Multiples Madness
Haunted Mansion
⭐⭐
Genre: Horror, Comedy
Director: Justin Simien
Starring: LaKeith Stanfield, Rosario Dawson, Owen Wilson, Tiffany Haddish, Danny DeVito, Jamie Lee Curtis, Jared Leto
Disney is convinced Haunted Mansion should be a Pirates of the Caribbean franchise for some reason. Or maybe they just felt guilty for the Eddie Murphy one. Either or, but truth be told I never watched the Eddie Murphy Hunted Mansion movie. All I know is nobody liked it. It seems nobody really likes this one either, so...apology not accepted?
Based on the Disneyland theme park ride, Haunted Mansion is about a haunted mansion. A Disney style haunted mansion, but a haunted mansion nonetheless. Rosario Dawson plays a mother who moves into said mansion with her son, only to find themselves haunted by the spirits within. She then invites supernatural experts to help her with her problem, only to have them all get trapped in the house with her one by one. Haunted Mansion has playful charm to it, though it feels collapsed under its bold style weighted down by its attempts to make its long patches of exposition humorous. The movie just shatters and feels slow while trying to feel like a ride. It's a movie that never pulls itself together in spite of the best efforts of the talented people putting it together. The ensemble cast is excellent, its visually stimulating, and at times its pretty funny. Individually these things work, but the movie never quite gets them to gel. The script feels choppy at some points and overexerting in others, while some character feel superfluous and just present so it can cast its beloved character actors. I can't really blame the movie for using the opportunity to be indulgent, but I just wish it worked better. Some people will cotton to it more than others, so it has some value in that.
Talk to Me
What if Reefer Madness but with spooks? That's the question asked by Talk to Me, a new Australian horror film that blends allegories of grief and drug addiction into a chilling tale of a group of teenagers who like to party and get high by talking to the dead through a ceramic hand that allows them to be possessed for ninety seconds at a time. As you can possibly imagine, things spiral out of control as they begin seeing people that they know and ghosts start to stick around. The movie is not traditional jump-scare startle horror, choosing instead to thrill by getting under one's skin and twisting an audience member's head with the idea of what is happening. This is an existential dread movie, like the original Pulse, but not nearly as nihilistic. Talk to Me is an ugly movie that conveys beauty in its poetry on the outlook of the solitude of one's personal tragedies, how even if you share your feelings, you're still the one who has to live with them. The movie is touching in its own way, which involves rattling your inner cage. I'd even argue that it could potentially be the most emotional movie of the year, though some might look at me funny for saying that. But I look at this movie, admire the performances of its young and clearly talented cast, and see how intricately weaved and crafted this tale of personal hell is and it just floors me. If I had one note, I think the conclusion lacks some clarity in its execution. I'm pretty sure I left understanding the intent, but what actually happened to conclude the story becomes a little lost in the wind as it whisks the audience into its ironic epilogue. But even so, the more I write about this movie, the more I love it, which truly tells me it's something special.
Happiness for Beginners
Call me an unhappy camper, but I wish for better for Ellie Kemper.
Sharksploitation
Talk to Me
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Genre: Horror
Director: Danny Philippou, Michael Philippou
Starring: Sophie Wilde, Alexandra Jensen, Joe Bird, Otis Dhanji, Miranda Otto
What if Reefer Madness but with spooks? That's the question asked by Talk to Me, a new Australian horror film that blends allegories of grief and drug addiction into a chilling tale of a group of teenagers who like to party and get high by talking to the dead through a ceramic hand that allows them to be possessed for ninety seconds at a time. As you can possibly imagine, things spiral out of control as they begin seeing people that they know and ghosts start to stick around. The movie is not traditional jump-scare startle horror, choosing instead to thrill by getting under one's skin and twisting an audience member's head with the idea of what is happening. This is an existential dread movie, like the original Pulse, but not nearly as nihilistic. Talk to Me is an ugly movie that conveys beauty in its poetry on the outlook of the solitude of one's personal tragedies, how even if you share your feelings, you're still the one who has to live with them. The movie is touching in its own way, which involves rattling your inner cage. I'd even argue that it could potentially be the most emotional movie of the year, though some might look at me funny for saying that. But I look at this movie, admire the performances of its young and clearly talented cast, and see how intricately weaved and crafted this tale of personal hell is and it just floors me. If I had one note, I think the conclusion lacks some clarity in its execution. I'm pretty sure I left understanding the intent, but what actually happened to conclude the story becomes a little lost in the wind as it whisks the audience into its ironic epilogue. But even so, the more I write about this movie, the more I love it, which truly tells me it's something special.
Netflix & Chill
Happiness for Beginners
⭐1/2
Streaming On: Netflix
Genre: Comedy, Romance
Director: Vicky Wight
Starring: Ellie Kemper, Luke Grimes, Nico Santos, Blythe Danner, Ben Cook, Shayvawn Webster, Esteban Benito, Gus Birney, Julia Shiplett, Alexander Koch
Call me an unhappy camper, but I wish for better for Ellie Kemper.
Hey, that rhymed. I'm clever!
Netflix's latest romcom sees The Office/Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt/Bridesmaids star Ellie Kemper play a recent divorcee who tries to start life anew by going on a hiking trip, only to find her brother's best friend has tagged along for reasons unknown (spoiler alert: he's into her). Kemper is a wonderful comedic performer and absolutely deserves a starring role in a film to showcase her. This is what she got. Life is unfair. The biggest mistake that Happiness for Beginners makes is that it keeps Kemper restrained. It clearly wants to be cute and funny, but it's keeping someone who knows how to do the cute and funny thing well and leaves her to be the straight man. Everyone around Kemper is trying to make this movie funny, and Kemper just stands in place and bears witness. But at the same time, Happiness for Beginners doesn't seem to want its comedic personality to overwhelm it, hoping instead to just be a light film about a woman seeking a new outlook on life and finding a little bit of love along the way. Maybe this is Kemper wanting to stretch her profile by taking on a more serious role in something that isn't ostentatious, which I can support, though I question it being in a movie that is this unserious. The fact is that the lead in this movie is not that good of a part. The film introduces us to her as a divorcee to a man that it's hard to believe she got married to in the first place, which calls into question the character's internal logic, as she doesn't seem to display any. It's a very junky character that only seems to exist when the camera is pointed at her, because the life we're told she has off-camera doesn't really work. And her character arc in the film is just being the one who tries so hard to do this hiking thing well that she is accidentally the worst at it, only to suddenly be the best at it at some point in the movie. Also kiss at the end.
The film's slight merit might be to the romcom crowd, as it likely will have an audience in it. Those who just want a lightweight movie that just portrays a woman finding herself while also not noticing Mr. Right is just to her left will find an enjoyable evening with this movie. I think history has shown that there will always be an audience for just that very thing. Those who actually like their romcoms to be both funny and romantic may want to look elsewere, though.
Sharksploitation
⭐⭐⭐
Streaming On: Shudder
Genre: Documentary
Director: Stephen Scarlata
Starring: A whole school of Bruces
Just in time for Shark Week and the release of Meg 2: The Trench, Shudder offers up a documentary with bite, as we take a look at the history of sharks within cinema. Not just Jaws, which is the obvious alpha and omega of the discussion of the shark movie, but Sharksploitation takes a very thorough dive through the many uses of sharks, including pre-Jaws shark portrayals, the Jaws knock-offs that don't neccessarily include sharks (Piranha, Alligator, Grizzly), and the many, many dumpster fire direct to video films (including a brief mention of one of my favorites, Ouija Shark). Sharksploitation is a great watch for those who have that sort of fondness for a shark movie, where one accepts that chances are the movie is going to be bad but they don't care because it has a fucking shark in it. The doc might even bite off more than it can chew, because its range of topics is a bit too dense to the point that a lot of films are likely to just get namedropped. Probably the most popular shark movie of the last ten years is The Shallows, and it gets less than a minute of discussion (which is less discussion time than a certain line from Shark Attack 3: Megalodon gets). But it also sheds some spotlights on some hidden gems of the genre, like Open Water or The Reef, and gets into the brains of the people who run the Asylum and their brand of movies (Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus, Sharknado).
The presentation probably could use some sprucing up, as it feels like it's going for a grouping discussion of various states of the shark movie, but they spill info so fast that it can't help but feel a little scatterbrained. Another thing that can be said is that some viewers may need to heed a content warning, because this film discusses the crewmember who was killed by a shark on the movie Shark! who's death was used in the actual movie and the footage is also seen in this documentary, while they also discuss the films that killed actual sharks on camera and show footage from them here as well. It feels like exploitation of the grossest form of exploitation and while they probably should be discussed, the documentary goes a slight bit over the grey area. But it does have that environmentalist messaging of shark preservation at the end, which is a good note to end on that counteracts that sour taste.
The Little Mermaid ⭐⭐1/2
Oppenheimer ⭐⭐⭐
New To Digital
Joy Ride ⭐⭐⭐1/2
The Little Mermaid ⭐⭐1/2
Coming Soon!
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