'Inside' A Review

Inside is a psychological thriller about Nemo(Willem Dafoe), an art thief, who is trapped inside a high rise luxury condo when a job goes bad. As he attempts to survive and escape his sanity and health begin to erode.

Dafoe joins the ranks of Sandra Bullock, Tom Hardy, and Robert Redford(among others) in this, in essence, solo performance film. A chance for Dafoe to really go for it and he certainly does, we see not only his acuity with grounded emotion but he also flashes of his avant garde back ground with more lyrical interpretive sequences. It's impressive. The ideas are intriguing if a bit heady and it doesn't necessarily all come together but its ambitious.

Shot almost entirely in the single formidable location it remains dynamic throughout as Nemo attempts various methods and means of escape. The pacing stays mostly in rhythm but drags occasionally with the more philosophical interludes, ultimately could be shaved down to a more effective 90 minutes but as is it doesn't detract too much. 

An unapologetic art house thriller with a splendid Dafoe.

Currently in theaters, coming soon to VOD.

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In-Person

Back in the office

by mandate,

in a meeting

where various

corporate shills

extol the benefits

of face-to-face,

I am reminded

of the irony

of 'company culture'

a concept

created specifically

to maximize labor

and lull the employee

into a false sense

of community

false because

it is contingent upon

the bosses benevolence

and our willingness

to be enamored

by free lunch

and a ping-pong table.

'Knock At The Cabin' A Review

Knock At The Cabin is a home invasion thriller based on the novel The Cabin at the End of the World. A gay couple on vacation with their daughter are assaulted by a group of strangers who inform them that unless one of them kills another the world will end.

By and large the movie is excellently cast, particularly Dave Bautista as Leonard the leader of the invaders, who is absolutely committed, who brings all his hulking tenderness to bear in a really compelling way. Also great to see Jonathan Groff who, although primarily a Broadway actor, he excels at the more eerie stuff(this and Mindhunter most recently). The rest of the, limited, cast are all intriguing but much like the source material this story isn't really about people its about this rather contrived moral dilemma.

Shot with writer/director M. Night Shyamalan's typical lushness and slow-moving dread it looks great(until the CGI climax which looks straight out of a 1999 TNT movie) the score elevates the suspense, the cabin where the majority of the action is set, is beautiful, the homemade weapons of the intruders evocative. Overall, it succeeds rather tidily on it's intent and yet the existential morality play the characters mark through doesn't pack that much of a punch because little-to-no time is spent setting up the characters that enact it. The movie kind of hurtles along on the gas of it's own premise but forgets that for all of this stuff to be impactful we have to care about the humans involved. Which we only kind of do, in a vague generalist way.

Baptista shines, the story underwhelms.

Currently streaming on Peacock.

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'Boston Strangler' A Review

Boston Strangler is a period thriller about the two journalists investigating the titular serial killer.

Kiera Knightly as Loretta is wonderfully committed, grounded, and the accent work isn't half bad either. It's nice to see Knightly who has somewhat faded into semi-obscurity the last five years as the lead. She has great chemistry with Carrie Coon, Jean, who's skills are fully on display. It plays a bit like a two-hander and it works. The supporting cast has some notable talents- Chris Cooper, Alessandro Nivola- but its not the actors who let the film down.

The problem is two fold, the first being the production. It's derivative- the dark saturated coloring, the lingering slow zoom shots, the eerie score- it is all very David Fincher, very Zodiac. The serial killer ground has been thoroughly tread- movies, shows, podcasts, documentaries- content on the subject matter is pervasive. And unfortunately a lot of it looks the same, this being no exception. Although kudos for the period costumes and cars. The second problem is the script itself, the pacing is slow the focus confused. The "new take" on the subject matter here is to focus on the two journalists and the sexism both they faced as well as that which bubbled up from the crimes themselves. This is somewhat successful but the difference is mostly split, still cutting to kill scenes and crime scenes undercutting it's own purported focus.

An intriguing if far from successful entrant into the ever expanding true crime oeuvre.

Currently streaming on Hulu.

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Marking Time

The place you do time
is in the mind

a thing I learned

through the long DTs,

locked in my room

quarantined, COVID

I am reminded

of those old

empty, sick days

and the skills

I used 

to endure them

the waiting

the resting

the silence

in the luxury

of my sobriety

I have forgotten certain things

those dark tools I used 

to last the long night

I dust them off

for they are needed again

I sit and wait

and say nothing

and drink and eat what I can

and the only stage is in my head

aswirl with viral thoughts

I watch and wait

and although I sense no time passing

I trust that it does

outside of it 

though I may feel

'Scream VI' A Review

Scream VI is a slasher, the latest in the Scream series. After the events of #5 Sam(Melissa Barrera) and the gang move to NYC to attend college. Ghostface re-emerges and the body count starts to rise. That's pretty much it!

Barrera returns with the presence and magnetism we've seen from her before and the supporting cast are all solid- notably Jasmin Savoy Brown as Mindy, Mason Gooding as Chad, and Josh Segarra as Danny- and some other nice, in essence, cameos at the beginning but it feels very Jackson Pollock, very throw paint and see what sticks kind of approach. The cast is full of talent but they are all kind of listless, adrift in a script that was seemingly rushed to completion then into production.

A big selling point in the marketing was Scream In NYC but there seems to be very little NYC in it(not a surprise given it was shot in Montreal). Other than the underwhelming subway sequence the movie evokes a relatively generic urbanity. The score works, the practical gore/CGI mesh well, there are some effective scares and kills but ultimately it doesn't come together. The character focus is too disparate and the plot is too convoluted. 

Meh.

Currently in theaters, coming soon to VOD.

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NYPD Blue

Who knew
this show
(at first blush
a standard procedural)

contained such 

dimension

not to mention

Sipowicz

(played with aplomb

by Dennis Franz

thick Chicago accent intact)

would be a vessel

for such compelling

and universal humanity

'Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre' A Review

Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre is an action spy movie written/directed by Guy Richie. Orson Fortune(Jason Statham) and his team are contracted by the UK government to retrieve "The Handle" an advanced AI system. They travel around Europe executing actions both covert and direct.

Statham brings his not inconsiderable charm here and it's nice to see him back in this breezy, competent, wise-cracking action archetype. It's not particularly complex but it's fun. The ensemble cast has great chemistry and all give nice turns- Aubrey Plaza, Bugzy Malone, Cary Elwes, and Josh Hartnett(haven't seen him in awhile!)- again not particularly complicated but fun and effective. The stand out is Hugh Grant who plays an absolutely delicious arms-dealing billionaire, he's 2 for 2 with Richie following his masterful turn in The Gentlemen.

Visually slick with a few patent Richie camera flourishes(that mostly work), a mood-enhancing score, excellent costumes, and a plot the all-in-all zips along with decent humor and effective action. Reminiscent of last year's Red Notice but actually good. Maybe an attempt at a Mission Impossible like franchise or maybe just a playful one off, either way the movie delivers on what it presents. Although, certainly, the name is a clunker.

A throwback genre picture, simple clean fun and thrills.

Currently in theaters, coming soon to VOD.

See It.

'65' A Review

65 is a scifi adventure about a space pilot Mills(Adam Driver) who, on a long mission, is downed on an unknown planet by an asteroid.

Driver brings his typical charisma and a surprising grounded minimalism to the role that works. His main co-star Ariana Greenblatt as Koa fairs relatively well even if an unnecessary language barrier needlessly impedes some of the action and story. There's enough emotional stakes to give the movie some texture but mostly the focus is on the journey and the dinosaurs.

Visually solid with some unique creature design, an effective if somewhat generic score, and some nice location shooting make for a relatively tight, evocative piece of genre filmmaking. The climactic T-Rex face off is particularly potent. Some of the movies twists are bafflingly pooched or made overly explicit and there could be more dinosaurs but for being an original idea on a budget 65 delivers on its premise and offers a welcome alternative to the ever extending parade of franchises, sequels, and reboots.

Currently in theaters, coming soon to VOD.

Rent It.

The Basement

I would allege
our success in life

our ability to achieve

and maintain contentment

to transcend the daily challenges

to enjoy

is directly proportional

to our willingness

to go down into the darkness

into the cobwebbed corners of the soul

to trudge into the mirk and mire

the sludge

of the past

and shine a light on what we find there

to accept and process the shadowed secrets

that lie dormant in us all

what prevents us?

only willingness

only fear

'Creed III' A Review

Creed III is a sports melodrama, the 3rd installment in the Creed series the 9th in the Rocky oeuvre. The movie opens on a flashback to 2002 with a young Adonis sneaking out of his house to meet his friend Dame and go to a boxing match(which Dame wins) on the way home the two get into an altercation, Adonis flees and Dame gets incarcerated for 18 years. Flashfoward to Adonis's(Michael B. Jordan) last fight, which he wins, and then retires. Flashfoward again Adonis and his wife Bianca(Tessa Thompson) have a daughter Amara, are very rich, and seem to be relatively content but yearn to be back in their respective fields(Adonis now runs Delphi Boxing, Bianca has put her solo career on hold to produce). Enter Dame(Jonathan Majors) fresh out of prison and driven to be a contender. Sound like a lot of plot? There's more!

Jordan, behind the camera as well as in front of it, doesn't make a particularly compelling case for either role. Adonis, as written, seems to have reset to a kind of reserved, prideful, petulance that he had in the original Creed jettisoning much of the character progress from I and II. The character is confused, muddled, and not particularly sympathetic and Jordan doesn't do much to bring him out of that morass of the page. We seem to be at the point again, asking the question who is Adonis Creed? As a result the titular character, the franchise focus, is the weakest link. Majors absolutely stuns, he is electric and emotive, raw and magnetic. When his character has a couple of illogical plot cartwheels he sells them. Thompson also comes out well, brings grounded, realistic, emotion. The rest of the cast doesn't get much screen time and a lot of what they do is dictated by the overly stuffed plot(particularly egregious in the case of the excellent Wood Harris and queen herself Phylicia Rashad). Perhaps the emotional logic is sound but the pacing is off, it simply covers too much ground and the drama is rendered as melodrama.

Visually the film is slick but generic, Jordan as director makes a couple of inspired flourishes in some of the shots in the fight scenes but the choreography itself is uninspired the same is true of the training montage, typically a highlight of the franchise, here seems to be an afterthought. Jordan doesn't seem particularly interested in engaging with these tropes of the series, which is OK but then what is he interested in is unclear. The music is fine but mostly forgettable and the production design is immaculate but all the economic opulence on display with Adonis and his family seems to undercut/avoid, again, one of the franchises staple themes- class- this is hinted at in the relationship between Adonis and Dame but under explored.

Jordan's ascent to stardom has plateaued and Creed III demonstrates his recent lack of growth. Without Ryan Coogler or Stallone directly involved the movie doesn't provide the necessary magic. Worth seeing solely for Majors performance.

Currently in theaters, coming soon to VOD.

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'We Have A Ghost' A Review

We Have A Ghost is a horror comedy about the Presely family who move into a beautiful but rundown Victorian in a nameless midwestern town. Kevin(Jahi Winston) the youngest befriends the resident ghost Ernest(David Harbour) and works with him to uncover the circumstances of his death while Kevin's dad Frank(Anthony Mackie) monetizes Ernest through social media.

The cast is all quite talented- with some standouts from Winston, his friend/love interest played by Isabella Russo, and a brief cameo from Jennifer Coolidge as a TV medium- but overall the script is too overstuffed with plotting and characters to give any one of them actual room to breathe and develop.

Visually slick but the sizable budget seems to have actually hamstrung writer/director Christopher Landon who, here-to-for, was on a hot streak of low budget films with Blumhouse(Freaky, Happy Death Day 1 and 2). The oversized budget seems to prevented him from exercising much needed editing. For example there a lot of expensive needle drops, which are nice, but ultimately don't serve much of a purpose. The movie is about a father-son relationship, the ghost, the government, social media. It's just too much, there's little focus and as a result it doesn't pack much of a punch. It's relatively diverting, a breezy family friendly movie but overlong, with problematic pacing, and an over abundance of narrative threads that fail to coalesce.

Low stakes, low reward.

Currently streaming on Netflix.

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