Category: Books, Movies, TV & Web

 

The Killer

 

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: David Fincher is possibly our finest working movie director. Any filmmaker whose resume includes Se7en, Zodiac, and The Game — yes, The Game; you can have Fight Club, I’ll take The Game — is top-tier to me.

But Fincher’s latest, The Killer, is an underwhelming disappointment. We learn about the life of a perfectionist assassin-for-hire played by Michael Fassbender and … well, that’s about it. A hit goes awry for our protagonist, and he spends the rest of the movie tracking down the bad guys who retaliated for his screwup by assaulting his girlfriend.

The movie is what we expect from Fincher in that it looks great, and sounds great, and it is absorbing. But the most important element, the story, is no great shakes. Release: 2023  Grade: C+

 

Would I watch it again?  Possibly, but only to see if there is some hidden genius at work that I might have overlooked. (I doubt it.)

 

**

 

No Hard Feelings

 

In my misspent youth, I used to devour movies like this one as a matter of course — especially the good ones, like Risky Business starring a fresh-faced Tom Cruise.

But that was back in the sinful ‘80s and ‘90s.

I had a bad feeling about a 2023 sex comedy starring Jennifer Lawrence. I suspected it would be one of two things: watered down thanks to “MeToo,” and/or saturated with political correctness.

OK, so I was wrong. No Hard Feelings is actually a sweet, sometimes raunchy, occasionally laugh-out-loud good time. Lawrence plays a cash-strapped woman who is hired by a wealthy couple to “date” (whatever that means) their virginal son, who is seriously lacking in social skills.

Despite its 1980s-style, ballyhooed skinny-dip scene featuring a fully nude Lawrence, No Hard Feelings is less Porky’s, more John Hughes. Release: 2023  Grade: B+

 

Would I watch it again?  Maybe. Or possibly just the skinny-dip scene. 

 

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by Agatha Christie

 

A 1931 “standalone” Christie novel (no Hercule Poirot or Miss Marple) in which a séance at a mansion in Dartmoor reveals to the participants the murder of a prominent villager.

The story is notable not just for the missing Poirot and Marple, but also because it is a bit of an homage to Sherlock Holmes, in particular The Hound of the Baskervilles. The setting, plot elements, and at least two characters are clear references to Arthur Conan Doyle’s famous novel.

Did I figure out whodunit? No, Agatha fooled me again. And yet the resolution of the mystery, although surprising, was not as ingenious nor as satisfying as in Christie’s best novels.

 

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by Leo Tolstoy

 

Prior to reading this novella, I’d read just two books by the great Russian writer, Leo Tolstoy. Tolstoy’s gargantuan War and Peace was, in my humble opinion, much more entertaining in its “peace” parts than in its “war” parts. I remember thinking Anna Karenina was very, very good … but I recall absolutely nothing about the story. (In my defense, it has been many years since I read these books.)

I suspect that The Death of Ivan Ilyich, weighing in at less than 80 pages, will stick with me much longer than will the two Tolstoy magnum opuses.

The story is simple, yet concentrated and vivid. In it, a Russian judge develops an incurable illness and then slowly and oh-so painfully, expires. That’s it. Yet Tolstoy successfully puts the reader in bed with poor Ivan and forces us to endure all his pains, physical and psychological.

The big question that Tolstoy asks us to ponder is whether there is truth in Socrates’s dictum, “the unexamined life is not worth living.”

 

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Housebound (2014)

 

Making a horror-comedy is a tricky proposition. If you manage to get the comedy right, good luck with the horror. Or vice versa.

New Zealand’s Housebound finds the perfect mix of laughs and chills — often at the same time. Morgana O’Reilly stars as Kylie, an irascible thief who, nabbed in the act and then confined to house arrest with her mother, Miriam (Rima Te Wiata), and her stepfather, notices odd and eerie phenomena in their spooky old house.

If you’ve seen even one ghost story, the first half of Housebound is a bit familiar. But once our heroine teams up with Miriam and with an eccentric security officer (Glen-Paul Waru) to investigate those bumps in the night — and a menacing neighbor — the pace picks up and Housebound becomes an absolute delight.

 

Miriam and Kylie have a strained relationship

 

There’s no place like home — especially when you’re wearing an ankle monitor

 

Top to bottom: Security officer Amos (Waru) sidelines as a ghost-hunter; intrepid investigators Kylie and Amos; Kylie’s smug social worker

 

**

 

 

 

[Rec] (2007)

 

Most found-footage horror movies have major credibility issues. No matter how dedicated the photographer is to capturing everything on video, when a killer is trying to stab you with a knife, or when a monster is chasing you through the woods, I’m sorry, but you are going to put down the damn camera.

But if you do that, we have no more movie.

[Rec], a 2007 horror-thriller from Spain, finds a clever way around those credibility problems (for the most part). The protagonists are a pair of TV journalists who, sensing they have stumbled onto a big story, decide they need to document everything on camera — no matter how horrific.

 

 

And horrific it is when our dynamic duo accompanies firefighters on a routine call to an apartment building that turns out to be anything but routine. There is a virus or infection on the loose — think fast-acting rabies — and it’s threatening everyone in the building. The infected immediately turn into, you guessed it, bloodthirsty monsters.

Adding to the problem: City authorities are aware of the situation and have quarantined everyone, the infected and uninfected, inside. So, yeah, no escape.

What follows is a frantic hour of suspense and horror that culminates in a truly nightmarish finale.

 

This film was so successful that it inspired a U.S. remake, Quarantine, and three Spanish sequels.

 

 

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Fair Play

 

Thinking about Oliver Stone’s masterful Wall Street (1987), it seems to me there were probably disparate audiences for his drama. Some viewers admired Gordon Gekko (“Greed is good!”), and others were horrified by the fate of poor Bud Fox, who wound up going to prison.

Fair Play, a drama set in the world of finance, targets the same two demos: people who salivate at the chauffeured limos and fancy meals available to Wall Street hotshots, and those who recoil from the human tradeoffs required to make it big in that profession. 

Fair Play doesn’t shy away from those moral questions, but it adds a new wrinkle: gender politics. When analyst Emily gets a big promotion that her lover/coworker thought was his, their relationship is put to the test. To put it mildly. Should Emily “stand by her man,” or should she subscribe to the feminist mantra, “you can (and should) have it all, baby”?  Release: 2023  Grade: B

 

Would I watch it again?  Probably not. The movie is well made and provocative, but its unlikable leads and downer resolution make it a once-is-enough-for-me, thank you.

 

**

 

Up the Down Staircase

 

Within a month of each other in 1967, two high-school-themed movies opened in theaters. The films were To Sir, With Love, and Up the Down Staircase. Chances are, you recall the movie with a big star (Sidney Poitier) and a titular song that topped the charts. The other movie might or might not be familiar.

I prefer Up the Down Staircase, starring Sandy Dennis as a teacher at an inner-city school who must choose between a job at a cushy, wealthy school, or the unceasing challenges of life at Calvin Coolidge High School.

Sir and Staircase both tug at the heartstrings, and they deal with similar themes. But to me the latter film is more realistic, and far less sappy. Release: 1967  Grade: A-

 

Would I watch it again?  I just did.

 

**

 

The Goldsmith

 

What I loved about 1974’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre was its tone of demented glee. When young people encountered a crazed family in Texas, we didn’t need (or want) “backstory” explaining the lunatics’ twisted history. We already know there are crazies in the world. Just bring on the madness, please. Chain Saw did just that.

The Goldsmith, another young-people-versus-loonies story, bores us with action-halting exposition in which we learn why the baddies are so bad. Also, it doesn’t help that the protagonists, a trio of thieves out to rob an elderly couple, are so unpleasant. When the movie degenerates into all-out body horror, I didn’t care what happened to anyone.

Goldsmith, from Italy, is a lot like its American cousin, Don’t Breathe. In both movies, what begins as a suspenseful break-in story morphs into something else entirely — but not in a good way.  Release: 2022  Grade: C-

 

Would I watch it again?  No.

 

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by Bel Kaufman

 

It isn’t often that I actively look forward to returning to a book I’m reading. Don’t get me wrong; I love books, but these days there are so many options competing for my leisure-time attention. Options like Netflix, music, regular TV, the Internet ….

But I went out of my way to read Up the Down Staircase, which, nearly 60 years after its publication, is still a joy.

Kaufman’s 1964 novel, chronicling four months of a rookie teacher’s life at a New York City high school, introduced a groundbreaking format. It’s largely a collection of fictional inter-office memos, student homework assignments, personal letters, and items from the class “suggestion box.” This collage of written memorabilia — loaded with rib-tickling malaprops from both kids and adults — paints an indelible picture of English teacher Sylvia Barrett’s introduction to Calvin Coolidge High School.

But the story is in no way all fun and games. Kaufman deftly juxtaposes humor with all the heartbreak and frustrations faced by idealistic teachers and underprivileged kids at the school.

A confession: Staircase is a font of deep nostalgia for Yours Truly. Back in the day, I was cast as one of Sylvia’s students in our high school’s stage production of the book.

I played, naturally, class comedian “Lou Martin.”

Ha ha!

 

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by Oscar Wilde

 

Oscar Wilde’s first published story, The Canterville Ghost, tells the tale of an American family that, upon purchasing an ancient English estate, learns that the house also comes with a nettlesome ghost.

Much to its dismay and despite its best efforts, the ghost more than meets its match in the Otis family.  This is especially true of a pair of mischievous twin boys.

Unlike Wilde’s novel The Picture of Dorian Gray and his plays, Canterville seems to be aimed primarily at children. The trademark Wilde wit is on display, but unlike his later works (yet in keeping with the titular spirit) the story doesn’t have much meat on its bones.

 

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by Frances Hodgson Burnett

 

Plot:  Ten-year-old orphan Mary moves from India to England, where she discovers the titular garden and some “magical” neighbors who greatly improve her outlook on life.

I’m not exactly in the target demo for this book, which is presumably children. But it’s easy to see why Burnett’s 1911 novel is considered a classic, with its vivid depiction of sour-faced Mary and the life lessons — the power of positive thinking; the healing effects of nature — that she and another child absorb at a mysterious mansion in Yorkshire.

Pros:  The fun is in witnessing the gradual transformations of grumpy Mary and an even haughtier boy from spoiled brats to good kids. The Yorkshire dialect is quite amusing, as are the cantankerous dispositions of certain locals.

Cons:  I could do with less of Burnett’s horticultural infatuation, which reminded me of the endless descriptions of masts and decks penned by Herman Melville in Moby Dick (of all books). I get that some authors love to wax rhapsodic about chrysanthemums and poppies and vines but … good grief, enough is enough.

 

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You Won’t Be Alone

 

“It may strike some as too artsy for its own good.” — from the critics’ consensus about You Won’t Be Alone on Rotten Tomatoes.

Yeah, that might be an understatement.

Actually, the film isn’t so much “too artsy” as it is bleak and slow-moving. The plot involves a peasant girl who, after a fateful encounter with a witch, becomes a sometimes-murderous shapeshifter seeking love and the meaning of life in 19th-century Macedonia.

Individual scenes are mesmerizing, many images are indelible — the photography and score are beautiful. But oh, man, is this movie slow going. Meaningful or meaningless, life is simply too short. Release: 2022  Grade: B-

 

**

 

Brightwood

 

Groundhog Day meets The Twilight Zone when a bickering couple goes for a scenic jog that never ends in this low-budget indie.

I love a good premise, but when said premise is nothing new, repeated ad nauseam, and leads to an ambiguous denouement that reeks of a screenwriter’s “I can’t think of a good way to end this, so I’ll just have them do something gross” … well, no thanks. Release: 2022  Grade: D

 

**

 

Happy Death Day 2U

 

Like its predecessor, 2017’s Happy Death Day, this sequel is a mash-up of Groundhog Day, Back to the Future, and Scream. Also, as in the original, the plot is a convoluted mess involving time loops, multiverses, and the “butterfly effect.” And if you’re looking for actual scares, best look elsewhere.

None of that matters. What matters is that it’s all consistently amusing, the characters are likable, and good lord — move over, Jennifer Lawrence. To my mind, Jessica Rothe is the best comic actress working in movies.

And did I mention that the story is also shockingly poignant? Release: 2019  Grade: B+

 

**

 

Barbarian

 

The first half of Barbarian promises to live up to its lofty 93 percent “fresh” rating on the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes. The movie is compelling, believable and, above all, suspenseful.

Georgina Campbell plays a young woman who, upon arriving in Detroit for a job interview, learns she must share a rental house with a man played by Bill Skarsgard. Can the handsome stranger be trusted? Are the two of them alone in the small house?

Alas and alack, the second half of the film, in which the story switches gears, is all too familiar to fans of horror flicks: It’s increasingly ridiculous, with our heroine making bone-headed decisions and the plot veering into genre cliches.

If you are a horror-film-lover, as I am, you understand that these days you can’t have nice things — just half of nice things. Release: 2022  Grade: B

 

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Snatchers

 

A teen girl has unprotected sex, gets pregnant, and gives birth — all within 24 hours.

Despite my rather grim synopsis above, 2019’s Snatchers is actually a madcap mash-up of movies like Mean Girls and The Hidden. Or possibly Gremlins.

The plot is ridiculous, and I wouldn’t describe the film as particularly “scary,” but the direction is fast-paced, and the girls and their Gen Z jargon are consistently amusing. As pleasant timewasters go, you could do a lot worse than this horror-comedy.   Release: 2019  Grade: B

 

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