JT Mollner
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Filmography
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A scene in which two people are talking in a car, a moment akin to the downtime in Breathless (1960), is bathed in the blue light of a motel sign that emphasizes the calm before a coming storm, and eases us into a moment of security amidst impending dread.
In a scene that pays homage to Steven Spielberg’s classic television film Duel (1971), Gallner’s demon bears down on Fitzgerald’s character in her tiny red Pinto with his gigantic dark pickup truck.
It’s a tightly-edited affair, with precise and specific shot choices mixed with a manic tone that reminds one of the “Night Rider” opening to 1979’s Mad Max.
The Hateful Eight (2015)
Directed by Quentin Tarantino
influenced Outlaws and Angels (2016)
Themes Visuals Plot Dialogue
Not unlike “The Hateful Eight,” “Outlaws & Angels” is a Grand Guignol nod to spaghetti Westerns that soon abandons the great outdoors for one equally bloody interior location.
The sensibility is more grindhouse gore than spaghetti western, perhaps hoping to mine the same vein as Quentin Tarantino’s “ The Hateful Eight ,” but lacking Mr. Tarantino’s lively dialogue and wicked sense of humor.
Quentin Tarantino’s “The Hateful Eight” took a low-budget B-western premise and staged it like an expensive old-time Hollywood epic.
The premise naturally evokes Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight, particularly when it comes to the outlaws, however light their presence may be.
If you found yourself wishing The Hateful Eight would quit its circuitous gabbing and get to the point already, this is the knife-twisting oater for you.
Though comparisons to Quentin Tarantino's 2015 The Hateful Eight are inevitable, especially given Mollner's anti-intuitive decision to largely foreswear big sky and open landscapes for the claustrophobic confines of the Tildon cabin, he's clearly going back to the source: It can hardly be a coincidence that one of the outlaws hisses a paraphrase of the title God Forgives...
Strange Darling wastes no time getting to the action, as the credits lead into a thrilling chase scene that is reminiscent of Death Proof (2007), with a black, roaring F-150 racing to catch a little orange Pinto and its bloodied driver.
She is simply possessed with some mysterious, unbridled spirit in this film that channels Alex Essoe in Starry Eyes and a cornered Juliette Lewis in Natural Born Killers.
It's the unchronological aspect, which feels ported over from "Pulp Fiction" and all the countless Tarantino clones that popped-up in the wake of that film (anyone remember "2 Days in the Valley"?
Quentin Tarantino made the nonlinear story format popular with Pulp Fiction.
“Strange Darling” can do straightforward brutality with the best of them. And yet, throughout the film, the actors’ playful portrayal — dipping in and out of an ever-shifting dynamic that seems too complicated to write down, let alone embody — recalls something like Mia Goth’s dazzling performance in “Pearl.” Fitzgerald tests her endurance in some delicately drawn-out one-shots, while Gallner makes his bid for small-time scream king armed with a shotgun and an assuredness that feels like its own assault.
There are plenty of movies that have covered this ground in cleverer ways such as “Audition” (1999), “All the Boys Love Mandy Lane” (2013), “Siren” (2018), “X” (2022), “Pearl” (2022), “Titane” (2021).
But it’s also proof that actor Giovanni Ribisi has been hiding out as one of Hollywood’s greatest living cinematographers — a fact laid to bare in some of the most beautiful murders this side of Dario Argento’s “Deep Red.”
Breaking up the story into chapters is slightly derivative of the literary storytelling that made Tarantino’s filmography so distinct.
For whatever other Westerns may have also inspired “Outlaws & Angels” ( Frances Fisher of “ Unforgiven ” makes a brief cameo), Mollner’s contribution always comes back to its core Tarantino influence—even the film's allegiance to Kodak film stock makes its blood-bursting action directly echo the albeit smaller-scale violence of "Django Unchained."
Strange Darling shares DNA with films like Coralie Fargeat’s hard-as-nails Revenge, a film that reclaims the rancid “rape-and-revenge” sub-genre by subverting its exploitative gaze.
After a while of simply running for her life, she brings out a cool sense of charisma that makes her such a fascinating entity to watch, which is in its own way similar to Jessica Rothe's own breakout performance in the Happy Death Day movies, though Fitzgerald here has arguably less comedic material at her disposal.
Gallner switches easily between seemingly gentle, ominous and downright maniacal, in one particularly memorable scene venturing somewhere into the territory of Panos Cosmatos’ Mandy.
There are plenty of movies that have covered this ground in cleverer ways such as “Audition” (1999), “All the Boys Love Mandy Lane” (2013), “Siren” (2018), “X” (2022), “Pearl” (2022), “Titane” (2021).
…one of the more impressive low budget, early forays from a filmmaker since 2024’s Strange Darling.
Reminiscent of last year’s sleeper indie hit Strange Darling, this non-linear, subversive storytelling approach scatters clues like breadcrumbs…
Much like Strange Darling (2023), Mollner’s writing isn’t forced or stiff and he has an ear for how conversations begin and end.
JT Mollner, fresh off the indie buzz of last year’s “Strange Darling,”…
…screenwriter JT Mollner (writer/director of last year’s addictively twisted cast-and-mouse “Strange Darling“)…
King and screenwriter JT Mollner, who previously made last year’s Strange Darling, make this both hard to watch and an experience you can’t look away from.
Screenwriter JT Mollner (responsible for ace serial-killer flick Strange Darling)…
…while Mollner gained attention for his psychological thriller film, Strange Darling, last year…
Helping matters is that it looks sensational, thanks to 35mm photography captured by Giovanni Ribisi (yes, that one; the Avatar star has turned cinematographer). From hazy, sun-dappled forests to neon-soaked interiors of cars, the visuals are varied, impressive and help give the film the vibe of a dark fairy tale.
However, perhaps the biggest name — and strangest, if you will — draw for Strange Darling is that it is the feature debut of Giovanni Ribisi as director of photography. Yes, that Giovanni Ribisi, the actor from Avatar and Lost in Translation.
Then you have first time director of photography, Giovanni Ribisi (you may know him as an actor from James Cameron’s Avatar), who knocks it out of the park and makes this film stunning to look at.