Weekend Mullings - Wuthering Heights | Crime 101 | Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die

I really wish people would just calm down about Emerald Fennell in general and her "Wuthering Heights" film in particular. I am not sure why Fennell seems to raise such ire in some cinephiles (personally, I liked both Promising Young Woman and Saltburn a lot), or why that hatred almost feels personal at times, but from the moment she announced she was adapting Emily Bronte's novel, a lot of people have been in their feelings about it. 

She never claimed she was making a faithful adaptation of the novel, and if that's what you're after, there are plenty of other versions out there that adhere closely to the book. And if those don't satisfy because of their casting, then may I direct you to Andrea Arnold's 2011 version. Emerald Fennell's teenage fever dream of a version won't be for everyone, and that's OK!

This "Wuthering Heights" forgoes large portions of the story, and omits several characters, to better focus on Cathy (Margot Robbie) and Heathcliff (Jacob Elordi), two insanely hot, terrible people who, in all senses of the term, deserve each other. 

The moors in this version are desolate and perpetually foggy. Wuthering Heights is a black, sunless estate situated, essentially, in a cavern. Cathy's father (Martin Clunes) is a drunk gambling addict, and aside from Heathcliff, Cathy's only other friend is her paid companion Nelly (Hong Chau). It's understandable that Cathy would be drawn to the rich Linton family that moves in close by, even if it means forsaking her soul.

But really what sticks in my mind is less about plot, and more about images and feelings. A mansion with shiny red floors, and a fireplace with a mantle of sculpted hands. Walls the color of Cathy's skin, complete with moles and blue veins. A snail crawling up a window. Hands in a fish's mouth, raw eggs, bread dough, and between legs. Anachronistic dresses made from materials that don't even look like they should exist now. A corset tied so so tight it draws blood. And the irrepressible desire for the one person in the world who is the worst person for you.

I cannot fault Emerald Fennell for wanting to make a movie where Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi, two of the most beautiful people working in films today, are her own personal Barbie and Ken, acting out her teenage fantasy of Wuthering Heights, because that's something I immediately wanted to see. And I can't wait to see it again.

Crime 101 is an appropriate title because this tale of cops and robbers covers a lot of the same ground crime dramas that came before it have covered; it's definitely a throwback to movies like Heat, to which it owes a lot. 

In this case, Mark Ruffalo is the cop, and Chris Hemsworth is the robber. A series of jewel heists that take place near the 101 freeway in Los Angeles, along with other similar MOs, have the cop convinced they're all the work of the same criminal. But the robber is meticulous in never leaving any prints or DNA at the scene - until one mishap changes that. 

Nick Nolte also makes an appearance as the robber's grizzled old crime boss, Barry Keoghan is his usual weirdo self as the crime boss's twitchy and dangerous new protege, and Halle Berry is an insurance agent who has run ins with several of them. Everyone in the film is excellent, and at times the plot can get exciting, especially when all the characters begin to converge. But too often the story meanders into side plots that halt the momentum, bloating the running time to almost two and half hours it doesn't earn. 

Director Gore Verbinski hasn't made a feature since 2016's A Cure for Wellness, which was his second flop in a row. He's been in proverbial "director's jail" since then, and I am not entirely sure Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die is going to be the movie to set him free.

It starts out great. Sam Rockwell's nameless character enters a Los Angeles diner and announces he's come from the future on a mission to save humanity. Problem is he looks more like an eccentric homeless man than some kind of hero, though he insists his attire is the height of fashion in his timeline ("our homeless look dead!"). As he holds the diners hostage he reveals he has been through this scenario countless times before, failing every time, and keeps coming back to try and assemble the right combination of people to help him save the future.

These first 20 minutes or so are riveting, due in large part to Rockwell's performance. But once his team is assembled, and they leave the diner, the film begins to feel like a season of Black Mirror, as the back stories of his team members (who include Haley Lu Richardson, Juno Temple, Zazie Beetz, and Michael Pena) are revealed. 

Where the story ends up is very chaotic, not entirely understandable (it involves A.I., because of course), and pretty predictable if you've ever seen a movie involving time travel. But the first third or so of the film is so strong I can narrowly recommend it solely on that. Good luck, have fun, tamper your expectations.

Weekend Mullings - Dracula: A Love Tale

You guys, I don't think Luc Besson has actually read Bram Stoker's Dracula. But I am positive he's seen Francis Ford Coppola's Bram Stoker's Dracula, and I'm pretty sure he thinks that movie was a faithful adaptation of the book, since in more than one interview he insists the original novel is a love story (it's not). Luc Besson's Dracula: A Love Tale  is such a blatant rip-off of Francis Ford Coppola's 1991 film, Besson should just call it a remake before he gets sued. 

Like in Coppola's film, Dracula (Caleb Landry Jones) begins his eternal life as a prince who rejects God after the death of his wife, and then spends hundreds of years looking for her reincarnation; he also has an elaborate white bouffant hairdo and pale, wrinkled skin when he's visited by solicitor Johnathan Harker (Ewens Abid); when he see's that Harker's fiancee, Mina (Zoë Bleu) looks like his long lost love, he ventures to Paris (instead of London), dons a top hat, and seduces her, though this time not via mind control, but instead via some...magic perfume??

This Dracula does have one thing Coppola's doesn't, and that's an army of animated gargoyles that act as Dracula's personal minions. It's also got Christoph Waltz as a vampire-hunting priest, which puts the actor in both a Frankenstein and a Dracula movie within the span of one year. (Sadly, I don't see him in the cast list for the upcoming Mummy movie.)

Being unoriginal is bad enough, but Dracula: A Love Tale is also one of the flattest and ugliest films I've seen in a while. Scenes are too often brightly lit, with deep focus normally seen in movies shot on older video cameras. I will give it this: some of the costumes, of which there are many, are fine. I particularly liked the completely impractical veil Elisabeta wears as she's attempting to flee capture near the beginning of the film. 

Frankly, it's surprising Besson is still allowed to make films, since it seems like he's gotten away with some pretty horrific things. So the fact that he's made a terrible movie that is essentially guilty of the crime of copyright infringement definitely tracks.

Weekend Mullings - Send Help

Sam Raimi hasn't directed a horror movie since 2009's Drag Me to Hell, and while Send Help isn't strictly horror, it definitely dips its toe into the genre more than once. Call it perhaps, Drag Me to Paradise.

Rachel McAdams stars as Linda Liddle, a smart and eager, but also frequently off-putting, analyst at a consulting firm. She's been promised a promotion, but when the head of the company (Bruce Campbell, in a painted portrait cameo) dies, his smarmy and overly confident son Bradley (Dylan O'Brien) takes over, and he does not take to Linda, denying her that promotion. But when they end up the sole survivors of a plane crash, deserted on an island together, roles are reversed, and Linda proves all the studying she's done with hopes of getting cast on a season of Survivor has finally paid off.

Casting McAdams in an "ugly girl" role probably seems like it would require the usual bit of Hollywood disbelief, but I don't think Linda is supposed to be ugly, per se. It's more that she's clueless when it comes to matters of fashion and hygiene, and has a problem with personal space. You can understand why people might find her annoying, but you still sympathize with her because her coworkers and boss are such assholes.

But the tides turn, and that's where I had a bit of a problem. There's no doubt Bradley is a total tool and remains one even when it's obvious he needs Linda to survive. But Linda ends up doing some really terrible things, so it becomes a story about two horrible people battling for survival, and I found it hard to root for anyone.

But I have a feeling that may just be a me problem, and most will be comfortably Team Linda the entire time. And all that aside, I still enjoyed seeing Sam Raimi getting back to some of his fun old tricks, with the kinds of comedic gore and jump scares he's a master of. 

Weekend Mullings - 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple

The 28 Years franchise has never been my favorite horror franchise, mainly because zombies - or whatever we want to call the victims of  the "rage" virus here - aren't my favorite kind of monster; they're pretty boring! And gross! So that means zombie movies need to lean heavily on the personalities of those fighting the zombies, a little more so than in other horror genres.

I liked last year's 28 Years Later more than 28 Weeks Later, though probably not as much as 28 Days Later. I just had so many questions! After 28 years, where are all the raging zombies on the quarantined isle of England coming from? Do they age? If they can give birth, do the babies turn into zombies? Why would the rest of the world not provide those survivors on the uninfected islands with more goods and services? Where did the doctor get all that iodine? And how'd he get those bone temples so tall?

I suppose thinking about such things is the definition of overthinking it, but if I found the rest of the movie more engaging I don't think my mind would have wandered so much. So, I wasn't particularly excited to learn a sequel would be coming out - and not even a year later. 

Turns out, 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple is the best movie in the franchise so far.

Picking up immediately where the 28 Years Later left us, Spike (Alfie Williams) has been captured by Jimmy Savile looking gang of blonde-wigged, tracksuit-wearing hooligans, led by Jimmy Crystal (Jack O'Connell, seen last year as the lead vampire in Sinners). They are looking to include Spike in the gang, if he survives their initiation. Spike soon learns it's not a gang anyone in their sound mind would want to join, as Jimmy Crystal is, in a nutshell, a sadistic Satanist, and his gang is there to carry out his torturous requests.

Meanwhile, Dr. Kelson (Ralph Fiennes), continues his solitary existence, building his temple of bones, and reminiscing in his bunker filled with old photos and Duran Duran records. But he is also experimenting on the "alpha" zombie he's dubbed Samson (Chi Lewis-Parry), and he thinks he may have found a cure for the virus, or if not a cure, at least a kind of "treatment," that may calm the rage that drives the afflicted. That Jimmy Crystal and Dr. Kelson will meet is inevitable, and that meeting is a glorious heavy metal fueled spectacle of fire and brimstone.

Director Nia DaCosta has had an eclectic career, split between big budget genre films (Candyman; The Marvels) and low budget dramas (Little Woods; Hedda). The Bone Temple is equal parts horrifying - some of the violence is so brutal, it almost derails the movies - and beautiful. Costa attempts to mimic Danny Boyle's kinetic filmmaking style near the beginning of the film does not work - it was so jerky and ugly that I feared the whole movie may become unwatchable. Thankfully, that doesn't last long, and DaCosta calms down enough to capture some gorgeous imagery. Alex Garland's screenplay ventures into some surprising territory for the franchise, and the ending provides some definite fan service. 

Danny Boyle is set to direct the third entry in this trilogy, but I have to admit, after seeing The Bone Temple, I'd welcome more of Nia DaCosta's vision.

Weekend Mullings - The Housemaid | Is This Thing On?

I don't think Amanda Seyfried gets the respect she deserves. She's one of the best actresses working right now, and if there was any doubt about that, they should be dispelled this month. She gives a truly riveting performances in The Testament of Ann Lee, which is also one of the most memorable movies of the year (it opens next week). And this week, she is easily the most entertaining thing in the unabashedly trashy and fun The Housemaid.

The film also stars Sydney Sweeney, and while I don't tend to agree with those who consider her a terrible actress (she was great in HBO's The White Lotus and Euphoria), when paired with Seyfried, her limitations are amplified. Seyfried plays Nina, a rich housewife who hires Millie (Sweeney) to be a live-in maid. Millie has some secrets, and soon, Millie learns Nina has some secrets of her own, as Nina soon demonstrates she may not have a complete grip on reality, something her husband (Brandon Sklenar) and daughter (Indiana Elle) do their best to handle. And it's in the scenes where we see Nina's sanity fracture that Seyfried really shines. 

One doesn't normally expect a performance as good as Seyfried's in a film that, while fun, has all the earmarks of something that would normally go straight to streaming. (Paul Feig also directed the similar A Simple Favor, and if you liked that one, you'll probably like this one too.)

A movie like this is no fun if you know what's coming, so I won't say any more about the plot. But it does make me wonder if anyone who has read the (apparently wildly popular) book this was based on will get as much enjoyment from it as those coming in cold.

I haven't seen Ella McCay, the new movie from James L. Brooks, but reviews and word of mouth have not been good, to put it mildly. Meanwhile, Bradley Cooper's new movie Is This Thing On? feels like the kind of movie James L. Brooks would make, thus making it a better James L. Brooks movie than the actual James L. Brooks movie that's out right now.

And to be fair, it's closer to something like Spanglish than Broadcast News in terms of quality. Will Arnett and Laura Dern are Alex and Tess Novak, a couple on the verge of divorce. While living apart, Alex, almost on accident, performs some stand-up during an open mic night and finds a new passion in comedy. Meanwhile Tess, a former volleyball team Olympian, decides to get back into the game via coaching. 

Is This Thing On? is a lot smaller than Cooper's previous directorial efforts, but as in A Star Is Born and Maestro, the story is focused on a relationship, and how the pursuits of individual passions affect those relationships. Will Arnett and Laura Dern both give solid performances, even if Arnett's stand-up routines are a little...rough. And I can't say I'm wild about Cooper's use of extreme close-ups throughout; I'm not sure I really need to see anyone's face that close for that long, especially in a theater. James L. Brooks would never.