Juno Temple – Memphis Flyer

It’s Halloween weekend, so there’s plenty of scary stuff on the big screen this weekend. Let’s get to it!

Venom: The Last Dance

Tom Hardy returns for the third time as Eddie Brock, a former journalist who is the host for an alien symbiote named Venom. After defeating Carnage in the last film, he’s now on the run from the law in Mexico. But the man he’s accused of murdering is still alive, and the folks at Area 51 (Chiwetel Ejiofor and Juno Temple) are also looking for him, because the creator of the symbiotes, Knull (Andy Serkis), is on his way to Earth.

Your Monster

If you like your monsters a little friendlier, this indie rom com is the movie for you. Melissa Barrera is Laura, a young woman who survived cancer, only to have her boyfriend Jacob (Edmund Donovan) break up with her. As she’s trying to deal with all this trauma, a monster (Tommy Dewey) appears in her closet. And you know what? He may be boyfriend material.

I AM

Memphis filmmakers Jessica Chaney and Amanda Willoughby’s film about the mental health struggles of Black women will debut on WKNO on Friday, October 25th. The film, which was a hit at last year’s Indie Memphis Film Festival, is also screening at MoSH on Saturday, October 26th at 4 p.m., accompanied by a panel discussion with the film’s stars, Dr. Crystal DeBerry (Licensed Therapist), Angela Sargent (Educator), Angel Coleman (Hairstylist & Business Owner), and Jacqueline E. Oselen (wellness coach & certified Yoga Instructor), moderated by Indie Memphis programmer Kayla Myers. It’s free, but you’ll need to RSVP here.

Crosstown Fright-Tober

Crosstown Theater concludes their Fright-Tober series with a double feature on Saturday, October 26. First up is an all-time classic from Universal Pictures, The Creature from the Black Lagoon. Here’s one of the most famous sequences from the 1954 film, a landmark in underwater photography. That’s actor Ricou Browning holding his breath for 4 minutes per take in the Gill Man suit.

The second film of the double feature is 1981’s Evil Dead. Filmed in Tennessee, it’s a horror classic that launched the careers of director Sam Raimi, Bruce Campbell, and, indirectly, the Coen Bros. Later films in the series, like Army of Darkness, pioneered modern horror comedy, but Evil Dead is legit scary and over-the-top as all hell.

Haxän with Alex Greene and the Rolling Head Orchestra

One of the most influential horror films ever made is Haxän, director Benjamin Christensen’s hybrid documentary about the witch hunts of Europe in the Middle Ages. The recreations of black sabbath celebrations (with Christensen himself playing Satan) and inquisitions provide indelible images that have resonated through the decades. Wednesday, October 30th at the Crosstown Arts Green Room, Memphis Flyer music editor Alex Greene and his Rolling Head Orchestra with reprise the theremin-heavy live score he composed for the silent film, which was commissioned by Indie Memphis in 2022. I was there the first time, and it was awesome!

I was a huge Woody Allen fan for years but haven’t watched his movies since Dylan Farrow published her letter detailing memories of abuse. Until I was assigned Wonder Wheel this week, I avoided his films. Having an object of intense identification (whom I aspired to imitate as a writer-filmmaker) suddenly designated for intense ostracism resulted in alienation: You just don’t think about who you formerly idolized. I loved him; now, I associate him with rape.

,p>His later, hackier works are often pale shadows of movies from the height of his talent. (Instead of watching them, I now periodically consume Farrow family testimony.) Any online discussion of new work instantly becomes a battleground over the specific history of his case. His movies lay the groundwork for many other romantic comedies and dramas, and their association with child rape is an incredibly uncomfortable piercing of the pop-culture bubble.

The bubble should pop. Nevertheless, the first two-thirds of Wonder Wheel has the attributes of a dramatic product that is consumable. We open on Mickey (Justin Timberlake) in a 1950s Coney Island lifeguard tower, addressing the audience. He is a playwright who wants to write a great melodrama in the style of Eugene O’Neill

The beach he surveys is fully realized: a million bright bathing suits in Edward Hopper light. We follow Carolina (Juno Temple) and Ginny (Kate Winslet) as they meet there. Ginny is an actress turned waitress, and Carolina is her stepdaughter, on the run from a Mafioso ex-husband, in search of her estranged father, Humpty (Jim Belushi). They go back to Ginny’s house, and it is a proper stagebound set with the eponymous Ferris wheel in the window, always flooded with artificial golden light. The trio emote in their cramped, fake quarters with screaming and monologues, but the framework saves it.

The O’Neill and Tennessee Williams pastiche forgives the tendency of Allen’s characters to state their thoughts and feelings too plainly. Temple and Winslet are pros; Belushi never quite leaves the quotation marks of his character, an abusive husband who wears a wife-beater. Timberlake pulls double duty as both self-proclaimed author of this world and Ginny’s secret lover. He gives one too many speeches commenting on the action, but there is a coldness to his eyes and a willingness to deceive in his delivery that make him interesting.

Justin Timberlake and Kate Winslet (right) star in Woody Allen’s new film Wonder Wheel.

Ginny and Mickey discuss fatal flaws in tragedy. Humpty threatens to hit Ginny. Winslet’s pyromaniac son (Jack Gore), the only openly comedic character, sets things on fire. Ginny dreams of starring in Mickey’s play and running away with him to Bora Bora. As she begins to obsess over him, Winslet does a great soliloquy swathed in unnatural red light. When things get more melodramatic, her scenes are soaked in neon blue, then harsh white.

Unfortunately, the artificiality that sold the beginning of the movie handicaps emotional connection at its end. Simple moments like a birthday party have no real life. The pauses between lines among minor characters there have the rhythm of an amateur stage production where the timing is flat. What made Allen’s delivery as an actor special was the sense he was both doing a comedian’s routine and reacting authentically to the world he had constructed around him. His anger and fear seemed real.

Without Allen, everyone is Margaret Dumont. The only characters that seem alive are the two female leads. Temple mainly fuels the plot, but Winslet has a great American accent that is best used in cutting anger and brutal sarcasm. The movie should have built toward that, turning her self-hatred outward toward those around her. Instead, at the finish line it fumbles a final monologue by heading toward an emotional state similar to Cate Blanchett’s in Blue Jasmine: denial.

As with everything, Allen’s biography leaks in. Ginny seems to be a stand-in for Mia Farrow, Timberlake for Allen. The movie is arguably a multimillion-dollar protestation of innocence. Last week, Dylan Farrow wrote a second letter, realleging the abuse and demanding Allen’s removal from the world of prestige filmmaking as the only punishment available (after previous contradictory legal episodes). Her question is not of separating the art from the artist, but of public safety. If Allen is a predator in a position of power, he is able to commit crime and avoid both justice and rehabilitation. Such questions make Allen’s art inconsequential to his nonfiction.