Popcorn Kernels: Dumping Out The Net

In which we briefly review two movies produced for Netflix, and one that feels like it absolutely could have been.

Roma

Year: 2018
Director: Alfonso Cuarón
Cast: Yalitza Aparicio, Marina de Tavira, Diego Cortina Autrey
Run Time: 2 hours 15 minutes
MPAA Rating: R

We spend a year in the life of Cleo, a live-in maid for a rich family in 1970's Mexico City.

Now, I'm gonna front load this one so you know I don't only watch Hallmark garbage. Roma is a frontrunner for Oscar season, because really what else even looks remotely watchable this year? This movie sees celebrated Mexican filmmaker Alfonso Cuarón return to his roots, having taken five years to recover from his Earth-shattering, cinema tech-redefining hit Gravity. Roma seems small compared to anything, but especially that. And the crew is pared down too. For this semi-autobiographical piece, Cuarón not only wrote, directed, and produced, but he also shot and edited the damn thing. It's definitely a labor of love and it shows.

Loosely based on the life of Cuarón's beloved nanny, Roma is one of those walk-a-mile-in-my-shoes movies that depicts the everyday life of someone who popular audiences might not have thought about before: a working woman who has just barely escaped poverty and must live constantly under the shadow of people who are freer and more privileged while. It's full of mundane tasks and chores (the way dog poop piles up in the driveway might seem tedious, but sooner or later the sight of it will strike pure terror into your heart), but it builds to grand crescendos of emotion that are captured in those little routine, familiar actions. It's not a question of if this movie will make you cry, it's how many times.

It's a tender paean to the importance of every single life, especially in the way Cleo is weaved into the tapestry of Mexican political unrest of the 70's. She's not necessarily consciously participating, but she's an essential thread just like everybody else around her. But enough with the story (which is great). Roma is a cornea-crushingly beautiful movie. Cuarón knows how to frame a f**king shot, and he uses his patented technique of uninterrupted takes to draw you inexorably into the center of a world that feels entirely real, tactile, and occasionally entirely overwhelming.

There's a lot to devour in the imagery of Roma, so I don't know if I would say it peaked early, but one shot I would like to highlight - and in my eyes it is certainly the single best shot of the film - runs beneath the opening credits. I hesitate to even spoil the image, but what seems at first boring and menial transitions suddenly into a breathtaking display that is at once small, quiet, and profound.

And that sound design. The man knows ears just as well as eyes. The first thing that knocked me out about Gravity was the fully realized sonic world that swallowed you whole, and Cuarón treats the vistas of Mexico City and its environs with all the spectacle and wonder of outer space. Honestly, the whole film is a perfectly sumptuous sensory experience, which makes perfect sense why it's going to be viewed on... millions of people's laptops?

Thank you so much Netflix for making this movie, but seriously, f**k you.

Rating: 9/10

The Princess Switch

Year: 2018
Director: Mike Rohl
Cast: Vanessa Hudgens, Sam Palladio, Nick Sagar
Run Time: 1 hour 41 minutes

A duchess trades places with a Chicago baker so they can experience each other's lives on Christmas.

Netflix really plumbed a new niche last holiday season when they learned that there is a ravenous audience for crappy Hallmark-level Christmas films, and this year they've pumped out even more of the things. I'd hesitate to say The Princess Switch is the most notable, considering there's a sequel to the smash hit A Christmas Prince and a movie where Kurt Russell plays Santa, but this is the only one where Vanessa Hudgens from High School Musical plays two characters, so which did you think I would watch?

The Princess Switch does exactly what it says on the tin. It's a predictable but charming plot that's not quite good enough to actually recommend, and not quite bad enough to have a great time mocking, but exists somewhere in between being generally sweet. It's like eating a single Hershey's kiss. It'll give you that little kick of sugar, but it'll just make you hungrier for a more substantial treat.

And while I wouldn't say Hudgens is giving a tour de force performance, her distinction between the two characters is always entirely clear, to the point that I imagined Vanessa Hudgens the baker as the lead and the duchess character as being played by somebody entirely different. Though that might be due to the fact that, as a wish fulfillment fantasy, the movie couldn't give half a f**k about how the duchess is liking her normal life, and spends about two and a half seconds with her every other scene. Probing character study this is not.

Plus, while it's not as relentlessly mockable as some of these other Netflix titles, there's still plenty of cheerily dumb gems lying around to be picked up and dusted off. Like the fact that "getting the coats" and "doing the dishes" are treated as two tasks that take the exact same amount of time. Or that the fictional land of Belgravia consists of one castle, one orphanage (complete with mistletoe for some despicable reason), one arts and crafts Christmas fair, and a huge corporate TV studio. Or the prince having a "meeting with Spain." Or the fact that they literally sit down to watch A Christmas Prince on Netflix at one point (scrolling right past A Christmas Inheritance, which is clearly madness). OK, maybe I love this movie.

Rating: 6/10

Little Italy

Year: 2018
Director: Donald Petrie
Cast: Hayden Christensen, Emma Roberts, Andrea Martin
Run Time: 1 hour 42 minutes
MPAA Rating: R (I don't understand it either)

Two hot young things fall in love despite their families being the owners of rival pizza places.

While Little Italy clearly is a branch of the cheesy (pun absolutely intended) family of Hallmark and Netflix original rom-coms, there is one thing I did not expect it to be, and the only thing about it that's unpredictable in any respect: It's also a rip-off of My Big Fat Greek Wedding. There are a lot of clues. For one thing, it's about how a big loud ethnic family can interfere with a modern love life. For another, they literally cast Andrea Martin, whose race is a mystery to Hollywood (she's Armenian by the way) and has played family members from all across the Mediterranean.

Like The Princess Switch, Little Italy has its share of fun dumb moments (I've even got myself a Champion Dialogue: "Best friends gotta eat, right?") that are delightful to rib. But unlike the former, this movie also has a grab bag of jokes that are offensive to just about every minority group on the planet, including Italians. There are two Indian side characters, which would normally be a sign of increasing diversity in a film, but they can not stop making jokes about curry powder, Jai Ho, and magic carpet rides (Aladdin was Arabian, first of all. Second of all, please stop.) At least those two aren't paired off in the end as the display of heteronormative race-matched pair-bonding that these types of comedies can't resist. Tragically, the same can't be said about the film's only gay character (a man who inappropriately gropes his straight friend), who instantly falls in love with the only other Gay in the room, a man who has swished onscreen only about thirty seconds before.

At least the central couple is racially diverse, because while Hayden Christensen is attempting his best, broadest Brooklyn Italian accent (strange, because this film is specifically set in Toronto), Emma Roberts attempts nothing at all. She doesn't even manage to convince us that she's capable of eating pizza, let alone having chemistry with Anakin Skywalker. It's a lazy, slapdash couple for a lazy, slapdash movie (it literally opens and closes with a "nunya" joke) and the only reason it exists is that the director also made Mystic Pizza, so he's got himself a Roberts family connection and people were like "sure, he did it once, we're Hollywood and we love doing things all over again!"

It's all a boring, unpleasant slog that is only redeemed by Andrea Martin who is of course terrific anywhere you put her, and Geri Hall in a one-scene role as a cop who has the hots for Christensen. It's the oldest, creakiest character archetype in the book, and it's definitely a bit more Me Too-y than the producers were probably hoping for, but Hall has an actual sense of comic timing and she manages to squeeze a lot of charisma out of a few lines. So at least there's something? But I'm sure one can find that scene on YouTube, and there's no use digging it out of a 102 minute movie whose single selling point on the DVD cover is that is features the hit Shawn Mendes song "There's Nothing Holdin' Me Back."

Rating: 3/10
Word Count: 1548

Game of Phones

Year: 2016

Director: Henry Joost & Ariel Schulman

Cast: Emma Roberts, Dave Franco, Emily Meade

Run Time: 1 hour 36 minutes

MPAA Rating: PG-13

Before I went to see Nerve, I checked to see what some of my favorite reviewers said about it. Seeing how they’re all adult men, it turns out that none of them have actually seen it, making me the sole voice in the teenybopper darkness. I do it all for you.

Although my tolerance is waning for YA adaptations, especially single shot throwaways attempting to surf on the wake of Hunger Games, there was something that drew me to Nerve: directors Ariel Schulman and Henry Joost. the Catfish documentarians who co-directed Paranormal Activity 3 and 4. Although I’m wobbly on one of those movies and actively hate the other, I love when low budget horror directors are given a chance to helm a big Hollywood feature, especially when it’s in such a random genre. And I don’t know what it says about them, but Nerve is definitely their best work.

Although, with Paranormal Activity 4 on your CV, a Transformers movie would count as your best work.

In Nerve, timid teen Vee (Emma Roberts) is fed up with her life. She’s sick of her domineering cheerleader best friend Sydney (Emily Meade) – yeah, this is one of those movies where a girl who looks like Emma Roberts is supposed to be nerdy and undesirable – an her overprotective mom (Juliette Lewis) who hasn’t been the same since her older brother died. Trying to overcome her fear of taking risks, she signs up for Nerve, a user-generated dare game where she can win money for filming herself doing wild stunts like kissing strangers or sneaking into expensive stores. This will help her both get out of her shell and earn enough to go to her dream college.

Through the game she meets Ian (Dave Franco), another player who she teams up with, helping her gain watchers and rise up the charts. However, the further she gets, the more dangerous her dares become, and she begins to discover there’s a sick truth behind the game and those who participate in it.

It’s basically Pokémon Go with more nudity and violence.

Nerve is definitely a teen movie, no two ways about it. Anyone who’s been on this planet for more than a decade and a half will scoff at the hyperbolic drama and the best friend’s unrequited love, but it’s the same crap we all fell for back in the day. If that stuff isn’t for you, then it’s not for you, but let me tell you this: I have no idea where Joost and Schulman are pulling this kind of visual artistry from, but it’s not only the most kinetic and exciting movie of their career, it might just be the most aesthetically stunning YA movie since Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

Now, I’m a sucker for a movie with a bold color scheme and a movie with unique integration of modern technology, but Nerve does both here in a way that manages to stay true to the inscrutable media whims of modern teen culture while remaining an enticing work of cinema. A lot of the slick cinematography and self-consciously hip soundtrack feels like they cracked open MTV and sprinkled it on top of everything, but that kind of pandering is a staple of these types of movies (“Don’t You (Forget About Me)” might be regarded as a classic, but there’s no denying it was birthed from that very same impulse) and I wouldn’t be rid of it for the world.

Clearly, I’ve gotten myself a little riled up so let me cut to the chase. Nerve’s production design (courtesy of Chris Trujillo of f**king Stranger Things) is a splendid treat, full of lavish, exuberantly excessive neon that turns the world into a bright, candy-colored technological wonderland which perfectly suits the thrumming synth score. The visual style complements this well, diving through, around, and into phone and computer screens and using digital flags to track players’ progress around the city, turning the act of using technology into something interactive and stimulating. Nerve’s world is just ours, but turned up to 11, which is perfect for its slightly fantastical premise.

ie. That someone could be playing a game on their phone all night and not run out of battery.

Nerve actually has a solid theme as well, about how online anonymity can turn people into monsters. It’s a little heavy-handed, but it’s a very relevant topic in modern teen culture that actually wasn’t present in the source novel at all (or so I’ve been told). This means that the filmmakers made a set of very conscious choices while adapting the 2012 book into a current text. This isn’t just an audiobook with visuals, it’s a unique piece of work that people actually put thought into making.

And if we set aside that heavy Brennan-y analysis, Nerve is still a fun thrill ride. With snappy dialogue, surprisingly tense action, and a mostly game cast (first time performer/white rapper Machine Gun Kelly is camp as all Hell), it’s a bubblegum splash of a story.

Of course, the third act is idiotic drivel, but at least they made it this far. When the story gets bogged down in Darknet technobabble, it loses a lot of its momentum. But if a gymnast doesn’t stick the landing, that doesn’t mean they didn’t still give a terrific, nail-biting performance. Nerve isn’t an all-out classic of teen cinema, but it’s a delightful breath of fresh air in an unremittingly dour summer.

TL;DR: Nerve is an exciting, colorful, cotton candy playground.

Rating: 8/10

Word Count: 947

The Texts Are Coming From Inside The House

Year: 2011

Director: Wes Craven

Cast: Neve Campbell, David Arquette, Courteney Cox

Run Time: 1 hour 51 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

Here we are at the end of yet another of my franchise marathons. However, like so many of these slasher villains have proven, it’s never truly the end. Betweens remakes, reboots crossovers, and recalibrations, all our favorite killers remain indestructible. In fact, Scream itself is experiencing new life as a surprisingly watchable teen soap on MTV. Nevertheless, let’s take a moment to reflect on where some notable franchises have left us, in honor of the Scream tradition of contemplating the rules and formulas of horror films.

Friday the 13th left this world in a blaze of glory with the one-two punch of the insane, alternately blisteringly gory and leadenly dull Jason Goes to Hell and the zippy but senile Jason X. A Nightmare on Elm Street gave us Wes Craven’s New Nightmare, a thoughtful, chilling masterpiece that reflected on the decade of crap that came before it and recycled it back into something great. Halloween (reviews yet to come) tossed Michael Myers to the winds of the new millennium, letting him get torn apart by the twin evils of web television and Busta Rhymes. Texas Chainsaw introduced Leatherface to Illuminati nipples. And Saw forgot they were even making a film halfway through, leaving their main character quite literally on the cutting room floor.

So what are we to take from all of this? Well, mainly that late sequels suck, except where Wes Craven is involved. Now, 2011 Wes Craven was a much different, softer man than 1994 Wes Craven, and that’s the truth. Scream 4 is no New Nightmare and it doesn’t go around changing any games that I can see. But it’s a damn sight better than it has any right to be, especially coming on the heels of the appalling Scream 3.

I mean, just by extent of not having that dumb-ass voice changer box, this film is like Casablanca in comparison to Scream 3.

Scream 4 begins by retracing its roots. Wait, let me back up. Scream 4 begins with a tongue-in-cheek, self-devouring, instantly divisive opening sequence that I am loathe to spoil if you haven’t seen it, though I err on the side of liking it. Then it retraces its roots, for the first time bringing consummate survivor Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) back to her hometown of Woodsboro, California. It’s been over a decade since the series of three murder sprees that defined her life, launching the wildly popular Stab series of horror films (the first three of which were based on her life, the rest of which get increasingly inane, all of which I hope somebody makes one day), and sending her to the top of the best-seller list as the author of a book about stepping out of the shadows, denouncing your role as a victim, and becoming a survivor.

Of course, the second she arrives in town a new murder spree begins as the villainous Ghostface (the evergreen Roger Jackson) turns his attentions to Sidney’s young niece (Emma Roberts) and her bland teen friends, of whom the only important one is the inimitable Kirby (Hayden Panettiere), a horror buff who oozes confidence and androgynous apathy. Sidney must once again team up with Sheriff Dewey (David Arquette) and his wife Gale Weathers (Courteney Cox) to solve these murders and just maybe save their crumbling marriage.

At least fictionally. Sometimes meta scripts can be painful.

Scream 4 is neither the apotheosis of what a modern take on Scream could be, nor is it the black mark on the franchise that some die-hard fans make it out to be. It politely engages with some modern technological advances (Facebook, Twitter, speakerphone, that sort of thing – trés Gossip Girl), mulls a bit over what it means to be a horror film in the Age of Remakes, and waves at new distribution technology and torture porn in the hallway before realizing it doesn’t actually recognize them and pretending it was swatting a fly or something. There are a few ideas that it bats around about as smoothly as a 46-year-old screenwriter and a 71-year-old director can be expected to (ie. about as well as asking them to navigate Tumblr). But otherwise it finds a fairly solid amount of actual material to work with.

It helps to think of it as Scream Lite, for the viewer on the go who wants to watch their brain cell expenditure. Sure it can be a little goofy (like their dogged assertion that naming a deputy “Anthony Perkins” is a subtle in-joke/veritable laugh riot), and maybe it’s a little flabby around the middle and during its extended finale, and yeah it is never ever scary, but it’s also a great deal of fun. Which is more than I can say for the embalmed gags and McDreamy preening of Scream 3. It’s an excuse to drop into the world of these characters one more time, and though it might be fleeting, it’s hard to find fault in that.

And now that the 90’s are over, we’ll never ever have to look at an all-denim ensemble again.

Admittedly, a lot of Scream 4 is coasting, though when it’s on autopilot it’s at least on the level of a Halloween: H20 rather than an I Know What You Did Last Summer, if that’s any comfort. And when the film is shaken awake, there are some moments that genuinely come alive. The film plays with the ubiquity of video cameras in the modern world, utilizing the technology to create multiple angle perspectives on some of the more effective tension sequences.

Now that I’m done making a total nerd of myself, it’s time to… do that a little bit more. Because the continuity editing in Gale’s scenes is just embarrassing, and I would be remiss if I didn’t bring that up at least once.

Anybody agree? No? Just me?

OK, I need to get my act together with some semblance of a conclusion here. Scream 4 has just really distracted me with its baffling uncategorizability. Scream 4 is an ultimately satisfying bumpy ride with veteran franchise actors squaring off against airbrushed MTV personalities, wooden quips rubbing shoulders with chewy subtext about victimization and American celebrity, and a kick-ass mod rock soundtrack by The Sounds not quite clashing with a romantic Western Marco Beltrami score that reminds us just how valuable he is to this series. In short, it’s a hot mess, but a happy one. Like a plate of nachos. Or a Sia music video.

After all I’ve been through, I can’t say I’m disappointed by that.

Body Count: 15

1. Trudy is stabbed in the chest.
2. Sherrie has her throat slit.
3. Rachel is stabbed in the gut.
4. Marnie is killed offscreen.
5. Jenny is stabbed to death.
6. Olivia is stabbed to death.
7. Rebecca is stabbed in the gut.
8. Hoss is stabbed in the back.
9. Perkins is stabbed in the forehead.
10. Mrs. Roberts is stabbed through the back of the neck.
11. Robbie is stabbed to death.
12. Kirby is stabbed in the gut.
13. Trevor is shot in the head.
14. [Charlie is stabbed in the heart.]
15. [Jill is shot in the chest.] 

TL;DR: Scream 4 is a messy, but decent franchise ender (for now).

Rating: 7/10

Word Count: 1217

Reviews In This Series
Scream (Craven, 1996)
Scream 2 (Craven, 1997)
Scream 3 (Craven, 2000)
Scream 4 (Craven, 2011)