“Guilt” is an Australian vengeance fantasy about a former child trauma psychologist turned pedophile-killing vigilante.
In the parlance of the happy natives of Oz, it’s bloody awful.
It’s a violent thriller that suspends suspense in favor of endless scenes of heroine Jessie (Janet Shay) plotting, stalking, trapping and killing just-released convicted child molesters and burying them in the woods.
She’s got a pickup truck (“ute”) for just that purpose. And she’s so obsessed that we see she’s neglecting her personal life and maybe her now-adult-focused practice.
The woman doodles murderous thoughts as this mother of a victim or that one reveals the emotional damage these crimes have wrought. Might have been nice to be listened to and, you know counseled.
The film introduces an intrepid cop who might be on her trail, but she’s forgotten for most of the film. There goes that “ticking clock,” “long-arm-of-the-law closing in” element.
Even the “Death Wish” screenwriters had the good sense to work that in.
And “Guilt” brings up the possibility that maybe not everybody accused or even convicted of the crimes is guilty, with the idea that Jessie starts to experience remorse. Maybe? Hopefully? Fat chance.
This appears to be Shay’s feature film debut, and while she’s good at the savagery, the other emotions one might expect to flash across Jessie’s face don’t.
It’s a one-note performance, and that note is dissonant and dull.
MPAA Rating: unrated, graphic violence
Cast: Janet Shay, Hayley Flowers, Tom Wilson and Michael Matthews
Credits: Directed by Karl Jenner and Lyndsay Sarah, script by Lyndsay Sarah. A Cobalt release.
As dark comedies about communicating with ghosts go, “Dead” falls closer to “The Frighteners” than “Ghost Town.” It’s funny enough in a stoner comedy way, but as its got a serial killer in it, well, you see my point.
Written by and co-starring New Zealanders Thomas Sainsbury and Hayden J. Weal (who also directed it), this funny film struggles to strike a balance between the daft and the dark, between sweetness and slaughter.
Sainsbury is Dane “Marbles” Marbec, a grinny “coaster” (slacker) who rides a dorky motor scooter when he goes to visit the recently bereaved. He’s there to serve as a “conduit” between the ghost and those that ghost left behind.
No, he can’t properly pronounce “conduit” and yes he mixes up “consolation” with “constellation.” Because he’s a bit dim and pot-addled. Half the time, he doesn’t even charge his “clients” for consulting with them, seeing if he can help the dead “pass over.”
As we remember from oh-so-many variations of “The Tibetan Book of the Dead” (“Ghost” et al), sometimes the dead have unfinished business. Usually, it’s just a tearful admission of love, and sweet stoner Marbles is just the man to deliver that message.
But then this cop, Jason Tagg (Weal) wakes up with no pants and a lot of questions. He’s not even in proximity with his body. How could he be dead?
There was this one pothead he rousted a time or two, guy who claimed he could speak to ghosts. Maybe he’ll help.
Marbles takes an injection — his own accidental discovery — and “I see ghosts.” He wants nothing to do with this Wellington policeman’s last case. He’ll be a “con do EET” for the guy to say farewell to his half-sister Yana (Tomai Ihaia). But that’s it.
Events conspire to convince him otherwise, and soon they’re on the case — the tough veteran of the force and the doughy, accident-prone pothead who is little more than “untapped potential.”
Sainsbury, of the recent “Guns Akimbo” and the dizzy and just-released “Alien Addiction,” makes a marvelously-passive foil to Weal’s muscular, mustachioed cop Tagg.
But their “Dead” pairing never feels as conventional as that set-up suggests. Marbles may not know how to pronounce “insignia,” but he’s observant, loyal and compassionate. And Tagg has his soft side, along with intimacy issues.
Tagg’s edgy, alcoholic lawyer sister Yana might be just another person to push Marbles around, but she picks up on his vulnerability and his on-the-spectrum awkwardness and is charmed, a not entirely-unexpected turn of events.
The later acts see “Dead” turn a tad stiff (ahem) and violent, but losing its early comic momentum is a common film failing, and they did choose to have serial killing as a major plot point.
All in all, thought, you can’t say this latest dark Kiwi Comedy lets down the brand or the side.
MPAA Rating: unrated, violence, drug abuse, innuendo
Cast: Thomas Sainsbury, Hayden J. Weal, Tomai Ihaia, Jennifer Ward-Lealand, Jess Sayer and Kayne Peters
Credits: Directed by Hayden J. Weal, script by Thomas Sainsbury, Hayden J. Weal. A 1091 release.
Cutesy, corny and little-kid friendly, “Wish Upon a Unicorn” manages just enough goofy laughs to avoid “insipid,” no matter how hard everybody involved tries.
It’s a bit like that holiday evergreen “Prancer,” without the sophistication and sentiment of that reindeer-loses-his-sleigh kiddie comedy.
Chicago kids Mia (Ryan Kiera Armstrong, Summer Fontana) move to the country to help with grandma’s ranch. Rose (Chloe Webb of “Sid & Nancy”) is losing her memory and fading a bit, but barking “Time for chores” to a couple of tweens brings back her spirit.
Classmates include bullies, and the teachers there drawl — “What’s a HUCKLEberry?” The general store is straight out of “Green Acres,” with cornpone “regulars” and a conspiracy-nut proprietor. Crazy Willie (Kevin J. O’Connor, not bad) will tell you Bigfoot stories.
“You need a new cow. Cuz’ we’re TIRED of your BULL!”
But Willie sees in Mia a fellow traveler, “a believer…someone who knows the impossible is always possible.“
When Mia spies a sparkly horse with a horn in the woods, bathed in a rainbow of light, nobody believes her. They can’t even see the yearling she calls Rocco. Doubting Dad (Jonathan Lajoie) laughs it off, an and even Emma has her doubts.
“I hear their farts smell like cotton candy!”
But Mia and her eventual convert Emma discover that Rocco is about to change the family luck. It’s just that SOMEbody knows unicorn lore that makes him covet the critter for nefarious means.
The action is “E.T.” lite, the effects modest, but there are gags that land and one-liners that score.
“Maybe it”s time to rethink the Easter Bunny!”
Mia does research to argue that unicorns have to exist — “They’re in the Bible like NINE times!” Mis-translation from Hebrew, but OK.
She reads that “a pure and innocent damsel in a white dress” can attract them. Dad’s confused.
“Wait, where are you GOING? Did you get MARRIED?”
There’s not a lot to this. And it’s entirely too undemanding for anybody over the age of eight.
But if you’re in the target audience…what are you doing reading movie reviews on Mom’s iPhone?
MPAA Rating: PG, a little violence, a “hella” here, a “fart” joke there
Cast: Ryan Kiera Armstrong, Summer Fontana, Kevin J. O’Connor, Tait Blum and Chloe Webb.
Credits: Written and directed by Steve Bencich. A Universal/Netflix release.
It’s often said that if you examine an individual life closely enough, you’ll find the makings of universal tragedy, comedy and mystery.
Directed and co-writer Cristóbal Serrá Jorquera gives that thesis a serious test in the Costa Rican drama “El Calor Después de la Lluvia,” “The Heat After the Rain.” It’s a quiet, contemplative look at one young woman’s literal and emotional journey after a miscarriage.
We aren’t told much, and aren’t shown much more, a serious shortcoming in this minimalist tale in a seldom-filmed setting.
For 30ish Juana (Milena Picado), the chill set in on her relationship with Gustavo (Luis Carlos Bogantes) after she lost the baby. His aimlessness grates, his inability to provide words of comfort hurt.
He’s content to carry on as always, poking around SanJosé, never letting her know where he’s off to, who he might be with. “Why do I have to have a job?” (in Spanish with English subtitles).
And yet he’s the one who wants closure when the inevitable happens. Running into him on the seasonal religious pilgrimage she undertakes is just salt in the wound.
Juana is drained by the ordeal and joyless in the pilgrimage. Winding up at her parent’s house in a small town is her chance to finally have someone to talk to about this most personal of tragedies. But she won’t.
And the bearded guy (Arturo Pardo) who meets her in a cantina probably isn’t up to it, either.
Jorquera puts so few cards on the table that the viewer’s left to fill in around the edges of this simple, potentially sad story. I say “potentially,” because there’s precious little emotion expressed here, and you can guess where it turns up.
Waiting for that, we’re left to ponder the emptiness Juana feels and the subject Juana avoids in a conservative Catholic Central American country.
“El Calor Después de la Lluvia” is lovely to look at, which is some consolation. But for people who look for, you know, more overtly dramatic things to happen in their dramas, who like a little more explanation (What pilgrimage is this? Where is the town Juana ends up in? Etc?), it’s a dull exercise in guess what’s in the character’s head.
MPAA Rating: unrated, adult themes
Cast: Milena Picado, Luis Carlos Bogantes, Arturo Pardo, Rodrigo Duran and Ana Ulate.
Credits: Directed by Cristóbal Serrá Jorquera, script by Cristóbal Serrá Jorquera, Felipe Zúñiga. An Indiepix release.
AMC Cinemas, America’s second largest theater chain, has filed to sell more stock shares to raise money in the face of the Covid Collapse of movie going. The stock price is running further as a result
Deceitful red state governors like the one here in Florida may be pushing the narrative that the pandemic is over, nine months in. But moviegoers aren’t buying it and film distributors are pulling product accordingly. I’ve been to a few movies in the past month and been almost all by myself in the multiplex each time.
It’s a damned death spiral for cinema thanks to incompetent and malevolent contagion mismanagement and the gullible who keep listening to the murderous toddler in charge. So sure, thanks for that.
“Beastie Boys Story” is a TED Talk with swearing, tales of (faux) debauchery from a couple of 50somethings remembering making music that started as a joke and morphed into something with staying power.
Spike Jonze directed it and it was Emmy nominated, so there’s a little more to it than that. But the format is totally TED Talk, and it works…about as well as your average TED Talk.
The scripted-rehearsed gags, the polished (with seemingly-planned “technical difficulties”) anecdotes, scanning the all-too-familiar pop-star-career arc are all packed into the format of the last of a live series of New York stage shows in which the two surviving members of the trio — Michael Diamond (Mike D) and Adam Horovitz (Ad-Rock) — remember the good times.
Adam Yauch, the third member, died of cancer in 2012, and the guys pay affectionate tribute to him every where they can and lots of archival interview footage with him is cut into the show.
In between jokes. In between ancient TV appearances, and in between endless photo montages of these “party bro” punks-turned-rappers. In between jokey chapter headings.
“Chapter 3: The Record that Changed Everything. “Chapter 8: The Record that Changed Everything.”
The pre-history and early years are the fun parts of any such story, and the most informative, especially here. Meeting as early teens, forming a punk combo with friends who included John Berry (who bailed) and drummer Schellenbach (kicked out when they became hyping butch rappers).
As Horovitz admits, in the film’s single-sentence mea culpa — “How f—–d up is that?”
All is quickly forgiven by the King Theater audience’s nostalgic 50something fanbase, so no worries, right?
What was most fascinating to me, who casually let the Boys Entering Anarchistic States Towards Inner Excellence (“MCA” Yauch’s acronym for BEASTIE) sort of pass by as MTV/”Soul Train”/”American Bandstand” background noise, was all the recollections of their joint rise to fame with future super producer Rick Rubin, who became “our weird cool older brother” in college when they were still in their mid-teens and none of them were famous.
Old TV footage of Rubin hyping his “creation” is hilarious, and flies in the face of the inscrutable bearded guru he became.
Their Russell Simmons/Rick Def Jam years are amusingly recalled, complete with Russell impersonations, the guys marveling at their luck, the off-the-cuff creative process in those earliest years, opening for Madonna (a mistake), and then their idols Run-DMC made them.
Anarchic music videos, taking on the guise of rude jerks during their ’80s heyday, becoming the “ass—–s” they felt they were mocking in songs like “(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (to Party!)” is sober and middle-age reflective.
The bite of Def Jam’s “breach of contract” accusations, and Simmons admitting to them that he “just needed three white rappers so that he could get (Def Jam) on MTV” is allowed to sting, but not smother the feel-good/feel-nostalgic/sentimental-over-Yauch vibe.
Yeah, they went kind of broke, for a while. And then they had a comeback.
But “Story” plays out a bit like the band itself. It peaks early, hits its giddy stride during the blur of sudden fame, notorious personal appearances and all-for-a-goof excesses, and then fizzles out utterly.
Proving themselves “legitimate” in later years is vindicating, but dramatically dull.
And a sometimes charming “victory lap” Brooklyn theater run doesn’t erase the faint odor of privilege and cultural appropriation that always hung over them — punk-rap mashup or not.
MPAA Rating: TV-MA, profanity
Cast: Michael Diamond, Adam Horovitz and the late Adam Yauch
Credits: Directed by Spike Jonze, script by Adam Horovitz and Mike Diamond. An Apple TV+ release.
The unemotive animation makes the faces in the “babies with superpowers” comedy “Fe@rless” look like CGI botox. And the disinterested “Has the check cleared?” voice acting seems to match in this cartoon quicky made for Netflix.
It’s an incredibly dull “Incredibles” variation with British origins and a video game framework that adds little, and doesn’t distract from the “Southpark” construction-paper cut out (digitally mimicked) backgrounds or “story.”
A “gamer” with the online moniker “Fe@rless” is master of the online contest “Planet Master.” Reid (voiced by Miles Robbins, who sounds bored) manipulates the hero Captain Lightspeed (Jadakiss, who sounds like Danny DeVito taking his first voice-acting job) upward, level after level.
Oddly, Captain Lightspeed has to contend with dropping his toddler off at deep space day care in one game level. Entry to the next level feeds Fe@rless Reid a warning.
“Do you accept the consequences?”
Sure. Ok. But just as science project partner Melanie (Yara Shahidi) shows up, the game’s villain Arcannis (Miguel no-last-name, bland) kidnaps three superpowered babies, they escape through a wormhole and show up at Reid’s house.
Worlds collide, aliens invade and super-strong baby mayhem ensues, with the military getting involved in the person of General Blazerhatch (Gabrielle Union, disguising her voice big time) on the case.
“Send those diapers to the CDC!”
Teen search histories, baby drivers, toddler sing-alongs and the mellow sounds of Lionel Ritchie are tossed our way in search of laughs.
The action isn’t particularly noisy or attention-grabbing.
Still, the disinterested voice actors won’t be a bother to the teeny-tiny target audience for this pablum. They need a nap, anyway.
Robbins’ moment of “realization” speech line-reading in monotone would put anybody to sleep.
“The whole Earth is doomed, and it’s my fault.”
MPAA Rating: TV-Y7, “ripe” diaper jokes
Cast: Miles Robbins, Yara Shahidi, Jadakiss, Gabrielle Union and Susan Sarandon.
Credits: Written and directed by Cory Edwards. A Netflix release.
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