Sundance: "John and the Hole" review

by Jason Adams

Titled like a Bible story or a fable of ol' Aesop's (or perhaps it's the start of a dirty limerick), John and the Hole does indeed contain both a John, and a hole. John, played by Captain Fantastic's Charlie Shotwell (and seen just recently doing the disaffected youth thing, and to better effect if you ask me, in Sean Durkin's The Nest), is an absent-eyed 13-year-old sociopath who only seems to spurt to life when playing video-games and screaming obscenities at his best friend via headset. Otherwise he wanders his cavernous home in a daze, occasionally aided by some pills he steals from his parent's drawer...

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"No, that's mine. Mine!"

...green doesn't look good on you. You know it doesn't look good on you"

American Horror Story Coven: "Bitchcraft" & "Boy Parts"

So Brad Falchuk and Ryan Murphy have finally done it. After years of wooing me with meaty roles for actresses of a certain age (meat served bloody raw) in their American Horror Story anthology series, I am down for watching it as it airs. It's been clear for some time that the creative team's orientation is fully aligned with the Actressexuality™ named and promoted by TFE for several years now. Thus, a natural kinship exists even if yours truly is squeamish about horror. I have been mostly agnostic when it comes to Jessica Lange my whole life (though I thought her "Sister Jude" on Asylum was easily her best work since the 80s) but when it comes to two-time Oscar winner Lange paired with Sarah Paulson, Oscar winner Kathy Bates, Oscar nominee Gabby Sidibe, Lily Rabe, AND Oscar nominee Angela Awesome Basset? Uncle! I surrender to your casting voodoo. 

Kathy Bates in "Coven"

Please to Note: I did try to watch the first two seasons but in both cases, I eventually bailed after a few episodes from the gore and the, how to put this, unwatchable epileptic fits of lensing and editing and framing. Listen, I can live with frenetic editing (you kind of have to since the late 80s) knowing that when I need a fix of long takes that let me enjoy great acting, I can always seek out auteur films. (Odd that it would be auteurs, who so thoroughly OWN their pictures, that would be the only ones to just hand said pictures to the actors on occasion). But it's not just the genre or the typical short attention span in cutting that has previously made AHS unpalatable for me.

The show, or at least the first handful of episodes of its previous seasons, often appeared to have been shot and edited and framed by a group of wild, bug-eyed, A.D.D. addled 12 year old boys... albeit uniquely pervy pre-teens who were raised in asylums and jacked off to photos of grande dame actresses while horror movies were projected on continual loop on the grey walls of their prison. The only break in horror programming was obviously the complete filmography of Jessica Lange.

...or at least the lobotomy scenes from Frances (1982).

It wasn't just quick cutting but canted cameras, baroque flash cuts, inebriated camera swerves, you name it. But let's put that behind us and move on to Season 3's first two eppys after the jump. Spoilers ahead obviously.

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The Bling Ring?

Hey, why didn't anyone tell me there was a new Sofia Coppola movie on the horizon? Or did I just forgot. Nevertheless... The Bling Ring is coming and its 'stars' are walking right at'cha.

Taissa Farmiga, Israel Broussard, Emma Watson, Katie Chang & Claire Alys Julien "The Bling Ring"

Well... not exactly. Sofia Coppola is the star this time out since this band of moneyed kids is an ensemble and none of them have the hefty screen presence (yet) of a Kirsten Dunst or a Scarlett Johansson. And besides, even in the starriest of circumstances Sofia is at least the top billed co-star of all or her movies, having such a distinct auteur voice.

The Bling Ring is the name of the thieving group (above) who burglarize celebrity homes. Expect starry cameos, including our beloved Kiki (who previously headlined Coppola's Marie Antoinette and The Virgin Suicides), Paris Hilton and possibly Lindsay Lohan and Orlando 'Legolas' Bloom among them.  No word about Scarlett Johansson but if both Scarjo and Kiki lent their dreamy girl star wattage The Bling Ring may well be the apotheosis of Coppola.

Sofia  has been accused of not stretching enough safely ensconced in her sheltered moneyed world of discontent. First there was the hazy teenage girls trapped and scrutinized by the gaze of others (Her The Godfather Part III experience via The Virgin Suicides. You can see it, right?) then the girl in the orbit of real celebrities who hangs out bored and unloved and disconnected in hotel rooms (Lost in Translation) then the moneyed girl born into great privilege, accussed of narcissism and disconnected from everyday living (Marie Antoinette) and finally a star driving around in circles, vaguely aware that they need to find new roads to travel (Somewhere). If you're inclined to project whole interior lives onto the unknowable rich and famous -- and frankly, who isn't? -- well, Coppola will make it easy for you.

But the synopsis of The Bling Ring sounds like newish terrain, albeit still adjacent to the world she knows all too well.