IT (2017) - REVIEW

Monsters come in many forms, as does fear. Isolation, the supernatural, stumbling below expectations can scare us and come to be our demons. These uncertainties claw their way through the frames of IT—figuratively and literally as nothing is sacred and no one is safe. The necessity of dependable friendships is the only refuge from the naked terror that Pennywise and the children’s parents put them through. Morphing real-life horror with unexplained, other-worldly menace, they challenge the ragtag group of friends dubbed “The Loser’s Club” at every turn.

The story of IT has been imprinted in the American zeitgeist and young children’s minds. It surrounds bullied young outcasts as they deal with the underlying evil of their seemingly tranquil small town Derry, Maine. But billowing from beneath this suburban town is a conspiracy of murder, destruction and missing children—more so than any other town nearby. The gang of kids are forced investigate the source of the menace when one of their own, Bill, kid brother Georgie goes missing. The kids decide if the adults aren’t going to quell the evil within, they must try, and embark on an adventure of ramshackle houses, sewer pipes and strange phantoms as they confront their greatest personal terrors.

When I first saw the trailer for IT I thought it looked great but unsustainable. There have been plenty of trailers for horror films that build up expectations and promptly jam a sharp middle finger up in the air, replacing directorial patience with jump-scares. This film does not. It takes it’s time to develop characters, shape tension, and probe questions about undiscovered fear—real and abstract. The monsters in the film become anything we don’t want to approach—the stranger lurking in the blackness, the abusive father or overbearing mother, or losing a loved one--and our inability to combat these fears will only cripple our growth and nourish our demons. That is not to say the film is not a complete masterpiece. I have minor quibbles with the overuse of score and sound effects to emphasize scares and I blame that mainly on the time in which it has been released than the fault of the filmmaker's, however, it does not completely ruin the film.

Eyeful direction, multifaceted performances, and authentic relationships are carefully earned, dragging IT from the gutter of mainstream horror that often plagues theaters to set it apart. The real standout performer of the gang is Sophia Lillis as Beverly who has a lot of dramatic baggage to shoulder and gives a nuanced performance. The torture of adolescence throughout shares more with Stand By Me—although severely more grisly child murder—than something like Texas Chainsaw as you learn to care for these outcasts. You are inadvertently adopted as another member into The Loser’s Club, rooting for them to prevail over their adolescent woes, their abusive parents and impalpable supernatural evil.

Where sloppier films devolve into a series of disconnected cheap scares, IT uses inspired imagery to challenge characters while simultaneously adding to their development as people. Genuine dialogue and humor swell complexity among The Loser’s Club, elevating a film from slasher to a more nuanced, almost Spielbergian coming-of-age adventure film. The love for eighties nostalgia floods this film (originally set in the 50’s in the novel) and allows for fresh places to be explored. This renewed retelling of the IT mythology unearths surprises for those familiar with the novel, leaving plenty to discover, while still retaining its emotional core with characters that are likable and feel like real people. IT is an engaging, thrilling and more often fun retelling of the classic Stephen King tale and one of the best adaptations of his works.

MOTORAMA (1991) QUICKIE

I've never ever heard of this movie until a friend of mine recommended it after having a 2-month long sabbatical from work where he gambled on whatever movies on Prime he came across. And this film is a reminder that some movies finding distribution can sometimes be a miracle. Would Clerks be the indie hit that it was if the right people hadn't seen it at the right time? It's very possible. I think Motorama is a movie that wasn't able to capture that lightning in a bottle and find the audience it was looking for. 

Motorama would be the lovechild if Repo Man, Pee-Wee's Big Adventure, Mad Max, Tim Burton and Terry Gilliam fucking. It plays (and was advertised) like a children's film, but it's more of a surrealist fever dream road movie, taking place in an alternate reality United States.

A young boy decides to travel across the country, playing a crazy card game at participating gas stations where he needs to spell out “Motorama” to win 500 million dollars. The premise is simple enough, but the interactions and characters certainly are not.  The protagonist has run-ins with lowlifes, bikers, horny teens, and weird cameos by Dick Miller, Meatloaf and Drew Barrymore along the way. Unrecognizable states, strangely colored money and desert landscapes abounding.

This movie made 10K at the box office and 1,000 votes on IMDB. I have found barely anything about it online. It must have been a film festival movie that didn’t receive distribution or something? How this isn't a cult movie by now, I will never know.

Directed by a producer of The Stuff (who hasn’t really made much since) and written by the writer of After Hours, this film is a cult movie in the making (I hope).

Free to watch on Prime.

Weathering With You Quickie

I’ve been avoiding Anime like the plague because I’ve seen what it can do to your standard white male. It can suck all the life energy from them and turn them into a see-sawing weeaboo weirdo, rocking back and forth in the Manga section in Barnes and Noble. It can be a cruel, grisly and unrewarding life. I know the danger of Anime addiction, only being adjacent to it, trying my best to stick only to the Miyazaki films, but I can’t deny that the films have creative merit and no matter how long I try to resist, eventually, like all great plagues, Anime will soon consume me and win entirely.

UNCUT GEMS QUICKIE

I saw Uncut Gems in probably the less than ideal way to go about it—-or perhaps the greatest way to see it—-I dunno. I was hung over from New Year’s Eve, I had barely gotten any sleep, I had some serious drinker’s remorse and a shitty cheap breakfast at some golf club a few towns over, but honestly Uncut Gems, outside of the strange beginning which is almost like Jurassic Park in a weird way, this film is like a 2-hour long anxiety attack that grips you from the beginning and never lets go.

I had anxiety going into this movie though, and by the end of this film I was nervously laughing because of how uncomfortable and tense it was making me because I had no idea what else to do. This is one of the few films I can point two that basically gave me a cardio workout just by watching it and is the best way to describe to those of you normies who don’t have bad anxiety what an anxiety attack actually feels like.

Adam Sandler should be winning best actor this year and it is incredible that he is not even nominated. This is an outright crime against humanity—-well not really, but for cinephiles it kind of is.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen him be better in anything —--and punch-drunk Love legit is one of my favorite movies of all time and probably was my favorite performance of his—-outside of Little Nicky.

This film jumps out like a bull rider and never stops and there are scenes and set pieces in this that somehow turn something as mundane as an electronic door not opening into something that made me want to bite my fingernails until they were nubbins.

This is a movie I can’t even say that I’d recommend because I’m scared to revisit it and it doesn’t make you feel good at all. I can see why general audiences are left scratching their head because this definitely isn’t a movie with Al Pacino singing a song about donuts.

I mean, even knowing what happens the second time around, I can’t imagine me being less anxious in a second viewing. This film should be airdropped over enemy lines just to stress out everyone behind enemy lines and distract them.

I will admit that I’ve never seen Good Time, but my friend reassured me that their other movie is also like this. I wanna check it out because I think Uncut Gems, but I’m going to have to take some time off before I subject myself to a similar feeling like this film made me have.

I can’t say enough about how good this movie is. The more I think about it, the more I like it, and I don’t think I’ve seen much else this year that imprints images and scenes with a feeling of dread and anxiety in the same way.

I feel like I had PTSD after watching this film (this is not to make light of people that actually have that condition, I’m being hyperbolic).

Apollo 11 Quickie

How this isn’t a part of the best documentary features this year at The Oscars truly baffles me. Admittedly, I haven’t seen every nomination in that category, mainly because the Oscar Documentary category tends to be a dumping ground for some of the most depressing real-life stories imaginable. Why I love Apollo 11 and why I think it should be in that category is because of the extreme sense of wonder it invokes. The moon landing has always been something in the distant past to me being born 30 years after it. I know in the grand scheme of things this is merely a drop in the bucket, but I’ve always felt kind of disconnected to it. I hate to admit it, but personally I feel more connected to the fictional characters in the Star Wars universe than I do the actual moon landing. Space has always interested me, but I never felt a part of the moon landing in the same way that baby boomers seem to.

Apollo 11 puts you front in center with that feeling. The footage in this film, the narrative structure, the lack of narration makes you feel like you’re experiencing the moon landing as if it’s happening right now in front of you. I was awestruck by the IMAX footage presented here. It is so crisp and orgasmic that it is truly riveting.

I simply haven’t seen a documentary like this in my lifetime, that could make me care about something I never felt attached to in a significant way. It made me care, it made me wonder, it made me nostalgic for a time I wasn't even a part of. It is truly an achievement. What more can I say?

Just see it already. ALRIGHT!?

The Art Of Self-Defense Quickie

This movie isn’t going to change lives, but I had to include it on this list because it was criminally underseen and is truly a hidden gem.

It’s one of those films that doesn’t really have any likable characters, but it manages to still work. It certainly strikes me as the type of film that will have a cult following soon enough if it doesn’t already and I don’t have much else to say except go into it blind and have fun with the results.

Also, it has one of the most mean-spirited yet fully earned jokes in all of 2019 and might have made me laugh the hardest in the theater this year.

HONEY BOY QUICKIE

I never thought I would actually have this come out of my mouth in my life, but Honey Boy is a REVELATION in the truest sense.

It’s kind of hard to appreciate the film on the same level I did if you aren’t familiar with the background and struggles of the main actor Shia Lebouf’s background. His strange father that I often heard about in a joking matter on talk shows, but never really knew the extent of the psychological and physical abuse.

Honey Boy is not only a fantastic character study and a great highlight of Shia Lebeouf’s fantastic acting ability--yet another performance ignored by the Oscars bafflingly—-but it also is kind of a film about overcoming your demons and forgiving people that have wronged you which is something they often don’t make films about. Forgiveness is rarely something explored in Hollywood movies and whenever it is I always give bonus points (I haven’t forgotten you Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood).

While I can’t say this is an enjoyable film, especially if you grew up with addict parents who were both emotionally and psychologically abusive, none of that stuff feels fake or melodramatic. You can tell that Shia has poured his mental anguish into every page of this screenplay and never does this movie even feel preachy or appealing to Oscar-bait sensibilities. It’s just a great film, plain and simple.

DOCTOR SLEEP

Doctor Sleep was easily the biggest surprise of the year and the one movie that I keep going back to. It’s also... a big flop and kind of underseen outside of horror supernerds? I have to give this film an extra grape job sticker for not only being a great adaptation of Stephen King’s novel, but also a sequel to the original Kubrick film and somehow managing to honor both author’s intent without shitting on either property. That’s something not only incredibly difficult to pull off but something only a damn fine director can get away with.

I’ve seen most of the director Mike Flanagan’s work and have really enjoyed it. He made a good adaptation of Gerald’s Game which literally is spent mostly in a woman’s head and somehow still works. When he was announced to make an adaptation of Dr. Sleep I was cautiously optimistic---and also there is just some inherent baggage with making a sequel to a horror classic that is beloved by all except for a single person, the author of the original book, Stephen King. He is infamously known for hating Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining while literally everyone else on Earth loves it. It’s a seemingly strange stance for him to take, but I understand where he is coming from being someone who has also read the novel it’s based on. As an adaptation of his work, it is flawed. Jack Nicholson seems crazy from the beginning and in King’s novel it is a slow transition into madness.

But Doctor Sleep is it’s own thing...minus the last 30 minutes. I guess if I had an objection to Doctor Sleep in any capacity it would be the last 30 minutes, not because it’s bad—-I think it’s really good actually---but it relies too much on the audience's familiarity with the original film adaptation that makes me sad that Flanagan didn't continue doing his own thing.

I do think the ending is great and does appeal to fans of the original movie without feeling too fan service—-LOOKING A T YOU ROGUE ONE—-and doing interesting things with the original film it’s referencing.

Everyone in this film gives great performances. Ewan McGregor is fantastic in this movie and has an amazing character arc and realistically portrays the life of an alcoholic who has undergone some serious childhood trauma. There’s also actors recast as the original characters, but they aren’t doing cheap imitations but rather capturing the cadence of the characters. It's honestly kind of amazing and completely shouldn’t work but somehow manages to work.

I’m going to say something rather cliche here and say this film is UNDERRATED. Not in the classic sense of the word, because as we know Rottentomatoes is the determining factor of whether or not a film has merit—--RIGHT? RIGHT!?

I’m more of a Metacritic fan myself because it tabulates every review into a numeric score (who actually has the time for such things) and gives you a more well-rounded interpretation of the reviews. And if you were to go on Metacritic, you would have seen that Doctor Sleep has a 55/100 average which is kind of...bad.

But I think what the bulk of the negative reviews fail to realize is that this film is not trying to be a direct sequel to the shining...while also kind of being one? I don’t know. It’s hard to not sound like a hypocrite talking about this movie, but this film feels like its own and also not (but it still works somehow) and also kind of like a Superhero movie in the way that the final act concludes.

The film mainly works because both the protagonist and antagonist are fucking fantastic. Rose The Hat is a compelling villain which has completely understandable motivations even if you might disagree with her morally.

The cinematography, the direction, the special effects are actually kind of incredible and innovative and there are more than a few scenes that I was lost in and were seared into my brain, whether it be for their visual beauty or the tension of two people just talking to each other.

Good stuff.

Marriage Story Quickie

Marriage Story is a film that many of my friends rolls their eyes at and I can’t really blame them. Movies about creative people and actors just rub some people the wrong way.

And I certainly couldn’t argue that either of these characters are actually very good people at the end of the day, but I was rooting for each of these characters through their selfish actions and bad choices all the same and this film’s ending legitimately had one of the most moving scenes in any film I’ve seen this year—-and in a very long time.

What hasn’t been said already about this film. Yes! Both Adam Driver and Scarjo give fantastic performances. And honestly Adam Driver kind of elevates anything he’s in that I see a few points. Have you seen the new Star Wars trilogy you guys, imagine if someone from the prequel trilogy played that part. It would not be the same.

Adam Driver is probably so buff from carrying that franchise on his shoulders and I’m sure this is a joke that I’ve stolen so I’m just going to give credit to the millions of other people who have made this joke before me.

The most compelling aspect of Marriage Story is the depths of the human heart it strips bare and explores without ever feeling like a movie. These characters act and speak like real people and make choices that we often can’t sympathize with but also understand.

I don’t really have much else to say about this movie except that it’s a fantastically real portrayal of a marriage coming apart where neither person is the villain and that is something rather hard to pull off.

Avengers: Endgame

This is a film on my list that I need to put an asterisk on at the end. While I’m not saying it isn’t a good movie—-it is—-it’s kind of more than a movie in a way. It’s an event. This is a culmination of 10 years of planning by Marvel that actually sticks the landing and that is something that should be applauded because we’ve seen other studios try to attempt the same thing that Marvel has done in a thoughtless, cynical fashion and failed in real time. Hell, it’s still going on . As a movie, Avengers: Endgame is solid, but nothing super revolutionary in terms of its actual film-making. It is, however, revolutionary in the sense that I can’t really think of another time I’ve seen a film with an audience where we all felt so invested and people were cheering. I think the scene where Captain America gets that hammer is so incredibly satisfying because it’s been building since 2014’s Age of Ultron and it is so much more rewarding for us fans who have been sticking with Marvel from the beginning, trusting them that even when they fail, they are trying to make good movies that audiences will enjoy.

Avengers: Endgame is the true definition of a crowd-pleaser. I was completely wrapped up in the film in the theater and even my girlfriend who has seen like 2.5 Iron man films, Infinity War, still enjoyed the hell out of it without knowing all the lore and payoffs that this movie has in almost every scene. So that’s saying something about how it just works as a classic American blockbuster film-making.

Simply put, a fun movie that delivers on many characters' arcs spanning over an entire decade that could have been so awful and mishandled and just wasn’t. Kudos to everyone involved. You made something that truly the world was excited to see and went to the theaters to enjoy together and we need more movies like that before every multiplex is reduced to dust and rubble.

Captain Marvel Quickie

Captain Marvel is a bedfellow with Black Panther where the conversation surrounding the film is bigger than movie itself. Wonder Woman is a film that Captain Marvel aspires to be and misfires in almost every category. The source of that reason is harder to place. Perhaps it was a film made by committee, but the phoned-in Larsen performance and poor direction renders this fish-out-of-water story flopping aimlessly. Honestly, they could have Mad-libbed the screenplay for Wonder Woman with minor tweaks and probably churned out something more effective in its storytelling, but every choice seems to be done with shrugged shoulders. The acting, stunt choreography, character arc, plot, visual style and storytelling all feels corporate and indistinct.

But will the cultural and political maelstrom swirling around this movie allow me to critique it honestly? It seems that anything negative said about this movie will wrangle me into some kind of political conversation I don’t want to participate in.

So, I’ll give the movie a 6/10 because I’d rather not have a guy in a black ski mask spray paint a swastika on my driveway alongside the MAGA-hat wearing guy spray-painting a Pepe the frog.

It was fine?