The Boogeyman in the William Shatner Mask

Having come of age in the 1980’s, I fondly remember the “Golden Age” of slasher B-movies headlined by that triumvirate of unstoppable superhuman/supernatural serial killing machines: Jason Voorhees, Freddy Krueger and Michael Myers (not to be confused with Mike Myers aka Wayne Campbell aka Austin Powers).  It was the latter who ushered in the slasher genre with 1978’s ‘Halloween’ featuring the original “scream queen” Jamie Lee Curtis.  While some may contend that 1974’s ‘The Texas Chainsaw Massacre’ was the first true slasher movie, I don't consider TCSM as a pure slasher flick because, with his crazy inbred family, Leatherface isn't a lone stalker and doesn't typically venture far from his home and hearth.

 

40 years after that 1978 original, ‘Halloween 2018’ marks the eleventh entry in this long-running franchise.  That’s an average of one every 3.5 years and places our hulking Captain Kirk-masked homicidal automaton comfortably between the razor-clawed burn victim "Handsome Freddy" (nine films) and the shy, hockey mask-wearing "Machete Jason" (12 installments).  Unlike those second-rate jokers, Myers steadfastly refuses to take part in tomfoolery such as taking on each other in some kind of cross-over “Main Event” (gimme a break) or go into space (rolleyes) just so some rich studio execs can further line their fat pockets.  He takes his "art" seriously.

 

So how is this latest installment that actually earned a surprisingly solid 80 percent on the aggregate movie review website Rotten Tomatoes?  Not bad actually, but I wouldn’t exactly say it’s 80 percent good either. What ‘Halloween 2018’ offers isn’t particularly scary or new, but it does manage to capture some of the flavor and feel of the John Carpenter original in its simple, minimalist approach.  I guess I’m just too jaded for slasher movies.

Grade: B 

Another Star is Born

Unless you’re a diehard aficionado of vintage Hollywood cinema, chances are you probably didn’t know that Bradley Cooper’s directorial debut ‘A Star is Born,’ starring himself and Lady Gaga, marks the third remake of the 1937 Oscar-winning original directed by William A. Wellman featuring Janet Gaynor and Fredric March.  I certainly didn’t, since the only previous version I’ve seen was the middling second remake from 1976 starring Barbra Streisand and Kris Kristofferson.  While I typically don’t go out of my way for remakes, the film’s interesting trailer, Stefani Germanotta’s powerful vocals and rave critical reviews sold me on what had to be another clear example of Hollywood’s lack of imagination and daring.

 

If you’ve seen any version of ASIB (1937, 1954, 1976 or perhaps even this one), you’re already familiar with this well-tread tale of a young Hollywood starlet (or singer) who meets a somewhat older star in his prime.  They fall madly in love and, with his help, the girl rises to meteoric success and realizes her dreams while her benefactor’s star power wanes, ending in despair and tragedy.  In the 1937 original and the 1954 remake (starring Judy Garland), the man ultimately dies by some drowning incident, while in the 1976 remake he dies in an auto accident and in this updated version Bradley Cooper’s grizzled country-rock star Jackson Maine ended up hanging himself (Spoiler?  C’mon now, does it really matter how they end up six feet under?).  All of them lost their bouts with that greatest of vices called Alcoholism because, as the mournful song goes, “The only time he’s satisfied is when he’s on a drunk.”

 

Whether ASIB is merely a cautionary parable of the price of success or simply illustrates the Ying Yang facts of life, this latest remake is a well-acted and finely crafted piece of work.  The original songs in the film are earthy and engaging, with a timeless quality that will likely appeal to generations to come.  And while we all know that Lady Gaga has some serious pipes, I’m also pleasantly surprised that the underrated Bradley Cooper has the chops to lead in any band.

Grade: A-
 

Hotel Calnevada

‘Bad Times at the El Royale’ is writer/director Drew Goddard’s love letter to film noir, much like his directorial debut ‘Cabin in the Woods’ was a love letter to, well you know, cabin-in-the-woods horror movies.  But when it comes to Goddard, who can claim Joss Whedon and J.J. Abrams among his influences, one can never take something for granted or at face value, so that was precisely my attitude when I checked into the fictional El Royale hotel smack dab in the middle of the California/Nevada border, expecting nothing but open to anything.

 

Set in 1969, ‘Bad Times at the El Royale’ is one of those strangers-in-a-hotel movies that I love because you just know it’s a power keg that’s going to explode.  An elderly “catholic priest” (Jeff Bridges), a smooth-talking “vacuum cleaner salesman” (Jon Hamm), a Diana Ross-esque lounge singer (Cynthia Erivo in a bravura performance) and a mysterious young woman with something to hide (Dakota Johnson) check into the El Royale and you ask yourself “what could possibly go wrong???!!!”.  Well, settle into your seats, ladies and gents, because things are going to get very in-te-res-ting.

 

‘Bad Times at the El Royale’ employs the storytelling structure of the “Mystery Box” so beloved of J.J. Abrams-philes, but influences from QT’s ‘Pulp Fiction’ and, in particular, ‘The Hateful Eight’ are also in much evidence.  Suspenseful, engrossing and endlessly fascinating, this little neo-noir gem is a riveting cinematic experience from beginning to end.  Alas, like Goddard's equally splendid ‘Cabin in the Woods,’ it’s really a shame that ‘Bad Times at the El Royale’ will never garner widespread “mainstream” appeal at the box office.

Grade: A

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The Good Parasite (for now)

You may recall when Marc Webb’s ‘The Amazing Spider-Man 2’ hit theaters back in 2014, there were rumors of spin-offs from the Spidey film franchise including a “Sinister Six” movie and a “Venom” flick.  As this second installment of the rebooted series (which occurred within 10 years of the Tobey Maguire trilogy) fizzled like Jamie Foxx's Electro at the box office, Sony Pictures (believe it or not, Disney doesn’t own the film rights to Spider-Man) pulled the plug on Andrew Garfield’s Spider-Man, thereby leaving the fate of the spin-offs in doubt.  With the success and massive popularity of Disney’s MCU films, however, it was only a matter of time before Spidey crawls out of the woodwork again, this time as part of the MCU in last year’s ‘Spider-Man: Homecoming’ and this summer’s ‘Avengers: Infinity War’ starring Tom Holland as the youngest web-slinger to date.  Now that Spider-Man is going to stick around, we finally get that ‘Venom’ spin-off we’ve been waiting for (well, for me at least).

 

I’ve always liked Venom.  I know, the alien symbiote appeared in the third installment of the Sam Raimi trilogy back in 2003, but that’s one movie I would rather forget thank you very much.  Creepy and scary as hell, Venom is one of my favorite villains in Spider-Man’s rogues gallery because he’s motherfucking badass, like some kind of evil Spider-Man monstrosity arising from the depths of our worst Freudian nightmares with his rows of piranha-sharp teeth, razor-like claws and pumped-full-of-steroids musculature.

 

While Sony Columbia’s ‘Venom’ starring Tom Hardy doesn’t fit in the official milieu of the MCU, I found it to be a darkly funny romp that’s a bit messy perhaps but no less enjoyable.  Like ‘Deadpool,’ ‘Venom’ proves that Marvel movies featuring secondary or even tertiary characters can succeed commercially (if not critically) even if the Mouse House had nothing to do with it, raking in MCU summer blockbuster-like numbers at the box office in the typically slow month of October.  As its opening weekend grosses of $80 million domestic and $230 million worldwide would suggest, I’m not the only fan of the Big Black Baddie.

Grade: A-

A (Not Quite So) Simple Favor

Director Paul Feig, who’s known for screwball comedies such as ‘Bridesmaids,’ ‘The Heat,’ ‘Spy’ and the all-female ‘Ghostbusters,’ takes a decidedly darker turn in his latest offering, ‘A Simple Favor,’ adapted from the 2017 novel by the same name.  Billed as a mystery suspense thriller with a dash (more than a pinch or smidgen) of black humor, ‘A Simple Favor’ had me at “hello” when I first saw its trailer.  Okay I admit, what had me at “hello” was the fact that it’s headlined by the endearing Anna Kendrick (‘Pitch Perfect,’ ‘The Accountant,’ ‘Scott Pilgrim Versus the World’) and the sassy Blake Lively (‘The Shallows,’ ‘Savages,’ TV’s ‘Gossip Girl’).

 

Kendrick plays Stephanie Smothers, a stuffy widow and single mom in Connecticut who posts video blogs of her domestic hobbies (cooking and crafts) on YouTube when she’s not smothering her young son Miles with doting affection.  At the latter’s elementary school, she meets sophisticated modern working mom Emily (Lively), with whom the lonely (bordering on clingy) Stephanie struck up a friendship despite the fact that their worlds couldn’t be further apart.  So when Emily asked Stephanie to do her the “simple favor” of picking up her son Nicky after school one day because there was some pressing personal matter she had to attend to, she said “yes” without a second thought.  Except Emily never came back.  What happened to her and where did she go?  Is she even still alive?  Does her university professor husband Sean (Henry Golding of ‘Crazy Rich Asians’) had anything to do with her sudden and unexplained disappearance?  The plot thickens.

 

If you enjoyed complex and twisty “disappearance” mysteries like ‘Gone Girl’ and ‘The Girl on the Train,’ chances are you’ll also find ASF to be a deliciously juicy and scandalous diversion.  Unlike those films, however, ASF is a lot more fun.  Under Feig’s direction, ASF manages to be soapy and light-hearted rather than serious and dark, and the “odd couple” chemistry between Kendrick and Lively lend the film a certain undeniable charm.

Grade: A-