Father Malone's Weekly Roundup - Companion, Heretic

You were most likely sleeping. Ripley enjoys sleeping, but we hope you're awake and alive in kicking and listening along. And as I sit in my Captain America themed office chair, wearing a Captain America themed thermal, looking down at my Captain America Tech two, I'd like to say to my fellow Americans, Nil's desperandum that's more than a quippie line from Gene Wilder's Willy Wonka. Isn't it a crime that we have to specify which Willy Wonka Nil's desperandum means

never to spare Some see hope as dangerous. I think it's a defining trait of the nation, and neither should be a bandoned. I can't imagine if you hated that, you'd be inclined to subscribe for more of my nonsense. But now's the time on the show when I say head on over to patreon dot com slash fatherm alone. Subscribers get early access to all the shows and their commercial free, and we have a bonus subscriber show with a whole bunch of new, weirder ones on the way.

It is always difficult for an actor to play the younger self of a well established star, but that factor of difficulty increases exponentially when we all knew that well established star at the age of the younger actor is portraying them. We all saw cape Fear, we all saw natural born killers. We've got an idea of what Juliette Lewis was like as a younger woman, and those two rules are a pretty good barometer of her range. So we not only know how she looked, but her capabilities,

which have always been ferocious. Before we go down this route of an entire episode about the wonders of Sophie Thatcher, I want to say something about Juliette Lewis. I fucking adore her. I don't know her, never met her, don't know her personal convictions, but god damn it, I am happy she's breathing the same air I am. Not only does she have ferocity, but she has conviction. Most actors, when they get into music, they don't commit to it.

Check out Juliet and the Licks. Sometime she decided she was not only going to be a musician, but she was going to be a fucking rock star. And she fucking did it. Knowing that. When it came time to cast the series Yellowjackets, it must have been daunting for the creators and potential actresses to fill Miss Lewis's younger shoes. But Sophie Thatcher nails it. And then, in a twist worthy of both of Tonight's selections, turns out they didn't

cast it that way at all. Miss Thatcher was cast, and then they cast Juliet Lewis to match her intensity. It's a good call, a great call. The young Chicagoan is the contender for horror film greatness. Most actors pivot as far from the genre that made them famous as they can with their next choices, particularly if it's horror. Sure, Jamie Lee Curtis fully embraces her scream queen Moniker these days,

but that's only with Halloween. You never hear her waxing nostalgic about Terror Train or prom Night, and you certainly didn't hear it in the years following her tenure in the Terror Ghetto. So to go from a horror series, fuck your thriller designations, your mystery box dramas. Yellow Jackets is about cannibals and something dark and primordial. Even if it is a deconstruction of teenage hierarchy and it's greater

reflection of societal organization, it's a horror show. For her to step out of a horror series and then into not one, but two horror projects is wildly refreshing. In these two movies were big fucking surprises for me, owing slightly to the fact that I made a conscious decision a few months ago to avoid any and all info about either film, which I was successful, But I wasn't

necessarily avoiding the usual studio promotional material. It was the online community I was keeping my head down around when all these movie websites pop up in the early odds. It seemed pretty cool that movie fanatics suddenly had a forum to be as weird about film as they liked. But that devolved pretty quickly like every corner of the Internet. And I don't mean in snarky, derisive bullshit either. I mean, in this case, the very odd phenomenon of anti gatekeeping.

It used to be there was always a group of superfan assholes deflecting any new interest into their secret handshake tree house. That was annoying. Way more annoying to me are these anti gatekeepers announcing months in advance that you definitely have to see this movie that they're talking about because it is the best horror film ever made. But you'll have to take my word for it because I

saw it at the Spooky Showcase in Sheboygan. And the film doesn't get a wide release for another nine months, and then it'll only be in New York and Helsinki. I know I touched on this when we talked about Robert Eggers, but I'd rather have every twist in a movie spoiled for me than have someone over hype it. Superlatives should be stricken from every keyboard critics vocabulary. That's why I've been a fan of the Weekly Planet podcast for more than a decade. Those Australians were way ahead

of everyone when they developed their movie rating system. Everything reviewed is either the best movie ever or the worst movie ever, which is pretty clever and pretty goddamn true. Is there no middle ground anymore? Does everything have to be a religious experience or a total piece of shit? Absolutism working great in every aspect of American society these days,

Which leads us to Companion. Well, wait, before that, I know, I promise I'll get to the film proper. And this does tie in because Companion is about a sentient android, and it automatically conjures up the android film, Ridley Scott's nineteen eighty two neo noir masterpiece Blade Runner. Fuck it, I'm gonna digress even further. Art is subjective, But if you think Blade Runner twenty forty nine is the superior of those two films, I'd like to invite you to

have sex with yourself anyway. Blade Runner is filled, overstuffed really with not only beautiful imagery and interesting characters, but interesting concepts. And I always came away with a deep sense of melancholy from that film. It is, after all, about mortality in facing it, that's what the replicants are doing. They've returned to Earth to extend their criminally short life span. So when Roy Mattie laments that every moment of his life is lost like tears in the rain, we can

all relate to that and quoted and mythologize it. But for me, the tragedy of Blade Runner takes place two or three reels before that. As heartbreaking as it is to face his own obsolescence, at least Roy Manny knew what he was, and the memories he's lamenting losing are his own. Not so for Rachel. She is not only unaware that she's artificial, but none of her memories are hers. How would you react to that? Not only is your life alive, but your every memory of it was too.

Rachel chooses to start a new life of her own. I no doubt would have walked into the ocean hoping it would short circuit me. Companion gives us a third and way more realistic possibility.

get out of the woods. There there with two other couples, Kat and Serge is the shady Russian millionaire that owns said secluded house, and Patrick and the Eli Eli played by What we do in the Shadows stand Out and a human I find just as inspiring as Juliet Lewis Harvey Gillen. When he was twelve, he collected cans for

months to pay for improv classes for himself. Conviction is a theme on tonight's episode Thatcher's iris is unlike any character I've seen her play, impervious to the barbed insults of Josh's friends while remaining curious and innocent. There's really no other word for it. That's even after she fends off the unwonted advances of Sergey with an obscene amount of bloodshed. Now here's where this review gets tricky. I went in blind, so I want the same for you.

I'll do my best because the movie has multiple twists, and for the most part, they are unexpected and a lot of fun. There are recent sci fi comparisons to be made, Megan being the obvious one, an unhinged robot surrogate for a best friend. Far less successful than that was Don't Worry Darling. That was the virtual reality clap trap, where all men wanted to do was enslave women into thinking their housewife so that they can go to work. Okay.

In the last episode, I talked about director Lee one El's film Invisible Man, gaining an immense amount of push toward relevancy thanks to its cresting the wave of the Me Too movement. And I still think that's true. But as I stated, that movie didn't need the haft of any swirling zeitgeist. You wouldn't have believed the technology in the nineteen seventies. But that story could have been folded just as easily then or the nineteen eighties, et cetera.

Not so with the whole spate of movies that have come out in the past few years, i e. After that wave has broken and withdrawn way the fuck back out. Now we're at low tide, and films that had no chance of getting made because they're terrible have a new relevancy. Like Perfection, which amusingly enough stars Megan's Alison Williams, another actor out there slugging it out in the horror movie Trenches.

The Perfection is so achingly constructed to be meaningful with a capital A twenty four, but appropriately was released by Miramax promising Young Woman is a defanged remake of Miss forty five. Film was unafraid to be as rage filmed as the subject matter required. I'm not necessarily lumping Companion in with those although there is some clumsy, fucking stumbling subtextence text near the finale of this film that all

but screams head meet nail. But unlike those films, this one isn't fucking ponderous or means spirited, because if you're gonna go dark, go all the fucking way. I'm not the biggest fan of the Substance, but I admire every

impulse it had and acts upon. Like Invisible Man or The Substance or The Fly, this movie could have easily existed in any previous decade, because while it is about the power dynamics in a relationship for good or ill, and not just between Iris and Josh, the film is still wrestling with notions of identity and sentience and moreover love. The film begins tellingly with Iris and Josh meeting in a romantic scenario that can't possibly be real, and it wasn't,

but it is to Iris. What follows before the batshit craziness begins, Finds Hurt, genuinely trying to understand how others conceive of and feel love. It might just be a subroutine running in or programming, but it proves to be as seemingly powerful in the digital world as it does in the real one. It's not all great these science is a bit wonky. Here a society where there are robot companions unaware their robot companions when they'd have to live in a world where such an item is advertised

and potentially commonplace, is a bit silly. But for every one of those there's an equally ingenious use of technology. I mentioned at the top how absolute everything has to be these days. Well, this movie it's fine. I mean, it's good. You know. Is it the best sci fi horror thing I've seen recently? No, but neither was it Follows or Nosferatu or Barbarian. Wait you love Barbarian? Well, I thought it was pretty good. Was it the most

horrifying thing ever? No, that movie had huge problems. I wouldn't think someone would come along so quickly on its heels and deliver a superior version. And yet that's exactly what the film Ripley has chosen. This week hit at hp J film, Thank you hp There'll be no great moments in presidential speeches this week. I was thinking a lot about Barbarian when I was watching Rip's pick. But I was really thinking a lot about torture porn. Barbarian never fell into that category. It is its own level

of weird. But in the wake of Saw, we had a veritable glut of filmmakers devising more and more intricate and horrible ways to separate flesh from bone, most times at the character's own hands, while we, as the audience, were all made Alexander Delares like clockwork orange and forced to stare helplessly. I was never a fan of the genre.

It felt like all the caterwauling by parents and religious groups during the nineteen eighties preaching that slasher films were desensitizing the generation to violence was manifested in torture porn, unlikable, uninteresting characters being dispatched in truly ingenious and truly horrifying methods. If those films are your thing, bully hell I worked as an actor at the Escape Room for a piece, but they ultimately felt like a victory for those finger

wagging scolds. This film has all the trappings of any of those films lead characters trapped in a puzzle and forced to confront uncomfortable situations, only they managed to do it here without the torture or the porn. This is from last year. It's heretic.

screamed cantankerous old prick. I didn't have anything against his tenure in the land of romantic comedies, nor did I give a shit when he was arrested and forced to walk like Circe Lanister through the airwaves while Jay Leno chanted shame at him. I was just waiting for him to come into his own and boy, howdy, he sure has.

given the right role, will absolutely embody it. His character here is as solid as any of the thriller villains we've come to love over the years, his closest parallel being less Jigsaw and more lecter, making this a thriller. Listen, I am not the biggest thriller fan. My idea of entertainment on the whole does not involve watching characters. I genuinely like being forced into smaller and smaller boxes with greater and more disturbing consequences. It's not a great feeling.

They make me understand those who ask how I can watch gory films with such glee. It makes me understand their confusion about it anyway. But I do admire a well made thriller, even if it's putting me through the paces and in some scenes genuinely making my heart beat faster. This film did it a few times. Even Ripley noticed, Yes you did. It was the only time you jumped during this movie. That and during the Blueberry Pie. So

here's the setup. Two Mormon missionaries try to proselytize to the wrong house that secluded one sent far back from the street. The house owner is grant. Those missionaries are Sophie Thatcher, fucking solid as always, with a character as different from Iris as Iris was from Natalie on Yellowjackets. But the real standout here, which is no small feed given this film as a three hander, with two of those hands belonging to Grant and thatcher. Fuck that sounds

incredibly British, is an actress named Chloe East. She was last seen in The Fableman's Not that any of you saw that film, and a film that I personally think the final scene should have been the first. Anyway. She

played the young Sammy Fableman's goy love interest Monica. In that she was good there, She's fucking a riotous here, playing the genuinely pious of the two missionaries who must find strengths of reserve and faith she was unaware she had, and faith is important in this film because the homeowner, mister Reid, isn't your typical psychopath. Oh sure, he's interested in teaching some lessons, but not necessarily the ones that involve your skin being flayed off by a repurposed washing

machine or whatever. The fuck. Oh no, because while he's lured these young women to his house with a request for education on the Church of Latter day Saints, the fact is mister Reid knows far more about the book of Mormon and its history than either missionary are in any way prepared for a theological cat and mouse flick.

And it works. You're fucking right, it does. What's more, the film, in addition to providing the usual ratcheting of tension you'd expect from any thriller, manages another nifty trick

by constantly making you side with Hugh Grant. The fact is you never know his intention, and it plays with that, forcing you again and again back between the character's points of view, all the while delivering a treatise on not just Mormonism, but all religions and how they interconnect and how they fundamentally share certain undeniable traits, while forcing our leads to make choices based on their continued fealty to

their faith or their new points of view. Thanks to Reed's diatribes, this is the role for Hugh Grant, as far as I'm concerned, I've honestly never seen him better. He just disappears into this guy and in a way reinforces everything the movie is trying to say about perception and reality. Oh, speaking of disappearing to for Grace is

in this too. The only non problematic that seventies show actor and editing Jedi Toafer Grace plays the only other major role, and he's in it a lot, and I had no fucking idea who he was until the end credits.

except I will say this. I mentioned hope at the beginning of this show, and it's necessity and maybe even the fucking point of life. I am a half century old at this point, and I feel it man physically, emotionally, culturally, and it's easy in one's life at a certain point to say that's it. I'm good. I've got all the music and literature and movies and all the things that make life worth living. I've had my fill. I can't really see anything new coming up as anything but a disappointment.

These are the people that somehow canonized Doc Brown and Marty McFly, and they won't accept a Ghostbuster with a vagina. It's so fucking lazy and self centered to think that the pinnacle of culture happened around your adolescence, and it's goddamn boring to think that there isn't going to be anything after you of quality. So when I see young performers like Sophie Thatcher or Chloe East or Harvey Gillen or Anya Taylor Joy or Jack Quaid or even fucking Shallome,

they give me hope. There's always going to be interesting people, and on occasion they might have something interesting to say, or at least know a new way to ask an old question. I don't know a new way to ask. If I did, I wouldn't be this fucking old. You ask a question in a new way that's not new, and it's perverted, and I've been asked that before. Thank you one and all for lending us your ears well once again here at Midnight Viewing's Father Malone's weekly roundup.

Be sure to tune in this coming Friday, we're continuing to wade through Tales from the Dark Side season three with two new episodes, The Bitterest Pill and Florence Bravo. I already called you all the actions, so I guess we're just going to sign off and enjoy the rest of our Sunday. We record on Sundays, and given that it is the Lord's Day. We're gonna leave you with a bit from mister Reed.