Something Cult, Foreign-Language or Indie #181: 13th (2016).

In this Oscar-nominated 2016 documentary, director Ava DuVernay explores the history of race and mass incarceration in the United States. It's named after the Thirteenth Amendment to the US Constitution which abolished slavery, but DuVernay film argues slavery has endured in the American judicial system.

I had hopes for 13th as I loved Selma, DuVernay's 2014 narrative film about the 1965 march for African-American voting rights, and because of its acclaim; however, I'm afraid it fell way short of living up to that for me, and for two big reasons. Firstly, maybe it's because of the Netflix presentation but visually, her approach here just feels much too glossy and vibrant for a coverage of this subject matter. Secondly, I found it increasingly unsure of whether it wanted to be a study of contemporary prison life for incarcerated African-Americans, with all the unfair and racist treatment that makes them face, or a full history of American race relations in and out of the US judicial system. Both of those themes deserve and need a full film to themselves, but this film tries to intertwine them and suffers as a result. I ultimately found it sincere but quite convoluted and misjudged.

Something Cult, Foreign-Language or Indie #180: Don't Look Now (1973).

Laura and John Baxter (Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland) are grieving the drowning death of their daughter Christine (Sharon Williams) in an accident at their English country home. To try move on, they accept an offer for John, an architect, to help restore a cathedral in Venice. Once there, Julie meets sisters Heather (Hilary Mason) and Wendy (Clelia Matatania) at a restaurant; Heather is blind and psychic but claims to be able to "see" Christine, a revelation that shakes Laura profoundly. She then tells John of this but he immediately dismisses their claims, only to soon encounter some very mysterious and increasingly violent sightings himself. Meanwhile, Laura joins the sisters for a seance, before seemingly disappearing. In trying to unravel this deepening mystery, Laura and John become very precariously embroiled in it themselves.

This adaptation of a Daphne du Maurier short story is fully worthy of its status as a classic of horror and British filmmaking. Director Nicolas Roeg vividly and lucidly invokes the beautiful Venetian scenery (the canals and rowboats are naturally ubiquitous) to visually express what our heroes are longing to restore to their lives - a sense of peace - and very insightfully lifts the location's veil slowly to reveal the true threat it possesses underneath its luxurious street levels. Chris Bryant and Allan Scott's sensitive and patient screenplay effectively navigates the urgency and estranged intimacy of the Baxters' relationship before it goes literally to horror, and Christie and Sutherland (who share a famously steamy sex scene which was hugely controversial upon release) both never hit a false note. (Mind you, Sutherland's hairdo here can stay in 1973.) Don't Look Now had an initially mixed reception, but in 1999 it was voted the eighth-greatest British film ever made and I can see why. It is thoroughly atmospheric, chilling, tastefully sexual and flawlessly plotted and executed. Trust me, you do want to look now.

Something Cult, Foreign-Language or Indie #179: The Final Girls (2015).

High schooler Max Cartwright (Taissa Farmiga; Vera's younger sister) is driving home with her mother Amanda (Malin Akerman), a former scream queen who's just failed an audition, when they have a car crash and Amanda is killed. Three years later to the day, Max reluctantly attends a special screening of her mother's crowning glory, the 1986 (fictional) slasher movie Camp Bloodbath and its sequel, with her friends Gertie (Alia Shawcat) and Chris (Alexander Ludwig), with her horror movie addict stepbrother Duncan (Thomas Middleditch) and, to Max's irritation, his girlfriend and Max's estranged former best friend Vicki (Nina Dobrev) also there. But things soon get a whole lot worse when, during the film, the cinema catches fire. Since there's no other escape, Max cuts her way through the screen and now her and the others all literally enter Camp Bloodbath. From here, they have to work with all the film's characters, including her mum's character Nancy and the token  comic relief jock Kurt (Adam DeVine), in order to survive.

The Final Girls is a textbook example of how to flawlessly parody the horror genre, particularly the slasher subgenre. Instead of being a Scary Movie clone, it's more like Groundhog Day meets The Evil Dead in how our heroes have to go back and forth each time the movie-within-a-movie ends and re-starts, before they finally realise how to kill the villain, Billy Murphy (Daniel Norris). This concept is also filled with relatable character dynamics, especially that of Amanda/Nancy and Max, and loads of witty in-jokes and intertextual references. Director Todd Strauss-Schulson and writers M. A. Fortin and Joshua John Miller all show panache and unashamed restraint as they traverse this very gruesome and blackly comic territory, and I found the result ferociously entertaining and perhaps more charming than I should have. But anyway, The Final Girls is a top-drawer horror spoof, with an excellent soundtrack to boot.

My thoughts on the coronavirus pandemic.

I needn't explain any part of it by now. It's gradually overtaking the world, or at least according to the media and our politicians it is. The coronavirus: that new influenza strain from China, with a name like a Mexican beer, that's having us strip supermarkets dry of toilet paper and is now even causing major public events, including possibly soon the Tokyo Olympics, to be postponed or scrapped altogether. (And strangely enough, you may recall the Zika virus threatened the Rio Games.)

Personally I acknowledge it has become an international hazard, although I'm not convinced it hasn't been subject to media sensationalism and hyperbole. But regardless, the warnings we're being bombarded with to wash or sanitise our hands as much as possible should be heeded, and in fact we should do that even when there's no such worldwide health threat.

This week, here in Australia, indeed my own state of Queensland, Tom Hanks and his wife Rita Wilson, who've been here filming a movie, were diagnosed with it and taken into quarantine on the Gold Coast. Since he is my favourite actor ever, and she is deservedly a Hollywood heavyweight in her own right, this gave me quite a bad feeling, as did the news just today that a case has now been confirmed in my own city. Conversely, federal politician Peter Dutton has also just been announced as having it and while I hate him personally and politically, that doesn't mean I want him to die or become incapacitated.

The COVID-19 is shaping up to be 2020's definitive worldwide news story, and lamentably it's obviously not a positive one. But no matter how much facts or fiction we're being fed about it, I would recommend we all follow the instructions health professionals are giving us regarding it. Because it's always better to be safe than sorry, particularly on matters of mortality.

Something Cult, Foreign-Language or Indie #178: Brigsby Bear (2017).

James (Kyle Mooney) inhabits an underground bunker with his parents, Ted and April Mitchum (Mark Hamill and Jane Adams), that he has never been allowed to leave. According to Ted the outside world is toxic, and so James spends his days underground, feeding an obsession with the children's TV show Brigsby Bear. Everything changes when police raid the bunker one night, arrest Ted and April and inform James that he's not actually their son; they kidnapped him as a baby and raised him themselves. But that's not all: James also learns Brigsby Bear isn't actually a real TV program but rather one Ted himself created and produced in a hidden studio in the bunker, from where the cops tracked the Mitchums. They even created fictitious online personas to interact with James on an online forum about the show, with James naturally believing they were real. Now after meeting Detective Vogel (Greg Kinnear), he's finally introduced to his real family, parents Greg and Louise Pope (Matt Walsh and Michaela Watkins) and teenage sister Aubrey (Ryan Simpkins). Despite their efforts to introduce him to his new life and having him see a therapist (Claire Danes), however, James remains unable to think of anything except Brigsby Bear. To this end, he enlists a couple of new friends to help him write and film one last episode.

This film's concept immediately struck me as delightfully strange and charming, but unfortunately the execution proved quite disappointing for me. Director Dave McCary and writers Mooney and Kevin Costello do successfully provoke a few laughs, but for such an offbeat concept McCary's direction I think is really too subtle and conventional, to the point of incongruity. A director like Jay Roach, Terry Gilliam or of course Tim Burton would've brought a more fitting visualisation to it, and I also think near the end it lays the sentiment on slightly too thick. The soundtrack also could've used more psychedelic rock hits, too.

Don't get me wrong, Brigsby Bear is well-intentioned, sincere and uniquely conceived, with a cast who all try their hardest. But to my mind, the finished product is just not half as distinctive, witty or unconventional as it seems to consider itself.

Something Cult, Foreign-Language or Indie #177: Downfall (2004).

Berlin, April 1945. The Third Reich is disintegrating, with Germany overrun. Deep inside the Fuhrerbunker, Adolf Hitler (Bruno Ganz in a miraculous performance) has sealed himself off from the outside world, save his highest Nazi Party officials and his soon-to-be wife, Eva Braun (Juliane Kohler). Far more obscurely, his company also includes his secretary Traudl Junge (Alexandra Maria Lara). Through the very passive and mousy Junge's eyes, we see Hitler struggle to accept his and Germany's impending defeat.

Downfall was based on two books, with three others uncredited but used for extensive research, and several audio sources, and as you might expect for a film offering an unusually sympathetic portrayal of Hitler, it was very controversial upon release. But it proves riveting, because its sympathy for its subject does not mean it ignores or excuses his and his followers' crimes. Director Oliver Hirschbiegel and writer Bernd Eichinger's shared approach treads this very fraught narrative highway with thoroughly wise, mature judgment and mounting suspense, even though the outcome is of course a foregone conclusion. The most impactful scene for me, however, doesn't involve Hitler or the Holocaust, but rather Magda Goebbels (Corinna Harfauch) killing her and her husband Josef's (Ulrich Mathes) six children with cyanide capsules in their sleep.

But the highest praise certainly belongs to the late Swiss actor Ganz, who took an enormous risk in accepting this role and then faced a mammoth task after he did. And in it, he does the unthinkable. Far beyond the toothbrush moustache and Nazi salute, Ganz (who spent four months preparing for it) infuses his Hitler with a personable nature in one scene and overt rage and paranoia in the next; you'll probably know one much-parodied scene where he spits the dummy in front of his officials. But where Ganz' characterisation shines brightest is in how he channels Hitler's charisma. It's terrifying to see that quality in somebody who could do any of what Hitler did, but Ganz, Hirschbiegel and Eichinger collectively and brilliantly show that to emphasise how intentionally blinding and deceptive it can be.

Obviously, Downfall is a challenging watch, and particularly at 156 minutes. But with bravery, objectivity and sharp insight, it brings us as closely as we will ever get to learning what drove and destroyed history's greatest villain and his cause.