Posts by Gino Sassani

“The Yautja are prey to none, friend to none, predator to all.”

This has certainly been a resurgent year for the Predator and Alien franchises. In the case of the Predator franchise, Badlands builds on the momentum and resurgence established by prequel film Prey. In the case of this iteration, we are treated with a film from the perspective of a Yautja warrior as he embarks on the rite of passage needed to be inducted into the Yautja clan. This was the unique perspective needed to take the franchise to new heights. For the first five films, we have watched the Yautja be the antagonists, and now we get to see what drives them as they come to the forefront for the first time. I expected that there would be a great deal of action, which was the lure that got me to the theater. What I didn’t expect was the healthy amount of humor that was also infused into the story. This of course is primarily courtesy of Elle Fanning’s character. Or least one of her characters; for this film, the actress pulled double duty as a pair of identical Weyland-Yutani Corporation synthetic androids; one that partners with our Yautja protagonist, while the other opposes him.

It’s hard to believe it has been nearly a decade since we last had a film directed by Kathryn Bigelow. I’ve been a fan of hers from her early years when she was doing films like Near Dark, Point Break, and Strange Days. I’ve always felt she’s never been given the credit she deserves, but when she finally got recognition for films like The Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty, it just felt long overdue. Now that she has A House Full of Dynamite releasing on Netflix, I’ll be honest; I immediately expected this to be one of my top films of the year, and considering when it was being released, it seemed like a sure frontrunner as an awards contender. Sadly this film might be my first major disappointment of the year, and what’s frustrating is that it still might have one of the most riveting opening acts of the year. So where did it go so wrong? The film takes us on a journey in a “what if” scenario where the US has a nuclear weapon fired at it from an unknown origin, though the best possible guess is North Korea. The film is broken up into three parts, each part focusing on different figures as they are faced with the same problem. It starts in the Situation Room with Captain Olivia Walker (Rebecca Ferguson) leading the effort to track the missile, and along the way we meet several key figures involved with trying to shoot the missile down to the President (Idris Elba), who is the key focus of the third act. This first act is phenomenal, and if it was simply a short film, it would deserve so much praise …The problem is that as each act is replayed, even though we are seeing new characters added to the mix to heighten the drama, it loses its impact because we’ve already seen the moment play out, and the story doesn’t move forward, but simply sidesteps and avoids answering questions or giving us any sort of payoff by the end.

Sure, this is a very real scenario that is depicted here, and the questions presented here are terrifying. Knowing how easily an impulsive decision could create a global nuclear war is unsettling, and seeing how quickly things can spiral and how there just wouldn’t be enough time to evacuate a large city that was targeted … these are things that hit really hard in this film and will likely keep some viewers up at night to ponder what they would do if a strike ever did occur. I’m not saying that the film doesn’t have drama. It’s jam-packed with drama and tension, but there’s no release, no resolution. I don’t need to see a grand-scale fallout from the impact or even an all-out war, but the film is just left so wide open that it feels incomplete. The best way I could describe this is that it is like watching an episode of 24 but never getting to know anything else that happens after. They give us so many characters experiencing the same thing, but no resolution, and that just annoys me.

Ever since I first heard about Good Boy earlier this year as it was making the rounds at film festivals, it instantly became one of my most anticipated films of the year. I was sold just on the idea of this being a supernatural film told through a dog’s perspective. Sure, it sounds like a gimmick, but I really liked the sound of this gimmick. I’ve always been a sucker for the paranormal, and I was always intrigued by the idea that animals could see things that we could not. So after months of waiting, I finally got the opportunity to watch Good Boy. Did it live up to my expectations, or did it turn out to be a dud? The film follows Indy, a Nova Scotia duck tolling retriever. He is extremely loyal to his owner, Todd (Shane Jensen), who we see from the opening scene is extremely ill. Todd knows his health is in decline, and he decides to get away from his doctors and his overbearing sister and moves out to his grandfather’s rural home. Just about immediately upon arriving Indy senses that there is something not right about the home but still continues to stick to his owner’s side. We watch through Indy’s concerned perspective as Todd lumbers through the home, wheezing and coughing. At night Todd combs through his grandfather’s VHS collection of old horror movies, but also some strange home videos of Grandpa (Larry Fessenden) talking about taxidermy. It also doesn’t take long before Indy starts to see that there are things lurking in the home.

The film has several moments that I loved. One that stands out the most is when Indy is left alone in the house for the first time and we see him patiently waiting by the window for Todd to return home … but then something gets Indy’s attention. It’s another dog that is in the home  and it wants to show Indy “something”  and Indy follows the dog upstairs, and the reveal is a tad bit unsettling. What’s so impressive is that obviously not a word is spoken in this sequence. It is all told through visuals and of course Indy’s reactions. I’d imagine most dog owners are going to watch this film and afterwards wonder just how the director was able to wrangle this kind of a performance out of his pet. I’m not exaggerating that this dog shows more emotional range than several A-listers who have been in big-budget films this year.