Butler's Cinema Scene

India Navarette, Michael Johnston

“OBSESSION” My rating: B (Peacock)

109 minutes | MPAA rating: R

Curry Baker’s “Obsession” (he wrote, directed and edited) has been getting lots of love, and not just from horror geeks.

It deserves it.

The setup is as old as the Midas myth…a wish comes true but brings with it unexpected consequences. The delivery, though, is a slow-burn dose of creepiness featuring a couple of killer performances.

Bear (Michael Johnston, who looks like he could be Daniel Radcliffe’s little bro) has long been infatuated with his co-worker Nikki (India Navarette) but fears scaring her off  if he reveals his feelings. Bear’s pretty unsure of himself…he might still be a virgin.

But one day at a funky gift shop he picks up a novelty item called the One Wish Willow.  According to the label on the box if you take out the stick inside, snap it in two, and make a wish…well, that wish will come true.

So he wishes that Nikki would love him more than anyone else in the world.

Oh-oh.

Baker’s screenplay is a model of careful observation and unexpected eruptions.

Nikki does indeed announce her love for Bear, and they are almost immediately in a passionate romance.  She moves into his house.  She caters to his every whim.

So far, so good.

But in short order her love has turned oppressive. She’s a whimpering mess when not in his presence. She even tries to seal his front door with masking tape to keep him at home. On her day off she stands unmoving in his living room, a sickly smile of hopeful anticipation frozen on her face and a puddle of urine at her feet, until he comes back from work. 

She gets jealous — murderously so.

“Obsession” is creepy as hell.  It’s also weirdly funny.  A desperate Bear calls up the manufacturer of the One Wish Willow only to have the voice on other end (director Baker in a bored/stoned fugue) tell him that he only way to undo his wish is to die.  And Darin Toonder is grimly funny as the gift shop clerk who’s had it up to here with customers bitching about the One Wish Willow.

One generally does not turn to horror for great performances, but Navarette approaches Oscar-level intensity as Nikki, turning on a dime from caring cajoling to screaming threat.  

Be careful what you wish for.

Cooper Hoffmann, David Jonsson

“THE LONG WALK” My rating: B (Hulu)

108 minutes | MPAA rating: R

One might easily dismiss “The Long Walk” as a “Hunger Games”/“Battle Royale”  clone designed as fodder for the YA market. Especially since it was directed by “Hunger Games” veteran Francis Lawrence.

So it comes as a surprise to discover a personality-and-dialogue-driven melodrama that carries an unexpected emotional heft.

Cooper Hoffmann (yes, Philip Seymour Hoffman’s kid…you may recognize him from “Licorice Pizza”) stars as Raymond,  who as the film begins is preparing to participate in The Long Walk.

We learn (in bits and pieces sprinkled throughout the film) that 20 years ago the USA was engaged in a civil war and ever since has suffered through Depression-era hard times.

But each year the citizenry is rallied by a competition in which 50  young volunteers — one young man from each state — set off on a walk.  Special wristwatches measure their speed…if they fall below three miles per hour they run the risk of being shot by the mute and stony-faced soldiers who accompany this parade.  

There is no stopping, no sleeping, no leaving the pavement of the rural highway they are traversing. Eat, drink and defecate while maintaining a brisk pace.  Eventually — after days of nonstop movement through sun and rain— one lone survivor will be crowned the winner.

J.T. Mollner’s screenplay (based on a Stephen King novel) is remarkable in that the characters are developed almost exclusively through dialogue.  This is a walk-and-talk film…literally.  The performances are an intriguing blend of stream-of-consciousness chatter and segments in which the dialogue seems as carefully crafted as that of a stage play or classic ‘50s film.

Raymond is almost immediately befriended by Peter (David Jonsson), a black kid whose garrulous personality makes the unending drudgery of walking a bit less oppressive.  Indeed, the contestants are a regular smorgasbord of American youth — Asian, white, black, Native American. Intellectually they range from standard-issue rednecks to an aspiring author who hopes to turn his experience into a book.

What’s kinda unsettling is the way in which we the audience find ourselves participants in this exercise, sharing the ever-creeping exhaustion and growing desperation of the young men. There’s a kind of purity in the film’s narrow focus, a sort of cinematic minimalism that feels weirdly revelatory.The effect is not unlike that of “They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?”

Drawbacks? Well, Mark Hamill’s performance as The Major — the officer in charge of the operation —might seem a caricature, a parody of the military martinet oozing motivational gung-ho.  But the Major is also the key to understanding what the US has become.  Clearly the civil war was not won by the humanists.

Not a happy film, but one that sticks with you long after the lights go out.

Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway, Stanley Tucci

“THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA 2” My rating: B- (Hulu)

119 minutes | MPAA rating: PG-13

Do we  really need “The Devil Wears Prada 2”? Especially those of us — meaning me — who  lack the fashionista gene?

So let’s admit that as time killers go, this sequel (directed by David Frankel, who helmed the original) is kinda charming.

Not for the too-familiar plotting or the clothes, but for the people.

I’m talking here mostly about Meryl Streep reprising her role as chilly, arrogant magazine editor Miranda Priestly and Stanley Tucci as her loyal doormat Nigel. (Is he gay? Straight? Sexless?)

In a weird way neither character is complete without the other. It’s a real oddball pairing, but I’d forgotten how terrific these two were together.

Of course Anne Hathaway is back as Andy.  Twenty years ago she was Miranda’s much-abused gofer girl; now she returns as a prize-winning journalist left jobless by media upheaval and hired to give Runway magazine a socially conscious vibe to go with the fashion and fluff.

Andy considered herself a serious journalist, something Miranda and Co. have little use or tolerance for. Humorous situations develop. Not to mention a hostile takeover of the mag.

Returning also is Emily Blunt as Emily, one-time Miranda acolyte now running a high-end boutique.  She’s engaged to a dweeby tech billionaire (Justin Theroux, cast against type and having the time of his life) but is at heart still a scheming witch.  She also gets the best line in Lauren Weisberger and Aline Brosh McKenna’s screenplay: 

“May the bridges I burn light the way.”

Has a character ever been so succinctly limned in just eight words?

Toss into the brew Kenneth Branagh and Lucy Liu and you’ve got a ridiculously attractive murderer’s row.

“Prada 2” isn’t entirely frivolous.  The film strives for relevance by protesting the demise of American journalism and the rise of the misinformed multitudes…well, it’s not so much a protest as a grumpy observation stirred in with the fun and fashion.  

Hey, audiences for this film didn’t come for a civics lesson.

| Robert W. Butler

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