Pops Saw a Movie: NOSFERATU

 Years ago, when I first heard that Robert Eggers was interested in doing a NOSFERATU remake, I was over the moon; I couldn’t have imagined a better match of director and material. F.W. Murnau’s unauthorized 1922 adaptation of DRACULA has always been my favorite iteration of that character (or at least the most terrifying) and I was certain that Eggers’ vision and immaculate filmmaking skills would make for way more than just a superfluous adaptation.

So I entered the Alamo Drafthouse Brooklyn last Thursday (along with my brother, Ken, who graciously treated) with way higher expectations than I normally afford myself when going to the movies (even with that occurrence being very rare in the After Times).

And it was fine. I liked it. But NOSFERATU was not the immersive, terrifying experience for which I’d hoped.

I think for me, the biggest issue was that Eggers’ laser-focused insistence on period accuracy worked against the film in this case (unlike in THE VVITCH, when it enhanced that movie’s mood and effectiveness). Making sure your characters are clad in the right clothes, living in the right environments, utilizing the right implements are all laudable goals… to an extent. But when working in the realm of fantasy, shouldn’t there be a little leeway?

Yeah, I’m talking about the mustache. I mean, not JUST the mustache, but the fact that Robert Eggers INSISTED that his Count Orlok (well played by Bill Skarsgård) have a big bushy lip scrub just because it was the style at the time felt like a bit too much. The only aspect of this version of Nosferatu that’s anywhere near as terrifying as the gaunt demon played by Max Schreck over a century ago is his hands (and maybe his coat… but an outer garment shouldn’t be more imposing than Nosferatu’s face). It’s almost as if Eggers forgot that you don’t have to make everything believable IN A VAMPIRE MOVIE.

But it’s not just Skarsgård’s mustachioed, rotting zombie behemoth that dampened my enthusiasm… The first act kind of fell apart for me when Thomas Hutter (Nicholas Hoult, who will also be in the only other movie I plan on seeing in the theater this year) reached Castle Orlok… rather than the traditional build of tension and terror as the young clerk transacts his business within the confines of the strange, disturbing place, things get crazy pretty much immediately, with a perpetually panicked Hutter trying to escape like Bugs Bunny in the clutches of the mad scientist. And having Ellen (a fantastic Lily-Rose Depp) give herself to Orlok at the very beginning of the movie makes the conclusion a bit anticlimactic.

But I did not dislike the film as a whole. The acting is good, the cinematography is gorgeous (although part of me almost wishes Eggers had filmed it in black and white, as the washed out tones are almost never punched up with any color that might’ve added some graphic intensity), there are a handful of indelible shots… but I was expecting more than a handful. Most of the time, it didn’t even feel like a Robert Eggers film to me (an opinion that’s raised some disbelieving hackles amongst my film nerd friends). My favorite thing about this movie shouldn’t be its logo.

Again, my expectations were probably too high. I should know better. We’ll see how I feel when I watch it again after it drops on some streaming platform (and I am glad I didn’t wait for that to see it the first time… I missed all of Eggers’ previous films on the big screen, which I regret).

I should also comment on this being my first Alamo Drafthouse experience… another thing that’s been hyped over the years to lofty assumptions. And again… it was fine. But, like so many other things in the 21st century, for me, it’s TOO much choice. I’m on record as disliking assigned seating in movie theaters, but at least the “no talking, no cell phones” rules eliminate the main reason that I usually want the freedom to move. The reclining lounge chairs are nice, but not necessary. And while it’s great (GREAT) to be able to order a beer or a cocktail, I neither need nor want more than traditional snacks during a movie. I don’t even like the idea of those shitty nachos or hot dogs at the average multiplex. Who the hell wants to eat wings or a burger in a darkened room where you can’t see what you’re doing and the smell is as liable to be intrusive to other patrons as when people chow down on a subway car (which is, of course, verboten)? Bottomless popcorn, yes. Fish and Chips? Hell no!

But, as usual, that’s just me.

(And thanks again, Kenny! It was a really fun day!) 

Pops Saw Some Movies

 The past handful of weeks have been a trial, so I’m behind on yapping about some movies I’ve recently seen. Here’s a little bit of catch-up. 

THE APPRENTICE
Having read Mary Trump’s book, TOO MUCH AND NOT ENOUGH, I have to say, Ali Abassi goes too easy on the protagonists of this film. Roy Cohn is made to be pitiable, Fred Trump is not nearly demonic enough (in behavior or appearance), and Donald Trump (as played by Sebastian Stan, the Winter Soldier, which is kinda apt) is portrayed as a semi-naive waif being taught the dark arts by villainous groomers. Hell, he’s even given a fuzzy rom-com sequence in which he woos Ivana in scenes that wouldn’t be out of place in a Hallmark movie. There are enough glimpses into Trump’s “origin” as a serial liar to make the film interesting, but it’s not going to move the needle at all on this bizarre Idiocracy in which we now live. 

ALIEN: ROMULUS

After a promising first act (marred by some ginormous plot holes and a grating Gen-Z cast), Fede Alvarez’ film quickly breaks down into lazy retread and unearned fan service (a “Get away from her, you BITCH!” Is maybe the most pathetic example of pandering I’ve ever seen in a movie). ROMULUS is yet another genre sequel / reboot (ala HALLOWEEN, THE THING, APARTMENT 7A) that is overly reliant on the hope that the audience is unfamiliar with the source material. Then again, there hasn’t been a good ALIEN movie since the first two, so… 

JOKER: FOLIE A DEUX
I didn’t like the first pointless, nihilistic wankfest, and may have skipped this altogether were it not for its trainwreck status, which made me want to rubberneck. And while it’s not good (it feels more like an epilogue than a full movie), it’s certainly not worth the venom it’s garnered. While many decry the musical aspect of the movie, I have to wonder if that animus is more aimed towards the Great American Songbook selections sung by Phoenix and Gaga than the genre itself. And while the film’s climax ever so slightly redeems both films by (slight spoiler) confirming the theory that this “Joker” is not “THE Joker,” it still feels like a movie made more out of spite than inspiration. 

THE SUBSTANCE

I need to watch this again, because my take certainly does not align with that of many people whose opinions I respect. While I think the movie has a strong setup, some great performances, and a stunning visual style, for me the metaphor loses strength in the third act when I found myself asking too many questions to get lost in the batshit body horror of the thing (which felt more like an homage to Cronenberg & Raimi than its own thing). Also, add my name to the list of people who think the most disgusting thing in the film is the closeups of Dennis Quaid eating prawns. I’ll give Coralie Fargeat's feminist horror another shot… but probably not until after the holidays. 

WOMAN OF THE HOUR
The only one of these films I truly enjoyed, Anna Kendrick’s story of Rodney Alcala, the serial killer who appeared on THE DATING GAME in the 1970s is a riveting, brutal portrait of the many layers of misogyny that (still) permeate society, broadly ranging from casual sexism to murder, and everything in between. Kendrick humanizes the victims rather than just presenting them as plot points as do so many serial killer dramas. A dive into the real story reveals more than a handful of apocryphal moments, but that’s to be expected, and doesn’t diminish the power of Kendrick’s first film as a director.

Pops Saw a Movie: DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE

 Maybe I shouldn’t write a review of DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE, as I am absolutely not the target audience. I don’t like anti-heroes (being good guys who use the tactics and tools of bad guys). Even a comic book geek like myself is suffering superhero fatigue (and I’m beyond tired of the kind of wink-wink, piss-taking superhero movies that seem to now be the norm). And perhaps most importantly, I absolutely detest the era of superhero comics from which this movie takes its inspiration, being the ultra-dark 1990s, an overblown, Image over substance, hyper-kinetic, trench-coated period that actually made me stop buying comics. Oh, also, not really a fan of Ryan Reynolds. 

However. 

So many of of my friends had asked me if I was going to see this, and for a hot second, I actually considered hitting the multiplex for D&W (despite only having seen the previous two DEADPOOL films on the tee-vee, and the fact that I’ve only seen one new movie in the theater in the past three years, being THE BATMAN, which, meh), but quickly decided I couldn’t deal with being stuck in a chair with this film for over two hours. Still, I was curious enough that when I saw it dropped on PLEX (the Napster of movies) this past week, I dove in. 

And I pretty much hated it. D&W fails for me on every level, comedically, as a superhero movie, and emotionally. 

Comedically: I actually had a notebook next to me so I could keep track of my actual laughs during the movie, and the final tally was Two: One came 33 minutes in, when we get to see Wolverine at his actual comic book height (he’s very short). The other hit a half hour later, when Dogpool won’t stop licking Deadpool’s face. That’s it. Two laughs. Maybe a few smirks throughout the rest of the film, but the relentless spray of snark and meta jokes and fourth wall breaks and, mostly, about a hundred dick, balls, and ass jokes (seriously, this movie is so obsessed with goodies, bits, and butts that it makes Joel Schumacher’s Batman movies look like conversion therapy videos) just felt like I was being pelted with urine-soaked spitballs for 128 minutes. 

Dramatically: I mean, “dramatically” in superhero context. So, after Disney+’s LOKI series spent two seasons working to fix the MCU’s multiverse timelines, bringing its lead character from villain to sacrificial hero, with a dramatic, emotional climax, this movie… is about fixing the MCU’s multiverse timelines, right down to the bit about the heroes wanting to save their loved ones in their own branched realities (where was the meta joke about this plot basically being the same as that show’s?). I’m not sure what’s more aggravating, the ongoing convolution of the Marvel Universe, or the attempts to fix it (didn’t Kevin Feige ever hear of CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS? Google it, non-nerds). And, as much as I disliked LOGAN (and I did!), I have to agree with that film’s director and writer that DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE pretty much renders any emotional impact of that movie’s climax moot. And speaking of death meaning nothing in the MCU, what’s the point of endless (ENDLESS!!) CGI fights to the death with characters who can’t die? 

I didn’t even get any nostalgic jollies out of this film because (as I so subtly alluded to up there), I have almost zero affinity for (and, in some cases, knowledge of) most of these characters. I liked the X-Men in the ‘80s as much as anyone, but Wolverine was never really my jam. And he’s probably my favorite character in the film! I never read a Deadpool comic, never read a single thing with Gambit in it (what a stupid character), don’t really care about Blade, Elektra was a great part of Frank Miller’s DAREDEVIL run, but she shoulda’ stayed dead, and most of the other cameos just didn’t land with me. As always, your mileage may vary. 

Emotionally: I was actually stunned at how much syrup was poured on the climax of the film. I kept thinking that all the gushing buddy film love slung between the titular heroes was going to revert to the antagonistic back and forth that defined the first two acts of the movie, but no! These dudes now love each other, and pretty much tell say so for the last twenty minutes of the film! The movie even ends with a nostalgic, credit-roll montage of the actors’ histories making Marvel movies for 20th Century Fox, set to—I shit you not— Green Day’s never-not-grating, and utterly played out “Good Riddance [Time of Your Life]”…. UNIRONICALLY!!! 

Phew. Anyway. So, yeah, the movie’s not for me. But even putting aside my subjective dislike of the source material and this particular kind of superhero movie, I don’t think DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE is a good movie. It’s a LOT of movie, however, and, like the overdrawn, needlessly-detailed, hyper-violent comic books of the 1990s that dazzled young fans with style over substance, I guess that’s enough for a lot of people.

Pops Watched TV and Saw a Movie: DAHMER and BLONDE

 I couldn’t binge DAHMER: MONSTER: THE JEFFREY DAHMER STORY (or whatever) because it was just too much to stomach (no pun intended) more than an hour at a time, so it took me over a week to finish. I wasn’t even going to say anything about it until I watched BLONDE last night and decided to contrast these very different dramatizations of real life tragic figures. 

DAHMER is undeniably a riveting watch, but the many protestations over its humanization of the serial killer are not without merit. Evan Peters is way too likeable an actor to not make you feel some sort of empathy for Dahmer as her struggles with his compulsions. As with every “Based on a True Story” film or TV show, I spend a lot of time wondering what’s real and what’s not. I don’t demand 100% adherence to the facts, I understand the demands of creating dramatic fiction, and these days, all it takes is some quick Googling to separate the apocryphal from the factual. DAHMER mostly sticks to the facts, the biggest creative license being merging a number of the killer’s neighbors into one person, and moving her into the apartment next door. But what fascinates me most about this series isn’t the show itself but our collective fascination with true crime. What is it that draws us into being willing to watch ten hours dedicated to the most horrific, gruesome human behavior we can imagine? Why do we love this shit? I’d watch a ten-part series parsing that sociological phenomenon. 

Meanwhile, on the same platform, BLONDE is being marketed as a simple biopic of Marilyn Monroe, but that couldn’t be farther from the truth. Instead based on Joyce Carol Oates’ 2000 novel, it’s a fictionalized, highly impressionistic overview of the icon’s mental instability and lifetime of various forms of abuse, presented with far more style than substance. The movie jumps from point to point, leaving exposition as to how Norma Jeane / Marilyn came to be involved with the various men in her life mostly cursory. The movie seems to be far more concerned with recreating iconic images of Monroe than fleshing out a tragic life beyond “unhappy childhood - bad relationships - extreme insecurity - oh, and pills and booze.” But unlike DAHMER, BLONDE feels zero compunction about creating some stories out of whole cloth (which will no doubt lead to even more public confusion among those who treat films like this as gospel). The one saving grace of the movie is Ana de Armas’ magnetic performance (although the decision to have her employ “Marilyn’s” breathy girly voice even in her private life is an odd one). Ironically, the timing of this film kind of works against it, as de Armas is currently Hollywood’s “It Girl,” making it hard to forget that it’s her under the wig and veneers. Ultimately, though, 2011’s MY WEEK WITH MARILYN (starring Michelle Williams) is a far more insightful and personal examination of the actual human being.

Originally posted on social media, Oct. 3, 2022.

Pops Saw a Movie: APARTMENT 7A

 Seemingly coming out of nowhere (I hadn’t even heard of it until the day before it dropped on Paramount+), APARTMENT 7A is a prequel to ROSEMARY’S BABY, focusing on the story of the doomed girl Rosemary Woodhouse met in the laundry room in Roman Polanski’s 1968 classic. If you don’t know that film, then (in this context) good for you, because (a) you will enjoy the prequel a lot more than I did, and (b) you get to then watch ROSEMARY’S BABY for the first time! 

It’s not that APARTMENT 7A is BAD; It’s not. It’s well-made, well-cast, with some stunning visuals, a great soundtrack, and a compelling story. I enjoyed it while I was watching it. It’s just that by the end of the film, it offered nothing new. For anyone who knows the original movie, the fate of Terry Gionoffrio is a fait accompli. We know how this movie ends. But the film (co-written by director Natalie Erika James) unfathomably decides to basically retell ROSEMARY’S BABY with a different lead character, leaving us nothing new to chew on and making it impossible to not compare the two films. 

There was an opportunity here to tell a different story; They could’ve focused more on (SPOILER ALERT) Terry’s manipulating benefactors, Minnie and Roman Castevet and the satanic coven they lead in their fancy uptown apartment building (played by NYC’s iconic Dakota), maybe giving us a little more insight into their history and their motivations. They could’ve maybe fleshed out some other members of the coven. Or maybe they could’ve made Terry something other than an aspiring dancer (a little too close to Guy being a struggling actor in the original), or given her a more conflicted personality to ramp up the tension (she feels an awful lot like a single Rosemary in the film). 

But APARTMENT 7A has that unfortunate and cynical tang of a movie made for a young audience that the filmmakers hope / presume are completely unfamiliar with the source material, making it acceptable to so closely echo the original. I don’t think those of us who already love ROSEMARY’S BABY are the target audience. 

The acting (at least by the leads) is great. The always-terrific Julia Garner plays Terry with a compelling mixture of naïveté and strength (I think she’s one of the best actors working today). But I’m sure casting the charming and generous, but also overbearing and, you know, evil Castevets (or, the re-Castevets, heh) was the hardest part of making this movie, as both performances in the original are indelible. As Roman, Kevin McNally channels Sidney Blackmer nicely. But Dianne Wiest as Minnie had the tougher gig; Ruth Gordon’s performance in ROSEMARY’S BABY is iconic: Broad and over-the-top (with Gordon’s exaggerated vocalizations) while still being believable. Wiest HAS to do at least somewhat of an impression, or the audience (at least the audience that saw the original) wouldn’t buy that this is Minnie, but she makes the part just enough her own that it doesn’t feel like she’s doing shtick. 

So, I don’t know if this is a recommendation or not. Again, if you DON’T know ROSEMARY’S BABY, first of all, what the hell’s wrong with you, but you’ll probably be more frightened and surprised than my girlfriend and I were. However, it’ll take a lot of the fun out of watching the 1968 film for the first time. And if you DO love Roman Polanski’s (yeah, yeah) film, your enjoyment will largely depend on how much you don’t mind NOT being surprised.

Pops Saw a Movie and Watched TV: FANTASIA and BATMAN: CAPED CRUSADER

 Here’s a two-part review wherein the only unifying subject matter is animation… and disappointment. 

For some reason, last night I watched Disney’s FANTASIA for the first time in many decades. The 1940 film animates stories to match eight segments of classical music, conducted by Leopold Stokowski (but played in the film by composer Deems Taylor) and performed by the Philadelphia Orchestra. My memory of the movie was that is was okay, but it didn’t move me on a deep level. Maybe I was too young, I thought, so I went back last night with a somewhat firmer appreciation of the music used in the movie. 

And I had the same reaction: It’s okay. Honestly, I think my antipathy for Disney is so deeply ingrained that I’m incapable of loving anything that features Mickey Mouse, even in a cameo. But the rest of the segments are just semi-successful to me as well. They mostly have that flat, reined-in feel and/or overabundance of cutesiness that defines Disney animation for me (I confess I fast forwarded past the "Dance of the Hours" ballet. I couldn't do it. I just couldn't.). Only Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring” (depicting the early history of Earth through the demise of the dinosaurs [erroneously credited to a global warming dustbowl, as the theory of the comet had yet to be discovered]) and Mussorgsky’s “Night on Bald Mountain” (featuring the demon Chernabog summoning evil spirits from the grave) held my interest. 

(Also I should note that Disney+ adds a disclaimer about the offensive racial imagery in the movie, but the version I saw still edits out all of the shots of Sunflower, the stereotyped black “centaurette”, so… maybe they meant the Chinese dancing mushrooms?)

My own personal prejudice aside, FANTASIA, despite its lofty aspirations, still mostly feels… to me, anyway… uninspired. 

Which, ironically, is how I also—surprisingly—feel about Prime Video’s new series, BATMAN: CAPED CRUSADER. When it was announced some years back that Bruce Timm (the creative genius behind the iconic BATMAN THE ANIMATED SERIES and BATMAN BEYOND) was to helm a new cartoon featuring the Darknight Detective, fanboys collectively wept an ocean of joy-tears. There was no way this could be anything but a new classic (much as I loathe that oxymoronic term). News that the show would be a retro throwback to Batman’s Golden Age caused some raised eyebrows, but few people didn’t think Timm and company could pull it off. 

Well… again… it’s okay. But just okay. It took me a solid month to get through the short ten episode season, which speaks volumes as to my gut reaction to the first few viewings. Glacially paced, with a drab sepia-toned palette, the rather blocky animation lacks the dynamism of the previous efforts from Timm’s teams. Story-wise, familiar characters are revamped (the Penguin is gender-swapped, Commissioner and Babs Gordon are black, Harvey Dent is a jerk, Harley Quinn is not Harley Quinn, it’s all over the place), but it mostly feels like change for its own sake; very few of the alterations feel inspired by story so much as a desire on the part of the producers to not be bored by treading familiar ground (which also explains the absence of some iconic villains… the Joker doesn’t appear until a teaser at the very end of the last episode). 

I dunno. I think perhaps the retro setting was a bad idea. Where do you go? Hardcore Batman fans know the history, so there are expectations… that the producers will no doubt try to subvert again, with probably the same middling results. I think it could’ve been far more exciting if they had simply continued Batman’s adventures in present day, utilizing some of the members of the comic book cast that have been introduced or developed since the last series ended in 1995 (and I don’t necessarily mean picking up where that series left off, they could’ve started fresh). Batman is perhaps the most endlessly-adaptable superhero in the history of the genre, he works in all gradients from silly to super-serious. So it’s disappointing that this latest iteration is so… (see above).

Pops Watched TV: LIGHT & MAGIC

 While I’m normally (and naturally) skeptical of documentaries that have corporate ties to their subject matter, I nonetheless watched LIGHT & MAGIC, the six-part docuseries on Disney+ about ILM, and find myself—somewhat surprisingly—giving it a solid recommendation. 

I often bemoan the death of “movie magic,” just referring to the cynical lack of wonder and awe over how special effects are made anymore, with the catch-all of “it’s all digital” being the answer to every “how did they do that?” But while the most inspiring parts of LIGHT & MAGIC are certainly seeing the ragtag physical effects artists of the 1970s figuring out how to do everything that George Lucas demanded of them for STAR WARS (indeed, Lucas comes across as rather dense here, less a brilliant visionary than a stubborn dreamer who, when told, “We can’t do that,” just said, “You’ll figure it out,” and was lucky that they DID), and there’s a really depressing section on some of those guys finding themselves feeling “extinct” when JURASSIC PARK rendered them obsolete, there’s a surprising turnaround at the end (spoiler alert) wherein some brand new techniques (“the Volume”… look it up) have reintegrated traditional filmmaking into the modern era in a way that many would previously have thought was done. 

For those of us who grew up witnessing the transition from practical to digital effects and ever gave a crap about how any of it was done, or if you just like seeing smart geeks doing creative stuff, check this series out. Hell, it even made me go back and re-watch all of the STAR WARS films.

Originally posted on social media, Aug. 19, 2022