JC

VIP

4

An admirable if slightly disappointing spin on the slasher genre. Maybe it’d hit more if j had more attachment to Friday the 13th- I’ve only seen the first and last three entries of the original series (including FvJ, there was a random marathon on TV), so I’m not the biggest Friday fan there could be. But I’m more than familiar enough to recognize the space it’s playing in, and I both appreciate the attempt at engaging with the ‘mentally disabled/ill killer’ popularized by Friday and Halloween, but frustrated it didn’t go further. The keys scene is a nice attempt at humanizing Johnny, but then the movie ends with a monologue drawing parallels to a rabid, sick bear, how it kept killing for no reason but to kill, how animals don’t have reason. It goes to the door of trying something new with the trope only to pull away.

Speaking of the ending, I’m of two minds. A part of me admires the subverting of expectations and how it lets you linger in the tension of what you’re sure is coming, joining Kristy in staring intently at the trees for any sign, your eyes playing tricks on you, wondering if this woman is on the up and up. It’s the most tense moment in the film because it’s the longest time away from Johnny’s perspective, the first time we can’t see a kill coming. On the other, it is a bit boring and unsatisfying an ending. I suppose it leaves an ambiguity to it- is it meant to once again draw a line between Johnny and the bear, both still out there? Or maybe it’s another subversion- the final shot is the locket gone, and Johnny doesn’t attack her again. Maybe it’s a rebuttal of the thought he’s just an animal. He stopped.

I respect the ending for trying something, but I wonder if it’d hit more if it was truly the first time we leave Johnny’s perspective. The conceit is strong, but at times the writer-director struggles. The campfire scene is an obvious departure that only fits by technicality, and has an anxiety about it, like the film can’t trust the audience to infer Johnny’s past and condition, it has to lay it all out. I couldn’t help but think it might’ve been more interesting to be left with just his long stare at a fireman helmet, and playing with the car on the key, and the ranger’s history with him.

It’s similarly trying with the environment, and that hits on one level. It’s gorgeous scenery. But a more experienced director would’ve tied it into the themes more, given it more of a point. While the main influence is Friday, the atmosphere and cinematography have a splash of Texas Chainsaw but doesn’t touch that movie’s suffocating and nauseating atmosphere or iconic shot of Leatherface swinging his chainsaw in the sunrise in a manic, frenzied dance. It’s competent, pretty to look at, but it’s not iconic. On the other hand the kills are great, gorey, and more than live up to the Friday style. One in particular is instantly an all timer, gnarly and physical. Unfortunately it also lives up to the flat acting and cringy writing- you know young people, talking about ableism and cancel culture. It’s hard to say how much of it is a mostly fresh cast and director-writer and how much is homage. I think it works best with the lesbian slutty couple- true progress for the slasher genre- as a deliberate modern spin on the old style, and much of the film could’ve used more that energy. Even then it’s a kind of a double edged sword when one of the lesbians gets the most brutal and drawn out kill, and although surely unintentional, the unintentional or otherwise implication and energy classic slashers punishing (especially women’s) sexuality is carried over into feeling like it’s punishing lesbian sexuality.

That said, it’s a lot of fun to imagine what the cast is doing off screen, the movie they’re going through, and most of the time what you’re imagining lines up with the pacing of the movie, so it shows a love and knowledge of the genre. As a feature film debut, In A Violent Nature shows a lot of promise and is a fun time, but I wished for more, and hopefully Nash’s future efforts deliver,

Not as good as Fury Road, but that’s a high and unfair bar for anything to clear. This one trades the propulsion of the first film for slower, darker fare. The happy ending of this story is in another film. This is like an extended flashback, a state of mind, before Furiosa knows if any of this is going to be worth it, and the film knows that it won’t be, not in this chapter. In that sense, the heightened CGI works as a bit of fuzzy memory at play, though I miss the crunchy practical effects of Fury Road. It’s still here, and the action is still exciting, but the green screen and CGI are noticeable.

Anna Taylor Joy gets a lot of attention, as she should, evoking Theron while putting her own spin on the role, but Browne also deserves credit. Both establish a continuity for this part, and convey so much rage and grief through their eyes. Hulme has a lot to live up to as Immortan Joe, and while he doesn’t match Keays-Bryne in the role, he does as well as anyone could. It focuses more on the militaristic element of Joe. Burke does a great job echoing Max, what Max could’ve been born in another place, the heart shining through after being reawakened. It establishes why Furiosa gives Max so many chances in Fury Road, seeing something similar in him.

And Hemsworth is, in the best possible way, a wrestling heel. The scene where he and Immortan Joe first meet is a great contrast between the classic Lord Humongous style of villain of Mad Max past and how Immortan Joe is that step above. Dementus has charisma, even affability, in the short term, able to bring people to his side but unable to keep them together. His ego and impulses ruin any short term alliances- sacrificing his men to get inside Gastown works, but it causes that same gang to break away from him. Joe is a monster, but one with a coherent vision, consistency, and pragmatism that gets the smaller people bought in on Valhalla or little drops of fresh water and the bigger people on profit margins and power. Dementus doesn’t have anything beyond his little schemes, no plans in the long run. And like many a great heel- think MJF or Roman Reigns- he is at heart a broken, empty man looking for any cheap pleasure and glory that will chase away the black emptiness within even for a moment, and wants to prove the hero is no different, for that is the closest thing to company he can imagine. The final scene between Hemsworth and Taylor-Joy really cackles, and sets up the ending of Fury Road. Miller’s said it’s a 50-50 chance Furiosa changes things for the better or succumbs to the power. Is Dementus right?

I think on some level the film might suffer from skipping over Furiosa interacting with the wives, from not giving her much of a heroic arc going into Fury Road, but I also wonder how intentional that is. How much of Fury Road is Furiosa heroically trying to help women she sees herself in, and how much of it is her just trying to get home and spite another man who tried to control her? Furiosa supports both without giving an easy answer. It’s a darker myth, the darkest since perhaps the first, and I think executes that ambiguity of ‘Is Max a good man?’ far better. For all the action setpieces- explosive and dazzling as they were- it’s the state of mind of Furiosa that sticks with me.

Even the music is sparser, quieter, rendering some of the action scenes not the frenetic thrill ride building to a triumphant climax feeling of Fury Road but almost a sadness to the scenes, of people throwing their lives away, for more loss on the horizon. Or the gnarliness of Furiosa’s arm getting crunched and the striking image of it hanging from a chain, desert sand billowing, as Dementus looks upon it almost as if he knows he has created a monster. Or the cruel, fitting, and poetic justice wrought upon him, and what it says about Furiosa that she used the seed that way. She didn’t plant it in hope, or to better anyone. But for revenge. And as the film presents it, a crushed fruit in her hand, that’s the mindset she has going in as she leads the wives right into Fury Road. Is Fury Road the story of her embracing hope again, and the best parts of herself? Or is it just the last high of her humanity before she falls like Joe and Dementus before her? It’s funny how Fury Road feels like the first, but Furiosa just might feel like the second.

I remember saying where the original Mad Max faltered and felt like retroactive, unneeded backstory before the good stuff is that it never got me to buy in on Max’s conflict. I never felt like he was on the precipice, like he was enjoying the violence too much before he lost everything, not because of that supposed love for vehicular carnage but as a way for the film to get him to do more. I never felt keyed in to that mindset. Furiosa I do. Furiosa and the original Mad Max may be the most singularly character focused films in the saga, and Furiosa feels like Miller learning from his mistakes there to craft something with the strengths of both eras of Mad Max. If it doesn’t reach the pulsing speed and distance of Fury Road, it’s a more than worthy entry for the darker depths it plunges into.

The shit I watch for Lance Reddick. A lot of white nonsense, all the exoticism and white centering you’d expect. Plus choppy editing, and everyone directed to overact. Craig gets the best moment of the film when he’s allowed to just act with his eyes when the son dies, and Bassinger similarly does alright in quiet moments. But then she’s told her husband dies and goes so big it’s just laughable. The tragedy comes off the same. The script is clunky as all get out, rushing from point a to point b. Or perhaps more aptly, episode 1 to 2. This episodic structure doesn’t help the film; there’s no connective tissue and nothing really resembling growth. They’re in love because they’re in love, she loves Africa because she loves Africa, the script will make sure to have characters tell us it’s been weeks, years. There’s nothing here.

And while Reddick usually made the most out of even minor roles, he just did not have the opportunity here. All African characters are just set dressing, orbiting around Bassinger. The only thing of note here is that the accent training he did to land this role apparently greatly helped him with Charon in John Wick. Just read the interview instead and leave this movie a dream.

You know I was going to be nicer to this movie but then it gave Djimon the best performance only to kill him off- without naming him! When they sat down and had a peaceful conversation! There was time to get names- helping this white family that’s always had a bit of a traditionalist cottage core power fantasy to it especially with this one making such a note of how Lee’s gone and if he was here, the implicit undertone being that Emmett must stand up instead so mother can stay with the child they for some reason decided to have in this world where noise gets you killed. Djimon’s last words are about getting back to his family, who get no characterization whatsoever, and are not followed up on. It’s hard not to notice what kinds of people and families are getting the attention here. And for what? A truncated Last of Us plot?

The only other black guy of note is a cop who dies in the opening flashback also helping this family so. Djimon gets to be in the prequel and Lupita’s the star and it’s the director of Pig, which I still need to see but have heard good things about, so maybe it’ll deliver something new. Cause this well has run dry. There’s nothing as simply striking as the nail scene in the first. The music is distracting and mood killing. The performances go big but fail to stir besides, again, Djimon’s monologue where his gaze and body language and eyes do so much to enhance a barebones script. It’s playing the same beats with the same gimmick, nothing to show why this needed a sequel.

The divided family plot lines only diffuse the tension and immediacy, pulling you out of the movie so it can be self satisfied with how ‘clever’ the obvious and clear parallels are. It doesn’t enrich either arc. Especially with how the son has the exact same arc as the last movie, the mother gets nothing, and the daughter… gets to be told she’s like her dad? She pulls off what she wanted to do at no real cost to her or anyone she cares about, just some islanders and man isn’t there a loadedness to that term here considering. Hopefully Day One will prove this franchise isn’t one that should’ve stopped at a thoroughly mediocre movie pulled by an interesting gimmick.

Never been read harder than when my little brother saw this and said ‘I really liked it but YOU’LL love it’. This must be how some trans people felt seeing the Matrix, feeling seen, feeling called out, a generational disillusionment and a deep dysphoria acknowledged. But The Matrix is a power fantasy by directors who love to ape black aesthetics but hold a disdain for us, blame us. This is a cautionary tale, one full of empathy but good god I cannot be this.

I thought I had scheduled an appointment for this morning to talk to a provider about HRT. I spent the previous night wrapped in anxiety about what if things go wrong, what if they change for the worse, what if it won’t ’fix’ me, what if I talk to these people and they call me out, I’m not trans enough, I’m confused. It didn’t go through, I guess. They never called. I scheduled another in two weeks, got the email confirmation. And a part of me was relieved. Passed the buck down. A misunderstanding I can wash my hands of, a perfect excuse I could not be faulted for.

And then I saw this. As if to wash the doubt away. This hollowed me out. I feel raw and exposed and empty like it dug my heart out. I’ve been Owen. I am Owen. I don’t talk right, it’s hard to look people in the eyes, my skin doesn’t fit right, I feel hollow and I look in the mirror and often I see something disgusting and rotting. Owen in the ending is like my biggest nightmare put on screen. I got chicken tenders at the theater, I know, I’m a weirdo, and they asked for the name of the order and I used my birth name. Here. At no risk to me, nobody who knows me, I still couldn’t use Jaycee. I don’t use it at drive throughs. The name I chose, that the people I love and trust call me across the internet, that I use on the dating apps, I couldn’t use. Why? Because I don’t feel like I’ve earned it? Because it doesn’t feel time? There is still time.

I could say more about how this hits as someone who grew up on Buffy and Whedon shows for better and worse in high school despite being born a year before the show premiered, how it hits a nostalgia of a time I knew from behind the screen and then how time skips into now, like a shattering of the escape. I could talk about the attachment formed to a show before the Internet showed you all the fans who loved it like you, seeing yourself in it, projecting onto it what may not be there and reckoning with that as you grow. I could talk about Smith’s aching wound of a performance or Liddy-Paine’s killer monologue, or the breathtaking lighting and cinematography, but all I need to say is what I needed to hear.

There is still time. But that doesn’t mean there’s time to waste. I’m going to do that appointment. I’m going to use my name. I’m going to claw to who I want to be and who I am inch by inch. And like Owen, I may be alone when I take that path but I will be so relieved to be on it, I will know who I am, and that will be in part due to seeing the TV glow.

It’s Mad Max Fury Road, dog. In some way it’s unfair to have this be the first movie I saw of the series. It’s one of the best action movies of all time, a contender for the best, a nonstop thrill ride that somehow never tilts over into exhausting or thoughtless. Passion and craft is in every frame. People actually did these stunts! And the colors, the visual flair, how they convey tone and the emotions of the characters… The music that vibrates your bones… It’s the climax of everything the previous movies built to. It’s the product of decades of experience and a true love for a story Miller’s held dear for even longer.

And that’s not even going to the performances like Hardy’s rabid dog learning to love people again, Hoult’s puppy dog finding a true home and meaning, and of course, Furiosa, a character at this point just as iconic as Max. The efficiency of the storytelling is so clean, every Wife gets a moment to shine and pay off their arc, everything you need to know about Max and Furiosa is etched into their expressions. And at its core such a hopeful, human movie, believing in a better world amidst the ruins of the old. Just top to bottom a flawless movie. Furiosa has a lot to live up to, but knowing Miller, I have no doubt it’ll be a hell of a time.

Solid if unremarkable, Beyond Thunderdome has a strong first half and a decent second that don’t quite meld into a strong whole, but neither are a drag to get through. The titular Thunderdome is iconic, as are Master-Blaster. The sequence in there is all kinds of fun and excess. Bartertown itself is impressively crafted and lived in, and a grey settlement in contrast to the black and white factions of Road Warrior. Tina Turner is infectious with the fun she’s having while knowing when to dial back. The kids are fine. They have their moments and aren’t obnoxious, but they don’t stir much in me by the end either, and while I don’t hate the second half the tonal shift is still jarring. There’s an endearing fairy tale, 80s family movie energy to the proceedings that’s kind of delightful in a Mad Max trapping, but I can’t help but wish it either stuck with the first half or just executed the second better. It gets the job done, but feels like it’s always on the precipice of being more. Even the action sequences are charmingly broader and indulgent in more slapstick but don’t reach the highs of the previous movie besides the Thunderdome. It’s a satisfying end to the trilogy, but not an especially cathartic one.

Much like Rise, this is a solid entry that feels ripe for sequels to up the ante with the foundation built here. Noa has a compelling if more traditional coming of age hero’s journey than Caesar. Proximus is fun if not on the level of Koa or the Colonel. There’s a sinister curiosity to him, and I like the idea of twisting the well intentioned words of the past, turning ideals into fanaticism. It’s true to life, but like many of the themes here a little underexplored. The community taking him down when he stands alone with the power of their tradition is a great moment, but could’ve been built up more. Macon as Raka was a standout, very compassionate and thoughtful, every word and action thought out. He drew the eye every time he was on screen.

Freya Allan is also a highlight. She’s not the usual human ally or villain but an anti hero. You’re as conflicted as Noa is about whether she can be trusted. Her motivations are sympathetic, but the depths of what she’ll do to achieve her goals go deeper and deeper. It’s left ambiguous whether she’s go further, and whether she thinks getting humans back to where they were means sending apes back. There’s an entitlement and condescension to her- it was humans’ first, apes weren’t meant for this. As if it’s her right to decide. But there’s a pain and heartache to it, even a touch of self loathing. It’s a deft line Allan walks, and the ambiguity gives a lot of room to build with for sequels.

And of course, the visuals are great. The CGI and motion capture are so lifelike, and let the actors shine. And there’s some gorgeously lush environments. It’s a feast for the eyes. Kingdom is a worthy entry in the series, if not an exceptional one, but I’m optimistic that like Rise they can springboard off this framework to deliver even better and more ambitious entries.