THE LIGHTHOUSE [Film Review]

Imagine a nightmare roommate scenario. You know the type: farts loudly, chews food with their mouth open, never flushes after dropping a deuce in the toilet. Now add in some Lovecraftian tentacle porn, drunkenly sung sea shanties, and plenty of nautical lore, both mystical and superstitious. Got it? Yeah, this doesn’t even begin to scrape the surface of Robert Eggers' sophomore film. Relying heavily on isolation, dread, and a sense of supreme unease, The Lighthouse is a glorious mind-fuck of psychological proportions.
That said, the film reminds me quite a bit of Repo Man, with Willem Dafoe being the wise (or just crazy) old “mentor” in the vein of Bud and Robert Pattison playing the role of the neophyte Otto. Of course the setting is far removed from the urban sprawl of Los Angeles, replaced by eternal sea brine dampness, lottsa muck, and sqawking gull guano. But it's no less surreal than the cult classic from 1984.
This film, however, unfolds without a hint as to the time period, but Moby Dick era America is a safe bet. It also fails to clue us into the time lapses that occur throughout the story, thus you never know how long our intrepid “wickers” have been tending the titular desolate beacon. In fact the story never really allows for any kind of distinction between reality and vivid hallucination. To this end the film is anything but even-keeled.
In terms of acting, both Dafoe and Pattinson deliver tour de force performances, with the former being the best rendition of a cinematical pirate since Robert Newton and the latter bringing his best JFK, spewing a thick New England drawl laden with circumstance.
When all is said and done one is taken on a delirious journey culminating with an ending that seems somewhat abstruse yet serves to further blur the divide between fantasy and real life.

Rating: 4/5

RIYL: Ravenous (1999); The Haunting (1963); The Shining (1980); The Wind (2019)

Basin Peak Patch Skiing

Today I logged my third day putting skis on snow for the 2019/2020 season.
I rallied my buddy Russell B., we loaded up the Taco Mama, and headed up Hwy 80 to the Castle Peak Road staging area. The gate was open so we drove up the access road to the bottom of Castle Pass, strapped in our packs and made the hour--plus uphill trek to Basin Peak.
Finding snow patches on both the backside and front side, we made a day of it, ultimately skiing 16 runs on 4 different patches.
The snow was lightly dimpled Hawaiian shaved ice; firm yet semi-soft and very edgeable.

The obligatory staged hiking shot.

Shredding the Backside of Basin Peak.

Front side action.

#blizzardskis #tecnicasports #LiveTheMoment

Dolemite Is My Name [Film Review]

All kinds of clichéd remarks come to mind when thinking about this movie. “Eddie Murphy was born to play this role.” Sure. “Don’t call it a comeback”. Perhaps (but it kind of is). “The best Eddie Murphy movie in years.” Totally true. The list goes on. Yet all you really need to know is that Murphy and ensemble are on point, delivering a well-paced, wonderfully acted, and incredibly funny film about Blaxploitation legend/superstar/cult figure Rudy Ray Moore aka Dolemite.

I am a little bit ashamed to admit that I have as of yet never watched a Dolemite movie. I own a re-issued soundtrack album compiling the music from his films and I think I might have one of his comedy albums floating around in my vinyl vault, but I have never seen one of the man’s films. I primarily know about him via rap music and hip-hop culture, and have seen clips over the years, but that’s the extent of my RRM/Dolemite knowledge. So I have no idea how truthful this dramedy is and how much is just made up. But regardless of that, one thing is for certain: this film is damn entertaining.

At the heart of the film is a pretty standard rags-to-riches story about a man one could say is lacking in talent, but not lacking in heart and sheer tenacity. A man who rises from the sidelines of low-rent comedy clubs to the headlining act of those very same clubs. A man who would, like Melvin Van Peebles and Tom McLaughlin before him, help change the face of independent filmmaking in America.

What isn’t standard is the acting from all involved. While Murphy is center stage, he has surrounded himself with a top-notch group of supporting players. Craig Robinson not only displays deft comedic dryness, but also a slick and funky musical side. Wesley Snipes is downright glorious with a subdued over-the-top performance. And Da’vine Joy Randolph is simply sublime. The cast is rounded out by some solid smaller performances from Snoop Dogg, Mike Epps, and Keegan-Michael Key.

If you grew up during the Golden Age of rap music (the early ‘80s-to-the-mid-‘90s) or are merely interested in the often crass, but no less inventive streetwise and bred oral histories that helped begit one of America’s premier(and truly original) musical artforms, then you owe it to yourself to check out this film. Even if you have no idea about signifying or The Dozens and hate rap, you should still check this film out, if only for the mesmerizing performances of Mr. Murphy and company. Oh, and the killer ‘70s funk and soul drenched soundtrack.

Rating: 3.5/5

RIYL: Black Dynamite; Eddie Murphy: Raw; the novels of Iceberg Slim; the music of Ice-T; the music of Too $hort

LINDA RONSTADT: THE SOUND OF MY VOICE

 This film wasn't really on my radar, but I ended up seeing it while recently visiting the 'rents.  They were going to see it at their local independent cinema, so I tagged along.

I was pleasantly surprised.

I have to admit that I didn't know much about LR other than that she dated Jerry Brown on his first go-around as Governor of California. Suffice it to say, she was a badass during her career. What a set of pipes. And her command of different musical genres was pretty unparalleled. She also seems like she was hella cool and not a spoiled diva, which was refreshing to see given her stature and level of stardom she achieved.

The film is a classic documentary in that it unfolds in a pretty linear fashion, starting with LR's birth, her upbringing in the Southwest, and continues on from there chronicling her meteoric career.

To this end, the film contains some fantastic archival footage and a host of great interviews from the likes of Dolly Parton, Don Henley, Ry Cooder, Emmylou Harris, and more. 

I had no idea how deep Ronstadt's career went nor about her connections to Neil Young, The Eagles, and others.

I also had no idea that she is just a singer (and a mightly damn good one), not a songwriter. She's like Sinatra, a vocalist with a signature voice that is heralded for her interpretations of other people's songs. She was also a maverick when it came to the course of her career (she literally flipped her script at least 5 times in terms of the genres of music she peformed).

The only minor off-putting element of the film is that it has a tendency to feel slightly maudlin when discussing why she retired from singing.

Still, if you are into popular music at all, this is completely worth watching for the classic footage and interviews with her peers.

LITTLE MONSTERS [Film Review]

By now everybody knows that the zombie film is essentially dead. Yet every few years somebody comes along and tweaks the genre just enough to keep it shuffling along. Over the years we’ve had fast zombies (Zack Snyder’s remake of Dawn of the Dead), zombie romances (Warm Bodies), zombie pub crawls (Shaun of the Dead), zombie musicals (Dead and Breakfast), zombies on trains (Train to Busan), and Cuban refuge zombies (Juan of the Dead), to name a few. And now, thanks to the delightfully debased, yet sublimely sweet Little Monsters, the genre gets another off-beat and entertaining boost.

Falling nicely into the zom com sub-genre, this ditty from Down Under manages to inject a little life into the by now rote zombie cinematic routine. Imagine Kindergarten Cop crossed with Night of the Living Dead and you’ll get a pretty good idea of where this film is coming from and where it’s going. Toss in a bit of Adam Sandler’s Big Daddy and you’re good to go. But it transcends these comparisons thanks to some good, old-fashioned, in-your-face Aussie humor, not to mention some damn fine acting, and lots of ukulele accompanied singing. The comedic timing and overall swift pacing don’t hurt, either.

The quick summary of the film is thus: a group of kindergarten-aged school children go on a field trip to a petting zoo/put-put golf park and get overrun by zombies. To say any more would reveal too much and spoil the fun. Borrowing elements from George Romero’s classic canon (specifically Day of the Dead and Land of the Dead) as well as the twisted satiric slant first displayed in the granddaddy of zom coms, Return of the Living Dead, and mixing it liberally with equal parts crude humor and heart-on-the-sleeve sentimentality, screenwriter/director Abe Forsythe for the most part, turns a hodge-podge of clichés and familiar tropes into a winning combination of laughs, tears, and tension. To wit, I laughed my ass off for the first 30-minutes, found myself on the edge of my seat during what should have been a trite and predictable sequence of events at the heart of the film, and I even shed a tear or two towards the end. For a zomedy to elicit such a wide range of emotions means that all involved did something right.

While Forsythe's quick wit and brisk manner keep things lively, the two leads-- Lupita Nyong’o (Us) and Alexander England (Alien: Covenant)-- really anchor the film by displaying wonderful comedic timing, great chemistry, and some not-half-bad singing. Nyong’o’s character is a proper school marm, while England plays the classic man-child who grows up considerably through the course of the film. Sure, the archetypes are cliché, but each actor owns their character and instills them with a sense of multi-dimensional realism. And then there’s Diesel La Torraca.  As Felix, the main “little monster”, he is sublime. His off-kilter demeanor and display of a kid’s sense of wonder and nonchalance is fantastic; I mean he is a kid, but to do all of this unintentionally funny kid behavior onscreen takes some talent. If there is any fault to the story it might be that the other kids in the film are seriously side-lined, coming off as standard one-dimensional characters (the fat kid, the crippled kid, the nondescript kid, etc.). In addition, Josh Gad offers up a relentless and over-the-top portrayal of a kid’s television host. Granted, we’ve seen this self-centered douchebag character before, but despite the unoriginality, it still provides a wee bit of comic relief.

While not really bringing anything new to the zombie table, Little Monsters at least has a trio of fantastic actors at the core, more laugh-out-loud moments than I can recall encountering in any recent comedy, and it proves, without a doubt that surviving the zombie apocalypse ain’t shit when compared to teaching (ie wrangling) a classroom of 5 year olds. Oh yeah, and it just might make you a fan of Taylor Swift and Neil Diamond in the bargain.

Currently streaming on HULU

Rating: 3.5/5

RIYL

Scout’s Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse; Shaun of the Dead; Dead and Breakfast; Kindergarten Cop; Big Daddy;

JOKER [Film Review]

There is absolutely no question that Joaquin Phoenix is mesmerizing in his role as Arthur Fleck. Yet despite this I couldn’t help feeling as if he were purposefully channeling Crispin Glover for the entirety of the film (this is particularly noticeable during the talk show bits in the film). In the end this similarity is distracting and disconcerting. Then again, that’s kind of the vibe of the entire film.

Director and co-screenwriter Todd Phillips, who is best known for blunt, in-your-face comedies (Old School, The Hangover trilogy) instills his first foray into “serious drama” with a singular heavy-handedness that never lets up. Let’s just say that dude needs to learn the art of subtlety. The myriad messages contained within the story (inadequacy of social services systems in America, corrupt businessmen, mental illness, the cult of personalty, amongst others) are delivered with somewhat ham-fisted bravado and utterly lacking any sense of nuance.
One thing not lacking is exposition. I usually feel that most modern Hollywood fare tends to go light on exposition, here, however, Phillips generously ladles it out. The judicious amounts of set-up prevent the film from really percolating until the latter half of the third act. I get it, it’s meant to be a character study, but there is such a thing as too much character development. Also, the pacing could have been just a tad more brisk. By the time our protagonist completely unravels it’s a bit underwhelming. The long journey we are led on just doesn’t warrant the ultimately predictable end.
But perhaps the most distracting element is the relentless and overbearing score by Hildur Guonadottir. Her string heavy sounds feel as if they were meant for a different film, possibly some cold, arctic drama, not a gritty urban nightmare. What’s more, Phillips has her atonal notes blaring at maximum volume throughout the bulk of the film, rarely allowing for moments of subdued background noise or quietude. The end result is that the music often drowns out the emotional impact of the story, almost as if Phillips is trying to force particular emotions on the audience rather than letting them be cultivated naturally.
The other things bogging the film down are the obvious nods to DeNiro’s classics The King of Comedy and Taxi Driver. The fact that DeNiro himself is a character in the film doesn’t help alleviate these comparisons. While some might find it ironic having the former Travis Bickle be the object of Fleck’s obsession, I did not.
On the plus side there’s Zazie Beets, who although a minor character in the story, still manages to outshine just about everyone else in the cast (fwiw, she has become one of my favorite actors in terms of her ability to disappear completely into every role she has taken to date). Additionally, sprinkled throughout the film are some truly spectacular moments: Fleck, amidst utter chaos in the streets, spreading his bloody fingers across his mouth to create a demonic crimson grin; Fleck’s sweetly creepy clown routine at a children’s hospital; All of Fleck’s Gene Kelly-inspired flights of fantasy; The next-to-last scene when he walks out of a counseling session at Arkham Asylum. There are others, but alas a smattering of well choreographed and artistically composed scenes do not a great movie make; for every one of these moments there are equal moments that were unnecessary or just fell flat (the final scene with Phoenix running through the hallways of Arkham being chased by an orderly as if recreating some scene out of an Abbott and Costello film, for example).
All in all it feels as if Phillips was just a bit too earnest with his first “serious” film, trying too hard to prove that he is more than a a master of crude comedy fare. It also doesn’t help that the spectre of the Batman mythos lurks in the background, yet is never fully developed. In many ways this film might have worked better had it not had any ties to the Caped Crusader at all.

RATING: 2.5 / 5

RIYL: King of Comedy; Taxi Driver