INTO THE NIGHT (US - 1985) Directed by John Landis. Written by Ron Kosnow. Cast: Jeff Goldblum, Michelle Pfeiffer, Richard Farnsworth, Irene Papas, Kathryn Harrold, David Bowie, Paul Mazursky, Vera Miles, Roger Vadim, Clu Gulager, Dan Aykroyd, Bruce McGill, Carl Perkins, Stacey Pickren, Carmen Argenziano, David Cronenberg, Domingo Ambriz, Jake Steinfeld, Art Evans, Michael Zand, Beruce Gramian, Hadi Sadjadi, John Landis, Ali Madani, Houshang Touzie, Reid Smith. (R, 115 mins) Just out on Blu-ray from Shout! Factory, John Landis' INTO THE NIGHT has often been compared to Martin Scorsese's AFTER HOURS, another 1985 film with a similar concept of an ordinary guy finding himself in increasingly strange situations in the wee hours of the morning in unfamiliar and dangerous parts of the city. Where AFTER HOURS was set and shot in NYC, INTO THE NIGHT represents the west coast, taking place in and around Los Angeles (there's even a couple of chances to see some vintage TV commercials for legendary L.A. car dealer Cal Worthington). In hindsight, INTO THE NIGHT is often relegated to the sideline and viewed as a lesser AFTER HOURS knockoff, even though it opened seven months earlier. Landis had been on a hot streak going back to 1977's THE KENTUCKY FRIED MOVIE, with a string of huge hits that included 1978's ANIMAL HOUSE, 1980's THE BLUES BROTHERS, 1981's AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON, and 1983's TRADING PLACES, plus he was at the helm of Michael Jackson's "Thriller," the groundbreaking and probably the most famous music video of all time. INTO THE NIGHT grossed a very modest $7 million, not awful by 1985 standards but far below the box office Landis films generated in that period. While TRADING PLACES became a blockbuster thanks largely to Eddie Murphy, INTO THE NIGHT didn't have that kind of star power to headline it. This meant Landis' name was the main focus, and the deaths of Vic Morrow and two children on the set Landis' segment of 1983's TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE were still fresh in everyone's minds, particularly the director himself, as Landis was officially charged with involuntary manslaughter three weeks into filming INTO THE NIGHT, with a trial spread out over 1986 and 1987. Though Landis and three co-defendants were eventually acquitted, and he continued working in Hollywood (having hits with 1985's SPIES LIKE US, 1986's THREE AMIGOS, and 1988's COMING TO AMERICA), Landis' career never really recovered. His subsequent work in the '90s ranged from middling (1992's INNOCENT BLOOD) to quick paycheck (1994's BEVERLY HILLS COP III, six years after he and Murphy clashed on COMING TO AMERICA, prompting Murphy to quip "John Landis has a better chance of working with Vic Morrow than with me") to desperate (1998's BLUES BROTHERS 2000) to completely unwatchable (1996's THE STUPIDS). Landis has worked very sporadically over the last two decades, with a couple of acclaimed documentaries (2004's SLASHER and 2007's MR. WARMTH: THE DON RICKLES PROJECT), but that nearly 20-year stretch has only seen Landis directing one narrative feature with 2011's dismal, little-seen Simon Pegg horror comedy BURKE AND HARE. His last directing credit to date is a 2012 episode of the TNT series FRANKLIN & BASH.
Propelled by some bluesy B.B. King on the soundtrack, INTO THE NIGHT may not have made much of an impression in theaters, but it found an appreciative audience thanks to its incessant airplay on cable throughout the rest of the '80s. It also helps to look back at it now with star Jeff Goldblum's oddball persona firmly established. In 1985, the actor wasn't an unknown by any means, with numerous TV gigs and roles in 1978's INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS and 1983's THE BIG CHILL to his credit, but he hadn't yet established the quirky, eccentric "Jeff Goldblum" we know today from THE FLY, JURASSIC PARK, and INDEPENDENCE DAY. The recognizable Goldblum mannerisms are here but he plays it pretty straightforward as mild-mannered aerospace engineer Ed Okin, a quiet type who's suffering from extreme insomnia ("Summer of 1980," he replies when asked the last time he slept a full eight hours), is miserable at his job, and is coming to terms with the fact that his wife (Stacey Nelkin) is cheating on him. Wide awake, he decides to go on a late-night drive and finds himself in the parking garage at LAX, where he's as shocked as anyone when he ends up rescuing Diana (Michelle Pfeiffer) from a quartet of bumbling Iranian assassins (one of them played by Landis). Once an aspiring starlet ("I'm not as young as I look," she says), Diana has fallen in with some shady characters and was returning from Zurich with priceless jewels that belonged to the deposed Shah of Iran. Her associate Hasi (Ali Madani) was killed at the airport just before she landed on the hood of Ed's car. Her contact is Hamid (Houshang Touzie), but in addition to the four assassins working for Hasi's double-crossing, vengeful aunt Shaheen (Irene Papas), she and unlikely new partner Ed are also targeted by Colin Morris (David Bowie), a dapper killer in the employ of French criminal Melville (Roger Vadim), in a madcap plot that also involves Diana's Elvis impersonator brother (Bruce McGill), her actress friend Christie (Kathryn Harrold), and her estranged, terminally ill sugar daddy Jack Caper (Richard Farnsworth).
It's not every day that you see a movie with rockabilly legend Carl Perkins pulling a knife out of his chest and using it to attack David Bowie, and INTO THE NIGHT is filled with bizarre bits throughout that always keep you intrigued. Goldblum and Pfeiffer (then best known for GREASE 2 and SCARFACE) are a charming team, but the script by Ron Koslow (who went on to create the acclaimed late '80s Linda Hamilton/Ron Perlman TV series BEAUTY AND THE BEAST) has uneven tonal shifts from goofy comedy to shocking violence, with one likable character and even a cute dog being ruthlessly killed off. One of the most notable elements of INTO THE NIGHT--similar to THE BLUES BROTHERS--is Landis packing it with a ton of cameos, from small roles for Bowie, Perkins as Hamid's henchman, and Dan Aykroyd as one of Ed's engineer colleagues to appearances by a small army of Landis' filmmaker friends: Vadim, Paul Mazursky as Christie's boyfriend, David Cronenberg as Ed's boss, Don Siegel as a lecherous old man with a hooker in a men's room stall, Paul Bartel as a hotel doorman, Waldo Salt as a homeless guy, Rick Baker as a drug dealer, Jim Henson as a guy forced off of a hotel lobby phone, Lawrence Kasdan as a detective, Jonathan Demme as an FBI agent, Amy Heckerling as a waitress, and others. Roger Ebert was very critical of the plethora of director cameos, saying they were a distraction from the real actors, but Landis is careful to not draw too much attention to them. A sight gag with an old rich guy emerging from a men's room stall followed close behind by a hooker is funny regardless of whether or not it's Don Siegel. Don Siegel isn't the joke. It's a fun, running inside joke for hardcore movie nerds, but it's not a distraction for the casual moviegoer. I don't understand Ebert's gripe, because other than when it came to guys like Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, George Lucas, Henson, and Landis, it's doubtful anyone but an obsessive film fanatic was able to recognize directors by sight in the primitive, pre-internet days of 1985. Did anyone other than a movie critic watch INTO THE NIGHT and say "Hey, look, it's FOUL PLAY director Colin Higgins!"? Ebert was distracted because he knew who the directors were and apparently was in a bad mood when he watched it, but did civilian moviegoers care? Cinephiles have an added layer of enjoyment with INTO THE NIGHT, but even without that insider knowledge, time's been kind to it. It's a funny and offbeat, if frequently uneven film that remains a sentimental favorite of mine from the 1980s.
MAPS TO THE STARS (Canada/Germany - 2014; US release 2015) Directed by David Cronenberg. Written by Bruce Wagner. Cast: Julianne Moore, Mia Wasikowska, John Cusack, Robert Pattinson, Olivia Williams, Sarah Gadon, Evan Bird, Carrie Fisher, Kiara Glasco, Dawn Greenhalgh, Jonathan Watton, Niamh Wilson, Jennifer Gibson, Justin Kelly, Jayne Heitmeyer, Joe Pingue. (R, 112 mins) As we've observed with the ongoing tragedy of Dario Argento, seeing a great and influential filmmaker skidding in his elder statesman years is never a pleasant sight, and David Cronenberg's MAPS TO THE STARS is, if nothing else, a slight step up from 2012's career-worst COSMOPOLIS. Other than one character having some significant body scarring that recalls his CRASH (1997), there's very little to here to suggest that the 71-year-old Cronenberg really has his heart in this one. It's written by Bruce Wagner, best known for the 1993 Oliver Stone-produced ABC miniseries WILD PALMS, but also a novelist (his so-called "cell phone trilogy" of I'm Losing You, I'll Let You Go and Still Holding), whose chief focus has always been the skewering of cliched L.A. and Hollywood types. Wagner also wrote Paul Bartel's 1989 satire SCENES FROM THE CLASS STRUGGLE IN BEVERLY HILLS and in many ways, MAPS TO THE STARS plays like a grim spinoff of that film, one that was lambasted when it was released and only remembered today by the cult of Bartel (DEATH RACE 2000, EATING RAOUL) and the most devoted Jacqueline Bisset stalkers. MAPS TO THE STARS is yet another tiresome entry in the "Hollywood taking misanthropic shots at itself" subgenre, one that's brilliant when it's done right (SUNSET BOULEVARD, S.O.B., THE PLAYER, TROPIC THUNDER) and insufferable when it's not (almost everything else). Cronenberg has been trying to get MAPS TO THE STARS made for the last decade, and Wagner's script dates back further than that (in fact, when the project stalled three years ago and Cronenberg moved forward with COSMOPOLIS, Wagner turned his script into the 2012 novel Dead Stars), only with some added mentioning of Twitter and the name-dropping of some current stars to spruce it up. Considering how long MAPS TO THE STARS was gestating in development hell, it's alarming how utterly disconnected from it Cronenberg seems. It's not a David Cronenberg film--it's a Bruce Wagner script that Cronenberg happens to be directing. Unlike guys like Billy Wilder, Blake Edwards, and Robert Altman, the Canadian Cronenberg's never been a Hollywood insider (indeed, MAPS is his first film to features scenes shot in the US), so MAPS' potshots at industry types seem especially cheap and hollow. And by this point, Wagner's scripts are all the same, stuffed with loathsome, decadent L.A. asswipes drowning in ennui and self-absorption who do shitty things and screw over anyone to get ahead. Wagner's covered these subjects ad nauseum in past screenplays and novels and at 60 years old, he's starting to sound less like a guy with keenly satirical insights into the Hollywood machine and more like a bitter curmudgeon who's having a hissy fit because he never quite made it to the A-list.
MAPS TO THE STARS is one of those "everyone is connected" ensemble pieces: washed-up, pill-popping actress Havana Segrand (Julianne Moore) desperately wants a part in a remake of an old movie that starred her late mother Clarice Taggart (Sarah Gadon), who died in a fire 30 years ago and frequently appears in ghost form to taunt Havana about, among other things, the state of her career, the smell of her vagina ("That hole smells worse than I do!"), and their incestuous past as mother-daughter lovers; Benjie Weiss (Evan Bird), a teenage movie star who combines the worst parts of Justin Bieber and Joffrey Baratheon, is just out of rehab and shooting the next entry in his BAD BABYSITTER franchise; his enabling mother Christina (Olivia Williams), and his father Stafford (John Cusack), a famous New Age TV therapist who counts Havana as a patient and is prone to declarations during massage sessions that go something like "I'm going to press on a personal history point--memories are stored in the thighs"; Agatha Weiss (Mia Wasikowska), an odd, burn-scarred young woman who arrives from Florida boasting of a Twitter friendship with Carrie Fisher (as herself), who gets her a job as Havana's personal assistant, or "chore whore"; and Jerome Fontana (Robert Pattinson), a limo driver and would-be screenwriter who occasionally turns up as part of Agatha's character arc until the film forgets about him once more.
Wagner's script is so sloppily-constructed that things that should be big reveals and surprises land with a complete thud. Is it supposed to be a surprise that Agatha is Benjie's older sister and the disowned daughter of the Weisses? Because by mentioning her last name as soon as we see her, we've put that together. Wagner tries to demonstrate some complexity in the various parallels that manifest between characters involving ghosts, fire, and incest, with a particularly creepy focus on the latter, and he only succeeds in repetitious overkill, especially if you're one of the four people who can recall that ghosts reminding characters of their past misdeeds was also a major part of SCENES FROM THE CLASS STRUGGLE IN BEVERLY HILLS. Elsewhere, Cronenberg props things up with the unfortunate crutch of shock value in ways that do nothing to further the story, whether it's bodily discharges with Agatha leaving a menstrual blood stain on Havana's $12K couch or a constipated Havana struggling to defecate and only loudly passing gas. Yes, David Cronenberg has been reduced to fart jokes and drags Moore down with him.
The best thing that can be said about MAPS TO THE STARS is that the actors commit. Moore overdoes it, but the character requires such, and one of the few satirical bits that actually has some scathing bite to it is when she loses the role in the movie to younger rival Azita (Jayne Heitmeyer), known for "letting producers put their dick in her ass and take a piss," only to win it back when Azita's six-year-old son Micah drowns in a swimming pool, prompting her to have a breakdown and drop out of the film. The role then goes to Havana, who reacts by joyously dancing through the house and outside by the pool, shouting Micah's name and singing "Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye." Moore won the Best Actress award at Cannes for her scenery-chewing work and prior to her eventual Oscar win for STILL ALICE, was generating some Academy buzz for MAPS until its US release got pushed to 2015 (it was out in Europe last summer), preceded by one of the most blatantly misleading trailers in quite some time, edited in a way to make it look like Wasikowska is the psycho in a SINGLE WHITE FEMALE-type thriller. Bird does a solid job at playing a spoiled and thoroughly despicable turd, and even Cusack, taking a break from his new career in D-grade action movies, has some good moments, though he's first seen vaping--apparently his go-to prop as DRIVE HARD and RECLAIM introduced him the exact same way. Some good performances aside (though Pattinson is wasted in a rather nothing role), MAPS TO THE STARS is all bark and no bite, filled with tired depictions of debauchery, transgression, and generally bad behavior, plus an act of self-immolation that features the worst CGI fire I've ever seen. Cronenberg needn't prove anything to anyone at this point, but he's still smarter than a de facto follow-up to a forgotten 25-year-old movie that almost nobody liked. One leaves MAPS TO THE STARS wishing its poster art's tag line "Eventually stars burn out" didn't seem so oddly prophetic for its director. And as far as Wagner is concerned, his only significant contribution to cinema remains sharing a story credit with Wes Craven on 1987's A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 3: DREAM WARRIORS.
Ten years after David Cronenberg's 1981 classic SCANNERS, his former producer Pierre David got the ball rolling on two back-to-back-shot sequels that have fallen into relative obscurity until the recent release of a double feature Blu-ray/DVD combo set. By 1991, Cronenberg was well on his way to becoming a respected filmmaker (he had NAKED LUNCH in theaters that same year) and had nothing to do with these sequels other than a "Based on characters created by" credit and presumably cashing a small paycheck. Both films were directed by Christian Duguay, and while he's not a filmmaker of Cronenberg's caliber, he did exhibit enough flair to eventually go on to a brief career with the major studios and has a few solid cult movies to his credit. The Canadian Duguay got his start as a camera and Steadicam operator on films like Paul Mazursky's ENEMIES: A LOVE STORY (1989) and worked in Canadian TV before making his feature directing debut with these two SCANNERS sequels.
SCANNERS II: THE NEW ORDER (Canada - 1991)
Aside from some mild profanity and the rather tame splatter bits--the exploding heads aren't nearly as well-done here as in Cronenberg's film--SCANNERS II could almost be a TV-movie. Taking place ten years after the events of the first film--though the math doesn't make sense once the entire plot is revealed--SCANNERS II focuses on David Kellum (David Hewlett), a veterinary student with Scanner abilities who gets roped into the devious machinations of Commander Forrester (Yvan Ponton), a fascist police official with designs on turning the city into his totalitarian playland. Forrester and Dr. Morse (Tom Butler) run a secret Scanner lab where Forrester's ultimate plan is to corral the telepathic Scanners and use them to expose, control, and eliminate the criminal element. Kellum also finds out he has a long-lost sister, Julie Vale (Deborah Raffin) and that they're both the Scanner-gene-carrying offspring of Cameron Vale and Kim Obrist, the characters played by Stephen Lack and Jennifer O'Neill in the 1981 film. SCANNERS II largely follows the same formula as the first film, right down to an inevitable showdown between good Scanner David and evil Scanner Drak (Raoul Trujillo), who's essentially a stand-in for Michael Ironside's Darryl Revok. Written by B.J. Nelson (LONE WOLF MCQUADE), SCANNERS II basically is what it is: a watchable, straight-to-video-level sequel, even though it did get a limited US theatrical release in the summer of 1991 before turning up on video store shelves. Hewlett, a regular presence in Canadian film and TV who would go on to become a fixture in the films of CUBE director Vincenzo Natali, is pretty bland here but does sport a sublime mullet. American actress Raffin, whose career was starting to slow down by 1991 even though she was still in her late 30s, gets second billing but doesn't appear until over an hour into the film and has little to do other than show David a couple of new Scanning techniques. That's a shame since the late actress (she died of leukemia in 2012) was a consistently appealing TV and big-screen presence who rarely got the quality roles she deserved (cult movie fans probably know her best today as Charles Bronson's doomed love interest in DEATH WISH 3). Many of the Quebec-based cast, especially Ponton, sound dubbed, but the real standout is a scenery-chewing Trujillo as Drak, who seems to have spent a significant amount of time studying Ironside's performance and trying to top it at every turn. Other than Trujillo's level of commitment to crazy, SCANNERS II is harmless but mostly forgettable. In addition to a required-by-Canadian-law appearance by character actor Vlasta Vrana, the film also features an Aldo Nova-written hair metal closing credits tune, "Mind to Mind," performed by Alan Jordan, that probably could've been a hit had anyone saw the movie. (R, 104 minutes)
SCANNERS 3: THE TAKEOVER (Canada - 1992)
Ditching Roman numerals for this second sequel, Duguay's SCANNERS 3 is generally considered the low point of the trilogy, but it might be time to reconsider that. While neither film comes close to approaching Cronenberg's film--and to their credit, they don't even try--SCANNERS II generally felt like a watered-down redux. SCANNERS 3, on the other hand and as misguided as it may be, goes for camp and comedy throughout and proves to be quite entertaining if you just shrug your shoulders and accept it. Once more, we have a good Scanner (Steve Parrish as Alex) taking on an evil Scanner (Liliana Komorowska as Helena). They're siblings and Alex is in self-imposed exile in Tibet after showing off some Scanner party tricks and accidentally killing his best friend. Helena, meanwhile, is meek and mousy until she gets a dose of her scientist father's (Colin Fox) experimental new Scanner drug, which basically turns her into a fire-breathing bitch-on-wheels, strutting, vamping, and cooing across the screen as she offs her nemeses, assembles a Scanner army (the film was titled SCANNER FORCE in the UK), and discovers she can control the thoughts and minds of the population through TV signals (which also allows Duguay to pay tribute to Cronenberg's VIDEODROME). While Parrish is a hero so bland that he makes you long for the dynamic magnetism of 1991 David Hewlett, Komorowska (who married Duguay not long after making this) just lets it rip. It's not a good performance by the general definition of "good," but there's no denying her enthusiasm. It's almost as if she treated this entire film as a potential demo reel to audition for an over-the-top 007 femme fatale. Nelson is one of three credited writers for this one, along with David Preston (SPACEHUNTER: ADVENTURES IN THE FORBIDDEN ZONE, THE VINDICATOR) and Julie Richard, so it's hard to tell where this film's campy direction originated, but there's a clear attempt made to make Helena the quippy, snappy Freddy Krueger of the SCANNERS series, especially when Komorowska animatedly declares "I had a headache THIS big!" There's also a scene in a posh restaurant where she telepathically forces an asshole business exec (Peter Wright) to spill wine on himself and foolishly dance around that seems more fitting in a Jim Carrey movie than in a SCANNERS film. So, while the shift toward comedy is dubious, SCANNERS 3: THE TAKEOVER shows off much more gore and at least has more of a personality than its predecessor, with Komorowska turning in an undeniably spirited performance that's really hard to dislike. If you catch this in the right mood, you might find yourself having an unexpectedly good time with it. This one never made it into US theaters, instead going straight to American video stores. (R, 100 mins)
Presented in a Blu-ray/DVD combo pack by Shout! Factory offshoot Scream Factory, the SCANNERS II/SCANNERS 3 set (both films are on one Blu-ray and one DVD) isn't exactly Blu-ray demo-worthy but look nice in 1.78 transfers. The biggest downside of the set is that it contains zero extras, not even trailers. An interview with Duguay would've been a nice bonus feature (if for no other reason than to discuss the shift in tone with SCANNERS 3). Duguay (born in 1959) went on to make the 1992 pre-007 Pierce Brosnan thriller LIVE WIRE before getting some acclaim in sci-fi/horror circles with 1995's SCREAMERS. His best film is probably 1997's Carlos the Jackal-inspired THE ASSIGNMENT (with Aidan Quinn, Donald Sutherland, and Ben Kingsley), which didn't get much attention when it was released but has a small cult following thanks to its many years as a 3:00 am insomniac cable staple (check one of the lower-profile HBO or Showtime channels; it's probably on tonight). Duguay's most widely-seen film is 2000's THE ART OF WAR, one of Wesley Snipes' better efforts from the bygone era when Wesley Snipes movies played in theaters. After 2002's box office dud EXTREME OPS, Duguay left the major studios behind and settled into TV movies like 2008's COCO CHANEL with Shirley MacLaine. In recent years, he's been busy directing movies and miniseries for Italian TV. After the well-done SCREAMERS, it looked as if Duguay might've gone on to become a go-to Hollywood journeyman of the old Richard Fleischer sort to name just one, but in a changing cinematic environment, perhaps it just wasn't meant to be. I always thought he'd have a bigger career than the one that's panned out for him. Just on the basis of some spectacular action sequences in SCANNERS 3, there's no shortage of genre films of the last decade that could've been made better by the professional craftsmanship of an experienced vet like Duguay.
Duguay moved on to bigger things, but the SCANNERS franchise didn't end with this trilogy. Pierre David himself directed 1994's spinoff SCANNER COP (featuring the late, great Richard Lynch), which was followed by 1995's SCANNER COP II, which was retitled SCANNERS: THE SHOWDOWN for American video stores (and it co-starred Robert Forster!). A remake of Cronenberg's original film was announced in 2007, with SAW II/III and REPO: THE GENETIC OPERA director Darren Lynn Bousman attached, but the project fell apart. There was also talk of a SCANNERS TV series around 2011, but thus far, nothing has materialized.
You'd be able to spot the David Cronenberg influence on ANTIVIRAL even without the knowledge that it's the writing/directing debut of his son Brandon. It's a good thing to say the apple doesn't fall far from the tree here. ANTIVIRAL juggles a lot of concepts--too many, in fact--but despite its minor flaws, it's one of the most original and disturbing films to come down the pike in a while, a scathing indictment of vapid celebrity culture fused with the "body horror" elements that figured so prominently in the elder Cronenberg's trail-blazing early work. In a near-future, dystopian Toronto, celebrity worship has grown so huge that bored people with too much time and money on their hands now pay to be infected with viruses harvested directly from their favorite tabloid and entertainment magazine fixtures, as a way to be "closer" to them and be "part of them." Lucas Clinic sales rep Syd March (Caleb Landry Jones) spends his days selling celebrity sicknesses to pathetic customers and his nights selling those same viruses on the black market using equipment stolen from his employers at the clinic. His most lucrative supply comes from beloved celebrity Hannah Geist (Sarah Gadon)--and it's never really specified what Hannah does--she's just always in the news. He pays her a visit to draw some blood during her latest illness (he's previously sold her various flus and even her cold sore virus to a guy who wanted to feel like he'd kissed her and contracted it). When he injects himself with the virus in order to sneak it on to the black market, he becomes violently ill and quickly realizes that something is very wrong with Hannah.
Growing increasingly horrific but not in the ways you expect, ANTIVIRAL is the kind of bleak film that really gets under your skin. While Brandon's story ideas and scripting are an inventive outgrowth of today's culture, he utilizes the clinical methodology of his father's early work. So many images recall the elder Cronenberg: the presence of THE BROOD and THE DEAD ZONE co-star Nicholas Campbell as the head of the Lucas Clinic; the cold, desolate look of Toronto, brilliantly captured by cinematographer Karim Hussain, is reminiscent of everything from SHIVERS to VIDEODROME to CRASH (there's also a lot of CRASH in the shots of endless lines of cars speeding along the freeway); Syd's black-market hustling and his business arrangement with disease dealer Arvid (Joe Pingue), who grows the viruses supplied by Syd into meat patties to sell to his customers, recalls the shady Civic TV wheeling-and-dealing of Max Renn (James Woods) and his tech-geek buddy Harlan (Peter Dvorsky) in VIDEODROME. The increasingly sickly Syd comes across like a more introverted Max Renn, and Jones (THE LAST EXORCISM), with his pale skin and sullen demeanor, reminded me of younger, vaguely androgynous Brad Pitt. Though it's a bit overlong and could've used some trimming in the second half, ANTIVIRAL is a bold and original work, despite the myriad of influences and references--in a way, it seems like it's doing the film a disservice to mention all the David Cronenberg callbacks, but it's impossible to not mention them. It's almost as if Brandon Cronenberg is carving his own path while putting all the "Yes, David Cronenberg is my father" stuff on the table from the start. For fans of the still very active Pops Cronenberg, it's reassuring to see that his legacy and the Cronenberg name will carry on at least one more generation and that his son obviously spent of lot of time observing and learning from Dad and is eager to honor that heritage. And you can't help but smile knowing how proud the old man must've been when he first saw this. Also with Wendy Crewson and Malcolm McDowell in small roles, ANTIVIRAL ranks right up there with Duncan Jones' MOON (2009) and Panos Cosmatos' BEYOND THE BLACK RAINBOW (2012) as the most promising genre debuts in recent years. It's a grim and depressing downer, but would you want anything else from a Cronenberg? (Unrated, 108 mins)
MY AMITYVILLE HORROR (US - 2013)
The alleged haunted house at 112 Ocean View Ave. in the Amityville neighborhood on Long Island has remained a pop culture phenomenon for nearly 40 years since the DeFeo murders took place in 1974. The house was purchased by the Lutz family in 1975, and they left after 28 harrowing days of unexplained and relentless paranormal phenomena. That's been the story all these years, through several books and at least ten movies, though the whole thing is largely accepted to be a hoax (none of the five occupants of the house since 1976 have reported any strange happenings). MY AMITYVILLE HORROR is a documentary that focuses on Daniel Lutz, the oldest of the three Lutz children, who was ten years old when they lived in the house. Now in his late 40s, Lutz is still traumatized by his experiences, and he still claims all of the paranormal occurrences really happened. Lutz is an angry man haunted by a painful childhood. He talks at length about his resentment of George marrying his mother Kathy (which he would only do if Kathy allowed him to legally adopt the kids as his own) and severing ties with his biological father. Lutz portrays George as a manipulative, bad-tempered, and often abusive man with an interest in the occult, with books on paranormal phenomena, hypnosis, and various religions. Psychologists and paranormal experts alike question the validity of Lutz's claims, saying that he may be confusing the incidents from the books and the movies and that the negative memories and unaddressed trauma of his childhood have convinced him of things that may not have happened.
Regardless of where one stands on the Amityville story, MY AMITYVILLE HORROR is a film that probably would've worked better as a 20/20 segment. The abrasive Lutz almost seems to be playing "Daniel Lutz" at times, a character that he's seemingly based on Ed Harris from the looks of it. Director and Amityville historian Eric Walter frequently cuts to shots of Lutz jamming and shredding on his guitar, for no apparent reason other than to kill time. Fans of the recent THE CONJURING will be interested to see Lorraine Warren (played by Vera Farmiga in the film) meeting with Lutz. Lorraine and her late husband Ed went through the Amityville house in 1976, during which time an image was allegedly captured of the "demon boy" reputed to be the ghost of the youngest DeFeo child, when it was actually a member of their own investigating team. There's some interesting observations about the power of a manipulative, controlling person on the collective psyche of a family (and it's worth noting that George Lutz died in 2006 and can't defend himself) and how that impacts entire lives (Lutz's two younger siblings declined to take part in this), but MY AMITYVILLE HORROR doesn't really have enough substance to warrant being feature-length. (Unrated, 89 mins)
Postmodernist literary icon Don DeLillo has always seemed like one of those authors whose novels are simply unfilmable, and David Cronenberg proves both that theory and that every great director has to have a worst film with the ill-advised and badly-executed COSMOPOLIS, based on DeLillo's 2003 novel. Cronenberg hasn't shied away from difficult-to-film literary works before, and he succeeded with 1991's NAKED LUNCH, based on the William S. Burroughs novel. The filmmaker is long past the point of needing to prove anything to anyone, but COSMOPOLIS just doesn't work. In an admirable attempt to stretch, TWILIGHT's Robert Pattinson stars as 28-year-old Wall Street billionaire Eric Packer, whose fortune is about to be decimated by fluctuations in the Chinese yuan. Packer decides that today is the day he wants to travel across Manhattan to get a haircut, despite the protests of his security chief (Kevin Durand) that traffic is being tied up by a Presidential visit, anti-capitalist riots, and a funeral procession for a dead rap star, plus he's getting warnings from "The Complex" that there's been a "credible threat" issued against Packer. Undeterred, Packer orders his security team to take him for a haircut in his ludicrously high-tech stretch limo, where most of the film takes place. Over the course of the day-long ride, Packer picks up various advisors (Samantha Morton, Jay Baruchel, Emily Hampshire) for business meetings and philosophical discussions in the limo, hooks up with his art dealer (Juliette Binoche), picks up a doctor (Bob Bainborough) for his daily EKG and rectal exam, gets out of the limo for a quickie with one of his security detail (Patricia McKenzie), and to have lunch with his wife of less than a month (Sarah Gadon) who complains that she "smells sex" on him. Meanwhile, Occupy-type protestors vandalize the limo and one (Mathieu Amalric) throws a pie in Packer's face before he gets half of a haircut (from veteran Canadian character actor George Touliatos!) and comes face to face with the disgruntled ex-employee (Paul Giamatti) who has vowed to kill him.
Cronenberg updates DeLillo's novel to a certain extent (in the book, Packer was part of the dot com bubble), by tying in the Occupy Wall Street movement and utilizing the yuan as opposed to the Japanese yen. I get what Cronenberg was going after here, with Pattinson's intentionally blank-slate performance illustrating Packer's fundamental disconnect from reality, from emotions, from the 99%, etc. and in dark-humored bits where he's listening to his chief of theory Morton's financial analytical babbling while not even noticing that the limo is being violently attacked by rioters. But it's so ponderous, so tedious, and so heavy-handed that Cronenberg just never gets this off the ground. And dialogue like "The glow of cybercapital is so radiant and seductive," "Money has lost its narrative quality, the way painting did once upon a time," and "My prostate is asymmetrical," works a lot better on the page than on the screen being spoken by actors playing characters. Even the final-act appearance of Giamatti, cast radically against type as "Paul Giamatti," fails to generate any signs of life in this shockingly DOA misfire from Cronenberg. If you're looking for a reason why there haven't been any other features made of DeLillo's novels, look no further than COSMOPOLIS. Even with Pattinson's involvement, this still only played on 65 screens at its widest US release, grossing around $750,000. As bad as this Arthouse Hell is, it would've been undeniably entertaining to watch it in a crowded theater filled with members of Team Edward and seeing how quickly it took for an angry mob of texting Twi-hards to like, totally complain to the manager because they like, paid to get in here and this is so not cool because they're like, talking, and he's got that old doctor dude's finger up his ass, and it's like, eeew!(R, 109 mins)
RED HOOK SUMMER (US - 2012)
Other than documentaries like WHEN THE LEVEES BROKE (2006) and director-for-hire gigs like 25TH HOUR (2002) and INSIDE MAN (2006), Spike Lee has lost a bit of his magic when it comes to smaller, personal indie films. 2004's SHE HATE ME didn't seem to be liked by anyone and got Lee the worst reviews of his career. His latest, the low-budget, self-financed RED HOOK SUMMER, exhibits all the self-indulgent qualities that Lee keeps in check when he's working for a major studio. The newest chapter in Lee's "Brooklyn Chronicles" series (which includes such films as 1989's DO THE RIGHT THING, 1994's CROOKLYN, and 1998's HE GOT GAME), RED HOOK SUMMER (which Lee scripted with MIRACLE AT ST. ANNA writer James McBride), has 13-year-old Flik (Jules Brown) being shipped off from a cushy Atlanta suburb to the Red Hook projects in Brooklyn to spend the summer with his fiery preacher grandfather Bishop Enoch Rouse (Clarke Peters). Flik isn't enthused about being there, especially when the Bishop makes it clear that he's using this time together to turn Flik to Jesus. The fish-out-of-water teen also befriends the outgoing Chazz (Toni Lysaith) and has a run-in with gang member and aspiring rapper Box (Nate Parker). Lee frequenly meanders and lets scenes drag on much longer than necessary, with a lot of screen time devoted to the drunken ramblings of Deacon Zee (Thomas Jefferson Byrd), who's never short on opinions about Wall Street and the bailout. And when he isn't doing things like switching film stock for no reason other than because he can, Lee even finds time for a couple of awkward walk-ons as an aged, paunchy, gray-bearded Mookie, his character from DO THE RIGHT THING, and yes, he's still delivering pizzas for Sal's. Really, Spike? Come on.
The best thing about RED HOOK SUMMER is a powerhouse performance from Peters, best known for his work on the HBO series THE WIRE and TREME. There's a third act plot development that essentially forces Lee to turn the whole film over to Peters, and it's here that it finally finds some dramatic momentum, even if it creates a massive logic lapse as to why Flik's mom would send him to Red Hook. Too much time is spent with Flik and Chazz, and I know they're new to this and it's the first movie for each of them and it's kind of a dick move to take cheap shots at young, inexperienced performers and I'm sure they're nice kids, but Brown and Lysaith are absolutely terrible actors. I really don't think Lee could've done a worse job casting these two pivotal roles. Peters tries to carry young Brown along, but there's only so much he can do. If you're a fan of Peters' television work, then RED HOOK SUMMER is worth seeing for him. He's great but he's not enough to keep this from being one of Lee's least-interesting films, though it does have Peters' WIRE co-star Isiah Whitlock, Jr. stopping by long enough to drop a "Sheeeeeeeeeit!" (and he's credited as Isiah "Sheeeeeeet" Whitlock, Jr!). Otherwise, it's a sluggishly-paced horse pill that actually seems to last an entire summer. (R, 121 mins, also streaming on Netflix)
BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD
(US - 2012)
Equal parts Terrence Malick and Maurice Sendak, the critically-adored BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD stars a cast of non-professional actors led by six-year-old Quvenzhane Wallis, who rises above the film's more frustrating elements to deliver a truly remarkable performance. As terrific as she is, the film as a whole failed to connect, regardless of how well-intentioned it is. Hushpuppy (Wallis) lives with her father Wink (Dwight Henry, also excellent) in an impoverished, fictional area off the coast of Louisiana known as "The Bathtub" (inspired by the disappearing Isle de Jean Charles). The Bathtub is on the wrong side of the levee, and as Hushpuppy's teacher Miss Bathsheba (Gina Montana) tells her, the ice caps are melting and The Bathtub will eventually cease to exist due to rising waters. Hushpuppy has visions of rampaging aurachs frozen for centuries, now freed by the melted ice caps, in addition to having imaginary conversations with her absent mother and trying to care for the loving, but unstable and frequently abusive Wink after a Katrina-like storm destroys The Bathtub. The residents of The Bathtub are the kinds of close-knit, insulated, and isolated types that have always been left behind by society. Most are illiterate and live in uninhabitable shacks (Hushpuppy has her own home, an elevated trailer near her dad's rundown shack; and their boat is the detached bed of a pickup truck). Director/co-writer Benh Zeitlin is to be commended for getting such a natural, unaffected performance out of a six-year-old novice (she's particularly devastating near the end, and it's Oscar-caliber work), but the film otherwise comes off like an NPR wet dream. (PG-13, 93 mins)
"Austere" and "erudite" are terms that frequently came up in reviews of David Cronenberg's Freud-Jung cage match A DANGEROUS METHOD. I think Cronenberg deliberately fashioned the film to be as dry and restrained as it is as a reflection of its repressed characters, who spend their lives exploring the birth of psychoanalysis and the psychological study of sexuality while unable to face such desires and needs in themselves. Most of this is reflected in the relationship between Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender) and patient-turned-lover-turned-colleague Sabina Spielrein (Keira Knightley). Sigmund Freud (Viggo Mortensen) figures in as a mentor-turned-colleague-turned-rival to Jung. When Jung isn't spanking Sabine, he's discussing psychoanalysis with her, or writing to and receiving letters from Freud, read in voiceover by the actors. It's all lovely to look at, with some beautiful locations (and some unfortunately shoddy greenscreen work when Freud and Jung travel to the U.S.), and a much-debated performance by Knightley that's nothing if not committed. Many accused her of egregious overacting in her early scenes of frenzied, psychotic hysteria, but I highly doubt a filmmaker as intelligent and well-read as Cronenberg would direct someone to act in a way that didn't accurately reflect what it's trying to convey. It's a jarring, difficult performance that might induce snickers at times, especially the way she juts out her chin, but I have no reason to doubt the veracity of its depiction, even though Knightley's Russian accent often veers from "faintly subtle" to "Boris & Natasha." Fassbender and Mortensen are fine, as is Vincent Cassel in a brief role as a doctor/patient who more or less functions as Jung's id, razzing his inhibitions and goading him into his fling with Sabina behind the back of his (of course) repressed wife (Sarah Gadon). A DANGEROUS METHOD is a sincere, ambitious, and intelligent effort with a lot to admire, and while I think it's by design, it's still just too dry, distant, and off-putting for its own good. (R, 99 mins)
CORMAN'S WORLD: EXPLOITS OF A HOLLYWOOD REBEL (US - 2011)
Affectionate documentary on legendary producer/director Roger Corman earned a lot of accolades in critical circles, but except for a couple of brief segments, it really isn't anything more than the kind of interview/bonus feature you'd find on one of Shout Factory's "Roger Corman's Cult Classics" DVDs. Director Alex Stapleton does succeed in getting interviews with the likes of Jack Nicholson and Robert De Niro, but too much of the film rehashes things that fans of Corman and cult cinema in general have already known for years. A bit of time is spent on 1961's THE INTRUDER, Corman's personal favorite film and an early stab at serious cinema (and, as he's pointed out many times over the years and does so again here, it's the only Corman picture that lost money), and a couple of interview subjects question wonder aloud why Corman shepherded so much great talent over the decades, but never made it to the A-list himself. But mostly, it's a Corman highlight reel (which is never not entertaining), with an intense focus on his AIP and New World years, and current Syfy Channel productions, but almost no time at all devoted to his Concorde/New Horizons films. On one hand, 90 minutes really isn't enough time to cover all the bases of the man's career and his influence on what's come after, but at the same time, CORMAN'S WORLD too often comes off like an inflated puff piece. And while the list of interviews here is impressive (Martin Scorsese, Peter Fonda, Pam Grier, William Shatner, Peter Bogdanovich, Bruce Dern, Joe Dante, Ron Howard, Dick Miller, Jonathan Haze, Mary Woronov, and several who have since passed on since their interviews were shot, like David Carradine, George Hickenlooper, Irvin Kershner, and Polly Platt), there's a longer list of interview subjects thanked in the closing credits that didn't make the final cut. And yet, Eli Roth still makes it into the film. There's a bonus feature with extended interviews that runs just 13 minutes, and kicks off with...Eli Roth. I guess if you've never read much on Corman or are just getting into his massive body of work, CORMAN'S WORLD is a great way to get your feet wet, but for those of us who've spent a good chunk of our lives enjoying and studying his work, both the good and the bad, there's unfortunately not much here you haven't heard before, regardless of how sincere and well-intentioned it may be. The film's highlight (other than the clips) is provided by an uncharacteristically emotional Nicholson, who briefly loses his composure while reflecting upon just how much Corman has meant to his career. It's a powerful, genuine, and almost overwhelming moment to see arguably the world's most famous actor drop his guard and be himself instead of "Jack." (R, 90 mins)
