She closed the show at the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival and continues to bring
down the house whenever Bert Stern’s Jazz on a Summer’s Day is screened.
The performing arts center in Louis Armstrong Park is named in her honor. That
was appropriate, because even though she was a gospel singer, there was still a
lot of NOLA soul in her voice. The legendary performer gets the bio-film treatment
with the awkwardly titled Robin Roberts Presents: Mahalia (seriously,
her name comes before Jackson’s), directed by Kenny Leon, which premieres this
Saturday on Lifetime.
As
a young child, Jackson’s strict aunt scares her off from joyously singing along
with the likes of Bessie Smith and Ma Rainey—and she would hew to the gospel straight-and-narrow
for the rest of her life (more or less). It took fame a while to catch up with
Jackson, because she did not seek it like secular performers. She also had a
questionable first husband, but when Studs Terkel played her debut on Apollo, the
indie specialty label, things started happening. During most of that time,
Mildred Falls was right there with her, dutifully accompanying Jackson on
piano.
Rather
oddly, RRP: Mahalia closes with the disclosure the Jackson estate did not
cooperate with the film’s production. It is hard to see what they might object
to. The screenplay, co-written by the late Bettina Gilois and Todd Kreidler is entirely
respectful. Sure, Jackson is sometimes depicted making mistakes and getting a
little lost, but humanity is flawed by its nature, right?
Regardless,
Danielle Brooks does quite well in the iconic lead role. The Tony-nominee for The
Color Purple has a big voice and bears a strong likeness to Jackson. She
also nicely projects her faith and dignity. Rob Demery is similarly credible playing
(and humanizing) another iconic figure, Jackson’s friend and spiritual advisor,
Dr. Martin Luther King. In fact, they have two scenes together directly
addressing the struggles of faith that are smarter and more honest than just
about any depiction of religion in film you could think of.
Like
her character, Olivia Washington is often shunted over to the corner portraying
Falls, but at least her presence gives viewers an appreciation for her playing
(someone like Chess Records really should have signed her as an instrumental
soloist). However, Jim Thorburn adds some sly energy as Terkel.
Nothing will get your lousy butt killed in the EC Comics that inspired the Creepshow
franchise faster than abusive behavior. That is particularly true when it
happens within families, but comeuppance comes just as surely in the workplace.
Viewers will see examples of both in the first episode of Creepshow’s second
season, which premieres Thursday on Shudder.
“Model
Kid,” directed by showrunner Greg Nicotero, is about as classically Creepshow
as you can get. Joe Aurora learned to love Universal-style monsters from
his loving, but ailing mother. Unfortunately, when she succumbs to cancer, he
is sent to live with his Uncle Kevin, who has contempt for nerd culture. The
poor kid is not given the time or space to grieve, but an advertisement in a Creepshow
comic book offers a sinister way to deal with his mean-spirited guardian.
The
elements of “Model Kid” are all very familiar, but the cool looking Mummy and
Gillman have their nostalgic appeal. Of course, the “Gillman” is what you call
a Creature from the Black Lagoon sort of character, without infringing on
Universal trademarks. There is indeed quite a bit of appealingly nostalgic
design work in the opening story, but John Esposito’s story itself is pretty
standard stuff and Nicotero fails to lean into its potential for catharsis.
However,
Nicotero kicks the season premiere into high gear with the wickedly funny “Public
Television of the Dead.” It is Pittsburgh, 1972. The local PBS affiliate’s top
show, Mrs. Bookberry’s Magical Library, is poised to breakout nationally,
but the awful co-host is determined to have the time-slot currently held by Norm
Roberts’ Bob Ross-style painting show. Roberts is a Viet Nam vet, who has found
inner peace through paint, but he has the survival skills his station manager
and producer are going to need. Things are about to get Evil Dead-ish
when Ted Raimi, playing himself, brings a certain book to the station’s antique
appraisal show.
Rob
Schrab’s mash up of pledge drives, Mister Rodgers, and The Evil Dead is
laugh out loud funny and the gory effects make a worthy homage. Plus, the pitch-perfect
period details totally scream 1970s public television. Mark Ashworth channels
Ross in a way that is both sympathetic and completely nutty. Todd Allen Durkin
and Marisa Hampton also provide solid comedic support, while keeping things as
grounded as possible, playing George the producer and Claudia Aberlan, the
station manager.
The NEA better hurry the heck up and recognize 93-year-old Doc Severinsen as
a NEA Jazz Master. His jazz credentials are impeccable, having played and
recorded with the likes of Gerry Mulligan, Charlie Barnett, Chris Connor, Dizzy
Gillespie, Tito Puente, Toshiko Akiyoshi, Milt Jackson, and Stan Getz. Of
course, he is best known for leading the Tonight Show Orchestra, but perversely,
that level of success and exposure always generates jealousy and skepticism in
the jazz world. Doubters should hear the active Severinsen continue to hit his
high notes in Kevin Bright & Jeff Consiglio’s Never Too Late: The Doc
Severinsen Story, which premieres this Friday as part of the current season
of American Masters on PBS.
Severinsen
became famous when he was promoted from first chair of the Tonight Show band
to the leader, but he had already played on legions of studio sessions and dozens
of legit jazz records. “Stump the band” developed as a regular thing during his
tenure. Thanks to his outgoing personality and flamboyant wardrobe, he was as
recognizable as Johnny Carson or his co-host sidekick, Ed McMahon. He and
Carson could also humorously commiserate over their multiple divorces.
Severinsen
also toured regularly with the Tonight Show band. Again, jazz fans might
have forgotten how talented they were. Even irregular watchers should remember
Ed Shaughnessy on drums, but the ranks also included musicians like Ernie Watts
(who appears in Never Too Late) and Bill Perkins. (If you insist on
associating Severinsen with some of the lounge-ish sessions he played on, keep
in mind fellow trumpeter Arturo Sandoval pays tribute to him throughout the
doc.) It will sort of blow the minds of Gen X’ers and older, but it has nearly
been thirty years since Carson (and Severinsen) left the tonight show—almost as
long as their run on the late-night staple. Yet, Severinsen never stopped touring
and conducting master classes.
In
fact, one of the coolest aspects of Bright & Consiglio’s film is the
attention they give to the commitment required to play trumpet at a
professional level. We see the hours the ninetysomething Severinsen still puts
in at the gym strengthening his core. Of course, that is on top of the hours he
dutifully spends woodshedding.
Every hostage negotiator in movies and TV follows the model of Kevin Spacey in
The Negotiator. They want to just keep talking and talking. Of course,
the show would be over prematurely if they said: “I’m not feeling it here, let’s
just send in SWAT.” Needless to say, FBI negotiator Gretchen Blair is a talker,
who clashes with her guns-blazin’ boss. That gets her reassigned to a DC desk
job, but to get there, she catches a flight loaded with hijackers in Alex
Merkin’s Altitude, which airs soon on Charge TV.
Blair
will be our John McClane for tonight. She was supposed to start the film in
coach, but when she went-off on a gross row-mate, the impressed flight
attendant bumped her up to business class. That is where she meets the
relentlessly flirty Terry, who first offers to take her to Paris and then
offers her a whole lot of money to keep him alive. Much to his alarm, he
notices several of his former criminal associates boarding the plane. It turns
out they double-crossed him first, but he still got away with all their loot.
Naturally,
they want it back and they are perfectly willing to kill all souls aboard to do
it. Their leader, Matthew Sharpe, is just the sort of mechanical whiz who has
all the necessary skills. His trusted lieutenant Sadie (Terry’s ex) is
sufficiently psychotic to make sure it happens. However, they did not
anticipate a Fed like Blair being on-board, even though she was forced to check
her side arm, after her status was down-graded.
Yes,
this is basically another Dolph Lundgren VOD movie, but this time around he
plays the villain—and he doesn’t even get much screen time, because rough,
tough Sharpe spends most of the film locked in the cockpit. Instead, Denise
Richards is the lead. Believe it or not, she makes a pretty engaging action
protag, despite the limitations of the script and budget. She shows enough
backbone and action cred to make us want to see her get another chance to star
in a better constructed Die Hard clone.
In 1957, Gary Crosby released a very nice album of big band jazz vocals arranged
and conducted by the great Bud Shank. Judging from how rarely you see it turn
up in record stores, it probably didn’t sell very well. However, Crosby had
several hits during his career, but they were mostly duets with his famous
father, Bing. That would be the same Bing Crosby whose abusive treatment was
the exposed in his son’s infamous tell-all memoir. In retrospect, the late
Crosby son is considered a rather tragically sad figure, which makes his
appearance in The Twilight Zone even more poignant. As ill-fate dictates,
the song-hunting rockabilly singer he plays does not find the hit he is looking
for in “Come Wander with Me,” airing tomorrow morning on Syfy.
You
can smell Floyd “The Rock-A-Billy Kid” Burney’s desperation. His career might
have held promise once, but he is seriously scuffling now. Hoping to emulate
the success of others, Burney is scouring Appalachia in search of unrecorded
(and uncopyrighted) folk songs that have a hooky, archetypal appeal. Of course,
the proprietor of mist-shrouded general store is not very welcoming. The
tombstone with his name inscribed on it is even more ominous, but Burney never
sees it.
He
is more interested in the waifish Mary Rachel, who is singing “Come Wander with
Me,” a wistful ballad that sounds just like what the doctor ordered for Burney.
He does not recognize her, but she thinks they are lovers—and their affair is
doomed to end violently, because it always has before.
Arguably,
“Wander” earns significant bragging rights an early forerunner of the time-loop
genre, but writer Anthony Wilson does not emphasize its implied cyclical nature.
Instead, director Richard Donner (famous for Superman and Lethal
Weapon) invests the proceeding with an unearthly vibe, evocative of
purgatory or an even less desirable post-death destination. This is maybe the
most twilight-like atmosphere ever seen in The Twilight Zone. It
is all very eerie and even more melancholy. Perhaps the fact this was the final
episode produced of the original series (but the third to last broadcast as
part of the final season) somehow further heightened the elegiac feeling.
Parents of "problem children" with severe mood swings and behavioral issues could
very well feel like they are raising werewolves. Leave it to Blumhouse to take
the metaphor to its most macabre extreme. Esme’s son Luna (notice his name) is
a good kid, except for one night out of every month. However, the devoted
mother will do whatever it takes to protect Luna and his secret in Emma Tammi’s
Blood Moon, the season conclusion of Blumhouse’s Into the Dark, which
premieres today on Hulu.
Luna
can be a handful, but it isn’t his fault. He inherited his lycanthropy from his
father. Esme tries not to talk about him much. Instead, she does her best to
home-school Luna, while constantly moving from one remote southwestern town to another.
She has strict rules to prevent the outside world from discovering Luna’s therianthropic
nature, but he understandably yearns for a more normal life. It is hard for her
to get by, but Miguel, the sympathetic hardware store owner, is willing to
offer her credit. Unfortunately, she also attracts the attention of the local harassment-inclined
sheriff.
Frankly,
Blood Moon is so realistic, both emotionally and aesthetically, it arguably
does not even feel like part of the horror genre. This is nothing like the Howling
direct-to-DVD sequels (which might disappoint some werewolf fans). However,
Tammi’s execution is impressively tight and economical. Maternally-themed
horror is becoming her thing, but Blood Moon is fresher and more fully
developed than her prior Into the Dark film, Delivered.
The Bank of Spain’s celebrated subterranean flooding vault has a reputation
for impenetrability, but it has been breached twice by the Spanish
entertainment industry. The first time came during the second season of Netflix’s
Money Heist. This English-language co-production is the second. Shrewdly,
the team of “salvagers” plans to use Spain’s 2010 World Cup run as a
distraction (most Spaniards would gladly trade national treasure for a Cup),
but surviving the flooding waters will still be quite a trick in Jaume
Balaguero’s The Vault, which releases tomorrow in theaters and
on-demand.
Walter
Moreland went to great trouble and expense to “salvage” one of Sir Francis
Drake old shipwrecks, but the Spanish authorities swoop in at the last minute
to confiscate his booty. Drake plundered it from Spain and his ship sank in
Spain’s waters, but the old scoundrel believes his sweat equity gives him a
morally superior claim. The good news is they do not fully understand what they
have yet. The bad news is the stashed it in the Bank of Spain’s underground vault.
For
his crew, Moreland recruits his chameleon-like god-daughter, a former British
special forces SCUBA daredevil, a local scrounger, and your all-purpose hacker,
but he needs Thom Laybrick’s brain to solve his big technical problems, both
the expected and the unforeseen. Fortunately, the genius university student
needs a challenge to stave off boredom. He is also clearly interested in
Lorraine, the master-of-disguise pickpocket.
Balaguero
is best known for horror films like the [REC] franchise and Sleep Tight, so it maybe figures that Vault gets considerably darker than
the typical caper movie. There comes a point when things look ultra-grim for salvage
team, but that helps distinguish it from the pack. The heist itself is also pretty
impressive and the bank’s vault and subbasements look unusually big and
cinematic.
What's the fastest way to get to the Twilight Zone, “The Further” from Insidious,
or some other sort of nightmare realm in a horror film? Book an Uber. These
days, driving for an app is like skinny-dipping in vintage 1980s slashers, but
much less fun. There has already been plenty of ride-share horror before, but screenwriter-director
Michael Nader navigates an interesting and macabre detour for genre fans in The
Toll, which opens in theaters and on-demand this Friday.
After
a rough, long-delayed flight, Cami confirms an airport pick-up from Spencer.
She is paranoid about ride-share drivers and he is similarly skittish when it
comes to potential customers, so they are already a badly matched pair.
Nevertheless, his pressure-of-speech keeps him babbling, while her exhaustion
and standoffishness make her sound dismissive. As a result, there is not a lot
of rapport there, even before things take a massively sinister turn.
Ominously,
Spencer’s GPS takes them down a lonely stretch of road, where the car suddenly
dies. No matter how far they walk in either direction, they always end up at his
broken-down car again. However, there are sketchy signs pointing towards a
detour path, but they warn the “Toll Man” must be paid his due.
Usually,
stranded-in-the-woods movies go in a Wrong Turn, angry locals, slasher
kind of direction, but Toll is much more ambitious. We probably never really
see the Toll Man, per se, but what he shows us of Cami and Spencer’s
subconscious is far scarier than most bogeymen. The nightmare visions and
flashbacks he conjures up are impressively rendered and pretty darn intense.
Ambassador Henrik Kauffmann hoped to be something like a Danish Henry Adams, representing
his government-in-exile in DC. However, when the government failed to exile
itself, he basically assumed that role—and it was a good thing he did.
Kauffmann’s extraordinary diplomatic career is the focus of Christina Rosendahl’s
The Good Traitor, which opens this Friday in theaters and on VOD.
The
Hon. Kauffmann was a natural ambassador, because he and his wife Charlotte
always enjoyed entertaining. Unlike many of his Foreign Service colleagues,
Kauffmann also readily identified the looming National Socialist threat. He
tried to leverage his well-heeled wife’s family connections to the Roosevelts,
but FDR will not give him the assurances he is looking for.
Unfortunately,
the German invasion happens sooner than even Kauffmann or his hawkish deputy
Povl Bang-Jensen expected. In an even worse development, the Danish government
remains in place to negotiate compliant terms for the occupation. Horrified by their
collaboration, Kauffmann essentially declares his diplomatic mission the
highest functioning branch of the free, independent Danish government. Several
important embassies back him up, but he really needs Roosevelt to recognize him,
especially when the compromised government proclaims him a traitor.
Kauffmann’s
cowboy diplomacy makes for a ripping good yarn, which has the added advantage
of being completely true. The chutzpah is awe-inspiring, but it was all for a
just cause. Far less interesting is Kauffmann’s torch-carrying for his sister-in-law
and his wife’s boozy, jealous resentment. Regardless, it is nice to see Bang-Jensen
get his due as well. Frankly, Kauffmann’s colleague deserves a film of his own,
focusing on his tenure at the UN, where he refused to reveal the names of Hungarian
Revolution witnesses to his organization, to protect their relatives behind the
Iron Curtain. He was found dead, "under mysterious circumstances,” shortly
thereafter.
You might think Ironman’s longtime association with the superlative “Invincible”
would preclude other superheroes from using it, but you can’t trademark a
commonly used word. Besides, Mark Grayson and his super alter-ego were
published by Image Comics, independent of the Marvel Universe. “Invincible”
seemed like a good name to him when he received his powers, but his early
outings as costumed superhero suggest he is anything but in creators Robert
Kirkman, Ryan Ottley, and Cory Walker’s Invincible, the new animated
series based on their popular comic book, which premieres this Friday on Amazon
Prime.
Most
kids idolize the Avengers-like Guardians of the Globe, but Mark Grayson is a
bigger fan of their independent ally, Omni-Man, because that is his dad. He
currently goes by the alias Nolan Grayson, but Omni-Man is an alien from the
world of Viltrumite. Mark is a late-bloomer, whose powers just kicked in, but
he seems to be able to fly as well as take and give super beat-downs. He is not
quite Ralph Hinkley, but he is still a little unsteady when exercising his
powers.
Unfortunately,
Mark, a.k.a. Invincible, is about to be thrown into the deep end when a huge
franchise-shaking event sidelines the Guardians and his father. At least the
Teen Team is willing to temporarily team-up with him, especially Atom Eve, who in
her civilian life, happens to attend Grayson’s high school, as the popular
Samantha Eve Wilkins.
Based
on the three episodes Amazon supplied to reviewers, it is pretty clear why Invincible
has been one of Image’s marquee titles. It clearly tweaks the tropes of
superhero comics just enough to be subversive, while staying true to the conventions
that attract fans to the genre in the first place. Invincible is likely
to be compared to The Boys, because it also features incidents of
shockingly graphic violence. However, Invincible has none of its Amazon
stablemate’s jaded cynicism. In fact, Mark Grayson is more closely akin to
vintage Peter Parker, in the way he struggles to balance his teen angst with superhero
responsibilities.
The
colorful and dynamic animation also hits the right notes. Arguably, it is two
or three degrees superior to the quality of old school Saturday morning
superhero cartoons, but not so far-removed fans won’t get a nostalgic fix from
it. Kirkman, Ottley, Walker, and co-writer Simon Racioppa tell a good story and
fill it with intriguing fantastical characters. The big-name voice cast mostly
does them justice, especially J.K. Simmons, who dips into his snarky Whiplash
and authoritative Farmers Insurance bags for the commanding tones of Omni-Man
(and Nolan Grayson).
Augusta Victoria College in Bexhill-on-Sea was the sort of finishing school
Oswald Mosley could get behind. Eventually, it became a temporary war hospital,
but throughout the 1930s, it specialized in educating the daughters of the
National Socialist elite. It sounds like the sort of place British Intelligence
should have kept a close eye on, so it is a good thing deep plant [Captain]
Thomas Miller has accepted a teaching post there. His teenaged charges might
not look dangerous, but the violent fate of his undercover predecessor suggests
otherwise in Andy Goddard’s Six Minutes to Midnight, which releases in
theaters and on-demand this Friday.
Headmistress
Rocholl is not overwhelmed by Miller, but his mother was German, so his Deutsch
fluency certainly helps. Initially, Miller’s fellow teacher, Ilse Keller, is
far more welcoming, but she also acts considerably more suspiciously. Fortunately,
the students are fairly accepting of Miller, despite their general Stepford-like
demeanor, with the exception of Gretel, the sensitive outsider.
Goddard
and his co-scripting co-stars, Eddie Izzard and Celyn Jones do a nice job of
recapturing the vibe of vintage John Buchan thrillers, especially when Miller
is falsely suspected of murder and forced to flee across the British countryside.
The late 1930’s end-of-appeasement era also adds an intriguing (and
uncomfortably timely) dimension to the 39 Steps-like intrigue.
Barney Kessel was such a talented jazz guitarist, he could even take the
hippy-dippy music of Hair and make it sound interesting on his album, Hair
is Beautiful. For him, swinging Fred Steiner’s “Park Avenue Beat,” the
iconic Perry Mason theme was no problem. Kessel did exactly that as a
guest star and guest arranger in “The Case of the Missing Melody,” which airs
Monday night on Me TV.
Mason
and Della Street are attending a surprisingly cool wedding, but the father of
the bride looks none too thrilled about his daughter’s prospective marriage to
jazz musician Eddy King. Regardless, the trio’s hip rendition of “Here Comes
the Bride” sounds great. Unfortunately, they won’t get a chance to groove on “The
Wedding March” yet, because the ceremony is cut short by the bride, after she
receives a dirty blackmailer’s threatening note.
Although
he was originally at the ceremony as a friend of the well-heeled bride’s
family, Mason soon agrees to represent King when the blackmailer inevitably
winds up dead. Of course, he wants to protect the Courtland family secrets as
well, at least as best as he can. However, King’s bandmates, vocalist Jonny
Baker (played by the Julliard-schooled Constance Towers) and percussionist
Bongo White (portrayed by Bobby Troup, the pop-jazz singer-piano-player, who
married Julie London) are obviously deeply embroiled in the whole affair, as
well.
Frankly,
the first act of “Missing Melody” is a little slow out of the gate. Weirdly, it
takes almost twenty minutes to get to the murder. However, Kessel (who is credited
with all the incidental music between the opening and closing credits) keeps
the episode lively with his interpretations of traditional wedding music and
the classic Perry Mason theme. In fact, they sound so good, it is too
bad he did not do a whole Perry Mason/Wedding album. He also arranges
and ghost-led the Eddy King band backing up Baker/Towers on “The Thrill is Gone”
and “The Man I Love,” which are nice too, in a 1960s big band kind of way.
He is the cowboy most famous for leaving, but this short-lived TV series
was all about him finding reasons to stay. This is sort of the Shane of Jack
Schaefer’s novel and George Stevens’ classic film, but younger—and also
somewhat more remorseful. It was far from a hit in 1966, but Shane lives
on in reruns on getTV, where the first three episodes will soon be airing.
Shane
was one of the deadliest gunslingers ever, but he accepted a position as a farm
hand with the Starrett family. Obviously, the widowed Marian Starrett was
another motivation, but it is her naïve son Joey who truly adores Shane. Wyoming
cattle baron Rufe Ryker is not so enamored with the hired-gun turned
hired-hand, but he probably understands Shane better than the Starretts. Nevertheless,
Shane consistently sides against the old school cattleman in his campaign to
chase out the recently arrived homesteading “sod-busters,” like the Starretts.
The
battle turns particularly nasty in the first episode, “The Distant Bell,” in which
Ryker does his best to sabotage the settlers plan to build a school in town.
Naturally, he opposes anything that would build a sense of permanent community,
but Shane believes the local kids deserve a chance to get the education he
never had.
“Bell”
is a good example of one Shane’s primary themes—the evolution of the frontier
from a wild land of opportunity to more settled and regulated communities. In
fact, the series is not wholly unsympathetic to Ryker (even though there it
sometimes stokes suspicions he might have been complicit in the death of
Starrett’s husband). Veteran character actor Burt Freed’s work as Ryker is
consistently one of the best things about the series, starting right from the
pilot.
The
other major theme of Shane is the guilt the title character carries from
the sins of his past. The conflicted Shane wants atonement, but it is still in
his nature to keep moving, much like a shark. That inner turmoil is brought
front-and-center in the second episode, “The Hant,” wherein the grieving father
of a man Shane killed during the height of his gunslinging days starts haunting
him, like a spirit. He is a sad ghost, rather than an angry one, nicely played
by John Qualen, but that rather makes it worse for Shane.
Both
themes converge in “The Wild Geese,” whose instinctive migration habits clearly
serve as a metaphor for Shane’s own impulses. Once again, Ryker is hoping to
drive out the Starretts, but this time it just might work. With no paycheck
coming, Shane reluctantly agrees to sign up with an old associate hiring guns
for range war in Canada, hoping to use his fee to shore up the struggling
Starrett farm, but the widow Marian refuses to accept any blood money.
Shane
episodes
are moodier than typical TV oaters, but they usually build towards a legit western
climax (the one in “Bell” is especially well executed). As Shane, the weirdly
young-looking David Carradine is solid brooder and he already had respectable
action chops. (Arguably, westerns were his second most identifiable genre after
martial arts, with Kung Fu qualifying as both). He also has some
ambiguously suggestive chemistry with Jill Ireland’s Marian Starrett (she was
already seeing Charles Bronson at this point, so you can figure the strong,
silent Shane was her type.)
How much is a name worth? In the case of gothic children-in-jeopardy
novelist V.C. Andrews, the I.R.S. determined her name was worth $1.2 million.
That came as quite a surprise to her estate, but they got their tax liabilities’
worth by releasing dozens of subsequent ghost-written novels under her million-dollar
moniker. The Landry novels were amongst them. They were totally the work
of Andrew Neiderman (previously known as the author of The Devil’s Advocate),
whereas Andrews’ involvement was literally in name only. Fans never seemed to
mind, so Lifetime has continued their Andrews program with Ruby, the
first of four Landry TV movies, which premieres tomorrow on the network.
Within
the first twelve minutes of Ruby, the sensitive title character learns
Paul Tate, her high school love, is actually her secret brother and she has a
well-heeled twin sister in New Orleans, who was whisked away by their tomcatting
father to placate his barren and snobby wife. So yes, Ruby is totally
on-brand. After the death of her beloved Grandmere, Landry’s drunken Grandpere
tries to sell her chastity to an old bayou perv, so she runs off to NOLA to
find the father she never knew.
Guilt-ridden
Pierre Dumas is thrilled to welcome her into the family, but Ruby’s new twin
sister Giselle and “mother” Daphne are somewhat less than overjoyed. Frankly,
they are both real pills. Nevertheless, Ruby Dumas will do her best to navigate
her new life of family secrets, crazy relatives, and voodoo.
Admittedly,
Ruby is only getting started with the Landry/Dumas saga, but we have
already seen enough. The melodrama is cheesy and the performances verge on
self-parody. Honestly, it is hard to imagine sitting through more. Maybe, we’ll
try the final film too, Hidden Jewel, to cover the quartet high school
style—just the beginning and the end—but no promises.
Hoplophobia is an irrational fear of guns that afflicts far too many politicians.
Ephebiphobia is the fear of teenagers, which is hard to ever dismiss as
irrational. A good case of ephebiphobia ought to be enough to overcome anyone’s
hoplophobia, but the sinister conspiracy in this braided anthology film is not
seeking to cure anybody’s fears. Instead, they seek to weaponize fear in Phobias,
executive produced by the Radio Silence filmmaking team, which releases tomorrow
in theaters and on VOD.
Poor
Johnny is the sole support of his ailing father in Joe Sill’s “Robophobia” (the
fear of robots), but the bigoted lowlifes of his skid row neighborhood still
pick on him mercilessly. Then one day, he is “befriended” by a rogue AI that
downloads itself into his ear and starts to fight back for him. Unfortunately,
it doesn’t know when to stop.
We
next see Johnny after he has been whisked away to some kind of black-site research
facility in Jess Varley’s interstitial “Outpost 37” segments. There he will
meet some very damaged people, who have done some terrible things out of fear
(and some whose fears were well justified).
Sami
is one of them. She should have been more frightened of driving, before she committed
vehicular violence in Maritte Lee Go’s “Vehophobia.” Granted, it is sort of
quick riff on Christine, but it is creepy, thanks to some clever use of music
and sound. Hana Mae Lee (of the Pitch Perfect franchise) is also
terrific as the EC Comics-style protag.
Chris
von Hoffman’s student-teacher home invasion horror story, “Ephebiphobia” is
probably the darkest and tensest of the fearful tales. Yet, in some ways, it
really doesn’t fit with the rest. The unfortunate teacher has made some
mistakes in her life, but she is victim, not the aggressor. She deserves to
wind up in Outpost 37 even less than woeful Johnny.
The
single-mother cop in Camille Belle’s “Hoplophobia” is not wholly unsympathetic
either, but her guilt and paranoia have terrible consequences, especially for
her. Frankly, there is nothing entertaining about this fearful tale. It is just
sort of sad.
Aretha Franklin's first charting hit was with Ray Bryant and his hard-driving
left hand. Columbia was trying to make her into a jazz vocalist, but Jerry
Wexler at Atlantic saw her as a soul singer all the way. Alas, Bryant does not appear
in the first episode, but viewers immediately get to dive into her notorious
first session at Muscle Shoals’ FAME Studios when Genius: Aretha premieres
this Sunday on Nat Geo.
She
was known for her R&B chops and gospel roots, but she needed a hit in 1967.
Wexler thought there would be hits to be had by letting Franklin be Franklin
and one of the best places to do that would be Muscle Shoals, where he recorded
a monster hit for Wilson Pickett. That is the sound Franklin wanted, but she
did not know it came from a white rhythm section. Franklin eventually warms to
the Swampers, but her disruptive, freeloading manager-husband Ted White does
not.
It
is hard for Franklin to watch White sabotage her comeback session, especially
when she remembers where she came from. We see those scenes in black-and-white.
Ironically, her talents were enthusiastically encouraged by her highly
problematic father, the Rev. C.L. Franklin, who had a national following for
his fiery, politically-charged sermons. At her father’s parties, she met and
was encouraged by the likes of Dinah Washington and Art Tatum (played by Robert
Glasper). That was also how she met White, much to her later regret.
For
real jazz listeners, the best part about the initial episode is the smart way it
features the music and depicts the musicians. Cynthia Erivo is spot-on channeling
Franklin’s voice and presence. Likewise, Glasper is an eerie dead-ringer for
Tatum (who might not be an obvious choice to include in the Aretha Franklin
story). It is also nice to see King Curtis (Marque Richardson is another good
likeness), considering how much his solos contributed to Franklin’s hits. Technically,
he was more of a jump blues-R&B musician, but he is starting to sound more
and more like jazz these days.
This could be the worst Groundhog’s Day camping trip ever. Yet, as bad as it
is for Tobias and Elin to be repeatedly brutalized and murdered by a sadistic
band of sideshow performers, the grieving couple’s not-so-passive, more-often-aggressive
mutual resentment and hostility is probably harder to watch. Time loops reach
their maximum level of uncomfortableness in Johannes Nyholm’s Koko-di, Koko-da,
which premieres tomorrow on Shudder.
Elin
and Tobias were once happily married—until the unexpected, freak death of their
daughter Maja. Three years later, they are still together, but definitely not
happily so. This ill-considered camping trip was supposed to be a chance to
heal their marriage, but the constant arguing and recriminations suggest it is
too late. Suddenly, a creepy ringmaster-like character in a white suit (the credits
call him “Mog”), a strong man, a psycho woman, and their rabid dog beat, bite,
and kill Elin when she steps out of the tent for a nature call, before moving
on to Tobias. Then Tobias wakes up from the nightmare, minutes before the
attack, knowing full well it is about to happen again—and again.
Koko-di,
Koko-da (which
takes its title from the unsettling earworm refrain Mog sings) is a dark,
uncompromising film, but beneath the surface cruelty, there is a deep,
humanistic empathy for everyone who has endured heartbreaking trauma. Any
parent would much rather endure the brutality of the sideshow gang, rather than
lose a child.
That
still doesn’t necessarily make some of its scenes any easier to watch.
Nevertheless, Nyholm has an extraordinarily keen eye for visuals, especially
the two expressionistic interludes featuring paper cut-out puppetry. Clearly,
this is nothing like your typical killers-in-the-woods horror movie. In fact,
it is debatable whether Koko-di, Koko-da, really is a horror movie, even
though it is often quite horrific.
Liam Neeson has less fear and more intestinal fortitude than James Bond or
Black Widow. That is because he has opened not one, but two films theatrically
during the Covid era. This time around, he still plays to his Taken-style
strengths, but also acts his late-60s age in Robert Lorenz’s The Marksman,
which is actually playing in brick & mortar New York City theaters.
Jim
Hanson was a crack Marine Corps sharpshooter, but that was long ago, during Viet
Nam. Most of his life, he was a productive rancher near the Mexican border.
Sadly, the love of his life passed away several years ago, after a protracted
struggle with cancer. As a result, his Arizona ranch is on the verge of
foreclosure. That means he does not have much left to lose.
You
can literally see the border from his property, so Hanson is often in contact
with the Border Patrol—especially since his grown step-daughter also works for
Immigration. One day, he catches Rosa and her young son Miguel, fleeing a
vicious Mexican drug cartel through his property. Of course, Hanson cannot help
getting involved. After the mother is fatally wounded in a shootout, Hanson reluctantly
resolves to take Miguel to his family in Chicago, protecting him from the
cartel during their journey. The ruthless Maurico will be hot on their heels,
eager to avenge the brother Hanson plugged in the desert.
Basically,
The Marksman is equal parts Gran Torino and Rambo: Last Blood,
which works pretty effectively, just like it probably sounds. This is Neeson at
his most weathered and world-weary, but he is still ultra-steely and hardnosed.
The Eastwood vibe is no coincidence, considering Lorenz co-produced many Eastwood
films (including Gran Torino) and directed him in his helming debut, Trouble
with the Curve. The screenplay, co-written by Lorenz, Chris Charles &
Danny Kravitz is mostly a straight-forward action road story, but Neeson has
the gravitas to sell it and the chops to propel it.
Neeson
really is terrific in the lead, but Juan Pablo Raba offers a surprisingly
strong counterbalance, as the antagonist, Maurico. It is a chilling
performance, but he also conveys hints of the scarred little boy that evolved
into a sociopathic monster. He engenders understanding for the devil, if not
sympathy, per se.
It is sort of like “Sorry, Wrong Number” for fans of Tenet. Thanks to
a strange quantum physics anomaly, people have been getting phone calls from
different time periods—in some cases from themselves. Unfortunately, whenever
someone tries to alter their timeline, the universe fights back, usually in a
rather vicious way. The concept is high but the visuals are minimal in creator-director’s
Fede Alvarez’s Calls (based on the French series created by Timothee
Hochet), which premieres this Friday on Apple TV+.
Supposedly,
Calls starts with the ending—the cataclysmic doomsday end—and then
flashes back to the beginning, before filling in the middle with the subsequent
seven episodes—except maybe not. There might be a handful of people smart
enough to figure what is happening to our plane of reality in time to stop it.
Of course, there are those who will try to take advantage of the quantum anomaly
to reverse horrible personal tragedies, but these rarely work out well.
Indeed,
Calls is an unusually dark and moody science fiction series. Several
episodes, like “Me, Myself, and Darlene,” “The Universe Did It,” and “Mom” are
downright downers (the former two being the most poignant and effective).
Ironically, the best episode, “Pedro Across the Street,” is a total outlier,
due to its humorous tone and the fact the quantum phone call doesn’t even
happen in the episode (it is only referenced by the character who called
himself).
Stylistically,
Calls is more closely akin to a podcast than a television show, because
the only visuals are the audio waves and static representing the phone calls heard
during each episode. Basically, the viewing experience is like watching the
spectrum analyzer on your stereo. (As a point of contrast, Shudder’s terrific
podcast Video Palace created a much more intriguing visual loop for its
creepy tale of insidious video tapes.) However, the way Alvarez keeps dropping
hints about the greater quantum mystery afoot keeps us sufficiently hooked.
There has already been a “Die Hard on a train,” so that must make this “Under
Siege II in the Chunnel,” naturally with a British accent. Fortunately,
when a rogue mercenary outfit takes a Paris-bound train hostage, a
highly-skilled SAS commando also happens to be on-board. Tom Buckingham is
determined to bring them down and protect his [hopefully future] fiancée in
Magnus Martens’ SAS: Red Notice, adapted from Andy McNab’s novel, which
releases this Tuesday on-demand.
Tom
Buckingham is a blue blood more in the tradition of Elizabeth than Harry.
Despite his vast estates, he believes in doing his duty for queen and country
as a member of Special Air Service (SAS) counter-terrorism force. When his
country calls, he hauls, even if that means leaving behind the
not-always-so-understanding Dr. Sophie Hart. They are very different people,
but he still intends to propose in Paris, after completing his mostly
successful mission against the so-called “Black Swans.”
William
Lewis’ Swans were caught on cell-phone video torching a Georgian Republic
village to make way for a Britgaz pipeline. Of course, the British PM and his
deep-state military advisor George Clements hired them for the job, but they
publicly disavow all knowledge. The SAS executed a Red Notice on the Swans, but
they did not secure Lewis’s daughter and presumptive successor Grace, or her thuggish
brother (and pseudo-rival) Olly. No mere loose ends, the Lewis siblings take
over the Chunnel train as part of a complicated plot to embarrass the PM and
avenge their father, but they didn’t anticipate interference from a “player”
like Buckingham.
So,
in less than six months, Ruby Rose has gone from playing the Die Hard-style
hero in The Doorman to playing the Die Hard villain in Red
Notice. She chews the scenery serviceably as Grace Lewis, but she still can’t
match the great Tom Wilkinson’s slyness as Papa Black Swan.
The Ostan Harte is like an Irish Fawlty Towers, but it is more run-down and
less welcoming. For years, Grace Harte wanted to renovate, but her husband Leo
and his domineering mother were happy with how things were. However, succumbing
to the temptations of infidelity after her mother-in-law dies, leads to
dramatic noir consequences for the title character in creator-writer Antoine O
Flatharta’s Gaelic-language Grace Harte, premiering this coming Tuesday on MHz.
Hotel
Harte is closing for the season, just like they always do. Sadly, it will be
Madame Harte final season ever. Grace figures this is the time to finally modernize
the premises, but Leo lashes out and closes down whenever she broaches the
subject. That in turn drives her into the arms of Danny McDonagh a young
surf-bum with a dodgy past. Pretty soon, McDonagh starts making suspiciously
vague offers to “help” Harte with her husband problems. As Leo’s jealousy escalates,
Harte leaves an ill-advised voice message asking just what he might have in mind.
Without
consulting with Harte, McDonagh seizes an opportunity to take care of her
husband permanently—or so he thinks. Keep in mind, the body is not immediately
recovered. Nevertheless, Harte is ready to move on. She is unaware of whatever
McDonagh did or did not do, but the media frenzy surrounding her husband’s
disappearance is exhausting.
Filmed
in an arresting black-and-white, Grace Harte looks even more noir than
it is. In terms of genre and tone, it sits in an interesting place nestled
somewhere between The Postman Always Rings Twice and the stormy Richard
Gere infidelity drama Unfaithful (remade from a Claude Chabrol
original). Visually, GH is about as cinematic as TV gets, thanks to the
windswept coastal landscapes and Dave Grennan’s distinctive cinematography, which
serve them so well. You can easily see why people here might go a little crazy.
South Africa has become a popular location for international productions,
because of its financial incentives and pool of skilled, English-speaking crew
talent. However, the nation still faces a high crime rate and a beleaguered, under-paid
police force. That makes it the perfect setting for a special 3-episode “getaway”
season for popular wise-cracking British coppers Ronnie Pike and Aaron Bishop. They
came for a vacation, but stay to rescue a kidnapped girl in Bulletproof:
South Africa, which premieres Monday night on the CW.
Pike
finally booked a well-deserved vacation with his wife Arjana and their two daughters—and
naturally his partner is tagging along. Bishop is like family, even if the
orphaned cop has trouble dealing with that concept. They have a couple pieces
of police business to finish before leaving in episode one, which are notably accompanied
by Nina Simone’s urgent “Sinnerman.” Of course, they think they can relax once
they hit the beach, but viewers know better. The Pikes are happy to see their
daughters befriending young Kayla, so they are just as shocked as her parents
when she is abducted from the ice cream stand.
It
turns out Kayla’s father William works for a De Beers-like gem consortium.
Somehow, the kidnappers know his company will be processing a shipment of
ultra-rare rubies, so they want him to intercept them, to exchange for his
daughter. They strictly warn him not to tell the police and nobody has much
confidence in them anyway. However, Bishop and Pike agree to launch their own
loose cannon investigation.
The
Bulletproof franchise never denied its debt of inspiration to Lethal
Weapon and they even tip their hat to genre-defining buddy-cop movie in
episode one. Maybe it is not blindingly original, but it does what it does very
well indeed. The gibes are sharp and the action sequences are big and loud. It
has all the elements and they come at viewers fast-and-furious, so to speak.
This is a Cain and Abel sibling story, told by a brother-and-sister
filmmaking team. It also incorporates a whole lot of martial arts and some mild
fantastical elements. Jian Huang is a highly skilled fighter who also has the
gift of second sight. That certainly makes him sound formidable, but the same
was true of his somewhat estranged brother, who just died under mysterious
circumstances. Huang will uncover the bad guys behind his murder with the
reluctant help of a LAPD detective in Ken & Livi Zheng’s Insight,
which releases today on VOD.
Much
to their bafflement. Detectives Abby Lerner and Carl Stevens have been pulled
off a high-profile kidnapping case to greet Huang at the airport. Evidently,
Huang has powerful friends in the Federal government, because of his work as a
Jack Bauer-style counter-terrorism agent. His brother used to serve in the same
agency, before he left for a job in Vortex, the tech company owned by the
villainous Wallace Jackson. Initially, his brother’s death looked like suicide,
but his visions clearly tell a different, homicidal story—one that deeply
implicates Vortex.
Lerner
was pretty put-out when she was ordered to escort Huang—and even more so when
she finds herself bailing him out of jail. However, she soon gives credence to
his suspicions. Of course, they are mostly on their own, but Huang is one hard
cat to kill.
Okay,
so Insight is basically a B-movie, but it is a thoroughly entertaining
one. It represents a big step up from their last martial arts narrative
feature, Brush with Danger. Ken Zheng is clearly a seriously skilled
martial artist. This time around, he has the benefit of the support from some
always reliable and entertaining character actors, starting with the great Tony
Todd, playing slightly against type as the uncorrupted Det. Stevens. Plus, Keith
David and John Savage both add grizzled grit as Stevens and Lerner’s Captain
Duke and Huang’s superior officer, respectively.
The "Dark Forest Theory” suggests any intelligent civilization in the universe
should try to remain undetected from any potential rivals, who would most
likely consider them an existential threat to their own survival and act
accordingly. The military of the Earth-based Alliance generally subscribes to
this theory. Unfortunately, the strange hive-like aliens clearly do as well.
They appear to have a higher level of technology, but we have Bruce Willis and
Frank Grillo, so its more or less equal in Edward Drake’s Cosmic Sin,
which releases this Friday on VOD.
When
a rebellion threatened to fracture the Alliance, Gen. James Ford put it down
permanently by dropping a quantum Q-bomb. Ever since then, he was dishonorably
discharged and derided as the “Blood General.” However, hawkish colonists on
the edge of the frontier still regard him as a folk hero. Logically, when the
outer colonies were attacked by an alien race, Gen. Ryle, the latest grizzled, hardnosed
military commander recruits his predecessor to do whatever needs to be done.
The
plan, such as it is, involves an elite squad (including Ford and Ryle, so take
that Picard, you armchair captain), strapping into quantum mecha suits and
basting off to the war zone with another Q-bomb. To make the line-up even more
unlikely, it will also include Ryle’s hard-charging soldier son Braxton and Ford’s
judgmental scientist ex-wife, who radiates contempt for the military she
serves. Fortunately, Sol Cantos, the leader of the remnant of human resistance
they link up with is more on-board with the whole saving humanity program.
Drake
also wrote the recent Willis vehicle Breach, so maybe someday in the
future film scholars will write scholarly books about the great Breach-Cosmic
Sin duology. If so, it will probably have to be the French. At least, Sin
more unambiguously sides with humanity against the alien menace. Indeed, the Dark-Forest-Hunting
aliens explicitly undermine touchy-feely liberal idealism with their own war-mongering
words.
To most collectors, a still life by Tolpin, a virtually unknown Russian
painter is a far cry from Klimt’s Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer (the
painting in Woman in Gold), but to Lilka Elbaum (born Rozenbaum), it
holds similar significance. Her family reluctantly left it behind when they
were forced to immigrate by the Communist regime’s anti-Semitic purges, but its
history in Lodz’s traditional Jewish neighborhood extended back before them, to
the 1920s. Documentarian Slawomir Grunberg uses the painting as a device to
examine the history of Lodz’s Jewish community in Still Life in Lodz,
which opens virtually this Friday.
Pola
Erlich and her sons were the original tenants of Elbaum’s family flat and they
first hung Tolpin’s still life, where it would remain for decades. The
collaborating resident who took possession during the German occupation kept it
up and so did the Rozenbaums when they moved in after the war. Although Elbaum was
born post-War and eventually immigrated to America, she kept in touch with the
daughter of the family that sheltered her mother, so from time to time, she returned
to Poland.
As
a result, Elbaum felt a diasporic kinship with American-born Paul Celler, whose
mother, Rosa Posalska, survived the Lodz Ghetto and Auschwitz, as well as Roni
Ben Ari, an Israeli artist, whose grandfather, Moshe Halpern, immigrated to
Israel before the War. Elbaum and Grunberg accompany them as they explore their
own family connections to the historic neighborhood specifically and to Poland
in general.
Still
Life might
sound like a conventional documentary about the tragic Jewish Holocaust-era experience,
but Grunberg finds ways to make it feel fresh, including incorporating brief
but distinctive animated interludes. He also shoots some surprisingly cinematic
aerial shots that give viewers a good sense of the geography and scale of the
neighborhood.
Fall asleep during this film at your own peril, because it suggests unhealthy
sleep patterns can really mess you up. Eventually, those shadowy sleep
paralysis figures show up, but there is more to it than mere Freddy Krugerish
chills. Fortunately, it is also sufficiently intense to keep most genre fans
wide-awake. Signing up for a sleep study leads to all kinds of paranoia and anxiety
for a young runaway, but at least she gets paid $12 an hour in Anthony Scott Burns’
Come True, which releases Friday on VOD.
We
never really learn why Sarah ran away from home, but when the mother of her best
remaining friend gets tired of her sleeping over, the local university’s sleep
study sounds like a perfect solution. Several of her fellow subjects have
apparently done this before, so no worries, right? However, her persistent
nightmares are getting worse and the post-slumber questions are more than a
little off-putting. However, what really alarms her is the realization one of
the grad student researchers has been following her, or maybe really stalking
her. Yet, by confronting him and threatening to quit, she manages to blackmail “Rif”
into explaining the nature of the study, to some extent.
Basically,
Come True is to sleep paralysis and nightmares what the original Flatliners
was to near-death experiences. There are definitely science fictional
elements, but the tone and imagery are indeed nightmarish. In fact, Come
True has some of best nightmare sequences since maybe the Nightmare
Detective films. In this case, there is a Giger-esque fantasy element to
Burns’ nightmarescapes, which makes them so weird and disturbing.
Take it from me, moving a collection of LPs is no picnic. However, your still
better of schlepping vinyl than boxing up a creepy old house like this one. The
owner is paying a hefty bonus to have all the work done by morning, but the
weird noises and his sinister belongings will be quite a distraction in Jerren
Lauder’s Stay Out of the F**king Attic, which premieres this Thursday on
Shudder.
Schillinger
is an ex-con, who sort of made good with his Second Chance Moving service. He gets
enough work to employ Imani, his sort of girlfriend, and his newest hire,
Carlos. Vern, who looks like a somewhat shorter Angus Scrimm, contracted their services,
but he has strange requirements. All his junk has to be out by morning, but
they don’t have to worry about the attic and basement. In fact, they are
supposed to stay the asterisk out.
The
old weirdo waves around enough cash for the three movers to agree to his terms.
Unfortunately, as the box up his clutter, they start noticing an unsettling pattern.
It seems like Vern has some sort of National Socialist fetish. Mengele in
particular seems to hold a peculiar fascination for him. Schillinger can pick
up on it better than his employees, because of his Neo-Nazi prison affiliation,
which he now deeply regrets.
Let’s
be frank, exploiting Mengele and his crimes against humanity for grubby horror
movie thrills is a dubious proposition. We tried to give the film sufficient latitude
to proves its good intentions, but when one of the characters gets caught in a
Zyklon-B death trap, we have to throw the bad taste penalty flag. Honestly, in
an era when Gina Carano gets canceled for a not-particularly-well-thought-out social media post discussing divisive Nazi tactics (which didn’t really say what you maybe think
it did), a film like this is asking for far worse. Yet, people of good
conscious should not wish to see Lauder canceled any more than Carano.
The old fellow might be a dragon, but he is also the original jaws of life—and
the wings too. Although it took him a while to sharpen his dragoning skills in
his first Magic Light Pictures-produced BBC special, he has since found his purpose
shuttling Princess Pearl and Sir Gadabout as they tend to the medical needs of
the animals and fantastical beasts of the kingdom. Unfortunately, the King has
more traditional notions of nobility in Sean Mullins’ Zog and the Flying
Doctors, the latest Julia Donaldson animated adaptation, which screens as
part of the Magic Light Celebration at this year’s New York International Children’s Film Festival.
Dr.
Princess Pearl’s ideas of royal duty are a lot like those of Queen Elizabeth
II, who drove ambulances as a young woman during WWII. She can cure lions with
the flu and sunburned mermaids. Sir Gadabout is a bit of a tool, but he can
help a unicorn with an extra horn. The fastidious knight and the clumsy but
kind-hearted dragon often clash, but they will have to work together when
Princess Pearl’s uncle, the King, locks her in the palace and forces her to do
Princessy things.
All
of the Magic Light-BBC adaptations of Donaldson’s children’s books are
charming, incorporating nice furry animals and big-name celebrity voices (the
most notable in this case are narrator Sir Lenny Henry and Rob “The Trip”
Brydon as the King). Princess Pearl is even more the kind of animated role
model parents can get behind this time around, while Zog is still just a big
sweet, likable lug.
