comedy about friendship and bravery, tempered with being sad for a few people who didn't come home. 

Chickie Donahue (Zac Efron) is beloved in his small New Jersey neighborhood though not so much at home. A Merchant Marine by trade, Chickie tends to only work when he feels like it and spends most nights getting drunk in a bar owned by The Colonel (Bill Murray). Chickie and his buddies are former military men who went through Korea as kids while the specter of World War 2 hangs over the heads. While at the bar watching brutal footage of the war in Vietnam on the news, Chickie and his friends are upset that the media only shows the horror and seems to dismiss the soldiers who are fighting and dying. 

Click here for my full length, angry, review of The Greatest Beer Run Ever at Geeks.Media. 

Documentary Review A Life on the Farm

A Life on the Farm (2022) 

Directed by Oscar Harding

Written by Documentary 

Starring Oscar Harding, Charles Carson, Karen Kilgariff 

Release Date Fantastic Fest 

Featured at the Found Footage Festival 

Life on the Farm is a fascinatingly bizarre and brilliant documentary. I was not prepared for Life on the Farm. I thought what I was getting would be quirky and funny, and it is. But it is soooo much more than that. Life on the Farm is macabre, mysterious, charming and bizarre. It's a surprisingly emotional experience as well. I assumed that the film's subject, Charles Carson, was just going to be some easy to poke fun at bad filmmaker. Instead, Charles Carson is this genuine, sweet, odd individual who wins you over with his enthusiasm for all aspects of life and death. 

Life on the Farm is the brainchild of director Oscar Harding who turned a vague memory from his childhood into a lifelong search and obsession that culminates in the creation of this documentary. When Oscar was a kid growing up in the English countryside, Charles Carson was a kindly, somewhat addled neighbor who made sure drop something off with Oscar's family every Christmas. That something was Charles' annual VHS Christmas Card. Charles was a camcorder enthusiast whose life was dedicated to capturing life on the farm, in all of its forms. 

Each video started the same way with Charles addressing the camera with his name and the name of his farm, Coombes End Farm, said without a pause, charmingly and incomprehensibly together as CoomesonFahm. The videos have stuck with Oscar Harding for more than 30 years not because they were a secret work of genius, though they kind of are. No, his memory was solidified while watching the VHS with his dad and his dad suddenly clicking the tape off and getting rid of it. Why had his father done this? What could the kindly Charles Carson have had in the video for Oscar's dad to have reacted so suddenly and decisively. 

Meanwhile, somewhere around the globe while Oscar was puzzling over this childhood memory, VHS and found footage collectors were sitting on a goldmine. Through fate or chance, some of Charles' incredibly strange and unique home movies had gone around the globe and wound up part of found footage and found VHS festivals. The Charles Carson tapes were a pre-internet sensation but with no YouTube to save it for posterity, the tapes went into storage and were often forgotten, returning to the status of found footage to one day be rediscovered. 

Incredibly, just as Oscar Harding's Aunt recovered one of Charles' tapes, YouTubers had found one as well and were sharing it, though it wasn't quite as viral right away. The online fandom was small but growing and since Oscar's tape was different from the one that had gone around the globe, the confluence of Charles Carson content was about to reach a boiling point that would create this documentary, Life on the Farm, and a demand for Charles content among small enclaves of found footage devotees that is almost unrivaled. 

Click here for my complete review of A Life on the Farm 

Movie Review Don't Worry Darling

Don't Worry Darling (2022) 

Directed by Olivia Wilde 

Written by Katie Silberman 

Starring Florence Pugh, Harry Styles, Chris Pine, Gemma Chan, Nick Kroll 

Release Date September 23rd, 2022 

Published September 23rd, 2022 

If your life was perfect, how would you know? I’m not talking about the basic signifiers of things you would have that would make your life seem perfect like money, a nice house, a supportive family, I mean, what if life was perfect. No pain, no sorry, no irritation or even annoyance. Your every need is met immediately. Nothing is ever out of place. It’s an impossible standard, of course, but what if? If life were perfect, how would you know? 

This is a philosophical thought experiment. If life were perfect, perfect would be normal and thus not perfect. How do you know there is up without down? How do you know what joy is if you don’t know what the opposite of joy feels like? Yin and Yang, give life meaning. Love and the absence of love are distinct feelings. If you only ever knew love then love would become a mundane expectation of everyday life, unrecognizable without knowing the absence of it. What is loss if you never lose? 

The new movie Don’t Worry Darling got me thinking about this idea of a perfect life and how impossible that idea is. This notion that someone could invent a perfect life is downright silly but that doesn’t stop people from trying. Mad men like Chris Pine’s Frank seek to stamp out all problems from the world, tame life into what they want it to be. He’s admired for this madness and seeks to indoctrinate others to his notion of what a perfect life would look like. 

He’s arrogant enough to push aside the notion that the human mind is not built for perfection. In the brilliant action adventure movie, The Matrix, a character known as Agent Smith, wonderfully played by Hugo Weaving, explains that the A.I monsters who created The Matrix, a simulated reality intended to enslave humans while the humans themselves are treated as organic batteries, first created a perfect simulation. 

The first Matrix created a simulated reality with no heartache, no pain, no death, no war, no negatives whatsoever. Everyone was cared for and their needs were perfectly attended to. The humans went insane in no time at all. The mind rebelled against perfection because how would you know that life is perfect if every day featured the same level of precise perfection? If perfect becomes normal, normal becomes mundane and the imagination seeks something to think about, something to question. 

Click here for my full length review of Don't Worry Darling. 

Movie Review Isn't She Great (2000)

Isn't She Great (2000) 

Directed by Andrew Bergman 

Written by Paul Rudnick 

Starring Bette Midler. Nathan Lane, Stockard Channing, David Hyde Pierce 

Release Date January 28th, 2000 

Published September 20th, 2022 

I went into to watching Isn't She Great with a bad attitude. I've read a number of other critics who despised this movie. They decried what they claimed are numerous inaccuracies, they called Bette Midler's performance overly broad and cartoonish, and they barely mentioned the sweet romance at the heart of the movie. I was fully prepared to write a negative review of Isn't She Great and then I watched the movie and I was unexpectedly charmed. Perhaps its because I don't know much about the real Jacqueline Susann, or maybe I am just feeling generous, but I genuinely enjoyed most of Isn't She Great. 

Jaqueline Susann was a striver. Living in New York City, she felt that stardom was her birthright. When she failed to achieve fame by any means necessary, she dramatically walked into a lake ala Virginia Woolf only to find the water was barely knee deep. It's here where she meets the man who who would help make her dreams come through. Show business lifer, agent Irving Mansfield fell in love at first sight with Jacqueline Susann and after witnessing her quite funny and failing attempt at a dramatic death, he rescues her with promises of stardom. 

Their partnership got off to a slow start. Irving got her on television and got her gigs on commercials but Jacqueline's strength was her off the cuff wit, something she could not highlight on overly serious game shows or the confines of a live commercial advertisement. Finding little success on TV, Irving launches a new plan, a book. With support from Jacqueline's best friend, Florence Maybelle,. played by a brilliant, scene stealing Stockard Channing, Irving pitches Jacqueline the idea to write a novel. 

Jacqueline is immediately opposed to the idea, she claims that she doesn't have anything to say in a novel. Then Irving points out her incredible true stories about the dark side of Hollywood and Jacqueline is intrigued. Indeed, she's got thousands of darkly funny stories about Hollywood from her own experience and the experiences of her vast network of friends. It will require her to tell stories that her friends might prefer she did not tell, but what does she have to lose. 

Famously, Susann's dark comic story of the Hollywood underbelly, filled with truths and half truths about barely disguised Hollywood figures became the bestseller, Beyond The Valley of the Dolls. The book was an immediate sensation and soon, thanks to Irving, Jacqueline has the love and celebrity that she's always dreamed of. Naturally, this still being a movie, there is a false crisis that will divide our central couple before we get to our based on a true story ending, and that convenionalism does hold the movie back a little, it's not a death knell. 

Bette Midler and Nathan Lane make a surprisingly adorable couple in Isn't She Great. The chemistry between Midler and lane is lovely, platonically friendly growing into a chaste romance. It's charming watching Irving pine for Jackie and then try to move heaven and earth to achieve her dreams. By the same token, Midler is great at being first oblivious to Irving before seeing him as useful and then growing to rely on him, appreciate him and then love him. That's wonderfully complicated road to character growth and I really enjoyed that. 

Isn't She Lovely isn't written or directed with a great deal of innovation. The film holds to a rather strict biopic structure. That said, the film is rather breezy and doesn't drag at all. The film is brisk thanks to the performance of Bette Midler who plays Jacqueline Susann as the oversized personality one might assume she was from her brazen, barely veiled novels. It's a blowsy, blowhard performance by Midler with dramatic flourishes that I found humorous and endearing rather than merely hammy. The character, as essayed by Midler, is supposed to be hammy. That's a feature and not a bug in my estimation. 

Read my complete review of Isn't She Great on Geeks.Media. 

Documentary Review Moonage Daydream

Moonage Daydream (2022) 

Directed by Brett Morgen 

Written by Documentary 

Starring David Bowie 

Release Date September 16th, 2022 (Limited Release), September 23rd Everywhere 

Documentary filmmaker, director Brett Morgen, has a gift for fans of David Bowie. It's arguably the greatest gift Bowie fans could receive that isn't a visit from the Thin White Duke himself from beyond the grave. Moonage Daydream is the very first documentary to be approved by the estate of David Bowie. It includes footage from the Bowie archives that has never seen the light of day. Concert footage from the late 70s, movie projects that Bowie himself commissioned but never finished, and rare interviews with Bowie that provide narration amid the dazzling, dizzying, and mesmerizing sonic and visual spectacle. 

Moonage Daydream doesn't so much work in a perfectly linear fashion. Though it does tell us about Bowie's childhood, in his own words, it's not a straight ahead documentary narrative. Rather, the focus of Moonage Daydream is Bowie the icon, the music and the man. The documentary is wall to wall with Bowie music and performances with Bowie himself offering narration about where his life was at the time he created this music via a series of interviews. Whether its appearances on Dick Cavett or a British chat show, Bowie consistently, shyly offers insights into himself and his work that aren't nearly as revealing as the music he creates. That's by design. 

While interviewers were hung up on Bowie's makeup, outfits and shoes, Bowie appears baffled by the questions and the attention to his attire. He appears perfectly ready to discuss the philosophy and inspiration behind his music but clams up, rather appropriately as he's constantly questioned about his look and how unusual he is. Questions about his sexuality and his influence on his fans lead Bowie to a confused sort of bemusement that stops these interviews in their tracks. It's both charming and frustrating, charming from Bowie and frustrating that crusty interviewers can't get past Bowie's flamboyance to talk about Bowie's art. 

Far more successful is a female interviewer, I apologize for not catching her name amid the disorienting experience of Moonage Daydream, who gets Bowie talking love. It's a wonderfully nuanced and thoughtful conversation that plays as a piece of narration in Moonage Daydream. Similarly, when Bowie talks about falling in love with his wife, Iman, the obvious joy in his voice is just wonderful even as his happiness plays at odds with his still wandering spirit which cannot settle on a sound and a rather cynical worldview that led Bowie's years in the wilderness of popular culture. 

Brett Morgen does a brilliant job of approaching the dichotomy of Bowie, the superstar and the artist, conflicted about success but desperate for the fleeting comfort of superstardom. There is a brilliant segment of Moonage Daydream that covers the most successful period of Bowie's career, his 80s yuppie phase. Let's Dance, Modern Love, and other top hits of that time are fantastic but even Bowie admits that he was playing the hits, playing what he thought people wanted to hear, and reveling in the trappings of being wildly successful. 

Click here for my complete review of Moonage Daydream at Beat.Media. 

Movie Review Pearl (2022)

Pearl (2022) 

Directed by Ti West 

Written by Ti West 

Starring Mia Goth, David Corenswet, Tandi Wright, Emma Jenkins 

Release Date September 16th, 2022 

Prequel to X (2022) 

X was a brilliant homage to 70s grindhouse horror from a director in Ti West who has mastered the form of homage. My proof for for his mastery comes with his new movie Pearl. The horror movie starring the utterly brilliant Mia Goth, riffs brilliantly on MGM movies of the 30s and 40s mimicking them down to the credit font and pitch perfect score. Using the innocent memories of movies like The Wizard of Oz for a series of transgressive gags feels so fresh and different that this horror movie becomes honestly refreshing. 

Mia Goth stars as the title character, Pearl. Pearl is a teenage dreamer, a 19 year old who dreams of nothing but the burgeoning movie industry. The movies in her small hometown have become her home respite from a difficult home life. Pearl's mother, Ruth (Tandi Wright), is a severe German taskmaster who believes that her daughter should have to suffer as she has to provide a home and a roof over Pearl's head. Ruth has become the primary worker on their Texas farm after Pearl's father (Matthew Sunderland) was struck with Spanish Flu and suffered complete paralysis. 

The first indication that something might be a little off about Pearl comes via her father. After a night of arguing with her mother, Pearl takes her father to a pond on their land that is home to an alligator that Pearl has been feeding for some time. Pearl pushes dad's wheelchair to the edge of the dock while calling on the gator which responds to her. It appears that Pearl may dump daddy in the lake until mom arrives to make the save. The juxtaposition of Mia Goth's sweet, simple innocent look and the malevolence of her actions is part of the electric charge of watching Pearl. 

Similarly the way Pearl chooses to bathe in front of her father's paralyzed form, his darting eyes demonstrating his extreme discomfort, is another unsettling symbol of Pearl's transgressive personality. These scenes pitched against the numerous references to classic MGM musicals and those oh so innocent adventures of the 40s and 50s makes Pearl in general a movie that transgresses our expectations and conspires to make us part of dark meta joke of Pearl. 

Click here for my full length review of Pearl at Horror.Media.