THE ISLAND BETWEEN TIDES (2024) Cinequest 2024

Alfred Hitchcock had been trying to make a film version of JM Barries Mary Rose for decades. Announced as his next project numerous times, no studio wanted to fund the project.  Now at long last comes THE ISLAND BETWEEN THE TIDES and the story finally makes it to the big screen.

The story is that of a young woman who disappears twice, once as a child she disappears for several days and returns again unaware that the time spent on a small island was anytime at all. Fifteen years later she disappears again, however decades have passed in the world, while none has passed for her.

Beautifully made and hauntingly shot film is either going to grab you not. This is a film where things progress at their own pace and moods are created. There is an intriguing mystery going on for a good portion of the film. The question that everyone is going to have to answer for themselves is, does the film  pull it all together in the end.  Without going into details, whether you like the film or not is going to be the make or break point for everyone who sees it.

Not being familiar with the source material except by after the fact, I completely understand why studios balked at letting Hitchcock make a film of the material. This is not to say their is anything wrong with it, more that this dream like or ethereal musings and if you don't click with it you'll not care for it. This is the sort of thing that Neil Gaiman is very good at doing but few others are these days. I'm not certain the filmmakers nail the ending. I was left going "yes, and...?" instead of "oh WOW".

As much as I balk at the film it is gorgeous and has some real mood  so if you like cinematic lyric poems this is worth a shot.

Ghostwritten (2023)

A one hit wonder writer takes a desperate shot and travels to a remote island to try and write his new book. While the islanders seem friendly things begin to turn when he stumbles upon a decades old murder.

I'm not sure what I think of this film. There were some things that I like in it, and there are somethings I didn’t.  The thing is that it’s difficult to write about GHOSTWRITTEN without giving too much away since the interesting bits are the details. If I do a deep dive into the details and the bits I really liked it’s going to give too much away, which is a problem in a film where there is a strong sense, especially if you’ve seen similar films, that you know where it was going. 

I think the best way to sum up the film is that I liked enough of the film and it’s twists enough that I was very disappointed when it didn’t stick the landing.

Still if you like twisty thrillers GHOSTWRITER is worth a look on a rainy night on the couch

Restore Point (2023) hits VOD Thursday

In 2041 people can be brought back from the dead if they have backed up their consciousness. When one of the researcher working for the institute and his wife are killed, both seeming not to have a back up a lone wolf cop is forced to investigate what happened. Joined by the researcher who was brought back using an months old back up he is thrown into a dangerous quest involving efforts to privatize the restoration institute and a group of people who oppose restoration as unnatural. 

The trick to watching RESTORE POINT is to largely ignore the science fiction elements. You want to focus on the mystery. Yes the a scifi element is vital to the story, but out side of the key plot point about bringing dead people back the world it creates doesn't make a lot of sense. This is an old school science fiction film where much of society is flashy new things with screens and projections and such. This is a film that pits new technology against old for effect. It's a film that we used to get in the 1950's and 60's where wonderful things are just a few years off. There are all these trappings to make it look futuristic. It's cool to see the return of it, even if the world it creates doesn't completely hang together.

If you are going to like RESTORE POINT it's because of the mystery. At its heart the film is an old school hard boiled detective story in a film noir vein. It's a film about rich people doing things for their own ends and a lowly detective sorting it all out. It's a film about corruption (the public institute bringing people back wants to go private) and the human heart (questions of love and is it better to live unnaturally are raised) two things that old school detective tales are full of. This is the heart of the film.

Honestly until the mystery really started to go front and center, I didn't care for the film much. Too much of the first half hour of so is focusing on making us certain we know this is the future with holograms and fancy talk. Once that stopped and we just started to focus on the mystery, with the flashy stuff integrated I fell in love with the film.

As a mystery this is a great film. It has action, suspense and some unexpected turns that kept everything lively. Once this turned I had an absolute blast with this and I was locked and loaded to the end.

Get some popcorn and a beverage of choice and sir down for a solid mystery.

Recommended

Mars Express (2023) opens this year's Animation First 2024 on Tuesday

In 2200 private detectives Aline and Carlos are hired to find and bring home a notorious hacker. The case puts them into the middle of something bigger involving the robots on Mars and Earth.

This is a scifi hard boiled detective noir. Its classic 1940's film noir mashed with modern day science fiction and the look at artificial intelligence. It has the classic rhythms mixed with eye popping visuals and some kick ass action sequences. It's a blast and a half and I loved it.

I know that some of you are going to be scared off because this is animation. Yes I know anime has made it more accepted, but some people still don't want to watch animation, Never mind that if this was live action they would be first on line to see it. Understand that because of what the film is about and because of where its set and who the characters are the film had to be animated. Even if was live action other than a few characters the vast majority of the rest would have been CGI, or more simply photo-realistically animated.

Watching this film I ended up reacting verbally.  Twists and turns had me talking out loud. The same can be said about the action sequences. 

And then there are the themes and ideas running around in the film. The notions of what it means to be alive, about free will and basic human stupidity have haunted me for days after seeing the film. What I love is that the film's ending has improved the more I think about it. I first thought it was unremarkable and a bit been there... and then all of the things that it implied hit me hard. The profound sense of sadness contained in it filled my heart.

I love this movie. I love it to the point that I regret that I missed going to the work in progress screening that Animation First had a couple of years back.

I really do need to make one  note concerning this film and that when you see this you need to realize that this is a detective film and not an action film. There is action and suspense but there are also slow sequences of detecting. In other words there are some slow sequences, or slow at least compared to some of the bat shit crazy fights.

Once more with feeling- I love this film. You need to see it. If possible when it plays at Animation First Tuesday, or down the road when G-Kids releases it.

How good is it? I don't think it's going  of to move off my Best of the Best of 2024.

Twisted Vines (2022)

Get some popcorn and curl up on the couch as Michael Pare and Vivica A Fox are among the guests trapped at a winery in an old time murder mystery. 

The plot of the film has friends and family arriving at a winery for wedding.  Just a deputy arrives to warn the group that wildfire is threatening. As the road is cut off the bride turns up dead. Forced to ump into action the deputy has to contend with clashing personalities as well as more bodies.

If you like old school murder mysteries TWISTED VINES is for you. This throw back film isn't high art but it is entertaining. It's the sort of film that 90 years ago would have been set in a old dark house during a rain storm. Here the film is set in the day time and bright daylight. Clearly the basic set up works anywhere.

What I like about the film is that the cast pretty much sells the story. Sure there is a bit of over acting (I'm looking at you Mr. Pare and Ms Fox) but for the most part it doesn't matter, you'll want to see how this plays out.

As some one who sees and ignores too many of similar films it's nice to say that this one is worth the time.

Restore Point (2023) Fantasia 2023

In 2041 people can be brought back from the dead if they have backed up their consciousness. When one of the researcher working for the institute and his wife are killed, both seeming not to have a back up a lone wolf cop is forced to investigate what happened. Joined by the researcher who was brought back using an months old back up he is thrown into a dangerous quest involving efforts to privatize the restoration institute and a group of people who oppose restoration as unnatural. 

The trick to watching RESTORE POINT is to largely ignore the science fiction elements. You want to focus on the mystery. Yes the a scifi element is vital to the story, but out side of the key plot point about bringing dead people back the world it creates doesn't make a lot of sense. This is an old school science fiction film where much of society is flashy new things with screens and projections and such. This is a film that pits new technology against old for effect. It's a film that we used to get in the 1950's and 60's where wonderful things are just a few years off. There are all these trappings to make it look futuristic. It's cool to see the return of it, even if the world it creates doesn't completely hang together.

If you are going to like RESTORE POINT it's because of the mystery. At its heart the film is an old school hard boiled detective story in a film noir vein. It's a film about rich people doing things for their own ends and a lowly detective sorting it all out. It's a film about corruption (the public institute bringing people back wants to go private) and the human heart (questions of love and is it better to live unnaturally are raised) two things that old school detective tales are full of. This is the heart of the film.

Honestly until the mystery really started to go front and center, I didn't care for the film much. Too much of the first half hour of so is focusing on making us certain we know this is the future with holograms and fancy talk. Once that stopped and we just started to focus on the mystery, with the flashy stuff integrated I fell in love with the film.

As a mystery this is a great film. It has action, suspense and some unexpected turns that kept everything lively. Once this turned I had an absolute blast with this and I was locked and loaded to the end.

Get some popcorn and a beverage of choice and sir down for a solid mystery.

Recommended

The Pale Blue Eye (2022)

Christian Bale plays a man hired by the commanders at West Point to investigate the death of a cadet. It looks like a suicide but it quickly becomes clear something else is going on, since the dead man's heart had been removed. Working to keep a lid on things lest the newly formed institution be destroyed by scandal Bale hooks up with cadet Edgar Allen Poe to get to the bottom of it.

I loved 3/4ths of this film I was absolutely enthralled for most of the running time. However as the film moved toward the end I suddenly realized that the denouncement wasn't really going to be satisfactory. Don't get me wrong, it works, but the details of why kind of disappoints, not because it couldn't be, rather it's because the details which  made it work in the novel are lost in the film. Basically the small references that seemed like throwaways but built up to something are missing in the film. A second viewing may prove me wrong, but I don't think so.

As it is this is a very good mystery with an emotional kick.

Recommended.

Decision to Leave (2022) NYFF 2022

A detective investigating the death of a mountain climber becomes obsessed with the dead man's wife. Things become complicated when the detective finds evidence that it may have been murder instead of an accident.

Park Chan-wook  make what he calls a "romantic comedy" and the result are a funny but completely heartbreaking film. Yes, the film will make you laugh at times at the comfortableness of a man lost in love, but as things proceed the film turns slowly tragic as the would be lovers are pushed farther and farther apart by circumstances and their own prejudices.  The result is one of the most crushing endings in years.

This is a great film, it's a technical marvel that if fun to watch to just see the craft of the film. This is a technical tour de force and it reveals just how good Park Chan-wook really is. The best part is that as the film winds down the film hooks us emotionally. We care about the characters on a deeper level then we would in a typical rom com...though somewhere in the second half the (decidedly dark) rom com gives way to grand tragedy.

The Sunday afternoon screening at the New York Film Festival was a blast, despite turning out some of the most violent and ugly films Park Chan-wook is a very funny guy especially when trading quips with Park Hae-il. He's a guy you would want to have a beer with and just shoot the breeze. Listening to him talk made me love the film more. It was a joy finally getting to see him speak after being a fan of his for decades.

Recommended for anyone who likes to mix light and darkness in their romance.

Hinterland (2022)

 

A soldier returning from the trenches of the first World War finds the city he once knew has become a weird surreal landscape. Back at work as a detective on the police force he is thrust into the case of serial killer murdering returning veterans.

Mostly shot on a soundstage with blue screens this is an impressionistic take on the surreal world of Europe between the World Wars. Looking more like a color version of the films coming out of Germany in the late teens and early 20’s this is a film with a lot on it’s mind. Yes it’s a solid thriller but it’s also an allegory about society in the wake of the war and how that lead  to the next.

While the mystery engages, the allegory makes it hard to fully latch on to the characters because some times they do things that only make sense in the exploration of the themes and not in reality. I was engaged but I wanted to be fully invested. The film also suffers in that the blue screen style of shooting puts occasionally doesn’t  mesh with the actors and they seem disconnected to their surroundings.

Problems aside this is a film I like and really admire. I don’t know when it was that I saw a film as invested in creating a world and environment and tying it to the story it was telling. This is a film that is going for it with a gusto rarely seen in cinema any more.  No, it doesn’t wholly work but it still manages to be a really cool film because we are watching a film where a director is giving us the story he wants to tell to the best of his ability. This is a film that is in love with film and story telling and as a result we are willing to sit and take notice.

In its own way this is a stunner and a must see.

Recommended

Go see CONFESS, FLETCH (2022)

Gregory McDonald's Fletch returns to the big screen in the person of Jonn Hamm and all is right with the world....

... or would be if the suits weren't burying this film with almost no promotion and dumping into theaters at the same time it's on VOD..I'll come back to that.(also see addendum below)

Fletch has retired from reporting. He is now working on finding out who stole nine works of art from an Italian count. He's traveled from Italy to Boston following a lead and instantly ends up as a murder suspect when he discovers a dead girl in the house his girlfriend (the count's daughter) rented for him. From there it's Fletch being a smart ass as he follows the leads and battles to prevent the cops from arresting him.

This is a fine representation of the book. More or less this is exactly the sort of film that I wanted from when I first tore through the Fletch books decades ago.  Funny and smart this is entertaining as all hell. Outside of changing the Boston cop to "Slow Mo" Monroe  and his partner Griz from Flynn who was such a foil for Fletch that McDonald spun him off in his own adventures, this is pretty much what I remember the book to have been.

What a joy this film is. Genuinely funny you will laugh from start to finish. Outside of Kyle MacLaughlan's Horan's germphobia everyone on screen is a real character. Yes some are goofy,but there is still something there. I loved everyone and would love to see them return. I would even love to see a Monroe and Griz series.

Hamm's Fletch is a joy. Seemingly playing a suaver version of Chevy Chase Hamm at first gives a performance in such a way that you think it's going to be smarter but similar to the earlier films, and then the colors and shades come in. We quickly realize that Fletch may look like a fool, but there is way way more to him. Watch the whole end sequence where Hamm reveals what he was really doing. Yea he is goofy at times, but it's clear its careful calculations. You understand why Frank wants Fletch to work for him.

And I love- I mean a truly love - Fletch and Frank. Jon Hamm and John Slattery ripping each other in their few films is everything that movies should be.  Their real life friendship bleeds into their roles making them one of the greatest on screen teams ever.

This is a film that is so good it should spawn a long running series of films....

...and that's the rub. Miramax/Paramount dumped this film into theaters and on to VOD (and Showtime next month) with almost no publicity. Yes they let some reviewers see it, but they did zip in the way of promotion. Of course you would think that would mean the film sucks- but as everyone I've run across  has said this film is so good that had it been properly handled this should have been the start of a long running series.  When was the last time you read reviewers bemoaning that they may not get more films in a series. Never. It never happens- other than the odd review here or there it never happens but review after review begs for more films

What was Miramax/Paramount thinking?

Do yourself a favor-either go see this film or get it on VOD. 

Yes I know the VOD is about 20 bucks, but get some friends and get some popcorn and see this. Do what you can but vote with your wallet that you want more Fletch films. Trust me once you see this film you'll want more. Actually what you'll have is a new film that you watch every time it's on cable. Yes, this is going to be one of those films that you watch a thousand times.

Please! Please! Please see this film so we can have more Fletch films and set the world back on the road to being alright.

CONFESS, FLETCH is one of the joys of 2022 and a must.

ADDENDUM: The film was made by Miramax, who sold it to Paramount who is giving it limited theatrical run along with the VOD release. It will be on Showtime at the end of October

MAIGRET (2022) Fantasia 2022

Based on Maigret and the Dead Girl, the 45th novel in the series by Georges Simenon, MAIGRET finally has Gérard Depardieu finally playing the great detective. What took so long?

This is a slow burning character study wrapped mystery. The plot has a disinterested Maigret unhappy with life. Nothing interests him anymore. Heading home one night he stopped and redirected to the place where a young woman was found dead. Wearing expensive clothes that don’t belong to her (we know she rented them thanks to the set up prolog) there is no clue to who she was. Maigret begins his investigation and tries to slowly unravel not only what happened but who this outcast really was.

While we want to know who did what and why, the focus here is less on the mystery, though that is what moves the film, but the emptiness of existence. Maigret is unhappy. His wife says he is someone else. Maigret is pondering life , his own and that of the dead girl. He wants to know how something like this could happen to her. He is looking for a way to reconnect to life. If you are going into the film looking for a satisfying Agatha Christie style mystery you will be disappointed.

Depardieu gives one of his best performances in years. After years of walking through roles where he was good but not great, he finally seems to be taking roles that he can disappear into. While he doesn’t verbally say much he still hits it out of the park with a performance that is pure physicality. In every shot his body is telling us volumes about the state of the man. This is one of the best performances of the year. Yea it’s low key but it’s pure magic.

I love so much of the writing of this film. The dialog sparse and to the point until it suddenly drops a wisdom bomb on us. The film is also full of small moments that move us. For example a Maigret talks to his wife about the expensive clothing and it turns into a fleeting, but moving, discussion of the moment the two met at  fancy dress party where she felt out of place, only to find a similar soul in an equally out of place Maigret.

I love this film.

I love that it transcends being just a murder mystery and instead is a magnificent examination of life.

Highly recommended.

(And please make many more sequels)

Rounding (2022) Tribeca 2022

First things first ROUNDING is no a horror film. Its more a psychological portrait of the main character that uses horror images. It is a film that will flummox you if you go in with any preconceived notions. It is a film that does not do what you think it will and does not behave as anything other than itself. I give this warning because I had to stop and not think about what I was seeing.

The film is about a doctor named James Hyman who transfers to a small rural hospital for his second year residency. Hyman had a mental collapse when a patient died and he feels that new set of surroundings will help him. Things are okay at first, but a patient who seems to have asthma but yet doesn't confounds him. Losing himself in trying to help the young woman Hyman slides farther and farther over the edge.

I am still processing this film because I went in expecting a horror film. As I said above I fought it for a chunk of its run time. Finally when I let it go I found it so much better because I could see the rhythms of the tale-rhythms that are not ones of horror but of a portrait of a man coming undone. That's not giving anything away- since there are still mysteries to solve. Instead of giving anything away it opens things up it gives us more material to chew on. It also makes the answers less easy. In a horror film answers tend to come in certain categories, say monsters, the supernatural mental illness. In real life things are less definite, less clear cut. ROUNDING isn't really clear cut. It's horrible at times but there is also great depths of sadness. 

To be honest the best thing I can say about this film is its going to haunt you. If you want a film that will engage you many levels this it. As this posts its been several days since I've seen the film. I've revisited this piece several times to tweak it or consider tweaking it simply because I can't let it go. Films you can't let go are the best kind.

See ROUNDINGS and see a film that will haunt you.

Bulldog Drummond at Bay

John Lodge is Captain Hugh Drummond in one of a long series of films (its one of thee films from 1937 all with different Drummond's. The other two are the miscast Ray Milland and the perfectly cast John Howard).

Here Drummond and his friends take on a group of foreign spies trying to get their hands on a new plane. One of the baddies is played to perfection by Victory Jory, who really turns in a highly evil performance. This is one of the darkest of any of the Drummond films with the bad guys really doing a number on anyone and everyone who fall into their hands.

This is a solid, if slightly nasty little film that plays very differently than the seven films that followed with John Howard in the lead. Those films, while good little mysteries of their own, were just a tad lighter than this film. Very much worth a look, especially if one looks at how the character changed in one year by watching Ray Milland in Bulldog Drummond Escapes and John Howard in Bulldog Drummond Comes Back.

Death On The Nile (2022)

Kenneth Branuagh's reinvention of Herciule Poirot continues with an adaption of the Agatha Christie's DEATH ON  THE NILE. 

Beginning with a flashback to World War One the film explains why Poirot has the mustache he does.  The film then jumps to the present and the story of Poirot helping a newly married socialite evade a jealous ex-friend whose fiance she had stolen and married. When the socialite is killed Poirot investigates.

While the central mystery remains the same as in the novel, the film juggles thing, bringing in new plot points and characters while removing others from the novel.

I really liked this adaption of the novel. Its different enough to stand on it's own legs. It's spectacular to look at and I was thrilled to get to see the film in 70mm. It is also strangely emotional for a murder mystery since in reinventing the narrative threads the film takes on a deeper emotional resonance. While the film is techincally much too open mined for the time period when it comes to some subjects (particularly with matters of race and sexuality) it perfectly fine for today's audiences.

What is a strong selling point for the film for me is the arcing of Poirot. He isn't static but changes, as can be seen by the whole thread of the mustache. I love how we get a deepening of the character. I love how we find out how flawed a person he is. If you think about this film and the previous in the series, Poirot solves the crimes, but he does so at a terrible personal cost. People die because he isn't fast enough. Several times I was deeply moved emotionally in unexpected ways. (I can not tell you lest I spoil a turn or two). Hopefully we can more films with the detective, if not several at least one, which I would hope to be the final tale CURTAIN, which would take the idea of Poirot's having his successes have a terrible cost to the logical conclusion.

If there is any real flaw in DEATH ON THE NILE it's in the editing of film. After it was finished actor Armie Hammer was charged with rape and assault. As a result the studiohad him removed from much of the promotional material. Additionally, it would seem that the film may have been edited to remove him since there is a point where his character goes completely missing for a long period of time, returning only for a couple of crucial scenes. While I haven't heard anything officially the film feels like bits were removed in the second half. 

Flaws or no, Branagh is the story here and his invention, or reinvention of the great detective is stunning and worth the price of admission.

An Unknown Compelling Force (2021) hits VOD June 15

This is director Liam  Le Guillou's look into the story of the Dyatlov Pass Incident. Its an attempt to get to the bottom of what happened to nine students who were found dead in the Russian wilderness, their tent torn apart, their clothes removed and wounds on their bodies.

There have been numerous attempts to get to the truth of what happened but no one seems to have an answer. This being a Soviet era tragedy there is a belief of a coverup. Add to that there were errors in the official record, and strange images on the film the students shot have lead people to speculate all sorts of things from aliens, to bigfoot, to a military project gone wrong, to poisoning to murder.

Guillou wades into the mystery  by going to Russia to talk with researchers and to see the actual reports. Its an interesting journey that is more grounded than some of the American TV and You Tube films on the subject.

I had never heard of the Dyatlov Pass Incident until relatively recently. Despite being a 60 year old mystery it was off everyone's radar until about the time that Discovery or History ran film talking about how it was a Russian Bigfoot tale, I say this because I was curious why no one had really discussed it and I found that  until the special no one was talking about it in English. Since then thee has been an explosion of material on the subject.

Guillou's film is quite good. Scoring points by actually being filmed by himself in Russia, it carries a bit more weight than some of the slickly made cable docs or the cut and paste You Tube recounting videos. To be certain its a bit rough, he went without a real crew, and it is a bit long, its a hair under 2 hours, but it is well researched and compelling. I like that he doesn't take everything at face value, for example an error in a date in one lace has fueled all sorts of speculation of a coverup, but Guillou explains where it comes from. I like that he makes an effort to go to the site of the incident so that he can really understand what happened.

Does Guillou sort it all out? I don't know, but he does make a compelling case for his theory. 

AN UNKNOWN COMPELLING FORCE hots VOD on June 15th and is recommended for anyone with an interest,

Beast Within (aka Hunter's Moon) (2019) is on VOD

This is the review I ran when BEAST WITHIN played Blood in the Snow titled HUNTER's Moon. The film is now on various VOD platforms so I'm reposting it.

At the launch of a werewolf inspired video game someone begins to be killing all of the guests...and it appears that the killer is a werewolf.

Old school murder mystery ala Agatha Christie or some of the great program thrillers of the 1930's and 40's but with monsters, BEAST WITHIN entertains. Part of the reason is we haven't really seen this structure used much in the last couple of decades. We don't really get films where the hero, and the audience, has to deduce who the killer is at the same time. Nowadays filmmakers can't wait to reveal who the bad guy and what is going on. That isn't the case here and we are close to the end before we get a reveal.

I like that the cast works to sell the mayhem on screen. More often than not in inde horror films the cast performs with nods and winks and completely wrecks the tension and mood. That isn't the case here and as a result we are dragged all the way to the end . The cast also makes us like all the characters to the point we groan when someone dies.

If there is any complaint on my part it is that the pacing is slightly off. It isn't fatal but while the film takes it's time setting everything up, it kind of races to the conclusion. It's almost as if the filmmakers suddenly realized that they had to move things along a little quicker and it did so a little too fast. Again it isn't anything that hurts the film other than I would have liked a bit more time with the characters before they are taken from us.

This is an enjoyable little film and worth your time.

Stay AT Home Fest Bonus Film: DICK TRACY

This is a feature version of the complete Dick Tracy serial

Stay At Home Fest Bonus Film: The Fat Man

Free Country (2019) Fantasia 2020

Just after the reunification of Germany a cop from the former East Germany  is sent with a former West German cop to a remote village where two sisters have gone missing.

Basing his screenplay on the Spanish film MARSHLAND Christian Alvart has kept  the mystery and the pot boiling tale of a small town with secrets buried everywhere and spiced it up with references to the politics of reunification. Its an interesting take that nicely shades things just enough that it doesn't feel completely like we've been here before.

If there is any problems with the film its that Alvart seems to be trying to do a bit too much. There were a couple of times when I thought that some of the politics was going to play into the main story but it never really happened. While it isn't remotely fatal, it did make me wonder why the threads are there.

On the other hand I am over thinking things since this is a gripping mystery that anyone who loves really good puzzles will love.

Recommended

Stay At Home Bonus Film : The Master Key

A complete rip roaring movie serial - and one of the few I have never seen