Caveat.
Creepy little film, asks a little too much from your suspension of disbelief initially, but very competently made and low-key throughout. Consistently unnerving.
Glorious.
You stick two actors in one location and that is 95% of the film. And one of them is J. K. Simmons. Really liked almost everything about this, as it does a nice line in barely-glimpsed horror, but some of the later developments are not great and donât quite fit with the Lovecraftian theme. Still enjoyed it, and itâs a solid achievement to get so much out of so little.
Hellbenders.
âA good pope just died, and the new popeâs a faggot.â are the immortal words given unto Clancy Brown in this, a comedy apparently from the Year of Our Lord 2012, somehow. Itâs basically a religious Ghostbusters, a bunch of exorcism-dispensing priests who intentionally live in a state of sin so, if necessary, they can take a devil into them, kill themselves, and take the devil to Hell with them. The film is worth it for Clancy Brown alone, swearing his way through each scene, but you also have Macon Blair, Dan Fogler, Andre Royo, Robyn Rikoon and Clifton Collins, all of whom are at least decent at comedy, and they all get some great lines.
No Time to Die.
At some point Iâve either lost my sense of humour, or this film is tonally all over the place. Gritty, family drama, Bond mots, itâs all just stuffed together. Doesnât work for me.
Samaritan.
Add another one to the Hancock pile. Starts interesting, descends into mediocrity.
The Informant!
If you had to choose a film to encapsulate the coming stupidity of the 2010s, you could do no better than this. Damonâs narration, which grows ever more tangential, layered over his performance of a man trying to do the right thing, while also lying about it and embezzeling millions of dollars. The pathologic lying and stupidity, sure to be found out, but carried out with unswerving dedication anyway. Funny during, but not at all funny when you think about it after.
Vengeance.
BJ Novak as a New York writer in Texas investigating the murder of a girl he sort-of knows is pitch-perfect, with a cast that can do no wrong, including Boyd Holbrook and J. Smith-Cameron as members of her family, and unlike a lot of fish out of water style comedies, this one is actually funny. It plays up to and against both sides of the joke, often in the same scene.
This is indeed Quite Good. Kaluuya does quiet and intense, and is a good foil for Keke Palmerâs nervous energy, Michael Wincott isnât in enough films, and we get to see Steven Yeun nail it in a couple of scenes. It looks beautiful, a rare gorgeous mesh of geography and cinematography, and the environment is the perfect place to maintain suspense and atmosphere, and even if I have some quibbles, the film is original and brave enough to do something new and abruptly change what you think youâre seeing.
