Drag Me to Hell

A child being chased by a demon is a rather morbid way to start a rather morbid movie. Keep in mind this movie is also a comedy. It's not one that will likely make you laugh out loud, but its blend of horror and humor will remind you that before he was with Spider-Man, director Sam Raimi made the Evil Dead trilogy. Is his 2009 movie Drag Me to Hell funny? Kinda sorta. Scary? Often. Enjoyable? Most of the time.

Horror might be the only genre I can think of where filmmakers have understood that women in the lead role creates as good results as those led by men, if not better. (In case none are coming to mind, think The Exorcist, Alien, Rosemary's Baby, Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?, The Babadook, etc.) Alison Lohman is the lead here, and she's incredible. It's a unique challenge for her, because on the one hand we are meant to applaud her and root for her, and on the other we are supposed to think that as the banker who denied an older woman an extension on her loan, she is somewhat at fault for her tribulations. Lohman plays Christine, a young woman with a good job at a bank and in a serious relationship with a young professor (Justin Long). Christine is so determined to get the promotion as assistant manager at the bank that she practices diction on her way to work. Alarmed that she might be pushed aside in favor of her male colleague (Reggie Lee), she's willing to make "tough" decisions to impress her boss. That means refusing to extend mortgage loans for the elderly. Big mistake.

The older woman (Lorna Raver) even begs for the extension, then attacks when it is denied. But soon, she warns, it will be Christine who comes to her begging for help. She places a curse on her. While Christine's boyfriend may be skeptical at first, Christine know almost from the beginning that something is wrong. She seeks out the guidance of a psychic (Dileep Rao) who might be able to make sense to her the paranormal things happening; indeed, he tells her that a curse has been placed. After three days, she is told, a demon will finally come to drag her to hell. She cannot defeat this devil by herself, so she and the psychic seek the help of another psychic (Adrianna Barraza) who has some experience in this domain.

There are three types of frights in this film. The first is the hackneyed, overused device in which something something abruptly jumps out at us. It's not impressive because it's utilized in virtually every other Hollywood horror film, whether you want it to or not. The second is much scarier. Something moves slowly across the screen. The audience sees what the protagonist sees, and then it's there: some ominous, nefarious presence. We know it's there, and we get a sense of what it wants. It doesn't jump out just yet, it's simply there. This comes right after the first type, and so our adrenaline is already rushing. The third kind is the simple ambiance of the film, the sense of fear of demons and that sort of thing. I went to a Catholic school in the first grade where my teacher told me that the devil drags you down to hell by your hair if you are bad, so you could say this film kind of spoke to me.

Beyond that, there is a surplus of gross horror here. Lohnman is subjected to all sorts of disgusting things that I hope she was compensated handsomely for. If bugs, phlegm, and vomit are not really your thing, consider skipping this film. I've heard that actors in horror films often find the filming fun, that it's in post-production where things get scary. I still can't imagine how Lohman would be able to sleep without the lights on after having vomit leak out onto her on a set during the filming. Despite some tired clichés about Eastern mysticism and all that, this is a mostly enjoyable horror film. It's not as disturbing as the similar-themed Paranormal Activity from the same year, so that could be either a plus or minus, depending on your perspective. Enjoy it, and don't piss off the elderly afterwards.  

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Wonder Woman

In the new superhero movie Wonder Woman, we are presented with perhaps the most interesting and thrilling character of the year. A woman who is tough, kind, compassionate. She's a warrior and yet also a passifist. It's just too bad that the movie she is in is subpar.

In Wonder Woman, the story is bland and the performances are a mixed bag. The title character is also known as Diana, an Amazonian princess on an island of only females. World War I reaches their shores, as an American spy named Steve Trevor (Chris Pine) crashes there and seeks their help. While the queen wants nothing to do with mankind's wars, Diana is convinced that this battle can truly end all wars. She disobeys, and runs away with Steve to end the war. The terrible convenience of a just war is that it's only in retrospect, it seems, when it becomes evident whether or not it truly was just. World War I was meant to be the "war to end all wars," and yet it of course led to another world war, as well as (indirectly) the wars in Vietnam and Iraq. Diana arguably goes through a similar realization.

The performances might be a mixed bag, but they work best when humor is involved. Pine is as charming here as he is when he's Captain Kirk or when he's singing in Into the Woods. Said Taghmaoui as Sameer and Lucy Davis as Steve's humorous secretary provide satisfactory comic relief. Even Danny Huston as the villain and Elena Anaya (whom audiences might recognize in a somewhat similar performance in The Skin I Live In) as his poison doctor engage in a bit of morbid humor. Ludendorff poisons a group of exhausted German generals ready to give up the fight, and then he throws them a mask. "That mask won't help them!" Dr. Poison yells. He responds: "But they don't know that!" Then they let out a mischievous laugh. Connie Nielsen and Robin Wright, as Diana's mother and aunt, respectively, deliver dismal, humorless performances, with Wright's being possibly the worst of her career. (Both struggle to deliver those egregious lines in whatever accent they're aiming for.)

But the title role is played by Gal Gadot, and her performance is the only truly wonderful thing about this movie. She portrays Diana as perfectly complex. Feminists who have been praising the film might be a bit concerned about how Diana appears frequently wearing next to nothing in the same fetishistic outfit and whip (not to mention all the bondage imagery) that she had in the comics. (A biographical film about Wonder Woman creator William Moulton Marston and his relationship with his wife, Elizabeth Holloway Marston, and his mistress, Olive Byrne, both of whom lived with him simultaneously, is due out later this year.) Still, it is refreshing to have a female character tougher than all the boys, and it's long overdue. In addition to the fact that young girls are being provided with a tremendous character to look up, young bisexual people can also look up to her as a hero; for too long, young bi people have had only cruel stereotypes of them in media. While Diana's bisexuality is not portrayed here, the character has been officially confirmed as being bisexual. (Catwoman has also been confirmed as being bisexual.) It's essential that the sequel confirms this.

Wonder Woman is not as boring as Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice or as stupid as Suicide Squad, but it is disappointing in its own right. I'd say it's time for DC Comics to throw the towel in, especially when one views any trailer for the upcoming Justice League movie. Some, like Matthew Jacobs at the Huffington Post (typically), are speculating that it might win Best Picture. I sincerely hope it does not.

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Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father

Charismatic, completely selfless, laid-back, so intelligent. This is how many describe a young man named Andrew Bagby. With surgical precision in its massive use of editing, we're introduced to Andrew through these interviews and archival footage, like movies he made with his friends when he was a kid. Andrew loved appearing in the films of his buddy Kurt Kuenne, the director of Dear Zachary, when they were young. They even got Andrew's parents to act in them. As Andrew was saving for medical school, he still donated $2,000 to help fund Kurt's first movie. One can understand how monumental of a person he was.

It becomes fairly evident that Bagby was killed. "Why did Andrew get killed?" a young boy asks. Surely, we will find out.

This movie is part biography, part crime story. The life, times, and murder of Andrew Bagby. Some archival clips of Andrew and interviews with colleagues and friends at time seem superfluous. There are anecdotes of him biting his nails and always wearing shorts. As a narrator, Kuenne consciously or not gets this, because he literally stops showing the interviews. "You gotta know what happened," he says. "The whole truth." Someone hurt him, the young boy is told. A very bad person.

Her name: Shirley Turner, a former classmate of Andrew's in medical school in Canada. Something wasn't right with Shirley, many observed. She had finished her residency but was not practicing. She had three different children who had three different fathers. And she made inappropriate remarks about her intimacy with Andrew to his ex-fiance. When he moved back to the U.S. to become a family medicine practitioner, she followed. She acted, as one interviewee explained, possessive. After his murder, she became the primary suspect in the murder. In the footage we see, Shirley does not necessarily come across as callous, but something is certainly off.

If how an audience is to emotionally react is often based on the guidance of people (and, equally, to music), then those roles are primarily given to Andrew's parents, the two who appear on screen the most. They cry, they swear. They provide examples of incident after incident of negligence in lawyers and judges in the criminal system in Newfoundland. A significant portion is devoted to how "the system" failed. The law is slow (part of the slow pace is due to a disagreement on the English and French translation of the law), and they are helpless. Allegedly, one of the judges gave Shirley advice on how to write her own appeal; another judge allowed her back onto the streets after giving her praise for being a person who is "quite capable" because she is a doctor, but only after Shirley promises to behave herself (white privilege anyone?). The official reason the judge gives is that Shirley was accused of killing one person, and that did not represent the public at large.

By now the audience has been told that Shirley gave birth to a young boy named Zachary, who was given back to Shirley after she was released. And many times, the Bagleys had to spend a considerable amount of time with Shirley in order to spend time with Zachary. Going to the movies, swimming lessons, and they never brought up the trial. To be in the same room with the person you're convinced is the killer of your son while you're trying to play with your grandchild, the son of that accused murder, would require nerves of Herculean level. At any rate, much of their testimony of those experiences will likely send chills down your spine.

Kurt's documentary about his friend and what happened to him took on new meaning several times. It was not simply going to be a memorial film for a young son about his father, but a documentary about a horrifying crime, similar to HBO's The Jinx or Netlifx's Making a Murderer. If you've seen either of those miniseries, you know that the content can be rather disturbing at times. That certainly is the case with Dear Zachary, released about eight years before both of those series. When this movie reaches the pinnacle of disturbance, it features the type of sound effects and editing used primarily in horror films, with a clear reason.

I found the film basically as entertaining as the other two I mentioned and perhaps a little more. They are certainly of the same type of documentary. This one, however, is much more disturbing.

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