"Accomplishments"
In theaters: With Benny Safdie at the helm, one might expect The Smashing Machine to be an Uncut Gems on the MMA circuit, with its lead having great potential for the same kind of spiralling descent - the film is largely about the mental parasites that undermine focus and confidence - but it being a biopic betrays that promise. While I do think Dwayne Johnson puts in his most serious acting performance as Mark Kerr, one of the early MMA fighters, balancing sport purity with an oblivious self-centeredness that continually threatens his relationship with the always great Emily Blunt, it's perhaps impossible to make mixed martial arts exciting as it's one of the world's most boring and yet inexplicably popular sports. I did enjoy the look behind the curtain, the score that feels like it's played on tinnitus, and Safdie's style is well-suited to docu-drama, but it's still a lot of people getting pinned and punched until they give up, rinse, repeat. And because it's a true story, its building arcs are often undercut, and the relationship often comes across as melodrama. Interesting, but I never felt emotionally engaged.
At home: With a title like I Saw the TV Glow, there's the promise of a certain glowy color palette, and the film keeps its promise. But beyond the neon look of the piece, this is a very intriguing story about teenagers (Jutsice Smith as Owen, Jack Haven as Maddy) tapping into a television show that I'd describe as Goosebumps crossed with Buffy (there's even a Buffy alumn in a small role, so I think I'm right) and investing so much in their fandom, they either lose themselves in it, or find themselves in it. I only really recognized all this as a trans fable after the film was over - which I know was the director's intent - because the feeling seemed so universal. I'll raise my hand up and unsurprisingly claim my stake as a marginalized teen and later adult whose identity became tied to certain fandoms. In those pre-social media days (the film is set in the 90s), in small towns, perhaps, where finding people who are like you was harder, fandoms - like sexual/gender identities, ethic minorities, neuro-divergence, etc. - were secret, embarrassing niches. TV Glow conflates those kinds of kinships with the closeted experience, and yes, of course, there's a strong LGBTQ+ vibe running through it, and on second thought/viewing, Owen definitely codes as trans and living in denial. It works on many levels, and I really liked its meta-textual existentialism. Is it me, or would The Pink Opaque play on the same channel as Brigsby Bear?
Wisdom among John Carpenter fans is that Vampires is bad, or at least a disappointment. I think it's perfectly fine, and perhaps judged unfairly because the man created such iconic films prior to this. Another director might be very lucky to have Vampires in their filmography. Where I do think it's lacking, objectively speaking, is in motive strength. Part of it is built-in, mind you. We catch up to a crack squad of vampire killers who are jaded, a little bored, and increasingly lazy, which makes them unprepared for their meeting with an ancient vampire master. Carpenter's bluesy western guitar score - which I really like - is in line with this, but makes for scenes that are languorous when you want them to be exciting. James Wood is perfectly cast as the by-now-callous leader of the team, but we also have to contend with Daniel Baldwin's sleepy (and not always for story reasons) performance as his second banana. It's a good vampire plot, with interesting lore and an artifact at its core - and I love how they explode in beautiful sunlit American deserts - but the action and editing slow things down as to undermine the plot's urgency. Too many dissolves that give the piece a dreamy quality, slow-moving chases, etc. It's fine, but it's true that it's also a disappointment.
In Mayhem, Steven Yeun is sort of auditioning for Beef, and Samara Weaving is sort of auditioning for Ready or Not, and I have absolutely no problem with that. In a world where a new virus is causing people to lose all inhibitions, turning many into violent killers, a high-profile law firm just got its ass infected, perfectly timed with both leads' grievances (internal and external) and an opportunity to "eat the rich" or at least splatter them all over their fancy offices. It might overuse narration at times and most characters are wafer-thin given that they'll just turn into maniacs in due course (though with some of these amoral lawyers, it'd be hard to tell), but there's a real sense of fun in Mayhem that forgives these flaws. Yeun, as a decent lawyer who compromised himself for ambition, and an insolent Weaving, are (relatively speaking) lower-class characters we can root for. Satisfying office carnage.
Leslie Cheungis back as Ling Choi-san in A Chinese Ghost Story II, a sequel following directly from the wild original, but having freed his ghostly love's soul, there's really nowhere for that story to go. He meets an impossible reincarnation of her and love blooms once again, as do demonic threats ("ghost" being a rather wide umbrella term in China), so there's a lot of weird wizard stuff, and as with the original, beautiful photography. But a lot of padding, too. The first hour has the assembled heroes fighting a giant puppet haunting a barn, and they all act as if they really HAVE to stay there, but they don't. The last 40 minutes, however, are worth the watch. The true villain shows its face, the effect-heavy battle ramps up, and you'll see things you never thought you would. And if that's A Chinese Ghost Story's true legacy, it's a good one.
In the first film, a tree demon was imprisoned for 100 years, so A Chinese Ghost Story III takes place 100 years later! It's back and running a ghostly bordello. Somehow, and without explanation (neither offered nor required), it involves much of the same cast, including Joey Wong as the lovable ghost, though this time, she'll need more work to walk back her evil. Leslie Cheung is notably not in it, replaced as the male lead by Tony Leung (my favorite!) as a young monk whose purity could well turn the ghost's seduction/corruption on its head and turn it into her redemption. As usual for this series, the effects are insane, especially in the climax, in a real "has to be seen to be believed" kind of way. It's also far less slaptsticky than I or II, but still feels like a comedy. And because it tells its own story, only tenuously linked to the original film and not really at all to the second, it's a better sequel all around that II. Who wants to open an Orchid Temple B&B with me?
May had a minor physical defect as a child, but her perfectionist dollmaking mother essentially put her off people and people off her, de-soclalizing her and leading her down a dark path. Today, she's a timid veterinary assistant in the worst animal hospital imaginable, and looking for love, though she hardly understands it. We're promised a Frankenstein narrative - with May building the better boy/girl/friend - but it's a long time coming (not necessarily a problem). For the most part, the film plays as a pitch black romcom about a girl (Angela Bettis) who goes from anti-social to sociopathic to psychopathic going after a boy who loves horror, but not being horrified (Jeremy Sisto, who I could never trust as a romantic lead after his unhinged turn in Six Feet Under), while also being pursued by her funny gay co-worker (Anna Faris). I'm not a big fan of animals being hurt, which is often inferred, suggested or simulated here, but I understand it as part of a sociopathic gateway and part of the film's horror squick. I do like May as a comedic descent into madness, kind of what Argento might have produced if he made comedies.
Eugene Kotlyarenko's Spree is a social media-savvy social media nightmare about an unhinged streamer (Stranger Things' Joe Keery) disappointed with his lack of followers who gets a genius idea to go viral: killing his Spree (Uber) clients live on camera. We experience this as stream watchers, or given the various video sources, as a digital found footage movie. Either way, this makes for a pretty fun black comedy-horror shot on go-pros and phones. But it also has something to say about our self-documenting/content creation culture, pushing it to violent horror extremes. it seems like everyone "KurtsWorld96" picks up has a "channel" and a "brand", none less so than Sasheer Zamata as an up-and-coming stand-up with a strong following. She's a crucial character and I love where her arc takes her, and then how the movie ends with a complete indictment of our voyeuristic obsessions on the one hand ("follower" takes a dark turn), and our toxic need to be seen on the other. Yes, of COURSE, Spree overstates the problem, but that's why it's fun. Kurt is both serial murderer and folk hero, and the fact I can legitimately say that is what's wrong with our society.
The surviving brothers from the John Woo's first true "heroic bloodshed" film are back in A Better Tomorrow II, separately going undercover to investigate a reformed criminal whose shipyard is being used by counterfeiters. It pits them against one another in tense situations, and doom is sure to follow. How they resurrect Chow Yun-Fat's character - he had a twin in America - is bonkers, but the whole film soon follows suit, going from suspenseful crime drama to balls-to-the-wall action-fest as the heroes all team up to go after the counterfeiters in an extended climax. If the structure is a little off, it's that John Woo and producer Tsui Hark fought about that the film should be. In the end, it's a blood-soaked John Woo affair, with Chow Yun-Fat being super-cool as a Tequila prototype (right down to the match). Doesn't beat the original in terms of quality - it tries too hard to create a sequel from the burning embers of that film - but might have it beat in terms of action as Woo pushes relentless forward to his most iconic spectacle, Hard-Boiled.
After his rift with John Woo, Tsui Hark takes over the A Better Tomorrow franchise with the third instalment, Love and Death in Saigon, a prequel set in 1974 Vietnam that acts as an origin story for Chow Yun-Fat's Mark Lee. Tsui isn't as stylized as Woo, perhaps, but he's certainly no slouch in the action department, and allows what we might call Woo-isms for continuity's sake. The best decision he makes is in giving us a female "bloodshed heroine" in Anita Mui. She's the cool, connected badass that Mark will learn all his gunplay from. Making her part of a love rectangle weakens her character some, I'm afraid, even if it motivates the action and leads to the necessary tragedy, but it's doesn't sit well with me that she's reduced to blubbering love interest status by the soap elements of the film. But overall, a minor quibble. A Better Tomorrow III has all the sacrifice (all for love, or love for all) we expect from heroic bloodshed films, and an unusual, chaotic setting where our heroes are always under threat.
While A Better Tomorrow would herald John Woo as new voice in action cinema, his exploitative jungle action movie Heroes Shed No Tears already had elements of "heroic bloodshed". Or at least, everyone either wants to sacrifice themselves or does in this thing. It's just not always earned. Shot in the jungles of Thailand, the flick is about an elite fighting team trying to bring a drug lord to justice, but waylaid by a sadistic and vengeful military officer. It's very violent and contains unnecessary nudity and pointless sex scenes, so definitely exploitation (if it hadn't come out a year before First Blood Part II, I might have made an accusation here), but its real problem is structural. We spend a lot of time with the team's gambling rascals who are practically in another movie; a heroic character shows up mid-film as if an afterthought for American audiences and takes on sudden importance; etc. But it's unrelenting, and I was especially charmed by the hero's little boy, forced to accompany the group after the family is attacked by the drug runners. Yes, he spends a lot of time running into danger and requiring a rescue, but he's often quite resourceful, and very affecting. I just can't believe he did that many dangerous stunts at his age. Someone needed to call child services on Woo, but it does give the film quite the frisson.
1991 is a little late for John Woo to be forced to make an action-comedy (as was the trend in the late 70s and 80s after Golden Harvest launched such careers as Sammo Hung's and Jackie Chan's), so I'll have to take his caper film, Once a Thief, as an instance of his simply trying to have fun. It doesn't work because it's really two films. One of these is a solid caper movie, where Chow Yun-Fat, Leslie Cheung and Cherie Chung grew up on the streets together and were raised to become art thieves, so here they are in exotic locales in both France and Hong Kong, doing just that. The heists are fun and the action furious, sometimes quite violent. The other movie, which takes over in the down time is a dumb slapstick comedy (even by Chinese standards, whose broad comedies aren't necessarily to my tastes, but are still objectively funnier), which Woo might have just about gotten away with if not for the silly moments sometimes slipping into the action scenes and defusing the tension. Chow Yun-Fat, who was known for comedy before Woo turned him into an action star, is rather madcap in this, evidently reverting to his earlier screen persona, and probably helps sell the incoherent atmosphere. On the plus side, the fact this is a comedy allows Woo to create some insane action bits, like the wheelchair fu and the goon who fights using stage magic. On the minus side, I plainly hate the cheesy score, especially on the lighter scenes. So it's a mix, but I wouldn't delete the clever action bits from my brain, so it shall have to go in the positive column.
[New Caledonia] I could use a more charismatic lead in Awesome Runaway!!, an Islander John Wick, unbroken shot, action scene (big "for the director's reel" vibes) that cleverly loops in super-powered tricks as to parody the style. It's a lot of fun, even if it's not an entire movie.
[Niue] Something of a home movie that's simply been made available to all, Niue: This Is Your Land is too amateurishly narrated and edited to turn the film maker's journey to her ancestral island into a solid documentary, and her observations are fairly surface level. I appreciate the intention, but that's kind of it.
Books: Not read, but contributed to:
I'm told it's already available for pre-order on certain websites, with more to come. Look it up.
RPGs: A quick hour of one-on-one Torg Eternity this week as we got to the Paladin/Baron of Fairyland's monthly (for him, not for us) "what's happening now?" session. As usual, I gave his player various plot hooks, which he could attend to or not. He managed three out of four, ignoring his Viking general's raids into neighboring Aysle, probably figuring anything that hurts Uthorion is good for the Forces of Light. So on the docket, then: Naming an ambassador to Dame Ardinay's Court to seal their alliance; checking up on the small nation of Akasha taking pieces of Fairyland with their reality tress; and consulting with the Baroness about the Snow Ball she wants to throw next month, in particular, her ambitious guest list. The Paladin found the first one more time consuming than he ever predicted as he wanted to name the ambassador-hostage Corcorath to the point, but first had to perform a quest to free him from that role, i.e. killing the evil alchemist who had first enslaved him in Uthorion's name. The second task was easy in that the player had to treat with his former Akashan PC, so there was never going to be anything sinister about the Akashan land grab. As for the guest list to the Ball, the Paladin nixed a couple of High Lords, but still allowed Russian President Volkov (he's in the middle of a civil war, so we'll see). He also added a bunch of old friends from previous adventures, navigating the Baroness' jealousies to avoid certain people.
Best bits: The fight with the alchemist ends with his being blasted into a pool of acid, with his face the last to melt, floating on the surface long enough for the Paladin to grab it and bring it back to Court as proof. As a bit of fun, because her icon (above) looks so peeved, I would share the largest possible image with the player every time he frustrated her with any opposition to her plans. Just imaging THAT face with "So you want us to remain a backward, primitive realm out of touch with nothing to offer the wider, technical world?!"
Comments