NOSFERATU

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Robert Eggers Digs His Own Grave

By Cole Smithey

If you've seen Robert Eggers's excellent film "The Lighthouse," then you should have high expectations for how Eggers could approach the well-worn story of Irish novelist Bram Stoker's 1897 Gothic horror novel "Dracula."

Sadly, you will be disappointed.

"The Lighthouse" is everything that "Nosferatu" is not — suspenseful, and dark in a terrifyingly human way.

There's not much humanity in this plot-crammed and poorly written "Nosferatu."

Eggers's inspiration arrives via Henrik Galeen's 1925 German expressionist script for F.W. Murnau's groundbreaking if politically problematic silent movie, considering its obvious racist underpinnings.

Overworked and under-edited, Robert Eggers's "Nosferatu" is not without its charms. Lily Rose Depp is a revelation in her exotic role as Ellen Hunter, a young, horny, nubile woman who offers herself up to the universe to be devoured by whatever form (alien, human, evil or otherwise) that comes through her open window.

Careful what you wish for.

A sleepy first act finally gives way to a late reveal of the monster. To be clear, Nosferatu is a hook-nosed freak of nature non-human creature, well except for his exposed penis.

Yes, "Peenee on set" was announced during the filming of the scene where Bill Skarsgård's Nosferatu shows up very nude, and sporting the most ridiculous mustache you've ever seen. 

This Nosferatu gives mustache rides. Now that's scary. Beauty and the beast indeed. Unlike Bela Lugosi's Dracula, this vampire is no charmer. Zero sex appeal on display.

"Nosferatu" is visually stunning but the screenwriting is not up to snuff by a lot.

Eggers is so obsessed with ticking off a checklist of details culled from every vampire movie ever made that he ties himself up. He employs tropes rather than imbuing the story with novel meaning. The movie goes so far as to throw in a gratuitous Exorcist scene that stumbles.

Werner Herzog's "Nosferatu The Vampyre" (1997) is a far superior to Eggers's film in every way. Herzog's movie is simply told in a hyper stylized yet sparse setting where fear and suspense breed.

Hell, Paul Morressey's 1974 cult classic "Blood For Dracula" is a damn sight better than Eggers's movie.

Robert Eggers has squandered a great opportunity to use Bram Stoker's novel as a leaping off narrative form from which to improvise his own cinematic narrative design of suspenseful intent. 

Where is your sense of Jazz improvisation Mr. Eggers?

Come on man; you're better than this.

If it were me I'd have cast Bill Skarsgård as Ellen Hunter's put-upon husband Thomas, and given the role of Nosferatu to his brother Alexander Skarsgård, who I might add would have been much more charming and dignified — think Astro-Hungarian Empire royalty.

I'd have played up suspense in the three hellhounds sequence where Thomas gets chased off a ledge into the abyss below. This sequence should be the centerpiece of the film.

I'd have let Thomas die from his fall, and have him communicate with Ellen telepathically (post-death) in her dreams as Ellen does with her domineering sex master Nosferatu. Nevermind that this vampire has all the appeal of a zombie meth addict with lesions all over his body that rebuke his gigantic well-groomed mustache.

"Nosferatu" is infuriating because of its cut-and-paste approach, and due to its lack of originality.

A miscast Willem Dafoe does the movie no favors as Professor Albin Eberhart von Franz, a Van Helsing archetype. This is the worst performance I've ever seen from Willem Dafoe.

Viggo Mortensen would have been much better casting.

I suppose this film's tag line, "Succumb to the Darkness" is an apt sentiment in the age of global warming and yet another Trump era.

This vampire movie is perfectly watchable; you may feel inclined to nap during it. Don't worry, you won't miss much.

Rated R. 140 mins.

JUROR #2

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Clint Eastwood's promising courtroom drama loses to a last scene misstep that costs the picture everything.

Nicholas Hoult presents a winning terse performance undermined by his character Justin Kemp's faulty moral code.

It would be telling tales out of school to reveal plot points, but suffice it to say that Justin Kemp is a young family man who shows up at the wrong place at the wrong time.

The plot thickens when Justin is called upon to be a juror on a case that he is personally connected to.

In session our jurors reveal personal biases while falling in line to which ever way the tide turns.

Neat sub-plot energy comes from the always great J.K. Simmons, here playing an ex-sheriff juror.

"Juror #2" is a suspenseful ride that goes on for one scene too long.

There is a pattern among recent dramas to feature the once maligned "European ending," in which the audience is left with an ambiguous finale.

"Hard Truths," "Last Summer," and "Small Things Like These" are three other culprits in the currently popular ambiguous ending club.

Rated PG-13. 114 mins.

PRIDE

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Undone by Broad Strokes
Historic LGBT Battle in the UK Goes Soft

By Cole Smithey

All attempts fail at forcing a by-the-numbers narrative template on a fact-based story about unlikely bedfellows uniting against Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's mid '80s reign of anti-union and anti-gay rhetoric and public policies.

Newbie screenwriter Stephen Beresford plays a game of hide-the-protagonist that further distracts from a diluted "feel-good" movie that should have by all rights been a slam-dunk.

London, circa June 1984, is the site of a Gay Pride march where 20-year-old Joe (George MacKay) is inadvertently lured into joining the parade in spite of his meek efforts to avoid holding a sign that reads "Queers — Better Blatant Than Latent."

Still insecure about his own gayness, shy Joe comes out of his shell after being welcomed into the fold of a local gay rights group, home-based in a cozy neighborhood bookstore called Gay's the Word. Sidelining his culinary studies to be a pastry chef seems a fair exchange for Joe's sudden decision to follow his other passions.

Mark Ashton (Ben Schnetzer) is the charismatic gay rights firebrand whose impromptu mid-parade decision to represent a group of striking miners, as equally despised as the gays by Thatcher's vindictive regime, sounds a clarion call that eventually rings through in the UK's corridors of power. Mark rebrands the group from "Gay Liberation Front" to "Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners" (LGSM).

After taking up sidewalk collections, Mark transports his small but passionate alliance to the South Wales coal-mining town of Onllwyn to donate the monies to the miners' poorly articulated cause. Running with the idea that the enemy of my enemy is my friend, LGSM recruits the help of Onllwyn's able-bodied community club spokesperson Dai (Paddy Considine) to introduce them to the miners. Although the town's National Union of Mineworkers take seething umbrage at receiving support from such a group of "perverts," they don't turn down the money.

The film's neglect of the cause and nature of the miner's strike is a glaring oversight that also weakens its potential as serious work of agitprop cinema.

Rocks thrown, rather than the personalities of the bullies throwing them, express the era's cultural reality of intolerance. The film's broad comic tone undermines the seriousness of the sometimes-violent drama at hand. A perky musical score and colorful set designs that border on the garish exist at odds with the vital nature of the story. At times the movie feels like an Ealing comedy on steroids. Nevertheless, its use of Billy Bragg's version of "There is Power in a Union" plays all the right chords when it finally arrives.

Four too many subplots splinter the film as Mark's motley group of gays shuttle between London and Onllwyn's Dulias Valley town while drumming up more financial aid for the miners. Confusion arises about which character the filmmakers intend the audience to invest most of its interest in. Strong supporting performances from Dominic West, playing the first UK victim of the AIDS virus, and Bill Nighy, as Cliff, a retired miner who happens to be a closeted gay, help keep the film entertaining even if the movie doesn't add up to the sum of its parts. Even Imelda Staunton's feisty portrayal of Hefina, a community organizer in Onllwyn, gets lost in the shuffle.

However chuckle-inducing its use of broad comedy might be — witness a gaggle of little old Welsh ladies pouring over gay porn and admiring an oversized dildo — the movie puts too much weight on the comic side of the scales to achieve its ostensible purpose, namely putting the audience squarely inside an essential chapter of the LGBTQ movement's battle for cultural equality in the UK.

Rated R. 120 mins.