Something Cult, Foreign-Language or Indie #315: Anna and the Apocalypse (2017).

 

In Little Haven, Scotland, high school is almost over for Anna Shepherd (Ella Hunt) and she plans to take a gap year before university despite her widower father Tony's (Mark Benton) disapproval. Her friends also have problems: best friend John (Malcolm Cumming) secretly loves her, budding director Chris (Christopher Leveaux) is behind on an assignment and American exchange student Steph (Sarah Swire) is butting heads, thanks to her social justice reportage, with the dictatorial principal Mr. Savage (Paul Kaye). Anna's one-night stand Nick (Ben Wiggins) is also giving her grief. On the night of the school's Christmas show, in which one of the performers is Chris' girlfriend Lisa (Marli Siu), a zombie infections breaks out around town, before the next morning when Anna and John discover it's gone all over town except in the school, where they must take shelter and fight the zombie hordes off - all to numerous song-and-dance numbers in true musical form.

Anna and the Apocalypse has been likened to Shaun of the Dead meets La La Land, and that's a fairly accurate comparison. Based on a 2010 short by Ryan McHenry, who died in 2015 of osteosarcoma at age 27, director John McPhail and co-writer Alan McDonald make this festive horror musical gel, although it took me some time to really see what it was seeking to do. I initially had the feeling, after about 30 minutes, that the songs were too poppy and corny for the horror aspect (although I knew beforehand it was also a musical) and so that then make me very briefly disconnect from it. But then I realised its aims were to satirise both the musical genre for how wholesome and conservative it often is, and the horror/slasher genres for how cliched and stuffy they can be. McPhail and his cast and crew balance the combination through consistent pacing, natural choreography and visuals that are in between being grainy and extravagant.

The songs are catchy and engaging, the cast all demonstrate strong chops with both acting and singing, and the violence gradually builds to a very gruesome climax. It's maybe not as brutally honest or subversive a depiction of adolescence as I would've liked it to have been but regardless, I had fun with Anna and the Apocalypse. 8/10.

Something, Cult, Foreign-Language or Indie #314: Kairos (2018).

 

Meet Danny (Chris Bunton), a young man with Down syndrome residing in a foster home. His dream is to become a professional boxer and to work towards this, he practices at his local gym with his stern but loyal trainer John (Jerome Pride). Danny gets many rounds and even a few amateur bouts under his belt before he has an accident with John that leaves Danny injured and John with second thoughts. Undeterred, however, Danny sticks to his goal and meanwhile also finds a potential romance with Ellie (Audrey O'Connor), who also has DS.

Kairos is certainly a well-meaning Aussie film, and kudos to its makers for casting a real Down syndrome performer (the engaging Chris Bunton) in the lead, but its execution really rubbed me the wrong way. Writer-director Paul Barakat insists on making John a seemingly ever-present, non-disabled crucial saviour for Danny on his quest, instead of putting Danny in the driver's seat as an independent hero. As somebody with disability (albeit not DS) I find it deeply demeaning when movies about disability have the protagonist manage to succeed only with a non-disabled character's help; to me that's not much better than when disabled people are villainised in cinema.

Barakat's bland visual style and pacing also don't help, and a couple of dream sequences revert from being incoherent to wise and back again. Plus the supporting cast can only do so much with what are quite underdeveloped characters. Despite its good intentions, Kairos is for me just another uplifting disability drama for non-disabled audiences, trying unsuccessfully to pass for a clarion call for solidarity and change. 6/10.

A shopping incident on Monday.

So I'm in Coles on Monday, standing near one of the stalls in the bakery, and unbeknownst to me, another customer (who I didn't even hear or see) notices me put something in one of my pockets and that alerts their suspicion. Then about five minutes later I've moved on to one of the aisles and the manager suddenly appears. I think he's just there to ask me if I need help finding something but I get a completely different line of questioning, about what's in my pockets. I tell him "Just my phone, wallet and car and house keys." That's when I learn this other customer reported me to him. He quickly seems to believe that I hadn't even tried to steal anything (the item I was seen putting in my pocket was my phone, after I'd pulled it out to check it) and to sense just how anxious I am now and so he apologises to me and lets me go, which I thank him for with great sincerity and relief. I then stay in the store for about ten minutes before I quietly leave.

Firstly, I should emphasise I was not, and am not, angry at all with the manager (who presumably had a lot on his plate already); he was just doing his job. Nor am I saying the customer was wrong to consult him about this. I just really resented them not first approaching me personally about it, and here's why. I can understand they might've been afraid of the consequences or overstepping their place as they had no authority there, but when I'm confronted secondhand about something, it makes me feel like I'm some unapproachable psycho. Had I been the witness, I would've slowly approached them and enquired, as impartially as possible, what they'd just put in my pocket, then apologised for prying and, whatever their answer was, then told an employee about it.

I'm really trying to empathise with them but I just can't quite shake how judged and exposed I subsequently felt; I was also angry and very confused. Now, I don't know if the other customer was suspicious of my actions because I'm 6'4 and autistic (because my condition can also affect my body language and posture), although if that was the case I guess I can and should give them the benefit of the doubt. And perhaps I should've been more careful with my phone. But despite being exonerated and very much appreciating that outcome, this incident made a supermarket visit unusually troubling for me.

Something Cult, Foreign-Language or Indie #313: Frog Dreaming (1986).

 

Henry Thomas (yes, the one who befriended E.T.) is Cody, an orphaned American boy living in the Australian Outback with his carer Gaza (Tony Barry). When he's not riding his railbike left, right and centre, the inventive Cody builds things in his garage. One day he learns of a local Aboriginal myth called "frog's dreaming" which is believed to be behind several strange occurrences at the fictional Devil's Knob national park where he lives. That's when Cody recruits his friends, primarily the girl he fancies, Wendy (Rachel Friend) to go on a trek to investigate everything.

Yes, sir. It's The Goonies but in the Outback with a (mostly) local cast. Everything about Frog Dreaming is painfully dated and stagnant even down to the visual effects. Director Brian Trenchard-Smith, who replaced Russell Hagg, brings no zest or humour to his interpretation of Everett De Roche's shamelessly derivative screenplay (although, in fairness, it may have given Trenchard-Smith no room to do so), which tops its genre conventions off with a portrayal of the indigenous Kurdaitcha Man archetype that thankfully would never be considered appropriate today, and has Cody frequently riding his bicycle just like Elliott much more famously did.

Thomas has virtually nothing new to do in a very thin role, Friend is wasted and almost immediately relegated to the token love interest status, and all the adult cast members look totally bored and indifferent (much like I increasingly was while watching it, funnily enough). And then come the deeply hokey effects when we learn what's behind the local disturbances. It's ironic, and unintentionally apt, how Frog Dreaming contains the word "dreaming" in its title, because it almost put in the state of dreaming. 4/10.

Something Cult, Foreign-Language or Indie #312: My Days of Glory (2019).

 

Adrien Palatine (Vincent Lacoste) is experiencing a quite unique quarter-life crisis. He's a former child movie star but as he approaches age 30, the role offers have dried up and he's becoming, frankly, a bit of an addict. When he's not drowning his sorrows at the local pub or smoking in the street, he's scrounging around looking for a chance at an on-screen comeback, and also for off-screen love. Prosperity briefly shines on him again when he talks his way into a part in a war movie, but his self-absorbed nature soon jeopardizes both that and his efforts to find and impress his dream girl.

The 2019 French romantic dramedy My Days of Glory is quite reminiscent of (500) Days of Summer, but only in narrative intentions. Where that gem of a sleeper hit explored 21st-century relationships with almost painfully honest accuracy and threw staccato visual and musical surprises into the pot for real vibrancy and fanciness, this (and, with it being French where that was an American film, surely you'd think it would be the more artsy one) deliberately takes the visually conventional route and subsequently feels increasingly bland and boring. I also found its attempts at humour too understated, and while director Antoine de Bary and his co-screenwriter Elias Beldekkar do include a couple of slightly racy scenes, I found them to be placed too late in the story for it to rejuvenate my interest. Lacoste, who I think is almost becoming the French Michael Cera with the kind of roles I've seen him in so far, tries his best to bring nuance and variety to both Adrien and the roles Adrien himself plays, but he carries the entire movie on his shoulders and that's a cross I think most actors would've struggled to bear.

Additionally, the dramatic elements become, I think, too heavy-handed and overall, as both a romance and a coming-of-age flick, I just don't think it has enough zest and imagination narratively, and certainly not aesthetically. My Days of Glory do not, for me, mark de Bary's. 5/10.

My feelings on the Thailand massacre.

On Thursday when I heard news of the childcare centre massacre in Thailand, my heart instantly sank. I had a foreboding, ominous feeling as it was revealed in a breaking news story during the 7pm nightly bulletin I watch. For that reason I deliberately also watched that night's late news just for more details on it. I was sincerely gut-wrenched as those extra details were revealed to me. A massacre in a place for children is usually tragic enough, but here the perpetrator was also the father of one of the children who went there regularly. Then, after the encounter there that lit his fuse and the carnage that ensued, he went home and murdered his own wife and child. I mean, Jesus fucking Christ! How damaged must you be to even consider doing something that wicked?

His name was Panya Khamrab, and he was a disgraced former cop. Keyword: "disgraced." Shouldn't that have sounded alarm bells about him, suggesting he needed to be monitored somehow, or better yet, incarcerated? Had he indeed been behind bars, this massacre wouldn't have happened and a class of innocent children and their teachers would still be alive and none of their families would be grieving. My heart goes out to those families, and may the deceased all rest in peace. These massacres are clearly far from just an American problem; recently we saw that in Russia and now, sadly, it's been Thailand's turn. I don't know which country, or community, will be next, but I hope - against hope - none will.

Something Cult, Foreign-Language or Indie #311: Shorts (2009).

 

In Black Falls Community in Austin, Texas, 11-year-old Toby Thompson (Jimmy Bennett) is the second child to find a rock with magical powers. Over a series of "episodes," he narratives, and participates in, the story of how this magical rock transforms his community and its townsfolk, culminating in urban mayhem as literally everybody tries to get their hands on it so it can improve their lives.

Robert Rodriguez may be most famous for his crime movies like Sin City and the El Mariachi trilogy, and indeed those kind of films were the ones he cut his teeth on, but in between them he's also made numerous family movies, like the Spy Kids trilogy and The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3D. (He has five children so obviously he's made all these ones primarily for them.) Now, I thought the Spy Kids sequels both sucked but overall, while I still think crime capers are his specialty Rodriguez makes family movies that are more unconventional and creative than anybody else's and this is no exception. Shorts is unabashedly wacky, intentionally ridiculous and energetic, without a trace of condescension towards children but also not too wholesome for their parents to stomach. Rodriguez has evident fun visualising this narrative but also elaborates on it just long enough for it to be somewhat coherent, his own editing and photography are both crisp and fluid and the music score is adequately strange but not bombastic.

Rodriguez also coaxes engaging performances from all his young cast and the adults all also enjoy themselves, particularly Leslie Mann as Toby's mum and James Spader as the villainous Mr. Carbon Black. I did think the novelty began to wear off near the end, but Shorts doesn't overstay its welcome. It's a refreshing, funny and bizarre family science fiction flick like only Robert Rodriguez could, or would, deliver. 8/10.