BIRD BOX (US - 2018) Directed by Susanne Bier. Written by Eric Heisserer. Cast: Sandra Bullock, Trevante Rhodes, John Malkovich, Sarah Paulson, Jacki Weaver, Rosa Salazar, Daniele Macdonald, Lil Rel Howery, Tom Hollander, Colson Baker, BD Wong, Pruitt Taylor Vince, Vivien Lyra Blair, Julian Edwards, Parminder Nagra, Rebecca Pidgeon, Amy Gumenick, Taylor Handley, David Dastmalchian, Happy Anderson. (R, 124 mins) Based on a 2014 novel by Josh Malerman, the frontman for Detroit indie rockers The High Strung, the Netflix Original film BIRD BOX has an intriguing concept that was probably conveyed more effectively on the page than on the screen, where its ideas come off as tired riffs on the overly familiar. Comparisons to this year's earlier A QUIET PLACE are inevitable, and there's also some of PONTYPOOL and the apocalyptic horror feel of THE WALKING DEAD, but it mostly plays like a less preachy retread of M. Night Shyamalan's little-loved THE HAPPENING, which seems an unlikely choice for any film to emulate, especially a decade later and with no apparent sense of revisionist affection on the horizon. Jumping back and forth between the present day and five years earlier, BIRD BOX takes time to piece its story together but you'll ahead of the game all the way, predicting all of its punches and reveals long before they're apparent to its characters. It opens with Malorie (Sandra Bullock, who also produced) coldly and methodically blindfolding two children, named "Boy" (Julian Edwards) and "Girl" (Vivien Lyra Blair), and loading them, some supplies, and three birds in a box into a small boat for an arduous journey along a dangerous river. She dons a blindfold herself and warns them to not speak or remove the blindfolds no matter what they hear.
Cut to five years ago, as a strange mass suicide phenomenon stemming from Russia and Eastern Europe makes its way to the US: people stopping dead in their tracks, their eyes changing color, and impulsively killing themselves by the quickest means at their disposal, spurred on by voices that only they can hear, often those of friends and family encouraging their actions. The force's presence is indicated by increased wind gusts and sensed by birds. Malorie, a single, misanthropic artist who's pregnant and largely in denial about it, is in an SUV with her sister Shannon (Sarah Paulson) when the "virus" breaks out. Shannon is behind the wheel and overtaken by the force, loses control, gets out and, as if under some kind of mind control, wanders directly into the path of a speeding truck. In the ensuing panic and chaos, a woman (Rebecca Pidgeon) walks out of a house to rescue Malorie but is herself "taken over," answering to her unseen mother and self-immolating by getting into a car already engulfed in flames. Malorie is taken into the house, whose kind-hearted owner Greg (BD Wong) has turned into a shelter for his neighbors and uninfected passersby, among them the woman's abrasive husband Douglas (John Malkovich), who's already no fan of Malorie since his wife died trying to rescue her, ex-military Tom (Trevante Rhodes), Cheryl (Jacki Weaver), Charlie (Lil Rel Howery), Lucy (Rosa Salazar), and Felix (Colson Baker, better known as rapper Machine Gun Kelly).
BIRD BOX continues to cut back and forth between the post-outbreak of five years earlier and Malorie, Boy, and Girl's journey on the river, presumably to some known area of safety while pre-spoiling who doesn't make it. Screenwriter Eric Heisserer (ARRIVAL) and Danish director Susanne Bier, making her first film since the long-shelved and barely-released 2015 Bradley Cooper/Jennifer Lawrence bomb SERENA, do manage to convey a nerve-wracking intensity in the early outbreak scenes and in the bits where the survivors go out for food and supplies blindfolded, forced to feel their way around and at the mercy of voices constantly badgering them to "look." But the more the film goes on, the more predictable and silly it becomes. They let another pregnant woman, Olympia (Danielle Macdonald), in the house against Douglas' wishes, but when odd, twitchy Gary (Tom Hollander) shows up, it should be immediately apparent that he's bad news, which only Douglas--BIRD BOX's de facto Harry Cooper--seems to pick up on. Things really start collapsing around the time Malorie and Olympia go into labor at the same time. When the backstory is told and the third act goes forward with the river journey, the film turns into an eye-rolling metaphor for...I don't know...motherhood, I guess? Malorie is distant, unlikable, and often cruel to Boy and Girl, so much so that they're five years old and don't even have names. It's eye-rollingly ludicrous when she has her Come to Jesus moment as "it" surrounds them but is held at bay when Malorie defiantly declares "Leave my children alone!" That's even before a Shyamalanian reveal and the absurd reappearance of a minor character who only seems to exist to give a nod of affirmation that, yes, Malorie is indeed a good mother. BIRD BOX has an effective score by always-reliable team of Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross (the closing credits theme really gets its John Carpenter groove on), and it benefits from an ensemble of fine actors--and Machine Gun Kelly--doing what they do. Bullock and Paulson display a terrific and very natural sibling chemistry until Paulson's early and abrupt exit, Howery is essentially playing the same comic relief exposition guy he perfected in GET OUT, and Malkovich is cast radically against type as "John Malkovich." But it doesn't offer much in the way of originality, and seems specifically designed to be a horror movie for people who don't watch horror movies and therefore won't recognize just how many ideas it's recycling.
Directed by Lee Harry. Written by Lee Harry and Joseph H. Earle. Cast: Eric Freeman, James L. Newman, Elizabeth Kaitan, Jean Miller, Darrel Guilbeau, Brian Michael Henley, Corinne Gelfan, Michael Combatti, Kenneth Bryan James, Ron Moriarty, Frank Novak, Nadya Wynd, J. Aubrey Island, Randy Post, Lilyan Chauvan, Gilmer McCormick, Robert Brian Wilson, Britt Leach, Linnea Quigley, Tara Buckman, Charles Dierkop. (R, 88 mins)
"I can't think of a time I've ever been scammed. Well, except for SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT PART 2." - Video Junkie's William Wilson
The notorious Santa slasher SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT caused a major nationwide uproar when it hit theaters in the fall of 1984, leading to parent protests, condemnation from religious and political organizations, and even Siskel & Ebert admonishing the makers of the film and condemning its profits as "blood money." The outrage was so focused on SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT that another similarly-themed slasher film released at the same time, DON'T OPEN TILL CHRISTMAS, came and went with almost no notice. Such hysteria was commonplace in the era of the "Satanic Panic," when the media convinced nervous parents that Satan-worshiping cults were hiding in plain sight and everything from horror movies to heavy metal functioned as convenient scapegoats for kids behaving badly. It wasn't the first film to depict a killer Santa Claus (the opening segment of 1972's TALES FROM THE CRYPT had Joan Collins trapped in a house, trying to elude an escaped maniac in a Santa costume, and the 1980 films CHRISTMAS EVIL and TO ALL A GOODNIGHT both had killer Kris Kringles), or even the first slasher movie to have a Christmas setting (1974's BLACK CHRISTMAS, where sorority girls are offed by a lunatic who's hiding in the attic), but for some reason, America collectively decided to lose its shit over SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT. Once the controversy died down, people saw it for what it was: a serviceable and largely generic exploitation/horror outing with no more or less splatter and T&A than a dozen other holiday/calendar-themed similar slasher movies.
Released in the spring of 1987, SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT PART 2 generated a different kind of outrage, as evidenced in the quote from my friend William Wilson at the top of this piece, which actually came from a recent non-film-related conversation about internet scammers preying on the elderly. This sequel, however, preyed on gullible slasher fans. One of the most notorious hosejobs in all of horror, SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT PART 2 eventually focuses on Ricky, the younger brother of Billy, the killer Santa from the first film. Both kids--five-year-old Billy and infant Ricky--were placed in an orphanage whose level of oppression can charitably be described as "Dickensian," complete with a stern, fanatical Mother Superior, after their parents were murdered by a man in a Santa costume. Once Billy turned 18, he left the orphanage, threw on some Santa garb, and embarked on a ho-ho-homicidal rampage, ultimately coming back to kill Mother Superior before he's shot dead by the cops, ending with a traumatized young Ricky intoning "Naughty." PART 2 opens with an adult Ricky (Eric Freeman) in a mental institution and being interviewed by Dr. Bloom (James L. Newman) on Christmas Eve, probably not the best time to ask him to unpack bad childhood memories. Ricky begins to tell his story, which involves a recap of key events of SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT. And by recap, we're not talking a quick "previously on" before moving forward. No, SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT PART 2 director Lee Harry spends the next 40 (!) minutes showing entire stretches of the first film over again, enough that its director, THE LIFE AND TIMES OF GRIZZLY ADAMS creator Charles E. Sellier, Jr., probably should've shared credit. Stop and read that again. It's not a typo. 40 minutes! Not only is the foundation for the sequel so flimsy that the flashbacks eat up nearly half of the 88-minute running time, but they're flashbacks to things Ricky couldn't possibly have witnessed. He eventually gets to his own story (you know, the "sequel"), explaining how he was adopted by a nice family after his brother's death but still couldn't ignore his murderous impulses and Santa-related trauma, ultimately going on his own rampage once he's set off by his girlfriend Jennifer's (Elizabeth Kaitan) asshole ex, inevitably named Chip (Kenneth Bryan James). In the present, Ricky kills Dr. Bloom, grabs an ax and a Santa costume, and makes his way to the home of the now-retired Mother Superior, now disabled by a stroke and played by Jean Miller, replacing the first film's Lilyan Chauvan, who's also credited since she's in a ton of flashback footage.
Just out on Blu-ray from Scream Factory (because physical media is dead) in a surprisingly extras-packed edition that offers more info than anyone would possibly need to know about it, SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT PART 2 was given an extremely low budget, with the intent all along being to construct a sequel using copious amounts of stock footage from the first film. The script is terrible, but to be fair to Harry, some of the killings--particularly the umbrella impalement--have an undeniable panache. He's also credited with editing, and indeed, there's a couple of creative cuts and some camera moves indicating that Harry possesses some degree of technical, if not screenwriting skill. There's also a legitimately hair-raising Spiro Razatos car stunt that's almost worth the price of admission, but everything else here is strictly amateur night, starting with the gratingly overwrought performance by Freeman, one of the worst actors you'll ever see. SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT PART 2 would've been just another crummy '80s horror sequel--albeit more cynical than most considering it's really only 45 minutes of new footage--but it's Freeman who almost single-handedly turns it into an MST3K-worthy bad-movie classic. Sure, there's plenty of WTF? bits like Dr. Bloom's gaudy rings and some memorably idiotic dialogue (Jennifer to Chip: "You stood me up! You cheated on me! You ruined my best sweater!"), but Freeman, one of the most charisma-deficient actors to ever be given the lead in a feature film, seems to be engaged in an endless battle with his own eyebrows to be the center of attention. Eyes bugged and veins popping, he overemphatically spits out every Freddy Krueger-esque bon mot in a way that suggests David Lee Roth starring in a community theater production of THE SHINING ("I've got a present for you!"), mechanically struts around like he's auditioning for a TERMINATOR ripoff, grunting pseudo-Hulk threats like "Punish!" and "Naughty!" when he gets pissed off, which is all the time, and randomly cackling. He plays to the back rows and beyond, and nowhere is his acting style better summed up than in the film's most infamous moment:
Judging from the bonus features--many of the principals appear, including Harry, Kaitan, Newman, a few supporting actors, and a significantly less-bulky Freeman--no one is under any illusions that this is a good movie. There's ample evidence that the whole thing is a joke, especially when Ricky and Jennifer go to see a movie, and it's the original SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT. The new footage was shot in ten days in December 1986, with the scenes of Ricky and Dr. Bloom cranked out in two days in the basement of a closed VA hospital in Los Angeles. Harry was still relatively new to Hollywood (he was an assistant editor on the 1985 women-in-prison grinder HELLHOLE and edited the 1986 Cannon pickup THUNDER RUN) and wanted to get into directing, seeing this as a challenge and an opportunity to get his feet wet. To date, his only other feature is the 1991 straight-to-video actioner STREET SOLDIERS. Freeman logged a few bit parts and TV appearances (including gigs on re-enactment shows like DIVORCE COURT and AMERICA'S MOST WANTED) before leaving the business in 1992. He remained blissfully ignorant of the burgeoning cult status of SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT PART 2 or that "Garbage Day!" had become a viral sensation. Freeman fell so far off the radar that Harry couldn't even track him down when he was contacted about recording a commentary for the film's first DVD release in 2004. He emerged from obscurity when he attended a screening of the film in 2013 and saw the response that it--and "Garbage Day!"--got from fans ("I've learned to accept it," Freeman says in the Blu-ray's 75-minute retrospective doc), and was inspired to give acting another shot. Since then, he's had a small role in the 2016 made-for-TV Vivica A. Fox holiday vehicle A HUSBAND FOR CHRISTMAS, and a guest spot on a 2017 episode of the CBS series BULL. SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT PART 2 was followed in 1989 by SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT 3: BETTER WATCH OUT!, inexplicably directed by a slumming Monte Hellman (!) and with a pre-Rob Zombie Bill Moseley stepping in as Ricky. The franchise concluded with two in-name-only sequels--both of which featured Clint Howard as a Ricky but not the Ricky--with 1990's SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT 4: INITIATION and 1991's SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT 5: THE TOY MAKER, the latter certainly not the pinnacle of Mickey Rooney's career.
SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT PART 2
opening in Toledo, OH on 5/15/1987
THE MULE (US/Canada - 2018) Directed by Clint Eastwood. Written by Nick Schenk. Cast: Clint Eastwood, Bradley Cooper, Laurence Fishburne, Michael Pena, Dianne Wiest, Andy Garcia, Ignacio Serricchio, Taissa Farmiga, Alison Eastwood, Richard Herd, Clifton Collins Jr., Loren Dean, Eugene Cordero, Victor Rasuk, Noel G, Robert LaSardo, Lobo Sebastian, Manny Montana. (R, 116 mins) Since his post-UNFORGIVEN resurgence in the early 1990s, there's been an air of awards prestige around most new films by Clint Eastwood. There was certainly that feeling surrounding THE MULE when the grim and downbeat trailer turned up a couple of months ago, but the film itself is much more light and loose than you'd expect, and frequently quite funny. Inspired by the true story of Leo Sharp, a 90-year-old Michigan retiree who became an unlikely courier for the Sinaloa cartel, THE MULE stars Eastwood, in his first time in front of the camera since 2012's TROUBLE WITH THE CURVE, as 90-year-old Earl Stone, a Korean War vet and award-winning rural Illinois horticulturist who's big on the day-lily circuit but never seemed to have the time for his family. In a 2005 prologue, he skips the wedding of his daughter Iris (Clint's daughter Alison Eastwood) to accept an award at a horticulture convention at an area Holiday Inn. Cut to 2017, and Earl's home and business have been foreclosed, a casualty of internet convenience, and he's got nowhere to go. Iris hasn't spoken to him in 12 years, and his ex-wife Mary (Dianne Wiest) reads him the riot act for showing up at a party for their engaged granddaughter Ginny (Taissa Farmiga), the only member of the family who wants anything to do with him. After being ripped to shreds in front of everyone is approached by a friend (Victor Rasuk) of a bridesmaid about a potential job "just driving." Desperate for income and wanting to contribute financially to Ginny's wedding, affable and naive Earl ends up driving to El Paso in his beat-up truck to pick up a package, drive it back to Peoria, leave his truck at a motel, come back in an hour, and find an envelope full of cash in the glove compartment waiting for him, no questions asked.
Ignorance is bliss, and Earl nods, smiles, and keeps quiet, but the more runs he makes, the more packed the envelopes are. He buys a new truck, pays for the remodeling of a fire-damaged local VFW post, and picks up the open bar tab at Ginny's wedding, much to the disapproval of Mary and Iris. Curiosity gets the better of him on one run and he looks inside a bag in his truck bed, finally realizing that he's running drugs for the cartel operation of Mexican drug kingpin Laton (Andy Garcia). The money's too good for him to stop, even as he's invited down to Laton's palace in Mexico, where the cartel boss seems unaware of a mutiny in his ranks, led by an ambitious underling (Clifton Collins Jr.). Meanwhile, in Chicago, DEA agents Bates (Bradley Cooper) and Trevino (Michael Pena) are told to tighten the screws on the drug trade by their boss (Laurence Fishburne), who's being directed by his boss to get busts at any cost. Bates objects to nabbing little fish at the expense of possibly losing the bigger ones, but a desperate informant (Eugene Cordero) facing two life sentences tells him of a major new "mule" in Laton's cartel known as "Tata," one who's been delivering major drug shipments to Illinois in a shiny new black truck.
Despite its potentially heavy, downer subject matter, THE MULE, written by GRAN TORINO scribe Nick Schenk, makes for a surprising crowd-pleaser, or at least as much of a crowd-pleaser as the story of a geriatric drug trafficker can be. It coasts almost entirely on the screen presence of its living legend star in a career now in its seventh decade, but even as a director, Eastwood seems little more engaged than he has on his too-often sloppy work of late, particularly in his unofficial "American Heroes" trilogy of AMERICAN SNIPER, SULLY, and this year's earlier, awful THE 15:17 TO PARIS. Eastwood the director has always had a "just get it done" philosophy, but as he's gotten older, that efficiency has often devolved into abject carelessness, reaching its nadir with the half-assed PARIS, but save for its rushed finale (including an offscreen beating that we probably should've seen), it's the return of a relatively more disciplined Eastwood (he still blowtorched through the production, which began shooting in June 2018 and is here in theaters just six months later). It's got plenty of laughs, but it's serious enough that it doesn't lapse into geezer comedy vulgarity. This is despite the fact that the 88-year-old Eastwood has cast himself in a film where his character partakes in not one, but two threesomes with women young enough to be his granddaughters. THE MULE probably could've been something more socially or politically conscious and "meaningful" (the internet's impact on Earl's day-lily empire is about as close as it gets to making a statement about the economy's shifting landscape), but it's an Eastwood vehicle first and foremost, and there's some poignancy in his attempts at stepping up when his estranged family needs him, and reconciling with his ex-wife (Wiest is terrific) and daughter, which has the added resonance of being a real-life father and daughter on screen.
Much is made of Earl feeling like "somebody" in the horticulture world when he was a "nobody" at home, which was his excuse for always being away. That's more or less the reasoning that pulls him deeper into the world of Laton's operation. Laton is so pleased with his work as a driver that Earl can't help but bask in the adulation. He's somebody here, even if it's as a drug courier, and getting caught never seems to enter his mind. The initial trailer made absolutely no attempt at selling how funny THE MULE can be, but it's mostly from recognizing the absurdity of a 90-year-old drug mule without actually condoning what he's doing. When a pair of cartel flunkies bug Earl's truck and follow him close behind on a run, they listen in disbelief as he spends the whole trip singing along to oldies on the radio. We soon see Earl behind the wheel belting out "Ain't That a Kick in the Head," with the cartel guys in their car, singing along. And it gets a huge laugh from the audience.
Earl also has a knack for developing a folksy rapport with everyone, even as he drops unfiltered and at times casually racist asides that aren't meant to be hurtful, as the elderly are wont to do. He gets chummy with his El Paso and Peoria cartel contacts (among them the inevitable Noel G and Robert LaSardo), who are soon affectionately calling him "Big Papa" as they BS while loading his truck ("How's your nephew doing?" Earl asks one). Before his business is closed, he refers to one Mexican employee's car as a "taco truck" and jokes with him about getting deported. Or when he treats a pair of cartel guys to pulled pork sandwiches at a roadside rib joint down south, where they're eyeballed by the red-state clientele and harassed by a local cop. "Everyone's staring at us," one says, as Earl replies "Because you're two beaners in a bowl of crackers!" Or stopping on the highway to help a stranded black family change a flat tire and not realizing "negro" is no longer the preferred nomenclature. Is THE MULE essential Eastwood? Not in the big picture, but it's his most satisfying work as a filmmaker since GRAN TORINO a decade ago, also the last film in which he directed himself (his producing partner Robert Lorenz helmed TROUBLE WITH THE CURVE, though in a very Eastwood-like fashion). Eastwood's effortless charisma and his no-bullshit persona haven't diminished a bit with the years, and it's always cause for celebration when we're given an increasingly rare chance to see him onscreen.
ROMA (US/Mexico - 2018) Written and directed by Alfonso Cuaron. Cast: Yalitza Aparicio, Marina de Tavira, Carlos Peralta, Diego Cortina Autrey, Daniela Demisa, Marco Graf, Nancy Garcia, Veronica Garcia, Andy Cortes, Fernando Grediaga, Jorge Antonio Guerrero Martinez, Jose Manuel Guerrero Mendoza, Victor Resendez "Latin Lover," Zarela Lizbeth Chinolla Arellano, Jose Luis Lopez Gomez, Edwin Mendoza Ramirez, Clementina Guadarrama, Enoc Leano, Nicolas Perez Taylor Felix, Kjartan Halvorsen. (R, 135 mins) The Netflix Original film ROMA, Mexican auteur Alfonso Cuaron's first directing effort since 2013's Oscar-winning GRAVITY (he produced his son Jonas' little-seen thriller DESIERTO in the interim), is a personal and deeply moving drama that incorporates pivotal memories from his childhood that shaped him as a person and as a filmmaker. One of the so-called "Three Amigos" along with Guillermo del Toro and Alejandro G. Inarritu, visionary Mexican filmmakers who have earned a plethora of acclaim and accolades at home and in Hollywood going back to the 1990s, Cuaron serves as his own cinematographer on ROMA, shooting in digital 65mm and black-and-white, the camera constantly panning and swiveling slowly, the director conducting a master class in shot composition and movement. Known for long takes--sometimes with editing trickery--in GRAVITY and 2006's CHILDREN OF MEN, Cuaron resorts to those techniques throughout, but they don't so much stand out as technical marvels as much as they hypnotically lull you into the immersive world being depicted. And the CGI recreation of 1970-71 Mexico City is seamless and undetectable, and among other things, let ROMA serve as the last word on how CGI should be done.
Though the title refers to the film's setting in the Colonia Roma district of Mexico City, ROMA borrows its title from a likewise semi-autobiographical 1972 Federico Fellini film, and its style is a throwback to the great works of Italian neorealism, where Fellini first made his name as a writer, along with directors like Roberto Rossellini (Fellini wrote his ROME, OPEN CITY and PAISAN) and Vittorio De Sica (BICYCLE THIEVES, UMBERTO D.). ROMA centers on Cleo (a debuting Yalitza Aparicio), one of two young, live-in Mixtec housekeepers for the upper-middle class family of doctor Antonio (Fernando Grediaga) and his teacher wife Sofia (Marina de Tavira). There's also four children--Pepe (Marco Graf), Sofi (Daniela Demisa), Tono (Diego Cortina Autrey), and Paco (Carlos Peralta)--plus Sofia's mother Teresa (Veronica Garcia), and dog Borras, whose piles of shit provide some of the occasional sight gags that take place in the extremely narrow driveway. The second housekeeper is Adela (Nancy Garcia), but it's Cleo, a character based on Libo, a live-in nanny from Cuaron's childhood home who frequently served as a mother figure, protector, and role model, who has a vital role in the family's lives. She dutifully does her endless work around the house, but when the family watches TV, she takes a quick break, has a seat, and is embraced by the kids. Cleo and Adela get occasional leisure time to see their boyfriends, but when Cleo tells aspiring martial-artist Fermin (Jorge Antonio Guerrero Martinez) that she's pregnant, he abruptly abandons her at a movie theater, excusing himself to use the restroom and never returning. Ashamed to inform Sofia of her predicament, she's surprised to find an unexpected support system from Sofia ("Of course not!" Sofia responds when Cleo asks if she's going to be fired), as she has been quietly holding the family together while Antonio is ostensibly on multiple business trips to Quebec, when in fact, he's walked out on the family and left Sofia for a younger woman.
The winner of the Golden Lion at this year's Venice International Film Festival, ROMA is a film about many things--family ties, strong women forced to deal with the decisions of selfish, irresponsible men, a changing Mexico City in a time of social and political upheaval (student protests always seem to be heard in the distance but remain largely unseen until a riot breaks out in one harrowing sequence where Cleo and Teresa go shopping for a crib), and the influence of cinema and its importance to Cuaron. Two of ROMA's more gut-wrenching moments, both turning points in the narrative, take place inside and outside of a cinema, one showing the big-budget 1969 film MAROONED, one of Cuaron's inspirations for GRAVITY. Cleo is put through the wringer here, especially in a devastating hospital sequence that Cuaron does in one long take, Cleo's face in the foreground and something horribly traumatic happening in the background. It's one of the few instances where Cuaron comes close to focusing on a character's face, as much of the film is an almost panoramic exercise where multiple things are going on in any given shot (are those ducks mating in the corner of one shot? Yep). The more this goes on, the more intimate it becomes as we grow so familiar with the surroundings that it very gradually pulls you into its world, making the viewer as much of a part of it as the characters. It's an unusual approach that takes time but the payoff is worth the effort. After an hour or so of observing the daily routines of this household and its occupants, we come to know them so well that the coming dramatic developments have an unexpected impact, and nowhere is this more emotionally overwhelming than in the finale, and I'm not gonna lie--I was a wreck at the end of that beach sequence. Much of ROMA's success comes from the instinctive, intuitive performance of Aparicio, a schoolteacher who's never acted before (her profession likely explains her wholly natural rapport with the children). She's matched by de Tavira, a well-known star of Mexican telenovelas whose support of her novice co-star parallels her character's support of her employee. ROMA's power really cannot be understated. It's a stunning technical achievement, but also a profound work of warmth, compassion, and humanity that shows a filmmaker in every way mastering his craft. Cuaron has knocked them out of the park before, but ROMA firmly establishes him as one of the greats. The best film of 2018 so far.
THE HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT (Denmark/Sweden/France/Germany - 2018) Written and directed by Lars von Trier. Cast: Matt Dillon, Bruno Ganz, Uma Thurman, Siobhan Fallon Hogan, Sofie Grabol, Riley Keough, Jeremy Davies, Ed Speleers, Emil Thorstrup, Marijana Jankovic, Carina Skenhede, Rocco Day, Cohen Day, Osy Ikhile, Yu Ji-tae, David Bailie. (R, 151 mins) When an ill-advised joke about "understanding" and "sympathizing with" Hitler understandably failed to land, professional provocateur and arthouse troll Lars von Trier was kicked out of the Cannes Film Festival in 2011 with his MELANCHOLIA in competition. His triumphant return to the festival earlier this year with the serial killer thriller THE HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT led to harumphing outrage and at least 100 walkouts. In other words, Mission Accomplished. IFC Films released von Trier's unrated, uncensored, 155-minute version for a one-night theatrical run in late November prior to the VOD rollout of the R-rated cut, shortened by four minutes. I don't really see why an edited version is necessary if it's mainly going to be seen on VOD anyway, and you can tell where the cuts are--the brutal murders of two children being a key point of repulsion at Cannes, along with one graphic scene of a woman's breasts being mutilated and sliced off. But even if you could see these few bits at full strength in the cut version, THE HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT isn't exactly the second coming of HENRY: PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER. It is a tour-de-force for an all-in Matt Dillon as Jack, an odd, antisocial, obsessive-compulsive architect-turned-serial killer based in the rural outskirts of the Pacific Northwest, recounting five random murders over a 12-year period to an initially unseen man named Verge (Bruno Ganz). Verge scoffs at Jack's boasts and claims, sardonically taunting him with "Don't believe you're going to tell me something I haven't heard before." But by the end, Verge's snide dismissals and mocking tone will give way to legitimate horror and disgust, to the point where he finally deems Jack an "Antichrist."
Jack's murderous ways seem to have started as a spur-of-the-moment impulse decision. In "Incident 1," he happens upon a woman (Uma Thurman) stranded on the side of the road with a flat tire and a broken jack (sly foreshadowing?). She's pushy and abrasive, demanding more and more of Jack's time and telling him he "looks like a serial killer." That is, until she walks it back and says he looks like too much of a wimp to be a murderer, to which Jack's knee-jerk response is to bash her head in with the jack. Independently wealthy from an inheritance, Jack owns an empty warehouse space with a massive walk-in freezer, which he puts to use by storing her corpse. Jack's first attempt at premeditated murder comes in "Incident 2," where he awkwardly and unconvincingly tries to talk his way into home of a cop's widow (Siobhan Fallon Hogan), first by pretending to be a detective ("I'd like to see a police badge," she says. "So would I," replies Jack), and then only gaining entrance by playing on her greed by saying he's there to talk about a possible increase in her late husband's pension. After killing her, he's nearly caught by a passing cop (Ed Speleers) when his OCD and his obsessive cleanliness repeatedly force him to go back into the house and double/triple/quadruple-check to make sure he didn't miss a spot of blood, repeatedly scrubbing the floors and walls over and over again ("A murderer with OCD and to top it off, a cleaning compulsion?" needles Verge). In "Incident 3," Jack is a gun nut in a red hat taking a single mom (Sofie Grabol) and her two young sons, George (Cohen Day) and Grumpy (Rocco Day), to a vacant shooting range with predictably horrific results, including a macabre picnic where he forces her to feed bites of apple pie to her two dead boys ("This has been a good day," Jack beams with pride after this "family" outing). By this point, Jack has grown more confident in his abilities as a chameleon-like killer and begins sending murder photos to the press, calling himself "Mr. Sophistication," likely a reference to the grimly sardonic emcee at Ben Gazzara's seedy burlesque club in the 1976 John Cassavetes cult classic THE KILLING OF A CHINESE BOOKIE). In "Incident 4," Jack is in full-on "bad boy" mode, manipulating and psychologically abusing Jacqueline (Riley Keough) by giving her the nickname "Simple" and boasting that he's killed 60 people and "in a couple of minutes, it'll be 61." "Incident 5" has Jack abducting five random people and taking them to his freezer--now filled with years' worth of collected victims--and lining them up for a full metal jacket to rip through all of their heads with one shot, only to be stalled by the fact that the guy at the gun shop (Jeremy Davies, twitchy as ever) sold him mislabeled ammo.
Amidst the horrors on display, there's quite a bit of dark, absurdist humor throughout, like Jack leaving one victim's severed breast under the windshield wiper of the cop who earlier issued him a parking ticket, and then using the other breast to make a wallet. And almost everything out of Verge's mouth is gold, with Ganz deploying a tone so incredulously mocking of Jack that you can't help but laugh (their conversations are reminiscent of Charlotte Gainsbourg and Stellan Skarsgard's framing sequences in NYMPHOMANIAC). But the film really loses its way after the fifth incident, and when we finally see Verge onscreen near the end, the magic of Ganz's vocal performance is lost thanks to von Trier's decision to turn him into a Chuck Palahniuk plot construct. Of course, the film was never meant to exist in reality, as Jack is the most unreliable of narrators (it's even possible that "Incident 1" isn't even his first murder, since he seems so testy and preoccupied from the start), and he gets away with his acts much too easily, but at some point, THE HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT stops being shocking and provocative and just becomes repetitive and exhausting, with a bloated running time that borders on loitering.
A walking embodiment of the DSM-5, Jack believes that his murders constitute "art," a sentiment stemming from his disputing the differences between "architect" and "engineer" when describing his profession. This leads to endless debates with Verge about art, iconography, and the nature of "masterpieces" that play over shots of revered paintings, museum pieces, newsreel footage of Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Idi Amin, various massacres and genocides, and, eventually, in a grating bit of masturbatory self-adulation, a highlight reel of clips from past von Trier films. There's some political and social commentary to be mined from this (there's no slogan on Jack's red hat in "Incident 3," but the implication is obvious), and Jack very often comes off like a pathetic incel with some major issues with women (note how it's being called a "wimp" that initially sets him off). Dillon dives into this role with fearless abandon, and von Trier crafts some undoubtedly effective and haunting images, whether it's the positioning of the victims in "Incident 3," the taxidermy method in which he preserves Grumpy's body, or something like Jack's thumb and the tip of his index finger cleaning off a single blood-drenched blade of grass, and finally, the ultimate construction of his "house." But less could've been more with THE HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT, and von Trier is, as usual, so self-indulgently preoccupied with poking people with sticks to get a reaction that he disappears up his own ass. Few filmmakers are more divisive than Lars von Trier, and there's moments of greatness even in his lesser films. But his need to shock and provoke for a reaction too often feels like the work of an enfant terrible making a name for himself rather than a 62-year-old who's in his fourth decade of filmmaking.
BACKTRACE (US/UK - 2018) Directed by Brian A. Miller. Written by Mike Maples. Cast: Ryan Guzman, Sylvester Stallone, Matthew Modine, Meadow Williams, Christopher McDonald, Colin Egglesfield, Lydia Hull, Tyler Jon Olson, Sergio Rizzuto, Swen Temmel, Joe Gelchion, Jenna Willis, Baylee Curran, Yan Dron, Carl Nespoli, Geoff Reeves. (R, 87 mins) Though it's not part of Lionsgate's landmark "Bruce Willis Phones In His Performance From His Hotel Room" series, BACKTRACE certainly upholds the grand tradition: it's directed by frequent Willis VOD helmer Brian A. Miller (VICE, THE PRINCE, REPRISAL); it deals with a robbery gone south; has 50 credited producers; it's shot in Georgia, one of the big states (along with Louisiana and Ohio) known for generous film production tax breaks; and it boasts the star power of second-billed Sylvester Stallone, who hopefully wondered aloud at some point, "Who the fuck is Ryan Guzman and why is he billed over me?" Stallone is clearly pulling Willis duty here, probably working 4-5 days tops, with most of his scenes keeping him confined to his desk at a police precinct, glowering at a wall of maps and mug shots in what appears to be the only case he's been working on for seven years. It was seven years ago that Donovan MacDonald (Matthew Modine) and two accomplices made off with $20 million from a Savannah, GA bank and tried to keep more than the agreed 50% share from their silent partners, offering them a mere $5 million. A shootout ensued, killing MacDonald's two cohorts and leaving him comatose with a bullet in his head. Seven years later, he wakes up in a hospital with a debilitating case of retrograde amnesia, unable to remember anything and prone to migraines and nightmares. Robbery/homicide detective Sykes (Stallone) has been monitoring the case all this time, but is repeatedly told by MacDonald's doctor (Lydia Hull) that his mind is a blank slate and there's nothing there.
But buried somewhere in the nether regions of MacDonald's memories is the location of the stashed $15 million that he and his partners kept for themselves. Enter Lucas (Guzman, of two STEP UP sequels, HEROES REBORN, and currently on 9-1-1), who's in the psych unit for a voluntary 72-hour evaluation. He seems to know all about MacDonald, and is in cahoots with hot-tempered guard Farren (Tyler Jon Olson) and nurse Erin (Meadow Williams) to bust the amnesiac perp out and use an experimental medication on him to jog his memories and hopefully reveal the location of the money. Meanwhile, Sykes has to contend with FBI agent Franks (Christopher McDonald, cast radically against type as "Christopher McDonald") trying to take over the case (don't the Feds have jurisdiction on bank robberies anyway?), followed by the inevitable ridiculous third-act plot twist and assorted double crosses.
Would you be surprised to learn that BACKTRACE offers a climactic shootout at an abandoned factory? Or that at least one major character isn't who they claim to be? Or that at one point, a sneering Franks informs Sykes and his captain (Joe Gelchion) that "I'll expect your department's full cooperation?" The slightly sci-fi angle of the experimental serum injected into MacDonald's spine, allowing him to "see" his memories come to life, sounds like something that might exist on the bottom of Christopher Nolan's slush pile, but its almost-lofty ambitions end there. As far as Brian A. Miller movies go, this is better than expected, but that's not quite cause for celebration. The biggest surprise is that Modine is essentially the star. He has the most compelling character and the most screen time, and like a veteran pro, he invests much more effort into a forgettable VOD time-killer than was really necessary. Despite his inexplicable top billing, Guzman is strictly a supporting actor with no more to do than Williams and Olson (his image isn't even on the poster). And with CREED II still in theaters, Stallone finds himself back on the road to VOD/DTV oblivion a few months after headlining the execrable ESCAPE PLAN 2, with the simultaneously shot ESCAPE PLAN 3 due out next year. Sly at least handles his extended cameo with a reasonable degree of professionalism by actually showing up and sticking around for his scenes. That's more than Miller would've gotten from another cynical walk-through from Willis, who would've done his close-ups in a day and let an unconvincing double fill in the blanks. BACKTRACE has a slightly more ambitious approach to its formulaic, generic heist-gone-awry scenario, and its big-name action star is actually awake, but it's MVP Modine busting his ass and going above and beyond that almost single-handedly makes it maybe worth a look on a slow night.
MAUSOLEUM (US - 1983) Directed by Michael Dugan. Written by Robert Barich and Robert Madero. Cast: Marjoe Gortner, Bobbie Bresee, Norman Burton, LaWanda Page, Maurice Sherbanee, Laura Hippe, Sheri Mann, Julie Christy Murray, Chu Chu Malave, Gene Edwards, Di Ann Monaco, Joel Kramer, Bill Vail. (R, 97 mins) "There's some strange shit goin' on in this house!" One of the great garbage horror movies of the 1980s now resurrected in an uncut, pristine Blu-ray restoration by Vinegar Syndrome (because physical media is dead), MAUSOLEUM is a ludicrously tacky demonic possession outing notable for a game performance by Bobbie Bresee as a woman transformed by a family curse into a nymphomaniacal succubus, with even her breasts turning into growling, chomping miniature Cuatos. Already in her mid 30s by this time with numerous TV guest spots to her credit, Bresee had a very short-lived run as a C-grade '80s scream queen, following her work here with roles in Empire's GHOULIES, Troma's SURF NAZIS MUST DIE, and a trio of Fred Olen Ray joints with ARMED RESPONSE, STAR SLAMMER, and EVIL SPAWN. But it's most definitely MAUSOLEUM that's cemented her place in exploitation history. Bresee stars as Susan Farrell, a 30-year-old woman who's been traumatized since childhood by the death of her mother. Raised by her aunt Cora Nomed (Laura Hippe) and under the care of fatherly psychiatrist Dr. Simon Andrews (Norman Burton), Susan lives a life of privilege as the wife of successful businessman Oliver (Marjoe Gortner!), but a family curse has come to stake its claim, taking possession of her as she succumbs to her carnal urges, her eyes glowing green as she kills Aunt Cora, and seduces and slaughters the lecherous gardener (Maurice Sherbanee) and a dopey delivery boy (future Andy Sidaris regular Chu Chu Malave). She also scares the shit out of Elsie (LaWanda "Aunt Esther from SANFORD AND SON" Page!), her put-upon, comic relief stereotype of a housekeeper, who flees the house in arm-flailing terror to the tune of her own wacky theme and stopping just short of exclaiming "Feets don't fail me now!"
Dr. Andrews is well aware of what's wrong with Susan: it's a curse on all first-born women in the Nomed family, which shouldn't surprise anyone who's ever seen a vampire movie with a character named "Alucard." The Nomed curse stems from a demonic spirit housed in a mausoleum at the cemetery where Susan's mother is buried. Susan's demonic histrionics are effectively conveyed John Carl Buechler--who would soon go on to be Empire's go-to mechanical FX guy on gems like THE DUNGEONMASTER, TRANCERS, TROLL, TERRORVISION, FROM BEYOND, and DOLLS among others--and once seen, Susan's possessed breasts cannot be unseen. Released by Motion Picture Marketing, a company known for picking up gory Euro imports like Lucio Fulci's CITY OF THE LIVING DEAD (which they retitled THE GATES OF HELL) and Bruno Mattei's HELL OF THE LIVING DEAD (retitled NIGHT OF THE ZOMBIES) and run by future convicted mobster-turned-Christian motivational speaker Michael Franzese, MAUSOLEUM was co-written and co-produced by one-and-done Robert Barich, and it even opens with the credit "A Robert Barich Film" even though Michael Dugan is the credited director (in a new interview on the Blu-ray, Buechler says that Dugan was on the set and "learning," but Barich was calling all the shots). The Blu-ray finally allows some impressive technical aspects to take center stage, as the film is revealed to demonstrate a nice use of garish color schemes that vaguely recall Mario Bava and Dario Argento, and there's a Euro batshit vibe to the whole thing, but don't think Barich is going for high art: it's all largely on the cheesy and often sexploitative side.
There is one legitimately creepy moment when Oliver wakes up in the middle of the night and sees Susan, in her demonic state, slowly rocking in a creaking chair in the corner of the room, but it's ruined by Gortner's underplaying the response in the way Oliver calmly walks out of the room and...calls Dr. Andrews? Wouldn't you just get the fuck out of the house? It makes even less sense when he's acting like nothing happened the next day and his wife wasn't sitting there looking like a creature spawned from the bowels of Hell. It's also amazing how nonchalant Oblivious Ollie is about the missing Aunt Cora, the missing gardener, and blood all over the kitchen from Susan killing the delivery boy. There's also a memorable sequence in a shopping mall and some spirited splatter throughout, capped off by a nonsensical, fourth-wall-breaking ending. In short, MAUSOLEUM is a bad movie, but it's an absolutely wonderful bad movie
