Year-End Wrap Part 3 (of 3):
The Family Man (2000):
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Listen, sometimes you love a movie even though you know that it has flaws and doesn't quite work, and The Family Man is one of those movies for me. I'm not quite sure why I watched this movie in the first place as I'm not a fan of Nic Cage, Tea Leoni, or director Brett Ratner, though I have a sneaking suspicion it's due to Don Cheadle, who I've been a fan of since his days on Picket Fences (anyone remember that show?). Yet there is something about this Christmas mash-up of A Christmas Carol and It's a Wonderful LIfe with a Nic Cage playing a cutthroat businessman who gets a "glimpse" into what his life would have been like if he had stayed with his college sweetheart, played by Tea Leoni. The movie falls apart in its finale, but there's something about the chemistry between Nic Cage and Tea Leoni (this has to be her best performance ever, playing straight man to Cage's--albeit, toned down--weirdness), the adorableness of his daughter Annie, and just the sincerity that the film plays out that just makes it work for me. Truly it comes down to the cast being stacked with great character actors like Jeremy Piven, Harve Presnell, Josef Sommer, and Saul Rubinek. Everyone is on board and the world that Nic Cage finds himself feels both heightened in the way that the best Christmas movies do, but also lived in. I didn't know if it would hold up since I hadn't seen it in five or so years, but it absolutely did. Grade: Not going to rate this one, but I love it.
Rebel Ridge (2024):
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...And this is the problem with Netflix. I'm a HUGE Jeremy Saulnier fan, counting Green Room in my Top 5 movies, period. I even carved out a very limited spot during Fantastic Fest one year to catch Hold the Dark on the big screen, knowing that it would be on Netflix a few days later. I should've been watching this on the first day it was released, yet I had no idea that it was available to stream until three months after it came out. Man, Netflix is lucky that they were the first to this streaming game because if they entered the race now with the marketing they have, I have serious doubts they would survive.
Anyways, while not as nerve-wracking as Green Room, Saulnier still delivers an incredibly tense action movie centered around one man's battle against a local police department over the civil forfeiture of the money he was going to use to bail his cousin out of jail. Aaron Pierre gives a star-making performance and holds his own against the equally fantastic Don Johnson.
Quick aside, later-career Don Johnson has become one of my favorite actors. If you haven't done so already, please go watch Cold in July; it's about as perfect of a Lansdale adaptation as we'll ever get.
While I wish there was just a little bit more to the ending, I truly enjoyed this film and highly recommend it. I will say, don't watch the trailer as it gives away one of the film's best lines. Grade: A
Intermission (2003):
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There was this brief moment in the mid-to-late 90s and early 2000s where we would get these movies with sprawling casts and multiple intermingled storylines. I think this all came to a head with 2004's Crash, but one of the ones that I always found interesting was Intermission. Supposedly it contains 43 characters over 11 storylines, but too be honest, I didn't count. I will say that there is a lot going on in the film and it takes about 20-30 minutes to get settled in as the film jumps from one seemingly unconnected story to the next. The film's littered with actors that are either pretty darn famous--Colin Farrell, Cillian Murphy--or faces you'll recognize--Colm Meaney, Shirley Henderson, Kerry Condon. I think I really picked this up because of Kelly MacDonald, who I've always enjoyed since first catching her in Trainspotting. It'd be futile to try to detail the plot, but suffice to say, it follows all these storylines and characters as they cross path, engaging equally in petty crime and attempts in finding love. To be honest, even at only 105 minutes, the film feels a little long by the end and doesn't quite know how to end, but the journey is rather fun and the characters, even when unlikeable, are pretty darn likeable. It was decidedly not my wife's vibe, so your mileage may vary, but if this type of film was in your wheelhouse, then you might find this to be neat little treat. Grade: B-
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Year-End Wrap Up Part 2 (of 3):
Night of the Demon (1957):
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This is another film that has been on my radar for a while since floating back to the horror community's consciousness and I'm really kicking myself for waiting as long as I did to purchase the Indicator blu-ray. Based on the M.R. James story "Casting the Runes," the film follows an American psychologist (Dana Andrews) teams up with a niece of a colleague who has recently died under mysterious circumstances to investigate a cult that may have been involved in the colleague's death. A love a good curse-with-a-ticking-time-clock film and this appears to be the granddaddy of them all--frankly how much Raimi's Drag Me to Hell owes to this film was illuminating--and it didn't disappoint in the least. I was worried that the wife wouldn't like it as she hated Tourneau's Cat People; however, she wound up loving it. Tourneau directs the heck out of the film and the two leads have great chemistry together and Andrews plays the squared-jawed skeptic perfectly. There is the well-known controversy that Tourneau did not want the titular demon ever to be shown and I kinda agree that I wish it hadn't, at least in the beginning, so as to play into the doubts of whether the curse is real or not. Regardless, the film still works perfectly and this--and the Indicator disc, which is packed with both the UK and US versions and tons of special features--is highly recommended and worth the cost. Grade: A
Longlegs (2024):
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I've been a fan of Osgood Perkins's films since catching The Blackcoat's Daughter--which is so much better on a rewatch, by the way--and equally enjoyed I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House, even if it was a LOT slower and more obtuse than his previous offering. To say his film's are a "deliberately paced" would be an understatement as Perkins's films work more on a slow drifting mist of dread and small intense punctuations of violence to unnerve the viewer. Whether this works or not really depends on how willing one is to meeting the film on its own terms. I was very hesitant to pull the trigger on this one due to Nicolas Cage's involvement as I find him very hit-or-miss and tend to enjoy him more reined in rather than fully unleashed. However, the film very much worked for me and feels, in a lot of ways, like a spiritual cousin to The Blackcoat's Daughter. The film follows Maika Monroe (The Guest, It Follows) as a young FBI agent recruited by her superior (played by a fantastic Blair Underwood) to help in hunting a serial killer. If this sounds a lot like Silence of the Lambs, then you wouldn't be too far off, but Perkins takes a hard right turn into weirdness as the story unfolds and it, for the most part, it works. There is a late reveal that I saw coming, but besides that I found the world that Perkins created to be fascinating. If slow burn--or Nic Cage at his weirdest--is your jam, then this might be for you. Grade: B+
Quick aside: If Perkins's adaptation of King's The Monkey lives up to the promise of its trailer, then its going to be a blast.
Oddity (2024):
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I reviewed director Damian McCarthy's previous film, Caveat, and found it rather wanting. Some of the film's logic didn't quite work for me, but it was clear that McCarthy was a talent to watch. I will absolutely say, without a doubt, Oddity is a complete banger of a film and I will now be watching anything that comes my from Mr. McCarthy. To talk about the plot would give away far too much and I would recommend going into this as blind as possible. Within the first few minutes, the film gives a hook that is so smart that I was floored I hadn't seen it before and then it gets better. I will also say that I don't get fooled by jump scares easily and this had at least two that knocked me back in my seat in its execution. I loved this film and will be buying it on disc to add to the collection. So good! Grade: A
Speak No Evil (2024):
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I was initially going to pass on this remake of the 2022 Danish film, but I had heard good things and that the film went in a different direction than the incredibly bleak and nihilistic original. It also had the bonus of being directed by James Watkins, who directed the fantastic Eden Lake, a film that I've shared countless times with people and that is always a crowd-pleaser. Well, after watching the film, I'm a little torn. First the good: Watkins does a great job directing the film, ratcheting up the tension as the film progresses. And James McAvoy absolutely kills it in the role of increasingly menacing Paddy. Aisling Franciosi is also simply amazing as Paddy's counterpart, Ciara. The film is pretty beat-for-beat the same as the original until the last act and then it diverges quite a bit and becomes a more traditional Hollywood thriller as the two families battle each other. In this regard, the film becomes one I'd be a lot more likely to revisit, but also a lot less interesting than original. In the remake, an infidelity has been added to the backstory of our two protagonists, Ben and Louise. Yet, the film seems to side with Louise's reasons for her affair in Ben's self-pitying selfishness when his career collapses. Adding this to Ben's passive nature throughout the film, a newly added revelation about Paddy and Ciara's past, and a new, more upbeat ending, the film positions the film's themes around malformed masculinity and the brunt borne by women in these relationships. However, the original poses a far more interesting questions--at least to me--about how much criminal acts are facilitated and exploited by society's reliance on social norms; if society wasn't so nice and polite, would criminals have the opportunity to be so bad? This is complex argument is negated in the remake, replaced by a rather safe critique of domineering patriarchal masculinity. Overall, this is not a bad film and I think most people would find it much more enjoyable than the original. Maybe if I hadn't seen the original, I would have liked this more than I did. Grade: B-Leave a comment:
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Highly recommended. Per the course for Criterion, the transfer is great and, frankly, the movie is a classic for a reason. If you like older movies and horror film's that edge closer to arthouse than pulp--this one straddles the line very well--then its an easy recommendation. Of course, I'd wait until one of Criterion's or Barnes & Noble's 50% off sales. No reason to spend more than necessary!Originally posted by sholloman81 View PostLeave a comment:
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I've done a little bit of research online, but haven't stumbled across anything that resolves it in my mind. I might need to dig a little deeper, though. I only did a cursory search.Originally posted by dannyboy121070 View PostLeave a comment:
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I had to Wiki the end of the film, because I felt like I had missed something, and, sure enough, it was not what I thought it was.Originally posted by Sock Monkey View PostLeave a comment:
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Have been close to pulling the trigger on the criterion of Eye Without a Face for quite a while. Your review may have pushed me over the edge!Originally posted by Sock Monkey View PostLeave a comment:
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YEAR-END WRAP UP PART 1 (OF 3):
So I've been terrible about finishing up my horror movies from Halloween and now we're almost a week into the new year, but I'm not giving up and I've decided to roll those titles into the few movies I watched over the holidays into a series of three posts. So here it goes...
Eyes Without a Face (1960):
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I've had the Criterion blu-ray on the shelf for at least four or five years before finally pushing play on it this last Halloween season and, man, do I regret waiting so long. A riff on "mad scientist" movies, the film revolves around the surgeon who is targeting women in order to use them as unwilling donors to a skin graft surgery to heal the surgeon's daughter who was horrifically injured in a car accident, but it is all in director Georges Franju's execution that this film is elevated from typically horror to art house chiller. The film slides effortlessly between the real, the surreal, and the grotesque--man, those special effects on the surgeries still worked for me--leading to an ending that is both beautiful and tragic. For a film that is is now 65 years old, it feels remarkably modern and moves along at a steady clip during its short 90-minute runtime.
Grade: A
MadS (2024):
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A movie that made a rather big splash but has since seemed to vanish into the ether of genre film conversation is 2006's Them (or, under its original title, Ils), written and directed by David Moreau and Xavier Palud. While some of the punch of the film has been lessened by multiple films since then borrowing some of the film's themes, upon watching it a year or two back, I was struck by how well it still held up and wondered why it hasn't had a new blu-ray release by one of the boutique labels. Anyways, the duo later went on to do the American remake of The Eye, which I never saw, and that was the last I had heard of them. Fast forward to fall of 2024 and I hear that David Moreau is back with a new film that is supposedly a one-take zombie/infection outbreak film, so it landed firmly on my Halloween movie watch list.
Now, the film is much more experiential than it is plot-heavy, so to delve too much into specifics give some of the joy of the film away. However, the gist is that after scoring some drugs from his dealer for his birthday party, on his drive back into the city, a young man finds a panicked and injured woman on the side of the road. After the woman attacks him, the film follows the young man and his friends over the course of one night as the infection begins to take hold and spread. My description, while accurate, makes the film sound more epic than it is, as this is film is much more contained and much more concerned having the viewer experience the slow dread of the infection taking hold. Surprisingly, Moreau wrings a great amount of suspense out of this concept, especially during one scene in a bathroom. The one-take conceit alternates between keeping the film moving and pumping the brakes, but also creates this sense of claustrophobia as the viewer hardly ever breaks away from the protagonist. The three main actors commit fully to their roles and give it their all. Whether or not this works for the viewer largely depends on if they find the effects of the infection--a slow descent into manic madness--scary or not. For me, even though I thought shaving 5-10 minutes would have helped to keep the movie moving, it worked well for me and though it won't revitalize the zombie genre, it still shows that interesting things can be done within its boundaries. Grade: B
This is also your public service announcement to check out another "one-take" zombie film, One Cut of the Dead. Though not a horror movie, I still find this to be such a fun and joyful watch. If you haven't seen it, just stick with it past the first 15-20 minutes, it will all make sense at the end.
Stopmotion (2023):
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Sometimes you see a movie trailer and you think that a film is absolutely, completely in your wheelhouse and once you sit down to watch it, you find out that you were absolutely, completely...wrong. Aisling Franciosi stars as Ella, a meek young woman who works with her overbearing mother, a renowned stopmotion filmmaker, on her mother's films yet yearns to create her own. After her mother's death, Ella embarks on a path to creating something as powerful and amazing as her mother's work, only to find herself spiraling into madness and mutilation. On one hand, Franciosi does a great job as Ella and I loved the stopmotion creations that are showcased in the film. However, the film suffers from the same issues that I had with 2019's Saint Maud, namely, the fact that there is no arc for the main character as they are pretty crazy from the get-go and that the film treats the revelation of their madness later in the film as something surprising to the viewer. Stopmotion at least tries to address this early on by letting the viewer in on a particular revelation rather early, but it still didn't work for me. In this type of film, the crux, at least for me, is that while the character's downfall is inevitable, the viewer should still be rooting somehow, someway for the character to be redeemed. Stopmotion fails to achieve this effect and what's left is a less-interesting riff of Lucky McKee's May. Grade: D
Azrael (2024):
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2024 was the year of directors of some my favorite underrated genre films finally making something new. I mentioned this with MadS, but I also get this post-apocalyptic flick from E.L. Katz, whose 2013 dark comedy Cheap Thrills is one of my favorites. Add in that it is written by Simon Barrett (The Guest, You're Next) and I'd already be in, but it also stars Samara Weaving, who I think, even after getting some great buzz from Ready or Not, is still incredibly underrated as an actress. Set after some unknown apocalypse--possibly, the biblical Rapture?--after the murder of her boyfriend, a young woman (Weaving) must fight against a mute cult in order to survive. Also similar to Moreau's MadS having the gimmick of it being a "one-take" film, Katz's movie has its own gimmick in that the film is almost entirely without dialogue. In the hands of a lesser actress, this wouldn't work at all, but Weaving's incredibly emotive reactions carry the weight of the film, leading the viewer on both an emotional and bloody journey. Without dialogue, the film is rather light on both exposition and character development, so if one requires a lot of either to fulfill their cinematic diet, this might feel a little bit like violent cotton candy. For me, even though I didn't quite get it all, I enjoyed piecing the mythology together, and it does feel as if there is a fully fleshed out mythology that is feeding this film, just maybe one that we don't quite understand and the film isn't keen on spelling out. I will also say that the special effects were solid and the designs of the supernatural creatures were pretty gnarly. My only complaint is that I feel like I need to rewatch the film again to see if I nail down the film's ending as I was left scratching my head a little. Grade: B
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I half-watched this while it was playing at a family member's house. From what I saw, it was a serviceable thriller, but nothing that sent me needing to go back to really sit down and watch it again.Originally posted by Ben Staad View PostLeave a comment:
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Haven't seen this yet but was getting major "Nick of Times" vibes from the commercial. However, even from the commercials, and as you allude to, I wasn't sold on the lead. His name escapes me, but I've yet to see him in anything that I liked. Mainly remember him from the crappy Robin Hood reboot.Originally posted by Ben Staad View PostLeave a comment:
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Carry On: Action movie set during the holiday season with some decent popcorn moments sprinkled with light drama. Bad guy trying to smuggle stuff through an airport and using deadly leverage against an agent to do so.
Not bad movie overall, kept us entertained for a bit, however I felt most the cast felt pretty flat. Male lead didn't have much on screen charisma. Anyway this is 3 out of 5 stars for me.Leave a comment:
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A film I will never see. I just can't do anything with the Rock in it.Originally posted by Ben Staad View PostLeave a comment:
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Red One is a generous 1 out of 5 stars.
This thing is a stinky, boring, CGI infused, snooze fest. I probably shouldn't rate it as we only managed 20 or 30 minutes of this before turning it off.Leave a comment:
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A Sound of Thunder. I ran across this one on Prime. A 2005 film supposedly based on a Ray Bradbury story. I don't recall ever reading this story so I have no idea if it is similar or not.
I time traveling sci-fi action film which deals with how the slightest change to the past can dramatically change our current existence. The first half of the film was well done, with an interesting set-up, fun dialogue, and background building. The 2nd half, and after the past has been changed, became a bit of a slog but still enjoyable enough.
Overall I fun 102 minutes of a movie. Nothing heavy and just a fun little ride. 3.75 stars out of 5.
For me this captured Bradbury pretty effectively and left me feeling like I went on a little adventure.
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