By: Henry J. Fromage –
This week I finish catching up on 2020 to the extent possible, and fire up the ‘ol randomizer to add some new flicks to the pile.
162. Time to Hunt
This Netflix-produced Korean action film offers some well-produced action scenes and not a few fancily lit shots like the above example. Unfortunately, it also takes forever to get going, investing valuable character development and audience time in characters that it’s hard to feel all that much for. When the action does get moving, it’s well staged but repetitive and not terribly surprising at any point. Either another pass at the screenplay or a judicious trim of 30-odd minutes would have helped. Four Beers.
163. Wendy
Benh Zeitlin’s near decade-in-the-making return to the big screen is Peter Pan, just Beasts of the Southern Wild-ified. And while that sounds kind of awesome on paper, the something vital that he tapped into in his first film just isn’t present. Maybe it’s all the paeans to the whimsy and dreaminess of being a child, which doesn’t feel exactly relatable these days, or maybe it’s that in combination with its surprisingly dark streak, but going back to the same well a third time may not be advisable. Here’s to a return to form next time out. Four Beers.
164. Uncorked
This understated Netflix drama about the son of a legendary Memphis BBQ family who wants to pursue his dream of being a sommelier instead of taking over the family business benefits greatly from understated but strong performances from the whole case, especially lead Mamoudou Athie. Some of the comedy elements don’t work as well, but when the film digs into the specificity of its contrasting worlds, it soars. Three Beers.
165. The Man Who Killed Hitler and then The Bigfoot
This all-timer of a title does indeed deliver on what it promises- scenes of Sam Elliott killing Hitler and then The Bigfoot (who’s a carrier for a virus that could wipe out humanity, natch… damn Coronavirus parallels today). These are shot in the almost Asylum-esque manner in which you’d expect them to be- Rick Baker and Tom Savini special effects these ain’t. However, these scenes are only a small fraction of a film about a very Sam Elliott-esque former crack soldier coming to terms with is past losses and long-held regrets in a surprisingly elegiac manner. Three Beers.
166. Clue
This is just old school fun- the kind of fun that is about as far from politically correct as all of those 80s comedies we all love and conveniently forget the less than PC aspects of, but fun nonetheless. Yeah, it’s rife with dad jokes and, let’s call them, uncle jokes, but there’s a particular spark in how greats like Tim Curry, Madeline Kahn, and Christopher Lloyd among the rest of the stacked cast interact that can’t fail but draw a smile no matter how passe the individual elements of this film may be these days. Three Beers.
167. The Long Day Closes
Terence Davies crafted an interesting exercise in evoking memory and sad nostalgia here in this 1992 nearly experimental film about the travails of a young gay boy growing up in post-WWII England and finding the solace and grandeur his life largely lacks in the silver screen. The way Davies declines to differentiate between the boy’s real life and his flights of fancy, and the manner in which he interpolates classic film dialogue and swelling scores, makes for a wholly unique (if a bit hard to follow) experience. Three Beers.
168. Bunny Lake is Missing
Otto Preminger doesn’t usually get mentioned alongside his contemporary great directors like Alfred Hitchcock, Billy Wilder, David Lean, or Stanley Kubrick, but he crafted a resume that would stand proudly beside the most any of them. This thriller about a young woman who claims her child went missing shortly after entering a school she wished to enroll her in has a very Hitchcockian flair, from the examination of the perversions underlying prim and proper society, to some surprisingly macabre imagery and concepts, to, I hesitate to say it, a pretty quality twist. Two Beers.
