Knives Out (2019)

Tags

Drama, Mystery, Thriller

I don’t quite believe that the truth is subjective,
A trite protocol
That changes and varies
‘Twixt contemporaries,
From person to person.
Such thoughts only worsen
The idea that truth isn’t out there at all.

No, no, there is truth, even-handed, objective,
But often concealed
In worry and caring,
Fake news and red herring.
It leads us on chases
To unpleasant places.
The few who keep up get to see it revealed.
__________________________

MPA rating: PG-13 (a bit heavy on language, as much as they could fit in while retaining its rating)

I still have Blindspots to catch up on, but it seemed past time to watch a movie that I’ve been wanting to see since it came out last year (until a certain virus kept me from the second-run theater I was planning to visit). The murder mystery genre has fallen by the wayside in recent years, but if any film can revitalize it, Rian Johnson’s Knives Out is the one to do it. Being a fan of Johnson’s contentious The Last Jedi, I was eager to see what he’d do next, and Knives Out did not disappoint.

Named after the Radiohead song of the same name, the film doesn’t waste time getting to the murder, as the first scene involves the morning discovery of mystery writer Harlan Thrombey’s body (Christopher Plummer) after he apparently cut his throat in his study sometime during the night. Like so many other classic mysteries, the large ensemble cast is full of splashy characters, most of whom have a potential motive for the Thrombey patriarch’s death. At first, there doesn’t seem to be a main character as detectives (Lakeith Stanfield, Noah Segan) interview Harlan’s discordant family: his arrogant daughter (Jamie Lee Curtis) and her husband (Don Johnson), his insecure son (Michael Shannon), and his self-absorbed daughter-in-law (Toni Collette), among others. Gradually, though, famed Detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig, handily covering his British accent with a Southern drawl) takes the stage, as does Marta Cabrera (Ana de Armas), Harlan’s personal nurse who physically cannot tell a lie.

Replete with flashbacks to the night of Thrombey’s death, Knives Out is artfully organized to show only what Rian Johnson wants to show, which is often more than you’d expect. In fact, the story seems to show its cards much earlier than you’d expect from a film over two hours long, seeming to go from a mystery to a cover-up, but it still has plenty of twists to trigger second-guessing and culminates in true murder mystery form with some climactic revelations. And through it all, the story’s convolutions and colorful characters played by actors in peak form (including Chris Evans) make for prime entertainment.

Craig is likably hammy as his Benoit Blanc doesn’t always seem as self-aware as a master sleuth should, though he proves his deductive abilities by the end; and Ana de Armas is a special stand-out in what is likely a star-making role, considering she was singled out for a Golden Globe nomination, as was Craig. Considering the overwhelmingly positive reception Knives Out has received, including being named one of AFI’s Top Ten Films of the Year, I’m actually a bit surprised it didn’t get more attention at the Oscars beyond a Best Original Screenplay nod; with all the flashbacks in the Thrombey mansion, I would think it deserved some attention for editing or production design.

The murder mystery genre has been so oversaturated over the years, from cozy Hallmark mysteries to decades of primetime series, that it’s a noteworthy exception when one can warrant this kind of all-star cast and big-screen appeal, subverting and embracing clichés in equal measure. Boasting a sly political subtext that paints both sides negatively and lauding compassion over selfishness, Knives Out proves that, in the right hands, any genre can be resurrected. Rian Johnson hit gold here, and I can’t wait to see if he can hit it again with the inevitable sequels to which Benoit Blanc lends himself.

Best line: (Blanc) “The complexity and the gray lie not in the truth but what you do with the truth once you have it.”

 

Ranking: List-Worthy

 

© 2020 S.G. Liput
695 Followers and Counting

2020 Blindspot Pick #2: Double Indemnity (1944)

Tags

Classics, Drama, Romance, Thriller

A murderer for money never thinks that he or she
Will be found out like all the rest who murdered foolishly.
“Those others never thought it through; they never planned it out;
They just weren’t careful to remove the slightest shred of doubt.
They acted on an impulse, failed to hide the fatal flaw,
But we would know exactly how to circumvent the law.
We’re smarter, right? More clever, right? When one of us commits,
No justice could contend in this, the coldest war of wits.”

Deep down within the killer’s mind, unconsciously or not,
They soothe themselves with thoughts like these to justify their plot.
And always they delude themselves, for justice, soon or late,
Will find out every criminal and lead them to their fate.
________________________

Rating: Passed/Approved (an easy PG)

Darn, I did not expect to post only one review in the whole month of May, but college is as college does. Nevertheless, I’m back to continue my long-delayed Blindspot series. (Now I’m only four behind this year!) I’ve heard of Double Indemnity for years, noticing its high placement on lists by AFI and other film organizations, yet I never really knew what the name even meant, not being versed in insurance terminology. As it turns out, I’ve seen versions of this plot plenty of times on true crime shows, but this influential film noir treatment brought it to a national audience way back in 1944.

Based on a James M. Cain novella, the script for Double Indemnity was the result of a tenuous collaboration between director Billy Wilder and famed detective novelist Raymond Chandler. As such, it utilizes a clever tool for narration; right from the beginning, insurance salesman Walter Neff (Fred McMurray) admits into a dictaphone his role in the death of a man named Dietrichson, beginning an extended flashback of his plot. After meeting the man’s alluring wife Phyllis Dietrichson (Barbara Stanwyck), Neff allows her to talk him into a murder conspiracy to get rid of her distant husband and collect on some ill-gotten life insurance, with Neff using his insurance experience to sweeten the pot with a double indemnity clause (which doubles the payment in the case of certain unlikely causes of death, such as a train accident). Yet, their “perfect crime” slowly unravels as Neff’s boss (Edward G. Robinson) becomes more and more suspicious during the investigation.

I haven’t seen many films of the film noir genre, but Double Indemnity certainly fits the bill with its shadowy angles and conspiratorial tension and indeed predates the widespread use of the term by a couple years. Plus, Barbara Stanwyck is a quintessential femme fatale figure, manipulating McMurray’s everyman character into taking charge of the plot she initiates. The film was apparently controversial for its portrayal of murder, which is tame by today’s standards, but the characters’ growing anxiety after the deed is done translates well to the audience. As Neff is forced to “assist” Robinson’s skeptical insurance man in following a trail that leads back to him, I happened to think of other similar plots that must have taken some inspiration from this one, such as 1987’s No Way Out.

Double Indemnity is a Grade-A film noir, but I can’t say it’s a new favorite since film noir is far from my favorite genre. Neff and Stanwyck do a fine job as the conspirators, but their cynically flowery dialogue, sometimes clever, is also sometimes a bit much, carrying on metaphors in ways people just don’t talk, though that’s mainly at the beginning. Robinson, though, is in top form here, stealing his scenes with a vocal panache that can’t be taught. I don’t always have to love a film to recognize it as a classic, and Double Indemnity is, another cinematic testament to the lesson “crime does not pay.”

Best line: (Neff) “Do I laugh now, or wait till it gets funny?”

 

Rank: List Runner-Up

 

© 2020 S.G. Liput
689 Followers and Counting

The Aeronauts (2019)

Tags

Drama, History, Thriller

(Today’s NaPoWriMo prompt was to review something not usually reviewed, so I decided to provide some thoughts on gravity – the force, not the movie.)

Dear readers, I had overheard the stories about gravity
Long before I put myself at risk to feel it fully.
I didn’t think it quite deserved the talk of its depravity,
But now I can confirm that it’s a mean and selfish bully.

Of all four fundamental forces, gravity’s the only type
That visibly affects mankind and all that it attracts.
It strikes with every trip and fall and when the fruits of trees are ripe,
And tortures people on the scales with inconvenient facts.

It’s true it keeps us on the ground instead of floating into space,
But never has it once allowed a flexible exception.
It’s so obsessed with physics’ laws that when we climb above our place,
It tugs and tells the ground to give a less-than-soft reception.

Though gravity will have its way, its power is not absolute;
A bit of caution and respect can keep its pull at bay.
Few acts of nature are as quick to prophesy and persecute,
But gravity’s control will fade the more we disobey.
____________________

MPA rating: PG-13

I love a good historical adventure drama, and The Aeronauts on Amazon Prime had my attention right from its first trailer. Eddie Redmayne plays James Glaisher, a scientist intent on proving his hypothesis that studying the atmosphere can allow the weather to be predicted, but as with so many 19^th-century visionaries in film, his theories are ridiculed by the Royal Society of London. (Seriously, Hollywood apparently thinks the Royal Society was so narrow-minded, it’s a wonder that anything was discovered at all. I’m sure such disbelief did happen, but I’m noticing it so frequently in these kinds of movies that the villainizing for villainizing’s sake is starting to annoy me.) To prove his ideas, he enlists the aid of the only aeronaut willing to risk such a venture high into the atmosphere, a woman named Amelia (Felicity Jones), whose balloon takes them on a dangerous upward journey.

There’s a lot to like about The Aeronauts, not least of which are the visual wonders the pair encounter, from swarms of butterflies fluttering along air currents to the rainbows backed by mountainous clouds. As they get higher, the danger sets in as Glaisher especially struggles with the rarefied air and extreme cold. The high-altitude thrills keep the adventure from boredom, and regular flashbacks provide steady doses of character development along the way. Both actors do a fine job as well, reuniting without the romance five years after their pairing in The Theory of Everything, and it was nice to see Himesh Patel from Yesterday as a scientist friend of James’.

Yet for all its quality, The Aeronauts feels somehow lacking. Perhaps it’s because of its tenuous claim to being based off a true story. James Glaisher indeed made a historic balloon flight, but it was with a man named Henry Coxwell, making Amelia a composite character of other female balloonists who, while a laudable figure, feels shoehorned into the story. Certain elements do strain believability and historical accuracy, but The Aeronauts still does its best to build a grand scientific adventure on its half-fabricated foundation. It entertains doing just that, which is good enough for me.

Best line: (Amelia Wren) “You don’t change the world simply by looking at it, you change it through the way you choose to live in it.”

 

Rank: List Runner-Up

 

© 2020 S.G. Liput
684 Followers and Counting

What Happened to Monday (2017)

Tags

Action, Drama, Mystery, Netflix, Sci-fi, Thriller

(Today’s NaPoWriMo prompt was to write a poem about a letter of the alphabet, so I went through the week and compiled couplets for each day.)

The M in Monday dips and dives
And puts a strain on all our lives.

The T is Tuesday’s cruciform,
The closest shelter from the storm.

The W is Wednesday’s smile,
As crooked as a crocodile.

The T in Thursday spreads each arm
In peace, surrender, and alarm.

The F in Friday has buck teeth
That shield a smile underneath.

The S is Saturday’s great treble,
Quite the sinner, saint, and rebel.

The S in Sunday tries to swerve,
But hits Monday and hits a nerve.
__________________________

MPA rating: TV-MA (strong R)

Netflix films can be hit-or-miss, but when a good one comes along, its relegation to a single TV streaming service makes it feel perhaps more underrated than if it had received a theatrical release. Released to theaters in Europe and Asia but to Netflix elsewhere, What Happened to Monday falls somewhere between hit and miss, but it still feels underrated for the things it does well. The dystopian thriller takes a familiar dystopian threat like overpopulation and runs with it in a way not seen before.

Actors seem to enjoy the test of inhabiting multiple characters and playing off themselves, but Noomi Rapace snagged a special challenge here, playing seven identical sisters raised in secret to protect them from the government’s rigidly enforced one-child policy. Although siblings are simply put into cryostasis, the septet’s grandfather (Willem Dafoe) kept them off the books entirely and fashioned a singular identity of Karen Settman; each girl is named after a day of the week and takes turns going out as Karen Settman on the day of their name: Sunday on Sunday, Monday on Monday, etc. However, when Monday doesn’t return at the end of her day, the other sisters find themselves in danger and must figure out what happened to her and her ties to the politician who first advocated the one-child policy (Glenn Close).

It’s no secret that I love science fiction, and What Happened to Monday is the kind of unique genre tale I enjoy, usually more than the critics do. The plot zips along without a moment of boredom, and Rapace does wonders with a script that doesn’t quite manage to make each of the Settman sisters stand out. Some are easy to pick out (Saturday has blonde hair, Friday is mousy and wears a knit cap), while others don’t really distinguish themselves much (Tuesday and Wednesday). Nevertheless, Rapace breathes personality into the ones that matter most, and the effects allowing her to interact with her doubles are top-notch.

Many films on Netflix don’t seem to bother holding back on their TV-MA ratings, and sadly the same is true for What Happened to Monday, marred by several bloody deaths and a gratuitous sex scene. It’s really a shame because the film otherwise warrants repeat viewings. Some twists are hardly surprising to anyone familiar with the dystopian genre, but it still holds plenty of mystery and thrills to overcome the occasionally thin characterization. It even ends up with a surprisingly pro-life sentiment by the end. It’s far better than its mixed reviews indicate, and if you can overcome the R-rated content, it’s one more what-if example of why I love sci-fi.

Best line: (Sunday, quoting their father) “Seven minds are better than one.”

 

Rank: List Runner-Up

 

© 2020 S.G. Liput
684 Followers and Counting

Riddick (2013)

Tags

Action, Sci-fi, Thriller

(Today’s NaPoWriMo prompt was to write a poem phonetically similar to a poem in another language, which was harder than it sounded. I chose the first four stanzas of the Welsh “Stone Poem” by Menna Elfyn. I tried to get it to make sense, but that might depend on the reader’s interpretation.)

Caring draws in foolishness,
While lacking love is power.

Men are gargoyles founded
On cruelty’s fear of cowards.
‘Tis rare, but some have sounded

Warnings, dim and heaved,
Pleading, “These rascals are not ours,”
But they’re demeaned and unbelieved.

The docile manners man the laws,
Which mold the many to the hour.
But men are sure to linger in man’s hardest flaws.
______________________

MPA rating: R

Last year, I ventured into the cutthroat world of Richard B. Riddick, Vin Diesel’s iconic anti-hero from Pitch Black and The Chronicles of Riddick. Considering the latter’s less than favorable reception from critics (I rather liked it myself), it feels like a small miracle that creator David Twohy was able to gain enough traction for a third film nine years later, and indeed he manages to round out the trilogy with possibly its strongest installment.

The Chronicles of Riddick was both enhanced and muddled by a huge surge of world-building: invading death cult armies, ethereal air people, and the like. Riddick turns its back on all that right from the beginning, and, aside from a cameo from Karl Urban, it might as well have never happened once Riddick is again stranded on an inhospitable alien world. In that sense, it’s practically an alternate version of Pitch Black, except with two shipfuls of disposable bounty hunters (including Matt Nable and Dave Bautista) after Riddick instead of just one man. Oh, and the swarms of killer aliens come out when it rains rather than when night falls.

In some ways, Riddick feels like the franchise treading water, but in others, it’s exactly what made it cool to begin with. Diesel gets to add plenty of badassery to his resumé, from clever survivalist skills to inventive killing methods, and the story lends itself to his laconic character’s show-don’t-tell approach. I also liked how it built upon what happened in Pitch Black and chose an ideal ending, not giving in to the previous films’ tendency of no one but Riddick having a chance at ultimate survival.

Returning to its franchise’s roots, Riddick is an entertaining, frequently brutal improvement, though I’m disappointed the second film’s PG-13 rating had to be bumped up to an R for this one. There are still rumblings of a fourth film called Furya and a TV series called Merc City in the works, so time will tell what’s left of Riddick’s story. The harsh universe he inhabits certainly seems to have more stories to tell.

Best line: (Consort) “So what is the best way to a man’s heart?” (Riddick) “Between the fourth and fifth rib. That’s where I usually go. I’ll put a twist at the end if I wanna make sure.”

 

Rank: List Runner-Up

 

© 2020 S.G. Liput
680 Followers and Counting

The Wandering Earth (2019)

Tags

Action, Drama, Foreign, Netflix, Sci-fi, Thriller

(Today’s NaPoWriMo prompt was to write about items gathered during a walk. In my house, I latched onto a nearby globe and decided to write about the planet at large, even though the film is more about disaster than discovery.)

What ancient cartographer could have imagined
A world as small as this?
Back then, the maps ended without a true edge
In blurry oblivion. One would allege
A brand new discovery, and they would wedge
The new land upon the abyss.

And now we know everything, satellite-view;
No land is left to miss.
But now we look upward and see a frontier,
More blurry oblivion. Scorning the fear,
We still must endeavor to find what’s not here.
We just can’t abide an abyss.
___________________________

MPA rating: TV-MA (it’s a PG-13-level movie, but the English subtitles have more F words than the original Chinese for some reason)

When you think of Chinese films, science fiction isn’t a genre that immediately comes to mind, but The Wandering Earth might change that. Based on a 2000 novella and released through Netflix outside of China, this big-budget blockbuster is like Asia’s answer to Michael Bay, a solar-system-spanning disaster flick that is just over-the-top enough to work.

Anyone remember the Spongebob episode with the Alaskan bull worm threatening the town, where Patrick says they should just take Bikini Bottom and push it someplace else? Well, that’s the brilliant idea the future world leaders in this film came up with to escape an expanding sun. Studding the earth’s surface with enormous rocket engines, they push the planet out of its orbit toward a safer system while most of the population retreats underground to escape the freezing surface. Years into the journey, the roaming planet gets caught in Jupiter’s gravity, forcing young adult Liu Qi (Chuxiao Qu), his sister, and their accomplices to fix one of the failing engines and save the world, while his father (Jing Wu) on a space station tries to do the same.

With tiny people causing planet-level effects, everything in The Wandering Earth is on such a humongous scale that even its semi-plausible elements seem utterly ridiculous, yet the earnestness of the characters and coolness of the visuals make the suspension of disbelief possible. In creating China’s first big sci-fi movie, the filmmakers certainly went all out with their emulation of similar Hollywood blockbusters: collapsing ice towers, a single-minded AI to fight, huge explosions, questions about saving the many vs. the few, last-minute heroics and touching sacrifices.

There’s a reason it made $700 million, making it the third highest-grossing non-English film ever. (Netflix has an English dub, but I’d only watch it if you absolutely can’t stand subtitles or want fewer obscenities.) I don’t know how the current pandemic will affect China’s film industry, but The Wandering Earth is proof that it can compete with Hollywood on special-effects extravaganzas. I wouldn’t say it’s better than films like Armageddon or Sunshine, but it’s certainly bigger.

 

Rank: List Runner-Up

 

© 2020 S.G. Liput
679 Followers and Counting

Time Trap (2017)

Tags

Drama, Mystery, Sci-fi, Thriller

(Today’s NaPoWriMo prompt was for a “concrete” poem, where the lines and words form an image that reflects the poem’s theme. That theme for me being time, I chose a fitting hourglass shape.)

Time in the moment drips by like molasses,

A thick atmosphere that encloses the masses.

The teenagers wish it would hurry on by,

While grandparents issue a sigh,

And then all at once

Time is starting

To fly

By,

And only

At long last

When time has complied

Do former teenagers see time’s other side

And wish that molasses could slow down its stride.

________________________

MPA rating: Not Rated (deserves a PG-13)

“Time-bending mystery” is a genre that I feel I am inherently destined to love. It’s not often that a film plays with the notion of time without involving out-and-out time travel, but Time Trap manages to pull it off in a fascinating way, despite its limited budget.

Andrew Wilson (who looks a lot like Dennis Quaid) plays Hopper, an archaeology professor investigating the disappearance of some hippies from the ‘70s, and when he doesn’t return, two of his students (Reiley McClendon, Brianne Howey) and their friends go after him into the Southwest desert. Not realizing the danger of “looking for somebody who went missing while he was looking for somebody that went missing,” the group venture into a cave system and become trapped when their ropes break. Eventually, they realize that time is passing differently inside the cave than it is on the surface and… that’s all I’m going to say.

This kind of film benefits greatly from not knowing what’s going to happen, which means stay away from the trailer. There are times when you can tell the filmmakers considered making this as a found-footage film, and I’m glad they only employed that technique occasionally. Despite some so-so acting and dialogue, the way the story plays out is rather ingenious, slowly revealing things to the audience as the characters learn them. You might pick up on what’s happening before they do, but there are further twists that take the story in unexpected directions.

Time Trap won’t necessarily revolutionize your notion of time and space, but it’s entertaining and short, too short in fact, ending right when things take a left turn I would have liked to explore more. It’s proof that high sci-fi concepts don’t need a blockbuster budget.

Best line: (Hopper) “Well, my grandfather used to tell me the future can give you anything you want. If you wait long enough, the future will create it. Maybe through technology, or maybe just by making you not want it anymore. Either way, the answer’s in the future.”

 

Rank: List Runner-Up

 

© 2020 S.G. Liput
676 Followers and Counting

Us (2019)

Tags

Horror, Thriller

(Today’s NaPoWriMo prompt was to incorporate twenty random elements into a poem, but, since using all of them would likely result in nonsense, I tried to use at least 8 or 9 in a poem from the viewpoint of a tortured reflection.)

My life is death, for I don’t live. I imitate. I mock.
A mirror image knows its cage, no need for bars or lock,
A mime condemned to emulate another round the clock.

“I’m just so happy,” says my smile, when I am forced to wear it.
My joie de vivre is copy-pasted, hollow when I bare it.
Only when my twin shows grief can I completely share it.

“Keep up! No rest!” the glass wall cries between my twin and I.
The fluid hardness of its bounds compels me to comply.
I do the simulated dance, no understudy nigh.

I am, therefore I think, but no one else can hear my thoughts.
For no one thinks that life is real for something so ersatz.
A mime depicting stories based on someone else’s plots.
______________________

MPA rating: R

After the cultural splash that Get Out made, Jordan Peele had a lot to live up to with his next foray into horror, and in light of some strange confusion surrounding his first film’s genre, he left no doubt that Us is straight-up horror. Peele is definitely an auteur, able to brilliantly craft tension and chills and blessed with gifted actors to bring his stories to life, but Us feels like a tale he didn’t think through enough.

At the beginning, we meet Adelaide (Madison Curry as a child, Lupita Nyong’o as an adult), a young girl who wanders off at a beachside carnival and comes face to face with a terrifying doppelganger in a hall of mirrors. Many years later, she’s married to Gabe (Winston Duke, Nyong’o’s Black Panther co-star), and together with daughter Zora (Shahadi Wright Joseph) and son Jason (Evan Alex), the Wilson family goes on vacation not far from that same beach that has haunted Adelaide ever since. Without warning one night, an identical family breaks into their house with bloodthirsty intentions, and the Wilsons must fight to survive against their doubles.

Us does a lot of things really well, from the visceral panic of the home invasion to Peele’s skillful direction that keeps the adrenaline up and only shows you what he wants you to see. And like his previous film, he manages to incorporate some dark comedy, more successfully than in Get Out I thought, such as the Wilsons comparing their kill counts during a break in the action. Indeed, the first two thirds of Us are a horror masterclass, albeit a bit too bloody for my liking, but undeniably well done, even taking a rap song and turning it into a creepy segment of the score. All the actors do wonders with their dual roles, Nyong’o especially, nailing both their frightened and malevolent personas with apparent ease.

But then there’s the last third, which seeks to offer explanation where none suffices. The origins and previous lives of the doppelgangers are purposely bizarre, but their “way of life” simply makes no sense. Why are they sometimes compelled to mirror the Wilsons’ actions and other times not? Where do the rabbits come from? What is the purpose of the “Hands Across America” re-creation? I could go into a lot more spoiler-y detail, but suffice to say, the logical side of my brain was left screaming, “What the heck? This. Doesn’t. Make. Sense!” I see the intended symbolism of a grotesque mirror image of our world, as well as the overplayed theme of one person’s prospering resulting in another’s suffering, but it’s as if Peele forced the story to fit the message and no one wanted to tell him how illogical it had become.

For a film that initially feels so well-made, it’s a shame that the plot is ultimately so half-baked. I will admit the final twist packs a surprising and disturbing punch, which was unfortunately spoiled for me by none other than Lupita Nyong’o herself on Inside the Actor’s Studio. I didn’t think Get Out was the masterpiece many people said it was, but it at least didn’t leave me bewildered with its own implausibility, as Us did. I hope Jordan Peele takes more time for his next film to flesh out the story with the same talent he brings to the scares.

Best line: (Jason) “When you point a finger at someone else, you have three pointing back at you.”

 

Rank: Dishonorable Mention

 

© 2020 S.G. Liput
676 Followers and Counting

Crawl (2019)

Tags

Horror, Thriller

(Today’s NaPoWriMo prompt was to take a list of random words and use Rhymezone.com, which I do all the time incidentally, to find rhymes and similar words to use with them, which naturally leads to some welcome alliteration.)

I crave a crunch within my keep
And crawl and creep from out the deep
And sleekly sneak and slink toward prey
To snag the snack that runs away.
The peril of my pool is plain,
But how I prowl is not in vain;
The haunted hunted hate the wait
And heed the hazard much too late.
Before the fear is fully felt,
My sudden strike of death is dealt.
The walking world has one more dead,
And I, the predator, am fed.
____________________________

MPA rating: R

I enjoy a good creature feature and got Crawl from my library, thinking it was PG-13; I was wrong. If I’d known gorehound director Alexandre Aja was behind it, I probably would not have sought it out at all, but I’m glad I gave Crawl a chance. It’s an effectively pulse-pounding thriller that does for gators what Jaws did for sharks.

Kaya Scodelario plays Haley, a swimmer who drives into a flood zone as Hurricane Wendy bears down upon the Florida coast. She searches for her unresponsive dad (Barry Pepper) who hasn’t evacuated, and when she finds him, wounded beneath his house, the two humans and a dog are caught between the rising flood waters and a hoard of hungry alligators.

Crawl doesn’t need to be more than it is, a white-knuckle man/woman-against-nature flick with ravenous reptiles, and it succeeds. It develops the tension and the characters laudably well, providing convincing throw-away victims to up the stakes while the strained father-daughter dynamic grows stronger through the peril.

Like nearly all horror flicks, there are moments of foolishness that smarter-than-thou audiences can shake their heads at, but I doubt I’d fare as well as the main characters do. It has a few gruesome scenes on the level of Jaws, but Crawl’s violence is surprisingly restrained overall, considering the director, and turned out to be an unrealistic but enjoyably tense watch.

 

Rank: List Runner-Up

 

© 2020 S.G. Liput
674 Followers and Counting

Parasite (2019)

Tags

Drama, Foreign, Thriller

We take what we can when a chance is in reach.
‘Tis not a behavior we humans must teach.
We covet and crave and we grasp and we use,
And somehow find ways to ignore and excuse.

And many believe some are worse than the rest,
More prone to wrongdoing, more quick to detest,
And common it is to believe that such foes
Are less than a human, the lowest of lows.

Yet sins such as these are not tied to one class,
One race or one creed or one crowd to harass.
We humans are kindred, for better or worse,
And vice is the same in a world this diverse.
______________________

MPA rating: R (for language, violence, and sensuality)

My mind has been ruminating over Parasite ever since I saw it in the theater three weeks ago, trying to decide what exactly I think about it. After hearing people gush over this obscure Korean film that was becoming increasingly less obscure, I was surprised and curious when it managed to snag a Best Picture nomination. It was the last nominee I saw in the theater this time around, and I liked it well enough. Yet in the days that followed, my opinion of it kept edging higher, its layers of meaning and metaphor being peeled away in my head. And then, lo and behold, it went from dark horse to Best Picture winner at the Oscars, the first non-English-language film to do so!

The Kims are a lower-class family of four struggling financially, doing what they can to make ends meet. When son Ki-woo gets an opportunity to tutor the daughter of the affluent Park family, he jumps at the chance, even though he must lie about his credentials as a university student. Soon, his self-justified fib morphs into an ongoing plot to provide his whole family with jobs in the Park household:  his sister as an art therapist, his father as a chauffeur, and his mother as the housekeeper. Their scheme goes well at first until things begin to unravel as untruths and unkindnesses pile upon each other.

I’ve been trying to pin down why Parasite is so critically beloved, at least in terms of its cinematic style. In some ways, it’s like the Korean equivalent of Jordan Peele’s Get Out, its thriller elements leavened by occasional humor and underscored by a potent social message. But I think the best and most flattering analogy is that it is a mixture of Hitchcock (exploration of human nature’s dark side, methodical direction) and Shakespeare (fits of mania, mistakes leading to disastrous consequences), both critical darlings themselves. Bong Joon-ho made history winning Best Picture, Director, and International Film at the Oscars, and, although a part of me considers it potentially a politically correct choice, I can’t deny that it’s deserving.

With public opinion increasingly turning against the rich, Parasite feels like the right film at the right time to earn its acclaim, and the stark class divide in South Korea also makes its story work best in its Korean setting, making me hesitant about the upcoming American remake. Yet there’s a balancing act at play as well, in which neither the poor Kims nor the wealthy Parks are pigeonholed as good or bad. There are sympathy and blame to go around, deceit and a distinct lack of empathy at work in them both, as well as other characters I won’t spoil. At one point, while reveling in the Parks’ home while they are away, the Kim matriarch declares, “If I had all this, I would be kinder,” yet within minutes, she is offered a choice between harshness and mercy and chooses poorly. From themes of escalating class rage to man’s knack for long-term shortsightedness, the plot is replete with subtlety yet remains entertaining as it embodies the saying, “Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive.”

Typically, I know my own opinion of a film by the time it ends or within a day or two if it bears rumination, so it’s a rare thing when my opinion continually goes up for reasons unknown. I still consider 1917 to be a more technically impressive film that I enjoyed more (and Sam Mendes definitely should have won Best Director IMO), but, despite my mild disappointment when Parasite won Best Picture, I’m okay with its win. I’m still not a huge fan of its violent climax, but I can’t help but admire Bong Joon-ho’s cinematic craft, from the brilliant bewilderment of its central twist to the setting and composition of the Park home, which deserves a place among notable houses in film.

Parasite is proof of the director’s memorable line from his Golden Globe acceptance speech: “Once you overcome the one-inch-tall barrier of subtitles, you will be introduced to so many more amazing films.” Even if it’s not destined to be a personal favorite of mine, this is not just a quality Korean import but a quality film, period. For me at least, Parasite attaches itself too strongly to ignore.

Best line: (Kim Ki-taek, the father, referring to the Parks) “They are rich but still nice.” (Kim Chung-sook, the mother) “They are nice because they are rich.”

 

Rank: List Runner-Up (though it comes closer to List-Worthy than I expected)

 

© 2020 S.G. Liput
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