Movies
Legendarily censored back in the day after its tales of animal vivisection horrified audiences back in the '30s (although it's not nearly as graphic [or great] as the H. G. Wells novel it's based on), Island of Lost Souls is grotesque and lurid in a way that feels transgressive even today. It's the sort of quick, sweaty thriller of which the world could use a lot more, and that's cool. There's nothing particularly great about the movie within the context of that vein of pre-grindhouse shock—and in fact, the movie is quite a bit stripped down from the intricacies of the novel's philosophically minded explanations of the animal society. But there's a lot to be said for a simply well-put-together little bit of work like this one. Grade: B+
In what's a bit of a precedent for last year's The Revenant, here's another hyper-masculine film so convinced of its own importance and so prepared to deliver its themes of violence and civilization vs. nature with a heavy hand that it stifles any emotional response likely to have arisen from its already emotionally limited story. And that's to say nothing of the way it stacks the deck by creating a band of toothless sadists within its Georgian wilderness as an ostensible representation of "savage" rural life that's only given the abstractest of urban counterpoints in the discussions of suburban sprawl and environmental threat. It's not all bad: The Revenant has beautiful cinematography; Deliverance has "Dueling Banjos." And I suppose these themes are interesting in theory. But that's about it. Grade: C+
In something akin to David Bowie's climactic Ziggy Stardust declaration that "You're not alone!", Taste of Cherry ends with one of the most life-affirming fourth-wall breaks in the history of cinema, the triumphant, beautiful coda to what has been, prior to that moment, a methodical and creepingly lonely crawl through one man's quest to find someone to bury him once he's killed himself. Even by 1997, the exposing of the artifice of filmmaking was a tedious celebration of cleverness, but with Taste of Cherry, that break is vitally necessary, and without it, the film isn't much more than a joyless slog through an overly intellectualized premise. With it, though—it's wonderful. So give me your hand. Grade: A-
Scream 2 (and its predecessor, to be honest) mistakes merely identifying tropes for satire, meaning that it's not really doing anything nearly as clever as it wants to—we get it, sequels have trends, okay? It's also worth pointing out that in 2016, we've had nearly twenty years of self-aware horror movies to sufficiently identify those tropes in even more detail, so Scream 2 was likely way fresher in '97 than it is now. Also, there's the question of how effective your supposed satire is if you indulge in the same archetypes you're ostensibly making fun of; Scream 2 definitely indulges in some pretty rusty horror archetypes. Sometimes (particularly in the film's extended spook sequence leading up to its unfortunately lackluster finale), that leads to some really nice moments of classical horror; the rest of the time, it's just this kind of awkward amalgam of self-awareness and mediocrity. Grade: B-
I'm not afraid of the dark, and the primary irony of this movie is that it doesn't seem to be particularly afraid of it either. What's so effectively unsettling about the short films in this anthology isn't dark at all but light: the terrifying anticipation of hiding in the dark knowing that you'll have to face whatever grotesquery sits in front of you head-on as soon as someone illuminates the room. It's not the fear of the unknown here; it's the fear of what we might learn, and each film (all gorgeous and twisted works of animation by noted graphic novel designers) works this device masterfully, hinting at first at small, subtle horrors before pulling back to reveal even worse big pictures. Of course, that said, the scariest and best film of the bunch is the final one, a nearly silent ellipsis cloaked in darkness and mystery involving a man snowed into a large, empty house. I'm not afraid of the dark. Grade: A
The premise—couple gets lost on their way to a BnB and drives around in a hedge maze forever—is fine on the metric of high-concept horror. The execution is what's dragging this thing down. Not only is it consistently unscary (its in-car camera wants to feel claustrophobic, but it ends up being a lot more... I dunno, Carpool Karaoke?), but the script also relies on self-evident accidental absurdities that feel more effective in theory than in practice—the movie assumes, for example, that our allegiances with a stranger the couple picks up in the maze will shift in unsettling ways, but it never gives us concrete reasons for feeling along for that ride. What this ends up being is the rare refutation of the "less is more" theory of horror movies: we just need more to go on here. Grade: C+
Boilerplate found-footage horror, but well-done boilerplate: familiar (to say nothing of the slightly ageist tropes of Scary Old People) but effective scares complete with that accidentally well-framed cinematography that can make found-footage such a great delivery system for subtle chills, even if the only truly chilling moment comes at one particular moment of body horror during its extended underground finale. Nothing that'll blow your mind, but still a fun little diversion. Grade: B
As a sequel, it's alright: nothing in 2 comes even close to the brilliant hand-clapping sequence from the first film, although it's got its own share of conceptually nifty scares, especially one in particular involving a shadow and a painting. The worst I can say about the movie is the same as of the first, only magnified—it's just too dang long, y'all, and, even worse, this time around it's all too easy to see what needed to be cut. Look, Wilson and Farmiga clearly have chemistry as the gently fictionalized versions of the real-life Warren duo (and in fact, one of the movie's best moments is an unexpectedly sweet one between the two at the film's end), but it's clear that anything more than Mulder-Scully-esque "What seems to be the problem here?" professionalism from the two is just dead weight. We spent far too much time with these two outside of the case they are supposed to be solving, and when your horror movie's well over two hours, it's time to start asking yourself what went wrong. When the movie's focused on the meat-and-potatoes possession antics, though, it's still solid (if not particularly legendary) entertainment. Grade: B
If we judged movies by the sheer volume of dolly zooms per minute, Nerve would be an instant classic. But being that film criticism also involves the consideration of plot, characterization, structure, shot composition, and stuff like that, Nerve doesn't quite leap into the modern pantheon. I'll say this much for the visuals: the wild, coked-up depiction of the lightly sci-fi version of social media depicted in the film's world is the best evocation of the subjective experience of the allures of social media I've ever seen in a movie. As for the rest, while the characters are broad and kind of dumb and the plot goes from 10 to 11 in its climax a bit too abruptly, it's overall an entertaining and, if not thoughtful, at least very earnest satire of our media age, and even with its considerable flaws, that's something I can get behind. Grade: B
Books
This is my first John Grisham book, and I've got to feel like this isn't the best place to start: not just with a novel late into his prolific, lengthy career but also one that's self-consciously set in unfamiliar territory (in this case, rural coal-country Appalachia). For much of the narrative, Grisham seems to expect readers to be intrigued just by the various legal and safety hassles coal miners face, as there's not much going on in the plot beside incident after incident—I'm chalking that up to the late date in his career. Eventually something resembling a thriller begins to form, but by that time, at least halfway through the novel, it's far too late to rescue the story and definitely not enough to justify the non-ending of a conclusion. Grisham clearly knows his way around popular fiction, and even as the plot drags, the book is still readable and quick. But just because it's fast doesn't mean it's interesting. Grade: C
Music
Spektor's first album in four years is her best in ten. The latter half of the record in particular is one of the best string of songs that the singer-songwriter has ever had—all this from a relatively sedate tracklist. Regina Spektor acquired a reputation for quirk and Romantic impulses on her breakthrough album Soviet Kitsch, but her trend since that LP has been toward more and more straightforward pop sounds that downplay those elements of her musical personality. It's a direction I've disliked while still enjoying her records since, so one would think that Remember Us To Life, perhaps her most straightforward-sounding album yet, would feel like more of the same. But in a testament to the top-shelf songwriting skills on display here, the album manages to be absolutely transfixing. "Tornadoland" is one of my top-five Spektor songs ever, and it's not even that much better than most of the rest on the disc. Just to put it into perspective. Grade: A-
Comparing Tunnel of Love to its immediate Springsteen predecessor, Born in the U.S.A., in unfair on multiple levels—not only are the albums doing two completely different things, but one ranks easily within the top 20 rock albums ever cut. Fairness is overrated, though, so let's say this: Tunnel of Love is not among the top 20 rock albums ever. Far more buttoned-up than U.S.A. (a comparison between the two cover arts is instructive), Tunnel finds Bruce in a more introspective, narrative-oriented mood than the political fury of his preceding records. And though that's not as rousing, it suits the Boss pretty well. This is probably the first album where you can really feel Springsteen acknowledging and consciously leaning into his tropes: sad-sack working classers, love-sick idealists—these characters existed prior to Tunnel of Love in abundance across Bruce's discography, but the focus solely on these characters' interior lives feels purposeful and remains effective even as they verge on cliché. Not all the tracks land, but among those that do exist some of Springsteen's most purely human creations. Grade: B+
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