SCREAM: 3 ½ STARS
Everything old is new again
It’s been more than a quarter of a century since the original “Scream,” starring David Arquette, Neve Campbell and Drew Barrymore, reinvented the slasher genre with a scary, funny and self-reverential take on things that go stab in the night.
Three sequels later, there’s a new edition, the inventively titled “Scream.” It’s the fifth film in the series, and they’re not calling it a sequel. It is, God help us, a relaunch, or, as they call it in the movie, a “requel.”
A mix of new and old characters, “Scream” takes place in Woodsboro, Calif., a sleepy little town that had its peace and quiet interrupted 25 years ago by a killer in the now iconic Ghostface mask.
The action in the new film gets underway as a new Ghostface killer sets their sights — and knife — on Tara Carpenter (Jenna Ortega), a teenage senior at Woodsboro High who enjoys "elevated horror." (MILD SPOILER) Unlike the opening scene characters before her, Tara survives and is tended to by older sister Sam (Melissa Barrera) whose thorny history with Ghostface makes the pair a target for the masked killer.
As Ghostface’s killing spree continues, Sam turns to the old guard, Dewey Riley (David Arquette), television morning show host Gale Weathers (Courteney Cox) and Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell), for help.
“Scream” is more clever than the retread title and recycled killer would suggest. It continues the meta commentary on the rules characters in slasher movies must abide by if they expect to survive the knife but, more than that, it plays like a satire of itself. It’s a tricky line to walk, but directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett stay the course.
As the killer carves notches on his belt, characters talk about “elevated horror,” and toxic fandom until the line between what the characters are talking about and what we’re watching on screen blurs into one bloody riff on post-modern horror and what it really means to be a “requel.” It is simultaneously self-reverential and mocking of the slasher genre, and values its cleverness as much as the kills that provide the scares.
The scary scenes don’t have quite the same atmosphere Wes Craven brought to his “Scream” instalments, but there are moments that linger in the memory. The old trope of revealing the killer behind an opening door is played for laughs and tension, while the loss of one of the “legacy” characters is actually kind of touching.
As expected, the killings are brutal and bloody, and mostly not played for laughs. The new “Scream” is the most gruesome film in the franchise, offering up piercing knives and gallons of pouring plasma. There are plot holes everywhere and the victims have usually done something to put themselves in harm’s way, but the killings are effectively played out.
“Scream” is a slasher movie that bends the rules of slasher movies but, best of all, it also breaks the sequel rule of diminishing returns. Adding a fifth entry to an established franchise that holds up to the original may be the movie’s biggest achievement.
JACKASS FOREVER: 4 STARS FOR FANS / 2 STARS FOR EVERYBODY ELSE
“Jackass,” the shock value stunt show that began on MTV in 2000 before branching out to movies, should never have lasted this long.
The self-destructive punishment inflicted on the original cast should have broken their bodies, minds and spirits by now, and yet 22 years of jackassery continues this weekend. Those purveyors of puerile pratfalls, Johnny Knoxville, Steve-O and Wee Man, along with a new cast of daredevils, careen back into theatres with more idiotic and dangerous stunts to make you say, “Oh, that must hurt.”
For some, the title “Jackass Forever” may seem like a threat. A promise to further erode the fabric of civilization by banging these extreme stunt movies out until Knoxville and company have collectively broken every bone in their respective bodies to the delight of their bloodthirsty fans.
For others it’ll be like hanging out with old friends. Old friends who put one another in constant danger, but old friends nonetheless.
Camaraderie is at the core of the “Jackass Forever.” The stunts are dangerous, often gross and most definitely childish, but there is something that bonds the cast other than a Wile E. Coyote-style tolerance for pain. They’re pals who do stupid things but there is something endearing about the way they push the boundaries of safety and good taste, yucking it up all the while.
I think the appeal of “Jackass” is kind of like the appeal of true crime. You get a dopamine rush when terrible things happen, but somehow comforted that they’re happening to someone else.
It’s all about vicarious thrills.
Like the folks who attended the Roman Coliseum for the vicarious thrill of watching public spectacles involving man and beast, audiences will likely pay good money to watch what maybe the most jackassy of all the “Jackass” spinoffs. Giggle as Steve-O gets assaulted, below the belt, by a swarm of bees. What’s it like to lick a Taser? Step right up! Hurry! Hurry! Hurry! Folks, watch the Flight of Icarus! See a winged Knoxville get shot out of a canon!
It’s very silly, often cringeworthy but as guest star Eric Andre says, “This ain’t a Mensa convention.” Instead, it is an exploration of the art of the wedgie and other Theatre of Cruelty pranks.
I would love to report that no Knoxvilles were harmed during the making of this movie, but that isn’t the case. He takes on a bull and loses, breaking his wrist, some ribs and suffering a traumatic brain injury, yet the show goes on.
The audience for “Jackass Forever” already knows what to expect – close-up nudity, puke, scorpion Botox, unnatural acts, and humiliation. For the most part they’ll get what they paid for. It’s a chaotic, funny, plotless mix of friendship and don’t-try-this-at-home stunts that is complete fan service for folks who know that it is never not funny to see someone get kicked in the testicles.
For the uninitiated, you have been warned.
THE KING’S DAUGHTER: 1 ½ STARS
Not even Julie Andrews, the resourceful and determined Maria von Trapp can solve a problem like “The King’s Daughter,” a new fantasy-adventure flopping into theatres this week.
Shot eight years ago, this Pierce Brosnan movie has languished on the shelf waiting to see the light of day. Andrews, and her dulcet tones, came on board in 2000 as narrator in a last-ditch attempt to add some semblance of order to the slapdash story.
Set in 17th century France, the action gets underway with King Louis XVI (Brosnan) concerned about his mortality. He has immortality on his mind — “My immortality secures the future of France” — even if his adviser, Pere La Chase (William Hurt), finds the idea distasteful, if not blasphemous. “The only thing God gives as immortal is your soul,” he says, “And you only have one of those to lose.”
Tossing aside any thoughts of sacrilege apothecary, Dr. Labarthe (Pablo Schreiber) tells the king of a sea creature, a mermaid (Fan Bingbing) with an essence that will keep death from knocking at the door, but only if the mermaid is sacrificed during a solar eclipse.
Captain Yves (Benjamin Walker) captures the mermaid just as the King’s illegitimate daughter, Marie-Josephe (Kaya Scodelario), is brought to the palace. She’s been tucked away at a convent since she was a child, studying music, and doesn’t know her father is the King.
Marie-Josephe hears the mermaid’s siren song and is drawn to her watery prison. She’s also drawn to Captain Yves, despite her father’s wish that she marry Labarthe.
Meanwhile, the solar eclipse and possible mermaid dismemberment looms.
Not even the film’s backdrop, Versailles, the world’s most expensive movie set, can raise enough interest — visual or otherwise — for me to give “The King’s Daughter” a pass. The story has all the elements of a fun adventure, but it appears that director Sean McNamara ran the entire thing through the Un-Fun-Omatic before shipping it off to theatres.
Brosnan is overshadowed by his silly wig. You can see Hurt reaching for the pay cheque and poor Fan Bingbing is rendered almost unrecognizable by the worst computer effects this side of Donkey Kong. Add to that a script heavy on lackluster fantasy clichés, light on actual French accents and loaded with unintentionally funny moments, and you’re left with a royal mess.
“The King’s Daughter” is a fairy tale, but there is no happily-ever-after here for anyone, especially the audience.
POLY STYRENE: I AM A CLICHÉ: 4 STARS
Few voices captured the liberation of U.K. punk rock like Poly Styrene’s otherworldly wail. Born Marianne Elliott-Said, she may have chosen her unusual stage name as a “send up of being a pop star,” but her voice and message were the real deal. A new documentary, “Poly Styrene: I Am a Cliché,” now in theatres and on VOD, aims to remind the world of a ground breaking artist whose legacy can be heard in the riot grrrl and Afro-punk movements and beyond.
Based on a book by Styrene’s daughter Celeste Bell, the film is an intxjmtzywimate look at the Anglo-Somali legend through the eyes of her child. “My mother was a punk rock icon,” Bell says. “People often ask me if she was a good mum. It’s hard to know what to say.”
The story begins in 1957 with the birth of Marianne, daughter of a Scottish-Irish legal secretary and a Somali-born dock worker. Her indoctrination to punk rock came via a 1976 Sex Pistols concert. The music was a revelation that led to the name change and formation of X-Ray Specs, the five-piece band whose sole album, “Germfree Adolescents,” is considered a genre classic.
Styrene became a regular target for the press who ridiculed the braces on her teeth, her weight and unconventional clothing choices. Her record company, much to her displeasure, slimmed down her album cover photo as they tried to position her as a sex symbol for a new generation.
"I wasn’t a sex symbol,” she said, “And if anybody tries to make me one, I’ll shave my head tomorrow." And she did, at Johnny Rotten’s house during a party.
Her songs asked questions most other acts on the pop charts weren’t willing or equipped to ponder. “When you look in the mirror do you see yourself?” she sings in “Identity,” a slice of musical anarchy that was a rebuke to the images the media tries to foist upon people in the public eye.
Styrene’s rocky relationship with fame, her youth and a failed solo album led to a divorce from the music business as drugs, depression and a misdiagnosis of schizophrenia touched her private life.
Filling in the gaps between nicely chosen archival film clips are readings from Styrene’s personal diaries by Ethiopian-Irish actor Ruth Negga and Bell’s personal recollections.
“Poly Styrene: I Am a Cliché” is an intimate film. Unlike most music biographies that focus on the sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll aspects of the story, this movie also weaves in the social history of Britain, mental health and fame, while maintaining a personal touch courtesy of Bell.
Bell looks beyond the image, the media-imposed identity of her mother, to find the rebel, the radical and the real person, who struggled to determine where she fit into the world. The documentary, directed by Bell and Paul Sng, is a rarity, a movie about punk rock that casts its eyes beyond the musical anarchy to portray the real people behind it.
CLERK: 3 STARS
Kevin Smith has long been thought of as a renegade, a movie director who has never played by Hollywood’s rules. As such, his life and career are a natural for the documentary treatment.
Films like “Clerks” and “Mallrats” made him an avatar of indie filmmaking and his early adoption of the internet made him the Methuselah of geek culture. So, it is surprising that “Clerk,” a look at Smith’s legacy now on VOD, doesn’t have any of the rebel spirit that make his story, from “Clerks” to “Tusk” to his popular podcast SModcast, so compelling.
Near the beginning of its chronological look at Smith, director Malcolm Ingram shows a video the young filmmaker made as he prepared to leave home to attend the Vancouver Film School. A thank you to his parents for instilling in him a passion for movies, it is lovely footage that displays Smith’s heart and his devotion of his chosen industry.
If the rest of the movie struck the same tone as this footage, “Clerk” might have the depth to make it feel like something beyond an entertaining, but shallow, DVD extra.
Smith is an intriguing character. From DIY filmmaker (“Clerks”) to studio outsider (“Cop Out”), to self-distributor of his movies to podcast superstar and Geek God, he has forged an unlikely, but prolific career.
Through interviews with friends—like Ben Affleck, Richard Linklater and BFF Jason Mewes—fans and family—his mother Grace, wife Jennifer Schwalbach Smith and daughter Harley Quinn all appear—a portrait emerges of a man who created a world for himself.
We’re told about his drive to create, how he has rolled with the punches and health scares, and also rolled thousands of joints, to become a cultural touchstone who has turned his love of pop culture into a career. “I didn’t want to be a footnote,” he says.
The most revealing part of the film comes midway. Smith calls a scene in “Clerks II” the moment where he learned who he was “through the art.” The characters, Quick Stop (the convenience store the action revolves around) store manager Dante (Brian O’Halloran) and slacker Randall (Jeff Anderson), are in jail.
Dante says, “What would the great Randall Graves do if he was the master of his own destiny?” The answer? “I’d buy the Quick Stop and reopen it myself.”
In that moment, Smith says, this character, once defined by his cynicism and disappointment with the world, is laid bare. That scene tells “the story of my life,” the director says. “The day I realized you could just buy the Quick Stop and reopen it yourself. That’s how you’d be happiest. That was me going, ‘I’m never going to be what other cats would like me to be. The only reason you like me in the first place is because I was me. So, I’m going to go and be me for the rest of my life now.’”
It is a teary moment—Smith wells up several times during the almost two hour run time—that sums up an epiphany for Smith that appears to have influenced much of his career moving forward from that moment.
Self-acceptance is a great message—"I want to be the Smithiest Kevin Smith I can be”—and it is one of the things that has made Smith so popular with his rabid fans. But by the end of the “Clerk,” it’s clear that, despite that life lesson, the documentary is more fan service than deep dive. Smith devotees—that is, anyone who knows what “Snoochie Boochies” refers to—will enjoy revisiting the movies that made the charismatic director famous, but holes—Mewes’ drug addiction for instance—in the storytelling and hagiographic interviews prevent it from being a definitive portrait.
