Weekend Mullings - One Battle After Another | Dead of Winter

I have yet to see a Paul Thomas Anderson movie that I do no connect with on some level, even when I haven't necessarily loved some of them (though I have loved the majority of them), and I feel like all that's come before has simply been a lead up to One Battle After Another,  his best film yet. Indeed, Anderson says he's been crafting it, in one way or another, for 20 years, taking some inspiration from the Thomas Pynchon novel Vineland, not doubt some inspiration from parenthood, and definitely some inspiration from the times we're living in.

I'll keep it simple, plot wise, as it is fun going in knowing very little. The bones of the story centers on a group of multiracial revolutionaries in contemporary United States that call themselves the French 75. Perfidia Beverly Hills (Teyana Taylor, amazing) and her partner Ghetto Pat (Leonardo DiCaprio, hilarious) are not necessarily the leaders of the gang, but they are definitely the group's cheerleaders, and they take more from their revolutionary acts than just a sense of doing what's right; Perfidia's preferred form of foreplay appears to be blowing shit up.

A time jump of 16 years happens, and we are now perhaps in the present? Or perhaps a bit in the future? Years are never explicitly stated. And while their revolution has not come to pass, that doesn't mean the powers that be, especially a white supremacist named Colonel Lockjaw (Sean Penn, insane) aren't still after the French 75, for reasons that are more personal than political (though really, aren't those so often one and the same?) Perfidia and Pat's daughter Willa (Chase Infiniti, a revelation) is now target number one.

The title One Battle After Another does not lie, as the film, at almost three hours long, rarely pauses to catch its breath. I barely noticed that running time, and I think that's the most important point here. Yes, the film is radical, and political, and could frankly be seen as a call to arms by both sides of the aisle. But it's also exciting, and funny. Leonardo DiCaprio's Pat/Bob could easily be The Dude's distant cousin, another stoner in a bathrobe who finds himself ensnared in a plot he's wholly unprepared for. I'm not sure I've ever seen DiCaprio take on something that almost borders on slapstick, and he's terrific at it. He should do more comedies!

P.T. Anderson movies always center on families, in some form or another, be it families of one's own choosing, as in Boogie Nights and Hard Eight; or fucked up families, as in Magnolia and Phantom Thread; or destructive families, as in The Master and There Will Be Blood. But One Battle After Another is the first Anderson film where that familiar bond, specifically a father's love for his daughter, is the film's heart, soul, and driving force. (And when I say driving force, I mean that both literally and figuratively. There is a car chase near the end of the film that is unlike any other car chase ever put on screen. That alone is worth an IMAX ticket.)

Frankly, it's kind of miraculous that this movie even exists, that it was given the budget it was by a major studio, and that it is coming out this week, of all weeks! Because this film is of the moment, and for the moment. I have a constant, nagging fear that somehow it's going to get shut down at the last minute. So maybe get your butt to a theater sooner than later my friends. It's the movie of the year.

Another movie this week that owes a debt to the Coen Brothers, is Dead of Winter, in which Emma Thompson goes full Fargo, complete with the accent, the snow, and a wild kidnapping plot, though in this case, she simply stumbles upon one, and decides to try and free the victim herself. 

The film lays out its clues slowly. Just why is she out there all alone looking for a desolate lake to go ice fishing in? Just who is this girl that appears to be held against her will? What is up with the crazy couple (played by Judy Greer and Marc Menchaca) that are holding her captive, and what do they plan to do to her?

There's nothing terrible original about any of it, but the fun comes in seeing someone like Emma Thompson taking on what is essentially an action role, albeit one where the heroine has to use her wits more than her might to save the day.

Weekend Mullings - HIM

I'll hand this to HIM. It had an intriguing enough trailer to get me to a screening despite a plot seemingly centered on football, a sport I loathe. I guess I had hopes a horror movie take on the sport might delve into those things that bother me so much about it: its culture of violence; its history of CTE; its exploitation of Black players by white billionaire owners. These are topics ripe for the horror treatment. 

Perhaps someone else will give it a try one day, because HIM's attempts to tackle these topics misses the goal completely.

I can't remember the last time I saw a major studio release that was such a mess. The plot, such as it is, finds Cam (Tyriq  Withers) an up and coming quarterback suffer a brain injury after an attack (by the team mascot? A demon? A crazed fan?) that threatens to derail his career. When his idol, San Antonio Saviors (lol) quarterback Isaiah White (Marlon Wayans) invites Cam to train at his compound for a week, Cam accepts, with hopes that this could lead to him becoming Isaiah's successor.

What follows is a series of baffling scenarios where Cam "trains," by throwing passes on Isaiah's indoor football field while a fellow player is pummeled in the face by a football every time Cam misses. Where Cam gets medical "treatment" from Isaiah's doctor (Jim Jefferies), which consists of random injections of something that's never identified. Where Cam sits in various ice baths and saunas in Isaiah's labyrinthian, concrete compound, while nightmarish individuals that may or may not be real haunt him. 

At times, what Cam experiences is clearly all in his mind. At other times, the weirdness is real. But Cam is such a void, and often devoid of any real emotion, and the film offers no clear delineation between the fantasy and reality, and that just leaves the viewer unmoored. What we end up with is a series of surreal moments - and granted, some of them are visually striking - but with no real story or plot to make sense of it all. It ultimately leads to a finale that manages to be both too on the nose, and completely. WTF.

Weekend Mullings - The Conjuring: Last Rites

I have now officially seen every movie in the Conjuring Cinematic Universe, and one thing has become very clear. Or, more accurately, not clear at all: these movies are dark. Literally. Often so dark you can barely make out what's happening. And this is probably why the majority of the scares in them come from sudden loud noises, and less from genuine dread and horror.

But I will give credit to the first film, 2013's The Conjuring. Of all of these movies supposedly based on "true events," that one felt at least partially believable, and as a result, it creeped me out more than once. Even if I don't believe in ghosts or demons or hauntings or possessions, I do know that weird and freaky stuff does happen, and even if there may ultimately be a logical explanation for a lot of it, it can feel like still freaky stuff! Dozens of pictures falling off a wall at once. Doors slamming shut by themselves. Ghostly figures. Creaky sounds in the attic. These are all scary because they are relatable. But too many of the supposed scares in The Conjuring: Last Rites are hallucinations, dreams, or just plain implausible (a girl vomits up copious amounts of blood and shards of glass and is seemingly fine days later), that it ceases being scary, and at over two-hours long, becomes a chore.

And look, I get that the vast majority of horror movies are going to be based in fantasy. I don't demand realism in all of my horror. But it just feels like The Conjuring movies are trying to have it both ways, touting the true event inspirations, and then showing us things that would never, ever, in a million years, actually happen. 

But the thing is, I like this fictional version of the Warrens! I like their devotion to each other. I like Lorraine's high necked lace shirts and bouffant hairdos. I like that they have a basement full of dangerous unholy artifacts that they're not above showing off during parties. As demon hunters, they're a lot of retro fun. I just don't understand why the creators of this series, in knowing they are going to wildly exaggerate these supposedly true stories, continue to squander the opportunity to do truly scary things. This very well may be the end of the Warrens and the Conjuring, and while I'll be sad to see them go, I'm not going to mourn the end of the increasingly preposterous stories that surround them.