Made 2001 / Astronaut's Daughter 1999 / The Ninth Gate 1999 / Waking Life 2001

Made is the first film directed by Jon Favreau, the longtime character actor who became an indie darling when he wrote and starred in Swingers. While it becomes obvious the directing of Swingers by Doug Liman was possibly the real reason Swingers worked, Favreau and his Swingers co-star Vince Vaughn recapture some of the old magic. Vaughn deserves most of the credit with his self-deprecating comedic improvising and Favreau gets credit for knowing how to support his star and humanize the rather plotless, pointless story. Its all saved with some smooth cinematography and a sincere working class sentimental gritty romanticism. Its a bit of a waste of some veteran & future acting stars, but its a very enjoyable directorial debut if still a disappointing sophomore script.

Astronaut's Daughter is a bad mega budget high concept ripoff of Rosemary's Baby and Hitchcock's Suspicion. Pre-fame Charlize Theron carries the evil baby of peak-fame Johnny Depp's alien-possessed astronaut. Its full of genre cliches, Depp's horrid fake Southern accent and stylized but braindead commercial directing. I still think its a high kitsch affair that is enjoyable. The DP and Production Designer are the true stars and the whole affair is a great mirror of moody Y2K shallowness and pop culture nostalgia. Also, given recent allegations of Depp's domestic abuse and his all-but-confirmed Luciferian status, this has a few moments of convincing menace. I actually think Depp should switch to playing villains now that his youth and sex appeal is long gone.

Released the same fucking year as Astronaut's Daughter, Ninth Gate is Roman Polanski's return to Hollywood filmmaking and another Johnny Depp vehicle based on Satanism. Thankfully its a much better film. Polanski paints a dark camp hybrid of Rosemary's Baby and Chinatown, his two biggest 70s successes. Its a brilliant way to tie the films together and reveal the shared subtexts. Its wonderfully directed, shot, plotted and Polanski pulls one of the best performances from the wooden Depp (who is doing a rather lazy impression of Jack Nicholson throughout). Whereas Astronaut's is a lukewarm Hollywood meditation on Freemason subversion, Gate is a fearless celebration of mythic Satan worship in cinema as well as a aggressively respectful examination of real world Luciferianism as a philosophy. It can't be as shocking or clever as Polanski's early horror films, but its anti-Christian themes are even more pronounced and playful.

Waking Life is a wonderful, overwhelming and life-affirming celebration of pop existentialism from Richard Linklater, Generation X's cinematic hippie philosopher extraordinaire. Feeling like a Brechtian documentary or simply a psychedelic dream, Linklater keeps it accessible, warm, fun and constantly enlightening. The film features a totally new form of storytelling with diverse influences with heavy subject matter but retains a quality of unpretentiousness. The best film on this short list.

Death Race 2050 / Baby Driver / Dagon

This year the studio that bought Roger Corman's Death Race 2000 decided to lease it back to him (or at least, let him produce an independent film for them to distribute). In effect, is the biggest and best technically independent film of 2017. Corman still knows how to round up amazing talent and resources for a low budget product that its more than just product. Corman is such a genius because he's always stuck to the interests of the youth & working class who consume his films and includes an inspiring, transgressive message of independence and rebellion. Death Race 2050 is loaded with biting, smart satire and a late tonal shift that lifts it from dumb action romp to valid dramatic exercise.

DR2050 is somewhere between Idiocracy ripoff, Hunger Games spoof and Mad Max Fury Road tribute. Its still exploitation filmmaking, but its the Hollywood machine being exploited and not the viewers. Its also the most creative and socially conscious comedy I could find all year. Very highly recommended.

I couldn't get past the first 40 minutes of Baby Driver. It reeks of that desperate commercial pandering and pedestrian philosophy that I had to sit through from 90s TV and Hollywood. The protagonist is meant to endear himself by constantly lip-syncing to black music, twitching and pouting silently. Its supposed to be this heavy dick suck to Gen Z hipsterism like "Wow, they are so much more cultured and cool than us Gen Xer's". I'm Gen Y, so this phony, creepy, exploitative lovefest isn't impressive in the least. Its driven home by the casting of Kevin Spacey as Baby Driver's cheerleader and obvious audience surrogate.

Worst of all is that this film is an open ripoff of Nicholas Winding Refn's Drive. Those first 40 minutes are a big budget, whitewashed, suburbanite version of that film's magical concoction: A sexy getaway driver with a personality disorder, a hip jacket and gloves is in dept to gangsters. The film is built on its (dated in BD's case) hipster soundtrack and awkward "bad boy" romance. And its all done with annoying, zippy, one-liner dialogue and musical dancing. Its sooooo concentrated to appeal to teenage girls, soccer mom's and Rex Reed-type critics, which isn't a crime but its decidedly unintelligent, easy, fetishistic and insulting.

Whereas Drive was a deconstruction and total left turn from The Driver, Baby Driver is the sugarcoated, mass-produced version of the deconstruction that is likely unaware of the original.

Brian Yuzna & Stuart Gordon are the producer-director team behind Re-Animator and they wrote the classic Disney film "Honey We Shrunk The Kids" (not allowed to make it!) who have had an honorable career in the independent horror genre. Dagon is one of their weaker fare but its still very competent and risky for its time & place. Its a Spanish production that makes use of an awesome decaying Gothic locale and some fantastic actors, but the script is pretty ABC besides the creepy Lovecraft mythos. Its extremely violent & spooky but not suspenseful and the characters are flat. You have to be forgiving with a film this small and I think a ton of talent keeps it from the majority of it ever falling flat. I especially enjoyed Macarena Gomez as the main antagonist. She's a pint-sized, adorable but very threatening female villain.

I fall out of love with big budget Hollywood commercial filmmaking more and more. I don't even really enjoy low budget exploitation much anymore, but its always remarkable when some real artists get work in these fields. I'm inclined to support the smaller films because they mean more to the artists and have more creative freedom. DR2050 is a good example of a film that overloaded on universal themes, artistry and fun to make you forget how small its scope is. BD relies on tired big budget tricks and knicks recent low budget ideas to fool the masses, but is essentially a non-story. Dagon isn't a classic but its way more brutal, clever and well-made than films twice its size and half its age.

Ichi the Killer 2001

I watched this movie religiously 15 years ago when I was in high school and I was so pleased that its aged beautifully. In its day, Takashi Miike's breakout yakuza gore comedy was too bleak, violent & weird to get more than an underground but hardcore appreciation. In 2017, the film is practically quaint, refreshing & poetic. The world and its cinema have caught up.

Without this new age classic, you wouldn't have Only God Forgives, The Dark Knight's Joker or the once streaming list of gory action films like Kill Bill and Tokyo Gore Police. I'd argue that this is Japan's answer to Fight Club that is perhaps just as radical, entertaining and influential. Its a brisk gritty adventure in impotent assassins, rape fantasies, single dad blues, suicide, torture, S&M, slapstick, existentialism, bureaucracy and male identity.

The film was one of the first films to play like a violent video game or adult comic book but its the ironic humor and mature wisdom that elevates this into an unforgettable moment in time. Check it out.

Novocaine 2001 / The Fearless Vampire Killers 1967 / The House on Skull Mountain 1974

After 3 glowing reviews for 3 fun watches, here are the less favorable reviews. But these were interesting enough to write about (and not painful to watch). I wasn't shocked these films weren't successful but I'm glad they have some cache value now.

Novocaine is a weird comedy from the same year as 9/11. It represents that cold, moody, protestant (in the political & religious sense) era where the flippant, firm-standing 1990s became the wary, depressive, chaotic first decade of the 21st century. Now it was probably filmed in 2000, a very celebratory, radically progressive & casual time. Bill Clinton was a popular & socially melding president for most people, but he faced a tough scandal and society was very jaded & shaken up again. It was a flashback to Nixon's discrepancies and a quieted minority saw the dark cloud forming in the Middle East, Russia, Asia and within powerful Western institutions. It was a gray period where there wasn't much unrest or commotion but there was smoke still in the air.

Novocaine brought all of the mystique back. Its in every level of the production and the 1st time director David Atkins (who also wrote the film) knows that this moment is important. He makes it as ephemeral as possible, presenting a cartooned vision of the Y2K era. Stylistically, it almost reaches the clean design of a work of futurism or an avant garde play. And that was the actual commercial style of TV & film at that time. Its European, independent, retro, experimental. MTV video techniques mixed with French New Wave references and slasher film tropes pureed with primetime sitcom cues. It was just a surreal time for audiences. It was a collected & shared enterprise globally where everyone was happy and putting out the content they wanted and audiences respected.

While Novocaine isn't the best film of that year, its unique & full of ideas. It seems amateur by standards now and thats whats refreshing. This film is evidence that Hollywood can abandon the cookie cutter formula of glossy factory "product" and let movie-lovers make love movies for movie-lovers. Novocaine has its warts, but it doesn't offend the audience's intelligence ever. It might be a bit drab compared to fratboy comedies or too highfalutin for families. Its a tad derivative but its wide influences are a nice salad of Hitchcock, Tarantino, Wilder & Coen Bros. "Crime comedy" was kind of a saturated genre then, but at least Atkins nails the noir tones & gives his characters life. Watching the film in 2017, I'm reminded of most television now by the serio-comic aspects, the Euro-techno-Goth visuals. Its interesting how mediocrity from some years will stand up to the best work of other years, at least in films.

With all of the sexual abuse claims in Hollywood, I dared myself to review films from some controversial names this past month (strangely, TV was more than game to show these films despite the ostracization of current stars by Hollywood & streaming). I'm hesitant to cast out Woody Allen and I don't think Victor Salva is a threat to worry about, but Roman Polanski is a much scarier name now. He is a confirmed criminal who took illegal advantage of a VERY underage prostitute. But he is also a special case with uniquely tragic & unrepeatable circumstances. To complicate matters, he's regarded as one of the most important stylists and voices in Hollywood's modern golden age.

Now I've never been the biggest fan of him. I can dissect the brilliant economy and freshly gritty subtext of "Repulsion" but despite its towering influence, I think some parts of it are backwards and maybe offensive or toxic in their wrongness. Polanski injects his films with a sadistic, cynical, pessimistic & somewhat abusive philosophy. It wouldn't bother me too much but you can't divorce his films from the tragedy that derailed his career & the resulting crimes he committed.

FVK is a great snapshot of an enthusiastic, educated and subversive young talent. The film itself is a cynical exercise in deconstructing the vampire genre without much blood or brains beyond tricky technical shots and stunning, sometimes sexually perverse eye candy. Its a lot of surface without much substance. Really Polanski doesn't seem in love with the material, just using it as a stepping stone or calling card. It reminds me of newer directors like Denis Villeneuve and Damien Chazelle who think being stylish and sour is all it takes to be compared to  Kubrick or even a David Fincher. And an ignorant film public fell for it n 1967. To be fair, Polanski deserves high esteem for Rosemary's Baby and Chinatown. Polanski could make enlightened, important works of art when he was at his peak. But this isn't peak. Just a warm up for a star who burned out too soon.

The House on Skull Mountain is like so many blaxploitation films not made by black filmmakers or fans of the genre. Its conservative, pandering, backhanded & a brainless exploitation for profit. But sometimes these hired filmmakers found inspiration in the totally radicalized and relieved black talent of the post-Civil Rights era. Skull is taken with its subject matter of black lives, culture, religion and spirituality. Mostly the sexuality and heathen/dangerous persona inherited from white racism. Racism is never addressed here which may generalize it for some but legitimizes it for its target audience.

So few "black films" were allowed to embrace the honesty & grit of the Neorealists films that inspired the world at that time. Black films had to be gratuitous, simple and commercial by not shaking things up and usually playing to the status quo of white patrons. Skull Mountain would be remembered fondly if it had some of the black ideals that made 70s black culture so influential. The film cops out but its a fun disaster. Its kitschy, dated, too obtuse and half-baked. But there is an elevated air about it. The cast especially give 110% and you wonder why it didn't lead to better work for the cast, D.P., production design & special effects. But the answer is obvious when you consider the bland director, writer and producer probably got their positions from privilege and not talent or dedication.

In The Bedroom 2001

This is one of the most haunting, emotional, honest and bold films that I've ever watched. With that much integrity its unsurprising that In The Bedroom is also immaculately executed and one of the most obviously great films in the first decade of he 21st century.

Its the story of the power of grief to transform us and our lives. Its so poetic that this film arrived the same year as 9/11. Its greatness is then cosmic and pre-ordained. This is a movie that was needed and not just a piece made for egos, politics or gain. When true artists get to work in the film medium with this much resource and freedom, cinema becomes the best artform again. The only artform that can effect you in this way.

In The Bedroom is based on a 1970s novella called "Killings" and I'm sure its excellent, but In The Bedroom uses that effective plot to engage the emotions of the audience by engaging the emotional storytelling of its cast of actors and its director and his technical team. Everyone does an incredible job but Sissy Spacek is so triumphant in her role that it eclipses everything else phenomenal in this movie. The movie seems crafted to nurture this performance and she steps up and delivers the power that the movie asked for.

This is a short review because I don't want to spoil anything but there is so much to explore and praise in this movie. Track it down and enjoy it.