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SXSW 2024: MY SEXTORTION DIARY
In May of 2019 Patricia Franquesa met up with her ex for lunch in a Madrid. Her laptop was stolen from her bag, a common enough and deeply frustrating crime. Another common experience awaited Franquesa: a slow-moving investigation unlikely to end with the return of her stolen property. Then, two months later, Franquesa receives an anonymous email demanding $2,400 be sent to a Bitcoin wallet. The email details that her laptop has been hacked and failure to comply will result in intimate photos of Franquesa being sent to every one of her contacts. My Sextortion Diary serves to show viewers Franquesa’s experience and how frighteningly common crimes like this can be. Most importantly, Franquesa uses her film to fight back, to reclaim a bit of what was stolen from her.
My Sextortion Diary is only an hour long and primarily covers a few months of Franquesa’s life. But, as the film makes clear, this is not something that can be resolved quickly or completely. There is no such thing as restoring someone’s trust, security, or psyche to pre-victimization levels. The film informs viewers that sextortion is disturbingly common and only getting worse, ranking as one of the most reported crimes.
Franquesa tells her story through onscreen text messages and email exchanges. It’s a clever aesthetic choice that increasingly highlights the inherent isolating nature of her circumstance. Yes, she messages with family and friends for support, but those people can’t help her in any way beyond that. And her emails to investigators are largely fruitless, another online entity exacerbating her anxiety. Franquesa frequently mixes in shots of herself alone in her apartment. These quiet interludes become more resonant as the film progresses. I won’t spoil the film’s resolution, but it features a form of empowerment that is a bit thrilling. But, more than that, it’s upsetting because it’s something that nobody should ever feel like they must do just to restore their own dignity. My Sextortion Diary is an urgent, upsetting documentary that helps make an abstract subject tangible and real.
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SXSW 2024: “We’re Goin’ to the ROAD HOUSE (2024) and Gonna Have a Real Good Time”
JAKE GYLLENHAAL stars in ROADHOUSE Photo: LAURA RADFORD © AMAZON CONTENT SERVICES LLC I, like Jim Morrison, went to the Road House and had a real good time.
I’ll admit skepticism that a Road House remake could dethrone one of Patrick Swayze’s seminal works and one of the most beloved action films of the 1980s. And Doug Liman and Jake Gyllenhaal’s 2024 film wisely does not attempt to replace that film, but rather to riff on it in a satisfying way. Here at the SXSW World Premiere of Road House 2024, star Gyllenhaal went out of his way to praise and honor Patrick Swayze and the original film. And I’ll admit that was important to me as a fan of the original.
The original film still reigns supreme. Swayze’s Dalton is the ultimate man of mystery. He’s a tai-chi practicing bar bouncer who is a student of philosophy, a woo-er of beautiful high class women, and a man who will rip out your throat when pushed too far, but then brood about it afterwards only to be set straight by his mentor Sam Elliott. There’s just no replacing any of that iconic, only in the 1980s, perfection.
Which makes you wonder why Doug Liman and his crew would even try? I think it’s because they knew something essential, nay crucial: They knew they could make something fun. Road House ‘24 doesn’t achieve the gravitas of the original but it succeeds by not trying that.
SXSW 2024 Road House World Premiere Photos by Rod Machen Gyllenhaal’s Dalton remains a man of mystery but adopts a different kind of classic action trope to imbue its lead with compelling backstory. Our Dalton is a washed up and homeless individual, creeping around underground fight clubs to scrape by enough cash to keep living in his car. We quickly learn that he’s a former MMA champion, known the world over, but haunted by something catastrophic that plagues his dreams. It’s a little weird, then, when he shows up acting super nice at Frankie’s (Jessica Williams, being hilarious and looking incredible) Road House acting all nice and relaxed like Swayze’s more intentional and experienced bouncer character. Dalton ‘24 is a lost and burned out soul with no experience except in fighting. Why’s he so nice and calm and good at clearing out the riff raff while working to save Williams’ bar from evil business men and their biker gangs? It’s because Jake’s Dalton wears the kindness and coolness as a mask; he’s afraid of who he becomes when the switch is flipped and he really cuts loose. Which, if I’m being honest, is one of my absolute favorite action tropes. Because you better believe he’ll be pushed too far, and in that third act, it’s going to be time for Dalton to stop being nice; to become the version of himself that he most fears. And the audience at SXSW, myself included, pretty much ate that up.
Liman’s version of Road House also simply eliminates the Sam Elliott mentor character, which I think was wise as there’s absolutely no chance of success in replacing Sam Elliott. Instead real life MMA superstar Conor McGregor makes his feature film debut as a charismatic and unruly villain that becomes Dalton’s only real physical match and threat. I know a lot of eyes are on McGregor as he is a world renowned super star. I personally don’t follow sports in any way and was only familiar with McGregor’s outsized personality that had seeped through into my social feeds. How does he come off on the big screen? Honestly, a bit like Brad Pitt’s Mickey in Snatch: unpredictable, hilarious, intimidating, and impossible to understand a single word he says. McGregor’s Knox is a freight train that literally crashes into and out of frame and frankly acheives in spades his singular goal: to fuck shit up. There’s no doubt that McGregor looks amazing on screen. His face and physique just pop. He’s got crazy eyes and swagger for days. Knox is in the film because he’s called in by Brandt’s (Billy Magnussen continuing his streak as king of smarm) jailed crime lord father to clean up the mess Brandt has been making of the operation to take over the Road House. In other words, go kill Dalton and put Brandt in his place. I don’t know if McGregor will become some kind of big Hollywood star, but as a one-man wrecking ball he brings the juice to Road House ‘24.
There’s a whole western motif to this version of the film as well. It feels like an amped up and tropical version of Reacher, and I mean that as a compliment. OG Dalton rode in and out of town like a classical, wandering hero. But it’s commented upon in this version by a precocious kid named Charlie (Hannah Love Lanier) who helps run her dad’s struggling book shop that’s right next to the bus stop Dalton rides in and out of town on. Precocious kids in movies can be a crap shoot, but a key element of Dalton’s heroism and why we love this character is that he IS a nice guy who can crush tracheas real good, and he naturally builds and connects to community wherever he goes. Like all the best wandering heroes he makes connections with Charlie, and Frankie, and all the other bouncers and bartenders at the Road House. And hell, even some of the bikers he keeps beating the shit out of kind of like him. But Charlie regularly comments on how he’s like an old timey sheriff kicking the trash out of Dodge City and it’s charming.
Everyone involved in Road House ‘24 seemed to be on the same page to create something focused largely on fun. Gyllenhaal is cracking wise non-stop, even in the middle of some of the most high stakes fights. Jessica Williams is, of course, hilarious and big-hearted. McGregor’s character is written for laughs and playing into his real life image as a rogue, and it works. Perhaps smashing all those jokes up against the “hero got pushed too far and now he’s merking fools” trope might feel discordant to some. But I felt it was just the right concoction to entertain the masses and honor the original while hooking a new generation.
Ultimately it’ll be best to not pit the 1989 version against the 2024 version, because nobody ever wins a fight.
And I’m Out.
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SXSW 2024: FAMILY Explores The Horror And Pain of Illness
Sometimes it is difficult to figure out what angle to attack a review from, especially in regards to festival coverage. Occasionally that is due to the fact that what makes a film distinctive is due to a final act twist or surprise, and you want to delicately approach avoiding spoilers for a film you are among a handful of people to see. Other times it is due to having so much to say that you aren’t sure how to condense it. And other times there is such joy and mystery in the journey of watching the film itself that you don’t want to linger too much as to strip away that experience from a future potential viewer.
Family, the directorial debut from Benjamin Finkel that premiered last night as SXSW, firmly falls into that last category. From its opening scene to its final frame, you are pulled through a distinctive, confident vision that establishes itself throughout. But even as you think you have your feet beneath you, it pulls the rug out, diving into deeper dreaminess that equally reminds of the most unsettling elements of David Lynch and Ari Aster. What can on the surface feel like a creeping monster film reveals itself to be a powerful meditation on the forces of grief and anxiety and their ability to completely dismember you. If you are already convinced to seek it out, I need not say more. But in case you’re not sold, read on.Family tells the story of Johanna (Cameron Dawson Gray in their feature film debut), a young girl whose father is very sick. As her family moves into a new home, she wanders the strange creaking hallways, making videos to document it all and hyperfixating on a strangely shaped birdhouse that seems to have pinned all of her family’s future hopes onto. But soon her hope metamorphosizes into dread as both her parents begin acting strangely, and a malevolent force calls to her from the birdhouse, warning her that Johanna is not safe, least of all from her own parents.
The first act of Family is likely its quietest, but also in many ways it also is its more disorienting. There is something about the half-heard conversations and distinctive perspective of youth that Finkel utilizes that feels keenly observed. The film draws from his own experiences with his father’s sickness as a youth, thus the authenticity of illness hanging as this unspeakable force directly under the skin sets a mood that is only enhanced once supernatural, unexplainable occurrences begin. This is the great strength of Family, how it can flow in and out of the unknown and the all too familiar with ease, keeping you on the toes of what precisely is being revealed at any given time.
Family also has a lot of earmarks that distinguish it as a premiere film from an indie filmmaker: a small cast, mostly shot on one location, and uses its special effects shots sparingly. But Finkel uses these limitations to his advantage, leaning on his actors to help him in setting the tone. Dawson Gray lives in the tension of the waking nightmare, while both Ruth Wilson and Ben Chaplin dance along the edge of trying to be present parents to Johanna, while also being consumed by their own world’s crumbling around them. Wilson and Chaplin are routinely tasked and nail turning a scene on a dime, shifting from comforting to unnerving and back.
But perhaps the film’s greatest achievement is how keenly it observes all aspects of the family in crisis, both the way that a child perceives family illness and the unsettling impact that can have on their sense of the universe, but also the pressure it places on the parents to remain calm in the face of devastation. Complex emotional turmoil abounds, and underlines each whispered demonic threat. Perhaps Family’s most horrifying element is how helplessly fragile our more necessary structures prove themselves to be in the face of the unknown, and how quickly they can unravel. It is a pain and horror that Finkel clearly knows all too well, and captures in this hugely promising debut. -
Dinklage and MacLaine Make Audiences Believe in the AMERICAN DREAMER
“What if she lives another twenty years?”
In many ways, American Dreamer is exactly the kind of film I was hoping it would be. It’s a dark comedy that is timeless, and largely untouched by overly modern flourishes. It’s got an ideology that feels grounded in reality but maintains a literary feeling that allows you to get lost in its storytelling. The movie could be considered a dinosaur to many, but for some, these kinds of films remain a breath of fresh air for the way they refuse to succumb to what the current movie-going climate is about, opting instead to tell stories that pinpoint the intricacies of people both real and unconventional. Director Paul Dektor and writer Theodore Melfi share a sturdy understanding of how such a film functions and have concocted a tale that celebrates the fact that life is essentially a tragedy with laughs variously inserted throughout. At its best, American Dreamer works spectacularly when it functions as a human comedy with shades of realism. At its worst, it’s a movie that’s oddly careful about where to take things and how far, relying instead on the fantastic performances of its two leads.
The central character in American Dreamer is Phil Loder (Peter Dinklage), an economics professor who would like nothing more than to own a home where he can be free to write his novel. But his meager salary ensures that this dream will remain nothing more than that until he comes across a notice in the classifieds advertising a sprawling manor for sale at just $250,000. After Phil’s realtor Dell (Matt Dillon) checks things out, he informs Phil that the house will be fully his for that price as soon as its elderly longtime owner Astrid Fanelli (Shirley MacLaine) passes away. When Phil meets Astrid, he sees that she’s actually nowhere near death, placing his dream further away from reality.
The trailer for American Dreamer promises a comedy comprised of dark laughs from its slightly oddball plot. On this point, it delivers mainly because of the kind of humor it sets its sights on. The movie isn’t a comedy that flat-out makes you laugh, but it does manage to showcase humor in the truth and tragedy of what it’s like to merely try and exist in the bleak landscape that society has become. American Dreamer is funny much in the way that life itself is funny without being exactly laugh-out-loud hysterical. Every turn Phil makes to try and improve his situation, every revelation that Astrid makes about herself that squashes any hope the former has is where the comedy comes from and is a large reason the film can work when it sometimes shouldn’t. When conventional humor is inserted by the filmmakers, the results are largely hit-and-miss. Scenes of Phil looking up Astrid online only to get an X-rated surprise and his desire to obtain a parking space sticker at the university he works at quickly wear out their comedic welcome. American Dreamer‘s more potent upfront laughs can be found in its dialogue, which is wonderfully sardonic. “You’re my favorite professor,” a student tells Phil at one point. “You must be a freshman,” he replies. When a surprise offspring of Astrid (Kim Quinn) shows up, Phil tries to woo her with wine, telling her: “You have nothing to lose but your demureness.” As far as humor goes, American Dreamer knows the right approach to take when it comes to the dark comedy realism it’s striving for.
Thematically, American Dreamer is about both the vision of the American dream and the quest to obtain it. There’s some wonderfully slight commentary in the rather surreal trip that Phil’s life takes after getting the house of his dreams. For a character who starts off in an already melancholic place, seeing him plunge even further downward mentally and financially shows how the quest for the American dream is just as toxic as actually getting the American dream. It’s hard not to appreciate the subtlety in the slow-creeping madness that builds in the lead-up to this, the film’s thesis statement. The various moments where we see Phil working on his novel are pleasant and provide intriguing hints about where his mental state is which manage to move the plot along in their own way. But this doesn’t disguise the fact that there’s not enough banter between the two main characters to invest in a relationship of any kind, despite the film wanting us to. When Phil and Astrid’s relationship comes to a close, it’s obvious we’re supposed to feel more than we do. But we don’t, and this is the reason that the third act doesn’t hit the way it should. Adding to this is an imaginary wife Phil has conjured up, which just proves to be a lost cause of a storyline. Still, there’s some kind of morbid enjoyment in trying to figure out if Phil is living in the somewhat macabre novel he’s writing or in the sobering course he’s teaching. Perhaps it’s both.
I’m happy with the variety of roles Dinklage has been attaching himself to in recent years. His turn in last year’s rather messy, but ultimately intriguing dramedy She Came to Me showed the actor unleash a tragic hilarity that was the film’s heartbeat. He brings that same mixture of sadness and wit to Phil, making him a downtrodden figure who only has just enough fight left in him. Seeing Dinklage react to his character’s endless stroke of bad luck elicits laughter and the right kind of sympathy needed to make the character work. As the film’s other lead, MacLaine surprises with her take on Astrid, playing her not as a harridan or a senile old coot, but as a woman who has lived her life somewhere in the clouds but has picked up the ability to deliver a barb or two. It’s yet another great turn from a true movie legend.
The decision not to go laugh-out-loud funny with American Dreamer was the right one. However, even though it’s not a traditionally “funny” comedy, the film still forgets to have fun with its rich premise and never fully realizes the potential of what the film could be. But the movie is worth it solely for the lively performances from Dinklage, and especially MacLaine. As someone whose New Year’s Day ritual includes watching The Apartment, I take great pleasure in the fact that the actress is still working and finding roles with which to reinvent herself. In the last 10 years she’s played a free spirit romancing Christopher Plummer in Elsa & Fred, a bitter widow determined that she will have an active hand in writing her obituary in The Last Word, and a mysterious woman hunting down a valuable painting in the second season of Only Murders in the Building. MacLaine will be turning 90 next month and when asked during the junket for American Dreamer if she had plans for this milestone birthday, she quickly replied: “I’ll be on set.”
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KUNG FU PANDA 4 Continues Streak of Unique Chapters in an Overall Character Arc
Po’s fourth outing feels like a deliberate and natural culmination in the charming and resilient franchise.
Dreamworks The Kung Fu Panda franchise has always felt like a bit of an outlier in the world of CG animated fare. While many of its studio brethren (led by an ogre that rhymes with “dreck”) trade in cheap laughs and annoying snark, that stink of faux-hip lameness never rubbed off here – mainly because the hipness and laughs are genuine, firmly rooted by the inimitable charm of Jack Black as Po, the eponymous martial arts ursid.
A fourth film in any franchise may set off warning bells of rote productization (and make no mistake, Kung Fu Panda is a product), but this franchise has kept its cool and taken it slow, continuing its story with engaging new chapters and taking increasingly more time between each subsequent sequel. Various TV series spinoffs notwithstanding, the last movie was in 2016 (for a little perspective, since that time Dreamworks has released three Trolls movies).
With Kung Fu Panda, the tale seems to be winding to a natural close. Po, now having served and protected his people as the legendary “Dragon Warrior” for many years, is entering a new chapter in his career. He’s tasked to find a Dragon Warrior successor so that he can graduate to the role of an elder.
Dreamworks But word of a new threat tasks him with one last mission – The Chameleon (Viola Davis), a sorceress and gangster with shapeshifting capabilities, is amassing power and needs to be stopped. Armed with his magic staff and paired with an unlikely partner, he sets out for one possibly last adventure.
That partner is Zhen (Awkwafina), a fox and thief whom Po caught pilfering the temple and dutifully jailed. However the foreigner’s criminal connections and knowledge (she’s from the same city as The Chameleon) make her a valuable ally and the pair agree to join forces.
Dreamworks A respectable aspect of this franchise is that it doesn’t repeat itself. Each chapter has told a unique and different story contributing to the overall narrative: The orphan Po raised by stepdad Ping (James Hong) and facing his destiny to become the Dragon Warrior, fending off an attack by invaders armed with artillery (riffing on a theme common in martial arts films such as Once Upon a Time in China), and finding his biological father (Bryan Cranston) and panda family.
That trend continues in this chapter, but it also has some fun with playing the hits. Po’s two dads team up to help out, sharing a competitive but ultimately loving rivalry. But in an even bigger treat for longtime fans, The Chameleon’s diabolical plan (basically identical to Dr. Strange’s villainous arc from What If?) is to resurrect the spirits of fallen warriors in order to steal their powers, including a rogues gallery from Kung Fu Panda films past. Most notably, Ian McShane reprises his role as the villainous Tai Lung, now positioned as something more of an ally than antagonist.
Dreamworks Viola Davis is a tremendous award-winning actress with many extraordinary credits – and it’s with all seriousness that I say that I think this may be one of her most impressive performances. While watching the film I was trying to place the character’s voice and thought that perhaps it was Michele Yeoh, who has appeared as a different character elsewhere in the franchise. I was astonished when the credits rolled; she truly disappeared into the role (chameleon pun acknowledged).
Visually, the film doesn’t take any big swings like the stylishly rendered and kinetic animation of 2022’s Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, but we do see a little of that influence come through. There are several moments when the camera steps back to show stunning vistas which employ a similarly painterly effect, not unlike classic Hollywood backdrop matte paintings.
Kung Fu Panda 4 is predictable and silly, but that shouldn’t come as as surprise to anyone. It also continues the series trend of being great fun and having a meaningful and ongoing emotional core, anchored by the chemistry of Jack Black and Awkafina as a duo of unlikely allies.
Be sure to stay for the credits long enough to take in Tenacious D’s brilliant cover of Britney Spears’ “Baby One More Time”.
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SXSW2024: The Cinapse Team’s Most Anticipated Film & TV Picks
The 31st edition of SXSW hits Austin, March 8th-16th
The venerable institution that is SXSW is back. A convergence of education, tech, music, film, TV, and more, descending upon Austin for the 31st year. Cinapse has it’s home base in Austin, and has covered SXSW for over a decade, and 2024 is no different. The film lineup this year looks outstanding and our team attending has put down some thoughts on their most anticipated features. Read on, and be sure to check in during the fest as we look to cover these and other films that deserve your attention.
I know many a festival goer who take the admirable attitude that they don’t need to see bigger movies that are guaranteed a release at festivals. They like to find the small obscure titles that no one in the USA might ever get to see again if they aren’t picked up for distribution, etc. I actually love and respect that approach and also absolutely never adhere to it. I can’t help being excited about the releases I’ve heard of, from the filmmakers I dig, and from the stars I enjoy. I can’t deny the joy of experiencing a world premiere at the Paramount in downtown Austin with 1200 other human beings. So my most anticipated titles of the fest are largely what some might consider “basic”. And I’m okay with that. What I do commit to, however, is checking out a bunch of smaller, word-of-mouth-ier, under the radar titles as I wade through the festival. And I’m sure on the other side I’ll have some recommendations for titles like that that may need the attention a little more than, say, the newest Ryan Gosling film. So with that spirit in mind, here are a few higher profile titles I’m excited about, and a couple of the smaller films as well.
Monkey Man: There’s no doubt this is my most anticipated movie of the festival. I’m an action cinema addict and have been so for decades, so Dev Patel directing himself in an action vehicle produced by Jordan Peele couldn’t be more thrilling to me.
Civil War: I’ve spoken to many people who are trepidatious about seeing a modern day, albeit fictionalized, civil war play out in a thriller-style movie. And while I get that perspective… feed this fictionalized civil war directly into my corneas. I really enjoy Alex Garland as a filmmaker and this cast he’s assembled to tell this cautionary tale looks highly tantalizing to me.
The Fall Guy: I am the absolute target demographic for The Fall Guy. I’m old enough to have grown up watching the original Lee Majors TV show, though I wasn’t precisely dying to see it become an IP that needed to be updated for a new generation if I’m being totally honest. That said, I am absolutely all in on Ryan Gosling’s career trajectory, not to mention Emily Blunt’s. And as a die hard action cinephile I very much appreciate the efforts and work of David Leitch. I’ve got a hunch The Fall Guy is going to add up to more than the sum of its (considerably talented) parts and nail the action rom com formula.
Roadhouse: I’d be lying if I didn’t include this remake of the Patrick Swayze action classic among my most anticipated films. That said, I am not sure I’ve got a lot of confidence that it can compete with that original film. I’m simultaneously skeptical, and absolutely couldn’t be talked out of being there opening night to experience this world premiere for myself.
Sasquatch Sunset: I appreciate the career of the Zellner Brothers and have enjoyed some of their past work, so when I heard that an intimate portrait of a sasquatch family was coming from them, featured enormous amounts of primal behavior that caused massive walkouts at Sundance, I absolutely added this film to my must watch list.
Secret Mall Apartment: I read a viral news story once about the people who literally built an apartment inside and mall and lived in it. I don’t remember it much beyond a fascinating article that occupied my attention for a time and then disappeared to make new room for new internet garbage to fill. But I’m drawn to malls and weird social experiments like this and I want to know more just enough to definitely check out the film about this strange thing that happened.
Arcadian: Oh, a post-apocalyptic film starring Nicolas Cage? Say no more. I’ll see you at the theater.
Let’s get the heavy hitters out of the way. Immaculate , the Neon horror sees star (and producer) Sydney Sweeney reunite with director Michael Mohan (The Voyeurs). It has all the trappings of a gloriously off-kilter entry to the Catholic horror genre. While Dev Patel (The Green Man) looks to deliver a flex (literally it seems) both in front of and behind the camera with action romp Monkey Man. The sheer rush the trailer gives, suggests watching this one with 1400 people during SXSW, could blow the roof off the Paramount theater.
Back in 2017, Alice Lowe (Sightseers, Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace) delivered unto SXSW Prevenge, a slasher driven by the melancholic brooding and anger that consumed a prenatal woman. Lowe served as writer, director, and star of the film, and if that wasn’t impressive enough, she was actually pregnant during the shoot. Lowe is back with her particular brand of dark and dry humor with a love-story of sorts. A fantastical feature where two lovers, played by Lowe and Aneurin Barnard (1899, The Goldfinch), are destined to meet through the ages, and die gruesomely. Descriptions suggest a weaving together of reincarnation and romance, as well as a core of horror, right through England’s past, present, and future.
Finally, I’m loathe to see a TV show at a film festival, but as an unabashed fan of Star Trek Discovery, the chance to see the final season premiere on the big screen is one I’ll be taking as the visuals in this show are often breathtaking. Considering Disco is responsible for kickstarting this current golden age of Trek, here’s hoping they send off the show in style.
There are a ton of exciting big-name projects this year at SXSW, but perhaps my dark horse for the most interesting is Y2K. During his time on Saturday Night Live, Kyle Mooney was always amongst the most idiosyncratic voices on the show, both as a performer and a writer. His script for Brigsby Bear, an offbeat and strange film, was equally him, and so to see his directorial debut is promising. Add the fact that it has a premise that appeals to my elder millennial heart (a disaster teen comedy set against the backdrop of the turn of millennium) and it stars Rachel Zegler, and you have a film that feels almost directly targeted at my sensibilities. In the documentary space, I am also fascinated by Grand Theft Hamlet, which explores the story of two actors during the pandemic attempting to mount a performance of Shakespeare’s towering tragedy completely within the framework of the video game Grand Theft Auto, which the movie uses as its primary avenue for storytelling as well
I’m extremely excited for Y2K which Jay went over – I loved Brigsby Bear so I’m excited to see what he does next. I’m also extremely excited for most of the big premieres, like Monkey Man, Road House, I Saw the TV Glow, The Fall Guy, and Civil War, among others. That said, when I dug into the schedule, there’s some smaller movies that I think should be getting more buzz. For example, Azrael from director E.L. Katz of the excellent Cheap Thrills, starring the also excellent Samara Weaving, which looks to be a post-apocalyptic horror thriller and if Katz’s previous work is any indication should be a blast. Timestalker from Alice Lowe also looks fun, with a heroine stuck in a time loop trying to learn love.
Normally I avoid TV at film festivals like the plague (it’s a misguided idea of the purity of a film fest etc.) but 3 Body Problem is one of my favorite book series of all time and it’s adapted by Benioff and Weiss. When these Game of Thrones show runners were sticking to straight adaptation they were putting out one of the all time great TV shows, so I’m hoping those same skills will apply to this series based on finished source material.
About SXSW Film & TV Festival
Now in its 31st year, SXSW Film & TV Festival brings together creatives of all stripes over nine days to experience a diverse lineup and access to the SXSW Music and Comedy Festivals plus SXSW Conference sessions with visionaries from all corners of the entertainment, media, and technology industries.About SXSW
SXSW dedicates itself to helping creative people achieve their goals. Founded in 1987 in Austin, Texas, SXSW is best known for its conference and festivals that celebrate the convergence of tech, film and television, music, education, and culture. An essential destination for global professionals, the annual March event features sessions, music, and comedy showcases, film and television screenings, exhibitions, professional development, and a variety of networking opportunities. SXSW proves that the most unexpected discoveries happen when diverse topics and people come together. SXSW 2024 will take place March 8–16 in Austin. Learn more at sxsw.com. To register for the event, please visit sxsw.com/attend.
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DUNE (1984): Two Cents… To The Stars! – Roundtable Reviews [Two Cents]
![DUNE (1984): Two Cents… To The Stars! – Roundtable Reviews [Two Cents]](https://i0.wp.com/cinapse.co/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Dune1-1.jpg?resize=1140%2C641&ssl=1)
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].
The Pick: Dune (1984) – Kicking off SPACE MONTH!
To celebrate the much-anticipated second half of Denis Villeneuve’s adaptation of Dune, we are going to be exploring the stars this month. That’s right, a whole month of films that take place in the far reaches of space. And it’s only fitting that we kick it off with the first major motion picture adaptation of Frank Herbert’s classic.
Featured Guest
Nathan FlynnIt is widely known among my friends and colleagues, that I’m often an archaeologist searching for gold in disowned or dismissed films. I take quick delight in defending cinematic works that others are quick to criticize. So, it’s no surprise that I’ve always found myself quite smitten by David Lynch’s 1984 film adaptation of Frank Herbert’s iconic sci-fi novel, ‘Dune.’ Its flaws are glaringly evident from a first viewing. Lynch grapples with the Herculean task of condensing Herbert’s expansive world and narrative into a single feature film under three hours, resulting in all the inevitable pacing issues and baffling narrative shortcuts one could expect. Yet, if you can push past all the narrative shortcomings, I find that there’s an undeniable audacity to Lynch’s approach, especially in comparison to the newest adaptation. Villeneuve’s decision to split the story into two parts is undeniably the best decision to counter the challenges inherent in adapting such a sprawling epic.
(@nathanflynn on X)
However, Lynch compensates for his lack of coherent storytelling with truly indelible visuals on par with some of his best works and a mesmerizing musical score by Toto, which imbues ‘Dune’ (1984) with an atmosphere unlike any other film. For those who refuse to acknowledge style as substance, you might find a lot to appreciate in the early performances by Kyle MacLachlan, Patrick Stewart, and Sting, which oscillate between bizarre and brilliant. So, despite Lynch’s apparent disavowal of the film, there’s an enduring allure to certain moments within ‘Dune’ that linger in my memory long after the credits roll. These images serve as a testament to Lynch’s unique vision, reminding film freaks like myself that even in failure, there can be moments of pure cinematic transcendence.
The Team
Ed TravisI’m not entirely sure how or why David Lynch’s Dune was introduced to me at a pretty young age, but I feel like this is one of those movies that’s kind of always been with me. I’ve probably seen it half a dozen times over the decades and have likely seen both the theatrical and the longer cut each a couple of times. I was grateful on this revisit to check out the Arrow 4K disc and let this bizarre experience wash over me once again in the most glorious format possible today.
(@Ed_Travis on X)
Because Lynch’s Dune has been with me since childhood, I never knew a damn thing about its critical reception or box office. It was my introduction to the world of Dune; my gateway. And I have always been fascinated by it. At some point in my twenties I read the original book, and I was absolutely blown away by Villeneuve’s Dune: Part One as well. So I guess I’m a Dune-head to some degree? Someday I’ll read all of Herbert’s original books to really go full Dune.
But I give all that backstory to say that Lynch’s Dune has always worked for me as a tale that truly transports me to another world full of bizarre wonder and captivating imagery. It might have to speed through a ton of narrative, but it tells a complete arc. Toto and Brian Eno’s music for the film is triumphant and never fails to perhaps draw me in emotionally in a way the film wouldn’t otherwise without that music that will forever echo in my brain. Lynch’s weirdness may have perhaps doomed the box office of the film, but respectfully, fuck all that. Lynch’s weirdness was perfectly suited to Herbert’s bizarre tale and if this is the only large scale studio tentpole blockbuster we ever get from Lynch, at least it is filled to the brim with unforgettable imagery and a cast to die for. Maybe it’s a little rushed, maybe it covers way too much narrative ground in too short of a time, or wraps up a little abruptly. But it stands the test of time in defiance of its initial reception and challenging production as a sharply debated work from one of our most bold and bizarre and compassionate filmmakers to ever do it. He IS the Kwisatz Haderach.Austin Vashaw
My experience with Lynch’s Dune is almost the complete opposite of Ed’s. I never watched this growing up and only became aware of the books and film when I was high school. As a fan of science fiction in general it appealed to me, but I didn’t actually watch the film until a few years later, at the time a fledgling cinephile who barely knew the name David Lynch and certainly didn’t recognize his cameo as the comm guy on the spice harvester.
(@VforVashaw on X)
Unfortunately I can only describe my first viewing as a massive disappointment. The film made little sense to me and more than anything I was dumbfounded at how it hurtles through some important developments. It felt like in one moment, Paul Atreides was rescued in the desert by the Fremen, then 30 seconds later he was their messianic leader, and romantically bound to Chani. I rewound and rewatched this segment several times trying to make sense of what the hell was going on – had weeks passed? Years? The musical score is independently epic and wonderful, but used so repetitively and ill-fittingly that it undermines the story that it should be enhancing, making it sleepy and drawing attention to the story’s incoherence instead.
I intentionally waited until watching both Parts 1 and 2 of Villeneuve’s remake before revisiting the Lynch film, and while the new telling is more measured, cohesive, and ultimately the superior take, I was surprised to find that both interpretations enhance the other. Understanding the plot laid out in Villeneuve’s version helped me put aside the incoherence in Lynch’s take, and a lot of the cool details that Lynch included explain some of the mechanics glossed over in Villeneuve’s world. Each is better for having seen the other.
From the other side of this analysis, one thing that I can certainly appreciate is Lynch’s ability and dedication to getting into some of the weird, gross, and subversive shit that make the film both fascinating and off-putting: characters with purple-stained lips, blood-spewing heart plugs, and enormous yellow pus-filled boils, and most perplexingly the “Guild Navigator” (which I assumed to be some sort of alien, but reading up on this lore is pretty interesting – this mutated superhuman is presented in the film as floating manatee anus potato with little to no explanation).
It’s still pretty flawed and badly paced, but I definitely had a much better time with Lynch’s Dune this time around, and I dug that watching both versions of the tale makes each a better and complementary experience with this world.
Julian Singleton
My first experience with Dune wasn’t via Frank Herbert’s original novel or Villeneuve’s lauded first half of an adaptation, but in crossing off the last film before I could complete David Lynch’s filmography. I’d heard plenty of people tear down Lynch’s film as an ambitious mess flawed from frame one–yet it took finally watching Dune for me to realize that may be the thing about the film I love the most.
Right from Princess Irulan’s (Virginia Madsen) “Oh, I forgot, also this” bizarrely delivered prologue, pacing is not the strong suit of this picture. While a few key scenes breathe well–Paul’s shield training, the rescue mission from the spice harvester–exposition is breathlessly delivered without given time to register emotionally. The film threatens to slip from Lynch’s grasp the deeper we get into Dune–none more so than once Paul (Kyle MacLachlan) and Lady Jessica (Francesca Annis) are exiled from Arrakeen, join the Fremen, and learn their ways in the deserts of Arrakis. By this point, the film is roughly 40 minutes from its conclusion and we’ve finally reached where Denis Villeneuve would stop in his 2.5-hour “Part One,” despite being an hour shorter. Even with its copious amount of deleted scenes, later assembled in an Extended Edition without Lynch’s involvement, the haters of Lynch’s Dune make their strongest point for why one shouldn’t waste their time with the film at all.
But even amid the plot bursting at the seams, the nearly entirely practical world of Dune is stunningly realized by Lynch and his production team. Even competing with Return of the Jedi the year before (which Lynch turned down in favor of this), Dune is full of stunning visuals. An early favorite is the towering, grotesque Spice Navigator–a person so wholly transformed from abusing spice and folding time and space that they’re contained in an aquarium the size of a freight car. Belching smoke from its orifices and suspended in smog, the repulsive puppet deftly illustrates not just the consequences of abusing this coveted object but also the twisted ethos at the core of all of the non-Fremen colonizers Arrakis. No expense seems to have been spared in the model work and effects design, which communicate the sheer scale of Frank Herbert’s worlds in sequences that still hold up today–and were openly referenced in crafting Villeneuve’s adaptation.
The ensemble cast is also so totally game for the bonkers lingo of Herbert’s book–having not realized the sheer amount of star power (mostly in hindsight) in this, it was such a delight to see Agent Cooper, Jean-Luc Picard, Father Merrin, and the Submarine Captain from Das Boot fly spaceships to rescue David Lynch himself from a giant sandworm.
It’s also fascinating as a fan of Lynch that, for how much he’s disowned this film, certain visual motifs have continued to appear in his work. Dune’s hallucinatory illustration of folding space can be seen as a progenitor of the Trinity Test sequence in Episode 8 of Twin Peaks: The Return, with the overwhelming sensory chaos that results of eagerly messing with cosmic forces one doesn’t understand.
And as much as the back half of Dune can give anyone whiplash if they attempt to keep up with the truncated storyline, Lynch’s go-for-broke visuals and a fucking awesome score by Toto and Brian Eno make the whole rebellion feel on par with Lucas, Spielberg, and Cameron. Plus riding some amazing-looking worm puppets into battle! Sting pulling his best Malcolm McDowell impression! A creepy, dagger-wielding, dubbed-over cosmos child smiling as she spins in the flames of a crumbling empire! As easy as it is to hate or write off Dune, there’s so, so much to love about it as well.
(@gambit1138 on X)
Jon Partridge
Dune (1984) has always struck me as the Marmite of movies, you either love it or you hate it. A constrained adaptation of a revered (and often considered unfilmable) text. Certainly flawed in its script and construct, hampered by a vision not met by the technology of the time. But, it holds an undeniable allure. A blockbuster epic, but one dealing with complex themes of religion and ecology, free-will and fate, politics and power, and brought to life by David Lynch (The Elephant Man, Eraserhead, Twin Peaks). Of course it wasn’t going to be everyone’s cup of tea. Even if you dislike it, you can’t help but feel admiration for the fact that it not only takes a swing at such a dense story, but that it actually exists.
Frank Herbert’s bestselling sci-fi epic Dune is a dense tome. Layers, imbued with history, culture, and detail. A story burgeoning over with roots in thousands of years of buildup, and one that would continue on with a series of further novels. Adaptation is an unenviable task. In the aftermath of Star Wars, and studio efforts to craft new sci-fi saga, Dune is frankly too dense, detailed, and dour. A New Hope is essentially a romp about a farm boy rescuing a Princess from a castle. Dune is about the elevation of a man to God-hood, while touching on religion, colonialism, ecology, racial and sexual equality, and more. Lynch’s execution is hampered by structure, cuts, editing, and technological limitations of the time. Voiceovers and exposition, inner monologues to help propel the film forward, explain what the hell is going on, or to try and convey motives of thousands of years of political maneuvering and power plays. On top of this, we have an additional layer of Lynch’s particular brand of creativity, which some will love (it me), and some will sit less easily with. Dune is very dry (no pun intended), characters have little warmth or relatability (save Patrick Stewart and his pug). A kinky, perverse vibe permeates proceedings especially in all matters Harkonen. Production and design choices speak to advanced technology, but are rooted in eclectic designs and props clearly lifted from the 80s.It all sounds negative and daunting, but there is something alluringly enigmatic about it all. Even as it is clunky, the sense of grandeur and scope shine through when it counts. Visuals are weird and wonderful, from the hallucinogenic sequences with guild navigators to the looming sense of scale that comes from the brilliant deployment of miniatures and matte paintings. Harvesters dwarfed by sandworms, spaceships dwarfed by carrying vessels, people diminished by the looming architecture around them. You truly feel a sense of scale, not just visually, but like you are getting a small part of a larger picture. A rewatch pointed me at the bookshelf to take down my copy of Herbert’s tome to take a deeper dive into this universe. Lynch’s effort is undeniably compromised, but it makes up for it with creativity.
(@Texas_Jon on X)Justin Harlan
I have extremely distinct memories of Dune from my childhood. Though, I only realized exactly where the memories were from many years later. I think I’d conflated scenes in Dune with scenes from the original Star Wars trilogy in my head when I was quite young and blended them together. In high school, when they released the Special Edition trilogy in theaters I realized that some of the scenes I remembered must not have been from Star Wars at all, at which point I rented and rewatched Dune and started putting the pieces together.
While the Jodorowsky fan in me certainly mourns the fact we never got the original vision, I genuinely enjoy Lynch’s Dune from start to finish, even where it feels lacking. The new films shine a light on exactly what the original screen adaptation was missing, but it remains a fun watch and a relic of its time. In fact, despite having watched the Star Wars films far more over my life, I think there’s a quality to the Lynch Dune film that may make it more fun for me than any of the Star Wars films – at least when considered in a vacuum… as I love the cinematic world building of the grandest space opera franchise of all time, as it were).
The one thing that has caught me offguard as an adult is the whispered dialogue. Being married to someone with misophonia – which makes certain sounds, often mouth sounds, unbearable – I’ve noticed the way this can become extremely grating in ways I definitely didn’t until the past few years. Nonetheless, I will always have a place in my heart and in my rotation for Lynch’s 80s gem.
(@thepaintedman on X)Jay Tyler
This was my first time watching Dune, and it certainly clarified some things about it as a cultural object. The impression I always got was that it was Lynch’s one stab at entering the world of big-budget, accessible filmmaking. And in some ways that’s true; Dino De Laurentis and Paramount’s desire to have their own “Star Wars for grown ups” makes a lot of since in an 1984 sense. The sweeping narrative has a lot of space to dig your fingers deep into, and it is fascinating to watch Villeneuve and Lynch’s takes in such close proximity to see the ways they both approach the source material from radically different positions. Villeneuve is much more invested in telling a ground-view war story from the perspective of an oppressed peoples; Lynch takes a maximalist, macro view where the Fremen are mostly a pawn in a larger colonial power struggle. By contrast, Lynch can’t help but linger in the stranger, more unknowable parts of the universe, seemingly delighted by things like the hyper-mutated space navigators and the unnerving energy of a child with ancient wisdom.
Of course the other big benefit Villeneuve has over Lynch is pacing, able to spread the story out over two entire films (which apparently was Lynch’s initial desire, but he ended up condensing.) This leads to the 1984 film having an uneven start-and-stop pacing, giving time to luxuriate in the world before it has to rocket through plot points. Sometimes it over explains itself. See the opening, a to-audience monologue delivered by Virginia Madsen’s disembodied head that lays out the entire Atreides-Harkonen-Shaddam triangle. But then sometimes the film crosses over years in the span of a cut. Lynch’s choices to linger on certain moments and gloss over others can be frustrating. But to a degree, is there anything more Lynchian than a sci-fi space epic that eschews large portions of necessary exposition?
Perhaps the most fascinating aspect of the film as a stop point in Lynch’s filmography is the discovery of Kyle McLachlan, one of his most frequent collaborators. The most fascinating part is that it isn’t just McLachlan’s first Lynch project. It’s his first film at all, period. The boldness of placing an entire film on the shoulders of an actor who never has appeared in a feature film is a bold choice. Luckily McLachlan is most up to the task, dialing it up and down as needed. But his performance and usage here is so much less evocative than Lynch will utilize him in Blue Velvet only two years later. The cast across the board is filled with all-timers, from true legends like Patrick Stewart and Max von Sydow, so steady character actor work from the likes of Dean Stockwell and Paul Smith. I was also under the impression there was way more Sting in this film that there ends up being; he just makes a maximum impression every time he shows up.It’s easy to see why Dune was so maligned on its initial release. As a crowd-pleasing sci-fi epic it’s too weird and muddled to appeal, but isn’t as evocative in it’s dream-like qualities as Lynch’s work before or after. But it is certainly distinctive, making big swings throughout. So while the hit ratio of what “works” in the movie might be a bit off, it’s hard to fully dismiss it as a failure because of its expansive intention. Plus if going through the Hollywood machine is what convinced Lynch to spend the rest of his career to making distinct, idiosyncratic work might mean making this misshapen epic was worth it.
(@jaythecakethief on X)
Upcoming Picks in: Two Cents… to the Stars!
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When the Authors Went to Hollywood [THE CARPETBAGGERS & THE LAST TYCOON]
![When the Authors Went to Hollywood [THE CARPETBAGGERS & THE LAST TYCOON]](https://i0.wp.com/cinapse.co/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/ebbf484d-ec50-41d9-83d2-482bdc821184.webp?resize=1140%2C641&ssl=1)
“Do I have any writers around here who understand the way people talk?”
Out of all the literary pairings that could be made, one of the most unconventional would have to be that of Harold Robbins and F. Scott Fitzgerald. No, the two famed authors never collaborated on any lost masterpiece (that we know of, at least), but each in their own way greatly changed the field of literature in their respective eras. Fitzgerald quickly became the quintessential chronicler of 1920s America, the era of society so steeped in decadence, that it resulted in him coining the term “the jazz age.” Robbins, meanwhile, succeeded in pushing boundaries and taboos when it came to the kind of content that was considered acceptable by the publishing world. The levels of sex, scandal, and melodrama in his work had never been seen before and quickly made Robbins part of the social and sexual revolution of the 1960s.
If these two authors could claim spots on vastly different ends of the literary spectrum, the one world that managed to link them together was Hollywood. Both Fitzgerald and Robbins found themselves heading out West to try their hand at screenwriting at different stages in their careers. For Robbins, the move was made to capitalize on his success as one of the most scandalous authors of his generation, while Fitzgerald’s move was made out of financial desperation following The Great Depression. As varied as their reasons for going to Hollywood were, so too was the reception they received there. Robbins found enough success to start his own production company, while Fitzgerald could never get a career going for himself in Tinseltown.
The one common element the two did share with regard to their experience in Hollywood was an outsider’s view of it. Both writers found Hollywood to be something of a beast of a place to exist with a host of characters that operated in a slanted reality that was alien to both writers. The experiences of the two men led them to each pen their own take on Hollywood with Robbins’ novel The Carpetbaggers and Fitzgerald’s final work, The Last Tycoon becoming some of the most provocative stories about Hollywood ever written.
Recently, Kino Lorber has re-released the film versions of both novels on Blu-ray, capturing all the wit and commentary that flowed throughout each writer’s work.
The Carpetbaggers
Directed by Edward Dmytryk, The Carpetbaggers tells the story of Jonas Cord Jr. (George Peppard), a playboy who inherits the family business following the death of his father (Leif Erickson). Over the years, Jonas turns into a conglomerate in his own right, eventually becoming the head of a movie studio and ruthlessly tearing down anyone he feels stands in his way in this adaptation of Robbins’ massive novel about greed and passion.
The Carpetbaggers remains the kind of lavish, all-star affair that took it right to the top in terms of production design and high drama. There’s a delightfully high degree of shamelessness with the way the filmmakers brazenly embrace its scandalous elements, such as casually discussing a pregnant girl who tries to kill herself because of the main character. Salacious and audacious in virtually every scene, there’s a heightened camp factor that you’d almost forget exists due to the daring steps it takes with its plot turns, such as the revelation of a long-lost twin brother). The Carpetbaggers is ultimately the epitome of a soap opera put to film with the overly dramatic twists it forces onto its characters and its total disregard for both nuance and censorship.
As soapy as The Carpetbaggers is, it manages some groundedness when it comes to its portrayal of Hollywood. There’s a pragmatic element to the Hollywood scenes that show a moviemaking town run by gamblers and businessmen who were all guided by guts and instinct. The Carpetbaggers shows that there wasn’t a lot of room for sentiment in the industry as stars and studio heads were replaced in the blink of an eye, proving anyone is disposable if they need to be. The way Jonas makes his way into town and ends up running his own studio accentuates the old-school way films and deals were made with a roll-of-the-dice mentality mixed with a viciousness, and a lack of loyalty that in some ways was necessary to exist.
The Last Tycoon
In The Last Tycoon, Harold Pinter adapts F. Scott Fitzgerald’s unfinished novel about a famous, respected movie producer named Monroe Stahr (Robert De Niro) and his struggle to hold everything together, from the daily operations of the movie studio he runs to his own life, which includes a budding romance with a woman named Kathleen (Ingrid Boulting), who is new to the world of Hollywood.
Distilled through Elia Kazan (in what would be his final directing effort) Fitzgerald’s view of Hollywood in The Last Tycoon is both as jaded and as poetic as one might expect given the author’s storytelling sensibilities. The movie is at its most pointed when it focuses on the business side of moviemaking and the way those in charge viewed the industry. An unforgettable moment sees a key studio figure played by Robert Mitchum saying writers will never be unionized. “They hate each other’s guts,” he says “They’ll sell each other out for a nickel.” Scenes like these are balanced with more human ones, such as the sub-plot showing Rodriguez (Tony Curtis), a once-famous leading man facing insecurity and vulnerability because of his age.
But The Last Tycoon eventually slows the industry commentary down and chooses to focus on the love story at hand. Much of the movie’s latter half sees Monroe not only pursuing the romance with Kathleen but also desperately looking for something real after living in the movies for so long. Watching Monroe try to escape his Hollywood existence while he is starring in the movie that is his life gives The Last Tycoon a slight postmodern slant as well as a tragic sensibility that is unexpected. All of this culminates in an ending that sees Monroe making a movie pitch about the real-life ending he wishes he could have. It’s a poetic final note to end this story about a man who has been molded by Hollywood.
Even though their writing styles were different, both Robbins and Fitzgerald couldn’t help but be true observers of the cultures of their time. It’s no wonder that their name-making approaches to storytelling should have found them in Hollywood at one time or another. They both got there through different means and for different reasons, but still managed to turn their experiences there into some of the most honest and telling documents concerning Tinseltown. Despite their vastly opposing views on Hollywood, neither man’s take (according to these works, at least) seems overly critical or heavily romanticized. In many respects, both films offer up a sort of fly-on-the-wall account of what the picture business was like during the golden age. Even though The Last Tycoon was a prestige hopeful that never was, and The Carpetbaggers was one of the top moneymakers of the year, neither was particularly considered well-respected in its day. But both movies, just like Hollywood itself, continue to live on.
The Carpetbaggers and The Last Tycoon are both available on Blu-Ray and DVD from Kino Lorber.
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DUNE: PART TWO Review: A Triumph of Spectacle, Character, and Theme
Denis Villeneuve’s (Blade Runner 2049, Arrival, Prisoners) masterful adaptation of the second part of Frank Herbert’s seminal, genre-redefining 1965 science-fiction novel, Dune, opens with a searing image of charred, burning bodies, simultaneously soldiers and victims of an endless war conducted over resources, wealth, and power, treated like so much disposable detritus. Later, Villeneuve repeats the scene, down to the lighting, camera placement, and angle, but by inverting the identities of the victors and the losers, he underlines its universality. The cold, discomfiting conclusion remains both inescapable and inevitable: War, regardless of its causes, intentions, or period (past, present, or future), leaves deprivation, destruction, and devastation in its wake.
The events in Dune: Part One inevitably, inexorably pointed to an intergalactic war. On one side, Herbert pitted Paul (Timothée Chalamet), the once and future heir of the all-but-erased House Atreides, Paul’s singular allies, the Fremen, the indigenous inhabitants of Arrakis, the only source of melange (spice), and the forces of House Harkonnen, led by the grotesque, rapacious Baron (Stellan Skarsgård), his murderous, psychopathic nephews, Rabban (Dave Bautista) and Feyd-Rautha (Austin Butler), on the other.
In addition to the Harkonnens, the Bene Gesserit, a millennia-old, women-only religious order, the sitting emperor, Padishah IV (Christopher Walken), and his daughter, Princess Irulan (Florence Pugh), oppose the re-emergence of House Atreides (Paul, his mother, Lady Jessica [Rebecca Ferguson], a handful of survivors) and the Fremen’s desire to free their homeworld from colonial rule. The Bene Gesserit and the emperor set plots and counter-plots into motion to retain power over a sprawling, galaxy-wide empire and the space-and-time-bending spice (melange) essential for interstellar travel. As spice is only found on Arrakis, that makes the desert planet the most important, vital planet in the empire.
Herbert’s syncretic novel functioned as an anti-imperialist, anti-colonialist deconstruction of Western history and politics. In Paul Atreides, he created a surface-deep, heroic figure driven almost entirely by revenge. It’s as classic a motive as any in Western literature, Herbert remixed unequal parts T.E. Lawrence’s (aka “Lawrence of Arabia”) fictionalized autobiography (The Seven Pillars of Wisdom), the Prophet Mohammed, not just the founder of Islam, but also a religious leader who, rare among the founders of world religions, wielded political and military power, leading newly unified 7th-century Arabic tribes to spread Islam through conquest, invasion, and occupation of the Arabian peninsula and far behind.
Herbert’s Paul Atreides, of course, originated from his imagination, created as the protagonist for the first and second novels set in the Dune universe, but also thematically as a deliberate, self-conscious inversion of the hero’s journey. Born and raised into a future aristocracy, the home-schooled, self-absorbed, entitled Paul doesn’t begin as a classic hero, but the loss of both his father and his birthright, his narrow escape into the desert with his mother, Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson), his integration into the Fremen, first as a fighter and later, despite his initial resistance, their messiah figure, and eventually the righteous rampage of revenge against the Harkonnens make him an easily sympathetic figure.
It’s there that Herbert located — and fixated — his timeless critique of the hero myth, messiah complexes, cults of personality, and religious extremism (ideological fanaticism by any other name). Fully in sync with Herbert’s ideas and themes, Villeneuve also takes a critical stance toward Paul’s rise as Fremen leader and prophesized messiah, unchecked by laws, institutions, and or ethics, ending Dune: Part Two not with a blockbuster-friendly, applause-worthy moment of triumph over Paul’s assembled enemies, but with the explicit promise of a galactic holy war (“jihad” in Herbert’s novel, consciously excised here to minimize controversy and/or accusations of cultural insensitivity).
Villeneuve repeatedly underlines that irony through the depiction of the black-clad, smooth-skinned, hairless Harkonnens to signify evil, cruel, callous, and arbitrary. There’s little, if any, doubt they’re Paul’s enemies — and by extension via identification, the audience’s — and while they present a clear-and-present existential danger, it’s both Paul, driven and blinded by a desire for revenge and recovery of his birthright and the Fremen, indoctrinated over centuries by one of Dune’s other, key power players, the Bene Gesserit, to believe in the coming of a messianic figure to save them from the empire and its colonizing allies, that ultimately prove themselves the more consequential, existential danger.
Co-written with Jon Spaihts (Doctor Strange, Prometheus, The Darkest Hour), Villeneuve’s reverential adaptation creates narrative parallels and thematic contrasts. Paul’s Fremen lover, Chani (Zendaya), doubts Paul as the fulfillment of a prophecy she instinctively doubts while Stilgar (Javier Bardem), the Fremen leader and a devout believer, leans toward embracing Paul as the savior who will lead the Fremen toward freedom from colonial rule. Where Chani sees incident and coincidence, luck, or simply an exercise of will, Stilgar sees something else altogether: Signs, portents, and signifiers pointing to Paul as the prophesied messiah. (He’s a walking, talking example of confirmation bias and thus, a cautionary tale of the limits of religious faith.)
For all its intriguing ideas about colonialism, power, and messiah complexes, Dune: Part Two rarely gets bogged down in philosophical conversations or unnecessary exposition, instead balancing story, character, and dialogue to deliver narratively propulsive spectacle on an eye-massaging scale that far outstrips its 2021 predecessor. To the script’s considerable credit, the periodic, metronymic bursts of action-oriented imagery always feel organic, not obligatory as they might otherwise under less sure, less assured direction.
Villeneuve’s keen eye for visual composition, aided at every juncture by Patrice Vermette’s impressively detailed, varied production design, Greg Fraser’s multi-textured cinematography, and Jacqueline West’s awards-worthy costuming, remains unmatched by all but a handful of contemporary filmmakers. Every shot, scene, or sequence can be extruded from the film and studied as examples of cinema at its most inventive, most expansive, and most artistic. Expanding narratively, thematically, and visually on its predecessor, Dune: Part Two caps a remarkable decade-long run by Villeneuve, a run that will be long remembered as among the best of any English-language filmmaker.
Dune: Part Two opens theatrically on Friday, March 1st, via Warner Bros.
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UNCLE SAM: Lesser Known Holiday Slashers – Roundtable Reviews [Two Cents]
![UNCLE SAM: Lesser Known Holiday Slashers – Roundtable Reviews [Two Cents]](https://i0.wp.com/cinapse.co/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/uncle-sam00.webp?resize=1140%2C483&ssl=1)
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].
The Pick: Uncle Sam (Lesser known holiday slashers theme)
When I suggested we watch 2001’s Valentine to celebrate this year’s holiday Two Cents style , Ed decided we would dedicate a whole month to celebrate and discover some of the best lesser-known holiday themed slashers! Everyone’s heard of Halloween and there are several other big horror classic surrounding a variety of holidays. But we decided to look at some of the titles that focused on holiday seasons without the same following and popularity. Join us in discovering some of these titles together as part of our weekly Two Cents movie club.
Featured Guest
Brad Milne
In 1996, William Lustig – with a script penned by the late great Larry Cohen – unleashed Uncle Sam. It’s a gory bloodbath of a film, which starts on the battlefields of the Gulf War in Iraq and Kuwait. The films cold open ends with a pun about friendly fire, as the dying titular character opens fire on two of his fellow servicemen.
The cast is made up of mostly unknowns in the main roles anyway. The lead of the film is Christopher Ogden playing Jody Baker, the nephew of the titular Uncle Sam (played by David Fralick). He lives with his mother, played by Leslie Neale. His grieving widow Louise is played by Anne Tremko. We also meet Bo Hopkins, who is playing a sleazy army liaison officer. One of Sam’s brothers in arms, Jed Crowley, is played by Isaac Hayes. The cast is rounded out by Robert Forester, playing a corrupt congressman who would rather be anywhere else than the town he finds himself in for a stump speech. The cast does their best to elevate the proceedings. Most of the dramatic heavy lifting was done by Isaac Hayes, Jed Crowley trying his best to talk sense into Jody, who seems intent on following his now deceased uncle into military service.
The bloodbath begins as the clock strikes midnight on the birth of America’s birthday. A handful of flag burning youths wake Sam from his not quite eternal rest. The gore effects on Sam’s dedicated corpse are excellent. The first person dispatched is Willie on stilts who is dressed as Uncle Sam while wearing stilts. Second to meet their maker is one of the youths who was burning the flag. He gets buried alive by the corpse of Sam now disguised as Uncle Sam. A second of the flag burners is hung by the neck until he dies, while being rung up the flagpole. An errant hatchet dispatches Mr. Crandall played by Timothy Bottoms. The real bloodbath starts to get out of control at the Fourth of July celebrations. Jody sneaks out of the bites to join the celebrations. The film does a great job of blending humour with the horror. It’s probably its greatest strength. Cohen and Lustig really work well together, making a film that has just enough levity to not make it a chore to get through. The cast is as good as can be expected with mostly unknowns. By no means a masterpiece, but the gore and humour make for a fun time with the movies.
(@BradMilne79 on X)
The Team
Jay Tyler
I have to admit not being especially versed in the work of William Lustig, the director of Uncle Sam. I also have to admit to being a bit apprehensive about the premise of the film: an undead soldier comes back to life to attack the citizens of small town suburbia in response to their perceived anti-patriotic actions. The upside is that my worst fears of this film, that it would play with jingoistic political fodder, proved unfounded. The downside is that the movie is a bit of a slog, at least in the first half, which sets up its characters and setting with a surprising amount of meticulousness. It doesn’t help that the film’s heart relies on a child acting performance from Christopher Ogden as Jody, the stars-in-his-eye young patriot who is clearly caught in the great propaganda machine of the military-industrial complex. But Ogden’s deliver is stilted, giving thudding line readings and a dead-eyed performance that really weighs the movie down, especially before the murders come along.
The saving grace thankfully comes from Isaac Hayes, whose performance brings some much-needed gravitas to the proceedings that the rest of the C-Movie cast seems less invested in. Hayes is playing a vet who has a whole set of trauma that unravels as the film progresses, and a history with the titular Uncle Sam. But the real magic is how Hayes explores complex themes of the impact being trained to be an efficient, effective killer can have on the mind, especially after you are returned to actual society. Every time he shows up, the movie’s 1990s, end of history longview of the American military identity becomes clearer. And when it lurches back into rote, by-the-books slasher territory, the churn is difficult to get past. A film that has things on it’s mind, but never quite grapples with them beyond it’s true identity: schlocky horror that brings some old-classic kills to the 4th of July trappings.
(@jaythecakethief on X)
Justin Harlan
In high school and college, I rented this VHS at least a dozen times… in fact, when the Blockbuster near my college sold off their VHS tapes, I was gifted the VHS box by the clerk because their tape disappeared a few weeks before. I still have that amazing lenticular VHS cover in a box somewhere, I’m sure. However, I definitely haven’t watch this 80s schlock horror gem in at least 15 years, probably closer to 20.
It still delivers on the laughs and the gore, but that’s not surprising with the team involved in this one. Lustig and Cohen are quite the team, turning a mostly no-name cast, goofy character design, and some over-the-top ridiculousness into a truly enjoyable film.
Brad and Jay recapped all the high and low spots pretty well, so I’ll keep my assessment short and just reiterate how much fun this movie is. No chance I’ll be waiting 15+ years to rewatch this one again… in fact, it’s probably going into the yearly Summer rotation, alongside Independence Day and a slew of shitty shark movies as July staples.
(@thepaintedman on X)
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