Movie Nation

The thing that bowls you over, straight off, about “Gretel & Hansel” is how beautiful the damned thing is.

Art director Christine McDonagh (TV’s “Into the Badlands”), production designer Jeremy Reed (“Hard Candy”) and lighting cinematographer Galo Olivares (“Roma”) have conjured up a stark fairytale-scape with glowing, supernatural red fog, stylized black witchwear (Leonie Prendergast did the costumes) and buildings that are Bauhaus meets Lovecraft’s “Necronomicon.”

At times, the eye candy nightmares and waking nightmares of this grim twist on the Grimm’s fairytale will make your jaw drop.

Casting the regal horror queen Alice Krige (“Ghost Story,” “Silent Hill,” Borg leader in “Star Trek”) is another coup. The florid dialogue of Rob Hayes takes on poetic undertones as the South African actress delivers lines of chilling menace or spooky empowerment in an Irish accent.

“Women often know things we’re not supposed to know,” she purrs to Gretel — the heroine of this version of the story. “I’d hate for you to start something you can’t stop.”

All that’s missing from this sinister exercise in creepy cuisine is, well, frights. “Gretel & Hansel” are wrapped in a chiller with no thrills, a thriller with few chills.

In a time of pestilence and famine, Gretel (Sophia Lillis of “It”) struggles to feed herself and her little brother Hansel (Samuel Leakey). But the options for a young woman in era are the grimmest thing she may confront. A pervy housekeeping job interview with “Milord,” cast out of a foodless house by their mad mother, even a chance rescue and meal from The Hunter (Charles Babalola) leaves her suspicious.

“Is it safe to trust someone who arrives just when you need them?” she narrates.

Deep into the forest, what is she to make of that black A-frame with the table set for a perpetual banquet, sweets and meats and fresh milk?

“Nothing is given without something else being taken away,” she counsels her little brother.

The kindly, black-fingered crone who lives there seems warmed by their presence. That scent of cakes baking that lured them there? Nothing suspicious about that. Not at all.

“Guests? I’d rather have ROACHES!”

But she keeps busy stuffing Hansel and taking a motherly teaching folkways/witchy ways tack with Gretel, “a girl with action in her power.”

Actor turned director Osgood “Oz” Perkins (“The Blackcoat’s Daughter”) keeps the period piece detail even as the design takes on modernist gigantic sound-stage dimensions.

But all this beauty and detail serves a heavily-narrated, dramatically-thin war of the wills tale, where we and Gretel figure out that there’s no such thing as a free dessert cart.

The framing prologue, about “the most perfect little girl” is colorful but has such a tenuous connection to the main story as to be pointless.

Krige, with her cadaverously unworldly eyes and Irish burr, never takes on the terrifying tone we keep waiting for.

Lillis never seems frightened, just curious.

And when the credits roll, we cast our eyes about the theater at all the other paying patrons casting their eyes around the theater, all of us wondering the same thing.

“Wait, that’s it?”

MPAA Rating: PG-13 for disturbing images/thematic content, and brief drug material

Cast: Sophia Lillis, Alice Krige, Jessica De Gouw

Credits: Directed by Oz Perkins, script by Rob Hayes. An Orion Pictures release.

Running time: 1:27

Stewart is a concert pianist coping with stage fright, Holmes is a “agree spirited music critic” who helps him cope.

Giancarlo Esposito also stars in “Coda.”

Ever been to a fan convention? Comic-Con, MegaCon, SuperCon or “Star Wars Celebration?”

“Surviving” it takes a lot more than stamina and an ability to ignore strong BO, I tell you what. Here’s a doc that goes beyond the “Big Bang Theory/Fanboys” treatment, maybe a “Comic-Con Episode IV: A Fan’s Hope” for our times?

“VFW” is a spatter film, a “Hobo With a Shotgun” meets “From Dusk Til Dawn.”

It’s built on that “Fort Apache/Zulu/Assault on Precinct 13” formula that most zombie and more than a few vampire onslaughts use as a template. Pack a few people in a “fort,” surround them with savages, pick those savages off and try to look or sound cool doing it.

For my money, it needed to be a lot more “Shaun of the Dead” and a lot less “Hobo.” If it isn’t funny, it’s just a “Who gets it next?” slaughterhouse, a gruesome video game of a movie for the violence-inured.

Stephan Lang, having a career renaissance thanks to “Avatar” and “Don’t Breathe,” plays a Vietnam vet bartender at a VFW post under siege by drug-crazed junkies doing the dirty work of a ruthless drug dealer (Travis Hammer) who has lost his stash.

It’s a picture that sinks or swims on swagger, “creative” killings, some noble — if misguided — sacrifice and surviving un-survivable injuries just long enough to get off a one-liner.

The country is in the grip of this new drug, “hype,” which is so craved by its addicts that they have no control over what they have to do to get it. Order is breaking down. We never see a cop.

Not on the side of town where VFW Post 2494 clings to life. Fred and his post buddies Abe (Fred “The Hammer” Williamson), a Korean War era vet, and Walter Reed (teehee) played by William Sadler, open the joint every noon and close it down every night.

Fred is having little luck fending off the birthday wish that he join his veteran pals (George Wendt. David Patrick Kelly, Martin Kove) for an excursion to “a t—y bar” when an interloper arrives. Lizard (Sierra McCormick) has stolen the drug-dealer’s supply. She has her reasons.

It’s just that Boz (Hammer) then hurls his druggies at Post 2494 to get that “hype” back.

“An army of brain-dead animals is still an army,” Boz reasons.

The slaughter begins, in earnest — crazed attackers, desperate old or “oldish” men fighting back, cursing the “f—–g hippies” and “g–d—-d junkies” as they do. Car salesman Lou (Kove) is pissed. At Lizard.

“That trash comes in here, all of a sudden it’s like Khe Sanh ALL OVER again!”

That’s it for plot, the wizened veterans muttering “Cavalry ain’t coming, Lou,” the men’s bizarre, undeveloped motivation for sticking up for the under-scripted young woman who caused all this, the drug punk and his minions refusing to treat veterans with respect.

“Soldiers? Good. Soldiers are good at dying.”

A little DIY weaponizing of the bar, using old Viet Cong tricks and hockey sticks. Some tough talk between the old guys and the still-serving young GI (Tom Williamson) who came in to drink with men three-four times his age.

“Don’t kill’em all at once, now.”

I had higher hopes for this, based on the trailer, the players — Lang, Wendt from “Cheers,” Williamson the Elder (Is Tom a son, or grandson?), Kelly from “The Warriors” and Sadler from “Shawshank Redemption” and a far better-executed version of “VFW” titled “Trespass.”

But while director Joe Begos (“Bliss,” “The Mind’s Eye”) might know how to film brawls and bloodbaths, his track record is poor, and here he didn’t have much to work with. The screenwriters have lots of credits in film and TV, none of them involving writing. And it shows.

They made a promise, with their cool trailer, that their dull, bloody movie couldn’t keep.

MPAA Rating: Unrated, graphic violence, profanity throughout

Cast: Stephen Lang, Martin Kove, Sierra McCormick, Fred Williamson, William Sadler, George Wendt, David Patrick Kelly, Dora Madison, Travis Hammer and Tom Williamson

Credits: Directed by Joe Begos, script by Max Brallier and Matthew McArdle. An RLJE/Fangoria release.

Running time: 1:32

How much is “too much” to reveal in a movie review?

Ordinarily, you relate just enough of the plot and characters to set the story in motion, and everything else is value judgements — how good the acting, writing, production design etc. are, how original the entire enterprise might be.

But in movie reviewing, we’re always using analogies — “comps.” What movie does this one borrow from/compare to, use as its inspiration?

With “Die Ontwaking,” I dare say translating the Afrikaans (It’s a South African serial killer thriller) title will give away the game, to the movie-savvy.

“The Collector” is what it translates to, an adaptation of the first of a series of novels about a African/Aboriginal artifacts dealer. And Hell’s Bells, even that gives away more than it should.

“Series” of novels about a “collector.” What do we know about the killer and the film’s finale from that description?

If I mention “Psycho” and “Silence of the Lambs,” you can infer even more about it, the movies/books that novelist Chris Karsten was dabbling in as he cut-and-pasted this story.

But I’m not going to sweat the “spoilers” here, as I can sum this one up in just two words — grisly and perfunctory. It begins with an unseen cutter gutting and skinning a rabbit and quickly escalates into human slicing, people grabbed and tied up for butchery as the cops try to figure out what’s going on.

Grisly. Perfunctory.

The subtexts here are almost more interesting than the “We’ve got ourselves a collector, slicing off pieces of peoples’ skin” that the police will quickly conclude.

The title character, played by Gys de Villiers, runs an antiques gallery. He’s an elderly creeper who specializes in masks from around the world.

No no, he can’t sell that roll-top desk, it’s his mother’s. He talks about his mother a lot.

No, that tribal mask isn’t for sale either. Only men can wear it.

That’s the other subtext of interest, here. The men, to a one, are committed sexists — womanizers, harassers and bullies.

Deputy Nesa (Juanita de Villiers) takes jabs from the boorish Fred (Gérard Rudolf ) on the first crime-scene, where the first body is dumped. Here are your rubber gloves, “just in case you break a nail” (in Afrikaans, with English subtitles).

The coroner is equally contemptuous — “Such an important case, and you make an amateur the investigating officer!”

Her boss, the Colonel (Paul Eilers) is there, which is why she has to let this crap roll off her back.

But when a reporter (Jaco Muller) shows up and begs for a date, mid-interview, North American viewers of this 2015 film might wonder what century this is.

The Colonel burns through cigarettes, has hints of corruption and is dismissive of protocol.

“SCREW motives!”

The pathologist has his Dr. McCoy moment — “I’m a pathologist, not a psychologist” dammit.

The deputy acts like “an amateur” more than once.

And the collector? He keeps on collecting, even as red herring suspects are dredged up AFTER we’ve been given a good, solid EARLY taste of who is doing this and what he’s obsessed with.

The South African setting is “novel,” except when you realize there’s only one black person in the entire South African movie.

The interrogations, the slow pace of piecing together a “puzzle” that’s all but given away right from the start, underscore that “perfunctory” knock I made earlier. The crimes, the criminal, the story beats and the victims are all recycled from the two films I mentioned at the outset.

But if you’re going to steal, maybe understanding what you’re stealing and why these ingredients and archetypal characters WORKED in the earlier films is a must.

MPAA Rating: TV-MA, graphic violence, sexual situations

Cast: Gys de Villiers, Juanita de Villiers, Gérard Rudolf, Armand Aucamp, Jaco Muller and Paul Eilers.

Credits: Written and directed by Johnny Breedt, based on a Chris Karsten novel. An Indigenous/Netflix release.

Running time: 1:29

I haven’t heard a “perfect” speech from Zellweger this time around. But I really only have her faintly sarcastic Golden Globes “thank you” to go by.

But Dern, Pitt and Phoenix have been saying the sorts of modest, touching and amusing things that make thinking of anyone else making that speech Oscar night hard to do.

Interesting take from The Hollywood Reporter at the link below.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/oscars-brad-pitt-science-perfect-acceptance-speech-1273985

Nothing like a little color blind casting (Dev Patel in the title role, etc) and the director of the dark comedies “In the Loop” and “Death of Stalin” for breathing life into a musty old Charlie Dickens morality tale.

Hugh Laurie, Tilda Swinton, Peter Capaldi and Ben Whishaw are the stars.

This trailer is laugh-out-loud funny, so brace yourself for a spit take. No drinking while watching.

The sentiment steps to the fore for this latest “Fast & You Know What” trailer. All Diesel, All Rodriguez?

Well, and Oscar winners Theron and Mirren.

May 22

I don’t know if Orion Pictures previewed this fright fest for critics on some locales. I just know I’m catching it opening night and hoping for the best, like everybody else.

Curious to see Alice Krige as another ghost, another villainess with the mostest.

We charter members of the “I’d watch Matthias Schoenaerts in ANYthing” Club (Hellooo ladies.) will have see our loyalty tested, just a tad, with “Close Enemies.”

This French thriller (“Freres Ennemis”) may have a great, grey look, gritty milieu and be in a genre you love as much as I do. And you may find Schoenaerts a fascinating performer, great screen presence and all that (again, GUILTY). But man, this cops vs. drug dealers tale, with its constant almost meaningless motion, its tedious unnecessary detail, its betrayals and intrigues puts the “con” in convoluted.

It’s 90 minutes of thriller spread out in a 110 minute package.

Two buddies in “the life,” Imrane (Adel Bencherif) and Manuel (Schoenaerts) are drug smugglers whose “partners” in the allegedly post-gang world of Paris and its suburbs, are the Reyes Gang.

The “like-brothers” pals have children, and a job — getting dope from Conakry (Guinea, West Africa) to Tangiers to France. Imrane is looking to tidy up the operation, make a big score.

Unknown to “Manu,” though, Imrane is an informant. Driss (Reda Kateb, who was in “Zero Dark Thirty” and “A Prophet”) grew up in their neighborhood, and he’s a cop who has “turned” Imrane.

Manu isn’t told this until AFTER they’re hit, abruptly, just after making that big score. The killers were not people they knew, stole some of their drugs and shot everybody else in the car. Only nimble Manuel gets away by the skin of his teeth.

Director and co-writer David Oelhoffen (“Far From Men”) chases Schoenaerts through basements and down streets with a hand–held camera, letting him stop just long enough to wash the blood off his face in a mud puddle.

Who did this? Everybody thinks Manu did — especially the “family” of which Imrane was an official member, Moroccan Arabs led by wizened Uncle Raji (Ahmed Benaissa).

Homicide does, too. But Driss works in narcotics, and he’s inclined to use the turn of events — and the loss of his informant — to turn Manu and finish the job Imrane started.

“You always said we’d die young,” Manu hisses at him (in French, with English subtitles). “You were right. Now f— off!”

The movie is Manu haplessly fleeing murder-attempts, ducking from safe-house to the apartment where his estranged girlfriend (Gwendolyn Gourvenec) is raising their son, stumbling into others under suspicion and wondering who will get to him first.

We also track the less interesting police point of view — all the surveillance, Driss trying to keep rival divisions in the department off Manu’s case.

That’s all there is to this, just “I’ve got to clear my name and find the REAL killers,” and staying alive long enough to manage it.

But the picture wanders all over the place — literally — piling up locations and stalling out as it does. Manu is a poor sleuth and a piss-poor interrogator.

We can’t see the logic in him fingering who he does as the one tipping off the killers, and his two-fisted Q & As with suspects are always “Why’d you do this?” rather than “Did you do this, and who helped you?”

Schoenaerts is as riveting as ever, and he has to be. The movie sinks every moment he’s not in it.

Oelhoffen fritters away any momentum the picture almost develops by having characters stop for an espresso, swap cars, stumble into each other and generally get nowhere for the better part of an hour.

The grand finale is pretty grand and worth the wait, but the big payoff leaves a mystery which, if you’ve been paying attention (not as easy as you might hope), you (and I) will have a solid theory about.

Still, it’s good to see Schoenaerts in this sort of sordid story (hunt down “Mustang” to see him as a more convincing and American criminal), even if there are sequences where he’d be more entertaining reading the Paris phone book.

MPAA Rating: unrated, graphic violence, drug content, some nudity, profanity

Cast: Matthias Schoenaerts, Reda Kateb, Adel Bencheriff, Gwendolyn Gourvenec

Credits: Directed by David Oelhoffen, script by Jeanne Aptekman and David Oelhoffen. A Netflix release.

Running time: 1:51