Stuff Stephanie in the Incinerator (1989)

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three star

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Something is ever so appealing about films that have extra-long, descriptive titles. When I sat down to view Stuff Stephanie in the Incinerator, I assumed someone named Stephanie was going to be burned alive in an incinerator. I’ve seen a few films that involve murder evidence being burned in an incinerator, but never an entire body. Needless to say, I was bouncing off the walls when I got my hands on this movie, especially since it is a Troma film. Unfortunately, my expectations were a bit too high. It wasn’t a horrible film, it was just so confusing and not in the good way.

I began to lost interest halfway through the film, but the beginning of Stuff Stephanie in the Incinerator was amazing. It starts off with two strangers, Paul and Stephanie, who are prisoners in a mansion. The owner of this mansion, Roberta, is obviously a man crossdressed as an elderly socialite, and she wants to watch Paul and Stephanie have sex. Of course, the two “lovebirds” are opposed to the idea of having forced sexual intercourse for Roberta’s viewing pleasure, so they attempt to escape her evil clutches only to find themselves back in her hell house. Then, all of a sudden, the film takes an unexpected turn for the worst. Roberta takes off her wig to reveal herself as Robert, an actor paid by Stephanie and Paul (whose real names are Casey and Jared) to participate in their over-the-top role-playing. As the film goes on, it’s obvious that Casey is not too keen on the role-playing and desperately wants to leave Jared because he is absolutely insane and obsessed with doing one role-play after another.  The rest of the film is filled with twist after twist, and ends with a very surprising conclusion.

I enjoy a twist or two in a film, but this was just too much.  Every time I took my eyes off the screen for more than a second, there was a major change in the plot. The constant shift from one story to another became annoying, and I had to rewind the film a few times to figure out what was going on. Also, there is an incinerator scene, but it’s not as cool as I thought it was going to be, so that was another disappointment. Aside from all the negative comments, Stuff Stephanie in the Incinerator honestly wasn’t all that bad. It was entertaining and full of all kinds of stupid fun. I just really wish it would have been about a perverted old woman and her sex prisoners.

-Britnee Lombas

Abraxas: Guardian of the Universe (1991)

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three star

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As a fan of both Arnold Schwarzenegger shoot ’em ups and films of questionable quality starring pro wrestlers, I had very little choice but to partake in the doomed-from-the-start prospect of watching Abraxas: Guardian of the Universe when its cheap DVD sleeve caught my eye at the second-hand store. As a Z-Grade Terminator knockoff starring Jesse “The Body” Ventura, Abraxas had almost zero potential to be a decent sci-fi cheapie, but almost all of the potential in the world to be a fabulous trainwreck. Its plot synopsis of about “intergalactic police officers” & “a hybrid being that has the power to destroy the universe” boasted a special sort of promise for a campy mess. What was most surprising about Abraxas, however, was not exactly how irredeemably bad it was (it was pretty bad) but what it happened to get right & wrong about the Terminator franchise.

The original Terminator film from 1984 has a lean efficiency to it that makes it feel like an especially well-funded Roger Corman production, right down to the Dick Miller cameo in the gun shop. Part of what James Cameron does so well in that film is keep his audience in the dark. He allows questions about the exact nature of Schwarzenegger’s time-traveling robot assassin to hang in the air until they need to be answered. The gradually unfolding plot creates an feeling of dread & mystique that makes the original film a fun watch to this day (four sequels later), at the very least in admiration of how a familiar, but complicated story gets laid out in an unfamiliar, but understandable way in its initial telling. Abraxas: Guardian of the Universe has no patience for this sort of gradual roll-out & instead blurts every idiotic idea it his on its mind directly to the audience in its opening exposition.

In just a few short minutes of Jesse Ventura’s helpfully explanatory grumbling we learn that his protagonist (the titular Abraxas, of course) is an 11,000 year old intergalactic supercop, known as a “Finder”, who has to renew his vows to “defend all life” every 100 years. His latest mission is to “find” (read: “terminate”) an ex-partner, Secundus, who has gone renegade. Secundus’ evil plan involves impregnating an “Earth woman” in order to give birth to some sort of cyborg anti-Christ with the power to destroy the universe. Before Abraxas can leave for this mission, however, he must undergo a painful “reinforcement” of his skeletal & muscular structure through “short-wave irradiation” & “ozone layering”, a highly risky process that requires him to (I’m not kidding) play word association games with an A.I. surgeon (that helpfully give us some background info on his home planet of Sargacia) so he doesn’t lose his mind from the pain. If this sounds like a lot of info to lay on the audience in a single soliloquy, that’s because it is. The whole ordeal is nearly as exhausting as the restructural “ozone layering” or whatever the Hell he was babbling about.

As wrongheaded as Abraxas is about rolling out a Terminator-type plot in an understandable way, it’s also oddly prescient about where the series would go in its second installment, T-2: Judgment Day. Released just weeks before T-2, Abraxas has way too many similarities to the cult classic to not have been a direct mockbuster version of it. It’s as if the entirety of the film were written based on the promotional materials of what Judgement Day was going to be about. For some strange reason, the ad campaign for T-2 made no bones about the fact that Schwarzenegger was going to be returning as a “good guy” in the second film, despite that twist’s potential to make for a fun shock for an unsuspecting audience. Abraxas mirrors T-2‘s basic structure of two superhuman warriors fighting over the fate of a young child, except that it muddles the details of which warrior (good or bad) would be structurally superior & what the good guy’s relationship with the would-be victim’s mother would look like (I don’t remember Schwarzenegger’s cyborg falling in love with Sarah Conner, but Abraxas totally falls for her thousands-of-years-too-young-for-him equivalent in this dreck; typical male-female Hollywood age differences, right?).

Abraxas: Guardian of the Universe certainly does very little to hide the fact that it exists solely to wean off some of those sweet, sweet Terminator bucks. The film shamelessly uses the word “terminate” at least three times, there’s a scene where the evil “Finder” Secundus vaporizes a dude just to steal his clothes, and both Secundus & Abraxas are more or less directly impersonating Arnold’s very recognizable accent throughout the film (with Secundus’ attempts being a much more accurate interpretation than Ventura’s). Given the obscene cheapness of the film’s sets (warehouses, camp sites, offices, wilderness, etc.), the fact that the futuristic laser guns that don’t shoot visible lasers (they just set off sparks & explosions), and the batshit insane repetition of certain (costly, I’m guessing) identical explosions shots in the film’s montages & final conflict, it’s entirely believable that Abraxas was created in a rush as a composite of ideas from the original Terminator film & ideas lifted from the promotional material for the second. Their weeks-apart release dates pretty much seal that thought completely.

As for the film’s camp value outside of a Terminator-imitator, there are several things worth a chuckle. The repetition of the identical explosions is maddening, but also amusing. There’s also a completely needless side plot about space alien bureaucrats bitching about being assigned to “a planet no one’s ever heard of,” an over-the-top scene where not-Sarah Conner becomes pregnant & gives birth in the span of a minute at the wave of a hand, and an out-of-nowhere cameo from Jim Belushi as a befuddled principle that left me scratching my head. Most of the film’s non-Terminator camp value comes from “The Body” himself, though. Ventura could be a menace in the ring & on the mic ringside in his heyday, but in the early 90s he looked more like a bald stepdad confused with what to do with his gigantic body. As he tries to reconcile the super-serious “finding” mission at hand with his newfound tender feelings for an Earth woman, it’s pretty funny to watch Ventura try to make Abraxas out to be anything but a coldhearted robot, which the film often forgets he’s not. It’s not a knee-slappingly funny performance, but it’s definitely a fascinating one & definitely worth a look for a bored Terminator or oldschool WWF superfan looking to kill 90 minutes on an especially boring afternoon.

-Brandon Ledet

The Independent (2000)

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In our attempts to crack open the mysteries behind our current Movie of the Month, Ate De Jong’s basic cable oddity Highway to Hell, Britnee mentioned that it was the only film she could recall that featured all four members of the Stiller clan. Thanks to a helpful recommendation from a reader (thanks Tom!) we now have another entry to add to that list. Jerry Stiller, his wife Ann Meara, and their children Ben & Amy also all appear in the 2000 indie comedy (appropriately-titled) The Independent. To discuss The Independent solely in terms of its relationship to Highway to Hell, however, would be doing the film a huge disservice. It’s so much better than that. I went into the film expecting a few decent one-off gags from the always-dependable Jerry, but I left completely in love.

In The Independent, Jerry Stiller plays Morty Fineman, a Roger Corman archetype who’s made a career out of schilling an endless stream of schlock for decades on end. Unlike Corman, who is generally calm on the surface but expressive in his filmmaking, Stiller is on the same violently explosive vibe he brought to his role as Frank Constanza on Seinfeld. He also (for the most part) lacks Corman’s thirst for making art films, like The Masque of the Red Death, and sticks mostly to genre fare that’s main selling point is “tits, ass, and bombs”. Although Corman himself appears in the film (along with former cronies Peter Bogdanovich & Ron Howard) to offer the film a touch of credibility, Stiller’s protagonist is less of an homage to that single filmmaker, but more of a ZAZ-type spoof of the entirety of schlock directors from Russ Meyer to The Golan-Globus folks to anyone who’s ever made a blacksploitation film (and even Fred Williamson appears in the film to afford credibility on that end). Morty Fineman is the entire B-movie industry wrapped up into one convenient, hilarious package.

A lot of the soul of The Independent is in the brief clips & promotional material for Morty’s work. There’s a Meyer-esque sexploitation pic about an eco-friendly biker girl gang, a wonderful mushroom cloud pun mockup for a film called LSD-Day, a Fred Williamson-falls-in-love-with-a-soul-sister-robot blacksploitation flick called Foxy Chocolate Robot, etc. I counted at least fifteen of these schlock spoofs represented in brief clips & there are endless dozens of more ideas listed in a “complete filmography” that rolls in tandem with the end credits. Each idea plays just as well as you’d expect from a film that boasts a cast with its roots both the cult sketch comedy legends The Ben Stiller Show & Mr. Show (Bob Odenkirk, Andy Dick, Janeane Garafalo, Brian Posehn, etc.). I don’t think there was a two minute stretch of the film when I wasn’t at least chuckling & a large part of that success was due to how well disperser these schlock spoofs are. They’re evenly spaced from beginning to end with only the flimsiest of narrative glue about Fineman’s struggle in his old age to climb out of financial ruin either by filming a morally-reprehensible musical about a serial killer or accepting a film festival gig in a shithole town he dubs “Blowjob, Nevada.”

At the time of its release, reviews on The Indepenent were mixed at best, but I honestly believe it was ahead of its time. If pitched in the current climate, it would make for a knock-out HBO comedy series. Its mockumentary format, improve-based looseness, tendency towards one-off gags & celebrity cameos, and loveable reprobate of a protagonist would all play perfectly into the modern HBO comedy. It’s likely that the other Stiller clan affair, Highway to Hell, will remain in obscurity for the foreseeable future, but I like to imagine that The Independent still has a chance to achieve a cult classic status. It’s a wonderful little love-letter to the shlock movie industry that recognizes its faults (like the literally fatal risks of some of the less-than-safe sets) as much as its glorious heights. I’m not going to pretend to know the entirety of Jerry Stiller’s career, but I will say this is the best feature-length vehicle I’ve ever seen for his brand of comedy. Out of respect for the comedian & respect for schlock as a medium, I plan on making this film a frequent recommendation to help keep its name alive. So, if you also have respect for either or just love a well-executed comedy sketch (or a dozen), I highly recommend checking it out for yourself. It’s damn funny.

-Brandon Ledet

From The PG Era to a Solid R: John Cena’s Promising Career in Raunchy Comedies

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There weren’t that many surprises for me in the new Amy Schumer-penned romcom Trainwreck. As was typical with almost all Judd Apatow comedies, the film was generally pleasant and supported a wealth of great gags & a wonderful cast, but also was in desperate need of some third-act editing. Recent over-exposure to Schumer’s more unrestrained writing on her sketch comedy TV show had me looking for something a little more (excuse the pun) off the rails from Trainwreck than the usual Apatow fare, though, so my expectations for something more unconventional were more than a little off base. I liked it; I just wasn’t caught unprepared for most of its content.

However, I was taken aback by the comedic performance of pro wrestler/in-the-flesh superhero John Cena. My surprise with Cena began before even the opening credits, when a trailer for an upcoming Amy Poehler/Tina Fey comedy called Sisters featured the typically clean-cut wrestler decorated in neck tats & a beanie, informing a hot-to-trot Fey that his safe word is “keep going”. That was just the start. In Trainwreck itself, Cena is even more subversive in dismantling his squeaky clean persona by appearing as he normally would in public, but with much raunchier content backing him up. It was difficult to determine from the film’s trailer how just how much of Cena we’d be seeing outside of that quotable “Mark Wahlberg” one-liner, but it turns out that we get to see way more of him than most people would’ve asked for. His character, Steven, engages (with varying degrees of success) in dirty talk, fully-nude on-screen lovemaking, undercutting questions about his own sexuality, and an intense pantomime of an ejaculation that will . . . not . . . end. As a fan of raunchy sex comedies, I found these gags just the right tone of playfully amusing. As a pro wrestling fan, I found them downright shocking.

For anyone who (understandably) has not been paying attention to the WWE since the creative heights of its so-called Attitude Era of the late 90s/early 00s, John Cena has more or less dominated the company’s narrative for the past decade. Shifting away from some of the more gruesomely violent & overtly sexual content of yesteryear, WWE sorta-unofficially promoted Cena as the face of the company. With his classic military looks & his character’s (almost) forgotten beginnings as a white rapper, Cena has been scripted within the ring to be more or less a superhero for young children to look up to. His stubborn refusal to “turn heel”, constant sloganizing about never giving up & always being respectful, and his never-ending championship victories appeal directly to younger fans, which drives a lot of older, nerdier smarks to disgust, deeming his reign as The PG Era. This behavior has spilled outside the ring as well. In his WWE Studios movies, Cena has always played the unblemished hero, like in his action movie vehicle The Marine, or a superhero version of himself, like in the Scooby-Doo/WWE crossover where he defeats a robotic ghost bear & an Indiana Jones style bolder with his bare hands. Then, there’s the fact that he in “real life” has more Make-a-Wish Foundation charity work than any other celebrity on record. In short, he is a ludicrously wholesome persona inside the ring & out.

The thing about Cena is that he really is likeable. There’s just way too much content out there about him being likeable. If you religiously follow WWE’s two flagship shows, Raw & SmackDown, (God help you) then there’s six hours of content on a weekly basis about how likeable John Cena is. And that’s not even counting the monthly Pay-Per-Views or the reality shows. That’s gotta wear even the most enthusiastic viewers down after a few years. Fortunately, though, things seem to be (gradually) changing. Cena’s niche at the company has been looking more like a respectable midcard position for the past few months (although, as I’m typing this now it looks like they’re pushing another championship match for him at this year’s SummerSlam) and he’s been putting in some of the best in-ring work of his career & helping get over lesser-known talents through his recent John Cena’s U.S. Open Challenge angle. What’s even more remarkable, though, is how he’s subverting his spotless image through comedies like Sisters & Trainwreck.

I first noticed this shift during the last few episodes of the now-legendary NBC comedy Parks & Recreation, where Cena appeared as himself on the episode “The Johnny Karate Super Awesome Musical Explosion Show” (one of my favorite episodes of the series). Cena did little to taint his superhero image in that appearance, but there was a spark of hope there in his willingness to make a fool of himself, when he so often manages to land on top. It also helped that Parks boasted a deep roster of talented comedians that could land Cena bit parts in worthwhile bigscreen comedies through networking. It’s tough to say whether it was Poehler’s Parks connection that helped Cena land his part in Sisters or the odd fact that Amy Schumer once dated pro wrestler Dolph Ziggler that helped him land his persona-shedding role in Trainwreck, but it couldn’t have hurt in either situation. No matter what the cause, Cena now seems to have his foot in the door for a life on the bigscreen (as opposed to WWE Studios’ straight-to-VOD dreck) and his career could be at a pivotal point because of it.

It’s a very rare feat for the WWE to successfully launch a career in Hollywood. Hulk Hogan is certainly the earliest example, but even he had a tough time making a lasting go of it after his ridiculous start in titles like No Holds Barred & Rocky III. Outside of a couple 90s goof-offs like Suburban Commando & Mr. Nanny, he hasn’t made much of a memorable mark outside the ring. Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, on the other hand, has been a much clearer success story with his roles in franchises like The Fast & The Furious and G.I. Joe. Even The Rock’s been struggling to branch out & express himself as an artist, though. Despite a few wildly off-the-wall turns in films like Southland Tales and Pain & Gain, he’s been landing a lot of roles he would have been typecast in over a decade ago. Schlock like Hercules & San Andreas aren’t nearly enough of a step-up from his days as The Scorpion King, considering the talents he’s put on film in his his stranger roles.

Both The Rock & Hulk Hogan have long struggled to expand the scope of their acting careers once they got their foot in the door and now it’s John Cena’s turn to fight that battle. Starting his career in major films by degrading himself in raunchy comedies is honestly a brilliant first step in that direction. Cena’s showing us that his spotless superhero persona does not necessarily define him as a talent. Let’s face it; a lot of the kids who would’ve latched onto the original version of his current “Hustle, Loyalty, Respect” routine in its initial run would be in at least their late teens now, so it makes total sense that his content would grow up with them. I could be wrong & Cena could be slipping back into his old ways (starting as soon as SummerSlam next month), but there’s at the very least a glimmer of hope for change in his roles in Sisters & Trainwreck.

I’ve recently grown to like Cena despite my initial misgivings. His repetitive nature really isn’t all that unique within the world of pro wrestling, after all, and he can be really entertaining when he puts in his best work. Besides, it’s really difficult to deny the power of those Make-a-Wish numbers. I’d just also like to see him continue to branch out into these filthy, degenerate characters in goofy comedies until it’s no longer jarring to the audience. It might be his best chance at establishing himself outside of his roles as a “sports entertainer” and an eternal “good guy”. As Hogan & The Rock have proved time & time again, the WWE ring will always be there with open arms for whenever he needs it. There’s no reason, then, not to go out there & make himself vulnerable in a gross-out comedy or two. Judging by his work in Trainwreck alone, he’s already off to a great start.

-Brandon Ledet

Highway to Hell (1991): A Stiller Family Affair

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I know that we lightly touched on the fact that both Ben and Jerry Stiller made appearances in our discussion of July’s Movie of the Month, Highway to Hell, but I recently found out that two other members of the Stiller family were in the film: Ann Meara (Jerry’s wife/Ben’s mother) and Amy Stiller (Jerry’s daughter/Ben’s sister). The family members have appeared in multiple films with one another (Heavy Weights, Zoolander, etc.), but I can’t think of any other film that has four Stillers in it at the same time. What exactly happened here? Did Jerry beg the casting crew to allow his wife and kids to tag along? Was Jerry even the first member casted? Highway to Hell has a special connection to the bizarre Stiller family, and I’m determined to find out why.

Ben Stiller was given not one, but two small roles in Highway to Hell: a demented fry cook at Hell’s only diner (Pluto’s) and Attila the Hun. I have to say, this really shows off his versatility as an actor. Prior to this film, he had a pretty short acting resumé with a couple of minor television/film appearances, so I think it’s safe to say that Ben wasn’t the first of the Stiller’s to join the Highway to Hell cast. The same goes for Amy. She only appeared in a couple of movies prior to her forgettable performance as Cleopatra in Highway to Hell.

Now, Ma and Pa Stiller are a completely different story. Jerry Stiller and Ann Meara both had lengthy careers as comedians at this point, and after all, Highway to Hell was a horror/comedy. In the film, Jerry is a cop that sits in Pluto’s waiting for a cup of coffee he will never get, and Ann is the diner’s waitress that will never fill up his cup. It was like one of their classic skits on the The Ed Sullivan Show, except it was terrible and not really funny.

My official conclusion is that Jerry and Ann’s career as variety show comedians and sitcom stars was dwindling down. They needed money and their kids needed acting experience, and lucky for them, Highway to Hell needed cheap actors. It was probably like some sort of buy one et one free deal. Sadly, the film was a flop and no fame or fortune was attained by the Stiller clan.

For more on July’s Movie of the Month, Ate De Jong’s 1991 action comedy Highway to Hell, check out our Swampchat discussion of the film & last week’s look at De Jong’s other (more successful) 1991 cult classic Drop Dead Fred.

-Britnee Lombas

Hot Rod (2007)

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fourstar

Although I’ve only ever heard good things about the Andy Samberg vehicle Hot Rod, I’ve been avoiding actually watching it, because, you know, Andy Samberg. I used to find Samberg occasionally funny on Saturday Night Live, but it was difficult to imagine him being tolerable for more than just a few minutes at a time. With the enthusiasm & self-restraint of a toddler hopped up on sugar, Samberg sounded like he could be a chore (babysitting, specifically) at a 90 min stretch. Having now actually seen Hot Rod, I can confirm that Samberg can be occasionally exhausting within the film, but his antics are broken up & balanced by enough other comedic voices that it’s not really a problem. Also, it helps that the movie is damn funny from start to finish.

It’s tempting to attribute Hot Rod‘s success to its supporting players (scene-stealing doofuses Bill Hader & Danny McBride, a ludicrously violent Ian McShane, Will Arnett as a perfect 80s cad- right down to the sunglasses & convertible, etc.), but this is unmistakably Andy Samberg’s movie. Playing an overgrown man-child who wants to be a daredevil just like his deceased father, Samberg’s general mode here is slapstick comedy. Often missing jumps on his dirtbike & puking from the pain, Samberg’s titular Rod is far from the Evil Kineival Jr. he imagines himself to be. There’s a lot of solid humor derived from the disparity between Rod’s confidence & his actual abilities, which allows you to have a good laugh even while he drowns, catches fire, or explodes. I went into the film not sure that I could handle a feature length project from Samberg, but I left wishing there were more just like it.

If I had to pinpoint Hot Rod‘s exact subgenre, I’d place it somewhere in the self-aware dumb comedy category. Titles like MacGruber, Tammy, and Gentlemen Broncos all come to mind in consideration of just how dumb & low class the film intentionally is. More than aware that it’s mostly good for a long string of non sequitur gags, Hot Rod tends to poke fun at itself whenever it has to actually become a real movie. For instance, most of the film boasts a killer 80s synthpop soundtrack, but towards the climax when Rod’s crew has their inevitable third act falling out, the score suddenly switches to melodramatic string arrangements. There’s also lines like “Have I ever shown you a picture of my dad? You gotta see it. He’s super dead,” and the fact that the entire plot is anchored in Rod’s attempts to raise money for his stepdad’s lifesaving surgery, just so he can get healthy enough to get his ass kicked. With Hot Rod, Samberg found the perfect vehicle for his manic toddler aesthetic and what could have easily been a chore turned out to be a thoroughly hilarious & surprisingly self-aware comedy I can see myself rewatching way more often than I should.

-Brandon Ledet

Creep (2015)

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threehalfstar

Newcomer Patrick Brice is having one hell of a year. His super uncomfortable black sex comedy The Overnight was the perfect mix of terrifying & hilarious and now his only other feature to date, Creep, has also reached its wide release the same year, revealing that Brice is far from a one-trick pony. If anything, Creep shows that Brice can achieve the same uncomfortable, but darkly funny intimacy of The Overnight with even less resources. Creep is a found footage horror film with an on-screen cast of exactly two: a wonderfully deranged Mark Duplass & Brice himself, who operates the camera & narrates when necessary. There’s no other way to put this, really: Creep is an inspiration. It’s one of those small-scale movies that remind you just how much you can accomplish with two (immensely talented) people & a camera.

Mark Duplass takes on most of the film’s acting burden, playing the titular creep with an alarming sense of dark humor. Duplass’ character is a collection of off-putting details. Behind his awkward smile, haircut, track pants, awkward everything really, it’s obvious from the get go that something is deeply wrong with the man. He claims to be a relapsing cancer survivor who hired Brice’s cameraman to document the last days of his life for his unborn son, but there’s something off about his performance that gradually begins to alarm Brice that he is not what he seems. Despite Duplass’ character’s relentless positivity that requires constant hugs, high fives, and baby talk (or maybe because of that positivity), the film’s title keeps you anticipating the moment the hammer will fall. When will the Creep reveal himself for what he truly is? By the time Duplass is asking his unsuspecting, newfound buddy questions like “Have you ever done anything you’re really ashamed of?” and introducing him to the third character of the film (and the movie’s true star), a werewolf mask named Peach Fuzz, the tension becomes almost unbearable. And then it gets worse.

Creep is not only a found footage film; it’s a found footage film set mostly in the woods, so it’d be understandable if it initially comes across as yet another Blair Witch knock-off, like say the goofy sasquatch movie Exists, but it’s much stranger than that. Just like with the haunted boat nightmare Triangle, Creep doesn’t let its genre or set location define its parameters. It isn’t until the film leaves the woods that you begin to understand just how strange the story Brice is telling truly is. Duplass does an excellent job of anchoring a film that asks a lot of him, and it’s refreshing to see his menacing side from last year’s The One I Love return to the screen, but it’s truly Brice’s triumph that’s the story here. In just two features, the relative unknown has found new ways to subvert intimacy & humor in a way that, well, creeps you out. It’s going to be interesting to see where his career goes in the future with larger casts & bigger budgets, but for now it’s incredible how much he’s been able to accomplish with so few moving parts.

-Brandon Ledet

Mr. Holmes (2015)

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threehalfstar

Director Bill Condon’s name isn’t one you’re likely to hear often. He’s not a particularly flashy director; his films have a sort of low-key level-headedness to them that feel entirely different from the likes of visually overreaching auteurs like a David Lynch or a Wes Anderson. Very early in his career, however, he did helm two fantastic costume dramas that both packed a surprising punch considering their calmly handsome exteriors: Kinsey and Gods & Monsters. Due mostly to their superbly talented casts, a generally pleasing visual palette, and an unusually frank take on the grey areas of human sexuality, both Kinsey and God’s & Monsters are real emotional powerhouses that subvert the low-key vibes they boast on the surface. Condon has an elegant, adult touch to his costume dramas & biopics that make them alarmingly rewatchable & lingeringly poignant in a way you wouldn’t expect considering the basic confines of their structure.

After a brief foray into the business of Twilight sequels (a venture I can only hope paid nicely), Condon is seemingly getting back to what he does best. His latest film, Mr. Holmes, brings in Ian McKellen & Laura Linney, who were both fantastic in their respective roles in God’s & Monsters and Kinsey, for yet another low-key costume drama that initially seems suspiciously run-of-the-mill, but actually packs an emotional wallop. In Mr. Holmes‘ portrayal of what is probably the world’s most famous detective (and easily the world’s most famous Sherlock) struggling to reconcile his unusually sharp observational skills with the encroaching doom of senility, Condon has found a way to add another unexpected layer of depth to a character that has become perhaps overly-familiar at this point in pop culture. Just like how the costume dramas & biopics of Condon’s past have complicated & subverted their audience’s genre expectations, Mr. Holmes plays with what you would expect out of a Sherlock Holmes movie by slowly removing the elegance & mental facilities you would expect from Holmes himself.

Of course, this is just as much Ian McKellen’s triumph as it is Condon’s. The idea of McKellen playing an aging Sherlock Holmes will obviously be a major selling point for a lot of people tuning in to this humble indie drama & Mr. Holmes does not disappoint on that end. In three separate, but narratively interwoven storylines McKellen plays the infamous gumshoe at varying times of his waning life. In some scenes he’s as keen as ever & in others he struggles to walk the short distance across his study. Unlike with traditional Sherlock narratives, the point of Mr. Holmes is not to solve the mystery of a specific crime, but for the detective to solve both the mystery of human nature & the more haunting mysteries that the daily battles with a fading mind present. As Holmes slips into senility he begins to regret his life-long dedication to facts & logic and forces himself to learn how to connect with people on a more empathetic & emotional level before he loses the ability to connect at all. McKellen can be absolutely heart-breaking in these dual struggles, his piercing blue eyes calling for help from behind an eerily aging face.

This doesn’t mean that the movie can’t be fun as well. When Holmes is having one of his “good days”, McKellen shines as a comic talent. He’s got a bitchy, effete, intellectual air to him that can make you snort with laughter with the mere roll of an eye or an off-hand joke about death. This is especially true in scenes where Holmes is interacting directly with his own celebrity, scoffing at the novelized & feature film versions of his life and poking fun at the costume he’s typically depicted wearing. It’s McKellen’s tender, but catty approach to comedy that lures you into a comfortable lull that suddenly hits you right in the heart once all three of the film’s storylines culminate in a tidy, but satisfying conclusion. Condon & McKellen (along with a top-notch performance from an always-welcome Linney) have together crafted a rare thing: the well-behaved, but emotionally potent indie costume drama with only rare visual showiness (mostly in the occasional period-specific artifact: a worn book or photograph, bee-keeping gear, an ancient glass harmonica, etc.). Mr. Holmes might not be the best or most ambitious work of either Condon or McKellen’s careers, but it is a special treat watch something so simple shine so brightly– even if it is, in Sherlock’s case at least, the last time around.

-Brandon Ledet

Ant-Man (2015)

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fourhalfstar

When I was a kid, I had a deep and abiding fondness for any film or movie property that featured small people finding novel uses for normal-sized implements. I voraciously read The Borrowers and the sequels to it that my local library happened to have, and I have clear memories of the television series The Littles airing in the mornings before kindergarten, although I’m sure it was well into syndication by then. My absolute favorite, however, was always Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, with its theme park-esque magnification of the trials and travails of one’s own backyard (including one particularly nasty scorpion, which I have no doubt instilled a phobia of the arachnid in an entire generation of children, myself included). Ant-Man has many moments that directly reminded me of sequences in Honey. Part of that might be that the Alamo Drafthouses specialize in editing together interesting footage tangentially related to the film being screened, and my nostalgia goggles were primed due to the inclusion of the scene from Honey in which the Szalinski’s daughter first befriends Anty; moreover, Ant-Man takes pleasure in revisiting the magic of the ant’s eye view. Overall, it’s a fun ride.

Comedy staple Paul Rudd stars as Scott Lang, a recently released ex-con who was incarcerated after hacking into a corporation’s computer system in order to refund millions that were acquired through overcharging customers. His primary goal now is to once again become a part of the life of his young daughter Cassie (Abby Ryder Fortson; fellow Young Avengers fans know Cassie as the future Stature). In order to do so, Scott has to convince his ex-wife Maggie (Judy Greer, reduced here to playing “somebody’s mom/ex-wife” as she so undeservedly often is; see also: Jurassic World) that he’s capable of handling that kind of responsibility. Complicating matters is Paxton (Bobby Canavale), a San Francisco detective and Maggie’s new fiancé. At the core, this is a pretty domestic story. You’ve probably seen that movie before; I know I have. That’s where the super-science comes in.

In 1989, Hank Pym (Michael Douglas), creator and original occupant of the Ant-Man suit, walked away from S.H.I.E.L.D. in the hopes of preventing them from weaponizing the technology to create an army of insect-sized soldiers. Now, several years deep into retirement, Pym is back to prevent his unbalanced former protégé (Corey Stoll), who has recreated his technology and foresees its potential use as a weapon both for the military and for suppressing civilian protest and dissent, from auctioning his “Yellowjacket” technology to the highest bidder. While Scott is unable to find gainful employment due to his past conviction, Hank sets a plan in motion to enlist Scott’s burgling skills to infiltrate his old company and destroy the Yellowjacket project before S.H.I.E.L.D.–or HYDRA–can get their hands on it.

There are a lot of pleasant surprises here, but first: the negatives. I still think it’s absurd that we’ve gotten an Ant-Man movie before a Black Widow feature, and it’s telling that the bare-bones recap above doesn’t mention Luis (Michael Peña) or Hope van Dyne (Evangeline Lilly), both of whom play ostensibly major roles in the film but who can be excised from a plot summary without losing significant detail. If the final battle between Ant-Man and Yellowjacket seems familiar, that’s probably because it’s incredibly similar to the final battle from the first Iron Man: two men in similarly powered suits fight each other, and the hero defeats the bald, progressively less sane villain using his superior knowledge of the suit’s technology and that technology’s limitations. It’s a bit of a retread of other movies, both within and without the Marvel Universe, right down to the way that Hope eventually falls for Scott—not that I can blame her. I mean, have you ever looked at Paul Rudd’s eyes? He’s a dreamboat.

My initial skepticism about this movie mirrored my early skepticism for Guardians of the Galaxy: “Sure, expand the scope of the franchise–but why this property?” Ant-Man couldn’t possible live up to the standard of a movie that turned schlubby everyman Chris Pratt into a legitimate movie star, but the hype for Rudd’s vehicle doesn’t oversell the inarguably fun, likable, watchable movie that Ant-Man is. As a CGI-heavy flick, it had the potential to look like computer generated garbage (again, see also: Jurassic World), but at no point did the imagery take me out of the moment the way other recent movies have. Although Lilly is underutilized, the groundwork for her larger future involvement in the franchise is laid well (comic book fans will probably guess in what capacity, but I won’t spoil that here), and Peña works well as a character suited both for comic relief and surprising heroism. An extended cameo from the Falcon (Anthony Mackie) seems somewhat tacked on, but does well to remind us that this relatively grounded entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe is still part of a larger narrative, and Mackie is always a welcome screen presence. Unlike gloating trillionaire Tony Stark, Scott Lang is a much more identifiable, sympathetic, and likable character, which makes for a more interesting and compelling character. And, as cited above, the sequences that feature tiny Scott navigating the normal world, but magnified, are a treasure—Scott flying around on the back of his flying ant steed, Antony, was a particular highlight.

And, I’ll go out on a limb to hang myself here, Ant-Man was a better movie than Age of Ultron was. The second Avengers movie was never going to be able to recreate the magic of the first, because the novelty of seeing heroes team up had, if not “worn off,” at least dulled. AoU suffered from too many characters and a plot that was more interesting in theory than in practice, and the studio-mandated trimming of certain storylines left the film feeling sloppy and unrefined in many places. Ant-Man, on the other hand, makes for a much more satisfying film by grounding itself with realistic and relatable character arcs for most of the main cast and focusing on one major event, the heist, instead of over-inundating the audience with by attempting to create an endless series of “Wow” moments. It’s not the best of the Marvel franchise, but it is the best of 2015, and I’m more excited to see what lies ahead for Ant-Man than I am for other, more popular MCU characters.

-Mark “Boomer” Redmond

Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol (2011)

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threehalfstar

If the third Mission: Impossible movie was an instance of the series suddenly pulling its shit together by making its protagonist Ethan Hunt out to be a real human being, the fourth film takes that cohesion a step further by helping define the team behind Ethan’s success. There have been so many face-removing, duplicitous double crossings in the series’ past that it’s been difficult to trust anyone at all, but Ghost Protocol finally eliminates that sense of distrust by shrinking Ethan’s team into a core group of murderous super spies with hearts of gold. Unfortunately, Ving Rhames is missing from this team almost completely (he at least drops in for a last second cameo), but picking up the wisecracking slack are Simon Pegg & Jeremy Renner, who both deliver some great tension-relieving one-liners, sometimes in unison. Besides these two sarcastic goofs, Cruise’s also backed by Paula Patton, the badass lady antidote to the franchise’s serious damsel-in-distress problem of the past. Once Rhames (hopefully) rejoins this ragtag crew in future installments, the series will almost certainly hit its pinnacle. Honestly, it’s kind of exciting to think that the best is still yet to come.

Besides honing in on the perfect small crew to back up Ethan’s world-saving espionage, Ghost Protocol also tightens up the series’ action. After the grossly excessive shoot-em-ups of the Limp Bizkit-soundtracked second film, the series has been moving more towards the large-scale, remote warfare that makes a lot more sense for international super spies to be wrapped up in. The attacks of violence in Ghost Protocol are unexpected bursts of terror that serve as shocks to the system, with or without Renner & Pegg’s nervous joking to break up the tension. There are some ridiculously over-the-top sequences that feature Cruise running down the side of a skyscraper in Dubai or somehow outrunning a sandstorm or Renner physically hacking into a gigantic supercomputer, but those more fanciful tangents are mixed in the real life dangers like car crashes & embassy bombings.

One element that got way less real (but very much appropriate for a throwback espionage franchise) was the film’s supervillains, which shifted from Phillip Seymour Hoffman’s nightmarish turn in Mission: Impossible 3 to a stunningly beautiful super model assassin & a “nuclear extremist” who wants to achieve peace on Earth by obliterating the human race. These cartoonish elements, along with more overreaching gadgetry (like a real-life invisibility cloak), clash very well with the movie’s more gritty, violent sequences and leave the impression of a well-rounded, but highly ridiculous action flick in their wake.

Cruise continued his hiring of disparate, auteur directors here by giving the project to Brad Bird (who is typically associated with children’s media like Ratatouille, The Iron Giant, The Incredibles, and Tomorrowland). The list of directors who’ve worked on the Mission: Impossible films so far (Bird, Abrams, Woo, De Palma) have all brought unique (and varyingly successful) takes on the series to the table, which is highly unusual for this type of popcorn action flick. It’ll certainly be interesting to see where the director of the fifth installment, Christopher McQuarrie, will take the direction of the franchise when Rogue Nation hits the theaters. McQuarrie is a relatively unknown director, but he has worked with Cruise before on two of his more interesting recent projects – the Werner Herzog as a fingerless villain Jack Reacher & the Groundhog’s Day meets Starship Troopers sci-fi action flick Edge of Tomorrow.

It’ll also be interesting to see what haircut Cruise brings to the next flick (I’m serious!), because it really makes a difference. He did slip back into his awful M:I 2 hair in Ghost Protocol, but since he begins the film in a Serbian prison & Bird did a much better job with the material than Woo (I’m serious!) I’ll let it slide for now. Adjusting some major problems in a relatively short amount of runtime, Mission: Impossible 3 & Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol have together unmistakably set the series up for future success. It has so much potential to reach new heights in the next installment that I’m hoping with the right amount of Ving Rhames, the perfect over-the-top villain, and a tasteful length for Cruise’s hair, Rogue Nation just might be the best in the series so far. We’ll see.

-Brandon Ledet