Okay, I exaggerated a little about how bad this movie is, but it still stinks. Let’s go back to the way I started the review of Twitches. There I likened it to finding that burning bag of dog poop on your doorstep. Now a story from my childhood which did involve twins. One time as a prank, these twin girls that moved into my neighborhood when I was in high school decided to do the dog poop thing at a friend’s house. They had a bag. They had poop. They rang the doorbell. They forgot to set it on fire. That meant my friend answered the door to just find a bag of poop on his doorstep and nothing else. That’s Twitches Too. It get’s rid of Jennifer Robertson as Illeana and replaces her with Leslie Seiler. However, Pat Kelly does return as Karsh. Seiler and Kelly are nowhere as good together as Robertson and Kelly. Also, this movie does something I never would have expected in a Disney Channel Original Movie. The boom mic drops into the frame.
That kind of screw up I would expect in a low budget horror film, an exploitation flick, or Chatterbox! (1977) where it pops in from the bottom as if her vagina can actually talk. It’s in at least two movies I’ve reviewed: Trancers and Prom Night III: The Last Kiss. A B-Movie and a low budget horror flick.
So what is Twitches Too about? Well, what do you think it’s about? The darkness is not quite gone and their actual father might be in there somewhere. Oh, and the “Go, Twitches” thing makes a return in this movie. Just great! Oddly, this one also has a cast member from Degrassi: TNG in it.
That’s Nathan Stephenson.
There really is very little to talk about with Twitches Too. They have some fun with magic. Illeana and Karsh aren’t as good as they were in the first film. There’s more of Coventry since that’s no longer a secret from the girls. And ultimately it comes down to the girls and their birth mother fighting off the bad guy from the first one and brining back their birth father from the shadows. I mean literally the shadows. At one point he is hiding in the shadow of a lady.
Yeah, we are supposed to be scared for her in this scene near the end, but I didn’t care because the rest of the film was terrible. Whereas this similar scene in Blow Out (1981) does work and is heartbreaking because the film is amazing.
Don’t let your children watch this, don’t let them make you watch it, and just simply don’t watch Twitches Too for any reason.
I know Halloween already happened, but I did promise to review the two Twitches movies when I reviewed Return To Halloweentown. So here they come. And it’s kind of like answering the doorbell and finding that burning bag of dog poop.
Also, just for your information, there’s no way I am going to be able to keep Tia and Tamera straight. I knew twins in real life growing up and couldn’t tell which was which so I’m not even going to try. Not that I’m gonna talk much about them anyways.
The movie starts off with two twin witches (Tia Mowry-Hardrict and Tamera Mowry-Housley) being taken away by the two most entertaining people in this movie as darkness envelopes Coventry.
This is Illeana (Jennifer Robertson).
This is Karsh (Pat Kelly).
They are the bright points of this movie. It begins with them rescuing the twin witches and taking them to the human world to hide them from the darkness. Illeana makes it to a hospital, and Karsh makes it away safely as well, but first he encounters something horrifying.
That’s right. It’s Jake Goldsbie from Degrassi: TNG out trick-or-treating. Apparently, whether it’s Lifetime, Hallmark, or Disney, you’ll likely see actors from Degrassi: TNG pop up. Actually, I just saw Aislinn Paul on Heroes Reborn so I guess they’re everywhere!
Anyways, getting back to the lousy movie. 21 years later, on Halloween, we find that one of the Twitches has grown up in privilege while the other hasn’t. Standard stuff. We also find out that all this time Illeana and Karsh have been hanging around waiting for them both to reach 21.
These two really are good in this movie. They bicker like an old couple. They have far more chemistry than most of the couples in those Hallmark movies I watch. I could have watched a prequel to this that just has them following around the Twitches while cracking jokes. I love when Illena walks through a wall, then proceeds to complain about the fact that she had to pass through 70’s wallpaper. Honestly, if I knew of a supercut of this movie that only had their scenes then I would embed it below. Unfortunately, while they are being funny, this is going on.
I can’t tell you how much it irritated me when they would say “Go, Twitches. Go, Twitches”. I really just wanted Illeana and Karsh.
The Twitches just return home and vanquish the darkness. Blah, blah, blah. Seriously, I want my Illeana and Karsh movie! I know that kind of movie can be done. Heart And Souls did it back in 1993. That movie had actors like Charles Grodin and Alfre Woodard following around Robert Downey, Jr. as ghosts and they were funny. That’s essentially what Illeana and Karsh did for all those 21 years.
And according to IMDb reviewers, this is worse than I could have thought because it’s based on a series of books that of course it doesn’t follow well. Course I did just sit through Masters Of The Universe (1987) so how much worse could it be if it wasn’t true to the source material? Well, I don’t know, but I do know what happens when you swap out one half of the Illeana/Karsh duo with a different actress. That’s Twitches Too, where joy and happiness goes to die.
Okay, before I review this, I have to point out that this is the second Hallmark movie I’ve reviewed that stars Katie Leclerc which has a lazy title card. At least this one has something going on behind it. Unlike the plain white text on a black background for the movie The Reckoning.
With that out of the way. Let’s talk about this movie. Remember A Gift Of Miracles? Yeah, it’s the same setup here. A girl played by Katie Leclerc needs to get a research fellowship in order to get her PhD. The difference is that it in no way means she needs to believe in an afterlife, and she doesn’t get her pitch from a real world World Wildlife Federation report. So, there’s that going for this movie.
In digital computers there’s no such thing as a curve. Curves are approximated by a series of lines. Use enough of them and you get what looks like a curve. In movies, story arc and character arc are approximated with scenes instead of lines. Use enough of them and you get what looks like an arc. But if you don’t, then you end up with awkward jumps that have your audience asking questions like: “Why are they talking like she’s worked there for months? Didn’t they just hire her?” That’s this movie. It was also clearly done on the cheap, and it shows. Also, for fans of the Mystery Woman Hallmark movies.
They show establishing exterior shots of the fictional Pacifica University that Leclerc’s character attends over and over and over again. I get it! You came up with a more realistic sounding university than California University from Beverly Hills, 90210, but every time you show it I notice that it says “Library and Learning Resource Center” on the building that also apparently houses this “Meteorology Weather Center”.
The movie is about Deb, played by Katie Leclerc, who is a doctoral candidate meteorologist that gets called in at the last minute to replace a TV meteorologist. She’s encouraged to do it because it will make her stand out. The movie is about her trying to decide whether she really does want to pursue that research fellowship or if this TV thing is actually something she enjoys. Of course they need to give her a makeover. And who better than fashion victim survivor Stacey Dash. This girl.
Who 20 years prior in Clueless (1995) was this girl.
I mentioned this movie was done on the cheap. Here’s an example.
That’s Leclerc standing in front of a green screen that we are supposed to know is a green screen, but then it cuts to a reporter on the scene.
Oh, did I say “on the scene”? I meant in front of another green screen.
Also, this is one of those Hallmark movies where we can hear the rain in the scene, but it isn’t actually there. However, this movie does have an excuse for that. For plot convenience so that there’s conflict at the end, Deb’s friend is doing a documentary on the drought in my home state of California. I’m sure that’s why they didn’t use a rain machine. At least the scene is way better than the one I remember from one of the Garage Sale Mystery or Aurora Teagarden movies. In that one they were outside, umbrellas with drops on them, probably in Fall, with puddles around them, and the sound of rain, but there was no rain as noted by the perfectly still puddles.
Jumping ahead to the end. I totally believe this is not a backdrop behind them.
Also…
that’s Deb’s competition for the fellowship and that’s almost 100% of everything you see and hear her doing for that fellowship. And yet, the movie will constantly have Deb’s mentor saying that this girl is giving her really stiff competition and that she’s at serious risk for losing the fellowship. The least they could have done was tell us what she’s doing, right? Nope, there’s a speech at the end she gives, but we come in at the very end of it and they just have a generic blue Powerpoint card with the name of the university up throughout the whole scene.
Does it matter who the guy is? Well, that’s him. That’s the scene where he and Deb talk as if they’ve worked together for months, but for the viewer she just got hired.
It really doesn’t matter what I say about this. It’s not worth watching. Leclerc is fine and the news anchor is a bright point in the movie. However, it’s done so cheaply and jumps so much plot and character wise that while it’s conceivably possible to push past all that, it’s like this actor trying to actually believe he’s outside.
“For my final entry in October’s Daily Horror Grindhouse, I want to take a few minutes to tell you about an Italian zombie film from 1981. Burial Ground: The Nights of Terror is not very good but it certainly is memorable. I think it’s debatable whether or not any pleasure can truly be described as being guilty but if there ever was a movie that some people might feel guilty about enjoying, it would probably be Burial Ground.”
“Is that the movie with creepy kid in it?”
“Well, yes, one of the characters in this film is supposed to be a 12 year-old boy and yes, he’s kind of creepy. But you know what? Whenever anyone tries to talk about Burial Ground, everyone always wants to talk about the creepy kid. So, let’s hold off on the creepy kid…”
“That kid really is creepy…”
“Yes, I know the kid is creepy but there’s more to the film than just the kid! For instance, I wonder how many people realize that Burial Ground is perhaps the most blatantly political Italian zombie film ever made? I mean, let’s think about it. This is a film where a bunch of decadent rich people get trapped in a mansion — the same mansion that was used in Patrick Lives Again, by the way — and find themselves besieged by zombies. And who are the zombies? They’re the former workers. They’re the servants who used to toil in the fields and who died exploited and forgotten. And now, without any explanation, they’re suddenly back and they’re determined to kill everyone. And when it comes time to get inside the house, they actually use tools. They have scythes and hammers and all the former tools of their oppression. They are now using them to kill the rich. Well, not just the rich. There are two servants — a butler and a maid — who side with the rich and therefore, have to be killed as well because that’s the way things are in a revolution….”
“What was up with that kid?”
“We’ll get to him. No matter what else you say about Burial Ground, you can’t deny that the zombies were amazingly effective. I mean, they really looked like the living dead and, even if the ‘living’ actors were never quite convincing, the zombies were scary!”
“Not as scary as that creepyass kid…”
“You know, sometimes I think that y’all spend so much time going on about the weird little kid in Burial Ground that you tend to overlook some other fun parts of the film. For instance, there’s the scene Janet — played by Karen Well — gets her ankle stuck in a bear trap and, every time that her boyfriend Mark (Gianluigi Chirizzi) tries to pry it open, he accidentally ends up letting go and it snaps back shut on her ankle. On the one hand, I was having sympathy pains for poor Janet because, as a dancer, I know how much ankle pain sucks. On the other hand, I couldn’t help but laugh because the scene just goes on for so long that it actually starts to resemble a poorly-written SNL sketch. Plus, is it just me or does Mark look like a really young Jack Nicholson?”
“That creepy kid kind of looked like Dario Argento…”
“Yes, he did. But there’s more to this film than the kid! For instance, remember how it ends with this long quote from something called The Prophecy of The Black Spider but, on the title card, they misspelled prophecy…”
“Maybe the kid wrote that card…”
*Sigh* “Okay, I guess I should just admit the truth. The most memorable thing about Burial Groundis the creepy kid. The zombies may be effective. The film may be full of blood, nudity, bear traps, and misspelled words. But ultimately, it all comes down to the character of Michael. Michael is supposed to be 12 years old. He has a small body but he’s also got this weird adult face. According to the credits, he was played by an actor named Peter Bark and strangely enough, there seems to be next to no information available about him. This has led to rumors that Peter Bark was actually a little person or that all of his scenes used trick photography to make him look smaller than he actually was. According to Wikipedia, Peter Bark was actually 25 years old but he was cast because Italian law wouldn’t allow a child to appear in a film like Burial Ground. I don’t necessarily believe that, however. All I can say for sure is that Michael is a creepy little kid and the fact that he was obviously dubbed by an adult trying to sound like a child doesn’t help.”
“That’s not the only reason that Michael was creepy!”
“That’s true. He also has a few … icky scenes with his mother. She, by the way, was played by Mariangela Giordano. Like Giallo in Venice and Patrick Lives Again, Burial Ground was produced by her boyfriend, Gabriele Crisanti. For some reason, any film that he produced featured Mariangela dying in the most gruesome ways possible.”
“Plus, that little kid sure was creepy.”
“Yes, this is true. He certainly was. Happy Halloween.”
“Happy Halloween!”
“Before we leave, here’s two trailers for Burial Ground. The second one is the real trailer. The first one is all Michael.”
Occasionally, I get asked why I am always making mean-spirited jokes about Vermont. Well, believe it or not, there is a reason! Would you believe that it all goes back to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre?
In an editorial that was posted on this very site, I argued that one reason why, ever since it was initially released in 1974, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre has remained an iconic horror film is because the title specifically alerts you that the film takes place in Texas. For whatever reason, people across America are terrified of my home state. Despite the fact that we’re all pretty friendly down here, people are scared to death. They think we’re all walking around with guns or that something’s bad is going to happen if you make a wrong turn. (And, of course, folks from up north can’t handle the fact that the temperature occasionally gets above 85. “OH MY GOD, IT’S GLOBAL WARMING!” the tourists shout. No, morons — it’s just summer in Texas.) In order to prove my point, I pointed out that no one would want to see a movie called The Vermont Chainsaw Massacre.
For good measure, I may have then added, “Fuck Vermont.” Because — well, why not?*
Within hours of posting that editorial, I heard from someone in Vermont and OH MY GOD, she was so offended! Seriously, she seemed to be really upset that I was suggesting that nobody would be scared of getting horribly murdered while driving through Vermont!
So, to the people of Vermont, accept my apologies. Y’all are just as capable of killing people with a chainsaw as we are, okay?
Seriously, though, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre would never work if it was set in Vermont. That’s not just because Vermont su …. uhmm, is a lovely state. That’s because The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is a uniquely Texan film. One reason why this film is so successful is because it was made by Texans and it starred Texans (no inauthentic accents here!) and it was filmed in Texas during the summer. From the minute we see that van driving down the road, we feel the isolation of the characters. Every frame of the film is filled with Texas heat and humidity and, as such, the audience can almost literally feel how uncomfortable it is inside the van, so much so that you really can’t blame everyone for wanting to get out and walk around for a while. Ultimately, the burning sun is as important a character in this film as Sally (Marilyn Burns), her obnoxious wheelchair-bound brother Franklin (Paul A, Partain), or Leatherface (Gunnar Hansen), the hulking cannibal who chases after them with a chainsaw.
Actually, it’s a little bit difficult to know what to say about The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. It’s such a famous film that even people who haven’t seen it feel as if they had. And every review always points out the reasons why it works: the film is shot in an almost documentary style, Marilyn Burns was one of the great scream queens, Leatherface’s final dance with his chainsaw is pure nightmare fuel, and, despite the fearsome title, next to no blood is actually seen on screen. This is one of those films where we imagine we see a lot more than we actually do. Despite being advertised as being a “chainsaw massacre,” only one person actually falls victim to a chainsaw and he’s so obnoxious that you’re kind of happy that he finally stopped talking.
They may not be much blood on the screen but this is still one of the most stomach-churning films ever made. When Sally finds herself trapped in the house with Leatherface and his family, that house is so filthy and disgusting that you can literally smell the rotting flesh coming off the screen. This may be a case of my own OCD speaking but the squalor of that house tends to disturb me even more than some of the murders.
Speaking of the murders, the death of Jerry (Allan Danziger) always freaks me out. Jerry is looking for his other dead friends when Leatherface appears out of nowhere and hits him with a sledgehammer. Up until that point, Jerry seemed like the smartest of the five people to find themselves wandering around that desolated part of South Texas. Certainly, if I had been there, I probably would have wanted to stay with Jerry. Perhaps that’s why Jerry’s high-pitched scream before getting killed always disturbs me. If you’ve seen enough slasher movies, you know that the men in these movies — no matter what is happening to them — hardly ever scream. When Jerry does so, it makes the movie feel real in a way that most film influenced by Texas Chainsaw do not.
Listen, Vermont … I’m sorry you can’t have a chainsaw massacre of your very own. But The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is a part of our history and, despite the negative implications of the name, we do take a certain amount of pride in it. It is truly one of the great horror films. Ignore the remakes, which were made by non-Texans and are all so excessively stylized that you have to wonder if the filmmakers even saw the original.
One final note: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre also has one of the truly great trailers. Check it out below!
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* I should mention that I can usually trust someone around here to ask me if I really want to say something like “Fuck Vermont” before I hit publish. But that weekend, Arleigh was on vacation and this was before I had recruited my sister to come work here so there really wasn’t anyone else around the TSL offices who was used to dealing with me and my impulsive nature. I tried to show the post to Leonard to get his opinion about the F Vemont line but he was busy watching hockey…
Happy October! It’s been a great horror month here at the Shattered Lens! Not only have we shared a record number of reviews but we’ve also received a record number of site views! Thank you everyone for reading and commenting and, to our new readers, we hope you’ll stick around even after Halloween!
Now, here at the Shattered Lens we have a tradition. Every Halloween, we share one of the greatest and most iconic horror movies ever made. That film, of course, is George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead! Enjoy and have a great Halloween!
Whenever I watch 2012’s Smiley (and, since this is one of those films that always seems to be playing whenever I have insomnia, I actually have seen Smiley more times than I should probably admit), I always find myself hoping that it will actually be a better film than I remember it being.
Some of that, I have to admit, is because I once dated a frat boy whose nickname was Smiley. His high school football coach gave him that name because he was always smiling! (Yes, I once dated a football player who smiled a lot and didn’t really care much about literature, art, movies, history, or anything else that I was actually interested in. Don’t ask me to explain how these things happen.) His pickup truck even had a personalized licence plate that read, “SMILY.” That’s right — he wasn’t really sure how to spell Smiley. Whenever I see the title Smiley listed in the guide, I think of him and I have to kind of laugh.
Beyond that, Smiley was an independent, low-budget film and I have to admit that my natural inclination is always to support independent filmmakers. If Smiley was a huge studio production, I’d have absolutely no qualms about ripping it apart. But when I see an indie horror film like Smiley, there’s a part of me that almost feels that I have to be supportive. But the things is, it’s one thing to be supportive and it’s another thing to be delusional. I may want Smiley to be a good horror film but it’s not and I’m really not doing anyone any good if I pretend otherwise.
Finally, I always want Smiley to be better than it actually is because the film features one of the creepiest killers that I’ve ever seen. Even if the character is cheapened by a rather stupid twist, Smiley is scary looking. Smiley is presented as being the spirit of a man who, after stitching his own eyes closed, carved a permanent smile on his face. As a force of evil, Smiley is genuinely frightening and it’s unfortunate that the rest of the film doesn’t live up to the character’s potential.
As for the rest of the film … well, it’s pretty much your typical slasher. All of the characters are loathsome, the murders are neither suspenseful nor gory enough to really be memorable, and this is one of those films that relies far too much on scenes of people running into someone, screaming in terror, and then discovering that it was just one of their friends. It is true that there is a twist towards the end of the film that’s designed to make you question everything that you’ve just see but since the twist doesn’t make much sense and comes out of nowhere, it’s hard to get excited about it. The best thing the film had going for it was the character of Smiley and the twist pretty much ruins that.
(The film’s other big twist is that the cast is full of YouTube personalities, which makes Smiley the spiritual descendant of The Scorned, a similarly bad slasher film that was full of reality TV stars.)
By the way, the idea behind Smiley is that you can go on Chatroulette and, if you type “I did it for the lulz” three times, Smiley will appear and kill whoever your chatting with. Just for the record, I’ve tried it and it doesn’t work.*
——
* Well, to be honest, I got a friend of mine to try it and it didn’t work. I’ve got better things to do then watch some guy jerking off on Chatroulette.
Would you believe that there’s a film that not only brilliantly satirizes and pays homage to the old slasher films of 80s but which also possesses the type of emotional depth that can bring very real tears to your eyes as you watch?
Well, there is and the name of that film is The Final Girls.
In the 1980s, a struggling actress named Amanda Cartwright (played by the always-wonderful Malin Akerman) found a certain amount of cult fame by appearing as a doomed camp counselor named Nancy in the slasher film, Camp Bloodbath. However, as often happens, playing an iconic role in a horror film has turned out to be as much of a curse as a blessing. As The Final Girls opens, Amanda has just finished yet another audition. As she drives home, she tells her teenage daughter, Max (Taissa Farmiga) that she will never escape being typecast as Nancy. Suddenly. they are blindsided by another car. Max is the only survivor.
Three years later, Max reluctantly agrees to attend a showing of Camp Bloodbath and Camp Bloodbath II: Cruel Summer. It’s not something that she wants to do but she’s talked into it by Duncan (Thomas Middleditch), the geeky stepbrother of her best friend Gertie (Alia Shawkat). Also attending the showing is Chris (Alexander Ludwig), who Max has a crush on, and Chris’s ex-girlfriend and self-described “mean girl,” Vicki (Nina Dobrev).
Some of the best scenes in The Final Girls occur while Max watches Camp Bloodbath. Not only is Camp Bloodbath a perfectly pitched homage/satire of old school slasher films (like Friday the 13th, to cite an obvious example) but Farmiga perfectly plays Max’s reaction to seeing her mother on screen. Max watches Camp Bloodbath with a heartfelt mix of sadness, pride, and eventual horror. (One of the film’s best moments is the way that Max slowly sinks down in her chair while watching her mother make out with another actor on the big screen. It’s a very human moment, one that is both poignant and funny at the same time.)
However, during the showing, a fire breaks out. In their efforts to escape the theater, Max and her friends find themselves literally sucked into the movie. That’s right — they are now inside the world of Camp Bloodbath. And though they can interact with the film’s characters (and, for that matter, with the film’s killer, Billy), they find it’s much more difficult to keep those characters from playing out their pre-ordained roles. Even after explaining to the camp counselors that doing anything the least bit sexual will cause Billy to come out of the woods and kill everyone, the counselors still find themselves incapable of changing their stereotypical slasher film behavior. It’s not really their fault, of course. As Duncan mentions, they’re just “badly written.”
While the rest of her friends simply want to survive the movie and somehow get back home, Max wants to spend time with her mom. (Except, of course, Nancy isn’t really her mom. Instead, Nancy is a character that her mom played in a movie that made before Max was even born.) And you know what? The scenes between Taissa Farmiga and Malin Akerman brought very real tears to my eyes. The scenes between Max and Nancy (and Max and Amanda) are so heartfelt and so full of sincere emotion that they elevate the entire film.
Without the relationship between Max and Amanda, The Final Girls would be a very clever homage to the old slasher movies. But what that relationship, The Final Girls becomes one of the best films of the year.
On November 3rd, The Final Girls will be released on DVD and Blu-ray. Be sure to keep an eye out for it.
Like many of the films that we’ve looked at this October, Beasts of No Nation is a horror movie. However, the horror to be found in Beasts of No Nation is not due to a ghost or a vampire or a zombie or a serial killer wearing a mask. Instead, Beasts of No Nation is a harrowing look at a real-life horror that is currently happening even as you read this review.
Abraham Attah plays Agu, a 12 year-old boy living in a small village in an unnamed African country. In many ways, Agu is a normal child. He likes to hang out with his friends. He looks up to his older brother and his father. He loves his mother. He goes to school, he goes to church, and he prays regularly. Though his village may be poor, he and his friends still find ways to keep each other entertained.
However, Agu is living his life in the middle of a war zone. Though the details are intentionally left obscure, his country is in the middle of a civil war. Throughout the film, we continually hear people talking about the different warring factions but we never learn the specifics of what those factions believe or why they’re all fighting each other in the first place. And, of course, it really doesn’t matter. The only thing that’s important is that they are fighting and Agu is about to sacrifice his childhood to their war.
When his village is attacked by government forces and his brother and father are killed in front of him, Agu runs into the jungle. It’s there that he’s eventually captured by one of the many different rebel factions. This faction is led by the Commandant (Idris Elba), a charismatic and messianic figure who recruits Agu to serve as one of his child soldiers.
(I’m assuming that the Commandant was, at least in part, based on Joseph Kony of Kony 2012 fame.)
At first, the Commandant presents himself as being a father figure to Agu and Agu looks up to him. The Commandant, for his part, orders Agu to kill a possibly innocent man and also keeps Agu and his other child soldiers stoned on various drugs. Whereas he once only wanted to reach the capital city and be reunited with his mother, Agu now becomes a ruthless killer. During the day, he fights. And, at night, he and the other soldiers run the risk of being sexually assaulted by the Commandant.
It’s a harrowing film, one that is made all the more poignant by the fact that, even as he’s committing terrible acts, Agu still remains, in many ways, an innocent child. It’s significant that, when the Commandant takes the soldiers to a brothel, Agu ends up sitting in a corner. He’s too young for the brothel but, under the twisted logic of his circumstances, he’s old enough to kill and be killed. It’s not easy to watch but it is a film that should be watched because this is what is happening in certain parts of the world right now.
Beasts of No Nation has gotten a lot of deserved attention for both Attah and Elba’s performances. It has also gotten a lot of attention because it’s being distributed by Netflix. At the same time the film opened in theaters, it was also made available online. And, to be honest, I’m glad that I watched Beasts of No Nation on Netflix because it allowed me to pause the film whenever it got too overwhelmingly sad. I cried a lot of tears while watching Beasts of No Nation. That’s just the type of film that it is.
Beasts of No Nation is not an easy film to watch. It doesn’t offer any easy solutions and the film itself ends on a note of terrifying ambiguity. But watch it you should. It’s an important film about a real-life outrage and it not only deserves to be seen but it needs to be seen as well.
If you didn’t get a chance to see Robert Zemeckis’s latest film, The Walk, in a theater and, at the very least, in 3D, you really missed out.
In fact, I’m actually a bit surprised that The Walk hasn’t gotten more attention than it has. Over the past year, whenever I would see the trailer play before another movie, it always seemed like a palpable sense of excitement descended over the theater. Then, The Walk was released, it got wonderful reviews, and …. nothing. Down here in Dallas, it played in theaters for three weeks and then it went away. Since I was on vacation for two of those weeks, I nearly missed it!
But I’m glad that I didn’t miss it. I say this despite the fact that I’m beyond terrified of heights and The Walk is all about creating the experience of balancing on a wire that’s been suspended between two of the tallest buildings in the world. As I watched the film, there were many times when I struggled to catch my breath. I had to put my hands over my mismatched eyes a few times. But I’m still glad that I saw the film.
The Walk is based on a true story. In 1974, French street performer Philippe Patet (Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who is even more adorable here than usual if that’s possible) and a group of accomplices manage to suspend a high wire between the twin towers of the just constructed World Trade Center. High above New York City, Philippe walked across the wire a total of six times. In the film, Philippe narrates the story while standing on top of the Statue of Liberty. From the minute that we see Gordon-Levitt and he starts to speak in a theatrical (but never implausible) French accent, we immediately like and relate to Philippe. By the end of the film, his triumph is our triumph.
At the same time, we also feel his sadness. Up until the film’s final line, when Philippe makes a subtle reference to it, 9-11 is never explicitly mentioned in The Walk but the shadow of that monstrous attack still looms over frame of the film. By recreating both Philippe’s act of daring and the Twin Towers themselves, Zemeckis attempts to reclaim the legacy of the World Trade Center from the asshole terrorists who destroyed it.
And The Walk really does put you right there on that wire. If ever there’s been a film that you must simply see in 3D, it’s The Walk. Just be prepared to watch some of the movie through your fingers.
