‘MaXXXine’ Underscores the Killer Pastiche with Surprising Vulnerability

July 3, 2024

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Blinded by the starpower (CREDIT: Justin Lubin/A24)

Starring: Mia Goth, Kevin Bacon, Giancarlo Esposito, Elizabeth Debicki, Moses Sumney, Michelle Monaghan, Bobby Cannavale, Halsey, Lily Collins, Sophie Thatcher, Ned Vaughn, Chloe Farnworth, Simon Prast

Director: Ti West

Running Time: 104 Minutes

Rating: R for Extravagant Gore, A Fair Amount of T&A, and Some Hits of Blow

Release Date: July 5, 2024 (Theaters)

What’s It About?: Maxine Minx (Mia Goth) will simply never, never, never, never, never, never, EVER accept a life that she doesn’t deserve. It’s a lesson that her father instilled deep into her psyche from a very young age. Cut ahead to 1985, when she’s now one of the biggest names in adult entertainment, but anxious to cross over into mainstream cinema. Her talent is undeniable, especially to the casting team of “The Puritan II.” It’s a schlocky demonsploitation horror sequel, but the director (Elizabeth Debicki) is trying to make an artistic statement, and she sees a kindred spirit in Maxine. Everything she’s dreamed of looks like it’s about to come true, but a mysterious figure who knows her backstory as the lone survivor of a bloody massacre six years earlier threatens to derail everything by killing the people closest to her.

What Made an Impression?: It’s the 80s, Do A Lot of Coke And…: MaXXXine is the satisfying culmination of writer-director Ti West’s bloody little trilogy starring Mia Goth that began in 2022 with X and Pearl. While the former captured the early slasher era of Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the latter adopted a sheen of Old Hollywood melodrama but with just as much gore. MaXXXine expands its slasher trappings by taking inspiration from the exploitative thrillers of Brian De Palma, while also situating itself amidst the Satanic Panic of the Day Glo decade. The soundtrack blasts classics of the era from the likes of Animotion and Frankie Goes to Hollywood, while also boogieing unexpectedly hard with an opening credits sequence set to ZZ Top’s “Gimme All Your Lovin’.” And the pastiche is more than surface-level. Indeed, it’s engagingly lived-in, with conversations that are both of the moment and eternal representations of the characters’ deepest desires.
Plenty of Scenery to Chew: Mia Goth pulled double duty in X, but she’s been able to flex her acting muscles a lot more in the solo spotlights of those two characters. Pearl wasn’t quite a one-woman show, but the inimitable titular farm girl was pretty detached from the rest of humanity. Maxine Minx, meanwhile, is just as fiercely independent, and Goth once again delivers a transcendent degree of steely resolve. But this time around, even though she may be reluctant to admit it, Maxine has people that she cares about and who care about her. And accordingly, this is quite the ensemble piece, with West giving his players plenty of space to find notes that they’ve never reached before. That’s especially true of Kevin Bacon as a private investigator tracking Maxine who’s saturated in the molasses of the New Orleans bayou. His performance absolutely gives a whole new meaning to the phrase”I smell bacon.”
A Cautionary Tale?: Without getting into too many spoiler-y specifics, I’ll tease that Maxine kind of does achieve exactly what she’s driving towards. But I hesitate to call it a happy ending. Nor would I call it a pseudo-happy ending. It’s complicated. Yeah, she gets the star-making gig, but she also has a cocaine habit that I don’t think she has under control. And while the future looks bright for her, I’m worried that her obsession with fame will leave her empty. But we do get enough moments of vulnerability to suggest that Maxine realizes she’s never quite fully allowed herself to just be a human. It’s been a great joy to watch her story unfold these past couple years, but I’m ready to simply hope that she can find some peace after escaping all the horror that wouldn’t let her go.

MaXXXine is Recommended If You Like: Video nasties, Escaping and confronting the past, Righteous defiance

Grade: 4.5 out of 5 Star Turns

Mia Goth Reveals the ‘Pearl’ Within

September 14, 2022

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Pearls Prays for Popularity (CREDIT: Christopher Moss/A24)

Starring: Mia Goth, David Corenswet, Tandi Wright, Matthew Sunderland, Emma Jenkins-Purro, Alistair Sewell

Director: Ti West

Running Time: 102 Minutes

Rating: R for Bloodlust Breaking Free and Some Peaks at Naughty “Stag Films”

Release Date: September 16, 2022 (Theaters)

What’s It About?: Did you see this spring’s X and wonder what the deal was with that old lady? I know I sure did. Well, it turns out that Ti West actually made two movies at once, so now we get to discover what Pearl’s formative years were really like! It’s 1918, Mia Goth has shed the old lady makeup, and she and her family are living a semi-secluded life to avoid the horrors of World War I and the Spanish Flu pandemic. But Pearl longs for so much more than that! She wasn’t born to care for her paralyzed father (Matthew Sunderland) and simply wait for her husband’s return while her domineering mother (Tandi Wright) browbeats her into submission. She can’t help but dream of stardom, which she hopes to achieve while hanging out with a local hunky projectionist (David Corenswet) and auditioning for a dance troupe with her sister-in-law (Emma Jenkins-Purro). And if any of this doesn’t work out for her? Hoo boy, you’d better stay out of her way.

What Made an Impression?: I haven’t seen very many movies set in the 1910s, so I didn’t know quite what to expect in regards to Pearl making the most of its setting. But I was still thrown for quite a loop. When the title character starts dancing around her barn and serenading her animals, I was getting wholesome classic sitcom vibes in the vein of Green Acres and Petticoat Junction. The fanciful font used in the credits is also reminiscent of fantastical programs like Bewitched and I Dream of Jeannie. Maybe those shows were taking some of their cues from Old Hollywood? Regardless of the exact nature of the influences, this is an unmistakable throwback to an era when all of the main character’s most melodramatic emotions are all over every single inch of the celluloid.

Let’s make absolutely no mistake about it, this is a 100% tour de force for Ms. Mia Goth. With her big saucer eyes and ethereal voice, she’s always been a distinctive screen presence, and that’s never been truer than it is here. Her sheer force of will ensures that the connection between the two movies (thus far) in this series is as deep as possible. Pearl and her other X character of Max are historical doppelgängers, bound by a shared desire to become a star at all costs. When that drive manifests itself in the form of an impromptu song-and-dance number with a scarecrow, there’s no question that I’m all in. You all should feel the same.

Pearl is Recommended If You Like: Classic Hollywood, Classic sitcoms, Classic slashers

Grade: 4 out of 5 Axes

Entertainment To-Do List: Week of 3/18/22

March 18, 2022

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Human Resources (CREDIT: Netflix)

Every week, I list all the upcoming (or recently released) movies, TV shows, albums, podcasts, etc. that I believe are worth checking out.

Movies
–Deep Water (March 18 on Hulu) – Ben Affleck and Ana de Armas directed by Adrian Lyne.
–The Outfit (Theaters)
–Umma (Theaters)
–X (Theaters)

TV
–Human Resources Season 1 (March 18 on Netflix) – Big Mouth spin-off.
–Atlanta Season 3 Premiere (March 24 on FX)
–One Perfect Shot Series Premiere (March 24 on HBO Max) – Based on the Twitter account.

Music
-Charli XCX, CRASH
-Rosalía, Motomami

‘X’ and ‘Umma’: Short Titles, Ambitious Scares

March 17, 2022

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Umma (CREDIT: Saeed Adyani/Sony Pictures); X (CREDIT: Christopher Moss/A24)

Umma:

Starring: Sandra Oh, Fivel Stewart, Dermot Mulroney, Odeya Rush, MeeWha Alana Lee, Tom Yi

Director: Iris K. Shim

Running Time: 83 Minutes

Rating: PG-13 for Terrifying Memories and a Terrifying Present

Release Date: March 18, 2022 (Theaters)

X:

Starring: Mia Goth, Jenna Ortega, Martin Henderson, Brittany Snow, Scott Mescudi, Owen Campbell, Stephen Ure, James Gaylyn

Director: Ti West

Running Time: 105 Minutes

Rating: R for Plenty of Sex and Violence

Release Date: March 18, 2022 (Theaters)

This week, we’ve got a couple of new horror releases arriving with pithy, vague titles. They pair well as a potential double feature, so I decided to go ahead and review them together. They’re also both operating in familiar subgenres with their own unique flourishes that you may or may not see coming. Let’s dig in.

First off, we’ll take a look at Umma, which to English speakers might sound like baby-talk. In a way it kind of is, but anyone who knows Korean will surely clock what’s in store. Starring Sandra Oh as a single mother named Amanda who lives alone with her daughter (Fivel Stewart) in an electricity-free home, this is one of those supernatural tales in which a ghost attaches to a person’s soul and just won’t let go. The East Asian pedigree suggests a throwback to the early 2000s when The Ring and The Grudge inaugurated a wave of J- and K-horror. But while those influences are certainly noticeable, a story of what we owe and inherit from our mothers resonates across cultures.

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