The Weekly Gravy #191

AGGRO DR1FT (2023) – ***

I had every reason to believe I would hate AGGRO DR1FT, and if I wanted to make the case that it’s one of the worst films of the year—even one of the worst in recent memory—I certainly could. Maybe the low expectations allowed me to appreciate it, after a fashion; maybe my general regard for Harmony Korine made me more inclined to give it the benefit of the doubt in certain aspects. Whatever the case, I didn’t hate it, or even dislike it; I can’t really say it’s a good film, but I’m glad I saw it—once.

BO (Jordi Mollá) is an assassin in Miami. He’s one of the best in the business, but the Miami the film depicts is so lawless that it would seem harder for him to get caught than to get away. It would also seem hard for him to have a wife and kids, let alone keep them safe from retaliation for his operations, but he does, and they don’t have a clue what he does for a living. They also presumably don’t see the CGI demon who tends to follow him around, often towering in the distant sky like the GWAR reject he is.

BO has a protégé, Zion (Travis Scott), who’s not as conflicted about his choices in life as BO wants him to be; he also doesn’t seem to know quite who Julius Caesar was, but at the risk of a spoiler, that’s not foreshadowing. BO also has an enemy, Toto (Joshua Tilley), a hulking brute who sometimes sports huge wings and likes to strut around, katana in hand, and make humping motions while growling threats. Toto is also followed around by four little people in masks and robes who wave large knives around. I’m not sure why.

There’s virtually no story here; BO is a hired assassin, he’s hired to kill, he kills. There’s a slight twist in that he kills one of his employers, but that guy was a jerk. Otherwise, we get a lot of posturing, twerking, and repetitive muttering; Spring Breakers had a decent amount of all three, but it also had considerably more to its story and characters, and took place somewhere in the neighborhood of reality.

AGGRO DR1FT is shot entirely in infrared, and the color scheme shifts constantly, bathing the screen in vivid colors and ghostly details and making it hard to really see the people on screen (they barely deserve to be called “characters”), let alone connect to them. Moreover, we often see strange patterns coursing over and/or through them, as if they were actually androids and we were briefly glimpsing their circuitry. (These were rendered with AI, adding to the garish artifice.)

Shot normally, this would still be an unpleasant tale set in a hellish world, but as rendered here it’s a bad trip, a nightmare of lust and violence that inspires few thrills because of how fake it all feels—and will likely provoke laughter whenever Toto starts a-humping or growling “Dance bitches, dance bitches, dance bitches” or BO mutters “I am a hero, I am a hero, a solitary hero.” It certainly did at my screening—and yet there were few walkouts that I noticed.

The unpleasant tone, grotesque look, and defiant lack of emotional engagement (and the fact that Korine’s current production company is called EDGLRD) might suggest this is the most tryhard piece of crap you could imagine. I couldn’t argue with anyone who’d say it is, and I can certainly imagine the imagery would prove exhausting to watch for many; I feared a splitting headache but was spared.

As it was, I found the imagery rather fascinating, if not so illuminating as to justify shooting a feature film (albeit a brief one—80 minutes) this way. I was reminded of the work of Len Lye, whose use of color in Rainbow Dance was not so very different; Lye stuck to shorts and was better for it, but Korine doesn’t push his luck too much, at least with the infrared—the use of AI and CGI is considerably sillier.

If there’s a major saving grace of the film, it’s the degree to which it owns its silliness. Toto is hilariously bad at doing anything besides talking trash and wandering around his estate looking for people to yell at, but I think that was intentional. Of course, just because this was The Point doesn’t mean the point was especially worth making, but even as the (near-capacity) audience at my screening giggled a fair amount at his antics, I think they were ultimately laughing with Korine, or he with them.

It’s a little harder to excuse the depiction of women; BO’s wife (Chanya Middleton) seems to have little identity beyond symbolizing the happy home BO can return to in between jobs; she spends most of her time doing sensual gymnastics and beckoning BO into her arms, and she’s by far the most developed female character. The rest are mostly gang groupies/victims, either strutting their stuff in and around the pool or being tied to beds and put into giant birdcages. The distorted imagery negates any prurient thrills – except for the most dedicated perverts – but it’s still sleaze.

AraabMuzik’s score is the best part of the film, its techno throbs adding greatly to the atmosphere of sleazy dread; the performances make little impression, but Mollá is able to convey a bit of humanity, cutting through the visual scheme with his weary voice to convey BO’s love for his family and the disgust which he weaponizes against his targets (though he faces little opposition whenever he confronts them).

At only 80 minutes, DR1FT managed to keep me oddly engaged; I expected to weary of the lurid colors and the atmosphere, but I never quite got there. That’s not a recommendation as such, but given how much this film tempts condemnation, to stomach it is to praise it.

Score: 66

Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines, or How I Flew from London to Paris in 25 Hours and 11 Minutes (1965) – ***

While I can reasonably trace my childhood fascination with ships and shipwrecks to the hype surrounding the release of Titanic, my fascination with airplanes and early aviation began earlier – my first written word was “TWA” – and I’m not quite sure what sparked it. Whatever did, I played the old Red Baron computer game and Microsoft Flight Simulator avidly, read The Pathfinders (a volume in Time-Life’s The Epic of Flight series profiling the earliest heavier-than-air craft) multiple times, and was quite fond of films like The Spirit of St. Louis (which I’ll return to one of these days).

But Those Magnificent Men was even more appealing; it didn’t just show the excitement and danger of flying in those early airplanes and pushing them farther than they’d ever gone, it was a light-hearted comedy with plenty of physical comedy, broad characterizations, and a catchy theme song that I’d probably still remember even if I hadn’t seen the film multiple times over the last 25 years, first on VHS (taped off the air, I believe) and then on DVD.

After a prologue detailing the history of humanity’s attempts to fly, mixing skits featuring Red Skelton with archival footage of well-intentioned pioneers, the story begins in England in 1910, as British Army officer and aviator Richard Mays (James Fox) wants to learn from other pioneers around the world. His girlfriend, Patricia Rawnsley (Sarah Miles) is in a position to help, as her father Lord Rawnsley (Robert Morley) publishes the Daily Post newspaper. Appealing to his patriotism – “Britannia rules the waves, but she doesn’t rule the sky” – they sell him on the idea of a London-to-Paris air race, with a £10,000 prize (£984,000 in 2024) to lure competitors from around the world.

And it does; from the continent come Italian count Emilio Ponticelli (Alberto Sordi), the Frenchman Pierre Dubois (Jean-Pierre Cassel) and the German officers von Holstein (Gert Fröbe) and Rumpelstrosse (Karl Michael Vogler). From farther afield come the American barnstormer Orvil Newton (Stuart Whitman) and the Japanese Yamamoto (Yūjirō Ishihara). And from England comes Sir Percy Ware-Armitage (Terry-Thomas), much to Lord Rawnsley’s chagrin.

The first half of the film focuses on the follies of these characters as they prepare for the race; Ponticelli keeps buying bizarre contraptions from the eccentric inventor Popperwell (Tony Hancock), Dubois and his friends tease the Germans until they’re challenged to a duel – which the French insist be fought in balloons, Sir Percy and his lackey Courtney (Eric Sykes) plot to sabotage the competition, and Newton is immediately taken with Patricia, sparking a rivalry between himself and Mays, while Newton’s own reckless nobility keeps getting him into trouble.

This time around, I wasn’t entirely taken with the first half; it’s pleasant and generally amusing, but rarely very funny, though I’ll admit that after so many viewings, the bloom might simply be off the rose. The script was nominated for an Oscar, but it’s part of the problem, as there are too many characters with too little real personality, and the part of the film most dependent on the writing – the love triangle – really fell flat for me.

I don’t know if I always felt this way, but now I find myself more sympathetic to the stuffy but generally sensible Mays instead of the well-meaning but impulsive Newton, while Patricia seems more spoiled than spirited. Some of the problem might be that Whitman is vaguely miscast; he’s a bit too old for the role – he was 11 years older than Fox and almost 14 years older than Miles – and there’s little reason to root for him over Mays, who seems perfectly fond of Patricia, even if he’s a bit too cowed by Lord Rawnsley’s temper.

There are still enjoyable moments throughout the first half – von Holstein puncturing his balloon with his pickelhaube is a wonderfully simple gag – but it’s in the second half that the film really starts to click, as the race begins and we get some of the best moments, like Ponticelli asking for help from a reluctant Mother Superior (Flora Robson) and Sir Percy’s efforts to cheat – and the obvious contempt even his fellow Englishmen have for him.

The cast generally do well with their limited roles; Terry-Thomas and Sykes are an enjoyable pair of schemers, Sordi (who was actually up for a Globe) is likably boisterous, Fröbe is hilariously pompous (his imitation of a military band is priceless), Cassel is amusingly devoted to flirting with every woman he sees (and in a fun bit, half a dozen of them are played by Irina Demick), and Morley is inimitably stuffy. There’s also Benny Hill as the fire chief, overseeing his ever-busy Keystone Kops-esque crew, and Willie Rushton as the ever-flustered Gascoyne, all turning in solid work.

But for most, the greatest strengths of the film will be either the planes, from Newton’s primitive biplane to Mays’ trim monoplane to Popperwell’s absurd inventions, or Ron Goodwin’s wonderful score, built around the ludicrously catchy title song and featuring themes for the major characters: a spirited can-can for Dubois, an elegant minuet for Mays and Patricia, an ambling harmonica for Newton, a bouncy tarantella for Ponticelli, and a march for von Holstein and Rumpelstrosse. For me, the music makes the film.

Ken Annakin was never a great director, let alone a great writer (he co-wrote the film with Jack Davies), and this, however much of it I’ll remember even if I never see it again, isn’t a great film. But it’s one that’s been a part of my life for so long, and has enough moments of good humor sprinkled throughout, that I probably will see it again. But first, I should probably see Anakin’s semi-sequel, released in America as Those Daring Young Men in Their Jaunty Jalopies.

Score: 73

Speed Racer (2008) – ***

I didn’t actually see Speed Racer in 2008; I remember reading an article on The Digital Bits expressing confusion at the bad reviews and noting the enthusiasm of established Speed Racer fans at an opening weekend screening. Though the film was a flop in theaters, there’s a telling line at the start of that article: “…a little something tells me The Wachowskis are gonna have the last laugh in this whole Racer-gate business.” Later that year, Richard Corliss put it on his annual Top 10 list, noting “Not every avant-garde FX masterpiece receives instant audience validation.”

No, Speed Racer has never achieved the popular acclaim of The Matrix, but it’s definitely found an audience over the years, and I can see why. At its best, it’s exciting, good-hearted, and the most visually dynamic fantasy this side of Dick Tracy; it uses color in a similar fashion, reveling in the bold and bright without a hint of irony. Unfortunately, at its worst, it’s as tacky in form and content as any piece of mid-Aughts schlock.

Speed Racer (Emile Hirsch) is a racecar driver (with a name like that, he’s not gonna be a janitor) and a member of the Racer family of, well, racers; his father, Pop Racer (John Goodman) is a renowned engineer, and his older brother Rex (Scott Porter) was a champion driver until a scandal tarnished his reputation and, after falling out with Pop, he was killed during a race. Speed wins a major race, stopping just shy of breaking Rex’s record for that same race, drawing the attention of tycoon E.P. Arnold Royalton (Roger Allam), who wants to add Speed to his stable of racers.

Speed declines Royalton’s offer, much to the latter’s disgust, and he promises to destroy the whole Racer family’s reputation; shortly after, Inspector Detector (Benno Fürmann) visits the Racers with Racer X (Matthew Fox) in tow to recruit Speed for an operation which will expose Royalton’s dirty tricks. Despite Pop’s objections, Speed, with the help of his girlfriend Trixie (Christina Ricci), takes part in the same race that claimed Rex’s life – and in the process learns a lot more than just the ugly truths Royalton wanted to rub his nose in.

Over the film’s 135 minutes, the plot grows rather more complicated, or at least introduces more moving parts that make it ever more unwieldy – and make it ever harder to determine just who the film is for. The candy-colored aesthetic and the antics of Speed’s little brother Spritle (Paulie Litt) and his chimpanzee companion Chim-Chim (Kenzie and Willy) are clearly aimed at children, but the corporate-corruption storyline would only be of interest to adults, and the film is full of references to the original TV show that sailed right over this neophyte’s head.

I can’t blame the Wachowskis for making a film steeped in the lore and style of the show – and I will say, the aforementioned references were fleeting – but at least I can raise an eyebrow at their storytelling and their attempts to make a four-quadrant entertainment when the elements aimed at children are so inane (do kids even like the Spritle scenes?) and those aimed squarely at adults are so unengaging, especially when Allam isn’t around to chew the scenery.

Allam is quite fun as the smarmy Royalton, whether he’s giving the Racers the hard sell on his headquarters or telling Speed just how thoroughly corrupt the world of professional racing is, even if his monologue goes on so long you half expect Speed to start inching towards the door – just as Speed’s earnest monologue about his love of racing is so tedious you expect the film to cut to Royalton dozing in his chair. (Hirsch’s performance is pretty bland throughout.)

Also enjoyable are Goodman as the gruff softie that is Pop and Ricci as the spirited Trixie; it’s a shame she gets stuck as The Girlfriend for so much of the film, given how much more charismatic she (and Ricci) is than Speed. Susan Sarandon, however, is somewhat wasted as Mom Racer (though she does what she can), while Litt is stuck with the worst material in the Wachowskis’ script and can’t overcome it. The rest of the large cast is, on the whole, adequate to the purpose.

It’s the action and the visual scheme that really matter here, and it’s annoying that the latter is so uneven, because at its best, it’s worth the price of admission; the use of color throughout is simply stunning, the Racer home in particular being a wondrous example of mid-century retro-futurism with every detail being brightly colored, vividly patterned, or both. The lavish offices and meeting rooms in Royalton’s headquarters, heavily featuring the royal purple that also factors into his costuming, are similarly impressive.

It’s the practical elements that tend to look best, in fact (the costumes are also really good); the CGI on hand is far more uneven, at times looking downright amateurish. I’ll admit that it might look better on Blu-Ray or on a big screen, but many of the effects-driven scenes (especially interiors), suffered from obvious compositing and ugly lighting more suited to Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2 than a big-budget tentpole.

The racing scenes look better, if not seamless, and the final race in particular reaches near-abstract levels of stylization, while also weaving in flashbacks from across the film to make a reasonably rousing climax, even if it’s taken us rather a long while to get there. It’s not as satisfying or as thoroughly earned as Neo’s becoming The One, or as thrilling as the lobby shoot-out – but there’s a reason The Matrix was an immediate success and remains highly regarded while this has a far more modest cult. I’m not a part of it – but the film certainly has its moments.

Score: 68

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (2024) – ****

I mean to see Furiosa a second time while it’s in theaters, at which point I’ll probably update this review. That’s not to say I don’t have a pretty good idea of how I feel about the film – and it should say a lot that I want to see it again – but I want to do the film full justice.

Updated 5/27/24:

Split into five chapters, it covers the life of Furiosa from her childhood (played by Alyla Browne) in the Green Place, from which she’s abducted by subordinates of the warlord Dementus (Chris Hemsworth), who cannot get the defiant girl to reveal its location, even when he captures and executes her mother (Charlee Fraser), who’d tried to rescue Furiosa and took out quite a few of Dementus’ soldiers before her own death.

Dementus, with the girl in tow, wanders the wasteland with his followers until he learns of Immortan Joe (Lachy Hulme) and his palatial Citadel; they attempt to intimidate Joe into surrendering his stronghold, but find it well-defended. Instead, they take over Gastown, the oil refinery, and broker a deal with Joe – which includes giving him Furiosa. He plans to raise her to be one of his wives, but she is able to escape his apartments and disguise herself as a boy, hiding out amongst the Citadel’s mechanics.

Years pass, and Furiosa (now played by Anya Taylor-Joy) is impressed by Joe’s main lieutenant, Praetorian Jack (Tom Burke), who drives a massive War Rig. Stowing away on one of his supply runs, she must help defend the rig after a group of Dementus’ old followers attack him. Jack makes her his protégé and offers to help her return home – but Dementus, having lost control of Gastown, starts a war with Joe which thwarts her plans, but gives her an opportunity for revenge…

It’s not really a knock against Furiosa to say it takes a while to get cooking. With a story that covers over 15 years and a running time of 148 minutes, and with George Miller’s stylized approach to story and character (which isn’t quite as suited to so sprawling a narrative as it was to the drum-tight Fury Road), it’s not until Furiosa reaches adulthood and is able to take full part in the action that the film truly catches fire. On second viewing, I’d argue the length is felt more in the back half than the front – and in any case a little tightening might’ve helped – but it’s a minor point.

There are certainly fine things in the early stages of the film; we know that much tragedy awaits Furiosa, making the events of the first chapter – especially her mother’s valiant efforts to save her – at once thrilling and unavoidably tragic. The slower (not slow, just slower) pace allows us more time to really see the world Miller, co-writer Nico Lathouris, and the production team have created, with fascinating characters like the History Man (George Shevtsov) and the remarkable vehicles these people drive – and we get a look at how they’re put together.

But Furiosa herself remains something of an enigma, as much to those around her as to us, and so it’s in the third chapter, when Jack enters the story and we get that amazing road battle where they first meet, that the film, at least on first viewing, cements its greatness. From there, the action, while not relentless, only grows more thrilling, and the story deepens as, in the midst of this chaos, a woman pursues a revenge that’s never left her mind against a man who hardly remembers what he did to her. On second viewing, the greatness is clear from the outset, but the does blossom as we go along.

Hemsworth’s performance has been justly celebrated; he revels in Dementus’ theatrics, but never lets them overwhelm the pathetic humanity of this man who can only hold to power if he keeps moving, staying one step ahead of his own destructive incompetence. Burke, however, is comparably good as the one man who treats Furiosa with any true decency, and if Taylor-Joy doesn’t have all that much room to develop Furiosa beyond her guarded glare and single-minded vengeance, she’s convincing as what the History Man dubs “the darkest of angels.” I undersold Taylor-Joy slightly; Hemsworth absolutely steals the film, and Burke offers a very welcome measure of humanity, but Taylor-Joy does anchor the proceedings with her enigmatic wrath.

Some have grumbled about the use of CGI here, but it really didn’t bother me much, and Simon Duggan’s cinematography is generally magnificent, with stunning shots of the desert and jarring zooms to accentuate moments of action and suspense. Margaret Sixel and Eliot Knapman’s editing is nearly as accomplished as Sixel’s all-time great work on Fury Road, and the sets, costumes, and makeup here are arguably even more varied and inventive than the Oscar-winning work there. Tom Holkenborg’s score isn’t on the same level as his score for the earlier film, but it’s still damn good. If anything, second time around I was more impressed by the imagery and more baffled by the criticisms of its look.

No, Furiosa isn’t as immediately iconic as its predecessor, and featuring clips from that film during the closing credits does little but remind us to rewatch that film (a worthy endeavor, to be sure). But there’s so much here to make this worth seeing whether or not you’ve seen any of the other entries in the now 45-year-old franchise, right up to a closing touch that’s more reflective of the magical realist elements Miller deployed in his vastly underappreciated Three Thousand Years of Longing. Bless him, he still finds ways to surprise us.

The film holds up really well on a second viewing; it’s imaginative, funny (“And now we’re going to kill you”), affecting in its themes of hope and compassion and how those are repeatedly challenged in the wasteland, and thrilling in its action. Fury Road is the greater film, yes, but this belongs right alongside it.

Score: 93