Halloween 2025: September 10th

Final Destination 5 (2011)

By committing themselves to such a strict routine, the producers of the "Final Destination" series probably limited their options for a long-running franchise. By which I mean there are only so many mass transportation disasters that can occur before it starts to get a little unlikely. Auto accidents happen every day. Plane crashes are a common anxiety. Roller coasters operate on seeming out of control, though they rarely are, and train derailments happen from time to time. A stadium collapse following a massive auto racing wreck in the fourth movie was already starting to push things. Despite that, the 3D gimmick in "The Final Destination" goosed the box office enough to make a fifth entry profitable. Filming on the water is notoriously difficult, elevators aren't very cinematic, and I don't think there's ever been any mass fatalities involving a people mover. Thus, "Final Destination 5" decided on a bridge collapse instead. The sequel was nearly hassled with the far more embarrassing disaster of having a silly title, as this one was briefly called "5nal Destination" during production. To think some marketing exec denied smarmy teenagers everywhere a chance to ask for a ticket to see "Five-anal Destination." 

The unlucky Cassandra randomly cursed with the power of foresight this time is Sam, an office peon in the corporate branch of some sort of manufacturing company. Everyone is being sorted onto a bus that day for a team-building exercise. That includes Sam's coworker Peter, Peter's girlfriend Candice, their boss Dennis, Sam's ex Molly, and a few other people. While crossing a busy bridge, high winds cause a catastrophic collapse and result in the brutal deaths of everyone present... Or so Sam sees in a psychic warning. He gets his friends and coworkers off the bridge in time. Unfortunately, their nightmare is only beginning. Once again, as the looming presence of oddly knowledgeable coroner William Bludworth informs them, Death has been cheated. Now, the reaper is out for suitably ironic, unnecessarily elaborate revenge. This time a new way to disrupt the pattern of deaths is presented: Murdering someone before Death gets to you, forcing them into your place. 

In the eleven years since the first "Final Destination," mainstream horror movies had arguably gotten more sadistic. By 2011, audiences had already endured seven "Saws," after all. Fearful of losing the arm's race of increasingly nastier horror franchises, New Line Cinema stepped up the mayhem in "Final Destination 5." The death sequences in this installment are, for lack of a better term, meatier. A gymnastic mishap results in twisted limbs and protruding bones. A squished head throws an awful lot of brain matter around. The opening bridge collapse finds a number of novel ways to impale, crush, batter, and dismember the human body. Moreover, the long build-up of minor mishaps that lead to these violent ends feels more teasingly mean-spirited towards the participants. An always-horny office creepoid is subjected to numerous humiliations at a massage spa before his final fate. The boss is a boorish lout and another victim is an argumentative factory worker. The most painful death is saved for Olivia, an apparent groupie prone to vanity and casual nudity. Her LASIK surgery goes horribly wrong, in maybe the most cringe-inducing sequence in the entire franchise. 

If taken too seriously, such a parade of horrible deaths and drawn-out build-ups would become too punishing to be much fun. Luckily, "Final Destination 5" keeps its tongue thoroughly in cheek. Perhaps well aware that the 3-D effects last time were subpar, New Line recruited Steve Quale to direct this installment. Quale was James Cameron's second unit guy on "Avatar," presumably making him something of an expert in 3-D filmmaking. The result is a follow-up that utilizes the depth of field much more effectively. The gymnast scene, for one example, cleverly puts the balance bars and pummel horse in the foreground and adds depth to the unfolding Rube Goldberg machine of mayhem behind them. Mostly, Quale and his team delight is thrusting shit right at the viewer. Rebar, sheet metal, a ship mast, meat skewers, an industrial hook, an acupuncture needle, and a friggin' laser beam all come flying right at us. It all gives the impression of being an especially gory theme park attraction, a thrill ride that happy to simulate danger without making us feel too personally attacked. 

That deft hand is also present in the way each chaotic end is playfully teased. The gymnast sequence sets up the fall brilliantly and patiently, with a loose screw rolling perfectly into place and a bowl of talcum powder being precariously perched before a fan. The sense the film is carefully taking its time also allows "Final Destination 5" to pull off several clever misdirects. The massage parlor scene introduces a number of potential objects to cause death before utilizing an unexpected one. A clever shot has a body falling into frame before the reveal that the guy's head has been impaled on a massive hook. The best misdirect of all is saved for the final minutes of the film, which brings the "Final Destination" series full circle in a clever way. It's the kind of twist ending that rewards the viewer too, carefully foreshadowed in such a way that is obvious upon a re-watch but easily missed the first time through. 

After the second "Final Destination" made its roster of meat-bags into human beings you could actually care about, the third and fourth installments increasingly didn't give a shit about the innocent victims caught up in Death's design. Part five works a little harder in that regard. David Koechner plays the kind of amusingly vacant dumb-ass you hire David Koechner to play. P.J. Byrne is on a similar level as the dorky, high libidoed Isaac. I'm not sure I was necessarily captivated by Nicholas D'Agosto as Sam, nor his subplot with his girlfriend, but at least he's given the hobby of being a French chief. Miles Fisher – who looks enough like D'Agosto that I thought they were playing brothers – as Peter does get the juiciest character arc, the character driven to the edge of madness by the grief of seeing his girlfriend go splat. The plot point that committing a murder might spare you from death's wrath provides a different angle to what we expect from the last act of these movies. I wouldn't go so far as to say this shift represents any sort of lore, as Death's pattern ultimately remains inescapable and random. It certainly isn't handled with any depth or insight, as Fisher just gets silly as he goes crazier. At least it shakes stuff up a little bit. 

"Final Destination 5" did well at the box office, ending up as the second highest grossing entry in the series with a worldwide total of 157 million. You'd think that means we would have gotten way more sequels since then. Screenwriter Eric Heisserer – who eventually got an Oscar nomination for "Arrival" – notably said that it was getting harder to cook up new deaths for the series though, which might explain the hiatus that followed. Stuck as the final "Final Destination" for many years, the fifth installment stands as another highlight of the grisly and flippant franchise. It managed to deliver fans of these films exactly what they want, while managing to find some new ways to keep the increasingly wrung-out formula fresh. I don't know if it did for suspension bridges what "Final Destination 2" did for trucks carrying logs but it did add an extra intrusive thought any time I had to drive across a bridge. And isn't that what we watch cinema for, to make us more paranoid and uncomfortable in our daily lives? [7/10]

 

Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger (1977)
 

The always enchanting stop-motion creature effects of Ray Harryhausen made “The 7th Voyage of Sinbad” into a minor classic of the fantasy genre. It took him a decade and a half to get another film based on this highly franchisable mythological hero made. After “The Golden Voyage of Sinbad” became a box office success in 1973, Columbia decided not to waste any time on getting a follow-up into production. Sam Wanamaker, better known as a Shakespearean actor who had dabbled in directing up to that point, would lead the production. Since “Golden Voyage” wasn't truly a sequel to “7th Voyage,” there was no expectation to link the 1973 film to this newer installment. Patrick Wayne, son of John, would inherit the role of Sinbad the Sailor from John Phillip Law and Kerwin Matthews. No supporting characters, love interests, or cast members would return for “Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger.” The film had the misfortune of hitting theaters the same summer as “Star Wars,” being easily overshadowed by the pop culture phenomenon. It's still regarded as the weakest of the three “Sinbad” movies Harryhausen worked on but it does have some of his trademark monsters in it, barely justifying me including it in a horror marathon. 

Having forgotten the princess he was previously engaged to, Sinbad the Sailor arrives in the city of Charak to seek the hand of Princess Farah in marriage. Instead, he discovers that Prince Kassim, on the night he was to be crowned king, was turned into a baboon by Zenobia, the prince's evil stepmother and a powerful sorceress. Zenobia's plan is to keep Kassim an ape so that her son, Rafi, can inherit the throne. Farah encourages Sinbad and his crew to journey to the island of Casgar, where the great alchemist Malanthius lives. He points them in the direction of Hyperborea, a mythical land located far beyond the frozen north and full of fantastical technology. Malanthius and Dione, his beautiful daughter, join Sinbad on this journey. Zenobia and Rafi, their boat propelled by a eight foot tall golden robot minotaur, are in hot pursuit. Sinbad  and his friends will encounter many strange beasts and challenges on this quest. 

Harryhausen's previous “Sinbad” films had highly episodic plots, built around the simple premise of a hero journeying from one location to another. There were lots of stops along the way to encounter strange creatures and magical perils that could then be brought to life with Dynamation. Somehow, “Eye of the Tiger” manages to feel more like a series of set pieces than either of the earlier adventures. The plot truly is no more complicated than “we have to head to this location, to un-monkey the prince,” with the bad guys slightly following behind and trying to stop them. Malanthius and his daughter are easily recruited to Sinbad's cause, being convinced to help out largely because the sailor showed up. Much talk is made of the difficulties of navigating the arctic ice on the way to Hyperborea but no one seems to struggle with it that much. The threat of the prince's mind slowly being consumed by baboon instincts, his humanity being lost forever, is the only element truly adding any tension to the story. 

This is by design, naturally, in order to highlight Harryhausen's stop motion creations as the real stars of the show. Early in production, the decision was made that this Sinbad adventure would feature fewer fantastical creatures and more prehistorical critters. This, combined with what Ray himself would call a rushed production schedule, results in “Eye of the Tiger” not featuring the effects master's best work. That's not to say that there isn't some extremely impressive, eye-catching special effects here. The dinopithecus-like baboon is highly expressive, showing life-like movements and expressing a lot of emotion in its eyes. The oversized walrus is similarly impressive in how it moves. A hawk-sized wasp is probably the scariest threat in the film, an insect right out of a nightmare. However, the fact of the matter is that bigger versions of regular animals aren't as cool as the mythic beasties of the previous films. 

The Minoton is probably the most memorable creation in the film, the golden calf robot looking awfully cool. It also contributes little to the story, not doing much besides standing around and looking intimidating, disgracefully exiting the film before the climax. I like the horned troglodyte the crew befriends but it does look and feel a lot like a lesser descendant of the cyclops Harryhausen previously animated. The ghouls that are summoned up are clearly inspired by the skeletons and Selenites of Harryhausen's past hits. The saber-toothed tiger that appears at the end, and presumably provide the title, is a bit too fluffy and stiff to blow the viewer away. Disappointingly, these creations are paired with some deeply underwhelming photographic effects. The scene where the sorceress turns into a seagull features some truly crappy color distortion, while several moments inexplicably spotlight shitty rear projection work. 

Another factor holding “Eye of the Tiger” back is its leading man. This film was released the same summer as “The People That Time Forgot,” the two movies representing the brief period when Hollywood was trying to turn Patrick Wayne into a star. It's easy to see why the career of the Duke's second son never truly took of. He is utterly devoid of charisma, blankly delivering all of his dialogue and never having a single spark of chemistry with any of his co-stars. That is notably a problem, as the love story between Sinbad and Jane Seymour's Princess Farah already bordered on the non-existent. Taryn Power, also the child of Old Hollywood royalty, is lovely but only has a molecule more screen presence than her co-star. The fact that both actresses have a very brief nude scene in a G-rated kids' movie proves more notable than their acting. At least Margaret Whiting is a decent villainess and Patrick Troughton hams it up a little as the eccentric old Melanthius. 

Ray Harryhausen's stop motion marvels were utter works of art in their own way, few talents matching him in terms of imbuing little puppets with so much life and energy. It was also a style of visual effects inevitably linked to the past. “Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger” shares a cast member with “Star Wars.” Peter Mayhew, the very tall guy who filed Chewbacca's fur suit, also plays the Minoton any time it's not a stop-motion model. “Star Wars” would, of course, point towards the future of what could be achieved on-screen. Compared to that, “Eye of the Tiger” must have seemed antiquated. The other effects work in the film certainly did the comparison no favors. Hampered by a lumpy script and a blank leading man, this is easily the weakest of the “Sinbad” trilogy and probably the lamest movie Harryhausen was ever involved with. (I'll get back to you on that after I finally watch “The 3 Worlds of Gulliver.”) There's still some of that ol' Dynamotion magic in this one, as held back by other factors as it might be. [6/10]

Night Gallery: Green Fingers

Playing the Bride of Frankenstein turned Elsa Lanchester into an iconic image of horror but it didn't make her the female Boris Karloff. Later in her career, however, she got a few more spooky roles. Such as “Green Fingers,” a season two highlight of “Night Gallery.” Industrialist Michael Saunders has bought a massive plot of land for his next factory. The only hold-out, right in the middle, is little old lady Lydia Bowen. She refuses to part with her simple country cottage, no matter how high the asking price soars. Lydia is too invested in the garden she's planted, claiming she has “green fingers” and can make anything grow. When Saunders himself can't convince her, he hires a tough guy to threaten the woman into moving. The hit man breaks in and chops off her fingers, threatening to return and remove more each time. Lydia is rushed to the hospital and dies of shock shortly afterwards. Saunders is satisfied that the land is his now... But he didn't anticipate how literal Lydia was being when she said she could make anything buried in the soil grow. 

For this one, Rod Serling adapted an ironic, twisted little story by R.C. Cook into something more akin to an E.C. Comics horror story. This is a classical morality tale: Mr. Saunders only has eyes on expanding his empire, thinking money is the only thing that talks and everything else is the bullshit that walks. Lydia believes in something more than the dollar, frustrating and baffling the businessman to the point that he pays to have her wiped out. There's an ecological layer too. Saunders notes that his latest factory will feature multiple smoke stacks, presumably pumping polluting smug into the sky. Lydia notes that the construction team has already flattened a hill in the distance. She has an appreciation for the simple things, for the flowers and vegetables that grow out of the ground. The world of industry, concerned only with profit and indifferent to ruining the natural world, is brought low by those same simple green things in the soil. If only it worked that way more often in our world.

It's a nice story, though a fairly simple one. The idea of the hit man chopping off a little bit of the old lady, saying he'll come back for more, is a nice gruesome detail that could've been expanded on. However, “Green Fingers” is preoccupied with moving towards its fantastical climax. Saunders is merely driven mad by what he sees, not ending up in the ground himself, which separates this from the E.C. template, I guess. Such a direct story did need two strong performances to prop it up. Lanchester has a whimsical gleam in her eye as Ms. Bowen. Moreover, she delivers her lines about what she believes in with the proper amount of authority, like an especially stern but sweet grandmother. Cameron Mitchell adopts a fairly silly Southern accent as Saunders. I do like that the businessman gets a little more depth than necessary, clarifying that he had humble roots and got where he is by never taking no for an answer. Mitchell delivers the final line of the segment directly to the camera, which is a darkly funny and odd note to end on. [6/10]

 

 

The Addams Family: Morticia the Sculptress

After giving writing a try in the previous episode, Morticia is still feeling unfulfilled in her life as a mother and wife. She decides to pursue another creative endeavor: Picking up the hammer and chisel and carving rocks into sculptures. As you might expect, her art works are of an unusual nature. She starts to fill the Addams' home with big rocks in weird shapes, claiming each one represents an abstract concept. The critics are aghast but Gomez pays Sam Picasso – Grandmama's painting tutor from “Art and the Addams Family" – to buy the stones. As it did in the previous episode, Morticia's new hobby takes over her life, leaving her husband alone and increasingly frustrated. 

Yes, “Morticia the Sculptress” has almost the exact same structure as “Morticia the Writer.” Thankfully, this one doesn't have Gomez outright sabotaging his wife's new career. Instead, he simply begs her to give up something she enjoys and is passionate about so they can have more sex. He doesn't frame it that way exactly, though references to Morticia being “a lover” as her most important role and a husband being left “uncuddled” were probably still kind of spicy for 1965. Eventually, Morticia is dissuaded from being a full-time sculptress when her children make themselves chocolate fudge for a meal. I guess, as much as the Addams rejected the societal norms of the times, this was still a sixties sitcom. A woman staying out of the kitchen or the bedroom was still a cause for crisis. Her efforts to define herself by any other role were destined to be mocked. Don't worry, Morticia, second-wave feminism was right around the corner. 

All of that aside, this is still an amusing episode with less of a weird rhythm than “Morticia the Writer.” The gags are strong. The doorknob reacting in odd ways to new visitors is not among my favorite “Addams Family” running jokes but it pays off nicely here. Ted Cassidy gets some good moments, when Lurch is called upon to model for Morticia or work at a spinning stone. Gomez is so troubled throughout this episode that he doesn't immediately react to his wife calling him “bubbela,” which she points out. Glad to see the show was willing to play around with its own rules by this point. I don't know what the modern art scene looked like in 1965 but I can't imagine that the sculptures Morticia carves here – a smooth stone she calls “World War II,” a rocky formation that she names “Motherhood” – would be seen as especially bizarre or unorthodox at the time. She looks awfully cute in her little smock and askew beret though. I can't imagine her devoted husband being upset about that. [6/10]

OSCARS 2025: Wicked (2024)

In 1900, L. Frank Baum published his children's novel, “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.” The book was an immediate success, selling over 10,000 copies in a month. The story would be adapted into a stage musical two years later, which also a hit. This prompted Baum to write thirteen sequels, other writers keeping the cash cow going after Baum's death in 1919. Hollywood was taking a crack at “Oz” as early as 1910 but, obviously, the 1939 version became one of the most famous movies in history. After the first book entered the public domain in 1953, only some extremely specific copyright stipulations kept anyone from trying to cash-in on the popularity of Baum's creation. Given the nature of these things, many of these derivative works are parodies, deconstructions, subversions, or reinventions. Gregory Maguire's 1995 novel “Wicked” was one such example, elaborating on the backstory of the Wicked Witch of the West. 

Maguire's book was also successful, spawning several sequels of its own, but would really break through when adapted into an enormously popular Broadway musical in 2003. Before “Wicked: The Musical” became a certified smash, a film adaptation was already being floated but demand enflamed afterwards. The gears started seriously turning towards a “Wicked” movie in 2012  It took until last year for the movie of the musical of the book, based on a separate movie and book, to arrive in theaters. Predictably, this “Wicked” has also been a box office hit. That success has been further validated with ten Academy Awards nominations. Some, however, have dared to suggest that the director of “Justin Bieber: Never Say Never,” “G.I. Joe: Retaliation,” and “Jem and the Holograms” might have made a subpar film. “Wicked” is far from the most contested nominee of 2025 but, amid an exhaustingly massive advertising push, the merits of the adaptation remain hotly debated. 

“Wicked” begins after the end of the story as we know it, with the Land of Oz celebrating the death of the Wicked Witch of the West. When pressed about the rumor that she once knew her, Glinda the Good Witch recalls the story of the Wicked Witch and their history together. Turned green from her mother drinking a potion while pregnant, Elphaba was ostracized by her family. She developed strange powers and an interest in magic as she aged. Eventually, she set off to attend the Shiz University with her wheelchair bound sister, Nessarose. Elphaba's dream is to meet the Wizard of Oz and have him cure her greenness. Her roommate, the popular Galinda, resents Elphaba at first but pretends to befriend, in hopes of leeching off her academic success. The friendship slowly becomes genuine, the two eventually earning an invitation to meet the Wizard in the Emerald City... That's when things start to go horribly wrong.

The idea of retelling a popular story, especially a fairy tale, from the perspective of the villain was hardly a fresh idea in 1995 when Maguire published his book. I guess John Gardner's “Grendel” is the modern codifier of a concept that stretches back to at least “Paradise Lost.” The popularity of “Wicked” on-stage is probably responsible for the concept proliferating so much over the last two decades. “Wicked's” influence is such that Disney has already stolen its valor at least twice, meaning the belated film version can't help but feel a bit old hat. That's honestly not the biggest problem I have with “Wicked” and other switch-a-roos. Mostly, these kind of villain origin stories bug me because they inevitably approach the idea in the least interesting fashion possible. Instead of showing how someone with possibly good intentions fell towards the path of evil, or how they justify their own actions, these films usually lazily flip the script and do little else. The bad guys are now good. The good guys are now bad. No deeper introspection is required.

I guess “Wicked” isn't as bad about that as, say, “Maleficent” was. However, it still has a childishly simple moral outlook. Elphaba has a rigorously detailed back story that makes her sympathetic, cast out of her home and ostracized because of circumstances beyond her control. To dumb down the idea further, “Wicked” adopts a high school-like mentality. Elphaba is a bullied outsider while Galinda is shallow, self-centered, manipulative, and very pink. It's the kind of “goths vs. preps” viewpoint that you would have hoped we, as a culture, had outgrown by now. In order to re-enforce the idea that Elphaba is ultimately justified in everything she does, she is born with unexplained magical powers, a type of telekinesis that flares up when ever she's emotional. There's never any doubt about her righteousness. She's “special” and persecuted and, the people we've been told are the heroes of this tale will inevitably be revealed to be cruel and sanctimonious. 

Listen, I can understand why this dynamic is compelling. I was a relentlessly bullied nerd in high school too, growing up to see the obvious evil of authority. But such a simplified expression of this idea leaves no room for nuance. In “Wicked,” this inevitably bends towards an in-no-way subtle moral about prejudice. Elphaba is, after all, ostracized mostly for the color of her skin. The film invents a story of injustice in the land of Oz, of the talking animals becoming a persecuted underclass. Elphaba's path towards villainy is ultimately motivated by wanting to protect the talking animals of Oz, further emphasized by the Wizard being revealed to be a con man. I feel that comparing any societal minority to animals is not the best look. Either way, any lesson “Wicked” has is strictly of the heavy-handed variety. The script identifies that the ruling class of Oz are using the talking animals as a scapegoat for their own failings. Yes, that's how it works but maybe don't literally have the characters state that. Maybe don't make one of the innocent bystanders a literal goat. 

Perhaps going into “Wicked” and expecting any degree of subtly is my failing. That's not the point of a production such as this. Much like the Broadway musical it's based on, this is a production of crushing excess. The costumes are extravagant, growing more outrageous as the film goes on. Every production number is full of elaborate dancing. The sets are detailed and massive, further outfitted with flashy CGI effects. The camera swoops in and around these locations. Several moments in “Wicked” are indicative of its maximalist approach. The introductory song for Elphaba's love interest involves a library full of spinning ladders through a tunnel-like collection of books. When singing “Popular,” Galinda's collection of shoes and gowns pop out like a huge clockwork device. By the time we arrive in the Emerald City, “Wicked” is a full-blown spectacle of singing, dancing, special effects, and wild costumes. And it goes on and on, the film running for nearly three hours.

That boated runtime somehow doesn't enable “Wicked” to tell a complete story. This is a part one, as the title screen reminds us. The ending is less a conclusion and more of an act break. Weirdly, despite such an extensive run time, “Wicked” feels punishingly lopsided. Elphaba and Galinda get more character development in the last thirty minutes than they do in the proceeding 130 minutes. The closest thing this narrative has to a bead of emotional truth is the future Wicked and Good Witches developing from enemies to close friends. Unfortunately, Galinda is characterized so thinly that her switch from hating to loving Elphaba does not feel naturally. And I mean “loving,” as the film waste no time in teasing the shoujo-ai fans in the audience. Arianna Grande, adopting a Miss Piggy-like demeanor, can't make the character anything but an unconvincing caricature. Moreover, any real emotional resonance to this story is lost as the film has to interrupt any quiet moment with another action set piece, another blast of CGI effects, or another lung-busting high-note in the umpteenth show stopping song. 

I suppose it could not be more obvious that, simply put, I am extremely not in the target audience for “Wicked.” I've never seen the stage show and have no familiarity, or built-in affection, for this production. The film is clearly catering to fans of the stage show, including an extended cameo for the original stars that the already lumbering pace grinds to a halt to showcase. Generally speaking, I find the Broadway style of musical theater, that focuses on constant splendor and reaching-to-the-rafters singing, to be overwhelming. I guess the songs aren't bad. “Popular” is the catchiest number. A lot of the songs blend instantly together in my memory. Each one occurs at the exact calculated moment in the stories where they will be most powerful. “Defying Gravity” is the closing number, ostensibly Elphaba self-realizing, but the film rushes into it so heavily, laying a lot of groundwork within only a few scenes, that it made me feel nothing. 

Cynthia Erivo is fine in the lead, I suppose. Jeff Goldblum is well cast as the Wizard of Oz, doing what you expect of him. Michelle Yeoh is lost among the flashy costumes, deafening music, and unending CGI. The sets, especially the elaborate Emerald City props, are impressive. The cinematography, so drab looking in the trailers, admittedly is not so brown and grey in execution. I guess this kind of ever-escalating type of filmmaking hits hard for people who enjoy this kind of thing. People who hate slasher movies or martial arts flicks probably wouldn't get anything out of “Freddy Vs. Jason” or “The Raid: Redemption,” while I'd argue for those films giving me exactly what I want. I have no doubt that “Wicked: Part 1” gave people who love the stage show and Broadway musicals already exactly what they want too. Good for you guys but I cannot count myself among you. “Wicked” was a numbing experience for me. [5/10]

Halloween 2024: September 11th

I Saw the TV Glow (2024)

Jane Schoenbrun's "We're All Going to the World's Fair" was an original and unsettling film, destined to be remembered as one of the best movies ever made about spending too much time on the internet. For their follow-up, Schoenbrun decided to tackle a related but older phenomena: Spending too much time thinking about television. If "World's Fair" was the director's break-out movie then "I Saw the TV Glow" seems to have established Schoenbrun as one of the premier cult filmmakers of the moment. The movie was rhapsodically received earlier this year by a certain breed of genre film enthusiast. It was a one I was excited to see, based on the strengths of Schoenbrun's previous work, but it took me a couple of watches to actually figure out how I feel about it. 

In 1996, socially awkward teenager Owen sees an advertisement for a youth-centric horror television series called "The Pink Opaque." He's fascinated but his parents – a mom, who's dying of cancer, and an emotionally distant father – won't let him stay up late enough to watch it. That's when he meets Maddy, an older girl who is a big fan of the TV show. He sneaks over to her house to watch an episode. After that, she begins to record episodes and clandestinely delivers the tapes to him. One night, Maddy says she's running away from home and disappears mysteriously shortly afterwards. "The Pink Opaque" is cancelled not long after that. Ten years later, Owen is living in the same dead-end town and working dead-end jobs. That's when Maddy reappears into his life, as abruptly as she vanished. She tells him that "The Pink Opaque" wasn't merely a TV show. She tells them that the two of them are actually the main characters from the show, vanquished to a hellish alternate universe – our reality – by their archenemy. And the only way to escape this nether realm and return home is to bury themselves alive. 

The indie horror scene basically runs on nostalgia. Every year, there's roughly five hundred low budget horror movies that come out, attempting to capture the look and the feel of stuff from the eighties or the seventies or the nineties. Perhaps we obsessive genre nerds are doomed to always be chasing that high, of discovering something old and weird and amazing back when we are young. Despite the cottage industry of nostalgia-tinged horror, very few of these projects are actually about nostalgia. This is where "I Saw the TV Glow" differs. This is a movie about a lot of things but one of the primary emotions that drives it is the feeling of re-watching a TV show as an adult that fascinated or terrified you as a child... And discovering its nowhere near as good or scary as you remember. Schoenbrun actually puts that scene in the movie. The episode of "The Pink Opaque" that stunned Owen as a kid featured a Mr. Softee-like melting ice cream monster, that he remembers as pulsating, grotesque entity of Cronenbergian horror. When he re-watches the same episode as an adult – on a streaming service, of course, where all the pop culture artifacts that shaped our subconscious are rendered as more slurry for the slop machine – the monster is lame. The whole episode is corny and dumb. This thing he's spent his whole life thinking about actually sucked the whole time. Such an emotion driving someone into a dissociative episode is, from a certain perspective, understandable. 

As teenagers, we don't see much of Owen and Maddy's actual lives. We get the impression that his mom is a bit too clingy or smothering. His dad – played by Fred Durst as a blurry, distant, man-in-the-moon phantom – is implied to be abusive in some way. It's suggested he had other friends but Maddy is the only one we see him interact with. Maddy, meanwhile, is an alt-rock lesbian who is socially ostracized after coming out to a female friend. Both of these kids are living in worlds where they can't be themselves. This isolation continues into adulthood, where Owen is mocked by his younger coworkers. Not even the voice on the speaker box at the fast food place understands him. Instead of connecting with other people, both of these disaffected youths connected to a TV show. "I Saw the TV Glow" uses this idea, of loving fiction so much that it starts to feel more real than reality, as a metaphor for depression, malaise, and a general disconnect from those around you. (There's a reason the Big Bad of “The Pink Opaque” is named Mr. Melancholy.) When Maddy reappears in Owen's life, in a stunning monologue focused almost entirely on Brigette Lundy-Paine's face, she describes the feeling of the years going by too quickly. Of nothing feeling like it's changing or getting better. What's she describing is a feeling all too familiar to arrested man/woman-children. People who have spent their young adulthoods memorizing all the lore around their favorite pop culture franchise, instead of going outside and having life experiences, know this emotion well. The years are going by, you're getting older, but nothing is changing in a meaningful way. Maybe because you're spending all your time looking at the past, instead of searching for a future. 

Speaking as someone with a blog dedicated to "Sonic the Hedgehog," all of these are familiar feelings. "I Saw the TV Glow" does indeed capture a nerve-wracking kind of generalized unease. Owen is played by a brilliant Justice Smith as an always stiff, always out-of-place, ambiguously autistic raw nerve. He's wound so tightly that you're waiting the whole movie for him to snap. That does happen but it's in a disheartening epilogue, set long after any sort of change could've happened. Maddy remains a mystery throughout. Lundy-Paine also adopts an unenthused, possibly neuro-divergent affect to their voice. It becomes hypnotic in the later scenes, when Maddy is trying to lure Owen over to her side of thinking. Schoenbrun clearly builds upon the feeling they created in "We're All Going to the World's Fair." The disturbing sense throughout that something isn't right feels like it's developing towards something. That a major reveal about what level of reality its characters occupy is forthcoming. It's not. The film instead ends in a place of ambiguity, extending that feeling of displacement as far off the screen as possible thanks to a skin-crawling finale. This, I suspect, was entirely the intended effect. Still, I was left waiting for something more to happen.

Nevertheless, "I Saw the Glow" is an astonishing technical achievement. Smith and Lundy-Paine created some genuinely fascinating weirdos with the film's protagonists. Eric Yue's cinematography captures a far-off nostalgic feeling, bathing the sets and characters in pink and blue glows that feel suitably unearthly. The indie rock soundtrack goes a long way towards providing the disaffected mood. Perhaps the movie's greatest achievement is the fake TV show within it. "The Pink Opaque" clearly blends together elements from nineties programming like "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," "The Adventures of Pete and Pete," and "Twin Peaks" with a hand-made freakiness that stands alone. I'm not quite sure how the film does it but Schoenbrun accurately captures the feeling of both an actual nineties TV and the overblown version of that TV show that exists in its fans' head. These two impulses collide in perhaps the best scene, a nightmarish recollection of "The Pink Opaque's" final episode that clearly steps all over the fourth wall. This is also the scene that most recalls the "Candle Cove" creepypasta – obviously a huge influence on this movie and Schoenbrun's career in general – but it approaches the idea in a fascinating way. Instead of suggesting a cursed TV show projected by some eldritch intelligence, it puts us in the seat of someone watching and has the forbidden broadcast assault our minds directly. It shouldn't work but somehow it does. 

Many people have pointed out that "I Saw the TV Glow" is an allegory for being trans, the gender identity of its writer/director and one of its stars. I'm observant enough to pick up on some of those themes, on the ideas of bodily disconnection and feeling apart from the roles society has assigned you. I mean, the movie puts Justice Smith in a dress and foregrounds him against a pink/blue/white flag, so it's not subtle. I'm also not that kind of queer, so a lot of "I Saw the TV Glow's" resonance might have gone over my head. I certainly relate to its theme of being an outcast and seeking comfort in fiction. As a study on our collective relationship with nostalgia, the film has a lot more to say on the subject than any other I've seen. As brilliantly crafted and effective as I found much of it, I can't get over this sense that it trips at the finish line. Still, Schoenbrun is clearly a unique talent with a visual and aural vibe all of their own. Their next film, from the sounds of it, is going to be about thinking too much about movies. Sounds about right. By the way, I would probably have been a fan of "The Pink Opaque" too but bet I'd also be one of those insufferable jack-asses who would always clarify that they liked "So Weird" or "Eerie, Indiana" better. [8/10] 

The Golden Voyage of Sinbad (1973)

Like all great artists and groundbreaking pioneers, Ray Harryhausen had many more unrealized projects than ones that came to fruition. The handful of sketches, storyboards, and brief test reels for films like "War of the Worlds," "Force of the Trojans," and "The Abominable Snowman" is likely all we'll ever see of these dreams. Among the many unmade films Harryhausen floated was a sequel to his 1958 classic, "The 7th Voyage of Sinbad." "The Eighth Voyage of Sinbad: Return to Colossa" never made it last the drawing board but Ray never abandoned the idea of returning to the legendary sailor. It wouldn't be until 1973, fifteen years after the original, that Harryhausen would get a second Sinbad movie made. It was the lack of other "Arabian Nights" themed films at the times, and a desire to rebound from the box office failure of "The Valley of Gwangi," that had Ray and producer Charles Schneer revisit the idea. Not truly a sequel to "7th Voyage," "The Golden Voyage of Sinbad" would instead bring the special effects master's visions of monsters, magic, heroes and villains into a new decade. 

While crossing the sea, Sinbad's crew spots a strange, flying creature carrying a gold object across the sky. They get the little monster to drop the amulet and Sinbad fastens it around his neck. The tablet is one third of a powerful talisman that leads the way to the legendary continent of Lemuria and the Fountain of Destiny. The evil wizard Koura desires this power for himself, having recently betrayed and deformed the Vizier of Marabia. Sinbad teams up with the Vizier and heads out on a quest to retrieve the final piece of the puzzle and find Lemuria before Koura does. The villain pursues the heroic crew, forcing a number of encounters with monsters and dangers along the way. 

The world had changed a lot between 1958 and 1973. However, Ray Harryhausen's brand of escapism remained charmingly intact. Much like "The 7th Voyage," "The Golden Voyage" operates strictly in archetypes. Sinbad is an ever-virtuous hero, who always acts selflessly and righteously. Koura is a devious villain, concerned only with gaining power, always one minute away from laughing in triumphant, wicked glee. Sinbad's crew includes the lazy son of a wealthy trader – the plucky comic relief – and the masked but stately Vizier, the wise mentor. Such simplified characters must've presented challenges to the cast. Tom Baker happily hams it up as evil wizard. John Phillip Law, on the opposite side of the moral spectrum from Diabolik, turns Sinbad into a somewhat bland figure, croaking aphorisms in an attempt to expand on the hero's personality. This world of fairy tale-like adventure reflects a child's, specifically a young boy's, imagination. Caroline Munro as Margiana, the slave girl Sinbad rescues and treats kindly, has almost nothing to do except stand around, look stunning, and get rescued from a monster at the end. An attempt to involve her in the plot results in the most half-assed of deus ex machinas. No, Munro and her heaving bosom exist as an eroticized but ultimately far-off symbol of longing in a world of daring manly men. I don't think Law's Sinbad actually knows what sex is, appearing confused when Margiana appears in his quarters on her knees. 

Such a paradigmatic cast of characters and a classical adventure storyline are almost precisely the point. Harryhausen's films operate in mythological modes, with no need for ambiguity. This allows the Dynamation special effects to truly take over the film. In "The Golden Voyage," Harryhausen seems especially fascinated by rendering movement in material that usually isn't very pliable. Koura enchants the figurehead of Sinbad's ship, the wooden siren creaking as it stretches its limbs and moves around the deck. Later, an iron statue of the Hindu goddess Kali is brought to life, resulting in a six-armed sword fight with Sinbad and his crew. It's the highlight of the movie, the statue moving all its limbs in a fluid manner and interacting almost seamlessly with the live actors. Of course, it wouldn't be a Harryhausen production without some flesh-and-blood monsters too. Koura uses a little winged homunculus as his spy, which looks a lot like the Ymir from "20 Million Miles to Earth." "Golden Voyage" attempts to top "7th Voyage's" iconic cyclops with a similarly one-eyed, neanderthal-like centaur. (A visage just gruesome enough to just qualify this flick for a Halloween Blog-A-Thon.) It's a fearsome, snarling beast that then gets into a scuffle with a griffin that randomly appears. Nobody did this stuff better than Ray. Even if there's nothing here as instantly iconic as the Skeleton Warriors or the Rhedosaurus, the creature effects remain utterly enchanting to this day. 

I tend to give Harryhausen most of the credit for these movies. It's hard not to, when his creations always steal the show and his sketches drove the design of the screenplay. Credit where it's due, director Gordon Hessler – an AIP veteran previously of "The Oblong Box" and "Murders in the Rue Morgue" – and cinematographer Ted Moore – an Academy Award winner who designed the look for the early Bond movies – made a good looking film. "The Golden Voyage of Sinbad" starts rather slow, as the first half-hour is devoted to assembling Sinbad's crew and getting all the MacGuffins in order. However, it gets delightfully trippier as it goes on. Much of the last third is set in enormous underground caverns, psychedelic colors rebounding off the cave walls. Robert Shaw briefly appears as the Oracle of All Knowledge, who takes the form of a shimmering, horned demon floating above a well. The finale features a horde of spear wielding Lemurians with green skin, fish-eye lens POV shots of the Centaur leering at Caroline Munro, and a waterfall turning into blood. This shows the film's commitment towards transporting the viewer to a fantastical, far away land while also acknowledging the head-trip hippy era was still going on. 

"The Golden Voyage of Sinbad" has less to do with the original "Arabian Nights" stories than the previous Sinbad film. You might've noticed that all the monsters are taken from Greek or Indian lore, while the Lemurian culture seems based on Southeast Asia. Nevertheless, the largely Anglo cast put on brownface, speak with shaky accents, and mention Allah as much as possible. Who can be offended, considering this film clearly takes place in a fantasy realm so totally divorced from our own reality? "The Golden Voyage of Sinbad" is lesser Harryhausen, which means it's still an effortlessly entertaining motion picture, full of the kind of special effects wizardry that simply doesn't exist anymore and a tone of old-school magical charm. Essential viewing for monster kids. [7/10]

The Twilight Zone: Eye of the Beholder

In past years, when looking at the original "Twilight Zone," I've usually picked slightly lesser-known episodes, in order to get full enjoyment out of whatever twists or messages they may contain. This year, I'm taking a different approach and covering one of the most well-known installments of the entire series. In "Eye of the Beholder," Janet Tyler sits in a darkened hospital room, her face entirely wrapped in bandages. It seems she has some sort of medical condition that renders her face hideously ugly. This is her eleventh attempt at a treatment and, if it is unsuccessful, Janet will be shipped off to a commune for such undesirables. As her mental state grows more unsettled, her doctor begins to wonder if such an approach is the right one. Such thoughts are considered treasonous in this society, that values normality over everything else. Janet convinces the staff to remove the bandage early, bringing the horrifying truth to light. 

Like much of the original "Zone," "Eye of the Beholder's" twist ending has penetrated the pop culture zeitgeist to the point that it's practically common knowledge. You might not have seen the whole episode to know what the final reveal is: That Janet is a beautiful blonde woman, worthy of being a model in our world. That the hospital staff all have warped faces, with lumpy flesh, pig snouts, and upturned, asymmetrical lips. The point is not the least bit subtle. The standards of beauty in any culture are decided by that culture. What is beautiful to us may be grotesque to someone else and vice versa. If you somehow missed this, the episode reiterates it several times, in both dialogue and Rod Serling's meritorious bookends. (And the title, of course.) 

This is quickly spun into a larger theme about conformity, how society demands anyone who is "different" become like everybody else. Function but don't disrupt. Move ahead but be the same. Those that reject this message are shipped off to obscure villages or destroyed. Those that decry the idea are declared political enemies. Serling's script goes so far as to include Orwellian telescreens, that show a dictatorial Leader praising the virtues of conformity and how it's good for all of society. In 1960, when the Red Scare was still a very recent memory, this moral was much more potent, perhaps daring. Through modern eyes, "Eye of the Beholder" is a bit preachy, making its point over and over again to ensure there's no misunderstanding or ambiguity about Serling's message. We don't have pig faces here in America – at least not literally – but the pressures to conform, to mold anyone different into the homogeneity, is much the same. 

Despite the somewhat didactic screenplay, Serling's metaphor is broad enough to mean many things to many different people. "Eye of the Beholder" was surely speaking to philosophical, cultural, and political ideas. It's not difficult to see a racial message here as well, in the prosecution of those that look different. The ever-present appearance of bandages, coldly gleaming syringes and scalpels, and sterile hospital environments brings insane asylums to mind. Making this a possible story about living with a mental illness in a world that demands everyone act "normal." The way Janet's face is referred to as a disability seems to specifically speak to the prevalence of ableism across all cultures. Janet, locked in her world of shadows and bandages, constantly bemoaning her appearance makes "Eye of the Beholder" a statement on the impossibilities of modern beauty standards. When people inflict painful and extensive plastic surgery on themselves to be "beautiful," when isolated young men deform themselves in pursuit of "looksmaxxing," the idea of someone being shipped off because they dare to look "imperfect" is a potent one. Maxine Stuart's performance, as the woman under the bandages, makes the pain she feels all too evident and heartbreaking. I'm pretty sure, in modern parlance, we'd say Janet has body dysmorphia. That makes me curious to see a trans or queer reading of this episode. 

All subtextual concerns aside, "Eye of the Beholder" remains a deeply eerie half-hour of television even sixty years after it first aired. The hospital set is almost expressionistic, with seemingly endless hallways made of sloping rectangles. The glimpses we get of the city outside look like cardboard set dressing, further creating an ambiance of unreality. Bernard Hermann's sparse score is full of tingling pings and discordant brass, furthering this surreal feeling. In order to disguise the twist ending, director Douglas Heyes carefully hides all the actor's faces. The camera twirls around to always obscure any facial features, focusing instead on mundane objects like a pack of cigarettes or an intercom. When combined with the frequent shadows, this creates a world without warmth or love, reflecting Janet's isolation. We've all felt unaccepted or cast out at some point in our lives, making "Eye of the Beholder" an easily related to nightmare. The result is an episode that feels unmoored and disoriented. It is in such an unsettled dreamspace like this – a twilight zone, you might call it – that Serling's ideas, no matter how blunt, resonate. That's the sign of true art, whose ideas and images, themes and meanings, vibrate in the subconscious and speak to universal truths still. [9/10]

The Addams Family: Morticia and the Psychiatrist

“Morticia and the Psychiatrist” begins with the Addams parents making an upsetting discovery: Their son, Pugsley, is dressed up in a boy scout uniform. Soon, they find their boy playing with a white little poodle puppy. Terrified that their child may be turning into a normal person, they consult a child psychiatrist. The doctor informs the family of the best strategy: To cater to his whims and support his new interest, in hopes that this is a phase that will soon pass. When Pugsley continues to grow more conventional, the doctor is asked to make a house call. Typically, he is unprepared for what he finds at the Addams home.

If one of the central jokes of “The Addams Family” is outsiders being horrified by the family’s antics, “Morticia and the Psychiatrist” centers this joke plenty of times. Dr. Black, played by a nicely straight-laced George Petrie, reacts in confusion to Morticia’s spidery dress. The last third features multiple scenes of him horrified by the family décor and the homicidal games Pugsley plays. (Though I think that’s normal for a ten year kid, regardless of their background.) The episode goes the other way though. Morticia and Gomez’ confused, startled reactions to Pugsley’s new habits subverts wholesome Americana in clever ways. 

You can’t really undersell how much Astin and Jones’ particular delivery make the goofy dialogue sing. Astin’s reaction to a suggestion that he give away the family’s statue of a two-headed turtle or Morticia’s shock that Puglsey is playing with a baseball bat are fantastic. It’s also notable how openly horny these two are for each other. A scene of Morticia in a new night gown drives Gomez into a lusty frenzy and his wife has to ask him to calm down. I didn’t expect that for 1964 television! Jackie Coogan gets a funny moment too, when spying on Pugsley and the doctor and nodding in agreement at what he sees. [7/10]

OSCARS 2024: Nimona (2023)

Here's a nice story. In 2012, college student ND Stevenson began publishing a web comic on Tumblr. Entitled "Nimona," the series became popular. This caught the attention of HarperCollins, who began publishing it in physical volumes in 2015. Shortly afterwards, the film rights were purchased by Blue Sky Studios, the guys behind the "Ice Age" franchise and a subsidiary of 20th Century Fox. When Disney bought Fox, the "Nimona" movie was canceled despite being nearly completed. Fans were outraged, especially due to the unavoidable suspicions that Disney canned the film because of its queer characters. The uproar was enough to encourage Annapurna Pictures to pick up the movie and complete production, with Netflix distributing. It was a good example of the passion of fans and filmmakers overcoming corporate malfeasance. Perhaps that inspiring story also warmed the Academy's heart, as now "Nimona" is nominated for Best Animated Feature. 

A thousand years ago, Queen Gloreth built a wall around the kingdom to protect it from the monsters outside. Now, the high-tech city is further served by a legion of sci-fi knights. Among them is Ballister Boldheart, a commoner has risen to the highest rank. When Boldheart is about to be knighted, his sword leaps to life and blasts the queen. Now the most wanted fugitive in the land, Boldheart goes on the run. That's how he meets Nimona, a mischievous shapeshifter eager to become a full-fledge villain. And she thinks Boldheart is her ticket to that goal. The two form an unlikely friendship, working together to clear Boldheart's name and uproot the conspiracy within the kingdom. 

When I was a kid, I had a bunch of little knight toys that I loved. When I realized these figurines were perfectly in-scale with some old "Star Wars" and "G.I. Joe" vehicles I had, I started to conceive of a sci-fi/fantasy mash-up story. I certainly wasn't alone in finding this idea appealing. "Camelot 3000" came out in 1982 and I'm sure there are older examples of such a premise. "Nimona" fits right into this niche sub-subgenre of "knights and dragons but also robots and lightsabers." There are knights, within a feudal landscape ruled over by a queen. But they have hovercrafts, instead of horses, and laser cannons, instead of catapults. Boldheart wears a traditional suit of armor alongside a robotic arm. It's a neat juxtaposition... But also one that doesn't hold up to much scrutiny. The populace in "Nimona" have cellphones and some version of the internet exist. This makes the plot – which necessitates a general incuriosity about the world outside the kingdom's walls – harder to justify. I can maybe swallow the idea of people still using broadswords and chainmail armor in a world where heat rays and plastic polymers exist. Rule of Cool applies to any speculative setting, after all. But medieval style political hierarchies and a Dark Age conception of the world become much harder to buy into when cellphone footage leaking, television, and social media are also plot points. 

Perhaps this is nitpicking. Yet "Nimona's" mediocre world-building points towards another half-assed element of the film that bugged me. "Nimona" has been praised for its LGBT+ elements. Boldheart is in-love with Goldenloin, a direct descendant of Gloreth and another knight. The two share a loving relationship. Meanwhile, Nimona's status as a cultural outsider – who is persecuted by a society that sees her as a "monster" and has come to internalize that attitude – is clearly meant to be symbolic of queer marginalization within a heteronormative world. The film becomes more and more heavy-handed with this idea as it goes on, patterning its villains after Catholic nuns who constantly yell about how "monsters" must be destroyed. Nimona's self-hatred after years of rejection driving her down a self-destructivd path forms the dramatic crux of the final path. Yet it's so odd to me that the movie makes this symbolic journey of queer self-acceptance alongside an open gay romance. Why not make Nimona openly queer too? Why not make that part of her motivation as well? The subtext grows more muddled in a last act that seems to suggest gay people sacrificing themselves to protect straight society is the only way to be accepted. I don't think that's the point the filmmakers set out to make. Yet its another good example of how the internal logic of this story and world could've been thought out better. 

Ultimately, I'll admit that “Nimona” took a while to win me over. The film begins with a tidal wave of exposition, to quickly establish its world and characters. Before we eve have time to learn much about Boldheart, the plot is set in-motion by him being framed for murder. Once Nimona herself appears, she's bouncing around the place in a manic manner, telling lots of jokes and acting abrasive. “Nimona” suffers badly from a style of humor that some refer to as “Whedon-esque,” though I think it has more in common with the pale imitators of Whedon. One of the antagonist peppers his speech with “bros.” The film piles on wacky incidents like Nimona turning into a creepy kid with glowing eyes or a dragon that spews breakfast cereal. At times, especially in the early parts of the runtime, it all becomes rather overwhelming. And, to be frank, annoying.

Despite its many, many flaws, “Nimona” does succeed when focusing on its central relationship. When played by Riz Ahmed, Boldheart acts as the comedic straight man to Chloe Grace Moretz' Nimona. While the character threatens to become obnoxious at any number of times, Nimona is ultimately the kind of heroine I'm predisposed to love. She puts up a tough, thorny exterior in order to protect a sad, vulnerable heart. When the movie gets at the heart of this unlikely friendship, in little moments like Boldheart pulling a blanket over a sleeping Nimona, is when the movie is at its best. Not the manic coic set pieces, sarcastic dialogue, or all-over-the-place plot. 

I've seen people both praise and dismiss “Nimona's” animation style. It's certainly not up to the standards of the “Spider-Verse” films or its imitators, “Puss in Boots: The Last Wish” or “Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem.” The animation is at its best when detailing quirky facial expressions for its character. The models look like standard CGI cartoon characters and the attempt to add a stylized, cell-shaded look to the animation is not always successful. Still, I've seen much worst animation in bigger budget movies. I wish I liked “Nimona” more, as its fans are clearly passionate. I would say it's a film whose positive moments are far outshined by its weaknesses. [6/10]