Dave Made a Maze. 2017. Directed by Bill Watterson. Screenplay by Watterson & Steven Sears.
Starring Meera Rohit Kumbhani, Nick Thune, Adam Busch, James Urbaniak, Frank Caeti, Scott Narver, Stephanie Allynne, Kirsten Vangsness, Scott Krinsky, Timothy Nordwind, & John Hennigan.
Butter Stories/Dave Made an LLC/Foton Pictures
Rated 14A. 80 minutes.
Adventure/Comedy/Horror
★★★★
The opening scenes during the first ten or fifteen minutes feel like a comedic version of Mark Danielewski’s House of Leaves, where our main character’s not so much an explore who buys a home, he’s a young slacker artist bummed out with his life who creates a cardboard maze which proves much bigger, more dangerous on the inside than the outside.
Is that enough to hook you? Because though it sounds like an odd fantasy, and it is, there’s more than meets the eye. Just like Dave’s titular maze. Director Bill Watterson takes us into the maze just as much as he takes us inside the mind of the story’s protagonist.
In its best moments, Dave Made a Maze speaks to how an artist’s work loses its authorship becoming part of a larger community; this is where the inherent pressure for the artist to create at a regular pace comes from, at its core. The film also explores questions about the power of imagination, how the dedicated artist’s life takes on meaning only in their work, plus how dangerous their imagination can become when not correctly focused.
And in Dave is every young, struggling artist who feels lost, disenchanted with the realities of being an artist in the modern world. The maze, then, is life. Whether one survives it is entirely up to them, though we all get by with a little help from our friends.
Dave (Nick Thune), like most artists, worries he’ll never make anything whole or complete in his life. Worse, he believes he’ll never effectively change anyone’s life through his art. He hates what he’s become, that he can’t support himself being an artist like he wants. He feels that he even bores his parents.
So, in his worry, Dave cobbles together this maze. An amalgamation of bits and pieces, an indecisive mix of styles, influences, all throw together. An unsure, immature artist creating something he doesn’t quite understand. Therefore, how is anyone else supposed to? This is where the power of imagination takes hold, and we get into the concept of authorship.
Once an artist authors a piece of work, it’s in the world, a part of it. In a sense, it belongs to everyone else then. No matter how an artist hopes their work will be interpreted, ultimately art is in the eye of the beholder. This brings other imaginations into the mix. Literally represented by a film crew in the maze with Dave and Annie (Meera Rohit Kumbhani). All these other people represent the reader, or the viewer, however the art is presented. But once others are involved, so are their imaginations.
Here, the maze begins changing, responding to them; or, the maze comes alive in how they respond to it. In a situation like this a work of art can become out of control. Added to that, a lack of one meaning becomes no meaning, nothing fixed, always changing. Part of what Dave must learn throughout their time stuck inside the maze is that he has to accept loss of control as a part of the artistic process. He fears it, but he has to accept it, or else he’ll never finish anything out of worry they’re losing authorship over their work. An artist simply has to complete their work, put it out there, and leave the rest to others.
“Is this permanent?”
“Nothing in here is“
The film works as an overall metaphor for maturing, either as an artist or as a human. Dave has to find himself, he has to learn how to follow through in life instead of always searching for that one big thing that’ll break him into fame and money. In essence, it’s the concept of growing up, realising that things take work and time, life doesn’t come all at once. On the flip side, you also can’t wait around for life to happen; you’ve got to make it happen.
A well executed visual is how the cardboard of the maze comes alive, taking its power from the imagination of others. Even further, it absorbs or swallows the blood of those who succumb to its various booby traps and pitfalls. This is the perfect image of how figuratively art, even when successful in the end, can suck the life out of the artist.
In keeping with the mood of the subject, the dialogue and the interactions between the characters is hilarious. Beneath it all is a dark edge, but it keeps the audience chuckling nonetheless. Dave’s struggle at thirty, wanting to give the world his art but not able to finish anything properly, moving along from one thing to the next convinced he’ll change his life in a single work of art, all this combines a truly raw, real story – despite its fantastical elements – illuminating a real struggle many often face when they want to dedicate their life to artistry, of any type. Again, whether Dave, or anyone, makes it through the maze towards the understanding necessary to get past that space, is left to be seen.
“Everyone are assholes”
“Is”
“Everyone is assholes. No, that doesn‘t sound right.”
There’s a lot to love. Best are the stellar performances that help draw us into this strange little world, even as we’re dumped into it immediately the characters are believable, lovable, people with whom we can relate. Makes it much easier to tumble down the corridors of an endless cardboard maze in the living room of an apartment.
An unpredictable maze, deaths by cardboard, blood, drama, romance, friendship: this film has it all! In a sea of unimaginative films being pumped out for the sake of commerce, Dave Made a Maze is a shining ray of optimism, a beacon of hope crossing from an adventure flick with wry comedic chops to a semi-horror. This story has plenty to say outside of being a fun romp. But, boy, is it fun. When a story takes me effortlessly into its contained universe, making me feel like all else disappears for the time I’m sitting in front of the screen, it’s done its job. If it speaks to my soul, that’s a bonus.
With Angela (Genevieve O’Reilly) unconscious and in the hospital, Jim (Tim Roth) and his daughter Anna (Abigail Lawrie) are stuck waiting, wondering if she’ll make it through. The boy’s dead. His mother took a portion of the bullet, lodging in her brain.
Mrs. Bradshaw (Christina Hendricks) is more sensitive to the death of a child than is the head of security, the forceful and slightly creepy Louis Gagnon (Christopher Heyerdahl). He is ALL business. He oversees the workers coming onto site, making sure things move along promptly. This whole time we’re also inundated with the bullshit commercials they use for recruitment, all that foolish rhetoric; I know it all too well, having worked on the oil sands for a couple years. Love the way this is setting up to be an excellent thriller with overtones of the socioeconomic troubles that often find their way into small towns after the oil industry seizes its grip on their natural resources.
That night, Simon sneaks into the Worth home. He sniffs the pillows on the bed. I’m already wondering, is there a possibility this young man is an illegitimate son? There’s this eerie quality to him, yet when he sees Jim at the bar, he turns away. Not wanting to be seen. Here, looking at the pictures of Peter, whom he killed, the family, there’s this sweetness inside him; a lonely sweetness. Just blocked by his creepiness.
Right on the edge, Jim is almost back to alcoholism. Although a call from the hospital takes him away before he can dive in: Angela is awake. However, she’s unaware of what happened to their son. Thus he has to break the news to her, so devastating.
Good follow-up to the premiere, adding bigger mystery, deeper issues to the story, the various plots, and the well-acted characters. Tim Roth continually fascinates. There’s so much more to uncover.
We open on Jim Worth (Tim Roth), wife Angela (Genevieve O’Reilly), their teenage daughter Anna (Abigail Lawrie) and young boy Peter (Rupert Turnbull) are floating down a wooded road. They pass a gas station. Heading for Calgary. Soon, Jim realises he needs gas. They turn back. Peter needs to wee, so Angela insists they take a second. But father insists, they have to go. He’s tense. We see his gun, his police badge. When he hops back in the car, a masked gunman points a pistol through the windshield and blasts a hole in him, splashing the daughter with blood.
Other things are happening around Little Big Bear. North Stream Oil are looking to use the small town to push tar sands oil into America. However, townsfolk worry about “migrant oil workers” and crime coming with all that money. Bradshaw is there to ease the transition. Trying to sucker the people in, to make big dollars off the back of their land, their community. She’s ushered around by a sort of uneasy fella, Louis Gagnon (Christopher Heyerdahl), a head of security for the company, looking after their interests.
Things are already rough. The Lyles have filed an “undue force” complaint against the Chief, so he’s a local celebrity. The tribal elders of the local Native community don’t like him, either. They need the refinery to help fund their casino. Shit. Not to mention, Worth is called out to a crime scene just off a dirt road. A car, inside is Dr. Bouchard with blood everywhere, a hole in her head. Supposedly suicide. He doubts that, as should we. Too many suspicious circumstances. All of this prompts the Chief to start digging into North Stream. But it’s not helpful having Gagnon listening in behind the scenes.
What an amazing opener to this series. I didn’t even realise this was coming out, heard nothing of it. All of a sudden, BAM! What a wild beginning, love how they tricked us from the opener to the finale.
Stephen King is master of the macabre, a true genius when it comes to sucking us into the lives of his characters, many of whom are real, genuine people. A theme often present in his work is that of grief, both it effects and how we deal with it in our lives. Pet Sematary, which he also adapted into a screenplay himself, is a tragic look at grief, how it warps a family. Particularly focusing on a father whose sadness over the loss of a child takes control of his life, that of his family, and becomes something altogether terrifying.
Part of the profundity in this story comes out of the inability of the father Louis (Dale Midkiff), an adult, to explain death to his young daughter. In a sense, he doesn’t know what he himself believes, leading to his own bad decisions in turn resulting in plenty of horror. There’s an essence in King’s storytelling here, combined with the concept of the Pet Sematary in this little Maine town, which speaks to how adults explain the world in general to children. In that, often enough, the inability of adults to help kids comprehend big, scary concepts (i.e death, sex, et cetera) stems from their own fears, their insecurities. The horrific tragedy here being when Louis can’t deal with the death of his little boy, he chooses a fantastical belief in the supernatural to try changing the recent past. Only to create a hellish future for the Creeds.
Best of all: the imagery. From the straight up horror to a visual motif Lambert weaves into a couple of the central characters, this film is ripe with juicy terror. The entire atmosphere creeps up on us immediately, a dreamy, fog-like quality to the cinematography, coupled with the eerie sounds of the score, the angelic-sounding voices, all swelling in our ears over images of graves. The quaint Maine countryside is contrasted with images of ugly violence, including the early introduction of Louis to a man who’ll come to haunt him later, Victor Pascow (Brad Greenquist), as he suffers in the emergency room after a bloody accident.
Lambert and King never shy from pummelling the audience with sadness, sticking the blade in our hearts, over and over. Gage’s death is punctuated with edits of family photos underneath the screams of Louis, wailing for his son after the transport truck crushes him on the road; heavy, harsh. From there, the happiness dissipates, and the Creed family is plunged entirely into darkness.
Madison (Kim Dickens), Qaletqa Walker (Michael Greyeyes), and Strand (Colman Domingo) are now on the road together, heading for the dam. Before that Over the highway, they come across a group of walkers and overturned cars in the way, a jam nearly the whole way up, far as the eye can see.
The further they go, the less Qaletqa trusts this man Madison used all his gold to free. He believes Strand is lost. Certainly, it isn’t altogether out of the realm of possibility. The dark stretches of tunnel go on for what feels like forever; walkers overhead occasionally, some in the tunnels themselves. Danger at every blind turn.
Will the former relationship Daniel and Madison had, before the split of the group help? Will Daniel’s desire to see his daughter again aid the ranch in getting what they need? Lola clearly knows he’s a dangerous man, but he’s helped her a great deal, she has a sort of respect or care for him. Simultaneously, Walker isn’t happy with Strand, telling him that if Madison can’t make this deal for the water, the ranchers will suffer. Because the tribe comes first, and there ain’t enough water for everybody!
Walker’s already done. He’s kicking himself for listening to Madison, he’s leaving. Also says the ranchers must leave. Not enough water, no deal on the horizon. It’s over. This is putting Madison in a hard corner. She pushes Daniel, telling him Ofelia needs him. But that doesn’t work, not on a guy with a blackened, bitter soul.
Another solid chapter in Season 3, pushing forward several plots, giving us more character development, and much more. Just great writing. Truly love some of these characters, especially Strand, Madison, and Walker, all of whom are getting lots of time. Daniel is interesting, too. In a dark way.
We open on a gorgeous river, people fishing in the distance. One woman stands basking in its natural beauty. Cut to the dreary streets of a city, people marching and protesting, signs make it clear the government has overstepped its scope. The woman from the river is Honor (Holliday Grainger), flanked by other law enforcement such as Agent Ross (Richard Madden). She’s telepathic, marked by a large red scar down her face. She’s there to read people, to see who’s a committed activist, who’s merely there for one foolish reason or another. Someone she lingers on too long can tell she’s reading him, then a crowd bears down on them. Suddenly, a man in a hooded mask appears, tossing a molotov cocktail.
What’s funny is, we’re essentially watching a world where police have foregone the traditional idea of law enforcement. They’re busting people based on this extra-sensory perception the telepaths have, like working on thought crimes, similar to an Orwellian concept or Dick’s precrime in Minority Report. So, there’s a kind of double-edged sword where you feel disgust for how telepathy is used by the state, and simultaneously you feel sympathetic to Honor and the plight her people face at the hands of both the state and other citizens. She even considers herself “software” at society’s disposal.
Later, Ross finds Dr. Cutter stowed away in a dingy old basement. He believes that, eventually, people will “make [their] own hoods,” that perhaps humans will evolve to resist the telepaths.
Wow, I truly loved this episode! There’s a lot to take out of this one. Saw a review that said there’s no ‘modern day message’ to the episode, which I find insane. Clearly shows a divide world, on the precipice of burning down entirely. At its heart, the episode speaks to whether love can heal the divide, if it’s worth pursuing the individual interest nowadays in a time where there’s so much hate that the social climate necessitates we keep strong in groups opposed to hatred, so on. So, really, I don’t know WHAT some reviewers are talking about, honestly. Give me more!
Vampire films are a dime a dozen. Much like the zombie, the concept of vampires has been overused. That being said, there are many incredible works within these sub-genres. Although seeing as how the horror industry’s inundated with their presence, you’ve got to dig to find the real gold. The Transfiguration is one of those exciting, sharp needles in the haystack.
There’s a stigma of mental health in society in general. Even in 2017, particularly in certain communities and circles there’s a lingering idea that mental illness = psychotic, crazy, untrustworthy, weak. I don’t want to dive in on black mental health, not qualified. What I can speak to re: Milo is the mental health of men, how mental illness is perceived in conjunction with the constructions of masculinity. The other kids, the drug dealer and his friends, they see Milo as weird. It’s maybe his older brother Lewis (Aaron Cliften Moten) whose refusal to discuss anything of emotion stunts the kid the worst.
While Sophie (Chloe Levine) represents an equally damaged soul, she’s also one who hasn’t descended into madness like Milo. Hard as her life is, she manages to at least get away, or she faces the prospects of getting away from the abusive grandfather, the boys in the neighbourhood – essentially, away from the toxic men around her. Sophie also illustrates that women clearly are not exempt from the violence and sexual abuse of men, as if we didn’t know already. But this movie is specifically aimed at the unforgiving culture of masculinity that doesn’t allow young men, or any men for that matter, to discuss their issues openly, without fear of judgement, of ridicule. So whereas Sophie manages to find a way free in the end, Milo cannot escape the fragile constructions of masculinity, as his vampire delusion leads him towards tragedy.
Every so often, a horror movie like The Transfiguration comes along speaking so loud, so proud in a unique way that it helps the whole genre. In this case, also the vampire sub-genre. There are plenty of great horror movies out there, despite what people who don’t dig horror will try telling you. This film simply has the transcendental quality certain films in the genre have which cross a genre gap, speaking to universal ideas independent of any genre. This is something every horror needs to attempt. But when one does, succeeding, it’s special.
Again, the day starts the same for Bill (Brendan Gleeson). The same old mess, his tortoise his only real friend. More videos of Mr. Mercedes, as Brady (Harry Treadaway) still lurks in the neighbourhood driving the ice cream truck, manipulating the former detective from just outside.
AND NO FUCKING WAY – Brady can’t find mom, then discovers his car gone. Oh yes, Deb (Kelly Lynch) is out cruising the streets, dropping her lit cigarette next to what she doesn’t realise is a bomb. The son has to take a bus to work, on his big day meeting the corporate bosses, while mommy drives around on the verge of exploding. Perfectly devilish.
At a restaurant, Robi and Brady meet with corporate dudes Josh (David Furr) and Jacob (Drew Matthews). They’re the typical types we’d expect. They want Brady to “open the kimono” and tell them about himself, his management philosophy. As he tells them, he also daydreams of murdering the three douche bags at the table with him. Likewise, he dreams of killing the kitchen staff; including line cook Stephen King. He sees his mother, whom he guts, pulling a bloody firetruck from her stomach.
Flashback to 2005 again, Bill and his wife Donna (Nancy Travis) are at odds. Because their daughter’s now in custody, booked. Nothing he can do from here to get his daughter out of trouble, or else be under another cop’s thumb forever. He won’t do it anymore, while his wife wants to just excuse it all over again. So we see that dad is being vilified for trying to help his daughter, the only way that’s left. Sure, it’s shit. But Bill has used his privilege as far as he’s willing to go. His daughter hates him, until she tries using emotion against him one last time.
Loved this episode. Love the whole series! Lehane is a particularly excellent addition, having written the episode before last, as well. His writing is fantastic, coupled with King’s wonderfully disturbed story it’s just great to watch. Then there’s the King cameo, which was a whole lot of fun. “Willow Lake” is next week.
After the hype, the anticipation, Raw had to deliver the goods. Reviews promised gruesome horror with emotional weight. What we get is exactly that: a film exploring transgressive fiction and various themes surrounding the maturation of a young girl, Justine (Garance Marillier), whose experience at the same veterinary school her older sister Alexia (Ella Rumpf) attends reshapes the very fabric of her existence.
Major themes here: coming of age, the transition from young girl to adult woman, as we watch the transformation and metamorphosis of Justine, and Marillier’s physical performance is fascinating to observe, her posture and body seem to change from start to finish; cannibalism is linked viscerally to Justine’s sexual awakening, like an urge that can destroy oneself, a primitive part of humanity; finally, there’s also the idea that humans are intrinsically primal, that something such as cannibalism can come in the form of a hereditary gene.
What would you do, or what wouldn’t you do, for your family, the one you love most? This is the central question beating at the gorgeously ugly heart of Raw. You can pull all sorts of different things from out of Ducournau’s devastating, emotional, gruesome film. Above all is, through transgressive fiction, we discover that perhaps acceptance – no matter the cost – is better than rejection when it comes to our various natures as human beings. Despite the danger and darkness in this type of thought, Ducournau navigates us intelligently through the subject matter.
Just the fact that Randy Moore’s film Escape from Tomorrow exists is a gift. Even if you don’t enjoy it there’s a guerrilla quality of filmmaking which grips tight, and the imagery, if anything, is impressive. Without permission from Disney, Moore and his crew infiltrated Disneyland and Walt Disney World with their minimal equipment, iPhones holding the scripts, and more. Afterwards, Moore absconded to South Korea (special effects provided by the same company who worked on The Host) where he edited the film, for fear Disney might do anything in their power to stop him from making it, let alone releasing it.
“But you can‘t be happy all the time.”
The surrealism makes the film what it is, a combination of absurdism and outright wild, hallucinatory imagery that somehow feels – for Jim and the viewer alike – of vivid consciousness. Right off the bat, the black-and-white cinematography does wonders by giving this very American movie that sense of a Hollywood classic, playing into the theme of Disneyland as an American dreamspace in a physical location before becoming horrifically surreal.
With a perfectly morbid end, suggesting the lengths to which Disney might go to protect their happiest place on Earth status so as not to disturb any guests, Escape from Tomorrow concludes a feverish vision of the American Dream subverted into the polar opposite, a quintessentially American Hell. Final moment is a cynical, chilling view of the sanitised, Disneyfied, picture perfect commercial that the company wants you to believe is the ONLY experience available at their perfect parks.
