Scary, Naturally: Hereditary's Horror.

Movie Reviewed: Hereditary

Director: Ari Aster

Date: 11 June 2018

jamesintexas rating: ***



In my inaugural trip to an Alamo Drafthouse Movie Theater (and in Kansas City with my brother Danny, NOT Texas), I experienced the traumatic, unnerving new film Hereditary, and I have to report that it is a deeply, deeply upsetting film that wears its influences (The Shining paramount among them) firmly on its sleeve in its pursuit of serious, adult, wince-inducing horror and suspense.  It is a wicked ride, albeit one that I do not fully understand.

A review of this sorts needs to keep much of the plot a mystery, and I will say this: the less you know about this film, the better it is.  Annie (Toni Collette) is a miniatures artist who lives with her husband Steve (Gabriel Byrne) in the forested mountains of Utah along with their two children, Peter (Alex Wolff) and Charlie (Milly Shapiro).  And until recently, Annie's mother lived with them, and her death is the catalyst for much of what is to follow.  The house is all wooden corners and high ceilings, pull-down attics and intricate tiny spaces in Annie's workshop.  Asher's sequencing of the film involves slow zoom-in close ups of those houses and recreations of scenes in Annie's life, and often we are so disoriented by them, it is difficult to tell if they are establishing shots of the house or of the miniature.  That disorientation continues as Annie unfolds her grief for her mother, whom she was not close with and harbored deep resentments with about the raising of her children.  Peter wanders the early portions of the film as a mildly disaffected teen, staring off in History class, eager to get to a party to meet the girl.  Charlie seems to have inherited her mother's penchant for art, and she's jarring in her wandering off and sourcing of material for her art, as well as her tic of "clock-ing" with her mouth.  I don't know a better word for it.  There's a show deadline looming in six months or so, but with the painstaking work that Annie does, her grief interferes and disrupts, sleep provides no respite, and a local mourning group allows her the chance to vent but does not provide relief.  The insular world of the miniatures just seems to heighten everything, particularly in the camera's casual gazing at Annie's renderings of traumatic moments in their family history.  Steadily and surely, things fall apart.

Toni Collette is a force of nature, and her work here is extraordinary, full of range and intensity.  My first movie memory of her is The Sixth Sense, a high watermark of acting in my opinion as Lynn Sear, and I haven't seen her in something that showcases her talents in quite this way.  She's the centerpiece of this disturbing film, in most every scene, and she carries it fully.  The film is disquieting, which means that I had to keep looking over at Danny multiple times, in a "Can you believe this?" kind of way.  The shocks are not big jump scares but more of revelations, slow builds, something that is in the frame already, and you just need to realize its power.  The film's lingering themes are of family and religion's pernicious influences, as seen through the lens of the title.  Hereditary: genetic factors and often diseases beyond our control.  In a film that is willing to offer its dark vision in a summer of superheroes and fantasy, Ari Aster has crafted something worth seeing and being upset by, though I do not believe it lives up to its The Shining-level pretensions or aspirations.  Still, the cast and in particular, cinematographer Pawel Pogorzelski, do a terrific job of providing luster to this tale. 

Semi-Incredible!

Movie Reviewed: Incredibles 2.

Director: Brad Bird

Date: 8 June 2018

jamesintexas rating: ***



Pixar has its formulas, and tried and true, they deliver an entertaining, rollicking ride in Incredibles 2, a film that I found quite fun if not as inventive or memorable as its predecessor.  We've been watching that first film a bunch in our home in anticipation of this one, and from its stunning art design (Art Deco, early 1960's fashion, fun angles) to its soaring Michael Giacchino score, it moves with energy and humor simultaneously as a super-family emerges from hiding, mostly playing on the dynamic between Bob/Mr. Incredible (Craig T. Nelson) and Helen/Elastigirl (Holly Hunter) who wrestle with middle age and family responsibilities as much as the mighty villain Syndrome.

Here, the story picks up at a police station interview, unpacking the scene that ended the previous film through the lens of  witness Tony Rydinger (Michael Bird).  Jack-Jack (Eli Fucile) monitoring Violet (Sarah Vowell) removed her mask momentarily and was spotted by HS classmate Tony, while Dash (Huck Milner) ran crowd control for the parents who unsuccessfully try to stop The Underminer (John Ratzenberger), resulting in major damage for the city and city hall, terrible press for the Supers, and the shutting down of their program.  Frozone (Samuel L. Jackson) at least has the sense to leave before the party ends, as he puts it, but their existence is threatened until stylishly-named mysterious millionaire Winston Deavor (Bob Odenkirk) and Evelynn Deavor (Catherine Keener) invite The Supers to help them reassert the role of superheroes on the planet, in part to right a tragic wrong from their childhood.  The film hinges on Helen being the one they want to focus on with the positive media attention; Evelynn's cost-benefits analyses prove more beneficial for her than for the destructive Mr. Incredible.  So, he takes on the domestic front, meaning lots of time with Jack-Jack, Dash's New Math, and Violet's embarrassment of being seen with him, all set within a stylist mid-century modern mansion, like something out of Alfred Hitchcock's North By Northwest.  Elastigirl finds herself drawn further and further into the mystery of a masked criminal who is terrorizing the city, and a dazzling train rescue which would rival James Bond's best on a motorcycle sequence leads to more and more clues and uncertainty.  The story lines are separate between the home front and the family front, and though the dramatic tension is not as strong as the previous film, we get lots of fun sequences: Jack-Jack vs. his neighborhood backyard nemesis; Edna (Brad Bird) and her marvelous reappearance, stealing the film; a wonderful Bond-esque Incredi-mobile that needs to be reacquired.  There's a big deal giant fight scene at the end, of course.

So, what gives?  The voice work delivers great performances, especially from Hunter, who is a national treasure.  Frozone gets a little bit more to do.  There are some fun, nice supporting new characters.  But, overall, the film has a by-the-numbers feel to it, and is overall less special than its original partially because of the less than incredible villainy.  The indulgences of playing up sequences and characters that work (Jack-Jack, Edna) cover up the ones who lack development or just anything to do (Violet and Dash).  The animation is truly incredible, naturally, and it is astounding to see how far the art from has come in just fourteen years.  The fourteen years in between signifies to me that there wasn't a need or a narrative drive to re-establish this universe beyond fun (and oodles of box office cash).  I won't lie: sitting next to Gus-Gus and watching Jack-Jack, cackling with glee, the film hits all of its marks.  Liking Finding Dory before it, Incredibles 2 is superfluous and fine.  You could spend your time (and money) in many worse ways.  So, that's not a ringing endorsement, but as a summer movie, enjoyable with little ones, Incredibles 2 does the job.

Never Going Back: Jack Reacher Falls

Movie Reviewed: Jack Reacher: Never Go Back

Director: Edward Zwick

Date: 8 June 2018

jamesintexas rating: *



Rarely does a film title implore you to do something that you're readily able to oblige.  In this case, despite the good will harbored from the first Jack Reacher film (and my irrational, complete investment in Tom Cruise's work), please skip this second Jack Reacher film which does not really offer much in terms of characters, plot, storytelling, or energy.

I want to start with energy.  Tom Cruise plays the world weary ex-military man known for wandering the earth, thumb extended, who is making his way to Washington D.C. to rendezvous with Cobie Smulders' character, Turner, whom he keeps calling from pay phones along his way.  I don't remember if this relationship was established in the first film or not, but it seems like a long distance to travel for a bizarre first date of sorts.  When Reacher arrives, everyone knows him, but Turner has been jailed for espionage, resulting in Reacher figuring out a way to evade capture himself while also springing Turner from a maximum security facility.

As for character, plot, and storytelling, Edward Zwick has a few hokey tricks up his sleeve by having Reacher sequence out in his mind where someone went who just left a room.  There is the possibility of Reacher having a long lost daughter, Samantha (Danika Yarosh) who experiences some heavy trauma before going right back to normal, providing some of the least effective sequences in the film.  But she is trying.  Cruise seems on autopilot here, not doing as many fight scenes or talking scenes, mostly staring and thinking very hard.  He figures out one major revelation, as much as I can figure, by simply looking at something and asserting, "Something doesn't add up" making him a mystical character of sorts.  The bad guys are forgettable, with one of them being called "The Hunter," (Patrick Heusinger) as he seems to sit around comfortably waiting for phone calls to do heinous things. A fight sequence on rooftops of New Orleans has some undeniable beauty to it, with the bridges twinkling in the distance, but the film just never really comes together.  The first film had a kinetic, revving-engine type of fun to it with some wordplay from Reacher, some unscored car chases, and Robert Duvall.  This film, not as much.  The title says Never Go Back, but I would go
back to the first film.  Never Watch This One. 

Movie Reviewed: Valerian and The City of a Thousand Planets

Director: Luc Besson

Date: 7 June 2018

jamesintexas rating: **1/2

Luc Besson has built-up enormous good will with me because of the 1997 classic sci-fi adventure The Fifth Element, which is part of the architecture of my college years with its kaleidoscopically colorful alien worlds, marvelous Gary Oldman villainy, and its action sequences set to a marvelous Eric Serra score.  Without knowing the source material of Valerian (a comic book, apparently), I was drawn into the trailer of this film and then promptly forgot about it.  Now, as I catch up on missed films from the past year, I spent time with Besson's mouthful of a title Valerian and The City of a Thousand Planets, and I enjoyed it for the most part, despite its flaws.

First of all, it should be called Major Valerian and Sergeant Laureline and The City of a Thousand Planets, but that's probably an ever bigger challenge for the poster, but the duo are the center of this rollicking adventure film that has lots of the elements needed but maybe just not in the right sequence.  The titular role is played by Dane DeHaan in a flat, Keanu Reeves-ish monotone that never seemed to sit right with me.  Cara Delevingne plays Laureline, a bit more fun though heavy on the scowling, and both are a couple of space officers sent on impossible missions throughout the galaxy.  After a most-fun opening sequence set to David Bowie's "Space Oddity," which establishes how the galaxies formed a gigantic super-station through peace, love, and handshakes, a conflict erupts on planet Mul, a beachy utopian of pearls containing endless energy and long, thin Naavi-type creatures who harvest the pearls and like in harmony with everything.  Valerian receives a mind-message from Mul which he cannot shake, and though they are tasked with a different mission, he keeps being haunted by his dream.  Or so he says.  

The film is an excuse for large, detailed set-pieces (think the police chasing LeeLoo and Korben in the taxi cab), that are really endlessly inventive.  One takes place in a desert world that features a sort of virtual reality market with loads of creatures and levels if you are wearing the right helmet and goggles.  A satisfying sequence with a great ending to the chase leads to a tongue-lashing by Defence Minister Herbie Hancock, who directs the duo to return to see Commander Filitt (Clive Owen) and protect the galaxy with the item retrieved.  A surprise attack leaves great vulnerability and confusion, and Valerian and Laureline try to figure out the labyrinth of lies and deception.

It is truly wonderful to see a big budget sci-fi film that is this weird.  Its moxie shines through in scenes with creatures galore, lots of purple-tinted shots of characters' helmets and heads, and its commitment to some slapstick silliness, particularly in a fight scene inside of a giant banquet hall.  Rhianna shows up all too briefly as a shape shifter for an indelible sequence before delivering a moralizing speech about sex trafficking. The film's major revelation involves white men in power being unable to apologize for decisions made that caused great harm, and Besson hammers home zero nuance in these flashback scenes, making everything a bit too easy.  There are a lot of shooting and explosions.  There are fun magnetic spheres that attach themselves to the first target one of them hits.  There's a nifty bug that you can use to cut yourself out of a cocoon if you find yourself embalmed.  There's that opening sequence where lots is suggested to the strands of Bowie's voice.  And those details will stick with me, much more that DeHaan's flat, uncharismatic performance, the feeling that the lead characters needed to be a bit older and more world-weary.  A fun time, but maybe not enough fun?

The Quietest Theater that I've Ever Been In

Movie Reviewed: A Quiet Place

Director: John Krasinski

Date: 25 May 2018

jamesintexas rating: ***1/2



A Quiet Place immerses the audience in a near-liquid silence, an enveloping and pervasive rapture that resists the crinkling of candy bags or the shuffling of ice cubes in a soda cup.  John Krasinski has done something special here, giving us a terrifying monster movie wedded to a silent film's meticulousness, a dance of movement, body and facial control, and sound architecture.  It is brilliant and deserving of great praise.

Noise draws them, apparently, as a crackerjack suspenseful opening scene reveals a couple and their young children scavenging in a pharmacy and then walking an ominous path through the woods.  Title cards reveal the number of days that have passed, though we never fully see the inciting incident.  Krasinki's insular focus on Evelynn and Lee Abbott (Emily Blunt and Krasinski) and their family and its workings means that we never fully see the big picture, though far away lights in the distance from their farmhouse and silo indicate that there might be some hope for humanity.  Pathways are illuminated by sand trails, and all means of noise have been removed, though there is always room for human error. Regan Abbott (Millicent Simmonds) clashes with her father, and her brother Marcus (Noah Jupe) tries to keep the family together despite the terrifying ramifications of any small noise. 

It is an exercise in form to structure a 2018 film as nearly silent, with so much sign language and close-ups of eyes and faces. Krasinski, as a director, does something astonishing here by ratcheting up the tension and holding it, holding it, holding it, with the Spielbergian mantra of hide-the-monster paying off quite well.  There's a sequence with a nail that made my skin crawl and took me back to an incident on Myrtle Ave in the 80's.  There's some really dark moments where it appears that all is lost, as well as escalating awfulness with Lee hidden in the basement.  The last shot of the film is really perfect, and though I am not sure A Quiet Place is an allegory for anything in our modern world, it is surefire entertainment and very controlled and deliberate in its suspense.  My students are proud that Jim from The Office made a film, but more importantly, he has made a great film.