Recent Viewings, Part 2

[Rev. Powell]

THE BAD BATCH (2016): In the future, undesirables are exiled to the lawless desert southwest, where a recent female exile encounters a band of cannibals. An intriguing setup with a good-looking cast and locations; unfortunately the story wanders around aimlessly in the desert searching for cult relevance, ultimately ending in the most disheartening way imaginable.  2.5/5

[RCMerchant]

EVIL DEAD RISE (2023) Another installment in the EVIL DEAD franchise.  Like the remake a few years ago, this one ignores the dark humor that made the original movies appealing and settles for cruelty, gore, shock value, and thousands of gallons of fake blood.  A few hundred gallons, anyway.   If you go in with low expectations, you might enjoy it.

If it ain't Bruce, I don't wanna know.

[Alex]

EVIL DEAD RISE (2023) Another installment in the EVIL DEAD franchise.  Like the remake a few years ago, this one ignores the dark humor that made the original movies appealing and settles for cruelty, gore, shock value, and thousands of gallons of fake blood.  A few hundred gallons, anyway.   If you go in with low expectations, you might enjoy it.

If it ain't Bruce, I don't wanna know.

He was involved in the making of it, but not as an actor.

[lester1/2jr]

Show Them No Mercy! (1935) - awkwardly loud title aside this was a good movie. Rather gritty for 1935 and thus more compelling than the typical late night youtube movie from almost a hundred years ago adventure. The Fay Wray-ish wife is extremely cute.

A likeable couple with a baby who brings tension to the plot and a dog who brings comic relief to that self same story spend the night at an abandoned house after their car gets stuck in the mud. Too bad it's the hideout of a group of kidnappers. As the baby cries and the dog does occasional jokes, the walls begin to close in on the gangsters who of course are listening to the radio the exact moment the news report about them breaks in to the jazz music show.

The director is clearly struggling with the then new Hayes code and ends sort of with two movies: one happy one and one brutal one. I'm not a big fan of these kind of standoff sort of movies but it's memorable and substantial. awesome ending

4.5 /5


edit "The title refers to the government's plan at the time for putting an end to a lucrative racket, kidnapping. "

[FatFreddysCat]

"Hard Rain" (1998)
An armored car driver (Christian Slater) must protect his payload from a very determined gang of would-be robbers, during a torrential rainstorm that threatens to completely flood a small Indiana town. Underrated action/disaster flick hybrid that makes the most of its unique setting and great cast that also includes Morgan Freeman, Minnie Driver, and a pre-crazy Randy Quaid.

[Trevor]

"Hard Rain" (1998)
An armored car driver (Christian Slater) must protect his payload from a very determined gang of would-be robbers, during a torrential rainstorm that threatens to completely flood a small Indiana town. Underrated action/disaster flick hybrid that makes the most of its unique setting and great cast that also includes Morgan Freeman, Minnie Driver, and a pre-crazy Randy Quaid.

One of my friends commented that "the only film with more water in it than Hard Rain is Lawrence of Arabia" 😳😉🐢

[M.10rda]

THE BAD BATCH (2016): In the future, undesirables are exiled to the lawless desert southwest, where a recent female exile encounters a band of cannibals. An intriguing setup with a good-looking cast and locations; unfortunately the story wanders around aimlessly in the desert searching for cult relevance, ultimately ending in the most disheartening way imaginable.  2.5/5

Agreed entirely (as often is the case). I saw this before the same director's A GIRL WALKS HOME ALONE AT NIGHT and later found that (well-regarded) film irritating in many of the same ways as BAD BATCH. I really wanted to enjoy both films, but the director goes out of her way to make it difficult for me.

You are a better man than me, Rev, as I can't discuss this film w/o mentioning the bizarre star turns: Keanu Reeves looking like Nicolas Cage and kind of acting like him, and a wholly unrecognizable Jim Carrey doing pantomime in the desert. Jason Momoa is a terrifying baddish-guy, but to no avail.

[Rev. Powell]

THE BAD BATCH (2016): In the future, undesirables are exiled to the lawless desert southwest, where a recent female exile encounters a band of cannibals. An intriguing setup with a good-looking cast and locations; unfortunately the story wanders around aimlessly in the desert searching for cult relevance, ultimately ending in the most disheartening way imaginable.  2.5/5

Agreed entirely (as often is the case). I saw this before the same director's A GIRL WALKS HOME ALONE AT NIGHT and later found that (well-regarded) film irritating in many of the same ways as BAD BATCH. I really wanted to enjoy both films, but the director goes out of her way to make it difficult for me.

You are a better man than me, Rev, as I can't discuss this film w/o mentioning the bizarre star turns: Keanu Reeves looking like Nicolas Cage and kind of acting like him, and a wholly unrecognizable Jim Carrey doing pantomime in the desert. Jason Momoa is a terrifying baddish-guy, but to no avail.

The Jim Carrey casting was especially bizarre.

[lester1/2jr]

The Black Raven (1943) - I really liked this ultra cheap mystery thing starring George Zucco. There needs to be more movies set at a random hotel amidst a torrential downpour. A bunch of people show up at a hotel that's near the Canadian border and thus, a hotspot for criminals on the lam. These things were sort of like variety shows a bunch of different people showing up and acting as the situation calls for. The key word for this movie is "budget" the film and the plot and everything about it is contained in to a morsel that leaves the viewer ready to watch something fancier. I recommend it

4.5 /5

[Rev. Powell]

TOUT VA BIEN (1972): A director and his journalist wife are trapped at a sausage making plant during a strike. This is one of those Jean Luc Godard movies where the characters look directly at the camera and make observations on Marxism; there's a cute satirical bit set at a supermarket in the end, but most of the time it's like Godard's strategy is boring his audience into revolution. A generous 2/5.

[M.10rda]

TOUT VA BIEN (1972): A director and his journalist wife are trapped at a sausage making plant during a strike. This is one of those Jean Luc Godard movies where the characters look directly at the camera and make observations on Marxism; there's a cute satirical bit set at a supermarket in the end, but most of the time it's like Godard's strategy is boring his audience into revolution. A generous 2/5.

Not unrelated question: have you seen WHITE NOISE?

[Rev. Powell]

TOUT VA BIEN (1972): A director and his journalist wife are trapped at a sausage making plant during a strike. This is one of those Jean Luc Godard movies where the characters look directly at the camera and make observations on Marxism; there's a cute satirical bit set at a supermarket in the end, but most of the time it's like Godard's strategy is boring his audience into revolution. A generous 2/5.

Not unrelated question: have you seen WHITE NOISE?

The Noah Baumbach film? No. It was on my awards consideration shortlist last year but time ran out before I could get to it.

[M.10rda]

The Noah Baumbach film? No. It was on my awards consideration shortlist last year but time ran out before I could get to it.
[/quote]

Time was kind to you!

WHITE NOISE (2022):
I've never read any books by author Don DeLillo, who's considered a contemporary of Thomas Pynchon (who I like) and was an inspiration for David Foster Wallace (who I like a great deal). If nothing else, Baumbach's adaptation makes me want to read some DeLillo, as the absurdist dialogue, inscrutable character motivations, and wild shifts in tone - perhaps literary maneuvers of a seasoned master - might work better on the page than they do onscreen.

For a 100 million dollar production, WHITE NOISE is remarkably schizophrenic in plot and style. The first half is devoted to an apocalyptic disaster which is abruptly forgotten, giving way to a smaller scale mystery/thriller. (There's also a completely misplaced scene of slapstick in a speeding station wagon midway through, as if the editors accidentally spliced in an outtake from a National Lampoon VACATION comedy.) Admirably, the first half is rife w/ direct references to Godard, most obviously in the shots of gridlock traffic mayhem straight out of WEEK-END but also in the sterile dayglo supermarket scenes (from TOUT VA BIEN and elsewhere). But the film also quotes David Lynch multiple times... pivotally at the motel climax but also much earlier, w/ Baumbach almost precisely recreating a bedsheet nightmare from ERASERHEAD. Surely I should commend any director for taking inspiration from two legendary directors - but are the approaches of Godard and Lynch complementary to one another? If this product is any indication - not at all.

All of the characters in WHITE NOISE speak in riddles, epigrams, and non-sequiterial proclamations, practically all the time. While Baumbach stops short of having them address their dialogue across the fourth wall to the viewer, he does little for much of the film to allow the audience access to his characters' inner lives. Godard, the Brecht of the cinema, had no interest for the most part in his characters' inner lives, and was/is content to expose sometimes indigestible surfaces and supertext. Thus Baumbach might have done better to handle all this amusing yet confounding dialogue as Lynch does - by establishing an atmosphere of unwavering emotional transparency, so that even the most inscrutable statements sound somehow sincere and even profound. (I'll cite, among endless possible examples, the impenetrable but heartbreaking conversation between Laura Dern and the Asian woman on the sidewalk in INLAND EMPIRE.) Perhaps Baumbach is averse to this approach or incapable of it. Since the early 00s, he's kept his characters at arm's length or further from identification, closing the distance only to torture them for (I guess) his own edification. Conversely, Lynch likes or loves his freakish characters - without exception. Not surprisingly, I find catharsis at the end of every Lynch film. When Baumbach reaches the end of WHITE NOISE, he seems to expect me to suddenly discover empathy for his protagonists. Although I can relate to their situation, he's failed to bring me closer to them, or to caring for and about them.

I will mention briefly the work of Adam Driver, an actor who I can tolerate when doing comedy (on TV's "Girls" and SNL and nominally in BLACKkKLANSMAN) but who I abhor when he earnestly applies himself to drama or to slaying my childhood heroes in a dumb emo mullet. Driver was the primary reason I skipped the previous Baumbach joint, MARRIAGE STORY. In WHITE NOISE, Baumbach grays his hair and gives him cartoonish fake eyebrows, making him look like Steve Coogan (a much more enjoyable actor imho). Driver affects a weird midwestern accent and prances about, soliloquizing on Hitler and Elvis and der Todestrieb. As a result, I admit I can't hate the guy! But I also can't take him seriously.

The (long) film ends w/ a surprising choreographed dance number in the supermarket. It might've delighted me after 45 or 60 minutes or at the end of a different film, but here it seems almost like an apology, or an admission that Baumbach knows he should've delivered something more entertaining. Many reviews seem tolerant if guarded but it's only 63% on RottenTomatoes thus by no means were the benedictions unanimous. Predictably it lost a lot of money. I admire Netflix showering cash on this totally bizarre passion project (...after Prime cleaned up on MARRIAGE STORY...) and yet I hope its failure helps put the brakes on Baumbach's excesses. I'd be happy to see him return to the light, clever comedies he was making in the 90s. WHITE NOISE is indeed a Disaster.

2/5

[Alex]

Unwelcome.

After a home invasion in London a couple expecting a baby move to Ireland in the hope of a more peaceful life. They however quickly run afoul of a local family. The situation is complicated by the presence of some local fae who take an interest in the events. Vaguely uncomfortable to watch in places but overall, I enjoyed it. I guess it sort of has a happy ending of a kind.

[indianasmith]

HONEYMOON HORROR (2008) - A man and his girlfriend decide to spend the weekend at an "Adult Resort" built over an old summer camp.  They've been together a year and haven't had sex yet, so he's stressed out; she's just returned from attending her father's funeral in Japan so she's stressed out, and the homicidal ghost of a molested young man is taking out the men and women who come to the resort to hook up with strangers.  Rather bizarre and disjointed; ultra cheap, some of the girls were pretty, the killings mostly take place offscreen or else involve seeing an axe close up whack into fabric with lots of fake blood.  In short, this is a golden slice of BAD movie cheese!   4/5