Movie Review: The Lost Weekend

The Lost Weekend (1945)

Directed by Billy Wilder

Written by Charles Brackett, Billy Wilder

Starring Ray Milland, Jane Wyman 

Release Date November 29th, 1945

Published April 2nd, 2023 

Billy Wilder's 1945 film The Lost Weekend is the classic on this week's Everyone's a Critic Movie Review Podcast, available wherever you listen to Podcasts. We chose it for the theme of addiction which is also central to the new movie, A Good Person starring Florence Pugh and Morgan Freeman and directed by Zach Braff. Listen to the next Everyone's a Critic Movie Review Podcast where myself and my co-hosts, Bob and Jeff, talk about both of these movies and their unique takes on addiction. 

What do we know about Don Birnam, the main protagonist of Billy Wilder's 1945 drama, The Lost Weekend? He's approximately 32 years old, the age of actor Ray Milland when he made The Lost Weekend. He's a failed writer who lives in New York City. He's been living off of the kindness of his brother Wick (Phillip Terry) since he came to New York as a much younger man. And, most importantly, according to the story playing out, Don Birnam is a borderline suicidal alcoholic. 

Don also has a loving and deeply devoted girlfriend in Helen St. James, played by Jane Wyman. Why she's so devoted to him is a bit of a mystery. He's not a particularly kind or charming man when we meet him. So what is it? Perhaps she sees that he has the potential to be a good man? That's about as far as I can stretch to find a good justification for the kind of devotion Helen demonstrates to Don. She risks everything to save him and he rewards her by seeking other women as a means of seeking his next drink. 

Alcoholism, as conceived by Billy Wilder, is much akin to demonic possession in modern horror movies. The possessed person is crazed and unable to act for themselves. We see occasional glimpses of their real selves but, for the most part, they are controlled by the demon and seeking whatever mystifying goal the demon always fails to spell out. Indeed, in The Lost Weekend, if alcohol were an actual demon, what is its endgame? What does alcohol hope to accomplish? Don's death? 

What does removing Don's agency and responsibility for his actions mean for the story being told? Again, as portrayed by Milland, and directed by Wilder, Don's alcoholism is the result of the demon drink and seemingly not choices made by Don himself. Perhaps the first drinks were his choice but more than a decade into his alcoholism, the addiction Don demonstrates is one where he must consume or die. Milland's wild-eyed mania is that of a man out of control and yet, only he can win back such control over himself. 

The end of The Lost Weekend comes after Don has pawned off Helen's expensive coat to recover a gun he'd pawned off before in order to buy alcohol. He's demonstrated earlier, in an exchange with Helen and Wick, that he had considered suicide and shows them the bullets to a gun he'd pawned in order to buy more booze. With the gun retrieved Don sets about his dark task only to have Helen arrive just in time. As the two struggle, Don's favorite bartender shows up to return his lost typewriter. 

Seeing as fate has interceded, Don gives Helen the gun and takes up his typewriter. Throwing a cigarette into a glass of gin, rendering it undrinkable, Don sits at his typewriter inspired to write down everything that has happened to him in this lost weekend, starting with the scene that opens the movie, a bottle of booze hanging from a rope outside his apartment, a device to hide the booze from the prying eyes of the people who care about him. Thus the circle of The Lost Weekend is closed. 

What is the nature of addiction? What causes one to become addicted to alcohol or drugs? The tools themselves, alcohol are, in part, at fault for having been created to be addicting. We've been sold a bill of goods by those that profit from alcohol that it is our fault if we get addicted to it. But the reality they want us to ignore is that their product is specifically conceived to cause addiction and line the pockets of the companies that make it. 

Putting that aside however, addiction is often related to trauma, whether large or small. In order to numb the pain of a significant trauma someone may choose to drink alcohol as a temporary respite from their emotional pain. Not dealing with the trauma however, only makes it worse and the reliance on alcohol deepens as the unrepaired trauma festers into greater and greater pain. There is also a Pavlovian effect at play as alcohol numbs the emotional pain it tricks the mind. I hurt, I drink alcohol, I hurt less. A cause and effect pattern becomes reinforced in the mind of an addict. 

For Don, the trauma is rather minor in the grand scale of things. He's ashamed that he's failure as a writer. Drinking gives him the confidence to think that he can overcome anything, that he can be the great man he wishes to be. Thus, Don's cause and effect pattern is the pain of self-loathing, drinking alcohol, no more self-loathing. There is also shame. Don is ashamed of living off of the provenance of his brother and ashamed that he can't be the man who Helen thinks he should be. Alcohol cures those two shames as well. 

Is this is a simplistic reading of addiction? Perhaps, but on a base level, it's not wrong. It is perhaps that simplicity that makes The Lost Weekend so memorable and beloved. It offers some relatively simple answers regarding the nature of drinking and addiction. We know why Don drinks and why he would benefit from not drinking and what it takes to get him to see that he needs to stop. It's a rather tidy narrative made less tidy by Don's actions while drunk as a carouser, a beggar, a thief, a man desperate to feed his addiction. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Movie Review Cocaine Bear

Cocaine Bear (2023) 

Directed by Elizabeth Banks 

Written by Jimmy Warden

Starring Keri Russell, Margo Martindale, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Brooklynn Prince, Ray Liotta, O'Shea Jackson, Alden Ehrenreich 

Release Date February 24th, 2023 

Published February 23rd, 2023 

Cocaine Bear makes a very big promise with its bizarre premise and I am happy to say that it mostly lives up to that promise. As directed by the very funny Elizabeth Banks, Cocaine Bear delivers a Black Bear that is, indeed, very high on Cocaine. Being high on cocaine, the Bear becomes highly aggressive, angry, and agitated. Thus, a bear that would normally prefer not to interact with humans becomes a violent, murderous beast, especially if you happen to have some more cocaine on you, this bear loves cocaine. 

The story of Cocaine Bear kicks off with a very funny scene. A man who is clearly high on cocaine is dancing around an airplane and tossing bags filled with cocaine off the plane and into a mountainous area of Georgia. The man plans on letting the plane crash to divert attention from the massive amounts of cocaine being dropped from it, but before he can leap out of the plane to accompany his cargo, the man manages to knock himself unconscious and fall out of the plane to his death. 

This death helps set to the tone for a violent, disturbing and quite funny dark comedy. Once we've established that there is cocaine in the forest and a bear has ingested a lot of it, we watch as disparate groups of people head into the forest, mostly unaware that cocaine has turned a mostly docile bear into a ravenous, cocaine addicted monster. Among our main cast are a pair of children played by Brooklynn Prince and Christian Convery, they're skipping school for an adventure. Hot on their trail is the girl's mother, played by Keri Russell. She's accompanied by Forest Cop played by Margo Martindale and her crush, an animal care advocate played by Jesse Tyler Ferguson. 

Then, there are the drug dealers, out to retrieve their drugs. O'Shea Jackson and Alden Erhenreich are flunkies for a drug dealer, played by Ray Liotta. They are to retrieve the drugs by any means necessary or possibly face the wrath of Columbian drug kingpins. They will be joined unwillingly by a police detective, played by Isaiah Whitlock. The detective has been looking for a way to bust Liotta's drug dealer and he sees getting these bags of cocaine as a chance to put Liotta behind bars. Naturally, they will all come face to face with a bear that is off its face on cocaine and each will be lucky if they manage to get out of the forest intact. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Movie Review Juniper

Juniper (2023) 

Directed by Matthew J. Saville 

Written by Matthew J. Saville 

Starring Charlotte Rampling, George Ferrier, Martin Csokas, Edith Poor

Release Date February 24th, 2023 

Published February 24th, 2023 

There is a lovely true story behind the movie Juniper. It's based on the real life experience of writer-director Matthew J. Saville. His grandmother broke her leg and because she was limited in her ability to get around, she moved from Europe to New Zealand to live with family. She was a difficult woman, a hard drinker, not easy to get along with. Over time, Saville and his grandmother forged a bond and that bond is at the heart of the movie, Juniper. It's quite a lovely story and if it were an anecdote related by a friend over dinner, it'd be terrific. As a movie, it's lacking in incident. 

Charlotte Rampling stars in Juniper as the cantankerous, Ruth, grandmother to Sam, played by George Ferrier. Ruth is moving to New Zealand to live with Sam and his father after she broke her leg and became unable to care for herself. Ruth is none too pleased about this arrangement and neither is Sam who is also reeling from the death of his mother. In fact, the room that Ruth is set to occupy is the same room Sam's mother spent her last days before passing away, adding another layer of sadness to the situation. 

When Sam gets himself suspended from his private school, following a fight during a rugby game, he's sent back home where his father, Robert (Martin Csokas), enlists him to help Ruth's nurse, Sarah (Edith Poor), care for Ruth. Things get off to a contentious start to say the least. Ruth is slowly drinking herself to death. She has a pitcher of Gin, cut with a little water and lemon, next to her at all times. When Sam attempts to limit the amount of Gin in this mixture, he ends up getting a glass tossed at his which leaves a little scar. 

Naturally, over the period of this story, several weeks by the evidence of the movie, the relationship between Sam and Ruth will improve. She won't stop drinking, of course, but she becomes less openly verbally abusive. In return, Sam is slightly less hostile until finally, they become genuinely close. This closeness is fostered by Ruth allowing Sam to throw a party for all of his private school friends where she provides the liquor and becomes the star of the show as everyone thanks her for the libations and gathers around to hear stories about her youth. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Movie Review She Came from the Woods

She Came from the Woods (2023) 

Directed by Erik Bloomquist 

Written by Erik Bloomquist 

Starring Cara Buono, Clare Foley, Spencer List 

Release Date February 10th, 2023 

Published February 24th, 2023.

Camp Briarbook is overseen by your typically telegenic cast of teenagers eager to party on their last night at the camp, after the young campers have gone home. The party is typically debauched, and this is where the ritual occurs and where Agatha is brought back to life. Agatha's first act is to influence a shy, gawky counselor named Danny (played by Director Erik Bloomquist) to murder his crush, Kellie (Emily Keefe), after she rejects his clumsy romantic advances. He's then killed by another counselor in order to keep his murder from turning into a spree. 

The counselors retreat to the mess hall where they inform the camp owner, Heather (Caro Buono), about the murder. Eventually, they are forced to come clean about the ritual and the potential return of the evil monstrous, Agatha. In order to stop Agatha's rampage, Heather calls in her father, Gilbert, played by the inimitable go-to character actor and weirdo, William Sadler. Naturally, he shows up with a shotgun only once the movie is ready to make the turn to the third act showdown. 

Counselors are killed, kids turn into crazed ravenous zombies and come rushing out of the woods, under Agatha's control, and a rather meaningless back story is related by first Heather and then her father, with slight variations. It's fine, it's a good, solid hanger for a horror movie plot. The lore is merely here only to press forward a plot centered around bloody, violent deaths and narrowly escaping bloody violent deaths. The counselor characters, save one who deserves is his ugly fate, are all not terrible people who did not deserve to have to vomit blood or have their skulls caved in. 

I can still appreciate a movie that gives us protagonists who aren't awful people. I still have awful memories of obnoxious early 2000s horror movies where the protagonists were so agonizingly unlikable that we preferred seeing them die horribly than spending time with them not dead. For a time, directors fell in love with creating obnoxious characters designed to cause us to root for the slasher and I grew tired of that nihilistic approach to horror very quickly. She Came from the Woods is thankfully not one of those movies. Instead, the characters are all rather boringly likable. 

Find my full length review at Horror.Media 

Movie Review Marlowe

Marlowe (2023)

Directed by Neil Jordan 

Written by William Monahan 

Starring Liam Neeson, Diane Kruger, Danny Huston, Adewale Akinnouye Agbaje, Jessica Lange

Release Date February 15th, 2023 

Published February 24th, 2023 

Marlowe is a stunningly mediocre film. An attempt to bring back the feel of 40s noir detective novels, in the vain of Raymond Chandler, using Chandler's creation, Detective Phillip Marlowe, Marlowe wanders, stumbles, plods and trips over oodles of over pronounced dialogue and a dimwitted 'mystery.' How bad is Marlowe? It made me wonder if I've ever found Liam Neeson entertaining. Seriously, I had to convince myself that I really did like the Taken movies. I think I did. I think... yeah. Neeson could not be more miscast in the role of a 1930s gumshoe in Los Angeles. 

Marlowe opens on a completely meaningless visual. A man is pacing back and forth dictating some odd thing to an attentive secretary. You think the man speaking is Marlowe and the secretary is his Girl Friday, the go-to gal, that reliable female pal from past detective movies. Nope, that's not Marlowe or his secretary. It's also not someone that the actual Phillip Marlowe is peeping in on for a case. So, why did we open on this visual? God help me, I have no idea. It's a completely disconnected visual. It's a seeming recreation from past Marlowe films and novels that I assume director Neil Jordan recreated simply to evoke Marlowe's of the past. 

The reveal of the actual Marlowe comes with the introduction of our Femme Fatale, that dangerous female client with the case that will test our detective's metal. Diane Kruger is our femme fatale in Marlowe and with her platinum blonde hair and tight dress, she certainly has the visual from a Phillip Marlowe mystery down pat. Sadly, she and Marlowe, as played by Liam Neeson, have to eventually speak and when they do, the hired boiled dialogue turns both actors into unintentionally comedic characters. There is a particular cadence to Raymond Chandler mysteries and neither Neeson or Kruger have that kind of cadence. In their mouths, these words come off like people stating written dialogue out loud and not the natural speech of two people who speak like this all the time. 

It's an odd and perhaps labored comparison but Marvel movie fans will understand. If you've seen Guardians of the Galaxy and then see the Guardians as directed by anyone other than James Gunn, they characters just don't sound right. You can tell James Gunn's cadence is missing and it throws off the way the Guardians typically come off on screen. That's especially true in Thor Love and Thunder and kind of true in the two most recent Avengers movies. That's how Neeson and Kruger sound when trying to deliver Raymond Chandler style hardboiled dialogue. It just hits the ear all wrong. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.media 

My Time Traveling Family

There is a legend in my family, passed down through time. In the legend, members of my family are capable of traveling through time. There is one hitch in that legend, you can only do it once and for about an hour at most. Thus, when members of the family reach a certain age they are informed of this ability, how to access it, and the very important rule about its use. One time, one hour. That, naturally, sets the stage for how you want to use your one time and one hour. 

How do you decide? Where do you want to go and what do you want to do? It's an impossible choice as what if you choose to go right away and find that something tragic happened? You could have used your one time, one hour, to save someone you love from death. But, if you're too cautious and you don't use it, what if you die before you can use this amazing power? I had an Uncle who held on to his one time until he was 72 years and before he could finally go back and do something he wanted to do, he dropped dead. 

Don't be Uncle Tony, that's what my Dad told me. Dad used his one time, one hour, to visit his father. Dad went back to 1975 and had lunch with his own father before Granddad passed away. He said it was the best choice he could have made. He could have gone back and done many things, really anything. Like anyone else, Dad made bad choices here and there, he had regrets that he could have perhaps corrected. He could have tried to find a way to make a quick buck, but for dad, spending one last lunch sitting across from his father was everything. 

Granddad recognized him immediately. Dad may have been 8 years old at the time he traveled back to but Granddad still recognized his nearly 60 year old son when he saw him. They cried together, laughed together, enjoyed a meal together. My Granddad passed away on May 15th, 1975 he was shot while trying to stop a convenience store robbery. Before he died, he told my dad not to try and change his fate. He was worried that the ripple effect of his death that day would be too catastrophic to the future of the lives he saved that day stopping that man from killing more than just him. 

That's another thing about this ability of ours, you have to be responsible with it. You have to understand the ripple effect of your actions. One false move and you could remove a generation of your future family. You could come back from an hour in the past to an entirely different present. It's best to try and observe history or, in some cases, nudge it in your favor. Repair a failure, fix something you regret. Just know that there are potential consequences to every choice and make sure you can live with what you choose to do. 

Which leads back to me. I have a huge decision to make. What will I do in the past? How can I keep what I do from negatively affecting the future? What can I do that will be emotionally satisfying and useful to my present situation? I think I know what to do. It's a bit mawkish, if I am to be self-critical. There was something I wanted to do as a kid but never had the chance to do. I always wanted to see a baseball game with my grandfather at Wrigley Field. 

Find my full length short story at Fiction.Media 

Classic Movie Review An American Werewolf in London

An American Werewolf in London (1991) 

Directed by John Landis 

Written by John Landis

Starring David Naughton, Griffin Dunne, Jenny Agutter

Release Date August 21st, 1981

Published February 27th, 2023 

I don't get it. Well, I understand what people see in American Werewolf in London, but I don't get why it has lasted in people's memories for over 40 years. American Werewolf in London has some terrific practical effects and makeup. It has several memorable visuals, mostly in the makeup effects by the iconic Rick Baker. That's a solid legacy but beyond that, there is not much of a movie here. Thin characters, a horror comedy tone that is never funny, and disconnected scenes that linger rather than move things along, left me rather bored by a movie with a reputation as a horror classic. 

American Werewolf in London stars blandly handsome commercial pitchman, David Naughton as David and Griffin Dunne as David's best friend Jack. Somehow, David convinced Jack to go backpacking across England, specifically in the cold and rainy Yorkshire Moors, even as Jack greatly preferred going to the warmer and more welcoming environment in Greece or Italy. The two are miserable and cold and when they find a pub in a small town, things don't get any better. 

The locals are rude and stand-offish, they send the American visitors away without so much as a warm beverage. The only thing the locals tell the two young men is to stay out of the Moors. Naturally, they don't listen and up walking in the bright light of a full moon across the empty Moors. In the distance, they hear what sounds like a dog or a wolf. Indeed, it's a werewolf, one the locals were fully aware of but failed to keep the young men from encountering. 

Subsequently, Jack is brutally mutilated while David runs away like a coward. He does turn back for Jack but only so that we in the audience can be shown Jack's brutally desiccated corpse. David himself is then attacked but survives when several of the guilt-ridden pub patrons come to rescue him and kill the werewolf. Unfortunately for both David and Jack, David has been bitten before he was rescued and the Werewolf curse was transferred to him. 

The curse also effects poor Jack who cannot rest in peace until the Werewolf bloodline is ended. That means that David needs to die or Jack will live on as a member of the living dead. In the best part of the movie, Rick Baker's makeup turns Griffin Dunne into an ever rotting corpse whose decay is more and more present the more we see him. Dunne, unfortunately for the rest of the movie, is far more charming and engaging than star David Naughton and the movie suffers when Dunne isn't on screen. 

Put it simply, David Naughton is completely overmatched when challenged with carrying the movie. He's blandly handsome but there is nothing much more too him. So much of the movie is spent in his company and because of that, the movie never gains any charm or momentum. Naughton is a giant void at the center of the movie, sucking in all that might be interesting about writer-director John Landis' homage to classic MGM monster movies. 

Find my full length review at Horror.Media