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Two Cents is an original column akin to a book club for films. The Cinapse team will program films and contribute our best, most insightful, or most creative thoughts on each film using a maximum of 200 words each. Guest writers and fan comments are encouraged, as are suggestions for future entries to the column. Join us as we share our two cents on films we love, films we are curious about, and films we believe merit some discussion.

The Pick

Annihilation begins with a relatively easy-to-grasp mystery. Biologist and soldier Lena’s (Natalie Portman) husband Kane (Oscar Isaac) has been missing for a year, vanishing in an undisclosed military expedition. Then one night, Kane reappears. Apparently with no memory of where he has been, and only even barely aware of Lena at all, it’s not long before he starts coughing up blood. And it’s not long after that that the men in Hazmat suits carrying machine guns show up to whisk Lena and Kane away.

Here’s where things start to get juicy. Lena soon finds herself at a military/research base on the edge of something known as The Shimmer, a bizarre glowing field of possibly extraterrestrial origin that has been growing at a slow but exponential rate. No one who has ever gone into The Shimmer has ever returned, no one, that is, until Kane.

Determined to unlock the mystery of what happened to her husband, Lena volunteers for the next expedition in, joining scientists Cassie (Tuva Novotny) and Josie (Tessa Thompson), paramedic Anya (Gina Rodriguez), and led by the mysterious psychologist Dr. Ventress (Jennifer Jason Leigh). But as they observe The Shimmer, the area seems to observe them right back, barraging the women with mutations both beautiful and hostile.

The further Lena wades into The Shimmer, the more she finds herself confronting not only the physical monsters seeking her destruction, but her own self-destructive tendencies and history, until at last she comes face to face with annihilation itself.

Inspired by the first book in Jeff VanderMeer’s acclaimed Southern Reach trilogy, writer-director Alex Garland only loosely adapted the actual text in favor of reproducing the dream-like tone and feel of the novel. The potent mixture of horror and psychological/philosophical probing apparently terrified studio heads, who promptly sold the film’s international rights to Netflix and dumped Annihilation into US theaters with only minor fanfare.

Despite this middling release (and box office) genre fans and film lovers rapidly kindled to Annihilation. Between its instantly iconic monsters, its packed ensemble, and mind-bending visuals, Annihilation gave filmgoers much to chew on. In the days and weeks after its release, Annihilation inspired tremendous writings on everything from its craft, to its sound, to themes of depression and self-destruction.

As we say goodbye to Women in Horror Month, we thought it only fitting to tip our hat to a new, female-driven entry that seems sure to divide and mesmerize for as long as we watch and obsess over films.

Next week’s pick:

It’s almost spring, a time for rebirth and renewals. A time when we shed the miseries and hurts of winter and look forward to the shining, better days that lie ahead. In this spirit, we are undertaking a new series: Two Cents Second Chance Theater.

That’s right. For the next few weeks, we will be choosing films that our editors and contributors don’t like, and watching them again to see if maybe this time we’ll see what everyone else enjoyed. Starting us out strong right out of the gate, Austin is a fan of Weird Al Yankovic but found UHF annoying and exhausting.

Do you want to show him the error of his ways? Or perhaps you also disdain this goofy wonder and you’d like to tell us why? UHF is available streaming on Amazon Prime.

Would you like to be a guest in next week’s Two Cents column? Simply watch and send your under-200-word review to twocents(at)cinapse.co anytime before midnight on Thursday!

Also, if you have a movie that you disliked but want to give a second shot, let us know and we might feature it as one of our upcoming picks!

The Team

Justin Harlan:

If you checked out our team’s Best of 2018, you may already know that Annihilation was my top film of 2018. Truth be told, the competition wasn’t even close.

Alex Garland has quickly become a force to be reckoned with directorally. Despite having only two features under his belt, he has shown an amazing propensity towards crafting horror/sci-fi genre mashups that look amazing visually, tell powerful stories, and provide scares that shake the viewer to the core. After an incredible debut with 2014’s Ex Machina, he chose to adapt Jeff VanderMeer’s Annihilation — an exquisitely bizarre and complex entry into the world of weird fiction.

While the film and book diverge greatly, the core ideas from VanderMeer’s novel were built out into a world like no other. In this world, everything is mutated and deformed, yet incredibly beautiful in its unnatural state. The film (and book) are intentionally very empowering of women, with nearly all of the players being smart, strong women. What these women experience can only be described as horrifying, captivating, and brutal.

This movie uniquely blends B-movie science fiction, hard science, body horror, and big budget action thrills. I stand by it as 2018’s best and couldn’t think of a better exclamation point for the closing of February’s Women in Horror Month celebrations. (@thepaintedman)

Elizabeth Stoddard:

It’s beyond refreshing to see a sci-fi film with a woman-centric story (even if Garland adjusts the heroine’s quest from the scientific focus of the novel to the “maybe she can save her husband’s life” path of the movie). Portman’s Lena prefers to keep mum while others talk, not offering much information about herself. Anya, however, is vocal and brash, unafraid to speak her mind. Rodriguez and Thompson, with her understated performance, are impressive in Annihilation.

Garland’s visual effects team has created a breathtaking wonder in this mysterious world. The women encounter horrific hybrids of flora and fauna. Distortion and dissonance are visual themes, whether the image of a couple’s clasping hands is refracted by a water glass, an ill Kane is viewed through a hard plastic curtain, or visions are reflected through windows.

Annihilation moves with a startling quiet — indeed, it seems a tad slow at the start — which makes the quality of the audio production stand out. The scoring by Geoff Barrow and Ben Salisbury (who teamed together on Ex Machina as well) sounds like something from a José González album, until the mind-bending conclusion.

Read Elizabeth’s full review HERE. (elizabeth stoddard)

Brendan Foley:

I think by this point, I just have to tell Alex Garland, “It’s not you, it’s me.”

And I mean that sincerely.There’s nothing I can point to that’s especially ‘wrong’ with Annihilation, or Ex Machina, or Dredd. They are smart, adult sci-fi with exemplary casts, beautifully realized worlds, and tremendously accomplished visual/audio components. And yet all three films (Garland isn’t the credited director of Dredd, but it’s widely accepted as being ‘his’ movie) leave me more or less totally cold. I admire them, I find certain individual scenes and images entrancing, but at the end of the day his movies never touch or enthrall me the way they do others. And that really bums me out, honestly. I’ve read numerous thinkpieces and articles about Annihilation, and I wish the film spoke to me the way it does to others. I wish it inspired the introspection and self-reckoning it has in a number of my friends and colleagues, that I responded to it on a richer level beyond “pretty colors, scary bear”.

I think part of the disconnect for me is that each of Garland’s films presents an inhuman intelligence that is truly ‘inhuman’ in a way we don’t often get from science fiction. His robots are not just people with super-abilities punching through cement beams, and his aliens are not just dudes with forehead bumps or bitey assholes with tentacles. Garland instead grapples with what a truly ALIEN presence might look/feel like, and effect such an encounter might inspire. That cold, reserved quality to his films, then, is not a bug but a feature.

Anyway, I’m not the biggest fan of Annihilation, but I’m glad it exists. I’m glad it’s inspired so much discussion and dissection, and I imagine that one day it will be an entrenched and oft-examined classic of both horror and science fiction, with no one ever remembering the consternation it caused at first blush.(@theTrueBrendanF)

Austin Vashaw:

These “man on a mission” movies tend to be just that, but it’s really interesting to see the dynamics of this all-lady crew and how they deal with their situation and each new challenge or hazard as women of both military and science — especially when they’re in disagreement.

Director Alex Garland has been on an incredible trajectory as perhaps the most exciting new science fiction filmmaker, first as a writer (whose credits include one of my absolute favorites, Sunshine) and more recently as director.

I’m kind of a Chernobyl nut, and while Annihilation is not connected to that incident, there’s a lot of that abandoned, surreal aesthetic in the design, a vision of destroyed beauty that’s a big part of its appeal. Full of intrigue, scares, amazing imagery and an enigmatic ending, this is a film that demands to be watched and rewatched. (@VforVashaw)

Next week’s pick:

http://amzn.to/2VCrbCp

Two Cents is an original column akin to a book club for films. The Cinapse team will program films and contribute our best, most insightful, or most creative thoughts on each film using a maximum of 200 words each. Guest writers and fan comments are encouraged, as are suggestions for future entries to the column. Join us as we share our two cents on films we love, films we are curious about, and films we believe merit some discussion.

The Pick

It’s been great watching some of 2018’s best but underappreciated offerings for this For Your Consideration series, but we knew we could not finish without first appreciating Debra Granik’s Leave No Trace.

Granik has been absent from the feature film scene since 2010, when her Appalachian noir Winter’s Bone turned Jennifer Lawrence from the daughter on The Bill Engvall Show into the most in-demand talent in all of Hollywood. While we’re not going to cast aspersions about why Granik went eight years without another feature (though given the nature of the industry/culture, we can make some guesses), it’s awfully good to have her back.

Leave No Trace is the story of Will (Ben Foster) and his daughter Tom (Thomasin McKenzie) and the life they share in the forests of the Pacific Northwest. Will is veteran haunted by PTSD, unable to function well in the modern world. The pair’s peaceful life roughing it is interrupted when state officials discover the camp and start asking questions about why a teenage girl is living off mushrooms and sleeping in a tent. Placed into a house and given a chance at something closer to ‘normal’ life, both Will and Tom are suddenly forced to confront who they are and what that needs, and whether the love between them can overcome the damages of the world.

Hugely acclaimed by critics upon release, (it holds a rare 100% on Rotten Tomatoes) Leave No Trace has nonetheless been pointedly absent from awards season, perhaps due to its lacking the kind of melodramatic fireworks and Oscar clip-ready blow-ups that grab attention and snare votes. But it seems to us that no discussion of the best films of the year would be complete without a consideration of what Granik, Foster, and McKenzie built together.

So let’s go for a walk in the woods, shall we, and decide for ourselves whether Leave No Trace leaves much of an impact.

Next Week’s Pick:

In honor of Women in Horror Month, we’ll be taking a trip into The Shimmer with the predominantly female cast of last year’s mind-bending horror/sci-fi film Annihilation, directed by Alex Garland of Ex Machina and them Danny Boyle movies fame. It’s now available streaming on Amazon Prime as well as Hulu.

Would you like to be a guest in next week’s Two Cents column? Simply watch and send your under-200-word review to twocents(at)cinapse.co anytime before midnight on Thursday!

The Team

Ed Travis:

“Where is your home?”

“With my Dad”.

“It’s not a crime to be unhoused, but it’s illegal to live on public land”.

A father suffering from PTSD and his teenage daughter forge a life for themselves camping in the Pacific Northwest. As the father’s PTSD and the daughter’s need for independence clash, a powerful exploration of what homelessness truly means emerges. (@Ed_Travis)

Brendan Foley:

It’s interesting that we’re doing this so close to You Were Never Really Here, both movies in which hugely acclaimed (though maddeningly infrequent) female directors examine a traumatized masculine mind. With YWNRH, director Lynne Ramsey worked overtime to entrench you inside the skull of Joaquin Phoenix’s suicidal vigilante, using every technique on hand to make you feel everything Phoenix does.

With Leave No Trace, Granik’s direction and Foster’s performance never let you in. Foster is more than capable of exploding off the screen, able to go uncontrollably BIG when the role calls for it/he gets bored and decides to liven things up. But his Will is a clenched fist of a man, with only the occasional crack betraying the deep well of grief and rage and horror that festers within him.

Granik’s focus is less on Will’s trauma than the impact it has on Joe. As a director, Granik uses small gestures and moments to suggest not only the co-dependent intimacy that exists between father-daughter, but also the budding moments of independence and rebellion that go with being a teenage girl. The brilliance of McKenzie’s performance is how she etches the way those needs mount and mount until finally she has to take a stand as her own person. It’s the moment a child becomes an adult, and the moment one half of a toxic relationship finally pulls the ripcord. There’s no villain, no grand showdown, only a slow realization that one particular road has reached its end and a new one has to be forged.

Quietly powerful stuff. (@theTrueBrendanF)

Austin Vashaw:

An intriguing story of people living on the fringes of the fringes. I hadn’t quite put together the PTSD connection until Brendan pointed it out above, but that definitely clicks.

It reminded me a bit of Captain Fantastic, but without the exaggerated aesthetic that permeated that particular film. Whereas Viggo Mortensen’s “captain” and his crew of kids were more like iconoclastic hippies, it becomes increasingly clear that the patriarch of this more thoughtful analysis is incapable of coping with society, rather than rebelling against it. But as his teenage daughter is growing up, she yearns for the comforts of community and normalcy.

Naturally beautiful and quiet in its presentation (without being dull), Leave No Trace offers up human observations without drawing strict conclusions, allowing the viewer contemplate the questions that permeate its ethical and practical quandaries. (@VforVashaw)

Next week’s pick:

Annihilation — http://amzn.to/2TRnHeN

Two Cents is an original column akin to a book club for films. The Cinapse team will program films and contribute our best, most insightful, or most creative thoughts on each film using a maximum of 200 words each. Guest writers and fan comments are encouraged, as are suggestions for future entries to the column. Join us as we share our two cents on films we love, films we are curious about, and films we believe merit some discussion.

The Pick

With his diminutive stature, instantly-recognizable/could-only-be-from-New-York mug, and mile-a-minute cadence, Dick Miller was a beloved fixture for genre film fans and filmmakers from his earliest days as a utility player and occasional leading man for Roger Corman in low-budget exploitation pictures, and into his later period when Corman’s disciples (including Joe Dante and a little nobody named Martin Scorsese) began pushing into higher-market productions.

Even as the budgets increased into the millions and the shooting schedules extended from rushing through an entire movie in a couple days, Dick Miller was a constant.

But whether you knew him from leading man turn as pathetic, murderous artist wannabe Walter Paisley in Corman’s Bucket of Blood, or his turn as a upbeat, doomed gun salesman in The Terminator, or to any of his many turns in the work of Joe Dante (which could range from brief cameos as in The ‘Burbs or Matinee to major supporting characters like the unkillable Murray Futterman in the Gremlins films), Miller was a warm and welcoming presence into worlds of killer fish, killer robots, rock’n’roll high schools, pint-sized killing machines, demon knights, and the world of New York City after hours.

The entire film-loving community was joined in sadness upon Miller’s passing last week at the age of 90. So let’s commemorate this moment with a viewing of That Guy Dick Miller, a 2014 documentary from director Elijah Drenner that sat down with Miller and his closest friends, family, and collaborators to examine what made Dick Miller the ultimate character actor.

Next Week’s Pick:

After a brief hiatus, we are returning to our For Your Consideration series with Debra Winter’s Bone Granik’s latest film, Leave No Trace. Starring Ben Foster and newcomer Thomasin McKenzie, Leave No Trace follows a father-daughter as they are thrust out of their quiet lives of isolation.

The film is currently streaming on Amazon Prime.

Would you like to be a guest in next week’s Two Cents column? Simply watch and send your under-200-word review to twocents(at)cinapse.co anytime before midnight on Thursday!

Our Guests

Trey Lawson:

The first movies I ever saw Dick Miller in were probably Gremlins and Gremlins 2 when I was a kid. It wasn’t long after that when I got into Roger Corman’s AIP productions, like The Little Shop of Horrors and, of course, A Bucket of Blood. I can’t say that right away I appreciated what Miller brought to these films, but I did start to notice just how often he would turn up in things. Over the years I came to realize he wasn’t just a familiar face, but an incredibly talented performer. Dick Miller was, as the documentary That Guy Dick Miller demonstrates, was a consummate character actor. Its interviews with family, friends, and collaborators reveal not only how talented and prolific he was, but also just how respected he was among his peers. Whether playing comedy or drama (or, frequently, some combination of the two), he was always the most interesting part of any scene in which he appeared. His performances were often memorably broad, and yet simultaneously grounded in reality. One thing is for sure — whenever he showed up, that old school Bronx accent of his would bring a smile to my face. It’s still hard to believe he’s gone. As long as we have his movies he will be remembered — and to me he’ll always be Walter Paisley.(@T_Lawson)

The Team

Brendan Foley:

For me personally, Dick Miller will always be Murray Futterman. Something about his mile-a-minute delivery and beautiful hangdog expression made him the quintessential ‘next door neighbor’ to inhabit Joe Dante’s quintessential smalltown Americana in Gremlins. Miller’s presence was the perfect grounding to make the fantastical feel that much more real, and he and Jackie Joseph (as Mrs. Futterman) gave just a perfectly hilarious reaction shot to being run over by a snowplow. It didn’t take, of course, because the Futtermans were just too perfect as foils for the gremlins to stay dead, and so in Gremlins 2: The New Batch, both characters returned, this time with Miller laying waste to entire hordes of the slimy murderous assholes.

It was always a treat whenever someone brought Miller in for some bit of business, whether it was a quick burst of exposition they need to make palatable (The Howling, The Terror) or just for quick death (Chopping Mall) or a good intimidating presence (he all-but steals Rock’n’Roll High School with all of maybe three lines). I’ll have a special fondness for those directors who keened to the merry twinkle in Miller’s eye, a rascally romantic streak that could never be completely covered up.

That Guy Dick is a perfectly lovely tribute, and if it sandblasts past some of the juicier material (like the ebbs and flows in Miller’s relationship with Corman, or the artistic frustration that Miller might have felt as a wildly talented writer/painter/actor left to eke out a living in the margins of the industry) that feels in keeping with the merriest aspects of Miller’s persona.(@theTrueBrendanF)

Austin Vashaw

Elijah Drenner’s documentary tribute is a loving celebration of the legendary actor. The “That Guy” moniker is appropriate for the normies I guess, but for cinema lovers, he’s no such stranger. Watching this documentary was a true joy, and an appropriate tribute to honor his passing.

Dick Miller is, quite simply, one of my favorites. A beloved character actor who’d frequently pop up in all kinds of stuff and immediately make it better, even if only in a small part, especially for those of us whose taste veers toward cult and genre fare. Famously a collaborator with Roger Corman and Joe Dante, he’s appeared in a number of my favorite films in some capacity — Truck Turner, The Terminator, Death Race 2000, Gremlins 1 & 2, Big Bad Mama, Rock n Roll High School, and even Batman: Mask of the Phantasm — and so many more. (He even wrote a film that I have a certain affinity for, the energetic and silly TNT Jackson).

Dick worked with some of the greatest and most famous actors of all time and then said that there aren’t any giants left in Hollywood. But he was wrong.

And now there’s one less. (@VforVashaw)

in loving memory of Richard Miller

December 25, 1928 — January 30, 2019

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSKTIe-HRG8

Next week’s pick:

http://amzn.to/2WRHnkl