Brian and Charles: Welsh Robotics

After years of futility, Brian has finally invented something that works: an eco-friendly robot. It runs on cabbages (everyone knows electricity mostly comes from coal, right?). Somehow, he really cracked the artificial intelligence, because it largely taught itself to talk by reading the dictionary. The rest of the maturation process will take more time in Jim Archer’s Brian and Charles, which opens Friday in New York.

When we first meet Brian, he is an affable fellow, but he tries too hard to be chipper, to cover for his loneliness. We see several of his precious DIY inventions, none of which has any prayer of working. His eccentric-looking robot, Charles Petrescu, appears to be more of the same, but somehow, after a little rattling about, he comes alive, like Frosty after the first snow.

Of course, Brian is delighted to finally have company. However, he tries his best to keep Petrescu out of sight, because he justifiably fears the Welsh village’s bullying family of thugs will target his creation. Eventually, the equally shy Hazel meets Petrescu, who duly impresses her. That in turn builds Brian’s confidence, to the point he can actually pursue a relationship with her. However, Petrescu’s restlessness soon leads to rebelliousness.

Initially, Brian and Charles feels almost toxically cute and quirky, but it develops some substance and soul during its second half. Petrescu does a lot of goofy robot-shtick, but Brian’s growth is the arc that really lands. This is a story of empowerment, as well as the obvious surrogate parenting analog.

The Lighthouse: Stranded Off the Coast of Wales

Creepy things happen in and around lighthouses, as we know from the Vincent Price radio drama Three Skeleton Key, John Carpenter’s The Fog and probably Poe’s Lighthouse novella, if he had time to finish it. However, this sea story is particularly unsettling, because it is pretty faithfully based on a true story. The Smalls Lighthouse gets treated as both a classy historical and a horror movie about creepy madness in Chris Crow’s The Lighthouse (trailer here), which opens this Friday in Los Angeles.

“Lightkeeping is quiet business” Louis tells Jean in Three Skeleton, but that is especially true for Thomas Griffiths and Thomas Howell, two lightkeepers who could hardly stand each other’s company. Alas, they were literally stuck together in that reef-bound lighthouse, due to their terms of employment. They could muddle through under ordinary circumstances, but there was nothing ordinary about the months-long squall that cut them off from the outside world and fresh supplies.

Two Thomases confined in a claustrophobic setting, under mounting stress is a recipe for disaster. As their hostilities become more pronounced, we learn the secrets from their past that make them so miserable in their current position. Eventually, they finally break open the “mercy” crate of booze, at which point they really start to lose their grasp.

Lighthouse is not exactly a horror film per se, but it definitely takes a macabre turn. This is definitely a film infused with as much about madness as any conventional psycho killer movie. Yet, Crow and co-screenwriters Paul Bryant and Michael Jibson give their characters their full due, forgiving their sins, even when the Thomases refuse to forgive themselves. This is harrowing stuff, no doubt about it.

Jibson and Mark Lewis Jones are terrific as Howell and Griffiths, respectively, generating all kinds of tension either cold-shouldering or snarling at each other. This film is essentially a two-hander, but they provide more than enough energy to sustain it. They could probably recreate the gist of it on stage, but Crow also incorporates some surprisingly cinematic storm effects. He probably had a fracture of the budget (in real dollars) spent on The Perfect Storm (from eighteen years ago), but he made a far superior film.

The Smalls Lighthouse incident was sort of like the Donner Party or Triangle Shirt Waist tragedy of lightkeeping, but it only directly effected two people. Ironically, was of the first reforms enacted as a result was the mandated increase of lightkeeping teams from two to three people. We’d rather have a sturdy boat instead. Regardless, Crow does right by history and the lightkeeping tradition, while still serving up plenty of tension and atmosphere for genre fans. Recommended for those who can appreciate its smart, disciplined chills, The Lighthouse opens this Friday (7/6) in Los Angeles, at the Laemmle Music Hall.

Dark Signal: Live and Local on Radio JAB

This is the last night of live and local radio in a remote, English-speaking corner of Wales. Radio JAB (dig that groovy call sign) was already scheduled to convert to a national network format, but the final night of the Laurie Wolf show is still likely to give the UK’s FCC a cow. There will be psychic connections, spectral voices, and mass murder broadcast live and direct in Edward Evers-Swindell’s Dark Signal (trailer here), which opens this Friday in Los Angeles.

For several years, the good residents of this Welsh district have been terrorized by the Wedlock Killer, who snips off the ring finger of his victims, wedding band and all. We will see him methodically dispatch Sarah Keller in her far too isolated farm house. Rather bafflingly, we will return shortly thereafter with Kate Komisarczyk and her dodgy boyfriend. For reasons that are not immediately clear, he is convinced there is a small fortune stashed in the house. She is not the criminal type, but she desperately needs money to care for her wheelchair-bound son, so Komisarczyk will be the lookout—and there will be plenty to lookout for.

Simultaneously, Wolf is starting her final show and she is packing plenty of bad attitude. She is even less thrilled when she learns her technician Ben Evans has booked the book-hawking psychic Carla Zaza as her final guest. However, things start to get interesting when Zaza and Evans start picking up some sort of ghostly communication, apparently from one of the Wedlock Killer’s victims.

Pontypool remains the ultimate when it comes to horror movies set in radio stations, but Evers-Swindell does not lack for ambition. There are a lot of moving parts in this serial killer-ghost story hybrid, some of which rely heavily on coincidence to set them in motion. Still, when Madame Zaza makes contact, things definitely get spooky. In fact, Evers-Swindell masterfully capitalizes on the claustrophobic nature of radio studio to heighten the tension. Unfortunately, most genre fans will immediately guess who the Wedlock Killer really is, because it’s the sort of person it always is in horror movies.

Regardless, it is jolly good fun to see giallo veteran Cinzia Monreale returning to the genre as the mysterious Zaza. Siwan Morris is also appealingly disdainful as Wolf. However, Joanna Igaczewska’s Komisarczyk does not look like she could last five seconds in a farm house of death.

Evers-Swindell and co-screenwriter Antony Jones also manage to tie up all the loose ends in a surprisingly satisfying package, which is all too rare in recent horror releases. Frankly, it is eerie and inventive enough to put it on the right side of the bell curve. Easily recommendable for regular horror consumers, Dark Signal opens this Friday (6/2) in Los Angeles, at the Arena CineLounge Sunset.

Don’t Knock Twice: Getting Witchy in Wales

What’s Baba Yaga doing in Wales? Evil, that’s what—assuming it really is Baba Yaga. Some say she is just a malevolent spirit with a huge grudge. Either way, she is extremely pissed off in Caradog James’ Don’t Knock Twice (trailer here), which opens today in New York.

Chloe and her kind of boyfriend Danny are convinced the spirit of accused child-murderer Mary Aminov remains enthralled to its demon string-puller. If you knock twice at the door of her abandoned cottage, you will wake both servant and master. Of course, they do that very thing, for reasons we are at a loss to explain. Why not invoke Candyman and Bye Bye Man while they’re at it?

Evidently, Danny is a “Redshirt” boyfriend, because he is not around for long. Thinking she is clever, Chloe arranges a trial residency with Jess, her formerly troubled birth-mother, who has recently tried to regain custody. After cleaning up, Jess and her macabre sculptures were embraced by the art world, so she could afford a vintage country manor. Marrying a banker like Ben did not hurt either. Regardless, Aminov or Baba Yaga finds her there just the same.

Jess’s exotic model Tira takes one look at the agitated Chloe and promptly pulls the rip cord.  She is “sensitive” to certain phenomena and wants no part of the chaos to come. Unfortunately, local copper Det. Boardman isn’t very reassuring either. Further complicating matters, Jess and Chloe start to get conflicting counsel regarding just what the dealio is with Aminov. Sadly, the accumulated stress does little to facilitate their reconciliation.

Although it is not perfect, Knock still represents a big step up from James’ previous film, the didactic sf fable, The Machine. It starts conventionally enough, but the third act is rather deviously clever. Arguably, it is that rare horror film that somehow picks up steam as it goes along and redeems itself (if not necessarily its characters) in the end.

Katee “Battlestar” Sackhoff is pretty compelling as Jess, the barely sober mess. Twentysomething Lucy Boynton still makes a credibly petulant teenager, which is a good thing in this context. However, Iranian Pooneh Hajimohammadi should be the breakout genre star to come out of Knock, based on her weirdly alluring turn as Tira. She just makes the camera freeze in its tracks.

Arguably, this isn’t such a bad week for horror. Neither Knock or Eloise are likely be hailed as underappreciated classics years from now, but both films stick with it, turning out considerably better than one might expect. Recommended for horror fans out for a respectable fix, Don’t Knock Twice opens tonight (2/3) in New York, at the IFC Center.

Hunky Dory: Shakespeare Glammed-Up

Remember those high school teachers so desperate to be popular they insisted everyone call them by their first name?  Viv is not quite that bad, but she is obviously uncomfortable serving as an authority figure.  Although she has given up on her acting career, the new drama teacher still has not quite worked the show business out of her system.  As a result, she plans an ambitious glam-rock production of Shakespeare’s The Tempest in Marc Evans’ period high school musical, Hunky Dory (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

The 1970’s were not such a bad decade for music as people might recall—at least until white leisure suits and strobe lights hit the scene.  David Bowie is a prime example of the era’s good stuff and Hunky Dory might just be his best album.  Naturally, “The Man who Sold the World” shows up in Vivienne Mae’s production (familiar to many thanks to Nirvana’s Unplugged cover) and “Life on Mars?” (again, a popular choice).  It is a shame though that he did not offer “Kooks” because it would have been perfect thematically for this Welsh tale of teen love, angst and music.  On the other hand, several ELO tunes are along for the ride, which is cool.

The year is almost over, but “Viv” wants the seniors’ last big show to have special meaning for them.  Music will play a major role.  Bowie, ELO, and Beach Boys tunes will all factor into her musical version of The Tempest.  Unfortunately, her afterschool rehearsals have major competition from the local swimming pool (“the lido”) and general teenaged hook-ups.  One by one, cast members drop out, most notably her sensitive but disturbed Caliban.  Eventually, she is forced to recruit the headmaster to play Prospero.  Of course, the show always goes on, even when apparent disaster strikes.

We are honest-to-Betsy assured Evans and his producer were working on this concept well before Glee came around.  Fine, but comparisons will be inevitable.  In truth, Hunky stacks up rather well.  To its credit, it avoids preaching politics, except perhaps for the hammer & sickle clearly visible in the assembly hall mural.  Dude, what’s up with that?

As Viv, Minnie Driver is relentlessly likable and resilient in the face of life’s bummers.  She is pretty much right on target for a lightweight musical soap opera.  One of the film’s nice surprises is the sympathetic treatment of Bob Pugh’s headmaster, an old military veteran who turns out to be far more kind hearted and understanding than we initially expect.  His deepening professional relationship with Viv is one of the film’s more pleasant subplots.  However, the teen drama is pretty standard issue (the closeted Bowie fanatic, the sensitive working class kid spurned by the school princess, the garage band struggling to stay unified, etc, etc).

Evans (who previously helmed Patagonia, the UK’s best foreign language submission two Oscars ago) stylishly stages the climatic pageant.  The kids’ “Life on Mars?” is particularly cinematic.  Frankly, the Hunky Dory Orchestra consistently sounds full bodied and rather groovy.  The resulting cumulative impact is appropriately bittersweet and nostalgic.  Modest but endearingly earnest, Hunky Dory wears its niceness on its sleeve.  Moderately recommended for children of the 1970’s out for a trip down memory lane, Hunky Dory opens this Friday (3/22) in New York at the AMC Village VII.

Submitted by the UK: Patagonia

The last recorded use of the stocks as a form of corporal punishment occurred in late nineteenth century Wales (thank you Alan Ayckbourn for this timely information). Although most spent their time laboring in the mines rather than confined to the medieval devices, it was certainly a difficult period for the Welsh. Hoping for a better life, a small group of settlers established a Welsh colony in Argentine Patagonia. This Welsh-Argentine connection inspired the two parallel but unconnected stories of Marc Evans’ Patagonia (trailer here), which has been officially submitted by the United Kingdom for Academy Award consideration as the best foreign language film of the year.

Rhys and his girlfriend Gwen are having a rough patch in their relationship. Though they have been trying unsuccessfully to get pregnant, she remains unsure about the whole marriage thing. At the last minute, she joins his trip to photograph the ridiculously picturesque Welsh chapels of Patagonia, with the intent of ironing out their issues. However, the plan is complicated by the presence of their guide Mateo, a rugged Welsh gaucho.

Meanwhile, the aging Cerys takes her unsuspecting nephew Alejandro in the opposite direction. Supposedly accompanying her for a routine hospital visit, the nebbish sci-fi reader finds himself en-route to Wales, where Cerys intends to seek out her ancestral farm.

Wisely, the twains are never forced to meet in some unlikely third act contrivance. Nor are their thematic relations particularly strong, beyond the Welsh Patagonian angle, which is admittedly pretty distinctive cinematic territory. The scenery is also quite pleasing for both story arcs, whether it be the rolling hills and stone cottages of Wales or the striking mountain vistas of Patagonia.

Matthew Gravelle’s poor old Rhys might not be a bad chap, but if your impression of Welshmen is largely informed by Richard Burton, Dylan Thomas, and Sir Tom Jones, the moody photographer is bound to be a disappointment. The sensitive man of action Mateo (somewhat confusingly played by Matthew Rhys) certainly compensates in this regard. Frankly though, the love triangle (with its third side nicely played by Nia Roberts, director Evans’ wife) is the weaker of the two narratives. (So much angst and heartache could have been avoided had they simply jotted each other a few quick notes at key junctures.)

In contrast, there is something about Cerys’ return to her roots that strikes a deep chord. Evans never overplays it though, letting the significance of her sentimental journey evolve organically. Likewise, Marta Lubos is quite charismatic as Cerys, but keeps her scrupulously grounded. While saddled with a bit of a wishy-washy character, Nahuel Pérez Biscayart certainly plays Alejandro with whole-hearted earnestness. Still, the amount of mascara lathered on Welsh pop star Duffy as his potential romantic interest Sissy is just distractingly out of place.

Like Terreferma and Montevideo: Taste of the Dream, Patagonia looks great (cinematographer Robbie Ryan has a keen eye for the disparate environments) and also sounds quite pleasant. Both Joseph LoDuca’s score and “Mateo’s Theme” composed by Angelo “Twin Peaks” Badalamenti take clear inspiration from the romantic music of Argentina. Nonetheless, much of the drama is rather forced. Not without merits, Patagonia is considerably better than last year’s best foreign language Oscar winner, so Academy voters could probably do far worse the Welsh-Spanish film this year.

Submarine: Such a Sensitive Welsh Lad

At least Oliver Tate does not refer to himself in the third person. Though he fancies himself the worldly sophisticate of his class, the Welsh lad has a lot of growing up to do in Richard Ayoade’s coming-of-age dramedy Submarine (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

It is clear by the way Tate’s overcoat is buttoned up just so, he is obviously a sensitive diamond in the rough, who just needs that right relationship to bring him out of his shell. Fortunately, he has a candidate in mind, the only slightly gothy Jordana Bevan, whom he courts by bullying Zoe Preece, an overweight classmate. Not exactly a meet-cute, but to Tate’s limited credit, he feels bad enough about the incident to write his victim a lengthy treatise on self-empowerment.

Just as things start getting real with Bevan, Tate finds his parents’ marriage jeopardized by the perfect storm of his father’s extreme emotional reserve, his mother’s burgeoning dissatisfaction, and the lecherous attention of a low rent self-help guru. Tate is bound and determined to win Bevan’s heart and keep his parents together. However, he is in for a bit of a humbling in the process.

Tate is supposed to be an endearing young egg-head. Yet as a massively self-absorbed, compulsive manifesto writer, he seems to be one stinging public humiliation away from becoming Ted Kaczynski. Though Craig Roberts’ sad eyed shtick gets tiresome, he deserves credit for handling the self-consciously wordy dialogue and narration with a fair degree of snappiness.

Arguably, the real find of Submarine is Yasmin Paige, who is thoroughly believable as Bevan, even when falling for Tate. Indeed, she finds some interesting places in the Daria-ish character. As Mother Tate, Sally Hawkins again scratches out what she can in a largely thankless (bordering on shrewish) role. Still, Noah Taylor makes a stronger impression, expressing genuine pathos as her painfully withdrawn husband.

In truth, there are a number of clever bits in Submarine and the dynamics between the kids consistently ring true. Ayoade helms the familiar Rushmore material with quite a bit of style, while executive producer Ben Stiller also serves as the above-the-title “presenter” because folks have heard of him. Nevertheless, the film is frequently undermined by its tendency to preen in its preciousness. Frankly, even little old ladies would want to beat up Tate for his milk money. Not nearly as adorable as it thinks it is, Submarine opens tomorrow (6/3) in New York at the Angelika Film Center.