The Love Witch (2016)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

The Love Witch (2016) – A. Biller 

Whereas this might look on the surface like an homage to (or spoof of) the sexploitation horror films of the late 60s/early 70s, it is something much more.  Director Anna Biller uses Brechtian tricks -- mainly the stilted vocal delivery of all characters but also the slow dreamlike pace – to get us to detach from the events at hand and ponder her aims.  And to her credit, these are not obvious nor simplistic.  Samantha Robinson stars as Elaine, the Love Witch of the title, who has fled San Francisco for a small Northern California town where she begins making candles and witchy objects and hooks up with an occult community (treated as a sizable minority in the town).  After the breakup of her marriage (we see her husband dead in flashback, seemingly after drinking a spiked drink), Elaine wants love and uses sex magick to try to get it.  Unfortunately, the men she lures do not respond as she had hoped – although they are keen for lovemaking (and self-objectification on Elaine’s part), they soon turn into needy emotional messes.  She may not have gotten the spells exactly right – or so she thinks. Soon, the police are after her – but he is certainly a hunky detective and she reels him in.  Despite its nudity and sex, it is easy to read this as a feminist film.  For one thing, it is told from Elaine’s point of view; she may not be aware of the inadequacy of sexualizing herself to achieve the love she wants – but viewers are; and other characters explicitly discuss women’s roles (and do not think it is to please men, first and foremost, as Elaine suggests). Beyond this, the film has many fanciful and surprising scenes (again with the quality of a dream) although some might feel it drags – but you’ve got to be impressed by Biller’s talents (she wrote, directed, edited, and did the production/costume design).  

 

Heavy Metal (1981)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Heavy Metal (1981) – G. Potterton et al.

When this was released, I was 14 and perhaps just the right age for its adolescent fantasy/sci-fi sex & violence cocktail.  But seeing it now, on the verge of its 40^th anniversary, was still something of a pleasure, notwithstanding its undeniably sexist pubescent wet dream fodder. “I’m not bad, I’m just drawn that way” was the line from another movie.  But seriously, this is R-rated animation that reminded me of Philip K. Dick or Neuromancer or Beastmaster or Dungeons & Dragons.  All the stories (there are 6 or 7) are drawn from the pages of Heavy Metal magazine and held together by a connecting “plot” about an evil green orb.  The music here isn’t exactly what I think of as heavy metal (Black Sabbath and Blue Oyster Cult aside) and this would be much better rescored with some stoner rock, methinks.  So, don’t come for the music because perhaps surprisingly it isn’t the main game.  Another surprise was that the film’s voice cast is drawn from the ranks of SCTV (John Candy, Eugene Levy, Harold Ramis, Joe Flaherty, etc.) – but it isn’t mostly comedy (although there is some and some things are clearly tongue in cheek).  Instead, this is for animation geeks circa 1981 with some really great images and direction (and no doubt for teenage stoners as well). 

 

The More the Merrier (1943)

 ☆ ☆ ☆

The More the Merrier (1943) – G. Stevens

Somehow, I found myself underwhelmed by The More the Merrier and I’m rather hard-pressed to know why.  Perhaps it is because I’ve watched a few screwball comedies from the era recently and this film is far less madcap, even if it does conjure up a few chuckles.  Perhaps it is because Charles Coburn is so great as the slick swindler in Preston Sturges’ The Lady Eve (1941) that seeing him in a somewhat goofier role is rather off-putting.  Beyond that, this film feels dated in a way that other comedies of the period do not – it might be the references to wartime problems with housing and the shortage of men but it also might be the more sexist tone that director George Stevens adopts.  The plot sees Joel McCrea and Coburn moving into Jean Arthur’s apartment (due to housing supply issues) and the subsequent romance that blossoms (or is orchestrated by Coburn).  She’s engaged to someone else (a government bureaucrat) but really shouldn’t be.  The film gets the three leads into a variety of silly situations but still it doesn’t feel as chaotic as it should (for the genre). There seems to be a need to play to the home team, soldiers heading overseas and those remaining behind who are missing them – and this gentle aim undercuts any sharper bite that the comedy might deserve.  Again, I suspect my under-reaction is all about the comparison to other better films in the genre.  But don’t get me wrong – all three actors are funny and worth watching, they’re just better in other films.

  

The Third Murder (2017)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

The Third Murder (2017) – H. Kore-eda

I think I remember hearing that Kore-eda’s The Third Murder (the film before his Cannes winning Shoplifters, 2018) was a big hit in Japan. It stars Koji Yakusho as Misumi, a man who has confessed to murdering his boss, a factory owner, which would be his third murder, as he was only recently released from prison after serving a sentence for killing two yakuza loan sharks 30 years earlier.  Masaharu Fukuyama plays Shigemori, the defence lawyer who digs deeper into Misumi’s case when the facts don’t really line up.  For most of its running time, Kore-eda delivers us a crisp legal thriller as Shigemori and his team interview various witnesses and potential accessories, following up every lead and discussing matters with the somewhat cagey or confused Misumi.  Shigemori even travels to Hokkaido where the earlier murders took place.  However, Kore-eda seemingly has a different goal than to just serve up a genre film – his real interest lies in making a case that the death penalty as deliberated in Japan is extremely problematic, primarily because there is social pressure placed on everyone to make the system run smoothly and efficiently and thus dissent may be suppressed.  In getting this point across, Kore-eda seems to leave the answer to the question of Misumi’s real motives ambiguous.  Another goal of equating Misumi and Shigemori -- both have daughters as did the murder victim – seems more in line with Kore-eda’s usual focus on family drama, but the dots aren’t fully connected here.  I suspect that Japanese audiences may have gotten more out of the film in its native language and context. Still, the film does reward those who want to think about it, after the fact.

 

Ford v. Ferrari (2019)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Ford v. Ferrari (2019) – J. Mangold

There’s a lot of chest-thumping in Ford v. Ferrari – but what did you expect?  Matt Damon plays retired driver and race car designer/team leader Carroll Shelby and Christian Bale plays anti-social hotshot driver Ken Miles who team up to try to beat the Italians at the 1966 LeMans Grand Prix of Endurance (a 24-hour race).  I’m not into cars but nevertheless director James Mangold manages to pull all the strings to set up various tensions that keep the movie churning along:  underdog vs. Goliath, artistry vs. corporate manipulation, mano a mano.  Although Ferrari has to be beat, the real enemy here is Ford itself or at least their exec Leo Beebe (Josh Lucas) who doesn’t like Miles because he doesn’t project the right image to customers.  Lee Iacocca (yes him; Jon Bernthal) is in the Shelby/Miles camp but seems to have less power to influence Henry Ford II.  There’s a lot of back and forth over whether Miles will be able to drive for Ford or not.  And then there are the racing sequences which are in fact pretty good.  As usual, Bale loses himself in his character who does a lot of muttering while driving (in a Midlands accent that requires Bale to do something funny with his upper lip). Damon is, well, Damon.  The final coda feels tacked on and maybe should have been relegated to an onscreen postscript.  Fawning reviewers suggest that the film is a return to mainstream Hollywood filmmaking of yore (uh Rocky?), but your mileage (ha, ha) will depend on how much you enjoy this genre and its formula.

 

The Autopsy of Jane Doe (2016)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

The Autopsy of Jane Doe (2016) – A. Øvredal

With that title, you know exactly what you are going to get in this horror thriller -- and thanks to the acting of Brian Cox and Emile Hirsch (as father-son coroners) and the direction by André Øvredal, we actually get it.  In other words, this is a tight little chiller (at 87 minutes) that manages to keep its creepy sensations going all the way through.  Of course, if you are looking for something plausible or believable, then that isn’t what you’ll find here.  The film starts spooky (an autopsy of a mysterious young woman in a dark basement) and quickly moves to supernatural bumps in the night and then well, yeah, worse.  But apart from the autopsy itself (gruesome), this is more in the Val Lewton tradition of things that you don’t see (that could get you) rather than explicit (usually phony) monsters made with makeup, prosthetics, or special effects.  An amusement park ride for those escapist October moods.

Motherless Brooklyn (2019)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Motherless Brooklyn (2019) – E. Norton

The structure of the old political film noir (corrupt officials are behind everything) is plain to see in the bones of Edward Norton’s second directorial effort.  However, Norton loses the bite of the best noir by slowing the pace and labouring over every moment.  Sure, the 1950s period details are perfect and the various players are well chosen – but everyone, particularly Norton, is given far too much screen time to try to dazzle us.  A crisper film that tightened some of the more extended scenes (Lionel’s night in the jazz club) and moved more efficiently from clue to clue would have been better.  Of course, the aim here may have been to replicate the woozy success of Chinatown, where the hero is lost in the labyrinth, unable to piece together the facts until it is too late.  Norton’s detective protagonist (Motherless Brooklyn/Lionel Essrog/Freakshow) is designed with built in “flaws” in that he has Tourette’s Syndrome (the film was apparently approved by a society of people with this disorder) – which makes his investigation all the more difficult (or maybe not; it feels mostly like a showcase for Norton to demonstrate his acting prowess not unlike other roles he has taken).  Bruce Willis is used for good effect in a small part, Willem Dafoe overdoes it a bit, and Alec Baldwin seems rather too subdued (a missed opportunity). But, for fans of the genre, this may still hit the spot, even if the ultimate feeling is one of disappointment.