Review: 'Uncle Nick'
Depending on your taste for, or general apathy towards, raunchy, tasteless, lazily written and acted humor, Uncle Nick may or may not be your treat this holiday season.
Brian Posehn, known for his bald, nerdy, and overly-large presence in frequent sit-com and sketch comedy pop-ups, is singularly recognizable for his droll and monotonous man-child characters, one of which he lends here as the titular character in this somewhat amusing, mostly groan-worthy movie.
Uncle Nick attempts to ride both sides of the vulgarity fence, by being at one time so unabashedly offensive in its sex-ridden jokes, and yet performing these jokes with such little commitment (much like, Uncle Nick himself), that this hour and thirty-three minute long movie can't make a case for itself for being anything more than just a movie with comedians in it, rather than a funny movie.
Uncle Nick will fill your cup if you're looking for a lewd and lazy Christmas movie – and for ten cents a cup more, will happily join you in getting mindlessly wasted on it.
Credit part of the indifference in this review to the movie's all-too familiar setup that Uncle Nick shamelessly leans on, expecting the freshness of its main character to merit entertainment. While familiar movies of family screw-ups that earn redemption have been made before (the 1989 John Candy-starring and John Hughes-directed classic Uncle Buck comes to mind), the piece that makes their empty-headed antics so lovable is the earnest aloofness at the heart of it. Posehn as Nick, a sweaty and unapologetic alcoholic intent on criticizing younger brother Cody (Beau Ballinger) for both a lifetime of having it all and recent engagement to type-A fun-sucker Sophie (Paget Brewster), as well as set on hooking up with Sophie's daughter Valerie (Melia Renee), is mostly a creepy asshole who doesn't deflate the hypocrisy of others, but rather showboats his own selfish self off.
Tracking alongside the alcohol-fueled and irreverent humor that Uncle Nick sets out to make is the use of a real-life alcohol-fueled riot of American sports legend and. Setting the stage for the film is the real-life story, as told by Nick, of the infamous Ten Cent Beer Night, where, in 1974, the Cleveland Indians sold beer for a dime a cup at a Major League sports game, as many as you could buy or drink. The movie tracks with this story by telling the movie in chapters – "innings," as the movie shows, which parallels re-created black and white and slow mo'd footage of beer slamming baseball fans, a growing friction that ends on this single Christmas Eve night with the rising unrest of history's own beer-slamming drunkards. It's a device that adds an added level of interest
While Uncle Nick is boozy and brash and offers somewhat fun times, its mostly a jerky and un-jolly movie that will probably be shuffled to the bottom of the cue of your next movies to watch. Director Chris Kasick and writer Mike Demski might have fared better if putting more set pieces in the movie instead of just a list of insufferable characters showing different attitudes and one-liners, or at least in preceding with a little more caution before throwing all of the movie's laughs behind Posehn's unlikeable Uncle Nick. Whatever the case, Uncle Nick will fill your cup if you're looking for a lewd and lazy Christmas movie – and for ten cents a cup more, will happily join you in getting mindlessly wasted on it.
Uncle Nick is now playing at the Arena Cinema Hollywood.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G445k45KGr8
AFI Fest Review: 'James White'
One of the most incredibly acted films to play in the “American Independents” section of the festival was the altogether arresting James White, which also astonishingly counts as the first feature film from Josh Mond (Martha Marcy May Marlene, Producer). Told in month-long chapters during one New York winter, White is the story of a son (Christopher Abbott) whose estranged father’s death and mother’s (Cynthia Nixon) cancer diagnosis forces him to confront his personal demons through self-destructive and reckless behavior, which risks his own demise.
As the titular character and lead role, Abbott is given a wonderful opportunity to showcase his talent in a movie vehicle unlike any before (fans will remember Abbott as controversially leaving the HBO critical darling Girls, for reasons unclear), and that he does.
Abbott...gives an incredible performance not soon to be forgotten.
Abbott, whose unhinged and drunkenly erratic behaviors – evocative of a Streetcar-era Brando – match the reflective and quietly powerful moments as a heartbroken young son, gives an incredible performance not soon to be forgotten. Cynthia Nixon also stuns in delivering some of the best work of her career as a single mother battling cancer in its ugliest and heart-wrenching forms.
Josh Mond’s highly personal story (while not a direct autobiography, the story is lifted from very similar personal experiences) reveals in incredible fashion hardship and the human spirit, and should serve to boost the filmmaker and his actor’s profiles with even more recognition to come.
James White opens in LA on November 20th.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdw828U3KMY
Eli Roth and Keanu Reeves on 'Knock Knock'
The cult fanbase of horror director Eli Roth should be in for a surprising treat with the arrival of his latest film, Knock Knock, a new sexual thriller that exchanges the dismemberment of bodies for the thrilling aspects of what comes with a night of shared infidelity between a do-good family man and two sexy, if totally out-of-their-minds strangers, intent on putting the "fatal" in "fatal attraction." Cinemacy recently had the chance to attend the LA press conference for the film, where the film's stars– Roth and leading man Keanu Reeves–spoke about making the movie. We begin:
There's a point in Knock Knock when two intruders start trashing their victim's house, along with the many pieces of original art that is in it. How does that compare to dismembering bodies in your other movies?
Eli Roth: Well, I’m glad you picked up on that. My other films are certainly known for the visceral and the gore, and with this, we substituted the chopping off of Aaron’s (Burns) head, in The Green Inferno, for sawing off the heads of the statues. And in a crazy way, I found it more disturbing.
My mother’s an artist, and we grew up with her art all over the house, and it was very careful. You know, you don’t want to bump into a painting; you don’t want to scratch anything.
We found some amazing, amazing, artists in Chile to create this work. And I remember even when we were shooting it, with the girls, there was an element–you know, when you’re doing a kill scene in a movie, you really want to get it right, and make it look right–but when they were destroying the art… I mean, everyone was in character, and we went for it.
But, there is a feeling like, “Oh my god, we’re really destroying these objects." But then of course, they spray paint ‘Art does not exist,’ which is the very question–“what is art?” Is it the object that’s artistic, or the value you place on it? Because I know with my films, to one person they can be complete garbage, and to another person they’re a work of art. So, what is art?
Read our review of 'Knock Knock,' here.
Can you talk about the premise of this film? Is it a cautionary tale to not fool around?
ER: I would say that, for sure it’s a cautionary tale. But it’s also, in a way... when there’s problems in a relationship, if you don’t deal with it, it’s probably going to come out in your behavior one way or another. Seemingly, on the surface, Evan has a very happy life, but you can see there’s a little frustration. He’s not having sex, or he’s using the monster voice... it’s almost as if he never directly addresses the problems in the relationship. She gets really mad and he’s like, “sorry, sorry, sorry!” And then it’s Father’s Day, and they still leave him and it’s... the house is her artwork everywhere, and it’s all about her. And the catalogue, and even though he’s still there, he’s kind of just managing the house. So there are frustrations. You could almost make the argument the girls are created from this part of his id, that just wanted to destroy whatever life happened.
I would say that, for sure it’s a cautionary tale. But it’s also, in a way... when there’s problems in a relationship, if you don’t deal with it, it’s probably going to come out in your behavior one way or another.
Keanu, towards the end of the film, your character has an intense, desperate monologue, in which he justifies how these girls who showed up at his door were like “free pizza.” There was a lot of shouting in it. How many times did you have to deliver that?
Keanu Reeves: Yeah, it was a really exciting moment to do that scene. We shot it twice, because the first time, I guess I wasn’t up for the task. And then, because we got to play the scene, we got to learn something from that. And then I got back to the hotel, and I was crying. And I called Eli and I said, “Please, can we do the scene again?” And Eli was just like… there was a long pause on the phone. And being the great person and director that he is, (he says) “OK,” so we could shoot it again.
ER: I mean, he was hugging me while he was crying. It wasn’t on the phone.
(Laughter)
No, I mean, it was shooting nights, it was very difficult on all the cast. You know, we’re having lunch at 2:30 in the morning. And I just want to say what an honor it was to work with everyone, right down to Aaron, and (producer) Colleen (Camp), Lorenza (Izzo), Keanu (Reeves), Anna (Izzo), and Ignacia (Allamand).
They were such troopers, but, you know, there is a point where it hits six in the morning, and (Keanu) literally had no voice, and was out of gas. And we’re like, “this is your moment.” We’d say like, “this is your Oscar clip!” Like, this is that moment where he finally breaks and voices what the audience is thinking, like, “well how the fuck did this happen!” It’s total helplessness. And so I remember we came in fresh the next day and it was just beautiful to watch.
Do you like playing the victim?
KR: Oh the victim is fun in movies!
(Laughter)
Eli created a great situation of trust, and Lorenza and Anna, we had such love for the material, and we rehearsed in the house for like a week, and we really got to kind of know each other, and know our perspectives on the roles, and really what were the limits and where was the fun. Because the film, there’s a seduction, yes. But what does that look like? And then there’s also comedy, there’s thriller, and there are some really emotional scenes. And it was great to get the chance to work together, and to flesh the project out, and with such great material.
Eli, your previous movies have pushed the boundaries with how scary you can make something on a physically torturous level. How was it making a scary movie that took a more psychological approach?
ER: You know, it's interesting... I think that at this point in my career, there's no way I can divorce myself from horror. I can only transition, and make different types of movies, because I'm so strongly associated with it. So the hope is that people watch it as its own contained film, not necessarily as like the fifth chapter in some sort of long-form horror series.
To me, this really is a drama, it's a thriller, it's a sexual thriller. I think if you put it in the category of horror, it kind of gives the audience the wrong experience. And I'm not criticizing that, I completely understand why people would think that. I don't want people to think it's a horror movie with no blood. It really, truly does follow the conventions of that sort of thriller. But for me, it was fun to get into the psychology of those characters, to write them from the point of view that nobody's wrong, and everyone fully believes in what they're doing.
And that's always scary to me, when someone does something, because they so truly believe what they're doing, either that there's some larger cause for it, or they believe they're right, or they justify it in their own head. And that's what I think is interesting, and dangerous, and exciting. The idea that Keanu's character Evan, he knows it's wrong, but he's justified it in his own head, and the girls know what they're doing is wrong, but they've justified it in their own head. What happens when those two worlds meet?
Knock Knock is now playing in theaters.
Review: 'Knock Knock'
Are scary movies at their scariest when they force audiences to confront what morality-bending temptations they may be capable of succumbing to, and what cruelties they may be capable of inflicting onto others? Eli Roth asks this question in his latest hostage-torture movie, Knock Knock, starring Keanu Reeves, Lorenza Izzo, and Ana De Armas.
Hot off of the director's other most recent release, the Amazon jungle-set prisoner-torture movie The Green Inferno, Roth exchanges dismembering human bodies for the intricacies of dissecting human psychology, and the devastating, pain-inducing, consequences of acting upon seduction. Roth sexes up this midnight flick to a very smoldering degree with his pair of mysterious femme fetales, and while it attempts to provoke with interesting thoughts on the subjects of faithfulness and temptation, the result is a dull time on a lifeless effort.
Keanu Reeves plays Evan Webber, a work-from-home architect and family man whose wife and kids jaunt out of town to mom's latest art showing (of all days, on Father's Day weekend). Reeves as Evan lends his trademark calm, cool, and comically collected self to the role, even when we see his faintest frustrations of having last been intimate with his exhaustively busy wife. Reeves offers some so-bad-they're-good line readings, including the use of a monster voice to scare off his children when interrupting "adult time," perhaps hinting at the monster that lies in him (and all men?). All of this sets up the family leaving him alone with the family dog, a glass of wine, and rock music vinyl from his earlier DJ years, and the fateful pair of knocks that come from the door on a night of torrential rain.
'Knock Knock', like 'Funny Games' before it, offers the uneasy thrills of home invasion hostage, with the added attempt of a morally compelling story line to keep the thing moving forward.
Here, Evan is the placeholder for all of us, a surrogate character of a mildly unfulfilled person, who seems to hit a karmic jackpot in the arrival of two rain-soaked and scantily clad sexy strangers, Genesis (Lorenza Izzo) and Bel (Ana de Armas). Their cliche helplessness, lost on their way to a party with dead phones and sopping wet clothes, only trigger Evan's nice-guy nature to bring them in and call them an Uber, en route from 45 minutes away. What follows is a cat and mouse effort led by the two bubbly young gals, poking, prodding, and all the while flirting with an ever-more uncomfortable Evan, who remains diligent and disciplined in not accepting their obvious advances–until, that is–he discovers the young ladies bare in his bathtub. Try as hard as he might, self-control loses out, and Evan and his new friends indulge in the unexpected but ultimately much-welcomed fantasy.
This is about as far as the titillation and urgency goes, until this first climax, of sorts. Even in Knock Knock's reveal, how Genesis and Bel turn out to be more than something of an inconvenience–at first only overstaying their welcome with fixing an absurd amount of breakfast, to which a regretful Evan drives them back to their supposed house in the harsh light of day–then returning the next night to invade his home, tie him up, and hold him hostage while they choose to torture a man who had innocently enough, fallen right into their trap of luring married men to their fates.
Knock Knock, like Funny Games before it, offers the uneasy thrills of home invasion hostage, with the added attempt of a morally compelling story line to keep the thing moving forward. Unfortunately, the result falls flat, as the second and third acts feel like mostly retread territory of the ground that had been laid before it. Keanu as Evan takes an interesting turn as the victim role, but his parody-ready acting here makes the whole thing an even more eye-rolling endeavor. Oddly enough, this seems to make Knock Knock more enjoyable–and for a movie that feels almost insufferable to stand, it is much-needed relief.
Knock Knock opens in theaters today.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vGZWY5MFY0
Review: 'The Green Inferno'
If simple "political correctness" counts among the things that offend you, then director Eli Roth's latest midnight horror flick, The Green Inferno, a highly graphic gross-out side-show depicting a savage tribe dismemberment and cannibalism of youthful American high school students, may not be for you.
Set largely in the Amazonian jungle (which the film shoots impressively on location), The Green Inferno follows a group of collegiate activists aimed to protest human rights infractions by faceless, "evil," oil companies. Among them is beautiful and recently inspired Justine (Lorenza Izzo), an undergrad whose father serves as a United Nations heavy-weight, and who joins a protest group that shortly embarks on a third-world protest mission to bring awareness to human-rights violations. What is seen as a first act victory to their cause, successfully capturing video footage of chaining themselves to mechanical equipment amongst a bulldozed jungle terrain, leads to the real unexpected inciting incident to this film – a crash-land in the heart of unfamiliar and unsafe territory, amongst a very native and very dangerous tribe of Aboriginal people.
With special effects work from The Walking Dead's Gregory Nicotero, there is no shortage of or exploitation of queasy moments that will deter most and thrill others.
As expressed earlier, those that find offense with the subject matter of native tribal members being depicted as a very "other" sort of uncivilized people will certainly take issue with the depictions of this movie. Other audiences, those who may count themselves as Roth's most vociferous scare-savvy fans and ready for gut-spilling fun, will indeed take greater enjoyment here, through sickened groans and watching through fingers. With special effects work from The Walking Dead's Gregory Nicotero, there is no shortage of or exploitation of queasy moments that will deter most and thrill others.
Rounding out the rest of the story and cast are mysterious lead activist Alejandro (Ariel Levy), typical hot blonde Amy (Kirby Bliss Blanton), and pot-smoking comedic relief Lars (Daryl Sabara), who each play equally dull and familiar characters to this simple set-up; although they at least fill out each component of the story as is required to a humorous, watchable degree.
For a movie that makes its many unapologetic depictions of un-modernized cultures, gory and grotesque sequences depicting native tribe (who, in all painted skin, piercings, and features, evoke the authenticity of what one could believe to actually be), those looking for some small sliver of redemption will barely find it in it's final message – that industrialized capitalistic efforts are still responsible for encroaching on the land and living of these people.
The thing that makes The Green Inferno hard to pin down is its curious insight into what being kidnapped and helpless to another's total will-subjugating is as any person could be. While the impressively made The Green Inferno is a stirringly scary gross-out film, it's dumb and unstirring story should be one that is stepped to with caution.
The Green Inferno is in theaters Friday.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGGPTlrX_PE
Review: 'Digging For Fire'
Marriage, they say, takes work. Not the sort of literal, physically demanding work akin to back-breaking manual labor, but that of the emotionally demanding type; the resilient and persevering diligence that partners must work at to connect with their significant other. In indie-vet Joe Swanberg's latest film, Digging For Fire, however, both types of efforts are exhausted by a younger couple, ultimately revealing honest realizations that modern day marriage forces those involved to confront in an impressive and intimate exploration.
The young couple here consists of Lee (Rosemarie DeWitt) and Tim (Jake Johnson) – they, along with their young son Jude (in real life, Swanberg's own son), move in to the home of Lee's yoga student while on away on vacation. The home is big, complete with pool, tennis court, and Tim's discovery of a rusty revolver and bone (human?), stirring a wild fascination of what may be buried on the property.
Those familiar with Swanberg's work will know full-well going into this that the most rewarding offering in his work is the sharp level of insight into these specific sliced of Gen-Y life.
This curiosity only reveals a larger baggage that was also brought along – a checkbook that needs balancing, and further frustrations, which serves to splinter the couple even further, with Lee taking Jude to her parents' to enjoy a girls' weekend out, while Tim is left to complete the taxes, which turns into a call to his antics-driven friends, including the anarchic Ray (Sam Rockwell), best friend Phil (Mike Birbiglia) and the alluring Max (Brie Larson).
The easy metaphor and connection here, and what the title gets right at, in Digging For Fire, is that unwanted things can be discovered when the intention is to unearth to the bottom. Joe Johnson, credited as co-writer along with Swanberg, is obsessed in the digging up of the mountains, a sort of nervous tic to his real-world marriage anxieties, that ends up revealing more – a men's shoe, and ultimately, his own insecurities and acceptances, which proven poignant and thoughtful on the subject of marriage and with it, identity lost.
Those familiar with Swanberg's work will know full-well going into this that the most rewarding offering in his work is the sharp level of insight into these specific sliced of Gen-Y life. For this reviewer, a warmly woven and starkly honest look, comprising in a dually-affecting climax with arresting imagery, earns the film its praise alone. Digging For Fire is patient viewing, but mines a very endearing message that its lovely cast charms you into watching and reflecting on.
Digging For Fire is now playing in select theaters.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9OgBzdzEsY
Review: 'Mistress America'
Noah Baumbach's third latest film may also serve as the cap to a distinguishable trilogy of modernly romantic, lushly New York City pictures. Following 2012's Frances Ha and last year's While We're Young, the director returns to a familiar head-space to once again explore, praise, and ponder the peculiar aimless intellectual wanderers of Generation Y, in Mistress America.
Mistress America feels more like the sister film to Frances Ha than others, not particularly because the film is actually about a girl who becomes step-sisters with a very "Frances Halloway-like" character. Considering America was co-written by Baumbach and real-life girlfriend Greta Gerwig (who also co-wrote Frances Ha), the film circles back to a continued interest in the young, spirited, art type–this time, investigating the mind of a young undergrad coming to age identity in the internet age, so creative and cultured, and yet so incompetent and existentially clumsy.
'Mistress America' contains whip-smart intellectual musings and dialogue, further enhanced by a deft use of quick-cut editing to mine real laughs and poignancy.
Two characters share these qualities, but come at it from opposite sides. Relative newcomer Lola Kirke plays Tracy, an incoming Freshman Lit major with a fashionably off-beat beret and more creative writing ideas than friends. Her introduction to school is a lonely (yet hilarious) one, prompting her recently engaged mother to encourage her to meet up with her fiance's daughter, a whimsical near thirty-something New Yorker. Spontaneous Brooke (Gerwig) opens Tracy's eyes to a world of adventure, immediately embracing her new step-sister and taking her on a whirlwind of the city, backstage at a rock show and the trendiest of bars and parties, spurring the fascination and awe of Tracy, and inspiring her creative writing self to
What makes Mistress America so fun–and it really is, with a script whose dialogue shows how clearly Baumbach and Gerwig have their finger on this culture's hipster-pulsed zeitgeist–is how much fun the film wishes to have. As While We're Young similarly explored the self-aware character study of hipsters, America's Tracy, being all perceiving in her own right, the former film took a third act dive into blowing up the very identity hipsters. Tracey looks at Brooke with empathy. Brooke's intentions of opening a restaurant excite an encourage-able Tracy in in-present moments, yet is ultimately filtered through her own inspiration for creative writing, empathizing a person who's tragic romance is at both times invigorating and unsustainable.
Mistress America contains whip-smart intellectual musings and dialogue, further enhanced by a deft use of quick-cut editing to mine real laughs and poignancy.
84 minutes. 'Mistress America' is now playing in select cities.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6z8MCW16uZY
Review: 'The Diary of a Teenage Girl'
Although the 70s' set The Diary of a Teenage Girl is adapted from a young adult novel, parents and children alike won't find commonalities with similar genre books-turned-big screen films, such books as The Perks of Being a Wallflower or The Fault in Our Stars, to the box office. A point which must pride screenwriter and director Marielle Heller, who has infused great maturity and artistically adventurous exploration into this coming-of-age story revolving around a young girl's growth through her first sexual exploration (with her mother's boyfriend), which any audience goer would assume stays true to what is definitely a more mature, stark look at embarking on adult life through a youth's eyes.
If the initial thought of this title is of simply watching rote catalogued stories of high school age deviousness, it's a wild departure from that, both in terms of subject matter and emotional depth, which makes for a heartfelt story that audiences connect early on to and stay with through the end, a credit to the successful writing/directing combo of Heller and her creative team.
This youth-set, but still R-rated, story follows Minnie (Bel Powley), a young Robert Crumb-like cartoonist who uses her wide eyes to observe all of the pathetic disappointments of her party-heavy family and adults in her life, including her casually drug-taking mother Charlotte (Kristen Wiig) and her mother's somewhat younger dumb hunk of a boyfriend Monroe (Alexander Skarsgård). Strolling down a groovy-cool San Francisco City of decades past in the film's opening scene, Minnie's clever-beyond-her-years inner voice, captured in voice-over narration, speaks to her proud victory speech of "finally" losing her virginity. Girl, with a breakout performance from Powley as Minnie, successfully conveys the inevitable and ironic conflict of relative intelligence, smart in her inner circle, but wildly unprepared for the real world that waits before her.
Harkening visual spirit, the film's whimsicality largely channels the artistic flairs of the charming 500 Days of Summer.
Winnie conveys reasoned recollection of the inner-workings of her decision through narration that is revealed to be recorded on an old microphone to an old tape recorder, the "diary" that contains boxes of tapes (whether the original diary of the source novel was a tape recorder or just a standard pen and paper journal, Girl makes the best use out of Winnie's voice and spunky language). Her decision to sleep with Monroe, whose playboy-ish nature comes with a heart of innocence itself, reasons out all of Monroe's doofusness. Although the relations between the two would amount to certain legal action in this and this film's era, the decision and power is put in Winnie's court, and she "objectively" looks past his grosser behaviors to decide that he is to be the one. Monroe, with only a moment of hesitation, commits to bed her.
What makes Girl such a win is its full-bodied emotional journey beyond this rising action, tracking wonderfully with Minnie's own. Along the way of the film's first through second acts, those of Winnie and Monroe's consensual sexual relationship growing deeper feelings, Minnie still takes reflective pauses in her own world, captured through her cartoonist wonderment of Robert Crumb-like sketches that come to life in the film itself. The film's whimsicality largely channels the artistic flairs of the charming 500 Days of Summer harkening the same artistic spirits.
Girl moves through the spurts of her and Monroe's relationship, but when that comes to bore her, the film moves to stark and harsh realities, leading to homeless living and hard-drug world flirtations. It's in this third act that the film collects all of its earned lessons that Winnie, ever the headstrong girl who thought she knew how to handle her interpretation of life, comes crashing down. As The Diary of a Teenage Girl ultimately shows, it's the story of how naive decisions serve to teach the most important life lessons.
The Diary of a Teenage Girl opens limited today.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9LNsSjnqBM