Nic Cage is Dracula. Russell Crowe is an exorcist. It’s like the ’90s met the ’70s this weekend in theaters. And while both of those decades might have embraced a Martin Scorsese doc on New York Dolls frontman David Johansen, neither of those decades was ready for the fine documentary Imagining the Indian.
Renfield
In theaters
by Hope Madden and George Wolf
So, two Robot Chicken writers and the guy who directed The Lego Batman Movie got together and said, I bet they’d let us make a movie if we could get Nic Cage to play Dracula.
I mean, maybe it didn’t go down like that, but it could have and if it did, it worked. They totally made a movie with a very saucy Nic Cage as Dracula. And a saucy Nic Cage is the best Nic Cage.
Through inspired cinematic homages, we’re whooshed through a little backstory. Robert Montague Renfield (Nicholas Hoult – who played Cage’s son in Gore Verbinski’s 2005 dramedy The Weather Man) is an ambitious real estate agent who sells his soul to Dracula. Fast forward 150 years or so and he’s grown weary of the co-dependent relationship.
The blood sucker’s insatiable appetite means that his reluctant manservant is forever finding a new place for them to lay low. Right now, it’s New Orleans, where an angry cop (Awkwafina) is fighting a losing battle with a corrupt city.
But enough about the story. Honestly, if you’re here for the story, you’ve come to the wrong place. Not that co-writers Ryan Ridley and Robert Kirkman do a poor job. They do a fine job of serving Cage opportunities to ham it up, while director Chris McKay wows with Story of Ricky levels of carnage, except here it’s intentionally funny.
And the blood-splatter here is much more accomplished than Ricky, as it’s woven through a spicy gumbo of action set pieces that mix Zombieland and Shaun of the Dead with a dash of Matrix. But as fun as this all often is, the film never fully commits to any of its multiple directions.
There’s at least one bloody toe in waters that send up rom-coms, satirize narcissistic relationships and homage a classic horror character while it’s also modernizing the themes that built him.
But experiencing Count Nicula alone is worth it. Plus, Hoult is perfect as the put-upon sad boy with access to anti-hero superpowers and Awkwafina can wring plenty of humor from simply telling a guy named Kyle to F-off.
Renfield might be bloodier than you expect, but it’s just as much fun as you’re hoping for. Call it bloody good fun.
Grade: B
The Pope’s Exorcist
In theaters
by Hope Madden
Fair warning: I do tend to get in the weeds with these Catholic horror movies.
So, The Pope’s Exorcist.
Russell Crowe plays Father Gabriele Amorth, who was an honest to God exorcist based in the Vatican. He founded the International Association of Exorcists. For real, not in this movie. In this movie, he gets called to Spain to help an expat American family whose son is possessed.
The Pope’s Exorcist is the third possession film Michael Petroni has penned. Is that good news? He also wrote The Secret Lives of Alter Boys, the TV series Messiah, and The Chronicles of Naria: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. (How is that relevant, you say? Aslan is lion Jesus. FYI.) Is the point that he knows his stuff? Or that most of those scripts aren’t very good?
Co-writer Evan Spilotopoulos has also written lukewarm Catholic horror (The Unholy). What you can expect from their script (also co-written by R. Dean McCreary in his first holy horror) is very little that’s truly original.
This is where Crowe comes in.
Crowe is great. He’s funny, clever, looks amazing on his little Vespa. Alex Essoe as the possessed boy’s mother Julia is stiff, her acting even less believable when she sits across the table from Crowe, who’s enjoying every moment of his own performance. As will you.
Franco Nero plays the pope. This marks the second time Nero has played the pope, which is hilarious to me. Anyway, that’s fun. And Ralph Ineson (The VVitch) is the voice of the demon, which is the most authentic casting ever.
The Pope’s Exorcist directly mentions that the Catholic church has been the cause of two of the greatest and longest lasting sources of human misery in history: the Inquisition and the history of rampant, institutional sexual abuse. Credit for that. The film’s resolution can’t be discussed because of spoilers, but battling your demons has rarely felt less feminist.
The Pope’s Exorcist doesn’t hold a candle to the diabolical military fun of director Julius Avery’s Overlord. There are too few surprises, the FX are so-so at best, and the outcome is never really in question. Plus, it treads too heavily on the popularity of The Conjuring’s universe of “this must be true because some Catholic person wrote it down, so let’s create a Holy Water franchise.”
Is it better than Petroni’s 2011 dumpster fire, The Rite? It is. Is it another movie that says men throughout the history of Catholicism have done evil things to the powerless around them, but the only way to correct this is to believe other men in the Catholic church? It is.
But Crowe is having a blast, and it’s infectious.
Grade: C
Suzume
At Drexel Theatre
by Matt Weiner
With yet another worldwide success, director Makoto Shinkai’s newest film Suzume cements this stage of his career as one of the effective filmmakers dealing with ecological and psychological calamity.
Shinkai excels at balancing personal drama with major, world-altering stakes. Suzume feels in the same vein as his recent blockbuster successes, such as 2019’s Weathering with You and the smash hit Your Name. But Suzume also shows the difference between formula and formulaic.
There is plenty of coming-of-age and falling in love to be had during Suzume’s road trip. But there is also the inescapable backdrop of disaster, death and loss, as refracted through the 2011 earthquake that killed over 20,000 people and that Shinkai said has deeply affected his recent films.
That disaster is personal for Suzume Iwato (Nanoka Hara), the 17-year-old orphan who lost her mother at an early age. A chance encounter with the mysterious stranger Souta (Hokuto Matsumura) opens her eyes to an unseen world, where a dark worm-like force threatens to break into Japan, which, if successful would result in earthquakes and a catastrophic death toll.
The battle between hope and environmental doom stands out in Suzume, and here, too, Shinkai doesn’t lose his sense of optimism. This is helped along visually by his vibrant animation and palette. Whether it’s real-world Tokyo or the ethereal visions of the Ever-After, Shinkai’s exquisite art is both lived-in and otherworldly. To that Suzume adds a welcome bit of action and levity, helped along by Souta’s transformation into the cutest chair you’ll likely see all year.
The tonal shifts can be jarring for a film dealing with the end of the world, but it’s of a piece with Suzume’s story. Whether it’s the whole world ending or a more personal loss that means your world is ending (or at least changing), you have to hold onto what matters. And there’s a quiet sweetness to the fact that even as the apocalyptic visions in his films sharpen, what matters to Shinkai above all appears to be love.
Grade: A-
Imagining the Indian: The Fight Against Native American Mascoting
At Gateway Film Center
by George Wolf
“We’ve been used for entertainment for so long, most Americans don’t even question it.”
Imagining the Indian is a documentary with a clear agenda and a specific target audience. It isn’t really interested in preaching to the choir, and it seems to realize there are those on the opposite side who view even broaching the subject as threatening some God-given right to tell others how to feel.
But in the middle, there’s a group that may indeed have never questioned why Native American team names and mascots need to be changed.
Imaging the Indian makes a clear and very convincing case.
In short, “It’s either racist or it’s not.” True enough, but directors Aviva Kempner and Ben West follow that early declaration with multiple historical and uniquely personal perspectives that repeatedly drive the point home.
Like Kempner’s 2019 doc The Spy Behind Home Plate, the approach is far from stylish, but heavy on substantial persuasion, usually from those most directly affected by the demeaning mascots, team names and group cheers.
While veteran sports journalist (and co-producer) Kevin Blackistone finds no shortage of sports fans who dig in their cleats and yell “It’s just a name!” we see a series of Native Americans who have receipts. And they say it honors nothing but a continued “white fantasy” of a people swept out of the way for hundreds of years.
“I’m so past arguing. This is life and death for us.”
Really? Life or death? Yes, expect more receipts.
Kempner and West also highlight the leadership of Native American activist (and 2014 Medal of Freedom winner) Suzan Shown Harjo, and offer solid rebuttals to the frequent charges of “erasing history” and those misleading polls which seem to suggest Native American support for the controversial mascots.
I’m actually writing this review while a Cleveland Guardian’s game plays in the other room. And while it’s encouraging to note that the Cleveland Indians/Chief Wahoo die-hards are becoming less and less vocal, I know first hand that plenty still proudly resist the name change as some heroic stand against “wokeness.”
But with the Washington football team finally ditching “Redskins” (a name singled out as the most blatantly offensive of all), progress is being made, which is why it may be the most opportune time for Imaging the Indian to get this wider release.
Can a documentary actually be the tipping point for a new conventional wisdom, and a catalyst for permanent change?
Ask Sea World.
Grade: A-
Personality Crisis: One Night Only
On Showtime
by Hope Madden
David Johansen may not be the first name you associate with New York City, but why not? The Staten Island native has been a fixture of a teeming NYC Avant-Garde since his teens, even before he launched perhaps the city’s first punk rock band, the New York Dolls.
Martin Scorsese, directing with longtime collaborator David Tedeschi, captures both New York and live music as only he can with the Johansen documentary, Personality Crisis: One Night Only.
Filmed in January, 2020 – Johansen’s 70th birthday – at Café Carlisle, the show sees the finely-coiffured troubadour fronting a jazzy combo, still the hippest guy in the room. Interviews, concert clips and other archival footage flank selections from a classic cabaret act.
As has been the case with all of Scorsese’s music docs, Personality Crisis is heavy on music. We’re treated to complete songs, Scorsese’s camera lingering on the Johansen’s snapping fingers, a great over the shoulder shot continually glimpsing an intimate club space filled with well-behaved, well-dressed patrons.
Because Johansen “was in no mood for learning new songs,” he performs old, mostly Dolls tunes in the style of Buster Poindexter. Of the many brilliant ideas to pour from this two-hour testament to punk spirit, the decision to perform Dolls songs as cabaret standards is perhaps the brightest and best.
Plenty of punk bands have taken on pop classics, giving them a dangerous spin. But very few punk songs stand up to more popular, lyric-focused stylings. But as Dolls superfan Morrissey points out early and often in this doc, Johansen wrote incredible pop songs.
As much as I hate to agree with Morrissey, he’s right. There’s no denying the introspection, pain and poetry in Johansen’s lyrics.
Plenty of Music, Funky but Chic, Temptation to Exist, Subway Train, Better than You (even though he forgot the lyrics), and, of course, Personality Crisis take on the rich, boozy texture of the cabaret style and tell you more than they did the first go-round.
Maimed Happiness transcends time entirely, feeling more at home in the mouth of a septuagenarian than it ever did a teenaged punk.
Tedeschi also edits this film, having worked with Scorsese on Shine a Light, and George Harrison: Living in the Material World. He mines for gold, not only onstage, but in the archives. From old interviews to intimate family footage shot by Johansen’s daughter, Leah Hennessey, to clips from his Sirius satellite radio show, we’re treated to a glimpse of a life richly, and sometimes dangerously lived.
Johansen’s an onstage charmer, but more than that, he’s a vibrant ghost of New York past.
Grade: A-
Mafia Mamma
In theaters
by George Wolf
So, a suburban L.A. mom named Kristin (Toni Collette) is handpicked to be the new boss of a mafia family in Italy? Man, that’s crazy. How’d that happen?
“They made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.”
It’s actually surprising Kristin doesn’t say that in Mafia Mamma, a film that’s built on exactly that same type of forced, forced humor.
Kristin has barely had to time to cry about her son leaving for college when she catches her husband Paul (Tim Daisch) in the act with a younger woman. Then, while her head is spinning about the future of her marriage, Kirstin hears from the mysterious Bianca (Monica Belluci).
Turns out Kristin’s estranged grandfather was head of the Balbano crime family, and was just assassinated by the rival Romano clan. But Kristin (maiden name: Balbano) is only told grandpa is dead, and she must come to Italy to settle his affairs.
As Jenny (Sophia Nomvete), the oversexed best friend (c’mon, you knew there’d be an oversexed best friend) implores Kristin to have an “Eat, pray, f@#k” vacation, she’s quickly juggling suave suitors and surprising truths.
Bianca was General for Don Guiseppe Balbano (Alessandro Bressanello), and she’s committed to carrying out the Don’s last order: that Kristin take over the family.
Fish-out-of-water hijinx ensue, with director Catherine Hardwicke weakly juggling the mob tropes amid some well-intentioned but heavy handed reminders about how workplace culture disrespects aging women.
Collette is likable as always, and Belucci is smoldering as always, but the script they’re given can’t rise above the TV backgrounds of the writing team. Convoluted, nonsensical and never more than mildly amusing, Mafia Mamma is about as lively as Luca Brasi.
Grade: C-
Chrissy Judy
On VOD
by Christie Robb
Judy (Todd Flaherty) and his partner Chrissy (Wyatt Fenner) are co-stars of an underwhelming New York drag act. Then, Chrissy up and quits and moves to the hinterlands of Philadelphia to make a go of it with his on-again-off-again long-distance boyfriend Shawn, leaving behind the remains of a humdrum double act.
Judy, still ambitious, but now 30 and feeling out of step with the young, struggles to choreograph the next act in their life.
Judy is obsessed with nostalgia and the vintage glamor of old Hollywood, so it’s fitting that the film itself is beautifully shot in black and white and scored in a mix of old standards and jazz. The dialogue often harkens back to the fast-talking banter of old screwball comedies, updated with modern slang, a lot more cursing, and the occasional references to douching.
Written, directed, edited, produced by AND starting Flaherty, there’s a real emotional depth to this one. Flaherty and Fenner manage to convey the complex layers of a long-term and somewhat complicated friendship.
Avoiding the heteronormative tropes of typical romantic movies, this one feels like part rom-com, part coming-of age while offering a novel take on a love story.
Grade: A-
The Ants & the Grasshopper
On VOD
by Rachel Willis
For Anita Chitaya, climate change is devastating. Along with her community, she does what she can to minimize its impacts in Bwabwa, Malawi. However, she knows that for real change to happen, she needs to go to America – and convince those who don’t believe.
Directors Raj Patel and Zak Piper give her that opportunity and film the journey for their documentary, The Ants & the Grasshopper.
The first 20 minutes of the film shows us Anita’s world. Not only does she farm her one acre of land with her husband, Winston, she erases old notions of gender roles. She encourages men to cook and help their wives with necessary chores. Her program is successful, though there is one notable hold out who refuses to do “woman’s work.”
Upon the success of her endeavors in her hometown, she believes she can convince people in America about the reality of climate change if only she could talk to them.
The film picks up steam when Anita, along with her friend Esther, arrives in the U.S. Her journey begins in the Midwest, speaking with farmers about the impacts of their practices on Bwabwa.
Though everyone who meets Anita is civil, it’s clear some don’t believe her plight at home is due to climate change. Jordan works on his family’s farm; though he says he will do what he can to help, he blatantly states he doesn’t think it’s an issue. This shocks his parents. That members of the same family have conflicting beliefs speaks to the heart of the problem in America.
It’s humbling and a little shaming to watch Anita travel across America. As she takes in the excess, she points out that we take what we have for granted. Her companion, Esther, points out that it’s not about making anyone feel guilty – “too much time is wasted on guilt.” But when Anita and her community struggle to find water for cooking and cleaning, what we take for granted is damning.
However, there is hope to be found. After Anita returns home, we find the same man who refused to do woman’s work now teaching other men how to cook. Skeptic Jordan wishes he could apologize to his Malawi friends for laughing when “maybe I should have cried.” People can change. Though the sentiment is that it’s never too late to change, the faster we wake up, the better for everyone.
Grade: B+
iMordecai
On VOD
by Tori Hanes
Ah, the great dismay of reviewers everywhere: putting to word the film that is, in all respects, just fine.
Good intention, beating heart, a splattering of fine performances… a contrived story, weird relationships, and dramatically confusing decisions. Comme ci, comme ça.
Holocaust survivor turned Miami Beach grandfather Mordecai Samel is played by Judd Hirsch – and let’s be honest here. The man’s 88 years old. This in and of itself is worthy of praise.
Mordecai is forever changed by the purchase of an iPhone. This singular point sprouts approximately 12 plots that messily attempt a parallel run, including:
- A flailing cigar business run by Mordecai’s perpetually disgruntled son, Marvin (Sean Astin)
- A wholeheartedly strange relationship with a member of a Nazi bloodline
- A bizarrely convenient dementia diagnosis
- A budding, introduced-and-forgotten art career
Any of these could’ve, and probably should’ve, been the primary plot. Instead, they bob and weave to and fro, knocking each other off course for the chance at a fleeting moment in the sun.
The contexts surrounding this film are, unfortunately, more interesting than the movie itself. Filmmaker Marvin Samel created iMordecai as a joyous tribute to his father, and that palpable love is present throughout the 102 minute run time. Mordecai Samel did survive the Holocaust in a Siberian orphanage, and he did create a happy life in sunny Miami. His son claims to have learned the craft of filmmaking through online classes, accumulating his knowledge to create the cinematic experience of his father’s golden years.
Hilariously, iMordecai is touted as a “true story – the bold, true story of an older man learning how to use an iPhone.” Of course this is a hyperbolic simplification, but the nature of the claim feels about as asinine as that. It’s a glaring example of the lack of perception toward what makes this movie interesting. Mordecai Samel, the man at the center, is the heart, pumping blood to every far reaching vein. When the film turns a tourniquet on itself, it loses.
Overall, the plot’s messy but comprehensible. The direction is jarring but understandable. The cast is stacked, the performances are solid, but the characters are left-footed. iMordecai is digestible in every way but forgettable just the same.
Grade: C
Listen to George, Hope and Schlocketeer Daniel Baldwin run through all of this week’s reviews plus new movie news on THE SCREENING ROOM PODCAST.