Velvet Fog

After a multitude of lackluster features, M. Night Shyamalan has returned to form with his most recent, more independent style foray, 2016's Split – a horror/thriller with an unexpected. . . or should I say, an expected twist (could it be that there is no real twist?). Featuring a tour de force performance from James McAvoy, the talented actor takes on the role of a plethora of very different personas, as his character has more than twenty split personalities. Ranging from a lisping young boy and grand British dame, to a fashion designer and Christopher Walken-like New Yorker, one of his splits, Dennis, kidnaps three teenaged girls, Claire (Haley Lu Richardson), Marcia (Jessica Sula), and Casey (Anya Taylor-Joy) from a public parking lot. Claire and Marcia are, for all intents and purposes, the popular girls in school – the type of gals that most cling to and the rest hate, while Casey is a lone wolf and outsider, her unusual ways forcing her to the periphery of the mainstream.

One of the most buzz-worthy performances of this past Awards season, Isabelle Huppert’s multi-dimensional turn as rape victim Michèle Leblanc in the French film Elle, directed by PaulVerhoeven, led to a wide array of nominations and wins, with her taking home the Golden Globe for Best Dramatic Performance but ultimately losing the Oscar to Emma Stone. The film also took home Best Foreign Language Film at the Globes. Beginning with the intense, jarring end of the horrific rape (the only witness, her less than helpful cat), Michèle (Huppert) doesn’t hysterically scream or phone the cops after her masked assailant has departed, but quietly cleans the mess left by the attack (and then herself) – simply returning to the normalcy of her life after doing the tasks.

Providing us with a window into a more than hairy situation, writer/director Jeremy Saulnier in many ways thrusts us through said glass directly into a predicament that no one would want to be placed in. The movie is 2015's Green Room, a horror thriller that follows a struggling heavy metal punk rock band – its members being Pat (Anton Yelchin), Sam (Alia Shawkat), Reece (Joe Cole), and Tiger (Callum Turner), as they learn that their most recent gig has fallen through. Tad(David W. Thompson), a radio DJ, suggests they head to a small secluded club where his cousin Daniel can set up a performance for them. Desperate, the group, who are running very low on cash, take the tip, making the somewhat lengthy drive into the severely wooded area. More than pleased that they have a paid show, they don’t care that it is at a neo-Nazi skinhead bar, while youthful exuberance even has them daringly perform a cover of Dead Kennedys’ "Nazi Punks Fuck Off". Though some beer bottles are thrown (clearly pissing off the politically right leaning patrons), things turn out okay, with their original material eventually winning the crowd over.

Set within the decaying, abandoned neighbourhoods of Detroit, Fede Alvarez’s Don’t Breathe goes deeper by examining the decline of both family values and traditional American ideals. Following a gang of young hoodlums, at first glance they seem to be nothing but lowlife thugs. Yet, Alvarez provides enough of a back story for us to know that the female of the group, Rocky (Jane Levy – Frank and Cindy), is trapped in a single parent home with a mother (and her boyfriend) that is less than motherly. Stuck between a rock and a hard place, she is more of a mom to her little sister Diddy (the wide eyed Emma Bercovici) than the drug-addled, slovenly matriarch of the ‘family’.

Three weeks ago today, I reviewed Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!, a 1989 film directed by Pedro Almodóvar that starred Antonio Banderas. I said that in some ways it was similar to another motion picture that features the iconic director and actor – 2011's The Skin I Live In, which will be reviewed here today. Feeling like a modern take on the Frankenstein story (or perhaps Bride of Frankenstein), Banderas plays Robert Ledgard, a plastic surgeon and scientist at the forefront of his field. He has been successful in developing a type of artificial skin that is resistant to burns as well as insect bites. Controversial in the scientific community, he claims to have only tested it on mice – though when he hints that he has used it on a human being, he is strictly prohibited from continuing his research.

As of this past week, I have officially finished viewing all of last years Oscar Best Picture nominees. The sole one that slipped through my grasp prior to the Academy Awards was Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s epic The Revenant. Snagging Best Achievement in Cinematography (Emmanuel Lubezki), Best Actor in a Leading Role (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Best Director (for Iñárritu), the filmmaker transports us to the year 1823, placing us in the heart of the wilderness – more specifically, a piece of pre-government structured territory in the United States located close to the Dakotas.