After landing on my Best of 2020 list with the chilling and rather emblematic The Assistant, I was definitely curious to see what writer/director/editor Kitty Green would come up with next. And sticking to her roots as a documentarian, she pulled inspiration from the doco Hotel Coolgardie to tell the story of two American backpackers who find themselves in the middle of woop woop, working at a bar until they can make enough to continue their trip. Well, if they make it that far, that is.
As unhelpful as “it’s a [insert genre here] movie that even people who hate [insert genre here] like” is as a critical observation, I do like being able to see and even recommend films that fall into areas that are… outside of my expertise, let’s say. I may frequently rail against bad talking animal movies, and be generally ambivalent towards Westerns, but that just makes my encountering examples I actually like feel just that much better; it's like biting into a BeanBoozled and getting a normal flavour. And here, we have a survival film that had me properly invested from end to end.
2023 has been a really, really fucking good year for action movies. John Wick: Chapter 4, Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3, TMNT: Mutant Mayhem, Sisu, Dead Reckoning Part One, the new Dungeons & Dragons movie, even Transformers has really started to turn back around.
In light of all that, while it’s been a long-ass time since anyone paid any heed to the Expendables, it at least makes sense that the ultimate action team-up fantasy would get another crack during this time. The third film may have come woefully short of what the first two accomplished, but even that had its moments. Unfortunately, with this fourth instalment… can this even be called an Expendables movie at this point?
Even as someone who, when all is said and done, really liked the recent Halloween trilogy, I was still sceptical about David Gordon Green’s next choice for a horror franchise that needed a fresh start. While the Exorcist series hasn’t been through quite as much turbulence as the latter days of the Halloween franchise, it has developed some highly divisive features (both Exorcist II and III have garnered cult statuses over the years, in comparison to the still-universally beloved original), and as I’ve been making a habit of saying this past year, modern exorcism films are starting to back themselves into a corner. The Conjuring craze has led to some particularly unnecessary features, both in and out of its actual continuity, and 2023 marked the year when it felt like I had somewhat lost faith in this sub-genre.
Basically, not only is this going to have to be a saving throw for the larger franchise, it’s also gonna have to save its entire sector of horror cinema. No pressure or anything.
Time to go from the convincing look-a-like to the genuine article with some proper stop-motion animation. And this is something of a historic example of such things, as the debut for Holy Motion Studio, based in the Netherlands. It’s been touted as the first feature-length stop-motion production in the country’s history, and far as I can tell, this is likely the first Dutch film I’ve ever actually watched. And I gotta say, on both counts, this is a pretty good introduction.
Coming off of the decent if inconsistent Tales From Sanctuary City trilogy, director Ricard Cussรณ’s latest is a major switch-up, both textually and visually. Textually, it’s adapted from an IP that has been doing the rounds semi-regularly for the past two decades, becoming toys, a comic book, a Flash game and even an Xbox Live Arcade download before making it to the big screen.
Visually, however, is where things get really interesting. While Australia has been experiencing something of a boom within the animation industry over the last several years, thanks in no small part to studios like Animal Logic and Flying Bark, this still manages to look like nothing else I’ve seen this country produce thus far. Not even the Sanctuary City movies come anywhere close to this.
