‘I.S.S.’ Delivers a Killer Premise to Low Earth Orbit

January 18, 2024

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You down with I.S.S.? (CREDIT: Bleecker Street/Screenshot)

Starring: Ariana DeBose, Chris Messina, Pilou Asbæk, John Gallagher Jr., Costa Ronin, Maria Mashkova

Director: Gabriela Cowperthwaite

Running Time: 95 Minutes

Rating: R for Shockingly Blunt Violence

Release Date: January 19, 2024 (Theaters)

What’s It About?: The International Space Station orbits around the Earth as a triumph of international cooperation. The residents on board in the thriller I.S.S. certainly seem to be living by that ethos, as American astronaut Gordon (Chris Messina) has quite the rapport with his Russian cosmonaut colleagues Alexey (Pilou Asbæk), Nicolai (Costa Ronin), and Weronika (Maria Mashkova). New residents Kira (Ariana DeBose) and Christian (John Gallagher Jr.) also feel the intergalactic love right as soon as they arrive. But on one fateful day, they all look below, and they don’t like what they see, as Earth appears to be in the throes of nuclear war. The Americans then receive a transmission commanding them to take control of the station, and it sure seems like the Russians have received the very same message.

What Made an Impression?: Renewed Tensions: For the entirety of the Cold War, Russians or other Soviets were the go-to villain in pretty much any American action film. That impulse still lingered somewhat even after the fall of the Soviet Union, though the threat didn’t feel especially urgent during the 90s and early 2000s. But ever since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, nuclear annihilation has once again felt like a very immediate possibility, and I.S.S. knows that it doesn’t have to directly invoke current events for its audience to understand the threat. The astronauts and cosmonauts make it a point to never talk about politics, but in a crisis like this one, survival instincts kick in. Ignoring their orders and working together seems like a legitimate possibility, but so does paranoia taking over and killing everyone.
Claustrophobia Overload: Here’s my other big takeaway from I.S.S.: I don’t ever want to go to space! Not that I had any desire beforehand anyway. While experiencing zero gravity might be fun for a few minutes, it can’t make up for the vast, cold, tight, disconnected status quo. And as this movie makes clear, sleeping while floating is at best deeply surreal and at worst existentially terrifying. With communication to the planet spotty on even the best day, it’s a wonder that these people can think straight even without the threat of war lurking below. Thankfully, I.S.S. lasts for a mercifully effective hour and a half; if it had been any longer, I’d still be detoxing to re-adjust to my earthbound existence.

I.S.S. is Recommended If You Like: Gravity, The Thing, Life

Grade: 3.5 out of 5 Transmissions

This Is a Movie Review: ‘Overlord’ is Evidence That the Nazi Mad Scientist Genre is Still Relevant

November 9, 2018

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CREDIT: Paramount Pictures

This review was originally published on News Cult in November 2018.

Starring: Jovan Adepo, Wyatt Russell, Mathilde Ollivier, John Magaro, Pilou Asbæk, Gianny Tauffer, Iain De Caestecker, Jacob Anderson, Bokeem Woodbine

Director: Julius Avery

Running Time: 110 Minutes

Rating: R for Soldier Profanity, War Violence, and Bloody Disturbing Mad Science

Release Date: November 9, 2018

It turns out that Nazism was never fully obliterated from the planet. Indeed, it’s 2018, and there are still people who are willing to self-identify as Nazis out in the open. So why shouldn’t there still be movies about evil Nazi doctors experimenting on people? They could even be set in the present day without straying too far from reality. Overlord, for one, is set during World War II, and the combat setting certainly cranks up the terror, but I cannot help but wonder if it would be even scarier if its characters stumbled upon a still-functioning Nazi mad science bunker in the 21st century.

What is striking about Overlord is its hybrid nature. This isn’t a war movie that turns into a monster movie once the experiments are stumbled upon. Instead, it remains very much a war movie even after the monsters start stalking around. The mission that sets off the action is an American paratrooper squad flying in to destroy a German radio tower in a church on the eve of D-Day. When they discover the experiments taking place within the church’s attic, they are steely enough to not be overwhelmed. They are freaked out, sure, but they still have to complete the mission. If they can manage to blow up the lab and save a little French boy while they’re at it, then all the better!

The experimentation consists of little more than inserting a serum into recently deceased soldiers, but things get really weird when the wounded-but-not-quite-dead start using it as well. The results of these injections manage to be so disturbing because they do not exactly heal any wounds but instead just bypass them. Supersoldiers are created, but they have gaping holes in their bodies and faces, not to mention the side effects of thoroughly oily skin and violently protruding bones. It is a credit to the main characters’ courageousness that they are able to behold affronts to nature and still plow forward with their mission. The message is therefore: the Nazis may be formidable, but we can still defeat them! Monsters exist, and we all need to be prepared

Overlord is Recommended If You Like: Classic mad scientist creature features, with maximum blood and guts and bones

Grade: 3.5 out of 5 Serums

This Is a Movie Review: Could Kirsten Dunst Shock Wood if ‘Woodshock’ Could Be Good? (Spoiler Alert: It’s Not)

September 20, 2017

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CREDIT: A24

This review was originally posted on News Cult in September 2017.

Starring: Kirsten Dunst, Pilou Asbæk, Joe Cole, Lorelei Linklater, Jack Kilmer

Directors: Kate and Laura Mulleavy

Running Time: 100 Minutes

Rating: R for Drugs, I Guess?

Release Date: September 22, 2017 (Limited)

The headline for this review was originally going to be “‘Woodshock’ Strands Kirsten Dunst in a Bunch of Random Images,” but then I decided that it would be much more appropriate to go with something nonsensical so as to keep with the spirit of the film. The directorial debut from fashion designer sisters Kate and Laura Mulleavy feels like the creation of people who have never seen a movie before and only understand the medium theoretically. It essentially amounts to an academic (or anti-academic) exercise to determine the meaning of “montage.”

The plot, such as there is one, follows the perpetually on-edge life of Theresa (Dunst) and her husband Keith (Pilou Asbæk). She has recently lost her mother and is probably suffering from depression. They run a marijuana dispensary together … I think. People’s jobs and relationships to each other are not always clear. There is a tragic accident that neither the characters nor the film can come to terms with in any meaningful way.

At some point, according to the synopsis, Theresa ingests an especially potent mind-altering substance. I genuinely do not remember this, though, probably because there is no noticeable shift in the nature of the film at any point. There are some hallucinatory images, a few of which manage to be striking regardless of the context (most notably a house hovering a few feet above the ground amidst a shock of light). But if the drug has any noticeable effect on Theresa, it is perhaps in how it makes her suddenly unable to take a shower or bath. Good lord, there is a huge chunk of the running time devoted to Kirsten Dunst standing still in front of the bathroom mirror.

It is worth wondering why Woodshock fails so spectacularly while similarly subjective and inscrutable works like the oeuvre of David Lynch manage to be so powerfully affecting. Perhaps it is because even if it is not clear what the meaning of the latter is, it is not hard to intuit that there is some meaning. Maybe the Mulleavys do have something worthwhile to say, but they do not yet know how to get that across in cinematic terms.

Woodshock is Recommended If You Like: 2001, but like, on earth; Upstream Color, minus the auteurist bona fides

Grade: 1.5 out of 5 Pleasant Summer Evenings