A mother (Essie Davis) and her young son (Noah Wiseman) must get past terrible tragedy in THE BABADOOK
THE BABADOOK (Jennifer Kent, 2014)
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A sleeper hit at Sundance that is now enjoying a hair-raising extended run at the IFC Center and has been named Best First Film of 2014 by the New York Film Critics Circle, The Babadook is a frightening tale of a mother and her young son — and a suspicious, scary character called the Babadook — trapped in a terrifying situation. Expanded from her 2005 ten-minute short, Monster, writer-director Jennifer Kent’s debut feature focuses on the relationship between single mom Amelia (Essie Davis), who works as a nursing home aide, and her seemingly uncontrollable six-year-old son, Samuel (Noah Wiseman), who is constantly getting into trouble because he’s more than just a little strange. Sam was born the same day his father, Oskar (Ben Winspear), died, killed in a car accident while rushing Amelia to the hospital to give birth, resulting in Amelia harboring a deep resentment toward the boy, one that she is afraid to acknowledge. Meanwhile, Sam walks around with home-made weapons to protect his mother from a presence he says haunts them. One night Amelia reads Sam a book that suddenly appeared on the shelf, an odd pop-up book called Mister Babadook that threatens her. She tries to throw it away, but as Sam and the book keep reminding her, “You can’t get rid of the Babadook.” Soon the Babadook appears to take physical form, and Amelia must face her deepest, darkest fears if she wants she and Sam to survive.
Writer-director Jennifer Kent explores classic horror tropes in her feature debut, the sleeper hit THE BABADOOK
The Babadook began life as a demonic children’s book designed by illustrator Alex Juhasz specifically for the film — and one that can now be preordered from the movie’s website, although you might want to think twice before inviting the twisted tome into your house. The gripping film, shot by Polish cinematographer Radek Ladczuk in subdued German expressionist tones of black, gray, and white with bursts of other colors, evokes such classic horror fare as Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, Roman Polanski’s Repulsion, and Edgar Allan Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher, where place plays such a key role in the terror. The Babadook itself is a kind of warped combination of the villains from F. W. Murnau’s Nosferatu, Robert Wiene’s The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, and Hideo Nakata’s The Ring. Kent, a former actress who studied at Australia’s National Institute of Dramatic Art with Davis, lets further influences show in the late-night television Amelia is obsessed with, which includes films by early French wizard Georges Méliès. But the real fear comes from something that many parents experience but are too ashamed or embarrassed to admit: that they might not actually love their child, despite trying their best to do so. At its tender heart, The Babadook is a story of a mother and son who must go through a kind of hell if they are going to get past the awful way they were brought together.
Ostensibly set during the Korean War but actually about the controversial battle that was raging in Vietnam, Robert Altman’s MASH is one of the most subversive, and funniest, antiwar films ever to come from a Hollywood studio. Adapted by Hollywood Ten blacklisted writer Ring Lardner Jr. from Richard Hooker’s bookMASH: A Novel about Three Army Doctors, the film focuses on a different kind of hero: the doctors and nurses at a Mobile Surgical Army Hospital not far from the front lines. These brave men and women don’t go around with guns, grenades, and helmets; instead, they equip themselves with surgical masks, clamps, and scalpels, fighting to save the lives of those who risked theirs on the battlefield. Instead of celebrating killing, they celebrate survival, and celebrate they do, led by Capts. Benjamin Franklin “Hawkeye” Pierce (Donald Sutherland) and John Francis Xavier “Trapper John” McIntyre (Elliott Gould), who have their own way with wine, women, and song. Joined by Capt. Augustus Bedford “Duke” Forrest (Tom Skerritt), they ridicule Majs. Margaret “Hot Lips” Houlihan (Sally Kellerman) and Frank Burns (Robert Duvall), regularly embarrass Father John Patrick “Dago Red” Mulcahy (René Auberjonois), flirt endlessly with Lt. Maria “Dish” Schneider (Jo Ann Pflug) and her nursing staff, and generally wreak havoc that their commanding officer, Lt. Col. Henry Blake (Roger Bowen), will usually let them get away with, as long as they don’t interrupt his fishing outings. Hawkeye, Duke, and Trapper drink from a homemade still, take bets on whether Hot Lips’ carpet matches the drapes, play golf, and make fun of the military and religion every chance they get, especially during a mock funeral for Capt. Walter Koskiusko Waldowski (John Schuck), the dentist known as “Painless,” who has decided to commit suicide. The wacky cast of characters also includes Gary Burghoff as Cpl. Radar O’Reilly, Altman regular Michael Murphy as Capt. Ezekiel Bradbury “Me Lay” Marston IV, Bud Cort as Pvt. Lorenzo Boone, G. Wood as Brig. Gen. Charlie Hammond, and Kim Atwood as Ho-Jon. But Hawkeye and Trapper also happen to be outstanding doctors who take their oath very seriously, even when operating on an injured enemy. Their brazen disregard for authority of all kinds and the rule of military law is a knowing slap in the face to governments around the world, who so often send their young men and women off to war for highly questionable reasons.
Timothy Spall was named Best Actor at the Cannes Film Festival for his compelling portrayal of British artist Joseph Mallord William Turner in Mike Leigh’s lovely biopic, Mr. Turner. Spall, who played Peter Pettigrew in the Harry Potter series and has appeared in such other Leigh films as Topsy-Turvy, All or Nothing, Life Is Sweet, and Secrets & Lies, portrays Turner as a gruff, self-involved painter who grunts and growls his way through life. At his home studio he is assisted by his aging father, William (Paul Jesson), and his devoted housekeeper, Hanna Danby (Dorothy Atkinson), who he occasionally shags when in the mood. Turner carries his sketchbook wherever he goes, always on the look-out for a beautiful landscape or winter storm that could become the subject of his next painting. With that in mind, he rents a room in a small seaside inn run by Sophia Booth (Marion Bailey), who eventually becomes more than just his landlady. An artist well ahead of his time, Turner becomes frustrated with the men at the Royal Academy of Arts and lisping art critic John Ruskin (Joshua McGuire), who don’t appreciate his work properly, especially when he starts heading toward abstraction.