Would That It Were So Simple

Year: 2016
Director: Joel & Ethan Coen
Cast: Josh Brolin, George Clooney, Alden Ehrenreich
Run Time: 1 hour 46 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG-13

An apology for the delay in getting this review out for the new Coen brothers venture Hail, Caesar!. Incidentally, I started reading Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar around the same time I watched it and held back on the off chance that the play would allow me more insight into the film. It didn’t. My ulterior motive was that maybe the extra time would allow me to fully sort out my complex and twisted feelings about the film. It didn’t. So now here we are, a little too late and with nothing to show for it.

So it goes.

In Hail, Caesar! Eddie Mannix (Josh Brolin) is a Hollywood fixer in the 1950’s, keeping the raucous stars out of trouble and – more importantly – out of the newspapers. While scandals and drama erupt from all corners – pregnant Brooklyn nymphette DeeAnna Moran (Scarlett Johansson), snooping twin journalists Thora and Thessaly Thacker (Tilda Swinton), uptight British director Laurence Laurentz (Ralph Fiennes), down-home Western star turned leading man Hobie Doyle (Alden Ehrenreich), and charming, some might say magical, musical star Burt Gurney (Channing Tatum) – he must balance his work, his Catholic morals, and an intriguing new job offer.

But first he must find Baird Whitlock (George Clooney), the studio’s biggest star, who has just been kidnapped and held for ransom by the enigmatic conglomerate The Future.

I know that was a short description, but there is somehow both more and less pot in Hail, Caesar! than I described, so I figured I found a happy medium.

What stands out about Hail, Caesar! (other than the fact that it sends my computer’s grammar checker into a sputtering rage) is that it utterly defies classification. It’s alternately a screwball comedy, a throwback musical, a crisis of faith story, a satirical economic treatise, and a pastiche of Old Hollywood, sometimes all at once. Some of these elements are much better than others, though the vast majority of them are geared toward the funnier end of the spectrum. Which is good news because Hail, Caesar! is at its strongest when it’s fishing for laughs.

There are some truly amazing comedy moments in Hail, Caesar!, scenes that allow a talented cast to obliterate their comfort zones in order to achieve something truly magnificent. Tilda Swinton excels, grounding a cartoonish concept in deliriously silly reality (and between this and Trainwreck, she really ought to consider making the leap to comedy full time), Ralph Fiennes gets a rare opportunity to show his lighter side, exquisitely maneuvering through an uproarious Abbot and Costello homage, and “newcomer” Alden Ehrenreich (critics like to pretend he wasn’t in Beautiful Creatures) deftly navigates his scenes with a  dopey incalculable charm. Ehrenreich handily makes a bigger impression than megastar George Clooney or Josh Brolin, though to be fair they are saddled with two of the dullest characters in the script.

Also, he’s purdy.

The second greatest strength of Hail, Caesar! is its two original musical numbers, which perfectly recreate and comment on the filmmaking of the 1950’s. The swimming pool number featuring Scarlett Johansson is the lesser of the two, though it features impeccable costume design. I don’t know why I seem to have a physical inability to appreciate swim-dance sequences (Miss Piggy’s in The Great Muppet Caper similarly vexed me), but a scene I have absolutely no reservations about is Channing Tatum’s tap-dancing sailor number “No Dames.”

In addition to being the flamboyant, homo-erotic spectacle that has charmed many reviewers, it’s a downright perfect dance routine. It’s a stunning, delightful number that wouldn’t be out of place in a Gene Kelly environment, utilizing every last element of its seaside pub setting with gusto. Like, it’s funny or whatever, but its brilliant choreography should not be sidelined by its subtext. It’s a glorious, sparkling diamond in the crown of Hail, Caesar!’s comedy.

And then of course, everything falls apart. Hail, Caesar! is, from its opening frame, an exceedingly scatterbrained motion picture, but at sometime around the point that Frances McDormand teleports into the film for about thirty seconds to indulge in a  spot of harebrained physical comedy, the movie’s incohesiveness begins to set in like a rot. The film’s characters (especially McDormand and Jonah Hill’s Joseph Silverman) are but vapors, haphazardly colliding with the plot at random intervals and disappearing for huge chunks of time, sometimes never appearing again, swallowed by the ether. Plot points, story threads and themes similarly circulate, bobbing up and down in the overcrowded stew.

Let's take another quick look, shall we?

However towering the film’s comedic highs are (including a boardroom religious debate that’s downright untouchable), they’re too precarious to maintain, sending it tumbling down again and again. Hail, Caesar! finds the Coens indulging in cinematic gluttony and choking out their own ideas by cramming in as much pseudo-religious imagery, economic theory, and jerry-rigged philosophy as they can get their hands on. It’s a distracting mess that prevents access to some of the truly great subtext bubbling beneath the surface.

As much as I dearly want to extol it to the high heavens, I can’t get past its crazed, half-baked presentation. It’s like a crazy, politically abrasive uncle at Thanksgiving dinner. You have no choice but to love it at least a little (especially if you’re a fan of classic Hollywood cinema), but spending more than five minutes at a time with it is immensely taxing.I’m Brennan I do the click clack clickity clackity click click clack on my compy. Click Clack. Bathroom break. Clickly Clacky. Art. 
TL;DR: Hail, Caesar! is a messy comedy with some truly outstanding moments that are mired in impenetrable messiness.
Rating: 6/10
Word Count: 960

New Year's Resolutions: Everything Else

OK, not all my mini review collections can have cute little themes. Here’s the rest of the less relevant viewing I’m clearing off my slate from 2015.

Source Code

Year: 2011

Director: Ducan Jones

Cast: Jake Gyllenhaal, Michelle Monaghan, Vera Farmiga

Run Time: 1 hour 33 minutes

MPAA Rating: PG-13

A helicopter pilot wakes up on a train in a different body, forced to keep reliving a terrorist bombing until he catches the culprit.

A movie doesn’t need to be complicated to be great. Source Code gets in, lays out its plot, wraps up, and jams the hell out of there. It’s a swift, exciting 90 minutes that triumphs by cutting the fat and delivering the gods. Just like Wes Craven’s Red Eye, it’s a stellar genre exercise for the very reason that it’s sleek and taut, using tropes the audience is already familiar with to bypass the exposition bottleneck and immediately begin pouring gasoline directly onto the flames.

A sci-fi reimagining of the Groundhog Day format, Source Code tells the bulk of tis story through subtle changes in the repeated formula, letting character and theme organically build off from that constant structure. Jake Gyllenhaal easily navigates the ever-shifting goals of his character, giving a breezy performance that reliably sells anger, humor, fear, and angst, sometimes sandwiched within seconds of each other. There’s a little slippery CGI and Jeffrey Wright’s performance as a shadowy government figure slips a little to often into honey-baked hamminess, but overall Source Code is a dazzling jolt of genre electricity.

Rating: 8/10

The Day After Tomorrow

Year: 2004

Director: Roland Emmerich

Cast: Dennis Quaid, Jake Gyllenhaal, Emmy Rossum

Run Time: 2 hours 4 minutes

MPAA Rating: PG-13

A scientist races to save his son, who is trapped in New York during a world-shattering superstorm brought on by global warming.

Here’s one of my favorite anecdotes about The Day After Tomorrow: Director Roland Emmerich screened an early cut for a group of scientists to get their opinion on its accuracy. They said it was laughably incorrect, but they still enjoyed the heck out of it. That’s a pretty accurate descriptor of the Emmerich style. Where he goes wrong in depicting hard science, viable survival techniques, and human emotion, he goes right in delivering an inimitable popcorn disaster movie experience.

Emmerich must have a really strong glasses prescription, because he sees everything bigger than anybody else can. He sees storms and story beats as grand, operatic measures, a parade of bold images and sounds totally devoid of detail or nuance. Characters that we’re never asked to care about will suddenly burst forth with a monologue about a wasted future of humanity’s hubris, because Emmerich will never subtly develop a theme for his audience when a sledgehammer will do.

Frankly, his style works. The man knows how to frame himself some elegant destruction. His commitment to capturing the most instantly iconic images possible does come at the expense of character, plot, and (occasionally) pacing, but since when does a disaster film need those things? When it comes to characters we actually know, he plays it annoyingly safe with their fates, but his destruction of inanimate objects and nameless extras is beyond compare. He does indulge a bit in his 2012 habit of “people outrunning improbably finite weather patterns,” but not enough to cause any lasting damage. All in all, The Day After Tomorrow is a fun, incredibly realized disaster flick with a message. It might be burned across the film in gasoline, but it means well.

Rating: 7/10

The Descendants

Year: 2011

Director: Alexander Payne

Cast: George Clooney, Shailene Woodley, Amara Miller

Run Time: 1 hour 55 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

Matt King’s wife has an accident and winds up in a coma, giving him the job of telling friends and family that she’s going to die. People can be unhappy even in Hawaii, see?

The Descendants is a movie for actors. A setting that’s a major vacation destination, a big ensemble cast that allows oodles of free time, and plenty of opportunities to cry? It’s a paradise! It’s not necessarily a movie for viewers, unless you want to see screensaver gorgeous B-roll of Hawaiian vistas. The drama provides some intriguing food for thought, but its relatively straightforward story is stretched on the rack until it can fill the two hour run time. Luckily, some laid-back comedy meanders its way into the proceedings so it’s not such an unbearable slog.

The movie is essentially composed of Big Cry scenes that stack like Tetris blocks until they create a big enough whole. Not a single actor slips, even young ingénue Shailene Woodley, though they do tend to run together by the end. Curiously, the film’s one true standout is comedy actress Judy Greer, whose character’s breakdown comes from many different directions, each of which she acknowledges with full sincerity. It’s compelling work, and it’s a same we don’t get to see more of her actually acting instead of just playing superheroes’ ex-wives. All in all, I’m not leaning toward recommending The Descendants, but if you happen to get trapped with it, it’s not the worst time at the movies.

Rating: 6/10

Titanic

Year: 1997

Director: James Cameron

Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet, Billy Zane

Run Time: 3 hours 14 minutes

MPAA Rating: PG-13

Jack and Rose fall in love on the maiden voyage of the RMS Titanic. It won’t work because she’s rich and he’s poor. Also, the boat sinks.

The reason Titanic survives such an unsustainable runtime is that, in all actuality, it is two distinct movies. The latter of these is markedly superior, which also helps to keep audience interest from sinking to the bottom of the Atlantic. Split pretty neatly about the middle, Titanic is first a star-crossed love story, then a high octane action vehicle on a sinking ship.

Let’s tackle that behemoth love story, shall we? One of the true classic romances of modern cinema, it turns out to be just as clunky and frustrating as the true classic romances of early cinema. The character of Rose is anachronistically progressive to the point that she’s practically Rose-tradamus, expressing interest in artwork, psychology, and philosophy that wouldn’t be relevant for decades or more, in the hope of endearing her to modern audiences. This unbelievable character is shunted into a haphazard romance that is sold exclusively by her sizzling chemistry with young panty-dropper Leonardo DiCaprio rather than by actual plotting or dialogue, which feel like they were penned by a highschool playwright. Luckily, most of the talking is drowned out by the endless orchestral reprises of Celine Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On.” Frankly, it’s kind of a mess.

Luckily, James Cameron suddenly remembers that he’s an action filmmaker and all hell breaks loose. An iceberg T-bones the Titanic, sending crushing sprays of water through the engine rooms, splitting the boat in half, and tipping it almost vertical while people frantically board lifeboats and generally try to have a good time. It’s an explosive, adrenaline-pumping thrill ride that slams our young lovers through setpiece after freezing, flooded setpiece. For nearly an hour, it totally forgets about that wan romance nonsense and careens into blissful action oblivion. It’s the nearer my God to me, alright. Where the first half is dully adequate, the second is the ride of your life, full of state-of-the-art effects, bombastic emotions, and generally excellent filmmaking. Titanic is about as backloaded as the actual ship, but the means are totally justified by the end.

Rating: 7/10

My Big Fat Greek Wedding

Year: 2002

Director: Joel Zwick

Cast: Nia Vardalos, John Corbett, Michael Constantine

Run Time: 1 hour 35 minutes

MPAA Rating: PG

A Greek woman wants to marry a white man, against the wishes of he loud, proud, enormous Greek family.

My Big Fat Greek Wedding is one of the most profitable indie movies of all time, so basically anything negative I have to say about it can just f*ck right off. Luckily, there’s almost nothing to complain about with this film, which kind of puts me out of a job. MBFGW is a charming romantic comedy filled with love for life, the world, and the people living in it. Essentially a diary of writer-star Nia Vardalos’ experience growing up Greek in a white world, its comedy almost exclusively derives from culture shock (and the extent to which the Geeks – still technically from a European nation – differ from the hyperbolically bland, WASPy Caucasians in the film is surprisingly vast) and the wacky antics of her herd of family members, a perfectly cast ensemble that for some reason has Joey Fatone in it. Remember when he was a thing? Yeah, me neither.

The biggest black mark on the film is that it has essentially no conflict. Sure, it has plenty of contrast, but the plot pretty much glides serenely forward without a hitch. The family has hangups that they quickly get over by repeating platitudes, Vardalos’ Tula has a teaspoon of internal struggle, and John Corbett’s fiancé character continues to be as boringly compliant as Silly Putty. Almost nothing actually happens, though when you’re spending your time in the company of a talented group of actors largely underserved by Hollywood (especially Andrea Martin, the film’s secret weapon), it’s difficult to find much of a problem with that. Opa!

Rating: 7/10

Word Count: 1556

Reviews In This Series

My Big Fat Greek Wedding (Zwick, 2002)

My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2 (Jones, 2016)

May All My Backlog Be Forgot

Happy New Year, everybody!

I know you’re probably still sifting through that gargantuan post I dumped on you two days ago, but I would like to take this first week of 2016 (Oh man, we really are living in the future, aren’t we? The other day I met a Big Lots cashier who was born in 2000.) to enact one of my New Year’s resolutions. As you may or may not know, I have vowed to write a review of every single movie I’ve watched since I started this blog. However, as my work gets harder and my free time shrivels away, it has become more difficult to pen my ambitiously wordy reviews with my old frequency.

I’ve already begun to transition to a new format, bestowing full reviews on current or featured movies and penning medium-length reviews for the rest. But the avalanche of film with which I’ve concluded my year has left me with a backlog of embarrassingly overwhelming magnitude. In an attempt to clear my slate before the cinema offerings of 2016 really get kicking, over the next few weeks I’ll be flushing out my system with a glut of mini-reviews. I’ll also be finally catching up with some promised titles. Sorry, Hunter. We’ll be starting with a set of films already reviewed in full on my podcast, Scream 101.

Please enjoy this Popcorn Culture reboot and have a wonderful 2016!

The Thing

Year: 1982

Director: John Carpenter

Cast: Kurt Russell, Wilford Brimley, Keith David 

Run Time: 1 hour 49 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

An Arctic team discovers a spaceship buried in the ice, along with a shape-shifting alien creature that infiltrates their group.

The thing about The Thing is that it has pretty unequivocally the best practical effects in the history of cinema. Sure, some scenes have aged better than others. But even the most jaded of modern viewers, those caustic children of CGI, will be utterly unable to keep their spines from turning to jelly when that severed head sprouts spider legs and stars skittering across the floor. It’s a movie full of gooey, bombastic effects setpieces, and yet it still lets its smaller moments (of which there are plenty, because John Carpenter isn’t made of money) breathe.

This can be seen in both the special effects (a cut thumb and the subtle detail on an icicle of blood are just as chilling as the grand latex arias that follow) and the tension building. This is a story about paranoia. Whether it be AIDS or commie related (pick your metaphorical poison), it’s a harrowing masterwork of distrust that places just as much emphasis on the dialogue scenes as the blockbuster heebie jeebie showcases. The characters themselves are a smidge shallow, but it works in the context of not really knowing your fellow man (there are no women in this film, the musk from Kurt Russell’s bear repelling femininity like Kryptonite).

And at any rate, they’re all very well-performed. Even the dog is an incomprehensibly terrific actor, providing a powerful argument for the introduction of a Best Animal Wrangler Academy Award. Overall, The Thing is a chilly menace, propelled by a thumping Ennio Morricone score, John Carpenter’s stark, Arctic cinematography, and enough latex to smother a small army.

Rating: 8/10

Listen to the podcast episode here!

Troll 2

Year: 1990

Director: Claudio Fragasso

Cast: Michael Stephenson, George Hardy, Margo Prey

Run Time: 1 hour 35 minutes

MPAA Rating: PG-13

A vacationing family learns that the rural town they’re staying in is populated by wicked, people-eating, vegetarian goblins.

There are bad movies, there are fun bad movies, and then there are comprehensive experiences that transcend the mere act of filmmaking. Guess which category Troll 2 falls into. A jumbled hash of lunacy, Troll 2 is a treasure trove of unintentional comedy. Humor thrives on the unexpected and the increasingly wacky ways the film flies off the rails are an endless spring of entertainment. There is literally no way of predicting what scene might be around the corner. It’s a funhouse ride of lime green amateurism.

Yes, it’s a bad movie. Poorly translated lines are drunkly performed by amateur actors in front of cardboard sets and community theater special effects. But the madcap intensity and genuine earnestness with which the film was created have made it an instant cult classic.

Incredibly, given its reputation, there are actually a small handful of actually OK filmmaking moments, betraying director Claudio Fragasso’s long history with Italian B-movies. Two shock gags actually hold water, some low angle shots are legitimately imposing, and the finger trauma gore as one character is turned into a plant (don’t ask) is quite stomach-turning. But that semi-skill is part of why Troll 2 is so indelible. It actually sort of knows what it’s doing the whole time (as opposed to the rampant inadequacy of, say, The Room), and those moments help provide contrast for the truly inspired awful bits, of which there are a couple million. 

Troll 2 is a must-see for any aspiring cult film fan. Watch it with a friend and seal your bond together with the super glue of dozens of new inside jokes and shared peals of snorting, gasping laughter. Plus, you’ll want a spotter in case you choke on your popcorn during the process.

Rating: 8/10

Listen to the podcast episode here!

Nightbreed (Director's Cut)

Year: 1990

Director: Clive Barker

Cast: Craig Sheffer, David Cronenberg, Anne Bobby

Run Time: 1 hour 42 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

A young man is accused of murder and flees to the underground city of Midian to live with the monsters.

Nightbreed is a very scatterbrained movie. Sold as a slasher when it was really a parable about how minorities are treated by a society that doesn’t understand them, it made next to no money at the box office with its monstrous mish-mash. Now here comes the director’s cut two decades later, to finally restore the original monster-fueled, gothically romantic intent. It’s still a hell of a mess, but with Clive Barker at the wheel, at least you know the crimson tide is flowing in the right direction.

Nightbreed is like a magic eye puzzle. The individual pieces (a button-eyed slasher, a hillbilly shootout, a full rock ‘n roll number…) don’t exactly gel, but when you step back and unfocus your eyes, you can see the shape that it has created. An over-the-top, bold exploration of its universal themes of being sidelined and misunderstood by the world at large, Nightbreed is an orgiastic, hallucinogenic canvas on which Barker paints his magic.

More than character or plot, the headliner of Nightbreed is its spectacular make-up effects, used to create glorious (and gloriously expensive) creatures of every shape and size. A triumph of macabre monster manufacturing, the wicked creativity of Nightbreed is its goopy oozing, raison d'être. It’s an art gallery of nightmares more than it is a film, but that’s hardly a problem if you’re in the mood.

Rating: 6/10

Listen to the podcast episode here!

From Dusk Till Dawn

Year: 1996

Director: Robert Rodriguez

Cast: Harvey Keitel, George Clooney, Juliette Lewis 

Run Time: 1 hour 48 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

A pair of criminals and a kidnapped family end up fighting for their lives in a biker bar run by vampires.

Many fans of notorious foot fetishist/occasional filmmaker Quentin Tarantino have been yearning for him to create a horror film for quite some time. And while some detractors of From Dusk Till Dawn might still argue that he hasn’t, the truth is that the film is a campy horror flick penned by the greasy maestro himself, so it’s about as close as we’re gonna get to that wish, under the circumstances.

Directed by Robert Rodriguez in signature “Baby Quentin” style, FDTD is a fun thrill ride. Actually, it’s two fun thrill rides. The first hour, which is focused on the criminal exploits of the Gecko brothers, and the second, full of balls-to-the-wall vampire mayhem, don’t quite cohere together as well as they should, but they’re both excellent, flippant exemplars of the craft. Sometimes campy, sometimes creepy, always irreverent, the tone is what carries the stories through to the finish line rather than the actual plot.

However, it’s hard to find much to complain about when the ensemble comes together as ludicrously, ingeniously well as this film’s. George Clooney dishes out a standout role as a churlish, protective thug, and Tarantino gives the performance of his career as his little brother, an all too human monster imbued with sweaty, clammy menace. The rest of the cast also rises to the challenge, but the true blue standout is gore imperator Tom Savini as Sex Machine, the purest, most effortless bad-ass of Rodriguez’ career. From Dusk Till Dawn might not be a coherent whole, but the sum of its parts is far greater than that, anyway.

Rating: 7/10

Listen to the podcast episode here!

Ghost Cat

Year: 2004

Director: Don McBrearty

Cast: Michael Ontkean, Ellen Page, Lori Hallier

Run Time: 1 hour 30 minutes

MPAA Rating: PG

A young lady and her father move into a home that is watched over by the spirit of its former occupant, Margaret the cat.

The crux of our episode was that this “supernatural thriller” was quite easily repackaged as the heartwarming family film The Cat That Came Back, so as you can imagine, it wasn’t exactly a spine-tingling excursion into Animal Planet original content. A basically adequate Lifetime-esque cheese puff about saving the animal shelter from the wicked real estate developer, Ghost Cat ticks all the boxes for being as safe and bland (not to mention disappointing) as it could possibly be. There is one almost absurdly dark scene where the villain attempts to asphyxiate an entire barnful of adorable baby lambs and puppies, but it’s more a runway for Ellen Page’s ludicrous mid-2000’s fashions than anything resembling a horror movie.

As an insipid, rote story, it does the trick, but there’s nothing to make Ghost Cat stand out above all the other formulaic crap that daytime TV stations force sick (and hopefully delirious) people to sit through. There are some vaguely amusing tidbits, like how a lantern-jawed 21-year-old is supposed to be both a high school student and a viable love interest for Ellen Page (gag me with a spoon), or the presence of My Bloody Valentine Final Girl Lori Hallier as the animal rescuer with a heart of gold. 

But the only reason to watch this movie in today’s enlightened age is the presence of Ellen Page, who gives far from a star-making performance. She’s clearly a step up from the other youngsters around her, but this is not a script that challenges its performers to push the envelope. My recommendation is to steer clear of Ghost Cat like you’re allergic to animal dander. Even in ectoplasmic form, it can still screw you up.

Rating: 4/10

Listen to the podcast episode here!

Word Count: 1821

Census Bloodbath: Alma Murder

For our podcast episode about this very movie, please click here.

Year: 1987

Director: Bill Froehlich

Cast: Lori Lethin, Brendan Hughes, Alex Rocco

Run Time: 1 hour 35 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

Well, it’s that time of year again. The sun is beating down, the kids are pulling themselves up by the backpack straps and heading back to school, and... I’m not one of them. That’s right, I’m just another college grad, facing the endless void of the unlimited future. Like so many film majors before me, I’m clinging desperately to my wall of DVDs, hoping they won’t fling me off into eternal limbo. But unlike those chuckleheads, I have supremely bad taste and I’ve chosen to commemorate Back to School week with the 1987 meta slasher classic Return to Horror High. Contrary to popular belief, this film is not a sequel to anything. It might not even technically qualify as a film, but hear me out here.

Return to Horror High is a very special brand of late 80’s slash-‘em-up. It was so far into the rapidly deflating slasher boom that hardly any of the films actually took themselves seriously anymore. 1987 was the year of A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors, the film which saw Freddy’s full metamorphosis into quipping carnival huckster, and many contemporaneous flicks like Sleepaway Camp II: Unhappy Campers, Slumber Party Massacre II, and Cheerleader Camp followed suit with goofy, Hannah-Barbera antics. Horror high is silly enough to be lumped into that category, and yet it transcends it with some legitimately intriguing satire.

It’s still a shallow microbudget exploitation scudbucket, but it has a flash of intelligence that lodges it firmly between the superficial parody of a Shriek if You Know What I Did Last Friday the 13th and the insightful skewering of Scream. Unlike any of its peers, it actually has something to unpack. Even if most of that is Styrofoam fluff, it’s a remarkable achievement.

I’ll elaborate, but I should probably explain the plot before this review turns into a Tolstoy novel.

Return to Horror High tells the story of Crippen High School, a campus that was rocked with a series of murders in 1982. When a film crew descends upon the now-abandoned campus to shoot a movie based on those very killings, they soon realize that whoever perpetrated them might never have left as they begin to disappear one by one. This story is told though evidence collected after the fact from the only survivor - the screenwriter Arthur Lyman (Richard Brestoff) – by the stoic Chief Dreyner (Pepper Martin of The Outing) and the sexily irreverent Officer Tyler (an exultant Maureen McCormick, finally free from the shackles of Marcia Brady) on the front lawn, which is strewn with dismembered bodies.

The cast and crew include Callie Cassidy (Lori Lethin of Bloody Birthday and The Prey) the effervescent leading ldy; Harry (actual notable Alex Rocco of The Godfather), the sleazebag producer with a bimbo in one hand and a sandwich in the same hand; Steven Blake (Brendan Hughes), a corn-fed and studly local cop who winds up with a role opposite Callie, who just might be interested in loving him; and Oliver (underrated character actor George Clooney), the leading man who gets whisked away on a cushy pilot gig and becomes the killer’s first victim.

There’s nothing better than watching Oscar-winning actors kick the bucket in movies that cost less than their most recent grocery run.

The truly flabbergasting thing about Horror High is that it’s actually consistently, intentionally funny. Its sense of humor might be too daffy for the more highbrow epicures among us, but if that describes you, how did you even find my blog in the first place? Crew members pile out of a bathroom stall like a clown car, the director and the FX guy get into a fight over a set of exploding breast implants, and the janitor mops up the blood after every kill. It’s like an Abbott and Costello routine gone haywire, mixed up with the already ever-present 80’s camp that looms throughout the film like the truly outrageous amount of smoke in its hallways (from the looks of things, their smoke machine budget probably outstripped their payroll budget, which would explain why Clooney is only in one scene).

Because of its ludicrous tone, Horror High allows itself a stroke of genius that many of its slasher brethren are denied: it turns its low budget into an asset rather than a liability. First on the chopping block are the kills, which have to share about a thimble of blood between them like it’s Christmas morning in a Dickensian orphanage. The film converts a great deal of these into sight gags, using match cuts to imply a bigger impact through a silly juxtaposition or using a silhouetted and/or offscreen kill as a punchline to another scene. SPOILERS [An attempt to explain it all away by having every death be a hoax goes totally awry in a nonsensical, almost psychedelic closing sequence, but I admire the screenwriters’ chutzpah in attempting to push the film so far over the top that the top is just a distant, happy memory.]

But the cleverest integration of its low budget mojo is also the film’s postmodern heart and soul. Utilizing its nature as a film within a film, Return to Horror High goes hog wild, unabashedly exposing its own lighting setups, revealing the edges of its sets, and generally reveling in its own artifice. And why not? The plot takes place on a film set, so nothing is off limits.  The scenes being shot are based on a true story, so they also serve as flashbacks, and any flaws in the scenes shot in “reality” can be explained away by the superficialities of life on a film set [as well as the fact that the story being told by Lyman may well be entirely fabricated]. Everything coils back in on itself like a bedazzled M. C. Escher piece and it’s mildly brilliant.

A slasher with any sort of brain in its head is like that horse that can do math. You wouldn’t notice in in a film of any other genre – rather, you’d expect it - but it’s something truly surprising and remarkable to behold under the circumstance. I just want to pet it and feed it a salt lick.

While Return to Horror High does have several layers to it (first and foremost a genuinely decent camp comedy horror flick, second a meta take on exploitation filmmaking), no matter how deep you strip mine, there’s not a shred of horror tension to be found in the entire thing (especially once you realize that not a single death is actually onscreen). That’s certainly not damning, especially considering how much of it undeniably works, but it definitely feels like there’s a final piece missing from the puzzle. Perhaps if the film’s denouement made more sense, or in fact any slight glimmer of sense at all, it would be rid of the somewhat bereaved quality it leaves the audience behind with, but as it stands it opens stronger than it closes. Kind of like when my mom packs my suitcase for me on a trip.

However, griping about Return to Horror High can be dangerous, because the film is a Rock Slide Zone of 80’s cheese. The noise of even a mild complaint instantly becomes buried beneath a teetering tower of relentlessly abysmal fashions, topsy turvy performances, and dazzlingly surreal scenes that defy the imagination. I’m hesitant to spoil the masses of riches that this film has to offer, so I’ll describe only one that you – dear reader – may test the water: Officer Tyler, drenched in blood, describes the carnage she just witnessed while fondling her own boob.

Marcia, Marcia, Marcia…

Return to Horror High certainly isn’t for everyone, but it’s one of the best bad movies of the late slasher cycle and it comes highly recommended from yours truly. It’s wacky, wet, and wild. You won’t experience anything even remotely similar to the classic slashers we know and love, but sometimes it’s nice to have a break and stare in incredulity at a screen for 90 minutes as something inutterably, ineffably, indelibly remarkable unfolds. Plus, if you’ve ever wanted to see George Clooney get ruthlessly murdered by a psycho in yellow dishwashing gloves, you’ll never have a better opportunity.

Killer: Principal Kastleman (Andy Romano) [But who actually dies?]

Final Girl: Callie Cassidy (Lori Lethin)

Best Kill: it’s not gory, or even particularly specific (Oliver is slammed against a door and blood pools – we don’t even glimpse a murder weapon) but seeing Clooney in a classically generic slasher sequence is a sight to behold.

Sign of the Times: Callie Cassidy investigates murders in a chic periwinkle jumpsuit.

Scariest Moment: In the film within the film, a Quasimodo-masked killer dissects a biology teacher.

Weirdest Moment: Steven tears the mask off an African-American janitor’s face to reveal the white principal and angrily shouts, “Kastleman, you honky!”

Champion Dialogue: “Would you care to walk around in the scene with your schlong hanging out? Only in your case, darling, it would be a schlort.”

Body Count: 10

1. Oliver is killed offscreen.
2. Actor is decapitated with an axe.
3. Grip is dragged into a sandbox.
4. Robbie is slashed with a fan.
5. Mr. Burnbaum is dissected in the film.
6. Blake’s neck is snapped in a dream.
7. Callie Cassidy is decapitated in a dream.
8. Freddy is killed offscreen.
9. Harry is decapitated.
10. Josh is decapitated.

TL;DR: Return to Horror High is a genuinely funny, if underfunded slasher satire.

Rating: 7/10

Word Count: 1600

A Brief Note From The Stone Age

Howdy, y’all!

Don’t ask me why I wrote that. It’s been a weird week, I don’t know. As you may or may not have noticed, things have been a teensy bit slower than usual over here at Popcorn Culture. With my apologies, please allow me to lapse into a brief personal note of explanation.

First off, I just moved into a new, much larger apartment, so all the time I spend unpacking and merrily spinning in open spaces eats into my writing time. (My good friend Hunter over at Kinemalogue has also recently upped sticks – he’ll be copying my outfits next, just you wait. Why not head over there and wish him congratulations?)

Second, I’ve been dealing with a mighty unfortunate photosensitivity/migraine disorder that prevents me from looking at the computer for more than about twenty minutes at a time. While myself and a team of trained tortoises specialists are working this problem out, I’ve been dealing with a lot of pain. Especially considering the fact that I already work on the computer quite a bit for Arrow in the Head, I’ve been finding other methods to write reviews: namely, writing them freehand in a notebook, then transferring them into my blog when it is safe to do so.

Obviously, this is a huge boon for future historians who will be putting together Brennan-related museum exhibits, but it’s hell on my productivity. I assure you I’m working hard (both for my own well-being and for yours) to see to it that neither my health nor my posting pace flags, but I beg of you. Give a guy a break.

I’ve watched way too many films recently for a single human being to process, even a healthy one, so as a peace offering, here is another slate of delectable mini-reviews for you to pursue at your leisure:

Taken

Year: 2009

Director: Pierre Morel

Cast: Liam Neeson, Maggie Grace, Famke Janssen

Run Time: 1 hour 33 minutes

MPAA Rating: PG-13

An ex-military operative turned overprotective father must tap into his old skills when his daughter is kidnapped on a European vacation.

Would you look at that, it’s another generally accepted modern classic that I’m late to, what with being far too busy mucking around in the tar pits of the early 80’s for something as low profile as the best American action flick of the year. Taken was a big surprise for everyone, most likely even Liam Neeson himself. A vehicle for an aging star that kept its hot young actress (Maggie Grace, fresh from Lost fame) offscreen for the bulk of its run time? By Hollywood’s myopic standards, this film should have been dead as one of Henry VIII’s ex-wives, but it takes a chance and owns it, crackling like a live wire.

The action itself is sublime, ushered to the screen by Luc Besson apprentice Pierre Morel. While every scene is guerrilla, MacGyver-esque thriller improvisation at its finest as Neeson takes every step possible to prevent his daughter from disappearing into a human trafficking ring within an estimated three-day time limit, there’s typically an additional frisson of tension layered on top of whatever Cool Thing he happens to be doing at the moment. His genuinely fleshed-out relationship with his daughter provides an emotional centerpoint for many high-octane moments, and in addition to that the sheer fearless audacity with which he charges into dangerous, unknown situations sends a tingle up the spine.

The key to this film is that Liam Neeson isn’t a beefed up superman. He is very skilled and utterly capable, but a fallible human being just like you and me. And Donald Trump. His age is hardly a factor in that (actually it just adds to how much of a badass he is). He’s just a regular father doing what any father would in his situation. He just happens to have a more suitable background for it than the average Joe Plumber.

This all works thanks to a sleek, punchy script by Besson and co-writer Robert Mark Kamen. It’s the perfect action set-up: tight, to the point, painted in clean, efficient, broad stokes that don’t forget to highlight each character’s individual attributes, interactions, dynamics, and contributions to the screenplay. Each story beat has an emotion attached to it, which is something that far too may slick action scenarists tend to forget.

The filmmaking itself has inherited a little too much of Jason Bourne’s handheld attention deficit disorder for its own good, but for the most part the action sequences accomplish what they set out to achieve: a gritty, realistic aesthetic without (mostly) sacrificing visual logic. 

The only true faults Taken has are minor quibbles. First, the actor playing Neeson’s liaison, who looks like a French Kevin Spacey, is more wooden than a Venetian gondola. Second, in several scenes (especially in the unrated cut), the film parlays a little too heavily with rah-rah militaristic jingoism. Action films have always been a haven for the politically conservative and I should hardly dream of taking that away from anybody, but whenever one gets a whiff of Eau de Guantanamo Bay, let’s just say it’s not a pleasant one.

But all that easily fades into the background of what is a just plain terrific action flick. It’s unflagging, unforgettable, and unmatched in the annals of modern American cinema. You could say I’m quite taken with it.

Rating: 8/10

Up in the Air

Year: 2009

Director: Jason Reitman

Cast: George Clooney, Vera Farmiga, Anna Kendrick

Run Time: 1 hour 49 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

Ryan Bingman’s job is flying around the country firing people, but he faces a big change when a young corporate hotshot attempts to centralize his operation, cutting costs and ending his beloved jet-setting, companionless lifestyle.

I think the theme of all my mini-review sessions is “Brennan ignores important movies until the last possible second.” To review Up in the Air, we need to travel back to a very specific moment in time: Back before the Oscar buzz and eventual backlash, back to the middle of our nation’s period of economic turmoil, back to when Anna Kendrick was just that chick from Twilight. Alright, are we there? Let’s go.

Up in the Air tells a tale as old as time. Young idealism vs. old cynicism, single swinging vs. family values, George Clooney vs. commitment. You know, the classics. However, by setting its story smack dab in the middle of the most financially and emotionally unstable period of contemporary American history, the film finds a fresh take. Not only does George Clooney’s character constantly travel, separate from the ties of human connection, he makes his living off the backs of the fragile people he is casting carelessly off into the void. When he is forced to show Anna Kendrick’s Natalie the ropes, her ruthlessly pragmatic working style collides with his carefully curated “empathy.” They both begin to realize that everything they thought they knew about the world is completely wrong.

That meeting in the middle – a moral grey area – is another relatively unique perspective that Up in the Air brings to the table, all wrapped up in a thrilling, emotional comedy of errors about the trials and tribulation of the many different paths one can take to be a human being. Up in the Air is an upbeat, downtrodden look at how disparate lifestyles collide, how we all react to change, and how we can learn to pick ourselves up again. It’s perhaps less concerned with the plights of the laid-off workers than it claims to be, but as a backdrop of human self-doubt and upheaval, it’s certainly affecting. It might not be powerful enough to ruffle the hair of someone like Donald Trump (I’m sure he’s hiding one somewhere), but as a working-class American citizen, it’s eye-opening.

As a work of cinema, it’s rather stunning as well. The cinematography is sleek, stylish and weightless, rhythmically pattering through Ryan’s routines, ruthlessly emphasizing the chasm between Natalie’s job and her humanity with cavernous negative space. And following a fresh atypical beat from city to endless city, announced with relentlessly cheery block letters. It’s a fun, sprightly piece of comedy that’s pliable enough to hold the weight of the intense emotion it’s called upon to bear.

It could hardly be so successful without its cast, a carefully selected slate of A–grade veterans and newcomers alike. Anna Kendrick manages the woefully unenviable tasks of holding her own against George Clooney and, in fact, performs the most memorably powerful scene in the film, Vera Farmiga shines as Bingman’s coldly powerful female counterpart – exuding a sort of clockwork inhumanity masquerading as warmth, showing what he could become should he venture further down the rabbit hole - and of course Clooney himself is a godsend, full of cocksure braggadocio that slowly crumbles and twists away into he wind. Only a man as handsome and untouchable as Clooney could have pulled that part off in its beginning stages, but he knocks it out of the park when it comes time to show his vulnerable side, too

Up in the Air’s conclusion is a little rushed and sloppy, but all in all it’s a wonderful little film about people, work, and love. Oscarbait has never been more approachable.

Rating: 8/10


My Best Friend's Wedding

Year: 1997

Director:  P. J. Hogan

Cast: Julia Roberts, Dermot Mulroney, Cameron Diaz

Run Time: 1 hour 45 minutes

MPAA Rating: PG-13

A prominent food critic realizes that she’s in love with her best friend of ten years… four days before his wedding.

Doesn’t that just sound like the plot of every single romantic comedy you’ve ever been shackled by the wrist to watch with a doe-eyed significant other? Now, it might be surprising considering my horror pedigree, but I’m far from averse to the sugary sweet romance genre. It’s not a huge leap from Karo syrup to corn. However, a log line like that doesn’t exactly inspire soaring confidence in a film.

So Imagine my surprise when My Best Friend’s Wedding turned out to be kind of delightful. From the old-fashioned opening credits (which featured a full, non-diegetic, choreographed doo-wop performance of “Wishin’ and Hopin’”) on, the film captures you with its charming flair, drawing you in before slipping in a subversive spin on the genre, slowly pulling you back into stark reality. Honestly, it’s a remarkable achievement in genre filmmaking, and it’s devilishly, almost terrifyingly sneaky in its second act, as Julia Roberts’ Julianne performs a series of increasingly despicable acts and descends into full-on Cruella DeVille territory.

Along with an inexplicable profusion of musical numbers (to the point that I half expected Julie Andrews to appear and sing some cheerful lessons – Lord knows Julia Roberts could have used some), My Best Friend’s Wedding also boasts a gay character that avoids over-the-top stereotyping, a veritable parade of delicious 90’s fashions, and a downright stunning performance from Cameron Diaz as the naïve, privileged fiancée. Diaz is utterly phenomenal in this film, exuding the exact kind of facile purity that Julianne expects from her one minute, then digging deep inside to reveal an unseen strength of character the next. A karaoke scene where she transforms from shy croaker to reluctant star of the show is possibly the finest work of her career, exposing a simultaneous vulnerability and lust for life that betrays just how much competition she’ll prove to be for poor, bitter Julia Roberts.

Of course, Roberts is also fantastic waggling her annoyingly perfect face at the camera like she owns the world. The amount to which she’s willing to concede to the amorality of Julianne is truly refreshing, especially buried as it is under all the typical Roberts-isms: her dazzling smile, her ludicrously curly hair, her disarmingly un-sophisticated laugh. The only weak link in the cast is Dermot Mulroney (of Insidious: Chapter 3) as the man of the hour, the titular Best Friend himself. Mulroney’s Michael is alarmingly devoid of inner life: it’s just cream filling beneath his white smile and toothbrush hair. This is partially the fault of the writing, but when he and Roberts are together, the film drags like a West Hollywood brunch.

There’s just no spark there. It’s hard enough the believe that these two have known each other for a decade (an issue the script attempts to address by having them remind each other of this fact every 2.5 minutes), let alone actually genuinely love another. She’s crème brûlée and he’s a slice of cheesecake without the graham cracker crust. Because of this, the third act sinks like a stone once the other, funnier character take on more secondary roles.

But until that point, My Best Friend’s Wedding is a charmingly witty, daringly different beast. I’m glad I was forced to watch it (for a podcast called Now Streaming, up this Wednesday!), and it’s a vital cornerstone in any romantic comedy education. Now if only they could dump Mulroney and make a movie where Julia Roberts and Cameron Diaz have wacky wedding hijinks, then we’d be talking.

Rating: 7/10

Word Count: 2175