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Reviews
Snowflake Mountain (2022)
It's a Hot Dog, not a Steak
10 spoiled brats get flown to a wilderness toughening program, apparently under the impression it would be a retreat. The first challenge? Walk across some bumpy ground. Other lessons include "Can you lower a rope?" and "Can I survive without my makeup?" (which turns out to be irrelevant - false eyelashes, liquid liner, and wigs endure the hardships better than the contestants' egos).
Hard to believe there are people as dumb and entitled as these? That's the point. This is a reality show more like Real Housewives than Alone, but with the addition of a warm fuzzy narrative about personal growth and overcoming self-limiting beliefs. The characters start out unrelatable, but surprisingly grow on you if you let them. The rules are a bit "make it up as you go along" and the "reality" of it is less believable than a Christopher Guest mockumentary (the coaches "spy" on the contestants from "hidden" cams that are obviously hand held by camera operators). But this is a narrative, not a competition.
Thematically, it's the antithesis of the precocious independence exhibited in Japan's "Old Enough." That might not speak highly of Western society, but it may make you feel a personal sense of accomplishment (and superiority) if you've managed to do a load of laundry in the past month. Why do we watch Hoarders or My 600-lb Life? So we can say "At least that's not me," and "Maybe there IS hope for people like that."
If you want steak, look elsewhere, but if you want some good beef filler, check it out!
Hillbilly Elegy (2020)
Earnest, Heartwarming, Ok
As plots go, this one is quite simple - the story hones in on a couple days when JD is making a last ditch effort to land a summer internship during his time at Yale, when he learns his mother has had a relapse on heroin. JD is faced with a choice that seems a catch-22 - does he abandon his mom and sister to follow-up on a limited opportunity at a firm, and thus "escape" the impoverished fate of his family, or throw away everything he has worked so hard for to try once again to help a helpless mother?
Because the actual "current" events play out quickly over a short period of time, the bulk of the movie is flashbacks in which we learn what makes JD, JD. Unfortunately, the unproven younger JD is soft, not too smart, and not terribly exceptional as far as characters go. And the JD that is developing in the present is one we barely get to know, certainly not enough to start rooting for him. The connecting piece - how JD goes from squirrely teen to responsible adult - is missing.
The production value is earnest, with the actors and writers fleshing out all there seems to be to make the best movie possible from what they were given. By that measurement, it's a great success: a story of the complicated feelings for family members that are both loving and terribly broken, a coming of age story in which a boy with no purpose in life finds his purpose and takes on the world.
But it falls short because the story is just not that interesting, despite its careful treatment. For some "priviledged" viewers, the contrast between JD's life and their own may be significant. However, in entertainment, we want an exceptional story, not one that could be told about millions of Americans if they only had Ron Howard to tell it.
As a book, Hillbilly Elegy was significant not because JD's background was so fascinating, but because of his ability to analyze his experience and place it in the context of an often misunderstood populace in America. But without that analysis, JD's story is not that compelling. It is a story not of THE struggle out of poverty, but A struggle, and not the most interesting one. The movie works up to its culmination with a montage of JD learning to take out the trash, respect his mamaw, and figure out algebra. If these are the sole characteristics that got him into Yale, I am not impressed.
The movie is warm hearted and does not deserve the malignment it has received from many reviews in the press. But not every book makes a good movie. Hillbilly Elegy the book was social commentary, not entertainment, and should have stayed as such.
Kadaver (2020)
Great Premise, Disappointing Execution
Leo (Leonora), her daughter Alice, and her husband Jacob are struggling to survive in a postapocalyptic city, when a man peddling a dream too good to be true cons Leo into buying tickets to a theater performance and a hot meal at a luxury hotel. As a former actress, Leo is drawn to the promise of nourishment for her daughter's body and soul, and Jacob reluctantly plays along.
Alice with her big eyes, silky curls and red dress is the epitome of innocence, and Leo admits to a foolish hope for something better for her and for the family - what other choice does she have?
As the dinner theater begins, the emcee warns the guests that whatever they see is an act - and only the golden masks the guests are given will distinguish them from the cast members, who are strewn about the hotel. A couple of lovers stage a dramatic quarrel and lead the audience through the stairs and hallways to the many rooms where the story plays out with a few quick glimpses of sex and violence.
An intriguing start to the plot quickly fizzles with little to no suspense or character development. There is some air of mystery as characters disappear, but it's a crowd disappearing, not people we know, so it's less like a game of cat and mouse and more like turning on the lights in the bathroom and watching cockroaches flee into the walls.
If you're hoping for some good blood and gore, there are a few moments of blades splitting veins, but unfortunately the attempt at getting the viewer to second guess whether it is real or all part of the act leads to special effects so pedestrian that you may ask "does it really matter?"
The film misses the opportunity to leverage the family dynamics of the film - Will their love for each other be strong enough to help them survive?! - by splitting up family members too early, and providing the wrong choices at the wrong times to really give us any empathy or feel torn by their circumstances.
If you somehow hadn't figured out what the real purpose of the dinner theater is, the movie wastes no time in confirming your suspicions, but does throw in a little bit of backstory to explain the motivation of the villain. But like most elements in the film, it's shoved in as if it was the first idea to pop into the writer's head and is given no space to grow. You'll probably nod and say to yourself "oh."
A few tiny glimpses of foreshadowing make their way to the end of the movie - notably Leo's acting background and a moment of comfort she provided to her daughter to ward off scary monsters in the beginning - but it almost seems like an afterthought rather than a critical part of the story, leading more to frustration at how a bit more effort in writing the script would have led to a much more satisfying conclusion.
Perhaps in another ten or twenty years someone will produce a remake that knocks this movie's socks off. I hope they do. Sadly, for a plot and setting that had so many easy opportunities at success, the execution of this drops the ball in almost every way.
Our House (2018)
"Horror" for the whole family
Great family dynamics, decent acting, love the music. But the plot!
It starts out strong, establishing interesting characters and a compelling premise. But about midway through it loses momentum and peters out. The science gives way to supernatural, but with no more convincing explanation than you would get in an elevator pitch. Nothing remotely scary.
Devil's Gate (2017)
Probably Good if You're High and 13
Sometimes you watch a movie so bad it's good.
This is not one of those movies. It is, however, a bit of a car crash you can't help but stare at. It starts out with hopes that it will be a gorey slasher, then reframes itself like a dark take on a Hallmark movie (know-it-all city girl comes to the country, meets boy-next-door cop who knows everyone in town), then merges into police thriller (will she learn her lesson from the last case she screwed up after working obsessively on it? We'll never know because the writers forgot about it!).
The special effects look pretty terrible, and I can only applaud the actors for not bursting out laughing at some of the lines they have to utter, although their sincerity makes it even more bizarre. How was this not a spoof?
It somehow felt predictable and absurd at the same time, a sort of odd collage, like 8 different writers worked on it simultaneously and no one bothered to read the whole script.
If you're going to watch it, do it with friends so you have someone to throw tomatoes with.
The Aeronauts (2019)
I'm Ok with Women in Fiction
A bit entertaining, kind of adventurous, visually engaging, and deserves the 6.6 average it has at the time of this review. But if anything they should have taken more liberties with historical accuracy, not fewer. The most excitement is "How high are we now? What's the temperature?! We're too high! It's too cold!"
Could you imagine a movie with two dude scientists in a balloon checking thermometers and mansplaining things to each other? No thanks. For whatever reason they put a woman in the basket, it made it better. A little romantic tension, some passion and flare that this very simple plot really needed. Henry Coxwell is still very well represented on Wikipedia if you need a refresher on what "actually" happened.