Dir - BJ McDonnell
Overall: MEH
Things are about what one would expect in Studio 666; a heavy metal horror comedy revolving around the Foo Fighters that is hit or miss yet consistently ridiculous. Filmed in secret at the same house that the band recorded their tenth record Medicine at Midnight at, it is also loaded with cameos from the likes of Whitney Cummings, Kerry King, John Carpenter, Will Forte, Lionel Richie, and Jeff Garland. Elsewhere, Dave Grohl and company play themselves with about the same acting calibur that Jerry Seinfeld did on his own sitcom. The script by Jeff Buhler and Rebecca Hughes allows for a few humorous moments and oodles of over the top gore, yet the gags fall flat a tad more often than they land. Being technically sort of a rock musical, the songs are pretty tight, not just from the staring band, yet also from Carpenter and his synthwave outfit which includes his son Cody and Daniel Davies. Even though it is cliche by nature in a satirical sense, thankfully the movie avoids the usual pratfalls of obnoxiously stupid metalhead genre movies at least. It mostly gets by on the simple likability of the Foo Fighters, yet take that element away and it is probably forgettable.
Dir - Alex Garland
Overall: GOOD
English filmmaker Alex Garland delivers another gnarly, surreal genre movie with Men, a provocative mood piece that fuses the seemingly desperate components of English mythology and toxic masculinity. While one does not have to be scholarly in such folklore or psychology to pick up on numerous unsettling details, there seems to be a grande scheme to Garland's symbolism here that is wisely never explicitly stated. This gives the film its disturbing, otherworldly atmosphere that stacks up far more questions than it does provide any answers for them. That said, it works quite viscerally as we experience Jessie Buckley's guilt-ridden protagonist struggle with the increasingly strange chain of events that brings her inner turmoil more to the forefront. Both Buckley and Rory Kinnear are almost the only actors on screen and their performances are flawless, with the latter taking on quite an ambitious string of roles. Even if the outlandish finale and heavy emotional explorations are not to one's taste, the music is rather haunting and Garland and his cinematographer collaborator Rob Hardy once again have created something that is visually very lush and breathtaking.
Dir - Charlie McDowell
Overall: GOOD
The darkly comedic thriller Windfall utilizes its rudimentary premise to deconstruct some rather effective relationship, wealth, and class dynamics. No less than four people were credited with the story, two of which penned the actual screenplay, and all three lead actors served as producers along with director Charlie McDowell. Certainly Coen brothers inspired in that it has what is usually a glamorized criminal scenario that instead persistently and humorously goes wrong, great efforts seem to be maintained in basing the plot in some semblance of realism. Along the way, several dramatic tropes are subverted in an intentionally frustrating manner; we never do learn the exact motive or hardly any details about Jason Segel's character, no matter how many opportunities the script presents to have such details revealed. Cleverly though, we learn what matters which is just enough. The tension is wracked up systematically, throwing more chaos on top of things just when it seems that some sort of "happy ending" is within grasp. Along with Segel, Lilly Collins and Jesse Plemons are also in top form and overall the movie is a juicy bit of material to engage with.
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