My Friend Dahmer

Review by Bob Ignizio

It’s funny how a movie adaptation of a book can be faithful in very many ways, and yet still wind up missing the heart and soul of its source material. Such is the case with MY FRIEND DAHMER, adapted from the graphic novel by Clevelander John “Derf” Backderf. It’s an autobiographical tale in which Derf (played in the film by Alex Wolff) recounts his high school semi-friendship with Jeff Dahmer (Ross Lynch), who would go on to become one of the most infamous serial killers in American history.

At the time, Dahmer just seemed like a harmless weirdo whose bizarre antics provided Derf and his friends with a source of amusement. They made Dahmer a mascot of sorts, encouraging his odd disruptive behavior. Eventually, though, the fun came to an end as Jeff's dark side became more apparent. This was most obvious in his level of alcohol consumption, which even in the party hearty era of the seventies seemed excessive, and clearly not done for fun.

Wind River

Review by Bob Ignizio

The frozen body of a young woman is discovered on an Arapaho reservation by US Fish and Wildlife Service officer (and skilled hunter/tracker) Cory Lambert (Jeremy Renner), setting the plot in motion in WIND RIVER. The discovery hits Lambert hard. The victim was a friend of his daughter, who herself died under mysterious circumstances a few years back. So when out of her depth FBI agent Jane Banner (Elizabeth Olsen) asks for Lambert’s help, he agrees.

Writer/director Taylor Sheridan previously wrote the screenplays for SICARIO and HELL OR HIGH WATER. Like those films, this is an intelligent, adult crime drama with a touch of social commentary. And also like those films, it arguably feels more exceptional than it is simply because the standards have been lowered. I don’t mean to take anything away from WIND RIVER, but this would just have been the level of quality audiences would have expected from a major studio drama in the seventies.

True-crime Documentary Double-Feature Really Slays 'Em in Gordon Square, August 13.

Used to be every Friday the 13th, Paramount would have ready another cheapjack Jason Vorhees slasher-horror movie to open. Well, on Sunday the 13th a very different couple of murder stories will appear at the Capitol Theatre in Cleveland's Gordon Square arts district on the west side.

Mark Wade Stone and his Storyworks production company have been making local-interest documentaries for years, some in association with charismatic true-crime author/lecturer James Badal. Both will be in attendance at special 4 p.m. matinee of malice, spotlighting historic Cleveland crime (besides the records of the sports teams) on the big screen.

First Kill (opens in Mentor July 21st at Atlas Diamond Center Cinemas 16)

[FIRST KILL opens in Mentor, OH on Friday July 21^st exclusively at Atlas Diamond Center Cinemas 16. Also available the same day on VOD.]

Review by Bob Ignizio

Businessman and dad Will (Hayden Christensen) takes his wife Laura (Megan Leonard) and son Danny (Ty Shelton) camping after Danny gets bullied at school. Will hopes to bond with his son and toughen the boy up a bit by taking him hunting. But instead of bagging any game, father and son wind up in the middle of an argument between a pair of bank robbers. Guns come out and one robber shoots the other, then turns his gun on Will and Danny. In self defense, Will kills the man.

It turns out the man Will killed was a police officer.

There’s barely time to process that, however. The other robber, Levi (Gethin Anthony), is still alive. Crook or not, Will considers it his responsibility to get Levi medical help. And since Laura is a nurse, he takes the robber to his cabin to get stitched up. Levi repays the good deed by taking Danny hostage.

Baby Driver

Review by Bob Ignizio

While it's certainly a thrilling car chase/heist/action film, Edgar Wright's BABY DRIVER is also very much a musical. The actor's don't sing, nor do they dance. But every scene is tightly choreographed –  the movements of the actors, the camerawork, the editing – to perfectly match the beat of whatever song happens to be playing on the ipod of getaway driver Baby (Ansel Elgort). And there isn't a time that Baby doesn't have his ipod on, as he uses music to drown out the constant ringing in his ears, the lasting effect of a car accident when he was a child that also took the lives of his mother and father.

This being a movie, Baby is, of course, the best at what he does. The reason he does it is because he owes crime boss Doc (Kevin Spacey) for a past mistake. But Baby is only one job away from making good on his debt, and naively believes he'll be able to walk away. He even thinks he has a chance at romance with a diner waitress named Debora (Lily James). But as Bats (Jamie Foxx), one of the criminals Baby drives for, says, "The moment you catch feelings is the moment you catch a bullet."

Road to the Well (now available on home video and VOD)

Review by Bob Ignizio

A midlife crisis is set in motion when Frank (Laurence Fuller) catches his girlfriend having sex with his boss. Enter Frank's old friend and all around shady character Jack (Micah Parker). The two hit the bar to commiserate, and while there Frank hooks up with an attractive woman named Ruby (Rosalie McIntire). The two head outside to Frank's car to have sex, but things take an unexpected turn to violence when an unknown man attacks and kills Ruby with a knife and leaves Frank unconscious with the murder weapon and the corpse.

Jack takes this more or less in stride, leading us to believe this isn't the first time he's had to deal with a dead body. And while discussing the options with Frank, Jack also reveals that Ruby was a hooker he hired to help lift his friend's spirits. Eventually, despite some half-hearted objections from Frank, the two friends decide to cut up the body and bury it.

Psycho Raman (April 5th and 7th at the 41st Cleveland International Film Festival)

[PSYCHO RAMAN screens Wednesday April 5th at 4:35 pm and Friday April 7th at 9:20 pm at Tower City Cinemas as part of the 41st Cleveland International Film Festival.]

Review by Bob Ignizio

The Indian film industry is best known for their vibrant "Bollywood" musicals. Indian writer/director Anurag Kashyap makes very different kinds of films. His 2012 film GANGS OF WASSEYPUR was an epic (5 hours-plus) tale of generation-spanning crime that drew from Scorsese and Coppolla for inspiration. It won numerous awards and made it onto many "best of the year" lists.

PSYCHO RAMAN (original title: RAMAN RAGHAV 2.0) is a crime film of a different sort. It's a wallow on the dark side that focuses on serial killer Ramanna (Nawazuddin Siddiqui) and the coke-addicted, misogynistic cop Raghavan (Vicky Kaushal) pursuing him. The solitary Ramanna sees his soulmate in the corrupt policeman, a man cloaked in the respectability of the law who, deep down inside, may be just as evil as his quarry. Maybe even moreso. Comparisons to Abel Ferrara's BAD LIEUTENANT and Jee-woon Kim's I SAW THE DEVIL are not unreasonable, but ultimately RAMAN is its own brutal beast.

Untouchable (April 6th, 7th, and 8th at the 41st Cleveland International Film Festival)

[UNTOUCHABLE screens Thursday April 6th at 6:30 pm, Friday April 7th at 11:30 am, and Saturday April 8th at 9:15 am at Tower City Cinemas as part of the 41st Cleveland International Film Festival.]

Review by Bob Ignizio

The term "sexual predator" conjures up images of a monster for most people. That mindset is perhaps best exemplified in David Feige's documentary UNTOUCHABLE by Ron Book, a lobbyist by trade. And one can certainly understand why he'd hold that view – his daughter was molested by her nanny. Since then, Mr. Book has made it his life's mission to keep sexual predators off the streets. For those who do get out of prison, he wants to make life as difficult as possible. And thanks to all his political connections, he's been very successful doing just that.

So what's the problem?

UNTOUCHABLE argues that if we look at the situation based on facts rather than emotion, there are actually a lot of problems with Book's approach. This isn't just the opinion of some bleeding heart liberal filmmaker. Some victims and parents of victims also feel there are better ways to deal with predators than punishment alone.

T2: Trainspotting

Review by Bob Ignizio

In 1996, Danny Boyle became a name brand director with his second feature, TRAINSPOTTING. It was a bold, energetic, edgy, fun, crazy piece of filmmaking that also put star Ewan MacGregor on the map. It's a near perfect film from beginning to end, and I doubt many viewers felt that it needed a sequel.

Nonetheless, Irvine Walsh, author of the novel that was the basis for Boyle's film, wrote a sequel called 'Porno' in 2002. And now Boyle and screenwriter John Hodge have whipped up a sequel of their own, only loosely based on Welsh's novel, with T2: TRAINSPOTTING.

Aside from Boyle and Hodge, the film also reunites the cast of the original. And while it may not be "necessary", for anyone who enjoyed spending time with those seriously damaged yet somehow endearing characters, it's not a bad way to kill two hours.

The Hunting Ground (March 16 at the Night Light Cinema in Akron)

[THE HUNTING GROUND screens Thursday March 16th at 7:00 pm at the Nightlight Cinema in Akron.]

Review by Charles Cassady, Jr.

Call it urgent victim-culture programming for Women’s History Month, or call it (as I would prefer) a warning to anyone seriously thinking of sinking a fortune into a college education, when diplomas are largely worthless in today’s no-jobs economy. But Kirby Dick’s incendiary feature THE HUNTING GROUND will stick with you, and prove that feminism and sexism are no match for the biggest “ism” of all – tuitionism.

The documentary is a blistering expose about how "sexual violence has always been part of the college experience," as one interviewee puts it.

But in Great Recession America, the filmmakers charge, universities are so greed-driven and desperate as to resist expelling known sex predators - especially if the violators are student athletes crucial to sports success/largesse, and brothers in powerful fraternities.

Rape victims, meanwhile (including male ones), find themselves facing unsympathetic campus law enforcement and open hostility from peers (particularly when a BMOC football hero is accused).

The Land (now on video)

Let me put it this way: THE LAND, directed by Baldwin-Wallace graduate Steven Caple Jr. – and shot entirely and impressively in Cleveland - is technically superb  and put together in a highly attractive and lyrical manner.  Yet for Christmas I sent it to a friend (you might know her if I mentioned her name) who recently left the Cleveland area for a fresh start and marriage in New York state. My accompanying Christmas card hoped that the movie would provide her with even more reason for gratitude that she and her son got out of this vicinity safely.

That’s because THE LAND - which made it to Sundance, no less, and now has a video release via tony label IFC Films - is a street-crime melodrama, slickly shot in some of the shabbier parts of Cleveland. Which is really saying something, shabby-wise. Here are well-compose stages found in situ via our iron bridges, glittering night skyline, rooftops and old brick buildings testifying to a bygone era when industry boomed here, but set against a downbeat tale of slum desperation and young innocence lost.

I don’t think many Cleveland-hyping T-shirts were sold at Sundance, don’tchyaknow?

(Then again, the Cavs won later in the year, and that turned everything around, right?)

Catch 22 - Based on the Unwritten Story by Seanie Segrue (January 27th at the Apollo Theatre)

[CATCH 22 – BASED ON THE UNWRITTEN STORY BY SEANIE SEGRUE screens Friday January 27th at midnight in Oberlin, OH at the Apollo Theatre.

Ever wonder what it would be like if you took the premise of THE HANGOVER films – a group of friends party really hard and wake up the next morning not remembering what happened – and transformed it from a raunchy comedy into a grim and girtty drama? The result might be something like writer/director Josh Folan's CATCH 22 – BASED ON THE UNWRITTEN STORY BY SEANIE SEGRUE.

Here the group of friends aren't gathered to celebrate one of their number's impending nuptials, but rather to give a proper sendoff to Vince (Jayce Bartok), who is about to begin serving a 15 year sentence for dealing coke. None of these guys are angels, though. Bird (Al Thompson) deals drugs as well; he just hasn't been pinched. Smoke (Brock Harris) is a bus driver, family man, and a rapist. Mikey (Donal O Healai) is a bartender and (not so) recovering alcoholic. And Seanie (Michael Rabe) is an author with a dark past of his own, who has made a successful career for himself writing about the sordid adventures of himself and his friends.

Live By Night

By George M. Thomas

Ben Affleck and Zoe Saldana in Live By
Night.

As a filmmaker it’s been fair to say that Ben Affleck has earned the reputation as steady.

As his subject matter as a director started in his hometown of Boston with THE TOWN and veered into history with ARGO,  Affleck displayed natural skill as a director.  He continues that with LIVE BY NIGHT, a cinematic trip that combines both - his love for Boston with a loving look back into history.

While Boston isn’t the complete focus, it plays a distinct role in who Doug MacRay (Affleck), the film’s morally fluid center, is even as he takes hold of a criminal enterprise in Prohibition-era Tampa, Fla.

LIVE BY NIGHT possesses a sense of style along with memorable characters and a captivating story.   It’s an old fashioned morality tale trussed up with some modern trappings.

But at its heart is the story of MacRay, a young guy making the mistakes young guys make.  He’s impetuous.  He’s intelligent and he’s ambitious.

Arsenal (opens in Mentor January 6th at Atlas Diamond Center Cinemas)

[ARSENAL opens in Mentor, OH on Friday January 6th exclusively at Atlas Diamond Center Cinemas 16.]

Review by Bob Ignizio

Brothers. The South. Sweat and dirt. Money problems. Drugs. Seedy hotels. Old beat up cars. A half-baked scheme to get money that inevitably goes wrong. Gratuitious violence. Gratuitious slow-motion. Gratuitous slow-mostion violence. Gratuitous Nicolas Cage in a bad wig. Gratuitous John Cusack in a do-rag. That's probably more useful than any plot synopsis I could give you for ARSENAL, the new low budget crime film from screenwriter Jason Mosberg and prolific schlock director Steven C. Miller that is inexplicably getting a limited theatrical run rather than heading straight for streaming and/or DVD and Blu Ray.

While Cage and Cusack's performances give the film what limited interest it has, the actual stars are Adrian Grenier as responsible brother JP, and Johnathon Schaech as "bad boy" Mikey. You've seen this sibling dynamic in countless other crime films, and there's nothing here that adds anything new to it. And that's pretty much the entire movie in a nutshell, whether we're talking plot, characters, or themes.

Dog Eat Dog (November 12th and 13th at the Cleveland Cinematheque)

[DOG EAT DOG screens in Cleveland on Saturday November 12th at 9:15 pm and Sunday November 13th at 6:30 pm at the Cleveland Cinematheque.]

Review by Bob Ignizio

DOG EAT DOG starts out as a gloriously over the top bit of filmmaking. Alternating between oversaturated phantasmagorical color and noirish black and white, and featuring two brutal murders that jarringly shift the film's tone from black humor to black hearted.  

Plotwise, DOG is a fairly typical crime story. Nicholas Cage, who has the lead role as Troy, is the brains of a trio of unhinged criminals. He and his two partners, the aptly named Mad Dog (Willem Dafoe) and the big but smart (or so we're told) Diesel (Christopher Matthew Cook), find criminal employment after serving time together doing jobs for "El Greco" (Paul Schrader, also the film's director).

Their first gig, convincing local drug dealer Moon Man (Omar J. Dorsey) to give up his private stash of drugs and money, goes more-or-less as planned.

The Lennon Report (opens in Cleveland October 7th at Tower City Cinemas)

[THE LENNON REPORT opens in Cleveland on Friday October 7th at Tower City Cinemas.]

Review by Charles Cassady, Jr.

A long time ago when there were still newspapers and I could still get published in them (seems like another universe now) I had the inspiration to write a little ditty on the occasion of CHAPTER 27, a Jared Leto bio of John Lennon assassin Mark David Chapman. Went like this…

"Imagine there's no true-crime/

 Not easy, but just try/

 No fetishizing killers/

 No wallows in the slime."

Offered as a partial demonstration that I was quite a wit in my youth. Whatever happened to me? And it occasions the arrival of another feature that riffs on the night of Dec. 8, 1980, when Lennon was murdered.

Insomnia (October 8 at 7 and 9:30 p.m. at the CWRU Film Society, Strosacker Auditorium)

For reasons best known to themselves, the student film society at CWRU has chosen to revive perhaps the least known or hailed big-budget entry in the formidable filmography of Christopher Nolan (MEMENTO, BATMAN BEGINS, INCEPTION, INTERSTELLAR etc.) Perhaps sending a message to the fresh generation of young undergrads now fresh on campus: the economy is terrible, there are no jobs worth s*** waiting for you upon receiving that diploma, student-loan debt will crush you, and very soon everything you’re working on so hard right now will be forgotten. Like this movie.

At least that’s what I like to tell students. I consider it somewhat of an ethical civic duty.

INSOMNIA, from 2003, was Nolan’s rather needless remake of a superior 1997 Norwegian film noir of the same title from director Erik Skjoldbjaerg. The original even starred a Scandinavian thespian with international name value, Stellan Skarsgard. Still, here it was, the chilly material served re-heated a la Nolan.

The Land (opens August 5th at the Cedar Lee Theatre. Also on VOD)

[THE LAND opens in Cleveland on Friday August 5th exclusively at the Cedar Lee Theatre. It is also available on VOD.]

Review by Bob Ignizio

I admit it. I love seeing Cleveland in movies. And Cleveland is very much on display in THE LAND, an urban crime/coming of age genre film written and directed by Steven Caple, Jr.

In terms of basic plot, there's not much new here. 4 young inner-city friends – Cisco (Jorge Lendeborg Jr.), Junior (Moises Arias), Patty Cake (Rafi Gavron), and Boobie (Ezri Walker) – dream of being pro skaters. Until those dreams come true, though, they use their skateboards to commit car jackings, selling the stolen vehicles for chump change.

Blue Velvet (now in revival at the Capitol)

[BLUE VELVET is now playing at the Capitol Theatre.]

 

Do I miss the old days. For lots of reasons, but mostly for when local college radio would play BLUE VELVET audio clips late at night, especially Dennis Hopper yelling in mad crescendo of lust and murderous, intoxicated rage. Because the internet is family friendly now (at least I think that’s one of the things President Trump is going to be working on), I will refrain from printing the R-rating dialogue verbatim. Just to paraphrase, he screams in bestial fashion, “Let’s MAKE LOVE!!! I’ll MAKE LOVE TO ANYTHING THAT MOVES, HAHAHAH!!!”

Folks don’t remember well today that BLUE VELVET, considered David Lynch’s masterpiece, came right on the heels of his humiliation flop with an adaptation of Frank Herbert’s DUNE, for which Lynch, though bringing some trademark peculiarities, just wasn’t the right guy for the job. But with BLUE VELVET he reunited with tainted DUNE star-discovery Kyle Maclachlan and producer Dino di Laurentiis and turned in what would become the very definition to “Lynchean.”

Jackie Brown (February 6th at the Cedar Lee)

[JACKIE BROWN screens Saturday February 6th at 9:30 pm and midnight at the Cedar Lee Theatre.]

Review by Charles Cassady, Jr.

It’s important to remember that JACKIE BROWN, in 1997, was boy wonder Quentin Tarantino third feature – and his first following the smash-hit-phenom from 1993 that was PULP FICTION. Yes, in the years between those two, fans wondered what could the electrifying Tarantino possibly pull out of his unleashed id this time? In the meantime, whole books were written about the former video clerk and B-movie nut-turned-superstar director/producer/impresario and his earlier triumphs with PULP and RESERVOIR DOGS.

Well, when JACKIE BROWN – an adaptation of the Elmore Leonard novel Rum Punch – finally premiered, a number of folks were let down. Possibly even more fans than were disappointed by STAR WARS (I DON’T EVEN CARE WHAT EPISODE IT WAS) THE PHANTOM MENACE.

Because, well, dude, where’s my decapitations? Where’s the weird stuff? Where are the shot-by-shot tributes to some 1970s badly English-dubbed Yugoslavian grindhouse softcore horror movie nobody but QT ever saw during its limited run in some condemned LA fleapit?

Listen, fanboys, you got your old Quentin Tarantino back with the KILL BILL series, not to mention INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS, DJANGO UNCHAINED and THE HATEFUL EIGHT. As for JACKIE BROWN, a curious one-off in Tarantino's ouvre of B- and Z-movie tributes with A-movie casts and budgets, look at it this way: it’s almost as though a late-career Quentin Tarentino movie fell through a wormhole in time and space from, oh, say 20 or 30 years from now. When the director has finally grown up, gotten his heart broken more often, and is an older, wiser, sadder and more sedate Tarantino that the one we know now, the kung-fu connoisseur who is the yin to Robert Rodriguez’…other yin.