“The Vigil,” the first film from novelist-turned-director Keith Thomas and now available on VOD, is low fi movie with high fi horror.
When we first meet Yakov (Dave Davis) he is at a support group for Orthodox Jews adapting to life outside of Brooklyn, New York’s Hasidic community. Still adjusting to his new life, he’s unemployed, struggling to make ends meet. When his friend Reb Shulem (Menashe Lustig) approaches him with the offer of a job, he has no choice but to accept. For one night he will act as a Shomer, a guardian in the Jewish tradition, and watch over the dead body of Holocaust survivor Mr. Litvak (Ronald Cohen) until the time of burial.
Arriving at the house for the overnight stay, he’s greeted by Mrs. Litvak (Lynn Cohen) who warns him to leave. After Reb explains that she is suffering from Alzheimer’s, Yakov begins his solemn duty, watching over the shrouded Mr. Litvak.
Soon, as lights begin to flicker Yakov thinks he sees something scurry across the floor. But the true terror awaits as he uncovers a video detailing the ancient demon, the Mazzik, that attached itself to Mr. Litvak when he left Buchenwald.
“The Vigil” is a horror film that trades in the supernatural as much as the psychological. The shocks are born from director Thomas’s effective use of jump scares and things that go bump in the night, but the real terror here is intangible.
It is the reliving of memories, as Mr. Litvak says in the video, “the looking backwards” at the anti-Semitic horrors that shaped all their lives. We learn of the fate of Mrs. Livak’s father in the Kiev pogroms of 1919, Mr. Livak’s treatment at the hands of the Nazi’s and the recent violence that prompted Yakov to leave his faith. They are, as Mrs. Litvak says, “broken by memories,” the inescapable weight that they carry.
“The Vigil” brings the horror out of the corners of the mind, and just possibly offers an avenue for Yakov’s catharsis and return to his faith, but not before presenting a deeply unsettling story.
A nomination for a Golden Globe Award as Best Foreign Language Film should help “Minari,” now on premium digital and on-demand, the boost it deserves to find a wide audience. Simultaneously intimate and emotional, it is an authentic coming-of-age story about the resilience of the human spirit.
Drawing on his own personal experiences director Lee Isaac Chung has crafted a story about the Yi family, the Korean born mother and father, Jacob (Steven Yeun) and Monica (Yeri Han), and their American born kids Anne (Noel Kate Cho) and David (Alan Kim). Dreaming of a better life, they relocate from California to start a food business in rural Arkansas. Buying a plot of land, he plans on growing Korean produce to sell in the tri-state area.
It’s a tough go. Water is scarce, particularly after Jacob declines the services of a local dowser in favor of trying to find his own source. To make ends meet Jacob and Monica take on jobs at a local hatchery, but the long hours, coupled with David’s heart condition, bring trouble at home. To ease the tension Monica’s mother Soonja (Yuh-Jung Youn) comes from Korea to lend a hand.
She’s a handful, not a “real grandma” says David. But her swearing, love of wrestling and life brings some much-needed spark to the Yi’s new trailer home. Best of all, her antics help David find his way from shy little boy, whose mother coddles him, to fun loving kid.
“Minari,” in English and Korean with subtitles, is a carefully observed movie. The look on Monica’s face when she sees her new home for the first time is a subtle but devastating. Grandma’s easy laugh is infectious and David’s reactions to his grandmother—“They don’t swear! They don’t wear men’s underwear!”—are funny in a wistful kind of way. Even farmhand Paul’s (Will Patton) eccentric religious beliefs are treated compassionately and never ridiculed, even when Jacob can’t understand why he would rather lug a giant cross down the road than accept a ride.
These moments build as the story unfolds, bringing empathy along with them. And while the film confronts the racism the Yi’s encounter in their new community, the story doesn’t look there for conflict. That comes from within the family and their struggles, not from external circumstances.
“Minari” is a true family drama, with a hint of “The Grapes of Wrath” thrown in for good measure.
“This story isn’t about truth, or love,” says Aubrey Miller (Brenna Llewellyn) in “The Sinners,” now streaming on VOD, “this story is about sin.” Actually, it’s a story that feels like a time machine mash up of movies like “Cruel Intentions,” “The Craft” and “Mean Girls.”
Set in a small evangelical town, “The Sinners” is the story of a group of girls who rebel by forming a clique to personify the seven deadly sins, pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath, and sloth. At the head is local pastor’s daughter Grace Carver (Kaitlyn Bernard) who represents lust. When she gets wind that Aubrey, who embodies pride, told Pastor Carver about the girl gang’s name The Sins and then, as if that wasn’t bad enough, had the temerity to write about their transgressions in her diary, she flips. “We have been betrayed,” she tells the other Sinners. “We have a rat amongst us and action must be taken.”
Before Aubrey arrives at a group meeting for what she thinks is a bible study class, Grace (who by this point is wearing Halloween devil horns) tells the gang, “We’re going to get wild tonight and push her beyond her breaking point. It’s time we take our sins to the next level.”
When the gang decides to throw a scare into her by staging a kidnapping, things go wrong and Aubrey vanishes into the woods. As the investigation into her disappearance amps up strange things happen, revealing the small town’s dark underbelly. Are the Sinners really sinners, or are they victims?
It’s an easy enough plot to follow, but if you do get lost director Courtney Paige “helpfully” provides a roadmap in the form of narration I suppose is supposed to lend a “Memento” vibe but simply tells us things we mostly already know. Add to that the repetitive procedural nature of the story and you’re left with a film that could have explored the hot button push and pull between faith and more terrestrial concerns, but instead chooses atmosphere over fear.
Points to Holly Amber Church who provides a suitably moody score, but beyond that “The Sinners” commits the cardinal cinematic sin of not grabbing the audience’s attention.
On Tuesday February 23, 2021 at 7 pm Richard will host a special on-line interview with producer, director and author Barry Avrich for the Adath Israel Cong in Toronto.
On this week’s Richard Crouse Show Podcast we meet David Fishof who managed some of the biggest names in sports before turning his eye to music. While he was working with Ringo Starr he hatched the idea for the Rock and Roll Fantasy Camp, a retreat for amateur musicians to play with and learn from professionals like Roger Daltry from The Who and Bill Wyman from the Rolling Stones.
He is now the subject of a fun new documentary called Rock Camp that details the wild and woolly beginning of the Rock and Roll Fantasy Camp and the role it plays in making people’s lives better.
Then, the panel, Denise Donlan, the former president of Sony Music Canada, among many other titles including author and public speaker, Canadian soprano Measha Brueggergosman and documentary filmmaker Paul Saltzman, whose latest film is about his experiences studying at the same ashram as The Beatles in 1968, talk about what it means to be a legend.
Each week on the nationally syndicated Richard Crouse Show, Canada’s most recognized movie critic brings together some of the most interesting and opinionated people from the movies, television and music to put a fresh spin on news from the world of lifestyle and pop-culture. Tune into this show to hear in-depth interviews with actors and directors, to find out what’s going on behind the scenes of your favourite shows and movies and get a new take on current trends. Recent guests include Ethan Hawke, director Brad Bird, comedian Gilbert Gottfried, Eric Roberts, Brian Henson, Jonathan Goldsmith a.k.a. “The most interesting man in the world,” and best selling author Linwood Barclay.
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Richard speaks to “CTV News at 11:30” anchor Andria Bain about TV shows to watch this weekend including two with Rosamund Pike, the Marie Curie biopic “Radioactive” on Crave and the dark comedy “I Care a Lot” on Amazon Prime Video, the Disney+ kid’s flick “Flora & Ulysses” and the tearjerker “Supernova” starring Colin Firth and Stanley Tucci on VID.
Richard speaks to “CTV News at Six” anchor Andria Case about the best movies and television to watch this weekend including the revisionist drama “For All Mankind” on Apple TV+, the Disney+ encore airing of “Rogers & Hammerstein’s Cinderella” starring Brandy and Whitney Houston and the Netflix true crime docu series “The Confession Killer.”
Richard joins CP24 to have a look at new movies coming to VOD, streaming services and theatres including the mean-spirited crime dramedy “I Care a Lot” (Amazon Prime Video in Canada), the heartfelt drama “Supernova” (Apple TV app, and everywhere you rent or buy movies) and the kid’s flick Flora & Ulysses (Disney+).
This week on Pop Life we meet veteran music journalist Lisa Robinson, Her new book “Nobody Ever Asked Me About the Girls: Women, Music, and Fame,” pulls from four-and-a-half decades of interviews with music’s most famous women — from Tina Turner, Joni Mitchell, Stevie Nicks to Rihanna, Lady Gaga, and Beyoncé. In our interview Robinson reflects on her own career as a pioneering female music writer and editor of Music Scene Magazine.
Then, Robinson joins the “Pop Life” panel, Kathy Valentine of the Go-Go’s, the first all-female band to have a #1 album in the U.S and Rookz Eastmond an entrepreneur and producer who specializes in urban music, to talk about being a woman in the world of music.
Film critic and pop culture historian Richard Crouse shares a toast with celebrity guests and entertainment pundits every week on CTV News Channel’s talk show POP LIFE.
Featuring in-depth discussion and debate on pop culture and modern life, POP LIFE features sit-down interviews with celebrities from across the entertainment world, including rock legends Sting and Bob Geldof, musicians Josh Groban and Sarah Brightman, comedian Ken Jeong, writer Fran Lebowitz, superstar jazz musician Diana Krall, stand-up comedian and CNN host W. Kamau Bell, actors Danny DeVito and Jay Baruchel, celebrity chefs Bobby Flay and Nigella Lawson, and many more.
“The Vigil,” the first film from novelist-turned-director Keith Thomas and now available on VOD, is low fi movie with high fi horror.
