Review: The Bride!

Image courtesy of Warner Bros.

I’m always pleased to see directors take wild swings, some of which connect (Darren Aronofsky’s unfairly maligned and kind of brilliant “Mother!”) and some of which miss the mark (Richard Kelly’s “Southland Tales” and Emerald Fennell’s recent “Wuthering Heights” adaptation).

Sadly, Maggie Gyllenhaal’s outrageous and visually stylish “The Bride!” belongs to the latter camp. It’s a movie with almost nonstop energy, although it clearly doesn’t know how to channel that energy into something coherent or captivating.

The film often looks incredible and there references galore – “Bride of Frankenstein” obviously and “Bonnie & Clyde” but also, strangely, “Young Frankenstein” during a scene in which the filmmakers thought it would be a good idea to recreate the famous “Puttin’ on the Ritz” sequence from Mel Brooks’ picture.

One must throw all sense of logic out the door while watching “The Bride!,” which is set during the 1930s, but features modern music and a hodgepodge of other styles and language that are drawn from other eras.

At the film’s beginning, a young woman named Ida (Jessie Buckley) does some sort of work for a notorious gangster (Zlatko Buric) in Chicago. She gets a little rowdy at a club one night and two hoods (John Magaro and Matthew Maher) with whom she is sitting end up killing her. Somewhat unexplainably, the woman has been possessed by the spirit of Mary Shelley (also Buckley), who pops up in black and white to speak to her.

Shortly thereafter, Frankenstein’s monster, known as Frank (Christian Bale), shows up in Chicago at the home of a mad scientist (Annette Bening) saying that he’s lonely and needs a mate. She helps him dig up the body of Ida, whom he renames Penelope, and brings her back to life. In the process, she spits up some black goo, some of which stains part of her face.

The two instantly find themselves in trouble after attending a speakeasy type of club, where Penelope is harassed by two men, whom Frank ends up killing. The two go on the run, with the newspapers reporting about the search for the “monster killers” and two detectives (Peter Sarsgaard and Penelope Cruz) on their trail.

“The Bride!” wans to have its cake and eat it too. There’s a musical number, some grotesquely graphic violence, elements of gangster pictures, a bit of horror thrown in, a romance (sort of), and some nods to other genres (Jake Gyllenhaal pops up as an arrogant song and dance man with whose movies Frank is obsessed).

This is not a film without context or ideas. It is made clear that Penelope is a woman who, having been created at the request of a man, has a fate that is seemingly not hers to control, that is, until she decides to start doing things her way. At the same time, Frank is not overbearing and abusive toward women as nearly every other man in the film appears to be.

During the course of the picture, the bride decides she wants to have agency of her own as do the film’s other women – Bening’s scientist and, especially, Cruz’s detective who exists in a world in which she isn’t taken too seriously by her male coworkers. At times, this material is promising – at others, a little too on the nose, especially during a scene in which Buckley shouts “me too!” over and over.

However, the film is all over the map thematically and the film overall feels disjointed. The manner in which Buckley, who’s the frontrunner for best actress for her powerful turn in “Hamnet,” was seemingly directed is a bit mind-boggling. At times, she speaks as the voice of reason, while at others she goes off on strange tangents in weird voices - during one scene she shouts numerous words ending in “mate,” such as stalemate or checkmate, while in another she does an extended Marlene Dietrich impersonation. Bale, on the other hand, veers from calm and collected to melodramatic shouting.

I’ll give the filmmakers credit – this is a movie with almost nonstop energy and a fair amount of chutzpah. It’s a picture that takes risks. Unfortunately, in this case, it’s not one in which the risks pay off. It’s one that’s destined to be a curio, rather than a picture with the lasting power of the numerous movies to which it pays homage.

Review: Pillion

Image courtesy of A24.

"To thine own self be true," Shakespeare once wrote - and while this command seems simple enough, standing one's ground and admitting aloud what one's wants and needs are might feel like an almost insurmountable obstacle. This applies to Harry Lighton's very funny, often fascinating, well acted, and occasionally moving "Pillion."

The film's title refers to the seat for a passenger behind a motorcyclist, which is fitting enough considering that one of the characters in the film is a gay biker named Ray (Alexander Skarsgard) and the other is a shy young man named Colin (Harry Melling), who rides on the back of the bike behind the hulking man who becomes his lover as they ride to the latter's apartment time and again to spend the night.

The catch here is that the duo are in a dom-sub relationship. Interestingly, this is never spelled out or even discussed. Colin meets Ray at a bar where the former is taking part in an a cappella performance and is approached by the latter. They get together shortly thereafter while walking their dogs on Christmas Day, and Colin is expected to obey Ray's commands and perform oral sex on him in an alleyway.

When Colin is asked to spend the night, he is expected to cook dinner for Ray, serve him, and then sleep on the rug in front of his bed, while Ray sleeps in the bed alone. Colin is meant to be submissive to Ray's needs, and while the latter doesn't display cruelty toward the meek, younger man, he's brusque when the rules are questioned.

The scenario lends itself to a lot of humor, surprisingly, but the dom-sub relationship is not treated as the butt of a joke. One of the funnier scenes is when Colin's well-meaning and square - but honestly trying - parents (Douglas Hodge and Lesley Sharp) come outside to greet Ray on his motorcycle when he comes to pick Colin up as if they were going to prom. Even funnier is when Colin shouts out an awkward "thank you!" while leaving after having gone through an absurd ritual with Ray in which the two wrestle in butt-less outfits and Colin is humiliated.

But despite being a film with many laughs, "Pillion" takes seriously the theme that finding oneself and learning about one's needs requires experience - and that sometimes the relationships that give one the most aren't the ones that necessarily last. There's a scene late in the film in which Ray and Colin spend an abnormal day - at least, abnormal to their typical rituals - that is followed by a moment of genuine heartbreak and then a flash forward to a moment of self actualization.

Skarsgard gives an intentionally restrained performance as his character is inscrutable, but there's also warmth underneath his surface, especially during a scene in which he defends Colin's decisions during a dinner with Colin's family as well as during the aforementioned scene in which they spend a day away from their normal rituals.

Melling - whom most will remember as the armless and legless character from the Coen Brothers' "The Ballad of Buster Scruggs" - is great as Harry, a man who is not so much repressed as he is painfully shy and completely unaware of what he wants out of a relationship. The film is often seen through his expressive eyes, displaying his wonder as he takes part in activities that he most likely would never have experienced had he not met Ray. 

"Pillion" was widely praised at last year's Cannes Film Festival and is the type of film that will likely find a larger audience based on word of mouth. It's often funny, but also sharp in its of observations of how people come to realize who they are and what they want. In its final moments, the film is surprisingly moving. It's one of the year's most memorable films so far.

Review: Scream 7

Image courtesy of Paramount Pictures.

Once upon a time, Wes Craven's "Scream" - which was scripted by Kevin Williamson, who has taken over directing duties here from Tyler Gillett and Matti Bettinelli-Olphin  - was a game changer, a relatively low-budget film that was to the horror genre what "Pulp Fiction" was to the movies in general just two years earlier.

The film's self-referential and meta nature - in which characters realize that they are living through a slasher movie and, therefore, know the rules, having grown up with such pictures as "Halloween" or "A Nightmare on Elm Street" - was praised for its originality and spawned numerous copycats, much like Tarantino's film did.

This year marks the 30th anniversary of that film with the release of "Scream 7," which has mostly made headlines due to its troubled production - the director quit after one of its new-generation leads was fired over comments criticizing Israel's treatment of Palestine and another quit shortly thereafter (possibly in solidarity).

Despite reviews that have been nearly as brutal as some of this latest entry's kills, "Scream 7" is not all that bad. The formula feels a little musty, but it's not the worst entry in the series - a franchise that, miraculously for horror movies, has yet to deliver an outright bad sequel. The film's first half is significantly better than its second, which becomes a bit rote and features what has to be the worst killer reveal in the series.

But it all starts out well with its cold open - a scene in all of the "Scream" films that is set apart from the rest of the action and typically features a character getting bumped off by Ghostface thereby setting off the killing spree - as two horror tourists played by Jimmy Tatro and Michelle Randolph stay at the home of Stu Macher, which was once the site of two bloodbaths but has now been turned into a tourist attraction with ghoulish chalk outlines where people were murdered and memorabilia from the "Stab" films that have been based on the Woodsboro murders.

Shortly after those two characters are dispatched, we learn that Sidney Evans (Neve Campbell), nee Prescott, is operating a small coffee shop in a generic town, living with her good-natured cop husband (Joel McHale), and trying to navigate having a rebellious teenage daughter, Tatum (Isabel May), who is named after Rose McGowan's character from the first film and has a boyfriend, Ben (Sam Rechner), who sneaks in her window just like Billy Loomis once did into Sidney's room.

Sidney has a neighbor pal (Anna Camp) with a slightly creepy son who is obsessed with true crime (Asa Germann), while Tatum's friends include characters played by Mckenna Grace and Celeste O'Connor. Just after the murders at the Macher house, Sidney gets a face-time call from none other than Stu (Matthew Lillard), one of the original "Scream" killers who died at the end of the original film. Sidney wonders whether Stu actually survived and is now taunting her and her daughter or whether someone else is using deep-fake A.I. to mask their true identity.

The attacks begin against Tatum's friends, and this latest "Scream" ups the ante on the gruesomeness - a character gets a knife in the skull at an agonizingly slow pace, another is disemboweled while swinging on a wire above a school stage, and a third is victim to what I believe is cinema's only death-by-beer-tap. Of course, the list of subjects is long - namely, all of the characters mentioned above as well as an employee (Ethan Embry) of the psychiatric hospital where Stu might possibly have been a patient.

Gale Weathers (Courtney Cox) makes a great entrance with the Meeks twins - played by Mason Gooding and Jasmin Savoy Brown - in tow, although they are sidelined later in the film as Sidney and her daughter face off against the Ghostface killers in their secluded, cookie-cutter town.

"Scream 7" has its moments, from its solid cold open to the joys of watching Campbell and Cox team up again. Lillard makes his moments count as Stu, who pops up in face-time messages to Sidney, while Gooding and Savoy Brown deliver some levity. The newer cast mostly exists as knife fodder, with May as the only exception.

But while this seventh entry in the series is not at the bottom of the list - my personal least-favorite was the fourth one - "Scream 7" easily features the worst killer reveal at its end. One character's motivation seemingly doesn't even exist, while another's is long, convoluted and not connected to anything else from the "Scream" movies.

The film tackles some thematic concepts in modern cinema as previous "Scream" films have - in this case, it's A.I. and nostalgia - but the one scene in which a character displays movie knowledge is quickly shut down by another. Overall, this is an OK "Scream" entry - not the worst, but far from the best. If anything, it's a series that still holds together due to its characters - while Melissa Barrera and Jenny Ortega are missed, it's good to see Campbell and Cox back in action.

Review: Psycho Killer

Image courtesy of 20th Century Studios.

A new serial killer thriller from the writer of "Seven" and "8mm" would seem like a movie of some intrigue, but unfortunately Gavin Polone's "Psycho Killer" is a mostly lumbering affair, much like its villain. It feels like a movie that is scraped together with pieces of other, better movies of this type as well as some lesser efforts (the killer's gas mask seems to be borrowed from the grisly and mostly unseen "Found").

The picture follows a young state trooper, Jane Archer (Georgina Campbell), who becomes obsessed with catching a killer who preys on those along the nation's highways and is known as the Satanic Slasher, whose name is more descriptive than it is creative. Her obsession started after she watched the killer murder her husband, also a cop, along a desolate stretch of Kansas highway.

The killer leaves satanic symbols in the wake of his murders and his trail seems to be heading toward a specific purpose. That, at least, is what Jane believes, though she's stymied at every turn by the FBI, which seems pretty bungling, whereas Jane appears to be unbelievably resourceful.

One of the problems with the film is that the Slasher, as portrayed by James Preston Rogers, isn't particularly compelling or convincing. His victims could probably hear or see him coming from a mile away as he's always stomping around in big, loud boots; he wears a radiation mask; he's about seven-feet tall; and has a voice so deep that it sounds as if it should be reading the scripts for movie trailers.

As Jane continues to track the Slasher across the country - a journey that begins in Kanas and makes its way to the east coast - the film begins to get progressively stranger. It all culminates with a bloodletting at a satanic orgy where Malcolm McDowell is acting as the master of ceremonies and everyone is eating boxed Chinese food. It then veers into a plot line that could best be described as "The Silence of the Lambs" meets "The China Syndrome."

Campbell, who was the lead in Zach Cregger's breakout film, "Barbarian," is good enough here as Jane, though she's stuck with some ridiculous dialogue - "go to hell, psycho!" - and her character seemingly exists only to seek revenge for her murderer's husband. But she still can't save a mostly mundane serial killer thriller that gets increasingly ludicrous. 

"Psycho Killer" was apparently stuck in development hell for years before it was finally released this week. That it is now finally seeing the light of day is, perhaps, only a cause for celebration for those who made it.

Review: How To Make A Killing

Image courtesy of A24.

There have been wiser and more thematically rich movies about the haves and have-nots (Bong Joon Ho's "Parasite") and others that are more scabrous ("Triangle of Sadness"), but John Patton Ford's "How to Make a Killing" - a comedic thriller that follows his promising debut, "Emily the Criminal," which explored some similar themes but more seriously - is one that is merely amusing without getting too heavy about the topic.

The reviews for the film, which is a remake of the 1949 film "Kind Hearts and Coronets," have mostly been middling, perhaps because other films have explored the ideas therein in a manner that was more reflective of the times or had more to say. This is probably true, but I still enjoyed Ford's film, which makes up for its lack of rich thematic content with dark humor and some solid performances.

The story follows the tale of Becket Redfellow (Glen Powell), whom we know must have been born into a rich family because who else would give their children such a name? Becket's mother was one of the children of a rich man named Whitelaw Redfellow (Ed Harris) - again with the names - who disowned her after she became pregnant with a poor man's child.

She is ostracized and her son, Becket, faces a lower middle class upbringing. His desire to attain wealth first finds its inspiration in a haughty young girl who will grow up to be a sinister femme fatale played by Margaret Qualley. The other inspiration is that he learns that his mother, despite being kicked out of the family, is still in line to obtain the family fortune.

Becket gets an idea to get close to the seven family members ahead of him on the family tree and, learning that most of them are terrible anyway, decides to bump them off. The first murder is amusingly simple, although they become more elaborate from there.

During this scheme, Becket meets two people of worth - Ruth (Jessica Henwick), the girlfriend of a layabout artist cousin who is among the seven to knock off, and Warren (Bill Camp), an uncle who is among the seven but has a kinder heart, helping Becket to get a job in the family business, where he quickly ascends the ranks, all the while killing family members in manners that he attempts to make look like accidents.

Soon enough, a pair of FBI agents begin sniffing around and, considering his recent appearance on the scene, make Becket their prime suspect. Meanwhile, Qualley's horrific Julia pops back up and, when he spurns her for Ruth, begins to blackmail Becket.

Like other recent films such as "The Menu" or "Blink Twice," Ford's film finds humor in awful rich people getting their comeuppance. The murders in "How to Make a Killing" are not particularly gory, but they are pretty funny. And most of the family members - especially Topher Grace's televangelist character - are absurdly awful individuals. 

So, while "How to Make a Killing" doesn't particularly say anything that films like "Parasite" or "The Menu" didn't say better, it's still an enjoyably well made, well acted, and darkly comedic remake of the classic British film by Robert Hamer. It's certainly better than some of the reviews out there may have led you to believe.

Review: Wuthering Heights

Image courtesy of Warner Bros.

There are times when a director of some acclaim or success becomes drunk on their own style and, in the process, goes a little off the deep end. 

Such is the case with Emerald Fennell, whose "Promising Young Woman" was a critical success - and it remains her best film in my opinion - although some have taken aim at the way it portrays justice for survivors of sexual assault. Her second film, "Saltburn," was effectively made, while at the same time making it very clear that Fennell's primary interest is pushing buttons.

Her latest, an adaptation of Emily Bronte's masterpiece "Wuthering Heights," finds her taking a beloved Gothic tale and turning it into a horny harlequin romance - but one that's a bit on the dark side. Yes, it's stylish in the manner of her other films and features a soundtrack by Charli XCX, which is honestly the least distracting thing going on here.

Remember in Bronte's novel when a man on the gallows gives all new meaning to being hung as the crowd giggles at his prominent erection and the executioner shouts, "It's a fucking hanging!"? 

Recall that scene when Heathcliff ties up poor Isabella and makes her bark like a dog? Or that scene when Heathcliff and Catherine watch two servants get randy in the barn? How about that other sequence in which Heathcliff catches Catherine masturbating on a rocky cliff?

Me neither. Before being accused of being a prude or someone who doesn't like to see great works deviate from the text in new adaptations, I must point out that my problems with Fennell's "Wuthering Heights" has less to do with the fact that she is mucking about with a story that has been done better in 1939 by William Wyler and in 2011 by Andrea Arnold, but rather that the film is concerned more with style over substance and button pushing over providing a new perspective on a classic tale. It also conveniently skips over the possibility of Heathcliff being of mixed race.

Both Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi do their best as Catherine and Heathcliff, while Alison Oliver is amusing as Isabella and Hong Chau is an effective Nelly Dean, but it's the material - or rather, the interpretation of it - that fails them.

This is an often visually gorgeous film, and the set design is immaculate, from Isabella's somewhat creepy doll houses to the interior decor at the home of Edgar Linton (Shazad Latif), the rich man whom Catherine marries. There are beautiful shots of snow falling and scenic views of the cliffs surrounding the home where Catherine and Heathcliff face a cruel childhood, only to reconvene years later for a fated romance.

The film ends somewhere around the novel's midway point, perhaps because the second half of the novel would have made for a too long and expensive film - or maybe because it lends itself more to being the kind of tragic romance to which the filmmakers seemingly aspired.

I've read in interviews that Fennell said the film was inspired by her reading it as a teenager and how it made her feel at that time. The picture was borne out of her 14-year-old's obsession, apparently, with the novel. This might explain why the film could best be described - to quote the Sex Pistols - as oh so pretty... vacant.

Review: Crime 101

Image courtesy of MGM Studios.

There's a famous quote that "good artists copy and great artists steal." While I'm not sure whether director Bart Layton's L.A. saga "Crime 101" is a case of theft, it certainly borrows some elements in terms of visual style, film language, and other elements from some other films - notably, Michael Mann's "Heat," but also Nicolas Winding Refn's "Drive" and Walter Hill's "The Driver."

The film marks the British director's second foray into narrative filmmaking and his previous efforts - the docudrama "American Animals" and documentary "The Informer" - both were centered around crimes, so this new film seems like an obvious step in his oeuvre.

But regardless whether it borrows from Mann's film - this one too centers around a cop chasing down a high-profile thief in Los Angeles - "Crime 101" is a crackerjack crime thriller that boasts a number of strong performances from its cast. It's also slickly made with superb cinematography - it's yet another picture to do a great job of capturing L.A. at night - and even has a few surprises up its sleeve. It's the type of film that ends up in some places that might stretch credibility, but I was willing to play along because of how effective it is.

In the film, Chris Hemsworth plays a thief named Mike Davis (assuming that's his real name) who takes part in complicated heists. But he never resorts to violence and doesn't take unnecessary risks. He works with an older man played by Nick Nolte, although their relationship is a bit nebulous, and there's a creepy fellow played by Barry Keoghan whom Nolte calls in to keep a tail on Mike after he starts to lose trust in him. 

Mike has an on-again-off-again romance with a woman named Maya (Monica Barbaro) whom he meets during a fender bender. Not surprisingly, he doesn't want to give her his registration information. And she sees something in him - perhaps a touch of mystery - that she finds compelling.

There's also an insurance agent named Sharon (Halle Berry) who is trying to land some high-profile rich clients for her firm, where her male bosses give her the runaround when she asks about moving up the ladder. Her boss spits her age - "53" - at her like an epithet during one scene that makes her wonder if she should take up Mike's offer - it's too complicated to explain here how they meet - to pass him some valuable information for a payout.

Meanwhile, a cop (Mark Ruffalo) who's on the outs with his corrupt chief and other members of his department believes that the robberies committed by Mike are the act of one person, while his department is primarily concerned with their arrest rate - and not so much getting it right.

While "Crime 101" follows some familiar beats - the criminal trying to land one big job that could provide him with "getaway money," the cop going up against his department to solve the crime spree, and the desperate character (Berry) who is looking for a way out of the life in which she is stuck - it never feels like just an homage to the films that came before it. 

Instead, it's a stylish thriller that runs at two hours and 20 minutes, but speeds by because it is compelling. Although Keoghan's character is, perhaps, slightly underwritten (his performance is still good), all of the film's leads give strong performances, especially Ruffalo, whose world-weary cop goes to great lengths - including taking yoga classes - to get to the bottom of things. This film is 2026's first genuine surprise.