Tag Archives: 2024

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CAPSULE: ON BECOMING A GUINEA FOWL (2024)

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On Becoming a Guinea Fowl is currently available on VOD for purchase or rental.

DIRECTED BY: Rungano Nyoni

FEATURING: Susan Chardy, Elizabeth Chisela, Doris Naulapwa, Esther Singini

PLOT: A middle-class Zambian woman finds her uncle’s dead body lying in the road, and then is reluctantly tasked with hosting his funeral arrangements.

Still from On Becoming a Guinea Fowl (2024)

COMMENTS: Returning late at night from a costume party (in a bizarre rhinestone mask and trash-bag jumper that looks weird but turns out to have a perfectly logical explanation: the outfit’s from a popular Missy Elliot music video), Shula comes across her Uncle Fred’s dead body lying in the road. She immediately puts on the same grim expression she will wear throughout the rest of the film: the look of a woman who is intensely annoyed that she will now be obligated to pretend to care. After reporting the body, she has to put her career on pause for a drawn-out funeral that involves housing dozens of mourners, enduring a lot of crawling and wailing from the women of the family, cooking and serving meals to the men, observing complicated and inconvenient taboos and obligations, and trying to keep quiet about the terrible secret about Uncle Fred that everyone knows (and which will be revealed early on even if you don’t guess it).

Guinea Fowl has a few easy-to-identify dream sequences, and occasional odd touches (the partially flooded rooms of Bupe’s college dorm.) It features an indifferent, collage-like timeline: there’s little to orient you, as Shula changes location from house to hospital room without much explanation, and the nights seem to stretch on forever so you can’t tell how much time really passes. It’s the kind of “surrealism” mainstream critics eat up: mild, restrained, tasteful, and purely decorative. What’s more interesting here than either the base drama or the absurdist accoutrements, at least to outsiders, are the funeral procedures themselves, which mix Christianity with older traditions and culminate in a trial-like meeting between Fred and his wife’s families where they angrily argue over dividing up his possessions (without any visible concern for the many orphans he leaves behind).

I’m a tiny bit baffled by the universal critical acclaim Guinea Fowl has received; I’m not surprised that most critics loved it, but I am surprised that every critic on Rotten Tomatoes loved it (not a single reviewer found themselves the slightest bit bored at times?) It’s an aggressively niche movie; as a female-centered art-house drama from Africa, it couldn’t force it’s way into many stateside theaters even with A24’s marketing muscle behind it. It sports hallmarks mainstream critics love: realist drama, feminist and ethnographic themes, an uncontroversially important subject. But, while undoubtedly well-made, it strikes me as too obvious and uneventful, with the advertised surrealism and absurdity insufficiently fierce to raise it above similarly themed dramas. But I’m clearly in a minority in confessing only a distant, cool admiration for Nyoni’s sophomore film.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“There are surreal and absurdist touches throughout Nyoni’s second feature… she has a perfect sense of how to blend no-nonsense realism with its more magical counterpart.”–David Fear, Rolling Stone (contemporaneous)

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CAPSULE: BABY INVASION (2024)

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Baby Invasion is currently available on VOD for purchase or rental.

DIRECTED BY: Harmony Korine

FEATURING: Juan Bofill, Shawn Thomas, Steven Rodriguez, Antonio Jackson, Tej Limlas Ly, Anonymous

PLOT: Six baby-faced goons massacre guests at a mansion in search of stacks of cash and Internet notoriety.

COMMENTS: My only real quibble with Mr. Korine’s latest romp is that it could have been far, far more disturbing. Of course, a “romp” can really only be so disturbing before it leaves romp territory, so perhaps the director did things correctly. Regardless, Baby Invasion is, without a doubt, exactly what Harmony Korine wanted it to be, for better in a number ways—and for worse, according to the general impressions that have caught my ear.

This brings me to the primary characteristic I admire in Harmony Korine: I believe he does not care what I think, what you think, what the Academy thinks, what the French think, what anyone thinks. Like Frank Sinatra, albeit filtered through Syd Vicious, Korine can stand proudly and shout: I Did It My Way. In this case, “his way” went as follows: 1) Invasion. A home invasion, the home being an expansive and expensive mansion, with several pools both indoor and out, countless objets kind of just taking up space (whoever owns this place can afford a decorator, and should seriously consider hiring one). This home is invaded by a squad of alarmingly well-armed guys who show up in a van, eat some of the inhabitants’ fruit, take some of their drugs, and otherwise lark about as they search for the mansion’s safe.

2) Baby. Now, this “found footage” is flanked by a documentary-style (à la late ’90s camcorder, judging from the film quality) conversation with a programmer who explains how her game was hijacked halfway to completion and converted into a quasi-avatar/quasi-livestream showcase for real home invasions. The gaggle of goons have their faces obscured by baby-faces; there is a constant side-scroll of remarks and emojis from real-time ‘Net observers; pixel-splosion boosts and power-ups sparkle on the screen as our pseudonymous protagonist goes through the motions.

Baby Invasion is a novelty, and for its eighty-minute runtime is entertaining enough. Whatever commentary one gleans will not take a lot of effort. I can only recommend this—somewhat—because of my degree of disorientation by the end, as game, meta-game, meta-life, and life became increasingly difficult to differentiate. The occasional shots of the “gamers” suggest none of this is real. The security cameras suggests it is. This muddling, I suspect, is Korine’s overarching goal, and he achieves it nicely. However, I would have preferred to be either slightly more amused, or considerably more dismayed, by the goings-on.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“Korine, who started the company Edglrd in recent years to package his bizarre and off-putting projects while shepherding those similar from others, seems to believe that whatever ‘Baby Invasion’ is housing is the key to the evolution of cinema. That’s upsetting if true, but in a crippled moment for the creativity of the art form from the multiplexes to the arthouse, we might as well listen in… The wall-to-wall trippy rabbit hole of a world Korine has constructed is an immersive environment that shapeshifts… I sort of prayed for oblivion while in my own seat, but I was strangely hypnotized throughout.”–Ryan Lattanzio, Indiewire (festival screening)

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CAPSULE: BETTER MAN (2024)

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Better Man is currently available on VOD for purchase or rental.

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DIRECTED BY: Michael Gracey

FEATURING: Jonno Davies, Steve Pemberton, Alison Steadman, , Raechelle Banno, Robbie Williams

PLOT: The life and raucous times of pop superstar Robbie Williams, told from his humble beginnings to global stardom with details of his battles with fame, addiction, and the desperate struggle to win his father’s love—and throughout, the singer is portrayed by a motion-captured, computer-generated chimpanzee.

Still from Better Man (2024)

COMMENTS: When it comes to pop music success, America is a notoriously tough nut to crack. For every ABBA or BTS who overcomes the odds to score a #1 single in the States, there’s a Cliff Richard or a Kylie Minogue who struggles to sell to Americans what the rest of the world is eager to buy. And then there’s Robbie Williams: a certified international pop phenomenon who jettisoned success as a member of the boy band Take That to establish a solo career that took nearly every corner of the world by storm, with 7 #1 singles and 13 #1 albums in his home country alone. But worldwide fame means nothing in the U.S., where he has only ever managed to crack the Billboard Hot 100 twice (not counting his old band’s solitary chart appearance, a #7 hit). So pitching Williams’ life story to an audience where he is practically an unknown quantity makes for an unquestionably hard sell. When viewed in this light, it actually becomes incredibly sensible to replace the main character with a talking, singing, dancing monkey. Now they’ve got your attention.

Honestly, it’s so much better to know nothing about our subject, as it frees us from the weight of familiarity and expectation. Teams of animators (and the grueling work of mo-cap stand-in Davies) labored to bring the authentic Williams to life in primate form, but we ignorant bumpkins can embrace his infectious energy and unrestrained showmanship with the unforced glee of a toddler seeing fireworks for the first time. Make no mistake: this is a pretty standard musical biopic, the kind that Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story should have rendered unapproachable, complete with tales of addiction, famous name-drops, and lamentations over the hollowness of fame and fortune, But Better Man proceeds with so much verve, so much melodramatic theatricality, and yes, so much photorealistic cartoon chimp, that it manages to rise above its clichéd trappings and become an inspired exemplar of the genre.

Director Gracey, late of The Greatest Showman, has a grandiose, -esque eye for over-the-top storytelling, and the monkey gives him creative license to bypass reality in a number of areas. Williams’ highs are grand spectacles, with swooping cameras, pyrotechnic light shows, and frames cluttered with activity, while the lows are phantasmagoric nightmares of drugs and shadows and deep water. Gracey feels empowered to hold nothing back, and he’s not worried about how authentic or truthful it might appear, because hey, there’s a freaking monkey in the center of every scene. Williams’ animal avatar turns out to be a savvy trick, sparing the filmmakers from complaints over hiring a lead actor who doesn’t resemble the genuine article. Even better, it also plays into Williams’ own self-image issues (impostor syndrome plagues him from the very beginning) without ever treating us as so stupid that we won’t get the metaphor. Better Man wisely never sells out its own joke, instead weaving it into the overall circus vibe.

Williams’ story isn’t especially compelling beyond the usual rags-to-riches-to-ruin-to-redemption pathway common to rock stars who don’t die young. So his boisterous personality, a blend of cheeky snark, crippling self-doubt, and an immeasurable compulsion to perform, is crucial to making the film work. Fortunately, Gracey seems to share those urges, and the film soars in its most bombastic moments. Williams’ meet-cute with fellow pop star Nicole Appleton is an electric dance number that turns the pair into a modern-day Astaire and Rogers. A funeral seamlessly blends into a packed concert venue and back again. Williams’ iconic Knebworth concert becomes a battlefield for his personified demons, transforming into an orgy of violence that would be at home in one of ’s sojourns to Middle Earth. And above all is the utterly thrilling act-one closer in which Take That achieves pop domination to the pulsing tune of “Rock DJ,” shot as a CGI-festooned oner in which the band completely takes over Regent Street with an infectious beat and joyously frenetic choreography. (It’s a remarkable flex, essentially forcing his old band to sing and dance to one of his solo smashes, as if a Paul McCartney bio had staged the rest of the Beatles singing “Band on the Run.”) Better Man seems to know that it can’t rely on a pre-sold audience, so it leans heavily into Williams as the consummate performer, willing to do anything to please the crowd and ultimately earning his colossal success.

For most viewers, the shock of the monkey is over in the first five minutes of the film, if not in the trailer that preceded it. If you’re all in on that, then there’s nothing especially weird going forward to derail you. But Better Man tells this tale with a vigor and a wild abandon that makes it a surprisingly compelling watch, even if you have no familiarity or even curiosity about the subject. From the outset, Williams makes a simple vow: to be “right fucking entertaining.” It’s a promise he keeps. Welcome to the monkey house.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“Amazingly, the monkey conceit, while certainly strange (and let’s also add, beautifully rendered, with human qualities that give us a full range of emotions while also looking a lot like Robbie Williams), is not the craziest thing in Better Man. That honor would go to the picture’s musical numbers… The movie isn’t just “crazy” – it’s crazy. Trying to describe it, one sounds like a lunatic… Weirdly, the familiarity of the biographical beats ease us into the formal daring. If its structure and script were as unhinged as its style, the film might have been unwatchable.” – Bilge Ebiri, Vulture (contemporaneous)

(This movie was nominated for review by Anonymous, who called it “a pretty good movie all things considered, but I’m still wondering why.” Suggest a weird movie of your own here.)

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CAPSULE: OMNI LOOP (2024)

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DIRECTED BY: Bernardo Britto

FEATURING: Mary-Louise Parker, Ayo Edebiri

PLOT: A retired scientist uses pills that send her back exactly one week in time to try to find a (time travel-based) cure before the black hole growing in her chest kills her.

Still from omni loop (2024)

COMMENTS: Omni Loop wisely puts its best scene up front. In a hospital corridor, a doctor delivers a diagnosis worthy of : Zoya has an incurable black hole growing in her chest. As he delivers the news that she has only about a week to live to her stunned daughter and husband, a crowd of doctors, nurses and orderlies in the background erupt in shouts and applause.

Sadly, this may be the last time you laugh during Omni Loop, which teases itself as a fantastical comedy, then turns into a serious seep dramatic dive character study. The inexplicable black hole and a pill that enables time travel (rewinding the swallower’s life by exactly one week) is joined by one other worthy absurdist touch: the Nanoscopic Man, a victim of a scientific experiment (and a quantum 21st century update on a classic sci-fi B-movie hero).

Now, the black hole and the Nanoscopic Man are two elements worthy of a weird movie, but like the film’s flirtation with comedy, weirdness is not something Omni Loop is willing to lean into. In fact, these plot pieces are completely superfluous; if you just replace the black hole with cancer and the Nanoscopic Man with any sort of scientific gizmo that performs the same function, you will have essentially the same movie. And perhaps the movie would even better without its scintilla of surrealism, which distracts you from taking the characters and their world seriously. The science fiction angle, as well, is barely addressed—there is no transformative technology and no meaningful special effects, its just two women talking about arbitrary scientific theories necessary to advance the plot—but sci-fi at least supplies the film’s essential premise.

That’s not to say Omni Loop is a bad film. On the contrary, it’s cleverly constructed, even if the script seems bit padded at times. The performances are excellent. Mary-Louise Parker conveys the proper sense of a smart, driven woman who’s also understandably conflicted, at times sad, at times weary of living through the same week over and over for what could be several lifetimes worth of research. Edebiri does as well as possible with a less-developed character (a little time could have been taken away from Zoya and devoted to Paula’s personal trauma in order to raise the stakes of the story). The film even raises an interesting moral dilemma: what happens to all those alternate timelines when Zoya takes the pill and resets her personal history? In attempting to save a single version of herself, is she creating an unforgivable multitude of grieving families spread across multiple realities? In the end, the movie settles into a message that fits organically into Zoya’s persona as a high-achieving scientist who’s left it all behind to raise a family, and who’s struggling with regret over missed opportunities. The movie’s resolution is unambiguous, and the resolution of Zoya’s internal struggle feels a bit obvious, but the core message is a meaningful. It’s just a shame that the movie is intent on hopping about through distracting comedy, absurdism, and science fiction, instead of focusing on what really matters to it.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“The result, pleasant enough but frustratingly bland, exists in a soupy, ill-defined emotional middle ground—occasionally amusing but not quite funny, and unable (or unwilling) to substantively commit to thoughtful, penetrating melancholia…  Given the relative lack of absurdism present elsewhere, these [weird] bits aren’t so much whimsical background details as candy sprinkles on a savory casserole.”–Brent Simon, AV Club (contemporaneous)

Omni Loop [DVD]

Omni Loop [DVD]
  • "… a really well-done piece of Sci-fi story telling" - RogerEbert.com
  • 100% Rotten Tomatoes Score!
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APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE (2024)

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DIRECTED BY:

FEATURING: Matthew Rankin, Rojina Esmaeili, Saba Vahedyousefi, Pirouz Nemati

PLOT: The lives of a civil servant, a tour guide, two girls searching for a way to thaw a banknote frozen in ice, and a turkey magnate collide in a Winnipeg where everyone inexplicably speaks Farsi.

Still from universal language (2024)

WHY IT MIGHT JOIN THE APOCRYPHA: Rankin’s icy fantasia is the premier (well, only) fusion of Canadian absurdism and Iranian neorealism.

COMMENTS: You’re a director infatuated with Iranian realist dramas, but you live in Winnipeg. What do you do? Round up every Farsi speaker in Manitoba and put them into a comedy set in Canada, obviously. Be sure to include a guy wandering around dressed like a Christmas tree, a shrine to an abandoned briefcase, and a turkey beauty contest-winner, just for that added note of realism.

Universal Language‘s plot is a woven Persian rug, composed of three major strands: two sisters hunt for a way to retrieve a 500 Rial note they find frozen under several inches of ice, a disillusioned civil servant returns home after an unhappy stint in Quebec, and a tour guide leads a bored group through the city’s bland attractions (“Winnipeg is a strange destination for tourism”). Most of the action occurs in a range from Winnipeg’s Beige District all the way to its Grey District, along bazaar-like streets bustling with street vendors. And surprisingly, despite its many detours though drag bingo parlors, Persian Tim Hortons, and shots of beautiful turkeys, in the end every plot corner clicks in place like a piece in a puzzle. It’s thoroughly comedic and absurd, but by the time Rankin turns sincere for the ending, it works, because the committed comedy of the earlier scenes seduces you into accepting this bizarre world as a real place.

Rankin’s debut feature, The Twentieth Century, was (to say the least) heavily indebted to (who Ranking calls “one of my cinematic parents”). Here, Rankin moves only slightly out of the shadow of Maddin, only to position himself under a canopy of other directors. Scenes like the guy who dresses as a Christmas tree, and other dreamlike comic surprises I won’t spoil, could have been dreamed up by . The bit where Matthew buys sleeping pills would fit comfortably in a sketch. Besides these, there’s all the Iranian directors, led by . (Several of Universal Language‘s plotlines are lifted from Iranian movies, although heavily warped and refracted by the narrative lens.) And in an interview included with the press kit, Rankin acknowledges everyone from to to the (among the less obscure names) as influences. In some sense, Universal Language nothing but a shameless pastiche of homages; but, because it reflects such specific tastes and obsessions, it creates a unique universe. And paradoxically, that very eclecticism is what makes the film so relatable. Rankin isn’t shy about his influences, which is refreshing. He’s working towards a cinema of tributes. And cinema is a universal language.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“By converting his drab hometown into an exotic land filled with nostalgia (albeit a very niche nostalgia, primarily for Criterion Channel subscribers), Rankin seems to be seeking out the universal language of cinema itself. In his own very weird way he manages to find it, turning an everyday place into something momentarily special — which is what all good movies are meant to do.”–Jordan Mintzer, The Hollywood Reporter (festival screening)