‘Vulcanizadora' Review: Guilt Trip
Midway through 'Vulcanizadora,' the fifth feature from the eccentric indie actor and filmmaker Joel Potrykus, his character, Derek, asks his best friend, Marty (Joshua Burge), to consider that hell might be no more than never-ending anxiety.
'Can you imagine that? Being nervous forever?' The two are hiking through a Michigan forest en route to a terrible, as yet unrevealed destination, and viewers familiar with Potrykus's work will feel a stab of amusement: Perpetual unease is a state he has always imagined with exquisite precision.
Revisiting the losers we met a decade ago in 'Buzzard,' 'Vulcanizadora' wonders where slackers go when their adolescent behaviors no longer serve. Nowhere good, is the answer, as these pitiable, middle-aged misfits gradually reveal lives that are likely unsalvageable. Marty, a small-time crook, is facing a second stint in prison and living in his childhood basement. Derek is divorced, estranged from his young son (played by Potrykus's real son, Solo) and unreliably medicated. Both are depleted from past mistakes and on the verge of making one of the worst imaginable. When everyone thinks you're a no-count, then nothing you do can ever count.
Potrykus, though — an inveterate hand-to-mouth practitioner — persists in treating the lost and the left-behind as if they matter, and his signature empathy is pronounced here. As is his fascination with fire as an arbiter of emotional disturbance: Like the pyromaniac of 'Ape' (2014), Marty may be an arsonist, and his emphatic wretchedness finds expression in a lingering, hauntingly surreal close-up of black snake fireworks slowly uncoiling.
Spasmodically funny, though hardly a comedy, 'Vulcanizadora' is raw, moving and, briefly, horrifying. In the press notes, Potrykus admits to having worried that becoming a father would cause him to soften and 'start telling stories of hope and inspiration.' That may be the funniest joke of all.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Time Magazine
5 days ago
- Time Magazine
The Life of Chuck Works Too Hard For Its Warm Fuzzies
Stories about the meaning of life tend to work at cross-purposes with the job of actually living it, particularly when they pedal hard to activate the tear ducts. Mike Flanagan's science-fiction life affirmer The Life of Chuck —adapted from a Stephen King novella—is an ambitious little film that has already earned some laurels: it was an audience favorite at last year's Toronto International Film Festival, winning the People's Choice Award. Thanks to a few key moments, and the strength of its actors, it's easy to see why audiences would warm to the film. But if you're immune to its charms, you won't be alone. From its cute-fake soundstage-town setting to the authoritative yet chummy voice-over narration (courtesy of Nick Offerman), The Life of Chuck works doggedly to give you the warm fuzzies—and a little bit of that fuzz goes a long way. The story is ingeniously—or pretentiously, depending on your mood—constructed to unspool backward, beginning with the third act and ending with the first. In the opening section, Chiwetel Ejiofor plays schoolteacher Marty, whose class is interrupted just as his students are digging into Walt Whitman's 'Song of Myself,' particularly its key phrase 'I contain multitudes.' A student gasps: she's just seen the news on her phone that part of California has fallen into the ocean. Then the internet shuts down altogether, possibly for good—the end times are near, maybe, and the world is getting ready. Marty sees a weird billboard, featuring a smiling man in a business suit and the words charles krantz, 39 great years!, and thanks chuck! (The missing comma in that last phrase is presumably just one of the mysteries of life.) Marty doesn't know who Chuck is, nor does anyone he asks. But this billboard, followed by other mysterious Chuck references, may hold the key to the end of the world. In the second act, we find out exactly who Chuck is: a pleasant accountant, played by Tom Hiddleston. And in the third—which is to say the first and final act—we learn Chuck's backstory, how he was orphaned at a young age and sent to live with his grandparents, Mark Hamill's gruff but kind bookkeeper Albie and his sensible but joyful homemaker wife Sarah, played by Mia Sara. Sarah loves to dance, and she teaches young Chuck—at this point played by an appealing child actor named Benjamin Pajak—her best moves. He's a natural, though something is holding him back. And he too will study that Walt Whitman poem: it will shape not only his destiny, but also that of the world. Because The Life of Chuck is based on a Stephen King story, all that heavy-duty supernatural pondering just comes with the territory. The problem is that Flanagan—known for eerie but subtle horror films like Hush and Oculus and Netflix series like Midnight Mass and The Haunting of Hill House —puts too many overly earnest quotation marks around what should be the most moving scenes. The score becomes grand and syrupy whenever there's a big emotional revelation; characters deliver solemn soliloquies on the orderly beauty of math. The Life of Chuck explores the joys and sorrows of a life well lived in the most precious way—though Hiddleston and Ejiofor succeed somewhat in counterbalancing the mawkishness. Ejiofor explains Carl Sagan's Cosmic Calendar with a Shakespearean authority that makes every word matter. And Hiddleston, in the second section, has an extended dance number that momentarily sends the movie soaring. As a street drummer (Taylor Gordon, also known as the Pocket Queen) beats out a fascinatin' rhythm, Hiddleston's Chuck taps, whirls, and moonwalks through a spontaneous routine that, for as long as it lasts, almost manages to connect you with the meaning of life. He's the spirit of Gene Kelly reincarnated in a regulation accountant's gray suit; when he's in motion, The Life of Chuck really is transcendent.
Chicago Tribune
5 days ago
- Chicago Tribune
‘Life of Chuck' review: It's a wonderful, apocalyptic life in Stephen King land
'The Life of Chuck,' a slick but ickily grandiose reminder to take your dance lessons while you can, also reminds us that every generation gets its own variations on 'It's a Wonderful Life' — movie fantasies designed for affirmation and comfort, while unnerving us a little. There's a third reminder, too: One person's eyeroll is another's shattering and beautiful reminder that life is beautiful, maybe harsh and sometimes lonely and full of wrong turns with a possible apocalypse looming. But beautiful. This latest Stephen King screen adaptation is written and directed by Mike Flanagan, best known for 'The Haunting of Hill House' on Netflix, along with 'Oculus,' 'Before I Wake,' 'Doctor Sleep' and other features. Elements of all this find a home somewhere in the running time of 'The Life of Chuck,' told in three reverse-chronological chapters. It begins with an ending — the planet's — and ends with the adolescence, first crush and tender heart of an orphaned boy, shadowed by ghosts, headed for life as an accountant. It's what his wizened, grieving accountant grandfather (played by Mark Hamill) wanted for him all along, right or wrong. Narrated throughout by Nick Offerman, the first and most intriguing chapter focuses on a teacher, Marty, played by the excellent Chiwetel Ejiofor. He is at his wit's end, dealing with hopeless students and even more hopeless parents. Their reasons for despair are beyond anyone's control. The world has had it. It's quitting time. We learn some details on the fly, from news reports and townsfolk mutterings, about whole chunks of California tumbling in the ocean, wildfires, earthquakes, satellite communication gone awry, wifi and the internet itself dying minute by minute. The center isn't holding. The weirdest thing of all is the most darling. Around town, Marty and others notice a proliferation of billboards and signage congratulating someone named Charles Krantz on '39 great years!' Meantime Marty and his ex-wife Felicia (Karen Gillan), on good terms, commiserate by phone about the latest roster of calamities. Director Flanagan handles the escalating insanity with suggestive ambiguity, nothing too bombastic for as long as the story allows. Later, at night, on every window on every house within view, a satellite (or celestial?) video image of Chuck appears, long after power has been lost. Marty and Felicia stare at the stars in Felicia's backyard. Maybe the love they knew once remains intact, unlike everything around them. And maybe they'll have to settle for wondering. Part 2 is Chuck's story, at least a piece of it, taking place prior to the first chapter. Tom Hiddleston portrays this everyman accountant, married with a daughter. Chuck has traveled to a new town for a convention. Between conferences he's outside, strolling, and drawn to the drumming skills of a sidewalk busker (Taylor Gordon). Catching the eye of a young woman (Annalise Basso), recently dumped and not happy about it, he asks for her hand while the drummer does her thing. This is not just the movie's crucial scene; it's meant as a live-is-worth-living demonstration, precision-choreographed and flashy beyond all conventional notions of accountancy. Where did Chuck get the moves? The answers come right on schedule in the concluding chapter, after we've learned the adult Chuck's full circumstances and fate. The childhood versions of this everyman archetype (he's not really a character) are played by Benjamin Pajak and, in adolescence, Jacob Tremblay (of 'Room'). Chuck endures a difficult, grief-laden childhood after the tragic death of his parents. He finds love and solace under the loving care of his grandparents, played by Hamill and Mia Sara. Here, King's material, adapted by Flanagan, inches into small-town horror behind closed doors, with the off-limits storage room in Chuck's grandparents' house containing something wicked. Or at least not of this world. Clearly 'The Life of Chuck' works for many. It snagged the coveted audience award at last year's Toronto International Film Festival, a frequent harbinger of the best picture winner at the Oscars. Well, maybe. This may be one of those movies, like 'The Shawshank Redemption' (another King story), that comes and goes at the theaters and then becomes one of those beloved films that makes people tear up just saying the title. It is, however, mighty gooey stuff, sanctimonious and faux-humble in its embrace of ordinary lives and, in the end, a weirdly scaled expansion of a familiar idea borrowed from Walt Whitman (name-checked in the movie) and his line in 'Song of Myself': 'I am large, I contain multitudes.' We all are, and do. But setting a genial if frustrated accountant's life against the universe's curtain call is a little too, you know, too-too. A final word about the visual landscape of the film. Maybe it's just me, but when Chuck dances like he's never danced before, the town square (most of the film was shot in various Alabama locations) has been made to resemble one of those eerie Hallmark Channel Christmas specials, but in July. You keep waiting for the big reveal: The town's 'The Truman Show'! It can't be real! But the reveal never comes. It's not a documentary or anything, but the best Stephen King stories on screen keep one foot in a world we recognize, so that we can step off into another world, and explore. After the persuasively strange first chapter's over, 'The Life of Chuck' is a duller kind of strange. 'The Life of Chuck' — 2 stars (out of 4) MPA rating: R (for language) Running time: 1:51 How to watch: Premieres in theaters June 6
Buzz Feed
6 days ago
- Buzz Feed
Martin Scorsese Just Revealed Why He Stopped Going To Movie Theaters
Martin Scorsese is done with seeing movies in theaters. The legendary director revealed why he stopped going, and the reason has sparked *quite* a conversation. Peter Travers from The Travers Take (via World of Reel) interviewed Scorcese about his aversion to theaters: "I asked the maestro why he doesn't see movies in theaters anymore and he went all raging bull about audiences who babble on phones during the movie, leave to order snacks and vats of soda, and keep up a noise level loud enough to drown out the actors. 'Come on, Marty,' I said, 'we couldn't keep our mouths shut when we were kids.' His eyes darkened. 'Yeah, maybe,' he conceded, "but when we talked it was always about the movie and the fun we had chewing over the details." Now, a post from Discussing Film is going viral with people popping off with their own opinions on the current state of things. "He's right. You seriously can't go 5 minutes in a theater without seeing a phone light up somewhere in your theater, it's so fucking annoying," one person said. "Marty is right. Theater etiquette is at an all-time low," another person replied. And this person said, "It's a fair point. shushing people isn't enough for me I need a button that ejects repeat offenders from their seats." We have this person calling on lawmakers to make being on your phone a "jailable offense." Another person suggested bringing back public shame. And this person pointed out that people have no manners since the pandemic. Ultimately, nobody asked me, but it's wild that people PAY money to be on their phones the whole time in a theater: "Sadly 100% correct, baffles me forever that people pay 15+ quid then sit on snapchat/insta reels with no audio? Strange, annoying, pure ruining it." Thoughts?
