Playing Catch-Up: The Confessions of Thomas Quick, Holy Hell, Rigged 2016, Witness

Posted on January 22, 2017 by Lisa Marie Bowman

I watched several documentaries in 2016. Here are reviews of 4 of them.

The Confessions of Thomas Quick (dir by Brian Hill)

Like the majority of Americans, I had no idea who Thomas Quick was until I watched this fascinating and rather disturbing documentary. Thomas Quick was a Swedish serial killer. Or, at least, he claimed he was.

In the 1990s, a troubled loner and career criminal who went by the name Thomas Quick confessed to committing over 20 murders. Amazingly, even though his stories were often outlandish and didn’t always make sense, it appears that the authorities took Quick at his word. Even when Quick told an implausible story about being forced to eat a baby, no one doubted his confessions.

Over the next 20 years, Quick became something of a morbid celebrity. Whereas we’ve become sadly desensitized to stories of serial killers here in the States, this was still a rare occurrence in Sweden. Of course, as The Confessions of Thomas Quick makes clear, Quick was never actually a serial killer. His confessions were all false. How and why did Thomas Quick fool everyone? The film suggests that the authorities where more interesting in closing cases than actually investigating Quick’s claims. Meanwhile, among psychiatric authorities, there was almost a cult-like insistence that Quick was telling the truth.

The Confessions of Thomas Quick is a fascinating and creepy documentary about an incredibly creepy person.

Holy Hell (directed by Will Allen)

Speaking of creepy and fascinating, just check out Holy Hell. Holy Hell is about a former actor who became a highly successful cult leader. In many ways, Michel is a silly figure. With his permanently pursed lips and a face that shows the results of one too many face lifts, Michel looks like almost a parody of a false messiah. And then when we hear him speak in his reedy voice, we wonder how anyone could have ever followed him.

But, as Holy Hell makes clear, a lot of people did follow Michel and they still do, though Michel has changed his name and has long since abandoned his former Austin compound for Hawaii. Holy Hell was directed by Will Allen, a former member of Michel’s cult and one of the many young men who were sexually abused by Michel. (Michel demanded celibacy from his followers but, in private, he felt no need to hold himself to his own standards.) Will Allen was a film student and, as such, he spent twenty years filming the cult and directing some genuinely odd music videos, all starring Michel. When Allen finally left the cult, he lost most of his footage. But what he did mange to escape with is more than enough.

Want to see how a large group of otherwise intelligent people can be brainwashed? Watch Holy Hell. Michel may be a ridiculous figure but, by the end of this documentary, he was will have scared the Hell out of you.

Rigged 2016

Do you want to know how America ended up in this current political mess? Watch Rigged 2016. Rigged 2016 was originally produced to promote the presidential candidacy of Libertarian Gary Johnson. And while the film did not accomplish its goal of winning Johnson a spot on the presidential debate stage, it did offer up a portrait of a political system that has been rigged by money, media, and special interests.

Rigged 2016 devotes most of its time to discussing the threat of Donald Trump. However, it doesn’t let the other side off the hook. Supporters of Bernie Sanders discuss how his campaign was ultimately sabotaged by the DNC.

Rigged 2016 will make you angry and hopefully, it’ll inspire you to wonder why — year after year — we continue to settle for a rigged system.

The Witness (dir by James D. Solomon)

The Witness is one of the most fascinating and thought-provoking documentaries that I have ever seen. It’s currently on Netflix and I could not recommend it more.

In 1964, a 29 year-old waitress named Kitty Genovese was brutally stabbed to death on the streets of New York City. Reportedly, 37 people heard the sound of Kitty screaming for help and none of them called the police. None of them left their apartment. For decades after, Kitty Genovese’s case was held up as an example of public apathy. And yet — even after her murderer was caught and sent to prison — Kitty remained a mystery, a symbol who never quite allowed to be an individual.

Kitty came from a large family. Her younger brother, Bill, was shaken by the reports of people refusing to help to Kitty as she was being murdered. And so, he decided that he would always help people. He enlisted in the army, specifically because he wanted to help his country and help the world. He was sent to Vietnam, where he lost both of his legs.

The Witness, which opens forty years after Kitty’s murder, is the story of Bill’s attempt to understand who Kitty was and, hopefully, come to terms with his feelings about her death. As Bill freely admits, he never really knew much about his older sister but the shadow of her death hangs over every day of his life. Though the film may be about Kitty, it’s just as much Bill’s story. It’s a story that makes us ask how much anyone can truly know about anyone else.

Bill starts by investigating whether or not Kitty’s screams were actually heard and ignored by 37 people. The majority of the 37 are now dead but Bill finds a few who are still alive. He discovers that the legend of the 37 apathetic and/or cowardly witnesses isn’t necessarily true. He goes on to talk to some of Kitty’s friends. He tries to talk to his family but most of them seem to be weary of both Kitty and Bill’s obsession. Bill even gets a chance to talk to Kitty’s girlfriend. There are suggestions that Kitty and Bill’s father rejected Kitty because Kitty was a lesbian. We discover that, living in New York and away from her family, Kitty could finally be herself. It’s interesting to note that, at no point, does The Witness idealize Kitty. I’m sure the temptation was there. At one point, Kitty’s girlfriend admits that even she’s not sure she knew who the real Kitty was.

Bill also tries to reach out to the man who murdered Kitty. The murderer refuses to talk to him. However, in perhaps the film’s most poignant moment, the murderer’s son agrees to meet with Bill. It’s a tense meeting. The son weakly defends his father. At one point, he says that he’s heard rumors that Bill has Mafia connections. The son assures Bill that people know where he is, as if he’s concerned that Bill is planning on killing him.

I have to admit that, having spent 90 minutes watching the very engaging and honest Bill deal with his emotions, there was a part of me that really wanted to hate the son. But, by the end of the scene, it becomes obvious that both Bill and the murderer’s son are suffering because of one man’s senseless act. They’re both victims of the same evil.

Bill hires an actress to walk down the same streets that Kitty once walked down. Standing in the same spot that Kitty was standing when she was attacked, the actress lets out a terrifying scream. Bill flinches. So do we.

The Witness is a powerful meditation on life, guilt, love, and family. It’s on Netflix. Watch it.

Playing Catch-Up: The Neon Demon (dir by Nicholas Winding Refn)

Posted on January 22, 2017 by Lisa Marie Bowman

What to say about The Neon Demon?

See, this is a film that you have to be careful about discussing. From the moment that it premiered at Cannes last year, The Neon Demon was the love-it-or-hate-it film of 2016.

Those of us that loved The Neon Demon really, really loved it.

And those that hated it — well, let’s just say that they really, really hated it. They complained that The Neon Demon was exploitive. They found the subject matter to be sordid. They accused the movie of being both pretentious and ultimately pointless. The plot made no sense, they complained. The film was overlong and featured about a handful of false endings. It almost seemed as if Nicholas Winding Refn was taunting anyone who expected him to make a typical melodrama about life in Hollywood.

All of that is true but, honestly, what were these people expecting? As a result of the success of Drive, many people have made the mistake of thinking that Nicholas Winding Refn is a mainstream director. He’s not. Refn is a provocateur. He is a director who often dares his audience to walk away. In The Neon Demon, each false ending challenges the audience’s assumption about how a story — any story — should end. Some people, I’m sure, would complain that Refn is all style and no substance. However, The Neon Demon is about a world where one’s worth is determined by their style. Style is substance. The world of The Neon Demon may be empty but the film is not.

For all the debate about the film’s deeper themes (or lack of them), The Neon Demon‘s story is a fairly simple and deliberately familiar one. A teenage runaway comes to Hollywood, finds some success as a model, and discovers that the world of show business is not as romantic as she may have initially believed. When we first see Jesse (Elle Fanning), she’s posing for her boyfriend and she’s pretending to be dead. Death, beauty, and sex go hand-in-hand in The Neon Demon.

Jesse’s an interesting character, one who constantly challenges our assumptions. At first, Jesse seems like a typical innocent. She’s a virgin who is so introverted that she can barely carry on a conversation. She lives in a cheap apartment, under the menacing gaze of her sleazy landlord (Keanu Reeves, having fun playing his skeezy character). She has a boyfriend and on their dates, she tells him about how she’s always dreamed of being a star. It’s only as the film progresses that you start to realize how little you actually know about Jesse. That she’s a runway is implied early on. We never learn what led to her running away. In fact, we learn next to nothing about who she was before she appeared in Los Angeles.

In Los Angeles, Jesse is everything that the fashion industry values. She’s beautiful and, even more importantly, she’s young. We watch as Jesse goes to a casting call and we’re struck by the blank-look on her face. We wonder if there’s anything going on underneath the surface. Jesse has hallucinations, seeing a shining triangle and kissing her own reflection. Someone asks her what it’s like to be desired. She replies, “It’s everything.”

Jesse befriends Ruby (Jena Malone), a makeup artist who lives in a gigantic mansion, overlooking an empty swimming pool. When Ruby isn’t working in the fashion industry, she works at a morgue, applying makeup to corpses and occasionally engaging in necrophilia. She makes the dead beautiful so that they can be buried looking their best. Again, beauty and death are intertwined throughout The Neon Demon.

Ruby has two other friends, Gigi (Bella Heathcote) and Sarah (Abbey Lee). They’re both models, struggling to maintain their careers even as younger models, like Jesse, continue to flood into Los Angeles. Gigi has had so much cosmetic surgery that none of her original features remain. Gigi is neurotic and fearful. Sarah, on the other hand, is confident and sarcastic. When asked what she did the last time another model screwed her out of a job, Sarah calmly replies, “I ate her.”

Sarah isn’t necessarily joking either. Without giving too much away, The Neon Demon features, among other things, a character eating an eyeball that another character has just thrown up. Not surprisingly for a Refn film, there’s a lot of blood in The Neon Demon. It’s a film that opens with fake blood and ends with very real blood.

Combining the visual sense of Dario Argento with the thematic concerns of Jean Rollin, The Neon Demon is a triumph of pure style. The visuals are so strong that it’s impossible to look away, even when the film’s themes are deliberately obscure. The Neon Demon is a surreal journey into the dark side of Hollywood, a mixture of ennui, alienation, decadence, and sacrifice. It may not always make sense but it’s always fascinating to watch.

Personally, I think The Neon Demon would make a great double feature with La La Land. Two triumphs of style, two very different views of Los Angeles.

Death Race 2050 – ALT Title: Miffed Max: Budget Road, Reviewed like a boss!

Posted on January 22, 2017 by casewright

dr2050

We’ve got a great big Death Race… runnin’ through the night. [sung]

So, the OA was ok, but just not good enough to keep anyone’s interest for my reviews. The result: my editor took pity on me and gave my brain a rest with…..

DEATH RACE 2050

I will say this for Death Race 2050 – Manu Bennet AKA Slade Wilson can act. It kind of got to me that he’s in a Roger Corman flick. The other actors belonged in Roger Corman films, including Malcolm McDowell, who I always thought was a hack, but Manu Bennet really needs a new agent.

The Death Race world is a desolate shit hole with 99% unemployment; yet, we are overpopulated…. somehow. Also, because of the over-population we need to do some culling in a very inefficient way, hence the Death Race. We all need to NOT think about why we need such an inefficient way to decrease the population because it will ruin your guilty pleasure. The political statement doesn’t really make sense because America is supposed to be a Corporation, but nobody works or makes anything and all we do is watch people’s homemovies. So, America is Youtube! HIYOOOO!!!

The Death Race is a coast to coast kill spree that awards points to drivers who kill pedestrians along the way. The Chairman who is obviously Donald Trump is the inventor of the death race. He sees it as a good distraction for the masses who use VR to experience the carnage. The drivers are Frankenstein – the anti-hero and reigning champion, Minerva-the rapper, Tammy- interfaith evangelist (really), Perfectus- a genetically engineered heir apparent- who is closeted, and an artificially intelligent car. To advance the plot, every driver is paired up with a co-pilot to provide openings for dialogue and comic relief.

The anti-hero of the story is Frankenstein (Manu “Why am I doing this?” Bennet). He doesn’t care about the craphole that the world is because he likes to race. Annie is his Co-Pilot, but she is actually with the Resistance … DUN DUN DUN! The Resistance is a group of angry democrats who are trying to figure out how 1) we elected a fascist and 2)how we can get people to vote in 4 years…. Wait, that’s my reality. The race begins with a lot people getting run over and points being awarded to drivers – this goes on for about a half hour.

Then, they reach the Heartland. These people are slightly harder to kill because they shoot back. During this time, we learn by a lot of telling that Annie is in the Resistance and needs to kill Frankenstein, but she is starting to love him. Also, the Resistance leader is in cahoots and the paramour of the evil Chairman.

Annie tries to set up Frankenstein as per her orders and he gets attacked by Ninjas. Ok fine, ninjas it is! He kills the ninjas and quasi-forgives Annie. They end up at a well-stocked, but unattended hotel. Perfectus over-acts, attacks Frankenstein, and tries to come to terms with his sexuality. It’s a very fast arc. Just as Perfectus is about to kill Frankenstein, Annie knocks him out. Annie’s gonna knock you out….I’m gonna you out. [Sung as LL Cool J]. This allows Annie and Frankenstein to begin to fall in love. AWWWW.

The Southwest and New Los Angeles

The Chairman changes the rules to keep Frankenstein on one road that is a trap. Frankenstein wins, the other racers die, and Frankenstein decides to kill the Chairman. Yep, life comes at you pretty fast in Death Race 2050. This is not at all like Death Race 2050 BC because chariots couldn’t go that fast. BAM!

Frankenstein runs down the Chairman and then asks America to do their own race, causing the entire population to kill each other. This begs the point: why not do that instead of a Death Race?

Death Race 2050 had a lot of schlock for the buck. There was loud death metal, weird cars, bewbs, Donald Trump references, and Manu Bennet. I would say Death Race 2050 is a fine way to spend 90 minutes of your day, if you are into these films. I don’t know if this was Grindhouse, but it’s gotta be close to the genre. Cheers!

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Playing Catch-Up: Zootopia (dir by Byron Howard and Rich Moore)

Posted on January 22, 2017 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Speaking of animated films…

I finally got a chance to watch Zootopia last night and oh my God, what a sweet and wonderful little film it turned out to be!

Zootopia is an animated film from Disney and it started out with a premise that sounds very Disney-like. Zootopia takes place in a world where there are no humans. Instead, animals walk and talk and scheme and plan and joke and dance and … well, basically, do everything that humans do. Except they’re a lot cuter when they do it because they’re talking animals.

Judy Hopps (voiced by Gennifer Goodwin) is a rabbit who happens to be an incurable optimist. (We should all try to be more like Judy.) Even when she was growing up on the farm, Judy knew that she would someday move to the sprawling metropolis of Zootopia and become the first rabbit on the city’s police force. When she finally does graduate from the police academy, Judy gets a lot of attention as a trailblazer. But she quickly discovers that she’s only been hired to be a token, a political tool to help the city’s mayor, a blowhard of a lion named Lionheart (J.K. Simmons, voice the role that he was born to voice), win reelection.

See, Zootopia may look like a wonderful place to live but, as quickly becomes apparent, it’s a city in which the peace is very tenous. Animals that are traditionally prey — like Judy and her fellow rabbits — may live with the predators but they certainly don’t trust them. And the predators may not eat the prey but they certainly don’t respect them. Underneath the cute face of every talking animal, there lies prejudice and resentment. Lionheart is a predator who needs the votes of prey to remain in office. What better way to win their trust then to make Judy Hopps a police officer?

Judy may be a member of the police force but that doesn’t mean that she’s going to be allowed to actually do anything. While every other member of the force gets an exciting assignment, Judy is assigned to traffic duty.

However, an otter has recently vanished. He’s just the latest of 14 predators to vanish in the city. With the help of seemingly sympathetic deputy mayor, Judy gets herself assigned to the case. But there’s a catch. She has 48 hours to find the otter. If she doesn’t find that otter, she’ll resign from the force and go back to the farm.

Luckily, Judy is not working alone. She knows that the last animal known to have seen the otter is a fox named Nick Wilde (Jason Bateman). Nick’s a bit of a con artist and, as a predator, he wants nothing to do with Judy and she doesn’t quite trust him. But, events — which I’m not going to spoil here — force them to work together and uncover the darkest secrets of life in Zootopia…

If Zootopia sounds cute, that’s because it is. It’s perhaps one of the most adorable films that I’ve ever seen, full of wonderful animation and memorable characters. But, at the same time, there’s a very serious theme running through Zootopia. Zootopia is about more than just talking animals. It’s a film about prejudice, racism, sexism, and intolerance. It’s a film that invites us to not only laugh but also to reconsider the world around us.

Zootopia is currently on Netflix and, if you haven’t seen it yet, I highly recommend it. It’s great for children and adults.

Playing Catch-Up: Sausage Party (dir by Conrad Vernon and Greg Tiernan)

Posted on January 22, 2017 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Sausage Party opens with a scene that could have come straight for a heart-warming Pixar film. It’s morning and, in a gigantic grocery store called Shopwell’s, all of the grocery items are excited about the start of a new day. The hot dogs are singing. The buns are harmonizing. The produce is bragging about how fresh they are. Everyone is hoping that this will be the day that they are selected to leave the aisles of Shopwell’s and that they’ll be taken to the Great Beyond. At Shopwell’s, shoppers are viewed as being Gods and being selected by a God means…

…well, no one is quite sure what it means but everyone’s sure that it has to be something good. Surely, the Great Beyond couldn’t be something terrible, right? At least, that’s what everyone assumes until a previously purchased jar of Honey Mustard returns to the store and tells a hot dog named Frank (voiced by Seth Rogen, who also co-wrote the film) that the Great Beyond is a lie. The Great Beyond is not a paradise. Instead, it’s something terrible. Before Honey Mustard can be persuaded to give more details, it leaps off the shelf, choosing suicide over being restocked.

What could it all mean? Well, there’s not too much time to worry about that because, even as Honey Mustard is committing suicide, a customer is selecting both Frank and Frank’s girlfriend, a bun named Brenda (Kristin Wiig). They’re going to the Great Beyond together! Yay! Except…

…calamity! A shopping cart collision leads to both Frank and Brenda being thrown to the floor. While their friends are taken to the Great Beyond, Frank and Brenda are left to wander the store. It turns out that Shopwell’s really comes alive after the lights go down and the doors are locked. All of the grocery items leave their shelves and have one big party. Frank seeks answers about the Great Beyond from a bottle of liquor named Firewater (Bill Hader). Firewater has all the answers but you need to be stoned to truly understand. This is a Seth Rogen movie, after all. Meanwhile…

…Frank’s friends, the ones who survived the earlier cart collision, are discovering that the Great Beyond is not what they thought it was…

I apologize for all the ellipses but Sausage Party is the kind of movie that warrants them. This is a rambling, occasionally uneven, and often hilariously funny little movie. (I know that there were allegations that the film’s animators were treated horribly. That’s sad to hear, not least because they did a truly wonderful job.) Sausage Party was perhaps the ultimate stoner film of 2016, a comedy with a deeply philosophical bent that plays out with a logic that feels both random and calculated at the same time.

(If you’ve ever had the three-in-the-morning conversation about “What if our entire universe is just a speck of dust in a bigger universe?”, you’ll immediately understand what Sausage Party is trying to say.)

It’s also an amazingly profane little movie but again, that’s a huge reason why it works. Yes, a lot of the humor is juvenile and hit-and-miss. (I cringed whenever the film’s nominal villain, a douche voiced by Nick Kroll, showed up.) But for every joke that misses, there’s a joke that works perfectly. Interestingly, for all the silliness that’s inherent in the idea of making a film about talking grocery items, there’s a strain a very real melancholy running through Sausage Party. Sausage Party may be a dumb comedy but that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t have a lot on its mind.

Since it’s a Seth Rogen film, the cast is full of familiar voices. Yes, James Franco can be heard. So can Paul Rudd, Danny McBride, Salma Hayek, Edward Norton, Jonah Hill, and Craig Robinson. They all sound great, bringing vibrant life to the film’s collection of consumables and condiments.

Sausage Party. After watching it, it’s possible you’ll never eat another hot dog.

A Movie A Day #22: Messenger of Death (1988, directed by J. Lee Thompson)

Posted on January 22, 2017 by Jedadiah Leland

messenger_of_death In rural Colorado, the three wives and all the children of Orville Beecham (Charlie Dierkop) have been murdered. Veteran journalist Garret Smith (Charles Bronson) discovers that Orville is the son of an excommunicated Mormon fundamentalist named Willis Beecham (Jeff Corey). Willis, who lives on a heavily armed compound, practices polygamy and wants nothing to do with the outside world. However, Willis’s brother, Zenas (John Ireland), long ago split with Willis and set up a compound of his own. At first, Garret suspects that Orville’s family was killed by Zenas. As Zenas and Willis go to war, Garret discovers that there’s actually a bigger conspiracy at work, one dealing with corporate greed and water rights. (Forget it, Bronson, it’s Chinatown.)

Messenger of Death was the 2nd to last film that veteran tough guy Charles Bronson made for Cannon Films. Especially when compared to the other films that he made for Cannon (10 To Midnight, Kinjite, Murphy’s Law, three Death Wish sequels), Messenger of Death features Bronson in a surprisingly cerebral role. While there is violence, very little of it is actually the result of anything that Bronson does. For once, Charles Bronson isn’t running around with a gun and blowing away bad guys. If Death Wish‘s Paul Kersey ever did start blowing away muggers in Colorado, Garret would probably be the first to condemn him in a carefully written editorial. The only time he fights is in self-defense and even then, it’s hand-to-hand combat. Instead, he spends most of the film doing research and asking questions. As a result, Messenger of Death is never as much fun as the other films that Bronson made for Cannon but it’s still interesting to see him playing a regular guy.

Some Pretty Choice “Curse Words”

Posted on January 22, 2017 by Ryan C. (fourcolorapocalypse)

Trash Film Guru

Oh, yeah — it’s party time!

Charles Soule and Ryan Browne’s new Image Comics (ongoing, I presume) series Curse Words has looked like all kinds of batshit-crazy fun since it was first solicited some months ago, and now that the extra-sized first issue is here, I’m pleased to say the preview pages that have been non-Wiki leaking out didn’t lie : this is a high-energy, full-throttle, goofy-ass, balls-out book that doesn’t care half as much about making sense as it does about just giving its readers a good, old-fashioned good time.

Not that Soule’s script doesn’t make sense, mind you — in fact, it’re pretty simple, straightforward stuff :an other-dimensional evil wizard named, get this, Wizord finds himself thrust into our world (New York, to be specific), and rather than destroy the place as was his original intent, he decides to hang around, make some money, and live the…

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Dying For Art : “Tabloid Vivant”

Posted on January 22, 2017 by Ryan C. (fourcolorapocalypse)

Trash Film Guru

The pursuit of wealth, celebrity, fame, and recognition is the subject of many a cautionary tale and morality play, it’s true, but I’m not sure this tried-and-true trope has ever been presented in as dizzyingly surreal a manner as it is in writer/director Kyle Broom’s 2016 indie arthouse/horror effort Tabloid Vivant. Like a White Castle hamburger, this is a film you’ll either love or hate, with no middle ground to stand on — but one way or another, it will stick in your mind long after the end credits roll.

Like many a would-be art world superstar, Maximilien Klinkau (played by Jesse Woodrow) is desperate for cash and acclaim, and pursues it with a single-minded obsession that borders — or maybe even more than that — on the psychotic. Max’s overzealous drive is magnetically alluring to wannabe-famous-herself art critic Sara Speed (Tamzin Brown), and together the two hit on…

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Artwork of the Day: Fury on Sunday

Posted on January 22, 2017 by Dazzling Erin

by Julian Paul

Music Video of the Day: Nu Ska Vi Vara Snälla by Björn & Agnetha (1969, dir. ???)

Posted on January 22, 2017 by Valerie Troutman

This time we have Björn hanging out at an amusement park with Agnetha looking less like she serves popcorn, and more like she’s ready to audition for Candy Stripe Nurses (1974). Why not? They did that bizarre video in the 1970s for When I Kissed The Teacher that made the whole band look like they belonged in one of those Schoolgirl Report movies from Germany. I don’t recommend watching them, but it is worth looking them up on IMDb for the really stupid subtitles like “What Keeps Parents Awake at Night” and “What Drives Parents to Despair”.

Enjoy!

ABBA retrospective: