Hot Picks
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Beautiful Friend
USA 2023
produced by Ryan Hoang, Truman Kewley (executive)
directed by Truman Kewley
starring Adam Jones, Alexandrea Meyer, Ranen Navat, Karla Dudley, Christian Bonton, Isabella Navarro, Carol Pereira, Kordel Dorsey, Aason Bautista, Bisou Le, Terrance James Kim
written by Truman Kewley, music by Gabriel Alexander
review by Mike Haberfelner
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Daniel (Adam Jones) is a socially awkward guy as is, and the Covid
lockdowns have pushed his various fears into overdrive - but have also
convinced him to finally take action and make friends, especially of the
female kind. Unfortunately, he doesn't know how to even properly
talk to women, so his attempts to pick one up in a supermarket parking lot
only leads to embarrassment. But Daniel's not one who's easily deterred,
so he makes some modifications to his SUV, then pretty much grabs a random
young lady, Madison (Alexandrea Meyer), from the street, drags her into
the back of his car, chains her up, and drives the car all out in the
middle of nowhere to pretty much "tame" her where nobody can
interfere - and yes, taming means that he rapes her as well. At first,
this totally traumatizes Madison, but eventually she learns how to deal
with the situation and get into her kidnapper's head - to the end that he
eventually moves her into his (sound-proved) home and grants her more and
more privileges - and soon she thinks she knows which buttons to push to
eventually make good her escape. Unfortunately, awkward as Daniel might
be, he's also highly intelligent and knows when he's played ... Beautiful
Friend is nothing if not a disturbing movie, basically it tells its
entire story from a psychopath's point of view, and his constant (mostly
inner) monologue paired with mostly (seemingly random) camerawork with a
fly-on-the-wall feel makes one feel oddly complicit, and uncomfortably so.
And convincing performances by both the leads, coupled with a unsettingly
subtle directorial effort only help make this ... well, certainly not a
film for everybody, and at times even a(n intentional) pain to watch, but
definitely a worthwhile experience for those looking for challenging
movies.
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review © by Mike Haberfelner
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Robots and rats,
demons and potholes, cuddly toys and shopping mall Santas,
love and death and everything in between,
Tales to Chill Your Bones to is all of that.
Tales to Chill Your Bones to -
a collection of short stories and mini-plays ranging from the horrific to the darkly humourous,
from the post-apocalyptic to the weirdly romantic,
tales that will give you a chill and maybe a chuckle,
all thought up by the twisted mind of screenwriter and film reviewer Michael Haberfelner.
Tales to Chill Your Bones to
the new anthology by Michael Haberfelner
Out now from Amazon!!! |
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