End Credits - July 17, 2019 (Midsommar)

This week on End Credits, we're going for a kind of scary, maybe confusing, trip into the woods with Midsommar. Speaking of maybe scary, we're also going to talk about Momo the movie, the waning career of Woody Allen, and the issues with Dwayne Johnson's career choices. On top of that, we'll talk about the 20 years since another high-profile trip to the woods.

This Wednesday, July 17, at 2 pm, Adam A. Donaldson and Vince Masson will discuss:

Rock Direction. Dwayne Johnson is one of the world's biggest movie stars, but he's bizarrely loyal to a few directors who seem to not really do his talent any justice. As the AV Club pointed out, Johnson needs better directors, but does he really want to expand on his craft so much as continue to be a global brand, especially with all his success?

Allen Wrench. Last week, we talked about the pending retirement of Quentin Tarantino, and while he's thinking about leaving the movie business, Woody Allen is talking about re-upping. He'll die on a movie set, he says, and that's despite the fact that he's having to self-release his own movie after years of persistent #MeToo style allegations. So Woody, retirement?

Momopoly. Momo may not have been driving kids to suicide, but the creepy internet meme is about to become a movie star, not bad for something that started out as an art piece in Tokyo. Still, we have to ask the question, can internet memes be transferred to movie characters? It didn't work for Slender Man, or The Bye Bye Man, so what chance is there for Momo?

Blair House. It's been 20 years since The Blair Witch Project opened in theatres everywhere. At the dawn of the internet, you could sell a found footage movie as a potentially salvaged documentary about three missing hikers, so it's easy to see how the phenomenon was born. We'll look back at the chilly legacy of the Blair Witch.

REVIEW: Midsommar (2019). Ari Aster made a splash last year with Hereditary, and he looks to be exploring even more controversial ground in Midsommar. It's a horror movie without any jumpscares, it's a drama but with an underline and building sense of tension, and it's also, occasionally, blatantly funny. How do you make heads or tales of a movie like this? And do you even want to sit through what may be the worst movie vacation to Europe since Hostel?

End Credits is on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca Wednesday at 2 pm.