Movie Reaction: Skinamarink

Formula: Paranormal Activity - the activity

 

Skinamarink is a movie I find hard to defend as a horror fan. I ultimately like the movie, but it is a test on an audience's patience that I understand anyone rejecting. This is a tiny horror movie made for $15,000 with used equipment. The footage is static-y. There's very little dialogue and most can barely be understood. Nearly every shot is a weird angle. It's a movie for people who found Paranormal Activity too fast-paced.

 

If you stick with it though, Skinamarink is a vibe and a vibe that's hard to shake. The best way I can describe it is this. Imagine you are a young child. You wake up in the middle of the night and the house is dark and quiet. Skinamarink is a movie about recreating that unsettling feeling you had in the moments before you ran to your parents' bed and told them you had a nightmare. And it is incredibly effective at recreating this feeling. It's a lot of stillness and darkness. Everything feels off-center and the rules of the world in the daylight just don't seem to apply anymore.

 

Where I land with the movie is this: It's more appetizer than main course. It is all mood without enough story to stand on its own. Skinamarink is a horror movie I'll watch to put me in the mood to watch another horror movie. That is something I'll almost certainly do in the future. It’s like how some people put on a favorite score to get them into the mood to write. I can see myself putting Skinamarink on to make Hell House LLC even more terrifying. I'm glad I did opt to see this movie uninterrupted on the big screen, but it will play best on Shudder at home. I saw the movie with a crowd of what appeared to be savvy horror-heads. We all seemed to get what the movie was doing, but there was a palpable sense of incompletion in our reaction at the end.

 

I do think everything in Skinamarink is intentional. The filmmaker did exactly what he intended. He used a tiny budget masterfully. The lack of payoff is the point of the movie. It aims to unsettle and unsettle it did. I certainly can't wait to see what the brain trust behind the film comes up with next. It is more experiment than film though, for better and worse.

 

Verdict: Strongly Recommend

Delayed Reaction: El Mariachi

Premise: A young musician gets mistaken for an assassin.

 

I might as well see the movie that made Robert Rodriguez's career. Rodriguez really is a fascinating filmmaker. He's kind of become a prestige B-movie maker. His franchises are Spy Kids, Machete, Sin City, and the Mexico trilogy (El Mariachi is part one of that). He also has Alita: Battle Angel floating around. He's good at what he does though, which has led him to partner with guys like Quentin Tarantino and James Cameron. I basically associate him with being the guy you hire to do something fun and do something cheap.

 

El Mariachi is up there with Clerks as one of the best true indie movies that captures who the filmmaker is, only at a lower scale. Kevin Smith has made more ambitious movies than Clerks and films with better production value than Clerks. But all his films do feel like a scaled-up Clerks. I look at guys like Darren Aronofsky and Chris Nolan's first films. It's hard to watch Following and see the guy who made The Dark Knight or Interstellar though. Rodriguez, in a way, has been making El Mariachi his whole career. I mean, literally, his follow up was Desperado, a sequel to El Mariachi with a real budget and real actors. Sin City is El Mariachi after Rodriguez read a comic book. Machete is El Mariachi if he stopped caring about plot.

 

I won't go as far as calling El Mariachi great though. While informative of Rodriguez’s later career, it absolutely plays like a film made on a tiny budget with amateur actors. It holds the record for the cheapest movie to ever make $1 million at the box office, and it shows. This movie is clever and entertaining enough, but it definitely works best as a pitch for the filmmaker's next movie. Even though I know what Rodriguez has done with his career, I still spent most of my time watching this thinking "Just imagine what this guy could do with a real budget".

 

Verdict: Weakly Don't Recommend

Delayed Reaction: Strange World

Premise: When his town's power supply gets threatened, a farmer turns reluctant explorer to find out what is wrong and go further from home than he ever intended.

 

Disney Animation needs to give up on this, right? We know what works with Disney Animation. They let Pixar do their thing. Disney Animation is great at the fairy tales and princesses. Musicals they make into classics. They can approximate the Pixar thing well enough with a Wreck-It Ralph or Zootopia. No matter how well they make the movies though, they just can't get audiences to care about adventure movies. Raya and the Last Dragon had the COVID excuse, but honestly, does anyone think that was going to be a blockbuster without COVID? Two of the studio’s biggest busts ever were the early 2000s back-to-back of Atlantis: The Lost Empire and Treasure Planet. The forgotten movie in the Disney Renaissance, right between The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast was The Rescuers Down Under, which managed a meager $27 million. Every decade or two, Disney Animation just needs to test the theory again, I guess.

 

There's nothing wrong with the movies either. They tend to be remembered well. They just never attract audiences to match their budgets. In that respect, it's hard to call Strange World any kind of outlier. It was always doomed to underperform at the box office. It certainly doesn't help that Disney had no idea how to market it. In a box office landscape where audiences need a reason to go and see something, Strange World offered nothing tangible to hold onto. Hell, even Pixar's once untouchable brand name couldn't turn Lightyear into a hit during the summer.

That said, Strange World is an enjoyable movie. It's clever and exciting. There are some good twists. The messaging was a little blunt, but that's true of even the best Disney Animation features. It's the kind of movie that will be best remembered as “one of the movies of the 2020s” for Disney animation rather than as a singular hit. Because, while enjoyable, there's aren't any standout characters, designs, or visuals. The best Disney Animation movies have something special at the core that they then attach to a plot like Strange World. Like Aladdin or even Up aren't that different from Strange World. Aladdin has the Genie and those songs to supplement it. Up has the balloon house visual and that infamous opening to supplement it. Strange World is just the adventure.

 

Verdict: Weakly Recommend

Delayed Reaction: Oliver!

Premise: A poor orphan boy want some more, please sir.

 

Finally, I did it! I have finally seen all the Oscar winners for Best Picture. I can't say why it ended on Oliver! It just happened that way. It's fitting, because the 60s are the decade I have the hardest time getting a grasp on. It has remarkably fewer movies I love than the 50s or even the 40s. While some Best Picture winners are incredible (West Side Story, The Apartment, The Sound of Music), it also has many that made no impression on me (Tom Jones, My Fair Lady, A Man for All Seasons).

 

So, I hated this movie. And I thought I wasn't alone in that. Looking at the Best Picture winners around it tells a pretty clear narrative. It was a year after In the Heat of the Night and a year before Midnight Cowboy. Oliver! is the dying gasp of a studio system about to be rocked by the New Hollywood movement. Oliver! is this cloying, extravagant classic musical that is so boring in comparison to the other offerings of the time. Midway through this movie, I looked up some Best Picture winner rankings online, wondering how close to the bottom Oliver! was. To my surprise, it's middle of the pack in almost all the lists I could find. My only theory about this is that Oliver! is harmless. There's little to piss people off like a Crash. There's no greater legacy to attach to the movie, so people forget about it and rank it where it could do the least damage.

I disliked it strongly though. It was all flash and no substance. I don't really like the songs. The child actors/singers were too winsome. It felt big, yet somehow still stage-bound. I couldn't shake the feeling that I was watching a community theater production with exceptional resources and budget. This definitely fits into the box of "Best Picture winners you only need to see for completionism."

 

Verdict: Strongly Don't Recommend

Movie Reaction: M3gan

Formula: Child's Play / Snakes on a Plane

 

This movie should be bad. That's the simple truth. If you describe every part of this movie to me out of context, I'm going to assume it's a bad movie. The trailer went viral, not because it was scary. It took off because M3gan is silly. Her look. Her dancing. It's very hard to tell from the trailer how much everyone is in on the joke. I've seen highly-memed movies fail. Plenty of them. People get what they need for a round of jokes then sense the movie isn't as good as the memes and skip it. So, I wasn't even sure how much of the excitement for the movie was sincere. It reminded me a lot of Snakes on a Plane years ago. That movie was made on its title and Samuel L. Jackson's giddy press for it. That excitement got it as far as a big opening night and dramatic fall off before falling into obscurity, except for that evocative title, of course.

 

It's a delicate balance to get M3gan right. It needs to be a real horror movie but with enough knowing nods to let the audience know that it's in on the joke too. However, they have to make the movie before they know what the audience reaction to even the trailer will be. Which means it's a minor miracle that M3gan hits as well as it does.

 

M3gan is about a little girl, Cady (Violet McGraw), who loses her parents in a car wreck. Her aunt, Gemma (Allison Williams), takes her in and just happens to also be a toy designer working on advanced A.I. technology. Unsure how to relate to her niece, Gemma designs a doll to be her friend and coping device. That's M3gan. Of course, this is a horror movie, so M3gan's A.I. is corrupt and turns her into an autonomous killing machine.

 

There's nothing revolutionary in the pace or design of the story. It delivers the beats the audience expects. It just does it with a little flair. In particular, the M3gan design is just great. She's kind of fabulous; not designed to look like a killer doll. And, as I mentioned, the film gives just enough winks to the audience to be a lot of fun. Sometimes it's giving M3gan a killer pair of sunglasses. Sometimes it's sitting her in a pile of stuffed animals. Sometimes it's having her do a little dance for absolutely no reason other than it looks cool. This movie doesn't just get that it's supposed to be fun. It gets the exact kind of fun it needs to be.

 

It can be a bummer when a legitimately terrifying horror movie gets the sequel treatment. Saw went from nefarious to silly by the end. The first Friday the 13th was really effective the first time around, then it was done so many times that Jason took Manhattan. M3gan is nice because there's nothing to ruin with the unneeded sequel that's sure to come. M3gan has a personality and look that's already silly. This movie is never that serious to begin with. Yet it does leave the humor to the editing choices and meta-context of the movie. It doesn't rely on self-aware characters or desperate appeals to the audience. The movie plays it straight so you don't have to.

 

Verdict: Strongly Recommend

Delayed Reaction: Drunken Master

Premise: A troublesome young man gets sent away to learn Kung-Fu from a famous master.

 

I think I've proven that I'm an easy sell when it comes to these Jackie Chan Chinese movies. I've been watching and loving many of them for a couple years now. Give me some intricate staging and some stupid slapstick, and I'm happy. Drunken Master didn't do it for me. It leans much more on the comedy than the martial arts and isn't as clever in how it combines the two elements. It seems like Chan doesn't really hit his top form until the 1980s when he more regularly directs and/or controls his productions. This movie reminds me much more of his Hollywood roles that see him more as a tool than an asset.

 

My biggest issue with this though wasn't really the movie's fault. I don't think, at least. I watched this dubbed, which I'm normally fine with. That's not something I'm precious about. But Chan didn't dub himself, which is a first of the movies I've seen. And the translations just didn't work. A lot of moments came off harsher than they should've, like Chan calling a woman a bitch. Repeatedly the dialogue didn't quite match the tone of the scene. Given how much I've enjoyed some of the other dubs of his I've seen, I'll assume this was an issue of the dub and not the original dialogue. That's always the risk of Amazon Prime's massive film catalog.

 

Verdict: Weakly Don't Recommend

Movie Reaction: The Whale

Formula: Heavyweights * Requiem for a Dream

 

Darren Aronofsky is a director I just can't get into. He has a special skill with performers. No one puts an actor through the ringer quite like him, whether it's Ellen Burstyn going through drug-fueled mania in Requiem for a Dream or Natalie Portman going through obsession-fueled mania in Black Swan. I have trouble connecting with his ugly take on humanity, no matter how allegorical he makes it. That made The Whale a troubling prospect. On the one hand, I was sure it would be career best work from Brendan Fraser. On the other hand, Aronofsky is not my first thought of a director to delicately handle the story of a 600-lb man. Frankly, The Whale delivered exactly what I expected, for better and worse.

 

The Whale is an adaptation of a play about a man, Charlie (Brendan Fraser) who has let himself balloon up to 600-lbs in the years since the death of his boyfriend. It's pretty much slow suicide. He can tell he doesn't have long left and won't spend any money for health care beyond the help he gets from his best friend, Liz (Hong Chau), who is a nurse who checks in on him. In what appears to be his final days he decides to call his daughter, Ellie (Sadie Sink), who he hasn't seen since the disastrous end of his marriage 8 years before. She hates Charlie, but he convinces her to visit on the promise or giving her his inheritance. Ellie wants to see him more than she'll admit as well. And the movie pretty much carries on as a collection of scenes set around the apartment with Charlie, Liz, Ellie, Ty Simpkins as a Christian missionary who is determined to make a difference with Charlie, and a few other people on the fringes.

 

Unfortunately, my thoughts of The Whale line up with a lot of stage adaptations. The performances are really great but the rest of it doesn't translate as well. I'm fine with Fraser winning every award imaginable for how he doesn't disappear under all the makeup and prosthetics. I just hear his laugh once and I'm reminded of how much I miss him in those dumb 90s movies. At the same time, there's so much sadness in there too. He plays a full character despite what could turn into a gimmick. Sadie Sink plays her anger, pain, and sadness so well as conflicting forces. And, I'm beginning to love how Hong Chou can just show up to any movie like she's always been there. She feels the least like and character and the most like a person of anyone in this movie.

 

Certain play aspects of this I don't mind. Like, being bound to the apartment for the whole movie makes sense. Charlie is in self-imposed exile. Where it loses me is the checklist feel of the movie. After a while, I started asking which combination of characters I hadn't seen together so I could know what scenes were left. It also started to bother me how every character talked like they were making a point rather than actually having a conversation. Aronofsky has some thoughts about a few topics, religion in particular, and he'd be damned if he allowed a character to let you forget it.

 

I don't know where I land on the obesity issue. I think the film is making a point that's larger than "fat people are bad". Virtually the same movie could've been made about, say drugs (check his filmography) with the same beats. It's more about the overindulgence as a destructive act. Aronofsky really likes to revel in it though. This movie wants you to realize how disgusting Charlie is in a way that feels excessive. That's how Aronofsky works though.

 

Depending on what you watch movies for, The Whale has anywhere from little to quite a lot to offer. To me, it felt like a performance-delivery-machine more than a fully rounded film. Aronofsky’s tendency to shout the quiet parts has never endeared me to his films, and The Whale continues that.

 

Verdict: Weakly Don't Recommend

Delayed Reaction: Good Luck to You, Leo Grande

Premise: A retired teacher hires an escort for several sessions to experience sexual things she missed earlier in life.

 

Simple movie. Simple Reaction. This is mainly a two-hander between Emma Thompson and Daryl McCormack. I praise McCormack for how well he holds his own with Emma Thompson. I praise Emma Thompson for how measured her performance is. Thompson could act nearly anyone off the screen, so it's fascinating whenever she opens herself up to this kind of vulnerability.

 

A movie can just be two people talking in a room as long as the conversation is interesting enough. Good Luck to You, Leo Grande is further evidence of this. The discussion of sex is frank yet thoughtful. Thompson works well as a mouthpiece for all the possible misconceptions about sex work. This does lean a little into a Pretty Woman view of sex work. But, not every movie of this ilk has to be about the worst-case scenarios of that work.

 

I didn't care for the way everything fell apart during the 3rd visit. I'm not sure how much of that was intentional discomfort though as opposed to the discomfort of a screenplay trying to force something to happen. Ultimately, it pays off, but I think the road it takes is bumpier than it had to be. That's about my only complaint though.

 

Verdict: Weakly Recommend

Delayed Reaction: Spin Me Round

Premise: A manager at not-an-Olive Garden gets invited to a special workshop in Italy where suspicious things begin to happen.

 

I hate to be the "why can't funny people just be funny" guy but...well, that's my exact response to this movie. I watched it because the cast includes Alison Brie, Fred Armisen, Ego Nwodim, Molly Shannon, Lil Rel Howery, Aubrey Plaza, and Zach Woods. And the movie is technically a comedy. It's that "too clever for its own good" comedy though. The movie is kind of awkward. It turns into a kind of thriller before revealing that it's not at the end. It's the kind of movie that's funnier to describe it afterwards than when you watch it. Because, yes, it is funny that pig attacks were a red herring and the wild sex party is just the result of millionaires who are out of touch with what's actually normal. It just was not very funny as I watched it. It all felt like it was more concerned with duping the audience than entertaining it.

 

I do like that there's this weird offshoot of comedy with this crowd of people. It sometimes yields results like Safety Not Guaranteed or The Little Hours. This one is just a miss on a big swing.

 

Verdict: Strongly Don't Recommend

Delayed Reaction: Matilda: The Musical

Premise: It's Matilda...but a musical.

 

Musicals are easy in a way. Easy to rate at least. Are the songs good? How's the choreography? Can the actors hold a note? Do the non-singing scenes drag? I don't have to get deep in the weeds. So, I can simply say I had a lot of fun watching Matilda: The Musical.

 

The songs are good and catchy. Alisha Weir is a really good Matilda even though, as a millennial, I couldn't stop thinking about Mara Wilson. Really, the whole cast was game. Emma Thompson is almost unrecognizable as Miss Trunchbull. Lashana Lynch softens her screen persona to make a lovely Miss Honey. Stephen Graham and Andrea Riseborough are happy to play dirty as Matilda's parents. While I have no strong connection to the story from my childhood, I'll say this captures the spirit of it pretty well.

 

The highest of highlights in the film are anytime there's a full-school musical number. "Revolting Children" is the one that people freaked out about from the trailer and for good reason. It's a banger and the choreography is remarkable controlled chaos. I love when a film adaptation of a musical really tries to do something with the musical numbers that can't be matched on stage. The school sequences really hit that idea hard and pull it off*.

 

*To be fair, I've never seen the musical, but I doubt it achieves the intricacy and size of this.

 

Verdict: Strongly Recommend