Review: "It Comes at Night"

by Chris Feil

After last year’s Krisha, Trey Edward Shults returns to the horror of family dynamics with post-apocalyptic nightmare It Comes At Night. This time he’s equipped with higher production value and more familiar faces than that astute micro-budgeted debut, though Night is just as personal. His resulting sophomore feature is part Greek tragedy, part vague social polemic, and one of the most terrifying films in several years.

Set in a remote, wooded mini-mansion, a family has made their home a fortress from some unspecified apocalypse. The elderly father of Sarah (Carmen Ejogo) has fallen “sick”, leaving her husband Paul (Joel Edgerton) and son Travis (Kelvin Harrison Jr.) to dispatch of him for their own safety. The desperate invasion of another family (led by Christopher Abbott and Riley Keough) tests both the reclusive family’s empathy and rigorously protected lifestyle. Meanwhile, Travis is having increasingly vivid visions of the encroaching malignant threat that test his (and our) sense of reality.

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Contest: Wrap Yourself Up in Wonderment

Contest time in case you haven't yet had enough Wonder Woman. I mean, who has?

We're giving away one Wonder Woman Logo Hoodie courtesy of the fine folks at Film Jackets which you can see a photo of to your left. It comes in M, L, XL, or XXL. (This contest is open to readers in the US, UK, or Canada)

If you want one, here's how to enter the contest.

1. Email us with "Hoodie" in the subject line by Saturday night June 10th (tomorrow)
2. Include the following info: Your Name, Size Preference, and Shipping Addresss (this will only be shared if you win as the company will ship directly to you)
3. Include one sentence or more about either your favorite image/moment in the new Wonder Woman movie OR your fav thing about the Amazon princess in general (if you haven't yet seen it). I will probably share some of these responses on the blog even if you don't win.

The winner will be chosen at random on Sunday.

P.S. If you like superhero t-shirts (I used to love my Green Lantern tee until the movie came out and then I was embarrassed to wear it fearing people would actually think I was wearing it because of the movie. Shudder!) Film Jackets has a bunch of them for sale.

Naomi Watts Gets Randy with "Gypsy"

Chris here. Just because it's Tony's week doesn't mean we've got only one Gypsy on our mind. Have you forgotten about Naomi Watt's upcoming Netflix series so soon? Well, the streaming platform is here to remind you with the first series trailer - and I have to admit that the show looks far more tantalizing than it did on paper.

Gypsy stars Watts as a therapist who begins to get a little too touchy feely with her patients, including indie brood boy Karl Glusman. With a suspecting husband at home (Billy Crudup, *sigh* isn't it wonderful that he seems to be everywhere nowadays?) the trysts spin into a compulsive thrill of a double life. The first two episodes will be directed by Fifty Shades of Grey's Sam Taylor-Johnson, so expect plenty of kinkiness to go with its character pathos.

Of course, hopping over to television has been in fashion for our major talents for some time, but Watts is one star that could benefit from the kind of character depth that long-form storytelling can allow. It's been far too long since she's had a film that knows what she's capable of, and Gypsy could show a side of her we haven't seen in awhile. Could this be the most immersive and surprising she's been since Mulholland Drive? Gypsy comes to Netflix on June 30!

Aussie Super-Team Tackling Gay Conversion Therapy

by Jason Adams

This weekend you can stare into the wonderful sad eyes of Joel Edgerton onscreen via the small-scale emotional assault of It Comes at Night (I just reviewed it over at MNPP if you're interested) but today he's announcing his next adventure in familial distress, this time behind the screen, and it sounds pretty amazing - he's signed on to write and direct Boy Erased, an adaptation of Garrad Conley's memoir about his time spent suffering in "gay conversion therapy."

Have any of you read the book? Conley was the son of a Baptist minister and was accidentily outed at the age of 19 to his parents - they then forced him into a "Pray Away the Gay" program (basically mental abuse via scriptural brainwashing and isolation) as an ultimatum between everything he knew and explusion.

The film's lining up quite the cast - Manchester by the Sea star Lucas Hedges will play Conley, and in supporting roles Edgerton's supposedly calling in some fellow Aussies... ones that go by the glossy names Nicole Kidman and Russell Crowe. Maybe you've heard of them? One assumes they're playing the parents, but Deadline doesn't specify.

Anyway with religious whack-job Mike Pence one Twitter breakdown away from the Oval Office "gay conversion therapy" is a real hot topic these days, so this could turn out to be a scarily timely story. But it could certainly also be a moving one either way, especially with such a talented group of folks dedicated to giving this real world horror emotional life on-screen. It's definitely a tale in need of telling.

Fifty Shades Blander

By Spencer Coile 

It is a sunny, carefree weekday afternoon. A spur of the moment decision leads me to rent the 2017 "blockbuster," Fifty Shades Darker, which prides itself on being the sequel to the risque and monotonous Fifty Shades of Grey. It's new to DVD, I had read half of the second book several summers ago, the first film was altogether harmless, what did I have to lose? 

Two hours, it would appear.

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