SYNOPSIS: In the unconventional “Cuckoo,” a bonkers new horror film now playing in theatres, “Euphoria’s” Hunter Schafer plays the rebellious 17-year-old Gretchen, a traumatized young woman living with her father Luis (Marton Csokas) and his new family in the German Alps. When her father’s business partner Herr König (“Downton Abbey’s” Dan Stevens) offers her a job on the front desk of his rural mountain resort, she jumps at the chance, despite some red flags. On site, she notices women mysteriously falling ill and when her step-sister becomes sick, Gretchen aims to discover the resort and König’s secrets.
CAST: Hunter Schafer, Jan Bluthardt, Marton Csokas, Jessica Henwick, Dan Stevens. Written and directed by Tilman Singer.
REVIEW: It’s not the end of the year yet, but I’m willing to bet the aptly named “Cuckoo” will be the strangest arthouse horror film of the year. A mix-and-match of body horror, otherworldly influences and slasher violence, it’s an unpredictable ride courtesy of director’s Tilman Singer’s unbridled imagination.
The off-kilter vibe is supported by the performances. Schafer is the guide, the most earthbound of all the characters, but even she seems engulfed by the film’s sensory overload.
Even more extreme is Stevens, who leaves “Downton Abbey” in the rear-view mirror with a performance so over-the-top it’s like a Bond villain on Adderall. His ever-changing pronunciation of Gretchen’s name is so bizarre, and so entertaining, it’s like it has been filtered through Google translate every time out.
After several mind-bending episodes, “Cuckoo” pays off in the third act as most of the story threads knit themselves up, and plot holes are filled. It will still likely polarize audiences looking for easy answers, but its sheer willingness to embrace its incomprehensibility is part of its eccentric charm.
Lots of kids like to play with their food, but the main character in “Abigail,” a new vampire film now playing in theatres, takes it to a new level.
The story begins with a plan to kidnap Abigail (Alisha Weir), the twelve-year-old ballerina daughter of a well-known underworld boss. Ringleader Lambert (Giancarlo Esposito) makes it sound simple. He directs his ragtag team, including ex-cop Frank (Dan Stevens), hacker Sammy (Kathryn Newton), medic Joey (Melissa Barrera), musclebound enforcer Peter (Kevin Durand), ex-Marine Rickles (William Catlett) and get-away driver Dean (Angus Cloud in his last completed role), to contain Abigail and babysit her for twenty-four hours until a sizable ransom is paid.
How hard can that be?
With little effort, they pick up the unassuming looking rich girl, and secret her away to a secluded mansion where she is blindfolded and tied to a bed for safe keeping.
Things take a twist, however, when it’s revealed that Abigail is a bloodsucking fiend, quick to kill and drop a witty one-liner.
“I’m sorry about what’s gonna happen to you,” she tells one of her soon-to-be victims.
Directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, collectively known as Radio Silence, blow the plasma budget, filling the screen with gallons of bloody goo and arterial discharge. In its last half it is a splatter fest that provides the satisfying guts and gore horror fan expect.
But, in its own limited way, it’s also a family drama, a story of lost, lonely people, looking for approval from loved ones. That element gives the movie a nice grace note, but the focus here is popcorn thrills and chills.
As in “Ready or Not,” a Radio Silence movie from 2019, “Abigail” is largely set in a grand old gothic mansion. Trapped like rats in a labyrinth, the kidnappers flail helplessly, looking for, and finding, danger around every darkened corner.
Against that setting, Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett stage several memorable scenes. In one, a newly-turned vampire acts as a puppet, performing an undead dance under Abigail’s telepathic control. It’s bizarre, kinda cool and diabolically funny.
The film’s beating heart, or rather, unbeating heart, is Weir, a kinetic presence who blends ballet with bloody vampiric attacks. Her shift from helpless child to two-hundred-year-old bloodsucker is the film’s coup de grâce.
“Abigail” goes on a little too long, puts a bit too much space between the gory set pieces and gives some characters the short shrift, but ultimately delivers a gory good time for genre fans.
Hot on the heels of 2023s “Godzilla Minus One,” the first ever Academy Award winner in the giant reptile’s decades long film career, comes “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire.” The Oscar winning movie focussed on drama more than destruction, but the new film is pure spectacle. A ballet of kaiju chaos for fans.
Set three years after “Godzilla vs. Kong,” the last entry in the MonsterVerse franchise, a new threat has emerged. “For most of human civilization, we believed that life could only exist on the surface of our planet,” says Kong Research Director Dr. Ilene Andrews (Rebecca Hall). “What else where we wrong about? This world has more secrets than we could possibly imagine.”
Having defeated Mechagodzilla the last time around, the Godzilla, and his atomic breath, and King Kong, the ruler of a subterranean ecosystem deep within the Earth called Hollow Earth, face a new threat.
When Andrews discovers large red hand marks on Skull Island, imprints that did not come from Kong, it becomes clear there is another giant ape with his eye set on taking over Skull Island, and beyond.
Even at 337 feet (102.7 m), and equipped with a giant axe and a mechanized power glove, Kong isn’t capable to do battle on his own.
“They don’t have to like one another,” says the “hippy dippy Ace Ventura” veterinarian Dr. Trapper (Dan Stevens) of Kong and Godzilla. “They just have to work together.”
Val Lewton and generations of horror/suspense directors who followed, kept their monsters off screen as long as possible. It was less-is-more filmmaking, that understood your brain would fill in the blanks; that what you didn’t see would be scarier than anything they could show you. It allowed the imagination to run wild, but “Godzilla x Kong” leaves nothing to the imagination. It is a bigger-is-better movie, the cinematic equivalent of a Monster Truck Rally.
It’s all about Kong, Godzilla and new characters like the 318 foot (96.8 m) tall simian Titan Skar King and an adorable-but-feisty mini-Kong named Suko, loud and proud, in action, leaving a trail of carnage behind them.
The human characters exist only to explain things, provide occasional comic relief, utter lines like, “What the bloody hell is that?” and look in awe as the Titans do battle. On the plus side, Brian Tyree Henry and Dan Stevens do look like they’re having fun.
The CGI is dodgy from time to time, the clunky story is essentially an excuse to pit Kong and Godzilla against other Titans and it doesn’t have the grace or emotion of “Godzilla Minus One,” but “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire” turns it up to 11. It’s a crowd pleaser, although milage may vary depending on your level of fandom of Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em action, that comes in and goes out with a roar.
Taking a lead from “How to Train Your Dragon,“ and other movies were fearsome creatures reveal their kinder, gentler selves, “The Sea Beast,” a new animated movie now streaming on Netflix, gives the old “never judge a book by its cover” platitude a nautical twist.
Monster hunter Jacob Holland (Karl Urban) come by his job honestly. As a child his parents were killed in a sea monster attack, one that left him adrift, alone in the ocean. After his rescue by the fearsome Captain Crow (Jared Harris), he devoted his life to the eradication of the sea beasts. “I swore I would do everything I could to keep people safe,” he says.
The worst of the worst, the King Kong of sea beasts is the Red Bluster, a giant lobster-red creature, rumored to be a menace to seafaring society. When Holland and his crew set off in their ship, the Inevitable, to hunt down and kill the menace, they discover a stowaway. Young orphan named Maisie (Zaris-Angel Hator) lost her parents on a sea beast expedition, and she wants in on the action.
There is a lot at stake on this mission. The king and queen have threatened the monster hunters with dire punishment unless the beast is tamed. Maisie, Holland and the crew set off to vanquish the creature, but soon learn that there is more to the story than they could ever have imagined.
“The Sea Beast” has spectacular action sequences with well-crafted computer animation, a compelling story about finding family, and the usual kid movie messages about loyalty and the importance of role models, but what sets it apart is a more subversive idea.
At its heart this is a cautionary tale, a warning to never take things at face value, or blindly put your trust into accepted versions of history. History can be subjective, the movie suggests, depending the source. Are the sea beasts dangerous troublemakers, as king and queen claim? Or are they misunderstood creatures used by the rulers to instill fear and exert control over their subjects? Co-writers Chris Williams (who also directs) and Nell Benjamin have woven big ideas throughout the fabric of the story, encouraging kids to figure out things for themselves and not accept the conventional wisdom.
But don’t get me wrong, this isn’t some anti-imperialist, rebellious screed. It’s an action adventure with a conscience and some very cool “monsters” that kids will fall for at first sight. It slows down in the second half, but the combination of smarts and seafaring fun is a winner.
Will Ferrell is a wonderfully weird and committed actor. Like a dog with a bone when he latches onto a part he doesn’t let go, come hell or high water. When it works, it really works, and the result is an indelible comedic creation like the deluded Ron Burgundy that not only makes us laugh but also reveals the character’s humanity. When it doesn’t work, as in “Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga,” now streaming on Netflix, it is all commitment and little humanity.
Ferrell plays Lars, a middle-aged Icelander whose love for the Eurovision Song Contest began in 1974 when he dancing in front of the TV, much to his father’s (Pierce Brosnan) chagrin, to ABBA’s winning performance of “Waterloo.” No one believes in his musical dreams except for his childhood friend Sigrit (Rachel McAdams), who loves him even though her affections don’t seem to be reciprocated. She believes in elves and drops little pearls of wisdom like, “Anger cannot churn butter.”
Together they are Fire Saga, a synth-pop duo who play to crowds at the local pub who only want to hear songs like “Ja Ja Ding Dong,” and not the “real music” Lars writes. Through a series of unlikely events they stumble into a spot on the Eurovision show. Lars’ father doesn’t want them to go. “All of Iceland will laugh at you,” he says. Undeterred, Lars soldiers on. “I have to become an international star to prove to my very handsome father and all of Iceland that I have not wasted my life.”
Lars and Sigrit’s experiences in their tiny fishing village of Húsav´ík do not prepared them for the cutthroat world of Eurovision. Will predatory singers, like Russian superstar Alexander Lemtov (Dan Stevens with a George Michael frosted-tip bouffant), and stage mishaps dampen Lars’ dreams of Eurovision fame?
“Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga” should be a lot funnier than it is. It’s a little too loving of Eurovision’s kitschy spectacle to be a satire; a little too sincere to be truly silly, despite Ferrell’s ridiculous hair and even more outlandish sweaters. The comedy is further blunted by the film’s main conceit, that Lars and Sigrit are talentless wannabees. “We all know they are awful,” says the local Húsav´ík cop, “but they are our awful.” Thing is, in context, they fit like a puzzle piece next to the other over-the-top acts the movie showcases.
Ferrell brings the usual commitment to his trademarked arrogant man-child character but never pushes the characterization much beyond the way the townsfolk see him. “Lars is weird,” they all say, and Ferrell obliges, playing the character as the result of a damaged psyche—he feels unwanted by his father—and just a little too much confidence. It’s familiar ground for him and us.
McAdams feels like an odd choice to play opposite Ferrell’s exaggerated character. She’s good, but her more natural performance feels like it belongs in another movie.
The real Eurovision Song Contest won’t be happening this year, another victim of COVID-19, so perhaps “The Story of Fire Saga” will fill that gap for fans. If you tune in expect some scattered good moments. Ferrell delivers a few laughs and Stevens has fun but Lars and Sigrit’s protracted love story pushes the movie to an unwieldy 123 minutes with not quite enough laughs to justify the running time.
In the world of canine coming-of-age stories Jack London’s “The Call of the Wild“ is the alpha dog. The survival tale has been given a new, high tech sheen in a film starring Harrison Ford and a CGI dog named Buck.
Buck, a domesticated St. Bernard/Scotch Collie stolen from his comfortable life in California is transported to Yukon where he is sold to a mail delivery sled team. “He’s not bad, “says his owner Perrault (Omar Sy) after a bad initial run, “he’s just got California feet.” Soon Buck learns the ways of the pack and for the first time listen to his own voice not his masters.
Belonging to the pack brings with it a growing confidence and joy that fades when the 2400-mile mail delivery route is cancelled and he is sold to Hal (“Downton Abbey’s” Dan Stevens). A citidiot with Gold Rush fever but no clue how to navigate the North’s weather or handle a dog team, his animal cruelty catches the eye of John Thornton (Harrison Ford). A drifter, the loss of his young son provoked Thornton to move north looking for solace. “I know there may be no peace,” he says, “no home for me in this world.” He senses something special in Buck and, as their paths cross, he develops a bond with the hard-working animal.
When Hal endangers not only himself, but his companions and the dog pack Thornton intercedes. As they get to know one another, Buck and his new master fill a role in each other’s lives left by the loss of a pack and a son. “You’re not my pet,” Thornton tells Buck. Together they heed the call of the wild and head off on an adventure that will lead them to a place “off the map” and to their destinies.
The Call of the Wild” is an old-fashioned action adventure created with newfangled technology. Beautiful scenery, a pantomime-style villain and a couple of exciting close calls could be straight out of many old-school Disney kid’s adventures. Buck, however, is a different story. His, and the other dogs faces are expressive in a way photorealistic-animals in movies like “The Lion King” and “Lady and the Tramp” were not. It’s often subtle but a raising of the eyebrows or a concerned look in the eye gives Buck considerably more personality than some recent animated animals and that is important for a dog who not only understands home décor (antler hanging) but also human psychology.
“The Call of the Wild” is a handsomely made movie that allows the story’s adult themes of love and redemption to occur without bogging down the part that will appeal to kids–the adventure. Parents should not that there are a couple of animals-in-peril scenes you might want to consider before bringing the young children.
“Lucy in the Sky” is the only movie I can think of that would have been improved by the addition of adult diapers. Loosely based on the exploits of former naval flight officer turned NASA Astronaut Lisa Nowak, the new Natalie Portman movie recreates the troubled astronaut’s cross-country drive minus one juicy detail—the diapers she allegedly wore to eliminate the need for rest stops.
Portman plays Lucy Cola, an astronaut having trouble to adapting to life on terra firma. After being in space, witnessing the vastness of the world while floating far above it, her eager-to-please husband (Dan Stevens) and teenage niece Blue Iris (Pearl Amanda Dickson) seem hopelessly earthbound. “You go up to space and see the whole universe,” she says, “and then you come back and everything is so small. What are you supposed to do? Go to Applebee’s?”
She finds a kindred soul in Mark Goodwin (Jon Hamm), another NASA vet described as “a divorced action figure who likes to go fast.” Casual chats soon turn into an affair, although while Lucy falls deeply head over heels, Mark sees it as a fling and continues to date other women, including new recruit Erin Eccles (Zazie Beetz).
As her mental state erodes Lucy throws herself into training for a new mission until she becomes a danger to herself and others. Cut loose from the only job she cares about the frantic Lucy drives cross country to confront—or worse—Goodwin. “You’re going to lose,” she shouts, “because I’m a winner.”
“Lucy in the Sky” is a character driven drama that offers up only the scantest insight into Lucy’s psychosis. Director Noah Hawley plays around visually, changing the aspect ratio and focus to convey Lucy’s loosened grip on reality but it is all surface and while there are some striking images, the insight never transcends cliché.
Portman isn’t given much to work with. She’s a walking cliché, a character who ticks a number of “interesting” traits off a check list only to have them add up to a less than compelling character. She isn’t aided by a script that requires her to say things like “All systems go!” when asked about her mental state.
The supporting actors don’t fare much better. As Lucy’s husband Stevens is a one note goody two-shoes, annoying to the point where you begin to understand why she wandered away from the marriage. Ellen Burstyn is a bit of fun as Lucy’s potty-mouth mother, but she seems to have drifted in from another movie. Only Hamm emerges more or less unscathed, handing in the kind of tortured leading man performance that allows him to have moments of introspection, like when he watches footage of the Challenger explosion over-and-over before heading to space, and be a bit of a playboy. There’s not much to his character but at least Hamm breathes some life into him.
The story that inspired the film is ripped straight from the tabloids, all lurid details, but “Lucy in the Sky” glosses over most of them (i.e.: the adult diapers) in favor of an oversimplified look at mental illness that never takes flight.
In its first hour, the new film Permission looks and feels a lot like a traditional romantic comedy — but this is a trick, says actress Rebecca Hall.
“When we first started out making this (director Brian Crano) said, ‘I want this to look like a classic rom-com from the ’90s. Lots of backdrops from Manhattan. Lots of completely gorgeous-looking apartments that, inexplicably, these people are living in. Everyone is beautiful. Everything is beautiful,” explains Hall.
And just when you think you’re on cosy ground, “the rug is pulled out from under you. You feel gut-punched.”
In the film, Will, played by Downton Abbey’s Dan Stevens, and Anna (Hall) have been sweethearts since high school. Now, on the cusp of her 30th birthday he’s about to pop the question. First though she drunkenly proposes they sleep around a bit. Not break up, but get some life experience before they settle down. At first they encourage one another in a bit of harmless fun but as their polyamorous relationships start to deepen, uncomfortable realities are revealed.
“Over the years we’ve all had conversations about relationships and where they were heading,” Hall says. “Brian noticed a general trend that happened somewhere around the ages of 27 to 30-something, where people who had been in shockingly monogamous, stable relationships either got married or broke up. This was something he was interested in because so many of his friends were children of divorce or had complex attitudes toward monogamy. Some were fundamentally monogamous while others were exploring other options.”
Permission’s final third contains the film’s most essential truths. In a dramatic shift in tone from the first hour, the harsh realisms of this arrangement appear.
“The thing we were interested in weren’t the moral rights or wrongs, if there are any, of having an open relationship,” she says. “It was more about these two people who are stuck, who have not allowed each other growth because they have been together for so long and have not had the level of communication in the relationship that is necessary. The film is really about giving ourselves permission to question a relationship that is basically good. It sounds like a nothing statement but no matter how sophisticated and evolved and progressive we have all become there is still this strange pressure to do the right thing. If the relationship is good you stay in it because if you leave it you might be mean or a failure.”
The film takes a thoughtful and mature approach to its story, asking: How far can you stray, even with permission?
“Brian and I used to play a little game,” Hall says, “where we would try and think of films and stories where women have sexual agency but aren’t kooky, crazy people who end up being psychopaths or pixie dream girl stereotypes. It was difficult to come up with. The construction of Anna was really someone who is working out what that means. She is going to discover what sexual agency means for her. She is going to own it and be empowered by it. I think that is a really important message to put out there right now.”
Recently CNN reported on a study that claimed cuckolding can be positive for some couples. Their reporting of it was roundly mocked on line, with one twitter user dubbing CNN the “Cuckolding News Network” while another called it, “a brilliant idea for strengthening your relationship in time for Valentine’s Day!” Validity of the study aside, “Permission,” a new movie starring Rebecca Hall, explores the same territory.
Will (Dan Stevens) and Anna (Hall) have been sweethearts since high school. Now, on the cusp of her thirtieth birthday he’s about to pop the question. First though she drunkenly proposes they sleep around a bit. Not break up, but get some life experience before they settle down. At first they encourage one another in a bit of harmless fun but as their polyamorous relationships start to deepen uncomfortable realities are revealed.
Director-writer Brian Crano takes a thoughtful and mature approach to the material but his delivery of it feels scattershot. The first hour has an effervescence to it that disappears as the various story threads wrap up. In the beginning it feels sexy and dangerous but as Anna’s relationship with musician Dane (Francois Arnaud) and Will’s fling with divorcée Lydia (Gina Gershon) heat up questions arise. How far can you stray even with permission?
The final third contains the film’s most essential truths. In a dramatic shift in tone from the first hour, the harsh realisms of this arrangement appear. Also effective is a subplot about Anna’s brother Hale (David Joseph Craig), his boyfriend Reece (Morgan Spector) and their desire (or not) to have a baby. It is heartfelt and could definitely been given more screen time.
“Permission” is easily more interesting than CNN’s treatment of the same material. Although uneven it is an interesting look at the responsibilities that come with adult relationships.
