Director: Leigh Janiak
Writers: Leigh Janiak, Zak Olkewicz
Stars: Sadie Sink, Emily Rudd, Ryan Simpkins, McCabe Slye, Brandon Spink, Chiara Aurelia, Eden Campbell, Ted Sutherland

Synopsis: Shadyside, 1978. School’s out for summer and the activities at Camp Nightwing are about to begin. But when another Shadysider is possessed with the urge to kill, the fun in the sun becomes a gruesome fight for survival.

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Fear Street Part I: 1994 was a slick and super fun breath of fresh air in the horror slasher genre that successfully represented the spirit of R.L. Stine’s classic thriller series while at the same time gave us more gore, more thrills, and sharper characters than many of us could have expected. I had a few qualms with the first installment in Netflix’s new Fear Street trilogy—I couldn’t deny the occasional lull in the middle hour—but overall it worked beautifully, with a particularly memorable LGBTQ relationship that marked the heart of the story.

Now a week later we get the second installment—Fear Street Part Two: 1978—and I am sorry to say the quality has dipped a bit in this occasionally fun but mostly empty exercise in terror. The new story set sixteen years prior to the events of the first movie has a similarly polished style, solid actors, some neat kills, a terrific soundtrack—but too much of the storytelling is muddled and inconsequential, and, unlike the first movie, it’s hard to care about the outcomes of the characters.

The opening is one of the best parts of Fear Street Part Two: 1978—because we actually start with the characters from the previous movie. I admired that instead of just throwing us into an alternate story, director and co-writer Leigh Janiak gives us a few more moments with the core characters we loved from the first installment (including Deena and her brother Josh), providing a clear and necessary continuity. But when another Shadyside resident reveals she survived a massacre many years ago involving another possessed murderer, the real story begins, a near two-hour-long flashback in a sense that’s meant to provide additional context as to what took control of the villains in the first movie.

At first, the new location of Camp Nightwing is a welcome one, the first few scenes offering the look and feel of so many iconic horror films of the period like Friday the 13^th and The Burning, not to mention the more recent limited series American Horror Story: 1984. Very quickly we’re introduced to dozens of characters, including Ziggy (Sadie Sink of Stranger Things), an easy target of the other campers, and Ziggy’s sister Cindy (Emily Rudd), who has no idea her boyfriend Tommy (McCabe Slye) might soon be turning to the dark side.

The best part of this second installment by far is the lead character of Ziggy. She has an ease and confidence that make her compelling to watch even in a story of little consequence, especially when she goes after what she wants, like the cute camp counselor Nick (Ted Sutherland) who’s not supposed to kiss the younger campers. He’s a Stephen King fanatic who claims his second-favorite of his books is ‘Salem’s Lot and his favorite of all is Carrie (a weird observation from the character since in 1978 King had only released four books). They have a compelling romantic chemistry that unfortunately isn’t given much screen-time to be developed, with so many other characters and killings to get to.

If you can get past the first forty-five minutes, the suspense (and the slashings) delivers the goods of what you might be searching for in a movie like this, but since the characters aren’t as well-defined this time, given that the ensemble is so much larger, the storyline mostly rushes and goes through the motions and doesn’t offer any major surprises aside from the occasional glorious beheading. There’s a lot of running and screaming through the woods, typical POV shots from the killer, explicit sex scenes, axes to the head, overblown music from Marco Beltrami—all of which could have been a blast in a better movie but here feels tired, especially in a film with characters this slight and an overlong run-time.

What doesn’t help is the odd lack of urgency to the storytelling because everything happening in Fear Street Part Two: 1978 is a mere flashback to the events in Fear Street Part 1: 1994, which was a turn-off for me from the beginning. Even though the first installment is a period film, too (one that more authentically captures its specific year), there’s an immediacy and propulsive nature to the narrative that always makes it feel like it’s happening right now. Even in the scenes with the most tension in Fear Street Part Two: 1978’s second half, the overall structure always put me at arm’s length, like I was watching someone tell me a story rather than watching the story itself.

Fear Street Part Two: 1978 isn’t a complete misfire by any means, and if you enjoyed the first part of the trilogy, odds are you’ll find things to like in this one, too. Janiak offers some terrific visuals toward the end—a killer in an empty field wearing a creepy human mask is a sight I won’t soon forget—and the Final Girl trope from so many horror films is given a unique twist that keeps you momentarily guessing. But by the conclusion, we’ve returned to the beloved characters from the first movie, and all I could think as the credits began to roll on this one was that I wish Fear Street Part Two: 1978 had been a direct sequel that gave us more of 1994 and less of 1978.

Having said all this, I’m not giving up on the trilogy yet. Even though middle chapters tend to be the best in so many trilogies (The Godfather Part II, The Empire Strikes Back, Before Sunset), there is your occasional The Lost World: Jurassic Park. Will Fear Street Part Three: 1666 give this near-six-hour story a proper send-off? With the creative and unexpected surprise seen right before the credits, signs definitely point to yes.

Grade: C

Director: Steven Soderbergh
Writer: Ed Solomon
Stars: Don Cheadle, Benicio del Toro, David Harbour, Jon Hamm, Amy Seimetz, Noah Jupe, Brendan Fraser, Kieran Culkin

Synopsis: When a trio of criminals are hired to steal a mysterious document from a corporate office in Detroit in 1954, it triggers an avalanche of double-crosses, pitting gangsters against each other against a backdrop of corporate greed.

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Despite having delivered some of Hollywood’s most traditionally successful films of the twenty-first century so far, Oscar-winning director Steven Soderbergh continues to be one of the most enigmatic and unpredictable artists working today. Akin to a cinematic shark, he keeps moving from genre to genre, medium to medium, forcing new challenges on himself, never pandering to expectation. With films as disparate in tone and subject as Sex, Lies and Videotape, Traffic, Ocean’s Eleven, Solaris, Contagion, Magic Mike, Behind the Candelabra, Logan Lucky and Let Them All Talk, Soderbergh continues to break new ground and reinvent himself, sometimes for the better, sometimes not. In 2020, Soderbergh took on perhaps the most challenging project of all, serving as one of the producers for the pandemic Oscars. Although he signed up to co-produce the annual awards extravaganza prior to COVID-19, there possibly was no artist better suited for the flexibility and creativity needed to mold a show out of literally nothing. While the show itself fell flat in the end, Soderbergh’s contributions were hailed as the only part of the production that had any life.

It is because of Soderbergh’s immense talent and ability to shape ordinary rocks into diamonds that every new film by the auteur is met with such high expectations. Which is why his latest film, No Sudden Move, is such a rare disappointment.

The concept of cool criminals wasn’t invented by Steven Soderbergh, but his Ocean’s series of films, beginning with Ocean’s Eleven in 2001, certainly defined it for a generation of moviegoers. No Sudden Move is carved from the Ocean’s mold and borrows more than a little from it, but it isn’t able to find the traction necessary to hold together as a consistent or cohesive enough cousin to the iconic heist franchise.

Set in 1954 Detroit, gangster Curt Goynes (Don Cheadle) is newly released from prison and needs some cash to get out of town. He is recruited, along with two other guys, Ronald (Benicio del Toro) and Charley (Kieran Culkin), to do what seems to be a quick and easy job, babysitting a mother and her two children while Charley escorts the father to his office to retrieve a document from his boss’s safe. When the document isn’t there, a whirlwind of double-crosses and deceptions ensue, as gangsters, cops, and businessmen all get involved in a search for the mysterious document and will stop at nothing to get it.

To Soderbergh and screenwriter Ed Solomon’s (Now You See Me) credit, they make every attempt to expand on a familiar genre with interesting angles and ideas, adding in layers of corporate greed, political influence, socio-economic status, and race relations to a gangster heist film. But their reach exceeds their grasp as the many twists and turns of plot and character are too nebulous and messy, causing confusion and making the film difficult to engage in. Curt’s story is ostensibly the central one, but too little time is dedicated to his arc for the audience to feel invested in his ultimate fate. It is great to see Don Cheadle in such a substantial starring role again, but the missed opportunity to give this talented actor much more to work with is disappointing.

What is absolutely not disappointing is the cast that Soderbergh assembles around Cheadle. As if del Toro and Culkin weren’t enough, No Sudden Move features a cast that any director would covet, including Ray Liotta, Brendan Fraser, Jon Hamm, Matt Damon, David Harbour, Noah Jupe, and Amy Seimetz. Harbour and Damon are particularly good, but the casting of Liotta and Fraser in roles that let them truly sink their teeth into the material is the most gratifying element of this film, and it’s especially fun seeing Liotta play a gangster again, thirty-one years after his star-making turn in Goodfellas. Sixteen-year-old Jupe continues his run of distinguished roles, No Sudden Move following up noteworthy turns in Ford v Ferrari, A Quiet Place Part II and last summer’s HBO hit series The Undoing. Harbour and Hamm remind us how a movie set in the ‘50s just can’t work without them, and Seimetz continues a new tradition of seeing directors deliver noteworthy performances, following last year’s incredible work in front of the camera by directors Marielle Heller, Bo Burnham, and Emerald Fennell.

While the collection of actors is fun and Soderbergh deserves points for ambition and for a new approach to a familiar genre, in the end, it’s the unfocused screenplay that lets No Sudden Move down, resulting in a well-acted, great looking film that, despite all the tasty elements, leaves you empty.

Grade: C

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRD1xr-dmfQ

Director: Shahad Ameen
Writers: Shahad Ameen
Stars: Basima Hajjar, Ashraf Barhom, Yaqoub Alfarhan, Fatima Al Taei, Haifa Al-Agha, Ibrahim Alhasawi

Synopsis: Set in a dystopian landscape, Scales is the story of a young girl who stands alone against her family and overturns the village tradition of sacrificing the female children.

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Shahad Ameen presents a feminist parable with Scales, a challenging narration about a girl that is supposed to be sacrificed for the well-being of her town, but that instead proves that she is destined to live. Not to be interpreted as optimistic or celebratory, the film is a tale about what it means to be a girl or a woman in this world, something that acquires a more urgent meaning when we consider that the filmmaker herself is from Saudi Arabia, a country that has started to take baby steps towards the liberation of its female citizens.

Filmed in black and white by João Ribeiro, its photography is probably the most astounding aspect of the film, which captures in beautiful frames the desolate landscape of an undefined island (filmed on location in Musandam, Oman) populated by seamen and women that stay inland. Austerity is everywhere, giving the film the air of existing under a minimalist perspective where sea and humans have a close, but castigated relationship.

There is no accompanying music, only the sound of the waves, the air, and frequent local chants (“Oh mighty sea, our sacrifice is small, from the depth of your water and your sand, bless us with your maiden, we need her strength.”) These lyrics give a clue of the role of women in this place: both undervalued and vital for everyone’s survival.

As the audience is welcomed in the film, the camera follows Muthana (Yaqoub Alfarhan) as he takes his newborn girl, Hayat, to the sea as part of the local ritual. She is meant to be sacrificed to the sea creatures so the village can continue with their fishing expeditions. Ameen – who is also the writer – is not interested in offering context or explanations about this dark tradition. Instead, she only shows the practice through haunting camera directions that make us feel as if we were the ones about to be drowned.

Just as Muthana is ready to let go of his daughter, he has a change of heart and rescues her instead. The story jumps 12 years in time to find Hayat (Basima Hajjar) as a teenager, constantly harassed and blamed for the bad fortune of the island. Everyone – including her mother but not her father – is asking her to walk into the sea and proceed to her own demise.

The message of the film is its most important feature. A clear feminist story about the burden of being a woman in patriarchal societies, Scales is a condemnation of the unfair treatment of women as well as a celebration of Hayat’s life and endurance. She is determined to survive, no matter how many times she is made to believe that she should not be alive, even doing unthinkable things in the sake of showing her worth. This is a cold reminder of the exhausting high standards under which women live. We cannot just exist. We need to prove that we are worthy of living by excelling in whatever we do.

While Hayat’s story is one of strength, it is impossible to ignore the fate of the other girls around her. The camera does not shy away from crude and harrowing scenes of the sacrifice of girls, their transformation into sea creatures, and the way that the same people that used to be family are now hunting them. These girls are never safe, even after they sacrificed themselves for others. In this regard, Scales offers valuable lessons through every female character that appears on screen, sometimes reminding us of the weight of traditional values, others of the suppression of femininity in order to survive, and others of the resoluteness and strength of our survival instincts.

While the messages of the film are powerful, the execution is challenging. Its abstract essence demands patience and blind acceptance from the viewer. Consequently, its value resides on its message and the mere fact of its existence (a rebellious fable written and directed by a Saudi woman).

Presented through beautiful photography and accompanied by a vocal chorus that offers some energy to the otherwise austere story, Scales is a feminist story that deserves attention.

Grade: B-

In the age of superhero movies bankrolled by an oligarch with mouse ears, it’s unusual to find an original project that packs so much passion, ambition, and scale with so little budget. Yet Luke Sparke had only around $20 million to create the sequel to his 2018 debut Occupation, itself made for under $10 million. Despite the fact that $20 million is probably what the catering alone cost on movies like Endgame, Occupation: Rainfall still manages to look gloriously epic (if a little underlit at times).  The production value here is truly a step up from the original. The effects hold up, the set designs are impressive, and the costume designs actually much more detailed than you might imagine. It all adds up to a movie that looks the part, even if it falters slightly in some other ways.

Occupation: Rainfall takes place a few years after the original which saw an alien invasion, who came to be known to the citizens of Earth as The Greys, take place in Australia, as a group of ordinary civilians take up the fight against them. Now those civilians are battle hardened and gruff. Matt (played by Dan Ewing) leads the resistance alongside Amelia (Jet Tranter), her brother Marcus (Trystan Go), and defected Grey soldier Gary (Lawrence Makoare), whom everyone seems to treat with disdain. They hear of an alien code word called Rainfall, which they believe could be a clue to the Greys’ plans. They set off into the wasteland in search of answers, while Amelia stays behind to help survivors and clashes with Commander Hayes (Daniel Gillies) who intends to employ a scorched earth tactic to destroy the Greys once and for all.

We see very little in the way of character development this time around. Sparke seems to be done with building his characters and is far more invested in the bells and whistles. This is not necessarily a bad thing: the acting in the original was a little sketchy, and nothing much has changed here. Add to this that these actors have to deliver clangy dialogue which even the best in the business would struggle to pull off. There are a few notable exceptions to this: New Zealand legend Temuera Morrison (he of Jango Fett fame in the Star Wars prequels) is back, and is as solid and dependable here as he was the first time around. Jason Isaacs and Ken Jeong even make an appearance pulling off an odd-couple comedy shtick, with varying results; the former as an alien named Steve who is fond of both Hawaiian shirts and pop culture references.  Unfortunately, cameos from the likes of Morrison, Isaacs, and Jeong can’t elevate Occupation: Rainfall above a certain level. Though the production value has improved, the writing hasn’t. Throughout its two-hour runtime, Rainfall feels derivative – taking its cue from much better works and applying them lazily here, a sort of cut-and-paste of clichés which threaten to make the eyes roll at times. You’ve seen and heard this all before.

The pacing is amped up significantly from the first one, and the net widened to include such things as alien space horses and all manner of other creatures. The opening scenes have a little bit of a cantina feel to them, and there’s genuine excitement that maybe you’re about to watch something brilliantly original and fresh until the narrative – what exists of it – hampers the tone.

A third act revelation means we may not be done with the Occupation universe yet, and there’s hope that – should Rainfall do well – Sparkes might get the budget he needs to wrap things up. For though the dialogue is flat, the plot cliched, and the acting just on the wrong side of B-movie, it’s so admirably ambitious that you can’t help but root for it a little. If only there were more independent movies out there who would reach for the stars. Alas, Rainfall comes some way short of success, but it looks beautiful and tries hard, and for that, it should be applauded.

Signature Entertainment presents Occupation Rainfall in Cinemas and on Digital from 9 July.

Grade: D+

Director: Matt Thompson
Writers: Dave Callaham
Stars: Channing Tatum, Jason Mantzoukas, Olivia Munn
Synopsis: A chainsaw-wielding George Washington teams with beer-loving bro Sam Adams to take down the Brits in a tongue-in-cheek riff on the American Revolution.
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There was no reason for America: The Motion Picture to disappoint. Teaming up Lord/Miller with Floyd Country Productions, the company behind FX’s Archer, was a stroke of genius. Phil Lord and Christopher Miller have always excelled at meta-comedy. The films they’ve produced and directed in this subgenre are always a thrill to watch (The Mitchells vs. The Machines, which came out in April, is still the best animated film of the year). And with a stacked cast of Channing Tatum, Olivia Munn, and Andy Samberg to boot, the talent is there to make the material at least somewhat palpable. Yet, nothing clicked. It desperately wants to be a ‘Murica F– Yeah parody of how the United States was founded, yet none of it is funny, entertaining, or particularly memorable.

In an alternate timeline where civilians are aware of current pop-culture trends inside a period piece setting, Abraham Lincoln (Will Forte) gets killed by Benedict Arnold (Samberg), who has sided with the British and plans to topple what Lincoln has called “America.” Grief-stricken by the death of his friend, George Washington (Tatum) hatches a plan to team up with the most brilliant minds and fighters of the colonies for it to be freed from tyrannical British rule. Coincidentally, Washington and his team members, Samuel Adams (Jason Mantzoukas), Thomas Edison (Munn), Paul Revere (Moynihan), Geronimo (Raoul Trujillo), and John Henry (Killer Mike) will also found America, “the land of the free and home of the brave,” in the process. Unfortunately, though, things will become a lot more complicated than it seems.

The film’s only funny joke happens near the end after America is founded on July 4th, 1776. The civilians list the plethora of problems America will have in history regarding gun violence, racial inequality, and equal rights. George Washington looks at the camera, in exasperation, and says, “Oh, God, we’re going to f– this up, aren’t we?” It’s funny, in part because we all know that the United States prides itself to be “the greatest country in the world,” yet is a country rooted in endless problems. To name a few; colonialism, Indigenous reconciliation, systemic racism, and conservative politicians incapable of realizing that society, as a whole, has become more progressive and want to backtrack decades of advancement that gave everyone, no matter their sexual orientation and ethnicity, equal opportunities and rights. The rest of the film is filled with mean-spirited jokes, whether extremely racist or misogynist, that aren’t funny, even if it points out America’s innumerable problems through them. It still doesn’t make them any less offensive and terribly uncomfortable to watch.

If the film doesn’t make you uncomfortable, you’ll likely cringe in horribly dated pop-culture references that have been done way too many times in better parodies. For example, the British are painted as the Empire, with Simon Pegg’s King James blatantly imitating James Earl Jones’ menacing tone as Darth Vader, with British soldiers as useless as Stormtroopers (as if that wasn’t obvious enough, Abraham Lincoln eventually shows up as a Force Ghost). More obsolete meta-jokes, such as Benedict Arnold’s carriage transporter literally being Jason Statham’s Frank Martin (AKA The Transporter), or references to Blue Man Group, Netflix, selfies, Fast & Furious, Robocop, and more, try to infuse some laughs to the ones that understand the film’s innumerable references. Still, even the ones that do might find it tiresome and uninspired.

It also doesn’t help that the movie’s animation is extremely lifeless, as it tries to mix the grandeur of a Ralph Bakshi production with the monotonous movement of Archer. Scenes that should look epic in scale, such as the big final battle, are horribly rendered with a rough frame rate that showcases the cheapness of the animation. The trailer showcased a polished 2D-animated adult film that would not only look grandiose in scope but would fully bathe in its ‘Murica F–Yeah premise. It desperately tries to replace the United States’ traditional national anthem with Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Free Bird. Still, even with smart musical cues like this one, everything about the movie feels terribly distant. We’re neither engaged in the jokes nor the animation, so it feels tough to care about the film’s revisionist telling of how the United States was founded.

The actors do, however, give credible vocal performances. I especially enjoyed Andy Samberg as Benedict Arnold, who seemed to be the actor that had the most fun with his character. Olivia Munn is also excellent here as Thomas Edison, who strives by “science” to defeat the British. I’ll admit that using beer as America’s staple drink, which is the opposite of tea, led me to a chuckle or two, but it certainly wasn’t enough for me to get invested in America: The Motion Picture.

It’s a film that desperately tries to make us laugh but fails miserably with horribly dated pop culture and meta-references, soulless animation, and many offensive stereotypes to boot. If you want a perfectly raunchy adult animated comedy that isn’t afraid of being terribly offensive but also unabashedly hilarious, there’s only one film to watch this weekend: Team America: World Police. Now that’s a movie.

Grade: D