Category Archives: Reviews

Quentin Tarantino’s Long Oscar Con

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Warning: Spoilers loose here!

First, full disclosure: I love Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood. I think it’s one of the best movies of the year, one of Tarantino’s finest in a career of fine films, and as fitting an homage to Los Angeles’ Golden Age of film as any ever rendered. And it’s getting too much praise.

Hollywood has been nominated for 10 Oscars, and has already collected 102 trophies over more than a dozen award ceremonies, including the Golden Globes and the BAFTAs.

Those plaudits for the films aren’t the problem. The problem is the praise heaped on supporting star Brad Pitt. He, like the film, has been showered in praise and gold plating, nabbing a Best Supporting Oscar nomination and taking home supporting acting statuettes from said Globes/BAFTAs. Should Pitt win the Oscar, his first order of business should be to thank Tarantino for pulling off the greatest heist since Ocean’s Eleven. In fact, classic films were part of the heist.Image result for pitt golden globe"

You see, Tarantino is this year’s Oscar’s darling for his love letter to 1960’s Hollywood, when the industry’s  ability to sell a concocted happiness was at its peak. Families were nuclear and daddies knew best. Kids didn’t swear, adults didn’t screw, and cowboys didn’t miss or bleed (unless they were bad). Killers met with unfettered justice — often dealt out by likes of Rick Dalton, Tarantino’s leading man in Hollywood.

Dalton is one of those Bonanza cowboys, at least on the outside. Steady. Steely. Sure-handed. Inside, though, he’s a wreck. He drinks too much, swears up a storm, has a nervous stutter, and is having trouble coming to terms with age and relevance.

Now consider Cliff Booth, Pitt’s likable, buff stunt double to DiCaprio’s Dalton in Hollywood. Cliff is an understated Missouri boy who, in the span of three hours, saves his buddy’s career, kicks Bruce Lee’s ass in a street fight and single-handedly prevents the Manson family murders. He is as stalwart a Hollywood hero as any produced 50 years ago. And like all good 60’s movie cowboys, his acting sucks.Image result for bruce lee cliff booth"

Like, really sucks. I challenge anyone who has seen the film: Name one scene in which Pitt is called upon to act. One scene in which he sheds a tear. Or loses his temper. Or becomes nervous, uncomfortable or caught unawares. He is Shane, mysterious, unflappable and Ivory pure.

This isn’t Pitt’s fault. He’s a solid actor (See Twelve Monkeys, Moneyball, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button). It’s just he’s playing John Wayne without the temper, and is never asked to express anything approximating range. Tarantino must know: DiCaprio acted circles around Pitt, gaining weight, shedding tears, allowing insecurities to surface. But while Pitt won honors, DiCaprio had to settle for honorable mentions among the Globes and BAFTAs.Image result for twelve monkeys"

Not that anyone need shed a tear over Hollywood‘s fortunes. But if Pitt manages to pull off a win, and beat co-nominees Al Pacino, Anthony Hopkins, Joe Pesci and Tom Hanks, he should silently signal to Tarantino Sting-style, with a nod of the head and forefinger gently brushing his nose. Image result for the sting rub nose"

Because that’s a helluva take.

Putting out Fire with Gasoline

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Netflix is a data-driven dance floor, an algorithmic treehouse . The company  monitors the viewing habits of its 158 million subscribers so closely that it not only knows what you watch, but when you watch it, how much of it you watch, the trends that are most likely to hook you —  even the thumbnail images most likely to convince you to watch a new series. Its breadth is both impressing and daunting.

Don’t F**k With Cats is a case in point: Netflix has analyzed the data and deduced that what the world needs more than anything  is a true crime documentary series about obsessive internet users and cats.

What a genius move. What a home run. What a no-fail combination of everything that everyone likes, bundled up together in perhaps the most high-profile film about cats ever made (besides Lion King).Image result for the lion king"

The story of Don’t F**k With Cats doesn’t really matter; you’d watch it even if you thought – as I initially did – that it was going to simply be an America’s Funniest Home Videos compilation of cats clawing people to shreds during attempted baths.

However, the masterstroke here is that the narrative is simply unbelievable. And – this should be said upfront – it’s incredibly upsetting. This aspect can’t really be overstated. There are moments that are viscerally harrowing. The story begins with a video uploaded to YouTube that graphically depicts the torture and murder of two small kittens. You don’t see the video – or any subsequent similar videos – in the documentary, but there are plenty of Grizzly Man-style reactions nevertheless. One is by a senior police officer who ends up reduced to tears. It is a violently distressing display of human depravity. If you’re even slightly queasy about this sort of thing, I’d seriously recommend giving it a pass.

Nevertheless, the story is incredible. An anonymous user uploads the kitten video, and it appalls a group of Facebook users so strongly that they use every tool at their disposal to track him down. They parse the video frame by frame for something – anything – that will give them a clue to the killer’s whereabouts. Plug sockets and cigarette packets are scrutinized. A specific blanket is tracked down through eBay. The expertise of an incredibly niche online vacuum cleaner forum is consulted. Metadata is cross-referenced with Google Maps. This is the hive mind at its most clever.

One key member – a woman named Deanna Thompson – is the de facto narrator of the series. As you’d expect from someone as Very Online as her, she’s incisive and witty, and quick to pull the threads together in a dynamic way.Image result for don't fuck with cats"

But that’s arguably the biggest problem with the series. This is a show with a jokey title and a self-aware narrator that splashes around in some of the worst human behavior imaginable. As soon as the horror of the cat videos subsides, we’re off on a wild goose chase of reverse image searches, Google Street View sweeps and fake identity databases. And then we learn who the murderer is, and that his murders are about to escalate beyond cats. We meet the family of his victim, and the lurching duality of the series threatens to become almost untenable.

Still, it is beautifully presented and the final episode includes a flourish of bow-tying not seen since the climax of The Usual Suspects. But it still makes me deeply uneasy that a man who committed an awful crime purely to gain notoriety has now been dragged out of obscurity to be celebrated in a buzzy Netflix show. At least Don’t F**K With Cats’ filmmakers are aware of this. Hives are just too riveting — even malformed one — to look away.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpdHMaccjw4

A Midsommar’s Nightmare Dream

(AP)

Ari Aster must have grown up with some freaky treehouses.

We got a glimpse of one in last year’s Hereditary, one of the most subtly frightening films of 2019. In that treehouse A-frame, demons were worshipped, humans sacrificed, and a lot of fire hazards went ignored.

Aster returns us to rustic living in Midsommar, a movie that help establishes him as one of the most nuanced horror directors working today. Again, Aster places human actors in what appears to be oversized dollhouses, underscoring a favorite theme of his: We are ushered through nightmares by forces greater than us.

Indeed, Midsommar is a waking nightmare. And I mean that in the best possible way.

For over two hours you will be transported to a beautiful village in the middle of nowhere in a foreign land where the sun never seems to set and everyone is wearing ornate flower crowns and enchantingly embroidered frocks. The details of why you’re there will seem fuzzy and dubious. Someone’s thesis, maybe? But you go along with it even when things start getting weird.

You will eat strange food and drink strange drinks. You will take drugs you don’t want and be subjected to ceremonies and rituals and a language you don’t understand. You will witness some of the most disturbing things you’ve ever seen. You will not be too concerned when people start disappearing. You will lose the ability to rely on your one anchor to the real world. And even though you will barely comprehend what’s going on around you, you won’t be able to leave or look away.Image result for midsommar

Writer and director Aster is to thank, or blame, for this extraordinary experience that’s equal parts befuddling and enthralling. It’s only Aster’s second feature film following the terrifying family drama “Hereditary” and it’s clear that the talent and deranged verve he teased there was no fluke.

But enter with caution: Midsommar is not as straightforward a horror as Hereditary was. It’s hazier and harder to grasp, despite taking place almost entirely in blunt daylight. This is an experiment in escalating uneasiness absent any release or catharsis.

As in Hereditary, a family tragedy sets an ominous tone, but this time it hits you right at the beginning before you’ve gotten to know anyone. We meet Dani (Florence Pugh) while she is frantically trying to contact her family to make sure her sister is OK, but no one is responding. It’s the worst possible outcome.

Unfortunately for her the only person she has for comfort is a boyfriend, Christian (Jack Reynor), who has already broken up with her in his mind but hasn’t gotten around to communicating that to her just yet. Too bad for Christian and his unsympathetic friends (Will Poulter, William Jackson Harper, Vilhelm Blomgren) Dani’s family crisis makes the otherwise imminent split all but impossible. So, Dani, a haunted shell of a human, becomes a permanent fixture at Christian’s side, even going so far as to accompany the four guys on their bro trip to the Swedish commune where one of them was raised for a midsummer festival that happens every 90 years.Image result for midsommar

Aster literally turns the camera upside down as the five travel to this blindingly bright area. It helps you arrive a little queasy and disoriented (although not quite as much as the characters, who’ve just ingested some psychedelic mushrooms).

Still, the drug-induced visions are nothing compared to what they will experience as clear-minded tourists in this village, which at first seems like a quirky novelty. But as with so many chic cults, there is unfathomably grotesque violence and brutality lurking underneath the Instagram-worthy aesthetics. Aster lures you in with relative normalcy, including often very funny dialogue and situational absurdity as the Americans try to fit in in this world. But before you know it, it’s too late to turn back and you’re stuck patiently watching this floral paradise curdle into a pagan inferno.

Midsommar is audacious filmmaking and totally transfixing despite its lengthy run time. It’s heartening to know that big, original cinematic swings like this have not gone extinct.

And yet, as with Jordan Peele’s highly anticipated sophomore feature Us, Midsommar might not actually add up to anything especially satisfying, or completely coherent, in the end. Aster also curiously reuses some of the striking images he used so effectively in Hereditary, such as pagan iconography and starkly naked and de-sexualized bodies. And somehow these characters never evoke empathy on par with the Hereditary ensemble.Image result for jordan peele us

But the journey is fascinating enough that it’s still worth the trip. Aster’s films, like David Lynch’s, are about entering menacing dreamscapes, where the only reality is dread. You don’t watch Aster’s movies. You submerge in them. And by the point of Midsoomar‘s mid-immersion, you’ll  just be grateful that you’re finally allowed to wake up.