The Zone of Interest
I am probably tempting fate by starting the February movie round-up with this film. I have this uneasy feeling that the creatures lurking in the internet’s dark corners will crawl out to condemn this movie. Why you ask? Well, The Zone of Interest showcases the life of Rudolf Höss as the commandant of the Auschwitz concentration camp in 1943 Germany. Ya, I am talking about those dark corners. The film never shows the horrors going on within the camp, but instead focuses on the family home just outside the camp. The family will often throw parties as the smoke from the trains that stop at Auschwitz peeks over the fence. The audio design is stunning as ordinary conversations will occur with the sounds of soldiers and dogs barking off in the distance. It becomes chilling to watch the family become numb to what’s going on mere feet from their homes. Rudolf’s wife even reveling in her title as “Queen of Auschwitz.”
My big complaint is the movie is just too long. About thirty minutes in, I understood the message the movie was trying to deliver, but the film still had a long way to go. The movie clocks in about an hour and forty-five minutes and never changes its tune. Don’t get me wrong, with certain world events going on at the moment, I truly believe everyone should see this film. However, if I was in the editing booths, I would have tried to shave this film down to a 90-minute length. Nonetheless, I do think people should watch this film in the hopes of preventing more people from becoming Queens of Auschwitz.
Lisa Frankenstein
I often glance at Rotten Tomatoes to get a rough sense of how a movie is doing. In terms of personal reception, I feel I sit somewhere in the middle loving both the low-budget arthouse film and the big popcorn blockbuster, assuming both are well-written and well-acted. So, it confused me to see Lisa Frankenstein doing just ok with critics and audiences. Lisa Frankenstein is a horror comedy about the titular goth girl Lisa, building her own boyfriend. When a corpse from the neighboring cemetery gets struck by lightning and comes to life, she takes on the responsibility of finding him new body parts. A fusion of the famous Mary Shelly novel with an 80s rom-com, I was grinning ear to ear the whole movie. Lisa Frankestein was even able to pull off one of the funniest dick jokes, I have seen in a while. It will not surprise me if this movie becomes a cult classic in a few years.
Batman: Mask of the Phantasm (1993)
Batman: Mask of the Phantasm is pretty much an hour-long episode of the Batman: The Animated Series. Specifically, an episode where Bruce is torn between being Batman and hanging up the cape to start a family with a new fling. However, don’t take my dismissive attitude as a mark of poor quality. I love the Batman: The Animated Series and this movie lives up to the quality the series is known for. I just don’t think there are any additional comments I could make to Batman: Mask of the Phantasm.
So, I will use my time to argue that Kevin Conroy is the best actor to have played Batman. Most people scoff at this comment, claiming he never played a live-action version of the character so it doesn’t count. First off, I have always felt this comment was rudely dismissive of the work voice actors put in. Just think about the amount of work that goes into conveying emotions with just your voice. Voice acting is an impressive skill that should put them on the same pedigree as regular actors. It is frankly an injustice that it doesn’t.
Secondly, Conroy has been the voice of Batman for movies, TV shows, and video games. He has helped solidify Batman as the agent of vengeance we know him as. I can guarantee, that when most people read a Batman comic, they don’t hear Bale, Affleck, or Keaton. They hear Conroy. It is truly disappointing that we lost this legend. Rest in peace, Dark Knight. You are forever missed.
And yes, this means Mark Hamill is the best Joker.
A Ghost Story (2017)
An intriguing horror love story that I am sitting squarely on the fence about. After dying in a tragic car accident, C returns home as a ghost represented by a sheet with two eye holes. He seems tethered to his former home, continuing to stay even when his wife, M, moves out. Throughout his days, he works tirelessly to get a note that M left in the walls, hoping it’s a sign that she still misses him.
Despite the goofy nature of the movie, there were some heartfelt moments throughout. A neighboring ghost had been in the house next door for so long that they forgot who they were waiting on. It made me feel guilty for moving on with my life and moving away from perished family members. However, there is an awkward time loop mechanic that I don’t think works for what the movie is trying to do. We also never find out what was on the note which feels like a cop-out. Despite these nitpicks, I feel like the movie’s heart is in the right place and that’s probably what counts here.
Madame Web
On a dark and eerie night, the Sony executives stood atop the roof of the corporate office. Rain pelted their coats as lightning danced across the skies. They had gathered four different scripts for various Spider-Man projects and furiously sowed them together. They only needed power to bring their new monstrous creation to life. The lightning soon struck the lighting rods towering overhead; the electricity coursed through the wires connecting the rods to a giant metal box filled with buttons and nobs. With a flick of the switch, the machine hooked up to the monster began to hum. Lightning began arcing its way closer to the machine. Soon, a giant bolt raced toward the machine, giving it more power. The surge of electricity dashed through the executive’s new creation giving it life. “It’s alive,” one of them yelled, “Madame Web is alive.”
It may be a bit crude to compare Madame Web to a parody of Frankenstein’s monster. I know a lot is going on behind the scenes, that we the audience just don’t get to see. However, as someone who believes in criticism as a way to grow as an artist, I can only judge Madame Web based on what I saw on screen. What I saw was a movie more ripped apart and sewn back together than The Creature character from Lisa Frankenstein. This feels like a movie that was pulled from seven different scripts, had too many executives trying to put their stamp on it, and had zero budget going toward special effects. The allegations that Madame Web uses music from the PS4 Spider-Man game and scenes from Spider-Man 2 only pour salt over this festering wound. I can’t offer a clear solution for Sony, but I can offer a warning: you will not find success making movies in this way. Something needs to change.
Scott Pilgrim vs. The World (2010)
I was hesitant to see this film initially. I was reminded that Scott Pilgrim is probably one of the most unlikeable main characters in cinema history. However, my love of Edgar Wright as a director had me purchasing a ticket to see Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, and I am so glad I did. The amount of colorful comic book energy on display is baffling. I know Marvel has been trying to go for a realistic aesthetic, but surely they could incorporate this style into one of their movies. Why Edgar Wright was never asked to direct a Deadpool movie is criminal. However, Scott Pilgrim vs The World is not purely style over substance. All the characters perfectly play a role in the story and are unforgettable. Even our irritable Scott is able to redeem himself. Simply put, Edgar Wright just doesn’t miss.
Stopmotion
If you had a bear trap with a horror film exploring the dangers of putting too much of yourself into your art, I would get caught in the trap every time. Stopmotion is a movie about a girl named Ella, who works as an assistant to her mother who is a famous stop-motion director. After her mother becomes ill, she is determined to finish her mother’s latest project in an attempt to prove herself to her mother. However, she begins to struggle to complete the project until she meets a mysterious young girl. She starts feeding Ella dark stories to incorporate into her film, including using the flesh of dead animals for the stop-motion puppets. Dark and twisted in all the right ways. A perfect blend of chilling imagery and haunting themes. I have no doubt Stopmotion will become a cult classic.
The Lighthouse (2019)
Robert Eggers is a genius director. Eggers’s The Lighthouse is a haunting Lovecraftian film about two lighthouse keepers trapped on a remote island as the isolation slowly peels away their sanity. So much of Lovecraft-inspired media thinks all you need to be considered Lovecraftian horror is a handful of jumpscares with a Cthulhu-like monster, but this entirely misses the point. Almost all of the Lovecraft mythos revolve around the idea that merely being around one of these cosmic horrors would slowly drive you mad. It’s that slow descent into insanity that The Lighthouse gets right. Robert Pattinson’s character, Thomas Howard, believes Willem Dafoe’s character, Thomas Wake, is keeping whatever mystery forces that are contained within the light of the lighthouse to himself. Yet maybe it’s not cosmic horror, but the stress, isolation, starvation, or alcohol that’s causing Howard to hallucinate things. Tension begins to boil over as the two men go from drunkenly dancing about to savagely going for each other’s throats. Dafoe is at full power as a crazed old lighthouse keeper, giving a performance that is truly one of my favorites. The Lighthouse is a must-see if you truly want to get into Lovecraftian horror.