All posts by Giles Edwards

Film major & would-be writer. 6'3". @gilesforyou (TwT)
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APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: THE BIRTHDAY (2004)

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The Birthday is currently available for VOD rental or purchase.

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DIRECTED BY: Eugenio Mira

FEATURING: , Erica Prior, Jack Taylor, Dale Douma

PLOT: Norman Forrester navigates his girlfriend’s father’s birthday party as he waits for the right moment to tell her how he feels.

Still from "The Birthday" (2004)

WHY IT MIGHT JOIN THE APOCRYPHA: Whatever Corey Feldman is doing to portray Norman is up there alongside ‘s turn as a romantic lead in The Room (albeit hovering on the reality-side of believable), and that’s just for starters in this oddball bit of capering which unfurls like a forgotten b-side.

COMMENTS: Norman wears white socks with his tuxedo. His powder-blue ruffled shirt is more appropriate for a high school prom. Alison, his girlfriend, runs hot and cold, making her difficult for him to read. The father, whose birthday is being celebrated, is dismissive of Norman’s pizzeria job. Norman can’t unload a hotel room glass he picked up at the start of the night, an old school buddy insists they watch the strippers together, blackouts begin to plague the main event, and he never finds a moment to give his girlfriend that special gift. All told, it’s not a good night for Norman—and that’s not even taking into account his discovery of a death cult hoping to summon a ian-style god of hopelessness.

Norman is our constant guide for this special evening, whether we want him or not. His eyebrows are always rising and lowering; he often doesn’t know what to do with his hands; and his voice sounds like it should be coming from a tertiary Dick Tracy villain with one line. But we’re with that voice, and that awkwardness, for two hours. It’s a heckuva gambit on the part of both actor Corey Feldman and director Eugenio Mira. This fractured character is what’s needed, though, for channeling this irregular narrative, peopled as it is from the basement to the penthouse with differently aberrant characters. To perform Mira a modest disservice, the dialogue oscillates between the goofiness of The Hudsucker Proxy and the menace of Barton Fink. Is everyone having a great time? Are they doomed? As with life, there’s a bit of both.

The Birthday kicks off with an Art Deco font-flourished title card reading “The Most Amazing 117 minutes in Norman Forrester’s Life,” before fading into a shot of the named character emerging from a creaking elevator whose tinny music, after some repetitions, clarifies itself as a Muzak rendition of “It’s My Party.” Mira’s promise trundles along deliciously for the first hour, as he slaps snips and snatches of eccentricity into the mix—the belligerent father, the Valium-addled mother, the alarmingly eager-but-unhelpful staff, and even the hotel itself, with its strange secrets—culminating in a first act climax of soul-searching and monologue from Forrester as he descends into the basement.

For a reason that baffled me at the time, Mira seems to cut away the entire, hard-earned accumulation of dark wacky and silly foreboding, deciding that the second half will instead travel full bore into a kind of stupid story line. For a stretch, I worried that Yes, the first half is weird enough to carry the film and an apocrypha recommendation, but I’ll have to warn that—and before I knew it, Mira was building again. A final blow-out wraps up this strange birthday party with style and intensity. Norman, who has spent his life ducking down and backing away from conflict, is provided the ultimate test; and despite his white socks, ruffled shirt, and “My Goodness What is that Voice?” timbre, by the very end, my weird hopes had triumphed.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“…a cinematic enigma that most definitely won’t be for everyone. However, for lovers of the wonderfully weird and mesmerizingly Lynchian, it’s a lost gem begging to be discovered.”–Stephanie Malone, Morbidly Beautiful (2024 re-release)

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CAPSULE: DREAM TEAM (2024)

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DIRECTED BY: Whitney Horn, Lev Kalman

FEATURING: Alex Zhang Hungtai, Esther Garrel, Fariha Róisín, Isabelle Barbier, Minh T Mia

PLOT: Interpol agents Chase National and No St. Aubergine are on the case, investigating a murderous coral conspiracy.

COMMENTS: Whoever edited Dream Team deserves a prize. It’s slippery, smooth, relaxing—and looks gooood. Quick research tells me that none other than Horn and Kalman (also the directors, producers, cinematographers, &c.) were responsible. So there’s that. There’s also the rest of the Dream Team phenomenon, which I’m having difficulty putting into words. Please allow me a quick break for a word from our sponsors…

… which is in keeping with the structure (?) punctuating the film. Dream Team is broken into seven episodes, beginning with “Asses to Ashes” and wrapping up with an incongruous finale on the seventh episode, “Ashes to Asses.” The episodes’ cheeky titles (others include “Doppelgängbang” and “the Biggest Organ”) are the first of two clear statements of intent: Horn and Kalman are laughing with us at themselves—or presumably that’s the hope. The second clear statement of intent, illuminated only halfway through and then after the fact, is they’re both really interested in coral. Upwards of a fifth of the movie is dedicated to what is effectively a lecture on that super-organism, delivered by alt-kinky Doctor Beef, often in a mesh top or bathing suit. Horn and Kalman also explore other pet interests, including a paired gymnastics routine by Interpol tech girls K and Venice, not to forget a dive into the philosophical nature of philosophy and experimentation, and ending on an oenophilic note with a wine tasting for a “coed/co-op” basketball team.

As scribbled by Dr. Peniris, truth is required for beauty, so permit me to strive for that beauty within this humble review: I got rather distracted around two-thirds through, and do believe I lost the thread of the narrative. For this I apologize, but wish to place some of the blame on the movie itself. I survived, wholly focused, both Damnation and Nostalghia, so I feel this dereliction of duty wasn’t for lack of practice. But Horn and Kalman have made a very dreamy movie, nostalgic for a period that never quite existed in the manner presented. And this is fine: there’s nothing wrong with a post-post-modern reinvention via dream-cycle of a post-modern, mid-ironic pastel-fused quarter-century-ago remembrance—except for how many hyphens are required to describe it.

Dream Team is currently in limited release in New York and Los Angeles and will presumably show up on VOD in the near future. We’ll let you know.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“… a meandering coral conspiracy that never gets weird enough to justify its lack of focus… more of an exercise in form than story, and the filmmakers almost seem determined to recreate the dissociative effects of zoning out to endless episodes of mediocre cable TV in the middle of the night. The real artistic product might not be the movie itself, but the places that your mind takes you as it lulls you into a trance.”–Indiewire (contemporaneous)

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CAPSULE: SLINGSHOT (2024)

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DIRECTED BY: Mikael Håfström

FEATURING: Casey Affleck, Emily Beecham, , Tomer Capone

Still from Slingshot (2024)

PLOT: Nearing Jupiter’s orbit, John develops growing concerns about the structural integrity of his craft and the mental well-being of its crew.

COMMENTS: Laurence Fishburne is obviously enjoying himself. Tomer Capone looks on the verge of a mental breakdown. Emily Beecham is either too wily—or not wily enough. And Casey Affleck, well, it’s kind of hard to say. Some critics have described his performance in unenthusiastic terms, with phrases like “phoned-in” bandied about. However, Affleck’s turn as John the astronaut, a man on a deep space mission kicked in and out of induced hibernation, rang true to me. John’s reactions, and perceptions, are muted, to be sure; but I can’t imagine a better frame of mind for his isolated ordeal.

Early on in the film, we are provided a good enough reason for this trip to Europa, a planet-sized moon orbiting Jupiter whose gravitational pull is to be utilized as a “slingshot” to send the exploration craft (dubbed “Odyssey”—’cause why not?—and frankly, the kind of name I can see a big-tech consortium thinking as both classy and clever) to the methane-rich moon in question. However, there’s a strange malfunction early on. Is it an impact? …Sabotage? John’s captain, Franks (Fishburne, delightful), is adamant that they crew should trust the vessel’s sensors when they say there’s nothing to worry about. The onboard astrophysics expert, Nash (Capone, frazzled), is immediately certain the team is heading toward their death. And John kind of just floats between the two views, while occasionally seeing and hearing hallucinations about the girl he left behind.

Slingshot is firmly along the indie lines of Moon, but with three closely knit characters growing more and more anxious. The vessel design takes inspiration from 2001: A Space Odyssey (and writing that just now, I notice it also drew the shuttle’s moniker from that film), so everything looks like whizzy, astro-chic IKEA. The sharp delineation of the craft makes for a nice contrast to the fuzziness of the narrative. Director Mikael Håfström begins the story mid-voyage, catching the audience up with extensive use of flashbacks. (I had mixed feelings about this, as the film might have played better with scanter backstory; that said, plenty of viewers are less forgiving of ambiguity.) Tensions rise, orders are disobeyed, and—trapped on some glorified tin some hundreds of millions of miles from home—we mysteriously find a firearm’s been thrown in the mix.

So we have here a chamber drama with an unreliable narrator and the pleasure of three very different actors having the screws turned on them. It’s a small movie with simple pleasures, and a triple-shot of plot twists wrapping up the low key adventure. Disagreeing with other reviews, I think Casey Affleck should be commended for his subdued performance. To reference another Kubrick film, he’s much like Barry Lyndon in this way: he will take the good and bad developments with equal magnanimity, never batting an eye because: he’s there. And this is happening. We should all aspire to be so calm when our habitat is mysteriously smashed and those in charge menace our survival with deadly weapons.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“At its best, the film manages to capture the forlornness and desperation John experiences on his long, strange trip, and Affleck does a good job conveying that tone as he keeps waking up and going to sleep, over and over.”–Jordan Mintzer, The Hollywood Reporter (contemporaneous)

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CAPSULE: PETROL (2022)

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DIRECTED BY: Alena Lodkina

FEATURING: Nathalie Morris, Hannah Lynch

PLOT: Eva is unsure of her film thesis subject until she meets a cryptic young performance artist named Mia.

Still from Petrol (2022)

COMMENTS: Petrol. Petrol. Petrol. (“Petrill?”) After twenty-four hours, I’m still chewing over this title, and how it relates to what I saw. It’s a slippery little movie, so perhaps that fuel’s slickness should come to mind. Alena Lodkina’s sophomore efforts defies easy description. It’s a character study, sure; it’s an exploration of filmmaking (our protagonist is a final-year film student); it’s got some inter-generational stuff going on. And it might just be one of those “coping with loss” kind of explorations.

But it’s hard to say. As Eva shyly navigates life—and the pursuit of a film degree—chance intervenes: first, when Eva accidentally comes across a performance arts troupe whilst traveling a cliffside with a small boom mic, capturing the ambient sounds; second, when she observes one of those performance artists dropping a locket in town. When Eva returns the locket, so begins her relationship with an enigmatic (and altogether Artsy) young woman named Mia, who by all accounts is “living her life” and, as evidenced by the narrative’s sometimes desperate indications, is a rather “deep” person.

Frankly, I didn’t find her all that deep; just young and a touch lachrymose—if perhaps occasionally whimsical. Kind of like this movie’s general energy. Magical realism rears its head at least six times. A finger snap brings a picnic spread into existence, pre-referencing a literary passage which appears later in the film; a couple of pertinent winks of the eye—one appearing from a coffee surface reflection—and strange “reflections” from behind make us question both Eva’s and our own perceptions. Who is Mia? What is art? What is film, in the context of art? Are we interconnected?

And so on. Petrol kept my interest, despite me neither knowing too well what was happening nor caring too deeply about it. Eva’s film professor is a highlight, his brief appearance a master class in diplomatic guidance as he civilly remarks that it’s important to have mastery of film rules and tropes before subverting them; and there’s her fellow student with his down-to-earth ambitions to make a movie about an abattoir cleaner contrasting nicely with Eva’s more ephemeral ambitions. But for the most part, Petrol feels like it’s running on fumes: it gets you to the destination, but not without the worry you’ll end up nowhere at all.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“Alena Lodkina’s dreamlike film, about a pivotal friendship between two young Melbourne women, has a poetic and sometimes surreal narrative style that conveys a vividly emotional take on the world; it reveals profound truths about the characters, even if the precise detail of their story remains slightly – and deliciously – cryptic… tonally, it recalls the psychoanalytic turn in art cinema of the 1960s and 70s (think Bergman’s Persona).”–Jason Di Rosso, ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) News (contemporaneous)

Petrol [DVD]

Petrol [DVD]
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CAPSULE: DESPISER (2023)

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DIRECTED BY: Phillip J. Cook

FEATURING: Mark Redfield, Doug Brown, Gage Sheridan, Frank Smith, Michael Weitz, Tara Bilkins, Mark Hyde

PLOT: A near-death experience pulls a down-on-his-luck artist into Purgatory, where a rag-tag team are waging a losing battle against the Despiser.

Still from Despiser (2003)

COMMENTS: Phillip Cook loves action: gunfights and explosions abound. He also loves metaphysics: purgatory is real. He loves, too, hearty doses of ambiguity: is this death-world really purgatory, or just another dimension? Most of all, though, he loves his CGI: its delineations, its vibrancy, its rudimentality—its ubiquity. Despiser will cater to any number of genre enthusiasts, but if you’re not on board with his late ’90s, classic-Windows era aesthetic, you should just keep walking.

Personally, I was fully on board with watching the action-machinations of a gang of do-gooders, who exhaust any amount of bullets, burn any amount of tire tread, and quip any amount of one-liners, as they careen through an uncanny world of angular churches, Day-Glo lava, and boxy sports cars. Despiser‘s backdrop is an odd and exciting one, contrasting greatly with the humdrum doings in the living world of our reluctant hero, Gordon: unmotivated painter, failed graphic designer, and, in the end, savior. His dreams—and a near-death experience or two—may be a flashy, dark, and stripped-down nigh Hellscape, but that sure beats his (and our) ho-hum, beige existence. The visual clash is bold, as observed by Gordon himself: “This place doesn’t look real”, he muses upon arrival. And no, it does not. Thank goodness.

The plot twitches along from action set-piece to action set-piece, with religious overtones not quite saturating the atmosphere. The gun-toting team of righteous actioneers who take Gordon into their fold is led by a wisecracking, scripture-quoting Army Ranger from the turn of the 20th century: Carl Nimbus, who never met a Bible passage he couldn’t twist into a badass threat. Despiser almost comes across as something of a gotta-be-cool Christian movie, but Phillip Cook has it both ways (indeed, he has it several ways). Just when the God-and-Thunder motifs threaten to show their hand, Cook deflates them, most notably when Carl quotes, “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death—Psalms: 23”. Gordon rejoins, “We’re on a highway to Hell. AC/DC: 1980.” This is not a movie to take entirely seriously.

But the characters do, and that’s key for us being on board with the imaginative nonsense which unravels, re-ravels, and ultimately ends up as an entertaining crochet of in-your-face foolishness, bullet-flying fantasy, and desperate characters going to desperate measures to thwart the titular Despiser. (A being so evil, it could only have been properly voiced by author/producer/director Phillip Cook.) I spent two bucks renting this diversion, but golly if I’m not tempted to buy the modestly priced super-duper Blu-ray. Not to sound too religious here, but it’s a small blessing that this singular cinematic extravaganza (made for video though it was) came around the first time, but also to be released in tip-top form on a disc featuring all the great love for the material that makes Despiser the funtime oddity it is.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“… weird, convoluted, all around dumb and yet completely fucking awesome…. [Cook’s] bizarre fetish for low quality CGI and green screens spreads through his entire work history and you gotta respect a guy for sticking to his guns. If you want low budget action that’s determined to be itself and be refuses to take itself anything less than seriously, you’ll love what the guy has to offer…” — Mikey Ward, Mondo Exploito

Despiser [Visual Vengeance Collector's Edition]

Despiser [Visual Vengeance Collector's Edition]
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