Jack the Ripper is one of the most fascinating serial killers of all time mainly because of the way they (I always assumed it was more than one killer) murdered, and their targets. Sadly, the entity has managed to inspire so many horror films, some very good, and some known as “Jack’s Back.” A cheapy little vehicle, “Jack’s Back” has vague connections to Jack the Ripper, but it overplays its hand by sidestepping the slasher motif, trying to be a cerebral character study. It fails on most fronts. Instead watching like a goofy, often muddled mess that I had a tough time keeping up with.
Tag Archives: Drama
Five Great Brie Larson Performances
Brie Larson has spent a lot of time in film, television, and music making many appearances on television shows, sitcoms, dramas, and even working with Disney every now and then. She’s also a very prominent musician and has managed to finally break out in Hollywood over the last seven years as a surefire heavy hitter. Working her way from supporting player in to headlining acclaimed award winning films, Brie Larson has earned her stripes as a bonafide dramatic actress who is now an Oscar contender.
We’re rooting for her to take the gold home come February, but even if she doesn’t win, she has so many more amazing performances up her sleeve, and her potential for future wins are limitless. Being able to make the transition from art house films to mainstream cinema easily, Larson is something of a chameleon prone to stealing scenes, and I’m glad she’s finally getting her credit.
Here are five of her best performances yet.
Bear Story (Historia de un oso) (2015)
Gabriel Osorio and Pato Escala’s “Bear Story” is a soul crushing tale of loss and yet a pretty remarkable short about overcoming grief and finding a reason to keep going on. Lacking dialogue and told through excellent computer animation, “Bear Story” is a short and hear breaking tale of an old bear that spends most of his time fixing an old nickelodeon. Featuring a trio of bear dolls that stand in for his wife and son, he takes to the street one morning. Unfortunately, his is a tale of sadness, suffering, and the willingness to endure, as he opens up his theater for a young cub.
The Runaround Club (2015)
Matt Rindini’s short drama suffers mainly because of its short format. And I mean that as a compliment because I really like the concept for “The Runaround Club,” but feel it’s a good short film that could transform in to a great dramatic thriller. It could work as a film about a crisis of conscience with two criminals, both of whom see a family committed to a more dead end life than their own. It could almost be like “The Desperate Hours” meets “The Ref” sans the comedy.
Martyrs (2016)
Pascal Laugier’s 2008 “Martyrs” was a grueling experience that masked blatant misogyny and torture as a pseudo-intellectual transcendental tale about the afterlife and the pressing question about where we go when we die. Kevin and Michael Goetz’s remake of “Martyrs” is not only a pointless exercise in futility, but it dodges any and all attempts to improve on the goofy ideas about spirituality by mostly dodging them. By dodging the torture and pegging this as cheap exploitation, and alternately dismissing the ideas about the afterlife and transforming this in to a spiritual horror film, it effectively renders itself pretty damn pointless and dull.
The Guardian (1990) [Blu-Ray]
William Friedkin has a knack for creating genuinely uneasy horror films that destroy the concept of domesticity. “The Guardian” completely turns the idea of parenthood on its head, transforming the suburban family in to a veritable nightmare. “The Guardian” carries on the tradition of a menace from the outside ruining the family unit, this time following mundane couple Phil and Kate Sterling as they greet a new child in to their home. “The Guardian” is directed and staged very much like a nightmare that never ends, even with normal scenes of happiness depicted in a very surreal lens.
The Diary of a Teenage Girl (2015) [Blu-Ray/Digital]
You have to appreciate the gutsy turn “The Diary of a Teenage Girl” takes when it dares to enter in to a coming of age tale that is about as realistic as it can get. When our character Minnie begins realizing her own sexual attraction to her mother’s boyfriend, it comes off more as creepy and awkward, no matter how much dreamer Minnie tries to romanticize it. She paints the dynamic between her and her mom’s boyfriend Monroe as something of a realization of her adulthood, when really it’s downright hedonistic self satisfaction with absolutely no thought toward the consequences she and her would be lover may face.
Though Minnie finds it fun to tempt Monroe by sucking his finger during a play fight, it’s about as gross as you’d expect with a thirty year old man hitting on a fifteen year old girl. When they finally do sleep together, director Marielle Heller drives the point of Minnie’s coming of age, when post-coitus, Monroe proudly smears Minnie’s blood along his thigh. A lot of Minnie’s own affair with Monroe is pure pleasure, and its eventual fall out is very real, causing her to sink somewhat in to a darker world of drugs and drinking. It becomes especially harrowing when she begins to dabble in darker corners of her city as a means of coping with her pseudo-affections for Monroe.
Alexander Skarsgård is very good as the slimy Monroe who presents opportunities for Minnie to dabble in to areas of her life she’s always been afraid to visit. All the while star Bel Powley handles the material like a champ, providing a very unique turn as main character Minnie whose actions eventually transform in to self destruction and self inflicted punishment. Her own moral code and decisions will cause the viewer to consider time and time again whether they really like Minnie or not, and even when we close the film, it’s never a surefire bet that she’s a good person that will redeem herself in the future. For her it’s something of a dreamy fantasy she’s fulfilling, while it looks to the objective viewer, like an older man preying on something of an idyllic young girl.
If I have any complaints it’s that Christopher Meloni and Kristen Wiig are wasted and never given a chance to really shine; especially Wiig who is given a smaller role that doesn’t compliment her ability to be funny or complex. “The Diary of a Teenage Girl” is nonetheless an entertaining and often compelling drama comedy that dives head first in to the coming of age of a young woman, warts and all.
Featured in the stuffed blu-ray is an audio commentary with director Marielle Heller and Actors Bel Powley and Alexander Skarsgård. The commentary is fine enough with some fun anecdotes, and information about the filmmaking process. There is a trio of deleted scenes all of which clock in at an average of two and half minutes.
“Marielle’s Journey: Bringing the Diary to Life” is a twenty three minute look at director Marielle Heller’s history with the source material, the look at the stage adaptation and the transition to feature film. There are interviews with the cast and crew, a look at the themes and details of the narrative, including characters, the process of casting, the process of including the sex as a plot element, the film’s tone and so much more. There’s a twenty five minute Q&A with Marielle Heller, Alexander Skarsgård and Bel Powley with moderator Jenelle Riley who engages in a very informative Q&A. Finally there’s the original theatrical trailer.