MaXXXine (2024)

Score: 4 / 5

The third part in Ti West's radical slasher "X" series has finally arrived! No one was ready for A24 to so fully embrace slashers when they did with gusto in 2022. West had a unique, uncompromising vision. A sort of American Horror Story anthology approach to the horror subgenre -- X proudly paying its respects to '70s exploitative slashers and Pearl offering a bloodstained version of '40s-era Technicolor -- these films' aesthetics only enhance their otherwise complex themes of art imitating life (or vice versa) and the ways film impacts the lived experiences and desperate dreams of average Americans in times of social and artistic anxiety. MaXXXine furthers these themes while emphasizing the inversion of that: to what lengths will a young wannabe starlet go to truly live in the movies she so loves?

Enter Mia Goth once again as the titular Maxine Minx, the sole survivor of the events at Pearl's farm in 1979. Now, six years later, she's made it into Hollywood, though her career of pornography is no longer fulfilling her goals. She auditions for an exploitation horror film, The Puritan II, winning the part and thrilled at the opportunities it presents. Unfortunately, several other young folks (mostly women) are being hunted in the city of angels, and while we know Maxine isn't the killer, a couple detectives (Bobby Cannavale and Michelle Monaghan) are keeping a close watch on her. After all, the Night Stalker is active, and details of his gory crimes have all but petrified the city with fear; his murders have, however, mobilized the religious right, loudly criticizing movies and music for corrupting youth with Satanic ideas. 

West lovingly allows these elements to simmer in a hazy ambiance, stoking the atmosphere into a heady cocktail of garish neon lights, shadowy liaisons, and the sort of dusty grime that comes with dry desert heat. While he mostly avoids too much lurid display, he gets the sound and feel of the era exactly right, and a droning synth score feels transportive in the best way. Too many films and series lately have done "the most" regarding nostalgic, materialistic trappings of the '80s, and this smartly and beautifully sidesteps those pitfalls. And the endless film references make for so much cinephile discussion fodder that I actually ran out of space on my notepaper during the screening. These are films for horror fans who also love movie history, and West is offering boons for those willing to get on his level.

Additional new players make for a really lovely context, including Maxine's icy, commanding film director (Elizabeth Debicki) who knows the screenplay is trash but is determined to elevate it, and a threatening private eye (Kevin Bacon with a deliciously weird New Orleans drawl) who knows too much about her sordid past. These powerful new characters open up the "X" world in wonderfully inventive and entertaining ways. They also, arguably, limit Maxine's agency in the movie that bears her own name. Rather than taking charge of herself and her fate -- as Goth so muscularly did in the previous two films -- here, she tends to be more reactive to the big threats in her orbit. Perhaps that's an intentional way to remind us that with bigger fame come bigger restraints; where better to critique issues of celebrity and paparazzi than literally beneath the Hollywood hills?

But the exploitation that returns to her life with a vengeance is the real star of this film, not its final girl. "Hollywood is a killer" reads the film's tagline, and that's about the long and short of it. An artistically challenging and narratively satisfying way to potentially end the series, MaXXXine succeeded for me even as it made me hope for more installments. Goth has made quite an icon of herself, involved as so much more than actor in these movies, and West has finally broken into mainstream cinema in a big way. If criticisms of gimmickry or contrivances are to be leveled at this film, I'd hope they are couched in considerations of how to suitably conclude such a wide-ranging, intangibly themed franchise without some forced writing and heavy-handed direction. But sometimes the material also calls for that, and I'm eager to dive into this seedy glamor all over again.

Mank (2020)

Score: 4.5 / 5

A challenging, glorious piece that is as unexpected as it is familiar, Mank is the first feature film from director David Fincher since 2014. But for those of us hoping for anything resembling Fincher's regular fare, Mank is not what we expected or wanted. It's a biopic that dramatizes the life of screenwriter Herman Mankiewicz as he wrote Citizen Kane, his most famous work. Interestingly, this movie does not attempt to definitively solve the controversy regarding who actually deserves credit for the screenplay between its titular character and Orson Welles -- both of whom won the Oscar for it -- and while it certainly uses popular scrutiny over that question to frame the drama, Fincher veers away from any determinism to instead craft the year's most fascinating character study.

The year is 1940 and Herman "Mank" Mankiewicz (Gary Oldman) is dictating his newest screenplay to his assistant (Lily Collins) while recovering from a broken leg. His new director, Orson Welles (Tom Burke), has finally been given complete artistic control over his newest film, and the two eccentric, theatrical personalities clearly will have some conflict, as we can see right away. Mank, nursing himself with alcohol, agrees to take no credit for his work, even as he obsesses over the script. From his assistant to his director, people slowly begin to realize the script screams its dangerous similarities to William Randolph Hearst (Charles Dance), a powerful media mogul and political meddler, and try to get Mank to change the material. Refusing to give in, he finally completes it in time, breaks his contract with Welles, and demands credit for what he -- and others -- deem to be his greatest work.

Not perhaps the most interesting plot when described that way, but the meat of Mank lies in its plentiful flashbacks, shown sequentially during the previous decade, as Herman enters the Hollywood scene and hobnobs with the elite. He meets Marion Davies (an amazing Amanda Seyfried), young actress and Hearst's lover, with whom he strikes up a sweet friendship. By ingratiating himself with Hearst, Mank becomes a screenwriter at MGM, ruled by the imposing Louis B. Mayer (Arliss Howard). Of course, Mayer and Hearst -- both wealthy and powerful Republicans in California -- have formed a tight political monopoly on propaganda, and launch a smear campaign against Upton Sinclair, running on a socialist platform. It's interesting to note that these fancy dinner parties are occurring even as the Depression reaches its lowest point and President Roosevelt is unveiling his New Deal. Some of these scenes -- political dialogue and all -- are the most dramatically potent and memorable of the movie, and I can't help but be surprised by Fincher's uncharacteristically timely content.

What's fascinating about this movie is that it's barely about its own plot; otherwise, it would be much easier to follow along, even with its almost inert drama. I think it's deeply about Herman's psychology -- speculative and dubious as it may be -- and about the state of the art. This is no love letter to old Hollywood. The studio system here is as venal and vile as you could imagine, ruled by rich bigwigs and their politics, where no one seems to enjoy their work, much less find interest in moviemaking. And yet, Fincher's typically obsessive control over his craft is palpable, and it is hard not to see this movie as a companion piece to Citizen Kane rather than a movie about its inception. In fact, I immediately rewatched the Welles masterpiece (which I've never much liked, despite the hoopla) and felt that I was seeing it for the first time. Fincher adopts some of the visual style of that landmark movie in his work here, along with cinematographer Erik Messerschmidt, theatrically upstaging crucial elements, casting long dark shadows, and occasionally swirling in some expressionistic imagery just for fun.

Both movies are filmed in black and white, and Fincher even draws little circles in the corners of frames like in a traditional reel change. Mank isn't stark b&w, though, but almost cream and gray, providing more access to a modern audience while quietly shifting our experience from one of fiction to one of dreamlike memory, as if Fincher's drama were a Tennessee Williams play. Why is this interesting? Two reasons, one I think artistically satisfying, and one deeply disturbing. First, this new recreation of classic Hollywood style symbolizes the same kind of pre-Golden Age mythos, disguising a corrupt system of money and politics, that Herman Mankiewicz lived in, loved, and grew to hate. Second, though, is our realization that, especially during the pandemic as cinemas closed and everything went to streaming services, we're watching this movie on Netflix. Netflix and Amazon Prime and Hulu and Disney Plus, among other companies now, are doing exactly what the major studios did before old Hollywood broke up. The companies are in complete control of their means of production and of distribution, controlling their material not in independently owned movie theaters but in millions of screens in every subscriber's home, workplace, and pocket. I can't help but wonder if Fincher's usual thematic interest in the darker sides of humanity is not actually present in Mank, but just hidden better: the major studio system Mank rails against is returning.

Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile (2019)

Score: 3.5 / 5

I have strongly contrasting opinions about this movie, and this is a rare case where my ambivalence does not particularly help the film in my esteem. And it begins with that historically accurate yet terribly cumbersome title.

The story indeed follows the life of Ted Bundy, here played by a more mature Zac Efron than we've seen since The Paperboy. Looking, as he does, uncannily like the handsome serial killer, Efron manages to play the character remarkably straight, never resorting to caricature or even relishing in the horror of the real man, in the way you might expect camp horror to (I'm thinking if Bundy were to ever appear on American Horror Story). His performance is so deeply layered that some might call it opaque, and I wouldn't say that, here, that's a bad thing; Efron does not give us any footholds, displaying Bundy in his charming wonder behind a blinding smokescreen of suavity. It helps that Efron's public persona is almost exclusively positive and popular, but here he is notably not playing any of his own strengths, and I didn't see a single -ism of his on screen. 

Most fascinating to me, though, is how tightly Efron and director Joe Berlinger work together to craft the film around his character. We never see Bundy committing any of his many murders. While I value the utter refusal to glorify his violence, the lack of it entirely almost does glorify it, doesn't it? It seems to suggest that his crimes occurred in a void, affecting no one, and are perhaps even forgettable, despite that many of his victims have friends and family still alive and mourning. Even more interesting, in this context, is that Bundy himself, bereft of the visual dynamic of his sins, becomes an utter void on screen. Efron's magnetic performance pulls us in, but in to what? He is a blank slate, a repository for all the headlines and accusations and charges leveled at him, but one that could possibly be -- forgive me for even suggesting it -- innocent. If the film is indeed trying to gaslight us (which I don't think it's smart enough to do, but more than once I wondered), it is surely because of its real focus.

The film's primary dramatic character is in fact Liz Kendall (Lily Collins), the barely fictionalized Elizabeth Kloepfer who literally wrote the book of being Bundy's girlfriend. Collins plays the character's insecurities to a tee, which makes her less interesting for us but perfect prey for Efron's Bundy. I say "prey" not because she winds up at the end of his knife but because the film eventually edits itself around her perspective as she begins to suspect the dark heart of the man she loves and has entrusted her daughter with. The too-good-to-be-true boyfriend Bundy is shown to us in blissful home video footage even as Liz turns to look at the latest news bulletin on television describing more brutal murders. Even in scenes where we only follow Bundy, Efron and the screenplay refuse to let us in on his secrets. I kept waiting for the murdering, the final blow of violence, and it never came, unless you count his increasingly adamant declarations of innocence. We never hear his thoughts, we never see his past, we never see his sins. The film, smartly I think, doesn't even try to rationalize his behavior by examining his childhood, development, or philosophy. That's obviously because it's impossible to rationalize him, but any attempt to do so belongs with criminal psychologists in a documentary, not in a Netflix drama.

I did, however, wish for a bit more; I just don't know of what. I found the courtroom climax -- courtroom dramas often boast my favorite climaxes -- dull, despite John Malkovich presiding with his deeply biting tone, because we've literally seen it before. There is a time and place for painstakingly recreated drama, and this one is just not it, especially not with numerous other Bundy documentaries streaming online at the same time. I wondered, during the movie, if Berlinger was relying too heavily on Efron and was otherwise incapable of making an interesting movie. And that may be true, but it's also highly possible that Berlinger was about a very different business than capturing a real-life boogeyman. What I liked most about this movie, and why I think I'd recommend it to any true crime fans, is that its refusal to reveal any hint of Bundy's "extremely wicked, shockingly evil and vile"-ness, is what makes the film so terrifying. His evil was real, as the film's deep understanding of him shares with us, and the only people who got to see it firsthand weren't able to warn others.

Tolkien (2019)

Score: 2 / 5

Orphaned teenager Ronald is an outcast at his new school, probably because he's too smart for his own good. One of his first lessons sees a bully steal his textbook before he's called on to read Chaucer in Old English; as the other students prepare to watch him be shamed by the professor, he recites the passage beautifully from memory. This earns him no friends. Not yet.

Taking center stage in Tolkien, a biopic of the young J.R.R. Tolkien in adventures of life and love, is Nicholas Hoult as the esteemed writer. His solid performance is matched by his comrades, notably Lily Collins as his love Edith Bratt and Anthony Boyle as his friend Geoffrey Bache Smith. Young Tolkien's hard work and brilliant mind eventually earn him the respect -- and, yes, friendship -- of three other young men including Geoffrey, and together the four create a club of intellectual artists. Meanwhile Tolkien maneuvers ever closer to Edith, whose life is far more restricted than his own and who seems to fall in love with the freedoms Tolkien's imagination offers her.

We see hints, occasionally, of Tolkien's legendarium in his early life, but the film largely glosses over the significant events and works that inspired his greatest creation (or, if you know better, his "sub-creation"). The closest we get to witnessing his genius blossom is in the heat of World War I, as he fights through the Battle of the Somme. Clouds of gas belch forth visions of wraiths and ghosts, one explosion may be a balrog's attack and another spews from a dragon's maw. Tolkien plunges through pools of mud and blood choking with bodies in what we might call dead marshes while green poisonous gas oozes through the trenches. It's really the only sequence in the film worth watching.

The film hosts, now I think on it, two other scenes that are interesting for other reasons. One is between Tolkien and his friend Geoffrey, strongly indicated in the film to be queer and filled with unrequited love for his comrade. The two are together the morning after Tolkien learned his childhood love Edith is engaged to another man and drank himself into a stupor; Geoffrey delivers a stunning speech about unrequited love being the most pure, beautiful, and terrible thing a man can know: a perfect subject for poetry. The other interesting scene comes immediately after, when Tolkien meets and begins to learn from Professor Joseph Wright (played by Derek Jacobi).

These scenes are the only moments in the film of gorgeous screenwriting. Everything else falls woefully short of the grandeur and potential insight into Tolkien's life. His religious ideas are almost totally erased, as are his childhood and years after WWI. The actual inspirations and influences on his work are skated over, suggested, or completely ignored. Instead, we get a lovely romance about how a man maneuvers between coming of age, love, and burgeoning artistic genius. Too bad they had to tack on the real-life names and so blatantly water down everything interesting about the real man.