Movie Madness 3

Movies from June 29th - July 12th

Seven movies this week. One new one.

PSA: Going to the theater when it’s busy is a complete nightmare. People make so much god damn noise with their snacks and just openly chatting and commenting on the movie. But going to a special theater where they’re all like “We’re strict about no phones and no talking” sucks too because those theaters are filled with NERDS who love to clap at the credits and ooh and ah.

Deep Cover (1992)

Dir. Bill Duke

This is a high quality, stylized crime thriller starring Laurence Fishburne and Jeff Goldblum. As you may be able to guess from the title, Laurence Fishburne, as police officer Russell Stevens Jr., must go deep undercover into the world of Los Angeles drug dealing, working his way up the food chain to try and take down some big shot suppliers.

The movie kinda hits all the beats you would expect. Stevens is all sober and straight laced and slowly but surely falls into the world of violence, sex, and drugs. He starts to like it! The nerve on this guy! There’s all the stuff like “I want out! I did this to make a difference and now I’m killing people!” and “I can have way more power on the streets than as a cop!”, but the magic of the movie comes from the acting, blunt nature of the violence, and quality pacing and screenwriting.

Laurence Fishburne is a great actor, obviously, but does particularly well here. He has to communicate a lot. He is convincing every step of the way. He’s gotta be this by the numbers police guy, then a by the numbers police guy pretending to be a slick drug dealer, then an actual slick drug dealer. The transition, as well as both extremes, are gradual and believable.

Jeff Goldblum is a lot of fun, too. I’ve never seen him take his persona to such a sleazy level. He is a wealthy family man lawyer who isn’t satisfied with his life and deals drugs. He wants more, and has plans to start distributing a designer drug that’s like a legal version of cocaine without the bad side effects so he won’t have to go through the distributors. He’s doing his Goldblum thing, stuttering and speaking in his unique patterns, but the stuff he’s saying is so wild sometimes. He talks about how he’s becoming addicted to having sex with black women, loves when girls have a thick vaginal discharge, and other wild stuff. It’s pretty fun and does a great job of making the audience be like “this guy is such a scumbag but he’s so charismatic that I don’t wanna stop listening to him”. His character does take a slightly unbelievable turn, but I won’t spoil. Goldblum and Fishburne have some fun chemistry too. There’s stuff like Goldblum asking him “What's the most intense sex thing you ever did? You ever, uh, been with two women at the same time?” and Fishburne responding “Yeah, your mother and your father.”

The supporting cast is pretty solid, too. Victoria Dillard does a nice job as Betty, a cocaine addicted art gallery owner who launders money for Goldblum. Her character is a little undercooked in the script, but she makes a meal out of it. Wow! Nice writing! Undercooked meal… I also really like Charles Martin Smith as Carver, the shady guy that Fishburne reports to and seems to know everything. Does he have ulterior motives beyond justice and taking down criminals? I don’t know!!

Another great part of the movie I mentioned before is the violence. Bill Duke (probably best known for playing Mac in Predator btw. I didn’t know he directed stuff until watching this) handles these scenes with a delicate balance. The violence has a real effect on the characters both witnessing and performing it. This especially shines in Fishburne’s first kill. It’s in a grimy bathroom with just him and his victim. This guy he’s killing has done bad things and Fishburne has to do it to maintain his DEEP COVER, but he doesn’t want to. It shocks him and the audience together. There are other moments of genuine stress for the safety of these mostly grounded characters. It does get a little crazy at some points but by then I’ve bought into the movie.

Speaking of the directing, the scenes are very grounded. There aren’t too many wide exterior shots, and we mostly stay up close with the characters. It gives this feeling of a little universe that these people exist in. They go to enough locations that it feels like they live in a real city, but we’re only concerned with the places they go. Their world is what they do. I think it adds to how they’re kind of slipping into selfishness and getting too absorbed or trapped into what they’re doing.

There is an awesome running theme here of the relationship between politics, race, and crime. Carver seems to only care about political advancement through the arrest of people of color. If he has to use people of color to get that, he doesn’t care. They’re pretty expendable to him. There are moments about police just arresting people to meet quotas and no one caring when a kid gets killed. When Fishburne asks if Carver ever killed someone he says “I went to Princeton to avoid all that shit”. Nice.

Something I didn’t really care for was the narration. Fishburne has a great voice, so I certainly don’t mind listening to him talk more, but there are many moments where he’s kind of explaining his emotions, recapping what just happened, and explaining what’s about to happen, and it’s like “Yeah I kind of got that you were reflecting on how you just killed someone in shock based on your facial expression”. They do feel pretty unnecessary for the most part, although there are some epic lines in there sometimes like “The jungle creed says the strongest feed / on any prey that it can / And I was branded beast at every feast / before I ever became a man”.

Also, I won’t spoil it, but the ending is pretty neat and tidy for something like this. It gets so raw and real at some points and then by the end it’s all Hollywood style. Also the first two scenes of the movie are in Cleveland and Cincinnati but there’s no Columbus??? Rude.

Return of the Living Dead (1985)

Dir. Dan O’Bannon

Wow! What a nice surprise! I really liked this one a lot. Dan O’Bannon, screenwriter of some of my favorite movies ever (Alien, Total Recall) makes his feature length directorial debut here, and knocks it out of the park. If you aren’t aware, Return of the Living Dead is a zombie comedy about some bumbling idiots making a series of mistakes. Each solution just makes things worse and the results are inevitable and usually laugh out loud funny.

When going into an 80’s comedy, I’m always a little concerned. Is this actually going to be funny or is it going to be like Caddyshack? Well, luckily, I felt like we were in good hands pretty early on. It’s never really great to explain why something is funny so I’m not going to break down any of the specific jokes, but lots of the humor comes from just realistic reactions in the acting to absurd situations. The characters all freak out appropriately to what’s going on and most of their ideas don’t help at all.

Clu Gulager steals the show as a no-nonsense boss of a medical supply warehouse. The virus outbreak starts in his facility and he will go to any length to prevent his business from taking a hit. He just does a great job keeping a facade of a level head while actually making everyone else do the work for him. Don Calfa is also great as a jaded mortician who is strong armed into helping out. Well, he doesn’t really help anything, but he tries!

There is also a main gang of counter-culture teens that are pretty funny, too. There’s a leather clad, chained up crazy guy named Suicide who could totally be an unfunny “punk kid” parody, but the tone is balanced quite well. The acting is very solid all around!

The movie is really well made beyond the funny stuff, too. A great score from Matt Clifford propels the sequences along with genuine pace and thumping excitement. Like, I don’t wanna oversell it but this movie is great. It works as both a comedy and a zombie movie really well and there’s a lot of stuff I just don’t want to mention because it should be experienced. Anyway, the special effects and makeup are fantastic as well. The standout here is definitely the Tarman zombie performed by Jim Henson collaborator Allen Trautman. This is one of the craziest looking zombie creatures I’ve seen in a movie. The voice, the movement, and the look are all just incredible.

I know some people don’t love this kind of thing but I’m usually a sucker for movies where everyone is an idiot and the results are inevitable. It’s a little nihilistic, but I think this balances it out by making the characters genuinely likable and real feeling. This keeps it from being annoying. Great movie. Watch it!

Repo Man (1984)

Dir. Alex Cox

Sigh… This one really doesn’t do it for me. This was my second time watching it and I tried to go in with an open mind because I didn’t really care for it the first time I watched it either. However, people I respect (the Action Boyz, my father) really like this movie and so I thought maybe I was missing something. A second time through a movie can sometimes be a real game changer. You’re no longer trying to keep up with the surprises or reconciling your expectations with the reality, and you can pay attention to the details. Well, my mind didn’t change, it just solidified furthur. I don’t like this one.

This is a pretty wacky story of a deadbeat teen, Otto, played by Emilio Estevez, who I generally enjoy, who gets wrapped up into the world of repossessing cars and the CIA pursuing an alien corpse in the back of a Chevy Malibu. Harry Dean Staton, another incredible actor, is here too. He plays Bud, the sudo-mentor to Otto in the repo business. The movie tries pretty hard to be funny and establish its quirky tone through a parody near reality. It’s definitely trying to say something about the hypocrisy of anti-communism in a capitalist world with a monopoly brand supplying all of the generic products to the people of the world and televangelists and getting mad at poor people. There are directionless punks who want to “do crimes” and straight laced “losers” who work at gas stations and grocery stores.

The tone of the movie just doesn’t really work for me. Sometimes it’s funny. I do like Otto’s pimpled friend and coworker who keeps getting harassed throughout the movie, and some of the jokes work. For example, when Otto first introduces himself to the repo office and someone goes “Otto? Like Otto parts?” I laugh. But there’s a lot of other stuff that tries too hard. Like all of the repo men are named after beers… Bud, Miller, and Lite. How quirky! There’s a fast-motion sex in the car scene! Silly! There’s a parody of scientology with a book called Dioretix! Hilarious!

The worst crime of the movie is just… It’s kinda boring… I hate saying a movie is boring because I feel like it just makes it seem like I have no attention span and need dopamine hits throughout, but I don’t think that’s the case. I enjoy plenty of slow, meditative movies with a lot of talking, and this one almost achieves that at some points. There is definitely something they’re going for with the monotony of stealing cars, getting in and out of cars, talking to losers who all have their own loser take on the world but go nowhere and do nothing, but it just doesn’t engage me. The music is annoying to me, too.

It’s a well made movie and looks pretty nice. Well shot, well acted enough, I just don’t reeeeally care. There is this certain tone of quirky 80’s movie that doesn’t do it for me. The only comp I can think of is Buckaroo Banzai. Like really shoving it in your face how weird it wants to be.

Dead Presidents (1995)

Dir. The Hughes Brothers

Damn! Another amazing movie that was totally not on my radar. What a treat when you are just expecting a fun time and it turns out to be an underrated classic! I don’t mean to imply I’m the only one who knows about this movie or whatever, but I certainly don’t hear anyone talking about it nowadays. Apparently it was marketed like a heist action movie and while it does have those elements, it is really more of a coming of age drama.

First off, the Hughes brothers were 23 years old when they made this ish. Way to make me feel like a loser! I can’t imagine having control over my laundry at that age, let alone an entire set! But this doesn’t feel amateurish in any way. They show total control in this movie, especially on a scene by scene level, with the blocking, camerawork, and acting all being excellent throughout.

This cast is so fun, too. It’s absolutely stacked. We’ve got Larenz Tate in the lead, working with the Hughes brothers again after Menace II Society, but then Chris Tucker, Keith David, and Terrance Howard in pretty big parts. Rounding it out are Rose Jackson, N’Bushe Wright, Freddie Rodriguez, Clifton Powell, and Bokeem Woodbine all doing fantastic work. Even a young Michael Imperioli shows up in a smaller part. It goes beyond just an impressive list of names, however. Everyone here is putting in the work. Chris Tucker particularly surprised me. He’s definitely a funny guy, and gets to show that off in this movie, but he sells some really heavy moments as well.

The movie is the story of Anthony Curtis, a mild mannered kid from the Bronx who goes to Vietnam after high school. Upon returning home he has a hard time adjusting! We’ve seen this kind of story before, but it is done with such specificity and craft that it really worked for me. The whole thing is kind of split up into three chunks. There’s the pre-war graduating, sneaking around with girls, and hanging out with friends. Then there’s the middle section of the war, then finally the return home where everything is different. It’s really cool how actions in the first part have direct consequences, or changes, in the last part, with this almost surreal limbo hell in the middle. Anthony and his girlfriend have sex right before he goes off to war, and she gives birth while he’s away and he says things while at war like “I can’t think about them or I’ll die”.

There are some super fun tracking shots throughout the movie, too. Particularly when Anthony returns home and goes to Keith David’s pool hall for the first time. He’s like floating around seeing all these people for the first time in a few years. Larenz Tate must be standing on the dolly because he’s not taking any steps and has a weird, ghostly energy to the way he moves through the room. There’s a real sense of like… Things change but remain the same.

The violence in this movie is also great. Just amazing movie violence. If someone gets headbutted in the nose there is going to be a huge blood spray. Not too much that it goes over the top, but the squibs and the blood is just perfect. I don’t wanna spoil anything but the final sequence that the movie is building up to is this heist of a truck carrying old bills to Washington to be burned, and it’s amazing. The blocking and geography of the sequence is thought out to a tee and everything just works.

Also, there are like 15 amazing needle drops in here. Just great late 60’s early 70’s r&b, funk, and soul. Lots of Isaac Hayes and Curtis Mayfeild and stuff like that. Yeah, this movie fucking rocks and everyone should watch it if you don’t mind seeing some guts.

Benny’s Video (1992)

Dir. Michael Haneke

So, I’ll just put a disclaimer right at the top. If you’re interested in watching this movie, be prepared to see a real pig get killed multiple times. If you don’t even like thinking about this kind of stuff just skip to the next paragraph, but the movie opens with footage of a pig getting bolt gunned in the head, and it’s rewound and played in slow motion multiple times in the movie. It’s a really tough watch, and I kind of regret looking at it. I had to just cover most of the screen with my hand for the replays so I could read the subtitles and not have to see the footage again. Once was enough for me! But that is by far the most disturbing part of the movie, so if you can handle that, I’d recommend this!

Michael Haneke is a weird sicko of a director and seems to subscribe to the philosophy of whatever the worst thing you think could happen is what is going to happen. This is the third movie of his that I’ve seen after Funny Games and The Piano Teacher, and while I do like both of those movies more, this one is still pretty solid. It’s the story of a rich Austrian kid who has an obsession with video tapes and camera recording. His parents have enabled this hobby by buying him all sorts of crazy equipment. His obsession with violence in videos eventually creeps into real life when he films himself killing someone.

The movie is a little on the slow side, and I found myself getting a liiiiittle bored here and there, but it’s still very cool in a lot of ways and is exploring pretty interesting themes in an effective way. The real meat of the movie comes in how his parents handle finding out that he killed someone. They go through great lengths to cover it up, but only seem to be concerned on how it will impact their own reputation. The dad, especially, seems to not consider the victim at all. There is definitely a commentary about how people with money aren’t really affected by the horrors of the real world. There are moments of the news talking about awful attacks and lives being lost and the characters being like “Oh it’s nothing”. They travel to Egypt and treat the poor children begging on the street like some foreign novelty to be recorded and ogled at. It’s definitely making a point with the behind the camera view of life that Benny has. He’s privileged to have a detached, voyeuristic view of the world without ever really involving himself in it, other than to commit awful acts.

The acting is great here. Arno Frisch, who would work with Haneke again on Funny Games does a fantastic job as the sociopathic, annoyed teenager of Benny. There’s a part where the dad says to him “Is everything I say to you just an irritation?” or something like that, and it works so well. It’s like life is an irritation to him. He does things “just because”. The mom and dad are great as well. They’re pretty complicated and weird characters who are revealed to be just as rough and sociopathic as their son. The mom, played by Angela Winkler, in particular, does a fantastic job. The scene where she finds out about her son killing someone is super disturbing in a very realistic way. She’s trying to keep it together, but keeps almost breaking into this manic laughter. It’s like she’s just in total denial and her brain lets the horror creep in every now and then but she can’t really accept that her little boy would have done something like this.

The themes are definitely the most interesting part of the movie to me, looking at the difference between the rich and poor interacting with the world. Even the activities he plans with friends are things like going to an AC/DC concert. It brings up uncomfortable points like… what is… doing something. Watching something is considered doing something? A concert is an event to go to but you’re really just watching someone else do something. It makes me uncomfortable if I think about it too much with the way I spend my time.

28 Days Later (2002)

Dir. Danny Boyle

To refresh myself before seeing the new movie in theaters, I rewatched 28 Days Later for the first time since high school, I think. It was pretty compelling! The movie is shot on video in a very early 2000s style with a mix of very deliberate tripod stationary shots, and handheld, fast moving stuff. This, combined with the quick flash edit inserts gives it a unique quality that I don’t really know how to describe with words. Sometimes this really works, like in bleak sequences of the infected chasing after people, but other times it’s annoying… Like the grocery store scene…

The most impressive and captivating part of the movie to me is Cillian Murphy walking around the abandoned streets of London. Apparently this was achieved just by filming early in the morning and strategically blocking off streets for short periods of time, but stuff like Piccadilly Circus being totally empty is pretty damn striking. Another thing I like about the movie is the way the infected or zombies or whatever you want to call them are treated, at least aesthetically. The makeup and contact lenses work really well, and the blood vomiting is pretty gnarly too. I like how quiet and matter of fact they are. When Cillian Murphy shouts “Hello!” in the church at the beginning and the few bodies in the massive pile pop up and start running towards him, that’s very cool.

The story is sort of compelling and I like the characters enough to follow them along until the end. The movie meanders a little bit until the final act, which is exciting enough. Spoilers, I guess, but it ends up with our three main characters, Jim (Cillian Murphy), Selena (Niomi Harris, who also does a pretty solid job), and Hannah (Megan Burns) arriving at a military base. This seems like salvation but it quickly becomes clear that Major Henry West (Christopher Eccleston) plans to rebuild society with the women as like… breeders, I guess. At that point we have clear goals and stakes, and some exciting and stressful sequences.

Now, I have some issues with the movie, for sure. First of all, it’s pretty cheesy. The grocery store sequence I mentioned earlier is supposed to be this moment of levity in a bleak world, but it’s just so corny. It’s shot like a music video and the music choice is pretty cringey. The music throughout the movie is not my favorite in general. Also, I’m sorry, I know she’s a kid but Megan Burns as Hannah is pretty unbearable. Look, she’s a kid, it’s probably not her fault, but if she’s this bad, please give her less lines.

Another thing that bumps me is that I started thinking too hard about how the zombies work. They say it’s like a rage virus that infects people through contaminated blood getting into people, and it just makes your rage go so crazy that you want to kill everyone. However, the movie doesn’t seem to know exactly what it wants to do with the zombies in terms of how they’re killing and what they want. Every time someone is killed, they kind of get tackled and pulled around by the zombies, but ya know, they aren’t eating them or anything. We don’t really see a clear way they kill. Do they want to kill or do they want to turn people? They turn people by vomiting blood on them, so when do they want to do this versus just kill them outright? If the thing really is just bloodlust, why don’t they try to kill each other? Why are they just focused on living people? Not the most important thing in the world, but it did have me thinking too hard when I’d rather be invested in the universe.

28 Years Later (2025)

Dir. Danny Boyle

Okay… this was pretty cool in some ways and quite frustrating in others. The story, real quick, is that England has been quarantined from the rest of the world and this group of survivors kind of thrive in a community on a small island, connected to mainland England by a land bridge that gets totally covered with water during high tide. This kid, Spike, who is like 12, is set to go out on his first hunt with his dad, Jamie, played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson. They go to the mainland to find… materials, I guess? I am gonna talk about the plot a little bit more than usual because I think that’s one of the bigger issues with this movie, so spoilers to follow. I’ll talk about non-plot stuff first and then get into it if you wanna skip that part when it comes later on.

Just like the first movie, the visual style is hit or miss for me. It is sort of the modern version of the digital video look they were going for in the first one. The quick edits and insert flash shots are still here, but, ya know, modern cameras. There’s a trick they do multiple times where during a kill, an arrow will go into a zombie’s head and the blood will explode, freeze frame, and then rotate around the back of the shot like… 120 degrees or something. This was done by putting a bunch of iPhones on a semicircle rig. It looks really cool, and they don’t over use it, in my opinion. I guess it’s a little conflicting thematically, because I think it’s maybe supposed to showcase how awful the violence is that this little kid is being exposed to, but it’s also super badass looking so I just thought it was cool.

The violence and the action are the main things that worked for me here. The blood-sprays are gnarly and look practical to me. The zombie attack sequences are paced and edited in a stressful and engaging way, where I’m worried about the safety of the characters. Them having mostly bows and arrows with limited ammo and having to re-string arrows to get guys at the last second worked really well. There’s also this alpha zombie that is super tough and loves to grab people’s heads and rip their spines out. I was definitely all about this.

Another interesting aspect of the movie was the relationship between Spike and his dad, Jamie. Jamie is a super flawed but competent character. His wife (Spike’s mom) is really sick, and he plays that realistic thing of caring for someone but still feeling the inconvenience of having to take care of a very ill person. He wants to teach Spike the horrors of the real world, saying stuff like “Each time you kill it becomes a little easier” and prompting him to take violent actions. He also warns Spike that only psychos live on the mainland and the island is a safe haven.

Here’s where we get into my issues. Plot spoilers to follow. What if the whole movie was Spike and his dad on the mainland, running into freaks on the mainland, or Spike realizing that there are normal people and small societies there just like their island, or even that their island is really the crazy people with some cult-like thing that they seem to be hinting to at some parts with the ritualistic mask that some people wear. Then at the end, they could lead zombies back to the island by accident and have a big base defense battle at the end. Instead, that’s just the first act of the movie. They get back to the island, and Spike decides to leave home with his mother to go find this doctor that he’s heard about on the mainland. This is where things meander and get boring for me. I like Jodie Comer, but geez, I really dislike this mom character. She goes in and out of states of lucidity, often thinking that Spike is her dad and having long periods of Alzheimer's-esque confusion. These are pretty cheesy to me… Sorry! The whole sequence of finding the doctor, him telling them that it’s cancer killing his mom, and her dying was just a snooze fest to me!

The script from Alex Garland is also eye-roll worthy at some parts, and I don’t just mean the dialogue. At the beginning, when Spike is packing his bag to go to the mainland, there is an overly long moment where he contemplates whether or not to bring his Power Ranger toy along with him. Wow it’s like… he’s leaving his innocent childhood behind? He still wants to hold onto it but knows he’s not supposed to! Yeah. I get it. Also, when they’re leaving the island they pass this graveyard. Okay, the camera just told me it’s dangerous and people die a lot, and that this island society still values remembering the dead. Then, the town leader lady goes like “that’s the graveyard, so we remember the dead”. Oh okay, thank you. There’s just some stuff like this that bumps me. It pretty much totally fell apart for me by the end.