This morning’s June Swoon entry comes from Australia and I found it on Hulu. It was called The Royal Hotel.
According to IMDB, “Hanna (Julia Garner) and Liv (Jessica Henwick) are best friends backpacking in Australia. After they run out of money, Liv, looking for an adventure, convinces Hanna to take a temporary live-in job behind the bar of a pub called ‘The Royal Hotel’ in a remote Outback mining town. Bar owner Billy and a host of locals give the girls a riotous introduction to Down Under drinking culture, but soon Hanna and Liv find themselves trapped in an unnerving situation that rapidly leaps out of their control.“
Now, that is what the synopsis on IMDB says, but that is not what this movie is like. It is listed as a psychological thriller, but there is nothing psychological about it and very little thriller.
It takes way too long for anything to happen. We spend way too much time with the drunken reprobates in the bar without any sort of character development.
The ending sequence was just nonsensical and does not wrap anything up outside of the basic result.
This was very boring for most of the film and anything that it tried at the end did not work at all. I was very disappointed with this one.
The format of today’s June Swoon 3 is one unlike I have seen before and it takes a revolutionary director in order to make this work. Ava DuVernay is just such a director.
Origin adapts the book Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson, a book that laid out the idea that racism in the United States is a part of the concept of caste system, connecting racism in America to the attempted extermination of Jewish people by the Nazis, the caste system of India as well as other atrocities across the globe.
Such an undertaking was going to be difficult to attain, but DuVernay skillfully weaves the information, at times, in a documentary style, while mixing it with the drama of Isabel Wilkerson’s life during this stretch of working on the book when she lost her husband, mother and cousin.
The combination of docudrama is a difficult one to reach, but DuVernay does a masterful job of making this fully engaging while providing ideas that challenge the thoughts of a generation.
The lead role of the film was played by Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, showcasing an emotional arc for Isabel Wilkerson from early on in the film when she lost her husband, Brett (Jon Bernthal). The use of flashbacks and memories throughout the movie helped us see important aspects of Wilkerson’s life and relationships with her family and friends. Ellis-Taylor made these life moments extremely relatable and touching as we see her deal with loss and pain, as well as a love of life.
The film may be a little long, but there are so many great moments throughout that help us see the central point being made by the film. There are stories that are told such as the tale of Al Bright, a young boy whose baseball team just wanted to swim together as a celebration for a big win, but who was denied because he was black. Another story told the tale of a German Nazi and a Jewish woman’s relationship that broke all the rules of Nazi Germany and led her her eventual encampment at a concentration camp. These stories are important to the overall narrative of the piece and help highlight the concept of the book being written.
You wouldn’t think that a film could be made about a journalist writing a book about the caste system, but Ava DuVernay accomplished just that and it was compelling and amazing, even if it could be tough to watch at times.
It was Netflix again for this June Swoon as I pulled up The Book of Clarence, a retelling f the story of the crucifixion through the eyes of a down-on-his-luck loser named Clarence.
According to IMDB, “Struggling to find a better life, Clarence (LaKeith Stanfield) is captivated by the power of the rising Messiah and soon risks everything to carve a path to a divine existence.“
This movie was very up and down for me. The biggest issue I had with it was that it lacked a consistent tone. There were deadly serious scenes that were well done, particularly with the strength of LaKeith Stanfield’s performance, but other scenes that felt like it was pulled right out of a Monty Python skit. I was not sure if this was meant to be a serious movie or a satire. Or was it meant to be some kind of amalgam between the two? This uncertainty hurt this film in my eyes.
As I mentioned, the performance of LaKeith Stanfield was excellent, as he went from a disbeliever to one who exceeded belief. Stanfield was believable in every moment he was on screen and he gave the film a credibility that I do not think it would have had if it were another actor in this potentially divisive role.
There is an excellent cast in this movie including Benedict Cumberbatch (whole role felt as if it were one of the most satirical of them all), Omar Sy, Anna Diop, RJ Cyler, David Oyelowo, Alfre Woodard, Caleb McLaughlin, James McAvoy, Nicholas Pinnock, Marianne-Jean Baptiste, Teyana Taylor and Michael Ward.
I can see this film stirring up the audience, depending on who was watching. For me, there are some good ideas in here, but the film can’t decide what exactly it wants to be, and that demeans the positives that are here.
Another horror movie highlights today’s June Swoon as I watched the Australian film Run Rabbit Run on Netflix.
Run Rabbit Run is more of a psychological thriller than it is a horror film as there are not many scares and it really does focus on the mental state of the characters involved. It was effective in this manner as I felt a connection with the two lead characters as they went through their memories of tragic events from the past.
However, it does take a while to get rolling. The film seemed a bit long and the pacing was not the best. Some of the beats felt as if they were repeated during the story and it seemed that this could have been a tighter film with some of this narrowed down.
The lead performances are the reason to watch Run Rabbit Run. Sarah Snook played Sarah, the mother whose past was coming back to cause trouble with her daughter. The daughter, Mia, was played well by young actor Lily LaTorre. She provided many of the film’s creepiest moments as she was seemingly being possessed by the spirit of Alice, Sarah’s missing sister.
These performances overcame the weaknesses in the plot, which included a predictable outcome, and made this a film I would say that I enjoyed watching. It is not a perfect horror movie, but it does enough things well that make it interesting.
I have yet another Oscar nominated film for the June Swoon 3 today. This nomination went to Colman Domingo for Best Actor in Motion Picture. He did not win the Oscar, but he gave an electric performance that carried an average film to new heights.
There have been a lot of examples of an amazing lead performance elevating a movie before. Rustin is just the latest example in a long line. Many of these tend to be biopics. This is yet another.
Bayard Rustin was a leader in the Civil Rights movement and a driving force behind the 1963 March on Washington. He was also an openly gay man. His leadership and charisma shone through the struggles his life presented to him.
Colman Domingo is absolutely amazing in this film and he overshadows the rest of the movie. Without him, this movie would be considerably lesser. The way the film is present is fairly pedestrian outside of the main performance.
There is a solid cast supporting Domingo including Chris Rock, Gus Halper, Jeffrey Wright, Ami Ameen, Glynn Turman, Johnny Ramey, CCH Pounder, Michael Potts, Jordan-Amanda Hall, and Lilli Kay.
But Domingo leads the way, bringing to life this man who had such a hand in creating this seminal point in history. He is a name that is not as well known as Dr. King or John Lewis, but he should be.
As I was searching for movies to put on the possible list for this June Swoon, I came across this horror film on Shudder. It sounded interesting and so I placed it on the list. I had no idea that this was the fourth film of the series, with the first Hell House LLC being released in 2015. I guess I have some films to watch during The October 13 this year.
Hell House LLC Origins: The Carmichael Manor looks to have built on the previous installments (though I can’t say that for sure) and provided a found footage horror film that was extremely creepy and had its share of effective scares.
According to IMDB, “A group of cold case investigators stay at the Carmichael Manor. After four nights, the group was never heard from again. What is discovered on their footage is even more disturbing than anything found on the Hell House tapes.”
The three main characters that went to stay at the Carmichael Manor did a great job of selling the mysterious feel and the fright that this situation would entail inside a person. The story of the events really work well here, as Margot (Bridget Rose Perrotta) ties the story into her background. The film does this in a very strong manner, not bashing the audience over the head with it. In fact, it is possible that some may miss the connection to Margot if they are not paying attention.
Then, I enjoyed the way the film kind of makes this found footage/haunted house film into a sort of documentary, with a couple of people commenting about the footage that was found of these missing people.
The film goes to great lengths to build a mythology, which I can only assume included a bunch of Easter eggs from the previous three movies.
I found this extremely creepy and a little unnerving as I watched it this morning in the dark. That means this horror film did its job. I was entertained and I look forward to going back and seeing some more of this franchise.
Today’s June Swoon 3 movie was one that I actually had tickets for this past year, but I left the theater after seeing another movie first because I was not feeling well. After being unable to see this (Along with Ferrari too), I decided that I would wait for the June Swoon to watch this movie directed by George Clooney.
The Boys in the Boat is the true story of the Washington Huskies rowing team’s unlikely ascension to the 1936 Olympics with a junior team that lacked experience. Led by their coach Al Ulbrickson (Joel Edgerton), the group of eight young men exceeded all expectations in quest for an Olympic medal.
I enjoyed the actual rowing competitions filmed during this movie as they brought some real dramatics to a sport that might not have as much as some others. The races were well filmed and created suspense in scenes that were fairly predictable.
The film lacked a lot of characterization for the cast, focusing on Coach Ulbrickson and Joe Turner (Callum Turner), one of the crew. The rest of the crew of the row team were fairly simplistic, one-note characters, with a few minor traits tossed their way. Ironic how a sport that is so much about the team does not spend much time with the parts of that team.
The story itself was basic, taking most of the sport movie cliches into play. This was a basic, by-the-numbers sports flick that did not stray from the pattern much.
Having said that, I would be lying if I said that I wasn’t inspired by the finale of the film, especially the final Olympic race. There was one final conflict that was tossed in at the end that felt rushed and did not pay off in the end.
If you come into The Boys in the Boat with the idea that this is a basic formulaic sports movie and that it does not go above that, there are things to enjoy here. I think this story could have been more than what was here, but there is something to say for formula.
It is a busy day today so I had to get the June Swoon 3 going early this morning and I had another Oscar winner on the list. This was the Oscar winner for Best Documentary Short and it was entitled The Last Repair Shop. I watched it on YouTube, but I see that it is available as well on Disney +. This is just over thirty five minutes long and is a joyous expression of love for music and for those for whom music has changed their lives.
The focus was on a instrument repair shop from Los Angeles that provided a service to the schools of the area to repair damaged or broken musical instruments for free. The film profiles four members of the shop: Dana Atkinson, Paty Moreno, Duane Michaels and Steve bagmanyan.
The film also had words from students who gave quick stories about how they wound up playing the instrument they played. The passion and the joy came through each child’s words as it helped us understand how important these musical instruments would be in their lives.
The stories were very emotional and compelling. The stories of the workers at the repair shop ranged from a man who an Armenian refugee from Azerbaijan to a woman who tried to give her children a better life in America only to struggle to a man who played on the same stage as Elvis Presley.
The film ended with a performance of a song called “The Alumni” which featured many of the voices that we heard during the film.
If you love music, or if you ever played an instrument, you will be inspired by this documentary short film. It is a love letter to music and those people who make it or allow other people to make it.
The fourth day of the June Swoon 3: A Cinematic Flashback brought me to HBO Max and the first animated film of the month. It is also the first disappointment of the month.
At first, I felt that Justice League: Warworld was an intriguing concept. Seeing Wonder Woman in the old West was a neat concept and watching her square off with Jonas Hex opened a lot of possibilities. I was thinking this was much like Westworld and seeing the Justice League involved in this setting would be cool.
However, it was not just the old West. After her short bit was done, we came across Batman in the world of Warlord. Wonder Woman was there too. I did not understand what was happening and, if this was the case, why was Batman not in the old West. and where was Superman?
Eventually we came to Superman as an agent of the government in a black and white alien invasion film where both Batman and Wonder Woman would appear as would King Faraday. It also borrowed heavily from a Twilight Zone episode I saw last summer during the Daily Zone rewatch.
All of these side bits seemed to be nothing more than time wasters as the real plot started up in this episode as they came across Mongul, with Lobo, who has some weird sci-fi storyline. Apparently, Warworld is a massive weapon against the multiverse and he was in search of a key. Why he brought the Trinity into the story made no sense, but that was not unlike most of the rest of this movie.
J’onn J’onzz was here too and played a role in the end of the film, but the movie made the entire thing feel unnecessary as it was being used simply to introduce the idea of Crisis on Infinite Earths. The movie brought in what I assume was Harbinger at the very end to rescue the Trinity and set up the next animated film. I am only guessing that this is Harbinger since the look of the character is nothing like I remember. She looked more like Marvel’s Frankie Raye aka Nova than she did the Harbinger from Crisis on Infinite Earths.
Jensen Ackles lead the voice cast which included Stana Katic (formerly of Castle fame) as Wonder Woman, and Darren Criss as Superman. Other actors included Ike Amadi, Troy Baker, Matt Bomer, Roger Cross, Brett Dalton, John DiMaggio, Frank Grillo, Teddy Sears, Kari Wahlgren, and Robin AtkinDownes.
The animation was fine, but did not standout in any instance. The characters did not feel right. Even in Elseworld type stories, the characters needed to feel like the characters we know in order for us to relate to them. Much of the story was convoluted and only felt as if it existed simply to put them in these specific settings. Worse yet, was it simply felt like a commercial for the next DC animation film.
Usually, the DC animated movies are very well done. This was quite a step down.
Eli Roth’s holiday slash-fest is the next film in the June Swoon 3 as I pulled up Thanksgiving on Netflix this morning.
Slasher movies are not my favorite sub-genre of horror film historically, but I have to say that I fund Thanksgiving to be a decent film with plenty of scary (maybe gory is the better word) moments and a film that avoided a lot of the typical stupid behaviors associated with slasher films.
I liked how this film started off, setting up suspects for who would eventually be the John Carver murderer. There were a ton of red herrings in the film and I really liked how they went through these methodically.
Some of the kills were really gruesome too. A couple were so bad that I actually had to avert my eyes once or twice. I know I am a wuss, but I am not big on the gore.
The Black Friday scene was absolutely over the moon and set this craziness up perfectly. It also introduced us to some eventual victims who I was looking forward to seeing get their comeuppance for their crazy behavior during this riot.
The film does a great job of taking comments or incidents from the beginning of the film and pay them off in the finale. That was some solid writing and made everything feel important.
Thanksgiving was a lot of fun and brought a new flair to the slasher sub-genre.
The next film in the June Swoon 3: A Cinematic Flashback is the second consecutive Oscar winning international film. The Zone of Interest is a look at a slice of life among a career driven man, his wife and happy family as they deal with the daily events of their lives.
Oh, did I mention that he was a Nazi commandant?
Oh, not just any Nazi commandant, but Rudolf Höss of Auschwitz?
I knew the film was a Holocaust setting, but I was unaware what I was about to watch. Rudolf Höss (Christian Friedel), along with his wife Hedwig Höss (Sandra Hüller), were our main protagonists. I did not figure out who they were until a bit into the film and to say that I was shocked when I figured it out would be an understatement.
There were a couple of times where I had to stop and say to myself that I was not feeling sorry for Rudolf Höss. The film did a great job of showing the entire person that this evil man was and displaying that even evil men and women have sides to their personality that you may not expect.
I do not think the film humanized Rudolf Höss as much as it showed how real life has plenty of shadows and moments where even the worst of us have quiet times.
Sandra Hüller appeared in her second consecutive film in this year’s June Swoon with her role as Hedwig. This was a wicked woman too as the film showed her being soft and loving, as well as moments when she would switch immediately to cruelty and a savageness that was unexpected. There was a scene where she told her Jewish servant that she could have her husband scatter her ashes across the land. I literally gasped at that comment.
As an A24 film. The Zone of Interest did not really have a laid out plot. It was more of an exploration of daily life just outside of the worst concentration camp in the Holocaust. It did not feel as if anything was building to a climax. It was just a series of scenes that were very powerful in their own.
One of the most effective techniques used was the management of sound. The film would have scenes with the happy family or of the beautiful home they enjoyed, but in the background, you could hear the sounds of gunfire, or dogs barking, or the suffering of Jewish prisoners. The sound cues of the film made this a truly haunting effect, without ever having the visual imagery on the screen. This juxtaposition is clearly why the film was able to win the Best Sound Oscar at the Academy Awards.
I have to say that the beginning was an odd experience for me. The film began with an extended black screen, though I could hear sound going on. I honestly thought that there was something wrong with MAX. I almost stopped it so I could see why it was not showing a picture. I was able to determine that this was intended.
This was the Academy Award winner for Best International Feature Film (although it was not up against Anatomy of a Fall) and received a nomination for Best Motion Picture as well as Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay for Jonathan Glazer. This is one of those films that could stay with you for awhile and the image of the ending with present day Auschwitz was extremely poignant.
The third annual June Swoon got underway this morning with an Oscar winning foreign film that I had missed from 2023. Anatomy of a Fall received a lot of Academy buzz earlier this year as it was nominated in several major categories, oddly enough except for Best International Film.
Anatomy of a Fall tells the story of a couple and their 11-year old son. The couple had been having troubles since an unfortunate accident that led to their son Daniel (Milo Machado-Graner),when he was four years old, losing much of his vision. Moving back to his hometown, Samuel (Samuel Theis) struggled to write, battled his guilt over Daniel’s accident and resented his wife, Sandra (Sandra Hüller).
So a day after an especially violent fight, Samuel was found outside of their home, dead from a fall out of the third story window. Isolated as they were, Sandra became the prime suspect in the death of Samuel and she is placed on trial for the murder.
This may be a spoiler, but I do love how the case is resolved (or not so much), storyline wise. I find that an intelligent manner of storytelling and allows you the viewer to add to the tale being told.
There were some excellent performances. Sandra Hüller received an Oscar nomination as Leading Actress in a Feature, and it was well deserved. Hüller brought plenty of emotions to the role, from an icy response to passionate rage. Milo Machado-Graner was just as excellent as the visually-impaired Daniel. Daniel had to go through a lot of pain and anguish during the film, and had to perform as a visually-impaired child too. He may have been the I See Child Actors Award winner at the EYG Year in Review section had I seen this film last year instead of during the June Swoon. His work was exceptional and every bit as compelling as any of the adults in the film.
The film may be slow for some, but I was engrossed from the first moments of the film, wondering the whole time what the truth of the story would be. The court scenes were fascinating too, as this was the first time I had ever seen a court case portrayed from a French court. The differences were striking from the US courts that I am more familiar with.
Anatomy of a Fall is beautifully constructed as a mystery, as a courtroom drama and as a personal story of a family filled with pain just trying to get by. Great performances fill the two hours and thirty minutes of the film and I can certainly understand why it had received as many Oscar nominations as it did.
I wanted to do a rewatch of the 1996 film Twister starring Helen Hunt and Bill Paxton since there is the movie Twisters, which I do not know if it is a sequel, reboot or continuation, coming out this summer. I rented it on Amazon Prime tonight and gave it a rewatch.
I was not a fan of Twister the first time I watched it back in the 90s. I did not see it in a theater so it must have been a rental. I remember thinking it was pretty dumb.
I do not think my opinion of the film changed much after watching it in 2024.
According to IMDB, “TV weatherman Bill Harding (Bill Paxton) is trying to get his tornado-hunter wife, Jo (Helen Hunt), to sign divorce papers so he can marry his girlfriend Melissa (Jami Gertz). But Mother Nature, in the form of a series of intense storms sweeping across Oklahoma, has other plans. Soon the three have joined the team of stormchasers as they attempt to insert a revolutionary measuring device into the very heart of several extremely violent tornados.“
One of my biggest problems was the lack of any real characters. There was near zero development among any of the characters. A slight attempt was made to give Jo a background with a childhood trauma, but it was barely touched upon in the movie and the few times that it felt like it was handled, it was tossed in with little to no explanation.
The rest of the cast was just people to read the doppler and yell “Yahoo” as the tornados whipped.
Admittedly, the special effects looked pretty good for the mid-90s, although the flying cow was unintentionally funny. However, watching Bill and Jo running through the fields towards a barn with all kinds of things flying past them made me wonder why the tornado was unable to pick them up as it was pulling fences out of the ground.
The story is basically going between different tornados and trying to release this new device and failing. There is not much, if any, real human conflict. They gave them a rival tornado chaser, played by Westley himself, Cary Elwes, but that character was as one-dimensional as you could get.
I did not recognize the late, great Phillip Seymour Hoffman in his role as Dusty, the oddball who yells a lot. Alan Ruck from Ferris Buhler’s Day Off and Jeremy Davies, who would play Faraday on LOST, were here too in unimportant background character roles.
I do like Helen Hunt and Bill Paxton as leads, and their chemistry did make up for the lack of plotline between the couple. I did feel bad for the fiancé Melissa because you could tell that she never stood a chance. I did like how they wrapped up her story though, with her just realizing the truth and breaking it off like an adult.
Some of the tornado sequences became kind of boring after awhile since there was little else to keep me engaged. The final tornado was better than some of the others, but it was also a big chunk of the time I was rolling my eyes at this movie.
It is a watchable movie, but you have to shut down your brain and just watch the spectacle around it to enjoy it.
As I was going to Amazon Prime yesterday, I saw that the new Road House movie starring Jake Gyllenhaal was now available for streaming. With the schedule, I plan on watching that later this afternoon or evening, but I thought I should watch the original 1989 movie starring Patrick Swayze first. I have never seen Road House even though it has a large cult following. I have heard a wide variety of opinions on the film. Everything from it is a favorite movie of all time to it is one of the worst. I found it on Hulu/Max so I watched it this morning.
According to Rotten Tomatoes, “The Double Deuce is the meanest, loudest and rowdiest bar south of the Mason-Dixon Line, and Dalton (Patrick Swayze) has been hired to clean it up. He might not look like much, but the Ph.D.-educated bouncer proves he’s more than capable — busting the heads of troublemakers and turning the roadhouse into a jumping hot-spot. But Dalton’s romance with the gorgeous Dr. Clay (Kelly Lynch) puts him on the bad side of cutthroat local big shot Brad Wesley (Ben Gazzara).”
Starting off, this is a silly, mostly stupid, film with poor dialogue and simplistic characters. It is not a very good film.
However, it is entertaining. It is one of those film that you need to approach knowing what kind of film it is and not to expect a lot. There is fun to be had in the mindless violence and one-note characters.
This is basically a 1980s-style Western, with two main characters, Dalton and Mason (Sam Elliott), who are the silent, gunslingers, who coming into the town to clean it up. They are Clint Eastwood-like characters coming face-to-face with the mustache-twirling villains. The story fits right into the genre of the Western, right down to the shootout in the finale.
I will say that the longer the film went, the more ridiculous it became. There is no attempt at realism and it felt much more a cartoon than anything else.
It was awesome to see the late Terry Funk in this film. Sure, he was not much of an actor, but he wasn’t supposed to be. As brutal henchman, he was right in his element.
The more I reflect back on this movie, I can see why people enjoy it, but it really is not a movie that I would recommend unless you are bored on a Saturday afternoon and looking for a really dumb film to pass the time.
And so we have reached the end of the 2024 Genre-ary DailyView: Musicals. After a full month of classical musicals or stage shows shot as a film, we wrap up this year’s Genre-ary with EYG Hall of Famers Monty Python and one of their funniest, if not chaotic films, Monty Python’s Meaning of Life.
Monty Python consisted of six main individuals: Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, and Michael Palin.
This film stitched together a series of sketches featuring the immense talents of these six men. It was shocking at times. At times it was raunchy. At times it was offensive. Above all else, it was, at all times, really funny.
Admittedly, there was a scene including vomit jokes, which I have NEVER been a fan of, but this was about as funny as I will find these scenes.
There are some absolutely brilliant songs involved too including “Every Sperm is Sacred,” “Penis Song (Not The Noël Coward Song),” “Galaxy Song,” “Christmas in Heaven,” and “Meaning of Life.” These are uproariously funny. I love “Every Sperm…” and “Penis Song.”
Some of the skits do not work as well as others, but there are so many outstanding moments that I really was pleased that I scheduled this to conclude the Genre-ary.
EYG- Embrace Your Geekness 