Review: Our Frasier Remake (2023)

As a casual kibitzer of ‘Cheers’ and a devout addict of the ‘Frasier’ spin-off, the trailer for Frasier’s 2023 reprise chronicling his repatriation to Boston left me unenthusiastically inert. However, coinciding with the release date for the Paramount+ reboot was the announcement of a crowdfunded project in which a cavalcade of creators splice together their own sectarian version of a 22-minute episode within the span of 6-12 seconds.

The result is an utterly kaleidoscopic experiment of animators (and some live-action actors (the kitschy, overexposed 70’s Roz is a discotheque sexpot) paying homage to one of television’s most venerable characters. James Adomian is such an assuredly persnickety vocal fit for Niles that he could understudy David Hyde Pierce. Each contribution is only allotted sparse time but they are all impactfully corymbiate. The structure of the Season 1 finale is fertile springboard since it is a chamber piece inside Cafe Nervous, Frasier and Niles’ barista haven. I personally adored the wavy watercolor effect of Niles as he is querulous over a group at their window seats. It’s seasonally apropos that at one point Frasier and Niles are gesticulating skeletons. 

Of course, the style of rotoscoping and claymation are ravishing techniques but rejiggering the highbrow brothers as Aristotle and Plato doppelgangers outside the Parthenon is a uniquely sublime snippet. As a sizzle reel for aspiring artists and deipnosophistic pleasures of the sitcom ‘Frasier’, ‘Our Frasier Remake’ is a lustrously Warholian lollapalooza that practically mandates repeat viewings for the Easter Eggs (samples – Kelsey Grammar is suddenly transmogrified into both his Sideshow Bob alter-ego from ‘The Simpsons’ and Beast from ‘X-Men’). 

Frasier is such a malleable property that he can adapt to any format. The most jaw-dropping facet is that none of the collaborators cannibalize each other. In fact, the license permitted is infinite with a few winking additives like the “I’m Listening” island to represent Frasier’s lovelorn fears. Inside of Frasier is a cauldron of rage and how else to emblazon that than an incarnation of him in a berserker anime flex?

Rating: 4.5 out of 5

Review: The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar (2023)

Roald Dahl is an author who doesn’t dichotomize what would be family-friendly and what would potentially produce goosebumps within his young readers. In fact, he was like a kindergarten William Castle with his hand on the buzzer for each of the children who dared to venture into the olive-black wilderness of his pages. Wes Anderson’s adaptation of his ‘The Fantastic Mr. Fox’ was a wondrously deadpan and Junoesque stop-motion film in which Anderson’s predilection for anaesthetized inexpressiveness was kismet for the material. The legato, yet breakneck ‘The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar’ isn’t altogether divagating except for the fact that it is live-action over animation.

But Anderson prefaces the film with a meta element with the winningly studious Ralph Fiennes in the narrator role of Dahl himself as he waxes ergonomically from his notepad about the yarn of the eponymous character (Benedict Cumberbatch). Anderson is such a persnickety formalist for detail that each of the setups is a tessellated mosaic. When Dahl upends himself from his seated position and disembarks out of his imperceptibly minuscule shed, with his knit sweater and the faux gipsy house in the background, the mise en scene quaintly resembles the pastoral magical-realism of Mister Roger’s Neighborhood. Architecturally, the library is a pastel marvel that couldn’t achieved with such gimcrackery as Star Wars’ application of the Volume LED technology. Dev Patel must’ve memorized his lines ad infinitum since he recites them like an LP vinyl on a 3x speed.

With a bandage over his head, Ben Kingsley is conceivably supplanted by a body double during his hospital swerving and weaving without use of his eyes. Sometimes Anderson can be algid about the plight of his characters but Imdad Khan’s (Kingsley) concentration on his deceased brother’s face as an exercise for his epiphenomenal vision is genuinely sepulchral. Since the practice of candlelight fixation spans years and decades before the protege can finally strut the skill, Imdad and Henry whittle away their mortal years for showmanship and profit.

The message that life is flavorless and lean without the uncertainty factor is conveyed without pontificating and with a Dickensian jest. Like Uncle Scrooge, Henry flutters his bills over the proletariat below, it is hysterically rabid instead of a feel-good celebration of goodwill. At feature length, the whimsy would’ve evaporated midway through but the short-film format codifies that the adrenaline rush of Anderson’s storytelling quirks never becomes overwhelmingly arch. Plus, since this is a parable like Aesop, the novella truncation is concise and acute as to the moral tenets of an existence devoted to charity over wealth.

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Review by Cory Taylor

Tristan’s Most Anticipated Films of 2022!

I know I just said I was done with writing here for the time being, but hear me out: my two favorite things to do are the Best of and the Most Anticipated. It’s essentially why I started this with Cory 7 years ago.

So, Happy Anniversary to us, and here’s my most anticipated films of the next calendar year (hopefully):

---

Set Releases

Some of these were already set, some of them were on last year’s list! Hopefully we get our eyeballs on them at some point in 2022:

10) Samaritan – August 26

The first of my picks is one that was supposed to come out about the same time in 2021. It’s only grown in my expectational mind in the interim. Sylvester Stallone features as a former superhero who is discovered by a young boy (Javon Walton) and must convince him not to expose the truth. Based on the original comic of the same name, we’re sure to see the moral dilemma of superhero failure and duty wrapped into a great character piece for Stallone. This could be his Aftermath, if all goes well.

9) The Woman King – September 16

For once, I had time to look into a number of directors and films that I might otherwise never have thought to look up – this was the pleasant surprise that resulted. Gina Prince-Bythewood has had a solid career directing dramatic fare, but it was her Netflix actioner The Old Guard that has brought her to the forefront of current cinema. Her follow up is a historical epic taking place in the 19th century African nation of Dahomey (current Benin). With an all-star cast including Viola Davis (Widows), Thuso Mbedu (The Underground Railroad), Lashana Lynch (No Time to Die) and John Boyega (Attack the Block), this is a historical film I’ve been hoping for – something entirely located within Africa, but focusing on the people there, not any colonists who would invade, occupy or enslave them. My hope is that this will bring to American audiences a new sense of the world at large and the history beyond their limited view. It’s got the potential to be the most important film released this year.

Best Films of 2021 (Cory’s Corner)

With multiplex theaters shuttering and drive-in theater enthusiasts clamoring for the return to a simpler cinematic experience, the landscape of film has vacillated significantly over the past years since the dreaded Wuhan plague. Streaming services reigned supreme. The production/release date delays continued. A paradigm shift for the industry has been nigh but it finally waned on its last gasping breath. The only consistencies of late- Bruce Willis was prolifically sedentary in his VOD armchair, Keanu Reeves is still a beloved bench meme and the Disney multiheaded hydra consumed everything in its path. A few surprises trended throughout 2021 though. Black-and-white roared its monochromatic head back. Lin-Manuel Miranda crammed a decade’s worth of liner notes into a calendar year. Meanwhile, South Park and Bo Burnam summarized our quarantine woes in satirical potshots. As a tapestry of 2021, I have ten selections that stitch together the mosaic.

10) THE AMUSEMENT PARK (dir. George A. Romero)

For readers who like to quibble, this is technically a 1973 educational film. However, it was devoured by the sands of time until George A. Romero’s wife unearthed it on a shelf. With the resources of a 4k restoration, this Lutheran-commissioned cautionary allegory on elderly abuse is among the late director’s most sociological, provocative films despite its dubious origins. Even months after watching the premiere Fathom event, the cyclical refrain of “you won’t like what’s out there” still haunts my consciousness.

In a stroke of genius, every attraction at West View Park in Pittsburgh is a transpositional metaphor with a fish-eye exaggeration. For example, behind the curtain of freak show are dotage retirees in wheelchairs and plaid suits while the younger, insolent generation collectively sniggers at them. A fortune teller prognosticates a couple will ultimately be marooned by their doctor in their 70’s while their health is deteriorating in an apartment.

Castor’s Underrated Gems- The Empty Man (2020)

The skeletal altar to the titular apparition is hauntingly monolithic like the Space Jockey in ‘Alien’ and the kneeling parishioner in Bhutan is starkly identical to the ‘Blair Witch’ victims. David Prior doesn’t succumb to creaking jump scares. ‘The Empty Man’ is a methodically brooding, sapient and confidently trenchant supernatural thriller and at a length of 137 minutes (the pre-title sequence is around 20 minutes), it might be an assembly cut, but it doesn’t mince the impact.

The American backpackers plagued by the entity aren’t the parochial, sex-crazed teenagers of other slasher films. They are genuinely alarmed when their friend is paralyzed in a catatonic state. The snowblind outline of the Empty Man is terrifying.

A noteworthy element is James Badge Dale who is perpetually underestimated as a grizzled lead. It is ruefully funny when James Lasombra (Dale) redeem a birthday certificate at a restaurant while he repasts alone. The notion of an urban legend that is viral is irresistibly evocative and Prior amalgamates the campfire tales of the Mothman, Bloody Mary and the Jersey Devil with a soupcon of ‘Contagion’.

Since this was jettisoned by 20th Century Fox in 2020 shortly around the merger with Disney, the result is brashly unhinged for a studio movie and some of the edits are brusque (ex. The jump cut as the Davara (Samantha Logan) is star-gazing on the bridge). The flashback to Amanda’s (Sasha Frolova) petulant friends doesn’t overstay its welcome and none of them are supplicating for comeuppance.

Like the recent ‘Malignant’, the scissor death in the bathroom is a homage to Dario Argento. The ASMR muttering into the fatalities’ ears is more irritatingly trismic than spooky. Prior isn’t pusillanimous about an ending that isn’t felicitous. As with most J-horror, the tragedian aspect of the curse is how inexorable it is and James being a tulpa vessel for the eponymous creature certainly qualifies.