The ubiquitous Toni Collette, Australia's gift to cinema and TV, has never won an Oscar despite sterling work. She is the linchpin of
Hereditary (2018), which I watched last night courtesy of Netflix. The story begins with the funeral of the grandmother, with whom Collette's character was often estranged. That side of the family has a history of mental illness. Soon weird things begin to happen. Are they supernatural, demonic, or evidence of creeping schizophrenia? It affects her children, a 16-year-old boy and 13-year-old girl. Gabriel Byrne plays the suffering husband. Ann Dowd lends her considerable talents to the part of a woman who suggests a seance. This is writer/director Ari Aster's first full length feature after several shorts. It is an impressive big screen debut. My guess is he is a big fan of M. Night Shyamalan, who captivated the world with
The Sixth Sense (1999) and has not remotely approached that height in his subsequent work. The kids are ably played by Milly Shapiro and Alex Wolff. The latter, in his early 20's, already has experience as a writer and director, and as a musician. But the film belongs to Collette, an artist who allows herself to be shot in painfully unflattering close-ups. This is strong stuff, grim as a movie gets. Anyone who has a problem with downbeat, disturbing material, even in the context of the horror genre, should pass. 132,000+ users at IMDb have rated
Hereditary, forging to a consensus of 7.3 on a scale of ten. I wouldn't go that high, but it is good film-making. It was a hit at the box office. Made on a budget of $10 million, it returned $79+ million worldwide. It runs a bit longer than two hours. So what is the cause of all the havoc wreaked in the film? Draw your own conclusions. There are a ton of clues throughout the narrative, many of which I missed. They are revealed at bloody-disgusting.com in an article by Trace Thruman.
I've lucked into another entertaining crime drama on channel 14-1 on over the air antennas in NYC.
Homicide Unit Istanbul is German-produced despite its setting. The location footage is stunning, and the story lines of the three episodes I've seen have been solid. Best of all, it's commercial-free. Of course, it is subtitled. Last night's episode included a breathtaking chase across the top of a stone bridge that seems centuries old.
This is Benton. Yahoos are calling him Little Hitler:
My thanks to the gentleman who settled his tab, and to the elderly woman who bought a book in Russian; and to the young mom who purchased four kids' books; and to the woman who did a
one-for-one swap.
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