Review: Living

Image courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics.

It's usually a losing game adapting an already great work from a master artist - see, for example, the numerous remakes of classic horror films or the 1983 American version of "Breathless." But this latest instance - Oliver Hermanus' "Living" - is an example of how to do it right. It adheres to the original material - but is adapted by the great novelist Kazuo Ishiguro - while allowing the material to breathe by not being so beholden to the source that it doesn't have a life of its own. 

In this case, the great film being adapted is the 1952 humanist masterpiece "Ikiru (To Live)," which was one of the greatest works of Akira Kurosawa. In that film, a stuffy Japanese office manager, realizing that he has a short time to live after being diagnosed with being in the final stages of a deadly disease, decides to do something that matters, much to the amazement and confusion of his fellow workers.

In this new film, the story has been transported to post-World War II London and the action is set in an office that grants permits - or, as appears to be the case, doesn't grant them. Bill Nighy - in one of his finest performances - plays Mr. Williams, who sits quietly and does his work and mostly deters his fellow coworkers from attempting to strike up a conversation.

Although not unpleasant, he's stiff, so much so that a young woman in the office has dubbed him "Mr. Zombie," although to be fair she has names for everyone. Williams has been doing what he's been doing at the office seemingly for decades. He notes that he once had a lust for life and wanted to be a "gentleman," but he's allowed life to pass him by.

The film's point of view occasionally shifts - sometimes it's Williams; other times it is Margaret (Aimee Lou Wood), the female employee whom he later befriends; and often it's Peter Wakeling (Alex Sharp), a new employee in the office who's still fresh faced and hasn't faced enough life challenges to make him bitter as many of the other workers in the office appear to be.

Similar to "Ikiru," Williams gets the bad diagnosis and sets out to make something of the time he has left. This includes befriending Margaret and writing her a good recommendation for a job she's seeking, getting drunk at pubs and singing wistful Scottish songs and, most importantly, becoming the driving forced behind a permit submitted by a group of women to build a playground at a derelict site.

We get the sense that the playground project is the type that Williams would have buried in the past because it will cause a lot of mustering of energy. But he throws himself into the project with conviction, even convincing the other members of his office to do the same. But it's later when the dust has settled - and the vows to follow Williams' example have been forgotten - that the film's most poignant sequence occurs. It's the scene that ends "Ikiru" and here it's told through a lovely anecdote between a beat cop and Peter, who happens to walk past the playground that he played a small role in getting built.

"Living" may not live up to "Ikiru," and it's a daunting task existing in Kurosawa's shadow, I must image. But it's an often lovely film - and I mean that literally, especially during the early sequences in which the picture mimics 1950s-era cinematography and due to some gorgeous lighting throughout - that features a very good performance at its center (Nighy was rightfully recognized for his work last week during the announcement of the Oscar nominees).  

The film could be described as old fashioned - but this is meant appreciatively, rather than disparagingly. For a movie that remakes one of the all-time classics, it's surprisingly good.

Review: Infinity Pool

Image courtesy of Neon.

It's probably unfair to compare the films of Brandon Cronenberg against those of his father, acclaimed director David Cronenberg, as those are large shoes to fill and the younger director has been carving out a disturbing niche all of his own. However, his films still feel inspired by the work of his father - icky, cerebral body horror movies that are frequently about amoral people behaving badly.

Cronenberg's "Antiviral" was a straight up body horror movie, whereas "Possessor" - easily Brandon Cronenberg's best film to date - was a trippy thriller with disturbing, horror-like elements that was also centered around unsettling concepts relating to one losing control of one's body.

The director's latest, "Infinity Pool," feels like a more disturbed version of "The White Lotus," only with a sci-fi subplot and some characters that make those on the aforementioned TV show feel like saints in comparison.

In the film, a novelist with writer's block, James Foster (Alexander Skarsgard), and his rich wife (Cleopatra Coleman) are visiting a fictional South American country, where they meet another traveling couple - the forward Gabi (Mia Goth) and her partner (Jalil Lespert). Shortly after this introduction - and one awkward handjob later - the two venture away from the resort where they're staying for a day at the beach.

On the way back from their trip, a drive down a dark road leads to James - who's behind the wheel - accidentally striking and killing a man on foot. Gabi says that the four of them will be thrown in jail in the so-called "barbaric" country they're visiting before being raped and then murdered by the police. Needless to say, they flee the scene.

Shortly thereafter, the four of them are arrested, James is told that he will face the death penalty for the incident, and is then informed of a deal the country has with its rich guests. For those who can afford it, the guilty can have clones made of them that will face the consequences of their bad behavior. James is cloned and he and his wife watch the execution. She's mortified and he's, well, seemingly turned on by it.

James comes to find out that Gabi and her husband are part of a group of tourists who visit this country every year and, as it turns out, they've gone through the same scenario. And they all seem to get off on it. Their behavior turns more and more egregious, leading to more arrests and more executions of their clones. But when James finally begins to tire of the mayhem, Gabi and company turn on him.

"Infinity Pool" looks great and Cronenberg's visuals often provide for a visually stunning sense of unease that permeates the film's first half. It's unfortunate then that the picture starts to come undone the more outlandish it becomes. Filled with psychedelic imagery - that's great to look at, although it serves little purpose - and near nonstop sex and violence, "Infinity Pool" ultimately comes up short. 

The film feels as if it's building toward something - and has a vibe similar to "The White Lotus" and "Triangle of Sadness" in its view of the grotesquely wealthy - but then becomes repetitive. Goth, who was so good in last year's "X," at first makes her character intriguing, but later more irritating. And despite the film's obvious critique of its amoral characters, the film still has the feel of a movie about Americans going to a scary foreign country and being terrorized by the natives.

The film seemingly aims to upset and unsettle - but it has less on its mind than I would have expected, considering the director's previous film was the eerie and thought provoking "Possessor." Ultimately, "Infinity Pool" may go off the deep end, but it's a shallow provocation. 

Review: Women Talking

Image courtesy of Orion Pictures.

I was not familiar with the incidents upon which director Sarah Polley's new film, "Women Talking" - which is in turn based on a book by Canadian author Miriam Toews, who grew up in a Manitoba Mennonite community - were based. Needless to say, they are horrifying.

Between 2005 and 2009, about 150 Mennonite women and young girls were drugged and raped by men in their secluded Mennonite community in Bolivia. The age range of the victims was 5 years to 65 years, and a trial - during which the victims testified - led to eight men being sentenced to 25 years in prison.

"Women Talking" is based somewhat on this horrific series of events, but more so on Toews' book, which is less of a recounting of them, but rather a fictionalized response. The film has a somewhat stagey presentation and is primarily set in a barn where the titular action takes place, but it is enlivened by a strong ensemble of very good actors.

As the film opens, a series of drugged rapes has taken place in a Mennonite community that is located, seemingly, in the middle of nowhere. The men in the community have given the women an ultimatum: either forgive the rapists or don't, but the latter choice, the men say, will prevent the women from entering the kingdom of heaven. The women realize that the rapists facing justice is also far from a sure thing.

Some of the victims - a number of whom have been impregnated - claim to vaguely recall being assaulted, while others only found out later. In all cases, they were drugged by their assailants. However, one young pair of girls caught one of the young men responsible in the middle of the act. He ratted out the others, which led to the rapists being taken to the authorities.

The film's setup is that all of the women in the community were able to vote on one of three choices - forgive the men, stay and fight, or leave the community. There was a draw between the final two choices - so a committee of women is selected to debate the two choices, with a Mennonite man - a sensitive teacher named August (Ben Whishaw) who teaches the community's young boys - acting as the transcriber of the meeting's minutes.

There is no suspicion about August's presence as he is in love with Ona (Rooney Mara), one of the women on the committee, and has only recently returned to the community after attending college because his mother, who also questioned the community's male patriarchy, was previously banished from it. He takes notes diligently and is loathe to weigh in when called upon.

The women in the group include Ona, whose opinion about what to do is swayed during the course of the film; Salome (Claire Foy), who is angry and swears she'll sooner murder the community's men before allowing them to get their hands on her daughter; Mariche (Jessie Buckley), who often turns her ire on the group and wants to stay and fight, but is also the victim of an abusive husband; the older and wiser Agata (Judith Ivey); a young woman named Mejal (Michelle McLeod) who is facing health issues due to the forced pregnancy; and Greta (Sheila McCarthy), who often tries to appeal to the group with stories about her two horses. Frances McDormand pops up briefly as an older member of the community who wants to forgive and forget, while other members of the council include two young girls.

There's tension between various members. Mariche gets particularly harsh with Ona when the latter questions her intentions about the decision, while Salome has difficulty being appeased by the group for her righteous anger and her oath to draw blood before allowing her family to be further harmed.

The movie often feels like a filmed play - other than some brief moments when the action moves outside for a walk through the fields or, during one scene that didn't quite register, when a man blasting The Monkees drives his truck through the community - which can feel a little constricting. However, the picture's excellent ensemble makes it work. Movies driven by dialogue - I'm thinking "My Dinner with Andre" or Richard Linklater's lovely "Before" trilogy - can often be invigorating if what is being said is compelling.

In the case of "Women Talking," it is. Polley's filmography - the romantic drama "Take This Waltz, the Alzheimer's saga "Away from Her" and the familial documentary "Stories We Tell" - has been eclectic and unpredictable. Her latest makes a solid - and often harrowing - addition. 

The Best Movies Of 2022

The Fabelmans. Image courtesy of Universal Pictures.

2022 wasn't a great year for movies, although there were certainly some great ones I saw, but it was a year with a fair amount of good films. It's funny how themes of the year's best films often come together or become noticeable as you're compiling a list - and this year was no different. 

One film in my 10 runners up and four films in my top 10 (and there's a fifth that contains some elements as well) have to do with artists - three documentaries that deal with artists of different stripes, one film on how art helped a young man deal with life's challenges before he went on to become a great artist, and another that posed the question of whether an artist's work remains valid once it is discovered that they aren't such a great person.

As usual, there were a fair amount of very good movies that I liked but just didn't have room for in my top 20. This year's crop of ones that almost made the cut included Hirokazu Kore-eda's "Broker," Terence Davies' "Benediction," Chinonye Chukwu's "Till," Audrey Diwan's "Happening," Steven Soderbergh's "KIMI" and Baz Luhrmann's "Elvis."

There are also a few highly regarded movies that I have yet to see, but plan to eventually - including Sarah Polley's "Women Talking," Davy Chou's "Return to Seoul, Jafar Panahi's "No Bears" and S.S. Rajamouli's "RRR."

But for now, here are my 10 runners up (11-20) and my top 10 of 2022.

Ten Runners Up

20. Moonage Daydream (Brett Morgen) - This dazzling blend of sound and vision was less a straightforward bio documentary of the great David Bowie, and more an attempt to capture his essence. It succeeds in abundance. Reviewed here.

19. Everything Everywhere All At Once (Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert) - I didn't love this film as much as seemingly everyone else, but I admired its energy and creativity and believe it deserves a spot on this list. The performances are across the board strong - and I loved the talking rocks. Reviewed here.

18. Aftersun (Charlotte Wells) - Here's another one that I didn't love quite as much as others, but it's a film that I appreciated quite a bit after the fact. It's a subtle and affecting picture that comes into focus more and more after the credits roll. Reviewed here.

17. Apollo 10 1/2: A Space Age Childhood (Richard Linklater) - Linklater combines several of his favorite elements - the hangout picture, a great soundtrack, Rotoscope animation, memories from a past era - into this delightful film set against the backdrop of the moon landing. Reviewed here. 

16. Emily the Criminal (John Patton Ford) - Aubrey Plaza gives her finest performance to date in this indie wonder about a low-pay worker who gets into a life of crime to pay the bills. 

15. The Whale (Darren Aronofsky) - Brendan Fraser gives a remarkable comeback performance in Aronofsky's overwhelmingly sad chamber piece. Reviewed here.

14. Top Gun: Maverick (Joseph Kosinski) - It's funny, I was never much of a fan of the original "Top Gun," but this sequel - which is significantly better - is not only the best blockbuster of recent years, but a welcome return to big budget action filmmaking that relies on star power. It has incredible camerawork and is lots of fun. Reviewed here.

13. Horror Movies: The Black Phone (Scott Derrickson), Watcher (Chloe Okuno, X (Ti West) - It was a very good year for horror movies, from Derrickson's powerful coming of age horror film "The Black Phone" and Okuno's icy and creepy "Watcher" to West's delightfully sleazy slasher/porn throwback "X." There were some others that also deserved mention, but these three were the best in a solid year for the genre. "The Black Phone" reviewed here. "X" reviewed here.

12. Crimes of the Future (David Cronenberg) - All hail the new flesh, indeed. Cronenberg's first movie in eight years was a disturbing and appropriately icky homage to his early body horror work. A fascinating take on the future of the human race's development. Reviewed here.

11. The Worst Person in the World (Joachim Trier) - Some people had this on their best of the year list for the previous year. It didn't reach my neck of the woods until well into February. Trier's film is a dizzying romantic, fresh (in more ways than one) and achingly sad drama about amour fou and finding one's way. Reviewed here.

Top Ten

10. Holy Spider (Ali Abassi) - This gripping film chronicles how societal misogyny enabled a serial killer to prey on sex workers in Iran in the early 2000s. Deeply unsettling and sure to provoke anger, the film couldn't be more timely considering recent protests in Iran revolving around the behavior of its morality police. Reviewed here.

9. Fire of Love (Sara Dosa) - This stunning documentary combines a mesmerizing blend of archival footage and photography captured by French volcanologists Katia and Maurice Krafft. Some of the video footage taken by the duo is unlike anything you've ever seen. Reviewed here.

8. Cha Cha Real Smooth (Cooper Raiff) - Some reviewers had a hard time with Raiff's film due to his portrayal of its overly earnest lead character. But this is a funny and lovely coming of age film that feels like the cinematic equivalent of a hug. Reviewed here.

7. All the Beauty and the Bloodshed (Laura Poitras) - Another captivating documentary in a year full of them. This one chronicles the groundbreaking photographic work and dedicated activism of Nan Goldin. The film combines her personal history with her protests against the Sackler family and her decades of unique photographic work into one powerful and fascinating package. Reviewed here.

6. EO (Jerzy Skolimowski) - The great Polish director has decades of terrific filmmaking under his belt, but he might have made his best at age 87 with this sad and visually and sonically entrancing riff on "Au Hasard Balthazar." This is a film that invites you to see the world through a different pair of eyes - in this case, a wandering donkey. Reviewed here.

5. Petite Maman (Celine Sciamma) - Clocking in at just over an hour, this little film is a lovely fantasy in which a young girl comes face to face with death (of a loved one) and loneliness, that is, until she makes an unexpected friend. Such a lovely film. Reviewed here.

4. Armageddon Time (James Grey) - The past few years have been loaded with memoir films from great directors (most of them very good), but while they have mostly been warm remembrances of things past, Grey's semi-autobiographical picture is a mournful saga about the evils of complicity. Reviewed here.

3. The Banshees of Inisherin (Martin McDonagh) - McDonagh's latest could be called bleak if it weren't so damn funny. Set against the backdrop of the Irish civil war, the film focuses on isolation, despair, mortality, and the virtues - or lack thereof - of being nice. Reviewed here.

2. TAR (Todd Field) - Here's a film that deserves a thesis, not a blurb, but Field's third feature is a stunning tour de force that poses the question of whether the reputation of an artist's work should withstand said artist's bad behavior. Yes, "TAR" tackles cancel culture, but rather than taking a side for or against conductor Lydia Tar, it uncomfortably forces the moviegoer to examine their own views on the matter. Cate Blanchett gives what is easily the year's best performance. Reviewed here.

1. The Fabelmans (Steven Spielberg) - The divorce of Spielberg's parents was the breakup that launched many a classic (its influence can be seen on everything from "E.T. the Extra Terrestrial" to "Close Encounters of the Third Kind"), but he tackles it head on in this exceptional memoir film. Less an ode to the magic of the movies (there have been a few too many of those in recent years), "The Fabelmans" is more about how a young man distraught by his parents' divorce and bullied by anti-Semites at school learned how to take a passion - in this case, moviemaking - and use it as a weapon to humiliate enemies, an obsession that can be used to impose control over a life lacking such a thing, and a means of escape to a world where pain can be channeled into artistic expression. This is one of Spielberg's best films in years - and probably his best of the 21st century. And in case you haven't heard, it has a cameo for the ages. Reviewed here.

Review: Broker

Image courtesy of Neon.

Should family be defined by those among whom you are born and with whom you share blood, or those who raise and take care of you? This is a question frequently pondered in the reflective and gentle films of Hirokazu Kore-eda, whose latest, "Broker," is another examination of a make-shift family made up of disparate figures.

In this case, those figures include a prostitute, her baby, two men who are trying to sell her child to a loving family, a pair of women cops, and a young kid who tags along. This dynamic is similar to that of another recent Kore-eda picture, the Palm d'Or winner "Shoplifters," which is my personal favorite Kore-eda film, and "Broker" gets a good amount of mileage out of it.

As the film opens, a young prostitute in South Korea - the director's films are typically set in Japan, but this one was relocated due to something I'd never heard of called a "baby box" that exists in that country - named Moon So-young (Lee Ji-eun) leaves her newborn baby outside of one of these boxes and is instantly spotted by the detectives (Bae Doona and Lee Joo-young), who follow not only her, but also a pair of men, Ha Sang-hyeon (Song Kang-ho, of "Parasite") and Dong-soo (Gang Dong-won), who take the baby and plan to act as brokers by selling the infant to any couple that seems like a suitable match.

Although a dramedy about child trafficking might sound like it wouldn't yield much in the way of warmth or humor, the film forces viewers to question whether Ha Sang-hyeon and Dong-soo's scheme - which involves selling the baby to a couple, but only if they appear to be people who actually want and intend to care for a child - is worse than plopping the child down in the middle of the Korean foster system.

To complicate matters, Moon So-young tracks down the two men and begins to accompany them as they go to meet the possible parents. She wants a say in the matter as well. As it turns out, she left the baby outside the baby box after having killed the father - to whom she was not married - during an argument over the child and doesn't want the baby boy to carry that stigma all his life. During all this, the two detectives follow this ragtag group around and, during one particularly humorous sequence, attempt to carry out a sting with a hapless pair acting as a couple possibly interested in the child.

After dropping by an orphanage where Dong-soo spent his childhood - he too was abandoned, therefore he brings more humanity to the baby-selling scheme than others likely would have - the group picks up another member, a young boy named Hae-jin (Seung-soo Im) who is also looking for a family and has a hilarious love of car washes.

As is the case with most Kore-eda films, there's not a lot of plot driving the story here, but rather the relationships between these various characters, and how they come to view each other and consider themselves - at least some of them - to be part of a family, of sorts.

Kore-eda's work has long been compared to that of Japanese master Yasujiro Ozu, whose mannered and often devastating human dramas are often ranked among the best films of all time, and it's easy to see why. Films like "Broker" and "Shoplifters" are kind-hearted films in a slow, contemplative style about matters of the heart, although Kore-eda's work has also occasionally been intense ("Maborosi") or wildly imaginative ("After Life").

His latest is another tale of various characters who have suffered hurt or disappointments and are trying to figure out the best path forward and, along the way, meet others who are doing the same. "Shoplifters" remains my favorite of his works (with "After Life" a close second), but "Broker" is a picture filled with strong performances, some humor, a bit of heartbreak, and a lot of emotion that rings true. I found it to be quite effective and affecting.

Review: All the Beauty And The Bloodshed

Image courtesy of Neon.

Laura Poitras' documentary "All the Beauty and the Bloodshed" chronicles the career and colorful life of artist Nan Goldin, whose traumatic experiences shaped both her art and activism. The film opens with Goldin describing her upbringing in the repressed 1950s in Massachusetts, and how her older sister was essentially swept under the rug by her family after having discovered her sexuality, being placed in mental institutions on numerous occasions before finally committing suicide.

Goldin's relationship with her sister appears to be a pivotal moment in her life, so it's a bit surprising when the subject mostly drops until the film's final chapter, when it becomes obvious why the subject has been brought back up, especially in the face of all the work and political activity that Goldin undertook during the 1970s through the present, which makes up the bulk of the picture.

Goldin's career and the downtown New York scene of the late 1970s - which features everyone from John Water regular Cookie Mueller to no-wave filmmakers like Vivienne Dick - make for some fascinating viewing, and we get a glimpse into what prompted Goldin to photograph New York's underbelly, eventually paving the way for her most famous photo collection slideshow, "The Ballad of Sexual Dependency."

To say she endured struggles is an understatement, from the death of her sister and an abusive relationship with a man to losing many of her good friends to AIDS during the 1980s - a time during which her activism bloomed amid that health crisis - and even a brief stint as a sex worker.

All of her struggles and photographic work - plus her bit parts in no-wave movies and gigs as a bartender and stripper - weave in and out of the film's central story, which involves Goldin's addiction to opioids following a medical procedure and recovery, an experience that pushed her to get involved in efforts to bring down the Sackler family, who became rich by collaborating with Big Pharma to push opioids - especially oxycontin - on the masses.

Keep in mind that Goldin was a respected artist whose work was frequently seen in galleries around New York City, but also London and other places. The Sackler family had a tradition of making huge donations to art museums in New York and around the world, often having entire galleries within the museums with their names on them. 

Therefore, Goldin put her career and life's work at risk by protesting these museums - staging elaborate events during which she and other activists would lie down on the floor, playing dead, or drop fake prescriptions from the top floor of a gallery, causing them to drift down like confetti to the floors below, or scatter prescription bottles in museum fountains - in the hopes of encouraging the institutions to no longer accept Sackler money and, ultimately, remove their names from the museums.

Her attempts to take down the Sacklers were also a matter of good timing as others began to question the family's involvement in an epidemic that claimed the lives of thousands of Americans annually. The film interviews Patrick Radden Keefe, who wrote an investigate piece for The New Yorker, who admits that he initially wrote off Goldin's activism on the matter as something that was going nowhere. But he and Goldin both recognized that they were making strides once they started being followed.

Poitras has received acclaim for her other work - her Edward Snowden doc, "Citizenfour," drew raves, and although I liked that one too, I had some qualms about what I believed to be a slight glossing over of its subject's flaws - but her latest is easily her finest work. 

"All the Beauty and the Bloodshed" isn't just a typical advocacy documentary. It sprinkles in compelling bits of personal history - set against the backdrop of an era and art movement that never fails to stimulate the imagination - with its subject's activism, all the while doing a substantive deep dive into her life's work. This has been a very good year for documentaries and this - along with the stunning "Fire of Love" - is among the very best of them.

Review: Skinamarink

Image courtesy of IFC Midnight

Kyle Edward Ball's debut, the experimental horror film "Skinamarink," deserves some praise for creating what I'd call a unique vibe through the film's series of grainy shots that often force the viewer to scour the corners of the frame looking for something frightening taking place. The picture spends much of its time focusing on ceilings, the tops of doorways, and the feet of its characters, and faces are only briefly seen during two instances in the picture.

However, despite the film's uniqueness, "Skinamarink" never pays off for the significant amount of patience that is required for its audience. For a film that only runs about 100 minutes, it often feels as if the picture goes on forever, especially considering that so much of it is mundane shots of dark hallways and muffled dialogue, with only subtitles telling us what is being said and much of the noise emanating from the old cartoons blasting from a TV, which also acts the film's primary source of light.

This could have been a tight, unsettling 30-minute short film, and the effect created by its meshing of videotape-quality imagery - the picture is set in 1995 - and its unusual soundtrack composed of whispery voices, clanks and creaks, and the aforementioned loop of cartoons could have gone a long way in a shorter format. Instead, "Skinamarink" often feels like a punishing sit through a student film that, although unique, goes on way too long and is only fitfully compelling.

The setup is simple: Two young kids awaken in the night to find that their parents are not in the house, that the house's doors and windows appear to be gone as well, and that some sort of presence is among them, beckoning them to "come upstairs." It takes quite some time for even this specter to appear, and the film's first 30 minutes, although setting its tone, feels like a fair amount of time wasted.

There are, to be sure, some creepy moments - one in which a child is called upon to look under the bed (although its the tension of not knowing whether anything will be there, rather than anything actually being there that makes it frightening) as well as a few unexpected jump scares. If nothing else, the film gives the impression that Ball could create a frightening horror film with a proper budget and a more well-considered concept. There's obvious talent involved here, even if it's not always utilized to the fullest extent.

Last year's crop of horror movies was among the best in recent years - from "X" and the creepy "Watcher" to "The Black Phone" and the unsettling "Barbarian" - and early word on "Skinamarink" placed it in that crowd. Unfortunately, I found the movie to be all vibe and not much else. I've long been a fan of independent horror and experimental films, but "Skinamarink" feels more like an exercise than a genre film you can sink your teeth into.

Review: M3GAN

Image courtesy of Universal Pictures.

Designed as a made-to-order exercise in camp or a future cult classic, "M3GAN" is a creepy doll movie that elicits more laughs than actual scares. It's occasionally funny, hardly ever frightening and often knowingly ridiculous. The picture has some genuinely interesting ideas about the dangers of allowing technology to raise children, but these concepts are mostly glossed over by scenes of the film's lifelike AI invention terrorizing bad kids, annoying dogs, and nosy neighbors.

The film opens with the type of scene someone could write with their eyes closed: A young girl named Cady (Violet McGraw) is left orphaned after her parents make the poor decision to drive on a snowy road at night, and winds up in the care of her somewhat distant - but brilliant - inventor aunt, Gemma (Allison Williams), whose original toy creation is a hilarious Furby-type doll that is obsessed with farting, making poop-related commentary and saying things like "Amazeballs!"

Her latest AI project is a lifelike girl named M3GAN, who not only interacts with humans but also anticipates their needs and learns as she goes along. Of course, like the "Terminator" movies warned us, it's not a good idea to create a piece of technology that will ultimately outsmart us - and that's exactly what happens with M3GAN, who at first is fiercely protective of Cady, but eventually seems to like the freedom she has and havoc she creates.

In terms of story, "M3GAN" follows mostly predictable beats - for example, what do you expect will happen to that pesky dog next door that harasses Gemma and Cady, its obnoxious owner, the nasty young boy who bullies Cady during a day camp, or the annoying boss who is critical of Gemma one minute but supportive the next when he sees dollar signs?

The film is never particularly scary or even suspenseful, but it's often funny enough. M3GAN's wholly inappropriate and psychotic behavior are often played for laughs, rather than scares, and there are more than a few moments when they hit the right notes. At the same time, the film feels like it came straight off the assembly line at the Cult Movie factory. 

Most movies that go on to become future camp classics are films that were made with the intention of being good, but ended up being laughably bad (think "Troll II" or "The Room"). "M3GAN" knows it is completely ludicrous and it plays it up for nearly every minute of its 102 minute running time. This occasionally results in a hearty chuckle, but just as often feels like it's trying too hard. 

So, yes, "M3GAN" is a good time if you're looking for a silly throwaway killer doll movie - it raises some decent questions about the dangers of allowing technology to be a parent to children but, unfortunately, doesn't do much with the topic - but I don't know if I'd go as far as calling it a good movie. 

Review: The Pale Blue Eye

Image courtesy of Netflix.

 

Scott Cooper's "The Pale Blue Eye" is a chilly period piece whodunit with a historical hook that provides a fictional origin story about a famous figure - in this case, Gothic short story writer Edgar Allen Poe (played here with flair by Harry Melling). The picture involves a series of murders during the 1830s at the West Point Military Academy in upstate New York, where Poe was actually once a cadet before dropping out to pursue his writing career.

As the film opens, another cadet is found hanged - however, his heart has been removed from his chest and has not been located, making the incident seem more like a crime than a suicide. It just so happens that a renowned detective named Landor (Christian Bale) lives near West Point's property, and he is called upon by academy bigwigs (Timothy Spall and Simon McBurney) to get involved in the case.

Landor has his own checkered past - he was a former New York City constable who was known for breaking major cases and, as Poe at one point puts it, was once able to solve a case merely with a piercing glance, but his life seemingly fell apart after losing his wife and after his daughter ran away. Now, he lives alone and mostly seems to want to be left alone.

But he takes the case. As he makes his way through the cadets, interrogating them, he chances upon Poe, who has macabre theories of his own regarding who might have committed the murder and why. Soon, Landor enlists Poe to secretly aid in the investigation by infiltrating a group of students led by a popular cadet, whose father is the academy's doctor (Toby Jones).

"The Pale Blue Eye" is visually stylish, and Masanobu Takayanagi's cinematography utilizes the bleak winter settings to the fullest extent. Characters creep around in foggy environs, the chilly overhead shots add to the isolating effect of the locations, and the film's endless wintery imagery goes a long way in the atmosphere department.

There are plenty of plot twists in the film - some good, others a little less effective - but this is a well-crafted potboiler. Bale provides just enough world weariness for Landor, but his is a surprisingly unshowy performance. Rather, it's Melling - who was so good as the poem-reciting man with no arms or legs in the Coen Brothers' "The Ballad of Buster Scruggs" - who gets to cut loose as Poe, from the drawling affectations in his speech to a bawdy poetry reading.

Cooper's films are often set in visually depressive locations - "Out of the Furnace" or "Antlers," for example - and Bale is a frequent collaborator (their best work together is the violent western "Hostiles"). "The Pale Blue Eye" - which, of course, takes its title from Poe's poem "Lenore" - checks both of those boxes. As a piece of speculative fiction, it's pretty fun, and there's a final twist I doubt most will see coming. It honors the great writer by crafting the type of sinister story that he himself might have written on a cold, snowy night.

Review: A Man Called Otto

Image courtesy of Columbia Pictures.

Marc Forster's good natured "A Man Called Otto" probably isn't that far removed from something you've seen before - in fact, if you've read Fredrick Backman's novel, "A Man Called Ove," or seen the 2016 Swedish movie of the same name, that's probably the reason.

But even if you haven't, those familiar with "Curb Your Enthusiasm" or the "Grumpy Old Men" films likely have an idea of what they have in store with "Otto," which feels like a mixture of a cranky old man story combined with "It's a Wonderful Life."

Shot in Pittsburgh, the film chronicles the tale of a grouch named Otto (Tom Hanks, playing against type), who is a stickler for the rules in the fussily-arranged row house complex in which he lives. He's the type who will scold you for putting the wrong piece of trash in the wrong bin or driving on a street where it says you shouldn't, and has no problem holding up the line at the grocery store if he believes he's being unfairly stiffed for a few cents.

Otto wasn't always this way, at least according to the flashbacks in which we see a disappointed young man who was rejected from the Army meet a beautiful and intelligent young woman named Sonya (Rachel Keller), who assisted kids who didn't belong to feel as if they did at the local school and helped Otto to find meaning in his life. The couple lost a child and, eventually, Otto lost Sonya to cancer.

In his present iteration, Otto is a pest to his neighbors, although most just shake their heads at his crotchety ways. Early in the film, Otto tries and fails multiple times to commit suicide to join his wife, but this all comes to a halt when a new family moves onto the block and starts to distract him by asking for favors and causing him to grudgingly comply with them.

The head of this new family is Marisol (Mariana Trevino, a scene stealer), a bubbly mother of two (and soon to be three) who can't drive worth a damn, a problem that inspires Otto to get involved. He begins giving her driving lessons, but also babysitting her children, all the while commenting on what a dolt he believes her well-intentioned but bumbling husband, Tommy (Manuel Garcia-Ruflo), to be.

Not a whole lot happens that you don't expect - grumpy old man gets new lease on life when he realizes that communicating with his neighbors is better than shutting himself off from the world and attempting suicide. He also gets involved in the affairs of other neighbors, including an aging couple that some shady real estate company is attempting to push out of the complex and a trans teenager who has been ostracized by his family.

While not all that original, "Otto" makes up for these deficits with some fine acting - there are a lot of solid supporting performances here, Hanks does his thing as always, and Trevino is delightful - and decent execution. Despite having seen the Swedish version of this film, which is about equal in quality, and knowing exactly where it was going, the film still manages to be affecting. It's a genial crowd pleaser that mostly works, despite its overly familiar scenario.