By Ezra Stead 

I’ve decided not to get quite so carried away this time around, but as I said last year, October is my favorite month. Since I tend to watch a lot of horror movies year-round, in October I feel like I have to do something special, so I try to watch almost exclusively horror movies. I watched (or, in many cases, re-watched) a total of 22 before starting this article, and I’m far from finished. In the interest of actually recommending some movies before Halloween, I’m putting this out now, and in the interest of brevity, I’m cutting it down to ten recommendations, grouped together as double features (even though their availability varies a bit). Not all are horror movies, exactly, but I think you’ll agree they’re all on-theme for the season. Enjoy! 

1. THE NIGHTMARE (2015) / A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 2: FREDDY’S REVENGE (1985) - These two have a lot more in common than just a shared word in the title. Well, a little more, anyway. The Nightmare, the latest documentary from Room 237 director Rodney Ascher, explores the phenomenon of sleep paralysis, a condition that occurs in the transition between waking life and sleeping, and which is often accompanied by terrifying hallucinations. The film dramatizes such experiences as described by eight different people who suffer from them, making it the scariest documentary I’ve ever seen. By the end, though, it is not only scary and fascinating, but also rather profound and moving.

The late, great Wes Craven’s original masterpiece A Nightmare on Elm Street was partly inspired by a related sleep disorder, known as Sudden Unexpected Nocturnal Death Syndrome, and The Nightmare explores this connection. So, really, that 1984 movie would probably be an even better one to pair with Ascher’s documentary, but Freddy’s Revenge was the one I re-watched this month. Part of that was in anticipation of another, upcoming documentary, Tyler Jensen’s Scream, Queen: My Nightmare on Elm Street, which will explore the fascinating, mostly unintentional homoerotic subtext of the 1985 film. Part of it, though, was that it has always been a big favorite of mine, and certainly the most underrated entry in the series. In Freddy’s Revenge, the infamous Freddy Krueger represents the hidden homosexual impulses of young Jesse Walsh (Mark Patton) as he struggles to repress them. This subtext and the film’s set design and practical effects elevate it, in my eyes, to a very high place in the series. It’s probably my second favorite one, after Craven’s original, of course.

2. THE ADDAMS FAMILY (1991) / THE FINAL GIRLS (2015) - These two just have a lot of fun with the tropes of the macabre. One of my fondest childhood memories was one day when I was eight, and my parents let my brother and I skip school to go with them to Barry Sonnenfeld’s feature film version of The Addams Family. I guess they were big fans of the TV show, of which I still haven’t seen much, but we’re all now big fans of the movie. Raul Julia and Angelica Huston have great chemistry and really seem to relish their roles as Gomez and Morticia, and Christopher Lloyd is also terrific, in probably his second most iconic role, as Uncle Fester. The whole ensemble is great, really, but Pugsley and Wednesday’s hyperviolent Shakespeare rendition has always been my favorite scene, and I’ve had a crush on Christina Ricci ever since (she was 11 at the time, so she’s actually older than me, so shut up).

The Addams Family doesn’t actually spoof anything as specific as the target of Todd Strauss-Schulson’s The Final Girls, which is 1980s slasher movies, particularly the Friday the 13^th franchise. It’s sort of like The Cabin in the Woods-lite, in that it’s not as great or, ultimately, as dark as that masterpiece, but similar in tone and premise. It’s a hell of a lot of fun, even if its rules are a bit unclear compared to Cabin‘s, as a group of teens find themselves inexplicably trapped inside the fictitious movie Camp Bloodbath. One of them (Taissa Farmiga) is the daughter of one of the movie’s stars (Malin Ackerman), who is deceased in real life, so Farmiga gets the chance to reunite with her mother under crazy circumstances, which provides the movie’s emotional core. Mostly, though, it’s just really entertaining and funny, especially for even casual fans of the genre. Adam DeVine and Thomas Middleditch score the biggest laughs, though Angela Trimbur’s Adderall-addled third act is also a big performance highlight, and the whole movie is consistently clever and visually inventive.

3. RE-ANIMATOR (1985) / IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS (1994) - Two H.P. Lovecraft-inspired monstrosities from the guys who do them best. Stuart Gordon is the only filmmaker to consistently find success directly (though often loosely) adapting Lovecraft’s work, having directed three features from the horror master’s oeuvre, plus one of the best episodes of the anthology series Masters of Horror (2005’s Dreams in the Witch-House). His first feature, though, remains his best known, and for good reason. Based on Lovecraft’s short story, “Herbert West – Reanimator,” this is one of the greatest horror movies of the 1980s, a decade that was full of gruesome masterpieces. Jeffrey Combs delivers one of the creepiest performances of all time as the obsessive West, a medical student determined to bring the dead back to life. The results would be sickening if they weren’t so damned funny (yes, intentionally), and this remains one of the goriest movies of its gloriously practical effects-heavy time.

John Carpenter has never directly adapted Lovecraft, but his work is an obvious influence, as it has been on most of the horror landscape ever since his time (including the aforementioned Cabin in the Woods, as well as Carpenter’s The Thing). Nowhere in the legendary director’s body of work is this more evident than in In the Mouth of Madness, which is firmly set in a Lovecraftian universe, though it also gives some clear nods to Lovecraft’s most important successor, Stephen King. Sam Neill stars as an insurance investigator on the trail of mysteriously vanished horror novelist Sutter Cane (Jurgen Prochnow, playing a character whose name is one of the more subtle nods to King). This movie masterfully blurs the lines of reality in some pretty scary ways, and it also has some wonderfully dark humor. Plus, there are some great monsters, and we all love monsters, right?

4. FROM DUSK TILL DAWN (1996) / YAKUZA APOCALYPSE (2015) - This month, I coincidentally watched two movies (one for the first time, the other for at least the fourth or fifth) that belong to an odd subgenre of which they may well be the only two entries: the vampire gangster movie. From Dusk Till Dawn is a longtime favorite of mine, ever since I first saw it as a teenager, which is probably its target audience. Fresh off the success of Pulp Fiction, Quentin Tarantino dug up an old script he had written and gave it to his buddy Robert Rodriguez, who had also just had a big hit with Desperado, to direct. Tarantino stars alongside George Clooney (in his first major movie role after becoming a TV star with ER) as a violent thief who becomes trapped, along with a family they’ve taken hostage, in a sort of vampire biker bar on the Mexican border. Much like Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket, this movie feels like it’s split in half, with the vampires not arriving until nearly an hour in, and like Full Metal Jacket, the first half is arguably more interesting. Tarantino has said he was inspired by Stephen King’s tendency to spend a lot of time at the beginning getting to know his characters (Salem’s Lot comes to mind, for example), so that the horror is more effective later, and this is a good illustration of that idea. Harvey Keitel plays an especially interesting character as the head of the family unit taken hostage by Clooney and Tarantino, and once the vampire action gets going, the effects are really remarkable, a perfect mashup of the fertile imagination of Rodriguez and the incomparable skills of Howard Berger and Greg Nicotero, who basically do all the best monsters and gore these days (including The Walking Dead).

People who complained about the structure of Pulp Fiction being confusing would likely have no idea what to make of Yakuza Apocalypse. Its structure is basically linear and chronological, but in other ways, it’s just batshit insane. In director Takashi Miike’s loony universe (in this movie, at least; he’s also known for Gozu, Ichi the Killer, and the relatively subdued Audition, among others), being bitten by a Yakuza (Japanese Mafia) vampire not only turns a person into a vampire, but into a member of the Yakuza as well. Fellow Yakuza members have blood that is low in nutrients, so soon everyone in town is a Yakuza vampire, and all-out war follows close behind. This movie is kind of a mess, no doubt about it, but it’s an awesome mess form a crazy, wildly prolific visionary who is clearly still challenging himself nearly 100 movies into his career.

5. THE FLY (1958) / PIT AND THE PENDULUM (1961) - It’s easy to see the connecting thread in this double feature; he’s right there on the screen. The legendary Vincent Price actually plays sort of a supporting role in The Fly, a movie I severely underrated the last time I wrote about it here. I do still prefer David Cronenberg’s remake, but I’d forgotten how dark and honestly scary the original gets, especially by the end. Its structure is also really interesting, letting its wildly original and fascinating science fiction premise gradually unfold as a murder mystery, and it explores the moral implications of justified murder in a pretty sophisticated way for what was, at the time, “just” a B-movie. As a kid seeing it for the first time, I think I was annoyed at how long it takes for the movie to get to the monster, but now I really appreciate the buildup. Director Kurt Neumann wisely leaves the giant fly head covered by a sheet for as long as possible, letting it become more terrifying than any special effect could ever be in our imaginations, and the ending of this movie is absolutely stunning, even after nearly 60 years of desensitization.

Roger Corman’s Pit and the Pendulum has actually aged less well, despite being made more recently, and also being one of American International Pictures’ classier endeavors. Still, I’ve always really liked the look and feel of this one, with its Gothic set design and purple-saturated color palette, and of course, Price is in top form. Its story actually has more in common with Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher,” which Corman also adapted, than the original Poe story for which it was named, or, for that matter, with Henri-Georges Clouzot’s Les Diaboliques, or Robert Aldrich’s Hush… Hush, Sweet Charlotte, with its central conspiracy to drive poor Price mad. There’s also an element of Poe’s Premature Burial, the self-explanatory title of which is a common theme in his work, which can be seen in the movie’s most memorable image. If you’ve ever seen this movie, you know the one I’m talking about; it’s incredibly haunting.

Ezra Stead is the Head Editor for MoviesIDidn’tGet.com. Ezra is also a screenwriter, actor, filmmaker, rapper, and occasional stand-up comic who has been previously published in print and online, as well as writing, directing and acting in numerous short films and two features. A Minneapolis native, Ezra currently lives in New York City, where he is working on his first novel.

For more information, please contact EzraStead@MoviesIDidntGet.com

By Ezra Stead 

The Human Centipede 3 (Final Sequence), USA, 2015

Written and Directed by Tom Six

As both of my readers know, I work at an indie/art-house movie theater in New York City. What you might not know, and might even find surprising, is that that is the type of venue at which the pretty much universally reviled Human Centipede movies get their theatrical exhibitions. The first one was kind of a big hit, to the point where we ordered enough promotional T-shirts that they were still on sale during the run of the third one, six years later. The novelty has worn off, though, and we only actually sold one of those T-shirts this time around.

The Human Centipede 3 did pretty healthy business, though; healthy enough to get its exhibition extended by a couple of weeks. The crowds weren’t as predictable as you might imagine, either. Sure, opening night was a collection of obvious scumbags, but over the course of a few weeks, curiosity (or masochism) brought in a lot of folks you wouldn’t immediately peg as Human Centipede crowd. I actually felt the need to make sure one group of four college girls knew what movie they were standing in line for, and when they enthusiastically replied in the affirmative, I said, “But you all seem so nice.”

I had to admit it then, and I’ll admit it again now: I’m no better. My own morbid curiosity had already compelled me to sit through the first two atrocities, and I knew then that it was only a matter of time until a combination of whiskey, loneliness, and an active Netflix account would have me buckling in for one more. The title promises this is the last one, anyway. If there is a fourth sequence one day, I’ll probably watch that one, too. I’m no better. 

So, is it any good? Of course not. Like the first two, it’s vile and tedious, often at the same time. But, like the first two, it’s weirdly compelling just the same. There’s also a certain perverse populism to championing this awful series (“trilogy” seems too classy). After all, why is it that Matthew Barney, for example, can put a diarrhea close-up onscreen (you clicked it, didn’t you?) and people call it art, but the Human Centipede movies are trash? I realize that sentence does more to denigrate Barney’s work than it does to elevate The Human Centipede, but I stand by it.

Anyway, after the artsy (black-and-white, no less), meta hijinks of The Human Centipede 2, this latest one follows the fourth wall-shattering to its (sort of) logical conclusion, which means it’s the best and the worst one of all. Dieter Laser returns from the first film, but as a new character. This time out, he’s a sadistic prison warden whose assistant (Laurence R. Harvey, star of the second film, also playing a new character) insists that the first two Human Centipede movies are the solution to the mutinous hatred coming at Laser from all directions in the overcrowded prison. I mean, he could always just stop being such a rancid prick to everyone, but I guess it’s easier to just sew them all together ass-to-mouth.

The first half (at least) is definitely pretty tedious, despite the fact that Laser (who has the greatest name this side of Thurl Ravenscroft) does his best to chew all the scenery in sight. He is the hammiest ham to ever ham, but his performance is 90% tone-deaf screaming, and not nearly as delicious as, say, a good Nic Cage ham. He does a great job of justifying the prison inmates’ hatred of him, but it’s not a tremendous amount of fun to watch.

Most of the fun to be found in this movie, especially in the first half, comes from its sheer absurdity. I’m not even talking about the whole sewing faces to asses part, either. It’s the quieter absurdities that interest me, like the way Harvey’s character says he grew a Hitler/Chaplin mustache to look more like Laser, despite the fact that Laser is completely bald and clean-shaven. It’s the way a particularly rowdy inmate (Robert LaSardo, go-to actor for any project that requires a terrifying, heavily tattooed dude) threatens to rape Laser to death, and then the chant “death-rape” gets picked up by the rest of the prisoners. It’s the fact that Eric Roberts is in this movie, and at one point actually says, “This is exactly what America needs.” Well said, Eric. You truly are the best of the best.

Tommy “Tiny” Lister (I always still think of him as Deebo) is in here, too, in the slightly more dignified “head” position in the ultimate 500-prisoner centipede, as well as the extremely undignified “being in this movie at all” position. Bree Olson, best known as a regular consort of Charlie Sheen at the height of his “tiger blood” phase and, secondarily, as a porn star, is literally the only woman in this movie. Based on the preceding sentence, you can probably guess how undignified her role is, but you’d still come up short. The treatment of her character is arguably the most reprehensible thing about this utterly irredeemable movie.

Director Tom Six, however, is the worst of the celebrity guest stars, an element that was absent from the first two movies. Consider it faint praise that he is a vastly better director than he is an actor. He’s not irritatingly loud and abrasive like Laser; he’s just wooden and boring, which, in a movie like this, is far worse. As the writer of the movie, he’s also responsible for other characters singing his praises throughout, apparently without a trace of irony. At one point, he even throws up at the horror of what he’s seeing inside the prison, which serves two functions: to establish that this installment is so offensive that it even sickens its creator, and to get some vomit onscreen, because the movie just wasn’t gross enough without that. Did I mention that, at one point, someone gets raped in the kidney?

So, no, of course it’s not good. Will I watch the whole series again someday, though? Almost certainly. There’s a strange fascination about the whole thing that can’t be denied and, much as I didn’t really enjoy watching any of them, they haunt me. They’re not important movies, they couldn’t be any less important, and yet, somehow… I kind of think they’re important. This is exactly what America needs, after all.

I’m no better.

Ezra Stead is the Head Editor for MoviesIDidn’tGet.com. Ezra is also a screenwriter, actor, filmmaker, rapper, and occasional stand-up comic who has been previously published in print and online, as well as writing, directing and acting in numerous short films and two features. A Minneapolis native, Ezra currently lives in New York City, where he is working on his first novel.

For more information, please contact EzraStead@MoviesIDidntGet.com

The Unearthing, directed, produced, edited, and flat-out hustled by Tristan James Jensen, is a coming-of-age, supernatural discovery film done on a shoestring budget that surprised a lot of filmgoers at this year’s Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Film Festival. The movie stars local actors Riley Yearly, Angelina Masciopinto, and Kaleb Miller. It was filmed on location in Stillwater, Minnesota. You can watch the trailer here.

While no points for degree of difficulty are given for the film’s next-to-no budget, Jensen delivers a compelling and engaging narrative built on a young adult plot. One hour could be an eternity for most student films, but The Unearthing uses its time efficiently, and the tightly written plot moves along nicely. There are some issues with editing and framing, but the film is technically impressive given the limited post-production. The young actors deliver unpolished yet convincing performances, and the film overall holds up technically, despite its two-man student crew.

While the performances of all the young actors are noteworthy, I was most impressed with Angelina Macsiopinto, who steals almost every scene she is in and gives an energetic performance as Charlotte. Jensen does a good job of keeping the story within its environment, not reaching for anything too epic for the scope of the production.

The Unearthing has already received a lot of good ratings and awards, including the Best Student Film award at Fort Myers Beach Film Festival, and an aggregate rating of 7.9/10 by IMDb.

Although Jensen made this as a student, I think it’s a very strong start, and people should keep an eye out for this promising young filmmaker.

The Unearthing is available on Amazon Digital and Indieflix.com. Follow The Unearthing Facebook: www.facebook.com/TheUnearthingMovie

Jason A. Hill is the Founder, Owner of Movies I Didn’t Get.com. He is a film critic and writer of articles and film reviews covering a variety of genres and film news that have been syndicated to many sites in the film blogosphere. He specializes in independent film in the US and Asia.

For more information please contact Jason at JasonAHill@MoviesIDidn’tGet.com.

Hosted by Jason A. Hill & Ezra Stead with special guests: Alan Tracy and Pete K. Wong.

The MIDG Oscars Podcast, 2016 edition.

Oscar discussion and predictions for the show Sunday night, February 28th, on ABC.

Duration: 1 hour and 45 minutes.

Intro Music: The Danish Girl

Outro Music: Mad Max: Fury Road

Oscar Predictions:

Best Picture

Alan Tracy: Spotlight – Michael Sugar, Steve Golin, Nicole Rocklin and Blye Pagon Faust, Producers

Pete K. Wong: Spotlight – Michael Sugar, Steve Golin, Nicole Rocklin and Blye Pagon Faust, Producers

Jason Hill: Spotlight – Michael Sugar, Steve Golin, Nicole Rocklin and Blye Pagon Faust, Producers

Ezra Stead: Spotlight – Michael Sugar, Steve Golin, Nicole Rocklin and Blye Pagon Faust, Producers

Best Directing

Ezra Stead: George Miller – Mad Max: Fury Road

Alan Tracy: Alejandro G. Inarritu – The Revenant

Pete K. Wong: Tom McCarthy – Spotlight

Jason Hill: Tom McCarthy – Spotlight

Best Actor in a Leading Role

Ezra Stead: Leonardo DiCaprio – The Revenant

Alan Tracy: Leonardo DiCaprio – The Revenant

Pete K. Wong: Leonardo DiCaprio – The Revenant

Jason Hill: Leonardo DiCaprio – The Revenant

Best Actress in a Leading Role

Jason Hill: Cate Blanchett – Carol

Ezra Stead: Brie Larson – Room

Alan Tracy: Brie Larson – Room

Pete K. Wong: Brie Larson – Room

Best Actor in a Supporting Role

Alan Tracy: Sylvester Stallone – Creed

Pete K. Wong: Sylvester Stallone – Creed

Jason Hill: Sylvester Stallone – Creed

Ezra Stead: Sylvester Stallone – Creed

Best Actress in a Supporting Role

Pete K. Wong: Alica Vikander – The Danish Girl

Jason Hill: Kate Winslet – Steve Jobs

Ezra Stead: Rooney Mara – Carol

Alan Tracy: Kate Winslet – Steve Jobs

Best Animated Feature

Pete K. Wong: Inside Out – Pete Docter and Jonas Rivera

Jason Hill: Inside Out – Pete Docter and Jonas Rivera

Ezra Stead: Inside Out – Pete Docter and Jonas Rivera

Alan Tracy: Inside Out – Pete Docter and Jonas Rivera

Best Cinematography

Jason Hill: Mad Max: Fury Road – Margaret Sixel

Ezra Stead: Mad Max: Fury Road – Margaret Sixel

Alan Tracy: The Revenant

Pete K. Wong: The Revenant

Best Costume Design

Ezra Stead: Mad Max: Fury Road

Alan Tracy: Mad Max: Fury Road

Pete K. Wong: Mad Max: Fury Road

Jason Hill: The Danish Girl

Best Film Editing

Jason Hill: Mad Max: Fury Road – Margaret Sixel

Ezra Stead: Mad Max: Fury Road – Margaret Sixel

Alan Tracy: Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens – Maryann Brandon and Mary Jo Markey

Pete K. Wong: Spotlight – Tom McArdle

Best Original Score

Pete K. Wong: Sicario – Johann Johannsson

Jason Hill: Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens – John Williams

Ezra Stead: The Hateful 8 – Ennio Morricone

Alan Tracy: Sicario – Johann Johannsson

Best Production Design

Ezra Stead: Mad Max: Fury Road – Colin Gibson (Production Design); Lisa Thompson (Set Decoration)

Alan Tracy: Mad Max: Fury Road – Colin Gibson (Production Design); Lisa Thompson (Set Decoration)

Pete K. Wong: Mad Max: Fury Road – Colin Gibson (Production Design); Lisa Thompson (Set Decoration)

Jason Hill: Mad Max: Fury Road – Colin Gibson (Production Design); Lisa Thompson (Set Decoration)

Best Visual Effects

Ezra Stead: Mad Max: Fury Road – Andrew Jackson, Tom Wood, Dan Oliver and Andy Williams

Alan Tracy: Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens – Roger Guyett, Patrick Tubach, Neal Scanlan and Chris Corbould

Pete K. Wong: The Revenant – Rich McBride, Matthew Shumway, Jason Smith and Cameron Waldbauer

Jason Hill: The Revenant – Rich McBride, Matthew Shumway, Jason Smith and Cameron Waldbauer

Best Adapted Screenplay

Jason Hill: Carol – Phyllis Nagy

Pete K. Wong: The Martian – Drew Goddard

Ezra Stead: Room – Emma Donoghue

Alan Tracy: Room – Emma Donoghue

Best Original Screenplay

Jason Hill: Spotlight – Josh Singer & Tom McCarthy

Pete K. Wong: Spotlight – Josh Singer & Tom McCarthy

Ezra Stead: Spotlight – Josh Singer & Tom McCarthy

Alan Tracy: Ex Machina – Alex Garland

Sound Editing

Ezra Stead: Mad Max: Fury Road – Mark Mangini and David White

Alan Tracy: Mad Max: Fury Road – Mark Mangini and David White

Pete K. Wong: Mad Max: Fury Road – Mark Mangini and David White

Jason Hill: The Revenant – Martin Hernandez and Lon Bender

Sound Mixing

Alan Tracy: Mad Max: Fury Road – Chris Jenkins, Gregg Rudloff and Ben Osmo

Ezra Stead: Mad Max: Fury Road – Chris Jenkins, Gregg Rudloff and Ben Osmo

Pete K. Wong: The Revenant – Jon Taylor, Frank A. Montaño, Randy Thom and Chris Duesterdiek

Jason Hill: Mad Max: Fury Road – Chris Jenkins, Gregg Rudloff and Ben Osmo

Other Predictions:

Best Documentary Feature:

Ezra Stead: The Look of Silence – Joshua Oppenheimer

Alan Tracy: Winter On Fire: Ukraine’s Fight for Freedom – Evgeny Afineevsky

Best Original Song:

Alan Tracy: “Till It Happens To You” – Music and Lyric by Diane Warren and Lady Gaga

Best Makeup and Hair styling:

Alan Tracy: Mad Max: Fury Road – Lesley Vanderwalt, Elka Wardega and Damian Martin

Ezra Stead is the Head Editor for MoviesIDidn’tGet.com. Ezra is also a screenwriter, actor, filmmaker, rapper, and occasional stand-up comic who has been previously published in print and online, as well as writing, directing and acting in numerous short films and two features. A Minneapolis native, Ezra currently lives in New York City, where he is working on his first novel.

For more information, please contact EzraStead@MoviesIDidntGet.com

Jason A. Hill is the Founder of Movies I Didn’t Get.com. He is a film critic and writer of articles and film reviews covering a variety of genres and film news that have been syndicated to many sites in the film blogosphere. He specializes in independent film in the US and Asia.

For more information please contact Jason at JasonAHill@MoviesIDidn’tGet.com.

Alan Tracy is an independent film director and film producer currently based in Minnesota. You can see Alan’s work at CollidingPictures.com.

For more information please contact Alan at collidingpictures@gmail.com.

Pete K. Wong is an actor, screenwriter also working in illustration and comics currently based in Los Angeles, CA. You can see Pete’s work at JustPete.com.

For more information please contact Pete at petekwong@gmail.com.

By Ezra Stead 

This is always a difficult thing to do, and this year, just like every other year, I left out plenty of movies I really like, even from the Honorable Mentions. This is a particularly interesting year in that I actually really like all the Oscar nominees that I’ve seen, which is relatively rare for me. Anyway, of the 107 new movies from 2015 I managed to see in time for this list, these are my (completely subjective) favorites.

1. MAD MAX: FURY ROAD – it’s always a treat to have really high expectations for a movie and then to see them exceeded. George Miller’s return to the wasteland of his career-defining trilogy is a perfect example of this phenomenon. The first time I saw it, though, Fury Road appeared to only meet my expectations, a rare enough feat in its own right. It was the second viewing that made me realize that this was not only my favorite movie of the year, but also my favorite Mad Max movie, and quite possibly my favorite movie of the last two decades. Then I saw it three more times in the space of about two weeks, and I noticed something new about it every single time. The rich, detailed world-building not only rewards but demands multiple viewings, and it’s a testament to Miller’s craft that the movie doesn’t rely on a lot of expository dialogue and other hand-holding devices to make sure the audience can keep up. Max Rockatansky’s world of “fire and blood” has its own language that is every bit as evocative and original as its eye-popping visuals: War Boys, Blood Bags, Bullet Farms, etc. This is a movie in the glorious pulp tradition of Robert E. Howard and Heavy Metal magazine, but it never feels derivative, even of its own source material (The Road Warrior being the original Mad Max movie it most closely resembles). What seems to be overlooked in all the talk about its incredible visual effects and stuntwork (which makes a better case than any movie I can think of for an Oscar category devoted to the people who risk their lives to make movies awesome) is the quality of the writing and performances. Charlize Theron and Nicholas Hoult are especially great, but there is also a surprising tenderness and depth to Tom Hardy’s performance as Max, a man of few words and great stoicism, and Melissa Jaffer managed to break my heart with just a few minutes of screen time as the Keeper of the Seeds. Critics and skeptics say this movie is just one long chase scene, which is reductive, but even if that were strictly true, complaining about that misses the point of how amazing it is that a movie this compelling could be made from a single long chase. Others might say it doesn’t belong in the Best Picture Oscar race because it’s not serious and important enough, but its themes of feminism and environmentalism are extremely relevant; they’re just not belabored to the point of didacticism. Fury Road’s vision of the destruction of the Old World, in which water was plentiful and “everyone had a show,” seems all too plausible, despite its over-the-top visual antics, and there’s a funny/scary comparison to be made between the film’s main villain, Immortan Joe, and a certain current Presidential candidate. I have no doubt this movie will ride eternal in Valhalla, shiny and chrome. It is perfect in every way. 

2. ZOMBEAVERS – an old friend of mine back in Minneapolis, the late, great Terry Blue, used to do a Top 30 list every year, and he said he always reserved the #30 spot for a movie that he just personally liked, even if he felt it wasn’t objectively worthy. That was because Terry, unlike myself, actually made some attempt at objectivity. I’m more likely to reserve the #1 spot for the trash movie that just made me really happy. This year, though, a certain indisputable cinematic masterpiece pushed it to #2. Zombeavers delivers exactly what the title promises: zombie beavers, and a whole lot of them. Purists would argue that they’re not really zombies, as the monsters in question were created by an accidental chemical waste spill, but then again, no one but me is even talking about this ridiculous movie. If you want a fun, self-aware movie that functions equally well as a legitimate horror movie and an insane comedy, though, this is the way to go. It’s under 80 minutes and streaming on Netflix, so what are you waiting for? Watch it all the way through the credits, too, for a hilarious feature-capping, lounge-style theme song.

3. INSIDE OUT – much like Fury Road, this one has a few skeptics amidst the throngs of rightful admirers, and their criticisms are equally asinine. You may have seen the meme: “Toy Story = what if toys had feelings… Cars = what if cars had feelings,” etc. It all culminates in Pixar’s latest (at that point), “Inside Out = what if feelings had feelings?” That is what the movie’s about, but anyone using that as a criticism is missing the point: “what if feelings had feelings” is a fantastic premise for an animated movie, and Inside Out executes it perfectly. (Our site’s founder and owner said it’s a great Herman’s Head reboot, and if you get that joke, you’re probably at least as old as us.) This movie is colorful and fun enough for the kids, but it’s the older members of the audience, who have been through more of the constant ups and downs, triumphs and disappointments, joys and heartbreaks of life, who will really get the most out of it. Its most profound insight is that all happy memories turn into sad ones, because those happy moments are now in the past, but it wonderfully illustrates how sadness is healthy and necessary in a way that few movies (especially ones aimed at all ages) have accomplished.

4. ROOM – a more conventional and accessible take on similar material as my beloved Dogtooth, this is one of the more emotionally wrenching movies of the year. Brie Larson gives a stunning breakout dramatic performance as a young woman who was kidnapped at age 17 and held prisoner for seven years in the backyard shed of a psychopath. Two years into this hellish nightmare, this human monster impregnated her, and now she has a five-year-old son, Jack, who has never known a world outside of “Room,” as they call their prison. In order to protect Jack from the awful truth, she has told him that dogs, other people, and everything else he’s seen on the TV are just make-believe, and that “Old Nick” (their name for her anonymous abductor) is not their friend, but he is the one that brings them food and other necessities, so they have to keep him happy. Chilling stuff, and that’s just roughly the first half of the movie. Once they manage to escape, it’s another huge ordeal to get used to the real world, especially for “Ma,” as Jack knows her, who has to cope with how her relationship to that world has forever changed. Relief quickly turns to anxiety and depression for her, while young Jack is initially overwhelmed, but more quickly able to adapt to his huge new world. Jacob Tremblay gives a wonderful performance as Jack, and Emma Donoghue’s screenplay, based on her own novel, is beautiful and heartbreaking. Room, though, is more than the sum of its parts; this is a great movie.

5. EX MACHINA – for many, including myself, Drive was our first glimpse of the terrific actor Oscar Isaac. For most, Inside Llewyn Davis was the movie that proved him as a star, and of course his character in the new Star Wars trilogy, Poe Dameron, will convert a whole new swath of the population into fans. For me, though, this is the best role he’s taken on yet, and his most compelling performance to date. Eccentric and enigmatic tech billionaire Nathan Bateman selects one “lucky” employee, Caleb Smith (Domhnall Gleeson, suddenly ubiquitous this year), to join him at his top-secret home in the middle of nowhere for what turns out to be a very intriguing experiment. Can Nathan’s latest AI creation, Ava (Alicia Vikander), convince Caleb that she is human, despite the fact that he knows from the outset she is not? It’s a fascinating twist on the Turing test, and many more perfectly executed twists follow. First-time director Alex Garland’s excellent screenplay could be pitched as “What if Her (or maybe Weird Science) was a really dark thriller?” However, the resulting movie is even better than that sounds.

6. GOODNIGHT MOMMY – if Zombeavers is the most fun horror movie of the year (and it certainly is), this one is the most harrowing. Brutal and unrelenting, it expertly pokes at every phobia you could possibly have. Scared of bugs? This movie’s got you. Squeamish about your eyes? Check. Are you, perhaps, frightened by creepy children, especially twins? Oh, this movie’s got creepy twins, all right. The creepiest. A lot has been made of this Austrian film’s big twist (I like to think of it as what might happen if Michael Haneke directed The Sixth Sense), but if you want a big, surprising twist, this isn’t the movie for you; you’re meant to gradually understand what’s really going on long before it’s definitively revealed. If you want a truly frightening slow burn that completely wrecks your feelings of safety and security within the family unit, look no further.

7. CALL ME LUCKY – Bobcat Goldthwait has long ago transitioned from “that guy with the funny voice” to a deservedly respected filmmaker, working primarily in the genre of dark comedy. Not counting the elaborate prank Windy City Heat, this is his first true documentary, a look at the life, work and influence of Boston comedian and political satirist Barry Crimmins. Like one of the year’s other best documentaries, What Happened, Miss Simone?, this is an intimate and often heartbreaking portrait of a troubled artist whose work is inextricable from their political and social beliefs. Unlike that film’s subject, the great Nina Simone, I had never heard of Crimmins before this movie, and it seems as though that’s how he would prefer it. An uncompromising curmudgeon, Crimmins is also a powerful and fiery activist, an undeniably funny writer, and most importantly, a genuinely decent human being. Goldthwait and the many other comedians who appear in this movie have an obvious affection for him, and that feeling is infectious.

8. PREDESTINATION – I would call this the most underrated movie of the year, but I get the feeling hardly anyone even saw it, so I’ll save that distinction for another unfairly maligned sci-fi movie. Anyway, I’m a sucker for a good time-travel story, and this is quite possibly the most audacious one ever made. Based on Robert A. Heinlein’s classic short story, “All You Zombies,” which was already notorious for its audacity, The Spierig Brothers take it even further. To explain the intricacies of the time-travel paradoxes in this one would ruin everything, but as it goes on, you’ll likely find yourself guessing, then assuming you can’t be right because that would be too far-fetched, only to be surprised three or four more times before it’s over. The Spierig Brothers, who began their career with the awesome zombie/UFO movie Undead, are clearly not wishy-washy about committing to the most insane high-concept premise and executing it as beautifully as possible. Here, they blatantly rip off at least two shots from Se7en, one of my all-time favorite movies. That should have made me mad, but it only made me love this crazy movie more; in it, I felt a bizarre kind of kinship.

9. THE LOOK OF SILENCE – this is my pick for most important movie of the year, and it would probably be higher on the list if it weren’t for how devastatingly, gut-wrenchingly heavy it is. In other words, this is absolutely a great movie, and worth seeing more than once, but it’s not really a lot of fun. Joshua Oppenheimer’s follow-up to his similarly intense 2012 documentary The Act of Killing focuses on the family of one of the many victims of the Indonesian genocide explored in both movies. Adi Rukun, the victim’s brother, is an optometrist who meets with several of the genocide’s perpetrators under the guise of free eye exams in order to ask them some of the tough questions they don’t want to hear. Their reactions vary from anger to chilling calm; in the film’s most horrifying scene, one of the death squad leaders basically threatens Adi’s life. The subject matter is grim, but there is a faint glimmer of hope, which is part of what makes this one even more effective than The Act of Killing.

10. THE MARTIAN – consider this the antidote to the heavier movies on the list, such as Room and The Look of Silence. Again, if I were making any attempt at objectivity, this spot would probably be filled by Spotlight, which is pretty much a perfect movie. There’s a reason this is called “Ezra’s Favorite Movies of 2015,” though, and not “The Best Movies of 2015,” and, along with Mad Max: Fury Road and Zombeavers, this is one of the most purely fun movies I saw all year. Drew Goddard, the visionary behind Cloverfield and The Cabin in the Woods, infuses the screenplay with a crowd-pleasing, smartass wit, and Ridley Scott’s direction hasn’t been stronger since 2000’s Gladiator. Beyond the often very funny and always intelligent script and the awe-inspiring 3D visuals, though, what really carries the movie is Matt Damon’s all-American charm. The Martian has been rightly compared to movies like Gravity, Interstellar, and Apollo 13, but I like it better than all three.

HONORABLE MENTIONS – these are 20 more movies from 2015 that I loved, or at least really liked. Many of them were very hard to cut, especially Phoenix, Spotlight, Bridge of Spies, Anomalisa, and Bone Tomahawk, and the process reminded me once again how arbitrary this type of list always is. For you hardcore nerds out there, yes, I also liked Star Wars, but it’s made over $2 billion. It doesn’t really need my help. Here are the next 20, in alphabetical order:

Anomalisa; Appropriate Behavior; Bone Tomahawk; Bridge of Spies; Carol; Crimson Peak; Dope; Faults; The Final Girls; Mississippi Grind; The Nightmare; The Overnight; Phoenix; Results; Sicario; Spotlight; Welcome to Me; What Happened, Miss Simone?; What We Do in the Shadows; The Yes Men Are Revolting.

WORST MOVIE OF 2015: KILL ME THREE TIMES – plenty of crap gets released in any year, from the laughably wrongheaded (The Cobbler) to the horrendously vile (The Human Centipede 3), but nothing annoys me more than mediocrity, and this one has that in spades. Who would have thought we’d be suffering through a terrible early Tarantino knockoff as late as 2015? Not even the charm of Simon Pegg can save this inane, needlessly convoluted, painfully unfunny mess.

MOST UNDERRATED:  CHAPPiE – critics, by and large, tore this movie apart, but everyone I’ve talked to about it really likes it. I’m going with the people on this one. Writer-director Neill Blomkamp’s third feature wears its influences on its prison-tattooed sleeve, from his obvious love of ‘80s sci-fi/action thrillers like RoboCop to the casting of South African rap duo Die Antwoord as (basically) themselves, but it’s more than just self-indulgence by a talented fanboy. There’s real heart in the relationship between the robot CHAPPiE (voiced by Sharlto Copley) and his surrogate parents (Die Antwoord’s Ninja and Yo-Landi Vi$$er), as well as the unpretentious but still recognizable theological implications of his feelings toward his “Maker” (Dev Patel) and the “Bad Man” (Hugh Jackman). CHAPPiE, then, is all of us as innocent children, struggling with notions of good and evil with only the guidance of our moms and dads, who are probably way more screwed up than we can possibly imagine (though hopefully not as bad as Die Antwoord, for god’s sake!). Tackling ideas of identity and the human soul is common for more serious-minded sci-fi movies, but it’s rarer to see it in such a compulsively fun thriller as this.

MOST OVERRATED: IT FOLLOWS – my fellow horror fans are really going to hate me for this. In fact, this movie probably converted a bunch of new horror fans just to hate me for this, since audiences and critics seem to be united in almost universal love for this movie, almost as much as a certain other one on which I wholeheartedly agree with them (I don’t think I need to keep typing his name. You know his name. His name is Max, and his world is fire and blood). So let’s get some praise out of the way: as a scary movie, this one is undeniably effective. I know this because, as I walked out of the theater, I found myself looking compulsively over my shoulder and growing paranoid about a guy who seemed to be following me for a couple of blocks. As quality cinematic storytelling, though, it left me underwhelmed, especially in the third act. The big swimming pool setpiece, for example, makes no sense, is ripped off from Let the Right One In, and isn’t even half as cool as that one. Don’t get me wrong, I do like this movie overall (certainly more than last year’s pick in this category), and I can tell it probably deserves at least a second viewing, but when it comes to the new American horror renaissance, I’ll take You’re Next or The Guest (the latter of which also stars Maika Monroe) over It Follows any day.

PLEASANT SURPRISE: CHI-RAQ – I’ve been a big Spike Lee fan since I was nine years old, when Malcolm X was released (and yes, it was weird being a nine-year-old white kid in Missouri who was suddenly obsessed with el-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz), so it’s been disheartening for me to see a lot of his recent output. Basically, in the past decade or so, most of his best movies have been projects he was hired to direct, while the ones he’s written himself have been much more underwhelming. Red Hook Summer and especially this year’s first Spike Lee Joint, Da Sweet Blood of Jesus, were practically unwatchable for me, so when he released his second film of 2015, it felt like a bit of a last chance. If I couldn’t get into this one, I thought, I might not even bother with his next one. So it was a definite relief to find that I very much enjoyed Chi-Raq, Lee’s semi-musical update of the classic Greek tragedy Lysistrata to Southside Chicago gang warfare in the present day. Samuel L. Jackson narrates the film as Dolemides (and if you don’t get that reference, there’s almost no chance you’ll like this movie), Nick Cannon is surprisingly convincing as a gangbanger, and John Cusack delivers one of his best performances, but the biggest treat for me amongst the cast was seeing Angela Bassett in a major role again, and she’s terrific as always. Out of all of Lee’s past work, the style and energy of this one feels most similar to Bamboozled, which I’ve always felt was his great underappreciated masterpiece. Like Bamboozled, Chi-Raq is a bit of a mess, but it’s a fascinating mess with the distinctive flavor of a true artist realizing his uncompromised vision.

BEST SCENE IN AN OTHERWISE MEDIOCRE MOVIE: THE RIDICULOUS 6 – The Ridiculous 6 is not a great movie. Shocking, I know. However, it’s not half as bad as it could have been, and one scene in particular is actually very good. John Turturro makes a (not very surprising, considering his past work with Adam Sandler) cameo as Abner Doubleday, the purported inventor of baseball. The movie imagines this legendary event as the equivalent of Calvinball, in which Turturro’s overgrown-child take on Doubleday simply makes up rules in his own favor as he goes along, which explains stealing bases, automatic home runs, and other rules of the game in ways that are surprisingly inspired and very funny.

Ezra Stead is the Head Editor for MoviesIDidn’tGet.com. Ezra is also a screenwriter, actor, filmmaker, rapper, and occasional stand-up comic who has been previously published in print and online, as well as writing, directing and acting in numerous short films and two features. A Minneapolis native, Ezra currently lives in New York City, where he is working on his first novel.

For more information, please contact EzraStead@MoviesIDidntGet.com

Alan Tracy is an independent film director and film producer currently based in Minnesota. He was a recent guest commentator on our MIDG Oscars Podcast.

He is releasing his latest short film, The Strike this week.

Alan Tracy is no new comer to film in Minnesota. He has been making films in the Twin Cities and Los Angeles for the past 11 years now. During this time he has completed 18 short films, 1 music video, and has helped on other various shorts, pilots, and web series. His latest film, The Strike, is being released this week and he is very excited to see the response of his latest work.

The Strike is a unique view of domestic violence that covers many women’s issues and relationship troubles. It follows a couple as they deal with complications from an unexpected pregnancy, separation, love, and violence. It is a solid story and production for a short film produced at this level and deserves a place on any short film must see list.

You can catch The Strike here: https://vimeo.com/ondemand/thestrike

You can see more of Alan’s work at CollidingPictures.com. You can also follow him on Twitter: @collidingpix Or Facebook: /collidingpictures

By Ezra Stead 

Few authors in the 20^th century (or any time, for that matter) have been more frequently adapted for the movies than Maine’s favorite son, Stephen King. This Halloween season, instead of presenting a cross-section of my month’s viewing as I have in years past, I thought I’d offer a look at some (not nearly all) of those movie adaptations and the ways in which certain elements were changed from page to screen. More importantly, we’ll be exploring why those elements were changed (at least, to the best of my speculation). Specifically, many of these movies tend to tone down two things: violence (especially directed at children) and overtly supernatural elements.

Let’s start from the beginning. Carrie was King’s first published novel and, within two years’ time, the first movie adaptation of his work. Brian De Palma’s 1976 film is still the best adaptation that has been made of the book, and one of the best of all S.K. movies in general. However, even bloody Mr. De Palma softened the blow of Carrie’s destructive rampage a bit, though probably more for budgetary reasons than anything else. In the movie, we see Carrie burn down her school and blow up a car on her way home, but in the book she pretty much destroys the whole goddamn town on that walk home. The novel actually includes an official body count of 409, “with 49 still listed as missing,” which seems significantly higher than what we see in the movie.

On the other hand, De Palma increased the violence of the scene in which Carrie kills her overbearing mother. In the book, she simply reaches out with her mind and stops Mommy Dearest’s heart, but De Palma rightly concluded that there was no way to make that suitably cinematic. His solution? Carrie literally pins her mother to the wall with kitchen knives.

The one element of Carrie to which no movie adaptation has yet had the guts to remain faithful is the physical characterization of Carrie herself. In the book, she is overweight, ungainly and unattractive, but each movie version has seemingly gone out of its way to cast more and more attractive stars, culminating in the very cute and obviously well-adjusted Chloe Grace Moretz being most recently and egregiously miscast in the role.

The most widely respected movie adaptation with which King himself has most famously been displeased is, of course, Stanley Kubrick’s version of The Shining. King has complained that the characters of Jack and Wendy in the movie have no arcs, that Jack is clearly “bonkers” from the start, and that Wendy is “basically a scream machine.” These are fair criticisms (though King’s own Frannie Goldsmith in The Stand is basically a tear machine, for what that’s worth). It’s King’s feelings about the differences in the book and movies endings that makes for a more interesting comparison.

King has said that “the basic difference that tells you all you need to know is the ending. Near the end of the novel, Jack Torrance tells his son that he loves him, and then he blows up with the hotel. It’s a very passionate climax. In Kubrick’s movie, he freezes to death.” Another way to say this would be that the book, as so many of King’s do, has the explosive “Hollywood” ending, while Kubrick’s film has the subtler, perhaps even more literary conclusion. On the other hand (probably going to be using that phrase a lot), the movie actually ups the ante on the book’s violence a bit, in that Dick Halloran does not survive the movie, whereas in the book he becomes something of a surrogate father to Danny after Jack’s death.

The wisest alteration Kubrick made to the source material, though, was changing the hedge animals in the novel (which come to life and inch closer to you when you’re not looking, eventually actually attacking and maiming Halloran) into the famous hedge maze of the movie. While the animals are effectively creepy in the book, they just look silly onscreen, as King himself (with the help of Mick Garris, his most frequent adaptor) proved 17 years later in the TV miniseries version he wrote. This is just the first of several more examples of budgetary and/or technological limitations actually improving movie adaptations by not even attempting to replicate King’s wild imagination. Sometimes what’s scary in a book doesn’t work so well onscreen.

Cujo is a great example of the opposite phenomenon—the movie captures the reality of being trapped by a rabid dog surprisingly convincingly, and it’s one of King’s favorite movie adaptations of his work. It is also, all in all, very faithful to the source material… with one not-so-minor exception: the kid dies in the book. Ultimately, the filmmakers must have felt that, after an especially harrowing 90 minutes, the audience needed a little relief from the relentless brutality that had come before, a concession even mean old Mr. King (who regularly imperils and more than occasionally kills kids in his books) apparently had no problem with.

In this way, we could call Frank Darabont’s movie of The Mist the “anti-Cujo.” It is a great, very faithful adaptation overall, but that faithfulness vanishes when it comes to the book’s ambiguous but at least cautiously optimistic ending. Darabont’s movie dispenses with all ambiguity and, above all, with all optimism when Thomas Jane’s protagonist uses his last bullet to take out his own son before facing the nightmare just outside the car in which they were sheltered… only to find that the nightmare has already ended.

This unambiguously dark ending might seem surprising at first glance, coming from the director of the more family-friendly (relatively speaking) King adaptations The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile. Then again, Darabont is one of the main creative forces behind the increasingly gory The Walking Dead, and even Shawshank actually ups the ante a bit when it comes to violence; in the book, there’s no reason not to believe that Tommy Williams actually did get transferred to a minimum security prison, but in the movie we see him shot to death at Warden Norton’s orders.

Bryan Singer’s adaptation of Apt Pupil might seem, at first glance, to pull the punch of the source material’s ending—in which the teen protagonist goes on a killing spree beginning with his high school guidance counselor, and “it was five hours later and almost dark before they took him down”—but the movie’s ending is actually much darker, without spilling a single drop of blood. By using blackmail instead of guns, the movie’s Todd Bowden gets away with everything he’s done and, one can assume, goes on to be quite successful in life. A chilling prospect, indeed.

The Running Man has the distinction of being one of only two movies starring both Arnold Schwarzenegger and his fellow action-star-turned-politician Jesse Ventura (if you don’t know the other one, I’m surprised you’re even reading this). It also drastically alters the book’s very dark ending, which, involving the suicide bombing of a skyscraper as it does, we’d be even less likely to see onscreen now, in a post-9/11 world. To be fair, though, the movie pretty much alters everything else about the book as well. For example, in the book Ben Richards is described as scrawny and malnourished, but in the movie he’s played by Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Rob Reiner’s adaptation of Misery is widely regarded as one of the best S.K. movies, and rightly so. It’s very faithful to the book, which is one of King’s very best, but perhaps the most notable difference is one we see time and again in King adaptations—they had to tone down the violence a bit. One of the most memorable scenes in the movie is when Annie Wilkes “hobbles” Paul Sheldon, using a sledgehammer to break his ankles. It’s a painful, unpleasant moment, but in the book she cuts off his goddamn foot with an axe and cauterizes the stump with a propane torch! She later cuts off one of his thumbs, over practically nothing! Yet the book still manages to make Annie somewhat sympathetic, even more than the movie does; it’s truly a great work of literature.

Understandably, television adaptations have to go even further in toning down certain elements of King’s books, and the 1990 TV-movie of It is a great example. Along with significant amounts of violence from the book, the movie avoids the weird sewer-orgy stuff (if you’ve never read the book, you’re going to now, right?), but it unwisely remains faithful to the other key element so often lessened in S.K. adaptations: the overtly supernatural. In visually depicting Its true form (a sort of giant space-spider) with an early ‘90s TV budget, the climactic scenes of the movie undoubtedly provoke more laughter than chills. Certainly no one of my generation remembers that goofy stop-motion spider with the same terrified reverence many of us still have for Tim Curry’s Pennywise the Clown. Like the hedge animals in The Shining, some things are scarier on the page than on the screen.

One of the most interesting cases, though, comes from one of the most commonly overlooked movie adaptations. Despite containing a good deal of graphic violence throughout, the movie version of Needful Things is able to maintain a more darkly comedic tone than the book, which King himself has said is the tone he wanted to create. One of the ways in which the movie manages to achieve this is by toning down the book’s frequent, bloody violence. The lower the body count, the less unlikable Leland Gaunt appears to the audience, and the more humor Max von Sydow is able to wring out of the performance.

Actually, it’s not so much that the violent moments are toned down (in the case of the murder of Nettie Cobb’s dog, the violence is substantially increased), but there are fewer of these moments because the movie streamlines the narrative of the approximately 700-page novel, dropping many less essential characters and subplots. One character far too essential to drop, though, is Brian Rusk, the 11-year-old boy who blows his own head off with a shotgun in the book. That’s a pretty tall order for a Hollywood movie, where young kids get killed even less frequently than dogs. Well, the makers of the Needful Things movie may have been even crueler to the dog than King was, but they spared the kid.

The way in which the movie spares Brian is interesting in how true to character it is. In the book, the only witness to Brian’s suicide is his seven-year-old brother, who obviously can’t do anything to stop it, but in the movie he’s lucky enough to have Sheriff Alan Pangborn there with him. Pangborn was established as especially quick and graceful as early as his first appearance in King’s novel The Dark Half, so when he manages to deflect the gunshot (from a handgun rather than a shotgun in the movie) that would have killed Brian, it’s very believable and true to the spirit of Pangborn’s character, if less true to the spirit of King’s brutal, uncompromising book.

The Needful Things movie also takes a lesson from Kubrick’s Shining in the way it tones down the overt demonization of Gaunt. Like Jack Torrance in The Shining, the Gaunt of King’s book has become a literal monster by the climax. The Needful Things movie doesn’t skimp on explosions the way Kubrick did with The Shining, and Gaunt definitely remains a supernatural being, but we never see him in any but a human form. This also serves to give the movie more of a dark comic tone that works quite well in contrast to the book’s horror/thriller ending.

The omission of literal monsters, extreme violence and such from Stephen King movie adaptations, as we can see, in many cases constitutes wise—or at least mass-market-friendly—decisions. When allowed to write directly for the screen, King tends to indulge in borderline self-parody, as in 1992’s Sleepwalkers, which showcases King’s penchant for Troma-style violence (one unfortunate is stabbed to death with a corncob) and cheesy post-mortem one-liners (“No vegetables, no dessert—those are the rules”), as well as box-office-suicide elements like the incestuous relationship between the main cat-person and his cat-mom (though Game of Thrones proves that, in that respect, maybe this movie was just ahead of its time).

With new movie versions of It, The Dark Tower series, and probably at least half a dozen more in the works, in an era in which special-effects technology has never been better, it is possible someone could finally put an authentically scary version of that space-spider onscreen. The thought of Matthew McConaughey as King’s favorite Man of Many Names is also very promising. Let’s just hope the makers of these upcoming adaptations know when to pick their battles and show restraint.

Ezra Stead is the Head Editor for MoviesIDidn’tGet.com. Ezra is also a screenwriter, actor, filmmaker, rapper, and occasional stand-up comic who has been previously published in print and online, as well as writing, directing and acting in numerous short films and two features. A Minneapolis native, Ezra currently lives in New York City, where he is working on his first novel.

For more information, please contact EzraStead@MoviesIDidntGet.com

By Ezra Stead 

Well, here we are again, folks! Every year since 2001, I’ve made it my self-imposed obligation to see at least 100 new movies (104 in 2016) and then attempt to rank my ten (or more) favorite ones against one another. Notice I didn’t say these were the “best” movies of the year, but my favorite ones; the distinction is important, lest anyone mistakenly expect a shred of objectivity herein.

Anyway, this year, in the interest of championing underdogs and holding a light to some movies you might not have been constantly hearing about since November or so, I have decided to exclude any of the Academy’s Best Picture nominees from my top ten. If you want to know how I felt about those films, you can find my favorites, unranked, in the Honorable Mentions just below the main list, and if you want to know more than that, there’s always the annual MoviesIDidntGet.com Oscars Podcast, which you can listen to on this very site, very soon. 

1. THE VVITCH: A NEW-ENGLAND FOLKTALE – this is the best horror movie I saw all year, and honestly, I’d say it’s the best one to come along in years, probably since The Descent in 2005. Compared to, say, 2015’s It Follows, which I know a lot of horror fans embraced as some sort of second coming of John Carpenter, this is real, brutal, all-encompassing horror; whereas I would compare It Follows to slightly heavy garage/indie rock, The VVitch is just hardcore Satanic black metal. While most horror movies these days seem to get a lot of mileage out of the question of what is really happening versus what is merely in the characters’ heads, The VVitch lets the viewer know right from the start that supernatural forces of evil are in fact at work, while still managing to keep us uncertain as to what degree those forces are to blame, and to what degree our characters’ own fear and ignorance cause their own suffering. Another thing that makes The VVitch so scary is the extreme isolation and dependence on the elements of untamed nature with which the characters must contend; even if there were no supernatural elements in play, everyday life in this time and place was something of a nightmare. The cast is superb across the board, including the four child actors, who are among the best I’ve ever seen. This is one of the most beautifully crafted movies of the year, and certainly one of the most unsettling.

2. SWISS ARMY MAN –words can’t begin to do justice to this batshit insane debut feature from Daniels (that’s Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert), the writer-director duo behind DJ Snake and Lil Jon’s “Turn Down for What” video, arguably the greatest music video ever made. If you’re familiar with that previous work, then you know Daniels are quite adept at creating striking visual oddities involving boners and bizarre physical contortions, but what’s so surprising and endearing about Swiss Army Man is how they use those visual skills to supplement what is actually a very sensitive, insightful narrative about love, loss, and friendship. Don’t get me wrong; it’s also a hilarious narrative about farts, vomit, and masturbation. The fact that such a range of textures and emotions can be found within the same 100-minute movie just hints at what a truly original movie this is.

3. THE LOBSTER – this is also one of the funniest and most original movies of 2016, the English-language debut of Dogtooth director Yorgos Lanthimos. While Dogtooth was a very dark movie with glimmers of surprising humor, The Lobster somewhat reverses that formula. While it is certainly very dark and cynical in its overall worldview, there is no denying that this is, first and foremost, a comedy; the fact that nearly all of its humor derives from abject misery and existential suffering makes it no less hysterical. Colin Farrell plays brilliantly against type (we’re talking frumpiness way beyond what they call “dad-bod” here) as a sad-sack who undertakes the preferred relationship counseling option of the future: an intensive program in which those who fail to find their “soulmate” within 45 days are surgically transformed into animals of their choice. It’s one of the best high-concept premises of all time, and its execution is flawless, leaving the viewer with some very upsetting insights about the nature of romantic relationships, albeit tempered by all the brilliantly dry comedy.

4. 13^TH – one would probably expect a movie that endeavors to elucidate the entire history of systemic racism in America—from the transatlantic slave trade to Jim Crow to the prison-industrial complex still in effect today—in only 100 minutes to feel overstuffed, overwhelming, and incomplete. It’s a testament to Ava DuVernay’s skill as a filmmaker that 13^th is, instead, an endlessly engaging, gripping, and at times downright heartbreaking film of incredible power. The title refers to the 13^th amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which most of us think of as merely the one that abolished slavery; however, part of its wording allows for the use of (practically) slave labor within the correctional system, which led to measures such as “mandatory minimums” and the “three strikes” law for drug offenses that have been used for decades to incarcerate black males in wildly disproportionate numbers. This is, in content and execution, probably the most important movie of the year.

5. KRISHA – along with The VVitch and Swiss Army Man, this is one of the most impressive debut features of the year. Trey Edward Shults’s excruciatingly painful family drama often feels like a horror movie, from its ominous opening shot of its lead staring fearlessly into the viewer’s soul over an eerie soundtrack (a moment that is brilliantly bookended by the film’s final shot), but there is nothing supernatural going on here. The horror (and humor, and pathos, etc.) is all too human, as the camera unflinchingly portrays a disastrous Thanksgiving in which estranged aunt Krisha (Shults’s real-life aunt, Krisha Fairchild) returns to try and make amends after a decade of mysterious, negligent absence. Fairchild deserves all the acting awards going around this season, but unfortunately the movie was apparently just too small (and, likely, too harsh) to pick up the audience it so richly deserves.

6. TONI ERDMANN – this is a decidedly more upbeat look at family than the previous entry on this list, though the father-daughter unit in this one has a similarly strained and bizarre relationship. Writer-director Maren Ade somehow deftly brings together the disparate elements of a zany prankster comedy and a sobering, deeply melancholy existential drama into one incredibly breezy 160-minute movie. The lengths to which the titular character (Peter Simonischek) will go to cheer up and enliven his daughter, Ines (Sandra Huller) are epic, and though Erdmann is quietly heartbreaking at times, the strongest impression it leaves is one of unbridled joy and a love of life in all its messy uncertainty.

7. HUSH – with all due respect to the highly acclaimed Don’t Breathe, for me, this was the home invasion thriller of the year. Mike Flanagan (director of 2013’s similarly underrated haunted mirror movie Oculus) is quickly proving himself to be one of the most exciting new voices in horror movies, and he’s currently at work on a Stephen King adaptation, so I couldn’t be more onboard with that. Here he has collaborated with the film’s star, Kate Siegel, on a taut, clever (but never self-congratulatory about it) screenplay for a sort of updated riff on the classic Wait Until Dark. The difference is that, in Hush, our terrorized protagonist is deaf, rather than blind; the ways in which she uses her wits to level the playing field and fight back against her attacker, though, are every bit as gripping.

8. REMEMBER – by now my loyal readers (thanks to both of you, sincerely) have probably noticed a distinct tendency of mine to favor genre films over the more prestigious dramas that tend to soak up the awards season spotlight. Well, here is a movie about an elderly man coping with the decades-past loss of his family during the Holocaust, so surely this is a much more somber affair than some of the stuff on this list. Ha! Just kidding. One of the things I love most about Atom Egoyan’s latest is the way it effortlessly subverts audience expectations so that, before you know it, you’re watching a delightfully nasty, lurid thriller instead of the dry, melancholy drama you at first expect. Christopher Plummer has never been better as the dementia-addled Zev, who goes searching for the Nazi who killed his family with the help of his more lucid friend Max (an also terrific Martin Landau). The film certainly never makes light of the terrible events at its core, but it is refreshingly pulpy, much more Inglourious Basterds than Schindler’s List.

9. NUTS! – this is probably the most overlooked gem I saw all year. The incredible true story of Dr. John Brinkley, who discovered a cure for impotence in the human male using glands derived from goat testicles, is the subject of this documentary from director Penny Lane, and if you’re wondering why you’ve never heard of this eccentric doctor or his miracle cure, well, there’s a very good reason for that. Using whimsically handmade-looking animation and a voice cast with a real flair for the larger-than-life, vaudevillian nature of the story, Lane brings the story to life in a breezy and endlessly fun way that recalls a modern-day F for Fake. High praise, indeed.

10. UNDER THE SHADOW – this list started with a uniquely frightening horror movie, so it might as well end with one, too. And it’s another first feature, too! Writer-director Babak Anvari sets his terrifying tale in 1980s Tehran, a war-torn region in which Shideh (Narges Rashidi) finds it difficult to get work because of her past participation in the country’s revolution. Her life becomes even more difficult as her husband is forced to go to work as a medic on the front lines of the war, leaving Shideh and their young daughter alone in a home that soon begins to be haunted my mysterious evil spirits after a missile crashes through the building’s roof but fails to detonate. The impending doom conveyed by the hanging warhead is a striking image that recalls Guillermo del Toro’s The Devil’s Backbone, and the film has also ben favorably compared to The Babadook, but many of its best visual effects are entirely original, such as one inspired sequence in which Shideh is attacked by a phantom taking the form of first her absentee husband and then the blanket under which he had just appeared to be asleep. The disembodied, floating blanket calls to mind the hijab Shideh is forced to wear out in public; in perhaps the film’s best sequence, Shideh and her daughter flee their haunted home, only for Shideh to face jail time for neglecting to put on the garment as she ran screaming into the streets. Much like The VVitch, much of the real terror of Under the Shadow derives from the specificity of the time and place in which it is set.

HONORABLE MENTIONS 

Here, in alphabetical order, are 20 more movies from 2016 that I would strongly recommend, including five of the Best Picture Oscar nominees. I could probably make this list about twice as long, since I would estimate that I really liked at least half of the 104 movies I saw last year, but in the interest of brevity, let’s just go with roughly a third instead. Here are the best of the rest, in my humble opinion:

10 Cloverfield Lane; Arrival; Captain Fantastic; Chevalier; The Handmaiden; Hell or High Water; The Invitation; La La Land; Look Who’s Back; Manchester by the Sea; Midnight Special; A Monster Calls; Moonlight; Morris from America; Paterson; Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping; Sully; Tower; The Wailing; Weiner.

WORST MOVIE OF 2016 – YOGA HOSERS – most of the worst movies I saw in 2016 were sequels or franchise builders of some sort (looking at you, Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice), and this one is no exception. Despite being a full hour shorter than B V S, my other strong contender for this “award,” Yoga Hosers takes the cake for sheer wasted screen time. It literally takes 45 minutes for this terrible, terrible movie to go anywhere, and by then, it’s definitely a case of too little, too late. For some reason, writer-director Kevin Smith has come to the conclusion that Canada is somehow inherently funny, and he bludgeons that misinformed idea to death throughout those interminable first 45 minutes. My scorn for this particular movie is all the stronger for the fact that I was actually a big fan of Smith’s previous film, Tusk, to which this is basically a sequel. I still think Tusk is great after a more recent second viewing, but this one is borderline unwatchable.

MOST OVERRATED – DEADPOOL – I hope I’m not courting the wrath of the nerd armies here, but the long-awaited (I guess) Deadpool movie is really nothing all that special. It’s really just a pretty standard superhero origin story (which we’ve obviously seen plenty of over the past decade or more) spiced up with a lot of corny jokes, swearing, fourth-wall-breaking irreverence, and of course, graphic violence. It’s all entertaining enough, and Ryan Reynolds’s charisma carries it pretty well, but it’s not half good enough to justify its stellar box office returns and overly devoted fan club.

MOST UNDERRATED – THE BFG – while Steven Spielberg is rightly considered one of the very greatest living movie directors, his less prestigious efforts of late have been unfairly overlooked (like the wonderful The Adventures of Tintin), while his more adult dramas (like Lincoln or Bridge of Spies) remain as acclaimed as ever. I have no pet theory as to why this may be the case, unless it’s a loss of goodwill left over from the fourth Indiana Jones, but as a huge Roald Dahl fan from way back, I can testify that his adaptation of The BFG (it stands for Big Friendly Giant, for all you gamers out there who have a different acronym in mind) is delightful. Spielberg and screenwriter Melissa Mathison (who also wrote E.T. and unfortunately died before this movie was released) capture not only the wit and whimsy of Dahl’s book, but also its sense of melancholy and loneliness, perfectly, and the magical world of Giant Country really comes to life with Spielberg’s flair for world-building and action-comedy set pieces. This ranks as my third favorite Dahl adaptation only because the original Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory and Nicolas Roeg’s The Witches have both held such special places in my heart for decades now.

BEST SHORT FILM – THE ART OF THE DEAL: THE MOVIE – I debated whether to count this one as a feature, but at only 50 minutes, it’s really more the length of a television episode, and its content basically amounts to an extended comedy sketch. But, oh boy, is it a great comedy sketch. Though Johnny Depp was pretty much as intolerable as everything else about Yoga Hosers, he has never done finer work than he does here as an all-too-accurate caricature of the “man” who has now become our “President,” Donald J. Trump. Taking Trump’s infamously ghostwritten 1987 memoir as its jumping off point, its satire is much more pointed and intelligent than much of the parody we’ve seen thus far of our jackass-in-chief. Like so much of the best comedy, it’s funny (and SAD!) because it’s true.

BEST DECADES-LATE SEQUEL – PEE-WEE’S BIG HOLIDAY – for some reason, 2016 was rife with brand-new sequels to movies from a dozen years ago or more, some better (Zoolander No. 2, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny) than others (Kindergarten Cop 2, Punk’s Dead – the SLC Punk sequel that few wanted and even fewer saw), but none that I saw was any better or truer to the spirit of its source than this third Pee-wee Herman movie. Paul Reubens’s irrepressibly innocent loner/rebel of a man-child returns nearly 30 years after his last big-screen appearance, this time on a mission to get to the big New York City birthday party of his new friend, actor Joe Manganiello (gamely playing a lovably bizarre version of himself). It’s all very light, whimsical, and more than a little homoerotic – truly fun for all ages!

Ezra Stead is the Head Editor for MoviesIDidn’tGet.com. Ezra is also a screenwriter, actor, filmmaker, rapper, and occasional stand-up comic who has been previously published in print and online, as well as writing, directing and acting in numerous short films and two features. A Minneapolis native, Ezra currently lives in New York City, where he is working on his first novel.

For more information, please contact EzraStead@MoviesIDidntGet.com

The post Ezra’s Top 10 Favorite Movies of 2016 appeared first on Movies I Didn't Get.

Hosted by Ezra Stead with special guests: Jason A. Hill, Alan Tracy and Pete K. Wong.

The MIDG Oscars Podcast, 2017 edition.

Oscar discussion and predictions for the show Sunday night, February 26th, on ABC.

Duration: 2 hours and 9 minutes.

Intro Music: LA LA Land “Another Day Of Sun”

Outro Music: The Neon Demon “Runaway”

Oscar Predictions:

Best Picture

Alan Tracy: LA LA Land

Pete K. Wong: LA LA Land

Jason Hill: LA LA Land

Ezra Stead: LA LA Land

Snubs: Snowden (Alan) / Knight of Cups (Alan) / Nocturnal Animals (Pete)

Best Directing

Ezra Stead: Damien Chazelle – LA LA Land

Alan Tracy: Damien Chazelle – LA LA Land

Pete K. Wong: Barry Jenkins – Moonlight

Jason Hill: Damien Chazelle – LA LA Land

Snubs: Oliver Stone – Snowden / Nicolas Winding Refn – The Neon Demon (Jason) / Nate Parker – Birth of a Nation (Jason)

Best Actor in a Leading Role

Ezra Stead: Viggo Mortensen – Captain Fantastic

Alan Tracy: Andrew Garfield – Hacksaw Ridge

Pete K. Wong: Casey Affleck – Manchester by the Sea

Jason Hill: Casey Affleck – Manchester by the Sea

Snubs: Adam Driver – Paterson (Jason) / Colin Ferrell – The Lobster (Ezra) / Daniel Radcliffe – Swiss Army Man (Ezra)

Best Actress in a Leading Role

Jason Hill: Emma Stone – LA LA Land

Ezra Stead: Isabelle Huppert – Elle

Alan Tracy: Emma Stone – LA LA Land

Pete K. Wong: Emma Stone – LA LA Land

Snubs: Amy Adams – Arrival (Ezra) / Krisha Fairchild – Krisha (Ezra)

Best Actor in a Supporting Role

Alan Tracy: Mahershala Ali – Moonlight

Pete K. Wong: Mahershala Ali – Moonlight

Jason Hill: Mahershala Ali – Moonlight

Ezra Stead: Mahershala Ali – Moonlight

Snubs: Simon Helberg – Florence Foster Jenkins (Alan)

Best Actress in a Supporting Role

Pete K. Wong: Viola Davis – Fences

Jason Hill: Viola Davis – Fences

Ezra Stead: Viola Davis – Fences

Alan Tracy: Viola Davis – Fences

Best Animated Feature

Pete K. Wong: Zootopia

Jason Hill: Zootopia

Ezra Stead: Zootopia

Alan Tracy: Zootopia

Best Cinematography

Jason Hill: Moonlight

Ezra Stead: LA LA Land

Alan Tracy: Moonlight

Pete K. Wong: Moonlight

Snubs: The Neon Demon (Alan) / The Witch (Ezra)

Best Film Editing

Jason Hill: Moonlight

Ezra Stead: LA LA Land

Alan Tracy: Hacksaw Ridge

Pete K. Wong: LA LA Land

Best Original Score

Pete K. Wong: Moonlight

Jason Hill: LA LA Land

Ezra Stead: LA LA Land

Alan Tracy: LA LA Land

Snubs: The Neon Demon (Alan)

Best Production Design

Ezra Stead: LA LA LAnd

Alan Tracy: Hail Caesar!

Pete K. Wong: LA LA Land

Jason Hill: LA LA Land

Snubs: The Witch (Ezra) / The Neon Demon (Jason)

Best Visual Effects

Ezra Stead: The Jungle Book

Alan Tracy: Rouge One: A Star Wars Story

Pete K. Wong: Doctor Strange

Jason Hill: Doctor Strange

Snubs: Arrival (Jason) / Captain America: Civil War (Ezra)

Best Adapted Screenplay

Jason Hill: Moonlight – Barry Jenkins

Pete K. Wong: Moonlight – Barry Jenkins

Ezra Stead: Moonlight – Barry Jenkins

Alan Tracy: Moonlight – Barry Jenkins

Best Original Screenplay

Jason Hill: LA LA Land – Damien Chazelle

Pete K. Wong: LA LA Land – Damien Chazelle

Ezra Stead: Manchester by the Sea – Kenneth Lonergan

Alan Tracy: LA LA Land – Damien Chazelle

Snubs: The BFG – Melissa Mathison (Ezra) / The Neon Demon (Jason)

Sound Editing

Ezra Stead: LA LA Land

Alan Tracy: Hacksaw Ridge

Pete K. Wong: LA LA Land

Jason Hill: Hacksaw Ridge

Snubs: The Neon Demon (Jason)

Sound Mixing

Alan Tracy: Hacksaw Ridge

Ezra Stead: LA LA Land

Pete K. Wong:  LA LA Land

Jason Hill: Hacksaw Ridge

Snubs: The Neon Demon (Jason)

Other Predictions:

Best Documentary Feature:

Ezra Stead: 13th

Jason Hill: O.J.: Made in America

Best Costume Design:

Alan Tracy: Florence Foster Jenkins

Best Makeup and Hairstyling:

Alan Tracy: Star Trek Beyond

Best Foreign Language Film:

Ezra Stead: Toni Erdmann

Snubs: The Wailing (South Korea) (Ezra) / The Handmaiden (South Korea) (Ezra)

Ezra Stead is the Head Editor for MoviesIDidn’tGet.com. Ezra is also a screenwriter, actor, filmmaker, rapper, and occasional stand-up comic who has been previously published in print and online, as well as writing, directing and acting in numerous short films and two features. A Minneapolis native, Ezra currently lives in New York City, where he is working on his first novel.

For more information, please contact EzraStead@MoviesIDidntGet.com

Jason A. Hill is the Founder of Movies I Didn’t Get.com. He is a film critic and writer of articles and film reviews covering a variety of genres and film news that have been syndicated to many sites in the film blogosphere. He specializes in independent film in the US and Asia.

For more information please contact Jason at JasonAHill@MoviesIDidn’tGet.com.

Alan Tracy is an independent film director and film producer currently based in Minnesota. You can see Alan’s work at CollidingPictures.com.

For more information please contact Alan at collidingpictures@gmail.com.

Pete K. Wong is an actor, screenwriter also working in illustration and comics currently based in Los Angeles, CA. You can see Pete’s work at JustPete.com.

For more information please contact Pete at petekwong@gmail.com.

The post MIDG 4th Annual Oscars Predictions Podcast For The 89th Academy Awards appeared first on Movies I Didn't Get.

By Ezra Stead 

Kong: Skull Island, USA, 2017

Directed by Jordan Vogt-Roberts

Nothing can destroy one’s enjoyment of a new movie like anticipation, and this type of (sometimes) misplaced enthusiasm is never more likely to occur than when it is attached to a new version of a beloved property. As excited as audiences might have been about, say, Jurassic Park in 1993, the anticipation for its sequel a few years later was bound to be even higher, leaving open the road for diminishing returns down which that particular franchise has been barreling ever since. 60 years before that first Jurassic movie, there was a little black-and-white classic without which Spielberg’s masterpiece likely never would have come to exist; that, of course, was the original King Kong, and if you’re not a pretty huge fan of that one, I’m kind of surprised you’re even reading this.

Needless to say, going into Kong: Skull Island, I had mixed feelings of hope and despair, balancing out to a sort of cautious optimism. Kong’s last big-screen outing, at the hands of Peter Jackson and company in 2005, was certainly reverent of the source material and technically impressive overall, if perhaps over-ambitious, and certainly a bit bloated at over three hours. Luckily, Skull Island has all the technical prowess of its predecessor with none of the awkward self-seriousness. It is a wildly entertaining romp from start to finish, and without a doubt my second-favorite Kong movie yet (I’m pretty sure most fans of the 1976 version are really just fans of young Jessica Lange). 

I think it’s safe to say most real Kong fans agree the best part of all previous iterations of the story are the sequences that take place on Skull Island, the great ape-King’s homeland. This is where you get all the best giant monster action; besides Kong himself, there are dinosaurs, huge bugs, and all sorts of other terrifying creatures on the island, and that’s what we’ve come to see. Skull Island wisely sticks with its titular location and all the nightmarish but strangely beautiful happenings there.

The other smartest decision made by the filmmakers is the fact that this is in no way a remake of anything that has come before. This is an alternate storyline, in which Kong was never forced to leave the island and then subsequently killed by the Air Force in 1930s Manhattan. Instead, he has been living in relative peace on the island since who knows when, all the way up to the 1970s—the Vietnam era in which this one takes place.

Kong’s peaceful existence is shattered when a bunch of stupid humans come crashing in and blowing things up, as is our wont. The team of stupid humans is assembled by Bill Randa (John Goodman), a scientist who has endured years of being called a quack for his belief in the existence of MUTOs (Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organisms—this is same acronym used in the latest English-language version of Godzilla—more on that soon), and now he’s out to prove it. In order to do this, he’s enlisted scientists—Tom Hiddleston, Brie Larson, Corey Hawkins—and, in far greater numbers, military personnel—Jason Mitchell, Toby Kebbell, the scene-stealing Shea Whigham, all led by Samuel L. Jackson—on an expedition to the mysterious, hidden island, where a disproportionate number of ships and planes have gone inexplicably missing over the years.

The perennial complaint about monster movies is that the Big Bad tends to have extremely limited screen time. At the hands of a master like Spielberg (Jaws, Jurassic Park), or Ridley Scott (Alien), this is actually much more effective than showing too much, and no one ever complains, for example, that there aren’t enough dinosaurs in Jurassic Park. The other advantage those three films have is good human characters in whom an audience can actually invest, something sorely missing from recent efforts like Godzilla or Jurassic World. Skull Island has the best of both worlds, giving us a glimpse of Kong himself practically right off the bat—and then not skimping on the monster action in the slightest for the rest of the movie’s running time—and also providing some pretty terrific humans to care about. The best of these is John C. Reilly as a WWII fighter pilot who’s been stranded on the island ever since accidentally crash-landing there during that war; he provides both comic relief and some unexpected poignancy.

Even before the real action begins, though (and long before Reilly’s appearance), director Jordan Vogt-Roberts (Kings of Summer) shows a flair for sight gags that is more than welcome in the all too homogenous field of blockbuster moviemaking. As the military helicopters are flying over the island near the beginning of the movie, for example, we see them in silhouette through the trees, and then a surprising thing happens: one of the choppers lands on a tree branch, the lighting shifts, and we see that this one was actually just an ordinary dragonfly foregrounded against the background choppers. It’s a great visual reference to the relative nature of scale, underlined moments later when the actual choppers are dwarfed by Kong, and throughout the movie, as we see plenty of bugs that are decidedly not of ordinary size.

To avoid the risk of gushing too much about a movie that is—in case you haven’t already figured out my opinion—thoroughly awesome, I’ll admit that there are a fair number of clichés, particularly of the war movie variety, in some of the dialogue and character choices, but when the sheer spectacle is this engaging, considerations like that tend to fall by the wayside. If you want to feel like a kid again, playing in a big-budget sandbox, this movie is easily the best thing for you since the airport fight in Captain America: Civil War.

Oh, and while we’re making that connection, be sure to stick around past the end credits for a bonus scene that ties Skull Island together with the latest American version of Godzilla in a way that already has me more excited for the coming MUTO Cinematic Universe than I ever have been about that other, already established MCU.

Ezra Stead is the Head Editor for MoviesIDidn’tGet.com. Ezra is also a screenwriter, actor, filmmaker, rapper, and occasional stand-up comic who has been previously published in print and online, as well as writing, directing and acting in numerous short films and two features. A Minneapolis native, Ezra currently lives in New York City, where he is working on his first novel.

For more information, please contact EzraStead@MoviesIDidntGet.com

The post Kong: Skull Island – A Big-Budget Sandbox appeared first on Movies I Didn't Get.

By Ezra Stead 

Vore King, USA, 2016

Directed by Daniel Schneidkraut

Let’s get your first question out of the way now: “vore” is short for “vorarephilia,” a fetish involving a desire to be consumed by—or to be the one consuming—another person or creature. Yes, it is a sex thing, and yes, as per Rule 34, there is pornography for this fetish. Daniel Schneidkraut’s latest feature is a documentary about Raymond P. Whalen, sometimes known as Rock & Roll Ray (full disclosure: both the director and his subject are friends of this reviewer), who holds claim to the title of the most successful purveyor of vore porn.

Still with us? Good.

Of course, no one is actually eaten or otherwise harmed in Whalen’s vore videos. Instead, they are bizarre playacting sessions in which Whalen, dressed as one of various foam rubber monsters he designs and creates (with affectionate nicknames like Bumper Humper and Kitty Gulp), admires and then engages in simulated intercourse with a nude model, before ultimately “devouring” her. The sex is no more real than the cannibalism, and this is part of what makes a documentary that is (at least sort of) about pornography so unexpectedly charming. 

The other part of this equation is the oddball charisma of its subject, a gregarious weirdo whose personality matches his own creative output in its surprisingly harmonious blend of lewd lasciviousness and cartoonish innocence. At one point, Whalen describes his first encounter with Internet porn in terms that are simultaneously graphic and oddly childlike, a big, unembarrassed grin on his face the entire time. This is the tone of Schneidkraut’s movie, as well—it never shies away from the fact that Whalen is a pornographer, but it also showcases his genuine decency and likeability, not as a counterpoint to his professional activities, but as a possible explanation for his relative success in such a niche field.

Not everyone agrees with Whalen’s self-proclaimed “vore king” title, however. The one aspect of his endeavors that might have been more thoroughly explored is the contingent of vore enthusiasts who feel that Whalen’s contributions to the genre are more a mockery than anything else. This is briefly addressed, but quickly abandoned, as is the question of whether this type of pornography encourages violence toward women. Ultimately, though, this is not a documentary about pornography, but a character study, not unlike Schneidkraut’s previous features, Invincible Force and, to a lesser extent, Seeking Wellness. And the man sometimes known as Rock & Roll Ray is certainly quite a character.

Ezra Stead is the Head Editor for MoviesIDidn’tGet.com. Ezra is also a screenwriter, actor, filmmaker, rapper, and occasional stand-up comic who has been previously published in print and online, as well as writing, directing and acting in numerous short films and two features. A Minneapolis native, Ezra currently lives in New York City, where he is working on his first novel.

For more information, please contact EzraStead@MoviesIDidntGet.com

The post Vore King – A Man And His Monsters appeared first on Movies I Didn't Get.

By Ezra Stead 

Baby’s Day Out, USA, 1994

Directed by Patrick Read Johnson

As anyone who’s read my in-depth review of Beethoven knows, family movies from the 1990s are often covert founts of darkness and despair, sometimes to the point that it’s nigh impossible to see them any other way. Another great example of this curious phenomenon is 1994’s Baby’s Day Out, which depicts a world on the brink of total destruction just underneath its deceptively cheerful surface. This is a world that no longer values anything but material possessions, social status, and unbridled hatred. If allowed to go on the way it is, this society will surely collapse on itself, as childcare, familial connections, and basic human decency are utterly neglected. Baby’s Day Out is the tale of the one super-genius infant who just might be able to save a world full of nihilistic idiots from itself. 

The supernatural intelligence of the titular child (known only by the demeaning nickname “Baby Bink”) is established right away when we see that the boy can practically read; at first glance, it might appear that he is just idly looking at colorful pictures the way any infant would, but we later learn that the entire path of his day out corresponds to the journey of the fictional baby in his book, also called Baby’s Day Out. Throughout the movie, though, it appears that only Baby Bink’s nanny, Gilbertine (Cynthia Nixon), has the slightest appreciation for his true abilities, as his mother, Laraine (Lara Flynn Boyle), only cares about the potential for social climbing, and his father, Bennington (Matthew Glave), seems to barely notice he even has a child—as he leaves on a business trip, Gilbertine has to remind him to acknowledge his son in any way.

Before this glimpse into the apathetic parenting style of the obscenely wealthy, we are introduced to the unfortunate Baby Bink’s parents with a scene in which Laraine’s motives are made plain. “Baby Bink is almost a year old and virtually unknown,” she laments as she sees the photo of another high society baby in the newspaper. She pays lip service to the idea that she wants the world to see what a beautiful baby he is, but it’s plain that he is nothing more than a photo op to her, a pawn in an ongoing game of one-upmanship with her rich friends. We are then introduced to the gang of kidnappers who plan to take advantage of Laraine’s vanity, providing a nice juxtaposition of equally cynical motivations. As the gang’s leader, Eddie (Joe Mantegna), puts it, “That little doo-doo machine is my retirement money.”

Of course it is Laraine’s overwhelming desire to put her innocent child in the public eye that allows him to be kidnapped, as Eddie and his henchman, Norby (Joe Pantoliano), pose as photographers in order to gain access to Baby Bink. Their disguises, however, don’t hint at “professional photographer” so much as they practically scream “kidnapper.” “I need to study his marvelous features,” Eddie tells Laraine, by way of explaining why she and Gilbertine should leave Baby Bink alone with him. “He does well with people he is not… intimate with?” is his follow-up question. He and Norby are basically cartoon caricatures of creepy kidnappers, yet only Gilbertine raises any objection to leaving a baby in their care, and this is immediately overruled by the self-absorbed Laraine. Anything to get that precious photo for the newspaper!

Once Baby Bink has been effortlessly stolen from his oblivious mother, the bad guys—there is a second henchman named Veeko (Brian Haley)—go through the standard shenanigans inherent in not having a clue how to care for an infant. The brunt of these duties go to Norby, and his cluelessness would be expected of any such low-life character, but the rest of the movie goes on to show, time and again, that pretty much everyone else in its particular world is every bit as inept. But let’s start with the colossal failings of Norby.

Exhausted from the strenuous diaper-changing shenanigans he just endured, Norby, who is now the only one of the three kidnappers keeping an eye on the baby, promptly falls asleep. He manages to stay that way even when Baby Bink shouts the word “Bluebird!” right next to his ear, in what can only be termed an outdoor voice. Baby Bink has just correctly identified and called by name a bird he glimpsed in the Baby’s Day Out book earlier that day; as mentioned before, the kid is not yet one year old and I’m pretty sure he can already read. When Norby fails to wake up and see the pretty bird, this super-genius baby does what most audiences generally want to do to a Joe Pantoliano character: he smacks him right upside the head. Norby continues to sleep, so Baby Bink simply crawls out the wide-open window right next to him and makes his escape. The incompetence of a squad that elects its one clearly narcoleptic member to watch their “retirement money” is the movie’s first hint that this world is plagued by a nihilism that goes far beyond the mere cynicism and materialism we’ve seen thus far.

From the fire escape outside the window, Baby Bink makes his way into a random apartment, where he goes unnoticed by the extremely grouchy old woman who lives within. Baby Bink makes his way past her when she opens the door to grudgingly admit a deliveryman, with whom she has an unnecessarily antagonistic encounter as she accepts the package he has brought her. The exchange of material goods clearly offers no solace to either of them as they continue on through the bitterness of their respective existences. Perhaps if they hadn’t failed to notice the happy baby boy crawling around unattended at their very feet, they might have felt some momentary joy, some concern for the well-being of a fellow human, some sort of emotion of any kind other than scorn and vindictiveness, but alas, that is not to be in this grim universe.

From this barren, loveless apartment building, Baby Bink then makes his way outside and somehow manages to board a city bus by himself without anyone noticing. The self-absorption and general apathy of the passengers and bus driver alike is astonishing, especially in an era long before smartphones, but that is the emotionally desolate landscape painted by this devastatingly dark John Hughes screenplay (this is Hughes in full-on violent slapstick mode, as previously seen in Home Alone, Dutch, and perhaps a few others he didn’t bother to direct himself; perhaps not surprisingly, one of these is the aforementioned Beethoven, written under a pseudonym). Baby Bink makes it all the way to the back of the bus undetected—or at least unremarked, due to rampant apathy—where he openly mocks his former captors, leading them to recklessly chase him through the city streets like they were Keanu Reeves in Speed or something. He then ultimately makes his way off the bus by falling into a fat lady’s purse, which is right beside her on the bus seat, and which she then carries off the bus, and yet she remains completely oblivious! At this point, mere materialism would be comforting; it is frighteningly obvious that no one in the world of this movie gives the slightest damn about small children.

Baby Bink makes his next escape after an altercation between the bumbling bad guys and the lady in whose purse he is hitching a ride. The baddies might have actually won this altercation or, better yet, avoided it entirely if not for the hatred in the hearts of nearly every adult character in the movie. They first encounter the lady when she angrily entreats them to move their van, which is blocking her path, and Veeko replies: “If you’d limit yourself to a couple of pork roasts a day, you wouldn’t need to worry about it.” The unnecessary rudeness and contempt of all parties involved leads to an all-out brawl once the baddies realize Baby Bink is in the lady’s purse and follow her, all the while making tasteless fat jokes she can easily hear. She then mops the sidewalk with them while a large crowd watches, and still no one seems to care when an unattended infant crawls away from the scene.

This severe lack of basic human decency and empathy is sure to bring about the end of the diseased society portrayed in the film but, as always, no one seems to care much, which is made plain in the next scene. Baby Bink makes his way into a shopping center where he crawls through the feet of literally dozens of people who are all too blinded by their consumerist frenzy to even notice him. Finally, an employee of “Mother Goose Corner” (which is apparently where people dump their babies so they can better focus on the all-important shopping at hand) just halfheartedly assumes he’s one of the unfortunates entrusted to her care and brings him back to the nursery. Apparently, losing other people’s children is just something that happens all the time, and certainly not something to spend any undue time worrying about.

All this, we’re reminded in the very next scene, is going on while one of the top stories on the TV news is the kidnapping and million-dollar ransom of a baby. Baby Bink, super-genius that he is, has no trouble actually escaping from Mother Goose Corner—just as his shockingly inept captor assumed he had in the first place—then proceeds to crawl back through the feet of dozens more oblivious shoppers and out through a revolving door without being noticed. Cockroaches get more acknowledgement than this poor kid! He then crawls through the feet of the reporter delivering the news story about his kidnapping, gets tangled in the microphone cable and pulls the live mic out of her hand; the camera operator even tilts down with her as she picks it up, getting a shot of the baby at their feet… and then they both just go right back to shooting the news segment. That baby can fend for itself, as far as either of them is concerned. The reporter even ends by saying, “Even when what they’re looking for is right under their nose,” in a winking nudge to the audience, though this sort of callous disregard for the most vulnerable members of society is far more frightening than it is cute.

Baby Bink leaves this scene by crawling into an open taxi door, where large shopping bags are loaded onto the seat immediately after him, obscuring him from the passenger’s view. This once again hints at a society blinded by materialism, and is followed by a reinforcement of same when a “concerned neighbor” played by an uncredited Mike Starr actually calls the police with a tip… only to shake them down for money and provide useless information.

In perhaps the movie’s most harrowing moment, we meet the only other character that seems to truly care about babies, but even this has a supremely dark edge to it. The apartment indicated by Mike Starr’s “caring” neighbor belongs to a single mother raising several children on her own. This unfortunate woman is contributing to the impending apocalypse in her own way by significantly overpopulating her own home, but she claims the children are “all [she’s] got.” This is incredibly sad, and points to a dark ulterior motive in even this seemingly compassionate character; the children are a substitute for any other value she might perceive herself to have in this bleak world, filling (or at least attempting to fill) a void in her being that would otherwise remain gapingly empty. This brief moment in Baby’s Day Out is almost unbearably depressing.

To lighten the mood a bit, we return to the bad guys and their pursuit of Baby Bink. Eddie and his crew are beginning to fray around the edges at this point, going all Treasure of the Sierra Madre and arguing amongst themselves about their cuts of the purely hypothetical ransom. This presents a microcosm of the selfish, shortsighted materialism that threatens the stability of the movie’s entire world.

Meanwhile, Baby Bink has managed to crawl past an entire elementary school field trip at the zoo without being noticed (how easy is it to get a teaching certificate in this world?), and, super-genius that he is, decides to employ a full-grown gorilla to do his dirty work for him. Baby Bink sits watching with an eerie smile while the gorilla clobbers the goons as they attempt to extract Baby Bink from his cage; the scene plays out almost like The Omen meets Home Alone, as Baby Bink cheerfully observes the excruciating slapstick pain inflicted on his would-be captors.

As per his picture book, Baby Bink makes his way from the zoo to a park, where he just crawls around unattended and unnoticed, as usual. One lady, with young kids of her own in a stroller, shows some half-assed concern and asks Baby Bink where his Mommy is. Baby Bink, perhaps intentionally conning the poor lady, looks over at a nearby woman reading a book, and each assumes the other is his mother, because every adult in this movie is dangerously stupid and neglectful. The lady with the stroller then just walks away, prompting not the slightest alarm from the other lady reading the book, and Baby Bink once again just crawls away to do his own thing.

Police are no less inept and unreliable than any other ostensible authority figures in this world. Even the police who ultimately help find Baby Bink (including one played by future Republican Senator Fred Thompson, of Die Hard 2 fame) are really only in it for their own cynical ends—solving this highly publicized (yet somehow widely ignored) case makes the department look good. Before that can happen, though, the bad guys actually do manage to recapture Baby Bink in the park, only to be almost immediately approached by police. Eddie quickly hides the baby on his lap beneath his overcoat, which is positioned in such a way that it can only be hiding either a kidnapped baby or an act of public masturbation. Neither possibility apparently fazes the cops, as they watch Eddie squirm and twitch on the park bench while Baby Bink holds the flame of a cigarette lighter on the crotch of his pants… for a few minutes straight! This baby is either a super-genius or a straight-up demon. Either way, he possesses far more advanced motor skills (and sense of humor—he laughs gleefully as he crawls away from the scene of this crotch-arson) than the average infant.

The final showdown takes place after Baby Bink manages to wander into a construction site, where sparks fly everywhere amidst all sorts of heavy, dangerous machinery, and—surprise, surprise—not a single man on-site notices him. They are all, presumably, far too busy with the all-important duties of Industry. One of them even drives a bulldozer directly over the spot where Baby Bink sits heedlessly in the dirt, as if he’s used to flattening small children on the job on such a regular basis that he can’t even be bothered to notice if the damn thing’s not even under the wheels, fer chrissake!

The remainder of this climactic setpiece is basically just fifteen minutes or so of bone-crunching violence offset by a jaunty score and the joyful giggles of a small child. It’s wonderful.

Needing to tie everything up and end the movie, we are informed via the police that someone at each of the stops along Baby Bink’s adventure path has in fact called the police to report seeing an unattended baby (yeah, right), but apparently each of these do-gooders decided that was more than enough, and then just let the baby continue to be on his own. As the cops read a list of locations, Gilbertine realizes that Baby Bink (super-genius that he is) has been following the structure of his picture book, and that she therefore knows where to find him. She, the parents, and the police then ultimately find him at a nursing home, surrounded by old folks who look like they’re being interrupted in the middle of entering a new vessel, Being John Malkovich-style. It’s a mildly creepy moment, but nothing compared to the nihilistic nightmare that has come before. On the ride home, Baby Bink pulls a Lassie and leads the police to the bad guys lair in search of the book he left behind there.

By the end of the movie, the bad guys are absolutely terrified of Baby Bink and, based on all we have seen, we should be, too. We can only hope this infant Einstein will use his extraordinary mental abilities to save a society on the brink of total collapse due to its own blind materialism and apathy—to use them for good instead of evil, in other words. Otherwise the total destruction of society, and perhaps even the extinction of the human race, is sure to come. We should also thank whatever leper messiahs to whom we still semi-ironically pray that the inevitably racist sequel suggested in the final scene—Baby’s Trip to China—was never made.

Ezra Stead is the Head Editor for MoviesIDidn’tGet.com. Ezra is also a screenwriter, actor, filmmaker, rapper, and occasional stand-up comic who has been previously published in print and online, as well as writing, directing and acting in numerous short films and two features. A Minneapolis native, Ezra currently lives in New York City, where he is working on his first novel.

For more information, please contact EzraStead@MoviesIDidntGet.com

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By Mike Shaeffer 

The Sandlot, USA, 1993

Directed by David Mickey Evans

Filmed in Utah, the 1993 coming-of-age film The Sandlot wonderfully captures the summer of 1962 through the eyes of nine middle-school boys, and—in what was certainly a case of life imitating art—this cast of unknowns would later admit that the summer they spent filming this cinematic gem was, indeed, their favorite summer. Just like Simon Birch—another film involving an ill-fated baseball—this story opens with the voice of an adult narrator recalling one of the more memorable chapters from his youth. A good sports drama involves conflict, and the main pickle in this adventure stems from a stepfather’s prized baseball being knocked over the fence of the neighborhood sandlot that plays host to a summer-long baseball game. Normally, a 95-cent baseball would just be replaced, but this ball was autographed by the Sultan of Swat, Babe Ruth, and the neighboring yard is patrolled by a drooling monster of a dog known to the boys as “The Beast.” 

Co-writer, director, and aforementioned narrator David Mickey Evans takes a page out of Ridley Scott’s suspense-building playbook from the original Alien and only provides us with growls, howls, and rattling fences until we are finally given a glance at Hercules, the baseball-collecting English Mastiff belonging to a blind recluse, played by national treasure James Earl Jones (Conan the Barbarian, Dr. Strangelove, and the baseball classic Field of Dreams). Steven Spielberg and a bevy of coy velociraptors would use this taunting trick two months after The Sandlot hit theatres with a little indie flick called Jurassic Park.

But back to the ballpark. Do you know which cast member deserves a pat on the back for his performance? Denis Leary as the aloof stepdad of Scotty “You’re killing me!” Smalls (Tom Guiry). Leary’s performance is the most nuanced and restrained of his career—and he plays a Yankees fan! The Boston-bred comedian is a lifelong Red Sox fan, and to have such a vocal entertainer pull off such a convincing Yankees devotee deserves special recognition. Hats off, sir.

A good sports drama also holds up over time. Who would you guess is older—The Sandlot or Miley Cyrus? Miley is, but only by a couple of months. I have no clue if Miley will be a powerful bit of nostalgia a quarter century from now, but I’ll stick around and find out. Point being, The Sandlot will hold up as well as The Pride of the Yankees (1942), a movie I’ve seen well over twenty times. In decades to come, The Sandlot will age even better than, say, The Bad News Bears, simply because The Sandlot has better characters (“Yeah, yeah”) and the period—the ’60s vs. the ’70s—is captured in a way that reinforces the notion of friendship, teamwork, and a more innocent time.

Of the various baseball movie-ranking charts available online, each one lists The Sandlot in the top ten, with Baseball Almanac giving The Sandlot a favorable number two slot behind Major League. A favorite of mine—overlooked on just about all these online rankers—is Stealing Home with Jodie Foster and Mark Harmon, but other usual suspects include A League of Their Own, Eight Men Out, The Natural (wherein Robert Redford uses Wonderboy to betray Samuel L. Jackson—hail Hydra!), and the Kevin Costner triple play of Field of Dreams, Bull Durham, and The Untouchables (granted, DeNiro only brandished a bat in one scene, but what a scene; to round out a baseball trifecta, this easily edges out Costner’s For Love of the Game—with apologies to Sam Raimi).

Before arriving at the movie’s main conflict, the neighborhood rascals discover the nauseating effects of mixing chewing tobacco with a Tilt-a-Whirl ride. (A little IMDb trivia: the tobaccus vomitus was a combination of chewed-up beef jerky and licorice—almost as tasty as real chaw.) There is also a desperate scene where the myopic Squints (Chauncey Leopardi) fakes drowning in the deep end of the local pool, just to receive mouth-to-mouth resuscitation by the lifeguard of his dreams, Wendy Peffercorn (Marlee Shelton). There is also some genuinely funny trash-talking throughout—“Is that your sister in right field? Is she naked?”—and some earnest camaraderie among the sluggers that transcends time.

Does the band of brothers retrieve the Babe Ruth baseball and conquer Hercules? If you haven’t seen the movie, I’m not here to spoil that pickle. But I can tell you that, when you consider the most menacing dogs of the cinema, Cujo barely cuts it. The correct order is:

10. Ray Harryhausen’s animated Cerberus from Clash of the Titans

9. Cujo (Stephen King’s canines get double entries on this list—see #5).

8. Gozer the Gozerian’s guard dogs from the original Ghostbusters

7. Damien’s hounds from The Omen

6. Bunny from Hudson Hawk

5. Chomper from Stand By Me

4. Milo from The Mask

3. Hercules aka “The Beast” from The Sandlot

2. Puffy from There’s Something About Mary

1. Umbrella Corporation’s Dobermans from Resident Evil

On behalf of the fine writers and cinephiles here at MIDG, enjoy the rest of your summer, steer clear of the chewing tobacco, and try not to get into any pickles.

Mike Shaeffer is a slam poet, playwright, director, and English teacher who lives in Fairbanks, AK.

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By Ezra Stead 

The Little Hours, Canada / USA, 2017

Written and Directed by Jeff Baena

Comedy and horror are the two most difficult genres to successfully pull off, because what makes us laugh—just like what scares us—is highly subjective. Even nearly universally acclaimed works in either genre will inevitably have their detractors, as some [backwards-thinking idiots] might not think last year’s The VVitch is scary, while other [no-fun jerks] might not find Anchorman funny, for example. I myself have been informed by numerous people that they find the sketch show Portlandia “hilarious,” though, having personally witnessed the entire first season, I don’t see how this can possibly be true.

Based on the reactions of the admittedly small crowd with me at a recent screening of The Little Hours, this is apparently a pretty funny movie, though I honestly felt like most of the laughter I heard was somewhat forced, as if the other moviegoers were just going through the expected motions when they could tell a joke had just been attempted onscreen, flat as it might have fallen. Maybe it was the only way they could feel as if they’d gotten their money’s worth; I don’t know. I never laughed once, and it pains me to say that because there are a number of gifted comedic talents involved. 

The closest I came to genuine mirth was the second of two scenes featuring Portlandia’s own Fred Armisen, and by then it was far too little, too late. His first appearance onscreen was met with immediate laughter by many of my not-so-fellow moviegoers, even before he had spoken a line of dialogue, which is one of many reasons I suspect their laughter was forced.

Armisen’s cameo is just a last-ditch effort to inject a little life into a movie that was already dead when the opening credits rolled. Adopting the style and font of a prestige period-drama about the Middle Ages, the opening titles appear over a series of shots of a nun played by Aubrey Plaza leading a donkey through the countryside. When she meets with fellow nun Kate Micucci, their contemporary American parlance and liberal use of modern curse words is juxtaposed with the stuffy art-house vibe in a way that is jarring, but unfortunately not, ya know… funny.

This juxtaposition of profane modern dialogue with the production design and self-seriousness of a period-drama accounts for roughly half of The Little Hours’ supposed humor. A particularly predictable and sweaty example of this is an overlong scene in which James Franco’s much less charismatic brother Dave gives a self-consciously bawdy confession to a priest played by John C. Reilly (who is always great, but never has the disparity between his talents and the quality of the material for which he is employing them been more vast). Writer-director Jeff Baena seems to think graphic sexual descriptions in a confessional setting are just the height of comedy—right up there with nuns saying the F-word—when, in fact, both are actually down there somewhere around “rapping grannies” on the spectrum of humor.

The other half of this dismal slog’s would-be chuckles come from various characters hiding awkwardly, or failing in their attempts to do so, which is tiresome from its first instance and becomes nigh unbearable before the mercifully brief 90-mnute running time has expired. At a certain point near the middle, I actually began to wonder if—despite the casting choices, marketing, and everything I’d been led to expect—maybe this movie wasn’t even meant to be a comedy. However, if that were the case, it would still lack the necessary components to build a good movie of any other genre.

Suffice to say, if you find Portlandia funny, you’ll probably like this, too… and I can’t relate to your sense of humor at all.

Ezra Stead is the Head Editor for MoviesIDidn’tGet.com. Ezra is also a screenwriter, actor, filmmaker, rapper, and occasional stand-up comic who has been previously published in print and online, as well as writing, directing and acting in numerous short films and two features. A Minneapolis native, Ezra currently lives in New York City, where he is working on his first novel.

For more information, please contact EzraStead@MoviesIDidntGet.com

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By Ezra Stead 

Dunkirk, UK/France/Netherland/USA, 2017

Written and Directed by Christopher Nolan

There are two points I should address by way of prefacing this review. One is the fact that I have spent the better part of the past year being underwhelmed by this movie. Ever since the first teaser trailers began to surface, I’ve been thinking things like, “Well, I’m sure I’ll see it,” and, “It’ll undoubtedly be good, but…” No matter how I tried, I just couldn’t work up any real enthusiasm for it. It’s not that I’m not a Christopher Nolan fan, it’s just that this one didn’t appear to have any magicians, dream detectives, or… Batmans in it, so it was already at a disadvantage when it came to subject matter.

I say this just to make it understood that my feelings about Dunkirk are not disappointment. The movie absolutely delivers what the trailers promised, it’s just that, for this reviewer, that was nothing particularly compelling. If you saw those trailers and were immediately excited to see the movie as soon as possible, well… obviously, you’ve seen the movie by now, and I’m sure you loved it. There is nothing for you in the remainder of this review but frustration and rage. Fair warning. 

The other point to address is this: no, I didn’t see it in IMAX. According to the gospel, this is “the only way” to see Dunkirk, out of the four or five different options actually available. I did see it on 70 mm film, which I believe is considered the second-best way, and I did not enjoy it at all. I can’t emphasize that enough. So, unless the extra frame space of the IMAX format somehow magically imbued the story or characters with anything approaching real interest, I’m pretty sure I saw the same movie that all the IMAX acolytes did, minus that little extra something that tricked them all into thinking it’s a masterpiece.

On a technical level, Dunkirk is undeniably impressive, and I’m sure that effect is doubled by the full immersion of the IMAX experience, but if that sort of total immersion is required in order to enjoy the movie at all, how great a movie can it really be? I’m reminded of Gravity, which was supposedly meant to be seen in both IMAX and 3D, or Avatar, which was a groundbreaking use of the 3D technology, and which undoubtedly loses some of its magic in any smaller-scale, 2D format. In both of these cases, after the initial razzle-dazzle of the theatrical experience wears off, the viewer is left with a couple of fairly mediocre stories (though both far more compelling than Dunkirk), and not a lot of actual replay value. If the only way to truly enjoy a movie is in its biggest, most prohibitively expensive theatrical format, then that is simply not a timeless movie.

When you get beyond the razzle-dazzle of Dunkirk, there is basically nothing to recommend it. Even the most favorable reviews I’ve seen note that there is almost nothing in the way of character development or plot, before practically tripping over themselves to praise its technical verisimilitude. I’m not saying the movie needs a love story, or some sort of vengeance narrative, or a lot of big speechifying of the sort you see in most war movies; the respite from cliché is actually somewhat refreshing, or it would be if there was anything compelling in place of the clichés. Instead, it’s mostly just a lot of interchangeable British soldiers either dying (off-screen and/or bloodlessly, as this is a PG-13 war movie, after all, much as that is a thing that shouldn’t exist) or being afraid of dying. It has a lot in common with Terrence Malick’s similarly dull (and overrated) The Thin Red Line, which seems far from coincidental; Dunkirk feels like the kind of movie that craves Malick comparisons.

Another technically accomplished but incredibly dull movie Dunkirk calls to mind is Martin Scorsese’s Silence, which was also a long-delayed passion project by an almost universally acclaimed filmmaker. I’m glad that these artists got to make the movies they’d so long envisioned; I just didn’t enjoy either one even slightly. In both cases (and in the case of The Thin Red Line, for that matter), I understand on an objective, intellectual level that what I’m seeing onscreen is the height of cinematic craft, a work by a true master filmmaker at the top of his game… and I could not care less, because my gut-level intuition tells me that I am bored to tears.

Perhaps I really did miss a unique opportunity by not seeing this one in IMAX. There certainly were moments in the movie—particularly the fighter pilot sequences—that seemed like, in that fully immersive format, Dunkirk might be a hell of a ride. It’s just not much of a movie.

Ezra Stead is the Head Editor for MoviesIDidn’tGet.com. Ezra is also a screenwriter, actor, filmmaker, rapper, and occasional stand-up comic who has been previously published in print and online, as well as writing, directing and acting in numerous short films and two features. A Minneapolis native, Ezra currently lives in New York City, where he is working on his first novel.

For more information, please contact EzraStead@MoviesIDidntGet.com

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By Ezra Stead 

Brigsby Bear, USA, 2017

Directed by Dave McCary

Though Dogtooth certainly has its dark sense of humor, one wouldn’t expect a movie about an abducted child raised in an isolated, hermetically sealed world based on lies to be a comedy. This type of premise has yielded great results as emotionally devastating drama, as in the rightfully acclaimed Room, or intense psychological suspense, as in the by-and-large underrated 10 Cloverfield Lane (not about a child abduction, but dealing with similar ideas in terms of the nature of the protagonist’s captivity). Despite these and some other obvious comparison points, though, veteran Saturday Night Live director Dave McCary’s feature debut, Brigsby Bear, is a wonderfully original, sincere, and idiosyncratic movie that manages to not only earn cruelty-free laughs from an inherently unsettling subject, but also to make a larger point about the very nature of art and entertainment, without being annoyingly meta about it. 

Though McCary deserves credit for his work as director, Brigsby Bear belongs, above all, to its co-writer and star, Kyle Mooney (also an alum of SNL, as are many of the supporting players). Abducted as a young boy by Ted and April Mitchum (Mark Hamill and Jane Adams), Mooney’s character, James Pope, has grown to adulthood under their constant supervision in an isolated bunker out in the California desert. Helping to raise him all this time has been a children’s television program called Brigsby Bear Adventures, new episodes of which arrive each week on VHS tapes, despite the post-apocalyptic conditions that have supposedly made it impossible to leave the bunker without a gas mask. James even discusses Brigsby Bear Adventures in online forums with other fans out there somewhere in bunkers of their own, but when police finally find and rescue James near the beginning of the movie, he soon learns that those other fans were really just Ted and April all along. In fact, Ted has been making Brigsby Bear Adventures exclusively for James’s viewing. No one else in the world has ever seen the only TV show he has ever known even existed.

Another movie that provides a comparison point here is, of course, The Truman Show, but the main difference lies in how each protagonist reacts to the big reveal; whereas Truman wanted to get out of the show and live his own authentic life, James feels somewhat lost without Brigsby Bear Adventures, and determines to make his own feature film conclusion to this sprawling fantasy saga with which he’s been obsessed for his entire life. Much like Tommy Wiseau’s The Room (never thought I’d be mentioning that and the Oscar-winning Room within the same review), or Birdemic, the low-budget weirdness of Brigsby Bear Adventures garners the interest of people like Spencer (Jorge Lendeborg, Jr.), a friend of James’s sister, Aubrey (Ryan Simpkins), and Detective Vogel (Greg Kinnear), the cop in charge of James’s rescue from the Mitchums.

The infectious charm of the “bad-good” Brigsby Bear Adventures program is only part of what Brigsby Bear has to say about art, though. When James’s real father, Greg (Matt Walsh), finds out Detective Vogel is helping James make his own Brigsby Bear adventure, he is initially upset because the show was a tool used to keep James captive for so long, and to manipulate his behavior. This is the key to what the movie is really saying, because all of entertainment and media is, in fact, this same double-edged sword. Yes, Brigsby Bear Adventures was used to manipulate James and keep him docile, but it was also the one thing that comforted him and made life worthwhile. In a way, this is true of any movie or TV show we value in the real world; sure, it’s manipulating our emotions in order to influence our decisions (especially financial ones—some prominent product placement in Brigsby Bear itself had me craving a Coke), but it’s also giving us insights into our own lives, and thereby making those lives better. Greg is right to be concerned about the negative effects of James’s obsession, but Detective Vogel is also right to help him pursue it, because maybe the healthiest thing he can do is to use the inspiration from his favorite work of art to make something inspiring of his own.

This is what makes Brigsby Bear such a wonderful, life-affirming movie—the way it reminds us that, in all of life’s darkness and confusion, sometimes the very best we can do is to bring people together in order to make something cool.

Ezra Stead is the Head Editor for MoviesIDidn’tGet.com. Ezra is also a screenwriter, actor, filmmaker, rapper, and occasional stand-up comic who has been previously published in print and online, as well as writing, directing and acting in numerous short films and two features. A Minneapolis native, Ezra currently lives in New York City, where he is working on his first novel.

For more information, please contact EzraStead@MoviesIDidntGet.com

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By Ezra Stead 

It, USA, 2017

Directed by Andy Muschietti

The 1990 TV movie adaptation of Stephen King’s wildly ambitious 1986 novel It has always had a place in the hearts of folks my age (we’re apparently known as “Xennials” now) much like that reserved for The Goonies. This love for both movies exists in us for the same reason: simple nostalgia. Unless you first saw both of them at a young, impressionable age, it might be too late now. For anyone remembering the It miniseries as genuinely scary, watch it again; it’s far more unintentionally funny. With the advances in special effects technology over the past 27 years, though, and without the restrictions imposed by television network standards, the new theatrical take on King’s novel fills the void quite nicely for those who want to be genuinely frightened by a movie about a bunch of misfit preteens facing down a murderous clown-monster. 

Andy Muschietti’s new adaptation does something right that the recently released (and somewhat underrated) Dark Tower movie got wrong. Instead of trying to cram everything appealing about a huge, sprawling King saga into one movie—as some kind of misguided attempt at a safeguard against the sort of failed franchise-starter we got with The Golden Compass ten years ago, for example—Muschietti and his trio of screenwriters have opted for a more thorough—though certainly not completely faithful—adaptation of roughly half the book, taking the slim chance that the rest of the story might not ever be told (Chapter Two has, of course, already been greenlit).

The split makes sense and works well, even though we regretfully lose some of the emotional resonance found in the book’s parallels between the characters as children versus as the adults they have become. In a way, with the adult sections of the story removed, what remains is kind of like Stand By Me with supernatural elements, and it’s pretty much as awesome as that sounds. To be fair, it also has a lot in common with Stranger Things, comparisons to which will not be lessened by the fact that they share a star in the incredibly named Finn Wolfhard (who plays Richie Tozier here), but that’s obviously a case of the same King novel influencing both projects, albeit in a less direct way for Things.

Some of the characters—particularly Bill Denbrough (Jaeden Lieberher of last year’s Midnight Special) and Beverly Marsh (Sophia Lillis, a very promising newcomer)—are better developed than others—most notably Mike Hanlon (Chosen Jacobs), who becomes rather the most important one of all as an adult, but has far too little to do here—and at least one is seemingly dispatched before the end of the movie, despite playing a significant role in the second half of the book, but the visual effects and scary setpieces are top-notch.

Signs that the movie is going to get more right than it does wrong abound right from the start. The opening chapter of the book is faithfully represented, right down to the horrifying loss of little Georgie Denbrough’s arm to Pennywise in the sewer, a traumatic moment that had to be softened for television. The brutality of this opening sequence lets us know right away that punches will not be pulled here; this is a real, hardcore, actually scary movie for grown-ups.

It’s hard to argue against the fact that the TV miniseries version’s greatest strength was its Pennywise, the evil clown played with alternating charisma and glowering menace by the great Tim Curry. The new Pennywise, as played by Bill Skarsgard, leans much more heavily on the menacing side. With the exception of that first scene, in which he speaks to Georgie from inside the sewer, he rarely seems to even be attempting charm. Whatever the performance lacks in nuance compared to Curry’s, though, it’s certainly a solid turn (a downright relieving one for anyone who saw his work in the dreadful Hemlock Grove and worried that he might singlehandedly ruin this movie), and with the aid of lighting, editing, and visual effects, this Pennywise gets a number of really terrifying moments that even a great performance like Curry’s couldn’t achieve on its own. It also doesn’t hurt that this version’s tone is far less campy than its predecessor’s.

One of the book’s greatest strengths that is largely missing from both adaptations is the sense of the town of Derry itself being corrupted by “It,” the mysterious monster most frequently seen in the form of a clown. There’s a hint of it in the lack of concern shown by an elderly couple as they drive by Mike being bullied by three older boys, but that particular idea is not easily translated to the cinematic medium. Likewise, the leader of the three bullies, Henry Bowers (Nicholas Hamilton, strangely reminiscent of a very young Kevin Bacon in the role), is gradually corrupted and driven insane by Pennywise’s influence throughout the book, whereas he already seems pretty murderous from the start here. There are also certain omissions and narrative choices that might not make sense to anyone lacking a familiarity with the source material, but, all in all, the movie gets way too much right for me not to embrace it.

Surprisingly, one of the main things it gets right is a major, highly controversial moment from the novel being completely excised. Some of you know exactly what I’m referring to. For the rest, say what you will against this movie if you don’t end up liking it, but be glad It spared you the infamous sewer sex scene.

Ezra Stead is the Head Editor for MoviesIDidn’tGet.com. Ezra is also a screenwriter, actor, filmmaker, rapper, and occasional stand-up comic who has been previously published in print and online, as well as writing, directing and acting in numerous short films and two features. A Minneapolis native, Ezra currently lives in New York City, where he is working on his first novel.

For more information, please contact EzraStead@MoviesIDidntGet.com

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By Ezra Stead 

As always, I am not finished almost exclusively watching horror movies for the year, nor will I be once Halloween night has come and gone; this will likely continue throughout November. However, in the interest of providing this list with some sort of seasonal relevance, now is the time to tell you about a handful of the movies I’ve watched so far in this, the best of all possible seasons. As it happens, this year I ended up watching a high percentage of iconic franchise entries, so, forsaking some other great ones I discovered that don’t fit into this category (Pretty Poison and The Blackcoat’s Daughter in particular are a couple of real gems), let’s take a look at some noteworthy sequels, in the order in which I viewed them.

CULT OF CHUCKY—I don’t think any horror franchise in movie history has reinvented itself so drastically as this one. The success of the original Child’s Play (1988) led to two more of the same, basically, before series mastermind Don Mancini took it into full meta-comedy mode with Bride of Chucky in 1998, following that up with the unfairly maligned Seed of Chucky in 2004. Curse of Chucky came along in 2013 to bring the series back to real horror, with fewer nudges and winks, and with this latest entry, Mancini has struck the perfect balance, and made the best Chucky movie since Bride, at least. It’s rare for the seventh entry in a franchise to be this good.

THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE 2—speaking of franchise reinvention, this 12-years-later sequel to one of the most unassailable classics of the genre is an interesting case of “the more things change…” From its opening scene to its Breakfast Club-parodying poster art, all indications are that this one is playing the mayhem for laughs, much as franchises like A Nightmare on Elm Street and the aforementioned Chucky would do in their later entries. However, it’s really just not very funny; it’s more like the kind of thing the insane, self-mutilating hitchhiker from the first film would find funny. Most of this supposed comic relief comes from Bill Moseley as Leatherface’s brother, “Chop-Top,” but, again, it’s more grotesque and grating than actually funny. The onscreen gore is ramped up considerably from the first entry (some of Tom Savini’s best work, which is saying a lot), but the presumably higher budget actually hurts the overall scare quotient, since a lot of the original film’s impact came from its almost documentary-style realism, especially in that legendary first appearance of Leatherface. All in all, this one is a big step down, but still an interesting oddity in its own right.

PSYCHO II—this is the only one of the five on this list I had seen before, albeit so long ago I only really remembered two particularly gory moments. I’m pleased to report it holds up extremely well and is, in fact, my favorite one on this list. Though it was released over 20 years after the original, director Richard Franklin and screenwriter Tom Holland (director and co-writer of the original Child’s Play, among others) fully embrace the pulp sensibility Hitchcock intended with a wonderfully trashy story of revenge and mental instability unencumbered by the original’s unwanted respectability (and featuring a young Dennis Franz in the part he was born to play: sleaze personified). This is truly a movie meant “to make people scream and yell,” just as the Master always wanted.

SAW VI—I often affectionately refer to horror as “my disreputable genre” (as in the phrase—to be uttered in a slightly defensive tone—“I love my disreputable genre”), and nothing is more disreputable than the Saw franchise. Well, maybe not nothing; I’m pretty sure even Saw fans mock devotees of the Human Centipede movies. Whatever, I’ve seen all three of those, and now I’m only two movies away from finishing the Saw series (or at least catching up, for now). In both cases, one is enough for most mentally healthy people, but while I watched the second and third Human Centipede with far more morbid curiosity and mild shame, I have to admit I genuinely enjoy the Saw movies. They really tap into a dark, vindictive part of human nature, something possessed in greater quantities by some of us than others. The farther along you get in the series, the less plausible the plotting becomes, but even the lesser movies (i.e. the ones after the first three) deliver exactly what you’ve come to see. You sick bastard.

HELLRAISER: INFERNO—as a huge fan of crazy-ass monsters, I’ve always held the Hellraiser franchise in high regard, and of course I also love Clive Barker’s Nightbreed for the exact same reason, so what a delight it was to see Nightbreed star Craig Sheffer in this one, not to mention the always great James Remar. I can’t properly evaluate this one’s place in the entire series because that series is massive and I’m barely halfway through it, but I would probably personally rank this one second only to the original. Now it remains to be seen if the sixth one can top it.

Happy Halloween!

Ezra Stead is the Head Editor for MoviesIDidn’tGet.com. Ezra is also a screenwriter, actor, filmmaker, rapper, and occasional stand-up comic who has been previously published in print and online, as well as writing, directing and acting in numerous short films and two features. A Minneapolis native, Ezra currently lives in New York City, where he is working on his first novel.

For more information, please contact EzraStead@MoviesIDidntGet.com

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By Ezra Stead

How the Grinch Stole Christmas, USA/Germany, 2000

Directed by Ron Howard

Several times while watching the Ron Howard-directed How the Grinch Stole Christmas, I found myself wondering, “Who is this even for?” At 105 minutes, it’s a bit on the long side for kids small enough to actually enjoy Jim Carrey’s manic, over-the-top turn as the title character, and the whole thing is far too ugly and irritating for older kids, let alone adults. On the other hand, my niece (aged six) and nephew (aged ten) say they love it, and it was released long enough ago that I also have adult friends who remember it fondly. I do know who it’s not for, however, and that is the grumpy old Grinch writing this review, as this is decidedly a Movie I Didn’t Get. 

The first time I found myself questioning just who was the intended audience for this nigh-unwatchable mess was early on, when little Cindy Lou Who (Taylor Momsen) has her own plaintive, “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”-style musical number. The song is in no way memorable or interesting, and it underscores the fatal miscalculations running rampant throughout the production. Obviously a feature film based on a 26-minute cartoon (which was, itself, padded out from a very slim children’s book, albeit with far more charm and wit) is going to need some filler, but why didn’t anyone involved that 80 minutes (with no terrible new songs) would have been plenty?

The other big problem with this version’s portrayal of Cindy Lou (which is also in no way Momsen’s fault) is not so much a problem with her as it is with the rest of the Whos—namely, the fact that they’re a bunch of hideous rat-monsters. The Oscar-winning makeup effects by the legendary Rick Baker are impressively seamless, but Baker is best at creating monstrosities, like the werewolves of The Howling and An American Werewolf in London, or the… alternate-universe Eddie Murphies of The Nutty Professor and Norbit. This is not necessarily the guy you go to for cute and cuddly. For whatever reason, Howard and Baker opted to leave Cindy Lou unscathed by the facial prosthetics employed for the rest of the Whos, but this ultimately renders her appearance more distracting than charming.

The Grinch himself is a bit more in Baker’s wheelhouse, but even here the question is apparent: why try to recreate the look and feel of a Chuck Jones cartoon in live-action when the Chuck Jones cartoon was already pretty much perfection itself? It could be worthwhile to riff on it in the same creatively subversive way Joe Dante did the Looney Tunes universe in his masterpiece, Gremlins 2: The New Batch, but this is just a soulless, painfully unfunny retread, padded out with abysmal, seemingly interminable, and entirely gratuitous backstory. You see, this Grinch is a Smeagol/Gollum-like creation, driven to his present garbage-monster status by the cruelty of the Whos themselves, which, coupled with the horrendous character designs, make one sort of inclined to root for the Grinch. Or it would, if the Grinch himself weren’t so aggressively off-putting.

Make no mistake, this is Carrey at his most frenetically unlikeable, a performance for those who found his turn as the Riddler in Batman Forever too subtle and cerebral (beginning with The Mask in 1994, this could be viewed as the long-awaited end of Carrey’s “Green Trilogy,” and the absolute nadir of same). I was 16 or 17 years old when this movie was filming, and nowhere near the set, but I’m pretty sure the only direction Howard could have possibly given Carrey throughout the shoot was a passionately shouted “MORE!!!” Possibly while throwing cocaine at him like Frank Costello in The Departed.

This is not a case of mere disappointment on my part, or undue reverence toward a classic; I’m certainly a fan of the original Chuck Jones version, and my expectations for this one had been suitably lowered by its reputation long before finally checking it out for myself, but nothing could have prepared me for how relentlessly unappealing and charmless this movie is. The only bright spots are lifted directly from Jones’s version, then promptly ruined and served up like a “delicious” meal made from the remains of a cherished family pet accidentally run over in the driveway.

Then again, my beloved niece and nephew adamantly prefer this version, so I must do my best to maintain some sort of faith in the nation’s youth in spite of that fact.

Ezra Stead is the Head Editor for MoviesIDidn’tGet.com. Ezra is also a screenwriter, actor, filmmaker, rapper, and occasional stand-up comic who has been previously published in print and online, as well as writing, directing and acting in numerous short films and two features. A Minneapolis native, Ezra currently lives in New York City, where he is working on his first novel.

For more information, please contact EzraStead@MoviesIDidntGet.com

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By Ezra Stead 

These choices don’t get any easier to make year after year, but I do become increasingly more aware of just how inconsequential they really are. I certainly hope no one reading this takes my opinions any more seriously than I do. Anyway, this year I managed to see 125 new releases, so this top ten plus the 20 constitutes roughly the top 25% of all that I saw. Just know that I really liked even more movies than that, which might account for all the superhero and/or “space battle” movies you might be shaking your fist at me for not including. I’ve also included my three least favorite movies of 2017 at the end, because life’s too short to not make fun of bad movies. Let’s do this thing! 

1. GET OUT—Who knew the debut horror film by a sketch comedian would end up being the best movie of the year? I mean, anyone who watched Key and Peele knew Jordan Peele was a talented writer with a particularly keen sense of satire, but when I heard he was making a horror movie, I thought it would be an interesting novelty, maybe an above-average horror-comedy at best. From the opening scene, though, it’s clear that this is legitimate horror first, scathingly brilliant social commentary as a close second, and comic relief only a distant third (mainly relegated to Lil Rel Howery’s excellent supporting role). Peele has called his debut feature a “social thriller,” and it’s the best kind of social issues movie: one that delivers its message via an incredibly gripping and absorbing story, thereby reaching far more people than a direct polemic ever could. With influences ranging from The Stepford Wives to Being John Malkovich, Get Out is nonetheless an excitingly original vision that I have little doubt will be talked about for years to come. Peele is on top of the game right now, but I don’t envy him the impossibly high expectations he’s raised for his second feature (just kidding, of course I do).

2. THE FLORIDA PROJECT—I could tell from the trailer that this was going to be one of the most beautiful movies of the year, and it did not disappoint. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a more convincing, resonant portrayal of childhood in poverty—the sweat, the mischief, the endless waiting for nothing. From the first frame, the children in this movie are delightful, and the level of realism writer-director Sean Baker achieves is remarkable. So, too, is Willem Dafoe as Bobby, the property manager who acts as a sort of surrogate uncle to the kids who live (though never establish permanent residence) in the budget motel he oversees, but the movie really belongs to those kids, especially the wonderful Brooklynn Kimberly Prince as Moonee. Words really can’t do justice to this heartbreaking, hilarious, exceptionally human film.

3. MOTHER!—Unlike The Florida Project, this is a movie whose trailer gave me almost no idea what to expect, and judging by the divisive response, I’m guessing I was not alone. Truth be told, there was really no way to properly market this insane gem, and Jennifer Lawrence fans expecting a new starring vehicle for Katniss Everdeen can be forgiven for not knowing what to make of this one. Fans of Darren Aronofsky—the visionary director of Pi, The Fountain, and Black Swan (just to name the three I find most similar to this one, in various ways)—may have been slightly more prepared. However one comes to it, though, Mother! is not an easily digested movie, and one that practically demands repeat viewings, unpleasant as it certainly is to watch at times. The Biblical allegory is the most apparent and easiest way into the rich layers of meaning contained within the narrative, but it also has fascinating insights into environmental catastrophe, domestic partnerships, separating art from the artist, and the very nature of creation and destruction. It’s one of the most brilliant and daring monstrosities ever released by a major Hollywood studio.

4. BRIGSBY BEAR—This is (unofficially) the best Saturday Night Live movie since Wayne’s World. Of course, it doesn’t really count, since the characters and story weren’t first developed on the late-night sketch-comedy institution, but a good deal of talent both onscreen and off came from there, so I like to think of it that way. Anyway, read my full review here.

5. IT—Both of my regular readers know what a Stephen King fanatic I am, so this shouldn’t surprise either of you. Despite its flaws, this is the best theatrically released King adaptation in a long time, and it could be just the beginning of something really special if Chapter Two lives up to the promise of this one. Full review here.

6. JOHN WICK CHAPTER 2—Speaking of living up to high expectations established by a terrific first movie…. This is, no hyperbole, one of the all-time great second entries in a franchise, doing everything a worthy sequel should do: upping the ante, further developing the world and its characters, and setting up nigh-impossible expectations for the next one. The fight scenes are mesmerizing; I could watch Keanu Reeves demolish people with his bare hands and their own guns all day. Beyond the fights, though, the secret underground world of assassins is expanded here in ways that are just glorious to behold, including a certain franchise-hopping reunion on a rooftop that should bring a smile to even the most weathered, blood-spattered face. Here’s hoping the legendary emcee Common returns as Cassian in Chapter 3!

7. LADY BIRD—I was frankly shocked by how much I ended up loving this movie. There are just so many ways it could have gone wrong and turned out cutesy, or trite, or too obvious, and it avoids every pitfall by just staying genuine and true. I also just wasn’t really expecting it to be so damn funny. It’s quietly heartbreaking in equal measure, but never maudlin and always authentic. From the hilarious cold open to the guest speaker in the gymnasium, this is a movie for everyone who was ever a rebellious, overly dramatic teenager (which is to say, a teenager). One thing I love is the way writer-director Greta Gerwig deftly sidesteps any lazy villainous characterizations. There are no bad guys in this movie; Marion McPherson (Laurie Metcalf, in a career-defining performance) may lean too heavily into the whole “tough love” thing at times, and Lady Bird (Saoirse Ronan, also phenomenal) herself is kind of a pain in the ass at other times, but they are fully realized, wholly believable people with real love and affection between them. What’s really miraculous is how the movie’s supporting characters receive equally empathetic treatments, especially Lois Smith as the coolest nun at Lady Bird’s Catholic high school, and Stephen McKinley Henderson as the saddest priest.

8. BRAWL IN CELL BLOCK 99—I hope you didn’t think I went soft on you just because I teared up a little writing that last entry. Let’s get into the staggering brutality of S. Craig Zahler’s neo-grindhouse masterpiece. It’s a slow burn (fans of Zahler’s also excellent debut Bone Tomahawk know that means anything but dull), but if you’re not hooked from the moment Vince Vaughn’s Bradley Thomas tears apart a car with his bare hands, this one might not be for you. Bradley is a calmly efficient killing machine, but a smart and principled one, and Vaughn’s pivot away from his usual sarcastic motormouth persona is impressive; he’s really never been more convincing than he is here. The title’s similarity to John Carpenter’s classic Assault on Precinct 13 is no coincidence, as Zahler is perhaps the most worthy heir to Carpenter’s throne who’s come along yet, which is to say he’s one of the most exciting filmmakers currently working. The title of his next feature is Dragged Across Concrete, which indicates he’s not planning to water down the elements that make this one so great in the slightest.

9. COCO—At this point, Pixar movies come with a reasonable expectation of extreme quality, but even with that in mind, this is some top-tier work, a movie that manages to feel really intimate and personal while simultaneously being really big and extravagant. It really kicks into gear when Miguel (Anthony Gonzalez), the aspiring-musician protagonist, finds himself in the Land of the Dead, a simply gorgeous vision of brightly colored cityscapes, living alebrijes (spirit-guide animals), and multiple Frida Kahlo impersonators. Miguel’s alebrije, accompanying him from the land of the living, is a dog named Dante (get it?), and he is one of the great onscreen canines of history. Wisely, the filmmakers did not imbue him with speech; he is all the more charming without it.

10. GERALD’S GAME—This is my oddball pick for the year, a movie that is probably not on anyone else’s list or mind at this point, but I think it’s terrific. Director Mike Flanagan has become one of my favorite new filmmakers over the last few years, beginning with the surprisingly great Oculus in 2013 and culminating in 2016’s Hush, of which I felt vindicated in my opinion after I heard Stephen King loved it at least as much as I did. In many ways, Flanagan’s adaptation of King’s novel in this movie is a more perfect adaptation even than It; he captures the narrative perfectly, right down to its not insignificant flaws (primarily in the denouement). Those flaws take it down a few pegs, but great performances from Carla Gugino and Bruce Greenwood, as well as some incredibly striking images, keep it afloat. As scary as It is, this movie has the most frightening moment I saw all year, as well as one of the most viscerally hard to watch (there’s really no missing either one of these moments).

THE BEST OF THE REST (in alphabetical order): Baby Driver; The Big Sick; Blade Runner 2049; Colossal; Detroit; The Disaster Artist; The Girl with All the Gifts; Good Time; I, Tonya; Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond—Featuring a Very Special, Contractually Obligated Mention of Tony Clifton; Kong: Skull Island; Raw; The Salesman; The Shape of Water; Split; Strong Island; Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri; Vore King; Walking Out; Your Name.

WORST MOVIES OF 2017:

1. THE LITTLE HOURS—Painfully unfunny period farce, made all the more painful by the wealth of talent involved. I’ve wasted too much ink on it already. Read my full review here.

2. MAYHEM—This movie feels like it was directed by a guy whose favorite movies are The Boondock Saints and Wanted, and who only realized after cutting all his footage together that it was horribly incoherent, so he brought his lead actor back to record a bunch of expository voice-over. This gambit did not pay off. Seriously, even beyond the near-constant voice-over (you think it’s gonna end after the first five minutes or so, but it just keeps going and going), at least half of the actual dialogue is also clunky exposition, and the other half is just threats shouted with GREAT! INTENSITY! Walking Dead fans who miss Glenn and just want to see Steven Yeun all covered in blood again might get some enjoyment out of this, but anyone else intrigued by the premise is advised to watch last year’s vastly superior The Belko Experiment instead.

3. THE SNOWMAN—Watching the opening credits, I couldn’t help but wonder if this movie could really be as bad as its reputation. The names of the people involved, even beyond Michael Fassbender… Charlotte Gainsbourg, Chloe Sevigny, Toby Jones, J.K. Simmons, freaking Val Kilmer? In a production directed by the guy who made Let the Right One In and cut by Scorsese’s favorite editor, Thelma Schoonmaker? No way this movie’s not awesome, right? Well, sad to say, it’s not. Most of the aforementioned actors are really just glorified cameos, with a lot of them speaking in accents that may or may not make any sense given the story’s locale (at any rate, they’re certainly not super-consistent), and the good things about the production are drastically undermined by the way the whole thing just screams, “We’ll fix it in post!” Far too many scenes are carried by some of the sloppiest, most obvious ADR work I’ve ever seen, and did I mention the main character’s name is Harry Hole? It is. Just like it sounded in your head when you read that. With the talent and resources involved taken into account, this has to be technically one of the worst movies ever made, which is what makes so much of it perversely enjoyable. Let’s just call it the best of the worst.

Ezra Stead is the Head Editor for MoviesIDidn’tGet.com. Ezra is also a screenwriter, actor, filmmaker, rapper, and occasional stand-up comic who has been previously published in print and online, as well as writing, directing and acting in numerous short films and two features. A Minneapolis native, Ezra currently lives in New York City, where he is working on his first novel.

For more information, please contact EzraStead@MoviesIDidntGet.com

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