Posts Tagged ‘David Gordon Green’
Monday, December 2nd, 2024
NUTCRACKERS is a new David Gordon Green movie that went straight to Hulu. Since 2018 he’s directed four Blumhouse horror sequels (HALLOWEEN, HALLOWEEN KILLS, HALLOWEEN ENDS, THE EXORCIST: BELIEVER), at least three of them controversial/hated, plus 15 episodes of television. Personally I like his horror phase and wouldn’t mind if he kept going, but I’m also excited that he’s returned to standalone indie films.
Ben Stiller (NEXT OF KIN) stars as Michael Maxwell, an obnoxious Chicago real estate guy happy to tell you about the big deal he’s in the middle of or complain about the young guy Devon trying to steal it from him. Before he can get back to work he has to drive (in his yellow Porsche) to Wilmington, Ohio, he thinks to sign paperwork for his four nephews to be adopted after the death of his sister and her husband in a car accident. But as soon as he shows up the social worker (Linda Cardellini, CAPONE) tells him the foster family didn’t pass the background check so it’s on him to watch the kids until another one is found. Sorry dude. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Arlo Janson, Atlas Janson, ballet, Ben Stiller, Christmas, David Gordon Green, Edi Patterson, Homer Janson, Leland Douglas, Linda Cardellini, Toby Huss, Ulysses Janson
Posted in Reviews, Comedy/Laffs | 9 Comments »
Wednesday, October 11th, 2023
THE EXORCIST: BELIEVER is the new Blumhouse-produced EXORCIST sequel directed by David Gordon Green (YOUR HIGHNESS), who also co-wrote it with Peter Sattler (CAMP X-RAY). It tells the story of two 13-year old girls in Percy, Georgia who mysteriously disappear and return in a state we watchers of these movies will recognize as “demonically-possessed.” I’ve seen people making fun of that premise – “Oh wow, there’s not one, but TWO of them!?” – but I think they’re missing the point. It’s not about one-upping, it’s about creating a scenario where two families with different beliefs and backgrounds have to deal with this at the same time.
It immediately feels more like a true EXORCIST followup than the trailer had me worrying it would, because it does open in an exotic locale. Photographer Victor Fielding (Leslie Odom Jr., RED TAILS, ONE NIGHT IN MIAMI…) and his pregnant wife (I thought girlfriend but I read wife) Sorenne (Tracey Graves, THE WEDDING RINGER) are vacationing in Port-au-Prince, Haiti (filmed in the Dominican Republic), and it’s shot very naturalistically, full of vivid color, texture and people. They talk to nice locals, some give Sorrene a traditional Haitian blessing to protect her baby, they visit the inside of a beautiful church. The differences between Victor and Sorrene are illustrated by Sorrene’s exclamations about “Jesus is in this place!” while Victor is more excited to get a photo of the city from the bell tower. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Ann Dowd, Blumhouse, Danny McBride, Danny McCarthy, David Gordon Green, demonic possession, E.J. Bonilla, Ellen Burstyn, Jennifer Nettles, Leslie Odom Jr., Lidya Jewett, Norbert Leo Butz, Okwui Okpokwasili, Olivia O'Neill, Peter Sattler, Raphael Sbarge, Scott Teems, Tracey Graves
Posted in Reviews, Horror | 26 Comments »
Monday, December 5th, 2022
note: This is a great fuckin movie and this review has spoilers, so if you’re planning on seeing it anyway, I suggest doing that first and coming back.
I’m not fully up on the films of director Luca Guadagnino. He’s done several I haven’t seen, including A BIGGER SPLASH, which I know some people love. I did see CALL ME BY YOUR NAME, which I didn’t officially review but did write a little about in a 2018 Oscar preview. I concluded that, “My main feeling about CALL ME BY YOUR NAME was that it was pretty good but just not for me. But I did continue thinking about different aspects of it for days afterward, making me think I liked it more than I realized at first.”
Since that was my only impression of Guadagnino it seemed kind of crazy that he was the one to finally do a remake of SUSPIRIA! Or as I called it in my review, “SUSPIRI… uh…”
Actually I liked that one, and will watch it again, though I didn’t understand what it was trying to say about German politics of the ‘70s. As I wrote in my review, “It is possible that this Italian director and American writer have something very important to say about the post-WWII generational shift that was happening in Germany when they were 6 and 8 years old, respectively, and that it adds greatly to the story of these dancing witches. If so it’s way over my head, so for me it dilutes what could be a far more intense experience if the horrific parts weren’t so spread out.”
With those mixed feelings in mind, I’m thrilled to say that Guadagnino’s new one BONES AND ALL is the first one I’ve seen by him that I unreservedly loved. This is another horror one that will get some of the more finicky genre purists in their feelings about it being pretentious or whatever, but I think it’s a real fuckin knockout. It’s a cannibal road movie romance. You’re gonna love it. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Andre Holland, Atticus Ross, Chloe Sevigny, David Gordon Green, Jessica Harper, Luca Guadagnino, Mark Rylance, Michael Stuhlbarg, Sean Bridgers, Taylor Russell, Timothee Chalamet, Trent Reznor
Posted in Reviews, Horror, Romance | 12 Comments »
Monday, October 17th, 2022
HALLOWEEN ENDS, the conclusion to David Gordon Green’s HALLOWEEN trilogy, and part 4 in the HALLOWEEN series (timeline 3), is not what I expected. It’s not what anyone expected, or could’ve predicted. The trailers made it seem like they completely ran out of material. Oh yeah, Laurie fights Michael again. She already tried that in 2018 with 40 years of preparation, hidden weapons and a dungeon. She wanted to do it in HALLOWEEN KILLS but a riot started at the hospital, some asshole bumped into her and the staples on her knife wound tore open. But now it’s years later so she’s gonna do it spontaneously in her kitchen, looks like. Seems redundant.
Oh well. I had faith, because I’ve liked these movies, I like this director. And it paid off. That stuff is in the movie, but it works because it’s about so much more.
(You know I have to dig in deep with a new HALLOWEEN movie, so this is a HEAVY SPOILER REVIEW.)
The cold open takes place in Haddonfield on Halloween, 2019. A young man named Corey (Rohan Campbell, SANTA BABY 2: CHRISTMAS MAYBE) is called last minute to babysit for some rich couple. The kid (Jaxon Goldenberg) is a smartass. They watch John Carpenter’s THE THING together – an obvious but too-perfect-to-pass-up nod to watching THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD in Carpenter’s HALLOWEEN. Fears of Michael Myers are discussed. The kid points out that Michael kills babysitters, not kids. But Corey goes to the kitchen, hears a thump, comes back and can’t find the kid. The mansion is huge. A door is open. A knife is missing. The kid is screaming upstairs. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Andi Matichak, Blumhouse, Danny McBride, David Gordon Green, Diva Tyler, James Jude Courtney, Jamie Lee Curtis, Jesse C. Boyd, Jibrail Nantambu, Joanne Baron, John Carpenter, Keraun Harris, Kyle Richards, Nick Castle, Omar Dorsey, Rick Moose, Rohan Campbell, slashers, Will Patton
Posted in Horror, Reviews | 60 Comments »
Wednesday, April 27th, 2022
I’m going to start this review nice and then get all my complaints out and then be nice again. THE UNBEARABLE WEIGHT OF MASSIVE TALENT is a fun movie with the irresistible gimmick that it stars Nic Cage as himself (or, I guess, “Nick Cage,” according to the credits). It’s pretty funny and kind of sweet, it allows him to refer to his “nouveau shamanic acting” process a couple times, references some of his movies, even has a de-aged and sometimes mega version of himself as his invisible spirit guide, “Nicky.” It’s a nice mainstream acknowledgment of what used to be a somewhat fringe opinion: that Nic Cage is brilliant and awesome, whether as an action star, as a work-a-day b-movie headliner, or as an eccentric weirdo.
The plot involves Cage at a low point because he’s been rejected for a role he wants really bad (directed by David Gordon Green, who wrote the foreword to Seagalogy, which means I’m two degrees from Nic Cage), he’s running out of money, and his daughter Addy (Lily Mo Sheen, UNDERWORLD: EVOLUTION) and ex-wife Olivia (Sharon Horgan, GAME NIGHT) are fed up with him. So he agrees to accept an offer to attend a rich dude’s birthday party in Mallorca for a million dollars. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: David Gordon Green, Ike Barinholtz, Katrin Vankova, Lily Mo Sheen, meta, Nicolas Cage, Pedro Pascal, Sharon Horgan, Tiffany Haddish, Tom Gormican
Posted in Comedy/Laffs, Reviews | 32 Comments »
Wednesday, October 20th, 2021
HALLOWEEN KILLS is the controversial new film from director David Gordon Green (YOUR HIGHNESS). It is a sequel to his 2018 film HALLOWEEN, which was a sequel to John Carpenter’s 1978 film HALLOWEEN, but not any of the other nine HALLOWEEN movies. It’s in the unusual (unprecedented?) situation of being a slasher movie that’s the middle chapter in an already planned and greenlit trilogy – I see it as part 2 of Green’s HALLOWEEN II series.
When I went to the first show on Friday I had already seen enough comments online to sense that many or most people disliked, strongly disliked, or flat out despised HALLOWEEN KILLS, in many cases sounding like they were prepared to live for decades as recluses building traps and practicing firearms on mannequins to prepare for when it comes for them again. I clearly don’t have my finger on the pulse of what other horror fans are looking for these days, because I’m positive had I seen it before hearing anything about it I would’ve figured it would go over well. As a guy who enjoys all but one of the HALLOWEEN movies on some level and will keep watching them over and over forever, I feel like it’s plain as day that KILLS has more on its mind than most of them, looks way better than most of them, and finds an approach that’s very different from what we expect or are used to, feeling fresh and new despite being more reverent of the first film than any previous sequel. It’s the kind of thing where if I didn’t like it so much I would have to at least respect it. But many people obviously don’t see it that way. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Andi Matichak, Anthony Michael Hall, Brian Mays Sr., Carmela McNeal, Charles Cyphers, Danny McBride, David Gordon Green, Diva Tayler, Dylan Arnold, Holli Saperstein, James Jude Courtney, Jamie Lee Curtis, John Carpenter, Judy Greer, Kyle Richards, Lenny Clarke, Michael McDonald, Michael Simmonds, Michael Smallwood, Nancy Stephens, Omar Dorsey, Robert Longstreet, Scott MacArthur, Scott Teems, slashers, Thomas Mann, Tristian Eggerling, Will Patton
Posted in Horror, Reviews | 210 Comments »
Monday, October 22nd, 2018
(Many SPOILERS in this review, I’m not gonna label all of them)
HALLOWEEN is the new HALLOWEEN in the HALLOWEEN series – the original HALLOWEEN series, not the remake, HALLOWEEN. HALLOWEEN takes place 40 years after HALLOWEEN and acts as if it is the only sequel ever made to HALLOWEEN. So really it could be called HALLOWEEN II, but maybe that would be confusing since there are already two movies called HALLOWEEN II: HALLOWEEN II and HALLOWEEN II.
Other than being produced by Blumhouse, this one’s not coming from any of the usual horror suspects. It’s the first horror movie, sequel or licensed property movie from director/co-writer David Gordon Green, who is best known in my opinion for writing the introduction to my book Seagalogy, but also directed GEORGE WASHINGTON, PINEAPPLE EXPRESS, JOE, STRONGER, etc. He wrote it with Jeff Fradley (Vice Principals) and Danny McBride, who he turned into an actor by having him play “Bust-Ass” in ALL THE REAL GIRLS fifteen years ago and continued with PINEAPPLE EXPRESS, YOUR HIGHNESS and Eastbound & Down. McBride is usually a comedy guy, but remember he also got killed by a faced xenomorphs in ALIEN: COVENANT. So he’s legit.
Since this is a return to the original series, with no dumbass Weinstein involvement, with Jamie Lee Curtis returning as Laurie Strode, and most surprisingly with John Carpenter executive producing and scoring for the first time since HALLOWEEN III: SEASON OF THE WITCH in 1982, there are some high hopes. If you’re not a fan of slasher sequels and want something that transcends them, you might be disappointed. For me, though, it’s a satisfying treat that revisits the series template and most important character with many scenes of great tension and without committing common franchise horror sins like obnoxious characters, overly polished look or intrusive rock ‘n roll soundtrack. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Andi Matichak, Danny McBride, David Gordon Green, James Jude Courtney, Jamie Lee Curtis, Jeff Fradley, Jefferson Hall, John Carpenter, Judy Greer, Nick Castle, Rhian Rees, Virginia Gardner, Will Patton
Posted in Horror, Reviews | 219 Comments »
Saturday, February 15th, 2003
You probaly haven’t heard of it but ALL THE REAL GIRLS is the new one from the young man who made GEORGE WASHINGTON. Maybe you never saw that one either, it was kinda weird because it wasn’t about President George Washington or peanut innovator George Washington Carver, it was about some kid. Maybe he grows up to be George Washington, I don’t know, I don’t get it. But it’s a unique and effective movie made by a young dude nobody ever heard of and somehow it got its own Criterion Collection dvd and many nominations for Independent Spirit Awards. Now the kid got the job of directing a movie of the book CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES, which people have wanted to do for years and years. We’ll see how that turns out, I think the kid can pull it off but who knows I only read half of the book. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Danny McBride, David Gordon Green, Paul Schneider, Shea Whigham, Zooey Deschanel
Posted in Drama, Reviews, Romance | 1 Comment »
