People are going bonkers for Stranger Things on Netflix. Here's my review, plus reviews of two very strange films (also on Netflix).
Stranger Things
Created by Matt and Ross Duffer, the eight-episode first (hopefully not last!) season of Stranger Things is almost as perfect as a made-for-Netflix show can be. It's incredibly binge-able, taps into our collective nostalgia for the early 1980s, is creepy enough to make us sink deeper under the covers but not creepy enough to turn off the TV, and lends itself well to theories and speculation. No wonder it's been a smashing success.
Borrowing heavily (while somehow avoiding being derivative) from films and culture of the 1980s like E.T, The Goonies, and the works of Stephen King, Stranger Things is appealing not just to those who grew up in the 80s. Being a 90s kid myself (I was only 5 years old when the 1980s ended), I still saw a lot of my childhood in Stranger Things, which is set in 1983. Nostalgia and throwbacks are a la mode right now and they also help us connect emotionally to movies and shows. But unlike, say, Fuller House, the nostalgia of Stranger Things feels truly authentic and not like a cheap gimmick.
And then the characters. Oh, the characters! My personal favorite is Jim Hopper, the small town cop with a haunted past who gets sucked into the mystery surrounding the disappearance of Will Byers. While Winona Ryder's performance as Will's grief-stricken mother, Joyce Byers, gets all the glory, I personally found Hop's emotional performance, oscillating between masculine stoicism and tearful breakdowns, to be the standout of the show.
But even the smaller characters feel real. There's Mike Wheeler's oblivious dad, Ted, who says things like "Jiminy Christmas" and "hold your horses". There's Barb. Poor Barb! She didn't deserve what happened to her. Fuck Nancy--Barb should have been solving the mystery of the Upside Down alongside weirdo Jonathan Byers. There's dear Mr. Clark, the dorky teacher who encourages Mike, Will, Dustin, and Lucas in their love of all things science and nerd-related. While solid primary characters are essential to the success of a TV show, it's the secondary characters that make a show feel "lived in".
Well, I'm not even going to get into the plot. Either you've seen it already or you should watch it without knowing anything about it. If you *haven't* watched it yet, get on dat! It's less than 8 hours to get through, and trust me, you'll want to do it in one sitting.
Grade: A
***
Baskin
Speaking of strange, this bizarre Turkish horror film is certainly a head-scratcher. Following five cops who, during a night shift, receive a call for back up in a bad part of town, Baskin ("police raid" in Turkish) is part supernatural horror, part torture-porn. The cops (including a rookie and an old timer) answer the call, which leads them to an old, abandoned police station which turns out might actually be the gateway to hell. Like, literally.
Baskin has an ominous, slow burn feeling to it. Images of bloody meat being prepared at a restaurant or dozens of frogs piling onto one another in a rainy forest portend Bad Things. But once the cops get the call and reach the abandoned station is when things get real freaky. As they explore the station using their flashlights, they see some things they (and the audience) can't unsee.
I'll avoid revealing more, but I'll say that for horror fans, Baskin offers genuine chills (I was watching a good portion of the film through my fingers), but not a lot of substance. For people with an aversion to gore, or a sensitivity to scary movies, this ain't the one for you.
Grade: C+
***
Leap Year
Not to be confused with the PG-rated romantic comedy starring Amy Adams, Leap Year is a 2011 Mexican film and the winner of several awards, including a Cannes award. And boy, is it a bleak movie.
Shot almost entirely in a dingy apartment, Leap Year follows Laura, a 25 year old freelance journalist living a life of crushing loneliness. She spends her days diligently typing up articles for business magazines and talking on the phone with her mother and brother and her nights bringing home strange men and having uninspiring sex with them.
One night she brings home Arturo, an older man and aspiring actor, and has wildly passionate sex with him. The keep seeing each other. The sex starts out with relatively mild S&M play (spanking, choking) and gets more and more intense and violent each time they see each other (while their pillow talk becomes more and more tender). But Laura is actually excited about something for once, breathlessly stripping off her dowdy pajamas when Arturo rings her doorbell in the middle of the night.
However, things get VERY dark VERY quickly, revealing the depths of Laura's loneliness and desperation.
Leap Year appears at first blush to be an erotic drama, but is ultimately a meditation on how the daily grind of life can be soul crushing. At the end of each day, Laura X-es out the date on her wall calendar, counting down the days until February 29th (we learn the significance of the date in the latter part of the movie) To Laura , the slow roll of time is itself a prison sentence. We can't blame her for searching for release in the most violent ways.
Grade: A-
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