Dick Cheney served under three of America’s presidents before getting to sit as vice president during George W. Bush’s administration. His path to power was made possible by his wife Lynne who spurred Dick on despite his proximity to many political scandals in Washington. When he finally reaches the highest levels of power in America, he calls in a series of friends and associates to help him commandeer control of the executive branch. President Bush doesn’t seem to mind and happily hands off the reins power leaving Cheney to mastermind the whole of foreign and energy policy for the next eight years. This is the story of the shadow president who transformed our nation forever and increased the reach of the office of the President for generations to come.
The Children Act (2018) Written by Ian McEwan Directed by Richard Eyre
Justice Fiona Maye has devoted her life to the High Court and has ruled on many important cases involving the rights of parents versus the responsibilities of the medical community. A new case comes across her desk that gives her pause though. A 17-year-old boy with Leukemia has refused treatment due to his religious beliefs. He is of the Jehovah’s Witness faith and cannot take a transfusion of blood which is what the life-saving treatment will involve. Fiona hears from the parents and decides she needs to visit Adam, the ailing boy, and speak with him. She discovers a lively young man who is on the verge of death. Meanwhile, Fiona ignores her own personal turmoil as her marriage is crumbling. Her husband has let her know he is going to have an affair and she shuts herself off, buried beneath her work.
The city of Kingsport is unique in that it is home to 40,000 ghosts, most of whom died under tragic circumstances at the old mental hospital. Mayor Tracy cleared that building away to make room for a strip mall plaza and has relocated the wandering spirits to the Ghost Town neighborhood, effectively a ghetto. It’s been years since a significant supernatural occurrence in the city until tonight when a shadowy figure kills a pizza delivery boy. There are also reports of Dax Lycander, a werewolf who used to work for Yummy Yummy Chinese Delivery is back in town. Astrid, the pizza boy’s ex, is determined to avenge his murder and sets out to lure the killer out into the open. However, there is much more happening in the shadows of Kingsport that Astrid realizes.
A Prayer Before Dawn (2018) Written by Jonathan Hirschbein & Nick Saltrese Directed by Jean-Stephane Sauvaire
Billy Moore is an Irish expatriate who finds himself Muay Thai boxing tournaments on the streets of Bangkok. He’s also using and dealing yaba (a mixture of meth and caffeine). Eventually, the law catches up to Billy, and he’s sent to prison where his difficulties multiply. He witnesses the brutal rape and subsequent suicide of a fellow inmate. He’s forced to try and go unnoticed by the violent gang in his cell block. What makes all of this worse is he has no one on the outside to provide him with money so he can have resources to use inside. Two things become his guiding lights: a ladyboy named Fame, a fellow prisoner who works in the commissary and the group of inmates training for Muay Thai tournaments within a prison circuit. Moore may never escape this nightmare, but he is going to battle his way to survive.
A brilliant decision was made in the adaptation of this real-life story which was to withhold Billy Moore’s backstory. There are no flashbacks to Ireland or long expository soliloquies. We begin right as Billy goes into a fight and have to piece together through the images that follow who is and what is happening in his life. Despite much of the dialogue being in Thai, we provided few subtitles unless necessary. In that way we’re in the shoes of the protagonist, trying to decipher the commands being barked at him and feeling confused in a place that is dangerous and unfamiliar. The film does an excellent job of showing us Billy’s progression in communicating, listening intently as his fellow inmates/boxers tell their personal stories and he is confirming that he understands out loud. The supporting cast is composed mostly of real-life former Thai inmates which add both to the reality of the violence but also the depth of humanity.
In the same way, Billy grows as a communicator; we see his boxing technique becoming refined. When we watch his first match, he’s frenetic, infused with yaba, and chaotically beating away at his opponent. The coach inside the prison emphasizes the techniques and the muscle memory needed to become a good fighter. Billy strains to adapt at first and then a moment comes in the middle of the fight where you see it all click, and he becomes something more than he started as.
Director Sauvaire doesn’t shy away from showing us the brutal nature of life in prison. Moments of violence are filmed naturalistically, no sense of exploitation but neither holding back from what is happening in front of us. Yet, he also uses that naturalism to highlight the beauty and sensuality of rare moments. Billy’s trysts with Fame are also not exploited but showcase the intimacy and tenderness these people are sharing in the midst of darkness. Boxing also becomes a display of intimacy, the ring a place where a small group of prisoners can unleash their anger at their situation while bonding closer as a family. When they finally decide to initiate Billy with his first tattoo, they circle him, holding his hand, his shoulders. When the tattoo is finished, the artist offers a quiet prayer over this new brother. Billy finds the family he is missing within the walls of hell.
A Prayer Before Dawn plunges you into this particular place and this very specific experience, positioning the camera just over Billy’s shoulder for large portions of the film. We walk with him into the waiting maw of the prisoner, and we follow just a few steps behind as he moves toward the ring for a fight that will define him for the rest of his life. Billy Moore is a troubled man, and the movie doesn’t choose to end at the moment where he triumphs. Instead, our denouement has him transferred to a new prison but after he actively makes a choice not to escape. He knows he can’t connect with the world outside those walls anymore. It was the world around him in Ireland that pushed him to run, and when he ran to somewhere else, he only fell into a darker hole using drugs. He is free, in an odd way, inside a prison where he can devote himself like a monk to developing control of himself through boxing.
Hot Summer Nights (2018) Written & Directed Elijah Bynum
Daniel is shipped off to stay with his aunt in Cape Cod during the summer of 1991. He’s not a summer bird or a townie and has trouble finding where he fits until he meets Hunter, a local who deals weed to all comers. Daniel also strikes up an intense flirtation with Mckaya, the neighborhood “hot chick.” He’s feeling a restlessness and takes up dealing with Hunter, pushing him to expand his operation and get involved with some unscrupulous people to have enough product. As would be expected, the two young men get in over their heads and are forced to face bleak, very real consequences.
Hot Summer Nights is a damn ambitious movie. From the opening scenes to the final reveal of the title screen it moves along at a Goodfellas like energetic pace fused with the currently popular retro neon 80s vibes. The problem is that the script believes it is much smarter than it ends up being. I was struck with how strong the style and technical aspects of the film were, but how utterly lacking in character development the entire story was. You have critical characters introduced and then forgotten for half the movie while other significant players pop up for the first time ⅔ into the picture only to linger on the periphery, feeling like we are supposed to know more but never getting that.
The first sign that Hot Summer Nights has problems is the disembodied narration from a 13-year-old boy who claims to have lived in Cape Cod and heard multiple rumors about this whole affair. This narration disappears about a third of the way into the picture only to be brought back up in the conclusion. This entire trope resonated with me as the core element of Sofia Coppola’s The Virgin Suicides, a decidedly not 1980s/90s movie. Hot Summer Nights seemed not to be sure what period it references. The soundtrack included a large number of songs from the 1970s and early 80s while the movie itself makes references to many pieces of late 1990s/2000s cinema (American Beauty, Donnie Darko, Boogie Nights). Other than a couple of references to Terminator 2 this picture doesn’t feel firmly grounded in anything other than a particular aesthetic du jour.
The actors present here would lead the audience to believe they are going to get a great character piece. We have Timothy Chalamet, Thomas Jane, Maika Monroe, and Maia Mitchell who are all very good to decent performers. Alex Roe rounds out the cast as Hunter, a new face to me and he was good with what the script gave him to work with. So that script is the Achilles heel of the entire production, so over-energized with dumping a ton of ideas and stylized scenes that it fails to make us genuinely care for and understood the relationships between its principal characters.
Thomas Jane is introduced early on as police Sgt. Frank Calhoun, a member of the local law who has strong notions about Hunter. The problem is that Calhoun is gone from the movie for about 45 minutes until we see him again. Also, the conflict between Calhoun and Hunter is never fully fleshed out until a scene near the end that weakly connects the police officer to Hunter’s drunken dad. Their story is much like the other relationships in the picture; it’s introduced and then just left to flounder while the movie moves onto the next thing it wants to do or establish.
Hot Summer Nights is the definition of a middle of the road movie. There’s so much personality exuding from the film that you can’t help but become involved. There’s not enough meat on the bones for you to walk feeling like you watched anything memorable. The script slides so easily into cliche or derivative scenes that are so obviously more than an homage and border on intellectual property theft. Not the worst movie A24 has produced so far, but nowhere close to a great one.
Woman Walks Ahead (2018) Written by Steven Knight Directed by Susanna White
In 1890, Brooklyn-ite Catherine Weldon traveled to the Dakotas with a single goal: to paint the portrait of Cheif Sitting Bull. What she finds is the Lakota broken from pressures of the U.S. government, forced onto ever-shrinking reservations. Sitting Bull isn’t keen on sitting for this painting, feeling betrayed by the white men he’s been dealing with for most of his life. Weldon takes up the challenge of convincing him while dealing with U.S. forces that would prefer she return home and not become involved in the war that is on the verge of breaking out.
Bad Times at the El Royale (2018) Written & Directed by Drew Goddard
The El Royale is a unique Lake Tahoe hotel in that is straddles the California/Nevada line. The place was one a prestigious getaway for many of the Rat Pack and other glittering stars of a bygone age. By the time the film begins, 1969, the glory days are gone, and the hotel has fallen into disrepair. On this fateful day, a priest, a lounge singer, a vacuum salesman, a mysterious woman have checked in. El Royale has only one troubled staff member who seems to discourage these people from staying but reluctantly gives in. By the end of this night, all of these guests will be changed forever, facing their fears and discovering the dark secrets behind the El Royale.
The Favourite (2018) Written by Deborah Davis and Tony McNamara Directed by Yorgos Lanthimos
In the early 18th century, Britain engages with France in war. All of that is unimportant because we are front and center in the court of the highly dysfunctional, depressed, and insecure Queen Anne. She is in the middle of a tug of war between the Whigs (who seek the war to continue until a victory is secured) and the Tories (who are tired of being taxed to fund a seemingly never-ending battle). Showing very little interest in all of these boring matters of state, Anne allows her longtime friend and confidante Lady Sarah Marlborough to handle them. Sarah is quite comfortable by the queen’s side and in her bed until her estranged cousin Abigail arrives. This wastrel finds a place as a scullery maid but wants to regain a position of import. Abigail cleverly listens and observes learning all she can about the court and in particular the specific whims of Anne. A power struggle begins between cousins, Sarah versus Abigail, a polite war that escalates quickly.
The Favourite is a film that left me thinking, without hesitation, “this is a masterpiece.” I am a rare fan of period pieces, particularly English historical ones. However, the lure of director Yorgos Lanthimos brought me to this one. His acidic humor has given us great films like Dogtooth, The Lobster, and The Killing of a Sacred Deer. The promise of more of his particular style combined with the talents of the three actresses helming this production (Rachel Weisz, Emma Stone, and Olivia Coleman) was enough to entice me to the theater with little argument. What I found was a profoundly complex comedy about depression and the nature of codependency. Overlooking the trimmings of the age, the story at the heart of The Favourite is both relevant for our modern political times and our personal experiences.
Queen Anne, played stunningly by Olivia Coleman, is a walking shambles of a human being. The only thing that keeps her going is the fact that she is the queen of England. She’s plagued by nighttime throbs of gout that have forced her to use either crutches or a wheelchair. Anne harbors an infection of sorrow and pain over the death of all seventeen of her children. She cannot even enjoy the simplest of sweets without her stomach going into fits forcing her to vomit it up. The combination of physical ailments and emotional ones has made every personal relationship she has a potentially dangerous one. Any person that gets into her good graces is going to have their lifeforce drained from them. Sarah appears to be managing this as well as anyone can, giving into Anne’s desires while using a stern hand to rebuke her honestly. The film, much to its benefit, never truly makes Sarah’s intentions clear. She’s been friends with Anne since they were little girls and keeps it real with the monarch. However, there is an ever-present unanswered question about what Sarah truly wants. The film makes it clear that no one at Court is there out of goodwill.
Sarah and Abigail prove to be proper foils for each other. Sarah is well versed in the political process, having been raised as a noble since birth. She dresses in a masculine manner after her husband leaves for the war, wearing pants and jackets, allowing her to slide into the realm of men without any question. Sarah can maneuver with ease when it comes to balancing the moodiness of the queen and the demands of Parliament. Abigail acts as a wrench in the gears practicing a more improvisational act to gain the affections of Anne. Abigail appeals to the emotions of Anne; her first gesturing is embracing an element of Anne’s life that Sarah rejects in the opening scene. Unlike Sarah, it is blatantly apparent to the audience that Abigail has a reason to manipulate the queen. She was lost by her father in a card game and spent years with an old man whom she worked to escape. Abigail tells a member of the court that she isn’t on anyone’s side except her own and that fate sometimes causes her side to coincide with another’s.
The Favourite keeps in tone with being a pitch black film as we would expect from Yorgos Lanthimos. He isn’t here to offer a happy ending, but rather an honest one. There’s no way these three characters, after the way they venomously manipulate and emotional torture each other, are going to see the light at the end of the tunnel. They orbit around a figure who is trapped in her neuroses and has been given near limitless power. There’s no real escape, and the hill they scale has no summit. Everything is the mire, and they are wallowing in it.
Never Goin’ Back (2018) Written & Directed by Augustine Frizzell
Angela and Jessie dropped out of high school and are killing time in their small southern Texas town until they turn eighteen and can escape. In the meantime, they’re stuck living with Jessie’s brother Dustin and his sleazy roommate Brandon. Their day jobs have them waiting tables at a local family eatery where they constantly dodge unemployment despite coming to work high or drunk. Through a series of interconnected vignettes, the young women experience highs and lows, both of the economic and pharmacological types. Throughout they remain devoted to each other and attempt to find some joy despite the loss. Always looming somewhere far up ahead is an escape to the beach and to see the ocean.
American Animals (2018) Written & Directed by Bart Layton
In 2004, a group of college students in Lexington, Kentucky attempted to steal a rare and valuable edition of John James Audobon’s Birds of America. Over the course of a year, they mapped out the entire library where the book was kept, traveled to New York to meet with a fence, went to the Netherlands to set up a potential buyer, and developed an intricate getaway plan. But, did they actually do all of this? And why do some of them remember it in drastically different ways than others? In this clever weaving of re-enactment and documentary confessional, we see the real-life thieves and their actor counterparts lay out the story of a bizarre and seemingly hopeless heist.
PopCult Reviews 