On DVD/Blu-ray: GOODNIGHT MOMMY (2015); MISSISSIPPI GRIND (2015); and MOMENTUM (2015)

GOODNIGHT MOMMY
(Austria - 2015)

This wildly-acclaimed Austrian import ("The rebirth of Austrian horror," one blog emphatically declared ) was hailed as a new genre classic by the horror scenester echo chamber when it opened in limited release and on VOD in September of this year. Sure, there's an occasional BABADOOK or IT FOLLOWS where the hype is justified, but accolades of this sort might carry more weight if those same scenesters didn't say that about every new indie horror movie that comes out (remember every Ti West movie? Or when everyone said STARRY EYES was the next classic?  Remember how everyone was pumped about THE GALLOWS and then it was actually released?). GOODNIGHT MOMMY gets an extra love tap with the kid gloves since it's a subtitled foreign film, as if that lends it a classy sheen to help deflect the rote predictability of the entire endeavor. There's some baiting-and-switching and a big twist of a reveal at the end, but anyone not declared legally brain-dead will be able to call it by the ten-minute mark, so all that's left to do is sit and wait. Then the twist comes--and it plays out just as you predicted--and the movie's over. Giving off the stench of bargain-basement Michael Haneke, GOODNIGHT MOMMY has an interesting and disturbing set-up, but the writing/directing team of Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala switch gears almost immediately, turning the film into another tired "evil children" piece that just spins its wheels and turns into a stultifyingly tedious waste of time. When their mother (Susanne Wuest) returns home from having some kind of vague cosmetic surgery, nine-year-old twin brothers Elias and Lukas (Elias and Lukas Schwarz) are alarmed by her increasingly erratic behavior--she's prone to mood swings, demands total silence, and won't even acknowledge Lukas--and come to believe the woman whose face is covered in gauze and bandages (an admittedly unsettling image) isn't their mother. So far, so good, but then the sinister element of "Who is this woman?" is up-ended as the bandages come off and the boys go to extreme measures to get this person who looks exactly like their mother to confess her true identity, morphing into a rote "creepy kids" movie, even if it's the sensitive Elias acting under the direction of the persuasive and domineering Lukas. The twist is so embarrassingly easy to see that you figure there has to be something more, but there isn't. That is, unless you count the boys super-glueing their mother's mouth and eyes shut and blood gushing all over the place when they try to cut her lips open. A film that almost sets a land-speed record for going from intriguing to actively pissing me off, GOODNIGHT MOMMY can't even get much out of its ominous, middle-of-nowhere setting in a huge house straight out of a classic giallo. Come on, bloggers and horror fanboys. Your hype and fawning praise are meaningless if you don't start being a little more discerning and a little less concerned with keeping the free shit coming. (R, 100 mins)






MISSISSIPPI GRIND
(US - 2015)

For a while, the gambling drama MISSISSIPPI GRIND, the latest from the writing/directing team of Anna Boden & Ryan Fleck (HALF NELSON), seems like a shaggy dog road movie that doesn't appear to be ambling to anywhere in particular. But it carries itself like a '70s character study along the lines of its two primary 1974 influences: you could argue that it's a loose remake of Robert Altman's CALIFORNIA SPLIT, but it also owes a lot to Karel Reisz's THE GAMBLER, right down to the brief presence of veteran filmmaker and GAMBLER screenwriter James Toback in a rare acting role. With his slumped shoulders and dark cloud perpetually hovering over his head, Ben Mendelsohn straddles the line between good-natured but unlucky sad sack and sketchy, self-serving shitbag as Gerry, a down-on-his-luck real estate agent who owes money all over Dubuque. With his soft-spoken but serious loan shark (Alfre Woodard in some unexpected casting) tells him the clock's ticking, Gerry hits the road with new acquaintance Curtis (Ryan Reynolds), a confident and gregariously likable guy he recently met at a seedy dive of a casino, the kind of effortlessly smooth talker who loves to tell stories and has everybody at the poker table laughing. Once he meets Curtis, Gerry coincidentally starts winning and is convinced Curtis is his good-luck charm ("You're my leprechaun!"). Gerry splits town, helping himself to $200 in his employer's petty cash fund, dragging the goes-where-life-takes-him Curtis (Curtis to Gerry: "What?  You have a job?") on a road trip to Memphis and through Little Rock to New Orleans, by which time Gerry presumes to have earned enough money to invite himself to a secret poker game with a $25K buy-in hosted by Tony Roundtree (Toback), a big-time gambler he only knows of through Curtis' second-hand stories.





Things obviously don't pan out, as Gerry is a character played by Ben Mendelsohn, who's sort-of cornering the market on dodgy, untrustworthy skeezes and small-time scam artists (ANIMAL KINGDOM, KILLING THEM SOFTLY, THE PLACE BEYOND THE PINES, LOST RIVER, and the Netflix series BLOODLINE). Like the Altman film it models itself on, MISSISSIPPI GRIND is about the interaction between the two main characters and how their bond brings out the best and worst in one another. Gerry is a hopeless, reckless gambler who loves the thrill of the bet but is terrible at it. So is Curtis, but his confidence carries him and compared to Gerry, he knows when to walk away. Curtis, whose financial solvency is never really explored, mainly just likes talking to people and finds poker tables are the best place to people-watch. He goes along with Gerry initially because he's got nothing else going on but eventually because he just likes him, and if Gerry believes Curtis is the source of his luck, then so be it. It's hard to get a read on Curtis, and that's by design. Reynolds again proves himself to be a much better actor than his detractors would ever be willing to admit (he was a last-minute replacement for Jake Gyllenhaal, who was delayed on another project), and he's a good match with Mendelsohn, who gets to show different shades of his character as the film progresses. He's funny and likable one moment, desperate and pathetic the next--nowhere is this more apparent than in a very uncomfortable reunion with his embittered ex-wife (Robin Weigert). Sienna Miller and Analeigh Tipton are saddled with underwritten and rather superfluous supporting roles as hookers-with-hearts-of-gold who capture the attention of Curtis and Gerry respectively, but other than that and an ending that's sufficient but does wrap things up a little too neat and tidy, MISSISSIPPI GRIND is an engaging, slow-burner throwback character piece that would've been right at home if it had opened 40 years ago instead of today, on just 46 screens for a total gross of $130,000. (R, 109 mins)



MOMENTUM
(US/South Africa/Spain - 2015)

The kind of movie where an establishing aerial shot features the Capitol Building in the foreground and the Washington Monument in the background and still feels the need to include the caption "Washington, D.C.," MOMENTUM is cliched almost to the point of parody. It has a hissing, snarky villain who, just before he's about to off the hero, opts to give an endless, condescending speech instead. You'd be correct in assuming a bad guy like that is also prone to hackneyed chess analogies that come back to bite him in the ass, as he of course gets the upper hand on the hero and sneers "Check!" which is pretty much an open invitation to that hero to declare "Checkmate!" just before killing him. And that's exactly how it plays out. Nevertheless, once it gets settled in after a clunky and confusing opening, MOMENTUM is stupid but reasonably entertaining action movie junk food. It's complete garbage, but it's energetic and has a pair of fun performances at its core, plus one seriously slumming surprise guest star who's not featured in the trailer, the poster art, or in any of the promotional material, and who couldn't possibly have been on the set for more than half a day, literally phoning in his performance from behind a desk.





After a botched Cape Town bank robbery where one of the criminals, Alexis (QUANTUM OF SOLACE's Olga Kurylenko) loses her mask in front of a lobby full of witnesses, a cleanup crew of hired killers led by the gleefully snide and sardonic Mr. Washington (James Purefoy) is dispatched to eliminate the entire team. Alexis had plans to disappear after this One Last Job, but now she's fighting for her life with Washington and his goons in hot pursuit. The killers are in the employ of a corrupt US senator (Morgan Freeman...yes, that Morgan Freeman), who's secretly planning a terrorist attack in Chicago in order to start a new war and secure a huge defense contract, with his entire nefarious plan laid out on a flash drive that Alexis acquired in the bank job (why a US senator would save that on a flash drive and then go through the trouble of storing it in a safety deposit box in South Africa remains a mystery). Co-written by Adam Marcus (JASON GOES TO HELL: THE FINAL FRIDAY, TEXAS CHAINSAW 3D) and directed by a debuting Stephen Campanelli, a veteran camera operator who's been part of Clint Eastwood's crew since 1995's THE BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY (MILLION DOLLAR BABY and INVICTUS star and nice guy Freeman obviously doing a solid for Campanelli, who likely wasn't going to risk getting booted off the Malpaso payroll by asking Clint to play the senator), MOMENTUM knows exactly what kind of movie it is, and it's almost nonstop action after the clumsy first act. Kurylenko displays steely gravitas as a kickass heroine who walks away from CGI explosions like a pro (team her up with Milla Jovovich!), and a constantly smirking Purefoy is having a blast as Mr. Washington ("Oh, you magnificent bitch!" he yells at Alexis when she outsmarts him yet again), There's some brutal action sequences, some winking Eastwood homages (cue the "Do you feel lucky?" speech) and self-referential auto-critiques ("I've seen this in too many movies," Washington glowers as Alexis is doing exactly what he thinks she's doing) and an inspired bit where one bad guy's head is smashed apart with a kid's Tonka Truck. A late-breaking plot development involving Alexis' background as a rogue CIA superagent recruited from the Mossad would appear to set up a BOURNE-like franchise that likely isn't happening, considering the $20 million film went straight to VOD in the US and is currently making headlines for grossing the equivalent of $69 during its ten-screen theatrical release in the UK. It's enjoyable for what it is--wait for it to turn up on Netflix Instant and queue it up on a slow night expecting nothing and you'll be entertained. (Unrated, 96 mins)

On DVD/Blu-ray: FORCE MAJEURE (2014); THE DARK VALLEY (2015); and ANNABELLE (2014)

FORCE MAJEURE
(Sweden/France/Norway/Germany/Denmark - 2014)

Remember that SEINFELD episode where George was attending a kid's birthday party and a small fire broke out in the kitchen? Remember how he yelled "FIRE!" and ran out screaming, pushing old ladies and little kids out of the way to get himself to safety? Change the fire to an avalanche and change the tone to a dour mix of uncomfortable Michael Haneke and serious Woody Allen in one of his Ingmar Bergman moods and stretch it out to two endless hours and you've got a good idea what FORCE MAJEURE is like. Critically-adored the world over (the film currently holds a 93% at Rotten Tomatoes), hyped as a guaranteed Best Foreign Language Film Oscar nominee (it didn't make the cut), and frequently described as a "comedy," for some reason (and the US trailer below sure makes it look like one), FORCE MAJEURE opens with a seemingly happy Swedish family--dad Tomas (Johannes Bah Kuhnke), mom Ebba (Lisa Loven Kongsli), and kids Vera and Harry (real-life siblings Clara and Vincent Wettergren)--on vacation in the French Alps. All goes well until one of the ski resort's periodic "controlled avalanches"--a metaphor that will repeatedly slap the viewer upside the head--gets a little bigger than intended. A brief panic ensues among diners at a restaurant, and as Ebba grabs the kids and takes shelter under the table, Tomas impulsively grabs his phone and gloves and runs off. When he returns maybe 30 seconds later after calm is restored, the mood of the family and their vacation is never the same. Tomas won't admit what he did, and Ebba is soon taking any opportunity to humiliate him in front of others, even roping in his divorced, 40-ish friend Mats (Kristofer Hivju, best known as Tormund Giantsbane on GAME OF THRONES) and his 20-year-old girlfriend Fanni (Fanni Metelius). Of course, old marital grudges come into play as we learn more about Tomas and Ebba and why she's so high-strung and offended by one vacationer's comfort with having an open marriage and why Tomas' split-second cowardice might be a last straw for her. All the while, the constant invocation of "controlled avalanches" as a symbol of the give-and-take and the ups-and-downs of marriage is heavy-handed, obvious, and tiresome. The film wants to be raw and honest, but ends up with approximately the same entertainment value as observing the worst fight your parents ever had, with the two main characters becoming so overbearing and Kuhnke's performance so overwrought, that it's easy to stop caring and tune all of it out. Ultimately, writer/director Ruben Ostlund gets the strongest performances from the Wettergren siblings, who come off as total naturals and manage to create wholly believable characters with only a little dialogue, a lot of perceptive, knowing glances, and telling body language. They're the only great things about the stupefyingly overrated FORCE MAJEURE. (R, 120 mins)

THE DARK VALLEY
(Austria/Germany - 2014; US release 2015)

Downbeat, brutal, and vividly atmospheric, the Austrian-German co-production THE DARK VALLEY is an unusual western in that it takes place in Europe and is presented almost entirely in German with English subtitles. Even the film's British star, Sam Riley (CONTROL, ON THE ROAD, MALEFICENT) quite convincingly delivers his performance in the film's native language. Riley is Greider, an American stranger who arrives in an isolated town in the Alps. He claims to be a photographer and decides to stay for the winter, renting a room at the home of widowed Gaderin (Carmen Bratl) and her headstrong daughter Luzi (Paula Beer). It doesn't take long for Greider to learn the hard way that the town is under the strict control of the Brenner clan: the aged, sickly Old Brenner (Hans-Michael Rehberg) and his six loathsome, power-crazed sons (imagine GAME OF THRONES with six Joffreys and you'll get an idea of how despicable the Brenner boys are). As winter comes, two of the Brenner sons are found dead in ways that look like accidents until Old Brenner concludes that the American stranger--it never occurs to this family of psychos to ask how he's fluent in German--is somehow involved. Meanwhile, Luzi is engaged to be married to Lukas (Thomas Schubert) but the mood of the young couple is oddly lacking in celebration as their big day approaches. To say anything more would involve spoilers about the true depths of the depravity to which the Brenners have plummeted for too long. Needless to say, Greider is on a mission of personal vengeance, for reasons that will be explained only after he's forced to stage a daring rescue of Luzi when she's abducted by the Brenners. After that, he'll face the remaining brothers only to find out that the town has it share of Stockholm Syndromed citizens who defend welcome the ruthless rule--and all the perverse "laws" that accompany it--of Old Brenner.

Only when director/co-writer Andreas Prochaska, working from the 2010 novel Das finstere Tal by Thomas Willmann, resorts to some jumpy cutting and shaky-cam in Greider's showdown with the Brenner brothers--accompanied by a completely incongruous German alt-rock tune--does the film start a chain reaction of stumbling from which it never really recovers, resulting in a Big Reveal that you'll see coming a mile away. Until then, Prochaska's direction is deliberate, disciplined, and controlled, focusing on gritty little details that most westerns ignore, like dealing with the inclement weather and the constant cold. Breath is visible indoors at all times, and Greider is forced to shave cold, as a thin layer of ice forms over his water bowl overnight. The cold, barren and perpetually gray-skied look of the film recalls westerns as diverse as Clint Eastwood's PALE RIDER (1985) and Sergio Corbucci's THE GREAT SILENCE (1968), with Prochaska filming in some stunning locations in the mountainous Trentino-Alto Adige area of northern Italy, at the Austrian border. There's also nods to Andre De Toth's cult western DAY OF THE OUTLAW (1959), not just in its snow-blanketed setting but in the ugly and disturbing Luzi-Lukas wedding ceremony and reception, crashed by the Brenners, who take turns forcing Luzi to dance with them in front of the stone-faced attendees in way that owes a tremendous debt to a similar scene in the De Toth film. Riley is excellent as the revenge-obsessed Greider, and completely natural and comfortable acting in German (a cursory glance at the English-dubbed track reveals that it's not only terrible but that Riley doesn't dub himself--the film is meant to be seen in German, as Luzi point-blank asks him early "How do you know how to speak German?"). The filmmakers wisely choose to not make him some superhuman killing machine. Instead, he's flawed, often falling victim his own impulsiveness and even oversleeping the morning of his showdown with the Brenners, which almost allows them to get the edge on him. Given a straight-to-DVD release in the US, THE DARK VALLEY is so good for so much of its running time (it was Austria's Oscar submission for Best Foreign Language Film, but didn't make the final cut of nominees) that its third-act slip-ups are especially disappointing. Still, late stumbles and all, it's well worth seeing as a solid western and also one that takes full advantage of its unique setting. (Unrated, 115 mins, also streaming on Netflix Instant)


ANNABELLE
(US - 2014)

A prequel spinoff of THE CONJURING, ANNABELLE goes into the origin story of the creepy doll kept in a glass case in the home of paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren, played by Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga in the 2013 hit. Wilson's voice makes an uncredited guest appearance in a prologue that would seem to be the first half of wraparound sequence that the film proceeds to completely forget about and never return to, but that's just the kind of slipshod carelessness that defines ANNABELLE. There's so little story here that writer Gary Dauberman (BLOOD MONKEY) and director John F. Leonetti (THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT 2) often appear to have forgotten which James Wan film they're prequelling, as a lot of it seems to owe more to INSIDIOUS than THE CONJURING (Wan remains onboard ANNABELLE as a producer). Set in 1969, as evidenced by a reference to Charles Manson being in the news, ANNABELLE opens with young marrieds and expectant parents Mia (Annabelle Wallis) and John (daytime soap vet Ward Horton, waiting patiently for the lead in THE JAMES MARSDEN STORY) being attacked in their home by the neighbors' crazed daughter Annabelle (Tree O'Toole), who ran off to join a hippie cult. Annabelle commits suicide while clutching the creepy new addition John bought for Mia's doll collection, and of course, the doll is now a vessel for whatever evil spirit took hold of Annabelle. Ghostly occurrences and apparitions keep happening, and neither parish priest Father Perez (Tony Amendola as F. Murray Abraham) nor neighbor/book shop proprietor/exposition dispenser Evelyn (past Oscar-nominee Alfre Woodard in the most egregious wasting of an overqualified African-American actress in a stupid horror movie since Cicely Tyson turned up in the amazingly-titled THE HAUNTING IN CONNECTICUT 2: GHOSTS OF GEORGIA), are able to offer much assistance other than Father Lopez ominously intoning "Demons sometimes use objects as conduits" and Evelyn, who's an expert in all things pertaining to the spirit world because of course she is, informing them that the spirit inside the doll demands a sacrifice. That sacrifice is initially believed to be Mia's newborn daughter until Mia decides that she must sacrifice herself to save her child.  And SPOILER ALERT--all of that is for naught because Evelyn, who lost her own daughter, apparently has nothing to live for except sacrificing herself for this wholesome, church-going, conservative white couple who long for an America where you should be able to leave your doors unlocked at night.

Setting aside the appalling way it has the de facto "Magical Negro" become the sacrificial lamb, ANNABELLE is just a terrible and inexcusably lazy film. Sure, Leonetti, a cinematographer going back to the '80s (he also shot DEAD SILENCE, DEATH SENTENCE, INSIDIOUS, and THE CONJURING for Wan), pulls off a few decent bits where he lets the camera snake around or in the way he offers some nicely-executed widescreen shot compositions, but they never lead anywhere. He's a solid technician with no idea how to deliver a scare. Scenes with a record player playing itself or the stove turning itself on and eventually engulfing the kitchen in flames (Mia, sewing in the next room, somehow fails to notice choking smoke throughout the house) are old-fashioned to a fault. In Leonetti's fumbling hands, these aren't classic-style chills as much as they're hoary cliches, and it doesn't get any better when the filmmakers start straight-up ripping off scenes wholesale from other, better movies. Remember in THE EXORCIST III when George C. Scott called his wife to warn her not to let a possessed killer nurse in the house, but only got a busy signal while evil forces at play caused the wife to hear him saying "There's a nurse delivering a package" on her end of the line? That's replayed here when John calls Mia to warn her not to let a possessed Father Perez in, but all Mia hears is static. They even rip off that classic "kid running down the hallway" jolt in Mario Bava's 1977 film SHOCK (aka BEYOND THE DOOR II), but it's restaged in bumbling fashion with shitty CGI assistance, almost as if they looked at that scene in SHOCK, which involved nothing but good timing and perfect camera placement that's so effective that it's hard to believe how simple it really is, and said "Wow, that's great...so, what do we have to do to render it completely amateurish and flat and make sure it lands with a dead thud?" A complete embarrassment, ANNABELLE somehow grossed $84 million in theaters despite being exactly the kind of quickie, D-grade, straight-to-DVD follow-up along the lines of the TREMORS, DARKMAN, FROM DUSK TILL DAWN, or the later HELLRAISER sequels, just to name a few examples of things you'd see during the video store heyday. While it's nice that they made an ostensibly old-school horror movie that's very light on trendy blood and gore, you kinda have to hold up your end of the bargain and remember to bring the atmosphere and the scares, preferably ones you didn't swipe from those who came before you and who put forth a lot more effort and innovation than you did. ANNABELLE is the worst kind of bad movie: one that actively makes you angry with its utter contempt for its audience. (R, 99 mins)