Remember that infamous meeting between James Comey and Donald Trump, early on in his administration, in which Trump flat-out asked Comey to "pledge his loyalty" to him? I know, it seems like a lifetime ago, in this presidency seemingly plagued by a new scandal every week- if not nearly every day at this point- but that was undeniably one of the first big ones. With that revelation, what was already readily apparent to those in the know became public knowledge: America had just picked a wanna-be gangster to lead the country.
Now, imagine if Trump had asked everyone in America to pledge their loyalty to him by signing an "oath." Signing it wasn't a requirement- this is still the "land of the free," after all- but if you DIDN'T sign it, you better believe it was duly noted, and you were immediately put on a "list." A list that marked you as someone Trump's government might need to "keep an eye on" and perhaps even question to your face, should you go the extra mile and do something...unsavory, shall we say?
That, in a nutshell, is the basic premise of The Oath, a timely, highly political black comedy film that marks the directorial debut of comedic actor Ike Barinholtz, of TV's The Mindy Project, Blockers and the Neighbors series. Barinholtz also wrote, produced and stars in the film, which features fellow comedic actor, Tiffany Haddish, of Girls Trip and Keanu fame, as his character's long-suffering wife. To his credit, Barinholtz makes his uber-liberal character a bit of a dick, so that, while it's plainly obvious where he stands politically, it doesn't necessarily make him in the right all of the time, either.
The set up is this: one day, right around Thanksgiving, the current administration- the President himself is never named- announces that it will be issuing a voluntary "oath" to be signed by every American that wishes to do so that simply affirms one's commitment to one's country. Everyone has a good year and some change to mull it over, but the deadline is Black Friday, slightly over a year from when the movie begins. There will be no repercussions for not signing, it is said, but that is soon proved to not necessarily be the case when certain conscientious objectors (including actor Seth Rogen!) seem to have fallen off the Earth when they refused to sign it.
Perhaps needless to say, these troubling disappearances lead a lot of people that would have ordinarily objected to such a thing to sign it, primarily out of self-preservation, whether of themselves or their families. Not so Chris (Barinholtz) and his wife Kai (Haddish), who hold firm to their beliefs, in spite of the possible effects it may have on their family.
Said family includes daughter Hardy (Priah Ferguson, aka Erica of Stranger Things); Chris' brother, Pat (Barinholtz' real brother, Jon, of Superstore); sister Alice (Carrie Brownstein, of alt-rockers Sleater-Kinney and Portlandia fame) and his parents, mother Eleanor (former SNL cast-member Nora Dunn) and father Hank (Chris Ellis, Transformers, Armageddon), all of whom are staying over at his house for Thanksgiving.
Also along for the ride are Alice's husband, Clark (Jay Duplass, also of The Mindy Project), who is deathly ill and spends most of the film sick in bed, at least until one key moment late in the movie; and Pat's latest girlfriend, Abbie (Meredith Hagner, TV's Search Party, Younger)- or is that Katie?- who is on the conservative side and has dragged the formerly rebellious Pat along that path with her, much to Chris' chagrin.
Despite mother Eleanor's best efforts to keep politics out of the conversation, in an attempt to keep things civil for Thanksgiving, they bubble up anyway, especially as word gets out that the President is responsible for the military gunning down some protestors who object to signing the oath. Horrified, Chris voices his own objections, only to find out that most everyone at the table has signed the oath. Things quickly go downhill from there, and eventually Chris sulks off to his room, Thanksgiving officially having fallen apart.
The next day, on Black Friday, it's the deadline, and there comes a knock on the door. It's two members of the so-called CPU, a governmental agency sent to investigate anyone who hasn't signed the oath, especially if they're reported as being trouble-makers. It seems that someone in the house has done just that, which, as you might guess, causes Chris to turn on his family even further.
This, in turn, leads to a confrontational showdown with the agents, the antagonistic Mason (Billy Magnussen, TV's Get Shorty, Maniac), and the more reasonable Peter (John Cho, of the Star Trek and Harold & Kumar franchises), during which things go decidedly off the rails. Will Chris be able to emerge relatively unscathed, or will he have to resort to more violent means? You can probably guess the answer from his disheveled appearance on most of the film's posters, as seen above.
The Oath definitely walks a fine line between scarily believable to completely over-the-top, and that oddball tone may not sit well with some expecting a more light-hearted comedy, given the presence of the normally genial Haddish. Light-hearted, this is not. What it is, is a bit heavy-handed at times, but given the times we're living in at the moment, also not completely out of the realm of possibility, either. Indeed, as many of you might know, as I write this, civilian protesters in China are indeed at war with their own government, and a lot of that has to do with civil rights.
Meanwhile, in addition to the above incident I cited at the beginning of the article, the whole "oath" thing isn't as far-fetched as it might seem to some. Indeed, there are two particular historical incidents that serve as some precedent to what happens in this movie. In 1947, President Truman signed an executive order that made government employees swear that they were not involved in any "subversive" groups (a la the Communist Party) or engaged in anything "unseemly," i.e. homosexuality. (He did have his good points, as seen above and just below.)
Then, again, in 1950, the Levering Act, required state employees in California, of all places, to sign an oath that they were not communists or members of any subversive group. Those who didn't were fired- though, in time, and after years of legal wrangling, most of them got their jobs back after the oath was deemed unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. It's sort of ironic that our current President, who is also big on loyalty pledges, is an acknowledged supporter of Putin and his Communist regime, leading some of his supporters to wear shirts that proudly proclaim: "Better Communist than Democrat."
I imagine Truman and Reagan alike would turn over in their graves to see what the Republican Party has become since their day. Whatever happened to the so-called "Evil Empire"? It's hard to reconcile all this bending over backwards by the Republicans as of late to disavow Russian's proven meddling in our elections with the reality of the situation. I'm sure Putin is laughing all the way to the bank, as he uses us to launder all his dirty money.
That said, one thing I really liked about The Oath is that it doesn't shy away from painting Chris as a total asshole, who claims to be all high and mighty and the voice of reason, but is actually the most unreasonable of all the characters in the movie. It's not that he's wrong about certain things, it's that he can't resist taking things too far, much as many liberals do IRL, such as when he labels his own brother a racist, simply because he's not a fan of comedian Chris Rock.
It's precisely this sort of high-and-mighty, snap judgment declarations that make conservatives hate most liberals, and I can't say I blame them. Truth be told, I'm about as sick of all the SJW morons out there as I am of all the fascist-leaning idiots on the right. Whatever happened to meeting someone in the middle? And therein lies the problem- there is no "middle" anymore. And that includes the middle class, which have all but died out, thanks to all the rich hoarding their wealth- "trickle down economy," my ass.
No doubt about it, we live in a divided country, and The Oath is one of those movies we'll show to people on down the line, when we're asked what it was like to live through what we're living through at the moment. Yes, it's obviously over the top- it's a movie, after all- but it's also not too far from the truth, either. Oftentimes movies are just heightened versions of reality, anyway, and this film is no exception. It's basically the political black comedy equivalent of one of those home invasion horror flicks, a la The Purge or Funny Games.
That said, The Oath isn't particularly funny, per se, which isn't to say it's bad, just a comedy that lands more on the dark end of the genre than the lighter side. If anything, I can see where conservatives and liberals alike would see a lot of this as no laughing matter, but rather, as a perfect representation of what's wrong with America at the moment. Ironically, the problem is, to quote our highly divisive President, on "both sides," as it were.
Thankfully, I dodged a bullet at my family's recent Thanksgiving celebration, as the known rabble-rousers on the MAGA end weren't even invited, in an effort to nip things in the bud before they even began. Such was not the case last year, which I thankfully missed, but with the patriarch of the family ill, and it being his house the festivities are traditionally thrown in, who can blame him for wanting to avoid that sort of clashing?
Apparently, last year, one of said offenders proudly hung an autographed photo of Trump on the facade of the house for everyone to see when they arrived- of a house that wasn't even his, mind you- in an effort to get the "snowflakes" riled up. My mom said he was lucky she didn't have a dart to throw at it, lol. 😂 Gotta love mom. Anyway, it did the trick, and sure enough, arguments abounded all around. Not so this year, thank God.
Now, one could say that maybe us liberals shouldn't have such thin skin and take the bait, and they're absolutely right, but that doesn't excuse someone deliberately provoking them, either. I think it's high time both sides stop "poking the bear," as it were, and that includes, as shown in the movie, so readily calling everyone that supports Trump a "Nazi." I mean, I don't get it, to be sure, but is everyone that supports Trump really a racist, sexist, xenophobic scumbag?
Okay, a lot of them probably are at this point, what with the impeachment hearings having finally shaved off what few sensible people were still wholeheartedly supporting the (not my) President. But, given how much in the bubble a lot of people are- once again, on "both sides"- even there, it's kind of understandable to a point. After all, if you get all your information from a prejudiced source, you're going to be subject to a LOT of misinformation. (Looking at you, FOX.)
It reminds me of an interview I saw with an older woman who was legitimately surprised at a Town Hall meeting to see that so many people thought Trump was a criminal that lied and committed bribery. It was at that point I realized, if you get all your info from a flawed source, then of course you'd be surprised by that. In other words, it's not that some of these people are bad, they're just misinformed. Of course, a lot of them would probably say that I'm the one that's misinformed, but yeah, getting kind of hard to make that argument anymore.
So, to that end, The Oath kind of serves as a cautionary tale. As in: you think things are bad now? Well, look at how much worse they COULD be. Hopefully, it won't come to the likes of what we see here, but you never know. That's why it's up to us to find some common ground, where we can all meet in the middle, as much of an uphill battle as that may seem. I get how hard it can be to do that, but we have to try, or else all may be lost, and I can't imagine anyone, liberal or conservative, wants that.
Besides, Mother Earth may take care of that all on her own. That's what happens when we take our eye off the ball of what we should really be focusing on. Politics seem like a trifle when it comes to our very environment self-destructing, much less when we could have done something about it- to say nothing of us being the cause in the first place.
The Oath isn't a perfect movie, by any means. Like I said, it often is its own worst enemy- much like the current President- in that, even when he has some good points, the main character is often insufferable. At the same time, some of the other characters are often idiotic as well, or have their heads completely in the sand. The movie is too real to be truly funny, and to over-the-top to be completely believable.
As such, it may divide viewers on both party lines. But that seems about right at this point in time, doesn't it? Until we can rectify and resolve our differences, The Oath is as good as a portrait of the State of our dis-Union as any film I've seen lately.
I say check it out, but tread carefully, depending on what side of the fence you're on- or who you watch it with- you might just find that the problem isn't with the other side, but your own.
Black Friday, indeed... 😜😱
Author's Note: So, it was looking like I was going to have a low-key Thanksgiving this year, as my immediate family was planning on forgoing the annual out-of-town sojourn to the country, in favor of keeping things close to home and revolving around the immediate family- not in the least because it was looking like even my nieces wouldn't be involved, having opted to spend their holidays out of town, being as how they're in college now.
However, word got around that a member of our family might not be around much longer, and that this may well be the last Thanksgiving of its kind, as it was his home in which he'd hosted the annual get-together. Given that, most everyone is going, including ourselves, which means that I will be gone for the next few days, and won't have much, if any computer access. That, in turn, means I won't be able to do the last few Thanksgiving thrillers I had planned.
TBH, only two out of three of my proposed selections were properly Thanksgiving-related, and one of those is more of a comedy than a thriller, so it's probably just as well. Besides, what would Thanksgiving be without a few leftovers? I might end up doing one of them after the holiday- probably the one that's not strictly Thanksgiving-related, for obvious reasons- but I think I'll hold off on the other ones until next year, given that I didn't have that many to choose from in the first place.
In the meantime, here's a quick look at some of the stuff I've been watching that isn't holiday-related. See you on the other side of Thanksgiving, and try not to kill those MAGA hat-wearing relatives that keep insisting our current president is legitimate, in spite of the overwhelming evidence to the contrary! 😈
I'm a sucker for a teen comedy, but it's been a hot minute since the last really good one, which was probably either The Duff or The Edge of Seventeen, whichever came last. Well, there's a new modern-day classic teen flick in town, and it's a great one: Booksmart. I don't always pay attention to hype, but this is the rare film to actually live up to it, completely earning its reputation as one of the good ones.
Actress Olivia Wilde (TV's The O.C. & House), makes her film directing debut here, from a first-rate script by four very funny ladies: Emily Halpern (TV's Good Girls, Black-ish), Sarah Haskins (ditto), Susanna Fogel (who wrote and directed the underrated The Spy Who Dumped Me) and Katie Silberman (Isn't It Romantic, Hot Pursuit).
Usually, when I see over two names listed as scriptwriters, I get a little nervous, as it typically means the script went through a lot of rewrites and ended up being a film written by committee- as in Hollywood got a little TOO involved- but not so here. If anything, it plays like certain people were assigned to certain aspects of the story, to make sure they were all up to snuff.
And indeed they are. The fantastic end result is the rare teen movie to come at things from completely different angles that one might not expect. For instance, the two leads are hardly your typical ones- in addition to both being female, a rarity unto itself in Hollywood, they're also, as the title implies, very intelligent, down-to-earth ladies. What they aren't is very self-aware. On a certain level, they're well aware that they don't really fit in, and that everyone thinks they're dorks, but what they don't realize is that they're at least partially to blame for that assessment.
In other words, in judging everyone else over the course of high school for the last four years, they've neglected to realize that they weren't fitting in not because they were nerds, but because they never even bothered to put forth the effort in the first place, never dreaming they ever would if they had tried.
When one of the girls discovers that, after putting her social life on the back-burner in favor of getting good grades, and thus, getting into the best schools, that it was all for naught, as seemingly EVERYONE, from the jocks to the stoners managed to get into a high-end school, all the while still maintaining a proper social life and, you know, having fun every once in a while, she has a meltdown and is determined to make up for lost time in one crazy night. That's basically it, plot-wise. But sometimes, that's all you need.
The end result is basically a female Superbad, but way smarter than that, as the title implies. It's refreshing to have two likable female leads, sure, but it's even more refreshing to have them be enormously flawed as these two are. By relegating themselves to their own little bubble, they've missed out on all the fun, and their misguided attempts to regain some of what they've lost is a great ride, with lots of quirky rest stops along the way, from a dorky rich kid's lonely yacht party to a murder-mystery soiree thrown by the drama outcasts, and finally, the big bash thrown by the most popular kids in school.
It's funny, fresh and exceptionally well-written, thus ensuring it will be one you want to revisit many times over the years to come, like all the best movies of this sort. In other words, it's a hang-out film, with people you actually want to hang out with for about 105 minutes. I especially loved how almost everybody had unexpected layers, and how they proved that there was more going on beneath the surface than one might think.
The leads, Kaitlyn Deaver (TV's Last Man Standing) and Beanie Feldstein (aka Jonah Hill's sister, from Lady Bird) are both great, and the lesser-known actors backing them up are just as good, with great scene-stealing turns from two pinch hitters, Jessica Williams (of 2 Dope Queens fame) as a hip teacher that not as together as she seems, just like the rest of the characters here; and Carrie Fisher's daughter, Billie Lourd (TV's Scream Queens, American Horror Story), who randomly pops up, Jennifer Lawrence in Silver Linings Playbook-style, to wreak amusing havoc wherever she goes.
This one will almost certainly make my Best of 2019 list, and quite possibly, my Best Teen Comedies of All-Time list to boot. (I'm currently revising and expanding that list for publication here at some point in 2020.) It's just that good. If you check out but one movie on this particular list that you haven't seen, make it this one. 😉
From teen dreams to teen screams, this Y/A adaption is yet another entry in the Dystopian teen subgenre first popularized in earnest by The Hunger Games series. I had planned to skip it, quite frankly, until I saw a fantastic indie called The Hate U Give not too long ago (for more on that one, see here), which featured a remarkable turn from actress Amandla Stenberg, herself a vet of THG- she was the ill-fated Rue in the first film. Stenberg is front and center in The Darkest Minds, which I chose to watch purely on the strength of her performance in Hate.
TBH, the film is a bit of a hodgepodge of Dystopian Y/A book and TV/film tropes- a little Hunger Games here, a little X-Men: First Class/The Gifted there and a smidge of the Divergent series and The Fifth Wave for good measure. So, to that end, it's not anything you haven't seen before and better. However, as I inferred, Stenberg is a really strong presence and she's the main focus of the film, so if you like her, you'll probably like this.
The story is basically this: a weird disease wipes out a good 90% of the world's children- take that, Hunger Games- and leaves what few that remain imbued with various superpowers of varied levels of danger to the rest of the world. Naturally, adults promptly flip out and place the majority of them in camps (hard not to see the parallels there, even though the book this was based on came before current events), where they imprison most of them and outright kill the ones they find the most dangerous, aka the "Oranges." They use the next levels down, the "Reds," to help keep the others in line- it's not really explained how they manage to control them.
After the prologue skips ahead several years, only two Oranges are left: Ruby (Stenberg) and Clancy (Patrick Gibson, The Tudors, The OA), the President's son, who is said to be "cured," but working with the government. With help from a renegade outfit known as "The League," a group of adults that help train children to fight and stand up for themselves against the adults that would force them into the aforementioned camps, Ruby is able to escape her camp before she is to be put to death and goes on the run.
When she has reason to believe that the League may not exactly be on the up and up, either, she runs away from them as well and teams up with a group of fellow runaway teens, led by Liam (Harris Dickinson, FX's Trust, Maleficent: Mistress of Evil), who are seeking safe haven with yet another group, "East River," led by the mysterious "Slip Kid," where kids are allowed to live as they please out in the open. But are they any more trustworthy than the other groups?
You can probably figure that out for yourself long before the big reveal, but suffice it to say that there's not a lot here that's unpredictable on the whole. It's watchable, to be sure, and Stenberg remains a formidable presence here- if not quite as riveting as she was in Hate- and she is nonetheless worth the price of admission: which for me was a free rental, so admittedly not much- but nothing I regretted spending my time on, overall, either.
So, yeah, nothing you haven't seen before, but well-executed and ably directed by female former animation director Jennifer Yuh Nelson, of the Kung Fu Panda series fame, so points for making it as well-done as this sort of thing can be. It's also not as gloomy as these things tend to be, at least once you get past the opening set-up, probably as a direct result of Nelson's colorful background in animation. She also story-boarded the entire film herself, which is rarely done these days.
Like I said, nothing earth-shattering, but worth the cost of a rental, I suppose. I wouldn't hold my breath for a sequel on this one, though, even though it's based on a series of successful books, as it tanked at the box office, big time, showing that maybe everyone's had enough of this sort of thing as well- we get enough child abuse from the current administration, no need to go and see more at the movies. 😝
Next up is the latest from acclaimed director Brian De Palma, of Carrie, Dressed to Kill, Scarface and The Untouchables fame. Since 1996's benchmark Mission Impossible, which launched a series that continues to this day, De Palma's work has admittedly been hit or miss, but I suppose you could say that about his entire career, really. For every bona fide classic, there's several others that are, at best a bit middling (Snake Eyes, Passion) or, at worst, total misfires (The Bonfires of the Vanities, Mission to Mars).
You can file Domino under the middling category- it's not bad, and certainly watchable, but nothing you haven't seen before, much like the aforementioned The Darkest Minds. It revolves around a Danish policeman (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Game of Thrones), who finds himself immersed in a terrorist plot after his partner is mortally wounded as a result of a dumb move on his part- leaving his gun at home.
Determined to catch the escaped terrorist who did it, he teams up with Alex (Carice van Houten, also of Thrones), who also has her reasons for revenge, to bring the terrorist down, while eventually realizing that there are much higher stakes involved than they initially realized- and an even scarier terrorist at work with much more nefarious plans than the one they're after.
So, what we have here is basically a condensed version of something you might see on the shows Homeland or Jack Ryan. At a mere ninety minutes- actually closer to about 80, if you discount the credits, it certainly doesn't overstay its welcome, but it also doesn't bring much new to the table, either. It's well-acted and executed, but predictable and kind of by-the-numbers, which is disconcerting, given De Palma's involvement.
Also, that score, by longtime De Palma associate Pino Donaggio is hella overbearing to an almost laughable degree, such as when De Palma highlights the proverbial "Chekhov's Gun"- here an actual gun- that sets the ill-fated events into motion. Even an idiot would get the significance of that moment the way it's filmed, but Donaggio really hammers it home in such a ludicrous way with his score, it had me thinking of the "Dramatic Chipmunk" for the first time in ages. (Okay, it's actually a prairie dog, but you know what I mean and if not: click here.)
Don't get me wrong, I love a lot of Donaggio's work (his score for Carrie is especially great), but yeah- this is not one of his finest hours, that's for sure. Or one of De Palma's, for that matter. A passable time-waster at best, but recommended for De Palma completists and hardcore GOT fans only. Otherwise, you've seen a lot better elsewhere. Better luck next time, guys. 😔
We end with a double dose of animation in the sequel department: Toy Story 4 and The Secret Life of Pets 2. The Toy Story franchise is rather remarkable in the sense that it's only gotten better in time, with each successive sequel seemingly topping its predecessor. Would the fourth time be the charm, in this case? Well, yes and no.
On the one hand, the level of creativity and inspiration remains exemplary, with several Rube Goldberg-esque scenes being particularly attention-grabbing, while the overall arching sentiment is as loving and sweetly melancholy and heart-tugging as ever. Here, it's the one-two-punch combination of "if you lack a friend, make one for yourself"- the main little girl who owns the toys isn't allowed to bring them to school, so she creates one from scratch, which subsequently becomes her favorite- and, the idea of what happens to the toys that don't have an owner to love them: do they take the high road and make the best of things, or do they turn to the dark side?
We see examples of the latter all over the movie: there's once-favored toy, Woody (Tom Hanks), who's found himself relegated to the closet, watching on in envy as his latest owner, Bonnie, opts to play with the other toys over himself; Bo Peep (Annie Potts), who was donated to charity years before, much to her crush Woody's dismay, who made a choice to stick with Andy rather than go with her; and the genuinely creepy Gabby Gabby (Christina Hendricks), who has grown wicked as a result of her voice box going dead, which has resulted in no one wanting to buy her from the antiques store in which she resides, much to her resentment.
Meanwhile, in terms of the former, Woody takes upon himself to take new "friend" Forky (Tony Hale) under his wing and teach him about the life of a toy, which he is not always inclined to follow. Indeed, Forky, which is literally a spork with some pipe cleaners glued to it, has an inner debate about whether he is "trash" (literally, as in he was meant to be used once, then thrown away) or a toy, since Bonnie transformed him into such by virtue of her imagination. In his struggles, Forky constantly tries to throw himself into the garbage rather than go along with all this toy business.
Eventually, Forky succeeds in escaping, which, in turn, leads Woody to go after him, with the two ending up in said antiques store and going up against Gabby Gabby and her nefarious ventriloquist dummies/guard dogs, which give Slappy from Goosebumps a run for the money in the creep-out department. In order to defeat her, Woody must, of course, get the help of his toy friends, as well as the unexpected return of old love, Bo Peep, who has been living on the outskirts of humanity for years since Woody last saw her, as she was never adopted.
In addition to Forky and Gabby, there's also some other new faces, notably Ducky (Keegan-Michael Key) and Bunny (Jordan Peele)- aka Key & Peele- who provide the lion's share of laughs in this new entry in the much-beloved franchise. Keanu Reeves, as the Canadian Evil Knievel knock-off Duke Caboom, is also pretty amusing, and don't miss the bonus feature about the cast and crew's affection for actual toys, in which Reeves utters the immortal line: "I lego'd alone." (Insert "Sad Keanu" meme here, lol.)
The end result is, at the very least, on par with the original, if perhaps a step down from the last two entries. This is the first entry that seems a bit hollow, at least in comparison to what came before. It just lacks the gut punch that hits you right in the feels of the last two movies. Still, the series remains remarkably consistent, and, as ever, manages to pull on the heartstrings as much as it makes you laugh. If you love this series and haven't seen this one yet, you won't be disappointed by what you find here, that's for sure...but it could be better.
As for Secret Life of Pets 2, it's basically more of the same from the original, but also remains a charmer, thanks in no small part to the endearing cast, in particular, the talents of Kevin Hart as Snowball, the rabbit and would-be superhero, and Jenny Slate as the adorable Gidget, a Pomeranian. Incredibly, the movie managed to recruit no less than the legendary Harrison Ford to voice a new character, Rooster, a sheepdog who teaches Max (Patton Oswalt) the virtues of farm life and how to be a real hero.
Meanwhile, the main plot revolves around the gang trying to help free an abused tiger cub from the circus. They succeed, but then the ringmaster, Sergei (Nick Kroll), gives chase, determined to get the cub back and get revenge on the wily pets that got the best of him, with the help of some scary wolves. In the meantime, the gang stashes the cub for safekeeping at their apartment building as they fight off Sergei and his thugs.
The film is perfectly fine and has its moments- Hart's rendition of, of all things, Desiigner's "Panda," had me howling with laughter, for instance- but, despite some early efforts at an emotional core, it's just not as high caliber as Disney's efforts, much less Pixar's. As such, it's a passable time-waster, but little else. Still, I could admittedly go another round with this particular crew, so I'm not complaining. Just don't go in expecting anything beyond a silly, fun trifle and you'll be content.
Well, that about does it for this installment of movie reviews- join me on the other side of Thanksgiving weekend for some more reviews, and a preview of what's to come for the rest of the year. As ever, thanks for reading!
Author's Note: First of all, my apologies for the erratic nature of my posts as of late- my schedule is getting bounced around a lot lately, and I never know when I'm going to have time to work on this blog. All I can say is that I do my best to post as regularly as possible under my given set of circumstances, and I will continue to do so.
I'd also be lying if I said I hadn't been watching a lot of the current impeachment inquiry, as we all have a lot at stake with what's been going on. It may well be the defining moment in my lifetime. If 9/11 struck at the heart of America, then what's been going on is no less than a battle for its soul. I'd like to think the citizens of America will do the right thing when it comes down to it- i.e. when it comes time to vote in 2020- but will Congress? Hard to say, but with what I'm seeing, it seems unlikely.
With that said, you came here for Thanksgiving terror, not politics, so on with the show...
So, as a matter of full disclosure, this isn't so much a Thanksgiving-themed horror flick as it is a brief period in the lives of a family occurring over the course of Halloween, Christmas, New Year's, Valentine's Day and the even-more-elusive horror holiday, Easter; as well as, yes, Thanksgiving.
So, technically, it's actually more of a general holiday horror flick that hits most of the biggies in one fell swoop. But given the dearth of Thanksgiving-themed horror out there, I'm going to allow it for our purposes. Besides, I've been wanting to write about it for some time now, so any excuse to bring this flick to people's attention is a good one, as far as I'm concerned.
In my humble opinion, Home Video may well be the most underrated "found footage" flick of all of them. I rarely hear it mentioned, unless it's within the context of someone putting together a list of the best Found Footage films, which I did myself once upon a time. (I'll try to reprint it here some time in the future, as that web site's domain has since expired.) I'll allow that may not be saying much insofar as some people are concerned, as it remains a pseudo-controversial subgenre that most consider an acquired taste.
This one, though, succeeds where most fail in that it tends to avoid a lot of the typical pitfalls of the subgenre. In this case, people actually do put down the camera at times, and yes, even stop filming here and there when something crazy happens. Yes, there a still a few scenes in which people continue to film where most sane people wouldn't, and a few questionable ones where, for no real good reason, characters film themselves doing "confessional"-style bits, a la Blair Witch Project.
But nonetheless, a genuine effort is made to shoot things in a way that is believable. Sometimes this is a bad thing, as it cuts off things abruptly just when they're starting to get interesting, but in most cases, it works like a charm, showing just enough to get the point across in a disturbing way without lingering longer than any sane person would. In others, the camera could have held on things for perhaps a few more moments to let things sink in a bit better. I'll allow that I occasionally had to rewind to catch things that were only seen in fleeting glimpses.
But once again, this is clearly done in a way that means to capture things in a realistic fashion, the same way one might perhaps do something like this if it were actually happening IRL. We can quibble all we want about whether or not the camera should have kept rolling a beat longer in some scenes, and less so in others, but such is the case with most Found Footage films, which is why it continues to divide a lot of audiences on whether it's truly effective or a particularly realistic way to tell a story.
Be that as it may, I maintain that this particular film is far and away one of the best examples of the oft-derided subgenre I've ever seen, bar none, and that, if you've never seen it, whether you're a fan of this sort of thing or not, it may well be one of the exceptions to the rule that Found Footage can still work, if adopted in the right way and applied logically to a particular kind of story.
In this case, it's just what the title Home Video implies: a home video recording of a family, which, this being a horror film, is in disarray at this particular moment in time. Basically, the premise is that there is something really off about the main married couple's kids, something so off that they purposefully moved out of the city to the country to address it privately. Unfortunately, keeping such things under wraps can be a tricky bit of business. Kids will be kids- but none of them are quite like these kids, that's for sure.
From damn near the jump, a sense of dread pervades the scenario, which writer-director Christopher Denham artfully manages to maintain throughout the entire film, while, at the same time, ramping up the tension as things inevitably get worse. And, boy, do they ever get worse. Fair warning: if you're a animal lover, this may not be the film for you. Animals do NOT fare well in this movie, to say the least.
We first meet the Poes around Halloween-time. At first glance they seem like they could be any typical family, but, in time, we see that they're actually quite unique. Patriarch David (Adrian Pasdar, Heroes, Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.) is, in fact, a father in more ways than one- in addition to being the father of two young children, he's also a Lutheran priest. Even more interestingly, he's married to a non-believer, psychologist Clare (soap regular Cady McClain, of All My Children and The Young & the Restless, which could both double as alternate titles for this film, lol).
The two are parents to oddball twins- okay, the "oddball" part almost goes without saying for most twins, but these particular twins are next level odd, let me tell you. There's Emily (Amber Joy Williams, The Perfect Holiday), a blonde sprite with a disarmingly coy smile, when she's not staring at you with a blank expression, and Jack (Austin Williams, also of the equally-unnerving The Girl Next Door, as well as The Good Shepherd and Michael Clayton), an equally innocent-looking child that is definitely up to something whenever someone's back is turned.
As with a lot of twins, the two are well-nigh inseparable, and, indeed, share the same bedroom- and sometimes even the same bed. They also often speak in tongues- a phenomenon sometimes known as "twinspeak," aka cryptophasia, which, despite all the jokes you may have heard about it, is really a thing. Basically, it boils down to speaking in a language outsiders- even their parents- can't understand, but which they themselves understand perfectly. While mostly perfectly innocent, here, it's clearly used for more nefarious purposes- these kids are clearly up to something, and they don't want anyone to know what it is.
Indeed, as we discover, what they are up to is elaborate, well-plotted and executed with cold, dispassionate effort, even when it seems like the kids are "getting better." As you might expect, the parents notice all of this, and like most parents, try and do something about it, albeit coming at it in completely different directions. Clare, naturally, thinks that prescribing the correct medication will be the cure-all to what ails them, while David turns to God, and, at one point, even attempts an exorcism, in spite of that not being a thing in the Lutheran church, as he himself acknowledges.
While both Clare and David undeniably believe that their respective approaches work, as their kids do indeed start acting "normal" after a certain point, even befriending a boy in school they previously bullied, at one point corralling the poor kid into a bathroom and aggressively biting him! It was this incident, along with several instances of violence towards animals, as aforementioned, that ultimately lead the parents towards their respective remedies.
Lo and behold, Jack and Emily start acting like normal kids directly afterwards- smiling, laughing and doing the things kids seem to typically do under normal circumstances. But is it all an act? Well, it is a horror movie, so you can probably figure out the answer to that question on your own, but suffice it to say, things do get better before they get a whole lot worse, coming to a head around Easter, in which the egg hunt with the twins' newly-minted pal/former victim does NOT go well, to put it mildly.
I don't want to say much more than that, except to say that eventually the tables are turned, and what once was the camera subjects become the ones doing the filming, and what they end up filming is hella disturbing. I honestly can't think of another Found Footage film that unnerved me more, though the first two [Rec] films certainly came close. However, where those films were firmly within the realm of horror-fantasy, this one is grounded in reality and something that could conceivably happen for real.
I mean, granted, this particular instance is heightened, to say the least, but such is the case with most horror films. My point is that it most certainly COULD happen, which is more than what one could say about a lot of horror flicks. Yes, certain things happen which are a bit hard to swallow here and there, but overall, I had no problem buying what this film was selling. At the very least, it made me think twice about becoming a father, lol. (Note to self if I do: NEVER teach kids how to pick locks or tie "unescapable" knots.)
The truth is, the reason that creepy kid movies- a la The Omen, The Bad Seed, Village of the Damned and The Brood- are so effective is that kids can be pretty freaky at times, especially the way they go about some things when they're still learning how to be their own people and how the world works. Also, the simple truth is that some kids can be total assholes. This film gets that, and goes forward with the premise that some people have adopted that some kids are just simply "born bad," in spite of their upbringing.
Here, we have what should be an ideal scenario: a realist parent (Clare) married to an idealist, religious parent (David), that have somehow, despite their differences, managed to make it work. The two may have their own individual approaches to parenting, but no one can say that they don't support each other and take raising their kids the right way seriously. But what do you do when no approach seems to work? Here, they turn to both spiritual and medical remedies, but neither of them does the trick- the reason being that, of course, some things just don't have easy solutions.
I just love this film. It's simple, effective, and doesn't overstay its welcome. Hell, if anything, given that it clocks in at a mere 77 minutes, I could have stood a bit more of it, if only a post-script that sheds a little light on what happens next. I mean, granted, it doesn't look like anything good, that's for sure, but that's my point- I wanted more. This is definitely a film I could see easily getting a sequel, though I suppose it would almost certainly have to delve into something like August Underground territory, which, granted, is a numbing type of thing to watch, like watching a serial killer's home movies- which is, of course, exactly what that film series purports to be.
What we get here is the equivalent of watching two young, budding, likely future serial killers' home videos, which- to me, at least- is far more interesting. For instance, compare and contrast this film's approach to, say, Rob Zombie's approach to his Halloween film. Both contend with similar circumstances, but both deal with it in completely different and unique ways. I'll leave it to you to determine which film is better- I've already spoken my piece on Zombie's film here- but I kind of prefer the more subtle approach taken here.
I can see where some might be a little disappointed that the filmmakers pull their punches at times, not truly going for the throat when they could have, but sometimes less is more. Which you prefer likely depends on whether you like the whole bludgeoning approach (a la Zombie's films) or the more subtle approach taken here. Either way, I'd have to say I was much more unnerved by this than any given entry in the whole August Underground series, much less any given Zombie flick, where shock value reigns.
Anyone can gross someone out with the right special effects- it takes skill to actually scare people for real. And I'm not talking about "jump scares," which I've long since recognized as a bit of a cheat. Of course you're going to jump at a loud noise or the like, especially if you're watching a horror flick. But sustaining a genuine sense of dread- that's a trickier bit of business. And Home Video totally nails it, in my estimation. It may not make you jump, but it sure as hell sticks with you, and mind you, I don't even have kids. I can only imagine how this would affect me if I actually did.
Kudos to actor-turned-director Denham, who some of you might know better from his roles in such films as Argo, Shutter Island and The Sound of my Voice (which is unnerving in its own right, in its own way) and TV shows like Manhattan and Billions. I haven't seen any of his other directorial work to date, which includes a joining of found footage forces with Paranormal Activity creator Oren Peli for the alien-themed Area 51 and another horror flick, Preservation, but re-watching this makes me want to rectify that ASAP.
Likewise, the cast is excellent, with Pasdar nailing the whole randy priest/purveyor of dad jokes to great effect, while McClain also delivers on the science-over-religion inclined psychologist role. Note how the film doesn't ever stoop to saying which approach is "right," but leaves leeway for both when it seems the kids are now, in fact, alright. But it's little Amber Joy and Austin Williams that really steal the show here. They are just plain flat-out shiver-inducing throughout the movie, even when they're supposed to be "cured."
If you haven't seen this and you love Found Footage, it's an absolute must, but even if you don't typically care for it, it might well end up being your exception to the rule. It may be a stretch to call it a "Thanksgiving Thriller," but whatever the case, it's certainly a must-see if you're looking for something off the beaten path or you just like movies about creepy kids. For my money, these two certainly rank among the creepiest ever, that's for sure.
The film is readily available on DVD, though it's a bit tricky to find, given that generic title. As of this writing, it's also available on YouTube, albeit in somewhat iffy quality. Still, beggars can't be choosers, and as with Alien Abduction, the other found footage flick I reviewed recently, it actually kind of lends itself to poor quality, on account of its approach.
That said, the worth of the film itself is anything but low-quality. In fact, I dare say it ranks as one of my all-time fave Found Footage horror flicks, and I say that as an admitted fan of the oft-ridiculed subgenre. Even if you don't typically like these sorts of films, I say check it out- it's worth every one of the 77 minutes you'll spend watching it, IMHO. 😀
