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May 25, 2024

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Hit Man (2024)

Hitman is a Nifty little Neo Noir from director Richard Linklater and his star Glenn Powell. It is based on the case histories of an actual informant in Houston Texas. The movie is based on an article written in the Texas monthly, which chronicled the numerous incidents in which a college instructor impersonated supposed Killers for hire in order to arrest those trying to hire someone to murder another person.

Incredibly they were over 187 cases where this police informant managed to interact with potential customers sufficiently to incriminate them adequately to have them arrested. Most of the arrests resulted in convictions. The problem with this fantastic true story, is that it is basically a series of incidents where our protagonist portrays himself in multiple different ways so as to convince the contracting client that he really was a hired killer. Now, the movie contends that outside of cartel or Mafia connections, The hired hitman is a myth. So most of these people bought into a fantasy that they could solve their problems by finding someone who is willing to kill for money. As interesting as that might be, it’s not a narrative that would sustain a movie. What’s happened here is that Powell and    Linklater have created a Noir to go along with these real incidents.

The film is primarily a comedy but it does go into some traditional Noir territory when it introduces a femme fatale who gets involved with our main character. This results in comedies traditional structure of one person trying to hide something from another person and going through desperate measures to do so. The conceit in this film is that the character that our informant creates in order to draw in this woman, becomes a persona that he inhabits a little too comfortably, and with comic consequences. The film is actually quite funny with several ironic components to it. The jealous police officer who has been replaced in these kinds of sting operations by this previously milk toast college professor, is turned into a dangerous rival with an agenda straight out of a 1940s film. Of course it also has a comedic element to it that is quite amusing.

I’m not sure if you can call it a Neo Noir if the result of the story turns out to have a happy ending. That doesn’t really fit with the traditional dark themes of that classic format. But because this is a comedy take on the form, it doesn’t really feel disingenuous to go in the direction that it does. The characters that we encounter are for the most part very likable, and it would seem unjust for them to end up in the negative for the experiences that they’ve gone through. Powell and his co-star Adria Arjona, have good chemistry together and they make us care about the outcome. When we meet her husband, the man that she originally wanted to hire someone to kill, we kind of understand that she is not the bad person that we might have assumed simply because she wanted to hire a hitman.

The early part of the film drives most of its comedy from Powell’s disguises, characters, and the potential clients who are is inept, venal, and delusional as you might expect. The second half of the film the comedy derives from Powell’s attempts to keep his true identity secret, and to hide the romance that has grown between him and the woman that he is steered away from committing a felony. The final third of the film does take a darker turn, but not so dark as to diminish the romantic comedy that has been growing up inside of this movie.

I found this movie to be completely delightful, cleverly acted and very intricately plotted so that it is engaging throughout. It may not be to everybody’s taste but it’s certainly fit mine, and as far as I’m concerned it is one of the critical hits of the year. This is a Netflix film that is getting a limited theatrical release, which is the reason that it got covered on this site. The screening that I went to was actually the premiere in theaters, and included a live broadcast to other theaters around the country, featuring the tars Glenn Powell, Adria Arjona, and director Richard Linklater. It was a lot of fun to be in the theater with the creators of this film and listen to their stories about how the movie was put together. Hopefully you’ll get a chance to see this in a theater, but if you don’t go ahead and take advantage of its availability on Netflix, it’s better than hiring a hitman.

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March 28, 2024

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Late Night with the Devil (2024)

I almost pulled the trigger on this with one of my streaming services, but on the podcast, one of my guests did say it was playing in theaters, which I had not realized. I immediately went in search and found a screening in one of our favorite venues, and boy am I glad I did. This is an early contender for top film of the year, and seeing it with a sold out audience was fantastic because when a horror film hits, you can feel it in the people around you, and I definitely felt it.

David Dastmalchian plays Jack Delroy, a late night talk show host in the 1970s, who has had great success but can’t quite climb the mountain of Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show. The Halloween episode of his show in 1977, will feature some macabre guests and stunts, and as you can probably guess, it does not go quite the way it was anticipated. The film is presented as if it were the video record of that nights show. With the exception of an seven or eight minute prologue feature, which is made to look like a short documentary, the film plays out over the course of what would be a ninety minute late night show. Setting it in the seventies gives the staging a verisimilitude that a contemporary setting would lack. Nowadays, a huckster like the character Christou, would be doing YouTube or TikTok readings for his psychic demonstrations. There is a character, Carmichael Haig, that is based on James Randi, a magician and psychic skeptic, who made numerous appearances on talk shows of the era, debunking paranormal phenomena. His skills are used to help extend the mystery we are witnessing, but he becomes the subject of debunking as well.   

A horror film can only be said to be successful if it frightens the audience. The fact that Delroy’s audience is subjected to some unpleasant surprises, offers us a couple of jump scares, but more importantly, an aura of dread hangs over the interview and demonstration of  parapsychologist author June Ross-Mitchell, June’s subject Lilly D’Abo. Lilly’s back story is highlighted in the film with another documentary short that is presented as a film clip on the show. The two film segments do a lot of exposition in a way that makes perfect sense for the media that we are watching. The combination of behind the scenes video with what was purportedly broadcast, allows the story to play out in a more narrative form than it would otherwise be able to achieve. 

Like most 70s films, this is a slow burn with the climax pulling out all the stops to make the show frightening. Although the effects and actions have been seen before in a dozen other horror films, they work really well here. The use of practical effects helps the movie as well, and when the events are shown at they might have appeared in the television camera, they seem even more creepy. There is a little bit of a twist in the wrap up, that feels a bit conventional but it ties everything together pretty well, and the seeds for it were planted early on. 

Dastmalchian is convincing as  a desperate TV Host but especially as a skeptic turned believer who is frightened by what he sees. Australian teen actress Ingrid Torelli is chilling as the subject of possession that drives most of the film’s second half. All the other actors have been well cast and they get to play with the effects and the story to make their characters interesting. There is a hypnosis sequence that is pretty startling. Directors Colin Cairnes and Cameron Cairnes, have made the found footage style film work by dropping it into the late night TV venue of the 1970s. Lots of clever touches here and there. The AI controversy that has popped up is a nothing burger that you can safely ignore without surrendering to Skynet. Find this film in a theater and treat yourself to some genuine scares and a really well made film. 

One of the LAMBs has an interview with star David Dastmalchian, you might want to check out.

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March 20, 2024

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Arthur the King (2024)

I have been a little negligent as of late, keeping up with my posts as quickly as possible after seeing the movie. This post comes four days after I saw this great family film, and I am sorry I can’t do more to promote the movie and save it from the discard pile that it appears to be headed for. Mark Wahlburg and a dog should be a sure thing for most family audiences, but I suspect that the sports based setting may not be as interesting to people on the big screen, since they see this weekly on their televisions. 

Frankly, I am a sucker for a dog movie. It is probably a good idea for me to create an inventory of films I have covered on the site that feature a canine co-star. A couple of years ago, Channing Tatum made his directorial debut with a dog film, simply named “Dog“. I liked that one quite well and it would make a good companion film for this movie. Both feature dogs that have some health and psychological issues, but one is a straight drama while this movie is an adventure film as well. There are some beautiful scenes of a race around the jungles of the Dominican Republic, but I did end up worrying about current events in Haiti, which shares the island with the setting of this movie. 

Wahlburg plays a long time race figure, who while widely respected, has never come in first in the grueling endurance challenges that these races present. After a humiliating loss, and a two year break, he attempts to return to competition, but his resources are low and sponsors are wary. As we watch him struggle to put together a team for the race, we also see a street dog, struggling to survive in the third world nation, frequently abused and usually starving. The back and forth between these two stories is a nice parallel which pays off in the second half of the movie. When the race starts, the two characters come together in a surprising way, and it would be nearly impossible to buy it, if it had not really happened. 

The race presents dramatic challenges, and the dog is included in these as the progress deepens. There are a lot of tense scenes and some lighter moments with the dog. The two both make sacrifices for each other, and at the end, the race results become less important than the survival story of a man’s hope in a dog’s lifeforce. Having recently lost a beloved pet, there were moments in the last act of the film, that I was not prepared for and which evoked some strong emotional responses from me. Even without this personal history, I think the turn that the film takes will be an emotional wallop for most audiences. In the long run, the less you know about the real story, the stronger the conclusion of this film will play.

Mark Wahlburg has become a very reliable actor, and his presence in a film like this makes the story work. Unfortunately, it looks like the audience is missing out on this, probably bad marketing decisions about the release date, and the fact that streaming is going to eat all of these kinds of movies alive in the next few years. Look, this will work on your television, but like most films, it will work better in a theater, and you should go see it now before it gets pushed off of the screens by whatever is coming next week.    

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March 15, 2024

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Drive-Away Dolls (2024)

You would think that a film from one of the Coen brothers would draw a lot more attention and interest from the film community than this slightly misbegotten exercise in excess has received. I didn’t hate the movie but I was surprised at how over the top some of the things were in the film, and that the director’s choices were also obviously designed to provoke and be distinctive, without being particularly creative. Ethan Cohen has created another crime drama about off-center characters, and crimes gone bad. From the makers of Fargo and No Country for Old Men, this is natural except that the comedic elements are created to accentuate the odd instead of using those odd elements to highlight small parts of the story. The result is an over full collection of vulgarities, violence, and elegant dialogue that would work a lot better if it was used more sparingly.

I had originally planned for this to be a film that we covered on the Lambcast. Unfortunately not a single one of the podcasters or bloggers of our 2,000 members signed up to talk about it. This should have been a signal to me that there was something not quite right about the project. I read after deciding to cancel the podcast, that the original title of the project was Drive-Away Dykes. The change in title was probably designed to avoid putting off people who didn’t care to have that element of sexuality front and center in their crime story. However, a title change doesn’t change the script, and we still get lots of lesbian love, phallic foreplay, and some of the most vulgar and descriptive language that you can imagine. While there are moments of nudity in the film the vast majority of those things that sexualize the film are in the dialogue. And they are not sexy but rather obnoxiously provocative.

I’m not sure that this is a film that will be embraced by the LGBTQ+ community, because the stereotypes in the film seem to be at odds with what would be a more inclusive approach. There is a caricature of a lesbian relationship that seems particularly offensive, and there are sexually based sequences that seem to cater to offensive stereotypes about lesbians. I am also dubious about the desirability of flexible phalluses as the love toys preferred by committed gay women. For a movie about the empowerment of lesbians, the perspective it takes seems to be one of amusement rather than real agency.

Margaret Qualley and Geraldine Vishwanathan, are the two leads and each of them has some pretty effective moments in the film. Qualley was familiar to me from “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”, where she played Pussycat, the hippie girl that gets Brad Pitt’s character up to the Spahn Ranch where the Manson family is living. Vishwanathan, was very appealing 3 years ago and a fill my liked quite well, “The Broken Hearts Gallery”. In this film she plays a more innocent character to her partner’s Wild Child. The story involves a mis-matched pair of women who take a road trip and inadvertently have in their possession what at first seems like a McGuffin. Later the secret does in fact get revealed. You might think it was drugs, because of the violence involved and obtaining the suitcase with the soon to be revealed contents, but unlike the mystery of the suitcase in Pulp Fiction, we finally see what the contents are, and it’s another one of the crude jokes that the film is based on.

The girls are pursued by a team of inept criminals, similar to the pair in Fargo, or Pulp Fiction. Their dialogue is also frequently over the top, with just enough wit to make it interesting but not enough to allow it to be compared to some of those sparkling sequences in those other films. When we discover what the whole Enterprise is about, it makes even less sense, because most of this could be dismissed without anybody having to be murdered or any money exchanged. A simple denial would be more than sufficient to eliminate the risk that the ultimate antagonist seems to feel exists. We have no providence for the relics, except some perv collectors. The movie has a couple of prominent actors in secondary roles that might almost count as a cameo. Pedro Pascal shows up at the start of the movie, and then a part of him continues to be a present in the film. He was perfectly fine but I’m not sure why director Cohen thought that it was necessary to have such a well-known actor in the part. Conversely when Matt Damon shows up near the end of the film, we understand his casting because the film needs someone with some charisma, to become the antagonist that the movie needs at this point. Once again though, his motivation seems to be highly exaggerated. Denial is not just a river in Egypt, it is a legitimate strategy for public relations. It just doesn’t seem to have been considered.

I probably already given away more than I should have about the film. There are three or four transition sequences that feature psychedelic visuals and remind me of a Saul Bass James Bond title sequence. They don’t make much sense, until the end, and even then they don’t really do much to make the film interesting, they mostly just make it weird.  

There are plenty of films that go over the top as a stylistic choice to try and make the movie interesting to a specific audience. I enjoyed the movie “Shoot ‘em Up”, from more than a decade ago, but by the time it was finished I was bored by the excess. This film provides excess on a different subject, and I was bored by it in the first 20 minutes. There is some clever stuff here, and I think you will laugh a few times, but I also think you’ll shake your head and say ” I’ve seen this before”. There’s nothing new to see here, it’s recycled and overdone. You’ll forget about it almost immediately, which is not something I’ve said about many Cohen Brothers films before. Perhaps Ethan needs his brother Joel, to rein in the more preposterous elements of the movie, and make it feel less like a cartoon and more like a satire of crime dramas. That is really what it wants to be. You can safely skip this, but if you watch it at home later, maybe you should send your parents to bed before it starts, trust me it’s a little awkward.

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February 26, 2024

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Land of Bad

I’m getting to this almost a week after I saw the film, sorry. I’ve been under the weather for a few days and just not in the mood to think much about blogging. There’s nothing particularly special about this film, it’s also getting such a limited release that it will probably be out of theaters after the first week, which was when I saw it. That’s too bad, because this is a pretty successful action film for those who are looking for some combat activity to get them through an afternoon.

The setup for the film is pretty simple: a Commando team is being sent to a remote island in the Philippines, in order to retrieve a human asset for the CIA. The thing that makes this an intriguing film is the detail that is added by the use of high altitude drones that contain not only sophisticated Communications equipment, but also a substantial amount of weaponry. Most of the time the Drone in this particular scenario was being used to assist the team on the ground with surveillance of the site that they are about to engage in. There are however some dramatic uses of the weapon at appropriate times to create diversions or potentially rescue members of the team. The way the Drone communication is integrated into the mission is the thing that was new to me. An operator flying the Drone at a location in the States, is communicating information to the team on the ground about enemy activity and potential locations for the asset. It looks like it’s a pretty sophisticated set up and I don’t doubt that the film is reasonably accurate in presenting how the basics work. Of course for drama purposes, they’re always going to be complications and distractions and anybody who is dependent upon this technology would be frustrated with the behavior of some of the team at the Drone base.

Liam Hemsworth is the odd man out on the team, he is basically the Communications tech and not the warrior that the other people on the team are. He is of course a trained soldier so he has the basic ability to handle himself, but obviously the Special Operations group is used to having their own people there and that throws in a few wrinkles. Hemsworth is perfectly fine in the action hero mode, he performs admirably, makes some basic mistakes, and redeems himself a number of times on the mission. So it’s easy for us to have him as a rooting interest.

I’ll probably get in trouble with some people for the way I’m about to describe the next actor in this film, he’s the biggest movie star in the world, …by weight. Russell Crowe at one time was a lean mean fighting machine, but in the last several years his waist has expanded much like my own, so that now when he appears on screen, it’s much like Marlon Brando in Apocalypse Now, a little bit lumbering. The guy can still act his ass off, and he’s great as the Drone operator, although even sitting in a chair behind a console I would assume the Air Force has some physical fitness requirements that they are going to be imposing on their officers. Russell Crowe still has great screen charisma, and He commands the screen even if it doesn’t require him to do any tumbling, running, or hand to hand combat.

There are really no big themes or messages in the film. At one point the villain wants to suggest that hiding behind a drone is a cowardly way of engaging in combat, but when that comes from a guy who decapitates a helpless woman and wants to do the same for a child, he pretty much loses all credibility. Alan Rickman made a film,not too long before his death, that featured a more nuanced View of drone Warfare called “Eye in the Sky”, if you’re looking for a message, that would be the film to seek out. If you’re looking for shootouts, dramatic firefights, explosions, tense torture scenes, and a few people surviving a lot longer than you might expect, then this is a film that you should probably look for. Good guys taking out the bad guys in modern combat situations is what this whole thing is about. Of course it’s going to be a lot harder to find unless you have your own Drone to assist you.

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February 15, 2024

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KAMAD Throwback Thursdays 1975: The Fortune

Throwback Thursday #TBT

Throwback Thursday on the KAMAD site will be a regular occurrence in the next year. As a motivational project, to make sure I am working on something, even in a week where I don’t see a new film in a theater, I am going to post on movies from 1975. Along with 1984, this is one of my favorite years for movies and it is full of bittersweet memories as well. 1975 was my Senior Year in High School and my Freshman Year in College. The greatest film of the last 60 years came out in 1975, as well as dozens of great and not so great cinematic endeavors. Most of the films in this weekly series will have been seen in a theater in 1975, but there are several that I only caught up with later. I hope you all enjoy.

The Fortune

As usual, I tried locating a trailer to accompany my film selection, but this does not seem possible with “The Fortune”. I was unable to locate a trailer on YouTube, which is the most likely site that it would be available on. I looked at Google to search for the same thing and also got no results. Maybe this is the reason that this film was a Blind Spot for me, I never remembered seeing anything promoting it, except newspaper ads. The fact that the movie flopped on release probably accounts for it never being available for me to see in 1975. To catch up with it today, I purchased a copy from Umbrella, an Australian Media company, this actually had to clear customs before being delivered to me. Anyway, the above video is a clip from TCM when they showed the film a few years ago.

“The Fortune” stars Jack Nicolson (This is his fourth film in the Throwback Thursday Series) and Warren Beatty (Only his second). They were both big stars at the time and the movie was directed by Mike Nichols. With that pedigree, you would think this was a surefire smash. Unfortunately, like “Lucky Lady”, also in 75, casting cannot make up for all the elements of a movie. Somehow this light comedy farce, just lacks the delicate touch that it takes to pull off this kind of material, and part ofd the problem is the two stars.

Nicolson and Beatty are both laconic actors, who need some pushing to feel like active participants in a movie. Here they seem to be cruising rather than working, and the script and direction are not enough to compensate for a lack of wattage from the stars. There is a scroll at the start of the movie, to explain the complication that the story is trying to deal with. This immediately suggests trouble. When you have to have a history lesson before the story starts, it is never very promising. Basically, the two are small time scam artists, who are trying to get a hold of the wealth of an heiress by marrying her. Unfortunately, the man who wooed her is unable to complete a divorce, so if he takes her with him across the country, he could be violating the Mann Act.

During the 1920s, in the United States, the law known as the Mann Act was much feared. It prohibited transporting a woman across state lines for immoral purposes. Because of the Mann Act, a man who wanted to run off with a woman and was willing, or unable, to marry her, would sometimes go to unusual lengths.

So Beatty wants to marry Stockard Channing, but can’t, so he has her marry his pal Nicholson, as a way of getting around the law. Of course that presents some awkward moments in the story, and those are the only places where the film comes to life. The movie is less than an hour and a half long, but it seems to take forever to get to the real complications. A car ride, train trip and Airplane flight, all use up a lot of screen time, without really building the story or the characters. Once the trio arrives in Los Angeles, and settles into the same courtyard apartment that was used in “The Day of the Locust”, the comedy feels more connected to the goings on. There just isn’t that much of it.

Channing is in her first credited role here, and for the most part she is great, but there are a couple of scenes where bickering is featured and she was given the direction “louder”. It annoys rather than amuses. The final section of the film, is where the slapstick humor comes in, and the hapless con men, having decided to murder the woman they both claim to love, can’t quite pull off the act. There is a scene of a traffic jam on a bridge that showcases what the film could have been, if only that spirit was infused in the rest of the story.

Anyway, it’s not as big a misfire as “Lucky Lady”, it still isn’t something you need to add to your list of essential viewing.

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January 8, 2024

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The Lord of the Rings Trilogy

I’m starting off 2024 with a challenging proposition, seeing all three of The Lord of the Rings films in one setting. I’ve done it before, in fact twice. But as I get older it does seem to be a little bit more of a challenge to both stay awake and not have my ass hurt at the end of the day. This is going to be a lot of fun regardless of whether I fall asleep or have a sore butt tomorrow.

These films are impressive regardless of the atmosphere that you watch them in, but when they’re presented on the big screen they do take on a special quality. And nowadays it’s most likely that you will see the extended Editions which is indeed what this was. Whenever people ask me which of the three films is my favorite I do answer, but I want to remind people that it’s really just one film broken into three parts. I have a special affinity for the first of the films “The Fellowship of the Ring”. I like the setup in Hobbiton, I like the brief references to Bilbo’s backstory, and I like the introduction of Gandalf as if he is just a traveling performer that the locals both love and fear. Of course the New Zealand surroundings make all of us wish that we could live in the Shire. It is a truly beautiful composition that includes Hobbit holes, quaint Pony Corrals, and a lively Inn where Rosie Cotton serves the drinks.

The Fellowship also has my favorite sequence in the films, the journey through Moria. Gandalf’s confrontation with the Balrog is one of the iconic moments in all of the films, and I love seeing it played out on the big screen in all of its Glory. I’ve written about all three of these films in the past, so I’m not going to cover them again in great detail, or note where changes to the stories are  made in bringing them to the screen. The performances continue to be outstanding, and each time I see Sean Astin’s version of Samwise Gamgee I am impressed and wonder how it is that he was not given some sort of award for his performance.

One of the things that I noticed in the special editions is that the title caption comes up in a different spot than in the original theatrical versions, and with Fellowship, I really do think that the original theatrical caption of the main title was Superior. That however may be the only thing that is superior because all of the additions and changes that are made in the special edition really do seem to strengthen the storytelling and build character more effectively. Like most fans of the original books I do miss having Tom Bombadil in the story, but I can completely understand why that would have been a complication that made the movie less efficient.

So many people like “The Two Towers” as their favorite of the films, including my own daughter. I do think that “The Two Towers” is a very good film, and it introduces my favorite character in the stories, King Theoden. Bernard Hill is the embodiment of the character I always saw in my head when I read the books as a kid. The transformation from the possessed version of the king to the restored Theoden is a very solid piece of CGI Magic that works to convince us that evil is in fact in control in Rohan. I also like that Eowyn is depicted both as a Fearless Warrior who must hide her participation in battles, but also as an incompetent cook whose food is not really edible. The films do have small pieces of humor like that which make the movies even more ingratiating. “The Two Towers” is also the film where the character of Gollum appears in his more complete form, and Andy Serkis delivers a great CGI enhanced performance, sometimes against other actors, but in very effective scenes, against himself.

The spectacular combat that dominates “The Return of the King”, is of course deserving of the accolades that it received at the time of its release. It still holds up on screen as one of the most elaborate uses of visual technology, integrated with actors performances. Just as in Fellowship, “Return of the King” has a great moment when Eowyn confronts the witch King and reveals that she is no man. The extended Editions also contain the creepy sequence where the Mouth of Sauron appears on screen and delivers a bone chilling threat to our heroes. In trying to induce a moment of despair, it is Aragorn’s optimism and refusal to accept that Frodo is dead that is the Turning of the tide. Of course the speech that Aragorn gives men of the West is also a moment that will raise the hair on the back of your neck and make you glad that you were watching this movie one more time.

We came well prepared for the event, with sandwiches and scones, which would have to substitute for lembus bread, and we also had clotted cream, butter and jam to add to the scones. We tossed in a piece of chocolate, and we had a blanket that we could lay under if we got tired. It was a long day and I did take a break at one point to come home and feed the dogs, while Amanda stayed in the theater. There were intermissions between the features but they were not clearly marked as to how long they would be. For the third film we went ahead and got our usual popcorn and soda to finish off the day, because after all, we were in that theater for 13 hours watching the three films, and we deserved some movie treats. I don’t know if I will ever be able to do the trilogy again on the big screen, but I do know if I get the chance I might be willing to attempt it, these films are that good.