(2016) Officially time I got movie-blogging again. Thanks to the three gents of Cinemajaw for providing an impetus in me to really want to get talking about movies again in general, and specifically about quality small-budge indie films. Figured I'd start out with a recent one.
This is the creepiest John Goodman you'll see this side of Barton Fink, which is saying something. If he had a more psychotic role, I don't know of it and I should (ok, Walter was more psychotic with his gun popping out of his shirt at the drop of a pin, but Walter made us laugh -- this guy definitely makes us cringe.)
The stage is set with Michelle (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), a girl packing up her things angrily and driving off from her home down a highway. Her boyfriend Ben (a brief Bradley Cooper cameo) rings her up, trying to make amends -- when out of nowhere comes a rogue truck smashing into hers and leaving her unconscious. Next she knows, she's in a concrete bunker, IV in her arm and cuffed to the bed she's sleeping in. Naturally she begins attempting her first escape from this unknown dungeon. Enter Howard, a John Goodman-sized rustic male, a full beards, easy to tell there are a few screws loose with this paranoid individual. He claims to have rescued Michelle from her wreck and wants to protect her from the ensuing apocalypse he claims is happening on the outside -- that the air is now toxic and has killed off everybody, that the military is launching a counteroffensive against some foreign entity, and that there's no leaving the bunker. Michelle's clearly not buying it and after meeting another fellow Emmett, also captured there underground by Howard, she tries making another break for it, especially after hearing noises above ground. Howard isn't having any of it.
Spiritual sequels are kind of like step-siblings -- not necessarily from the same blood, but still with stark similarities and also stark differences. I love a good spiritual sequel. This one gets a moderately good review from me for what it was. The hardest part to swallow was how hard a time I was having, even after it was over, justifying its relation to the 2008 hit Cloverfield, a bouncy camcorder-filmed story about kids escaping Manhattan during the attack of a highly-disgruntled baby-zilla who also has smaller babies of her own. I thought the film was fabulous, saw it multiple times sheerly for the terrifying fun of the suspenseful pandemonium throughout -- also enjoyed the characters and their relationships in it. Cloverfield was the cinechild of Godzilla and The Blair Witch Hunt, and executed by J.J. Abrams it was done just right. "10 Cloverfield Lane" is more the cinechild of War of the Worlds and Misery. Similar to its predecessor in that it does not tell the audience much for most of the movie, a gripping and exciting gimmick, yet you know it has secrets it will reveal before the end. Different in that it is far more subtle in its suspense, having a much more uncomfortable Hitchcockian claustrophobia contained within the terror of the bunker, Howard's gun, Howard's psychosis, and Howard. The man feels a little bit like Norman Bates in a way -- obliging on the outside, dark secrets in the middle. You know something must be happening outside that can't be right within the title of the movie, so what are these captives complaining about when being fed, given shelter, even entertainment, in this microcosm? Howard comes to even convince them he's only trying to help at a point. Turn the page.
I give 10 Cloverfield Lane a solid 3 stars for its suspense, shying away from more because, well I guess my Facebook post sums it well:
""10 Cloverfield Lane" was good,
A fine directorial debut,
But for all the wait, I would
Still wanna see a frikkin kaiju!"
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