Spiral

the pivotal film. I am Mario Ponzio here alone because Tom is still working on his graduate thesis. Hard at work getting that masters. He will be back next week when the two of us do a review of the HBO Max and theatrical release, Those Who Wish Me Dead, the new Taylor Sheridan vehicle, sorry, Angelina Jolie.

But today I'm just here alone doing a review of Spiral, the New Darrinlyn Bozeman, Chris Rock vehicle that just came out in theaters yesterday. And before I get into the review, I guess a quick little thing. Interesting thing. It was this, it was 14 months ago and 14 days last night, Thursday, May 13th, that I had been in a theater.

Coincidentally, the last film I had seen before The World Shut Down was Lee Wannell's written and directed The Invisible Man. It was with Moss Film. And the first movie I saw back was a sequel to Lee Wannell written and starring film. Nice little circle there.

I had my presentations initially going in. It just felt wrong. Like doing these new social things feel wrong. I've been trying to follow the guidance and everything, but they still feel weird.

And I thought it was going to feel weird going into the theater. But it did it. It felt like as I sat down in that leather chair like an old glove. You know, I kept my mask on the entire time.

Surprisingly, the people in my row only took their masks off to eat food and drink. I didn't get any food or drink because, you know, I ate beforehand. Then don't eat the drink for 90 minutes. But that sounds like an asshole.

But whatever. But it was, you know, a comfortable experience. It felt right. It feels good to be getting back to normal.

It feels good to be taking the steps to return to society at large, to socially interacting, to engaging in things. Like movie going, you know, I used to go 30 sometimes a year. And now I haven't gone in 14 months. And yesterday was the first day.

The one thing I do have to say, I remember when I was a kid. And one of the best parts of the theater experience was the 15 minutes before the film began when you got trailers. Usually got three trailers. And it's exciting because this was the 90s.

And this is the only time, the only option, only chance you got to see these trailers unless you happen to see them on TV. Or you happen to, you know, watch coming attractions on Eve. But this was typically the only time you got to see a trailer. And last night, the showing that my cinema was 830.

When the feature started, it was according to my watch 904. There were 13 trailers before spy will begin. And I don't know if this is the normal that happened during COVID. I know trailers were expanding more and more over the years and commercials and everything.

But this may be kind of realized that I think this is the one part of the theatrical experience that, you know, I don't necessarily love. I don't love how to see, sit through 30 minutes of trailers. Or to guess when a show times 830, you know, I expect 10 to 15 minutes, but not 30 minutes. I actually considered because of the visual fidelity that Taylor Sheridan does with his films, going to see those who wish me dead and deaters.

And now, after my experience last night, you know, waiting for trailers to end and waiting for the movie to begin and watching trailer after trailer after trailer. Now, to give cinema credit, one of those 13 trailers I included was in the Heights cinema kind of collab. So maybe it's 12 and a half trailers. But that sort of thing makes me realize, you know, maybe the theater going experiences and has great as I remember it being.

I mean, yeah, the actual experience overall in the end is really worth it. And there's going to be movies that I absolutely need or would want to see in theaters, Quiet Place Part 2. I'm not really excited for that, but that's significantly a theater film. Our Villanueva waves upcoming Dune.

Those are theater experiences for sure. But I just don't know if I want a Chris Rock slasher movie to be my theater experience anymore. I want to see this on streaming services. I mean, I don't want to wait.

I'll still go to theaters. But with that 45-day turnaround coming from most studios, it's going to make me rethink a lot of the movies I go see at the theater just because and I understand it's an economic issue. It's kind of a survival issue for theaters of social hom margins, but it is a real commitment to go to a showing and at a certain time and not know because these aren't all these films that start 30 minutes after not know when the actual show time begins. It'd be almost nice if these theaters could tell you when trailers are going to end.

But who knows if that's going to happen? There you have it. On to the review for today. It is Darren Lynn Boseman's new slasher film starring Chris Rock, Samuel Jackson, Rachel Nichols, and Max and Gelly not, you know, doing his thing.

It is spiral. Yet another jigsaw killer who this time is targeting corrupt cops. Particularly he seems interested in detective Ezekiel Banks played by Chris Rock. He kills in the beginning Ezekiel's best friend and then proceeds to leave clues for him, which include USB videotapes, video recordings, and the body parts of the victims in question.

I'm going to start with a non-spoiler review because Tom's not here and I actually care about the fighting spoilers and not spoilers. So if you haven't seen the movie, there's going to be a time stamp when this is released showing when spoilers and I'm going to give a nice little spoiler break. I don't have the cool spoiler alert that Tom hosts he didn't put down our Google Drive so I apologize for anybody who has a hankering for that. But I'll start just with my general review.

I enjoyed it quite a bit for a Saw film. I've said many times that I am always willing to meet a film where they are and the Saw films never really ask for much. They just kind of exist has these fun Joy House rides and Spider will continue the tradition of that. It also continues the tradition started in Jigsaw of a really strong looking production.

I loaved Saw's 5 through 3D mainly because they look so cheaply made. You had first time directors and video quality, the cinematography of those films became near sovapra. Jigsaw kind of brought it more to a theatrical look brought it back from what you had in Saw, even though there's still obviously the grinding is in Saw 2 and Saw 3. Intuitive set, Saw 4, the Bozeman films.

This film really does look like theatrical production. It has really solidly surprising color saturations. The opening scene is shot during a 4th of July celebration in Toronto and it's just it looked nice. It looked good.

There's good colors to this. Jordan Orem was a cinematographer on this and at War at Saw film he does a pretty solid job. The thing I also really enjoy about this film is that it brings up the performances. I'm 100% a Saw guy for no particular reason.

I think everybody would be surprised by that. But I enjoy what these films are doing and what these films offer just for the fun house aspect of them. They're never pushing too much. They're never asking too much.

They're never demanding too much. They don't try to reach a certain level in terms of storytelling. They kind of just exist as these soap operas and as a wrestling fan I 100% can enjoy a soap opera. This film does take itself more seriously.

It does kind of endeavor to have some sort of social commentary in a much more successful way than Saw 6. It's still in the end pretty hamfisted. A lot of those commentaries on police brutality or on police corruption just don't hit the mark at all. They fail to make a major narrative impact and that's because the Saw is what it is.

This movie is a Saw film narratively. They rely on flashbacks. I think you have five or six flashbacks. Not necessarily the greatest storytelling invention but by this point it's what you expect from a Saw film and it continues to do that.

What this film exceeds at those two A-list actors and Chris Rock and Samuel Jackson and having a solid supporting cast. Max McGelly is always doing decent work. I liked him since Art School of Confidential. I said Rachel Nichols earlier.

That was Marcella Nichols. Marcella Nichols is also pretty solid. I don't necessarily know where she comes from but all of those four lead stars are doing good work and I find that the supporting underground kind of cast members are doing a better job than re-saw people do in Saw Ford. Like, could Sastis Mandy Lorie playing that Hoffman character just did not do anything great.

And even going to Jigsaw where there's a bunch of unknowns, Jigsaw 2017, who did a respectable job I guess. They still had kind of a lower tier quality to them. Not necessarily a bad performance but it didn't reach a real theatrical level to it. And this has been a series that doesn't have that ever.

Tobin Bell was a supporting actor and I think about mostly no-for-television work. Gary Elway's been not very relevant for 10 years. My time saw it come out. Lee Wannell was a great writer but now maybe not the best actor.

And the most notable names in the sequels are mostly television performers. You know, Julie Ben's and that's the only name I can remember. That's the Russell. This film elevates that even though Chris Rock isn't amazing, he's doing a good job.

He's trying. He hits the certain peaks he needs to hit to. Sometimes doesn't hit those peaks. Samuel Jackson's always funny as hell to watch.

And Max Mendelie does a really solid job of playing that kind of fresh-faced hopeful upstart. From a production standpoint overall, the film still works. There's some editing flubs. They still love that quick jerk style editing during the traps.

I already mentioned the color saturation, the color palette was nice. There are some odd editing choices. I think Darian Lindbeau's been overall has a director is still kind of getting his feet wet. He's really only had the three major Saw films and repo the genetic opera being his major kind of notable features.

And that learning how to pace a film, learning how to block a film, learning how to really show things is not there yet. But it does the job of what a Saw film needs to do. The music update is fine. Charlie Closer is still doing good work.

You know, you get the old Hello's Up. His score falls to the background behind the Savage 21 music, which I don't necessarily think fits. But you could try something new. The film does lean into comedy more.

There's a forest gump and divorce kind of stand-up routine that Chris Rock does. That's a nice little reprieve from the horror aspect and the gore aspect of the film. Speaking of, I would almost argue that this is the most uncomfortably gory of the bunch. Not all the goriest film by far.

But the most uncomfortably gory in the sense that the Saw films after I'd say the first two reached a point by Saw 3. You kind of reach a point where it's almost comedic. It's very much detached from reality. As horrific as the raxxin is in Saw 3, it doesn't necessarily feel exactly tangible.

And then you get kind of the surgery sequences, which are fine. But, you know, I don't necessarily find them to be disturbing. The traps in this, while not heavily featured, oftentimes just shown very quickly, kind of work in that craziness level. The opening trap, which is on YouTube, and don't spoil yourself with that personally, is really tremendous and gory and unsettling.

And it works. There's later traps that necessarily aren't as gory, but the psychological aspect of them works really well. Maybe not as much as the, well, the Saw 7 Bull, Raisin Bull Trap, but that trap was just mean. So, you know, I'm not going to count that.

But overall, I think my end review would be, I'm disappointed by the finale of the film. It takes a pretty obvious turn. And there are a lot of moments that telegraph what is coming. It obviously narratively doesn't hold up to any sort of normal film that you would see every day.

And it still has amateur kind of directing choices. But from an overall Saw film, if you're a Saw guy or you're a woman, Saw woman or you appreciate kind of the dumb gore films, you know, the Adam Green kind of horror movies, the hatchet movies or whatnot. I would say this is the frozen for Adam Green of the Saw series. It is a movie with a lot more thought behind it, a lot more consideration, and overall just a lot more patience with the story.

That is the non-spoiler review of Spiral from the book of Saw. I keep saying Saw and not saw. I miss pronounce my W's all the time. Anyhow, now to get into the spoilers, the spoilers, the spoilers, five second break.

I take a drink and then we'll get into the spoiler thoughts of Spiral. So you just heard my non-spoiler review. My spoiler thoughts will just kind of focus in on kind of the things that don't work and then kind of the aspects of the gore that do work. You know, I talked about the traps, the first trap, the tongue trap, just because that's pretty heavily featured in the advertising.

The leader traps are also reached that level of kind of discomfort. The Chinese finger trap has a distance of time with it and you sit with it and you kind of watch the fingers really come off and that is rough. I appreciate that the wax trap is not has graphic. I really thought it was going to be acid or something of that effect and just the kind of like watching of the black wax fall on her head and her suffocating and allowing a little bit more of the body work, you know, mixed with kind of the silliness of the severing of the spinal cord aspect of the trap.

I think all that was successful. I think from that standpoint, when you see quote unquote William being skinned, that's really uncomfortable and unsettling. It has a Paul Thomas Paul Thomas Paul T Anderson quality to it from Event Horizon, where it just is just enough to make you really, really uncomfortable with what's going on. The issue I have with this film is and I have to almost give this a negative review because I promised Tom if one thing happened before I went to the theater, then if this happened, I was going to give this film a negative review and I'm not going to.

I still think it's the second or third most successful song film I haven't seen saw too and forever and I really enjoyed that when it came out. But as I said, five through seven were awful jigsaw's fine, but Logan, the actor plays Logan the main villain really didn't do it any favors. So I like it. But my problem with it is for a series that so heavily relies on Swiss, then often the twister are pretty telegraphed.

This I could have called actually before the film came out. And then the film itself does it, no favors whatsoever. Horror directors, I think you got the Terry's Wiggoff train when Terry's about cast Max Mendelia's kind of like the quote unquote killers, respected killer who doesn't end up being such an art school confidential. And then Alexander Asia, Cass Tim has the killer spoilers in Thor and horns.

Max Mendelia has a space. He's a good looking kid, like a year old, but a kid has a everyday boy charm to him, but there's just something slightly wrong that works for a horror. And my issue with that, sorry, I'm going to drink as a T-bot you're hearing. My issue with that is the fact that I could have seen it coming.

It is casting and his casting has the rookie partner of Chris Rock said to me that he was a villain alone. Has a horror fan and I kind of speculate a lot of people go see cell films. At least a decent percentage are going to get that. But had the film done a decent job of hiding that, I would have been okay with it.

This film never, ever tries to do that. It doesn't do that at all. You see every character's, major character's death. You see the reason why they're being killed.

You see the sins of what they committed. You see the execution of it. And the second you see, to begin with, when he's talking about his wife and kid, it kind of feels like there's no wife and kid. And when he's framed, William is framed calling Zeke and you know, you hear the baby cries the way in which the audio mixing of that scene works and the way in which that laptop is framed.

I looked at that scene and went like there's no fucking baby. Because that is telegraph to the extreme. There is no goddamn baby. Because this is filmmaking 101 to be like, ah ha, you can hear a baby.

But wink, we're going to come back there. It's you know, the last film Jigsaw kind of did the John Kramer voice work, even though it's silly of cutting up in audacity or whatever John Kramer's previous thing so that little thing can get away with it. Like that's silly. But it kind of worked because you couldn't see it coming.

You're like, how they could have voices like, oh, because of that. And maybe because you don't see it. Ah, that works. But here, when that scene happened, I was like, of course, of course, he doesn't have a kid, which means of course he's a villain.

I mean, I went in there with my suspicions and my expectations. But you know, the biggest issue, the biggest issue, though, is killing William off in the second act to go like, oh, he's not a villain. And maybe, maybe it's Marcus. Maybe it's Pete.

Maybe it's Detective Drewery who disappeared. Maybe it's O'Brien. Was that detective O'Brien? I think O'Brien who we, um, who just popped up, you know, who looks just like hot like the body shape of a Hoffman.

Maybe it's that guy. Um, but then they kill off William. They kill off William and they narratively fail to do several things. First, William's killed just by the story to get under Zeke's skin.

Right? That is a thing. Am I getting into your skin yet? The story has set up to this point that that is not how this new jigsaw works.

This new jigsaw is kind of trying to go in the Kramer mindset of absolving people, of absolving the sin, of absolving the corruption in the police department. And that is the rookie partner who we've established is a good guy who's looking out for Zeke who's been, you know, admonished by and backstab by the rest of the apartment just gets killed to get under Zeke's skin and Zeke we've established just kind of a crooked cop. You know, he starts that line kind of a crooked cop just to get under that guy's skin, you know, not somebody who's who shot innocent people, not somebody who's withheld evidence, not somebody who's imprisoned people by lying. You know, just to get under that guy's skin, just get a Zeke's skin.

And we've already seen by this point William be extremely uncomfortable when Zeke, um, you know, goes into the house without the warrant and breaks the leg of the meth dealer and then tortures kind of the meth dealer. We already see Zeke being like, whoa, like his face is just like, I'm not cool. Oh, I'm not cool with this. Like his face says that.

And it's also another telegraphing of like, well, he's not cool with that because, um, you know, because like, he's the killer. I don't see the necessity to have William die to have William be removed as a possible suspect. I think that was a bad fucking choice. A really poor choice.

Um, but they did it. And the second they did that and the second they didn't show that it was William's body being skinned, the second they didn't show any attempts to say that William had some corruption in his training, it became patently obvious that William was a villain. And, and other problem with a series that kind of goes out its ways to not really show you why a villain's a villain, they kind of just happened and maybe that's a stone problem. But you know, you suspected Amanda could have been a disciple after what she said in the original saw and when she's the lead in saw to the film, it goes out its way to make her seem like a hero and to like throw her into the, um, the needle trap.

I mean, she could just get thrown into it. But the fact that she endures that, um, lead you to start suspecting that maybe that's not where the film is going and Hoffman just fucking comes out of nowhere. Um, that film is its own issue. Uh, software.

This though, telegraphs it and it doesn't give you any chance to believe there's another red hearing. And the entirety of this twist is, is what's wrong because of the fact that he ends up being Charlie the weaknesses son William. Um, that's stupid. It doesn't have to have this weird wrap around to like what started off with Zeke.

Uh, we don't need that. I think it just is attempting to tie everything in and you don't need to do that. You don't need to have that happen. I mean, I do really appreciate the peat trap of the glass in the back and everything.

Like that's, that's pretty fun. Um, and disturbing and uncomfortable, uh, fun and, and, and why it's disturbing and uncomfortable. I'm not a crazy person. Um, so that works, I guess.

But I was really hoping that he had a wife and kid and they had died as a result of this article eight thing or something. I don't know. Maybe that's more the soap opera love and me hoping for that. Um, and I hate, I don't ever want to be the type of person who says, um, this movie should have done that, you know, this one would have been better if I did that because, you know, the filmmaker made their own choice.

So I won't, I'll say like what I wish had happened, but it's not at all part of the negative negative aspect of this review. The negative aspect of this review comes in the fact that it just narratively doesn't feel significantly earned. We don't get any semblance before, um, you know, we reveal William has a son that there was a son. I mean, just, just give us a throw we line a dialogue and like make you notice that throw away line of dialogue.

Because if it was there, I didn't, I'll just say, maybe it does say he had a son. I can't remember. Maybe he says that before. But if it was, it's not, maybe I wanted that to be telegraphed over more because it felt so tangently related that, um, it just felt like a secondary twist for the sake of a twist.

I did appreciate the kind of hand those, uh, death of Marcus by like swatting. Um, that's kind of like a final twist that works, uh, to really kind of pinpoint those, because we're seeing a lot of police corruption in this movie that feels like movie police corruption that feels like, uh, police corruption in the sense of, you know, lying on the witness stand. You know that happens. I would assume or, you know, shooting a guy who flips you off.

We can only assume that that happens. Um, but to have, you know, to have somebody die by swatting, I have had issues where we've heard of people dying by swatting or die by just a cop being too, um, reactive to a situation in relation of reacted. Uh, that works. I thought that was a great kind of final moment.

That really was the first part of those trilogy of twists that makes kind of a fun sense that, that, that works. Um, I mean, I don't think there's, I don't feel there's a race element to the Marcus being the one shot. Uh, but, I mean, that's just not how I, I perceived it, but the entire like cop and swat active reacting and shooting somebody without much hesitation whatsoever. Um, despite the fact that it's shown that like Marcus might have a gun on him, that, that really, really did work for me.

Um, as I said, uh, overall, my impressions of this film are solid. Uh, from, from it being a soft film. Uh, it works as a sauce sequel. Uh, it's not the original.

It doesn't have the amazing, fantastic twist that the original does. In fact, it utterly fails to have that. Uh, I think the jigsaw twist of Logan being the first guy, even though it's kind of silly works even better. Um, and I find that to be one of the weaker films in terms of the twists.

Um, you know, sausics and all those have better twists. This is one of the weaker twist films, but has a overall production. I think it works. It still feels amateur.

It still feels dirty. It still doesn't feel necessarily like a real movie because it has those narrative failings. It has those circuit editing choices. It still has some of those shaky secondary acting performances.

Um, some, some good ones. Uh, the woman who played, the woman who played, the woman who played Cara, like they did a pretty solid job of playing a police officer's wife, I thought. Um, I'm just gonna call her out. Um, but all those other things really worked for me.

Worked quite a bit. Um, I, like I said, this is probably my second or third favorite soft film. If you like the soft films, you like the series, you'll like this. If you hate that genre movies and are hoping that Chris Rock is gonna revitalize it, like David Gordon Green did with, um, Halloween 2018 or that Jordan Peele has done with the horror series, um, you know, the horror genre in general, this is, this is not going to be your movie.

It doesn't do that at all. It is a slightly more serious soft film with a police procedural twist angle to it with a attempt to kind of do a recreation of the late 90s, um, crime dramas, uh, or early 2000s, crime dramas like the Suspect Zero type films. It's, it's, um, or, you know, mine hunters. It's a better movie than either of those.

Or I mean, people mentioned seven, but there's so many of it, like seven was just a part of a bigger genre. It's just kind of the one exceptional, outstanding one of that genre. There's so many movies in that genre. Um, this is, this is, this is the cheesy ones of that.

This is that late 90s, early 2000s, cheesy crime movies, but you know, it works if you like soft films. That's basically it. We will be back next week in the studio with both members. So you don't have to hear me talk for almost an hour.

I'm really disturbed that I can talk for almost an hour about nothing. I doubt this will have high listenership and that's okay. Both of us will be back next week as we review those who wish me dead. Um, if you want to yell at me for talking for way too long and wasting your time, you can tweet us at film pivotal, a Twitter that we use often.

Or you can email us at pivotalfilmpodcast at gmail.com. Uh, or you can check out a list of the movies that we did when we used did the list or the beers that we drank when we did the list and maybe the beers will drink in the future and maybe one day I'll get off my lazy fucking ass and write an essay on a Tom's wrote one. Maybe I'll do that or two. Uh, you can do that at pivotalfilm.com.

Uh, like us on your podcast things give us five star reviews. Does that help us? I think I don't think so, but I've heard other podcasts say that and I guess that's a good thing. I'm trying to go as high as possible to know you in the ending.

Uh, though this is your love. Uh, you know, hopefully now you're fully vaccinated. Hopefully if you're an American listener, um, if you haven't got your vaccines and you have the ability to please get out there and get a vaccine. Uh, if you listen to this podcast, you're a movie lover.

Um, just imagine the freedom you're going to have going into a movie without really any fear because I went into that theater last night fully vaccinated and had no hesitation once I was in there because there was no reason to hesitate. I'd look at the numbers, looked at the stats, looked at the data. So if you've been hesitant to the vaccine, I got it two weeks ago. My second dose, my reaction to the second dose was basically nothing a little bit tired, a little hot for a day.

Ladies. Um, but overall it was nothing and I'm excited for the world to reopen. Maybe not excited to go back into the office. That's a whole different world.

I'll take that, uh, to get people back, to get movies back, to get experiences back. So please, if you're not vaccinated, please do that. And if you are vaccinated, fuck it. Go to the theaters, see a movie.

If it's a Alamo theater, they're still open. I don't know. Or if the cinema has a drink of beer, we will talk to you next week.