MacKenzie Davis

Stream of the Week: Mackenzie Davis in BAD TURNS WORSE

by
BAD TURN WORSE
Mackenzie Davis in BAD TURNS WORSE

Because Mackenzie Davis brings such a magical quality to her title role in Tully, my video pick is an earlier starring role in a little-known indie.  That film is a fine first feature with a GREAT title for a contemporary noir thriller: Bad Turn Worse. It’s set in a nowheresville Texas cotton gin town. Three childhood friends have just graduated from high school, and two are looking to escape to college – Bobby (Jeremy Allen White) and Sue (MacKenzie Davis). Not sharing a speck of Bobby’s and Sue’s intellectual curiosity, Sue’s longtime boyfriend B.J. (Logan Huffman) doesn’t want them to go; B.J. is dreamy and testosterone-filled, but bone-headed and weak-willed, with a gift for making impulsive, destructive choices. Bobby is sweet on Sue, and she is starting to be repelled by B.J.’s immaturity and selfishness. Sure enough, B.J. does something which entangles them all in a lethal jam.

Pretty soon there’s a double cross within a double cross, with a love triangle overlay. Nobody can trust anybody else, and somebody is gonna have to die…

The young leads are good, but two veteran TV actors sparkle in supporting turns. Mark Pellegrino plays a ruthless and crazy-scary villain that no one should cross. Jon Gries (Uncle Rico in Napoleon Dynamite) is hilariously deadpan as the corrupt Sheriff who tries to connect the dots for Bobby with metaphors – and Bobby’s dots just aren’t connecting.

Bad Turn Worse’s noir sensibility comes from 1) the amoral attitude that sometimes you gotta break the law and 2) the expectation that there can’t be a happy ending with all this treachery in play.

Bad Turn Worse is written by Dutch Southern and is the directorial debut of Simon and Zeke Hawkins. These guys have definitely proven that they can pull off a solid thriller. Bad Turn Worse is available streaming from Amazon Instant, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

[Note: You can see Davis in a completely contrasting role, as a misfit wannabe singer-songwriter, in A Country Called Home.]

TULLY: insightful, compelling and, finally, magical

by
Charlize Theron stars in Jason Reitman’s TULLY. Courtesy of SFFILM.

The compelling dark comedy Tully stars Charlize Theron, is written by Diablo Cody and directed by Jason Reitman. Those three combined on the underrated game-changing comedy Young Adult, and Tully is another very singular film.

Theron plays Marlo, a mom who has just given birth to her third child.  Her oldest kid has intense special needs and a newborn brings another level of obligation.  Marlo develops a serious case of depression.  To ease the burden, she gets a night nurse named Tully; Tully has an otherworldly quality which brings relief and respite to Marlo.  And then there’s a major plot twist…

Theron is a fearless actress – not afraid to glam down, She gained fifty pounds for this role (not as big a glam down as for Monster). In Young Adult, she was game to play a thoroughly dislikable character. Here she plays a real Mom, not a Perfect Mom. In real life, caregiving can take its toll, and that’s what we see here.

Mackenzie Davis brings a magical quality to the character of Tully.  Ron Livingston is very good as a loving but clueless husband; ill-equipped to recognize, let alone deal with Marlo’s depression.

Tully was featured at the San Francisco International Film Festival (SFFILM) (although I missed it because I was at the Leave No Trace screening);  Theron and Reitman attended the SFFILM screening, and, from all reports,  Theron wowed the crowd.

Tully is an excellent and insightful film.  It’s a dark comedy and NOT A LIGHT MOVIE – after all, with all its laughs, it’s about postpartum depression.

DVD/Stream of the Week: BAD TURN WORSE – great title, good movie

by
BAD TURN WORSE
BAD TURNS WORSE

My DVD/Stream of the Weeks is a fine first feature with a GREAT title for a contemporary noir thriller: Bad Turn Worse. It’s set in a nowheresville Texas cotton gin town. Three childhood friends have just graduated from high school, and two are looking to escape to college – Bobby (Jeremy Allen White) and Sue (MacKenzie Davis).  Not sharing a speck of Bobby’s and Sue’s intellectual curiosity, Sue’s longtime boyfriend B.J. (Logan Huffman) doesn’t want them to go; B.J. is dreamy and testosterone-filled, but bone-headed and weak-willed, with a gift for making impulsive, destructive choices.  Bobby is sweet on Sue, and she is starting to be repelled by B.J.’s immaturity and selfishness. Sure enough, B.J. does something which entangles them all in a lethal jam.

Pretty soon there’s a double cross within a double cross, with a love triangle overlay.  Nobody can trust anybody else, and somebody is gonna have to die…

The young leads are good, but two veteran TV actors sparkle in supporting turns. Mark Pellegrino plays a ruthless and crazy-scary villain that no one should cross.  Jon Gries (Uncle Rico in Napoleon Dynamite) is hilariously deadpan as the corrupt Sheriff who tries to connect the dots for Bobby with metaphors – and Bobby’s dots just aren’t connecting.

Bad Turn Worse’s noir sensibility comes from 1) the amoral attitude that sometimes you gotta break the law and 2) the expectation that there can’t be a happy ending with all this treachery in play.

Bad Turn Worse is written by Dutch Southern and is the directorial debut of Simon and Zeke Hawkins. These guys have definitely proven that they can pull off a solid thriller.  Bad Turn Worse is available streaming from Amazon Instant, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play and Xbox Video.