Catfight (now on video)

[CATFIGHT is now available on home video.]

Review by Charles Cassady, Jr.

Though they will probably deny it, I worked for the Cleveland International Film Festival for ten years. And CATFIGHT is the sort of film-fest indie entry I came to know all too well, a guaranteed attention-getting hot ticket (well, of course it would be, as I would be writing the PR promos), with a high-concept premise and a hint of the unspeakable that would guarantee a sellout at showtime.

But after the festival, in the cold, harsh light of the mainstream marketplace…such look-at-me-ma!-I’m-a-cool-transgressive-filmmaker! stuff would just disappear into the annals. Maybe one or two copies might show up at Blockbuster (or more likely Hollywood Video, who dared try their own indie label there towards the end).

Separated from the excitement, and pretense, the hype and the ego of the film-festival scene, such movies just don’t look as special as they want to look. And such is the case with writer-director Onur Turkel's dark comedy.

Network (through April 7 at the Nightlight in Akron)

Sidney Lumet's scathing multiple Oscar nominee NETWORK is the movie that predicted the advent of `trash TV.' This being the 1970s, pre-AIRPLANE!, its satire is not a bellylaugh parody but rather a stern, grownup Swiftian broadside, shock-and-awe dialogue still capable of making the pulse quicken, even if some of the details are hardly farfetched anymore, in the 21st-century tubescape of voyeuristic `reality shows,' sleazycore gossip channels, news sensationalism and circus-freak daytime talk. Kids who come home from school to Jerry Springer might wonder a little bit what the fuss is all about. 

But NETWORK bristles with righteous anger, featuring especially caustic dialogue by magisterial writer Paddy Chayefsky, who was one of the great script authors of early television drama. By the mid-1970s he didn't like what he was seeing, and the narrative takes place in a post-Watergate atmosphere of darkest cynicism, homegrown terrorism, Third-World atrocities, oil shortages, inflation, recession, amorality and all-around bad news. Just about every character, even minor ones, gets to do angry oratory that could blister wallpaper. 

The network of the title here is a mythical, low-rated, fourth TV channel called Fox...no, just kidding, it's UBS, operated by a giant company called CCA. The order comes to lay off the aging UBS nightly-news anchorman Howard Beale (Peter Finch), newly widowed (sounds like it wasn't a happy marriage anyway; none of them here are). Beale reacts by announcing live on the air that he'll shoot himself on his farewell broadcast.

Buzzard (now on video)

I've found the Johnny Manziel 2014-2016 soap opera with the Cleveland Browns to be a fascinating descent into the NE Ohio abyss. I mean who among us, who has long sought a job in the wasteland that is the Cleveland-area economy, hasn't wondered about who DID get hired. And what did that individual turn out to be? 

I mean, what's with local recruiters? Do they know that when the drugs test turns out "positive" that it's a bad sign? Perhaps there's been a persistent misprint in HR handbooks. 

Or maybe midwest life, from the Browns to the corporate world, is a lot like what's portrayed in the Rust Belt dark comedy BUZZARD, from Michigan-based filmmaker Joel Potrykus. Mr. Potrykus, I suspect, knows this recession well; who gets by in it, and who doesn't. I wouldn't quite call this nifty indie borderline-horror effort a traditional "workplace comedy." But, during the character study of an incorrigible punk and non-team player, it's hard not to think about what goes on, really, in all those glass-windowed offices full of cubicles and pods, to which many of we applicants remain strangers.
 

Miracle Mile (April 18th at the Cleveland Cinematheque)

[MIRACLE MILE screens Thursday April 18 th at 7:30 pm at the Cleveland Cinematheque.]

Review by Charles Cassady, Jr.

One feels sorry for the neighbors of missile-rattling North Korea right now. But as a child of the Cold War part of me would like to say, "Welcome to my world, circa the Reagan years."

This was back when US-Soviet relations got uglier than their standard ugliness, and young Charles Cassady would go to bed well and truly wondering whether he'd wake up to radioactive mushroom clouds. For those of you who were too young (or Clevelanders just lost in dope, or disco, or Browns Cardiac Kids mania in this era), the angst went like this: maybe one of the aging Kremlin bigwigs would find out he was terminally ill and would angrily hit the Big Red Button (a right-wing news columnists' 1950s fantasy that I read, I know, but it still stuck with me). Or Nancy Reagan's astrologer would determine via horoscope was a great five-star day to light up the heavens with long-range ICBMs. Or Ronald Reagan's spiritual advisor - Milton Friedman, I believe, was the holy man's name - would sell the rest of the Joint Chiefs on the idea that rebuilding after WWIII would be a boost for big-business capitalism and neocons. All those millions of "DANGER: ATOMIC FALLOUT" and "MASS GRAVE DUMPING ALLOWED" signs that would sell, think of it boys! Especially now that we can make 'em cheaper over the border in Juarez! And if a few small, `stray' American nukes happen to land and detonate in our own heaviest black/Hispanic-concentration slum neighborhoods...that's the benefit of friendly fire for you.

Prairie Love (now on video)

Review by Charles Cassady, Jr.

I'll give an E-Z lesson on how to be a film critic without knowing a lot about anything. You don't even have to know that movies existed very much before STAR WARS, or that they used to come only  in black-and-white (true! Look it up on Wikipedia!). Just memorize some catchphrases. If a movie has a weird, off-kilter, slightly macabre feel and a regional small-town ambiance, it is "Lynchian." If a movie has a weird, off-kilter, slightly macabre feel and a regional small-town ambiance during a snowy winter, it is "FARGO-like." There, that concludes the film-appreciation class. You can now likely beat me out for a job at the alt-weekly, as long as HR goes by your having chosen a picture of a hot porn star for your FaceBook profile.

One recent movie that I'm sure will get tagged with "Lynchian" and "like FARGO" is PRAIRIE LOVE, an item from the memorably named director Dusty Bias. Lynchian? You could say that. Like FARGO? I'm sure lots have said that. But what the tragicomedy most recalled for me were the terse, deadpan narratives of Finland's Aki Kaurismaki, best known for LENINGRAD COWBOYS GO AMERICA - which was practically LucasFilm for Kaurismaki; I'd go back to his less commercial stuff like ARIEL.  

Dark Horse (opens in Cleveland October 19th exclusively at the Capitol Theatre)

[DARK HORSE opens in Cleveland on Friday October 19th exclusively at the Capitol Theatre.]

Review by Bob Ignizio

Todd Solodnz delivers yet another twisted comedy with his latest film DARK HORSE. The film seems to center around thirtysomething Abe (Jordan Gelber), the proverbial guy who still lives with his parents (Christopher Walken and Mia Farrow) and collects comic books or records or baseball cards or, in this case, action figures. Abe has a job at the company his father owns, but doesn't exactly apply himself. His only plans for the future are to wait until his parents move to Florida, at which point he assumes they will give him their home. In other words, this guy isn't exactly what you'd call a “good catch”.

Then again, neither is Miranda (Selma Blair), a failed writer with hepatitis B and a clingy ex boyfriend (Aasif Mandvi). The two meet at a wedding where keeps hammering Miranda for her phone number until she finally relents. After one date, he proposes marriage. At first this seems to have backfired, as one might assume it would. However, after giving it some thought, Miranda decides to accept. Things go considerably downhill for Abe from here.

Seven Psychopaths

Review by Pete Roche

It’s not always easy distinguishing eccentrics from alcoholics, or spotting the difference between sycophants and psychopaths.  Sometimes the lines are blurry.  Frequently, the symptoms overlap. 

Irish playwright Martin McDonagh toyed with these archetypes a couple years back with the marvelous IN BRUGES, wherein all hell breaks loose after Colin Farrell’s penitent assassin goes into hiding.

Farrell is back for McDonagh’s follow-up, SEVEN PSYCHOPATHS—but now he’s first among equals, playing alongside Christopher Walken, Woody Harrelson, and Sam Rockwell in a shoot ‘em up study of love, loyalty, violence, and sanity. 

Network (November 19th at the CWRU Film Society, Strosacker Auditorium)

[NETWORK screens Saturday November 19th at 7 pm and 9:30 pm at the CWRU Film Society, Strosacker Auditorium.]

Review by Charles Cassady, Jr.

Sidney Lumet's scathing multiple Oscar nominee NETWORK is the movie that predicted the advent of `trash TV.' This being the 1970s, pre-AIRPLANE!, its satire is not a bellylaugh parody but rather a stern, grownup Swiftian broadside. Its shock-and-awe dialogue is still capable of making the pulse quicken, even if some of the details are hardly farfetched anymore in the climate of the 21st-century's voyeuristic "reality" shows, sleazycore gossip channels, news sensationalism and circus-freak daytime talk.

Monsieur Verdoux (May 20th and 21st at the Cleveland Cinematheque)

[MONSIEUR VERDOUX screens Friday May 20th at 9:45pm and Saturday May 21st at 5pm at the Cleveland Cinematheque.]

Review by Charles Cassady Jr.

The NATURAL BORN KILLERS of 1947 starred Charlie Chaplin, if you can believe the McCarthyist boycotts, critical catcalls and opportunistic political speeches raised against the silent-slapstick idol when Chaplin appeared here in a startlingly different role, a hero serial murderer long before Dexter or Hannibal Lecter.