In Better Hands

 Poorly conceived Hysteria still proves necessity is the mother of invention

By

Morgan P Salvo

Sometimes a filmmaker’s lofty ideas get in the way of execution. Such is the case with Hysteria, a flick that just scratches the surface of the never-ending fun and/or pathos that should be derived from such a touchy subject matter. Director Tanya Wexler tells the story of the invention of the first vibrator with quaintness and cuteness instead of the raging satire it so richly deserves. The opening prologue of “based on a true story” is followed by the smug … “really,” leading us to believe that this might be a flick with wit and vigor, but what we get instead is a romantic comedy period piece with the vibrator saga as backdrop. Personally I feel the Victorian period is boring unless a werewolf gnaws on someone’s neck.

The plot of the first female massage gizmo is that women are diagnosed with hysteria and bad thoughts stemming from lack of love or attention so they are treated by vaginal stimulation to orgasm as treatment. The specialist in charge of this method, Dr. Robert Dalrymple (Jonathan Price), concludes that hysteria stems from an overactive uterus. He employs a young intern, Mortimer Granville (Hugh Dancy), to help with the overload of clientele.  Granville’s success in manually stimulate patients results in him getting a sore wrist, hand and cramped fingers so his wacky inventor friend (Rupert Everett) and he come up with the first electronic massage unit, or as we today know it, vibrator. Needless to say the device scores a bull’s-eye.

We also follow Granville’s medical career at the orgasm clinic and his relationship with two sisters vying for his attention. We know exactly where this movie is going as Mortimer is first smitten by the more conventional daughter and daddy’s little girl Emily Dalrymple (Felicity Jones) then the feisty rebellious Charlotte Dalrymple (Maggie Gyllenhaal) who defies all logic and operates a shelter on the wrong side of town. Let’s see…in true formulaic movie convention will he go for the safe choice or take a chance and cast all lube by the wayside? And what about all that darn vaginal stimulation - what’s to become of the masses of unsatisfied hysterical women? Well, all these questions arise and everything is dropped like a gently aroused hot potato to hone in on the romantic comedy aspect of this trite and extremely unsatisfying flick.

The portrayal of orgasms vary in degree of silliness (and not believable in the least) avoiding any form of eroticism. The Vibrator stimulation scenes are beyond stupid (as though someone would really sing opera in the saddle). An interesting highlight is that the examination room (or “pleasure cage”) doesn’t have gynecological stirrups of a clinic bed, but rather is more like a velvet-curtained puppet stage shrouded in mystery.

 As though coming direct from the Women’s Channel there are jabs at chauvinism while upholding women’s rights but in the end it’s all about the phony fairy tale idea of doing the right thing and falling in love with the right person. The sub-plot of Maggie running a shelter to tug at our hearts strings is just another phony manipulation of Rom-Com ideology. In the hands of a more seasoned filmmaker, Hysteria could have hit all its high notes and really delivered on what is a very intriguing story. Instead we get the glossed-over and dreadfully serious fact that in its day hysterectomy was essentially a woman’s lobotomy.

The flick’s last third involves a super stagey, unbelievable courtroom scene and the ending is sewn up way too happily with a hard-to-tolerate kiss. Sadly Wexler’s vision for Hysteria is just a tepid telling of what could be a hilarious or deeply serious (not to mention erotically charged) story choosing instead to suck the life out any hopes under its own pretentions. This movie is all touchy feely (pun intended) but in all the wrong places. Credits include a history of vibrators from hybrid feather duster to pocket rockets

Hysteria

Starring Hugh Dancy, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Jonathan Pryce, Felicity Jones, Rupert Everett, Directed by Tanya Wexler

Rated R

2 stars

Model Citizen

Blind Faith reveals more than meets the blind eye 

By Morgan P Salvo

Bernie has a trifecta of actors I usually can’t stand (Jack Black, Mathew McConaughey, Shirley MacLaine) and a director who has never impressed me. More importantly Richard Linklater has perturbed me in a way no other director has with his fingernails-on-a-blackboard over-wordy agendas and use of mostly bad acting to deliver the goods. All this has changed, at least for the most part, with Bernie.

The film is based on the true story of Carthage Texas’ Bernie Tiede, (Black) who was an assistant funeral director (“they don’t call them morticians anymore”), singer for the church choir, director/actor for the town’s community theater and all around nice guy seeking acceptance. Without giving too much away Bernie befriends the town’s meanest widow, Mrs. Nugent (MacLaine), who’s rolling in dough. They start taking trips together and hanging out way too much, sparking the gossip machine in the small town but mainly everyone just thinks its fine. That is all except Lloyd the accountant (Richard Robichaux) and DA Danny Buck (McConaughey) who both smell a rat. Mrs. Nugent becomes more demanding of Bernie’s attentions and, as this is a story being told in the past tense, we get the feeling that something is not going to go well for at least one of the main characters. The shape of things to come takes on a crime mystery feel for that last third. Bernie also morphs into a reminder of political rhetoric that if you keep on saying something it must be true... a term used for sociopaths as well.

 This is Linklater’s tribute to his home state fusing interviews with real people (happy to talk to the camera) and real actors, all very believable. Bernie reads a lot like the Errol Morris documentary Vernon Florida but with a plot. Witty and to the point Linklater, finally restrained, redeems himself by sticking to telling the story, including only small doses of wordy prose-like dialogue.

Even though all the actors were fine I would’ve liked to have seen all three main characters played by relatively unknowns, that might have allowed for them to shine and we become more vested in their plight and stories. That said, MacLaine exhibits her finely honed cantankerous spirit with her standard frowning “ bitch-from-hell” old lady role but actually has a little bit of an arc before retreating back to devil woman status. MacLaine has come a long way from the days as a leggy showgirl. McConaughey, sporting a funny haircut, actually made me laugh but over the years he seems an enigma of few great choices overshadowed by wretched movies. Black does a fairly mesmerizing job for a while then falls back on merely posing and there was way too much of him singing, although very lyrical, beautiful and poignant, it was overkill. Plus Black has gotten so fat it’s downright creepy to see his tubby girth paired with MacLaine’s withered freckled flesh--- yeesh!

 Focusing on only seeing the good and turning a blind eye to facts the result is that people will believe what they want, no matter what. Linklater pulls off a slick flick incorporating a great world view of Texas that while entertaining, lacks emphasis. Suffering from no real dynamics there’s an absence of high drama or suspense thanks to the director’s laid back even keeled approach. This leaves us with nothing but warm-hearted sentimentality which is great to an extent but ends up a prime example of less is not more it’s just less.

Highlights of this flick are seeing the resurgence of Sonny Davis (Last night at the Alamo) and ending credits with real footage including the real imprisoned Bernie talking to Black.

Bernie

Starring Jack Black, Mathew McConaughey, Shirley MacLaine, Richard Robichaux, Sonny Davis, Rick Dial

Directed by Richard Linklater

Rated PG-13

2 ½ stars

Trickery and Deceit

 Snow White and the Huntsman is too Grimm for it’s own good

By Morgan P Salvo

June brings us Snow White and the Huntsman, the second Show White movie installment of the year. Unlike its earlier counterpart Mirror Mirror the actual line of “who is the fairest of them all” is uttered and unlike Mirror’s attempt at wit and coming off like a bad cartoon, Snow White and the Huntsman comes off like a combo of Lord of the Rings, Time Bandits and Apocalypse Now (okay, maybe one scene).

The reinventing of the familiar plot has the evil queen (Charlize Theron) holed up in her castle fighting age off with a frenzy, sucking air out of young maidens or plucking life out of handsome stable boys hearts with her talons. Then there’s a mirror (looking like a big Zildjan cymbal) that tells her she’s still the fairest. That is until the mirror designates an imprisoned Snow White (Kristen Stewart). Snow escapes, the Queen’s sadistic brother (Sam Spruell) is dispatched to find her, a brave yet drunken Huntsman (Chris Hemsworth) protects her, along with despicable hobo-like dwarves found along the way. Then it’s a journey back to the land where Snow comes from, rally up the banished troops to takeover the evil castle. All the while the Queen doth age and uses all her evil sorcery to thwart Snow White’s efforts. We all know how this will end, with good triumphant over evil, but its fun to see how the fable is either distilled or ramped up. However this flick is merely a boring quest saga peppered with adventure and at times meant to please Twilight fans and worshippers of Hemsworth’s hunkdom.

First time Director Sanders shuns his past of making commercials, creating a vision like Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood or Game of Thrones with a non-stop onslaught of different lands and sets of CGI greatness. There’s an impressive Dark Forest with its twisting gnarled branches, nasty monstrous troll and clams that ooze motor oil. The Enchanted Forest is something altogether spectacular with its fairies, mushrooms-with-bulging- eyeballs and a stag-like creature with tree branches for horns. This is a psychedelic Disney-like fairyland that’s looks like H.R. Pufnstuf on acid. 

Trickery and deceit is at the base of this movie and following suit the PG-13 doesn’t work for cinematic battle scenes. We need to see at least one spray of blood or a lopped off head. Wisely to overcome this burden some of the black army are just a weird conglomeration of obsidian meshed together to form fighting soldiers that when sliced by sword shatter and explode.

Another similarity between the two flicks is that both have Academy Award winning actresses to play the wicked Queen: coincidence or challenge? Wherein Julia Roberts was scurrying about spouting ineffective one-liners, Theron holds her ground and emanates evil from her various perches. Although both actresses have a field day with this role, Theron, is betrayed by some unworthy dialogue rendering her merely adequate. Stewart’s rallying of the troops monologue is also laughably weak, but to Stewart’s credit she actually smiles and only bites her lip once (that I noticed). Hemsworth, trading his Thor hammer for an axe, didn’t bother me so much as he is perfectly cast. But he has to do something about that permanent scowl. Spruell (sporting an evil blonde Prince Valiant haircut) is a formidable villain wreaking havoc on the sojourn.

As with Mirror, the seven dwarves are the best thing. Drawing heavily from the Lord Of The Rings influence the dwarves are played by a slew of barely recognizable actors in flawless CGI fitted dwarf bodies. It’s a laugh riot to discern British actors like Ian McShane, Bob Hoskins, Ray Winstone, Nick Frost, Toby Jones and Eddie Marsan through this CGI extravaganza. Still, I liked that Mirror actually used little people.

Using some of the original Grimm ideology with the poison apple signifying temptation and the relationship between queen and brother might be more that just sibling love, this flick tells a decent story that’s still good for the kids, though there were WAY more kids at Mirror than this.

Thankfully the love story isn’t handled all mushy and corny as in Mirror, in fact SWATH keeps the love interest at bay which is refreshing. It’s actually about more important things like storming the castle than “let’s make out”. Yet... This flick is Way too deadly serious  there is a lot of crying in this movie--- you know the kind where you watch someone’s sad face until a tear or two slide down their face. I think Denzel started all this in Glory. Hell there’s more crying in this movie than the first Spiderman, and that’s a lot.

Where Mirror was a slow-paced dimwitted waste of time Huntsman’s slow moving speed is deliberate with its storytelling. Even though there are moments of greatness in this flick, it still lacked oomph. I think there’s an even greater film within these intentions still waiting to be made.

In the end this flick is a more adult version than the cute predecessor, and Grimm’s mythology is messed with more clearly. Still Snow and Huntsman lacks the punch to send it into the heights of memorable. I’m already getting hazy on the memory except for the acidy flashback of The Enchanted Forest.

 

Snow White and the Huntsman

Starring Kristen Stewart, Charlize Theron, Chris Hemsworth, Sam Spruell

Directed by Rupert Sanders

Rated PG-13

2 stars

Off the Beaten Path

Extreme detour lands in radiation land as Chernobyl Diaries follows horror movie aesthetics 101

By Morgan P Salvo

Oren Peli has ruined my movie going experience one time too many. The dude responsible for the Paranormal Activity atrocities has had me running screaming down the aisles in disgust rather than fright. But now Peli has nearly redeemed himself by way of producing and co-writing the screenplay for Chernobyl Diaries. This flick is nowhere near as bad as I had anticipated; in fact it’s down right fun.

Looking like we’re in found footage territory from the get-go, this is merely a trick to help set up the characters on a European vacation, though found footage is wisely incorporated again later. We begin with the formulaic technique of spending time with couples vacationing before they’re detoured from Moscow and treated to mutated cannibalistic humanistic underground dwellers. (C.H.U.D. Remember?)

There are three couples: Chris (Jesse McCartney) and his girlfriend Natalie (Olivia Taylor Dudley), their friend (Devin Kelley), Chris’ brother (Jonathan Sadowski) and some European backpacking love birds (Ingrid Bolsø Berdal and Nathan Phillips of Wolf Creek fame) plus extreme tour guide Uri (a supremely engaging Dimitri Diatchenko) who venture into the Ukrainian town of Prypiat, which has been abandoned since the Chernobyl nuclear reactor disaster in 1986 left it uninhabitable. The trip’s main is draw is Chernobyl’s fun facts, like nothing lives there, radiation levels are high and everything is deserted just like the people left it when they fled.

Most of the time is spent touring some dilapidated housing projects and then… a noise! Oops, they are not as alone as they thought even after their ludicrous comment of “look, no birds anywhere”. And then, just like having your very own crystal ball, you can call out loud that the van won’t start and all horror movie cliché hell breaks loose. The characters go berserk running around in circles, through endless hallways and flights of stairs or trapped in the van screaming yelling and cursing in fright as they get picked off one by one. Sure it sounds familiar, but that’s what’s fun about this flick. Wherein Cabin in the Woods took the genre to extremes, Chernobyl stays right on the mark delivering the creepy goods in a tried and true formula. This is exactly what scary movies are supposed top be like - an unknown entity that is REAL, threatening to kill the shit out of you if you do not high tail it the hell out of there.

All along we’re kept guessing. Could it be redneck Russian hillbilly cannibals or radiated mutated crazy people? Soon enough we know what we’re dealing with:  a plethora of menacing creatures, including rabid wild dogs that look like they just got out of grooming school and some wispy-haired zombie-like sub-humans. But there’s not enough monster footage as first time director Brad Parker, via jumpy hand-held camera work, avoids long-drawn-out shots of the pale creatures, instead giving us sudden glimpses that only hint at their ruined features and physical deformities.

Still after all the big scares and chases down corridors and tunnels there isn’t enough of a pay off. This movie could stand to be even longer with more focus on the “mutants-gone mad” to up the stakes and explain why the hell they are so darn mean. There’s absolutely no rhyme or reason as to why the creatures either eat their prey right away or drag them around until their cohorts can stumble upon them. And after all is said and done, we still get the big cover up, sell out ending. Chernobyl conjures up images of better movies past like The Ruins, I am Legend, The Descent, and the more recent Stag Night (a similar set up in the subway tunnels of New York). Filmed in Hungary and Serbia, the locations and realistic production design and sets are by far some of the coolest things in this movie.

Even though most people will still praise the ever-wearing thin Paranormal franchise, Chernobyl faithfully returns to the horror movie genre. Seriously, who doesn’t want to see a bunch of well intentioned freaked out dumb-shits running into more peril instead of away from it like rats in a maze with creepy monsters around every turn? Give credit where credit is due. This film is as fun as a barrel of uranium enriched monkeys. And that’s the point.

 

Chernobyl Diaries

Starring: Ingrid Bolsø Berdal, Dimitri Diatchenko, Olivia Taylor Dudley, Devin Kelley, Jesse McCartney, Nathan Phillips, Jonathan Sadowski

Directed by Brad Parker

Rated R

2 ½ stars

War of the Scholars

 Footnote gives new meaning to ‘like father like son’

 by Morgan P Salvo 

Filmmaking gets a dazzling fresh take with Footnote, thanks to director Joseph Cedar’s even keel approach to a whirlwind of dynamics surrounding mind games, intellectual suffering and guilt. This flick is a mind-bending chess game between two rival scholars who just happen to be father (Shlomo Bar-Abba) and son (Lior Ashkenazi). But don’t let that fool you. These two are scholars who read about reading, write about writing and live and breathe investigation into both, their main focus being the Talmud transcripts (a central text of mainstream Judaism, recording discussions pertaining to Jewish law, ethics, philosophy, customs and history).

The gist of the plot is that dad has been passed over for the Israeli prize (considered to be the state’s highest honor) for over twenty years and finally gets the call he’s been waiting for his entire life - that he has been awarded the prize. The problem is the call was intended for his son, creating a terrible dilemma for everyone. Pride, integrity and legacy are at stake along with some very decisive and deceiving pratfalls. It’s never what you think.

The film starts with an ingenious close-up of dad listening to his son deliver an acceptance speech for another academic award with a backhanded recognition of his father’s influence. As Dad shows no emotion except for a smidgeon of blithe indifference we get the set up for the turning twists of events to come. The way the scholars handle things goes beyond the call of decency at times but thanks to the genius writing and filmmaking we have to rewind and play out in our heads what has transpired throughout the movie to discern the motives. Dad is in a perpetual state of stewing in his own juices while the son is a little more carefree and modern as they approach each other from opposite schools of resentment. Different levels of disdain, tradition and reverence are achieved and it seems the generational dysfunction will be handed down like a family heirloom.

With serious and comic overtones, Footnote at times garners a Coen bros movie perspective (especially A Serious Man) particularly with the use of the billowing Hitchcockian whodunit music.

Ashkenazi captures his side of the dilemma perfectly. His subtle acting is interrupted by bursts of manic rage while Bar-Abba does all his acting from the inside out. Seething turmoil from within, he’s a no win kind of guy in a no win situation.

Both scholars’ main objective is to make the other one suffer and then gloat, sometimes delivered by doing the right thing and saying the wrong thing and vice versa. Through the cinematic magic we’re allowed to witness that through stubbornness, pride and tradition it’s still all about the power of words. Curiously clever and insightful, this flick will have you thinking and debating days after you see it.

 

Footnote

Starring Shlomo Bar-Abba, Lior Ashkenazi, Alisa Rosen, Alma Zak, Daniel Markovich

Directed by Joseph Cedar

Rated PG-13

3 stars

Suffering Life in the Bubble

 Warning: Boring beyond help, Damsels in Distress causes high anxiety

by Morgan P Salvo

Writer/director Whit Stillman has made his presence known after a 14 year break with Damsels in Distress which will cause great distress not for just damsels but for anyone viewing this dud. After the highly over-praised flicks Metropolis and Last Days of Disco, this comeback speaks volumes as to why Stillman should stay away for good.

With a recipe of super self consciousness, Damsels is a low budget fiasco and feels as if Jared Hess took time out from Napoleon Dynamite and teamed up with Diablo Cody’s wretched writing smugness from Jennifer’s Body and just turned out a flat pretentious hunk of crap. In the hands of say John Waters or Wes Anderson this self aware flick might’ve played out better, but really no amount of genius could have stopped this misguided crap out of the toilet tank.

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 Stillman tries to steer us through the inane plot surrounding a trio of girls (Greta Gerwig, Carrie MacLemore, Megalyn Echikunwoke) who set out to change the male-dominated environment of the Seven Oaks college campus, and to rescue their fellow students from depression, low standards of every kind and extremely poor choices in men. Immediately inducting a new student (Analeigh Tipton) who questions their motives, they are off to save the campus world from the evils of mundane living by running a suicide prevention center. Basically what we get are lowbrow, subversive bland characters, moronic men and laconic, sharp-witted yet ignorant women. Plus with this title you’d figure you’d see at least one chick tied to a railroad track. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Weird timing and expressionless monotonic delivery comprise the style employed here and it weighs the flick down, making the time spent sitting in the theatre all the more painful to endure. The connection between the four girls makes no sense. There is no common thread as each contains elements of individuality impossible to share with others. This is a world where BO is an overblown drama, handsome is a problem and tap dancing is used as suicide prevention and depression therapy.

This sounds somewhat promising but Damsels falters every step of the way in its execution. The script is merely a stage to showcase Stillman’s sardonic wit and use of language which seems only put onscreen to serve his own amusement. Thanks to Stillman’s need to daunt us with deadpan intellectualizing this is a classic case of writing outweighing acting. Putting big smart words in people’s mouths in artsy-fartsy topical debates about nothing does not make art or a good movie but rather smacks of haughty pretentiousness. Even though there are some funny lines amidst the pandering to self consciousness, I don’t get where Stillman is coming from at all.

We can blame the director for the poorly stylized acting. The actors come off horribly because the material thwarts them every time. The cast is dull with the exception of Tipton who shines with believability, but right when her character gets an arc she is dropped like a suicidal potato. Gerwig’s acting is as irritating as her character is to behold.

This flick is intentionally the Anti-Animal House, galvanizing the premise of losers versus social pretentions but that façade quickly dissipates into mundane gibberish. Too much moronic intellectualizing is just plain boring.

Every so often the release valve in my brain would let out a huge SO WHAT?! I have never wanted a movie to be over this much since Babies. I wanted to bolt every five minutes. And just when you think it can’t get worse, in turns into a damned musical. Lars von Triers did a great job with Dancer in the Dark incorporating musical numbers into a dreary super depressing movie. Stillman gives us just a dreary movie with an ambiguous plot and meandering babbling of the incoherent. Ending nonsensically with a dance number called “Sambola” (complete with subtitled directions), Damsels hurts and not in a good way.

When the credits finally appeared, I high-tailed it out of there so fast my head was spinning with a bad taste in my brain. I know this movie shouldn’t stimulate or conjure up such strong emotions because it certainly is not worthy, but I really hated this flick. There’s a campus newspaper in this flick called The Daily Complainer—where do I sign up?

 

Damsels in Distress

Starring Greta Gerwig, Carrie MacLemore, Megalyn Echikunwoke, Analeigh Tipton, Adam Brody,

Directed by Whit Stillman

Rated PG-13

½ star

Nevermore!

A Premature Burial is Only Fitting
by Morgan P Salvo

The makers of The Raven would like you to believe that Edgar Allen Poe spent the last days of his life helping law enforcement officials capture a crazed copycat killer (influenced by Poe’s work) and in doing so, saved the love of his life Emily, whom he wrote Annabel Lee for. This is about as likely as me putting on a pair of diapers, sprouting wings and shooting love arrows at terrorists.

The plot uses some of the real-life mysteries from Poe's final days to form the backdrop of a fictional tale about a serial killer who models his work on scenes from the author's goriest stories. Filmed in Serbia and Hungary, Raven looks cool but that’s about it. With the exception of really good looking detailed gore, this movie is as flat as a buttermilk pancake. If a film can pay this much attention to blood spurting and gushing, then the rest of the movie should rise to the occasion.

Raven is a combo of director James McTeigue’s prior work - Ninja Assassin’s overt blood spraying and V for Vendetta’s blandness. "The Pit and the Pendulum" murder scene rivals if not surpasses the equivalent torture scene from SAW V. This flick is betrayed by its constant dullness allowing only gore to deliver the money shots.

Then there’s the acting. Let’s face it; John Cusack is really not an actor. He is just John Cusack. There’s no discernable difference between his former roles and Poe with the exception of more hair and a goatee. Cusack’s Poe could have cranked up the turmoil and debauchery--- he was an alcoholic and opium addict for chrissakes! The bottom line is that Cusack does not have the acting chops to pull off an intellectual giant with Victorian banter. His range includes bugging out his eyes and yelling. I like Cusack, he’s a cool dude but he definitely should just stick to contemporary times or take some acting lessons. Alice Eve was God-awful and totally miscast. Brendan Gleason should be utterly ashamed of himself. The only one to watch was Luke Evans as Detective Fields. Coming off like a combo of Heath Ledger meets Michael Shannon, at least he attempted some depth. Actually Evans and Cusack should’ve switched roles. Evans looks like Poe and Cusack would’ve fared much better as the frustrated officer.

 The Raven is a fairy tale with halfwit intellectualizing and downright bastardization of Poe and his masterpieces. The new killer wants Poe to write gory stories again, his killing spree spurned on by his love/hate relationship with Poe’s work. Supposedly this gives remedy to Poe’s writer’s block by being forced to come out of semi-retirement to write fresh installments of the new crimes being committed. Too bad the writers of this travesty busted through their barricade.

The poorly written script is relentlessly ridiculous. At one point we see a newspaper headline referring to a madman “serial killer". This phrase wasn’t coined until the likes of one Ted Bundy entered our midst. Oddly, descendant Hanna Shakespeare was co-writer. Apparently it doesn’t run in the family.

In 1849, Edgar Allan Poe was discovered on a Baltimore park bench, incoherent, delirious and almost dead. How he got that way and what he babbled about is a mystery, with theories concentrating on Poe's personal torment and addiction to opiates and alcohol not to mention his brain congestion, cholera, heart disease, rabies, suicide attempts, tuberculosis, syphilis and other assorted traumas. The dude was messed up. We see nothing close to that degree of a tormented soul here.

I have an idea. Let’s pair Poe and Sherlock Holmes and why not throw in Charles Dickens, Oscar Wilde, Mark Twain, Robert Louis Stevenson, Lewis Carroll, Jack London, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Emily Dickinson then let tem run amuck as superheroes like The Avengers and fight crime in Kickass fashion. If the Raven’s filmmakers can’t be as mad and macabre as its hero, why not bend the rules even bigger?

I have always been a big fan of Edgar Allan having read most of his stuff a few times, but even more so of HP Lovecraft. I swear to God they had better leave him alone. Wait…who am I kidding?Lovecraft better prepare to start rolling in his grave.

 

The Raven

Starring John Cusack, Luke Evans, Alice Eve, Brendan Gleeson

Directed by James McTeigue

Rated R

1 star