The Foo Fighters, rock-n-roll, a new album, a bloodthirsty demon-possessed David Grohl decapitating someone with a cymbal. What’s unusual about that? All of those things and more are thrown into the new trailer for “Studio 666”, a horror comedy written by Grohl and starring the members of the rock band Foo Fights. Talk about a wacky but undeniably catchy combination!
“Studio 666” sees the Foo Fighters preparing to record their 10th album. “We gotta break the mold with this one.” They pick an old country mansion to start writing and recording. But frustrations grow after each member of the band are hit with writer’s block. Even worse, the creepy old house has some pretty terrifying history. It’s all completely absurd and the movie looks to be borrowing from about ten different horror classics. But I love its self-awareness and I’m anxious to give it a shot.
“Studio 666” hits theaters February 25th. Check out the trailer below and let me know if you’ll be seeing it or taking a pass.
When I first started this feature my intent was to highlight classic movie posters just as much as new ones. But end of the year movies and awards season got me off track. What better way to get back on track than this beauty? When released in 1985, William Friedkin’s neo-noir thriller received mixed reviews from critics (one big exception was Roger Ebert who loved it). But since then the film has gained a hearty following. Either way, the movie’s poster is one of my favorites from the 80s. Tell me what you think.
DIRECTOR – William Friedkin
WRITER – William Friedkin, Gerald Petievich
STARRING – William Petersen, Willem Dafoe, John Pankow, Debra Feuer, John Turturro, Dean Stockwell, Robert Downey, Sr., Darlanne Fluegel, Steve James
The blue-collar Maltese drama “Luzzu” tells a story of modern industry not just encroaching on a way of life, but crushing it under its boot heel. Written, directed, edited, and produced by Alex Camilleri, “Luzzu” has a lot to say. But is doesn’t use lengthy speeches, heavy exposition or overly dramatic scenarios. Instead, it makes its points by sitting us down and showing us in the most authentic and unvarnished way possible.
Camilleri brings a documentarian’s clarity to this story of a Maltese fisherman being pushed out of the only business he knows. It’s hard to miss the Italian neo-realism influence all over the film, and fans of Belgian filmmakers the Dardenne brothers will be drawn to Camilleri’s real-world grit. And much like his inspirations, Camilleri uses non-professional actors to great effect. It’s one of many touches that helps the movie shine a heartbreaking yet honest light on a struggling lifestyle and a dying tradition.
Image Courtesy of Kino Lorber
The story revolves around a fisherman named Jesmark (played by an actual Maltese fisherman named Jesmark Scicluna). We first see him out on his luzzu – a small twelve-foot fishing boat that has been in his family for generations. He mans his vessel with a workmanlike efficiency, navigating the seas, pulling nets, icing down his catch. But the fish are becoming more scarce in large part due to a huge container port that’s crowding the harbor. And strict EU regulations have inexplicably made certain fish seasonal, limiting fisherman even more.
It’s even worse at the dock where increasingly harsh standards are enforced by harbor inspectors. And then you have the fish auctions where ruthless black marketeers undercut the smaller sellers, forcing them to try and sell their fish to local restaurants and merchants while their catch is still fresh. It’s no wonder some of Jesmark’s friends have made deals with the government to decommission their boats for a meager buyout.
Camilleri lays all of this out with a clear-eyed sincerity, putting us on the boats, around the docks, and in the warehouses. At the same time, there is a poignant dramatic angle that adds an extra layer of realism. Jesmark and his wife Denise (a terrific Michela Farrugia) learn that their infant son “isn’t growing properly“. He needs to see a specialist, but that costs more money than the young couple can afford.
Denise wants to get help from her overbearing mother while Jesmark is determined to take care of his family. But it seems the deck is stacked against him, especially after he learns his luzzu has hull damage and needs immediate repairs. With no means of bringing in money, he gets in with a shady smuggler (Stephen Buhagiar) which adds more stress on his already fraying marriage.
Image Courtesy of Kino Lorber
A key to the movie’s success is its authentic sense of place. Camilleri’s unwavering focus on grounding his audience in reality plays a big part. It’s also helped tremendously by cinematographer Léo Lefèvre’s immersive camerawork. The sun-soaked Mediterranean, the electric bustle of the city, the vibrant rainbow array of colors that coat Jesmark’s luzzu – it’s all shot in a way that helps us to feel a part of this rich and textured world.
Even more, “Luzzu” is full of graceful touches that bring even more emotional heft to the story. Scenes like older local fisherman reminiscing about simpler times. Or the soul-shattering way Jesmark lovingly looks upon his son (the raw truth in Scicluna’s eyes during these moments is powerful stuff). All of this adds a tenderness to the world of “Luzzu”. But there is still a tragic element to the story – one that lingers for the duration of this captivating and heartfelt drama.
Tilda Swinton is haunted by a mysterious sound in the otherwise quiet and meditative “Memoria”, the evocative new drama from director, writer, and producer Apichatpong Weerasethakul. This is Weerasethakul’s first movie made outside his native Thailand, but those familiar with his work will almost instantly notice his distinct style of storytelling.
I was fortunate enough to see “Memoria” thanks to NEON’s awards season screener bundle. Otherwise it’s going to be a tough movie to catch. From what I understand, Weerasethakul has no plan for a physical home release or even a conventional theater run. Instead he’s taking his film on the road for a long run of week-long engagements at different stops across the country. It’s an unusual release strategy and one that’s certain to cost him some viewers. But at the same time, “Memoria” isn’t the kind of movie aimed at large crowds.
Image Courtesy of NEON
“Memoria” is a movie that defies definition. You could consider it a sensory journey that isn’t interested in plot as much as experience. Weerasethakul wants his audience to feel. But to do so will require viewers to get on his unique and unconventional wavelength. Admittedly, at first I found that to be a challenge. But once I was in tune with his patient and observant rhythm, “Memoria” turned into something I wasn’t expecting. Soon I found myself swept up by feelings of fascination, bewilderment, curiosity and full-on admiration.
You could also consider it slow cinema. Some will be quick to assert that often “nothing happens”, a perspective that Weerasethakul’s style partially contributes to. In many cases his scenes aren’t simply long takes, but they extend to well after the scene’s action has finished. Rather than cutting, Weerasethakul keeps his camera locked in place, allowing his audience time to soak up every detail of the frame. And as we do, not only are he pulled deeper into the film’s beguiling mystery, but Weerasethakul slyly put us into a similar headspace as the film’s central character, Jessica (Tilda Swinton).
I’m not sure any actress could be more fitting for this role than Swinton. She is perfectly tuned into Weerasethakul’s enigmatic frequency and she effectively channels the very apprehension and incertitude that we the audience also feel. Interestingly, everything about her character Jessica feels out of place. First, she’s a Scottish botanist living in Medellín, Columbia (the movie’s most overt sign of displacement). But she comes across as more than a foreigner in a new country. She conveys this perpetual sense of lostness, like someone trying to get a hold of the world she’s in.
The movie opens with Jessica shaken from her sleep by a jolting boom in the middle of the night. It’s a mysterious sound that she later describes as “a big ball of concrete that falls into a metal wall which is surrounded by seawater“. She travels to Bogotá to visit her sister Karen (Agnes Brekke) who is hospitalized with a sudden illness. While there she hears the sound again and realizes that only she can hear it. Later Jessica is shaken again by the sound as she sits in an otherwise quiet park at night.
Image Courtesy of NEON
Not only do the mystifying whomps startle Jessica, but they jar us as well thanks to the film’s exquisite sound design. Soon the film’s gaunt, soft-spoken, and curious protagonist sets out (with us in tow) to determine the source of the assaultive sound in her head. A music professor friend connects her with Hernán (Juan Pablo Urrego), a sound engineer who tries to recreate the sound for Jessica. He succeeds but it doesn’t get us any closer to the sound’s source. “I think I’m going crazy,” she tells a friend.
As Jessica continues her search we’re fed very little in the form of answers. That’ll come as no surprise to those familiar with Weerasethakul’s work. But that doesn’t mean Jessica’s journey is empty or meaningless. Quite the opposite. It gets back to what I mentioned above – this is more about experiencing. There is an answer to the big question in the final few shots (an answer that I’m still chewing on days after seeing the film). But ultimately it’s about getting to that point. It’s about joining Jessica on her lonely melancholy peregrination. But to do so you have to still your mind, watch and listen. That’s where the real joy of Weerasethakul’s entrancing film is to be found.
A wave of COVID-19 related documentaries were all but inevitable. It’s understandable. There wasn’t a country left unscathed by the global pandemic that’s presence is still being felt. And you can bet there are powerful, heartbreaking, and even inspiring stories from all across the planet waiting to be told.
In the United States, New York City would quickly become the epicenter for COVID-19. The city’s first wave began in March 2020 and lasted through June of that year. The fittingly titled “The First Wave” chronicles those four devastating months, mostly from the perspectives of front-line healthcare workers, but also from family members who had loved ones in hospitals, stricken by the virus and fighting for their lives.
This at times crushing documentary is directed by Matthew Heineman who was given astonishing on-the-scene access to hospital emergency rooms and makeshift COVID wards as they rapidly filled every bed with infected patients. We see doctors and nurses overwhelmed by the stress yet steadfast in their determination to save as many lives as possible. We see people struggle to breathe and we see people die. We see families speaking to their loved ones over FaceTime because they can’t be with them in the hospital. We also see doctors calling families, delivering the terrible news that their loved ones have died. This is heavy stuff.
A big chunk of the film was shot at Long Island Jewish Medical Center in Queens. We spend time with the medical workers like Dr. Nathalie Dougé, an internist at Northwell Health, and Kellie Wunsch, an ICU nurse who share the stress of not knowing what they’re dealing with while also showing their resolve when it comes to helping their patients. Watching them sprint down hallways as another person codes is nothing short of harrowing.
Just as powerful are the patients we’re introduced to – people infected and literally fighting for their lives. We meet a man named George, surrounded by doctors as he struggles to breathe. A nurse holds up his cell phone wrapped inside a ziplock bag. On the screen is his family expressing their love and encouraging him to “be strong”. George tells them he loves them too. It’s the last time they will speak. Minutes later we watch him die, an early victim of a virus that has claimed the lives of nearly 60,000 New Yorkers.
We also meet 35-year-old Ahmed Ellis, a School Safety Officer with the NYPD. He’s married and a father of two beautiful children. Due to highly contagious nature of the virus, Ahmed’s wife Alexis can’t be with her husband. So she waits at home for the next call from the hospital, hoping there will be good news on the other end of the line.
While most of the film maintains its focus, Heineman does wander off the trail a bit in the second half. He steps away from the patients to show the massive protests that followed the senseless killing of George Floyd. To be fair, Heineman tries to make a deeper connection between the protests and the pandemic. But this segment still feels yanked from a different film. To his credit, Heineman doesn’t stay away from the hospitals for very long.
Looking back, “The First Wave” doesn’t have the benefit of hindsight as we do now. So while Governor Andrew Cuomo is seen several times in the movie, nothing is said about his ill-advised nursing home decision (that was actually issued during the time this documentary covers). And of course it doesn’t mention his attempts to cover up the true death toll that resulted (something that fully came to light after the documentary was completed).
But honestly, that’s a good thing. It allows Heineman to concentrate, not on the politicians and talking heads, but on those essential workers who valiantly stood in the trenches against an undefinable threat. It lets us focus on the people and the families who suffered so much in those devastating early days. It all makes for a piercing experience. One that I can see impacting generations with its clear-eyed perspective on that terrible first wave.
While its title may be lacking, there’s certainly no shortage of star wattage in the upcoming action spy thriller “The 355”. Jessica Chastain, Lupita Nyong’o, Diane Kruger, Penélope Cruz, Fan Bingbing, Sebastian Stan and Édgar Ramírez front-load this straightforward female-led romp that finds itself in the dismal movie wasteland known as January. That’s when studios notoriously dump movies they don’t really expect to do well.
“The 355” doesn’t exactly break the mold, but it’s also not your usually January movie mush. It’s actually the kind of movie that comes at just the right time for me. After two months of cramming in countless films for end-of-the-year awards consideration and with the surging Omicron variant weighing down morale, spending two hours with an action-packed shoot-em-up filled with personalities I enjoy doesn’t sound too bad.
With “The 355”, Simon Kinberg directs from a screenplay he co-wrote with Theresa Rebeck. Think “Mission: Impossible” meets the “Oceans” movie but with a little flavor of its own. The film opens in Columbia where with a cartel boss attempting to sell a Euro-terrorist a data key that can hack into and control any closed network in the world. Power grids, jet planes, cell phones – whoever possesses the key can essentially control (or destroy) anything. The deal goes bad and Colombian Intelligence led by Agent Luis Rojas (Ramírez) swoop down and secure the hard drive that contains the data key.
Image Courtesy of Universal Pictures
From Colombia to Paris, CIA agents Mace (Chastain) and her colleague/close friend Nick Fowler (Stan) converge on the City of Lights after getting wind that Luis has went rogue and is set to sell the hard drive (or is he?). But just as they’re about to apprehend Luis, Agent Marie Schmidt (Kruger) of Germany’s Bundesnachrichtendienst (that’s their CIA) crashes the op in order to seize the hard drive for her government. Both sides want to ensure the data key doesn’t fall into the wrong hands, but they keep getting in each other’s way.
Add to the equation Graciela (Cruz), a psychologist for Colombia’s DNI (yep, that’s their intelligence agency). She’s sent to Paris to convince Luis to come back to Columbia and turn himself in. Meanwhile Mace travels to London to recruit her old friend Khadijah (Nyong’o), a tech savvy cyber-security expert and former MI6 agent, to help track down Luis. And if all of that isn’t enough, another mysterious party (Bingbing) is observing from afar. What’s she after? Who does she work for?
As all of these agencies battle logistics, bureaucracies and each other, the real villains are able to secure the hard drive. This forces Mace, Marie, Khadijah and Graciela to reluctantly join forces if they’re to have any hope of stopping the baddies from potentially triggering World War III. It’s rough going at first, with all of them operating under the mantra “don’t trust anyone”. But as the plot thickens and the action intensifies, the ladies begin to gel.
Image Courtesy of Universal Pictures
While there’s plenty about the story that’s familiar, there are enough twists, turns and double-crosses to keep us guessing. And while these genre flicks tend to be pretty outrageous, Kinberg’s pacing is brisk and fluid to the point that we’re always moving forward and never have time to worry if all the pieces perfectly fit into place. And of course there’s the action. With the exception of one motorcycle get-away that’s edited within an inch of its life, the action is fun and kinetic. Highlights include a couple of terrific fight sequences with Chastain and a jaw-dropping bullet-ridden finale through the top floors of a skyscraper.
I also enjoyed the performances which (considering the talent) shouldn’t surprise anyone to hear are really good. The actresses are handed characters who are given a few extra layers of depth (not many but enough). For example, Mace’s intense dedication and commitment to her work helps hide the loneliness she feels when not on a mission. The hard-nosed Marie has a track record of insubordination to go along with some serious daddy issues. Graciela is a therapist rather than field agent, and she only wants to go back home to her husband and young son in Colombia. Khadijah has found happiness after leaving MI6 but leaves it behind for another field mission.
“The 355” won’t exactly stick with you long after seeing it, nor is it the kind of movie that will wow you with its originality and vision. But it is light and breezy entertainment that happily wears its influences on it’s sleeve. A great female-led cast brings confidence and energy to material that at times needs to be propped up. Still, I was in just the right mood for something like this – something where I could kick back, soak up the style, giggle at the silliness, be thrilled by the physicality, and watch performers I enjoy having an absolute blast. Ultimately, what’s wrong with that? “The 355” opens in theaters tomorrow (1/7).
Keith & the Movies 