Relic

Relic is the feature film debut of director Natalie Erika James, and she comes out of the gate with a phenomenal horror thriller. Emily Mortimer and Bella Heathcote are a mother and daughter, respectively, who venture out to check on their mother/grandmother played by Robyn Nevin. When the two arrive at the house they notice its resident is missing and some eerie things happen little by little. This film does great in the beginning, building suspense of what is happening in this house and developing characters that are interesting and connected to the point you care what is happening to them. Bella Heathcote learns about a neighboring child who found themselves locked in a room in the house for several hours and later finds herself in the same room. That is when things get good or deteriorate depending on the viewer. If you are expecting the house to be alive or some scary monster to crawl out of the shadows, you’ll still be waiting as this movie goes into a much more psychological horror tone. Robyn Nevin gives a stellar performance as this aging mother/grandmother who can be sane and conversational then switch gears to go ranting mad as this character is the key to the whole movie which plays into Dementia and the effects it has on an individual and their loved ones. My main gripes with this movie is that it feels shot too dark during some scenes and trying to see what is occurring or trying to read some post-it notes around the house can be difficult and the other is when the film gets into what the house is capable of it almost seems to adapt conveniently to the situations it needs to for the film to get from A-B though I could get past that because of the investment early on with the development of the characters. The ending is one of the most cringeworthy yet impactful moments of cinema I have seen this year. If you buy a ticket or streaming access expecting for what it is more of a psychological horror movie than creature horror, which I can see from the trailer how that might assumption may happen, then I think you're in for a suspenseful unnerving night at the movies. B.

Future home of The Mangrove

Even though I have gone back to my full-time retail day job, I still find myself with quite the free time, before all this craziness happened I was going out to movies or plays at least three days a week which now I see how much time that was taking. For the past few years I have worked on my film watching skills, on and off blogging reviews, and recently just started thinking about what do I want to do with the next half of my life and incorporating what I love from the past few years. One of the few theaters that have opened in the area where I live is a one screen art house that has been around since the 80s and is nestled in between large oaks trees and just has an inviting quality to it and a sense of community. I take about an hour to drive out to this theater and since going it has made me question, why is there not something like this closer to where I live and you don’t see single screen art houses that have that kind of atmosphere to them being built. That is half of what I discovered is that want to open a theater that has that aesthetic to it, then came branding which has eluded me the past few years. Over the years one thing I have always struggled with is finding an identity and a branding that I am comfortable with, the piece I always circle back to is being a native Floridian and incorporating that into what I want to do. That popped into my head was going with using Cypress as part of the name for the large Cypress trees that grow along the lakes and swamps, it is also a name that residents are familiar with because of many places using it in their name which makes it identifiable. My problem started with logo and branding, do you know how hard it is to find a Cypress tree that looks like one and not overly detailed to reproduce, because the theater I was speaking about is named after a mountain flower, my head already had I wanted a tree to be part of the concept early on. Nixing Cypress, I began going through identifying foliage of Florida, which led me to now wanting to do obvious like Palm or Azalea then thinking about things I recalled back to high school where I loved a Marine Science class I took for a few years thinking of the activities and places we visited it came to me Mangrove trees. Scouring the net I could find and tweak a little for colors what is the current logo, though I envision something very similar yet different as the final logo down the road. I started thinking of what can I do with Mangrove trees, what will make this something I believe in, what are Mangroves in their environment, they are homes to communities of animals, they provide protection from storms for marine life and they help stop erosion. That fit with what I envision, a theater that has a sense of community among its patrons, a place where people can feel safe going and where roots can grow to keep it growing. I figured out what I want to do, a purpose and then it is on to fine tuning what can become of this, early on I knew what I want to start working to is a small theater, an art house, looking up names of art houses online across the country, I decided theater was not going to be a main player in the brand, I didn’t want locked into a theater with people thinking it was a traditional theater from the name I want a communal feel and welcome conversations before and after shows. I liked cinema giving it the air that its not just movies, its about the art that is film and the experience, Mangrove Cinema is the company I have settled on starting where I want to create online content, I want to open my theater called The Mangrove and I want to be active in the community which leads to the next part of the puzzle. What will make my theater unique and that will be by showcasing products from Florida and putting part of the proceeds to Florida ecological and wildlife programs. I have a vision that over time I will probably be sharing of visually how this will all look and will give me more material for posts and don’t want to give everything away on day one. There of course is a long way to go before ground can even be thought of being broken, first I want to get past this COVID-19 nonsense, there is money to be raised, locations to be scouted, and biggest of all learning how a theater functions. Until then I am working on building brand and building a name and image for myself. Starting with my review blog here becoming Mangrove Film Talk where I hope to discuss topics other than reviews which will also be a sister site to my YouTube channel of the same name that I plan to start once my home theater room is complete, that is for another day and another post.