CatVideoFest is a compilation of cat videos sourced from submissions, animations, music videos and the internet.
Trawling through over 15,000 videos, director Will Braden has found the most entertaining moments of cats to raise money for cat shelters.
Beginning in 2019, the festival has raised over $150, 000 for local shelters as well as encouraging adoptions, fostering, volunteer signups and more.
The delightful end result shows a loose structure to a 75-minute reel, from ‘Drama’ featuring cats sharing space with a dog, giving a baby The Look, to opening the fridge, to oh-how-we-love-to-knock-things-off-shelving, to a black kitten trying to capture the sun.
‘Action Adventure’ shows a kitten attacking shoelaces, cat boxing, turtle versus cat – turtle wins.
‘Cat GIFs’ has a cat in the back of a hooded jacket.
This is my fur ball of sunshine, Biddie-Fluff; ever hopeful for a belly scratch but knowing not to get too far over the keyboard when I’m working. This is of course, is not always a successful arrangement.
‘Documentaries’ has Cat Man Chris, rescue Humphrey and his brother, ‘This is peak cat owner existence,’ The Unbothered Cat, to trying to work with kittens around (I can relate!).
‘Musical’ has a cat singing on cue with his owner guitarist and sprinkled throughout the reel is an old dude playing a piano and singing lyrics describing the goings on with made-up cat songs.
Speaking of which, there’s of course the Christmas ornaments sequence, ‘Your ornaments are history,’ then there’s Goat suffering from seizures but oh so soothed by his human’s music therapy.
‘More Cat GIFs’ shows orange straddling a pole.
‘Comedy’ has the ultimate ownership of the family cat being more important, or more demanding of attention and cuddles, then the newborn baby just brought home.
CatVideoFest is good G-rated fun that had me crying with laughter.
The sometimes deadly looks from these playful felines? Priceless. And of course, it’s all for a good cause.
Produced by: Daniel Bekerman, Jacob Jarek, Ruth Treacy, Julianne Forde, Louis Tisné, Ali Abbasi
Starring: Sebastian Stan, Jeremy Strong, Maria Bakalova, Martin Donovan, Catherine McNally, Charlie Carrick.
‘If you’re indicted, you’re invited.’
A clever play on the Donald Trump TV series, (‘you’re fired’) The Apprentice, the apprentice, here, is Donald Trump.
Based on true events, the film is about the relationship between Trump (Sebastian Stan) and ruthless lawyer, Roy Cohn (Jeremy Strong).
Director Ali Abbasi states: “I hope that people, no matter how they might feel about Donald Trump, can watch the film and really experience this relationship. It’s not supposed to be an ideological attack or a polemic debate. It’s about depicting a certain complexity in these human beings.”
The film begins in the 70s, when New York was known as The Fear City.
With his father’s (Freddy Trump (Charlie Carrick)) company currently indicted for a racist policy when leasing apartments in their buildings, Donald’s dream of converting the debilitated Commodore Building into a luxury hotel is impossible.
Meet, Roy Cohn.
Roy’s first seen with a devilish look through an open doorway – he sees Trump struggling to make an impression on his date, ‘Why are you so obsessed with these people?’
Because Trump knows that the people in this place are billionaires, the decision makers with connections.
And he wants to be one of them.
Cohn takes pity on Trump. He likes him. So agrees to show Trump how it’s done, starting with his three golden rules of winning:
Rule 1. Attack. Attack. Attack.
Rule 2. Admit nothing. Deny everything.
Rule 3. Claim victory and never admit defeat.
Trump needs to be able to do anything to anyone.
There’s a naivety to Trump in the early days – cap in hand, knocking on tenant’s doors to collect rent. Compared to Cohn and his connections, Trump is a mild-mannered businessman who likes the ladies.
Trump is uncomfortable drinking, he doesn’t smoke, do drugs. Except for taking diet pills, AKA cheap amphetamine, so instead of sleeping, he can continue to make deals.
Trump loves making deals.
He also falls for Ivana.
Ivana isn’t like other girls. She’s feisty. Ambitious.
Roy makes sure she signs a prenup.
This is Trump’s origin story. He comes from a solid but dysfunctional family with a tyrannical father that’s ashamed of his eldest son because he’s an airline pilot.
The loose parties Cohn hosts are something Trump hasn’t seen before.
‘If you’re indicted, you’re invited.’
But Trump’s a businessman who wants success. And Cohn is the man to get him to the top.
As Trump’s apprenticeship comes to an end, the power Trump cultivates begins to corrupt:
‘Run ‘em over Simon,’ he tells his driver as they’re stopped by an AIDS protest.
‘I’m kidding,’ he adds.
Over time it becomes apparent Trump has no shame.
“In life, there are two types of people. There are killers, and there are losers.”
—Donald J. Trump
TheApprentice is a vastly entertaining film, the image a gritty 70s vibe.
The tone is set with the red light of dabaucherous parties, the perfectly timed moments like Trump holding onto his vomit until he gets out of Roy’s car – then sputtering an upchuck out on the street to confirm his make-or-break appointment – to the city reflected in Trump’s eye as he observes his dominion.
Writer Gabriel Sherman (author of the New York Times best-selling biography of Fox News founder Roger Ailes, The Loudest Voice in the Room), states: “My worst nightmare for THE APPRENTICE was that it was going to be something predictable or bland, or on the other extreme, a political polemic that’s just one-dimensional cartoon,” Sherman says. “I wanted to write these three-dimensional characters that were complicated and flawed and surprising and frustrating just in the way that real people are.” Adds Baer: “I knew that this film would have so many inherent challenges along the way, and I didn’t want to add another one by having it perceived as a political statement by an American director.”
The Apprentice is anything but bland or predictable.
A great storyline that’s more a psychological unpacking of Trump’s origin than political statement, with pacing and pitch perfect performances make this a much better than expected film.
Written by: Christopher Golden, Mike Mignola, Brian Taylor
Based on:Hellboy by Mike Mignola
Produced by: Mike Richardson, Jeffery Greenstein, Jonathan Yunger, Les Weldon, Rob Van Norden, Yariv Lerner
Starring: Jack Kesy, Jefferson White, Adeline Rudolph, Joseph Marcell, Leah McNamara, Martin Massindale, Suzanne Bertish.
Screwed, chewed and tattooed.
In this fourth instalment of Hellboy, it’s 1959. And Hellboy (Jack Kesy), along with Bobbie Jo Song (Adeline Rudolph) from the bureau for Paranormal Research and Defence (BPRD), are on a train transporting an arachnoid that is more than just a spider.
The opening of, Hellboy: The Crooked Man, is fast-paced. The arachnoid breaking free, the scene out of control as the train dislodges from the track, landing Hellboy and the certainly-has-a-thing-for Bobbie in the Appalachia Forest, lost.
The storyline meanders until landing on the re-negotiation of a soul. Tom Ferrell (Jefferson White) losing his soul when he happens upon a beautiful witch (Leah McNamara) bathing in the river in his younger days.
The witch encourages Tom to make a deal with the devil, where the bone he holds in his hand when he sees the devil becomes a lucky bone saving him from injury during the war.
In 1959, Tom comes home to the Appalachia mountains to search for his family and girlfriend Cora (Hannah Margetson) whom he left, trying to escape the pact he made all those years ago.
The forest is full of witches, serving, The Crooked Man.
When alive, The Crooked Man was made rich playing both sides of the Civil War. Hanged, his reward from those who live in the mountains, The Crooked Man was returned by the devil to collect souls, receiving a copper penny for each soul, including Tom’s.
The only sanctuary in the mountains is the old church where blind Reverend Watts (Joseph Marcell) holds the dark forces at bay.
The passage of the film is earmarked with chapters that don’t really signpost the story:
‘The Lucky Bone’,
‘Witch Ball’,
‘The Hurricane’.
But lend a fable to the storyline, like the witch acknowledging the screen as the audience watches through the eyes of a crow as she explains the spell of making a witch’s ball.
There’s trickery with the camera work, the perspectives adding a foreboding feeling:
Guts splatter across the lens of the camera.
Sudden darkened scenes click to switch from one place to another.
There’s that Hellboy flavour to, The Crooked Man but there’s also a distinct feeling of a glossing over, creating a superficial tone.
Hellboy’s mother’s introduced into his origin story, the film clicking into this other dark world where she hangs in suspense, tortured. A giant crow represents the devil as he incites her pregnancy with Hellboy.
It’s another dimension to the film.
But the threads of the storyline barely hold together in this movie.
Hellboy, the character, is strangely monotone, with a rare wisecrack, ‘Smells like death. And birdshit,’ so it didn’t seem like Hellboy at all.
But there is a unique strangeness to the film.
It’s dark and creepy but so very disjointed. Which makes me think of a piece of meat.
Produced by: Josephe Garner, Todd Phillips, Emma Tillinger Koskoff
Starring: Joaquin Phoenix, Lady Gaga, Brendan Gleeson, Catherine Keener, Zazie Beetz, Steve Coogan, Harry Lawtey, Leigh Gill, Ken Leung, Jacob Lofland, Bill Smitrovich and Sharon Washington.
Madness of two
Folie à deux (French for ‘madness of two’), also known as shared psychosis or shared delusional disorder (SDD), is a psychiatric syndrome in which symptoms of a delusional belief are “transmitted” from one individual to another.
An emancipated Joker (Joaquin Phoenix) is in jail. He’s never been more like Arthur Fleck. He takes his pills. The jailers (Brendan Gleeson) joke with him, ‘You got a joke for us today?’
But Arther Fleck says nothing.
It all changes when he sees her. Lee (Lady Gaga).
Lee sings in music therapy.
She tells Arthur that she understands him. When Joker killed Murray on live TV, she was thinking I just wish he’d kill that guy. And then, he did.
Arthur starts having his fantasies again.
The Joker is his shadow self, his other self. A product of childhood abuse.
His lawyer, Maryanne Stewart (Catherine Keener) wants Arthur to pled insanity.
But with Lee, Arthur’s proud to be Joker. He wants to be Joker.
The saints being to march again.
Returning director Todd Phillips (he also directed, Joker (2019)), has taken a different perspective with the character in, Joker: Folie À Deux.
Instead of the DC world of Gotham City, the fantasy is in Arthur’s head.
And in his head, everything’s a musical.
There’s A LOT of singing. Too much singing.
And we all know Lady Gaga can sing (and here too, Joaquin Phoenix), but that didn’t save the movie for me.
The film’s a contrast of a bland and depressing prison and the sad life of Arthur Fleck juxtaposed with his fantasy as the Joker in a sing along with Lee.
When Joker represents himself in court, the fantasy bleeding into reality, parading with a southern American accent, it jars. The fantasy not so endearing; the crossover into reality misfiring and building to that depressing point of difference that this isn’t set in the fantasy world of Gotham City.
This is an unpacking of Arthur Fleck’s mental health.
Set to a musical.
It’s depressing.
In spite of the theatrics (l don’t actually like musicals), the tone was bland. So neither the fantasy nor the depressing reality had the right tone or play off each other in quite the right way.
Unfortunately (I was really looking forward to this sequel!), Joker: Folie À Deux is disappointing.
Produced by: Francis Ford Coppola, Barry Hirsch, Fred Roos, Michael Bederman
Starring: Adam Driver, Giancarlo Esposito, Nathalie Emmanuel, Aubrey Plaza, Shia Labeouf, Jon Voight, Laurence Fishburne, Talia Shire, Kathryn Hunter, Grace Vanderwall, Chloe Fineman and Dustin Hoffman.
‘I will not let time have dominion over me.’
Megalopolis begins.
At first, I thought Megalopolis was going to be about perspective. With Cesar Catilina (Adam Driver) opening a window to step out, onto a roof to look over the city before him, to walk to the edge while the clouds race across the sky. He looks over the roofline, teetering, about to fall. Then, he stops time.
It’s a new Rome.
A narrator, Funi Romaine (Laurence Fishburne), shown later to be a historian, speaks of not wanting to make the same mistakes as Old Rome, mistakes that benefit a few at the expense of the many.
So the main underlying theme here is social change with A LOT of other ideas thrown in the mix creating an overly ambitious chaos full of lofty ideals used to intellectualise the storyline but instead comes across as pretentious and cliché; an example when Cesar Catilina starts spouting, ‘To be, or not to be,’ to sell his architectural utopia.
Writer, director and producer, Francis Ford Coppola states:
‘Step by step with these beginnings, I researched New York City’s most interesting cases from my scrapbooks: the Claude Von Bulow murder case, the Mary Cunningham/James Agee Bendix scandal, the emergence of Maria Bartiromo (a beautiful financial reporter nicknamed ‘The Money Honey’ coming from the floor of the New York Stock Exchange), the antics of Studio 54, and the city’s financial crisis itself (saved by Felix Rohatyn), so that everything in my story would be true and did happen either in modern New York or in Ancient Rome.
To that I added everything I had ever read or learned about.’
Cesar Catilina is a genius born into a mega rich Catilina family.
The Cesar has won a Nobel prize for inventing a new building material, Megalon.
His vision, to build a new city for all by tearing down the old and building Megalopolis.
The mayor, Franklyn Cicero (Giancarlo Esposito), disagrees.
Mayor Cicero thinks Cesar will destroy society before he has time to build a new one, to which Cesar replies, ‘Don’t let the now destroy the future.’
A neat summary of Cesar’s perspective and by the end of this chaotic saga, I wondered why bother with all the other madness thrown into the storyline, a madness that felt like an experiment that got out of control, then exploded. Anyway.
Alongside this ongoing dispute with the mayor is the family dynamics of a jealous cousin, Clodio Pulcher (Shia LaBeouf), forever trying to take down Cesar, socialite-turned-visionary, daughter to the mayor, Julia Cicero (Nathalie Emmanuel), and the complicated relationship of spurned lover and journalist, Wow Platinum (Aubrey Plaza), who ends up marrying Cesar’s uncle, Hamilton Crassus III (Jon Voight).
Not forgetting Cesar’s mother, Constance Crassus Catilina (Talia Shire) who pulls away her hand from Cesar after he kisses it because, ‘it hurts.’
Amongst the family dramas, love triangles and marriage – there’s a whole lot of silly. Not funny. Silly.
Like the ‘Dingbat News’.
Like a young girl famous and singing for donations in the Colosseum to remain a virgin until marriage.
Then flashes to undies for sale with her image on the front.
The chaotic that creates an unsettled feeling throughout the film is amplified by a soundtrack that shifts from court music with trumpets, to orchestral classical, to jazz, all within the same scene.
The first half of the film felt distant, like watching a performance instead of being absorbed into the film.
Coppola experiments, his vision shown by darkening the screen to a spotlight to pull the audience into a moment (well, that device drew the focus into the scene), splicing the screen, to using the cinema as part of the film, literally. Someone in the audience set up a podium, facing the screen to then ask Cesar a question.
After this moment, the film conversely, felt more like a movie rather than a performance.
But for me, this fable, literary debacle didn’t sell – the silly and the pretentious just made the sometimes poignant moments weird:
‘You can see right through me’
Only those in a nightmare are capable of praising the moonlight.’
I found the film so ridiculous that if Cesar woke up at the end of a dream, a nightmare, that might have been a better ending.
Starring: Lupita Nyong’o, Pedro Pascal, Catherine O’Hara, Bill Nighy, Kit Connor and Stephanie Hsu, with Mark Hamill, Matt Berry and Ving Rhames.
‘Funny how life works.’
Opening on a dark and stormy beach, otters sniffing the sand discover a crashed robot.
Meet, ready-to-receive-my-first-task ROZZUM unit 7134 (Lupita Nyong’o).
A ROZZUM AKA Roz always completes its task, just ask.
The Wild Robot analyses life through the lens of a robot’s eyes that has all sorts of fun and weird and wonderful moments including physical mimicry of Roz running around trying to find instruction from a bunch of wild beasts that are terrified of it.
Eventually, Roz the robot saves a goose egg from a conniving fox named Fink (Pedro Pascal). And watching the egg hatch, as nature instructs, the gosling imprints on the robot.
Roz, now has a task (along with the help of Fink): to raise a gosling, later named Brightbill (Kit Connor), so he’s ready to migrate before winter sets in.
There’s so much to love about this movie, the critters all adorable, not one character out of place.
There’s the family of possums where all the young possums are taught to play dead (well, possum), each explaining the type of death therefore undoing the subterfuge because, ‘dead things don’t have to explain they’re dead.’
When I saw the premise of the film I thought it was a strange idea having a robot in the forest and at best would be cheesy, but the story leans into the pre-programmed robot that can’t feel anything contrasted with the wildlife that are in constant fear of being eaten.
The film doesn’t shy away from the reality of nature, instinct a different type of programming designed to keep animals fed or to flee to stay alive.
Afterall, ‘Death’s proximity makes life burn all the more brighter.’
Then there’s Brightbill that adopts Roz as his mother, snuggling up to the unfeeling metal, that brightens pink lights as a mechanical response to love.
It’s sweet seeing this robot become an unlikely mother with all the difficulty that goes with the ‘crushing obligation.’
There’s a real, flying the nest storyline that plucks the heartstrings but then there’s so much more to the story as Roz shows the forest creatures that kindness is a survival skill.
And that overriding programming can ultimately lead to a better survival.
This is a genuinely funny and heartwarming film that’s good fun for all ages.
Starring: Demi Moore, Margaret Qualley, Dennis Quaid.
‘Pretty girls should always smile.’
A film of extremes, The Substance is a commentary about Hollywood’s middle-aged, white male’s view of the female form.
There is a male version of, the Other: a beautiful young male doctor introduces an aging fitness guru, Elizabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore) to The Substance, himself a demonstration to the Oscar winning actress that she can create a better version of herself.
‘It will change your life.’
Goes to show that men are feeling the push to be beautiful as well. But here the focus is on the aging actress, Elizabeth.
The action of ‘the substance’ is shown by the injection of green liquid into the joke of a raw egg. The yoke then pushes out another yoke, like a clone of itself.
And the film continues with this demonstrative view of the procedure, of the process of aging, to the birth of a young body; the splicing of a pupil into two, to another eye growing within another, all shown in macro, close so there’s no-where else to look but at the unfiltered image of the beautiful juxtaposed with the grotesque.
Director and writer, Coralie Fargeat states, ‘Bodies here are going to be tyrannized, ridiculed, destroyed, the same way I truly believe society destroys women with all the rules that we are silently taught to follow.’
‘Women’s bodies. THE SUBSTANCE is a film about women’s bodies.’
After Elizabeth Sparkle is told by Harvey (Denis Quaid) – while feeding his face with prawns, sound included- the producer of her fitness show, that at age 50, It Stops, Elizabeth can’t help but think a better version of herself could be the answer to her lack of self-worth.
Elizabeth is the Matrix, the Other is Sue.
They are one person.
This is a visceral birth, with close-ups of blood, injections, the splitting of the spine to the gush of another pushing outwards from Elizabeth’s lifeless body.
To the high impact beauty of the Other, Sue.
It’s all pink shiny leotards and perfect bodies – Sue becomes the fresh new face of fitness. She’s new and she’s young and she’s perfect.
It takes 7 days for Sue to rule the world. And as human nature dictates, Sue wants more.
The concepts of the film are portrayed with clever devices, aging is shown with a static view of Sparkles Hollywood Star cracking in the pavement over time. Of people walking across the star, admiring the star, to then show snow and rain and dirt and feet and food being spilled across her star. Like time has forgotten her face. To the giant image of Elizabeth in her apartment with the fractured glass around her eye – a loss of perspective, her self-hatred pinned up on the wall.
It’s an interesting title, The Substance, the focus on the outer beauty and social comment about aging, about what’s supposed to go where, replacing the true substance of a person with a chemical that births a younger, fresher you. Makes me wonder about Picasso’s cubism and his deconstruction of perspective.
Coralie Fargeat takes apart the idea of beauty and creates a satire with Elizabeth Sparkle using the mantra, ‘Take care of yourself,’ that Sue imitates with a wink because what is taking care of yourself when the expectation is to have medical procedures to try to stay young forever?
Fargeat comments, ‘This movie is going to be bloody gory. And it’s going to be bloody funny at the same time. Because I don’t know any stronger weapon than satire to show the world the absurdity of its own rules. And most importantly: I believe it’s going to be bloody timely. This is what this movie is about in the end. A liberation. An empowerment.’
Throughout the film, there’s an evolution of the grotesque as the weight of society’s expectation is perverted into an embrace of the gross with too much enthusiasm for my taste, to turn a fascinating film with a difference into something so awful it’s laughable.
Produced by: Lizzette Atkins, Bruno Charlesworth, Megan Wynn
Executive Producers: Matthew Gledhill, Gary Cooper
Starring: Billy Howle, Phoebe Tonkin, Tom Bateman, Mark Coles Smith, Hunter Page-Lochard, Shaka Cook, Jack Latorre, Nathan Phillips, Tasma Walton, John Brumpton, Robert Taylor, Tristan Gorey.
‘Relax. You’ll get your story.’
Robed, Kid Snow (Billy Howle) and Hammer (Tristan Gorey) shadow box in warm-up before fighting in a competition that ultimately leads to Hammer’s reign as champion.
Cameras flash.
A leggy blond holds a placard, ‘Round 1.’
It’s 1961.
And Kid Snow’s about to throw the fight.
Kid Snow throws the fight to give his brother Rory (Tom Bateman) a chance to get to the top.
It’s family. Their father (John Brumpton) thinks Rory has a better chance but it’s obvious to those watching the fight that Kid Snow could have beaten Hammer and Hammer knows it.
After disaster strikes, leaving Rory maimed and their father dead, the film jumps forward 10 years, showing the two Irish brothers in outback Australia; Rory managing a travelling Tent Fighting show, featuring Kid Snow along with indigenous fighters: Lovely (Mark Coles Smith), Lizard (Hunter Page-Lochard), Armless (Shaka Cook). And dressed up as a woman, Billy (Nathan Phillips) – the idea to goad the spectators into taking on the travelling fighters to win money and of course, boasting rights.
It’s a living. A show that now Australian reigning champion Hammer wants to see because he knows Kid Snow thinks he could have taken him all those years ago. Now he’s champion, Hammer wants to prove he deserves to be champion.
It’s a showdown a reporter, Ed (Robert Taylor) has come to write about – reigning champion versus comeback tent fighter.
At its heart, the film is an underdog story. Kid Snow taking the fall for his brother, left fighting ‘mugs’ for a living, and introducing Sunny (Pheobe Tonkin) arriving at the show with a black eye and pickpocketing, trying to make her way for her son, Darcy (Jack LaTorre).
Director Paul Goldman states:
‘Our three leads, Billy Howle (Kid Snow), Tom Bateman (Rory Quinn) and Phoebe Tonkin (Sunny), are the beating heart of this film. Each of them brave and compelling in their commitment to diving deeper into their characters and the complex relationships and emotions that resonate through this story.’
There’s the drama of the two brothers’ relationship; the elder brother Rory maimed and bitter, Kid Snow still nursing his pride after throwing the fight that could have made him.
Then there’s Sunny; Rory blackmailing her into working for the show, offering her a chance to make money as a dancer.
Then there’s the blossoming romance between Sunny and Kid Snow as Rory watches from the sidelines.
And as noted by Goldman, this is a unique film about Tent Boxing, ‘A world that, strangely, has never before been brought to the screen.’
There’s a good steady build to the story, written by John Brumpton whom represented Australia in amateur boxing in Thailand and decided to get some work for himself alongside his acting career as a scriptwriter, creating a script with himself as the protagonist.
The actors performed their own stunts which shows on screen, the feeling authentic which brings to light the attention to detail, the knowing look from Sunny, the honesty of Kid Snow. There’s a good rounding-out of characters that pulls the audience behind the characters, to cheer for the underdog, Kid Snow while also gaining insight into the relationship between the two brothers.
The film does take a beat to warm up, the acting stilted until the fast forward 10 years and the introduction of Sunny. Then the characters relax into their roles as the relationship between Sunny and Kid Snow develops and the comradery of the follow fighters plays more of a part as Kid Snow prepares for the challenge of boxing against a professional fighter rather than the mugs in the tent.
There’s a good storyline here, and a strong performance from Billy Howle, so although there’s that stilted start, the film keeps building to ultimately cheer the underdog story at its end.
Written for the Screen and Directed by: James Watkins
Based on the Screenplay by: Christian Tafdrup and Mads Tafdrup
Produced by: Jason Blum, Paul Ritchie
Executive Producers: Beatriz Sequeira, Jacob Jarek, Christian Tafdrup
Starring: James McAvoy, Mackenzie Davis, Scoot McNairy, Alix West and Dan Hough.
‘I promise you guys, it’s going to be a great weekend.’
You know when you’re in a bad situation and you want to get out. Do get out. Only to be pulled back in against your better judgment? But someone continually plays you, pulls those strings so you get burnt, played, burnt again.
Based on the screenplay of Gæsterne, written by Christian Tafdrup and Mads Tafdrup, Speak No Evil shows the game, the cat playing with the mouse.
Meet Louise (Mackenzie Davis) and Ben Dalton (Scoot McNairy) with their daughter, Agnes (Alix West).
Ben is newly redundant and a little bored. Louise fusses over their anxious daughter, Agnes, ‘Use your indoor voice.’
Then there’s Paddy (James McAvoy) cracking beers and getting it on with his young wife Ciara (Aisling Franciosi). Paddy’s forward and fun.
Ciara is lovely and they have a child who’s also awkward, a son, Ant (Dan Hough), who doesn’t speak because of a condition dwarfing his tongue.
The two families get along.
Paddy is a breath of fresh air so after Louise and Ben get home to London and disappointment, they decide it’s not such a bad idea to go to the Western Country to visit their good-time new friends.
The opening scene sets up the film well: a car being driven along a dark isolated road. The reflection of a child’s face seen in the rearview mirror. The adults get out of the car, leaving the child, his reflection watching.
It’s that ominous feeling of knowing something isn’t right that continues through-out the film. The tension keeps building. But the pacing gets annoying after a while.
It’s a gradual change as Paddy’s mask begins to slip, the sly comments, ‘Don’t put yourself down, that’s my job.’
The more off-colour Paddy becomes, the more precious Louise seems so Ben doesn’t know if they should just relax and get along or get out of there.
It’s a back and forth where the subtle becomes not so subtle to then lean into the unhinged to become so crazy it’s funny. On purpose.
McAvoy steals the show as the charismatic, unhinged Paddy.
Paddy takes control through his constant manipulation, his presence claustrophobic, to the extent scenes felt empty without him.
But it’s frustrating to watch, that back and forth. I couldn’t help but groan when the family continued to get sucked in again and again.
It’s a well-made film. I just got annoyed with it.
Longlegs is one of the creepier serial killer movies I’ve seen.
The film is created with odd camera angles, the texture of the film, stark.
There’s a quiet tone to the film as FBI Agent Lee Harker (Maika Monroe) makes her way through the case of a satanic serial killer, AKA Longlegs (Nicolas Cage): a killer who doesn’t leave a trace.
The only reason the FBI know about Longlegs is because he leaves a note. A cipher.
Agent Harker is able to decipher the notes because Longlegs breaks into her house and leaves her the solution to the code.
And then the dance between Longlegs and Harker begins.
The toneless affect of Harker blankets the film in a monotone, making the feeling flat. It’s a strange device but I get the connection to the life-sized dolls that are introduced later in the film; however, the dampening of Harker made her character borderline dull.
Aside from the flat affect, this is a carefully crafted film with thought put into the build, the montages of crime scene photos, the sometimes up-side-down perspective, the quiet then screech of strings, all to build that unnerving feeling.
Then add Nicolas Cage as Longlegs spouting the bizarre while looking directly into the camera so it’s like Longlegs is speaking directly to you as you watch the movie and you get one unique film that gets under your skin because it takes risks in the storytelling.
On rare occasions when a film has a particular poetic flavour, I’ll re-read my notes and take that as a synopsis:
A corner camera angle, looking through the front windscreen and side window of a car.
A snowy forest.
A little girl watches from her bedroom window.
Just the lower half of the face, a weirdly made-up face, a powdered face. A male’s high voice.
