Eugene Kotlyarenko
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Filmography
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Connections, in both directions
By contrast, Kurt is a nihilistic extreme to Travis Bickle’s awakened right-winger in Taxi Driver .
Many have tried—like Joker, Cuck, and other attempts at making a modern-day, social-media-era answer Taxi Driver—but most have failed.
If by magic, time travel machine, or thought experiment, Hobbes found himself in the 21st century, sat down in a pre-pandemic movie theater or fired up his laptop (MacBook Pro, most likely), he’d describe co-writer and director Eugene Kotlyarenko’s (Wobble Palace, A Wonderful Cloud, Feast of Burden) Spree, a nasty, brutish, short (but not short enough), surface-deep satire of social media and its white-male discontents (American Psycho by way of Taxi Driver).
Kotlyarenko‘s eye for the scathing critique of this cesspool of young adults who thrive on viewers and likes is razor-sharp (clearly drawing influence from films such as Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver and Dan Gilroy’s Nightcrawler ), and his witty script adds to the immersion in this darkly funny horror-comedy.
Essentially a gig economy version of "Taxi Driver" and "The King of Comedy," the film stars "Stranger Things" co-star Joe Keery is Kurt Kunkle, an overly affable dweeb who has been trying to make his mark as a Internet influencer for well over a decade but still cannot muster any audience for his videos or livestreams.
“Spree” aims to be a “Taxi Driver” for the modern age, and though it comes off as more an exploitative symptom of the disease than a cautionary commentary on it, you have to be impressed by its flamboyance even while deploring it.
As a whole, Spree really feels like it’s trying to be American Psycho for the Generation Y age.
If by magic, time travel machine, or thought experiment, Hobbes found himself in the 21st century, sat down in a pre-pandemic movie theater or fired up his laptop (MacBook Pro, most likely), he’d describe co-writer and director Eugene Kotlyarenko’s (Wobble Palace, A Wonderful Cloud, Feast of Burden) Spree, a nasty, brutish, short (but not short enough), surface-deep satire of social media and its white-male discontents (American Psycho by way of Taxi Driver).
It’s an incredibly unique setup for a film that essentially feels like a modern-day American Psycho , if Patrick Bateman was a clout-thirsty twenty-something who live-streamed every one of his murders for the world to see.
On the opposite end of the spectrum we find the dizzying and unnerving and kinetic and deeply disturbing “Spree,” which plays like a social media version of “American Psycho” with bloody sprinklings of “Taxi Driver,” “The King of Comedy” and “Joker” on the side.
The film is pitched between a “screenlife” movie like “Unfriended” or “Searching” and a small but mighty canon of emerging dark comedies about “extremely online” sociopaths that includes “Ingrid Goes West” and “Assassination Nation.”
Whereas 2017’s dark comedy Ingrid Goes West is an uncomfortable look at stalker behavior and mental illness, Spree is all of that amplified by 100%.
In terms of movies with this obsessive social media culture commentary, Spree does for male White incels what Ingrid Goes West did for beauty fake-glam girls so… take that as you may.
" Ingrid Goes West " had real bite, and its critique of "influencers" (and those who emulate influencers) was ruthless.
Essentially a gig economy version of "Taxi Driver" and "The King of Comedy," the film stars "Stranger Things" co-star Joe Keery is Kurt Kunkle, an overly affable dweeb who has been trying to make his mark as a Internet influencer for well over a decade but still cannot muster any audience for his videos or livestreams.
On the opposite end of the spectrum we find the dizzying and unnerving and kinetic and deeply disturbing “Spree,” which plays like a social media version of “American Psycho” with bloody sprinklings of “Taxi Driver,” “The King of Comedy” and “Joker” on the side.
If it bleeds, it leads, as they say, and so in “Nightcrawler” fashion, Kurt sets out to blow up his feed by killing people, live on camera, while driving for Spree, a platform that’s basically the same as Uber or Lyft, but with a built-in social-media component thanks to its “Spree Social” option.
The film’s saving grace is Keery, who balances charm, inane insights (“ABC — Always Be Charging”), psychotic undercurrents and an upbeat hucksterism that calls to mind Jake Gyllenhaal’s Louis Bloom in Nightcrawler .
Kotlyarenko‘s eye for the scathing critique of this cesspool of young adults who thrive on viewers and likes is razor-sharp (clearly drawing influence from films such as Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver and Dan Gilroy’s Nightcrawler ), and his witty script adds to the immersion in this darkly funny horror-comedy.
Spree has a lot in common with Todd Phillips’ Joker , which was also about a misunderstood man who just wanted to be famous and ended up achieving notoriety via violence instead.
Spree, a Sundance debut that's coming out Friday on VOD and in a smattering of theaters, is the film that the biggest fans of Todd Phillips' Joker think Joker was.
It didn’t seem like there was a large portion of the movie-going population who felt that Todd Phillips’ “Joker” was too subtle, in either its commentary on the modern era of those who are involuntarily celibate, or its homage-like appropriation of classic Martin Scorsese movies.
Moralism is an unpopular word, but the film’s moralism is not one of final judgment, but as a critique of our values, also exemplified in past classics like Network , Ace in the Hole , and Dr. Strangelove .
Shot and edited in a similar format to 2018’s Searching , where the story is told through technology only, Spree is a visual whirlwind of desperation.
“Unfriended,” “Antisocial,” “Open Windows,” “Livescream,” “Friend Request,” the list is long and goes far beyond the biggest hit of the sub-genre, “Searching,” starring John Cho.
Split screens are used to show multiple social media streams in tandem, and often to dizzying, “Sliding Doors”-like effect.
This is especially glaring in light of the fact that it’s been less than two years since the release of Daniel Goldhaber’s Cam , a much more harrowing, nuanced and daring indictment of internet fame.
Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986)
Directed by John McNaughton
influenced Spree (2020)
Themes
If the recent, only fitfully effective Infamous was aiming to be the “Instagram age’s Bonnie and Clyde” then this wearisome misfire is busting a gut to become the Instagram age’s Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer.
Think of it as a modernized take on Natural Born Killers or Bonnie & Clyde, where fame is gained through murderous rampage, branded and live streamed to a willing audience just waiting to shoot you a “Like” or give you a “Follow.”
He seems awkward and kind of sad, but more like Elsie Fisher’s Kayla from Eighth Grade, with her cringe-inducing makeup tutorials, than a would-be killer.
If the recent, only fitfully effective Infamous was aiming to be the “Instagram age’s Bonnie and Clyde” then this wearisome misfire is busting a gut to become the Instagram age’s Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer.
"Spree" is essentially a low-rent version of those Blumhouse exploitation films like "The Purge" and "The Hunt" that profess to serve as social commentary but which are ultimately only interested in spewing gore--the only thing remotely scary or unnerving about it is the thought that some deluded soul out there might actually think that it was saying something profound.