SYNOPSIS: In the new horror film “Weapons” a community is left reeling when all but one child from Justine Gandy’s elementary classroom mysteriously vanish from their homes. “Whatever took those kids isn’t something you can fight,” says police officer Paul Morgan (Alden Ehrenreich).
CAST: Josh Brolin, Julia Garner, Cary Christopher, Alden Ehrenreich, Austin Abrams, Benedict Wong, and Amy Madigan. Directed by Zach Cregger.
REVIEW: “Weapons” feels like the horror story Stephen King never wrote.
Like so many of King’s sinister novels, “Weapons” takes place in a tightly knit community, an ordinary place touched by supernatural terror. There’s dark humor, missing kids and the kind of unimaginable creeping dread that made King a millionaire.
But it’s not King, it’s Zach Cregger, one of the new kings of offbeat horror. His last film, 2002s “Barbarian,” was an audacious thriller about an evil Airbnb rental that delivered a heaping handful of solid scares and off-the-hook storytelling.
Creggar ups the ante with “Weapons.” As he did with “Barbarian,” he adds flourishes to a simple but effective premise to create textured, complex storytelling.
Like I said, the inciting incident is simple: One morning, at 2:17 am, seventeen children, all schoolmates, ran into the darkness and disappeared.
The question at the film’s heart—Where did they go, and why?—is the catalyst for an ambitious story that blends the points of view of six residents, teacher Miss Gandy (Julia Garner), Alex (Cary Christopher), the one student who stayed behind, school principal Marcus (Benedict Wong), police officer Paul (Alden Ehrenreich), drug addict James (Austin Abrams) and parent Archer Graff (Josh Brolin) who says, “If my boy’s out there, I’ll tear this town apart to find him.”
Cregger handles the material with a deft hand, effectively building a relatable, ordinary world where terrible things happen. The eerie disappearances are dealt with quickly before the movie commits to its study of grief and trauma via six interconnected vignettes that dig deep into the lives of the main characters. As such, for most of its runtime “Weapons” is more about the aftermath of the disappearances, and how the characters deal with tragedy, anger and the bizarre nature of the vanishings, than the disappearances themselves.
The film’s vignettes eventually dovetail, leaving behind a trail of jump scares, dark humor, introspection and tension that leads to a cathartic climax. A mix of gruesome horror, surreal farce and surprise, it is unexpected and unexpectedly funny. Cregger navigates the story’s tonal twists and turns like a pro, bending the film’s unusual structure to his will to deliver an exciting, entertaining movie that is as hilarious as it is horrifying.
SYNOPSIS: In “Wolfs,” a new crime comedy in select theatres before moving to Apple TV+ on September 27, George Clooney plays Jack, a lone wolf fixer who aids the rich and powerful when they get into hot water. Need to get rid of a body? He’s your bagman.
“I was told that if I ever need help to call you,” says Margaret (Amy Smart), who finds herself in a hotel room with an inconveniently dead body. “I didn’t know people like you really existed.”
“They don’t,” he says. “There’s nobody who can do what I do.”
Except there is.
That person is Nick (Brad Pitt), a smug Mr. Fixit sent by the hotel. ”I’m here to fix your problem,” he says.
They don’t want to work together, but the hotel’s owner, whose been watching everything on hidden cameras intervenes. “The only course of action is for you to work together,” says Pamela Dowd-Henry (voiced by Frances McDormand), “to clean up this mess.”
As events spiral out of control, the two competitive troubleshooters reluctantly agree to partner up. “It’s gonna be a long night,” says Nick.
CAST: George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Amy Ryan, Austin Abrams, Poorna Jagannathan. Written and directed by Jon Watts.
REVIEW: By the time the end credits roll “Wolfs” has revealed itself to not be about men immersed in a world of murder and mayhem, but as a study in loneliness.
Clooney and Pitt play loners—the title is meant to suggest they are each a lone wolf, not part of a pack, and therefore aren’t wolves, but wolfs… or something like that—whose job, for safety reasons, requires that friendships do not get in the way of the work. But, when thrown together, they slowly form a bond. They don’t exactly become Bert and Ernie, but find commonalities and form a bond of trust, possibly for the first time in their lives.
The movie is at its best as Clooney and Pitt fall in “like.” The rest is finely tuned filmmaking, with a few laughs and some shoot ‘em up action. It’s slick and fleet-of-foot but the events surrounding the characters are not quite as interesting as the characters themselves.
The two leads begin as enemies, become frenemies and finally allies. It is their banter, chemistry and gentle acknowledgment of age that drives the movie, not the intrigue. Clooney and Pitt have an easy charm, and their combination of humorous self-depreciation and charisma is where the action is, not in the car chases or gun battles.
“Wolfs” is a great argument for the existence of movie stars. It’s a good example of how star power (alongside the goofy charm of Austin Abrams as an optimistic kid in constantly thrust into life-and-death situations) can amp an up a run-of-the-mill movie.
When you think of kid’s books wholesome titles like “Captain Underpants” and “Clifford the Big Red Dog” likely spring to mind. But for 1980s children with a darker sensibility who were too old for “The Addams Family” but too young for “Stephen King,” the “Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark” trilogy by Alvin Schwartz and illustrated by Stephen Gammell, where must reads. Violent and eerie, the American Library Association reports that the gothic story collections were the most challenged books of the 1990s, which, of course, only made them more appealing to rebellious kids. A new film produced by horror master Guillermo Del Toro and directed by André Øvredal, uses the books as the basis for a new story.
Set in the small town of Mill Valley, Pennsylvania in 1968, the action begins on Halloween. When besties Stella (Zoe Margaret Colletti), Auggie (Gabriel Rush) and Chuck (Austin Zajur) play a prank on the town bully, he looks for revenge forcing them to hide first at a drive-in where they meet new kid in town Ramón (Michael Garza).
The night soon leads them to a spooky house on the edge of town. The decrepit old place was once the grand home of the Mill Valley’s richest family, the Bellows. Now all that remains are dusty ruins and, as the kids discover, a diary of old stories written in blood by Sarah Bellows (Kathleen Pollard), the youngest, cursed daughter of the once powerful family. As strange things happen the kids realize the book is making their worst fears come true. “You don’t read the book,” says Stella, “the book reads you. I’m afraid we woke the book up.”
This movie could be more accurately called “Mildly Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark.” It’s a collection of jump scares and creepy elements—scarecrows, spiders and a severed toe—cobbled together to create a teen-friendly flick that owes a debt to the Halloween afterschool specials of yesteryear. It’s Scooby Doo with courser language and better effects; an entry level horror for teens who find the Garbage Pail Kids too intense.
For any boomers who might take the kids or grandkids the “toe stew“ is gross but the scariest stuff comes in the form of background news reports on Vietnam and Nixon’s re-election.
As an anthology type movie “Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark” is slowed by the supernatural sleuthing of Stella and company as they try to get to the bottom of sad Sarah’s story. Repetition of the legend and lots of shots of Chuck’s freaked out face slow the momentum. During one of these longer scenes I wondered, “When is the pacing building suspense and when is it building tedium?“ By the end credits the background mystery has sucked the air out of what could’ve been a tightly crafted fun movie.
At once both an investigation in obsession and white male privilege, “Brad’s Status” stars Ben Stiller as a man who cannot help but compare himself to his more successful friends. “I have a creeping fear that not only have I not lived up to my expectations,” he says, “but have disappointed others as well.”
Brad Sloan is a husband, father and the owner of a non-profit organization that helps people in need. It’s a comfortable Sacramento life, comfortable but, according to Brad, unremarkable. Lately his head has been filled with thoughts of his college years when, “I was in love with the world and it was in love with me.” The difference between then and now? “The world hates me and the feeling is mutual.”
He must confront his feelings of inadequacy when he and his musical prodigy son Troy (Austin Abrams) tour colleges in Boston. Harvard seems sure to accept the teenager until a mix up in the dates delays Troy’s admissions interview. Determined to reschedule the meeting Brad has to swallow his pride and call his wealthy friends for help.
Contacting Billy Wearslter (Jemaine Clement), a rich guy who lives with two girlfriends in Hawaii, best-selling author and DC powerhouse Craig Fisher (Michael Sheen) and billionaire playboy Jason Hatfield (Luke Wilson) gets the job done but forces Brad further down the rabbit hole of inadequacy.
“Brad’s Status” is a character study of a man who complains about being ignored at dinner parties because he isn’t rich. Stiller is very good—he’s always at his best when in movies that don’t feature statues that come to life—at bringing Brad’s neurosis to vivid life, but what years ago would have been thought of as a mid-life crisis movie is now a story of male privilege, ripe with first world problems. In other words, it’s hard to feel particularly sorry for a character whose self-pity overrides the good things in his life. Stiller keeps him relatable, from his petty frustration at a useless silver airlines status card to his deep seeded jealousy of everyone from his successful friends to his talented son, but early on you sense the story is only headed in one direction.
I don’t want to give anything away so I’ll put a [SPOILER ALERT] here, but it turns out that Brad doesn’t have it so bad after all. There is poignancy to the story by times but the lesson—never judge a person by the private jet—is too slight, too obvious to make any lasting impression.
As a laundry list of Brad’s existential questions “Brad’s Status” doesn’t delve deep enough to provide any real answers, no matter how good the performances.
“Paper Towns,” the new teen movie from the writer of “The Fault in Our Stars,” is a coming-of-age-mystery-love story-road trip-romance about a teenage boy and the mysterious girl of his dreams.
Nat Wolff is Quentin, an Orlando, Florida A-student just weeks away from graduation. His childhood crush, Margo Roth Spiegelman (Cara Delevingne), lives across the street but they haven’t spoken in nine years. He’s a nerd, she’s an exotic beauty who looks like she just walked out of a Victoria Secrets catalogue—because, in real life, Delevingne was a VS model—and he still loves her. One night, out of the blue, she appears and asks a favour with her husky voice, like a young Brenda Vaccaro.
“I have nine things to do tonight, and I need a get-a-way driver.”
It’s a mission of revenge against her cheating boyfriend and BFFs who have betrayed her. “It’s a night to right some wrongs and wrong some rights,” she tells him. “Basically it will be the best night of your life.”
Among other things they cloak a car in Saran Wrap, complete with a note that reads “That’s a wrap on our friendship,” and share a quick tender moment. The next morning, she’s gone.
Her parents are unconcerned. “She’s not missing,” says her mother, “she’s gone. There’s a difference. She’ll come back when people stop talking about her.”
Quentin isn’t so sure, and soon begins to find clues Margo left behind. Convinced she wants him to find her, he becomes a teenage Columbo, piecing together a series of obscure clues that would give Sherlock Holmes a headache. The clues lead him and a car load of friends (Halston Sage as Lacey, Austin Abrams as Ben, Justice Smith as Radar and Jaz Sinclair as Angela) to a tiny “paper town” (a fictional place on a map used by cartographers as copyright protection) in New York State.
Whether or not Quentin finds her is irrelevant. It’s the journey, not the destination that counts. Margo is the McGuffin, an impossible pixie dream girl who, despite reading Walt Whitman and being the only millennial who knows who Woody Guthrie is, is the least interesting part of the story. She exists simply to put everything in motion.
Is the journey worth your time and money? Sure, if you consider pop psychology like, “You have to get lost to find yourself,” to be a deep insight to the human condition. It rides the line between existential teen drama and the above-mentioned mishmash of styles (coming-of-age-mystery-love story-road trip-romance) that never exactly dins its tone. For a movie whose mantra is, “Take a risk,” it certainly plays it safe with the storytelling.
Keeping that in mind, “Paper Towns” is populated with likeable, compelling characters. Delevingne is a charismatic catalyst, and the trio of boys have the genuine chemistry of friends who have “known one another since they were foetuses.” They bring the material to life, breathing life into a story that is simultaneously overwritten and under realised.
