By: Henry J. Fromage –
This week I made a point to catch up on a few of those Sundance films they don’t offer digitally, plus, sure, docs.
439. The Invite
Oliva Wilde get rights back in the saddle and rocks it in this chamber drama in which a couple seemingly on their last legs (Wilde herself and a particularly acerbic Seth Rogen) invite the upstairs neighbors (Penelope Cruz and Ed Norton) down for a visit. Wilde is just being polite, whereas Rogen would like to address the exuberantly loud sex they often hear through their walls, and when that finally happens the night takes a bit of a turn. An extremely well-written emotional and philosophical battle of wills, wits, and pathologies. Two Beers.
440. Little Brother
I wish I could say this was better- Eric André is a genius of comic chaos, and John Cena has proven his comedy chops many times over. It’s not good that Christopher Meloni regularly upstages them both here, especially since it’s not like he’s a comic titan, either. The fault is really that of the script, which is as maudlin as it is outrageous, despite its cast’s best efforts and the handful of laughs that result from them. Could have been more. Four Beers.
441. Kiss of the Spider Woman
There’s a lot that goes right in this questionably necessary remake of the 1985 film by the same name. Director Bill Condon makes it a musical, because of course he does, and the parts that really work are the technicolor dream/classic film sequences told of by Luis (Tonatiuh) to his cellmate Valentin (Diego Luna). The drama gets off to a shaky start and doesn’t completely recover from there, but Tonatiuh is radiant in every iteration of their character. Three Beers.
442. The Witness
This Korean thriller from 2018 stars Lee Sung-min as a family man and proud new apartment owner who soon after moving in witnesses a murder from his balcony. He’s too scared to tell the police, especially after he starts getting creepy phone calls, which can get a little frustrating to watch after a while (tell the goddamned police!), but it’s okay- he more or less morphs into an action hero in the end (although is wife gets the best swings in). Was I entertained anyway? Yes. Three Beers.
443. Criminal
Yes, I’ve been goosing my stats here a bit by running through the last year or so’s output of The New Yorker‘s Youtube channel, which hosts what seems like 50% of the Oscar nominations in the Documentary Short category. I’ve seen all of those, but there are plenty of equal quality there, like this short which mixes in musical and animated elements to demonstrate the rampant injustices of Houston’s Harris County Jail and the cash-bail system in general. There’s something to be said about maybe not antagonizing the judge that is already being a dick and has your life in his hands, but a lot of these testimonies and this footage will get your blood boiling about a place far from the proper protections of the law. Two Beers.
444. The Last Carnival
This next one examines just how far the American Dream stretches for some, in particularly the Hispanic temporary work visa holders who are running the carnival in some Western backwater. It’s the final days, after which they’ll be compelled to return to their countries, hopefully having saved enough of their 3 dollars an hour wages they earn on grueling 12 hour shifts to do so. This easily could have been expanded into something twice its length if not more. Two Beers.
445. The Reality of Hope
This short film starts as a profile of VR Furries- an online community of folks cosplaying as animals in a VR world they constructed together. It morphs into a story that brings the relationships they’ve cultivated there into the real world, in the form of a Swedish man who is subject to a life of dialysis, and the American friend he met from a continent away who offers to give him one of his kidneys. Perhaps tech ain’t all bad (even if some of these Furries give me a touch of the heebie jeebies?). Two Beers.
