OSCARS 2026: The Smashing Machine (2025)

Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson's journey from popular pro-wrestler to the biggest movie star in the world didn't happen based on the size of his biceps or how many reps he could do. Johnson has a megawatt smile, an irrepressible charm, an ability to command the screen, to make himself the center of attention no matter what is going on around him. For a brief period, all of that was enough to carry him from one blockbuster hit to another. However, sometime around 2018 or so, the shine started to come off that diamond. Maybe it was overexposure. Johnson was a key part of massive worldwide franchises like “Fast & Furious” and Disney. He had a successful TV show and multiple brand spokesman gigs. Maybe it was just because the movies weren't there. Films like “Skyscraper,” “Central Intelligence,” and “Jungle Cruise” started to feel more generic, more forgettable. Some would suggest that ego – including a supposed contractual clause that he never loses a fight on-screen – plays a role. Either way, by the time Johnson was attempting to brute-force “Black Adam” into a world-wide popular character, there was a stink of desperation about his career. Suddenly, Dwayne's desire to make audiences love him went from likable to off-putting. 

Since he could no longer be counted on to make a movie a hit with his charm alone, it was time to pursue another avenue: To prove he was a real actor, a true thespian. Yes, it was time for the Oscar bid. An inspiring true story still within Johnson's wheelhouse was found: The documentary “The Smashing Machine,” about the career of embattled Mixed Martial Arts star Mark Kerr. That movie was directed by John Hyams, a maker of reliably intense B-movies that hasn't broken through into the mainstream much. Hyams doesn't have awards season shine though. Benny Safdie, freed from his partnership with his brother and presumably eager to prove his solo talent, was an established critical darling. A24, the hippest of hip distributors and production companies, then came on-board the film. As the tone of the trailers made increasingly clear, Safdie's "The Smashing Machine" represented Johnson trying to manifest himself an Oscar the same way he tried to manifest a superhero franchise with “Black Adam.” Once again, it did not work. Despite aggressive campaigning, it received one nomination, in the decidedly less prestigious category of Best Hair and Make-Up. What of the film itself?

Mark Kerr would begin his athletic career as an amateur wrestler. (Actual wrestling, not the "sports entertainment" kind.) After beating more famous people like Randy Couture and Kurt Angle, Kerr would move into mixed martial arts. During the nineties, Kerr would become a repeated champion in the world of a sport that was slowly catching on all over the world. Kerr would soon begin an undefeated streak for Pride Fighting Championship. This is when “The Smashing Machine” comes in. Developing an addiction to painkillers, his relationship with girlfriend Dawn becomes more tense. After losing a Pride fight for the first time, Kerr's self esteem spirals. After having a heart attack, he endeavors to get clean and compete in the 2000 Pride Grand Prix. At the same time, his close friend and sparring partner Mark Coleman also seems to have a clear shot at the championship, leading to the inevitable conclusion that the two buddies might have to fight each.

“The Smashing Machine” is clearly an attempt by Johnson to shed his movie star persona and become absorbed in a performance. He adapts Kerr's particular speech pattern, a result of missing several teeth from fights. He refers to his “tummy” multiple times. He bleeds, gets stitches, shoots up drugs, screams, gasps for breath, and sweats. I think a third of “The Smashing Machine's” budget must have been spent on fake sweat. Though his pectorals are as impressive and arms as vein-y as ever, Johnson carries himself throughout “The Smashing Machine” as a man barely holding it together. He is always stiff, shoulders back, arms to his side. Whenever chatting with his manly friends or the press, he adopts a friendly bro-like persona that reads as blatantly performative. This is a guy desperate not to look like a failure. Naturally, when he does lose a fight, he spirals into drug addiction and messy arguments with Dawn. The arc of “The Smashing Machine” is of a man afraid of being perceived as a loser learning that it's okay to fail, to be vulnerable.  

That is a compelling character arc. It is also a good subversion of Johnson's tough guy image, deliberately showing that there is a sad, struggling human being behind all that rippling sinew. However, something feels off. The Oscar clip moment occurs when Kerr is in the hospital, recovering from that heart attack. Coleman tries to talk with him, Kerr assuming his usual laid-back demeanor... Before he suddenly drops it, bursting into tears. It feels as calculated as the expertly timed cocked eyebrows or elbow drops he did in the ring. There's the foundation of a good performance here. Johnson has the skills to make Kerr's feelings genuine, to make his pain and triumph palatable. Despite looking like the Rock, he makes Kerr seem like a regular guy a few times. 

Throughout the film, however, I repeatedly found myself wondering something: Why is Mark like this? What happened in his life to make him so guarded about his feelings? Why does he feel an intense drive to succeed all the time, taking a single loss as a devastating blow that he nearly dies over? The script does not specify. The film also does not go into details about Mark's painkiller addiction, only hinting at the ever-present pain he must feel from countless blows to the head and body that pushes him to shoot up. We see very little of Mark struggling with drug addiction after his promise to get clean. The film does not explore his childhood, his backstory, or any of the psychological impulse that make him act this way. There's a scene, where Mark stands outside a carnival ride while Dawn is inside. He stares to the side, the camera focusing on his face and physical demeanor as he waits. Instead of me feeling a sense of his detachment from Dawn or being left out of his own life, I simply found myself with no idea what this guy was thinking at all.

Part of this is because of the decisions Safdie, cinematographer Maceo Bishop, and composer Nata Sinephro make. “The Smashing Machine” seeks to replicate the documentary-like visuals from its source film. There's a sheen of unpolished grit to the images, looser camera movements. This also means pulling back from the characters. In “The Smashing Machine,” we always feel like we are watching the characters, not apart of their lives. There's a noticeable distance between the cast and the camera placement. This makes sense for the fight scene, to copy the sensation of watching from the audience. When applied to the rest of the movie, it makes us feel detached from Mark and his struggles. When paired with a musical score that is discordant and inexplicably jazzy at times, the result is a movie that feels nearly as closed-up to the viewer as its protagonist is to his girlfriend. 

And about that romantic subplot. Emily Blunt gives a good performance as Dawn. She accurately plays a woman who is frustrated with a man who won't let her get any closer. Their arguments seem plausible and not melodramatic, clearly born out an inability for these two to communicate. Unfortunately, part of that lack of communication means Dawn doesn't take Mark's concerns seriously. While he's getting sober, she goes out drinking with friends. She mocks him calling his sponsor at one point. She outright admits she preferred Mark when he was high, so she could take care of him. She also picks the night before a big fight or during a tense training session to start an argument. Her most dramatic moment occurs when Dawn puts a gun to her head at the climax of another argument. This does not make me want to root for these two kids to work it out. These two need to break up. They are not healthy for each other. The script seems to take it for granted that the couple need to be together for their own good, when all the evidence suggests otherwise. 

When Johnson is a producer on “The Smashing Machine,” it is easy to blame him for the failure of the film. (Which includes commercially, as the movie flopped.) However, I think he was up to the task of giving an Oscar-winning performance. Instead, as always, it's the script, stupid. “The Smashing Machine” feels half-formed, unable to take us inside the head of a character we are clearly meant to connect to. It must have been a deliberate choice, as every aspect of the film keeps us from figuring out makes Mark tick. The film follows all the beats of a inspiring arc, in its final scene where Kerr finally accepts that it's okay to lose. It rings hollow. Hopefully, Johnson keeps trying to prove his actorly chops, as I do think he has a great performance in him. But “The Smashing Machine” doesn't have what it takes to be a champion. [6/10]

 

OSCARS 2026: Diane Warren: Relentless (2025)

To most people aware of such things, Diane Warren is one of the most successful song writers of all time. She has penned number one hits for Celine Dion, Aerosmith, Toni Braxton, Chicago, Brandy, and, uh, Milli Vanilli. She has provided songs for some of the biggest pop stars of all time, like Beyonce, Cher, Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey, and Taylor Swift. Her extremely deep catalogue ranges from R&B to bubblegum pop, hard rock, and the occasional alternative radio track. One indicator of success that has eluded Miss Warren is an Academy Award. Her penchant for weepy ballads has scored her 17 nominations for Best Original Song but not a single win. For nearly the last decade, the Academy has annually put her within sniffing distance of an Oscar but – save for an honorary statue in 2022, which clearly nobody thinks counts – never awarded her one. This has resulted in some extremely questionable titles earning the prestige of a nomination. Which I, in my drive to watch all the nominees every year, have forced myself to watch. Warren is herself the topic of 2026's Obligatory Diane Warren Nomination, "Diane Warren: Relentless." Of course, she penned a song for it. Of course, it is nominated and, of course, I watched it. Ah shit, here we go again. 

"Relentless" tracks Warren's life and career. It follows her childhood in suburban Van Nuys, where her obsession with music was born. Her mom wanted her to become a secretary but her dad always believed in her. Despite a frequently combative personality, a good deal of social awkwardness, and not being much of a singer herself, Warren became a hit maker. "Relentless" interviews friends and collaborators, follows her daily routine, covers her personal struggles, and eventually zeroes in on her repeated inability to finally win that damn little gold man.

 

"Relentless" is, in many ways, your standard biographical documentary. Home movies and vintage photographs are cut together with peeks into Warren's current life and a retrospective of most of her big hits. Director Bess Kargman employs genre cliches like taking Warren back to her childhood home and tracking down old friends and relatives. Famous faces rave about her talent but "Relentless" does stop just short of pure hagiography by acknowledging her quirks and flaws. Such as her potty mouth and being a pain in the ass to work with. Once the topic turns towards the Academy's unwillingness to give her a win, "Relentless" reveals its true reason for existing. Her indefatigable excitement at being nominated and disappointment at losing is showcased. The climax of "Relentless" is the creation of "Dear Me," the Kesha sung number that got the movie nominated. In other words, the documentary is a ninety minute For Your Consideration ad, aimed at convincing Academy members that the perpetual runner-up really deserves a win. 

A rich, famous, and very successful person being sad that they don't have one more trophy to add to their mantle is not the most universal of motivations for making a movie. The makers of “Relentless” were clearly aware that the question of “Why should anyone give a shit?” needed an answer. The documentary cycles through the usual narrative of Warren having a difficult childhood, an impossible to please parent, and struggling to establish herself in the L.A. music scene. Since “Relentless” is as focused on Warren's current life as her past, however, it can't build that into a compelling story arc. There's a lot of mention of Diane's disapproving mother but this thread is mysteriously dropped with a half-hearted admission that the elder Warren eventually got over it. There's a pause to acknowledge the recent death of her beloved cat. Which is sad, sure, but not something you can really build a whole movie around. 

The decision the film finally settles on centers around is questionable. Warren wrote the Lady Gaga anthem “Till It Happens to You” from sexual assault awareness documentary, “The Hunting Ground.” During the press tour for the movie, the songwriter admitted that she herself is a victim of childhood sexual abuse. That takes courage to admit, especially publically. I'm a survivor myself, so I understand. However, the film spinning that bravery as the main reason Warren should have won an Oscar strikes me as distasteful. Especially as the doc pontificates more on how Warren is still trying to get the make-up award for that loss. Yeah, Lady Gaga belted it out at the ceremony. Sure, I think “Till It Happens to You” is a better song than the crappy Bond theme it lost to. But is this movie trying to guilt me into voting for “Dear Me?” As if winning an Oscar would resolve the trauma of Warren's assault? You sure that's the point you wanna make? What are we doing here, movie? 

This marks an exploration of the life and process of a clearly talented person – presumably the reason we watch docs like this – as a secondary goal to “Diane Warren: Relentless'” real purpose: Declaring that its subject really, really needs that fucking Oscar. Which leaves us with a documentary that is a wispy ode to its subject's ego and not much else. Kargman does give us peeks into more humanizing parts of Warren's life. We learn about her love for animals, which includes a ranch home to rescued donkeys and pigs. She talks about her status as a neurodivergent individual. I'm one of those too and I recognize a reliance on structure, lack of a filter, and hyperfocus on passions in Warren. A few scenes discuss her continued lack of a love life and how that reflects on her ability to write love songs that resonate with so many people. That could have been a really interesting topic! Alas, “Relentless” knows that it will be mostly watched by Academy voters and zeroes in on convincing them to vote for its song. 

Unfortunately, “Diane Warren: Relentless” had the misfortune to come out during the same year as “KPop Demon Hunters.” “Dear Me” isn't bad. It's easily the seventh best version of this same song that Warren has had a hand in making. It's not going to beat “Golden” though. If a genuine musical pop culture phenomenon hadn't come out in 2025, Diane's latest teary ode to self-actualization would still probably come in behind “Sinners'” “I Lied to You.” I say that all of this is unfortunate because it guarantees at least one more year of some random-ass thing getting a nom strictly because Warren wrote a song for it. They made an entire movie to win her an Oscar and it'll all be for naught. And if she does somehow won, will Diane pivot towards being obsessed with winning a Tony and filling out her EGOT score card? She does have a jukebox musical hitting stages soon. I guess they'll have to make a “Relentless II” for that. Her suffering is truly never ending. I repeat this joke with a sigh: See ya next year, Diane. [5/10]

 

OSCARS 2026: Song Sung Blue (2025)

It's a trend that mystifies me a bit. Occasionally, and often around award season time, an already successful documentary will be remade as a traditional narrative film. Why retell a true story that's already been told? I suppose documentaries don't have as much reach and fictionalizing events exposes more people to this tale. The more cynical part of my brain can't help but wonder if this is merely the work of big stars wanting a chance to enact an inspiring true story, one that has already been proven to be a winner. That certainly seems to be the case with "Song Sung Blue," the big budget remake of Greg Kohs' somewhat beloved 2008 documentary of the same name. The story of a Neil Diamond tribute band already seems like a niche topic for a doc. Must we also tell it with famous actors as the real people? Primed to be an awards contender last year, this "Song Sung Blue" received mildly positive but mostly unenthusiastic reviews from the critics. However, Kate Hudson did manage to sneak into the Best Actress category which is why I'm writing about it right now. 

Recovering alcoholic and Vietnam veteran Mike Sardina is a car mechanic by trade. His passion, however, is music... Other people's music. He sometimes works as a celebrity impersonator and sings in tribute bands at fair grounds and bars. He's especially passionate about the music of Neil Diamond and has invented the on-stage persona of "Lightning" around Diamond's tunes. While at a show, he meets Claire Cartwright, a Patsy Cline impersonator. The two find themselves collaborating on interpretations of Diamond's music and, quickly enough, fall in love. They form the tribute act Lightning and Thunder. After a rocky start, they begin to have some success and even open for Pearl Jam at a 1995 concert. Life seems good before Claire is struck by a car in their front lawn, losing a leg. Recovery is difficult for her and she becomes addicted to painkillers. Mike loses his passion for performing without her and has repeating heart attacks. The troubles start to pile up but love, and catchy old pop songs, are hard to give up. 

Like seemingly everyone in my age group, I've always regarded the music of Neil Diamond as a kitschy artifact of an earlier age. Diamond is easily mocked for his cheesy lyrics, tinny production, questionable fashion choices, and throaty vocals. At the same time, his big hits are hard to resist. The hooks are undeniable and the full-throated earnestness with which Diamond sings is charming. "Sweet Caroline" is indeed one of those songs that excite the white folks. Diamond exists in that cultural space between hopelessly hokey and widely beloved. 

This is the mode "Song Sung Blue" attempts to inhabit as well. It uses the inherent pathetic quality of the celebrity impersonator circuit as a source of easy laughs. Look at these dweebs, re-enacting glory days that aren't even their own, passably mimicking the dead and irrelevant famous for pennies at backwoods venues. The film is certainly not above using the dated fashion of Diamond's most famous periods as a punchline nor playing up the incongruity of seeing such an act in the snarky nineties. When Eddie Vedder invites Thunder and Lightning to open for Pearl Jam, it's clearly another grudge era act of irony. A declaration to the Gen X audience of "look at the lame shit your parents were into. Isn't it funny?" 

At the same time... "Forever in Blue Jeans" kind of rocks, ya know? As much as "Song Sung Blue" is giggling at the thoroughly white beard antics of its heroes and the Lame Seventies aesthetics they love, the film is a mostly sincere celebration of Diamond's music. It features most of his big hits, the majority performed enthusiastically by Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson. Jackman, forced to be a superhero when all he really wants is to be an old time-y song and dance man, certainly displays a lot of chummy charm. He's excited to be here and he loves what he loves. Hudson adapts a silly Midwestern accent but, unlike Jackman's loopier performance, keeps the character from being a joke. The two have strong chemistry. There's an amicable sweetness to the scenes devoted to their kids – Ella Anderson and King Princess, both solid – interacting and becoming friends. When it's a loose comedy about these oddballs trying to go their own way and make their dreams into reality, “Song Sung Blue” is amicable. 

This is before a major tonal change literally crashes into the film. A farcical scene of Mike being recorded while singing in just a big shirt and his underwear pans over to the outside of the house, where a car suddenly slams into Claire. What had been a light-hearted rom-com before this moment then becomes a very serious drama. Claire adapting to life with only one leg and slipping into pill addiction deflates Mike's joy. She has manic episodes, walking delusions of being on-stage, between sleeping all day or picking fights with her husband and kids. It is a little on the melodramatic side, all the more because of how abrupt a shift it is. This change also drains the movie of the upbeat energy it had up to this point, leading to a second half that feels like it never ends. Major events, such as Claire's daughter becoming pregnant, are relegated to quickly passed over subplots. While other story beats previously mentioned, like Mike's bum ticker, must be brought up until it can be resolved. All these grim notes are still occurring alongside all the silly set-dressings of the story, a tonal disconnect the film can't overcome. 

“Song Sung Blue” is not technically a musical in the traditional sense. The characters only sing when they are practicing or performing. Nevertheless, the longer it goes on, the more it feels like a movie where the songs are the attraction. The climax, an on-stage rendition of “Brother Love's Traveling Salvation Show,” feels especially extended. The film represents director Craig Brewer – previously of “Hustle & Flow,” “Black Snake Moan,” the “Footloose” remake – getting back to music-driven films after two Eddie Murphy vehicles. Perhaps he over-indulged himself. Jackman and Hudson have a good energy and that drives “Song Sung Blue” for a bit. Up until the big tonal shift, I was thinking that this was decent enough. That second half is a train wreck though. I am curious to check out the original documentary now, to see if it handles the ups and downs in the real lives of these people better than this adaptation does. [5/10]

 

 

OSCARS 2026: Blue Moon (2025)

I'm not sure I could ever call myself a fan of Richard Linklater. I liked “School of Rock” and “A Scanner Darkly” but found myself unmoved, perhaps annoyed at times, but some of his other work. The guy, however, is prolific. Since his feature length debut in 1988, he's never gone more than a year or two between pictures, sometimes releasing multiple films only months apart. Linklater's consistency means that some projects are going to fall through the cracks, inevitably being lesser works. 2022's “Apollo 10 ½” was the first of his distributed by Netflix. The streamer giant, notoriously, only puts much promotion into a handful of the countless films they produce in a year. In other words: 2025 was another double year for Linklater and I hadn't even heard of either film until last month. Why I missed that “Blue Moon” existed at all, clearly the Academy did not, giving the motion picture two nominations. 

Linklater has dabbled in behind-the-scenes stories of entertainment industry greats before, with “Me and Orson Welles” and his other 2025 release. “Blue Moon” also operates in this mode. It follows Lorenz Hart – writer of great American songbook standards like “My Funny Valentine,” “The Lady is a Tramp,” and the titular song – on a specific night seven months before the lifelong alcoholic died. His former creative partner, Richard Rodgers, has just debuted his newest Broadway musical, something called “Oklahoma!” After watching the show, the unimpressed Hart slips into Sardi's restaurant and bar. He immediately begins talking of his opinions, his experiences, and his latest romantic fixation with a young college student named Elizabeth. Throughout the night, faces and names that will be famous and obscure walk in and out of the bar. Most notable among them are Rodgers, who is both interested and reluctant in renewing his partnership with Hart, and this Elizabeth that Lorenz can't stop talking about.

From my somewhat limited exposure to Linklater's work, it does seem to me that he likes loosely plotted narratives centered on character interactions and dialogue more than anything else. “Blue Moon” takes this approach and applies it to a story set almost entirely within one location. Nearly the entire film takes place within Sardi's. Hart sets himself at the bar, starts talking with Eddie the bartender, and the other people around the location. While many different characters wander in and out of the bar throughout, much of “Blue Moon” follows this set-up. In other words, “Blue Moon” is rather like a stage play. Not just in its limited scope but also in the way it makes the viewer feel like you are randomly dropping in on a group of people's lives. That the film is about one specific night, the debut of “Oklahoma!” on Broadway, emphasizes that we are merely seeing one incident in a whole series of them. 

Another way “Blue Moon” is like a stage-play is how much the sound and rhythm of the language itself is part of the attraction. Ethan Hawke props himself up on a bar stool in an early scene and immediately begins delivering colorful, lengthy, and fast-paced dialogue about the latest girl of his dream he's met. Much of what follows in “Blue Moon” keeps this going. This is a film full of big personalities, talking in a stylized fashion that is fitting to the swinging forties setting. Later in the movie, Hart describes his dream project to his famous writing partner: A massive production about the life of Marco Polo, with countless dancers and a three ring circus on the stage. Most stage plays don't have production values like that. Most, like the film we are watching, substitute spectacle with memorable human interaction and the kind of pithy, almost musical dialogue that gets you smiling quickly. 

It has been said that the Academy recognizes not the “best” in any given category but rather the “most.” Hawke certainly underwent the kind of impressive physical transformation that impresses the Academy. The 5”10', leading man handsome Hawke is transformed into the 5”4' Hart via a shaved head, some subtle make-up on his face, and classical camera tricks. While some of Hawke's best work make use of his quiet, brooding intensity, this is surely a performance that leans more towards the Most than the Best. The script, breathlessly delivered by Hawke and the rest of the high profile cast, makes sure to illustrate Hart's flaws and virtues equally. His immense creativity and vision, his egotism and pettiness, both his evident wit and his inability to see the most obvious things in front of him. Such as how Elizabeth – played by Margaret Qualley in the kind of enchanting and fast-lipped performance she has quickly come to specialize in – clearly has no romantic feelings towards the old man that is infatuated with her. A better film would do more with these contradictions. “Blue Moon” is instead content to merely link this quality to other ways Hart was two things at once, such as his apparent bisexuality or how he could be both proud and resentful of the titular composition.

I can't deny that “Blue Moon” is a well performed film with a spirited, catchy screenplay. However, there's a reoccurring element to the writing here that bugs me. The film presents Lorenz Hart as a secret architect behind whole swaths of pop culture. Notable figures wander in and out of the story. The writer he chats with is Elwyn Brooks White, as in E.B. White. As in the future author of “Stuart Little,” a sequence where Hart presents an anecdote about a mouse in his apartment goes out of its way to remind us. This is not even the cutest example of such writing in “Blue Moon.” Hart tells a would-be filmmaker to focus less on romantic stories and more on stories between friends. A boy that hangs around Hammerstein, his next door neighbor's child, is said to be an encyclopedia of theatre knowledge. When we learn these individuals' names – George, Stephen – it feels like a punchline to corny jokes. Even a random photographer in the film must be a prominent figure. It's a bit too cute, a distracting running gag. 

There are elements to “Blue Moon” that are worth admiring. Hawke is very good, along with the rest of the cast. In an Oscar year with a less clear front runner, I think he would win Best Actor. (If such a thing comes to pass, I'll consider it a win for his superior acting in “First Reform.”) It's a pleasant film. Linklater supposedly worked on the script for twelve years before coming to a version he actually liked. Despite that, much like the theater writers and directors depicted here, it feels like one of many projects a director that seemingly likes to always be working churns out. He'll be on to the next one soon enough, I'm sure. Whether this becomes an influential fave in his career, like “Dazed and Confused” or the “Before” trilogy, or one that gets kind of forgotten, like “Last Flag Flying" or his "Bad News Bears" remake, is not for us to decide. [6/10]

 

Director Report Card: Chloe Zhao (2025)

 

5. Hamnet

There was a period after Chloe Zhao's first films became indie darlings, when she first signed a deal to direct “Eternals,” that cinematic taste-makers worried they had lost their girl. “NomadLand” had not yet been declared overrated, ya see. If someone who came up doing low budget dramas shifts to making a mega-budget blockbuster, the unavoidable assumption is that this is mostly what they will be making afterwards. The flurry of projects Zhao was attached to after “Eternals” seemed to see this through. She was making a sci-fi western version of “Dracula” and maybe a “Star Wars.” The humble filmmaker of “The Rider” was no more or so it seemed. Then “Eternals” under-performed by Marvel Cinematic Universe standards, many viewers agreeing that Zhao was not suited to CGI bombast. Her next film to actually get made was “Hamnet.” As an adaptation of an acclaimed book about a very famous historical figure was not exactly on the same micro-budget level of “Songs My Brothers Taught Me” or “The Rider.” However, it was obviously a lot closer to Zhao's foundational work than her swing at superhero shenanigans. While I'm sure some will still insist that transitioning to Oscar-friendly period dramas still means Zhao has lost her way, the consensus seems to be that Zhao is back in her comfort zone. 

William Shakespeare and his wife – usually named in the historical records as Anne Hathaway but sometimes called Agnes – had three children. Only one was a son. The boy's name was Hamnet and he died at the tender age of 11. Some years afterwards, the Bard wrote a play whose title and main character share a name with his deceased child. This has resulted in much scholarly speculation about whether “The Tragedy of Hamlet” was inspired by his son's death or an expression of his grief. Little else is known about Hamnet's life or his death, what took his life remaining a mystery. This has not stopped authors from expanding on the possible connection. Maggie O'Farrel's novel and now Zhao's film adaptation invents most of their narrative around these historical events.

Agnes is centered in this story, the daughter of a rich lord and a woman rumored to be a witch. Before her death, Agnes' mother passed her knowledge of folk remedies onto her daughter. The son of a glove maker, to pay off his father's debt, takes a job teaching Agnes' step siblings Latin. The two soon catch each others' eye, their courtship beginning. William and Agnes soon wed. Shortly afterwards they are blessed with a daughter, Susanna. Not long after that, the twins Hamnet and Judith arrive. As William becomes a successful playwright, he splits time between his country home and the city. Agnes has uncanny visions of her youngest daughter's death. When the plague rips through the area, Judith becomes ill and it seems her predictions are coming true. Hamnet, who has promised his father to protect his sisters and mother, crawls into bed. The next day, Judith is alive and Hamnet is dead. William retreats into his work, returning to London to produce a new play. Agnes is left alone with her grief. When she learns the title of her husband's next play, she is uncertain how to react but goes to see the debut performance nevertheless.

William Shakespeare's body of work is, probably, the most analyzed and studied pieces of fiction in all of the English language. Over the hundreds of years his plays and sonnets have been part of the canon, they've been considered, imitated, adapted, and deconstructed from seemingly every angle imaginable. Shakespeare has always been with us, as far as anyone living is concerned. When one name has cast such a long shadow for such a long time, it becomes difficult to think of him as a human being. He is The Bard, not a man, and therefore his work stands apart from the details of his personal life. Of course, every writer puts themselves into their work and there's no reason to suspect this would have been untrue during the reign of Elizabeth I. “Hamnet” forces us to consider Shakespeare as a living person whose plays reflect what he was feeling and living through. It is a clever way to bring the words of “Hamlet,” so ingrained in our literary culture as to appear stodgy, back to life.

“Hamnet” establishes its thesis moment fairly early on. Early in William and Agnes' courtship, he meets her at her favorite spot in the surrounding woods. His attempts at starting a conversation devolve into awkward stammering. Instead, Agnes suggests he tells a story. Billy Shakespeare relates a rendition of the tale of Orpheus and Eurydice, charming the woman before him. The myth is one of otherworldly devotion and passion that resists godly orders. In other words, the writer is telling a story in order to express how he is feeling. It is a symptom of the creative mind, I'm afraid, that this is sometimes the best way for us to get a specific emotion across. If you know what “Hamnet” is about, and you probably do if you're watching it, you can tell how this set-up will come back around later in the film. 

The legend of Orpheus and Eurydice isn't only one of undying devotion but also of loss and the underworld. This conversation pointedly takes place near a large hole in the forest ground, a gaping black maw that might as well be the entrance to the underworld spoken of in the Greek myth. A parallel is drawn later on between this pit and the gap in the stage setting from which the ghost of Hamlet's father enters and exits. Around this same location, Agnes' pet hawk is also later found dead. It's an emotion floating all throughout “Hamnet,” that the physical reality of death is never far from us. We see it again when Agnes recalls seeing the body of her mother as a little girl or when Judith is bored unbreathing, only to take her first breathe shortly afterwards. “Hamnet” is not exactly a grim reminder of our mortality and the inevitability of death. It's a more sentimental film than that. However, it is concerned with something alive becoming an empty shell. There is a degree of earthy rot inevitably within this reflection on grief. 

Agnes is introduced next to that deep hole in the ground, curled up in the fetal position among a world of vibrant green vegetation. It is one she returns to throughout the film. Her mother was said to have emerged from the woods, like a fairy or nymph. She works with herbs and plants, whispering incantations to them as she crushes them against a stone. Her pet hawk does not seem receptive to any other trainers. William, meanwhile, is first seen in a class room. His natural environment seems to be crouched around a writing desk. His work takes him away from his family often. When Shakespeare does enter into the forested realm that seems to have birthed Agnes, his interactions are a bit awkward and stumbling. These two do love each other and find common ground but they ultimately inhabit different worlds. They are inevitably going to process grief in different ways because, no matter how much they love one another, they walk different lives. 

Zhao plays with the suggestion that Agnes Hathaway truly was attuned to some witchy energy. She claims to be able to tell people's futures from holding their hands. She has visions of uncertain origin. The twins also pull pranks, like dressing in each other's clothes to fool their dad, hinting that they have some otherworldly link as well. Both mother and son seem to have glimpses of the future, when Agnes says she can see Hamnet “up on the stage.” Whether we can take any of these suggestions literally is a matter of interpretation. Agnes herself seems to doubt the sincerity of her own beliefs at times. When Will stares at a shadow puppet show depicting the arrival of the plague in England, it feels like he too is trying to gleam something deeper from what's before him. This is, of course, true of all art. We are seeing mere projections, that we can choose to take meaning from. While “Hamnet' is unambiguous about what it thinks “Hamlet” is about, perhaps we can read this idea into the film itself. This is simply what O'Flannel and Zhao think is what happens.

I wish “Hamnet” trusted its audience a little more than it does. When the titular lad perishes, we are greeted to dreamy visions of him stepping into a door way, seemingly drawn in by a shadowy figure. The climax of the film has Agnes in the audience at a performance of “The Tragedy of Hamlet.” When her husband steps out on-stage, in the role of the prince's ghostly father, she points out that it's as if Shakespeare switched places with his boy. Was it necessary to announce that? In general, “Hamnet” has a bad habit of spelling things out too much. Key lines, like “The rest is silence” and “To be or not to be?,” are uttered before appearing in the play, in far too cute of a coincidence. Ultimately, the emotional connection Agnes feels with the material on-stage is touching but, the minute the credits roll, ring a little false. Yes, Hamnet will live forever on-stage. But I bet Agnes Hathaway would have rather watched her son grow up. 

“Hamnet” is at its best when depicting that grief as a raw, ugly thing. Jessie Buckley foregrounds Agnes' otherworldly quality, with intensely staring eyes and a puckish grin. However, when her emotions boil over, Buckley holds little back. During the birthing scene, she wails towards the heavens, face glistening with sweat, eyes wild with pain. When it appears she's lost her babies, the look of trembling panic is beautifully raw. Paul Mescal has moments like that too, when in a drunken stupor and finding himself unable to put the right words down. His tears come in their own way later on, just as ugly and real. However, the two actors notably never cry in a scene together, making the separation in how these two characters process their grief all too apparent. If that finale works at all, it's thank to the sadness and acceptance Buckley and Mescal are able to get across through their eyes and faces. 

Another way “Hamnet” grounds the legendary figures it concerns in more human matters is by reminding us that William Shakespeare was someone's son too. The Bard's relationship with his dad is shown as combative. His father belittles him for not taking up the family profession of being a glover and for pursuing an intellectual career. I think every line of dialogue the character has includes some insult towards his eldest son. Agnes' dad wasn't great either, as he married a condescending woman after his first wife's passing. It's a bit too on-the-nose but the moment, when William finally confronts his father, does prove fittingly cathartic. If nothing else, the subplot touches on something I've been thinking about a lot, now that I'm in my thirties. Few parents are ideal but, perhaps, every generation tries to be better than the one that came before it. It is indicative of “Hamnet's” maturity, that it nods towards this idea. 

“Hamnet” sees an interesting blend of Zhao's neo-realistic style from her earlier work with something more brooding and dream-like. When depicting Agnes howling in the sprawling wilderness, an apocalyptic dream, or the kids performing an impromptu enactment of the witches' spell from “MacBeth,” I get the impression that the director might have a pretty decent folk horror film in her. Łukasz Żal, the cinematographer of Pawel Pawlikowski's last two movies and “The Zone of Interest,” photographed this one. He often assumes a similar God's eye view as what he did in those films, creating a somewhat distant approach to the characters. Zhao smartly pairs these with somewhat square, almost formal looking sets. The impression it gives is of a stage play, the characters performing before a backdrop. Another decently clever way to link together the various themes apparent in the film.

“Hamnet” is more polished than Zhao's previous dramas. I would say it is not even as grounded in its imagery and ambiance as “NomadLand” was. Perhaps that is inevitable, when discussing the leap from modern-set films about homelessness to a historical biography set in the 17th century. The performances are strong, the visuals are sharp, the score is solid. The script mostly makes the right decisions, at least in the ambitious themes it presents. Ultimately, like many films of this sort, it feels the need to be too tidy and cute in the way it wraps things up or links the creation of a work to the work itself. Nevertheless, it is evident that the flaws of “Eternals” was not because Zhao was a one-trick pony but likelier out of difficulty of fitting her quirks into the Marvel house style. “Hamnet” shows that she still has plenty of skills at her disposal, being a well made and occasionally powerful film. [Grade: B]

Director Report Card: Danny Boyle (2010)

 

13. 127 Hours

 

It is, by any definition of the word, an extraordinary story. I vaguely recall hearing the true life tale in or around 2003. Of how a rock climber had his arm pinned to a cave wall by a fallen boulder. How he survived for five days in a narrow crack in the Utah desert before realizing he was going to die of dehydration without desperate action. Using the weight of his own body against the rock wall, he shattered his forearm before slowly amputating above the elbow with a tiny pocket knife. How he then repelled down a 65-foot drop and hiked for seven miles, his bloody stump crudely tied off, finally being found by a vacationing family. Delirious, dehydrated, and bleeding badly, the man was air-lifted to a hospital, ultimately surviving the entire ordeal. The incident inspires either awe at the ability of the human spirit to endure or horror at how terrifyingly wrong things can go. Personally, it inspired me to never ever go hiking in the desert or anywhere else for that matter.  Either way, it's the kind of insane true story you're not likely to forget once you hear it. Naturally, such a tale of survival and resilience prompted multiple media appearances and a book deal. 

And, obviously, a movie. After Aron Ralston's autobiographical recollection of the event, "Between a Rock and a Hard Place," became a bestseller, Danny Boyle became fascinated with the story. He spent four years trying to develop a film based on the book, writing a treatment himself before passing it over to Simon Beaufoy to expand it into a feature length script. After winning Best Director and Beat Picture for "Slumdog Millionaire," Boyle had the necessary cache to make the film. In the context of his overall career, that feels like a very calculated move. A director gets a bunch of Oscars and his next project is an inspirational, based-on-a-true-story biography about the will to survive. In other words, certainly not the kind of movie that was going to dispel any notices that the guy who made "Trainspotting" had thoroughly sold out by this point, his punk rock spirit having given way to sentimental studio schlock and a hunger for more gold statues. "127 Hours" got plenty of nominations but few wins. Fifteen years after its release, the film does seem to be slightly better regarded among the edgy dickheads like myself than some of Boyle's other post-"Slumdog" work. 

By spring of 2003, mechanical engineer Aron Ralston was an experienced mountaineer, rock climber, and hiker. On the 26th of April, he left his home early in the morning without telling anyone of his plans. He drove south of the Canyonlands National Park into a mountainous range of desert. He was there to explore Bluejohn Canyon, a long and narrow channel in which sheer walls close in all around those inside. After diving into a hidden cave pool with two female hikers, and getting invited to a party the next night, Aron continues onward by himself. That is when an 800 pound boulder is dislodged, crushing his right arm and trapping him in the remote canyon. Knowing no help is on the way, and with little water left, Ralston tried everything he could to escape without success for five days. Documenting his experience with the camcorder he brought with him, he consigned himself to death before finding the strength to perform the act of bodily mutilation that would save his life.

Ralston's story is, without question, a bizarre and captivating one that can't help but be passed along. However, I don't think Boyle was attracted to the material because he was inspired by Ralston's willingness to survive or the grisly, "can you believe this shit?" facts of the matter. In interviews about the film, he described being inspired by Darren Aronofsky's “The Wrestler,” by a desire to follow one character in a similar super-focused manner. He also described “127 Hours” as an “action movie with a guy who can't move.” In other words, Ralston's story presented a technical challenge. How do you make a compelling cinematic work out of a story about a guy who is fixed to one spot? For five days, Ralston was wedged into a tiny cave. How do you translate that experience to the screen without it being visually tedious, keeping the isolation and desperation of the story without devoting the entire runtime to mostly stationary shots of one guy in one place? 

When presented with such a boundary, a filmmaker essentially has two steps they can take. First off, they can cheat. By which I mean they can venture outside the confines of the canyon Ralston was trapped in, via the power of flashbacks, memories, dream sequences, or focusing equally on his life before the accident as during it. This would basically violate the main promise of “127 hours,” that it would be primarily devoted to depicting the week he was down that hole with the big-ass rock on his arm. Boyle's film only does this a little bit. After all of fifteen minutes, Aron gets trapped under the boulder. At which point the film's title appears on-screen, signaling to the viewer that this story is actually beginning. We do get glimpses of his childhood and nights with an ex-girlfriend. The diversions outside of the canyon, however, are mostly composed of the dreams and hallucinations Ralston experienced while in this situation. They are in the film, primarily, to get the viewer further into the main character's head. We are seeing his thoughts and feeling illustrated, just as much as the physical reality of what he went through.

The other option – if the filmmaker has the foresight to realize that the caving accident is what this story is about, that the audience is interested in this and not the mundane details of Ralston's life before – is to fuck around with the camera as much as possible. One suspects that the very first shot Boyle conceived of when imagining the film occurs shortly after Aron realizes he's stuck. The camera rushes up out of the crevasse, as he screams for help, until the viewer is looking down from the heavens at this massive, jagged line in the ground in a vast and empty landscape. This is the first, truly blatant example in the film of Boyle pairing an otherwise stationary story with as much visual flashiness as possible. He sticks the camera inside the drinking tube of Ralston's water bottle on more than one occasion. The film begins with a montage spread across three sections of the screen, a technique the director also revisits a number of times. Two cinematographers worked on “127 Hours.” Boyle's regular Anthony Dod Mantle and Enrique Chediak, who previously worked on “28 Weeks Later,” are both credited. One assumes that the movie's hyper-kinetic visual sense necessitated two directors of photography behind the camera. 

In a lot of way, this makes “127 Hours” a lot closer to the frantic style that characterized the rowdier, wackier moments in “Trainspotting” or “Shallow Grave” than the relative realism that kind of defined Boyle's post-digital work. The cinematography whips around from a number of perspectives. Some scenes are from an objective third point of view, as movies usually are shot, while a lot of others are from Ralston's point-of-view. The audience is sometimes privy to Ralston's thoughts via voice over. The longer underground he is, the more unstable his mental state becomes. This is depicted with an increasingly wilder sound design, emphasizing the off-screen sounds of a bird. The pain of the make-shift surgery is verbalized with a buzzer sound. The trademark chortling of Scooby-Doo is rendered sinister, in a clever way. The most extreme flights of fancy in the film are either when Aron dreams of a flood freeing him from the rock. Or it might be when he imagines himself on a talk show of sorts, Boyle once again revisiting the idea of using banal television as a contrast to the horrors of the story. 

What I'm saying is, yes, “127 Hours” doesn't feature elaborate camera angles and fantastical sequences simply because Danny Boyle realized he had to make the movie look cool or else risk making a boring movie. Attempting to replicate Ralston's delirious state of mind does give the filmmakers plenty of option to go a little crazy. On a more literal level, there is some precedence in the story for playing around with the frame of the image. The real life Aron Ralston has ascertain that “127 Hours” is a rather authentic recreation of what he lived through. The man video-taping himself – leaving a video journal of sorts behind, under the expectations that he was going to die and could only hope someone would discover it some day – is a matter of record. That means an element of a screen, the aperture screen of the cam-corder, is present in the story. The scenes of Ralston monologuing to the camera makes one imagine a fictionalized version of this story told as a found footage film, a fairly popular trend still in 2010. If nothing else, it's an organic way for Boyle and his team to incorporate a little bit of “28 Days Later's” digital look into this film.

I have no idea if Danny Boyle himself felt he had lost some of his edge a little over his last few movies. If he felt “Slumdog Millionaire” was a crowd-pleaser or that genre films like “28 Days Later” and “Sunshine” operated within certain fantastical limits. Either way, “127 Hours” does feel a little bit like an active attempt to re-capture the high energy and anti-social behavior of “Trainspotting.” In particular, this often feels like an attempt to stretch out the unsettling ambiance of the detox sequence from that movie for a much longer time. Clearly, the goal is to have as much of the movie occupy a feverish state for as long as possible, dreams and reality bleeding into each other, physical agony and a fear of death taking over the protagonist's mind. “127 Hours” can't sustain that kind of nervous emotion for a whole ninety minutes. However, it succeeds more often than not. If nothing else, the amputation scene feels properly frenzied and leaves a seasick feeling in your stomach while it is happen.

A big reason why “127 Hours” is able to build as much tension as it can – despite most people watching it being aware that Aron Ralston did not die in that canyon – is because of the music. Boyle must have been happy with the work A.R. Rahman did scoring “Slumdog Millionaire,” as they worked together on this again. Rahman's score often utilizes a simple, pounding bass chord, simulating both the drum of a speeding up heartbeat and invoking the sense that something unfortunate is about to happen soon. This motif reappears any time Ralston is making a serious attempt to make an escape, reminding the viewer what is at stake and how easily all of it can fall apart. When paired with fast cut images of Rolstan trying to rig a pulley up or water filling the canyon, it successfully puts the audience at unease. (The rest of Rahman's score relies on creating a dreamy ambiance or suggesting the wide and empty desert landscape. That's the mood the expected Oscar bait song, performed by an expectedly breathy Dido, operates in.) The very specifically chosen soundtrack choices also reminded me of Boyle's earlier, rowdier films. Bill Withers' “Lovely Day” has never been more genuinely uplifting and ebullient then here. 

While “127 Hours” strikes me as a mostly sincere effort to recapture the unpredictable grit of Boyle's earlier films, thematically it is still far more connected to the likes of “Slumdog Millionaire” than “Trainspotting.” Like the Best Picture winner, “127 Hours” muses on the nature of destiny and fate. In its opening scene, a peering camera makes sure to show us that Aron missed grabbing his Swiss army knife – which he later wishes he had when performing make-shift surgery on himself – by a matter of inches. Later, while considering the rock holding him down, he thinks about how the stone had been waiting for him for thousand of years. A confluence of events, whether by chance or fate, is what brings all of us to our destinations. However, much like “Slumdog Millionaire,” “127 Hours” does seem to suggest that we do have some pre-ordained fates ahead of us. Ralston, both in the film and real life, credits a vision of his future son with giving him the final push he needed to finally escape. Who is to say what the truth is or not but, at least within this film's universe, specific things can only happen as chain reactions of events in the past.

Another challenge specific to this true story is that, if adapted, it means mostly one person is going to be the only actor on-screen for the majority of its runtime. Recognizable faces like Kate Mara and Amber Tamblyn appears as two hiker Aron befriends before his accident. Other actors appear in flashbacks and fantasies. However, for most of the movie, this is a one-man show for James Franco. Franco, multi-hyphenated artist of debatable merit and shitty person though he might be, does handle the task well. Franco has the exact correct level of cockiness you'd expect from a guy who'd go on a perilous hike without telling a single soul. An exhaustion and desperation is evident on Franco's face as the situation grows graver. If nothing else, he properly creates a protagonist that the audience can root for without ignoring the flaws and mistakes he has to make up for.
 

The moment “127 Hours” most resembles your standard, inspirational biopic is in its final minutes. That's when the real life Ralston puts in the expected cameo appearance during the pre-credits round-up of facts about his life since. It is noted that his accident did nothing to dissuade his interest in mountain climbing and extreme hiking, which is meant to play as a triumphant note. In real life, Aron's brush with mortality, in his own words, turned him into a bit of a cocky asshole. And then the next time he was in the news was him and his second wife getting arrested for smacking each other around. Compared to that, the film adaptation of his misadventure only scoring six Oscars nominations and no wins – compared to “Slumdog Millionaire” sweeping – feels like less of a drop-out. All of that aside, this one actually isn't bad. If Boyle was mostly interested because he wanted to see if he could overcome the built-in limitations of the material, I would say he did successfully navigate that roadblock in his own way. [Grade: B]

 

RECENT WATCHES: Wolves at the Door (2017)

Over the last decade, the American obsession with “true crime” has erupted into a massive industry, fueled by countless podcasts and streaming documentaries. Among all the infamous tales of murder, cults, and disappearances, the story of Charles Manson and his Family remains a persistent point of fascination for many. 2019 was the fiftieth anniversary of the notorious crime and brought with it a wave of films on the topic. They ranged from thoughtful to revisionist to tawdry, prompting much debate and conversation. This was merely the climax of a cultural obsession with Manson and his followers' crimes, which had produced countless books, docs, and films of wildly varying levels of sensitivity over the decades. 

Getting in a few years before the anniversary was "Wolves at the Door," a low budget horror movie directly inspired by the Tate murders. The film would probably be of little note, if it wasn't for a few curious factors. It was produced by Hollywood big shot Peter Safran, released under the banners of Warner Bros. Pictures and New Line Cinema. That's because it was directed by John R. Leonetti from a screenplay by Gary Dauberman, the same team that had just made Safran a cool 200 mil with "Annabelle." Furthering the connection, "Wolves at the Door" features a cameo from actor Eric Ladin, reprising the role of the L.A. detective that he played in "Annabelle." The haunted doll movie referenced the Manson killings, directly albeit unofficially placing "Wolves at the Door" within the same cinematic universe as New Line's paranormal horror series. That's not the sole point of notoriety for this otherwise forgotten effort. Some people called it the worst movie of 2017. Which meant I had to give it a look. 

A brief prologue stars Charles Mulkey as half of a married couple that fall victims to the Manson Family's practice of "creepy crawling:" Breaking into a house without stealing anything or attacking anyone but merely to linger around. The rest of the film takes place on the night of August 8th, 1969. Pregnant movie star Sharon goes out to eat with her friends, hairdresser Jay, screenwriter Wojciech, and coffee heiress Abigail. They return to 10050 Cielo Drive, the house owned by Sharon's director boyfriend. The only other people on the property are caretaker William and his friend, Steven. As Sharon calls her husband in Europe, the phone line is cut. As Steve is leaving, he notices the gate is opened before being murdered by intruders. Abigail begins to notice people outside the home but her warnings come too late. The friends are about to fall victim to the murderous fanatics that have been sent to this home on a madman's command. 

Many of the negative reviews of "Wolves at the Door" are not merely bothered by its quality. Instead, people were offended by the approach it took to a real world crime. Leonetti's film plays the Tate murders less like a true crime story and more like a standard home invasion horror film. There's an expected "Based on a true story" tag at the beginning but the script goes out of its way to avoid using the famous last names of its characters. They are just Sharon and Abigail, Jay and Wojciech. As for the Mansonites, their faces are never clearly shown. They exist as faceless threats, generic bogeymen acting without any clear purpose. It's entirely possible, assuming you miss the very beginning and ending, that you could watch "Wolves at the Door" without realizing it's about Tate and the Family. Whether this makes the film more or less tasteless is a matter of debate. No attempt is otherwise made to follow the facts of the case, stripping away any question of verisimilitude. That makes "Wolves at the Door," in effect, a knock-off of "The Strangers," with a slightly larger cast of victims for the intruders to pick off before the hopeless finale. Attaching real names and events, people who actually did live and then die horribly, to a stock parts slasher set-up is definitely a scummy act. I also don't know if that makes "Wolves at the Door" any grosser than the rest of the mini-empire of films, books, docs and God knows what else exploiting the grisly death of Sharon Tate and her friends to sell a product. 

Perhaps the outrage arises from how stripped down an approach "Wolves at the Door" takes. The entire motion picture runs only about 75 minutes. That includes the prologue set before the main plot and the end credits. The scenes devoted to Tate and her friends returning to Cielo Drive before falling prey to the intruders occupy only an hour or so. This leaves little room for character development. The script attempts to build the cast through their interactions. You can see Katie Cassidy and Elizabeth Henstridge trying to turn Sharon and Abigail into actual fleshed-out depictions. The faltering relationship between Abigail and Wojciech, played by a heavily accented Adam Campbell, provides a small bit of drama to the earlier scenes. However, Dauberman's script instead wants to focus on creating suspense by showing the invaders slowly pushing into the home. In other words, a lot of "Wolves at the Door" feels like watching people simply hanging out and doing stuff. They might be okay in a regular slasher flick but... This story has a foregone conclusion, leaving you wondering a bit what the point of this entire exercise is. 

I can only speculate on what that point might be myself. For whatever it is worth, I do think "Wolves at the Door" bugged me a little less than the other John R. Leonetti movies I've seen. It doesn't hammer home obnoxious jump scares as much as "Annabelle" did. A fake-out involving a blender is somewhat well done, actually. It isn't an unfinished mess like "Mortal Kombat: Annihilation" either. In fact, I can see some of Leonetti's talents as a cinematographer shining through. The killers being introduced via prowling shots of their boots stepping out of a truck or a brief glimpse of their hand outside a window are well done. If the script was less barebones, I think a degree of suspense could have been built here. However, as the unavoidable ending comes closer, the visuals become shakier. I think the idea is to increase a grim tension, as Tate and Folgers cry and panic and move towards their ends. Instead, it only increases the feeling that you've wasted an hour of your life watching this not that interesting or good movie. 

Ultimately, the question of why "Wolves at the Door" exists remains more interesting than actually watching it. Quite a few famous songs from the period are played throughout, meaning the movie couldn't have been too cheap to produce. Presumably, Safran and everyone else at New Line Cinema knew what they were doing when they signed off on this. At the same time, the briefness of the movie and the limited number of sets suggests a tossed-off, extremely low budget production. Before the credits roll, "Wolves at the Door" presents real photos and footage of Manson, leaving behind any doubt about whether the filmmakers actually cared about the survivors or victims of the events it dramatizes. Considering the movie was dropped into digital with zero promotion, you feel like Safran and WB/New Line were embarrassed to be associated with a crass exploitation film. Did Leonetti and Dauberman throw this together with leftover funds from the "Annabelle" production or something? If so, why base it on such notorious true events? I imagine there were worst movies released in 2017. At times, "Wolves at the Door" almost works for me. However, this secret, sideways entry into the Conjuring Universe is mostly a strangely futile endeavor, barely feeling like a complete film at times that attaches itself to a hideous crime to gain a fraction of that notoriety. Somehow, it's still a less demoralizing watch than "The Haunting of Sharon Tate," faint praise that may be. [5/10]

Director Card: James Wan (2013) - Part One

5. The Conjuring

In 1943, a teenager from Connecticut named Edward met a devout Catholic girl named Lorraine. Two years later, while on leave from his service in World War II, the couple would marry, officially becoming Ed and Lorraine Warren. Ed claimed to have grown up in a haunted house while Lorraine professed to be a medium and clairvoyant. In 1952, the couple founded the New England Society for Psychic Research. By 1968, the Warrens had made a name for themselves as "psychic researchers," ghost hunters, and lecturers on spiritualism and demonology. They wrote about their adventures, tirelessly self-promoted, opened a museum of haunted artifacts in their home, and claimed to have investigated a mathematically impossible 10,000 cases. After their involvement with the (now thoroughly debunked) Amityville horror story, the Warrens had established themselves as the most famous "paranormal researchers" in the world. Actual evidence for any of their claims is either non-existent or doesn't hold up to any scrutiny. Ed was always pushing for book and movie deals, while generally establishing a belligerent public persona. Lorraine has been described alternatively as a charlatan or a deluded woman thoroughly warped by her conservative Catholic beliefs, who always insisted on a paranormal explanation for everything. (Though was apparently fine with her husband keeping his 15 year old mistress in their house.)

In 1970, Carolyn Perron, her husband Roger, and their five daughters moved into a 235 year old farmhouse in Burillville, Rhode Island, a suburb of Providence. The couple had a tense marriage, Roger's work as a travelling salesman taking him away from home for long periods. During the ten years the family lived in the house, Carolyn and her daughters made numerous claims of ghostly activity. In her amateur research, Carolyn discovered the story of Bathsheba Sherman, a seemingly normal woman who lived next door to the home in the 1800s. After a child in her care supposedly died, Sherman became the subject of a local legend claiming she was a baby-murdering, devil-worshipping witch. Stories that none of her children lived past the age of four or that she was put on trial for piercing an infant's skull with a knitting needle are not supported by historical records. Carolyn reached out to Ed and Lorraine, who immediately claimed the house was haunted. Roger never saw or felt anything unusual. During a seánce with the Warrens, he might have thrown Ed out of the house. Eldest daughter Andrea would go on to write several self-published books about her mother's alleged experiences. The next family who owned the house never reported any weirdness. The current owners, who bought the home after it gained notoriety, run a social media page devoted to showcasing videos of "ghostly activity" captured in the home and are willing to rent rooms to visitors.

In the late eighties, Ed Warren met with producer Tony DeRosa-Grund and played him a tape of an interview with Carolyn Perrin. DeRosa wrote a treatment based on the story called "The Conjuring." He spent the next twenty years trying to get it turned into a movie. After a rewrite from Chad and Cary Hayes made the Warrens the heroes of the story, the script became the focus of a studio bidding war. Eventually, New Line Cinema got the rights. James Wan, hot off the success of "Insidious," came aboard as director. Lorraine served as a consultant on the film, which was briefly retitled "The Warren Files" before reverting back to its original name. The resulting film was a huge commercial and critical hit, solidifying Wan's reputation as a modern master of horror. And that's how the story of two grifters and an overworked mom's fantasies about her drafty old home launched a billion dollar franchise and the most successful horror series of all time. 

Taking the Warrens and Andrea Perron's claims at face value, “The Conjuring” fictionalizes nearly everything else. Ed and Lorraine Warren investigate the case of a haunted doll named Annabelle, explaining to her hapless owners that demonic entities seek to possess people, not objects. Two years later, the Perron family move into their new home. The family dog refuses to enter the house and dies in the night. Strange smells permeate the building, the middle daughter sleep walks, and a sealed up cellar is discovered. The paranormal activity seems to circle around Carolyn, who is attacked in the cellar one night. Ed and Lorraine are called in to investigate, quickly determining that the spirit of Satanic witch Bathsheba Sherman seeks to take Carolyn's body for her own and continue her murderous ways. Ed must perform an exorcism to save Carolyn from this evil.

In many ways, “The Conjuring” feels like the horror movie James Wan had been wanting to make his entire career. In retrospect, one can't help but see “Insidious” especially as a test run for this superior spook show. Wan's fascination with ghost hunting intensifies, trading out “Insidious'” New Age nonsense for Lorraine's distinctively different strain of Catholicism influenced nonsense. More importantly, “The Conjuring” builds on the kind of creaky, haunted house boo-show atmosphere Wan established in his last horror picture. You can see how his skills have improved in the very first sequence of “The Conjuring.” The prologue, devoted to the Annabelle haunting, nicely uses sound and off-screen shuffling to make a foreboding little chiller, operating practically as a short film in its own right. Meanwhile, the staring eyes, cracked porcelain face, and grimy clothes of Annabelle represents a maximizing of every creepy doll cliché. (Quite a step-up from the real Annabelle...) Wan learned his lessons from “Insidious” and “Dead Silence,” applying them both to this stellar sequence.

Another important lesson learned from his first haunted house movie is that a sense of normalcy must be established before it can be upset by the supernatural intrusion. “The Conjuring” does not go very far in defining the Perrons. Their five daughters, especially, are never given much individual personality. I can keep track of Christine and Cindy, because I recognize Joey King and Mackenzie Foy, and the youngest daughter gets the most screen time. Otherwise, the girls are interchangeable. However, we get enough scenes of the siblings playing and interacting, goofing off or complaining about farting in their sleep, to grasp their bond. Roger and Carolyn are seen flirting and talking enough that a pleasant coziness is successfully presented. This feels like a real family, full of people who love and care for each other. We may not learn a lot about these people but they sure do seem nice. Not the kind of folks who deserve to be pestered and attacked by demonic spirit at all!

Niceness is, in fact, an unexpected virtue of “The Conjuring” in general. Ed and Lorraine Warren might have been huge jerks in real life but, as portrayed by Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga, they are a loving couple completely devoted to each other. There are multiple scenes of the two being sweet, simply showing how in love they are with each other. Wilson and Farmiga have such an easy-going, lived-in chemistry together, truly giving the impression of a couple that have been together for a long time. We also see them interacting with and playing with their daughter – something they didn't do a lot of in real life, by the way – furthering the feeling of a comfortable family life. Farmiga adopts an utterly sincere attitude to Lorraine, someone determined to use her gifts to help people and protect those that need. She spits the movie's most ridiculous dialogue with complete conviction, selling the viewer on the idea that Lorraine definitely believes in this stuff. Wilson's Ed is more practical, with a quiet and very Dad-like sense of humor, and seems unsure of himself at times. They are ideal heroes to swoop in and save the imperiled family. When most horror movies are about people unexpectedly thrust into life-or-death situations and forced to survive, there is novelty to protagonists actively going out to fight evil. 

"Insidious" set out to be the kind of horror movie that gets its audience to jump as often as possible. With "The Conjuring," you can tell Wan was actively trying to capture a slightly subtler mood. Befitting its early seventies setting, a real attempt was made to capture the look and feel of an older film. Digital shine is discarded in favor of a grainier look, with more depth and warm colors to the frames. This extends to several scenes shot in-universe on a handheld camera and a very "Texas Chain Saw Massacre"-like scrolling wall of text near the beginning, which works surprisingly well. Naturalistic lighting adds to both the coziness of the interiors and the idea that something is lurking in the shadows. Clearly inspired by the original "Amityville Horror," John R. Leonetti's cinematography often adopts a roaming perspective. As if the camera has taken the point of view of an unseen spirit. It creates a feeling of the family's tranquil life being intruded upon. Once the paranormal activity escalates, the camera movements becoming faster and sharper, placing the viewer right in the middle of the terror the family is feeling.

The excellent look of the film proves that James Wan and his team have a proper grip on the mechanics of filmmaking. Specifically, the mechanics of horror filmmaking. "The Conjuring" expertly, almost clinically, deploys a number of tricks and techniques to creep the audience out. Sound is immensely important to capturing the haunted house feeling, that uncomfortable sensation that results from hearing a weird noise in the middle of the night. The sleepwalking daughter running into a cabinet is the kind of loud, repetitive sound that puts your neck hairs on end. This is expanded upon when Lorraine goes into a trance outside the house, the sound of a noise swinging overhead increasing until we finally see the dead body dangling over Ed's shoulder. We peer into the spinning mirror of a music box, the film anticipating us looking in the blurry reflection for some unsettling presence. Wan cribs from the "Saw" series' biggest rival by including some gritty, unsettlingly real looking found footage into a few sequences. It all builds towards the scariest moment in the film, when Carolyn is exploring the creepy cellar. She strikes a match to illuminate the dark, shadows all around her, the camera close on her face. The suspense escalates nicely towards a sudden burst of violence. 

Honestly, "The Conjuring" is so good at utilizes familiar techniques to make a scary movie, that it almost comes across as cynical at times. The last truly effective jolt in the movie, in my opinion, is when we see the hairs on one of the girls' head float upwards, grabbed by an unseen force, before she's flung across the room in a well executed far shot. This proceeds a last act where "The Conjuring" can no longer resist the silliness at the center of its heart. After "The Amityville Horror," the other seventies shocker Wan is clearly most indebted to is "The Exorcist." The gross-out factor of projectile vomiting, a feminine but scarred up face, and a levitating object all appear. In this last act, "The Conjuring" abandons quieter chills in favor of louder, flashier techniques. There's some distracting CGI and jolting jump scares as the film moves towards a battle-between-good-and-evil climax. That feels at odds with the goals of the rest of the film, which was more about the humble comforts of home and family being disturbed by outside forces and not such grandiose notions as God and the Devil.

That presents the biggest problem with "The Conjuring," one all of the most well executed scares in the world would have trouble overcoming. It's not only that "The Conjuring" presents two "investigators" of dubious moral merit as stand-up citizens and heroes, when they were nuts at best and full-on con artists at worst in actuality. The film embraces the Warrens' beliefs without an ounce of irony or criticism. In the film's world – which is ostensibly presented as our world, given all the "based on a true story" branding – witches are real and they are evil. They worship Satan, who is definitely real, and sacrifice babies to him with some regularity. The script goes so far as to connect Bathsheba Sherman – again, who was an actual human being who lived and died – to the Salem Witch Trials. I thought we, as a culture, understood that no actual witches or warlocks lived in Salem, given the meaning the term "witch hunt" has taken on? Nevertheless, "The Conjuring" hinges on the idea that demonic spirits exist and that they make humans do horrible things, to mock God and weaken our collective integrity. Within this moral framework, the Catholic Church is presented as the ultimate force of good. The climax revolves around Ed performing an exorcism after the Vatican drags its feet in approving such a ritual. God is what opposes the forces of evil and the Catholic Church, and all its doctrine and members, are presented as his agents on Earth. 

It is, to say the least, somewhat irresponsible for a major Hollywood production to take such a stance. Here in reality, organized networks of Satanists conspiring to traffic and abuse children exist strictly within the realm of urban legends and the paranoid fantasies of right-wing reactionaries. The Catholic Church, on the other hand, doesn't exactly have the best record on protecting the welfare of children. Ya know, horror movies have been embracing the tenets of the Satanic Panic, without much subversion or criticism, for decades. Such plot points residing within films from the seventies and eighties is at least understandable. That was a less informed time, before the internet made the totality of all human knowledge accessible to anyone at any time. Despite that, horror films like this and the "Paranormal Activity" sequels, that pushed fear-mongering delusions about evil Satanists operating in the shadows, flourished in the 2010s. Looking back twelve years later, after PizzaGate and QAnon became full-blown cultural movements, when nonsensical conspiracy theories about devil worshipers have flourished and become pathways to all manner of dangerous misinformation, when a widespread shift in the national mood towards paranoia and fear over any one that is "different" is evident, it's hard to think of "The Conjuring" as merely a harmless horror movie. 

I don't think James Wan is a MAGA bro or an evangelical Christian extremist. I don't think he intentionally inserted a right-wing agenda into his spooky scary ghost movie, as part of some culture war shenanigans. If anything, I think "The Conjuring" was simply an act of franchise engineering on the director and his production team's behalf. The film presents the Warrens as superheroic figures, Lorraine's second sight acting as a power of sorts. Bathsheba is our villain with a catchy name. The museum full of other cursed artifacts presents countless openings for stories, past and future. "The Conjuring" concludes with a scene teasing the Warrens' most famous adventure, very much within the Marvel Cinematic Universe style. The superhero-ification of Ed and Lorraine means buying in completely to the insane bullshit they preach, a probably unintentional alignment with the revival of the worst parts of the Satanic Panic. 

If you can look past all of that, "The Conjuring" is a fine horror movie. The stars are endearing. Wan is operating at maximum strength as an engineer of creepy moments and full-speed thrills. It pays extensive homage to the genre's past while operating as a decent film in its own right. Really, if it was about some made-up ghost hunters, I would almost assuredly like it a lot more. Aligning itself with real world hucksters, and never pausing once to consider if maybe some of these beliefs are silly or even dangerous, keeps me from enjoying the film as the blockbuster horror entertainment that it is clearly meant to be. The mob has long since spoken, "The Conjuring" already having etched a place for itself in the pantheon of modern horror classics though. For better or worse. [Grade: B]