Eazy Meets is a short film by first time director Grace Williams. This horror/drama short follows a fairly ordinary married couple, Richard and Molly. The pair live together, and whilst it seems they have found ways to accommodate each other, there is one big difference between them. She is a vegan and he is a meat-eater. In today’s world, these differences can really drive a wedge between people, especially when living together and trying to make a marriage work. The fact that he eats meat is clearly a problem for her, and this causes a certain underlying tension.
When Molly goes to work, Richard surfs a website called ‘Eazy Meets’, and entertains blonde women in his flat, before luring them into a secret room. We never see what is going on behind the closed doors, but we know there is something suspicious. One day, Molly comes home early from work and discovers his stomach-churning secret.
The film explores, in a clever way, the way in which our lifestyle choices define us in today’s world. It is also a look at how we struggle to accept one another’s differences when it comes to these preferences, such as meat eating or veganism. The ending is unpredictable and a well-orchestrated reveal, one that will make you slightly uncomfortable, but I assume this was the aim of the director!
Playing like an incredibly straight and far less interesting Pulp Fiction, Heat Wave has a calm and quiet manner that, while at first captivating and even engrossing, eventually wears thin and winds up becoming dull, more than anything. That’s quite a feat given the film only lasts 90 minutes.
It’s not that the film is inherently bad, in fact quite a lot of it is pretty good. The time hopping narrative trope is, while overused to the point of parody now, still an interesting way to approach a story, and writer/director Jean-Jacques Jauffret knows how to get the best out of it. We see every day scenarios (waiting for a bus, grocery shopping etc.) through multiple angles, the narrative hopping from one character’s point of view to another throughout the course of the story, and that makes for interesting viewing.
But, while all these new view points certainly alter the way we ultimately view the plot and structure of the film, it doesn’t really do anything beyond that. The film seems to want to be making the point that people have their own lives and that all of these stories are only important to the characters it directly affects, but it never really feels like it runs with that enough, especially given the way all the characters intertwine anyway (I care about things my friends are doing, y’know?).
Maybe I’m missing the point, but it just felt all a little bit unnecessary. The time hopping structure of the film doesn’t seem to be wholly necessary and the film wouldn’t have been harmed much if the story played out in a linear fashion.
When we look at Pulp Fiction, by placing the events of that film in order it would lose a lot of what makes it so great, but with Heat Wave I’m not sure that’s the case. It wouldn’t have the narrative structure, but that would sort of be it. It’d still be the same film, with the same outcome and the same emotional beats.
Ultimately it feels more like a flashy gimmick than it does something that genuinely advances and helps further the story. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a good gimmick and it leads to some interesting moments when we repeat scene with a new context to watch them through, but that’s about it.
There are people who will love it, and it is an interesting watch. There’s a meticulousness about some of the shots, and it does look great. The camera lingers long in wide angles for big portions of the film and that adds a mundane but almost beautiful quality. There’s nothing here that’s not something we’d see in everyday life, and the static nature of the camera only serves to add to that.
It’s as though we’re a fly on the wall, just watching the everyday lives of these people, and there’s a strange sort of honesty and energy to that. I’ve always bee partial to “slice of life” movies anyway, so that sort of works for me.
There are moments where the camera lingers too long and I found myself getting a little fed up with the pacing toward the end, but it’s the climax where the film really lost me, straying over from subtle realism to contrived silliness. I get the impression that the filmmakers wanted to add an element of tragedy to the movie but… well, these characters were all already tragic, I don’t think I needed the extra bit.
The performances are all great, with everyone bringing something interesting to the table. Adele Haenel shines as Amelie, and she is the most watchable of the four leads, while it’s Yves Ruellan’s grumpy old man that gives the audience a reason to keep watching as we wait patiently for his segment to finally appear.
By the time we got there, though, I’d already started to lose interest, and ultimately the film became a struggle to get through.
There’s a lot here to like, but it’s just not enough to keep momentum going throughout the runtime. It’s certainly an interesting watch but I’m not sure I’d go so far as to call it enjoyable. I’m not sure why the film is intent on getting all of its leads to strip off, but there is a funny sort of enjoyment in trying to work out how each one will eventually shed their clothes.
In the end Heat Wave is, as Edward Norton’s Narrator in Fight Club might say, a single-serving movie. It’s interesting enough to warrant a watch, but it’s not good enough or enjoyable enough to warrant returning to.
Sex, shampoo and rock ’n’ roll get worked up into a lather in this musical, murderous thriller.
Writer-director Harley Di Nardo also stars in his film as David Tangiers – a washed-up rockstar turned hair stylist, who seems modelled after a post-Pirates Johnny Depp. By day he runs a salon with his wife Cecily (Samantha Smart); by night he grasps for former glories at half-arsed gigs in half-empty dive bars.
When David hires the intense and inscrutable Javy Bates (Adam Reeser) to start working at the salon the two bond over hair gel and hard rock, but it’s not long before the roots of Javy’s dark secrets begin to show.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTex9fXEoUw
Unfortunately, it’s amateur hour (and eight minutes) in this poorly shot, chopped and performed thriller that isn’t remotely thrilling. Samantha Smart stands out as the only half-decent member of the cast, but she’s given shoddy service by Di Nardo’s painfully hackneyed script. The film is shot with flat and lifeless cinematography, and tangled subplots are left to break into split ends.
A whole multitude of cinematic sins can be forgiven with entertainment value. Yet while Dead Envy’s promotional material promises a soapy sense of fun, the film never embraces its inherent absurdity to bring the campy comedy or cartoonish horror that this joyless experience desperately needs.
There isn’t really any escaping from the classic film The Great Escape. Especially come Christmas time. Often seen as one of the greatest war films ever made, featuring an all-star cast and direction from one of the greatest of classic Hollywood directors, The Great Escape established itself as a household title decades ago. And it also happens to be a film that I have not properly seen myself. That’s not been a deliberate stance for me, it’s simply that – despite the acclaim and prestige the film has – it’s not been one that interested me enough to watch. The fact that I have never seen it was made very apparent to me once I watched the documentary that focused on it – The Coolest Guy Movie Ever.
The Coolest Guy Movie Ever, a great title if I ever heard one, follows a documentary team as they travel to a small town outside of Munich, where The Great Escape was shot. Their goal is to take us back in time, to the shooting of the extraordinary film, and find out whatever new things they can about its production. It’s certainly not a bad concept for a documentary. It’s certainly been done before, with Jaws, Apocalypse Now and pretty much any film that had Ray Harryhausen’s involvement in it. The problem is that, while it’s a good idea for a documentary, the documentary itself is not an engaging one.
The Coolest Guy Movie Ever falls into that unfortunate trap that many have before, where the topic at hand is infinitely more interesting than what’s going on in the actual documentary. It is very strange to see that a film, based on a cinematic classic that is almost universally praised and loved, is just so blandly filmed. There’s no real style to it.
Visually, it’s at it’s most interesting when we are seeing clips, stills and moments from The Great Escape. When we aren’t seeing those, which is most of the time, we are seeing long shots with fairly drawn out edits. While I do have an idea as to why this was the case, it’s supposed to feel like a film of the era that it’s documenting, it comes off as visually boring in practice.
As for the narration, this is where the film mostly lost me. The voice narrating the film is very over the top, which just took away from my experience with it. It’s a voice, or at least similar to a voice, that I have heard in a number of documentaries, and it never fails to distract me from what I’m meant to be seeing. Don’t get me wrong, I liked learning about the production of The Great Escape and I did learn some fun facts. But the voice used, and the more than understandable lack of interviews with the films cast distracted me enough for most of these facts to not really sink in.
It’s clear that those who made this documentary have a passion for The Great Escape. To not be entirely unfair, I am more likely to watch it now. But I wasn’t engaged with the film as a whole. It’s probably just me, but I’ve seen enough documentaries that worked as this one did that I found it too familiar and a little boring for it. I wouldn’t call it bad per say, just uninvolving. It’s debatable if The Great Escape is truly the coolest guy movie ever – I’d personally give that little trophy to Predator – but this documentary, sadly, isn’t it.
Marvel has done it again. From them we have got ourselves another serviceably fun film. One that’s got some very good ideas and some terrific performances, but feels lacking in the creative department. I’m not going to say that Ant-Man was a masterpiece, it wasn’t, but it did hit all the right notes with me. The story was a scaled-down telling of a heist and the tone was a lot lighter than most over superhero films. It felt like a family film, and as one I think it did a good job, being accessible for all ages. It also avoided the issues that normally come with replacing a director in the middle of filming – Edgar Wright’s and Payton Reed’s visions seemed to bounce off each over very well. It was very formulaic and had a very weak antagonist, but was fine for what it was. That’s pretty much how I also feel about Ant-Man and the Wasp.
Having been shrunk into another dimension in the last film, the same dimension that Hank Pym’s wife was sent to, Pym wants to use Ant-Man, Scott Lang, to go back in and rescue his wife after over twenty years. The problem, Scott is under house arrest for what he did in Captain America: Civil War and can’t leave, lest he be sent to prison and loose his daughter for good in the process. Oh, and there’s also an arms dealer trying to steal their technology and a woman whose body is trapped between two dimensions – a state of being that is very slowly and very painfully killing here – who is wanting to use Hank’s wife to save her life, while ending the one of the woman they are trying to save. Will Scott manage to save the day without the cops noticing him? To do that, he’ll need a partner…
To not sound overly negative, I will talk about the three main elements that I loved in this film. The acting is first and foremost. It’s terrific! Not only is everyone balancing dramatic tension with cartoonish humour very well, they still come off as human beings. I’ve always loved Paul Rudd, the only role this man can’t play is a villain. He’s effortlessly likable and fun to watch. He has excellent chemistry with all his cast members and really is the heart and soul of the film. Evangeline Lily as Hope Pym, aka The Wasp, is every bit as good as Rudd. They have a couple bickering role, but they do it in a way that doesn’t feel tired. The girl playing Scott’s daughter is a stand out also, being a good motivator for our characters. Returning actors – like Michael Douglas and Michael Pena – and new-comers – Michele Pfeiffer and Lawrence Fishburne – all work perfectly in their roles.
I like the humour, which feels genuine at moments and suitably cartoonish in others. Sometimes it’s a little uncalled for, but for the most part it works well. Finally, I really like the action. They play with the shrinking and growing tech better than any other film that features it. The action is well choreographed, and it is inventively original. You’ve never seen a salt-shaker used this way before, I’ll tell you that much. There’s even some amazing stunts involving toy cars – there’s a sentence I thought I’d never say!
Sadly, everything else, while certainly not bad – although the music is completely forgettable – is just so been-there-done-that. The chief offender of this is the villain. Now, her backstory is very interesting and the motivation of just trying to stop the pain is a relatable one. But the character herself, the one we see throughout the film, is one-note. There’s no depth, there’s no human moment here or there, she’s just an obstacle, and an overused one at that, I feel her screen time could have been cut down a bit. I’m used to bad Marvel villains by now, but after the villains we’ve had this year – the intimidating Thanos, the hilarious Klau and the all-around excellent Kill monger, I did find this one particularly disheartening. There’s also a character who we don’t know what side he’s on – until it’s answered around the 45-minute mark. And the arms dealer is a boring an unnecessary addition to the film.
The story is fine. There’s legitimate tension and interesting ideas throughout, but you’ve seen it before in other Marvel films. Winter Soldier in particular, the more I think about it. It also has that issue that I’ve been noticing with almost every sequel these days – where they feel the need to complicate the story. For example, Deadpool – nice, simple story with a lot of focus on the areas it’s trying to cover. Deadpool 2 – a jumbled mess of subplots and tones that made me forget what the actual story was at times. Neither is bad, but that’s how they are. The same goes here. And has gone with more films than I can count lately. Sometimes it’s warranted – Blade Runner 2049 and Avengers Infinity War for example – but not for a film that aims to please families with fun humour and goofy action.
The effects are good, the directing’s good, the writing’s fine, Ant-Man and the Wasp works as a film. If you want a bit of fun at the cinemas, definitely watch it, I don’t think it’ll let anyone down on that level. But it did remind me of why I’m bored of superheroes. Black Panther and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 got better with time and viewings, and I do hope that the same happens here, but I doubt it this time. It’s just a nice, middle-of-the-road Marvel film – which certainly isn’t bad. It’s just bland. The acting is exceptional and there’s fun ideas and just plain old fun to be had, it’s just a shame that all it came to was just serviceable.
