Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched
Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched is a 3+ hour documentary directed by Kier-La Janisse about the history of folk horror (particularly in film, TV, and books). It took me two days to watch it and I LOVED it. The doc is broken into chapters and covers the "Unholy Trinity" of classic folk horror films (The Wicker Man, Witchfinder General, and The Blood on Satan's Claw) before delving into folk horror from the British Isles, the United States, and around the world.
If you're at all interested in folk horror, folklore, or witchy things, this documentary will be right up your alley. It features interviews with academics, directors, and actors and gave me a huge list of films to check out. It inspired me to rewatch The Wicker Man, and I feel like I had a deeper appreciation for the film the second time around.
It also has a gorgeous poster. It's streaming on Shudder and Amazon Prime, so check it out if you are able!
Grade: A
***
Hacks (TV series)
After hearing over and over how amazing this comedy (streaming on HBO/Max) is, I had to check it out. I was not disappointed. Hacks is a beautiful mix of drama and comedy, centered on the relationship between young comedy writer Ava (Hannah Einbinder), and veteran comedian Deborah Vance (Jean Smart). Ava is looking for work after getting in trouble for some political tweets and Deborah is (whether she admits it or not) stuck in a rut in a Las Vegas residency doing tired Boomer-humor type jokes about men not putting the toilet seat down. Their shared agent, Jimmy (Paul W. Downs), pairs them together and of course they fight like cats and dogs even as they bring out the best in each other.
Hacks is often hilarious, but also occasionally devastating. Covering topics as wide-ranging as addiction, suicide, narcissism, familial alienation, and sexual assault, Hacks delivers serious gut-punches along with belly laughs. Jean Smart is phenomenal as Deborah Vance (a character inspired by comedians like Joan Rivers), a truly selfish woman who HAD to be selfish and ruthless to be taken seriously in cut-throat show business. Just when you think she's gone too far and you genuinely hate her, she'll do or say something to remind you that she's a human who has gone through an incredible amount of heartbreak.
Hacks is a top-notch show that puts women front and center. I definitely recommend it.
Grade: A
***
Night of the Living Dead
What a disappointment. George Romero's first film and the granddaddy of the "slow zombies" genre, Night of the Living Dead is a historically important film (though it's important to point out that it is not the first film to feature zombies. Movies with zombies date back to the early 1930s). It's also a film that features an African-American lead (Duane Jones, the best thing about the movie) in a cast of white actors, which was still not very common in 1968.
However, Night of the Living Dead is boring. It's very slow and not much happens. The majority of the movie takes place in a house where a group of people gather to avoid the cannibalistic, slow-walking undead ghouls outside. The group inside the house--two sets of couples, a daughter, Ben (Jones), and Barbara (Judith O'Dea)--listen to radio reports about the "ghouls" (the word "zombie" is never mentioned in the movie), bicker, and try to figure out a way to escape and drive to a rescue center. What can I say? It's a slow movie, the acting isn't very good (again, except for Jones who at least brings some emotion to his role), and the characters are mostly unlikeable and annoying.
Again, the movie is historically important and I don't regret watching it...but I doubt I'll watch it again.
Grade: C
***
Hannibal
Ugh. I heard that Hannibal, the ill-advised sequel to The Silence of the Lambs, was bad. But this bad?
Hannibal is a rare film that manages to be both campy and boring. Taking place 10 years after the events of The Silence of the Lambs, Clarice Starling (played by Julianne Moore) is an FBI Special Agent. After taking the blame for a botched drug raid, Starling is contacted by Mason Verger (Gary Oldman, under 30 pounds of makeup), a disfigured man who is the only surviving victim of Hannibal Lecter. Lecter is still on the lam after escaping police custody a decade prior and Verger wants to use Starling to lure Lecter out of hiding. So he can torture Lecter to death by being eaten alive by hogs. Just normal things.
Upon hearing about the botched drug raid, Lecter does indeed reach out to Starling and the two engage in a cat-and-mouse game, which also feels very much like flirting. Hannibal really wants to be a fucked up romance and it falls flat because...gross (also, we know that Hannibal Lecter's truest love is Will Graham, not Clarice Starling).
Hannibal features some truly disgusting things, such as self-cannibalism, death by wild hog, and disembowelment. But what it doesn't feature is a compelling story. It also makes a mockery of the feminist empowerment of The Silence of the Lambs. It reduces Clarice Starling to a failure who is mocked and manipulated by men. Watching Starling reduced to a damsel in distress in Hannibal is 10 times more sickening than watching Ray Liotta eat a piece of his own brain.
Skip this one and watch literally any other piece of media featuring Hannibal Lecter instead. Especially the show Hannibal.
Grade: C-
***
The Mummy (1999)
Of course this wasn't the first time I watched the movie that launched a million bisexuals. I actually saw The Mummy in theaters when it first came out in 1999 and had two intense feelings about it: 1) Goddamn, Brendan Fraser is hot, and 2) Fuck those flesh-eating scarabs.
I probably watched it a few more times in the early 2000s, but it's definitely been at least a decade and a half since I last saw it. Rewatching it now, 25 years after its initial release, I can safely say that it still fucks. It's thrilling, funny, and just a fun time in general. It's not particularly scary, but I think The Mummy was always advertised as more of an action movie than a horror movie. Brenda Fraser is still extremely hot, as is Rachel Weisz as the charming librarian Evelyn.
There's really nothing else to say. If you haven't seen The Mummy, you definitely should. However, you really needed to be a 15 year old seeing The Mummy in theaters (or at a sleepover) in 1999-2000 to actually "get it". It's lightning in a bottle in that way, and anyone outside of those parameters will never experience The Mummy the way that Millennials of a certain age experienced it.
Grade: B+
***
The Inspection
Directed by Elegance Bratton and based on his experience of being kicked out of his home as a teenager for coming out as gay and joining the Marines a decade later, The Inspection is a deeply personal film.
Jeremy Pope plays Ellis French, a homeless young man who joins the Marines during the height of the Iraq War. While Ellis is physically able to get through bootcamp, he is unable to hide his homosexuality and becomes the object of torment from the other recruits and one particularly nasty training instructor, Leland Laws (Bokeem Woodbine).
Ellis' doggedness to make it through bootcamp, no matter the physical and mental cost, is fueled by a desire to be held in high esteem by his mother, Inez (Gabrielle Union), a women who truly meets the definition of the word "cunt". Inez seems to take deep, personal offense to the fact that Ellis is gay. She kicked him out of the house, leading Ellis to be homeless for years. Even after Ellis completes bootcamp, Inez throws a fit after finding out that the Marines didn't make him straight. Union is GREAT in this role because she really, really makes you hate her.
What's interesting is that Bratton dedicated The Inspection to his mother, whom he calls out by name and with a family photo at the end of the movie. I truly do not know if this is a genuine act of love or an enormous "fuck you" to his mom because we just watched a woman reject her child in ways both cruel and stupid. The viewer is primed to think of this woman as lower than a worm crushed under a boot, and here Bratton is dedicating a movie to her. I kinda think this is a back-handed slap to his mother and I'm very ok with that.
In terms of how the actual movie is, it's good! Just very, very difficult to watch. Ellis nearly dies as a result of hazing, but ultimately comes to earn the respect of his fellow recruits by both handling his torment with grace, and by beating up the biggest bully. The Inspection ends on an emotionally ambiguous note. Ellis is accepted (at least publicly) by his fellow recruits and even the cruelest training instructor, but is rejected by the one person whose opinion he cares about. I think there is a message in here about self-acceptance, but honestly the movie is just very sad and shows how people might end up in the Marines not because they care about serving their country, but because they don't have other options.
Grade: B+
***
Storm of the Century
This made for TV miniseries was written by Stephen King and contains some classic King tropes: it's set on a small, close-knit island in Maine and has this general feeling of Boomer nostalgia: everyone knows everyone's business, but also people look out for one another. But then, King turns this nostalgia on its head when a stranger--Andre Linoge (Colm Feore)--shows up and murders an old woman right before the island is hit with...you guessed it...the (snow) storm of the century.
Linoge happens to know everyone's secrets, from illegal marijuana trade to an undisclosed abortion. He freaks out the whole town as Constable Mike Anderson (Tim Daly) takes Linoge on a perp walk to the one jail cell on the island. From this cell, Linoge is able to control the minds and actions of people on the island, causing them to commit atrocities they would never even contemplate under normal circumstances. Linoge says repeatedly "Give me what I want and I will go away". When he reveals what it is that he wants, it's an absolutely devastating request that threatens to tear the community apart...or bring them together to get rid of this supernatural man who has come to torment them.
Storm of the Century is...fine. It's got a cozy feeling to it, but it didn't need to be 4 hours long. It could have easily been 2 hours and gotten the same message across. Interestingly, director Mike Flanagan (a HUGE Stephen King fan) said that this series inspired his own series Midnight Mass, which, in my opinion, is superior to Storm of the Century.
Grade: B-
***
Drive-Away Dolls
Directed by Ethan Cohen and co-written by Cohen and his wife, Tricia Cooke, Drive-Away Dolls is a delightful, if not very substantial, wisp of a film. Clocking in at 84 minutes, the film feels like it was edited down from a longer cut. But despite the fact that there's not much "there" there, Drive-Away Dolls is sweet, funny, and an easy watch.
The year is 1999. Jamie (Margaret Qualley) and Marian (Geraldine Viswanathan) are friends even though it seems like the only thing they have in common is that they're both lesbians. Jamie is outgoing, party-hearty, and very sexual whereas Marian is introverted, bookish, and hasn't slept with anyone since she broke up with her girlfriend 3 years ago.
After Jamie gets dumped by her girlfriend, Sukie (Beanie Feldstein), she convinces Marian to take her to Tallahassee, Florida since Marian is traveling there anyway to visit her aunt. Jamie thinks that a road trip and change of scenery will do both of them good. They decide to travel using a drive-away car (basically, a one-way car rental where you're delivering the car to a specific location). It just so happens that there is a car that needs to be in Tallahassee pronto at the drive-away service Marian and Jamie patronize. But what they DON'T know is that two goons were supposed to pick up the car because it contains precious goods in the trunk.
So now they are on the road from Philadelphia to Tallahassee with two goons on their tail. They're carrying something in the trunk that powerful people will pay good money for and they don't even know it...until they find the briefcase in the spare tire well after getting a flat tire. And what is inside will shock you.
I think Drive-Away Dolls disappointed some folks who were expecting a much better movie. I went in with low expectations and was delighted at this light, lesbian, comic caper. It's a goofy little film that's perfect to watch if you're feeling down or don't want to think too hard. And Qualley and Viswanathan are both delightful.
Grade: B
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