"Accomplishments"
In theaters: Coralie Fargeat's The Substance is a visually arresting film, with impeccably designed spaces and extreme close-ups, and a premise that seems very Cronenberg (stylistically Brandon more than David). Demi Moore might have been chomping at the bit to play someone in her essential situation - a star who "aged out" of the business (Moore came back in through independent cinema - there are worse comebacks) - and probably gives a career best performance. Obsessed with beauty standards, she is lured into using the Substance, which creates a younger, more beautiful, "better" version of herself (Margaret Qualley who is having quite the run), but when the rules, which create a kind of Jekyll and Hyde situation, are broken, the side effects start to mount until we reach an absolutely demented gore finale. This comes off as funny and ludicrous, because there's not enough empathy generated by the self-loathing character(s) - they hate themselves so we don't like them either - but as this is a kind of extended "Black Mirror", I don't think we're meant to see their twin existence as anything but a cautionary tale. It's meant as horror-comedy. The script is original and you're never quite sure where it's going, but an overuse of internal flashback elements means it hammers its points home a little too obviously.
At home: 10 years before The Substance, Fargeat made a short called Reality+, which is basically a first draft of the idea. Very much more like a (too-short) Black Mirror episode, it has the general population indulging in a beauty "filter" - which really creates a kind of paranoia where you would disbelieve anyone who is attractive - as well as malfunctions, trying to cheat the system, back scars, and even has an actor in common. The romance between two people using Reality+ is a pretty predictable affair. This remains interesting to Substance fans though.
While it's fun to think of Wolfs as Ocean's 2, it's not really that at all. But? Still a lot of fun. Clooney and Pitt are high-level "cleaners" who, one night, have to clean up after a D.A.'s disastrous hotel fling and stumble upon larger crimes in the big city. Only thing is, they both believe they're the only game in town and don't enjoy working together despite being two peas in a pod. Obviously benefiting from the two stars' chemistry, Wolfs also has some pretty cool set pieces, whether the covert "heist" stuff or the more action-driven stunts and violence, with amusing twists on old ideas abounding. Austin Abrams rounds out the cast as a witless kid caught up in events and he's pretty funny too. I know it goes against the concept that lone wolves - sorry, wolfs - should collaborate, but I wouldn't mind more adventures starring these guys. I feel like we left even the supporting characters in a place that would allow a sequel.
Rakel (Kristine Kujath Thorp) doesn't want a baby, ever, but when she is told she's been unwittingly pregnant for months and it's too late for an abortion, she'll have to finally figure her life out. Or not. Ninjababy is a raucous comedy about something that would appear, on paper, not to be funny at all, but Rakel is such a mess, it just works. A cartoonist with an overactive imagination (largely represented by animation), she manifests the baby as a character that pokes and prods her, right in the values. But staying true to oneself is a value too. We're heading for a rather poignant ending, but in the meanwhile, lots of chuckles with a variety of comic characters (the potential fathers, especially) enlivening the "girl behaving badly" comedy tropes. The actual lines are in Norwegian, of course, but there the English translations of a fair few are sticking with me.
Tragically Charles Laughton's only directorial effort, The Night of the Hunter is a nightmarish Southern Gothic that, visually, seems inspired by the kinds of films he starred in back in the 1930s. The shadows don't really match the natural lighting, the river escape becomes a fairy tale filled with animal life, and the pace can abruptly change the tonal texture of the ongoing narrative. The unseemly subject matter - a serial killer, kids under constant threat, references to sex being devilish - seems extreme for 1955 too, and it's not hard to see how the film didn't meet with success in its own era. Sadly, Laughton would never recover. Audiences today won't necessarily see it as a shock to their system, but it's still a powerful indictment of personalized religion and its use to manipulate. Of course, the real villain of the piece isn't Robert Mitchum no matter how many people he kills, but Evelyn Varden's Icey Spoon (yes, that's her real name), the town meddler and a terrible judge of character. What a dose. We spend a lot of time with the two young kids here, and they're solid. The Night of the Hunter may have structural issues (like that frenetic epilogue), but they help make the film unsettling, which is to its benefit. And it can be darkly funny too.
I first saw Besieged on late night television, when all I knew of Thandiwe Newton was Mission Impossible 2, so a very different role. The movie does have John Woo editing tricks, which I cannot agree with in this case, but it's a very slight criticism of the visuals considering Bertolucci's pure sensualism triumphs in the end. There's just so much texture and atmosphere in the locations and the lighting that scenes have a smell and a temperature. The music, both African and classical, is wonderful and a character in its own right, a kind of chorus to the developing attraction between Newton and the composer she works for (David Thewlis), a man who may be able to reunite her with her husband, a political prisoner in their home country. But her present reality seems so divorced from her previous life that one wonders if she can return to the latter. And an intriguing promise she makes might even make it impossible, if kept. Newton is lovely here, and Bertolucci's bent for erotica doesn't manifest into something unseemly,
I need to clear the decks before October, since I plan to once again watch [at least] one horror movie a day until Halloween, so this week, I'm bringing my Companion Film project to an end. Seven companions left, starting with Matt "Nardole" Lucas... Laika's Missing Link invisibly pushes the boundaries of stop-motion by including so many extended action scenes, and this certainly fits its Victorian take on the matinée serial, an Indiana Jones in the world of cryptids which cleverly uses the language of Darwinism into its comedy patter. I quite like it. Hugh Jackman voices a daring adventurer and cryptid hunter (out to prove they exist rather than mount them on his wall like the villains of the piece) who befriends a lonely and humorously literal-minded Sasquatch (Zach Galifianakis) and off they go to find a lot civilization of Yeti. Timothy Olyphant has a great voice for the Yosemite Sam-type character on their trail. I probably muddled this film with Small Foot (out the year before) and Abominable (out the same year), but from all accounts, THIS is the one to watch.
Featuring Pearl "Bill" Mackie... Allison Williams and Alexander Dreymon are former lovers on the road to reconnecting when they board a small plane to get to a wedding in tropical Mauritia; their pilot has a heart attack and Horizon Line becomes a survival movie from then on. The jeopardy is fairly exciting and the effects used to represent it are strong, but while Williams is fine, Dreymon is a total bore. A much better film would have replaced him with Pearl Mackie (mmm, good French speaker) who is the bride here. Imagine SHE'S late to her own wedding, and this is about two besties trying to get out of a deadly situation. There's really nothing a male lead brings to it here except the trite relationship subplot. Although even with that cast change, this plane wouldn't have leveled off at anything better than middling, with its repetitive script - the characters spend 80% of the flight giving each other encouragement, screaming each others' names, or going "you're kidding me!" - shouted over engine noise (which certainly doesn't help the acting). I suppose there's a surface theme here of a woman who hates to say goodbye turning that into a life-saving tenacity (hey, Rose from Titanic, THIS is how you do it), but that's not enough to keep your eyes on the screen and not on your phone.
Featuring Mandip "Yaz" Gill... The Flood is a perfectly good movie about the refugee crisis in Europe, in a BBC TV kind of way. Ivanno Jeremiah is effective as an African man who has reached Britain and must now tell his story to Lean Headey's immigration officer. A frame tale I at first questioned, but asylum seekers' reception is as important as their journey, and the film manages not to tell a White Savior story, or even a particularly sentimental one despite resolving with some poignant grace. The script purports to have combined the stories of many refugees, so if Haile isn't a real person, his story is nevertheless true. Strong acting throughout and quite a touching turn for Doctor Who's Mandip Gill in a supporting role. If I were to criticize something, it's that when Haile is withholding information from the authorities, it's not as clear as the film would have it. We get there in the end, but the frame tale can get in the way.
Featuring Tosin "Ryan" Cole... I understand (now) that The Souvenir is a semi-autobiographical memoir of Joanna Hogg's time in film school, but where I am very interested in the film maker part of it - the crippling insecurity on set, the very funny pretentious douchebag played by Richard Ayoade, etc. - the focus is on a personal relationship I find very hard to tap into. I think we like Hogg's stand-in Julie (Honor Swinton Byrne, daughter of Tilda who plays Julie's mom in the picture) well enough, but the manipulative, caddish older man with secrets that she starts seeing is so above it all (at best) and destructive (at worst)... well it's not so much that they make an unlikely pair - that's true to life and, I imagine, true to Hogg's - but that we never trust him, and therefore, want him around. Built around impressions - well-shot, well-acted impressions - we're sometimes wondering if we missed something here and there, and yet the pace is pretty frosty. Perhaps Part 2 of this will complete a picture that heightens the experience - particularly the uncompleted pass made at the story of an upper middle class director trying to make a film about the lower class (and yet falling for a posh man), but I don't know if I have it in me to spend more time in the world at the moment.
Featuring Bradley "Graham" Walsh... What if Doctor Who actors, past and future, got together to make a silly little Airplane-type comedy? The roster of employees in Hotel! includes Peter Capaldi, Paul McGann, Bradley Walsh and Ashes to Ashes' Keeley Hawes, getting up to dumb sight gags, dialogue taken too literally, and so on, when the U.S. President (Lee Majors?!!!) shows up unexpectedly as the target of terrorists. Can McGann's former soldier save the day and the woman he loves? Because this is also quite clearly a parody of macho American action films set in and around a country hotel. Not all the jokes land (I can't tell if this is an Airplane joke on my part), but there are enough of them to keep us amused and entertained for the short run time. There's even a musical number. And I know Doctor Who fans aren't that picky when it comes to seeing their favorite stars interacting in other things - I know it, because I'm one of them.
Featuring John "Dan" Bishop... Tracking the life of a fictional female stand-up comic, Funny Cow (which is the only name the character is ever given, well, except for Funny Calf when she's a little girl) somewhat short-changes us on the stand-up side of things, mostly reserving it for the third act, and even so, while it focuses on the contentious relationships the Marvelous Mrs. Cow has with the people in her life (men mostly) as the oddity that is a woman who relishes the fact that she's funny in a world/time that doesn't think it possible. It really hinges on Maxine Peake's powerful performance, both dramatic and comic, and she's well attended by other comic actors. The writing and direction have some fun ideas - the frame tale, FC's ability to meet her self from different time frames, The Red Balloon references, and her name, of course - but I feel like they could have pushed it further. As is, it's like a biopic attached to no one in particular, and doesn't spend enough time on the comedy stage to represent that specific type of comic. Great soundtrack, though, including some original songs.
And finally, featuring Millie "Ruby" Gibson, who has never been in a feature film, but has co-starred in a television mini-series... At three episodes, Butterfly is almost too short an exploration of its hot button issue, as I think audiences might have liked to see more of Maxine's family working through what it means to have a trans child on puberty blockers. Regardless, it does a good job of sensitively crafting the portrait of such a family, even if, for some of the ancillary characters (like the grandfather), attitudinal changes occur off-screen. Max is 11 and dreading the onset of puberty AND the idea that her parents will never get back together, stresses that come to a head in the series. The dad isn't supportive, the mom desperate to help her daughter, and Doctor Who's Millie Gibson (very young here) is in the middle often feeling ignored. The show presents how not at all easy it is to get puberty blockers, which is just a first step towards transition, how many people have to be convinced and of what, and the toll the process takes on the child. Ironic that a "family in crisis" loses access to remedies to that very crisis.
Books: Paul Leonard's Revolution Man is a pretty good Eight Doctor Adventures... until it reaches the end, which is a complete (and objectionable!) mess. Essentially, the TARDIS detects changes made to history in the late 1960s, caused by an alien flower that gives people telekinetic powers that work on a global scale. Leonard uses the tropes of the time - the music, world-wide protests, the hippie trail - as background, and makes Fitz a more heroic figure (of course there's a girl involved) and ages him a bit too (literally as this adventure takes place over a couple years). The TK stuff is pretty original too. So that ending is really unfortunate. In the span of a few dozen pages, the Doctor does something he should never ever do, Fitz's romantic interest goes off the rails (when I was essentially thinking she'd be a good companion), the climax happens off-stage, and the resolution doesn't explain a damn thing - in particular how this saves history. Are any of these events undone? Is this an alternate timeline? Leonard did it all much better in Genocide, 17 books ago. And it's not like he didn't have the space to explain himself, as this was a rather shorter read than others in the line.
RPGs: We played Call of Cthulhu this week - more of the Blackwater Creek published scenario, under the cruel eye of our Keeper, Ian - and the structure could be described as "one damn thing after another". Consider. We race out of a horror farm at night and are punished with getting the car stuck in mud in a dark wood. Given that one of the group's members is a giant of a man, I counsel hi to at least try to push the car out, helping with pieces of wood under the wheel and my own push, and after we roll a bunch of EXTREME successes, we're on the road again, the Keeper having much revenge in his heart for our "baked dice". Find the town, get some info on what we should do, become aware of what I call carnivorous "water mites" in the water supply, and the old Native cave where all the evil might be coming from, but wait, the sheriff/pastor is after us screaming about "MOTHER!!!", so obviously the whole town is a damn Wicker Man situation. It's almost slapstick. We run from the cultists with guns, hit upon an slimy animated tree. Run in another direction, fall into the creek bed. Our giant gravedigger is complaining about losing his boots and about Oscar spinning theories while under fire (which is ABSOLUTELY what Oscar Phelps would do), and our new associate, a nun, certainly isn't the one who'll talk down the "pastor" after all. Let's keep walking, past the farm run by bug worshippers, and into the hills looking for that cave. Will we find Jennifer Lawrence there?
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