"Presence" - Review

A family move into a house. But something is awry.

Yeah, I'm not sucking Soderbergh's Steven on this one.
A real misfire. It has an interesting central gimmick of being told from the perspective of the ghost haunting the house, but instantly ruins it with rapid-fire cuts to black which are jarring and take one out of the affair completely. It leans more towards a family drama, with Lucy Liu (I like her) playing mother to a prick son (Eddy Maday) and a daughter (Callina Liang) attempting to get over the death of a friend from a drug overdose; only the way it's written is poor enough that for 40 minutes of its 90 minute runtime I was under the impression that the dead girl was her sister. Oh, and I didn't know that a character had been breaking the law until looking this movie up afterwards (there is a phone call where the father asks theoreticals to a lawyer friend of his, but I assumed that it was he who had done something wrong - only that's my fault because the fucking film implied that it was him. Yet it doesn't matter, for nothing hints at it or leads us to know what it is, because it also never comes back and we don't know what either of these characters are or do for a living). Chris Sullivan makes an impact as the genuinely devoted father telling his prick son to stop being a prick; but the drama is obtuse and underdeveloped: the trick the makers are aiming for seems to be one of having the story be told in the periphery, and witnessed by the ghost, rather than a conventional tale. But the stuff which is present here is anemic, underdeveloped and would have been better served by a more traditional execution, ironically: the characters dancing around it would be fine, letting us read between the lines and have an uncomfortable kitchen sink drama/horror in the vein of "45 Years" or "Hereditary".
So the horror angle will have to compensate, but instead lacks any atmosphere (hampered immensely by the aforementioned errant scissors of the editing room) or build up, and is as weak as the family drama.
When the script starts bringing in time travelling ghosts, I immediately clocked out, and thus its villain (a budget Lucas Till) in the form of a serial killer love interest with the charm of a half-eaten wolf scrotum (making his initial courtship of the daughter as compelling as my fucking blog) fell flatter than a birthday at Jeffrey Epstein's house. It's intriguing premise deserves a far superior movie, and Chris Sullivan's performance deserves an IMMENSELY better film.

"Wolf Man" - Review

Blake (Christopher Abbott) finally receives news that his father has officially been declared dead. So he takes his wife (Julia Garner) and daughter Ginger (Matilda Firth) to his old home in the woods, hoping to get away from it all and get his head together. But something attacks Blake in the woods and he begins to change. What could possibly be happening to him?

I like Leigh Whannell as a director: "Upgrade" is a phenomenally made low budget B-movie body horror nightmare, "The Invisible Man" did an excellent job updating its premise and having things to say (as well as using its low budget), the "Insidious" movies are bonkers good fun and remain of a relatively high consistency throughout (which is rare, particularly in horror series) and I enjoy "Death Sentence" for all of its unpleasantness, and "Cooties" is good fun. I was curious about this one, as he's not really had any duds thus far (the closest is maybe writing "Death Sentence", which is a rather ugly movie I remember enjoying, though a lot of people seem to slate "Dead Silence" and I am one of its few defenders even if Whannell doesn't), and "The Wolf Man" is a pretty difficult one to screw up, especially with the obvious readings you could add to it to make it a companion piece to "The Invisible Man" - rage and how it is a beast which changes men. Add to that Garner and Abbott and you have a slam dunk of a bottle movie!
Only, it's a dud.
It's infuriating to say that. The movie is called "The Wolf Man" so we know what he's going to turn into and what is happening, okay, fine, so you lean into the camp or the body horror. It does neither there, spending an inordinately long time in the cabin with a slow transformation. Okay, fine, it's about illness and how it transforms us and makes us monsters in the eyes of those we love. Again, no: the body horror angle is weak and underplayed (especially after stuff like "The Substance" in recent memory), so we have to hope it's going for a "confined in a tight space with the one you love as he turns violent" angle, but this too never reaches the tension it needs. The closest it comes is an attack atop a green house, but it's weak stuff, particularly if you compare it to stuff like "Crawl", "Hush", "Don't Breathe" and even the Soska Sisters' remake of "Rabid" (better body horror too in that case) in recent years alone. There is a token effort early on to hint at Blake maybe perhaps having rage issues, which could be the other metaphor they're going for, but again it's dropped and moved to the side in favour of their milquetoast locked room bottle movie. Thus we get a werewolf movie which takes too long to transform into a werewolf, loses the camp, fun and blood factor when it does, and isn't substantive and meaty enough or (crucially) tense and scary enough to sustain what is there, despite strong performances. I appreciated the "Ginger Snaps" reference with the daughter though, and that Benedict Hardie (the assassin from "Upgrade" and the job interviewer from "The Invisible Man") having another cameo in this as Whannell's mascot.
Honestly, if you wanted a great Abbott locked room horror film about change and violence, watch "Piercing".

"A Real Pain" - Review

Uptight, buttoned down David (Jesse Eisenberg) and his free-wheeling, impulsive cousin Benji (Kieran Culkin) embark on an historical tour of Poland in honour of their recently deceased grandmother.

A sharply observed look at the classic "buddy cop" trip with an excruciating performance from Culkin as the temperamental Benji, revelling in social awkwardness, and a relatively low key character drama. The thoughts on grief and tragedy are personal and touching, and meet neatly in the middle between the viewpoints of the two characters, feeling nuanced. There's an excellent addition with Kurt Egyiawan's storyline, creative and touching, and it's always nice to see Jennifer Grey and Will Sharpe pulling great supporting duties.

"Nosferatu" - Review

The year is 1838, and in the quaint German town of Wisborg, a young banker by the name of Thomas Hutter (Nicholas Hoult), recently married and needing to provide well for his odd wife Ellen (Lily-Rose Depp), accepts a job to deliver papers to a reclusive count by the name of "Orlok" (Bill Skarsgard), who seeks a home in Wisborg. But all is not as it seems: the people in the shadow of Orlok's castle seem scared and strange, others enthralled by him, Ellen has got nightmares up and down her walls, and under the care of both her physician Wilhelm Sievers (Ralph Ineson, naturally) and family friends the Hardings (Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Emma Corrin) all seems awry...

From the description of "Robert Eggers remakes Nosferatu" you get exactly what that implies: a big, grand, Gothic enterprise with a focus on the folksy-occult horror, some gore, some disgusting sound design and a use of the period details to enhance the experience and make you go "oooh, man I wish we got more period horror". There are good moments and homages to the original, clearly a love letter of sorts (for the record: I adore the 1922 F.W Murnau "Nosferatu" and still find it a chilling, striking visual affair with some nightmarish imagery and a haunting atmosphere, it holds up remarkably well) to the film (two characters are named after Murnau, the famous long shadow shot is replicated as a grip over the city itself), without feeling like either part is backing down. Willem Dafoe appears in the final act, and absolutely steals the show and relishes the material, and I did not know I wanted buddy cop adventures with him and Ralph Ineson until I got them. It's well constructed and features strong performances across the board, and a strong throughline about hunger and lust, and the perversion of it, all about the looming and creeping encroachment of his evil, like a shroud upon the city, with a couple of neat little notes on the buttoned up roles for women in society at the time. The stuff with Dafoe is excellent, cannot stress it enough, and one of my little goblin-boys Nicholas Hoult gets put through the fucking wringer.
But that's just it.
It's "Nosferatu" done by Robert Eggers.
I could be watching Murnau's original (still weird to say...). It's all nicely made, but I wasn't particularly gripped or spooked.
I don't know, I felt cold on it.

"Sonic the Hedgehog 3" - Review

Living happily in Green Hills, Sonic the Hedgehog (Ben Schwarz) has found a family in local human doofus Tom (James Marsden), his wife Maddie (Tika Sumpter), fellow Earth exile and flying-fox inventor Tails (Colleen O'Shaughnessey) and warrior echidna Knuckles (Idris Elba). He rushes into action however, when the government of Earth call him out to an incident in Tokyo involving the escape of dangerous alien "Shadow" (Keanu Reeves), and matters are further complicated with the news that mad genius Ivo Robotnik (Jim Carrey) may be involved as well...

I've not watched the first 2 films and I'm not a fan of "Sonic the Herzog" games (I played the first one and simply didn't enjoy it as a platformer. Though I have had much fun watching "Game Grumps" play "Sonic Adventure"), so this film was essentially a test to see if it stands on its own merits. It had mixed results.
It's engaging enough and I never really found myself bored: it has this pinball, rapid fire energy to it which I imagine is fitting for a Sonic the Hedgehog movie, and just about manages to avoid the sugar-rush annoyance of these kind of movies. There are a lot of plates being spun, a lot of characters requiring arcs and lines, and the juggling of both previous characters and new villains to introduce. What lands lands well - Shadow the Hedgehog in particular has a weirdly dark backstory here which I appreciated, and they didn't really chicken out on it either. Shadow the Hedgehog also gets the funniest joke of the movie (about a Mexican telenovella of all things) and weirdly is played rather earnestly by Keanu Reeves. It's not the intensity of something like Robert Patrick in "Peacemaker", but it's played straight and helps balance the tone. In between the wacky antics of Sonic the Hedgehog (an equally earnest, having-the-time-of-his-life Ben Schwarz, who just seems delighted to be able to play Sonic) we don't get too many pop cultural jokes, and we have fairly well sketched arc about not letting trauma define us, not allowing grief to control us (on that note: WATCH "DOCTOR SLEEP!"). The scramble for screen time means certain things get pushed aside (Tails the Fox has maybe 8 lines? I forgot James Marsden and Tika Sumpter were in this until they came back for the final act. And an old guy turns up for one scene, gives some exposition, then dies and we are supposed to find it sad: I assume he is a character from the previous movie) but what is here feels like it is made with love and affection for the source material without wallowing in it. Also the makers appear to be massive nerds: I've been re-reading "Akira" recently and there are multiple shots ripped straight from that manga, not just the bike slide (I appreciated the glass tank and the shots of the tower); oh and there are multiple straight up "Dragon Ball Z" references and riffs. Brandon Trost (cinematographer of "The FP", "American Pickle", "Ghost Rider 2", "Crank 2" and multiple Seth Rogen comedies) plays with colours quite nicely, putting more effort than one normally sees with the brightly, flatly lit fare we get from kids' movies (which seem to be by-word for "low effort"); and the soundtrack is full of things like a cover of "99 Red Balloons" and "Firestarter".
I like it. It's nicely done.
Oddly there is a touching arc about Robotnik (who is among the best and consistently funny parts of the film) and his assistant, tying nicely into the found-family aspect, much like Shadow's angle. It just about works.
I imagine Sonic the Hedgehog fans will enjoy this, and it will appeal to children too without being too insufferable for adults. I'm not sure how much more it can cram in and juggle henceforth, but I didn't hate it. Kudos.

"Queer" - Review

Adrift in Mexico in the 1950s, rakish hard drinking disaster Lee (Daniel Craig) lives as a homosexual man of his own means, cruising bars and induling in base vices to combat his self loathing. The arrival of an enigmatic serviceman by the name of Allerton (Drew Starkey) beguiles him, and leaves him reaching out through the fogginess of his own intercinine struggles to seek a connection.

Basing a film upon the works of William Burroughs is not exactly easy: his books are almost incomprehensible gibberish outsider art concocted by a walking amalgamation of bitterness and neurotic self hatred, glued together with drugs. This certainly feels like a passion project from Guadagnino who has managed to capture that meandering, sleazy, debauched sorrow and beat poetry from chaos: cutting apart words and passages, forming new order from that chaos, and finding a disordered beauty in that renewed chaos. Craig (on a tear ever since he managed to get his Bond money and bolt for the hills of good characters) is fantastic here: an outwardly self-confident rake who is just a massive dork beneath, awkward and trying to reach out and grasp at any form of connection. In between his drinking, smoking and rants about telepathy there is a genuine, lonely pathos which permeates throughout the film. There are moody, evocative, banquet-style shots to just lavish yourself in, immerse yourself in the sleazy bars and the scorching hot underbelly of a city unseen. It's good stuff, I really appreciate this strolling across gorgeously lit streets, getting trapped in a cycle of addiction and loneliness (his conversations with a fellow loser homosexual played by Jason Schwartzmann are evocative of late nights in bars with friends) and the anachronistic soundtrack by Trent Reznor (it opens on a beautiful Sinead O'Connor song, and "Come as You Are" plays early on) lends it almost a horror movie vibe to foreshadow the events to come, and how intrinsically drug-fuelled Burroughs is. The chemistry between Craig and Starkey is excellent: I appreciated the phantom dream-like squences dreaming of touching him, the enigmatic behaviour of Allerton which makes you ponder if he's leading Lee on, or if Lee is simply too horny to see anything else, it's solid stuff. I like the feeling of it all, the atmosphere and moods are exquisite. The film however, true to form with Burroughs, is meandering and rather thin on the ground in terms of plotting and ideas. There are longer but paletable stretches early ony, but the 3rd act when characters go to the jungle with the express purpose of taking a lot of drugs and hallucinating. The flesh-melding, expressionist, non literal expression of moods comes back, but it's started to feel a little meandering at this point. Still beautifully shot.
The madness of the affair never reaches Hunter S. Thompson territory, despite glimpses and flashes of crazy adventures, and it remains a heartfelt love story about a flawed man longing for connection.

"Conclave" - Review

Upon the death of the Pope, unassuming Cardinal Thomas Lawrence (Ralph Fiennes) assembles the College of Cardinals, in his capacity as Dean, to elect a new one. Secluded from the rest of the world, the Cardinals vote upon their preferred candidates: Liberal reformer Aldo Bellini (Stanley Tucci) hoping to capture the progressive vote; middle of the road Joseph Tremblay (John Lithgow) doing his own thing in the corner; popular Nigerian candidate Joseph Adeyimi (Lucian Msamati); and bespectacled Italian traditionalist Goffredo Tedesco (Sergio Castellito) capturing a time long passed. Lawrence oversees this dramatic tug of war, and must also contend with a recently inducted Cardinal of Kabul, a young man known as Vincent Benitez (Carlos Diehz), and a simmering undercurrent of resentment and drama...

Well constructed with immaculate cinematography and impeccable sound design, very much a pedigree picture with the talent involved, it has an excellent speech from Fiennes at the start of the film about doubt. It weaves its themes of a man succumbing to the base instinct of ambition amongst this nest of vipers well, and the cast are strong across the board: particularly Fiennes, the ever wonderful Tucci, and the always excellent Lithgow and Rossellini; but Castellito also threatens to steal the show with a discussion of linguistics and boundary lines.
The weakness of the film comes in its writing and plotting, and I can only imagine that this is the result of being adapted from the often-silly novels of Jonathan Harris.
The examination of the Conclave and its procedure, a unique setting for its politics, is undercut by soap opera revelations and gossipy bickering, populated by characters we know are evil because...
John Lithgow plays Cardinal Tremblay, so we know he's up to no good, which is enhanced by every line reading requiring a twirl of his moustache. Cardinal Tedesco is vaping, so we know he's bad (though to be fair, there is a fun little contrast throughout of the cardinals in their finery using smartphones and smoking cigarettes, it's cute), and we know that the Nigerian cardinal is homophobic because a character tells us so. I like the characters when they are doing their politicking, but it is by the grace of the actors that they are saved from being cardboard cutouts. It jam packs a lot of things in, and just about juggles them, but it is at the expense of some of the plotting, and with one twist too many to keep it "fresh" and "daring".
Honestly I'd have been delighted with discussions of theology and terse arguments about doctrine and theory.
It's a solid film, and worth a rental.