Love & Anarchy Advent Calendar

 

So, we had a Love & Anarchy Film Festival this year as well. I was taking it slow in covering it, but then I realized it was over two months ago. But perhaps by starting an Advent Calendar I can cover 24 movies that were seen at the festival. They had chosen a really good program, and kept the audience as safe as possible in these circumstances. Check back to this post on every day of December to catch up on reviews.

1. First Cow (USA, 2019)
Director: Kelly Reichardt

Kelly Reichardt is known for making slow, quiet and ponderous movies, so it's kind of a jump when the new one is basically a buddy comedy of two grifters in the Old West. It's the kind of western that follows on the footsteps of McCabe & Mrs Miller and the like, everything is grey, brown, dirty, flimsily built and wooden. There's no glory or romanticism involved, even if the framing story tells of a modern woman finding out about the history involved.

The movie is a good, multilayered depiction of the friendship between two underdogs, played by John Magaro and Orion Lee. It also has some critique of the American Dream and drive towards entrepreneurship, which proves impossible for even the skilled ones if enough odds are against them right from the start. That's why they have to resort to cheating, stealing milk from the prize cow to improve their cakes and thus bake sales. The film has a cold, unflinching look at nature, which is at the same time utterly ruthless and oddly comforting. we are all parts of the woods in the end.

★★★★

2. Wendy (USA, 2019)
Dir. Benh Zeitlin

 

The impressionistic director Benh Zeitlin with his crew has prepared his follow-up to Beasts of a Southern Wild for seven years. While that one saw wonder and childlike amazement in poor and devastated Southeast terriories, this one takes a jump toward even more fantastic storytelling. It's a reworking of the story of Peter Pan.

The film is again visually stunning, and the locations in the Pacific Islands with an active volcano are nothing short of breathtaking. This time around, Zeitling guides a larger cast of child actors, none of which are as strong to carry a movie as Quvenzhané Wallis was. It also seems that the long production period and kids growing up so fast has made it necessary to tell the story fragmented and disjointed. It may be argued that its due to the logic following children's playtimes, but it makes for a tedious thing to follow. There are some kind of cool reworkings of the Pan story set to a more modern backdrop, but some are basically terrible. Mostly anything to do with Captain Hook and his pirates. Beasts of a Southern Wild was not without its problems, but it had a more clear purpose, now it seems it's a bit too childish and dumbed down for adults and not exciting enough for kids, satisfying no one.

★★

3. Lost Boys (Finland/Thailand 2020)
Dirs. Joonas Neuvonen, Sadri Cetinkaya

 

The documentary film Reindeerspotting made waves a decade ago, and also became a big hit in Finland. The movie depicted a group of drug addicts from Lapland in their daily lives, fighting against their urges, boredom, and the system. From the profits of the film, the real-life buddy group got enough money to fly to Thailand for the winter. After a few months of pure hedonism, sex, drugs and all other vices, only the film's director Joonas Neuvonen returned home. Soon after, one of the group was missing and the first film's main character Jani was found dead in shady circumstances.

The sequel film is of Neuvonen's attempts to recollect, what went wrong and to try to find out what exactly happened to his friends. The material he had for this film were fragmented, some in pooor quality. The reason the film took a decade was that it needed multiple screenwriters, editors and even co-directors to make sense of all this. Considering this, the resulting film is a wonder, a docufiction that is both a horrifying psychedelic nightmare in the vein of Gaspar Noé and Nicolas Winding Refn. On the other hand, it is also a sad look at the dead end facing the first film's characters. They might get some fleeting moments of happiness late in their lives, but it's all a illusion and the ground is approaching fast. This time around, Neuvonen puts himself more to under the magnifying glass, emphasizes his own bad feelings about the case and maybe his own fractured psyche.

★★★★

4. Radioactive (UK, Hungary, China, France, USA 2019)
Dir. Marjane Satrapi

 

The author of Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi, hasn't had the most successful career as a film director. His previous film, Voices, flopped in the Stateside, so she has had to resort to having an easy-to-sell biography project made with funding from around the world as her next project. The film tells the life story of chemist Marie Curie, discoverer of Radioactive elements. As it is, Radioactive has many moments of visual intrigue and good acting, but it can't avoid all the major pratfalls of the biography genre.

Rosamund Pike carries the film as headstrong Curie. As Satrapi tends to do with her comics work, she also intercuts the story with asides that show consequences of the discoveries, both good (radiation treatments) and bad (the Chernobyl accident). Those asides however reveal the film's limited budget, even if it's stretched admirably to fit these parts. The major problem is, however, that like most scientists, the life story by itself isn't really that captivating, and showing of all the various awards and stuff seems like reading from a Wikipedia page. The center is the relationship between Marie and Pierre (Sam Riley), but it lacks tension since Pierre is doing his best to share credits and help Marie as much as he can. The adventures in World War I with her daughter, shrugged off in the film's last 20 minutes, would have been more interesting to follow than focusing on the early parts.

★★

5. Nomadland (USA, Germany 2020)
Dir. Chloé Zhao

Director Zhao once again finds a way to make a western that's relevant to the themes for today. And she does it with a docufiction style, having plenty of people with the nomad lifestyle essentially play themselves. It's a touching film about the inability to find one's place in the world, but for once, not through the eyes of a teen or a young adult, but an actual adult, magnificently portrayed by Frances McDormand.

McDormand's Fern is tossed out after the closure of a major factory and an entire town's livelyhood. She does meaningless part-time work for Amazon and lives in her trailer, traveling the Great Plains of USA.  On her way, she tries developing relationships, but everything seems fleeting and avoid her grasp. The film has an anti-capitalist sting, but I feel the film could have had more brutally honest things to say about Amazon's worker practices, which were only alluded to here. It may be due to the realities of releasing such a melancholic film for adults, one can't rule out Amazon by biting the hand that may feed you. It's a shame Zhao herself seems to accept the odd job here and there, since she's moving on to the MCU. I think certain rising talents could produce incredible movies elsewhere, whereas with Marvel they'll probably do something reasonably entertaining but forgettable. But that's late-stage capitalism for you. It maximises profits, not art.

★★★★ 1/2

6. Dogs Don't Wear Pants (Koirat eivät käytä housuja, Finland, Latvia 2019)
Dir. J-P Valkeapää

 

I had actually seen this last year in festival screenings, but since then this movie has become a bit notorious abroad, so it warrants a mention. It's a sort of dark comedy of a man (Pekka Streng) struggling with grief finding a new lease in life with kinky sex and especially with a blossoming relationship with a dominatrix (Krista Kosonen).

Valkeapää is perhaps the most gifted visualist of the new generation of Finnish filmmakers. Here he has some shades of neon noir or the films of the likes of Noé and Friedkin, but manages to do something unique and undoubtedly his. It's a considerable step up of his previous work that had clearer pastiches. It's not as rough and kinky as one might expect, but it's also no surprise that some things get taken a bit far. The key of the movie is in its central triangle drama of sorts with a father being drawn into a sexy underworld, but his daughter also needing him in her struggles.

★★★★

7. My Octopus Teacher (South Africa 2020)
Dirs. Pippa Ehrlich, James Reed

Filmmaker Craig Forster recalls an unusual encounter with an octopus in an underwater kelp forest. Octopi are as intelligent as house cats, so the fil m goes out its way to show how they too can act as personally, gracefully and smartly as any pet, with footage to support it. I'm usually wary of films that make of animal behaviour to be to human-like, and there are some interpretations here that near the line. As it is however, is a reminder that we have incredible species around the world that have their own emotions, and we just can't go on destroying the landscapes in which they live in.  

★★★

Three laughs: A Talking Cat?!

 

It is hard to rate some trashy films. Films can be really good entertainment in spite of the quality of the filmmaking. In fact, it might be even harder to create unique trash that keeps surprising you than most "quality" films with which you know what you are going to get. It certainly is an even better pleasure to watch them. My friend says that he knows a trash film is worth something if it gets three laughs out of me. I mean proper, good belly laughs when you just can't believe what the film is showing to you, scene after scene. That's as good a rating as any for these movies. Any film that has these three laughs has a special place in my heart.   

★ or ★★★★★

 

Three laughs case file #33:  
A Talking Cat?! (USA 2013)
Director: David DeCoteau 

A very cheap family movie about a magic cat helping out a family with their problems might sound innocent enough. But when you have a director like David DeCoteau make it, known from his trashy films, you might be onto something odd. Adding to the comedy is main star Eric Roberts, a veteran on hundreds of movies, most of them bad, cashing in a check with a vocal performance that sounds like it was recorded in his car while driving to get some coffee and donuts. Or maybe the trunk of the car. 

The film has some penny-squeezing qualities (many of which we come to in a minute), some of which is that the main house used in the movie looks suspiciously like a set from a porn movie. And in fact the film's set WAS used in a little film called Ass Worship 13. 

As you might know, cats aren't exactly known for being easy actors in movies, and the tabby Duffy with the physical side of the main part does look like he would have none of the bullshit the film keeps feeding us. He is replaced in the film's poster by a younger, cuter kitten. Other stars are made to be some wood-faced models, except the film's dad, played by Johnny Whitaker, who has some very unusual features for a leading man, which makes him of course all the more interesting to watch. One could only wish one of the cinematic Garfield movies was made with a similar who-the-fuck-cares attitude.

Three laughs (SPOILERS): 

1. The movie has two main houses where the action is set in, but it leaves even The Room behind in its obsessive use of establishing shots. Hilariously, also many of these don't seem to fit together. Is the film supposed to be set on a beach, or a forest, or maybe the desert? Is it some tropical country or California? Well, at least the movie crept just above the required 85 minute length.

2. Eric Roberts' lazy-ass dialogue is heard throughout the movie but in fact the titular cat can only talk to people once each. During the first 15 minutes it might be hard to recognize when people are hearing the cat, but once he really talks, you can't help but notice. The reason being that the cat's mouth has been animated by the cheapest possible MS Paint images put into a GIF animation possible.

3.Getting back to the gay porn qualities of the movie, although the film has the most white bread and milquetoast romantic comedy plot possible, we do have an extensive scene where Justin Cone and Daniel Dannas have a conversation by the pool. The film lingers very long on the wet, shirtless and fit young dudes' bodies. The question remains if there's a problem the cat didn't help the boys with or if this is just an obsession of director DeCoteau he couldn't shake even when making a kids' movie.

Three laughs: Cool as Ice

It is hard to rate some trashy films. Films can be really good entertainment in spite of the quality of the filmmaking. In fact, it might be even harder to create unique trash that keeps surprising you than most "quality" films with which you know what you are going to get. It certainly is an even better pleasure to watch them. My friend says that he knows a trash film is worth something if it gets three laughs out of me. I mean proper, good belly laughs when you just can't believe what the film is showing to you, scene after scene. That's as good a rating as any for these movies. Any film that has these three laughs has a special place in my heart.

 

Three laughs case file #21:

Cool As Ice (USA, 1991)

Director: David Kellogg

I am trying to explore more genres in this column. One I haven’t touched upon yet is the musical melodrama, a vanity project for an up-and-coming star to showcase his talents and perhaps show a few more the general audience never knew about. It becomes funny when the man at the center of attention is someone most people would prefer to just forget. Case in point: Vanilla Ice.

Since white people have tended to steal the best ideas from black music throughout the decades, once rap started to get mainstream, they tried to do the same for hip-hop. Vanilla Ice’s biggest talents are on his looks, but I do find some goofy charm of his totally producer-mandated music and today hilarious-looking clothing and dance moves as well. But would rather not listen to it for too much. Then, I’m in luck with this film as the scenes featuring Ice performing are very scarce. Most of his songs are background music, and with good cause. The film takes more inspiration from The Wild One and Rebel Without a Cause than most music pictures, though Purple Rain and some of Elvis’ films are obvious influences as well.

Vanilla Ice plays the club-dwelling and motorcycle-driving bad boy Johnny van Owen, who falls for a honor student (Kristin Minter). His family objects initially, as does her asshole boyfriend, but as Johnny tries to be good, they allow him to date their daughter. But the family dad’s mysterious past starts to catch up to them.

Three laughs (SPOILERS):

1. The film opens with a very 90’s dance song that’s being performed by supermodel Naomi Campbell. Sweaty, blue characters rave around. Vanilla Ice dances to the opening credits and would get all the ladies in the house, if not his crew who entice him to get on the road. They drive on all through the night until in the morning Ice sees a pretty girl riding a horse. So of course he jumps the fence with his motorcycle and startles the horse, which drops the girl. Nothing like first impressions, eh? We now know that Johnny is a show-off and a total wanker who should stay a safe distance from any women. In general, the film's ideas of "romance" and wooing a lady are as misguided and borderline psychotic that they remind of The Room.

2. There’s a trope of a scene in rock ’n roll films of old where rockers come to play at some unexpected place in the country where no one has heard of the music. But they always manage to drive the kids wild. This film’s version sees Ice and his friend start a hip hop dance routine at a rural bar, but instead of getting everyone along, the gaped maws and shocked silence is more akin to the audience having just seen Springtime for Hitler. For a good reason, too. Ice’s performance must’ve been out of the times even back in 1991.

3. The entire movie has seen shadowy figures follow our main couple around. But once the threat materialized to the Nintendo-hooked little brother, it turns out that the thugs are bumbling gangsters in the vein of Home Alone. Nevertheless, the Mario-brained youngster is so inefficient in keeping away from them, he gets kidnapped easily. Macauley Culkin never had to put up with this shit.

Three Laughs: Tammy and the T-rex

 
So, I'm going to start detailing trashy films that would be hard to give stars to. Basically, these are the movies that would get ★ or ★★★★★ here. My friend says that he knows a trash film is worth something if it gets three laughs out of me. I mean proper, good belly laughs when you can't believe what the film is showing to you. That's as good a rating as any for these movies. Any film that has these, has a special place in my heart.

Tammy and the T-rex (USA, 1994)
Director: Stewart Raffill

This is a really goofy teenaged romantic comedy where Denise Richards and Paul Walker (both before they really got famous) play lovebirds, where Romeo gets his brain fused into an animatronic Tyrannosaur. Just because. The film was reportedly scrambled together when the filmmakers got free access to a good dinosaur puppet that used to be a amusement park sideshow in Eastern Europe.

The film has been available for years as a VHS hacked to pieces. The original film had some really bloody gore parts, which were removed in order to market this to Jurassic Park -starved audiences. Vinegar Syndrome has since reinstated the missing bits. But it's still really weird to think, which audiences was this really aimed at? The director Stewart Raffill is also known from the horrendous E.T.-ripoff Mac and Me.

I think it has a sense of weirdness on the level of Troma, where it throws everything but the kitchen sink at you in order to get cheap laughs. The difference is that with a Troma film you know exactly what you get, whereas this film is all over the place, taste-wise, and thus more unpredictable (and funny!).

Three laughs (SPOILERS):

1. Paul Walker's character is inexplicably killed by taking him to a safari park to be mauled by lions. As the entire film was shot within 25 minutes from Raffill's house, one has to wonder, is he living in a Roar-like house filled with man-eating lions?
2. The cheapest laugh of the film comes when The Mad Doctor Wachenstein (Terry Kiser) pokes around with Walker's dead body and his brain. He gets a visible rise (ahem) out of him. Shame to let such a well-endowed body go to waste.
3. The gore effects are always fun, with the T-rex getting rid of most of the villains in 10 minutes or so. But the real fun is with T-rex's tiny front legs. Thus, it's silly fun to see him talk on the telephone or filp the bird with those adorable hands. But yeah, the third laugh is for T-rex ripping someone's head off with guts galore.