“Cop Car” is as lean and mean as its name. An unabashed b-movie, it’s a down-and-dirty story about two kids, a desperate con and a cop who really wants his car back. It’s back to basics but loaded with tension and some unexpected moments.
Kevin Bacon plays the kind of corrupt cop who locks people in his trunk and says things like, “Tell me the truth or I will shoot you.” When two ten-year-old boys steal his police vehicle for a joy ride—“What if somebody sees us?” asks one of the kids. “We’ll just say we’re cops.”—they set into motion a deadly game of cat and mouse that will change their lives forever.
“Cop Car” is a smartly made but simple movie that doesn’t rely on fancy tricks to tell its story. Stripped down, it instead assumes its audience are good and moral enough to understand how fraught with danger it is to have two children playing with a loaded gun in the backseat of the titular locked cop car. Desperate to get out they first try and shoot out the window, which doesn’t work. Then they pound on the glass with the butt of the gun, literally inviting the weapon to misfire and injure one of them. There will be no spoilers here, but I can tell you that the sight of these young hands handling the gun is unsettling in the extreme, which, I imagine is exactly what director Jon Watts had in mind.
Bacon is at his white trash best in a role short on dialogue but long on menace and both the young guys James Freedson-Jackson and Hays Wellford hand in naturalistic performances.
“Cop Car” begins as a joyride becomes anything but joyful, and while the story is bleak, it is a bleakly beautiful coming of age story that packs a punch.
As nature-bound modes of death go there are few grimmer ways to go than being eaten by a bear. As Werner Herzog says after listening to audio of Timothy Treadwell being mauled by a grizzly in the a-bear-made-me-his-lunch documentary “Grizzly Man,” “it’s the most terrifying thing I’ve ever heard in my life.” Sure, being licked to death by puppies would be horrifying, as would a deadly nip from a shark, but for sheer primal terror a deadly bear bite rates in the top two.
In “Backcountry” Alex (Jeff Roop) convinces his girlfriend Jenn (Missy Peregrym) to join him on a woodsy adventure in a provincial park on the remote Blackfoot Trail. He knows his way around the forest and while she is more comfortable practising law in the city she agrees to go along for the ride. The romantic camping trip is disrupted almost before it has a chance to begin by Brad (Eric Balfour), a mysterious and possibly dangerous stranger. Eager to put some space between them and Brad, Alex pushes on, getting deeper into the trail. Soon they get lost and with supplies running low the pressure of wandering aimlessly gets to them. Worse, the trip soon becomes an exercise in survival when an uninvited bear crashes their tent looking for more than porridge.
Call it “Goldilocks and the Hungry Bear” if you like, but “Backcountry” plays on a basic fear, the idea of being consumed and it does it well. Director Adam MacDonald has an obvious love for genre movies, and has clearly studied movies like “Grizzly Rage” and learned his lessons well. He gives us a long build-up, creating tension—Is that Brad in the woods or an animal?—before introducing the fangs and claws. When he does, it’s worth the wait. His grizzly is a vicious, snarling beast, a Forest OG and a force to be dealt with.
Questions linger about why Alex, presented as an experienced camper would set out on a trip like this without the proper supplies and tool—My kingdom for a GPS!—and while “Backcountry’s” nicely constructed tale doesn’t answer them, it renders them moot when the bear brings a dose of life and death to the tale.
“Z for Zachariah,” a three hander starring Chiwetel Ejiofor, Margot Robbie and Chris Pine, is a dystopian story where the catastrophic events surrounding the devastation of the human race are less important than the more primal themes of lust and jealousy that arise between the trio of characters.
Robbie is Ann, a pious woman whose tough, lonely life changes when she meets and befriends scientist Loomis (Ejiofor). She hasn’t seen another person in a very long time and soon they work through their mutual mistrust to form a friendship with romantic overtones. Their budding romance is stopped short with the appearance of Caleb (Chris Pine), a charming stranger who inserts himself into their lives. Loomis doesn’t trust the newcomer and becomes even more suspicious when Ann and Caleb become romantically involved.
Based on a novel by Robert C. O’Brien, “Z for Zachariah” is a quiet movie that sits on the other end of the scale from recent dystopian movies like “Mad Max: Fury Road” or “CHAPPiE.” The action here is mostly internal and the only explosions are emotional. Director Craig Zobel challenges the audience’s idea of what a post apocalypse world would look like. His world is lush, save for a creek infected by nuclear waste, and he has boiled the story down to its essentials.
The film isn’t cluttered with the backstory of the disaster, instead it gives us just enough information on the characters to allow us to draw our own conclusions about them. Loomis is a drinker, Ann’s religious convictions have left her open to being taken advantage of while Caleb’s past is murky enough to arouse suspicion. It’s a complex study of character, a look at how people behave in isolated circumstances.
The actors rise to the occasion. Robbie leaves behind the glam of “Wolf of Wall Street” to find Ann’s vulnerability, while Pine is allowed to show more depth as Caleb than he’s able to in his “Star Trek” franchise. By the time the end credits roll, however, it’s clear this is Ejiofor ‘s movie. The multifaceted character is vividly alive behind his eyes and often his performance is more interesting than the movie itself.
Zobel’s deliberate pacing is meant to highlight the all-important subtext of the story but occasionally feels more like foot dragging than a style choice.
Jane Levy has a diverse resume that includes the cable hit Shameless (where she dies in a most fiery way), the sitcom Suburgatory and the 2013 remake of Evil Dead. But her new film, Bang Bang Baby takes her back to where she began: singing and dancing.
“I did musical theatre, mostly because it was the only theatre available, not to say anything negative about that, but I wanted to be an actor. I loved drama and that was the way to do it so I was in all the plays. I was in Annie. I was in Oklahoma. I was in Annie Get Your Gun and The Wizard of Oz,” When she was seven years old the California native recalls about her seven -year-old self.
She warbled her way through Broadway-style shows until she was about thirteen when she traded the stage for the soccer field. It took a few years but eventually she felt a familiar draw.
“I was eighteen and I just finished my first year of college and I hated school,” she says. “I was miserable the whole year and I couldn’t quite figure out why.
“I was in Europe with my friend and I said, ‘You know what? I’m not going to do it anymore. I’m not going to school. Why not pursue the thing that I know has always been, deep down, my dream?’”
She’s back to basics in Bang Bang Baby, a strange new big screen sci-fi musical that gives her the chance to strut her stuff. In it, she plays Stepphy, a 1960s teenager whose dreams of rock ’n’ roll stardom are dashed when a chemical leak in her town causes mass mutations and “threatens to turn her dream into a nightmare.”
When she first saw the script she says, “I thought, how cool and how strange. I thought it would be a challenge to explore singing and dancing which is something I had done as a kid but not since. And I also thought how unusual, how peculiar, how fun.”
Levy has a whole slate of films on the way, including the much-anticipated animated movie Monster Trucks, but the best part of it all, she says, is that she is able to act in a variety of projects.
“For me, I feel like this is the thing I have to do. This is the thing I enjoy the most and this is the thing I’m best at.”
“Real horror has always thrived in the mainstream and elsewhere. Always will.”
When was the last time you were freaked out by a Hollywood movie?
I can admit that It Follows and Unfriended raised a few goosebumps and I recall a Saturday matinee screening of Paranormal Activity that was the first and only time I have ever heard anyone actually scream in a theatre. I don’t mean a quiet whimper followed by an embarrassed laugh or a frightened little squeal. I mean a full-on, open-throated howl of terror.
But these days it seems to me those moments are becoming fewer and further between. Zombies have gone mainstream, vampires now sparkle in the sun and werewolves have hipster hairdos.
I find the news more upsetting than most mainstream monster movies.
A recent re-watch of In Cold Blood gave me a jolt unlike any recent traditional gore fest.
It’s not a horror film in the conventional sense, but because it’s a true story of a senseless murder, it sent shivers down my spine.
A new film this weekend, the haunted home-movie tale Sinister 2, can only be called a horror movie because it is so poorly made. It is terrifyingly badly made but there is nothing that will actually give you nightmares, and isn’t that the whole point?
George Mihalka, director of My Bloody Valentine — a movie Quentin Tarantino calls his all-time favourite slasher film — agrees that conventional horror is in a rut.
“As long as mainstream horror focuses on glossy monsters and the perfectly backlit villain and stylish gore shots that could pass for TV commercial beauty shots where blood and victims are interchangeable with beer and models, there is nothing left to fear,” he says.
“An honest well-developed character is the reflective mirror that conveys the reality of the monster, villain, serial killer, ghost, zombie or vampire. If there is no truth or reality in the performance we cannot truly believe in the menace. We are left as numb, detached voyeurs of slick boogeymen or at best rooting for them to kill off the annoying bad acting of interchangeable pretty plastic people.”
Horror hero and Rue Morgue editor-in-chief Dave Alexander agrees that much Hollywood horror errs on the safe side, but says there are still thrills to be had at the movies.
“Foreign and indie horror movies — those titles that play genre festivals — are the most exciting and innovative because they’re not as bound by the Hollywood business model that favours remakes, sequels and chasing trends. That said, there are still chills to be had at the multiplex when a breakout title with an original concept comes along — one of the best recent examples being It Follows.”
Chris Alexander, editor-in-chief of legendary N.Y.C.-based horror and dark fantasy film culture magazine Fangoria says “real horror has always thrived in the mainstream and elsewhere. Always will.”
“Throughout horror history, there have always been ‘lite’ versions of more palpable big-screen terrors. From the various monster comedies of the 1940s (how many times did Bela run afoul of Bowery Boys and Brooklyn Gorillas?) to Abbott and Costello romps to The Munsters. And Dark Shadows was a vampire soap opera that romanticized vampires for lonely housewives.
“Horror in the mainstream has long been a gateway drug for young people and, if they are affected and obsessed by the films they see with their pals on a Friday night, they’ll likely begin the endless quest to ‘chase the dragon’ and find darker terrors, which are in large supply, internationally. If it wasn’t… I’d be out of a job!”
“Mistress America,” the new Noah Baumbach farce, is a small gem, a movie so lovingly crafted and cast I’m tempted to pull out the Film Critic’s Big Book of Superlatives to adequately find words to describe it.
Like many of the director’s previous films it’s a New York-centric story, focussing on two characters, aspiring writer and Barnard College freshman Tracy (Lola Kirke) and her soon-to-be stepsister Brooke (Greta Gerwig). Brook is a much-needed breath of fresh air in Tracy’s stale college experience. She’s a few years older, has a zest for life Tracy has never experienced before, and, perhaps most importantly, inspires the young writer to do her best work. “There’s nothing I don’t know about myself,” she says, “and that’s why I don’t need therapy.”
Brook’s goal of opening a restaurant looks like it’s about to be sidelined when her rich boyfriend breaks up with her, taking his investment with him. Desperate for cash she convinces Tracy and two friends (Matthew Shear and Jasmine Cephas-Jones) from school to accompany her as she faces her fears and hits up an ex (Michael Chernus) and his wife (Heather Lind), a woman Brook calls her nemesis, for seed money. Secrets are revealed and lives are changed in a comedy of manners that would make Ernst Lubitsch proud.
At a scant 85 minutes this is a firecracker of a movie. Sharply observed, it’s an arch look at growing up, growing old (Brook feels over-the-hill at age 30) and the pressures that come with the passing of time. “Sometimes I think I’m a genius,” says Tracy’s friend Tony, “and I wish I could just fast-forward to that moment so everyone can see why.” Brook and Tracy speak in a cavalcade of words, volleying ideas and schemes back and worth.
Kirke is a naturalistic anchor for Gerwig’s flights of fancy, but they fit together like puzzle pieces.
The effervescent chemistry between these two is the heart of the film, but as more characters enter and the farce escalates the movie crackles with mad energy. Like early Woody Allen it feels like it’s riding the edge of going off the rails but is kept straight and true by Baumbach‘s rock solid direction.
“American Mistress” is unabashedly smart, funny and joyful. It’s a story that exists in it’s own carefully constructed world but peel back the layers and it has much to say about female mentoring relationships and the responsibilities inherent in those relationships. It’s about friendship, but above all, it’s about entertaining the audience.
“Fort Tilden,” the SxSW Grand Jury Prize winner, is essentially a two-hander starring Bridey Elliott and Clare McNulty as the two worst people in Williamsburg trying to make their way to a beach near Rockaway. Funny and insightful, it might be the most quotable movie of the year.
Allie (McNulty) and Harper (Elliott) are snarky, aimless Brooklyn twentysomethings who accept an invite from two handsome guys to spend a hot summer day at Fort Tilden. Harper is an artist who relies on her father’s money while Allie considers a two year stint in the Corps before returning to study law… or acupuncture. Turns out they are just as clueless about the trip as they are in life. Beginning the journey on bicycles, they dodge texts from Allie’s Peace Corps recruiter, go shopping, argue, impose on friends for transportation and take a rather expensive taxi ride. Thelma and Louise they ain’t.
Unwittingly the daytrip becomes a metaphor for their lives, pushing them to examine their path—to Fort Tilden and in life—and where their decisions will lead them.
Sharply written and hilarious, “Fort Tilden” is a snapshot of post millennial self-absorption and angst. We’ve seen that before, embodied by everyone in young Hollywood from Kristen Stewart to Jesse Eisenberg, but rarely has a movie embraced the unlikeability of its characters in such a wholehearted way. Allie and Harper truly may be the most oblivious, self-entitled twits to ever grace a movie screen, but when they’re spouting truly inspired lines like, “I didn’t believe her personality choice,” or “They are so boring, they’re like chapters in a book it’s OK to skip,” who cares. They may be objectionable on almost every level, but as it turns out they’re also starring in the year’s most quotable movie.
McNulty and Elliott (daughter of Chris Elliott, granddaughter of Bob and Ray) have the chemistry of people who have known one another forever, they have a rapport but when things take a turn and the ugly side of resentment bubbles up, they go at it as only close friends can. They’re Kardashians on steroids and every one of their “OMGs” both alienates them from and endears them to the audience.
At the end of the journey “Fort Tilden” is a story not about two cruel and narcissistic young people, but about a pair of women whose so-hip-it-hurts exteriors hide delicate inner lives plagued by neediness and self doubt. What begins in the shallow end of the story pool ends in the deep end, showing empathy for characters who, themselves, have little of that virtue.
“Hmmm… it needs a twist, something to make it fresh.”
“How about a young, stoned Jason Bourne?”
“Like Cheech and Chong and Robert Ludlum had a baby? Bingo!”
The movie is three days in the life of Mike and Phoebe (Jesse Eisenberg and Kristen Stewart). Young and in love, they live in small town Liman, West Virginia. When she isn’t working at a local bail bond joint and he’s not clerking at a rundown Cash ‘N’ Carry, they spend their days getting high and riffing on Mike’s idea for a comic book about an astronaut ape.
Meanwhile in Langley a midlevel CIA bureaucrat (Topher Grace) is looking to close the file on the abandoned Ultra Program, a government project that offered third strike drug offenders a chance to become part of an experimental program in return for their freedom. They were turned into highly skilled assassins. Trouble was, it didn’t work. The only success story was Mike, but when the pressure got to be too much for him, his memory was wiped and he was given a new identity.
Enter stoned Mike.
For five years he floated through life on a cloud of marijuana with no memory of his former life. When two killers show up in Liman to eliminate him his old instincts kick in and Mike turns from friendly stoner to lean mean killing machine. Still, he doesn’t revert completely. “I have a lot of anxiety about this,” he says as the body count mounts.
At the center of “American Ultra” are Eisenberg and Stewart, reteamed for the first time since 2009’s “Adventureland.” Both are fine actors—if you need convincing watch him in “The End of the Tour” or her in “The Clouds of Sils Maria”—and while neither are stretched as performers, they leave vanity at the door and have fun in the world director Nima Nourizadeh and screenwriter Max Landis give them to cavort in.
Strong supporting work from Connie Britton as Mike’s sympathetic CIA handler balances out the wackier performances by John Leguizamo as Mike’s mile-a-minute drug dealer and laughing killer Walton Goggins. The over-the-top turns fit the feel of the film, but Grace’s shrill sociopath is pitched a bit too high, even for a movie where someone is killed with a dustpan.
The violence in “American Ultra” often feels gratuitous—we’re told Mike singlehandedly kills seventeen people—but the look of stoned amazement that drifts over Eisenberg’s face each time he pulls off some feat of derring-do is worth the wanton bloodshed.
“Cop Car” is as lean and mean as its name. An unabashed b-movie, it’s a down-and-dirty story about two kids, a desperate con and a cop who really wants his car back. It’s back to basics but loaded with tension and some unexpected moments.
