The New Mutants (2020)

A strange orphan of a film, appropriate for one concerning a group of orphaned mutants, 'The New Mutants' was actually filmed back in 2017 with eyes on an early 2018 release. The film fell victim to various problems principally the take over of 20th Century Fox by Disney so that its late August 2020 release in recently Covid reopened theaters, amounts to a dumping, an inglorious whimper of an end to the once genre defining Bryan Singer X-Men franchise. 

Always a lose franchise in its continuity, this film feels even more orphaned in that it is not at all clear where it is supposed to fit in time line wise with the other movies. Not that that matters much as this film concerns new characters who we well never seen again. A group of 5 young, ethnically and geographically diverse mutants (Russian, Irish, Brazilian, Native American, and Kentuckian) brought together for testing at an isolated former Catholic school. The cast includes Maise Williams, Anya Taylor-Joy, Charlie Heaton, and Alice Braga as the facilities mysterious lone administrator, also a mutant. 

Directed and co-written by Josh Boone, best know for 2014's 'The Fault in Our Stars', this is an appropriately teen angsty X-Men movie, an even contains a young lesbian romance. For the most part pretty predictable and un inspired, the cast does a decent enough job and I found I liked the ending. On the whole unexceptional filler, though new comer Blu Hunt makes a good first impression as the lead. **

Lord Love a Duck (1966)

 Watching 'Lord Love a Duck' I had a very hard time getting a grasp on the tone of the thing, it's not what I thought it would be, maybe I should have watched the trailer first. On the surface a satire of 1960's California youth culture, beach party movies, high school education (probably my favorite joke in the thing is the botany class being renamed as 'Plant Skills for Life'), organized religion, therapy, class distinction and more, it is a deeply cynical and at times unpleasant film. 

However I have to respect the guts it took to make it. Directed and adapted for the screen by George Alexrod, one of the most successful and respected screen writers of the time ('Breakfast at Tiffany's', 'The Manchurian Candidate') from the 1961 novel 'The Innocent Infidels' by Al Hurt. I was so perplexed and intrigued by this film that I tried to hunt down a copy of Hurt's book, which turns out is difficult to find. Further research also showed that this is apparently a rather lose adaptation of the source material, and that Hurt himself would spend much of his career writing tie-in books to popular TV series like 'Bewitched' or doing the novelizations of films such as 'Promise her Anything' or 'In Like Flint'.

The plot concerns brilliant high school senior Alan "Mollymauk" Musgrave (Roddy McDowell) promising the beautiful girl from the wrong side of the tracks Barbra Ann Green (Tuesday Weld) that he will get her anything she wants in life, and he does too, regardless of what it takes to get it. Needles to say things do not turn out as planed for either of them. The two leads work well enough together, the chemstry is a little odd but so is their relationship. About half way through the movie Barbara Ann asks Alan "I don't understand, what do you get out of this?" I had the same question. 

The movie is filmed in black and white, I think in part to try and hide some the 15 year age difference between the leads, with Roddy at 37 playing 17. Boasting some good gages, and a catchy theme song, the film is so sharp, biting, envelope pushing and at times sexually uncomfortable, I'm not sure who exactly Axelrod made it for other then himself. I just don't see much of the supposed teen audience getting it, and the film did fail at the box office. In the trailer they use the catch phrase 'An Act of Pure Aggression' and that pretty well captures it. **1/2 

Horse Girl (2020)

 'Horse Girl' is a Netflix original movie written and directed by Jeff Baena, and if this is any indication of the quality of his other work I should probably check it out. Shades of the Netflix series 'The OA' and 'Stranger Things', 'Horse Girl' is an interesting hybrid of a movie, a character study that evolves into something more abstract and science fictionie. Alison Brie gives probably the best performance I've seen from her as Sarah (last name never given) a quite, semi-reclusive girl in say her early 30's, who works at a craft store and shares an apartment with her more outgoing roommate (Debbie Ryan, also likely the best performance I've seen from her, not that she's really scratching anything and no where near the quality of Brie's).  

Sarah's hum drum life is going along as usual until she starts having experiences with missing time, and disturbing dreams, and starts to act more and more unhinged, which is particularly troubling to those around her given a family history of mental illness. The fantastical elements of the story are well handled and smart, the film never spells everything out for you but their is a definite sense of dream logic, like much of David Lynch's work. 

However what made this movie work for me is Sarah as a character, Brie's performance, and the kind of intricate personal backstory that is slowly parsed out to the viewer. It's very thorough, I've know people like this before and I really felt like I got to know Sarah. Little insightful things that would have been brushed aside or never brought up in a more hurried movie are given their do. The cast of supporting characters in Sarah's life, co-workers, roommate, step father, childhood friend, and even the people that take care of the horse that once belonged to her give the sense of a full life. This is in effect an indie movie that casually works its way into sci-fi territory. One of the most impressive films I've seen in this very limited movie year. I highly recommend, but be aware of the R rating going in. ***1/2

The Castaway Cowboy (1974)

 Set in late 19th century Hawaii, referred to here as the 'Sandwich Islands', 'The Castaway Cowboy' concerns a shanghaied Texas cow hand (James Garner) who becomes stranded on the isle of Kauai and ultimately helps a widow (Vera Miles) and her son (Eric Shea) revitalize their struggling potato farm as a cattle ranch and save it from a possessive banker (Robert Culp) and his hired witch doctor (Manu Tupou). Mildly racist this bottom of the barrel Disney fair still has its own limited kind of charm, an odd mixture of irony and sincerity. The rushed, lazy and cheap fair that director Vincent McEveety pushed out in mass for Buena Vista through the 1970's. At first I thought this might be kind of fun and redeemable, but it's largely lifeless and super predictable. Simply put, while I couldn't quite hate it, it is honestly bad, probably one of the 3 or 4 worst Disney film's I've ever seen. *

Georgy Girl (1966)

 I actually think I saw the very ending of this film sometime during my middle school years but was chiefly familiar with it from the great title song performed by The Seekers. 'Georgie Girl' stars Lynn Redgrave as Georgina "Georgy" Parkin, the slightly pudgy, 22 year old, virginal daughter of a London house servant, who is surprised (Georgie is) when she goes from zero to two potential romantic suiters, both of them involved with women she knows. This was a more serious film then I expected it to be, though a comedy of the swinging London school it deals with some weighty matters and melancholy and is effective as a character study. Ms. Redgrave gives a strong performance in an impressive character arc, the supporting cast including James Mason, Alan Bates, and a 19 year old Charlotte Rampling are all solid. I was really impressed, and suspect this film will warrant later re visiting. *** 

Season of the Witch (1973)

'Season of the Witch' aka 'Jack's Wife' aka 'Hungry Wives' is a satirical domestic drama that introduces some supernatural natural ideas early on but doesn't come to be dominated by them till the last third or so. The third feature from 'Night of the Living Dead' director George A. Romero (he made a romantic comedy between this and that film which I have now added to my Amazon watchlist), it's uneven but intriguing, what some might call 'an interesting failure.'

Filmed in and around Romero's home base of Pittsburg with a mostly local cast and crew, the stand out performance is easily that of the films star Jan White, playing Joan Mitchell a 40ish house wife with a husband often away on business and a 19 year old daughter living at home but going to a local collage. Joan is dissatisfied with her life, which is communicated in large part through dream sequences that are some of the best moments of the film, including one in which her husband takes her to a kennel for when he's away on business. On a lark, and though nervous about it as she is a devote Catholic, Joan accompanies a friend to a tarot card reading, where she is introduced to the idea of 'practical witchcraft', which she puts of perusing until her domestic life is complicated when her daughter runs away after having been caught in an affair with one of her professors, played by Raymond Laine the films other most memorable performance.

While the final product comes across as not fully realized with a good share of flat moments, there are parts that are quite good if understandably melodramatic, and there is something kind of haunting about the lead actress. More an abstract then overt horror movie I went in expecting that it wouldn't be able to keep my attention, but it did sufficiently for me to be able to sit through the 89 minute cut I saw, though the apparently lost original cut was over 2 hours and a 1 hour 45 minute cut is apparently also available, and might even be worth hunting down. Definitely not for everyone but for me **1/2.

The Slumber Party Massacre (1982)

 'The Slumber Party Massacre' is another movie we recently recorded an episode on for 'Rob and Nate Record a Podcast'. Roger Corman produced slasher film is probably one of the better 'Halloween' knock offs. Directed by a woman, Amy Holden Jones, it has a slight knowing edge to it, an element of subtle satire and the film is simply better then it needed to be, which I apricated. **1/2.