Review: "Blair Witch"

“Blair Witch” reclaims the techniques and some of the sense of creeping dread that made “The Blair Witch Project” such a game-changing hit in 1999. 

Certainly, it helps erase some of the lingering bad taste from the slapped-together quickie sequel, “Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2,” which cut out all of the young filmmakers from my hometown of Orlando who dreamed up what has now become a much-copied genre: found footage thrillers.

Taken on its own, “Blair Witch” is above-board horror with some genuine scares. But it’s hard to recapture lightning in a bottle, that sense that maybe, just maybe, this lost-in-the-woods tale could be a tiny bit true.

You can go home again, but it’s hard to fool an audience using old tricks.

Director Adam Wingard and script man Simon Barrett return to the story’s roots: set 15 years after the events from “Project,” this film presents James (James Allen McCune) as the much-younger brother of Heather, the leader of a trio of novice documentarians who wandered into the woods near Burkittsville, Maryland, and were never seen or heard from again.

The legend of the Blair Witch remains just that: whispered stories and half-truths about a martyred woman who returned from the grave to haunt the Black Hills Woods surrounding the town.

Then James receives some grainy footage from a video memory card found in the woods that appears to show his sister. He launches his own expedition, bringing along best friend Peter (Brandon Scott), Peter’s girlfriend Ashley (Corbin Reid) and Lisa (Callie Hernandez), a young filmmaker and friend (and possibly more).

They meet up with the YouTube poster who found the clue, Darknet666, who turns out to be a local hillbilly named Lane (Wes Robinson) who wants in on the group in exchange for his assistance. He brings along his lady, Talia (Valorie Curry), who seems a little more respectful of the Blair Witch mythology than he.

They camp in the woods, and familiar things start to happen -- strange noises, those iconic stick men figures appear out of nowhere at their campsite, they find themselves walking in circles, etc. The tension quickly ratchets up, some members of the party get hurt or go missing, and we just know it’s going to culminate in that dilapidated house in the middle of the forest.

Ensuing improvements in technology make the filmmaking aspect of the story a little more palatable. That’s been a weakness of found-footage movies: why would characters in mortal terror continue to hold ungainly video cameras and conveniently aim them at their attackers? The new film gets around that by outfitting everyone with tiny ear piece cameras with a microphone. They even have a drone camera to help them find their way in the thick woods.

“Blair Witch” obviously has a much higher budget than the shoestring original, which both helps and hurts. Back in 1999, people swore they saw a witch figure chasing the kids around, when it was all purely in their minds. That’s the power of film, to use mood and emotion to trick us. This movie goes a little more overt, which it probably had to, but that only serves to remind us we’re watching a sequel.

(A personal aside: I was acquainted with the producers and directors of “The Blair Witch Project” in Orlando, and was/am good friends with the production designer who created the stick men. They actually invited me to go work on the movie, but I didn’t have eight days off to go traipse through the Maryland woods. I’m an old-school sort who believes critics shouldn’t try to dabble in creating, so it was probably for the best.)

Review: "Complete Unknown"

Rachel Weisz plays a mesmerizing lady of mystery in “Complete Unknown,” although it’s not the usual sort of cinematic femme fatale we’re used to. Usually these women have a dark past they’re running from, or a date with destiny they’re trying to outstep. Alice is simply a person who sees life as a series of divergent episodes rather than a single long arc.

Alice… or shall we call her Jenny? Those are the names she has now and started with, respectively -- though there have been almost a dozen in between and, we suspect, many more to come after the movie closes its door on this part of her story.

When her existence becomes tedious or tiresome, Alice just walks out on her old life and starts another. New identity, new look, different attitude, a fresh location. New vocation, too - she’s been a nurse, Chinese magician’s assistant, classical pianist, some other things. Currently she’s a herpetology research assistant, who’s supposedly discovered a new species of frog on Long Island of all places, distinctive because of its special croaking song.

That’s Alice in a nutshell: something utterly unique, right under our noses.

She strikes up a conversation with Clyde (Michael Chernus), a nebbishy guy at the government building cafeteria. But it’s all been carefully planned: she knows Clyde is friends with Tom (Michael Shannon), an uptight sort who works on environmental issues. His entire job, we learn, is writing emails urging certain policy recommendations that have almost no chance of coming to pass.

If Alice is a chimera, constantly changing the face she presents to the world, then Tom is a man of immovable stone, wallowing in the deepest of ruts.

Alice gets Clyde to invite her to Tom’s birthday party -- showing off a potential new girlfriend to a close circle of friends, it would seem. They’re appropriately charmed by her leonine beauty, retiring brilliance and cool job.

But Tom immediately recognizes her as Jenny, his girlfriend from college 15 years ago. Shannon is great at playing characters uncomfortable in their own skins, and he builds Tom as a bundle of nerves and unvocalized regret. He has an amazing wife, Ramina (Azita Ghanizada), an aspiring jewel maker of Persian descent. They’re currently considering a huge change in their lives, but Tom is not the sort to let things go easily.

After the party grows increasingly uncomfortable, Tom and Alice/Jenny decamp to the streets to confront each other. Why is she here? Why the ruse with Clyde? Does she want to get back together, despite Tom’s obvious unavailability?

The questions are limitless, and definitive answers few. But the old connection is still there, and Tom becomes engrossed in Alice’s ability to put on and take off masks at will, as she demonstrates in a chance encounter with an older dogwalker (Kathy Bates) and her husband (Danny Glover). Tom goes along with it, even participates in the exercise, and the temptation for change is clear on his face.

Speaking of which, just watching these actors ply their craft is often mesmerizing in of itself. I would watch Michael Shannon's face for hours on end; so many angles and crevices to explore. The topography is interesting, of course, but it’s the sudden weather shifts that really dazzle.

And Weisz is so good at showing us the emotion that lies underneath Alice’s mountain of lies. Though she often leaves people she loves behind without even a goodbye, there’s no malice in her. She does not own a rear-view mirror; it’s the thrills ahead that compel.

Directed by Joshua Marston (“Maria Full of Grace”) from a screenplay he co-wrote with Julian Sheppard, “Complete Unknown” is a film that questions not just one woman’s opus of false personas, but the very concept of identity as a fixed point.

Reeling Backward: "Duck, You Sucker!" (1971)

Like a lot of Sergio Leone's films, "Duck, You Sucker!" has some big ideas lurking beneath a gaudy facade of violence and miscreant behavior. This is personified by the character of Juan Miranda, an illiterate bandit who likes to pass himself off as a meek peasant, but is quite cunning at his craft and, in his own brutish way, has a better grasp on human nature than his learned would-be betters.

"Duck," set against the backdrop of the Mexican Revolution of 1910-20, was the Italian master's final Spaghetti Western and his second-to-last directorial effort. He lay fallow for 13 years before making his final picture, 1984's "Once Upon a Time in America." This served as a bookend for "Once Upon a Time in the West" from 1968.

This movie is usually slotted as the middle picture between those two, and indeed an alternate title sometimes used is "Once Upon a Time... the Revolution." Frequent collaborator Sergio Donati pitched the story to Leone while he was still filming "West." Certainly there is some thematic continuity between the two that is a bit forced when applied to "America."

But "Duck, You Sucker" also hearkens back to Leone's early Westerns, and the film was largely issued under the title "A Fistful of Dynamite" to better evoke memories of the Clint Eastwood hit. Juan's character is essentially an extension of Tuco from "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" -- a sniveling thief with (deeply) hidden reservoirs of nobility.

Eli Wallach, who played Tuco, was hired for the Juan role but the studio decided he wasn't a big enough name. Wallach, who'd dropped out of another part to play for Leone, ended up suing him.

Juan is played by Rod Steiger, who's about as Mexican as I am (or Wallach, for that matter). But the character actor of German, Scottish and French stock was a classic screen chameleon who played all sorts of nationalities and creeds throughout his long and illustrious career, from European Jew to Italian-American mobster to Deep South bigot. So his casting is not as disagreeable as it might seem at first to modern sensibilities.

Besides, Leone's Spaghettis were marked by a flippant tossing aside of national boundaries, shooting stories set in the Americas on locations in Spain using largely Italian casts and crews, with actors speaking their own native language on-camera with dubbing taking over as needed.

James Coburn plays Juan's counterpart, John Mallory, an Irish IRA revolutionary on the lam after some explosive troubles back home. John is an expert in dynamite, nitroglycerin and pretty much anything else volatile. He himself presents a serene, nonchalant exterior, in contrast to the little baubles he whips up to blow up anything bothersome to him.

Their first meeting takes place about 20 minutes into the movie, after Juan has robbed a stagecoach of spoiled rich folks. Juan employs a gang comprised of his six sons, ranging in age from about 8 to 18, all by different mothers, along with his aged father and an indeterminate gaggle of add-on banditos.

Juan has used his ruse of the dumb, barefoot peon to beg entry to the coach, where he is continually insulted and his kind compared to loathsome beasts. Leone swoops his camera in for an uncomfortable series of extreme close-ups as the people gnash their food while letting loose a barrage of unpleasantries.

He gets his revenge by taking them for literally everything they've got, setting the men to march bare-assed up the road, as well as the (implied) rape of a snooty woman.

Having commandeered the elaborate coach for his roaming home base, Juan and his gang are bewildered when John comes motoring by on his bike, ignoring their threat as if it weren't there. Juan puts a bullet into the motorcycle to stop him, and John responds by coolly sauntering up and blowing a hole in the roof of Juan's royal carriage.

Juan is convinced not to plug the upstart Irishman because he's festooned from stem to stern with explosives, along with John's warning that the resulting boom would be big enough "they'll have to change the maps." After a little more back-and-forth, the thief hatches a plan to enlist the wayward bombardier, who's come to Mexico to work in the mines of a silver oligarch, to help him knock over the bank in Mesa Verde.

Mesa Verde...

The very words evoke a hallucinogenic vision in Juan's mind somewhere between glory and salvation. Everything from the gates to the spittoons are made of gold, he promises. The vault is spilling over with money. Never mind that he's recalling a boyhood visit decades ago. You make the holes, Juan promises, and I'll fetch the money to split 50-50.

Noting the continuity of their names, he offers to dub their new gang "Johnny & Johnny." Maybe they'll even take their act north to the United States afterwards, mi amigo, where every little town has a ripe bank, Juan coos agreeably.

It's a fake brotherhood that eventually develops into a real one, as two men with nothing left to lose become unwitting heroes in the Revolution. Turns out the bank in Mesa Verde is housing nothing other than political prisoners these days. John knew this, having hooked up with the head honcho of the local insurgents, a physician named Villega (Romolo Valli).

With Juan tricked into heroism, the two debate the merits of the revolution. John is the sort who needs a cause to fight for, while Juan demands to know what the endeavor will gain for himself, and by extension the common man. The book-readers whip the peasantry to take up arms against injustice, he says, but after all the blood is spilled their lot never changes. They've just exchanged one set of overlords for another. He'd rather just grab the loot and go.

"What about me?" is Juan's repeated lament. At first comic, it takes a poignant turn when the "uniforms" slaughter his entire family.

John has his own history of loss and woe, as shown in flashbacks to his days in Ireland. Shot in gauzy slow motion, they depict a young John romancing a beautiful lass with a best friend joining in their revelry. Later this friend betrays him to the British, and John guns down both police and informer. David Warbeck plays this role, outfitted with a large prosthetic mole on his forehead, both to make him physically distinctive and provide a target for John's avenging bullet.

This experience is replicated when Dr. Villega is captured by the uniforms and tortured to identify revolutionaries before the firing squad. John eventually confronts Villega about his betrayal, but declines to judge him, even proclaiming him a "grand hero of the revolution" with his dying gasp.

Disillusion may be John's bread and butter, but he recognizes the importance symbols hold for others. He'd rather not make Juan drink from his own bitter cup. Let the good doctor, who sacrificed himself aboard a locomotive loaded with John's dynamite, die with grace.

"Duck, You Sucker" contains some of Leone's most ambitious camera work, including a crane shot of a mass shooting of political prisoners that deserves an iconic place in his filmography -- lines of soldiers firing down into long, deep pits of dying men, who scramble like ants set on fire by a lonely boy exploring his capacity for malevolence.

I also loved how he framed little throwaway scenes, such as Juan bidding good-bye to his sons as he and John prepare for a seemingly futile two-man assault on a column of army soldiers. As Juan embraces the boys, Dr. Villega watches on serenely while John loads a machine gun with a belt of bullets.

Any competent director can compose a great shot for the big "wow" moments in a movie. I love it when a filmmaker sneaks in elegant mise en scene when we're not looking.

As always, the great Ennio Morricone provides the score, and it's a testament to his prodigious creativity that the man never seemed to repeat himself after 500+ soundtracks. It's a combination of orchestral instruments, tinny sound effects and post-verbal singing ("shom, shom" is as close to formal language as the lyrics get).

I'm always astounded how Morricone can slalom from silliness to violent tension to grandiosity, often within the space of a few bars of melody.

It's probably the most non-political film ever made about a revolution, casting all sides of the Mexican conflict as amoral and power-hungry. It's the sort of film an angry young man makes as he transitions into middle age, and Leone, then in his early 40s, clearly evokes a sense of pointlessness that was bound to be interpreted as counterrevolutionary.

Unsurprisingly, the film was banned in Mexico until 1979.

There isn't even really a bonafide villain, though Colonel Reza (Antoine Saint-John) comes closest, an Army officer who hunts the pair after they double-handedly destroy his entire command. (John rigs a bridge with explosives, then he and Juan use machine gun fire to drive the soldiers underneath it for cover, than kaboom.)

Reza has a very Nazi SS look and feel to him (despite being played by a Frenchman), another example of Leone deliberately mixing up nationalities and political causes to suit his cinematic aesthetic.

A failure at the time of its release, "Duck, You Sucker!" has since been rediscovered by audiences and critics -- including this one -- as one of Leone's best films.

Video review: "Captain America: Civil War"

If it’s possible to enjoy a movie while simultaneously being disappointed by it, then that’s my take on “Captain America: Civil War.” The third in the series with fresh-faced Chris Evans as the revived World War II warrior in the ostensible lead role, what it really is is the third Avengers movie -- the one in which they’ve finally gotten on each other’s nerves enough to trade blows instead of quips.

I kid, I kid. The motivation for the conflict is that the U.S. government has decided to start registering and controlling super-powered beings. People are very nervous and angry about the collateral damage the Avenges incurred while saving the world (twice). This leads to a McCarthyite atmosphere where the lauded heroes are now mocked and feared.

Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), who’s been very ambivalent about continuing in his super-suit anyway, quickly signs on. But Cap argues the patriotic route, saying the Avengers should be free to make their own choices about what is best for the common good. Sides quickly form up, leading to an inevitable showdown.

Because the two heaviest hitters, the Hulk and Thor, are inexplicably nowhere in sight, it’s incumbent upon the filmmakers to bring in some scabs … er, I mean, add-on heroes … to round out the squads.

Many of them we’ve seen before, like Ant-Man (Paul Rudd), Falcon (Anthony Mackie), Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen) and the Vision (Paul Bettany). Spider-Man shows up, rebooted for a second time with Tom Holland in the role, and Chadwick Boseman is a muscular presence as Black Panther, an African prince with some animalistic super-duds.

“Captain America: Civil War” contains thrills aplenty, but is miserly when it comes to surprises. You go into it knowing what you’re going to get, but also that you won’t get anything else.

Bonus features are as good as we’ve come to expect from the Marvel Comics adaptations.

There’s a feature-length commentary track with directors Anthony and Joe Russo and screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely; deleted and extended scenes; gag reel; sneak peek at “Doctor Strange”; featurettes following the character development of Captain America and Iron Man leading up to civil war; and “United We Stand, Divided We Fall,” a feature-length making-of documentary.

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Review: "Sully"

Every cinematic story, especially those based on real life, can be seen as a string. Lives and events are spun out long before and after the couple of hours we see, into the infinite horizon. So the first and most important decision the director and screenwriter make is where to cut that string -- determining what forms the movie's beginning, middle and end.

I'm not sure if I agree with where Clint Eastwood and Todd Komarnicki placed their cuts in relaying the tale of Chesley Sullenberger, the pilot who ditched US Airways flight 1549 into the Hudson River on a frigid January day in 2009 after double engine failure, saving everyone onboard. But I still admired and enjoyed their version of what has now become legend.

I think the filmmakers felt the need to invent some villains to create dramatic tension, overplaying the investigation of the incident into some kind of Salem witch hunt that did not really amount to much at all. Sully and his co-pilot, Jeffrey Skiles (an excellent Aaron Eckhart), were quickly lauded as heroes for their actions -- national media appearances, awards ceremonies, a White House visit, the whole kielbasa. 

Sure, the National Transportation Safety Board members asked some hard questions; that's their job. But, as portrayed by Anna Gunn, Mike O'Malley and Jamey Sheridan, they form the triumvirate of bad guys the story didn't really need, jumping to conclusions and issuing threatening statements that we know they're going to eventually have to eat. 

(Needless to say, their real-life counterparts are none too happy.)

It ends up too much resembling "Flight," a 2012 film starring Denzel Washington as a fictional pilot who is initially lauded as a hero, then excoriated for recklessness. (A friend dubs this new film "White Flight.")

Despite the Hollywood-izing of the events, it's still a grand tale. The main challenge comes in Tom Hanks playing a guy who is, by any objective measure, ill-suited for the role of film protagonist. His Sully is mild-mannered, duty-bound and courteous, diffident to the point of often coming across as a bit of a stiff. 

Hanks pulls it off by showing us a man who is outwardly brave and stoic, but inwardly reels from nightmares and doubts about his actions that day. 

Indeed, I think that is what makes the story of Sullenberger so compelling, in real life and onscreen: here is an unremarkable man, who plied his trade in virtual anonymity for four decades. In his golden hour, months before forced retirement at age 60, he used his skill and experience to pull off something extraordinary.

The universality of this theme is obvious: Sully became a hero, and you could, too.

After a flock of Canada geese pummeled the aircraft shortly after takeoff, destroying both engines, Sully had 208 seconds of glide time before hitting the ground. After he and Skiles exhausted all their options, trying to restart the engines and communicating with ground control on possible emergency landing sites, Sully quickly determined they wouldn't make it. "I eyeballed it," he tells stunned investigators.

He steered his Airbus A320 toward the Hudson, and history was made.

The film chooses to show us the crash three times. First, a mere glimpse at the very beginning. A more detailed version starts about 30 minutes in. Then, a comprehensive take that forms the final act, showing us the aftermath and rescue by river ferry crews and police scuba divers.

"Sully" hits its emotional peak in the center, when the pilot is scrambling to account for everyone on board, who have been taken by different conveyance to various hospitals and such. We can see the terror in Hanks' eyes, wondering how many people have died. When he's finally given the total -- 155 souls, everyone onboard safe --  the catharsis is like a swell of pure joy.

It's dangerous for critics to play the "If I was making this movie" game, but I think that was the film's obvious ending point. Instead we get another half-hour to 45 minutes of meetings, tense phone calls between Sully and his wife (Laura Linney), and an odd encounter in a bar where Sully is recognized and offered the drink they have named after him. 

"Grey Goose with a splash of water," the barman smirks.

The narrative is a bit twisted around into unnecessary knots for my taste, but "Sully" still soars when it has to.

Video review: "The Meddler"

“The Meddler” is one of those little indie movies that are perfect for video. They tend not to get released in smaller cities, and even then it can be a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it run at the one art cinema in town. A delightful comedy with some hefty messages underneath the laughs, it treats its characters as realistic people who might exist in the world with their own peculiar virtues and faults.

The foibles of Marnie (Susan Sarandon) are pretty evident. A wealthy widow from Jersey without a lot to do, she moves out to Los Angeles to be near her daughter (Rose Byrne), a successful television writer who’s unlucky in love. Marnie is a born smotherer who repeatedly crosses boundaries -- dropping hints about grandchildren, etc. Soon enough the kid has (gently) elbowed Marnie out of the picture.

But, in her own passive-aggressive way, Marnie is unstoppable. Soon she’s co-opted her daughter’s circle of friends into becoming her own, lavishing one with an expensive wedding party. She keeps dropping by the Apple store to buy more overpriced junk she doesn’t need, and soon she’s driving a young worker there to college classes she encouraged him to take.

Marnie is a true giver -- even when the recipient can’t take anymore.

She strikes up a halting romance with Zipper, a twangy cop/farmer played with a twinkle by J.K. Simmons. He spots her on the set of a movie where he’s working security -- Marnie just walked by one day and became an extra -- and pitches some woo. Marnie, long used to being the interloper in other people’s lives instead of the one who gets loped, isn’t quite sure what to make of the creased Casanova at first.

Written and directed by Lorene Scafaria, “The Meddler” is a movie that doesn’t have a lot of story to it. It’s just people intersecting, rubbing off each other, finding connections that weren’t there before. The movie takes a woman who at first seems ridiculous and even a little pathetic and lets us see her intricate humanity. It’s funny, and enlightening.

Bonus features are good, and are the same for DVD and Blu-ray editions.

There is a gag reel and two featurettes: “The ‘Real’ Marnie” and “The Making of The Meddler.” The centerpiece is a feature-length commentary track with both Scafaria and Sarandon. I really enjoy it when the filmmakers and stars participate in these together, so it’s more of a dialogue than one person droning on.

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Review: "The Light Between the Oceans"

This film is not going to fare well at the box office, I fear. People just don’t seem to want to go to sad movies anymore, or at least not like they used to. And “The Light Between the Oceans,” while in many ways excellent, is definitely what you’d call a four-hanky picture.

Based on the novel by M.L. Stedman and adapted by writer/director Derek Cianfrance (“Blue Valentine”), it’s a tender, deliberately paced movie that takes the time to build the emotional world of its characters, so we can see how deeply events and their own tragic decisions etch themselves into their souls.

Some people will simply call it slow. Some people will call it mushy. Some people should probably go check out “Suicide Squad” in the next theater over.

Michael Fassbender plays Tom Sherbourne, a survivor of the trenches of World War I who returns to his native Australia without much purpose for living. He takes a job as lighthouse keeper on the remote island of Janus, which like the two-face god of mythology sits overlooking opposite directions, atop the convergence of two oceans.

On a trip back to the mainland he runs into Isabel (Alicia Vikander), a jolly lass who’s as full of life as Tom’s cup is dry. Through letters they have a long romance and courtship from afar, resulting in a happy marriage. The mainlanders are ecstatic for Is and Tom, since so few young men are left after the war and the prospect of a new generation leaves everyone giddy.

They return to Janus and set about building a jubilant life together. The island is stark and lonely, but they fill it with their passion. Is grows more independent and resourceful after a sheltered life; Tom shaves off his mustache (Is doesn’t like the prickles) and begins to set aside his guilt at living when so many have died.

But fate has its grim whirlpools and undertows. Is miscarries their baby. Most movies would skim over this with a mournful montage, but Cianfrance gives the event and its aftermath its full measure. We witness how losing their child permanently alters their approach to life and capacity for happiness. With time, they recover. They move on.

Then, it happens again.

This may be the end of things, at least for Is, when a tiny boat washes up on shore. Inside is a dead young man and a newborn baby girl. Tom prepares to do his duty and report in by telegraph. But Is, full of a furious maternal need, pleads for him to delay – for just a day or two, she says. He knows what this really means.

Fassbender and Vikander do a tremendous job of communicating much in between the dialogue. Some of the film’s most powerful scenes are the two simply staring at each other. Cianfrance carefully frames the actors so we’re often looking over their shoulders, as if stealing in on moments of intimacy rather than having them staged for us.

Things go on. The baby becomes a toddler and then a little girl, Lucy, all blonde curls and joy. Life on the island becomes idyllic, as if something from a storybook.

We know such pure happiness must end, like a tide reclaiming the beach. Much of the later developments center around Hannah (Rachel Weisz), the daughter of the rich fellow (Bryan Brown) who paid to build the lighthouse. But I’ll say no more.

“The Light Between the Oceans” is not the sort of movie you see much of anymore. It’s slow-moving and contemplative, and dares to present the possibility that people can do things out of love but still cause immeasurable harm. Logically, many of the characters’ actions make no sense. But the actors and filmmakers paint such a rich emotional portrait, we feel like they could have come to no other decisions.

Go, and weep.