THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS @ 55

Judge Justin Playfair's nerves have been pushed to snapping. The years of seeing the worst of humanity and the law being abused have cast him into a fantasy: he thinks he's Sherlock Holmes. His brother is using this leverage to get the family's fortune signed over to himself. There is also a troubling blackmail attempt looming against Justin. He agrees to an assesment by a psychiatrist, confident he'll sail through it  but an incident at the hospital makes everyone who has seen it doubt Justin's supposed mental illness, particularly the doctor intended as his assessor, a Dr Mildred Watson.

If you're still with me, you might be thinking how cute this sounds, an early '70s goofy comedy where the crazy man turns out to be a sage. Not so fast. Early scenes where Justin does answer to his real name complicate that scenario. His first dialogues with Mildred suggest that there is a kind of crushing sadness to his fugue state. The ethics of his pantomime name that failed his own strength and had him running to idealism are flattened against the wall in a world he insists is built only of fact. A middle-act musing on the principles in Western movies compound this. Justin Playfair is screaming under his clipped adopted accent and deerstalker hat. Dr Mildred Watson does assume a journey of her own in following her patient's hard won whimsy and armour but, despite early signs, it won't be leading to a big song of hope before the credits.

The opening years of the 1970s in American mainstream cinema boasts a number of durable fables of eccentricity against the system, joyful whimsy against the staidness of the world. Harold and Maude, Catch-22, Little Murders, Where's Poppa, A New Leaf and more stood up to the crewcut authority that saw students gunned down on campuses and the repression of anti-war protests. It was a time of reckoning for a film industry that had passed over more Doris Day for more Easy Rider and for a brief period the films that emerged in this spirit were given decent budgets and backed by the studios. After all, there really might have been a dollar to be made in this hippy shit.

Not all of it works, sometimes it's more shit than hippy, but when it does it holds principles that sing out to the decades beyond it. I showed Harold and Maude to a small group of Millennials back at the end of the 2000s and each one left the experience with a new favourite movie. At one point (traffic cop scene) the machine glitched and they cried out for me to repeat it from the start of the scene. I did and had never heard such laughter as it played. A very similar experience was had with Little Murders. If they Might Be Giants was available at the time, it would have joined them.

There's an important link between these films that has to do with their times as well as any optimism for their future. In Harold and Maude, it's the memento mori: the love story is overcast with the spectre of death, from the camps in Europe to the inevitable end of their relationship through death (not a spoiler, btw). In Little Murders the swelling tide of social rage spills into widespread homicide that weighs down any possible skidding off into the whimsy that began the film. In They Might Be Giants, Justin's loopy pursuit of an imagined Moriarity points increasingly toward a darkness at the end of the tunnel. 

If anything, it's Giants' presentation of a frightening ambiguity that might keep it from discovery as a cult movie. Some cuts omit a late scene at an all night supermarket. I remember seeing this as a late night movie and laughed loudly at the chaos of it, how the authority was caught up in the whirl and drawn to its own version of madness. If you see the cut without this, the film ends on a dour note with the final image promising a kind of doom for the characters in their personae or for the personae themselves.

The limited edition blu-ray from UK label Indicator provides both cuts. Having seen the shorter one in a local release, I opted for the longer one. The supermarket scene doesn't travel well across the years as its cuteness is not supported by its execution. It's still a good idea, just no longer a hilarious one. However, the shorter version that cuts it out leaves the film hanging heavily, swinging sluggishly towards an ending that only feels like a massive bummer.

What saves the film from its frequent skids from substance is a cast that enliven its uneven writing through commitment. George C. Scott as Justin brings his scenery gnashers out from the trophy room but keeps it warm as well. It's almost an apology for his publicly regretted (and Oscar winning) performance in Patton. Through the bluster he does allow us to see the screaming void that lies between Judge Playfair and the fictional sleuth role that feels so much better. Joanne Woodward as Watson gives us a professional whose own struggles with her profession stem from a frustration with its ethical slides. Her acquiesence of Justin's persona carries her own denied melancholy.

I don't think They Might Be Giants will be much cited in the same statement as Harold and Maude. It's still hard to get a hold of and the accretion disc of senior cinematic gems has been steadily fading with the fade of arthouse venues, the oaf-handed wash of the streamers masking off anything that takes engagement that might draw eyeballs from the phone screen to the viewing screen. I'll do some waving right here. We need more Don Quixotes to tilt at windmills. They really might be giants.

Viewing Notes: I watched my imported Indicator Blu-Ray of this film which allows it to scrub up well with clean video and audio, a good booklet and some worthy extras. The cut without the supermarket scene was available on Blu-Ray locally through Cinema Cult but I suspect it's out of print. I couldn't find it on the streamers but was not surprised about that. Find if you can. You'll be glad of it.

Review: THE MUSICIANS

To honour her father (and as a flex to her brother) Astrid demands that her company (roadwork equipment) fulfil dad's wish to hear an unplayed string quartet played for the first time. To honour the music, she wants it played on Stradivarius instruments. Eye watering amounts at auction later, she assembles the fiddles and then the players, applying interpersonal patches where needed, and sets them all at a country mansion to rehearse for a broadcast and recording that might well see her business back in black. The players either hate or disrespect each other and can't get it together to finish practicing a single movement. Time for the big guns. She persuades the composer who would as soon forget his own work, to come along and pep everyone up. This should go a lot more smoothly than it does. 

Gregory Magne's film of contemporary manners plays things easily with a series of increasingly important waves of conflict and resolution, piecing together the shards of dischord and arhythmia until, obstacle by obstacle, the greater problem is unavoidably clear. This is a film thatr understands music.

Hotshot young bowslinger George springs in, ready to take over while Peter is worried that his blindness will prevent him from an effective performance. Young influencer Appolline on the viola never went to music school but has played Carnegie Hall and Peter's ex squeeze Lise on cello turns to animate ice when they are in the same room. They are all daunted by the entrance of the composer Charlie Beaumont who is uneasy with the errant youthfulness of his forgotten music.

This is a film about ensemble, cooperation and concetration on the part as an essential to the whole. Music is not the magic that lesser attempts make it, something that only godlike people produce. It is work and it is acceptance of place in service of skill. 

When I chose this today, I wanted something far from the horror and violence and darkness I might normally go for that now only reminds me of the darkness in the news. I got it. This is a quiet lesson in banding for good instead of the screaming entitled narcisism deafening the globe. But if I'm suggesting it is a kind of soft feelgood piece in a French accent, I should also state that, for all its apparent gentleness, The Musicians packs a punch; it just takes its time to get to your gut. 

There is a moment that an American movie would put in the centre to prove the concept and show that everyone has learned and is ready for the world. Here, when Peter starts a folky version of the standard In The Pines and the others add their own parts, it's not a mounting cresendo of the righteousness of the buddy system, it's low key and through a natural sounding arrangement that really could have taken place. And it will melt your heart. Thetitle sequence of the film opens with what looks like a huge dank room in a monestary that soon proves to be the interior of a cello. In its first minutes you are told the type of movie you are going to get and assured that it is under way. Just what I needed. 

Viewing notes: went to a morning session and realised that this is the kind of movie that attracts seniors who can be even more entitled that teenagers about opining audibly. There was a contingent at the back and they are blithely gasbagging through the ads. But then they ceased and watched the movie all the way through quietly. Bliss.

Review: COLONY

A bio-terrorist stages an outbreak of a manufactured virus in a big building in down town Seoul. Clear nods to Dawn of the Dead, 28 Days Later and REC are made but this one does have this to bring to the table. It's not a living death that would result from the spread, the rage virus symptoms are only the beginning. The developer of the virus who begins the film by injecting himself with the sole dose of the antidote, has a strange new communication in mind. His act is a proof of concept. He has in the opposite corner a bio-scientist among the crew of survivors and another outside with the military team who are most interested in containment via masses of weaponry. There must be a brainy way out.

At some point, all Romero-style zombie outbreak movies turn into action movies, using suspense as the driving force of the narrative. The horde in Colony develop their cognition and behaviour through a hive like mass sharing of information. Add this to thte danger of being torn apart, anyway, and you've got a pretty good entry into the sub-genre. Writer/director Yeon Sang-ho has already been in the sub-genre with the extraordinary Train to Busan. We're in good hands.

As this review will be spoiler free, I'll leave the plot there. I can say, though, that the horde and their actions make for a spectacle both yucky and suspenseful. This story is about communication, though, and pits the hi-tek s;lime 'n' grime against more conventional intelligence and teamwork in a gratifyingly tense fashion. An enigmatic message on an invitation, when connected to the events later in the story is about communication failure. It's not too much of a stretch to see the link to the pandemic and the unknown horror of AI.

The casting, aside from the standard gathering of types for justly violent ends, is very good. Jun Ji-hyun as biologist locked into the situation balances with her clear compassion a solid intellect which brings a face almost constantly tight with thought. As her would be nemesis, Koo Kyo-hwan as Seo Young-cheol, the young, vengeful genius who invented the virus, displays a nonchalance of real creepiness, especially when among his seething creations.

If the ground is imperfectly broken and the innovation of the newer ideas in this one do not impress, the choreography of the horde's movements is strong and the blending of practical action and CG effects is seamless (except when it is used with the monkeys: they might just be too difficult to model). There are moral dillemas and mini tragedies on the stage and more than enough for the two hours of screen time to feel like a lot less. A largely electronic score keeps things growling and eerie by turns which will always get my vote. Fancy a fresh take on an old zombie tale? Spin it!

Viewing notes: I saw this at a surprisingly well attended screening for a 10 am show. The film is so involving and speedilly paced that audience talk wasn't a problem. Currently in cinemas.

THE RAPTURE @ 35 - SPOLIERS!

Sharon works in a call centre retrieving phone numbers for other people. Her workday is repeating that five second script for hours. By night she rides the passenger seat of her mate Vic's convertable as they cruise the L.A. strips for play pals. Then at all hours, they re-enact the juicy bits from Sodom and Gomorrah. Then it's back to "please hold for the number". Then, one of her noctural escapades she sees an extraordinary tattoo on a woman's back. It's a vivid pearl by a stream. The woman tells Sharon that its meaning has to do with the second coming of Jesus Christ. 

This loads Sharon up for closer listening to the mini cabal of apocalyptic Christians in the canteen at work. They see through her attempts at infiltration but then she does have the dream, that they all talk of sharing, about the pearl. Scene by scene, Sharon goes from restless frustration to high-charge spiritual wealth. Following a disaster in her life, some years on, she travels to the desert with her young daughter to meet the Apocalypse.

This fable is told so straight it derails into the bizarre. The redemption story of the first act is plain enough sailing but as soon as Sharon's religious awakening sets in and her zeal alters her life completely we start wondering what kind of movie we're watching. Is it an exercise in extended irony? Is it a genuine religious essa    y? It is to Mimi Rogers' credit that Sharon's transition feels less like a claimed miracle than a redirection of her energy from one way of life to another. Her initial cynicism becomes a determined hopefulness. Without this committed performance this story would be a rancid conversion story. We need to follow her from that self retooling into the great test of the middle act without being overwhelmed by our own cynicism. Does it work? I think that depends on the viewer's won religiosity.

Spoilers follow!

This was screenwriter Michael Tolkin's directorial debut. Between the hits of Gleaming the Cube and the 1992's massive The Player, he chose this modestly budgeted tale of gigantic deeds. It was impossible to sell to mainstream audiences and barely made it through the festival circuit and arthouse avenues. Woman gets religion, kills own daughter and faces God. Oh, and throw in a literal rendition of the Book of Revelation. Tough enough without Sharon's final decision which would set the least religious (like me) audiences into a slough of horror.

And as abrupt as her final defiance feels and how that makes it seem rushed, it has a very effective telescoping in the opening scene in which a glacial tracking camera passes by steel grey partitions of people in headsets constantly repeating a short script. It's as though Matthew Barney wanted to express the notion of Purgatory. Purgatory or Limbo (my familiarity with this nonsense is barely extant) is where she finally stands, having denied love of a God that drove her to atrocity. We don't need the final shot before the credits to linger, we've already seen how it plays. If Tolkin had written her returning to the call centre we would come to the same conclusion. 

But that is where this film defies its audience to stay with it. If the conversion was hard to witness, this self-sentencing is both an act of integrity and one of utter futiliy. When I showed this at a movie night, one of thesemi-regular crew, an Anglican priest in training, approached me afterwards and called it a very honest story. I'm still unsure of what she meant by that, but the film's refusal to punch down the way that some of its characters do does lend its plainness of touch a sense of sincere interest. (The same person came to see REC and through a grin said, "that was wicked!")

Tolkin imbues the pallet with a kind of magic hour gold, whether in Californian motel rooms or the dry wilderness of Sharon's sacrifice, giving the whole running time a kind of base comfort. When we start to see angels and apocalyptic horsemen across the horizon or standing on bitumen highways it gives us pause to recall how much of a horror fiction the Bible is (read the last book and see).

An acquaintance of mine worked at the Valhalla in Northcote and reported that when some creepy Christian types came to buy tickets for the Rapture he had to tell them that they'd just missed it. True story, but it only makes me wonder how this film would be received in the America of Christian Nationalism, by which the tenets of the religion are subordinate to the branding that nourishes mass bigotry and oppression. The movie wasn't made for people who think that the Bible was written in English or anyone who would comprehend Sharon murdering her child as virtuous. This movie was not made for people who do not know their own holy book. It wasn't made for anyone who would simply dismiss the very end as a moment of  "serves her right". It was made for anyone who would witness and question themselves. That's the hardest sell of all when it comes to a night at the movies. That's why The Rapture is one of my favourite films of the '90s.

Viewing notes: I watched my ancient DVD of this one in absence of anything better quality (though it's pretty swish for a DVD). It's long out of print on physical media but can be rented online at sources like Prime.

APRIL FOOL'S DAY @ 40: Spoilers

Muffy walks through her parents' mansion, preparing for guests. She finds a Jack in the box that first looses a mild scare but then, in a haze of childhood memories, shoots a monster out. Meanwhile, her guests gather at a jetty to take them to the mansion on the island across the lake. Like Muffy, they're all teritary students preparing for Spring Break. The first you see of them is the hot young Nikki who appears in the 4x3 frame of a camcorder like a found footage movie from the next decade. The rest reveal their character keynotes and when a knife fight starts among them that escalates into an overboard conflict it's soon revealed as a prank. It's the first of April, like the title says. Everyone's happy but then the ferry deckhand Buck falls off as the boat is docking and gets between the hull and the jetty on the island. Half his face crushed and bloody, he gets taken back to the mainland for hospitalisation. Not a prank.

Muffy meets and greets and treats them to a champagne dinner where everyone reveals a little about themselves and gets well pissed. There are already some ructions that we note as telescope views before everyone turns in and finds a world of pranks like lights behaving oddly, bathroom sinks spraying the wrong way and so on. But there is Nan's room whose wardrobe houses a cassette of a baby crying. We aren't told but we know she either miscarried or had an abortion. Another of the good eggs finds smack paraphenalia in his medicine cabinet. Some pranks have claws.

Into the night and the next day the gang find themselves in a kind of whodunnit rollcall that takes a leaf or two out of the then new slasher playbook. We discover various ambitions, frustrations, shared secrets and denials and wait for the corpses to pile and the elimination to lead to the killer. 

Already, the pacing and the more social concerns are diverging from the average '80s teen thriller. The killer doesn't seem to mind if the victims are having sex or not. There's sexual fluidity that is stated but never judged and not offered as a motive. There is a world of mid-'80s middle class concern of young adults going through their education and initial steps into the grown up world and, while it doesn't play like a 20-something Big Chill, the focus on the notion that Reganomics might not be the answer. The cigar stealing walking sales pitch who is clearly heading for yuppiedom gets a slapstick prank and then a serious hit. Wits are a better armour here.

SPOILERS

And then when the crew are reduced to a couple (one of whom is played by Amy Steel, the champion final girl of F13 Part II) who have discovered Muffy's terrible family secret, they break through and find that everyone is fine and waiting for them. Muffy announces over a trolley of champagne that they all been part of a test for her plan to use the house as a proto escape room scenario. Everyone laughs. Then there's a coda scene which I won't spoil.

April Fool's Day is a lot less like Terror Train or Friday the 13th than the meta teen horrors of the following decade. While the cast are not listing the genre traits of teen horrors while watching one in the living room, there is a sense of play and a wink between the screen and the audience as to what is happening. If the big reveal feels a little smug, Muffy's business plan provides a knowing cynicism that shades the ambitions of the crew of chums with a clear contempt. And then the coda takes this a step further, suggesting that the franchise will have some serious extra spice to it when it starts working.

The other thing this film reminds me of is American Psycho, also in its future. While it goes nowhere near the core of that novel and later adaptation, the hint that a class and business based entertainment franchise that appeals to ruthlessness and grand guignol violence might be just the thing for the times paves the way. This film will not work if you approach it as a mid-level slasher. It doesn't quite work as a satire, either. Considering the likes of Something Wild which wasn't the comedy its poster tried to sell, it might well serve as a retrospective warning to the culture it was part of, that times soon to come would take some careful navigation. As that, it works.

Review: TUNER

Niki is assistant to piano tuner Harry. Nikki not only has perfect pitch which makes him a natural but his hearing is so acute that he needs to wear solid earbuds and, outside, noise cancelling headphones as he describes himself as allergic to sound. When Harry goes to hospital, Nikki keeps the rounds going and one day, after proving that he can, he saves a security crew a job by opening a safe that they need (legitimately) to drill into. Impressed, the security boss leaves Nikki a wad of thank you notes with the tip to get in touch with him. Money problems. Nikki gets in touch and becomes the security gang's safe cracker. A meet cute along the way gives Nikki yet another reason to advance himself and their relationship is as volatile as their youth dictates. All good? You can already hear the sour notes.

Nikki has grasped life for the first time since he felt excluded from it by his condition. As a robust adult, he finds the rewards and hazards of connection can get serious in the worst ways. The film tells this with economy and a firm hand on the tension, leaving most of the weight to the perfomances. That's not to say that the dialogue is a problem. Nikki's condition and its history is completed slowly, through several dialogue scenes that show that Nikki has told this story all his life but no longer minds telling it again. He knows what happens when people aren't aware of his condition. The criminal code is laid out similarly, piecmeal, as needed, until the climactic dillema puts it to an arm wrestle. 

As Nikki, Leo Woodall is solid, showing a strong restraint behind his typical cultured blank. A late scene in which he smiles feels like the sun coming out from behind cloud. Havana Rose Liu's Ruthie is all nerves and self doubt beneath a sassy exterior. Dustin Hoffman knows it's not his film and gives us enough of the senior larrikan to tell us he's been places. Lior Raz as badass boss Uri is all paternal charm until he's a monster of wrath. 

A telescoped object appears like a Chekov rifle in the middle act and we clock it and wait for it to come into play. When it does, it has the cornered instensity of a novel rather than a film. This needs to happen but the gigantic stakes and vice grip coincidence bothered me. This is not an adaptation but an original screenplay. To its credit the film does take this thread into deeper waters and leaves an interesting question about a particular decision. Does that balance things? Not when I can't get the forced convergence out of my head but it's easy enough to follow the tale to its enjoyable final scene. That's a scene we have seen many times and can predict easily. Happily we can rely on Woodall's performance to get us through it.

A thriller/romance/ethical drama with heart and wit is not to be sneezed at. This is a film that says its lines and hits its marks but finds it gravity in some compelling performances. It's always good to see Dustin Hoffman on screen. A younger image of him as a dashboard bobble head in the trade van reminds of him and what his character means. No, we don't need it, but it's on the warm side of fun, just like this movie is on the warm side of crime thrillers. 

Review: LEVITICUS

Naim and Ryan lark about with rough play until they break through the show and admit their mutual attraction. This is not the stuff of their small town that is gripped by the kind of psycho religion that appears warm and friendly until it doesn't. One day Naim goes over to Ryan's place and finds him involved in the same kind of rough and tumble with another boy. Without too much detail, following a ghastly ritual by a creepy travelling religious figure, Naim witnesses an act of violence against Ryan that appears to be committed by an invisible force. This makes sense of the weird prologue and will surface as an explanation in the middle act. Things are turning grim.

Part queer coming of age story and part supernatural horror tale, Adrian Chiarella's feature debut exhibits a clever idea of religious "conversion therapy". Rather than praying the gay away, the idea is to have the object of love become monstrously violent. This can involve doppelgangers who bring their own persuasion to the table.

It's too cold for satire but too loose for outright horror but its spell holds and works all the way through the running time. The one moment of deadpa humour towards the end feels like it's from another movie and is memorable for that reason alone. Mostly it's a slow pendulum swinging between the credible warmth between the lovers and the unforgiving punsihment the rest of the town wishes upon them. Mostly, though, it feels personal the same way that the Book of Revelation feels personal. That is an ultraviolent revenge fantasy but Leviticus is Moses' report of his god's dictation of law and conduct to avoid damnation. Remembering this adds great weight to this film's title. 

Chiarella makes great use of the locale, building on breathless nocturnal night streets, mills that smoke and spew flame and a muted pallet for a place that even nearby nature's beauty shudders to colour. This is strong world building, the way it always is when a setting that might seem to write itself is reconstructed  for atmoshere. Part of this is Jed Kerzel's electronic score with its groaning and wailing, hissing and growling as though the land and wind themselves are straining from the culture they surround.

There have been comparisions with It Follows but they are too shallow, missing the point of the entity and its way of being. It Follows played on a kind of penalty for wisdom, expressed like a sexually transmitted disease. This is something more hideous for its origins, the product of jealously guarded ignorance.

The leads, Joe Bird and Stacy Clausen offer the warm centre of the film, both very natural with each other. But they must also express the horror of its conceit, and it feels painful to witness the turn of the familiar faces from love to hard antagonism. A grown up Mia Wasikowska as Naim's mum provides a maternal support that degrades into its own creepiness.

If I felt a certain lacking while watching Leviticus, I think it's probably from the film's refusal to fall into the cliche that besets horror stories with teens. There is a information scene but even that is kept fragmentary. Recent horrors like It Follows and the Philipou's magnificent Talk to Me have dispensed with such scenes of authority and it furthers the sense of hopelessness necessary for stories like this to work: the traditional authority figures are absent, untrustworthy or even atagonistic. Leviticus uses this to blend a sense of despair that the final image sets in ancient stone.

Viewing notes: I went to a 10 am screening at the Kino in Melbourne. Sparsely attended and mostly by men about my age (who still seem to be a lot older to me) and a few much younger huddles. If there was talking or any cruddy behavious I didn't notice it. Mind you, this intense film could probably silence a Saturday night crowd.