film reviews, interviews, features | BRWC

Author: Matt Conway

  • Bad Hair: Review

    Bad Hair: Review

    Premiering at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, Hulu’s Bad Hair is the latest feature from Dear White People writer/director Justin Simien. Simien’s latest endeavor observes the forceful assimilation of black culture through a distinct horror lens, marking his first foray into genre filmmaking. While there are a few missteps, Simien’s film thankfully finds a balance between thrills and substantive ruminations.

    Set in the late 1980s, Bad Hair follows Anna (Elle Lorraine), a TV executive for a freshly-developed hip-hop network. Despite her tireless work ethic, Anna never receives the promotion she deserves, leading to her acquiring a weave to fit into her corporate world. Her new hairstyle impresses her peers, but it proves to have a mind of its own when it starts to attack people.

    Similar to Dear White People, Simien mindfully works to construct equally thoughtful and relevant social dynamics. The high-concept premise works not only as an inventive horror showcase, but also as a potent avenue of deconstructing America’s degradation of the natural black image. From jump street, Anna is consistently ostracized by higher executives for her nappy appearance, forcing her to embrace a superficial reality that ultimately masks her identity. The portrayal of forced compliance is enhanced by Elle Lorraine’s assured lead performance, with the Insecure star tapping into the insecurity and muted pain that this decision brings.

    This foundation breeds promising opportunities for Simien to juxtapose the character’s inner-turmoil with visceral horror elements. As a director, he imbues some inspired craftsmanship choices that aptly harken to genre B-movies of yesteryear. Cinematographer Topher Osborn’s grainy aesthetic captures its finite late-80s period soundly, making a fitting canvas for Simien to unleash some campy, over-the-top setpieces that properly utilize the concept (his use of intense close-ups and cheeky practical effects are often quite fun). It could have been easy for this film to lose its tonal axis, but the different identities mesh with enough thought and balance to properly co-exist. Supporting performances from Jay Pharoah, Lena Waithe, and Vanessa Williams also bring the entertainment factor, with Williams shinning as a deliciously-stern villain.

    Bad Hair is always earnest, though some of the execution choices lack dramatic grace. Simien’s screenplay occasionally handles its vital conceits with clumsy heavy-handedness, implementing dialogue that lacks authenticity and nuance (similar to Dear White People, some lines read as overt ciphers for the screenwriter). I also wished the film’s second half bolstered more narrative ingenuity, rarely packing the kind of surprises that make horror films truly stand out.

    Still, Bad Hair’s imperfect form never masks its innate pleasures. Justin Simien’s latest offers a satisfying blend between thought and thrills, leaving me excited to see what the writer/director dreams up next.

  • A Babysitter’s Guide To Monster Hunting: Review

    A Babysitter’s Guide To Monster Hunting: Review

    A Babysitter’s Guide to Monster Hunting comes in as Netflix’s latest attempt to capitalize on the Halloween season. This YA adaptation boasts a promising premise that harkens back to family films of yesteryear, which unabashedly approached their high-concept premises with frights and creativity. Despite this conceit, Babysitter’s Guide never imbues its zany characteristics with much thought or originality.

    Based on Joe Ballarini’s novel (he also wrote the screenplay), A Babysitter’s Guide to Monster Hunting follows Kelly (Tamara Smart), an outcast who is mocked by her peers for discovering a monster as a child. While babysitting during Halloween night, the Grand Guignol (Tom Felton) appears and kidnaps the children under Kelly’s care. In order to rescue the night, Kelly teams up with a secret society of babysitters to fight off the evil monster spirits.

    Striking the colorful balance between scares and humor is a tough task, especially when approaching that sensibility for an adolescent lens. Some elements work well under these circumstances though, particularly Tom Felton’s performance as the eccentric villain. Channeling David Bowie’s charismatic energy from Labyrinth, the former Harry Potter star has a blast playing into the character’s boisterous persona with unhinged glee. Young star Tamara Smart also displays some assured ability as Kelly, infusing the character’s arc with some much-needed personability.

    While I appreciate the film’s attempts to re-capture the magic of 80s/90s family films, the execution rarely finds that finite balance. Director Rachel Talalay overwhelms the narrative with abrasive stylistic choices, drowning out scenes with pop confectionary tracks that rarely capture their intended energy. She also struggles to integrate the CGI-driven monsters with much imagination, with tacky effects work creating creatures that never scare or excite audiences. Like a lot of middling Netflix films, there’s a cheap veneer that prevents any creative exploration of the film’s high-concept premise.

    The lack of filmmaking ingenuity further highlights the script’s disposability. I have no preconceived notions about Ballarini’s novel, but his script doesn’t highlight what might have worked within the source material. From the “secret teen organization” to the trite messages about believing in yourself, the film recycles a lot of common YA tropes without putting a thoughtful spin on them. Audiences can seemingly set their watch predicting when each plot beat will occur, with one-dimensional character dynamics doing little to mask the general banality.

    It may be loud enough to satisfy younger audiences, but A Babysitter’s Guide to Monster Hunting’s trite delivery never exceeds its YA framework. If families are looking for a good Halloween-themed Netflix film, check out the brainer Vampires vs. The Bronx instead.

  • The Witches: The BRWC Review

    The Witches: The BRWC Review

    For a director with several well-regarded classics under his belt (Back to the Future, Forrest Gump, Who Framed Roger Rabbit), Robert Zemeckis’ career has since spiraled down a negative trajectory. Recent offerings like Welcome to Marwen and Allied rank among the director’s weakest offerings, with these films showcasing Zemeckis’ creative bend without its usual dynamism or emotional heft. His latest release The Witches (which is opting for an HBO Max release due to COVID conditions), is similarly spiritless, noisily portraying its source material without much inspiration.

    Based on Roald Dahl’s acclaimed novel, The Witches follows “Hero Kid” (Jahzir Bruno, with an older version played by Chris Rock), who moves in with his grandma (Octavia Spencer) after his parents’ deaths. After an encounter with a mysterious spectral force, the two travel to a luxurious hotel where an army of witches has assembled. Led by the Grand High Witch (Anne Hathaway), these witches set their sights on turning every bratty kid into mice.

    The seldom liveliness comes from the film’s assured cast. Anne Hathaway is clearly playing to the back of the auditorium, spewing theatrical energy that dominates the screen. As the Grand High Wizard, Hathaway has a blast playing into the character’s delightfully sinister persona, elevating what could have been a cloying presence in the wrong hands. Octavia Spencer is tailor-made for the sweet, yet stern maternal figure role, while Jahzir Bruno holds his own as the standard-issue protagonist (it’s also always a joy to see Stanley Tucci bring his signature wit).

    Whether audiences are comparing this adaptation to Dahl’s novel or the 1990 film, this iteration of The Witches feels noticeably timid. Nicolas Roeg’s demented visual sensibility is substituted for a sterile blandness, with Zemeckis concocting busy CGI-driven sequences that lack a creative vision (transforming characters merely poof via purple clouds, a far cry from what the original dreamed up). Similar to other modern YA adaptations, this film would rather offer a forgettable diversion for adolescent audiences than actually challenging them, embracing dated conventions that mitigate Dahl’s inventive landscape. This is particularly disappointing coming from Zemeckis, who once shined for his ability to marry lively visuals within a well-constructed narrative (judging by his poor animated output, he seems to focus more now on filmmaking techniques than well-fleshed storytelling).

    Zemeckis’ greatest sin derives from his avoidance of the material’s substantive qualities. Dahl’s novel ruminates on the vitriol of racist parties, using its 1960’s setting to educate young readers about the ignorance of prejudice. The script (written by Zemeckis and Kenya Barris, with an earlier credit from Guillermo del Toro), dances around this conceit while largely ignoring its significance, leaving audiences with a hollow shell of what Dahl was trying to create.

    While crafted with visual busyness, The Witches rarely re-creates the timeless magic of its source material.

  • The Trial Of The Chicago 7: The BRWC Review

    The Trial Of The Chicago 7: The BRWC Review

    Aaron Sorkin’s verbose writing style has cultivated a passionate audience of supporters, with efforts like West Wing and The Social Network standing tall as significant cultural staples. Few writers are able to make dialogue fly off the page with his adept sharpness and wit, a sensibility that Sorkin is now trying to imbue as a director. In his second directorial effort The Trial of The Chicago 7, Sorkin employs his usual bag of tricks in a misguided manner, straining for a substantive throughline that just isn’t there on the page.

    The Trial of The Chicago 7 follows the aftermath of the 1968 Democratic Convention, which bursted into a chaotic scene once peaceful protests became violent. Democratic and anti-Vietnam leaders are now standing trial for their actions (Tom Hayden played by Eddie Redmayne, Alex Sharp as Rennie Davis, Sacha Baron Cohen as Abbie Hoffman, Jeremy Strong as Jerry Rubin, John Caroll Lynch as David Dellinger, Noah Robbins as Lee Weiner, and Daniel Flaherty as John Froines), facing a trial that twists the truth at every turn (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II plays Bobby Seale, who was on trial due to racial prejudice rather than having a meaningful role in the events).

    Sold as one of the year’s biggest Oscar contenders, Trial certainly possesses the trappings of an awards darling. The all-star cast mostly lives up to their promise (Eddie Redmayne and Sacha Baron Cohen sometimes struggle to convey a consistent accent), with Yahya Abdul-Mateen II and Mark Rylance stealing the show throughout. Mateen II’s performance resonates deeply, portraying the deeply-seated injustices facing Bobby with a balance of controlled pain and unfiltered anger. Between this and HBO’s Watchmen, Mateen II is a rising star with a promising future in the industry. Rylance also continues his trend as one of the industry’s strongest character actors, deftly portraying lawyer William Kunstler with subdued charisma.

    Sorkin’s limitless vernacular always spices up familiar trappings, yet his direction severely underserves his strengths as a writer. His debut effort Molly’s Game employed a level of slickness that matched its high-stakes world, but here, the slick editing style here just feels tacky (protest sequences awkwardly mesh with real-life footage in a way that detracts from their intended impact). Incorporating grand operatic moments throughout the trial sequences, Sorkin’s identity strives to strike the broad, yet profound balance of Steven Speilberg’s best work. Unlike Speilberg, Sorkin captures these essential moments with a mawkish cheesiness that mitigates any potential message.

    For a film that feels impeccably timed for our chaotic times, The Trial of the Chicago 7 ultimately has little to say about its reciprocal issues. Sorkin’s insights dance towards a moderate tone that condemns its injustices with a wishy-washy voice, rarely taking on the critical attitude that’s desperately needed (a scene involving Bobby’s critique of the protestors different motivations felt like a glimmer of what could have been). Sorkin never makes a revelatory statement, rather preaching to his politically-converted choir with empty words of wisdom. It all concludes with an ending that sledgehammers it’s point with a clumsy sense of self-satisfaction, patting itself on the back without realizing that it’s painful injustices still linger on today.

    The Trial of the Chicago 7 has the prestige of an awards film, but that poshness creates a hollow examination of its critical historical period.

  • Beckman: Review

    Beckman: Review

    Hollywood ultimately operates as a business, with some studios skating by solely on the strength of their financial returns. The Christian-based company Pure Flix is a prime example of this dynamic, releasing a bevy of big-screen (God’s Not Dead and Unplanned) and straight to DVD projects that appeal to their religious-right audience despite the inherently poor craftsmanship. This fact is part of what makes their latest action vehicle Beckman such a welcomed surprise.

    Beckman follows a titular assassin (David A.R. White), who retires from his life of bloodshed to pursue a righteous path. After becoming a preacher and adopting a formerly-enslaved teen Tabitha (Brighton Sharbino), Beckman gets a rude awakening from his old-life when Tabitha is kidnapped. Now, Beckman must go on an all-out rampage to save her from the dastardly cult leader Resse (William Baldwin).

    Labeled as the “Christian John Wick” by many, Beckman’s hokey conception is matched with some surprisingly assured craftsmanship. Director Gabriel Sabloff’s film is as mean-and-lean as it gets, presenting an onslaught of gunplay and fistfights without an ounce of pretentiousness (after a 20-minute set-up, the film relentlessly travels from setpiece to setpiece). Relying upon practical stunt work and tight-quarters framing, Sabloff ably captures these scrappy setpieces with technical aplomb, delivering the kind of gratifying stand-offs that make the action genre a beloved staple. It’s far more impressive to see a director make the most out of limited assets rather than throwing bombastic effects at the screen.

    When the action isn’t onscreen, Beckman stays afloat thanks to David A.R. White’s commanding central performance. White, a frequent collaborator of Pure Flix, steps into the action hero role with impressive ease, inserting enough gravitas to propel the character’s archetype design. He and Brighton Sharbino do enough to make their makeshift father-daughter relationship resonate, supplying a sturdy center for the carnage to ensue around. I also got a kick out of William Baldwin’s mustache-twirling villain, as Baldwin delivers his lines with enough sinister glee to make for a worthy adversary.

    That being said, Beckman gets by more from its general competence rather than any conceptual ingenuity. Almost every plot beat and character dynamic feel patchworked from far superior films, with the script having nothing to show for itself other than copied ideas. I also was surprised to see how little the film showcased its religious flavor. Utilizing a sense of morality to juxtapose the character’s descent towards his former murdering ways has potency on paper. Sabloff’s deliver minimizes the complexity of this dynamic though, with simplistic parables adding minimal dramatic weight.

    For fans of guilty-pleasure action films, Beckman colors its familiar formula with enough sound craftsmanship to register a positive impression.