Tag Archives: movies

Horror in Broad Daylight

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On a recent visit to Scandanavia, it was tough for me to travel through Sweden without thinking about my favorite horror film in the last fifteen years, Ari Aster’s Midsommar. The people we visited and stayed with were welcoming and wonderful, the food excellent and Stockholm was gorgeous, but the deep dive into a sunshine-infused, cultish festival in the Swedish countryside Aster created had yet to leave my brain. After watching this movie three times and constantly seeing new things, I don’t expect it will.

Make that four times now. While waiting for my wife to join me outside an archipelago gift shop, I ordered the new 317-minute Director’s Cut of Aster’s masterpiece from the A24 store, and have since immersed myself even deeper.

Many people are fond of the director’s previous horror venture, Hereditary, a harrowing depiction of a horribly dysfunctional family with a superb performance by the under-appreciated Toni Collette and a memorably shocking climax. But I didn’t connect with any of those characters like I do with Dani, the dimunitive, emotionally fragile heroine of Midsommar. Florence Pugh’s response to a family tragedy in the first ten minutes is so real and so searing that it fuses you to her soul and draws you into the leisurely building story through her eyes like few films I’ve ever watched. I’ve seen Pugh in a few other roles and she’s always good, but Midsommar is clearly not even a movie without her honest feelings that capture the wonder and terror of the experience her and her friends are put through.

Without giving too much of the plot away, Dani talks her way into a trip to a summer festival organized by her boyfriend’s Swedish pal as a way to recover from her recent trauma. The community that welcomes them are friendly, live off the land and are unnaturally obsessed with flowers, but have their own set of rules and rituals that Dani and her friends are woefully unprepared for.

Unlike the dark mood that pervaded Hereditary, Aster explores the horror of Midsommar’s entirely different family in complete sunshine, throwing us off from the outset. His direction is measured and quiet, the cinematography extraordinary, the production design of the barn people sleep in covered with Swedish folklore paintings is perfect, and with Pugh’s uncanny performance (hard to believe she wasn’t Oscar-nominated), the tale seeps its way into your bones and allows no relief until the very last shot.

Horror movies are definitely pervasive these days, a likely reflection of the real-life horrors our world is enduring, but slasher films and vampire stories just don’t cut it for me anymore. I prefer originality and an unforgettable experience, and Midsommar provides all of that and creepily, much more.

“The Odyssey” Gets 3 Stars, Threads Gets 1

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Last weekend I was fortunate to nab a free ticket to a 70mm showing of Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey at the recently revamped Director’s Village Theater in Westwood. I found it a mostly entertaining version of the classic story, though the muddy sound mix made it difficult to hear the dialogue in the all-important opening scenes, the musical score was overbearing, and Matt Damon and his East Coast accent as a leader of men largely unbelievable.

A number of the story’s key action scenes were shot and directed beautifully, especially the Cyclops, the enchantress Circe who briefly turns the soldiers into pigs, a forest full of giant silver knights, and Scylla, a six-headed monster plucking men out of Odysseus’ boat. I was less than enamored with the Sirens scene, though, in which Odysseus has asked his crew to plug their ears with wax, then tie him to the mast while Siren women on passing rocks fill the air with their hypnotic song designed to lure men to their deaths. Nolan decided to stage the event in complete silence, asking the audience to use their imagination, and it came off, at least to me, as a less-than-satisfying approach to what could have been a riveting scene.

Then I made the mistake of going on my Threads social app, which has often been a great place to discuss books and film, and posted my displeasure with how Nolan did the Sirens scene. Much like the responses I read to anyone who said a bad word about last year’s Oscar-winning movie Sinners, the juvenile hate and vitriol came at me all day yesterday. Here’s what my innocuous original post (since deleted) said:

I haven’t seen much talk about Nolan’s lame Sirens scene in The Odyssey. Can barely see them on the passing rocks, and with the crew’s ears plugged and Damon tied to the mast and freaking out, choosing to not let us hear ANYTHING from the Sirens seemed like a blown opportunity.

And here’s a smattering of the responses I got:

“I haven’t seen much talk about how you should go touch grass.”
“If they had played something, someone would have bitched that it wasn’t that great. That’s the point of using your imagination.”
“Wow it’s like they’re supposed to be mysterious or something. I’ll let you complete that train of thought now. Don’t hurt yourself.”
“So… ragebait or idiocy?”
“This is why literacy is dead in America because you ppl cannot use your imagination without ai crafting it for you.”
“Honey, this movie was not for you.”
“I’m convinced you just wanted a close up of naked ladies. Prove me wrong.”
“Can you people try to use even just a fuckin’ quantum of imagination one single time in your lives, jfc”
“Figures a dumb-brained old white guy would say this.”

So basically, having a difference of opinion is now a punishable offense? It’s no secret that our Divider-in-Chief has ruined many good things in America, but his “brand” has also considerably poisoned what was once healthy discourse. No issue is black and white. Some require a middle ground. More importantly, if someone doesn’t feel the same way you do about a movie scene, there is no justification for insulting the person voicing it. I enjoy a huge assortment of offbeat musical genres and long ago stopped hoping or expecting others to enjoy them the same way. Why has movie criticism become such a flashpoint for vengeful idiocy?

Never mind. I already answered that question.

A Lost Bus Worth Finding

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One Battle After Another remains my favorite movie of the year. Nouvelle Vague, Richard Linklater’s superb black and white love letter to the French New Wave, is my second favorite. And now I have a third…

The Lost Bus is an Apple Original by Paul Greengrass, who directed the equally amazing, far too unheralded United 93 back in 2006 about the September 11th plane, and the same description of that movie can be said about this one: They are thrillers that actually thrill.

As a “fire movie”, it’s better than The Towering Inferno, Backdraft, or any other attempt at the genre I’ve seen. Greengrass’ signature style is a clipped, handheld realism and bevy of unknown actors to give the film a pronounced documentary feel that is wall-to-wall engaging. Kevin McKay’s courageous rescue of a busload of school kids during the tragic Paradise, CA fire also comes with the best Matthew McConaughey role he’s had in years. A no-nonsense, down-on-his luck working guy at odds with his bus dispatcher boss and estranged, high-maintenance family, McKay finds redemption when the wildfire spreads so fast he’s the only driver left in the fleet who can take the job. McConaughey’s desperate optimism and fear drive him to heroics, but there are no cliches here, none of the drama is forced, and the emotional release in the film’s final act feels absolutely earned.

It’s shocking that McConaughey didn’t receive a Best Actor nomination for this, and even more shocking the film received only one—for special effects. As a study in working class people and the nearly impossible tasks done by first responders, it’s a marvel, and the action builds and builds and never lets up. I imagine Greengrass used actual Paradise fire footage here and there, but if he did, it’s practically seamless. The Lost Bus is a realistic white-knuckle ride, and reminds us what good, moral humans are capable of every day.

The Great American Movie—Now More Than Ever

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Late last night I read a devastating post on Threads by a 22-year veteran of NASA, a woman with seven straight “perfect performance” reviews who just lost her job along with countless other civil servants due to the destructive whims of two megalomaniac toddlers. It didn’t help me get to sleep, but it sure inspired me to wake up and pay overdue tribute to Apollo 13—the best motion picture about America to not win Best Picture. Nominated for nine Oscars back in 1996, it won exactly two—for editing and sound mixing. Whoop-de-doo. In a year that Braveheart won Picture and Direction for the racially enlightened Mel Gibson, Apollo 13 director Ron Howard wasn’t even nominated, which to me was a federal crime.

What exactly didn’t you like, Academy voters? Nearly thirty years later, it remains one of the most realistic, tension-filled, non-schmaltzy depictions of American achievement ever put on film. You had Tom Hanks as star-crossed astronaut Jim Lovell, for cripes sake, bringing Kevin Bacon and the late and great Bill Paxton safely back to Earth after a mid-flight oxygen tank explosion with Gary Sinise’s heroic Ken Mattingly springing into action after a no-measles diagnosis to assist from the ground in Houston. You had captivating, unflappable Ed Harris running things in Mission Control, beautifully introduced by Howard a half hour into the film when his signature white vest was handed to him minutes before launch. You even had Ron Howard’s mom playing Lovell’s mom in the assisted living sequence!

More than anything, you had rich, very human characters displaying hope, confusion, fear, and release for its two hours and twenty minutes without one shred of forced emotion or audience manipulation. Everything felt earned. Okay, maybe James Horner’s music swelled at times, but what great American movie doesn’t have that? Even if you know the true account of what happened in those April 1970 days, the details and suspense Howard created is still absolutely riveting. Add to that sharp and impeccable period details (Hanks giving guests a tour early on and lauding they have a brand new computer “that can fit inside one room”) and wonderful actor chemistry (Kathleen Quinlan as Lovell’s brave wife was at least nominated, along with Harris) and again, what more did you want?

There are a host of movie scenes that make me cry on cue: Liam Neeson breaking down at the end of Schindler’s List; the epilogue of Sophie’s Choice; the very end of the Lord of the Rings trilogy when Minas Tirith bows down to the hobbits; when Alan Arkin’s deaf-mute character dies at the end of The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, Atticus Finch sitting up all night with his wounded son at the end of To Kill a Mockingbird. Etcetera. 

In Apollo 13, the climactic, harrowing minutes of no-contact with the three men during their atmospheric re-entry that’s basically assembled with scotch tape, scissors, and the brilliant minds of the NASA people on the ground is followed by the entire nation’s emotional release when Lovell’s voice is suddenly heard again. That moment is a five-hankie weeper, but watching the movie for maybe the sixth time last week on Netflix, the lump in my throat formed in the very first scene—where the three astronauts and their families gather in living rooms to watch Neil Armstrong’s historic Moon walk (narrated by Walter Cronkite) on television. It truly made me realize how much I love this country—and how much I hate those currently trying to dismantle everything good about it for sinister reasons.

Don’t even get me started on the National Parks.