THE BEGUILED (US - 2017) Written and directed by Sofia Coppola. Cast: Colin Farrell, Nicole Kidman, Kirsten Dunst, Elle Fanning, Oona Laurence, Angourie Rice, Addison Riecke, Emma Howard. (R, 93 mins) Based on Thomas P. Cullinan's 1966 Civil War-set novel A Painted Devil, THE BEGUILED was previously made into a film in 1971 by director Don Siegel. A departure at the time for star Clint Eastwood, who would have DIRTY HARRY in theaters later that year, THE BEGUILED was a badly marketed box-office flop though its reputation has improved significantly over time. It's especially interesting in hindsight when viewing it as part of the entire Eastwood canon, as it's a fascinating look at a masculine, archetypal Eastwood character having the tables turned on him by a boarding school full of women he's manipulated and betrayed (though it also shares a common theme with the later and far more sordid and sleazy TIGHTROPE, where once again Eastwood is a character surrounded by women--in that case, prostitutes and other sex workers--throwing themselves at him and he's never once shown paying). Sofia Coppola's remake, also called THE BEGUILED, approaches the story more from the POV of the women, though it hasn't been without controversy: a slave character named Hallie (played by Mae Mercer in the 1971 film) has been dropped, her absence explained in an early bit of a dialogue where someone says "The slaves all left." In addition, the character of Edwina, played by Kirsten Dunst, was biracial in the novel, but it's never mentioned here, nor was "whitewashing" brought up in 1971 when Elizabeth Hartman played the same role, but perhaps critics and film enthusiasts had more pressing issues to bitch about in 1971. Neither the novel nor the 1971 film had any big salient points to make regarding race or slavery, because it's not what the story is about. Coppola explained her reasoning being that girls and young women tend to be drawn to her films (THE VIRGIN SUICIDES, THE BLING RING), and she didn't want a black female to be portrayed in any negative way that distracted from the story.
The central premise remains the same: in 1864 Virginia, Corporal John McBurney (Colin Farrell), a Union deserter, is found injured in the woods surrounding a sparsely-attended girls school. Young Amy (Oona Laurence of SOUTHPAW) is out picking mushrooms and helps him back to the school grounds, where he's taken in and his leg wound tended to by headmistress Miss Martha Farnsworth (Nicole Kidman). Agreeing to give him time to recover before turning him over to Confederate soldiers, Miss Martha keeps McBurney locked in the music room and informs the others--teacher Edwina (Dunst), rebellious teen Alicia (Elle Fanning), and younger girls Jane (Angourie Rice of THE NICE GUYS), Marie (Addison Riecke), and Marie (Emma Howard)--that McBurney's room is off limits. With his smoldering looks and his Irish brogue, the charming, Dublin-born McBurney slowly endears himself to the women and the girls, who begin showing off by dressing in their best clothes, breaking out the jewelry ("You haven't worn that pendant since the Christmas party!" two different people mention to Edwina), and constantly finding excuses to go into his room. McBurney revels in the attention and it isn't long before the choking atmosphere of repression simmers into overpowering sexual tension as McBurney declares his love for Edwina while seducing Alicia and very nearly getting the prim, proper Miss Martha into his bed. Hell hath no fury like several women scorned, and things go south very quickly for McBurney.
A Southern Gothic that was as close as Eastwood ever came to starring in a horror movie, the 1971 BEGUILED took its time to let things boil over and when they did, it got seriously dark and unsettling. Coppola doesn't replicate that feeling here because her version seems to rush through the story (the closing credits roll before the 90-minute mark). Farrell's McBurney tells Edwina he loves her much too quickly, and whether Coppola's breezing past the details or it's intentional to show how lonely and desperate Edwina is for an escape from her dreary existence, it doesn't work. This new interpretation shows more gore in the surgical scenes and blood splattered all over Miss Martha's white dress as she emphatically orders someone to "Go to the smokehouse, bring me the saw!" before performing an impromptu offscreen leg amputation--a horrifying moment in the original film--but it's tame in other respects. Gone is the subplot about Miss Martha's past incestuous relationship with her brother (which led to one of Eastwood's best lines in the 1971 version) as well as any sense of tension and suspense at all. The shocking scenes where Eastwood's McBurney kills Amy's beloved turtle, and when he wakes up to find one of his legs missing are both ineffectively handled here to the point of being bungled. The subsequent psychotic rampage by Farrell's McBurney threatens to turn Coppola's BEGUILED into a Civil War-set "Houseguest from Hell" thriller, while the climactic dinner sequence loses all of its momentum thanks to Coppola's bizarre decision to have Edwina decline a helping of mushrooms. Farrell, Kidman, and the supporting cast are fine, but Kidman isn't given nearly as meaty and complex a Miss Martha as Geraldine Page got to play in 1971, and the only real improvement Coppola makes is with her Kubrick-like use of natural lighting throughout. Shot by cinematographer Philippe Le Sourd (THE GRANDMASTER) in a 1.66 aspect ratio--unusual for today's movies--THE BEGUILED '17 looks great. There's a dreamlike haze to the proceedings--not surprising to anyone who's seen THE VIRGIN SUICIDES--and you can feel the sweltering humidity, and with the BARRY LYNDON-like natural lighting, whether it's sunlight during the day or candles providing scant illumination at night, accompanied by the constant background noise of war and cannon fire and the sight of smoke from battle that's too close to the school for comfort, you really do feel transported back to 1864. But elsewhere, this BEGUILED doesn't seem to show much purpose since Coppola seems to have gone out of her way to render it as dramatically inert as possible. It looks stunning, but what exactly was the point of remaking this?
MIDNIGHT SPECIAL (US - 2016) Written and directed by Jeff Nichols. Cast: Michael Shannon, Joel Edgerton, Kirsten Dunst, Adam Driver, Sam Shepard, Jaeden Lieberher, Bill Camp, Scott Haze, Paul Sparks, David Jensen, Dana Gourrier, Sean Bridgers. (PG-13, 112 mins) Since his brilliant 2008 debut SHOTGUN STORIES, Arkansas-based writer/director Jeff Nichols has explored family bonds and haunted legacies in distinct and vivid rural settings. His is a unique voice that has emerged over his follow-up efforts TAKE SHELTER (2011) and MUD (2013), a key film in the McConaissance of a few years back, in which Matthew McConaughey turned in an even better performance than he did in DALLAS BUYERS CLUB, even though it was the latter that got him an Oscar. MUD was enough of a sleeper hit to get Nichols his first major-studio production, the sci-fi drama MIDNIGHT SPECIAL, though it's hardly a commercial, multiplex endeavor. Warner Bros. opened it small after sitting on it for nearly two years and changing the release date a few times, and it's the kind of film that gains traction by word of mouth. Though he's working with a bigger budget and some reasonably conservative use of special effects, Nichols keeps MIDNIGHT SPECIAL very much in line with his own cinematic niche. In a way, it's his most personal film yet, inspired by a period where his then eight-month-old son was suffering seizures and was paralyzed for a month.
MIDNIGHT SPECIAL focuses on a family that's loving but shattered nonetheless. Nichols plays his cards close to the vest, offering small details here and there and leaving it to the audience to connect the dots, a brave decision in today's multiplexes. Roy Tomlin (Nichols regular Michael Shannon) and his friend Lucas (Joel Edgerton) are the subjects of a manhunt after an Amber Alert is issued for Alton Meyer (Jaeden Lieberher), the eight-year-old adopted son of Calvin Meyer (Sam Shepard). Meyer is the charismatically shady leader of a religious cult known as "The Ranch," whose Texas compound has just been raided by the FBI after months of surveillance. Meyer tells the agents in charge that Roy is Alton's biological father and that Roy and his estranged wife Sarah (Kirsten Dunst) recently left The Ranch. Meyer preaches a series of numbers that the FBI and NSA investigator Paul Sevier (Adam Driver) believe are top-secret coordinates transmitted from government satellites. Both are incredulous when Meyer tells them the numbers came out of Alton's mouth and he believes he's a vessel for God's word. While Meyer dispatches his own hired guns (Bill Camp, Scott Haze) to find Alton, the boy is being taken to an unknown location in Florida by his father and Lucas, a childhood friend of Roy's who lost touch with him after Roy's family joined Meyer's cult. For reasons that become clear as the film goes on, Alton cannot be out in daylight and must wear dark goggles that keep in check powerful beams of light that emanate from his eyes when he gets his "messages" and noise-canceling headphones in an attempt to keep him from picking up radio signals. When he brings down a government satellite and it crashes in pieces on a gas station in the middle of the night, the FBI turns the case over to Sevier, the NSA, and the military, who want to get to the bottom of Alton's unique abilities, but even they aren't prepared for the reality of Alton or his origin.
A very allegorical, metaphorical story open to a number of interpretations--is Alton a symbol for Jesus? Is he possessed? Is he from another world? Is he a young superhero learning to control his powers? Is he terminally ill?--MIDNIGHT SPECIAL may be Nichols' most personal film yet. In dealing with the situation involving his own ill infant son and the recovery that inspired him to conceive this story, Nichols gained new perspectives on parenthood that resonate in the relationship between Roy and Alton. Shannon, rarely a sympathetic figure onscreen, is often heartbreaking as a loving father struggling to put his family back together and willing to do whatever it takes, even sacrificing innocent bystanders, to fulfill his role as protector and make sure his son is safe. Much has been made of the Spielbergian, CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND nature of MIDNIGHT SPECIAL, though I'd argue that a good chunk of the film could almost pass for John Carpenter in STARMAN mode or Joe Dante in one of his darker moods. Regardless of what's the bigger stylistic influence, MIDNIGHT SPECIAL feels like an early 1980s film lost in time, and that's meant to be a compliment. Nichols demonstrates an ability to tell a bigger story that grows more reliant on special effects as it proceeds while still keeping it grounded in his own style and tone. Nichols loves setting films in rural places and makes great use of empty highways and back country roads, and it's telling that MIDNIGHT SPECIAL's weakest section is its effects-filled finale, where the payoff doesn't quite match the buildup (also, Shepard's Calvin Meyer just disappears from the film), with an open-to-interpretation ending that feels a little hoary and played-out. Still, for a film that's bigger than anything he's done ($20 million is probably still considered "low-budget," but that's double what MUD cost), MIDNIGHT SPECIAL succeeds in the way it very much remains the distinctive work of its maker. That's something that's unusual to see in today's movies, particularly ones with big-studio money that gradually roll out to nationwide release. This isn't Nichols' best film, but it's still a very good one that's better than a lot of what's out there now, and with a 4-for-4 record, it's pretty clear by this point that this is someone we can start calling an important American filmmaker.
If you can imagine SHOCK WAVES caught in the Polar Vortex and paired with UNIVERSAL SOLDIER, but brought down by sluggish pacing and lackluster greenscreen and CGI, then you've got a pretty good idea of how ICE SOLDIERS plays out. During the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, while America is focused on Cuba, the Russians have deployed three genetically-engineered super soldiers to launch a terrorist attack on NYC. But their plane crashes in the barren tundra of northernmost Canada and they're discovered by some scientists at a nearby military base, who are promptly killed as the "Ice Soldiers" vanish in the endless, frozen wilderness. 50 years later, scientists Malraux (Dominic Purcell) and Lobokoff (Nicu Branzea) get funding from an oil company to ostensibly drill for crude but really to search for the Ice Soldiers, who Malraux believes are still at large. Also along are micro-managing oil company ballbuster Frazer (Camille Sullivan), who hired a crew of money-hungry crew of mercenaries led by Col. Trump (the great Michael Ironside). With a blizzard on the way, Frazer and Trump call an early end to the expedition until Malraux discovers the frozen bodies of the three Ice Soldiers who, miraculously, still show faint signs of life. Frazer and Trump see endless riches but Malraux has a change of heart and tries to terminate the life support for the Ice Soldiers, who proceed to kill everyone but Malraux and again escape. On his own in the middle of nowhere, Malraux encounters Native American TC Cardinal (Adam Beach) and hires him to help track the Ice Soldiers, who have retained their intelligence and still plan to go forth with their half-century-old plan of attacking NYC.
Directed by Sturla Gunnarsson (BEOWOLF & GRENDEL) and written by Jonathan Tydor (I COME IN PEACE), ICE SOLDIERS gets off to a decent start and gets a lift from an enjoyably growly Ironside in vintage "Michael Ironside" mode. Even Purcell is better than usual and the film has some amusingly goofy asides, like the Ice Soldiers commandeering an SUV and discovering their affinity for rap music and trashy women. But with 90% of the cast killed off by the midway point, the pace slows significantly and Gunnarsson and Tydor fall victim to clichés and plot convenience. Of course Cardinal has a drinking problem. And when the trail of the Ice Soldiers leads Malraux and Cardinal to the nearest town, they're immediately arrested for no reason other than increasing the body count when the dumb--and soon-to-be dead--cops don't buy their story. By the time Malraux brawls it out with the lead Ice Soldier (Gabriel Hogan), it's very likely that you'll be as checked out of this as its makers. (R, 95 mins)
RANDOM ACTS OF VIOLENCE (US - 2014)
There's a sharp satirical bite to the concept behind this faux-documentary from NYC-based British indie filmmaker Ashley Cahill. Filmed in 2010 under the title CHARM and shown on the festival circuit under that title as well as MALCOLM before its current rechristening, RANDOM ACTS OF VIOLENCE stars writer/director/producer/editor Cahill as Malcolm, a seemingly affable Manhattan doorman who moonlights as a serial killer whose exploits are being chronicled by documentary filmmaker Bob (Dominic Ciccodicola). Citing Kubrick's A CLOCKWORK ORANGE and Scorsese's MEAN STREETS and TAXI DRIVER as influences (and dedicating the film to Samuel Fuller), Cahill's biggest debt is probably owed to Remy Belvaux's MAN BITES DOG as Malcolm sets out to avenge the gentrification of NYC and return it to its sleazy and dangerous glory days of the '70s and '80s. AMERICAN PSYCHO-as-a-mockumentary wears a little thin after a while and Cahill falls victim to intermittent self-indulgence, but there's a lot of genuinely sick laughs throughout, whether Malcolm is confronted with such offenses as homeless people asking for his pizza but complaining because it's not vegetarian ("You're a bum, you're begging for food and you won't eat meat? What happened to this city?"), vacuous poseurs who wear homemade Truffaut and Godard tees but don't appreciate Clint Eastwood and HIGH PLAINS DRIFTER ("Is that the one with the monkey?" someone asks), vegans, thumb rings, movie theater texters ("Do you know how difficult it is to get a film released? Have some respect for the cinema!"), and trendy bands ("If I could kill any band in the world, it would be Kings of Leon"). There's also some hints at sly meta commentary on battles between producers and directors when Malcolm starts clashing with Bob over the goals of the documentary and the direction in which it's heading. Cahill doesn't really explore the ramifications of his actions until an admittedly inspired finale that feels like TAXI DRIVER if rewritten by Larry David. Not everything in RANDOM ACTS OF VIOLENCE works and it ultimately feels like a drawn-out MAN BITES DOG tribute as seen through the lens of a trust-fund Abel Ferrara, but when it works--which is more often than not--it works well, and I liked the vibe that Cahill captures amidst the jarring mix of laugh-out-loud humor and shocking violence. As an actor, he comes off as an odd and funny combination of Stephen Merchant and William Fichtner. Also with Dustin Hoffman's dead ringer son Jake as a gun dealer and a cameo by Cahill pal Kirsten Dunst as herself. Co-produced by Wes Craven's son Jon. (Unrated, 87 mins, also streaming on Netflix Instant)
Note: though in English, this is the French trailer for the film, hence the "Un Film de Ashley Cahill," which is not some pretentiously douchey stab at humor on his part.
This $60 million sci-fi epic sat on the shelf for over two years before getting a 39-screen US release, grossing just over $100,000. Sporting the kind of concept that completely collapses under any serious scrutiny, UPSIDE DOWN is easily the dumbest sci-fi film since BRANDED, and sets a land-speed record for a movie bailing on its own established rules, already contradicting itself approximately five minutes in. The film is set on twin planets with "double gravity" orbiting around the same sun, where the rich and privileged live "Up Top" and the poor and disenfranchised "Down Below." Contact between worlds is forbidden and Each world has its own gravity and its own concept of matter--for instance, "inverse matter" taken from one world to another combusts after a short period. Adam (Jim Sturgess) from Down Below has loved Eden (Kirsten Dunst) from Up Top since they were children and their forbidden relationship was broken apart by the authorities. Eden was shot in the dust-up and suffers from varying degrees of amnesia. Years later, Adam finds out she works for Trans World, a Big Brother-type corporation whose skyscraper headquarters exists in both worlds, with floor zero being the point where Up Top and Down Below people can co-exist, even though the Up Top people are upside-down. Adam gets a job at Trans World, trying to sell his aunt's flying pink pancake mix as an expensive beauty product, when in fact it's a secret formula to negate the gravity of both worlds. By stealing various metals from Up Top, Adam is able to fashion a temporary protective under-armor to buy him some time appearing normal in Up Top (though he has to spray his mop-top down to keep it from floating up) before he inevitably starts to ignite. Because of her amnesia, Eden doesn't remember Adam, who will stop at nothing, dueling gravities or plot logic be damned, to be with his one true love.
Is there any wonder why this barely got released? It's fascinatingly stupid. Writer/director Juan Solanas obviously concentrated so much on the visual element that he never really mapped out the logistics of the concept. Even then, for a film this expensive, the CGI visuals are pretty second-rate, oversaturated, and unconvincing. The interiors and the exteriors frequently look like a cheap fusion of Orson Welles' THE TRIAL (1962), Luc Besson's THE FIFTH ELEMENT (1997), and a prog-metal album cover. Even if the visual effects were up to par and Dunst and Sturgess weren't the dullest cinematic romantic pairing in years, the rampant lack of logic would be too much for UPSIDE DOWN to overcome. The story ignores its own basic rules when it's convenient for the plot or can provide a nice visual, and constantly backs itself into a corner only to simply make something up to explain it away. The only jaw-dropping thing about UPSIDE DOWN is the astonishing number of emergency dei ex machina that Solanas has stored up his ass. (PG-13, 108 mins)
PUSHER (France/UK - 2012)
DRIVE director Nicolas Winding Refn commissioned this London-set remake of his 1996 Danish breakthrough about one week in the life of a low-level drug dealer who has to come up with some fast cash to get out of trouble with a powerful crime boss. While PUSHER 2012 is fast-moving and highly watchable, the biggest question is "Why?" Unless you're a complete subtitle-phobe or have an intense dislike of the sound of the Danish language, there's not really any need to see this almost carbon-copy redux, which goes so far as to cast the same actor (Zlatko Buric) as the pusher's main antagonist. Ambitious but small-time London coke dealer Frank (Richard Coyle) sets up a potentially lucrative deal with heroin borrowed from Serbian drug lord Milo (Buric). When cops bust the deal, Frank dumps the dope in a lake and is on the hook to Milo for its value plus money already borrowed, plus a tacked-on fee that Milo imposes simply because he's pissed off. Frank spends the rest of the film pursuing debts from his clients and setting up additional deals that inevitably fall through, all to keep Milo and his goons off his back. Director Luis Prieto goes for a hypnotic, flashy sort-of Danny Boyle meets Guy Ritchie look, all set to a throbbing, driving score by Orbital, and it's not a bad film at all, just an unnecessary and overly familiar one. It doesn't add anything to Winding Refn's original (which was successful enough to spawn two sequels), and everything about it seems like you've seen it all before, because you have...if not in the earlier PUSHER, then in any number of other British crime thrillers over the last 15 years. Coyle is solid in the lead and Buric is very entertaining as the outwardly gregarious ("Easy peasy lemon squeezy!") but thoroughly ruthless Milo, but PUSHER's biggest problem is its complete lack of a reason to exist. (R, 89 mins)
HANSEL & GRETEL GET BAKED (US - 2013)
Coming soon after the lackluster HANSEL & GRETEL: WITCH HUNTERS and neither the HAROLD & KUMAR comedy nor the shitty Asylum knockoff that the title would indicate, HANSEL & GRETEL GET BAKED is a blood-splattered and at times engagingly silly horror movie that gets a lot of mileage from a campy and self-deprecating performance by Lara Flynn Boyle as Agnes, a "little old lady from Pasadena" who's a weed-dealing witch getting younger with each stoner customer she kills and eats. Hansel (Michael Welch, one of the TWILIGHT guys who's not Robert Pattinson or Taylor Lautner) and Gretel (CASTLE's Molly Quinn) are siblings with the house to themselves for the weekend (their folks "went to visit the Stiltskins") only to end up searching for Gretel's boyfriend (Andrew James Allen) who went to buy weed from Agnes and never returned. Agnes also tangles with gang leader Carlos (Reynaldo Gallegos) who wants a cut of her sales since she's stealing all of his customers who are never heard from again. Directed by Duane Journey and written by co-star David Tillman, HANSEL & GRETEL GET BAKED is a essentially a one-joke idea played surprisingly straight, with some welcome and plentiful old-school gore courtesy of makeup effects veteran Vincent Guastini. It's no great shakes, but it's well-made, doesn't fall into the trap of repetitive and annoying stoner humor and Boyle, who hasn't been seen in much since the 2005-2006 season of the NBC series LAS VEGAS, really gets a chance to cut loose here and have some fun, even if her performance is more than a little inspired by Heath Ledger's work in THE DARK KNIGHT. Also with Yancy Butler (looking much better than she has in recent SyFy movies) and Lochlyn Munro as cops, and an unrecognizable Cary Elwes in a cameo as a schlubby meter reader with Coke-bottle glasses. (Unrated, 87 mins)
