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.
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.
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…
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.
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.
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