Vampires, Assassins, and Romantic Angst by the Seaside: Takoma Reviews

Or reboot it.

Bog, 1979

A poacher using dynamite for illegal fishing disturbs a monster in the lake, which not only kills the poacher but goes on to kill the wives of two couples out for a weekend vacation. Local biologist Ginny (Gloria DeHaven) is called in and soon deduces that the creature is something insect-like, but also capable of draining the blood out of a body. Ginny teams up with police officer Neal (Aldo Ray)---both professionally and romantically---to get to the bottom of things before the creature’s killing spree gets completely out of hand.

Not without its charms, this creature feature doesn’t quite deliver on the monster front.

I have a document where I keep track of the movies that I watch, and next to this film I wrote down maybe my favorite line from the film: “Hey, uh, sorry about your wives, guys.” This is what a sheriff’s deputy says to the two men whose spouses have just been found dead and drained of blood in the local lake. The condolences are delivered with all the passion and concern of someone commiserating about getting a flat tire.

Much of what this movie has going for it is a kind of low-budget charm. The creature in question is largely kept off-screen, for reasons that become readily apparent in the moments that it is on-screen. But weirdly enough, many of the strategies used to cope with the lack of a big budget end up working in the film’s favor. Establishing shots of the wooded area around the lake are actually very atmospheric and pretty. In a very strange sequence in the middle of the film, a local takes the two bereaved husbands to visit a swamp witch of sorts named Adrianna (also played by DeHaven in a ton of make-up), who gets a monologue with such a bizarre close-up that it ends up being quite eerie.

And while the action does end up being kind of underwhelming, I really liked the way that the film portrayed the working relationship between Ginny, Neal, and another scientist named Brad (Marshall Thompson). They have thoughtful, productive conversations as they try to understand the bizarre events and circumstances surrounding the deaths of the two women. I was just so-so on the romance subplot, which feels a bit contrived, but Ginny nerding out as she tries to figure out the biological implications of different compounds and injuries to the victims was really endearing.

While it’s a bit too tepid to become a favorite, this was better than I expected and actually quite fun at times.

For Those in Peril, 2013

Aaron (George MacKay), is the only survivor of a disaster at sea that killed all of the rest of the crew of the boat he was on, including his older brother, Michael (Jordan Young). Living with his bereaved mother, Cathy (Kate Dickie), Aaron becomes obsessed with the idea that his brother and the other young men were taken by a sea monster from local folklore.

Elevated by strong central performances, this is an involving and potent mixture of drama and fantasy.

There are two pillars that make this film much stronger than I expected, the acting and the overall structure.

To begin with MacKay does a great job portraying Aaron’s potent mix of survivor’s guilt, obsession, and possibly some other unrelated mental illness. Several times during the film, Aaron is asked directly by his friends just exactly what happened on the both. And there is always a beat, a significant pause, before he tells them that he doesn’t remember. As a viewer, you can’t tell if he’s telling the truth or if he’s concealing something. And if he is concealing something, is it his own culpability, or did he see something out there in the water that he knows no one will believe? Further, at times it’s hard to tell if Aaron believes what he says about a monster, or if it’s a way of denying his own guilt. MacKay keeps the character’s emotions raw and at the surface, but at the same time his specific knowledge and motivations somewhat obscured.

Dickie is excellent as a woman whose grief over the loss of her son is complicated by her other son’s involvement and the looming possibility that he needs to be committed to a mental health institution for his own good. I mean it as a high compliment that Dickie manages to navigate a very cliched moment in the story. You know, where a person having a breakdown performs an emotionally raw song at karaoke? What she’s given in the script is frustrating and cliched at many times, but she mirror’s MacKay’s performance in the way that you can practically feel a swirl of intense and even contradictory emotions radiating out of her.

Finally, the supporting cast is very good. In the flashbacks that we see of Aaron and Michael, Jordan Young lets us see how Michael felt protectiveness but also frustration when it came to Aaron and his eccentricities. Nichola Burley plays Jane, Michael’s girlfriend, who forms a tentative friendship with Aaron in the wake of the disaster. It’s perhaps in Jane that we best see the way that the whole town transitions from sympathy to fear and anger at Aaron’s erratic behavior. Michael Smiley plays Jane’s father, a man who didn’t much care for Michael and certainly doesn’t care for Aaron.

On top of all of the solid performances, the structure of the film is really clever, slowly unfolding for us a vision of what life was like for Aaron before the disaster at sea. The more we see of the past, the more we understand the precarious relationship Aaron had with the people in his village before the disaster, the way that Michael shielded Aaron from harm, and that Aaron may have already had an unhealthy fixation on the folklore well before the fateful voyage.

Something that hangs over a movie like this is the question of whether the sea monster is real or a delusion. Andt the movie admirably keeps us just on the edge of that question for the entire runtime. As Aaron grows more and more desperate to lure the monster out----to prove its existence and, as per the folktale, possibly revive his dead brother---some part of you wants it to be true. Early in the film, at a service for the dead young men, a mourner reads the famous lines “Do not stand by my grave and weep/I am not there, I do not sleep . . . Do not stand by my grave and cry/I am not there/I did not die.” Aaron takes this sentiment literally, and there’s this push-pull as you know that believing in the monster is an expression of serious mental illness, and yet you want it to exist.

I was really pleasantly surprised by this movie. Between the performances and the way it unfolds its story, it had me fully engaged beginning to end.

This sounds very cool. Adding to watch list.

I almost messaged you about it, though I'm not sure you'll dig it quite as much as I did.

Though after you watch it, I'll tell you another film it made me think of. (To compare it before you watch would be tantamount to spoilers).

Hey, for the record, when you feel like messaging me about a movie, that’s the cue to, you know, please message me about the movie! Half-kidding. I might watch it tonight as I have nothing else in the pipeline and am already dead after a 4-hour strategy meeting.

That sounds scarier than anything in a horror movie!

LOL, noted!

Did you check out Our Father, the Devil yet? That's one I keep thinking about.

Thank you! Jokes aside, I’m literally almost crying. These ****ing people have no sense of time-management.

Corporate America, amirite??

Yup. Right you are.

Nope, life keeps interfering. But I will asap.

T.I.M., 2023

Abi (Georgina Campbell) is a prosthetics engineer who relocates to the countryside with her husband Paul (Mark Rowley) in order to work on a problem facing a tech company’s new android product, T.I.M. She and Paul, reeling from Paul’s recent infidelity, are given their own TIM (Eamon Farren) for routine tasks around the house. But before long, TIM seems to have formed an interest in Abi that’s far beyond his intended programming.

Predictable and frustrating, this is an underwhelming entry in the “technology run amok” horror subgenre.

It’s naturally a horrifying thought to imagine being manipulated, spied upon, and basically held hostage. The problem with this movie is that those actions are perpetrated enthusiastically by our human protagonist before the evil robot even gets involved.

This movie has plenty of problems with the way that it frames its AI antagonist, but what really sinks this film is the behavior of its main character. And to be very clear: movies can be great with a protagonist who is flawed, makes mistakes, etc. But in this film we are meant to sympathize with Abi to a point that is actually offensive.

I think that if the genders were reversed in this movie, it would be easier to recognize a familiar story: a domestic partner is bullied, belittled, and manipulated as a punishment for their past actions. But in this film, tinkly music plays as Abi looks at a room she hopes will soon be a nursery, and her deep sighs and wounded looks tell us that we are meant to empathize with her completely unhinged behavior.

Sorry, Abi! You’re terrible! The most astonishing thing about this film is how oblivious it seems to the way that Abi is not only deeply unsympathetic, her abuse of Paul so gross, but also how dumb she looks in the end. Hurt by Paul’s undefined cheating, the couple has relocated to the countryside. There is only one neighbor even remotely close to them, the friendly Rose (Amara Karan), and Abi immediately suspects that Paul is on the prowl again. At the same time, Abi severely polices Paul’s movements, and just flat out denies his interest in a job he wants because it would require a commute. All the while, the film’s score tells us that Abi is really sad about all of this, constantly demanding Paul’s contrition. Abi: if you can’t trust a guy to go on a run by himself, maybe he’s not who you should be having a baby with?

But worse than Abi’s mistreatment of her husband, something that someone might defend as a tragic character flaw, is her unbelievable stupidity. This is not a movie that is subtle in the way that it escalates TIM’s behavior. Not even a third of the way into the film, TIM tries to zip up a dress for Abi and rips the garment and he FLIPS OUT and all of the electricity in their smart house goes totally nuts. Is this a normal or okay thing? No! Does it completely fly in the face of Abi’s assertions that the TIM’s don’t have emotions? Yes! Does Abi report these concerns to anyone? Of course not! Later, Abi watches as TIM perfectly impersonates her voice, getting a medical provider to totally violate HIPAA by disclosing medical information over the phone. Wow, this has horrific implications for privacy violations----and Abi takes about half a second to look mildly concerned before never mentioning it again. The less said about a scene where TIM basically gives Abi an orgasm via what must be an amazing foot rub, the better.

Overall I found this film incredibly frustrating. Paul’s POV is the most valuable one here---a man who keeps going against his own instincts and self-interest because of his shame over his infidelity---but the movie constantly tries to recenter things on Abi. Neither Campbell nor Farren do a bad job of acting their roles, but what they’re given to work with is pretty paltry and silly. All of TIM’s plans are very stupid, and depend on Abi . . . never interacting with anyone to learn some basic contradictions to what TIM has told her.

Dumb, and not the fun kind.

Mommie Dearest, 1981

Based on a book by Christina Crawford, Joan Crawford’s daughter, this film explores the abusive and wild life that Christina (Mara Hobel) and her brother, Christopher (Jeremy Reinbolt) experienced after being adopted by actress Joan Crawford (Faye Dunaway).

Unable to resist wallowing in---and inventing wholecloth---the lurid aspects of this story, the drama-first approach ultimately underwhelms.

People who have never in their life even heard of Joan Crawford know the infamous line “No more wire hangers!!!!”. And I think that my feelings about this movie are summed up by the fact that its most iconic scene and dialogue . . . never happened.

It’s hard to say exactly why I found this movie to be so fundamentally broken. I’ve written before about my struggles with movies that claim to be true stories, because the liberties that they take are frustrating. But in this movie, there are several other factors that held me at arm’s length. It sits at an uneasy intersection of camp absurdity and the awareness that Christina and Christopher are real people who suffered real child abuse at the hands of their adoptive mother.

And this isn’t to say that a movie about real people can’t venture into camp, or that they can’t take some liberties with the real events. But such creative choices should hopefully be in service of something and for the whole runtime I just felt like I didn’t get what the movie was trying to do. Even Dunaway’s performance, a swing-for-the-fences effort that it’s honestly hard to evaluate, at times feels like someone revving an engine in a car that has no wheels.

At the heart of the film, of course, is the idea that Joan Crawford adopted two children out of some vague desire to experience motherhood, a perception of children as charming accessories, and possibly with some sort of eye toward legacy. Obviously, these are not good reasons to bring children into your home!

Crawford’s fast-developed resentment toward her children leads to painful conflicts and harrowing sequences of berating them, physically abusing them, and denying them the emotional support that children need. A thread that also runs through the film is Crawford’s absurd resentment of Christina’s youth, including when she is a literal child. But aside from a few awful sequences of Crawford taking out her anger and resentment on the children, the movie doesn’t actually seem interested in exploring the intersection between Crawford’s work and her relationship with the kids.

Ultimately, I didn’t feel as if I could trust what I was seeing to tell me a fascinating true story, but neither was the movie creative enough to disconnect from concerns about reality. This just felt messy, and its reliance on on-screen child abuse to raise the viewer’s pulse felt tawdry and exploitative.

Lots of credit to the kid actors, especially Mara Hobel for holding up their end of things. But as a whole, a missed opportunity.

Time Without Pity, 1957

After years of being an absentee father, David (Michael Redgrave) arrives back in England shortly after his son, Alec (Alec McCowen), has been convicted of the murder of a young woman. On the day leading up to his son’s execution, David goes on a mad sprint around town, assisted by Alec’s friend Brian (Paul Daneman), determined to prove Alec’s innocence.

Frantic and urgent, this film places you firmly in the dizzying POV of its main character.

There is no question about who killed the unfortunate Jenny Cole, Alec’s girlfriend. Her unsettling murder is the first thing that we see, and so we the audience are firmly aware of what David believes on faith: his son is innocent of this killing and the real murderer is walking free. This structure is not unique to this movie----every episode of Columbo begins with the audience witnessing the who and how of the crime---but director Joseph Losey and writers Ben Barzman and Emlyn Williams wring multiple layers of tension and tragedy from David’s frantic investigation.

Just on its own, the premise of a man trying to save his son from execution could have been a compelling thriller. And there is plenty of that content here. David begins by questioning Jenny’s sister, a woman who is still grieving the loss of her sister and is unsurprisingly uninterested in helping out the man who she believes murdered her. But as he starts to follow more and more interesting leads---literally following the money at one point--layers of interpersonal conflict and betrayal start to come to light. Keeping us fully on edge is the dramatic irony whereby we know who killed Jenny and get to watch how that person interacts with David. On the other hand, our knowledge of the killer’s identity doesn’t explain how all of the pieces fit together, and so on some levels we are in David’s position of ignorance. We know who is guilty, but that is very different from knowing who is complicit in Alec’s false conviction.

And that mystery aspect is the part that you most expect from this movie. But what you also get is a forceful portrait of a man teetering for a volatile 24 hours between determination and despair. David is a recovering alcoholic, and he oscillates over and over between wanting to drown his sorrows and a powerful drive to keep working to the last moment. Redgrave’s performance is loud and blundering, and you realize that you are looking at a man who is panicking. And Redgrave’s performance is buoyed by the stylistic choices that drive home the way that David’s drinking is impacting his ability to save his son.

In key moments, an intoxicated David cannot focus on something he might need to see. As he lapses into a blackout, he loses the end of a conversation, and then wakes in the middle of another. What did he miss in these moments? At least once, there’s a strong suspicion that he has lost out on important information or clues. It’s hard enough to investigate a crime, but so much more so when you are handicapping yourself. At the same time, it’s not hard to understand why David’s grief over the anticipated loss of his son----and the implied failure as his father---drives him to the comfort of drunken oblivion.

Lastly, the movie takes time to visit with Alec and consider the horrible psychological toll that his father’s investigation is having on him. When we meet Alec, he has somewhat accepted his fate. But it’s the hope that his father offers him that drives Alec to a powerful and awful despair. Alec is pulled back and forth between coming to terms with his impending death---a death he knows is unjust---and holding out hope that his father will save him.

A commonly cited study claims that at least 4% of those sentenced to death are innocent, and the film takes time to show a conversation between a politician and an anti-death penalty advocate in which the latter argues that the government should not be in the business of killing people. What’s striking in this sequence is mostly the abstract nature of the way that the government officials react, largely brushing off the horror of the idea that government employees are ending the lives of citizens who did nothing. The politeness and even the care shown to Alec by the lawyers and the guards only serve to highlight the nightmarish nature of what is happening to him. And even if presented with evidence, will Alec’s execution be stopped? There is currently a case in Missouri where prosecutors have said that a convicted man is most likely innocent based on newly analyzed DNA evidence and have filed a motion to vacate his conviction---and yet the governor refuses to grant a pardon and the state has gone forward with scheduling a date for his execution. David and Alec must, in the end, put their faith in bureaucracy, and that is a terrifying thought.

And from a stylistic point, this whole movie teeters in that nightmarish territory. Clocks loom in the frame, a constant reminder of David’s narrowing window to save his son. At one point, he finds himself in the home of an eccentric woman---a standout Renee Houston----whose living room is filled with dozens and dozens of clocks. The angles and focus of the camera mirror David’s dazed, disorienting sprint through the witnesses and interested parties who might just provide that clue that would exonerate Alec. The camera moves in close to capture the emotions of the characters. It was, at times, physically intense for me to watch at times.

The supporting cast here is also very good. I hadn’t even mentioned Ann Todd, who plays Brian’s mother, Honor. Leo McKern is also good as Brian’s father, a man who tries to appear gregarious and supportive, but who consistently tries to distance himself and his family from David’s investigation.

The only downside for me was the score, which pushes scenes that are already tense and dramatic into over-the-top territory. The actors and the camerawork are already doing the work! The bombast and borderline intrusion of the music creates an overwhelming sensation. It’s frustrating, because the emotion is already blaring off of Redgrave’s character, we do not need musical instruments literally blaring in the background.

Now go give $10 to the Innocence Project.

I'm watching Our Bodies and it's making me cry literally every 5-7 minutes.

This movie is 3 hours long.

Is Now a Good Time?, 2024

As part of an attempt to garner corporate goodwill, Disney representative Kyle (Jim Cummings) is sent to the home of terminally ill Marvel superfan Tyler (Daniel Sanchez) to allow him early access to the newest Marvel release. But when things don’t go to plan, Kyle must unpack the events of the day with his boyfriend, Matt (Daniel Liu).

This darkly comedic short takes direct aim at the soulless churn of corporate filmmaking.

For a movie that doesn’t even crack 15 minutes, this one is packed full of lines that had me laughing out loud, whether it’s Kyle’s “The . . . China of it all,” or “Is it short? No, it’s three hours and forty-five minutes long.”

But while the writing is absolutely fantastic and sharp, it’s the relentless roasting of the Marvel/Disney corporate behemoth and its various contortions to satisfy the various masses. After being grilled by Tyler’s grandmother about whether the film contains violence, sex, or swearing, Kyle is unsure what tone to strike when Tyler’s mother, Mary (Leticia Castillo), asks if there are any gay characters in the film. Kyle himself is gay, but he doesn’t know from Mary’s neutral tone whether he should be celebratory or vaguely regretful when he answers in the negative. Realizing that Tyler was hoping to see a gay character, Kyle gives a tumbling explanation about why the Chinese market means they can’t have such characters, but they CAN put those characters in movies with Black characters, because those movies don’t move in China.

And while the main target in the film seems to be Disney itself, and its prioritization of money over art or equity, it gives us plenty of time to contemplate the experiences of Kyle himself. Kyle knows how bad the Marvel movies are---”Oh, don’t worry,” he assures Tyler’s mother and grandmother, “It’s just like all the other ones”---and he clearly has a knowledge of quality cinema. He has to put on a wide smile while he explains why gay men---you know, men like Kyle---just aren’t okay to put on screen if you want to succeed in the Asian market. Kyle, in becoming a mouthpiece for Disney, is putting out propaganda against his own personal and artistic interests.

As with any film starring Cummings, his character exists inside of a slow-motion social trainwreck, determined to smile and explain his way through situations far beyond reason. He is a man offering assurances that he clearly doesn’t believe, but if he stops for a moment to acknowledge this, he will fall apart. Sanchez, Castillo, and Liu offer much more subdued characters who work very well as straight-man type characters to Kyle’s growing mania.

This is a hilarious short that’s more quotable than most feature-length films and a heartfelt dagger of contempt for the contemporary superhero cinematic complex.

500 Days of Summer, 2009

Tom (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is blindsided when his girlfriend Summer (Zoey Deschanel) breaks up with him. Reeling from the sudden split, Tom looks back on their relationship while his friends try to support him in moving forward with his life.

Despite some really interesting ideas, this film can’t quite get its hands around following through with them.

It has taken me ages to write this review, because I’ve really been struggling to put into words the generally negative reaction I had to this film, especially when faced with an overwhelmingly positive reputation, IMDb score, Letterboxd average, etc.

When it comes down to it, I think that for me it’s a matter of ratio. This is a movie that is making a comment about the way that we idealize partners---and in this case, the specific trope of the manic pixie dream girl---to the point that we are not being realistic about the actual dynamics in the relationship. I think that this is a fantastic premise for a film, and in certain sequences it really nails it.

Probably the best sequence in this film is one that comes near the end of the movie. Invited to a party by Summer, Tom shows up with a gift in hand. Then the screen splits in half, one side labeled Expectations and the other, Reality. What is best about this scene is that the two sides do not play out in radically different ways. But we see in the contrast the absolute heartbreak of moments where Tom imagined emotional connection or impressing Summer, and in reality they simply don’t play out that way. As someone who does imagine “ideal” interactions before (and sometimes after!) social events, this really hit hard. And it’s easy to see how this kind of experience can morph into contempt or anger at the other person: if she had just done THIS, I could have been really charming and said THAT.

I also didn’t mind the basic structure of the film, in which we watch and rewatch scenes, the idealized versions, and then the more clear-eyed memory where Tom can see the signs and signals that things were not quite right.

And I should give credit to both Gordon-Levitt and Deschanel, who both play their parts well and show off their singing talents. They are charming performers and in the better scenes, it’s really funny spending time with them.

But . . . . that’s kind of where I run out of positives. The whole premise of the movie is that there aren’t perfect relationships and we tend to idealize partners. But for a movie about the non-existence of manic pixie dream girls . . . . they sure do a lot of manic pixie dream girl things! The movie is trying to make a statement about reality versus expectations, but the real activities that the characters engage in made me cringe. They sit in a park and play a game where they have to say the word “penis” louder and louder. So quirky! She asks him about his perfect building and he doesn’t have paper so he draws on her arm. So romantic! They go to Ikea and pretend like they live there. Does the quirkiness have no end?!

I think that what ultimately makes this movie not work for me is the way that it is so strictly adhered to Tom’s point of view. To be sure, it’s important to understand the way that his perspective on Summer is skewed by not wanting to see any evidence of their incompatibility. But it leaves a frustrating and lingering question: why was Summer doing all of those quirky things? Is this actually who she is? Was she performing for Tom because she sensed that was what he wanted?

And while I’m sure that fans of this movie will be rolling their eyes at this complaint, screaming “it’s just a movie!!!!!”, I wasn’t particularly charmed by the humor that the film tried to mine from Tom’s behavior at work. His first impression of Summer---based on gossip from a co-worker---is that she must be a “bitch” because she didn’t want to talk to one of his friends in the copy room. And this charming misogyny pops out again after she breaks up with him, when he starts submitting greeting card designs calling women whores. Cool! The movie seems to treat this like a natural part of his grieving process, but I just thought it was gross. His treatment of every woman in this film is dependent on whether she is pleasing to him and of service to him. And, frankly, I’m not even sure that he evolves that much in this view from the beginning to the end. (I didn’t find his relationships with the men in the movie that much deeper, but as this is literally a film about how men perceive women, the swing and miss in this department jumps out more).

I don’t know. I’ve read a few reviews trying to understand why people like this movie so much. I felt like both the imagined and the “real” version of their relationships were exaggerated to an unenjoyable degree. The subtlety of the split-screen party sequence only serves to highlight how broad the strokes are in the rest of the movie. These are two characters who seem to function only in the context of a romantic relationship (being in one, recovering from one), and that made me a little sad. People are defined by more than who they are dating, by who finds them attractive. Tom’s passion for architecture felt poorly-defined to me, and can anyone tell me what Summer was genuinely interested in? No? Because the movie (and Tom) didn’t care?

A great idea underwhelmingly executed.

Is Now A Good Time? was hilarious, as expected. I laughed at the same lines you did. And I particularly liked "We try to make movies for most people and...yeah, they have the most people." Also the sobbing rant about Scorsese and all that.

The ending, the inclusion of the sex scene, is an interesting choice. My take was it was sort of a "this is the kind of thing they could never include in one of their movies" thing, though they're ultimately sexless enough that they couldn't even include a straight version, either.

It is still true that Cummings is largely playing the same kind of character, with the same kind of rambly face-saving nervousness, but he's great at it and I think range is kind of overrated (not to say he doesn't have it), so I'm all for more and more of it, and this is pretty much pitch perfect for what he does well.

Oh, one additional thing: it's really weird that I enjoy his work, because comedy based on social awkwardness is usually like nails on a chalkboard for me. He does it so well that he's made me enjoy something I normally don't like at all, which is all the more impressive.