Feeding The Machine · Review Wednesday

Review Wednesday: The End of Oak Street

Wed, 02 Sep 2026 18:00:00 GMT

The End of Oak Street has a premise that reads like a pitch meeting nobody stopped in time: a cosmic event picks up an ordinary suburban street, people and pets and lawns and recycling bins included, and sets it down in the distant past, leaving the residents to slowly discover what’s happened as prehistoric life encroaches on their peaceful existence. I bought a ticket expecting dumb fun. I like dumb fun. I had already forgiven the movie for being dumb fun on the way in.

Image: Warner Bros.

It is that, but it’s not just dumb fun. It is a real movie, and I spent a chunk of the runtime quietly adjusting my expectations upward, which is a good problem for a film to have.

The thing that got me is that it is an Amblin movie. Not Amblin-referencing, not Amblin-quoting, not a poster of E.T. hung on the wall of a movie that has nothing else to say. The actual grammar of one. The kids are people rather than plot devices with bikes. The adults are competent (well, the ones who need to be are…) and still out of their depth, which is a daring line to walk. And the spectacle is dramatic with a real sense of danger, but it doesn’t become just a torrent of action that’s impossible to follow. Altogether, it is an updated twist to the pattern that Jurassic Park so perfectly established and the sequels have mostly failed to reach.

The Jurassic Park comparison is the one I kept coming back to, and I mean it structurally rather than as a compliment I am handing out for free. Awe first, teeth second. The movie gives you a chance to really look at the creatures before you have to confront how deadly they are, and it trusts a wide shot to do the work. There are rules to the danger, the movie establishes them early, and then it honors them, so when someone does something stupid you get to be ahead of the movie for a second, which is a lot of the fun of this kind of film.

Some of that credit goes where you would not expect it from the trailer. David Robert Mitchell directed this, and if your reference point for him is It Follows, you can feel the same patience here: long, unhurried compositions where the frame itself is the thing making you nervous. In some ways this seems like a departure for him, but stepping back you can see a lot of shared vision among all of his last three films. J.J. Abrams produced, which makes perfect sense of the Amblin vibes given his history with Spielberg and the explicit homage to the Amblin style in Super 8. In fact, End of Oak Street really feels like a spiritual successor to Super 8. They would make for a great double-feature.

The element that really stands out is how the relationships of everyone in the film are treated. Denise and Greg Platt (Anne Hathaway and Ewan McGregor) have a complex, realistic relationship that is brought to life both subtly and explicitly, which gives it real depth. It’s explicit in Greg’s inability to deal with what’s happening to him and his family, both before and after the event, and the frustration that Hathaway deftly brings to Denise in the face of it. The additional texture that comes through in microexpressions, inference, and set dressing more subtly elevates the movie to something noteworthy when it could have just been “fine.” All the characters feel like they have an actual life that is happening off-screen, even the jackass neighbor Mel (P.J. Byrne) and the whole host of kids who make appearances, not just the two Platt kids, Audrey and Brian (Maisy Stella and Christian Convery).

Which brings me to the sequence everyone is going to be talking about, but it’s up to you to decide if you want to read about it. Big spoilers after the click.

Spoiler, click to reveal

Greg Platt gets eaten. Not off-screen, not ambiguously, not in the way where you assume he is dead until he limps back in the third act. He is eaten, in the middle of the movie, while doing the brave and heroic (but stupid) thing, and the film does not soften it afterward.

It works because of everything the movie spent its first hour building. He is the adult who has been in denial about everything the whole way through, so losing him is not just a death, it is the movie taking away the audience’s handrail. The seemingly inevitable redemption arc for him and Denise is abruptly and brutally cut short. Suddenly, it seems like all the conventions of “this kind of movie” are out the window, which makes the remaining screentime even more tense. The scene is also staged with the same clarity as everything else, which somehow makes it worse. You can see it coming for about four full seconds and there is nothing to do about it but sit there.

The moment that really stuck with me, that I have not stopped thinking about, is the cut immediately after, where Denise stands there in shock and horror, her face a mirror of my own, for far longer than was really necessary. Denise has proven herself to be the real adult in the family, though, and she soon pulls herself together and does the right thing. That is a real choice, and a braver one than the death itself.

I was a little disappointed that they found a way to bring him back in the end, but it felt earned even if a little saccharine.

So: a strong recommend, and worth the theater, which is not something I say often. Go before the internet gets to you. The film’s whole first act works on the assumption that you do not know what is coming either, and that only happens once.

Review Wednesday: ASH

Wed, 26 Mar 2025 18:00:00 GMT

ASH, directed by Flying Lotus, is billed as a mind-bending sci-fi horror, so I went out to see it the same day I discovered it as those are three of my main movie flavor centers.

Going into the movie I knew I liked Flying Lotus’ music, but I hadn’t seen any of his other directorial work. I knew I liked the style of his videos that were directed by others though, so I expected that influence to come through, and I was not disappointed in the first act.

The movie opened with some great vibrant visuals and music that immediately brought to mind Blood Machines, and I was getting ready for a real visual and music-heavy vibe-fest like that. Gaspar Noé is a creator that Flying Lotus has mentioned as an influence, so I was getting real dialed in for something I can get lost in with just some nods to tradtional story telling to tie it together. Through most of a first act full of amazing sights and sounds, including some top-notch practical work, I was fully onboard. The space suit design especially really stood out.

However, not long after our main character Riya (Eiza González) wakes up and starts getting her bearings, that vibe starts to fade into the background. Once Brion (Aaron Paul) arrives the vibe is fully in the back seat of the film, which becomes a more standard “figure out what’s going on here and stay alive” semi-procedural that felt disappointingly standard after such an interesting start.

In fact, most of the second and third acts felt like someone from the studio reminded Flying Lotus that he was supposed to be making a “regular movie”, and he grudgingly agreed, spending most of the screen time awkwardly navigating his way out of narrative corners he’d painted himself into, only occasionally letting the vibe-monster out of the trunk. Unfortunately, those short trips into vibes-ville just make the mess worse, and the attempts to hold the story together feel even more awkward.

To get back on the rails, the movie falls victim to some ungainly story telling techniques, the worst of which being “lets retell the first act but show what really happened” followed by “omniscient villain exposition to fill in the gaps”, and finally the “incongruous dream sequence to justify a logical leap”. If they couldn’t figure out a way to weave these bits in along the way more smoothly I honestly would have preferred to leave many of these questions unanswered as that would have ultimately been a more satisfying experience. There is one treat in the third act in the form of some great practical effects work in the final confrontation though, which was truly a remarkable sequence.

Despite the clunky third act though, I found a lot to enjoy in ASH, I just wish that it would have more firmly decided what it wanted to be from the jump and committed to it. If it was going to be mostly a mixed-media art piece, eschewing traditional story telling for beautiful music and visuals to tell the sketch of a story with vibes, I wish it would have really embraced that. If it was going to be a more standard movie, I wish it would have spent less time and effort on the art vibes, and instead spending those resources tightening up the film-making fundamentals so that it wouldn’t have gotten so lost in the third act.

I struggle to recommend seeing it in the theatre, even though I’m glad I did. The sights and sounds when they are at their best really deserve to be experienced there. However, I just don’t think it really delivers enough to justify the price of admission unless you are Flying Lotus superfan. If not, probably wait for the Shudder release. On streaming though, it’s well worth your time if you’re a fan of horror sci-fi. It’s a mess, but it’s a beautiful mess. I have dreams of doing a triple-header of Color out of Space, ASH, and Blood Machines. I think that would be some real fun, and the three of them all fit together for me somehow.

Review Wednesday: The Ward

Wed, 19 Feb 2025 07:00:00 GMT

Another busy week, and so another repost from the distant past of Feeding The Machine. So, here’s a review of the horror movie The Ward. Originally posted November 2011

I’ve been on a bit of a horror kick lately. The Ward caught my eye, mostly because it’s from John Carpenter. I enjoy most of his work, and he’s one of my go-to directors for a good scare. It is also set in North Bend, Oregon, and I have a major soft spot for movies set in my home state, especially obscure little towns like North Bend. With those two things going for it, I couldn’t resist.

The movie follows Kristen, who is captured by police and sent to The Ward early on, after an unexplained and intriguing chase through the forest that ends with her burning down an isolated farmhouse. Once captured, we follow her and her far-too-pretty to be believable ward-mates as she tries to unravel the mystery of what happened to Alice, a ghost that is haunting the ward. Her “friends” seem to know something about what is going on, but are reluctant to help.

Most of the horror stuff that Carpenter is known for (as either a writer or director) tends towards the slasher-flick. The obvious example of course is Halloween and its many descendants. The Ward, on the other hand, is much more psychological thriller than slasher, at least until the very end. Up until the last fifteen minutes or so, there’s the constant sense of wrongness and building dread, but not much in the way of big scares or gore. The story is interesting, the characters easy to get involved with, and the pacing is good for the most part. I found the final confrontations with the ghost of Alice to be a little formulaic though, almost boring. Luckily, the denouement of the story and final scenes more than make up for any mis-steps that lead up to them.

I’d give The Ward a strong recommend for fans of horror or psychological thrillers.

Review Wednesday: Blood Machines

Wed, 27 Sep 2023 21:33:04 GMT

Watching Blood Machines, I couldn’t stop wishing that it were part of a new anthology in the spirit of Heavy Metal. There’s a ship that is being chased by a bigger ship, and when the smaller ship crashes… things get a little weird. From there, it’s mostly just cool visuals that are held together by the thinnest of plots. That’s ok though, the amazing visuals and an incredible darksynth soundtrack more than make up for it. It really felt like a horror/sci-fi graphic novel brought to life by someone who loves the audio/visual experiments created in the demoscene of the 90’s. It’s like it was custom made for me, and I want to see more from these creators.

The visual style had elements of Giger and Cronenberg blended with Warhammer 40k and soaked in a vapor wave color palette that blends perfectly with the music and gritty mood of the world that the filmmmakers have created. The ship and weapon designs especially grabbed me, and made it clear that technology in this universe is more organic than what we’re used to. More of a tryptich art piece than a traditional film or series, it also made me think of what might happen if Gaspar Noé were more interested in something a bit more pulpy and action-oriented than what he usually takes on. There were several scenes that reminded me of Climax or Lux Æterna, but not quite so concerned with being considered capital-A Art as those films are.

All-in-all, Blood Machines was tons of fun for the hour or so it took to watch through all three short episodes. If your idea of a good time is something that could be compared to an R-rated Daft Punk video, then you should check it out. Currently streaming on Shudder.

Review Weds: Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town

Wed, 20 Sep 2023 18:21:20 GMT

In celebration of getting Feeding The Machine going again, and to get back in the habit of regularly posting, I’m going to re-post my review of what is still one of my favorite pieces of fiction from Cory Doctorow. Originally written in November 2011

Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town (shortened to just Someone from here on out) is the first fiction by Cory Doctorow that I have read. It is a bizarre story about a man who is often called Alan, though that’s not his name, who is the son of a mountain and washing machine. If that sounds odd to you, that’s ok, it is odd. And that’s only the beginning. In fact, Cory himself calls the book his “weirdest book by far“. It also, however, is a lot of fun.

Cory exists on an ephemeral list that I call “Smart People Who Do Smart Things That I Respect”. It’s a list I keep meaning to actually write down. He’s on it primarily because of his activities in the Free Software and Free Culture realms. He also seems to have fairly sane political views, which is a cherry on top for eligibility for The List. I’ve read a lot of his non-fiction stuff and it’s all smart, concise, and accessible. In short, I like him. After I finished Burn, I dove back into Aldiko’s Creative Commons section, and came up with this. Like movies, I tend to stay pretty ignorant about books until I’m actually looking for something to read, usually just gravitating to genres and authors I know I like and picking something up on the spur of the moment. That is how I found Someone.

The book bounces around in time, back and forth from Alan’s childhood and the “present day” of his adulthood. Present Alan has just moved into a new house, filled it with shelves that he’s filled with books and other curios, and intends to sit down to write a book. He never gets to the book though, derailed by the abuses of nefarious neighbor Krishna, infatuation with the classic girl-next-door Mimi (who has wings), the techno pipe-dreams of anarchist friend Kurt, and the arrival of his Matryoska doll brothers Edward, and Frederick. They show up on his doorstep early on in the story to report that Gregory (the smallest of the set) is missing, and they fear that their psychotic brother Davey has returned from the dead to seek revenge. This is particularly distressing for E and F, because without G, they cannot eat.

From there, the story runs away with Alan as he tries to solve the mystery of Gregory’s disappearance and deal with the repercussions of Davey’s return. It’s well crafted, entertaining, and the weirdness soon falls away and you come to accept the realities of this world. The flashbacks to Alan’s youth where he meets his first love are particularly endearing and heartbreaking. As are his interactions with his brothers.

The one major complaint I have about the book has to do with the parts involving the creation of the wireless mesh network with his cyberpunk buddy Kurt. The project serves as a means to bring the two together and to move their relationship forward, but the technical explanations of things feel heavy-handed and out of place. It could be that they are talking about things I understand already, so the information covered didn’t add anything for me, but it really felt like a kludgy delivery. It was almost as if Doctorow finished the story and then said to himself, “But wait! I’m known for all my techy and free culture stuff! I have to stick that in there somewhere!”, and then proceeded to bolt on those pieces after the fact. If I were king, I would have kept the concept of the mesh network project since it was genuinely interesting and served as a good engine for moving the story forward in a number of ways, but ditched the overbearing technobabble exposition. It just didn’t add the to story. In fact, the first instance of this happens relatively early, before I was used to the weirdness of it all, and the two together were almost enough to drive me away. I’m glad I didn’t stop as I really enjoyed the rest of the book. I fear though that many people will get to that point, their eyes will glaze over, and they will miss out on a really great tale because they put it aside prematurely.

Bottom line, go read it, and try not to get too hung up on the oddly placed techy details. 4/5