Author: Shawn

Dead Body (2017)

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A bunch of recent high school grads get together for an outing in a cabin in the woods. Later that evening, someone suggests the game “Dead Body,” a party game where one player is assigned to be the murderer, and one the first victim. The rest of the players have to figure out who the killer is before they become victims themselves. You can guess what happens next. Wait! Let me try that again in my horror trailer voice-over voice: “The kids decide to play ‘Dead Body,’ but what they don’t know is that someone’s already playing it…for real!”

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The New Phone Book’s Here! The New Phone Book’s Here!

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Okay, maybe the new phone book isn’t here, but the list of My Favorite Movies of 2018 is here! You can follow the link, or select it from the drop down menu on the home page.

I can’t say I’m all that happy with this year’s list, but I guess I always say that. I just kept waiting for that film that knocked my socks off. There were a lot of great movies, but I never did find that one where I just knew it had to be on the list.

Summer of 84 (2018)

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Summer of 84, directed by the team of François Simard, Anouk Whissell, and Yoann-Karl Whissell, has many of the elements of an ‘80s teen movie: a Tangerine Dream-like score, a clubhouse where the guys hang out, the archetypal group of friends including the troubled friend with the shitty home life, who puts up a tough exterior (Judah Lewis), the idyllic façade of suburban life, even the fantasy blonde girl next door (Tiera Skovbye), who always seems to be changing in front of her bedroom window. This is much darker than films from that era, though. It’s Stand By Me meets Rear Window.

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Replicas (2018)

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I wasn’t able to take notes while watching this, so this probably won’t be as detailed as some of my other posts. That’s probably just as well, since I don’t have a lot of positive things to say. In fact, let me get that positive thing out there right now—Tom Middleditch was the best actor of the bunch. And when the guy who does phone commercials is the Brando of the group…well, you’re in trouble.

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The Sisters Brothers (2018)

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I knew nothing of this film before sitting down to watch it, but after a stark opening scene, with lighting-like flashes of a nighttime gunfight, followed by a horse, ablaze, galloping through the field like a living nightmare, I was hooked. Jacques Audiard’s film is a quirky tale that takes place in the Old West, USA. Charlie (Joaquin Phoenix) and Eli (John C. Reilly) are the Sisters Brothers. That is, two brothers with the last name of Sisters. They are assassins working at the behest of their “benefactor,” a man only known as “The Commodore.” They are both extremely good at their work but couldn’t be more different from one another at this point in their lives.

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Clara’s Ghost (2018)

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In Clara’s Ghost, Chris Elliott’s family stars as…Chris Elliott’s family. Well, technically as the Reynolds family. Ted (Chris) is a once-famous actor, and his daughters Julie (Abby Elliott) and Riley (writer/director Bridey Elliott) are former children’s show stars (think Olsen twins). The non-actor matriarch of the Elliott clan, Paula Niedert Elliott, plays the titular character Clara, who is also the only one in the Reynolds who doesn’t work in the industry. And something is a little off with Clara. She rips up family photos that don’t seem as happy as the ones on facebook. She calls a winery in the middle of the night to compliment them on the look of their team. And she keeps seeing a ghost, a pale brunette in a flowing white dress, who no one else can see. The ghost may or may not be Adelia, the daughter of the former owner of the house, who was committed as a young woman, if the clippings in Clara’s office are to be believed.

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Mandy (2018)

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I’m never sure what to make of Nicholas Cage. He’s such a “feast-or-famine” actor. For every Joe (2013) there’s a Rage (2014); for every Leaving Las Vegas (1995), there’s an awful remake of The Wicker Man (2006). So where does Mandy fit in? I’m not really certain. The only thing I am sure of is that many of you will group it with the latter films in the previous comparisons, rather than the former. It would seem to be a film perfectly suited to Cage’s…unique form of acting. In the dreamlike world of Mandy, full of colored lens filters, evil cults, demonic biker gangs, and sex, drugs, and rock and roll, Cage’s tendency to chew scenery fits right in.

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Ghost Stories (2017)

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“The mind sees what it wants to see.”

So says a character in Ghost Stories, an anthology piece that is, at times, frightening, disorienting, funny,and sad. Unlike many other horror anthology films, however, this one benefits from a setup that does more than serve as an introduction to the individual stories. Andy Nyman plays Professor Goodman, who has devoted his life to debunking psychics and mediums who prey on the bereaved. One day he gets an audiotape from someone who claims to be Goodman’s idol, another famous skeptic. The only problem is, everyone believes he’s long dead. Regardless, Goodman agrees to a meeting, where he is handed three case files in an envelope marked “explain these.” It’s no surprise that those cases are the three vignettes of the film,but it’s the Goodman story that not only ties the tales together but serves as a marker of Goodman’s increasingly shaky faith in his convictions.

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Better Late Than Never!

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In case you didn’t notice, my list of favorite films of 2017 is up! Just click on the link for it under the “Yearly Favorites List” menu item at the top of any page. Or, you can just click here. Leave me a comment and let me know what you think. What should I (or shouldn’t I) have included?