"Ice Cream Man" - Melting in the Mid Day Sun

When he came about in the 2000s with his first film, "Cabin Fever", I remember Eli Roth being praised and held aloft as a new voice in cinema, a horror auteur bringing back old school gore flicks. I never was on board with him as a filmmaker: I found his style lacking, his scripting and character work atrocious and his obnoxious style (while distinct, and a misremembered throwback to slashers of old) grating; but in him I saw a pretty fun guy who loved film: he'd worked as a production assistant and lower rungs of the industry, he talked about the older weirder outsider gore flicks, and perhaps most importantly he used his newfound "Hostel" and "Cabin Fever" fame to push other filmmakers and projects. The excellent Soska Sisters got their debut movie ("Dead Hooker in a Trunk") pushed into the mainstream in part by endorsements and efforts of him and Robert Rodriguez; which I am forever thankful for. He produced "Clown" and "The Last Exorcism" (both great fun), and excellent "The Sacrament". Hell, his new production label "The Horror Section" has given niche stuff like Joe Begos' new movie "Jimmy and Stiggs" and found footage movie "Dream Eater" any kind of production and idstribution they would not otherwise have had (despite Begos being a fun, interesting little filmmaker.), particularly in a world where opportunities and horror and art are diminishing in the face of ghoulish, bloated coprorate death spirals.
He seemed to be a voice in horror, an interesting thing to have even if his movies by and large were dreadful: there was a market for him. "Cabin Fever" and "Hostel" may not have been great, but they were new movies scratching the itch the gorehounds had been missing in the mainstream. "Thanksgiving" was a neat little slasher movie which used his obnoxious, odious character writing to actually quite witty effect in a straightforward slasher movie, which managed to take some stabs at consumerism.
He misstepped with "The Green Inferno", a rather slapdash attempt to bring back cannibal movies; and "Knock Knock" was an utterly dreadful remake of an utterly dreadful 70s hippie invasion sex film. But still, he's been trudging along, and maybe it was time for him to come back?

With "The Ice Cream Man", Eli Roth has another swing at what he loves: gore and gore.
The hallmarks are there: we focus on an obnoxious bunch of children in an obnoxiously small town, who happen upon a mute, pencil-moustached smiling Ice Cream Man (Ari Millen, rather good to be fair, largely due to having no dialogue and putting on a mute, "Terrifier" esque performance) whose deadly treats turn the children into homocidal maniacs...
We get blood! We get decapitations! We get silly kills!
We get bored.
Roth has one trick, and has refused to move on from the past. Whilst this is admirable with Judas Priest or "John Wick" movies; it flounders here, lost in the hope of scandal and the aspirations of shock value. When there are more interesting horror films with shocking moments sure to wag tongues and spark discussion ("Titane", "Talk to Me", "Bring Her Back", "Obsession", "Barbarian", "Cuckoo", "Weapons", "The Substance" all come to mind) in the last few years alone, even the more "traditional" horror, slasher, comedy or bloodbath fare released as of late has used gore and a welcome renaissance of bloodbaths to be entertaining, even when aiming for the splash zone of the cheap seats ("Terrifier", its sequels, "The Monkey", "Primate", "Dangerous Animals", "Clown in a Cornfield", "Ready or Not" and its sequel, the last two "Evil Dead" entries, even the excellent remake of "The Toxic Avenger" and the Radio Silence "Scream" movies, a series I am not fond of) do so wth flair, style, panache and a gleeful sense of filmmaking prowess. Gore has crept back into mainstream fare after bloated, ghoulish studios were reticent to allow any of it, with things such as "Deadpool", even when it seems out of place and empty, aping the gory efforts of better movies in the mistaken belief that gore is what made them good ("Death of a Unicorn", "Infinity Pool", "Lee Cronin's: The Mummy" and "Love Hurts" spring to mind), so maybe we can thank he and "The Splat Pack" for opening the doors there and bringing it back to the mainstream? Even there, however, his contemporaries of that pun have evolved, moved on: Alexandre Aja took weirder swings at higher concept movies like "Crawl" (a solid creature feature) and "Oxygen"; Neil Marshall got butt-fucked by producers on his "Hellboy" remake and went back to making claustrophobic, grimy B-movies he was known for previously (I think he was unfairly pushed into that pack); James Wan brought his adoration of Hammer Horror into the "Insidious" and "Conjuring" movies before shifting to a producer role with Atomic Monster, a billion dollar franchise camp fest in "Aquaman" and what SHOULD have been a multi-billion dollar underrated masterpiece of insanity in "Malignant"; Darren Lynn Bousman finally settled down after the "Saw" movies with the knowledge that people other than he had made a good one in "Saw X", and seems happy to do his own thing. Hell, Ti West who took over the reigns of his series with the far superior "Cabin Fever 2" has been a reliable, exceedingly interesting filmmaker and indie horror darling of that period intersecting with people like AJ Bowen, Adam Wingard, Joe Swanberg and Simon Barrett ("Azrael" is good) in the horror scene, supporting each other.
Roth plays his opening salvo of child bloodbaths too early. After that he flounders. this may have worked as a short, or a Grindhouse style trailer. He has little to add to the table, he's a man running out of rope and of time. He had gore, and gore was accepted, nothing interesting good be bred from this premise.
He used to support filmmakers and artists, and part of the thrill and point of a lower budget gore piece with a twisted sense of humour is to get creative, work around limitations and keep your film fun and interesting to a more forgiving crowd:
So he decide to use generative A.I, sorry, plagiarism software instead.

It's a stumbling, empty, weak and limp attempt to recapture a glory day which was never that glorious to begin with.
Eli Roth has lost that touch he had, because the world it seemed so magical to has moved on, it's progressed to better art and a more open idea of what horror can and should be. It's starting to come around to the thinking of his contemporaries and his defenders.
It's a shame he never moved with it.

He chose to stop making art, with his A.I apologism, but even without that (and it CANNOT be ignored): it's weak.

"Nimrods" - 21st Century Road Trip

Analog Dogs are a fledgling band in Kansas City. After one too many pranks upon his brother, lead singer and guitarist Tommy (Mason Thames) becomes the victim of one when he is informed that Analog Dogs are to open for Green Day in Los Angeles at New Year's Eve! Excited, hungry and eager to capitalise on his big break, Tommy steals his brother's taxi and embarks on a mad dash road trip to get there, accompanied by idiot guitarist Fred (Kylr Coffman) and nervous, buttoned up work-in-progress punk drummer Chad (Ryan Foust) to get there!

(Credit: The Hollywood Reporter)
A delightfully old school punk road trip movie and celebration of the poor, dirty heartlands of America. I know Green Day in passing, it's my partner who's the big fan, but the film worked for both of us (they pointed out little Easter Eggs like the name of the taxi company). Very similar to "Detroit Rock City" (only funny), it has the hallmarks you'd want and expect from a road trip movie (weirdo locals like a creepy motel owner played by Fred Armisen and an amusing drunk mechanic played by Sean Gunn; an incredibly funny drug trip, bust-ups and meet ups) and is generally an amusing, light hearted and old-school fare. It manages to make some excellent, wry little examinations of current day America: with its shots of abandoned industry now home to a spontaneous punk festival; the gang stopping at snowy, slush-ground diners rather than sunny, brightly lit cities; and an affection for dive bars and the regular folks in America. It's a sweetly clever, punk celebration of life on the road, being broke, having friends and living for a moment: because moments are all we have.
It's deliciously, refreshingly old school and funny to boot, it goes without saying that the soundtrack's pretty good too (excellent use of "Wake Me Up When September Ends"). Kudos, Green Day! Kudos!
Stars of the show are Kylr Coffman as the dim but lovable green haired layabout, and the buttoned-up Ryan Foust as the drummer.
Favourite gag was the long, background taxi passenger.

"The End of Oak Street" - Just Above the Silver Lake

The year is 1982, and the Platt family are starting to come apart at the seams: father Greg (Ewan McGregor) is struggling with two jobs, mother Denise (Anne Hathaway) is pouring her desire to leave into a secret novel in the cellar, son Brian (Christian Convery) has a crush on a local girl and a vindictive pair of local school kids to deal with, and daughter Audrey (Maisy Stella) is attempting to study to get into a science-focused university. Things take a darker turn when their neighbourhood is transported somewhere...

(Photo credit: IMDB)
A bizarre left hook from David Robert Mitchell, director of the best horror film of the last 30 years in "It Follows", into odd family fare, splitting the difference between his unusual, stranger and ethereal past works and a more 12A Spielberg film for unusual results.
When it's following Ewan McGregor fighting a T-Rex with a sledgehammer, and embracing the daftness of its premise? Great fun.
When it's attempting to be discrete with its dinosaur murders and being a family running from dinosaurs in suburbia, taking itself seriously, it's less fun, like a lesser tier "Twilight Zone" episode.
It's a bizarre change of pace for David Robert Mitchell, and had I not known that it was him who made this I would have struggled to figure it out, save for a pretty impressive long take shot of a T-Rex chasing Hathaway and McGregor through a street.
An odd duck, aimed kind of towards younger and family fare (lovable kids on dino adventures to rescue their dog) but focusing too much on cat murder and discrete blood and guts to quite fully land.
Maybe give it a rental?

Alice Goes to Sunday Lunch

A widowed French girl named Alice (Souheila Yacoub) overcomes her anxieties and reservations to have lunch with her dearly departed partner's ragtag family, to learn, live, laugh, and love again.

(Credit: Mastermind)
Not quite as tight as "Evil Dead Rise", due in part to a rather stop-start first 20-30 minutes (despite a rather fun boiling lake sequence) which deny the film the momentum it needs. The French turn at the helm of the series, however, begins to show a lot of premise with its uncomfortable family dynamic (though perhaps could have been stronger had it not shown the reality of the marriage at the start, and let it bubble as uncomfortable subtext and implication... though who am I to expect subtlty and build up in an "Evil Dead" movie?) and, as always, an excellent performance from Tandi Wright as the proud mother. When it hits its stride and the blood, guts and violence kick in: it's supremely fun. Again, not quite as white-knuckle bonkers as Aunt Beth's Babysitting Adventure, but it has an excellent top-down brawl, a fantastic bathroom sequence and (in keeping with my need for/cynical doubt that they can shock me or make me wince at this point) a part with a pen. It falters with its focus on lore from "Ash's Cabin Vacation" and a focus on Hunter Doohan's brother character, to the extent that you think that he's going to be the lead and they're doing a bait-and-switch; but it finds its feet once again in the last half, goes full throttle and gives you what you want from an "Evil Dead" movie: blood, guts, mayhem and carnage with a goofy sense of humour.
It's not as good as "Aunt Beth's Babysitting Adventure", but a solid and fun enough time. A good Evil Dead movie, not quite a great one.

"Backrooms" - Part and Parsons

Divorced architect Clark (Chiwetel Ejiofor) can feel his life falling apart and slipping away, and is attending therapy with Dr Mary Kline (Renate Reinsve) to find some way to resolve this. When he finds a strange portal to an impossible world in the cellar of his shop, he finds a solution...

(Veronica Superguide)
An audaciously surreal character piece, and a bold debut which does not outstay its welcome. A reflection on trauma, crumbling psyches, the impermanence of place which uses its 90s aesthetic nicely: both as a meta-take on our misremembered idea of that decade, and to make for an unsettling, uncanny time period to play around in. The performances are uniformly excellent: Ejiofor is forever on fine form, and Reinseve continues her hot streak. I was surprised that a first time director (even with cameos from common indie/small-budget winner and reliable legend Mark Duplass) managed to nab such esteemed talents for what was essentially marketed as a spooky internet meme made into a horror film, but the script is actually sterling stuff: well thought out, coming full circle with its setting and use of stone-tape theory to create themes of decaying mental states and how we approach rebuilding ourselves after trauma and misery, with excellent recurring imagery and parallels with architecture and furnishings. It's clever.
It's the sort of script the two can devour as actors (there is a dinner scene which fucking rules) and it's a credit to the filmakers that I was perfectly content following the life of Clark in the 90s as it fell apart and he tried to sell furniture with his two disinterested employees. When the scares came, they were built to well, and sequences with a Christmas tree and a pirate (as surreal as they are) were spooky highlights. I loved the deaths, and its atmosphere was well-constructed, spooky, engaging, involving and never outstayed its welcome. It's an assured debut and the sort of thing not only worth the hype, but which we need more of in the ecosystem.

"The Invite" - Living on a Reza's Edge

Angela (Olivia Wilde) and music teacher husband Joe (Seth Rogen) have the house to themselves, so Amanda has (to his chagrin) invited their noisy neighbours Hawk (Edward Norton) and Pina (Penelope Cruz) for a dinner party, something she has never done before.

(Slant Magazine)
A return to form for Olivia Wilde, getting her and her co-stars' teeth stuck into some truly juicy scripting and dialogue (by Rashida Jones and Will McCormack of all people!) reminiscent of "God of Carnage" by Yasmina Reza (there's a funny little nod to "Art" with Olivia Wilde and Edward Norton discussing identical shades of paint on a bedroom wall) tackling relationships and manners in a witty, extremely funny 4-hander. It has its stumbles (the soundtrack bumbles in at clunky moments) but the acting and writing are top notch, and Olivia Wilde directs it so as to not simply feel like a televised play adaptation (I rather liked the 70s style opening credits), and keeps a tight reign on things so it doesn't feel like farce. It's a far better examination of marriage and awkward character drama than that last fucking awful Bradley Cooper project.
A good, funny, clever time, and Rogen in particularly has never been better.

"Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie" - The Review

Struggling nerd band-duo "Nirvanna the Band" dream of playing at The Rivoli Theatre in Toronto. Matt Johnson conjures yet another crazy scheme to advertise their as-yet unbooked gig, and when it goes south yet again his buddy Jay McCarrol becomes further disillusioned with this seemingly futile enterprise. With the band at breaking point, another scheme is hatched by the hare-brained Matt, but this one goes horribly right, putting the band onto two very different paths...

(Credit: Instagram)
I was not familiar with the show, I went into this blind off the title alone, and am elated that I did:
A post-modern, punk piece of filmmaking ingeniously blending mockumentary, 2008 footage, internet show, riff track and comedy into an audacious puree of love, friendship and revellry for adventure and the best parts of the early internet anarchy. A mad, wild, very funny ride and the creative antidote to the ailments of cinema.