I join the CTV NewsChannel to talk about the Bob Dylan biopic “A Complete Unknown,” the epic “The Brutalist,” the sports drama “The Fire Inside,” the unrelenting evil of “Nosferatu,” the office romance of “Babygirl” and the wild biopic “Better Man.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
I sit in with CKTB morning show guest host Karl Dockstader to have a look at movies in theatres and streaming including the Bob Dylan biopic “A Complete Unknown,” the epic “The Brutalist,” the sports drama “The Fire Inside,” the unrelenting evil of “Nosferatu,” the office romance of “Babygirl” and the wild biopic “Better Man.”
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
I join CTV NewsChannel anchor Scott Hirsch to talk about the Bob Dylan biopic “A Complete Unknown” and the vampire drama “Nosferatu.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
SYNOPSIS: A gothic tale of an ancient vampire’s infatuation with an innocent young woman, Robert Egger’s “Nosferatu” is a reimaging of F. W. Murnau’s 1922 expressionist horror masterpiece “Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror.”
CAST: Bill Skarsgård, Nicholas Hoult, Lily-Rose Depp, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Emma Corrin, Ralph Ineson, Simon McBurney, and Willem Dafoe. Directed by Robert Eggers.
REVIEW: In a showstopper of an opening, the story of “Nosferatu” begins as Ellen (Lily-Rose Depp) telepathically awakens an ancient evil in the form of Count Orlock, a.k.a. Nosferatu from the dead.
Years later this story of evil and sacrifice continues in 1838 Germany with Ellen, now newly wed to real estate agent Thomas Hutter (Nicholas Hoult).
Recently, Ellen’s nights have been flooded with terrifying dreams she doesn’t understand. Thomas dismisses them as “enchanted memories,” but she thinks her visions portend something terrible for the couple.
When Thomas’s boss Herr Knock (Simon McBurney) asks him to travel to the Carpathian Mountains to meet with an elderly new client named Count Orlock (Bill Skarsgård)—“He has one foot in the grave,” jokes Herr Knock—Ellen doesn’t want him to go, but the job offers the kind of money they need to start a family and soon Thomas is off.
Weeks pass. Ellen’s dreams become so intense her doctor calls in Prof. Albin Eberhart Von Franz (Willem Dafoe), a metaphysician and occult scientist who declares, “I have seen things in this world that would make Isaac Newton crawl back into the womb!”
Meanwhile, at Orlock’s creepy castle, the arduous journey and sleep deprivation caused by strange dreams has left Thomas weakened and afraid. Are his dreams morbid fairy tales, as Orlock suggests, or has the Count, a.k.a. Nosferatu, placed a spell on him, as it appears he has on Ellen?
In Germany, as Orlock’s ship heads for their shores, Ellen and others are held in his telepathic sway. “There is,” Von Franz says, “a dread storm rising.”
Director Robert Eggers breathes new life into “Nosferatu’s” withered lungs, staying true to his gorgeously gothic aesthetic while at the same time paying tribute to F. W. Murnau’s classic 1922 film. Immaculately crafted, unsettling images of scurrying rats, crumbling castles and ominous shadows projected by flickering candlelight create a nightmarish canvas onto which this story of dark obsession and sacrifice is projected.
It will be categorized as a horror film, and there are elements of gore, death and the unnerving auditory experience of hearing Count Orlock drain his victims, but it is an old-school horror movie that aims to unnerve its audience with just a few jump scares and no vats of fake blood. Eggers conveys terror with the film’s atmosphere of dread and depiction of madness, decay and unrelenting, elemental evil.
As the film’s tragic heroine Ellen, Depp carries much of the story’s emotional darkness. Ellen is tormented by visions she doesn’t understand, but Depp doesn’t play her as a victim. It’s more like she’s trapped in a toxic relationship and, as such, carries a complex panoply of feelings. Fear and lust top the list, but ultimately it is the steeliness Depp gives her that makes Ellen a compelling but helplessness and hunted character.
The beating—or, in this case, non-beating—heart of the story is Bill Skarsgård as the vampiric Count Orlock. The Dracula stereotype of the vampire with a cape is out of the window. Instead, Orlock is a long-dead Transylvanian noble man, a figure from some folk tale mythology, complete with a bushy moustache and opulent clothing befitting his aristocratic status. But whatever he was when he was alive, he has transformed into a sinister being, a partially decomposed primordial vision of terror. Unseen for most of the film, save for some stunning shadow play early on, Orlock is an avatar of evil and entitlement.
From Orlock’s slow, deliberate speech to his ferocity, Skarsgård, unrecognizable under an inch of make-up, plays him as though he’s just stepped out of a nightmare.
As Thomas, Hoult is a sturdy leading man, and Dafoe, continuing his exploration of off kilter old timey doctors, is obviously having fun, and brings a hint of lightness to this very dark tale.
“Nosferatu” is a story of shadows and light, both thematically and in its visual style.
In one creepy flourish Eggers utilizes shadows to represent the spread of Orlock’s influence. The image of his hand slowly casting shade over Thomas and Ellen’s hometown of Wisborg is eye popping, both visually and metaphorically. As a stylist Eggers creates an atmosphere of evil that emerges from the darkness, painstakingly enveloping all in its path. There is a terrible beauty in these images, one that plumbs the depths of Orlock’s depravity in ways that is both spellbinding and repulsive.
By the time the end credits roll “Nosferatu” is both a compelling homage to, and a reimaging of, Murnau’s original film. The atmosphere of dread remains, given new life with impressive visuals, but it is in Egger’s revision of the core story of obsession and sacrifice that the film becomes truly horrific.
Robert Eggers is an idiosyncratic filmmaker whose previous films, “The Witch” and “The Lighthouse,” have more in common with silent era movies and formal stage presentation than they do with the blockbusters that rule today’s box office. His latest, the violent Viking drama “The Northman,” now playing in theatres, has all the hallmarks of Eggers’ work, but despite the inclusion of old Norse language, mysticism and its occasionally psychedelic tone, it may be his most accessible movie yet.
When we first meet Amleth, the Viking warrior prince, played as a teen by Oscar Novak, as a muscle-bound adult by Alexander Skarsgård, it is the year AD895 somewhere in the North Atlantic. He is a child about to enter the line of succession to one day take over from his father, King Aurvandill (Ethan Hawke).
An unspeakable act of betrayal interrupts Aurvandill’s plans for the future, forcing Amleth to flee the only home he has ever known, leaving behind his mother Queen Gudrún (Nicole Kidman).
Years pass. Adult Amleth is now a fierce warrior with revenge on his mind. When the would-be prince and his band of berserkers ravage a village, the locals who survived the carnage are sold off as slaves. When Amleth learns the purchaser is the man who betrayed his father, he disguises himself as one of the prisoners with a plan to get close to the man who destroyed his life and family, and earn back his honor. “I will haunt this farm like a corpse returned from the grave,” he declares.
On the journey he meets Olga of the Birch Forest (Anya Taylor-Joy), a sorceress who becomes his ally and love interest. “You are still a beast cloaked on man flesh,” she tells him. His strength, she tells him, will break their bodies. Her cunning will break their minds.
Amleth’s journey is also a spiritual one, driven by mysticism and the words of a whispering seeress played by Björk. ““Remember for whom you shed your last teardrop,” she says, sending him off on his mission. Eggers seamlessly blends the supernatural and the nature until the lines blur into one trippy whole.
“The Northman” is based on the Scandinavian legend that influenced William Shakespeare‘s beloved “Hamlet.” It’s a familiar story of payback, violent, visceral and vengeance-filled, but Eggers’ singular vision, and fondness for pathetic fallacy, ancient symbolism and psychedelia, make it a singular experience.
And don’t forget the violence. So much violence.
Amleth chews one man’s neck, killing him in a memorably bloodthirsty fashion, and that is before the revenge story comes into play. Eggers amps up the brutality, shooting long scenes in unbroken wide shots that provide full few of the action. This ain’t Michael Bay’s frantic cut and paste. It’s full coverage, carefully orchestrated violence that drives home the brutality of the battles. It’s ferocious, audacious—check out the showdown at the Gates of Hel—if occasionally unpleasant, stuff.
It’s not all fun and bloody games, however. The storytelling gets bogged down from time to time and Amleth’s frequent vocalizing of his mission mandate—avenge his father, kill his uncle and rescue his mother—gets old after a while.
Having said that, “The Northman” more than delivers on the director’s pure, primal cinematic vision. To Valhǫll!
“The Lighthouse,” an expressionist nightmare captured in shadows and light by director Robert Eggers, is a period piece that pits Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson against the primal forces of paranoia and pathological behavior.
Set in 1890’s era New England on a remote rock that is home to a lighthouse and nothing else, the films sees “wickies” Thomas Wake (Dafoe) and Efraim Winslow (Pattinson) thrown together to keep the giant oil lamp lit, warning seafaring boats of dangerous waters. Wake is a seadog, a craggy old character who has spent his life on the ocean or at the watchtower. “I’m damn well wedded to this light and she’s a better wife than any woman.” Winslow is a drifter who signed on for the job of apprentice when he heard you could make as much as $1000 a year. He’s replacing a man who was driven mad by the isolation. “He believed the lamp was enchanted,” says Wake. “that in the light was salvation for sins.”
The two men are oil and sea water. Winslow resents Wake’s stern ways. Wake feels the newbie is soft, unable to get the job done. On top of that, Winslow won’t swill whiskey with the older man at dinner and doesn’t understand the superstitions and customs that seafarers hold dear.
The strained atmosphere grows as Winslow begins to have visions. He sees a mermaid on the island’s rugged shoreline and wonders why Wake locks the door behind him whenever he tends the lamp. What is he hiding up there?
As the end of their four-week hitch looms the two men vie of control of the claustrophobic lighthouse, run out of booze and switch to kerosene, slowly driving one another mad. “The boredom,” says Wake, “makes seamen evil.” Well, that and booze, loneliness and toxic masculinity.
“The Lighthouse” has the feel of a silent movie. Eggers shoots grainy black and white in boxy old school 1.19:1 aspect ratio, drawing on the paintings of gothic painter Jean Delville and others to expertly creates the look and feel of nineteenth century New England mariner life. Madness seems to lurk in the shadows, in the inky corners of the frame, just out of sight. With a mermaid’s (Valeriia Karaman) siren song ringing in his ears Winslow inches toward insanity, bringing Wake along for the ride.
The actors are in virtually every frame and both fully embrace the odd story. DaFoe embodies Wake, looking like a Royal Doulton Old Salt mug come to life, speaking like a character right out of Melville. You can almost smell the rum breath as he berates Winslow, spitting out orders like the captain of a pirate ship.
Pattinson builds Winslow brick by brick. He starts the movie quietly, an inward character who doesn’t say much or do much except for the grunt work he’s ordered to do. Soon, however, his physical performance turns inward, exploring the manifestations of his madness and it is very powerful. His character has an arc that is both bizarre and powerful in its exploration of toxicity and loneliness. Winslow has several explosive scenes and the last image of him is one that, once seen, will not be soon forgotten.
Despite the presence of two very popular actors “The Lighthouse” is not exactly a mainstream movie. Instead it is more of an expertly rendered gothic slow burn that brings with it an atmosphere of dread shrouds the film like fog rolling into shore.
“The Witch” is the kind of horror film that is not content to simply say “Boo!” There are few, if any, jump scares in the film. Instead, it’s the kind of puritanical folk tale that slowly burrows itself into your brain, leaving you queasy and uneasy.
Set in New England, 1630 the movie centers on Christian settlers William, Katherine (Ralph Ineson and Kate Dickie, both of “Game of Thrones”) and their five children, a family banished from their church and community to eek out a life on the outskirts of town. Bordered by an ominous forest, their remote new home offers little in the way of comfort, spiritual uplift or sustenance.
Plagued by grinding poverty and crop failure, the devote family is rocked when their baby son baby son is stolen while under the care of eldest daughter Thomasin (Anya Taylor-Joy). The disappearance is chalked up to something satanic—perhaps a witch from the woods—and a pall of distrust and fear envelops the family, tearing away at the very core of their lives—their faith.
“The Witch” is a slow burn (in hell). Screenwriter and first time director Robert Eggers takes his time building up to a bewitchingly strange climax, toggling between paranoia and illusory (or are they?) elements to allow the dread to mount.
He creates a compact but complete and complex world for his characters to inhabit, chock-a-block with interesting details. Much of the dialogue was borrowed from contemporary trial transcripts and journals and comes heavily laden with religious fervour and the wilderness provides a gloomy backdrop, providing with creepy sounds and the possibility of evil. Everything, every creaking tree branch, every image seems to take on meaning as the hysteria increases.
As William, Ineson is a stern, austere man ruled by his religion, even if it means denying his daughter. The real revelation here is Anya Taylor-Joy as the put-upon daughter whose tests the family’s ideas of faith, loyalty and love.
“The Witch” won’t be for everyone, and certainly not for casual horror fans. There’s no Freddys or Jasons in sight, just pure terror.
