Nasty Video

I had hoped that Censor (2021) would be a decent horror movie, but it turned out to be more of a giallo ... maybe? Psychological thriller? Whatever it was, it was certainly tense.

It stars Naimh Algar as a censor in Britain during the Thatcher era. There was a moral panic about "video nasties" - violent movies released straight to VHS. She was part of a team, a fairly loose, friendly group, of censors, trying to keep these from harming the public. She was always strict but fair, a normal if slightly tight-wound young woman.

She meets with her parents, who tell her that they are declaring her sister dead. She went missing while playing with Algar as a child, but Algar believes that she was kidnapped and is still alive. (We see some of this in flashbacks and dreams.) She and her parents have a typically British relationship, where nothing unpleasant can be discussed.

Algar is reviewing a film by noted nasty director Frederick North (Adrian Schiller). She notices similarities in the movie to her sisters disappearance. After finding some of his older, illegal stuff, she notices that the actress looks a lot like her and her sister. She begins to suspect that her sister was trafficked, abused, and is now being used by the video nasty industry. So she goes to find Frederick North.

Around here, I'd usually quit the plot summary, because I want to go easy on spoilers and give people who want to see the movie a chance. But I'll just barrel ahead. Algar goes to meet North's producer, trying to find where he is. He tries to convince her to try out for the lead in North's latest movie, being filmed now, because she looks so much like the lead. Then he tries to rape her. When she pushes him off, he lands on one of his awards, and winds up impaled upon it. She rushes out to the film shoot, and finds it's being set in a creepy cabin in the woods - just like where she lost her sister. North thinks she's playing the sister, and gets her psyched up to release her inner demons. And when the actor playing the killer starts menacing the actress playing her "sister", she snaps and starts killing people with an axe.

This is a very atmospheric movie, with lots of dingy offices, threatening patriarchy, and creepy sound work - reminded me a little of Berberian Sound Studio that way. First time director Prano Bailly-Bond does a good job capturing Algar's fracturing psyche. I'm not sure that the moral - These video nasties really do drive you mad - is what we need to hear, but it made for a good story. Not quite what we were looking for, though. 

Retro Neo

Well, we got to see The Matrix Resurrections (2021), and found it a fitting addition to the canon, and for the times.

It starts in the middle of things, with new-character-enter Bugs (Jessica Henwick, AKA Colleen Wing) is fooling around in a Modal, something like a Matrix sandbox. It resembles the old story of Neo and Trinity, but it isn't Neo or Trinity. Yahya Abdul-Mateen II shows up, claiming to be Agent Smith or maybe Morpheus. They all take off in Bugs' ship, the Mnemosyne.

Meanwhile, Thomas Anderson (Keanu Reeves) is a burnt-out celebrity game designer. He's famous for his Matrix trilogy of games, but his company is getting impatient for him to deliver something new. Or worse, making a sequel to the Matrix games. He's also having mental problems, doubting the reality of his existence. He goes to a therapist, played by Neil Patrick Harris, who looks like Greg Proops playing Wally Cox. He is also taking blue pills (eh?) to keep the hallucinations at bay. 

He is also mildly obsessed with a woman he sees at his coffeeshop, CC Jitters. Just kidding, this place is called Simulatte, which is pretty good. The woman reminds him of someone - because it's Trinity, Carrie-Anne Moss. But now she's a boring housewife with a houseband (played by stuntman and John Wick director Chad Stahelski) and two kids. 

Anderson's life gets changed when Bugs and new Morpheus find him and extract him from the Matrix into the real world. As he comes out of the pod, he sees Trinity's pod nearby.

So, new Matrix, new world. Some machines have become partners to humans, like S'Bebe and Octocles. Some are even more hostile, finding that keeping humans in the Matrix miserable gets them to generate more energy. Letting Reeves and Moss meet but not get together, for instance, is a real winner.

Then there's lots of action, fights, philosophy, etc. But the best part perhaps, is how Reeves gets trapped in the Matrix. The whole meta-thing about what a bad idea a sequel to the Matri trilogy would be actually works. The moral. which is "Stop taking your meds" may not be what we all need to hear, but the movie is a lot of fun, and very comforting, in a way. Lana Wachowski said she made it when people in her life had died, and she just wanted to spend time with her friends Neo and Trinity again.

Something I've noticed recently is the number of movies that aren't just sequels, or late sequels, but are also elegies. They celebrate the characters and their makers, mourn their loss, and sort of wallow in the nostalgia, just a bit. Like in this movie, people keep telling Neo (and Anderson) how much he means to them, how much they look up to him. Then there's Ghostbusters: Afterlife, a eulogy for Harold Ramis, Then there's the latest Bond movie, where they kill off the character. Then there's Reeve's other late return, Bill and Ted Face the Music. It's a meditation on being stuck creatively, a passing of the torch, and a farewell to George Carlin. 

It might be that some of us are getting old - facing the fact that our series won't run forever. Maybe it's the Boomers aging out. Maybe it fits the Covid era. After all, Fury Road could have been like this, but instead of looking back, just kicked it up a notch. But these movies do feel sad and sweet to me. I don't hate it. 

Forgotten Relic

It's been a while since we've had any horror, and Ms. Spenser requested Relic (2020). Since it deals with senile dementia, I was more than hesitant. Ms. Spenser's mother and aunt, and my mother and great aunt all died with dementia, and it isn't pretty. But she's got more guts than me, so I queued it up.

A mother and daughter drive deep in the woods to their grandmother's house. No one has heard from her in a few days, and they are worried, as she has been forgetful. They get there and find the house deserted. They stay and wait and clean up a little, finding little notes the grandmother has left herself, "Take pills", etc.

Then the grandmother re-appears, barefoot and filthy. She doesn't know where she's been, maybe isn't even aware that she was gone. A visit to the doctor shows that she's fairly healthy, except for a large black bruise on her chest. It resembles some of the black stains they have noticed on the walls of her house. 

Although she's mostly fine, she also sometimes gets cruel and abusive. They find out that the well-loved but slow neighbor boy isn't allowed to visit any more, because she left him locked in a closet and forgot that he had ever come over. They don't know what to do.

The grand-daughter investigates a closet, and finds a passage at the back, covered with boxes. It leads to a room, full of mementoes, boxes and pictures. It also has a door to another room, and another, and soon she can't find her way back. She forges ahead, but the rooms get smaller and smaller, until she has to crawl. She finally gets out by smashing through a wall. By this time, enough creepy stuff has happened that this doesn't seem out of place.

The movie was made and is set in Australia, but mostly in the one house. The cast is small and the atmosphere intimate. The horror is partly psychological, with a touch of body horror (that bruise doesn't go away), plus a touch of the haunted house. It was tense as hell, but not quite as damaging as we had feared. The last little reminder note that they find from the grandmother is, "You are loved". That takes the sting out a little.

Cut Chemistry

I was in the library the other day (looking for DVDs of the Great British Baking Show) when I noticed that they had a Blu-Ray of Zack Snyder's Justice League (2021). We had some time that weekend, so now I've seen the Snyder cut.

I guess the story is that Zack Snyder shot most of the movie, but before he could finish, he had to leave. So Joss Whedon took over and reshot most of it, and cut out enough to make the movie ~90 minutes, When the Whedon version tanked, people started agitating for WB to "Release the Snyder cut." Long story short, HBO eventually paid to have the Snyder cut released, and let him shoot even more, resulting in a four-hour movie that matched his vision.

But you can read about that anywhere. You want to know what I think, right? Well, I liked it. Of course, I liked the Whedon cut as well. But the Snyder cut is a lot easier to follow - the villains' stories are easier to follow. Also, Cyborg's (Ray Fisher) story is more fleshed out. It was one of the things Whedon cut the heaviest, which is too bad, because he's new and needs some exposition. Also, him and his dad (Joe Morton) are the only actors of color featured. I think the first reason is why Whedon trimmed the role, and I hope it's not the second.

On the other hand, the tone and palette are darker, more grim. I liked the Whedon version because it got back, at least a little, to the idea of colorful, idealistic heroic heroes. My favorite scene from the Whedon cut is the first Wonder Woman scene, with a little "bullets and bracelets". Snyder includes it, but but it's darker, not as joyful - you don't get as much Gal Gadot posing in golden sunlight. Still, it looks like Snyder shot the bullets and bracelets, and Snyder left it in.

Snyder did cut out the scene where Batman goes trolling for parademons by dangling a crook off a rooftop. I thought that scene worked well as exposition - also kind of fun in a grim way.

Then there were the endings. The Snyder cut seemed to go on and on, ending after ending. Then there's an epilog, showing a dystopian future where the Joker works with Justice League, minus a bunch who got killed, plus the Martian Manhunter. This is the setup for a sequel that I assume will never be made. Maybe too bad, maybe not...

I guess I like the Snyder cut better, but glad I saw the Whedon first. Glad they both made it.

Aelita Bug

Who's up for a two-hour Soviet silent movie with a touch of science fiction? Then try Aelita, Queen of Mars (1924). I read about this when I was looking up that big-eyed robot girl movie, and now I've seen it. 

To summarize, Engineer Loss is working on a way to travel to Mars. He and many other scientists have been puzzled by a message from outer space: "Anta Odell Uta".

He has a wife that he ignores somewhat, and a corrupt bureaucrat uses this to try to make time with her. These scenes of domestic peril are interspersed with scenes from Mars, when Queen Aelita connives to sneak peaks at the Earth through a classified science telescope. She becomes enamored with Loss, and the Earth custom of ... kissing.

Loss goes through many trials - since he is a great engineer, he is in demand around Russia, getting various agricultural and industrial projects off the ground. But when he catches his wife and her slimy suitor (he thinks), he shoots her and decides to head for Mars. He gathers his co-workers and a stowaway and takes off from a log cabin in Siberia (?). 

Once they get to Mars, he finally meets up with Aelita. But their forbidden love condemns them to the slave caverns. So they foment a slave rebellion, and form a Martian soviet. When they win control of the country, Aelita decides to screw the peasants and take power for herself. Loss is disenchanted and heads home. Besides, all along, when he was kissing Aelita, she sometimes turned into his wife.

At home, he finds that his wife is not dead (he never shot her? He missed? She got better?). He promises to give up daydreams of Mars and devote himself to the glorious revolution at home. The whole Mars thing was in his head, or something.

So - strange movie, goes without saying. The earthbound part was an ordinary, maybe even simple domestic melodrama. But the Mars stuff - wow. The sets and costumes were very Constructivist - a Russian art school from early in the revolution with lots of geometric influences - conical hats, triangular shoulders, sets with ramps, slaves with boxes for heads, etc. Aelita herself had a dark, masculine look, and a bra on her costume with three cups (none of them filled out much). Plus the whole "What is your Earth custom, this 'kissing'?" plot. Very Devil Girls from Mars or even Attack of the Mole Creatures. I think American International should produce a dubbed 70 minute cut, getting rid of most of the Earthbound stuff. Should be a hit at the drive-ins.

Oh and "Anta Odell Uta"? Turned out to be a tire ad. I thought it was a Martian request for female vocalists: Anita O'Day, Odetta, and Uta Hagen. Good guess, though.

Noh Time

There was no way I was going to skip No Time to Die (2021), the last of the Daniel Craig James Bond movies. But what would Ms. Spenser think? She loved it.

It starts with a young girl and her doper mom in a cabin in a snowy country, waiting for dad to come home. Mom tells her that dad is a killer, and he isn't coming home, so there. Then a weirdo in a Japanese Noh mask breaks in and kills mom. He almost kills the kid, but spares her.

Some time later, we meet Bond and Lea Seydoux (the little girl, all grown up) cruising along a coastal road in Italy. They stop in a quaint town (Matera) for some steamy action. When Bond goes to visit Vesper Lynd's grave, he's attacked. Cool action set piece follows. He thinks Seydoux betrayed him, but just puts her on a train and takes off.

Five year's later (we're all caught up from flashbacks), Bond is retired in Jamaica. His old buddy Felix Leiter (Jeffrey Wright) asks for some help with a job in Cuba. It seems that a SPECTRE bioscientist has defected and they need to get him. When he refuses, he meets his 00 replacement, Lashana Lynch, who helps talk him into it.

In Cuba, he meets up with his partner, new CIA agent Ana de Armas, and they go to a party for, basically, all of SPECTRE. Someone releases a bioweapon, aiming to kill Bond, but instead, everyone in SPECTRE dies. It seems that the scientist is playing games.

And so it goes. We have a little bit of Christoph Waltz as Blofeld, and Rami Malik as Lyutsifer Safin, who turns out to be the guy in the Noh mask. We get sometime with Moneypenny (Naomie Harris) and Ben Whishaw as Q. Lynch, the new 007, is pretty prickly around Craig as the retired 007. He is pretty flip at first, but quickly starts giving her the respect and deference her role deserves. Which is a nice change - no real conflict there at all.

Lots of plot, a couple of Aston Martins, a cool glider, evil villain's lair, etc. Then Bond gets killed. Quite conclusively blown up. Hold a short memorial, roll credits. It all ends with the promise "James Bond Will Return!" - not 007, but James Bond. OK, we'll see. And we'll see who the new guy will get to be.

As well as a good (maybe a little busy) Bond movie, this also serves as a look back at the franchise, with references to previous movies. Most obvious is On Her Majesty's Secret Service, because he has found a true love. Of course in OHMSS, Diana Rigg is killed. Here it's Bond.

As for Ms. Spenser's thoughts, she liked that there were plenty of women, and women of color, working with Bond, and as partners, not eye candy. She liked that emotional underpinning was sincere and grounded. And of course, cool action and Daniel Craig, with dreamy blue eyes. That last part may be me, though.

Wild About Harry

I suppose not everyone is familiar with Harry Smith's Anthology of American Folk Music. It didn't sell very well when it was released in 1958, but it sort of became the bible for the coffeehouse folk revival of the 60s. It consists of 6 LPs, taken from Harry Smith's collection of 78s (without necessarily paying the original artists). Greil Marcus called this music the "old weird" Anerican music, and traced a line between it and Bob Dylan's Basement Tapes. The CD re-release is one of my treasured belongings. So I was pretty psyched to check out The Harry Smith Project: Concert Film Live (2006).

Hal Willner gathered together an eclectic group of musicians to play multiple concerts in multiple venues, all based around the music from the Anthology. They included folkies like Richard Thompson, the McGarrigle Sisters, Steve Earle, and Geoff Muldaur, as well as some less folkie types, like Beck, Sonic Youth and Lou Reed. Also, some oddballs, like Ed Sanders of the Fugs, and Eric Mingus, son of Charles.

Some of these worked better than others - Elvis Costello had a lot of fun with a grim murder ballad, giving it a new ending. Some were powerful, like Roswell Rudd, a jazz trombonist backed by Sonic Youth. Some were odd, like the Folksmen from A Mighty Wind, doing a song of their own. But I'm afraid I have a major issue with the movie: most of the interpretations leaned heavily on slow tempo drones, giving them a sort of samey sound, even with all the different musicians. I would have liked some more old-time versions, or maybe even poppy updated versions. 

Of course, the original songs were often kind of droney, and some were slow and mournful. But some dance numbers wouldn't have gone badly, I think. 

Manic Pixie Were Girl

 I've owed Ms. Spenser a horror movie for a while, and I thought maybe Werewolves Within (2021) would qualify - even though it's a horror comedy.

After a prologue where someone probably gets killed, we meet our protagonist. Sam Richardson is a nerdy black forest ranger, on a new assignment to Beaverfield VT, which is about to get an oil pipeline running through. He gets a room at a lodge with a slightly vague proprietor - her husband ran off a little while ago, and she's a bit shell-shocked. He meets another civil-servant boarding there, Milana Vayntrub. She's the town's new mail deliverer, also a bit nerdy, but very friendly and cute. She offers to show him around town while she's making the rounds.

They meet a couple of low-lifes who run the garage - constantly quarreling potential meth-heads. Vayntrub makes sure he sticks around to see the drama. They meet the rabid right-wingers who big fans of the pipeline, and the gay couple who are opposed. Vayntrub also has him take the mail up to the hostile survivalist hunter. 

Back at the lodge, we have a PR man from the oil pipeline company, a hard-drinking, profane swaggering type. Along with the reclusive cryptobiologist who has set up a lab in the lodge. that's our cast of characters, and apparently, the entire population of the town.

That night, there's a blizzard that cuts the town off from the rest of the world. Also, a dog is killed, and the power goes out. All the generators have been destroyed, possibly by giant claws? The cryptobiologist has taken some hair samples, and found both human and wolf DNA. Could it be a ... Hard to say, because she is killed right away. Or was it suicide?

 Richardson pleads for calm and unity, frequently invoking Mr. Rogers. Still, the town's inhabitants scatter, and we catch them trying to kill each other - and often succeeding. Is there really a werewolf, or is it just the werewolves within?

SPOILER - really a werewolf. Vayntrub has been shyly attempting to seduce Richardson. In a quiet moment together with her, he shows interest in her behind because she has a paperback Walden in her back pocket. They dance to the jukebox of a closed tavern, but he gets a call from his (distant, withholding) girlfriend and spoils the moment. I won't tell you who the werewolf is, but I'll give you a hint. Vayntrub says something to the effect the werewolves are real; cute girls who read Thoreau and think being nerdy is sexy are a myth.

I thought this was a little heavy-handed, but pretty cute, especially Vayntrub's variation on the Manic Pixie Dream Girl. Sadly, Ms. Spenser didn't like it at all. The stereotyped characters, the way they were at each other's throats, and the threat of the pipeline were all to much like real life. It was a little too scary, and that's without the werewolf. 

Femmes Fatales

So the wife was out for an evening, so I thought I'd watch one of those female assassin movies. I picked Ava (2020). It stars Jessica Chastain in the title role, an elite assassin, mentored by John Malkovich, in a role that the older Donald Sutherland might have played. Chastain has started asking her targets if they know what they've done wrong before she kills them, so Malkovich's boss, Colin Farrell, decides to have her taken out, while telling Malkovich he won't.

But Chastain has other problems. She started out as a hard-drinking party girl and junky, with a sharp-tongued fading beauty for mother, a sister following in partying footsteps, and Common for an ex-, now engagrd to said sister. Chastain just wants to try to connect to her family, but they are more fucked up than she is, and she's a hired killer. SPOILER - she finally gives in and gets drunk, just when Farrell comes after her. It hurts her accuracy, but increases her pain threshold. 

Really, this seemed like a weird family drama smushed together with an action film. I preferred the action.

I wouldn't have chosen it for my next movie, but Netflix decided to deliver The Protégé (2021). This stars Maggie Q as the assassin, with Samuel L. Jackson as her mentor. There isn't really a Farrell counterpart - her bosses are trying to kill her, but are sort of forgettable. I can only remember the one called Vohl ("We must feed Vohl!"). But Michael Keaton shows up as a fellow assassin, and there's a cute scene where they start fighting and end up fucking. 

Jackson found Q in Vietnam as a child. She had murdered four crooks who killed her parents and kidnapped her. Jackson raised her up, and lets face it, he makes a better mentor than Malkovich, always laughing and living it up in an English manor, playing blues riffs on rare guitars. That's part of what makes this a better movie: the quality of the leads, or possibly their roles. The locations and situations are all very high-class - Maggie works in a rare bookshop, and so on. Also, Maggie Q makes a great action star - very sexy in a black body suit. 

Still, I wonder if I've seen enough of these. There's another on my Netflix list, Kate, with Mary Elizabeth Winstead. But maybe I should wait awhile before watching that one.