Nope (2022)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Nope (2022) – J. Peele

Jordan Peele’s third directorial outing (after Get Out, 2017, and Us, 2019) is also a genre pic, straddling sci-fi and horror. Daniel Kaluuya is back, as O.J., a stoic horse trainer who supplies animal talent for movies, following in his father’s footsteps (the father who dies in a freak accident at the start of the film). His sister, Emerald (Keke Palmer), is helping out with the business but has other ambitions. When mysterious things start happening out at the ranch, O.J. and Em decide that capturing them on film might be either a ticket to fame and success or at least a way to salvage the flailing business. I’m not spoiling anything when I say that they think they have seen a U.F.O. and that the U.F.O. may be abducting their horses.  Straightforward enough but then again it isn’t. Peele takes us into undiscovered territory with a side plot that features a child star who barely escaped an on-set chimpanzee attack (and who now runs a western-style theme park). While not as clearly laced with social commentary as his early features (although there are nods to Black heritage and perhaps a general querying of our need to be famous/desire attention), this is still a solid creature feature, the kind where the unusual is treated seriously and rational steps are taken to address it (see also Tremors, 1990). Worth a look (and still a director to follow).

 

Crimes of the Future (2022)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Crimes of the Future (2022) – D. Cronenberg

Aiming for, and occasionally attaining, the kind of transgressive feel that he achieved with Videodrome (1983), David Cronenberg’s Crimes of the Future lays out a possible reality where humans have evolved not to feel pain or to develop infections and some produce new unknown glands and organs in their bodies on a regular basis. Viggo Mortensen plays Saul Tenser who has turned his organ production into a vehicle for performance art: with the assistance of former “trauma surgeon” Caprice (Léa Seydoux), he has the new adaptations extracted from his body (using an antiquated “autopsy machine”) in front of an audience at various underground venues. Together, they have achieved a notoriety or fame that brings them to the attention of the New Vice Unit (Welket Bungué) and the National Organ Registry (Kristen Stewart and Don McKellar; she says that “surgery is the new sex”). At the same time, Tenser is approached by a secretive man, Lang Dotrice (Scott Speedman) creating purple candy bars who wants him to do a live autopsy of his son (who we earlier see eating a plastic rubbish basket). Eventually, it comes to light that he represents a rebellious group of plastic eaters who are pushing evolution into a direction not favoured by the authorities (but which sounds environmentally correct: eating the industrial waste that humans produce). Representatives of a company, LifeFormWare, that makes beds, chairs, and other furniture that are adapted to their owner’s physical being, are somehow invested in the outcomes of the collaboration between Tenser and Dotrice (but the film doesn’t clarify this). Overall, this is a dark film, both cinematographically and thematically, and it isn’t surprising that some viewers walked out of the premiere (most likely due to the graphic surgery scenes). But it feels funny that Cronenberg uses his big budget techniques for what might feel more edgy and “real” if low budget techniques were used (such as earlier in his career). Likely too, the film might be too slow for some, although scrambling to understand everything that Cronenberg’s very imaginative future holds, some of which remains unspoken, may occupy much of your time. Remembering the “ground rules” such as the fact that no one feels pain (except those who subversively seek it out) is an additional challenge. Worth a look, if you have a strong stomach.

 

The House of Fear (1945)/The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1939)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½     The House of Fear (1945) – R. W. Neill

☆ ☆ ☆         The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1939) – A. Werker

We watched a Sherlock Holmes double feature (well, across two nights), featuring, first, The House of Fear (1945), the tenth film in the long-running series starring Basil Rathbone as Holmes and Nigel Bruce as Watson, and then, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1939), the second in the series and one of only two (along with The Hound of the Baskervilles, also 1939) produced by Fox with a comparatively higher budget before the series moved to Universal. As readers will remember, I used to watch these Holmes films on Saturday nights on Channel 38 with my Dad, so it is a pleasure to be able to watch them now with my own sons. Moreover, The House of Fear is loosely based on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s story The Five Orange Pips, which I read to the boys when we were camping earlier this year. That story turns out to feature the KKK as the villains, responsible for sending orange pips to members of a family against whom they held a vendetta and wanted to kill. In the movie, the orange pips feature in an Agatha-Christie-styled plot where a group of retirees called the Good Comrades die one-by-one after receiving the pips with suspicion falling on the survivors until only one is left. Holmes steps in with his powers of deduction to solve the mystery before it is too late (and Watson provides comic relief plus discovers the final clue). It's a fast-paced and fun affair.  Rewind to six years earlier and The Adventures is considerably more staid (although we do get to see more of 221 Baker Street than ever) with Rathbone and Bruce slightly less settled in their characters (it is jarring to see Holmes snap at Watson, even though this side of his personality was evident in the stories). This film spotlights Holmes rivalry with Professor Moriarty (George Zucco) who vows to commit the crime of the century, challenging Holmes to stop him. Clever Moriarty devises a distraction for Holmes – mysterious letters sent to Ida Lupino and her brother that suggest they are to be murdered – even as he plots to steal the Crown Jewels from the Tower of London.  For most of the film, Holmes is indeed distracted by the strange case and Moriarty very nearly gets away with his caper, even as Lupino is only very nearly rescued.  But the plot doesn’t completely make sense (due to some scenes left on the cutting room floor, as the DVD booklet explains) and Fox dropped the series when the film was poorly received. Fortunately, Rathbone and Bruce were able to take their act to Universal where they managed another 12 films of fun and mystery.