Category Archive: FILM
Midsommar
(dir. Ari Aster) (2019) Midsommar performs poorly on The Babadook Horror Movie Scale. Rather than dark mansions and creepy children, Aster has set his nastiness in sunny meadows (although it still looks cold) peopled by beatifically-smiling blond Swedes. But the story is familiar. Nice, naive, clean, modern-day American kids are blindsided by evil, sophisticated old-worlde types. Maybe there’s witchcraft. (See Henry James, add The Lottery, stir with Rosemary’s Baby). While we’re at it, let’s get the rest of the obvious comparisons out of the way: The Wicker Man, Get Out, The Village and Hereditary (Aster’s previous feature). Our innocents, Christian…
Continue Reading →The Unlikely Murderer
A nice night in
(Dir. Charlotte Brandstrom and Simon Kaijser) (Netflix, 5 Episodes) Unlike another recent Netflix offering set in Sweden (Midsommar), the natives in The Unlikely Murderer are not beautiful; nor do they dance among the buttercups. Rather, these Swedes are generally jowly, live in flimsy brown apartments and are spared nothing by the close-ups of their pores and the 1980s fashions (did such a high proportion of Swedish women really suffer under mushroom haircuts?) The Unlikely Murderer is based on the true life assassination of Prime Minister Olof Palme (Peter Viitanen), below, in the town of Täby, north of Stockholm. After the…
Continue Reading →Spiderhead
(Director Joseph Kosinski) (Netflix, 2022) Spiderhead, a 107 minute TV movie from a short story by George Saunders (see our review of Lincoln in the Bardo here) is a bit too long. About 100 minutes too long. Saunders kept the story short for a reason. It starts interestingly enough and maintains the tone of a Black Mirror episode throughout, (not a good Black Mirror episode though. Not like San [sob] Junipero [sob]). Steve Abnesti (A Hemsworth) is the governor (sort-of) of an island prison facility called “Spiderhead” (the name is not explained in the film and don’t bother Googling it,…
Continue Reading →Ray’s Song
Ray Liotta (18 December 1954 – 26 May 2022) [With apologies to Sir Walter Scott] Ray Liotta, rest! Thy career’s o’er, Sleep the sleep that knows not breaking; Battle the Field of Dreams no more, No days of danger, nights of waking. **** No rude sound shall reach thine ear, Guns or Cop Land‘s horses champing; No wise guys are summoned here Mustering clans, Goodfellas tramping. **** In the red-cushioned cinema row, Where fairy strains of music fall, You were our great anti-hero, Star dust sprinkled in the hall.
Continue Reading →The Slap
(28 March 2022) Black velvety tunics, At a gang-bang held for eunuchs, When a joke that tasted sour Brought a show of feeble power And the man who did disparage Proved the sham that was his marriage. He laughed, then quivered at the cold Of his woman’s eyes, and so he rolled On stage and did lash out; Returning to his seat, to shout. Such doglike devotion Gives the world a certain notion; Laud a neuter to the nation Or fix degrees of separation? ———————————————- [We’d rather read Chris Tsiolkas.]
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