Thoughts on movies, comic books, life, and other nonsense, by someone who should know better
If I’d never had Operation Avalanche recommended to me by an old friend, chances are I might never have watched it. I’d seen some promotional materials for it, even read the synopsis early last year before it was released by Lionsgate, but a found-footage conspiracy drama about the faking of the first moon landing just didn’t grab me. Well, cut to January 16, 2017, and I’ve just watched it. There are a few things to like, but it does fall short of being a worthwhile 80 minutes.
Few movies are so inconsistent in tone that I’m compelled to comment about that one aspect, but such is The Voices, staring Ryan Reynolds (Deadpool, Self/Less), Gemma Arterton (Byzantium), and Anna Kendrick (Up In The Air, Pitch Perfect). I stumbled across this the other week, and was intrigued by the premise, and the fact it seemed like an odd choice for Reynolds, whom I consider a solid lead actor. The poster itself sets up a quirky, offbeat black comedy, but like many posters that try to sell a different kind of product to the public, this one is grossly misleading.
Night Shyamalan’s career is a real horror show itself (not “real horrorshow”). For someone who built up a crazy amount of goodwill as a moviemaker with 1999’s The Sixth Sense, he appears to have instantly bought into the hype machine at the time, and then proceeded to self-destruct in an explosion of unfounded hubris. I didn’t care much for the crushingly self-important Unbreakable, but it wasn’t a bad movie. Signs was an improvement, despite one of the most badly-written endings I can recall seeing, but as the years passed, when producers kept throwing money at him, the movies just got worse.
Not until I started watching Green Room, did I realize that Jeremy Saulnier, the writer/director, had previously made Blue Ruin, a movie that started out pretty good, but then became much less interesting as the story went on. I think it was around the time towards the end of Act 1 when the actor Macon Blair (who played the protagonist in Blue Ruin) appeared. Up to that point in Green Room, the story was okay, but felt poorly paced. I think a lot of this was to do with what I knew in advance of the story, and my expectations for it moving in that direction.
Imagine my surprise when I discovered Goodnight Mommy was available to stream for free via Amazon Prime. I’ve spent the last couple of weeks looking for a good, English-subtitled version, and suddenly, there it was. No cash outlay, no rummaging through questionable torrents. The movie’s been on my watch list since I saw the trailer back in November 2015, so last night I put aside the night’s plans and settled down to watch.
AT THE FOOTHILLS OF MADNESS 