By: Henry J. Fromage –
My randomized picks this week have yielded a bounty of foreign films again- my wife is just going to love this!
691. Survival Skills
If you’ve ever seen the batshit 80s police training video Surviving Edged Weapons, likely at the behest of Redlettermedia, this jumps off as just such a video, with a Pleasantville-style protagonist learning on the job via the narration of the always great Stacey Keach. There are a neat handful of inside jokes to those brought here by that film, but it’s not all gnarly knife wounds and underwhelming Satanists. Instead writer/director Quinn Armstrong goes to the surprisingly evocative route of getting our smiley lead (an effective Vayu O’Donnell) embroiled in a knotty domestic abuse case that is played with devastating realism. The job of a police officer is not an easy one, and it’s not necessarily the edged weapons that cut the deepest. Two Beers.
692. Freaky
Christopher Landon looks to have another badass blonde-led high concept big screen franchise on his hands after Happy Death Day with this simple-premised ‘Freaky Friday the 13th’ that he once again executes way better than the material has any right to be executed. Kathryn Newton and Vince Vaughn playing each other is just comedy gold, and the horror bits are surprisingly gnarly as well, with Landon’s approaching trademark witty dialogue to tie it all together. Just a ton of fun. Two Beers.
693. Wild Mountain Thyme
The reason I plunked down more than I care to admit to rent this one was because one review I read pitched it as this year’s Serenity, and that’s my money in the goddamn bank. Unfortunately, while the twist is truly bad and truly unguessable as promised, it’s not quite at the level of “wait, he animated his dad’s thrusting buttcheeks?” bugfuckery that I was conditioned to expect. All-in-all, this is a sweet, Nicholas Sparks-ian romance that was clearly adapted from a stageplay and somewhat ludicrously cast (Christopher Walken as a old Irishman? You know that man only can do one accent, and that’s ‘Christopher Walken’, right?). I’ve spent worse 100 minutes, but so bad it’s good this is not quite. Four Beers.
694. The Closet
The most interesting thing about this fairly standard Korean horror film is that Ha Jung-woo stars as the workaholic father whose daughter goes missing, possibly in that creepy closet that beckons demonically. He’s a pretty big star for such generic genre fare as this, like George Clooney showing up in The Conjuring III. The film itself isn’t anything you haven’t seen before, although the shamanistic touches are always a good way to add creepy cultural specificity- you can do far worse in the horror genre these days. Four Beers.
695. Godmothered
All the Enchanted comps landed my eyeballs on this Disney + original, but while I can’t deny I laughed a handful of times at this, I groaned just as much at the puns and pratfalls. Make no mistake, this isn’t so much a subversion of Disney fairytales as a stereotypical example of modernizing them for contemporary tastes, and steering far clear of anything that could possibly offend anyone 11 and up. Pretty milquetoast stuff. Four Beers.
696. Innocence
This Korean film is about a hotshot lawyer in the city who returns to her hometown when a group of her late father’s friends including the Mayor who is running for Governor are served poisoned rice wine at his funeral, and her mother stands accused of doing it. The story does a good job of intertwining courtroom drama and flashback soap operatics that keep you guessing, even if the sum of its parts is a pretty middle of the road adult drama that perhaps Sandra Bullock would have starred in 20 years ago. And there’s nothing wrong with that. Three Beers.
697. Driveways
This small drama is as simple as it gets- a woman temporarily moves into a neighborhood with her son to clean out her late sister’s house, young boy makes friends with the crusty Korean War vet next door. The magic of Andrew Ahn’s drama is in the minutely observed details and the delicate, yes, actually heartwarming acting from Hong Chau, Brian Dennehy, and young Lucas Jaye. Just an absolutely lovely film full of humanity. Two Beers.
698. Atlantis
I came ridiculously late to the 2020 virtual film festivals party (to think I could have already seen Nomadland!), but I made sure to catch a few premieres from New Directors, New Films, including this austere Ukrainian debut from Valentyn Vasyanovych. Set in 2025, a year after the Ukraine’s victory in their war with Russia, this is a film of blasted out landscapes and industrial areas, where people strive to pick up what pieces remain. Vasyanovych shoots the entire film no closer than medium range, setting a literal uncrossable distance between his characters and the audience, but that just makes the bursts of emotion that do occur that much more surprising and affecting. Meticulous and controlled. Three Beers.
699. The Hellbenders
Sergio Corbucci doesn’t often get mentioned in the same breath as Sergio Leone, but he’s arguably the clear #2 Spaghetti Western director, and far more prolific (and usually scored by Ennio Morricone for good measure). An older Joseph Cotten is the American ringer here, playing a Confederate colonel who’s never given up the cause, travelling with his sons and a saloon girl as a funeral party for the coffin full of money he hopes to resurrect his erstwhile nation’s fortunes with. This is a nice, nasty little piece of work with a quality ending commensurate with dirty rottenness of its characters. Three Beers.
700. Christmas Do-Over
This Gauntlet pick is a TV movie-looking Christmas version of Groundhog Day from 2005 with 1996’s jokes and the cheapest public domain music that money can buy, which stars Jay Mohr as the C-lister in the advertising and the world’s worst divorcee dad. Stuck perpetually at his in-laws on Christmas Day until he learns to be a good person or whatever, he sure takes his time at it in an actually gratifying and entertaining way. More fun than it has any right being. Four Beers.
701. The Killing of Two Lovers
Another New Directors, New Films pick, this is my favorite of the bunch. Robert Machoian shoots this extremely realistically acted to the point it feels or maybe is unscripted drama like a horror film, one in which a man struggling to keep his family together through the trial separation it’s clear was his wife’s idea looks to be on the verge of something terrible. That Machoian is able to keep you guessing throughout, and completely engrossed by the actually quite pedestrian these days familial drama, is a testament to his rigorous and never cliched direction and off-kilter and extremely unnerving aesthetics. Two Beers.
702. Alabama Snake
One of HBO’s late spurt of true crime documentaries, this one investigates the the case of an Alabama preacher of a snake-handling sect who purportedly attempted murder of his wife via snakebite. There’s lots of fascinating angles this could have explored, but by and large it’s too busy dramatizing (strikingly, I must add) interviews with a host of baldly untrustworthy folks on either side of the case. It’s an interesting filmmaking exercise, but not much of a documentary. Four Beers.
703. The Cloud in Her Room
My final New Directors, New Films screening was this debut from Xinyuan Zheng Lu, an elliptical portrait of young ennui about a 22 year old woman returning to her hometown for the New Year’s Festival. This is one of those arthouse films that meanders about from gorgeously photographed black & white image to gorgeously photographed black & white image, with a surprisingly explicit attitude towards sex for a mainland Chinese filmmaker. Three Beers.
704. The Snow Queen
At first I was put off by the Foodfight! style animation from this 2012 Russian quasi-adaptation of the Hans Christian Andersen fairytale with a bit of Alice in Wonderland and a lot of Ice Age mixed in. The ‘troll’ that looks and acts like a mix of Scrat and Sid the Sloth seemed like the nadir of the film- until he strikes an actually quite affecting character arc turnaround that caught me unawares. Still not sure I’d recommend it to all, but to somebody looking to distract the kids with a film with an actually pretty great message, you could do worse. Four Beers.
705. Fire Will Come
Oliver Laxe is an up-and-comer in the arthouse world, recently landing on Bong Joon-ho’s list of young directors whose work he enjoys, and this stripped down story of a recently released arsonist from Galicia who returns to his mother and his small rural town only to see a forest fire threaten his community and what remains of his reputation is the kind of film that’d do it. Gorgeous and intimately detailed. Two Beers.
706. Mank
I still wish David Fincher would find a way to finish what he started with Manhunter, but finally shooting his own father’s script about the writing of Citizen Kane and the sociopolitical scene of drunk writers, big studio heads, and their industrialist cronies who inspired it is a good consolation prize. Fincher clearly has a ball recreating the aesthetics of the late 30s/early 40s studio prestige picture and Gary Oldman, Charles Dance, and particularly Amanda Seyfried are each perfectly cast as the conviction-afflicted alcoholic writer, all-powerful publisher, and smarter than she looks mistress. Two Beers.
707. Sunless Shadows
This is actually Mehrdad Oskouei’s second documentary about women incarcerated in Iran, but here these are juveniles, mostly sentenced for the murder of a father or husband (juvenile and marriage not being exactly exclusive in Iran). Their stories are all a variation on the same template- abused and powerless, they turned to the more palatable of the two solutions they can see for themselves- but it’s the candid moments of them enjoying each others’ company and the young baby one of them has that they really come alive and show how much the young girls they really are. Two Beers.
708. Small Axe: Red, White and Blue
While I’ve yet to see Education yet, of course, but I think this will end up my favorite of Steve McQueen’s Small Axe pentalogy. John Boyega and Steve Toussaint are monumental in it, for one, but I also have to applaud McQueen’s choice to focus in on the early, bitterly hard, racism-blotted days of the career of Leroy Logan, who would go on to become superintendent of the London Metropolitan Police. It’s a brilliant choice that shows how endemic and institutionally entrenched racism is in policing without giving the “this guy succeeded so it’s all better now” message that just about every film like this chooses to culminate with. A Toast.
709. Bait
Cornish filmmaker Mark Jenkin takes a brilliant tack with his story of tourists and yuppies taking over a small Cornish fishing town from the locals- he shoots it like an old BBC social interest newsreel, complete with grainy black and white film and shallow depth of field. It works brilliantly, and his fine script (he also edits!) makes for both really wry comedy and throwback melodrama that’s a strangely effective mix. Two Beers.
710. Love and Monsters
This erstwhile theatrical release finally hit streaming recently, and I had to see what this 91% Rotten Tomatoes score was all about. Don’t be put off by this being another YA-feeling post-apocalyptic CGI-fest starring Dylan O’Brien- he’s actually pretty damn charismatic when he’s not being winningly helpless here, and the world-building and side characters are all quite fun. The Maze Runner this ain’t- and if they do choose to make more sequels to this, I’d be on board to see the further adventures of this crew. Three Beers.
711. I’m Your Woman
Rachel Brosnahan keeps up her Amazon loyalty with this intriguingly premised film about your typical 70s-set gangster’s wife/girlfriend who has to run when shit hits the fan. Director Julia Hart chooses to do something no other film I remember has, though- follow her instead of the sociopathic criminal. Even when things get more traditionally interesting, like a dance club shootout, Hart stays tied to Brosnahan’s ducking, running POV. It’s a fascinating approach conceptually, although largely staying where the action ain’t (at least for long stretches) does make it a commitment, especially to folks expecting a more typical film. Three Beers.
712. Small Axe: Alex Wheatle
This is McQueen’s shortest Small Axe film yet, running at just over an hour, and it’s remarkable how he’s able to condense the story of writer and activist Alex Wheatle from his foster home youth to his prison stent to his awakening to his own ancestral culture that his upbringing had denied him. Sheyi Cole (in his first role!) holds the screen admirably as well. Two Beers.
713. Stuntwomen: The Untold Hollywood Story
This documentary is as straightforward as they come- a short history of Hollywood stuntwomen, largely told by those women, both those with careers dating back to the explosion of the industry in the 60s and 70s and those kicking butt and taking names today (although an effusive Michelle Rodriguez and other famous names from film do appear in chorus). It covers a lot of territory, including the sexism and danger endemic to the industry, but it’s the best when multiple generations of badasses simply tell it like it was and is- it’s just a joy. Two Beers.
714. The Wolf House
Between this and Kill It and leave this Town, it’s been a year for psychologically disturbed multimedia animation. This one is Chilean, starting off a fairytale about a young woman who escapes from a repressive German colony in a remote part of Chile, but it becomes something twisted and complex as its styles and characters and settings relentlessly melt and reform, mutating as the story does. There’s no doubting it’s an artistic achievement, but one more of nightmares than dreams. Two Beers.
715. 40 Years a Prisoner
Another HBO crime and punishment documentary, this one tells the story of Mike Africa, Jr.’s very literal lifelong fight to see his parents freed from prison, and if it was about that alone, it would rival Time as a story of perseverance in the face of an uncaring legal system. However, this doubles as a thorough documentary about what landed them in prison- the unsettling 1978 Philadelphia PD raid on the MOVE compound that saw an officer killed and several compound members beaten nearly to death themselves. It’s a police action that should not be forgotten, however cultish MOVE certainly seemed to be. Two Beers.
716. Nimic
Yorgos Lanthimos premiered this short film on MUBI, and it’s worth a free trial look if you don’t already have the service. In true Lanthimos style, it’s a twisted little tale shot with icy pizzazz that I won’t spoil by describing it here (not because it’s all M. Knight Shyamalan-y, but because it’s only 10 minutes long- give it a watch!) Two Beers.
717. 76 Days
MTV Studios of all people purchased this documentary about the 76 day COVID lockdown of Wuhan, China, told from the perspectives of the healthworkers very literally on the front lines at the very uncertain beginnings of the worst global health crisis in a century. It’s shocking this film exists at all coming from a country like China, and it does focus more on the small human stories like the old man with memory problems who needs to be coaxed back in his bed every day it seems. Still, it’s quite frank, and doubles as a bit of a rebuke of our current American predicament. Say what you will about China (and there’s an awful lot to say), here’s what a collectivist society can accomplish when they put their minds to it. 76 days sure sounds lovely right about now, don’t it? Three Beers.
718. Father Soldier Son
This Netflix documentary is running a much lower profile than one would expect. It may well be the shocking turn it takes towards the middle is simply too raw- it tore me up out of the blue. However, the scope of it, following a gung-ho active duty infantryman and his two sons across a decade of their lives, is epic, and Catrin Einhorn and Leslye Davis achieve fly on the wall access that some documentarians would dream of. One of the finest documentaries of the year. Two Beers.
719. God’s Angry Man
Werner Herzog has had a long and varied career, one that apparently includes short documentaries for German public television that are available in full on Youtube (or at least this one). Here he follows Gene Scott, an LA-based televangelist whose entire schtick seems to be angrily demanding monetary contributions from his flock. Somehow he kept this up for 50 years, but here Herzog simply lets the man spew, and it’s as revealing as any expose twice the length could be. Two Beers
720. Nomad: In the Footsteps of Bruce Chatwin
This under the radar Herzog doc is actually from this year, the subject being author, world traveler, and mystic seeker Bruce Chatwin, a man who Herzog was fast friends with, and one who three decades after his death is clearly never far from the Teutonic director’s mind. Here he follows in the man’s footsteps in Patagonia, Australia, and the green hills of England, speaking to those that loved him and were as inspired by him as he was. Aimless as all of Herzog’s documentaries are these days, but it’s the journey that’s the point. Three Beers.
