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THE MARVELS Delivers with Great Protagonists, Lots of Laughs, and a Zippy Runtime
Much has been made of the perceived high barrier of entry for Marvel’s newest film, which follows up not only as a sequel to Captain Marvel and the wider Avengers-tangential corner of the MCU, but three different Disney+ miniseries as well: An adult Monica Rambeau (Teyonah Parris), previously seen as a child in Captain Marvel, gained superpowers in Wandavision. Ms Marvel introduced new teenage superheroine Kamala Khan (Iman Vellani), and the story of Nick Fury and his relationship with the alien race known as the Skrulls was picked back up in Secret Invasion.
Thankfully, rumors of the film’s inaccessibility have been greatly exaggerated. Speaking personally, I’ve watched Wandavision and only took in a couple episodes of the others, and I can confirm: Viewers who haven’t caught up on all of that stuff will be fine. The film quickly catches you up with the major characters and where they are now, and much like picking up a new story arc of a long-running comic book, you don’t really need every scrap of backstory to jump into the current adventure.
The film, directed by Nia DaCosta (Candyman), teams Carol Danvers, aka Captain Marvel (Brie Larson), with the two other heroines in a shared story, brought together by circumstance because their powers – all three of which are described as “light-based” – have become entangled. This introduces a displacement mechanism in which they can unexpectedly swap places (even from across the galaxy) when they attempt to use their powers. Meanwhile, a threat from Captain Marvel’s past is now menacing the galaxy as a vengeful, decimated planet uses artificial wormhole technology to to steal natural resources from other worlds.
Yeah, it’s basically the plot from Spaceballs. But this is a film that’s more about its trio of characters than the specific plot they’re navigating or the somewhat undercooked antagonist they’re facing off against.
Ms Marvel is a huge highlight here, and I think a lot of viewers who missed the show will be going back to catch up on it, because she’s delightful. Before gaining superpowers, Kamala was a fangirl, and modeled herself after her favorite heroine, Captain Marvel, giving them a humorous chemistry when they meet. Her overbearing but loving family also features prominently, providing a lot of very recognizable family comedy. Enthusiastic Kamala serves as a counterpoint to Rambeau, who similarly looked up to her mother’s friend Carol Danvers a child, but resents that as Captain Marvel, Carol left Earth and never returned.
I was taken a bit by surprise at how funny this movie is, and I think its overall lighter and zippier tone is a nice change of pace. Lately a lot of Marvel films have tended to have long runtimes and complex multiverse-based stories, and while I love that stuff, it’s nice to see one take the opposite approach with an hour-and-a-half adventure full of hearty chuckles and gags, like a musical-style planet where inhabitants sing their dialogue, and the return of fan-favorite Flerkens (alien cats who harbor a hidden talent), used to great effect.
If you’re hungry for another Avengers, The Marvels probably won’t scratch that particular itch for you. But it is a great time at the movies.
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FOUR DAUGHTERS Is One of 2023’s Best Documentaries
The arresting, genre-twisting Tunisian documentary centers the voices of a mother and her two daughters who didn’t leave.
Still from Four Daughters courtesy of Kino Lorber. Anyone who has seen hundreds of documentaries in their life sincerely appreciates when a filmmaker brings something groundbreaking to the genre. With Four Daughters, a Tunisian film that soared at Cannes earlier this year, director Kaouther Ben Hania does just that. She places reenactors in conversation with the subjects, framing the story in a new light and allowing a way for the women to reclaim their voice.
Mother Olfa and her two youngest girls, Eya and Tayssir, appear as themselves. Actress Hend Sabri plays Olfa in scenes that may be too traumatic for the Tunisian woman to revisit. The roles of Olfa’s two eldest daughters, Rahma and Ghofrane, are taken on by actresses Nour Karoui and Ichraq Matar. After an introductory section setting up the style of storytelling that will follow, we quickly begin learning about Olfa and her disappeared daughters.
Still from Four Daughters courtesy of Kino Lorber. Olfa’s narration unfolds through Sabri’s rehearsal, as the performer attempts to capture the woman’s accent and tone. Their voices intertwine in an attention-grabbing manner. Eya tells her mother that this cinematic experiment is “going to reopen the wounds.” The contrasts involved in the storytelling — the lighter behind-the-scenes moments, the frank on-camera admissions interrupting reenactments, the trading out between Olfa and Sabri of who acts as mother figure — pull the viewer in, engaging the audience while addressing uncomfortable family truths about abuse (verbal, physical and sexual) and female agency.
During a moment of reenactment, Eya recites verbal abuse she’s received from her mother — laughing as she does, although one assumes it’s a trauma response – and confesses, “This film lets me speak out.” Olfa opens up through interviews about not wanting daughters (“I hate girls”) and the lack of control she began to feel as her girls grew older. There’s a certain dichotomy in the shame she expects her children to feel about their bodies and her own discomfort with wearing the hijab that her elder daughters later encouraged. But Olfa and her four children are shown in Four Daughters as the complicated people that they are, with all their faults and foibles.
Four Daughters is one of the most stunning documentaries I’ve seen in years. The layers to the structure and form of the film make for an intense viewing experience. Blurring and weaving voices, the audio mix adds yet another level. The thought and contemplation given to the film’s composition as a whole is obvious. Kaouther Ben Hania’s revelatory film delves into a legacy of abuse with an eye to the generations of younger women who will break free from it.
Still from Four Daughters courtesy of Kino Lorber. Four Daughters plays Sunday, Nov. 12, at Austin Film Society.
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THE DESPERATE HOURS is a Harrowing Home Invasion Thriller
Humphrey Bogart’s weathered, weary face is a perfect vehicle for the many noirs he headlined. It’s a face that lets viewers know he’s seen every trick in the book and you aren’t going to pull one over on him, but you’re welcome to give it go. Bogie’s unflappable demeanor plays extremely well when he’s on the opposite side of the law in William Wyler’s home invasion thriller The Desperate Hours.
Based on a real-life hostage situation, which was turned into both a book and a stage play by Joseph Hayes (who is also a credited writer on the film), The Desperate Hours taps into the primal fears and themes that have made the home invasion thriller such a genre stalwart. Bogart plays escaped convict Glenn Griffin, leader of a trio of escapees. Looking for a place to hide out as the rest of their plan comes together, the criminals break into the home of Daniel Hilliard and his family.
There’s a repeated image Wyler employs of a bicycle laying in the Hilliard’s front yard, haphazardly dropped there by young Ralphy (Richard Eyer). It’s the kind of quintessential image of suburbia that establishes everything the audience needs to know prior to the plot kicking into gear. As Glenn puts it while looking for a place to hide from the manhunt, “Love people with kids. They don’t take no chances.” Of course, the Hilliards certainly haven’t taken the kinds of risks someone like Glenn has, but Glenn’s assumption that he has the upper hand on the Hilliards before meeting them is the chance that begets his downfall. As the title implies, the film is a pressure-cooker and seeing how the characters react to the situation is the name of the game.
The bulk of the action takes place in the lovely upper-middle class Hilliard home, where the stage nature of the narrative comes to the fore. Wyler takes advantage of the spacious, two-story home to create a barrage of arresting imagery. The camera is constantly aiming up in a way that re-enforces the ever-evolving power dynamics at play. The screenplay shines brightest in the way it moves the occupants of the house around, offering up nearly every possible character combo.
The most exciting pairing proves to be Bogart and Fredric March, who plays Daniel Hilliard. Their confrontations pop with the electricity that can only come from two alpha personalities trying to outmaneuver each other. The Desperate Hours is at its best when it stays in the house. The action that happens when characters have a chance to leave the house is compelling, but it can’t help but feel like it’s easing the tension for the viewers.
The image of the bicycle laying askew in the yard also serves as a stark exclamation point on the film when it comes up at the end of the film. The last time Wyler shows the bike, it’s in the aftermath of a shootout between heavily-armed police and the ill-equipped Griffin. The bike serves as a taunting metaphor to Griffin. It’s the thing that lured Griffin to the house in the first place, and it’s in the same spot when Griffin leaves. The Desperate Hours is tremendously entertaining, and becomes more so as the hostage situation becomes more dire for everyone in the house.
Arrow Video has given the film a spiffy new blu-ray release that delivers the goods, and then some. The audio and video quality crackle in a way that makes the film feel like a new release. The special features are top notch as well, with a commentary track by film historian Daniel Kremer and a couple of features that dive deep into Wyler and the film. The highlight might be “Scaled Down and Ratcheted Up,” which features Wyler’s daughter Catherine, who offers up her perspective about being on the film’s set and her father’s work. The movie is gripping and the bonus features are highly entertaining and informative. Arrow has offered up a full meal for cinephiles.
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THE MARVELS Refreshingly Brings Marvel Back to Basics
Nia DaCosta’s creative brevity is the film’s secret superpower against MCU fatigue
Still courtesy of Marvel. Once a perennial pinnacle of the box office, recent entries of the Marvel Cinematic Universe have increasingly felt like pop culture’s end-of-semester exams. There’s an increasing litany of storylines to keep up with in the wake of what once built to a singular, thrilling conclusion back in 2019 with Avengers: Endgame, which has led to diminishing returns that (hopefully) reached their nadir with Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. That film subjected one of the MCU’s most affable heroes to over two hours of what amounted to an Act One for a franchise in increasingly perilous territory, a film full of empty promises without anything fun or meaningful to cling to for dear life. With many of the MCU’s original roster having jumped ship and these latest installments feeling more like setup with payoffs an increasing rarity, the hype has been markedly muted for The Marvels.
Yes, Nia DaCosta’s film does depend on the emotional buy-in of not just 2019’s Captain Marvel, but also multiple Disney+ series like WandaVision and the criminally underrated Ms. Marvel. However, DaCosta and her three excellent leads (Brie Larson, Teyonah Parris, and a radiant Iman Vellani) do their damnedest to keep whatever Cliff’s Notes Marvel neophytes may need to what’s cursory enough to care. With remarkable efficiency, we’re downloaded on what we need to know to keep up with DaCosta’s universe-spanning yet intimate (and less than two hours!) blockbuster, one which prioritizes important qualities that more recent MCU installments have recently lacked.
In what should be an important pivot for the Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Marvels is majorly self-contained and efficiently told, full of a warmth and sincerity that doesn’t rely upon an encyclopedic knowledge of over 30 other films and TV shows to care about its charismatic leads and brisk, fun story.
Teen superhero Kamala Khan (Vellani) has come into her own as New Jersey’s Ms. Marvel, who can turn light into physical matter; Monica Rambeau, infused with the ability to manipulate the electromagnetic spectrum, has fulfilled her departed mother’s dreams of becoming an astronaut aboard Nick Fury’s (Samuel L. Jackson) Earth-guarding space station SABER; and Carol Danvers continues to spread herself thin across the cosmos as Captain Marvel, saving whatever worlds she can. An encounter with rogue “jump points” bridging points in space causes Kamala, Monica, and Carol to swap places every time they use their powers. Now, the three Marvels must band together to disentangle their abilities, while pooling their abilities to fight Dar-Benn (Zawe Ashton), an idealistic villain from Carol’s former homeworld out to bring a forcible end to a universe-spanning civil war.
Much like how Ms. Marvel provided much-needed levity and intimacy to an increasingly complex and cold cinematic universe, The Marvels wisely strips down the emotional scale of the MCU to something much more immediate and worthwhile for its center trio. Having spent most of her appearances as a seemingly godlike figure in a universe already populated with gods, Captain Marvel has been criticized for never being where she’s needed most; here, Larson’s Carol is someone fittingly haunted with the consequences of being both all-powerful yet frustratingly non-omniscient, cornered into a dubiously heroic pragmatism built on a body count she tries in vain to prevent. Parris’ Monica is one of Carol’s emotional casualties, forced to face multiple installments of personal tragedy on her own–both stronger and weaker for her efforts. Both women are stuck in a state of arrested development, locked in either their compulsive heroism or grief, with the other both the solution and cause of their misery. Enter the miraculous Iman Vellani as Kamala Khan, who’s very much embraced her newfound powers as a superfan entering the inner circle of her idols–and while Monica and Carol teach Kamala the bitter truths behind being a superhero, Kamala becomes the key for both women to overcome their trauma and shake off the gritty self-seriousness that seems to be par for the course for heroes with the multiverse on their shoulders. All three leads have revelatory chemistry together as Larson and Parris embrace Vellani’s infectious joy and enthusiasm, particularly as the three figure out the mechanics of their powers-based teleportation.
DaCosta, who also co-wrote alongside Megan McDonnell and Elissa Karasik, brings long-needed brevity to the action and drama of the MCU, skirting fan service for thrilling action and actually emotional character beats. The film’s opening act closes with one of the franchise’s best action sequences, deftly spinning plates across three galactic set pieces while playing into the key quirks and flaws of her heroes, all with terse, thrilling writing and creative editing by Catrin Hedström and Evan Schiff. DaCosta’s uncanny knack for efficient characterization also allows many of the film’s supporting cast to shine–notably the returning Khan family (Zenobia Shroff, Mohan Kapur, and Saagar Shaikh) and Jackson’s Fury, who seems to finally be having fun with his decades-spanning role arguably for the first time since Endgame.
Most importantly, DaCosta seems to have used this skill for succinctness to shake off the shackles of needing to signpost future sequels and side-quests ahead for Marvel at large. Harkening back to Phase One films like Iron Man, Thor, and Captain America, The Marvels’ larger plot feels far more self-contained to this film alone. While the film may have a central MacGuffin pursued by villain and hero alike, there aren’t larger ambitions at play like infinity stones or further portentous multiversal mumbo-jumbo; such notions are even often skewered by someone like Vellani, eager to finally get in on the game she’s been sidelined from for most of her life. Rather, The Marvels is refreshingly smaller scale despite its impressive visual scope, back to a simpler foundation of “stop the villain from completing evil plans.” From there, DaCosta is free to build a far more satisfying story wrestling with heroism, responsibility, grief, and consequence in the spirit of Marvel’s most exciting short-term arcs. For the more rabid fans eager to see where the MCU goes from here, yes, we do have an exciting mid-credits stinger. For once, though, it’s amazing to have a Marvel film where the preceding hundred minutes isn’t as much a trailer for coming attractions as its post-credits scenes.
This isn’t to say that The Marvels isn’t a film without its drawbacks and lulls. Those who are less than fans of Marvel’s irreverent sense of humor may grow impatient with how the three leads grate against one another, or how some of the film’s setpieces revel in random absurdity while hamstringing what plot or urgency there might be. I may be in the minority regarding how much these segments worked for me–while not every joke or character may land, it’s these diversions that provide the spontaneity I enjoy most particularly within the MCU, and offer opportunities for creatives to flex their muscles and get weird with whatever random IP they’re given.
After nearly four years’ worth of films and TV shows seeking a Thanos-level setup with a patience-testing lack of payoff, it’s ironic that one of the best Marvel films in years is one where such world-building never becomes the focus. Rather, Nia DaCosta skillfully and gleefully brings Marvel back to basics with The Marvels, showcasing the ingenuity and efficiency that makes these blockbusters such satisfying experiences while leaving behind the baggage the franchise has built up since 2008.
The Marvels hits theaters on November 10, 2023 courtesy of Disney and Marvel Studios.
(Also, DaCosta’s Candyman rules.)
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IT! THE TERROR FROM BEYOND SPACE Blu-Ray Review: Sci-Fi/Horror Cult Flick Gets an A+ Upgrade
The piece below was written during the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike. Without the labor of the actors currently on strike, the art being covered in this piece wouldn’t exist.
Shot over two weeks in the early part of 1958 as one-half a double bill with The Curse of the Faceless Man, director Edward L. Cahn (Invisible Invaders, Invasion of the Saucer Men, The Man With the Atomic Brain) and writer Jerome Bixby’s (Star Trek: The Original Series, Fantastic Voyage, The Twilight Zone) sci-fi/horror programmer, It! The Terror from Beyond Space, seemed all but destined to disappear from hearts and minds once it concluded its first and second runs later the same year. Instead, It! The Terror from Beyond Space lived on, first as weekend fodder for regional carriers (e.g., Chiller Theater, Creature Features) and later as the frequently cited inspiration for Ridley Scott’s Alien two decades later.
Given the frequency in which It! The Terror from Beyond Space played on local television in the ‘60s and ‘70s, it’s easy to assume Alien borrowed many of its core ideas from the 1958 film. The similarities between the two films are simply far too numerous to be accidental or coincidental: A spaceship briefly lands on another planet, a hostile stowaway boards the ship, and once back in space, a monstrous, seemingly unstoppable alien picks off the unprepared, hapless crew slasher-style, until only a desperate, extreme measure involving explosive decompression saves the day for the survivors and presumably humanity.
Alien, of course, wasn’t quite as optimistic, but it also showed what a significantly bigger budget, a talented, skillful filmmaker (Scott), and collaborators among the best in their fields could do with similar material. For all of its deserved praise, longevity, and status as an undisputed classic of the sci-fi/horror sub-genre, Alien probably wouldn’t exist without the existence of It! The Terror from Beyond Space. If nothing else, the earlier film serves as an object lesson in how similar or even identical plot beats can play out depending on various, interconnected factors.
From the get-go, it’s obvious that It! The Terror from Beyond Space was made on a modest production budget. That budget meant not just a rushed shooting schedule, but only three or four sets total, redressed as necessary to give the appearance of a multi-level spaceship hurtling through space between Mars, where a rescue mission finds a lone survivor, Col. Edward Carruthers (Marshall Thompson), from an earlier, failed expedition. Suspected of murdering the rest of his crew for rations – a suspicion treated as practical fact given the court martial awaiting him on his return to Earth – Carruthers repeatedly raises a vague alternative to explain the deaths of his crew: an alien life-form, a thing of some kind.
Typical of sci-fi/horror programmers of the era, Bixby’s script plays fast and loose with real-world and/or narrative logic. Col. Van Heusen (Kim Spalding), the leader of the rescue mission and Carruthers’s chief accuser, gives his fellow officer a relatively free run of the ship, a decision that doesn’t go unnoticed by Van Heusen’s romantic partner, Ann Anderson (Shirley Patterson), one of only two women aboard the rescue ship. While Ann’s presence on the ship represents pre-feminist progress on one level, it doesn’t get her very far. She’s still relegated to menial, non-scientific, gendered tasks (e.g., cooking, serving coffee). With practically no agency or autonomy of her own, Ann unsurprisingly joins Van Heusen and Carruthers in the obligatory romantic triangle.
As expected, the supporting characters aboard the spaceship never rise about the one-dimensional, serving primarily as fodder for the ravenous alien once it starts attacking the crew, background players to the central action, or exposition delivery devices. Unsurprisingly, deaths, though not completely meaningless, don’t mean much at all. Only one early death stands out and it’s not because of who dies or how he dies, but in Cahn’s canny decision to shoot and edit the scene as shadow play, with the monster’s silhouette (courtesy of makeup and creature designer Paul Blaisdell), leaving the character’s gruesome demise mostly to the audience’s imagination.
While little else stands out across It! The Terror from Beyond Space’s brisk 69-minute running time, Blaisdell’s creature design certainly design. Besides the aforementioned silhouette, the thick, scaly suit resembles a bulked-out Creature From the Black Lagoon without somehow feeling derivative. Infamously, the actor inside the rubber-suited monster, Ray “Crash” Corrigan, refused to be fitted for his facial appliance/mask, necessitating on-set improvisation (Corrigan’s protruding chin was turned into the monster’s tongue). Comical maybe by today’s rarefied standards, but the opposite by the B-movie standards of the time. (Due to a number of factors, including the widely held perception of science fiction as a genre best suited to juvenile interests, genre films rarely received A-level, prestige budgets.)
Special Features (Blu-Ray)
Brand New HD Master – From a 2K Scan of the 35mm Fine Grain
tidbITs: Ephemera from Beyond Space – Featurette by Film Historian Craig Beam
NEW Audio Commentary by Film Historians Tom Weaver, Bob Burns, Larry Blamire and David Schecter
NEW Audio Commentary by Film Historian Craig Beam
NEW Audio Commentary by Film Historian/Screenwriter Gary Gerani
Theatrical Trailer
Reversible Art
Limited Edition O-Card Slipcase
Optional English SubtitlesIt! The Terror from Beyond Space: Special Edition Blu-Ray is now available for purchase via the usual online and offline retailers.
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CUJO: 40TH ANNIVERSARY Blu-Ray Review: 1983’s Third-Best King Adaptation Gets a High-Def Polish
The piece below was written during the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike. Without the labor of the actors currently on strike, the art being covered in this piece wouldn’t exist.
At 25, Stephen King was a little-known regional writer of horror, thriller, and suspense stories. A year later, his first novel, Carrie, debuted, but it took a combination of then unheard of paperback sales and the release of Brian DePalma’s adaptation in 1976 to turn King’s novel into a bestseller and his name into a household brand. Within the next decade, adaptations of King’s longer works, both on film (e.g., Stanley Kubrick’s take on The Shining) and on network television (notably Tobe Hooper’s superlative two-part adaptation of Salem’s Lot), had solidified King’s reputation as a modern master of the horror genre.
Nineteen eighty-three was something of a watershed for adaptations of King’s work into other media, as three big-screen adaptations, the Lewis Teague-directed Cujo in August, David Cronenberg’s The Dead Zone in October, and John Carpenter’s Christine in December, followed each other in rapid succession. Of the three, Cujo’s status remains unchanged (i.e., first, but least), while both The Dead Zone and Christine are considered among the best in terms of storytelling, craft, and fidelity to their respective sources. Cujo pales in comparison to the other 1983 releases, but that’s in part due to the source material (far from King’s best or worst) and the equally middling result on-screen courtesy of journeyman director Lewis Teague and an adaptation that feels overly padded despite a welcome 93-minute run time.
As the opening credits unspool, the title character, Cujo, a 200-pound St. Bernard, makes his first appearance, chasing a random rabbit into a hole inhabited not by other rabbits, but by rabid bats. He’s bitten almost immediately, setting the stage for very bad, no-good, terrible things to come. It takes almost 45 minutes, though, before a fully rabid, gore, blood, and slime-covered Cujo goes on a not quite righteous rampage of revenge, biting through two secondary characters before the lead character, Donna Trenton (Dee Wallace), and her preteen son, Tad (Danny Pintauro), trapped in a broken-down car, become the objects of interest to the furious canine. A competently executed exercise in survival horror immediately follows.
Before we get to the inflection point, however, Cujo: The Movie, focuses on the trials and tribulations of the Trenton clan: Donna, a bored, disinterested housewife, engaged in a casual affair with the local handyman, Steve Kemp (Christopher Stone), Donna’s clueless ad-man husband, Vic (Daniel Hugh-Kelly). The script takes great pains to make us sympathetic to Donna’s materially comfortable, spiritually deadening plight, though more often than not, it feels like padding or wheel-spinning added into the script to hit a predetermined running time. Vic isn’t entirely unsympathetic, but his cluelessness indicates a vapidity or superficiality typical of early ‘80s Reagan-Era America.
Cujo contrasts the Trentons’ material comforts – based, it should be added, on Vic’s ad-man acuity selling subpar products to unsuspecting consumers – with the rural poverty surrounding their property. When Vic’s sports car breaks down, he takes it to a local mechanic, Joe Camber (Ed Lauter), who works out of a rundown home. Deliberately oblivious to the resentment and Joe’s abusive nature (a subplot involves Joe’s wife and son leaving for an extended, open-ended “vacation”), Vic doesn’t think twice about exploiting Ed’s services, likely underpaying him in the process.Hewing closely to King’s novel, Cujo makes the title character the Camber family dog, suggesting Cujo’s violent outbursts might be a combination of the rabies destroying his brain and the abusive treatment he’s both witnessed and probably suffered at the elder Camber’s hands. Whatever the rationale – the novel added a supernatural layer, suggesting evil, literal and not figurative, has infected Cujo – it makes what’s left of the running time into a harrowing, nerve-shredding experience as Donna, facing not just Cujo’s rage, but a hot, searing sun and potentially life-threatening dehydration too.
Unsurprisingly, the adaptation swaps out King’s uncompromisingly bleak, downbeat ending for a more uplifting one. Fidelity to the source novel aside, though, that’s less an issue than the script’s initially slow, stop-start pace or Teague’s competently anonymous direction. A late addition to the production, Teague might not be totally at fault, but he’s still the named direction and thus bears the greatest responsibility for the final product. While more than passably entertaining and fitfully watchable, it’s difficult to avoid the feeling that a stronger script and a more visually oriented director could have elevated Cujo: The Movie into the upper tier of King’s adaptations.
Special Features:
Brand New HD Master – From a 4K Scan of the 35mm Original Camera Negative
2007 Audio Commentary by Director Lewis Teague
2013 Audio Commentary by Director Lewis Teague
2019 Audio Commentary by Lee Gambin, Author of Nope, Nothing Wrong Here: The Making of CUJO
CUJO Revisited: Never-Before-Seen 2014 Roundtable with Stars Dee Wallace, Danny Pintauro, Daniel Hugh Kelly; and Director Lewis Teague (21:39)
Dog Days: The Making of CUJO (42:48)
Interview with Dee Wallace (41:34)
Interview with Composer Charles Bernstein (35:37)
Interview with Stuntman Gary Morgan (26:10)
Interview with Stuntwoman Jean Coulter (21:09)
Interview with Casting Director Marcia Ross (20:03)
Interview with Visual Effects Artist Kathie Lawrence (13:55)
Interview with Special Effects Designer Robert Clark (12:50)
Interview with Dog Trainer Teresa Miller (28:14)
3 TV Spots
3 Radio Spots
Theatrical Trailer
5.1 Surround and 2.0 Lossless Audio
Dual-Layered BD50 Disc
Optional English SubtitlesCujo: 40th Anniversary Blu-Ray is now available for purchase via the usual online and offline retailers.
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WHERE THE DEVIL ROAMS is an Ambitious American Indie Horror Vision
Where the Devil Roams just may be one of the most ambitious and intriguing American indie horror films to come out of 2023. The modestly budgeted feature is the latest by the Adams Family (Hellbender) and follows a family of carni serial killers as they travel along the carnival circuit taking out those unfortunate enough to cross their paths during the Depression era. The family uses their rather lame song and dance act to mask their town to town killing spree, that has the step mother Maggie (Toby Poser) usually doing the heavy lifting, while the daughter Eve (Zelda Adams) photographs the grisly aftermath. The father Seven (John Adams), thanks to his PTSD from the war, and his fear of blood, is usually relegated to a corner till the carnage has subsided. It’s an odd mix for sure, but it’s how the film uses the family dynamic to invest us in these damaged characters, who are just killing time until they can find a better act.
One of the things Roams has that immediately impressed me was its cohesive audio/visual aesthetic. The look of the cinematography that evolved and devolved throughout the film, the thrifted production design and the tattoo/pierced cast who could legitimately act really drove home this faux vintage rockabilly world. I can’t stress enough, when you have a film that leans so hard visually or into a genre “style”, the first thing to often be sacrificed usually is the performances, especially in horror. After all, you want a person with a “look” on a budget, and performance is usually the third thing on that list and the first to be overlooked. But here all the leads and support, not only have a look, but also have the bonafides to back up these fractured characters. That along with its atmospheric 90’s rock soundtrack made the film feel at times like a feature length music video that would have shown on 120 minutes at 2 am in the late 90s.
All these influences, and some really grisly practical effects sort of coalesce together into this surreal story that almost turns into a visual poem at times, as the family eventually makes a pact with the devil and in the process become the hit of the carni circuit, with their shocking new act – but it definitely comes at a price. The film utilizes a fictional myth and artifact involving a devil that facilitates not just being able to remove an appendage and reattach it, but also reanimating the dead. This last bit comes in handy when one of the family’s home invasions goes south, which informs the final, chilling act of the story. I wasn’t sure exactly what to expect in the film’s final moments, but it definitely managed to still defy expectations as the film somehow leaves you with a resounding punch to the gut with its finale.
Where the Devil Roams is the thinking man’s Terrifier 2. It’s of course got the kills and the gore, but it’s also got the story, the ambiance, and some truly engaging and unnerving performances. It also had an interesting mythology and consistent visual aesthetic and that’s not an easy ask for low budget films trying to tackle a period piece. I was never pulled out of the narrative and nothing really struck me as out of place in the production, which was surprising. Where the Devil Roams feels like a blood drenched breath gasp of fresh air in this indie landscape filled with countless throwback slashers and mean spirited gorefests. It’s very much its own creature and it has something to say about poverty and those that are overlooked or passed over.
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Ron Perlman is: THE BAKER, Action Grandpa
Ron Perlman is one of my favorite character actors. Not everything he’s in is great, but whenever he shows up in a support role, you know that he’ll be great in it.
It’s a little rarer to see him in a lead role, and when he does it’s sometimes under heavy makeup (Hellboy, Beauty and the Beast). But at 73 years old, the Perl is still a certified badass, and his new movie The Baker is a great reminder of why.
And speaking of incredible character actors, he’s not the only one here. This film’s small but high-impact cast includes Elias Koteas, Harvey Keitel, and Joel David Moore.
Perlman plays “Pappi”, the baker of the title, a man with a mysterious past and estranged from his adult son, Peter (Joel David Moore). After observing a drug deal gone bad with both sides decimated, Peter steals their prize, a bag full of an expensive new designer drug – but runs afoul of their rightful owner, a crime boss known as “The Merchant” (Harvey Keitel), and his ruthless enforcer Vic (Elias Koteas).
Elias Koteas has always been another favorite character actor of mine, since his Casey Jones in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. He often plays villains and sleazebags, and the reason is simple enough – he’s great at it. As the heavy, he’s a worthy antagonist that could’ve been one-note but offers glimmers of humanity, intelligence, and even respect beneath his villainy. Harvey Keitel’s role is much smaller, but his presence is appreciated and lends weight to the importance of his crime boss character.
Pulled into his son’s situation, Pappi suddenly finds himself in possession of the cache of stolen drugs. But more importantly, he’s thrust with the responsibility of protecting Peter’s mute daughter Delfi (Emmo Ho) – the granddaughter he didn’t even know he had.
I don’t think it’s ever explicitly mentioned exactly how Pappi made his bread before making bread, but it’s clear he knows how to navigate the criminal underworld that’s now swallowed his son. Maybe he wasn’t so unlike Vic, once.
Elements of the plot may be a little tropey, but the idea of Ron Perlman doing a Korean-style protection/revenge action movie is an exciting and welcome one. The Perl is unsurprisingly great here, and even though you probably know exactly how the relationship of Pappi and Delfi will play out as they form a bond, it’s still a pleasure to watch.
The Baker is available on VOD platforms, with 4K availability on Amazon, AppleTV and Vudu.
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ENTER THE NINJA (1981): White Guy Karate: Origins
Kino Lorber Releases a Quintessential Cannon Film on Blu
White guy karate had to start somewhere, and Enter The Ninja is that somewhere.
Who can be certain exactly why we became so particularly obsessed with ninjas in the 1980s, but I have at least one theory: Ninjas are fucking rad. And Cannon Films co-lead (and director of this title) Menahem Golan was nothing if not hungry for the next fad to make a movie about. The kids are breakdancing? Let’s make a movie about it. People are pissed about Vietnam? Let’s make movies where we kick ass in Vietnam. The youths are into ancient Japanese assassins? Let’s go all in on ninjas! And that’s just what Golan did.
With Enter The Ninja being the first foray into this space, perhaps Golan and Cannon weren’t sure that this would hit. But they went on to do something of a “ninja trilogy” here with Enter’s villain Sho Kosugi taking over lead roles in both Revenge Of The Ninja and Ninja III: Domination. They would also double down on the ninja business with the American Ninja franchise as well.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s talk about how Italian super star Franco Nero starred in a silly and highly enjoyable ninja movie in 1981.
Simply one of the greatest title treatments in cinema history. Enter The Ninja starts out immediately with a bunch of sick ninja-on-ninja violence in the jungle. You’ve got all the classic ninja tricks, rolling heads, and even different colored ninja suits to help us clearly identify different ninja factions. It turns out all of this action is a final test for Nero’s Cole to become a full ninja. Fellow pupil Hasegawa (Kosugi) is incensed that this westerner has been allowed to join the ranks of ninja and storms off. He’ll be back. Soon Cole pays a visit to his old war buddy Frank (Alex Courtney) and his wife Mary Ann (Susan George). It’s a really weird arrangement but Frank and Mary Ann own a ranch in the Philippines and they’re being squeezed by a corrupt businessman to sell their land. Villains like Christopher George’s Venarius used to twirl mustaches in the old days, but Venarius has an indoor poolside office set up and almost exclusively wears muumuu-like robes. He’s frankly incredible.
Venarius wants the land and he just keeps sending larger and meaner groups of hired thugs to get the land, but each wave of villains is handily dispatched by Cole and his ninja skills. Meanwhile Frank is falling apart and kind of constantly talking about his drunken impotence. It’s a little weird. It’s only a matter of time before Venarius hires his own ninja. And who better than the Cole-hating Hasegawa for the job?! After all, only a ninja can kill a ninja.
So after Cole sleeps with Mary Ann and Frank ends up dead at the hands of the maniacal Hasegawa (“Gee, Cole, thanks for all the help with my ranch”), a final showdown in an empty Phillipine cock fighting arena is all that is left. Venarius has gotten every last one of his men killed, but he wants his Black Ninja, and he wants him now. So Sho Kosugi and Franco Nero’s stunt double battle it out.
The whole thing is pretty messy, but it sure is endearing. Franco Nero is about as handsome a man as has ever existed, and with endless charisma to boot. But I guess Golan didn’t trust Nero’s accent would work and Cole is dubbed throughout the entire movie. It stretches the “white guy ninja” suspension of disbelief to entirely new heights. Watching Nero attempt to wield nunchucks whilst shirtless doesn’t help matters. And the whole dynamic between Cole, Mary Ann, and Frank is quite odd. But I guess Cannon Films decided that Sho Kosugi really had the goods and got into business with him from that point on. And I’m so grateful they did.
Enter The Ninja just is not a great movie. But I personally owe it so much. As a child of the 1980s who adored all things ninja, I’m just not sure the world would be a place I would want to live in if Cannon Films hadn’t capitalized on the ninja craze the way they did and spark off the white guy karate trend that would absolutely become my cinematic bread and butter. Kino has also recently released The Challenge, a film that exceeds the quality of Enter The Ninja in almost every regard. But damn it, where The Challenge is legitimately one of my favorite “new to me movies” in ages and features direction by John Frankenheimer… Menahem Golan gives us Franco Nero winking at the camera in a final freeze frame on the way out of the theater. So I probably owe more to Enter The Ninja and Menahem Golan and their impact on my life.
So much Golan. So much Globus. The Package
Film historians Mike Leeder and Arne Venema provide a rollicking commentary track here and they’re having a knowledgeable blast. Neither of them perceive Enter The Ninja to be Shakespeare, but with their limitless knowledge of the world of action cinema, they provide informed and energetic commentary that’s really worth a listen. And that’s all you’re really going to get in terms of bonus features here, beyond a theatrical trailer. The movie does look pretty awesome in high definition, but honestly nothing featuring Franco Nero’s baby blue eyes could ever look all that bad.
Enter The Ninja is neither the best ninja movie, or the most fun, or even the most badass. But it is a first of its kind, the one that started it all. And as it winks at us on the way out of the theater, I smile back at it, salute, and reiterate that I want my black ninja, and I want him now.
And I’m Out.
Enter The Ninja is available now on Blu-ray from Kino Studio Classics.
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Sam Pollard’s Documentary THE LEAGUE is a Wonderful Primer on the History of Baseball’s Negro Leagues
The story of Negro league baseball is in many ways the story of the Civil Rights struggle in microcosm, played out on a specific stage – that of the baseball diamond.
In the new documentary The League, filmmaker Sam Pollard (MLK/FBI, Citizen Ashe) imparts not only a history of Negro leagues baseball, but something of its incredible potency and meaning. It’s a surprisingly involving film, and as often as I was enraged by the descriptions of racism, I was also deeply inspired by some of the stories told.
The film is relayed through many interviews with both knowledgeable historians and primary sources, providing a rounded look at a fascinating subject.
The Negro leagues were essentially the result of American segregation across color lines, including the official position of Major League Baseball to not allow the inclusion of black players in its clubs. But while black-rostered teams were created both organically and in direct response to exclusionary racism, Negro baseball also provided a unique experience – a safe space and a social construct for the black community.
Perhaps the most important aspect of the film is that it communicates this idea so understandably, clearly making the statement that the Negro leagues weren’t just an imitation of MLB, but rather that something special was at work.
In many ways the Negro leagues were even superior. The film describes a flashier, higher-risk style of play – stealing bases, performing acrobatic catches, and executing double plays – that was something of a signature style for Negro league play, much more dynamic and exciting than conservative mainstream ball – and this while often playing 2-3 (or more) games per day.
Barnstorming matchups between Negro League teams and Major League players also occurred; demonstrating that not only could black players hold their own against the Majors; they tended to win.
Through identifying and sharing the stories of key clubs, owners, and players who advanced the game, the film not only shares history but vitalizes it. We also learn about the experience off the field as well as on it: extensive traveling through hostile territory, denial of hotel accommodations or restaurant access, and playing multiple games daily in order to generate a meager income.
One thing that stuck out to me as an interesting fact was that the leagues’ rosters included not only black players, but brown ones as well. Central American and Black-Latin players were also not welcome in the Majors, and thus found their way into the Negro leagues in order to play ball.
No telling of this history could be complete without discussing the incredible story of Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier, but to its credit The League places Jackie’s tale in the context of the larger movement rather than making it the focus. (Robinson’s story has been covered brilliantly in Ken Burns’ recent Jackie Robinson documentary series, as well as with feature film treatment in the incredible 42 starring the late Chadwick Boseman, both of which I highly recommend).
The film uncovers a lot of gems; One unexpected truth that Pollard explains that I found particularly sobering: the breaking of the color barrier and integration of Major League baseball was not without its downsides, not only putting the Negro league teams and their owners out of business, but resulting in the loss of that very special “our space” that had once flourished.
If there’s one thing I can’t quite get behind it’s the film’s title. There’s a commercially confusing element of sharing a title with an FX TV series from just a few years ago, which I hope doesn’t work against it. I’m also not sure I understand the title uses the singular form of “League”. It seems something of a misnomer as there were several major Negro leagues, and still more more minors besides – but I would guess that this singularization is a statement of oneness: the solidarity of Negro baseball as an experience shared by a community of players, clubs, and their fans in a certain place and time.
On the VOD Edition
I purchased and watched this film on AppleTV/iTunes, which includes a handful of additional interview segments as “iTunes extras”. My favorite among these snippets was historian Larry Lester describing his many hours spent poring over microfilm, gathering old articles, box scores and statistics to formally document them, and even being overwhelmed with emotion by uncovering lost statistics of great unknown players, forgotten by history but now reinstated in the modern record.
Disappointingly, the subtitles on the iTunes release are riddled with typos – an unfortunate trend that’s true of a lot of new releases these days.
