Review: Summering

Image courtesy of Bleecker Street.

James Ponsoldt's "Summering" has a fair amount of dreamy atmosphere and a lot of good intentions - so it's a shame that it's not an entirely successful endeavor. The film's plot plays like a female-centric version of "Stand By Me" - so much so, in fact, that there are only two scenes I can recall featuring (alive) men or boys, and those scenes all exist for the purpose of making a specific impact on the story at the moment of their arrival - but it also has an end-of-summer vibe and even a dash of melancholic but hypnotic visuals paired with audio cues that reminded me of "The Virgin Suicides," although this film is significantly less tragic or dark as that picture.

As the film opens, four girls - narrator Lia Barnett (Daisy), who lives with her cop mother (Lake Bell) and has an absent father; Lola (Sanai Victoria), who has an artist mother; Dina (Madalen Mills), whose tight-knit family watches "Wheel of Fortune" together; and Mari (Eden Grace Redfield), who is the smallest of the group and whose mother is a helicopter parent - are enjoying the last days of August as they privately worry whether their friendship will carry over into middle school.

One day, when walking in a secluded area where they have built a shrine to a site they refer to as Terabithia, they discover a dead man's body. But rather than call the police or their mothers - whom they know will ask them a whole lot of questions - they decide they want to find out who this man is before they turn to their parents or the authorities.

The mystery of the dead body is really a distraction in a story about four young girls whose mothers are the strongest presences in their lives, and who are about to - as they are told by relatives - embark on what could be among the worst years of their lives: middle school. Each member of the group worries whether they will remain friends, especially since Mari is going to a private school, while Dina is told by her older sister that if she hasn't figured out who the "mean girl" is in her group yet, it might be her.

The scenes involving the girls' investigation into the dead body are a bit slight - and a visit to a bar to quiz the bartender and customers some struck me as slightly unrealistic and a little too precious for its own good. The girls eventually make some headway into their investigation, but that storyline is ultimately among the least interesting.

"Summering" shines more when it focuses on the relationships between the girls - and their relationships with their mothers. There's a looseness to the scenes not focusing on the main plot point that makes for a mostly enjoyable hang-out vibe, but it is occasionally interrupted by the dead body drama and - even less necessary - sequences during which each of the girls imagine they see the dead man's ghost. No, this is not a horror movie or ghost story in any sense, so those fleeting moments were probably best left for the cutting room floor. Some other unfortunate script choices include the introduction of a gun and a visit to the "dark web" - don't ask.

Ponsoldt's filmography has mostly included mid-range indie dramas - his David Foster Wallace picture, "The End of the Tour," was good and "The Spectacular Now" was particularly memorable - but his latest feels like a lower-budget effort similar to his earliest work. The director has said that he made this film so that he could do something his daughter could watch - and the picture is a noble effort with some elements to recommend. It doesn't reach the bar set by its most obvious inspiration - "Stand By Me" - but it's not half bad either.

Review: Bodies Bodies Bodies

Image courtesy of A24.

The slasher film/murder mystery "Bodies Bodies Bodies" vacillates between occasional cleverness and genre tedium before delivering an ending that I didn't see coming and that made me laugh. It's not a great movie by any means, but if nothing else it sticks the landing in its finale.

Although its foot is firmly planted in the horror genre - think a Generation Z "Scream" without movie references, but not-so-subtle nods to every social trend you might find on Twitter - the film's setup is something straight out of Agatha Christie: a group of wealthy young people - minus lead protagonist Bee (Maria Bakalova), an immigrant who has secrets about her financial struggles - gather at a mansion to host a party during a hurricane, one of them winds up dead, and the rest of the group suspect each other to be the killer.

There are numerous red herrings involving the various characters. Bee and Sophie (Amandla Stenberg) are in a relationship, but Bee has secrets and Sophie has been somewhat ostracized by the group at the mansion due to her behavior prior to her undergoing drug treatment. Emma (Chase Sui Wonders) and David (Pete Davidson), whose family owns the mansion, have a rocky relationship, while Alice (Rachel Sennott) has brought to the party an older guy, Greg (Lee Pace), who the rest of the group appears to find mysterious. 

Rounding out the group is Jordan (Myha'la Herrold), who is the grouchiest of the bunch and seems to have some type of crush on Sophie, although there's also Max (Conner O'Malley), who is barely seen after having gotten into a conflict with David before the story started and has disappeared.

As the group settles in for the storm, they begin to play the titular game, during which players roam around in the dark and try to elude the person who has picked the card to be the killer. The killer's job is to tap a person on the shoulder in the dark, killing them. The lights come on and the group tries to figure out who the killer is.

But in this case, as the storm becomes more fierce, one of the partygoers is found dead and the group quickly begins to suspect various members - of course, the outsiders (Greg and Bee) get the most grilling, although eventually even old friends begin to get into tense exchanges.

For most of its running time, "Bodies Bodies Bodies" is a well-enough made, but somewhat rote, slasher comedy. At one point, as the arguments heat up, we get a large serving of various Twitter memes in the form of an argument - one character accuses the other of being a trigger, while another accuses a friend of being "ableist" and another suggests she's an "ally" when race factors into the scenario. 

However, the film only seems to superficially tackle these concepts as movies with limited running times tend to do. Although handled in a somewhat humorous manner, the conversations feel a little tacked on to cross off a box, rather than explored with any depth.

But if there's anything worth the price of admission, it's the ending, which of course I wouldn't dream of ruining. Although, perhaps, I should have, I didn't see it coming, and it's the best buildup to a punchline that I can recall in quite some time. If only the rest of the film had been operating on that level, "Bodies Bodies Bodies" might have been more successful all around. As it stands, it's a moderately amusing murder mystery movie with a great ending.

Review: Fire Of Love

Image courtesy of Neon.

A mesmerizing blend of photography and archival footage, Sara Dosa's stunning documentary "Fire of Love" feels like a Werner Herzog documentary in terms of subject matter, but with an added dose of romanticism and a dreamy soundtrack that includes music by Air and Brian Eno.

The film tells the story of the late Katia and Maurice Krafft, two French volcanologists who fell in love in the late 1960s, married and spent the rest of their lives exploring and photographing active volcanos around the world until 1991 when a pyroclastic flow on Mt. Unzen in Japan took their lives as well as those of a group of scientists, journalists and firefighters.

The picture reminded me a bit of Herzog's masterful "Grizzly Man," another film about a person whose fascination with nature - in that case, bears - caused the documentary's subject to take greater and greater risks in studying his area of interest until one of them proved to be fatal. Similarly, the Kraffts seemed to not feel as if they were alive unless they were perched on the mouth of a volcano with lava spewing into the air just feet from where they were standing.

If for no other reason, "Fire of Love" is highly recommended for the absolutely stunning footage captured by the couple. At any given time, they are filming exploding volcanos just feet from where they are standing, although Katia explains that "red volcanos" tend to be the safer ones, while the grey volcanos - which can be misleading in terms of how dangerous they are - are the ones that pose the gravest threat.

Interspersed with the Kraffts' stunning footage - which was, in a sense, their livelihood since they would utilize it to make films, write books and go on lecture tours - is some equally fascinating archival footage of the various lands to which they traveled throughout the 1970s and 1980s as well as their personal backstory.

One of the interesting elements of the documentary is that it doesn't treat the Kraffts' demise as a tragedy. On more than one occasion, they note that they recognize the danger of what they're doing, but wouldn't have it any other way. Maurice notes that he wants "to get right into the belly of the volcano. It will kill me one day, but that doesn't bother me at all." Katia says, "It's not that I flirt with death," but adds that when she is in the moment on the cusp of the volcano's mouth, "I don't care at all."

On the one hand, there are themes to be drawn from the film - the Kraffts note how they increasingly became detached from the disappointments of society and only felt alive while in natural settings - and there are elements that reminded me of Herzog's man vs. nature documentaries. But on the other, "Fire of Love" is seemingly content with being an astounding exercise in pure cinema - in other words, the incredible visuals, editing, sound and soundtrack create an aura in which the audience is meant to get lost.

And it works. This is one of the better documentaries I've seen in recent memory. Its subject matter is fascinating, its subjects are interesting and flawed in very human ways, the footage is stunning and there's a sense of being allowed to see something you're not supposed to see - watching humans as tiny specks against massive flames and rivers of lava is breathtaking and frightening. For those interested in documentary filmmaking, this one is a must-see.

Review: Resurrection

Image courtesy of IFC Films.

Andrew Semans' "Resurrection" opens on a young woman's face as she describes to her boss - Margaret (an intense Rebecca Hall) - how her boyfriend often makes jokes at her expense and how, when she objects, he gaslights her into believing she just doesn't get the joke. Margaret gives some pretty good advice: Dump the creep and find someone who makes you feel good about yourself. For Margaret, however, this advice is easier said than done.

"Resurrection" is an odd and chilly thriller about a woman who believes she is being tormented by her past that plays like a standard thriller for about half of its running time before transforming into something much more sinister and, quite frankly, deranged. It's very difficult to discuss the film without giving away its twist - although it's less of a twist and more of an explanation that defies all sense of logic - and trying to make sense of it all is an even heavier lift.

Margaret is a very tightly wound manager in the biotech industry who is overly protective of her daughter, Abbie (Grace Kaufman), and has a noncommittal fling going on with a married coworker (Michael Esper), who appears to have more feelings for her than she does for him. 

All seems well and good enough - despite Margaret's intensely vigorous morning workouts, which depict some possible psychic torment - until one day Margaret spots a man named David (Tim Roth, creepy in a placid sort of a way) seated at a conference she is attending. Margaret flees and runs all the way home, cries in her bedroom and frightens her daughter in the process.

Suddenly, this man starts popping up everywhere - in department stores, in the park and elsewhere, and finally Margaret approaches him and tells him to "go away." At first, he pretends not to know her, but he then makes comments assuring us that he does. Margaret starts to slowly become unhinged by this man's presence, and David makes it clear that he's not going anywhere.

In the film's acting piece-de-resistance, Margaret relays to a coworker via a seven-minute unbroken monologue about her connection to this man - and suffice it to say, it'll elicit strong reactions. It's the type of scene that could have played for absurdist black comedy, but instead comes off as demented due to the complete seriousness with which it's delivered. There's a brief hint at what's going when Margaret confronts David and he makes a brief mention about a baby the two had together and where it is now.

Margaret begins to come undone, alienating her daughter, who has become terrified of her mother, and pretty much everyone else. David attempts to get Margaret to submit to psychological games - which Margaret had mentioned to the coworker in her monologue - known as "kindnesses" in which he asks her to take part in a task, such as walking to work barefoot every day, in an attempt to retain mind control over her.

The film becomes increasingly warped, and bears some resemblance to Andrzej Zulawski's insane 1981 masterpiece "Possession," in which another woman (Isabelle Adjani) undergoes a disturbing transformation. I definitely liked "Resurrection," even if its culmination involves a bit of weirdness that becomes too literal, when it could have been better left to the viewer to decide what's real or not. Hall, who was previously so good in the chilly horror film "The Night House," gives another doozy of a performance here and Roth exudes a calm menace. 

This is the type of picture that will elicit strong reactions: You either allow yourself to go with its weird flow and accept that what you're seeing could either be an unbelievably bonkers story or merely the figments of someone's fragmented imagination, or you might find that "Resurrection" is too off-putting to take. I'm in the former camp. Even if the picture falters a little in its gruesome denouement, it's certainly unlike anything else I've seen this year, Hall's performance is impressive and its eerie and bizarre tone keeps it compelling. So, yes, I'd recommend it, but don't say I didn't warn you.

Review: Nope

Image courtesy of Universal Pictures.

It's not often that you can describe a movie as a cross between Steven Spielberg (namely, "Close Encounters of the Third Kind"), "King Kong," a more violent version of M. Night Shyamalan's "Signs" and Guy Debord's 1967  work of Marxist critical theory, "The Society of the Spectacle."

Director Jordan Peele follows up his cultural landmark "Get Out," a creepy horror movie that tackled racism, and "Us," which posed the question about who we as a society should fear, with a movie that blends horror and comedy with a sociopolitical message much like his earlier films, but with a theme that might require a little more of a lift from its audience.

This is far from a bad thing. In fact, parsing out what exactly Peele is trying to say in "Nope" is often more fun than some of the set pieces, which - although impressive - come a little too often as well as an ending that feels a little anticlimactic. That being said, the film features some very creepy moments, most of which are aided by the fantastic nighttime photography and the gorgeously desolate location in which it's set.

Most people are familiar with the aforementioned influences, but with Debord's work as the exception. Considered a seminal text of the Situationist movement, "The Society of the Spectacle" depicts a modern society in which authentic social life has been replaced by representation. It is a society in which relations between commodities have replaced relations between people.

"All that was once directly lived has become mere representation," Debord writes, signifying the importance of the image - which has replaced genuine human interaction - in contemporary spectacle-driven society. "The spectacle is not a collection of images; rather, it is a social relationship between people that is mediated by images." 

Not only does the film air-quote Debord, but it literally quotes during its opening this biblical passage from Nahum 3:6: "I will cast abominable filth upon you, make you vile and make you a spectacle." Filth is undoubtedly dumped on the home of OJ (Daniel Kaluuya) and Emerald Haywood (Keke Palmer) - a brother-sister team that run a ranch in the middle of the California desert that trains horses for movies, and the descendants of Alistair A. Haywood, the Black man seen riding the horse in the first-ever moving picture - by a mysterious flying object over their home. 

Prior to that, the film opens on a more curious scene. The filming of a late-1990s sitcom in which a family has a pet chimpanzee is disrupted when the chimp goes nuts and either kills or disfigures several of the cast members, while a young actor named Ricky (who grows up to be a character portrayed by Steven Yeun) looks on in horror.

Ricky is currently the proprietor of an amusement park that appears to be the Haywoods' sole neighbor, and both Ricky's past and his present doings lend themselves readily to the film's various themes. For starters, during a scene in which the Haywoods pay Ricky a visit to try to buy back some of the horses they were forced to sell due to economic reasons, Ricky gets the opportunity to discuss being the witness to the chimp attack, and instead of relaying his actual experience, he describes the "Saturday Night Live" skit made about it because, it seems, talking about the representation of the horrific event appears easier than facing the actual thing itself.

Equally as important is the scheme that Ricky has going on in the desert. While the Haywoods - after having discovered the UFO floating in the skies above their home - are attempting to capture the "perfect image" by photographing the object with some fancy cameras they bought and the assistance of an electronics store clerk (Brandon Perea) and an acclaimed cameraman (Michael Wincott, whose character reminded me of the Robert Shaw figure from "Jaws"), Ricky draws crowds to his small amusement park with promises of UFO sightings. But much like the chimp who ran violently wild on the TV show he starred in, there's a lesson to be learned about the dangers of trying to make a deal with - or attempting to tame - a predator.

Although Peele allows his audience to fill in the blanks for themselves without spelling it out too much, one of the more fascinating concepts of "Nope" - from the Haywoods trying to capture the perfect image of the UFO (or is it?) to Ricky's commoditizing his horrors from the TV show set - is how modern society transforms the spectacle into the everyday by capturing and then regurgitating horrific images over and over again until they have become ingrained in our memory - think 9/11, the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol riot, the monk setting himself on fire to protest the Vietnam War and endless other images of chaos and death.

Ricky refers to the UFO as "The Viewers" and tells his audience that they - the aliens or whatever they are - are "watching us." In our spectacle-driven society, being alive means being watched - and when people stop watching you, you no longer exist. Or, in the case of "Nope," you cease to exist when you watch the wrong thing for too long.

There's a lot to unpack in this film, and while some have criticized "Nope" for having too much to say but not following through on it all, that's far from a complaint for me. Considering the various concepts that are thrown around with the kitchen sink makes for some compelling viewing. If anything weakens the film - but only just a little - it's the set pieces that drag on and don't amount to as much as you might expect. "Nope" is a great looking film with a fantastic sound design but, as is often the case, what you don't see is often more effective than what you do, and once the cat is out of the bag in this film there's only so much wonder left to be had.

While Peele's third feature isn't quite as groundbreaking as his first or frightening as his second, it's an interesting new direction for the filmmaker. While his first two pictures were smaller horror movies with sociopolitical messaging, his latest has blockbuster designs, but at the same time incorporates the type of intellectual pursuits you'd never expect from most big budget Hollywood movies. "Nope" may be my No. 3 of Peele's movies so far, but it's still well worth seeing.

Review: Where The Crawdads Sing

Image courtesy of Columbia Pictures.

"Where the Crawdads Sing" arrives with a reasonable amount of expectation attached to it. Based on a bestselling debut novel by a 70-year-old woman - who has been the topic of unusual news stories - and noted as a Reese Witherspoon book club selection, while also drawing Taylor Swift to sing the theme song, the picture has a particularly high profile.

But while the film occasionally teeters into melodramatic territory - including a courtroom drama that takes place throughout the film as the rest is set in flashback - it's a reasonably well-made adaptation of a popular book that makes up for its faults with decent storytelling, solid atmosphere and a good performance by lead Daisy Edgar-Jones.

The film begins in October 1969 in the wilds of North Carolina, where Kya (Edgar-Jones) - known to those in town as the "marsh girl" in a derogatory way - lives. She is arrested and charged in the murder of Chase Andrews (Harris Dickinson), a popular but smarmy and particularly nasty football player who is found dead in the swamp. 

As she awaits her trial - for which the prosecution will seek the death penalty - the film flashes back to her childhood in the marsh spent with her abusive father (Garret Dillahunt) as well as her mother and numerous siblings, all of whom eventually abandon the place, leaving Kya to her own devices. 

She survives due to her own wits and some occasional help - an early romance, Tate (Taylor John Smith) who ends up disappointing her, and a kind Black couple (Michael Hyatt and Sterling Macer Jr.). who run a local store and strike up business with Kya when she's young.

The film isn't without its problems. It portrays Kya as a free spirit who depends only on herself as she lives alone in the marsh. The townsfolk mostly mistreat her - save for the shop owners, Tate and a lawyer played by David Strathairn, who later represents her at her trial - but Kya's relationships with the film's two love interests - the genuine, but flawed, Tate and the villainous Chase - occasionally portray her as naive to a point that borders on unbelievable. It's a little hard to swallow that Kya would be mistrustful of the town's residents, but would trust an obvious operator like Chase.

Also, Mabel and Jumpin' - the Black couple who help Kya by agreeing to do business with her - often seem to exist solely to help the white lady in distress, although the two actors portraying them bring warmth and do what they can with slightly underwritten characters. 

"Where the Crawdads Sing" is several things at once - a potboiler mystery, a courtroom drama, two love stories, a Southern-fried backwoods drama and a coming of age story. It juggles most of these elements pretty well - although I could have done with a little less of the courtroom drama, though I'm pleased to say that I was incorrect in guessing the film's plot twist, and had assumed it would have reared itself in the courtroom context in a cheesy manner. Thankfully, that didn't occur. The actual plot twist will likely elicit some strong reactions, but it works better narratively than what you might guess it will be.

All in all, the film might not be a great one, but it's an enjoyable - and beautifully shot - adaptation of a popular book. The novel has drawn some controversy, but much of that has been filtered out of the movie. It may not be the awards-garnering film that its producers likely intended, but it's not half bad.

Review: Girl In The Picture

Image courtesy of Netflix.

The new Netflix documentary "Girl in the Picture" runs the gamut of reactions it'll likely elicit from its audience - fascination, horror, disgust, heartbreak - during the course of its often shocking, winding true crime story that would have seemed too outrageous to be true if we hadn't lived through the past few years in this country.

In lesser hands, the film could come off as lurid because - let's face it - the story that inspired it certainly is. But director Skye Borgman's film unequivocally expresses outrage at those in the wrong in this story - although documentaries typically take a side about what they present, they often do it more subtly, but in this case a different approach was warranted.

It's difficult to discuss the case at the center of the documentary without giving anything away - that is, if I could even remember all of the numerous twists that take place - but suffice it to say it's a fascinating tale. When the story opens, we learn of a tragedy in 1990 during which a young woman named Tonya Hughes was seemingly killed in a hit and run in Oklahoma, and several weeks later her young son is kidnapped.

The man at the center of all this is Clarence, Tonya's husband, who authorities automatically suspect in her death, especially after he kidnaps her young son from the school he attends in the middle of the day and takes the principal hostage at gunpoint before leaving him tied up in the woods nearby.

The investigators interviewed in the film - who apparently felt a personal responsibility to get to the bottom of this bizarre case to the extent that it haunted them for decades - note that they knew Clarence would be hard to track, and it's right about this time that I can't really give any away any more details - about who Tonya Hughes was and who Clarence was, two questions that keep resulting in different answers the deeper the authorities dug.

The wealth of interviews obtained for this film is astounding - and it includes Tonya's childhood friends, a co-worker at a strip club where Tonya worked, various law enforcement officials and several other family members whose presence in the picture is fairly shocking, considering how difficult it likely was to figure out how everyone fit into the case.

True crime documentaries are a dime a dozen these days - they're all over the place, and while the subject matter is frequently interesting, the execution is occasionally lacking. That's not the case with "Girl in the Picture," which is mesmerizing not only due to the strangeness of the case involved, but also the breadth of the interviews and the tracking of details for a case that spanned nearly 27 years. Those who watch it will likely be engrossed.