Gen X did a lot of things right, but our record raising Millennial and Gen Z
kids has been admittedly dismal. The job Maddie and Frank did with Alice is a
case in point. She has always been an irresponsible basket-case, but she might
have to find some sudden maturity when she takes a detour through the Twilight
Zone (so to speak) in Babak Anvari’s Hallow Road, which opens today as part
of a special AMC horror double feature.
After
arguing with her parents (yet again), Alice drove off angry into the night,
where she slammed into an unsuspecting girl her age. Of course, she calls her parents
hoping they can fix her mess (yet again). Maddie, a burned out EMT wants her to
call back emergency services, so she can follow their directions, but the even
more-coddling Frank insists she keep them on speaker phone as they race to meet
her along a lonely stretch of Hallow Road.
Apparently,
that titular road has a bit of a folky horror reputation. Not surprisingly, the
vibe feels off. (Coincidentally, the GPS display says its 10/31, but maybe its
always Halloween on Hallow Road.) Regardless, Maddie has more pressing
concerns, like trying to save the poor girl’s life. To make matters worse,
Frank constantly contradicts her with his responsibility-averse advice. Then a
mystery couple arrives on the scene.
To a
great extent, Hallow Road is like the genre take on Locke—and it
works surprisingly well as such. Anvari’s execution is tense, moody, and
claustrophobic. It literally incorporates several of parents’ worst fears, so
it is easy to relate to Maddie and Frank, despite (or even because of) their
shortcomings.
The Memali Incident was sort of like Malaysia’s Waco or Ruby Ridge. Essentially, the
somewhat Islamic government laid siege to a village dominated by very Islamist militants,
who gained sympathy during the subsequent crackdowns and curfews. When asked by
a prospective employer, Joe the handyman assures her he avoids politics, but he
would be safer amid the chaos of Memali than in her remote crumbling villa. To
make matters worse, his young mute daughter is even more at risk in Woo Ming
Jin’s Indera, which releases today of all days on VOD.
The
circumstances of Sophia’s birth were tragic and suspiciously sinister. Since
then, it has just been her and her father Joe—and they don’t talk much, because
she has been mute since birth. After their latest landlord evicts them, he
every so helpfully refers him to a weird Javanese woman, who operates a
makeshift “orphanage” in the middle of the rainforest.
The
crypto-shaman has a weird relationship with the gaping hole behind her house. Clearly,
it seems to exert an unhealthy power over the household. Frankly, Joe should
have left as soon as the sinister woman he is supposed to call “mother”
separated him from Sophia, making her bunk with the other three children. Regardless,
neither he or Sophia should trust the apparent ghost of her mother Anisa, who
regularly pays them visits.
Indera
boasts plenty of
atmosphere, but Woo cannot generate the tension of the Indonesian folk horror movies
that obviously inspired his film. Frankly, Indera can be maddeningly
slow, especially the unhurried first act. Still, Woo aptly uses the overheated
Memali backdrop to suggest a sense of danger in the air.
FOOD DELIVERY is a very timely documentary that captures an unprovoked Chinese attack on a Philippine Naval vessel, as well as the human suffering of average, workingclass Filipino fisheman resulting from CCP maritime imperialism. EPOCH TIMES review up here.
The 1978 Cinema Rex fire in Abadan, Iran was sort of like the frequently misreported
Gaza hospital bombings. In reality, it was committed by Islamist militants, but
the Ayatollah and his fellow revolutionaries successfully blamed the Shah’s
SAVAK. Even though the Shah was not responsible, it turned public opinion
against him. Forty-some years later, history might repeat itself in Shahram
Mokri’s Careless Crime, which premieres today on OVID.tv.
Time
loops in very strange ways throughout Careless Crime. Visibly disturbed Takbali needs
embargoed anti-depressants to medicate his anxiety stemming from his role in a
notorious theater arson case that killed 400-some people. To meet a black-market
contact, he visits the cinema museum, where he encounters an exhibit dedicated
to the Cinema Rex tragedy. However, his pharmaceutical dealer connects him with
three malcontents, whom the penniless Takbali must aid in their plans to burn
down a local cinema, in lieu of payment.
Meanwhile, the theater staff takes every measure possible to create fire hazard
conditions. Extra rows are added to the theater and the beverage overstock
barricades the fire doors. It just gets worse and worse, despite the many
repeated references to the Cinema Rex, from both patrons and employees.
However,
the film-within-the-film, Careless Crime, is a bit of a puzzle.
Supposedly, it depicts a senior Iranian military officer, who accidentally runs
over his own daughter—hence the title—but from what the real-life audiences
sees, it is an absurdist story about unexploded ordinance. Perhaps it was
originally set during the Iran-Iraq War, but time has a way of jumping and
slipping, throughout both Careless Crimes.
Admittedly,
there are sequences that suggest Mokri and co-screenwriter Nasim Ahmadpour are
trying to deliberately confuse the audience. However, each instance when time
loops back around in the presumed-modern day theater, Mokri produces foreboding
chills, palpably suggesting the terror on the verge of exploding. It is not
exactly a traditional time-loop movie, but the tight construction of each coil will
hold viewers attention like a vice. The choreography of entrances and exits is
also just as meticulous as the most inventive sf loops, if not more so.
Where are Inspector Morse and Inspector Lewis when we need them? A house blows up
in Oxford but the local police barely bother to notice. Admittedly, the UK deep
state (which can’t be bothered to prosecute Chinese spies) does everything
possible to block their investigation. That leaves a neurotic art restoration
technician and cynical private detective to crack the case in creator Morwenna
Banks’ eight-episode Down Cemetery Road, based on Mick Herron’s novel, which
is now streaming on Apple TV+.
Just
down the street (presumably, it must be on Cemetery Road) a house blows up, just
while Sarah Trafford’s conspicuously desperate husband Mark tries to butter-up
a skeptical wealthy client. Despite several fatalities, young Dinah survived
the inferno—and then she disappeared. Nobody seems to know anything, least fo
all the police, so she hires Joe Silverman to track her down. Weirdly and
tragically, he kills himself shortly thereafter. Of course, Trafford is
skeptical, while Silverman’s partner and philandering wife Zoe Boehm is even more
so.
Of course,
they team-up as an odd couple, to battle the sinister assassin brothers
contracted by Hamza, a nebbish intelligence officer tasked with covering up a disastrous
chemical weapons program. It was a rather unsavory experiment that used enlisted
British soldiers as guinea pigs. Downey was one of them. He also happens to be
Dinah’s uncle and possibly Trafford’s other ally. If exposed, the top
secretoperation could be a three-alarm scandal, but Hamza’s abusive boss “C” would
still rather humiliate him then offer constructive leadership.
It is
surprising that the wickedly smart Slow Horses series was also based on
Herron’s novels, because Cemetery Road always takes the most obvious,
least surprising fork in the road. Frankly, eight episodes of Boehm bickering
with Trafford and C berating Hamza is punishingly excessive. At most, this
story could have been better translated as a TV-movie, but even that would have
been wholly unnecessary.
Instead,
we have schtick all over the place, starting with Emma Thompson’s intermittently
amusing Philip Marlowe act. Ruth Wilson’s chronic breakdowns grow increasingly tiresome,
but she certainly dispels all memories of her femme fatal glory in Luther while
portraying Trafford.
LITTLE AMELIE OR THE CHARACTER OF RAIN is a vibrant animated film that loooks equally inspired by Henri Matisse and Studio Ghibli. Yet, its toddler perspective on life, death, and family makes it easily accessible and relatable. CINEMA DAILY US review up here.
Do not even think any of this is allegorical and metaphorical. The priests
explaining the rite of exorcism will assure the audience the Devil and his
demons are very real and present in our world. However, on the positive side of
the ledger, exorcisms are much calmer and more orderly than most of us have
been led to believe. Even though it is obviously screening for Halloween, the
Men of God proclaim the good news in Giovanni Ziberna & Valeria Baldan’s
documentary Triumph Over Evil: Battle of the Exorcists, which has a
special nationwide Fathom Events screening tomorrow night.
It is
not just the old conservatives like Pope Benedict XVI who believe in demonic
exorcism. The various exorcists remind the audience Pope Francis referred to the
Devil as a force for evil at least 50 times and there were eighteen
non-metaphorical references to the Devil and his demons in Vatican II. They
also cite C.S. Lewis’s insights into what makes us vulnerable to demonic evil.
One is obviously disbelief. The other is an unhealthy fascination. At this point,
a lot of the horror movie fans will nervously start clearing their throats and
looking at their shoes.
Yet,
eventually the film circles back to the redemption experienced through
exorcism, which seems very compatible with the writings and films of William
Peter Blatty (who was also a very nice man in-person). They do indeed suggest
the Lord works in mysterious ways. In fact, you hear that from one of the most
famous exorcists, Father Gabriele Amorth.
In many
ways, the exorcists (including Father Amorth) try to explain the rite in terms
that de-mystify the process and reassure viewers. There is extensive medical
consultation at every step and little physical conflict during the actual ritual.
Light is always plentiful, but restraints are almost always absent.
Still, the
exorcists provide cautionary notes, especially with regards to the rise of
occult and New Age practices. Pretty much anyone claiming to be a magical
practitioner should be considered suspect. Their intentions might not be
deliberately nefarious, but they are literally asking for trouble. Naturally, the
internet is not helping either, so think twice before downloading that Ouija
board app.
Those classic Universal Monster movies continue to shape how we think about monsters—and apparently
how monsters think about us. Thanks to their usual endings, mad Professor
Erasmus’s creatures live in fear of the villagers storming Chateau Grotteskew
with torches and pitchforks. Yet, when his original creation looks for belonging,
he finds the wrong kind of acceptance from the human world in Steve Hudson’s
animated Stitch Head, based on Guy Bass's children's books, which opens today in theaters.
Ironically,
nutty old Erasmus started with his most human-looking creation—Stitch Head, who
is obviously so-called because of the Frankenstein sutures crisscrossing his face.
In contrast, his latest, simply called “Creature,” resembles a fusion of two
major characters from Pixar’s Monsters, Inc. He also immediately adopts
Stitch Head as his “best friend.”
Yet, poor
Stitch Head feels unloved and unappreciated by his creator. Unfortunately, that
leaves a void for Fulbert Freakfinder to exploit. The traveling sideshow
proprietor recognizes a good attraction when he sees one—and Stitch Head is
happy to finally feel wanted. However, Arabella a bright little girl living in
the village, is appalled by Freakfinder’s cynical exploitation. Both she and
Creature want to facilitate his escape, but Stitch Head must want to accept
their help first.
Basically,
Hudson’s film starts out riffing on James Whale’s Frankenstein films, but
segways into a kids-friendly send-up of Nightmare Alley (the original,
good one). The press materials repeatedly stress it is not intended as R.L.
Stine-ish horror for young audiences, but the monsters and mad scientist
certainly deliver a lot of Halloweeny vibes.
The Carmichael Manor is so notoriously haunted, even bottom-feeding reality TV crews
stopped coming. Henceforth, no more found footage for the Hell House LLC franchise.
Of course, they still have the evil clown mannequins. They also have a
returning cast-member, but Vanessa Shepherd has been a mess since surviving the
third movie. She’s not the only one. Frankly, nearly everyone in Rockland County
lives in terror of the evil forces hopping from the Manor to the notorious
Abaddon Hotel and back again in Stephen Cognetti’s Hell House LLC: Lineage,
which premieres this Thursday on Shudder.
Evidently,
back around the time Jason Voorhees drowned at Camp Crystal Lake, a car full of
drunken guys slammed into a young girl as they were all leaving the Rockland
County Fair. Since then, the hit-and-run dudes had prodigious offspring whom
the uncanny mannequins have steadily murdered.
At
least that seems to be the gist of it, according to Alicia Cavalini (a
journalist, researcher, or something). She finally started to connect the dots
between the carnival and all the horrors at the Carmichael and the Abaddon, but
Shepherd can’t really deal with her revelations. She is too busy with her own
nightmare visions and mourning friends, who are dying like flies. However, Cavalini
convinces the reluctant Father David to perform an exorcism.
Father
David is a man of faith, but he understands the dangers much more than Cavalini.
In fact, he is probably the franchise’s most interesting character, thanks to Mike
Sutton’s grounded, humanist portrayal. On the other hand, Elizabeth Vermilyea’s
Shepherd is such a neurotic basket-case, you wonder why Cognetti spends so much
time with her.
Obviously, the psych ward is a great setting for special Halloween-themed episode.
Of course, the usual scolds need to lecture us, whining that our genre fun stigmatizes
mental illness. Fortunately, showrunner Michael Grassi’s Brilliant Minds embraces
the scary season anyway in “The Doctor’s Graveyard,” which airs tonight on NBC.
According
to the credits, Grassi’s series is “inspired” by Dr. Oliver Sacks’ writings, but
you would hardly know it from this episode—and we’re not complaining. It starts
with Dr. Kinney having a panic attack in an asylum-themed haunted house. Soon,
Dr. Nichols falls under the curse of room 313 (where patients keep dying),
while Dr. Wolf starts having ghostly visions of a patient he wasn’t able to save.
Best of all, Dr. Pierce from the psych department is supposed to evaluate the
evil looking clown in a holding room, but she is having none of that.
All in
all, writers Sara Saedi and Will Ewing deliver a lot of satisfying Halloweeny
stuff, without any Scooby-Do-style explanations, which are always a letdown.
Despite his limited screentime, Andy Boorman is devilishly creepy as the clown.
Frankly, his storyline should have ben bulked up more, because Wolf’s relatively
“normal” case is just okay.
Star Trek had two pilots, which was unusual. This show had three. That was
almost unheard of, but in the late 1970s, Aaron Spelling had some serious
clout. Of course, the show became a hit and an economic driver, largely creating
the cruise ship industry as we now know it. Surviving cast-members and critics remember
the good times (which really were quite a party behind-the-scenes) in The
Love Boat episode of TV We Love, premiering tonight on CW.
High
art The Love Boat was not. However, it is interesting to see it get the
nostalgia treatment instead of the usual suspects. There is no denying its
novelty, especially since it is considered the only successful hour-long sitcom,
even to this day. It made a lot of money for a lot of people, including the
senior Golden Age Hollywood stars, who took their swan songs and victory laps
as guest stars—in what for many became their final screen credits—like when
Lana Turner taught Menudo how to play soccer—of course they include those
clips.
Comparing
the numbers for the cruise lines before and after The Love Boat are like
night and day. It also launched the career of sensible four-term Congressman
Fred Grandy, who played goofy Gopher. He and Ted Lange (Isaac Washington, the
bartender) are probably the two most prominent voices in the interview segments,
for good reason. However, there is no discussion of Grandy’s political career
or his tenure as a radio commentator, perhaps because his warnings against radicalization
continue to go unheeded.
Explosions will ensue in CHAINSAW MAN: THE MOVIE - REZE ARC, but loyal fans will appreciate the time devoted to the title teen character's relationship challenges. CINEMA DAILY US review up here.
The town of Graves End is even spookier than Riverdale, but it ought to be. It is
hard to imagine the CW show without the years of groundwork laid by children’s
and YA author R.L. Stine. He popularized horror for a generation of young
readers, placing the scares in the settings they knew best: school, camp, the
neighborhood, etc. Stine is still writing—probably more than ever, including graphic
novels. With obvious seasonal timing in mind, the first two installments of his
latest franchise have been collected in the omnibus The Graveyard Club,
illustrated by Carola Borelli, which releases this Tuesday.
Graves
End is only distinguished by two things: the multiple cemeteries that define
its boundaries and the large flocks of bats that often fill its skies. Bad
things tend to happen there, like the disappearance of Parker West’s father.
Almost nothing good has happened to West, except maybe his wooing of Patti
Olsen, a fellow member of his loose group of pals, who call themselves the
Graveyard Club, in honor of the one place they feel comfortable. However, that meant geeky Caleb came out the loser. Yet, the
motley crew remains united against the bullying of corrupt Officer Ray-Ray
Higgins and his nasty son Billy Roy.
In the
first story arc, Revenge Game, their pal Trip convinces the gang to
finally go for some serious payback. Of course, that is a dangerous door to
open in the horror genre. In fact, it almost costs Trip his life when Billy Roy
presumably retaliates. Indeed, thing go dark quickly, in ways consistent with
the early season of the aforementioned TV series.
One of
the coolest stories, is a shorty, “The Girl in the Graveyard,” sandwiched
between the two full length tales. It is a great example of how Stine has “re-purposed”
traditional motifs for younger audiences. More importantly, it delivers the
kind of atmosphere that fans look for from horror comics.
Following
the middle yarn, Fresh Blood continues to dial-up the supernatural
elements. West is brooding even harder these days, because the anniversary of
his father’s disappearance is fast approaching. It also affects fellow “Club”
member Rhonda, since her father also vanished that same night, during their
weekly poker night at the now abandoned Dockside Inn. Wanting some answers,
they decide to visit the shunned building, naturally agreeing to meet at the
dark of night. Of course, it turns out to be a great place for some serious
horror business.
These fairy tales often leave the “happily” out of “every after,” but if you read the
original Brothers Grimm and Charles Perrault, they often did so too. Not
surprisingly, the genre filmmakers participating in this series of fairy tale-based
short films had no trouble relating to their chosen stories, even though they
often took extensive liberties. Nevertheless, the results still vary amongst
the three short films in the Tales from the Woods series that screened
at this year’s Brooklyn Horror Film Festival.
By far,
the most successful is Mattie Do’s Sleeping Beauty, which turns Princess
Aurora into a Fisher King curse. The Laotian filmmaker (The Long Walk,
Dearest Sister) transfers the French folk tale to colonial Vietnam, where
the governor’s biracial son Philippe falls under the spell of the sleeping beauty
and brings her home to meet his parents.
Unfortunately,
no amount of kissing will wake her up, but that doesn’t bother Philippe. His
mother Dao recognizes the source of his bewitchment from folk legends, but she
is too timid to act accordingly, even if it brings ruin to her family and the
surrounding community. Obviously, Do incorporates some rather provocative taboo
themes, but they deliver a subversive twist to the familiar fairy tale. Sonadala
Sihavong is also terrific, in a crushingly human way, as Dao.
Surprisingly,
the weakest constituent short film comes from the usually mind-bending filmmaker-tandem
of Justin Benson & Aaron Moorhead (Spring, The Endless, Synchronic,
Something in the Dirt). Jacques the Giant Slayer opens with an
intriguing late 19th Century expedition vibe, but the creature
encounter underwhelms.
Emily Wyland should leave family reunions to the Waltons and awkward family
documentaries to Sarah Polley. Instead, she drags her camera guy down to record
her homecoming in Las Cruces, New Mexico with her former (hopefully) junky
mother Sam. Unfortunately, they quickly suspect some sinister horror movie
business is afoot, preying on the meth gangs and illegal aliens whose deaths
wouldn’t be reported. It is not a great advertisement for Las Cruces tourism but
the techniques of found footage horror are unusually well-executed in Pedro Kos’s
In Our Blood, which opens today in theaters.
It had
been years since Wyland last saw her mother. Their attempt at Thanksgiving dinner
is not exactly a success either. However, Sam volunteers to make a long,
cryptic “confession” on-camera. She certainly seems to feel guilty about something.
Wyland hopes to extract more specifics the next day, when they arrange to visit
the homeless shelter where her mom volunteers, but her mother no-shows. There
are also no signs of her at home.
As they
investigate her disappearance, Wyland and her creeped out cameraman Danny Martinez
start to suspect it involves the local biker drug-gang, several of her aging
hipster artist colony friends, and paranoid schizophrenic client of the
homeless shelter.
Before
long, they are deep in the trust-no-one horror-conspiracy weeds. It is
definitely bad, but somehow Kos and screenwriter Mallory Westfall will probably
manage to surprise a lot of experienced genre fans when they finally reveal the
wizard behind the curtain.
The
found footage conceit also really, really works for this film. Maybe there are
a few times when you just have to accept that Wyland was also shooting footage,
but that is relatively easy to look past, compared to the cheating you can see
in most of its less ambitious sub-genre brethren.
It's prime affordable housing in Phenom Penh, as long as your soul comes cheap. Returning
Cambodian expat Soriya and her Japanese boyfriend Daichi scored a short-term
rental in a property loosely modelled on the so-called “White Building” but
that was not a stroke of good fortune. She hoped to kindle inspiration for a horror
manga, but she might find more source material than she can handle in director-screenwriters
Inrasothythep Neth & Sokyou Chea’s Tenement, Cambodia’s official international
Oscar submission, which releases tomorrow on VOD.
After
her mother’s death, Soriya was surprised to learn she had an aunt back in
Phenom Penh. As it happens, her editor just challenged her to explore her cultural
roots for her debut manga. Daichi also happens to be between gigs, so off to
Cambodia they go. There was even a vacancy in Aunt Mao’s building. However,
Jam, their Chatty Cathy cabbie, is alarmingly alarmed to see where they will be
staying.
Soriya
is delighted to connect with her extended family, especially Mao’s daughter
Nimul. Daichi isn’t crazy about her food, but surely that’s a cultural thing,
right? Still, even Soriya must admit her zombie-like great aunt moldering in
the backroom is deeply unsettling.
Frankly,
Soriya’s long lost relatives are a little too welcoming, like the neighbors in Rosemary’s Baby, which looks an obvious influence on Neth and Chea. However, it is
interesting to see it executed in a style that also pays tribute to J-horror. Regardless,
the third act is quite a wild funhouse ride. Some fans might be frustrated with
the quietly measured start, but the deliberate, slow building atmosphere pays
dividends over time.
Flawed, but undeniably moving at times, ARMED ONLY WITH A CAMERA documents the death and repatriation of documentary filmmaker Brnt Reenaud, who was fatakky strafed by Russian forcs in Ukraine. At its best, it also shows the respect and sensitivity he and his brother Craig brought to their covderage of U.S. military personnel in Iraq. EPOCH TIMES review up here.
Dr. Joel "Laz" Lazarus is seeing ghosts, but at least they shouldn’t linger longer
than fifty minutes. Apparently, he is experiencing visions, or something, from
his late father’s life. Dr. Jonathan Lazarus was also a shrink, but his office
was clearly not a safe space. Some of the sessions were rather intense, but
they might help Laz identify his father’s killer, since his ghost can’t, or won’t
explain directly. Regardless, each visit to his late father’s office brings new
questions and often further family angst in Harlan Coben & Daniel Brocklehurst’s six-episode
Lazarus, which premiers today on Prime Video.
Old Man
Lazarus was supremely self-confident and he never owned a gun, so Laz considers
his supposed suicide highly unlikely. However, everyone knows the senior
Lazarus took the childhood murder of his daughter Sutton especially hard,
because she was his favorite. Of course, the cops know all about Sutton’s
murder, especially since DI Alison Brown is an old friend of the late doctor
and DS Seth McGovern is the other Dr. Lazarus’s childhood buddy. In fact,
McGovern still carries a torch for Laz’s other younger sister, Jenna, a psychic,
who is quite offended that the ghosts come to Laz instead of her.
It works
differently for old man Lazarus, who just walks up to Laz to start another
conversation from beyond the grave. Yet, in most cases, Laz takes his father’s
place in conversations from the past, experiencing them through his eyes.
Frankly, the first time it happens, he simply assumes he is talking to a
patient who is too crazy to tell him from his father. However, he soon learns
Cassandra Rhodes is dead—murdered in fact.
Frankly,
Laz is probably a little too confiding about the ghost business, especially to
McGovern. Of course, he will eventually need some kind of reason to explain finding
a corpse that has been hidden for over a decade. Meanwhile, Sam Olsen, the
original suspect in Sutton’s disappearance makes a suspicious habit of walking
around the late Dr. Lazarus’s office at all hours of the night.
Lazarus
is not exactly
horror per se, but it has enough of the supernatural and uncanny to feel
appropriately atmospheric for October viewing. Frankly, the first five episodes
are addictively bingeable. Coben and Brocklehurst dexterously dangle a juicy
new cliffhanger-revelation at the end of each episode. Unfortunately, the
concluding sixth installment plays out like it was conceived to disappoint, if
not outright enrage, everyone who invested nearly fives hours of their lives in
the Lazarus kin.
Frankly,
five out six is not bad, especially for an anthology, but a weak dismount
definitely hurts a thriller like Lazarus. Still, Sam Claflin delivers
some of the best work of his career as poor Laz, whom Coben and Brocklehurst
truly put through an emotional wringer. Each episode he has multiple freakouts,
breakdowns, and existential crises.
Apparently, this phenomenon is a by-product of “socialism with Chinese characteristics.” The
regime might like to boast of “traditional Chinese values” and “thousands of years
of Chinese culture,” but one of the Mainland’s fastest growing service industries
seeks to separate unfaithful husbands from their mistresses. For a top
performer like Wang Zhenxi, business is booming. Elizabeth Lo follows Wang as
she targets her latest love-triangle in “Mistress Dispeller,” which opens today
in New York.
Eventually,
Mr. and Mrs. Li and well as Fei Fei, the other woman, consented to the release
of Lo’s highly revealing documentary. Presumably, it helped that the Hong Kong-born Lo agreed to
never screen the film in China—which was a small concession, considering the
remote likelihood Mistress Dispeller would be approved for theaters in the
tightly closed Mainland market.
Having secretly
discovered her husband’s affair, Mrs. Li seeks out Wang on the advice of her
brother, who was once on the other side of her sleuthing. Soon, Wang is
charming Mr. Li in the guise of his wife’s badminton buddy. Frankly, it is a
good thing Wang works as a private fidelity cop, because could easily fleece
plenty of marks as a con artist.
Indeed,
Wang soon has Mr. Li confessing to the affair and agreeing to arrange a meeting
for her with Fei Fei, his mistress. Yet, in this case, terms like “affair” and “mistress”
almost seem a bit too strong. He has clearly played sugar daddy because he is
intoxicated by her youth, while she has accepted his support out of economic
need—and both feel guilty about it.
In
fact, all three interested parties are riddled with insecurities and neuroses.
As a result, it is relatively easy for Wang to sever the affair. Instead of
passionate drama, the documentary is mostly defined by gloominess and regret.
Nicolas makes sleeping his grief away a proactive strategy, rather than a form of
denial. That’s because it is lucid dreaming, pharmaceutically boosted.
Regardless, he reunites with his late girlfriend, who is exactly as he wants to
remember her, until maybe she starts to get a little bit real in Nacho Vigalondo’s
Daniela Forever, which releases today on DVD and BluRay.
Nicolas
and Daniela were perfect together. At least that is how he remembers them as a
couple, so her freak accidental death sends him spiraling downward. He gets so
bad, his platonic friend Victoria arranges for him to join the test group taking
her big pharma company’s lucid dreaming drug. She knows it works, because it
helped her manage her post-divorce depression. However, the experimental
controls are so lax, Nicolas accidentally starts dreaming of Daniela on the
first night—and he keeps going back to her, filing fake progress reports for
the scientists.
Initially,
the dream world is his oyster. Daniela is just the way he remembered her, but when
he’d prefer her slightly different, he simply instructs her to forget
inconvenient memories. Their world is only limited by his past experiences, so
the borders are a bit blurry and indistinct. However, the more time he lucid
dreams of Daniela, the more their dream world expands and fills in. It might
actually be turning somewhat, kind of real. That’s not my interpretation. Nicolas
dreams that Victoria suggests that very possibility.
Vigalondo
is incapable of making of boring films, but this isn’t among his best work. The
early scenes are rather confusing, but he down-shifts into interesting territory
when Nicolas starts to question the supposed unreality of his dream world.
However, it loses steam when it morphs into a pseudo-feminist critique of the Twilight
Zone episode “A World of his Own,” guest-starring Keenan Wynn, as an author
who can change reality by simply recording into his Dictaphone. To make matters
worse, the conclusion is a murky letdown.
It is like Barcelona’s version of Kisaragi Station, the supposedly haunted Japanese
train station that has become the stuff of urban legend, even though it never really
existed. Haunted or not, Rocafort Street has undeniably become a magnet for
suicides. That would have been a good question to for Laura to have asked about
during her interview. However, she needs this job as the station’s night
attendant, so she stays long enough to witness a suicide. She then sees a lot
more after that in Luis Prieto’s Last Stop: Rocafort St., which releases
this Friday on VOD.
As we witness
during the prologue, it wasn’t just suicides that happened in the Rocafort
stop. It was there that notorious serial killer Elias Soro killed his final
victims. The investigating detective, Roman Azpuru tried to stop him, but
things turned out badly for everyone, including the disgraced Azpuru.
Nevertheless,
Laura turns to Azpuru after witnessing a train engineer’s suicide. The
distraught man told her not to look, but she did so anyway. Now she is seeing
grotesque visions of the victim and perhaps the gory fates of others around
her. There also seems to be a devil dog haunting the lower tracks, but when you
see him, you’re really done for—because he is like Cerberus.
Initially,
Prieto and co-screenwriters Ivan Ledesma and Angel Agudo follow the playbook of
Asian horror films riffing on the Kisaragi mythos, like the Korean Ghost Station. However, they add elements of Aztec death cult mythology that probably
appeals to Spain’s colonial guilt, but also distinguishes Rocafort from
other haunted station films, like The Sound (which featured Toronto’s
infamous Lower Bay subway stop).
Prime's THE CHOSEN ADVENTURES success blends family-friendly humor and wise-cracking animaals with upbeat, positive Biblical stories and lessons in responsibility and compassion. Consequently, casual viewers should never feel like they are being preached at or proselytized to. EPOCH TIMES review up here.
Like Superman and Batman, His Holiness, the 14th Dalai Lama is now the star of
his own graphic novel, but his superpowers are mindfulness, nonviolence, and integrity.
In a way, you could argue he also exhibits precognition. As the 13th
Dalai Lama, he foretold impending threats to Tibet and its Tibetan Buddhist faith,
both from foreign and domestic sources. Yet, due to his nonviolent convictions,
the 14th Dalai Lama still tried to negotiate a peaceful arrangement
with the CCP occupiers, to preserve the nation’s culture and traditions. It did
not work, but it led to an ironically triumphant exile chronicled Tom Taylor’s
graphic novel, The Path of the Dalai Lama, illustrated by Matyas Namai,
which releases this Tuesday.
In
addition to unexpcted enthusiiasm for advanced science, His Holiness is also surprisingly receptive to
comics and graphic novels, because he gave Taylor and Namai his blessing for
this project, based on their comic adaption of Orwell’s 1984. Their
collaboration follows the historic events that might be familiar to many, especially
if you have seen Martin Scorsese’s Kundun, despite Disney’s efforts to
hide it. Yet, they cover some telling and undeniably significant incidents,
like the 13th Dalai Lama’s aforementioned prophecy and the year and a
half he spent as a hostage to Muslim Chinese warlord Ma Bufang, before the
young newly identified reincarnate was finally allowed to continue to Lhasa.
Clearly,
Taylor’s graphic novel will not appear on the CCP’s reading lists. In addition to
documenting the horrors of the late 1950s invasion and colonization, he also devotes
considerable space to the late 1980s mass protests and the mid-1990s
self-immolations, which have been almost entirely forgotten by the Western media
in recent years. Taylor does a decent job channeling HH’s personality, but his
real strength comes in the way he crystalizes decades of personal and national
history into 100-some pages of incredibly striking comic panels.
He promoted "mindfulness" before it was cool. He still advocates nonviolence even
though it is currently out of favor, with violence and terrorism regularly
celebrated on the streets of New York and London (especially the anti-Semitic
variety). In some ways, the Tibetan Buddhism espoused by His Holiness, the 14th
Dalai Lama has already had tremendous influence on the Western world, since his
exile in 1959. Yet, in other ways, we need his teachings now more than ever. Fortunately,
the Dalai Lama obliges, delivering essentially a summation of his teachings
that he offers for both longtime followers and casual newcomers in Barbara
Miller & Philip Delaquis’s documentary, Wisdom of Happiness,
executive produced by Richard Gere, which is now playing in New York.
Although
His Holiness provides a brief recap of his flight from Tibet, stressing how his
willingness to come to an understanding with the CCP was undermined by Mao’s betrayal,
he essentially seeks to lay a practical philosophical groundwork for personal
happiness. He starts with the premise that everyone desires happiness and peace,
which, arguably might only be half true in these times, while admitting that
this will be an increasingly difficult goal in the 21st Century
(which is hard to deny).
Much of
what the Dalai Lama recommends will dovetail nicely with the mindfulness movement/industry,
such as his practice of conscious meditation. Yet, ironically, many woke
extremists have turned against him, due to manufactured outrages. Nevertheless,
for real “progressives,” His Holiness’s teaching should hold great appeal.
Throughout the film, he champions scientific inquiry, suggesting that it is
religious dogma that should give way when the two conflict. (Indeed, Dawn Gifford
Engle documented his scientific curiosity at length in The Dalai Lama: Scientist).
Frankly,
he serves up progressive catnip when His Holiness argues for greater female
representation among national leaders, because he has observed women have an
inherently more peaceful nature. Yet, the Dalai Lama is perhaps at his most progressive
when he discusses the need for wiser environmental stewardship.
TRUTH & TREASON, from Angel Studios, shines a light on he remarkable true story of Mormon Helmuth Hubener, the youngest prisoner of conscience executed by the National Socialists. It is a thoughtful period production that avoids bias, favoritism, and cheap sentimentality. EPOCH TIMES review up here.
ECM Records is known as an incredibly artist-friendly label. The Köln Concert is
a major reason why they can afford to be so supportive. Keith Jarrett was well
known for his previous releases and his sideman recordings with Miles Davis,
but few A&R execs would have recognized the double live album’s commercial
potential. Yet, it became the best-selling solo jazz album of all time and a perennial
catalog seller for ECM. There were no standards, no arrangements, no sidemen,
and no pre-planning. It was just Jarrett freely improvising on the piano. That
might sound simple, but the events leading up to the solo concert are quite
chaotic in director-screenwriter Ido Fluk’s mostly fact-based Köln 75,
which opens today in New York.
Initially,
Fluk’s film largely follows Vera Brandes, a German teenager who becomes an
unlikely jazz promoter. Frankly, she and her friend Isa seem like rather
shallow leftwing activists, but at least they like jazz. However, British tenor
saxophonist Ronnie Scott finds Brandes rather charming. However, instead of
anything untoward, the old gent propositions her to book a German tour for him,
because he couldn’t imagine anyone “saying no” to her. Of course, old Ronnie’s
instincts prove as sharp as ever.
Soon,
Brandes is secretly running a considerable jazz promotion business, at the
inevitable expense of her high school studies. She even hires her deadbeat
older brother, to keep him from tattling to their emotionally abusive parents. However,
she maybe bites off more than she can chew when she books the Köln Opera House,
at great personal out-of-pocket expense, for a solo Keith Jarrett concert.
The
film really gets going when it shifts its focus to Jarrett, as he suffers
through a series of European engagements with his record producer, Eicher, who
is also acting as a de facto manager. John Magaro is shockingly good portraying
Jarrett, capturing his cerebral intellect, eccentric prickliness, spiritual
depth, and the taxing physical pain he suffered. Instead of playing jazz cliché
hopscotch, he really humanizes and embodies Jarrett’s artistry and anxieties.
It is
also very cool to see Eicher getting his due credit and significant screentime
in the film. Alexander Scheer’s quietly sympathetic portrayal makes it easy to
understand why artists who sign with Eicher stay with ECM for years or even
decades. Plus, Michael Chernus really elevates the fictional (but
true-in-spirit) jazz journalist Michael Watts. He also archly delivers several
of Fluk’s tongue-in-cheek jazz lessons, while nicely serving as a foil to open
Jarrett up for audiences.
If you put dumb people in a smart house, it reverts back to being dumb again. The
same is true for movies. It turns out Alice’s late estranged mom’s house was too
smart for her own good. Evidently, someone or something else hiding in the
shadows has a better command of the system than she or Alice in David Moreau’s OTHER
(a.k.a. Other, a.k.a. O.T.H.E.R.), which premieres today on
Shudder.
Despite
the inconvenience, Elena felt compelled to hide her face while she was running
for her life, but the mystery stalker kills her anyway. For reasons that will
be revealed later, Alice wants to have her body cremated quickly, so she can be
done with her once and for all. However, she is stuck at her mother’s remote
smart house, because the medical examiner won’t release her mom’s body. Also,
the key-fob for her rental car mysteriously disappears.
The
audience can see an indistinct shape scurrying down halls and around corners,
but Alice can’t seem to notice. She is too busy fighting with the alarms and
environmental controls. To further confuse matters, there is also a weird
live-streamer skulking around the surrounding woods, who shouts unhinged-sounding
warnings to Alice that she should cover her face.
Frankly,
it is hard to describe OTHER, because it is so disjointed. It plays out
like a collection of high-concepts mushed together during a brainstorming
session. Arguably, even the title does not make much sense up until the final
five minutes.
It is a
shame Moreau did not spend more time filing down the awkward excesses of his
script, because the execution is often oddly effective, particularly the way he
contrives to avoid showing any faces except that of his star, Olga Kurylenko. The
vibe is like a drunken fusion of Italian giallos and the unconventional POV of Good Boy.
Finney Shaw survived the Grabber in the original Black Phone movie, which
was a good thing. Since then, he has been known as the boy who killed the
serial killer, which hasn’t been great. Unfortunately, he is about to learn he
and the Grabber have a deeper connection than he ever knew, which is very, very
bad. Even though he is dead, the Grabber still wants a piece of Shaw and Gwen,
his sister with the “shine.” However, the Shaw siblings are still tenacious survivors
in Scott Derrickson’s The Black Phone 2, produced by Blumhouse, which
opens Friday in theaters.
Several
years have passed, but Finney still gets phantom calls on out-of-service pay
phones (this is the early 1980s, so there are plenty of them out there), which
he ignores and Gwen still has ominous dreams. Her latest vision is that of her
late mother calling from Alpine Lake, a Christian winter-sports camp in the
Colorado Rockies. Basically, if you camped at Alpine Lake as a teen, you could
graduate to staying at the Overlook Hotel in The Shining as an adult,
because similarly bad things happened both places.
In
fact, three kids were killed at the camp shortly after their mother quit
working there as a counselor. It was closed for years, but ‘Mando, a former
employee, bought the camp and reopened it, so he could continue looking for the
victims’ missing bodies. Wanting answers about the mother they hardly knew,
Gwen convinces Finney and her pseudo-boyfriend, Arnesto Arellano (the brother
of Robin, whom the Grabber abducted just prior to taking Finney), to join her
as trainee camp counselors. However, a not-so-freak blizzard (again, this is
Colorado) traps the three teens in Alpine Lake, with the Grabber, who has
become something like Freddy Kruger.
The
first film was a very Blumhouse production, mostly confined to the Grabber’s
sinister dungeon. Fans might have been skeptical of the sequel’s wider scope,
but Derickson and co-screenwriter C. Robert Cargill successful incorporate
elements of The Shining and Nightmare on Elm Street, in a manner
that feels compatible with the first film’s mythos.
However,
sometimes it arguably departs from King/Hill family themes, in good ways, by
giving the Shaw siblings’ father redemptive moments and not demonizing the camp
for its Christian origins. Plus, regardless of where it was filmed (apparently
somewhere in Ontario), Black Phone 2 feels like a very Colorado-kind of
film.
The
teen principals, Mason Thames and Madeline McGraw returning as the Shaws and
Miguel Mora, switching from the role of Robin Arrelano to his younger [living]
brother Arnesto, work well together and they all show a youthful maturity you
rarely see in horror movies. These are clearly kids who have seen more than their
share. Demian also gives grown-up viewers an adult presence worth caring about
as Mando, while Jeremy Davies has some shockingly resonant moments playing the
guilt-wracked Shaw father.
TOM CLANCY'S SPLINTER CELL: DEATHWATCH was not really written by Clancy, but it probably better reflects the perspective of his novels than the most rcent movie adaptations. It largly avoids ideology, but invites sympathy for its former Navy SEAL hero, while delivering high-energy animated action. EPOCH TIMES review up here.
Their relationship was so “intimate,” Vahid could recognize him by his smell and
the sound of his walking gait. He was a prison torturer and Vahid was one of
his many victims. Frankly, he never saw his tormentor’s face, but when they
suddenly cross paths, all Vahid’s traumatic memories come rushing back to him.
However, he wants 100% confirmation before taking the final step towards
vengeance in Jafar Panahi’s Cannes Palme d’Or-winning It was Just an
Accident, which opens today in New York.
Driving
home with his pregnant wife and young daughter, Eghbal accidentally hits a
stray dog (dogs have it rough in Islamist Iran). Shortly thereafter, their car
starts sputtering, but Eghbal manages to coast to Vahid’s garage, where his
co-worker gives the engine a temporary patch-up job. However, Vahid remains in
the shadows, because hearing the man’s voice and squeaky prosthetic leg makes his
blood run cold.
Overcome
with rage, Vahid follows Eghbal home and continues stalking him. Soon, he
strikes, abducting his former torturer—at least Vahid is ninetysome percent
sure Eghbal is the man who terrorized him night after night. He is ready to
bury the regime loyalist in the desert, but he wants to be completely certain,
so he visits Shiva, a photographer friend of a mutual dissident friend, who
also suffered at the hands of the interrogator with the artificial limb. She
remembers the feel of the leg, because he often made her touch it (yuck, in the
most believably disturbing way), but she never saw his face either.
When
Shiva’s client, Goli learns why Shiva is so distracted by the contents of Vahid’s
van, she insists on seeing Eghbal for herself, because she was also a victim. Yet,
again, she cannot ID him with absolute certainty. Without changing from her
wedding gown, she and her groom, Ali, join Vahid and Shiva, in search of Hamid,
a further member of their imprisoned circle. However, Hamid’s ordeal left him
with anger management issues bordering on mild psychosis. He will not be a stabilizing
addition to their party.
Without
question, this is one of the best films of Panahi’s accomplished career. In
some ways, it brings to mind Death and the Maiden, but it is much more
than that. This is a deeply humanistic film with a surprisingly absurdist
streak. Vahid’s ever-growing carpool would almost bring to mind It’s a Mad,
Mad, Mad, Mad World, if the subject of their quest was not so grimly
serious. Indeed, this film is shocking one moment, funny the next, and
then deeply unsettling. Yet, there is never any feeling of whiplash. Under
Panahi’s sure hand, viewers understand this is what it is like to live in
contemporary Iran.
The tremendous
range and flexibility of the cast is a major reason why the constantly shifting
gears come across so smoothly for the audience. They obviously appreciate the dire
stakes and the simultaneously bizarre absurdism of their characters’ situation.
Accident ought to win awards for best cast, but it won’t, because that
would take guts.
Everybody knows the Kim Cattrall movie was an outlier. The Twilight Zone and
Christopher Eggleston’s Doctor Who taught us those model dummies bear
watching. You never know when they might come alive and do something weird, especially
this one. Up-and-coming fashion-designer Sofia Rojas should have been more
suspicious since it came with her newly refurbished loft. Extra bonuses always
turn out to be costly in horror movies, including hers. That would be John
Berardo’s The Mannequin, which releases today on VOD.
Years
ago, sleazy glamour photographer Jack Bernard murdered wannabe pin-up model
Ruth Calvert in the loft. Then he murdered several more models in decades that
followed. Perhaps he is still killing from beyond the grave, using the
mannequin Rojas dubs “Alice Baldwin” as his Chucky-like vessel. Sometimes, the
spirits of his victims also appear to be present, but they are never helpful—quite
the contrary.
Regardless,
Rojas’s first night in her new loft turns out to be a rough one. Several months
late, her sister Lianna moves in, hoping to pick up Sofia’s fashion mantle as
well. She will have the help and the hindrance of their friends, Hazel and
Nadine. Although they resent some of Lianna’s poor coping techniques, they still
try support her, especially when her behavior takes a disturbing turn.
Unfortunately, the time they spend with her means they are also “marked” by the
force controlling the mannequin, whether they believe it or not. Super-reluctantly,
Lianna seeks the help of her ghost-chasing YouTuber ex-boyfriend Peter, who launches
a red alert as soon as he runs a basic internet search on the loft.
It turns out Laura Ingalls Wilder’s family had it easy. This homesteading mother
must contend with viral-rage-zombies, cannibals, and over-zealous quarantine
enforcers. Rather conveniently (for them), the second and third are one and the
same. You can’t blame her for remaining secluded in the family cabin with her
grizzled father-in-law. Unfortunately, she still blames herself for her daughter’s
death, so she hopes to achieve some redemption by helping a stranger in Jordana
Stott’s Forgive Us All, which releases today on UK VOD.
Rory
and her late husband’s father, Otto, try to keep to themselves and maintain a
low profile—for good reason. Logan and Scout are those reasons. The former is
apparently the leader of a clan of cannibals who have forged an alliance with
the quarantine colony managed by the latter’s colleagues. Frankly, Stott and
co-screenwriters do a poor job establishing the basics of this post-apocalyptic,
neo-Western world, but that is a functional hypothesis.
Regardless,
Logan, Scout, and a disposable henchman are chasing Noah, because he stole a
vial of their antidote to save his infected daughter. Unfortunately, he did not
get away clean. Having collapsed outside the cabin, Rory shelters him for the
night, despite Otto’s misgivings. Of course, the three villains soon ride up
demanding they surrender Noah. They offer to ignore Rory’s quarantine
violations, even though they dismiss her private property assertions. According
to Logan they abolished private land ownership, so we know which side Mamdani
would ride with—and once again, it is not the good guys.
Frankly,
there are seeds of potential greatness in Forgive Us All, but Stott can’t
do them justice. By far, her biggest sin is the sluggish pacing. Basically,
this film is the Power of the Dog of zombie westerns, but only in the
unflattering ways. As previously alluded to, the world-building is also
decidedly sketchy.
