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CFF 2024: CANVAS is a Sordidly Sweet Slice of Psychological Melodrama
Canvas is an intriguing exploration of a rather intense sibling rivalry by way of the art world, that I caught virtually at The Chattanooga Film Festival. The film is the feature length directorial debut of Melora Donoghue and Kimberly Stuckwisch and follows two sisters, Eve (Joanne Kelly) an ex-art prodigy who was once lauded by her art critic father and Marissa (Bridget Regan) who while lacking in talent, connivingly leveraged the family name and controversy to carve out a following for her work over the years. When we meet Marissa she is broke, down on her luck and looking to replenish her inheritance she’s squandered, thanks to a few divorces and some poor life choices. She hopes to do this by way of three Janet Visser paintings in the family home worth about $25 million apiece. But the paintings and her family home are the property of her sister, who thanks to some unresolved trauma has been living like a hermit.
Marissa soon devises a scheme to have her sister committed to gain ownership of the paintings, and while this is diabolical, it’s also totally believable. As this all plays out, we see the source of this trauma: their extremely toxic critic father, who pushed his daughters purposefully over the edge, since he believed the best art is born of suffering. While the film flashes back and forth between their perspectives to fill the audience in on what brought the sisters to where they are today, it’s a tense battle of wills for the 90 minute runtime on who will end up with the paintings and their sanity. While the film does lean a bit hard into the melodramatic, there’s a sad truth at the heart of the matter of the toxicity of family portrayed here.
Canvas was an impulse watch on the Chattanooga Film Festival’s digital platform that definitely paid off. The performances were unhinged in the best possible way, and this only helped hook me further into the film’s narrative that had some striking reveals as we slowly pulled the layers of trauma away. Canvas felt like an R-Rated Lifetime movie, and I mean that in the best way possible. I mean, it travels in more than a few tropes the channel’s films are famous for: the successful city girl who comes back to the small town she grew up in, the rich family harboring a dark secret, a wicked sister and the well intentioned ex-boyfriend who stayed in the small town squandering his potential. That being said, Canvas is a delightfully sordid helping of melodrama that surprised me at every turn and I can’t recommend it enough.
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DADDIO Gives Us Another Quintessential New York Story
“People are people, and people get lonely.”
So few films can rightly call themselves “slice of life.” This is because not too many movies (even indie ones) care about observing the seemingly simplistic aspects of characters existing in their own everyday world, living the intricacies of their own lives, whatever they may be. Most titles now care too much about their films containing gimmicks, hooks, and anything even remotely sensational, salacious, or revelatory. So few people within the film world, regardless of whether they’re investors, producers, directors, actors, or audiences, seem willing to give an hour and forty minutes to a story of two people meeting, talking, and exploring one another the way humans have (once in a blue moon) been known to do. Other than the fact that the two characters in Daddio share a great deal of personal details over the course of a nighttime cab ride, there’s no real gimmick, no timely societal comment; just two wounded individuals finding each other.
Upon arriving back in New York City, a young woman named Girlie (Dakota Johnson) hires a taxi driven by the middle-aged Clark (Sean Penn) from the airport back to her apartment. On the way, an accident causing miles of backed-up traffic prompts the two to go from the kind of typical small talk shared between driver and passenger to deep conversations where both will be forced to confront the darkness of their pasts.
Audiences could be forgiven if the first half of Daddio doesn’t register with them in terms of curiosity or emotion, even by character study standards. It doesn’t seem like our central couple has much to say to each other even after the ice has broken and layers of their respective characters start to be revealed. A small collection of cliches and proven assumptions tend to comprise the backgrounds of Girlie and Clark, causing some worry, especially considering how much both performers are giving to their parts. Despite some considerable chemistry, neither Goldie nor Calrk are seen talking about anything remotely interesting or profound. Every topic of conversation feels slightly forced and stilted, with the discussion about the different sexes and what they want from each other coming across as surprisingly tame, especially considering there are a pair of examples from two sides of the gender and generational spectrums ready for such a worthwhile discussion on the subject. It’s during this conversational moment where the film jumps too far (without actually going anywhere) in its attempt to be a timeless indie tale that’s also well aware of the kind of world it’s living in.
But something happens in the second half of Daddio that subtly changes the game. No, there isn’t some great plot turn or twist. Instead, we come to realize that the characters have somehow managed to endear themselves to us in ways that go beyond great work from the actors playing them. We see guards being lowered in favor of a longing to be free from the secrets and pain that have defined much of Girlie’s and Clark’s realities for so long. This is helped by some small, but effective visual flourishes, such as seeing the two characters through Clark’s rearview mirror. Daddio comes alive the more the characters themselves do as they willfully shed their reluctance to be present in the world they live in. Their rapport, especially, gets more playful as their journey continues, contributing to the overall softness and soulfulness that the two eventually manage to conjure up. By far, the strongest example of this, not to mention the best scene in Daddio‘s back half, has to do with when Girlie and Clark are indulging in their wishful sides with the former wanting to become a birdwatcher in Central Park and the latter expressing a desire to visit Japan. In this scene alone, Daddio shows the comfort and beauty of being able to confide in a total stranger.
I’m so glad Daddio‘s found its way to these two actors. This is the kind of film that allows both Johnson and Penn to shine in ways we both know them to be capable of. The characters of Girlie and Clark may appear thinly written at first (understandably so), but the interiority both actors give to their parts helps them to come alive in ways no other screen pairing could have managed. Both actors have made headlines this year in the press regarding the industry with Johnson commenting that she doesn’t belong in the world of comic book movies and Penn saying he hasn’t felt at home on a set since 2008’s Milk. With Daddio, both actors prove they’re right where they belong.
Every once in a while as the film was playing, I would find myself asking what the term “daddio” means. I knew I had heard it before somewhere, but I failed to pinpoint where, or what it was meant to represent. Looking it up just before starting this review, I learned that the definition of daddio means: “a term of familiar address to a man, originally used by jazz musicians to display camaraderie.” It’s not surprising that writer/director Cristy Hall chose such a yesteryear term as her movie’s title. The beauty of Daddio is that it’s written by an old soul, one who lives in the present but cannot help but be drawn to the past. With her directorial debut, Hall transcends many of the generational divides that exist today to tell a story about a pair of lost souls who, in many ways, are frozen in time. Despite any initial bumpiness, Daddio ends up being a thoughtful character piece about two people seeing each other in a way no one else has seen them before.
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THE VOURDALAK is a Vibrant, Strange Nightmare
We talk about atmosphere a lot when discussing horror films, particularly when we’re trying to articulate something about the way a film affected us without singling out a specific idea or technique. Horror is, by the very nature of the emotions it’s trying to provoke in us, an imprecise and very subjective space, which makes the word “atmosphere” quite useful. Like a particularly vivid nightmare or the act of falling in love, we might not be able to recount exactly why it works for us, but we know it when we feel it, and it’s intoxicating.
And “intoxicating” is a very good word to describe the particular atmosphere of The Vourdalak, the feature directorial debut of writer/director Adrien Beau which finally arrives in theaters this year after premiering in Venice last summer. Though it certainly does not stray far enough from it source material to remove all sense of plot from its tale of an undead creature stalking a country house, it’s a film utterly and unabashedly devoted to creating a visual and sonic tone that you can’t, and don’t want to, escape. Its atmosphere, particular though it is, arrives like a dark, rich cloud of psychoactive smoke, and while it’s hard to pin down exactly why it works so well, it’s also the kind of film that makes you want to try.
Adapted from Aleksey Tolstoy’s legendary novella The Family of the Vourdalak (which also served as the basis for one third of Mario Bava’s Black Sabbath back in 1963), the film follows a French aristocrat (Kacey Mottet Klein) as he gets lost in the countryside of Eastern Europe while on a diplomatic mission for the King. His search for help leads him to an isolated family with problems of their own. The eldest son, Jegor (Gregoire Colin) tells the young Marquis that he, his wife Anja (Claire Duburcq), and his siblings Piotr (Vassili Schneider) and Sdenka (Ariane Labed) are waiting for their patriarch, a man known only as Gorcha, to return from fighting the Turks. But it’s not a simple wait for good news or bad, because Gorcha gave his family an odd warning. If he didn’t return in six days, they should consider him dead. If he returned after six days, they should consider him something worse: An undead creature craving the blood of those closest to him.
Naturally, Gorcha does return, and it’s clear right away that something is wrong. Though some members of his family refuse to see it, Gorcha (voiced and puppeteered by Beau) has the appearance of a walking corpse, a shadow of a man that looks more like something out of a Mike Mignola comic than a human form. It’s very clear that something monstrous has arrived at the family home, and if the young nobleman hopes to survive the ordeal, he must learn as much as he can about the people who’ve taken him in, and the being they used to call their patriarch.
Beau worked for major fashion houses like Dior before moving into genre filmmaking, and his eye for textural detail and sumptuous color is present throughout The Vourdalak‘s haunting tale, which proceeds patiently through the phases of horrific discovery as the Marquis and the family who’ve taken him in slowly realize the depth of the nightmare they’re living. The sense of dread that comes with the slow-burn story is palpable, but there’s also a wit to the film that emerges in the visual details and then grows to encompass the characters.
The Marquis, with his powdered face and carefully groomed manner learned in the French royal court, is an avatar of beautifully outfitted yet misguided aristocracy, a picture of modernity thrown into the old world where such things have less value. The bright blue of his coat contrasts with the more earthy tones of the family’s wardrobe, giving him a sense of cosmopolitan energy that’s misplaced to the point of a comedy of manners, and yet his pale face makes him in some ways more like the title creature than anyone else in the film. It’s a remarkable feat of visual precision, and it’s further underlined by the other characters in the piece, particularly Sdenka, with her jewels and bells and dress stained at the sleeves and the hem with green grass marks. Green, like blue, is another key color in the film, arguably the key color even when blood starts to spill, as Beau surrounds the viewer with vibrant natural life to underline the unnatural forces at work within the picturesque landscape. All of this is rendered not in the digital realm, but in beautiful Super 16 mm film, lending not just a lively grain to the images, but a color saturation that calls to mind everything from French Impressionist paintings to films like Ridley Scott’s The Duellists and Stanley Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon.
The human performances within this beautifully choreographed, tightly controlled drama are wonderful, particularly from Klein and Labed, but we can’t go any further without talking about the Vourdalak himself. There is a deliberate, immediate sense of artifice at work in his design, which only adds to the uncanny terror he provokes in every scene. It’s clear from the first frames of his appearance that he’s not meant to look like a human, or even really a monster wearing a human skin. He is a moving corpse, a revenant in every sense, and it’s this design that provokes the film’s most frightening ideas. We as an audience can plainly see that this vourdalak has no semblance of human life left in the way he talks, the way he moves, the way he presides over his former family, and we can see that the Marquis also sees this. What’s frightening, beyond the visual thrill of this contrast, is the feeling that other characters can’t see it, that a monster is walking among them in an almost cartoonish way and they are, somehow, blind to what’s happening. We have all, at some point in our lives, had the sense of that we are alone with our fears, that something is unfolding in ways only we can truly perceive, and everyone else is either blind or crazy or both. If you’ve ever felt it, you know it’s a feeling that sticks with you forever.
The Vourdalak is a movie with a lot to offer, from its visuals to its performances to its classic vampiric metaphors, but its greatest success is provoking that feeling, the sense that only we can see the true horror until it’s too late. That makes it one of the year’s most effective and haunting horror films, and a must-see twist on vampire lore for genre devotees.
The Vourdalak is now in theaters.
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A QUIET PLACE: DAY ONE is a Sincere Near-Silent Stunner
Lupita Nyong’o and Joseph Quinn deliver dynamite performances in Michael Sarnoski’s breathtaking, bar-raising franchise entry
Stills courtesy of Paramount Pictures. Besides her cat Frodo, there isn’t much left for Sam (Lupita Nyong’o) to care for. Once a successful poet, she spends the last of her days listlessly attending group therapy and taking stabilizing meds as a resident in an outer New York borough hospice. Group leader Reuben (Alex Wolff) lures Sam into joining fellow residents on an outing into the City–the deal sealed with the temptations of inner-city pizza. The lives of Manhattanites (and those the world over) are forever changed that day with the explosively deadly arrival of the Quiet Place franchise’s iconic sound-sensitive creatures; however, Sam’s life dramatically pivots when she crosses paths with fellow survivor Eric (Joseph Quinn).
The first Quiet Place film made a resounding impact on the horror landscape in 2018, with its innovative use of silence laudably differentiating it from other predictable scream-ridden thrills. Its smart, stripped-down approach to horror spun gold from a simple yet dynamite premise and a rigorous emotional investment in its small cast of characters. While the film’s delayed sequel ventured its central family into intriguing territory, A Quiet Place Part II failed to capture the same thrilling newness of the first film, instead spinning its wheels by relying on scares far too similar to what came before. The prospect of a prequel may fill some jaded horror fans with justifiable ambivalence or dread–but Pig director Michael Sarnoski and leads Lupita Nyong’o and Joseph Quinn are more than ready to shock those expectations into stunned silence.
Together, they dial up the Quiet Place franchise’s sonic-specific mayhem alongside the aching sincerity of this film’s central relationship. With A Quiet Place: Day One, Sarnoski supercharges every aspect of this series’ tension, terror, and tenderness–creating a summer blockbuster that’s as rewarding as a romantic disaster drama as it is a suspenseful creature feature.
Making an incredible return to horror after the iconic double-hitter of Us and Little Monsters, Lupita Nyong’o brings Day One’s Sam to life by intricately realizing her character’s flaws as much as her strengths (if not more). What’s more, Nyong’o joins fellow summer heroine in Furiosa’s Anya Taylor-Joy by deftly and intimately relating these qualities through a mainly non-verbal performance. Faced with an isolation as terminal as her illness, Sam is justifiably bitter and withdrawn, already predisposed to silence. When life has seen fit to rob her of those she cares about and is about to take her next, what point is there in communicating or building further relationships? Never mind that those words–and what they meant–once resulted in a lucrative life as a poet. Faced with a looming permanent silence, Sam and her adorable little gremlin of a service cat are content with latent asceticism, only impacting the world around them as much as they feel obligated to. Faced with the new reality that anyone’s life could end with a single shout, however, Sam’s resolute silence becomes an unexpected life-saving asset–and a conscious choice for survival.
While silence may be golden across each of the films in the Quiet Place franchise, Sarnoski’s efficient empathy machine of a screenplay (sharing story credit with a returning John Krasinski) deeply reckons with the emotional impact of silence far beyond just a vital means of survival. Silence pushes characters to resort to lethal means to force others to stay quiet; it allows characters to find unexpected joy and comfort with one another; and when words are finally spoken–each statement carries far more weight than ever before. I’m so curious to know just how long this screenplay must be; with far less dialogue than other films in this series, A Quiet Place: Day One shares more narrative economy with the criminally underrated All is Lost than Day One’s preceding two films. As the third film in a horror series with an ever-solidifying status as a moneymaking IP, Day One also deserves commendation for resisting the late-franchise urge to pile on the lore. Aside from Djimon Hounsou’s brief yet captivating returning character and an equally brief scene exploring how these creatures survive, Sarnoski and team remain laser-focused on the immediate dangers to Sam and her fellow survivors, as well as the emotional consequences that follow.
What’s also markedly effective now–and what creeps through each frame–is A Quiet Place: Day One’s bleak status as the first of these films made after the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. While taking place in a visceral post-apocalyptic world, the first two Quiet Place movies were made before COVID hit; in a grim twist of fate, Part II was one of the first films to have its release delayed as the pandemic began. Day One, however, is the first of the Quiet Place films that truly grasps the experience of enduring such unpredictable terror. Every familiar setting feels like it has invisible threats, and every character new and old feels capable of harm–whether intentional or not. While Day One’s urban setting makes room for a grander scope of terrific and terrifying setpieces, at their core is more lived-in and immediate suspense than Parts I & II, with a distinct rawness that can only be born of global trauma.
With this in mind, A Quiet Place: Day One’s most invaluable element is the achingly genuine relationship that blooms between stubbornly withdrawn Sam and Joseph Quinn’s Eric. A Brit attending law school when the sonic hunters invade, Eric is trapped half a world away from anyone he truly cares about, unable to help them and vice-versa. With a friendly helping paw from Frodo, the coincidences of chaos force Sam and Eric together, and the homesick, shell-shocked Eric clings to Sam like an emotional life raft just as much as Sam is eager to shake him off. Yet for all of this potential lost puppy dog energy, Quinn manages to ground Eric in an emotional vulnerability that galvanizes into comically sly, pragmatic action when it comes to protecting whoever Eric actually can. In a wholesome evolution to the empathy that made Sarnoski’s debut Pig so damn memorable, the dubious pair find a relatable match in each other’s unresolvable longing. It’s a major coup for Day One to allow three astounding talents like Sarnoski, Nyong’o, and Quinn to depict such a moving onscreen relationship often with little more than facial expressions and non-verbal cues.
I know by this point I’ve heaped an effusive amount of praise on this film, though Day One does have its drawbacks. While the film’s shift in perspective gives a chance, engaging illumination of Djimon Hounsou’s character from Part II, this talented actor is once again denied the opportunity to thrive within his frustratingly limited screen time. While Frodo the cat is a welcome source of levity across the film, he’s at times infuriatingly resilient, functioning more as a device to get our characters to the next suspenseful sequence–though, on reflection, what cats aren’t magical creatures capable of eliciting life-threatening frustration and admiration all at once?
While A Quiet Place’s original Abbott family fittingly placed the will to survive at such a premium in this franchise, Lupita Nyong’o’s Sam and Joseph Quinn’s Eric excitingly evolve that impulse to not just surviving at any cost–but complimenting it with an equally motivating throughline of fighting to preserve just what makes that survival meaningful. That tender resonance is the foundation of every film in this series, and Michael Sarnoski unites the emotional heights with a level of blockbuster filmmaking as of yet unseen in both this director and this franchise. The resulting efforts set a new bar for all creatives involved, raising the sense of suspense and spectacle worth the price of big-screen admission while retaining an exacting focus on the emotional drama that makes these Quiet Place films so compelling among modern horror.
A Quiet Place: Day One hits theaters on June 28th courtesy of Paramount Pictures.
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CFF 2024: OFF RAMP – a Chaotic Juggalo Road Movie with A LOT of Heart
The film is screening virtually as part of the The Chattanooga Film Festival – running from June 21-28. Get more info here!
To say the Insane Clown Posse’s Faygo swilling fandom affectionately called Juggalos are misunderstood, is the understatement of the century. Once misclassified as a “criminal gang” by the FBI, the facepaint wearing fans of ICP’s horror themed hip hop are a surprisingly wholesome bunch, and are as obsessed with the concept of family as Dominic Torreto. While the clowns themselves have released several films on their own. (Big Money Hustlas is my personal favorite!) I’m surprised it took this long for someone to turn the camera around in a fictional narrative and dig into the fascinating culture.
Off Ramp follows two Juggalos, Trey (Jon Oswald) and Silas (Scott Turner Schofield), who are about to embark on a roadtrip through the deep south to the yearly Gathering of the Juggalos, basically a yearly Woodstock for Juggalos, where the duo have been booked to perform a set. When we first meet Trey, he is just finishing up a year stint in prison for an altercation that happened because he was protecting his friend Silas. While at first Trey is reluctant to venture to the gathering because he is on his third strike, he relents when Silas promises to stay out of the trouble. As the two begin their journey in their “hatchet wagon”, they veer off the freeway and stop in a small town in Louisiana, where the pair accidentally cross the local small town sheriff, who now stands in the way of the pair making it to the Gathering.
While not softening their prickly edges Nathan Tape masterfully humanizes our duo in a way I didn’t expect. While he could have taken the easier route simply making them the comic relief, Tape instead uses the film to create these sympathetic character studies of two people who come from backgrounds of abuse and neglect, only to run away to the dark carnival to find a family with the Juggalos. It’s something that does as much for non fans and as it will fans of ICP, because of how we’re able to connect with Trey and Silas in a way that makes the fandom more accessible. Taking a page from another counterculture road movie about a pair of free spirited travelers, Easy Rider, the two are hassled and ridiculed for their appearance by old heads and by the police, while picking up some likeminded friends along the way.
Needless to say Off Ramp impressed the shit out of me. The cinematography was top notch, the soundtrack had actual ICP on it, which infers a cosign from the group, and the performances were completely unexpected in their complexity and sincerity. It’s when the duo meet Eden (Ashley Smith), a young Juggalette that Nathan really gets a chance to open the characters up and at that moment crystallize the film’s ideas in a rather uplifting message of acceptance and hope. Of course our heroes get into trouble and have to take on the man, but Tape is extremely careful of how his characters act and react in these intense situations so as to not alienate the goodwill he’s earned our Juggalos along the way. If you’re a Juggalo you’re probably going to see your next favorite film, if you’re not a fan, you about to witness a downright masterful exploration of a misunderstood subculture onscreen.
Whoop whoop!
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Another Spin with One of 2023’s Best Films – AMERICAN FICTION on Home Video
American Fiction was easily one of the most devastatingly smart and entertaining films of 2023, marking a huge directorial debut for multihyphenate Cord Jefferson, who picked up an Oscar for best adapted screenplay (the film is based on the novel Erasure by Percival Everett).
Jeffrey Wright has become a welcome presence as a supporting actor, which makes it such a distinct pleasure to see him take the lead in a truly great film. Wright stars as Thelonious ‘Monk’ Ellison, a talented writer who struggles to find an audience for his thoughtful, mature literature in a publishing world dominated by trends.
He’s particularly repulsed by the common tropes that seem to reduce the black experience to narratives about ghetto life and slavery. Yes, these themes and stories matter, he affirms, but we are also more than this. And while he struggles to market his own books, it’s hugely frustrating that trendier, tropier, and ostensibly “blacker” narratives outpace his more nuanced work.
As an off-the-cuff mobilization of these feelings, Monk angrily writes My Pafology”, a fake novel written under a pen name, as a send-up of the narratives he despises. The novel milks every trope to its most absurd degree. Its intent is entirely offensive, a sort of middle finger to the publishers who will read it.
Just one problem: No one gets the joke, and the book is immediately picked up and met with a lucrative publishing deal, movie talks, and accolades for its gritty realism. Suddenly, Monk is faced with an unexpected situation of being part of the problem, and facing his own hypocrisy and willingness to sell out – as well as the realization that his judgmental attitudes may sometimes be misjudging.
On rewatching the film, especially as a more casual watch outside of awards-season considerations, I found that I loved it even more. Satire can often tend to be kind of smirky and quietly funny, but with American Fiction, I often found myself screaming with laughter. The humor is not subtle.
But it’s also a film with two sides, and while in my first viewing I was more wrapped up in the satirical and hilarious plot of Monk and his literary shenanigans, this time around I was more taken with the family side of the story. The death of his sister and sudden firing from his teaching position find Monk moving back to his hometown and reunited with his family, making him suddenly more acutely aware of their needs. Historically the family seems to have been financially well off, but things have turned. His aging mother (Leslie Uggams) is slowly succumbing to dementia, and needs professional care. His recently divorced and outed brother Clifford (Sterling K. Brown) is caught up a flurry of drugs, alcohol, and newfound promiscuity. Monk falls in love with his neighbor Coraline (Erika Alexander), but their relationship is hampered by his judgmental attitudes as well as his furtiveness around his book deal.
There’s great depth to all this, in showing shagginess of adult relationships and family ties. There’s a lot of love in this family, but also a lot of pain. In one sense, this fuels the plot: Unable to sell his books and fired from his University job, Monk desperately needs money to take care of his mother. Despite his long-held beliefs about his writing and what he stands for, the truth is that he’s very motivated to sell out.
As much as the “A” plot is hilarious and witty, all the “B” subplot is beautiful and very moving and alive with both tenderness and anger, and on second-go-round, clearly just as critical to why this film works so beautifully.
The Package
American Fiction is now available on Blu-ray from Warner Bros. A digital code is included with the Blu-ray edition. My copy came with a slipcover.
Special Features and Extras
As much as I love this film, which is absolutely worth rewatching and owning, beyond the quality of the movie this Blu-ray edition does nothing to earn a spot on your shelf. It’s a no-effort release with no supplementary content whatsoever, not even a trailer or commentary. Even the digital copy is disappointing: despite this being a Warner Bros. release, the digital version is not Movies Anywhere capable – it’s Vudu (aka Fandango at Home) only.
With so much rich thematic material and terrific cast performances, there could have been a lot of value in exploring the behind-the-scenes of the movie, but alas, nothing. It pains me to say this as a physical media proponent, but you might just as well buy this on iTunes.
A/V Out.
Except where noted, all 16:9 screen images in this review are direct captures from the disc(s) in question with no editing applied, but may have compression or resizing inherent to file formats and web display.
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CORMANIA!!! Two Cents Film Club Gets a Taste for Blood at THE LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS (1960)
We close out our retrospective of Roger Corman with the black horror-comedy that may best illustrate his plucky innovativeness.
Two Cents is a Cinapse original column akin to a book club for films. The Cinapse team curates the series and contribute their “two cents” using a maximum of 200-400 words. Guest contributors and comments are encouraged, as are suggestions for future picks. Join us as we share our two cents on films we love, films we are curious about, and films we believe merit some discussion. Would you like to be a guest contributor or programmer for an upcoming Two Cents entry? Simply watch along with us and/or send your pitches or 200-400 word reviews to [email protected].
James Cameron, Francis Coppola, Gale Anne Hurd, Sylvester Stallone, Jack Nicholson, James Horner, and Martin Scorsese all have something common: they all got their start working with Roger. And that’s FAR from a comprehensive list. Amazingly, it’s not an exaggeration to suggest that Roger Corman may be the single most influential filmmaker of the last century. As a director, he pioneered the art of crafting movies with low budgets and high returns. As a producer, he perfected it. His productions have lent a start to scores of actors and filmmakers, including many of the biggest names in Hollywood.
This month on Two Cents we look back on the legacy of a legend and say THANK YOU, in our own way, to the late, great Roger Corman.
To close out Cormania, we take a look at a textbook example of Corman’s ingenuity and thriftiness. Made on the same sets made for his earlier film Buckets of Blood, legend has it Corman and his crew had only two days to shoot all the interiors for The Little Shop of Horrors. The film also has one of the earliest performances by a young Jack Nicholson, which began a long and productive collaboration between him and Corman. Programmed as the first half of a double feature, the film went on to attain a cult following before being adapted into the Broadway sensation by Howard Ashman and Alan Menken. All from a scrappy little production about a very hungry plant.
Ed Travis
It’s been really great for me to intentionally seek out some Roger Corman classics in honor of his passing this month. My esteem for Corman has most definitely heightened and deepened thanks to the programming of my Cinapse peers who happened to select 4 titles I had never seen before. Honestly there’s little I love more than going down an intentional cinematic rabbit hole, especially one that specifically illuminates a blind spot I’d had.
A thing I’ve truly come to appreciate about Corman is his thrift. In an era of endless IP and interconnected universes and studios unwilling to make projects with less than $100+ million budgets, these Corman films have been a breath of fresh air. From what I’ve learned about Little Shop of Horrors specifically, this was one of those pictures shot in only a few days, on repurposed sets, and with a play-like quality that allows for the ensemble cast to crank out a ton of dialog in long static takes. I very much appreciate that this thrifty, shot on a dime film spawned a musical adaptation that has become transcendent and gets performed at high schools across the nation ad nauseam. It’s incredible, frankly.
I just wish I had more fun watching the actual movie. I felt the low budget and the play-like elements, and definitely appreciated the wacky shenanigans more than I was actually engaged by them. I’m thrilled that this film birthed a phenomenon and that Corman will probably forever be associated with something that will seemingly live forever. But I’ll take The Intruder or Piranha over this any day.
(@Ed_Travis on Xitter)
Austin Vashaw
Shot on the repurposed sets of A Bucket of Blood and featuring some of the same cast members, Little Shop of Horrors is the film I think of first as the quintessential Roger Corman-directed picture. It’s cheap and quirky, features some familiar faces, and is ultimately a lot more than the sum of its parts, now known primarily as the source material for the hugely successful musical adaptation which followed – that version of which begat yet another film adaptation in 1986.
@VforVashaw on Xitter
It’s not exactly a great film but I think this is my third viewing, so there’s clearly something here worth revisiting. It is a film that makes me smile, as does knowing that supporting actors Dick Miller and Jackie Joseph, who appear in this film together, would be paired up many years later as the Futtermans in the Gremlins movies.
Even though I’ve seen this before, I forgot how darkly humorous and outright bizarre it is: a hand-drawn intro, the shop’s sole regular customer (Dick Miller) buying flowers only to eat them, Seymour’s insane mother and her “cooking”, Jack Nicholson’s kooky masochist dental patient, and of course the goofy vocalizations of Audrey Jr (which sound surprising to my ears because it’s so different from the voice of Levi Stubbs in the 1986 film). For a film that was kind of slapped together quickly out of nothing, it’s got a lot of wacky charm.
Justin Harlan
As a devotee of the 1986 musical, it’s a bit weird I’ve never watched the OG Little Shop. Sadly, it’s a one-and-done for me, I think. I didn’t hate it and I see how some of the ideas and flourishes here were used and/or retooled to create the 80s film I love. However, it feels like it’s missing something and I don’t think those missing components are solely the music that I missed dearly.
To me, this felt like a lesser version of Corman’s 1959 Bucket of Blood in many ways. There was a similar tone and some similar setups, but the 1959 Dick Miller vehicle connect with me much more. To be clear, I’m not even a huge fan of Bucket, I just think its the better of these two comparable Corman films. Maybe it’s just that this film needed more Dick Miller.
Speaking of Miller, he just exudes cool in his role here, albeit limited. His look and vibe hearken to James Dean levels of cool in this one, but maybe that’s just me.
It’s also really fun to see a young Jack Nicholson as the masochist dental patient that Bill Murray portrays in the 86 film. I enjoyed him and Miller most.
All in all, I feel like it was important to fix this particular cinematic blindspot for me, but I don’t expect to return to it any time soon.
(@thepaintedman on Xitter)
Jay Tyler
Ed and Austin already alluded to the incredible backstory of this film, but it is worth repeating that this film was, by all accounts, shot mostly over a period of two days due to the sets being set to be demolished. It helps explain the manic, desperate energy of the comedy. A rapid-fire collection of Vaudevillian gags and unhinged slapstick, the movie’s engine is constantly running like it’s about to be out of gas, and that energy allows its absurdist sensibilities to flourish. Some of my favorite gags include a regular customer always on their way to a funeral named Mrs. Shiva, and the extended Who’s On First routine between Seymour and a sex worker talking past each other.
(@jaythecakethief on Xitter)
Jonathan Haze’s performance as Seymour is especially impressive, as he somehow slumps his way through the film, deadpanning through the revelation that he has grown a monstrous carnivorous plant. Each time he finds himself shrugging and dragging a new body back to the plant shop, the comedic rhythm of the film just puts a smile on my face. It’s almost stupid, but gleefully and apologetically so.
The film is also undeniably shaggy, with random vestigial bits hanging off of it in odd formations. The fact the framing of the film remains a Dragnet parody that never quite gels is just one example. But it’s easy to see why Frank Oz of all people directed the eventual filmed version of the Broadway musical: the “throw everything at the wall and see what sticks” philosophy of this movie will be very familiar and welcoming to fans of the Muppets. And while it might not hit all the time, it’s hard to not get caught up in its go for broke whirlwind. As our final stop in our memorial to Corman, it illustrates perfectly what made his work so special: a gleefulness to the pure joy of the movies.
CINAPSE GOES BACK TO THE BEACH!
Every week in July, we’ll be headed to the beach. Sometimes it’ll be fun, other times it’ll be a difficult journey, and yet other weeks it may end up deadly! Join us this month by reaching out to any of the team or emailing [email protected]!
July 1st – Back to the Beach
July 8th – Cast Away
July 15th – A Perfect Getaway
July 22nd – Evil Under the Sun
July 29th – Club Dread
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CFF 2024: SWEET RELIEF is What if Todd Solondz Made a Movie About 2020 in the 1990s
The film is screening virtually as part of the The Chattanooga Film Festival – running from June 21-28. Get more info here!
It’s that time of the year again, for my favorite indie genre film fest, The Chattanooga Film Festival – running this year from June 21-28, both virtually and in person.
My first film this year was a complete blind watch, Nick Verdi’s Sweet Relief, that feels like what if Todd Solondz made a movie about 2020 in the 1990s. The film takes place in a small rural town and follows a group of teenagers, twentysomethings and wannabes as a viral trend called the Sweet Relief Challenge is taking over social media. The murder challenge has those wishing to participate recording and submitting a video naming those they wish to die. They are chosen by the Sweet Angel, who in a fun bit of symbolism is a person in a grotesque rabbit mask, once he appears tasked the person who summoned him to kill or be killed.
The primary thread of the film follows three teenage girls, Hanna (Lucie Rosenfeld), Lily (Jocelyn Lopez) and Corey (Catie DuPont) who are introduced to the trend thanks to Hannah’s mother who can’t stop posting about the game’s dangers on Facebook and tagging her daughter to warn her. The opening has the three girls name checking their victims, Lily – her babysitter, Corey – a cheating ex and Hanna names her older brother’s girlfriend Jess (Alisa Leigh). From there we jump from the friend group who are soon challenged, to a corrupt informant who thinks he’s a cop, Hanna’s brother who is trying to be the voice of reason and Jess who witnesses something rather shocking while out hiking. It’s how all these stories all play out and eventually coalesce that really reminded me of the early films of the likes of Richard Linklater or Solondz.
Keeping with that 90s indie vibe, this film is a bit of a stripped down vision, with lots of dense dialog dumps, highlighted by some truly engaging and uncomfortably on the nose performances. Each player is tasked with not only paragraphs of dialog, but a style of delivery that feels conversational while making sure to drive the film’s message home. The script while playing with some rather hyper relevant ideas does so in a way to pull the narrative back just enough to make it less gimmicky and more generational. It’s rather immaculately played out how all the pieces and stories eventually come together, doing so in a way that feels organic and really stuck the landing for all the stakes introduced, offering up a rather satisfying conclusion.
Sweet Relief manages to dig into the echo chambers and rabbit holes that ensnare and corrupt those naive enough to fall prey to them, without coming off as preachy or condescending; which is an accomplishment in itself. Verdi impressively weaves together a narrative that is equal parts warning and exploration, populated by some truthful archetypes rather than stereotypes. This was a hell of a way to start the fest with a film that was nostalgic and captivating as it was profound in its ideology. Sweet Relief is the best kind of homage that offers up what made 90s indies great while making it authentically a fresh take for a new generation.
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CFF 2024: CANNIBAL MUKBANG Seamlessly Melds Toxic Relationships and Extreme Horror
The film is screening virtually as part of the The Chattanooga Film Festival – running from June 21-28. Get more info here!
With a title like Cannibal Mukbang, of course I’m going to bite. The directorial debut by Aimee Kuge is a frothy toxic relationship narrative through the lens of extreme horror. On a late night convenience store run, Mark (Nate Wise) has a serendipitous run in with the beautiful yet quirky redhead, Ash (April Consalo), a professional Muckbanger; essentially she eats food live on the internet for money. As the two spark up a courtship, Mark soon discovers that’s not her only her culinary passion.
In her spare time Ash hunts down men who are rapists/murders/terrible people, luring them to their death, killing and then eating them. Completely under her spell Mark becomes Ash’s wingman and thanks to her slipping in some of her “special” meat, he also becomes completely dependent on human flesh as well. The film’s horror narrative encapsulates an intense codependent relationship, since both parties have troubles pasts, that uses the addiction to human flesh as a metaphor for substance abuse within this kind of toxic union. Mark soon quits his job and ghosts his family to simply live at Ash’s place waiting for their next score as the couple gets more and more ambitious.
Given the title, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect, but I was completely surprised at not only the performances here, but how well Kuge took a film that could have been simply a novelty based on the title and infused it with some real thematic and emotional weight. It also helps that there’s some real chemistry on screen between the leads who give the material depth and deliver real stakes with their relationship amid addiction. While an indie, the cinematography was impressive and really does some interesting things with its color palette, not just relying on red or blue 80s gels to get their creepiness across. Ambers and more muted hues help drive home the visuals that are colored to signify each character and motivations in a visually visceral presentation.Cannibal Mukang is a deliciously depraved helping of horror with a message. Aimee Kuge not only flaunts her understanding of the genre here, but her ability to create and elevate within a cannibal tale to tell a very grounded and emotionally stirring story. The film does this with a cheeky sense of humor and heaping piles of the red stuff coupled with some very effective practical effects. As far as debuts go Mukang is a gory blast from start to finish and a film that works on two very different wavelengths. In fact the more I think about it, the more its message slowly creeps out of the horror narrative, painting a bleak and chilling picture of addiction.
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THELMA Gives 94-Year-Old June Squibb the Role of a Lifetime
Richard Roundtree and June Squibb appear in Thelma by Josh Margolin | photo by David Bolen. After a long, relatively fruitful career on the stage, a then little-known actress, June Squibb made her feature-film debut at the tender age of 61 in Woody Allen’s 1990 comedy-fantasy, Alice. Since then, Squibb has worked steadily as a supporting player, most notably in Alexander Payne’s Academy Award-nominated 2013 drama, Nebraska. Despite well-earned accolades, Squibb, however, had to wait another decade for another role with a similar depth or substance to her Oscar-nominated turn. That role as the titular character in writer-director Josh Margolin’s feature-length debut, Thelma, may just be her most effortlessly engaging, empathetic onscreen turn yet.
The unlikeliest of unlikely action heroes bar none, Squibb’s title character, a nonagenarian living contentedly on her own after seventy years of marriage and two years as a widow, finds herself on the wrong end of a phone scam. Called in the middle of the day by a young man pretending to be her grandson, Danny (Fred Hechinger, who also co-produced), Thelma listens intently as the imposter claims he’s been imprisoned for a car accident. The imposter also claims he needs $10K in bail money and his lawyer will call soon with details. Thelma rushes into what passes for action, drawing from her savings for the faux-bail money, and mailing it off a post-office box in a nearby town.
Minutes later, Thelma discovers Danny hasn’t been imprisoned for a non-crime, she’s been scammed, and she’s suddenly out $10K. Considering it a low-value, minor crime not worth investigating, the police are no help. Thelma’s daughter, Gail (Parker Posey), and Alan (Clark Gregg), Gail’s husband and Danny’s father, also dismiss the incident, the result of Thelma’s naïveté, her disconnection from the ever-shifting modern world, and tech ignorance, not to mention Thelma’s mental acuity (or lack thereof). Gail and Alan also consider Thelma’s unfortunate experience as a real-world lesson or example of elderly exploitation by scammers. They offer Thelma affection mixed with more than a hint of condescension, an attitude they unconsciously deploy around Danny, a directionless, unconfident twenty-something, as well.Undaunted, unfazed, and more importantly, unwilling to accept inaction as her only alternative, Thelma decides to track down the scammers herself. Cleverly nodding to one of action cinema’s high points (e.g., anything with Tom Cruise), Margolin’s indefatigable, indomitable, unstoppable Thelma can’t help but see something of herself in Cruise’s signature rule, Ethan Hunt, the super-spy whose life-or-death missions border on the improbable, but never the impossible. And thus a 93-going-on-94-year-old action hero is born, taking full control over whatever’s left of her future.
Later, when she’s forced to borrow her friend Ben’s (a heartbreaking Richard Roundtree in his final performance) mobility scooter with Ben in tow, she becomes one-half of an elderly dynamic duo (sans capes and cowls). Along the way to the scammers’ HQ, they encounter an atypical set of obstacles, some more comical than others, including, but not limited to their physical limitations, Gail and Alan’s concerned pursuit, and deciding what to do when they come across the scammers in the real world.
Inspired by his close relationship with his grandmother (she appears briefly in the end credits via video footage), Margolin deftly taps into commonly held perceptions about aging and how society, including well-meaning children of elderly parents, mistreats, misjudges, and outright dismisses both their concerns and more importantly, their abilities, diminished but far from fully or truly, to contribute meaningfully to those around them. Those misperceptions fuel both Thelma the film and Thelma the character, using an expertly calibrated mix of humor, pathos, and yes, even action tropes to thoughtfully subvert them.
Thelma opens theatrically on Friday, June 21st.
