I know that most of my posts so far have focused on films from the 70's and 80's (mostly 80's); however, I do try to keep myself as current as possible. Also, as noted in my last blog post about themes, my viewing theme for September is "Runnin' to Redbox," where I try to watch as many 2017 films as I have time for in a month.
I'm never going to do full-length reviews around here, as there are bloggers and critics who do a WAY better job at it than I would, in terms of describing the plot and giving you the specific details you want. I will give you some mini-critiques now of some of the movies I've watched in the first seven days of September.
FATE OF THE FURIOUS
I was never a big fan of the "Fast and the Furious" series during what we'll call Act One (the first three films, also known as the "Look how fast my car is!" group). My affection for the films came during Act Two, the "Holy Shit, we're James Bond movies now!" phase. Starting slowly with "episode" four and working consistently since, the Universal series has become steadily more bizarre, more preposterous, and somehow....more fun. FAST AND FURIOUS 6 may be the peak of the series.
Sadly, I'm here to report that installment eight, FATE OF THE FURIOUS, might be the first one in the second phase to bring us diminished returns. This is the first of the series where new cast additions just feel to be too much (nowhere near enough for everyone to do), and no matter how psyched I was that she had been cast, Charlize Theron just ends up being a mid-level villain. I expected too much. No matter who they end up casting, the performances have never been more than caricatures and they never will be.
The final act sequence on the ice in Russia is appropriately bat-shit enough, and it did make me laugh several times at the utter implausibility (and in this series, that is undeniably a GOOD thing for me... the crazier the stunt, the better). I'm still trying to figure out how I've become so fond of Tyrese Gibson as Roman in this series. Usually the "Hell, no!" character in an action or comedy film is the most grating and worthless to me, but over the run of this series, Roman has become my MVP and, when they inevitably start shedding characters in the sequels to come, Roman damn well better make the cut.
As a matter of fact, for those of you who HAVE seen it, I pitch FURIOUS 9 as a scaled down actioner, with only Tyrese, Jason Statham, Helen Mirren (who has so little to do in this one and is still so wonderful in it) and the scene-stealing baby. Everyone else can go. I can get you script pages by Monday.
THE WALL
Oooooh, I REALLY wanted to like this one. I saw the preview during the winter and it looked like it was right up my alley. Small-scale, big-stakes, filled with tension and with a lean running time of around 85 minutes. Yet, this tale of two American soldiers pinned down by a playful and dangerous sniper in Iraq starts to sputter about halfway in and never builds up to the highs that I was hoping for when I started it.
Aaron Taylor-Johnson and John Cena play the American soldiers who are tasked with making sure an area is clear of enemies. However, they themselves get targeted by a sniper. The sniper shoots and injures Cena and Taylor-Johnson is able to get behind a poorly put together (and quickly falling apart) wall of rocks. At this point, we get a radio game of cat and mouse between Taylor-Johnson's soldier and the sniper. It definitely is super tense at first, and the cat and mouse parts work very well.
Sadly, though, director Doug Liman doesn't have much up his sleeve for the second half of the film. I was really expecting the soldier(s) to try and figure out a smart, cunning way of escaping their plight. I was hoping that the film would become a matter of each side trying to get one step ahead of the other until the credits roll. Instead, we get a lot more... talk.
The acting from Taylor-Johnson and Cena is fine, and the film does zip along quite swiftly at the start. But to me, this felt like a film where they had an excellent concept for the starting point, and then tried to improvise their way through to the conclusion.
THE DEVIL'S CANDY
I don't know if there is a single scare in THE DEVIL'S CANDY, yet I remained riveted and disturbed straight through. Finding it on Netflix last weekend (and having star Ethan Embry tell me in person at Monster Mania in August that I needed to see it!), I kicked back at 1:30 in the morning figuring it would take me a second viewing over the weekend to finish it, and I was thrown for a fast paced, utterly gripping little film.
Embry and Shiri Appleby play a couple looking for a home to move into with their teenage daughter. They find a nice sized home, with a large barn that will be perfect for artist Embry to set up a studio in. However, it also comes with the requisite "we need to let you know that people have died here" speech from the realtors. The couple decides to buy it, anyway, and at first, of course, everything seems perfect. Embry is suddenly inspired to do great paintings, and the family seems happy.
Needless to say, the happiness doesn't last long. I won't spoil any of the fun of THE DEVIL'S CANDY, but instead of a simple film about one of the family members being possessed or the house being like the one in Amityville, the movie plays as a fun concoction of Satanist tract, home invasion film, and a heavy metal nightmare.
Embry is great in the film, as is Appleby. Pruitt Taylor Vince plays another of his standard silent psycho types, but he does get to shred metal on a guitar, which is a definite highlight of the picture. Writer/director Sean Byrne knows what he wants to do from frame one (I still need to see his previous film, 2009's THE LOVED ONES), and I was literally sitting up in bed through the last twenty minutes of this one. Get your butts over to Netflix and watch this now, or better yet, go buy it on DVD or Blu-Ray and show support to fun independent horror efforts.
UNFORGETTABLE
Oh, why could you not have been more trashy, movie?
Denise DiNovi, longtime producer (HEATHERS, BATMAN RETURNS, ED WOOD, SISTERHOOD OF THE TRAVELING PANTS) chose this script to make her long-overdue feature directing debut. The plot, about a woman (Rosario Dawson) who's put a dark, secret life behind her only to be newly terrorized by the ex-wife (KATHERINE HEIGL) of the man she is now engaged to, screams out to be made as an overwrought Lifetime Network thriller. All of the elements are in place, but DiNovi plays it... straight. And quite competently; the film is well-acted and shot throughout. DiNovi has put together a very sharp crew that makes this film play way better than it has a right to... and that's the trouble.
This should be fun. Yes, it would be need to be more ramshackle, have more plot contrivances and weird coincidences, and it would be need to be more than a little batshit crazy. Yet, those things would make this film all the more enjoyable to sit through. Heigl's character is mentally deranged, but the film introduces the character of her mother (Cheryl Ladd), who is just as tightly wound and ready to snap. We get the reason that Heigl has turned out the way she has, and this makes her character come off as... almost sympathetic. Wrong choice in a film like this, silly or not. My villain must be a good villain in a thriller like UNFORGETTABLE. She can't be looked upon as a potential symbol of pity.
So many missed opportunities. Damn you, Denise DiNovi, for trying to do a good job. Be sloppier next time, and you might have an A-grade loony classic.
(And yes, I know I'm not the target audience for UNFORGETTABLE. But, I AM the target audience for the wild and zany version of UNFORGETTABLE that resides inside my brain. So there.)
SMALL CRIMES
After 2013's CHEAP THRILLS, I was excited to see what director E.L. Katz would do next. I had to wait four years for a follow-up, but SMALL CRIMES was absolutely worth the time.
Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, a million miles away from Jaime Lannister in GAME OF THRONES (and doing a very nice job as a seedy lowlife character; I can't wait to watch SHOT CALLER, which also places him in a tough con role and is supposed to be excellent), plays a man getting out of prison after serving a sentence for attempted murder. His Joe character simply wants to get on with his life and reunite with his children. The criminal world he left behind has other ideas.
There are absolutely many things in SMALL CRIMES that you've seen in similar films, so don't come looking for originality. The film, and its characters, have a true, lived-in feeling to them, that makes this film resonate quite a bit more than other crime thrillers that delve more into the action side of things. Joe wants to start anew and repair all of the damage, but everyone he returns to either wants the old Joe, or no Joe at all. Most of them have simply moved on without him. The rest need him to settle old scores.
The key to SMALL CRIMES, besides all of the great small touches that it provides, is the killer cast. Along with Coster-Waldau, you get Robert Forster, Jacki Weaver, Gary Cole, Molly Parker, and in a smaller role, CHEAP THRILLS alum Pat Healy. The cast shoots sparks from the get-go, and is more than enough reason to find this on Netflix.
And I can't let this capsule review end without mentioning the ending. Although it makes total sense afterward, it comes out of nowhere and floors you. I'm not sure if I'll see an ending more powerful and devastating in 2017.
ALIEN: COVENANT
Since just about everyone took their shots at reviewing this and making sense of it when it came out in May, I won't go long on this one. After watching it, I absolutely understand why everyone was so split on it. The movie is split on itself. Very rarely have I seen a film so schizophrenic in such an equal, 50/50 manner.
There are two distinct stories at work here, and they make only the mininum effort to try to intertwine. I can appreciate everything that Ridley Scott and the screenwriters are trying to say with the David character and creation. This could have been a fascinating "thinking man's" sci-fi film delving deep into that topic. Add on top of that the character that Billy Crudup plays, which is supposed to be devoutly religious, and you have the components for a very smart, very original film.
But you need the alien attacks. We must have the alien attacks in an ALIEN film. And they do happen, staged almost in the same timing patterns as the kill shots in a FRIDAY THE 13TH film. If you're getting bored, don't worry... Ridley's gonna have a chest burster in the next 3 minutes!
So there we are. Everytime the religion/creation angle heats up, we have to get gory. And every time the action gets super tense and we are enjoying the roller coaster ride of a standard ALIEN sequel, slowwwww down! Time for some sermonizin'!
I've been a fan of the series since the outset, and my feelings/rankings usually sit where the majority of viewers do. I love the first two and can rank them 1-2 or 2-1 depending on my mood. I can now appreciate ALIEN 3 as the flawed masterpiece that it is, rather than the botched follow-up by a novice music video director. And I rightly put the ALIEN vs PREDATOR films wayyyyyy down at the bottom.
Who knows where I'll finally come down on this one.... maybe I'll see this in the same kind of light I look at ALIEN 3 now. It's possible, but for now, I just see COVENANT as an ambitious mess.
I HAD IT ON MY WALL
(Ok, I didn't actually have it on my wall, but someday I might)
Lionsgate is ripping themselves off this year. Can you sue yourself for stealing licensed property?
WHILE I'M THINKIN' ABOUT IT...
My last blog post was about themes for movie viewing. The concept was that if you choose a theme for each month, you never hit that "wall" where you can't decide what to watch. Draw a blank, go back to the theme.
After writing the post, I saw a great theme that my Twitter film buddy Cinemonster is doing and has done before. It is HOOPTOBER!
I will provide you the beginning of what Cinemonster puts on his Hooptober page, and then I'll leave it for you to follow the links and see the rest for yourself. This is exactly what I was talking about with themes, and he has done an AMAZING job with this over the past few years. I strongly recommend participating!
Here's how he starts off:
"Greetings from the home of George Romero, Tom Savini, Chilly Billy and the perpetually awesome Jeff GoldBlum. This is Hooptober 4.O. Sadly since last year we have lost both Billy and George, but we have become a popular place for Richard Linklater to hang out. (which makes this Austin boy happy)
Last years version destroyed our first 2 years, and gave us a several hundred great lists and well over 1500 reviews, thoughts and impressions to read. The most enjoyable part for me, as always, was to see what everyone chose to watch, and the reactions to some of the stranger shit out there that people found."
To read more, go to Cinemonster's Hooptober page, which is located here. You can also follow Cinemonster on Twitter here. Check it out today!
I HEARD IT
While I'm on the subject of Film Twitter buddies, the awesome Albert Muller brought up the film, DIGGSTOWN, tonight. I love this 1992 STING-like film about boxing and con men, and Albert loves it fifty times more than I. While talking about it with him, I got the fine score by James Newton Howard in my head.
(If you can't click on that video on your mobile device, try here.)
You can follow Albert to talk about DIGGSTOWN or lots of other movies on Twitter by clicking here.
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