The Reel World

I’ve seen Bones and All twice now, and I have to say this is certainly one of the standout films of 2022. A road film that plays out as a romance between two young cannibals trying to find their place in the Reagan era America, well, it’s just the strange mix that works.  Horror isn’t supposed to be this sweet, and romance isn’t supposed to be so gruesome, but director Luca Guadagnino manages to put together a film that is so good that I believe it has a real shot at winning some prestigious awards, and it is so well deserved. I’m going to recommend going into this knowing as little as possible. Just simply allow the film to expose its dark and bloody underbelly to you, and just let yourself care for these monsters that are simply trying to find their place in the world and in the process even fall in love.

Maren (Taylor Russell) is a teen that has grown up with her father. The pair have traveled city to city having to use different aliases because Maren is different; she’s an “Eater”.  Eaters are slightly different from your typical cannibal; an Eater does so because it’s a need, sort of like a vampire, and they also have a heightened sense of smell, which comes in handy when coming across other Eaters. When Maren attacks a girl at a sleepover, it’s time for her and her father to go on the run again, though the dad has decided he’s done all he can for his daughter and he leaves her behind with some money, a cassette tape, and her birth certificate.  This sets Maren on her path to finding out who her mother is and on her journey to understanding who she is and along this journey she meets some unique and frightening characters along the way.

"Life is not like the movies."

Maybe sometimes life is exactly like the movies. You know the old phrase of art imitating life and that kind of thing. That's exactly the territory that's covered in Steven Spielberg's latest film The Fabelmans. It's an autobiographical film where the names are changed to protect both the guilty and the innocent. It's also the first time that Spielberg has directed his own writing in over 20 years. In those 20 years Spielberg has become something of a movie-making machine, and I think he felt it was time that the machine walked away from the spotlight for a minute and allowed the man behind the machine to show his face again. It used to be about heart; lately it's been about box office, and more recently it's been about surviving after the hit the industry took with COVID. I think that Spielberg had a lot of things to get off his chest, and it looks like he might have found the time and place to do just that. While the film is a love letter to people who still think movies are a kind of wizard's magic, it was also a little bit of therapy for this particular wizard. Like all autobiographies, it's not really finished, and that's the most profound takeaway I had when the film ended.

“Some people aren’t meant to be heroes.”

Black Adam was a unique experience. It was an occasion where a being that kills without hesitation is viewed as more of a hero than those that exercise restraint while fighting for justice. This is a principle that was leaned into during the film’s marketing campaign, which for me generated a great deal of intrigue, and I was glad that it was not just a marketing ploy. The fact is that Black Adam is very much an anti-hero. However, he did not start out that way. He was initially just a supervillain, one that was and likely still is intended to serve as the primary antagonist to Zachary Levi’s Shazam. For this film, he embraces the role of anti-hero, which is in keeping with his comic book roots, which saw the character shift from villain to anti-hero. Simply put, he is a dark hero; someone you love watching even when he is doing morally questionable things. Who better to embody that idea than Dwayne Johnson. During his wrestling days, Dwayne Johnson, then known as The Rock, did stints as both a face (a good guy) and a heel (bad guy). Even when he was a heel, he was among the most popular superstars of that era. He could make you cheer for him, even when he was cheating. He had presence. And in Black Adam, Johnson very much calls on those talents.

As I mentioned in my review for Amsterdam, it’s awards season, and the studios are churning out the films they hope will garner praise and a lot of statues celebrating how great their film is. Spoiler alert, Amsterdam won’t be one of those films, but one that will be is a film that is easily one of the top films I’ve seen this year, and it’s The Banshees of Inisherin.  Because of the title I know many have been put off from watching the film because they think it is going to be a horror film. Well, let me assure you that this isn’t a horror film, nor are there any banshees in the film. As to why the film is called that, well, you’ll have to see it to find out for yourself.

This is the first film writer and director Martin McDonagh has done since his critically acclaimed film Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017), and as great as that film was, I feel he’s managed to outdo himself with The Banshees of Inisherin. Though the film may be simple in plot, the characters he’s crafted for this story are so well done that every scene they populate they are engaging. The dialog is sharp, and the actors deliver some of the years best performances that just makes this such an enjoyable experience to watch.

After watching this film I needed a good 24 hours to process what I had watched before getting too critical and writing this. I love the Halloween franchise. Sure, like any of the horror franchises there are some duds, but it doesn’t take away the fun these films can bring, especially during the month of October. Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) is definitely an icon of horror and for many will be seen as the genres ultimate “Final Girl”, so when Curtis said that Halloween Ends was really going to be her last time stepping into the role of Laurie Strode, well, it gave the film a bit more meaning for fans.  It’s not just the end of the trilogy that director David Gordon Green kicked off in 2018, but this film is the final chapter of Laurie Strode, the babysitter horror fans first fell in love with back in 1978 with John Carpenter’s Halloween. You look at the trailers for this new film and you think that this third installment is going to be the final showdown between Michael Myers and Laurie Strode we’ve all waited for, a film that could possibly end this franchise on a high note. Even I was optimistic. Halloween (2018) was a fun reboot of the franchise and made Michael Myers a brutal force to be reckoned with, and Halloween Kills in my opinion was a great follow-up on how dangerous things can get when a town is in a panic. So how does it all end? In a spectacular failure, if I’m being honest.

The film opens up on Halloween night in Haddonfield in 2019, a year after the events of Halloween Kills. Corey (Rohan Campbell) is going to be spending his night babysitting. It should come as no surprise that things don’t go as planned and the night ends in tragedy. The opening definitely subverts expectations, which is fine at first, but this was honestly the first clue that things were not going to go as expected with this film. The film then jumps ahead four years, and Haddonfield continues to be haunted by the ghost of Michael Myers since that tragic night back in 2018. Well, except Laurie; this film gives us a Laurie we haven’t seen before, at least not since her friends died back in 1978. She’s actually happy, and she’s moved on from the past and has taken on the role of the parental figure to Allyson (Andi Matichak), who seems to be grieving the death of her parents fairly well, considering. The relationship between Laurie and Allyson is honestly my favorite aspect of this film, everything from Laurie trying to celebrate Halloween with her granddaughter, to Laurie attempting to set Allyson up on a date are kind of the sweet moments I didn’t realize I wanted till I saw them in the film. The chemistry just jumps off the screen with these “final girls” so much that I hope we’ll get to see another film with these actresses at some point.

It’s that time of year again, when studios begin to release the award contending films. Considering how lackluster the summer release slate was, when I look at the release schedule, these next couple months are pretty stacked with films for film lovers to get excited about and hopefully give them a reason to return to the cinemas. This week the film I’m talking about is Amsterdam. You look at the star-studded cast, you see the writer and director, David O. Russell (American Hustle, Silver Linings Playbook, The Fighter) and you wouldn’t be wrong to think that this is going to be a big film. I’ve been a fan of David O. Russell since he did Three Kings, and any time he has a movie come out, it’s something I get excited about. Sadly, this is one of those films that just seem to be too ambitious for their own good. I’ll say this; if it wasn’t for the amount of talent on screen, I don’t think it would be as good as it is.

It’s 1933. Burt Berendsen (Christian Bale) and Harold Woodman (John David Washington) are best friends ever since serving in WWI together, each saving the other’s life. Berendsen is now a doctor who specializes in treating disfigured vets while concocting his own pain medicines. Woodman has gone on to establish himself as a successful lawyer. The pair have been hired by Liz Meekins (Taylor Swift) to find out if her father, Burt and Harold’s commander in the war, has been murdered.  As it turns out, he has been murdered, and in the process of disclosing this to Meekins she is murdered, and Burt and Harold are fingered for the crime. This kicks off the adventure of these two where they are forced to clear their names and uncover the truth behind their former commander’s murder. If things were kept this simple the movie could have had more promise, but David O. Russell seems to get too clever for his own good, throwing in twists and hijinks that seem to come out of nowhere, overcomplicating the plot to absurdity.

I’m lucky; I got to see the premiere of Smile in perhaps the best environment possible to experience a genre film. By this I mean I saw it at its premiere as the opening night film of Fantastic Fest in Austin, Texas at The Alamo Drafthouse. It’s important I state this, because it reflects the amount of excitement that I had going into this film, not just for the film but for the festival as well. I’d be seeing this film with about 180 plus film fans who are ravenous for genre films from around the globe who are definitely more than just casual filmgoers. Still I went into this film knowing as little as possible. I believe I had only seen one trailer for the film, which was the night before; it was attached to Barbarian. (Seriously, you need to see Barbarian on the big screen and with a crowd, it was a friggin blast to experience.) What I remember from the trailer was intriguing, and it certainly showed promise, though I feel the marketing tactics they did by placing actors in baseball stadiums to leer at the players with creepy smiles was some of the most brilliant marketing for a film in years. With all that said, is it a good film?

Dr. Rose Cotter (Sosie Bacon) is overworked at the hospital she works at, spending most of her time attending to her mentally ill patients, so much so that even when she is told to leave she forces herself to make time for one more patient. As it would turn out, it would be a regrettable decision. Rose meets with the new patient, a PhD student who claims there is something trying to kill her, something only she can see, and its one defining characteristic is that it has a grotesque smile. The patient suddenly changes from her panicked state and has a hideous smile of her own as she begins to mutilate herself in front of Cotter and eventually dies. The sequence is creepy and effective and has the kind of vibes that reminded me of The Ring, The Grudge, and It Follows, so I felt like I was in good hands, expecting a fun story with a few jump scares thrown in for good measure.

George Miller is a filmmaker who will forever be known for his Mad Max films, and to be fair, it’s a pretty awesome legacy to leave behind, but when you take a look at his filmography, it is one that is filled with variety. There is The Witches of Eastwick, his segment from The Twilight Zone: The Movie, and then there is Happy Feet, a variety that shows that he has more to offer than testosterone thrill rides. I feel it is worth mentioning this because it shows that as a director he’s willing to take chances and stray beyond his comfort zone and show that he is one of the more talented visual storytellers still working in the industry. The film Three Thousand Years of Longing is, simply put, a love letter to storytelling and its use over the existence of mankind. Sure, there are some mythical aspects involved and plenty of CGI, but at its heart the film is simply about two characters sharing stories inside a luxurious hotel room where Agatha Christie is said to have written “Death on the Nile”. Tilda Swinton plays Alithea, a self proclaimed “narratologist”, an academic who tells stories. She’s in Istanbul to help give a lecture on the history of storytelling, and it’s not long after her arrival that things seem to be a little strange. Alithea has a condition that causes her to hallucinate figures, OR does she have a gift to see into another realm? Miller really isn’t interested in what the truth is, and that’s one of the film’s strengths, it asks the viewer to ignore logic and simply accept fantasy for the next two hours. Logic simply has no place with this experience, and it’s something more if us should embrace when we consider the stresses in the real world that we are all dealing with these days.

Idris Elba plays the Djinn that Alithea releases in her hotel room. Though it appears some prosthetics and CGI were used to make the Djinn more whimsical, I appreciate that the look they went for with the film was nothing like the Genie we saw in the live-action film for Aladdin. To be fair, going into this film I was worried that this film would be just a more adult version of the Disney classic, though in the end it really had me calling back to the great 2006 film The Fall (if you’ve seen it, then this should get you excited for 3000 Years of Longing; if you haven’t seen The Fall, it is one of the most beautiful films ever put on the screen and should be seen immediately). I feel these movies perfectly complement one another with how they are filled with stories that are beautifully told cautionary tales. When Alithea is confronted with the task of making her three wishes, she is quick to object, and this begins the Djinn telling his story and about the previous people that had come before Alithea and were given the chance to ask for their wishes. The stories are told with a visual flair and are done in a stark contrast to the very sterile hotel room. The bond that develops between Alithea and the Djinn is very charming, but when it inevitably develops into a romance, this is where the film lost its hold on me.

“We’re in his territory now.”

Given the film’s premise, this strikes me as the perfect tagline for the film. A family on safari finds themselves trapped and stalked by a lion with a bloodlust. It definitely evokes memories of the Val Kilmer and Michael Douglas-led 1996 film, The Ghost and The Darkness. In this instance, of course, they rely on the acting chops of Idris Elba to keep the film from descending into cliché. And while there are some situations that seem avoidable and unrealistic, the film did a great job of maintaining my interest for the duration. Joining Elba is Sharlto Copley, another talent with an extensive resume. My only gripe about Copley is that he felt underutilized, and I felt there were intriguing developments with his character that if fleshed out would have added a greater degree of depth to his character. However, this of course was out of Copley’s control and in no way negative impacts his given performance. Just one of those things that results when you only have a limited amount of time to tell a complete story. Despite this, I still found Beast enjoyable and recommend the experience. I mean, come on, Idris Elba vs. a lion; that’s worth the price admission in itself.