Hot Picks
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Horse Girl
USA 2020
produced by Jeff Baena, Alison Brie, Alana Carithers, Mel Eslyn, Jay Duplass (executive), Mark Duplass (executive) for Duplass Brothers Productions/Netflix
directed by Jeff Baena
starring Alison Brie, Molly Shannon, Stella Chestnut, Debby Ryan, John Reynolds, Jake Picking, Jay Duplass, John Ortiz, Robin Tunney, Matthew Gray Gubler, Lauren Weedman, Hazel Armenante, Mary Apick, Toby Huss, Angela Trimbur, Aaron Stanford, Dylan Gelula, Andrew Patrick Ralston, Dendrie Taylor, Meredith Hagner, Zoe Saltz, Victoria Clare, Paul Reiser, Luis Fernandez-Gil, Allan McLeod, Bonnie Burroughs, David Paymer, Sharae Nikai
written by Jeff Baena, Alison Brie, music by Josiah Steinbrick, Jeremy Zuckerman
review by Mike Haberfelner
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Sarah (Alison Brie) has always been socially awkward, at least since
finding her mother's body after she had committed suicide, and she lost
ownership of her beloved horse, but of late, it has gotten worse, as she
starts having strange recurring dreams, and tries to make sense of them
with the help of a supernatural crime show on the TV. And that's despite
her roommate Nikki (Debby Ryan) having just introduced her to a man,
Darren (John Reynolds). But when she sometimes finds her somewhere she
shouldn't be in the middle of the night without having an idea how she got
there, she starts being convinced she has been abducted by aliens and is a
clone of her own grandmother - and at least one of her dreams would
suggest as much. Also she finds a man (John Ortiz) who looks exactly like
another abductee from her dream, but he claims he doesn't know her, which
only makes her secretly following home and spying him out. Eventually, she
tries to make Darren her accomplice, but Darren's only weirded out by her,
especially when she suggests they ought to dig up her grandma's grave.
Things come to a head when she one day shows up at work stark naked
without knowing why or how. She's put under psychiatric observation, and a
sympathetic psychiatrist is trying through her delusions - but she finally
finds some answers (and freedom) nobody would have expected ... Now
this movie needs a bit of patience: It starts out disappointingly
formulaic, pretty much along the lines of a romantic comedy of the ugly
duckling variety - and not even a very good one, just your typical routine
product. It only starts to turn interesting very gradually, when one
witnesses the first rifts in the story and its central character alike,
and the more off the rail the character goes, the better the film gets,
also because it portrays her as not just another crazywoman but takes her
point of view unapologetically and presents what she sees, insane as it
might seem, at least as a possible truth. And this is also when director
Jeff Baena seems to come into his own, developing a delightfully (and
fittingly) bizarre and at times surreal visual style the films beginning
wouldn't even have hinted at. And Alison Brie keeps her character
relatable enough in even her craziest moments toreally make this work.
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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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