The Sonata came out on DVD recently, so this was one of the rentals I picked up during my weekly trip to the video store. I didn’t know anything about it, but it was new and the cover promised a spooky time, so I was sold.
The Sonata is about a young woman named Rose who was a prodigy violin player. Her career is coming to a turning point when she gets news that he estranged father, one of the greatest and most mysterious modern composers, has died. Rose inherits her father’s house, and when she goes there to stay for a while and decide what to do, she discovers a strange sonata written by father and locked away for Rose to discover for herself. Rose and her manager try to figure out what the strange music notes and symbols mean, but as they unravel the mystery, dark things begin to happen in the house.
I mostly enjoyed The Sonata. I quite enjoyed the mystery part of the movie. As the characters learn more about Rose’s father (played by Rutger Hauer who has some short bit of screen time here and there), we are treated to a mystical riddle that delves into witchcraft and demonology. The movie gets pretty dark at times when we learn what Rose’s father was doing alone in his house, but some of the big reveals at the end weren’t super great. This was a lower-budget movie, and I think they should have tried to figure out ways to get around having and computer generated effects. The CGI wasn’t great, and I do think it detracted from y enjoyment towards the end. Up to that point though, I thought it was pretty good. Plus, I liked the idea of the ending.
So, The Sonata isn’t great, but it’s good. It’s worth a watch for people who are really into haunted house movies with a heavy emphasis on the mystery side of things.
Ever since the first season of The Walking Dead, I’ve been a big fan of Jon Bernthal. Any time I see that he’s in a movie or TV show, I make a point to see it. So, when I came across Sweet Virginia during one of my extended Netflix browsing sessions, I queued it up and watched it pretty quickly (after a bit more browsing, of course).
Sweet Virginia is a crime drama that begins with the murder of three men in a bar. The killings seem premeditated, and as the plot unfolds, we discover more and more connections between the main characters. Jon Bernthal stars as Sam, a retired bull rider who has mostly retreated from the world. He lives a mostly solitary life in the motel he owns and manages, but the few relationships he does have are extremely meaningful. Sam’s life is changed by the murders as coincidences and connections bring Sam, the murderer, and woman he loves together in the aftermath of the small-town tragedy.
There’s a lot more to the plot than what I’m saying, but finding out who knows whom and how people are connected is one of the biggest draws of Sweet Virginia, so I don’t really want to say any more about that. Learning about what is happening, often before the characters themselves, creates some really great tension throughout the movie. Sweet Virginia is a rather quiet movie most of the time, but I think that helped make the big impacts even more impactful.
There are a few times where the coincidences seem like a bit of a stretch, but it’s all still plausible and doesn’t detract from the flow of the movie. Beyond just the plot though, I think the characters are what really make Sweet Virginia excellent.
Jon Bernthal tends to play tough guys. Sometimes they have a heart and sometimes they don’t, but most of Bernthal’s performances seem to come across as strong, no-nonsense guys. There’s some of that persona in the character of Sam, but part of Sam’s history involves a bull-riding injury that has left him with a strong limp and a noticeable shake in his hand. Sam isn’t physically terribly strong anymore. Plus, Sam is quiet around others and mostly just wants to be left alone. He’s not prone to standing up to people even when he needs to, but his outlook is tested throughout the course of the movie. It was really cool seeing Jon Bernthal play this kind of role since the things I predominantly associate him with are The Punisher and Shane from The Walking Dead. Bernthal did a great job as Sam.
The rest of the cast is great as well. Imogen Poots and Rosemarie DeWitt play widows of two of the murdered men, and they each have very different paths after the deaths of their husbands. They’re both strong in their own ways, but they also have secrets that are weighing them down. The man who did the killings is Christopher Abbott, an actor I know best from It Comes at Night. Abbot plays his character of Elwood as mentally unstable with dangerously frightening anger issues. Elwood provides a level of tension in every scene he’s in that grows more and more as the movie goes along. You end up just waiting for him to explode at some point, but by that time you don’t want anything to happen to the people around him. It’s all done very well.
So yeah, I thoroughly enjoyed Sweet Virginia. Like I said, it’s kind of a quiet, character-based movie, but you can eventually see the plot points start to converge and crash into each other towards the end. The strong characterizations help make the convergence that much more meaningful.
I’ve heard lots of not-so-good things about Dolittle over the past few weeks, but as always, I like to judge for myself. I like Robert Downey Jr., and even though I haven’t enjoyed all of his movies, I’ll still go see pretty much anything he’s in. Plus, the cast of voices for the animals is great. The trailers didn’t look fantastic to me, but they didn’t look bad either. So I was mildly looking for to Dolittle. After seeing it, I don’t think it’s fantastic, but it’s certainly not as terrible as some of the dog-piling online reviews would lead you to believe. I enjoyed it.
RDJ plays, of course, Dr. Dolittle. We’re told at the beginning of the movie about how Dolittle can talk to animals and how he used to travel the world with his wife Lily, and they created a family of animal friends as Dolittle helped each and eery one of them. Lily disappeared while on a voyage to find a mysterious island, and since then Dolittle has closed his animal hospital, living like a hermit with only his animal friends as company. But when the Queen Victoria falls deathly ill, Dolittle is pulled out of his self-imposed exile to try to save her (and his own home at the same time).
The plot follows the adventures of Dolittle, his band of jovial animal friends, and Stubbins, a young man who feels more at home with animals than he does at home. It’s a CGI-heavy adventure with quips, action, and some fun scenarios.
Some of the jokes weren’t for me, but really, I didn’t have any complaints about the movie. It’s light-hearted family fare. Could it have been better? Sure, but you can say that about any movie. I understand that there were a lot of pre-release shenanigans involving rewrites and reshoots, but all that really matters in the end is what makes it to the screen. What I saw was about what I expected: a fun family adventure with silly jokes and little in the way of any real danger or tense situations. It doesn’t always make sense (like, if Dolittle talks to the animals in their own “languages,” how do the animals all talk to each other?), but who cares? For a movie like this, making sense doesn’t matter as much as making a big, fun spectacle. I thought the spectacle was fine.
I have a like/dislike relationship with Eli Roth’s movies. I like Eli Roth as an actor and as a person. He and I seem to have largely similar tastes when it comes to horror movies we like. I tend to thoroughly enjoy the influences Eli Roth uses when making his own films. And, I generally enjoy the ideas he has. My only real problem is that he and I have greatly different sense of humor, and Roth tends to put his own brand of humor into every one of the movies he directs. In Cabin Fever it’s the “pancakes” kid and the gun in the store that made me groan. In the Hostel movies it’s the general silliness of the gore. In The Green Inferno it’s the pot and diarrhea jokes. Those things aren’t necessarily movie killers for me, but they were all prevalent enough to leave me feeling underwhelmed by each of those movies. I think it’s about tone for me. I want those movies to be tough to watch, but they end up feeling like goofy comedies by the time it’s all over. With that in mind, I skipped Knock Knock when it came out in 2015.
But.
After seeing Ana De Armas in Knives Out late last year, I’ve become increasingly interested in seeing more of her work. Plus, I’ve been a big fan of Keanu Reeves for forever. So at this point it was two to one (Ana & Keanu vs Eli), so I decided to give Knock Knock a try. I’m almost entirely glad I did.
Knock Knock is basically a home invasion movie. Keanu Reeves plays Evan, a seemingly happily married man with a wife, two kids, and a great house. He ends up needing to stay home and work as the rest of his family goes on a weekend trip. While Evan is working late into the night, he gets a knock on the door. Standing outside, stranded in the rain, are Genesis (Izzo) and Bel (Armas). They claim that they got lost on their way to a party, and the taxi they rode in on has already left them all alone. Evan, being a nice guy with a proclivity for flirting (at least according to his wife), eventually invites the young women inside so they can dry off and wait for a car to pick them up. The atmosphere starts to get steamy pretty quickly as Genesis and Bel attempt to get closer and closer to Evan. One thing leads to another, and, a few bad decisions later, Evan can’t get rid of his guests.
From there the movie gets darker as Genesis and Bel’s intentions become more clear. Evan is harassed and terrorized, and it slowly dawns on him that he’s in a situation that will not end well for him. The only question is: how bad will it get?
I liked the movie overall, and I thought the performances from the three leads were a lot of fun. Izzo and Armas come across as sufficiently bonkers, but their actions also touch on some of the trauma they’ve experienced that might have led them to do what they’re doing. Reeves goes back and forth from desperate to furious, and he gives a great speech towards the end where all of his anger finally explodes.
I also enjoyed Eli Roth’s directing. The movie does feel sort of campy at times just because of the way it’s sometimes staged and shot, but overall it has a nicely sinister tone. Mostly. For once I thought Roth was going to make a movie without making me roll my eyes at some stupid joke, but alas, he snuck some stuff like that in right at the end. It didn’t spoil the movie for me, but it did leave the movie feeling more light-hearted than I would have liked. That’s just a personal preference though. Other people might like the dumb joke at the end. And really, the joke ending is MUCH better than the alternate ending included on the blu-ray. THAT ending would’ve spoiled everything for me.
Also, I found out that Knock Knock is actually a remake of a movie from 1977 called Death Game. I definitely need to track that down now. Colleen Camp and Sondra Locke star in Death Game, so that absolutely has me interested. Plus, Colleen Camp (who I remember best as the maid Yvette in Clue) has a cameo in Knock Knock.
So yeah, Knock Knock is good. I’m glad I finally saw it.
I don’t have any particular affinity for these types of Jane Austen, period comedy/dramas, but I don’t dislike them either. There are a few I quite like. Love and Friendship with Kate Beckinsale immediately springs to mind as a Jane Austen movie I enjoyed a lot. I don’t think Emma has surpassed Love and Friendship for me personally, but I did enjoy it.
Emma was one of my early morning theater viewings. Whenever I have a day off, I try to go see the first showing of whatever newer movie is out that I haven’t seen yet. I don’t like a lot of people in the theater when I go, so the earlier I can get to the theater the better. I also tend to sit pretty close to the front since not many people pick those seat, but today there was a guy sitting two seats over from me. He was quiet though, so everything worked out fine.
Anyway.
I thought Emma was fun. It took a little time for me to really get into it, but once Emmastarted meddling in other people’s business and the misunderstandings started to stack up, I was smiling and laughing a pretty good amount of the time. Plus, Bill Nighy is in the movie, and Bill Nighy makes everything better.
Emma is a light comedy with some relationship drama tossed in to give it some weight. I think there’s also a fair amount of skewering of high society. Everyone is so polite and considerate, and no one says what they really think or feel. Every problem in the movie could have been avoided if people were just clear about their feelings, but that’s what makes it charming. Anya Taylor-Joy also makes it charming, as does Johnny Flynn. So yeah, I enjoyed Emma.
I was in a bit of a time crunch when I was picking a movie to watch on this day, so I started looking for something a bit shorter than the average ninety minute feature. Older genre movies can often be shorter, so I decided to watch The Devil Bat. Released in 1940, The Devil Bat stars the legendary Bela Lugosi and has a run time of a little over an hour. That was perfect.
I wasn’t sure if I’d seen The Devil Bat before, and even though some scenes seemed familiar, I really didn’t recognize large parts of the movie. So, I’m treating it as a new movie as far as my “A Movie A Day” challenge goes.
While it’s not Lugosi’s best movie, I liked The Devil Bat well enough. Lugosi stars as a mad scientist who seeks revenge on people he thinks have cheated him. His plan is to send his genetically altered giant bat to kill his enemies by using a potion that attracts the bat by scent. His plan works for a while, but of course his actions catch up to him as the police become wise to his murdering ways.
It’s a simple movie, and it gets pretty repetitive even for it’s short run time, but I enjoyed it.
I got Alien 51 for $0.99 from the bargain bin at my local used movie store, and I think that’s about as much as I’d be willing to pay for it. It’s a low-budget, straight-to-video sci-fi monster movie that was released in 2004. It’s biggest advertising point (printed on the front and the back of the DVD case) is that Heidi Fleiss is the the star. I think her being the star of the movie is debatable, but Heidi Fleiss is definitely in it. She spends most of her time complaining about pretty much everything.
In my view, the story really focuses on a character named Cleo. A monster has escaped from Area 51 and is on a bloody rampage across the desert. Cleo had some sort of involvement in the creation of the monster, so she reluctantly joins with a local sheriff, Sam Cash, to track down and stop it. Complicating matters are Billy and Evelda (Heidi Fleiss), a married couple who own a traveling freak show. Billy and Evelda want to add the alien-thing to their roster of freaks, so for just under ninety minutes, we are treated to poorly acted and edited carnage as the two couples hunt the monster as it rips random people to shreds.
I didn’t hate Alien 51, but it’s really not very good. I don’t mind the stiff acting or the bland story that much, but I was hoping there would be some good blood as a balance to the blandness. Unfortunately the blood isn’t great either, so I got kind of bored watching this. But hey, I only paid a dollar.
Velvet Smooth (RiffTrax version) – A Movie A Day #80
I love Mystery Science Theater 3000. I started watching the show during Mike’s reign as the main host, so Mike Nelson, Bill Corbett, and Kevin Murphy became my favorite hosting trio. So naturally, I became a huge fan of RiffTrax when they started up a bunch of years ago. I go to the live shows (via theater), and I regularly watch their streaming movies and shorts online. I also regularly watch old episode of MST3K. And by “regularly,” I mean at least weekly if not more often.
If you’re not familiar with RiffTrax, it’s a site where Mike, Bill, and Kevin do comedic commentary tracks over movies and shorts where they generally riff on the content. They also have guests including former MST3K cast members do riffs. It’s one of the greatest things on the internet, and you should definitely check it out if you haven’t already: https://www.rifftrax.com/
All that said, I’ll watch anything they put out. It’s just a bonus when the movie ends up being something I’d watch without the RiffTrax crew sitting there with me. Velvet Smooth isn’t a good movie, but it is something I would absolutely watch on its own.
Velvet Smooth is the title, and it’s also the name of the lead character. Ms. Smooth is some sort of detective (I think). She’s called in by King, the leader of some sort of crime syndicate, when his criminal activities are disrupted by some other criminals. Guys in masks are going around and kicking and punching all of King’s men, so Velvet Smooth is tasked with finding out who’s behind it. Velvet gathers her small crew of kung-fu-fighting females, and the three of them start shaking down the streets.
I’ve been intrigued by the blaxploitation era for a long time, but I haven’t seen nearly enough films in the genre. Velvet Smooth isn’t the most well-made movie in that canon, but is absolutely fun to watch. The fight choreography is laughable, and that’s really the biggest draw for me. The plot and acting are fine, standard fare, but the fight scenes are glorious. People clearly miss punches and kicks only to have their opponent take a fall, assailants politely wait their turn in the background before attacking, and the interactions look like a first-time half-speed run-through rather than the final, filmed scene. I love it.
I also had to roll the movie back at one point, because I saw, for a spit-second, what I thought was a cameraman. Sure enough, in a scene fairly late in the movie, there’s a full shot of a camera guy just standing there. Other movies from the era have had similar production issues, Dolemite being a great example of having the boom mic in what seems like half the shots of the movie. But Velvet Smooth did even better and got a full-body shot of a cameraman in the film while he was holding the camera and shooting the scene. It was great.
As much fun as I had with Velvet Smooth, the RiffTrax crew helped make it even better. I know I’ll be watching this many more times in the future.
I had heard mixed things about this remake of David Cronenberg’s 1977 movie of the same name, but I ended up renting it after all the brand new movies for the week had been checked out (yes, I still rent physical media). So Rabid might have been a backup plan for the night, but it’s not like I didn’t want to see it. I usually enjoy body horror quite a lot, and the movie looked promising. I’d heard of the the directors of this new version of Rabid, the Soska Sisters, but the only movie I’d previously seen of theirs was See No Evil 2. It was fine. But really, one movie isn’t enough to really know what a director’s films are like. So, I didn’t know much about what to expect from Rabid.
Rabid is about a woman, Rose, who works for a fashion designer, but she dreams of being a designer herself. Rose keeps to herself and lacks confidence in all aspects of her life. After a night where her confidence is built up only to be shattered by people close to her, she suffers an accident that leaves her disfigured. After deciding to undergo an experimental operation, Rose’s body and face are better than ever, but there are some side effects. Rose develops some unusual cravings, and people that come into close contact with her eventually turn into violent, raving (i.e. rabid) maniacs.
The movie really focuses on Rose and her experience rather than the violent murders happening throughout the city. I liked that part about it, but overall I thought it was just okay. As the body horror aspect of the movie increased later in the film, it started to look a little silly at times. A lot of the effects were good, but some important ones weren’t. I also thought there was great potential for some strong commentary from a female perspective, but that part felt like it took a backseat to the plot and all the blood. It was an okay balance, but again, it was just okay. It felt like it wanted to be a cross between Raw and The Neon Demon, but it ended up feeling more like a pretty good low-budget gore movie.
There were some memorable bits for me though. Phil Brooks (CM Punk) was in the movie, and seeing him so on a maniacal rage and just face-first through a window was pretty great. Also, Brooks’s wife, AJ Mendez Brooks, showed up late in the movie as a catty fashion model. That was fun. And I did enjoy most of the movie. I just don’t think I’ll be seeing it again.
I thought I had seen David Cronenberg’s original, but watching this version, I realize I hadn’t. That’s something I’ll need to remedy soon.
Diecovery is a low-budget supernatural horror movie from Thailand in 2003. I picked it up a while ago in a 2-DVD pack along with another Thai horror movie, Taxi Tonight. Neither movie looked particularly good when I bought them, but I really enjoy getting cheap, multi-disc movie packs. Most of the movies you’ll get in these packs are decent yet forgettable, but occasionally you’ll come across some real gems. Diecovery is not one of those gems, but I liked it fine.
The title aside (which I don’t like at all), Diecovery feels like a nice homemade horror movie. It’s like something my friends and I might have done over a weekend when I was younger. By that, I mean that there are nice ideas, but a lack of budget and experience kept the movie from ever really rising above the many, many other cheaply made horror movies out there.
The story follows a young married couple as they take a delayed honeymoon away from the big city. They go to a resort in the “wilderness” of Thailand (I put that in quotes because they are in the woods, but they’re barely outside the city). The resort holds a dark secret though. Years earlier, a woman was killed and buried on the grounds by the resort’s owners. The specific details around her death and its cover-up are unraveled as the mystery unfolds, but the end result is that the resort is cursed. That leads to supernatural happenings (and a few natural happenings) that get more and more sinister.
It’s a ghost story in the vein of The Grudge or many other vengeful spirit movies. So yeah, I liked the ideas, but what actually made it to the screen sometimes comes across pretty silly. The woman’s death is confusingly edited, and it’s abundantly clear that her dead body is a very floppy dummy. There are some computer effects that look real janky. The acting is mostly about the quality you’d expect from something so cheap, but you know, I did think the two lead characters were engaging. They worked well as a couple, and I enjoyed watching them. That, plus the fact that the ghost (when she finally showed up) looked pretty cool is about all I really need.
Diecovery isn’t great, but I had some fun with it. I’d watch it again.
