Sea Fever 2019 - Film Review

Mid Sea Quarantine Horror Drama

Sea Fever had been on my watch list for almost over a year, tempted by rave reviews that my movie critic friends had shared on the Movie Bloggers Network community. However, much to my sheer disappointment, I found Sea Fever sorely lacking in the Horror department, even though it cleverly sets up a very intriguing premise. 

Close to 30 minutes and to the chagrin of my patience, it turns from a potential monster at sea horror extravaganza into a quarantine human drama about a virulent parasitic infection. Maybe that's why it has resonated so well in these CoronaVirus times and garnered the praise. 

Even then, I hoped Sea Fever would still turn into an exciting Cabin Fever/The Thing kind of macabre horror, but it is more content settling into a morose pace as the characters predictably start dying one by one. Instead of salvaging any bloody redemption for horror or sci-fi fans alike, even the inevitable climax is a wasted opportunity. 

It’s not that Sea Fever is a bad movie. It’s not. The lead stars do a fine job especially Hermoine Corfield, Connie Nielsen & the Swedish - Iranian actor Ardalan Esmaili who I also loved in 2017’s The Charmer. Dougray Scott's role is wasted though, with not much screen presence. The agoraphobic ambiance of the fishing trawler, the desperate vulnerability of the middle-class fishing crew, and the stoic persona of the lead heroine all add up to the movie's strengths. 

It indeed also makes for a fine mid-sea drama thriller but it just didn’t cut enough for me to rank it as one of the best horrors of the year, as many claim it to be. To be fair, and still give the benefit of the doubt, I think this was due to a paucity of the budget rather than ideas that shaped this movie.

Watch it for the hype, not for any Horror!

What Movies I Saw This Week

Obviously not pleased with so many recent posts on women and relationships, an old-time reader wrote to me if I have stopped posting on music and movies entirely. A valid question actually. So this post is a quick fix to assuage any such doubts! 

The Girl with All the Gifts (Colm McCarthy, 2016) - Never since Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later (2002) has any post-apocalyptic zombie horror movie got me hooked like this one. I was so enamored by it, I went ahead and bought myself the novel of the same name by British writer M.R. Carey, which in turn is based on his 2013 Edgar Award-nominated sci-fi short story Iphigenia In Aulis. I won't spoil it more for you other than the fact that the British make good zombie movies that combine style and substance, unlike their Hollywood counterparts. Gemma Atherton and Paddy Considine act solid but its Glenn Close and the little heroine - Sennia Nanua as Melanie who steals the show. A beautiful score by Cristo, the Chilean-born Canadian composer famous adds to the flavor. 

Clan Of The Cave Bear (Michael Chapman, 1986) - Not since Raquel Welch stepped on her mammoth-fur bikini in One Million Years BC (1966) has there been a piece of pre-historic nookie more enticing than blonde goddess Daryl Hannah in this epic adventure about a young Cro-Magnon woman raised by Neanderthals. Luckily, she doesn't have to handle any dialogue here, just grunt and groan (with subtitles) and look smashing in this irresistibly silly cavewoman flick with many subtle overtones to feminism. The script, believe it or not, is by the great John Sayles and music by Alan Silvestri. If you can withstand people dressed in neanderthal costumes and Oscar-nominated makeup talking in sign language, this box office bomb based on the best selling book by Jean M. Auel is actually a good time pass. 

The Boy Who Could Fly (Nick Castle, 1986) - Charming, if a tad overlong fantasy drama about a teenage girl (Lucy Deakins), whose father has recently died, and her attempts to help an autistic boy (Jay Underwood) who seems to think he can fly. Deakins and Underwood's empathetic performances keep the story grounded in reality, even when it becomes fanciful towards the end. Director/writer Castle isn't quite Spielberg, but he does a good job at capturing a similar sense of wonder. Watch out for Wonder Years' Fred Savage, Jason Priestley, and John Carpenter. Good music by Bruce Broughton. For those who don't know, Nick Castle played Michael Myers in John Carpenter's Halloween (1978) and also co-wrote Escape From New York (1981). 

The April Fools (Stuart Rosenberg, 1969) - Jack Lemmon is caught in a comedy of romantic errors in this bright farce about a wall street broker who falls for a stunning woman (Catherine Deneuve) who turns out to be the wife of his boss, brilliantly acted by Peter Lawford. The two try and run off together, amid all kinds of complications. Wildly out of control at times, this romantic comedy directed ably by Cool Hand Luke's Stuart Rosenberg has enough of a lunatic edge to keep you interested and give a lesson or two about being caught up in a loveless marriage. The stellar supporting cast includes Sally Kellerman, Charles Boyer, Jack Weston, and Myrna Loy. 

Equalizer 2 (Antoine Fuqua, 2018) - In this fourth collaboration between Denzel Washington and Antoine Fuqua and much-awaited sequel to the 2014 hit, things go quickly downhill from a rather very impressive start that promises so much potential to a faltering weak film by the time it ends. Denzel Washington's acting is top notch as usual but a stupid "in your face" unsuspenseful script, unnecessary characters, and too much sugary sentimentality robs this vigilante thriller of any redeeming factors. A stormy weather setup that's outlined right from the beginning ends up like a joke in the climax with preposterous sequences. I had a nagging feeling if the first half and second half were directed by two different individuals. Its anybody's guess, which one was Antoine Fuqua but who cares anyway, when this movie has already crossed over $184 million since its release. Strictly for Denzel Washington fans. 

How It Ends (David M. Rosenthal, 2018) - This Netflix dystopian thriller got my attention because it had a nice trailer, it had Forest Whitaker and also because I have a perennial appetite for all "end of the world" movies. I should have trusted the negative reviews though, a terrible film and a sheer waste are what many warned. I won't say its as awful as the reviews make of it, its pedestrian in the pace of course but shot very well, the acting by Theo James, Whitaker and co are also not as bad but where its utterly fails is the pacing and final pay off. The mystery of what really happened or how the world has ended or is ending is never explained. Not explained at all actually. I guess they wanted to make a sequel where the mystery will be deciphered but the way "how it ends" and the kind of negative publicity it has already received, I think that noble idea must have already been shelved. As long as you are willing to see a dystopian road movie with a sense of perpetual dread and don't mind an inconclusive ending, How It Ends is an ok watch but insipidly boring nonetheless.

The Cured (2018)

Irish Zombie reboot of In The Flesh

The Cured (2018) is a blatant Irish rip-off of teenage zombie TV series "In The Flesh". Considering this is an Irish production and "In the Flesh" was a 2013-14 BBC TV series, it's baffling how a script with a strikingly similar storyline was greenlighted especially when they were also able to get established actors to star.

Nonetheless, The Cured holds its own as a dark zombie-themed thriller with some good scenes that remind you of "28 Days Later", and mature social commentary on issues like PTSD, class struggles and discrimination. Yet, despite all these social overtones, the fact that you know where this movie is headed dampens your enthusiasm.  

While Tom Vaughan-Lawlor and Sam Keeley are the main protagonists with more screentime, it is X-men and Juno fame, Ellen Page in a supporting role who stands out with a restrained performance as a sad single mother who has lost her husband in the zombie apocalypse. 

If you haven't watched "In The Flesh", you may probably like it too but for others like me, this is a slow zombie fest which has seen better days.

Lost Highway (1997)

90s bizarre erotic mystery for true blue Lynch Fans!

All right, let’s get this on the table. There are two kinds of people in the world, those who divide the world into two kinds of people and those who don’t. No, I’m kidding. There are those of us who go into a swoon when David Lynch hits the mark (The Elephant Man, Eraserhead, the first ten or twelve episodes of Twin Peaks) and give him our patience when he doesn’t, quite (Wild at Heart, Twin Peaks after its degeneration into soap opera); and then there are those whose minds flat-out cannot process Lynch and his idiosyncratic liberties. Members of this latter group are inclined to demand "Yes, but what does it mean?" with varying degrees of patience. I accept that there are such people, and I accept that they feel justified in their frustrated distaste for my main man Lynch. Me, I can’t deal with televised football, not even for a few minutes at a time while I’m waiting to see the new commercials. Never liked it, never will, would rather give a cat a bath than have anything to do with it. But some people, even some of my friends, are crazy for football and even find themselves moved to stand up and shout and cheer. To each his own; it’s a big enough world for all of us.

I speak, then, as a longtime member of the former group of Lynch-watchers. And for me, Lost Highway is like some kind of Super Bowl. Critical scuttlebutt on Lynch’s film is that he’s only rehashing the cockeyed voluptuousness of Blue Velvet, which when it was released in 1986 was acclaimed as one of the most daring and original films in many many years, maybe one of the best ever. And what of his newest? Normal people descend into indescribable weirdness, we’ve seen this all before, sniff those in my opposing contingent. Pimps, casual brutality, and car chases – even I will not deny the existence of such Lynchian motifs. (In particular there has been some carping that the Robert Blake character in Lost Highway is drawn too closely from Frank Booth, Blue Velvet’s sociopathic nitrous-sniffing freak, of which comparison more anon.) 

But the implication being made by such comments is that having discovered, with Blue Velvet, the formula for critical success, Lynch has attempted to bluff his way to a by-the-book reinterpretation of it, and this is simply not the case. The descent into weirdness traced in that film was hero Jeffrey Beaumont (Kyle MacLachlan)’s introduction to, and induction into, the underbelly of his cozy hometown, his realization of all that had lain just outside his range of vision. At a very basic level Blue Velvet was a sick and twisted coming-of-age story; at the end, Jeffrey, older but wiser, has a new sense of hope and the perspective to know what a precious commodity it is. (Whether Lynch is with Jeffrey on this score is a subject much open to debate.) Lost Highway affords the viewer no possibility of hope. It picks you up and throttles you like the cinematic embodiment of Frank Booth, and it casts off the supersaturated realism ofBlue Velvet in favor of surrealistic body blows.

With Lost Highway, you get two stories for the price of one that sort of, kind of come together at the end of the film. In the first, Bill Pullman is avant-garde saxophonist Fred Madison, who with his vampy wife Renée (Patricia Arquette) is the victim of a weird prank: someone is breaking into their house and videotaping them while they sleep. In one of the series of videotapes – these are left on the Madisons’ front porch with the morning paper – Fred is suddenly horrified to see Renée dead on their bedroom floor amid a pile of gore, and himself in the middle of it. The next thing he realizes, he is being interrogated by the police in connection with her actual murder. In the next scene, he is convicted and sentenced to death. End of Part One. 

In his jail cell one night, Fred ceases to be Fred – as the guards notice immediately, the person in Fred’s cell is someone else. A computer search reveals the inmate ex machina to be Pete Dayton (Balthazar Getty), a junior car thief who went missing some time ago. Pete, who can’t remember how he got into Fred’s cell or much of anything in the way of an explanation, is released into his parents’ custody and resumes his former life – going out with his buddies, working as an auto mechanic. One regular customer at Arnie’s Garage is Mr. Eddie (the beautifully cast Robert Loggia, a demonic Dick Vitale; actually, his is the character most like Frank Booth), who seems to want to involve Pete in some shady dealings but just drives him around in his car while his two bodyguards ride in the back. Dropping off his Caddy one day to have Pete work on it, Mr. Eddie arrives with his girlfriend, Alice (Patricia Arquette again), who is drawn to Pete. The two embark on a motel-room affair, and when Mr. Eddie finds out, Alice and Pete plot to rob a pimp (Michael Massee) and run away together. They escape into the desert to find a fence she knows. Here Pete changes back into Fred, who pursues both Alice and Mr. Eddie through some kind of brothel in hell (cameos from Marilyn Manson and Twiggy Ramirez as porno actresses, so you know Lynch means it), ends up back at his house to deliver a mysterious message Fred also received at the beginning of the film, arouses the interest of the detectives who have been watching the house, and is chased down an open highway as another metamorphosis begins to overtake him. Roll credits.

Lost Highway, to me, recalled Eraserhead more than it did Blue Velvet, and I felt like Lynch was getting back to his roots: an elliptical, grotesque narrative lacquered over with sound and light. Many of the same cinematic elements are present in this film as in Eraserhead – in particular, the utterly contrary use of sight and sound, as if a screenful of pixels and some audio feedback constitute an offensive weapon – but here they feel more decisive than experimental; instead of trying almost overhard to distinguish himself as a brash auteur, Lynch is by now so far immersed in his medium that he feels it at an elemental level. The big difference here is that these days everyone knows his name, and he can score budgets chunky enough to bring locations, special effects, and name actors (not to mention color film) to the mix. His movies look more like regular movies now. This false relationship heightens their onslaught.

The primary way in which Lynch movies are not like regular movies is in their nonchalance where conventional plot is concerned. Plots to Lynch are a function, related to his endeavor as knowing how to drive is to wanting to see new places. But because getting there is half the fun, you have to want to enjoy the ride. And man oh man is there a surfeit of roadside attractions. Not the least of these is the cast. 

As the credits flashed (and they do flash) at the start of the film, from Henry Rollins to Richard Pryor to Gary Busey, my friend Steve said, "I feel like I should go out there and give them some more money." It is almost an embarrassment of riches in terms of the play of familiar and half-recalled faces across the screen, but it’s not shock casting. It’s like some mean flip side of the Love Boat, or the Hollywood Squares on a chain gang; there’s nothing comforting about it. 

Bill Pullman, who resembles Lynch himself, makes the quick dive from Presidential to vice – fleshy, sweaty, and surly. Balthazar Getty’s confused composure occasionally recalls Montgomery Clift, and as for Patricia Arquette, what other actor or actress can you name who has been in consecutive movies as schizophrenic as Beyond Rangoon,Flirting With Disaster, Infinity (about the life of Richard Feynman; she played his first wife) and this one and managed to be individualistically credible in all of them? When I first saw her, as the kooky, weepy failed hooker in True Romance, I thought for sure she was a fluke, but she seems to be hell-bent on convincing me and everyone else who goes to the movies that this ain’t the case. Other standouts are two pairs of detectives, who provide some welcome moments of deadpan absurdity, and Busey and Lucy Butler as the enigmatically bereft Mr. and Mrs. Dayton.

But what I can’t get out of my mind is Robert Blake as the "Mystery Man" (this per the closing credits), the one major character Fred’s and Pete’s trajectories have in common. If you’ve seen previews for Lost Highway, you’ve seen a piece of the party scene where Fred first encounters him, and you’ve seen what Blake is up to – you may well have been unable to take your eyes away from it. I wasn’t a Baretta fan, but my sister and I used to watch Blake as a crusading ghetto priest in a one-season TV flop called Helltown, and on a few occasions in the years since, I wondered what this amiable actor had been doing with himself. Having face lifts and selling his soul to the devil, that’s what. 

Blake’s voice vibrates laryngectomy-like almost imperceptibly out of sync with those of the other actors (Lynch’s real genius is as a sound designer), and he twists it as if it’s a knife. The effect of Blake’s characterization – voice, freakshow makeup, demonic eyes, and all – is cumulative, so that at one point late in the film I caught myself whimpering when he appeared. Unlike Frank, the Mystery Man will never make you laugh. He is more contained, so the fear he inspires is writ larger. And he performs on a larger stage: Lost Highway’s vast milieu, interior and exterior, blows Lumberton out of the water. The last movie to which I had such a visceral reaction, some years back, was a Jonestown docudrama starring Powers Boothe, and that was because it gave me flashbacks to the news footage I’d forgotten I really saw televised when I was a tyke. Blake builds a little Jonestown in his heart and holds it out to us, and it’s terrifying. Lost Highway mostly packs its wallop to your psyche because of the narrative authority given to Blake’s character. Is this the linchpin we keep coming back to? With everything you’ve got in your mind and body you make a futile plea: no. Yes, says Lynch, and that’s that.

If you want, you can try to figure out what it all means, you can attempt to use the film’s recurrent themes and images as keys to unlock the rest of it, you can try to get inside Lynch’s head and poke around for buried treasure. (I would in fact be very surprised if hundreds of would-be Film Ph.D’s have not already given this the old college try.) 

If you’ve got more fortitude than I apparently have, you can think long and hard about the Mystery Man and how he brings Fred's and Pete’s stories together in a grotty exploding shack in the desert. But although I did feel a sense of real despair during the film that made me scan its addresses and license plates as if under the influence of a fever, wanting so much to read something in them, in the final analysis I can’t make myself believe that this is the point. Anyway, David Lynch doesn’t want me to pin his movies’ wings down and put them in a case, he wants me to enter the insect kingdom, so to speak, and wonder at the life in it. And with Lost Highway and Blake’s central performance, the nightmarishness of which can only be a long-incubated dream for my old pal Lynch, he wanted me to get stung and see what poison feels like. I submitted.

The Lazarus Effect (2015)

JohnnyTwoToes trashes this insipid thriller that tries hard to blend Flatliners with Pet Sematary and fails!

In 1990, Joel Schumacher directed a film called Flatliners with starred Kiefer Sutherland, Julia Roberts, Kevin Bacon, Oliver Platt and William Baldwin as med students who decide to explore the near death experience. They would slow the heart down of a subject (themselves, actually), somehow record what the brain sees and record what their body does while in this state. Afterwards, they are revived and talk about what they saw and felt. It was a remarkable film and did a good job of probing the psyche of each of the students. It really explored each of their own demons and how traumatic events shaped their lives to make them the way they are now. Flatliners was a sharply observant and intelligent film. The Lazarus Effect tries to be Flatliners but, unfortunately with its horror and supernatural undertones, cannot make up its mind what it wants to be. 

The Lazarus Effect refers to the Biblical figure of Lazarus who was brought back from the dead. In the film, a group of medical students led by Frank (Mark Duplass) have seemingly found a way to bring back the dead. This film also stars Sarah Bolger, Evan Peters, Donald Glover and Olivia Wilde as Zoe, Frank’s girlfriend and fellow student. When an accident kills Zoe, they use their new found technology to bring her back with limited success. She is still Zoe……..or is she something else. Since the students are not even supposed to be in the facility they are using they are now at the mercy of whatever Zoe has returned as. She ain’t the old Zoe, that is for darn sure. 

I did not have any problems with the premise and kind of knew what to expect. But The Lazarus Effect seems bent on being a horror film. The problem is that it is not scary. We get lots of jump scares but no sense of real terror. So does it try to be a deep film about life and death and how it affects us? No. The acting is decent enough and I especially like Sarah Bolger and Olivia Wilde’s interaction together, but the film is in such a hurry to give us another jump scare that it never develops any of the characters. They are simply used as plot devices that are to be eliminated one at a time. 

The Lazarus Effect is rated PG13 and is only 83 minutes long yet, it goes absolutely nowhere. Instead, what the viewer gets is a film that is not scary enough to be a horror film and not smart enough to be a psychological thriller. Everything seems to be hampered by its rating and run time. The characters have apparently never have seen a horror film either, since they decide to go off on their own, one by one. These are med students and to be in med school means you have to be a smart person. But, in this case these characters are only as smart as the action of the film dictates. The characters so underwritten and uninspired that I never believed any of them were in into med school. I did not buy a minute of this film, have any vested interest in these characters or see this film as anything other than a sloppy and unfocused mess. 

Luke Dawson and Jeremy Slater’s script is nonsensical and never gets into the brain of any of these characters.Slater (who is credited as one of the writers for this summer’s atrocity Fantastic Four) and Dawson (writer of the B-titled horror film Shutter) have only written these characters as one dimensional so there is no emotional hook in any of them. First time director David Gelb lets the pacing of The Lazarus Effect sputter along and although this is a short film, it seems longer than it is. It is basically the same scene over and over. The characters talk and yell at each other and then there is a jump scare. Then, more talking and yelling and another jump scare; maybe a quick shot Zoe tilting her head in an ominous way. It takes mere minutes for the viewers to figure out that Zoe is evil, but the smart med students don’t catch on until the whole place is locked down. By then it is too late for them and for the viewers 

The Lazarus Effect has a great idea, the acting is sufficient and I liked the score by Sarah Schachner, but it is so ineptly handled that it becomes a burden to get through. I almost turned it off a couple of times just to take a break from the banality of it all. It was still a chore to get through. Save your money and watch (or re-watch) Flatliners a ten times better film or Stephen King's Pet Sematary. The Lazarus Effect-*1/2 out of 5

What I Saw Last Night - 6 Movie Reviews

Its been a busy month but here are some of the films that have kept me awake.

Armored (Nimród Antal, 2009, Crime, Thriller) - With a stellar cast comprising Matt Dillon, Jean Reno, Skeet Ulrich, Lawrence Fishburne, Fred Ward and more, this should have been a winner. Yet, this 2009 heist gone wrong thriller of Armored Guards making the perfect robbery has an uncanny feeling of “been there, done that” throughout its 90 minutes runtime. However, if you have nothing else to do and are willing to ignore the countless clichés, it’s a not so boring time passer. This is a dissapoitment considering its from the same director who gave us the Kate Beckinsale horror film Vacancy (2007) and the superb but dark Kontroll (2003). 

Der Baader Meinhof Komplex / The Baader Meinhof Complex (Uli Edel, 2008, Crime, Thriller) - Based on the best selling book of the same name by Stefan Aust, this is a sensational piece of German cinema chronicling the rise of the left wing Baader Meinhof (Red Faction) radical group that was famous in the 1970s and the 1980’s for staging audacious arson attacks and bombings in West Germany and beyond. With spotloss performances from it stars Moritz Bleibtreu, Martina Gedeck and Johanna Wokalek and a water tight screenplay, this is a pleasure to watch. No reason why this was nominated for an Oscar under the Best Foreign Language Film in 2008. Truly unmissable. 

Lucky Luciano (Francesco Rosi, 1974, Crime, Drama) - This Italian-American co-production was a disappointing attempt to cash in on the Godfather craze of the early '70s. The talented Francesco Rosi, known for capturing detail in his films, here uses authenticity to his disadvantage. The movie plays like a mediocre documentary. It is disjointed, with frequent crosscutting between New York and Italy and unannounced flashbacks and flash forwards. Gian Maria Volante, a very good actor, does a credible job here as Luciano when he speaks Italian, but when he speaks Brooklynese English his voice is poorly dubbed.

Peggy Sue Got Married (Francis Ford Coppola, 1986, Comedy, Fantasy) - Never has Coppola been so lighthearted and romantically bittersweet as in this candy-colored retro fantasy that was nominated for three Academy Awards including Best Actress, Best Cinematography and Best Costume Design. Kathleen Turner delivers an impressively nuanced performance as a soon-to-be-divorced woman who goes back in time to the '50s at her high school reunion. Suddenly she's a cheerleader dating her future husband again (played with false buck teeth and unintended Pee Wee-isms by Nicolas Cage). What would Peggy Sue do if she could change her destiny? Funnier, flakier and more poignant than the similar Back To The Future (1985). Kevin J. O'Connor makes an impressive debut as the wild-eyed, poetry-spouting Kerouac clone Peggy Sue secretly desires. 

The Servant (Joseph Losey, 1963, Drama) - In his first collaboration with playwright Harold Pinter, exiled director Losey creates a stunning surrealist look at power plays and decadent perversity in the relationship between a handsome, very proper member of the British upper crust (James Fox) and his seemingly dutiful manservant (Dirk Bogarde). All runs smoothly in their tasteful townhouse until the arrival of Bogarde's so-called "sister" (played with youthful sensuality incarnate by a nubile Sarah Miles). Then all hell breaks loose, including the notorious concluding orgy scene. A distinctive ever roving camera, brilliant performances and psycho-sexual dynamics with homo erotic overtones make this one of Losey's best. 

Under Fire (Roger Spottiswode, 1983, War, Drama) - A gravel-voiced Nick Nolte stars as a photojournalist asked by Nicaraguan Sandinistas to photograph their murdered leader as though he were alive to save their cause. This easy-to-swallow primer of Nicaraguan Revolution that toppled the Somoza regime has lots of great kinetic action complemented by a great Jerry Goldsmith score. Cinematography by John Alcott (who shot Kubrick's Barry Lyndon) is consistently inventive. Good peripheral performances from Gene Hackman, Ed Harris, Jean-Louis Trintignant and Joanna Cassidy (who has a stunningly cool-sensual presence) make this a solid political thriller along the lines of Costa Gavras' Missing (1982).

Ginger Snaps (2000)

Raging Hormones, Werewolves and everything brutally beautiful

Wes Craven's Scream started with the premise that every kid in high school knew the teenage slasher flick genre by heart and, therefore, why pretend? This low-budget but immensely popular Canadian film (it spawned 2 sequels) follows the same route, but from a different perspective. 

It's no joke, for one thing. Ginger (Katharine Isabelle) and Brigitte (Emily Perkins) are sisters. They live in a suburban home with a groomed dad and hands-on mom (Mimi Rogers) who talks to them like china dolls. Ginger is 16, Brigitte 15. For fun, they fake murders and suicides and have a death pact, which means if one dies the other kills herself. 

Menstruation becomes a big issue because it hasn't happened yet and the grown-ups can't wait to give advice and be patronizing. The girls are in rebellion against life. They want freedom from the safety of their uneventful existence and refuse to be told what to do. They consider prettier girls bitches and boys unmentionable. They are called freaks. 

Outside the narrow confines of their sulky patch, odd things have been reported, such as the brutal killing of household pets. Have the sisters lost control, or is there a wild creature abroad? When Ginger is attacked in the woods and barely escapes alive, Brigitte knows instinctively what nameless horror awaits. Except, it is not nameless. Does their pact include the living dead? 

The success of Ginger Snaps lies in the commitment of the director (John Fawcett), the actors, most notably the two sisters, the writer (Karen Walton) and a great soundtrack too. They don't go for the it's-behind-you pantomime approach that modern teenage horror movies enjoy. They take it seriously, which makes all the difference between empathy and objectivity. When the most responsible member of the school body turns out to be the in-house dope dealer, you know you cannot trust stereotypes. 

The performances appear forced at first, as if these girls are only pretending to be off-the-wall, which is the point. They grow through fear. Perkins captures the confusion of role play, torn between loss and loyalty, discovering an inane ability to make rapid decisions, while Isabelle thrives on her new identity, decreasingly dependent on the blood of the innocent. If you are the rare soul who has still not seen it yet, the time in now! The Wolf

This review first appeared in the British online magaizne Inside Out way back in early 2000.

Film Score of the Month - Less Than Zero (1987) by Thomas Newman

JohnnyTwoToes shares his second most favorite Film Score and its good as gold!

This is a bit of an soundtrack oddity. The film score for the late 80's crime drama Less Than Zero is not available for purchase except in an ultra rare cd 'promotional' disc. If you are lucky enough to find one, it will probably be very expensive. So why do I recommend it? It IS available for your listening pleasure on YouTube in its entirety (and on this blog too). Simply type in 'Thomas Newman Less Than Zero Score' and you will see the various listings of the tracks from the 'promotional' score cd. It has been remastered and one track, originally fifty-five seconds long is now expanded to two minutes and fifty-five seconds long. 

At full the score is now a little over forty-eight minutes, including the video suite that is included and is simply one of the best scores I have ever heard. I have made no attempt to conceal my love for Thomas Newman's music for film, especially his earlier works, but his emotionally strained score for this 1987 film based on the Bret Easton Ellis' debut novel, is my second favorite film score, with only Blade Runner narrowly squeaking by. The newer version even has a suite complete with screenshots for the suite from the film. 

If you have not seen Less Than Zero, I strongly suggest you do. It is a tragically sad film about drug addiction but the bonds of friendship that remain. The film was met with mixed reviews, but I have not seen a more anti-drug film in a long time, quite as effective as this one. It is even more so, now, knowing that Robert Downey Jr., who plays Julian, a drug addicted recently graduated high schooler who has run afoul of a local dealer named Rip (James Spader), was himself battling drug addiction all through the making of this film. It was not until early in 2000, Robert FINALLY beat the addiction and his career could not be going better, now. 

Back to the score. It is Christmas and Clay (Andrew McCarthy) has returned home after he receives a cryptic call for help from his former girlfriend, Blair (Jami Gertz). So Clay heads back to LA and see what he can do. To his horror, Blair and Julian are into the drug scene and Julian is in serious trouble. 

The film opens with the 'Early Phone Call' from Blair to Clay as he is freezing his butt off at college back east. Newman's score starts quiet and slow and as the scene progresses, it builds into a solid crescendo of warm synthesized tones and chords with ever so quiet percussion in the back round. A single and lonely guitar strums subtly, although noticeably. The song quickens and the scene unfolds in a series of black and white flashbacks to get us to the present day in LA. It is a mournful piece of music, suggesting a happier time when they were all together before betrayal sent them all on their separate ways. 

'Zuma Beach' and 'Heading To Palm Springs' are two tracks that feature some percussion and some sax as the friends try to remedy their situation as friends, once again. They are good road music pieces. 'Going Through Withdrawal' is my favorite track of the score. This was the track that originally was only about fifty five seconds long but now has been expanded to its entire length, thankfully. With dreamy synth and a piano ( played probably Mr. Newman, himself, as he does on all of his score recordings) building the chords begin to pulsate like a clock with a lonely sax as Blair and Clay try, desperately to get Julian to kick his drug habit. The scene itself is a time lapse scene and the music lets us be a spectator as Julian's body goes through the agony of filtering the toxins out. 

'Quick Escape' is a percussion only track signifying Rip's efforts to keep Julian under his  shoebut Clay, Blair and Julian escape after a short tussle with Rip and his goons. 'Seeing Blair Again', 'Julian On The Stairs', 'Rip's Hotel Suite', 'I Need $50,000' all feature the strained synthesized strings with a beautiful theme, common to all three that never gets tired or old. It is that beautiful. 'Blair and Her Dad', 'Feeling Nostalgic', 'Sex At The Loft', 'The Cemetery' and 'The Loft Has Been Trashed' all stick to the dreamlike state the film's tone takes. 

The final song, 'Julian's Dead' is where Newman cuts loose one last time with the reprise of the opening track, only this time after the first few minutes, a full orchestra sends continues in all of its painfully glorious splendor. The film features an aerial shot over the desert landscape with Newman's sweeping score as the camera settles in on Clay's car and the three after they realize Julian has passed. It is a tragic track but swelling, gorgeous and heart felt. 

There are no bad tracks on this album. Each one tells the story it needs to and for me, this is a personal and intimate score; something that hits me like a freight train. It deeply affects me each time I listen. I think about my own past, my own demons I deal with (as we all do), the bad choices I made, the good and the ugly. There were rumors that circulated as to why this was never "Officially" released. Some for personal reasons of Mr. Newman himself. I respect that. It is awesome that this exists on YouTube, though, now for all to listen. It is a terrific film and a phenomenally tragically sad score that will soften your hearts and take your breath away, like it does for me. Every time. 

Lucy (2014)

JohnnyTwoToes considers this french made scifi/action thriller a wasted potential!

Luc Besson is probably France's best known film director and he has done some truly great films like Le Femme Nikita, Subway, The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc, The Fifth Element and perhaps his very best Léon: The Professional. These are different films but all terrific. They are deep and well written and directed with style which baffles me as to why his most recent Lucy  with all the pre-release hype and excitement is such a disappointment. Lucy opens up to a world of complex plot possibilities but turns out to be just a dumb sci fi action film bordering on insane logic and preposterous scientific nonsense.

Scarlett Johansson is Lucy, a free spirit who is traveling around the world. After she is duped by her scummy boyfriend into delivering a mystery case filled with exotic drugs to a Korean gangster played with pulp aplomb by Korean superstar Choi Min-sik (Oldboy), she ends up with the drugs sewn into her stomach. When the drugs apparently of a new different variety start to leak into her body, she starts to notice visible changes in her cognitive and mental skills and physical abilities. Beyond a remarkable physical resilience including an astounding capacity to self heal and defy gravity, she realizes she is getting smarter (literally) by the minute and can access more of her brainpower. As the drugs continue to leak into her body, her brain and body expand to superhuman levels and the more smarter/intelligent/stronger she becomes. 

Other scifi films inevitably come to mind? The much superior Limitless with Bradley Cooper and the wasted potential Johnny Depp's Transcendence. Lucy however like Transcendence unfortunately, could not hold Limitless's jock strap, I am afraid. Johansson is a fine actress and does a great job with her role, but she is given nothing fresh to do here. There are mindless shootouts, a car chase that completely defies logic and in spite of Choi Min-sik's spirited performace, the absence of a truly smart and diabolical villain. 

After a good start, everything in Lucy seems to be set on autopilot. This kind of film is agonizing to sit through and at 90 minutes (barely) it seemed long. Some of the visuals of the film are undoubtedly impressive but Lucy sputters along with Johansson carrying this film to a rather disappointing conclusion. For added measure, Morgan Freeman is cast as a doctor who seems to be here for no other reason but give the film some gravitas. But, sadly his character is also wasted and does nothing to enhance anything. The rest of the characters are so thinly created that none of them are really even needed, for the most part. Why create a character and do nothing with them? So empty they are, that there is nothing for the viewer to engage them on any level so I did not care what happened to them. While the ending is strangely logical, it still comes across very predictable and I was left feeling cheated and let down. Lucy will have that effect on you, more than likely. I did like Eric Serra's score as it bounces from action mode to jazzy and sometimes comical as Lucy can't seem to make up its mind what it wants to do. There are some humorous scenes too but since we never really get to know any of the characters, I had no vested interest what happened to them. 

In the end, Lucy ends up  shallow, vapid and uninteresting with only Johansson, some snazzy visuals and Eric Serra's score to keep you occupied. These three saving graces try hard but Besson's direction is scattershot that Lucy never settles down into a coherent film. It plods along with out a brain in its pretty head. 

Hopefully, better things are ahead for Besson who really needs to come up with some new material. He directed and wrote Lucy and what he should have done is do one or the other. He is a good director and he has written some good scripts. Lucy is certainly not one of them. Pick one, Luc and hire someone else to do the other. Your fans and viewers would appreciate it. Lucy-*1/2 out of 4

The Equalizer (2014)

A viscerally entertaining film that ranks as one of 2014's very best, JohnnyTwoToes tells you why?

As a fan of the original late 1980's TV show, The Equalizer, I was curious how they were going to approach the feature film. Casting Denzel Washington was a smart move to start. The original role was played by Edward Woodward as Robert McCall, a former CIA operative who has retired and taken an out an ad in the paper, "Odds against you? Need help? Call The Equalizer." Each week was a new person who needed help. 

In the film, McCall has become an associate at a Home Depot store called Home Mart. He leads a solitary life of work and life in his apartment. He can't sleep so he takes a tea bag and goes to the local 24 hour diner to read a book. He meets a local prostitute, Teri (beautifully played by Chloe Grace Moretz) and the two become friends but McCall knows she is in trouble. He is a smart man who always seems to know more than he lets on. When Teri is horribly beaten by her Russian handlers and ends up in the hospital, McCall decides enough is enough and proceeds to take the Russians out "Brick by brick. Body by body."

This is not your Daddy's Equalizer. If you are expecting that you will be disappointed. This is a hard hitting, gritty and involving film thanks to Antoine Fuqua's unflinching direction and a terrific script by Richard Wenk with some added help by the show's original creators Michael Sloan and Richard Lindheim. The script is crafted intelligently and has quite a number of memorable lines. It is also a complex film that weaves corrupt cops, Russian mobsters, and a smart villain, Teddy, suavely played by Martin Csokas. Teddy is also very smart and seems to enjoy his mano-y-mano sparring with McCall. Csokas plays Teddy as a quiet, well dressed man complete with a Hitler like haircut less the mustache, but is ALL business. He is slow to anger but when he loses his cool then you had better get out of his way. He is a violent psychopath and does not care who he kills. McCall also seems to regard Teddy as a worthy adversary and their scenes together are intense. 

The Equalizer is a lean, mean, viscerally entertaining film from start to finish. It is never boring, even though there are a few staples that come with a film of this type. McCall is helping one of his co-workers at Home Mart to lose enough weight to qualify for the security guard position at the Home Mart. This is slightly reminiscent of Washington's character in Man On Fire in which Creasy (Washington) help Dakota Fanning learn how to swim competitively. In The Equalizer they have made it an important part of the story, so it works. 

Washington and Csokas are first rate together and the supporting cast is effective, too. I did miss Stewart Copeland's theme song and score but Harry Gregson William's score is solid and worth purchasing. It develops McCall as a character as a man who has done things he is not proud of and even to this day it bothers him. He is a damaged man still lamenting the loss of his wife, but is trying to make himself a better man. Washington is good at relaying the anguish he feels for his past and the loss of his wife, so when he starts his revenge it is with great hesitation but resolved. 

The Equalizer is a great film, one of 2014's best and deservedly grossing over $192 million at the box office. Hugely entertaining, fun, smart, engaging and always involving. This is a violent film, has some bad language and is not for children, but adults will have a blast. I know I did. The Equalizer-**** our of 4.

Filth (2013)

JohnnyTwoToes highly recommends this underrated & twisted downward spiral

Made over a year earlier, but not getting a release until April of 2014, Filth was completely missed by the mainstream audience in America sadly releasing in just 5 theaters. This perhaps explain why in spite of a stellar performance by James McAvoy, crisp direction by Jon S. Baird and rave reviews by both critics and the public, it still did not get the attention it deserved across the US. 

Based on a best selling novel by Scottish crime writer Irvine Welsh (Trainspotting) , Filth is the story of a Scottish police investigator who is assigned to investigate the death of a Japanese student beaten to death by a gang. That is all I can say without divulging too much and since I am recommending this movie, I can say this is one of the best films of the year. 

James McAvoy is the lead character, DI (Detective Inspector) Bruce Robertson, a loathsome man if ever there was one. A corrupt, alcoholic, drug addict who is sleeping with wives of his fellow officers, bucking for the prized promotion that he thinks will make his life all the better. "The games are always being played and usually, nobody plays the games better than me. Same rules apply." is his narrated mantra and his justification for his vile behavior. 

McAvoy is at ease here playing the bipolar lead who is excellent at the games as he pits on officer against the other in clever fashion while sinking into a cauldron of booze, women and drugs. He is a backstabber, a liar and unapologetic for any of his transgressions and McAvoy makes Robertson so viciously reprehensible that you would wonder how anybody could still root for him. But I did. McAvoy is THAT good. He is able to take this character and STILL make you root for him to get his life in order. This is no small feat. You get to see that there is still good in Robertson but he tries to stamp it back down. It only makes it worse for him. 

McAvoy's performance is Oscar worthy, but since not many have even HEARD of this film let alone seen it, this would be long shot. Too bad. His performance is the best of his career, probably the most difficult to play, as well. He has done some incredible work with Danny Boyle's Trance, also a great film and of course the young Professor Xavier in the X-Men franchise. But Filth is all McAvoy. 

Credit also goes to director Jon S. Baird for creating a cinematic visual treat to go along with McAvoy's screen shredding performance. The visuals pop off the screen as Robertson's mental state starts to unravel. The script, also by Baird is savagely funny and there is never a dull moment here. Sharp, engaging and intelligent, it never dumbs any of the material down for the viewer. Baird's direction is masterful too and unflinching. He never stops pushing the envelope and neither does McAvoy. 

The supporting cast is terrific as well. With Imogen Poots as his only female competition for his promotion and the best candidate; she is smart, sexy and classy. Jim Broadbent is having fun as Robertson's therapist, too. Brian McCardie, Emun Elliot, Gary Lewis, Eddie Marsan and the ever wonderful Jamie Bell round out an outstanding cast that is excellent, as well. Clint Mansell provides another graceful score that punctuates Robertson's battle with himself. 

Filth might have come and gone quickly, not received ANY attention, but don't let that dissuade you from seeing it. Filth is a wild and funny ride and worth tracking down. It is witty, hilarious, sad, filled with surprises and one of the best film's of the year. It is NOT a film for kids, however. Adults only, I'm afraid. Robertson would want it that way, "Same rules apply." Filth-**** out of 4

Witchboard (1986)

Cheesy demonic 80s horror with freudian undertones 

You'd better know this typical horror slasher was made in the 80s by the Night of the Demons Director Kevin S. Tenney and has a cult following among 80s Horror fans. This review however is different - it talks a lot about the rather stupid plot, has plenty of spoilers  and a rather unusual Freudian commentary that's either gonna amuse or irritate you. 

Ok, so here it goes. Our Heroine Linda (the Whitesnake videos babe Tawny Kitaen), who has enormous hair, is caught in a love triangle between her current boyfriend Jim (Todd Allen) who looks a little like Dennis Quaid and ex-beau Brandon (Stephen Nichols), a sensitive 80s man who believes in spirits, cries a lot, and wears his shirts unbuttoned to the navel. 

One day, Brandon breaks out a ouija board at a party to converse with the departed, but the boorish Jim makes sarcastic comments about it until nobody can tolerate him. Jim considers becoming a believer when an aggravated spirit drops a slab of drywall on his Eddie-Van-Halen-alike construction worker buddy, but when his girlfriend takes to swearing he really starts to wonder what the fuck is going on. Brandon thinks the spirit is that of a ten-year-old boy named David but later on it appears David's time-sharing the ouija board with Malfeitor, a mass murderer. This madman is using Linda as a "portal." Linda becomes addicted to the ouija board and ends up succumbing to "progressive entrapment" she quits going to school and neglects her personal hygiene. 

Meanwhile, an irritating psychic is skewered on a sundial. Jim and Brandon are struck with barrels and fall into a lake. Linda locks herself in a room and sways back and forth violently. Finally Jim decides he's had enough of this and corners the possessed Linda. They fight for a while until a detective who always wanted to be a magician comes in wielding a gun and is promptly killed. Then it turns out Jim, not Linda, is the "portal" - unless Malfeitor is lying  so Jim shoots the ouija board and this fixes the problem. 

Okay, so the ouija board is the portal. Wait, who's the portal again? So the movie's a tad confusing, but it's good b-movie fun. There's a nice meta-fictive moment when Jim - exasperated with Brandon's don't-you-think-I-know-how-crazy-this-sounds insistence that Linda's on the road to demonic possession - says sarcastically, "so what you're telling me is that I'm married to Linda Blair". But it seems to me equal parts slasher movie and possession story since the offending entity here is a mad killer and not a demon of some sort. It's even a Reefer Madness-type angle, since much of the film is clumsily concerned with the pitfalls of obsessiveness and addiction. 

One can also argue that Jim's emotional coldness is "closed" and that Linda's excessive warmth and compassion is "open," and through the ordeal they endure they are, respectively, "opened up" and "closed off" to a "compromise point" - Jim becomes more sensitive, Linda more assertive although you can make a sound argument that Witchboard's writing is a little too scattered to convey this point seamlessly. Linda might be "open" but in a more Freudian sense she's pretty "closed" - chaste to a fault, she starts the movie in virginal white, refuses to have sex with Jim when he pisses her off, and doesn't cuss. Maybe this is because Witchboard combines the slasher and occult/possession stories. 

In slashers, the Final Girl is "closed" (chaste, rational, observant, proactive rather than reactive), which enables her to avoid being "penetrated" (i.e., punctured) by the killer. In possession stories, the possessee tends to be more "open" (intuitive, in tune with the spiritual realm, empathic, what have you), which makes her more vulnerable to other-worldly "penetration" (i.e., possession) and makes sure there's a story to be told. Although Jim is pretty clearly "opened," then, what Linda represents is far less clear since she has to bear the contradiction when the movie chooses to combine two horror sub-genres that are largely at odds with one another. 

Seeing is believing this classic horror 80s gem. Watch it and let us know what you think.

Rush (2013)

JohnnyTwoToes loves the rush and so will you!

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I have never been a big car racing fan, but after viewing Ron Howard's Rush, I need to take a gander at it because this adrenaline fueled Formula One film is amazing from start to finish. 

Rush tells the true story of the intense rivalry in the mid 1970's between Formula 1 drivers James Hunt, the British superstar and Niki Lauda from Austria. Hunt with his brash playboy good looks, had talent for driving to match his personality. Niki Lauda was far more serious and his personality was as smooth as sandpaper. Lauda certainly did not make many friends, at first. Lauda had an intelligence for even creating his own car to make it lighter, faster and meaner. Hunt was not a dummy but spent most of his time off the track boozing and carousing with the females. They were from different backgrounds but one thing they had in common was their love to race and stare death in the face. 

Rush is a technical masterpiece. The racing sequences seem to be as real as anything I have ever seen on film. Director Howard has tight shots of pistons pumping, helmet cams, tires smoking going at speeds that would make us reach for the barf bag. But writer Peter Morgan and Howard have dug deep into the psyche of the two drivers. Lauda, from a wealthy business family angered he did not come into the family business, takes a loan out, finds a crew with an okay car and a sponsor who needs a driver and some cash. He works his way up to Formula 1 racing and succeeds. Hunt is in full self destruction mode with booze, drugs and women but when it comes to racing he does not know the words 'slow down'. Hunt is fully aware of himself as a person and a driver and makes no apologies for it, but when Lauda arrives, Hunt knows he had better get his game face on. 

Daniel Bruhl plays Lauda, whom they ineffectually refer to as 'The Rat' because of his unlikable personality and his overbite, but Lauda is publicly unaffected. Privately, he stews about it. "Happiness is the enemy," He tells his new bride, Marlene (Alexandra Maria Lara). "Once you have found happiness, you lose". Credit Morgan's script bristles with heart, intelligence and knowledge of the racing world but how men react to each other in competition, even at their darkest hour. 

The acting is first rate with both Bruhl as Lauda and Chris Hemsworth as Hunt delivering stellar performances. Their characters have real depth and we care about what happens to them, despite their flaws as people. They don't like each other but have a mutual respect for one another. They sustain each other on and off the track both professionally and personally. The supporting cast is equally effective with Olivia Wilde as Hunt's wife who quickly tires of his shenanigans and Alexandra Maria Lara who shines as Niki Lauda's wife. She seems to understand him the best and loves him anyway, even when times are their worst. Pierfrancesco Favino is great as legendary driver, Clay Regazzoni, Lauda's teammate. They don't like each other much either, but they do grow to become friends, anyway and Hans Zimmer's score is first rate, worth purchasing. It sounds different than his previous scores which seemed to repeat themselves. This score by Zimmer is fresh and exciting and keeps us invested in the action and the characters. 

Ron Howard (who is directing Hemsworth in the upcoming Moby Dick film, Hearts of The Sea) shows us why he is one of Hollywood's finest directors. Rush is exhilarating, intelligent and bold fun from start to finish and why this did not get more Academy attention last year is beyond me. Yes, Rush is THAT good. Rush-**** out of 4