Screamers (1995) ***

Remember that Peter Weller movie where weaponized robots run amock? Nope, I'm not talking about the 1987 classic “Robocop.” I'm referring to 1995's “Screamers,” which is not exactly a classic, but might be a cult classic.

Weller plays Joe Hendricksson, commander of a military outpost on the mining planet Sirius 6B, where two rival, human organizations have been at war for years. Joe's side, which represents the mining company, has achieved success with a new type of weapon, an automated buzz saw that will hunt and kill anything alive that isn't wearing a special immunity bracelet. To make sure there are plenty of these killer robots to go around, they have built an automated factory that cranks them out without any human input. Brilliant idea, right? Sounds like nothing could go wrong. As if that original plan weren't flawed enough, things really take a left turn when the robots start evolving.

“Screamers” is adapted from a story by Philip K. Dick, who has had his share of adaptations (“Bladerunner” “Total Recall” “Minority Report”), and it explores a recurrent theme of his: What happens when man's creations escape his control? I wouldn't call the movie great, or even good, but I enjoyed it, and it does have the ingredients of a cult classic: a bold premise, full commitment, and, of course, Peter Weller. When Buckaroo Banzai is in a movie, you definitely have to give it a chance!

3 stars out of 5

Paranormal Activity (2007) ***1/2

 

There's a reason most found-footage films are horror films. Done right, the format pulls you into the action and helps foster that suspension of disbelief that makes a movie scary. Also, the limited field of view of the cameras used allows things to happen just off-screen, and there's nothing scarier than what you can't see. It's also an interesting genre in that it is necessarily modern. The central conceit of a found-footage film is that everything you see was filmed by the protagonists, so these films can only be set during times when people would conceivably have had access to video cameras.

The first found-footage horror was apparently an Italian film from 1980 called “Cannibal Holocaust,” but it was 1999's "The Blair Witch Project" that really put the genre on the map. On a budget of around $200,000, the film made $250 million, and a generation of filmmakers fired up their handheld cameras to make low-fi horror. None of these made much of an impression until a guy named Oren Peli used a handheld camera and $15,000 to make a movie based on his own experience of unexplained noises in the night.

“Paranormal Activity” is the story of Katie and Micah, a young couple troubled by noises and misplaced objects in their home. Micah buys a video camera and a tripod and starts filming their bedroom at night. What he captures is mundane at first, but becomes increasingly horrifying.

“Paranormal Activity” is considered the most profitable movie of all time, based on return on investment, and it spawned a franchise. I haven't seen any of the many sequels, but I will say that the original film is very effective horror. The acting is nothing to write home about, and the dialogue can be annoying, but it's all good enough for a horror movie. The movie works, largely, because of how well it hews to the found-footage concept. Found-footage films usually reach a point where it just becomes unbelievable that the character would still be operating their video camera, and there are usually some scenes where one character is screaming at another to “turn off that f-ing camera!” “Paranormal Activity” checks all those boxes, but for the most part, Peli keeps it believable. The best, and scariest parts are where the camera is on the tripod at night, and we can only see what is visible in that fixed frame. Rather than relying on blood and guts, Peli terrifies us by letting us see only part of what is going on.

I waited 15 years to watch this film, because people told me it would scare the bejesus out of me, and they were right! More an experience than a story, “Paranormal Activity” has its limitations, but it is truly one of the must-see, modern horror flicks.

3.5 stars out of 5

John Wick (2014) ***

 

I have talked before about the Keanu Reeves Test, a simple test I use to decide whether or not to watch a movie. I just ask, “Is Keanu Reeves in this?,” and if the answer is “Yes,” then I don't watch. The test is not perfect. Re-watching "Bram Stoker's Dracula," for example, I discovered that Reeves's wooden acting did not actually manage to destroy that film. For years, I have been hearing about this “John Wick” movie, which, according to Wikipedia, has “come to be regarded as one of the best action films of all time.” I figured this film would probably retire the Keanu Reeves Test for good.

The plot is extremely simple. Gangsters kill John Wick's dog. Wick happens to be a retired assassin, and he unleashes his special skills on the gangsters. Sorry for the spoiler, but after 8 years of sequels and parodies, you would have to have been living under a rock not to know the basic premise of this film. In any event, the plot is so basic that it does not really matter. The point of “John Wick” is the old ultra-violence, which the movie does get right. It is directed by Chad Stahelski and David Leitch, who first met Keanu Reeves as stuntmen on “The Matrix,” and they bring that pedigree of fast-paced, hand-to-gun, ju-jitsu and gun-fu. The action is non-stop, and much of it is non-sensical, but Stahelski and Leitch mix things up enough that it does not become completely numbing. Not completely.

So, does “John Wick” retire the Keanu Reeves test? Not completely. “John Wick” is an engaging revenge movie despite Reeves's wooden acting, not because of it. The action is impressive, as is the supporting cast, including Michael Nyqvist, Willem Dafoe, Alfie Allen (Theon, from “Game of Thrones”), John Leguizamo, and Ian Mcshane. The plot is ridiculous, but honestly, this is an action movie, and the plot is really just a framework for all the gun-fu.

My biggest complaint here is the dialogue. “John Wick” is best when Keanu Reeves is not talking, but the script often gives him ten words where two would have sufficed. Stahelski and Leitch should have taken a page from the book of Sergio Leone. As Clint Eastwood said of his spaghetti western characters, directed by Leone, “I felt the less he said, the stronger he became and the more he grew in the imagination of the audience.”

I first saw part of “John Wick” in a sushi restaurant, with the sound turned off, and the movie seemed a lot better that way. So maybe that's the key. “John Wick” may be “one of the best action films of all time” to watch with the volume turned to zero. With the sound on, I'll just give it - 3 stars out of 5

The Menu (2022) ****1/2

 

They say that if you could see what goes on in the kitchen, you would never eat out at a restaurant again. The same might be said of “The Menu.” This dark comedy may make you resolve to cook at home more, or at least consider takeout.

Anya Taylor-Joy plays Margot, who finds herself on a very fancy date to a legendary restaurant on a private island. Charging $1200 a plate, Chef Slowik (Ralph Fiennes) is known as an eccentric genius, but as the night wears on, and Chef introduces each course in an increasingly bizarre fashion, the guests have reason to question their dining choice.

I have been complaining that 2022 was not a great movie year, but I had not yet seen “The Menu.” This absurdist satire is, in turns, funny, shocking, scary, and ultimately, satisfying. The ensemble cast, including Fiennes, Hong Chau (From HBO's “Watchmen” series), Nicholas Hoult, John Leguizamo, Janet McTeer, and the rest of the supporting crew, is perfect. Taylor-Joy is transcendent. I don't know if she is getting any Best Actress buzz, but she should be.

If you read some synopses of the film, you may be tempted to dismiss it as another eat-the-rich screed, but it is much more than that. Wealthy, entitled people do take a few barbs here, but this is really more an exploration of the relationship between artists and their patrons. Chef is an artist who has risen to the top of his field and then finds himself tired of serving the kind of people who will pay $1200 for a meal: name-dropping celebrities, finance-bros, smug food critics, and foodies who obsess over cooking shows, techniques, and molecular gastronomy. “The Menu” delightfully satirizes a food culture that is so obsessive and precious that it is already self-parody.

Much like the meals Chef serves up, “The Menu” belongs in that pantheon of films that are a true experience. It should appeal to viewers who liked "Parasite," "Ready or Not," or "American Psycho." I was also reminded of “The Cook, the Thief, his Wife, and Her Lover,” although I think “The Menu” goes down more easily.

Just as “Parasite” was the must-see film of 2019, “The Menu” is one of the few, absolute must-watch films of 2022, especially if you like your steaks rare and your dark comedy well-done.

4.5 stars out of 5

Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (2022) *****

 

Let's face it; 2022 was not the best year for movies. There were a few standouts: "Top Gun: Maverick" was solid, popcorn entertainment. B.J. Novak's clever mystery "Vengeance" did not get a lot of traction, but it was excellent, as was another sleeper, the thriller "Kimi." There were a few other 2022 films that I found at least decently entertaining, if forgettable, including “Bullet Train,” “Confess, Fletch,” and "Death on the Nile," but otherwise, 2022 was a year where we saw the results of all the Covid-related film production shutdowns.

That last movie I mentioned is Kenneth Branagh's take on the novel by Agatha Christie, and, like his 2017 version of “Murder on the Orient Express,” it's good entertainment, but rather forgettable. There is another director, however, also inspired by Agatha Christie, who is making much more inspired, more modern whodunit-style mysteries. Rian Johnson's breakout hit "Knives Out" was a smart, funny whirlwind of a mystery, with an all-star cast. The film not only rewarded multiple viewings, it demanded them. Now Johnson has done it again with “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery,” streaming on Netflix.

Daniel Craig reprises his role as detective Benoit Blanc, with his ridiculous southern drawl and his ridiculously-sharp deductive mind. Blanc once again finds himself invited to solve a murder, but this one is supposed to be fictional. Tech billionaire Miles Bron (Edward Norton) has invited a few friends to his island for a game where they will try to solve his “murder.” Among Bron's high-flying associates are a couple of internet influencers (Kate Hudson and Dave Bautista), the governor of Connecticut (Kathryn Hahn), and Bron's head scientist (Leslie Odom, Jr.). For some reason, he has also invited his former business partner, Andi (Janelle Monae), who helped him build his empire, and from whom he took everything. Besides Andi, these are Miles's closest friends, but we learn that each of them has a possible motive to want him dead.

With his first film, 2005's “Brick,” Rian Johnson demonstrated a talent for updating a classic movie genre - hard-boiled noir in that instance. With the “Knives Out” franchise, he is updating the whodunit genre with a modern sensibility and humor. I don't know how many of these he, or the audience, will be good for. It's possible that the exploits of Benoit Blanc, or at least his accent, will get tiresome eventually. I suspect it will depend a lot of whether Johnson can come up with truly fresh stories and characters and populate his films with compelling actors. In “Glass Onion” he does both, with a stellar cast and a story that is completely different from “Knives Out.”

So settle in with a snack and a drink (the movie is 2 hours, 19 minutes) and get ready to pay attention. The plot here is even more convoluted than that of “Knives Out,” and just as much fun. The clues are all there, but if you blink, you'll miss them, which is why I know I will be re-watching “Glass Onion” very soon.

5 stars out of 5

Weird: The Al Yankovic Story (2022) ****

If you are tired of celebrity biopics that bend the truth in various small ways, exaggerating aspects of their subjects' lives or compressing their history to make a better film, then this un-exaggerated, completely true biopic is the movie for you! “Weird: The Al Yankovic” story is the definitive history of everyone's favorite accordion-player. The film takes us from a young Al getting his first accordion, a move that obviously led to great popularity among his peers, especially the girls, through his meteoric rise to eclipse the success of such acts as The Beatles, to his steamy love affair with Madonna. The film covers his dark period struggling with alcoholism, as well as his transition from parody songs to the all-original works he is best known for, like “Eat It” and “Amish Paradise.”

“Weird” is directed by esteemed documentary filmmaker Eric Appel, who has a long list of documentaries and feature films under his belt, and has served as a mentor for Ken Burns. The movie started out as a 2010 Funny-or-Die trailer by Appel, and it took 12 years to make the full biopic due to all the extensive research and fact-checking. Also, they had to wait for Daniel Radcliffe to become muscular enough to portray Weird Al. With Evan Rachel Wood as Madonna, and numerous celebrity cameos, Appel has created a film that fully captures Yankovic's profound effect on the music business and his widespread esteem. Comparisons to other classic musician biopics like “The Doors,” “Amadeus,” and “Walk the Line” are inevitable, but I think a closer comparison would be the thinly-veiled biopic of publisher William Randolph Hearst from 1941. I'm talking about a little movie called “Citizen Kane.”

4 stars out of 5

Barbarian (2022) ***

 

The horror genre has, perhaps, some of the greatest variation in quality to be found in film. Most horror flicks are trash, made for rapid consumption by teens. They feature poor writing, poor acting, and they try to make up for their faults with gore, nudity, and jump scares. At the other end of the spectrum are those rare horror films that are so great they transcend genre, films like "Deliverance" and "The Shining." In the middle are films that are reasonably serviceable, providing some genuine scares without making you embarrassed to watch. “Barbarian,” the creation of writer/director Zach Cregger, falls in this middle group.

“Barbarian” is good enough, and the twists are scary enough, that I don't want to ruin any of the surprises. Of the plot, I'll just say what all the sites say, which is that a young woman (Georgina Campbell) finds her Air-B&B already occupied by a man (Bill Skarsgard), and then discovers that the house holds some horrifying secrets.

Zach Cregger (“The Whitest Kids U' Know) is mostly known for an extensive, if undistinguished, TV acting career. “Barbarian” is his first solo film project, and he shows some promise as a director. He displays a deft hand at maintaining an exhausting level of tension, then relieving it for a while, before cranking it right back up. He coaxes excellent performances out of his stars, including Justin Long. He gets some great work out of his cinematographer, showing just enough in the darkness to be truly frightening, and then making the burned-out neighborhoods of Detroit look almost as scary in broad daylight.

As a writer, Cregger is less inspired. The plot of “Barbarian” requires too many dumb, unrealistic decisions on the part of the characters. I'm talking about your typical, horror-movie, going-down-to-the-basement kinds of decisions. (In a bad movie, there would be no story without these actions, which no person in their right mind would do in real life. With better writing, circumstances force the characters into a bad situation despite their making reasonable choices along the way.)

“Barbarian” was inspired by The Gift of Fear, a non-fiction book that encourages women to trust their instincts to avoid dangerous situations with men. This is ultimately a story about men using women to feed their appetites, and it flips the script on that theme in some clever ways. Someone will probably write a graduate thesis on how this film shows men what it would be like to have someone force their base urges on you. The movie may take the man-bashing too far, but you mostly won't notice. This being a horror movie, it all just blends into the expected level of violence and abuse. It's a good example of how you can use genre fiction to send a message that would be heavy-handed and preachy in a straight drama.

“Barbarian” is not particularly well-written, and it relies more than it should on jump-scares, but it's a serviceable film that is sometimes funny and definitely scary. It is not on par with some of the best modern horror films, like "Parasite" or "It Follows," but if you want an adrenaline rush, this will get the job done.

3 stars out of 5

Force Majeure (2014) **

 

What is it that makes a man a man? What do our instinctive reactions to danger say about who we really are? How can a relationship survive a betrayal? These are the questions explored in “Force Majeure,” written and directed by Swedish filmmaker Ruben Ostlund.

Tomas (Johannes Kuhnke) and his family are skiing in the Alps. When an avalanche narrowly misses them, Tomas runs to save his own skin, leaving his wife, Ebba (Lis Loven Kongsli) to protect the children. The event eats at everyone involved, and they have to work out their feelings about it over the rest of the vacation.

I really wanted to like “Force Majeure.” It's an excellent concept, and Lis Loven Kongsli does some great acting. The movie also features Kristofer Hivju, who played Tormund Giantsbane on “Game of Thrones.” Unfortunately, the thing is just a drag. Tomas is too unlikable a character to identify with, so it's very hard to root for his transformation. The film does feature some humor, as when a girl approaches Tomas and Mats (Kristofer Hivju) at an outdoor bar to tell them that her friend said they are the hottest guys there, only to return a minute later to say that she had it wrong; her friend was pointing at two other guys. There are a lot of scenes here that had real potential, such as Ebba's conversation with a woman who is in an open marriage, or Mats's all-night fight with his girlfriend. The problem is that all the scenes drag on much longer than necessary, and many of them don't really propel the story. Even the ending seemed out of place, like a completely separate story tacked onto the end, not illuminating, much less resolving, the story.

2 stars out of 5

Fisherman's Friends (2019) ***

 

If the name of this film seems familiar, it's because it is the name of a cough drop, and also a Cornish singing group. Fisherman's Friends is a group of fisherman from Cornwall, England who sing traditional sea-shanties. They were an unlikely sensation back in 2010, when their album debuted and posted a Top 10 hit in the U.K. The story of how they got “discovered” by a BBC Radio presenter is the stuff of legend, and this film tells a hugely fictionalized version of the tale.

In the film, Danny (Daniel Mays), a music agent, is on a bachelor party weekend with some mates from work, in a small, Cornish, fishing village. The callow city-slickers are bored in the quaint, little town, but when they hear an a cappella singing performance from a group of local fisherman, Danny's boss orders him to sign the group. The order is a joke, but Danny takes it seriously, signing the group and wooing the daughter (Tuppence Middleton) of the group's craggy-faced leader (James Purefoy). Along the way, Danny learns to appreciate the small village, and their small-town ways make him a better person.

Like semaphore signals across the water, every plot point in “Fisherman's Friends” is visible from miles away. Despite being based on a true story, it looks as if almost the entire film is fictional, and yet there is nothing original here. Fortunately, the singing is enjoyable, and the cast was charming enough to mostly keep me engaged through the 2-hour film. Character actor David Hayman is particularly good, and you cannot look away from James Purefoy's wind-carved face. (Someday scientists will invent a microscope powerful enough to distinguish between James Purefoy and Tom Jane. Until then, I'll have to read the credits.)

For a film of such limited aspirations, “Fisherman's Friends” is slightly longer than it should be, but it's a fun, charming, little bit of entertainment, and if you have run out of ideas for what to do with a drunken sailor, this is the film for you!

3 stars out of 5

Parasite (2019) ****1/2

 

This is one that everyone was talking about in 2019, but I never got around to watching. I have no excuse for missing it. The film won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival, then went on to sweep the 2020 Oscars, winning Best Foreign Language Film, Best Director, Best Screenplay, and becoming the first foreign-language film to win Best Picture. Fortunately, it came back around to streaming, just in time for spooky season, and I'm sure glad it did! “Parasite” is a riveting, creepy, violent exploration of class and economic desperation.

The Kim family live hand to mouth in a grubby, basement apartment. The son, Ki-Woo gets a job tutoring the daughter of a wealthy family, and he sets out to get employment for the rest of his family. Soon, the entire Kim clan have cleverly installed themselves in good jobs with the Park family. They are feeling pretty pleased with themselves, but they learn that they aren't the only ones who have secrets.

You really want to watch this without any more spoilers than that. The film's twists and turns are too delicious to ruin them. It's a story about class, economics, and, ultimately, desperation. The Kims, obviously, are desperate for a lift into the middle class. The Parks, however, are desperate in their own way. They are well-off, but not so rich that they could not slide back down the social ladder. Thus, they hire a tutor to help their daughter excel in school and an art therapist for the younger son, about whom Mrs. Park is very concerned. Who is the “parasite” of the title? It's up for debate. One of the great strengths of the film is its nuance. It does not hit you over the head (a-la “Squid Game”) with a preachy message about economic inequality, nor does it provide simple heroes and villains. Writer-director Bong Joon-ho (“Snowpiercer”) intended the title to be a double-entendre. Like parasites, the Kims insinuate themselves into the home, the body, of the Park family. The Parks, meanwhile, cannot even use their own dishwasher, and they could be said to feed off the cheap labor of people like the Kims.

Bong Joon-ho supposedly got the idea for “Parasite” from his early days working as a tutor. He started out writing the story as a play years ago, and it eventually evolved into this. If my description makes the movie sound at all like a downer, rest assured it is actually quite funny, and a joy to watch. Bong has crafted a perfectly-balanced, dark dramedy that well-deserves all its accolades and, even a couple years later, is a must-watch!

4.5 stars out of 5