John Malkovich and Sam Rockwell remind us of America’s darkest era, when brown suits were “in”.
Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:
Since 1992 my hometown of Indianapolis has presented the Heartland International Film Festival, a multi-day, multi-theater celebration of cinema held every October. Local moviegoers have the opportunity to see over a hundred new works in the realms of documentaries, narrative features, shorts, and animation made across multiple continents from myriad points of the human experience. Heartland’s 35th edition runs October 7-18 and will be my fourth time diving in. I’ve made plans to catch at least six films in all, maybe more if time permits…
Next up: Wild Horse Nine, which premiered last month at the Venice Film Festival, the fifth feature from UK writer/director Martin McDonagh. I’ve seen all his previous films to date: In Bruges; Seven Psychopaths; Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri; and The Banshees of Inisherin (and even his 2004 Oscar-winning short Six Shooter). I would’ve shown up for this even if Heartland hadn’t chosen it as this year’s Centerpiece Screening. It’s another volatile mixture of McDonagh’s key ingredients — razor-sharp black comedy, gunshots, F-bombs, familiar faces from his previous films, and men in tight, non-romantic relationships sharing a life trajectory only to face harsh endurance tests while we watch to see who flinches first with bloodying results.
