Tag Archives: 2018

Capsules, It Came from the Reader-Suggested Queue

IT CAME FROM THE READER-SUGGESTED QUEUE: THE BALLAD OF BUSTER SCRUGGS (2018)

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DIRECTED BY: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen

FEATURING: , James Franco, Liam Neeson, , Tom Waits, , Tyne Daly, Brendan Gleeson, Saul Rubinek

PLOT: Six tales of the Old West, including a singing cowboy, an unlucky bank robber, an impresario and his hobbled talent, a tenacious gold prospector, a prospective bride, and a stagecoach full of tired travelers.

Still from The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018)

COMMENTS: The Coen Brothers have made a remarkable cinematic career out of a body of work that careens from grim realism to wild stylization, often making unexpected stops along that spectrum. Sometimes, their push in one direction has alienated fans of the other; if you like the harsh satire of Fargo, you probably won’t enjoy the heightened mannerisms of The Hudsucker Proxy, and the metaphysical mysteries of A Serious Man might feel impenetrable to lovers of the stoner wisdom of The Big Lebowski. When they turned their attention to Westerns, it seemed like the demands of the genre pushed them toward a more sober, realistic approach, as typified by the neo-noir charnel house of No Country for Old Men and the gritty pastoral (not to mention corrective) remake of True Grit. For the final film (to date) of their storied collaboration, Joel and Ethan returned to the Old West, but found a way to hit nearly every possible take on the genre along the way.

At first glance, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs appears to have all the elements to please fans of traditional Westerns: a showdown in an empty street, a wagon train weaving across the plains, a lone man doing battle with an entire tribe of Indian savages, panning for gold, stagecoaches, poker games, and a hangman’s noose. Far from playing to the crowd, however, these six vignettes are haunted by death and regret. There’s at least one fatality in each story, and the survivors come to a reckoning with the actions that have kept them alive. To the extent that any of these needed to be Westerns in the first place, it’s to highlight the harshness and swift cruelty of this place and time. There is a moral code, it’s unforgiving, and it is strictly enforced.

The opening chapter, which gives the film its name, is by far the most stylized of the set. Nelson does not merely play a cowboy but an archetype, wearing a suit of brilliant white, strumming a guitar and speaking directly to us of his philosophy. It’s cloyingly familiar, until he wields his pistol and reveals himself to be a whirlwind of brutality. What ensues is essentially one joke, but it’s a good one told very well: the fella in the white hat is extremely violent, morally repugnant, and dies quickly and without a trace of heroism. It’s a nose thumbed at Gene Autry and Tom Mix and every Hollywood fantasy of the West. In that regard, it perfectly sets the table for what is to come.

The next two stories demonstrate a dark humor that suggests sometimes you can’t win for losing. James Franco’s thief immediately finds himself in over his head in what should be a simple bank Continue reading IT CAME FROM THE READER-SUGGESTED QUEUE: THE BALLAD OF BUSTER SCRUGGS (2018) →

Apocryphally Weird

55*. IN FABRIC (2018)

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“The idea came from shopping really, specifically at second hand stores. You’re immediately aware of death. There is a haunting there; you can find stains on clothing, sometimes you can smell the areas of outfits. It’s a weird thing because you’ll never really know what that person looked like. It activates the imagination and it lent into things I wanted to explore through these visceral reactions whether it be body dysmorphia or fetishism.”–Peter Strickland

“Nothing attracts attention like a little red dress.”–Laura Bush

DIRECTED BY: Peter Strickland

FEATURING: Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Fatma Mohamed, Leo Bill, Hayley Squires, Julian Barratt, Steve Oram, Richard Bremmer, Jaygann Ayeh, Gwendoline Christie

Still from In fabric (2018)

PLOT: Sheila, a divorced bank teller, gets ready for her first newly single dating experience by visiting the local department store and splurging on a red dress; a series of unusual, life-threatening occurrences ensue, all seemingly related to the dress. While attempting to return the outfit to the store, she learns that the model who wore the dress for a promotional catalogue was later killed in a traffic accident. Later, the frock finds its way to meek appliance repairman Reg and then his assertive fiancée Babs, both of whom have strange encounters with a mysterious sales clerk and a pair of inappropriately nosy bank managers.

BACKGROUND:

  • In Fabric was Strickland’s fourth narrative feature. We have previously reviewed two of those, The Duke of Burgundy and Berberian Sound Studio, as well as the follow-up, Flux Gourmet. Mohamed has appeared in all of his movies.
  • An early draft of the script featured six people receiving the fateful dress and facing the consequences. Strickland realized this would require a six-hour film to give each character their due. In order to secure studio support, he trimmed the screenplay accordingly.
  • The setting of Thames-Valley-upon-Thames is modeled after Strickland’s hometown of Reading. The fictional Dentley and Soper’s department store was inspired by Jacksons, a Reading retail mainstay for more than 130 years until it closed in 2013.
  • Winner of the 2019 Méliès d’Or, awarded for outstanding achievement in European science fiction, fantasy, and horror films.

INDELIBLE IMAGE: Strickland successfully dodges the silliness factor associated with trying to showcase a demon-possessed piece of clothing. As it flutters in the rafters, creeps under doors, and swirls about in erotic delight, the dress reads as dramatic rather than laughable. But when it comes to outrageousness, the garment takes a back seat to the craziness going on at the store that sold it. After the doors close for the evening, the saleswomen begin the delicate process of bringing the mannequins to the back of the house, removing the clothes, and gently bathing the dummies with sponges and tongues. The intensity ramps up as the fake human is revealed to have a very realistic pubic mound, and eventually it begins to menstruate. It’s a sight that moves the proprietor to indulge in full self-gratification. One does wonder what goes on in the store’s sporting goods department.

TWO WEIRD THINGS: Prepping the mannequin; the erotic power of washing machine maintenance

WHAT MAKES IT WEIRD: We are always up for a movie about a homicidal haunted object. A haunted house, a haunted bed, even a haunted tire have all earned a spot in our august halls. (Haunted bulldozers and motorcycles, not so much.) So a haunted dress is totally welcome to join the party, but it has to bring something extra. In Fabric delivers two such elements. One is the bizarrely creepy department store that is a portal to hell, watching over its customers with an attitude that is both patronizing and carnivorous. The other is an earnest sympathy toward its characters, neither of whom have class  privilege or easy socialization, and who turn to retail to give them a lift. In Fabric knows that these are decent folks looking for a break, and turns their exploitation by retail and advertising into a horror show.

Original trailer for In Fabric

COMMENTS: Sheila could use a win. Her ex-husband has taken up Continue reading 55*. IN FABRIC (2018) →

Capsules

CAPSULE: JOBE’Z WORLD (2018)

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DIRECTED BY: Michael M. Bilandic

FEATURING: Jason Grisell,

PLOT: A rollerblading courier is given the task of delivering a bespoke drug to his favorite actor, and his tenuous grip on survival is violently wrenched when the thespian overdoses.

Still from Jobe'z World (2018)

COMMENTS: You’re clearly in a bad spot when staring down a three-barreled bazooka wielded by a PTSD-stricken drug user, particularly when he blames you for the death of his all-time favorite actor. But either through mellow disposition—or mind-numbing desperation—Jobe takes this turn of events in reluctant stride. His evenings all kind of suck anyway, having landed a career of sorts as a drug courier, rollerblading his way around downtown New York City, supplying various oddballs with their various fixes.

Jobe’z World unfolds with a grim breeziness, beginning with a foray in the further-flung cosmos as the protagonist regrets existing in the one tiny pocket of the universe where anyone cares. He’s a chill guy, or wishes he could be. And his journey through a momentous NYC night is lit with shadows, through a camera which overlays a plastic, off-colored palette. Writer-director Michael Bilandic creates a world slightly unmoored from time, and sets his protagonist on a gauntlet through minor terrors and once-removed personal tragedy.

The MacGuffin here is a fading actor in the tradition of Orson Welles, who would have been considered a relic thirty years prior. For drug users and washed-up celebrities, perhaps time becomes meaningless (the actor greets Jobe with the line, “What’s your name? You know, like that Depeche Mode Song”—managing to make a dated, obscure reference out of a dated, obvious one); and for Jobe, a drug dealer, time shrinks and stretches, always in the opposite direction he would like.

This is a small-gauge film, with small tragedies, small perils, and almost a hiccup of a conclusion. By the end of Jobe’s trial-by-night—New York style—his lingering earnestness is lathed away. While this might be viewed as unfortunate, it is, at least, easier. Around halfway through we learn that Jobe peaked some twenty years prior, having burnt his chances at professional rollerblading. Like the actor he’s blamed for killing, he is better off fading into the hazy background alongside the motley burnouts to whom he delivers drugs.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“Writer-director Bilandic fails to infuse the painfully thin proceedings with any narrative momentum or comic flair, resulting in an oppressive weirdness for weirdness’ sake.”–Frank Scheck, The Hollywood Reporter (contemporaneous)

Jobe'z World [Blu-ray]

Jobe'z World [Blu-ray]
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