By: Henry J. Fromage –
This week was another smorgasbord one as I watched some genre fare and some honest-to-goodness classic films for once.
224. Primate
This nasty little thriller from nasty little thriller specialist Johannes Roberts is basically that scene from Nope stretched out to feature length. A family’s chimpanzee, well, essentially sibling gets infected with rabies and proceeds to rip some fucking obnoxious teen faces off (and the camera’s not cutting away as much as you would like it to). It’s not quite as low-brow as all that may make it sound, but it is pretty much entirely as described- a family and their doomed friends vs. an enraged chimpanzee. It’s not the fairest of fights. Three Beers.
225. War Machine
Netflix’s latest faux-buster is this sci-fi/war flick about an Army Ranger training class facing its final test that whoops, gets attacked by alien mechs during a worldwide invasion. Alan Ritchson is the reluctant loner turned leader who was hellbent on finishing Ranger School after he and his also soldier brother promise they’ll do it together before tragedy somewhat predictably strikes. That emotional shading adds a bit, but mostly we’re here for the underdog perseverance and foreordained heroics (and sure, the explosions). Three Beers
226. The Wrecking Crew
I’m not here to tell you this bombastic action film excuse to pair up Jason Momoa and Dave Bautista as bickering brothers solving their deadbeat father’s murder and taking down the Yakuza + a corrupt top-knotted developer (a greasy Claes Bang) is good exactly. It’s clearly not operating in our reality with all the consequence-less ultraviolence that would be international front page news in our world, and it kind of goes all the places you expect it to. But whatever, the action scenes are often well-staged and Momoa and Bautista can do this in their sleep. Are you not entertained? Three Beers.
227. Man Finds Tape
This little indie horror uses the trappings of DIY true crime documentary to tell a spooky tale of a town with all kinds of inexplicable happenings haunting it. A young man is convinced something sinister has taken over, and has tapes of both himself and later, other townspeople, eerily all freezing in place in some kind of trance state to prove it to his out of town sister who decides to come investigate. This thing goes places and makes the most of its modest resources- directors Peter S. Hall & Paul Gandersman have that Aaron Moorehead & Justin Benson energy, which makes sense that they came on board to produce. Three Beers.
228. Crooklyn
I found myself on a long domestic plane trip with actual TVs recently. While clearly I’m a rapacious consumer of new content, plane libraries often have some quality classic fare to catch up on. I’d never seen Spike Lee’s follow-up to Malcolm X, a fairly low-key for that period paean to the people of his hometown. It’s a well-acted and energetic family drama, although perhaps not a handbook on child discipline- these kids are somewhere between lovable scamps and actual menaces. Three Beers.
229. Juice
This was my long plane trip pairing with Crooklyn above, a movie I knew from growing up in the hood without ever having gotten around to watching. Tupac goes from one of the central band of buddies to absolute psychopath pretty fast, but that’s more of a script weakness than an acting one- his charisma is apparent from the jump, and a very young Omar Epps is great as the protagonist watching his three best friends shatter in front of him just as he gets his big DJ break that may be his ticket out of there. Three Beers.
230. Children No More: Were and Are Gone
I did actually catch the very last of the Oscar nominees before the ceremony (pretty much right before), but am just getting around to writing this up now. The full slate of Documentary Short nominees this year was exceptional, and this one is a powerful portrait of an anti-War Israeli group who bravely display the photos of Palestinian children killed in Gaza in Tel Aviv, often provoking intense reactions from their fellow citizens. This is a polarized society, but for all of the evil actions of its current leaders, there are plenty of Israelis who have their hearts in the right place. Two Beers.
231. Vow of Silence: The Assassination of Annie Mae
Annie Mae Aquash was a First Nations activist during the 60s and 70s heyday of the American Indian Movement (AIM). This Hulu documentary series delves into her life and death while also telling the story of the movement and the culture of paranoia within it engendered by constant government surveillance and rumors of an informant within it. These two stories unfortunately dovetail when it begins to look like she was killed by her own. A fascinating companion piece with Free Leonard Peltier– rarely does fighting violence with violence yield one side with a completely clean conscience. Two Beers.
232. Apollo 1
This documentary tells the story of the missions before the mission, and in particular the first that sacrificed all for it. Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee were the first crew selected to fly an Apollo Mission, but there was much design and testing needed before it would take them into space, and attendant design flaws (some suggested by the astronauts themselves) that led to tragedy. This does a good job explaining the circumstances leading to the disaster and the lessons that NASA took for it that both set the stage for their future historical successes and in some ways presaged future tragedies. Two Beers.
233. Gugusse and the Automaton
This less than a minute long short from French cinematic and science fiction pioneer Georges Méliès that was recently discovered and restored by Library of Congress may very well be the first filmed depiction of a robot ever (the word itself wasn’t invented until 1921). It’s kind of hard to grade it per se, except to marvel at the inventiveness on display as Méliès pioneers techniques we’re fortunate to regard as old hat from our vantage point today. Three Beers.
