This week on Women InSession, we look back at a couple of early 90s comedies in My Cousin Vinny and My Blue Heaven! While one of these have gone under the radar, they both are extraordinary comedies that play up its tropes in some really funny ways that still hit all these years later.
Panel: Kristin Battestella, Amy Thomasson, Jaylan Salah
On that note, check out this week’s show and let us know what you think in the comment section. Thanks for listening and for supporting the InSession Film Podcast!
On this episode, JD and Brendan discuss Pixar’s latest film Inside Out 2, starring Amy Poehler, Phyllis Smith and Maya Hawke! Long time listeners will know that Inside Out from 2015 was JD’s favorite film of that year, so this was a highly anticipated conversation for us on the podcast. As you’ll quickly find out, there was much to discuss, especially with Riley’s hockey being a pivotal part of this one.
Review: Inside Out(4:00) Director: Kelsey Mann Writers: Meg LeFauve, Dave Holstein Stars: Amy Poehler, Phyllis Smith, Maya Hawke
Prior to the world premiere of Vulcanizadora, I was able to sit down with multi-hyphenate filmmaker Joel Potrykus, and lead actor and longtime collaborator, Joshua Burge to discuss the film. During our conversation, we discuss everything from what the two feel about hiking to eternal damnation. This is a film that leaves its audience with a lot to chew on, and breaking it down with both Potrykus and Burge was an absolute delight. And yes, we do get into the imagery that will likely mystify many people as they stumble onto this film. It’s a gnarly film, but made way for a really fun conversation that delved into a variety of different topics. As a slight warning, it’s of my belief (and Potrykus backs me up below!) that Vulcanizadora should be seen while knowing as little as possible about the film itself. While we largely avoid spoilers in the below transcription of our interview, there’s some general allusions to what occurs throughout the film. Enjoy the conversation, check out my full review of the film right here,and most importantly, enjoy Vulcanizadora!
Alex Papaioannou: So, yeah, I loved the film.
Joel Potrykus: Aw, thanks man.
AP: I went in knowing absolutely nothing!
JP: I wish everybody would just go in knowing totally nothing!
AP: So let’s just get right into it! Are the two of you frequent hikers?
JP: [Smiles.] Josh, you start with that one.
Joshua Burge: I walk as a mode of transportation, so therefore hiking is not an appealing leisure activity. [Laughs.]
JP: I actually dig all that. I love going out in the woods and hiking and camping and all that business. But, yeah, I don’t think ‘ole Burge is into that kinda thing.
JB: Yeah, not my thing.
AP: It does really play like that in the film as well!
JP: I guess it does! [Joel and Joshua laugh.] You’re like, miserable. Not wanting to be there and I’m like, “Come on!”
JB: Yeah, you’ve got all that gear!
AP: Is all that yours?
JP: That backpack actually is mine. I bought it at a garage sale, but I never used it. My wife was like, “Why are you buying that? We have a kid now [Smiles.] You’re not gonna be taking him on weekend camping trips.” So that was in my garage forever. But I did buy the pants that zip away into shorts. But yeah, like the little pan and all that. That’s all my stuff.
AP: You finally got to bust it out. Worth the expense!
JP: There was a reason to buy it, I guess.
AP: Are those pants in the regular rotation?
JP: Those are not in the regular rotation… yet! [We all laugh.] They’re pretty practical and comfortable though, so it was great to shoot a movie in those out in the wilderness. Glad I didn’t have to wear a Tommy Hilfiger sweater and jeans. [Referring to Josh’s character in the film.]
JB: [Laughs.] Yeah, yeah.
AP: Getting back to the idea of going in knowing nothing. The dynamic at first plays very comically. Joshua, you’re performing the straight-man archetype and Joel, you’re just going off and doing your own thing. Then it makes the bleak shift about halfway through. So how do you balance that tone?
JP: Well, as you said, [my character] Derek’s the one doing all the blabbering and then there’s Marty. And I think seeing that on screen is what sells the tone. If there’s two guys having a good time on a camping trip, then all of a sudden there’s no sense of danger. But if there’s one guy who’s really excited, and there’s one guy who doesn’t want to be there, you know something’s up. There’s a reason that guy doesn’t want to be there.
JB: And I was just making sure that [my character] Marty would stay as silent as possible. Then that just adds to the dynamic. It makes it much more extreme to acknowledge that one guy is trying to make the best of it and have fun, and the other guy is just really solidifying that he’s not having it.
JP: So right away, without saying a word, I think audiences could figure out something bad is going to happen. Because there’s a big shift in dynamic and in the personalities between those two characters. And it was also important to kind of give a little feeling of unease at the end of every scene. So for Derek, he’s been all goofy, and then to wipe his smile away at the last second, I think helps.
JB: Just going non-responsive and not participating.
AP: So you two have been collaborating for a while now. You’ve known each other for a long time, and you’re playing such heavy roles, especially in that first half. What’s the approach in terms of going from goofing off with a friend before action is called, to then needing to immediately shift?
JB: Well, with these two characters, we had already been there before… [Turns to Joel.] I could say that now, yeah?
JP: [Looking down.] Not yet… [he smiles.] I mean I don’t know. [They both laugh.]
JB: It was just that revisitation of how difficult it is to act with Joel, because he’s hilarious, and it is hard not to break. [Laughs.] But you just have to keep going over it and over it in your head. That whatever you think of as your total nightmare, an uncomfortable state-of-being, and existing in misery and anger and loss. Frustration. Whatever those horrible thoughts are that put you there, to actually be able to use them to complete that portrayal.
JP: And it was like that, because we would be goofing around right before the roll. Sometimes I would doubt whether we were in the right headspace. But Josh is such a good actor. He doesn’t need to go into a corner for 30 minutes to go brood and get into character. It’s like, action, and the smile is gone. He’s dark now. So that is how it was. It wasn’t like, cut, and Josh would be angry and sulking, trying to stay in character. [They both laugh.] We were having fun. As soon as we rolled cameras, it was easy for me because I was still kind of the same guy. But for Josh, yeah, he had the heavy lifting in those situations.
AP: Obviously, another big element of the film is the device!
JP: Yeah.
AP: I mean, do you have a name for it that you’ve been referring to it as?
JP: No! Just the masks. And we talked a lot about what that would look like and how it would function. My original ideas were way more simple. It was my brother Charles who said, “Give me a week or two, and let me come up with a cool concept for this and design it and create it.” He typically creates all the… “appliances” in these movies. So we just talked a lot about it. There was no name for them, but it was just “the masks.” He just came to set with them ready to go and locked them on our heads. And it was game on. It was great.
AP: Was it always a mask in your head?
JP: Yeah.
JB: We arrived at the metal mask, I think, pretty quickly.
JP: Ball gag was talked about. Once we figured out how it was gonna happen, we knew we had to come up with a cool mask/headpiece to really freak audiences out.
AP: It’s… gnarly. Putting it on is one thing, and then seeing what happens right after… And that leads to my next question. Thinking it is one thing, seeing it in person is another. When you have it on your head for the first time, what is going through your mind?
JP: I think putting it on is almost scarier than when it happens. There’s way more mystery when it’s just being put on somebody. That, to me, is my favorite moment in the movie.
JB: I mean, it is an intense thing. Chuck did an amazing job building those masks without having our dimensions or any measurements to model it off of. So putting it on it fit great. But it also had a medieval aspect to it, where you’re going into the Iron Maiden or something. Some sort of contraption that you’re not supposed to get out of, you know? And that’s a very encapsulating kind of fear. A striking feeling to have.
AP: Like it’s comfortable enough to put on, but a bit too tight to take off.
JB: Yeah, there’s that real weight to it. And those real jagged edges that you can sense, even if you don’t feel them. It’s very real and present.
AP: And it’s definitely felt. I mean, there’s morsels throughout the film, so you start to realize what’s happening. But once those masks come out, you don’t even want to look. And I think it’s expertly handled.
JP: And what was more difficult is we did all the takes in that whole scene with the things in our mouths. Like, it was hard to breathe. You’re drooling…
JB: Drooling, and you can’t swallow.
JP: And I’m trying to direct and I can barely talk. That was another kind of discomforting part of it.
AP: I mean, how long did that take to set up and shoot once you have it in your mouths?
JP: We wanted to go as quickly as possible, but there were complications. We were shooting on a beach, and we kind of had permission to be there. But there were also other residents around, and they didn’t know what we were up to. So there was some interference from people, like asking what we were up to or being in the shot. And we’ve got this thing on our head, and these things in our mouths, and I can’t go talk to them. So it was probably the most hectic scene to shoot. The sun was going down, there were a lot of moving parts. And it was obviously uncomfortable for us. So that was a tricky, tricky scene. We tried to get it as efficiently as possible.
AP: And of course, shooting on 16 millimeter adds to that. Was that always the plan to shoot on film?
JP: That was the hope! And then once money came through, it was like, “This is it! Like it’s happening.” We’ve always wanted to shoot a feature on 16mm. It just seemed a little intimidating, but our DP Adam J. Minnick has done it many times before. So he convinced me that we could do it for this much money and in these conditions.
AP: So this is the first feature you’ve made since becoming a father! And your son is in the film. Can you talk about what that was like? And how was that first day of having him on set?
JP: So I feel that all the films that Josh and I have made until now have an almost indirect undercurrent of fatherhood. Grown men trying to figure out how to be men, and never having a father to show them. But it’s always just sprinkled in. And this is the one that most directly tackles the idea of fatherhood, and why these two guys are the way they are now. We get to see an old father, and we get to see a kid, and then a father in between both of them. So yeah, becoming a dad definitely shaped the story. I was ready to really fully explore why these characters are the way they are, and why I’m like the way they are. And… [Smiles.] I don’t know if there’s anything for Josh about why he is the way… [Laughs.] I don’t know! Josh and I typically don’t talk a lot about “what I’m bringing to the character” business.
JB: Yeah, we don’t really do that. But at the same time, there’s an understanding that we’re both coming from wherever we’re coming from. And again, the time passage is such a big deal for me on this film. The obstacles that people go through over a certain period of time. In this case, 10 years. And I just honed in on that, I think, more than anything. Like where your relationships are with other people, and the growth or failure of them. Those sorts of aspects were what I thought about most when taking on this dude.
AP: You share a scene with Joel’s son, Solo. What was that like on the day?
JB: Yeah! So… [chuckles] first of all, Joel wrote to me. And he said, “You know, we might have you just hang out and talk to Solo, and we’ll just shoot and see what happens. We might get something or we might not.” And I said, “Well, that sounds great, man. I’ll be prepared.” [They both laugh.] So we’re there. It’s halfway through the shoot, and we’re getting ready. And I was like “Want to try to run the lines?” [Animatedly replies] And Solo had every line down pat! Perfect! [Joel laughs.] Just right on it. And I have to say it, I did not! I did not. I was ill prepared. [We all laugh.] So I said, “Okay, Mr. Potrykus. I’ll learn my lines.” And I was not talking to Joel!
JP: [Laughing.] Yeah.
JB: So it was amazing. The little dude did an amazing job. And it was a thrill to be on screen with him and have that moment. It was a blast.
AP:
Solo will be in his dressing room while you learn the lines. [Laughs.]
JP: You know, my wife and I rehearsed him for months and months. We went over the lines, and were like, “You gotta look him in the eye, and you can’t look over there at the camera. You gotta look the person right in the eye and say it.” And once he knew the lines, then he felt comfortable locking eyes. And even about a week up into the shoot, I didn’t know. I was like, “Ehhh.” But then every time we did it, he just nailed it. And I just had such confidence in him. I didn’t even look at the monitor that day. I just sat next to him… It’s pretty emotional. I didn’t even have to direct him! He just knew it. I just wanted to see him do it in reality, because I knew that was the only time I’d ever see that. Forever after, I’d see him on the screen. To be able to be in that moment and be present. I mean, you have that every time you act. You get to experience the moment without the camera. And I very rarely get to do that. I’m usually looking at a monitor.
JB: Yeah! [Smiles.] That’s true.
JP: To be there and to see it happen was really cool. And I got all emotional. It was awesome.
JB: It was just a privilege for me, to be a part of it all. Just to see the little guy, and he was actually playful, you know? I mean, he was playing with a toy, and that’s what was going on in the scene. He was there! What you’re supposed to achieve as an actor is to be there, be involved, be real, and be what you are. And that’s what Solo was like naturally.
JP: He wasn’t in his head too much, like probably most actors get. [Chuckling.] You know, he doesn’t know what he’s gonna look like on screen. Sometimes, maybe actors can get self-conscious about that.
AP: Obviously, he’s not going to see the whole film, but have you talked to him about being on a big screen?
JP: He’s pretty indifferent about it all! [We all laugh.] He just doesn’t get the magnitude, and he kind of doesn’t care. When we were editing his scene, I tried to show him and he was just like, “Eh, okay. Cool.” He doesn’t seem like he wants to watch the movie, or even care that he’s not going to be allowed to watch it for a while. So he’s just kind of drifting through it.
AP: Fame doesn’t change him.
JP: He’s not jaded, his ego is still in check. [We laugh.]
AP: So, without divulging too much about where the film goes: A lot of it is about wanting to be held accountable for certain actions, I suppose, and in turn, there’s constant failure. And then in those final moments, we see what happens. Do you feel that there’s justice in those moments?
JB: I personally don’t see it as justice. I see it as a sense of relief. But I’m not… Josh, it’s your character. Yeah, it’s more of a burden being lifted. I don’t see it as justice either. Not to be religious about it, but there’s the Old Testament with the wrath of God and a burden is lifted.
JP: I think Josh’s character feels something he hasn’t felt in the whole movie at that moment. That’s the most important part of it.
AP: It feels like the only time you really see him smile. Or even emote, I’d say.
JP: That was definitely intentional. It’s something we talked a lot about.
AP: I know there’s the conversation about Hell. Did you pull that quote from something that you saw online?
JP: [Laughs.] I just made that up because that’s my version. That would be my Hell. To not be screaming in pain, but to be nervous… forever.
AP: In my notes I just wrote, “Isn’t that just real life?”
JP: [Smiling.] Yeah! But instead of just through your adulthood, it’s through eternity. Man… holy shit! [We all start laughing.] I think that may be the most hardcore thing in the whole movie! Just that fear of being nervous forever.
AP: Yeah! It feels like Derek is just constantly talking into the void. And Marty is just there, embracing it. And it feels like his reply is the time where you’re just like, “Ok, what’s going on in your head?”
JP: Yeah! I love that you don’t really know. Is Marty taking it to heart? Or is he just shaking him off? I think there’s something freaky in that. That he’s still locked in after all that.
JB: And I also think about the way that Marty then addresses it. “Well, there is no Hell.” That’s his rebuttal. It’s either to move the show along and get it going, or he just doesn’t want to participate and placate any of Derek’s notions about whatever is going on with Hell.
JP: I thought we had an opportunity to go a lot deeper into it. But I felt like “being nervous forever” is just the thing that I wanted to get across.
JB: That’s his concept of damnation.
JP: And if we could get there in a realistic, almost silly way at first. And to then end on that note. The whole movie’s structure is: Goofy into goofy into goofy, and then get ugly or dark right at the very end of a scene or an exchange of dialogue.
AP:And it totally recontextualizes the first half with Derek. I mean, he’s clearly a goofy guy, but this then brings the thought up of, “Oh, he’s just trying to kill time.”
JP: Yeah!
JB: He’s trying to prolong the inevitable.
JP: There’s something about him knowing that this is why they’re there. Him never acknowledging it, and still having this goofy persona, to me, yeah, recontextualizes everything. Like how is that guy trying to have fun, knowing what’s gonna happen?
AP: It’s so frightening and so masterful. I can’t wait to hear the reactions at the premiere.
JP: Me too!
JB: Yeah!
AP: How are you feeling going into it?
JP: I’m super stoked. This is exactly what we set out to make.
JB: I’m so excited. Seeing everybody’s reaction, and to see it on the big and large screen, too. I haven’t seen it that way. So I’m stoked.
AP: Out of curiosity. How long was the shoot?
JB: Eight days.
JP: Was it eight?
JB: Eight total shoot days. 14 working days, two to travel and whatever. Eight day shoot.
AP: That’s amazing.
JP: Yeah, it was super, super efficient.
AP: That’s all I have! Again, thank you both for taking the time. Congratulations on the premiere, and I can’t wait to see the reactions that come out.
JP: I’m going on Letterboxd tomorrow morning! [We all laugh.]
When it comes to box office success and general audience appreciation, legacy sequels are pretty straightforward. Lots of nostalgia for a beloved property, some crowd-pleasing cameos, plucky new heroes to accept a passed torch – if you follow the formula and get a halfway competent team on board, they’re as much of a safe bet as anything in Hollywood can be. Star Wars: The Force Awakens was exalted on release. Ghostbusters Afterlife didn’t offend anyone. The first Hobbit (legacy prequel but still bent over backwards to get as many nostalgic references in as possible) received good reviews. Scream (2022) had a lucrative blast skewering the very idea of legacy sequels. Jurassic World was a box-office behemoth.
But things get a little trickier when the time comes to follow your nostalgic investor-pleasing return to the well. Consider the pattern: The Last Jedi went for knotty ideas and thematic subversion that thrilled many but invited backlash so severe that Lucasfilm followed it with a two-and-a-half-hour-long apology, which appeased nobody. The Hobbit sequels tried for something more colorful and elastic that was ultimately met with a shrug by exhausted audiences. Scream VI was inventive in its kills but had nothing new to say, which is a cardinal sin for a Scream movie. Terminator tried to reboot its reboot with another reboot, arrogantly assuming that audiences burned several times before would listen when the producers insisted that this time they’d got it right (they hadn’t). Halloween had absolutely nowhere new to go in Ends or Kills, unless you count focusing on a teenage delinquent as your main antagonist rather than Michael Myers.
And then there’s Jurassic World.
Like so many of these rebooted franchises, all three Jurassic World films cleaned up at the box office despite the critical consensus being that they’re kind of terrible. And that’s not unfair. They are kind of terrible. At their best, they’re goofy crowd pleasers with enough dinosaur action to keep you engaged, but even that reading assumes you’re not at least a little bit disheartened by the descent from one of Spielberg’s greatest blockbuster classics to flaming locusts.
Granted, few long-running franchises are ever able to match the power of their first instalment, and Jurassic Park, like Jaws before it, is no exception. The difference is that Jaws never lent itself to a sequel, while the original Jurassic Park is rife with implications about where it could go next. This is partly what made its two initial follow ups so underwhelming; both were content to mostly keep the dinosaurs on the island, the humans on the run and the status quo exactly where it was at the end of the first film.
By contrast, the World films tried to fulfill the promise of the original and entirely screwed it up. But what really rubs salt in the wound are the moments throughout where you catch fleeting glimpses of just what these movies could have been.
It’s always a bit eye rolling when a movie made by a mega-corporation takes tame pot-shots at the capitalist system that gave it birth (cough, Barbie, cough), but Jurassic World largely gets away with it because the seeds of the park’s destructive commodification are very much planted by Ian Malcolm’s warnings in the first Park. Seeing the new version plastered with big brands while executives wholesale inventing a dinosaur to please investors feels like, well, basically what would happen in real life. In one of the best scenes in the film, the scientifically outdated appearances of the dinosaurs are addressed not only with the fact that they have been altered by spliced DNA, but the insinuation that they were deliberately manufactured to resemble what people in the ‘90s thought dinosaurs should look like. Given the lengths the film goes to remind you of the hallowed original, it’s a surprisingly sharp edge that very nearly pushes Jurassic World into thought-provoking, satirical territory. The suggestion here is that it’s more important these ‘dinosaurs’ give people what they think they want than be in any way representative of their extinct forebears. It’s not especially hard to track where that metaphor is aimed.
But even ignoring any meta implications, this plot point has prescience. Consider the very real efforts to ‘resurrect’ the Woolly Mammoth or the Thylacine, a marsupial predator hunted to extinction by settlers in early 20th century Australia. While cloning has long been the presumed method of bringing them back, more recently a complex process has been raised for discussion that effectively amounts to taking a living relative of the extinct animal and reverse engineering its DNA to come up with a close approximation. If it looks like a mammoth, is it a mammoth? Will it matter to the inevitable crowds flocking to see the ‘de-extinct’ animal?
Jurassic World almost engages with this question, but it can’t resist putting the focus more on crowd pleasing nostalgia or scenes where the T-rex and raptors team up against the lab designed monster in a righteous takedown that ignores the fact that they’re all lab designed monsters. It’s a lot of fun if you like seeing dinosaurs fight (which in fairness most sane people do) but it comes off as a hollow cover version of the original film, lacking in soul, tension, wonder, thoughtfulness or dynamic characters.
Fallen Kingdom gave the first indication that these new films had any intention of moving beyond the ‘humans chased by dinosaurs on an island’ template that characterized all previous films in the franchise. While the first half of the film is precisely that, the second pivots to something weirder and more interesting. The idea of billionaires bidding at auction on exciting new dinosaurs rings very true, even if these films’ insistence on positioning raptors as a desirable asset for a military that has drones does not.
Then there’s the introduction of Maisie Lockwood (Isabella Sermon), revealed to be a clone of the deceased daughter of Jurassic Park’s hitherto unmentioned co-founder. Some criticized this plot point as too silly, ignoring that it was the inevitable result of the technology introduced in the first film. Of course the very rich would bring back their loved ones if they could. But the film does next to nothing with the reveal, showing little interest in engaging with the ethical ramifications of it. Benjamin Lockwood (James Cromwell), the cloner in question, is presented as a benevolent old man who misses his daughter – a depressing case of modern blockbuster reluctance to engage with moral ambiguity lest somebody be made a little uncomfortable.
To that point, even Maisie’s final choice to release the dinosaurs into the wild never really gets held to account, in either this film or the sequel that is ostensibly about the consequences of that very decision. Furthermore there’s one beat where protagonists Owen (Chris Pratt) and Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard) are called out over their culpability in creating this new world, which again could have made for some desperately needed character development or thematic weight, but is quickly skipped over in favorof more cool imagery and John Williams evoking music.
Fallen Kingdom often feels like three different films mashed together, but it’s comfortably the most fascinating of the World films, and the one least concerned with nostalgic pandering. However, one aspect is consistent with the films on either side of it; a tendency to gesture towards compelling ideas before running as far as possible from them. There’s a certain smugness to the way these scripts seem to expect points for even mentioning thorny concepts, while missing the fact that thorny concepts only make for drama if they’re, you know, dramatized.
If Fallen Kingdom is the most interesting, then Dominion is the most frustrating. Following the previous film’s genuinely thrilling cliffhanger, Dominion was set up to finally realize the promise of Crichton’s premise. What does a world where dinosaurs and humans coexist look like?
Unfortunately, we still don’t know, because everyone was too busy focusing on the locusts.
You can sort of see why Dominion made this choice. Director Colin Trevorrow worked overtime in interviews to stress that it wouldn’t be credible for dinosaurs to have taken over the world when only a handful of them escaped in Kingdom. While this is true, credibility didn’t seem to be a problem when Owen was crawling unaffected away from lava that was inches from his face. These films can never decide if they want to be silly blockbusters or serious science fiction continuations of Crichton and Spielberg’s work.
Dominion briefly comes to life in the Malta chase sequence, but that’s because it’s the only scene in the film that almost delivers what was promised; dinosaurs wreaking havoc in the human world. The audacity of having most of the action then take place in another remote dinosaur reserve while trying to claim it’s different because it’s in the mountains rather than an island demonstrates Starkiller Base levels of audience contempt.
And in case bungling an irresistible set up wasn’t enough, Dominion also reunites the three protagonists of the first film then proceeds to do nothing worthwhile with them. Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern) is now a one-note crusader while Alan Grant (Sam Neill) waffles along behind her, looking more like a confused old man than Neill has ever looked in his whole career. The film insists on romantically getting them back together because it assumes that’s what audiences want, but even Jurassic Park III understood that there was power and humanity in a melancholic separation due to different desires. Say what you will about that film, but at least Alan and Ellie felt like the same people they were in the original, with the same foibles that always would have doomed them as a couple. Meanwhile Dominion leaves Jeff Goldblum to spout embarrassing pseudo-philosophical dialogue that evokes his way of speaking in the earlier films provided you remove all wit and meaning.
But one of the worst offenses is how the film retcons Maisie Lockwood so that she is no longer the product of a billionaire’s hubris, but the lovingly designed offspring of a genius mother. It’s a choice that so obviously exists to avoid having to engage with Maisie’s angst over who she is if she’s not ‘real’ or the bigger questions that invites. It serves as the final nail in the coffin of this franchise; these movies can’t even commit to their own halfway interesting ideas.
The Jurassic World Trilogy was damned by reverence. The films started out scared to chart their own path and when they were finally forced to, they vacillated between ridiculous action, vaguely mumbled sci-fi dilemmas, and a need to remind the audience at every turn how good Spielberg’s film was, which amounted to little more than self-sabotage. Unable to embrace either insanity or intelligence, the films aren’t much of anything. Which stings because the potential for something far better is right there, tauntingly out of reach.
An original film can be anything from a new way to tell an old story to something entirely out there and unique. The out-of-there films should be far more represented by the Best Original Screenplay category. We should be celebrating more cinematic swings that take the audience to somewhere that has only ever existed in one person’s mind. This year, there may not be a script any more out there, or deserving, than that of I Saw the TV Glow written by Jane Schoenbrun.
I Saw the TV Glow taps into a particular kind of nostalgia that draws the audience in. It speaks to those of us who remember the importance of being in a certain place at a certain time, glued to the couch. It’s a film for those of us who share an obsessive need to dissect a piece of culture that feels tailor-made for us. It’s about an unfulfilled need, whether it’s the premature end of a beloved TV show or something else entirely.
I Saw the TV Glow has this pervasive conversation about nostalgia throughout, but even more than that, it is wrapped in a layer of truth about the transgender experience. It isn’t a story about someone experiencing the triumph of discovering themselves but the agony of their denial. I Saw the TV Glow‘s themes of toxic nostalgia and fear seep into every layer of its character’s journey to self-discovery and willful ignorance of one’s self.
Jane Schoenbrun’s script is a work of art. She crafts a simultaneously detailed, delicate, beautiful, violent, terrifying, and wondrous world. It resonates with the time it portrays, with the era’s elements subtly woven in. The script aims not to transport us to a bygone era but to help us understand our present. It delves into the layers of Owen’s (Justice Smith) fear, inviting us to reflect on our own.
I Saw the TV Glow is not only remarkable for its world but also for the depth of its characters. Owen is our point of view, our narrator, and ourselves. Owen is a proxy to help us decide if we would have followed Maddy (Brigette Lundy-Paine) and if we would have said yes to a more fully realized life. At the same time, Owen is our fear. We agree with Owen that Maddy is asking too much and that what is out there is not as safe as what is already here. Yet, Maddy is what we want, what Owen wants. She embodies courage, determination, and the understanding of self.
I Saw the TV Glow’s script is a force to be reckoned with, just as is the final product. It stands out as a wholly original piece, offering a unique and refreshing perspective. Jane Schoenbrun’s talent shines through in her ability to express herself in unconventional, eerie, and deeply moving ways. This is the kind of script and film for which the Best Original Screenplay category was designed. It’s a vision that could only exist in its current form—a true cinematic masterpiece.
From now until nomination day, I’d like to keep a running list of films that could break into the Best Original Screenplay category. With only five slots, it will be difficult to narrow down. Yet, narrow it down, I must. I’ll keep it to five and rotate some films out and maybe back in as the mood or the prevailing winds shift. Below, in alphabetical order by title, are the top five, as I see it.
Babes – Ilana Glazer, Josh Rabinowitz
Challengers – Justin Kuritzkes
Civil War – Alex Garland
I Saw the TV Glow – Jane Schoenbrun
Love Lies Bleeding – Rose Glass, Weronika Tofilska
Director: Jeff Nichols Writer: Jeff Nichols Stars: Jodie Comer, Austin Butler, Tom Hardy
Synopsis: After a chance encounter, headstrong Kathy is drawn to Benny, member of Midwestern motorcycle club the Vandals. As the club transforms into a dangerous underworld of violence, Benny must choose between Kathy and his loyalty to the club.
The more perceived control you have, the larger your reach, the more it falls through your grasp. The expansion of power and control is a surefire way to tempt fate and lose who you are. When we look back at how our plans, relationships, or connections begin, that is when they could be held, even if for just one beautiful moment. Will events happen no matter what we do? Maybe, but it is hard not to think about the moments that our paths diverge into unnecessary complexity. The characters in Jeff Nichols’ The Bikeriders travels many of those divergent paths and they find it impossible not to regret and look backwards, a deep incongruence with the consistent imagery of the motorcycles burning up the road, moving forward as quickly as possible, towards expectant freedom.
Although it is a story of power and ostensibly focused on The Vandals Motorcycle Club, that is a complete misdirect. That path, while interesting, is clearly secondary to the relationships of its three main characters. The impetus of the story is set in motion when Kathy (Jodie Comer) chooses to meets her friend at a biker bar to give her some money. There she meets a ragtag cast of characters, most importantly her future husband, Benny (Austin Butler) and the President of the club, Johnny (Tom Hardy). It is no coincidence that she meets them both back-to-back, as this trio will be on a collision course throughout.
The only struggles the film has are in its beginnings, as it struggles slightly to find its footing and pace. There is a bit too much narration from Kathy, especially given that we see just about everything that she details almost immediately afterwards. The script, also from Nichols, could do with slightly more trust in the audience. But these are minor complaints. Overall, the film is excellent, not just due to the actors, but also to the big screen worthy sound and visuals. Of particular note, the sound design truly harnesses the power of the motorcycles and hammers home the intimidation factor of the club.
Importantly, the three of the lead performances are stunning, and all in different ways. Hardy continues to be at the top of his game, especially in the space between lines of dialogue. His use of silence, facial expressions, and head movement to change the perspective of powerful moments puts him in a league of his own. Comer is the steadying force in this film, a challenge she more than meets, along with keeping a difficult accent with copious amounts of speech. And Austin Butler. I wasn’t convinced of his movie stardom quite yet, but count me in now. It is not just his introduction, which is a masterclass in gazing at a leading man from cinematographer Adam Stone. The forced lack of emotion in Butler is deeply important to the narrative structure and the character arcs of The Bikeriders, and he never wavers.
Yes, on the surface, it still is the story of the rise of a motorcycle club, but where the film shines is in the longing of both Kathy and Johnny for the love of Benny. They both have it, but only partially. Benny is distant and unknowable. Kathy has him as a husband, but he is a spouse that is never fully present. At the slightest provocation, he will threaten to leave, clearly unable to communicate beyond emotional explosions. Johnny, if anything, has a more intimate relationship with him, but this merely increases Benny’s fear of closeness. Their intimacy is often filmed in shadow, with faces half obscured, almost seeing these two men as one whole. Hardy and Butler are perfectly incomplete, and, in another time, might be able to truly connect. But in the hypermasculine world of both the time period and the context of a motorcycle club, we all know it is impossible, despite our deepest romantic hopes. Their relationship is equal parts genuine and deeply frustrating. The film contains both a deep sorrow and a desire for hope that is a difficult balance, but is purely human. All of these characters are, in one way or another, misfits. The Bikeriders manages to portray even disturbing men as real people, with hopes and dreams. Michael Shannon, in a small but memorable part, has a speech about his past that passes a hush over the constant noise of the carousing men that is awe inspiring to watch.
The Bikeriders is about many things and can be interpreted in several ways. Jeff Nichols clearly has a deep understanding of impossible relationships and the good enough endings, even if they lack true intimacy and passion. “Things are good” becomes a near indictment of settling for what Benny can give. If you’re looking for enlightenment about the history of motorcycle clubs, this will deeply disappoint. But if you search for painfully close relationships that make us look back, both wistfully and with deep regret, The Bikeriders, thanks to three impeccable performances, will fulfill exactly what you are looking for, all while breaking our hearts.
Director: Vincent Grashaw Writer: Will Janowitz Stars: Tim Blake Nelson, Glenn Plummer, Andrew Liner
Synopsis: Tim Blake Nelson stars as ‘Bang Bang’ Rozyski, an eccentric retired pugilist obsessed with rectifying the sins of his past.
When we’re first introduced to Bernard “Bang Bang” Rozyski (Tim Blake Nelson), it’s far from a pretty sight. He’s drunkenly dancing around his home in nothing but boxers, bottle of alcohol in hand. To be fair, what he’s doing couldn’t really be called dancing, I just don’t know what else you’d call it. Regardless, he appears to be having a bit of a breakdown. And he’s just an absolute mess. But Vincent Grashaw’s Bang Bang isn’t attempting to hide that fact. Instead, it puts the behavior on full display for the audience. Over the course of its runtime, this brazen behavior develops from comical for the viewer into something far more upsetting. It’s the slow realization that we’re being introduced to a man who, at the end of this path, may not ever find a semblance of peace. It’s just a way to kill time in the hopes of wrapping it all up sooner.
As written earlier, Nelson portrays Bang Bang as a hurricane of curses and alcohol. His overall brash demeanor is also always on display. He’s consistently drenched in sweat. He’s beat-down, always popping pain medication for his hips. His clothes are mainly covered in stains, likely from the ketchup sandwiches he sustains himself on. His harsh attitude reaches new heights when, upon a surprise visit from his daughter and grandson, Justin (Andrew Liner), he outright refuses to provide any help in watching him for a bit while his mother is out of town. Eventually, he acquiesces upon being in the room with Justin again. This is such a great role for Nelson. Both his voice and particular look lend themselves incredibly well to such a stand-offish character. Yet, you fully believe him in his rare tender moments. It speaks to the talent Nelson has as a performer. For example, at one point in a supermarket, he literally drops all he is doing to help a stranger. A lesser actor would make this seem jarring after all the anger we have seen projected thus far. But here, it creates more of an enigmatic presence than anything else.
There’s no denying that this is a star vehicle for Nelson. But there’s more stewing beneath the surface of Bang Bang. The film is set in Detroit, although not being shot there hinders part of the film. Still, the script does not beat around the bush when it comes to all the turmoil and hardships the city has endured for decades. Bernard is a broken man in a seemingly broken city. He feels left behind. He feels like the world has left his home behind. He feels like those who he grew up around and fought against have left him behind. In the latter case, he details that most have ended up dead at a young age or in jail. Yes, he’s angry at the hand he’s been dealt in life. But he appears to be even more internally furious and pain-ridden that the hands don’t stop getting dealt. So through Justin, we see him attempt to pick up the pieces. Maybe for all the pain he’s dished out, he’ll be able to channel it into something that will do some good for the family name. This is, in many ways, an inspirational sports story. But it’s told with more vulgarity, violence, and vitriol than any you’ve likely seen before. Those moments are when Bang Bang is at its best. It’s primarily everywhere else in the film that it begins to lose some steam.
It feels as if Bang Bang wants to say something about the history of Detroit, but never quite reaches a substantial point to make. Instead, there are simply general observations and musings on the city. It takes away a bit of the overall effect of the film, even if the film is not directly about the city itself. To link the character and the setting together so often in the film would have you think that it would amount to something in the end. And then the other perplexing element of this film is the moments in which it chooses to be tender. On one hand, there’s an interesting dichotomy at play between Bang Bang, who the public sees, and Bernard, who Sharon (Erica Gimpel) sees. The two are old friends, possibly even ex-lovers, who find themselves in the midst of a fling. At one point, Grashaw places the two of them into an incredibly vulnerable sequence. It’s unlike anything else in the film, and is handled very beautifully in terms of how the scene looks, as well as how it plays out in isolation. But within the feature as a whole, it seems to completely clash against everything around it. It feels as if it’s pulled from a different film. To clarify: if taken completely out of the film and played on its own, it’s a well-executed and performed scene. There’s just such a stark contrast between the sequences that bookend it, let alone the rest of the film, that it doesn’t feel as if it earns this sudden turn. That’s not to say the scene diminishes the character, but it just poses a series of questions that the film doesn’t seem all that interested in.
But as I wrote earlier, this film basically operates as a vehicle for the always excellent Nelson. And it’s in his hands that it thrives in any sort of way. He has the ability to hide a lot of pain behind mannerisms and phrases that leave you equal parts laughing and in shock. Early on, a cop tells Bang Bang that being nasty is overrated. It doesn’t seem to faze him in the slightest. And to be honest, the audience won’t be either. This is due to the fact that Nelson plays this character with that vitriol in a way that is wildly refreshing for a sports drama. And then, in the final moments, there’s a radical shift. While not entirely earned as a character reveal, it’s a touching and important disclaimer about the entire film. Again, this rides on the back of Nelson. Despite all his flaws, you can’t help but be a bit endeared to his prickly persona. And then the film ends on a rather touching note. It’s one of much importance that I don’t think should be held to the final moments. What’s been alluded to throughout now serves as a dedication to those in similar real-world circumstances. Rather than frame those earlier tender moments as merely an event, perhaps it would have played better as a clearly broken man desperately trying to fill the hole in his heart. Bang Bang, at the very least, is an occasionally interesting film with a very strong-willed lead performance. It wouldn’t hurt to have more sports films with as much grit and grime as this one. Importantly, it never glorifies the lifestyle. It admits that there are many ways in which the sport of boxing can ruin lives. It’s just up to the individual to decide how far they want to take it. The film just hopes the individuals have the ability to choose for themselves.
Bang Bang celebrated its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival in the Spotlight Narrative section. More information on the film can be found right here.
This week on the InSession Film Podcast,we continue our Best Picture Movie Series with Elia Kazan’s 1947 winner Gentleman’s Agreement! We also talk Pixar, hot takes and Sony buying Alamo Drafthouse.
Check out this week’s show and let us know what you think in the comment section. Thanks for listening and for supporting the InSession Film Podcast!
– Pixar and Hot Takes (1:05) After some opening banter, we begin the show this week with a massive Pixar rabbit hole. We talk everything from our Pixar movies, the latest discourse on Pixar hot takes and how we feel about the studio overall heading into their latest film in Inside Out 2.
– Sony Buys Alamo Drafthouse (49:37) We had to spend at least a few minutes on the news that Sony, one of the few major film studios out there, has now re-entered the theatrical distribution market after buying up Alamo Drafthouse. It’s the first time in decades that a major studio has done something like this, and as you can imagine, it has many people worried as to what it could mean in the long run.
– Best Picture Movie Series: Gentleman’s Agreement (1:03:26) We continue our Best Picture Movie Series in the 1940s with Elia Kazan’s 1947 Oscar-winning film Gentleman’s Agreement! While you have to respect Kazan’s convictions and courage for making this film, there are unfortunately some major aspects that do not hold up well through a 2024 lens. There are good things and you can see why people at the time voted for it, but sadly this is a film that despite its affable intentions, it doesn’t quite hit the mark.
If you want to help support us, there are several ways you can help us and we’d absolutely appreciate it. Every penny goes directly back into supporting the show and we are truly honored and grateful. Thanks for your support and for listening to the InSession Film Podcast!
Director: Amanda Nell Eu Writer: Amanda Nell Eu Stars: Zafreen Zairizal, Deena Ezral, Piqa
Synopsis: An 11-year-old girl who is carefree until she starts to experience horrifying physical changes to her body.
Menarche and menstruation tales run through folklore and fairytales in almost every culture. Although some scholars make a distinction between mythology and folklore, they do tend to have crossovers when dealing with matters of the body (as opposed to finding explanations as to why it rains and the like). ‘Eve’s curse’ would be the most obvious example in the Judeo-Christian bible, but even apocryphal or syncretic texts such as tales of Lilith (Lilit, Lamia) the one who does not bend to Adam is demonic and a shapeshifter. Sleeping Beauty is a menarche tale with the pricking of the princess’ finger on a spindle representing the shift into maidenhood – one that shares her curse with a kingdom. Werewolf tales have obvious connotations with the moon cycle and the menstrual cycle (The Company of Wolves and Ginger Snaps). Amanda Nell Eu’s Malaysian coming-of-age fantastique Tiger Stripes uses the image of the harimu jaidan or weretiger as an avatar of change for the pre-teen protagonist, Zaffan (Zafreen Zairizal) is experiencing bodily.
Zaffan and her friends Farah (Deena Ezral) and Mariam (Piqa) are in their final year of primary school and studying for their exams. Zaffan is already a wild thing – dancing with abandon to pop music in the bathrooms. Zaff is a lot freer than Farah and Mariam, but her freedom is based in innocence and curiosity. She wears a bra she found somewhere, experimenting with womanhood but not ready for it. Womanhood means shame. In a society where ignorance about female bodies and desire is built into patriarchal control does a girl want to ‘grow up’?
Walking home after school the girls place puffy stickers on signs showing a rural Malaysia caught between emerging capitalism and provincialism. The lush forest is the place Zaff inhabits with an abandon that Farah resents. Zaff isn’t afraid to pull off her hijab and throw herself into the local watering hole. Generally, Zaff isn’t afraid until she is made to fear. The thing she is made to fear the most is her own body, and, in turn, her body becomes a site of fear.
Zaff’s mother, Munah (June Lojong) has told her daughter nothing of what will happen to her body once she begins menstruating. All a shocked Zaff is told is that she is “dirty now,” and handed a sanitary product and told to wash. Farah’s jealousy of Zaff is given free rein as she moves to ostracize her through organized bullying. Mariam watches with confusion as her friend becomes ‘other’ to everyone. Stories of a wild woman called Ina circulate; a woman who lives in a tree sent there because she did not keep herself clean. Before Zaff’s body begins to shift into something else it is already monstrous in the eyes of her classmates. Zaff is a ‘slut’ and ‘whore’ who stinks and brings with her evil spirits according to Farah and her new coterie of followers.
Zaff is changing shape. Small things which could be explained by hormonal changes such as hair loss, changes in appetite, and skin issues become, over time, her becoming a supernatural being. But as disturbing as these changes are initially and as painful and grotesque; they are not where the fear in Eu’s work resides. Zaff becomes a shadow of her former self because she is oppressed by women and girls acting on behalf of a religious and social environment which has made them loathe themselves. Zaff hides in plain sight for as long as she can trying to fit in with what is expected of her until her animal power is provoked and lashes out.
Amanda Nell Eu is bringing a specifically South Asian flavor to an old tale, but she is also placing it specifically in the context of Malaysia now. A place where women hold jobs but are still taught ‘The father goes to work’ and ‘The mother cooks at home’ in English language classes. Where girls participate in Cadet activities and are expected to do well in school to get scholarships yet are bound by cultural shame over a biological function.
Zaff is considered a point of contagion where other women and girls begin to experience mass psychogenic reactions when in contact with her. An exorcist is called in (something which is remarkably common) to rid the school and community of the evil inside a girl. Dr. Rahim (Shaheizy Sam) and his obvious scam to provide spiritual purity to the area and stop the hysteria does more harm than a ‘tiger’ being left alone.
Amanda Nell Eu’s Tiger Stripes employs its fantastical elements with a deft hand. The film isn’t asking the viewer to see realistic ‘monsters’ in the girls and women who have been ostracized, because they aren’t monsters at all. For Mariam, Zaff is her friend who is just one step ahead of her in the line to self-actualization. Whatever has taken hold of Zaff isn’t a threat to Mariam but rather something intoxicating and liberating. Instead of forming part of a pack who would hunt Zaff down, she asks her friend to show her the ‘UwU’ – reminding the audience that they are young girls.
Tiger Stripes is sharp-clawed but soft-pawed. Eu is angry at the patriarchal prison which cages girls and sees their emerging bodies and desires as monstrous. Inside the anger, however, is a story about a young rebel, her best friend, and the beauty of their ferocity when they no longer have to keep it hidden. A thrilling addition to the empowered rebel and feral girl canon.
Director: Michael Angarano Writers: Michael Angarano, Christopher Nicholas Smith Stars: Kristen Stewart, Rosalind Chao, Michael Angarano
Synopsis: Rickey, an energetic and free-spirited young man who convinces Glenn, his long-time friend who’s settled into domestic life, to go on an impromptu road trip from Los Angeles to Sacramento.
Whenever I think of my small group of close-knit friends, I can’t help but feel lucky. I look back to a time when I considered my friend group to be massive. Growing up, I was a loud mouth who always wanted to crack jokes. But at the end of the day, I had very few people who I could actually consider a friend. We did everything together, but now, almost two decades later, we chat maybe once a year, and it’s the social pleasantries of saying happy birthday or something similar. As I said, to have the friends I have now makes me feel very lucky. A few of them I’ve known for half of my life at this point. But whenever I think back on those past friendships, I can’t help but feel a sense of yearning. Your first friends in life. They’ll mean something to you forever. But of course, as we grow up, we become different people in a way. And do those new sets of people still have what held the friendship together in the first place? With his latest directorial effort, Sacramento, the multi-hyphenate Michael Angarano makes the attempt.
I use that phrase because, more often than not, a lot of relationships are maintained through making an attempt. The effort of reaching out goes a long way. For a society that has now found itself structured around these instant communicators in our pocket, why do we sometimes find it so hard to reach out? It has never been easier in the history of human existence. But even still, we often don’t send that text or make that call. And I can write that not only from personal experience, but can confidently say that many of us have shared a similar sentiment. There may be a reason for not reaching out. But it could also just be the simple passage of time. That’s the case for Glenn (Michael Cera) and Rickey (Angarano), two lifelong friends who have grown apart in recent years. This may seem like a shock to Rickey, but Glenn tells Rosie (Kristen Stewart), his wife, the reason behind his choices. Beyond time merely pulling them apart, Glenn and Rosie are expecting a baby. And Glenn merely feels that Rickey has not made it to that stage of his life yet. Angarano plays the role of an immature free spirit. It’s not difficult to imagine he’s never really held a steady job or a long-term relationship. Part of it certainly stems from personal choice and feeling like he’d rather enjoy what life has to offer. And while we can still do that at any point in our lives, there does come a time when we need to accept the new responsibilities that come with time. From how we meet Rickey, it’s clear that he’s not ready for that commitment to maturity.
We first see him, alone in the woods, sitting naked on a chair. He hears somebody shout to him about his exposed genitalia with jest in her voice. They are separated by a lake, and decide to meet in the middle. Rickey jumps in without a second thought, only for Tallie (Angarano’s real-life wife, Maya Erskine) to change her mind. This is the story of how Rickey meets Tallie. We cut to hours later, and the two are sharing casual banter while quickly realizing they have nothing in common. But that doesn’t matter, because it’s apparent this is a whirlwind meeting of two people who have undeniable chemistry. We jump in time a year, and while Tallie is nowhere to be seen, this idea of a whirlwind relationship is again seen between Rickey and Glenn. The former shows up, unannounced, and asks Glenn to lunch. Glenn, a clear bundle of nerves and panic-related anger issues, is flabbergasted. This is added to when he sees that Rickey is driving the car they seemingly grew up driving together. It’s been all fixed up at a cost greater than the initial purchase price. It’s here we begin to feel sad for Rickey. Glenn merely wants to get the lunch over with, but Angarano plays the character in such a way that you can’t help but empathize with. He’s forcefully holding onto whatever friendships he can in whatever ways he can manage. One gets the sense that Glenn is the only person left in his life. And while Glenn and Rosie are expecting a child, it seems as if Glenn isn’t much different than Rickey. Rosie repeatedly says as much throughout the film, voicing her frustrations with Glenn’s inability to care for himself, or his lack of releases in the form of other relationships.
While this does feel like a film solely interested in the dynamics of adult male friendships, the ways in which Erskine and Stewart are relegated to the outskirts is a bit upsetting. They’re obviously both very talented and have great screen presence whenever in the film. But one can’t help but feel their characters are underserved. Stewart for example, is in maybe 5-7 minutes of the film, mostly to poke fun at Cera’s character. But in this comedy lies the opportunity for poignant observations from partners about immature men who feign having it all together. It just feels as if their lack of screen time undercuts the overall drama of the script at large. To flesh out both Rosie and Tallie a bit more would likely go a long way in making the entire cast of characters feel more three-dimensional. But even with such flaws, Sacramento is constantly charming, and consistently funny.
Angarano and Cera play well off one another, and the film sticks with them for a large swath of its short runtime. It also plays up the pains that come with aging, even if we still may be considered young. I personally felt seen when Cera, fighting a hangover, details how he’s “only a man” when relaying the three beers and two shots he had. Sacramento examines this idea of aging affecting us all in different ways in ways that are often interesting, but always comical. Time may pull us apart, and aging certainly takes its toll on us all. But it’s with the company we keep, and the memories we have made over a lifetime thus far that will help us weather the storm in the end. Maybe we can revisit those connections we once held but let fall to the wayside. Maybe those once-a-year dinners or quarterly texts could grow into something beautiful again.
Sacramento celebrated its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival in the U.S. Narrative Competition section. More information on the film can be found right here.
This week on Chasing the Gold, Shadan is joined by Héctor González once again to discuss his experience at this year’s Cannes Film Festival! This time around Héctor talks about the films he really loved at Cannes and why these films will resonate at the end of the year.
Movies Covered in Part 2:
13. Something New, Something Old, Something Borrowed
12. Universal Language
11. The Other Way Around
10. All We Imagined as Light
9. Oh, Canada
8. Blue Sun Palace
7. Anora
6. Misericordia
5. Caught by the Tides
4. The Shrouds
3. The Hyperboreans
2. The Substance
1. It’s Not Me
On that note, check out this week’s show and let us know what you think in the comment section. Thanks for listening and for supporting the InSession Film Podcast!
Synopsis: In rural Western Massachusetts, 11-year-old Lacy spends the summer of 1991 at home, enthralled by her own imagination and the attention of her mother, Janet. As the months pass, three visitors enter their orbit, all captivated by Janet.
Some say animation is not cinema. Yet, the new Netflix streaming film The Imaginary is a breathtaking example that challenges even the most cynical and closed-minded views of what makes film an art form.
After last year’s embarrassment of riches like the transcendent Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, the exquisite artistry of The Boy and the Heron, and the shell-shockin’ good time of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem, can we finally let the genre have a home of its own in the cinema lexicon?
The Imaginary is one of those films—a wonderful and creative breath of fresh air that is destined to be hailed by critics and audiences alike. The animation is gorgeous, and the story lives up to the limitless possibilities. This family film of unparalleled empathy and unspeakable compassion sparks a passionate fascination with what movies are and what so-called cinema can be.
There’s magic in it.
The story (and we will be going with the American voice cast) follows Amanda (Evie Kiszel), who has been struggling living in a single parent household. She has begun to distract herself with her best friend, Rudger (Louie Rudge-Buchanan), who happens to be a figment of her imagination. The imaginary Rudger can only be seen and interacted with by Amanda, and her mother, for obvious reasons, Lizzie (Hayley Atwell), cannot see him.
However, things come to a head when a nefarious character named Mr. Blunting (Jeremy Swift) comes to town, even to the family’s front door. He is looking for Amanda, and she is shocked when she finds out that the creepy man can see her imaginary friend and knows who Rudger is. After avoiding him and his little minion, who looks like a rip-off of Wednesday Addams, Amanda is injured, taken to the hospital, and has yet to wake up.
Rudger now faces the possibility of disappearing because if Amanda dies, he will go away, and no one will remember him. However, he runs into the precocious Emily (Sky Katz), the delightful Hippo, Snowflake (Roger Craig Smith), and a talking feline with heterochromia, Zinzan (Kal Penn), who takes him to the Town of Imaginaries, where they think Mr. Blunting is a folklore or urban legend. The question then becomes: can Rudger get back to Amanda before Mr. Blunting can get to him or before he fades into eternity?
The Imaginary is an adaptation of the book of the same name by A. F. Harrold and illustrated by Emily Gravett. There is an eye-opening team behind this project. Directed for the big (and small) screen by Yoshiyuki Momose and written by two-time Academy Award nominee Yoshiaki Nishimura, it is a stunning film by any standard, live-action or animation. The eclectic use of animation almost seems capricious at times, but the joyful madness on the screen is ambitious and stunning to take in.
And it’s no wonder, considering Momose, the legendary animator, cut his teeth working with the iconic Studio Ghibli on Hayao Miyazaki films such as Princess Mononoke, Porco Rosso, Whisper of the Heart, and Spirited Away. Here, he has crafted a movie as good as those. There is a sense of magic, wonder, and even hair raising dread with Momose’s vision, which comes to astonishing light.
The script is a pitch-perfect adaptation, bringing such ambitious source material to life. In particular, the ingenious way the story shifts subjects between the first and second acts while opening up a world of possibilities genuinely captures the audience’s fascination. The third act, which tests preconceptions of social constructs, is bold and teaches valuable lessons. You know, besides staying away from a creepy guy chasing kids, but themes of love, loss, and grief are deeply felt here.
The Imaginary is worth watching because it evokes wonderment, explores modern cultural themes, and employs innovative storytelling techniques. Not to mention its use of what has been described as “groundbreaking hand-drawn animation with first-of-their-kind techniques” using light and shadows.
The result is visible on the screen. Even the most minor scenes are intensely vibrant and engaging. Momose utilizes this technique to evoke emotions, employing precise lighting to immerse the viewer in a holistic experience. There is even a poignant scene near the end of the film with motion that’s almost lyrical, bringing some gravitas and real stakes to the story.
Sure, almost all the characters resemble Precious Moments figurines, but aside from that, everything about The Imaginary works harmoniously. It features unexpected moments that many studios wouldn’t dare attempt in crucial plot points. This is bold, ambitious, and exciting filmmaking that will awaken the child in you while occasionally delivering a punch of emotional resonance.
Synopsis: Follows Blanche Renard, who meets Greg Lamoureux and believes he is the one. However, she soon finds herself caught up in a toxic relationship with a possessive and dangerous man.
“If you loved me, you wouldn’t let me be a monster.” – Grégoire to Blanche
Valérie Donzelli directs and, with Audrey Diwan, adapts the novel “L’amour et les forêts.” Starring Virginie Efira in twin roles, Just the Two of Us flirts with heightened genre flourishes but pulls back to reveal a simple chilling reality: domestic abuse.
Blanche Renard is the white to her twin sister Rose’s red. Or at least that is how it appears on the surface. Blanche is the more cautious sister, the intellectual who teaches French literature. Rose is the for the moment party girl who has to cajole and convince Blanche to come to parties in the breezy summer of their hometown in Normandy.
At one of the parties Blanche is recognised by an old acquaintance, Grégoire Lamoureaux (Melvil Poupard) who hones in on her with a brash charm that disarms her. A well-dressed banker who once wanted to be a pilot, Grégoire sweeps Blanche off her feet. He insists he is her ‘perfect match’ and Blanche doesn’t doubt it as they dance together encircled by mutual desire. The halcyon blush of true romance colors Blanche’s cheeks and makes her bed a sanctuary where she and Grégoire discuss literature and make love.
Rose isn’t entirely convinced by Grégoire nor the speed the relationship develops. She genuinely wants Blanche to be happy but to be so completely consumed by another is accompanied in her mind by eventual loss such as their widowed mother faced with their beloved father. Unable to articulate her discomfort to Blanche, Rose finds herself being pushed to the side as Grégoire starts to undermine Blanche’s familial ties.
Soon, Blanche is pregnant and although she is unsure she wants to keep the fetus, Grégoire finds the idea of them as a family unit perfect. Small signs that he might be a little too possessive pass Blanche by as she readies herself for motherhood and an unexpected relocation from Normandy to Metz. Despite the literature she taught warning her that in Racine’s words which Grégoire repeats, ‘And I even loved the teardrops I made her shed,’ Blanche acquiesces to him repeatedly.
Grégoire is relentless with his manipulation leaving Blanche psychologically unanchored. In a small and cold town surrounded by woods, the mother of a small daughter and soon pregnant again Blanche isn’t precisely sure when she surrendered her autonomy or whether it was taken from her. Either way, even the smallest resistance to Grégoire’s routine and rules means an escalating barrage of recriminations. In a house with no doors on the bedrooms Blanche’s world is claustrophobic.
Even her teaching job in a nearby town is a threat to Grégoire. If she is celebrated for her intellectual skills, he feels emasculated. If she is seen by others, she is declaring herself apart from him. His possession of her and the children runs deep. A song sung in the van on the way to Metz, “I will love you until the day I die” is a more immediate promise than Blanche first realised.
The twist in Just the Two of Us is there is no twist. Told in segmented flashbacks to a lawyer, Blanche speaks of shame keeping her tethered to a situation that becomes increasingly deadly. Valérie Donzelli employs techniques to make the viewer feel inside Blanche’s reality. Laurent Tangy’s cinematography shifts hues – red for passion becomes in retrospect red for danger, but the greatest danger isn’t even given a color. It is the light in the kitchen in the morning. It is the flattened affect of slow suffocation. It is a bedroom, a bathroom, a phone screen, a view from a windscreen or a window.
The use of Racine, Moliere, and Flaubert is a touch on the overly symbolic side just as the target practice with Blanche’s one time lover is. What keeps these parabolic elements from becoming too affected is Virginie Efira’s performance. Efira wears the weight of over seven years with a man who has caused continual fight or flight exhaustion where neither action appears feasible. If she leaves, is she dooming her children and herself to a lifetime of looking over their shoulders? If she stays, will she have a lifetime at all? Efira is an actor for whom emotional and physical interpretations are intellectual and corporeal. Her attraction to Grégoire is carnal but not reckless. Blanche isn’t a fool, but she is fooled.
“I just want you to myself” are words used painted as romantic or committed. Rarely do people think of them as a warning that they are a possession, yet domestic violence, coercive control, and spousal abuse are epidemic. On average, in France, a woman is killed by her partner or ex-partner every three to four days.
Just the Two of Us is horrifying because it doesn’t stretch credibility or imagination. There is no ultimate revenge and no firm end. An everyday fight for survival which happens across class and cultural milieus. Virginie Efira and Valérie Donzelli force the audience to hold their breath and even as the credits roll it may be difficult to exhale.
Directors: Kelly O’Sullivan, Alex Thompson Writer: Kelly O’Sullivan Stars: Keith Kupferer, Katherine Mallen Kupferer, Tara Mallen
Synopsis: When a construction worker unexpectedly joins a local theater’s production of Romeo and Juliet, the drama onstage starts to mirror his own life.
The ghost light is a theater practice of placing a light center stage for safety reasons so that in the completely dark theater, one can see their way around obstacles or danger. Though, like many things in the theater, it’s also a superstition. A ghost light is away to ward off or encourage the spirits that haunt theaters. It is a connection between our world and the spirit realm. It’s like the connection between an actor and their role.
There’s an alchemy to channeling someone else’s existence through our body. Performance is a form of possession, taking over the person in front of us, stripping them away. Ghostlight is a film about many things, but it’s very much a film about developing empathy through acting. From the perspective of Dan (Keith Kupferer) we’re transported into a community of actors. Actors who see and feel in a completely different way than Dan is used to. Being with those people, giving himself to the process brings out what Dan hasn’t been willing to say, or think, or feel as he deals with his grief.
Writer Kelly O’Sullivan has built a deeply layered film. She slowly, beautifully creates the narrative in stages, calling our attention to details, feeding our brains pieces of a puzzle that our heart begins to work out through context. This isn’t a film of grand exposition, preamble, or aside. Ghostlight is a film that gives us everything we need when we need it and not a second sooner. You can see the ghosts, the small ideas written into the script, on the screen in a way that’s magical. It’s a story that will unfold in your head for hours after watching it as your brain stitches together the brilliance of the nuance in every scene and every word spoken. Ghostlight’s characters drive us forward, build the tension, and break our hearts. The script attains that rare balance of true human drama with very funny comedy, often within the same scene.
There is a scene of the production of ‘Romeo and Juliet’ when the players are rehearsing the play’s final moments. Directors O’Sullivan and Alex Thompson stage the scene perfectly with Dan in the wings like an audience member and two of his fellow castmates, the veteran Rita (Dolly De Leon) as Juliet and the enthusiastically hammy Lucien (Tommy Rivera-Vega) as Romeo. As the scene progresses and Lucien keeps us enthralled by his antics with the poison bottle, editor Mike S. Smith cuts over to a visibly upset Dan. There is a back and forth that continues until Dan finds his voice, his anger and his relief about finally telling his castmates about his real life tragedy. We go from chuckling at the ludicrous acting choices of Lucien to weeping with Dan as the rest of the cast does. It’s a masterful balance for the scene and the film.
These types of scenes wouldn’t work if it weren’t for the incredible cast of Ghostlight. They have a brilliant authenticity to their characters and know them intimately. Dolly De Leon steals every scene she’s in because her character feels so lived in, like she’s known Rita, has been Rita. It’s the kind of intimacy brought by the actors playing our nuclear family because they are a nuclear family. Tara Mallen imbues Sharon with that staunch determination of a woman doing everything to hold her family together so much so that she feels she can’t exist in her own grief. Katherine Mallen Kupferer as Daisy has that incredible fiery tempered teenager mixed with theater kid drive and energy down pat. Keith Kupferer as Dan is an utter revelation.
Kupferer is so incredibly naturalistic in his role. He has these looks, these expressions, that play across his face. As a taciturn character Dan is rarely speaking his mind aloud. He’s a roiling mass of pent up emotions ready to explode. Kupferer finds that within his performance. His movements, presence, and at times, grace build into a towering life on screen.
Ghostlight is the kind of film that you didn’t know you needed until you’ve seen it. It captures the feelings of grief and empathy in a way that is simply astonishing. In true cinema fashion, we are stripped of the seat we’re in, the building around us, the screen we watch, and we become ghosts. We haunt the lives of these fully fleshed out characters experiencing their grief and their triumph. We laugh, we cry, and we remember what it is like when we let others into our lives, when we stop just existing and learn how to live again.
Not enough can be written or said about Ghostlight. It’s a film that goes beyond what you think a film like it can be. It’s perfectly paced, superbly acted, and it is one of the best written films of the decade. There is nothing else like it on screens now and it must be seen.
The so-called “Midnights” section at any given film festival offers audiences a slate of films that aim to “shake things up”, or to stray from mainstream programming. Something like Celine Song’s Past Lives doesn’t quite strike that chord, but movies like Jane Schoenbrun’s I Saw the TV Glow and Chris Nash’s In a Violent Nature most certainly fit the bill. At the Tribeca Festival, the films and the names involved in their making are on the smaller side, but the program is nonetheless stacked; frankly, its Midnight entrants are all the more intriguing for the festival’s overall makeup.
Take Mars, for example, the latest raunchfest from the comedy troupe, “The Whitest Kids U’ Know”. The animated comedy follows a ragtag group of civilians that has been randomly selected by a billionaire named Elron Branson to take a trip to the red planet for shits and giggles. The film’s main character, Kyle, is something of a stick-in-the-mud dentist who is bored with his life, wishes to be rid of his maniacal fiancé, and needs an easy way out. This fantastical sweepstakes couldn’t have come at a better time, and his selection to join the crew sets off a slew of inane and insane gags that essentially turn a lesser Adult Swim skit into an 80-minute feature.
Originally conceived as a live-action film by the group’s co-founders Zach Cregger (the writer-director of 2022’s Barbarian), Sam Brown, and the late Trevor Moore, Mars is silly, stupid, and wholly inappropriate. In other words, it’s quite literally what any Midnights section inclusion should set out to be. Elron Branson, the aforementioned billionaire behind this galactic extravaganza, has an obvious inspiration (or two) for his name, and is eager to tell anyone and everyone about how important it is that space travel has now been privatized in a manner that makes it out to be like a resort vacation. He gives every invention of his an acronymic name, including T.W.G.P.O.B.S.O.T.C.F, which somehow translates to “shower”, but actually stands for “There were good people on both sides of the Charlottesville fiasco.”
Evidently, Mars grows tired after a while. The “Family Guy”-style comedy and animation, the latter of which coming courtesy of the film’s director, Sevan Najarian, is far more fitting for a movie of this nature than whatever live-action plans the Whitest Kids had in mind, but its comedy is an exhausting blend of vulgarity and pop culture references that expired months ago, long before the spaceship’s 3-D food printer – known affectionately as the “Murdered Midwestern Homosexual Teenager” – could generate it for consumption. My audience was entertained for a time, but plenty of viewers beelined for the exits before the credits rolled. Such is life at a festival premiere.
A similar fate awaited Daniel Oriahi’s debut feature, The Weekend, a thriller about in-laws. (“My kind of movie!”, said no one ever.) This Get Out-inspired drama chronicles a tense, discomfiting journey of a young Nigerian couple back to the male’s home village where the family he chooses not to associate with – for reasons unknown – still resides. Luke (Bucci Franklin) is engaged to Nikya (Uzoamaka Aniunoh), a beautiful woman who, having been orphaned when she was a child, is desperate for a familial connection. Nikya thus urges Luke to reconcile with his parents and sister, and they return to his childhood home to discover that his family is upholding a facade to mask the darkness at its core.
If you’re imagining Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner by way of… well, any example would give The Weekend’s central-if-obvious twist away. (But let’s just assume that you’re on the right track.) It’s a debut that Oriahi proudly calls “completely, 100-percent Nigerian,” a fair statement about a film that, for all the posturing one of its characters does about being “a man of substance” over the course of its bloated, 117-minute run time, lacks meat despite all the bones it discards in its unfolding wake. Its primary conceit is telegraphed within an inch of its life, to the point where audiences might feel foolish for having believed it was too easy for the film to fall back on. Guess again; The Weekend’s intentions were painstakingly clear from the very beginning. Stylistically, it’s an achievement that shows promise for its filmmaker. Narratively, it’s as weak a film as I’ve seen at a festival in recent memory.
Better than both films combined yet somewhere adrift in a tonal space is The Shallow Tale of a Writer Who Decided to Write About a Serial Killer, a title so tailor-made for a Midnights’ premiere that the only reasonable explanation for its placement under the Spotlight Narrative umbrella is the fact that it stars Steve Buscemi, John Magaro, and Britt Lower. Writer-director Tolga Karacelik’s third feature is the shallow tale – yup – of a struggling writer named Keane (Magaro), whose marriage to Suzie (an acidic Lower) is in complete shambles when he encounters Kollmick (Buscemi), a man claiming to be both Keane’s biggest fan and a retired serial killer. In a drunken act of desperation, not to mention that Kollmick’s presence in their home unsettles Suzie’s sleep, Keane decides not only to write about this serial killer for his next book as opposed to the love story circa 40,000 B.C. he’d previously been toying with, but he convinces Suzie that Kollmick is a marriage counselor there to help them sort through their problems.
Not only are Keane and Kollmick the very real names of two very real characters in a movie, but Magaro and Buscemi turn this absurdist two-hander into an off-the-rails dark comedy that seems predestined to find its cult audience in due time. Buscemi turns in a wickedly curious performance as a man I can genuinely believe once killed for pleasure and now finds himself just itching to plop into his worn-out recliner to watch the Mets, while Magaro flexes his leading man muscles so vigorously that I can almost see them bursting through his knit cardigan. And yet it’s Lower who steals the show, remaining icy and suspicious in equal measure as Keane’s actions deserve more suspicion and more frigidity in response. It’s as if Lower’s innie, to reference her character on Severance’s nightmarish fate, found herself in a loveless marriage with a pompous, flailing intellectual. Brava, I say.
The Shallow Tale’s “sinister” elements – you know, those involving a retired serial killer – never land without a laugh lingering around the corner. A batshit sequence involving a man screaming at a llama about potatoes somehow doesn’t feel out of place; a taxidermied feline friend called Ada attends Keane and Suzie’s therapy sessions, and they’re meant to talk to her. Somehow, Karacelik’s feature ends up playing out like Zachary Wigon’s Sanctuary on ketamine. All the more shocking: Somehow, it works.
You won’t find three films that are more “different” with a capital “odd” at Tribeca this year, but isn’t that kind of the point? Festival programs are meant to subvert and challenge our expectations, if not to render them moot altogether. That this round of Midnight selects – along with The Shallow Tale, too fun to be left out – succeeds in doing so even without the films themselves achieving success is a testament to the section’s nature. Its films are odd, meant to be watched in the dark, and meant to make your jaw drop. Who cares if they actually screen at 9 p.m.? It’s the thought that counts.
On this episode, JD and Brendan discuss Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s phenomenal new film Evil Does Not Exist! Like the rest of the world, we were massive fans of Drive My Car a few years ago and we’ve been anticipating Hamaguchi’s latest ever since. Evil Does Not Exist did not disappoint.
Review: Evil Does Not Exist(4:00) Director: Ryusuke Hamaguchi Writers: Ryusuke Hamaguchi Stars: Hitoshi Omika, Ryo Nishikawa, Ryuji Kosaka, Ayaka Shibutani
Director: Martin Provost Writers: Marc Abdelnour, Martin Provost Stars: Cécile de France, Vincent Macaigne, Stacy Martin
Synopsis: Explores the art and love story of renowned French painters Pierre Bonnard and his wife Marthe.
Critics tend to approach biopics with relatively low expectations. When you’ve been burned so many times before, you set yourself up to politely nod along with the relatively pedestrian entries in this genre that pass through the assembly line every year. Filmmakers seem to approach the task of dramatizing the lives of great people with a reverent touch that sucks all of the tension, suspense and meaning out of scenarios that could be vivified in a different context. In this spirit, I walked into my local screening of Bonnard, Pierre et Marthe (2023) in a nonchalant mood. It couldn’t possibly reach the heights of In the City of Sylvia (2007) but it should, at least, keep me reasonably entertained for two hours.
If nothing else, the film features a bevy of attractive French film stars who, in the manner of Old Hollywood actors, are willing to bring their own signature persona to every role. There is a certain novelty in seeing Vincent Macaigne portray Pierre Bonnard, a noted Post-Impressionist painter who was particularly active during the 1890s, as just another in a long line of winsome, gentle-spirited nebbishes that he has portrayed. He doesn’t make a real attempt to alter his distinctive quirks to suit the social mores of the period in which the film is set and, in a sense, this gives him more breathing room as a performer. Rather than taking the viewer out of the film, Macaigne’s warm, relaxed performance does far more to open up the film than any technique-heavy imitation could.
His performance stands at the center of a biopic that briefly shows signs of wanting to be more than just a parade of famous faces before retreating back into convention. The film’s focus, as the title would suggest, is split between Pierre and his longtime muse Marthe de Méligny (Cécile de France). He is presented as a minor aristocrat turned high society artist who finds an outlet for his creative energies in the form of her intense, slightly belligerent manner. Before long, she has become the primary subject of much of his artistic output and the two shack up together in spite of the fact that they are unmarried. They purchase a house in the countryside and, for a time, live in a sort of earthly paradise. Cracks in their marriage start to appear when Marthe comes into conflict with the members of Pierre’s Paris-based social set, as she hopes to remain secluded in the countryside for months on end while he maintains a completely separate life in the big city.
A lot of this content is the sort of dispassionate, colorless stuff that you could find in a textbook and it doesn’t translate all that well to the screen. Things start to get a bit more dynamic whenever Misia (Anouk Grinberg), a flamboyant socialite who may or not be Pierre’s erstwhile lover, appears on screen. When the story’s main players are swanning around in Paris or arguing while trudging through swamps in the middle of nowhere, you can convince yourself that this is a mood piece that aims to capture the ambience of a specific time and place. When we return to the farmhouse and, more specifically, to scenes in which Marthe’s actions are shown to directly inspire some of Pierre’s most famous paintings, you’re reminded of what you’re really working with here.
In the tradition of many-a-biopic, it ultimately concerns itself with the scandalous sex lives of its subjects. While the film downplays Bonnard’s real-life womanizing to a considerable degree, it only really begins to hit its stride when Renée Monchaty (Stacy Martin) arrives on the scene. This being a French film, it is only a matter of time until this young, unworldly student is taken in hand by the bohemian freethinkers at the story’s center. Before long, she’s whisked away to the couple’s country estate; where she becomes the vessel through which they can re-energize their floundering sex life. In a surprising plot development, she quickly announces that she’s unhappy being the third wheel in this wildly imbalanced ménage à trois and urges Pierre to abandon his wife and enter into a committed relationship with her.
It is this turn that allows the film to come into its own, developing into more than just a portrait of generic amour fou. For a good thirty minutes, it appears as though the film is addressing the vicious, cutthroat treatment of women within the art world in a startlingly direct, unsentimental manner. As soon as Pierre makes the unexpected decision to give up his life with Marthe in order to run away to Italy with Renée, the whole film downshifts into a radically different emotional tenor. For the first time, we are placed at an emotional remove from these characters and their inner thoughts are rendered opaque. Provost lingers on drawn-out sequences of Pierre’s placid, unnervingly serene existence in what looks to be a hermetically sealed apartment. The distancing effects are heightened by Macaigne’s performance, which is dialed back to a point where Pierre almost seems to be disappearing into himself. When this section of the film ends on an expertly staged, quietly horrifying note, I was prepared to embrace it as a darker retelling of a story that we have heard many times before.
One gets the sense that he is aiming to evoke the spirit of Agnés Varda’s Le Bonheur (1965), in which an ordinary family man calmly trades in his wife for another woman. That film represented a more radical stylistic experiment than anything that Provost achieves here. However, it’s still intriguing to see Provost attempting to integrate such an abrasive, off-putting sensibility into a genre that isn’t known for challenging its audience. He seems to undercut his point when he implies, later on in the film, that Pierre is willing, on some level, to wrestle with the weight of his actions. He still leaves some room for ambiguity, with regards to Marthe’s seeming impassivity in the face of the news of Renée’s death, but in order for the film’s coda to really hit hard, the film would have had to sustain the atmosphere of unease that it creates during its second act. It is, of course, difficult to end a film on such a sour note but that’s what delineates an artist like Varda from her many imitators.
Director: Nnamdi Asomugha Writers: Nnamdi Asomugha, Mark Duplass Stars: Nnamdi Asomugha, Aja Naomi King, Melissa Leo
Synopsis: The story of an event that disrupts a family dynamic and begins to dismantle the illusions of their lives.
When watching Nnamdi Asomugha’s debut film The Knife, I couldn’t help but think of the line of logic Alfred Hitchcock often discussed. The king of suspense for a reason, he was of the belief that if the audience knows the truth within any given scene, it would create far more tension. Surprises that come out of nowhere to blindside you are obviously exciting. But with a film like this, so packed with tension and suspense, it leans into the former idea of suspense. And it does so time and time again, making for a taut drama that takes place in a single location over a handful of hours. The Knife is partly about how every choice, regardless of intent, has a consequence. But it’s equally about how there are systems in place that make people feel as if certain choices have already been made for them. So rather than act from within, a decision has to be made based on survival instinct. It makes for a film that’s socially potent and observational. It also puts the audience in the driver’s seat as far as interpretation. Asomugha merely presents a scenario to the audience, and lets us fill in the blanks. Even upon seeing the film, we too make a series of choices that affect what we think of The Knife. The focus on choices and consequences is something we hear from Asomugha himself as Chris, a man working construction in his own home. Upon finishing what one can imagine as a hard day’s work, Chris prepares to get into bed just before 1AM without waking his wife Alex (Aja Naomi King). He may not have been entirely successful in that regard, but it doesn’t matter. His entire house will be awake and on high alert within the hour. After Chris awakens to noises coming from the kitchen, he finds an unresponsive woman facing away from him. And just when the audience is fully primed to receive a jump scare, Asomugha delivers his title card.
We hard cut back to the bedroom where Alex wakes up to another loud sound. She walks into the kitchen to see Chris shaken up, with the woman lying face down in front of him. Asomugha wastes no time taking this film exactly where it needs to be. Barely over 80 minutes, The Knife is a briskly paced drama packed with thrills and real-life observations on fictional horror versus realistic horror. This isn’t a home invasion film in the traditional sense. The immediate and clear threat of being awoken to a stranger in your home is quickly dispatched. It’s only upon the arrival of the police that the real threat of this film begins looming over the characters. There’s a palpable sense of hesitation to call the police once the adrenaline settles for this family of five. But, against their better judgment, they decide it’s the right thing to do. And now framed like a vampire film, the possible evil has been invited into the home. All Chris and his family can do now is prepare in the way they best see fit. For one of his daughters, Ryley (Aiden Gabrielle Price), she feels that all they need to do is tell the truth. But this is far from a fairy tale or fantasy film. Upon Alex making a last-minute decision, she reminds a rattled Chris that he is a Black man in America. With police pulling up to their home in the middle of the night, the truth is unfortunately not something as clear-cut as Ryley believes it to be.
And thus, The Knife positions itself as a horror/thriller of sorts. But the real nightmare for our lead family takes place after the initial premise is behind them. What makes this film such a remarkable and powerful debut is that the home invasion the film is most concerned with is the one that’s reluctantly invited into the home. The real threat stems from dialogue delivered by Officer Padilla (Manny Jacinto) and Detective Carlsen (Melissa Leo). Both veiled and wildly overt, Asomugha’s film doesn’t mince words when it comes to how subtle, or unsubtle, it wants to be. Its ideas, and the ways it goes about delivering them, are clear-cut. Any time the police in the film attempt to skirt around saying what they’re really trying to say, it becomes all the more menacing.
One of the more interesting ideas at play within The Knife keeps coming back to the truth. We hear it from Ryley before the police show up, and Detective Carlsen repeats it often. The most surefire way to wrap this long night up would be to detail exactly what happened, and all would be well. But again, this is a film that doesn’t heighten itself to lean more into genre trappings or cinematic sequences. The suspense and tension stem from a very real threat revolving around the truth. At its very core, the truth obviously does matter. Both Chris and Alex likely agree with their daughter. But they are also aware that the police now circling around and isolating their family members from one another are part of a system that feels created to blur the truth. What happens when the system we’re supposed to turn to and trust wholeheartedly instills a very real fear into telling it? By its very nature, it warps into something worse than unjust and immoral. There’s a true horror to the villainous creatures who embrace their monstrous qualities. But there’s something far more sinister to be found in the villain who sees themselves as somebody delivering unbiased judgment and honor. Asomugha makes it clear that Detective Carlsen is a good detective. Leo’s performance also goes a long way in making sure the audience never really knows what direction her character will go in. But again, The Knife doesn’t find the need to be cryptic or subtle. It merely exists in the real world, and makes her actions as gray and questionable as the rest of the family, and the world at large when formulating our own responses.
The Knife may take place in a single location, but it’s very representative of the society in its most current state. Too often does discourse end up circling one of two drains. But within nearly every scene of this film, Asomugha understands that reality is far more complicated. The choices any one individual makes might stem from a dozen different thoughts racing through their mind. What may seem like self-preservation to some may read as a critical error to others. Something as clear and straight-forward as self-defense during a break-in turns into an incredibly charged interrogation; Detective Carlsen goes so far as to proclaim as much to Alex when speaking with her. The choice to help an intruder has now begun to work against this family. To see such a response from those called in need of help is upsetting and disheartening. Asomugha’s film doesn’t have an easy way out. It just has a series of choices that, one way or the other, need to be made. And the fallout of those choices is what his debut film so perfectly captures.
The Knife celebrated its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival in the U.S. Narrative Competition section. Tickets for screenings and more information on the film can be found right here.
Director: Joshua John Miller Writers: M.A. Fortin, Joshua John Miller Stars: Russell Crowe, Ryan Simpkins, Sam Worthington
Synopsis: A troubled actor begins to exhibit a disruptive behavior while shooting a horror film. His estranged daughter wonders if he’s slipping back into his past addictions or if there’s something more sinister at play.
What if the very act of filming a narrative about demonic possession was enough to unearth some demons? Literal and otherwise. What if cursed film sets were real? What if you wanted to make a version of The Exorcist but Blumhouse had already bought the rights? Enter The Exorcism, a movie so irredeemably awful that the biggest reaction it will provoke is wondering how Joshua John Miller’s personal therapy session got greenlit.
Anthony Miller (Russell Crowe) is a fallen from grace actor with an uneasy relationship with his daughter Lee (Ryan Simpkins). After years of booze and drugs and the death of his wife, he is trying to stay sober and has a new acting job on ‘The Georgetown Project’ – where he will be playing the priest. All he wants to be is ‘good – if he can be.’
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Playing Father Arlington comes with baggage for Anthony. There’s something that doesn’t sit right with him with religion (his altar boy past), and he’s coming in after the death of another actor in the role. However, the film is also his shot at redemption after his very public stint in rehab. It could also be a chance for him to connect with Lee who is hired as a PA on the set.
As the director, Peter (Adam Goldberg) aggressively points out, Tony is irredeemable like his priest character. A man who is being eaten alive by guilt. Pete is pushing Tony to admit to his sins through his character for an authentic performance – but perhaps his sins are so deep in his psyche that he will always be suspect to darkness. It’s clear where The Exorcism is leading – Anthony is the vessel.
“It’s a psychological drama wrapped in the skin of a horror film,” states Pete (redundantly) about the film he’s directing. The same could be said of The Exorcism if it managed to make a lick of psychological sense beyond the obvious parallels of Tony’s guilt and trauma making him susceptible to demonic influence. The demon Molech is evoked, and Tony is possessed. Apart from Lee and her new girlfriend, Blake Holloway (Chloe Bailey) who is the star of the in-universe movie, everyone is non-reactive about it. Even the on-set priest Father Conor (David Hyde Pierce) seems preternaturally calm about the whole situation.
Written and directed by Joshua John Miller, the son of Jason Miller who played Father Karras in William Friedkin’s The Exorcist. There was a chance that Miller could put his stamp on the franchise which shadowed his Pulitzer Prize winning father’s career. Instead, what the audience is given is a dramatically and atmospherically inert piece of cinema centered around Joshua John Miller’s issues with addiction, abuse, and uncertainty about both religion and the entertainment business.
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Sixteen-year-old Lee is expelled from school. She’s also a queer playwright who is struggling to get her father’s attention although he loves her. Anthony Miller has addiction issues and was both damaged by the Catholic church and somehow redeemed by it. Fame is bad, but failure is worse. Instead of making a wildly inconsistent and dull film, Joshua John Miller could have kept that in his semi-autobiographical novel and flop movie The Mao Game.
Russell Crowe gives what he can with the role to create some level of gravitas – he’s not giving a bad performance; he just has little to work with around him. Sam Worthington is in the film for a few forgettable scenes – one which is clearly not meant to be forgettable, but audience investment level dried up before he got his four minutes. It is difficult to evaluate Ryan Simpkins’ performance beyond ‘underwritten secondary protagonist there to react at things’ – as an emotional anchor she’s got nothing because she’s given nothing.
The best way to describe The Exorcism is as a bunch of nothing. How a film which is obviously incredibly silly hobbles itself with self-seriousness is astonishing. At least the Friedkin adjacent The Pope’s Exorcist starring Russell Crowe and his vespa and awful Italian accent was funny at times. The Exorcism doesn’t even manage a jump scare. The tone and script are all over the place never resting somewhere interesting. The irony of David Hyde Pierce’s Father Conor being around to keep everyone from freaking out is at least mildly amusing because of the comatose non-reaction of the crew on set.
Overly serious, dull, and most unforgivably, not even vaguely menacing. The Exorcism is a somnambulant walk through a ‘universe’ which is begging everyone to just stop trying to resurrect it in some manner. Skip The Exorcism and watch or rewatch the Joshua John Miller penned Final Girls instead.
Director: Kelsey Mann Writer: Meg LeFauve, Dave Holstein, Kelsey Mann Stars: Amy Poehler, Maya Hawke, Kensington Tallman
Synopsis: Follows Riley, in her teenage years, encountering new emotions.
As a Pixar fanatic with an obsession with behaviorism, and considering Inside Outis firmly placed in my top three of the legendary studio’s filmography, Inside Out 2 sounded like a surefire hit. On the surface, anyway. Yet, if the original Pixar modern classic taught us anything, it’s all about what’s happening underneath.
However, Inside Out 2 may be the most “meh” Pixar film the studio has ever made. The film isn’t particularly funny and suffers from unusual tonal dissonance. The story packs very little emotional punch, which was sorely needed and missing from the original’s high standard. Finally, the script is cluttered with new animated characters representing emotions, removing the original voice cast’s chemistry that was top tier.
Inside Out 2 is clumsy, messy, and frenetic—yes, it represents puberty and teenage life. That doesn’t mean the film works as entertainment but more as something I admire.
The story picks up with Riley (Kensington Tallman, replacing Kaitlyn Dias) as she becomes a teenager and prepares to transition to high school. The sweet, adorable blond child has developed anxiety and a pimple on her chin, seemingly overnight. The timing couldn’t be worse since she is going to an ice hockey camp with her best friends, who then drop a life-altering bombshell – they have been redistricted to a different school next year.
That means significant changes for Joy (Amy Poehler), the super happy emotion who borders on toxic positivity. Joy has been running a clean ship for years, making her team pull out negative life experiences and toss them to the great beyond so Riley can stay sickly sweet and happy. Joy brightens the day of Sadness (Phyllis Smith), turns Anger (Lewis Black) down to a simmer, calms Fear (Tony Hale), and helps Disgust (Liza Lapira, replacing Mindy Kaling) see past her vain ways.
However, being a teenager means Riley’s body changes and brings new emotions to the forefront, which means a demotion for Joy and her team. Led by Anxiety (Maya Hawke), the new team includes Envy (The Bear’s Ayo Edebiri), Ennui (an amusing Adèle Exarchopoulos), and the adorable Embarrassment (Paul Walter Hauser), who bring out a new side of Riley. Anxiety thinks Riley should try to make new friends and act in ways that go against her character. Joy is desperate to keep Riley the way she is.
As often happens with complex emotions, they take over and send Joy and her team packing. Now, they have to navigate Riley’s holistic changes to get back to their stations (also known as the limbic system) and keep their sweet Riley from damaging her closest relationships and her reputation.
Inside Out 2 was directed by Kelsey Mann, who has been a Senior Pixar creative team member behind films such as Luca, Turning Red, Lightyear, and Elemental. Yes, those are some of the more underwhelming animated efforts in recent years, though all of them have their loyal supporters. Cutting his teeth as a storyboard artist, Mann’s film is gorgeous to look at. The animation utilizes different forms in an out-of-place segment, and the film is ambitious with its visual world-building, making it a must-see in an elevated format.
This is Mann’s first time helming an animated feature. He works with a script from Meg LeFauve (My Father’s Dragon) and Dave Holstein (Weeds), from a story by Mann that’s ambitious, to say the least. LeFauve wrote the original film, which attempts to tell the story of adolescent behaviorism. What comes with that is an internal struggle when it comes to psychological, social, and environmental stimuli that influence behaviors such as peer pressure, social dynamics, cognitive development, and the big one, emotional regulation.
The big momentInside Out 2 works towards is conveying the message of how negative and positive emotions shape us and are necessary for growth. While the themes and subtext are suitable for children, especially girls growing into young women, I wonder if the message translates to younger ones and may be over the heads of most tweeners watching. That’s where Mann, LeFauve, and Holstein’s ambitions may have gotten the better of them. However, I’m always in favor of teaching up, not down.
Inside Out 2 is made for older teenagers and adults, not necessarily children. The storytelling has depth, with the subtext of healthy development addressing issues such as risk-taking, social interactions, and identity formation (though that is nothing to write Erikson about). Though the sacrifice has the unintended consequence of having fewer laughs and even less heart, that may be unfair since the story of a child in danger of her family breaking apart is notably hard to top. Still, there were opportunities here that were missed.
The big mistakeInside Out 2makes is not centering the story on Riley’s two friends, Grace and Bree, so we never feel their connection and, thus, not truly feeling the anxiety of the potential loss. There is more screen time in the last two acts to do with older children Riley is trying to befriend, which doesn’t allow the story of growing up and moving on to resonate. The story goes down familiar tropes by offending friends that is standard in far worse family films and has become a storytelling crutch.
The animated film would have worked better by introducing just Anxiety, and having the team work from there. Instead, we have a weird side adventure that is excessive filler, even for a 96 minute movie. I certainly wouldn’t fault anyone for enjoying the new Pixar with their families, but at theater prices, Inside Out 2 is overhyped and underwhelming family entertainment that strangely left me feeling apathetic about the experience.
