Until Dawn (2025)

I watched this movie tonight because I was in the mood for horror and had borrowed it from the library based upon seeing a trailer in theatres for it last year.

It is a movie based on a PlayStation video game which I hadn't played, but also heard good things about. With these vague bona fides and expectations around such an adaptation, the most likely outcome would have placed it in the realm of the Resident Evil cinematic universe, which like that franchises' most famous antagonists? It just doesn't stay dead.

I did not expect that this Until Dawn would actually turn out to be one of the more effective horror films I have seen in a while. The cast is composed mainly of actors I haven't seen previously in anything, except maybe character actor Peter Stormare, who likely disappears as a supporting role in many features. But the performances were solid, the music cues kept tension, and the special effects weren't cheesy. This movie was better and scarier in its framed shots and jump scares were earned rather than just cheap thrills. I actually cared about the survival of the characters as they were defined, even though the back stories were not fully outlined, I didn't need them to be laid out more than they were.

This film is a less goofy "Cabin In The Woods" setting blended with the plot device of "Happy Death Day", even though I found enjoyment in both of those comedy horror films, this particular combination trimmed the comedy and doubled down the stakes of the horror.

The premise of the movie is that a group of friends is supporting Clover Paul, a girl who lost contact with her sister about a year ago. The group of five friends are retracing the stops from her lost sister's video posts as a means of attaining a sense of closure for Clover. As they make it to the stop where the last video from the sister was posted, they get a lead that there is a place nearby where a lot of people seemed to have gone missing. As the group drives off, a rainstorm in a forested road obscures the path, until it mysteriously tapers off to reveal a lodging house in the middle of a clearing. This phenomenon of a wall of rain just stopping like a bubble is slightly eerie, but the sun in the clearing is late afternoon and it is nice to have a break from the downpour. The group investigates the lodging house, but it appears abandoned as if the hosts have gone fishing for a short lunch break. One member wanders in the back officez looking at a bulletin board covered with "lost notices" with faces of the missing. There is an hourglass on the wall with a skull motif under it like a casual pirate decor vibe. Another member opens the guest book and finds it empty, but figures it should be used for it's intended purpose and signs her name.

This triggers a subtle shift in events, as something catches everyone's attention and they congregate to confer over what exactly is going on? The sun has set and suddenly the log book of guests is no longer empty, it is filled with names of repeated guests, with deteriorating handwriting scrawls into gibberish. Only to be replaced with a fresh new guest's signature only for the pattern to be repeated. The group is attacked by a masked freak with a machete and are hunted down one by one. Only for the hourglass in the lobby to mechanically flip back over and reset to the beginning of the dusk, with the party all drawing a startled, hard breath at the memory of their demise. They quickly learn the mechanics of their test - survive the night until dawn, but the night's events are not a firm loop as much as a bizarre escalation of new events to confront and avoid each iteration, so past pattern recognition is of limited utility for what MIGHT happen again.

But the group gets tired and weary, wondering how to keep their sanity and whether there is a limit to the number of chances to solve and resolve the puzzle for how to survive for one full night.

Departures (2009)

Sometimes you don't get to choose what you are good at doing. Sometimes fate gives you a talent or knack and you have to figure out whether you will live into it or in contrast to it.

 I was vaguely aware of this movie when it was released. A Japanese film about a young cellist who has to change his career to be a mortician assistant in the art of preparing the departed for a final farewell from their family and friends.

But my mother has a similar knack to me in serendipitous curiosity and capriciousness, as she picks films that cross her path in her volunteer work at library sales. She watched this film and wanted to see if she could connect with me over it. I was pretty accurate in guessing when the movie has been released, but had missed that it was scored by Joe Hisaishi. Which between my mom's recommendation and the Studio Ghibli composer really interested me.

I finally got time to watch it, and was very affected by its arc. The change in careers was embarrassing for the protagonist, as his orchestra folded just as he secured his dream job, and he has to admit to his young wife that he can't fulfill his proposal's promise to travel the world performing. Instead, he has no job and a deep loan on a professional cello he had invested in faith of his career success. He has a house in his hometown, inherited from his mother who had to covert the business side from a coffee shop to a bar after her husband deserted her when the protagonist was 6.

The protagonist sees an ad in the local newspaper for a good paying job with no experience required, involving "departures." Thinking it has to do with travel, he gets his interview suit ready and shows up to a small office. The office manager summons her elderly boss, the owner of the business, and the owner asks the interviewee if he is willing to work hard for very good pay and hires him on the spot, telling him that the ad was a misprint - it was not "Departures", but "the departed". But he has a good feeling about the kid's ability to do the job, and gives him advance pay.

The rest of the film unfolds slowly, as the character has to reassess whether he is truly suitable for this job. There is a grace and dignity which the owner demonstrates in preparing each of his clients, and there is a draw to seeing a job done well with professionalism and competence. It is beautifully scored, and patient in its shots for the slow reactions of grief and having the honor and responsibility of holding the memories of the friends and family to be reflected in the deceased. Death is a part of life, and it is often something that people shy away from as ingracious, indelicate, and terrifying. This film gives you time to gradually acclimate that there is peace and calm in the unknown, if you are open to learn to handle whatever aspects can be understood and controlled.

This film is cathartic and gives voice to quiet moments where words fall short. 

Hard Truths (2024)

This movie might do more without dialogue than many films do with words. So much of this film's dialogue is unkind and ingracious words that the non-verbal scenes bring attention and relief. And this film is beautiful and tragic by these two contrasts intertwining.

Sometimes life has hard truths and scars run deep, so the healing involves pain to try to address the core issues. 

Pansy is a 60-something African-English woman who has the temperment of a traumatized small dog. She barks at anything that moves, is paranoid that the world is too big and mean for her, and so rarely ventures outside her pristinely clean house. She has Curtley, a henpecked plumber ,for a husband and Moses, her 22-year old unemployed quiet giant of a son. She berates them day and night for whatever they are doing to exist in her house and disturb her peace.

In contrast, Pansy's  53-year old sister, Chantelle, is a hairdresser and single mom to two daughters near their twenties. Their scenes have such intimate joy and pleasure, it is hard not to feel like a fourth member of an in-group in their element. Chantelle's clients feel heard and supported in her chair, and tell her about her lives and hopes with their relationships in life.

These two sisters are the core of the movie, and how they handle day-to-day life and conflict. Pansy's interacts with the world with the sensitivity of an open wound, raising tension with her personal thunderstorm in her wake. Chantelle isn't perfect, but her wake is more of a gentle rain to soothe the soul. Chantelle wants Pansy to visit their mother's grave on a Mother's Day Sunday, urging her to leave her house, do something together, and share a meal.

I saw the trailer for this film in a theater and it looked like a hard pill to witness and swallow. And it is, but I didn't see the representation that was Chantelle and her slow honey from a spoon. Grace is patient and steady, and has a habit of catching those quick to anger by surprise.

I am so glad that I saw this film, though it pulled no punches on the speed bag of cutting remarks, it held in the moments and showed love and compassion in the face of deep fear and careless hatred. The last scene lingers with unspoken tension, and lets the audience sit without commentary for how it will be resolved.

All That Jazz (1979)

I watched "All That Jazz" tonight. I do believe this is one of the most insane accomplishments caught on film.  I am beside myself with awe at the ego and audacity to write something like this and the sheer determination and humble exhibitionist grit to pull it off.

Bob Fosse. I had heard of this choreographer's work before, but had never experienced it. And this is a movie about effortless perfection, and the cost of a body and soul to reach that ideal. 

The film follows Joe Gideon, a creative genius who has spent his whole career defying gravity as a director, choreographer, and writer. But Gideon's story is like multiple Greek characters in their glorious blessing and cursedness at once. Straining ever higher towards the sun like Icarus, with a restless partying hedonism like Dionysus in Gideon's downtime, and the fate of Tantulus in everything at which he grasps is just out of reach of his desire. He has the Midas touch, but his perfectionist tendencies come with a heavy weight of time to carry out.

The film allows for Gideon's genius to be undeniable and yet exasperating in that working with him brings others to justified tears. By the time his vision is realized, yes, he has managed to sharpen it, but it is branded with his stamp of style, burning every stable relationship he has as fuel to his fire, all with catchy songs and choreo to his fever dream downfall. It is cutting, brilliant, and tragic. Everything is firing at all levels to see this guy's workaholic efforts consume him in his glorified work. It is a metaphor realized and made flesh. I don't know how someone has this vision to tell this honest story and then the ability to make it be accurately depicted and shown.

I don't think I will ever want to watch it again. It is insanely well made in every frame. But it is an enchanting mirror like in the fable of the Ice Queen, where ugliness is amplified and you cannot remove the mote from your eye. Everything works here from the music to the dancing to the performances. It is a staggering work of creative brilliance and the broken bodies and minds it leaves to pick up the wreckage when that flame is snuffed and the music dies away. It is a haunting tale to see myself in the film, knowing the director has managed to convey the agony and ecstacy, the loneliness and insatiability of having the best taste in every room you enter and having to shape the flawed people around you into suitable tools to reach that vision. I can't live this way and yet now that I know it is possible to do something like this? What excuse have I not to give it my best shot to craft a shadowplay of whatever was accomplished in this piece of work?

Next Exit (2022)

I am not doing this on purpose, but this is another piece of media about people driven by self-annihilation. I heard about this indie movie on the Feeling Seen podcast hosted by Jordan Crucchiola, when the guest was Rahul Kohli, who was promoting this film. It sounded interesting and I was vaguely familiar with the actor as a Twitter lightning rod for his strident opinions on mostly benign topics that somehow hit viral nerves.

Anyway. This film is premised on a world in which a recent scientific discovery pierces the veil of the afterlife, causing everyday people to get windows of interaction with the shades of the dearly departed. The leading researcher in the field is stationed in San Francisco, and is accepting participants in a "right to die" waiver to track them into the afterlife for study. Two volunteers cross paths in a New York car rental and have under a week to get across the country to make their appointments.

This could be framed as a black comedy with the brevity of my description, but it is more like a mirror image of "Planes, Trains, and Automobiles", except only in an automobile. The two characters are Blossom Rose, who is haunted by her past and Teddy, who is haunted by his lack of a memorable one. Both are hoping that the opportunity to be a ghost will solve their unresolved selves to be at peace with their respective lives. But Teddy haunts Rose with his optimism about making something of his life by being a pioneerij the study of death. And Rose refuses to live but can't go through with ending her own life, so she determines to push away any hope or connection with others, like a cursed Jonah crying to be swallowed by a whale.

I am intrigued by stories about people wanting to be unusual things, and this one explores what could drive a person to want to become dead, even as they have to sit with this decision while on a long drive with a stranger with the same destination. It takes a while, as that is the nature of car trips, and their respective masks and walls begin to dissolve. They were not always hopeless or full of blustery gallows humor, there are memories at their core that they gradually admit to each other. "I was not always this way, but something happened to me and I was overwhelmed by its shadow. I can't see the light outside this dark veil shutting out sunlight and life. I could have been different, but I am me."

The scenery through the car windows along their journey is lovely and gave me wonderlust. The soundtrack builds quiet moments as these two have to weigh their decision for these to be their final days. There is small stories pondering what life means in the wake of this discovery of a shadowed afterlife. What this means for faith and criminal behavior declines in the curiosity of whether there will be consequences for a life when considering the afterlife as a probable fact.

It is a film about death that speaks honestly on what it means when a person chooses to live rather than to fade into a shade or shadow in a cloud of quiet despair and darkness.

We Could Be Rats - Emily Austin

I picked up this book for its title off a library shelf. It was a hardcover book with a pink dust jacket and images of sketched people in blue on a amusement park giant swing.

The contents of the book concern self removal at the least inconvenience to the schedule of other people's lives. It is apologetic and tells anecdotes from a small town childhood where the protagonist and her sister have to navigate a volatile household of parents constantly fighting. The reader learns of the family and people in this small town through the lens of scenes throughout the life of a twenty year old high school dropout with a job at a discount store. There are sweet gems of moments of joy, and honest moments of struggle to communicate just why the road has led to this irreversible, but ultimate conclusion to leave this mortal plane at such an early age.

The older sister of the suicidal young lady handled the trauma of waking on eggshells by trying to appease and make peace, avoiding triggers of conflict. This caused some strain as the younger sister is constantly blundering into triggers, setting off emotional bombs and being blamed for the mess of shrapnel in her wake.

The sisters are both shaped by this household, by their mutual love of their grandmother, who has been an anchor in their stormy waters, and their aunt who was an occasional lifeboat with one oar to try to have a temporary break from the unstable ship, but could only circle them back to where they started.

The older sister headed off to college, as an escape from the small town and it's gravity, leveraging her perfectionist path of coping skills and practice of navigating people's moods.

The book shifts gears both light and heavy with deftness and care. People are imperfect, and can let you down in disappointment from the dreams of how it could be if they cared to stop and listen.

I found this a fast read and tender in a broken spirit of things found too late, and held up like a kaleidoscope to try to make sense of a mundane and monotonous world.

Maniac Magee - Jerry Spinelli

How do you describe this book? It is about a legendary kid, with threadbare sneakers and breakneck speed. It is about an absolute innocent savant, a male Pippi Longstocking. Except he doesn't have a house, a horse, and isn't a shameless liar. He is just Jeffrey "Maniac" Magee, a kid who runs off the page and into the prejudice of a small, divided town.

I read this book as a preteen kid and it captivated me. Rarely do I see an immediate need to reread a book, but this had me in a chokehold for about a year and a half. It was told like a tall tale, but had moments of vulnerable poverty of soul and spirit as this homeless 12 year old survives through persistent and unrelenting sweetness, to take shelter from those with a spare seat, cot, moment, and have their lives changed and beliefs shaken by this strange vagabond child.

He is an athletic savant, with quick reaction time, and blazing speed, who is like Pablo Sanchez in Backyard Sports, preferring to lead with actions and not words. He is beloved by young kids, who see themselves in this innocent big kid who does not understand skin color or cultural mores, as he untangles their "rat nest" shoelace knots and patiently reads story after story to them. He is a paradox who refuses to attend school, but has a voracious love of reading; a kid who is a prodigy at running, but has nowhere to go; a kid who longs for a home, but can't stand still long enough to be pinned down; a kid who loves so hard that he doesn't understand hatred.

He wanders through people's lives like a modern kid Jesus, blessing them with his gifts, but unsettling whispers surround him that "It is straight up unnatural that the kid is the way he is. No one is that good, he must be hiding something awful." He is not a tame kid, but he is good. And though his footsteps are quick, he can't outrun a sorrow fate from the bitterness in the hearts of man.