By: Henry J. Fromage –
It’s spooky season, so I had to see what kind of horror streaming has to offer, plus a few more movies with their own brand of unease.
573. V/H/S Beyond
The V/H/S series generally good for some Halloween spooks, although this installment is purportedly about alien encounters instead. Its wrap-around segment sells that, but the individual shorts are really once again excuses to flaunt impressive practical gore effects in unique settings and scenarios. The skydiving segment is a real trip in particular. I don’t know that I hated all the alien stuff so much as it just felt kinda unnecessary. It’s certainly another excuse to blow up some skulls, though. Three Beers.
574. Apartment 7A
It’s an absolute shame that Natalie Erika James has taken almost five years to return to screens after her superb Relic put her in the conversation with Ari Aster and Jennifer Kent for most exciting new voice in horror. And while I wish it was an original work again, she does a stylish job telling the story before the story of Rosemary’s Baby. Julia Garner stars as a young dancer willing to perhaps trade more than she even knows to achieve Broadway stardom. Dianne Wiest in particular is a trip as the ringleader of our favorite gang of Upper West Side Satanists. Three Beers.
575. The Childhood of a Leader
I’d seen (and, I suppose, appreciated) Vox Lux, but after watching The Brutalist at TIFF, I knew I needed to swing back to Brady Corbet’s directorial debut, which feels more apiece with his currently lauded effort. This film, about the young son of a diplomat negotiating the WWI-ending Treaty of Versailles who will grow up to become a dictator himself, definitely has stylistic similarities like an overture, chapters, and an obvious affinity for 1970s-era epics. It’s not as psychologically successful, though, as the young monster has his issues for sure, but perhaps not quite world-murdering ones. Three Beers.
576. Is That Black Enough For You?!?
This Netflix documentary sees film historian Elvis Mitchell tell the story of Black Cinema, from its earliest origins that go as far back as the origin of the artform itself to the dazzling Blaxploitation heyday of the 1970s. Mitchell’s charismatic energy and deep knowledge are infectious, and it’s hard not to come away from watching this without dozens of new films you mean to see, even the ones you already have, which you feel you must reexperience through the prism of what you learned here. Two Beers.
577. Dig Deeper: The Disappearance of Birgit Meier
Netflix arguably engineered the polished true crime documentary style that now dominates the genre. It was inevitable that other countries would begin to produce them, and while I just can’t go down that rabbit hole with regularity, I would recommend this series, which starts with, well, the disappearance of Birgit Meier, and then follows a decades-long pursuit of justice by her brother and husband that would uncover a chilling serial killer. Two Beers.
578. Welcome to the DPRK
I got a Kanopy subscription in order to track down a documentary I couldn’t find elsewhere (free with a library card from your local library!) and chanced across this very short series about a Korean-American girl who takes a vacation to North Korea prior to things tightening significantly due to the Otto Warmbier incident. We’ve seen folks smuggle footage back from the DPRK before, but her Korean heritage and (rudimentary) language skills give her a shocking amount of latitude (it’s extremely rare to see footage outside of Pyongyang, or of conversations with anyone but the official guides). The conclusions are the same- the official visits are extremely controlled in what you’re shown and not likely reflective of reality for the majority of the population- but there’s still a bit more fascinating detail here than we’ve seen elsewhere. Two Beers.
579. Film is Dead. Long Live Film!
This documentary examines the world of film collectors- as in collectors of literal canisters and snippets of film. Once derided as the movie pirates of their time, it’s now become apparent that they have provided an essential and otherwise unreplicated link in the chain of film preservation, resurrecting films long thought lost and keeping the candles burning for the art of film projection. This is an engaging portrait of a variety of figures in the hobby and their unique and crucial contributions to the historical record. Two Beers.
