Netflix And Chill: Cellar Door (2024)

What would you do if you could receive the house of your dreams for free, with only one main condition? It would depend on what that condition was, right? But if I told you that all you had to do was keep a cellar door closed, to never investigate that space, then you'd surely be tempted. That's the main idea at the heart of this film, hence the title.

Jordana Brewster and Scott Speedman are Sera and John, the couple who end up being offered a lovely house by Emmett (Laurence Fisburne). They are trying to heal and recover from a bad patch in their relationship, including a pregnancy that ended in miscarriage, and John needs to distance himself from Alyssa (Addison Timlin), a young colleague he had an affair with, but now wants to leave in his past. Alyssa doesn't want to be left behind though, as her complaint to HR shows. Will Sera and John be able to get to the light at the end of the tunnel, or will the pressure of the situation drive one of them to look inside the cellar and break their deal with Emmett?

On the plus side, this is a lot better than the last film I saw from director Vaughn Stein (the very poor Terminal). It's not great, but at least feels more coherent, more logical, and satisfying when certain truths are finally revealed in the third act. Writers Sam Scott and Lori Evans Taylor deliver a solid enough framework, but neither Stein nor his cast do enough to imrpove upon the material. Things never seem to head down any truly dark path, leaving viewers with a tale that lacks any real tension or sense of urgency, despite the editing and score trying to make it seem otherwise.

Brewster and Speedman are fine in their lead roles, although both could have been replaced by much better choices. Timlin is asked to look pretty and be obstinate, which she does easily enough, but she's a bit wasted in her role. I could say something similar about Fishburne, giving the classic "you have me for one whole day, let's get this done" kind of performance that allows his character to cast a long shadow over the proceedings without making use of him in more than a couple of scenes. The other main supporting cast member is Randy Schulman, just used to provide exposition and regular updates on the turbulent time that Speedman's character is going through.

There's nothing here that is awful. It's just never able to become as good as it should be. That's down to the central idea, it's down to the casting, and it's down to the fact that nobody involved seems to have enough imagination or courage to commit to something stronger in content than a bland TV movie. Whatever imagery is evoked by the movie title . . . I can assure you that the film comes nowhere close to what you may be envisioning right now.

5/10

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Crimes Of The Future (2022)

It's comforting to know that David Cronenberg has managed to remain resolutely David Cronenberg for the past four or five decades now. Crimes Of The Future reminded me of two things. One, I have yet to watch the much earlier film from him that shares the same title (although everyone has pointed out that the two films are otherwise unconnected). Two, despite his filmography seeming to take him further away, at times, from his very specific mindset and worldview, he has never let go of firm beliefs that have helped to shape so many parts of his oeuvre.

Crimes Of The Future is set, to the surprise of nobody, in the future. People tend to interface even more directly with machines and computers, often using the kind of furniture and equipment that looks like a cross between something ergonomically designed and something created as a torture device. Humans don't really suffer from disease any more, and physical pain is largely a thing of the past. That leads to people seeking more and more ways to feel . . . something. Saul Tenser (Viggo Mortensen) is one half of a performance art couple, partnered with Caprice (Léa Seydoux), and his special skill involves displaying his body while new organs grown inside him are removed. This is important, for the order of things that it threatens to unbalance, but it's also secondary to a plot that revolves around the potential next steps in human evolution, the ways in which people feel sexual thrills, and a mission to perform an autopsy on a dead child as a shocking work of performance art.

While full of great actors doing great work, Crimes Of The Future feels like Cronenberg being allowed to display and celebrate ideas that weren't allowed to be front and centre in his work years ago, despite always being there. He finally gets to craft something in which there's a beauty contest for the insides of the participants, something Cronenberg had a character state a longing for in the superb Dead Ringers, and there are ideas and images here that rank up there with the best of his work, although the movie, as a whole, suffers slightly if you compare it to his very best. But the very best films from Cronenberg are a very high bar to be measured against.

As well as Mortensen and Seydoux, who are both excellent in their roles, there's yet another great turn from Kristen Stewart, playing a nervy bureaucrat who seems star-struck by Mortensen's character, Tanaya Beatty and Nadia Litz make a strong impression in the few scenes they have, and you get solid performances from Don McKellar, Scott Speedman, Welket Bungué, and Lihi Kornowski, the latter three all connected to that aforementioned dead child.

I think it's obvious from the plot description here that you shouldn't choose to watch Crimes Of The Future if you're after something light and fun. Mind you, that applies to almost every David Cronenberg movie (as well as anything by his son, Brandon). This deserves your time though, and I encourage people to get themselves in the right headspace for it. It's thought-provoking, disturbing, smart, and sometimes confusing. In other words, bearing in mind that you also get another impressive music score from Howard Shore, it nicely slots into the Cronenberg canon, and it shows that he's lost none of his brilliance.

8/10

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xXx: State Of The Union (2005)

If you ever struggle with your place in the world, stressing out as you consider the fact that your IQ may be working against you, because ignorance is bliss, then you should immediately get your hands on xXx: State Of The Union. It WILL help lower that IQ. It's that dumb.

Lee Tamahori, a man who should stop giving us poor action movies and return to making films like the most excellent Once Were Warriors, is the director, working from a script by Simon Kinberg (who has a slightly better track record, but also gave us Fantastic Four), and it quickly becomes clear that it's a hodge podge of ridiculous action and bad decisions, accompanied by a number of obvious soundtrack choices.

Ice Cube is the new xXx, an ex-military rough guy who gets broken out from jail by Samuel L. Jackson (reprising his role of Agent Augustus Eugene Gibbons) and Michael Roof (reprising the much lesser role of Agent Toby Lee Shavers). This all happens because the xXx facility has been raided, people have been killed, and there's suspicion of a conspiracy that may reach as high as the Secretary Of Defence (Willem Dafoe) and the President Of The United States (Peter Strauss). Can Ice Cube snarl and punch-kick-throw enough people out of the way to complete his new mission?

Let me clarify something before we move forward, I can absolutely switch my brain off to enjoy a movie. Anyone who has met me for more than five minutes already knows that it takes me more effort to sometimes switch my brain ON. But the film still has to meet me halfway. This does not do that. It's even more ridiculous than the first film, which would be okay if a) they nailed the tone and b) could make the most of their budget. They manage neither.

Cube can do tough and mean, but he doesn't ever feel convincing in the full action hero role. Sorry, he just doesn't work here for me. Jackson can do his thing in his sleep, and he's okay, and Roof clearly couldn't believe his luck when he found that his minor tech guy role from the first movie had been beefed up for this instalment. Dafoe is fun, Strauss is bland, Scott Speedman is an agent who may end up helping or hindering Cube, and Xzibit pops up long enough to join in with some vehicular carnage. The main female characters are played by Nona Gaye and Sunny Mabrey, with the latter given a bit more to do than the former.

There are so many moments here to either relish or roll your eyes at, depending on your mood. The jailbreak sequence, for starters, features one of my pet peeves - a vehicle that makes no sound at all until it appears in frame. There are some nice cars on display, lots of stuntmen fall down to make Ice Cube look good, a tank on tank battle quickly becomes far too ridiculous, but ends well, and the finale features a car jumping on to some train tracks, shredding the rubber from the tyres, and still catching up to a . . . bullet train. Admittedly, I was laughing out loud at that point. It was a big mess, but I had already gone along with it all and I knew the end must be near.

Despite the twists and turns that the script takes, the biggest thing working against this movie is that it doesn't have the identity of the first film. As dumb as xXx was, it had the central gimmick (extreme sports legend sent in as a secret agent). This film is just an action movie that seems determined to be the dumbest film of 2005. Tamahori and Kinberg can do much better, as can most of the cast members. I suspect even Roof can do better. And I know that viewers can.

3/10.

Buy two movies here. 
Or Americans can get just the sequel here.

Dark Blue (2002)

It's April 1992. A turbulent time for Los Angeles, with all eyes watching the trial of the police officers accused in the beating of Rodney King. If those men are acquitted, the whole city might just burn. Kurt Russell stars as Eldon Perry, a policeman who was brought up by gunslingers and sees himself as a man who does a lot of things wrong to get the right results. His superior (Brendan Gleeson) agrees, he knows that whenever he wants ANY mess cleaned up he can ask Perry to get it done. Unfortunately, many other people view Perry as a monster including his wife (Lolita Davidovich), his young partner (Scott Speedman) and an officer (Ving Rhames) intent on uncovering the truth about a recent shooting incident and, in turn, corruption within the LAPD. In fact, as the movie unfolds, Perry starts to think about his own actions and how others view him. He starts to suspect that they may be right.

Written by James Ellroy and David Ayer, this is exactly the sort of thing you'd expect from the writers of L.A. Confidential and Training Day, respectively. Eldon Perry is a larger than life character, a bit of a bully and a braggart even to those he loves, and his moral compass has been thrown so far out of whack that it's unsure whether or not he can find his direction again. Ron Shelton does a great job in the director's chair, allowing for the actors to do their best with the material while he makes sure that all of the threads are winding together to complete the big finale.

Russell excels in the lead role, it's arguably his best performance from his 21st century filmography. He IS a bit of a monster and a horrible person, overall, but he's also a fully fleshed-out character with moments that show that he does have a heart (one scene with him being yelled at by Gleeson really starts to make him slightly sympathetic, while another involving Davidovich reading out a letter to him turns into something unexpectedly affecting). Speedman is okay in his role, he's young and acts naive enough and that's what's needed of him. Gleeson is superb, but Gleeson is always superb. In this movie, however, he's even more superb than usual, his performance sharpened by the gradual development of his true character. Ving Rhames, ahhhh Ving Rhames, he gives a subdued, sweet performance that reminds you of the actor who once seemed so great. Why did he ever start to take roles in every other Straight To Disc (or STD, if you will) piece of nonsense? I'll never know. Thankfully, there will always be performances like this one to look back on. Lolita Davidovich and Jonathan Banks have their supporting roles that allow them one or two moments to shine. And shine they do. Michael Michele may have the most thankless role, but she does okay with it.

Putting these characters together and seeing how things unfold makes for a solid drama. Setting everything on the brink of those 1992 L.A. riots makes for something much more. It's tense, it's incendiary and it's an unflinching reminder of just how easily corruption can insidiously filter through even the most well-meaning of people.

8/10

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