Week Ending 8/25/23
An indie week
I call this quartet an “indie week”, but GOLDA seems to be getting a pretty big push from Bleecker Street. What I originally thought was playing exclusively at North Park is now hitting six local theaters instead. Good for Oscar-winner Guy Nattiv—even if I much prefer his feature length film titled SKIN (with Jamie Bell) than the short of the same name that earned him that Oscar.
Speaking of North Park, they’re bringing SLOTHERHOUSE (with the fantastic tagline “Don’t Rush. Die Slow.”) to town for one night (9/30) if you’re into weird horror IP. I’m surprised they don’t have it running the entire week at the 9:30pm slot. But the gymnastics for that stuff when most films demand screening quotas was probably not worth pursuing.
Next week will be another light one. With work being slammed, TIFF screeners needing to be watched under embargo, and Posterized needing to be written, I might only get to run an isolated review—if I even get to that one.
What I Watched:
BRIGHTWOOD
(now on VOD)
It wouldn’t be far-fetched to get frustrated with Dane Elcar’s BRIGHTWOOD. I’m guilty of it myself. The reasons, however, aren’t about the film. They’re about me and my expectations. Because the desire going into a story about a married couple on the rocks is for them to find a place of acceptance if not reconciliation. Maybe they don’t end up staying together by the end, but at least they’ll understand that breaking up is actually in both of their best interests. We want there to be a lesson. We want the characters to better themselves by learning from whatever crazy situation forces them to finally confront the truth.
The first half of BRIGHTWOOD unfolds with the sense that we’re approaching just such an agreement. Jen (Dana Berger) is rightfully pissed at Dan (Max Woertendyke) for embarrassing her at a work function celebrating her promotion. Dan feels guilty, but he’s hardly contrite. He knows that if he pushes hard enough and sticks in Jen’s proximity, he can poke a cathartic outburst of emotion from her so they can move on and uphold the status quo. So, he follows her on her morning jog despite being unfit to keep pace regardless of his hangover. He needles and annoys, attempting to conjure a laugh while ultimately pushing things too far.
This is when they realize something is amiss. Rather than run a couple circles around their usual pond to blow off steam, they discover circles are all they have. The path back to civilization has inexplicably disappeared, leaving them with nowhere to go and nothing to do but get on each other’s last nerve so that the safety switch to ignore each other and continue living their disappointing lives together evaporates. Without an escape to cool down and forget, they can only explode. Because if they really are stuck here forever with the person they cannot stand to be around longer than an argument, rage is all they have.
A lot of comparisons have been made to TIMECRIMES both for ingenuity on a small budget and overlapping timelines, but Elcar’s film isn’t quite utilizing time travel. Maybe it’s because I’m playing UNTIL DAWN right now, but what happens here is more like a choose your own adventure wherein every choice impacts where the characters go. But rather than it be us making the choices for them to see how things turn out, Jen and Dan make those choices themselves. And somewhere along the way, they inevitably become cognizant of it—enough so that they begin to exploit and manipulate the other versions of themselves to survive.
Here’s where my frustration was born. The way Elcar initially utilizes that gimmick is very much in-line with teaching his characters a lesson. The more they’re forced to be together, the more honest and open they become to listen and learn. Jen and Dan get so far as to remember why they got married in the first place. It isn’t perfect (and never will be), but a mutual appreciation does exist. Instead of rewarding this personal growth with an escape, however, Elcar pivots towards horror with shadowy figures and piles of bones. It reductively seems like he lost the plot. That he didn’t know how to end things, so he added gore. I was wrong.
Not to give anything away, but BRIGHTWOOD is setting up those usual romantic drama vibes with the intent to upend them. Elcar wants us to think Jen and Dan are good people. That they will either discover they do truly love each other enough to start anew or that they’ve simply grown apart and need to accept they’re only bringing each other down. He wants us to think that so he can show us how toxic relationships aren’t always a thing that can be fixed. Sometimes a toxic relationship is toxic because that’s what the couple wants.
He doesn’t therefore pivot to horror tropes out of laziness. He does so to prove the metaphorical circles of carnage we put ourselves through don’t always have an exit ramp. Whether voluntarily or not, we become comfortable in the chaos. We start craving it. Maybe versions of Jen and Dan can break the loop, but not together. Together only leads to more damage. More destruction. To stay and fight is thus to embrace the horror. The only thing some learn from recognizing that they desperately don’t want to die together is that preventing that fate means continuing to live together instead—suffering be damned.
- 7/10
GOLDA
(now in theaters)
Director Guy Nattiv says it himself: GOLDA is neither a biopic nor a war movie. And it’s precisely because of this fact that it has stumbled in its attempt to captivate audiences. Because while Nicholas Martin’s script does humanize Golda Meir (Helen Mirren) with depictions of her cancer and heartbreak in the knowledge her secretary’s son has probably perished in an offensive she approved, it never quite gives us anything to hold onto. Its drama lies in the reactions of people playing God and pulling strings. Of watching as they listen to discover if their guesswork succeeded. It’s a lot of bloated suspense.
The circumstances are personal for Nattiv, though. His family was there when the Yom Kippur War began, protecting him as a three-month old child while the sirens blared. It’s personal for many who lost family in battles described onscreen as slaughters. Maybe a peace treaty with Egypt (wherein Anwar El-Sadat called Israel by its name) coming out of the tragedy makes things better. Maybe not. I guess that’s why the end text describes Meir as a hero abroad but controversial at home. She made hard choices. She’s ultimately responsible for many deaths. But, as the film tells it, she never denied her culpability. She owned it.
So, portraying those nineteen days from her perspective does hold intrigue. She was dying. She was a “custodian” Prime Minister who herself declares she’s a politician and not a soldier. This isn’t what she wanted to do. It was instead what she needed to do. Working from declassified accounts of conversations in her war room definitely adds authenticity to the whole as a result. But it is still just people standing, staring, and waiting.
It’s Golda lighting another cigarette. Moshe Dayan (Rami Heuberger) shaking with guilt and fear. David 'Dado' Elazar (Lior Ashkenazi) pompously smiling as though it’s all a game. The only real emotional gravitas not fabricated to the nth degree by a manipulative score and bombastic sound design comes from Meir’s legitimate sorrow whenever she catches her secretary’s tears or amends the number of dead soldiers in her journal. Those moments, however, are mostly a testament to Mirren’s performance. The scenes themselves are mostly hollowly built to tug heartstrings regardless of narrative impact.
Nattiv does manage to sneak some flair in, though. A sensory nightmare of ringing phones and explosions is well orchestrated and dead bird imagery at the end proves hard to forget. It’s just a shame the rest is so by-the-books otherwise. In many regards the whole feels like an intentional acting showcase giving Mirren the spotlight despite how doing so is sometimes at the detriment of the film. I found myself watching her more than Meir as things become less about what Golda will do to weaponize her political acumen against egotistical men of war than it is how Mirren will bring it to life.
GOLDA isn’t therefore a bad film. It’s simply a forgettable one, save its central performance (although even that shouldn’t make much of an impact during awards season).
-6/10
PIAFFE
(now in limited release)
Visual artist Ann Oren’s debut feature film PIAFFE is more about experience than narrative. A plot exists wherein the introverted Eva (Simone Bucio) loses herself to the reluctant desire to succeed at taking her sibling’s place as foley artist on a pharmaceutical commercial once they (Simon Jaikiriuma Paetau’s Zara) have a nervous breakdown. But that motivation is less the point than scaffolding upon which Eva’s sexual awakening balances. It’s through this assignment that she’s forced to study horses (the animal whose sounds she’s tasked to artificially recreate) and through partially transforming into one that she escapes her shell.
Oren co-writes with Thais Guisasola to also bring a botanist into Eva’s life. First introduced as a frequent patron of the photographic carousel where she works to examine its moving slides of ferns, a blurring of lines commences as the inherent eroticism he feels watching those plants unfurl soon bleeds into the interspecies nature of Eva’s metamorphosis. Once a new organ begins protruding from her tail bone and subsequently grows hair, she becomes more outgoing. More curious. And having seen his unique proclivities in action, she approaches him and ultimately sparks a submissive psychosexual relationship in the process.
It’s an evolutionary leap for Eva since she has a submissive relationship with everyone in her life. Her passion to get the foley work correct comes from Zara’s boss yelling at her. Interactions with Zara always shine them in the light of importance with her in a position to serve. And Zara’s nurse perpetually toys with her by wielding the power Eva’s meekness grants. It’s different with Novak (Sebastian Rudolph). This instance of submission hinges on her desires. She’s in control when with him. She lets him tie her up like his ferns and groom her tail. Eva is becoming aware of a world that excites her. One whose previous rigidly binary structure had always left her alone.
Oren embraces Eva’s duality pre-tail and post-tail by allowing her to gain experience and expertise along the journey. And as Eva becomes more and more empowered, a transposition with Zara arrives. So many scenes feel like hallucinations as result—enough to have me question whether Zara was ever real and not a manifestation of who Eva was or could become. It’s like the nervous breakdown split the character in two with the tail providing a new road forward that’s neither Zara nor Eva. She’s wading through the horror of being on her own only to find there’s a better way. Just as Eva is one extreme, Zara is the other. And only together can they be their best and strongest self.
But that’s just me. PIAFFE is the type of film that demands interpretation as it comments on control, gender, and sexuality by putting all living creatures (plant, animal, and human) on even footing. It can be very slow and is always weird in the absurdness of the sensorial fetishes that result, but you cannot deny its singular passion to provoke, arouse, and entertain. I really enjoyed the funnier moments (Lea Draeger is dryly hilarious as Zara’s nurse) that contrast the quiet silences and deafening synth beats of Eva’s tumultuous adventure. They give the audience the energy needed to push through when attention begins to wane.
- 7/10
TRADER
(now on VOD)
With nothing but a computer, phone, performative flair, and sociopathic lack of empathy, anyone can get rich. So, that’s exactly what Corey Stanton gives his lead character in TRADER. And she (Kimberly-Sue Murray) runs with it. First to steal credit cards, then to purchase legitimate tech products to resell without a paper trail, and finally to bankroll a medicine cabinet full of amphetamines so she’ll never have to stop. A couple hundred here and a couple hundred there is all she needs to pay rent, stock energy drinks, and upgrade her internet connection.
Despite the irony of someone phishing unsuspecting folks online falling prey to a pop-up advertising the appeal of day-trading, graduating to the market is the logical next step. (You can forgive the character’s seeming lack of self-awareness by remembering Stanton brands everything on-screen as a subsidiary of the same fictitious bank to lean into the fact that life is nothing but a rigged game controlled by those in power.) It’s still about manipulating people without a shred of remorse. It simply allows her to do so on a much larger scale.
What follows is a one-woman show of the highs and lows of luck, skill, and ruthless exploitation. Throw in some drug commentary (introducing her dealer and an unregulated drug to “open her mind” more than cocaine might advance the plot and provide connective tissue to where she ultimately sets her sights, but it also plays as an unnecessary segue of bloat considering she’s already been manic enough to not need a “bad trip” as impetus) and touchstones of trauma that may or may not be true and Murray is able to put everything she has into the role. You love to despise her. You want her to win even as you realize the steep price being paid by us.
And more than just a low-budget, hyper-paced descent into the madness of hubristic greed, TRADER also becomes an insanely dark look at how broken our world has become where information dispersal is concerned. Because while it’s one thing to have a senior citizen trust an anonymous voice on the phone with his money and another to have casual stock traders fall prey to bot campaigns manipulating their decisions, neither compares to where this character goes to achieve her final form. But that’s what it takes to “win”: an utter lack of morality paired with a keen sense for how desperate people are to be told what to do.
Because in today’s world it’s no longer about being a political tyrant. Now it’s about pulling their strings to sow the sort of fear that turns the masses into helpless baby birds wailing for food and ready to give their souls to whomever provides the tiniest crumb alongside an empty promise of more. The film might ultimately use its main character in much the same way as she does everyone else to those ends, but doesn’t that just drive home the point further?
- 6/10
Cinematic F-Bombs:
This week saw EMPLOYEE OF THE MONTH (2006), JACK AND JILL VS. THE WORLD (2008), PROM NIGHT (1980), THE RAMEN GIRL (2009), and STEALTH (2005) added to the archive. I’d love to find out more about what happened with THE RAMEN GIRL since all of its f-bombs are censored via ADR. A director’s cut or uncensored version don’t seem to exist, though. It’s like the studio dubbed over the cursing (the f-word isn’t the only one replaced) for broadcast television and then accidentally deleted the original tracks. The fact I found subtitles with the original dialogue does make me think it was released—I just don’t know where. A fascinating curio. cinematicfbombs.com
New Releases This Week:
(Review links where applicable)
Opening Buffalo-area theaters 8/25/23 -
DREAM GIRL 2 at Regal Elmwood
GANDEEVADHARI ARJUNA at Regal Elmwood
GOLDA at North Park Theatre; Dipson Amherst; AMC Maple Ridge; Regal Elmwood, Transit & Quaker
My thoughts are above.
THE HILL at Dipson Capitol; Regal Transit, Galleria & Quaker
JURASSIC PARK 30TH ANNIVERSARY at Regal Elmwood, Transit, Galleria & Quaker
THE LITTLE MERMAID SING-ALONG at Regal Elmwood, Transit, Galleria & Quaker
MASTANEY at Regal Elmwood
RETRIBUTION at Dipson Flix & Capitol; AMC Market Arcade; Regal Elmwood, Transit, Galleria & Quaker
Streaming from 8/25/23 -
KILLER BOOK CLUB – Netflix on 8/25
VACATION FRIENDS 2 – Hulu on 8/25
WAYNE SHORTER: ZERO GRAVITY – Prime on 8/25
YOU ARE SO NOT INVITED TO MY BAT MITZVAH – Netflix on 8/25
Now on VOD/Digital HD -
THE EIGHT MOUNTAINS (8/22)
THE LIST (8/22)
PAST LIVES (8/22)
“PAST LIVES is sexy and funny and tender along its seemingly familiar path, but it never ignores the mundane truth that destiny, more often than not, keeps people apart. Reality isn't a fairy tale.” – Full thoughts at HHYS.
TWO TICKETS TO GREECE (8/22)
BANK OF DAVE (8/25)
THE DIVE (8/25)
MOB LAND (8/25)
THAT’S A WRAP (8/25)
From the press kit archive:
