Film of the Week: Death Becomes Her

Do you all remember the era when Robert Zemeckis used to make good-hell, even great-movies? Making Forrest Gump, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, and Back to the Future is an all-time run of hits, and even things like Contact and Flight are solid, mature movies made by a talented journeyman director who has since given himself up for CGI dreck, making his downfall frustrating in a very unique way. So imagine my delight as I watched Death Becomes Her, a charming 1992 black comedy-fantasy-horror mash-up, and was reminded of the often charming, genuinely innovative spark that Zemeckis once had.

Death Becomes Her's central conflict, beyond the idea of man vs. element in the two leads battle with aging, is between Helen Sharp (Goldie Hawn) and Madeline Menville (Meryl Streep), an aspiring writer and fading actress, respectively, and their decades-long rivalry hitting its peak. Hawn and Streep, who had not worked together, suit their roles perfectly: snippy, catty, and often vicious in the way only two people who have been "friends" for decades can be. One of the film's standout moments is a duel to the "death" between the two, a pouring of grievances and old wounds that slowly melts away as they realize the pettiness of it all. It's perfectly symbolized in the film's mystical element (and source of it's, par the course for Zemeckis, excellent VFX work) of a magic potion capable of making one immortal but doing little to protect their bodies as the ravages of time wear on them. In this potion, the characters find eternal outer beauty, but the festering nastiness of their personalities ultimately wins out.

It's this nastiness that often gives Death Become Her such a bite, lacking much of the earnest attitude of it's director's usual fare. At its best, the film feels like a garish Looney Tune, doling out slapstick violence to its protagonists, putting them through the wringer with a cruelty that works in its favor. The effects work, full of prosthetics, genuinely grotesque make-up, and (for the time) impressive usage of CG superimposing, add to this. While the scene of Helen, hole blown through her with a shotgun, is a famous standout, the way the film uses immortal bodies for comedy pretty consistently gets a laugh. A personal favorite is Madeline, deprived of a chunk of her spine, having to awkwardly keep her head from sinking beneath her shoulder, a funnier take on the surprisingly tense moment of her, now freshly immortal, rising up after being shoved down the stairs, her broken body snapping and creaking as she pays no mind to the fatal wounds on her body.

Of course, the true MVP is Bruce Willis, giving a wildly out of his element turn as Ernest, a squirrely mortician/plastic surgeon and object (heavy emphasis on this) of conflict between Helen and Madeline. Effectively trapped as a straight man between the two, Willis is nothing like the macho everyman persona he had cultivated to that point. As Ernest, he's cowardly, easily manipulated, and as quietly cruel as his manipulators, shrinking under their gaze and hiding his frustrations behind a tired, bitter gaze. It makes his arc, a rejection of an immortality spent afraid of everything regardless, fun to watch, a spineless (figuratively) man learning to stand up for himself. His increasingly frantic reactions as the film veers more into the supernatural give it a grounding presence, while Willis's performance does a master class in not just making Ernest a boring source of conflict.

In retrospectives, Robert Zemeckis has mentioned that he wishes that the film's tone could've been more decisive, closer to its origins as a Tales from the Crypt movie than the bigger Hollywood production it ended up being. While, in a way, you can see that in its ending, I found this to be a perfectly nasty treat. Sure, there's a pulled punch or two, but there's so much to enjoy that I'm hardly going to fault the movie for it.

Film of the Week: Challengers

Very rarely does a film so succinctly establish exactly what it's about quite like Challengers does in one of its opening scenes. As Patrick Zweig (Josh O'Connor) and Art Donaldson (Mike Faist), Junior Doubles champions and lifelong friendly rivals, watch Tashi Duncan (Zendaya) play for the first time, the film, at this point established by the whip-smart, often funny banter of its protagonists, chooses to focus on expression. Luca Guadagnino expertly cuts between the game—Tashi's domination of an ill-tempered opponent—and the boys reactions—a mixture of slack-jawed awe and barely-hidden attraction—with the camera locked on them as they struggle to take their eyes off her, falling out of rhythm with the rest of the crowd. When Tashi hits the winning serve, her roar of victory and Pat's hand gripping Art's knee in a moment of impulse tell us everything we need to know: sport and sex are an intimate experience unlike any other, and the pursuit of that feeling of connection will drive these three forward for the rest of their lives.

"For about fifteen seconds there, we were actually playing tennis," explains Tashi as she describes the match later. "We understood each other completely. So did everyone watching. It's like we were in love." Tennis, in the film's eyes, demands intimacy, commitment that only another can help you find, and without it, it's, as Pat ignobly puts it, just hitting a ball with a racquet. Throughout the film's flashbacks, a showcase of how the trio came together and fell apart that breaks up Pat and Art's rematch at a Challenger event, we see the character's endless hunt for this connection and the often poor choices made to chase this high. It's a credit to the film's script, written by the potion seller himself Justin Kuritzkes, to sell this subject matter so beautifully, and each of the characters is written so confidently that everything feels like a natural conclusion to their clashing personalities.

Of course, the cast, dripping with sexual tension and easy chemistry, is fantastic as well. Zendaya, unsurprisingly, is a standout, shifting from the siren-esque allure and blunt attitude of young Tashi to the ferocious, quietly embittered Tashi of the modern day, forced by injury to live out a career vicariously through Art. A modern Helen of Troy, you instantly understand why both of these men have lived a life obsessed with her. Faist and O'Connor, like any great sports movie, settle into the role of eternal face and heel, their dynamic shifting into a toxicity and rivalry that was evident from their first scenes together. Faist's Art grows from a quiet, insightful sidekick to a weary champion, while O'Connor's Pat reeks of a bully all grown up and left chasing his glory days. Full of familiarity and resnetment that can only be bred with time, the trio's conversations often make for as exciting a back and forth as any of the movie's actual matches.

This is no slight against the matches, of course. Guadagnino, editor Marco Costa, and cinematographer Sayombu Mukdeeprom play each match as a visceral experience, focusing on individual hits and movements over sets as a whole. It creates the feeling of us along for the ride, feeling every moment like an enraptured audience. When Art swears in a moment of frustration, we feel it. As an enraged Pat smashes his racquet, we feel it. When Tashi suffers a career-ending knee injury, good god, do we feel it. This kinetic filmmaking ties around the intimate nature of the film, the audience effectively living inside the characters heads, their flashbacks allow us a viewing of exactly what plagues them as the tournament moves to its final match, a nearly silent showdown between Art and Pat that leaves you enraptured and chasing that high until the credits roll. "We've barely spoken two words to each other," bemoans Pat during a tense reunion in a sauna. An attempt to get inside his opponent's head, it also underscores what is obvious, from the homoerotic scenes of them as young men to the familiar back and forth of their match: Art and Pat don't need to talk when the intimate connection is already there. The real conversation is had without saying a word. 

Film of the Week: Rebel Moon Part Two: The Scargiver

Rebel Moon, Part Two: The Scargiver resembles, strangely, its protagonists, a ragtag crew of soldiers, prisoners, and heroes brought together to save a farming village, in that it's scrappy, cobbled together from better parts, but ultimately capable of getting the job done. Is it on the level of Star Wars or Dune as a generational epic? Almost certainly not, but those in the mood for a fun, pulpy sci-fi action flick will almost certainly find a lot to enjoy in it, which puts it leaps and bounds ahead of its sluggish, wet thud of a predecessor.

One thing I will praise Rebel Moon for is that it is unambiguously a movie made by Zack Snyder, and love or hate the man, you gotta admit he's got a style to him. Imitating the visual palette of his usual collaborator Larry Fong (who is sorely missed whenever Snyder isn't working with him), Rebel Moon Part Two is full of striking imagery and creative setpieces. Superheated blades rip through armor in flashes of orange sparks and blue flourishes. An army marches through smoke and mist, more of its numbers revealed in every step. Gryphon-riding knights battle gunships atop the rooftops of an ancient palace. It's a film from a man fed off a visual palette of sci-fi and epic fantasy, a veritable blend of influences from Conan the Barbarian to Warhammer 40K.

Of course, in terms of influence, it's hard to discuss this film without talking about its origins as a pitch for a Seven Samurai-inspired take on Star Wars that subsequently fell to the wayside, a victim of the Disney buyout of Lucasfilm. Whether this would've really fit with the Disney plans for the universe is hard to say, but given Snyder's fallout with Warner Bros., perhaps it's for the best that he be allowed to operate on his own merit.

The DNA of Star Wars is all over this, but it's to the credit of Rebel Moon that it doesn't feel like a serial numbers-filed-off rebrand. It leans into a grimmer, more fantastical style of costumes and production value design, evoking something closer to David Lynch's Dune than anything Lucas created. The action, however, is pure, uncut Snyder, full of that classic slow-mo and loving depictions of the human form that he's so known for. While it's absolutely indulgent (there is a ten-minute wheat gathering scene that had me in absolute stitches as it kept cutting back to it), it's often delightfully over-the-top, with the film's final hour being occupied entirely by the battle for the village. It's a battle with real weight where anyone can die, a completely relentless scrap that just keeps escalating. Gunships, massive tanks, lightsaber duels, all culminating in a kinetic brawl down a collapsing hangar between former soldier Kora (Sofia Boutella) and vengeful cybernetic admiral Atticus (Ed Skrein). When the film hits its stride, it hits hard.

The issue, unfortunately, lies in getting there. While Part Two is much brisker than the first and actually takes the time to develop its characters rather than simply introducing them and then pushing them to the background, the cast still never quite feel as cohesive or fleshed out as they need to be for the stakes of this to work. Much of the depth is left to the (admittedly quite strong) ensemble, with Djimon Hounsou's mournful General Titus and Sofia Boutella as particular favorites of the bunch, grasping at a level of emotional complexity that the script doesn't quite have. It's hardly film-breaking to the level of some recent genre fare, but it's harder to escape the style over substance feel of much of Snyder's work.

Ultimately, if you don't like Snyder, I doubt this will do much to convince you. But for the superfans, or those like me for whom Snyder is something of a guilty pleasure, there's a lot to like here. But hey, an Anthony Hopkins-voiced robot climbs inside of a spider-mech and wipes out a squad of space Nazis, so it's definitely not nothing. 

Film of the Week: Late Night with the Devil

The Satanic Panic of the 70s was an underlying symptom of the social and political upheaval of the era, as America's transition from the New Deal era to that of the neoliberal, centrist political system began in full force. The shining smiley-face vision of America had fully melted away, the era of "love thy neighbor" was dead, in its place was a cultural attitude of paranoia. And with this paranoia came the opportunity for those who were callous enough to exploit attitudes and powers beyond their control.

The exploiters are the focus of Late Night with the Devil, the indie horror film framed as a collection of footage from the infamous Halloween episode of Night Owls with Jack Delroy, a 70s late show and apparent rival to the likes of Johnny Carson. A mix of Ghostwatch (a real-time broadcast beset by the supernatural) and Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum (frequent behind-the-scenes footage that depicts the slow, steady breakdown of its participants), Late Night is all about perceptions of what is real and what is not and how people are willing to exploit that for fame, fortune, or a chance to get their name out. For the most part, it works, crafting a unique horror experience that compels its viewers, even as it goes off the rails slightly in its climax. Much of the credit for this is the excellent costume and set design, which faithfully recreates the look of the era, from the sliding door sets to the garish sideburns and bowlcuts of its various guests. It makes the show, largely, feel lived in, something that audiences have watched for years rather than just a cheap imitation. 

The 70s talk show aesthetic is so faithfully recreated that the Cairnes siblings willingness to subvert and distort it makes it feel like a jarring intrusion on what should be a safe space, perpetually ratcheting up tension as the show progresses closer and closer to its climax. Of course, this also makes the film's usage of AI art even more inexplicable, a lazy shortcut that breaks immersion every time it "graces" the screen and reflects poorly in an era when artists more than ever need solidarity.

The cast, similarly, is immensely game, playing a mixture of skeptics, charlatans, and professionals confronted with a horror that, if real, threatens to spiral beyond their control. David Dastmalchian in particular carries it, selling Delroy as an affable, troubled figure whose true nature, a mix of grief and desperation, bubbles up more and more with every passing minute. It's a character whose motivations are more implied than truly shown, and he sells it well, playing with audience perception and sympathy even as the "truth" is revealed.

It's the idea of perception and how to weaponize it that makes the film so effective. It's characters, intentionally, are vaguely written, their exact motivations and relationships, such as Delroy's relationship with June Ross-Mitchell (Laura Gordon), the caretaker/psychiatrist of Lilly (Ingrid Torelli), or the exact circumstances of his apparent Faustian bargan for fame and fortune, are left up to hints and audience interpetation. Effectively, it leaves us as viewers to the show, only lucky enough to see what they show us. This playing with the medium helps keep a sense of immersion, from the strange audio/visual glitches throughout to a particularly memorable sequence in which the audience witnesses a hypnosis, only to in turn be hypnotized themselves.

Even a move that should be immersion-breaking—a shift to a modern, high-definition style during the film's climax—doesn't break things too much. It's jarring, but in the chaos of the film's final twenty minutes, a delightfully practical bloodbath where the tightrope of tension and uncertainty finally snaps, it adds to the overwhelming feeling of witnessing something that has gone completely out of control. It's this creativity, this "throw at the wall and see what it sticks" mentality, that makes Late Night with the Devil such a treat and a worthy follow-up to its clear influences.

Film of the Week: The Killer

John Woo's The Killer, a seminal action masterpiece from which much of the modern genre owes its influence, opens on a quiet, solemn note: Ah Jong (Chow Yun-Fat) sitting in a church, quiet and contemplative. It's a quiet opening, but an effective one that is violently contrasted with the next scene, as Ah Jong departs on a hit, easily eliminating his targets but leaving Jennie (Sally Yeh), a kind nightclub singer, partially blind in the crossfire. From the get-go, Woo manages to connect the dots of one of the film's central ideas, and arguably it's most compelling: violence, no matter how effective or cool, wears on the soul, it's inescapable grasp refusing to let anyone go.

Throughout each of The Killer's kinetic, exhilarating shootouts, there's a sense of weight and consequences to it that make the action far from mindless. Jennie's blinding. A group of hitmen critically injure a little girl in their effort to kill Ah Jong. Detective Li Ying (Danny Lee), Ah Jong's foil, is introduced as he rashly kills a suspect in public, only to frighten his hostage into a fatal heart attack. These actions, the kind lesser action movies wouldn't think on, take a real toll, both physical and emotional, on our heroes and the people caught up in their conflicts, from the short-lived supporting cast to civilians who have the fatal misfortune of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. It's an often shocking amount of heart from Woo for me, someone more familiar with his more explosive, over-the-top American work in the form of Face/Off (a classic) and Mission Impossible 2 (the worst Mission Impossible). And yet, it's this heart that makes the movie and its characters fascinatingly compelling. The Killer is just as willing to sit and let its characters breathe and ponder to themselves as it is to let them blast their way out of a beachhouse.

And man, the gunfights really rip. Goons are torn apart and sent flying by the force of the rounds blasted through their bodies in a glorious ballet of tightly coordinated chaos, our heroes pumping out endless rounds as they fight against wave after wave of foes. Even after witnessing decades of its derivatives, the work of John Woo remains fresh and a blast to watch. It even understands that any action movie worth its salt gives you characters worth rooting for, completely nailing its unlikely buddy cop aesthetic with the excellent chemistry between Fat and Lee, a delightful pairing of two men whose philosophies and mutual respect bring them together. As the duo's story moves to its violent conclusion, you find yourself pulled on a genuine emotional rollercoaster, equal parts exhilarating and heartbreaking.

It's the film's conclusion, I think, that gives it the most weight, as Woo brings his reflection on violence home with a bang. The church, once a symbol of serenity and escape from violence, is destroyed, our hero loses his life, and his newfound friend loses everything in search of vengeance. It's a shocking, brutal close—the final fate of a blinded Ah Jong crying out for Jennie as he dies just inches from her a genuinely heartbreaking sequence. It's gutsy, bold, and it sticks with you just as much as any of the glorious, influential action.