I shall be studying the mechanisms of Ex Machina, examining its parts and judging its performance to see if it works well or runs out of energy. So read on only if you’ve already seen Ex Machina, or don’t plan to.
0:01:32 A ginger office drone (Domhnall Gleeson as Caleb) wins the staff lottery. The prize is a trip to see snow. If he isn’t paid, they should call the lottery ‘redundancy plan’.
0:04:28 He is dropped off by helicopter at a rich man’s manor. He enters the premises with an air of mystification, as though he’s never entered a building before.
Looking for the exit in IKEA
0:11:18 Caleb meets Nathan (Oscar Isaac), a reclusive, ultra-rich Google founder type who’s the owner of the tech company Caleb works at. Nathan tells Caleb he’s working on A.I. (artificial intelligence) and needs Caleb to take the Turing test.
Nathan: So, do you know what the Turing Test is?
Caleb: Yeah, I know what the Turing Test is. It’s when a human interacts with a computer. And if the human doesn’t know they’re interacting with a computer, the test is passed.
Nathan: And what does a pass tell us?
Caleb: That the computer has artificial intelligence.
Artificial or genuine intelligence, I’ll be happy if this film has either.
0:11:26
Ava : Session 1
0:12:59 Caleb is introduced to Ava (Alicia Vikander, with whom Domhnall Gleeson worked in Anna Karenina). Her intelligence may be artificial but her camel toe is authentic.
Getting your toe in the door
0:15:10 Caleb outsmarts the robot by boring it to death with talk of language acquisition. Even Nathan is bored and starts fiddling about with his post-it collection. I see why Caleb is single, and it has nothing to do with his being ginger.
0:15:31 Nathan and Caleb are drinking beer after the experiment.
Nathan: You know, I wrote down that other line you came up with. The one about how if I’ve invented a machine with consciousness, I’m not a man, I’m God.
Caleb: I don’t think that’s exactly what I…
Nathan: I just thought, ‘Fuck, man, that is so good.’ When we get to tell the story, you know? I turned to Caleb and he looked up at me and he said, “You’re not a man, you’re a god.”
Caleb: Yeah, but I didn’t say that.
The actual line was, “If you’ve created a conscious machine, it’s not the history of man. That’s the history of gods.”
I.T. geeks think just because they can fix a computer it makes them a deity.
0:18:44 When discovering that the telly in his room is closed circuit TV and that the channels are just different cameras in the compound, Caleb promotes my website!
He means, “Watch The Film!”
0:23:36 After a power failure that locked Caleb in his room at 2am, he enters a room where Nathan is drinking fancy beer and behaving like a douche. He’d make a YouTube commenter.
0:24:08 A brunette (Sonoya Mizuno as Kyoko) delivers Caleb a breakfast tray to his room. I suspect she’s artificial. In the computer sense, not the Hampstead Garden Suburb / Rodeo Drive sense.
0:25:47
Ava : Session 2
0:26:01 The CGI female android is well put together.
“She’s gone to pieces.”
0:28:04 Ava tells us Nathan’s company is called Blue Book, named after Wittgenstein’s notes. In this film, Blue Book is the world’s most popular search engine. So the Blue Book value is high, and maybe worth a googol.
0:29:36 Caleb tells us he has no parents, no siblings, no wife or girlfriend… Telling us immediately after that he likes programming is, therefore, not necessary.
0:31:36 Following another power cut, the surveillance cameras go off-line. During the blackout, Ava breaks character and tells Caleb that Nathan isn’t his friend, that Nathan’s lying to him and that he shouldn’t trust Nathan. If Caleb does believe this, it may well be because Ava has boobs. What do you call robot’s cleavage? The Silicon Valley.
0:33:02
I used to think it’s death and taxes you couldn’t avoid, but actually it’s death and shit.
Nathan whining about his first world problems.
0:39:03
Ava : Session 3
0:40:25 Ava asks Caleb out on a date to go to a busy intersection and people watch. She’s got a crush on him, and not of the compactor sort. Although…
0:43:09 Ava gets dressed for him. I shall refer to this as her ‘cloaking device’.
“I call it my URL, because it’s a-dress.”
0:45:12 She tells Caleb she can tell from his micro expressions that he has feelings for her. This could prove troublesome, as she has the genitalia of a Barbie doll.
0:46:42
And in answer to your real question, you bet she can fuck.
Nathan to Caleb over a beer
I, literally, do not see how this is possible. I’ve seen her naked and she’s lacking the appropriate… ports. [NSFW Screen cap]
0:46:49
In between her legs, there’s an opening with a concentration of sensors. You engage them in the right way, it creates a pleasure response. So, if your wanted to screw her, mechanically speaking, you could. And she’d enjoy it.
I sit corrected. This demonstrates how little I know about computers.
Her lap top
0:50:38
Ava : Session 4
I’ve just realized that Caleb has fallen for Ava in three meetings. She’s a love machine.
0:53:32 Ava admits to causing the energy cuts with power surges so she and Caleb can interact without . Just like a woman: overcharging.
0:56:52 Alex Garland (the director) is making a big deal of Caleb’s shaving. It either represents something or it could truly be his first shave.
0:58:16 Caleb goes looking for Nathan and finds Kyoko. She silently begins disrobing, despite Caleb’s protests. Seems she wants to take cyber sex to a whole new level.
0:59:27
Dance Machine
1:00:40
Ava : Session 5
1:07:22 It would seem Caleb is trying to get Nathan drunk in order to take advantage of him by stealing Ava and e-loping.
1:08:41 Nathan is as passed out as free condoms at a family planning clinic.
1:09:58 Caleb swipes Nathan’s key card to gain access to the computer and finds Nathan’s secret files of previous droids, one of them a sex machine.
1:14:48 Caleb cuts himself with a razor to check that he’s not a robot himself. Or an emo teenage girl.
1:15:34
Ava :Session 6
1:16:52 Caleb plans an escape with Ava, by telling her he’ll get Nathan blind drunk yet again. So the same plan as every night. In fact, it’s no longer a plan but a bedtime routine.
1:19:18 Nathan says he’s going on the wagon…and not for a trip. This throws a spanner in the screwdriver.
1:26:01 Nathan explains that Caleb was only the cheese in the maze to see if Ava could find her way out. Caleb was chosen based on his search engine input and Nathan designed Ava’s face based on Caleb’s pornography profile. I don’t mind my pornography profile, but I prefer it head on.
Looking a GIF horse in the mouth
1:27:48 Plot twist. Caleb had already programmed all the doors to open during a power outage when Nathan was drunk the last time. Now Ava is roaming the halls, doing a search, like Google…only slower and girlier.
1:28:38 Nathan prepares to fight the robots and knocks Caleb out. Like a girl with a spiked drink, Caleb goes down after one punch.
1:30:49 After Nathan knocks Ava’s arm off, Kyoko robot stabs him in the back. Et tu, brute?
1:31:26
Cutting edge technology
1:32:57
Ava : Session 7
1:36:08 Ava replaces her arm with one from a droid still in the closet, then peels off some of the skin and puts it on her own chassis. #Skinny
1:36:51 Al K Hall nudity alert: Ava has finished making a skin suit with another robot’s flesh. This is more than just a little WTF!? [NSFW Screen cap]
1:38:46 Lol, Ava leaves the building with Caleb still locked inside a room. She was only using him to secure her freedom. Female robots are so calculating.
A writer’s life
1:41:34 Ava is airlifted out by the helicopter pilot who apparently doesn’t notice that he’s picking up a robot girl and not an adorable ginger twink. She’ll soon become used to being picked up.
Roll credits
Music from the credits: Savages – Husbands
Tally Ho’
WTF!?’s: Only 2 errors
When to Follow: A nice end of the evening film, especially if you like to think (and/or android boobs – for artificial milk?).
Where’s This Found: Not action sci-fi, but why-fi. I liked the film when it ended, but have come to like it even more as I spend time with it for this review. The look of the androids is impressive, the acting is spot on, and there are some interesting philosophical questions posed here. Out of a possible 10, I have 8 F’s to give
I shall be taking a chance on Big Game, studying its moves and playing its parts to see if it has a winning strategy or if we’re out of luck. So read on only if you’ve already seen Big Game, or don’t plan to.
“We’d better move on before we finish like those skinny dudes.”
0:01:24 A father takes his son to a cabin in the wilderness to hunt an animal. They are speaking a language which sounds like not at all English. I could survive in the wilderness, as long as I had my phone and a Wi-Fi connection. And I didn’t have to kill an animal.
0:02:38 A man is putting on a girdle and grimacing on Air Force One. He’s gone up in the world. At least literally.
0:03:14 Turns out the bloke is called Morris (Ray Stevenson) and is the head of the security detail around the lame duck president, William Alan Moore (Samuel L. Jackson). This makes the second time a Jackson has been president of the U.S.
A snake on a plane
0:04:12 On the way to Helsinki, we learn Morris once took a bullet (and placed it near his heart) for the president and now is being forced to retire. WTF!? Either he’s in physical condition to protect the president or not. I’m not sure I understand this concept of, “You’re OK to protect this president, but…”
0:06:41 A helicopter in Finland operated by a hunting guide takes some blokes with briefcases into the mountains. What are they hunting? Bargains?
0:09:18 The swarthy team explain to the helicopter pilot that they’re going to shoot down a passenger aircraft with a surface-to-air missile. The pilot runs away, but to make things easier on the terrorists, he stays in the clearing for at least 3 kilometres. The lead beard (Mehmet Kurtulus as Hazar) tests a surface to air missile on the bloke, making his hunting trip one-way.
“He may have the runs, but not the runs far enough.”
0:14:06 The boy and father (Tapio, played by Jorma Tommila) from the opening scene drive to a place in the mountains that looks like a boy scout camp in Deliverance. The young boy (Onni Tommila as Oskari) must go into the mountains and hunt a deer to return as a man. He’s the rite boy at the rite place at the rite time.
0:16:04 Because Air Force One has been signalled out by laser targeting, the president is placed in what resembles the landing capsule from the Apollo missions. The capsule is jettisoned from the aeroplane, but there are dozens of people still on the aircraft. Like life boats on the Titanic or ugly people in an orgy, not everyone will get off.
Drop out
0:16:22 Nice twist! As Secret Service agents follow the capsule out of the back of the plane, the last remaining agent remarks on the absence of parachutes opening. So Morris shoots him! Then he evacuates the aircraft while the incoming air-to-ground missiles whiz past him and destroy Air Force One. This man I thought would be the hero of the film turns out to be the mole. Nice play, Big Game.
0:18:38 Air Force One crash lands on top of the young boy hunting to become a man. He nearly caught that plane…with his back.
Light on his heels
0:20:44 In the Pentagon, Felicity Huffman plays ‘CIA Director’. She introduces the most experienced CIA agent in the world (Fred Herbert, played by Jim Broadbent) to a nameless Vice President (portrayed by Victor Garber – promoted from Canadian ambassador in Argo). This scene looks like the lobby in an actor’s unemployment bureau.
Watching “Big Game” for the first time
0:24:47 In the forest, Oskari enters the numbers ‘1492’ (the year Christopher Columbus ‘discovered’ the United States) to open the door to the escape capsule.
Please stay inside. Help is on the way. Do not exit the rescue pod under any circumstances.
Repeated message in the rescue pod as the president leaves it, minus a shoe
Proof one doesn’t need to follow instructions (or use logic) to be president of the U.S.
0:25:52 Oskari throws a 200-meter-long string with a cup attached to use as a ‘phone’ and ask the president what planet he’s from. It’d be faster and easier simply to yell. I’m surprised they’re able to hear each other over all the WTF!?
“Get me the scriptwriter on the other end of this shite!”
0:28:07 It’s times like these I’m reminded the Vice President is usually involved, hoping to get a promotion.
0:35:53 Morris says that his days are numbered because of the bullet fragment nearing his heart. He should call Tony Stark about that. He also admits this whole affair is over money. In other words, he wants dead presidents for a dead president. He can buy a great deal of WTF!? with all the money he wants so close to his imminent death.
0:37:48 WTF!? The President of the United States is shot down out of the sky and lands in front of this child who, instead of taking the leader of the free world to safety, plans to continue his hunting trip?
“I was in the middle of something, Mr. President. Just sit wrapped in a blanket in the back of my ATV for a couple days while I take care of this other thing, will you?”
Presidential coverage
0:39:46
Oskari: We all do this when we turn thirteen. We are sent into the forest to kill something that shows what we are as a man.
Wonderful, if what you are as a man is a dead animal.
0:45:24 The lad begins hunting in his father’s ‘secret spot’ and finds a refrigerator operating on a petrol generator in the middle of a clearing. Inside is a dead deer with an arrow and a note that reads “Happy birthday, Dad”. Their hunting in Finland is a lot like my fishing in London.
He should be called ‘Ending’, because he’s Finnish
0:45:42 President Moore finds the bodies of the Secret Service agents whose parachutes didn’t work. Defective parachutes are quite a let down.
0:46:28 The president sees Morris and understands an alternate meaning of ‘secret’ service.
0:48:47 WTF!? The president decides to chit chat with Oscar for so long that he gives Morris and the hunters enough time to catch up with him!? Q-What do you call yapping with a child? A-Small talk.
“Don’t worry, here’s an absence excuse for your teacher.”
0:51:38 Using a satellite, the operatives in Washington track a helicopter flying to the president’s location. The did not see the president having his arse kicked by Morris. If this were an election, the president would have been beaten handily. And footily.
0:55:58 Oskari makes a speech and leaps from the top of a mountain onto the freezer the terrorist decided to stow the president inside and attach to the helicopter in order to transport the president back to the Middle East where he’ll be stuffed as a hunting trophy and no one in the helicopter even notices the extra weight. That’s quite a leap, and I don’t mean the boy’s.
0:57:12 WTF!? The helicopter is dragging the giant freezer through the forest to shake Oskari off!? I’m a gay English urbanite and even I know this is impossible. The helicopter would crash and burn almost as disastrously as this film.
“Noooo! This story line is so thin we could lose the thread at any moment!”
Another WTF is why doesn’t the president simply jump out of the box when it’s so near the ground? And if he can follow Oskari’s instructions and close the sliding lid on the freezer, why couldn’t he slide it open before Oskari jumped onto it? Three WTFs in one scene = shat-trick!
0:58:11 Oskari cuts the straps tying the freezer to the helicopter and the box and the boy fall to the ground. Yet again the president waits for the boy to slide open the lid. If I were Samuel L. Jackson, I wouldn’t want to show my face in this film either.
0:59:08 Lol & WTF!? When the helicopter returns, guns blazing, the President slides the top of the freezer closed to protect himself, but leaves the kid trapped outside, exposed. That’s as cold as the freezer.
Presidential cover up
1:00:07 WTF!? The kid climbs into the box which then falls off a mountain, yet both inhabitants are unscathed. The plunging freezer reminds me of my interest in this film.
1:01:14
Boarding call for Malyasian Airlines
1:05:47 Hazar bombs his way into Air Force One where the president and Oskari are hiding. That’s just plane wrong.
1:07:34 After being beaten, strangled and drowned, the President is still is not injured and shoots the terrorist with an Uzi. He’s got a better shot at Hazar than re-election.
“I’ll hold your hair while you vomit, Samuel L. Jackson.”
1:08:25 The president and Oscar sit in the pilot’s and co-pilot’s seat and eject from the plane before it explodes. Too bad for Samuel L. Jackson that it wasn’t as easy to get out of this train wreck.
Why you never serve cabbage and beans on a plane
Here’s another WTF for you to consider. Why didn’t the pilot use the ejection seats at the beginning of the film when the president was safely in the escape pod and everyone knew missiles were headed directly for the plane?
1:08:48 The seats have parachutes which keep the duo aloft at the same altitude as the helicopter with the machine gun wielding Morris. Oscar shoots an arrow at him, successfully for the first time, meaning he’s become a man as he’s no longer shooting blanks. The arrow just glances of the bloke, seemingly harmless, yet it was enough to dislodge the bullet that was in the agent’s chest. Morris loses his grip on the helicopter, and falls into the sunken plane as it explodes. #crashlanding
Still not a bigger bomb than this film
1:13:46 Just when everyone thinks Oskari and President Moore are lost, the cockpit parachute seat alights directly beside Oscar’s father and the Seal rescue squad. Oskari is a hero, but Onni Tommilaeven more so for sacrificing his career for this disaster.
1:15:18 The vice president and the head of the Secret Service meet in the loo to discuss the failure of their plan [see my prediction at 28:07]. The loo is the appropriate place for this discussion because their plan was shite.
1:15:44 Herbert kills the vice president to cover his tracks. He then washes his hands of him. Literally.
Bored stiff
Roll credits
Tally Ho’
WTF!?’s: 9 dicey ones
When to Follow: When you’re twelve years old and your Xbox is broken.
Where’s This Found: As neither my age nor my I.Q. is 13, I’m not the target market for this and thus am under no obligation defend it. The most incredible thing about this film is witnessing Samuel L. Jackson’s downward spiral into prostitution [see Barely Lethal]. Out of a possible 10, I have 4 F’s to give
What To Feedback: Has anyone seen this film? Please leave a comment below on what forced you into this unfortunate circumstance. I’m curious as to know what could lead someone to watch this movie. All commenters will be entered in the contest for a chance to win my gratitude!
I shall be examining Chappieto see what makes it tick, analysing its direction and testing its logic to see if it works or burns out. So read on only if you’ve already seen Chappie, or don’t plan to.
0:01:56 A South African police captain announces the creation of the world’s first robotic police force. Have you seen RoboCop? Well, you will now.
0:02:10 Ooh, Anderson Cooper presenting RoboCop Chappie on CNN. Anderson Cooper is the Princess Kate of gay men.
0:02:54 Hugh Jackman as Vincent Moore, a developer who has a larger, man-controlled fighting robot that looks like the ones used in RoboCop. #CrapMetal
Recycled material
0:03:22 Dev Patel as Deon Wilson, a developer of the AI scouts who says he wants to give the next generation of RoboCops the ability to feel. Crikey, that would be a good idea for this generation of police officers.
0:05:56 The police are looking for the criminal gang composed of
who lead the forces of law directly to the lair of their leader Hippo (an incredibly wicked looking Brandon Auret), the King of all Badassery.
The way to a man’s heart is through his Africa tattoo
0:06:42 Because the band of fools destroyed the drugs they were transporting (and by the WTF, if the police helicopters were following the gang on the motorway, why haven’t they arrived at the hideout yet?), Hippo makes Ninja promise to pay him 20,000,000 rand in 7 days. To make his point, he puts Pitbull down.
0:06:45
MRW I find the perfect comeback…during the conversation
0:07:48 The droids arrive at the scene with the police. The CGI work here is as flawless as Anderson Cooper.
Name it
0:09:46 The trio escape in a van, though Amerika is hit and and this time George Bush isn’t around to fight for him.
0:10:21 Sigourney Weaver pays Michelle Bradley, the head of the company that manufactures the droids. She looks as happy to be here as a suicide bomber watching training videos / a gay man in the Pakistan Taliban / a real actor in a Michael Bay film.
Describing his conception of the female robot
0:12:04 Scout 22, one of the police robots, is so damaged he’s been earmarked for destruction. Poor bot…when he finds out, he’ll be crushed.
[N.B. The South African techno punk group Die Antwoord is composed of Ninja and Yo-Landi Visser – the stars of Chappie. Al K Hall’s most popular Audio Dregs to date explores the phenomenon that is Die Antwoord and includes music samples, videos and photos. Well worth the visit. Hear here.]
Bird Mullet: Business in the front, party in her rear
0:16:34 Deon spends all night coding and has a dorkasm when he successfully writes a stable AI program. This is my equivalent of passing level 97 of Candy Crush.
0:18:40 A cat poster inspires Deon to go against his boss’s orders and install the AI software on Scout 22, which was scheduled to be demolished. Cat posters also inspire me – to never buy a cat.
0:20:06 Amerika and Ninja kidnap Deon while he’s stealing Scout 22 and a top secret chip (‘guard key’) that allows him to access the robot’s brain. Ninja’s team, using Deon, hope to find a way to hack the police scouts to steal the 20,000,000 they need to pay Hippo. They’re counting on Deon, and 20M is a lot of counting.
“Eww, what was Chappie sticking in the ignition?”
0:21:28 The police force tell Vincent they’re not interested in his giant robot (the Moose) because it’s ‘overkill’. If they shoot someone with it, it certainly will be.
“Plot twist: Moose is also what you’re eating.”
0:24:26 The triplets tell Deon to build them “an indestructible robot gangsta number one son”. He tells them they’ll have to teach it like a child but it’ll learn faster than a normal person. It will certainly learn much faster than these lowlifes.
0:29:22 When the robot is booted up he behaves like a newborn until he learns a couple of words, like “watch ” and “chicken”. Because these are the most useful words in the English language.
Yolandi: You look so happy. You look like a happy chappie. That’s your name! Chappie.
Deon: No. No, no no, no, no. His name is not Chappie.
Chappie: Chappie.
Could be worse. Could be ‘Deon’.
“What a test dummy!”
0:31:21 While trying to steal the guard key for his own robots, Vincent discovers Deon stole it before him. This is a company that needs to re-evaluate their security policies.
0:34:18 Ninja tries to teach Chappie how to shoot so that Chappie can be his backup. The only problem is that Chappie doesn’t want to give it a shot.
0:36:32 In the office, Vincent approaches Deon for the guard key. He slams Deon’s face down hard on his desk, insults him, threatens him, puts a gun to his head and pulls the trigger, though the gun was empty. As he says he was kidding afterwards, no one calls Human Resources. WTF!? Talk about a hostile takeover bid.
Vincent helps Deon get into the literature
0:37:52
¥o-Landi offering to feed the crew
The back reads, ‘With a ass like this’ and an arrow pointing to her back end.
0:41:19 Deon makes Chappie promise to him, Chappie’s maker, that he won’t engage in any of the gang’s illegal activities. Chappie listens to his maker religiously.
[N.B. This notion of creation and religion will continue to be a subplot throughout the film. Here Deon gives him his first commandment: Thou shall not steal.]
0:43:12 Vincent is against Chappie on religious grounds, as he believes robots should not be given man’s intelligence. Considering many of the men I know, replicating their intelligence is setting his sights rather low.
0:46:43 To teach Chappie a life lesson, Ninja decides he’s going to drop the police robot off in a bad part of town so Chappie can appreciate how good he’s got it at the abandoned factory. My parents did this to me. It was called ‘boarding school’.
0:49:15
Chappie has a hot body
0:52:35 Vincent tracks Chappie using the GPS and knocks him out of commission using an electronic pulse gun. Chappie goes down like Enron stock or a drunk twink in a gay bar.
0:53:14 Vincent cuts off Chappie’s arm to punish him for thinking he’s real. Chappie would give his right arm to have it back but…
0:54:31 Chappie escapes from the truck but Vincent has taken the guard key. Chappie no longer has a chip on his shoulder, or anywhere else.
“I’ve got his back.”
0:57:02 Amerika reinstalls an extra arm that Deon left behind. Giving others a hand is so Amerikan.
0:59:43 Chappie makes a Yolandi action figure.
Getting dolled up
1:02:25 Chappie learns how to use an arsenal of non-lethal weapons (to Die Antwoord – Cookie Thumper). And gets some tattoos and bling. His Blue Tooth is now gold.
1:05:13 To the tune of ‘Baby’s On Fire‘ (Die Antwoord again), Ninja and Amerika teach Chappie how to car jack by telling him he’s stealing cars back from bad people for Daddy (Ninja). Chappie has got a lot of drive.
One way to stop a car
1:09:06
Chappie: I’m titanium. I’m going to live forever, daddy.
Ninja [pointing at a guage on Chappie’s chassis]: What does that say there?
Chappie: ‘Low battery’. Battery, power, energy supply. Daddy, I need a new battery.
Ninja: Chappie, that battery’s stuck. It’s melted together. That battery can’t come out. Now, what you gonna do when that battery runs out?
Chappie: I die? Chappie die?
Ninja: Deon, he put you in a broken body.
Chappie: Deon’s my Maker. It doesn’t make any sense. He wouldn’t make me just so I could die. Deon loves me, daddy.
Apart from the fact Ninja is using this argument to trick Chappie into breaking his word to Deon and participating in the heist, it’s a valid religious debate.
Chappie needs a fix
1:12:34 Deon goes to pass time with his ‘creation’, but Chappie is upset with him and confronts Deon about putting him in a body that will die in a couple of days. Deon apologizes and says he didn’t know Chappie would turn out to be Chappie.
Here’s my rewrite of this scene.
Chappie: But you my maker. Why’d you just make me so I could die?
Deon: I didn’t… I didn’t make you so you could die, Chappie. I made you so you could live.
The italics is my addition. That’s so me, always tampering with imperfection.
“You’re breaking my circuit, Chappie!”
1:13:52 Using the guard key, Vincent downloads a bug in all of the Scouts so that they self destruct: a true computer virus.
1:15:34 With the police force offline, there are mass riots that threaten to destroy the entire nation of South Africa, yet still aren’t as bad as Liverpool FC hooligans after a match.
1:18:15 Before Vincent can delete the traces of the malware he used to knock the robots offline, Deon arrives back at Tetravaal to repair Chappie. He quarantines the virus and reboots Chappie, which also stops the deletion of the malware program. This scene does nothing to contradict the impression that ‘IT suspense’ is as mutually exclusive as ‘American diplomacy’ or ‘British cuisine’.
1:18:33
Big Brother
1:20:28 Chappie has a plan. He wants to take the neural transmitter hat to transfer his consciousness from one Scout body to another. Personally, I’ve tried this with scouts – Boy Scouts. And I didn’t use a hat.
1:24:33 Chappie has copied his consciousness and put it on-line. If another computer hacks into it and reposts it on 4-Chan, we could have ‘the Chappening’.
1:25:06 Song while preparing for the heist is still “Cookie Thumper”.
1:25:32
Walk About
1:26:22 There’s significant WTFage here. 1) When did it suddenly become day as Deon was still working on finding a solution in the night before and 2) would a bank really decide to send an armoured car with hundreds of millions of rand the day after a massive uprising when all of police robots are offline? Someone hijacked the WTF truck.
1:29:03 Vincent convinces Michelle, his boss, to let him use the big robot through cajoling and whining. Apparently acting like a baby works with powerful women.
“You loved more than this finger, Michelle!”
1:30:40
Taking out a moose
1:31:28 Chappie learns Ninja lied about getting a new body for him and that he was only using Chappie for the heist. Like a toaster in the bath, Chappie is shocked.
1:32:58 Hippo comes before the Moose. It’s a real zoo over there.
1:34:23
Amerika is divided
1:37:42 While stealing a van to get get away, Hippo shoots Ninja in the leg and Deon in the stomach. Deon has a lot of guts.
1:40:31 Yo-landi jumps out of the moving van, grabs an automatic rifle and opens season on the Moose, who shoots back. Holey shite!
1:40:44
Needs more lead in her diet
1:41:22 Chappie blows up Moose with an explosive charge he’d placed there earlier in the fight. Chappie performs the magic trick of turning a moose into toast.
1:42:19 WTF!? There’s no way Ninja, who was shot in the leg, could pick up and carry ¥o-landi around. The only way he’d be able to pick her up is in a bar.
1:44:37 Chappie thrashes Morris for killing his mother board.
A broken man
1:46:38 Doing the robot Chappie transfers Deon’s consciousness to another scout droid. This is a step backwards in the evolution of technology.
Deon does the robot
1:48:34 Oh bloody Christ on a WTF!? There are only seconds to transfer Chappie’s consciousness to an available scout before the police break down the door but a robot decides this conversation is worth risking his entire existence for
Deon [with urgency] : Come on, Chappie. Come on!
Chappie: Maker. [Deon leaves the terminal and rushes to Chappie’s side] I’m scared. What if it doesn’t work?
Deon: It’s going to work, Chappie. I promise.
Chappie: And you can never break a promise.
Deon: Come on, let’s do this!
1:49:58 The boys meet up outside the company, each in their new robot bodies. #AC/DC
1:51:04 Ninja discovers a flash drive with ¥o-landi’s consciousness on it. Is it just me, or is this highly insulting? All of your essence couldn’t fill up a flash drive? She doesn’t have a lot of memory.
Who names their shirts?
USB Kewpy doll
1:51:13
Dolls really make a fun-eral
1:51:47 The South African police have stopped using robots altogether. They are also asking for information on the location of Chappie. But can’t be bothered to visit the location where all of the money from the armoured car heist was tossed into the wind and the largest robot cop ever used was deployed and killed dozens of people and was also Chappie’s last known location and where Chappie and Ninja still live. WTF!?
1:53:04 Chappie remotely makes a ¥o-landi robot to the tune of Die Antwoord’s ‘Enter the Ninja’. She’s really built.
Turn me on
Roll credits
Tally Ho’
WTF!?’s: 8 shocking ones
When to Follow: Saturday afternoon between 3-4:30 and it’s just come on Netflix
Where’s This Found: Out of a possible 10, I have 6 F’s to give
I shall be examining The Town That Dreaded Sundownin a harsh light, analysing its dailies and studying its set to see if it’s brilliant or not that bright. So read on only if you’ve already seen The Town That Dreaded Sundown, or don’t plan to.
0:00:44 A narrator (Denis O’Hare) using very believable news footage as a backdrop explains a mysterious killer murdered couples in the town of Texarkana in 1946. The murders started again “last year”. Like me and my birthday, no actual year is given.
Every year, on Halloween, The Town That Dreaded Sundown is screened somewhere in Texarkana.
Narrator
I suspect the ‘yearly’ screening of the film is also about as regular as my birthday.
“Wait, did a crow really shit on my back?”
[N.B.The most recent reference I can find to the film being shown in Texarkana is in a park for a summer festival in 2012. Bit of trivia: the park where they showed the film (Spring Lake Park) is the park used as a drive-in for the film and also where the vehicle of one of the actual victims (Paul James Martin) was found March 30, 1946.]
0:04:56 Before I commence hating on this film, let me mention the first five minutes have been directed not too badly. Because we all know I’m going to start hating on this film, just like we know the young couple parked in the woods won’t live to dread sunrise.
0:04:50 Cinematogrpahy like this is why I can’t completely hate the film.
Maybe they dread sundown because they die of boredom at night
0:09:51 The killer (a chap in a potato-sack mask) tells the young man (Spencer Treat Clarkas Corey Holland) – who is cute in a fresh meat type of way – to get out of the car and take off his trousers and lie flat on the ground. He tells the woman (Addison Timlin as Jami) not to turn around while he commences to stab the boy with his knife and maybe his penis. The killer (Andy Abele as ‘Sackhead’) tells the girl not to turn around, but she does because she’s a girl. So he chases her down and attacks her, saying, “This is for Mary. Make them remember.” Maybe he means, “Make them remember to do as they’re told.”
Jami isn’t the only one giving Corey a shot
0:11:02 Jami stumbles back, beaten and abused, to the drive-in where she’d been watching the original film. She may not have a car but she looks run down.
[N.B. This scene mirrors the first attack in the true-life Texarkana Moonlight Murders. A young couple – Jimmy Hollis and Mary Jeanne Larey – parked in a lover’s lane were approached by a man with a pistol who told them to exit the car. He then instructed Hollis to remove his ‘britches’ and lie down on the ground (like in the film). The attacker then hit Ms Larey over the head and instructed her to run away, which she did, while Hollis was being beaten. The attacker then ran after Larey, beat her and sexually assaulted her with the barrel of his gun (in the film it’s the male who is assaulted).]
0:11:10
Texarkana version of a hoodie
0:11:52 Jami is in the hospital and I understand why she lived. 1) Her father was a local journalist, and 2) both of her parents are dead. Mix these together and you have the recipe for an investigative tart.
0:14:29 Al K Hall Nudity Alert: Amber Timlin’s naked reflection in a tub. If you’re that desperate to see her milk sacks, there are a lot of other, better photos of her available on-line.
“Saint Pauly said I can’t even act my age!”
0:18:28 Those acting lessons Amber is taking are paying off. She’s noticeably less bad than she was in Odd Thomas.
0:19:14 Al K Hall Nudity alert: A false blonde in a 1970s cowboy outfit meets a returning soldier at the local airport and they go to a hotel as cheap as she looks. The most interesting thing about this scene is that it serves no purpose in the film, except to inflate the boob and body count. In her clothes, she’s a cowgirl – out of her clothes, she’s a reverse cowgirl. [NSFW PHOTO]
0:20:44 Well done. The young woman waits for her beau to return with snacks but instead it’s the killer with the marine’s head. He pounds the head against the room’s front window until the glass breaks. The phantom should call this move ‘The Head Start’.
That’s using your head
0:21:20 The slapper escapes by falling out of a window and breaking her leg so that we can see the bone jutting out, which really hits home when she’s in the car trying to press the accelerator with the useless leg. The Phantom arrives and gets straight to the point of his knife inside her body.
The breaks aren’t working
0:22:04 The killer rings Jami on her mobile (using Corey’s number) and tells her he’s going to do it again and again until she makes them remember. I don’t think he’s talking about the dishes.
0:27:40 A representative of the Texas Rangers (Anthony Anderson as Lone Wolf Morales) comes in to take over the case.
0:29:14 While researching police files that were just given to her because she showed her WTF, Jami receives the assistance of a loner teenager police station librarian. He’s trying to make us believe that he’s a suspect, but either he’s too obvious or the film is.
Smoky eyes
0:33:36 Jami reports her findings to Lone Wolf, along with an email sent to her by the Phantom. She says a man named Benjamin Sewell was believed to be the killer because the murders stopped when he was jailed 30 years for grand theft auto. He died a number of years before but he had a son who’d visited before his death, so she supposes maybe the son is the new killer. But the son died as well. Like father, like son.
[N.B. The main suspect in the actual case was called Youell Swinney (close enough to ‘Benjamin Sewell’), and he too served time for car theft, though there was insufficient proof to charge him as the Phantom. This is a photograph of Swinney flanked by officers of the law.]
The only thing he could kill is the mood
0:36:24 The loner archivist (Travis Topeas Nick Strain) pops by Jami’s house with notes about the original film and crew. He also tells her that his dad committed suicide and his mother is in a “loony bin”, apparently hoping she doesn’t believe in genetics.
0:37:22 Jami takes a date to her murdered boyfriend’s candlelight vigil. She’s as clueless as Lone Wolf and dim as votive candles.
Corey’s situation is grave
0:39:12 Someone makes the fashion faux pas of wearing a burlap sack on their head when coming to the vigil. A marine friend of the chap killed in the hotel shoots the character because the police force aren’t doing anything. Neither do they jump on the marine the moment he draws his weapon, but instead wait until he tells them to arrest him. This scene goes a long way towards explaining how a serial killer can go so long without being caught in Texarkana.
They can’t solve how to operate a VCR
0:39:52 Sheriff Underwood (Ed Lauter) arrives at a posh dinner party – with his police sirens blaring as though this were a question of life and death – to tell the elite of Texarkana that the Phantom killer was shot. Like a virgin teen in a brothel, this may be a little premature. #SheriffUnderwhelmed
0:42:22 How adorable! Two young men of different races go to the woods to figure out how to be gay. I could give them a beginner’s lesson that would be very handy.
0:44:23 The real – undead – Phantom shoots the black lad after beating him bloody. He then attaches a knife to the end of the trombone and kills the white chap by playing the instrument and stabbing the young man in the back with a killer tune.
Tone death
[N.B. This scene is a remake of one in the first TTTDS, which itself was based on the fact that one of the true-life victims, Betty Jo Booker, was carrying a saxophone the night she was murdered (after performing at a VFW Club, much like the one portrayed in this version of TTTDS). She was not killed with her saxophone and not tied to a tree, as depicted in the original film.]
Flashback from “The Town That Dreaded Sundown” (1976)
0:45:12 We learn the young bloke who crashed the vigil in the Phantom mask was a twisted teen who wanted to commit suicide by cop. If he’d been black in the U.S., he wouldn’t have needed the disguise.
0:47:52 Jami’s parents died in a car accident after picking her up from a sleepover, after she was scared of a girl’s brother in a Phantom mask. She’ll be the death of them.
0:50:44 The authorities discover that the local preacher (the late Edward Herrmannas Reverend Cartwright) sent Jami the Phantom email, despite not being the murderer. He sent it to her to scare the town into coming to his church, though I fail to see how sending a private email would frighten a whole town. In the name of WTF, the preacher is doing one hell of a job.
0:53:54 Very nice blues while a bar stray plays with the sheriff’s trombone (Gary Cole as Chief Deputy Tillman) on Christmas. That is until the Phantom dots Hank’s eye.
0:55:46 The slapper makes it into the field and nearly escapes until she screams when mistaking the scarecrow for the Phantom. There is a slight resemblance, truth be told, but only one of them give a crop.
0:56:06
Feeling a little cross
0:57:20 While interviewing the son of the director of the original The Town That Dreaded Sundown, Jami suddenly develops the hint of a Texan accent. Like the clumsy kisser, it must be a slip of the tongue.
The captain is as low as the tide
1:00:15 Charles B. Pierce, Jr. (the director’s son, played by Denis O’Hare – best known as an American Horror Story regular, also directed by Alfonso Gomez-Rejon) states that a man named Hank McCreedy (a corpse authorities thought to be a remorseful Phantom) was in fact a victim of the Phantom. McCreedy’s pregnant wife, Mary (the name the killer mentioned at the beginning of the film), was angry that Texarkana had killed her husband and sullied his memory so she poisoned her grandson against the town. Charles believes this grandson is the new Phantom. I believe too much time is being wasted on storyline.
“Hipsters are the lemmings of fashion!”
1:04:58 Jami’s grandmother decides to relocate to California so Jami can go to Uni there. She decides they will move to California in 3 hours. WTF!? Jami invites Nick over to say goodbye and she decides she’s in love. They decide to remove random articles of clothing and make sex secretly in her bedroom. Like many people who decided to pay to watch this film, she is screwed.
1:07:56 The Phantom chops off Nick’s head with a machete as Nick is leaving Jami’s. Oh well, at least his death didn’t come prematurely.
Cereal killer
1:09:22 The song that plays as they leave is My Best Friend – Jesus Christ. Neither of those people can save this film.
1:11:34 On the way out of town to move to California in the middle of the night, the first stop is a petrol station where an old bloke and Jami’s grandma are shot while Jami is in the store. She needn’t worry, it seems as though the shooter is like adverts for Depends: targeting old people.
Window pain
1:12:32 In a town with a population of two, both of whom are now dead, Jami steals her dead grandmother’s handbag and runs through the empty streets chased by the Phantom and a murder of WTF!?
1:12:49 While running through an abandoned train station, Jami trips and is surprised to see a pistol fall out of her grandmother’s bag. She leaves the sack and keeps the gun, making me wonder WTF!? she took the bag in the first place.
1:13:51 She literally stumbles across her dismembered boyfriend who just happens to be lying on the train tracks where she just happens to be randomly escaping. Jami may be sad, but Nick is in pieces.
1:14:28
Colorado Dreamin’
1:15:14 WTF!? There are two Phantoms now. This is totally redundant. There were no unexplained mysteries we need resolved by this development, so this plot twist is like flushing a new Rolex down the toilet: a waste of time. I wish the script writers would be like Jami after both Phantoms shoot her with arrows and get the points.
1:16:08 The men remove their masks. One of them is Deputy Foster (Joshua Leonard), though I’ve never seen him before in this film. The other is Corey, her boyfriend from the beginning of the film who was once dead. He’s made quite a recovery.
1:16:34 WTF!? Foster (who is also Hank McCreedy’s grandson) made people believe Corey was dead by planting two of Corey’s teeth on a dead runaway. This is not what is meant by dental recognition!
1:17:46 While Corey is espousing his pride over becoming a local legend, Foster shoots him in the head. This seems only fair, as Corey was shooting off his mouth.
1:18:28 WTF!? Jami is lying on her stomach with Foster sitting on top of her back to pin her down and he doesn’t notice her grabbing the gun and turning over? While he’s sitting on top of her? Wow. I’m as speechless as Foster, but I don’t have a bullet in my head.
Jami’s first weekend in Colorado
1:18:52 Then Deputy Foster’s dead body swims out into the middle of the bayou and sinks.
1:20:50 A shadow stalks Jami at her university in California…at sundown. I’m terrified – terrified there might be a sequel.
Where’s This Found: Alfonso Gomez-Rejon did a surprisingly good job at directing this, so now I’m curious to see his Me and Earl and the Dying Girl. The story, however, remains too simplistic and the ending is an epic disappointment but the cinematography is pretty enough to look at. Out of a possible 10, I have 6 F’s to give
I shall be mapping out Mad Max: Fury Road, inspecting its driving force and finding out what makes it run to see if it’s high performance or nothing more than a wreck. So read on only if you’ve already seen Mad Max, or don’t plan to.
It was hard to know who was more crazy, me or everyone else.
It was your grammar teacher. #crazier
0:01:48 Max stands on top of a giant hill, ignoring the voices in his head and eating lizard. Multitasking is important post-apocalypse.
Fast Food
[N.B. This scene reveals the two female figures that haunt Max throughout the film. The older woman is his wife, Jessie, who died in the original Mad Max. The younger girl – Glory the Child – is a stranger who will make her appearance in the comic prequel:Mad Max: Fury Road – Mad Max 2]
0:03:24 Max (Tom Hardy) is captured by half-life War Boys: marauders living in the mountains and pale as Irish children in winter.
0:03:47 Max has a tattoo which states his blood is ‘O-negative high octane’, and he’s a universal donor. In the future, petrol will bleed you dry.
It’s a gas
0:07:19
Grin and bare it
0:07:47
Rev it up for Immortan Joe!
A fat bloke wearing a plastic casing who has the skin complexion of an adolescent McDonald’s fry cook is the leader of the hill people. His is a government of the pimple by the pimple for the pimple.
Immortan Joe: Once again we send off my war rig to bring back guzzoline from Gas Town and bullets from the Bullet Farm.
They may want to pick something up from the Think Tank, as well.
0:08:12 Joe’s ‘Imperator’ is Furiosa(Charlize Theron). I suppose in the future ‘Imperator’ means ‘bus operator’.
Make-up tips by Taylor Momsen
0:09:14 Joe opens the floodgates and gives the throng of dirty valley dwellers (‘The Wretched’ or ‘The Triumvirate’) a much needed shower and a few drops to drink.
Joe: Do not, my friends, become addicted to water. It will take hold of you and you will resent its absence.
It’s as nefarious as an addiction to oxygen – but I can quit either when I want.
0:12:10 Before the convoy can arrive at Gas Town, Furiosa swerves off the road and drives into the desert. I just wish some of my mates were as good at avoiding gas.
Landescape
0:12:45
Udder disbelief
0:13:08 Mini-meat (Quentin Kenihan as Corpus Colossus, Joe’s son) notices Furiosa has gone off the beaten path. Joe realises it’s because Furiosa has kidnapped his Wives. Joe’s breeding stock is going down.
[N.B. Joe has two sons, Corpus Colossus, a physically handicapped man, and Rictus Erectus (Nathan Jones), a mentally handicapped man. It is Joe’s desire to engender a healthy heir that leads to his impregnating his stock of Wives.]
0:16:02 The War Boys have to chase after the escaping Furiosa.
Nux (Nicholas Hoult): I just need a top up [of a blood transfusion], some more juice.
Nux: We take my blood bag [Max] and strap him to the lancer’s perch.
Slit: It’s got a muzzle on it. It’s a raging feral.
Nux: That’s right. High octane crazy blood, filling me up.
This is why Max goes along for the ride. He’s a bloody assistant.
0:17:12 This vehicle is so rock and roll.
Traffic Jams
[N.B. The Doof Warrior is a blind musician wearing a mask made from his dead mother’s face. He’s played by iOTA. The good news is iOTA is hot and gay. The bad news is he’s a recovering alcoholic and booze is usually my go-to move.
The actual guitar weighed 132 pounds (60 kilograms) and shot real petrol fuelled flames controlled with the whammy bar.]
0:19:22 As Furiosa and her entourage enter no-man’s land, they are beset upon by a group of psychopaths called Buzzards. They certainly fight as hard as some of the birds I know.
0:22:34 A wounded war boy sprays ‘Chrome’ (silver spray paint) on his teeth as a sort of stimulant and then leaps onto an enemy car screaming “Witness me!”
Getting a jump on the competition
[N.B. ‘Chrome’ is a spray paint that the War Boys use because 1) chrome is valuable in the post-apocalyptic world, 2) it’s an outward sign of their V-8 worship, 3) there’s some form of high received from it. Evidence of the latter is this reference to ‘chroming‘, which is drug use popular in Australia…where the director is from. Also worth noting, chrome addiction in Mad Max erodes War Boys’ lips.
As an extra bonus, at the bottom of this article check out the silver cooking spray product used in the film as Chrome and the reviews by War Boys .]
MFW I confuse haemorrhoid cream with toothpaste
0:24:57 Now that the Buzzards have been eliminated, the War Boys sent to intercept the convoy have to stop Furiosa and recover the Wives. Unfortunately, there’s trouble on the horizon. By ‘trouble’ I mean ‘sandstorm’ and by ‘horizon’ I mean ‘horizon’.
It could be worse, it could be 5 minutes in the future
0:33:07 In the aftermath of the storm, Max carries Nux and the car door to which they’re chained to the lorry he hears revving in the distance. He walks out from behind the lorry and stumbles into Pornhub.
“Let’s play ‘Pee like a boy’!”
0:38:06 While Max fights Furiosa and her Wives, Nux wakes up and thinks he’s helping Max collect the prize for Immortan Joe. #booty
0:38:14 The Splendid Angharad says they’re going to the green place. I’ve got some medicine that will clear that right up.
0:40:06 Furiosa attaches her strap-on arm. She needs a hand.
Furiosa is disarmed
0:43:01 The group is complete and heads off to elude the evil caravan, hot in pursuit. The group on the war rig consists of
He always takes forever deciding at the drive-thru
0:43:38 The Gas Town boys are coming to provide some backup. Boys from Gas Town are full of beans.
Splendid (looking through a spy glass): Big rigs, polecats, flamers, and there’s the People Eater (John Howard) himself.
I can identify with at least one of these.
0:45:36
Nux [to Furiosa]: Filth! You traited him!
While Max is at the rear, reconnecting the hose that operates the fuel pod wheels, Nux sneaks to the front of the rig and attacks Furiosa. The other girls are able to subdue him, which doesn’t surprise me in the least. Seriously, have you seen Nicholas Hoult? He looks as though he could be taken out by an asthmatic teen with sclerosis on a bad date.
Chain of Fool
0:45:51 Splendid refuses to let Furiosa kill the lad.
Splendid: He’s kamakrazee. He’s just a kid at the end of his half-life.
Then they chuck him out of the rig like poor people with McDonald’s trash on the motorway.
0:50:18
“At least the middle finger still works!”
0:50:31 The group arrive in Rock Rider territory. Furiosa made a deal here to deliver the pod of guzzoline in exchange for the Riders’ blocking the canyon with a load of rocks, cutting off the pursuers. The Riders prefer to attack the caravan, lose many men, lose the petrol and then block the pass anyway. Maybe the ‘rock’ in ‘Rock Riders’ refers to their heads.
0:54:14 The special effect of Splendid’s pregnancy is closer to special education.
Is she giving birth to a Lego?
0:57:21 Immortan Joe’s son, Rictus, tosses Nux on the rig so he can kill Furiosa and recover the Wives. ‘Rictus’ sounds like a part of the body you wouldn’t want to have a cancer.
0:58:54 This scene is what elevates Mad Max over most other action films. They have an attractive, pregnant female lead, and they throw her under the bus for the sake of the film. I’ll bet you can’t name one other film where they do the same. If you can think of one, put it in the comments!
1:01:10
Feeling driven
1:03:06
I should be walking with the Immortan, McFeasting with the heroes of all time.
Nux to Capable, realizing he’ll never get to heaven because his blood bag (Max) killed Joe’s trophy wife
Steamy punk
I love the implied etymology of ‘McFeasting'; it sounds like a happy meal.
1:03:04 Nux and Capable (Riley Keough) get so close that he introduces her to Larry and Barry, the tumours growing in his neck. I suppose it is true that you can make friends in the strangest places.
1:07:34 While trying to make it across a marshland in the middle of the night, both the convoy and the pursuers become entrenched in the mud. Splendid finally dies and the Organic Mechanic (e.g. the doctor, Angus Sampson) cannot save the life of the foetus. Gone, baby, gone.
1:09:28 Max wastes 2 of the 3 remaining bullets trying to stop the approaching vehicle driven by The Bullet Farmer (Richard Carter). Furiosa takes the gun to shoot the last bullet and hits her mark. This is the type of scene that had fan boys up in testosterone.
1:12:06 Nux, now in love, decides to help the escapees by driving the rig out of the mud. This is the sort of thing that happens when you add ginger to your diet.
1:13:14
Engine running
1:14:44 This scene doesn’t last but a matter of minutes, yet there is an entire untold history of these characters who’ve learned to walk on stilts to adapt to their environment. This is the type of scene that separates an action movie from an action film.
This place is for the birds
1:18:15 While driving to ‘The Green Place’ our war rig stops at an abandoned oil derrick type structure, manned by a naked woman (Megan Galeas The Valkyrie). She’s meant to be bait for a trap, but when Furiosa identifies herself with her lineage, the other women come out of their holes. Figuratively.
1:21:08 As Furiosa introduces the Wives to the old women of her old clan (The Vuvalini – not a joke), she learns the marshy area with the crows is all that’s left of The Green Place. I certainly appreciate her confusion. They should stop calling it The Green Place and call it the Shite Place – but that name was already taken by Detroit.
1:21:47
Deserted
1:25:15
You know, hope is a mistake.
Max
Truest sentence of the entire film.
1:28:04 Max’s little girl vision (Coco Jack Gillies as Glory the Child) inspires him to lead a charge back to the Citadel, the Eden we saw at the beginning of the film. The theory is that they drive back through the collection of armies, close the pass and take control of the War Boys to claim control of the Citadel. This is the sort of plan that works best only in movies.
1:29:15
My first day at the Shoe Locker
1:30:34 All of the enemy camps take up chase against our heroes. Just because you’re paranoid, it doesn’t mean people aren’t after you.
1:34:54 ‘Cool’ is a word I try to never use, but in the scene with the polecats, no other description will do.
Pole Position
Pole Dancers
1:39:34 Max jumps into the People Eater’s rig and uses him as a human shield when Immortan Joe shoots at him from another vehicle. Max is rather safe as the Mayor is so large it’s like hiding behind a planet. #eclipse
1:40:38 Max tries to return to Furiosa’s truck as she’s been stabbed and, perhaps more importantly, his rig is exploding.
Great Balls of Fire
1:42:27 Not an important plot point, but Max has to fight the guitar player car mascot. This isn’t too difficult as the guitarist is just a musician.
1:42:58
Rictus, take me.
Cheedo tells Joe’s brother she wants to return to Joe’s vehicle
As for being taken, ‘Rictus’ sounds more like ‘where’ than ‘whom’.
1:43:34 Cheedo helps Furiosa climb on Joe’s vehicle, so it would appear her betrayal was a ruse. Like a bisexual athlete, she pays for both teams.
Bandages on mosquito bites
1:44:32 Furiosa attaches a hook to Joe’s faceplate that is torn off when she throws the chain the hook is attached to into the wheel axle. Joe dies by losing face. Literally
1:46:38 Nux sacrifices himself by crashing the rig in the narrow pass so that the enemy vehicles can’t follow the vehicle with Max, Furiosa and the trollops. #DeadEnd
Traffic Jamming
1:48:46 Max sets up a transfusion mid-ride to save Furiosa. He makes a better nurse than most nurses I know, plus he has a good roadside manner.
1:51:08 Upon arrival back at the Citadel, Max shows the crowd Joe’s corpse and they rip it to shreds. Furiosa steps from the vehicle and the mob chant, “Let them up”, meaning give them access to the giant lift which will take them to the upper echelons of power. In short, they’d like a rise.
1:52:22 The milk maids open the floodgates and allow the poor people to bathe.
Cliff vomits
1:53:04 Max slips away quietly, looking for a sequel.
Not to Dubai in Summer
Roll credits
Tally Ho’
WTF!?’s: Only one raging one
When to Follow: When you’re completely fed up of ‘action’ films that have no action. Basically a 2-hour long trailer, there is not much dialogue in Fury Road because the storyboard existed before the script.
Where’s This Found: Mad Max: Fury Road holds its own easily in the Mad Max saga. While the story may be simplistic – it is an action film, not a philosophical treatise – simple is acceptable if the action holds its own. In MM:FR there’s no shortage of action and the action here is original, not trite martial arts battles, fist fights and shoot outs where no one gets hurt. Out of a possible 10, I have 9 F’s to give
I shall be attacking a review of Sharknado 3, wading through its depths and examining its chops to see if it’s full of action or dead in the water. So read on only if you’ve already seen Sharknado 3, or don’t plan to.
Note: This review is still under construction. Please keep checking back for more goodies.
[Funny picture]
0:00:10
Dr. Hell No
0:00:56 Agents Devoreaux (singer/song writer Ne-Yo) and Argyle (ESPN ‘journalist’ Michelle Beadle) collect Fin Shepard (Ian Ziering) in Washington D.C. He’s easier to pick up than syphilis in a Parisian bar.
0:01:43 Oh no! A massive protest for and against sharks blocks the road! But which side of the debate would you be on?
A free demonstration
0:04:27 The President of the United States, Marcus Robbins (bad actor and Shark Tank ‘shark’ investor Mark Cuban), awards Fin the Presidential Medal of Freedom. While receiving it, Fin grimaces as though it’s being pinned somewhere other than his lapel.
“This is worse than working on 90210!”
0:04:36
Journalist: What’s you opinion of the shark storms, Madame Vice President?
Vice President Sonia Buck (Ann Coulter): I feel for the sharks, but they’re wrecking our schools, our hospitals, our roads…
0:05:14
Fin: Madame Vice President, this is my brother-in-law, Martin (Mark McGrath).
Martin: I’m the good looking one.
WTF!? Who says this of an in-law?
0:06:08 Robert Klein makes a reappearance as the Mayor of New York, and inducts Fin as the first member of the Order of the Golden Chainsaw, with a statuette containing a detachable, working gold chainsaw to cut through all the B.S.
MFW I begin questionning the life choices that brought me here
0:06:29
Jackie Collins: Hi, I’m Jackie Collins and I know your wife wrote a book (and it wasn’t very good), but you, you have a great story to tell and I want to be the one to tell it. Here’s my card, and call me.
0:08:18 Ne-Yo is the first casualty of Sharknado 3 when a mini-Sharknado pulls a great white out of the Potomac and hurls it through the window of his vehicle. The first WTF!? of this film is a small one: the Potomac is freshwater, as fresh as saucy lad on his third lager.
0:08:28
Monumental disaster
0:09: Sharks rain down in through the stained glass ceiling of the White House. Lou Ferrigno dies, as does Robert Klein. Martin escapes protecting the Vice President. This is not the first time sharks have been in the White House, however, and frequently they even live there.
0:09:46 Martin and the Vice President surf past the sharks using original presidential portraits.
GIF Like surfing in Australia
0:10:22
Mr Shephard, this literally is one of the most secure areas on the face of the earth.
Secret Service Agent at the door to the Presidential bunker
He should know better than to say this in a Sharknado film.
Looks fishy to me
WTF!? How did the sharks get into the Presidential bunker and, once they got there, how did they learn to fly?
0:10:53
Fin: I thought your policy was to save the sharks…
President Robbins: Nobody attacks my house. This time it’s personal.
11:01
“Let’s kick some tail!”
0:11:42
GIF That blew up in his face
0:12:42 The Washington Monument (the tall, pointy one), weakened by the shark attacks, is broken off and hurled at the White House, destroying it but not the President and Fin who are standing just next to it. Evidently, one only need be outside a collapsing building to be safe from its destruction.
0:12:57
The President finally got the point
0:13:26
Fin: God Bless America.
Fish kebab
0:13:28 The best made part of the film may well be the opening credits.
0:15:02 In Orlando’s Universal Studio Theme Park, Fin’s pregnant wife, April Wexler (Tara Reid), is walking with her mother (Bo Derek as May Wexler) and her daughter, Claudia Shephard (Ryan Newman). It’s Claudia’s 18th birthday, and her grandmother passes her a wad of cash as though they’re playing ‘Pay the Hooker’.
[N.B. Be careful, Ms. Newman is actually 17 years old, so keep your thoughts to yourself, you pervs.]
15:03
“It usually takes me 6 hours to get this many one dollar notes!”
In other news, Claudia Shephard has bought the right anti-ageing cream.
Claudia Shephard #1 (insert) and #3 (background)
0:17:02 American news presenters are in Washington D.C., reporting from the scene of the worst Sharknado “since the first formation two years ago”, yet instead of reporting live from the destruction, they go to two old biddies in Florida drinking wine who only say that there is no rain in Orlando. WTF!?
0:22:06 Fin drives through a Sharknado on his way from Washington to Florida to be with his family. The journalists don’t report on this storm either because Sharknados are now as commonplace as cold sores on a Kardashian or because they can’t see it through all of the CGI smoke.
0:22:12 My favourite character from the original Sharknado returns: Nova Clarke, as played by Cassie Scerbo.
GIF Welcome back flip
0:23:15
GIF Nova reminds Fin she has both her hands
0:27:18 Nova and her sidekick Lucas Stevens (Frankie Muniz, TV’s Malcolm from Malcolm in the Middle) travel around the country fighting Sharknados. They’ve learned that Sharknado sharks can live in clouds and eat birds. #NoSeriously
0:27:51 April, who lost her hand in Sharknado 2, struggles to put a glove on her bionic fingers.
April looks like she needs a hand
0:28:45 Fin decides to travel down to Orlando with Nova and Lucas.
Fin: There’s less safe ways I can get down there.
But not more grammatically incorrect ways. #ThereAre #Fewer
Also amusing is the thought that Nova had a crush on Fin back in Sharknado but then changed to have a crush on his teenage son. Who has enlisted in the military, so she has a crush on Fin once more. Nova runs through that family like insanity.
0:30:12
Nova needs spelling practise
0:30:34 A shark plummets out of the blue (literally, you should see the sky), goes down a water slide and into the pool at Orlando. Apparently slides are built more solidly than scripts nowadays.
0:34:06 The excess sunshine has brought down a bridge, making passage impossible.
0:36:21
Nova: Merging Sharknados?
Lucas: Sharkicane.
What if a shark runs for president? Sharkican. And if it loses? Sharkican’t. And if it’s an unpleasant female? Sharkic– Nope. Not on my site.
0:39:52 Lucas blows up the camping car he hunts Sharknados in and the explosion makes the storm stop. If this is all it takes, I’m wondering why don’t they just set of explosions wherever there’s a Sharknado?
39:26
Lucas is half the man you are
0:42:08 The United States Air Force give Fin and Nova a fighter aircraft in which to fly to Florida. I think this is something the USAF have already done with Iran and Bin Laden at different points in history, so how could this go wrong?
0:42:44 I would’ve speculated as to why they continue the motorcar race during a Sharknado storm, but from what I understand of NASCAR fans, this is not unusual.
Disclaimer: Not My Meme
GIF Crash Course
0:44:30 Nova and Fin crash their plane into a river in Universal Studios and their clothes flew off faster than the jet.
0:44:30 & 38
Their wardrobes match their head contents…
Next to nothing
0:47:25 Claudia’s best friend (Blair Fowler as Jess) is eaten, making her a secondary roll.
0:49:57
GIF George R. R. Martin has his own red wedding
0:50:27 The elderly journalists promote my site!
GIF They’re saying ‘Watch the Film!’
0:50:44 WTF!? They’ve decided to hide inside the Universal Globe? But it’s as empty as their heads!
0:51:03
Watch out for sunburn!
0:52:00 The globe is thrown by the tornado atop some sort of tower. At least someone’s having a ball.
0:52:54 Nova discusses plans to destroy the merging Sharknados.
Nova: For this one, we’re probably going to need NASA.
Fin: NASA?
Nova: Yeah, we need to create a tower of flames 60 miles high and burning at temperatures hotter than the surface of the sun.
Yes, where could this go wrong? WTF!?
0:58:12 In order to destroy the storm, Fin convinces his father, retired NASA astronaut Gilbert Grayson Shepard (David Hasselhoff), to let him use the secret military space shuttle. I wonder if they keep that in Area 51…
1:01:59
Nova: Your dad sent me to give this to you. I think he has a crush on me.
Oh that Nova and the way she loves to flock those Shephards.
1:02:11
Nova: Hey, I’ve been meaning to tell you, I think you’re going to make a great father this time.
WTF!? “This time”?
1:03:27 To the tune of a bad AC/DC cover band. (“I’m a Badass” by ?)
Astronut
1:05:37
GIF Is this film a take off?
1:06:24 WTF!? Because there is only 30 seconds before lift-off, it’s easier to get April suited up and into the capsule than it is for her to walk out of a door?
1:07:34 WTF!? Nova shoos a hammerhead shark with a mascara rifle!? #Mascary
1:08:30 Nova flies a fighter plane and it clears the way for the shuttle to launch. Are the sharks attracted to or repulsed by the plane? Like me with this film, we may never know.
1:10:21 Claudia kisses Billy (Jack Griffo), and young lad she met in the theme park. Immediately after, he’s run through by a shark. Dating a Shephard is deadlier than AIDS and quicker than crabs.
1:13:28 The plan to blow up the storm with the shuttles fuel boosters failed, so now the team will try to attempt the same with Reagan’s Star Wars program: the Strategic Defense Initiative. Will it be more successful than the upcoming Star Wars?
1:14:08 The chat show journalists are killed simultaneously, with all of the passion and pizazz of leftover rice.
1:14:40
The Sharknado wall that needs plastering
1:15:16 Gil Shepard must go on a space walk and manually reboot the attack satellites. Fin is worried…
Gil: It’s OK, pal. I’m living my dream.
Fin: Flying in space?
Gil: No. Being your hero.
In space, no one can hear you vomit.
1:17:44 How is it the laser can burn the clouds and the sharks but not the ground? WTF!?
1:19:02 The sharks are flying into outer space and crashing against the shuttle. This isn’t as much fun as they think it is.
1:20:12
Laser chainsaws are out of this world
1:20:29 April is eaten by a giant great white in space, like Nova in the first one and April’s hand in the second. Basically, this film is like married sex, repetitive and unoriginal.
1:20:45
GIF Look, it’s oral sex because the shark is swallowing a dick
1:21:28
1:22:51 Yes! This is the spirit that has been missing from the rest of this film. If only they’d had 90 minutes less of pointing the camera at every Hollywood has-been and 90 minutes more of this.
GIF Born to be Wild
1:23:57 WTF!? They were orbiting around the planet and fell to the earth in burning sharks that just happened to land on a beach near their take-off zone? Dead sharks have better piloting skills than many commercial airliners I’ve been on.
1:24:32 Gil is on the moon somehow, saluting his son, and he’s still not reaching as far as this film.
1:24:57 A piece of shuttle debris falls and squashes April… Or does it? You decide!
Roll credits
spotify:album:
Tally Ho’
WTF!?’s: +1
When to Follow:
Where’s This Found: When someone accidentally sharts, the expression on his face is priceless and the way he tries to scoot out of the room causing as little spillage as possible is vastly amusing in a base sort of way. But if the same bloke does that exact same thing again, only on purpose and with the express goal of making you laugh, well, the spirit is gone. Sharknado was that beautiful disaster than cannot be recreated, now matter how hard or badly they try. Out of a possible 10, I have 3 F’s to give
I shall be delving into the dark art of The Last Witch Hunter, revealing its mysteries and exposing its magic to divine if it’s enchanting or cursed. So read on only if you’ve already seen The Last Witch Hunter, or don’t plan to.
I’ve chosen to review this film because it’s like me: a low hanging fruit.
0:01:58 A group of slovenly blokes walks through an olden day snow-scape. By the looks of some of them, the torches aren’t the only things that are flamers.
Be warned, brothers. She [the Witch Queen] will never truly perish until her heart beats its last.
Beware of stating the blooming obvious, you mean.
The wood witch is playing with fire
0:07:52 Kaulder (pronounced like the opposite of ‘hotter’: Vin Diesel in a wig) kills a scabby witch (Julie Engelbrecht) beneath a tree with a light sabre-like flaming sword. As she dies, she curses him with eternal life (and probably bad acting).
0:11:48 In modern days, Kaulder (a now bald Vin Diesel) prevents a plane crash by confiscating a young witch’s (Bex Taylor-Klaus (from Scream: The TV Series )) runes that are creating a terrible storm. If she were a real witch, she wouldn’t need a plane to fly.
0:12:58 Dolan #36 (Michael Caine,who is in this film because, like a tyke who eats boogers for change, he’ll do anything for a few quid) explains that witches are allowed to live amongst us if they don’t use their powers against humans. Thus Donald Trump is fair game.
“Ok, I’m drunk enough to make this bloody film now.”
0:13:22 Before speaking, Father Dolan must wait for Kaulder to finish the flight attendant he met on the flight (Inbar Lavi as Sonia).
0:14:02
Are you reminiscing about the Ludwig affair?
Father Dolan asks because Kaulder is listening to Beethoven
Leave it to Vin to have an affair with Beethoven… Paul Walker must be rolling in his grave.
Is that a toilet, or is Vin making another film?
0:14:28 In a world where learning doesn’t equal caring, we learn Father Dolan is retiring.
0:16:57 Dolan #37 is Elijah Wood and I suspect he will turn out to be evil. Or maybe I’m just busy remembering him from Sin City.
0:19:14 To demonstrate his new role, Father Dolan #37 gets a cross burned into his arm for his pains.
Personally, I’d never wear a brand
0:25:14 Kaulder and Dolan #37 must hunt the witches who killed Dolan #36 and nicked his fancy pen. But don’t write him off yet.
That silence you hear is the sound of no one laughing.
The only one who can’t see anything wrong with this film
0:28:28 Someone lures a kid by leaving gummy bears in a line on the pavement. Because kids love nothing more than sweets fresh off the sidewalk.
0:28:51
Aw, isn’t that tree sweet?
0:29:11 It would seem the candy tree scenario was a hoax orchestrated by a paedophile warlock. That’s a bloke who would enjoy playing with Harry’s magic wand.
0:30:41 Kaulder traps a scruffy perv by throwing a knife into his leg, then pounding the back of the knife so the tip sticks into a board and holds the prick there. Finally, something as cool as it sounds in this film.
Getting a leg up on the competition
0:32:31
You look like a terrible band from the 80s!
Ellic Lemasniel (Joseph Gilgun), the warlock that killed Michael Caine, to the council of witches who will judge him
He’s so right that I pity the costume designer.
0:33:37 While Kaulder whines about not interrogating the prisoner (and why didn’t he?), Dolan #36’s fancy pen grows into a dragon fly the witches put in a tree to power it. That’s one way to draw flies.
0:34:08 For his sins, Ellic is fed to the vagina tree.
Holey Hell
This reminds me of the other films with vagina monsters:
0:35:44 Turns out Dolan #36 is a lot like Michael Caine in that neither are dead, though they both look like it.
0:36:08 Kaulder and Dolan #37 have two days to break the curse by killing the witch that placed it. Though I suspect Michael Caine is praying for death as a way out of this film.
0:40:16 Chloe (Rose Leslie), the witch bar owner, sells Kaulder her magic cherry to help his memory. I’ve taken some cherries and can confirm they make very good memories.
“I was told you liked little fruits.”
0:44:22 Kaulder awakes from his memory to see that Chloe has handcuffed him to the floor and called the Orson Welles with the hipster beard warlock (Ólafur Darri Ólafssonas Belial). He’s the one who placed the curse on Dolan #36, but he escapes before Kaulder can kill him. Kaulder is actually more of a ‘witch runner after-er’ than ‘hunter’.
0:46:44 WTF!? Chloe berates Kaulder because the warlock destroyed her bar. Maybe she shouldn’t have handcuffed Kaulder and called the warlock, then. It would seem even witches can be real witches.
Hipster bars are so hot right now
0:53:16 Kaulder and Chloe begin to fall in love, because what would an American film be without romance – other than better?
0:58:50 Kaulder went to see Danique (Dawn Olivieri), a top model witch, who tricks him by getting him lost in memories of the time he had hair. Chloe the ginger snaps him out of it. This is the second time he was nearly killed whilst looking for a memory. His memory isn’t just bad, it’s evil.
1:00:27 Chloe destroys the amulet that kept Danique young, and Danique’s looks fade like a Londoner’s tan.
A Crumbling Beauty
1:05:57 As she’s a Dream Walker (and she’d need galoshes to walk through mine), Chloe takes Kaulder back to the intro scene where he nearly died and became the Last Witch Hunter. Once there, Kaulder learns the Dolans have keep the Witch Queen’s beating heart alive because it’s linked to him. If they destroy the heart, they also destroy Kaulder. Kaulder is getting warmer.
1:07:58 Belial wants to find the heart so he can resurrect the Queen. I can’t help but agree, the world needs more queens.
1:09:51 Belial ties Max (the blind bug dealer warlock) to a tree. When Belial puts the Queen’s heart in the dirt at Max’s feet, CGI roots cover him. Max will no doubt grow from this experience.
Max’s bark is worse than his bite
1:10:38
Chloe: This isn’t who you are.
Kaulder: It’s all I am.
Too bad that’s not a screenwriter.
1:14:34 Kaulder kills Belial disguised as Chloe (a wolf in bird’s clothing), but this gives the Queen the opportunity to grab Kaulder by his heart. My question is, why doesn’t the Witch Queen kill him here? Could it be their mortality is linked? Or could it be stupid?
Her eyes are burning
1:15:18 Michael Caine Dolan comes back to life because Kaulder killed Belial and the curse is lifted. Caine looks as though he’s your gran made of gruel.
1:17:42
If I get hurt now, I stay hurt.
Kaulder as he prepares to stop the Witch Queen from releasing all the witches in witch jail
I repeat my question, why didn’t the Witch Queen kill Kaulder when she had the chance? WTF!?
1:20:14 Chloe must get into trapped warlock Ellic Lemasniel’s head in order to stop the linking of brains that will allow all witches to escape. I think we need not worry, there are not a lot of brains being used here.
“What’s a witch like you doing in a nice place like this?”
1:20:37
Hey, be careful in there.
Kaulder to Chloe as she prepares to enter Ellic’s dream
Now is a little late to start with the jokes.
1:21:52 The vagina tree is the Sentinel, a sort of guard in the Witch’s prison, and it wants to attack Chloe and Kaulder because they removed a prisoner from the cave wall. It may just be a tree guard now, but it’s branching out.
1:28:02 WTF!? Remember the prediction I made about Elijah Wood being evil? It’s not easier being smarter than the movie. Especially when Elijah Wood Dolan could’ve killed Chloe after Kaulder left them to find the Queen, thus saving the Queen’s witch army. Or he could’ve killed the newly mortal Kaulder when he was fighting the Sentinel. It’s as though we all stop trying at some point, but for the people involved with this film, that was at the very beginning.
“Shit, there goes our careers.”
1:29:18 The plague is released while the Witch Queen brainwashes Chloe into participating in the chant. There might be a lot of bad in this film, but this scene isn’t.
Lord of the Flies
1:30:34 The Witch Queen kills Dolan #37 with flies because he’s a witch with no magic. She’s the type of woman who will abandon you as soon as the magic is gone.
1:31:54 Using the weather runes he took in the aeroplane [see 11:48], Kaulder makes a storm in a teacup…and decides not to be dead.
1:33:14 Kaulder kills the Queen by throwing a sword through her and all the flies [see 1:29:18] drop dead. I wouldn’t want to be the bloke in charge of mopping up that ecological disaster.
Tree hugger
1:35:10
The Axe and Cross betrayed me.
Here Kaulder refers to the organization of priests who protected his immortality. As betrayals go, this is far less than the one perpetrated on those who paid money to see this film.
When to Follow: When you’re at work and want to play on your phone while you watch a film on your tablet at lunch time.
Where’s This Found: I’m sure Vin Diesel is a wonderful bloke. Seriously, when I see him in interviews and read about him in the press he seems very sincere, so I’ve no doubt he’s got a myriad of qualities. Unfortunately, ‘good actor’ is not one of these. Not everyone is cut out for acting – especially him it would seem – so as long as he keeps fobbing this dross off on the public, I shall feel compelled to warn viewers. Rose Leslie does her best but she can’t overcome the script or the deficit in which Vin begins the film, and Elijah Wood continues his long, depressing descent into mediocrity. Out of a possible 10, I have 5 F’s to give
What To Feedback: Seriously, has Vin Diesel made any good films?
I shall be revealing Exposed, laying bare its naughty parts, unearthing its treasures and removing the scabs from its sore spots to determine if it’s a hidden treasure or hiding something. So read on only if you’ve already seen Exposed, or don’t plan to.
[N.B. In order to not to spoil the integrity of the film, I’ve included a thorough analysis of the symbols at the bottom of this synthesis.]
[UPDATE: After posting this article, the producers of Daughter of God (the director’s cut of Exposed) gave me access to the original version of Exposed. Is is better? Find out at: WTF!? Daughter of God.]
0:03:28 A young Hispanic man (Gabe Vargas as Manuel ‘Rocky’ de la Cruz) escorts his sister-in-law (Ana de Armas as Isabel de la Cruz) to the underground from a late night club, and then returns to join his girlfriend and an ex-prison acquaintance. I recently saw Ana de Armas as Bell in Knock Knock, which also starred Keanu – it’s a small world but I wouldn’t want Reeves to act in it.
No one suspected Manuel was dating Chewbacca
0:07:38 While Isabel waits for the tube under the watchful eye of a poster, she breaks a heel and a thick gold wedding ring slips off of her finger. From the way her entrance into the station was filmed, I was afraid something would happen to her. Now I’m afraid something won’t.
I don’t like the looks of these posters
0:08:52 A hot albino with a briefcase (Stephen Thompson as Albino Floating Man), steps off of the platform and walks on air as thin as paper with a 2D sketch of an anorexic on it.
Walk on the wild side
0:11:04 In front of last night’s subway entrance, Janine (Mira Sorvino), a sobbing Mother I’d Like To Forget, approaches an older looking Keanu Reeves as Detective Scott ‘Scotty’ Galban. She’s looking for whatever remains of her husband, Joey. The only corpse anyone gets to see, however, is Keanu acting.
0:15:18 Turns out the dead Joey was Detective Joey Cullen (Danny Hoch), Keanu’s partner. ‘Partner’ in the cop sense, not the “get clean sheets and we’ll do it again” sense. Or the “What do you mean you used our last check to buy domestic beer and scratch cards?” sense. Or what about the “listen to me for the next hour and a half while I read Facebook jokes to you” sense?
Keanu makes spare change as a mime downtown
0:16:57 On Joey’s camera, found beside his body, were photos of Manuel, Isabel and Armando ‘Naldo’ Ruiz (Ariel Pacheco – Manuel’s prison friend) standing in front of the club the night before. Then there were some photos of an African American bloke who Detective Galban goes to spy on. Throughout this film, Keanu wears this expression that looks as though he’s constantly afraid someone is going to ask him to start acting well. I guess he has performance anxiety.
“Keanu ages as well as he acts”: Reeves tries to understand my review
0:18:51 After telling her family about the floating albino, Isabel goes to her job teaching Hispanic tots about the devil. One little niña is sad because she lost her little horse. Either this is going to be important later on or I’ve just wasted 10 minutes swiping this out on my phone.
0:21:12 After the albino, Isabel now sees a different apparition as she leaves the toy store. Looks as though she’s meeting the ghost of a chance.
Mouthing Off
0:22:18 At his partner’s wake, where a little girl plays with the same plush unicorn Isabel’s student lost, we learn Galban lost his wife and that his son is in Florida. Hopefully, Galban won’t lose his son as well.
0:25:18 Galban and a female cop (Melissa Linton as Detective Rodriguez) arrest Jonathan ‘Black’ Jones (Big Daddy Kane), the mean looking character Galban was eyeing earlier. They suspect him of killing Joe. I suspect he’s famous for something other than acting. (I was right, Big Daddy Kane was a rapper famous in the 80s & 90s. Often those who act badly in films are good in another domain; Keanu being the exception that proves the rule.)
0:26:36 Kendu Wallace and his significant other are found dead in their apartment with a bullet each in their head. Kendu was Joey’s snitch and is the one who gave up Black to Galban [at 0:14:11]. He won’t make that mistake again.
0:27:51 Isabel and the fam Skype with her husband José de la Cruz (Ismael Cruz Cordova), who’s in Iraq. Josés brother (Manuel) swears he won’t go back to prison and that he just wants to work in the butcher shop. Ah, boys handling their meat…
Tearing up
0:29:06 Black tells Naldo that when he was in holding, the police showed him ‘snitch pictures’ of Naldo with a ‘Dominican nigga’. Naldo says he was with Rocky, but I think he’s got the wrong film.
0:30:04
He [Detective Joey Cullen] violated my nigga with a stick, man. … It’s just crazy that he did that to Rocky, who just got out.
Naldo to Black
Does that make it a ‘stick up’?
Kane’s music was a bad rap
0:31:14
Isabel [Skyping with José]: The other day, I saw something beautiful.
Husband: What did you see?
Isabel: It’s hard to explain, or understand… But… It showed me you were coming back soon.
‘Hard to explain or understand’? Did she see this film?
0:32:37 Police Lieutenant Galway (Christopher McDonald) tells Scotty that Joey was very dirty and that his dirt caught up with him. Then he says Scott shouldn’t dig too deeply in the investigation because the widow may lose her husband’s pension. Still, knowing Galban, the more dirt there is, the more he’s going to dig.
“Can you spot the seven errors in this picture?”
0:33:18 The Lieutenant tells Scott to forget Black as a suspect, even if he had a motive (Cullen was blackmailing him). Cullen was dirty, and not the good kind.
0:33:57 I have the feeling they’re using a clearer filter when they shoot Isabel, to symbolize she’s on a different plane. Either that or she’s simply brighter than everyone else.
Suddenly Isabel remembered she wasn’t attracted to assholes
0:37:42 WTF!? Isabel thinks she sees the child she knows (Venus Ariel as Eilsa, the girl with the plush toy) being kidnapped so she gets off the bus 500 meters later but doesn’t run after the girl? She chooses instead to stand there and turn in circles and freak out when she sees an elderly African American woman with an eye print on her bag? The bag may see, but I don’t.
She has her eye on that bag
0:42:57 In New York, José’s pit-bull is run over and killed. His name is Lucky, but he wasn’t.
0:43:31 The Marines pay a visit to the de la Cruz household to inform them José isn’t coming back from Iraq. Perhaps they should call him ‘Lucky’, too.
0:45:00
Early retirement – Marine style
0:45:46 WTF!? Now they’re saying Naldo is dead as well? Black is the leading cause of death in this movie, and that’s not racist, that’s the script.
0:49:04 Isabel is at the day care, waiting on Elisa’s mum. I suspect the little girl doesn’t exist, so they’re going to wait for a long time. I’m starting to have a Sixth Sense about this film.
Still has fewer hang ups than Keanu
0:50:37 Isabel drops off the child but the man who answers the door is the Hispanic cowboy she spotted from the bus (0:37:42). She leaves the little girl but feels so bad about it we have to watch her throw up. I suspect my reaction to this film is contagious.
0:51:12 Of course she’s pregnant! A woman spitting up in a film is so often pregnant that I’m beginning to suspect vomit is the leading cause of pregnancy in cinema.
0:52:46 Joey’s widow (Mira Sorvino as Janine) comes on to Scotty by eating a cupcake. She tries to be hot enough to make his dough rise.
When you get a Mira Sorvino blow-up doll for your birthday
0:55:02 Isabel tells her husband’s family (mother-in-law, sister-in-law, brother-in-law…) that she has good news. José had been in Iraq for a year, but she’s miraculously pregnant! Her in-laws shun her – it seems they are not as religious as she believed.
0:57:18 The best part of this film was them not showing us Keanu’s sex scene.
0:58:02 Janine tells Scotty her husband did rape Manuel with a broomstick. I find that so horrible that I vow never to touch a broom again in my life.
Plumber photobomb
1:01:36 Scotty calls the young son he’s too afraid to raise to thank the lad for the home-made birthday card. The son’s absence rings strange to me. Either something is going on with the kid or this film is written by one.
1:07:24 Isabel’s in-laws throw her out and she’s forced to return to her real parents, whom she hates as much as her in-laws hate her.
1:08:08 The white faced woman grew a mouth and used it to ask Isabel how to find Manuel. Isabel is simply a secretary for ghosts. I suppose this is what is meant by phantom jobs.
Tammy, I told you not to be a feminine napkin for Halloween!
1:12:24 The homeless man from the underground station recognizes Isabel, but after helping him with his spilled fruit, she ignores him like a normal homeless man.
1:14:34
Isabel [to Elisa]: You know what? Since I was a little girl, I always loved the name Elisa. And I told all of my friends to call me that.
Like my rating, this will be important at the end of the film.
Mum put vodka in the sippy cup again
1:16:08 Isabel kidnaps Elisa and brings her to her parents’ house. Whenever I try something like this, the police always question my motive.
1:19:23 The woman in the red dress stalks Isabel when she tries to take Elisa home. Like any passer-by, the ghost woman doesn’t get involved.
The devil really does wear Prada
1:21:02 The police department is going to kill the investigation into Joey’s death because he raped people and the Lieutenant doesn’t want to give the department a bad name. Like ‘Keanu’.
When your suit costs an arm but not a leg
1:23:04 Black shoots Rocky in the gut because he’s still mad about the unwanted police attention. Not many people would shoot someone in the stomach to keep a low profile.
1:23:52 While Black is lighting Rocky’s last cigarette, Rocky shivs Black in the stomach a lot. Thus, Rocky is a stabbing pain and Black has one.
I told you to make sure you do a good job.
This line Rocky gives is a reference to an earlier discussion [at 1:06:03] in the butcher shop where Black went to buy pig butt (an English speciality, look at any English person from behind if you don’t believe me) when the following exchange took place:
Black: I need you to go to the police and tell them what happened between you and that little faggot cop, Cullen. Because you see right now, they thinking that I’m the one that killed him. And you and me both know that that ain’t what happened.
Rocky: If you came here to kill me, right? You better make sure you do a good job, homie. And that’s the only thing I’ma tell you.
WTF!? Where does Rocky get ‘you came here to kill me’ from ‘I want you to go to the cops’? Rocky best be careful of that gun he’s jumping.
1:24:42
Isabel’s father (Nelson Landrieu as Luca): I would never hurt you, Isabel… Never again… I would kill myself first.
If her father hurt her as a little girl, it would explain why Isabel treats her parents like Muslims at a Britain First rally.
Starting to understand why the film is called “Exposed”
1:26:42 Elisa comes out of the bedroom whining about ‘the man’, so Isabel grabs hold of a large knife and flashes back to the underground entrance where Manuel gives her a knife to protect herself. Then, in a tunnel straight out of Irreversible, we see what really happened: while Isabel stood on the platform right between the eyes of the poster, Joey grabbed her from behind. She lost her heel and wedding ring in the struggle and ensuing rape (and this is a 2-minute scene that goes on two minutes too long). When he’s done with her, she stabs him in the back and pushes him onto the subway tracks.
It sees what I did here
1:29:50 Joey is feeling run down. By the subway train.
1:30:02 Back in the reality of her parents’ flat, her father is walking out of the room where Elisa was, so Isabel stabs him in the stomach. If he is a paedophile, her aim was a little too high.
Keanu gave Ana “moofies”: they made films all night and the next day she didn’t remember a thing
1:30:34 Mum flips out when she returns from the shop and finds her husband dead. Maybe she’s upset because she bought too much food.
1:30:57 The ghost reappears wearing black but Isabel doesn’t care. #Hispanicisthenewblack
Beyond the pale
1:31:48 Scott is in the flat, consoling the mother and ignoring Isabel. Scott finds a photo in the flat of Isabel as a little girl with her father…who are Elisa and the Hispanic cowboy. So Elisa and Isabel are one and the same person. This means Elisa is a figment of Isabel’s imagination, brought forth to cope with the trauma of the rape and the memories of incest that Isabel suppressed…but are now Exposed.
We get the picture at the end
1:31:57 Isabel is sitting alone in the chair in real life, not clutching Elisa like she is in her mind. #mental
1:32:34 A voice repeats the 1:14:34 speech in voice-off for those viewers less perceptive than I.
Roll credits
1:35:52 Produced by Keanu Reeves. Hmm, that’s interesting, he produces as well as he acts.
Can’t stop thinking how Bill and Ted’s adventure was more excellent
1:40:46 A very beautiful blues song, which I think is called “Lonely Soul”, by M.Eye and the International P. I can only think this is the song because it can’t be found anywhere on the Internet. If the bass drops on a disk and isn’t on the ‘Net, does it really exist?
As for the synopsis: A crooked detective called Joey Cullen sexually assaults a young Hispanic woman (Isabel) in a tube station. Immediately afterwards, she stabs him and pushes his body on the tracks, but then suppresses her memory of this. In place of those memories, she’s visited by spirits for the length of the film. Her boyfriend subsequently dies in Iraq, but she falls pregnant because of the rape. Detective Scott Galban investigates Jonathan ‘Black’ Jones as the lead suspect in Cullen’s murder and, as Black doesn’t want to return to prison, he kills anyone he perceives as having implicated him in the officer’s death. At the end of the film, Detective Galban investigates the murder of an elderly Hispanic man. He was killed by his adult daughter, Isabel (the rape victim), because he abused her when she was younger. Her attack ‘exposed’ this memory and so she acted on it by stabbing her father.
Not even a magazine in the toilets is read as her lips
As for the symbolism:
The Angels represent victims’ attitudes and protection. The first figure (in white/innocence) has no mouth, as victims don’t talk about their abuse. The next appearances are by figures in red who (according to the producer) represent strength, leadership, courage, rage, anger, danger, malice, wrath, stress, and action. The final woman appears in black after Isabel has killed her father, symbolizing the death of her father but, more importantly, the end of her trauma.
I suspect it’s a red herring
What’s even more surprising is…the female Angels are Detective Galban (Keanu Reeves)! Whenever Isabel interacts with Detective Galban (for example, in front of the toy store when they both go to buy the plush horse, or at the end of the film at the crime scene in her parents’ flat), she sees an Angel.
The eye images represent Isabel’s eyes. She is the ‘beholder’ mentioned in the slogan [#beautyforthebeholder] and we will be seeing beautiful things through her eyes.
Turning a blind eye
Elisa is the personification of Isabel as a little girl. In the middle of the film, Isabel ‘adopts’ Elisa to take care of her, but only after first delivering the child to the strange man in the cowboy hat. At the end of the film, we see a photograph of Isabel as a child with her father, and the image is of Elisa and the man in the cowboy hat. Thus Elisa is a figment of Isabel’s imagination, like the eerie figures, and the man in the hat was her father when he was younger and abusing her.
The horse/unicorn plush toy represents innocence, especially that of a child. The first time the horse is mentioned is when Elisa, in Isabel’s day care centre, complains about losing her toy horse. Because Elisa is Isabel herself as a child, the loss of the horse symbolizes Isabel losing her innocence when her father abused her. After that, Detective Galban sees a little boy playing with a similar horse and asks where he can buy one for his son because his son lost his innocence when his mother died and Galban wants to restore it. Finally, at Cullen’s wake, a little girl is seen playing happily with a plush horse in front of the house, illustrating she has not been abused and is still holding on to her innocence.
One horny horse
Lucky the pit-bull represents José de la Cruz, Isabel’s husband and Manuel’s brother (Manuel is seen playing with the dog and even has the dog tattooed on his neck). Lucky breaks the lead he’s on and is killed in the street in the scene immediately preceding the one in which the family learns of José’s death just before his release.
When to Follow: Only if you love Keanu enough to forgive him
Where’s This Found: Lionsgate Premiere Studio had the terrible idea of over-editing what was to be a poetic film using haunting images (à laPan’s Labyrinth) highlighting the plight of women. Not only this, they decided to make the cuts to change the movie into a confusing snooze-fest detective story focusing on the Kristen Stewart of actors: Keanu Reeves. They should be ashamed of themselves, as should I for watching the whole thing. Out of a possible 10, I have 3 F’s to give
What To Feedback: It’s no secret that I loathe Keanu Reeves as an actor. On this website, I pan every film he’s been in. Am I being too hard on Keanu Reeves?
I shall be presiding over Black Mass, testifying to its actions and judging its transgressions to find if it is hella good or hasn’t got a prayer. So read on only if you’ve already witnessed Black Mass or don’t plan to.
0:01:19 Jesse Plemons (Todd from Breaking Bad and Ed Blumquist from Fargo [2015]) is unrecognisable as Kevin Weeks, an informant for the FBI. If I could act this well, I’d fake call in sick to work far more often.
0:01:47
DEA Agent Eric Olsen: Am I correct in stating that you are going from trusted confidant to one of South Boston’s most notorious and violent gangsters to government witness?
Weeks: Correct.
Agent Olsen: Then I need to know everything you know about the Winter Hill Gang, the FBI and John Connolly, and specifically what you know about your former boss and now fugitive, James “Whitey” Bulger.
DEA Agent Eric Olsen (Lonnie Farmer) interrogating Weeks
The DEA is trying to take my job with synopses like that.
Doesn’t understand ‘fencing’ stolen goods
[N.B. According to the IMDb trivia page, Jesse Plemons gained weight for his role as Kevin Weeks and was subsequently asked by the producers of the television series Fargo (2015), his next project, to keep the weight on, as he portrays a character who is a butcher by profession.]
0:05:32 Kevin Weeks is a bouncer at The Triple O’s, a club frequented by James “Whitey” Bulger (Johnny Depp). Weeks gets his arse handed to him by Charlie McTiernan (Anthony Molinari), a bloke he banned for urinating on the bar the week before. Charlie and his two friends beat up Kevin so badly that he can’t be called a bouncer because when he hits the wall, he doesn’t bounce at all.
0:07:42 Jimmy includes Kevin in the Winter Hill Gang by asking him to drive out to a boat yard and help him pummel Joey Anguilo. I’ve had worse job interviews.
“Don’t be stupid! You can’t sleep in a river bed!
[N.B. In reality, Jimmy and Kevin pummelled a bloke called Paul Giaimo, who’d slapped Bulger’s niece. And if they’d given such a thrashing to a real mobster? “There would have been bodies in the streets if that happened,” according to the real Kevin Weeks.]
0:10:25 John Connolly (Joel Edgerton), who as a child looked up to Jimmy, is now an FBI agent returning to South Boston. He meets with William ‘Billy’ Bulger (Benedict Cumberbatch), Jimmy’s brother and President of the Massachusetts Senate. John tells Billy he knows Jimmy is trying to horn in on the Mafia’s business. Bill Bulger walks out on the meal…I think he was fed up.
What to answer when someone asks who’ll pay the bill
0:14:48
Billy Bulger: Hey, Ma, did you hear old Mother Burke died over on Baker Street? No one found her for a couple of weeks.
All the more interesting when you realise Benedict Cumberbatch, who plays Billy Bulger, also plays Sherlock Holmes in Sherlock– and Sherlock Holmes lives at 221 Baker Street.
“My God! This wallpaper is a tapestry of justice!”
0:16:48 Connolly meets with Jimmy to tell him Gennaro Angiulo (of the same mob family as Joey Angiulo, whom Jimmy and Kevin laid out at 0:07:42 – in reality the Patriarca crime family) is planning to have Jimmy killed. Connolly proposes a deal between the two men, in which Jimmy will get information about his enemies from the FBI, and Jimmy will help the feds crack down on these enemies. Like a natural straight in Vegas, Jimmy thinks this is a good deal.
“Hey, Johnny Depp, what is Saint Pauly’s IQ / the difference been doing 69 and 70 / does Amber Heard like most about you?”
0:18:57 Jimmy pays a visit to his girlfriend (Dakota Johnsonas Lindsey Cyr) and their son (Luke Ryan as Douglas Cyr). As the lad is Jimmy’s boy, I think it’s safe to call him a ‘son of a gun’.
The kid hasn’t got a prayer
0:20:52
Here’s the deal… You did not get in trouble because you punched this sneaky brat in the face. Not at all. You got in trouble because you punched this sneaky little brat in the face in front of other people. … If nobody sees it, it didn’t happen.
Jimmy talking to his son
Just one of the ways Jimmy can teach someone a lesson.
0:23:19
Reminds me of my three-figure salary: 000
0:24:36 In a flash forward, the FBI interview John ‘Johnny’ Martorano (W. Earl Brown) AKA the Basin Street Butcher, the Winter Hill Gang’s chief executioner. He admits to rubbing out 20 people. Killing is a good living.
0:25:31 A button man for the Angiulo family pops Mickey (Mark Mahoney) while he eats a hot dog in the front seat of his very American motor car. It would seem eating fast food truly is unhealthy.
0:26:21 Jimmy, Steve Flemmi (Rory Cochrane), and Martorano pick up Tommy the drunk (Scott Anderson). Tommy is meant help the group locate Suitcase, who they suspect set up Mickey. With a name like ‘Suitcase’, it should be in the bag.
Bulger drives Stevie around the bend
0:27:24
We good?
Tommy apologizes for getting out of line when he was drunk at the bar
Martorano shoots him in the back of the head while Jimmy shakes his hand. Jimmy suspects Tommy of setting up Mickey, not Suitcase. Thus yes, Tommy’s good…good and dead.
0:28:34 Flashing forward to the FBI interview, Kevin Weeks wraps up the first act of the film by blaming the FBI for turning a small time crook like Jimmy Bulger into a kingpin. This is perhaps the least known career advancement program in the U.S. government.
0:29:12 John Connolly convinces his superiors, FBI Agents Charles McGuire (Kevin Bacon) and Robert Fitzpatrick (Adam Scott), to approve the deal using Jimmy as an informant [0:16:48]. The bosses are as excited by this deal as children at an opera.
“Nope, stacking magazines on our desk doesn’t make us look busy.”
0:30:38 We learn Jimmy took LSD 50 times for money and a reduced prison sentence while serving time in Alcatraz. If I’d known the U.S. government would pay me to take drugs, I could have retired while I was still in uni.
0:42:17 Another flash forward to the interrogations. This time it’s Steve Flemmi’s turn and he’s informing on Whitey so that the death penalty option is removed from his sentence. Seriously, though, what’s worse, ‘life’ in a federal prison or an early exit? ‘Life’ isn’t worth living, imho. But that’s just me. What do you think?
0:43:27 Jimmy and the Winter Hill Gang want to get in the ‘jai alai‘ business. It looks a bit like tennis, so you could say they want into the tennis racket.
0:43:36 For the World Jai Alai activity, the Winter Hill Gang work with John Callahan (Bill Camp) and Brian Halloran (Peter Sarsgaard). Brian once helped two drug dealers face their deaths by shooting them in it.
“You haven’t had your shots. And neither have you.”
0:44:38 Agent Charles McGuire gives Connolly a time limit of two weeks for concrete information on the Angiulo family or he’ll revoke Bulger’s protected status of ‘criminal informant’. Like revoking a license to kill.
0:47:46 Jimmy gives Connolly intel on where Angiulo’s headquarters are in exchange for having the FBI remove all of Angiulo’s vending machines. One hand washes the other, but they’re both still dirty.
Whitey practices back alley proctology
0:49:02 In South Florida, a new head of World Jai Alai is appointed, (David De Beck as Roger Wheeler). There is apparently much money to be made betting on this, though I agree with Steve,
I can’t believe people pay to watch this shit.
0:51:24 Jimmy gives Brian Halloran a bag of cash to forget that he heard about killing Wheeler, who would like the jai alai betting money himself. Jimmy is paid $20,000 to not do anything? Where do I get a job like that? Oh wait, I’m a blogger, I already have a job like that.
I’m under the gun and he’s over a barrel
0:52:42 Martorano shoots Wheeler in the head. The kids in the nearby pool act as though they’ve just been forced to watch Left Behind.
0:55:17 Halloran panicked and Hallo-ran to the FBI to tell them Jimmy had Wheeler killed.
Applying for a snow job
1:01:58 Jimmy kills Brian Halloran himself, after learning from Connolly that Halloran was a rat. A snitch in time takes dives.
1:04:14 Just as Charles is about to end the operation with Bulger, the wiretap in the mafia headquarters pays off with the Don confessing to a myriad of crimes on tape. Confession is good for the soul, but terrible for your record.
After thousands of hours, experts still don’t understand the appeal of Justin Bieber
1:05:58 At the disco, celebrating Angiulo’s arrest, Connolly and Whitey and the rest of the Winter Hill Gang listen to Thelma Houston’s “Don’t Leave Me This Way” without shame.
1:07:08 Then, with FBI agent Connolly’s knowledge, Martorano eliminates Callahan, the other World Jai Alai contact, to tie up loose ends. Callahan’s end may not be loose, but it is brutal.
Head trouble got him the boot
1:09:18
1985
1:10:37 At Jimmy’s mother’s house after her funeral, Cumberbatch acts the shite out of his scene. Hard to believe this proper Englishman can nail an American accent as well as Hugh Grant nailed Americans.
“My acting is magically delicious.”
1:13:54 Jimmy and Stevie go to the South Boston police department to pick up Deborah Hussey (Juno Temple), a drug addicted prostitute who pleasures her stepfather (Steve) by putting his honey where her mouth is.
1:17:12 Ms Temple is truly at the top of her game in this film. She acts younger here then she did in Horns. There are times when it’s good not to act your age.
Depp noticed his date was much too old for him only after he’d put on his glasses
1:18:32 Jimmy is afraid Deborah will share with the police things about the operation Stevie may have told her. To be safe, he takes her on a tour of a house. He shows her the living room, the kitchen, and the dead room.
The true story is that me and Jimmy went to that house and we were waiting for Stevie. … I go and use the bathroom upstairs, and as soon as I come down the stairs, I see Stevie and Deborah come in, and I hear boom-boom. I walk in and see that Jimmy had strangled her. I thought she was dead, but then Stevie put his head on her chest, said she was still alive, and he put a clothesline rope around her neck, put a stick in it and twisted. And then after, Stevie dragged her body downstairs and pulled her teeth out. So Stevie wasn’t all sympathetic, mourning, and sorrowful like he is in the movie. Stevie enjoyed murder.]
1:21:07 Immediately after Deborah makes her hasty exit from the film, the Winter Hill Gang have a barbecue at Connolly’s house where his wife Marianne (Julianne Nicholson) makes it very clear she doesn’t approve of the company her husband keeps. She’s the hostess with the most less.
“I was told there would be finger food, and my finger is hungry.”
1:26:52 As a warning, Jimmy goes to the master bedroom in John’s house to get a hold of Marianne. By the throat.
Whitey gives Marianne a choker
1:31:38 Connolly goes to butter up United States Attorney Fred Wyshak (Corey Stoll) but instead the federal lawyer gets on John’s case.
Wyshak needed time for reflection
1:35:02 Agent Fitzpatrick discovers that all of the privileged information given by Whitey Bulger is recycled from other informants. To keep Bulger’s privileged status, Connolly is recovering old information and attributing it to Whitey. Same shite, different way.
1:35:20 American news presenter Connie Chung reports that Jimmy’s weapons shipment to the Irish Republican Army (IRA) in Northern Ireland has been seized. He was trying to give them a hand but they took away his arms.
1:36:37
Bulger learned to sleep with both eyes opened
1:37:01 DEA informant John McIntyre (Brad Carter), the snitch that gave up the IRA arms shipment to the Irish navy, is invited to a surprise party at Whitey’s. The surprise will be when Jimmy toes him to a chair and Weeks trounces him senseless.
1:37:32 Agent McGuire is told he cannot go after Bulger because the bureau can’t cast dispersions on a man whose testimony will convict a large number of mobsters. McGuire is free to go after the FBI agents who are part of the scam (Connolly and Morris). Sounds like two agents are going to be taken out, and not to dinner.
The auditory exam fell on deaf ears
1:43:21 While Wyshak is looking for McIntyre, Jimmy is strangling him with a rope in the basement. To find him, Wyshak is going to need to leave no stone unturned, especially the stones under the bridge near the river.
1:44:25 Agent Morris tells everything to the Boston Globe, who print the article. It’s their story and they’re sticking to it.
Bulger is a headliner
1:49:14 Everybody is arrested. As they say in cocaine, ‘It’s the end if the line.’
Bulger was sentenced to two consecutive life sentences plus five years for the deaths of at least eleven people.
Roll credits to some photographs of the real places.
Tally Ho’
WTF!?’s: 0 that are strictly criminal
When to Follow: When you’re 16-17 years old and have never seen a Mafia film before. This is a good one to start on before you move on to The Godfather or a Scorsese mob movie.
Where’s This Found: Unfortunately, this may be Johnny Depp’s crowning achievement as an actor. I say ‘unfortunately’ because the story here is neither new nor interesting enough to merit our attention. Depp inhabits the role of Jimmy Bulger but, as we don’t care enough about Bulger to care about what happens to him, we don’t care about the film. I’ll say it here, however, Depp’s acting in Black Mass is better than DiCaprio’s acting in The Revenant. Out of a possible 10, I have 7 F’s to give – and it’s all for the actors.
What To Feedback:
[Note: a reader suggested “Tom Hardy in Legend” as an ‘Other’, so it has been added to the poll.]
Isabel in a scene that did not make the Lionsgate edit
[N.B. Daughter of God has not yet been released. I was generously given access to the film through one of its producers. If you would like a chance to see it, and I believe it’s worth seeing, then please sign this petition!]
A few weeks ago, I published a scathing review of the film Exposed. I was not the only one who despised the film: the director himself hated it so much that he sued to have his name removed from the credits.
If the film were his baby, then the director (Gee Malik Linton) disowned it. Is this fair to the poor bastard? No, because the real mothers in this family drama are the studios. The studio kidnapped Linton’s baby, changed its name (from Daughter of God to Exposed) and edited it until not even its own father would recognize it.
Isabel’s father in a scene that did not make the Lionsgate edit
What was meant to be an intimate film exploring sensitive issues became a confused police drama built around a confused Keanu Reeves in a ‘thriller’ as thrilling as water flavoured Jell-o.
So, then, how does Daughter of God (director’s cut) compare to its evil twin?
It is better. Not just better, far better.
What fascinates me as a cinema buff is how an additional eighteen minutes of film can so completely transform a movie. If Exposed and Daughter of God are twins, they are the sort of identical twins one could distinguish between after having spent only a few moments in their presence. They look similar on the surface, but are diametrically opposed.
Isabel and Elisa in a scene that did not make the Lionsgate edit
Perhaps the most significant difference between the films is the screen presence of Ana de Armas. This up-and-coming Cuban actress (Knock Knock – in which she also shared the screen with Keanu Reeves) plays Isabel de la Cruz, a naïve, sweet, vulnerable young woman struggling to maintain her devout optimism in the face of great trauma. When Isabel is made to be the central character (as opposed to Keanu Reeves’s Scotty Galban in Exposed), the film is placed on de Armas’s shoulders. Fortunately, her treatment of Isabel is infused with such restraint and compassion that the viewer can’t help but become an equal partner in her well-being.
Isabel in a scene that did not make the Lionsgate editGee Malik Linton on the set
This connection between the viewer and Isabel is critical to Daughter’s success, because when we care about Isabel we commit to her happiness and become complicit in her clouded perceptions. The alternate world Isabel inhabits is a coping mechanism that allows her to maintain her positive outlook and Armas’s talent – as well as Linton’s directing – allows us to share Isabel’s space. We perceive what she perceives and, as we want her to be safe, we wrap ourselves in her illusions as well… until the end, when those illusions unravel.
The directing is yet another critical detail that makes Daughter of God a solid film. Whereas Exposed glossed over the technical expertise in the filmmaking, Daughter of God exposes Gee Malik Linton’s affection and attention to his craft. Linton demonstrates a keen eye for cinematography (the shot of Isabel at her husband’s coffin, his use of signs in the background-see below), a subtle use of close-ups, and a deft aptitude for lighting. The way some characters are lit, or the lack of light in other scenes, is so subtle, the viewer doesn’t notice their perceptions being altered.
Unfortunately, these carefully crafted elements are lost in the hodgepodge of the studio version, where a forced edit to turn the movie into a detective story is the cinematographic equivalent of making a puzzle piece fit into another when it obviously doesn’t. The finished product of Exposed looks incomplete and odd, whereas Daughter of God is resplendent in its sincerity.
Tally Ho’
WTF!?’s: 2 bastards
When to Follow: Accept no substitute! Avoid Exposed at all costs and wait for Daughter of God. If you have the choice between Daughter of God and Exposed, choose Daughter of God. If you have the choice between Exposed and nothing, choose nothing.
Where’s This Found: Daughter of God is not a perfect movie. There is an underdeveloped intrigue between Detective Galban and his son, and the folk tale of Señor Salazar is not substantial enough to serve as the framing device Linton uses it as, but there is so much here that works perfectly. Linton directs his first feature film with a skill that belies his experience, and Ana de Armas sets herself up as an actress to watch as American cinema moves to include more and more Latino culture. The poetry of the movie is captivating and the story is fun to decipher for anyone with a little attention and patience. Out of a possible 10, I have 8 F’s to give
I shall be diving into In the Heart of the Sea, testing its waters and exploring its depths to fathom if it’s buoyant cinema or just washed up. So read on only if you’ve already seen In the Heart of the Sea, or don’t plan to.
Since it was discovered whale oil could light our cities in ways never achieved before, it created global demand. It has pushed man to venture further and further into the deep blue unknown. We know not its depths. Monsters… Are they real?
This intro explains how Owen winds up battling a giant sperm whale. It does not explain why we should care.
0:02:06
Nantucket Island
Massachusetts
February 1850
0:02:06 A writer (Ben Whishaw as Herman Melville) sends a letter to a man for an interview to help write a book called Moby-Dick. And the bloke agrees to meet him anyway.
Thinking about Moby and other dicks
0:03:51 Melville offers this man, Tom Nickerson (Brendan Gleeson), the cash equivalent of 3 months’ lodging for one night of conversation about the Essex (the whaling ship, not England’s version of New Jersey).
[N.B. The real Tom Nickerson really did start a boarding house after he retired from his eventual position of merchant vessel captain.]
0:07:08 It takes the film this long for the last surviving member of the Essex to agree to talk to Melville. I don’t see why they must insist on making Nickerson’s reticence my problem – and when I say I don’t see why, I mean I don’t want to see it on the screen.
0:08:01
Living on the edge…of the world
0:08:10
Go get your captaincy!
Peggy Chase to her husband Owen (the always-salty Chris Hemsworth)
The pregnant missus (Charlotte Riley) says this as though she doesn’t know what a ‘jinx’ is.
0:08:29
Harbouring some doubts
0:10:16 Mr Mason and his partner, Benjamin Fuller, inform Owen Chase that he won’t get the captaincy he coveted, but will instead be First Mate. As a Brit, being someone’s ‘first mate’ is actually quite nice.
0:10:48 We learn George Pollard Jr. will captain the Essex because his father is a major investor in the boat. It would appear George’s ship has come in.
Q:What do you call a prostitute on shore? A: Land Ho!
0:13:36 Peggy and Owen argue because Owen will be at sea for perhaps two years, and not see his baby born. I posit this is why Owen wants to be at sea for two years.
0:14:04
I’ll come back as quickly as a summer’s night, I swear it.
Owen to Peggy
WTF!? What does this even mean? (Besides, I can think of many things that come quicker than a summer’s night…)
Owen: “Your nose smells.” Owen’s wife: “Everyone’s does.”
0:16:58 Young Thomas Nickerson (Tom Holland) learns that sailors wear ‘whale pins’ for thrusting ‘a killing lance into the largest beast that’ll breathe on this earth’. If people had to kill for their jewellery, animals would be safer and Antwerp would be more brutal.
[N.B. When the Essex set sail on August 12, 1819, Pollard was a young captain at only 29, Owen Chase was 21 and Thomas Nickerson was the youngest crew member at 14.]
0:17:27
Owen: Well, well! You being on board means only one thing…
Matthew Joy: Yep, at least there’s one person on this ship knows the truth about Owen Chase.
Owen meets his old acquaintance (Matthew Joy is played by the frothy Cillian Murphy, who appeared along beside Brendan Gleeson/(old) Tom Nickerson in 28 Days Later). Matthew is an alcoholic and Owen is a hothead, but at least Matthew isn’t drinking any more.
‘We can have the little one for dessert.’
0:17:54 On deck, First Mate Owen Chase meets Captain George Pollard (Benjamin Walker) for the first time. I love how catty they are towards each other almost as much as I love the subtlety of their digs.
Captain George Pollard: ‘Chase’… That’s an off-island name, isn’t it? [Translation: You weren’t born and bred on Nantucket Island, so you’re not an important man like me.]
Owen Chase: Yes, it is. Very shortly we will be off-island for some time and I’ll be very much at home. [The sea isn’t as prejudiced as your haughty arse.]
Pollard: I must say, I was surprised. Normally, a captain gets to choose his First Mate.
Owen: An experienced captain, yes. [The only kind of wet you’ve been is behind the ears.] Course you can understand from the owners’ point of view, they want to feel their investment’s in the hands of men. [And not a little toddler such as yourself.]
‘I said I’ll go down with the ship, not on it.’
[N.B. In reality, Pollard and Chase had sailed together once before, on a successful voyage, and there is no record of previous animosity between the two men. It is true, however, that tensions mounted on the Essex after being at sea for months with no whales to speak of.]
0:23:17 A sailor (Paul Andersonas Caleb Chappel) carves a bare-chested woman onto a whale bone.
Sailor: I thought you were married, anyway.
Chappel: I am, and there she is [tapping the sex aid with his knife]. Well, her nose anyway.
Because her other part is the hollowed out bit where a lad’s meant to dip his wick, most likely. I’d wager he carved this from a sperm whale.
She’s horny
0:25:01
Aye aye, landsman.
Henry Coffin
Owen meets the captain’s cousin (played by Frank Dillane, who I know as Nick Clark, from Fear The Walking Dead) and they hit it off like two boxers who don’t use gloves.
[N.B. ‘Henry’ Coffin’s real name was Owen Coffin, but changed for the film to avoid confusion with Owen Chase. As in the film, Coffin was the captain’s 17-year-old cousin.]
0:28:52 The captain and Owen get into an argument about sailing towards a storm. The captain wants to sail directly into a storm, while Owen is against it. The size of your balls don’t matter in a pissing contest.
They’re going to look for the silver lining
0:30:58 The captain makes more bad decisions than a virgin teen in his first orgy / a diabetic in a doughnut shop / a drunk youth on Facebook.
[N.B. This scene is historically accurate. Two days after Essex left port, a squall hit her and knocked her on her side, nearly sinking her. She lost a sail, and had one whaleboat damaged and two destroyed. Captain Pollard was forced to continue without replacing the two boats or repairing the damage.]
0:33:05
I like big boats and I cannot lie
0:34:12 Captain Pollard blames his first mate for his own bad decisions, as though they’re married.
0:35:48 We take another break from the action to return to the framing device of two men telling the story, which I find a colossal waste of time. Yes, I understand the film was based on a book, but who reads any more?
“Is that a white whale or did the missus just step out of the bath?”
0:35:51
Old Nickerson: And before long, we heard that call that all whale men pray for: Blows!
It’s not just whalers who pray for that. Many other men like to hear that, as well.
[N.B. ‘Blows’ means there are whales spotted blowing water through their blow holes. This is good news for it means whales have been spotted and the hunt can begin.]
0:36:34
3 months trapped on a boat with Chris Hemsworth and Cillian Murphy? I could sea that.
[N.B. Nantucket sleigh-ride is when the harpooned whale pulls the whale boat behind it as it tries to escape.]
My, but the filming is impressive.
0:41:55
The whale is stoked
Chimney’s afire!
[N.B. ‘Chimney’s afire’ is the cry that rises when the blood of a whale mixes with water blown out of the spout, proving the whale is on its last fins.]
0:43:26 That evening, the men fight off the sharks that take bites out of the flesh while the men clean it and the lads scoop out the invaluable oil. Nickerson is made to descend inside the belly of the whale carcass to get the last few drops. They should call him ‘Jonah’.
[N.B. The smelly oil young Thomas Nickerson is forced to retrieve is ‘spermaceti oil’, which is far more valuable than the oil that comes from boiling down the blubber. Spermaceti oil was used to make candles and also lubricate watches and other fine machinery. It is also what gives the sperm whale its name.]
Moby was such a blow hard
0:46:32
Atacames
Ecuador
Is ‘Atacames’ Spanish for ‘Middle of Nowhere’?
0:48:58 At an outpost in the village, Pollard, Chase and Joy talk to a Spanish captain (Jordi Mollà) who lost his ship and six men to an albino whale, and he doesn’t mean in a poker hand.
0:51:26
‘Offshore Grounds’ Which is it? Because it can’t be both!
0:52:32
After the whales, Owen caught crabs
0:53:26 A whale overturns one of the whale boat with his tale. He’s a large bull. Or at least he’s full of it.
0:53:36 & 42
Moby Dick is tailing them
0:54:06
This is me living my life
0:56:08 The white whale begins attacking the massive whaling ship. #whaleballs
0:59:02 Moby destroys the Essex by getting wrapped up in her ropes and then diving. There are strings attached.
0:59:27
Moby gets high
1:01:28 The captain orders everyone to abandon ship. Chase is down with it, but he won’t go down with it.
[N.B. In real life, as in the film, there were three boats of survivors. In Owen Chase’s boat, there were 4 other sailors, including Thomas Nickerson. On Captain Pollard’s boat, there were 8 other people, including Matthew Joy and Owen Coffin (‘Henry’ in the film). On Obed Hendricks’ boat there were a total of 3 crew members. Hendricks’ boat eventually disappeared, and the suspected remains of the sailors were later found on Ducie Island.]
Smoke on the water
1:11:18 Chase sees the white whale has been following them. Some whales simply don’t know when to quit.
1:14:21
I’m not a great writer. I’m not Hawthorne. But from my first hearing of it, this tale has haunted me. It consumes me. I fear if I do not write it, I shall never write again.
Herman Melville to Thomas Nickerson
Moby-Dick is 700 pages…Melville may not be great, but at least he’s long winded.
“I shall call it ‘Giant Dick’, after my father.”
[N.B. As regards Melville’s appreciation of Hawthorne, the dedication of Moby-Dick reads, “In token of my admiration for his genius, this book is inscribed to Nathaniel Hawthorne”.]
[N.B. Melville was inspired to write Moby-Dick after whaling a little himself, but also after hearing of two major events. The first was the sinking of the Essex, as illustrated by this film, and the second was the killing, in the late 1830s, of Mocha Dick: a vicious albino whale with 20 harpoons in its back that premeditated attacks on ships.]
1:15:16
34 Days stranded
1:16:52 Just when they spot land and think they’re saved, the white whale returns to destroy all the boats. This is really a Dick move.
“Hey! You blow!”
1:18:08 The silver lining is that, if Joy felt dirty, at least he was able to wash up on shore.
1:18:28 Awash on the island, Chase has lost his wife’s good luck charm. For all the luck it’s brought, it’s probably just as well.
1:19:24 On a piece of rock they generously refer to as an island [N.B. it is, in fact, Henderson Island], the survivors eat raw seagull eggs and raw fish caught in tidal pools. They pinched this recipe from Hugh Glass in The Revenant.
This film isn’t the only thing that sucks rocks
1:22:14
Captain Pollard [to Chase]: You were born to do this job, I was just born into it.
How captains apologise.
“So that’s what it means to blow a man down.”
1:24:32 The sailors decide waiting is a fool’s game, so they cobble their boats back together and head out to sea. Matthew Joy (along with William Wright, Seth Weeks, and Thomas Chappel) decide to stay on the island because it’s more fun to die on land than in a tiny rowboat.
Owen [to Matthew]: I’ll send a boat for you the minute we get back. We’ll play cards in Nantucket.
How friends lie.
[N.B. The real Matthew Joy left the island with the other boats. He’d been in charge of the third boat, but by this time he was so ill that he voyaged on Pollard’s boat, leaving Hendricks to pilot the third one.]
He’s very hot…and I don’t mean by the sun
1:24:48 Joy had kept a bottle of rum with him since the ship sank, though he has not drunk from it. Throughout the film, Ron Howard makes much of this sailor’s decision to stay sober.
Owen [gesturing to the bottle]: You want be to open that for you?
Matthew: Uh…I think I’ll manage if it comes to that.
I don’t know… There are worse ways to go. #deaddrunk
“Wow, he’s a nice piece. Or he will be.”
[FWIW, this is the point where the film should’ve ended.]
1:25:58
48 Days Stranded
1:26:24 Owen Chase wakes up on his skiff to see Pollard’s boat has floated away. They used to be close but they drifted apart.
Like two ships in the night, during the day
1:27:08 Owen and the boy Nickerson realise one of their boat mates [Isaac Cole, irl] died in his sleep. As Benjamin Lawrence (Joseph Mawle) prepares to toss the body overboard, Owen tells him,
No right-minded sailor discards what might yet save him.
This is the politically correct way to introduce the subject of cannibalism. The non-politically correct way is to say, “I’m not racist, I like dark meat as well as white.”
[N.B. This scene is historically accurate. Of the five people on Chase’s boat, one died and was buried at sea, then the second to die was eaten. The boat was rescued after this.]
“You look like you have good taste. Especially with a little salt.”
1:28:48 Old man Nickerson gives Melville the recipe for eating people. As for me, I’m afraid I’m not as shocked as I’m meant to be. The entire last quarter of the film is dedicated to the horror of what they had to do to survive, but I prefer the story of the whale. All this cannibalism talk just leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
1:29:51 The wife (Michelle Fairleyas Mrs. Nickerson) forgives her husband for eating people as a boy. I think she’s hoping he’ll do the same to her later.
Because Ron Howard is washed up
1:31:21
“Are we there yet?”
1:32:28 On Captain Pollard’s skiff, the men draw straws to see who will become dinner for the rest. Pollard draws the short straw, so he will be the one to feed the others.
1:33:01 Henry Coffin is meant to kill his cousin, but instead does this…
Coffin lives up to his name
Coffin is just dying to be eaten.
[N.B. The actual story is that, as men died on Pollard’s boat, their bodies were eaten to sustain the survivors. When only 4 remained, the men drew lots to determine who would die for the others, and Owen Coffin (Pollard’s 17-year-old cousin, whom he had promised to look after) drew the black spot. Apparently, Pollard offered to intervene, but Coffin refused. Another drawing was done to determine that Charles Ramsdell would be the executioner. Roughly 10 days later, another crewman died of hunger and was eaten, leaving only Pollard and Ramsdell on the craft.]
Pollard will take Coffin out for a bite
1:34:01 Captain Pollard bumps into Owen Chase in the middle of the ocean. Literally.
1:34:28 Suddenly, both teams understand what happened to the third boat.
Breach of contact
1:35:34
Something’s come between them
1:36:42 Chase looks the whale in the eye and understands they have a lot in common. It might be their ego. They let each other go.
1:37:20 Captain Pollard drifts away once more, to be discovered by a sailing ship. In his boat are all the bones he had to pick with his crew.
[N.B. The scene in the film, where a dazed Pollard and Ramsdell are rescued with bones strewn about the bottom of their boat, is fairly accurate. Pollard and Ramsdell survived by gnawing on Coffin and Ray’s bones, and had eaten a total of 6 men during their 93 days after the sinking of the Essex. At the time they were picked up off of the coast of South America, both men were so completely dissociative they did not even notice the ship ‘Dauphin’ alongside them and became terrified when they saw their rescuers.]
They’re having a friend for dinner
1:40:24 Three days later, on February 18th, 1821, Chase’s boat, with Nickerson and Richard Peterson (Osy Ikhile) drift into the coastal waters of Más a Tierra island (also known as Robinson Crusoe’s island), Chile. Three months later, they arrived back in Nantucket. After this amount of time, I suspect their families care as little for them as we do.
[N.B. The film has shuffled the dates somewhat. Owen Chase’s boat, containing Thomas Nickerson and Benjamin Lawrence (not Richard Peterson) was rescued on February 18, five days before Pollard.]
1:42:08 Chase hugs his wife and meets his daughter, though I suspect he’s asking himself how she’d taste in a barbecue sauce.
MFW someone doesn’t get my jokes
1:45:08 The ship owners and Captain Pollard promise Owen his captaincy (yes, again), wealth and reputation if he lies by saying the Essex ran aground and the dead sailors were drowned, not eaten. Frankly, I’m surprised the film is still insisting on not finishing. Any self respecting movie would have taken the hint and ended hours ago.
1:48:32 At the inquiry, Pollard decides to tell the truth and not whitewash the story, as everyone has been encouraging him to do. I take it from the music I’m to be impressed by this gesture. I’m more impressed by how much the characters are still invested in this story. The care so much more than I, that I’m made to feel quite uncomfortable.
[N.B. George Pollard Jr. did discuss his trials at sea at least twice, once with fellow captains over a dinner, and a second time with a missionary called George Bennet.]
“Can you give me a hand?”
1:49:06 Pollard goes off to find the white whale and runs his ship aground off of Hawaii. Sounds like he was going back for seconds.
[N.B. The real Pollard did not go out searching for the white whale. He did, however, return to sea to captain the whaleship Two Brothers. After it was wrecked on the French Frigate Shoals during a storm off the coast of Hawaii on his first voyage, he joined a merchant vessel which was in turn also wrecked off the Sandwich Islands (Hawaiian Islands) shortly thereafter. Considered a “Jonah” (unlucky), he was forced to retire and became Nantucket’s night watchman. Every November 20, he would lock himself in his room and fast in memory of the men of Essex.]
He didn’t see that coming
1:49:14 Owen Chase sent a boat back to the rock where Matthew Joy stayed. There is no more Joy on the island, but the other three men were still alive and, no doubt, full of Joy.
[N.B. In reality, Matthew Joy did not stay on Henderson Island. He first captained the third whale boat, but when his health worsened he moved to Captain Pollard’s boat and died two weeks after. The three men who chose to stay on the island where rescued, however, a year after the Essex sank, although Chase did not ‘send’ the boat to fetch them.]
His friend is hard to digest
1:49:36 Chase then moved to New Bedford, where he became the captain of a merchant vessel. This is logical, as Chris Hemsworth really does deliver the goods.
[N.B. The real Owen Chase returned to Nantucket where he wrote an account of the disaster, the Narrative of the Most Extraordinary and Distressing Shipwreck of the Whale-Ship Essex, which Herman Melville used as an inspiration for his Moby-Dick. Chase did eventually become the captain of a whaler and remained at sea for 19 years, only returning home for short periods every two or three years, each time fathering a child. Memories of the harrowing ordeal on the Essex haunted Chase, and he suffered terrible headaches and nightmares. Later in his life, he began hiding food in the attic of his Nantucket house on Orange Street and was eventually institutionalized.]
Something smells fishy
1:52:02 As Melville leaves, Nickerson said he heard that in Pennsylvania, they found oil in the ground. He says this with a sense of wonder, so we’re to understand that whale oil won’t be necessary to use for fuel anymore. Fossil fuels are easier, as the dinosaurs are already dead.
1:52:29
Roll credits
Tally Ho’
WTF!?’s: Only 2 Whale The Fails
When to Follow: A good movie to build the evening around with the family (teens or older), especially before going on a cruise…or eating dinner.
Where’s This Found: The part about whaling was filmed wonderfully, but about midway through the film things got terrifically boring when they reached the part no one cared about. What’s more, the constant cuts to the narrator are pointless interruptions and distracting. Out of a possible 10, I have 6 F’s to give
What To Feedback: Given, Chris Hemsworth is one hot piece of meat, but he hasn’t always chosen his roles wisely.
I shall be exploring the layout of The Forest, digging up its roots and getting to its heart to determine if it’s lush or dense. So read on only if you’ve already seen The Forest, or don’t plan to.
0:00:28 The film begins with Sara Price (Natalie Dormer) waking up from a nightmare where she’s running through a forest. The beginning is so jarring, I’m not sure if I have a complete copy or if I’m the one having a nightmare.
0:00:36 The dream means she has to fly to Japan. I’d like the same dream about Thailand, if you please.
She’s so flighty, she’s calling Japanese Airlines
0:01:08 She rings her sister Jess on arrival, but no one picks up and Jess’s voice mail is full. This is one of the risks when dreams organise your holidays.
0:02:42 Through a series of flash backs, we’re informed Sarah Price’s twin, Jess, lives in Japan and went camping in the Aokigahara or ‘Suicide Forest’. This is a place where so many people come to end their lives (50-100 per year) that signs are erected at the entrance, extolling visitors to think of their families before taking that step. I don’t mean to be cutting, but that’s one place I wouldn’t want to hang around because, shoot, it sounds like a pill. 💊
“OK, who do we know who can read?”
[N.B. There are signs in Japanese at the entrance to the park, but, according to my research, the multi-lingual signs exist only in the film.]
Actual sign at Aokigahara (Photo originally posted at “Got Five Minutes?” (Click on photo for the link))
0:02:50 Their outfit is the scariest thing in the film so far.
When your imaginary friend is your better half
0:05:28
Very Raw Fish
0:08:08 A dream sequence. The new scariest thing about this film is how dead it is.
MRW someone wakes me up from a nap
0:09:16 Sara visits the school where Jess taught Japanese teens English. One girl goes into hysterics when seeing Sara as she looks exactly like Jess, because identical twins. It’s as though Jess came back from the dead, much like Nathalie hopes her career will after this film.
0:09:48
Japanese headmistress (Akiko Iwase as Head Teacher — she teaches WHAT!?): In old times, it was a place for ubasute. When there was not enough food, families would bring elderly women, the blinds or sick to the forest and leave them to die.
Sara: That’s awful! I don’t understand, why would the school take the class trip there?
Oh please, Sara, we’re talking about Japanese students and a suicide forest! The teens have a right to plan their future.
Back in school because she has a lot of class
0:11:27 Nathalie Dormer acts with herself, as the evil twin Jess – who is a trouble maker and rebel because she dyes her hair black and has a nasal accent – and Sara, the good twin. Of course, those familiar with Game of Thrones have already seen Nathalie’s twins.
0:12:52 😏
Natalie Dormer and her patented side-talking smirk
0:15:22 At an inn near the A-hole forest, the cheerful Japanese reception hostess just happens to have a dead Sara twin on a slab in the basement.
0:15:56 WTF!? There are three bodies kept in cold storage? They shouldn’t call this place an ‘inn’ but an ‘out’. Fortunately, the corpse still breathing under the sheet isn’t Jess.
[N.B. One myth about the Aokigahara forest is that there are ‘at least 100 suicides each year’. In fact, the average is less, although in exceptional years the count does exceed 100.]
I took this from the Aokigahara Forest (青木ヶ原) website (Click on photo for link)
0:18:34 Sara is told not to search the forest herself because of the Yūrei, think ‘ghost with a sick sense of humour’. They use your sadness to trick you into killing yourself. Or becoming an actor in this film.
0:19:18 A fetish of Japanese schoolgirls cross the road as Sara walks to her hotel. Either these young students are ghosts, or they’re going to be.
Just passing through…walls
0:20:11 A creeper named Aiden (get it? because he’s ‘aiding’ her) chats up Sara in the hotel bar. She explains she’s looking for her lost sister.
Aiden: Do you know about the forest?
Sara: Yeah.
Aiden: Is that a possibility with your sister?
Sara: We’re identical twins. If she were dead, I would just know.
Aiden: What do you think she’s up to, then? If she’s out there?
Sara: I think she’s struggling with her demons.
Literally! Sara may have lost her sister, but not her sense of humour.
0:22:21 Aiden says he’ll take Sara into the forest with a guide for an article he’s writing, if he can use Sara’s story in his piece. It goes without saying that he also wants his piece in her story.
“Please tell me more about the kind of men you hate / food you ate once / your Facebook posts.”
0:24:18 Sara tells Aiden that her parents died after being hit by a drunk driver as they pulled into their own drive, yet in the flashback there are what sounds like two shotgun blasts and the parents seem to be found in the basement. Sara says she’d kept her eyes closed and only 8-year-old Jess (wearing the same print dress as the eerie flashbacks) saw what, I assume to be, a husband/wife murder/suicide. It may be because of the twins’ clothes.
0:26:34 WTF!? Sara walks in a hotel hallway lit intermittently by a flickering light, where none of the Japanese paper doors has a room number on it. Suddenly, an old woman appears, literally, out of nowhere, accompanied by her equally stealthy granddaughter who has to peel the old bird off of Sara. It’s a cheap scare carried out by a ninja Gran, and after startling Sara, the old geezer makes more noise than a defective life support machine.
Sara is in it for the long hall
0:28:14
Michi (Yukiyoshi Ozawaas Aiden’s local guide): I still think you should not go.
Sara: Why?
Michi: Because you are sad. (See 18:34)
If she’s not now, she will be when she reads my review.
0:30:06 The moment Sara, accompanied by Aiden and the guide, steps of the path, the dirt begins to mentally growl at her.
“Walk in the Suicide Forest!” they said. “It won’t kill you!” they said.
0:33:46 While Michi talks to a lad who brought a tent into the forest because he’s on the fence about suicide, Sara tells Aiden that Jess had tried to commit suicide twice, both time with pills, probably because she found it romantic. As in “I love you to death.”
Aiden: People use tape or rope like this if they think they may want to find their way back out.
Michi: Or they hope someone will follow the rope to remove their body from the forest one day. This one looks recent.
Maybe someone was at the end of their rope.
0:35:27
His life is up in the air
0:38:42 Through her twisted sister bond, Sara leads Aiden and Michi to Jess’s empty tent, the same yellow one we see in the flashbacks. Jess has had that tent longer than I’ve had some life partners, though slept with it less.
0:40:57 Michi insists they leave the forest before nightfall, but Sara refuses to leave the tent until she’s found her sister. After a long, tortured, inner struggle, Aiden decides to do the intelligent thing and leave with Michi, promising to return in the morning. No, just kidding, he thinks he might get sex so he drops his pack near Sara’s and tells Michi not to let the forest hit his arse while he walks out of it.
It’s not just bears who do it in the woods
0:44:47 At the camp-fire, while the pair discuss their siblings, Aiden rests his hand on Sara’s arm. She immediately jumps up and says she’s going to sleep. She enters the tent and smiles at her sister’s copy of Flame and Shadow, by Sara Teasdale. Meanwhile, Aiden is in a sleeping bag by the fire, looking at the tent with such creepiness that the background music becomes sinister. Perhaps he’s jealous Sara knows how to read.
0:46:57 Sara leaves her tent to find this…
A Madonna concert
0:48:16 Sara had been warned dozens of times about the risks in the forest, especially at night, yet she opts to run blindly into the woods without waking Aiden — whom she had to step over to run amok in the woods. The stupider the movie, the happier I am when they get what’s coming.
0:48:48 Sara happens upon one of the schoolgirls who has a dirty face and is probably lost…on her way to the other side. It’s obvious to me, if not to Sara, that the student is a ghost. Let’s hope that between the twins Sara got the looks, because she didn’t get the brains.
0:49:24
No trust him.
The young girl relates a message from Jess to Sara. Jess wasn’t that good of an English teacher.
A lesson for me
0:51:10 At dawn, Aiden and Sara decide to break camp and head back to civilization to get stitches on Sara’s cut palm. As Sara doesn’t know the way back, she has to trust Aiden. Her memory is shorter than a dwarf before pay day.
0:54:16 Sara chooses this moment to stop trusting Aiden. She discovers he doesn’t have a little brother, but made one up out of thin air. He wanted to get closer to Sara for his article and her articles…of clothing.
Even with a compass, people tell Aiden to get lost
0:55:07 Trying to delete the recordings he’d made of her, Sara ‘accidentally’ lands in his pictures, like every other teenage girl ‘accidentally’ does on Saturday morning with her boyfriend’s mobile. But it pays off: there’s a picture of Jess in her tent.
Getting in touch with your selfie
0:56:14 After Aiden pushes her to the ground, Sara throws his phone and runs the opposite direction. She’s more lost than me taking a maths test.
0:58:58 WTF!? She finds a ball of twine, so decides to string that around a couple of trees, we know not why, all the while her sister’s voice in her head whispers she should turn around and face the ghosts. When she runs out of string she panics and runs through the forest until she falls down a hole. And here I’d thought Dormer had already hit bottom with this film.
Natalie finds another plot hole
0:59:08 After finding Jess’s tent abandoned, Michi assembles an official search party and tells them things only subtitles would understand.
1:02:08 WTF!? Rather than resting below the hole she fell into and waiting for someone to come and rescue her, she prefers to hobble deeper into the cave on her possibly broken ankle because it’s pitch black and an evil spirit is beckoning. This girl needs to be put out of her stupidity.
Women peeing outdoors
1:02:14 She encounters the schoolgirl I predicted was a ghost back at 48:48. She tells Sara that ‘Miss Jess want to see you’. I hope it’s about teaching proper English.
1:03:27 The school ghost shows her true face and Sara decides to run to the hole and yell for help. This should have been her Plan A from the time I thought of it.
1:05:14 Aiden finds Sara at the bottom of the pit, and when he leaves to fetch something to bring her to the surface, Sara finds a child’s View-Master. Clicking through the photos, she sees images of her childhood, the night her parents died (in what I predicted was a murder/suicide).
1:07:26 Because Sara still suspects him of being a creeper, Aiden gives her his knife for protection. It won’t take him long to get the point.
1:08:16 Sara decides she wants to wash off before they go to a ranger station to use a radio. Aiden needs to worse than she does, as he’s the dirtiest thing in this movie.
Sara’s got her hands full
1:08:42 WTF!? Suddenly it’s night-time? That was one hell of a long bath. And she doesn’t look any cleaner.
1:11:54 At the abandoned ranger station, Sara writes notes to her sister on the other side of a locked door while Aiden tries to repair the wireless. Jess writes that Aiden will kill them and that Sara must get the key. I’d like her to give me the key to staying awake throughout this film.
1:14:22 While struggling over the key Aiden claims is in his boot (he said Jess had been in the cabin for five days–there were Aiden’s energy bar wrappers on the floor to imply he’d been there before), Sara accidentally stabs him with a blade she found while looking for the key. The fastest way to a man’s heart is with a knife.
“It’s my turn to use the binoculars / look at the map / exorcise the demons!”
1:16:01 The locked door in the guard station opens and it’s the basement door from her childhood. Herself as a little girl is waiting on the stairs to take her down, even though she seems pretty down to begin with.
1:16:14 The scene I described at 0:24:18 is revealed here. Big fault divorce.
Just like that, Sara discovered the ghost toilets
1:16:38 In a steaming pile of WTF, Sara’s dad comes back to life and stops being chalk white. He crawls across the floor to Sara and grabs her wrist, forcing her to saw at his fingers with her kitchen knife. This is the kind of crazy that runs in the family.
1:16:54 We espy a glimpse of Jess at fireside, listening to the far off screams of her sister. If you hear the Call of the Wild, don’t answer.
“Fires burn me up!”: Forest
1:18:06 Jess sets off on a frantic run for no other reason than to escape the rampant WTF.
1:19:26 While Sara is stopped by the school ghost, Jess reaches the search party. I still don’t understand why she was sitting by the fire waiting to do nothing. Apparently, not dying took up a lot of her time.
I-See
1:19:52
Rob (Eoin Macken, Sara’s partner): Have you seen Sara?
Jess: She’s not with you?
No, because you heard her scream your name and run towards you, which is why you ran away. Either Jess is lying or the film is ridiculous. #orboth
1:20:12 The school ghost shows Sara that when she thinks she was cutting her father’s fingers, she was, in fact, cutting her own wrist. But across, not down, so it’s just for show.
“Is it down or across? I can never remember.”
1:20:48 Because a couple of deep scratches on her wrist aren’t enough to kill her, arms in the ground pull her down into the dirt, much like I do with friends on the weekend.
Sara gets back to her roots
1:20:58
Jess: She came for me. She came for me.
Rob: She knew you were still alive.
Yet, now that Jess is found everyone is leaving and we don’t even get an explanation of what Jess was doing in the forest other than waiting for trouble. At least Jess is an identical twin so Rob needn’t look too hard for a replacement wife.
1:21:34 Jess doesn’t sense her sister’s signal anymore, or maybe she needs more bars.
1:22:26 Michi waits for Sara’s ghost to try and scare us, but it scares him more than anyone.
Nerds always have a hard time playing Locate the Boob
Roll credits
Tally Ho’
WTF!?’s: 8 thick ones
When to Follow: When you don’t like horror films and would rather be confused than scared.
Where’s This Found: A Japanese-style ghost story / horror film à la Apartment 1303. How ever did they trick Dormer into making this film? I’m convinced that originally, Sara and Jess were meant to be the same person, and that when Sara witnessed her parents’ murder/suicide she created Jess as a vessel for that memory. Unfortunately, someone decided this was far too impossible (How is Jess teaching in Japan at the exact moment Sara is living with Rob in the U.S.? How did Aiden have a picture of Jess on his phone? How was Jess communicating from the closet? How was Jess communicating though the girl ghost? Who was the moving corpse in the basement of the first inn?…for example), so they decided to keep the clues but scrap the story. This left us with so much WTF, and so little interest. Out of a possible 10, I have 5 F’s to give
What To Feedback: Not all of the films I’ve reviewed on this site are let-downs!
Another movie where the poster is the best part of the film. One note about the original poster. As pointed out on the IMDb Trivia Page, the poster showing half of Sara/Natalie Dormer’s face, with the bottom half replaced by nooses is reminiscent of an infamous photograph from the Aokigahara forest. In the shot, half of a hanging victim’s head eroded away, and all that remains is the top half of the man’s head. To compare the poster and the real inspiration, click on the following link but be warned this NSFWTF photograph is graphic and disturbing and I recommend you not click. [I grabbed the screen cap from this video on Chad Daniel’s page.]
Sara has the runs
Sara has trees on her mind
Uhm, have you seen my electric shaver?
I’ve got some bad noose for you
“Please, don’t leaf me!”
Prints suitable for reposting!
WTF!? did they say?
WTF!? do you meme?
What to Follow Up
WTF!? review of another Forest Horror film
WTF!? review of another WTF horror film
Oh, Al! Bar None review of indie-horror film “Horns”
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I shall be tearing apart Sharkansas Women’s Prison Massacre, catching its lines and dissecting its actors to determine if it’s a good catch or it bites. So read on only if you’ve already seen Sharkansas Women’s Prison Massacre, or don’t plan to.
Sharkansas Women’s Prison Massacre is sharxploitation and as such there is great emphasis placed on women (and sharks) in politically incorrect positions. As I’m offering a loyal portrait of the movie, those offended by sexism may wish to read another article — All Cheerleaders Die, for example. I would also like to thank my friend Rodney over at Fernby Films for placing this bomb on my target.
0:00:28 Two knobs with florescent protection vests are supposedly ‘fracking’ a pile of dirt. I knew fracking was bad, I had no idea it was as bad as this.
0:00:29 A camp site welcome centre in a static caravan is actually a State Prison for Women.
A prison where a cave tour with a 13-year-old is 8 dollars?
0:00:38
Mike the Guard (Serafin Falcon): Come on, ladies. You know the drill.
Shannon Hastings the Prisoner (Amy Holt): Do we ever, screw.
That’s one very important comma.
0:01:18 As a direct result of the very bad fracking, underground rocks detach somewhere to release fresh water sharks with spikes that roar while underwater. Thank you, God, I was afraid this film wouldn’t be truly horrendous.
These sharks are horny
0:01:48 You thought the special effects were bad, you should see the acting.
0:03:15 A shark attacks the fracking truck stuck in the mud as it takes a short cut to get beer on a break at 11 a.m. This will take a bite out of their schedule.
Sharks are in the driver’s seat
0:08:44 Detectives Adam Levine (Corey Landis) and Kendra Patterson (Traci Lords) are two random agents who represent some law enforcement agency (think Older and Fugly). Their roles serve absolutely no purpose in this film, yet while they are looking for bank robbers, they find this atrocity. By ‘atrocity’, I mean the special effects.
Q: What do you call roles for human limbs? A: Body parts.
0:10:43 Role call
0:12:43
Drinking problems in prison
0:14:46
You’ve got to be kidding me.
Samantha’s famous last words
Samantha (Tabitha Marie) says out loud what everyone is thinking.
When a shark pulls your leg
0:19:08 While heading back to the prison, a ginger named Honey (Dominique Swain [who once portrayed Lolita in the 1997 version of the film]) stops the van and rescues Anita (Cindy Lucas), her girlfriend. Birds of a feather…
0:23:48 Because what Women’s Prison film would be complete without a girl fight?
Fighting to make the movie
0:24:42
I love how they couldn’t afford to buy fog for the whole forest
0:25:14 WTF!? Mike the Guard escaped the women and is struggling with blood loss from a wound smaller than my shaving accidents.
0:26:46 Mike is looking for water. Instead of going to the stream, he finds a trapdoor in the marsh and descends into a secret, underground cave? WTF!?
0:27:28
This drink has a little bite
0:33:12 WTF!? Anita is in the safe house Honey rented, and the first thing she does after she escapes prison — where reading is one of the few things she could do — is look for a book? And double WTF!? The book she finds just happens to be a first edition of Tale of Two Cities!? It’s scaring the Dickens out of me.
0:38:32 WTF!? Sarah runs miles away from the water, yet when she’s attacked by the shark, her blood pools in the river. She can’t even bleed correctly.
0:38:51
Detective Kendra Patterson: Give it to me, Chin. What you got?
Detective Adam Levine: ‘Chin’?
Det. Patterson: Obscure reference.
This is a reference to season 5 of The Voice (U.S.) in which winner Tessanne Chin split with her husband amidst rumoured infidelities with her Voice coach, Adam Levine, which is also the character’s name in this film.
Sweet & Sour Puss
0:39:58
Shannon (Amy Rasimas Holt) [holding a pan]: Here you are, Peaches & Beans, my speciality. Breakfast is served.
Michelle (Christine Nguyen): No, thanks. I just got a heaping helping of Carl’s peaches and beans.
WTF!? Michelle was meant to see he didn’t escape while on the toilet, not to see what escaped from him.
0:40:37 Michelle walks onto the porch and discovers Sarah is legless.
Break a leg!
0:41:41
Shannon: What happened to her?
Michelle: Yeah, there ain’t no sharks in these woods.
Anita: Not that we know of!
Dialogue like this is the difference between a good bad movie and a bad bad movie
Danger is afoot
0:43:41
Good actor geologist (Chris De Christopheras Professor Orville): A natural born killing machine both in water…and on land.
Two geologists (one who’s talented and one who’s cute) explain that the fracking opened an underground ocean, releasing a prehistoric shark known as the sharkosaurus
I’m relieved to know there’s science to back up this film.
Cute geologist (Oscar De la Rosaas John Raden): So, what do you do when you’re not fighting prehistoric monsters?
Shannon: 5-10.
0:47:56 Michelle and the sheriff find a weapons cache hidden in the house. Those are some interesting individuals who stow their valuables in rental property.
0:48:54 WTF!? Shannon begins snogging John after she explains she murdered her abusive, drug-addicted husband. She kills more than the mood.
0:50:33
Ensemble shoot
0:51:05 WTF!? Michelle may want to uncork her gun before she fires it.
Denser than a speeding bullet
0:52:41 The group can’t remain in the house because, according to professor Orville, every year sharks swarm, collecting in the thousands to feed and mate. I suspect the professor received his degrees from a thermometer.
0:54:04 To distract the sharks so the group can make a run for the caves, the team assemble a scarecrow lure filled with pillows, oregano and gun powder. The sheriff rubs a syringe filled with Sriracha sauce over his arm and then squirts it on the dummy’s clothes. We’re meant to believe is blood, but not even the sharks in this film are that stupid.
“I can’t eat a thing, I’m stuffed.”
0:54:48 When the sharks approach the bait, Honey shoots the decoy, the gunpowder explodes and the sharks go up in a ball of atrocious CGI.
0:56:18 The older scientist falls and sprains his ankle while running for the safety of the caves, so the cute one sacrifices himself for the older chap. I also suspect the lad wants a way out of his relationship with Shannon, who’s stuck to him like bleach on a lock of hair.
Give a flying WTF
0:57:35 The agents approach the rental van Honey used in the breakout. Detective Adam Levine hasn’t heard of Ma Barker or Bonnie & Clyde. This makes sense. I suspect he wouldn’t know a criminal if one came up and stole his reputation.
0:59:39 The gang descend into the cave, but they’ve already hit depths lower than this in the film.
The cave is rock hard
1:05:27 The comedic duo arrive on the scene.
Detective Kendra Patterson: If I didn’t know any better, I’d think we just had an encounter with a land shark.
Detective Adam Levine: A land shark? You mean from, like, Saturday Night Live?
I actually made this reference myself in my review of Sharknado.
The Original Land Shark on Saturday Night Live
1:07:15
That bites
1:14:42 Lol. In order to exit the cave, the group must cross an underground river in an inflatable raft left by miners ages ago. The sheriff, Michelle and Shannon make it across, but Anita brings a machine gun when she and Honey cross. When she opens fire on the sheriff, she falls out of the raft and is eaten by a shark, but not before a stray bullet kills Shannon in the neck. Finally, after a puncture sound, we hear the sharkosaurus have some Honey for dessert.
1:16:28 The sheriff lets Michelle go and says he’ll tell the authorities she was eaten by a shark like the others. The sheriff has a heart of gold…and the brain of a badger.
An argument for gun control
1:17:06 Detectives Patterson and Levine pull up just at that moment, and continue to add absolutely nothing to the story.
Traci: Do you know what we’re up against?
Sheriff: Yep.
He’s a man of few words, and everything else.
1:17:16
A bad sign
1:17:21 Honey climbs out of the underground river and utters her catchphrase: ‘Crap on a cracker’. Which is also a review of this film.
Roll credits
Tally Ho’
WTF!?’s: 19 vicious ones
When to Follow: Only in your most drug addled state
Where’s This Found: It’s a thin line between horror and horrible, and this film takes a dump all over that line. Honestly, if I have to decide between calling this a bad bad film (like Left Behind) or a good bad film (the first Sharknado), then I’d have to say this falls on the side of a good bad movie. It was stupid funny enough for me to laugh without making me angry. Out of a possible 10, I have 6 F’s to give
I shall be unwrapping Krampus, tearing through its film and ripping out its contents to discover if it’s a gag gift or God’s gift to cinema. So read on only if you’ve already seen Krampus, or don’t plan to.
0:02:25 Well done opening credit scene. A Black Friday style massacre in a Mucho Mart filmed in the style of holiday Christmas special, using Bing Crosby’s “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas” as the music. Everything I hate about the holiday in one neat, little package.
We knew Nan was losing it when she married her doily
0:07:18 My copy doesn’t have subtitles for all of the German the elderly woman (Krista Stadler as Omi Engel – N.B. ‘Omi’ is ‘Gran’ in German) is speaking. Is it just me, or was no one allowed to ride her train of thought?
0:07:24
Beth [on the phone, talking about house guests]: Yeah, my cousins are crawling out of the shallow end of the gene pool.
0:08:18 The not-distant-enough family members arrive and their motor car shakes the house; a metaphor that their arrival is akin to an enemy invasion.
0:08:46 The relatives embark and I recognize Allison Tolman, the actress who plays Linda (Sarah’s sister), as the lead from season 1 of Fargo. Her husband is Howard, played by David Koechner, who we saw earlier in Cheap Thrills. Thus, when they mate, it’s Cheap Thrills in Fargo.
Their necks aren’t the only thing that’s red
0:10:11 Wow, Conchata Ferrell (think ‘Berta’ in Two and a Half Men) as crotchety Aunt Dorothy. I’m seeing more stars than an unconscious cartoon character.
“Here’s how to crochet tapas…”
0:13:16
Who doesn’t make a ham at Christmas? What are you? A Jew?
Aunt Dorothy during a cliché family dinner
Tom and Sarah exchange a nervous glance. I’m going to go out on a limb here and assert that the Engels are Jews celebrating Christmas, adding another level of irony to the comedy of the film. My only proof (apart from the exchange I’ve just referenced) is the names. Both of the women have Hebrew first names (Sarah and Beth), and, according to Ancestry.com, one source of the name ‘Engel’ is “Jewish (Ashkenazic): ornamental name from German Engel ‘angel’”.
0:15:42 Max’s cousins (gender fluid girls called Stevie and Jordan), tease him because, at ten-years-old, he still believes in Father Christmas. The way I still believe in this film.
0:16:22 WTF!? Stevie (Lolo Owen, younger sister of the actress who plays Beth) reads Max’s extremely personal letter to Santa 🎅 aloud at the crowded dinner table and no one, not even any of the adults, does anything to stop her? Max’s parents are more careless than caring.
Old enough to know (and write) better
0:19:25 Act 1 ends with Max destroying the letter and throwing it out of his window, into the Christmas night. The letter now becomes air mail.
0:20:08 Before going to bed, Max opens a door on an ancient advent calendar, ushering in the dream sequence.
0:20:26 This eerie snowman shows up in the front garden the morning after the storm began, when all the power is out. He gives Max shivers.
A frosty mug
0:21:23 Sarah explains why they can’t talk to the neighbours about the power outage.
The Turners are in Hawaii, the Lamberts are in Florida, and the Cartwrights stopped talking to us after Max’s noodle incident.
0:22:08 A mysterious gift bag is left on the doorstep. Bad things come in good packages.
0:24:10 On Beth’s way to visit her boyfriend, in the middle of the blizzard, night suddenly falls harder than a fat man riding a unicycle on ice.
0:24:43 Krampus appears on the roof of the house. Beth says, “Oh my God,” but I think it’s someone else.
0:24:56
Race relations
0:25:16 Beth hides under the DHL van which is parked in the middle of the street because the driver is a scared quite stiff at this point of his death.
0:27:07 The Jack-in-the-box Krampus leaves under the van with Beth is intense, until the image on my tablet is not neat enough to see what kills her.
This should clear things up
0:30:16 Tom takes Howard’s SUV to look for Beth in the storm, despite Omi’s protests. For all the German I speak, she may be warning them about the SUV and global warming.
0:30:42 In the truck, Howard says he’d like to listen to Bing Crosby. He should watch the opening credits of this film.
0:32:14 After finding an abandoned snow plow that has obviously been attacked by something, Howard opens up the boot to access his weapons cache. Looks like this Christmas, he’s going to hunt more than bargains.
0:35:00 In Beth’s boyfriend’s house, Tom and Howard find the place is in a tip. Either that or it’s university housing.
Gingerbread Manhunt
0:35:34 It’s clear from the damage that whatever havoc was wreaked in this house, it entered by coming down the chimney.
0:36:18 Tom and Howard discover giant goat tracks in front if the fireplace. Only at this instant does Beth decide to begin screaming loud enough for the men to hear. Or maybe she couldn’t be heard over all the WTF.
One way Krampus gets down
0:37:21 Tom shoots something shark-like in the snow that’s attacking Howard. Reminds me a great deal of Avalanche Sharks, except it’s good.
0:40:32 Tom distinctively heard Beth screaming, yet he left her to bring Howard back to the house and bandage his wound!? WTF!? Like a new father subscribing to a parenting magazine, she’s going to have daddy issues.
Beth is getting run down
0:42:04 In less than two minutes, the family agree to give up on Beth as though she were a leper drowning in acid.
0:44:06
Tom: She [Omi, his mother] always gets a little weird around Christmas.
Max: How come?
Tom: I don’t know. She never wanted to talk about it.
This sentence will come back to haunt us like a ghost of Christmas past.
Max’s favourite animal is a cougar
0:47:56
Howie gets a little head
0:48:14 While on watch, Howard Sr. falls asleep (along with the rest of the family). A giant hook with a gingerbread man attached is lowered down the chimney and when the pastry calls out, only Howie Jr. (Maverick Flack) hears the noise. He walks over to it and, when he takes a bite out of it, it comes to life and wraps him up on the chain. No one else hears a thing until the lad decides to scream when being pulled up the chimney. This scene would’ve been much more clever if it didn’t come at the expense of so much WTF!?
0:50:42 Omi remembers she speaks English just in time to tell us the story of Krampus. I’m betting it doesn’t start with American Dad.
0:53:44 The story is that when Omi was a sad little girl in a depressing village, she wished Christmas would go away. In its place, Krampus came and ate her family. At the beginning of this film, Max destroyed his letter to Father Christmas much as little Omi threw her Santa doll in the fire.
Krampus didn’t take me that night. He left me as a reminder of what happens when hope is lost, when belief is forgotten and the Christmas spirit dies.
Omi
Krampus may not bring out the Christmas spirit in you, but he can bring out your spirit.
Hell’s bell
[N.B. This scene is critical to understanding the ending. Krampus kills Omi’s family, but spares her. Instead of killing her, he leaves her with a bell as a reminder of the Christmas spirit she needs to keep.]
0:55:18 Howard goes out to rescue his son (at least one parent here isn’t ready to sacrifice a child), and when he steps into the front garden, there is a graveyard of snowmen because all of the night’s victims have been transformed into snow-creatures. Instead of his rifle, Howard might want to carry a flame thrower.
0:55:22 Howie Jr. was also made into a snowman. That’s cold.
Howie is snowed under
0:57:08 Aunt Dorothy has this to say:
0:59:58 Up in the attic, the gifts that delivered themselves are moving. Either that, or it’s presents of mind.
1:01:12 Stevie and Jordan have to go upstairs to use the ‘crapper’, ostensibly because Aunt Dorothy clogged the one below. The real reason is that the writer needed the girls upstairs to be lured by a monster speaking with Beth’s voice. So, in fact, both excuses are full of shite.
1:02:42 Following screams from the attic, Tom, Linda and Sarah rise to the challenge by going upstairs to investigate. Howard, however, remains downstairs to protect Omi, Max, Dorothy and a baby, which he does by abandoning them to investigate noises elsewhere in the house. WTF!?
Her jumper is the real horror
1:05:24 A wild Jack-in-the-box eats Jordan like a snake. His stomach won’t be the only thing upset.
When you put someone else’s foot in your mouth
1:05:47 Some gingerbread men shoot a nail gun at Howard. In other words, he gets nailed.
1:06:30 An evil angel doll swoops down on the trio like an owl. Logical, as angels love to prey.
1:07:28 Now an evil robot toy attacks Tom. This turns Tom off, automatically.
[N.B. The four monsters (the doll, the Jack-in-the-box, the Teddy bear and the robot) are a hommage the 1992 direct-to-video hor-comDemonic Toys.]
1:07:57
Hot cross buns
Fear not, Howard’s dog somehow ate this in midair without making a sound, or a movement. They went a little heavy on the WTF!? in this recipe.
1:08:32 Linda, seeing her daughter on the attic floor covered in slime, is overcome with heroism. She stabs Teddy in the eye, takes an axe to the doll, kicks the robot off Tom’s back and goes after the Jack-in-the-box, who slithers away at the last moment. She’s not somebody to toy with.
1:12:24 Everyone meets in the living room, where Max lets Rosie the dog (Thor) loose in the vents. Unfortunately, the pup falls through the ceiling with the evil toys and gets eaten by the Jack-in-the-box. Aunt Dorothy proceeds to shoot everything with her shotgun and, like much of this film, she’s on target.
Dorothy shoots up
1:14:06 Suddenly, a patrol of evil elves breaks in and absconds with Chrissy the baby (Sage Hunefeld) and Aunt Dorothy. Howard leaps on the Jack-in-the-box’s tail and follows the evil like a spammer on Instagram.
1:18:02 Either Omi’s facing her demons or haemorrhoids grew a face.
My Sunday morning selfie
1:18:30 Omi disappears into Krampus’s bag of evil toys, making her a bag lady.
They’re not playing around
1:20:18 Tom sends the family ahead to the protection of the plow while he shoots at an invisible snow-mole with his infinite bullet shotgun. The plan works as well for him as it does for any Storm Trooper.
1:21:02 Both of the mothers are pulled into the snowbanks by invisible snow sharks. It’s an ice way to say goodbye.
1:21:27
I don’t even know how to drive a stick. We have a hybrid!
Max trying to start the snow plow
For someone who still believes in Father Christmas at puberty, knowing how to drive anything is a plus.
When you park too far away from the drive-thru speaker
1:21:52 Stevie gets pulled through a broken window by the evil elves, leaving Max alone in the cab of the lorry. For some reason, the engine that was running is now turned off, and he decides to pursue the evil he has escaped. Some people are never happy.
1:22:26 Krampus alights right in front of Max and tosses the letter to Father Christmas Max had torn up at Max’s feet. Krampus doesn’t care about human life or the environment. #FatherChristmess
Santa Claws
1:22:54 After Krampus kills Max’s entourage, he gives Max a big bell and takes off, just as he had with flashback Omi.
[N.B. After Krampus takes Max’s kin, he gives Max his life and the bell in a tacit pact that Max will celebrate Christmas and keep the Christmas spirit. This is the same bargain he had with Omi.]
This rings a bell
[N.B. The entire text of the bell reads ‘Gruss von Krampus’, or ‘Greetings from Krampus’.]
1:23:06
Omi [in flashback voice-over]: He left me as a reminder of what happens when hope is lost, when belief is forgotten, and the Christmas spirit dies.
This for those who are slower than a snail in paste…
1:25:06 Walking away from the scene, Max happens upon the evil beasties with Krampus in what appears to be an open air courtroom to judge Stevie. Max yells that he takes back his wish. After he throws his Krampus bell back, the earth opens and a gateway to Hell opens. No one, it seems, likes to deal with gift returns.
[N.B. This scene is critical for the ending. As we saw at 53:44, when Omi complained about Christmas as a child, Krampus eliminated her family and spared her, leaving her with a bell as a reminder. At 1:22:54, Krampus gave Max a bell, entering into the same contract with the boy: I’ll take your family but I’ll give you this bell as a marker against your life, for as long as you honour Christmas.]
“Are you always this horny?”
1:26:52 Max pleads with Krampus to undo the evil he’s done and offers himself up as a sacrifice to replace his family. Krampus slowly touches his long, sharp claw to Max’s tear and…laughs as his minions toss Stevie into the hell pit. Now I’m afraid, I’m afraid the film is going to ruin this gorgeous development in favour of a happy ending.
1:27:08 Krampus holds Max over the pit by his head and the boy starts screaming to be let go. Apparently, that whole ‘take me instead’ bit was just a bluff.
1:27:35
Go to hell, Max!
[N.B. This shot is a nod to the 1970 version of Scrooge, where the miser tumbles backwards into a grave and falls all the way to hell.]
From ChristmasTVHistory.com – Clicking on the link will take you to the site
1:27:42 Max wakes up in a room that is noticeably brighter and tidier than the one he went to sleep in. His dreams must not have been dirty.
I can’t think of a clean joke
[N.B. The observant viewer will notice the posters referencing the TV shows Robot Chicken and Rick and Morty. The explanation is that Seth Green, the force behind Robot Chicken, and Justin Roiland, the voices of both Rick and Morty in the animated series, have cameos in this film, playing antagonists ‘Lumpy’ and ‘Clumpy’, respectively.]
1:27:55 The first thing Max does is open ’25’ on the advent calendar, symbolizing the end of the dream that he began when he opened ’23’ at 0:20:08. Like my love life, this film is simply a nightmare.
[N.B. This ending is a reference to A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens (the story of Scrooge), where a man who hates Christmas is visited by ghosts in his dream and wakes up on Christmas morning full of the Christmas spirit. This ending is foreshadowed in the opening scene where the film version is on the telly.]
1:28:48 Not only was last night a dream, but now the families who had been at each other’s throats are closer than a brother and sister on their honeymoon.
1:29:13
SOL Smirk Out Loud
1:30:42 The requisite ‘it was all a dream…or was it?’ ending.
Ring my bell
1:32:18 Yes! Brilliant! Just when we start to get used to the idea that it was a dream ending, Max opens the bell gift and everyone becomes deadly serious. The mood changes to one of fear and the camera pulls back to reveal the happy scene is taking place in a house in a street in a snow globe. Krampus had miniaturized them and is keeping them on ice in a glass ball on his shelf. Bonus points for the unpredictable ending.
Hell is freezing over
1:32:11 The house in the globe next to the Engels’ is meant to be the Bates house from Psycho.
The neighbors are psycho!
N.B. The ending to Krampus has stimulated a lot of debate. There are two camps, those who believe that the ending is a metaphor where Krampus is watching over the family to ensure they continue to respect the yuletide holiday, and then there are those who are right. The film makes it clear that when Max renounces the bell, he reneges on the deal Krampus made with him and so is condemned to the same fate as the rest of his family. Points that support this opinion are:
The moment Max returns the bell, he is dropped into Hell
Max’s room and the rest of the house is much brighter in the globe than it was in reality, proving it is a reproduction of the original
The look on the family’s faces reflect an awareness of their fate
Why so serious?
Roll credits
1:32:41 Nice closing credits using a wooden advent calendar. This way, Adam Scott has a date.
1:36:26 While the credits roll, we see Christmas photos of the cast and crew and hear Krampus carols, Christmas carols whose lyrics have been changed in honor of Krampus.
Gruß Vom Krampus Karol of the Bells (to the tune of “Carol of the Bells”)
Children take care,
Please be aware,
All that you’ve done
Will come to bear.
Have you been good?
Behaved as you should?
Those who have not,
It’s understood,
Krampus will come,
Looking for some.
You are unsafe,
Fast as you run.
You’re on his list,
Not what you wished.
This Christmas morn
You will be missed…
You can hear the whole song at the bottom of this playlist (the singing version begins at 3:56):
Tally Ho’
WTF!?’s: 9 that left me cold
When to Follow: Any time during the month of December.
Where’s This Found: Destined to be a Christmas horror classic. While there are no real scares (it is PG-13, after all), the production value is evident when looking at the special effects and the A-list cast, both of which really elevate this film above standard horror comedy fare. And the uncompromising ending earned it an extra ‘F’ from me. Out of a possible 10, I have 8 F’s to give (and ‘9’ in the two weeks before Christmas).
What To Feedback: What is your opinion of the ending? Answer the poll here and please leave a comment with your proof!
I shall be resuscitating The Revanant, digging up its past and examining its body of work to determine if it’s coming up or going down. So read on only if you’ve already seen The Revenant, or don’t plan to.
Crowd at the Guns ‘n’ Roses reunion tour
I thought I’d finished with these reviews for a while, tbh, having returned from my summer hols with a desire to do less and watch more. However, when I saw this website was still receiving over a thousand hits a day, I decided to continue a little longer to see where it takes me. Thanks, then, for your continued support, lurking and trolling.
0:01:38 The film begins with an evil bloke burning a family’s tepee. This for those who like their Indian warmed up. (I heartily apologize for the fact that I was not brought up politically correctly.)
Leo’s career is on fire!
[N.B. The real Hugh Glass was rumoured to have lived for several years with Pawnee Native Americans who had captured him.]
0:04:38 Leonardo DiCaprio slogs through the mud in an olde tyme forest to shoot an elk. His mates at the edge of the woods only want to stick in the mud. I get this, as my friends are quite dirty as well.
Tom Hardy perfects the manspread
0:06:04 A naked, injured man stumbles into the camp where trappers are skinning dead animals. The bloke whose skin wants saving is simply bait to lure out the other trappers so Arikaratribesmen can let loose an assault of arrows on the lot of them. More than one unhappy camper gets the point.
0:19:08 Leonardo portrays Hugh Glass (and I’m sure his friends called him Huge Ass), a sort of guide who is leading the group of fur trappers and their pelts to the safety of a fort. He’s travelling with his son, Hawk (Forrest Goodluck). The boy is half-blood, but full of it.
“Now I see why Johnny Depp turned this down.”
[N.B. There is no record of Hugh Glass ever having had children.]
0:24:53 The scene where the bear simulates raping Hugh is well shot and reminiscent of some of my wilder parties.
The wrong way to feed the bears
0:27:34 Note to self: Bears do not like being shot in the face anymore than you or I, but they can do more about it.
0:42:02 On his death cot in the middle of the forest, Glass has flashbacks to when his wife was killed by marauding soldiers. As his wife is American Indian, we see all the ways he ‘went Native’.
[N.B. There are no official records to support the long-standing rumour that Hugh Glass was married to anyone, let alone a Native American.]
An Indian wrap to go
0:42:38 Three men volunteer to stay behind with Glass while the others save their skins. John Fitzgerald (an Academy Award worthy Tom Hardy), Glass’s son Hawk, and Jim Bridger (a Will Poulter who, even surrounded by talent, still holds his own). Fitzgerald has already started digging a grave for Glass, but you shouldn’t count your chickens before they dispatch.
[N.B. This is actually the part of the film which is closest to reality. After Glass was mauled, General William Henry Ashley (merged into the also real person Andrew Henry in the film) asked for two volunteers (the real Glass had no son) to stay behind and bury Glass after he died. Jim Bridger (19 years old) and John Fitzgerald (23) were those volunteers.]
0:43:45 Fitzgerald explains the Native Americans are the ones who gave him his haircut when they attempted to scalp more than his tickets.
Tom Hardy’s hair also has a big part
Tom Hardy is acting the shite out of his role. Wouldn’t it have been funny if he’d won an Oscar for this and DiCaprio hadn’t? #FunnyAndFair
0:46:37 Fitzgerald begs Glass to blink if he’s willing for Fitzgerald to put him out of everyone’s misery. When he does and Fitzgerald begins to smother him, Hawk interrupts them like a mother when her son forgets to lock the bathroom door.
Hugh realizes it isn’t a cat that’s got his tongue
0:47:26 To keep Hawk quiet, Fitzgerald stabs him a lot and repeatedly. This proves to be an effective method.
0:51:47 Jim and Fitz leave Glass half-buried in a shallow grave, so that they might run away from approaching Native Americans. This makes sense as Glass has had both feet in the grave for awhile now.
A grave problem
[The realBridger and Fitzgerald abandoned Glass, claiming they escaped Arikara Native Americans. The pair took Glass’s weapons and equipment with them when they fled.]
0:54:16 The majority of this film is watching Glass suffer inordinately for over two hours. Like when I watch a Nicolas Cage movie.
0:59:21 Fitzgerald admits he lied about the invading natives to get Jim to move on and leave Glass behind. He says in doing so he saved Jim’s life, but from the way Jim’s reacting, that’s a savings that could have been better off spent.
Not everyone understands Windows
1:00:05 Glass wakes up next to his dead son, wishing he himself were dead tired. #Literally
1:03:32 For dinner, he has a bone to pick with a dead horse.
1:07:21 He cauterizes his neck wound with burning moss on the end of a twig. This explains where National Health Care learned it.
1:11:58 The water in which he’s swimming to escape the Native Americans is cold to the point that DiCaprio’s testicles climbed so high, he’s teabagging himself.
As high as his aspirations
1:19:23 WTF!? At the same moment a flipping comet plummets to the earth, Glass discovers a pyramid made of perfectly stacked cattle skulls. Here I thought LSD was a 20th century invention.
1:21:09 He catches a fish in a tidal pool and invents sushi.
If you knew Sushi like I knew Sushi
1:25:54 Glass meets a Native American man who shares the dead buffalo he’s eating. Glass invents steak tartare.
1:28:08
My heart bleeds…but revenge is in the creator’s hands.
The Native American who adopts Glass after they swap dead family stories
This is the theme of the entire film, and explains why Native Americans were nearly wiped out.
Heard that Jesus was coming
1:32:54 Fitz and Jim make it back to the camp where their Captain (Domhnall Gleeson as Captain Andrew Henry) is waiting for them. Jim feels guilty over lying about how they abandoned Glass. Fitzgerald just takes his money and leaves. He who laughs last, usually has the cash.
1:33:54 Wax was used in DiCaprio’s beard to simulate ice. #Candleinthebeard #Meltin’John
Waxing poetic
1:35:56
‘Snow big deal
1:38:32 Dream sequences put me to sleep.
1:40:34 His Native American mate built him some protection and gave him some supplies before leaving like a Frenchman with two children.
Long distance French kiss
1:41:10 Speaking of Frenchmen, the Frenchies caught up with the Native American and hung him while Glass recuperated. They hung the man and a sign, which reads – in French – “We are all savages.” Some of us more than others.
1:44:48 Glass sneaks up on the French group to steal one of their horses and to rescue the squaw they’re using as a sex doll. Interesting that the filmmakers have once again chosen to make the French the “bad guys”. It makes sense, though, when you realize they couldn’t realistically include a Muslim.
A Frenchman’s fast food
1:45:44 The Native American woman cut off the soldier’s nether head. Now what’s he supposed to think with?
1:45:51 WTF!? Two men dancing together in a tavern!? So that’s how those other blokes broke their backs on the mountain.
1:47:32 In a New Year’s Eve celebration, Captain Henry tells Fitzgerald that Fitz will not get paid until the pelts are recovered. The Captain adds that he marked the $300 bonus as excess expenditures Fitzgerald made, rather than the fee that had been agreed upon. Fitzgerald now has at least one new resolution: Kill Henry.
Even dirty, he’s still hotter than French mustard
1:50:22 Wonderful shot, and I don’t mean the arrow in the horse’s flank.
Mind the gap
1:52:44 This happened.
DiCaprio wears fur
1:53:10
My Dead Little Pony
1:58:14 A Frenchman arrives at the fort with Glass’s canteen. Fitz looks as happy to see the French as a fat snail.
2:00:01 Glass is found, but they keep calling him Jesus Christ.
“I think you’ve mistaken me for someone else.”
2:01:36 Fitzgerald bugged out with the fort’s cash, headed for Texas. Seems as though it was a home to criminals even back in olden times.
[N.B. The real John Fitzgerald joined the army and was stationed in what is now the state of Nebraska. Everything that happens in the film from this point on did not really happen!]
2:07:52 The Captain and Glass go on a manhunt. Like me every Friday night.
Hunting bargains at the thrift shop
2:11:32 Fitzgerald kills and scalps the Captain. Hair today, gone today too.
2:14:21 Glass tricks Fitzgerald by propping up the Captain’s corpse with a stick in a rider’s position, while he himself lies under a blanket on the back of the second horse as if he were the corpse. Fitzgerald shoots the corpse disguised as Glass and when he approaches, Glass waits patiently for Fitzgerald to realize it’s a trap and aim his rifle, before shooting Fitz. WTF!?
2:22:19 After a bloody good fight scene, Glass remembers the line about revenge being in God’s hands, so he sends the fatally wounded Fitzgerald to float ten metres down the river to where bloodthirsty Native Americans wait to do God’s work. Glass decides to leave revenge in God’s hands, and then decides to play God.
Hugh isn’t the only thing on edge
[N.B. The real Hugh Glass soon met Jim Bridger again at a camp, and forgave Bridger, perhaps because of his young age. Glass eventually caught up with Fitzgerald at Fort Atkinson, Nebraska. When they met, Fitzgerald returned Glass’s rifle and no one fought or killed anybody.]
2:23:52 The selfsame Native Americans ride on past Glass because he saved their female from the French. It’s like they’re real Indians and this is karma.
2:26:01 He then probably dies in the snow after seeing his wife’s ghost. So it probably doesn’t matter that the Native Americans spared him. It was, like much of this film, pointless.
[N.B. Hugh Glass died in fact 10 years after the bear attack. He was in the army and killed by Arikara Native Americans.]
Where Frosty was last seen
Roll credits
2:34:07 Even the credits are over-long. Ten minutes of buck passing.
Tally Ho’
WTF!?’s: 4 that refuse to die.
When to Follow: A weekend afternoon when you don’t have to do anything else, but can go out in the evening afterwards and talk about how intellectual you are.
Where’s This Found: This is a hearty film, in that DiCaprio puts forth some of his most physical acting ever. It’s also a also a hardy film in its epic scope. And it’s a Hardy film, as well, because Tom Hardy turns in a stellar performance. The Revenant reminds me of The Martian as it’s the kind of film you’re glad you watched, but know you’ll never watch again. Out of a possible 10, I have 7 F’s to give.
What To Feedback: Poll time!
[Note: As readers have voted ‘Other’ for films I’d not originally included, I’ve since added The Revenant, Titanic and Shutter Island to the poll. Thank you for sharing your p.o.v.!]
“Shite! The toilet paper!”“This looks like a good place to start my forest.”Hugh and his wife go head to head“♪ I wanna hold my ha-a-a-a-a-and, I wanna hold my hand. ♬”Uber in 1823Do-it-yourself circumcisionPlaying ‘Guess the suppository’Hill for the heads
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WTF!? do you meme?
What to Follow Up
WTF review of similar themed filmWTF review of another film dealing with being stuck in the wildernessWTF review of another film by Alejandro Gonzalez InarrituOh Al! A Bar None review of Jurassic WorldFernby Films review of another DiCaprio effort
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I shall be mapping out Star Wars: The Force Awakens, investigating its space and analysing its stars to observe if it’s a super nova or a black hole. So read on only if you’ve already seen Star Wars: The Force Awakens, or don’t plan to.
0:00:51 We learn from the opening crawler that the First Order has replaced the evil Empire and they want to eliminate Luke Skywalker, who has disappeared. The New Republic (a.k.a. ‘the good guys’) is led by once Princess Leia Organa, now a General, who is also looking for Luke, her brother. She has sent ‘her most daring pilot’ (Oscar Isaac as Poe Dameron) to a planet called Jakku, ‘where an old ally [Max Von Sydow as Jedi historian Lor San Tekka] has discovered a clue to Luke’s whereabouts’.
0:02:27 The Stormtroopers in the carrier ship at the beginning are a tribute to the landing of the troops at the beginning of the Spielberg masterpiece Saving Private Ryan.
0:03:14 Lor gives Poe an electronic file with a map to Luke’s location.
This should begin to make things right.
Lor San Tekka
The first line of the film is an apology for Star Wars prequels 1-3!
0:03:24 BB-8, SW:TFA‘s (Star Wars: The Force Awakens) version of R2-D2, informs Poe and Lor that the enemy’s arrival is imminent.
0:04:42 Before Poe can abscond with the map file, Stormtroopers make good use of their selective aim by disabling his X-wing fighter but not hitting anything more consequent.
0:05:51 One of the Stormtroopers, obviously uneasy judging from his movements, is marked with the blood of his dying comrade. We’ll soon discover this is FN-1287, or Finn (John Boyega).
0:07:17 Kylo Ren (Adam Driver), SW:TFA‘s version of Darth Vader, arrives to interrogate Lor.
Lor: The First Order rose from the Dark Side. You did not.
Here, Lor references Kylo’s heritage as the son of Han Solo and Leia Organa.
0:07:36 Kylo kills Lor with a crossguard lightsaber, following which Poe is arrested while trying to shoot Kylo.
0:08:36 In case you needed to be reminded that Kylo is evil, he orders the mass execution of the villagers on Jakku. The blood smeared Stormtrooper from earlier isn’t able to go through with this.
0:09:41 The Star Destroyer in which Kylo Ren and General Hux fly at the beginning is called The Finalizer.
0:10:26 The Captain of the Stormtroopers (Gwendoline Christieas Phasma) tells Trooper FN-2187 to submit his blaster for inspection because she suspects him of not shooting enough villagers (and not because of his Stormtrooper aim).
[N.B. This is the first Game of Thrones cameo, as Gwendoline Christie is Brienne of Tarth in GoT. In other news, Phasma’s armour is chrome as it coated in salvaged chromium from a Naboo yacht once owned by Emperor Palpatine.]
[N.B. Her name, Phasma, is a nod to one of Abrams’ cult films Phantasm, in which the antagonist uses a deadly silver sphere as a weapon.]
0:11:08
0:11:34 A young woman (Daisy Ridley as Rey, SW:TFA‘s Luke Skywalker) is scavenging a wrecked Star Destroyer for parts.
The helmet Rey puts on belonged to Captain Dosmit Ræh of the Tierfon Yellow Aces. (The characters on the side are Aurebesh characters that spell ‘Ræh’, pronounced ‘Rey’. This implies she took the name Rey from the helmet, and that her real name, and lineage, are a mystery.)
0:14:43
0:15:22 Rey rescues BB-8 from Teedo, who only wants BB-8 for parts. Frankly, I’m surprised the little bugger gave up BB-8 so easily. You’d think it’d be the law of finders/keepers in the world of scavenging.
0:15:58
Niima Outpost is that way. Stay off Kelvin Ridge. Keep away from the Sinking Fields in the north.
Rey to BB-8
Henry Kelvin is J.J. Abrams’ grandfather.
0:16:44 Rey reluctantly agrees to look after BB-8 for the night. I call WTF!? Why is she against keeping him? Why would anyone not want to have a sophisticated droid about?
0:18:24 Rey mentions she’s waiting for her family to return and it sounds like false optimism.
Finn (John Boyega, who J.J. Abrams and I both noticed in Attack the Block) breaks Poe out of jail because he needs someone who can pilot a TIE fighter off the Finalizer.
[N.B. Another GoT cameo. Thomas Brodie-Sangster appears here as Petty Officer Thanisson, and is Jojen Reed in Game of Thrones.]
Thomas Brodie-Sangster as First Order Officer Petty Officer Thanisson
0:22:05
Poe Dameron: Hey, what’s your name?
FN-2187/Finn: FN-2187.
Poe: F… what?
FN-2187/Finn: That’s the only name they ever gave me.
Poe: Well, I ain’t using it. F-N, huh? ‘Finn’. I’m going to call you ‘Finn’.
[N.B. ‘2187’ was also Princess Leia’s holding cell number in A New Hope and a reference to the film 21-87 which inspired George Lucas to make Star Wars.]
0:23:41 The TIE fighter is hit by enemy lasers and crash lands on Jakku, which is where Poe was headed anyway as he wants to retrieve his droid.
0:24:44 At the wreckage, Finn has only enough time to recover Poe’s leather jacket before the TIE fighter is swallowed by the Sinking Fields (see Rey, 15:58).
0:26:17
Kylo Ren: How capable are your soldiers, General?
General Hux (Domhnall Gleeson): I won’t have you question my methods.
Kylo: They’re obviously skilled at committing high treason. Perhaps Leader Snoke should consider using a clone army.
[N.B. Not only did Oscar Isaac (Poe Dameron) appear beside Domhnall Gleeson inEx Machina, but he also previously shared the screen with Adam Driver (Kylo Ren) in Inside Llewyn Davis.]
Oscar Isaac, Justin Timberlake, Adam Driver in Inside Llewyn Davis
0:28:32 Finn finds his way across the desert to the Niima Outpost, where Rey stops him after BB-8 recognizes the jacket Finn is wearing.
0:29:08 BB-8 is sad thinking Poe died in the accident. 😢
MRW this site has a slow day
0:31:47 WTF!? I’ve surely missed something. The Millennium Falcon is simply sitting on the runway, full of fuel and ready to go, yet no one is in it or guarding it? Someone simply left the keys in it and took off? If people in the present are too smart to do this, what does it say about the future?
‘The garbage will do!’
0:32:24 Despite the Falcon’s not having been flown in years, it starts immediately and whisks Rey, Finn and BB-8 off into the galaxy.
[N.B. For those amongst you keeping score, the Super-Star Destroyer through which Rey flies during the chase scene is the Ravager.]
0:38:32
Get fired up!
0:39:30 A tractor beam pulls the Millennium Falcon into the giant shipping freighter Eravana, piloted by Han Solo. I call WTF!? If Han was just loitering about air space around Jakku, why didn’t he make an effort to recover the ship himself? That he happens to be in the same lost corner of the entire universe the moment his ship finally takes off for the first time in years…I find fortuitous, to say the least.
0:41:34
Rey: This is the ship that made the Kessel Run in 14 parsecs.
Han: 12!
Here’s a running joke that ran all the way from the first film to the last.
Speaking of blasts from the past, here are other things we’ve déja vued…
0:43:14 Han says he’s hauling Rathtars (the type of alien that caused the Trillia massacre) to King Prana, and that his ship is about to be boarded by the Guavian Death Gang.
0:45:48 While attempting to close the blast doors to isolate the rival gangs who are both after Solo, Rey accidentally opens the doors that are containing the Rathtars.
0:45:54
Han Solo: I got a bad feeling about this.
If Star Wars truly were a sitcom, this would be Han’s catchphrase.
0:46:02
0:47:11 WTF!? The Rathtars have, up to now, been eating their prey immediately with no pause or hesitation, yet when they capture Finn, they decide to take him on a tour of the ship instead.
0:48:56 After rescuing Finn, Rey and Finn join Han and a wounded Chewbacca in the Millennium Falcon for a quick escape.
Han Solo: We’re going out of here at light speed.
Rey: From inside the hangar? Is that even possible?
Han: I never ask that question til after I’ve done it.
0:49:17 Bala-Tik radios a message to the First Order that the droid they’re after is aboard the Millennium Falcon.
0:49:37 Snoke (Andy Serkis) is Supreme Leader of the First Order.
‘If Skywalker returns, the new Jedi will rise.’
[N.B. Snoke’s pose is said to be modeled on the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. in America.]
0:50:08 Hux wants to use the weapon of mass destruction to destroy the government that supports the Republic. This way, the rebels will be vulnerable and can be stopped before reaching Skywalker.
0:50:31 Snoke speaks to Kylo Ren.
‘There has been an awakening. Have you felt it?’
0:50:48
Supreme leader [to Kylo]: The droid we seek is aboard the Millennium Falcon, in the hands of your father…Han Solo.
0:52:20
0:52:58 While looking at the piece of the map BB-8 is carrying, Han speaks to his new compatriots, explaining why Luke went into seclusion.
Han Solo: He was training a new generation of Jedi. One boy, an apprentice, turned against him, destroyed it all. Luke felt responsible. He just walked away from everything.
That boy will turn out to be Kylo Ren.
0:53:29 So, where did Luke go?
Han Solo: The people that knew him best think he went looking for the first Jedi temple.
Rey: The Jedi were real!
Han: I used to wonder about that myself. Thought it was a bunch of mumbo-jumbo. A magical power holding together good and evil, the dark side and the light. Crazy thing is, it’s true. The Force. The Jedi. It’s all true.
0:54:11 Han agrees to help by meeting Maz Kanata (Lupita Nyong’o) who will help them get the droid to the Resistance base.
0:54:42
‘I didn’t know there was this much green in the whole galaxy.’
0:57:04 To get BB-8 on a ship harder to trace than the Falcon, the group must talk to Maz Kanata, a 1000-year-old Force-sensitive female smuggler who has built a castle with her riches on the planet Takodana.
[N.B. One of the main differences is that J.J. Abrams reintroduced the wolfman that Lucas removed from A New Hope.]
0:59:42 Kylo Ren prays to Darth Vader’s helmet, asking to be shown the force of the dark side because he feels himself being drawn to the light. He refers to Darth Vader as ‘grandfather’ because his mother, General Leia Organa, is Darth Vader’s daughter.
“Show me again the power of the darkness.”
1:01:14
If you live long enough, you see the same eyes in different people
Maz uses her adjustable goggles to get a better look into people’s eyes so that she might see what they’re feeling.
1:02:08 Finn finally admits to Rey that he’s not really in the Resistance, and that his main interest at this point is hiding in the Outer Rim, a sort of wild west in the Star Wars’ universe.
1:05:33 After Finn leaves to seek his misfortune, Rey hears the disjointed voice of a child calling out coming from the cellar. When she goes to investigate, she discovers a lightsaber.
‘That lightsaber was Luke’s, and his father’s before him. And now, it calls to you…’
1:06:34 When she touches it, she has a very intense vision. This reaction is a demonstration of a new power attributed to Jedis: Psychometry. This is the gift by which a Jedi can tell the history and future of an object simply by touching it.
[N.B. There is much debate online concerning Rey’s lineage, with the two main camps citing either Luke Skywalker or Obi-Wan Kenobi as her geniture. IMHO, this scene is proof that Rey is Obi-Wan Kenobi’s granddaughter. The voices she hears when she touches the lightsaber are first Sir Alec Guinness (Obi-Wan Kenobi in Episodes 4-6) who says ‘Rey’, and then Ewan McGregor (Obi-Wan Kenobi in Episodes 1-3) who adds ‘these are your first steps’.]
1:06:54
Maz: That lightsaber was Luke’s, and his father’s before him [N.B. Darth Vader]. And now, it calls to you…
1:08:34 In a panic, Rey refuses to take the saber, preferring instead to run into the woods to hide.
1:08:39 SW:TFA‘s version of the Death Star, which is meant to be a planet. #deathplanet
Does this look like a planet to you?
1:09:09
Seriously? A planet?
1:09:52
“All remaining systems will bow to the first order!”
1:10:49 The Starkiller Base blows up the Hosnian system (SW:TFA‘s version of the Death Star blowing up Alderaan) consisting of several planets, including Hosnian Prime. This planet was chosen as a target because it was the capital of the New Republic, both politically and militarily.
[N.B. The Hosnian system is named after venerable high school teacher Jim Hosney, who taught film to throngs of people, including several of Abram’s producing partners.]
“And remember this as the last day of the Republic!”
1:11:48
1:12:16 Finn changes his mind about running away, so Maz gives him Luke’s old lightsaber to give to Rey, while the First Order launch an assault on the planet to find BB-8.
1:13:04 3 Stormtroopers fire 5 shots with 0 hits. Rey, a novice, fires 5 shots and kills 3 Stormtroopers. And, theoretically, the Stormtroopers were trained from birth to do this.
1:15:18 The Stormtroopers decide it’s pointless to try and hit Han, Chewbacca and Finn with their shots, so they arrest them instead.
1:15:32 The Resistance, led by Poe Dameron, come to the rescue.
‘It’s the Resistance!’
1:18:37 As the First Order lose the battle, Kylo Ren finds Rey and, realising she’s storing the map leading to Luke in her memory, he puts her under his spell, picks her up and carries her with him as he orders a retreat.
1:19:52 General Leia Organa arrives on a troop ship and reunites with Han, her ex. As per usual, C-3PO ruins the moment. (C-3PO’s red arm will be explained in a one-off Marvel comic scheduled for release April 13, 2016.)
1:21:00
D’Qar in the Ileenium system
1:23:40
“R2-D2 has been in low-power mode ever since Master Luke went away.”
1:24:48 Han and Leia go over their breakup. She blames it on losing their son Kylo when she sent him to train with Luke, because the boy had too much Vader in him. Leia believes Snoke seduced their son to the dark side, but has faith Kylo can still be saved. While Leia’s son is lost, at least Carrie Fisher’s daughter is safe…
Carrie Fisher’s daughter Billie Lourd as Lieutenant Connix
Another cameo at about this moment is Harriet Walter as Dr. Kalonia, who treats Chewbacca. She is not only Lady Shackleton in Downton Abbey, but she is also niece of Christopher Lee / Count Dooku.
Harriet Walter as Dr. Kalonia
1:29:06 Kylo is somewhat taken aback that not only can Rey resist his mental prodding, but she can use the connection to read his mind and learn his biggest fear is that he’ll never be as strong as Darth Vader.
1:29:36 Snoke, General Hux and Kylo decide to destroy the Ileenium system with their massive gun before the Resistance can use BB-8’s map to find Skywalker.
1:31:06
You will remove these restraints and leave the cell with the door open.
Rey to her Storm Trooper guard
The third try she uses the right tone of voice and it creates a whoosh sound which means she’s learned how to use the Force for mind control.
[N.B. The Stormtrooper whose brain she washes is none other than Daniel Craig.]
Stormtrooper ‘JB-007’
1:31:56 Meanwhile, those on the new Death Star (sorry, Starkiller Base) start charging the laser by draining energy from a nearby sun.
1:33:26 Finn tells the Resistance how they can lower the defensive shields on the Starkiller to allow the Resistance pilots to fly in and destroy the base by exploding an oscillator. There is also this cameo by Ken Leung as Admiral Statura. Ken was Miles Straume in J.J. Abrams’ Lost.
1:36:20 Han gets through the Starkiller’s shields by flying the Millennium Falcon at light speed. He lands on the edge of a snowy precipice and I’m reminded the Starkiller is simply a weapon built into a planet. Looking at this Screenshot of the Starkiller beside the Death Star, I understand my confusion.
“They’ve somehow created a hyper-lightspeed weapon built within the planet itself.”
1:36:48
Han: What was your job when you were based here?
Finn: Sanitation.
WTF!? Then what was he doing on Jakku at the very beginning of the film with the Search & Destroy party? There are not many garbage men that have to massacre entire encampments. On their other hand, this does explain why Stormtroopers can’t even hit the road.
1:37:20 Solar Power
“Remember, when the sun is gone, that weapon is ready to fire.”
The T-17s, as far as I can tell, are a great improvement.
Yeah, that’s what they tell you. But, believe me, they don’t hold up.
This harkens back to a conversation two Stormtroopers had in A New Hope, when they discuss the BT-16.
[N.B. This conversation is barely intelligible. I was able to quote it verbatim as I watch most of the films I review with subtitles on.]
1:39:08 Finn, Solo and Chewbacca pressure Phasma at gunpoint to lower the shields.
1:39:22
Finn: What do we do with her [Phasma]?
Han: Is there a garbage chute? A trash compactor?
This is a reference to Star Wars episode 4: A New Hope, where Han, Leia, Luke and Chewbacca were trapped in a trash compactor on the Death Star.
1:39:51
“General, their shields are down.”
1:4:28 My new favourite member of the Resistance is officially Ello Asty! He’s named after the Beastie Boys album Hello Nasty (J.J. Abrams is a fan of the Beasties), and the inscription on the side of his helmet is Aurebesh for ‘Born to Ill’. This inscription is a reference to both ‘Born To Kill’ (the text scrawled across Matthew Modine‘s helmet in Full Metal Jacket) and the Beastie Boys’ album Licensed to Ill.
Ello Asty is Born To Ill
The third Game of Thrones cameo is Jessica Henwick (Nymeria Sand in GoT) as Resistance pilot Jessika Pava (a.k.a. ‘Jess Testor’).
Jessika Pava / Jess Testor
1:40:48 TIE fighters join the fight to repel the resistance fighters shooting at the oscillator, which will trigger the self-destruction of the laser.
1:41:52 Finn, Han and Chewbacca meet up with Rey in the corridor of the Starkiller.
1:42:36
“They’re in trouble. We can’t leave.”
1:45:28 While placing explosive devices in the Starkiller to hamper the First Order’s destruction of the attacking resistance X-wing force, Han comes out of hiding to confront his son (whom he addresses as Ben).
I’d like to call WTF. At 1:36:34, Kylo senses his father dozens of miles away through space and a spacecraft, yet he doesn’t sense him when they’re in the same room?
1:49:06 Kylo Ren says he’s torn between the dark and light side and asks his father for help. The help he means is to die for him, because he kills his father with a lightsaber.
[N.B. We can even see Kylo literally make the transition from 50% Dark side to 100% Dark side.]
1:49:21
“Noooooo!!!!!”
1:50:32 Chewbacca, in his grief, shoots and wounds Kylo, then detonates the explosives he and Han placed. The oscillator is damaged, but the laser still will go off…in two minutes.
1:51:47 Kylo catches up with Finn and Rey as they make a break through the forest to reach the Millennium Falcon. He throws Rey against a tree using the Force, and then commences a lightsaber duel with Finn.
1:52:24 WTF!? For a janitor, Finn defends himself very well against a Jedi master.
1:53:06 Rey regains consciousness and wins a Force tug-of-war with Kylo Ren over the lightsaber Finn has dropped.
1:54:14 Like in A New Hope, the resistance has to fly the fighters through a narrow passage to attain their target and destroy the Death Star Starkiller Base.
1:55:18 Poe hits his target and destroys the laser.
1:57:01 Meanwhile, Rey is doing much worse against Kylo than a garbage man, until Kylo reminds her she has the Force. He says he’ll train her, but just remembering she can use the Force is enough to turn the tide of the battle and give her the upper hand.
1:58:06 Before she can kill Kylo, the explosion divides the earth between them, and Rey runs back to Finn.
1:58:34 Snoke tells General Hux to abandon the planet and come to him with Kylo Ren so that he might finish Kylo’s training. His tone is so ominous that its repercussions will be felt in the sequel.
1:59:57
“Our job’s done here. Let’s go home.”
2:00:51 Back on the Ileenium system, Leia, realising her fears are true and that Han is dead, hugs Rey tightly.
[N.B. If you haven’t had the feels for a while, check out the story behind the pink R2 unit at the bottom of the screenshot. The bot is called R2-KT after Katy Johnson, a young girl with a terminal illness who has become a part of Star Wars canon. Read the story here, but be forewarned, your eyes are going to water…]
2:01:22 Somehow, R2-D2 knows all of this has transpired and magically comes to life to complement BB-8’s map with a larger one for context. That way, everyone can see where the planet with the first Jedi temple where Luke is hiding is.
2:02:20
“The map, it is complete”
2:03:55 The goodbye party for Rey and Chewbacca as they take the Millennium Falcon to find Luke on Ahch-To.
2:06:05 At long last, Rey reaches her goal and returns Luke’s lightsaber to its rightful owner.
2:06:21
Roll credits
Tally Ho’
WTF!?’s: 10 stellar ones
When to Follow: In place of any of the episodes 1-3. Or, if you’re a fan of the Machete Order, this should be placed at the end. If you don’t know what order you like, look here.
Where’s This Found: This film holds its own in the Star Wars universe. While I find it so similar to the original (Episode IV – A New Hope) that it feels more like a remake than a relaunch, I enjoyed watching it far more than any of the newer episodes (Episode I – Phantom Menace, Episode II – Attack of the Clones, Episode III – Revenge of the Sith). The cast, the story line and the absence of Jar Jar Binks, Ewoks or Hayden Christensen (who is a combination of Ewoks and Jar Jar, if you think about it), means that I count this one as a win. Out of a possible 10, I have 7 F’s to give
What To Feedback: In addition to commenting on any Easter Eggs I might have forgotten (or ignored), please answer the following!
The difference between PG-13 and R ratings: in PG-13 films, they’re putting each other’s clothes *on*
0:00:36
Smoking grass
0:01:12 Colonel Darcy (the gorgeous Sam Riley) arrives at an estate and must enter it through the sewer. Perhaps he wants to give a shite.
0:01:44
No zombie bite marks on this pristine young body.
Pervy priest (Jonathan Oliver as ‘Priest’) poring over Darcy’s body with a magnifying class
Apart from this being my new fantasy, I think this may be the first time I agree with a priest.
Before the Internet
0:02:02
Darcy: How were you able to discern that the wound on my rib was from fencing?
Priest: I’ve been at this a long time, my son.
Darcy: I have no wound.
Darcy chastises the priest for ogling him. To be fair to the priest, maybe he meant he’d been ogling a long time.
0:03:12 Darcy enters a day room filled with genteel whist players.
Putting the cards on the table
Darcy [to Mrs. Featherstone (Dolly Wells), the lady of the manor]: A newly infected zombie is almost impossible to detect until they’ve ingested their first human brains, at which point the transformation accelerates with each subsequent kill.
Now I understand the reason behind the priest’s examination (other than his examination of the behind).
0:04:38 Darcy releases carrion flies from a vial, and they alight on the forehead of a card player (Angus Kennedyas Mr. Kingston), proving he’s a corpse. Darcy takes his knife and causes the bloke to lose his head.
0:05:54 A young blonde girl called Cassandra (Hermione Corfield) goes to one of their guest’s room to discover that more than Annabelle’s (Jess Radomska) social life is dead. Annabelle then attacks Cassandra, getting some good face time.
A face only a mummy could love
0:06:08 The opening credits are a puppet show history of zombies in the Regency era, which is fun to watch and rather well done.
From the colonies there came not just silks and spices but a virulent and abominable plague. Naturally, many suspected the French were to blame.
Carrying French Toast
0:07:24 Much is made of this distinction throughout the film.
At this time it became fashionable to study the deadly arts of the orient. Japan for the wealthy. China for the wise.
The Bennets studied in China, as they’re as rich as rice cakes.
0:10:32
Dressed to Kill pt 1
Dressed to Kill pt 2
0:11:48 A father of five daughters (Charles Dance as Mr. Bennet) who seem to be the same age acquiesces to his wife’s request to take the girls to a ball to meet the latest available bachelor, Mr. Charles Bingley (Douglas Booth). His is a face one might find handsome…if one is constantly confronted with zombies.
That drink’ll put hair on your eyebrows
0:13:46 Mr. Bingley asks the blondest of the daughters (Bella Heathcoteas Jane Bennet) for the next two dances.
Mrs. Bennet (Sally Phillips): Good for you, Mr. Bingley! You chose the loveliest of my two daughters.
Well, she’s tolerable, but not handsome enough to tempt me.
Mr. Darcy speaking about Elizabeth (while she eavesdrops)
After all, her own mother probably wouldn’t disagree.
0:16:06
Touch ups
0:16:15 While Elizabeth exits to complain about Darcy to herself, she’s joined by Mrs. Featherstone, whom she discovers is undead. Just as the late lady is about to tell her something, Darcy blows off her dead head.
0:17:04
Deadutauntes
This is the last good bit of the film. I recommend you stop watching after it because, unlike a zombie, it will not return from the dead.
0:17:17 The battle scene might be more effective if there were blood on her sword after she killed a zombie.
0:17:53 The five daughters are remarkably deft at zombie slaying, as demonstrated by this well choreographed fight scene.
Darcy: Her face is rendered uncommonly intelligent by the beautiful expression of her dark eyes, and I’m forced to acknowledge her figure as both light and pleasing; and that her arms are surprisingly muscular, but not so much as to be unfeminine.
After watching Elizabeth defeat the zombies, Darcy seems to be willing to give her a fighting chance.
Liz is a stabbing pain
0:19:32 Instead of philosophizing over tea, as they would have done in the original book [click on this link to read it for free], the girls have a conversation about pride and vanity while sparring. #FightingWords
0:22:34 On her way to visit the Bingleys for tea, Jane is thrown by her horse and, after eliminating the father zombie, she faces a mother zombie with a zombie baby. The screen fades to black.
Breast Feeding
0:23:41 At the Bingleys’, Elizabeth arrives to visit her sister Jane, who is ailing. We don’t know if Jane’s sick from the ill weather or the zombies. Or perhaps it’s simply her feelings which have been hurt by this review.
0:25:07 Darcy releases more carrion flies [see 04:38] to determine if Jane is a zombie. He waited a tad too long, however, for now Elizabeth is here and she catches the flies one by one, only to return them to him in dead crumbs resembling meat raisins.
0:30:08 The Bennet women come to collect Jane, and leave young Bingley with the promise of a dance once Jane has recovered. In other words, they’ll have a ball.
I’d love to be the book between their ends
0:31:21 The Bennets receive the visit of a certain cousin, Parson Collins, who will inherit the Bennets’ property once Mr. Bennet dies. Because the Bennets have no male children, Collins will get an heir cut.
0:32:52 At the table, Collins speaks of his patroness: Lady Catherine de Bourgh (Lena Headly).
She’s the most deadly swordswoman in all of Great Britain.
Keep an eye out
0:33:14 Collins confesses his affection for Jane, but on learning she’s spoken for, he immediately redirects his affections towards Elizabeth. One wonders what his aim is.
Badass Batckscratcher
0:36:10 At a town called Meryton, the younger Bennet daughters [am I really expected to learn all of their names? Oh, alright then, it’s Ellie Bamberas Lydia and Suki Waterhouseas Catherine ‘Kitty’ Bennet] meet Lieutenant George Wickham (Jack Huston), who’s been assigned to the division as reinforcement for the recent zombie upsurge. He speaks with the same soft rasp as Mr. Darcy, as if they’re competing in Batman impressions.
0:39:22 Elizabeth seems quite smitten with lieutenant Wickham, and he explains to her that he grew up with Mr. Darcy. He adds that Darcy’s father treated him so much like a son that when the elder man died, he bequeathed half his fortune to Wickham. Darcy, on the other hand, turned around and gave it to another man. Elizabeth takes Wickham’s side, but I’ve seen more films than she so I’m a tad suspicious of his story.
0:42:58
Mrs. Bennet [drunk at the Bingley’s ball]: I predict a wedding in under three months. Such a charming young man. He’s so…well, rich! Jane marrying Bingley is bound to throw her younger sisters in the way of other rich men, and then…
Darcy overhears this last bit and it will make him want to separate Jane and Charles Bingley, or split heirs.
0:46:48 Suddenly and without reason, we’re informed Darcy has a sister and Charles Bingley is now meant to marry her. They skirt him off to London, spitting in the face of the love he and Jane share. We’re treading dangerously close to Downton Abbey territory here, and further away from the fun bits. #DownturnAbbey
0:48:08 Parson Collins arrives and proposes marriage to Elizabeth, adding she will have to hang up her arms if she acquiesces. Like rock music in an old folks’ home, she turns him down.
0:48:50
Lizzy, an unhappy alternative is before you. Your mother will never speak to you again if you do not marry Mr. Collins, and I will never speak to you again if you do.
Mr. Bennet
The Bennet girls make their dresses from old kitchen curtains
0:50:42 While Elizabeth walks in the forest to clear her head, she comes across four mysterious men in top hats, who disappear when Mr. Wickham arrives to show her his special place. (Not that one.)
0:52:26 Mr. Wickham takes her to a church (Saint Lazarus – aptly named after the bloke Jesus brought back from the dead) in which zombies are the congregation and communion is served with pig’s brains. This makes sense, as Jesus was the original zombie.
Stick out your tongue and say Aaaauuuggghhh!
0:52:41
Mr. Wickham: If they never consume human brains, they will never fully transform into zombies. [see Darcy’s speech at 3:12]
Wickham, hoping to form an alliance with the intelligent zombies, considers this to be a happy compromise, as the zombies are beginning to outnumber people. I mean, why not negotiate? Most politicians are zombies already.
0:53:24 Liz’s friend Charlotte Lucas (Aisling Loftus) comes to visit Elizabeth and announces she’s to be married to Parson Collins. Elizabeth is recruited to be chaperone when Charlotte goes with Collins to meet his aunt Lady Catherine de Bourgh, the zombie slayer. Lady Catherine cuts quite an imposing figure, if that figure is undead.
0:55:12
‘They have the sweet weapons and all I get is this lousy scale!’
‘The four horsemen of the zombie apocalypse’ When they’re dead, the end of days is nigh.
Parson Collins
These blokes’ fronts resemble the backs of the four mysterious men Elizabeth spotted in the cemetery [around 39:00].
0:57:12 Lieutenant Wickham pleads to Lady Catherine for funds to realise his plan.
Wickham: I believe we can cultivate trust, and even good will, with this new iteration of the undead who seem to possess an inherent power over the lower ranks of their kind.
Lady Catherine [laughing]: Zombie aristocrats!?
I thought that was redundant.
Granddad always had such good taste
1:01:32 In the grounds, late at night, Wickham tells Elizabeth that Darcy told Bingley to stay away from Jane, as Darcy considers her to be inferior to his friend. I believe I’ve stumbled upon this film’s secret!By avoiding any action and focusing on Regency era protocol, this film turns its viewers into zombies!
1:02:12 Wickham beseeches Elizabeth to run away with him but she turns him down, so he tells her to ‘Take you to the pasture, Miss Bennet, the day of thinking is upon us.’ I think this means he’s calling her a cow. 🐄
1:04:06 Darcy proposes marriage to Elizabeth, whom he confesses he loves against his better judgement. When she confronts him with the truth of his trying to break up Bingley and Jane, they attack each other with letter openers and fire pokers. Aww, their first fight.
Busted!
1:08:44 What, the constant, long-winded dialogue without any sort of action is still too exciting for you? Fear not, the next scene is a long explanation in which Darcy justifies his protecting Bingley because of what he’d heard Mrs. Bennet say about marrying off her daughters. Then a recounting of how Wickham poisoned Darcy’s father to get his inheritance and, after squandering that, he tried to seduce Darcy’s 15-year-old sister. Still too exciting? Don’t worry, all of this was Elizabeth reading a letter.
More blood on her clothes than her sword
1:10:24 Elizabeth realises she loves Darcy, but he’s left to fight zombies in the siege of London. However will he tell the zombies apart from the Londoners?
1:11:30 We aren’t permitted to witness this, but hear in passing about how Wickham runs off with Elizabeth’s sister, Lydia, who is barely no more than a child. Oh well, no rest for the Wickham.
1:12:37 Lady Catherine arrives to force Elizabeth not to marry Darcy, who’s been promised to marry Catherine’s own daughter since infancy. Liz refuses so Catherine sics her burly man servant Wilhem on her.
1:15:11 After defeating Wilhelm in a fight as exciting as stepping in gum, Catherine confesses her admiration for Elizabeth. Elizabeth and Jane go off to rescue Lydia, while Catherine takes the rest of the Bennets back to her property, Rosings.
Some of us are created more equal than others
1:15:42 Elizabeth and Jane cross Hingham Bridge, the last remaining ingress to London. A soldier tells them London has all but fallen to the zombies and that the bridge is to be destroyed at dawn to prevent the undead from taking over the rest of the country. Elizabeth and Jane cross over anyway. Perhaps they’re more desperate for action than the writer is.
1:17:35 WTF!? Jane and Elizabeth save Bingley and Darcy? Where did the blokes come from? At what point did they decide to stop rescuing their sisters and follow their girlfriends?
When you want stiletto heels but don’t have heels 👠
1:18:24 After learning Lydia is at St. Lazarus, Darcy says…
Saint Lazarus, I know it well. I saw it razed to the ground five days ago. Your sister couldn’t have possibly survived.
Darcy should be a doctor in the ICU.
Off the top of my head
1:19:46 Darcy then rides to Saint Lazarus. It would seem Darcy lies to Elizabeth well enough that they could be married…
1:20:58 Bingley, however, lies like a virgin and Elizabeth susses that Saint Lazarus still stands, so she rides off to save her own sister.
1:22:41 WTF!? When Darcy comes to free Lydia, he finds this map in her cell, because isn’t enemy jail cells where everyone keeps strategic war plans?
Still better than Apple maps
1:23:47 Darcy incites Wickham into trying to shoot him, but shifts to a place in the cell where the shot is deflected. The noise attracts the zombies, who seem to attack Wickham though we never see him dead. Meanwhile, Darcy escapes with Lydia through a cell window from which his horse has pulled the bars. Lydia is as free as condoms at a gay pride parade.
1:24:56 Darcy sends Lydia along, while he remains to stay and fight.
Lydia, listen to me. You have to get across Hingham Bridge. As long as Wickham lives, England is in peril.
WTF!? Did we not just see Wickham die seconds ago?
1:25:18 No, apparently the filmmakers don’t mind having the villain die in one scene and then come back in the next. Unless Wickham has become a zombie, in which case, forget this entire paragraph. I already have.
1:25:51
Holy smokes
1:26:04 Elizabeth, on her way to Saint Lazarus, passes her sister Lydia who is returning to Hingham Bridge in front of a zombie horde. Elizabeth decides to stay to find Darcy. What should not be forgotten, however, is the enormous WTF!? of how Wickham’s shooting one piece of metal brought about the destruction of the entire church and the release of enough zombies to destroy an entire nation.
1:26:54 WTF!? Jane and Bingley arrive at Hingham Bridge less than a minute before Lydia, who started riding far later and from farther away?
Can you spot the writer? (Spoiler: It’s the horse’s ass)
1:27:03 And WTF!? again. Wickham and Darcy are still dueling with swords as the sunrises? When they began it was the middle of the night! Talk about staying power.
1:27:44 I was right about Wickham being a zombie and I’m right again when I say WTF!? because how could a zombie have fought so masterfully for hours on end?
Up in arms
1:28:14 Elizabeth arrives at the last minute to kill Wickham before he can kill Darcy. What took her so long? She passed Lydia just moments after the younger woman escaped Saint Lazarus, where the men are fighting, hours ago. Yet she’s arriving at the scene only now? She needs to stop horsing around.
1:28:56 Liz and Darcy cross the Hingham Bridge just as it explodes. Too bad the rest of the movie was more ‘a’ bomb than ‘the’ bomb.
This film isn’t the only bomb
1:30:57 Elizabeth regains consciousness on the bridge, lying on the ground, and no one, not even her sister, runs to her aid. WTF!? She then crawls over and kisses Darcy when she thinks he’s dead. She might be a necrophiliac, in which case, the zombie apocalypse is her Tinder.
1:35:08 Later on, back at Rosings Estate, Jane Bennet becomes engaged to Edwin Bingley and Darcy proposes to Elizabeth, who accepts. This might be my favorite part of the film, because it’s finally the ending.
Mr. Darcy is either happy or about to kill again
1:36:02 Parson Collins officiates the double wedding. Even though he’s still single, he isn’t sad at all and even seems rather gay.
Roll credits
1:37:12 Post-credits scene: Wickham arrives with the Four Zombies of the apocalypse, not knowing that the chances for a sequel are as dead as he is.
Crashing the wedding
Tally Ho’
WTF!?’s: 11 that won’t die.
When to Follow: Watch the begining of the film (stop after the fight scene at the 18-minute mark) as an appetizer for a good movie.
Where’s This Found: This film was a big let down. Another marketing product where the packaging looks enticing, but the actual product is nothing but a shoddy ripoff. Is it really so hard to make the film that we were promised? He had the budget and the talent, so why did the director insist on so much Pride and too much Prejudice without enough Zombies? I’m entirely too nice on films that had every right to be better. Out of a possible 10, I have 5 F’s to give
What To Feedback: Which of the four stars would you prefer to spend the zombie apocalypse fighting side by side with?
I shall be invoking The Witch, conjuring its images and investigating its magic to divine if its spell is binding or broken. So read on only if you’ve already seen The Witch, or don’t plan to.
Before we begin… For those precious few of you as curious as I as to why the title on the poster is written with two V’s rather than a W, the answer is easy as A,B,C.
It’s a printing press thing. In the period, if you ran out of W’s, you could just use two V’s. I saw a Jacobean witch pamphlet that had it, and I thought it looked great.
0:02:46 A family in the States in the 1630’s (Scarlet Letter times) is exiled from the settlement because of the way the father (Ralph Ineson as William) preaches. The only thing worse than preaching is bad preaching.
0:5:18 The family’s young daughter, Thomasin (a very convincing Anya Taylor-Joy), confesses that by playing on the Sabbath she’s been living in sin. The contrary is true for me: living in sin is how I play on the Sabbath.
[N.B. It’s worth noting that Thomasin’s name includes the word ‘sin’, while her overly-pious father has instilled in his daughter the belief that sin is an integral part of her corrupt nature.]
Note: In an exclusive e-mail from director Robert Eggers, I learned ‘the family members‘ names come from looking at passenger lists on ships to the “New World,” lists of Puritan names, or coming across names in other texts.’ You can see the entire e-mail at the bottom of this synopsis.
Thomasin looks up to her father
0:06:12 This is the second time they’ve shown the forest with ominous music. Either something eerie will take place there, or the director (Robert Eggers) can’t see the forest for the trees.
0:07:31 While playing peekaboo with her baby brother, Sam, at the forest’s edge, an old gran somehow runs out of the forest over to where the siblings are, takes the baby, runs all the way back to the tree line carrying the baby in the space of three seconds whilst making absolutely no noise whatsoever. If there’s no witchcraft involved in this, then there’s a lot of WTF!?
0:09:12 In a secret lair by firelight and moonlight, the old nan kills the baby by cutting off his penis with a knife. She then grinds the newborn into paste with a mortar and pestle and rejuvenates herself with the concoction. Now you know where Botox comes from.
“Wait, are you sure you’re a Rabbi?”
0:10:06 With his distraught mother wailing in the background, Thomasin’s young brother (Harvey Scrimshaw as Caleb) pauses to ogle his sleeping sister’s budding bosoms.
Caleb’s original sin
0:13:12 As their corn crop failed, William takes Caleb into the forbidden woods to trap food. The good news is, they won’t have to eat corn.
0:17:02 To add a little symbolism, Thomasin missteps and spills water (symbol of life) and then crushes a chick still in the egg (death of innocence). If I’m any good at reading signs, she’s headed for trouble.
She looks ready for bed, or like she’s wearing one
0:17:26 William traded his wife’s silver cup to travelers in exchange for traps, and wants this kept secret from his wife. Religious fundamentalist or Meth addict?
0:18:12 Trying to shoot a rabbit, William nearly loses an eye when his musket misfires. He didn’t see that coming…and now he can’t.
0:18:20 More symbolism. While a black goat (symbol of the Devil) prances oddly, the two youngest of the brood (twins Mercy and Jonas, Ellie Grainger and Lucas Dawson) chant a song which sounds a lot like praise to Satan.
That kid can dance
Black Phillip, Black Phillip A crown grows out his head, Black Phillip, Black Phillip To nanny queen is wed. Jump to the fence post, Running in the stall. Black Phillip, Black Phillip King of all. Black Phillip, Black Phillip King of sky and land, Black Phillip, Black Phillip King of sea and sand. We are ye servants, We are ye men. Black Phillip eats the lions From the lions’ den.
Note: Eggers explained to me that Black Phillip’s name ‘doesn’t come from King Philip, but some English text as a rare nickname for the devil.’ [See the email at the bottom of this post.]
0:18:54 Meanwhile, standing next to a white, female goat (or ‘nanny’, like in the song above), Thomasin decides the symbolism is pushing her to the edge, so she goes to the forest’s treeline to meet it halfway.
Satanism gets her goat
0:19:28 William returns from hunting with Caleb and sees Black Phillip the goat acting up. The preacher tries to wrestle the goat [i.e. fight the devil] back into his pen and succeeds only after much effort. Talk about struggling with your demons.
0:20:54 Caleb lies to his mother and tells her that he and William were looking for apples in the valley but there were none. Apples, in this case, are symbols of Eden from the Bible, or paradise in this world.
Mum and dad invent The Wave
0:23:14
I’ve seen no apple since we went from England.
Thomasin
In keeping with the symbols, Thomasin is saying she hasn’t seen a heaven on earth in their adopted country.
0:24:16 To tease her bloody obnoxious younger sister, Thomasin tells Mercy at night her naked spirit leaves her body and goes into the woods where it dances with the devil.
[I usually detest films with children, as they’re often shite actors, but many of the young cast in this one are turning in solid performances. #Respect]
Note how their sticks resemble magic wands
0:29:38 When Thomasin leaves the dinner table to tend to the rowdy goats, she finds the same rabbit that nearly blinded her father in the stable. The rabbit often has a negative connotation of unbridled sexuality and lust, as well as a symbol of man falling to his doom, as rabbits fall to predators on rocky slopes [source]. I’d say the rabbit appeared to William as a sign he’ll fight the devil and lose, but appears in the goat pen as a sign of Thomasin’s sexual link to the devil. Her ‘devil may care’ attitude is coming true, because he probably does.
0:33:16 At night, the children overhear their parents saying that Thomasin will be taken to town to be a sort of maid. The mother, Katherine (Kate Dickie), believing Sam is in Hell because he wasn’t baptised, wants to be well rid of her eldest daughter. Like a blind man on a Google search, I don’t see the link.
Girl Gone Wild
0:35:38 At daybreak, Caleb and Thomasin go to the forest to find food so that the family can eat and they don’t have to send Thomasin away. After they find an animal in the forest trap, Fowler the dog chases after the wily rabbit, while Burt the horse panics and throws Thomasin. I’m thrown as to why the family insists on giving their beasts people names.
Note: The director was kind enough to explain the animals’ names to me.
A small matchlock musket, used primarily for bird hunting, was called a “fowling piece,” and that is the kind of gun I wanted in the film. We couldn’t find a reproduction in our price range, so we had to use that large musket (though, I actually like that it is way too big for Caleb). Anyway, that gun put “fowling” in my head, and thought Fowler would be a good name for a dog, as if William named him that in the hope that he would be a good bird hunting dog.
Burt just seemed like a good, sturdy and kind name for a work horse.
0:37:10 Lost in the forest, Caleb stumbles on a dying Fowler. Caleb’s gutted, but not as badly as Fowler.
That dog has a lot of guts
0:38:34 WTF!? Caleb, getting more and more lost, decides to climb through very thick brambles that lead deeper into the woods!? At least now his soul is literally lost.
0:39:40 Caleb finds the witch’s hovel, where his pubescent proclivity will be his downfall. Even though the witch is wearing a red riding hood, the story is more similar to that of Hansel.
Trick or Treats
0:40:34
Watch as the witch turns into a cougar
0:44:38 Later that night, while Thomasin is out in the rain tending to the white goat, Caleb turns up naked on the fence. The witch didn’t just take his virginity, she kidnapped it, abused it and then tortured it to death.
Caleb is on the fence about religion
0:46:02 Mother and daughter bleed Caleb from the temple to drain the bad blood. One might say Caleb is taking a leak. Or, if one won’t say it, I will.
0:47:34 As Mercy and Jonas call Thomasin a witch, blood comes out of Flora’s (the nanny) teat as Thomasin milks her. Now you know where strawberry milk comes from.
0:51:43 Mercy continues singing her ditties of praise to the Goat King. I’m rather surprised her religious parents don’t make her stop. Seriously, if I had children who sang hymns of worship to animals, I’d tell them to go to Hell.
Black Phillip is a merry, merry king, He rules the land with mirth. Black Phillip has a mighty mighty sting, He’ll knock thee to the earth. Sing baa baa King Phillip the Black, Sing baa baa baa baa baa. Sing baa baa King Phillip the Black, He’ll knock thee on thy back!
“That’s one horny goat.”
0:53:20 Caleb coughs up an apple and everyone thinks he’s bewitched. Christ, if they saw what I spit up on a Saturday morning, they’d think I was the antichrist.
Rotten to the core
[N.B. Here the signification of the apple changes. It is no longer a symbol of paradise on earth, but now represents a wicked witch poisoning an innocent. According to the director, this idea predates the Snow White legend.]
0:54:58 When William insists the family pray for Caleb, Jonas and Mercy cannot remember the words to the Lord’s Prayer and hold their stomachs in agony. This is what worshipping a goat will do for you.
“Put our hands up like the ceiling can’t hold us!“
0:55:18 Caleb chooses this moment to recite all the animal names he knows.
A toad. A cat. A crow. A raven. A great black dog. A wolf.
[N.B. These animals are also all commonly thought of as witches’ familiars.]
0:57:34
Spread over me the lap of thy love! […] My Lord, my love, kiss me with the kisses of thy mouth. How lovely art thou! […] My Lord, my love, my soul’s salvation, take me to thy lap!
After spouting off a lot of religious erotica, Jesus doesn’t come but Caleb seems to. After his paroxysm of pleasure, he’s dead tired without the ‘tired’.
“That was the best pomegranate of my life!”
1:01:48 After the twins fall into a trance, William takes Thomasin out and accuses her of being a witch because she’s the last one left standing. She points out that the twins spend all day praying to a bloody goat and this might be worse.
1:04:17 William locks the twins and Thomasin in the goat house, planning to take them to the plantation at dawn. I don’t see this trip happening, and I’m not even a psychic.
1:05:08
American Gothics
1:11:02 While sleepwalking, Katherine has a vision that her silver chalice has been returned and that Caleb is there in her room with the baby Sam. When she goes to breastfeed Sam, we are given a peek at the reality of the scene, which is a crow pecking at her chest. #nevermore
Eat your heart out
1:11:48 Credit to the old bird, the crow didn’t kill her.
Bleeding heart
1:12:32 William steps out of the house in the morning and sees the goat shed is wrecked, the goats are mangled and Thomasin is asleep amongst the wreckage. Reminds me of my flat on Sunday mornings.
It’s a small sacrifice
1:12:46 While William’s surveying the scene, Black Phillip attacks him. Rather than fight back, William tosses the axe aside and says,
Corruption, thou art my father.
Black Phillip then rams him into the massive stack of wood William has been chopping throughout the film.
[N.B. The significance of William’s last words and the woodpile are explained at the bottom of this synopsis.]
Devilish grin
1:13:44 Thomasin screams while the woodpile buries her father, then finds herself clutching the twins clothes, with no twins inside them.
1:15:14 Katherine accuses her daughter of killing the twins, seducing her father and brother, and being a witch. You, too, can see this scene in the front yard of any trailer park.
1:16:36 While defending herself against her mother’s onslaught, Thomasin grabs a corn husking blade and kills her mother. The corn dolls hanging on the string look strangely like a scoreboard.
She loves her mum to death
1:20:38 After taking off the top layer of her bloody clothes, Thomasin falls asleep at the table. She awakens at night, goes into Black Phillip’s pen and begins speaking to him, trying to get him to open up. He’s reticent, and I’m sure was a quiet kid.
1:21:51 Black Phillip promises Thomasin the taste of butter, a nice dress, a journey around the world and a delicious life if she’ll take off her shift (like a slip that goes all the way up) and sign her name in his book. As for the promises, I think she sold herself short, though many lasses settle for less.
She’ll give the Devil the shirt off her back
1:22:04
The end of the film
1:23:42 Thomasin walks naked in the woods and finds a coven of naked witches chanting and singing in the firelight. Reminds me of Deafheaven at Coachella.
Getting high
1:24:21
Branching out into witchcraft
1:24:34
This film was inspired by many folktales, fairytales and written accounts of historical witchcraft, including journals, diaries and court records.
Much of the dialogue comes directly from these period sources.
Roll credits
The Ending
There is a lot of discussion online about the ending to The Witch, and while my voice may not be the loudest on the Internet, it is certainly the rightest.😉
No offense, if that [Thomasin was always a witch] was anyone’s reading, but for people who think Thomasin was evil all along: “Once upon a time there was a story of a witch”—that’s the movie, and that’s not a very interesting story. So I will say that much.
Add to that the scene toward the beginning [18:54] where she goes to the forest’s edge but does not enter (she’s curious but not ready to go all the way) and the end scene where she talks to Black Phillip [1:20:38] not knowing if he’ll answer her (she’s never had any contact with him as the devil before, so she doesn’t know if he can really talk or not) and it’s clear she’s innocent up until the end.
What about her telling Mercy she was a witch? you ask [24:16]. As believable as Thomasin made it sound, she was only teasing Mercy here, because her little sister was getting on her last nerve.
That said, the twins were evil throughout the entire film. Proof of that is given in
the songs they chant to the devil
the way Thomasin knows the they talk to Black Phillip (‘Speakest to me as thou speakest to Jonas and Mercy’ [1:20:09]),
the wands the brats brandish throughout the movie
the fact that they are unable to recite the Lord’s Prayer but Thomasin is [54:58]
So what happens to the twins?
They are spirited away at night by a flying witch. This according to the script, to the damage to the goat pen [see image below] the morning after the twins disappear, and the dialogue.
Katherine: Where are they!?
Thomasin: I know not what I saw!
Katherine: Where are they!?
Thomasin: She came from the sky–
What in the hell did William mean when he said, “Corruption, thou art my father!” when Black Phillip killed him?
You first have to realise that the firewood in this film, especially the fervor with which William chops it, is symbolic of prayer and praying. This is clear in the scene [46:38] where William leaves the house in the middle of the night to cut wood after Caleb’s naked body is discovered on the fence of the goat pen and illness ensues. William cannot control the events in his life, so he resorts to the only thing he can control: prayer / chopping wood. Thomasin herself makes this observation when arguing with her father by saying [at 1:00:54],
Thou cannot bring the crops to yield. Thou cannot hunt. … Thou canst do nothing save cut wood.
He’s got an axe to grind
He can do nothing but pray and cut wood, yet both of these are futile because he amasses a vast pile of split wood that does him no good, just as the pleas he is constantly offering to God have no effect in his life. Those prayers are just as useless as the pile of wood that’s destroyed when Black Phillip butts William into it. William finally realises all of the time he has wasted in cutting wood / praying when, just before Black Phillip attacks him, he takes the axe (his prayers) and considers attacking Black Phillip (the Devil) with it, but then he casts the tool aside because he knows this is a battle he cannot win.
When he says, “Corruption, though art my father!”, he’s acknowledging that he was corrupted by his beliefs, by his God. ‘God’ was his father, but God was replaced by the corruption he experienced when he left the society of his fellow man. William was corrupted by religion, because religion forced him to be exiled, and the exile proved to be his undoing. The film begins with his forsaking humans, and ends with his being punished for it.
Here’s something that’s really going to bake your noodle.
[T]here are clues about different interpretations. So, for example, the rot on the corn is ergot, which is a hallucinogenic fungus, so if you wanted to take that route, you could. It’s not necessarily my route, but there are multiple ways in.
Thinking about the film as a family’s mass hysteria due to hallucinations is a trip!
Tally Ho’
WTF!?’s: 3 cursed ones
When to Follow: When you feel like a film that’ll work to scare you, rather than taking the gory way out. This is a horror movie you’ll be proud to introduce your date to.
Where’s This Found: There seems to be a backlash against The VVitch and more’s the pity because that trolling would be put to better use against Creed or 10 Cloverfield Lane. Yes, it’s true, The VVitch is not a slasher film and so many juveniles out there don’t understand a film doesn’t need to have gore to be a horror film. While The VVitch doesn’t resort to cats jumping out from closets to startle you, it creates an atmospheric style and a heavy sense of dread that will reach deeper and feel creepier than any prepackaged mainstream Hollywood scream-fest. The Witch will give you better quality nightmares than any horror film in recent memory. Out of a possible 10, I have 8 F’s to give.
My exclusive exchange with Robert Eggers (director)
I had a theory behind the animals’ names, which was that Fowler (the dog) came from Samuel P. Fowler, author of Salem Witchcraft; Comprising More Wonders of the Invisible World (the book talks about the first two Salem with trials) and that Burt (the horse) was named after Ann (Holland) Bassett Burt, one of the first women in Salem (in 1669) to be accused of witchcraft.
I sent an email to Mr. Eggers with my theory, and was amazed that his reply was not just a simple affirmation / negation, but was a long explanation of the animal names and all the other characters’ names! It was incredibly generous of him to take so much time on his response, which I’ll include here.
Left Over WTF (Way Too Funny) Photos
Wants to give trekking a shotStranger Danger“We could use him as a carpet.”Thomasin learns how to put on lipstickThomasin is hot as…HELL
Prints suitable for reposting!
WTF!? did they say?
WTF!? do you meme?
What to Follow Up
WTF Reviews
WTF explanation of another horror filmWTF explanation of a horrible filmWTF look at another horror film in the forest
Bar None Review
Bar None review of Elle Fanning fighting a witch in the woods in Maleficent
Fernby Films Review
Fernby Films review a witch’s worst enemy
If you enjoyed this post, please consider sharing it on Facebook! It’s the easiest — and nicest! — way to say ‘Thank you’.
I shall be diving into Deadpool, testing its waters and exploring its depths to judge if it’s all washed up or off the deep end. So read on only if you’ve already seen Deadpool, or don’t plan to.
0:00:20 Bloody brilliant beginning. The opening credits are a frozen 3D moment of frenzy from a scene which will soon be seen. Instead of the traditional listing of cast and crew, we get sacrasctic cards poking fun at the film itself – all of this to the tune of Juice Newton singing ‘Angel of the Morning’. The moment I saw this originality, humour and action in the first half minute of the movie, I knew I was going to get this film tattooed on my memory’s arse.
[N.B. Easter egg: ‘Rob L.’ on the coffee cup is the first of many nods to Rob Liefeld, co-creator of Deadpool.]
0:02:25
Quick Draw
0:02:26 A bored Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds) rides in the back of a taxi, reading brochures about haunted Segway tours on his way to the battle foreshadowed by the opening credits. He finds a piece of used gum and, in flicking it off his fingers, lands it on the camera. This is the first indication that the character will break the fourth wall and basically sit in our laps, talk to us, and whisper jokes in our ears over the course of the film. Like a man with a micro penis having sex, I’m all in.
Headed in the right direction
0:04:12 Deadpool says he’s on his way to meet someone on his naughty list. [Spoiler alert: it’s Ajax / Francis (Ed Skrein)]
Deadpool: I’ve been waiting 1 year, 3 weeks, 6 days, and…14 minutes to make him fix what he did to me.
Dopinder [the taxi driver, Karan Soni]: And what did he do to you, Mr. Pool?
Deadpool: This shit.
PEEK-A-
0:06:17
Deadpool [leaving the cab]: Merry Christmas!
Dopinder: And a convivial Tuesday in April to you, too, Pool!
Is it just me, or is Dopinder entirely too happy saying goodbye to a bloke who stiffed him on the fare?
0:06:24 Music for sitting on the edge of a bridge and waiting for your nemesis is ‘Shoop’ by Salt-N-Pepa. [There’s a link to the soundtrack at the end of this synopsis.]
Deadpool is on edge
0:06:42
Deadpool [directly to the camera]: Oh, hello. I know, right!? My very own movie. Whose balls did I have to fondle to get my very own movie? I can’t tell you, but it does rhyme with ‘polverine’.
For those of you who don’t recognize this reference, it’s to X-Man Wolverine. And if you don’t recognize that, this may not be the best film choice for you.
[N.B. A silly version of Deadpool first appeared in the abortion film X-Men Origins: Wolverine, establishing the link between the two characters.]
0:07:56
Deadpool gets his kicks
0:08:54 In a brilliant chase (that includes the scene in the opening credits), Deadpool eliminates much of the competition.
Colossus: When will he grow up and see benefits of becoming X-Man?
Negasonic: Which benefits? The matching unitards? The house that blows up every few years?
‘Negasonic Teenage Warhead!? Can we trade names?’
0:10:47 After the cars crash to a stop, Ajax’s henchmen have Deadpool pinned down in his vehicle.
Deadpool: Wait! You may be wondering, ‘Why the red suit?’ Well, that’s so bad guys can’t see me bleed. This guy’s got the right idea [gesturing to a henchman]. He wore the brown pants.
Pool then proceeds to eliminate the bad guys he takes out, counting each bullet as he does, because he only has 12 rounds and forgot his ammo bag.
0:11:21 Ajax shoots Deadpool’s arm.
Holey shite
0:11:23
I can see right through him
0:13:12 Great action scene because it’s long, original, funny, and it’s filmed so you can see everything, not like many action films where the action is blurry to hide bad film making. On the other hand, it’s not without its WTF!? For example, if there are 10+ bad guys: why do they wait for him to kill one of them before trying to kill him back? I’ve heard of taking turns, but this is taking a turn for the worse.
0:16:16
Smoking…guns
0:14:23
Fire in the hole
0:16:20 In a 2-year flashback, a pre-Deadpool Wade Wilson hijacks a loser’s flat to order pizza and threaten the delivery boy who is stalking Wade’s client (Taylor Hickson as Meghan Orlovsky). Wade Wilson is a ‘bad guy who gets paid to fuck up worse guys.’
[N.B. Easter egg: The name of the pizzeria, Feige’s, is a reference to Kevin Feige, Marvel studio head and co-producer of Blade: Trinity, which co-starred Reynolds.]
0:17:42
A place for wayward girls to be dumped
Deadpool introduces us to Sister Margaret’s.
It’s like a job fair for mercenaries.
A nice place for people to take their shot.
0:17:56
Who’s your daddy?
[Easter Egg: As Deadpool enters Sister Margaret’s, he greets “Buck, Liefeld,” in passing. Rob Liefeld (the coffee cup bloke from the opening credits), is Deadpool’s co-creator.]
0:18:41 Weasel gives Wade a blow job.
Kahlua, Bailey’s and whipped cream. I give you a ‘blow job’.
Yeah, other than the cream, I still don’t see how those ingredients equate with oral sex.
That’s a lot of head
0:18:50 Wade hands the drink to barmaid Kelly and tells her to give it to Buck and say that it’s from Boothe. This will start a fight in which Buck destroys Boothe…and is Wade’s way to try and win a fast buck.
[N.B. Easter egg: Deadpool yells the barmaid’s name three times – Kelly! Kelly! Kelly! – in tribute to Joe Kelly, formative Deadpool writer in the 90’s.]
Wade: You got me. I picked Boothe in the dead pool.
The origin of Deadpool’s name comes from a chalkboard over the bar where people bet in a pool on the celebrity they think will next be dead. Wade bet on Boothe, so if Boothe had cashed out, Wade would’ve cashed in.
What are the odds?
Here’s the list, for those of you who are curious:
0:20:22 Seeing Wade has a wad of cash, Vanessa, a prostitute played by Morena Baccarin, introduces herself. After a night of skee-ball and putting other balls in other holes, they fall in a love as deep as Socrates at the bottom of the ocean.
‘Gosh, Wade, you have a lot of balls!’
[N.B. Lifted straight from the pages of the Deadpool comics, Vanessa Carlysle is mutant shape-shifter Copycat.]
Life is an endless series of train-wrecks with only brief, commercial-like breaks of happiness.
Wade is diagnosed with late-stage cancer, and that’s one stage he’ll have to exit.
“There’s something wrong with my sperm sample.”
0:28:09 The flashback ends and we return to the present, on the motorway amidst the chaos.
Now, if I were a 200-pound sack of assholes named ‘Francis’, where would I hide.
I love films that beat me to the punch line.
0:29:23 Wade gives Francis (AKA Ajax) a mighty beat-down before exposing himself to his nemesis.
‘Like I got bit by a radio active Shar-pei.’
028:46 Lining up his shot
I’m about to do to you what Limp Bizkit did to music in the late 90s.
Kill him, and step on it!
0:30:02 Before Deadpool can finish off Francis, he’s interrupted by Colossus, who knocks him back into a flashback.
Deadpool: [to the image of him flying back] I think we can all agree that shit just went sideways in the most colossal way. [Image of the figurine in the exact same position] Well, maybe not the most colossal.
Things going sideways
[N.B. In a brilliant transition, we see Deadpool flying sideways and then, in the flashback, a figurine of Deadpool version Origins: Wolverine. The voice over implies that when Colossus knocks him for a loop things are going sideways, but his portrayal in X-Men Origins: Wolverine was far worse.]
0:30:54 Wade explains his departure to Vanessa.
Wade [to Vanessa]: We both know cancer is a shit-show. Like a Yakov-Smirnoff-opening-for-the-Spin-Doctors-at-the-Iowa-State-Fair shit-show. And under no circumstances will I take you to that show.
Morena didn’t get the part of Rudolph, despite her nose…
0:34:26 A mysterious man in a suit (Jed Reesas Recruiter) meets with Wade in Sister Margaret’s and offers to cure his cancer by making him a superhero. Wade drops him like kryptonite.
[N.B. Wade refers to the Recruiter in the film both as ‘Agent Smith‘ (after The Matrix character) and Jared, after Jared Fogle, an American advert celebrity who was jailed for child porn (Wade makes several references to the Recruiter being a paedophile).]
0:38:32 Back to the present and the fight scene on the bridge. While Deadpool has Ajax pinned to a concrete block with a sabre, Colossus and Negasonic Teenage Warhead try to convince Deadpool to become an X-Man.
The day I decide to become a crime-fighting, shit-swizzler who rooms with a bunch of other little whiners at the Neverland mansion of some creepy, old, bald, Heaven’s Gate-looking motherfucker… On that day, I’ll send your shiny, happy ass a friend request.
Heaven’s Gate mother-fucker
[N.B. Here Deadpool references Neverland mansion, Michael Jackson’s manor where he invited children over to get drunk and sexually abused, as well as Marshall Applewhite, the head of a suicide cult called Haven’s Gate (who looks vaguely like Professor X, head of the X-Men).]
0:39:06 During Deadpool’s rant Ajax makes a clean getaway.
MRW I catch someone eating my restaurant leftovers from the fridge
0:39:28 Deadpool breaks both of his wrists and one leg while fighting Colossus.
‘All of the dinosaurs feared the T-Rex’
0:40:02
Colossus: Let us go talk to the professor.
Deadpool: McAvoy or Stewart? These timelines are so confusing.
[N.B. Pool is referring to James McAvoy and Patrick Stewart who have both played Professor Charles Francis ‘X’ Xavier in different X-Men films. McAvoy’s Professor X came after Stewart’s chronologically but was the younger version of the man, hence Deadpool’s remark about the ‘confusing timeline’.]
0:40:38 Deadpool’s escape plan.
Have you seen 127 Hours? Spoiler alert. … Are you there, God? It’s me Margaret.
[N.B. 127 Hours is a film in which a man must cut off his own arm to survive being trapped in a ravine, and Are you there God… is a book about a girl who has her first period, which Deadpool references because of all the blood coming from his severed wrist.]
First Deadpool gives him a hand …
0:40:45
Then he gives him the finger
0:41:24 Flashback to when Wade gives in and decides to go to the clinic the Recruiter mentioned at 34:26. #HealthCareless
Please don’t make the super-suit green. Or animated.
A reference to actor Ryan Reynolds’ disastrous turn as the Green Lantern, where his CGI suit was widely criticized, along with everything else in the film.
0:41:38
A lady with backbone
[N.B. The Internet seems to think this is the mutant Marrow, and who am I to disagree with the world-wide web?]
0:43:11 Ajax arrives as the doctor about to do the procedure, and his bedside manners are as cold as his hands.
Ajax: I’m injecting you with a serum that activates any mutant genes lurking in your DNA. For it to work, we need to subject you to extreme tests.
I’m having flashbacks to finals in uni.
Bloody medicine
[N.B. Easter Egg: The blood in the vial is Wolverine’s, which is part of the link between the characters and also from whence Deadpool receives his regenerative qualities.]
0:43:57 Ajax explains to Wade that everyone reacts differently to the serum. Angel Dust (Gina Carano as Ajax’s hefty brunette assistant) was given extra human strength. Ajax himself has enhanced reflexes and no longer feels pain…or anything else. Those who feel no pain are sure to be one.
0:45:12 So that the adrenaline will act as a catalyst and activate the mutant genes, Wade is subjected to a torture montage with ‘Mister Sandman’ as the soundtrack.
‘Give it to me straight, doctor, and then give it to me gay.’
0:45:56 Wade discusses his ‘Fuck-it list’ with another patient.
Patient (Hugh Scott as David Cunningham): No. Receiving a Dutch oven from Meredith Baxter-Birney.
According to the Urban Dictionary, a Dutch oven is a ‘sex’ act involving trapping your partner’s face under a blanket and then passing wind in that headspace.
[N.B. Easter egg: ‘David Cunningham’ is, in fact, Worm, a mutant Deadpool befriended in Dr. Killebrew’s laboratory where Francis / Ajax served as enforcer.]
0:47:11 Wade learns (from a dry cleaning ticket) that Ajax’s real name is Francis. Francis is not all all pleased. But at least his clothes are pressed.
Francis: Why don’t you do us all a favor and shut the fuck up, or I’ll sew your pretty mouth shut.
[N.B. This Easter egg is a another reference to Deadpool’s appearance in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, where Deadpool was portrayed with his mouth sealed shut.]
His lips are sealed
0:50:24 During oxygen deprivation torture, Wade’s mutation kicks in and his skin necrotizes, making him look like bowl of pink, cancer-free oatmeal. ‘Cancer-free’ because now his body has super self-healing power.
0:52:52 When Wade head butted Angel earlier, he took her match without her realizing it. Later, he used the match to ignite the oxygen chamber they are torturing him in. The resulting explosion burns Francis up.
0:54:50 Wade stays in the lab so he can get his arse kicked.
Stick to it, Wade
[N.B. Far be it from me to point out that one can see more than just Reynold’s asset in this screenshot. #dickpick]
0:56:30 The building is destroyed but Wade learns he can’t be.
‘I didn’t just get the cure to el cancer. I got the cure to el everything.’
0:59:18 Wade returns to Sister Margaret’s to brainstorm a plan with Weasel. Wade wants to find Francis, so Francis can give Wade his face back, so Wade can get his Vanessa back.
‘You look like an avocado had sex with an older, more disgusting avocado. Not gently. Like it was hate-fucking.’
0:59:42 Wade realises he needs to wear a suit and mask to hide from Francis, who thinks Wade is dead, so that he can track Francis down in secrecy. During their quest for alter egos…
Weasel: Oh, shit.
Wade: What?
Weasel: I put all my money on you and now I just realised I’m never gonna win the…
Wade: Dead pool.
1:00:11 Deadpool goes through a series of Ajax’s henchmen to work his way up to his nemesis, with the Deadpool rap in the background.
1:02:17
‘Tell me where your boss is or you’re going to die…in five minutes.’
1:03:28 Deadpool finds the mysterious recruiter who introduced Deadpool to the Mutant Factory. He gives up Francis’s location, but not before an act to his ‘little piggy’ that is heard but not seen.
1:03:50 This brings us up to speed in fast forward – with a little detour.
My typical date night
1:04:44 Deadpool introduces us to Blind Al (Leslie Uggams), the elderly blind woman from the laundrette who told him wearing red would hide his blood stains. They live in sin, together, just not the same sins.
Deadpool: She’s like Robin to my Batman except she’s old, and black, and blind. And I think she’s in love with me. Wait, pretty sure Robin loves Batman, too.
1:07:08 Francis returns to the mutant factory, where Angel Dust is prepping new mutants for shipment like mail-order vigilantes.
1:08:26 Wade’s severed hand is regenerating which is amusing, because you know what they say about men with small hands. #SmallGloves
Can Wade get a hand?
1:08:48
Wade [explaining to Al the importance of physical looks in life]: You think Ryan Reynolds got this far on his superior acting method!?
1:11:05 Weasel lets Wade know that Ajax and Angel are on their way to torture Vanessa, who works in a strip club. The two men get there first to head off the enemies. [NSFW Screenshot: Bare necessities]
1:11:15 Stan Lee’s cameo is he’s a DJ in the club, which means he’s an ‘X’ man.
Lucky Lee
1:13:51 Because Wade cares more about his looks than Vanessa’s safety, he hides in the toilets long enough for Ajax and Angel to kidnap her. WTF!?
1:15:32 While amassing guns and ammo for the confrontation with Ajax, Deadpool throws in a copy of the People magazine with Hugh Jackman as the ‘sexiest man alive’. This is a nice bookend to the Ryan Reynolds issue shown in the opening credits. Wolverine and Deadpool have so much in common.
I’d love to meet them between the covers!
1:15:41 Wade to Blind Al who is bringing him a machine gun, barrel first:
Careful with that Ronnie Milsap. We’re down range.
For the curious cats, Ronnie Milsap is a blind American country music artist. Because, Al is as blind as love, remember?
Deadpool [to Negasonic, about the X-Men residence]: It’s a big house. It’s funny that I only ever see two of you. It’s almost like the studio couldn’t afford another X-Man.
1:20:07
Dopinder: Knock ‘em dead, Pool boy!
Deadpool: Time to make the chimi-fuckin’-changas.
So much better than doughnuts.
They’ve got a fighting chance
1:20:31 The song playing while Deadpool, Negasonic and Colossus make their grand entrance is ‘X Gon’ Give It To Ya’ by DMX.
1:21:34
Ajax: Wade Wilson, what’s my name?
Because throughout the entire film, Deadpool refuses to call him Ajax. What’s in a name? A lot, if you’re called ‘Francis’.
1:21:47
Down and dirty
Deadpool [talking about Angel arriving from atop the helicarrier]: Super hero landing! Wait for it. Whoo! Super hero landing! You know, that’s really hard on your knees. Totally impractical. They all do it.
Assume the position
1:25:25
[N.B. Easter egg: Deadpool realises one of the people he’s fighting against is his friend Hydra Bob (kind of), from special forces. Instead of killing him, he gives him a break concussion. Another Easter egg inside the Easter egg (wait, that’s like 16 Easter eggs😉 ) is that Deadpool refers to Bob’s wife Alison as ‘Gail’ in a shout out to Gail Simone, regarded as one of the best Deadpool writers.]
1:25:38
Double breasted suit
1:25:58
‘I’ma spell it out for ya.’
1:27:10 Wade arrives on top of the warship to confront Francis, while Vanessa is trapped in the oxygen tank torture device used on Wade earlier in the film. They share everything, those two.
1:29:40 Vanessa escapes the oxygen chamber and, by running Ajax through with a sabre, saves Deadpool from getting his ass and all the rest of him kicked.
He got the point
1:30:12 Wade has hallucinations while recovering from the knife wound. Like the blade, it’s all in his head.
1:30:57 The tide of the battle turns when Deadpool removes the knife from his skull and Negasonic explodes Angel to save Colossus. Maybe now Angel will become one. 👼
An Angel with a dirty face
1:32:16 Negasonic’s explosion also knocks the warship off its supports and the entire construction falls to the ground like Dolly Parton’s boobs after 40.
1:34:47 Wade learns that Francis can’t fix the damage that was done to his face, so he cocks the .45 he took from Blind Al and places it against Francis’s forehead.
His English is like his groin: a lttle rusty
Colossus: Wade! Four or five moments. … Four or five moments, that all it takes.
Deadpool: To?
Colossus: Be a hero. Everyone thinks is a full-time job. Wake up a hero, brush your teeth a hero, go to work a hero. Not true. Over a lifetime there are only four or five moments that really matter. Moments when you’re offered a choice. To make a sacrifice, conquer a flaw, save a friend… spare an enemy. In these moments, everything else falls away. The way the world sees us. The way we–
BLAM
[Wade pulls the trigger. Colossus vomits.]
This scene was critical to my appreciation of the film. Had Wade changed his mind and decided to ‘become a hero’, it would’ve gone against everything the film stands for and there’s no turning back from that kind of betrayal. This ending was loyal to the spirit of the film and the character, and that kind of loyalty deserved to be recognised.
1:37:52
Baby, the guy under this mask, he ain’t the same one you remember.
Masking his feelings
1:38:48
Vanessa: After a brief adjustment period and a bunch of drinks, it’s a face I’d be happy to sit on.
The ugly truth
1:39:21
Wade: [to Colossus] Tell Beast to stop shitting on my lawn. And you [to Negasonic], chicken noodle, nothing compares to you. Sinead O’Connor 1990. Sorry.
Reference to a beautiful cover of a Prince song, and a mutant.
Sinead O’Connor in ‘Nothing Compares 2 U [Click on the link for the vid]1:40:25 Kissing and credits to Wham!’s ‘Careless Whipser’ and Shoop song.
Oh, but I can tell you one thing and it’s a bit of a secret. For the sequel, we’re gonna have Cable. Amazing character. Bionic arm…time travel. We have no idea who we’re going to cast yet, but it could be anybody. Just need a big guy with a flat top. Could be Mel Gibson, Dolph Lundgren, Keira Knightley. She’s got range. Who knows? Anyway, big secret. Shh…
[N.B. The final Easter eggs in this hunt are a reference to Samuel L. Jasckon’s Marvel character Nick Fury and Marvel character Cable, Deadpool’s sometime nemesis but frequent mate.]
[Image from article ‘Here’s What You Need to Know About Cable, (Probably) the Next Deadpool Star’ – Click on photo for link]
Roll credits
Tally Ho’
WTF!?’s: 4 shallow ones
When to Follow: Anytime, even when you have a rule to only watch one superhero film per year.
Where’s This Found: I’m going to take a lot of shite for this, but this is a better film than either Captain America: Civil War (or Winter Soldier, for that matter) or Batman vs. Superman. In fact, this is my 2nd favourite superhero film of all time, right after The Dark Knight and right before Kick Ass (which resembles Deadpool stylistically). The mix of action, humour, story-telling, acting, directing hits harder than Colossus and looks better than a superhero landing. Out of a possible 10, I have 9 F’s to give.
What To Feedback: What are your top 3 superhero films? Let me know in the comments. Oh, and also:
Who will win, Francis or Deadpool, or will it end in a draw?‘Oooh! I’m with the Man of Steel!’Down in the dumpsBlank stare‘Do you know this book is about getting your first period? Oh, looks like you do.’Just let her beeWade is on the radioA coffin fitHospital gowns…so hot right nowDeadpool shoots his mouth off once more
Prints suitable for reposting!
WTF!? did they say?
WTF!? do you meme?
What to Follow Up
WTF Reviews
WTF!? review of a disaster filmWTF!? review of another Marvel-lous film
Bar None Review
Oh, Al! Bar None review of Ant-Man
Fernby Films Review
Fernby Films look at ‘Captain America: Civil War’
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This time I shall be detailing The Finest Hours minutely, breaking it down for a second and counting on it a moment to see if it’s time wasted or the time of our lives. So read on only if you’ve already seen The Finest Hours, or don’t plan to.
0:00:41 The film opens with a reminder that the film is based on a true story and set in Wellfleet, Massachusetts, November, 1951. The song in the background is Frank Sinatra’s version of ‘Huckle-Buck’. I’d thought good music had already been invented in 1951…
[N.B. I’ve included a playlist of the actual songs used in the film along with the original soundtrack at the end of this synopsis.]
0:01:54 U.S. Coast Guard coxswain Bernard ‘Bernie’ Webber (Chris Pine) and Mel “Gus” Gouthro (Beau Knapp) arrive at a diner for Bernie’s blind date with a girl he’s been talking on the phone with for weeks. This was pre-internet dating – so long ago Tumblr probably still had an ‘e’.
Bernie invents the flaming shot
0:05:08 Bernie meets Miriam Pentinen (Holliday Grainger) and it’s love at first sight because this isn’t reality. Bernie learns Miriam’s never been on a boat (despite living on the coast) because she’s afraid of the water at night. WTF!? Does this mean she hasn’t had a chance to go on a boat during daytime?
0:05:24 Chris Pine is doing a wonderful job playing Bernie, the shy New Englander. Of course, I’m easily impressed by anyone who acts in an accent, no matter how bad.
Whistling lessons proved more challenging than Bernie expected
0:08:36 While Bernie asks some old sea dog if he can take his fishing boat out on the harbour to impress Miriam, another chap at the bar (Matthew Maheras Carl Nickerson) references his brother-in-law’s death on Bernie’s watch (Bernie’s in the Coast Guard). Miriam’s fear is beginning to look not so stupid.
0:09:21 We jump ahead to February 17, 1952, at some sort of dance (where they’re dancing to Vayo Con Dios). Miriam proposes to Bernie but he turns her down because a big storm is coming. When he says, ‘No,’ it comes anyway.
[N.B. While the facts of their courtship are more or less accurate, the timing is not. In reality, Bernie and Miriam were wed two years before the events of this film.]
0:14:37
Making waves
0:15:42 Raymond Sybert (Casey Affleck), Chief Engineer on the T2 oil tanker SS Pendleton, asks the captain to reduce speed so that a weld doesn’t break in the rough seas. The captain refuses because he’s not afraid to rock the boat.
0:17:20
Their ship won’t come in
0:17:31 The weld doesn’t hold and water shoots into the boat which will now go down faster than a ex-Disney starlet.
0:19:46
Big Ship: Half Off
Tchuda Southerland (Josh Stewart affects the sailor’s strong cajun accent) goes to talk to the captain and discovers that the front and back halves of the ship have decided to go their separate ways.
[N.B. The reason for the split is explained in the film by a recent weld breaking, which is false. The reason two T2 tankers broke in half that day (the SS Pendleton and the SS Fort Mercer) is that the steel used to manufacture them was inferior, leading to ships of that make being nicknamed ‘Kaiser’s coffins’.]
‘OK, boys, one at a time and have your money ready.’
0:28:28 The boys on the Pendleton learn there’s another T2 tanker – the Fort Mercer – that’s split in half, so all of the rescue crews will be sent there, and not to the Pendleton, as no one knows it’s cracked in two. That’s one very divisive storm.
0:31:54 Office-in-charge Warrant Officer Daniel Cluff (Eric Bana) tells Boatswain’s Mate Chief Petty Officer Donald Bangs (Benjamin Koldyke) to go rescue the Fort Mercer. The bos’n disagrees on the method and Cluff caves to his subordinate. It would seem, like the Fort Mercer, that the captain is out of his depth.
0:32:40
Waves goodbye 👋
0:32:51
A high way
0:36:02 Upon hearing some of the men are headed for the lifeboats, Sybert (who needs all of the sailors to steer his handmade tiller) grabs an axe and releases an empty lifeboat that is instantly crushed to bits by the waves against the hull of the ship. Thus, the sailors need a Plan ‘B’: as in ‘B somewhere else’.
[N.B. This event did not take place. There was some discussion on board about taking the lifeboats, but this idea was rejected summarily.]
0:38:56 Thanks to Carl Nickerson, the man who told the coast guard about the boat sinking in his backyard [32:40], Cluff tells Webber to select a crew and take a small CG-36500 boat ‘over the bar’. I have no idea what they mean by this, but no one in the movie wants to do it. As people died the last time Webber confronted it, it’d probably be easier for everyone to stay behind the bar than go over it.
This is the infamous bar – I prefer the chocolate kind
[N.B. Between the Chatham harbour and the open sea lies a ‘bar’, a series of shoals, that are dangerous even in good weather. Bernie must time bursts of his engine to ride each approaching wave before it breaks.
This description is from 51:26, when fisherman John Stello (Alexander Cook) explains the difficulty to Miriam:
The shoals are never in the same place twice. Flood currents carrying them… Big ocean swells that rise up when they hit the shallows crash up against that bar. Outgoing tide crashes up against that bar. That man [Cluff] shouldn’t have sent them out to cross that bar in a storm like this.]
A wave of fear passed over the boat
0:39:28 Richard ‘Richie’ Livesey (a bloke who, along with Carl Nickerson, has been a buzz kill since the beginning) reminds Bernie he couldn’t get over the bar the last time there was a storm and eight people died. Sounds like a bad night of bar hopping.
‘I haven’t seen a breakdown like this since Britney Spears in 2007.’
0:39:46 All of the old sailors tell Bernie it’s impossible to make it out of the harbour. He responds with,
In the Coast Guard they say you gotta go out, but they don’t say you gotta come back in.
If Bernie goes overboard, his balls will keep him afloat.
‘So, the boat you’re taking is about this big…’
0:40:37 This scene where the old salts try to convince the young sailor not to do his duty in order to save his life is a win for Chris Pine. He’s showing a lot of range between this film and the Star Treks. Not to mention, his name makes me think of wood. #notjusthisname
[N.B. John Stello, fisherman, neighbour and friend, really did tell Webber to get lost rather than try and make it over the bar.]
0:41:57 The Pendleton rescue crew is Bernie, Engineman Third Class Andrew ‘Fitz’ Fitzgerald (Kyle Gallner), Seaman Richard ‘Richie’ Livesey (Ben Foster), and Seaman Ervin Maske (John Magaro). That’s not a lot of seamen for four guys.
Please tell me we’re taking this boat to a bigger boat.
The 36500: not as big as its number
0:48:32 Miriam arrives at the Coast Guard office to discover Bernie has gone out on a mission. Honestly, I loathe the obligation most films feel to include romance. This is an action/rescue movie, not The Notebook. What’s more, the men in the Coast Guard station seem as loathe to see her as I.
0:57:34 To combat his fear, Fitz begins singing the song ‘Haul Away Joe‘. The other men surely wish he could sing tenor (ten-or eleven kilometres away), or solo (so-lo they couldn’t hear him).
[N.B. They crew did sing while heading out to sea, but instead of ‘Haul away, Joe’, they sang ‘Rock of Ages‘ and ‘Harbour Lights‘.]
0:59:28 The director tries to create a lot of suspense as Bernie takes the boat over the bar, as though we didn’t already know they’re going to make it.
1:00:16
Bar hopping
1:03:49 The ‘boat going over the bar’ scene is sea porn: Not a lot of intrigue but it’s very wet and looks damn good.
1:08:10 The Pendleton runs aground. Like the romantic storyline of this film, it isn’t going anywhere.
It’s coming down harder than Disney share prices
1:10:28 The compass went overboard while they went over the bar, so now the 36500 is as lost as the money Disney invested in this film.
1:16:03 The Pendleton is on a shoal but the weight of the water filling it is dragging out off the sandbar with the tides. The pumps can’t pump enough water out and if the boat drifts off the shoal, everyone on the boat will have a sinking feeling.
1:18:24
The surf is way up
1:24:22 Bernie and crew find the Pendleton, and the sailors scamper down the Jacob’s ladder so quickly, they fall into the sea when the ship shifts. Despite this, no one dies, proving that the 1950’s were safer times.
1:26:55
A Mickey Mouse operation
1:28:02 The big guy named George ‘Tiny’ Myers (Abraham Benrubi) dies when he falls into the water and is crushed between the rescue boat and the tanker. But the good news is, after he dies, the waves ease, the storm ceases and even the men stop doing anything except for taking a moment of silence to observe all the WTF!?
[N.B. This is accurate. Of the 41 of sailors aboard the SS Pendleton, 8 died when the front half separated and sank, while only one of the 33-man crew at the back half died. That hapless victim was indeed the ship’s cook: George ‘Tiny’ Myers, who was the last man to leave the ship and was killed when he fell off the ladder and became pinched between the 36500 and the Pendleton.]
Tiny didn’t mind cooking for the crew but hated the pole dancing…
1:29:50
We all live or we all die.
Bernie says that even though their rescue ship is getting crowded, he’s going to save all the seamen, which may be hard to swallow.
1:32:28
A stern reprimand
1:38:08 Cluff at the Coast Guard station orders Bernie to go out to sea and drop the men off on a bigger boat, which actually sounds like a solid plan to me, but Bernie refuses, not knowing that the lights on shore have gone out, which he’s counting on because he doesn’t have a compass. Bernie was already dim enough at the outset…what will happen to him now?
Bernie is far under the weather
1:42:58 WTF!? It took the people on the shore this long to figure out maybe they should turn on their headlights when there are no lights anywhere else to help guide the sailors in? Times are desperate when I’m the smartest sailor on the poop deck.
[N.B. This ridiculous scene never took place, of course. The real Bernie Webber spotted a red, flashing light atop a buoy marking the entrance to the Old Harbor, Chatham.]
1:47:44 After they arrive safely, everyone on shore clears the dock to avoid watching Richie, who’s hated Bernie throughout the film, smile in approval at his nemesis. Even that’s more palatable, however, than watching Bernie and Miriam kiss like jellyfish mating.
‘I’m so shy I shower fully clothed / call my parents by their last name / can’t even talk to myself.’
[N.B. This scene, is excrutiangly melodramatic, especially when considering that, while many of the town-folk met the rescue boat at the dock, Webber did not see Miriam until many days later!
Coxswain Webber saw his friend and fisherman John Stello once again and inquired about what the sick Miriam Webber had said when she learned of the CG3-6500’s return? Stello replied that he had told Webber’s wife Miriam that Webber was a hero, but she was too ill to comprehend. Webber would not make it home for several days even though he lived just five minutes from the station.
1:49:09 Roll credits with cards of the aftermath compared to the real-life photos. The song is ‘Haul Away, Joe’ (performed by Kodaline), also the song they sang on the boat heading out [57:34].
[This website has some nice side-by-side shots of actors and the real people.]
When to Follow: After waiting for this to come out on Netflix, it’s a film you might watch with the family – if you’ve seen every other recent Disney production.
Where’s This Found: The sea scenes are well-filmed but The Finest Hours suffers from its insistence on focusing on the romance, which breaks up the action unnecessarily and draws the film out longer than it needs to be. Out of a possible 10, I have 6 F’s to give.
What To Feedback: I bet none of my esteemed readers can name one single action film where a romance actually made the film better. If you’re up to this challenge, leave a comment with the film that proves me wrong!
0:00:20 Bloody brilliant beginning. The opening credits are a frozen 3D moment of frenzy from a scene which will soon be seen. Instead of the traditional listing of cast and crew, we get sacrasctic cards poking fun at the film itself – all of this to the tune of 
