Friday, October 17, 2014
This week in movies you missed: Why do people spend months turning their homes into Halloween scare houses? Why do they flock to tours of Jeffrey Dahmer's Milwaukee haunts? Why do they collect the autographs and artwork of serial killers?
Two recent Halloween-y documentaries, The American Scream and Serial Killer Culture, explore these questions about the fascination of fear.
What You Missed
In the small town of Fairhaven, Mass., trick-or-treaters can visit three elaborate houses of horrors created by passionate amateurs. Directed by Michael Stephenson (Best Worst Movie), The American Scream profiles them, with a special emphasis on family man Victor Bariteau.
An IT guy by day, Bariteau grew up in a religious home where Halloween wasn't observed. Determined to make up for lost time, he bought his home largely for its perfect trick-or-treating neighborhood. Now he painstakingly crafts gruesome models and animatronics to scare his neighbors, while his wife, two daughters and pet ferrets help out, with various degrees of enthusiasm.
Tags: serial killer culture , american scream , john borowski , michael stephenson , Movies you missed , Image , Video , Web Only
Friday, October 10, 2014
This week in movies you missed: It's October again, season of crappy horror releases, so I'm on the hunt for a scare flick that will actually scare me. Where better to look than among movies I missed?
Let's start with The Sacrament, the latest from director Ti West (The House of the Devil, The Innkeepers). This found-footage film has a simple premise: What if Jonestown had happened last year, and Vice Media was there to film it?
What You Missed
Vice reporter Sam (A.J. Bowen) explains self-importantly to the camera that he practices a new form of gonzo journalism called "immersionism." Next up: He'll immerse himself in a utopian community that could well be a cult.
Sam's photographer friend Patrick (Kentucker Audley) has arranged to visit his ex-addict sister at Eden Parish, an overseas colony built by a religious community with a charismatic leader called "Father." Patrick, Sam and Vice photographer Jake (prolific indie director Joe Swanberg) take a helicopter into the jungle, where they're met by guards with machine guns.
Tags: the sacrament , ti west , jonestown , movies you missed , Image , Video , Web Only
Friday, October 3, 2014
Director Joseph Kahn's little-seen 2011 horror comedy is the film Easy A should have been. Namely, a self-referential high school flick that takes the genre to the limit and drops it off a cliff, then stands and watches gleefully as it explodes into candy-colored smithereens.
What You Missed
The resident queen bee of Grizzly Lake High (Alison Woods) rises from her bed and lectures the camera on the art of being popular, Ferris Bueller-style. No sooner has she explained the day's fashion statement ("The '90s are the new '80s") than a knife-wielding maniac dressed like the villain of the Cinderhella film series appears and puts a merciful (for us) end to her existence.
Meanwhile, in another bedroom, misfit Riley Jones (Shanley Caswell) is considering suicide. Her former BFF (Spencer Locke) has morphed into an evil cheerleader and stolen her secret crush (Josh Hutcherson, who got a huge career boost from The Hunger Games shortly after this was released). The school's resident geek (Aaron David Johnson) won't stop propositioning Riley; and the only person less cool than she is is the girl who committed an unspeakable act on the school's resident stuffed grizzly bear in 1992.
I've just described the film's first 10 minutes, tops. The plot spins out of control as we meet more dramatis personae: the vengeful nerd principal (Dane Cook); the pissed-off quarterback (Parker Bagley), who hides a dark secret; a goth girl; a geek named Toshiba; Ione's cougar mom; the guy (Walter Perez) who's been in detention for literally decades; and, of course, the killer hiding behind Cinderhella's bloody prom dress.
Tags: Movies you missed , joseph kahn , detention , josh hutcherson , Image , Web Only
Friday, September 26, 2014
What You Missed
A title card tells us 10 years have passed since the global "collapse." In the sparsely populated Australian outback, Eric (Guy Pearce) is minding his own business when three punks fleeing a robbery happen along, crash their car and steal his.
That was a mistake. Because Eric will do whatever it takes to reclaim his unprepossessing vehicle, and he has no qualms about killing those who stand in his way.
Tags: rover , david michod , robert pattinson , guy pearce , Movies you missed , Image , Video , Web Only
Friday, September 12, 2014
This week in movies you missed: Two young graffiti artists scheme to pull off the score of a lifetime: "bombing" the New York Mets' Home Run Apple at Citi Field.
Local note: The film's editor, Morgan Faust, is or was a part-time Brattleboro resident. I wrote about her own Vermont-shot film project here.
What You Missed
Sophia (Tashiana Washington) and Malcolm (Ty Hickson) work well together. She's tough and surly, he's gangly and wistful — and they're both good at lifting spray cans from stores and leaving their mark on city buildings.
Fed up with the Mets fans who keep defacing their art, the platonic pair plot the ultimate revenge: defacing the Mets Apple. Footage from a vintage cable-access show informs the viewer that this seemingly undoable stunt has been the holy grail of NYC graffiti artists for the past 20 years, putting the fictional characters in a real context.
Tags: gimme the loot , adam leon , tashiana washington , ty hickson , Movies you missed , Image , Web Only
Friday, September 5, 2014
This week in movies you missed: "That movie where a guy just talks on the phone in his car for 85 minutes."
Or: How interesting can an ultra-minimalist conceit be? Can you keep an audience absorbed in a film with one character and one set? Writer-director Steven Knight (Eastern Promises) decided to find out.
What You Missed
Somewhere in the UK, night. Ivan Locke (Tom Hardy) leaves a large industrial plant and gets in his Beemer. As he speeds toward London, he makes a series of calls: to his wife and kids, his boss, his subordinate, and a frightened woman waiting for him in a hospital at his destination.
Locke is a construction foreman, and tomorrow his company will undertake Europe's largest-ever concrete pour for a new skyscraper. He's supposed to be there to oversee the complicated process; he won't be. His boss (voice of Ben Daniels) is apoplectic, his subordinate (Andrew Scott) terrified. He's never shirked a responsibility before.
Locke's wife (Ruth Wilson) is both angry and terrified — for a different reason. His kids, who expected him to be home for the game tonight, are just confused. But Locke is dead set on making it to his destination. It's the only way he can prove to himself he is the man he's always wanted to be.
Tags: locke , tom hardy , steven knight , Movies you missed , Image , Video , Web Only
Friday, August 29, 2014
This week in movies you missed: They say revenge is a dish best served cold.
What happens when you warm up revenge in the microwave, accidentally drop it on the floor, scrape it up and serve it anyway?
Possibly something like the plot of this wonderful offbeat thriller from writer-director-DP Jeremy Saulnier, which recalls the early days of the Coen brothers.
What You Missed
Dwight (Macon Blair) lives out of his car, spending his days on the beach and his nights Dumpster diving at the fun fair.
Until a cop contacts him with news: Back home in Virginia, the man who killed Dwight's parents is about to be released from prison.
Dwight gets in his blue ruin of a Pontiac and heads home. He doesn't have a gun or money to buy one; he's not even sure how to use one. But he does have a knife. And a will to see his version of justice done.
Tags: blue ruin , jeremy saulnier , macon blair , Movies you missed , Image , Video , Web Only
Friday, August 22, 2014
This week in movies you missed: These days it sometimes seems like every new movie release that isn't adapted from a comic book is adapted from a young adult novel. Last week it was The Giver, from Lois Lowry's classroom standard. This week it's If I Stay.
For this trend we can thank the success of Twilight, The Hunger Games and The Fault in Our Stars. But not every YA novel makes for a hit movie.
Case in point: Meg Rosoff's How I Live Now, a seeming response to 9/11 in the form of a coming-of-age story, won solid sales and prizes when it was published in 2004. Briefly released last fall, the movie version sank without a trace.
What happened?
Tags: Movies you missed , how i live now , meg rosoff , saoirse ronan , kevin macdonald , Image , Video , Web Only
Friday, August 8, 2014
This week in movies you missed: At a time when drug wars and their casualties are making headlines, this 2013 documentary by Shaul Schwarz offers a harrowingly intimate look inside Mexico's Ciudad Juárez, the city that was, until recently, the murder capital of the world.
Since the film was shot, the inter-cartel violence may have moved elsewhere, but its causes haven't receded.
What You Missed
In 2010, photojournalist Schwarz was covering "narco culture" for a National Geographic story. One day he went straight from the site of two murders in Tijuana to a Californian club where a popular narcocorrido band was celebrating the culture of drug violence. "He was still covered in blood," writes Coburn Dukeheart in this Nat Geo story:
The bizarre collision of witnessing actual violence, paired with people celebrating killing in the music of the narcocorridos, totally jarred him. It was at that moment he decided to make the film.
Schwarz spent three years with sources in Juárez and Los Angeles, gaining their trust and getting footage with a crew of just two (himself and a soundman/interpreter).
Tags: narco cultura , shaul schwarz , Movies you missed , Image , Video , Web Only
Friday, August 1, 2014
This week in movies you missed: a movie that decisively answers the questions: Why has no one ever made a Christopher Guest-style mockumentary about aspiring novelists? With the number of self-published books mounting every year, isn't this a phenomenon ripe for satire? Aren't amateur writing groups at least as easy to mine for comedy as dog shows, folkies and community theater?
Judging by Authors Anonymous, nope.
What You Missed
An invisible documentary crew introduces us to six unpublished LA writers who meet regularly to share their work. They include:
- a breathy yoga-teacher-turned-romance-novelist (Teri Polo) who calls her Slavic-themed erotic opus Nyet Not Yet
- her hubby and bankroller (Dylan Walsh), an optometrist who likes to dictate "ideas for a screenplay/novel/character" to his digital recorder but never seems to write anything
- a crusty, flag-waving gun enthusiast (Dennis Farina) who fancies himself the next Tom Clancy but resorts to a company called U R the Publisher to put out his thriller
- a young man (Jonathan Bennett) who idolizes Charles Bukowski and constantly asks to borrow money, explaining that his working-class authenticity depends on insolvency
- a pizza-delivery-man-cum-carpet-cleaner (Chris Klein) who hopes to be the next Fitzgerald
- a Sweet Young Thing (Kaley Cuoco) who is writing a novel but doesn't appear ever to have read one
Tags: authors anonymous , ellie kanner , kaley cuoco , dylan walsh , Movies you missed , Image , Video , Web Only