Tenet (2020)

 Score: 3 / 5

There can be no denying that Christopher Nolan is a unique voice in the industry. For better or worse, he saved the Warner Bros./DC partnership and has revitalized cinematic noir for the twenty-first century. It's impossible to watch one of his movies and not instantly recognize his aesthetic, but his latest ultra-high-budget outing is a nearly perfect microcosm of a case study, showcasing why his visions are brilliant and often utterly inaccessible.

We begin with a SWAT siege on an opera house in Kiev. During the concert performance, our unnamed Protagonist (as identified in the credits) rescues an exposed spy and retrieves a bizarre-looking artifact. He is saved by a mysterious soldier before he is captured and tortured; after biting into his cyanide pill, he is resuscitated to learn that the pill was a fake, the mission was a test, and he passed. It really doesn't make much sense at this point, but it makes for a pulse-pounding opening sequence. Unfortunately, the movie makes less sense from here on.

The Protagonist, played by a beautifully dressed and skillfully underperformed John David Washington, is basically a stand-in for what we might imagine 007 to look and sound like under Nolan's directorial control. Suave and stoic, he infiltrates, races, fights, and of course shoots in his impeccably tailored suits. He travels around the world form Kiev to Mumbai, Tallinn to Oslo, meeting with powerful oligarchs and arms dealers while following his lead: a single word, "Tenet." He learns the shadowy organization has developed technology to reverse entropy, essentially "inverting" seemingly spontaneous, kinetic objects to travel backward through time.

Much like Nolan's last foray into theoretical physics, Interstellar, this movie manages to impress us with its Big Ideas but utterly fails to convey the science involved. Unlike that film, though, at least Tenet can boast of plenty of exciting action between the messily contrived, exposition-heavy scenes of dialogue. But for a movie that runs 150 minutes, you'd think Nolan could have included a concise, simplified description of just what the hell is happening. While the science of inverted movement is bizarre enough -- I mean, entropy itself is insanely complex -- Nolan further complicates it by allowing humans to invert themselves in time, and suddenly we have a particularly bizarre version of time travel in what is otherwise an already twisty spy thriller. He's basically showing off his dubious understanding of theoretical physics (he consulted with the same physicist on Interstellar) but in such a way that he doesn't let us in on his masturbatory fantasies. In fact, he lets one of his characters early on -- a scientist, no less, played by Clemence Poesy in a single scene -- tell the Protagonist, "Don't try to understand it; feel it." It's really a shame Nolan didn't take that advice, either.

The Protagonist learns that a Russian oligarch named Andrei Sator (played by a deliciously wicked Kenneth Branagh, doing his best Bond villain impression) supplies the inverted bullets that started this whole mess, and he attempts to infiltrate through Sator's wife. The art dealer Kat, played by a cool Elizabeth Debicki, is unfortunately as underwritten as she is transparent, and is easily the weakest element of the movie (again, a common criticism of Nolan's work, this one of female roles). In a truly mind-numbing series of dialogue, we learn that she is being blackmailed by the husband she loathes for selling him a forged painting. Instead of giving her a character, the movie gives Kat a son, whom Sator dangles as incentive for her to not simply leave. The Protagonist seemingly cares for Kat and his attempts to help rescue her result in a parallel plot that often intersects with the espionage/heist mess.

To discuss the plot any further will surely confuse me, so I'll leave that to the hordes of YouTube "explainers" who get off on that sort of thing. My takeaway here is that the plot often makes just enough sense if you just let it take you along for the ride, but the more I try to understand the physics the worse my comprehension fails me. This is Inception on steroids; at least that film had a fairly simply vertical structure of levels of artificial dreams. This film is a web of time-travel like we've never seen before and hopefully will never see again, draped in Nolan's slick style and carried along by a series of fabulously realized action scenes. Of course, many of these are also commonly criticized in his flicks, which boast high concept themes but rely heavily on car chases, heists, and hallway combat to entertain. There's really not much that's groundbreaking in those, despite his fans' loudest praises.

And, frankly, the film might make more sense upon a repeat viewing. Specifically one in which I can use closed captions. Ludwig Goransson's hypnotic, pulsing, drone of a score may be effective, but it is also deafeningly loud. The sound editing, too, often drowns out the voices of the cast in key scenes -- I'm thinking of the characters behind their breathing masks a la Bane (in The Dark Knight Rises) or Kenneth Branagh whispering into a walkie-talkie during the climax. Some might call this technique immersive, but struggling to hear took me out of the moment in ways that were, at that point, irreversible. An immersive experience like Dunkirk this most certainly is not.

Finally, and just because this is the kind of thing I'm interested in, I became aware of attempts at palindrome in the script in ways that I'm desperate to hear Nolan discuss. Not only is the back-and-forth visual dynamic key in the film -- in ways that sometimes occur in the same scene, or are visited later in the same scene from a different perspective -- but specific names reminded me of the Sator square, which the credits confirmed for me with the spelling of the villain's name:
SATOR
AREPO
TENET
OPERA
ROTAS

I would love to know what the square means for Nolan, and if it helped serve as his inspiration. Actually, I'd just like to know what the hell this movie means to him, generally, because I'm just at a loss. You could discuss the briefly-mentioned impetus for the plot as climate change; you could discuss the problematic female lead; you could discuss the thematic implications of inverted time. Even the basic plot is sure to spark some bewildered after-screening discussion; my group stood in the parking lot and some fairly basic plot points were topics of some contention and consternation. Ultimately, there is too much going on in this movie to really make any concrete sense of, well, anything. Which is fine, for some viewers.

This viewer preferred to enjoy the vibrant chemistry between Washington and Robert Pattinson, and their incredible habiliments that were never less than impeccably ironed. My God. 

You Should Have Left (2020)

Score: 2 / 5

You Should Have Left could refer to several things here. It could refer to Theo Conroy, the protagonist of this spooky little flick, who really should have left his first wife before things ended especially badly. It could also refer to Susanna, his new wife and Hollywood actress, who probably should have left their current marriage before starting an affair. Most clearly, it refers to the sort of Amityville-esque "GET OUT" foreshadowing these characters should have heeded before deciding to live in a rural vacation home in Wales that happens to be very haunted. Finally, it acts as a clear warning to us, its audience, that unless we are just looking for some mindless entertainment, we'd do better elsewhere.

In its defense, haunted house movies are awfully difficult, especially if you want to do something new and interesting with one. This tries neither, and rests happily on the premises of other, well, premises. Though this particular house is no Overlook Hotel, the story is only a shy replication of The Shining while the characteristics of the abode behave similarly to that iconic building. Easily the most interesting thing in this movie, the house is not the sort of pastoral cottage you might envision in Wales; its cold, modern architecture marries cool tan wood and sharp gray stone for a severe, notably not-Gothic atmosphere that even throws a few glimpses of pastel coloring in for good measure. It's quite pleasant to view, and most of the film takes place during the day, lulling us into a sense of warmth and safety.

But the house seems to be conscious. Though the haunting initially manifests as shadows that move around on their own, they quickly suggest a more psychologically-driven basis. Doorways appear in one shot but are gone in the next; characters measure internal spaces that are larger than the external structure allows; the shifting layout lengthens staircases and hallways or adds hidden spaces that cannot architecturally fit. And then, of course, there's the mysterious caretaker named Stetler who never seems to be present but is often around, and might be taking candid Polaroid photos of the new tenants. These elements, like those of the Overlook, suggest that the scariest hauntings aren't necessarily vengeful spirits to be placated a la Ghost Whisperer but are in fact places where bad things have happened, the knowledge of which torments and twists the minds of those caught within its walls.

And it's fair to say that, despite the less-than-original plot and themes, the performances of its small cast also help the movie. Kevin Bacon plays Theo, the much-older husband and father figure, who seems about as tightly wound mentally as he is physically. I mean, honestly, the man is gorgeous, and the salt-and-pepper thing he's got with his facial hair is hard to ignore. While he's no Jack Torrance, he is a writer suffering block; he is the older, jealous husband of a young woman; he is the father of a child who learns secrets about their family. Amanda Seyfried plays Susanna with surprising restraint, and her coy, seductive demeanor belies a strikingly acute awareness for the fractures in their otherwise happy relationship. Seemingly-happy, rather, as we learn. The filmmakers clearly understand these characters well, and as the house haunts them, we also become haunted. Neither we nor these characters are ever fully aware of what's real, what's warped or exaggerated, or what's fake.

The biggest problem for me, here, is that writer/director David Koepp has done this kind of thing before, much more effectively and beautifully. In Secret Window, he magnificently pulls off the kind of home-invasion psychological thriller that could easily translate to a haunted house, one in which fabulously inventive character drama married genuine terror on screen. Literary and witty, that film fully fleshed out its own complexity and managed to make perfect sense the whole time. Conversely, this new flick rarely makes sense, twists and turns often not because of character development but for the sole purpose of audience manipulation, and ends with a bizarre attempt at catharsis that answered few of the questions I still had. And its laughably bizarre quasi-religious explanation neither fits nor sits here. Not that horror should always explain itself, mind, but it should at least be interesting -- and consistent -- enough to allow for theoretical discussion afterward.

Da 5 Bloods (2020)

Score: 4.5 / 5

Four aging Vietnam War veterans reunite in Ho Chi Minh City. Catching up doesn't take long -- the bonds forged in war clearly have not weakened -- and we quickly learn their purpose. The four black Americans recently learned of a landslide that revealed what they hope is the plane near which their squad leader was killed. The "Bloods", as the group called themselves, hope to reclaim what's left of the body or at least memorialize the site; they also hope, as we discover, to reclaim a buried locker of gold bars they had buried there during the war.

The four men, older if not necessarily wiser, embark on their journey into the heart of darkness much as we might expect in any movie dramatizing the war in Vietnam. Tempers run as high as the jungle temperatures, dangers lurk around every palm frond, and madness slowly manifests before the group fractures. It doesn't help that each successive scene reveals -- mostly through quickly paced, jargon-infused expository dialogue -- increasingly disturbing details about the relationships between the men. After all, the character who is perhaps most like a protagonist declares very early on that he is a vocal Trump supporter. Later, as the group explores the city, one reunites with his old Vietnamese girlfriend and learns he fathered a now-grown child. One man reveals his financial bankruptcy and consequential desperation for this journey. All seem to have varying degrees of PTSD.

The story, far from inventive, nevertheless manages to feel consistently fresh, clearly due to the uncompromising vision of its writer and director Spike Lee. Though this movie doesn't reach the horrific immediacy and jolting timbre of his previous feature, Da 5 Bloods must be ranked among the best of the director's films. Its surprising humor and sudden, gory violence combine into a fever dream of an experience, one that I would have preferred to see on the big screen instead of streaming on Netflix. Don't be daunted by its lengthy runtime; this movie is electric with energy, both thematically and dramatically. I found myself only briefly getting lost in the implications of certain developments before getting absorbed into the next crucial sequence. And its mix of genres (the heist aspect of the plot feels very Western, as if Lee were turning The Treasure of the Sierra Madre into an homage of Apocalypse Now) keep it fabulously engrossing in terms of aesthetics.

And, as only Lee can do, this movie wears its relevance on its sleeve without beating us over the head with its significance. A stock story of warring men journeying into the wild for gold could be storytime fodder for any time and place. Add elements of racial injustice, colonial and imperial fallout, gender politics, mental illness, etc., and you can start to actually say something audiences might consider relevant. Lee, with his typical flair, combines all these elements and more until such easy "lessons" become impossible to untangle, much less critically defend. Instead, he simply allows the complexity of the story he presents to be just that -- complex -- while framing it with timely and equally complicated stock footage. Here, he frames the story of the Bloods with the voices of Muhammed Ali and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., both of whom are synonymous with Civil Rights activism in the U.S. and both of whom were vocal opponents of the war in Vietnam.

Through this frame, Lee also seems to be repurposing the trope of American films that deal with Vietnam. They are, far and wide, populated by macho white men who behave very badly and are glorified in cinematic history as a result. Name any major movie about the Vietnam War and it will not indicate that nearly one-third of the soldiers sent by the U.S. were black. But here, bolstered by what I would call the most surprising and award-worthy performance of the year so far by Delroy Lindo, the focus is firmly on black men. Sure, they don't behave much better than their white counterparts in other flicks, but the dramatic depth is far more profound. During flashbacks, the Bloods squad leader Stormin' Norman (played by Chadwick Boseman) educates his comrades (and audience) on the history of a racist country relying on black and brown bodies to die in its wars, on the few significant soldiers of color actually recognized by history, and on viewing the gold they seek as the first step toward reparations for slavery.

Perhaps most welcome, for me, was that this movie isn't nearly as on-the-nose as BlacKkKlansman was. Granted, Lee's wit and messages worked magnificently well there, and it spoke keenly to the America he was trying to entertain and teach. But here, despite Lee's insistence that Trump be named multiple times in this movie, Lee is not simply "bashing" anybody, much as they may deserve it. In playing a longer, more delicate game, he reveals the devastating legacy of "President Fake Bone Spurs", as one character says, pointing out that while his red MAGA hat floats around the Vietnamese jungle, the man himself never did. Delroy Lindo's character, the Trump supporter, makes his case for the Oscar this year in one particular scene as he cuts his way, alone, through the jungle and rants and raves directly into the camera. As Lindo speaks about the U.S. government and grows more incensed, Lee twists our expectations by not having the character go mad; rather, he reaches a cathartic revelation (an apocalypse, now, if you will) before calling on a cruel God and -- well, there's still more irony to be had in the scene.

As always, Lee can be enjoyed as pure entertainment. But what I love best about him is that he layers so many complications atop each other -- dramatically, thematically, artistically -- that you could never fully and absolutely understand one of his movies. I haven't even mentioned the score by Terence Blanchard (and soundtrack by Marvin Gaye!) which also deserves an Oscar nomination, or the Vietnamese woman who acts as a sort of Greek chorus, accentuating themes of racial injustice in history and wartime governments while raising questions about the narrative filters on this film. Further, Da 5 Bloods would seem to be Lee's means of revisiting his earlier movie The Miracle at St. Anna and putting it in a crucible to make new art that is dramatically and intellectually more dense and satisfying. And, by framing it the way he does, Lee performs the haunting revelation that this war, for black Americans, is far from over.

A Hidden Life (2019)

Score: 5 / 5

Terrence Malick's latest film -- he has certainly become prolific in the last decade -- might be my favorite yet. While it is uncompromisingly true to his unique aesthetic, for better or worse, it is one of his few pictures to adhere tightly to a script. Some may prefer that to his usual free-associating meditations on love, life, beauty, pain, and transcendence; I personally find Malick far more accessible and enjoyable when he has a more linear story to tell. This is because I won't get lost in his bizarre leaps of vision or ambiguous attention to sensory detail over character or story; rather, because he gives us a plot, we can then much more easily understand the weighty, heady themes he nevertheless launches at us with breathtaking focus.

A Hidden Life tells the story of, indeed, a life largely obscured from history. Franz Jagerstatter was an Austrian peasant farmer who was called up for military training when World War II erupts in Europe. When he is eventually summoned to fight, he refuses, citing his pacifist and religious beliefs. This is most pointed (and most criminal) when he is made to enact his first duty: swearing an oath of allegiance to Hitler. In 1943, Franz is eventually arrested, imprisoned, and sentenced to death for his conscientious objection. Because of his apparently dishonorable beliefs and actions, Franz was almost wiped from history by his own people until 120 years later, when a U.S. sociologist published his biography; in 2007 the Pope declared Franz a martyr.

The story is, of course, exactly the sort of life-affirming work that can and will affect everyone, and naturally attracts artists like Malick. His focus on the profoundly human perspective, though, keeps this film more grounded, intimate, and immediate than anything I've seen from him since The New World. Unlike The Tree of Life, which attempts to encompass all of existence, his Hidden Life attempts to encompass the purity and beauty of the human soul. I'd argue it succeeds magnificently. Malick's focus on Franz's country life may be culturally and geographically specific, but in the moments of joy and love between Franz and his wife and three daughters, of farming in the Edenic Austrian countryside, of praying and eating and soaking in the sunshine, we see traces of Malick's usual themes. Along with Franz, we thrive in the beauty and grandeur of nature and the sweat of his brow, we see with him why social institutions (his church, his government) put his spirit and life in danger, and the indomitable human soul in pursuit of transcendence.

Malick, ever the poet and philosopher and theologian and artist, nevertheless allows us to taste the torments Franz endures during a challenging three-hour runtime. Even before he is arrested, Franz and his family endure increasingly intense ostracism from his small rural town, including his mayor, priest, and bishop. After he is arrested, he is treated brutally by guards while psychologically tested by lawyers all in an effort to break his resolve. His wife and daughters are victimized by the hostile townspeople. And all the while, other people quietly say they support him, even as they do nothing to stand in solidarity. Most fascinating to me is that even some Nazis (or, at least, some Nazi supporters) are given a chance, in the film, to question, consider, and doubt Franz's ideas. One of my favorite scenes includes the late Bruno Ganz as a judge who questions Franz and, after he leaves, appears to attempt empathy with the man who is certain to die.

And though I'm not entirely sure Malick could ever be said to be a particularly timely filmmaker, nor even a remotely angry one, A Hidden Life comes fabulously close to being both. It wouldn't be a stretch to declare this movie a sharply pointed assault on U.S. culture at the end of the 2010s. The movie begins with stock images of Nazis marching in the streets with torches, and if you don't immediately recall Charlottesville in 2017, you're doing it wrong. When you hear the priests and lawyers equivocating, submitting to the fascist dictator and war machine, it's impossible not to think of the way the Trump administration has catered to the religious right and the way outspoken "Christian" leaders have bowed before him as if he were their Messiah. Malick, in telling this story at this time is unveiling a defiant and damning mirror upon us, revealing that our faith is in crisis. Not beyond our help -- and indeed, he is calling us all to action -- but at the threshold of doom.

The Lodge (2020)

Score: 4 / 5

This post is late in coming, but I watched this movie in mid-April, the height of our stay-at-home social order. It was still cold that weekend, and the garden was in danger of frost. As an introvert, I never got particularly depressed during this time, but this was about six or seven weeks in, and the cabin fever was beginning to addle my brain. We all started to lose track of time, health, priorities. And The Lodge was a particularly nasty way to spend a Friday evening after a trying day of working remotely. It may not have the same emotional effect on me now, but I'd guess it's still a harrowing experience. From the writing/directing team of Goodnight Mommy, I'd have expected no less. It takes ample ideas from other films and fashions something absorbing and indeed horrific if never quite original, but its cinematography and editing make the film, for me, endlessly fascinating.

The latest Hammer horror flick begins with a stylish, cerebral series of twists that some may find hard to grasp. I certainly did, upon the first viewing. We meet Laura, calling for her children and clearly distressed despite her immaculate, comfortable house that feels like something from a historic district in a middle-class New England suburb. She takes them to their father, Richard, whose modern house indicates he has moved on from Laura; indeed, its warm wooden exterior belies a cold interior with lots of open spaces, through which Laura sees a shadowy woman sneaking away. "Don't worry, she's not here," Richard tells his soon-to-be-ex-wife. But after he pushes for a divorce, Laura goes home and straightaway kills herself.

There's a chilling efficiency at work in these first twenty minutes, not because the plot or characters are particularly complex but because the aesthetic is. In only three separate locations, the architecture changes dramatically, as do the props and lighting. The opening shot, initially thought to be the titular lodge, is a warm wooden interior but the shot's focus is of a lone window through which icy white light streams. This sharp contrast is revealed as irony by the fourth shot, when this interior is populated by dolls; it's a dollhouse -- a la Hereditary -- that foreshadows more than anything. But its use in the first twenty minutes suggests something about the children who play with it, as we shall soon see.

The "other woman" is Grace, a mysterious figure who doesn't physically appear in any early scene. Richard (played by a brusque Richard Armitage) declares his love for her and hopes his grieving children will embrace her as he has when he declares his intention to marry her during their Thanksgiving preparations. But they have no intention of doing so: young Mia (Lia McHugh) clings to the doll of her mother while Aidan (Jaeden Martell) accuses her of being a psychopath and looks up her history. We learn along with the children that Grace is the daughter of an insane cult leader and the sole survivor of a mass murder-suicide. Richard met her while researching the cult and while his character remains rather opaque, we know he continues to push the children toward Grace, ultimately deciding that the three of them will spend time in the family's remote lodge in the mountains for Christmas.

It's obviously a terrible idea, and the children's cold welcome of Grace (Riley Keough) at the twenty-minute mark launches the film into its main plot. They drive up through the snow to the cabin in the woods, where Grace's trial by fire (or, rather, ice) is to commence, when Richard has to leave for his pre-Christmas work duties. We know immediately that Grace knows she doesn't belong and isn't welcome, not only due to the children avoiding her but due to the strong religious iconography in the lodge. At their first meal, an imposing Mother Mary looks down at Grace, clouding her visage and starting to remind her of her past, to the point that her nose starts bleeding. At this point, we are less than a third of the way through the movie, and at least three distinct genres have been firmly established: psychological thriller (children/outsider), tragedy (family), and horror (cult). This movie could go anywhere. And then they get snowed in.

And that's where I'll leave you. Creepy things start to happen, and we're constantly wondering if the lodge is haunted, if Grace is possessed, if the kids are out to get her, if she's just crazy. A notable screening of The Thing suggests there may be more horrors at stake for Grace and the kids than each other. The many twists and turns are less shocking and terrifying than deeply disturbing, and by the climax -- yes, there's a "reveal" but by that point the movie is more about what will happen as a result of the revelation -- I found myself eager for the film to be over. Not because I didn't like it, quite the contrary, but because its oppressively claustrophobic aesthetic, heady symbolism, and densely cerebral psychological horror was tough to endure. And, by the reveal, the film will continue on its (at this point) inevitable course to a grisly conclusion.

Self Made (2020)

Score: 3.5 / 5

Okay, it's not a film, but this is my blog and I can review whatever I want.

Self Made is the fascinating story of Madam C.J. Walker. I didn't know it was fascinating because I didn't know who she was, and so this miniseries works best by opening the door to historical knowledge. Madam was the first woman who became a self-made millionaire in America. She was also Black. And this series relies on her vision, resourcefulness, determination, hard work, and gumption to inspire and educate. It's also eminently approachable by someone, like me, who admittedly doesn't know who Walker was, doesn't really understand business, and doesn't know much about hair care (especially for black people). That's what got Madam Walker to the top.

Played by the inimitable Octavia Spencer, Madam C.J. Walker becomes iconic, the sort of larger-than-life historical figure you might see featured in an Oliver Stone movie. She begins in squalor as Sarah Breedlove, working hard as a washerwoman and having nothing to show for it, looking a bit of a mess as a way of life. Then she begins to lose her hair. After getting treatment -- in what feels a bit like a con but proves to be legit -- from a "magical" hair tonic, Sarah's life changes. The hope and joy in her wide eyes when she recognizes the opportunity to help other women in her shoes is infectious; Spencer's gifts as an actress stem from an uncanny ability to dominate the scene and reach out through the screen into your heart. Sarah determines to change her world, and starts by seeking a partnership with the only woman she knows who works with black women's hair: Addie Malone, played by Carmen Ejogo.

This is where things get a bit tricky, both in terms of the protagonist's life and in terms of the story being told in Self Made. The episodes touch on issues of black people's hair without really meditating on the powerful symbolism and culture of it. Addie is notably light-skinned and could be described as a "tragic mulatto" in the story; she wants to defend the ground she has earned but is unwilling to share her efforts or wealth with the shorter, darker, older Sarah. A few snide jabs about selling to people who want to look like Addie and not Sarah is all it takes for the latter to take things into her own hands. She steals Addie's formula and improves it, expands it, and develops the start of an empire with her husband and daughter in tow. She changes her name and slowly transforms into the Madam of history.

Because it is a four-part miniseries, we can safely assume the producers and writers wanted some drama, and so the two middle episodes creak a bit under the weight of interpersonal drama. Walker's husband (Blair Underwood), feeling emasculated and forgotten by his entrepreneur wife, embarks on an affair. Her daughter, Lelia (a wonderful Tiffany Haddish), is quietly revealed to us (not to many others) to have a lesbian lover. These inclusions are mostly predictable and feel too melodramatic; even though I know precious little about business, I found myself increasingly curious about how, practically, Walker was building her empire. I wanted to learn more about her actual work and the real issues she faced as a black businesswoman.

And then there are the frequent run-ins with Addie that turn bitchy one-liners into emotionally brutal, if repetitive, suggestions of superiority based on their relationships to men (including a disturbing few scenes with Booker T. Washington), money, hair, and of course skin color. And while some may criticize this dramatization of colorism as central to this story, I can't help but think it's an important discussion to continue having, especially in the historical context of the early 1900s. As a result of these scenes, though, Addie comes across almost as a cartoon villain, following Walker around the country and waiting for her next opportunity to pounce; Ejogo is brilliant, though, and plays the role with electric energy.

And while it may not be the most historically accurate series, there is something powerful to be said about dramatizing important figures in history that many of us may not know about. After all, last year's Harriet was the first major movie about Harriet Tubman, a hero every single U.S. kid learns about in elementary or middle school. Kasi Lemmons, who directed that picture, directs the first two episodes of Self Made, and uses her wonderful flair for fantasy to let us inside the mind of Madam Walker. With an eccentric soundtrack of modern R&B, hop-hop, and also some oldies and even spirituals, Lemmons makes sure we know this is all meant to be accessible and fun. Some of my favorite scenes depicted showgirls dancing and displaying her products, a boxing match with bright lights, and similar daydreams that bring to vivid life the fantasy life of someone so driven to success that they occasionally lose touch with reality.

The series spends all its time focusing on Walker's rise -- appropriate for a story with a title that implies its focus -- and so could be said to perform a disservice to Walker's legacy. Why aren't her incredible social contributions, political messages, and extensive philanthropy mentioned until some text and photos at the end of the series? But this isn't a historical treatise, nor is it meant to be the be-all and end-all statement of a full life lived. This is perhaps best shown in the series finale, as fireworks launch overhead and the black women in the crowd look into the camera to describe their own amazing accomplishments. And I, for one, am really happy to see a damn good story about Black empowerment utterly absent of the influence of white helpers, authority, or intervention. This series is meant to be as inspiring as it is entertaining, and the little bit of education it provides is certainly not a bad thing.

 

Spectral (2016)

Score: 3 / 5

I'm quite surprised this flick bypassed cinemas and started by streaming. The big-budget spectacle of Spectral seems intended for more than a laptop; but then I remember I'm archaic and most folks watch Netflix on ultra-high-def smart devices larger than my bed.

After a creepy opening scene in which a soldier in a crumbling building is killed by an invisible figure -- invisible but shimmering in a ghostly mist -- we are introduced to Dr. Clyne (James Badge Dale), a DARPA scientist summoned to Moldova and clearly the protagonist here. As it was his special goggles that helped soldiers "see" the otherwise invisible killers, he is brought in to help modify, clarify, identify, and hopefully pacify as a result. Though the assailants are thought to be insurgent enemy soldiers wearing advanced camouflage, the real horror is that they kill almost instantly and with no apparent weapons.

Then we enter the post-intrigue phase of the film, wherein a lot of new characters are quickly introduced with slipshod exposition. Few matter much, beyond Bruce Greenwood as the U.S. general and Emily Mortimer as the CIA operative running operations in Kishinev, the capital of Moldova. The others, we expect, will die soon enough; this may not be a horror movie, but it runs in that vein of sci-fi action in which bodies will surely pile up. After lots of technical dialogue that I couldn't/didn't want to follow, the team travels into the field with Clyne atop a tank with tools to help him see the unseen enemy. And things start to get interesting.

I don't want to bore with too many details, and a joy in the film is to learn the developments along with the characters. This is probably largely because the characters themselves have no personality, no drama, and no complications. The closest we get, during the dull middle of the film, are a couple conversations between Clyne and others about the ethics of scientific advancements and the moral implications that follow. It's not deep, but it rings true once we learn exactly what the enemies are. Then again, I'm still not sure I entirely understand what they are, apart from what I gathered from the visual dynamics during a notably freaky climax.

But the visuals of this movie are what made it worth a watch from me. There is some downright gorgeous CGI that highlights the gritty urbanity of the setting, and it helps that the cold color palette brings a helpful chill to a movie that questions the cost of war and the ghostly consequences of violent human commodification. While the film can't decide if it wants to be more philosophical or action-heavy, and thus it suffers, its final battle does not shy away from the full-blown chaotic conflict we see often on the big screen. This is when I was most wowed by the spectacle, even as I wasn't sure that the film had earned it.

The more I write, the more I become convinced this film was meant for a streaming services. Gorgeous visuals aside, the plot and characters are too thin and cliche to have found a lucrative market in cinemas. Really, this movie could have easily been reworked into an episode or two of an Arrowverse show. I don't mean that as a dig at all; I'd be totally down to see Team Flash fighting a bunch of ghostly white soldiers.

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.

Calibre (2018)

Score: 3.5 / 5

Our understanding of fraternity between British boarding-school mates may not be complete, but that might actually help us as we are suddenly launched into the adventure of one such pair. We might say Marcus and Vaughn are best friends, but they don't seem all that familiar with each other. Their initial conversations are strained, perhaps because the more aggressive Marcus (Martin McCann) has arranged to go on a hunting trip to the Scottish Highlands with Vaughn (Jack Lowden of Dunkirk, Mary Queen of Scots, and the BBC miniseries War & Peace). Vaughn is expecting to be a father soon and is hesitant to leave his pregnant fiancee; he has also never hunted before. The night before their hunt, the two men drink and dance at a village pub, pairing up with young women for the night despite being warned by the locals to keep to themselves.

If this sounds like the setup to a horror movie, you'd be on the right track. Calibre quickly ramps up the energy as a geopolitical thriller in the vein of Deliverance. It may be partway around the globe from Appalachia, but there's no denying the similarities in geography, social structure, economic disparity, isolated and traditionalist culture, and even some patterns of language. I'd argue that, unlike that 1972 hicksploitation flick, Calibre works better toward understanding the nature of human violence in the wilderness without resorting to too much shock value and degeneration of human bodies. But, then, this Scottish picture has plenty of blood, even if it is rooted in realism.

Waking up hungover, the two foolishly stick to their plan and go hunting. Marcus, snorting coke to stay alert, lets Vaughn borrow his gun because the miserable newbie forgot his ammo, even though they are aware this breaks strict gun laws. So when Vaughn finally prepares to shoot a deer, we know the worst will happen. And it does, when the deer turns and Vaughn's bullet kills a little boy behind it. The boy's father shows up and, in a bereaved rage, attacks Vaughn before Marcus kills him. It's hard not to shout at all of them for not wearing proper hunting attire, not scouting the location first, children separated from guardians, not being in the right state of mind, but what's done, as Lady Macbeth would say, cannot be undone.

The two protagonists make a series of grave blunders -- they do not bury the bodies, fleeing the scene and talking to a nearby gas station operator before deciding to return that night -- that are nothing short of infuriating. In fact, by the film's halfway point, I rather wanted these guys to be tarred and feathered. Having returned to town, their sins revisit them: their tires are slashed by a jealous, toxic man for having slept with the aforementioned forbidden women, and they are spotted returning to the village after burying the bodies just before dawn. They learn the identities of the men they killed even as they are entreated by the town leaders to help find investors for their remote community. The incidents pile up, weaving an intricate tapestry of anxieties so fraught, even viewing it made me feel sick to my stomach. The film's chromatic scale turns bleak, gray and brown and sickly green, while shadows lengthen and sweat shines. That shrill, heady sort of soundscape (music and mixing) typical of the genre is sure to raise your gooseflesh if you listen in surround sound.

I won't reveal the rest of the action, climax, or ending here because it's utterly thrilling. While rarely unexpected, the plot twists are given a distinct edge by the filmmakers due to the raw acting of Lowden and McCann, the setting and sounds, and the stunning editing choices. It helps, too, that the film supplies a few thematic intrigues as it progresses, especially in terms of debt and investment; it also shifts the tropes of outsiders as foreign to the differences between urban and rural communities, something infinitely more universal and interesting.

Apostle (2018)

Score: 4.5 / 5

I think it's about time we crown Dan Stevens the newest scream king on the scene, and let's keep casting him in more horror flicks. Even in the midst of his bizarre, crazy-eyed role in Legion, he delivers varied and nuanced characters in feature films, revealing a bankable and versatile star who is never less than interesting. He has dived headfirst into horror before, but the terrifying efficacy of Apostle stems from its use of Stevens in a period piece. This time, he is far from any aristocratic abbey.

Thomas Richardson (Stevens), thought to be dead, returns home to his aggrieved father: his younger sister has been abducted and held for ransom by a cult. While it's not exactly clear by no authorities have intervened, we're excited to see Thomas embark to the cult's remote Welsh island and investigate. The mystery is chillingly thick, and as Stevens poses as a new convert to gain access, we see that he is a very troubled man. Surely this film will be a journey to his heart of darkness as much as that of the new, nature-based religion led by their prophet Malcolm (a deliciously creepy Michael Sheen).

Roughly the first half of the film feels uncannily like The Wicker Man, from the remote cult-ruled island to its seemingly peaceful pagan prosperity, and from the lone troubled man investigating a disappearance of a young woman to the cult's classy and clearly insane leader. Then there's its preoccupation with bodily fluids: the island inhabitants claim the barren island only flourishes now because of their regular blood sacrifices. It's disturbing, sure, but each practitioner keeps a bloodletting jar at hand and only cut themselves. Apart from their animal sacrifices. Surely there won't be murder, right? Especially not as the cult's resources have diminished and the islanders are getting desperate as their crops begin to wilt and wither.

I'm not familiar with writer/director Gareth Evans's other work, but if it's anything like Apostle, I'm sure it's fascinating. The visual approach, rich in period detail and a production designer's dream once on the island, is grim and gritty, coated with grime and mud, feeling like a darker, dirtier older brother of Midsommar. By the second half, though, there are more elements in this filthy aesthetic, especially blood and guts. Unexpectedly and shockingly violent, the gore gets poured into several scenes in ways that really bothered me, probably because we don't often see this kind of body-ripping realism in psychological horror movies.

But it didn't put me off -- despite what my gasps and gags might have suggested as I watched -- and that is because it just works with the story Evans is telling. It's about desperation, about how we commodify and use others, sucking them dry and discarding them, "for the greater good" -- always, conveniently, helping ourselves. Even Evans's filmmaking sometimes feels indulgent and excessive, but its specificity and reluctance to give us any easy answers is as admirable as it is frustrating. I love his commitment and his incredible ability to stretch our nerves on the rack for so long; this mystery is one well worth delving into. Plus, I'm a sucker for isolated, murdery cults. In fiction.