28 Years Later

Alfie Williams and Ralph Fiennes

28 Years Later is not an afterthought or a superfluous sequel, but the best film thus far in the zombie franchise. Director Danny Boyle and screenwriter Alex Garland, now an auteur in his own right, are back with the franchise after skipping 2007's 28 Weeks Later. The new film has the same back story, a virus has contaminated the UK turning those infected into zombies, but with new characters and a more rural setting. We are introduced to a community on the tidal island of Lindisfarne in Northumberland. The isle has a causeway that links it to the mainland at low tide. The islanders, thus, have to man fortifications to keep the zombies off the island. The main characters are a stoic father (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), his deathly ill wife (Jodie Comer), and their twelve year old son, Spike (Alfie Williams).

The islanders are shown to be on a war footing, focused on tasks that will ensure survival and stave off the zombies. Because of the breakdown of modern society and conveniences in the UK, the lifestyle of the islanders has regressed to that of the Medieval era. Bows and arrows not guns are the weapons now. Boyle and Garland interweave their portrait of the islanders with footage of a martial England through the ages: not only newsreel shots of civilian preparedness for World Wars 1 and 2, but shots of Laurence Olivier as Henry V commanding his archers against the French. This conveys that the resolve of the islanders is similar to that of their forebears, but also that violence is as English as mince pie.

The first act of the film revolves around a journey to the mainland that Spike must endure as a rite of manhood. His Dad travels with Spike to assist him in his first kill of a zombie. As in all cultures, youth must steel themselves in order to survive the travails of adulthood. Unfortunately, this proves to be decidedly more unpleasant and dangerous than a visit to the DMV. Spike and his father survive the trip and are feted by the islanders. Acclaimed as a hero, Spike is uneasy. He feels he did not behave heroically or even competently. He has not the maturity or wisdom to know yet that society lies for its own sake. Heroes, particularly war heroes, receive adulation because society would rather not contemplate the barbarity that ensures its society. Society would rather embroider a heroic legend than face the truth.

Ralph Fiennes and Jodie Comer

Spike is further disillusioned when he spies his father hooking up with a comely maiden. Enraged, he bolts from the island with his addled mother in tow. He has heard about the presence of a mysterious physician on the mainland who he hopes will cure his mother. Thus begins a hero's journey egged on by Oedipal resentment. Over the course of his journey, Spike will meet three father figures (Edvin Ryding, Ralph Fiennes, and Jack O'Connell) who will each add to Spike's maturation and knowledge of the world. Boyle handles his cast adroitly and films the action thrillingly. Garland's script expertly alternates sequences of action with moments of contemplation. The score by Scottish group Young Fathers is hauntingly appropriate. I'm ready for the sequel.

                    

Best of 2024

                  

 1)     La Chimera                                     Alice Rohrwacher

 2)     Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell     Pham Thien An

 3)     Love Lies Bleeding                         Rose Glass

 4)     La Bête                                            Bertrand Bonello

 5)     About Dry Grasses                         Nuri Bilge Ceylan

 6)     All We Imagine as Light                 Payal Kapadia

 7)     The Apprentice                               Ali Abbasi

 8)     Anora                                               Sean Baker

 9)     Yannick                                            Quentin Dupieux

10)    Les chambres rouges                     Pascal Plante  

     

Films I Enjoyed

The People's Joker, The Count of Monte Cristo,

Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World,

Kinds of Kindness, The Sympathizer.

Juror #2, Rapito,

Furiosa, Tótem,

Late Night with the Devil, Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In,

In the Land of Saints and Sinners, The Substance,

Nobody Wants This, Hundreds of Beavers, 

Kneecap, Janet Planet,

Presence,

A Complete Unknown, Merchant Ivory, 

Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person,

Soundtrack to a Coup d'état, The Brutalist,

Oh, Canada, Made in England: The Films of Powell and Pressburger, 

Origin, The Settlers,

Martha, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice,

Between the Temples, Bird, 

Abigail, The Penguin,

The Hit Man, Ripley,

Kalki 2898 AD, Megalopolis,

The Room Next Door, September 5,

Green Border, I'm Still Here,

The Promised Land, Sasquatch Summer,

I Saw the TV Glow, Society of the Snow, 

Monkey Man, Evil Does Not Exist,

A Family Affair, Snack Shack, 

Challengers, Drive Away Dolls,

Flow, Heretic,

The Fall Guy, Oddity,

Dune 2, Saturday Night,

In a Violent Nature, A Real Pain,

His Three Daughters, Dahomey,

The Seed of the Sacred Fig,

The First Omen, How to Have Sex,

Trap, Twisters,

Carved, Wicked,

Below the Mendoza Line

Only the River Flows, MaXXXine,

The Coffee Table, Better Man,

Fast Charlie,

The Order, Rebel Ridge. 

What You Wish For, Last Summer, 

Things Will Be Different, Queer, 

The Old Oak, Carry-On,

Rumours, Nosferatu,

Blink Twice, The Falling Star, 

Conclave, Longlegs, 

Nowhere Special, The Dead Don't Hurt,

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, Street Trash,

The Thicket, A Quiet Place: Day One,

Lisa Frankenstein, Emilia Pérez,

Festival of the Living Dead, Lowlifes,

Civil War, Joker: Folie à Deux,

The Bikeriders, Witches,

Babes, Cuckoo,

100 Yards,

Gladiator 2,  Babygirl, 

Gasoline Rainbow, Daddio,

Jackpot, Road House,

Madame Web, Alien: Romulus,

Scoop, The Beekeeper,

Poolman, Unfrosted,

Immaculate, Trigger Warning

Not Seen

 Nickel Boys,

Christmas at Miller's Point,

The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, My Old Ass,

Small Things Like These, The Sparrows in the Chimney...

                                      

Through the Back Door

Mary Pickford

Through the Back Door is an above average Mary Pickford vehicle released by United Artists in 1921. The film is credited to the directing team of Alfred E. Green and Jack Pickford, Mary's doomed brother. Green had previously directed Jack in a number of light comic features for the Goldwyn company. Most reports from the set of this film indicate that Jack Pickford's input was minimal. His sister was trying to throw him a bone after the mysterious death of Jack's wife, Olive Thomas, in Paris the previous year. The resultant scandal, a truly sordid and byzantine one, greatly affected the addictive Jack and tarnished his sunny, All-American image. His career never recovered and he slid towards oblivion and an early death. Mary Pickford, in her memoir, characterized Jack and Olive as "children".

Through the Back Door intersects not at all with this sad tale, it alternates between treacle and goofiness. Our Mary plays Jeanne, a Belgian waif abandoned by her mother whose American husband wants his new bride all to himself. Mom sails to America while Jeanne is left in the care of a trusted servant. That servant becomes overly attached to Jeanne and thwarts a reunion with her mother. A few years later, World War 1 intervenes and Jeanne is sent packing to find her mother, who thinks Jeanne is mort. En route, Jeanne takes two war orphans under her wing, one of whom is Peaches Jackson in drag. Whew. Jeanne ends up working as a maid in her grieving mother's house where she is able to expose two grifters, one of whom is Adolphe Menjou, and, at last, reunite her family.

The film caters to Pickford's core audience desire to see her play a scampish pre-pubescent. This is anathema to audiences today, but the more I see of her performances the more I appreciate Pickford's singular talents. The wacky humor of Pickford's tangle with an obdurate mule and her skating routine with brushes are a welcome respite from the hollow contrivances of the melodrama. Green's direction at his best, say Baby Face, is merely amiable, but Through the Back Door boasts impressive cinematography from Charles Rosher (um, Sunrise) and inventive art direction by Stephen Goosson. On the follow up to this film, Little Lord Fauntleroy, which had the same collaborators, Goosson would use similarly oversize sets to help give the illusion that his diminutive star was playing a youngster. Currently streaming in a good print on Tubi.