Good Mourning 2022 * Star

BLUE MORNING

How bad is 2022's Good Mourning? Um let me put it this way, how bad is anthrax? Bad, really bad. "Mourning" is a movie about actors and communal Hollyweird and those usually turn out to be disastrous. Yup, the legendary pseudonym Alan Smithee rears his ugly head once again. "Paging Eric Idle, Eric Idle".  

Good Mourning is a film that thinks it's witty and waggish but is somehow subjected to all things TMZ. I hate that tabloid poo-poo and I wanted to dis everyone involved. The acting is robotic and paused, the comedic payoffs land flat, and the closing outtakes in "Mourning" make The Cannonball Run look like Citizen Kane by comparison. Ouch.

Clocking in at a disjointed and cringey 93 minutes, "Mourning" has duff cameos (Dennis Rodman, Pete Davidson, Avril Lavigne, Tom Arnold) and a ganja factor that is at most, "half baked" (no pun intended). It's rare that I've thought about turning a flick off after ten minutes but nonetheless, I stayed till the end (hence the lousy review).  

The crux of Good Mourning is a boo-hoo of all things La La Land. A TV trouper named London (played by Colson Baker AKA Machine Gun Kelly) must decide on winning back his hot girlfriend or landing a huge role in a Batman movie. Baker wades through "Mourning" like a wounded dog with sagged eyes and some veritable foaming. Baker's performance is strikingly awful and he carries this pic like a 90-year-old grandma carrying a grand piano on her shoulders. That means not good. 

Filmed with a whiff of late 90s American Pie BS coupled with a punked-out version of Entourage, Good Mourning lets us know right away that filmmakers Colson Baker and Mod Sun should never be allowed to direct again. Heck, they were probably dazed at final cut. "Bottom of the morning". 

Written by Jesse Burleson

Who Invited Them 2022 * * 1/2 Stars

PARTY MONSTER

"Can we hit the reset button?" Uh no. Just get out of my residence and never come back again. Wait, why aren't you leaving? And what's with the smirk?

Anyway, a couple introduce their new home by having a party with some of their friends. Another couple crashes said party uninvited and unknown in their identity. Vexing. That's the rub of 2022's sometimes tantalizing but overly taunting, Who Invited Them. 

"Them" is a psychological tease of a film that occasionally revels in the conch of snobbery. It could be classified as horror but it's too new-fashioned for that. For 85 percent of the movie's 81-minute running time you're involved because rookie director Duncan Birmingham turns those screws. The way his camera moves and the way he sets up scenes in smoke-screen fashion, Duncan is an enlivened expert in the Hitchcockian. You kind of know where Who Invited Them is headed but at the same time, you kind of don't. That's the fun part.

"Them" stars Ryan Hansen, Melissa Tang, Timothy Granaderos, and Perry Mattfeld. They credibly play the two couples (or maybe couples) who through drink and drug, have a psychosomatic tug of war with each other. Through all the various subterfuges and gruesome flashbacks, Who Invited Them maintains its status as a talky flick that throws shades of creeping you out. Its setting of the Hollywood Hills shows us that these hills are "Hollyweird". 

What keeps Who Invited Them from greatness however, is how things wrap up. It eventually becomes part routine, home invasion slasher and part confusing ending (talk about a cinematic oxymoron). You'd think that after Birmingham's effectively off-kilter direction he'd settle in and deliver a more tighter final act. "Them" leaves you on the edge of interpretation and not in a good way. As a viewer I wouldn't have "invited" that. 

Written by Jesse Burleson

The Devil You Know 2022 * * * Stars

RUNNING WITH THIS DEVIL

"I think you know more than you're letting on". So says a detective in 2022's The Devil You Know. Mostly a talky pic with shards of brief violence and hazard, "Devil" unfolds like the slowest of burns as well, pure fiction.

Taking place in I guess, the less glamorous parts of San Diego (Padres games are mentioned), The Devil You Know refers to possibly the brother of the protagonist played by Omar Epps (as Marcus Cowans). "Devil" is a perfect vehicle for a seasoned, veteran actor like Epps. All disheveled and slouched over with the usual mannerisms, Omar carries "Devil" steadily in the same way he carried certain parts of 1992's Juice. As they say, the tension is in the shoulders, like a dude that did some time.

The Devil You Know centers around the grizzled Cowans, an ex-con who gets embroiled in some murders that might have involved certain members of his household. Cowans wants to stay sober and wants to go straight, but a certain clue (which I won't reveal) leads him to snitch by leaving an anonymous tip. That's when "Devil" turns dark, verbose, and dangerous, a sort of bickering, family Christmas movie but without the comedy and the yuletide cheer. 

"Devil's" littered screenplay about homicides, criminal loyalty, and family secrets gets recycled a bit too much. And the film with its sometimes uphill pacing, gives off whiffs of a TV miniseries. Still, The Devil You Know is somehow enthralling and unputdownable, a kind of mild noir with dusky tones and forced scenes that crackle. The cast is decent and I dug the icy, controlled performance of Michael Ealy (as top cop Joe McDonald). The ending (in two parts) feels a little abrupt but it's shocking like a sledgehammer on the comedown. Basically this devil "gets its due". 

Written by Jesse Burleson

Tigerland 2000 * * * 1/2 Stars

PROMISED LAND

2000's Tigerland is a pseudo, ersatz war film set in 1971 but it doesn't bleed early, 70s nostalgia. It doesn't have time for that noise. It's rather gritty and dark and grainy, like abundant mud on your shoes. Tigerland is a character study and not some Call of Duty extract. It's mean-spirited, twinging, and prison-like. War is hell even before it's time to um, go to war. 

Clocking in at 101 minutes and feeling like an extended version of the first half via Full Metal Jacket, Tigerland is a tour de force for its late director, Joel Schumacher. Schumacher lets his camera freefall as he strips away the stench from his previous, nutrition-free blockbusters (those bad Batman flicks). He unwillingly cultivates a compact, boot camp indie filled with sterling touches and brute irony. "It ain't your army". Yeah but it's my movie to review. Natch.

So is Tigerland a behind the scenes blueprint for soldiers getting ready to travel 14 or so hours to get their heads blown off? In a way yes. But like I said in the first paragraph, it's still a character study, with star Colin Farrell acting his tail off as the crusader slash antihero bent on virtual pacifism. And does Tigerland feel like a stage play with heightened acting and bullets aplenty? Yeah but so what. The film takes Schumacher out of his cinematic comfort zone like a vegetarian living off of meat. Joel reinvented his shtick here in the new millennium, with his efforts being more mature and well, more gangly. 

As a flick about a bunch of recruits training in Louisiana to get ready to fight in The Vietnam War, Tigerland takes every authoritative persona and splices them into Sergeant Hartman types. It also reaches for themes of passive resistance. The results are stirring, numbing, and upsetting, like a battle that could never be won.  

Written by Jesse Burleson

Endangered 2022 * * * 1/2 Stars

DANGER ZONE

2022's Endangered is not so much a documentary as it is a painful reminder of what's been going on in the world via the last two years. Protests and violence and COVID oh my. Man it's been a bumpy ride. Watching Endangered is like witnessing a multi-vehicle car accident. I know I sound like a broken record but you just can't look away.

Endangered is the definition of a docu because it's factual, reported, and raw, with the camera always peeking in like some sort of spy or curious bystander. Did I mention the film does the split screen technique as well? Endangered's directors (Rachel Grady, Heidi Ewing) are experts at what they do. The footage they capture is so in the moment, so undisguised. Channeling a little Steven Soderbergh but with real people instead of actors, you wonder in surreal amazement how they shot this thing (but they did cause it's there).

Endangered makes you feel sympathy for the media even though some of their shtick I find annoying (I shouldn't cause I'm a writer myself but whatever). Hey, as they say they're just doing their job. The flick follows four reporters from different parts of the planet who have received threats of inhumanity and persecution while on the beat.

With Endangered, helmers Grady and Ewing create 90 minutes of subdued, journalistic discipline that is quietly powerful. They get right up in their subject's grills but veer away from interviews and just go with hushed narration (it works). The fact that this pic was filmed at the height of the pandemic just makes it more neoteric to watch.

If you're a fan of documentaries (and I am) then Endangered will satisfy that particular, cinematic palate. The movie ends with a sort of metaphoric fog being lifted. Gosh, it's great to know that not everyone will forever be put "in harm's way".

Written by Jesse Burleson

Stowaway 2022 * * * Stars

BOAT TRIP

2022's Stowaway has a pretty fitting title. Actually there are two people who stow away in the film (at least for the first act). Watching Stowaway with great ardor, I sort of harked back to home invasion stuff like Survive the Night, Don't Breathe, and/or Breaking In. The only difference is that we're talking about a big fat yacht (with flair) and not some remote dwelling. 

For most of the way, Stowaway carries the viewer along with aplomb. The set-up here is well established, you get a solid beat on the main character (Ruby Rose as the rebellious Bella Denton), and the tension throughout is a moderate to slow burn. It's only in the last 15 minutes or so that Stowaway bogs down a little and becomes sort of rote and predictable. Frank Grillo (as patent baddie Meeser) just had to play Frank Grillo again.

Shot in quaint Mississippi with all its overhead and aerial glory, Stowaway's outline is too good to be true. It's about a downtrodden woman (Bella) who inherits a large sailboat from her late father. While sleeping on said boat with a random, Bella encounters some calculated marauders who are looking for millions of dollars in gold and don't plan on leaving any witnesses behind. 

Sometimes music is everything in a flick and well, Stowaway is pretty close in that respect. Try watching it without the sound, I mean don't. The soundtrack here by BC Smith is tops, a sort of steel-drummed, lucid suite that evokes early 2000s Cliff Martinez (and that's a good thing). Along with this soundtrack, some dark and dangerous direction by Declan Whitebloom (he's mostly a music video guy), and actors that are game enough, Stowaway bleeds atmospherics as it fashions itself as a nippy, compact thriller. Don't "hide" from it, just see it. 

Written by Jesse Burleson

Escape the Field 2022 * * Stars

CUT AND RUN

"This doesn't make any sense. How did we get here?" That's basically the depth of the dialogue from the pic I'm writing to you about. We're talking three scribblers here with thriller, script cliches running rampant.

Anyway I haven't seen Shane West in a movie for like 20 years. He's almost unrecognizable (it's probably the beard). In Escape the Field (my latest review) Shane plays a tough bloke named Ryan. Ryan has been I guess possessed and now has demonized, red eyes. He's not really scary but hey, he can still fight, sneer, and intimidate like Van Damme.

So yeah, Escape the Field has a presupposition that's there for the taking. Six people who don't know each other, wake up in a cornfield not knowing how they got there. These guys need to survive (and flee) said cornfield by solving puzzles, sticking together, and gathering clues. Basically we're talking elements of The Maze Runner, 1997's Cube, and Escape Room (with the addition of rotted maize).

Now is "Field's" privy antagonism the work of a psycho nut, a mole, or impractical, government testing? I'll go with the latter based on other films I've seen from this genre. And do the filmmakers of Escape the Field give any insight as to why some strangers are being put through the ringer via an area that would've made Malachai Boardman salivate? Nope.

"Field's" helmer (Emerson Moore) can direct as his various overhead, low angle, and aerial shots are a little disturbing. Moore's story gains traction too as you the viewer sit on pins and needles wanting to know how Escape the Field ends. Here's the problem though: "Field" doesn't actually windup or have a thread to its life-and-death quandary. The vehicle just sits there, giving you a tease of bloodless kills and aimless style. Field "untested".

Written by Jesse Burleson

Menace II Society 1993 * * * 1/2 Stars

HIGH SOCIETY

1993's Menace II Society is not so much a violent drama as it is a war film set in the street gang areas of southern LA. The young criminals and hustlers featured are like foot soldiers and Watts is well, like Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia all rolled into one. Watching "Society", you feel as unsafe and parlous as its personas do. There's no two ways about it.

Edited a tad choppy in order to squeeze everything in the movie's 97-minute running time, Menace II Society was a breakthrough success for its filmmakers at the time (Allen and Albert Hughes). The Hughes brothers obviously saw Boyz n the Hood and said, "hold my beer, I can top that". "Society" is Boyz n the Hood 2.0 with a little Goodfellas sprinkled in. You catch the gunfire, you hear the sirens, you smell the blood, you sense a ghetto bird is always flying over.

Menace II Society has a sunless tone even when it's light out. It's a barbaric kaleidoscope of drugs and money and cross-cut gangbanging. The flick is seen through the eyes of its misguided chorus in lead character "Caine" (played by Tyrin Turner is some good, wide-eyed casting). "Society" follows "Caine" and his buds as they drink the OE, smoke some ganga, steal cars, and murder in one summer via the pauperized boroughs of hazy Southland. It's kill or be killed, live by the sword, die by the sword stuff and the Hughes brothers want you to feel it.

In Menace II Society, Allen and Albert Hughes commit to every shot with their favorite being the tracking shot. As their camera glides through various residences in the hood, it's like a veritable house of horrors. You know the surroundings are bleak and everyone involved may not live very much longer. For these two dudes, Menace II Society is an attested, directorial coup de maitre. Pretty much nothing in this pic is "society's" fault.

Written by Jesse Burleson

Clean 2021 * * * Stars

STEAM CLEAN

"The trash man wasn't always a trash man". Yup, you know what that means. The trash man has a special set of skills (duh). He will find you and uh, you know the rest. 

Anyway 2021's Clean is anything but. I mean it's down and dirty and biting and stylish, taking place in a town that I didn't think was so um, down and dirty (Utica, New York). Clean stars Adrien Brody and his character's name is actually "Clean". Bearing arms and other stuff, he's a little John Wick and a little Travis Bickle, the vigilante who likes to get his wrench on. Let's just call him Adrien "Brooding" shall we. 

Clean is about Clean (Brody), a hushed, garbage truck driver who while trying to live a normal life, gets sidetracked by the need to protect his neighbors from drug dealers and loathsome thugs. Clean's solution is a savage one (it kind of has to be). I mean why beat around the bush. Why not off the surplus population of baddies via the shady areas of Utica. It's shoddy enough that they sort of run things. 

At a running time of 94 minutes, Clean's plot however, is a tad murky. I mean most of the antagonist's personas aren't quite fleshed out and Brody's Clean has a flashback past that doesn't really tell the whole story (unless you glance at the film's wiki page). Oh well. What pulls you through are Brody's hefty screen presence, the parching musical score (also done by Adrien), and Paul Solet's atmospheric direction full of gray hues, leaden overhead shots, and bleak destitution. 

Clean starts out as a slow-moving drama only to unfold like a sledgehammer of one-man army violence and bloody reprisal. It almost verges on snuff. Unearthly. As a viewer I was nearly "taken to the cleaners". 

Written by Jesse Burleson

Unplugging 2022 * * Stars

CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW?

You don't see much of Eva Longoria anymore and it's weird to view character actor Matt Walsh in a lead role. But here they are, playing a head-scratching married couple in 2022's Unplugging. Unplugging is a lightweight comedy whose tones are ambitious yet skewed. There are times when the film sort of turns into heavy-handed drama (I stress the words sort of). There are other times when Unplugging's setting suggests that it might become horror fare (I stress the word might). All of what's on screen is uneven but hey, the producers needed to expand more on a premise that feels airy and trivial (too much cell phone usage and bad cell reception are the dated topics).

So yeah, there's a reason why a flick like Unplugging was never gonna be released in theaters. I'm not talking about the COVID situation here, I'm talking about what Unplugging is well, about. I mean did we really need a movie about two spouses who take a weekend sabbatical because today's modern technology is getting in the way of their union? Not really. It doesn't carry enough weight, well maybe if Unplugging was in the form of a third quarter Super Bowl commercial.

Longoria and Walsh (as Unplugging's couple in Dan and Jeanine) are game in their performances because why not. They're probably glad to be working actors while collecting that almighty paycheck. If they were A-lister-s they wouldn't even touch this thing with a stick let alone be okay with the film's generic title. I give kudos to them and their commitment because otherwise Unplugging would be so nugatory it might just float away.

Look for Unplugging's road trip remnants, its mild slapstick antics, its drones (wha??), and its yokel characters encountered in the middle of nowhere (because cinema just has to have them). Unplugging is not as awful as I thought it would be but aside from projecting itself as a harmless time-waster, it's still mediocrity "unplugged".

Written by Jesse Burleson