Knock at the Cabin

Tied-Up in NIMBY-land

or

What Would Jesus Do?
 

One approaches a new film by M. Night Shyamalan with a sort of dread, not the sort of dread he likes to weave in to the frame so that you have to "holster" your soda and popcorn, lest there be a jump-scare. No. It's the fear of the unknown...especially given Night's track record. Will this be one of "his" good ones? Or, will it all go (as they narrate in those TrueCrime TV shows) "horribly...horribly wrong."

 

If you haven't seen the trailers for Knock at the Cabin (they seemed omnipresent), it's pretty basic "Funny Games" kind of material, but played (I guess you could say) "straight". A gay couple, Eric (Jonathan Groff) and Andrew (Ben Aldridge) and their daughter Wen (Kristen Cui) are vacationing at an isolated cabin in the woods. Four people (Dave Bautista, Rupert Grint, Nikki Amuka-Bird, and Abby Quinn) come out of those woods, ask to be let in, and when they're refused, they break into the house, concuss one of the dads and overpower another one, tie them up, and then ask them to hear them out. They have something very important to say.

Leonard (Bautista) starts with a preamble: "If you could look inside, you'd see my heart is broken because of what I have to do."

 

Doesn't. Sound. Promising. As if tying them up was going to appeal to their sympathy.

Now, straight up, before we going into anything potentially spoilerific, let me say that Dave Bautista is the Most Valuable Player in this thing. Everybody is good in this, even—and particularly little Kristen Cui—but Bautista really sells the premise. He's done very well for himself in previous films, but his Leonard is what makes you believe in the absurdity of the whole concept. His man-mountain is in agony over the role he finds himself playing and makes you believe that he HAS to play it out or the consequences will be cataclysmic. Played any differently and Leonard would have come across as just another Q-ANON supporter shooting up a pizza parlor ("The intel on this wasn't 100%"). But, Bautista's sweating, haunted Leonard, his voice soothing and breaking has just enough weird anti-energy to make you keep watching, even as your better sense or Doubting Thomas is telling you "...wait...wait..."

"What he is about to do" is warn this family that there is an apocalypse coming.  "The cities will drown. A terrible plague will descend. The sky will fall like glass and God's fingers will scorch the Earth." 7 Billion people will perish. But, this family...this family...can prevent it. All they have to do is kill one of their family-members. And it'll stop. It will all stop. There's no "agenda" here. It's not because they're a "gay couple" with an adopted child. They're not on some "anti-woke" crusade. The four were brought to this cabin...because they all saw it in their "visions." They didn't see any people. They just saw the cabin in...their "visions."

Their "visions." And then they met on the internet. And compared stories. And realized...to their horror, mind you...that everything lined up, and they had to act to prevent Armageddon. So, if you wouldn't mind, decide which of you are going to die. Or everybody dies.

At this point, I began giggling. I knew what I would do. Question everything. I wouldn't care if they showed me the coasts flooding on CNN (which, by the way, they do), I'd think these people were total nutters and do everything in my power to overcome them before they did anything to my family.

But, I really began giggling when I started thinking "What Would Jesus Do?" and the answer was "where's the cross?" The Lamb would have a better scope on what was really happening, of course—whether it was really happening—he'd probably gotten The Memo. But, what do these two guys—who already feel a little persecuted in their daily life—do when confronted with this terrible choice? What would anybody do—if they weren't "bearing crosses" from Society—when confronted by this choice-that-would've-driven-Solomon crazy? I think they'd be very un-Christ-like. I think they'd want to see the stats on "the intel."

But, who knows, really? The oceans are rising—(which has been denied, but are YOU thinking of buying ocean-front property?)—and we just went through a plague (which has also been denied). Anybody can come up with reasons why they're so damned sure about not believing the pandemic, or not wearing masks, or saying nobody's landed on the Moon, or the Earth is flat, or Donald Trump won an election that (in reality) he didn't, and even be so potent about it, they would do things that a rational, thinking person would consider "crazy." You don't need to be a "shaman", you just need to hold a grudge. And ignore "Evidence."

So, this little movie. I wouldn't ascribe it as a "woke vs. bigot" argument (although I doubt Ron de Santis would watch it)—it's far too simplistic for that. But, I will note that the screenwriters—"Night" being one of them—changed the story (which featured something pretty grim, even for a movie about The Apocalypse) to tip the scales. Some might argue on the wrong side, but they're definitely tipped, perhaps to make it more a "Night" movie, but maybe more to put it squarely in the "ambiguous" category. Hitchcock did that once—in The Birds—and folks were ready to have him plucked for it, as audiences like to have things nice and neat and explained to them.

"The book did whaaaaaaa...?!"

 

But, I found myself leaving the theater with a grudging admiration for this movie for "going there," whatever its reasons.

Frozen (2013)

Ice-Ice, Baby
or
(The Cold Never Bothered Me, Anyway...)

Disney's latest animated feature—not in the flat 2-D classic animation, but in the 3-D pixilated version ala Tangled—is "inspired" by Hans Christian Anderson's "The Snow Queen," according to the credits. That's a whole new interpretation of the word "inspired" because Frozen has next to nothing to do with "The Snow Queen" other than...there's a Queen...and she makes snow. But Tangled wasn't exactly "Rapunzel," either.

But, it's a quibble (And it's Disney).

Disney put the first female director (albeit co-director) on one of their female-dominated animated films. Based on a screenplay by, and co-directed by Jennifer Lee (with Chris Buck), it's another "Princess" movie that will expand the Disney marketing franchise (with two of them), but as with Pixar's Brave it dares to up-end some story-book conventions, making the royal sisters Elsa (Idina Menzel) and Anna (Kristen Bell) the emotional hub the story revolves around, and relegating the two hunky guys that are standard love interests pretty much transportation tools. This is a good thing. And especially when the movie sets up "the guys" (one prince/one working stiff) as the solution to the problems and then very briskly pulls the cloth-simulated tapestry out from underneath that cliché. I like that. And I like how the solution to "the problems" is bundled very tightly in one unexpected moment that, frankly, shocks, and takes one aback emotionally. I like that even better.

So, it's not "The Snow Queen." What is it? Elsa and Anna are princesses in the kingdom of Arendelle and they're by no means twins—Elsa is older by a couple years, and she has the telekinetic power to freeze things and project snow and ice from thin air. This delights Anna, but a childhood accident forces the King and Queen to seek the assistance of trolls who save Anna's life, but take away her memory of Elsa's power to prevent such a tragedy from ever happening again. The Royals also lock up Elsa, keeping her from her sister...and everyone...until she learns how to suppress her powers, usually brought on by her emotions.

The two sisters grow up apart under the same roof, even after tragedy strikes the household. The two don't see each other until Elsa's coronation day as Queen of Arendelle, but the two are distant even when inches apart, and when the scattered Anna becomes enamored of a visiting prince (Santino Fontana), upsetting Elsa and exposing her powers to the Kingdom. Elsa flees, now that her frightening powers are out there for all to see.  

You couldn't miss it.  She's dropped Arendelle into a permanent winter, with no way to get it out. It's up to the plucky Anna to go after her and try and mend fences and thaw her relationship with her sister and then thaw the town.

Prince Hans is a love interest, but so is an ice-cutter that Anna finds on her journey (voiced by Jonathan Goff), whose best pal is an anthropomorphized reindeer named Sven. There's also a walking, talking snowman (created by Elsa) named Olaf. The revelation of a goofy snowman in the movie was enough to give me a brain-freeze, but, as voiced by Josh Gad (he of "The Book of Mormon"), he's pretty danged funny. The songs have the same show-connection, as well, as they're a collaboration between Robert Lopez (who co-composed both "Mormon" and "Avenue Q") and wife Kristen Anderson. That's very much in the tradition of bringing the song-writing team of "The Little Shop of Horrors," Ashman and Menken, to Disney. The songs are decidedly less Broadway, however, and more "pop" oriented—and will be appearing on the many reality-talent shows on the air in the not-too-distant future—and geared more for a cartoon audience than a theater one.

Again, quibbles. And if Frozen didn't exactly warm my heart, my brain had some warm thoughts towards it.

One of three "I Want" songs in Frozen (four if you count Olaf's "In Summer").

Going in...er, "cold," the power-ballad approach makes one cringe, but given the back-story 

preceding it, it's a break-out moment...and a little scary.  In fact, the Elsa character was 

slated to be the villain of the movie until this song's themes of empowerment changed everything.

Addendums: In the three years since I wrote this, I haven't gotten quite sick of "Let It Go."

and

Not too long ago on "The Big Bang Theory" Raj and Howard were having a debate about Frozen, with Howard dismissing Raj: "It's over-rated." It isn't, really. If it were, why would they still be discussing it three years after the fact?