Them That Follow (2019)

Score: 4 / 5

For some, snake-handling churches might just be an urban legend. But for those of us who know they exist, Them That Follow paints an eerie portrait of the realities of this fringe religious community. It's a belief system -- usually based in a speaking-in-tongues Pentecostal congregation -- that dares its practitioners to handle the devil's pets in order to prove their faith. After all, God is stronger than nature, and will surely deliver them from the venom of rattlesnakes. But maybe not from their own hubris, or stupidity.

We are immediately introduced to Mara, played by Alice Englert, the daughter of the town preacher. I say "town", but this remote community lost in the mountains of Appalachia scarcely resembles anything you might call incorporated. Mara is being courted by Garret (Lewis Pullman), but we're never quite sure if he really wants her or if he just wants to get closer to her father Lemuel (Walton Goggins). Lemuel uses his religious fervor to hold sway over the town, and fiercely guards his church and its serpentine secrets. This controlling environment quickly becomes hostile as we learn Mara is pregnant.

But this is the kind of story that can only go from bad to worse. The father of her child-to-be, Augie (Thomas Mann), is an ex-member of the church, and so is a sort of social outcast. Before Mara can be given to Garret, her virginity needs to be ascertained by Hope Slaughter (a lovely name, don't you think, played by the equally lovely Olivia Colman), the mother of Augie, who at once understands the girl's situation. Hope intends to keep Mara's secret, but shames Augie into repentance. Augie returns to the church, no doubt to make things easier for Mara and everyone, but Lemuel sees an opportunity to strike.

The film feels like an indie adaptation of a documentary or expose, and uses its setting, lighting, and design to claustrophobic effect. The "hollers" of this community are dark, heavily wooded and home to messes of deadly snakes. They frame the ramshackle buildings like a Dark Romantic proscenium, indicating that all is not well with the spiritual health of the land, and so the physical appearance suffers as a result. As Macbeth would say, light thickens, and the oppressive church structure and home interiors become increasingly menacing. The effect of these techniques is to close in around the viewer, helping us feel as trapped as Mara.

And, because of the blatant gravity of these elements, we also dread the inevitable, which makes the film almost unbearably monotonous. While this is no doubt intentional, it is also not a result of the screenplay, which could have used more than a little help. The seriousness of this film denies the possibility of even passing dry humor and never dips into black comedy, and so it is a mostly joyless affair. Even Winter's Bone had the emotional awareness of itself to include some bleak moments of absurd fun. Not so here, where the film asks us to peer into profound horror without ever actually taking us there. Thankfully, the writing/directing team are more visually skilled than narratively, so we feel the horror without being consciously aware of it.

As a final note, this movie won me over because, although it threatens a sort of hicksploitation (it fits better than redneck-sploitation), it never quite reaches that point. Instead, it becomes a sort of dirge for the poor and uneducated in oppressive rural America before its explosive climax. After wondering the whole film whether Mara will succumb to Lemuel or Garret or both, she rises above her situation royally and rescues herself and Augie -- poor, sweet Augie -- nonverbally declaring her family and home to be morally bankrupt. It's an unexpectedly positive turn at the end of the story that makes you feel slightly less icky about the whole affair.

Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018)

Score: 4.5 / 5

I don't know why Ant-Man gets such a bad rep among the MCU heroes. It can hardly be the character, because he's one of the funniest and most grounded characters in the series; perhaps it's that he's too pedestrian, and (out of his suit) not terribly special apart from his fast-thinking, safe-cracking mind and simple old-fashioned guts. It can hardly be Paul Rudd, who gives "dad bod" a smoking hot run for its money and whose wisecracking, heartstring-tugging performance carves out its own sizeable niche in the enormous MCU cast.

Perhaps the reason Ant-Man is so low on many fans' list of favorites is because, as a film, it is far more standalone than many others in the franchise. The other heroes who have tons of money, strength, powers, and influence change big, galactic things in their films. But Ant-Man's adventures are distinctly smaller in scope, and so these films don't feel as Big and Important as, say, a Thor movie. But they're not supposed to!

Ant-Man and the Wasp is a delightful, funny, sweet, interesting, and thoroughly entertaining romp that is both welcome and needed after the last few MCU movies. There's no big war happening. Thanos is nowhere to be seen. There aren't dozens of characters to keep track of. Michael B. Jordan isn't breaking our hearts and minds. Michael Pena does his speedy voiceovers again.

This is -- much more importantly -- the first time a female character has been given title credit, and Evangeline Lilly rocks every minute of her screen time as the Wasp. She's smart, funny, badass, in a suit that isn't particularly sexualized, and shows that leading women are long overdue in the MCU. It's also notable for having one of the most clearly queer-ish scenes yet in the franchise, when Janet van Dyne (the original Wasp, played by Michelle Pfeiffer) uses her quantum entanglement with Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) to reconnect with her husband Hank Pym (Michael Douglas). Scott changes his posture and his voice and suddenly he's channeling Janet, caressing Hank's face and holding his hand as they work together to rescue Janet from the quantum realm. The whole thing may just be played for laughs -- in the screening I sat through, there was riotous laughter from the back row -- but it's a sincere moment and Hank shows no discomfort or hesitation when Scott reaches out to him in tenderness.

The rest of the film is a fitting sequel to the first Ant-Man, featuring cinematic stylization unlike anything else in the franchise, fresh and unique humor, and some really ingenius storytelling. Think about it -- we're wowed by Doctor Strange's ability to warp the very fabric of reality, but that's a whole lot of safety netting for lazy writers: mess up or reach a plot hole, and have him cast a spell or two. But team Ant-Man has to rely on careful planning, fights have to be carefully choreographed, and the special effects can often be shot practically. I'm not saying one is better than the other, but it makes these films -- all of them -- far more rich when we can appreciate their varying aesthetics.

A final note: while Walton Goggins's villainous character is boring and flat, Hannah John-Kamen plays a fascinating antagonist called Ghost. While, like Killmonger, she's not a "villain" in the usual sense, Ghost is simply trying to survive and live a life free of excruciating pain. This path puts her at odds with team Ant-Man, and so their run-ins become fights. But her thankless role and dedicated performance shine in this film, and she may be one of the most interesting antagonists yet written in the MCU. Especially cool is that she doesn't die or need to be locked up at the end, but instead is helped by our heroes. Plus, her powers (if we can even call molecular breakdown a power?) are really cool to watch, even as we're aware that they're killing her. Ghost is also notable in that, in the comics, she is a male character. Hooray for having another powerful, interesting female instead!

P.S.: The mid-credits scene -- after the fun and funny film -- drives a stake right through our warm fuzzies when, while harvesting quantum energy to help Ghost, Scott gets stuck in the quantum realm when Hank, Janet, and Hope all disintegrate into ash. They were the only ones monitoring Scott when Thanos snapped his fingers and destroyed half of humanity. It's a brutally chilling reminder of where we are in the MCU storyline that is sure to wipe the smile off your face.

IMDb: Ant-Man and the Wasp

Tomb Raider (2018)

Score: 3 / 5

Confession: I've never played any of the Lara Croft games and I've not yet seen the films starring Angelina Jolie (though I'll be watching them soon). This was my first experience with the character and franchise.

What a blast! It's a sort of origin story -- I assume it's a reboot -- of the character with Alicia Vikander (Ex Machina, Tulip Fever, The Danish Girl) playing Miss Croft. She's totally badass, a hardcore action star that I certainly didn't see coming. Tough and reckless, her character is almost as impressive as Vikander, not letting the brute violence around her keep her down long. It's the sort of stuff that makes a star, and Croft, being one of the only survivors of the film's climax, is every minute a rousing hero.

That's not to say it's all a fun and fabulous movie. The story feels like a half-baked, half-eaten, and half-digested meal of Indiana Jones; that's not such a bad thing, but surely there were other ways to film sequences than copying them from Crystal Skull or Last Crusade. It's also irritatingly sentimental for an action movie and relies on excessive flashbacks to unravel the emotional connection Croft has with her father (Dominic West), whose lengthy absence and possible death serves as the major MacGuffin.

The story is simple and dull, that is, until the very end. The denouement is chilling and terribly exciting, as it suggests much more to come as Croft seeks to undermine the villainous Trinity organization, a powerful shadow group that has infiltrated her family's many business holdings. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for more appearances by Derek Jacobi and especially Kristin Scott Thomas as potential Big Bads!

What else is there to say? The action is very exciting, the special effects are pretty great, and the physical work done by the actors is amazing. If you want a mostly mindless action adventure of the old-fashioned kind, watch it. If you love Alicia Vikander (like me) and want to watch her kick lots of booties (and a few balls), watch it. If you like video games and get excited by movie adaptations, well, I can't really speak to that, but you should still watch it. Two hours of preposterous, blood-pumping genre film viewing won't be wasted time.

IMDb: Tomb Raider

The Hateful Eight (2015)

Score: 1.5 / 5

Quentin Tarantino's hyped-up newest (and, yes, eighth) film, The Hateful Eight, is conceptually and visually impressive, and it is also uncompromisingly ugly. Essentially Reservoir Dogs done in a fake-Western style, the film collects nine (yes, nine) horrible characters together in a cauldron that boils over into cruelty and violence during a beastly three-hour detention span. The unlikely and unlikeable characters spin webs of lies and slurs at each other from the get-go, and by the final act bloodbath, the only catharsis I felt came with the lights rising in the auditorium.

We begin with a stagecoach journey through Wyoming snow, shown in delicious 70mm film that only really works for shots like this. The remainder of the film takes place inside a cabin that, while improbably spacious like Hermione's handbag, does not need a 70mm presentation. It seems that Tarantino is trying to do a Hitchcockian Lifeboat, and he is ruining his own claustrophobic concept by expanding his vision. Even the wideshots of the coach outside are empty, full of sound and fury but signifying nothing, which makes me wonder why so many critics are applauding that camera choice. I might also add that the pretentious scope comes across as though the movie presents itself as a masterpiece. Which it most certainly is not.

One by one, the characters pile up. We have a full cast, from Kurt Russell (performing with a strange John Wayne swagger) to Samuel L. Jackson (being Samuel L. Jackson), and from Michael Madsen (doing his thing) to Tim Roth (playing an effete Brit, "the Hangman", a part probably intended for Christoph Waltz). Most curiously, we have Jennifer Jason Leigh as a treacherous outlaw, spending the entire film chained to her captor, face perpetually smeared in blood, and the constant recipient of brutal attack. I "understand" the violence against her in terms of the plot. I do. I do not, however, understand the repeated face-punches that Russell's character delivers to her. I also do not understand the laughter such violence elicited from the men in the audience around me. Sure, its shock value is undeniable, but laughter?

Now before you attempt to reenact "The Hangman" and (spoiler alert) lynch me like Jennifer Jason Leigh, let's get a few things straight. I am generally fine with Tarantino's penchant for movies featuring an underdog getting ultra-violent revenge; I may not clamor for more, but I can appreciate his style and his sentiments for what they are. But this film is not a revenge narrative. Not really. Rather, it's an excuse for a bunch of men to get together and toss around vicious slurs with no merit, little purpose, and bad payoffs. It's an excuse to paint the main woman in the film as a villain, chain her up, torment and torture her, and ultimately hang her, all while calling her a "bitch." In fact, I challenge you to time all the deaths in the film. Hers is the only one that takes longer to see, as the camera lingers pornographically on first her bloodied, prostrate frame and then on her wide eyes as she is slowly strangled from the rafters. Hers is the only death in the film that is not only witnessed by the camera, but celebrated. And if you think I'm being oversensitive, check out the only other two women in the film: Both are black, kind and hospitable and endearing, and both are coldly murdered after just a few minutes of screen time.

Still not convinced that this movie is ugly? Let's try the racial slurs that fly around like the snow outside. At least Django Unchained had historical and dramatic reasons for its incessant use of "nigger", and at least the leading black character in that story enacted revenge on the evil white slaveowners. I already knew Tarantino loved that word almost as much as blood, but I wasn't prepared for its tedious and provocative use here. I was also unprepared for Tarantino's lazy and crude flourish before intermission, when Jackson's character recalls, with perverted relish, capturing, raping, and murdering a white man who is revealed to be the son of another one of the so-called hateful eight/nine (being Bruce Dern's character, a former Confederate general). The story, whether true or untrue, serves its purpose in leading to the general's death.

But it's an oddly childish scene, with two stellar actors tossing insults at each other like snowballs. Jackson's lengthy monologue describing his prodigious penis is both stupid and unnerving to hear and to contemplate. Jackson's manic and watery eyes bulge and shimmer while Bruce Dern looks on in horror, and meanwhile I was yawning. It was, like the rape scene in Pulp Fiction, an obvious and lackluster attempt by Tarantino to make us wonder, "Wow, I can't believe we're going there," and applaud the director's use of taboo. But what it also does is perpetuate that very taboo. It creates a spectacle out of a tragedy, simply for audience reaction. It strips away any guise of historical accuracy or political commentary from that moment, and reveals the man behind the curtain: Tarantino, self-appointed knight in white, who sweeps in from a place of privilege to rescue the bitch and nigger and faggot from their weaknesses and then display them as trophies, whereby he may further declare himself a friend of the "underdog".

In fact, this film was so insensitive and ironic, that I'm questioning almost all of Tarantino's declared solidarity with oppressed people. Sure, some of his movies are revenge flicks of women, Jews, and American slaves; but I'm wondering what's really at work in them, if this new vision is a culmination of their disparate messages. For the first time in a Tarantino film, I don't see any moral framework whatsoever. I don't see any justification, causation, or even merit to the evils at work. Instead, I see a gleeful pit of vipers, slithering over each other as they bite, wallowing in the venom and the gore, and ultimately crying out not for compassion but for still more violence.

Ultimately, this film is little more than a dare. A cruel dare made by a man who feels impervious to criticism. He is daring us to hate this film. He is daring us to declare our hate, and then wallow in it while his hardcore fans will no doubt object to criticisms like mine with a simple, "Of course it's an ugly movie, just look at the title! Hateful!" As if, as long as the production team admits its ideological faults, it's okay to put trash onscreen. As if being offended by that trash makes us prudish. As if we should either get off on these images of gore and filth or challenge him and all he declares to be righteous. In fact, as I begin to glimpse that man behind the curtain, I suspect that his much-lauded style of lavish sensation is little more than just that. That his only goal in filmmaking is sensation. I suspect that his years of identifying with underdogs and minorities and outsiders is little more than a ploy to get acclaim and praise for the same trash he'd be making anyway.

I don't see Leigh, in this movie, as a strong female role in a man's movie, holding her own and fighting back; I see Tarantino holding a misogynist leash and pretending that the woman on the end is a trophy. I don't see Jackson here as an ironic counterpoint to our cultural discussion on racism; I see Tarantino in blackface using language that he has no business using. Tarantino is daring me to hate The Hateful Eight. I don't. But I don't have to like it.

P.S. There are elements of the film I do like. Channing Tatum in the wild west is one. Ennio Morricone's fabulous score is another. And frankly, some of Tarantino's dialogue is one. My issue with that last one comes in when we don't have, for example, Christoph Waltz and his icy, ironic eloquence to deliver it. It also comes in when Tarantino himself thinks his dialogue is the best ever when, actually, it's not. He should read some O'Neill if he wants to do another long day's journey like this.

IMDb: The Hateful Eight