Dir - Mika Ninagawa
Overall: MEH
The second film from fashion photographer-turned director Mika Ninagawa doubles as her second manga adaptation. Arriving five years after her debut Sakuran, Helter Skelter, (Herutâ sukerutâ), brings Kyoko Okazaki's source material to visually fetching life. Vibrantly colorful while frequently venturing into the surreal via drawn-out montages set to familiar classical music, it explores a cartoonish level of vanity that comes with fabricated fashion idols and their desperation to stay relevant in their own eyes, let alone in as many other people's eyes as possible. As optically pleasing and stylistically grand as the movie is, the story never picks up momentum, which is largely due to an underwritten protagonist played by Erika Sawajiri. A surgically-created super model that optimizes It-girl perfection, her character is consistently uninteresting with her lone personality trait being a cripplingly frail sense of narcissism that is threatened by the slightest breeze, giving her ample opportunity to spiral out of control and never once gain the audience's sympathy. This could be a deliberate move in having the almost sole focus be on somebody vapid enough to mirror the crystal clear theme that conventional beauty and celebrity obsession are superficial wastelands, but it makes for a trying watch that is, (perhaps accurately), all show with less interesting substance.
Dir - Charles Roxburgh
Overall: WOOF
A movie like visual effects man/SOV camp peddler Charles Roxburgh's Don't Let the Riverbeast Get You is one of those whose consistent lousiness is no doubt intentional, yet how intentional remains the biggest question. A collaboration between Roxburgh and screenwriter Matt Farley who had and continues to dish out low-rent B-movie parodies, the duo goes for the self-aware genre nyuck nyucks of Larry Blamire, but they drop the ball in every single production aspect. All of the actors are charismatic-less, unprofessional schlubs, their eyes frequently look off camera to pick up their lines which they stumble through anyway, it is as cinematically competent as a home movie shot by your grandma, the constant jokes are head-scratchingly awkard instead of remotely funny, the rubber suite monster is shot in broad daylight and looks atrocious, and there is a cheap Casio-worthy keyboard score running throughout the entire thing until some original songs are thrown in that are sink-in-your-seat embarrassing. Most of these aspects seem to be there on purpose, but that purpose is clearly meant to be humorous and the biggest faux pas of any comedy is when the viewer is more confused and bored than laughing with the proceedings. Even laughing AT what transpires here is a difficult endeavor and though everyone on board seems to have their goofy hearts in the right place, boy is it crap.
Dir - John Criss
Overall: GOOD
Taking full advantage of the found footage framework where a feature length film can be made for zero dollars, John Criss' Leaving D.C. is a wonderfully creepy, minimalist work that ducks out too early with a painfully abrupt ending, yet otherwise delivers the chills. As the only person on screen sans a handful of minutes when a friend/frustrated non-love interest comes to visit, Criss plays an unassuming, middle-aged man who flees the big city to gleefully move out into the middle of nowhere, sending compact video journals back to his friends from an OCD support group. This takes care of the "Why is he filming this?" conundrum and it also allows for Criss to be awkard in front of the camera, giving him a likeable, everyday Joe quality that is easy to sympathize with. The disturbing series of events are played out gradually and inexplicably instead of in-your-face terrifying, giving Criss' lone protagonist enough logical reason to stay put and update everyone on his predicament. Getting right to the point every time that he turns the camera on, it makes for an agreeable, suspenseful pace and besides just being a clever series of odd, unexplained spookiness that would make anyone think twice about living where the closest anything is over a half hour away, the movie is a compelling examination of one man's relatable insecurities and isolation colliding with the otherwordly.
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