Movies including horror films have a long track record of
following up a hit with a what-were-you-thinking sequel. How it begins the
writer sold the rights to the movie studio. Which brought someone else in to rewrite
it. Then they give it to a producer who finds a director, costume and set
designers, cast and with someone else editing the hours of chaos down to a
finished product. If the initial project becomes successful enough to warrant a
sequel, everyone looks at each other with a ‘how the hell did we pull that off’
look. Studio green lights a sequel. But instead of using the same team that
made great movie, the coked-up studio heads are like we can bring anyone in,
pay them less, and make even more money. Well, it doesn’t normally work out. Usually
the sequel stinks. Well, everyone is back in Black Phone 2, it’s a great follow
up film to the original.
The pacing is brisk, even when it slows down there’s a sense
something is going to happen. The cinematography is crisp, beautiful even at
night or the dream sequences. It’s just perfect. No one likes a film that’s
filmed so dark you can’t make out the actors or what’s going on. Which pairs
well with the story. It also does the eighties how they really were. Payphones,
wood paneling, boxy TV’s, boxier cars, and drab clothes. Pay phones are so
creepy, I saw one in Redwood national forest standing lonely at the edge of an
empty parking lot covers in pine needles. Was creepier than the Gingerbread
house in Hansel and Gretel. It was so weird I took a picture of it. But a pay
phone ringing is chilling (unless you were a drug dealer in the eighties).
Movies nowadays have someone cell phone ring, its not the same. Cell phone ring
all the time. Now a payphone ringing you know something is wrong.
Ethan Hawke has a nak for being in movies that don’t seem
would be very good. Who wants to see a film about a kid trapped in the basement
with an old phone? Who wants to see a movie about a 1950’s New England boys’ boarding
school where they read poetry? Who wants to see a movie of a wealthy family
sitting at home for the night? It never seems like it would be a good movie,
but everything he is in is great. And he continues that with BP2.
The whole cast was fun to see back. There are a couple new characters.
Kinda of make you wonder if they are going to do a third one. Most of the loose
ends were tied up. Not sure if they will get Ethan Hawke back. But some studio
guy is going to slap the grabbers mask on some unknown actor and before you
know it we will have Black Phone 8: Grabber Takes Manhattan.
If you don’t know, don’t watch. On a scale of one to ten,
this rates a shit ton of gore on the not-for-you scale, this is a gross out
contest between Damien Leone and the world. And the world is calling uncle. This
film starts out slow if not a little discombobulated. Showing what Art the Demoniac
Clown has been up to for the last five years. But once the movie starts choppin
it goes fast. Damien has said maybe we get a part four but that might be it. He
has to have some offers to direct some bigger movie where the studios will
actually give him a budget. Even if part four is the ‘last one’ I would bet anything
that ten, fifteen, twenty years from now Damien will circle back to this character,
or give someone else permission to run with it. If it’s someone else though it
might be more like forty years…. Creative people don’t trust other people with their
characters unless they know they’re done with them. Kind of like Don Coscarelli
did with Tall Man. ‘Phantasm: Ravager’ (2016) saw this awesome franchise go out
with a whimper. David Hartman didn’t seem to have a vision for it. The only
good parts of this movie are the end credits. Originally meant as a web series,
remember those (neither do I)? They were a thing at the dawn of the interweb.
Sienna is once again played by Lauren LaVera. Horror movies
shoots some actresses to stardom, while others are ignored. Given the amount to
screen time, actual acting she does, then goes toe to nose with Art for a drag
down all the way to hell fight, she deserves credit! After Terrifier 2 took off,
making ten million on a $250,000 budget, she was the natural one of the cast to
really benefit. Like Bianca Bradley from the Wormwood Series (please make
another one!), Suzanne Snyder from ‘Night of the Living Dead 2’ (1988), Karoline
Brandt in ‘Skinned Deep’ (2004) maybe it wasn’t meant to be. Hoping she comes
back for part four.
Art the Clown, the giddy Freddy Kruger if he was a mime
clown, is played to perfection by David Howard Thornton. Triva, he played The
Joker in a couple episodes of ‘Nightwing: Escalation’ (2016) and Terrifier 3
just had a bigger weekend box office than Joker 2. Art is a nice change of pace
from other horror icons. He is over the top playful, then he busts out the
knives. The shock to the watcher’s system is real. Spoiler alert, Art is one
clown that likes to play with his food.
Mr. Leone for T4 please bring back Art’s mini-me, Catherine
Corcoran (don’t care she’s dead, figure it out), keep the cameo’s coming (loved
the old school horror actors popping up), I think the Easter Bunny should get
the same treatment you gave Santa this go around (if you need ideas see Lobo, Paramilitary
Christmas Special 1991) the pastel colors dripping with blood would be a sight.
Brilliant Movie! Haters just don’t understand. There
were so many clues. Going to touch on some spoilers, (kind of) will give warning
not to read past a certain point till after you watch the movie. It’s not what
you would expect. But it's what the character deserves and they have been dropping
clues. So, fanboys should have known.
So, what happens to people who go through a public fiasco.
Sometimes through just a momentary mental break. Or just the right place at the
right time, or more often the wrong place at the wrong time. More so now than
ever, people get filmed and put on blast when clearly, they are going through
something traumatic. What happens after someone gets caught on video something unintentionally
bad, funny, iconic, or ironic. Everyone expects more of the same. Another sound
bite, or another amazing feat, or another murder. Truth is usually gets tiring
quick. The book ‘On the Road’ by Jack Kerouac immortalized Neal Cassady in the
personification of Dean Moriarty. Based on a couple of road trips over just a
few years at the end it’s clear Kerouac is tired of Cassady and kind of paints
him as a loser. Of course, the book opened up doors and everyone wanted to get to
know this fast talker that had ideas, questions, and endless thirst for
adventure. Reading about his later adventures his relationships are short lived
too. But those doors opened up to famous authors. Which is cool, but who was he;
A lewd drunk yelling at cops just being a dick, serial womanizer, a rambling druggie? Everyone hoped
to meet the non-conformist James Dean rebel portrayed in the beginning of ‘On the
Road’.
The Symbionese Liberation Army who famously kidnapped Patty Hearst.
Several of the members on the run from police knocked on a random door in
Berkley California. The people living there agreed to take them in expecting
mind opening conversation. But were shocked on how normal they were. These idyllical
rebels that were all over television had nothing really to say. It’s always said
‘never meet your heroes’ they will never live up to expectations. Joker 2 (while
not a hero) we get to know him a little too well.
According to Wikipedia, Folie à deux is “Shared Psychosis”. It begs to wonder
how much of the movie is only Arthur Fleck’s aka ‘The Joker’ (Joaquin Phoenix)
or Lee Quinzel’s, not the Harley, (Lady Gaga)(who I feel was just playing a slightly different version of herself) heads? Author is very frail and
withdrawn waiting for trail. Mercilessly berated by the guards, one brilliantly
played by Brendan Gleeson. Who just have the same taunts every day (type of guy who laughs at his own jokes). He seems
haunted by his life, the things he’s endured. Lady Gaga plays a follow inmate at
Arkham who catches the Jokers eye. Singing ensues, a lot of singing, with a French
vibe, looking at you Lady Gaga….. The singing goes on, after the point is made,
to the level of obnoxious. With a run time of two hours and eighteen minutes trimming
the songs a little bit would have made the movie flow better. Over all, the depiction
is Arthur is a nobody (with clear mental struggles) who someone handed a gun to and immediately kills some
people. Could have easily shot himself in the eyeball looking down the barrel to
see if it was loaded. People hoping to see a movie with an epic show down with
Batman, you haven’t been paying attention. This movie is about the aftermath of
Arthurs thirty seconds of fame.
SPOILERS,
DO NOT READ UNTIL YOU WATCH THE MOVIE!
SPOILERS, DO NOT READ UNTIL YOU WATCH THE MOVIE!
SPOILERS, DO NOT READ UNTIL YOU WATCH THE MOVIE!
SPOILERS, DO NOT READ UNTIL YOU WATCH THE MOVIE!
SPOILERS, DO NOT READ UNTIL YOU WATCH THE MOVIE!
SPOILERS, DO NOT READ UNTIL YOU WATCH THE MOVIE!
Clues your not watching the movie you think;
This Joker’s name is Arthur Fleck.
The Joker’s name we know from the comic book is Jack Oswald
White or Jack Napier in the movies.
In one of the Animations Joker says there was someone else
using the name before him.
Joker is described as a disfigured, criminal mastermind.
Hardly fits Arthur.
In the first movie we see Thomas Wayne and a young Bruce
Wayne. Arthur is already in his forties. It would be hard for a sixty-year-old
to be fighting Batman.
In this movie he admits to killing six people. It is
strongly implied he killed the physiatrist (walking down the hall at the end
with blood-soaked shoes) which would have been seven. Some things shown in the
movie he just imagined.
It seems like most of his relationship with Lee Quinzel is
in his head, like an imaginary friend. So, the folie à
deux is a shared psychosis with his imaginary friend. Some of the scenes don’t
make sense that she’s there. Most likely the limited relationship they had was
greatly expanded in Arthur’s head due to loneliness and mental health. Lee is just a lonely rich girl who wants revenge or attention from her daddy by publicly having a relationship with a famous criminal.
This Joker was some poor schmuks’ thirty
seconds of fame and was only a footnote in Gotham’s seedy history. In the time
period Batman is lurking in the shadows no one remembers this Joker.
Almost everyone thought they were
watching a different movie.
Was not expecting a gory horror movie. Demi Moore, Dennis
Quaid, and Margaret Qualley one would expect more of a drama or an attempt at a
lame horror movie that’s going to be kind of boring. They don’t waste a lot of
time in the beginning with character development, just get down into the
madness. This is a well-earned R rating. For main stream actors it’s surprising
how hard this R is.
A role that has to hit close to home for Demi Moore and most
actresses in Hollywood. Her character an aging celebrity, in a sleezy town fixated
on beauty, trying to hang-on and remain relevant. To be fair Demi has been
acting non-stop since the 80’s. But she delivers a brutal performance that is
shocking. I don’t think there is another actress that could play this role, or
would want to. For a person who all their life has built and maintained this glamourous
image the viewer gets utterly blindsided by her role. Demi does all the heavy
lifting and makes this movie. Can’t think of any other actress except Charlize
Theron in Monster (2003) that has so drastically laid it all out there in the
most unflattering way.
Dennis Quaid has always been one of those guys people like
to watch on the screen. He usually doesn’t go to far from the nice guy persona.
He goes full Hollywood Sleaze here. It fun watching him embrace the role. Dennis
has probably less than two minutes of screen time but he makes it memorable. Margaret
Qualley plays the younger, hotter, up and coming Sue. The only role I’d
previously seen her in is Maid (2021) which she played a dumpy looking young mother.
The make-up and costume people in the Maid deserve an award. Roles like
Margaret plays in this movie have been few since the me too movement. Her role of Sue is brutally objectified in the beginning of the film. I thought I was watching a French
movie or something.
There is a scene where Sue has on star shaped earrings. The
second I saw this it reminded me of Revenge (2017), a movie I haven’t seen in
seven years. Looking up the movie, it’s the same director Coralie Fargeat. Also,
in a seen it shows a grotesque knee giving flashbacks to the Fly (1986) which
is one of the movies Coralie said influenced her. If you haven’t seen Revenge, it’s
a great movie, go check it out. Hopefully some studios or Netflix gives her a
bunch of money to make more films and we don’t have to wait another seven years
to hear from Ms. Fareat again.
One of the critiques I had of Revenge was it was too long at
one hour forty-eight minutes. Just really the last scene dragged out. I miss
editors and constraints of old media, in a new digital media world (which space is free) the length of a reel is no longer a constraint, bound by seconds and cost (nor the size of the watcher’s bladder) not fitting an article to a small
corner on the page everything is just too long for my popcorn brain. It’s a
feeling content creators stretch everything out as much as possible (I get it, that’s
how you get paid) but as a consumer its less enjoyable. Steven king was forced
to edit the Stand book down by 600 pages. I’ve read the original version; it is
long and boring. Newspaper articles were short and sweet, written so the average
fifth grader could understand it. Now I get to page five of an article I don’t
remember who Joe is or why I’m reading an article about him. Substance is two
hours and twenty-one minutes. The whole final act goes past what felt like the
dramatic end to set up a couple gag shots. The French maybe don’t have end
credit scenes? Snippets of this final act would play well during the end credits.
Before Games of Thrones and after Lord of the Rings where
was The Chronicles of Prydain. Every Nerd in the seventies read this series
before Lord of the Rings. Following the rise of Taran, the lowly pig keeper, In
to the Chaos of the princesses, wizards, swords and the horned King. Disney
purchased the rights fairly quickly. Then used that carrot to hire the next
generation animation talent. Which they did, should have set up Disney for
domination for the next generation.
Unfortunately, with Walt Disney’s passing The Nine Old Men
were left running the show. Walt was the visionary, extremely talented, and
driving force that was Disney. The Nine Old Men were his minions, carrying out
the creative out pouring. Talented in their own right but they weren’t the Disney
magic. They also were used to having a wonderful advantage of being the only
game in town in several ways. Not much competition for animation movies,
children’s entertainment or color. Where else could one see vibrant colors? By
the time work started on The Black Caldron they were well aged. The Nine Old
men notably all worked on ‘Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs’ 1937. Fast forward
50 years they were past their creative prime. It might be unfair and even
blasphemy to say such things. But they didn’t grow up with Black Caldron and by
all accounts the attempts at bringing the characters to animation life were
subpar to the next generation that was brought in to work on this movie. In
reality no one was running the show over the course of almost twenty years on
this project, all sorts of people were signing off on stories, character
development, ideas, technology, what format to use that made little sense. And
no one seemed to remember why or who made these decisions.
Don Bluth left due to creative signation, taking a number of
animators with him, had a string of hits like The Secret of NIMH, An American
Tail, The Land Before time before having financial problems do to several
distributors and financial backers pulling out at the worst moment. John
Lasseter was let go from Disney for pushing computer Animation. He ended up
over at Pixar, directing Toy Story. Tim Burton who creating some amazing
artwork that was turned down also left, ending up a house hold name just a few
years later.
This movie sort of became the changing of the guard at
Disney. In came Michael Eisner and Roy E Disney changing the random decisions
being made by anyone that walked by, lifted the ban on sequels, having screen
plays written instead of a couple vague story boards (worked with simple fairy
tales) less so with a movie spanning over 5 books with a cast of 30 characters,
focusing on more grown-up entertainment.
The Black Cauldron is an enjoyable movie. Stripped down to a
few characters, having a boy, girl, black caldron and the Horned King. The
animation is very Disney, the story moves quickly due to trying to fit so many
elements of the first two books. While it fails to capture the saga, it does
unfold a good little movie. If marketed better and released in the mid
seventies instead of a decade late it could have been a decent hit. Being stuck
in development and trying to use outdated format with several methods that
didn’t add much or work out that added to a ballooned budget of 44 million. The
Great Mouse Detective that was release one year later had a budget of 14
million was considered a hit with a million less dollar opening weekend.
First there was George Romero, then Lloyd Kaufman followed
by Fred Olen Ray, backing Sam Raimi. Now there is Rickey Bird. It doesn’t
matter how woke or how beta society becomes there will always be lonely, deviant
teenage boys who want to see blood, broads, and boobs. NZG delivers that.
Starring the very naked and beautiful Nicole Cinaglia in the
title role. She came here to get naked and kill zombies with a chainsaw. And
she’s a strong powerful modern female so she can do both. Lucky us! D.T. Carney
is chasing the money she’s carrying. Luck for us he’s a dude so he can’t
multi-task, so he is fully clothed for a freezing winter night. And his aim isn’t
much better than a storm trooper. Normally a chainsaw verses gun battle is
kinda one sided. A beretta holds nine, and a chainsaw…….. I wonder how many zombies
she gets per gallon?
Special Effects are handled by Nick Reisinger. There are
several close-up shots of the zombies and things being squished, popped with
stuff coming out that are phenomenal. This isn’t badly lit, quick fly by,
shapeless blobs that aren’t scary. But, full on, ‘that was awesome’, let’s see
it again!
NZGiB is a fun little movie to watch in a dark place, away
from your mother.First rule of NZG is
don’t talk about it or they will make you talk to a professional mental health
specialist. God, definitely don’t post about it or you will wind up in Facebook
jail. Quietly wait in your lair for this precious series to spawn
another bloody disgusting, spartially clothed, two stroke fumed episode.
Low key, suttle, unassuming could be used to describe this
film. From these words one might think it’s not worth watching. But these are
the qualities that make it so good. And are maddening to any horror fan or
director. So simple and under the radar. Most probably only checked it out for
the fantastic poster and or Ethan Hawk. Why aren’t more horror movies like this
not made?
Nothing wrong with the horrifically gawdy over the top wide
release films. But for true horror fans we tend to enjoy things, with feeling,
that feeling of the hair raising up on the back of your necks, jumping out of
the seat, having to look away from the impending doom, yelling at the
characters who want to check out noise in the basement. People say they love
horror and they list Stephen King and Evil Dead. But I want to talk to people
who love Peter Struab, Jack Ketchum, Robert Bloch, Dan Simmons, watch the films
‘The Host’ (2006), ‘Touch of Evil’ (1958), ‘Night Moves’ (1975), ‘It Follows’
(2014). Anyone could have made this movie on a shoe string budget. Some kids
using an iPhone or camcorder. Or some college students in Michigan who hit up
everyone they know for money to make a low budget horror film. Let all of us fans
agree Evil Dead and Stephen King are the shit and talk about the others.
It added an extra layer of creepy that this neighborhood is
right up the street from where I currently live. The film is a horror story
before the supernatural comes a knocking. The hero has no idea why he is doing
all these random things to escape and absolutely maddening he doesn’t stick to
one strategy. And the Grabber is playing his own little games that only make
sense to him. The Grabber is here to punish naughty boys and chew bubble gum,
he’s all out of gum.
Ethan Hawke is just one of those actors that keeps showing
in good movies. He has been a few big movies, but repeatedly finds good movies
to be in. Mr. Hawke could be thought of a horror actor as of late but looking
at his IMDB page he has been in all types of movies, indies and takes
supporting rolls. Seeing interviews with actors on how all the good rolls dried
up or they got type casted. But Ethan has avoided this fate, been all over the
place for the better part of 40 years staring in big studio pictures and low
budget indies. It looks like his Daughter Maya Hawke is going to take after her
dad. She already has 25 acting credits in four years.
A great story, that is going to spawn a prequal and a ton of
copy cats. It leaves a simple blue print on how to make a great movie. No need
for quick and witty dialog, big special effects budget, traveling around the
world for the perfect shot, tons of shooting locations, or make up. At the end
of the day anyone in the world could have shot this in their basement. Maybe
the production quality and acting wouldn’t be as good. At the same time it’s
not that easy to come up with a great idea, write it into a screen play, and
transfer that on to film. Writers Joe Hill (son of Stephen King), Scott
Derrickson, and Robert Carhill, and a mask designed by Tom Savini, just make it
look so easy here.
