Chain Reactions in 250 Words or Less

Anybody smart enough to sit Karyn Kusama down in a chair and have the Jennifer's Body / The Invitation director talk about horror movies is ace in my book. And cinematic documentarian Alexandre O. Philippe has now done it twice -- first in the terrific Lynch/Oz doc (where she was the stand-out) and now in Chain Reactions, which is about the towering legacy of Tobe Hooper's horror masterpiece The Texas Chain Saw Massacre here in the 50th year since its making. (For the record Kusama was also a talking head in Queer for Fear. Bryan Fuller's perfect docu-series.) 

Kusama is once again brilliant to listen to here, but it turns out that everybody Philippe assembled for this film is top notch and, even better, all of them are coming at the movie from totally different directions. Patton Oswalt's the fanboy, the great Alexandra Heller-Nicholas's the critic, Stephen King was Hooper's friend, and Takashi Miike is... Takashi fucking Miike! (Turns out he's an incredibly thoughtful man for being such a maniac.) Fifty years on it's damned near impossible to find new things to say about a film as discussed & dissected as TCM has been, but the terrific Chain Reactions does a bang-up job doing just that. And Philippe's very much got a very specific thing going on with these essay movies, but this is truly his best one to date. I look forward to whatever blast of nastiness finds itself under his microscope next.

Chain Reactions is screening as part of the "Scary Movies" series 

here in NYC this weekend. Check the entire line-up right here.

5 Off My Head -- Scary Movies To Swallow Us Up

To my fellow horror-hounds of the Big Apple, a heads-up -- FLC has brought back their much beloved "Scary Movies" series this year and it kicks off tomorrow!, running through the 21st. You can check the entire line-up at this link but I thought I'd highlight some, uhh, highlights in case you're overwhelmed by the week's worth of creepy cool choices that they've curated -- for real out of the ones I've already seen there's not a bad bugger in the bunch. They do such good work with this series every time. Now some of these I'm planning on reviewing in the next week so I'm going to keep it mostly brief for now. But I give you...

5 Movies Not To Miss At "Scary Movies XIII"

The Wailing (dir. Pedro Martín-Calero) -- A tremendously accomplished and stylish scare flick from Spain (the director's very first feature!) that I saw at Fantasia earlier this month and reviewed right here. It fucking rules. And when I tell you something reminds me of Luca Guadanino's Suspiria you should listen! (And obviously take it as a good thing since Luca Guadanino's Suspiria is revelatory, of course.)

Rabbit Trap (dir. Bryn Chainey) -- a Folk Horror flick from the UK starring Dev Patel? Who's gonna miss that? Nobody wants to miss that. If you're not in NYC for this series you don't have to wait long for this movie though as it's being released in theaters on September 12th. But if you are in NYC treat yourself and see it ASAP. I'll be reviewing it for its theatrical release but it's a definite rec.

Good Boy (dir. Ben Leonberg ) -- Another one I saw at Fantasia and reviewed (right here). My feelings were mixed, it's true, but it's a horror movie starring an adorable doggy -- everyone should still see it even if I don't think it quite entirely works. And I'm fairly lonesome on that island as most people seem to've adored it. Make up your own minds! Support Doggy Cinema!

Chain Reactions (dir. Alexandre O. Philippe) -- The latest essay film from the director behind Lynch/Oz and Leap of Faith: William Friedkin on The Exorcist and several other single subject cinematic studies of note, Chain Reactions is all about Tobe Hooper's masterpiece The Texas Chain Saw Massacre here for that film's 50th anniversary. I will also be reviewing this soon so mum's my word til then but, uhh, do go see it. Really superior group of voices gathered.

It Ends (dir. Alexander Ullom) -- This is tomorrow night's Opening Night movie and it's already sold out so just put a pin in this one! Likewise any more thoughts from me on it since I'm planning on reviewing it. But I will say that it's about a group of teenage friends who find themselves trapped on an endless road that winds through the forest forever and god I felt that. 

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They're also screening a couple of classic horror movies like m-f'ing Daughters of Darkness which is never to be missed on the big screen, so make sure you peruse the entire line-up. I'm hoping to check out a couple of the other titles that I haven't myself been able to see, so maybe I'll see you there! Or maybe not! I'm a shy hermit who barely leaves the house, so

Anatomy of a Peeping Tom

Michael Powell's controversial 1960 masterpiece Peeping Tom is hitting the Criterion collection on May 14th of 2024  -- and in 4K no less! Of course I'd already snatched up a copy of Studio Canal's UK edition that came out a few weeks ago, but it's not like this isn't a movie I won't triple or quadruple dip on. It's one of the greatest movies ever made! And Criterion is bringing their own round of special features  for their disc, including (no surprise here) an intro by Martin Scorsese and an interview with Powell's wife slash Marty's editor Thelma Schoonmaker. This movie was too hard to see properly for far far far too long -- this is only right. Slide this sucker into the tippy top of the canon already!

Anyway yes indeed it's that time again -- our monthly Criterion Announcement Day! Today's news is for May and they're dropping an absolute banger of a global line-up, including two mini-sets from two  international masters: the two Floating Weeds films from Yasujiro Ozu (made two decades apart cuz that's how Ozu rolled) and a trilogy of movies from Senegalese auteur Ousmane Sembène; specifcally the movies Emitaï, Xala, and Ceddo, which were all made across the 1970s. 

But wait that's not it! We're also getting the great Karyn Kusama's 2000 lady-boxer masterpiece Girlfight on May 28th (which introduced the world to the stylings of Michi Rodriguez), as well as this year's big Oscar whodunit Anatomy of a Fall starring our queen Sandra Hüller as a bisexual writer whose husband ends up on the wrong side of a balcony. I admit I'm a little annoyed Anatomy isn't being released in 4K right off the bat -- I wanna see all of that beautiful Swiss mountain scenery looking its best! Not to mention that lawyer's beautiful hair!

Twice the Weisz, Twice as Nice

When I posted in August 2020 that Rachel Weisz was going to star in a series adaptation remake of David Cronenberg's twin gynecologist masterpiece Dead Ringers I didn't yet have any information on who was making the darn thing, and so I expressed some antipathy. As one should! Not because of Weisz -- we think she's killer! -- but because remaking David Cronenberg seems a fool's errand, as his movies are so very Him that Him has become an adjective. But today we have an image via IndieWire along with the news that the series is coming from some notable names, ones which make my apprehension a little (a little, mind you) lessened. Alice Birch, the woman behind the Paul Mescal introductory series Normal People and the Florence Pugh introductory movie Lady Macbeth wrote the scripts for the show, while Martha Marcy May Marlene director Sean Durkin and The Invitation director Karyn Kusama will be directing some of the episodes. Oh and the ace Jennifer Ehle is also in the cast. I like all of these people very much, but even more than that I respect their intelligence. And as I said in my 2020 post, telling the story about mutated female anatomy with a female lead(s) this time is probably a change we should welcome? We'lls ee -- the series is set to bow in April on Amazon Prime.

Nights Of Frights

It's October! We should be getting our bodies ready for Halloween, shouldn't we? The second I'm done with NYFF (in about a week) I'll feel better situated to get myself spooky (and the Brooklyn Horror Fest kicking off this weekend should help) but for now I do have some spookiness to share -- for Mashable I made a list of "The 11 Scariest Movies Streaming For Free," go check it out right here. I went through all of the streaming sites and found the scariest titles and lemme tell you what -- narrowing it down to 11 from the over 100 titles I started with was a chore. But I did it. I cut off slivers of flesh like some Seven shit and I did it. I mixed genre classics with personal faves -- they just had to be movies that legitimately scared me. Lord knows different things scare different people but I made this list so these scared me! I think it's a good list though, if I do say so myself, so go check it out.

Lions and Tigers and Pabst Blue Ribbons, Oh My

Another day, another Tribeca review -- well there will probably be more than one that I will be linking to, but for now just the one. The one being for the new documentary called Lynch / Oz, which is about... what if I said it was about, like, watermelon salad? Wouldn't that be weird? No no it's about the director David Lynch and his obsession with the movie The Wizard of Oz. It is not about watermelon salad. Click on over to The Film Experience to read my thoughts on Lynch / Oz. Stay here if you want to read nine thousand words on watermelon salad! So... have I written nine thousand yet? I feel like I must be close. The end!

Bad Week For Bloodsuckers

This afternoon I took a brief break from screaming, "KISS! KISS!!!!!" at the above photo of The Northman director Robert Eggers and The Northman star Alexander Skarsgard to write up the news that things are not looking good for Eggers' long-hoped-for remake of Nosferatu, along with the bad word on Kayrn Kusama's Dracula movie too, over at The Film Experience, read it at the link. This shit news sandwich has got me like...

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

The Invitation (2015)

David: It's okay, I'm not offended. A lot of people think 

we're crazy. But I doubt they're as happy as we are.

Happy birthday to director Karyn Kusama today! I hope she comes back and directs more episodes of Yellowjackets next season! She only did the pilot, but I'd love more of her golden touch in season two. (Whatever the case if Melanie Lynskey's there we'll be in good hands.) Stepping back to The Invitation (masterpiece!) which is to say more specifically Michiel Huisman news though, did y'all see this photo of Luke Evans teased us with on his Insta last week?

The two of them recently filmed Echo 3, an upcoming Apple+ series from Mark Boal, screenwriter of Triple Frontier and Zero Dark Thirty -- here's my post about that announcement. One assumes this photo was taken during the time of that shoot, or maybe they just couldn't get enough of each other's half-naked company. And if it's the latter we need to take to the streets to demand more proof. 

From Yellowjackets To Yorick We Go

I have to big important and exciting trailers to share with you and you today! Above is the first (clearly), for the forthcoming Showtime series called Yellowjackets. What is Yellowjackets, you ask? I am glad you asked, here's what Yellowjackets is -- Yellowjackets is a series that stars Melanie Lynskey, Juliette Lewis, and Christina Ricci, with a pilot directed by Karyn Kusama. What, you need other information? Fuck your other information. Watch the trailer, that'll give you your precious "other information" -- me, I know what I need to know to rearrange my entire life around that thing, thank you very much. Yellowjackets premieres on Showtime sometime this fall.

And then we have the first trailer for the long and I do mean long gestating Y: The Last Man adaptation, which I have been documenting basically since I began posting on this site 15 years ago. (Chart all of our coverage at this link.) It's been some time in the making! It was supposed to be a movie, or two, at one point -- it almost got made with Shia LaBeouf. But now, eighteen years after comics writer Brian K. Vaughn first introduced Yorick Brown, the sexy regular-guy last male on Earth after a plague wiped out all of the menfolk leaving a world of pissed-off and free women to pick up the pieces, we've got an FX series. And it premieres soon! On September 12th! I gotta go see about screeners, yo.

Take a Bite Outta Nicky

Universal might have embarrassed themselves a few years back with their original concept of a so-called "shared Monsters universe" after Tom Cruise's Mummy movie bit the big one, but after the success of Elisabeth Moss and The Invisible Man movie they've been working at rebooting the concept -- Leigh Whannell, who helmed that Invisible Man, is currently working on a Wolfman film with Ryan Gosling, and the great Karyn Kusama is making yet another Dracula flick. (Also Paul Feig has talked about a Bride idea!) Well today comes word that the character of Renfield from Dracula is getting his very own film, and it will star the gorgeous and perfect Nicholas Hoult in the lead. This ain't yo momma's Tom Waits!

It's been a very long time since I've read Bram Stoker's book so I don't remember how Renfield, the man driven mad with obsequience to his vampire master, is described therein, but it's not like anybody has paid any attention to "the text" in a century as far as this particular tale goes... point being sure, make Renfield a hot piece, why not? I just hope they follow through on the homoerotic implications here -- that Count Dracula choosing a slave boy as beautiful as Nicky has... connotations, ones that would be best followed through here in the year of our Dark Lord 2021. That said the super straight crew making this project -- Chris McKay of the Lego movies, from a story by Walking Dead comics-creator Robert Kirkman -- doesn't give me a lotta hope on that front Dammit, Renfield should be kinda gay. Or really really gay. Like, really. I mean give this movie to Xavier Dolan -- I wanna see that.

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

 ... you can learn from:

The Invitation (2015)

Will: You look different, Edie. 

Eden: I am different. I'm free. All that useless pain, 

it's gone. It's something anyone can have, Will, 

and I want you to have it too.

Happy 5 to one of the greatest horror films of our age, Karyn Kusama's masterpiece of resolute tension The Invitation -- I don't think we really appreciated at the time how great it was, or how great it would be; talk about prescience. It saw QAnon coming, that's for damn sure. The feeling that the people we love have been co-opted by illogic, their traumas weaponized by outside forces, their happy smiling faces turned to terrifying masks. I can't remember if I've mentioned it here on the site proper or just tweeted about it but I have an old, good friend who I lost to the Q-cult and this movie in retrospect nails everything about the experience -- the sense of confusion and betrayal, of slamming your head up against an impenetrable place. It's weird now going back and re-reading my original very positive review of the film, how innocent that review seems now. How could we have known what was coming? Well The Invitation did. It put out the red lanterns lighting the way.

25 Off My Head: Siri Says 2016

I guess this website you're on is nursing some separation anxiety today after two weeks of holiday silence, because my intention to do a new entry in our "Siri Says" series -- where I ask my phone to choose a number between 1 and 100 and then choose my favorite movies from the corresponding year -- came at me with a huge ask this afternoon. One I had been dreading for awhile. See, Siri came back at me with the number "16", forcing me to choose my favorites from The Movies of 2016, and... 

... well I don't know if you remember 2016, but there was a lot happening in 2016. Especially at its stinger of a tail-end. The bottom dropped out, a nightmare swallowed us up, and I couldn't focus on making silly little lists. Or much of anything. It's been four years of this so maybe you can't recall how we all died, a lot, inside right around then... but we did. And so I never awarded my annual "Golden Trousers" awards for the movies of 2016. They just got lost in the mix of sturm und drang and shit. 

And I have regretted this gaping absence ever since, but... well politics aside, 2016 was actually a wonderful, seriously wonderful, year for the movies. Insanely good! (I mean it's even the year where I first heard about Call Me By Your Name, for goodness' sake!) And so the task of actually mounting this list always seemed daunting. Super massive daunting, really. And if there's one thing you know about me it's that I love Jake Gyllenhaal. But if there are two things you know about me there's that I love Jake Gyllenhaal and I am lazy. So this list just kept being put off, and off, and off. 

But now, well, why not? This is one way to put a cap on the past four awful years. And... also I'm just sitting here, trying to get myself back into the blogging frame of mind after two weeks off. Why not set myself a massive task? So usually when I do these "Siri Says" lists I just give you five movies in no particular order from the year in question, but this will not do. It doesn't seem to meet the demand of this moment, this year of movies. So not only am I ranking the films, but I'm giving you a Top 25. 2016 was too good for any less than too much, man!

My 25 Favorite Movies of 2016

25. Pee-wee's Big Holiday

(dir. John Lee)

24. Silence

(dir. Martin Scorsese)

23. The Love Witch

(dir. Anna Biller)

22. The Ornithologist

(dir. João Pedro Rodrigues)

21. Always Shine

(dir. Sofia Takal)

20. Arrival

(dir. Denis Villeneuve)

19. Neon Bull

(dir. Gabriel Mascaro)

18. Green Room

(dir. Jeremy Saulnier)

17. Wiener-dog

(dir. Todd Solondz)

16. Julieta

(dir. Pedro Almodovar)

15. Certain Women

(dir. Kelly Reichardt)

14. Aquarius

(dir. Kleber Mendonça Filho)

13. Christine

(dir. Antonio Campos)

12. A Monster Calls

(dir. J.A. Bayona)

11. Jackie

(dir. Pablo Larrain)

10. The Invitation

(dir. Karyn Kusama)

9. Kubo and the Two Strings

(dir. Travis Knight)

8. Elle

(dir. Paul Verhoeven)

7. A Bigger Splash

(dir. Luca Guadagnino)

6. The Neon Demon

(dir. Nicolas Winding Refn)

5. Moonlight

(dir. Barry Jenkins)

4. The Witch

(dir. Robert Eggers)

3. The Handmaiden

(dir. Park Chan-wook)

2. 20th Century Women

(dir. Mike Mills)

1. American Honey 

(dir. Andrea Arnold) 

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Runners-up: The Autopsy of Jane Doe (dir. André Øvredal), Train to Busan (dir. Sang-ho Yeon), Hail Caesar! (dir. Coens), The Light Between Oceans (dir. Derek Cianfrance), High-Rise (dir. Ben Wheatley), The Eyes of My Mother (dir. Nicolas Pesce), Demolition (Jean-Marc Vallee), Nocturnal Animals (dir. Tom Ford)...

... Nocturama (dir. Bertrand Bonello), Under the Shadow (dir. Babak Anvari), I, Daniel Blake (dir. Ken Loach), Things To Come (dir. Mia Hansen-Løve), Shin Godzilla (dir. Cris George), The Shallows (dir. Jaume Collet-Serra), Captain America: Civil War (dir. Russos), Swiss Army Man (dir. Daniel Scheinert), Spa Night (dir. Andrew Ahn)

Never seen: Sausage Party (dir. Conrad Vernon), Dirty Grandpa (dir. Dan Mazer), Handsome Devil (dir. John Butler), My Life as a Zucchini (dir. Claude Barras), Fire At Sea (dir. Gianfranco Rosi), Snowden (dir. Oliver Stone), Sully (dir. Clint Eastwood), Pete's Dragon (dir. David Lowery), The B.F.G. (dir. Steven Spielberg), Eddie the Eagle (dir. Dexter Fletcher)

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What are your favorite movies of 2016?