Welcome to the successor of "The COVID Diaries" series, titled "Movies I Watched In..." Why yes, the title of this series *is* very creative! Thank you for noticing.
Here's the deal: some movies I watch will warrant their own individual blog post, such as Bo Burnham's Inside. But I watch enough movies that occasionally I'm going to bundle them into one post. I might occasionally even bundle entire months together (i.e. "Movies I watched in...April and May [Year]") depending on the number of films and how long it takes me to get around to reviewing them.
Enjoy!
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The Wolf of Snow Hollow
Jim Cummings' The Wolf of Snow Hollow was a wonderful surprise! I was drawn to the beautiful film poster and also the fact that the this was Robert Forster's (best known for his role as Max Cherry in Jackie Brown) final film before he passed.
I was not disappointed. The Wolf of Snow Hollow walks a difficult line between horror and comedy. Cummings directs and stars as Officer John Marshall, a divorced cop in recovery from alcoholism who is trying to maintain a good relationship with his ex for the sake of their daughter. When news of the brutal murder of a tourist reaches John, he is sure the murderer is human...despite some very unusual aspects of the crime, including the fact that the victim's vagina is missing and she was torn to pieces.
When more equally brutal murders begin to occur...always during a full moon...both the citizens of Snow Hollow, Utah, and the other cops are convinced that there is a werewolf loose in their otherwise pleasant, peaceful town. John, who has fallen back into drinking after the death of his father, is getting angrier and angrier that the very men and women working under him are undermining him. He knows the murders are the work of a psychotic madman...not a fictional creature.
For a horror movie about a werewolf (maybe!), The Wolf of Snow Hollow tackles some pretty heavy topics: divorce, death, alcoholism, and parenthood among them. This, as well as the quirky sense of humor infused throughout the film, elevates it above your typical gory creature feature. It is truly a unique and special film, and I can't recommend it enough. I'm excited to see what Jim Cummings will do next.
Grade: A-
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False Positive
This Hulu film, starring a very toned-down Ilana Glazer, Justin Theroux, and debonair Pierce Brosnan, is a modern take on Rosemary's Baby. Lucy (Glazer) is a successful woman in her 30s trying to have a baby with her slightly older husband, Adrian (Theroux). After two years of no luck, Adrian, a surgeon, suggests that he and Lucy use the services of the most sought-after fertility specialist in New York, Dr. John Hindle (Brosnan). Though Hindle has a waiting list a mile long, Lucy and Adrian get right in to see him because Hindle was Adrian's teacher in medical school and the two are very close.
After Hindle successfully helps Lucy get pregnant, things start to get complicated. For one, because Lucy was pumped full of fertility hormones, she ends up pregnant with a set of male twins, plus a "female singlet". Hindle highly recommend selective reduction to increase her chances of a healthy, problem-free pregnancy and birth. Lucy and Adrian argue over what to do: he wants to keep the twins, since they've always dreamed of having multiple kids, but Lucy has her heart set on a little girl. She has already picked out a name: Wendy.
Although Lucy and Adrian are able to come to an agreement, Lucy still struggles with the pregnancy, feeling increasingly isolated from everyone around her and more and more suspicious of Adrian and his strange relationship with Dr. Hindle. Is she, as everyone around her insists, just experiencing "Mommy Brain"? Or is she right to be paranoid?
False Positive is a solid suspense/horror film, and its final act is delightfully bonkers. Although it is not the masterpiece Rosemay's Baby is, it's an effective modern twist of the same fears surrounding pregnancy, birth, and motherhood that people, women in particular, have faced for millennia. I would not recommend it for expecting parents or people who can't take even the idea of babies in peril. I don't want to give anything away, but let's just say that there are images of babies and fetuses that many people would find disturbing.
Grade: B
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Censor
This 2021 horror/thriller has a distinctly retro feel. For one thing, it takes place in England in the early-to-mid 80s and focuses on a very specific cultural phenomenon of years gone by: video nasties. But it also is filmed and just feels like a video nasty itself, especially at the climax, making us viewers feel like we've slipped into another genre entirely.
Niamh Algar (whom I developed an immediate crush on, with her porcelain skin and grandma-inspired outfits) plays Enid Baines, an uptight woman in her mid-30s who has a job as a video censor. She and her fellow censors watch films such as Driller Killer and decide whether to "pass" the film or demand cuts. Enid takes her job very seriously, focusing on such minute details as whether or not a scene of eye-gouging is fake enough to pass.
We learn that when Enid was a little girl her sister went missing. Enid clearly blames herself and becomes angry when her parents present her with an official death certificate even though her sister's body was never recovered, thus she could still *technically* be alive. They want to move on with their lives, and Enid cannot. After Enid sees an actress in a video nasty that looks like an adult version of the sister she lost, her grip on reality becomes loose and she is determined to find this woman and rescue her from what Enid believes are her captors.
Censor is reminiscent of Dario Argento films in both tone and cinematography. The tone is dark, mysterious, and slightly sinister. The cinematography is muted with occasional punctuations of vibrant color. Enid is a fascinating character: so uptight and judgmental, but only because she can't forgive herself for something she was never responsible for in the first place. Censor isn't quite an "A" movie, but it's well worth a watch. I'd say it's a good "milder" horror film for folks interested in a dark film but without a lot of jump scares and violence. This movie doesn't need buckets of blood to get under your skin.
Grade: B
***
The Wrestler
I saw Darren Aronofsky's The Wrestler way back in 2008 when it first came out, so this was a much overdue rewatch. I'm happy to say that this excellent film holds up. Starring a beaten up looking Mickey Rourke as beaten up wrestler Randy "The Ram" Robinson, The Wrestler is about nostalgia and what happens to people who use their bodies to make money. Randy was once a beloved wrestler and is now reduced to wrestling on the weekends for a couple bucks while working part time at a grocery store. He lives in a trailer and is often in physical pain. He regularly visits a strip club where he befriends a stripper named Cassidy (the wonderful Marisa Tomei) who is not unlike Randy: she makes her money with her body and is quickly approaching the end of her career.
Randy is also trying to get back in touch with his estranged daughter, Stephanie (Evan Rachel Wood), which is tough-going since Randy was basically a deadbeat when Stephanie was growing up. To top it all off, Randy suffers a heart attack after a match and is told by a doctor that he will basically kill himself if he keeps wrestling.
My friend who is a wrestling fan told me "that movie is beat for beat what that life is like" and sure enough if you do the tiniest bit of research into professional wrestling you'll find that wrestlers are exploited out the wazoo. They are usually hired as contractors, which means they can't get benefits...and what's the one thing a person who aggressively uses their body to entertain others needs? Health insurance. Wrestlers are also often encouraged to get back in the ring too soon after injuries. Basically, you don't wrestle, you don't get paid. There was a great episode of Last Week Tonight about this fascinating subculture if you are interested.
The Wrestler is a tragedy. It's a film that shows how our country treats the very people who entertain us like dirt. Although some folks in the entertainment industry (think elite pro-athletes and A-list Hollywood stars) are multimillionaires and have very little cause for complaint, there are so many other people who are reduced to their bodies, consumed, and spat out. Think about porn stars. It's almost considered a good thing to mock and disrespect adult actors, but with porn being one of the biggest industries out there, I don't see anyone limiting their masturbation because they hate porn stars so much (well, I do see people limiting their masturbation, but those people are fucking weirdos). If you're going to jack off to someone, have a little goddamned respect. That's all I'm saying.
Anywhoo, where was I? Watch The Wrestler if you haven't already. It's a modern classic that holds up and even though it will likely make you cry (if you have a heart), it's truly an excellent movie to help exercise that empathy muscle.
Grade: A
***
Fight Club
Poor Chuck Palahniuk...just think about if you wrote a novel which criticizes and satirizes toxic masculinity and capitalism, only to have it--and more so, the film adaptation--embraced by the very lowlife goons you mock in the novel. Hopefully the incels and MRAs of the world have wised up (doubtful) and realized that Fight Club isn't celebrating their bullshit and if they actually ran into Tyler Durden, he's probably give them a wedgie.
The film version of Palahniuk's cult novel is directed by one of my favorite directors, David Fincher, and stars Brad Pitt as the aforementioned macho-to-the-point-of-psychopathy Tyler Durden and Edward Norton as the timid, burned out, no-name narrator. The narrator is a victim of capitalism. Unfulfilled by his job and life, he begins attending support groups to feel something, anything. Along the way he meets Marla Singer (Helena Bonham Carter), who is equally fucked up. He also meets a man named Tyler Durden on an airplane. Durden is...A Lot. He's the kind of guy who splices single frames of porn into children's movies because....he thinks it's...cool? He's basically an edgelord, but given that he looks like Brad Pitt and lives his life in a radically free way, he is absolutely magnetic to the narrator, who moves in with Tyler after his apartment blows up due to a gas leak.
He and Tyler have a weird thing where they like to beat each other up, just to feel something, and they think other men will like doing the same thing. So they start "Fight Club". Soon, every night the basement of the restaurant where they host Fight Club is filled with men of all shapes, sizes, and colors (but mostly ripped white men) who beat the ever-loving shit out of each other. It's all fun and uppercuts until the narrator realizes that Tyler is going a step beyond: he's building an army of men to carry out something called "Project Mayhem", which involves bombing a bunch of banks to erase everyone's debt. (Side note...um, given that we didn't elect Bernie...is something like this an option?? I know plenty of millennials and zoomers who would be very interested in erasing debt through mass bombings).
I won't say more, although the statue of limitations of spoilers has long expired for Fight Club. But most likely, you've already seen it. And if you haven't, um, what the fuck? Why haven't you seen Fight Club? It's not the best movie ever (or even the best of Fincher's), but it's a cult classic and everyone should see it.
Grade: B+
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Slumber Party Massacre
Slumber Party Massacre is a satire of slasher films masquerading as a straightforward slasher film. Directed by Amy Holden Jones and written by none other than feminist/lesbian fave Rita Mae Brown, Slumber Party Massacre is a subtly feminist movie in which the killer uses a 12 inch drill to murder his victims (get the symbolism...get it!??).
There's a great article about this movie in Bitch magazine, which will give the viewer a deeper appreciation of the film, but the film truly stands on its own as a wildly entertaining and funny horror movie.
Trish is an 18 year old high school senior who invites a group of friends over for a sleepover when her parents are away on a trip. She wants to invite a new girl, Valerie, who lives across the street from her, but her bitchy queen bee friend, Diane, talks her out of it. Meanwhile, a psycho killer has escaped from a mental institution and is back on his bullshit (his bullshit being that he likes to kill people with a drill).
Throughout the evening, typical slumber party antics occur: two boys from school watch the girls through a window as they get undressed for the evening; the girls experiment with pot and alcohol; one girl sneaks out to engage in nookie with her boyfriend; etc. But the killer is constantly lurking on the periphery and killing basically everyone he comes in contact with.
Slumber Party Massacre is a fucking delight of a film. It's short (77 minutes), retro, fun, and goofy as fuck. I would recommend it to everyone, even people who don't like horror movies (I almost convinced my squeamish friend to watch it with me, tempting her with the fact that it was written by the same woman who wrote Rubyfruit Jungle...but she declined. Next time, Alex. Next time!)
Grade: A-
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