Coda’s ongoing coverage
of the 2025 Phoenix Film Festival & International
Horror Sci-Fi Film Festival. I'll be using these posts to recap the films I've experienced as
part of these festivals.
ERIC LARUE – Directed by Michael Shannon
Michael Shannon’s directorial debut tells the story of Janice and Ron LaRue
(Judy Greer & Alexander Skarsgård), the parents of teenager, Eric (Nation
Sage Henrikson) who killed three of his classmates in a school shooting. This
film aims to explore what the aftermath of this might look like.
This was just as dark,
depressing and melancholic as it should have been. And it does a great job illustrating
the part of this increasingly frequent tragedy that is unfortunately too often
overlooked. These tragedies happen more often in small, conservative, religious,
rural areas. Towns with tight-knit communities, and the PTSD is communally experienced
every day. Previously mundane activities like running errands to the corner
store present opportunities to rip the allegorical scabs open.
I appreciated the
courage of this film also to show how communities like this can add to the
conditions that can inspire these types of violent acts. Religiously instituted
chauvinism along with tolerance for general bullying behavior are all given moments
of spotlight to color the society that breeds tragedy. Lesser films would have
shied away from this in favor of bothsidesisms.
The shining star of this
film, and the reason you’ll hear about it later this year, is Judy Greer’s
amazing performance. We grieve with her. We ask ourselves the same questions
about ourselves that her character struggles with. It’s great work with the
material.
I think the film overall
could have used a trim, however. I find this is the hardest thing to judge at a
festival. 120 minutes isn’t too much on my couch, and if this is what the
subject matter demands, I’m ok with a much longer runtime. But it felt that
many of the scenes ran a bit longer than necessary.
ERIC LARUE plays again
on Thursday, April 3rd at 6:40 PM
FREAKY TALES – Directed
by Ryan Fleck & Anna Boden
In 1987, proverbial (and
literal) lightning strikes Oakland, California uniting the city’s underdogs in
an anthology of four interconnected stories of triumph over insurmountable odds.
East Bay punks defend their turf from a group of skinhead Nazis, a female rap
duo etches their names in hip hop history on a battle stage, a henchman with a
heart of gold is given the opportunity at redemption, and an All-Star point
guard settles the score. This is all a true story, I’m sure of it.
Halfway though this film,
I had to wipe the smile off my face to ask: “Is this just cheap
entertainment?” Is this film just bombarding my senses with sounds, images
and references of things that automatically trigger my “F*** YEAH!!” response?
Maybe, but I didn’t stand a chance. Within the first 10 or so minutes, we enter
a music venue with a replica of Operation Ivy playing “Bad Town”. Op Ivy’s
ENERGY record is in my top 3 all time records, any genre. I was hooked, easily.
The rest of the film
bounces around the rest of my pop culture reference kryptonite minefield of
hip-hop, cinema and NBA. And if that wasn’t enough, the film’s constant
underscore was obviously intent on taking jabs at today’s MAGA moments of
societal backslide.
I recall when the film
community thought that it was an odd choice to hire this filmmaking team of
Fleck & Boden to helm CAPTAIN MARVEL after being primarily known for small
indy dramas like HALF NELSON. But the move from the MCU to this is maybe an
even more jarring shift. I’m not sure what to make of this, but I’ll be curious
about what this does to their trajectory. I wouldn’t mind seeing them do a bit
more work in the genre space.
So, the question is: was
this a good film? <insert shrug emoji> I’m unfortunately unqualified
to answer this. I only know that I’ll be revisiting this often.
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