Matthew Gray Gubler is a Pagan Priest With a Preppy Past in 'King Knight'
Where to watch: ‘King Knight’ is available to watch now on Digital and VOD, and playing at Cinelounge Sunset and Alamo Drafthouse on Friday, February 18th.
Matthew Gray Gubler has such an insanely large and dedicated fanbase that the mere mention of his name is among the best PR a film of his can receive. So, let me just say: Matthew Gray Gubler. His new movie, King Knight, is a farcical dark comedy in which Gubler plays Thorn, the high priest of a small pagan cult alongside his partner and high priestess Willow (Angela Sarafyan). Under their leadership, Thorn and Willow advise their new-age witch community on everything from relationship issues to life advice. They put out metaphorical fires with ease but, unbeknownst to them, there's about to be a disruption in the coven.
However, Thorn is hiding a secret: one so big that it stands to blow up his pagan paradise and jeopardize everything he loves. Despite trying to hide all evidence, Willow uncovers Thorn's deepest, darkest secret in an email from his former high school classmate: an invitation to attend his 20-year reunion, addressed to the class President, Prom King, and "Most Likely to Succeed" honor student, Thornton.
Screaming in terror, Willow is horrified to learn that Thorn actually comes from a preppy, well-adjusted background and doesn't have a dark, emo past as he led her to believe. "You might as well be a Chad!" she yells at him, as he sheepishly avoids eye contact. It's the film's funniest scene and perfectly describes the tone of the film. Thorn's further confession to playing lacrosse sends Willow into an uncontrollable frenzy. "I fucking hate you!" she screams, as we laugh.
Thorn is forced to comfort his squeaky clean past once and for all. He agrees to attend his high school reunion, using the opportunity to go on a solo vision quest and try to discover who he really is. Impressive mixed-media animation depicts Thorn's journey of self-discovery as he wanders throughout the desert drunk on ayahuasca and regret.
The humor of King Knight comes from the characters taking themselves so seriously despite its obviously silly premise. It's shot like a horror film with a techno dubstep score by Steve Damstra, and a supporting cast that reads like an underground comedy set: Andy Milonakis, Kate Comer, Johnny Pemberton, and Nelson Franklin are just some of the names that make up the new wave witch cult. Matthew Gray Gubler is charming as always, and Angela Sarafyan's levelheadedness offers a nice balance to his zaniness.
King Knight is a goofy eighty-one minutes of fun, well worth the investment if you're looking for a humble indie film to make you smile–or to just gush over Matthew Gray Gubler.
Distributed by XYZ Films. 81 minutes.
UFO Cult Bizarreness Abounds in 'Cosmic Dawn,' Based on a True Story
If you're in the mood for some low-stakes, campy cult bizarreness, Cosmic Dawn may pique your interest. Written and directed by Jefferson Moneo, this isn't your average sci-fi story that's rooted in imagination and make-believe; this is based on Moneo's own lived experience. He states, "Cosmic Dawn was shaped by an extraterrestrial encounter I had as a child. Like Aurora in the film, no one believed my story." Now we're talking.
Starring Camille Rowe as Aurora, the film tackles an ambitious premise with obvious production quality limitations, but still makes for an enjoyable watch. Aurora was never the same after witnessing the disappearance of her mother by a UFO as a child. The unexplainable paranormal event wreaked havoc on her life. Everyone believed she was crazy, despite knowing that what she saw was true. It isn't until she meets Natalie (Emmanuelle Chriqui) at a local bookstore that she finally feels seen. Natalie reveals herself to be a member of The Cosmic Dawn, a UFO worshipping cult that all share a common paranormal experience (and a karaoke obsession).
Aurora is skeptical at first but eventually falls in with the cult and its high-powered feminine leader Elyse (Antonia Zegers). Elyse is a visionary, revered by her members in the same way Peoples Temple leader Jim Jones or Indian guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh were admired. It's not until Aurora is invited to a remote island compound for The Cosmic Dawn retreat that she begins to question Elyse's motives, sanity, and self.
Cosmic Dawn plays in a nonlinear timeline, jumping very liberally back and forth four years into the future throughout the film. A bit distracting at times, the purpose is to show that Aurora's integration into the cult happened four years in the past. Even though she has since moved on and distanced herself from The Cosmic Dawn, Aurora soon discovers that she hasn't really escaped Elyse's control.
While Jefferson Moneo never explicitly says what he saw as a child that inspired this film, we're led to believe it was some truly wacky stuff. Camille Rowe embodies a traumatized child turned adult with undeniable magnetism. Even when dressed the same as the other cult members in full-length jumpsuits, Rowe always stands out. As a whole, Cosmic Dawn has a similar The Scary of Sixty-First vibe that feels intentionally trippy and off-center. That's not a big surprise given that the score is composed by Alan Howarth and features music by MGMT.
One of the big takeaways after watching Cosmic Dawn is the film's message of discovery and acceptance. Acceptance is a journey that looks different for everyone but staying true to yourself and your beliefs will keep you on the right path. Just be aware that a belief in UFOs may lead you on a direct path to the mothership.
Distributed by Cranked up. 98 mins. Opening in theaters and VOD on Friday, February 11, 2022.
Sundance: Celebrating 'The Janes,' Who Gave Abortions to Those in Need
There were a few common storylines that ran throughout the Sundance Film Festival this year. Eco-consciousness and Black trauma in White America were a couple of notable standouts. Another undeniably sensitive topic that connected a handful of films (like Happening and Call Jane) is abortion–or more specifically, highlighting a woman's right to choose. Recent political and public debate over this subject only increased the timeliness of Emma Pildes and Tia Lessin's historical documentary, The Janes.
The opening sequence of the film plays like a standard talking heads interview setup. Notably, though, it's missing the score. With no music to aid in relieving tension, we're left to ingest all of the horrifying statistics and personal anecdotes that are boldly shared by a handful of brave women. The decision to not include any music during this scene makes a huge impact on the story and prepares us for the psychological and emotional hardship that is to come.
The rest of The Janes follows a pretty familiar documentary structure, strewn with facts and personal asides. In the 1960s, abortion wasn't part of standard medical practice. Abortion was a crime. Young women literally had to turn to the mob to get an illegal abortion in dingy motel rooms, left to bleed and care for themselves post-operation. Some women were assaulted by rogue male doctors AFTER they got their abortion, but couldn't say anything to authorities because the procedure was illegal in the first place. And for those who claim that protection would solve the problem, women in the film recall that law at the time that you had to be married to get access to birth control (a bit counterintuitive if you ask me). Some women found a workaround by buying fake rings to get contraceptives for themselves.
Those are only a few of the many horrifying tales discussed in The Janes. The heaviness of the past (and horror that history could repeat itself) is slightly relieved as we learn more about the women behind "Jane" and the impact they've had on so many young women's lives. JANE is the anonymous pseudonym for the Chicago-based underground network of women who provided safe abortions for people in need. They were both an unlicensed medical facility and a support group for women with nowhere else to turn. Their heroism and bravery in the face of total injustice are admirable, to say the least.
In a stunning mix of archival and present-day footage, co-directors Emma Pildes and Tia Lessin craft a powerful portrait of strength and resilience. It's incredible–in both the positive and negative sense–that over 50 years later, we're still having the conversation around a woman's body and her right to choose. However, The Janes is another step in the long-treaded journey towards progress and activism.
1 hour 41 minutes.
'Belle' Mixes Beauty and The Beast with the Metaverse
When Mark Zuckerberg recently announced Facebook's plans of creating a virtual reality – "The Metaverse" – to the world, I immediately thought of the online virtual parties that I "attended" during last year's Sundance Film Festival. My user-created avatar mingled with other online avatars "at the bar" and "on the dance floor," but in reality, I was simply navigating my character from the comfort of my couch.
I thought to myself, "This future is kind of a bummer." But as the new movie Belle shows, maybe I just wasn't in the "right" virtual reality.
In this new mesmerizing animated film, Academy Award-nominated director Mamoru Hosoda shows us that not all virtual societies are awkward fantasy lands. Distributed by legendary Anime production company GKids, Belle is a cautionary tale about the joys and dangers that can be experienced as we all continue to grow up using immersive social media.
Painfully shy schoolgirl Suzu is the embodiment of adolescent insecurity. Having lost her mother as a child, she has always struggled to live a fully secure life. That changes when she downloads the app "U," a fully immersive virtual society that boasts over 5 billion users. Through "U's" advanced technology, Suzu's hidden strengths in the real world are used to create her online avatar. And so, she gets the confidence that she so desperately lacks in the real world to excel in an alternate, online one.
She creates the avatar "Belle": a beautiful, fairy-esque woman with cotton candy hair and the voice of an angel. As Belle, Suzu dazzles everyone with her charm and talent. She makes the other avatars feel good about themselves, and in turn, she begins appreciating and embracing her individuality within the metaverse.
Her connection gets disrupted when a cyberbully known as "The Beast" begins trolling the other avatars and threatening her safety online. Determined to restore peace within "U," Belle takes it upon herself to uncover the identity behind the Beast, hoping that by knowing that while second chances are hard to come by in reality, everyone can start over in "U."
If you're thinking this sounds like a hybrid of Beauty and the Beast meets The Matrix, you're not wrong. Belle is a young woman in distress who is trying to comfort an unruly Beast, only to realize that it's his pain that is masquerading as strength. And he's not truly a horrible person after all.
Despite being an animated film, Belle is not necessarily a children's movie. Director Mamoru Hosoda takes familiar childhood themes of bullying, friendship, and forgiveness and presents them through the lens of future-facing technology which feels like an optimistic, albeit slightly naive, view of the upcoming digital trends.
Having sat through the film completely enthralled with the complexity and beauty of this make believe virtual reality, I'm more open to giving avatar parties another chance. And with the news that this year's Sundance Film Festival is going completely virtual this year, I may just have my chance.
Belle is in select IMAX theaters starting Wednesday, January 12, ahead of its nationwide theatrical release on Friday, January 14.
'The Scary of Sixty-First': Conspiracies and Spiritual Torture
It's hard to decipher whether or not writer/director Dasha Nekrasova's debut feature The Scary of Sixty-First is fetishizing the rabbit hole littered with conspiracy theorists and Q Anon stans or if it's ironically holding a mirror up to their insanity and shouting 'See, look how crazy you're acting!'. In either case, Nekrasova's done her job. Nekrasova, alongside co-writer Madeline Quinn, abrasively shoves the red pill down our throats and draws us into a reality where spiritually tortured women are given a voice, and a body, to express their most repressed and traumatic secrets.
Distributed by cult favorite Utopia, known for its support of boundary-pushing indie films, The Scary of Sixty-First tells the story of two young women, Noelle (Madeline Quinn) and Addie (Betsey Brown), who find their dream apartment: a beautiful walkup in Manhattan. However, their sighs of relief are quickly met with caution; a dead rodent in the fridge, a mirror hung on the ceiling in one of the bedrooms, and a mysterious tarot card in the bathroom all feel like bad omens to the new roommates. But none of that compares to the graphic and sexual night terrors Addie experiences on that first night. Something is very wrong here.
Soon after Addie's phantom spell, a mysterious girl shows up at their apartment. The girl (Nekrasova) claims to be an independent investigator who demands entry into the apartment to look for clues left by the previous tenant: Jeffrey Epstein.
"Something extremely sinister happened in this apartment," says the girl to Addie. "In your room." Noelle takes the bait and joins the girl in frantically trying to uncover the mystery of the apartment. They turn into amateur internet sleuths as they mull over publicly available Epstein evidence, do a virtual deep dive into his "pedo island," and uncover the fact that the apartment used to be orgy flophouse. Addie, meanwhile, continues to be controlled by supernatural occurrences. The further the girls go down the rabbit hole of bizarre theories and developing romantic connections, the more unhinged Addie becomes. "The important thing is we are awake," says the girl. But we are left to wonder, is this nightmare we are living in real life, or just a bad dream?
The Scary of Sixty-First is not the most polished film, or even that scary - as its title would suggest - but what it does so well is bathe you in uncertainty and doubt. It's a psychological gnawing of the mind that is politically and socially provocative, which is to be expected for a film that calls itself an homage to Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut. Shot in 16mm film by cinematographer Hunter Zimny and set to a score by Uncut Gems contributor Eli Keszler, The Scary of Sixty-First is a deadpan delivery thesis statement on the disturbing subculture of conspiracy theorists and the tangled webs they leave behind.
Distributed by Utopia. The Scary of Sixty-First is now playing in select theaters and VOD.
'Memoria' is an Ambient Adventure Through the Senses
Palme D’or winning Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethakul is a master of his craft. Paying attention to the finest of details and the most delicate of sounds, his films all share a common thread of acute sensory exploration. His canon is that of a true auteur.
That said, it's not surprising that his latest feature, Memoria, is a continuation of this legacy.
Tilda Swinton stars as Jessica, a Scottish orchid farmer who has taken up residence in Bogota, near the jungles of Columbia, to be close to her ill sister. Early one morning, Jessica hears a thunderous 'bang' that sends chills down her spine, due to its unexpected occurrence and the strange metallic vibrato the sound omits. Unable to locate the source of the noise, Jessica begins experiencing a mysterious sensory syndrome as she attempts to locate and quiet the growing sonic sensation in her head.
Winner of the Grand Jury prize at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival, Memoria is Weerasethakul's first dive into English-language filmmaking; the only deviant from his otherwise stereotypical "slow cinema" outputs. Tilda Swinton commands attention from the very first frame; her performance amongst the small cast of nine billable characters is transfixing, to be expected. Her co-stars include a French archaeologist and a young studio producer, both of whom hold steady in their respective scenes that, at times, can last over 10 minutes straight.
Those familiar with Weerasethakul's filmography know that the art-house filmmaker is not the most consumer-friendly, so a succinct plot (and dare I say, payoff) is not easily identifiable. Memoria gives plenty to ruminate on throughout the course of its 2-hour runtime, making way for a deep, open-ended conversation with peers post-screening. Also worth discussing: the film's 35 co-producers!
I can't end my review without talking about the music of Memoria. Colombian composer César López's serene score is the perfect companion to this otherwise quiet film. Listen to the title track "Memoria" for a sense of the ethereal goodness.
Distributed by NEON. Memoria opens at the IFC Center in New York on 12/26 before "moving from city to city, theater to theater, week by week, playing in front of only one solitary audience at any given time.” Per NEON, the film will only play in theaters, and it will not become available on DVD, on-demand, or streaming platforms.
'The Novice' is a Rowing Drama That Strives For Perfection
Winner of Best U.S. Narrative Feature Film at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival, The Novice is a college drama that shows the dark side of striving for perfection. Picture the adrenaline-inducing anxiety of Whiplash combined with the relentless nature of Black Swan and you'll find The Novice fits squarely in the middle of these hyper-intense character studies.
The Novice follows Alex Dall (Isabelle Fuhrman - Best Actress winner at Tribeca Film Festival), a queer female collegiate rower whose struggle with being a perfectionist goes from being a positive attribute to a cry for help. Over the course of a few months, her dangerously obsessive pursuit to attain straight A's and stand out on her school's crew team affects her mental health, physical health, and relationships with peers and love interests alike. Alex doesn't care who she offends on the way up, as long as she moves up.
The film is nontraditional in its editing style with quick cuts and fast-paced shooting, seemingly reminiscent of how I'd image Alex's mind to be: racing constantly. Its eerie nature and gloomy aesthetic hums with desire, doubt, and secrets.
The Novice is Lauren Hadaway's directorial debut, but the former competitive rower didn't need years of filmmaking experience to successfully bring the rarely-seen portrayal of women's crew to the big screen. What's even more impressive are the dual storylines that are equally fraught with increasing psychosis. Not only is Alex developing gnarly open wounds on her palms from the incessant rowing, she is also stumbling through a relationship with her Physics teacher's assistant, Dani (Dilone).
Set to a rich score by Alex Weston, The Novice is a cautionary tale about what happens when we push our human potential too far. For Alex, "quitting" is the most offensive word and "relaxing" should be viewed as a privilege. Sadly, there are people who subscribe to this way of thinking that, although maybe not as severely as Alex, could alleviate the self-appointed pressure to be perfect. Grit is a great thing when used appropriately, and as writer/director Lauren Hadaway shows us in stark detail, there is such a thing as taking it too far.
This review originally ran on June 24, 2021, during the Tribeca Film Festival.
Distributed by IFC Films, The Novice opens in theaters this Friday, 12/17.
'Project Space 13' is Performance Art During Covid Panic
If you feel like reliving a not-so-distant nightmare, queue up writer/director Michael Bilandic's fascinatingly bizarre feature, Project Space 13. This suffocating satire offers a trippy look at how a performance artist and two security guards spend a night in SoHo at the height of the 2020 Covid apocalypse.
Nate (Keith Poulson) is an amateur performance artist in NYC who finally gets his big break when he's invited by Pieter (Jason Grisell) to take up residency at his high-scale Manhattan art gallery. Nate's provocative and jarring piece includes self-isolation in a prison-like cage, relying on a dominant robot accomplice for food (fried bugs), relief (excrement supplies), and torture (electrical shocks). However, as luck would have it, the city shuts down on night one of his three-month show. But Nate is stubborn and refuses to quit, so the galley hires a security guard duo (Hunter Zimny and Theodore Bouloukos) to watch over the space and Nate. As the city turns more chaotic by the minute and deranged, desperate civilians begin to threaten their safety, the three men start preparing for the worst – spilling their darkest secrets in the process.
Project Space 13 has a Marina Abramović meets Dash Snow vibe that makes for an intentionally uneasy watch. Bilandic's daft protagonist, embodied by Keith Poulson, is a self-righteous artist who claims to dwell at the center of art & technology. His stance is admirable, even sympathetic, but his method of getting his point across via provocative performance art while the city plunges into chaos around him is charmingly naive.
Cinematographer Sean Price Williams, best known for his work on the Safdie brothers' Good Time, lends his artfully chaotic eye to this micro-indie feature, giving the film an unsteadiness that perfectly encapsulates how we all felt during the height of the Covid confusion. Further pushing the film into the arthouse column is the original score by "Cult Film Composer" Paul Grimstad (Heaven Knows What, Jobe'z World). I'm still trying to shake the sounds of a baby's cry set against a sporadic drum line beat from the opening sequence. And trust me, the end title credit remix is a jam worth waiting for.
Project Space 13 is streaming exclusively on MUBI.