An argument for James Ponsoldt’s misunderstood masterpiece.

In the dank underground chambers of James Ponsoldt’s The Circle, inside the literal bunkers of a tech conglomerate called The Circle, a fellow named Kalden (John Boyega) pulls Mae Holland (Emily Watson) aside and proclaims, a real act of love in James Ponsoldt’s world, that “you don’t have a cynical bone in your body.” The moment is neither cute nor sweet but just sort of sits in front of us. Watson’s Mae smiles and gives us Hermione’s please-the-professor grin. Is it real? Was it ever? “One of the many problems with The Circle is that it never gets much of a handle on Mae,” wrote Will Leitch in The New Republic. Angie Han, over at Mashable, calls the characters, Mae included, “empty vessels made to parrot diatribes.” This is jarring, as Ponsoldt’s last two movies were able to find rich and believable human expression in deadbeat dads and deadbeat novelists alike.

Where many have seen this as the movie’s crushing failure (as testified by its 16% rating on Rotten Tomatoes), I see it as evidence of Ponsoldt’s stunning accomplishment as a narrative filmmaker. Have any of you actually been inside an Apple Store? Like the proverbial gingers, these people have no souls.

People who like to talk about directors like to talk about careers. The move from low-budget to big, the space in between Whiplash and La La Land. Ponsoldt has been somewhat hard to exactly pin down, following his official ‘breakout’ hit (The Spectacular Now) with a deep nosedive into the preoccupations of the literary and David Foster Wallace-worshipping class (End of the Tour). His decision to take on Dave Eggers’ The Circle was both odd, because the man is box-office poison, and sort of reassuring: Eggers may be a poor man’s Foster Wallace but the contents could be sold as the big league Black Mirror the market is clamoring for. To note, it starred a baker’s dozen of bankable talent; in addition to billion-dollar franchise movie stars Watson and Boyega there was one indie breakout (Ellar Coltrane, of Boyhood fame) and one big wheel to draw in the publicity (Tom Hanks). There was even one dude who Twitter really likes (Patton Oswalt). It was all very much and most critics came in expecting something huge, the kind of middle-range hit the people like to say doesn’t exist anymore. By this note, people will say The Circle has failed, under-performing nearly everything at the box office and surely proving why small movies made in New York by contemplative men and large franchises made in LA by men with smart haircuts are what the world really needs. Get Out. Logan. Whatever.

But The Circle also fucking rules.

In Ponsoldt’s hands, the mildly large budget Hollywood production (made for $18 mil, which is more than La La Land but less than, you know, Moonlight) relaxes into a visual cornucopia of expensive-looking 21st century imagery, that many reviewers have spent time quibbling about whether it looks more like  Google or Apple. Whatever. The Circle mercifully returns us to the old science-fiction, manufactured not out of cleverness and knowing winks about things that can’t be paid for but one built out of the old brick and mortar that made us the worlds of Blade Runner and Total Recall, thick temples that we yearn to enter. For this reason, Ponsoldt whisks us inside the machinery without wasting too much of our time, on the whole, getting us there. Her family is great (played by Glenne Headly and the late Bill Paxton, in a small role that Ponsoldt makes heartbreakingly moving) but there is no reason to waste the kind of time with them that the writers over at, say, Doctor Who like to do.

There’s also a lot of cool stuff inside this here Circle and Ponsoldt’s choices glimmer: unlike most tech satires, these are jabs aimed at tech consumers (most of us) instead of at the more successful tech overlords (almost none of us). We spot the Dalai Lama on the grounds and indie festival-headliner Beck is summoned to celebrate the latest project of Eamon Bailey, the folksy boss man that Hanks plays: SeeChange. (Here is where the only meaningful criticism of The Circle lies: to celebrate SeeChange Beck plays “Dreams,” one of his more mediocre late-career singles. Winkingly disappointing, like most new technology.) An oozing techno score from Danny Elfman (of “The Simpsons Theme”-fame) keeps things shiny and bouncing, like what a leprechaun DJ would spin between acts at Coachella. I’d work here even if Soylent Green were secretly being manufactured down in the pits.

But that’s part of the genius of the set-up: there is no secret. Smashing together all the boring nuance of everyone’s little pet startup-turned-conglomerate into one big mega fortress of tech, the world of The Circle works because it evokes a world that may not be real to anyone who has had a drink with someone who likes to talk about their super-niche start up but is real enough to anyone who’s ever bought an iPhone. All Kalden, a sorta-defecting former co-founder of The Circle, shows Mae deep in the caverns is that The Circle happens to be storing all that info it processes. Big whoop and Ponsoldt doesn’t waste too much time here or with Kalden (pity for Boyega, who has really perfected the art of betraying evil empires, but good for the movie; in Eggers’ novel, Mae and Kalden have lots of horribly-written sex). His interests are, instead, with the ordinary people and their relationship with their ordinary jobs inside a tech conglomerate. How does it make them feel and so forth?

The argument has also been made, say, by Christina Warren at Gizmodo, that Ponsoldt’s world is too familiar and, thusly, doesn’t go far enough. “The Circle’s supposed dystopian universe doesn’t feel far off enough to be effective,” she wrote, making the comparisons to products like GoPro and whatever talking camera Amazon is currently cooking up. Aside from holographic screens, there isn’t very much in The Circle that most rich people don’t already use regularly. But most tech dramas, Charlie Brooker’s Black Mirror is referenced religiously as is some ’90s tech thriller starring Sandra Bullock, don’t have very much interesting to say about technology. That rating interactions via social media would be awkward? That trolls persecuting perverts is a moral conundrum? Who cares? These are all great dramas that keep people on the edge of their seats, but have nothing to say about the people inside of them besides some tidy Orwell-esque cynicism about human behavior? Ponsoldt, however, uses the pace and hum of the thriller to do what old school thrillers do: rapidly create a visually complex world and, then, immediately reducing it to the elements that he is interested in. Some kind of spy mission, normally.

Many have claimed that Ponsoldt’s interests in The Circle can be boiled down to privacy. David Edelstein, writing for Vulture, elucidates it thusly: “The theme of The Circle is transparency versus privacy.” While this might be said of Eggers’ paranoid novel, I don’t buy that Ponsoldt’s interest in the slow erosion of privacy is anything more than superficial. Privacy is long gone and Ponsoldt knows that. What interests him, instead, is how people relate to each other in a perpetually public sphere, i.e. a sphere that is constantly being capitalized. The movie’s aesthetic language speaks to this: by concentrating on the world of one brand, Ponsoldt is able to emphasize its presence everywhere. The little ‘C’ of the movie posters pops up everywhere, from the back of computers and phones à la Apple products to Dad’s t-shirt after Mae signs him up for the company health plan because he’s dying (surveillance state or nah, America hasn’t changed that much). The bright red color scheme, meant to evoke Apple’s love of translucent grey-white or Facebook’s many shades of blue, gives contemporary American technological iconography the feel of Soviet-era Moscow.

And SeeChange, the system of cameras spread throughout the world in the style of Google Earth that Bailey introduces, is not some cheesy harbinger of surveillance state doom fresh out of 1984, as many have read it. It’s a harbinger of the commodification of everyday life, all those sponsored Instagram posts brought to three-dimensional life. When Mae is made the star of a live-streamed feed that follows her every move, it’s not because of anyone in The Circle, least of all Bailey, actually cares about what she is doing. Many have compared this plot point, this reality-TV of the every day, to the conceit of Peter Weir’s one-note The Truman Show but it’s a comparison that falls flat. Weir’s interests were in mocking everyday post-suburban ordinariness, jumping onto a crowded bandwagon that included everything from to Magnolia to American Beauty. We are given love interests and we are diligently ensured that Jim Carrey’s Truman is a real dude who just wants a real life. The cold apathetic remove of The Circle, however, prevents us from making these same asinine conclusions.

The Circle’s interest in Mae is far more compelling: they want to use her to chance a brand to millions of people around the world, to put an Emma Watson-face on a multi-billion dollar conglomerate that’s under investigation by the Feds. And, in order to sell the product, as many social media managers know, Mae has to be on! She has to be on when she is invited to sit in on a big meeting, which thrills her millions of followers but doesn’t get her out of her entry-level position. She has to be on when she accidentally walks in, digitally, on her parents having sex. When the best friend character, Annie (Karen Gillan), wants to talk about her real feelings or whatnot, those real painful things which we often tune into the interweb precisely to hear from others, she begs Mae to not record her, to not force her to package those feelings into something that’s similarly and performatively on. It’s this self-conscious alienation, between our actual real lives and the version that everyone in media is compelled to be selling, that Ponsoldt masterfully captures.

It’s also a space, in both Ponsoldt’s movie and our own, that is, often carefully gendered. The Instagram star, taking photos of their ordinary life, is, most popularly, a woman. The world of tech executives, who make most of the actual money off of this, remains, more often than not, male-dominated. The Circle reproduces this dichotomy perfectly. Mae, after all, becomes a viral sensation not because of any slavish and Silicon Valley celebrated genius-like attribute — Watson plays it perfectly with an ear for all the notes of false-modesty befitting today’s Jennifer Lawrence-era celebrity — but because she is an object of a vaguely-defined lifestyle lust. Ponsoldt depicts the moans of her followers with little tweets (called zings) that surround Watson whenever she’s online. The zings yearn. The zings are a pleading voice that wants to inhabit her life and she, in order to keep her job, must let them and must look like she loves it. Does she secretly hate it, does she yearn for anything else herself? We don’t know because we are, as viewers, just another follower. We realize, as anyone that follows a single blog must, that it is only participating in this walking advertisement that allows her to rise in a male-dominated tech company, where a chummy Oswalt joins the rebellious Boyega and the bearded Hanks as the company’s dick trifecta. Annie, while an executive, is slowly driven crazy in her attempt to compete with her male peers in the boardroom of the company they founded. All Mae has to do is give them, The Circle, her body.

Ponsoldt’s twist, which differs significantly from the ending of Eggers’ novel, is that Mae uses that power to turn that objectifying, commoditizing gaze back onto its creators. Earlier in the movie, The Circle leaks the private email correspondence of a senator, coincidentally also a woman, who is forced to resign in controversy — evoking a neat real-world parallel to our own almost-first female president. Mae, exploiting her relationship with Kalden and her newfound audience of millions, trains that arrow on Bailey and his masculine ilk. Their private lives, their private and super-private email correspondences (Watson reading out all this is joyful) are released like doves in the wind. Ponsoldt plays all this like the explosions and blast of the Pixies that greets us at the end of Fight Club, a delightfully absurd euphoria enjoyed by the powerless.

Watson’s performance as Mae is nothing short of a work of genius: always buzzy, always excited, always ambitious, she feels like a DJ Khaled of the tech world, both juicily inscrutable because the language they speak is purposeful without meaning. When she comes to the conclusion that the ideology of The Circle must, self-destructively, be turned inward, it is because it is not unlike the patriarchy of Silicon Valley, a holdover of an old social order. Ponsoldt deliberately, as he did in End of the Tour, does not mitigate this performance with useless and tedious characterization. Unlike, say, Spike Jonze’s Her — a movie that also looked at the effects new technology might have on an amiable protagonist played by one of Hollywood’s coolest talents — there is no meaningless love story, there is no personal arc for us to watch characters climb like children at a climbing wall. Where Her reduced the conceit of AI to Scarlett Johansson’s voice in order to show how it related to a writer getting laid, The Circle uses a contemporary surveillance scheme to show how it alters the way people interact with their own lives and each other, evoking an incapacity to create sincere engagement when all engagement is branded. The risk that Ponsoldt takes — unlike even Eggers, who provides a more definitive answer in his ending — is that he does not let us on: the movie’s token anti-technology character, the staple holding together every episode of Black Mirror, is Coltrane’s horrendously boring folk artist who self-consciously martyrs himself, signifying nothing. The deliberate limpness of his performance is yet another genius stroke; a smart parody of off-the-grid subculture, Ponsoldt’s uses him to point to its impotence.

Yet, for a movie that spends a considerable amount of its time streaming the personal details of its protagonist’s life to an audience of millions, many have complained that The Circle feels thin. But this merely restates the movie’s ultimate point: as content consumers, we are perpetually alienated from getting ‘a handle’ on anyone. Does Kylie Jenner genuinely enjoy Pepsi? What about the clothes she wears? What about absolutely anything about her as a person? In a world where technology has, as they say, taken over everything, the space for sincere bones, hidden and shown in private light is nonexistent. It’s all gloss and it’s all great. Much like The Circle. The Circle is great.

Will Warner Bros just settle on a title?

Movie titles really do matter. There are few instances where it doesn’t such as when Disney/Marvel is involved because a movie could still be an untitled film and attract audiences. There are other popular franchises that the name after the colon could be just about anything and audiences would show up for it. Some fine examples of that theory include Batman: The Lost Pony or Transformers: We’re in It for the Money. It really doesn’t matter what you call them and people would turn up. Now the title of an unknown science-fiction story? That is important to get just right.

Collider reported last week out that there will be a sequel to Edge of Tomorrow, simply titled Live Die Repeat and Repeat. Yes, the moderately received yet critically adored science-fiction film is getting another chance at box office success. Those of you that don’t remember Edge of Tomorrow, you might perhaps remember it by its home video name of Live Die Repeat. The marketing department decided that the original title was utterly bland and a change of title could persuade more people to check out a fantastic film. Guess it worked out since we are now getting Live Die Repeat and Repeat.

The Doug Liman directed film had another name originally. It was originally going to be taking the name of All You Need is Kill, from the source material written by Hiroshi Sakurazaka. Yes, the story featuring characters portrayed by Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt was originally a Japanese light novel. Emily Blunt is certainly the standout role from the film and since its release in 2014, fans have been hoping for more stories from that universe.

The movie features Cruise as a public relations officer with no combat training. He quickly finds himself over his head in the middle of combat against an unknown force and dies quickly. Except he doesn’t. He finds himself in a loop, similar to Groundhog’s Day, where he relives the same day over and over again. Cruise ends up receiving training each new day from Rita Vrataski (Blunt). The hope is that he can gain enough training to defeat the aliens and save the world.

Live Die Repeat had no reason to turn out as good as it did. Unfortunately, marketing played a large role in how the film was perceived. Edge of Tomorrow just didn’t sell the movie all that well. The concept is difficult to explain, except when they found the Live Die Repeat title for home video. The entire thing just clicks into place. While it might not be as great of a name as All You Need is Kill, it is certainly an improvement on the original. The big problem? The audience that saw Edge of Tomorrow in theaters has no idea what this Live Die Repeat movie is. There is going to be great confusion over what exactly this film is in the marketplace and whether or not it is a known property.

Perhaps the best part of all these title changes is just how difficult it is to keep up with what the title of the movie actually might be. We have this really good movie with a massive identity crisis. Some of the best choices and reactions to the title are below:

LIVE DIE REPEAT AND RETITLE IMMEDIATELY.

— DrewMcWeeny (@DrewMcWeeny) May 7, 2017

LIVE DIE REPEAT AND REPEAT sounds like shampooing instructions – not a good movie title.

— Courtney Howard (@Lulamaybelle) May 7, 2017

Better titles than LIVE DIE REPEAT AND REPEAT:
-EDGE OF TOMORROW & TOMORROW & TOMORROW
-LIVE DIE OR DIE HARD
-LIVE DIE: BACK IN THE HABIT https://t.co/sPXiPDhFfE

— Glen Weldon (@ghweldon) May 7, 2017

Even our team of Film School Rejects had a bit of fun with the title. Some of the best ones were Edge of The Day After Tomorrow, Still Edging Tomorrow, and You Still Just Need Kill.

It would be a shame for the franchise to still suffer from naming problems. The first feature, whatever you choose to call it, was an honestly great science-fiction film. Emily Blunt was utterly fantastic perhaps the best she’s ever been. She was the awesome warrior that brought the story together, very similar to how Furiosa is the star of Mad Max: Fury Road. What I mean is that if we can get another movie with an incredibly awesome hero like Rita Vrataski, then Live Die Repeat and Repeat can’t come soon enough. Let’s just hope this is the name that sticks.

The ‘Logan’ co-star’s new movie sounds a lot like, well, ‘Logan’.

Logan’s Dafne Keen is to return to acting in feature films with her titular role in Ana. Keen’s first role since her breakout performance in James Mangold’s Logan, the 12-year-old actress will star opposite long-time actor Luiz Guzman.

Directed by Charles McDougal (The Mindy Project, House of Cards), Keen’s character, according to Deadline, forms an odd friendship with Guzman’s Rafa. After a chance encounter, the two ‘embark on a road trip to try and save him [Rafa] from bankruptcy, or worse.’

If a film about a young girl bonding with a middle-aged man while on a road trip sounds familiar, that’s because it is. As anyone who has seen Logan knows, the film was more concerned with relationships than it was with the latest superhero narrative. Bringing a thoughtful break from the superhero formula, Keen and Jackman’s onscreen relationship has solidified the child star’s bright future. What’s more, Keen is to remain a part of the X-Men franchise. What Logan‘s success shows audiences, then, is that they enjoy the dynamic between a potential father figure and young child.

Ana will most likely contain a lot less action than Logan, presenting Keen with a new tone of film to exist in. However, since Keen has proven she can act both through the emotion on her face as well as through dialogue, it’s clear Keen will overcome any challenges faced on Ana.

Cris Cole, writer of TV series Mad Dogs, has written the script. Cole and McDougall are to reunite with their Mad Dogs producer Luillo Ruiz’s company Pimienta Film Company. Ruiz, who has produced films such as The Caller and Welcome to the Jungle, has said of Ana that “these two extraordinary actors will take us on a profound and enthralling journey. Guzman and Keen will make a mesmerizing combo.” Let’s hope the dynamic is as exciting as Logan.

Ana is set to shoot next month in Puerto Rico.

The Merciless further proves South Korea knows how to make thrillers.

The Merciless, the newest South Korean crime thriller, which will be screening at Cannes this month, now has distribution deals in 85 territories, including France and French speaking territories (with a deal done with ARP), Australia and New Zealand (through JBG Pictures), Taiwan (Movie Cloud), Mongolia (Bloomsbury), the Philippines (Viva Communications) and India (Sony).

Directed by Byun Sung-hyun, the film stars veteran actors Seol Kyung Goo and Kim Hee Won and K-Pop idol Im Si-wan. According to Variety, the film “sees a gangster who partners up with a fearless newbie to take over a gang.” The film’s trailer, below, sees flashy red cars, close-ups on money, guns, and plenty of fight scenes, all while we are told not to “trust people. Trust the circumstances.”

The Merciless seeks to follow the success of its South Korean thriller predecessor, Yeon Sang-ho’s Train to Busan. With the former bowing in the same Cannes midnight screenings section as Yeon’s 2016 film, it’s clear The Merciless is set to become a global hit.

While Train to Busan is a zombie-action thriller and The Merciless a crime thriller, Byun and Yeon’s ability to transform everyday settings into rich, dynamic worlds full of tense atmospheres emphasizes how Korean filmmakers clearly know how to do thrillers right. Both filmmakers utilize their scripts, lighting, and performances in order to create settings that are at once eerily familiar and alien to the viewer.

In Train to Busan, viewers saw how Yeon created tension through a quiet, slowly paced scene juxtaposed by a well-judged break into action. Yeon’s focus on minor characters, their need to survive and his awareness of the setting presents something refreshing with the genre. While we only have a trailer so far, The Merciless looks set to follow in style.

The Merciless is to be released in South  Korea on May 18th, before its Cannes premiere, and in France and Taiwan in June. No US release has been announced as of yet.

From Red Lobster to friendly Satanists the Overlook Film Festival shorts package had a little bit of everything!

Whenever I attend a film festival I always want to make sure I check out some of the short films playing. They’re usually offered in blocks of 5-10 films, depending on length, and typically provide you with a good variety. They’re sort of like anthologies — if you don’t like the current story it’s ok because it won’t last that long and you’ll be onto the next one before you know it.

The Overlook Film Festival — Oregon’s newest horror fest named after the famous hotel in The Shining where the fest takes place — offered up two packages of short films. Unfortunately I was only able to attend one of the blocks, but fortunately, it was a wonderful block. Let’s take a look at those shorts, shall we?

Great Choice
USA
Dir. Robin Comisar

Great Choice begins like someone just popped an old VHS tape into the VCR.  The screen is a perfect square of blue with the little play logo up in the corner indicating the tape is about to begin. When the tape plays you see what looks to be something that somebody recorded from TV years because it starts with an old commercial. The commercial is for Red Lobster and it’s advertising some new shrimp special. You’ve seen this type of commercial before in the late 80’s and early 90’s when they seemed to be on all the time. When the commercial ends it repeats. And repeats and repeats and repeats and repeats until finally the lady portraying the main customer in the commercial begins to realize that maybe she’s trapped in a commercial. She decides to skip her line sending the whole Red Lobster universe into whack and now she must do whatever she can to escape.

I cannot tell you how much I loved Great Choice but I can tell you that it was easily the most enjoyable thing I saw at the Overlook Film Festival and I could honestly just watch it on repeat all day, every day, which is convenient because it repeats. It was a Tim & Eric bit with a heavy dose of gore. It nailed the aesthetic of those old Red Lobster commercials perfectly. And as a nice unexpected bonus, it ended with a bit of a twist!

I do not know where or when Great Choice is playing next, but if you happen to see it on any festival bill you have to check it out. In the meantime, you can check out Comisar’s equally enjoyable short, Mom Died.

I Want You Inside Me
USA
Dir. Alice Shindelar

I only encountered one issue of technical difficulties at the Overlook Film Festival, which for a new fest is actually quite good, but unfortunately, it was during Alice Shindelar’s I Want You Inside Me. The film played for about 5 minutes before it was determined that the audio wasn’t working properly. You could hear sounds and music, but no dialogue, even though you could see characters speaking. The interesting thing is that I actually just thought it was a creative choice not to have dialogue until they stopped the film and told us there was an issue. They re-booted the film and gave it another go, but unfortunately, it was more of the same. They ended up having to move the short to the end of the block and it played fine, but it’s worth mentioning that I saw the beginning few minutes twice without dialogue before it worked correctly.

When the film started up the third time I learned that the dialogue was actually pretty important. I Want You Inside Me is the story about a high school girl, CJ (Abigail Wahl) who goes off to have sex with her boyfriend in the woods. After the enjoyable romp, she passes out. When she awakes she is shocked and disappointed to discover that her boyfriend evidently got up and left, leaving her all alone.

Rightfully upset about the situation CJ goes to pay a visit to her friend Joy (Kiley Juckel). Joy helps CJ get all dolled up and encourages her to go to a house party and hook up with someone to get back at her boyfriend. Once at the party, CJ seems a bit shy and timid at first but eventually sneaks upstairs with a guy. This is about the time we realize that maybe CJ’s boyfriend didn’t leave of his own accord.

Short films can be tricky to review because there are short. You can only give away so much info without giving the whole thing away. With regards to I Want You Inside Me I can’t give you any more info without ruining the film. What I can tell you is that what happens in that bedroom between CJ and this new guy made the entire audience in attendance gasp and then break out in laughter. I Want You Inside is a well-made short with a shocking and satisfyingly funny ending. And I’m happy to report that the first two failed screening attempts did not take away from my enjoyment the third time.

When Susurrus Stirs
USA
Dir. Anthony Cousins

Anthony Cousins’ When Susurrus Stirs is a fun, gross, disgusting slice of body horror. While out jogging one day a man has a bug fly into his mouth. Later that day when he tries to remove the bug from the back of his throat he discovers that it’s some sort of parasite that is beginning to bond with his body. The parasite begins to grow within the man’s body and from there he transforms the man’s body into a hideous creature while convincing the man that he actually wants to be this hideous creature.

My guess is this short was made simply to show off the talented makeup effects this crew is capable of and I’m totally ok with that because they did awesome work. Almost all effects in the film are practical and they look wonderful. The transformation of our main character is truly gnarly with plenty of pulsating and dripping. You can see the influence of something like The Fly which is always welcomed. When Susurrus Stirs is the perfect short film for a horror film festival.

Fucking Bunnies
Finland
Dir. Teemu Niukkanen

Maybe the funniest short I saw was Finland’s Fucking Bunnies from writer/director Teemu Niukkanen. Rami (Jouko Puolanto) is an average middle-aged Finnish man – or at least what I imagine an average middle-aged Finnish man to be like – living a pretty average life with his wife in a nice high-rise condo. One day he has new neighbors move in, which isn’t all that weird until he meets Maki (Janne Reinikainen). Maki’s face is covered in Kiss-like face paint and he explains right off the bat that he’s a Satanist, but for him, it’s less about Satan worship and more about the weird sex cult aspect that comes with it.

Despite his unique lifestyle, Maki is a really nice guy. He constantly goes out of his way to say hi to Rami, even inviting him and his wife over to their housewarming party. Rami doesn’t quite take to Maki, however. He just cannot stand him because he’s a Satanist and as such he must be a bad person. Rami isn’t really mean to Maki, but he isn’t nice to him either. Maki isn’t deterred and continues to be extremely nice and eventually, he wins Rami over and the two develop a friendship.

Fucking Bunnies is a nice bit of social commentary on how we shouldn’t judge those different than us because we probably have more in common than what we see on the surface. And it also happens to be really, really, really funny. I’ll sign up to watch a tale of Satanic-panic doused in metal with a touch of social commentary and topped off with an extra helping of laughs every time out.

Arcana
Portugal
Dir. Jerónimo Rocha

Arcana is a 2015 short film out of Portugal from director Jerónimo Rocha. Is this short a woman is locked in a dungeon or sorts and it appears as if she may be possessed or possibly she’s a demon-woman hybrid. Whatever she is she clearly doesn’t want to be there and has been plotting her escape for some time. After feeding time she begins performing a ritual in an effort to put that escape plan into action.

This is one of the two shorts I saw that I wasn’t really all that thrilled about it. It looks great, offering up top-notch production values but beyond that, there isn’t a whole lot. We have a woman, who may or not be possessed, that has been locked up and wants to escape, so she escapes. The end. Maybe I was just missing something, but I didn’t find a whole lot to take away from Arcana.

Tickle Monster
United Kingdom
Dir. Remi Weekes

Director Remi Weekes got the biggest scare not only from the shorts but possibly from the whole festival with his brilliant little entry Tickle Monster. Elliot (Percelle Ascott) is hanging out in his bedroom with his girlfriend Natalie (Rhianne Barreto) when she discovers that he’s ticklish but hates being tickled. She decides to mess with him and tell him the story about the tickle monster. Eventually, things get a little too real.

Right from the start, it’s fairly easy to know where Tickle Monster is going to end up. What makes it so impressive is the route Weekes takes in getting you from point A to point B. He somehow manages to give you laughs throughout while creating thick tension and suspense and then delivering a scare so big it resulted in the entire audience I viewed it with screaming out loud. That’s impressive.

A Nearly Perfect Blue Sky
France
Dir. Quarxx

A Nearly Perfect Blue Sky is a short out of France that I really wanted to get into and love, but it just didn’t quite work out. The story is about a brother who spends his entire life taking care of his disabled sister after she blows half her face off during a horrific incident involving a gun from their childhood. In between taking care of his sister, he prepares for the arrival of some sort of otherworldly being.

With a runtime of 35 minutes, this short film suffers from feeling too long, which is never a great thing. The flashback sequence of the accident from their childhood is quite intense and shocking and the film has some strong emotional moments but it doesn’t all come together. It just feels like there’s something missing. I can’t tell if a short idea was stretched to create a longer short or a longer idea had key moments removed because the filmmaker only had the means to make a short.

A Perfectly Blue Sky is well made. It looks great and has some really strong effects work, but ultimately it feels like it’s lacking something. I’d be interested in seeing a shorter or longer version because I think taking it in either direction would allow for a tighter, more complete story. As currently constructed it sort of feels stuck in the middle.

A new documentary chronicles the director’s unexpected return.

Mami Sunada’s 2013 documentary Kingdom of Dreams and Madness shows the making of what was supposed to be master storyteller Hayao Miyazaki’s last feature. After his retirement, fans didn’t know whether to take the news lightly. This was, after all, Miyazaki’s fifth “retirement.” Yet at his press conference, Miyazaki said, “This time I mean it.” However, as we reported last year, Miyazaki has – thankfully and unsurprisingly – come out of retirement for a feature film version of his own Studio Ghibli short Boro the Caterpillar.

Where Sunada’s film documents what was thought to be Miyazaki’s final creation in the world of feature animation, Kaku Arakawa has arrived to record the opposite. In his documentary Never-Ending Man: Hayao Miyazaki, Arakawa follows the renowned filmmaker as his passion is reignited with feature film animation. Most importantly, the documentary presents something new in that Miyazaki’s creative sensibility has opened up to a new world, and one that many fans will be shocked by: computer animation.

As Arakawa notes in an interview with Little White Lies, “Miyazaki had always been skeptical about CG animation […] [he has] always had a strong belief in hand drawing.” What the trailer for Never-Ending Man (below) shows is that Miyazaki is, indeed, a “never-ending man.” As Arakawa says: “When I started filming and following Miyazaki for this documentary, he kept saying that ‘I am just a retired old man,’ but when he started working together with young CGI artists, I could see his fire started blazing again.”

Every film for Miyazaki presents new challenges since the filmmaker sees himself as a “slave of the film,” his hands and mind working together in service to the story and art he creates. Kingdom of Dreams and Madness shows this process, allowing audiences and fans to see his passion and craft firsthand. Never-Ending Man, meanwhile, also shows these same things, except with the added fire of an artist discovering and being accepted by a new form of filmmaking.

With an experienced artist’s venture into something new, Never-Ending Man explores questions of age, creativity, and an openness to new experiences. Miyazaki is a bold figure whose mind was created for the hand-drawn artistic form: the process is slow, the movement of pen on paper can often be gentle, and there is no barrier between Miyazaki’s hand and the pencil and paper other than his own mind.

Perhaps, then, the filmmaker’s venture into computer animation is a perfect return. The constantly evolving medium presents a different challenge, one that concerns time and aging, the constant renewal of CG’s form mirroring Miyazaki’s artistic renewal. Hopefully, computer animation will be a challenge that will impassion Miyazaki to keep creating films, with no retirement in near sight.

Never-Ending Man: Hayao Miyazaki debuts on NHK World TV on June 3rd.

An elegant, gorgeous montage.

Speaking technically, depth of field refers to the distance between the subjects or objects nearest and farthest from the lens, and the sharpness of everything within that distance. It’s also known as the focus range, or, more specifically, the effective focus range because everything in this range is effectively in focus. This is an illusion of sorts because of course a lens is built to only focus on a single thing at a time, but in depth of field, it’s the decrease in sharpness on both ends – the near end and the far end – that gives the visual impression everything is in focus equally.

Speaking aesthetically, depth of field is one of the most beautiful shots in a filmmaker’s repertoire and has been used to represent connection, disconnection, wonder, terror, discovery, mystery, and a host of other complementary and contradictory themes and emotions.

In the following montage from Fabriccio Diaz, the most elegant examples of the depth of field in contemporary cinema have been gathered and put on display. Films from Terrence Malick, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, Martin Scorsese, Denis Villeneuve, Peter Berg, Peter Weir, Barry Jenkins and others all make the cut, representing the broad range of the shot’s impact.

Movie and Director in order of appearance:
1. I Origins (2014) by Mike Cahill
2. Nerve (2016) by Henry Joost & Ariel Schulman
3. Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (2014) by Alejandro González Iñárritu
4. The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014) by Wes Anderson
5. Nerve (2016) by Henry Joost & Ariel Schulman
6. I Origins (2014) by Mike Cahill
7. To the wonder (2012) by Terrence Malick
8. Cloud Atlas (2012) by Tom Tykwer, Lana Wachowski & Lilly Wachowski
9. The Revenant (2015) by Alejandro González Iñárritu
10. Sicario (2015) by Denis Villeneuve
11. To the wonder (2012) by Terrence Malick
12. To the wonder (2012) by Terrence Malick
13. I Origins (2014) by Mike Cahill
14. To the wonder (2012) by Terrence Malick
15. I Origins (2014) by Mike Cahill
16. I Origins (2014) by Mike Cahill
17. The Revenant (2015) by Alejandro González Iñárritu
18. The Giver (2014) by Phillip Noyce
19. Cloud Atlas (2012) by Tom Tykwer, Lana Wachowski & Lilly Wachowski
20. I Origins (2014) by Mike Cahill
21. The Giver (2014) by Phillip Noyce
22. Hugo (2011) by Martin Scorsese
23. Sicario (2015) by Denis Villeneuve
24. Nerve (2016) by Henry Joost & Ariel Schulman
25. Deepwater Horizon (2016) by Peter Berg
26. Unbroken (2014) by Angelina Jolie
27. Ain’t Them Bodies Saints (2013) by David Lowery
28. I Origins (2014) by Mike Cahill
29. Deepwater Horizon (2016) by Peter Berg
30. Nerve (2016) by Henry Joost & Ariel Schulman
31. Requiem for a Dream (2000) by Darren Aronofsky
32. Hacksaw Ridge (2016) by Mel Gibson
33. Moonlight (2016) by Barry Jenkins
34. The Truman Show (1998) by Peter Weir
35. The Revenant (2015) by Alejandro González Iñárritu

Music: Cloud Atlas Finale by Tom Tykwer

The new Netflix series explores the complexities of sex in the modern age.

In 2015, Jill Bauer and Ronna Gradus premiered their documentary Hot Girls Wanted at the Sundance Film Festival, to mostly positive reviews. The film profiles a talent agent named and the 18- and 19-year-old girls he recruits into the porn industry. Mike Hale of the New York Times writes that the film’s uncertain tone vacillates between weary outrage and motherly concern. He notes the filmmakers faced the challenge of respecting their subjects’ decisions while also abhorring them. It is a challenging subject to document. These women enthusiastically claim they are choosing to be part of the porn industry but face many hardships and heartbreaks along the way. Hale’s review says it seems to be a reality television-style slice of life, the camera intimately focusing on the young women, their possessions, and the spaces they inhabit. The film does not come across as judgmental, but it does point out the potential dangers for young women entering the adult entertainment business.

Liz Shannon Miller of Indiewire writes that it has become common for films acquired by Netflix to become follow-up or spinoff series — for example, Wet Hot American Summer became First Day of Camp, and now Hot Girls Wanted has become Hot Girls Wanted: Turned On. This new series takes what the film does and expands it further. Gradus and Bauer use the same intimate style wherein the camera lingers on faces and lets its subjects talk at length about their deepest personal feelings. But this time, they explore a number of different aspects of sex in our modern age. The first season has six episodes, and most of them focus on the adult entertainment industry and the different career paths people have chosen within porn. One episode focuses on dating apps, and the final episode centers on a young woman who filmed a sexual assault on the Periscope app. The episodes cover a wide range of topics and feature a wide range of perspectives on sex and technology.

Netfix

The series and the original film are important to consider because they represent a new way of looking at pornography through the medium of documentary. Ed Power of the Telegraph notes that pornography has long been a favorite subject of documentarians, since it is such a fascinating and complex topic. Films such as After Porn Ends and Aroused allow adult performers to share their experiences within the industry and how it affects them on a daily basis even after their careers are finished. These films are similar to Hot Girls Wanted in that they humanize performers by letting them speak directly to the camera about their careers. However, what sets Turned On apart is that it takes a more positive, pro-porn view of the subject. Of course it is a complex topic, and as with any industry there are dangers and hardships. But the series mostly focuses on people who love their work and who are self-aware and intelligent regarding their decisions. Rather than taking on a completely anti-porn stance, Turned On shows how there are lots of positive aspects to this particular cultural phenomena.

Scholar Laura Kipnis writes that pornography is central to our culture, because it is intensely and relentlessly about us , about the roots of our culture and the deepest corners of ourselves. She claims that whether one is shocked, excited, titillated, or revolted by pornography, these reactions represent two opposing sides of the same coin — intense, visceral reactions to it. What porn documentaries do is complicate these reactions. One may be turned on by pornography but be turned off to see the performers in “real life.” One may be disgusted by pornography but interested in what the actors and actresses have to say about it.

These reactions are deeply embedded in what scholar and feminist Gayle Rubin refers to as the “hierarchical valuation of sex.” In our North American society, morally “good” sex refers to heterosexual monogamous sex, typically for the purpose of reproduction. There are things society sees as “contested,” such as monogamous homosexuality and promiscuous heterosexuality. And then, of course, there are things considered morally wrong, or “bad”: prostitution and any kind of sexual act in exchange for money, various fetishes, and sadomasochistic sex. Of course, society’s judgment on these sexual acts has changed over time and people are a lot more accepting of non-heterosexual sex today than they were in the 1960s and 1970s. However, sex work is still frequently seen as “dirty” and “wrong,” and documentaries like Turned On work against these judgments.

Radical feminist/scholar/lawyer Catherine MacKinnon argued in the 1980s and 1990s that all pornography represents violence against women, and that porn should be a legal category so that female performers can seek compensation for any damage that has been done to them. Anti-porn feminists such as MacKinnon believe that no women actually choose to perform in porn and that pornography should be completely eliminated from society. The strong rhetoric used by anti-porn feminists is manipulative and alarmist and does not account for any nuance within the adult entertainment industry. Many female performers (such as those portrayed in Hot Girls Wanted) make all of their own career decisions, from who they perform with and how frequently they perform to what props and lubricants they wish to use in certain scenes.

Anti-porn feminists do not consider female agency, nor do they support onscreen sex between two or more women, or with gender non-binary individuals. Not all porn is between one man and one woman; there are infinite variations to consider, from different genders, body types, bodily abilities, and different sexual acts other than penetrative intercourse. Heterosexual pornography does frequently appear to be violent and aggressive, but the appearance of aggression does not account for the negotiated nature of these scenes. While these scenes arguably promote violent patriarchal domination of women, they are also fantasies that do not represent how people truly treat each other. Sexual fantasies are not real life, and they often focus on taboos and acts that people would not perform in their real lives. Pornographic scenes are also frequently highly negotiated, with both parties giving their full consent to the acts they take part in. For example, in the episode “Money Shot,” two of the performers state on camera that they completely consent to what they are about to take part in before they start filming.

While Turned On is not a perfect series, it does provide an interesting exploration of human nature, and the different ways sex and pornography affect different people’s’ lives, especially in a world where technology makes pornography a lot more widespread than it once was.

I’m here to tell you that there’s a cinematic streaming goldmine available on Hulu that includes recent hits, older classics, domestic releases, and foreign imports. Sure it’s mostly TV shows, plenty of filler, and seemingly thousands of titles I’ve never heard of before, but I’m here to recommend some good movies (and maybe even some “good” movies) to watch this May on Hulu.

Typically I cross all manner of genres, but this month I’m focusing on horror to remind people that it’s never a bad time of year to watch something spooky, creepy, or visibly unsettling.

Pick of the Month: The Den (2014)

I know what you’re thinking. “Rob! Please shut up about this movie you’ve been praising at every opportunity since 2014.” I would if a could kind stranger, I would if I could. But I can’t because the damn movie is so ridiculously great in both its script and format. It’s not quite “found footage,” but it does take place almost entirely on a laptop computer screen, and while that sounds like it would be terrible it’s executed with such precision and skill as to create a horror thriller that’s as smartly crafted as it is terrifying. So here’s the deal… I’ll stop pushing it once everyone in the free world has seen it.

Puppetmaster (1989)

The films from Charles Band‘s Full Moon factory have dipped into parody over the years, but up through the ’90s at least they managed to frequently deliver plenty of horrifically good fun. Dolls remains one of my favorites, but this franchise-starter has more than its fair share of bloody and goofy thrills as a creative mix of malicious, stop-motion puppets wreak havoc on some unsuspecting humans. Now’s a good time to catch up with, and to dig into the mixed bag of sequels if so inclined, as a new film is currently in production with the always worth watching Barbara Crampton in a lead role.

Frankenhooker (1990)

Frank Henenlotter‘s best film (don’t @ me) is far more comedic than it is horrific, but it still counts for this list as it involves a mad scientist, body parts, and exploding prostitutes. It may not be scary, but damn is it funny. As you can probably surmise from the title it plays on the Frankenstein narrative but does so with wicked abandon and a wonderfully broad sense of humor. James Lorinz kills it as the man behind the monster, but Patty Mullen steals it from beneath him as the smack-talking “monster” with a crooked smile. It’s endlessly goofy, so if you’re not in the right state of mind feel free to skip it, but if you’re up for some absurdity definitely give it a spin.

Open Water (2003)

The premise here is terrifying in its simplicity, and it remains one of the few “animal attack” movies to actually deliver scares in addition to its thrills. Even people who don’t plan on swimming in the ocean should find the tension and terror here highly effective. The bitching and griping between the couple trapped floating in the middle of nowhere is occasionally tiresome, but the isolation and constant threat from below overpower that complaint.

The Last Winter (2007)

The “ecological horror” sub-genre typically features animals on a rampage, but while we wait for John Skipp & Craig Spector’s brilliant novel The Bridge to get the adaptation it deserves this moody gem sits as the best example of the planet striking back. It’s Larry Fessenden‘s best film too delivering atmospheric chills, memorable visuals, and themes that feel relevant even as they leave viewers unsettled. All that plus James Le Gros, Ron Perlman, and Kevin Corrigan!

The Burrowers (2008)

J.T. Petty‘s frontier-set “creature feature” melds westerns and horror to near perfection as it sends a rescue party out in search of some missing settlers. Clancy Brown and William Mapother headline, and the movie does a great job setting the scene, crafting its characters, and ratcheting up suspense before the monsters of the title make their presence known. It’s good stuff in an unusual environment for the genre, and I highly recommend it for those of you who wished Little House on the Prairie had more monsters beyond Nellie Oleson.

Undocumented (2010)

As timely a horror movie as you’re likely to find in the Trump era, this “found footage” thriller sees a group of illegal immigrants crossing the border into the United States only to find a brutal welcoming party awaiting them. It’s a tough watch at times, but it delivers some thrills and fills the time while we wait for director Chris Peckover‘s sophomore feature (the immensely thrilling and highly entertaining Safe Neighborhood, recently re-named Better Watch Out) to finally get released.

Kidnapped (2011)

A home invasion thriller filmed in multiple long takes/tracking shots, this is a harrowing ride from beginning to end and a film that finds its terror in the mundane realm of your own home. I’m on record as *hating* the final minute despite loving everything that comes before, so proceed at your own risk.

Maniac (2012)

William Lustig’s original slasher has its fans, but while I appreciate the sleazy, low-rent feel for what it is the effect is a movie that never feels in need of a re-watch. Franck Khalfoun‘s remake, by contrast, is an endlessly stylish and gruesome affair that succeeds on nearly every front. It’s shot and scored beautifully, the gore effects are extraordinary, and it’s presented almost completely in POV format. Elijah Wood gives the title character a terrific mix of pathos and mania, and while he’s still the “bad guy” here his performance adds layers missing from the original.

The Babadook (2014)

Easily the most critically-acclaimed of the films on this list, Jennifer Kent‘s terrifically creepy exploration of grief and loss creates its own mythology in pursuit of its themes. Sure the kid’s occasionally obnoxious, but it’s a worthy price to pay for some truly creepy sequences and a powerful ending. One of its many strengths is the recognition that even if you interpret the film as wholly without supernatural presence its power and terror remains.

They Look Like People (2016)

Like The Den at the top of the page, this is another small horror picture that I refuse to shut up about. It’s the far more indie of the two with a central cast of three characters and the feeling of a tiny character drama, but as the story unfolds the terror, suspense, and tension steadily increase. It’s a fantastic tale of friendship in the face of mental illness too, and while horror films often engage in serious themes and topics they rarely land as beautifully and effectively as they do here.

Celebrating the expansion of comic book sensibilities in J.D. Dillard’s ‘Sleight.’

The last thing the internet (aka the world) needs right now is another hot take on the box office dominance of superhero movies in contemporary cinema culture. They’re here, don’t fear, get used to it. This past weekend, Marvel Studios had yet another massive success with the global triumph of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, and there is no reason to predict their downfall after a string of fifteen successful interconnected movies. And why would you!??! All grumps, please direct yourself to my previous celebration on all Marvel movies, including Howard The Duck.

It’s been seventeen years since Bryan Singer’s X-Men, and in that time we’ve seen nearly every variety of comic book character adapted to the big screen. From Spider-Man to Hellboy to Kick-Ass, the Hollywood desire to franchise has never been more rabid or lucrative. Sure, for every Avengers assemblage you get three or four Jonah Hex wannabes, and those pathetic attempts certainly leave a bitter taste in both fan and muggle alike. I’m not sure if anything can stop the Merry Marvel Marching Society, but enough dullard Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle sequels could squander our desire for accepting others beyond the House of Ideas.

True Believers need not be afraid. While an endless stream of origin stories could certainly result in our eventual boredom/rejection of the genre, we have just witnessed a new stage in the evolution of superhero cinema that will undoubtedly sustain it for a few more decades. Released the weekend before Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, J.D. Dillard’s Sleight quietly reveals its four-colored genesis over its succinct 89-minute runtime. Not as packed with Marvel bombast, Sleight basically presents the Spider-Man story from another point of view and excites its audience through repackaging 1960s heroics into a sincere morality quest.

Jacob Latimore plays Bo, a high school over-achiever with one of those big Peter Parker brains that placed him on a path to academic scholarship before his mother died, and he had to transition into the role of parent to his younger sister, Tina. With his life now consumed with feeding and housing his sister, Bo makes his money busking as a street magician and selling drugs for small time gangster, Dule Hill. Just a few minutes into the movie, it is revealed that Bo has mechanically enhanced his body to help aid him in levitation tricks, and obviously, this comes into further play when his drug dealing side-hustle turns horrific.

Like the very best Marvel movies, Sleight knows that its genre elements are not nearly as interesting as the scenes rooted in character. Our anticipation for the inevitable violent clash is only strengthened by scenes of Bo and Tina reflecting on the loss of their mother, or Bo and his neighbor, Sasheer Zamata, debating the ethical quandaries of dealing. We don’t love Peter Parker because he’s great at smashing The Vulture in his big, dumb head. We love Peter Parker because he loves, and is loved by Aunt May. The Vulture punching is certainly an essential element, but truly secondary to the familial love.

With a production budget of just 250,000 thousand dollars, the real wizardry of Sleight is just how J.D. Dillard crafted a saga worthy of the MCU. The one-time receptionist for Bad Robot did not have the budget to utilize heaps of CGI; instead, Dillard went old school with a thin strand of invisible string to pull off the levitating ring gag. Such ingenuity caught the attention of Jason Blum during 2016’s Sundance, and in partnership with WWE Studios, the two micro-budget production houses brought Sleight to 565 theaters in April.

The film did not crack the Top 10 opening weekend (slot 14 actually), but with a per screen average of $3,012, Dillard has found himself in that unique spot once occupied by Josh Trank and Jon Watts. Here you go indie darling, how do a few hundred million dollars sound to you? 20^th Century Fox has tapped Dillard, and his writing partner Alex Theurer, for the second remake of The Fly. While I’m personally not sold on this studio tactic, I still fear the Fantastic Fours and Jurassic Worlds of our future, I am 100 percent on board for anything J.D. Dillard.

Sleight shows where a generation of filmmakers raised on comic books and comic book movies could lead. Similar to how J.J. Abrams revels as a child of Spielberg, Dillard stands on the shoulders of Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, and their MCU, and proudly proclaims himself as their decedent. Nothing seems to be stopping the charge to Infinity War, but J.D. Dillard illustrates an alternative in tone for those looking for more than Easter eggs.

What it takes to be the most mainstream cult filmmaker.

Few filmmakers have as up and down a career as Guy Ritchie. Sometimes he’s seen as a cool director, then he’s seen as a hack. Sometimes he delivers positively reviewed movies, and sometimes his work is severely panned. He’s been considered mainstream, and he’s been appreciated on a cult level for his style, especially when it comes to action. Through it all, though, he’s been a successful, highly paid favorite in Hollywood, particularly of Warner Bros., the studio behind his last four movies (including King Arthur).

Ritchie isn’t the sort who gives a lot of advice to aspiring filmmakers, but he has shared some tips and “lines” (rules) of the trade over the years, and we’ve selected these six we think are worth following:

1. Getting Started Late is Fine

Ritchie wanted to make movies at an early age, but it wasn’t a serious pursuit in his youth. After dropping out of school at 15 (upon expulsion), he tried to make it as a bricklayer and a drug dealer, among other jobs. Eventually he figured out what he really wanted to do, went into the entertainment biz, starting at the bottom, and the rest is history. In a recent episode of NPR’s Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me!, he shared what he learned:

I didn’t start seriously until I was 25. If there’s one piece of advice I would give anyone it is do not sweat until you’re 25. There seems to be something that takes place in the brain at 25 when you’ve had a quarter of a century of arsing around, learning about life…And all of that anxiety I went through from 15 to 25 was wasted. I just think at 25 get serious. And up until then don’t be.

Literally from the day of — from the age of 25, once I started in the film business, I did not stop working. In nothing else did I sustain any motivation or interest. But as soon as I got interested — as soon as I started in the film business just as a tea boy, that was it. I was off to the races.

What got Ritchie motivated to get into filmmaking seriously is also an interesting story, as shared in the 2005 book “Success: Advice for Achieving Your Goals from Remarkably Accomplished People”:

A useless mate I went to school with directed a commercial and got paid copious amounts of money for it. And the commercial was a pile of shit! The fact that he managed to get the job and that he had the balls to call himself a director was enough to inspire me — he was a director because he was making money. He was 24. I was 25, and I didn’t have a job and that wasn’t good because I knew it takes five years before you get anywhere. I began to panic…I’d read that Steven Spielberg made his first movie when he was 26. And somehow I did; I made a short film called Hard Case.

For Warner Bros., here’s Ritchie talking in more detail (and seemingly lengthier in time) on how he got his career started:

2. Self-Doubt is Normal

You’d think an experienced guy like Ritchie would be as confident as directors get, but apparently that’s not true. While he is fairly confident, he’s also fairly nervous when he starts a new movie. He told Echo-Pilot in 2015 about his insecurity both before beginning a project and after it’s done and headed out to audiences:

Yeah, of course. Because you put a few quid in the pot. You get a couple of years in, and all of a sudden some accountability takes place. I try to knock that self doubt, but you do need an element of it. You know, at the beginning of the process, I usually have a crisis for a week, where I’m thinking, “Have we really thought this through?” And I’m riddled with self doubt. And then it goes. (laughs)

Guy Ritchie directing ‘King Arthur: Legend of the Sword’ (Warner Bros.)

3. Discomfort is Essential

In a 2009 Esquire interview, Ritchie reveals that he has “three best lines,” or rules about life, surely applicable to filmmaking. He doesn’t divulge the third one, the second one is “it’s okay to have beliefs, just don’t believe in them,” and the first one is:

You have to be comfortable being uncomfortable. That’s what karate taught me. The fear of being uncomfortable is worse than the discomfort itself…The illusion of pain is something you have to get comfortable with.

Here’s a new interview in which Ritchie explains how he keeps cool on the set:

4. Writers Need to Be Proactive

Ritchie has written most of his own movies and worked on the final scripts for his last couple studio efforts, but he isn’t as much of a screenwriter as he used to be. He prefers directing and can make more movies if he doesn’t start them from scratch. In a 2015 ComingSoon.net interview, he explains why he doesn’t write as much anymore while subtly giving advice about what it takes to be a screenwriter:

There’s no question that writing is the most painful and arduous process in the entire equation, because it’s not active like directing is active. Directing on the day is people give me a lot of ingredients and I’m the chef, right? But at least the ingredients are on the table and I just have to sort of act. It’s an interactive experience. Writing is not like that. Writing is you and a typewriter or [The Man from U.N.C.L.E. co-writer Lionel Wigram], myself and two typewriters, you know? So you have to be much more proactive about that than you do about any other element of filmmaking, so hence, we think it’s really important that we both liked. Lionel would not be sitting where he’s sitting if he didn’t write.

Guy Ritchie with Brad Pitt on the set of ‘Snatch’ (Screen Gems)

5. Keep Fit

Is directing always active, though? In the below answer to a 2015 Twitter Q&A question, Ritchie explains how since there’s a lot of downtime, it’s important to keep active and stay in shape:

.@holisticblogger asks: what’s your secret to staying healthy & fit while shooting? #AskGuyRitchie http://t.co/j2n3clvTHw

— The Man From UNCLE (@ManFromUNCLE) August 11, 2015

 6. This is a Fun Job

As tough as Ritchie makes filmmaking seem with other tips, in a 2015 Vulture interview he maintains that it’s the best job in the world and should be recognized as such:

The curious thing about directors is that there aren’t too many who go to other directors’ film sets, but I hear horror stories about what goes on, and it mystifies me how that could happen. Anyone who has wanted to become a film director and becomes one and is paid to do it as a career, you’d think they’d be incredibly grateful about the position. Levity is a word that I try to hang onto, because the filmmaking business should be a fun business. There seems to be no good reason why everyone shouldn’t be having a good time.

Guy Ritchie on the set of ‘Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows’ (Warner Bros.)

What We’ve Learned

Through all the challenges and pressures, the uncertainty and pain, filmmaking is a great job to have and one you can get started on after you’ve experienced a bit of the world and found it out as your calling (or realized your talentless mates are undeservedly getting away with it). It’s fun, just not easy, nor is it for the lazy. You need to be determined with your writing of projects and stay active while directing them.

In space, no one can hear you scream.

People hardly ever agree with me, but in a sense, I like to think of Alfonso Cuaron’s Gravity as a horror film. Certainly, the premise is terrifying: being trapped, alone, a thousand miles above the earth in the most inhospitable environment known to man with no clear or safe route home. Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) makes for the perfect “final girl;” she smart, capable, resilient, and self-reliant. The only thing missing from the film is an antagonist, some sort of monster or other killer pursing our heroine, and I’d argue that you could slip time into that role: time is what Dr. Stone is up against, time is what she must defeat in order to survive. Time and the cold, ruthless, airless and endless expanse of space.

It’s this expanse that really drives home the horrific aspects of Gravity for me, and it’s captured in those gorgeous and haunting wide shots employed by Oscar-winning cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki to show just how alone Stone is, and just how extreme her situation is. She’s a white pinprick set against infinite darkness, an immeasurable speck amongst the boundless cosmos. This contrast serves not only to emphasize the insurmountable odds she’s up against, but also to augment her eventual success and in turn her character’s internal fortitude.

In the following compilation from Harrison Edgecombe, the wide shots of Gravity have been gathered and cinematically stitched together to reveal their impact on establishing the tone and – pardon the pun – atmosphere of Cuaron’s film. As you watch, notice the dread each shot instills, the way they make your hair stand on end and your breath hold itself deep in the pit of your lungs, then try to tell me Gravity isn’t a horror film.

A24 delivers another piece of top notch horror with It Comes at Night.

It Comes at Night opens with a family forced to do something no family should ever have to do. It’s an emotional moment as the family’s grandfather (David Pendleton) has become sick. What he’s sick with or how exactly he became sick nobody knows, but there’s an epidemic that has rapidly spread and wiped out large portions of the population. After saying their goodbyes the grandfather is taken out into the woods where he is shot and burned. It’s the only thing that can be done in the name of survival.

The remaining family members — father Paul (Joel Edgerton), mother Sarah (Carmen Ejogo) and teenage son Travis (Kelvin Harrison, Jr.) — live in a desolate house in the middle of the woods. The family lives in isolation for protection. Their home is boarded up and when you enter you have to go through two heavily locked doors to get to the actual living area. Unfortunately, the family does less living and more surviving.

The latest film from director Trey Edward Shults is an infection movie that starts off by putting us in the middle of the infection. No time is wasted telling us how the infection began, nor does the family waste time trying to find a cure or solution. Finding a cure would be great, but honestly, the best thing anyone can do when facing a situation like this is just endure.

Paul will do whatever it takes to make sure his family survives and that means running a tight ship. No one leaves the house at night unless it’s an absolute emergency and if you do leave you don’t leave alone. When the family is in the house all doors are to remain locked under any and all circumstances. The family eats all meals together so that food is properly rationed. In this new world, you can’t afford to have a midnight snack.

One night as the family is sleeping they are awakened by a loud banging noise coming from their front room. The family rushes down, guns in hand, to greet the intruder. As they approach the bright red door that serves as their last line of defense they can see it violently shaking as something from the other side bangs against it, trying to break it down.

This is the first of many intense, heart pounding scenes. What is on the other side of that door? Is a person? Is it something else? We know so little at this point that it could be anything. It ends up being a man named Will (Christopher Abbott) and don’t worry this isn’t any sort of spoiler.

Will is caught off guard as he clearly was not expecting to find anybody in the house. Paul quickly disarms him and takes him outside and ties him to a tree to leave him over night. The next morning Paul comes out to question Will and find out why he was breaking into his house. Will explains is a story, claiming he didn’t mean any harm and was just trying to help his wife (Riley Keough) and young son (Griffin Robert Faulkner). Will’s story isn’t that different than Paul’s — he’s simply trying to look out for his family while adjusting to this new world that nobody quite understands.

After a quick discussion with Travis and Sarah, it’s decided that Paul will take Will back to get his wife and son and the three of them will move in with Paul’s family. Both families will leave together, work together and help one another survive. The more people there to protect the home, the safer it’ll be. At least that’s the theory.

It Comes at Night is an incredibly dark film. There’s a very real external threat but it’s mostly an unknown. It’s some sort of plague and once it infects you your body deteriorates at a rapid pace. And that’s a genuinely scary thing. Nobody wants their skin to be covered with boils and warts with blood randomly gushing from your mouth. As unpleasant as that sounds it’s not nearly as scary as the things humans are capable of doing.

In a post-apocalyptic world animalistic instincts take over. When people are backed into a corner and forced to fight to survive there are no limits as to what they’ll do. It Comes at Night pushes those limits further than we typically see on screen. Paul’s family is no different from Will’s family. They all just want to survive and take care of their own. And they genuinely want to help one another, but when every day is a struggle you can only trust so much.

The two families have some heartwarming moments together. There are happy times and some laughs to be shared, but there’s always some underlying tension. Is Will who he seems? What about Paul? This is all heats up until it boils over into a jaw-dropping ending that I did not expect to see.

The movie gets by in large part due to some incredible performances. Christopher Abbott, who I was previously unaware of, gives us a knockout performance as Will. His portrayal is very ambiguous. You want to like him and believe his intentions are true, but it’s never 100% clear.

Kelvin Harrison, Jr. gives a breakout performance flashing star potential as Travis. As a teenager, he’s arguably undergoing the most struggles. Not only does he have to deal with this world that nobody understands with a disease spreading and killing everyone in comes in contact with, but he’s also a teenager and being a teenager isn’t easy. He’s going through all the changes teenagers go through and the film is mostly shown from his perspective. It Comes at Night isn’t only a horror film but it’s also a coming-of-age story about Travis that just happens to be set in a post-apocalyptic backdrop.

The film also has some interesting technical and style choices. In the post-screening Q&A Shults shared some of these choices with the audience and the most interesting was how they handled the nightmare/dream sequences within the film. There are a number of these within the film and they’re amongst the most powerful scenes so Shults took this opportunity to mess with the aspect ratio. The film is 2:35:1 while the nightmares are 1:85:1. A subtle difference to be sure, but a nice little touch nonetheless.

During the Q&A Shults also discussed how he wrote the film during a dark time in his life in which he was dealing with the death of his father. This explains the darkness of the film and when you know this information creates a bigger punch the gut.

Audiences are going to love It Comes at Night, provided they’re ok with things being left open to interpretation. There are a number of moments within the film where it’s not entirely clear what happened. Shults was pressed on a lot of these moments and every time made it clear that it’s for the audience to decide. Personally I think that’s for the betterment of the film and applaud him for doing so. I find films more enjoyable when you can create your own path.

Trey Edward Shults is quickly ascending the ranks of the best young directors working and this will only further cement his rising status. Few directors are able to blend honest emotion with legit scares as well as Shults does here. While we haven’t yet reached the halfpoint of the year I’m fairly confident in saying that when the year comes to a close It Comes at Night will stand tall amongst the very best of 2017.

Why Nolan’s Batman films are the perfect metaphor for the here and now.

First and foremost, Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight Trilogy is about fear; the fear of being conquered, of being enslaved, on both a societal and a personal level. Bruce Wayne becomes Batman to combat this fear, choosing himself to take a guise that will strike terror into the hearts of his enemies, who he condemns from the beginning (at least in the comics) as “a cowardly lot.”

Secondly, the Dark Knight Trilogy is about resistance, not just Batman’s resistance, but the resistance he inspires in the citizens of Gotham, who by the end of the third film have seen their city ransacked by supervillainous terrorists over and over again but who have survived annihilation thanks not only to the caped crusader but also their own fierce resilience. On a contrary hand, it’s also about the resistance of the trilogy’s villains, their unwillingness to abide by the rules and mores of society and their desire to carve their own system out of the existing one. This sets up a conflict that’s bigger than one costumed crimefighter against one maniacal madman, rather it poses society against itself: those who would lie down and accept their conquering and those who would rage against it.

In this way, it’s been argued, Nolan’s films aren’t just the action-packed blockbusters they seem to be on the surface; they’re also parables about resistance, tyranny, insurrection, and the nefarious ability to rule by playing into people’s base fears.

Sound familiar? Turn on CNN; fear, insurrection, tyranny and resistance are today’s top stories, and a lot of them are taking place much closer to home than we might have thought possible. We’re living The Dark Knight Trilogy in a sense – just check out the Joker in the White House – and all that’s missing is a figurehead in body armor.

To further and better prove these points, dig the following video essay from Daniel Clarkson Fisher which I am calling the best, most poignant, most salient video essay I have seen thus far this year. Using the Nolan films and a host of supplementary, real-world statistics, Fisher has crafted a hauntingly captivating line of thought that will change the way you see these films, their director, and indeed the world surrounding you. There are things you should watch, and there are things you need to watch. Fisher’s video, without a doubt, belongs at the top of the latter category.

F—k for your life.

Being the last of your friends to lose your virginity sucks. I, uh, I would imagine. They’re all going on and on about how awesome sex is, sharing stories and anecdotes, and all you can do is sit there and hope they ignore your bright white blinking shame. But what if, just what if, having sex for the first time wasn’t just a rite of passage but a survival tactic? That’s the oddly hilarious premise of The Last Virgin in LA from writer-director-star Zane Rubin, who plays Millie, a wallflower sitting quietly by while her two more experienced friends discuss their sexual exploits. When they try to include Millie, she reveals that she’s never done the deed, which causes real concern in her friends not because she’s yet to jump this developmental hurdle, but because her failure to do so could get her killed. See, a mob comprised of the actors and actresses, reality stars and other such figures of young Hollywood have been going around town eliminating every virgin from the landscape, and word has it there’s only one left: Millie. Thus begins a race against the clock to get off before getting offed.

Shot with a total of five characters in one location, The Last Virgin in LA is sketch comedy done exceedingly well. It’s a simple concept played to extremes without slipping into total absurdity, a fine and delicate balance accomplished by the direction and performance of Rubin, as well as her supporting cast, most notable Skyler Samuels (Scream Queens) and Jeanette McCurdy (Between), who play her more promiscuous friends.

This is Rubin’s fourth short – the others are available on her Vimeo page and simply must be watched after you finish The Last Virgin in L.A. – and she’s also written and directed a feature, The Moon and Starr, which you can and should watch in its entirety on her YouTube page.  Bottom line, Rubin’s the Real Deal and you should expect big and hilarious things from her future, starting as soon as you press play.

A conversation with the costume designer of WGN America’s ‘Underground.’

The period piece is dangerous territory. Historical narratives, battlegrounds in school board skirmishes, wade alongside our own idea of what our shared history looks like. And the limits of that shared idea is sometimes surprising. In the past few months, we’ve learned that our President is unsure about the identity of Frederick Douglas and that our Housing and Urban Development Secretary remembers enslaved Africans as immigrants like any other in the proverbial melting pot.

A worldview that is probably unshared by Misha Green and Joe Pokaski, the creators of Underground, a period drama that airs on WGN America and centers on the world of the Macon 7, a group of slaves who, by the show’s second season, have run away along the mythic underground railroad. It’s a subject that’s been particularly high on the public imagination, lately, with Colson Whitehead’s Underground Railroad making a grand sweep last year of all the prizes books generally try to win. But while Whitehead and his literary ilk have gone the way of fantasy and magical realism (Whitehead imagines the railroad to be the literal thing of rails slipping under the ground of slavery), Underground is interested in the allegorical potential of the real struggles of real slaves, trapped in a system that pits them against each other in a cripplingly dehumanizing system. A multifarious drama with the kind of all-encompassing cast that most hero/anti-hero prestige programs shy away from. Rich with the pulpy stuff of human drama, every episode of the last season brought with it newfound betrayals and changing loyalties that informed the construction of a simple dichotomy: what side are you on?  Are you a citizen or are you a soldier?

It’s a question that appealed to Karyn Wagner, who has designed costumes for the entirely of Underground‘s two seasons, a feat that involved crafting sixty to seventy percent of the casts’ clothing herself. Experienced in crafting past eras for the filmed screen, Wagner’s work has appeared in everything from Frank Darabont’s nostalgic fantasia The Green Mile to the more conventional fare of something like Rob Epstein’s Lovelace. When I chatted with her, she was busy helping to outfit a miniseries on the siege of Waco that Harvey Weinstein is financing and that she promised would be a “much more realistic retelling of what happened…It’s dark and tarry, which I like.”

When she first saw the scripts for Underground, Wagner told me she fell in love immediately. “What I find horrifying is when the white man comes to the enslaved person’s rescue,”  she said, referring to a popular motif in many contemporary slave dramas that have hit the big screen lately, from Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained to Steve McQueen’s 12 Years a Slave. The slave escape story is known to carry these risks; Kathryn Schulz, writing in the New Yorker, observes that “in the entire history of slavery, the Railroad offers one of the few narratives in which white Americans can plausibly appear as heroes.” Underground, however, refuses this temptation. The abolitionist movement is, somewhat, represented in the show by John Hawkes (Marc Blucas), a lawyer who campaigns on behalf the enslaved. His campaigns, however, prove impotent and he is killed by an angry slave owner as the beginning of the last season. Also introduced in that episode? Harriet Tubman, played by Aisha Hinds.

If she didn’t look to blaxploitation cinema or Roots for inspiration, Wagner dove instead into the historical archive: turning to the daguerreotypes and ambrotypes of the era. “People’s faces will tell you an awful lot about them if you just stop to look,” she told me, aiming her gaze primarily at the facial expressions of the antebellum South, ”You can infer a lot about what they’re wearing based on what you know they’re feeling inside.”

I wondered how she approached historical figures, like Tubman and Frederick Douglas, played by John Legend, who appeared briefly in the fifth episode of the last season. Both are the kind historical figures long-fossilized by representation in high school textbook but in Underground, feel like real and breathing characters.

“For Harriet, I took some of the daguerreotypes that show her as she was: very angry eyes, resolute mouth,” Wagner told me. Something that felt especially important to Wagner was locating her personality in Tubman’s devout and austere faith: “Very practical dresses. No petticoats, no corsets. Nothing that would contain her movement at all…she had to appear womanly in god’s eyes but not, but never advertise it so.”

A scene from “Whiteface” in the second season

Legend’s Douglass, however, was a different matter: applying colorful modern fabrics to the image of a leader who persists in our memories as permanently grave and black-and-white. She compared her approach to that of the series’ soundtrack, which is known to find the power in indie pop bands like Phantogram and the force in Kanye’s “New Slaves.” “It evokes the period, yet at the same time feels accessible to a contemporary audience. I wanted to do the same thing with the fabrics and the shapes,” she told me and her Douglass is something like a star-studded rocker, far from the frontlines but deep inside the separate battle of political legitimacy. The historical constraints of the show’s setting remain important to her, however, and she views maintaining their boundaries as essential to her art: “If somebody is going to pull a gun out of their pocket, I have to know that, well, pockets weren’t invented back then.”

Where many of today’s popular period pieces, from Hamilton to Drunk History, revel in playfully winking at the tastes of their contemporary viewers, the strict historical boundaries set up in Underground have not prevented the show from acquiring a massive following; last year’s season finale was watched by over a million viewers. And many of these fans find the show to be perfectly timely in an age where #RESISTANCE trends throughout online waters. The fraught alliance between a socialite with abolitionist ideals, played by Jessica De Gouw, and the slaves she is trying to assist brought, for TV critic Danette Chavez, “a timely discussion” questioning “the motives and efficacy of demonstrations like the real-life Women’s March from January of this year.” The show’s large cast allows Underground to portray slavery as a system ruled despotically by its own particularities and not as an isolated case standing for all.

But Underground, like any television show, has its heroes and few stand higher than Noah (Aldis Hodge), who is the first try to organize the Macon 7 and remains its solemn leader.  Wagner dresses him in denim, wanting to evoke both “our cowboys and our presidents.” Conversely, she likes to code many of the show’s villains with green fabrics, reflecting the then- contemporary obsession with “Paris Green,” a toxic pigment that was used in fabrics to signify wealth and sometimes causing its wearers to slowly go mad.

But not all of Wagner’s influences stick as strictly to the 19^th century. She attributes her interests in the details of slave narratives to the work of Kara Walker, a contemporary painter famous for her expressive cut-paper silhouettes of slaves in the antebellum south. Ditto the work of Yinka Shonibare and Wangechi Mutu, the latter’s “A Fantastic Journey.” Walker had caught at the Brooklyn Museum. Many of these artists were interested in creating their own reinterpretation of the historical record, creating a version of the antebellum that is loaded with menace.

The studious details that Wagner attaches to each element of a faraway past betray, somewhat, the very need to invent them. The lives of the vast majority of America’s slaves went undocumented and lost to the chasm of history, the faces of millions were never put before a daguerreotype. The greatest accomplishment of Underground may just be its ability to do just that.

Hiding cuts in a hurricane of violence.

We’ve talked before about the narrative power of editing specifically when it comes to action scenes. In scenes like the Max/Furiosa fight in Fury Road or the elevator scene in Drive, editing is what establishes pace and coherency, it is what helps makes sense of the melee of punches, kicks, grunts and stomps, and it frames the freneticism into something we can track. The number, style and duration of cuts in an action scene all lend themselves to the overall effectiveness of said scenes, as does the artifice with which everything is stitched together: the more seamless, the more effective. There’s plenty of artificiality in action scenes, after all, from the split-hair choreography to the endurance and resilience of the participants, so the more actual an editor can depict the action by removing from view the strings being pulled, the better.

Like those scenes mentioned above, the “church scene” from Matthew Vaughn’s Kingsman: The Secret Service, shot by George Richmond and edited by Eddie Hamilton and Jon Harris, is one of the finest examples in contemporary cinema of a high-octane action scene that’s had its chaos edited into a coherent ballet of violence. In the following video from Harrison Edgecombe, the cuts from this scene have been counted and studied to reveal how Hamilton and Harris managed to make them seem seamless through zooming, camera rotation, shutter speed, and the physical blocking of the actors. As Edgecombe notes, this isn’t meant to “debunk” the act of seamless editing, rather to draw attention to the inherent brilliance of such tactics, and to highlight their efficacy. Edgecombe also notes that due to the mastery of the scene, he might have missed a cut or two. His tally is 23, see if you can find another couple cuts hidden among the mayhem.

Jeff Garlin’s lethargic detective movie shows Netflix will buy any comedy zombie.

The first thing you might notice about director/writer/actor Jeff Garlin’s third feature, Handsome: A Netflix Mystery Movie, (aside from the smug self-reference in the film’s title and opening direct address) is the music. Done by Ben Folds, it’s so slinky and jazzy that it becomes a goofy sonic parody of overly hard-boiled crime tales: think noir via The Pink Panther’s Henry Mancini. It’s also almost entirely confined to the film’s opening credits, as is the film’s fun. The rest of the detective satire here is much drier, often to the point of humorlessness, even with Garlin’s grumpy bewilderment on the receiving end.

Overly-complicated schemes dreamed up by investigators, a hardass lieutenant (Amy Sedaris), and a disgruntled former cop neighbor (Eddie Pepitone) are just a handful of the familiar concepts plaguing Detective Gene Handsome (Garlin). These tropes, directed with a low energy ramble that undermines their wit, drag along. There are zingers in the slog, but it’s like finding a prize in a vat of porridge. The gags aren’t the kind that builds over a long haul, luxuriating in the awkward crescendo, but goofy one-liners that the film’s actors were seemingly instructed to build a scene around. They can talk around it for only so long before whatever payoff the joke may have once had dissipates into the scene-chewing ether. There are certainly standouts, like prolific comic actor Brad Morris delivering the aforementioned absurd police theories, but even their manic amblings can’t save a film that seems miscalculated at every angle.

For example, a scene where Japanese tourists visit a crime is as bad as the one where Japanese transit officials visit NYC in The Taking of Pelham One Two Three – and that movie came out in 1974. The thinking behind this scene, in which a busload of onlookers discuss amongst themselves in Japanese whether the police think they’re stupid because they don’t speak English, has the same larger writing problem as the film itself. Simply acknowledging something doesn’t make it a joke, nor make it ok. Name-checking references like the stunt-casting of Joe Kenda (a real detective with a long-running true crime show) and walking through recognizable police procedure isn’t enough to make something entertaining, just like having subtitles for the Japanese caricatures isn’t enough to save them from their cartoonish portrayal. It’s a complete whiff on a scene-by-scene level and a larger, why-did-I-make-a-comedy-film level.

This affects the light plotting stringing the film together, each scene’s progression tortured out of the characters like a forced confession. Garlin’s investigation into the murder of his neighbor’s babysitter is a series of mostly partnerless two shots that play like half-baked cop skits. Did you notice I said the neighbor’s babysitter was murdered? If you did, you’re paying more attention than the film believes you are, considering that neither the neighbor or babysitter is enough of a character to warrant mention.

Without enough characters to play around with, the scenes stagnate. Even with his tragically-named partner, Detective Fleur Scozzari (Natasha Lyonne, whose quick delivery and horny sleaze are rare bright spots), Handsome has a hard time keeping his investigation from dozing off. It’s not an overly-complex plot. It doesn’t lose itself in a mystery aimed to destabilize and upset the audience. But it’s also never so clear-cut that it’s tense or funny. It’s dopey and lethargic in its wispy narrative simplicity, making way for jokes that simply never hit.

You might think that a film with this apparently low budget would be forced into some sort of desperate energy. Instead, its sleepy progression and boring framing (that forces its characters into describing what we can’t see) weakly compensate like aesthetic duct tape. It employs all the tricks of an unambitious first film just to get to the finish line of its hour-twenty runtime (even with an epilogue), reminding you over and over that its titular platform has recently allowed sloppy, half-assed, free-reign work to overrun its curation. Garlin has joined Adam Sandler as a Netflix-sponsored tripe auteur.

What the Axel F?!

To produce a sequel, in general, is to venture onto dangerous ground, but to make a comedy sequel is to wander recklessly into a mine field. The mystery is not hard to solve, think about the last time you went to a party and heard someone tell a hilarious joke. Oh how you laughed, you thought you might start to cry or even wet yourself a little. But then you overheard as that same friend made their way into a room full of new people and told the same joke. Sure, you laughed again, but not nearly as hard. Once you know the punchline, the returns on hearing the joke rapidly diminish.

On paper, 1987’s Beverly Hills Cop 2 should not work. The 1984 original was a landmark action-comedy that helped make Eddie Murphy one of the most marketable stars of the decade. The second installment strips away, among other things, much of the action from the first movie. This is baffling when considering it was directed by a then up-and-coming Tony Scott. Also absent is a lot of the slobs-vs-snobs conflict that was not only signature to Beverly Hills Cop but 80s comedies in general. In the 80s, Reaganomics had created a disparity of wealth (one with which we still wrestle to this day) and we saw a sharp rise in comedies in which regular Joes fought back against snooty WASPs. There is a reason that “save the rec center,” became a common trope/battle cry in this era. But by Part II, Axel Foley seems to run Beverly Hills, with few instances of culture clash to seed the comedy.

So if the heart and soul of Beverly Hills Cop were AWOL for the sequel, how could it possibly be worth watching? As the gents of the Junkfood Cinema Podcast assert in this week’s episode: the comedy remains strong. Beverly Hills Cop 2 is a playground for Eddie Murphy, who continues to flex his humor muscles and take Axel Foley to new heights of fast-talking bravado. The action set pieces are replaced with a series of knee-slapping bits that give Beverly Hills Cop 2 more the appearance of a Police Academy sequel than a Beverly Hills Cop sequel; but a good Police Academy sequel, so…Police Academy 2.

Add to this a soundtrack that adds Bob Seger’s “Shakedown” to the already legendary “Axel F” theme by synth maestro Harold Faltermeyer, and a bench of villains so deep that Ronny Cox is in the film and actually allowed to play a good guy! The film also ratchets up the absurdity of Judge Reinhold’s Billy Rosewood character until he is the undercurrent of action parody that gives BHC2 moments the feel like deleted scenes from Hot Fuzz. All of these elements come together to compensate for the lack of bombastic action moments in a way that has to be seen to be believed.

But after you see it, listen to Junkfood Cinema’s dissection of Beverly Hills Cop 2 as they continue their series on the Summer of 1987!

As a special treat, anyone who backs JFC on Patreon will have access to weekly bonus episodes covering an additional cult movie, a new movie in theaters, or a mailbag episode devoted to your submitted questions! During Summer of 87, there will be an entirely separate Summer of 77 miniseries just for Patrons! Have a couple bucks to throw in the hat, we’ll reward you!

On This Week’s Show:

• Appetizers [0:00–2:12]
• The Main Course [2:13–51:09]
• The Junkfood Pairing [51:10–54:19]

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