Her parents were not exactly Romeo & Juliet, but growing up as the
daughter of a Party member and an enemy of the state definitely led to a conflicted
perspective on life in Iron Curtain-era Latvia. Frankly, Ilze Burkovska
Jacobsen’s mother was never really guilty of anything. She just happened to be
the daughter of a small land-owning farmer. Nevertheless, she was hounded and
discriminated against up until the fall of Communism. For her part, Jacobsen
tried to be a model Young Pioneer, taking inspiration from the Party propaganda
built around the captive nation’s venerated WWII heroes. Jacobsen (currently
based in Norway) revisits her Latvian youth and teen years in her animated-hybrid
documentary, My Favorite War, which screens online as part of
Scandinavia House’s Nordic & Baltic Contenders film series.
Despite
her eventual disillusionment with the Communist Party’s corruption and
hypocrisy, Jacobsen still loves and admires her father, a journalist, who was
appointed the administrator for a small border village, near the infamous “Polygon”
military installation. He did a lot for the town, as she remembers, but when he
tragically died in a traffic accident, her mother reverted to being an enemy of
the state. After the Soviets solidified control over the Baltics, her maternal
grandfather had been exiled to Siberia, along with every other land-owning
farmer, regardless of the size of their properties. This definitely was a
source of tension between her grandfather and father, while the latter was
still alive.
After
his demise, Jacobsen savvily embraced the Young Pioneers as a vehicle to prove
her loyalty and lay the groundwork for her future employability. Her role
models were the WWII veterans who were the constant (almost Big Brother-like) stars
of propaganda posters, movies, and TV shows, live-action footage from which
Jacobsen cleverly incorporates into the animation. Yet, she was her grandfather’s
granddaughter, so she inevitably noticed the falsehoods and double-standards of
life around her. Conveniently, she was ready to start rebelling in the late
1980s.
Favorite
War is
a wonderfully constructed docu-memoir that is clearly the product Jacobsen’s
acutely personal perspective, but still faithfully reflects the wider political
and historical forces at play. There are several deeply poignant moments that
sneak-up on viewers, even though Jacobsen diligently laid the groundwork for
them, earlier in the film.
Horror movies and TV shows absolutely hate the gig economy. They aren’t too crazy
about corporate America either. Of course, being a camp counselor is out, so
just how are you supposed to make a living in the horror genre? Two Sentence
Horror Stories only tells viewers what not to do in the next four
sentences, “Instinct” and “Imposter,” premiering tonight on the CW.
“Instinct,”
the better of the two, starts off violently, but it turns out it is all the
musings of Anika, who considers herself an aspiring mystery writer, but it
looks like her tastes lean more towards horror. She is waiting for her latest
Task Rabbit-like app gig painting some rich dude’s apartment. He is a bit
squirrely, but then again, so is she. Frankly, he is reasonably hospitable and
super-patient considering how much time she is taking. Yet, she convinces
herself he must be a serial killer, with the help of her imaginary victim-muse.
Directors
Kailey & Sam Spear do a nice job maintaining the tension, but we can guess
the big twist, simply by virtue of it appearing in a horror anthology. Sunita
Prasad and Leanne Lapp are both pretty good as the would-be writer and her personified
imagination, but Sehaj Sethi’s storyline is just too much like dozens of other
things we’ve already seen.
“Imposter,”
directed by Jennifer Liao, is pretty predictable too, but it lacks any sense of
suspense. A junior financial analyst is on the verge of selling his soul. Not
only is he set to receive his firm’s “Associate of the Year” award, he is also
engaged to a coworker, who happens to be the boss’s daughter, but he is really
the victim, because he has been forced to turn his back on his Filipino
heritage. On the night of the awards banquet, a shadowy doppelganger starts
stalking him. To make matters even more painful, his Alzheimer’s-afflicted
mother recognizes the doppelganger, adorned in traditional peasant attire, as
her son, rather than him.
It isn't Korea's Miss Granny with at least seven international remakes
under its belt or Italy’s Perfect Strangers with fourteen global remakes
and counting, but Spain’s The Invisible Guest is not doing too badly
with two to its credit. If you have seen Oriol Paulo’s Invisible Guest or
Sujoy Ghosh’s Badla than you generally know what is in store for
entrepreneur Adriano Doria in Stefano Mordini’s Italian remake, The
Invisible Witness, which starts streaming Wednesday on OVID.tv.
As
some viewers might remember, Doria found himself in deep gnocchi when he woke
up in a locked hotel room, near the bludgeoned corpse of his mistress, Laura
Vitale and 100K pile of Euros. He thought they were there to meet a
blackmailer, but the encounter took a violent turn instead. The cops want to
pin the murder on him and the media is loving the feeding frenzy, so his corporate
lawyer has arranged a late-night meeting with high-powered criminal defense
attorney Virginia Ferrara to plan their strategy.
Ferrara
can immediately tell Doria is not fully leveling with her, so she drags the
whole ugly truth out of him. As many of us know, the story really starts a few
months prior, when Doria and Vitale were involved in a fatal auto accident while
returning from a secret romantic getaway. They did not handle it well.
It
is a little strange watching a film with the same twist ending for the third
time, but with a different cast. For one thing, it inspires new appreciation
for Badla, because it makes clear how much the gender switch of the entrepreneur
and the jury consultant/criminal lawyer really freshened up the film. Weirdly, for
viewers of the previous takes, the suspense in Witness largely comes
from knowing what is going on behind-the-scenes. That would really be
impressive if it was intentional on Mordini’s part.
Nantucket holds great cultural significance. The entire island is a designated a
National Landmark District and it appears in classics like Melville’s Moby-Dick
and Poe’s Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym. Strategically, it is not
so important, but it is the summer home to many rich people, like Tillie
Gardner’s father and mother. Tragically, her parents were murdered by a
terrorist angered by her dad’s work as FBI spokesman. Now his killer is coming for
her in Andrzej Bartkowiak’s Dead Reckoning, which releases Tuesday on
DVD.
Technically,
Agent Cantrell did not want to kill Marco’s father, because he wanted to interrogate
the terrorist about his big plans, but the bust got violent, so he did what he
had to do. Gardner’s dad spinned the incident as best he could on TV, angering
the terrorist’s son Marco well past reason. He sabotaged the Gardners’ plane and
intends to execute the rest of the family and then place a bomb on the beach to
massacre Nantucket’s rich and idle revelers on the 4th of July.
However,
he will take a short timeout to reconnect with his younger brother Niko, who happens
to be on the island working a summer job to make money for college. Rather awkwardly,
Niko also happens to be Gardner’s new boyfriend. He seems a lot more
substantial than her shallow party-preppy crowd and they are both orphans. At
least Gardner still has her protective aunt Jennifer Crane and her partner, as
well as her godfather, Agent Cantrell. Niko just has Marco, but probably not
for long.
Any
film co-starring both Scott Adkins and James Remar ought to beyond awesome, but
sadly, Bartkowiak did not come close to fully exploiting their potential.
Nevertheless, there is no question their brutal fight scene is the film’s
far-and-away best scene. Seeing Adkins flexing his villainous muscles again
reminds us how good he is as dark, brooding bad guys. Likewise, Remar is gritty
and appealingly gristly as Agent Cantrell.
There is a Remington Steele-like situation going on at the Henry Scarlet
Detective Agency, but Scarlet was certainly a very real person. He taught his
daughter Eliza everything she knows about detective work, but now he is dead
and she must provide for herself. It is definitely not considered an appropriate
job for a lady in Victorian London, but fortunately she can rely on the
reluctant help of her father’s protégé, William “The Duke” Wellington in
Rachael New’s six-episode Miss Scarlet & the Duke, which premieres
this Sunday on PBS.
Respectable
women of the era are expected to earn their keep by marrying and having
children, but that is not Miss Scarlet’s style. Even a marriage of convenience
with her closeted friend Rupert Parker would constrain her freedom too much.
She is convinced she can continue her father’s agency, but she must convince
prospective clients her father will be the one performing the investigations
(sometimes it was convenient living in pre-internet times). She also hopes
Wellington (nicknamed “The Duke,” because of reputation for sartorial style,
despite his humble origins) will throw her some work, but he is more determined
to protect her from herself. The sparks will fly.
There
is a lot of character-establishing in the first episode, “Inheritance,” but
eventually Scarlet manages to land and solve a case. Unfortunately, the results
will be more complicated than she anticipated. The tone and constant arguments
are very similar in “The Woman in Red,” but it is a more fully developed
mystery that also incorporates the Oscar Wilde-like dilemmas of Parker and his
friends.
In
“Deeds Not Words,” Wellington tosses Scarlet some undercover work she is
uniquely suited for, but it causes her great moral conflict when she finds
herself infiltrating a suffrage society. This episode really stands out most for how
New explores the line between well-intentioned political commitment and violent
extremism in a way that feels awkwardly timely.
Arguably,
the last three episodes are significantly better than the first three. “Momento
Mori” probably features the most entertaining mystery of the series, involving
a death photographer, a phony medium, and threatening messages sent from beyond
the grave. The final scenes also segues into a more complicated intrigue that require
the final two episodes to resolve. Much to Wellington’s annoyance (and
concern), Scarlet is reported missing, perhaps as a result of her investigation
into her father’s real cause of death.
Scarlet
is no Mrs. Bradley and Wellington is no Sergeant Cribb, but their series is
serviceable enough. Still, the Tracy-and-Hepburn will-they-or-won’t-they bickering
and bantering chemistry worked a lot better in moldy old Remington Steele.
Frankly, their constant arguments really do not make much sense for two
reasons: Scarlet is obviously not an idiot, but as a contractor, she has a duty
to protect her client’s reputation at all costs.
Presumably, the West End theater shutdown forced by CCP-Covid should not interrupt
the record of Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap for most consecutive
performances. If it does, it will take a new play over sixty-nine years to catch-up
with her. Thirty-five years after her death (almost to the day), Dame Agatha’s
mystery novels and plays remain undiminished in their popularity. Christie
scholars and admirers explore the inspirations for her work and her lasting cultural
legacy in Inside the Mind of Agatha Christie, directed and produced by
Matt Cottingham, which premieres this Sunday on most PBS stations.
Although
her name is synonymous with “cozy” mysteries, all of Cottingham’s talking heads
dispute that label for Christie. To the contrary, they argue she had a
decidedly dark view of human nature. Due to her interest in forensic science,
her murders were also unusually realistic. Plus, And Then There Were None is
often credited as the first “slasher” thriller, so there.
Of
course, Inside cannot trace the development of Christie’s work, without
giving ample time to her notorious disappearance. It is almost of cliché, since
the incident has already inspired two highly fictionalized films, Agatha and the Truth of Murder and Agatha, directed by the recently deceased
Michael Apted. Fans generally know Christie was desperately miserable with her
first husband, Archibald Christie, during this period. However, Inside gives
equal or greater time to the wedded bliss she subsequently found with husband
#2, Max Mallowan. He happened to be an archaeologist, which does indeed explain
her frequent Egyptian and Mesopotamian settings.
Sacha Baron Cohen really ought to show some respect, but that is obviously too
much to expect. The truth is Kazakhstan has produced some remarkably
challenging and intriguing films in recent years (they are films, not “moviefilms”)
that deserve much more international recognition. Yet, they are often more pointedly
critical of contemporary Kazakhstani society and politics than Borat ever
was. Indeed, the sexism and corruption of provincial police and officials are blisteringly
depicted in Adilkhan Yerzhanov’s A Dark, Dark Man, which screens as part
of the online Film Maudit 2.0 festival.
By
this time, Bezkat knows the drill. When another orphan boy is discovered,
murdered and sexually violated, he immediately sets out to frame Pekuar, the
village’s developmentally disabled pariah. That is not good enough for the
local political boss, who bribes Bezkat’s superior to insure Pekuar “accidentally”
dies within 24 hours. Bezkat is just about to proceed with the grim business,
when Ariana arrives. The big city journalist has credentials allowing her
access to Pekuar and Bezkat during his investigation.
Much
to his annoyance, Bezkat must go through the motions of conducting a real
investigation, with the journalist, the accused, and his not-quite-as-childlike
“girlfriend” in tow. Obviously, it gets super-awkward for the crooked cop, when
he crosses paths with the boss and his henchmen, especially as he gradually grows
to respect Ariana’s honesty and idealism.
Dark
Dark is
definitely a slow-burner, with the slowness being no exaggeration, but the white-hot
burning part is no joke either. This is truly a remarkably tightly controlled
and tautly constructed art-house thriller. You might forget to breathe
regularly watching this one.
Regardless whether your taste in initials leans more toward MAGA or BLM, you won’t
find a confrontational protester in America with as much sheer fortitude as the
performance artist seen during the opening scene of this film. To make a
statement on Mainland China’s social and economic constraints on women, she
proceeds to make a series of horizontal and vertical cuts straight across her face.
It is hard to watch and impossible to forget. While that is far and away the
most visceral image, several other marginalized and oppressed Chinese women dramatically
speak out and fight for their rights in Wen Hai & Zeng Jinyan’s Outcry
and Whisper, which premieres this Friday on OVID.tv.
Zeng
is not just the co-director. She is also a subject of Outcry. For years,
she lived under house arrest with her former partner, human rights activist, Hu
Jia. She even documented their home imprisonment in the short doc, Prisoners in Freedom City (an excerpt from which is seen during Outcry). After
ten months of Covid-CCP-virus shutdowns, house arrest might not sound so exotic
now, but we still do not have to contend with the constant police surveillance
and harassment Zeng and Hu faced. The stress took a toll on their relationship
and lately, she has also had to put up with an orchestrated trolling campaign, but
Zeng still tries to be philosophical about their experiences in her video
meditations.
At
least Zeng is educated and has an international reputation. The migrant garment
workers who strike for their back pay and unemployment compensation have no
such advantages. They just believe in the justice of their cause. Such idealism
is inspiring, but it is also alarmingly naïve. Indeed, the extent to which Outcry
captures the CCP socialist government catering to the interests of
oligarchs makes the doc a genuinely incendiary expose. Thematically, these
passages are much like Wen and Zeng’s previous collaboration, We the Workers,
which gives a male-centric perspective on Mainland labor struggles. However, Outcry
provides a fuller, more personal sense of the striking women’s lives and
personalities. They are real individuals, facing real exploitation.
In the Southwest, the mythological trickster figure is usually a coyote or
the flute-playing Kokopelli. Up in the Pacific Northwest, the trickster is a raven
spirit. Not coincidentally, Jared Martin will be seeing a lot of those
foreboding birds (amongst other visions). In fact, he might even be related to
one, as the confused hero of Eden Robinson’s teen novel, Son of a Trickster, which gets the
small-screen treatment in Michelle Latimer & Tony Elliott’s six-episode
Canadian series [just plain] Trickster, beginning tonight on the CW (following its
premiere at last year’s TIFF and subsequent run on the CBC).
Martin
is a smart Haisla teen in Kitimat, BC, but he spends more time hustling for
money at a legit fast-food job and selling his home-brewed pills. Even though
he is still in high school, Martin is the primary support of his divorced parents:
hard-partying mom Maggie and hard-luck dad Phil. Rather inconveniently, his mom
owes three grand to her sleazy dealer and Martin just got cold-cocked for his
stash and his cash. He only saw his attacker out of the corner of his eye, but it
could have been his doppelganger.
Whoever
it was, it also looks a lot like Wade, a former friend of his father, who has
just blown back into town. There is something different about Wade—really
different. He also claims to be Martin’s real father, which is hard to dismiss,
given their resemblance. Martin is unsure how he feels about him, but his
mother is decidedly upset. Her history with Wade is not just complicated. It is
also violent and supernatural.
Trickster’s
teen
roots are easy to see, but the way it incorporates indigenous tradition and
lore is both respectful and intriguing. There is a good deal of spell-casting
and a fair amount of shape-shifting in Trickster, but the series always
feels grounded in the difficult realities of high school life and the
economically depressed Kitimat community.
As
Martin, Joel Oulette broods hard, which makes him a convincing teenager.
However, he is also terrific playing with and off Crystle Lightning, Kalani Queypo,
and Craig Lauzon, as his mom, Wade, and his presumed father, respectively. All
three of these relationships are smartly and compellingly developed. Lightning
is a particular standout, taking absolutely no prisoners as the
self-destructive and somewhat spooky Mother Maggie. The contrast between her
mercurial mood swings and Queypo’s coolly calculating and ambiguously sinister Wade
is quite effective.
If you are still disappointed you didn’t have a chance to invest in Jurassic
Park with Sir Richard Attenborough, then maybe you can still get a piece of
Jack Harris’s new resort hotel built around an active volcano. You better act
fast, because this opportunity will not last long. Inevitably, hubris leads to
spectacular tragedy in Simon West’s Chinese-produced Skyfire, which
releases tomorrow on-demand.
When
this island volcano last erupted, it was sudden and powerful. Young Li Xiao
Meng barely survived, but her mother Sue Miller was consumed by the blast. Her scientist
father Li Wen Tao was close enough to see it happen, but too far to save her.
Twenty years later, Li has grown up to be a world class seismologist and the
leader of Harris’s science advisory team. Of course, the highly leveraged
developer refuses to listen to her when she warns him about the unusual readings
her colleagues have detected.
Not
one for alarmism, Harris sends his wife and business partner Wang Qian Wei to
the volcano rim with a group of potential investors, because what could go
wrong? Meanwhile, Li’s colleague Zhang Nan plans to propose to his girlfriend
Dong Jia Hui, during a romantic getaway to her favorite underground swimming
grotto. That sounds safe, right? Of course, everybody is in danger according to
Li Wen Tao, who has seen enough to come drag his daughter off the island,
whether she wants to leave or not. And then boom.
Considering
the CCP’s concerted ongoing trade and soft-power campaign against Australia, it
rather figures the Liverpool-born Jason Isaacs sports an over-the-top Aussie
accent playing the Australian Harris. However, West deserves a lot of credit
for largely curtailing the propaganda in Skyfire. In fact, you could
argue Harris isn’t even a villain, but a tragically flawed hero, given his
spectacular redemption scene.
West’s
experience helming big Hollywood action movies (including Con Air, Lara
Croft: Tomb Raider, and The Expendables 2) is further reflected in the
brisk tempo and some totally professional looking special effects sequences. Skyfire
is not the first big budget Chinese disaster movie (that would probably the
massively flawed Aftershock), but it is the most watchable so far.
Still, every time the ground shakes, we expect the characters to look up from
their cable cars to see brontosauruses striding by. Similarly, during the
opening and closing credits, our mind’s ear keeps hearing Adele warbling “Skyfire!”
Despite
Harris being the requisite Western caricature, Isaacs manages to humanize him
to a surprising extent, in some key scenes. Likewise, Leslie Ma has some nice moments
of grief and regret as the flawed Wang. Li Wen Tao is also a total stock
character, but it is still entertaining to watch Wang Xueqi’s curt and crusty portrayal
of the salty old scientist.
Ahnenerbe was a National Socialist think tank that dissolved ignominiously in
1945, but it has had a weirdly lasting influence on pseudoscientific paranormal
archaeology. Many of those prehistoric alien “reality” TV shows would have been
right up their alley. However, the secret underground surviving members of Ahnenerbe
finally meet their match in a roguish master thief, the grandson of the
notorious Arsene Lupin. After building an international fanbase in a long-running
manga series, five editions of an anime TV series, numerous specials, and six
previous anime theatrical features (including Castle of Cagliostro, Miyazaki’s
feature directorial debut), the endearing cat burglar gets the full 3DCG
animated treatment in Takashi Yamazaki’s Lupin III: The First, which
releases Tuesday on DVD.
Everyone
is after the “Bresson Diary,” when it is displayed as part of an exhibition of
the late French archaeologist’s work, but it is the sticky-fingered Lupin who
snags it. However, he agrees to team up with Laetitia, an earnest young archaeology
student, who had been manipulated by Dr. Lambert, her evil adopted grandfather,
into nearly stealing the diary herself, in order to learn its secrets.
She
and Lupin quickly figure out the diary reveals the hidden location of the “Eclipse,”
an ancient invention of vast power. Of course, Lambert’s employers at Ahnenerbe
would use it to re-establish the Reich. To foil their scheme, Lupin enlists the
help of his regular cronies, Daisuke Jigen and Goemon Ishikawa XIII (the direct
descendant of the celebrated “Robin Hood” samurai), as well as his friendly
rival Fujiko Mine and his incorruptible nemesis, Inspector Zenigata (having transferred
from the Tokyo Police to Interpol).
III:
The First (which
it isn’t, but whatever), has a lot of rollicking period action that is a lot of
fun. You can see the influence of Raiders of the Lost Ark all over the
film. Yet, beyond the impressive 3DCG animation, stuff like story, character development,
and English voice performances are basically on the level of a really good Naruto
feature film. It is entertaining, but it does not feel as “special” as most
of the anime films GKIDS distributes (like Miss Hokusai, Napping Princess, Nightis Short Walk on Girl, Ride Your Wave, etc.).
Imagine My Dinner with Andre, if Andre Gregory were a vampire—maybe. The truth is
you really can’t appreciate the singularly distinctive tone and atmosphere of
this Edward Albee-esque horror (presumably) film, unless you just dive right in.
As a bonus, you can pick up the dinner-party menu ideas along the way in Mickey
Reece’s wonderfully strange Climate of the Hunter, which releases this
coming Tuesday on VOD.
Middle-aged
sisters Alma (the self-medicating Earth Mother) and Elizabeth (the unmarried
and uptight corporate professional) are delighted Wesley, their friend from
childhood has returned to the country and is summering at his nearby lake
cottage. He might be a bit older than they, but he still cuts quite the dashing
figure in their eyes. During dinner, it is clear they are both super-interested
and he subtly stokes their rivalry.
Initially,
most of our suspicions regarding Wesley’s potentially undead nature come from
his subsequent testy reunion with his son Percy, who bitterly resents his
father’s decision to entrust his dementia-suffering mother to a nursing home. Nobody
says it outright, but it is clearly implied Wesley is not like other men. Reece
and co-screenwriter John Selvidge never have them fully declare one way or
another, but their dialog never sounds evasive in this respect. Excessive of
coyness can easily get annoying in less exactingly executed films, but the uncertainty
in Climate becomes a source of entertainment.
Nevertheless,
there is no denying a lot of the things coming out of the characters’ mouths
are absolutely bonkers. Honest to gosh, Climate must have some of the
most verbose and grandiose speeches you will ever hear in a horror movie
(presumably), but that is only the half of it. The carefully crafted grindhouse
look (rendered in a deliberately boxy and confined aspect ratio) and the meticulous,
ultra-1970s period details set this apart from just about every other vampire
(presumably) film you have ever seen.
High school is the ultimate horror mainstay. From Carrie to Scream,
there have probably been more horror movies and TV series set within the halls
of secondary education than drafty Euro castles. The tradition continues with
the two-for season premiere of Vera Miao’s Two Sentence Horror Stories,
airing this coming Tuesday on the CW.
“Bag
Man,” directed by Kimani Ray Smith and written by Leon Hendrix and Miao is
definitely the better of the two stories, in part because it obviously starts
as a genre homage to the Breakfast Club. Five students of varying social
status must spend Saturday morning in detention, but there is a very contemporary
wrinkle. All are suspects in a cherry bomb incident that triggered the school’s
new automated lock-down system. When they arrive, there is already a mysterious
bag in the room that just radiates bad vibes.
Admittedly,
the narrative follows a familiar horror arc, but the execution is brisk and
energetic. Hendrix and Miao come up with enough new, ironic wrinkles to keep it
interesting for experienced genre viewers and the cast hits the right notes,
especially Doralynn Mui as Zee, the catty “good girl.” Having recurred on Riverdale
and guested on Sabrina, this must be pretty comfortable terrain for
her.) Regardless, even though we know where it is all headed, it is still a
macabrely amusing ride.
The
titular bullied transmasculine teen of “Elliot,” written by Stephanie
Adams-Santos and directed by Chase Joynt (who also helmed the upcoming Billy
Tipton doc) could relate to movies like Carrie, Sleepaway Camp, and more
recently Some Kind of Hate, but at times this episode risks becoming an
afterschool special. The lesson is laid on rather heavily, but there are still
some creepy moments, especially down the stretch.
You remember from Ghostbusters how bad it is when cats and dogs are living
together? It is even worse for vampires and witches. Nevertheless, vampire Matthew
de Clairmont and Diana Bishop, an American witch, have fallen in love, but it
is a romance forbidden by the terms of the uneasy truce governing vampires,
witches, and demons, the weird kind. Yet, fate and a missing book of alchemy
seemed to have conspired to bring them together. However, to stay together and
escape their enemies, the two lovers had to jaunt back in time at the
conclusion of season one. Getting back will take some doing in season two of A
Discovery of Witches, which premieres tomorrow on Shudder and Sundance Now.
It
is a bit awkward to hide out in during an era of literal witch hunts for a
witch like Bishop. It just so happens, her beloved de Clairmont was one of the most
ruthless witch-hunters. He was also a faithful French Catholic, but he loyally
served Queen Elizabeth, doggedly persecuting his co-religionists. Such is
vampire politics.
At
least she is impressed to learn he is also known as the poet Matthew Roydon
during this era. One of his great friends is Christopher Marlowe, a demon with
a serious case of bro-jealousy. Understandably, it is a bit tricky for de
Clairmont to remember what he exactly was doing four hundred years ago, but he
will fake it as best he can, while Bishop seeks out the training to spellcast
their way back to their proper time. After years of being “spellbound,” her powers
have only just resurfaced, so she does not yet understand their full extent or
how to properly control them.
This
review is only based on the first four episodes of season two (out of seven),
because time is limited for us mortals. Still, we feel safe in saying the
general quality is consistent with the first season. Particularly notable are
the depictions of historical figures, which are much more fully developed than
mere gimmicks. Barbara Marten is a kick chewing the scenery as the Machiavellian
Queen Elizabeth and Tom Hughes does some of the best work we have ever seen
from him as the temperamental Marlowe. However, it seems rather a shame to have
the great Lindsay Duncan sidelined for so long, as de Clairmont’s regal mother,
Ysabeau.
James Alfred Wight sold millions of books and was recognized with a CBE on the
queen’s honors list, but his prospects seemed rather modest in 1937. You might
recognize him by his pen-name: James Herriot. In the midst of the depression, it
was difficult for a newly qualified veterinarian like Herriot (as he is known
in his somewhat fictionalized memoirs and the previous dramatizations), but
fortunately, his prospective new boss is dashed difficult to work for, so he
still has an opening. Fans already know Herriot’s bedside and stable-side
manner wins over the mercurial Siegfried Farnon and the Yorkshire community they
serve in the newest seven-episode All Creatures Great and Small, which
premieres this Sunday on PBS.
Herriot’s
parents made great sacrifices so he could graduate from the University of
Glasgow’s veterinary program, but jobs are scarce in the 1930s. If he doesn’t
land the position in rural Darrowby, he will have to join his father working on
the docks. Frankly, Farnon does not want to hire an assistant, but his motherly
housekeeper, Mrs. Hall insists he needs help. Poor Herriot does not exactly get
a warm welcome, but he slowly wins over the widowed older vet with his diligence.
Fortunately, he compares rather favorably with Farnon’s slacker younger brother
Tristan, who has just failed his veterinary finals, yet again.
Nevertheless,
the well-meaning Herriot has plenty of awkward moments during his early days.
Frankly, we didn’t remember from the previous serious the life of a country vet
entailed so many moral crises (and somehow, we missed the 1975 movie starring
Anthony Hopkins altogether). Comparisons between the series are inevitable
especially since Nicholas Ralph and Samuel West look so much like their
previous counterparts, as Herriot and the elder Farnon, but that sort of stands
to reason. However, Anna Madeley is definitely a younger and softer Mrs. Hall.
She also becomes a much greater emotional center for the series.
This
All Creatures also co-stars the late, great Diana Rigg, as the fabulously
wealthy Mrs. Pumphrey, whose beloved pug Tricki-Woo must board at the practice
for a week to protect him from her pampering. It is always good to see her. Probably
the next most notable guest star would be Nigel Havers (of Chariot’s of Fire),
appearing as the chairman of the local racetrack.
Of
course, the real stars of the series are the beloved characters and the endearing
animals they treat. Ralph sometimes portrays Herriot as such a naïf, he can be
uncomfortable to watch, but he still wins viewers over with his warmth and
earnestness. West clearly relishes Siegfried Farnon’s sharp tongue and high-handed
demeanor. He definitely supplies most of All Creature’s humor, in a House
MD kind of way, but Callum Wodehouse gets the biggest laughs of the series
as Tristan, saying the things we’d like to in the finale. In fact, he does a
terrific job portraying the prodigal Farnon brother’s maturation. Yet, it is
Anna Madeley who pulls the heartstrings—in the right way—as good God-fearing
Mrs. Hall.
Only war can make a twenty-year-old this emotionally deadened and world-weary.
That is what happens to Arturs Vanags. During a four year-period, he
technically switches sides several times, first fighting against the Germans
for the Russians, then against the Soviets, and finally against both. Yet, he
always fights for Latvia. Viewers will see WWI turn into the Latvian War for
Independence through the eyes of a young recruit in Dzintars Dreibergs’ Blizzard
of Souls, Latvia’s official International Oscar submission and its all-time
domestically-produced box office champ, which opens virtually this Friday.
After
Germans casually kill his mother, Vanags and his father reluctantly flee their
farm to Riga, where they enlist in the Latvian army. Technically, Vanags is too
young, but his father gives his permission. Technically, the stern veteran is
too old, but his sterling war record makes him valuable as a sergeant major (or
the rough equivalent). Much to Vanags’s surprise, his father is probably harder
on him than the other recruits, but veterans will well understand why.
During
the first act, Blizzard follows the traditional arc of WWI movies, with
the green enlisted men dealing with the horrible routine of trench warfare. However,
the war will take a series of unusual turns for Vanags and his colleagues, because
of the fateful position of the Baltics. Although they initially march to war
wearing Latvian uniforms, they are clearly considered subservient to the
Russian army (they aren’t even allowed to sing their national anthem). After
the Revolution, the Bolsheviks first talk peace, but then start waging war
again. Most of the Latvian Riflemen Corps are absorbed into the Latvian SSR,
which again functions as a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Soviets. Inevitably,
the call for genuine independence and the Soviets’ brutal purges drove
experienced soldiers like Vanags into the Independence Brigades.
Screenwriter
Boris Frumin makes all this complex military history quite clear, while maintaining
the focus on Vanags’ grunt-level survival story. Oto Brantevics could not
possibly look more milquetoast is his early scenes as young Vanags, but he
undergoes a harrowing transformation, even more dramatic than George MacKay’s
in 1917. MacKay provides far and away the most memorable performance in
Mendes’ Oscar nominee, but Martins Vilsons is just as strong, or even stronger
as crusty Old Man Vanags. It is a quiet but colorful and ultimately deeply
humanistic portrayal.
It turns out classic Toho monster movies did not go far enough. It wasn’t
just some stray turtle getting radiated into a mutant monster. It happens to
every cold-blooded creature. The worst of it for luckless loser Joel Dawson is
that it happens just as he was getting somewhere with his pretty girlfriend.
Giant mutants now rule the surface of the Earth, but he is still determined to
find her in Michael Matthews’ Love and Monsters, which releases today on
DVD.
Much
to Dawson’s regret, he was separated from his girlfriend Aimee in the confusion
of the apocalypse and both lost their parents during the ensuing carnage. After
seven long years underground, Dawson (like the Creek) has finally made radio
contact with her in a shelter 85 miles away. He cares about all his
shelter-mates, but since he is the only one not paired romantically, he figures
it is worth risking the perilous journey to reunite with her. However, he is considered
the Don Knotts of his shelter, so nobody gives him much chance.
Fortunately,
he soon encounters Clyde Dutton, a crusty old survivalist played by Walking Dead’s Michael Rooker, so you know he must have a knack for staying alive.
Dutton has been caring for a young girl named Minnow (not unlike Newt in Aliens),
who does not think much of Dawson’s chances, but she is rather taken with Boy,
the stray dog that started following him.
If
you are guessing Boy (played by Hero and Dodge) steals the show than you would
be correct. Together they give quite an endearing canine performance. The
monster design also hits the right tone. There is plenty of gross slithering
and secreting business, but they never look too realistic or too fake.
Frankly,
Dylan O’Brien’s constant neurotic narration eventually gets exhausting
(seriously, sometimes he needs to just shut-up and concentrate on his
surroundings). Still, he plays well opposite crusty Rooker, snarky little
Ariana Greenblatt (as Minnow), and Jessica Henwick, who shows some impressive
action cred as Aimee. Of course, Hero and Dodge (the stunt dog) totally upstage
him, but what could he expect.
It is sort of like Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, with Really, Really Good Taste.
There are not a lot of Rembrandt paintings in private hands, because they are rarely
brought to market. It is harder still to “discover” a previously unattributed
Rembrandt, but maybe not impossible. Viewers meet several private owners and
prospective buyers in Oeke Hoogendijk’s My Rembrandt, which releases
this Wednesday via Film Forum’s virtual cinema.
In
Scotland, the 10th Duke of Buccleuch owns a Rembrandt that is truly
magnificent. He would never want to sell Old Woman Reading, and given his
family’s extensive land holdings, they probably will never need to. On the
other hand, thanks to France’s high rate of taxation, Baron Eric de Rothschild
agrees to sell his twin portraits, Marten and Oopjen, igniting a politically
fraught contest between the Rijksmuseum and the Louvre.
Meanwhile,
Jan Six XI, whose father Jan Six X still proudly owns Rembrandt’s portrait of
the original Jan Six, believes he has discovered a previously unattributed
Rembrandt, which he purchased in Christie’s auction for a mere 100K Euros and
change. Eijk and Rose-Marie de Mol Van Otterloo are seriously considering
purchasing it, but questions about Six’s business dealings will cloud the sale.
So far, philanthropist Thomas S. Kaplan has not had such problems acquiring his
fifteen Rembrandt, each of which he maintains in public exhibition.
My
Rembrandt starts
out as a meditative film about what his paintings mean to the blessed few
fortunate to own one, but it suddenly takes on unexpected intrigue when Six’s
ex-partner starts making allegations in the media. There is also a great deal
of bureaucratic infighting, when the French Minister of Culture bullies the
Louvre into contesting the Rijksmuseum’s plan to acquire both Marten and
Oopjen, free and clear. Hoogendijk’s last documentary was The New Rijksmuseum, an epic four-chronicle of the museum’s restoration, so it is
not surprising her sympathies lie in Amsterdam. Frankly, it is hard to root for
the French, when they seem more interested in political CYA-ing than the great
art they suddenly decide must stay in France.
“Please Don't Come Back from the Moon” was a typically complex composition Charles
Mingus recorded during his notorious 1962 Town Hall Concert. It also basically
sums up the message Dr. Augustine Lofthouse has for the crew of the Æther. Technically,
they are returning from one of Jupiter’s moons, but the upshot is the same. A mysterious
cataclysm has destroyed the Earth, so they are better off where they were. Getting
that message out will take some doing in George Clooney’s The Midnight Sky,
which screens for MoMA members as part of the current edition of Contenders, or
the “Big Netflix Catch-Up,” as it could be called in January.
Nobody
really describes what happened, but it was clearly bad. Lofthouse’s arctic research
station is evacuating, but he decides to stay, because he has nobody to get
back to. He once had someone, as we see in flashbacks, but he pushed her away
with his single-minded dedication to his work. He never even bothered to meet
the daughter his ex-lover raised on her own. However, he suddenly finds himself
exercising his unused parental muscles, when he finds a mute little girl named Iris
has been left behind. Perhaps that was a blessing for her, because the arctic
region will be the last to be consumed by the Wrath of God, or whatever it is
(seriously, why would scientists be interested in such details?).
Lofthouse
quickly determines the only space exploration mission still operational is the Æther,
which was scouting the moons of Jupiter for habitable environments. He hopes to
warn it away from Earth, once it enters the range of communications, but he
will need an antenna with more range.
In
many ways, Midnight Sky is a decent example of the earnest, character-driven
side of science fiction, but Clooney way over-cooks the emotional symbolism of
his scenes portraying Lofthouse, the anti-social greybeard (literally). Iris’s
function in the narrative is so blatantly manipulative, we are instantly
suspicious of her secret. Not to be spoilery, but she is just so obvious.
Frankly,
the film is much better when it focuses on the crew of the Æther. Of course, it
makes no sense that Dr. “Sully” Sullivan would proceed with the mission while
she was pregnant, but Clooney wanted his first casting choice, Felicity Jones,
so he had pregnancy written into to the story. It doesn’t make real-world
sense, but it heightens “Noah’s Ark” significance of the Æther crew.
As
Sullivan and Commander Adewole, Jones and David Oyelowo have good
Kirk-and-Spock or Picard-and-Riker rapport. Demian Bichir and Kyle Chandler also
add tremendous human dimension to the crew as Sanchez, the temperamental engineering
officer, and Mitchell, the family-oriented American astronaut.
In the 1930s, the motion picture industry was reluctant to criticize Hitler,
fearing their films would suffer in the German market. So how did that
investment payoff for them in the 1940s? Today, Hollywood cravenly self-censors
to curry favor with the Chinese Communist Party. Does anyone think it will work
out better this time? Back in 1934, there was one filmmaker who fully
recognized the threat of National Socialism. He found a friend and ally in an
eloquent but marginalized Conservative back-bencher. Together, Sir Winston
Churchill and Sir Alexander Korda helped steel the British fighting spirit at a
crucial time. Their efforts are chronicled in John Fleet’s BBC-produced Churchill and the
Movie Mogul, which airs Monday night on TCM.
The
mid 1930s were known as Churchill’s wilderness years. The Chamberlain government
actively encouraged the press to censor Churchill, to stifle his “war-mongering”
criticism. (Again, does any of this sound familiar, Twitter?) However, Alexander
Korda, the Jewish-born Hungarian immigrant, was equally alarmed by the threat
of Hitler’s national socialism. Finding a kindred spirit, Korda hired Churchill
as a sort of idea-man at-large.
Churchill
did not write any full screenplays for Korda and his conceptual treatments were
considered too grandiose to produce. However, biographers and historians see
Churchill’s fingerprints on a number of the patriotic films Korda produced
during this time, particularly The Four Feathers, The Lion has Wings and
his classic Hollywood production, That Hamilton Woman.
Fleet
and his ensemble of experts do a nice job explaining the similarities shared by
the seeming odd couple. They even smoked the same brand of cigar. Although
considered “propaganda” by many critics, most of the films addressed in the
documentary still hold up today. Likewise, both men’s hawkishness has been
vindicated by history, which is what makes Fleet’s film so uncomfortably
timely.
This is Moscow, where everything goes. No matter how wild the game might be,
there is always a big enough palm to grease. Logically, this is where an annual
real-life gladiatorial betting extravaganza takes place. Some of the players sort
of suspected what they were in for, whereas others did not. Either way, they must
kill all their rivals to be the final winner in Slava N. Jakovleff & Ilya
Kulikov’s eight-episode Insomnia, which starts streaming today on Crackle.
Contestants
in the Insomnia game get a car, a gun, one bullet, and shot of a drug that will
make their hearts stop if they fall asleep. That last part was a nasty surprise
to everyone, but some were expecting the kill-or-be-killed rules. The
frontrunners are the Russian hitman, the American Special Ops vet with the
heavy Russian accent, the ex-cop tarnished by controversial shooting, and a
massively creepy sexual predator. The dark horses include a sixteen-year-old
girl who is so dull and expressionless, she must harbor some kind of strange
secret. The wild card has to be Ken, a former Insomnia employee thrust into the
game. Weirdly, he is not so shocked to be there (but none too thrilled either).
It
all unfolds as the fat-cat VIPs watch from a luxury hospitality suite. This
year, Marina Croft will also be there. She is taking the place of her late
mogul husband, who just died in a suspicious plane crash. As she watches Insomnia
unfold with a mixture of horror and fascination, she starts to suspect her
husband’s death might be related to the blind bet he placed on Lea, the boring
girl.
Basically,
Insomnia is like a cross between Crank and any one of the dozens
of involuntary online bloodsport thrillers, like Guns Akimbo or the
dreadful 31. In this case, Jakovleff and Kulikov mix in a bit of Lost,
by revealing hidden player connections through flashbacks, which helps a lot.
It is a bit embarrassing to confess, but Insomnia is addictive, much
like the reprehensibly voyeuristic game it depicts.
Pasha
D. Lychnikoff is a major reason why the series is s watchable as it is. Playing
Russian thugs is his specialty, so the kind of smirking, snarling, and scenery
chewing Insomnia needed is right in his wheelhouse. Basically, he is the
pro-wrestler of the series, yelling into the camera, “I’m coming for you,”
while keeping his tongue firmly planted in his cheek.
As murder mysteries go, this one is relatively small in scale, but you
still wouldn’t call it a cozy. There are really two mysteries in need of
solving that occurred decades apart, but they will get entwined in the increasingly
confused mind of the aging protagonist in Elizabeth is Missing, which
premieres this Sunday on PBS.
Maud
Horsham greatly relies on post-it notes to keep to her daily schedule, but she
still functions relatively well on her own at the start of this adaptation of
Emma Healey’s novel. However, the discovery of an old lady’s compact buried in
her friend Elizabeth Markham’s garden appears to strike a chord with Horsham.
When she returns to visit the next day, she finds her friend mysteriously
absent, but her eye glasses are plainly visible on the kitchen table. Horsham
comes back several days in a row, but there is never any sign of Markham.
The
experience brings back painful (and possibly suppressed) memories from Horsham’s
childhood, when her glamorous older sister Susan “Sukey” Jefford also
disappeared under mysterious circumstances. At the time, suspicion fell on
their nebbish boarder, but the ravings of a mad homeless women keep echoing in
Horsham’s head. Although she is start to drift more frequently into the past, Horsham
is still determined to find Markham, to help redeem herself for failing her
sister.
Missing
is
a quiet but profoundly sad film, thematically much like Anthony Hopkins’
upcoming Oscar contender, The Father, but it leans into the potential
criminal aspects of both disappearances much more, while suggesting ironic
parallels with the cruel psychological mysteries of Alzheimer’s. Unlike most
amateur sleuths, Horsham has the further challenge of assembling clues from her
disordered brain, before she can follow leads in the real world.
Director
Aisling Walsh handles the two levels of the TV film’s mystery quite dexterously
and sensitively. It is often frustrating watching the story unfold from Horsham’s
perspective, because we are so acutely conscious of the blind-spots that plague
her. As one of those “unreliable narrator” novels, adapting Elizabeth is
Missing is a tricky proposition, but screenwriter Andrea Gibb pulls it off
quite notably.
If you have to be stalked by a doppelganger, they should at least make an
effort to look like you, right? Not necessarily in Yorgos Lanthimos’s world. As
a result, he might just be the perfect filmmaker to represent late election-year 2020, when
someone might be conspicuously out of place, but people perversely refuse to
recognize the obvious. A symphony cellist finds himself the victim of such a
phenomenon in Lanthimos’s short film Nimic, which is now streaming on
MUBI.
The
“Father” thought he had a healthy relationship with his wife and three
children. Yet, when the strange woman he encounters on the subway tries to take
his place, nobody seems to be able to tell them apart. Yet, they look radically
different and her cello player sounds like fingernails on a blackboard.
It
turns out Matt Dillon is highly compatible with the idiosyncratic Lanthimos
aesthetic. As the Father, he projects an appropriate morose dejection, while
still maintaining the extreme deadpan we have come to expect from films like The
Lobster and The Killing of a Sacred Deer. Likewise, the crazy eyes
of Daphne Patakia’s mimic are truly unsettling, yet she maintains a similarly
stoic demeanor.
It is an early red state-blue state culture-clash that takes an uncanny
turn. State Trooper Robert Franklin is a military veteran state trooper. Charlotte
Scott is a neurotic New York fashion editor recovering from a nervous
breakdown. If they put aside their differences, they might survive an encounter
with the unknown in “The Fear,” the penultimate episode of the original The
Twilight Zone series, which airs as part of Syfy’s annual New Year’s Twilight
Zone marathon.
Trooper
Franklin thinks he is on a fool’s errand and Scott is the fool. The passive-aggressive
big-city snob reported seeing lights in sky, so he duly drives out to her cabin
to investigate. She is not very welcoming, until some mysterious force starts wreaking
havoc on electrical things. Then he finds a gigantic set of fingerprints on his
cruiser.
They
are about as archetypal as it gets (thanks to Jack and all), but you don’t see
a lot of giants in genre film or television. Of course, it sounds crazy, but
Serling’s script uses the idea of them in clever ways. Yet, what really makes
the episode stand out is the way Franklin and Scott come to an understanding and
put aside their kneejerk presumptions about each other.
Maybe you don't remember the part about the monster on the plane’s wing in
Randall Jarrell classic poem, “Death of a Ball Turret Gunner,” but surely its
implied in there someplace. Regardless, Maude Garrett will have to contend with
exactly that, as well as a number of Japanese Zeroes, when she hitches a ride
in the deadliest seat in a WWII B-17 Bomber for nearly the duration of Roseanne
Liang’s Shadow in the Cloud, which releases in theaters and on VOD this
Friday.
For
some reason, Women’s Auxiliary Flight Officer Garrett is determined to hitch on
ride with the crew of the “Fool’s Errand” making a supply run to New Zealand. Even
more important than her is the top-secret cargo in her dispatch box. The sexist
crew stash her in the ball turret and make demeaning sexual jokes over the open
comms, but they stop laughing a little when she bullseyes a Zero that
supposedly never would have flown out that far. However, they start dismissing
her again when she claims to see a gremlin-like monster sabotaging the engine.
Max
Landis and Liang (whose previous short film Do No Harm was the highlight
of the 2017 Sundance) cleverly riff on the jokey WWII lore blaming gremlins for
engine failure (they were sort of like the invisible “Not Me” in the old Family
Circus comic strip). You could think of it as Richard Matheson’s Nightmare
at 20,000 Feet adapted to a WWII setting, but Liang and Landis fully
develop the premise and consistently raise the stakes.
Liang
also deftly capitalizes on the confined space of the ball turret to create
tension. In many respects, Shadow is like Steven Knight’s Locke,
in which the car-bound Tom Hardy plays off numerous unseen voices over the
phone. In this case, the voices and personas of the B-17 crew-members are not
as clearly and distinctly established, but that sort of reinforces Garrett’s
perspective of alienation from the men above her.
This
is very inventive genre filmmaking, so we can forgive the over-the-top,
unbelievable excesses of the centerpiece action scene. Of course, it also helps
that the gremlin looks cool—and appropriately sinister. Unlike the various Twilight
Zone adaptations of Matheson’s story, Liang doesn’t tease us with the gremlin.
She gives us plenty of good looks at the nasty creature, who holds up to scrutiny,
thanks to some nifty design and effects work.
Hector Bebenco was born to Jewish immigrant parents in Argentina, but he
pursued a career in filmmaking after moving to Brazil. Occasionally, he still lapsed
into Sportuguese, but Brazil often embraced him as a representative of their
national cinema, with good reason. Nevertheless, Babecno often never really
felt like he wholly belonged in either Brazil or Argentina (even though the latter
is really just a Spanish-speaking colony of the former, at least as it has been
explained to me). Regardless, Brazil has made an unconventional but defensible
choice submitting his wife Barbara Paz’s documentary profile of her late
husband, Babenco: Tell Me When I Die, as their official international feature
Oscar contender (they used to call it the “foreign language” category).
Babenco
is still best known for his English-language productions, Ironweed, At Play
in the Fields of the Lord, and Kiss of the Spider Woman (for which he was nominated for best director), but his
final film could well be his most personal. My Hindu Friend thinly
fictionalized his own final days before succumbing to cancer and clearly serves
as a companion film to Paz’s doc. Its star, Willem Dafoe also served as a
producer of her documentary. Although she clearly had sharp editorial
differences with her subject, his aesthetic still informs each frame.
In
part, Paz’s film serves as an impressionistic survey of Babenco’s filmography,
but it also becomes a meditation on the act of dying. Somewhat, ironically,
Babenco had a great deal of time to organize his thoughts on mortality, because
he was first diagnosed with cancer during the shooting of At Play,
nearly thirty years ago (allowing him to fast-forward past at least three
Kubler-Ross stages).