Pond Scum

Year: 1972

Director: George McCowan

Cast: Ray Milland, Sam Elliott, Joan Van Ark

Run Time: 1 hour 31 minutes

MPAA Rating: PG

Every holiday I try to watch a horror movie with some thematic connection to the celebration. This is plenty easy when Christmas rolls around, but although horror films do cover a wide array of occasions (from New Year's Evil to Bloody Birthday to Prom Night), there is a pronounced lack of coverage for Independence Day. Sure, there's the late 90's Lustig film Uncle Sam, but I've already seen that. So my pick for this year's Fourth of July was a more tangential film - American Gothic. 

Little did I know I could have picked Frogs. Sergio would not have been happy with my decision (whatever, he sleeps through all my movies anyway), but it does fit the holiday. Taking place on a Floridian island during the Fourth of July, the 1972 nature-run-amok film Frogs promises loads of amphibian fun. 

It does not deliver.

There is more going on in this still than in the movie itself.

First off, there is a shockingly pronounced lack of frogs in this film. Oh sure, there's plenty of random stock footage shots of frogs hanging out that jam themselves into the film every 20 seconds or so like that one friend at a sleepover who won't shut up when it's 5 AM and you're all trying to sleep. But the primary malevolent force in the film is a grab bag of indigenous (and an assortment of geographically dubious) insects and reptiles.

But I have plenty of grievances to air about that, we can hear those later. First, the plot. Rich patriarch Jason Crockett (Ray Milland) is having his annual birthday party/Fourth of July/family reunion event at his island mansion. The entire family has gathered to celebrate the occasion. They are soon joined by Pickett Smith (Sam Elliott, who could probably have called this a skeleton in his closet were it not for The Golden Compass), an ecological reporter who is investigating the pollution around the area.

As is wont to happen in these types of films, the family is soon beset by a siege of wild animals, presumably exacting revenge for tainting their ecosystem. It's really a great set-up: A large family providing a massive pool of victims, a chintzy premise that promises B-movie fun, and a lead actor that has since risen to stardom.

From a canoe to a corral. 'Tis the circle of life.

If only the film weren't so unearthly dull. Content to be a crappy soap opera for the bulk of its run time, Frogs spends what feels like the course of several hours establishing its characters' relationships and interpersonal dramas. This would normally be a great achievement, but with characters so wanly interchangeable (a good vision test - attempt to differentiate between the three nearly identical balding WASPy brothers) and scenes so static (characters are arranged in dreary tableaux rather than "blocked" in any way), it's enough to make you want to pull out your own eyelashes in a desperate attempt to wish the film away.

And just when the animals start ramping up to wreak their havoc, Frogs undoes itself even more. Of course the kill scenes were never going to be good works of cinema, but they are too sedate to really earn the attentions of any but the most avid B-film watchers. If it's not fun to watch even in an ironic way, your killer frog movie missed out on a major step of the process.

There's a great scene where lizards use their knowledge of chemistry to manufacture a poison gas, but beyond that glint of kookiness, there's not much bite. People mostly just stumble through the forest and shoot themselves in the foot (in one case, quite literally). Let me ask you a question. If you saw a rattlesnake in a clearing, would your first move be to fall directly toward it?

If your answer was no, you are not a character in this film. Congratulations. You have a brain stem.

There are plenty of scenes that, on paper, sound like dynamite viewing. There's a photo shoot with a Foxy Brown-style girlfriend. Frogs somehow take out the phone line then fix it and make a menacing call to the house. Sam Elliott rips his shirt off at the drop of a hat. A man in a wheelchair throws himself into a pile of frogs and dies just cuz it seemed like the thing to do at the time. But there's a supreme lack of effort involved that imbues every scene with a slack lethargy and prevents the more fun plot points from being truly accessible as such.

Although if I could access this outfit I would.

It is of interest as a time capsule of the singular decade of the 70's and one of the first known ecological horror films (a supremely underpopulated genre, the most recent of which is Barry Levinson's found footage gem The Bay), but the shoddy production values sink it into the muck.

Many of the achingly overpresent stock footage shots of various reptiles are blurry with water on the lens, or have the feel of some hapless tourist being jostled while trying to get a shot of the local fauna. The music sounds like the dying wheezes of a kazoo, and more scenes are spent talking about schedules and dividends than screaming in terror.

Also the frogs do absolutely nothing until the last two minutes of the movie and that is unforgivable. Sure, commit whatever reptilian shenanigans you must, but don't sell me a title and not see it through. I'm pretty sure that's one of the Seven Deadly sins.

At least Frogs has the kind of important theme that one can expect from a sharp B-movie, proving that it's at least a little smarter than the average bear, but this is the grizzly sort of bear, not the koala. I'd rather run screaming into the woods than wrap my arms around it.

TL;DR: Frogs is tedious, but it has a good environmental theme and a couple decent B-movie frills.

Rating: 3/10

Word Count: 1027

A Day Late, An Hour Short

Year: 2002

Director: Stephen Daldry

Cast: Meryl Streep, Julianne Moore, Nicole Kidman
Run Time: 1 hour 54 minutes

MPAA Rating: PG-13

Everybody remember Sergio? He wrote this article last week about films that (bar a couple) I basically never would have seen or reviewed if not for his considerable influence over my free time. Although he neglected to mention The Hours (presumably to maintain a low Meryl Streep count and avoid tipping the scales), this is the film he chose for his most recent entry in my dramatic cinema education.

But for all the good and interesting things contained in The Hours, it also represents a lot of the elements of the genre that make it so hard for me to access. It is abstract to a fault and it ushers powerful moments across the screen to provoke a response, but never actually imbues them with power in a cinematic context. Save for one moment, the film is more or less as effective as cinema as Stephen Daldry actually reading the bestselling novel upon which the movie is based out loud.

The performances are great, the writing is effective, but the staging is wan. Stephen Daldry simply isn't a director. Over his 16-year career he has directed but four feature films, lately having dedicated himself to producing Paralympic telecasts. This is an actors' movie for sure, perhaps even an editors' movie. But the lack of a keen directorial presence prevents the film from fully blossoming into an audience's movie.

If you like the story, it'll keep you occupied. But the transition from page to screen is simple and without affect.

Much like this functional scarf/sweater combination.

The Hours tells the story of three women separated by time but linked by a single work of literature. Virginia Woolf (an unrecognizable Nicole Kidman in a prosthetic nose) writes her novel in 1923 Richmond, England. In 1951 LA, Laura Brown (Julianne Moore), a milquetoast housewife, struggles with her place in the world while reading the novel. And in 2001 New York City, Clarissa Vaughan (Meryl Streep) plans a party for her longtime friend Richard (Ed Harris), an AIDS-suffering poet who has long drawn comparisons between Miss Vaughan and the title character of the novel.

In each timeline, the film explores the events of one single day and how that day shaped the lives and outlooks of these three women, as viewed through the filter of the story of Mrs. Dalloway. I would highly suggest reading this novel before viewing the movie, as I'm certain it enhances the experience. Unfortunately I did not, providing yet another disconnect between myself and the screen. The novel is explained somewhat in the context of the film, but it does not actively reach out to guide viewers in the right direction.

This can unfortunately make the film seem a bit chilly at times, especially in the Virginia Woolf segments, none of which would be entirely compelling without the saving grace of Kidman's sharp-edged performance.

Some edges are sharper than others.

Luckily the film is provided three incredibly talented actresses (Ed Harris is also terrific, though he is neither an actress nor a frequently seen character). Meryl Streep delivers a breathtaking scene in what only amounts to be the middle of her character arc, paving the way for even more terrific character development. Julianne Moore is the least riveting of the three, but this is by choice, considering the inherent weakness of her character's resolve. As the film continues on, her performance gains more and more traction.

The Hours should thank its lucky stars for these indelible performances, because without them the film would have sank like a stone in the luggage racks of the Titanic. What it does receive, thanks to multilayered characters that act outside of the confines of the dialogue itself, is a sense of gravity. The themes present in each of the separate storylines get pulled into orbit around these three women and form a cohesive whole.

(That was a darn layered gravity pun right there. Stop for a minute and appreciate that.)

There's also some highly interesting lesbian subplots that don't quite coalesce into a coherent thread, but maintain a sense of oneness among the characters and provide a delightful entry point for LGBT analysis that very few drama films can claim.

So while depression dramas can't typically be described as anything other than depressing, The Hours can thank its lead actresses for being capable of ultimately leaving the audience with feelings of fulfillment. It would have been a lot better in the hands of a man or a woman who knew how to visually tell a story beyond just pointing a camera at people saying stuff, but it's an all-the-more compelling platform for a trio of magnetic performances.

TL;DR: The Hours isn't a cinematic masterpiece, but the acting talent pulls it all together.

Rating: 6/10

Word Count: 815

Purge, Actually

Year: 2014

Director: James DeMonaco

Cast: Frank Grillo, Carmen Ejogo, Zach Gilford

Run Time: 1 hour 43 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

The Purge is a special franchise for Popcorn Culture. The hyper-political hypo-budget Blumhouse production was the first movie ever reviewed on the pages of this here blog and this rushed-into-production sequel marks it as the first franchise to ever be covered here in totum as it is released. I am looking forward to continuing on for many more years to follow other blossoming horror franchises as they appear (Oculus, I'm looking at you). 

This is a special moment for me personally, considering my love for bloated franchise fare. Nothing pleases me more than desperate horror series - the backflips and contortions of plot that they commit for the sake of continuity never cease to delight me. But I've missed out on all the notable examples. Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th were unfortunately produced before I existed. And I got into Saw and Paranormal Activity too late to follow them from the beginning.

So we have The Purge, a franchise with the potential to be either very promising or very disheartening and I don't know which to be more excited for. But for the moment we are facing The Purge: Anarchy, a sequel that is by no means perfect, but improves upon the original film in every single way, and that's literally all we can ask of it.

That and ham-fisted political allegory.

The beauty of The Purge as a franchise is that there are an almost limitless number of genres that can be explored while remaining utterly faithful to the central conceit. Where the first was a clunky home invasion pic, Anarchy is tense survival horror. The concept is so elastic, future installments could be slashers, mafia yarns, torture porn, rape-revenge, anthology, action-adventure, or even bullet-peppered romance. It's brilliant, really, and whatever qualms one may have with the Purge concept itself, it's undeniably capable of producing years' worth of popcorn horror cinema.

I mean, that's all it really is when it comes down to it. The politics are brave and the world-building is capable, but the Purge franchise is first and foremost a fuel-soaked summer blockbuster, tense quasi-horror with a sense of action movie fun about it.

The story immediately announces its scope (the first film had a massive opening weekend but dropped hard like a Skrillex song thanks to terrible word of mouth regarding its lack of interest in the concept) with three distinct storylines that will eventually intertwine. 

The first, and most consistent, is the story of Eva Sanchez (Carmen Ejogo) and her daughter Cali (Zoë Soul), two women struggling to make a life in LA. When their apartment complex in the projects is attacked during Purge Night (which I guess I haven't totally covered in this synopsis - this is a twelve hour period every year where all crime, including murder, is legal - this supposedly cuts crime rates during the rest of the year and is treated as a a national holiday by the New Founding Fathers), they become the targets for a mysteriously dedicated group of killers.

Also in attendance is the unnamed (or so I think - the IMDb synopsis would disagree with me, but I'm not about to start anything with mep1019. He comments on more slasher message boards than I do) Sergeant (Frank Grillo, who is an inspiration to us all at a very hunky 51 years old), a dark and mysterious man who is armed to the teeth with both weaponry and a woefully obvious backstory that narcissistically positions itself as a late film reveal.

The third storyline is that of Shane (Zach Gilford of Devil's Due) and Liz (Kiele Sanchez, his real life wife), a married couple going through a separation who are caught outside during the Purge due to circumstances outside of their control. The people who are in control, though, are patiently hunting them across the streets of LA.

With a face like that, I'D chase him all around LA too. (This is not a screenshot from the film, though I dearly wish it was.)

So these three disparate groups end up coming together for what is essentially a feature length tour of the world of the Purge. It's riddled with flaws, there's no doubt about that, but the picture it paints is a wonderful extension of the one only briefly glimpsed in the original film. The most important element of this franchise is the world-building and the Purge itself is tremendously well-integrated into the production design and dialogue. There is never any doubt that this is a world that has lived with the Purge for years and a country of people who may have different reactions to it, but accept its presence as an annual occurrence.

Where it begins to go wrong is at the story level and especially the performance level. The main group is largely adequate and Grillo and Ejogo provide a solid core for the film (we do lose Grillo a bit toward the end - he's much better as a mysterious badass than the shift he experiences in the third act), but many of the secondary characters just plain aren't up to snuff. Especially egregious is Michael K. Williams as Carmelo, the leader of a resistance faction. He is saddled with the worst of the "let's explain the film's politics in terms that a third grade mollusk could understand" dialogue and as such never comes off as anything more than a dollar store Samuel L. Jackson knock-off.

The dialogue claims many victims throughout the film, perhaps more so than the Purge itself. Thanks to the intricacies of the concept, it never needs to rise above the level of adequate to still be a thrilling movie, but some of the more pernicious examples bore straight into your brain and shatter the "suspension of disbelief" lobe. I won't belabor my point and list these examples, especially because many of them are at least bad-good enough to get a good laugh. But this is a film where people emerge from a car for the sole purpose of demanding a car from somebody else, so you know there's gonna be some issues here.

Sexy issues.

One last grievance is the special effects, which generally settle in as the film gets going, but occasionally look like somebody forgot to render them. An early gunshot wound in particular would feel more at home in an arcade game from 1997. But presumably much of the SFX budget got suctioned off into the multitude of sets and actors and empty cityscapes that The Purge: Anarchy requires and I can't bring myself to complain about that being the priority,

Because it really does its job well of allowing the film to be a rough, tense ride through a city of violence with a harrowing sense of urgency. Widening the scope truly was the answer to improving The Purge and with that done, it can (hopefully) open the floodgates to some legitimately marvelous filmmaking later in the franchise (If The Purge 3 isn't announced within the next week, I will eat my foot).

And it's not like this film isn't already an improvement at the technical level. Although Anarchy and the first film were both directed by James DeMonaco, he really gets into a groove this time. Where the last film's editing and sense of geography was wildly chimerical, here we always have a sense of who is where and why we should be worried about them. The action finale could have been staged better, but for the most part the locations make sense and provide an exciting 100 minutes of adrenaline-fueled entertainment.

Taken by itself, this film probably won't be remembered as a classic of the form over a decade from now, but it's a sequel that did its job - pushing and prodding the original story into something more expansive and vastly improved.

TL;DR: The Purge: Anarchy is a great sequel that surpasses the original film with an expanded scope and more excitement.

Rating: 8/10
Should I Spend Money On This? I'd say yes. It definitely beats the other big blockbuster this weekend. I'd pick a tense LA action film over watching Cameron Diaz's mummy seduce Jason Segel any day.
Word Count: 1379
Reviews In This Series
The Purge (DeMonaco, 2013)
The Purge: Anarchy (DeMonaco, 2014)
The Purge: Election Year (DeMonaco, 2016)
The First Purge (McMurray, 2018)

I Got 99 Problems And They're All Legs

Year: 2010

Director: Tom Six

Cast: Dieter Laser, Ashley C. Williams, Ashlynn Yennie
Run Time: 1 hour 32 minutes
MPAA Rating: R

So, The Human Centipede. Those of you who want to leave now, please do so. Unfortunately, I cannot. Because of my ongoing Saw project, I've felt a need to catch up on other notable horror of the 2000's, which means a long slog through a lot of torture porn knockoffs and remakes. It's tough being me.

But for better or for worse (SPOILER: It's for worse), German director/writer Tom Six's gross-out medical film made it just about as mainstream as any designed-for-cult-status movie can get. The Human Centipede is one of those films that makes you feel like you need a Purell bath afterward, which isn't in and of itself a bad thing. There are great (if haphazard) films that accomplish the same feeling, films like The Last House on the Left and Maniac.

The difference is that those films actively pursued creating unsavory feelings in the audience to make a point about the nature of violence or expose the grubby capabilities of human nature. Yes, The Human Centipede is intended to shock, but for no other purpose than to create a vile sense of "fun," which is patently does not have, mostly for reasons that are unintentional so the filmmakers can not lay claim to them.

I shall attempt to come at this film from a fair and unbiased perspective that delves a little deeper than the knee-jerk reaction to immediately throw the film into the garbage disposal. Because the film doesn't deserve that kind of notoriety. Whatever the mainstream audience might have heard or how the (presumably miniscule) cult audience might feel, The Human Centipede is not an effective gross-out movie. It is much too boring and asinine for that.

There's no way I'm Googling screenshots for this movie. I'm writing this review on my lunch break at work. So here's a kitten. You're welcome.

The plot kicks off with two American tourists named Jenny (Ashlynn Yennie) and Lindsay (Ashley C. Williams) as they get lost on their way to a club in Germany. They end up in the one-story home (how many one-story homes are truly scary? Think about it.) of one mad Dr. Heiter (Dieter Laser), who drugs them and takes them into his secret basement, which is full of medical supplies that will be put to mysterious use.

Maybe not so mysterious. You know what's going to happen. I know what's going to happen. And the characters know what's going to happen, thanks to Dr. Heiter's helpful presentation on an overhead projector (one which rivals Urban Legend's Motive Powerpoint for pushing the envelope on the already ludicrous trope of Villain Explains It All). Presumably this is done so the audience can gasp in shock and awe at the movie's brag that it is "100% medically accurate."

I would assert that it's 100% medically incoherent, but nobody has asked me, have they?

This kitten would have asked me.

The plot is as bare as a girl in a Carl's Jr. commercial, so I won't dive too deep into it. The tourists are caught, sewn butt to mouth with a Japanese man named Katsuro (Akihiro Kitamura) to form a human... sexipede I guess, if you count the legs, and the police investigate their disappearance. After the surgery scene, which is somewhat grotesque, but much more demure than one would assume going in, the victims mostly just moan while Dr. Heiter does strange things and pretends they're a dog.

The biggest issue (among many) with The Human Centipede is the depravity. Specifically, it doesn't really go for it in terms of pushing the envelope of gross-out scares. It's noncommittally depraved, if you will. I'm not saying a full-tilt gorenography film would be better, but it would be much less useless and actually worthy of its reputation.

As it stands, the film is shockingly shy on gore, instead relying on implication and nonexistent atmosphere. Relying on traditional filmmaking techniques to tell its story rather than special effects is a great way to approach a film, but in this case is brutally punishing, considering Tom Six's utter lack of skill for the craft.

He probably doesn't even KNOW any kittens.

The writing is atrocious ("The Japanese possess unbelievable strength when backed into a corner!"), the story is stultifying, and the actors are staggeringly awful. The best comparison I could come up with for the girls' performances was (I'm sorry) that of a helpful mother acting in her child's homemade movie. Not that I welcome the comparison, but after watching Williams and Yennie mug knowingly to the camera time and time again, it's impossible to deny.

And Dieter Laser is just on a different level entirely. While I do appreciate the fervor with which he threw himself into his character - hammy villains are always the best in films of this caliber - he seems to have studied English Dialect at the Tommy Wiseau School of the Arts. His delivery is stilted in English and German, and his face has all the immobile sternness of an ancient oak. But at least he is actively trying and for that he is the most commanding presence in the cast.

There are but a few moments of genuine good in the film, one of them being an effective jump scare, so you can tell the relative caliber of the "good"right away. There is a small amount of visual flair present in a pool scene and there is enough thematic material present in the script to write a mock essay about God complexes and the nature of humanity. It is not effective, but there's definitely enough evidence to back up a parodic approach to the material.

Although I would rather be approaching this marshmallow kitten.

But all in all, The Human Centipede is an especially egregious Idiot Plot married to a genre I have no particular fondness for. Literally every story beat in the film could lead to the end of the conflict if the people populating it weren't such miserable half-wits. There's the ever present failure to double tap the killer when he's cornered, a girl who gulps down an obviously drugged glass of water after deciding to leave the residence of the obviously creepy man who just told her he didn't like human beings, and the fact that apparently the girls thought their nightclub was in the forest.

The film is just such a tremendous waste of time and doesn't even have the dubious thrills of twisted gore to buoy itself as a cult classic of cinematic indecency.

TL;DR: The Human Centipede is a boring waste of everyone's time.

Rating: 2/10

Word Count: 1121

My Boyfriend's Back

I'm looking into encouraging a lot more people to write - it's just such an incredibly fun experience that nobody seems to get anymore. So, inspired by last week's appearance by my friend Shannon on the pages of this blog, I encouraged my wonderful boyfriend Sergio to submit an article. It has been a running theme on this blog that our tastes are very different and I wanted him to argue for his side of things. He asked me to stick in an editorial here and there so everyone can see how much better his taste is than my own. Enjoy!

It was a fine Spring day when I met Brennan Matthew Klein on the banks of the Mississippi River. He was preparing to board a ferry boat that would take him west toward the Appalachian Trail, where he would begin his journey across all fifty states that would make or break his writing career. I’m of course only fooling, I met Brennan when he (rudely and unapologetically) bumped his chair into me at school, on January 29, 2014. I had no idea when I met this spritely young Irish/German/French lad that I would eventually sign on to what has been the best relationship of my young adult life. Sappiness aside, the boy has a thing for talking pictures and has made me watch my fair share of them since our first date.

[EN: For the record I was not rude OR unapologetic and he immediately ran away.]

Unfortunately for Brennan, he has a VERY specific taste for his idea of a good movie. As you may have already noticed, he loves Horror, which has been the bulk of his reviews thus far. Luckily, I have found ways to convince him to watch movies from other genres and, as a result, add diversity to his bland, blood-soaked palette. Under my tutelage and the use of various weights keeping him tethered to the ground, he has seen quite a few of my ‘indie dramas with strong female leads,’ as he affectionately describes them.

Thanks to his dear friend Shannon, who wrote a lovely piece on date nights and horror flicks, he asked me to compile a list of some of my films to showcase on his blog. Because not all of my suggestions fall under his label, I have dubbed this post "Nine Films for Nine Nonconsecutive Dates". 

Enjoy, Brenbots!

Nine Films for Nine Nonconsecutive Dates

#1 Ghost Town (2008, David Koepp)

With a budget of about $20 million I know this is not by any means an independent film, but with a box office of only $27 million, its net revenue qualifies it as such.

[EN: Sergio, your Econ major is showing.]

Ghost Town is a movie that follows the life of a dentist, Bertram Pincus (Ricky Gervais) who suddenly finds himself with the ability to see dead people. Upon his travels with the newly deceased, he runs into the ghost of a schmuck businessman, Frank Herlihy (Greg Kinnear) who wants him to interfere with his wife’s (Tea Loni) new relationship. With a runtime of 102 minutes, the movie is a great way to spend an afternoon laughing at Gervais shtick or the comedic stylings of Kristin Wiig, who shines in her small but laugh-packed role. The movie is a heartwarming comedy that can move even the most bloodthirsty horror fanatics to tears (that’s right, Brennan cried) and for five dollars on Amazon, it is most definitely a great buy.

[EN: The movies I decided to watch on our very first "stay in" date were Ghost Town, [REC], and The Devil Wears Prada so don't say I don't have diversity in my tastes. Ghost Town is one of my top 10 favorite movies of all time. And I'm not ashamed to admit it made me cry. Very few films can accomplish this, but Ghost Town and The Sixth Sense are two of them. Don't look at me like that. Also, yes that is a young Aaron Tveit in that screencap. Meow.]

#2 Winter’s Bone (2010, Debra Granik)

The film that launched Jennifer Lawrence’s career into the stratosphere features her as Ree Dolly, a girl who is responsible for her younger siblings and invalid mother in the Ozark Mountains of Missouri. The film starts off slowly, painting a picture of an average day in the life of Ree and her family, but picks up running when Ree finds out that her father has skipped town and posted their family home as collateral for his bail. Ree knows the types of unsavory characters that her father (and extended family) associated with and begins her trek to try and find him. Besides the fact that she is eventually joined by  her uncle played by John Hawkes, that is as much as I will give away about this movie. My only criticism of the film is that there are far too many blue tones. I get it, Missouri sucks.

[EN: This is the one film that Sergio has suggested to me so far that I just can't get into in any way. It's a lovely-looking piece, but I never connected with Ree's journey. I prefer my characters with more personal agency, but I know I'm in the minority with not being a fan of this film. You can read my review here.]

#3 A Single Man (2009, Tom Ford)

Tom Ford’s only movie to date is a little gem that packs great performances by its all star cast. Colin Firth, Julianne Moore, Nicholas Hoult, Matthew Goode are featured, and even Lee Pace makes a cameo discussing bomb shelters and setting the mood that is the Cold War era of the early 1960’s.

Ford adapted the film from the novel of the same name by Christopher Isherwood and follows Firth’s character as he attempts to move past the loss of his partner (Matthew Goode). Though not necessarily somber, A Single Man depicts life as a gay male in the sixties as a less than ideal situation. In one scene, an uncreditided Jon Hamm has just delivered the news that Firth’s partner died in a car wreck, and that Firth would be an unwelcome funeral guest due to his being Goode’s Partner. This movie is anything but subtle and in the era of Mad Men it is a welcome addition, adding more emotion in a single still than January Jones' entire performance of Betty Draper.

[EN: I was mystified by the film's ending, but impressed with its un-self conscious and bold aesthetic. You can read my review here.]

#4 An Education (2009, Lone Scherfig)

Carey Mulligan plays a precocious high school senior (or the British equivalent) who is planning on attending Oxford in the fall. She asks herself the sort of questions that all young adults ask themselves at some point or another. Why am I doing what my parents tell me? What is the end goal of all this intense studying? I’m a female in the sixties (yes another one, I’m sorry), my only job opportunities are becoming a teacher or a secretary, why even bother? Ok, that last one is a question that thankfully today’s female youth does not have to ask themselves, but the theme of being young, foolish, and reckless is one that is any young college kid can relate to.

[EN: I honestly have never seen this one and, as such, can have no opinion. Especially considering the fact that I definitely thought this was a Holocaust movie, which it doesn't seem to be.]

#5 Doubt (2008, John Patrick Shanley)

Never have I ever been more afraid of nuns than when Meryl Streep played Sister Aloyisious, a nun who runs her parish with an iron fist. The movie begins with the suspicion that a priest (Phillip Seymour Hoffman) has been more than friendly with one of the students at the Catholic school. Streep is a nun, and like all nuns she answers to the priests of the Parish and must find a way to remove the student from the watchful eye of the priest without ‘stepping out of line’. Featuring additional performances by Amy Adams and Viola Davis, the movie leaves you guessing as to who you hate more: Meryl Streep for ruining a man’s career without a shred of proof, Hoffman who is the potential pedophile in question, or Davis for essentially being a mother who is willing to sacrifice her child’s innocence if it means he advances academically. I left Amy Adams out because no one can hate Princess Gisele.

I warn you that this movie is not for everyone. Described as “Streep porn,” if you found yourself in the audience that disliked August: Osage County, then I suggest you go another route and watch The Exorcist. It has nuns and guts, what’s not to like about that?

[EN: Ah, the first time I can chime in seeming like an expert. Unfortunately The Exorcist has neither nuns nor guts, but it does have doubt, a priest, and the unparalleled exorcism scene that you've seen poorly recreated in (insert modern possession movie here), so I highly recommend it. You can expect a review of Doubt coming soon, as Sergio is sending in a high pressure front to convince me to watch it.]

#6 Weekend (2011, Andrew Haigh)

Writer/Director Andrew Haigh hit a homerun when he released this earnest yet gritty gay indie film. What makes this film special in the world of LGBTQIA cinema (I’m sure there are more letters but I’m just not that progressive), is that at its core, the movie is a love story where the main characters happen to be gay. That’s it. There is no gripping coming out process, no ‘woe is me’ attitude, just two men with fantastic facial hair who fall in love in the course of a weekend. I will warn you that the film features graphic sex scenes between newcomers Chris New and Tom Cullen, but if you’ve seen Game of Thrones or Orange is The New Black, then you have been adequately prepared for the beauty that is man-on-man sex.

[EN: Weekend was a great film! I watched it over a year ago with our guest star, so its unfortunately outside the scope of this blog until I watch it again and have it fresh in my mind, but I agree with Sergio and highly recommend it. It's like a gay Once without the music.]

#7 Insidious (2010, James Wan)

Fun fact: This is the first horror film that I showed Brennan. He, of course, had many things to say about everything and I of course adore him for his criticism of James Wan.

With a budget of only 1.5 million dollars, the movie manages to pull off scary while avoiding cheesy… mostly. The film follows the ruggedly handsome family guy Patrick Wilson and his beautiful wife Rose Byrne as they settle into their new home with their average looking kids when things start to go awry. According to Mr. Klein, P.I. (Paranormal Investigator) the film follows in the footsteps of Poltergeist and The Exorcist, but I find it delightful just the same. Whatever your take on his filmmaking, Wan provides you with a cheaply made movie that will sustain your interest far more than the Michael Bay’s Robots Do Things.

[EN: I'm so lucky Sergio liked horror films before I met him. He's obviously more low key than Yours Truly, but I'm grateful for his contributions. And he's right. Insidious is an immensely derivative haunted house film - much like Wan's 2013 effort The Conjuring - but like The Conjuring, is a terrific example of the classic form utilizing its influences to elevate the material. And it's one of the scariest horror films rated PG-13 you'll find this side of 1960. You can read my review here.]

#8 In a World... (2013, Lake Bell)

A film that Brennan begged and pleaded to go see last year, this is a gem of a film featuring the crowd-pleasing Lake Bell who starred, wrote, and directed the entire production. In a World... follows Bell as she attempts to break into the voice-over world, which is primarily dominated by men. It’s a quirky feminist comedy that delivers a breath of fresh air into a room of old man dank. There are multiple definitions for the word ‘dank’ and this one encompasses them all, that’s just how smelly that room is. It might be too late to catch this movie on RedBox but you always find it On Demand or borrow it from Brennan. He will be only too happy to spend hours discussing it with you and what a fool (with your pants on the ground) you are for having waited so long to see it. You have been warned.

[EN: For the record, you are not a fool, but you do need to see this movie. It's my number 3 film of 2013 and a delightful comedy that I can rewatch endlessly. You can read my glowing review here.]

#9 Paranormal Activity (2007, Oren Peli)

This one is purely for Brennan. I hated it, but it is an independent film where the main actress kills everyone and if that doesn’t qualify it as an ‘indie film with a strong female lead’ than I don’t know what does.

[EN: I'm a big fan of the franchise despite my immense (and supported) hatred for PA4 and my intense (and divisive) dislike for PA3. I'll have to do a retrospective of the original trilogy soon. Let me know if that sounds like something you'd be into.]

That's it. I'm done. I hope that you found I have convinced you better than I have convinced Brennan to try out new movies. This has been a blog post by me, Shawn Ashmore. Hah, Brennan wishes.

[EN: What? Shawn Ashmore? Wherever would anybody get that idea? Clap clap for Sergio. Thank you for your contribution! So everyone? Do you agree? Do you disagree? Do you think I'm a fool for ignoring Meryl Streep's expanded filmography? Please let us know in the comments!]
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Fright Flashback: Do You Saw What I Saw?

Welcome to Fright Flashback, where every week until the end of summer we will revisit an older horror film that is in some way a spiritual precursor to an upcoming new release. This week we are anticipating The Purge: Anarchy, a sequel which promises to expand the universe of the small scope / low budget original in the hopes of transforming it into a franchise. In celebration, today's review is Saw II, a 2005 sequel which accomplished exactly that.

Year: 2005

Director: Darren Lynn Bousman

Cast: Donnie Wahlberg, Beverley Mitchell, Franky G

Run Time: 1 hour 33 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

I've gotta say, binge-watching a long gone film franchise without any real foreknowledge of its contents is a magical experience. I'm a big fan of watching a prominent franchise derail itself (as such, I am the only human in recorded history who enjoyed Paranormal Activity 4 on any level), so I'm excited to get through all the Saw films, but so far I've been enjoying myself immensely in a mostly positive manner.

When Lionsgate released James Wan's Saw upon America in 2004, nobody was expecting the one million dollar film to gross a staggering 55 times its budget in domestic sales alone. As any self-respecting production company would do, they upped the budget to four million (still keeping it relatively low - that kind of profit margin doesn't just roll around every day) and rolled out a bigger and badder sequel in the hopes that the fans would just keep pouring money down the chute.

Evidently it worked, because Saw II made 40 million more than Saw's already astronomical box office, kicking off a yearly tradition that would continue on until Saw 3D, the seventh and, as of the time of this writing, final film in the series. I'll be able to have more insight once I reach the end of this marathon, but something tells me that this is one franchise that can't be called extinct yet, merely dormant. 

We in the horror community know that the word "Final" is about as reliable as an airport ETA, and this franchise was still a wishing well of cash by the time it was canned, the last entry having made roughly the cost of Donald Trump's bathroom. But it's been nothing but radio silence for four years. I'm sure Lionsgate is waiting in the shadows, cooking up something dastardly.

I hope to Jigsaw it's not a remake.

Now, it is typical for sequels to popular films to attempt to do the exact same thing... only bigger. This film is no different. In fact it's a dictionary example of the form. Saw II features four times the amount of victims, eight times the locations, and an insurmountably high number times the embarrassingly wooden lines of dialogue. This was in large part thanks to Leigh Whannell's continuation of the script without the guiding presence of frequent collaborator James Wan, but more on that later.

For now, the traps. I would say "plot", but this is a Saw movie. Let's not put on airs. I don't need to be distracted while attempting to reduce this enormously convoluted plot to a bare bones summary. Alright. It's go time. Detective Eric Mathews (Donnie Wahlberg) is a corrupt cop who's estranged from his wife and son because he slept with Allison (Dina Meyer, one of three returning cast members), one of his coworkers and an expert on the Jigsaw case.

He's finally cornered Jigsaw (the indispensible Tobin Bell) in an abandoned steel factory with the help of a SWAT team. Just as everything is going well, they discover a set of monitors watching over the serial killer's newest morality trap. While the police hurry to trace the source of the video, the eight victims must work together to find a way out lest the poison gas being pumped into the house they're in rip them apart from the inside.

These victims are numerous, but only a few are important. There's Amanda (Shawnee Smith), the only woman to have previously survived a Jigsaw game; Daniel (Erik Knudsen), Detective Wahlberg's son; and Xavier (Franky G) a macho and violent drug dealer who puts himself above all others. Jigsaw gives these eight people a tape recorder and several clues toward assuring their survival, some hideously obvious yet ignored by the victims at large, and some staggeringly perplexing that the characters seem to have no problem with.

Saw's internal logic is as free-flowing as the blood.

The rapidly diminishing victims explore the house and find a series of new traps and games that push the limits of their humanity, either to find an exit or to obtain antidotes to the poison coursing through their veins. It was immediately obvious that Saw II would be bloodier than its predecessor, and while the gore is still more subdued than the implications (no studio would want to scare off audiences by being too brutal - gorehounds are abundant, but absolutely a minority), there are plenty of cringe moments, especially those revolving around the ever-present hypodermic needles that contain the medicine.

The traps are still pretty compelling this time around, not yet devolving into the more indecent realms of "torture porn." Oh, it could certainly be considered a member of the genre but at least the gore is servicing a sort of intensity and sense of purpose, raising the stakes of the situation and providing character momentum. Something tells me that those elements will vanish with Whannell, daft screenwriter though he may be (at least at this point in his career).

Sorry man, I liked Insidious.

The greatest flaws of Saw II can be traced back to the script, although the acting is just as terrible as always (except Tobin Bell, the film's saving grace as a defeated and angry cancer patient, a role much expanded from his original purpose as a crackerjack twist ending). Eric has a flashback to something that happened mere minutes before, Jigsaw's plot this time around involves a Joker-esque level of pre-planning and psychic abilities, and there are too many characters this time around to provide an adequate backstory for any of them.

This film is full of potential energy. You can feel a rich story pulsing beneath the surface (one that is hopefully expanded upon in the increasingly intricate network of sequels), but barely any of it comes out on screen. This is likely because the script itself is adapted from an entirely different story written by Darren Lynn Bousman years before and spruced up with Sawisms by Whannell. The resulting film is a Frankenstein monster of sawed-off backstory and dialogue that could build an ark.

I'm saying it's wooden, is what I'm saying.

But despite all its flaws (many of which it shares with the film that came before - so maybe this can just be considered a hallmark of the franchise) and some of the later twists and turns that kept me up at night poking at plotholes and worrying about the inconsistent MO of a fictional serial killer, it's all part of the ride. Saw II is a roller coaster, a gory, tense and cool film that drags you along with it for the entirety of the run time, only exposing its flaws after you've had a chance to sit down afterward and reflect.

Any dead space in the film would have allowed that moment of realization to come much earlier, so it's a great compliment to say that it has no such moment. And even in the wake of the closing credits, realizing its flaws doesn't ruin the film, it merely knocks it down a couple of notches. Saw II is still a great, fun sequel maintaining the themes established by the first Saw and opening up a universe of possibilities for the next.

TL;DR: Saw II is a good and entertaining sequel, but it falls apart at the script level.

Rating: 6/10

Word Count: 1317

Reviews In This Series

Saw (Wan, 2004)
Saw II (Bousman, 2005)

Saw III (Bousman, 2006)

Saw IV (Bousman, 2007)

Saw V (Hackl, 2008)

Saw VI (Greutert, 2009)

Saw: The Final Chapter (Greutert, 2010)

Once More

Year: 2014

Director: John Carney

Cast: Keira Knightley, Mark Ruffalo, Adam Levine

Run Time: 1 hour 44 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

In 2006, the indie Irish production Once burst onto the scene, dazzling critics with its meandering not-quite-romance between two Dublin-based musicians. In 2014, that same director tried his hand at the indie rock sort of musical genre once more with the aptly named Begin Again. It's much less esoteric than Once, which will certainly enrage many fans, but places it more firmly in my wheelhouse.

As much good as Once does in reinvigorating the movie musical and telling a unique love story without all that pesky romance, it really does rely entirely upon people standing around playing music. It worked magic with the budget that was available to the filmmakers, but as a narrative it was severely lacking in many regards.

This new film is far from perfect, but it manages to translate Once into the modern age and marry it to a story that, while full of stock situations and characters, manages to feel lively and brisk rather than full of dead space. The songs aren't quite as revelatory and that might bring the energy down from time to time, but there's enough going on around the music that Begin Again doesn't bore.

I could never be bored with a movie featuring both Adam Levine and beards.

So, how about this "plot" thing I've been hearing so much about? Gretta (Keira Knightley) is a young songwriter who recently broke up with her musician boyfriend Dave (Adam Levine) after he gets a record deal, some bigger britches, and a sexy mistress of his very own. Dan (Mark Ruffalo) is a down-on-his-luck record producer and Deadbeat Alcoholic Dad™ complete with an estranged wife (Catherine Keener) and daughter (Hailee Steinfeld) expansion pack.

It's a match made in movie heaven when the two meet at an open mic night at a local New York bar. Although Dan is on the outs at his company, he and Gretta set out to record an album live in places around the city and change the face of the music industry. You know, like they did in that one Glee episode where Santana and Mercedes sing in a dingy basement? Exactly like that.

Whatever, nobody's watching Glee. I'm not even  technically watching it. I merely ran afoul of a cursed karaoke machine a while back and am doomed to view it weekly until its finale.

Ah, the bliss of the ignorant.

One of the most interesting things about Begin Again is how seamlessly it integrates modern technology (see: Apple) into the narrative. Rather than clumsily inlaying texts over the screen like The Fault in Our Stars or Non-Stop (thank you for the tip-off, Hunter), the film merely includes the use of technology as an organic way of interacting with other people in the modern world.

In one especially indicative scene, Gretta uses a handheld video on her iPhone to initiate a flashback sequence. The way she mugs to the camera with the phone itself is obviously crass product placement (although in the wake of Transformers: Age of Extinction, they could have decorated the entire apartment with iPads and still seemed like a subtle complement in comparison), but the narrative function it serves is a terrific step in the ongoing synthesis of narrative storytelling and modern communications.

And the visual style, while still considerably routine and average, is miles ahead of the freshman Once, especially in an early scene with an invisible orchestra. This scene does everything Smash did with sledgehammer blows and turns it on its ear with elegant beauty. This was the single most valuable point that got me on the movie's side in the early going.

It's like ice cream for the eyes.

Now, Mark Ruffalo has been tearing it up in the notices lately thanks to The Normal Heart (thank you, Normal Heart), and he does fine here, but he's consistently outshined by Keira Knightley. Where Ruffalo merely does his Ruffalo thing (which is, on average, outstandingly higher than, say, the Keanu thing), Knightley is turning in her best performance in years, forging a quick chemistry with a wide array of actors like Ruffalo, silver screen newcomer Adam Levine, accomplished neophyte Hailee Steinfeld, and Cee Lo Green (All that's missing is Aguilera and we'd have a full-on The Voice reunion.)

Let's put a pin in that for a second because Cee Lo Green provides some of the most hilarious unintentional comedy I've seen this side of Troll 2. He's only in about one and a half scenes, but those appearances provide about one-third of the cuts in the movie. He's only ever onscreen for a consecutive three seconds or so before they cut to a different angle or something else entirely.

Now keep in mind that this is just conjecture, but the only possible explanation is that the man gave a performance so epically terrible that his lines had to be salvaged in small chunks haphazardly pasted together in order to seem like he accomplished anything even close to "acting." He is frequently overdubbed on other shots or has lines tossed in from the back of his head. In the scenes that show his face, he seems addled and unsure, which is compounded by the sheer mass of takes it must have required to get so much coverage. 

Hats off to editor Andrew Marcus, who is on my short list for an Oscar nomination due to his Herculean efforts to composite this footage into something that resembles a "scene" without having to squint one's eyes. But enough about the poor promotional tie-in man. Knightley is transcendent (and she'd have to be to have chemistry with the anthropomorphic wood block that is Ceel Lo Green), and she's not a half bad singer to boot.

And an even better leaner.

Thanks to Knightley and Ruffalo's chemistry and Carney's able direction, Begin Again is a delightful indie musical film. It's not my genre, so I doubt I'll ever have the inclination to revisit it, but it's certainly worth a watch.

TL;DR: Begin Again is a decently solid effort bolstered by a terrific performance from Keira Knightley.
Rating: 8/10
Should I Spend Money On This? Well, I'd certainly have you spend it on this rather than Transformers, Tammy, or Echo.
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