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

What About Bob? (1991) ****1/2

 

Bill Murray's films have generally aged really well, and “What About Bob?” is a great example. I was lukewarm on this movie the first time around, but over the years it has become one of my faves.

Murray plays Bob, a guy with multiple phobias, whose crippling anxiety makes it almost impossible to leave his apartment. His new psychiatrist, Dr Leo Marvin (Richard Dreyfuss), however, is famous, with a best-selling book, and Bob has great hopes for their therapeutic relationship. No sooner do they meet, however, than Leo leaves on an extended vacation. Bob's separation anxiety is so great that it overcomes his other anxieties, driving him to leave the city and follow Leo to the coast, where Bob insidiously and maddeningly insinuates himself into Leo's vacation and his family.

Bob is the classic interloper character, someone who shows up and insinuates himself bit by bit into another character's life, like a cuckoo laying its egg in another bird's nest. The first time I watched the film, I hated Bob. Despite Leo's conceitedness, I felt sorry for him as Bob screws everything up for him and drives him to madness. Over the years and multiple viewings, however, I came to see that the person primarily responsible for Leo's problems, is – you guessed it- Leo. (Don't you think this is probably something Leo would tell his patients?) Yes, Bob is completely inappropriate, but Leo's inability to enforce boundaries, and the fragility of his success are the result of his own greed and inflated ego. We see that even in his family life, Leo insists on maintaining his self-image as a wise, kindly counselor, making his interactions superficial, even with those closest to him. Bob appeals to people because, even as nuts as he is, he is vulnerable and honest, which makes him accessible in a way Leo cannot be.

We also see a difference in these 2 characters in how they manage change. Bob is terrified of everything, but he finds in himself a willingness to be terrified, to be uncomfortable, and thus, to invite change into his life. Leo, the supposed sane one, is completely rigid, so change, when it inevitably comes, drives him over the edge.

“What About Bob” is directed by Frank Oz, who also gave us the delightful "Dirty, Rotten Scoundrels." He gets a lot of help here from a terrific cast. Murray and Dreyfuss are in top form, even if, as rumor has it, they hated each other on set. The supporting cast is great, as well, especially Charlie Korsmo, who plays Leo's son, Siggy. (Korsmo was a talented child actor who gave up acting to get a degree in physics and become a lawyer.)

Within the Bill Murray oeuvre, “What About Bob?” is not quite as perfect as "Groundhog Day"“ or "Lost in Translation"“, but it's still a classic about a couple of men facing their fears. Don't be afraid to watch it.

4.5 stars out of 5

From Beyond (1986) ** or ****

 

Fresh off the success of “Re-Animator,” director Stuart Gordon reunited some of the cast from that film for another low-budget H.P. Lovecraft movie. Based very loosely on Lovecraft's story, “From Beyond” is a tale of scientific obsession gone wrong.

When physicist Edward Pretorius (Ted Sorel) dies horribly in his laboratory, the police blame his assistant, Crawford Tillinghast (Jeffrey Combs), whose stories of monsters from another dimension suggest criminal insanity. Psychiatrist Katherine McMichaels (Barbara Crampton) is intrigued by his story of a resonator that activates the pineal gland, and when his CT scan shows enlargement of that gland, she insists on seeing the resonator for herself. The visions it gives her lead to an obsession that puts their lives and sanity at risk.

Gordon shot “From Beyond” in Italy to save money, on a reported budget of $2.5 million, which was cheap even for 1986. The film feels like a cheap, B-movie, but it succeeds on the strength of its excellent cast. Sorel, Combs, and the gorgeous Barbara Crampton bring a level of commitment that makes “From Beyond” a delight, with some comic relief from supporting actor Ken Foree.

You have to appreciate “From Beyond” as a study in excess. This is not a movie that leaves anything to the imagination. The special effects look like someone took the goriest scenes from John Carpenter's “The Thing” and stretched them out for several minutes. I honestly got tired of these extended body-horror segments. Stuart Gordon is definitely not one of the “less-is-more” directors. When it comes to gory, slimy, screaming special effects, his attitude is “more-is-more.” Don't watch this is if you don't like slime and gore. Don't watch if you only like to watch “good” movies. Don't watch if you don't want to see Barbara Crampton's titties (but only briefly, which is my one real criticism of the film). If you are a Lovecraft-loving, cult-classic grooving horror fan, this is a must-see.

2 stars out of 5 on the regular scale, 4 stars on the cult-classic scale

Challengers (2014) ****

 

I have to admit to an old-fashioned prejudice against people with only one name. It seems presumptuous to me that, for example, Cherilyn Sarkisian has staked out a position that no other celebrity can ever use the first name “Cher.” Any performer who adopts the solo-name affectation starts out with negative points in my book. I gotta say, though, that in her latest film, Zendaya won me over.

In “Challengers,” Zendaya plays Tashi Duncan. (See, even though she only has one name, she can play a normal, two-named character! That's how good an actress she is!) Tashi, the most promising upcoming tennis star on the women's circuit, meets Art (Mike Faist) and Patrick (Josh O'Connor). Best friends since childhood, Art and Patrick go after Tashi together, and she winds up dating Patrick. Art bides his time, and after Tashi suffers a career-ending injury, she becomes Art's coach and then his wife. Tashi coaches Art to stardom, while Patrick floats around on the lower tennis circuits and in a lower level of Tashi's heart. This love triangle comes to a point when Art and Patrick wind up playing each other for the first time in years.

“Challengers” is a sometimes-funny, sometimes-dark, rather sexy exploration of love, friendship, and ambition. Mike Faist and Josh O'Connor are excellent in their roles, but it is Zendaya who steals the show with her nuanced portrayal of Tashi. As the story jumps back and forth through time, we come to realize that Tashi doesn't love either of these guys nearly as much as she loved being a champion. Her marriage to Art is really just a way for her to live out her ambition through him.

4 stars out of 5

Ender's Game (2013) **

 

Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game is one of the classics of science fiction. Much like Frank Herbert's Dune, the sequels become less and less satisfying, but the first novel is perfection. The movie is an example of how difficult it is to make a film out of such a great novel.

Asa Butterfield plays the titular character, Ender Wiggin. Ender lives on a near-future Earth facing an alien menace. Insectoid creatures from space have already invaded Earth once, and their superior firepower almost overwhelmed us. Only the brilliant heroics of a pilot named Mazer Rackham (Ben Kingsley) saved the day. Now, Earth's energies are focused on producing the next generation of space fighters, hoping to find the next Mazer Rackham before the bugs attack again.

Ender Wiggin represents that hope. His older brother and sister were promising students, but his brother Peter is a cruel bully, and his sister Valentine lacked the killer instinct to be a soldier. Ender's parents were allowed to do something very few couples in this future Earth are allowed, which is to have a third child. The payoff is Ender, a brilliant kid with the right balance of empathy and aggression to be a future commander.

Colonel Graff (Harrison Ford) and Major Anderson (Viola Davis) recruit Ender for Battle School. They take him to a space training station in orbit, where he and other child recruits engage in increasingly complex war games in preparation for the real battle ahead. Ender is an ace at the games, but navigating the social scene as the youngest, and smartest, kid there, is his real challenge.

Orson Scott Card's novel is a beautifully-written story, full of empathy for even its most hate-able characters. Much of the action takes place in the characters' heads, which was bound to make it difficult to translate the story onto screen. Screenwriter/director Gavin Hood does not have what it takes to pull it off. This is a book that probably should have either been a mini-series or been split into two films, as Denis Villeneuve did with "Dune."  For a fan of the novel, this film feels superficial, with a hurried pace, as Hood ticks off major plot points and skips a few entirely. For someone who hasn't read the book, I imagine this just looks like a star-studded dud, without much of a point.

2 stars out of 5

American Fiction (2023) *****

 

In Radha Blank's 2020 film “The Forty-Year-Old Version,” Radha raps about “poverty porn.”

“Yo, it’s poverty porn,

you regular Blacks are just such a yawn.

If I want

to get on,

better write me some poverty porn.”

She was talking about ghetto stories of drug abuse, crime, single mothers, and cop shootings, turned into a sort of pornography for middle-class America to gawk at and feel smug for feeling pity. Her character in the film, a frustrated playwright, finds that poverty porn is what the white people around her- her agent, her producer, and her audience- seem to want and expect from a black artist.

Blank isn't the first black artist to express frustration at being pushed to make poverty porn. Percival Everett's 2001 novel Erasure explores the same theme, and now screenwriter/director Cord Jefferson has brought that book to film with “American Fiction”. Jeffrey Wright plays Monk Ellison, an English professor whose white students pitch self-righteous fits when he assigns them books that contain the N-word. He is also a writer struggling to get his latest novel published. Ellison writes about universal themes, but because he is black, his books tend to get filed in the African-American Studies section, and publishers hint that they would be quicker to publish something more “relevant to the black experience.” Poverty porn, in other words.

Ellison looks around and sees another black writer, Sintara Golden (Issa Rae) having great success with her book “We's Lives in da Ghetto.” Golden's book, written in inner city vernacular, is straight poverty porn, and white liberals are lapping it up. Out of frustration, Ellison sits down and writes his own poverty porn story. He sends the book out under a pseudonym, assuming that publishers will recognize it as a joke. Instead, publishers embrace the book as a genuine depiction of the black experience, and Ellison finds himself with a best-seller on his hands.

Meanwhile, Ellison's life is falling apart. His professor job is in jeopardy due to those sensitive, white students. His upper-middle-class family is struggling with his mother's new-onset dementia, and his siblings, both doctors, are not able to help as much as they should. The reclusive Monk is forced to become a caregiver while coming to terms with his estranged siblings and dealing with his late father's legacy of infidelity.

“American Fiction” is a very sneaky movie. Ellison's family drama is actually the kind of Oscar-bait story that we see all the time in film, but almost always featuring a white family. Being black, Hollywood would typically depict Ellison's family as poor, and someone would end up getting shot by the police. Director Cord Jefferson's big trick is that in the middle of a sharp, funny satire about black artists and poverty porn, he gets us to watch a universal drama about a family that is struggling despite their wealth and education, who just happen to be black.

5 stars out of 5

Fargo (1996) *****

 

Writer/director Ethan Coen this year released the movie “Drive-Away Dolls,” his first project, as far as I know, without the help of his usual writing, directing, and producing partner, Joel Coen. The event reminded me how much I love so many Coen Brothers films, and it seemed like a good time to re-watch one of their best.

William H. Macy plays Jerry Lundegaard, a sad-sack car salesman who needs some cash. His attempts to get the money from his wealthy father-in-law are rebuffed, so he hires a couple of criminals, Carl (Steve Buscemi) and Gaear (Peter Stormare) to kidnap his wife. Jerry plans to split the ransom money, which he figures will come from his father-in-law, with the “kidnappers,” and he'll get the cash he needs with no harm to anyone. Naturally, the plan goes awry, and these scoundrels wind up with pregnant small-town police chief Marge Gunderson (Frances McDormand) on their tail.

“Fargo” is just a masterpiece! This is what happens when you get the right combination of writer, director, and cast. William H. Macy's portrayal of Jerry is fascinating to watch, as his expressive, hound-dog face shifts seamlessly from vulnerability to deceitfulness and back again. His pleading eyes seem to be saying, “Please believe my lies. They are all I have.” We don't get a lot of back-story on Jerry, but the essence of the character is that he is a man with no power. He lacks the character to do hard things, so in every situation, whatever power he has is taken from him. This happens with his father-in-law, and it happens with Carl and Gaear, who immediately sense his weakness. Jerry should be leading a quiet, dull life, but he lacks the character to settle for what is his due, and he has just enough imagination to get himself into trouble trying to get more.

“Fargo” is a story about 2 different worlds: One world in which decent people paint bird pictures to be put on stamps, and another world in which people think nothing of kidnapping and murder. It's a story about how easily one of those worlds can intrude on the other. Carl and Gaear represent the banality of evil. They don't enter Jerry's life at random. He invites them. They can enter your life, too. All you have to do is ask.

5 stars out of 5

Hit Man (2023) ****

 

For over a decade, a college professor named Gary Johnson worked for the Houston police department. He didn't advise them on points of law or forensics. Gary would put on a wire and pretend to be a killer for hire. He would meet with people who had reached out looking for a hit man, and his recordings would provide the evidence to arrest and jail them.

Gary's story was the basis for a 2001 TexasMonthly article, which director Richard Linklater and actor Glen Powell turned into a screenplay, in which they take the bones of Gary's story and then veer wildly into fantasy. Powell plays Gary, a nerdy professor whose other job is doing tech support for police sting operations. When the cop who usually does the pretend-hit-man thing gets suspended, Gary gets thrust into the role. He seems an unlikely undercover operative, but he turns out to be a natural. In sting after sting, Gary adopts different personae to make his targets comfortable enough to say out loud that they want him to murder someone.

Then Gary meets Madison (Adria Arjona), who is looking to have her abusive husband killed. Maybe it's because she is super-hot, or maybe it's because she seems genuinely scared and desperate, but Gary feels that Madison is different from his usual targets. He abandons the sting and convinces Madison to seek a divorce instead of a murder-for-hire. Naturally, that's not the last he sees of her. Gary, or actually his alter-ego Ron, winds up in a steamy relationship with Madison, who still thinks he is a hitman, and soon we are forced to reconsider who is fooling whom here.

Richard Linklater has expressed that he thinks films these days should have more sex, and he does his part here to bring sex back to cinema. “Hit Man” is downright steamy. Even when Powell and Arjona have their clothes on, they have great chemistry. It helps that Linklater moved the story from Houston to New Orleans, which is an inherently sexy city.

“Hit Man” borrows its superficial themes from classic noir films like “Double Indemnity,” but its lighter tone makes it more a dark, screwball comedy rather than a true noir. The real theme of the film is the question of whether it's possible to change your life and/or your personality, and what would you be willing to do to make that happen.

This is a delightful movie, and a joy to watch. Powell and Arjona are very easy on the eyes, and both give great performances. The supporting cast is tight, too. Other than a couple of questionable plot points, it is almost a perfect film. They should make more like it!

4 stars out of 5