Hunter Schafer and Dan Stevens Go ‘Cuckoo’ in the Mountains

August 5, 2024

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We all go a little Cuckoo sometimes (CREDIT: NEON)

Starring: Hunter Schafer, Dan Stevens, Jessica Henwick, Jan Bluthardt, Marton Csokas, Greta Fernández, Àstrid Bergès-Frisbey, Konrad Singer, Proschat Madani, Kalin Morrow

Director: Tilman Singer

Running Time: 103 Minutes

Rating: R for Language Bloody, Reality-Altering Violence

Release Date: August 9, 2024 (Theaters)

What’s It About?: 17-year-old American Gretchen (Hunter Schafer) is summoned to the German Alps to live with her father Luis (Marton Csokas), stepmom Beth (Jessica Henwick) and little half-sister Alma (Mila Lieu), but she’s skeptical of the whole situation. And rightly so. She gets a job at the local hotel, which proves to be much less low-key than she was expecting when she’s chased home by a mysterious woman. (Or was it a woman?) Then there’s Herr König (Dan Stevens), who might just be running the town as his own personal experiment. Gretchen seems to be alone in recognizing how surreal everything is, besides a detective (Jan Bluthardt) who recruits her into an investigation into what König is really up to. And the truth probably isn’t what anybody is expecting.

What Made an Impression?: The Adults Aren’t Alright: Teenage angst and horror go hand-in-hand. But interestingly enough, none of the scares in Cuckoo are really derived from Gretchen’s internal disposition. There’s a running thread about her failing to get a hold of her Mom back in the U.S., which is plenty distressing on its own. But if Gretchen is the most tormented character in this movie, then that means that she’s also the most reasonable. Her father tells her to just knock it off and behave, but that’s not the sort of parenting she needs right now. Also, he might have been brainwashed by the machinations of Herr König, whom Stevens plays as the ultimate over-the-top mustache-twirling mad scientist. The detective is the most clear-eyed of all the adults about what’s actually happening, but even he is a little too erratic for Gretchen to get close to. We all learn eventually that grown-ups are more or less making it up as they go along, and Gretchen’s realization about that is exponentially starker than most.

Playing God vs. Finding Family: To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, there is only one thing in this world more difficult than accurately describing Cuckoo while avoiding spoilers, and that is accurately describing Cuckoo while not avoiding spoilers. Maybe that’s a bit hyperbolic, but this is definitely a bizarre, unique vision that I’m still processing. For those eager to experience the thrills on display, I’ll offer some hints by asking you to think about the bird referenced in the title and then imagining what a humanoid hybrid of such a creature would be like. As it turns out, little Alma is the key to that endeavor. Gretchen isn’t exactly an ideal big sister at the beginning of the movie, but her life-threatening journey sure helps her discover what family really means. That proves to be decent enough motivation to deliver what Cuckoo is selling.

Cuckoo is Recommended If You Like: Rosemary’s Baby, Splice, Déjà vu (The sensation, not the movie)

Grade: 3.5 out of 5 Head Bandages

‘The Royal Hotel’ Shows What It Takes to Survive in the Outback

October 3, 2023

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Will they ever be Royals? (CREDIT: Neon/Screenshot)

Starring: Julia Garner, Jessica Henwick, Hugo Weaving, Toby Wallace, Ursula Yovich, Daniel Henshall, James Frecheville

Director: Kitty Green

Running Time: 91 Minutes

Rating: R for Maximum Drunken Boorishness

Release Date: October 6, 2023 (Theaters)

What’s It About?: If there’s one major lesson to be learned from The Royal Hotel, it’s that planning ahead is essential. Hanna (Julia Garner) and Liv (Jessica Henwick) would certainly agree after everything they go through. They’re vacationing in Australia, but then the cash runs out and they need to find a job. Alas, the only gig they can land on such short notice is bartending at the titular watering hole, which is located in the remotest part of the Outback. The owner (an unrecognizable Hugo Weaving) is an alcoholic nightmare, while the patrons have a bit too much of a knack for misogyny and violence. The girls do have at least one ally in the form of Carol (Ursula Yovich), the bar’s gruff second-in-command. But it soon becomes clear that they really only have themselves to rely on if they want to make it out of this place alive.

What Made an Impression?: A Descent Into Hell: The realism of The Royal Hotel can lull you into a false sense of security. The joint isn’t exactly inviting, or even really pleasant at all. But if you’re working there, it feels like any old awful job that you just have to survive, and at least Hanna and Liv can count on a preordained end point. But they’re like those proverbial frogs in burning water. Because soon enough, the folks who seemed friendly have revealed their Hyde-like alter egos, while the run-of-the-mill jerks have turned into psychopaths, and everyone genuinely on their side has disappeared. The normal rules of society don’t apply in a place this isolated. Nothing particularly supernatural happens, but it’s like a waking nightmare that feels like it couldn’t possibly be real when you reckon with it after the fact.
Killer Ending: Downbeat thrillers like this one can be a tough sell if you’re someone who likes to have fun when you go to the movies. I was certainly prepared to leave The Royal Hotel with a pit in my stomach, especially since Kitty Green and Julia Garner’s last collaboration didn’t exactly offer much in the way of relief. But this time around, they opt for a much more cathartic conclusion. It’s outrageous in its own way, and fittingly so considering the taste of hell that the leads have to swallow. The last line is one for the ages, and if you check into The Royal Hotel, chances are you’ll be pumping your fist or raising a toast in solidarity on the way out.

The Royal Hotel is Recommended If You Like: Thelma and Louise, That one GIF from Waiting to Exhale, Discovering resilience that you never knew you had

Grade: 4 out of 5 Broken Glasses

‘Glass Onion’: A Friends Out Moviegoing Experience

November 26, 2022

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Will they solve it? (CREDIT: John Wilson/Netflix © 2022)

Starring: Daniel Craig, Edward Norton, Janelle Monáe, Kathryn Hahn, Leslie Odom Jr., Kate Hudson, Dave Bautista, Jessica Henwick, Madelyn Cline

Director: Rian Johnson

Running Time: 139 Minutes

Rating: PG-13

Release Date: November 23, 2022 (Theaters)/December 23, 2022 (Netflix)

I saw Glass Onion (one of those newfangled Knives Out mysteries) in a cinema with a larger-than-normal party than I usually go to the theater with. And I’m very grateful for all of that! That’s what it called for, and if I’d been watching on Netflix, I’m worried that my attention would have strayed too much during the first act. Undoubtedly, that mental wandering would have been a HUGE problem if I’d looked down while Ed Norton was dressed just like Tom Cruise in Magnolia. And that just simply would have been unacceptable.

Grade: A Satisfactory Amount of Flavor When Peeling the Layers of the Onion

I Love Watching All Those Matrixes Get Resurrected!

January 4, 2022

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CREDIT: Warner Bros. Pictures/Screenshot

Starring: Keanu Reeves, Carrie-Anne Moss, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Jessica Henwick, Jonathan Groff, Neil Patrick Harris, Priyanka Chopra Jones, Jada Pinkett Smith, Christina Ricci, Chad Stahelski

Director: Lana Wachowski

Running Time: 148 Minutes

Rating: R

Release Date: December 22, 2021 (Theaters and HBO Max)

The Matrix Resurrections is perhaps the most self-referential movie ever made. That’s usually a major turnoff for audiences (give or take a Scream), but we’ve all been living in the Matrix ever since the first came out. I love that fact about our lives! So of course the scenes in Resurrections that I loved the most are the ones that most clearly echo the rest of the franchise and reckon with the creation of the movie that we’re watching right now. (Spaceballs, anyone?) I’m obviously talking about the scene where the video game team is pitching (and re-pitching) their sequel ideas. And I’m also talking about Neo and Trinity’s final encounter with The Analyst, what with it being firmly underscored by a theme of second chances. You might have to squint to see the connections in other scenes, but not that hard. Long live the Catrix!

Grade: A Million Miles in One Matrix

‘Underwater’ Delivers Deep-Sea Monsters, While Merely Hinting at Something More Insidious

January 9, 2020

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CREDIT: Alan Markfield/Twentieth Century Fox

Starring: Kristen Stewart, Vincent Cassel, T.J. Miller, Mamoudou Athie, Jessica Henwick, John Gallagher Jr.

Director: William Eubank

Running Time: 95 Minutes

Rating: PG-13 for Attacks On and From Sci-Fi Horror Monsters

Release Date: January 10, 2020

The opening of Underwater promises intense pressure and pitch black scenarios, but honestly? It could’ve had even more pressure and been even more pitch black. That’s not to say that those prone to extreme claustrophobia should give this one a chance. It is, after all, about deep-sea researchers who have to walk to safety across the ocean floor after their vessel becomes damaged by an apparent earthquake. But it’s almost a little too bright, a little too out in the open. The creepy-crawlies that turn out to be lurking in their path are effectively monstrous, but the point of escape appears clearly within reach such that I was never fully worried. Maybe not everyone would make it through alive, but surely some of them would. The ingenuity and grit devised for getting around the beasts are fairly satisfying, but I found myself craving, or at least anticipating, more danger and mystery.

Going right along with the vibe of shining more light than expected, both the opening and end credits inform us that this misadventure will remain very much classified when all is said and done. But the thing is, we’re seeing the classified story. This whole movie is a peak behind the redaction! So why let us know that there is a cover-up when we’re already within the covers? Perhaps there is meant to be an implication, in thoroughly true blue X-Files spirit, that in the real world there are actually terrors in the deep running amok that most folks have no idea about because certain people have decided we’re not supposed to know about any of that. Alas, all that conspiracy flavor is merely the thinnest spread of icing. But by golly, if you’re going to tease us about what your monster is really all about, then please follow through with it.

Underwater is Recommended If You Like: Overlord, Godzilla: King of the Monsters, The X-Files but compressed

Grade: 2.5 out of 5 Stuff Bunnies