Perhaps the most enduring innovation from Wes Craven’s original Scream (1996) is its acknowledgement of its existence within the continuum of horror movies, both the classics to the schlock that preceded it. For at least two decades prior, in every monocellular slasher that oozed red paint in every midnight-movie ghetto and fading VHS tape, the teenage automatons passing … [Read more...]
So it went: 40 years of friendship wisdom enriches Vonnegut doc
Robert B. Weide’s documentary Kurt Vonnegut: Unstuck in Time is about the man in the title, but it’s also about an enduring friendship, and it’s about the long game of filmmaking. Long as in 40 years: Weide, then a little-known documentarian, first proposed the idea of a documentary about the influential novelist in 1982, when he was 23 and Vonnegut was 60. Vonnegut died in … [Read more...]
‘Mayor Pete’: Amazon doc fosters respect for rising Democrat
Like Robert Drew’s landmark Primary, Jesse Moss’s Amazon Prime documentary Mayor Pete is an insider’s portrait of a campaign for the Democratic nomination: the eternal political sausage-making of stump speeches and rope lines, mock debates and televised ones, meetings with consultants and bleary-eyed tracking of poll numbers. But while Drew’s account of the John F. Kennedy … [Read more...]
‘Antlers’: Societal decay is the other monster
There is a literal monster in Scott Cooper’s Antlers, namely the wendigo: a mythological spirit from indigenous American lore that craves human flesh, sprouts horns and possesses people. But as with the best horror storytelling — think Poe, think Shelley — the supernatural element is an offshoot of prosaically human conditions like greed, abuse and theft. The wendigo is a … [Read more...]
The View From Home: A revolutionary rock doc, a socialist treatise
For hardcore fans of the Velvet Underground — which is to say all fans of the Velvet Underground — Todd Haynes’ new documentary bearing their name is manna from heaven, a film as disobedient, innovative and multilayered as the band itself. The Velvet Underground played with temporality through its druggy, hypnotic music, and The Velvet Underground tells their story through a … [Read more...]
‘Days’: One quiet story, one unforgettable moment
As a cinema studies major in college, I read — or, more precisely, hate-read — Robert McKee’s Story, the industry bible for commercial screenwriting. On page after page, I scoffed at its provincial advice. One of McKee’s signature strictures, that a film’s plot should be established within the first 10 minutes of screen time, would have ruled out too many of the best movies … [Read more...]
The way we is: ‘Together’ gives Zoom-ish take on life during COVID
In the inchoate days of COVID, like everybody else, I reached out to old friends with whom I hadn’t spoken in months, maybe a year. One of whom, a cineaste and crime writer in California, echoed one of my early observations: “There’s going to so many pandemic movies now.” This stands to reason. Whatever the crisis, whether it’s Vietnam, 9-11, the Iraq War, the 2008 recession … [Read more...]
‘The War Is Never Over’: Lydia Lunch, unapologetic
Lydia Lunch: The War is Never Over is not a film that can be accused of burying any lede. In the film’s opening seconds, over grainy footage of Lydia Lunch in the 1970s, the now 60-ish Lydia Lunch tells of being propositioned by a stranger outside a New York City porno theatre at age 13. She’s waiting for the bus, but the creep is insistent, and the bus isn’t showing up. So … [Read more...]
The View From Home: The enduring legacy of ‘Almost Famous’
For cinema studies majors seeking a thesis, “The Use of Music in the Films of Cameron Crowe” would be a worthy subject. Even in his non-music-centered films, each selection is chosen with layered precision, as revealing as it is iconic. When Jerry Maguire hits the open road after signing his first client, and Tom Petty’s “Free Fallin’” soars on his car radio, it’s a moment … [Read more...]
The View From Home: Classic noirs make Blu-ray debuts
Just in time for another sultry summer, this month marks a wave of film noir Blu-ray premieres from Kino Lorber, with lurid, screaming titles like The Web (1947) and Larceny (1948). Two others offer eccentric takes on the genre’s traditions. In director John Farrow’s Alias Nick Beal (1949), Ray Milland plays the title character, a suavely dressed, black-hatted figure … [Read more...]