Alan Rapp

The Killing of a Sacred Deer

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: The Killing of a Sacred Deer
  • IMDb: link

The Killing of a Sacred Deer movie reviewWriter/director Yorgos Lanthimos (The Lobster) is known for unconventional storytelling, and his latest certainly fits that bill. Steven Murphy (Colin Farrell) is a respected surgeon with a wife (Nicole Kidman), two children (Raffey Cassidy and Sunny Suljic), and secretive relationship to the son (Barry Keoghan) of a former patient with an equally strange mother (Alicia Silverstone, in a surprisingly small role). When Steven’s son develops odd symptoms that can’t be explained, the doctor is confronted by Martin (Keoghan) who makes veiled threats while suggesting that he is somehow responsible.

The Killing of a Sacred Deer is a frustrating movie. The film is visually stunning with a haunting score, but every time an actor delivers a torturous line-reading (more appropriate to a group of lonely souls reading publicly from their Twilight fan fiction) the spell is broken. There’s a stiltedness to every performance, no character speaks naturally, and even their reactions, movements, and manners are so affected it will make you wonder if you missed the note explaining that everyone in the film is autistic.

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Supergirl – Wake Up

/ / Television Reviews
  • Title: Supergirl – Wake Up
  • wiki: link

Supergirl - Wake Up television review

“Wake Up” marks the return of Mon-El (Chris Wood) to Earth when he’s found aboard the sunken alien spacecraft we’ve seen glimpses of this season. Initially overjoyed to have him back, Kara (Melissa Benoist) becomes concerned about his troubling behavior (which is never adequately explained), reluctance to talk about what has happened to him, or explain the spaceship or the its other slumbering passengers… including the woman who is later revealed to be his wife (Amy Jackson). The revelation of Mon-El’s time in the future and the introduction of Saturn Girl (Amy Jackson) marks the show’s first steps to introducing an important piece to Supergirl’s comic history as she meets her first member of the Legion of Super-Heroes. Could Supergirl be up for some time travel of her own?

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Good Time

/ / Home Video
  • Title: Good Time
  • IMDb: link

Good Time Blu-ray reviewRobert Pattinson stars as Connie, a criminal who uses everyone he comes into contact with including his mentally-handicapped brother Nick (Benny Safdie) who he ropes into helping him rob a bank. While the score goes off without any issues, the botched getaway leaves Nick in jail and Connie working every angle he can to free him including calling on an old girlfriend (Jennifer Jason Leigh), taking advantage of an impressionable 16 year-old (Taliah Webster), and planning a jail break after his brother is taken to a nearby hospital.

While respecting the tone and pace of of directors Benny Safdie and Josh Safdie‘s film, Connie’s selfishness eventually began to wear on me. There’s a method to Connie’s madness, although his actions rarely lead to the expected outcome. And he does have guilt over Nick being locked up in prison, although it’s hard not to look at these actions as predominantly selfish in keeping himself out of prison.

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Justice League Action – Race Against Crime

/ / Television Reviews
  • Title: Justice League Action – Race Against Crime
  • wiki: link

Justice League Action - Race Against Crime TV review

Who is faster, Superman (Jason J. Lewis) or the Flash (Charlie Schlatter)? DC has milked this controversy for decades since the pair’s first race 60 years ago. We’ve seen races in multiple comics as well as on television in Superman: The Animated Series‘ “Speed Demons.” “Race Against Crime” follows the basic format of stories like this as the world gathers to watch the pair race only to see a super-villain interfere and stop from having a true winner ever declared. This time around that villain is Lex Luthor (James Woods) who takes advantage of the tracking technology to bleed speed from both racers and siphon it into his own armor allowing him control of both speed and time.

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Lemon

/ / Home Video
  • Title: Lemon
  • IMDb: link

“I knew you were crazy. I thought it was good crazy. I liked it. I liked it a lot; I thought it was fun. Now I know you’re bad crazy.”

Lemon DVD reviewWriter/director Janicza Bravo‘s oddball dark comedy stars Brett Gelman as a thoroughly-unlikable and constantly-sullen actor and theater teacher with a blind girlfriend (Judy Greer) who wants nothing to do with him, an equally-pretentious prize student (Michael Cera sporting some insanely ridiculous hair) with whom he has a very unusual relationship, and a dysfunctional family (Fred Melamed, Rhea Perlman, Shiri Appleby, Martin Starr, Hannah Heller, and David Paymer).

It’s hard to root either for a man lacking all empathy or against such a sad sack who is little more than the butt of life’s series of jokes. Isaac’s misadventures include belittling a theater student (Gillian Jacobs), fretting about the state of his relationship, accidentally killing his friend’s birds, awkward attempts to woo a new love (Nia Long), and taking jobs as the face of sexually transmitted diseases. More than a little self-indulgent, every character and event in the movie pushes the oddball style past credulity highlighting either the humor or misery of its protagonist (often both at the same time), which makes it difficult to take either that seriously.

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