FILM / Captain Canada's Movie Rodeo / August 2022 / Gabriel Ricard
Image © Triune Films
One of the things I love about movies is that you don’t have to be a fanatic to have valid suggestions. Whenever I pose a film-centric question to folks on social media (because it’s not like I’m leaving the fucking house very often), I’m not just looking to people like me. People who have also definitely not wasted their entire lives watching movie after movie will generally dive deep, if they know I’m one of their wretched kind.
What’s just as interesting to me are the suggestions from people who either watch other things, read those newfangled books I’ve been hearing so much about, or whatever the case may be. People who don’t watch tons and tons of movies, or use words like “cinema” in deathly serious tones (guilty), more often than not surprise me with what they come up with. It might be something I’ve seen, but it’s often been the case that it’s also something I haven’t seen in quite a long time.
There are also times when someone suggests a movie I just haven’t seen, either been meaning to, or something I haven’t even heard of before. That happens all the time, as I still haven’t seen every film ever made. Lord knows I used to try.
It’s fun to talk about movies with people who spend all day talking about movies. That sound sarcastic, but it’s not. However, and I don’t see this mentioned quite as often, it’s just as much fun talking about movies with people who wouldn’t identify themselves as fanatics, cinephiles (not even once), etc. If you’re not willing to take suggestions or inspiration from at least most people, you’re probably missing out.
Or you can just get all of your suggestions from Captain Canada’s Movie Rodeo, currently the longest-tenured movie column on Long Island. That’s okay, too.
The Unseen (1980): B-
Image © Triune Films
I think the real fun of watching The Unseen—a somewhat forgotten 1980 horror film that features at least two really interesting casting choices—Is seeing Sidney Lassick play an absolute monster. Sometimes, when it comes to movies like these with a whirlwind of strangeness, off-kilter performances, and sometimes ludicrous plot developments, it’s not that the movie is necessarily great. The Unseen is an ambitious and well-meaning low budget film. What ultimately makes this story, in which three female news reporters wind up staying at the mansion of some random weirdo (Lassick), are the performances.
It's worth watching The Unseen’s wholly ridiculousness and impressive atmosphere of constant madness simply for Sidney Lassick playing an incestual, brutal, cruel, and rather pitiable piece of shit. A character actor who appeared in everything from Cool as Ice to One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Lassick gets a rare opportunity to be front and center here. The movie, which also includes fine performances from the late Stephen Furst (Animal House), Barbara Bach, and Leila Goldoni, would be an interesting curioso on its own terms. But it’s Lassick, a meaningful character actor who never quit his day job as a trucking company dispatch, who makes The Unseen special.
Men (2022): C-
Image © A24
Time will probably prove that I was deeply wrong to have any issues with Men, which has so many good elements going for it that perhaps my expectations were simply too goddamned high. Even as the film begins where we meet Harper—Jessie Buckley in a a uniquely effective, astonishingly brave performance—in the aftermath of her abusive husband’s death, I felt as though I was watching one of the most interesting horror films to come out in the early years of this decade.
When the movie finished, having just witnessed one of the most crazed and visually shocking final acts I’ve seen in a good while, I still believed I had seen a truly original horror film. What I don’t know is how much that translates to the movie also being good.
Perhaps owing to my own impatience for something direct and specific to happen, watching Men more often than I’d like became an act of tedium. Writer-Director Alex Garland (Ex Machina) has full confidence in this story, where poor Harper become undone by the men she meets in the quiet village where she’s taking a break harassing her at various misogynistic frequencies. All of these men are played by Rory Kinnear, who deserves at the very least an Oscar nomination. It just wasn’t a confidence that always connected to my own interest. Still, Men is a bracing reminder of how good horror is right now, and everyone should watch it at least once.
The Black Phone (2022): B-
Image © Blumhouse
The Black Phone is another 2022 horror movie with a significant amount of hype and excitement behind it. There seems to be more enthusiasm from more pockets of the world than ever before. To see this film released in the same time frame as something like Men or Jordan Peele’s recent Nope is to be genuinely grateful to see a genre of depth and humanity (and mayhem) getting to stretch its legs in astonishing fashion.
While The Black Phone is not what I would call groundbreaking, this movie (based on a short story by Joe Hill) about two siblings (Mason Thames and Madeleine McGraw) is pure in its creativity in service of being simply a very entertaining piece of small-town horror. It doesn’t hurt the movie either that Ethan Hawke is once again terrifying and profoundly watchable in a horror movie (see Sinister and the first Purge).
The Black Phone is straightforward in its intentions and meaning. But too straightforward. Its approach suggests that what the world truly contains is frightening, but remains oddly optimistic by believing in the power of two people who love each other. It lives and roars and disconcerts with a very immediate sense of the present, while leaving us with the sort of questions that are more likely to stimulate excitement and conversation than annoyance.
The Gunfighter (1950): A+
Image © 20th Century Fox
Many of Gregory Peck’s best performances, when observed as the whole of his 60-year career, present fascinating portrayals of masculinity. I don’t know if that was by design, by Peck’s leading men were strong; but in his best films they were also complicated, wounded in a way that Peck as an actor was not afraid to show on screen. The Gunfighter, one of many collaborations he did with director Henry King, showcases Peck as an aging gunfighter who is desperate to leave the past behind. It’s a classic western trope, to be sure, but King’s direction, combined with Peck playing his gunfighter as a weary-yet-energetic man who wants to reconnect with his estranged wife and son, elevates everything above a premise that’s solid but unremarkable.
The Gunfighter is a character study, but the pacing and energy of its cast give it the sort of vitality that ensures it can still have weight and entertainment over 70 years later. You may see the ending coming a few miles away, but you’re probably not going to care.
Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes (2020): A+
Image © Europe Kikaku | Tollywood
The owner of a small café discovers that his computer monitor suddenly has the ability to look two minutes into the future. That doesn’t sound very useful, nor does it sound like it would even be very useful as the foundation for one of the most creative time travel films to come out in quite a while. But Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes is full of clever, winning tricks. The fact that the entire film was shot in a single take is perhaps the most notable example of what I’m talking about. An idea also employed not too long ago by the astoundingly likable One Cut of the Dead, this is a gimmick in the best sense of the word—something interesting that acts in full service to this film, rather than defining everything we see and experience. It’s a foundation. Not the entire movie.
Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes is a film you can knock off in just a little over an hour (71 minutes). It would be foolish to describe the film in any significant detail. Go in cold. You’re going to love this story, how it’s told, and how much it still finds the time to respect its characters and their development over the course of the strangest night of their lives.
Gabriel Ricard writes, edits, and occasionally acts. His books Love and Quarters and Bondage Night are available through Moran Press, in addition to A Ludicrous Split (Alien Buddha Press) and Clouds of Hungry Dogs (Kleft Jaw Press). He is also a writer, performer, and producer with Belligerent Prom Queen Productions. He lives on a horrible place called Long Island.