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Reviews
On the Corner of Ego and Desire (2019)
A Masterpiece of Guerrilla Film-Making!
Sundance is supposed to be the Mecca of Indie Film-making, but its doors are not open to all who wish to worship there. There's a guest list. It's a summit for the establishment. Alex Ferrari burglarizes the establishment with this "The Office" style faux doc about three delusional trespassers window-shopping a party to which they were not invited.
Itsy Bitsy (2019)
Great Film!
Did not disappoint! Must see. Really smart film. Refreshing approach.
Ring Ring (2019)
CLEVER UPDATE ON THE PSYCHO MOTIF; ENTERTAINING COMEDY-HORROR BLEND
"A Boy's best friend is his mother," Norman Bates famously said. Fortunately for Jacob, Norman's proverbial heir, cross-dressing has become way more mainstream. A boy can go about town dressed up as mom, cash social security checks, and fill opioid prescriptions as needed. But Adam Marino does more than update Psycho with Ring Ring; he turns it on its head. Where Norman was a violent, manipulative killer, Jacob is none of those things. And yet, the bodies pile up around him.
Delivered without judgment, Ring Ring is also a smart commentary on the full spectrum of drug use in modern life and how this aspect of life causes, and sometimes solves, problems - whether temporarily or permanently.
iZombie fans will barely recognize Malcolm Goodwin as the insecure Will, a shy nerd with a medical condition that requires him to regularly medicate with Cannabis to stave off daily seizures. Spoiler alert, he gets deprived of his medication, with terrifying results.
Kirby Bliss Blanton delivers a multi-faceted performance as the head-strong Amber, a secretly recovering addict who finds herself held captive by a full-blown junkie. Not one to let others decide her fate, Amber plays a dangerous game with her captor, gambling that she can bond with him, seduce him and manipulate him over their shared vice and thereby create an opportunity for escape. But a sober addict is no match for an active junkie in such a game.
Jacob, played by Tommy Kijas, though well-put together in his female version, is a creepy cross between Eminem and Aaron Paul's Jesse Pinkman in his male version. Hard economic times have forced Jacob to pick up extra cash as an Uber driver, and via opportunistic petty theft, in between social security checks for the mom that's no longer with us...and yet is. It's through Jacob's side jobs that he gets tangled up with Will and Amber.
"Some things are better off lost," as the tag line says, but not Will's phone. It contains stolen corporate secrets, and the seeds of a new business. Just as Janet Leigh's, Marion Crane, started the ball rolling toward her date with Norman Bates when she abused her position of trust at work to steal money to start a new life, Will and Amber, along with their co-worker Jason, played by Josh Zuckerman, hack the computer of the boss who just fired them to steal the company's entire client list and use it as the basis for their new endeavor. When their boss, played by a very scary Lou Ferrigno (you wouldn't like him when he's angry), returns to his office too soon for them to complete the hack, Amber takes action to impede him by any means necessary.
After a night of celebration, which seemed to go extremely well for Will, things take a sharp turn for the worse in the morning. His phone is gone - the phone that contains the keys to their future. He did the right thing by not driving drunk the night before, and as payback the bar had his car towed. With no phone and no car, he enlists Amber's help to track the phone. When the tracker gives them an address, they call an Uber. The Uber driver is, of course, Jacob, who shows up and delivers them to the address on the tracker - his house. In the conversation Will and Amber have in the car, which Jacob is privy to, and a subsequent conversation on the porch, you feel them metaphorically going down a staircase toward captivity - much like the one they will literally go down a few minutes later. The writers deliver these traditional pre-captivity horror beats expertly. "Should we call Jason and let him know where we are going?" "No, I don't want him to freak out." "This is the right place isn't it?" "Shoot, my phone just died." There...now, you're in a bad situation. No one knows where you are. You can't reach out to anyone for help. Beat, Beat, Beat. Just don't go in the basement. Please don't go in the basement to look for the phone. "Well, it wasn't anywhere up here." Beat.
What's new is the junkie aspect, which appears to be well researched. Jacob is the opposite of Amber. He's not proactive. He's not a problem solver. In fact, his plan for solving every problem seems to be to get high...and, if that doesn't work, get high. He seems convinced that a solution will present itself in the haze and comfort of being high, and if it doesn't, at least he will be high and not stressing about it. If you've ever known a junkie, this rings true.
But what's a horror film, with no true bad guy? Enter, Damien, Jacob's best friend - his only friend - played by Alex Shaffer. While you are soaking in this dark-hearted, callous character, you can't help but enjoy the Sam Shepard (ala True West) style exchange between these two junkies.
The Halloween aspect adds another dimension to Ring Ring. Any other day of the year, a young woman screaming at a passing police cruiser that someone is trying to kill her while she collapses dramatically to the ground would be taken at face value and, we hope, result in police intervention on her behalf. But, when she is surrounded by costumed children and adults, and numerous dramatic pranksters, it's just more street theater.
Without giving too much away, the writers (Marino, along with Naman Barsoom and Daniel Wallner) did an amazing job of having every character fall victim to their own choices. In this story, they are all criminals of some sort. Each one of them has made a choice to harm someone, in some way, to advance their own interests or protect what they have, and each must make further such choices to survive.
Ring Ring is well written, and tightly edited. The pace is perfect. The humor is well-timed and well-delivered. The cinematography is beautiful. Note, specifically, the long uncut shots as Will and Amber search Jacob's house. The soundtrack is also perfect. The filmmakers appear to rely heavily on non-verbal exposition, so you have to pay close attention to what is not said. The opening sequence of the film, which shows you a day in the life of the Bates-like Jacob, has no dialogue. Many important moments in the story also appear to rely on visual clues, so this is not a film you put on in the background while you are doing something else. If you do, you'll miss many of the important pieces that tie this film together. Turn off your phone and watch.
Kijas's Jacob is reserved and gentle, until he isn't. Goodwin and Blanton are two of the best faces to watch on screen, with each having seemingly unlimited, visually expressive abilities. So much so that a hearing-impaired person, or a person who doesn't understand English at all, could still enjoy this film. Blanton's work in this regard is deceptive though. Amber appears to have no filter, but that doesn't mean she's not setting you up for a surprise. Ring Ring has many surprises. It is a thoroughly entertaining experience.
Division III: Football's Finest (2011)
Brilliant Comedy; Great Cast
Get Some !!!
The Perfect Sports Comedy. Will Sasso, Bryan Callen, Adam Corolla, Mo Collins, Debra Wilson and Andy Dick. Best parody sports movie ever !!!
A must for MAD TV fans.
Beneath the Leaves (2019)
A complicated journey; great actors and strong performances make it well worth the ride.
Adam Marino's Beneath the Leaves takes you on a complicated journey; strong performances make it worth the ride.
Warning: the subject matter is troubling. Abused foster children, and the perpetuation and outgrowth of that abuse. On the surface, it's a film about a psychotic child killer with a particular class of targets, four of whom escape, grow up, and move on with their lives...kind of...but carry with them layers of damage. When the killer breaks out of prison and begins systematically hunting them down, they are thrust back into the place of their nightmares.
Underlying the plot is a deeper question of family and belonging that is unique to foster children as the unmoored fragments of society. Such children, unless adopted and fully integrated into a family, often remain emotionally unmoored and carry damage from their original abandonment and the mark of being unwanted. Add subsequent abuse, mistreatment and psychosis to that mix, and you have a real problem.
Doug Jones, best known for playing exotic creatures (e.g. the Amphibious Man in The Shape of Water), plays James Whitley, a damaged soul who decides to "rescue" children like himself (orphaned foster children), reuniting them with their birth parents by euthanizing them.
Kristoffer Polaha (Atlas Shrugged, Ballers, Get Shorty, Wonder Woman 1984), Christopher Backus (Bosch, Roadies), SerDarius Blain (Jumanji) and Christopher Masterson (Malcolm in the Middle) play the grown-up versions of the four victims who got away. The back story of their abduction, confinement and escape is told incrementally in well-placed brief flashes inserted into the present timeline.
Polaha's portrayal of the perpetually drunk and frustrated victim turned rescuer - Detective Brian Larson - is emotional and among the strongest of his career.
Academy Award winner Mira Sorvino plays Detective Erica Shotwell, Larson's partner and lover. Her performance is understated and mysterious. Shotwell is an outsider to the community. She has a chip on her shoulder and a past that she keeps from everyone, including her partner. Sorvino shines in the action scenes and is particularly strong in tense gun-drawn sequences, including pursuing and battling an escaped convict early in the film, and similarly pursuing Whitley through the woods in a climactic scene.
When Larson is pulled from working the case of his own childhood abductor, Shotwell goes from working with a partner with whom she had way too much chemistry, to one with whom she has none. The pairing of Mira's Shotwell with Aaron Farb's (Kill the Messenger, The Originals) eccentric Detective Abrams makes for an entertaining contrast. At times, you can't tell if Abram's quirks are Columbo-like put-ons designed to lower the defenses of those with whom he engages in the course of an investigation, or if he's forgotten about the investigation altogether. Shotwell can't tell either.
Farb's Abrams would be the odd man out in the story if not for "Rose," the equally odd hotel manager/madam. Melora Walters - known to Seinfeld fans as George's girlfriend in the classic "shrinkage" episode - is weirdly terrific as Rose.
Mira's father, screen icon Paul Sorvino, anchors the film as the father-like Captain Parker, who we learn from old interrogation video was involved in Whitley's original arrest and conviction several decades earlier.
Chris Backus' performance as Matt is subtle perfection. No actor could better capture the permanent effects of childhood trauma PTSD than Backus does here. To drive the point home, even the lovely Jena Sims (Sharknado, Attack of the 50-foot Cheerleader) as Alexa, can't break through Matt's shell.
Chris Masterson's George is creepy as hell and worlds away from his most famous role of Francis on Malcolm in the Middle.
Veteran actress Marla Adams (Splendor in the Grass, Days of our Lives, etc.) gives a solid performance as the well-meaning foster mother of the abducted boys.
Don Swayze as Whitley's abusive foster father is appropriately disturbing. Even the kids in this film are outstanding. Of note, young Ashlyn Jade Lopez sets an emotional tone in the first frames of the film that stays with the viewer throughout.
As noted above, the subject matter is dark and the story is a complicated journey. Outstanding performances make it well worth the ride.