Charley Varrick (1973) ****

 

Directed by Don Siegel (“Dirty Harry”, "The Shootist"), “Charley Varrick” is a neo-noir action-thriller based on the novel The Looters, by John H. Reese. The film did poorly at the box office, but I think it has elements of a lost classic.

Walter Matthau plays Charley, a crop duster and explosives expert who participates in a bank robbery. The heist goes bad, and Charley's wife and one of his partners are killed. Back at their safe house, Charley and his remaining partner, Harman (Andrew Robinson) discover that they scored way more money than expected from a small-town bank, more than three quarters of a million dollars. Charley correctly surmises that they must have gotten their hands on some Mafia cash, and sure enough, the Mob sends a hit man (Joe Don Baker) after them. Navigating between his stupid partner and the Mob, Charley hatches an elaborate plot to get away with his life, and hopefully the money.

There are pieces of a great film here, even if it does have a dumb title. (The film was supposed to be called “The Last of the Independents.” Not sure what happened there.) The title role was originally intended for Clint Eastwood, but Matthau is actually great as Charley. Andrew Robinson (the villain from “Dirty Harry”) and Joe Don Baker are excellent as well. The plot has some holes, and was so confounding that even Walter Matthau said he didn't understand the movie. Still, the film has moments of soft-spoken brilliance, and it's charming in an old-fashioned way. “Charley Varrick” hearkens back to a time when a director could just take a gritty crime story and tell it on film, no superheroes or franchises involved. Not only do they not make films like this anymore now, reviewer Paul Tatara said of the film in 1973 “they rarely make them like this anymore.” Maybe it's time for grubby-looking noir films like this to make a comeback.

4 stars out of 5

Suspiria (1977) **1/2 and Suspiria (2018) ****

 Suspiria (1977) 

 

From Italian horror director Dario Argento comes “Suspiria.” Jessica Harper plays Suzy, an American dance student come to Germany to study at a prestigious academy. As beautiful dance students die one by one, Suzy discovers that the academy is home to a coven of witches.

Argento and his writing partner/lover, actress Daria Nicolodi (“Deep Red”), had a few inspirations for their story, including the works of Thomas De Quincey, a British essayist who wrote about his opium dreams. De Quincey imagined an analogue to the three Fates, which he termed the three Sorrows: "Mater Lacrymarum, Our Lady of Tears", "Mater Suspiriorum, Our Lady of Sighs", and "Mater Tenebrarum, Our Lady of Darkness". “Suspiria”, named for Our Lady of Sighs, barely touches on the concept, but Argento went on to develop it into a trilogy with the films “Inferno” (featuring Mater Tenebrarum) and “Mother of Tears,” with the idea being that these are 3 sister witches, who have lived for centuries in 3 different cities.

It's an intriguing concept, but Argento's directing style does not lend itself much to developing a narrative or a mythology. He focuses more on creating mood through cinematography, using Technicolor to create lush, surrealistic scenes bathed in red or blue. It adds up to a visually interesting movie, but the scenes drag on too long without really advancing the story, and there just isn't a whole lot of story there to begin with.

2.5 stars out of 5

 

Suspiria (2018) 

I was skeptical about watching a remake of a movie that I wasn't all that impressed by to begin with. 1977's “Suspiria”, by Dario Argento, was a tone poem in red and blue technicolor, without a lot to say. Fortunately, the 2018 remake takes the best pieces of the original and assembles them into something much more compelling.

Dakota Johnson plays Susie Bannion, an American dancer who travels to Berlin to study at a modern dance academy. Inspired by Madame Blanc (Tilda Swinton), the head instructor, Susie discovers new depths in her dancing. Things are unsettled in the studio, however, as they are in Berlin, itself. The story is set in the German Autumn of 1977, a restless time in Germany, marked by terrorist attacks by the leftist group known as the RAF. A member of the dance troupe (Chloe Grace Moritz) has gone missing, and everyone assumes her disappearance is related to her connection to the RAF. Her psychiatrist, Dr. Klemperer (also played by Tilda Swinton), however, comes to suspect that her rantings about a coven of witches may have some credence.

Directed by Luca Guadagnino (“Challengers”), this is a remake that surpasses the original in every way. First, while the story is about a dance studio, the 1977 film featured almost no dancing. The remake puts dance front and center, and poses it as a way of performing witchcraft. Plus, all the beautiful women in skimpy dance outfits help the 2.5 hour run-time go by painlessly. The film explores the themes of witchery, matriarchy, and rebirth much more fully than the original, which barely had a theme at all. The setting, a Germany broken by WWII and tearing itself even further apart, lends a richness and melancholy to the tale. Dakota Johnson looks great and carries the film well, but Tilda Swinton steals the show. She tempers her usual weirdo vibe by appearing relatively normal as the bewitching Madame Blanc, but then she tempers the normalcy by being unrecognizable as the male character, Dr. Klemperer and as Helena Markos, the coven's aged matron.

“Suspiria” is definitely not for everyone. The horror, the gore, the nudity, the modern dance, these will be off-putting for some, as will the film's length. If you like an art-house horror flick, and you aren't afraid to use your pause button for a bathroom/snack break, then this is one remake you will not want to miss.

4 stars out of 5

 

Hundreds of Beavers (2022) ****

 

We really don't have enough pro-trapper movies. I think the last one was 1972's “Jeremiah Johnson.” So, the trapper community was due for some representation.

“Hundreds of Beavers” is a zany, slapstick comedy in the vein of Charlie Chaplin or Buster Keaton. It's a mostly-silent film about an apple cider brewer in the 1800's who loses his orchard and has to learn to survive in the harsh, northern winter. He becomes a trapper, going up against rabbits, raccoons, wolves, and, well, hundreds of beavers, all of whom are played by actors in full-size mascot suits. The film was written by a couple of Midwestern buddies: Mike Cheslik, who also directs, and Ryland Tews, who also plays the trapper. Made for around $150,000, it's like a live-action Looney Tunes crossed with a video game.

The film is like nothing else you will see this year, and it's an absolute delight! The gags combine the surreal with the practical. (Our first look at the wildlife is when the trapper is drinking from a stream, then looks up to see a guy in a raccoon suit peeing into the water 20 yards upstream.) LOADS of fur-suit animals are harmed in the film, and yet this dialogue-free film has a lot of heart. There is real pathos in the trapper's early isolation, as he learns his trade through painful trial-and-error and crafts snow-companions to ease his loneliness. Later, the relationships among the beavers made me question whether I still wanted to root for the trapper. But, of course, you keep rooting for that goofball, because you want him to wind up with the beautiful trader's daughter!

4 stars out of 5

Heretic (2024) ****

 

We are so accustomed to Hugh Grant's disheveled hair and disarming smile in lovable characters, it's disorienting and fun to see him in a darker role. In “Heretic”, Grant plays Mr. Reed, a potential convert visited by a couple of girls who are Mormon missionaries (Sophie Thatcher and Chloe East). Reed starts to pose theological questions to the girls, and the night gets more and more philosophical and tense.

Written and directed by the filmmaking duo Scott Beck and Bryan Woods ("A Quiet Place"), “Heretic” has its share of scares, but the movie is best when it is making us think. Mr. Reed poses increasingly provocative questions to the girls to make them examine their faith, and they give back as good as they get.

From what I know about the LDS (Mormon) Church, this film actually does a pretty good job portraying the missionaries and their experience, and the girls put up a reasonable defense of their faith. Beck and Woods reportedly did their homework to make sure they didn't paint the missionaries as a caricature. They consulted Mormon friends, and, in fact, Sophie Thatcher and Chloe East grew up in the LDS Church themselves. I doubt, though, that this will win the film any plaudits from Salt Lake City. Like every other church, the LDS Church has no sense of humor or flexibility in how its teachings are presented. You either toe the theological line, or you are … a heretic.

4 stars out of 5

A Real Pain (2024) *****

 

What is real pain? How do you measure suffering? How does one person's trauma measure up against another's. These are the questions posed by Jesse Eisenberg's “A Real Pain.”

Eisenberg and Kieran Culkin play David and Benji, cousins who go on a tour of Poland to honor their late, Jewish grandmother, who survived the Holocaust. David is reserved and anxious, his OCD barely controlled by medications. Benji is outgoing and open, but prone to sudden, dark moods. Obviously a rapid-cycling Bipolar, he alternately charms and confounds the other members of their tour group. David tries to wrangle Benji's moods while the two attempt to make some kind of connection with their grandmother's experience from within the confines of a comfortable, well-fed, guided tour.

As the story goes, Eisenberg was trying to write a road trip movie, but hitting a road block. When he saw an ad for an “Auschwitz Tour – with Lunch,” everything clicked into place. The pairing of a tour of a concentration camp with something as mundane as a free lunch inspired him to write about the inherent contradiction of trying to understand suffering from a place of comfort.

Of course, David and Benji are not completely comfortable. Despite their middle-class upbringings, they are both affected by mental illness. David wrestles with this; how the annealing process of the Holocaust should have produced a people so resilient that nothing bothers them. Yet, two generations later, despite never missing a meal or sleeping out in the rain, his cousin is so debilitated by depression that he lives in his mother's basement.

Sounds like a barrel of laughs, right? Well, surprise! It is! For a movie that deals with such heavy material, “A Real Pain” is shot through with intelligent humor. The acting is excellent, both from Eisenberg and Culkin and from the excellent supporting cast, which includes Jennifer Grey. Kieran Culkin earned himself an Oscar nod for Best Supporting Actor, and Jesse Eisenberg's script is nominated for Best Original Screenplay, and for my money he should have been nominated for Best Director, as well. This is clearly one of the best films of 2024, and they need to be making more movies like this one.

5 stars out of 5

Emilia Perez (2024) *** Spoiler Alert

 

In the most controversial of this year's Best Picture Oscar nominees, Zoe Saldana plays a Mexican lawyer who takes on an unusual assignment. A ruthless cartel boss hires her to help him transition into a woman, then fake his death so that he can fully disappear into the new identity. The film is in spanish, and did I mention it's a musical?

What's controversial about it? Besides the plot itself, the movie was filmed not in Mexico, but in France, and Mexican audiences have been irked by the poorly-rendered accents. Selena Gomez's spanish is reportedly downright atrocious. Perhaps unsurprisingly, given that French writer/director Jacques Audiard admits he did not study much about Mexico, the film traffics in Speedy Gonzalez-style Mexican stereotypes. (In one song, Emilia's son sings, “You smell like spicy food, spicy, spicy. Mezcal and guacamole.”)

You might think that the LGBTQ community would get behind the movie for starring a trans woman as a trans character, but there is grumbling from that quarter, too. Some feel the movie is a step backwards for trans representation, and I have to say that the story focuses heavily on the surgical/physical aspects of Emilia's transition, telling us little about her inner life. Also, the trans actress in question, Karla Sofia Gascon, has said some things on Twitter that some people don't like, so you know how that goes.

Setting all that aside, is “Emilia Perez” any good? I'd say it has its moments, but definitely is not Best Picture material. The outline of the story is pretty interesting, but the film is executed too shallowly for the subject matter. Some of the songs were good while I was watching, but I could not hum any of them for you now.

So, we have here a spanish-language movie by a French director, nominated for an American Academy Award, making this a truly cosmopolitan film. It features a trans heroine, played by a trans actress. On the other hand, that actress has said some controversial things, and the film has been accused of racial and trans stereotyping. It looks to me like whether you celebrate “Emilia Perez” or criticize it, you can signal how Liberal you are. Which means this thing is probably going to win the Oscar.

3 stars out of 5

Anora (2024) *****

 

Mikey Madison, from the show “Better Things” and the new “Scream” movie, plays Anora, a stripper/callgirl who meets and charms a Russian oligarch's spoiled son, Ivan. The two wind up getting married, and all hell breaks loose when Ivan's family finds out.

“Anora” is a simple story, beautifully executed. It's mostly a drama, but with just enough comedy to make it go down easy. It would have been easy for the story to tilt too dark or too glib, but writer/director Sean Baker maintains the perfect tone for the tale. Mikey Madison is a brilliant actress, who looks great naked, and this is a standout performance. Mark Eydelshteyn is hilarious as Ivan until it's time not to be hilarious, and he is perfect in both cases. Yura Borisov gives a heartbreaking performance as a thug with a conscience. The movie has a host of Oscar nominations, including Best Film and Best Director, as well as acting nods for Madison and Borisov. It's a hooker movie with a heart of gold, and easily one of the best films of 2024.

5 stars out of 5

Castle Freak (1995) ***1/2

 

The story of how “Castle Freak” came to be is a funny one. Director Stuart Gordon ("Re-Animator" "From Beyond") was supposedly in horror producer Charles Band's office and noticed a poster with the title “Castle Freak.” Band had no script at that point, just the concept and the artwork. He offered to let Gordon develop the idea on two conditions: it had to have a castle, and it had to have a freak. With some inspiration from H.P. Lovecraft's story “The Outsider,” Gordon and his longtime collaborator Dennis Paoli came up with a script.

Jeffrey Combs plays John Reilly, who inherits an Italian castle. He, his wife Susan (Barbara Crampton), and daughter Rebecca (Jessica Dollarhide) travel to stay at John's new demesnes and take inventory, only to find that the castle hides a horrible secret. It isn't only the castle that is haunted. John, a recovering alcoholic, turns out to have crashed the family car months earlier, killing their son and blinding Rebecca. The estranged husband and wife deal with their grief and anger, Rebecca deals with her disability, and all of them are stalked by a horrible presence.

When it comes to Stuart Gordon, I am used to black comedies, although in truth, “Re-Animator” and “From Beyond” are not truly comedies; the stories are played straight, they are just so campy and over-the-top that they are hilarious. “Castle Freak” is a more serious horror drama, and really a better story than those other films. On a ridiculously low budget of $500K, Gordon puts together a pretty decent family drama/horror flick, exploring some interesting themes. There is the marital discord between John and Susan, and the question of whether it is possible for her to forgive him after his drunk driving cost their family so much. Rebecca HAS forgiven her father, and as she learns to live with her blindness, she provides some pretty decent film representation for disabled people.

Finally, there is the titular Freak. I don't want to give too much away, but he turns out to be a much more sympathetic character than you would expect, even as he does revolting things. In fact, I think the film can be summed up by pronouncing the title two different ways. If you put the emphasis on the second word, “Castle FREAK,” then it is a typical, gory horror film about a haunted castle. If you emphasize the first word, “CASTLE Freak,” then it's a different story entirely.

3.5 stars out of 5

Yacht Rock: A Dockumentary (2024) ***1/2

 

You have probably heard of yacht rock: soft rock from the 70's exemplified by artists like Michael McDonald and Christopher Cross. There's a Sirius XM channel dedicated to the genre, and there are countless yacht rock tribute acts. It seems in the last decade or so the term is everywhere, but I didn't realize until I watched this documentary that the term “yacht rock” did not exist back when all that music was being made.

As the story goes, a comedian named J.D. Ryznar started reading the album covers from some of his favorite 70s-80s soft rock artists, and noticed that there were certain L.A. based artists of the time who kept cross-pollinating, showing up in the writing and musical credits on each other's albums. The heart of this scene seemed to be Steely Dan, The Doobie Brothers, Toto, Michael McDonald, and Kenny Loggins. For Ryznar, this was the early 2000s, and this music was still just called soft rock or easy listening. Ryznar and some fellow comics created a series of skits about this musical scene and put it on the internet under the name “Yacht Rock.” (Even though almost none of the songs have anything to do with boats.) A genre was born, and for the last 20 years, we've all been talking about yacht rock like we knew about it all along.

“Yacht Rock: A Dockumentary,” streaming on HBO Max, explores the creation of the web series that gave the genre its name and the resurgence in interest in the music that the series sparked. It also does a deep dive into the music. Interviews with the major players give insight into the dynamics between all these artists and really gave me a better appreciation for the musicianship behind all this sweet, smooth music.

You don't have to consider yourself a fan of yacht rock, but this documentary is for people who are at least familiar with the music. If you stopped listening to new music in 1975, or if you don't know any music older than 1985, then this will be wasted on you. For the rest of us, my suggestion is this: first, find the “Yacht Rock” web series on youtube and watch all 12 episodes. The episodes are only 5-10 minutes each, and it's hilarious! Then watch “Yacht Rock: A Dockumentary” on HBOMax, and enjoy a journey to a time when the hair was feathered and the music was smooth. Just don't think that this music is ever going to go away. That's what a fool believes.

3.5 stars out of 5

web series link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNTARSM-Fjc&list=PLBEB75B6A1F9C1D01

The Substance (2024) *****

 

In my favorite movie so far this year, Demi Moore plays Elisabeth, an actress whose star is fading. Over 50 now, her main creative outlet is her morning aerobics show, but she loses even that when her producer Harvey (Dennis Quaid) decides it is time to bring in someone younger. Facing irrelevance, Elisabeth is given a mysterious offer to try The Substance, which promises a “better, younger you.” Of course, there is a catch.

“The Substance” is French writer/director Coralie Fargeat's second film, and it signals a great, new talent. She gets outstanding performances from her stars, particularly Demi Moore, who plays some absolutely devastating scenes. One thing about the film, though, it is incredibly gross. I'm talking Stuart Gordon horror film levels of disgusting body-horror. I would view it as gratuitous and a weakness of the film, except that at the end, Fargeat pulls out all the stops and takes the gore so over the top that it becomes comic relief.

There's a lot of food for thought in “The Substance.” You might wonder why Elisabeth, who is still a fit, beautiful woman, would risk using an unknown “substance” to look young again. We never see Elisabeth with any friends or family or pursuing any hobbies. Her apartment and office are filled with giant pictures of herself. Her career is all she has, and it depends on her looking good on screen. While any normal person would look at her and say she has a lot going for her, Elisabeth internalizes the judgment of her industry, which is that she is old and ugly.

I could go on about the film for pages, but I don't want to ruin any of the surprises. Just. Watch. It! “The Substance” is a cutting, visually disturbing satire about how society views women as they age and how cruel we are to ourselves.

5 stars out of 5