Popcorn Kernels: Half Full, Half Empty

Welcome to our newest slate of mini reviews, about a horror-comedy with a plot that contains pretty much everything that exists and a drama that contains almost nothing.

Freaks of Nature 

Year: 2015

Director: Robbie Pickering

Cast: Nicholas Braun, Mackenzie Davis, Josh Fadem 

Run Time: 1 hour 32 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

Social tension arises in a town where humans live with monsters when aliens arrive. A vampire, a zombie, and a human from the local high school must team up to save their community.

Right off the bat, Freaks of Nature commits an egregious movie sin. It jams us in medias res into an action-packed scene, then pauses. Whereupon a dopey voiceover asks “How did I get here? To explain that, let’s go back to the beginning.” Now, in the comments of my American Ultra review, friend Hunter argued that several great movies begin this way. I can’t fault him for being right, but since those movies came out, this technique has increasingly been used by lazy filmmakers in cheap movies to get around the fact that their beginning just isn’t very strong.

And boy howdy does Freaks of Nature have a weak beginning. Then again, it has a weak mostly everything. But the intro that dumps a barrel of character actors who have played high schoolers for a dozen years into a pile and halfheartedly develops the world around them while they attempt to untangle themselves isn’t exactly stirring. The worst thing is that Freaks of Nature has a fun, zany concept in fact, the original title was –appropriately – Kitchen Sink), but the lackadaisical treatment it receives from the powers that be is downright discouraging.

If every scene had the subtlety of the moment where zombieism is used as a metaphor for a rebellious teen turning to marijuana, Freaks of Nature would be a post-John Hughes masterpiece. If every scene were as funny as the inexplicable cameo from Werner Herzog, Freaks of Nature would obliterate the competition for AFI’s 100 Years, 100 Horror Comedies list. You can see where I’m going with this. Freaks of Nature rarely rises above the bare minimum requirements to be a film comedy, content to sulk in a low key atmosphere for the bulk of its run time.

Far more frequent than its peaks are its valets. Joan Cusack is wasted in a role that feels like it was written for one of those American Pie spin-offs, the only thread holding up Vanessa Hudgens’ utterly empty performance is the fact that her character is supposed to look high most of the time, and the rules this universe are quickly decimated by a series of deus ex machina throwaway lines. It’s a threadbare slog with an infuriatingly disingenuous ending, supported by character relationships that are held together with scotch tape and chewing gum, in pursuit of a Zootopia-esque moral about tolerance and diversity that completely fails to catch.

It’s all the worse for the fact that this concept with this cast could have really accomplished something great. As it stands, it’s a barely-there trifle that immediately evaporates from your mind upon the closing credits.

Rating: 5/10

Martha Marcy May Marlene

Year: 2011

Director: Sean Durkin

Cast: Elizabeth Olsen, Sarah Paulson, Hugh Dancy

Run Time: 1 hour 42 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

A young woman escapes the cult she has lived in for two years and attempts to live a normal life with her sisters and brother-in-law.

With a title like that, is there any way Martha Marcy May Marlene couldn't be a ponderous indie flick? Hailed as the triumphant debut of the mythical third Olsen sister (the one who could actually act), it made a splash on the festival circuit, much like the similarly dour Jennifer Lawrence showcase Winter’s Bone. If you know my tastes at all, this isn’t exactly a recipe for success.

I did enjoy MMMM, but its glories are fleeting. The film splits its time between a harrowing portrayal of cult life (in flashback) and a harrowing portrayal of reintegration into a society that might be just as flawed, but it’s too distracted by its own seriousness to actually tell a complete, satisfying story. As an exercise in curating atmosphere, it’s excellent, but when they tried to put the narrative gear into drive, they forgot to depress the clutch and stalled the whole thing. 

Anyone else here drive a stick shift? No? Just me?

Let’s focus on the cult half. Here we have a dazzlingly intimate portrayal of how a charismatic charlatan (played to the hilt by a leering John Hawkes) can warp weak minds into serving his sick vision. It’s chilling in its naturalism, living in the subtle interplay between human begins rather than relying on some over-the-top, teeth gnashing villain. MMMM knows that the Manson-esque figures that lurk in the shadows of our world deliver their message with sickly sweet honey, killing you with kindness. It’s even more unbearable for its relatability.

Then there’s the other half. Olsen certainly delivers a suitably broken performance, but her sullen deliveries are no match for Sarah Paulson, as a brittle, selfish woman who strives to help her sister more out of a sense of duty than any actual emotional attachment. Her bind subscription to the tenets of society is just as dangerous as her sister’s brainwashed ideals, and her layered performance reveals things to the audience that even her character doesn’t know.

So these, two cloven segments both work on their own right, but they never synthesize into a coherent whole. The stunted narrative is just a carousel of human misery, content not to be anything more. Elizabeth Olsen is bedraggled before and she is bedraggled after, but it doesn’t seem to making a statement through that. It feels like the first act to a much more interesting story, but as it stands it is still a reliably enthralling mood piece. 

The experience of watching the movie is somewhat akin to cracking open a Kinder egg and discovering that there's no prize inside. It's a disappointing feeling, but you still have the chocolate so it's not like you can complain. It’s even acceptable despite a soundscape that feels like it was edited on Garageband. Don’t run to your Amazon queue to watch it, but it wouldn’t be so bad if it fell into your lap.

Rating: 6/10

Word Count: 1056

They're Not Going Away

Year: 2015

Director: Gil Kenan

Cast: Sam Rockwell, Rosemarie DeWitt, Kennedi Clements

Run Time: 1 hour 33 minutes

MPAA Rating: PG-13

It's a bad sign when a movie betrays its inferiority by the time the opening logos finish. The MGM lion begins his signature roar, but before it finishes the screen flickers and glitches. Just like, oh, every single haunting movie from the years following Paranormal Activity. We're off to a good start.

Could Poltergeist, the remake of the classic 1982 film of the same name, have ever captured the iconic, haphazard looniness of its predecessor? Well, no. That was never gonna happen. But I have my doubts as to whether it had to be laboriously generic, disastrously unfrightening piffle that clings to the original film's every beat while simultaneously using it as a crutch to smooth out its inexplicable profusion of bald patches and limp its way to 90 minutes.

"The original movie just had one hand? Pssh, we can do better than that!" - Some (Probably Drunk) Executive

This Poltergeist revolves around the Bowens, our copy-and-paste-without-attributes middle class family: dad Eric (Sam Rockwell), mom Amy (Rosemarie DeWitt of United States of Tara), teen daughter Kendra (Saxon Sharbino), son Griffin (Kyle Catlett), and youngest daughter Maddy (Kennedi Clements), who isn't blonde so it's totally different and new, I promise. The HD TV inexplicably erupts into static, their complex was built on a cemetery, Maddy is whisked away into the Other Side, madcap paranormal hijinks ensue. Game, set, match.

In the film's most transgressive break from the Reagan-era plotting of the original film, the family is no longer a successful suburban paradigm, rather a victim of the economic turmoil plaguing the new millennium. When Eric is laid off from his successful job at John Deere, the family is forced to move to a new house in a lower income suburban complex, and the bulk of the family's thematic struggles revolve around their efforts to maintain their prior lifestyle and status.

The opening act is all "let's just try to make this work" and "it's not much, but it'll do," as they attempt to still mingle with their bourgeois friends who titter about their bad neighborhood over wine and canapés. This creates an atmosphere which is industriously undermined by the fact that their new house is still basically a palace.

What a hovel. Let's cross the street so we don't have to walk in front of it.

This flippant disregard for the actual realities of the economy is matched only by the film's ignorance of what made the original Poltergeist work: namely, state-of-the-art effects anchored by skilled performances and a sneaking allegory about the dark side of the American dream. The absence of these elements leaves a huge sucking void in the center of the film, especially when the effects sequences come into play.

To be fair, the visuals would have been state-of-the-art had they come out the same weekend as Shrek.  Unfortunately for everyone, the CGI (on the corpses especially) would be embarrassing in a Once Upon a Time episode, let alone a feature film that producers had the audacity to charge money for. It's not like it's not still cheaper to buy real corpses. Just chuck some in there and call it a day, curse be damned. 

I couldn't find a picture of the CGI, so here's a picture of something equally uninteresting.

But moan all I might about some of the more egregious computer-generated insults to the collective intelligence of the human race, there is one central thing Poltergeist 2015 gets wrong above all else: it's not even bad enough to reasonably hate. 

It is only ever a pale scene-by-scene imitation of the original plot slathered liberally with the ripest clichés the modern paranormal genre has to offer: flickering iPhones, inexplicable rabid animals, creepy dolls, and the like, imbued with flop sweat by the most achingly unoriginal score ever committed by a studio orchestra. It is not scary. It is not appealing. But it's blandly competent in the worst kind of way.

For their part, Rosemarie DeWitt and Sam Elliot do considerably well endowing their nothing roles with warmth and chemistry, even managing to elevate the unquestionably anemic child actors to something halfway decent to watch. And there are exactly two sequences that approach a feeling similar to horror, like the anticipatory tingle you get in your gut when somebody is reaching out to tickle you.

Why does the doll market continue to thrive? Haven't we learned by now?

There are exactly two modes under which Poltergeist operates at all times, both of which have a trickily incestuous Buster-and-Lucille relationship with the 1982 original.

Mode #1: Do the Same Thing (Only Worse)

Poltergeist is as devoted to Spielberg's script as Madonna is to making sure nobody forgets who Madonna is. Scene after scene drifts by with arbitrary sameness and in those moments where it breaks from the road more traveled, without fail it lurches sickeningly back into place with an overfamiliar monologue or bastardized visual quotation.

Unfortunately, the adaptation is only skin deep, lacking even a scrap of meaning. The film rushes through its key points, blowing its wad way too soon with overexplained metaphysics and overly severe first act disturbances that change the family from curious onlookers to dumbass horror movie fodder. Oh, and the key "they moved the bodies but not the headstones" scene? It's not even discovered, it's just a tossed-off line that we're supposed to take for granted.

It's too fast, too furious, and the dialogue is skin-crawlingly inane. If you ever hear me say "I'm not less scared. But I feel a little braver." in real life, please feel free to spray me with a fire hose.

Mode #2: Change Things (For the Worse)

Obviously nobody can replace the late, great Zelda Rubinstein. But a reality TV huckster in a porkpie hat doesn't capture the appropriate tone whatsoever. It's hard to care about his paranormal antics when you're actively, devoutly wishing that he'll perish. Jared Harris does what he can with the role, but the character devours him with smarmy deficiency.

The other additions are equally inane and fruitlessly "modern." Camera drones! GPS beacons! Words With Friends (an already outdated reference that belies the film's tortured production history)! Poltergeist desperately strains to connect to the modern suburban experience, but the end product is something like this film's depiction of the Other Side (which we've learned from experience is best kept offscreen): a whirling tube of shrill nonentities, howling and reaching for something impenetrably far from their grasp.

It's saying something when we care more about Maddy's stuffed unicorn/pig doll than we actually do about her.

To sum it all up, Poltergeist is a waste of time. It attempts to recapture the burning brilliance of the original film but flies too close to the sun with uninspired contributions from cast and crew alike. It is too similar to the original Poltergeist to be interesting, yet too far from its vastly superior quality to be fun in any way.

And so another remake struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

TL;DR: Poltergeist is blandly generic piffle, bad enough to be annoying but no so much that it's enjoyably atrocious.
Rating: 4/10
Should I Spend Money On This? No. And if the box office pull is anything to go by, you haven't. Good job.
Word Count: 1252
Reviews In This Series
Poltergeist (Hooper, 1982)
Poltergeist II: The Other Side (Gibson, 1986)
Poltergeist III (Sherman, 1988)
Poltergeist (Kenan, 2015)

These Are The Gays Of Our Lives

Year: 2014

Director: Chris Nelson

Cast: Nicholas Braun, Hunter Cope, Dakota Johnson

Run Time: 1 hour 31 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

I could count the number of good gay comedies I've seen on one hand. But enough bragging. Chris Nelson's microbudget picture Date and Switch, in spite of its warts, is one of the better ones I've seen in several years.

Perhaps the best would be Were the World Mine, an impeccably stylish musical based on A Midsummer Night's Dream. Then you have your Patrik, Age 1.5's, your Hedwig's and your lengthily-titled drag queen road trip comedies (a bizarrely specific subgenre populated by the terrific Priscilla, Queen of the Desert and To Wong Fu Thanks For Everything, Julie Newmar). But other than that and a smattering of other standouts, LGBT stories generally eschew comedy, preferring to be immersed in the midst of heady tearjerker drama.

Date and Switch is absolutely less of a personal affair than those classic comedies and has much less to say about the current state of society, but it fits in quite well with 2014's slate of surprisingly pleasant funny flicks.

It's like watching the Empire State Building hang out with a McDonald's.

Michael (Nicholas Braun of the short-lived TV series 10 Things I Hate About You) and Matty (Hunter Cope) are high school best friends despite both actors clearly being at least six years older than me, a third-year college student. I mean, they're old even by the standards of a slasher fan, committed to watching a genre where 20-year-olds routinely claim to be 14.

When they make a pact to lose their virginities before prom, Matty decides it's probably the right time to come out to his best friend, leading them both on a personal journey through what it means to be a gay man and how/if that changes the nature of their relationship.

Things get mixed-up when Michael falls in love with Matty's ex-girlfriend Em (Dakota Johnson) and Matty falls in love with Greg (Zach Cregger), a considerably older young man even by the already considerably old standards this film has set for itself. The fact that Greg had rear-ended Michael's car outside a gay club doesn't earn him a high place in his esteem.

Although his impressive beard probably should.

There are quite a few laugh out loud funny lines sprinkled throughout the film, keeping it popping along at a terrifically brisk pace. I won't list them here, although I did in my notes, rendering them almost entirely useless. And the two leads have an easy chemistry in spite of the wet-behind-the-ears Cope's tendency to slip into overemphasis and indication like a high school drama student. In this vein it is a lovely - and successful - hangout comedy.

What damages the film the most, however, is the total lack of weight and import given to the comic structure set up at the core of the film. What could be a blisteringly funny teen sex farce consistently makes the wrong choice at pivotal moments, turning it into a funny, but rather more low key and tepid affair.

The Midsummer-esque partner swapping is hardly given a second glance, ditto Michael's shrill attempts to assimilate himself into gay culture. And a drunk dinner table scene that could have been the comic centerpiece of the entire thing implodes with a soft whump.

Much like this bubble pile once 2 AM hits.

It's a Blue Ball comedy is what it is, with pristinely poised farcical elements refusing to materialize into something ridiculous and hilarious. And thus I lament the film Date and Switch could have been, despite the fact that the film it is isn't one to brush off right away. It's not often that a friendship between a gay teen and his straight best friend is explored so thoroughly and thoughtfully and with such a funny approach.

As both of them grow up and learn about themselves, Michael realizing that his best friend is the exact same person he always was and Matty realizing he doesn't have to change his life to fit the stereotypes he believes about the gay community, the film proves its worth as a documentation of the travails and realities of modern high school life.

It annoyingly spends way more screen time on the heterosexual half of the storyline, forcing most of the homosexual relationship to take place offscreen, but its heart is in the right place and the story is an important one that hopefully is going to get a lot more coverage in the succeeding years. 

I absolutely would not mind if Date and Switch began the trend of heartwarming comedies that explore teen metamorphosis in a more enlightened age. It's perhaps not a tremendously great film but it would certainly be worth remembering as a pristine example right at the beginning of the movement.

TL;DR: Date and Switch is flawed without a doubt, but carves its path with heart and humor.

Rating: 6/10

Word Count: 827