Category: Books, Movies, TV & Web

 

Voice of Shadows

grouchyeditor.com voice

 

A critic’s dilemma:  When reviewing a low-budget movie from a first-time director, is it fair to hold the film to the same standard that you would for a more pedigreed production? Rookie filmmakers should be excused some missteps. On the other hand, the customer pays the same amount for Voice of Shadows as he pays for something from Steven Spielberg.

Pros:  For the most part, the movie looks and sounds professional, and most of the actors are fine. Director Nick Bain creates a suitably creepy atmosphere. The premise — three young people move into a house plagued by evil spirits summoned by an elderly woman — isn’t bad. Also, I liked Guillermo Blanco in the lead.

Cons:  The first two-thirds of the film are a slow burn. Slow burns can be good if the characters are intriguing. Unfortunately, the slowness in Voice is punctuated by a stream of tiresome horror-film clichés. Chairs rock themselves. Lights suddenly go out. Something bad is in the basement. An old book explains the evil spirits. The only thing missing is a cat jumping out of a closet.

Verdict:  Not a bad way to fill 90 minutes on a dark and stormy night. Just don’t expect anything groundbreaking. Release: 2023  Grade: C

 

Would I watch it again?  Not likely.

 

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by Mark Bauerlein

 

Today is November 5, 2024, election day, and the nation is holding its collective breath to find out who gets to run the country for the next four years (or more).

I suppose I read The Dumbest Generation Grows Up (dumb title) in part to gird myself, because the titular Millennials could well decide whether we get Kamala Harris or Donald Trump. If they do, Bauerlein’s pessimistic book doesn’t give me much hope for the future.

The book, a follow-up to Bauerlein’s 2008 survey of this age group (which I haven’t read), paints an unpleasant picture. Millennials, he writes, were coddled by Boomers and left to their own devices (literally and figuratively) by their mentors — specifically, college professors. The result is millions of young adults who scroll smartphones but know nothing about Shakespeare, Dickens, or Dostoevsky — all of them dead, white males, of course, and therefore unworthy of study.

Bauerlein contrasts this cohort of woke “utopians” with Malcolm X. The latter, he points out, had good reason to find fault with Western Civilization but, rather than simply dismiss it as evil, studied it so that he could make intelligent arguments.

Young people today don’t do that because it’s too difficult.

It’s possible we’ll learn tomorrow how the Millennials voted, and in what kind of numbers. God help all of us.

 

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Homicidal

 

Back in 1960, schlock movie producer William Castle (The Tingler, House on Haunted Hill) saw Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho and had an idea. If Hitchcock could make a black-and-white, psychological horror hit on the cheap, why couldn’t Castle do it, too?

The result was Homicidal which, although not in the same league as Psycho, does boast one helluva clever twist.

I’m giving Castle’s movie an above-average grade based almost entirely on its surprise ending. Until the denouement, Homicidal resembles nothing so much as a dull episode of the old Perry Mason series: cheap sets, stilted dialogue and—well, I almost said poor acting, but that wouldn’t be true. There is at least one sterling performance.

The plot: A peculiar family in Solvang, California is harboring a deranged killer. Or so it seems. Sorry, I can’t say more than that. Release: 1961  Grade: B

 

Would I watch it again?  Yes, mostly just to see how much, if any, cheating Castle does in the set-up for the film’s big reveal.

 

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by Richard Osman

 

Here’s the thing about “cozy” mysteries: If they are too cozy, they lose their edge. And then you have a bland reading experience.

The Thursday Murder Club walks the fine line between warm and fuzzy — with a few dark passages — and watching an episode of, oh, I don’t know, The Golden Girls, perhaps? There are some chuckles to be had, but not much depth to the characters.

The plot follows four lovable senior citizens living in a retirement village who attempt to solve crimes. For fun. To me, the elderly sleuths were pleasant enough, but not terribly interesting. The mystery is likewise underwhelming.

I notice that they are making a movie out of this novel (the first in a series by Osman), starring Helen Mirren, Pierce Brosnan, Ben Kingsley, and Celia Imrie. Judging from that cast, I’m thinking this might be one time when the movie could be better than the book.

 

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The Ghost and Mrs. Muir

 

As I rewatched, after many years, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir recently, I tried to recall why I had such fond memories of it. It’s a pleasant enough yarn, in which a young widow (Gene Tierney) encounters the ghost of a ship’s captain (Rex Harrison) when she moves into a seaside house.

The story was charming and amusing, but no more so than many other romantic comedies of its era.

But then … the final 20 minutes of the movie transpired, and I was struck by how powerful the ending was. Amid all the playful banter between the ghost and Mrs. Muir, screenwriter Philip Dunne had been planting seeds about the things that we regret in life, and the things we do not regret.

The payoff is motion-picture magic and a good example of why we say, “they don’t make movies like that anymore.” Release: 1947  Grade: A

 

Would I watch it again?  Yes.

 

*

 

Civil War

 

An admission: I had already reviewed, in my imagination, much of this movie from reading other critics and pundit analyses shortly after its release in April. From what I read, Civil War appeared to be just another “woke” bulletin from Hollywood, issuing warnings about “threats to democracy” from the right.

The actor playing the U.S. president, according to the articles, resembled Trump — a cowardly Trump. One horrific scene featured MAGA-like militiamen terrorizing the protagonists, four heroic journalists on their way to Washington D.C. during a new civil war. Worst of all, those journalists were painted in quite a positive light. This during a time when journalism as a profession is at its lowest point.

Now that I’ve seen the movie, it turns out there is some truth in all of that conjecturing of mine. If the movie leans politically, it’s certainly to the left.

But what I did not expect was the bigger picture. Alex Garland’s film is primarily a powerful warning. If we can’t bridge our differences, we’re headed straight into a national nightmare — for both the left and the right. Release: 2024  Grade: A-

 

Would I watch it again?  Yes.

 

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by Colin Dexter

 

Nothing against Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot, Sam Spade, or any of the hundreds of private dicks, sleuths, and cops in crime fiction, but my favorite of them all is probably Dexter’s Inspector Morse.

Like so many deductive heroes of these novels, Morse is blessed with genius. But he is also cursed by a nettlesome romantic life — or lack thereof. He loves his pints of beer. He also has an (often lecherous) eye for the ladies.

Alas, said ladies are generally just beyond Morse’s grasp, either because they are murdered, or shipped off to jail, or subject to some other calamity.

The Dead of Jericho begins with Morse meeting such a woman and ends with him reflecting about her. There is a mystery to solve, of course, but it’s the melancholic tone of the book that haunts the reader.

We have every confidence that our irascible protagonist will solve the case. But will Morse ever find love?

 

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Abigail

 

Pros: If you are into “comfort horror,” in which you don’t expect major twists in the story nor deep psychological insight, this movie is for you. It’s got a small group of people trapped in a spooky mansion with a killer on the loose who is picking them off, one by one. That’s the (familiar) plot.

I liked that. If it worked for And Then There Were None, it’s good enough for me.

Cons: It’s not a big spoiler to reveal that the killer is a little-girl vampire who is into ballet. She is played by a young actress who makes faces and dances and wears Dracula fangs. That’s the hook.

I didn’t like that. The girl is not very scary, and the gimmick wears thin. Also, the other characters are shallow, there is little wit in the dialogue, and gore replaces suspense. This is not And Then There Were None.

But if you just want something familiar, here you go. Release: 2024  Grade: B

 

Would I watch it again?  If I am stressed and need something silly but comforting, possibly.

 

*

 

Pearl

 

Here is what Pearl is: gorgeous to look at, well-acted, thought-provoking, and original.

Here is what Pearl is not: much fun.

Maybe it’s a product of our times, and Ti West’s trilogy of terror (along with X and MaXXXine) simply reflects the national mood. But I can’t help comparing X to 1974’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Pearl — a psychological profile of a murderess in the making — to early ‘60s melodramas What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? and Hush … Hush, Sweet Charlotte.

West’s fondness for those earlier movies is apparent. The plots and/or themes are similar in all of them. And yet …

Chain Saw and the Bette Davis films were scary-good fun, horror with an underlying sense of humor. West’s movies are technically impressive, but bleak and unpleasant. Release: 2022 Grade: B

 

Would I watch it again?  Not likely. See above.

 

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by David Grann

 

A few weeks ago, I watched a YouTube video featuring amazing images of Mars that have been transmitted back to Earth. The high-definition pictures of the red planet’s barren landscapes held my interest for 15 minutes or so — and then it was time to move on to the next video. I’d seen enough.

Perhaps I’ve become jaded, or I’ve watched too many science-fiction movies.

It’s easy to forget how, for most of history, exploration was a rock-star pursuit that riveted the world. Long before YouTube, or even television, newspaper accounts of adventurers like Percy Fawcett mesmerized readers all over the globe.

David Grann (Killers of the Flower Moon) spent years researching the life, legend and disappearance of Fawcett, a British explorer who entered the Amazon basin in 1925 with two other expedition members — hoping to confirm the existence of the titular “Z” — and then never came back.

Did the Fawcett party fall victim to disease or to predators? Did a hostile tribe kill them? Grann’s exhaustive research (and even a trip to the Amazon, hoping to retrace Fawcett’s final excursion) fails to provide definitive answers.

That’s a problem. By the book’s conclusion, we still don’t know what became of the enigmatic, obsessed (I might say “bull-headed”) explorer. Nor, despite Grann’s best efforts and imagination, do we get conclusive answers about the mythical “city of Z.”

By the time I turned the last page, I was impressed by Grann’s achievement. I was intrigued by Fawcett and his exploits. But unlike those newspaper readers of a century ago, I was not enthralled.

I was ready for the next YouTube video.

 

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Border

 

Tina is a Swedish customs agent with an unusual talent. Much like a predator in the wild, she can sense heightened emotion in humans: fear, shame, or guilt. If you’re nervous and trying to smuggle a bottle of booze past security, best not walk near Tina.

I’m not well-versed in Scandinavian folklore, so when we learn the genesis of Tina’s special power — shortly after she encounters a man who is homely and outcast, like she is — my reaction was, “this is interesting.”

The problem with Border is that, while it is intriguing and well-made, it’s also relentlessly nihilistic and unpleasant. As if Tina’s lonely lot in life isn’t sad enough, there are subplots involving pedophilia and reproduction that made me want to … well, no thank you.

You can take Border as an allegory of the struggles of marginalized people in society, or as a face-value monster movie. But after we learn the big reveal, my main reaction was, “this is too depressing.” Release: 2018  Grade: C+

 

Would I watch it again? No.

 

**

 

Talk to Me

 

When I see that a horror movie has a lofty approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, I tend to take that information with a grain of salt. The bar for most modern horror is so low that, I suspect, many critics overreact when they watch something that doesn’t actually suck.

Talk to Me, a thriller from Australia with 95 percent approval on Rotten Tomatoes, does not suck. It doesn’t break new ground in its genre, and it isn’t particularly scary. Yet it does have something rare: characters that are interesting.

Sophie Wilde plays Mia, a high school girl who, along with her circle of friends, discovers the ultimate party game — a mummified hand that, when touched, conjures spirits. Evil spirits. As you might expect, things do not go well for the thrill-seeking teens.

But Mia’s relationship with her friends and family raises Talk to Me a notch above its competitors. Release: 2022  Grade: B

 

Would I watch it again?  Possibly.

 

© 2010-2024 grouchyeditor.com (text only)

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Godzilla Minus One

 

Critics and moviegoers went wild with praise when this movie opened in 2023. It was a Godzilla movie for people who normally don’t care for Godzilla movies. It was a Japanese, relatively low-budget flick that put Hollywood blockbusters to shame.

I’m sorry, but there is a distinction between “Oh, that was better than I expected,” and “This is the best movie of the year!” The effusive praise, I suspect, was more a commentary on general unhappiness with Hollywood’s recent output than genuine accolades for a monster movie.

The plot:  A World War II Japanese pilot is twice shamed, once for failing to complete a kamikaze mission, then again for failing to destroy the Big Bad Monster when it first appears. When he returns to post-war Tokyo, the pilot inherits a makeshift family consisting of an attractive young woman and an orphan girl.

The human story is touching, but also predictable and marred by some typically overwrought acting. (I say typical, because a lot of Japanese movies feature actors who express emotion to such a degree that it seems comical to Western eyes — or at least to my eyes.)

But it’s a traditional story about family and redemption, which audiences seem to crave. And the special effects are well done. And the monster is fun.

Release: 2023  Grade: B

 

Would I watch it again?  Not likely. It would help if they cut 15-20 minutes from the runtime.

 

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