The Belko Experiment (2017)

Movies featuring a group of people forced to kill each other by some type of overlord character, either for entertainment/punishment purposes (The Running Man, Battle Royale), a test of humanity (The Human Race), or a poorly executed comment on class warfare that manages to somehow undermine its own satire at every turn with terrible writing (The Hunger Games franchise), have been around for quite some time. The Belko Experiment, the latest from writer James Gunn and director Greg McLean, falls into the 'test of humanity' camp, and it is quite a fine example of it.

The titular Belko is a company --one with multiple locations all around the world, but our film focuses on one in Columbia-- that facilitates the relocation for American companies to other parts of the world...or something (it really doesn't matter, it's mentioned once and never again). One fine day the local workers are refused entry by new armed guards, leaving just 80 employees inside the multistory building, including but not limited too: our protagonist, his love interest, a total creeper, the new girl, a stoner cafeteria worker, and the VP of that branch of the company. A day of work is suddenly interrupted by a thick sheet of metal covers up all windows and doors and a voice over the PA system tells them they have 2 hours to kill 30 of their coworkers or 60 will die instead via tiny bombs implanted in every employees' neck all Suicide Squad-style.

                                                 -------Beyond Here Be Spoilers-------

James (Guardians of the Galaxy, Slither) Gunn, for the first time since 2004's Dawn of the Dead remake acting as writer only and not director, scripts a taut, self-contained bit of grue that, despite not really being as funny as the trailers make it out to be, does some things very right. There's a definite sense of history between all the characters, you believe they've been working together for a decent amount of time, to the point where some have little injokes and the like trading back and forth. Everything flows along organically and at a nice clip, never needing to over explain anything to us. My absolute favorite thing, however, has to do with our protagonist's work girlfriend. So often in these type of films were there can only be one survivor, they always come up with some bullshit contrivance to save the love interest. Words can't describe how happy I am they didn't follow that line here.

                                        --------------Spoilers Over, Rejoice----------

Now it's confession time; I am not a fan of director Greg McLean. I hated Wolf Creek, I hated Rogue, I hated Wolf Creek 2, and I hated The Darkness. The Belko Experiment is the only film of his I've actually liked, and it just so happens this is the only film he's directed he didn't write as well, so I assume there's something fundamentally about his writing I don't like; however, as a great philosopher once said, "Who gives a fronk?" Let's talk about his direction and direction alone, and to do that I only need four words: it does the job. Nothing particularly outstanding, but it's fine, exactly what it needs to be.

Ultimately what we have here with The Belko Experiment is nothing you haven't really seen before, but done well enough it does feel somewhat fresh, so make of that what you will.

Strange Days (1995)

The advent of the 1990s saw a sudden rise in a genre long thought dead, film noir. While technically not noir as all these films were in color and by definition proper noirs are black and white, they still made full use of many tropes of those classic films from the 40s and 50s; crime, twists and turns, double-crosses, femme fatales, and antihero protagonists. Notable examples of this wave of recycling include LA Confidential, Pulp Fiction, and Shallow Grave, but even more interesting than the renewed interest in noir was the melding of noir and horror or Sci-Fi that began popping up in films like Angelheart, Dark City, Lost Highway and the subject of this post, Strange Days.

Made in 1995, the film takes place in the distant future of the last days of 1999 in the City of Angels itself, Los Angeles. Crime is at an all time high and the tension between the citizens of the inner city and the abusive LAPD is on the precipice of a full-on war --presumably commenting on the Rodney King riots just three years before. In this swamp lives Lenny Nero (Ralph Fiennes: Schindler's List, the Harry Potter films), former vice cop who makes a living acquiring and selling SQUID discs, recordings that allow people to feel and experience other people's memories through their eyes. All seems to be going great until A)a local civil rights leader is found shot execution style and B) a longtime friend of Nero and his ex Faith (played with slinky zeal by Juliette Lewis) is murdered and a disc of the death is delivered right to him. Also along for the ride and trying to uncover the truth is Tom Sizemore as PI Max Peltier and Angela Bassett (giving possibly the single best performance of the film) as single mom/limo driver Lornette 'Mace' Mason

Directed by future Oscar-winner Kathryn Bigelow, after watching I was truly shocked I'd never even heard of this film until I read about it in some random article about underrated Sci-Fi films. Apparently it was a massive flop upon release, earning back only a fraction of its $42mil price tag. I couldn't help but think of David Cronenberg's fairly divisive film output in this time period, work like Crash and Naked Lunch, and notice similarities in the tone and style. In addition, there's a certain low-tech approach to the science fiction aspects that I really find appealing.

Most importantly, the SQUID sequences --shot in POV-- feel real and disturbing, and in a time where you can find an actual, honest-to-blog snuff film on a certain gore site that I won't name here, that's no mean feat. Strange Days is a film the deserves to be rediscovered and praised, so do yourself the favor and find yourself a copy.

Kong: Skull Island (2017)

When 2014's American reboot of Godzilla, leaps and bounds better than our 1998 attempt though still heavily flawed, grossed almost $530 million at the box office Warner Bros and Legendary Pictures hopped onto the bandwagon that Marvel started a few years before and announced a 'cinematic universe' of classic kaiju reboot films. Given the problems of Godzilla and the utter fuckery of Peter Jackson 12 years earlier, one could understand the trepidation of moviegoers everywhere when an updating of King Kong was revealed as the first up on the chopping block. The choice of directors didn't inspire much confidence either, as this would only be Jordan Vogt-Roberts second film, after indie coming-of-age tale The Kings of Summer. Luckily, the risks taken by the production payed off as Kong: Skull Island is possibly the best movie I've seen so far this year.

The story, taking place in 1973 at the very tail end of the Vietnam War, deviates greatly from the traditional plot of a film crew seeking a unique location, instead focusing on a scientific research team from Monarch --the institution studying the MUTAs in Godzilla-- led by John Goodman, to investigate the newly discovered Skull Island. In addition to a military escort, led by Samuel L Jackson's intense Colonel Packard seeking one more moment of glory before the official end of the war, they've brought along Tom Hiddleston's former SIS agent James Conrad (pay attention to that name kids, it's important) and Brie Larson's photojournalist Mason Weaver.

Upon reaching the island, which is perpetually surrounded by a ring of hurricanes, they immediately start doing the thing Americans always do when confronted with a new, undiscovered and unexplored world; they start blowing shit up but good, dropping seismic charges (ie big ass bombs) and generally making a nuisance of themselves. As you might imagine, this doesn't go over very well with the top banana (heh, see what I did there?), and Kong makes his presence known by knocking every single one of their helicopters out of the air and effectively separating everyone into separate groups for the entire second act. One group, consisting of Loki and the chick from Room, stumble across the island's native tribe and an American airman who crash landed there way back in WWII (played by John C Reily, and easily the best character in the film). The other, made up solely of soldiers and Jackson, who becomes more and more obsessed with the idea of revenge against the giant ape.

I don't say this lightly, and you know I have mad love for the original 1933 film, but I think this might be my favorite version of King Kong. The soundtrack is perfect, filled with the absolute best of classic rock from that era including Black Sabbath and CCR, and the actors all do a fantastic job, knowing just when to take things seriously and just when to play up the inherent campiness. Director Vogt-Roberts proved WB made the right call by filling every shot of this film with beautiful, instantly iconic, colorful, and occasionally even surreal, imagery, and the screenwriters wrote a tight, interesting screenplay that not only avoids the unfortunate racist implications of the past films (no savage tribes folk kidnapping and sacrificing white blond ladies here) but also includes dozens of clever references not only to those past films but other works as varied and deep as Jurassic Park, Moby Dick, and Heart of Darkness/Apocalypse Now. What I'm getting at is this is a damn fine film, just about as close to a perfect film as you can get, and you should do yourself the favor of seeing it as soon as you can on the biggest screen you can.