Tag Archives: Emile Hirsch

Force of Nature

Officer Cardillo (Emile Hirsch) started the day off clothed in a bathtub, unable to commit suicide because his PTSD was a little too disturbing. He’s not exactly excited to spend his day evacuating people who don’t want to be evacuated ahead of hurricane in Puerto Rico, and he’s sure as heck not thrilled to be stuck doing it with rookie cop Jess (Stephanie Cayo). Little did he know, his day was about to get a whole lot worse.

A grocery store fight over the hording of meat has Cardillo and Jess following Griffin (William Catlett) back to his apartment, where it turns out he’s not the only hold out. Dr. Troy (Kate Bosworth) is there trying to evacuate her father (Mel Gibson, a surly ex-cop who relies on dialysis to live, and yet doesn’t appreciate the a storm power outage might mean. There’s another old man in the building, Bergkamp (Jorge Luis Ramos) who’s also refusing to leave, but evacuation becomes moot when a bunch of thieves led by John (David Zayas) take advantage of the storm to raid the building, making it all but impossible for anyone to escape with their lives.

Force of Nature has the bones of an 80s action movie but those old bones are not aging well, practically disintegrating into dust as we watch. This movie is a mess, so bad that I can only ask: is this intentional? It seems inconceivable that this many things can go wrong and it not be deliberate. I mean, first we have the exploitation of a Puerto Rican hurricane, which, okay, it’s a cheap ploy, but it’s also in poor taste considering the deadly Hurricane Maria, not only a terrible natural disaster, but a sickening political blunder as well. Then we have the white-saviour thing pushing a bad movie into downright ugly territory. Both Hirsch and Gibson play white cops in Puerto Rico taking on the no good very bad Puerto Rican criminal element (officially they’re art thieves, but the script is so eager to paint John with extra villainy that it has him murdering his own men needlessly). Now let’s add a layer that is almost inexplicable in its double badness: both Hirsch and Gibson hurt women. Emile Hirsch put a woman in a chokehold, and dragged her across a table with his hands around her throat to body slam her to the ground. And yet Gibson makes him look like a puppy. Mel Gibson is a flagrant anti-Semite. And homophone. And misogynist. Yes, he’s beaten the mother of his own child. Yes he’s used the n-word while threatening rape. And that’s just what’s been caught on tape. He’s 10 000% a bad dude and if Michael Polish wants to work with him, I don’t think Polish gets a pass either. When you cast not one but two Hollywood delinquents in white saviour roles, you’re taking deliberate swings at the bee’s nest and you deserve to get stung. You might even think that this is a bit of stunt casting to make up for the film being pretty terrible to start with, but that just begs the question: why make it at all?

Think of all the female film makers, and the people of colour, shopping promising projects around Hollywood without having a single door opened to them, but this shit is getting green-lit? In 2020, it’s a slap in the face. And yet it’s pathetic choice of cast is not what sinks this movie – it does that all on its own merits.

Freaks

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This is the kind of movie that throws you into a world and a situation we know nothing about, and writer-directors Zach Lipovsky and Adam B. Stein aren’t in a hurry to tell us.

Dad (Emile Hirsch) has sequestered himself and his 7 year old daughter Chloe (Lexy Kolker) in their home. The drapes are duct-taped closed, the door is quadruple-locked, and no one is allowed in or out. They are preparing for or hiding from some ominous event, and the blood dripping from Dad’s eyes make me think it’s not just all in his head, no matter how paranoid and controlling this all seems.

Still, Chloe is a 7 year old girl. She wants to make a friend, to play in the park, to eat an ice cream cone. So when Mr. Snowcone (Bruce Dern) repeatedly parks directly in front of their home, Chloe can’t resist, and all she has to do is wait for Dad to fall into one of his sleeps to make her escape.

But on the outside, it turns out not everything Dad told her is a lie. There ARE bad people – it’s just harder than she thought to identify them. In fact, Freaks is almost the flip side to The Incredibles. I know, I know, that sounds like weird comparison, but you may recall that as we meet the Incredible family, we learn that super heroes have basically been outlawed and this family has been relocated and have to hide their powers to fit in. Chloe’s family also have powers of some kind, and public fear has meant that all the special people are either hiding or relocated or dead, and the government prefers the latter to the former.

The story keeps us firmly within Chloe’s understanding of her own powers and the circumstances in which she lives. She’s understandably frustrated with her confinement and she makes impetuous, chocolate-driven decisions. The directors have crafted a horror-sci-fi hybrid that keeps us guessing, unfolding at Chloe’s pace, not mine or yours or theirs.

Freaks is perhaps a little inconsistent, but it’s boldly directed and surprisingly well-acted. There’s more character development than a dozen other horror films combined and its message is as strong as it is relevant.

Once Upon A Time In…Hollywood

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In The Royal Tenenbaums, Eli Cash, played by Owen Wilson, writes a book and describes it thusly: “Well, everyone knows Custer died at Little Bighorn. What this book presupposes is… maybe he didn’t.” It’s a great line. It kills me. And Owen Wilson passes it off so well.

Quentin Tarantino seems to have had a similar bug up his bum when he wrote Once Upon A Time In…Hollywood.

This review is a little…late, and while, yes, we were happily at the cottage when it came out, we have not been in a hurry to see it since we got home either, and in fact only saw it this past weekend because it was playing in the right time slot. Had Dora been playing at that time, I would have happily-ish seen that instead. The truth is, I’m kind of over Quentin Tarantino. I just don’t feel like racism is the price I want to pay to see his films. $12? Fine. Gratuitous use of the n-word? No thanks.

And while it’s impossible to say this film is racism-free (it isn’t), it’s not the film’s biggest problem. Sean and I just found it…boring.

Leonardo DiCaprio plays Rick Dalton, a washed up TV star struggling to stay relevant. Dalton is a fictional amalgam of several stars of that era. He was a big star on a western television series a decade ago but now he’s lucky to guest star as the heavy on single, sporadic episodes. He drowns his sorrows in a pitcher of whiskey sours. His one time stunt double Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt) is now mostly his driver…and sometime handyman. He seems pretty content with his lot, his laid-back surfer dude persona disguising his continued ability to kick some serious ass.

Rick Dalton just happens to be living slightly beyond his means next to Roman Polanski in the Benedict Canyon neighbourhood of Los Angeles. Polanski is off filming a movie, leaving behind his 8 months pregnant wife Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie), and several houseguests…including the man who continued to love her despite her recent marriage to someone else, Jay Sebring (Emile Hirsch).

Sharon Tate bops around town while Quentin Tarantino fixates on her legs…and eventually, her dirty feet. Margot Robbie is the picture of youth and health and vitality and promise. But other than as a symbol, she has little to do in the movie. She was few lines and little screen time. Once Upon A Time In…Hollywood is only tangentially about the Manson Family murders. It’s mostly Tarantino’s love letter to old Hollywood, and in that respect, it’s a good one. There’s lots of period cars and neon lights and references to old-timey movies and actors (Damian Lewis appears as Steve McQueen). But the movie acts mostly as a vehicle for DiCaprio and Pitt, indulging in lengthy scenes that are great testaments to their acting abilities…but don’t really serve a greater story. One flashback scene is so long and absorbing, Sean literally forgot it was a flashback scene, and then the story just spits us back out where we belong – it’s interesting, sure, but it corroborates a single, throw-away detail, which makes it totally irrelevant. This film is 161 minutes long…it didn’t exactly need any padding. I would normally suggest the story needed some good editing, but I think the real problem is that Tarantino isn’t sure exactly where the story is. He’s got a series of good ideas but no cohesive narrative into which he can plug them.

DiCaprio and Pitt are acting their little tushies off though. Pitt in particular. He steals every scene he’s in. When he, a 55 year old man, takes off his shirt, revealing an extremely fit physique, it earns whistles and applause in nearly every theatre it screens in. Arguably, old man abs are not exactly acting…but he backs them up charm and dynamism.

This puzzle had many attractive pieces. But some puzzles, when you finish them, you spackle them with glue to frame and hang on your wall. Others you merely break apart and put back into the box…where it will collect dust until you sell it in a yard sale, usually at least one piece short. Once Upon A Time In…Hollwood is the second kind of puzzle. It’s fine. It’s just not great.

Peel

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When Peel is just 5 years old, his father abandons him, taking Peel’s 2 older brothers with him, but leaving Peel alone with his emotionally unstable mother. It is implied that his father just can’t deal with her hippie ways, her alternative views on parenthood (ie, she is still breastfeeding her 5 year old). But in leaving Peel alone with her, he dooms his son to be raised in near-isolation with a loving but overbearing, overburdening mother. And I’m talking real isolation: they have a house in the suburbs, but they don’t even leave it to do groceries. Peel mixes her drinks and lights and her cigarettes and soothes her when she’s coming apart at the seams. And then she dies.

Well, she dies when Peel is 30 and basically still a toddler. He has not been socialized at all. He’s not exactly dumb, but he’s naive as hell, and he’s just been unleashed on a world he hasn’t met. His lawyer is likely crooked; the house is immediately in peril of being lost, so Peel takes on roommates who of course take advantage of him. Just as he’s losing faith in humanity, he gets the bright idea to go in search of the father and brothers who disappeared 25 years ago and haven’t been heard from since.

It’s a delayed coming of age, I suppose. Peel is so without cynicism he just feels so vulnerable out in the big bad world. But I think we should feel more protective of him than we do. There isn’t that much behind his character, in the end. The whole thing just feels too inconsequential, but it’s not as if it doesn’t introduce some heavy topics. It wades into the consequences of broken families but treats the whole thing with such sweetness and sentimentality, it’s actually tough to swallow.

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An Evening With Beverly Luff Linn

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Lulu is a waitress in a coffee shop when she is unceremoniously fired by her manager, Shane Danger, who is also her husband. Home all day, she notices that their house could use some upgrades, starting with a bigger, better TV, but Shane says this isn’t a good time for spending since they’re down to a single income. Lulu mocks her husband for having so little in the way of savings. Even her brother Adjay has more. Cut to: Shane, an idiot, robbing Adjay of his savings. Only Adjay doesn’t take it too kindly; he hires Colin to retrieve the money and shoot Shane in the kneecaps.
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Of course, what actually happens is: Lulu (Aubrey Plaza) absconds with Colin (Jemaine Clement) and the money. They hide out in a nameless hotel that’s been advertising a magical Evening With Beverly Luff Linn. Beverly (Craig Robinson) and his platonic (?) partner Rodney have been cooling their heels in this hotel for days, postponing their show, and Lulu is determined to hook up with Beverly, whom she seems to have known in the past. Lulu is obsessed with Beverly, Colin is obsessed with Lulu, and Shane (Emile Hirsch) isn’t really obsessed with anything, but he’s always in the way.

I watched this movie on the strength of its cast, which was already a mixed bag. It has pretensions. I think maybe it wants to be Wes Anderson-ish or even John Waters-ish; the dialogue is heavily stylized, although it often mistakes style for screaming, and sorrier still, Robinson’s character for some reason only grunts\growls which gets SO old SO fast. The costumes are outlandish but unexplained.

I was ready to turn this movie off so many times and only my cheapness (rental fee: $5.74) kept me in the game. You can tell director Jim Hosking is going for an out-of-the-box experience, but nothing works, and I’m pretty much the prime audience for quirky material. When a movie like this works, we call it absurd, and we giggle delightedly. But An Evening with Beverly Luff Linn isn’t absurd, it’s only stupid, and instead of laughing, I played sudoku on my phone to pass the time. I want to love a movie that takes risks and tells its story in an off-kilter way, but this one didn’t feel fun to me. It was an exercise in patience and it tested my nerves. Regrettably, this is a hard no for me.

All Nighter

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Ginnie takes her boyfriend Martin to meet her father. Martin is a vegetarian with an allergy to red wine who plays the banjo for a “living” (it’s not much of one). Does Dad (let’s call him Mr. Gallo) hate him on sight? Of course he fucking does. The dinner does not go well.

Cut to: six months later, Mr. Gallo (JK Simmons) is pounding on Martin’s (Emile Hirsch) door. He’s in town just for the day and can’t seem to locate his daughter. Martin’s not all-nighter-trailer much help since they broke up 3 months (and 9 days, but who’s counting?) ago. Does Mr. Gallo take no for an answer? No he does not.

So Martin sets out on an epic adventure with his ex-girlfriend’s disapproving dad to track down the woman he’s not really over. It becomes increasingly clear that she is over him, has gotten over him with lots of different guys in lots of different places. But where is she now? It’s a little alarming that none of her friends can say.

JK Simmons puts in a solid performance, his character a pretty comfortable fit for his on-screen persona. Emile Hirsch is a capable, sorry sidekick for him. If this is a buddy comedy, it’s a truly strange one, with an extremely oddball duo engaged in some extremely forced bonding. And while I was at least mildly entertained by All Nighter (at least one chuckle was audible), it’s the kind of movie you forget as soon as you turn it off. Director Gavin Wiesen seems intent on making the blandest choices possible until he just says fuck it and lets the thing descend into madcap absurdity. The bizarre set pieces aren’t even that interesting. Damn it, Hollywood: JK Simmons has a lifetime of incredible character-actor roles under his belt and now he has a damn Oscar from a star-making, powerhouse performance. What more do you want before you give this man some material worthy of his time? All Nighter’s not even close.

Killer Joe

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I’m so shell-shocked from this movie I’m having trouble writing about it.

When Chris, a not so great guy from a not so great family ( Emile Hirsch) has a stash of drugs stolen from him by his mom, he has to come up with cash quick, or he’s dead. He and his father, Ansel (Thomas Hayden Church) hatch a plan to kill the mom and collect on her life insurance policy. And Chris knows just the guy to do the job – Killer Joe, a Dallas detective who happens to be a hit-man on the side. Too bad they can’t afford to pay his retainer…until Joe spots Chris’s sweet little sister Dottie (Juno Temple) and decides that sexual collateral will do just the trick.

This film is trash. Trash trash, not trailer trash. Don’t be fooled by the actual trailer park. These people aren’t just hicks, they’re actual filthy, morally bankrupt people. This fact is established very very quickly – it’s immediately vulgar, over-the-top vulgar, and that’s before the beaver gets flashed in your face. Chris’s stepmom (Gina Gershon) has no boundaries and apparently no pants. Letts, the playwright, is adept with fucked up families (think August: Osage County) but this one takes the cake.

So I was repulsed by this movie, and this from the girl who didn’t blink once while watching Sin City a few weeks ago. My revulsion was knee-jerk and I went straight for the “bad movie” label – bad, bad movie. But I didn’t turn it off. And as I watched more, I realized that the badness is on purpose. It’s the point. You’re not supposed to like these people. This film is showing us a very dirty, seedy class of people. The badness is actually pretty expertly done, which doesn’t mean it’s easy to watch.

Enter Matthew McConaughey, a southern gentleman and a breath of fresh air. His demeanor is calm, his drawl is polite. He injects the movie with a much-need hit of stillness that lets us catch our breath after all the frenetic coarseness. The audience wants to eat him up which is a very effective device because it turns out he’s just as morally reprehensible and probably the most soulless character yet. He just has a more polished facade.

There’s so much tension in this movie that occasionally a giggle will bubble up, guiltily, without relieving even an ounce of the tension. This movie will make your jaw ache. It’s brutal. It’s sadistic. There so much fetishistic sexual cruelty that you won’t know where to look. If you’re comfortable exploring dark, nasty, demented sides of people without every really scratching the surface, then by all means, you won’t do better than this movie. I sort of hesitate to call it exploitation cinema, but isn’t that what it means? To be a voyeur in this condemnable underworld and enjoy watching the bloody violence and perversion vicariously? But Killer Joe has the capacity to really catch people off guard, and not in a good way. (You won’t ever eat fried chicken again.) It’s provocative but doesn’t really attempt to teach us anything. The characters are not remotely redeemable, but neither is the movie. Galling, outrageous, and ultimately superficial. And as polarizing as the movie is, just wait til you get to the end.

(And if by chance you’ve landed on this site just needing to talk about what you’ve seen, then please take the chance to do so in the comments. Assholes Watching Movies is providing a public service: vent, ask questions. Others be forewarned that there may be spoilers.)