Insidious: Chapter 2 (2013) Dir. James Wan In the aftermath of the events of the first movie, the Lambert family briefly believe themselves to be safe. Only when strange things start occurring at the family matriarch's home whilst they are staying there to recuperate from their frayed emotions, it is clear that something evil has still attached itself to a member of the family. The way the first movie ended, a sequel was kind of expected. It's surprisingly enjoyable in its own right, though also somewhat predictable. I especially liked the antics of the (partially comic relief) characters there to "hunt" the ghosts. It was nice to see Jocelin Donahue in a supporting role in this, however limited her screen time. Both Patrick Wilson and Rose Byrne are also back, but Wilson seems to enjoy himself more in an outing that gives him more to do than in the original film.
Insidious: The Last Key (2018) Dir. Adam Robitel Preceding the facts of the first two movies, we follow Elise Rainier prior to her meeting the Lambert family. The case she tackles is a personal one, as she is contacted to deal with a haunting in her childhood home, a place she left at the age of 16 to escape her abusive father. She returns to New Mexico, reluctantly, to deal with the problem, meeting the strange and terrified new owner of the house and also attempting to reconnect with her estranged younger brother in the process. The third movie in the "Insidious" franchise. A prequel that focuses on the character of Elise Rainier's own past. A bit of a mixed bag for me. They tried to do too much in this one film, which turns the third act into a mess of the screenwriter and/or the director trying to tie up the many loose threads and largely failing in doing so. This also introduces a new character that opens up the possibility of continuing this franchise even without the character of Elise Rainier. Considering that this movie still made 160 million at the box office against a 10 million dollar budget, another sequel is not out of the question and probably likely.
I am not sure how many people wanted this third sequel to the original in the series, but 2016 brought Jason Bourne anyway. And even though I really liked some of the original films, I wasn't in any rush to see this one, figuring it would pop up on one of our movie channels at some point. It was still fun enough, but it essentially repackaged all of the elements of the first three into this one, so if you saw one or more of those, you were mildly entertained but not much more.
It's funny, this is the movie in the series I saw most recently but also the one I have the biggest trouble remembering any plot details about. Which probably tells its own story.
Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016) Dir. Taika Waititi A troubled kid who has been bounced around the foster care system arrives at what is his final stop before he is sent to juve: a farm near the bush where he is greeted by a loving, doting woman and her much more lukewarm hunter type husband. The kid's rebellious antics are killed with sheer kindness by his adoptive mother, but when the woman dies shortly after his arrival, he is left with her ornery husband, who wants to return him to child services. When the kid runs away and the man follows him into the bush, child services wrongly believe that the man kidnapped the child and the pair suddenly find themselves pursued by police and social services. This was delightful. Apart from a few moments that are a bit too silly for their own good (that car chase) this is a sweet, funny and incredibly charming movie that primarily works due to the real and unlikely chemistry between the two leads, Julian Dennison and Sam Neill. I'm actually most reminded of the Pixar film "Up" and you can almost see "Hunt for the Wilderpeople" as a live action version of that animated feature. You can also see why Marvel gave Taika Waititi a chance at directing a big Hollywood blockbuster with "Thor: Ragnarok" on the evidence of this film (his cameo in this movie is also hilarious).
Union Station (1950) Dir. Rudolph Maté A young secretary notices two men board a train bound for Union Station, acting suspiciously. After they each sit separately in the same compartment as she is, she notices one of them is concealing a gun underneath his jacket. She informs the conductor, who wires ahead to the man in charge of the Union Station police station. The man follows the pair of men together with the woman and uncovers a kidnapping plot in the process, with his station the stage for all of the drama. A very entertaining and crisply paced noir. It reminded me a lot of "The Taking of Pelham One Two Three", right down to a climax that appears to reference "Union Station" directly. But since the Walter Matthau 1970s gritty crime classic is an adaptation of a novel, the similarities might be merely coincidental. Much of the film was shot on location, making this my favorite Union Station film since I saw "The Driver".
l'Amant Double (2017) Dir. François Ozon Chloé is a troubled young woman who finally convinces herself she needs the help of a shrink. The psychiatrist she gets assigned is a slightly mysterious but otherwise benign and patient doctor who seems to have a very positive effect on her life and whose sessions quickly diminish the physical symptoms of her mental anguish. One day, the man reveals to her that he cannot maintain their patient-doctor relationship any longer because of romantic feelings he has developed for her over the course of their sessions. They end that relationship to begin a romantic one. For a short while, everything is fine, but then Chloé begins to suspect that her boyfriend is hiding something from her, a feeling that gets infinitely stronger when during her commute home from work, she imagines seeing him speaking to another woman outside of a building he claims to not have been at. An increasingly unsettling drama-thriller from François Ozon, that I found thoroughly entertaining. It doesn't quite stick the landing for me, but by that point of the film, I had enjoyed the experience enough that I can forgive him for the climax not quite living up to what came before it. This was very much compared to "Vertigo", but it's no more like the classic Hitchcock thriller than any other film that deals with the concepts of mental health, loss, double identities and doppelgangers. The two leads are quite good in their respective roles. Marine Vacth's naturally slightly detached acting style works as well here as it did in "Jeune & jolie" and Jérémy Renier is always great. Ozon refers to his film's themes with a consistent visual motif that focuses on mirror images and parallel framing as well as the casting of the same actors in multiple (small) supporting roles. This feature is apparently a rather freely adapted version of the Joyce Carol Oates novel "Lives of the Twins", but since I have never read that book, I cannot comment on how much it departs from the source text. It's a bit unfortunate that so many people focused on the now famous/infamous opening shot, but I guess Ozon will never quite shed his provocateur mantle.
Lady Bird (2017) Dir. Greta Gerwig Christine is a 17-year old high school senior who lives in Sacramento. She is a sensitive, artistic soul who has renamed herself Lady Bird and who has aspirations for both her life and her choice of college that clash with her parents' vision for her future, particularly her no-nonsense mother. We follow her through the ups and downs of her senior year, which include drama caused by issues of class, romance and friendship. This was wonderful and incredibly charming, carried wonderfully well by Saoirse Ronan in the titular role and matched by the wonderful Laurie Metcalf in the role of Lady Bird's mother. At the same time, I don't feel like "Lady Bird" is significantly better than other films in what I would describe as the "quirky high school girl" genre, e.g. "Juno" and "Edge of Seventeen" so I do believe this was overrated ever so slightly in terms of how much love it got during awards season. But even as I'm writing that criticism, I feel bad, since I definitely enjoyed this film.
The Paradine Case (1947) Dir. Alfred Hitchcock Maddalena Paradine is the young widow of a retired army Colonel who was much older than her and blinded since the war. Soon after her husband's death, she is arrested on suspicion of his murder, by way of poison. The Paradine family solicitor gets her the help of a brilliant young defense attorney, who sees little trouble in getting her an acquittal, at least initially. As the case progresses, he is faced with the double challenge of his clients reluctance to cooperate with his defense strategy, which would let the blame fall on her late husband's valet instead, as well as his own increasing attraction to the beautiful young widow. The latter reality also causes marital friction in his own home. A Hitchcock film I hadn't yet seen. This isn't a Hitch grand cru, in spite of the fact that there are moments of visual flourish that hold up even when compared to his very best work. But unfortunately, the climax falls short of giving a satisfying dramatic conclusion to the story, which more or less causes the film to deflate instantly. There is little wrong with the performances. Gregory Peck is more or less playing a character very reminiscent of the work that would earn him an Oscar for "To Kill a Mockingbird". Charles Laughton is terrific as the judge. Ethel Barrymore is almost criminally underused as his wife. This also features the young Alida Valli, whom I primarily knew as Miss Tanner from "Suspiria" and from "The Third Man", of course.
The Commuter (2018) Dir. Jaume Collet-Serra A businessman goes into the city each day using the commuter train to his job at a big insurance company. On the day of his being fired, he is approached on the train home by a woman who makes him an odd proposition: he will get 100000 dollars if he identifies an individual who looks out of place and tags him or her with a GPS tracker. With his knowledge of having ridden that train-line each workday on his commute to and from his job for the past ten years, the idea is that he will know the regulars by face and then could rely on his experience he earned in his previous career as a police detective to weed out the rest. In spite of his misgivings, he accepts the offer, mostly because he needs the money to send his son off to college. Naturally the offer is too good to be true and the woman who tasked him with the job soon brandishes the proverbial stick after having dangled the rabbit in front of his nose. Another Liam Neeson action vehicle. These are now reliably absurd and entertaining in equal measure and this is no exception. Features the always great Vera Farmiga in a supporting role that is limited to only two real scenes and then a series of telephone conversations, as well as Patrick Wilson who is almost as underused.
Jesus Christ Superstar Live in Concert (2018) I'll watch any Jesus Christ Superstar, and it's an eminently plastic framework for interpretation. I think this is a mostly successful update. Compare to any other version I've seen, Jesus has less control and Mary Magdalene and the Disciples have more agency. Christ doesn't approach the adulation with distance or irony, but enjoys it. It's a very Judas-centered interpretation - he's right about everything. They also changed the lyrics in a few places, particularly to get rid of the exquisite 70's-ishnesss of the original (no one "cools it" any more) or to add a modern touch (one of the things the lepers ask of Jesus is to "fix their life"). All the performers were great, but Ben Daniels as Pilate stole whatever scene he was in. Where I think they missed was their costuming and props of the authorities. Don't get me wrong - they look absolutely fantastic, and I want one of those Caiaphas coats and the bravery to wear one. Jesus and his followers have a proper youthful, contemporary look, but this was their chance to say something about political and commercial power, and they chose a totally neutral, subtextless image for the priests, soldiers, and money changers. And it's pretty clear the camera director knows nothing of Christianity or Church culture because they missed the most important shot of the whole play - the still image tableau of da Vinci's Last Supper - and did a close-up of Jesus while it was going on. See it for yourself here: https://www.nbc.com/jesus-christ-superstar/video/jesus-christ-superstar-live-in-concert/3689643
House of Horrors (1946) Dir. Jean Yarbrough After an especially brutal review by an art critic, a struggling sculptor is ready to kill himself. Just before throwing himself into the river, he notices another man struggling to climb ashore and helps him out. He discovers that the man in question is strong and has exaggerated facial features that give him a slightly monstrous appearance. He takes the man in as his new muse, starting a new sculpture that will depict the man in a more naturalistic style than he usually employs in his art. After he laments about the critic whose reviews have cost him paying work, he is shocked to find a news report in the newspaper the next day stating that the art critic in question has been rather brutally murdered in his office. He then figures out that his new behemoth of a house guest feels a kinship to him that allows the artist to manipulate the man into murdering his enemies. A horror thriller that was meant to launch the mainstream career of Rondo Hatton, a soldier turned actor who suffered from acromegaly. He had originally played the character of "The Creeper" in a Sherlock Holmes movie (as well as other roles in a string of B-movies) and Universal had planned an entire series of Creeper films, only for Rondo Hatton to die before any of them were released. This film, as well as "The Brute Man" were released after his death in early February of 1946. It's an enjoyable film, which owes a lot to its simple and very streamlined screenplay as well as the limited amount of locations and the short run time (just a little over an hour). Rondo Hatton's Creeper was an obvious influence on the character of Lothar in "The Rocketeer", with the aforementioned film even taking some obvious visual cues from "House of Horrors", besides the design of the facial prosthetics worn by Tiny Ron Taylor. With the Hays code in full effect, I am surprised at how they got Joan Shawlee's outfit past censors, considering that it must have been very revealing by the standards of the time.
The Man with the Iron Heart (2017) Dir. Cédric Jimenez We follow the ascent of Reinhard Heydrich within the Nazi party, before and during the war, leading up to his death by assassination in 1942. The first hour focuses primarily on Heydrich himself, the second hour on Operation Anthropoid. As such it is reminiscent of the recent other movie about the same subject matter, "Anthropoid". The difference is that the earlier film focused primarily on Jan Kubis and Josef Gabcik whereas this film devotes as much attention to the target of their assassination as it does to the heroes who carried it out. I liked this, but I'm not sure if it's considerably better than "Anthropoid". It's one definitive advantage is that we get to know Heydrich more, which gives more weight to the scene of the assassination. Jason Clarke shines as the Butcher of Prague, giving him a sinister quality from the very first scene. Rosamund Pike and Mia Wasikowska have relatively small supporting parts considering their status. Jack O'Connell charms as Jan Kubis but I think I slightly preferred the interpretation that Jamie Dornan and Cillian Murphy gave to the Czechoslovakian heroes in "Anthropoid".
Deadly Detention (2017) Dir. Blair Hayes Five teenagers have to spend Saturday detention at an abandoned prison because the school itself is getting fumigated. They are accompanied by the school principal and the school's security guard. Within a short time of their arrival, someone appears to have taken over control of the prison's intercom system and all of the door locks. Then their principal appears to have been murdered and the five teenagers, each representing another archetype, have to work together to survive the unseen murderer's wrath. "The Breakfast Club but as a horror-comedy" isn't the worst idea in the world for a movie. But unfortunately, this film lacked the budget to do it any sort of justice. I did like the cast, especially Sarah Davenport (who has the makings of a great Final Girl), Alex Frnka (funny and snarky) and Coy Stewart (the group's conscience and a very charismatic young actor that some people might remember as Flint from "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D."). But the screenplay is too paint by the numbers and the production values too paltry to make this a memorable feature.
Hostiles (2017) Dir. Scott Cooper A U.S. Army Cavalry captain who has spent most of his life fighting Indians is nearing retirement. His commanding officer puts him in charge of his last detail: taking an elderly and dying Indian Chief, a former enemy of the captain, back to his ancestral land in Montana. The captain balks at the mission and considers refusing the order until his superior coerces him into accepting it. His hostility towards his charge and his close relatives remains at the outset of their travels. Then outside threats force the man to rely more and more upon his Indian charges. A bit of a mixed bag. This was very referential and at times a meandering mess in terms of its narrative. But it's nicely shot and there were sections in there I truly enjoyed (not the silly climax though). Some of the films that were obvious inspirations include "Comanche Station" and "The Glory Guys". In terms of the latter, I even briefly thought that the set they used for the barracks from which the captain and his party set out is the same as the fort at which the cavalry regiment in that film is stationed. This film feels a bit old-fashioned, especially in its female lead role. Rosamund Pike plays a character to whom things happen but who appears to posses very little agency. It does have some solid actors even in the smaller supporting roles (Jesse Plemons, Stephan Lang, Timothée Chalamet, Q'orianka Kilcher, Wes Studi, Ben Foster, ... to name just a few).
We're offering an Intro to Africana Studies class for the first time. Fifteen of us each taking a week, with thematic lectures each three-hour session; mine was this week, focused on the role of sports. I spent a long time truing to figure out how to approach both the Black experience in the US and the continental African experience with sports in one go. Ultimately I decided to go with 60 minutes on common themes, and then show a documentary that I decided could combine all of the themes and link the African and African American sporting worlds. If you've never seen it, track down When We Were Kings (Leon Gast, 1996). It's an amazing look at the famous Rumble in the Jungle, from when Ali met Foreman in Zaire in 1974. And so, so many themes come together nicely. Here's the trailer: To me, the only false note is the ending song, written to be the title track for the movie. But the rest of the music - funk and blues mostly, pulled from footage from this amazing concert they staged in Kinshasa in conjunction with the fight - is so phenomenal that the saccharine song at the end is just off. Everything else? This deserved the Academy Award it received for Best Documentary.
Wildling (2018) Dir. Fritz Böhm A young girl is kept seemingly captive by an older man, up in the attic of his secluded home. He seems intent on making sure she has no contact with the outside world. On the girl's 16th birthday, seemingly at the end of his rope, he appears to contemplate murdering the young woman but instead attempts to kill himself. In the process, the girl is discovered and it is assumed that the man had kidnapped her at a young age and kept her locked up in his home all of those years. With no obvious missing person's case matching the girls appearance or background, the Sheriff volunteers to put her up for the time being. The girl soon bonds with the Sheriff's other ward, her much younger little brother, who is also high school aged. The girl starts displaying weird and erratic behavior, which is explained away by her trauma and unusual upbringing, until said behavior appears to take a supernatural turn and the girl speaks of being afraid of an malevolent entity her captor talked about, called a 'Wildling'. A horror-thriller that is fairly straightforward but still well-done. Bel Powley as the lead girl and Brad Dourif as her one-time captor are both great. The use of the emergence and ever more prevalent presence of a dangerous entity as a metaphor for adolescence is nicely done. The third act will probably be a mixed bag in terms of how people receive it, but I thought it was well done.
Escape Room (2017) Dir. Will Wernick A girlfriend and boyfriend are on their way to the guy's birthday dinner. After having a meal with five of his closest friends and his sister, the girlfriend reveals that the night isn't quite over yet. To go against her unadventurous reputation, she has booked them a place in an escape room at an unknown location later that evening. After the group arrive at the escape room, they each initially take to the task of escaping together like it is a harmless game. Yet as the night progresses, the game master controlling everything behind the scenes is revealed to have ever more sinister motives and cruel tricks up his sleeve. A horror thriller that starts out interesting enough. The third act eventually turns this into "Saw" light, but I wouldn't quantify this as torture porn. It's adequate entertainment, but nothing truly memorable. The cast is largely a bunch of unknowns (to me) and the one stand-out is Annabelle Stephenson, who plays the groups resident bitch with obvious glee.
I agree that this was very well filmed and some of the performances were quite good. But beyond that, I don't really think it contributed anything to the Western genre. And the Native American characters were, ultimately, still just props or tools used for the white characters' journey toward self-discovery. And for as much as I felt this movie wanted to be a "revisionist western" or some kind of other non-standard take on this story, I bet most of the folks on this message board could, by 10 minutes into the film, predict with 90% accuracy which characters were going to live and which would die.
I agree that it's a strange western for 2018 standards. It has more in common with something like "Run of the Arrow" than most of the 21st century westerns. Diane Cilento had a lot more meat on her role all the way back in 1967 in "Hombre" than Rosamund Pike does here (probably thanks to the fact that she is playing an Elmore Leonard heroine in that film). It's clear that the female characters and native American characters in there film are just there to act as crutches in a white man's redemption story.
Suicide Squad: Hell to Pay (2018) Dir. Sam Liu After Amanda Waller sends her Suicide Squad on a mission that leaves all but Deadshot dead due to the betrayal of two of its members, she assembles a new team around Deadshot that includes Harley Quinn, Boomerang, Copperhead, Bronze Tiger and Killer Frost. Their new mission is to find a magical card that grants its carrier entry into Heaven, in spite of the person's crimes. Various members of the Squad are skeptical about the item's true powers, but since Amanda Waller promises to knock ten years of each of their sentences, they approach the task with some enthusiasm. They soon find out that there are other groups after the card, among them Vandal Savage and a mysterious trio of villains who seem to have their own agenda. The newest entry into the D.C. Animated movie universe. A very good one at that. I found that not counting the odd misstep, they have been churning out good to great movies in the last few years and this might be the very best of them (it's a toss-up between this one and "Justice League Dark" for me). It's darker and grittier than many of them. I liked the voice cast. Tara Strong has become a decent Harley Quinn, Vanessa Williams makes for a good Amanda Waller, Billy Brown is a powerful presence as Bronze Tiger but the biggest surprise was how well Christian Slater worked as Deadshot (not an obvious casting choice if you ask me).
The Third Murder (2017) Dir. Hirokazu Koreeda Shigemori is a lawyer who is brought onto a seemingly impossible murder trial by his older partner. The accused made a confession, had motive and was found carrying the deceased's wallet. On top of that, the man was already found guilty of a double homicide in his youth and was only released for a short time before this new crime. His defense lawyers thus focus on getting the charge reduced from robbery-homicide to a charge they believe is less likely to lead to the death penalty, by proving the man had another motive for his crime. The fact that their client seems to change details of his story almost every time they interview him does little to help their case. This was a very pleasant surprise. It's a slow-burner of a legal drama with some murder mystery aspects sprinkled on top. At its heart, it's a movie about the relationship between the accused and his attorney. There is no cheap plot twist at the end to turn everything on its head. It's a movie about both cruelty and compassion as well as judgment, in the broadest sense of the word. Veteran Kôji Yakusho is predictably brilliant as the accused man (he has always been good at conveying a certain type of quiet melancholy) and Masaharu Fukuyama almost matches him as his lawyer.
We watched Atomic Blonde (David Leitch, 2017) this weekend. Aside from the setting - Berlin a couple of days before the fall of the Wall - and the fact that the protagonist is a female, it's a film anyone who has seen any of the many male-driven non-stop fighting films will recognize. It's fun enough, and she's a convincing bad ass. Complete side note: One pet peeve I have about movies set in the 80s is improper "placement" of music in certain settings. Perhaps this is common across all older films, and I only know the music well enough from the 80s to tell, but I often notice the misplacement. There were several in this one; one that stands out is a scene in a nightclub when "The Politics of Dancing" by Re-Flex was playing and people were dancing. Except the song was released in 1984, and while it "fit" the scene, there's no way a trendy club would be playing it in November 1989.