Musings

Movies

The Power of the Dog

by laura

WOW.

When I started hearing buzz that this movie was going to sweep all the awards, I was pretty doubtful. Most of those movies tend to be, well, boring. The dialogue typically speaks like a long winded PBS documentary from the 80s that I’d fall asleep watching during a substitute teacher day in elementary school.

I knew this movie is based on a book; one that I’ll never read, since after you watch the movie, the book is forever ruined, but nothing else beyond that. After a quick Google search, I found out that it’s set in Montana in the 1920s, which may be redundant. Has Montana changed since the 1920s? Doesn’t it still look like that with cattle and horses and cowboys who have a deep distaste for women and anthrax always around the corner?

Accent wise, the Doctor Strange voice articulation is a bit off putting, because even though I’ve never met someone who was raised in the nether regions of lower Canada, I’m guessing they don’t have a vague American accent peppered with some southern dialect. He almost got it. SO CLOSE. SOCLOSE.

The film starts with brothers Phil (Cumberbatch) and George (Plemons) and their pack of merry cowboys shuffling some cattle from a prairie to the outside of a restaurant. Was this a town? Was this a stopover? I didn’t really understand why the cows were just hanging out near this shanty saloon run by widow Rose (Dunst) and her son (Smit-McPhee). After celebrating moving the cows, Phil turns his vitriol from verbally destroying his brother to actually ripping apart Rose’s son, Peter’s flower origami decorations on the table. Phil also apparently hates singing and general happiness and screams at other customers for celebrating a bit too loudly next to their table.

Rose, who should have been named Shrinking Violet, breaks down in the kitchen over all of this and George comforts her and then I guess falls in love with her? To be fair, she made a fairly decent meal for them, had beds for them all to sleep that evening, and was probably the only eligible single female for thousands of miles of cows. George decides to bring her back to their ranch in the middle of East Jesus Nowhere and get married. Being forced to now also live with Phil, the shepherd for not only cows, but also the devil, Rose descends into alcoholism almost immediately.

It’s casually mentioned throughout the movie that Phil’s mentor was some John Wayne-esque buckaroo named Bronco Henry. He taught Phil everything about the ranch world and Phil keeps him firmly planted on a toxic masculine pedestal, which somewhat explains his disdain for the more tender Peter.

Meanwhile, Peter, consistently passive and quiet, is shown to be going to school to be a doctor and when he comes home for the summer, easily catches a rabbit to dissect in his room. Ahh, just a normal college kid with serial killer tendencies. What’s brewing under there Peter? Is this foreshadowing?

(Hint: it’s always foreshadowing)

The movie picks up more manly steam when Peter catches Phil bathing in a river (EW) and finds magazines in the barn depicting naked guys with the name Bronco Henry written on them.

Wait. Why is his name on them? This is the 20s, when being gay was not only something to be deeply hidden, but they were out in the isolated country, where even being open minded is outright hated. Wait. That’s the 2020s. Let’s rewind.

1925. Ok, yes, probably also not down with gay people.

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SO WHO WRITES HIS NAME ON HIS GAY PORN AND LEAVES IT IN A BARN?

Apparently, Bronco Fucking Henry. What a badass.

Peter starts to realize that his mom is dying; physically from the bottles of liquor she’s funneling down her throat and mentally from Phil’s torment, so he decides to take matters into his own hands, since George apparently gives zero fucks (damn, prospects in Montana were bleak back in the day). After winning over Phil by trying to be a cowboy and leading him to be his mentor, Peter starts to put his plan together. Though not specifically said out loud, it’s implied that Bronco Henry had a sexual relationship with Phil and it’s something he’s never dealt with or gotten over – it appears that he was deeply in love with him. What Phil sees in Peter is the prospect of someone who gets past the gruff (and god awful smelly) side of Phil to see that there is a (tiny) human side of him, stuffed deep down in his boots caked with cow shit.

Unfortunately, Peter has to save his mom, who he actually loves, as opposed to Phil, who is a giant fucking asshole made up of sewn together battered saddlebags. Phil offers a kind gesture to Peter by hand making him a rope, but is despaired to find his sister-in-law drunkenly sold the cowhides he would have used to a local Native American tribe to spite him for being a dick. (Go Rose!!)

Peter offers Phil a cowhide he cut himself and Phil overflows with pride and and the generosity of someone who seems to really “get” him. Peter forgets to mention that he cut the cowhide off of a dead cow rotting in a field, riddled with anthrax. Whoopsie.

Almost immediately Phil becomes ill and before he can give Peter the completed rope, dies in what seems like a matter of hours.

To be fair, it was probably a long ass ride to the nearest hospital and doctors back then didn’t have ICU grade recovery systems. Also, Peter never told anyone what he could be afflicted with so I’m assuming they would have given Phil a shot of whiskey and told him to walk it off.

George is sad that his brother died, even though he treated him like absolute crap, but he quickly puts that aside when he realizes that his wife has stopped drinking and they can finally be happy!

The last scene shows a gloved Peter, casually stuffing the anthrax rope under his bed. Obsessed with that strong symbolism of the literal string that brought them together that he destroyed so easily to save someone else he loved. *chef’s kiss*

Hopefully, Peter later goes on to tell their housekeeper not to vacuum under there.

Overall, its a great story and it played out well on screen. The mood, obviously, was overwhelmingly melancholy and not just because its set on a dusty ranch without a Target or Publix in sight. All the actors land their marks and their roller coaster sized arcs and the twist at the end hits just right; even though you’ve been watching him literally hate every single person in the movie, at the end, Phil’s death leaves a rugged scar.

Grade: A

Genealogy True Crime

Missing: Barbara Jean

by laura
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In June of 1969, in the small town of Hibbing, Minnesota, twenty year old Barbara Paciotti disappeared without a trace. Located about three hours straight north of Minneapolis, Hibbing not only has the largest iron ore mine in the world, but was the community where Bob Dylan grew up.

Back in the late 60s, there were approximately 16,000 people living in Hibbing and Barbara, known as Barbie, was the middle of three children to Fabian and Betty (née Popovich) Paciotti. She grew up as a petite spitfire, with a personality that overwhelmed her less than five foot stature; classmates described her as always smiling, friendly, and sassy.

After graduating from Hibbing High School, she moved to Minneapolis to work as a secretary for an investment firm. Father’s Day weekend, she came home to visit her family with her roommate (I’ve been unable to find her name in any stories or reports) and after dinner on June 13th, she and her roommate decided to cruise around town.

During the drive, Barbara supposedly confided in her roommate that she was thinking about breaking up with the guy she was currently dating, Jeff Dolinich, in order to get back together with a former flame. Some time around 1:30 am, while they were still driving around Hibbing, they saw Jeff and he approached the roommate’s car, asking to speak with Barbara. They pulled over, Barbara got out of the roommate’s car, left with Jeff in a 1964 green Oldsmobile that belonged to his father, and was never seen again.

Reports of what happened between 1:30 am and that next afternoon when the police got involved seem spotty, but what appears is that the Oldsmobile was spotted south of Hibbing on Highway 73, parked with the lights on sometime in the early morning hours (I can’t find a specific time listed anywhere). Later that day, Jeff’s parents called the Minneapolis police asking them to perform a welfare check on their son; for some reason they were distressed about his mental state (did he call them to confess? How did they know anything had happened?). Apparently, he fled from the police when they arrived (guilty much?), but was caught and returned to his apartment where they interviewed him. He relayed to the police that he and Barbara had a fight and he remembered hitting her *one time* and that he knew she was dead, however he was unable to tell them where this occurred or where he had left her. Clothing belonging to him was seen in his apartment by officers caked with grass and mud and Barbara’s purse was found in the Oldsmobile with a broken strap. Various reports from newspapers and people who worked the case said that he claimed he drank too much and blacked out – not knowing what happened from the time he and Barbara got out of the car after a fight until he “woke up” in Mora, MN, which is a couple of hours south of Hibbing. However, despite being so drunk he supposedly blacked out, he successfully drove several hours in a very dark, isolated part of the United States without any damage to his vehicle. He also hadn’t blacked out when he remembered hitting her and being so sure that she died, so there should be no reason for him not to have remembered where that took place – a road, a landmark, anything.

Newspaper articles printed a week later mentioned that both ground and helicopter searches were unable to find any traces of her, though the red dress and rust colored jacket she was last seen in should have stood out in the middle of summer if she was above ground. The paper also mentioned the police looked in Dupont (Carey) Lake, located east of Hibbing, which could be based on Jeff’s family owning property near there, even though it had been (supposedly) abandoned by Barbara’s disappearance. Within a week of Barbara going missing, Jeff had checked into a mental hospital and later wrote a letter to Barbara’s parents saying he thought she was deceased.

Side note: How shocking are things like that in current times? Writing a letter to her parents? He knows she’s gone, he was the last one with her before she was gone, he writes an actual letter to her family telling her these things, but isn’t charged with literally anything or compelled to help the investigation whatsoever?

A huge obstacle with her search came in that this part of Minnesota, even over fifty years later, is still generally undeveloped, wooded, and based on this Google Map, a lot of ground to cover. Groups of people would have had a difficult time making headway over 100 miles with endless opportunities to hide someone. Based on weather reports from nearby Duluth on that day, it didn’t appear to have rained, so if Jeff was indeed covered in mud, he probably would have been near somewhere with water.


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Between the two towns of Hibbing and Mora, there are several state parks, multiple lakes, ponds, and even a bog that show up on the map. The police didn’t take Jeff’s muddy clothing at the time and supposedly Jeff’s mother disposed of the pants. Clearly, in 2021, it’s extremely easy to note how many forensic mistakes were made at the time, let alone basic detective work, but cases weren’t tried without bodies or confessions back then, so there wasn’t a lot the police were able to do legally.

Despite Jeff being the last person to see her alive and admitting physical violence towards her, he was never formally charged with her murder. He was, however, named a suspect in the reopened cold case in 2005, but passed away in 2013 and had reportedly refused to help with the investigation. Tragically, Barbara’s parents and older sister also passed away, never finding out what happened to her.

My theory is that they were parked on 73 and Barbara broke up with him which caused an argument. Maybe he hit her in the car and then had a rage blackout? She grabbed her purse and tried to leave but he either grabbed her or the purse, causing the strap to break. Maybe she was able to get out of the car and he followed and killed her? No blood in the car that was found so she could have been dumped where they were stopped or put in the trunk; if you google a ’64 Oldsmobile, the trunks are enormous. I have a hard time thinking he just put her back in the cab of the vehicle, even that late at night. I cannot fathom why, if he had nothing to do with her death, why he wouldn’t help the police? Even when he was dying? Obvious signs of a controlling narcissist who couldn’t let her rest in peace, even after he was gone.

I dug into a little information about him through genealogy websites and found out that a couple of years after Barbara went missing, he married another woman and that marriage ended in divorce in 1977. I’m curious if something happened – was he violent towards her as well for the marriage to be over within 5 years? Did he ever confess to her what happened? Also, why the hell would you marry a man who dated a woman who “WENT MISSING.”

Different times, the 70s.

For more information about Barbara or to send tips to the police, visit her page on the Charley Project.

Movies

Paranormal Activity: Next of Kin

by laura

Alright, I’m a sucker for Paranormal Activity movies. There’s something very Silent Hill meets Ghost Adventures about these now never-ending films that is equally scary as shit and extremely stupid and I fall for it every single goddamn time. Not just because I keep waiting for them to actually show Tobi with an i, not with a y, but because I genuinely get scared from found footage movies. I stopped holding drinks in my hand while watching this genre for the very reason that lots of good shirts have been doused with wine from jump scares.

And it’s not that I’m necessarily a believer of the supernatural; I’ve done the Bloody Mary thing in the mirror with my cousin once when we were kids and nothing happened. However, I never did it after I saw Candyman, because WHO WOULD DO THAT FOR THE LOVE OF GOD.

I digress.

So when I heard sometime over this past summer that a new one of these Paranormal Activities was churning out, I was interested. This past weekend, I watched it and have a lot of opinions about it so let’s rip right into it-

Maybe I missed the very beginning, but what is the set up of the supposed found footage? WHO FOUND IT SO THAT WE ARE NOW WATCHING IT? The entirety of Paranormal Activity being fucking scary is that everything is happening first person or we’re watching it happen to people with a camera set up in the room like a low budget porn shoot that we’re voyeuring (which is also equally scary).

Two main problems with this movie from the start is that while they were doing the hand held camera thing, there was also some mysterious other camera filming things happening to the people. So is this a regular filmed movie or found footage? Make up your fucking mind!!

The main plot is that a young woman, named Margot, who was deserted as a baby, did the whole 23&Me thing and found a “close relation” named Samuel (cousin? brother? uncle? Who the fuck is this guy?) and he wants to connect her back to her biological family. She, along with friend Chris, and a hired sound guy named Dale meet up with Samuel and he takes them on a long drive to East Jesus Nowhere Covered in Snow and we assume that this family is Amish based on their clothing and lack of general technology. Her biological grandfather, Jacob, although initially reluctant, invites them to stay.

For some reason, even though they’re probably Amish, they’re totally cool with a documentary style crew with cameras and boom mikes moving in a for a few days so that Margot can learn about them. They’re also one hundred percent ok with Margot sleeping in the same room as Chris and Dale for the stay and are unbothered by Outlanders invading their general space while they’re working. Margot finds out that her mother, Sarah, got pregnant by some local yocal and RUNNOFTS with her (as a newborn) to escape her lame farm life and to avoid giving up her baby for adoption…even though she immediately went and dropped her off at a hospital.

~Somehow during this time their car battery dies stranding them until apparently forever at the farm.~

Obviously, weird random things start occurring almost immediately:

  • The Doc Crew sees a group of red lights (candles? warning lights?) going into the woods late at night, which is explained away by Samuel next morning as a raid party looking for bears who killed livestock. Huh. Totally plausible.
  • They hear noises in the attic over their room, though the door to the attic is locked tight. Could be mice, but is probably Tobi, who is fond of late night vexing.
  • They chat with some kids around the community and one little girl mentions that Sarah is “still there” even though she’s spoken of like she’s dead.
  • While filming dinner being prepared one night, an old lady peeling potatoes starts casually peeling her own hand and the camera cuts away. This is never mentioned again in the entire movie.
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Margot wakes up one night and turns the camera on to film the sounds coming from the attic. Getting up to investigate, because of course she does, she finds the door to the attic open, because of course it is, and decides to go on a self guided tour to investigate, Zak Bagans style. It’s your normally eerie attic bedroom with letters that Margot’s mom apparently wrote and left and no one ever cleaned up. She hears someone coming so instead of revealing herself, she hides under the bed and Jacob comes up and looks around, then heads back down and LOCKS THE FUCKING DOOR behind him, after probably wondering how and why it was open in the first place. While Margot is trying to figure out how the fuck she’s going to get out, a ghostly apparition appears behind her as seen in a window reflection to probably ask why the fuck she’s snooping and stealing letters in the middle of the night and then disappears as fast as my interest in this plot. Upon spinning around and seeing literally no one, she opens the window and apparently manages to get down the tin roof in the fucking snow in the middle of the night and get back to her bedroom unscathed. (None of this was filmed or mentioned again later)

The next morning, Chris is flying a drone around the property, which is also totally cool and not intrusive in any way with these probably Amish people and sees a murdery looking church back in the woods where the livestock killing bears live, so he and Margot decide to venture out to take a look at it. Without any guns or back up. The dark and ominous church set in a field in Northern East Jesus Nowhere Covered in Snow has a giant fucking bar across the giant fucking locked doors, yet they still try to get in. Luckily, Jacob sneaks up on them and tells them in a kindly Logan Roy way to fuck way off from the church and to never, ever, ever, EVER go in.

(Can’t wait for them to go in)

That night, Margot and Chris sneak out of the house which has no security or locks whatsoever to watch a baby two headed goat sacrifice in the barn. Samuel explains it the next morning that they can’t take care of a two headed goat, which makes sense, but also why did 10 people need to be there for it? Seems sus.

Obviously, the next day the two head back to the church because what’s more fun than breaking and entering?? They snoop around and Chris realizes that under the alter, there’s a giant blown out ass looking hole going down extremely too far into the ground. Margot decides she’s going down the (ass)hole because biologically she’s just as crazy and creepy as her kin and harnesses up to get slowly let down with her camera. It’s only when she gets all the fuck way to the bottom that she starts having second thoughts and hears some noise (probably a livestock killing bear) and gets hauled back up.

The next day, because this movie is never going to fucking end, Margot has almost run out of places to nose around, so she checks out Jacob’s room and finds a hidden closet with a fucking computer. With Wifi. In East Jesus Nowhere Covered in Snow. Since the security at this farm is atrocious, she is able to sign in immediately and find emails between Jacob and Samuel clueing her in that they’ve known about her for years and have been stalking her. That night, she wakes up to find their bedroom door open and before she goes to check it out, her roommates won’t wake up, even though she’s shaking them like an airline passenger who won’t get a hold of herself. After about 5 seconds of trying and failing to wake them, she goes it alone and gets snatched by an unseen entity in a very Katie / Micah way and then proceeds to get pulled up towards the ceiling where the camera cuts out.

Huh. So…were Chris and Dale drugged? Was it some sort of sleep spell? Were they just tired of this repetitive plotline and checked out? Who hasn’t pretended to be dead when their friend tries to wake them up for some bullshit?

Also who edited this?? How long was she on the ceiling? How did she get down?

The next morning, Margot gets what is described as a “bad menstrual cycle” by the local probably Amish doctor, which we’ve all had at some point, but somehow she manages to not only bleed all over the white sheets (goddamn those periods from hell), but on the fucking ceiling. No one finds this strange.

After bleeding out an entire livestock killed by bear’s worth, she finally fucking decides they need to leave so Chris and Dale venture to town to FINALLY GET A GODDAMN CAR BATTERY, but obviously leave Margot because what’s the worst that could happen? They hitch a ride with the neighborly postman who mentions casually that those people are definitely not Amish.

While at what I’m assuming is the local Dollar General to buy a car battery, because what else is out there, they borrow a computer and google creepy farms in probably Pennsylvania and come to the conclusion that they’ve got to be devil worshippers.

Oh, fuck, they left Margot there.

Maybe they should go back for her?

Somehow they get back to the farm and Dale begins to install the new battery. Chris goes to get Margot from the house and discovers (dramatic pause) she’s missing. Since she’s probably (obviously) in the dark and ominous church, he heads through a fucking blizzard that’s started randomly to go retrieve her and her explosive period. However, when he arrives at the D&O church, he discovers Jacob, who is guarding the (ass)hole, and has to fight him in order to descend into the crevasse.

Now it starts to get a little bananas.

Down in The Underground, Chris finds Margot seemingly unconscious laid out like mostly dead Snow White with an old lady muttering Amish demonic (?) phrases over her because they clearly intend to use her for some Satanic ritual, but couldn’t do it in the actual D&O church – they needed to go like 100ft under the damn thing. For plain people they sure do go to a lot of troubles. Also, how did they get her underground when she was unconscious? Is there a separate entrance? How did the old lady get down there?

Chris throws the old bitch away, cause obviously, but instead of fighting back she starts freaking out about salt. OHHHHH, ok, so now we’re trying to keep a demon contained (which I learned about back in the 90s from the good writers of BTVS). He wakes Margot, who is now fine and not pmsing in any way, and they take off, but not before some unearthly creature shrieks in the background. The camera pans and what appears to be a female Gollum is chained up in the corner of The Underground.

As Chris and Margot escape back to the (ass)hole opening, the creature is also trying to escape or hug them, at this point no one knows. Dale is now magically waiting up in the church and starts hauling their asses, one at a time, up the tight squeeze. They manage to make it back up and out into the frenzied snow in the middle of the night with no lights to guide their way, but somehow the female Gollum has managed to get out, too, and straight up murders Dale.

Bye, Dale! They leave him immediately decide to hide in the barn and the creature sneaks in behind them because for something that’s been underground for who knows how long, it can see through blinding snow in the middle of the night. After a quick chase around the barn there is a semi reveal that The Thing From The Underground is actually Margot’s mom, Sarah. Why is she a demon thing now? How did she get back to the farm from escaping into the real world? No questions are answered, but Margot manages to throw the mom creature down onto some spikey farm appliance that was obviously put there for this very reason and it dies after being impaled. I mean, I guess it dies. We don’t visit it anymore after that.

Chris and Margot keep it moving, even though Margot just murdered her bio mom after finding out she was some undead monster being kept hostage in a bunker who was trying to possess or hug her (we have no idea), and they have no real issues making it back to the truck, even though now all of the entire farm is on fire, people are walking around with no eyes, the livestock is all dead (GODDAMN BEARS!), and everything is essentially chaos. They get in the truck and realize they don’t have the keys; DALE DOES.

Womp, womp.

So…

Back out to the woods, make it back to Dead Dale successfully, grab the keys, back to the truck, etc.

Did they just need an extra 5minutes of film? What the fuck was the point of that?

Back to the truck (again) anddddd it doesn’t start. Of course. As the crazies start attacking the truck, it finally fucking cranks and they blast out of there and on to the road, as expected in a movie that cares so little about an actual fucking plot.

Some time later in the evening, the police eventually show up to the farm, though, I’m not sure how they were alerted. Did the neighbors call? Did Chris and Margot make it to the station? However, the police are immediately fucked; a shirtless (?), possessed Samuel entices them to shoot themselves and then he steals a police car and takes off down the road.

Wait? What? How did Samuel get possessed? What happened to his shirt? Why is he the only one still alive? I thought they wanted a woman? ALSO, HOW IS HE RELATED TO MARGOT?

Overall Grade: D+

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