Dylan and the Movies

#143: True Grit (2010)

2011-07-21T18:12:00.001-07:00

True Grit
Directed and written by Joel & Ethan Coen, based on the novel by Charles Portis
Released December 22, 2010

The brothers Coen have made their masterpiece of the "Western" film genre.

That masterpiece was No Country for Old Men.

Not to say that the Coen's "remake" of True Grit (their interpretation is supposedly based far more on the novel than on the film that earned John Wayne his first Oscar) isn't a good film; on the contrary, it is quite good. It's full of great performances and beautifully shot by director of photography Roger Deakins, whom I've lauded in these "pages" before as the shooter of such gorgeous and varied films as The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, The Big Lebowski, Jarhead, Sid and Nancy and more.

I am absolutely NOT panning True Grit. For lovers of Westerns, I definitely recommend it as a unique and nuanced take on the genre. I have no loyalty to the John Wayne version since I've never seen it, but the Coen's take is darkly humorous and even touching, especially in its final 15 minutes.

Jeff Bridges and Matt Damon are great. The real scene stealing comes from newcomer Hailee Steinfeld, who shows confidence beyond her years as Mattie Ross, a young girl seeking justice for the murder of her father at the hands of Tom Chaney, played by an underused Josh Brolin. One of my biggest problems with the film is that once Brolin's character finally appears, he's too buffoonish and cartoonish to create any sort of dangerous or ominous vibe. He's basically Wile E. Coyote with a funny voice.

(Speaking of funny voices, this entire film plays out like the Affected Voice Olympics.)

Chaney is part of a larger gang, lead by the underrated -- and almost unrecognizable -- Barry Pepper. I hate to say it, especially as a big Brolin fan, but the movie would have been served better by making Pepper the sole heavy. Brolin's Chaney is so comical and inept that he deflates the proceedings when he finally does appear.

I guess it's just far too easy for me these days to feel conflicted about a Coen Brothers movie. I put the men who have made some of my favorite films (Fargo, Raising Arizona, Miller's Crossing, The Big Lebowski) on a pedestal and I think it's a bit unfair of me to keep expecting a new all-time favorite every time they come out of the gates.

But, then again, isn't it okay to not always be wowed by the people you consider your favorites? I have no love lost for Wilco, but I have to be honest when I say their last couple of albums have been patchy. Sometimes your kid draws something that you don't feel like putting up on your refrigerator. It's okay.

For more on True Grit:
- Movie information at IMDB
and Wikipedia.
- The high-def trailer at YouTube.

#142: Super 8

2011-06-17T22:30:00.000-07:00

Super 8
Written and Directed by J.J. Abrams
Released June 10, 2011

(Maybe I'm back. Maybe this is an anomaly. I don't know yet. Let's just pretend I haven't been gone for 2 years, shall we?)

Despite the flaws, despite the plot holes and occasional leaps in logic, despite ALL THE GODDAMN LENS FLARES, J.J. Abrams has made one hell of an entertaining, fun summer blockbuster with Super 8.

Believe me when I say I'm not an Abrams fanboy in the least. As a storyteller, he is constantly coming up short and leaving far more questions than answers. Some people find that charming; I do not. Let's just say I'm thrilled I didn't invest 6 years of my life watching Lost only to be given that odd, sometimes awful final season. Don't even get me started on some of the ridiculous leaps he gets away with in Star Trek (really, Kirk gets stranded on a random planet and runs into Future Spock literally within the first minute he arrives, and then Scotty a few minutes after that?), a film I really enjoyed. DESPITE ALL THE FUCKING LENS FLARES.

As a writer, all I have to say is: dude wrote Armageddon. Good god. And Regarding Henry. And Gone Fishin'!

Quite frankly, I'm not sure where the guy would be if he hadn't made one incredibly important friend early on in his career. Super 8 is a fairly obvious love letter to that friend, Steven Spielberg, who just so happened to be the film's producer.

Super 8 is Abrams' first fully original film (he previously directed the aforementioned Star Trek reboot and one of the Mission Impossible sequels), but he gets a lot -- and I mean a LOT -- of help by throwing together elements of The Thing, Alien and Spielberg's own Jaws, E.T. and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Hey, if you're gonna make a summer action/sci-fi blockbuster, these are all classic and successful predecessors.

Abrams exhibits one incredibly important trait to make a movie of this type to work: knowing how to pace your movie. He does a fantastic job here balancing action and exposition. Going too far in either direction can easily make your movie boring, and it's an art knowing how to keep your audience on the edge of their collective seat while keeping them from checking their watch or their iPhone. In the theater I was in, people were absolutely invested in the movie. When one of the movies many jarring scares happened, people were shooting back in their seats or kicking their legs in the air and laughing afterwards, embarrassed to finally be in a theater experiencing what a movie is supposed to make you experience.

Part of that audience investment comes in the nostalgia inherent in the setting. By bringing the story back to 1979 (a news broadcast mentions the nuclear meltdown at Three Mile Island), he takes the majority of his audience back their childhood. Remember not having a cell phone? Remember riding a bicycle, or being able to sneak around at night with your friends? The other part of the investment comes with having a great cast, and Super 8 has a handful of fairly extraordinary child actors without whom the film just would not work.

Look, I know I'm rusty at this blogging thing and it has literally been years since I've "reviewed" a movie. The only thing I really want to articulate is that Super 8 is a blast. I know there are plot holes and inconsistencies. I know that in many ways it's derivative (it's an homage, people, how can it not be derivative in some ways?).

I also know that if I were 12 years old and my parents took me to see this movie, it would have sparked my imagination in the same way that E.T. or Raiders of the Lost Ark did so many years ago. It's not going to win Best Picture, but Super 8 might be the best Summer movie we've had in a long time. Stop being cynical and old, suspend a little disbelief, and try to have a good time.

Just try to pay no mind to ALL THOSE STUPID LENS FLARES.

For more on Super 8:
- Movie information at IMDB.
- The trailer can be found here.

Eleven Favorites From 2009

2009-12-18T01:14:00.000-08:00

In no particular order, here is a listing of the best movies, released in 2009, that I saw in the theater. As is typical with most years, I missed a lot of potentially great movies in the theater that I intend to catch at home . This list is in no way comprehensive and has not been pared down from dozens/hundreds of movies. I'd love to make another list of the great movies I'd watched at home or in re-release at a few of my favorite arthouse theaters (like Rashomon at Chicago's Music Box Theater), but there just isn't time right now.

For my own edification, and in no particular order:

The Hurt Locker: Expect director Kathryn Bigelow to win Best Director at the Oscars this year. I wouldn't be surprised if Jeremy Renner gets nominated or even wins Best Actor, as well. Taut, suspenseful and powerful. If this film had been in 3-D, it would have given you a stroke.

Fantastic Mr. Fox: Finally, a Wes Anderson movie that benefits from his overly fussy attention to details. Thoroughly enjoyable, with incredible animation, plus some career-best work from George Clooney, Meryl Streep, Jason Schwartzman... hell, every single person brought their "A" game to this. I haven't cackled louder in a theater this year -- and I literally cackled -- then when I was caught off guard by, "You wrote a bad song, Petey!" scene.

Coraline: Just a total head trip (in 3-D, no less). Granted, I was a bit inebriated and couldn't recall for you the plot if you put a gun to my head, but between this and Mr. Fox, a massive case was made this year for the return to stop motion or non-computerized animation. Plus, how can you go wrong with Ian McShane and John Hodgman?

I Love You, Man: They can't all be the Sistine Chapel, and I'm not the kind of dude who is going to pretend that I only admire films as art. I mean, I've watched The North Shore over 15 times, man! I Love You, Man was a sweet, funny and dare I say touching homage to the bromance. This wouldn't have worked without the genius cast, down to even Lou Ferrigno as himself. Ladies, please take note that all you really need to keep a man happy is allow him his own man cave.

Adventureland: I had mixed emotions about this film, and still think it only works on about a 70% success level. For example, I don't buy for a minute Kristen Stewart falling for Jesse "the poor man's Michael Cera" Eisenberg (nor do I buy for a minute the Lisa P. character wanting to go out with him). Part of the roadblock for me was my own hope that the comedy would be a little more zany, a little more funny, and less of a relationship movie. Still, it's a tender, surprising little movie that is much better than its advertising let on. Great soundtrack too, and not the kind of movie that seems like it's trying too hard to be cool (AHEM (500) Days of Summer).

Star Trek: Other than maybe enjoying the camp of the original TV series and the first two movies with the original cast, I have no real love for "Star Trek." I was actually prepared to hate this thing, but instead, the 2009 Trek flick kicked my ass. I have a newfound respect for Zachary Quinto, whom I find annoying on "Heroes," and I have a newfound crush on Zoe Saldana.

The Hangover: Overrated, for sure, it's still probably the one of the funniest movies of the year. Some of it just doesn't work, but the parts that do (like almost anything Ed Helms or Zach Galifinakis says) are insanely funny. Worth the price of admission just for the song Helms sings at the piano as the gang waits for the tiger to pass out.

Inglourious Basterds: Too talky and a bit long (is EVERY scene in this movie an interrogation?), it's still a hell of an engrossing film once you get past the fact that it's actually barely about the titular Basterds and their exploits. The ultimate Jewish revenge fantasy, with an ending that rewrites history with a massive twisted grin on its face. I do have to ask, how big of a pile of cocaine did Tarantino snort to think that the inclusion of David Bowie's "Cat People" made any goddamned sense at all?

Brüno: Watch it with your mom.

Lovely, Still: This tiny little flick may not actually see a wider release until next year, but I caught a sneak preview in Omaha, where it was made by a young filmmaker named Nik Fackler. There is a somewhat gimmicky twist that I won't spoil here, and the film walks a fine line of good and bad taste because of this twist, but its heart is so obviously in the right place that you can trust Fackler's intentions were not to exploit this character's weakness in making this bittersweet love story. Without the delicate, touching work from Martin Landau and Ellen Burstyn (who has a wordless scene in a hospital that is especially powerful and clinches the entire picture), I'm not sure how well things would have worked. Fackler's direction is staggeringly confident, especially for someone not only his age but also making his directorial debut. The most interesting and somewhat daring element of Lovely, Still is the fact that, until you learn the twist, it seems like it's sloppily constructed and amateurish as far as plot is concerned. Once the pieces fit into place, you realize that Fackler was brave enough to make the movie seem this way to help pull off this bit of storytelling. Whether you wind up feeling manipulated or surprised, you really have to ask yourself, "Is this better than MY first movie?" What's that? You didn't make a first movie? Thought so.

Soul Power: I suppose this is listed as a 2008 release in many places, but I saw it in '09 and that's good enough for me. A loose documentary about the Zaire 74 music festival, which was to coincide with the legendary Ali/Foreman fight documented in the incredible film When We Were Kings, Soul Power is a fun, infectious collection of performances from James Brown, B.B. King, The Spinners, Bill Withers, Celia Cruz and more. Featuring an absolutely chilling performance by Withers (that still gives me goosebumps when I think about it), a surprisingly super-funky runthrough of "The Thrill is Gone" by King, and an electric showing of James Brown and one of the all-time best outfits ever worn by the Godfather of Soul, it's like The Last Waltz with afros.

#141: Black Sheep

2009-10-23T01:07:00.001-07:00

Black Sheep
Written and Directed by Jonathan King
Released March 29, 2007 (New Zealand)

Want to hear four words that can get me to automatically rent a movie, sight unseen? How about "Genetically engineered killer sheep?"

Still, as slapped my money down at the rental counter for the New Zealand-made Killer Sheep, I tried my best to keep my expectations at bay. I remembered seeing a feverish preview of this film floating around online a few years back that made Black Sheep look like an insane bit of Sam Raimi-esque, Evil Dead meets Peter Jackson's Dead Alive craziness.

And for a brief moment, that's what you get. After an extended prologue that sets up the relationship between the young versions of our protagonist Henry and his evil brother Angus, along with the establishing the roots of Henry's fear of sheep, we meet the adult Henry upon his return to the family farm. Returning to wrap up some unfinished business with his brother, Henry cannot wait to leave his past behind.

Meanwhile, his brother is up to no good, having turned the family farm into an experimental genetics lab that has -- for reasons I can't seem to remember -- begun working on a mutated form of the seemingly harmless woolen animal.

This is a horror film... what do you think happens? If you guessed, "The sheep hits the fan," you're right.

Problem is, as batshit crazy as the premise sounds, the potential for insanity here is touched upon but never capitalized on the way you might want from a movie like this one. It's not that the film takes itself too seriously, though there is a danger of that, especially early on in the film where everything is played straight (save for the arrival of two completely annoying environmentalist hippies).

There's a scene right after the "outbreak" begins where a sheep pretty much goes all Toonces the Driving Cat, hilariously taking the wheel of a truck and plummeting to its death. I cheered inside, thinking that this was finally turning into the movie I wanted to see. Bring on the camp! Bring on the gore! Bring on the insanity!

Don't get me wrong, there's plenty here to crack up about. I just wanted more. I can't quite put my finger on it, but it felt like the comic timing was just a little... off. Perhaps there was too much exposition, or maybe there were too many long (and not all that funny) exchanges between Henry and Experience, the female environmentalist. Once that Toonces moment hit, Black Sheep should have just gone off the rails and never let up. As it stands now, there are just too many breaks in the action.

There's still plenty to be impressed about here, especially in the cinematography and special effects work. The movie looks and plays better than any movie with a plot like this probably should. One of writer/director Jonathan King's most impressive feats is how he manages to make something like a sheep slowly chewing grass, or a herd of sheep advancing over a hill, seem completely terrifying by not doing much more than letting his camera roll. The special effects (done through Peter Jackson's WETA Workshop) were equally impressive, and again almost done too well for a horror comedy.

Good but not great, Black Sheep does master one particular idea of successful entertainment: always leave your audience wanting more.

For more on Black Sheep:
- Movie information at IMDB and Wikipedia.
- Some pretty decent reviews at Rotten Tomatoes.

The aforementioned Toonces scene:

#138 - #140: October Horror Begins!

2009-10-07T18:06:00.000-07:00

Anyone who may have been following this blog last year might remember that October marked the most fruitful, challenging task I set for myself: reviewing one horror movie per day for the entire month.

Fortunately, this time around finds me in a loving relationship with a few better ways to spend that time every night than punishing my psyche sitting through soul crushing filth like Cannibal Holocaust. I am, however, also fortunate enough to have found a woman who appreciates a good horror movie... or at least appreciates my enthusiasm about horror movies enough to allow me to force her to sit through them.

So, tonight I'm posing a handful of brief reviews of movies recently viewed. While I obviously won't be putting myself through the ringer this month, I'll try to post reviews of as many movies as possible before the Trick or Treaters hit the pavement.

(Oh, and if you live in Chicago, please do me a favor and allow me to live vicariously through you if you happen to check out the 24 hour horror marathon going down at the Music Box Theater's "Music Box Massacre 5." Looks to be an amazing festival, and it all winds up with tonight's lead off movie...

#138: Carrie
Written by Lawrence D. Cohen (based on the novel by Stephen King)
Directed by Brian De Palma
Released November 3, 1976

Do I even need to give a plot synopsis here? I mean, if you're reading this column you had to have seen Carrie by now, right? If I had to sum it up in a single sentence, I guess I'd just say: "Don't fuck with the weird kid in school, because you never know when they might have psychotically triggered telekinetic powers."

While this wasn't the first time I'd seen Carrie, it was definitely the first time in at least a half dozen years. I'm happy to report that this classic Horror flick (mostly) stands the test of time. Sure, there are moments when the score sounds ridiculously dated, and sure, William Katt's hair is a singular monument to the indescribable excesses of 1970s awesomeness.

But man, once you get to that third act Prom Night scene? The build up of tension starting at the moment the titular Carrie (played by Sissy Spacek, who was rightfully nominated for an Oscar that she rightly lost to Faye Dunaway for her performance in Network that year) begins preparing for her date all the way through to her return home is almost unbearable. By the time Carrie steps out of those heavy gymnasium doors, I honestly felt relief. It helps, I must add, to have your television turned up loud for this sequence.

Carrie was the first Stephen King novel ever adapted to the screen, and it was also one of the most successful and well made. Director De Palma, who made a career out of aping Alfred Hitchcock, puts his own stamp on things here (or at least apes a director with less identifiable hallmarks).

I can't stress enough how much this entire movie falls on the shoulders of Spacek and, even more so, Piper Laurie (also nominated for an Oscar here) as her religious, overbearing and abusive mother. Had the relationship between these two stunk for a moment of inauthenticity or comedy, the entire film would come crumbling down. Picture a lesser actress doing those reaction shots where Carrie taps into her telekinetic powers; you'd be howling with laughter.

One caveat if you intend on watching this movie through Netflix's streaming service: they use the (inexcusable) fullscreen version of the movie, making the entire flick look like it was shot for TV. This effect is especially frustrating during the moments of split-screen violence in the Prom sequence, or the dance scene where the camera spins dizzyingly around Katt and Spacek.

Remember kids, unless you're watching on a 10" TV, ALWAYS GO WIDESCREEN.

#139: Zombieland
Written by Rhett Reese Paul Wernick
Directed by Ruben Fleischer
Released October 2, 2009

Getting a little too hyped for its own good lately, the Woody Harrelson action/comedy Zombieland is merely an okay horror movie, a better-than-average entry into the Zombie Horror subdivision with a few decent scares and a handful of laughs. Though inspired by Shaun of the Dead it reaches but can't hope to match the heights of that film's perfect balance of satire and unflinching violence.

Harrelson does an okay job as basically a redneck Natural Born (Zombie) Killer, though he is given some hard to stomach lines ("Nut up or shut up," comes to mind) and a somewhat annoying character motivation (finding the last Twinkie on Earth, though his explanation for this fixation at one point is actually acceptable). Jesse Eisenberg fares okay with his mannered Micheal Cera impersonation, and the first scene where his character lays out his Rules for Survival is amusing and fresh.

Zombieland is definitely entertaining, and those of you out there who may be less jaded or inundated with zombie lore might enjoy it even more than I. Director Ruben Fleischer comes up with some cool, memorable moments, especially in the hilarious opening credit sequence. Perhaps a little too stylized (we are reminded via onscreen text of Eisenberg's "rules" about two or three too many times), the film falters when trying to be poignant by finding the humanity among all the onscreen destruction. Problem is that the film establishes itself so early on as an anarchy-fueled amusement park ride that you just don't trust it when it tries to get your waterworks going.

HOWEVER, and this is a massive HOWEVER, there is a 10 minute segment of Zombieland featuring a brilliant cameo from one of my all time favorite comic actors, that elevates this flick from "okay, not bad" to "you have to check this shit out." Some sites out there have taken to spoiling the surprise, but trust me, even if you know the identity of the person, you won't be prepared for how batshit crazy this segment of the movie gets. Take what you want from the rest of Zombieland, but I defy you to keep your jaw from hitting the floor when you see what happens to this "character."

#140: Deadgirl
Written by Trent Haaga
Directed by Marcel Sarmiento and Gadi Harel
Released 2008

Gee, what a surprise that a movie directed by the same hands that made films like Operation Midnight Climax, in collaboration with a writer who normally acts in dreck like Tales From the Crapper, turns out to be absolute shit.

What's really surprising is just how abhorrent a film Deadgirl is, starting with the basic premise: two high school losers explore an abandoned mental hospital and find in its basement a naked female strapped down to a gurney. The two quickly realize after a few violent encounters that this woman cannot be killed. So, what do they do? Do they call the cops? Do they let her go?

Nope. No, in today's world of torture porn like Saw, they do what pretty much no human being on the face of this Earth would do (especially after discovering that this "woman" has a deadly bite): they decide to keep her as a sex slave. Imagine, if you will, that shudder-inducing scene in Kill Bill where we discover the disgusting abuse Uma Thurman's character suffers in her coma... then multiply that by at least a thousand.

I'm not trying to take moral high ground here (with a movie like this, it's really not hard to do). I love plenty of movies that, on the surface, are hard to explain from a morality standpoint. Hell, I'm a big fan of shows (and music) like "Metalocalypse," where sometimes millions of people are murdered as a punchline or a slapstick gag.

It's just that I don't understand why this movie was made at all. I mean, I get why something like George Romero's Dawn of the Dead exists as both a horror movie and an allegory for consumerism. People are constantly trying to re-adapt the symbolic or allegorical meaning behind zombies (though thankfully, the aforementioned Zombieland seems to not give a shit about double meanings).

But what's the allegory here? What's the greater meaning, and is it really a lesson that anyone with more than a lizard brain needs to learn? The even better question to be asking: what kind of person invests their money in something like this? I understand there's always that need in a Horror film to shock... to go to that place no one in the audience thought you'd go. This, though, this is something else. The level of misogyny on display here is utterly disgusting, especially since the "redeeming" character, who spends the whole movie fretting about going to jail, exhibits just a modicum less disdain for women than everyone else in the movie. I mean, at least he never stabs her, right?

Even despite these protestations, the movie still fails on the most basic levels. Lame dialogue, idiotic characters making unbelievable decisions and a pacing that is just too slow to even maintain suspense are all weaknesses. It could have been a provocative film with a better, smarter script. Instead, we get this irredeemable shit.

For more on tonight's films:
- Deadgirl at IMDB.
- Zombieland at IMDB and Wikipedia.
- Carrie at IMDB and Wikipedia.

#137: (500) Days of Summer

2009-08-19T23:13:00.000-07:00

(500) Days of Summer
Written by Scott Neustadter & Michael H. Weber
Directed by Mark Webb
Released September 7, 2009 (UK)

I'm sad to say that, considering my near love for lead actors Zooey Deschanel and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, (500) Days of Summer (I will be dispensing of the parenthetical after this mention) has turned out to be just a little less than the sum of its parts.

It's not that I don't appreciate the fact that director Mark Webb and writers Scott Neustadter and Mike Weber at least tried to bring us a love story (or, a story about love) in a fresh way. There are some really fantastic moments of whimsy, like an out-of-the-blue dance number set to a Hall & Oates song or a brief black & white homage to European cinema.

Unfortunately, these little scenes serve to highlight the fact that the filmmakers were capable of doing so much more, of having much more fun, of being so much more creative, than what we're left with for the rest of the movie. For every truly moving and interesting segment (like the split screen presentation of how Gordon-Levitt's Tom hopes a dinner party will turn out, juxtaposed against the images of how it actually turns out), there are pat, conventional ideas like the karaoke scenes or the not-so-clever observations about the sentiments behind greeting cards.

I read a review of this over at IMDB which said Days was "one hundred times more authentic than the usual romantic comedy fare churned out by Hollywood." Problem is, this isn't true. I just don't understand where this idea of authenticity is coming from. Is it because the soundtrack features The Smiths instead of Carrie Underwood? If you've seen the movie, think about that awful ending and try to tell yourself that it would seem out of place if Jennifer Aniston or Kate Hudson were the woman sitting on that couch.

Sometimes I worry the indie crowd is too easily swayed by something that, metaphorically, is wearing the same t-shirt that they wear. I have been in far too many heated arguments about why I think movies like Juno or Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist suck despite the fact that their characters may like what I like. (To put it more succinctly, if Juno was a kitten, I'd put it in a burlap sack and drown it in a fucking river.)

There's a line in the movie that, while directed at Gordon-Levitt's character and his seemingly instant affection for the titular Summer, perfectly sums up my feelings about these kinds of movies:

"Just because she's likes the same bizzaro crap you do doesn't mean she's your soul mate."

While I might appreciate the fact that I get to hear a montage set to the sounds of a Band of Horses song instead of a Nickelback fart, I'm still not going to be an easy lay. These things -- songs, images, pop culture references -- are supposed to accentuate a film, not define its personality.

These kinds of cues are really just a product of lazy writing. Why explain a certain character's background or worldview when all you have to say is, "He loves Joy Division" and your hip little audience will know exactly what you mean? And if they don't know about a certain band and therefore don't understand your shorthand, well, fuck them for not being cool. As a huge fan of The Shins, I can't tell you how embarrassed I was by the "The Shins will save your life" scene in the awful Garden State. Say what you will about typical populist Hollywood romantic comedies, but at least you can't accuse them of being elitist.

Another unique but not necessarily enjoyable quirk about 500 Days of Summer is the fact that the relationship presented in the movie is a story told in an episodic, out of order fashion. We learn from the beginning that this relationship is doomed to fail, and then explore the chronology to find the good and the bad. I found myself wondering if, without the gimmick of telling this story out of order, this movie would be a crushing bore. By cutting it into bite-sized pieces, Webb adds a little chaos into what would be a somewhat predictable bummer of a story. There are a few moments that are served well by this kind of editing, most explicitly the opening scene from Day 488 of their relationship which shows Tom holding Summer's hand as she wears a wedding ring.

Beyond those few scenes and the likable aforementioned moments of whimsy, the most enjoyable thing about Summer is the undeniable chemistry between Gordon-Levitt and Deschanel. Levitt's performance is especially affecting, as he is asked to cover the gamut of human emotions throughout the movie. He and Deschanel could have been just as satisfying reading the phone book to each other, as proven in this video for "Why Do You Let Me Stay Here," a song from Deschanel's collaboration with musician M. Ward. The three minutes in this video are more intoxicating than any moment in the movie:

For more on (500) Days of Summer:
- Movie information at IMDB and Wikipedia.
- Check out movie clips, bloggage and more at the official movie site.

The trailer:

#136: The Hurt Locker

2009-08-19T00:23:00.001-07:00

The Hurt Locker
Written by Mark Boal
Directed by Kathryn Bigelow
Released October 10, 2008 (Italy)

Anybody else out there used to watch the A&E show The It Factor? When I lived in Chicago with two of my best friends, we obsessively watched a season of the short lived reality/documentary show which followed nine unknown actors and actresses in their daily lives in Hollywood. While the program was chock full of weirdos and inflated egos, there was one stand-out performer whom seemed so dedicated and yet humble that you couldn't help but root for the guy every time he was called for an audition.

Ever since that show, I've had my fingers crossed for Jeremy Renner. Near the end of that series, he lands the lead role in a motion picture about serial killer Jeffery Dahmer. Renner would occasionally pop onto my radar after that, most notably in midsize rolls in movies like S.W.A.T., The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford and as the hero in 28 Weeks Later.

With his lead role as bomb defusing specialist Staff Sgt. William James in director Kathryn Bigelow's (Point Break, Strange Days) newest film, Renner has taken the next and biggest leap in his career: a near definite Oscar nomination. That's because Renner makes what could have been a typical action movie role -- the "wild man" soldier whose addiction to high stress situations puts those around him in danger -- and throws in layers of complexity (charisma, humor, anguish) that humanize what could have been an unsympathetic superhero.

Of course, Renner is not without help from a fine supporting cast that includes bigger names like Ralph Fiennes and Guy Pearce, and lesser known talent like Anthony Mackie as Sgt. James's conflicted, by-the-book and utterly frightened next in command. While the movie follows Renner's company in the final days before its tour in Iraq is complete, the true focus of the movie is in following how everyone reacts to the presence of Renner's seemingly reckless bomb expert.

For Bigelow, who has made an entire career out of skewed takes on genre films (her Near Dark is an underrated classic vampire flick), The Hurt Locker is her masterpiece. In one sense it's an action movie, but it moves at a pace and level of constant tension that almost no action movie can pull off. Like an action movie, it revolves around a handful of setpieces, but unlike typical action movies these setpieces are not car chases or plane crashes, but rather isolated locations booby trapped with explosive devices. An action movie lets an audience live an adventure vicariously through its hero; by contrast, every time a character in Locker steps into a setpiece, we beg them to just walk away.

The other interesting element here that makes The Hurt Locker different from most other action or war movies is the fact that there is no conventional plot or story arc. There is no face you get to conveniently attach the "bad guy" moniker to, and no ratcheting up of the action to help us know that things are coming to a conclusion. No, in this war, every single day of this company's tour could be its last. Your fate remains the same on your final day as it did two months prior: wholly uncertain.

One of Bigelow's greatest achievements with the film is the fact that, unlike most movies covering the war in Iraq, its stance is apolitical. There's definitely a message here (highlighted and hammered home a bit obviously by a quote in the opening frames), but it's not what you'd call a "message movie." For the soldiers portrayed here, politics are irrelevant. A ticking time bomb does not take sides; it obliterates all with equal prejudice. That's not to say the film lacks depth, because it's absolutely no stretch to see this movie (especially the final 15 minutes) as an allegory for our country's addiction to war.

No female has ever won an Academy Award for directing. If any one has ever had a shot, it's Bigelow. (Special note must also be given to the sound editing and sound design here. Oscars for these categories are typically awarded to big budget, bloated action flicks, but I think this year The Hurt Locker is going to give tripe like Transformers a run for its money.)

For more on The Hurt Locker:
- Movie information at IMDB and Wikipedia.
- Check out movie clips and more at the official movie site.

The trailer:

#135: The Good Life

2009-08-11T21:24:00.000-07:00

The Good Life
Written and Directed by Stephen Berra
Released November 4, 2008

Holy Film School 101, Batman.

I don't know why, but I cannot seem to resist watching movies set in my home state of Nebraska. At this point I should probably know better, since the movies -- with a few exceptions -- are typically horrible (if you happened to read my review of the Dave Foley disasterpiece California Dreaming, I touched briefly on this compulsion).

In all honesty, it wasn't the setting that drew me to this movie, but the appearance of Zooey Deschanel and the convenience of it streaming on Netflix.

Its title taken from Nebraska's state motto, The Good Life is writer/director Stephen Berra's cinematic and questionably unintentional manifestation of every jaded high school poet's secret diary. Berra creates a fictional Nebraska town (I guess this is supposed to be Lincoln?) that looks more like a bad part of Detroit, inhabited by one of the saddest fucking sacks of a character named Jason (played convincingly by Mark Webber).

Jason is basically a mutt of a puppy that gets kicked around before our very eyes for 100 minutes. His father tells him he's ugly, and the rest of the family barely pays him any mind. He gets harassed and punched in the face by the town bully (a believable, if cartoonish, performance by Nebraska native Chris Klein). He works two jobs, one at a run down movie theater that somehow survives screening movies to two people a night, and the other at a gas station where every single patron threatens or abuses him.

Deschanel appears here, as she does in most movies, as the beautiful and sexually aggressive dream girl whom would normally be unattainable if she weren't a complete writer's construct. Examine her catalogue of performances, from Gigantic to even The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, if you don't believe my claim that she has been officially typecast.

There is some question about her character's background and her sanity, until a completely unbelievable reveal late in the movie makes her character even more ridiculous. The chance encounter that enlightens Jason to her identity is the kind of coincidence that most teachers of creative writing must beat out of their adolescent students.

The plot itself can be boiled down to a singular thought that every whiny emo kid from any "small" town has had while toiling through Junior High: "These people don't get me, and I can't wait to get out of this town." But at no point in the film does Berra prove that it's the town that is holding this morose little mope-bag down. He shows us nothing to make us believe that Jason has squandered potential (beyond having Deschanel literally say it at one point), that he has an extraordinary mind or that he'd blossom under a different set of circumstances.

Sad to the point of being absurd, this shoe gazing wank fest's most redeeming qualities are its consistency of tone (DOUR) and some quality lighting and photography. Berra has definitely made a good looking film that never visually slips into the amateurish and pretentious traps of his script where he asks the audience to understand barely touched upon plot points and how they might affect our character. For example: we don't wind up understanding why he hates football, or even the city in which he lives; we are simply told how he feels.

The movie even manages to make the ultimate mistake by having its main character, in a bit of narration, LITERALLY SPELL OUT WHAT HAS HAPPENED. Here, read this and try not to roll your eyes:

But it's not pain. It's laughing with your friend at a time when you shouldn't. It's the sweat in your palms wanting to know someone you see and the pit in your stomach when they actually see you. It's being touched by hands that aren't your own. It's the thrill of an escape that almost wasn't. It's the embarrassment you feel, naked for the first time. It's helping a friend find something they lost. It's a smile, a joke, a song. It's what someone does that they like doing. It's what someone does that they like remembering. It's the thinking of things you may never do and the doing of things you may never have thought. It's the road ahead and the road behind. It's the first step and the last and every one in between, because they all make up the good life.

Holy shit, right? To make matters even worse, this monologue plays over the exact scenes from the movie the character is referring to, as if we've finally decoded some secret of the universe. Ugh.

The Good Life opens with a tracking shot that follows Jason to what seems like the site of his suicide. As the movie flashes back to the events leading up to this moment and you witness the pinnacle of hopelessness that has become his life, you'll almost find yourself hoping that the kid really goes through with it. It's the only ending that makes sense after this movie spends so much time staring at its own shoes.

Unfortunately, Berra doesn't let Jason or his audience so easily off the hook, giving us a completely unbelievable last minute reversal of fortune that rings even more hollow than anything preceding it.

I think Film Threat's review says it best in the opening sentence of their review:

"Honestly, the fact that I didn’t shoot myself in the face after this movie amazes me."

For more on The Good Life:
- Movie information at IMDB
and very little at Wikipedia.

The trailer:

#134: Funny People

2009-08-10T04:43:00.000-07:00

Funny People
Written and Directed by Judd Apatow
Released July 31, 2009

Have you ever met, or known, a stand-up comic? They're certainly a strange lot. I've known or befriended a few in my day, and the first thing that you realize after spending some time with a comedian is that they just aren't funny. I knew a guy who was pretty uncomfortable to be around in social situations. He was loud, kind of rude and never seemed to be able to engage anyone on a personal level because it always seemed like he was trying out material.

Onstage, when the time came to ply his craft, he was actually pretty good at what he did. Shit, the dude even won Star Search. But he was living proof that funny people, for the most part, aren't funny.

The same can be said for Judd Apatow's new overlong and heavy-handed film about comedy. It's weird, socially awkward and really just not all that funny.

Funny People was not helped by a confusing ad campaign that not only misrepresented what the audience was getting into (is it a comedy? is it a drama?), but totally GAVE AWAY THE FUCKING MAJOR PLOT POINT that Adam Sandler's character beats the potentially fatal disease that forces him to examine his life in the first place.

I'm sure you already know by now, but Sandler plays a version of himself named George Simmons, a once-hilarious stand-up comic who has gone soft over the years by whoring himself out doing terrible concept comedy films about mermaids and dudes who have been turned into babies. Simmons professional life has gone the way of Eddie Murphy and, well, Adam Sandler, raking in piles of money at the expense of his credibility.

Upon receiving the news of his imminent demise, Simmons is inspired to get back to his roots in stand-up. After a disastrous surprise visit to a comedy club, Simmons meets Ira Wright (Seth Rogen), an up-and-coming (and fairly unfunny) comic whom he hires as his assistant and joke writer.

This was all Apatow needed for a plot, but he takes what could have been an informative and incisive look at comedy, fame and celebrity (shit, maybe even mortality) as seen from behind the curtain and instead totally fucks up his entire movie by throwing in a ridiculous third act attempt by George to reconnect with The One That Got Away.

It's with this turn of events that Funny People essentially becomes Dicks, with virtually no character becoming likable or doing anything that isn't completely selfish or despicable. We're presumably supposed to aim our laughter in the direction of Eric Bana's cheating husband Clarke, but by the end of the movie, you'll have more sympathy for him than any of the other characters.

It's an unfortunate thing that Apatow decided to go this direction, because the first half of the movie -- while still mostly devoid of big laughs -- is still fairly interesting, ambitious and handled pretty well. Rogen pulls of a friendlier than usual character, and Sandler -- while a bit detached -- has the dramatic chops to bring Simmons' angst to life. Funny People certainly looks a thousand times better than any Apatow movie that has come before, primarily due to cinematographer and frequent Spielberg collaborator Janusz Kaminski. Paired with tighter editing that does away with the typical Apatow-ian element that makes it feel like all the dialogue is being improvised, it's definitely the director's most "professional" work.

This tight editing is failed, however, by the movies absurdly long running time. Go see it with anyone you know... your best friend, your mother... and ask them when the movie is over which parts they would have left on the editing room floor. Chances are that the 20 to 30 minutes of footage they could do without might be different for each person, but each person's edit would more than likely result in a better film. Cut the ex-girlfriend, cut the James Taylor shit, cut the montage where George sings with his hired band. Hell, even cut the Eminem scene, probably the funniest scene in the movie but tonally stands out like a sore thumb. Give any jerkoff a pair of scissors and access to the negative and you'll probably wind up with a less boring film.

I realize my review sounds a little more harsh than I may have intended. It's not that I hated Funny People, it's just that I saw so much potential in it and was disappointed to see that potential squandered by the 90 minute mark. By going the direction he chose to go with his characters, Apatow winds up teaching them and his audience nothing about this world in which he has lived for the past twenty years. At best, the life lesson that George Simmons learns when all is said and done is essentially "I should be less of a prick."

For more on Funny People:
- Movie information at IMDB
and Wikipedia.
- Check out the fake NBC homepage for Yo Teach!, the terrible sitcom that stars Jason Schwartzman's character. A similar fake page exists for the works of George Simmons.

The trailer can be found HERE.

#133: Terminator Salvation

2009-05-25T08:41:00.000-07:00

Terminator Salvation
Written by John D. Brancato & Michael Ferris
Directed by McG
Released May 21, 2009

To paraphrase Ahhh-nuld from Total Recall, consider this a divorce.

Terminator Salvation sucks robo-cock.

Astoundingly, it's not entirely the fault of hack director Joseph McGinty Nichol, also known as "McG," or almost as frequently as "the bag o'douche who made the two Charlie's Angels movies."

No, for the most part, McG does a serviceable job here. The film has a definite aesthetic (washed out and grainy) and tone (dead serious) and moves at a steady pace that belies it's 2+ hour running time. The sound and special effects are decent (a few scenes, like the one where Christian Bale's John Connor jumps from the back of a plane into the ocean, don't work so well) and there are a couple of memorable set pieces scattered throughout.

Okay, so he's still probably to blame for a few missteps. The main one I want to harp on is the insistence on using call-backs or references to previous movies. Look, we're sitting here paying to watch the fourth installment of a series that really didn't need to exist after the first sequel. Some of us in the audience have even watched your spin-off TV show. We are FUCKING NERDS. We don't need a character saying "I'll be back" in every single movie. We definitely don't need to bring back that terrible Guns N' Roses song that didn't even belong in T2. If I'm sitting in the theater even after the turd that was the series' third movie, that means we're 4 films into this relationship and you can stop bringing up our first date.

Beyond that, the real disappointment here is in the writing, dialog and acting. I have to admit that my interest was piqued when I heard Bale had signed on. Not that dude hasn't made a few stinkers/cash grabs (anyone else remember him as the heavy in the Shaft remake?), but at least it was reassuring that the producers were possibly putting some thought into this endeavor. The addition of Helena Bonham Carter was the cherry on top.

Not so much. Bale punches the clock with a unmemorable performance that makes you half expect for part of his face to fall of and reveal the character to be a cyborg. Bonham Carter fares much worse as the "face" of Skynet. It blew me away when I read they filmed her performance over the course of 10 days, since it plays like she was given 10 minutes and was held against her will at gunpoint.

The script is laughable (one of my favorite moments is when a robot motorcycle launches an attack and a character yells "Moto-Terminators!") and full of insane coincidences like characters figuring out how to make a working radio signal at the precise moment that Connor is addressing them. There's even a mute kid who happens to have on hand the exact item needed at several crucial moments in the movie. I just spilled a ton of gasoline for a getaway and you just happened to have a road flare on hand? This kid is a walking Bat Utility Belt.

I think this thing is heading down the same path of George Lucas's recent Star Wars prequels: a long wait for very little return. My guess is that this series takes at least one to two more movies to get to the very boring conclusion of Kyle Reese finally getting sent back in time to the original Terminator. Six movies to finally show us a time machine.

Patton Oswalt has a great routine about how the Lucas prequels tell a story that we didn't even want. "I don't give a shit where the stuff I love comes from, I just love the stuff I love!"

For more on Terminator: Salvation:
- Movie information at IMDB
and Wikipedia.
- The trailer can be found here.

Sexman disagrees with me:

#132: The Wrestler

2009-05-12T20:06:00.000-07:00

The Wrestler
Written by Robert D. Siegel
Directed by Darren Aronofsky
Released 2008 (wide release January 2009)

Look, what can I possibly write that hasn't already been written about Mickey Rourke's performance as Randy "The Ram" Robinson in The Wrestler? It's the role of a lifetime for the actor, and not a second goes by where Rourke isn't 100% sincere and believable.

The hype is true; The Wrestler is his glorious comeback (though, for my money, I'd actually place Rourke's comeback a few years earlier with his work as Marv in Robert Rodriguez's Sin City). Everything else that happens in the movie is incidental to his work. He could be fishing or reading the phone book, who gives a shit? You won't be able to take your eyes off that surprisingly expressive slab of meat on Rourke's shoulders.

The real revelation that everyone seems to be ignoring is a real stunner: that Darren Aronofsky can make a down-to-Earth, gritty and realistic film that doesn't feel as ponderous as a bad acid trip in a library of Philosophy textbooks.

If you've ever tried to sit through The Fountain like I tried a few weeks back, you know where I'm coming from. Even Aronofsky's finest hour as a filmmaker, Requiem for a Dream is an incredibly well made but emotionally taxing experience that few people could subject themselves to more than once, if at all.

He must have known full well that he was at the helm of the Mickey Rourke Show, because he goes incognito here and keeps the camera work handheld and -- from what I can tell -- digital. Considering the quick cuts and general business in his other work, his restraint here is impressive. Plus, it's pretty unbelievable that the same guy who made Requiem and Pi could make a scene that prominently features Ratt's "Round and Round" both poignant and romantic.

I enjoyed The Wrestler, but the movie as a whole is nothing compared to Rourke's performance. If you've ever seen a sports movie in your life, you'll be able to pick up the cues on where this is all heading for "The Ram." Tomei is okay here, though she isn't given much to work with. Evan Rachel Wood fares better with the few scenes she has as Rourke's distant daughter. Really though, the most flavor comes in scenes where Rourke mingles with actual wrestlers. The respect and love these guys have for each other behind the scenes really drive home why a battered old man could have such a hard time leaving the life that is destroying him.

For more on The Wrestler:
- Movie information at IMDB
and Wikipedia.

The trailer:

#131: Låt den rätte komma in (Let the Right One In)

2009-04-23T12:04:00.000-07:00

Let the Right One In
Directed by Tomas Alfredson
Written by John Ajvide Lindqvist
Released 2008

Last year saw the release of one of the most mesmerizing, haunting and unsettling films ever made about what it would be like to be loved by a vampire. And it had nothing to do with some veiled, Mormon, neutered vampire wish-fulfillment fantasy for undersexed middle-aged women.

Suck it, Twilight fans.

Much like Twilight, Let the Right One In is essentially the story of a member of the walking dead falling in love with a mortal human. What Twilight gets wrong is that this idea should be FUCKING TERRIFYING.

I will stop the Twilight comparisons right here, because Let the Right One In is working on such a higher level of atmosphere and storytelling (and let's not even get started comparing the acting) that the guilt by association factor could be crippling to any hesitant movie lovers reading this review.

Plus, the email and hate letters I'm going to get are going to be unbearable.

Anyway, Let the Right One In is a Swedish film, based on a 2004 Swedish novel, about a quiet and fairly odd 12 year old boy named Oskar. When Oskar isn't being picked on by the school bully or playing alone in the depressing courtyard of his apartment building, he's out back working his angst out by stabbing a tree with a knife, or secretly collecting a scrapbook of grisly local murders.

Those local murders start getting a lot more local with the appearance of a mysterious pair of new neighbors, a young girl and a doting old man. Oskar doesn't see much of them at first -- they keep the windows covered with cardboard, after all -- but he is soon joined on his nightly visits to the courtyard by a pale, somber young girl who may not be as young as she appears.

Director Tomas Alfredson has created a genre masterpiece here with a unique and subtly frightening film that somehow manages to evoke the undercurrents in The Omen and The Ice Storm. Its reach exceeds most horror movies, touching on themes of parental neglect, pedophilia and schoolyard retribution.

Everything about the movie is exquisite, from the cinematography to the icy soundtrack. I was only disappointed to learn after viewing the movie that the translated subtitles in the American release of the DVD were "dumbed down." Apparently, a recent re-release will fix this problem.

In addition to all of the perfect notes struck by Alfredson and his cast, there's a fantastic climax and a ending sequence that carries a massive sense of doom beneath its veneer of innocence. I can almost guarantee you that the upcoming American remake will change this and many other elements of Let the Right One In. Get over your fear of subtitles and check this version out before its too late.

For more on Let the Right One In:
- Movie information at IMDB
and Wikipedia.
- The official movie site (U.S.)
- Buy the DVD.

#130: Punisher: War Zone

2009-04-11T13:34:00.000-07:00

Punisher: War Zone
Directed by Lexi Alexander
Written by Nick Santora, Art Marcum & Matt Holloway
Released December 5, 2008

Or, Why I love my brother, Reason #447:

My brother called and woke me up this afternoon (hey, I work 13 hour night shifts) for the explicit purpose of convincing me to rent and watch Punisher: War Zone immediately. The chat went something like this truncated version:

RYAN: Okay, I don't know if you're busy today, but you have to watch (the movie) as soon as possible. It may be one of the worst movies I've ever seen.

ME: Whoah, that's a bold statement. Worse than Ghost Ship?!

RYAN: WAY worse than Ghost Ship! (For some reason, Ghost Ship has become one of our gold standard bearers for the running title of Best Worst Movie Ever Made.) It may be the most violent movie I've ever seen, too.

ME: What? More violent than Rambo?

RYAN: It is at least AS violent as Rambo. Seriously, you've got to see this movie.

RYAN's WIFE, JAMIE: Why are you telling him to watch it if it's such a bad movie?

RYAN: Because bad movies are fucking awesome! Why doesn't anyone else get this concept?!

My brother was so enthused about the inherent badness of this new installment of The Punisher (aside from the terrible 2004 movie starring Thomas Jane and John Travolta, there was also an even worse flick from 1989 which starred Dolph Lundgren)that I immediately sought it out on the Xbox live video marketplace, plunked down my bucks and took in the awful glory.

How do they keep fucking up The Punisher so badly? It's not like it's a hard story to tell: war veteran Frank Castle and his family witness a mob hit and are executed for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Papa Castle survives, goes underground and becomes an armed-to-the-teeth vigilante.

Fairly simple. Action Movie 101 kind of stuff. And yet here we are, 3 movies down and each one a ridiculous failure. The primary issue in all three films has been the miscasting of pivotal roles, namely the titular crime fighter. Thomas Jane probably got the character closest to realization, despite the fact that the dude is probably a hair shy of 5 feet tall.

This time around, Castle is played incredibly dead-eyed and charisma-free by Ray Stevenson, so good in HBO's Rome and so, so boring here. Even more disappointing is the work of Dominic West as head baddie/mob boss Billy Russoti (who adopts the nickname Jigsaw after a comically violent clash with the Punisher early in the movie). West played Jimmy McNulty on another HBO series, the acclaimed The Wire and rightfully became that show's shaky moral -- or amoral -- center. West's performance here is a massive disappointment, especially when you compare the believable accent he pulled off on The Wire to the Italian (more like SLIGHTalian) one he employs here.

For fans of laughably bad movies, this shitheap is a true gem of cinematic ineptitude. You might think, "What idiot wrote this piece of shit?" Here's how terrible Hollywood is: it took THREE idiots to write this piece of shit! It took three guys and a reference library of hundreds of Punisher comics to bounce around ideas before coming up with a final line of dialogue like, "Ugh, now I got brains all over me." I'd actually love to see a copy of the final draft, because I would really like to know if "cut to a montage of lots of guys loading lots of weapons" appears a dozen times on paper, or if all that garbage is just implied by the type of movie we're dealing with.

Did three guys all really collaborate and decide that having one of the bad guys menacingly say, "Yummy yummy yummy... in my tummy tummy tummy" was not actually hilarious? Or how about the part where Frank pulls an axe out of his buddy's chest, intoning, "Don't die on me!" Dude, your homey took 3 axe blows to the heart. He's going to die on you.

Oh, that reminds me about the violence! Wile E. Coyote would piss his ACME trousers if he saw some of the stuff that goes down here. At one point, Castle kicks a chair leg into someone's eye, and later on smashes a man's head like a melon with a single punch. He shoots a punk rock meth addict acrobat (I'm not making this up) out of the sky with a rocket launcher (I'm not making that up, either). After blowing off the kneecaps of one thug, he tosses him off a building, impales him on a fence, and then jumps off the roof to deliver a neck-breaking death blow with his foot.

It's actually pretty deplorable. That sound you just heard was Wile E. Coyote ingesting a stick of lit dynamite to try and forget it all.

Just totally fucking inept. At one point, Jigsaw and his gang tear apart a victim's home, searching for large sums of money in CD drawers and dish racks. These guys are terrorists aiding the annihilation of New York City, and yet here they are dicking around shooting the heads off stuffed animals like some astoundingly idiotic evil Daniel Stern from Home Alone.

The bad guys have so little instinct for self preservation that one literally shrugs when a grenade is rolled at his feet. He doesn't dive for safety or try to kick the grenade back. He just shrugs, as if he had been having some sort of existential crisis and just found his purpose in life with the delivery of said grenade.

Just awful. And yet, awesome.

I once dragged a buddy with me to see Deep Blue Sea, that shark movie with Samuel L. Jackson, simply to try and share the joy in schlock cinema that I had found with my brothers and friends back home. As we left the theater, he seemed shocked or dismayed.

"Wow," he said, embarrassed. "That was really bad."

"Fuck yeah it was," I replied. "Awesome."

For more on Punisher: War Zone:
- Movie information at IMDB
and Wikipedia.
- Don't buy the DVD. I can think of tens of thousands of better things to do with that money. Maybe hunt down a few issues of the comics instead?

The trailer for Punisher: War Zone:

#129: Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia

2009-04-09T23:40:00.000-07:00

Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia
Directed by Sam Peckinpah
Written by Gordon Dawson, Frank Kowalski and Sam Peckinpah
Released August 14, 1974

There's nothing sacred about a hole in the ground, or a man that's in it. Or you... or me.

From the disturbing Straw Dogs to the seedy The Getaway to his ultraviolent ode to the demise of the Old West, The Wild Bunch, director Sam Peckinpah's films have never been known to be packed with the sunny frivolity that puts dollar signs in the eyes of Hollywood executives.

And yet Peckinpah was, like almost all great directors, still beholden to the studio system. Never forget that movies cost money, and sometimes paying the paper can make a man do brutal, undignified things.

Coming not-so-hot on the trail of his 1973 box office bomb Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia is Peckinpah unhinged and unencumbered by the need to please anyone but himself. You don't have to look hard to see the movie as a sort of twisted autobiography of Peckinpah and his dealings with producers, studio execs and film critics. Even Warren Oates, the film's lead actor, said that he fashioned his character and his appearance after the director.

Oates plays Bennie, a lowlife bartender in a tiny town in Mexico who is one day visited by a couple of henchmen employed by a powerful crime boss named El Jefe. The henchmen are looking for a man named Alfredo Garcia, who abandoned El Jefe's daughter while pregnant with his child. While the henchmen offer Bennie a substantial sum in return for the titular head of Mr. Garcia, he doesn't know that the real bounty is actually $1 million.

Bennie has his own secret: he knows that the Alfredo Garcia these henchmen are hunting for has actually been dead and buried for a month after a fatal car accident. Bennie and his wife (Garcia's former lover and the only person who knows where his body is buried) must get to -- and decapitate -- the body before knowledge of the accident gets out.

Bennie's macabre journey sets off a series of disasters and murders that sends the "protagonist" into a tragic downward trajectory. As Bennie slowly loses his sanity en route to the delivery of his package, one can't help but picture Peckinpah grinning behind the camera lens, perhaps thinking just how apt the metaphor of a man bringing his evil bosses their million dollar "baby" was to his situation.

The movie itself is something different. It moves at its own pace, meandering at times and shockingly abrupt in other moments, and is punctuated by a handful of bloody, jarring gunfights. Beware of any moments of idyllic beauty, because you know a guy like Peckinpah isn't just here to watch a pretty sunset. Look for a cameo from Kris Kristofferson as a creepy biker and potential rapist.

While surely not his finest hour (The Wild Bunch is heralded as a classic for a reason), Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia is a unique and strange film with a layered, career-defining performance from Oates. The actor shares a couple of tender scenes with Isela Vega as his wife Elita. Without these few moments, the movie would have no heart to shatter in front of us.

Worth noting: the DVD doesn't have many bonus features, but it comes with an engrossing commentary track from a couple of Peckinpah scholars and friends which makes a second viewing worthwhile, especially in their debate about Peckinpah's controversial portrayal of women in his films.

For more on Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia:
- Movie information at IMDB
and Wikipedia.
- Buy the DVD

The trailer for Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia:

#128: Hell in the Pacific

2009-03-11T17:05:00.000-07:00

Hell in the Pacific
Directed by John Boorman
Written by Alexander Jacobs and Eric Bercovici (story by Reuben Bercovitch)
Released December 18, 1968

All you really need to know: Toshiro Mifune and Lee Marvin, together.

If you must know more, Marvin and Mifune play -- respectively -- a marooned American pilot and Japanese naval captain. As the movie begins, the two men awaken post-battle on a deserted island and must decide whether to kill their enemy or work with him to survive.

A movie plot really can't get much more simple than: 2 enemies stranded on a desert island.

The movie itself is pretty primal. Amidst some beautiful scenes of nature, there is very little spoken between the two characters (obviously, there is no shared language), and the first act plays out like a bit of real life "Tom and Jerry," with Marvin and Mifune tricking and chasing each other like cartoon characters.

It's not too much of a leap to see the basis of the movie itself as a sort of two-man play about culture and war. Here we have two men representing two very different worlds fighting over a finite amount of space and natural resources. What little communication they do have is violent or threatening, even though both men possess things the other needs to survive.

Of course, the literal translation in which two men from two warring factions see beyond what they've been taught and find the humanity inside of his enemy is just as powerful.

Hell in the Pacific may require a little patience from a viewer who is looking for a more gimmicky storyline. It brings to mind a movie like Cast Away, where you might spend 4 or 5 minutes just watching a character build a fire. For those willing to give Boorman time to set up his premise, you will be rewarded. Mifune and Marvin (both of whom actually fought on opposing sides in World War II) give believable transformations as their characters gradually begin to bond and work together. It's fun two watch these two very physical presences come clashing repeatedly into each other on this little stretch of beach.

One of the most interesting and effective choices made by Boorman in the making of Hell in the Pacific was the decision to not use subtitles, leaving most of the audience (whether Japanese or English-speaking) in the dark about the other character's thoughts, while essentially giving both audiences the same experience.

Boorman and the film's writers hide the movie's ultimate message -- that sometimes it may just be too late to begin treating each other like human beings -- in a shocking, abrupt climax that I obviously will refrain from spoiling for you here. Seeing the progress these characters have made, you may find the ending frustrating, but I doubt it's anything less than intentional.

For more on Hell in the Pacific:
- Movie information at IMDB
and Wikipedia.
- Buy the DVD

The trailer for Hell in the Pacific:

#127: The Steel Helmet

2009-03-09T18:25:00.000-07:00

(Image by Eric Skillman)

The Steel Helmet
Written and Directed by Samuel Fuller
Released February 2, 1951

"If you die, I'll kill ya!"

The Steel Helmet, one of director Samuel Fuller's earliest films, was made on a shoestring budget over the course of 10 days. It's a little firecracker of a movie, bravely facing issues of violence, war and -- most importantly -- race, nearly a decade before the birth of the Civil Rights movement.

Remarkably, it's a Korean War film that was made and released a mere half year into the United States' war with Korea. This is no piece of pro-war propaganda; in fact, Fuller was subsequently investigated by the FBI (under the direction of J. Edgar Hoover) for possible Communist sympathies.

One of the primary reasons for Hoover's interest was the mention in Fuller's screenplay of the United States' practice of internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. I'm sure his ire was also drawn from the complex questions about the dilemma of race in America through passages of dialog like the following exchange between a Korean P.O.W. and the African American medic tending to his wounds:

P.O.W.: I just don't understand you. You can't eat with them unless there's a war. Even then, it's difficult. Isn't that so?

Medic: That's right.

P.O.W.: You pay for ticket, but you even have to sit in the back of a public bus. Isn't that so?

Medic: That's right. One hundred years ago I couldn't even ride a bus. At least now I can sit in the back. Maybe in fifty years, I'll sit in the middle. Someday even up front. There's some things you just can't rush, buster.

If you ask me, that's pretty frigging progressive for a movie from 1951.

Of course, none of this progressive thinking would matter if there wasn't a good movie from which to hang all of these interesting ideas. The Steel Helmet does not fail to deliver with brutal action, humor and even touching friendship in its 83 minute running time.

I love a great entrance in a movie, and few introductions can top Gene Evans as Sgt. Zack crawling across the battlefield with his hands tied behind his back. He is aided by a young South Korean boy who has been orphaned by the conflict. The movie has barely begun before the race issue is breached, with Sgt. Zack barking at the boy, "You look more like a dog face than a gook!"

With the young boy refusing to leave his side, Zack nicknames him Short Round (yes, Indiana Jones fans) and they're off. Soon Zack stumbles into a platoon of survivors from other battles who bribe him into joining them. It's basically The Bad News Bears by way of the second half of Full Metal Jacket.

I'm not sure what compelled me to watch The Steel Helmet... perhaps the cool black and white photo of Evans on the DVD cover, grimacing in reaction to what turns out to be a crushing revelation. Having seen the movie, I feel lucky to have given it a shot. It's a powerful, groundbreaking and ballsy "independent" film with a great performance from Evans.

For more on The Steel Helmet:
- Movie information at IMDB
and Wikipedia.

Holy shit! Tarantino, Scorcese, Jim Jarmusch and Samuel Fuller talk about The Steel Helmet. If this doesn't sell you on the film, I give up:

Watchmen redux:

2009-03-09T15:41:00.000-07:00

I realize that my review of Watchmen was already verbose, but as any true nerd knows, you don't just review something like a movie made from the Bible of comic book geeks -- you furiously dissect and redissect it. And then your girlfriend leaves you.

Recently I shared an email exchange with two friends that I felt touched on a few more areas that I wanted to hit. I guess you could consider this the "DVD commentary" for my previous post.

SPOILERS AHEAD. You've been warned.

Matt writes, after catching the movie in NYC last night:

Way-too serious. Not a whiff of satire. And absolutely no reason to care about any of it.

It felt like the movie achieved the perfect mimicry of the text that Synder was questing for, but at the expense of surrendering any real narrative tension. It only proves the subtlety of moviemaking: you can capture every frame of the comic and recreate every utterance, but still fail to tell the story.

Not to get carried away with the meta-criticism, but I honestly felt like I too was experiencing the world as Dr. Manhattan. As the plot plodded along faithfully (however truncated) with the text, I couldn't shake the feeling that I was just watching the preordained future unfold and going through the motions.

I respond:

I was conflicted because there's some interesting shit there, especially for a "superhero" movie.

Then I remember the hilariously bad sex scene in the sky (wow, completely inappropriate use of "Hallelujah") or the exclusion of the side characters that give the original book any sense of humanity, and I get angry again.

The squid thing is pissing me off waaaay more then I ever thought it would. When I had heard it had been changed, I was relieved because I thought that would be the audience killer. But now that I saw what they did instead, it's a fucking travesty that they cut it. I mean, you curb nuclear destruction by blowing up the 5 or 6 biggest cities in the world and pinning the blame on the very much American Dr. Manhattan? And this will stop war... how?

Besides, anyone who complains about a faked alien invasion after sitting through 2 hours and 30 minutes of THAT movie is just being ridiculous.

Brian, in his reply, knocks it out of the park:

I posit the following query as a representation of my movie going experience.

You're hanging out with a guy you've met on a couple of other occasions (lets call him Kaz). You're not sure how you feel about this dude. He's kind of a wearout, but he was sorta cool at least one other time you hung out. As it turns out, he is a huge Watchmen fan, and in fact won't stop talking about the legend behind the series. You've never read it, but have heard the story and think it sounds like something you might be into.

Upon hearing of your interest, Kaz becomes very serious to a point where you think he's fucking with you. Kaz stands in front of you and proceeds to read the entire book aloud in an austere and flat voice, while paying almost creepy reverence to any scene of violence.

Several hours later, when Kaz reaches the last panel, he closes the book, puts it back in its plastic dust cover and places it back on a stand in his shrine. In the meantime, you are looking for the shoe you kicked off at one point and wondering how a couple of beers with this guy turned into 3am. As you're gathering your things and your head, Kaz turns to you and says, "so now you understand."

What is your response?

#126: Watchmen

2009-03-06T13:12:00.000-08:00

Watchmen
Directed by Zack Snyder
Written by David Hayter and Alex Tse (based on the graphic novel written by Alan Moore and illustrated by Dave Gibbons)
Released March 6, 2009

I tried going in with my expectations low. I tried to leave the comic books out of my mind completely. I gave Zack Snyder my full attention, with my guard down. I really did.

While I'm a huge fan of the Watchmen comics (and the eventual "graphic novel" spawned from the 12 issue series), I can't say I'm one of the people who obsessed over them for the past two decades. While I grew up a comic book reader, I didn't read Watchmen until about 5 or 6 years ago, when I lived in Chicago and had a friend who ran a major comic book store out there. My buddy Eric, sympathetic to my poverty, would loan me piles of books to read in my infinite free time. The very first thing I had to read was Alan Moore's dark, satirical and groundbreaking work about a group of very flawed, very human (except one) masked crimefighters.

While the book was called "unfilmable" by its creator (and thousands of others), I always saw it as something that would make for an incredible miniseries. Director Terry Gilliam agreed when he decided to shelve his attempt at making the film in the late 1980s, saying the only way he could attempt it would be a minimum 5 hour series.

Snyder's Watchmen clocks in at under three hours, and considering his simplified version of the story, that running time could have easily been trimmed.

While I appreciate that Snyder remained faithful to a lot of the elements of the book, I think the movie suffers for that in certain ways. First and foremost, the movie should be able to stand on its own and make sense to anyone who has never read so much as a plot synopsis. I think it fails at this, and then goes on to fail the true fans of the book, as well.

For those who have never read the book, this part of the review is just for you:

Don't you think a movie that takes place in an alternate reality where masked vigilantes have been banned from America, a country that -- under the continued leadership of Richard Nixon, in his 5th term after winning the Vietnam war (with the help of the only true "super man" around) -- teeters on the edge of nuclear destruction, should seem kind of nutty, edgy and (in a nod to Gilliam) Brazil-ian?

At the very least, it should be fun. Now, when I say "fun," I don't mean it should be a barrel of laughs or an action packed rollercoaster ride. I just mean "entertaining." "Interesting." "Worth investing my 3 hours."

Watchmen is a god damn bore. I wouldn't have a problem with how talky the film gets if the "action" scenes that offset this dialogue weren't so generic and lifeless. One of Snyder's few directorial tricks has been his disappointing abuse of slow motion photography, especially during fight scenes. While this may have worked in 300 (a movie so in love with violence that it is basically pornography), it winds up making the movie drag more than the slow scenes. If given the choice between listening to hammy dialogue that moves the plot forward or lame fight scenes where a room full of faceless antagonists takes on a hero who is obviously going to beat every one of them with a single punch, I'll take dialogue, please.

Most of the performances barely register, and even some of the decent ones are hindered by the movie's insanely melodramatic tone (you've got Tricky Dick Nixon driving the United States to the brink of extinction... HAVE SOME FUN WITH IT and get fucking nutty) or just plain bad make-up (Nixon looks like shit, Carla Gugino looks even worse).

The only exception is Jackie Earl Haley's take on Rorshach, the scene stealing psychopath whose refusal to give up crime fighting is the engine that propels all the other characters to react. Haley is so good, riveting and believable in the role that you'll catch yourself wondering if he's acting in an entirely different movie. Seriously, Haley is once again killer in another role that proves that this Bad News Bear had been criminally ignored for far too long by Hollywood. Few actors are good enough to make a character this insane so sympathetic. There's a scene where Rorshach gets shouted at by his friend Dan Drieberg/the Nite Owl that is one of the most touching, humane moments in the entire brutal movie. There's a scene near the end, where Rorshach and Dr. Manhattan share a final moment, that will make you realize just how much of this entire film has been carried on Haley's shoulders.

For the non-believers, I can only hope this movie inspires you to check out the book, if only to answer the question, "What was the big deal about making this movie?"

Now, for the fans of the book, the rest of my review:

Look, fellow geeks. I understand how much you want this movie to be great. God forbid someone make an actually decent movie out of the work of Alan Moore, an incredibly talented writer who has been dealt nothing but shit from Hollywood (in the form of turds like From Hell and League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, which is easily one of the worst movies ever made).

Snyder should be given some credit for keeping so much of the source material intact. I mean, who would have thought that a studio would allow -- for example -- Dr. Manhattan to actually walk around completely nude?

For me, the biggest weakness of the movie is the fact that it plays things so straight. I understand why you would cut the Tales from the Black Freighter story-within-a-story, but that story is a huge chunk of the brilliance of the book. What's going on in that comic informs so much of the many subplots in the story. Plus, the Minutemen have been reduced to a few photos in the opening credits. It's like taking the footnotes out of a David Foster Wallace book. It may help tell the main story better, but you sure lose the heart.

And what's up with Bubastis in this movie? Why even have the cat in the movie if you're going to change the ending and not even discuss the genetic engineering that lead to the finale of the book? There's no mention of where this crazy lynx comes from. . . it's like it's just there to please us geeks.

Originally, I could also understand why the "giant squid" was cut. But now that I have sat through this unforgiveably boring adaptation, I have to say that this thing was screaming for an ending like the giant squid. Even if you alienate some of your audience, it would have made for an infinitely more memorable ending than the one we've got here. Kudos to Snyder for at least having the balls to kill a few million people, but turning the smartest man on Earth into a lame ass mad bomber? Snore.

The more I think about the squid, though, the more I'm bothered by it not being there. Moore could not have created a more poignant and accidentally pertinent metaphor for our current times than his squid that destroys New York. Ozymandias decides to distract the superpowers from their nuclear war and unite them against a "common enemy" by creating a false alien attack on a major city. Any 9/11 conspiracy theorist would shit their bed with the conclusions one could draw!

I can already hear angry fanboys sharpening their knives for their next attack. I wanted this movie to be great just as much as any of you guys. The book is biting, incisive and like nothing I had ever read. It creates its own world, parallel to ours but with just enough creative licensce to seem like another universe. It's serious, but it doesn't take itself too seriously (see, I don't know, the giant fucking squid for further proof). The movie, for me, does not maintain this vibe at all, creating a world that seems much like ours, just a lot more oppressive and with much more rain.

Shit, when I see trailers online, I still get excited to see the movie. It's like I wanted this so much that I feel like it could still be good, regardless of my knowledge of the truth.

I have read a few blurbs that mention Snyder may assemble a full Director's Cut version of Watchmen that brings back in deleted scenes and the Tales from the Black Freighter story. I'd be willing to scrap this review and give that version a second chance.

As it stands now, Snyder's movie (to paraphrase the book) is just a bunch of photographs of lifeless stars.

For more on Watchmen:
- Movie information at IMDB
and Wikipedia.
- Visit the official movie site
- Learn more about the comic books. Your time would be much better spent reading those. Hell, even reading the Wiki entry about the books is much more entertaining than the movie.

The Watchmen trailer:

#125: Man on Wire

2009-02-22T12:05:00.000-08:00

Man on Wire
Directed by James Marsh
Released August 1, 2008 (U.K.)

"If I died, what a beautiful death... to die in the exercise of your passion!"

Man on Wire is essentially a documentary presented as a sort of historical crime film. It tells the story of one of the greatest crimes ever conceived... and yet a crime which hurt absolutely no one and even helped illuminate the beauty of the crime scene.

That crime? The crime of tightrope walking, of course.

In 1974, tightrope walker/acrobat/larger-than-life personality Philippe Petit and his team of assembled collaborators sneaked into the World Trade Center towers and installed a tightrope that stretched the 200 foot distance between the buildings. How they pulled of their heist is at the heart of Man on Wire.

Rightfully awarded an Oscar the other night, the documentary tells the story of how Petit first came across drawings of the World Trade Center, years before they were fully constructed, and immediately knew his fate was to walk between the 1300 foot tall buildings. It was lucky for Petit that he had a magnetic, determined and charismatic personality -- not only because it attracted a (fairly) faithful team of co-conspirators but also because it kept him for doing any significant jail time. These days, a stunt like this would get him thrown into Guantanamo.

Some viewers may see Petit's stunt as reckless or careless. Those of you who can step back and really appreciate this kind of moment where a human being does something no other human being has done before, you're going to love this movie. I will never, EVER know what it's like to have walked a thousand feet above New York City... to have laid down on my back on a cable half an inch wide and stared up at the sky, but thanks to Petit, I can respect and even covet the kind of insanity it would take to go there.

There's a lame joke here somewhere about getting my head out of the clouds. Oh, there it was.

The movie combines interviews with Petit and his multi-national crew of friends with footage of their preparation and wordless re-enactment scenes. I'm usually wary of any staged footage in documentaries, but it works perfectly here. The music is beautiful, the interview subjects are expressive and interesting and the photos/footage of Petit in action is riveting.

Man on Wire earns extra points for never discussing the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center towers. You won't be able to help but think about that day as you watch the movie, but it just makes Petit's love and knowledge of the buildings (he makes a wooden replica of the two rooftops as part of his meticulous planning) and his feat that much more bittersweet knowing what we know now.

For more on Man on Wire:
- Movie information at IMDB and Wikipedia.
- Visit the official movie site

The Man on Wire trailer:

#124: Miller's Crossing

2009-02-18T22:21:00.000-08:00

Miller's Crossing
Written and Directed by Joel and Ethan Coen (inspired by Dashiell Hammett's "The Glass Key")
Released October 1990

"If you can't trust a fix, what can you trust?"

I have a long standing tradition of watching a favorite movie for my birthday (the 33rd of which came and went a couple of weeks ago). Almost all of my birthdays were based around movies when I was growing up. When you live in Nebraska and it's the dead of winter, you really don't have many other options for a birthday. The arcades in town were either totally seedy or owned by the PTL (Omaha's Family Fun Center, pretty much the only game in town these days, had "Praise the Lord" engraved on each of their tokens).

Thanks to Netflix finally streaming into my home, I had about 500 movies at my fingertips. Instead, I went to my DVD rack and grabbed one of my absolute favorite movies: the Coen Brothers' flawless Miller's Crossing.

To anyone who may have known me in college, I can already sense the eye-rolling coming from your direction.

For the rest of you, that would be because I watched this movie dozens of times in my 4 years slugging away at my first degree. If you ever imbibed with me at my apartment or in my dorm room, I made you watch this movie.

I wish I could make the whole world watch this movie. I almost want to stop writing this review to wait for all of you to watch it, then come back and discuss things without having to worry about spoiling anything for you.

Miller's Crossing is, in a way, a mob noir movie. Since we're talking about the Coen brothers here, this is a mob story in the same way that The Big Lebowski is a detective story: there's a genre at the root, but everything around it is kind of crazy and kind of special.

Gabriel Byrne gets an actor's dream role in Tom Reagan, the trusted adviser to a powerful mob boss (Albert Finney... just fucking killing it here) around the time of Prohibition. The movie opens with Finney's Leo O'Bannon hearing a proposal from rival mobster Johnny Caspar (another fantastic role, owned by sweaty, scenery chewing Jon Polito), in which Caspar spells out the most basic plot of the entire movie in three words.

"Friendship. Character. Ethics."

After offending Caspar (and disregarding Tom's advice) and sending him on his way, Leo and his newly spurned adviser set up their whole relationship and the battleground for the small war that follows. You'll have to watch the movie a second time, with the story under your belt, to really see how subtly telling Gabriel Byrne's acting is here. Five minutes go by and you're so hypnotized that you never notice there was no opening title or credits.

Enter the gorgeous score from the Coen's go-to composer Carter Burwell. It's impossible to believe that this is the same guy who created the insanity of the Raising Arizona score ("Wheeeeeeeeeee-eeeee-eeee-eeeeee...."). Making a movie score that doesn't overstep its bounds and force the viewer to understand the emotion behind a scene can't be an easy task, but that is achieved here. There's a sort of downer, defeated yet proud vibe to the music, and the movie would feel wrong without it there.

Damn it. Look. Just rent the thing.

You like John Turturro, right? He has never been better than here as the disloyal, distrustful Bernie Bernbaum. Remember how Marcia Gay Harden won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for Pollack? Well, they gave her that award 11 years late, because she deserved it for her fiery Verna. Seriously, she's an anti-heroine for the ages. Then there's J.E. Freeman as Eddie Dane, perhaps the most macho, menacing homosexual character in the history of filmdom.

I feel like I'm telling you about a sunset that is going down right over your shoulder. I could keep going on, or you could just turn around.

There's so much good dialogue (Byrne doesn't have a single wasted word), you'll want to live in an era where people said things like, "What's the rumpus?" or "He's giving me the high hat!" or "You's fancy pants, all 'a yas."

The way the thug says, "Jesus, Tom" after getting hit with the chair.

The part where the fat kid gets slapped.

"Well that's a penny you owe him!"

All three scenes at Miller's Crossing.

"If I'd have known we were gonna cast our feelings into words, I'd have memorized the song of Solomon."

The scene where Leo smokes and listens to "Danny Boy."

Is Miller's Crossing the most criminally overlooked movie of our time? Perhaps.

Please.

Watch.

Do it before the Oscars on Sunday, so you can remind yourself how often they get it wrong.

For more on Miller's Crossing:
- Movie information at IMDB and Wikipedia.
- Buy the DVD.

I'm only giving you the Main Title theme (with some movie stills) tonight. The trailer gives away too much:

Snippets: #120 - #123

2009-01-03T02:57:00.000-08:00

Obviously, I've got some catching up to do around here.

Which brings me to a new thought, or one of my half dozen New Year's Resolutions. With my next semester just 8 days away, the thought that this one could be even worse than the last have me wondering how I'm really going to pull off watching at least one movie a day - adding up to about 15 to 20 hours a week - and writing about everything.

I'm still not ruling out the possibility of meeting my goal of documenting 365 movies this year. I'm just trying to be more realistic. So, from this day forward, this blog is going to be more of a long-term project, not to be completed when I reach the 365th flick. Who knows, maybe by movie #2,000, I'll actually be good at this reviewing thing.

Anyway, in attempt to clear up the clutter for the new year, I'm going to post a bunch of smaller reviews of films I've recently taken in. Some of these I may have even watched weeks or months ago, but was left uninspired or just too tired to even discuss.

#120: Dark Star
Directed by John Carpenter
Written by John Carpenter and Dan O'Bannon
Released February 9, 1979 (West Germany)

I added this one to my list after watching 2001 and finding out that Dark Star was not only supposedly a spoof of the Kubrick masterpiece, but also the first major film from director John Carpenter. As it turns out, Dark Star has only a few allusions to 2001, and calling the film itself a "major motion picture" is stretching the meaning of those words. Still, with a minuscule budget, Carpenter and O'Bannon got the attention they needed to further their careers (O'Bannon would go on to write Alien, using several plot points from Dark Star). It's a stoner space comedy with a few amusing moments. As a curiosity for fans of Carpenter, Dark Star is worth checking out. Fans of the band Pinback need no longer wonder where they got the band name, as it is the surname of O'Bannon's character in the movie.

#121: Postal
Directed by Uwe Boll
Written by Uwe Boll and Ryan C. Knight
Released October 18, 2007

Uwe Boll has been responsible for some of the worst movies ever made. I don't even think the previous sentence qualifies as an opinion, since it's indisputable. House of the Dead. BloodRayne. In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale. Boll's lovable German sense of humor is on full display in Postal, as he opens the film with two suicide bombers who have hijacked a plane and are about to crash it until they get into an argument about how many virgins they were promised in the afterlife. They decide to live, and just as they divert the plane's path to the Bahamas, the American passengers break into the cockpit and cause the plane to crash into a skyscraper. What's that? You're not laughing? Well get ready for 90 more minutes of idiotic shit.

Dave Foley, whom I thought had swam to his absolute depth in California Dreamin', shows up here as some sort of hippie guru, giving us a long and unpleasant gaze at his cock and taking a shit within moments of his character's introduction. Most of the plot revolves around the public's desire to buy some sort of doll that looks like a penis. This "joke" is so unsubtle that the name given these dolls is unsurprisingly "Crotchy Dolls." This is the kind of wit we're dealing with, people. At least the 9/11 bit was tasteless enough to warrant a response. The rest of this thing is just pathetic.

#122: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Directed by David Fincher
Written by Eric Roth and Robin Swicord (based on the story by F. Scott Fitzgerald)
Released December 25, 2008

I can only imagine what it must have been like to be a make-up or visual effects artist in the running for an Oscar this year, and then see your hopes dashed upon the rocks as you saw the mindblowing work on display in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Maybe next year, make-up geeks.

As for the movie itself, it's really good but a bit hard to love. Perhaps part of it is the emotional distance kept by director David Fincher, not exactly our most sentimental film makers. Of course, for people like me who cringe at many films' blatant attempts to get an audience to cry, this approach is actually kind of welcome. Still, there are little bits of corny sentimentality to be found (namely, the ridiculous presence of a hummingbird that annoys like that feather in Forrest Gump.

Since I'm mentioning Gump, I have to add that Button felt like the more likable but less ambitious cousin to that mushy slab of Conservative propaganda (Jenny's reward for protesting Vietnam = getting the AIDS, etc.). Frankly, Benjamin Button doesn't really do all that much. He gets laid here and there, makes more money working on a boat than anyone in history ever has, kinda fights in a war (but really, basically falls down and survives a major incident) and meets the love of his life.

Of course, with Fincher behind the wheel, the whole thing is exquisitely made and looks fantastic... it's just that the heart beating inside of it isn't doing enough to keep it, or us, alive. The blood is there, but it's the push that is lacking.

#123: Cat Dancers
Directed by Harris Fishman
Released December 18, 2008

I'm dying to reveal to you the double-twist tragedy that sends this documentary from being merely a portrayal of an eccentric entertainer named Ron Holiday, his wife Joy and their "partner" Chuck Lizza, into the stratosphere of weirdness. It's that twist that will have you talking and debating with your co-viewers, and it's that twist that would make this review infinitely more readable.

Sure, there's plenty of other bizarre material to attract you to Cat Dancers, mainly Ron's multiple wig and costume changes, paired with some of the insanely hilarious stuff that comes out of his mouth (watch, for example, his students' faces when he talks to them about soup made out of tiger penises).

As you watch Ron and his tales of near-stardom, you begin to realize that there's something dark on the way, a flickering and dying lightbulb at the end of his narcissistic tunnel-vision. When it finally does come, you'll come up with a hundred questions before the doc's end credits abruptly arrive. Fishman's failure to answer those questions may make your blood boil.

#119: Horror Business

2008-12-15T12:39:00.000-08:00

Horror Business
Written and Directed by Christopher P. Garetano
Released 2005

For some of my friends, this is all they'll need to know about the 2005 documentary Horror Business: as it opens, we join American Movie's Mark Borchardt as he begins filming a new movie, Scare Me. In case you're worried that Borchardt may not be the same well of hilarity that he was years ago, he immediately reminds you of his awesomeness by saying into the telephone, "Dan, dude, it's Mark. Thanks for being in my movie tomorrow. Are you down for that, or is your life in another direction?"

For those who need a little more description, the subject matter of Horror Business is quite literally about the business of making horror movies, and more specifically, independent horror movies. When I say "independent" here, I'm not even talking about lower budget stuff put out by studios like Miramax or those Rob Zombie movies... I'm talking about people making homemade flicks in the same way that George Romero or Herschell Gordon Lewis did when they began. I'm talking about the kind of movies that run the risk of emptying someone's bank account and destroying someone's life, yet they still get made.

I've mentioned before that I thought the most interesting layer of American Movie is the underlying element where, if you're paying attention, you go beyond laughing at Borchardt and his wacky cast of characters and realize that no matter how comical all of this shit seems, this guy really is pursuing a dream. Whether you think it's successful or garbage is beside the point.

If you go see some opening band at some club in your town and you think they suck, that's fine. But at least they tried, you know? Laugh as derisively as you want, but have you really put forth the effort into the things you wanted to do? Maybe you wanted to be an astronaut when you grew up... but did you at least try going to Space Camp, for fuck's sake? There are millions of people out there who might say, "Mark Borchardt? Dude is no Steven Spielberg." You know what? Fuck Steven Spielberg.

Don't get me wrong, there is plenty of crap among the good discussed in Horror Business. I may never want to sit through a movie like the ones Ron Atkins makes in Horror Business (they actually look quite terrible), but he's not hurting me one bit by continuing to do what he does. Plus, there's something awesome about scenes like the one from his Dark Night of the Soul where a man in a skull mask attacks his victim and calls him a "dick-lickin' punk."

For every bit of junk documented in Chris Garetano's movie, there are hints of real talent that Hollywood should look into, like David Stagnari, who seems to make the most of his tiny budgets in films like Catharsis. Maybe, however, Hollywood doesn't even deserve a fresh voice when they keep remaking classics like The Omen or Texas Chain Saw Massacre. One of the interview subjects in Horror Business puts things into perspective as he complains about the studio system and celebrity, saying he hates, "How they complain, how they gotta have a certain kind of water, they gotta have this in their trailer.... shut the fuck up and be in a movie!"

Ultimately, I think I was hoping that Horror Business would be a little more informative about the industry and about how the people in this film maintain a living. Instead, it's more of a "power of positive thinking" piece for the independent filmmaker looking for a reason to keep going.

For more on Horror Business:
- Movie information at IMDB.
- Buy the DVD from the doc's official site.

The Horror Business trailer:

#118: Dead Man's Shoes

2008-12-11T14:06:00.000-08:00

Dead Man's Shoes
Directed by Shane Meadows
Written by Paddy Considine, Shane Meadows and Paul Fraser
Released October 1, 2004

"God will forgive them. He'll forgive them and allow them into Heaven. I can't live with that."

And so begins Dead Man's Shoes, a dark, dour and pretty bad ass revenge flick that combines Death Wish with just a hint each of Friday the 13th and The Sixth Sense. None of this comparison will make sense until you've seen the entire movie, but it's all pretty apt.

Paddy Considine (whose biggest role prior to this was probably as Joy Division's manager in 24 Hour Party People, though he has appeared in a handful of recognizable films) absolutely owns in a story he co-wrote with director Shane Meadows about a soldier named Richard who has returned home to avenge the abuse of his mentally disabled brother at the hands of a gang of drug dealers and thugs.

As Richard methodically doles out his revenge, we gradually learn details - via black & white flashbacks - of his brother's ordeal. As we learn more about the teasings and beatings, Richard's punishments gradually become more righteous.

Meadows makes great use of an offbeat soundtrack that features Smog, Calexico, Danger Mouse, Will Oldham, Aphex Twin, M. Ward and more. It's one of those rare movies that uses well-chosen popular music seamlessly, rather than being cut to look like a music video that has been crammed into the middle of a story.

The only thing a bit off for me was the melodramatic ending, where a major character makes a major decision that I'm just not sure I completely believe. Perhaps if I understood more about the sadness or pain going on inside this person, I could understand this choice, but from where I was sitting, it definitely seemed like a convenient way to end the film rather than a believable choice that a real human would make.

Regardless, I was immediately taken in by Dead Man's Shoes, a pretty basic film with a simple plot that was easily elevated above genre dreck like the Death Sentence by the acting and the craft put into it. I will be disappointed if Considine doesn't get more large roles like this in the future. Sure, he might have to keep writing them for himself, but a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do.

For more on Dead Man's Shoes:
- Movie information at IMDB and Wikipedia.
- Buy the DVD.

The Dead Man's Shoes trailer:

#117: The Grand

2008-12-09T18:28:00.000-08:00

The Grand
Directed by Zak Penn
Written by Matt Bierman and Zak Penn
Released April 4, 2008

To sum up The Grand is simple: think Best in Show or This is Spinal Tap or A Mighty Wind but replace their subject matter (dog shows, heavy metal or folk music, respectively) with a championship poker tournament. If you know those other movies, then you know you're in for some improvisational comedy with an ensemble cast.

While actors like Hank Azaria, Dennis Farina, Jason Alexander, Chris Parnell, Michael McKean and Woody Harrelson (in full Roy Munson mode) are all likely to put a smile on your face, the inclusion of Gabe Kaplan (the one and only Mr. Kotter) as the father of "identical twins" David Cross and Cheryl Hines really sealed the deal for me. Plus, in a truly inspired and oddball casting choice, you've got directer Werner Herzog as The German.

A number of small stories intertwine throughout this mockumentary, but the story revolves around casino heir Jack Faro (Harrelson) trying to win the $10 million tournament to save his family's casino.

Some of the gags don't work (like the fake instructional Werbe home video), but other material, like the Hines/Cross relationship and Parnell's borderline autistic character Harold, are fun to watch.

The Grand isn't great by any stretch of the definition, but it's a good time, especially if you're into poker or have caught yourself watching one of those late night Texas Hold 'Em shows. Actually, if you're not a fan or player of the game, you'll probably be out of the movie by the second half, when the players make it to the last table in the tournament. I won't tell you who makes it to the table, but it falls on these actors to keep the movie amusing and entertaining... not an easy feat for a game of cards.

In an interesting twist, director Zak Penn decided to make the final table of this fictional tournament a real game, so the winner of the game -- and the end of the movie -- was truly up for grabs.

For more on The Grand:
- Movie information at IMDB and Wikipedia.
- The official site.
- Buy the DVD.

The trailer for The Grand:

#116: Solaris

2008-12-09T11:09:00.000-08:00

Solaris
Directed by Andrei Tarkovsky
Written by Fridrikh Gorenshtein and Andrei Tarkovsky (based on the novel by Stanislaw Lem)
Released March 20, 1972

In this blog's tradition of wildly swinging the door in the opposite direction, today we're going from the blatant stupidity of Jake Speed to a three hour Russian-directed and iceberg-slow meditation on loss, memory and psychosis.

I was drawn to this film after stumbling onto the 2002 remake, directed by Steven Soderbergh and starring George Clooney, on cable one night. While Soderbergh is definitely one of my favorite directors, he has had a few missteps. Therefore, I was unsurprised when I read reviews of his Solaris that found the movie boring and disappointing. Seeing it for myself, I was drawn in by the very things that reviewers were complaining about, most notably its lull-inducing, dreamlike pace.

In Tarkovsky's Solaris, a psychologist named Chris Kelvin is sent to a space station that has been observing a strange planet, the titular Solaris. Upon his arrival, the station (which has been observing the planet for decades but has been unable to make much scientific progress) is in disarray, with the few scientists who have remained in various states of paranoia or confusion. Kelvin also begins to catch glimpses of other inhabitants on the station, people who shouldn't be there -- and who would have had no way of getting there.

Is the station haunted? Is Solaris more than a planet?

There is a sequence about 35 minutes into the movie that is the kind of thing that will separate fans of traditional movie storytelling from those who have a little more patience with putting more thought into the images they are processing. It's essentially just a wordless segment of a character's car ride through streets and tunnels, but set to the sound effects of a space launch. Most viewers would watch this and think "Why is this in the movie?" Really, though, it's there to show how much this particular character's journey is still affecting him, so many years after he has returned to Earth. He's haunted, permanently scarred even, and this sequence is basically laying the groundwork for what we're about to see another character experience. In Hollywood, this sequence would have been hacked out, and probably wouldn't even end up on the DVD as bonus footage.

In the film, a psychologist named Kris Kelvin is sent to a space station that has been observing a strange planet, the titular Solaris. Upon his arrival, the station (which has been observing the planet for decades but has been unable to make much scientific progress) is in disarray, with the few scientists who have remained in various states of paranoia or confusion. Kelvin also begins to catch glimpses of other inhabitants on the station, people who shouldn't be there -- and who would have had no way of getting there. It's not long before Kelvin himself is experiencing visions.

Is he hallucinating? Is the station haunted? Is Solaris more than a planet?

Solaris is, in a strange way, a spiritual offspring of 2001. Rather than comment on man's progress, it's more about how mankind cannot cope with the things it cannot understand. There's also a sense that the further into the unknown mankind goes, the further into itself and its own mysteries it gazes. I'm tempted to go further, but I'm worried that my pontification will spoil the movie for anyone who might want to give it a shot.

It's unfortunate that Tarkovsky felt that Solaris was his least successful film, because it's a beautiful and unique thing to behold... one of those works of art that could really have made people feel different about the Soviets at its time of release and in the Cold War that followed.

For more on :
- Movie information at IMDB and Wikipedia.
- Buy the DVD.

The Solaris trailer:

#115: Jake Speed

2008-12-06T14:00:00.000-08:00

Jake Speed
Directed by Andrew Lane
Written by Andrew Lane and Wayne Crawford
Released May 30, 1986

This evening's choice was based on another recommendation, but not really a ringing endorsement so much as one of those, "This movie is so bad you're going to love it" movies.

If you know me at all, you know I love a good bad movie. Don't get me wrong: despite the fact that I write a blog about movies and truly appreciate cinema as a form of art, I am no snob. As I was growing up, my existence was basically Mystery Science Theater 3000. My older brother and I turned making fun of movies into a pastime, so much so that when we went to church with my family, my mother would have to separate us because we would crack up through the entire service. I couldn't even tell you how many times I've seen crap like Gotcha! or The North Shore. This tradition has continued on with some of my closest friends (I remember seeing The Firm with my friends Brian and Matt, and that night of yelling at the screen could possibly go down as one of the funniest nights since man learned to speak).

I could tell only 5 minutes into Jake Speed that I was missing out by not watching this movie with my brother or those friends. The movie starts with some young people being abducted during a trip to Europe, one of them being chased in one of those ridiculous movie chases where people run for miles from a criminal, never once going into a store, using a phone or even turning to any other person on the street and saying, "Hey, can you help me here?"

Then, we cut to a family dinner, where the family of the kidnapped girl are speaking with "government nitwits" about how to get her back. Enter crazy ol' grandpa, who suggests contacting fictional characters, including the titular pulp novel star, "Jake Speed." Turns out that crazy ol' grandpa isn't so crazy, because an associate of Mr. Speed, played by Dennis Christopher from one of my all time favorites, Breaking Away, has convinced the man to take on their case.

Mr. Speed's entrance is pretty much incredible. He rolls in looking like a drunken 1980s college professor and doesn't utter a meaningful line of dialogue for a few minutes. When he does, it's a howler: "Sometimes you gotta do things the hard way." "Why?" "It reads better."

My co-worker was right: this movie IS so bad it's good. It features all the great hallmarks of stupid movies that are worth watching, namely bad dialogue, good actors making bizarre choices (John Hurt is the main bad guy!), and absolutely retarded characters making idiotic choices (the female lead decides to hire Jake to rescue her sister based on the fact that she sees the word "speed" on a few signs as she stands on a street corner). Sometimes you can watch three or four actors on the screen an it looks like each one of them things they are in a different movie.

I lost count of how many times I said, "What the fuck?" watching this thing. The scene in the African bar when a dude danced to a bizarre 80s-meets-tribal African version of "Maniac" from Flashdance... the scene where Speed hits the brakes on his jeep and says, for no reason, "Damn. We're runnin' out of time" and then drives right into the front of a barbershop... lines like "Hey sweet meat, how are they hangin', hey baby!"

The best exchange comes as the female protagonist is calling Speed out as a fraud:

Margaret Winston: If you're such a big deal, why haven't they ever made a movie?
Jake Speed: Ever try to deal with those people?

Bad music, stupid characters, hilarious dialogue and absurdly random explosions. Jake Speed, you glorious turd.

For more on Jake Speed:
- Movie information at IMDB and Wikipedia.
- Buy the DVD? I'd say this one is more of a rental.

A dissection of the movie from The VHS Show:

#114: The Final Countdown

2008-12-05T22:31:00.001-08:00

The Final Countdown
Directed by Don Taylor
Written by Gerry Davis, Thomas Hunter, Peter Powell, and David Ambrose
Released August 1, 1980

Here is a movie begging for a remake, and I'm not saying that because the movie is bad. On the contrary, The Final Countdown is a fun little sci-fi/action movie with a very interesting premise.

I guess I'll drop a SPOILER WARNING right here, even though any description of this movie pretty much gives this bit away from the beginning: The Final Countdown is about a modern day aircraft carrier that gets sucked into a time warp and deposited near Pearl Harbor in Hawaii hours before the infamous Japanese attack that sparked the United States' involvement in World War II.

Starring Kirk Douglas and Martin Sheen, The Final Countdown presents the viewer with a great moral argument: with this insane firepower and modern technology at their hands, should the Navy intervene and easily defeat the Japanese, or should they hang back and avoid disrupting the course of history?

It's a great nail to hang a story from, but there's so much there to ponder that you almost feel shortchanged when the movie is over in less than two hours. I have no complaints about the movie, and Douglas and Sheen both do great work and seem like they're having a good time together. I'd say it's a pretty high compliment that I wanted so much more.

My proposition, I think, is a fairly clever one that could possibly work on a network like Showtime or HBO: make a 3 or 4 hour mini-series re-make of this flick, and use Michael Douglas and Charlie Sheen (or hell, Emilio Estevez) in place of their fathers. It's a nice gimmick to work from, and the two guys are pretty much the exact ages their fathers were when making The Final Countdown.

With the extended running time, you could really flesh out the time travel aspect of the story (it is barely dealt with in the original movie, beyond a little "Hey man, I'm just sayin', we might have just travelled through time"). Have some fun with that, and while you're at it, go into a little more detail with the Navy crew's secretive observations of the events leading up to the bombings.

I have my friend Eric to thank for mentioning this movie to me years ago when I lived in Chicago. It kept popping in and out of my mind until I finally found it on Netflix, and I was glad I finally followed through with the suggestion. It's not one of the greatest films of all time, but there's nothing wrong with enjoying a fun, somewhat thought provoking little action movie. Plus, how can you go wrong with a Japanese bomber repeatedly attacking Charles Durning?

For more on The Final Countdown:
- Movie information at IMDB and Wikipedia.
- Buy the 2 disc special edition DVD.

A portion of the "splash the zeros" scene:

#112: Zach and Miri Make a Porno vs. #113: Quantum of Solace

2008-11-28T07:55:00.000-08:00

Zach and Miri Make a Porno
Directed by Kevin Smith
Written by Kevin Smith
Released October 31, 2008

Quantum of Solace
Directed by Marc Forster
Written by Paul Haggis, Neal Purvis, and Robert Wade
Released November 14, 2008

I know, I know: what the hell am I doing pitting these two movies against each other? Really, the main reason for this is the fact that I saw the two movies back to back a few nights ago with a couple of friends.

But I guess if there's a motif to my pairing these two movies, it's the simple fact that one surprisingly exceeded my expectations, and the other disappointingly failed them in a miserable way.

First, let's discuss the redemption of Kevin Smith. Zach and Miri Make a Porno is easily his funniest, best movie since Clerks. Granted, leaping over such a low bar is no amazing feat, but this most recent film taps into the same mixture of profanity and sentimentality that made his debut movie so charming.

Sure, Zach and Miri is nothing you'd want to watch with your mother. EVER. It's about as filthy as an R rated move can get these days, with one particularly unfortunate scatological scene that really stands out as probably taking things too far. It continues the Kevin Smith tradition of juvenile fascination with sex and absurd use of bad language, but unlike with Clerks 2, it actually works to serve a story rather than appease the dick & pussy joke crowd.

The lion's share of the credit should probably go to the cast of the movie. Smith wisely steps outside his comfort zone, combining a few of his own "stars" like Jason Mewes while undeniably snatching from the Judd Apatow casting pool with actors like Seth Rogen and Craig Robinson. The actress who absolutely makes the movie work, however, is Elizabeth Banks as Miriam Linky. If her take on Miri didn't work, the entire premise -- including the potential for a believable love store -- would collapse.

There's one brief moment in particular, with Banks shot from above as she lies on her back in the backroom of a coffee shop, where her facial expression in reaction to something that has just happened absolutely seals the deal on making the audience believe in the romantic aspect of the movie. It's a little piece of acting that is so sincere and believable, you might literally blush because it feels like you're watching something you're not supposed to be seeing. Banks's Miri is the first realistic female character to ever appear in a Kevin Smith movie.

I also applaud Smith for adding a little variety to his directing. He's still no auteur and his camera still remains relatively still, but he does a good job here of using varying angles that show that he's putting thought into his shot composition. If you turned the volume off, you might not even know that you were watching a Kevin Smith movie.

In the same vein, I think if no one in Quantum of Solace uttered the name "James Bond," you also wouldn't know you were watching a Bond movie. Sure, there's the beautiful women and breathtaking locales, but the main thing this chapter in the Bond saga lacks is the simple element of fun. Its exclusion is almost criminal.

I'm not asking for anything that would ruin the more serious, and true to the novel, characterization of Bond as performed by Daniel Craig. I'm not asking for the campy Roger Moore raising of the eyebrows, or to put Bond in space ala Moonraker. I'm just asking that maybe the new Bond movie not need to take itself so goddamned seriously. Give us a bad guy who is actually shown doing bad things (or at least worse things than stockpiling water, for God's sake). Give us a stand-alone movie with its own plot, like all previous Bonds before this one, so I don't have to sit in my seat and think, "What the fuck is going on here?". And I saw Casino Royale!

I wouldn't say Quantum, on its own merits, is a bad movie. It looks and feels like a decent Bourne knock-off. The problem is, as a part of this massive franchise, it's easily one of the most punishing, least fun entries in the series. I've always thought that an action movie that you can watch more than once is a true sign that it's a damn good movie. I've probably seen Die Hard at least 20 times; I can't imagine wanting to watch Quantum of Solace again.

The best thing about Quantum of Solace is unquestionably the hypnotic post-car chase opening credits sequence, designed by MK12, a fantastic design company based out of Kansas City, MO. I would rather have watched another 90 minutes of their work than the movie that followed.

One of the biggest sins in the creation of Quantum is the insane use of quick-cut editing. There is virtually no camera shot in the film that lasts over 4 seconds. Seriously, watch a few minutes of the movie and count "one one thousand, two one thousand" every time there is an edit. You'll go insane. Even some scenes of dialogue and exposition (which you will find yourself longing for) are cut like a fight scene.

If you're going to film in a half dozen exotic locations, give the audience a moment to take in the scenery. That doesn't just go for the locations, though. Seduce us! We're supposed to want to be James Bond, or at the very least, want to be one of his conquests. With Quantum of Solace, the dude is just a damn bummer.

For more on Zach and Miri Make a Porno:
- Movie information at IMDB and Wikipedia.
- The official movie site.

For more on Quantum of Solace:
- Movie information at IMDB and Wikipedia.
- The official movie site.

The Zach and Miri Make a Porno trailer:

The Quantum of Solace trailer:

#111: 2001: A Space Odyssey

2008-11-02T22:03:00.000-08:00

2001: A Space Odyssey
Directed by Stanley Kubrick
Written by Stanley Kubrick & Arthur C. Clarke (based on Clarke's writings, especially "The Sentinel")
Released April 6, 1968

Someone once said that writing about music is like dancing about architecture. In other words, how can you use one form of art to describe another?

I've always felt that saying was a bit silly, but when I think about writing anything about Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey, it starts to make a lot of sense.

How do I sum up one of the greatest cinematic experiences you could possibly have, made by a director who had so much faith in his audience (or so much confidence in his film) that he entirely eschewed conventional storytelling and narrative with this movie? I suppose there's a first, second and third act here, but the first contains no dialogue and the third - still with very little dialogue - will just trip you the fuck out completely.

2001 requires participation on the viewer's part. It requires that you take it in, that you think about what it means or what it means to you. If I were to write about the movie tonight, I'd pretty much just be standing in your way. Why don't more movies let you do that?

To honor Kubrick, I'm just going to take a moment to laud the technical brilliance of his film. Before humans had even landed on the moon, Kubrick took viewers on a realistic voyage into the universe and, by film's end, eternity. Every single detail, the haunting and frightening music, the groundbreaking effects, the perfectly composed shots and beautiful lighting, amounts to an absolute masterpiece.

While I've watched 2001 dozens of times, I finally had the opportunity tonight to see it in a theater. I never usually sit as close to the screen as I did tonight, but I just wanted to feel like I was surrounded by this movie. Though the print wasn't of the best quality and the screen was by no means massive, it was an intense, immersive experience. I highly recommend seeing it in a theater if you have the means.

Regardless of how you manage to take it in, the movie is like nothing else you may ever see, one of the most intellectually and philosophically interesting pieces of art ever put to film. In its own vernacular, it is the Monolith: the touchstone for cinematic progress that helped move the medium forward.

For more on 2001: A Space Odyssey:
- Movie information at IMDB and Wikipedia.
- The Wikipedia entry for the 2001 novel, written by Clark during production of the movie.
- A very interesting and lovingly crafted explanation of the movie.
- Buy the DVD or Blu-Ray.

The 2001: A Space Odyssey trailer:

#110: Cinemania

2008-11-02T02:05:00.000-08:00

Cinemania
Directed by Angela Christlieb and Stephen Kijak
Released June 13, 2002

Anyone who thinks I'm even remotely strange for doing this project will seriously need to recalibrate their judgement scale after seeing the five characters profiled in Cinemania, a documentary about true cinephiles in New York City who watch up to 1,000 movies a year in city theaters. They make databases for the movies they want to see, and then map out the train schedules they'll need to follow, while factoring in theaters with worthy projectors and the ones that are showing good prints, etc...

I think if I lived in a city like New York, with so many theaters and movie options, I could see myself turning into one of these people if the right combination of pathos and sadness entered my life. I can totally understand how people will view this documentary and think that these people lead a sad existence, but there's a part of me that is very jealous of what they do.

There's Jack (the "star" of the movie), who seems the most sane of the bunch because he is also the most reflective personality, able to stand outside himself and discuss in detail the hows and whys of his mania. He defines the line between loving movies and cinephilia is "the point where you pay a price, where there's pain involved." He's incredibly interesting to listen to and probably the one person in this "cast" whom I'd enjoy seeing a film with.

Then, we're introduced to Bill, who claims to have moved to New York initially because the city was showing a retrospective of the work of German director Rainer Werner Fassbinder. Bill states, "Film is a substitute for life. Film is a form of living." Bill talks about how he has avoided a real career because the work and preparation involved would impede on his ability to see films. His daily preparation for heading to the cinema, which looks like someone preparing for a camping trip, is meticulous, extensive and almost maddening.

Harvey, who appears to be autistic, memorizes the running times of each movie he has seen and must sit in the front row. He has a collection of promotional film stills, along with hundreds of LP soundtracks that he can't listen to because he owns no record player. Jack derides Harvey as fascinating because "will see almost anything you put before him... no matter how trashy or bad."

Eric, an unkempt grey haired man getting by on disability payments, is probably the least socially appealing person in the cast. "Film buffs do not socialize," he says. "Film buffs get together to see movies. They do not get together to have parties, they do not get together to know each other."

Roberta, along with Jack, refuses to watch movies on video or DVD. She is an obsessive collector of everything from programs from theaters where she attends movies, collectible soda cups, and even the train cards she used to get to the theater. She's overly emotional and is said to often be rude to people who work at the theaters. At one point in the movie, a woman whom Roberta attacked at the Museum of Modern Art is interviewed about the incident, and she talks about how Roberta lunged at her and choked her because of how she tore her ticket stub.

The documentary examines the lives of these people and their social intersections at various points, but still only seems to be scratching at the surface of its subjects. By that I do not only mean the five filmgoers, but also the psychological implications of this cinephilia, or how their family or friends perceive what they do or how they spend their time. As for how these people got started down this path, there is only a minor examination by a few of the subjects.

I agree with Jack when he says at one point, "this should be a mini-series." As a document of obsession, Cinemania would have benefited from some deeper digging. If they managed to contact the MoMA employee who was choked by Roberta, why not track down a few of Jack's ex-girlfriends, or Eric's former employer, or talk to Harvey's parents? I suppose the fact that the movie left me wanting much more, even after viewing the extra scenes on the DVD, is a credit to the film makers.

One of the most ingenious parts of the documentary comes at the end, as the subjects of the film watch themselves in the movie about them. As they hilariously deconstruct everything they see, you can't help but wonder if the fact that the movie was made using video and not actual celluloid is the ultimate slap in the face to them.

For more on Cinemania:
- Movie information at IMDB and Wikipedia.
- Buy the DVD.

The Cinemania trailer:

#109: The Call of Cthulhu

2008-11-02T01:02:00.000-07:00

The Call of Cthulhu
Directed by Andrew Leman
Written by Sean Branney (based on H.P. Lovecraft's "The Call of Cthulhu")
Released 2005

Aside from the obvious drawback of having virtually no audience interest (and therefore no box office draw), I've often wondered why no one attempts to make a "silent" movie anymore.

It's the disregard for the financial/box office slavery that bogs down most movies that proves that Andrew Leman's dialogue-free homage to silent movies of the 1920s, the black and white 2005 adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft's "The Call of Cthulhu," is an obvious labor of love for both the director and the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society.

In watching The Call of Cthulhu, I realized one of the major problems in trying to duplicate or mimic a style of film that has been gone for many decades: technology. One of the biggest problems with the movie is that it just doesn't look old. The charm of watching a movie like Vampyr partially lies in seeing how people back then made due with the limitations of their technology. Even though many of the special effects shots may be obviously faked, it's that element of trickery that makes it appealing.

The best example I can think of is comparing the original Star Wars trilogy with the films George Lucas has made in the past decade. While the digital effects and in his newer movies may be more seamless and less man-made, they wind up reducing the impact of what's onscreen. The collapse of one of the walkers in the Hoth battle sequence in The Empire Strikes Back is far more memorable than any of the countless flashy space battles in the newer trilogy.

A similar problem inhabits Cthulhu, in that you can tell it must have been shot digitally and then made to look aged after filming was complete. While this technique can sometimes work with films like Robert Rodriguez's Planet Terror, he was only trying to reach back to the 1970s and '80s. To make Cthulhu seem almost a century old, you'd almost need to dig up some ancient cameras and film stock to really duplicate that kind of film making. I realize that making such a decision would be economically unfeasible. It's ironic: it would cost you far more money to make this movie with shitty old equipment. There is admirable use of things like models, stop motion animation and miniatures, but there are little obvious digital intrusions that can't be ignored.

It's not that I don't respect The Call of Cthulhu for being a low budget tribute to both H.P. Lovecraft and those classic old silent films. For fans of the writer, this movie is probably a must-see. For the casual viewer, it's a curiosity and a fairly successful Film School type of exercise. Unfortunately, it's that limitation that will turn away most viewers.

For more on The Call of Cthulhu:
- Movie information at IMDB and Wikipedia.
- More on the Lovecraft story on Wikipedia
- The official movie site
- Buy the DVD.

The trailer for The Call of Cthulhu trailer:

#108: Psychomania

2008-11-01T22:52:00.000-07:00

Psychomania
Directed by Don Sharp
Written by Julian Zimet and Arnaud d'Usseau
Released March 1973 (U.K.)

I had to work on Halloween night, so my tradition of sitting on my ass and watching bloody, gory, scary movies was cancelled. So, this weekend I'm tying up the loose ends and getting a few more Horror flicks in before I settle into November.

From the grainy, washed out footage during the opening credits of the 1973 British cult classic Psychomania, which features a motorcycle gang called The Living Dead driving around through foggy, Stoneheng-ian surroundings before causing an accident which kills a motorist, I could tell this was going to be the kind of '70s "grindhouse" horror movie I'd been searching for all month.

Tom (Nicky Henson), the leader of the biker gang, wants to commit suicide with his gang and return "even better" to cause trouble and raise hell. He believes that frogs - and his mother - are somehow linked to some sort of bizarre witchcraft that can bring him back from the dead. You know, the kind of insane logic that only a cult flick from the '70s can pull off.

It doesn't take long to figure out that Psychomania is batshit craziness that is both mindboggling and yet hilariously enjoyable. There's a funeral scene about a third of the way through that is pure, laugh out loud comedy, with a hippie singing under a tree and Tom's body propped up on his motorcycle in a grave not even deep enough to cover his head. I'm not giving anything away by telling you that Tom's faith in frogs turns out to work to his benefit, and he rises from the dead looking exactly as he did before. Soon, the members of his gang are dying to join him.

Get it? See what I did there? DYING to join him! Is this thing on?

Don't let my enthusiasm fool you into thinking Psychomania is a great movie, because it is decidedly not good. It is, however, bad in a great way. It's comically anti-establishment (the gang wants to become immortal so they can start murdering cops, judges and teachers... though the gang spends most of its time attacking grocery store carts), and it makes me wonder if "authorities" felt honestly threatened by this movie back in the day.

This should have been prime material for "Mystery Science Theater 3000," or at least for a great time yelling at the screen in a midnight movie, especially once you see the "special" effects at the film's climax.

For more on Psychomania:
- Movie information at IMDB and Wikipedia.
- Buy the DVD (there is currently only 1 used copy listed).

Footage from Psychomania:

#107: Bay of Blood

2008-10-30T00:24:00.000-07:00

Bay of Blood
Directed by Mario Bava
Written by Mario Bava, Filippo Ottoni, Dardano Sacchetti and Giuseppe Zaccariello (from a story by Franco Barberi)
Released September 8, 1971 (Italy)

While I've already covered legendary Italian directors Lucio Fulci and Dario Argento this month, I would be remiss not to mention the work of Mario Bava. Hell, the guy made the movie from which Black Sabbath took their name! Sadly, my education on Bava is pretty limited, so this probably won't be the last time you see me reviewing one of his movies in the next 8 or 9 months.

Also known as Twitch of the Death Nerve, The Ecology of Murder, Carnage and even marketed at one point as Last House on the Left 2 (even though it has nothing to do with that movie, and was made a year before it), seems to have been one of the biggest influences on the Friday the 13th. This is not only because it features a faceless slasher making short work of teenagers who party by a lake, but more specifically in a couple of the murder scenes which wind up surfacing years later in at least one of the 13th flicks.

I'm really not giving too much away by telling you that the teenagers who show up in this movie are in trouble. Anyone who knows anything about Horror movies knows that when Hippies show up, they're gonna die. Bay of Blood also employs what would become a convention of Horror movies: the old Killer's-P.O.V. cam that puts us behind the eyes of a stalking murderer.

Thank god for those Hippies, because some of them get some truly great hack n' slash deaths. As a matter of fact, these murders are pretty much the main draw, since Bava makes so many strange twists and scene changes that you'll find yourself confused at more than one point. Unlike those redundant Jason Vorhees movies, Bay of Blood has a plot that is far more convoluted, with an entire cast of characters -- from the Tarot card obsessed woman who looks like Marc Bolan of T.Rex to the insect collector or the guy who takes bites out of squid as he fishes them out of the water -- who may or may not be the murderer. Or, maybe there's more than one. . .

Look, maybe it's just best to not pay that close of attention. Put this on at a party as some great background footage, something that will constantly grab attention. You might as well play some music over it as well, since people aren't going to be able to follow it in any sort of linear fashion.

Honestly, I'm going to have to give Bava another shot on another day. Bay of Blood just wasn't doing it for me. Between the teenage hippies, the flashbaks and the land/estate dispute, I didn't know what the fuck was going on by the end of the first hour.

(Halloween fans: go check out my music blog, Pimps of Gore for a big old chunk of spooky mp3's...)

For more on Reazione a catena:
- Movie information at IMDB and Wikipedia.
- The Wikipedia entry on Mario Bava
- Buy the DVD, or check out the alternate version, Twitch of the Death Nerve.

The stylish Bay of Blood trailer:

#106: El Espinazo del diablo (The Devil's Backbone)

2008-10-28T21:23:00.000-07:00

The Devil's Backbone
Directed by Guillermo del Toro
Written by Guillermo del Toro, Antonio Trashorras and David Muñoz
Released April 20, 2001 (Spain)

Honest to God, there is more passion, style and substance in the opening 5 minutes of Guillermo del Toro's El Espinazo del diablo than in most of the movies on this October slate (don't worry, Dario Argento, I ain't lookin' at you!). When you watch over 100 movies virtually in a row, you start to really be able to tell who is putting their heart into it and who is half-assing it (or just doesn't even have the skills to be able to record a memorable image to film).

When I sit down to a movie with Guillermo del Toro's name on it, I at least know I'm getting something that the dude put some thought into -- and yes, that even includes Blade II. After drudging through the almost frozen-in-place Tales from the Crypt, I looked forward to some sort of fresh vision. Or, at the very least, some mood lighting or a creatively composed shot.

Well, I got all of that and a lot more.

The Devil's Backbone is a ghost story that is on par with del Toro's heartbreaking masterpiece Pan's Labyrinth. It shares a similar tone, along with some parallel story elements (like the use of bookending narration that becomes far more enlightening at the climax). In the case of the latter movie, a child was escaping her terrible predicament through her own sense of fantasy. Unfortunately for the characters in The Devil's Backbone, both their predicaments and the spectres that haunt them are very, very real.

The man must have a knack for coaxing believable, natural performances out of children, because del Toro once again tells his story predominantly through the eyes of a group of orphans, and most specifically through the eyes of Carlos (Fernando Tielve), an innocent but brave young boy who is left at the doorstep of the orphanage, still unaware that his father has been killed in the Spanish Civil War.

Not long after Carlos arrives at the home, the ghost of another boy begins to reveal himself in the shadows of the secluded basement. Who is he? What does he want? What happened in that basement?

Labeling The Devil's Backbone as simply a Horror movie, or as a ghost story, isn't really giving the film the credit it is due. While there are elements of both, much like in Pan's Labyrinth, it's also a moral tale, a suspenseful yarn and a bit of a mystery.

Best of all, it's incredibly well made. From the cinematography, the lighting, the striking art direction (especially the creation of the ghost), the use of music, the almost palpable atmosphere and setting, it's about as perfect as an independently produced film can get. Kudos to del Toro, along with producer Pedro Almodovar, a visionary director in his own right who helped bring to prominence the vivid and seemingly bottomless creativity in the Spanish film industry.

As we near the end of this month of Horror filmmaking, I can say without a doubt this is one of the best films I've watched so far.

For more on The Devil's Backbone:
- Movie information at IMDB and Wikipedia.
- The movie's Sony Classics site
- Buy the DVD.

The trailer for The Devil's Backbone:

#105: Tales from the Crypt

2008-10-28T19:04:00.000-07:00

Tales from the Crypt
Directed by Freddie Francis
Written by Johnny Craig, Al Feldstein, William M. Gaines and Milton Subotsky (stories from The Vault of Horror and Tales from the Crypt
Released March 9, 1972

One of the discoveries I made when watching the Tales from the Crypt documentary a few nights back was that there was actually a anthology movie made in England that predated the HBO series by almost 17 years and featured stories from those old EC comics. Here I was thinking Creepshow was one of the first of its kind...

While that movie was a little more faithful to the style and tone of the comic books, Tales from the Crypt still does a fair job of sticking to the ideas of those books, especially in keeping the character of The Crypt Keeper. In this movie, unlike the TV show, he isn't a rotting corpse puppet but rather a hooded, monk-like soothsayer who confronts a group of guests (including Joan Collins) and tells each one of them their ultimate fate.

Collins is given a premonition about herself as a murderous wife who kills her husband on Christmas Eve night as a mass murderer dressed as Santa Claus wanders the streets by her home. This same story, titled "And All Through the House," would eventually wind up being used (to better effect) in the very first episode of the HBO Tales from the Crypt series.

One of the drawbacks of this movie is that the vignettes look even more like they've been made for television than the actual TV show. Granted, special effects had come a long way in those years, but there's just something about the staging and the lighting that makes the film look less like a Horror movie and more like a bland episode of Masterpiece Theater.

By the second story in the movie, we begin to see cracks in the premise and its effectiveness (or lack of) in being terrifying. Because these vignettes are being foretold to the people in them, we know that none of them is actually taking place. There was a terrible suspense movie released a few years back starring John Cusack where, about 3/4 of the way through the movie, we the audience discover that all of the movie's events are happening inside the mind of a fat crazy man. Once this was revealed, I absolutely could not care about anything I was seeing because it held no weight at all. And yet the filmmakers dove back into the fat guy's imagination so we could see the outcome. Who gives a shit? We're still, at the end of all this, just in a fat guy's mind, right?

The third story is not just a take on the old "Monkey's Paw" story: they literally reference it within the story! When the characters know exactly what you know, there is no dramatic tension to be had. If this one had been played a little differently, it would have made for great comedy. When the story ends and they cut back to the group of people gathered around the Crypt Keeper, you half expect the lead in this story to say, "Come on now, that one was just bad."

I must admit that the fourth story (while a little slow), plus a twist at the end, both helped put to rest my annoyances with what came before as for as the "in a fat guy's head" complaint, but they didn't make up for how slight the movie seemed as a whole. It definitely put the TV series and aforementioned movies like Creepshow (but not that awful Creepshow 2) into a new and better light.

I honestly would have rather read the comics tonight.

For more on Tales from the Crypt:
- Movie information at IMDB and Wikipedia.
- Buy the DVD.

The Tales from the Crypt trailer:

#104: Tales from the Crypt: From Comic Books to Television

2008-10-26T23:36:00.000-07:00

Tales from the Crypt: From Comic Books to Movies
Directed by Chip Selby
Released 2004

I believe I mentioned, way back in my review of The Blob, that I used to write and draw my own comic books, most of which were based on Horror films, short stories by Stephen King or Horror comics. Naturally, almost all of these loves were done behind the backs of my parents, who were unaware that I had a hidden stash of comics like reprints of The Vault of Horror and Tales from the Crypt.

When I was growing up in the late 1970s and early 1980s, there was a massive resurgence of all things Horror related, especially in the world of comic books, where characters like Swamp Thing and even Dracula were the stars of their own series. What I didn't fully appreciate was history that existed behind the reprints of those old Horror comics, which began with a publishing company called EC Comics.

Started by a man named Maxwell Gaines and driven to prominence by his son William M. Gaines (whom you may remember as the man behind Mad magazine), the "EC" in EC Comics originally stood for "Educational Comics." The elder Gaines had been one of the comic book format's earliest pioneers, originally using his company to publish educational stories from history and the Bible.

Naturally, kids didn't want to read about shit like that in a comic book. What kind of escape can you find in the pages of a picture book that tells you the same stuff that kid is already being pummelled with in school and church?

The documentary Tales from the Crypt: From Comic Books to Television essentially tells the story of the younger Gaines inheriting his father's company and turning it into the highly successful, and eventually controversial, "Entertainment Comics," which published several lines of comics that dealt with Horror, Science Fiction, True Crime and war stories.

Obviously, this is a niche movie and a far step away from the Horror movies I've been reviewing this month. If you were a never a fan of Horror comics, the Tales from the Crypt TV show or anthology Horror movies like Creepshow or Tales from the Darkside, you might as well forget about reading the rest of this entry. For those who might be interested in the history of comics, this documentary, while cheaply made and featuring mostly "talking head" footage of interviews interspersed between archival photos and art from the comic books.

The talking heads include an impressive array of Horror legends, including George A. Romero, John Carpenter, Stephen King, and R.L. Stine, along with many of books' most famous artists. Seeing the links between these old horror comics and some of the most classic Horror movies in the past few decades is enlightening, especially when you see the obvious influence on directors like John Carpenter and zombie-king Romero (whose collaboration with King on Creepshow is also examined as an homage to the EC books).

The real dramatic meat of the documentary comes with the discussion of Dr. Frederic Wertham's Seduction of the Innocent, which blamed the comics industry for causing juvenile denliquency in America's youth. A massive Congressional inquiry occurred, followed by federal investigations which lead to the dissolution of many of the comic book publishing companies and eventually Gaines' most popular books. The film also deals with the redemption of Gaines via his success with Mad and the eventual resurgence of Tales via the HBO series.

Clocking it at just under an hour, Tales from the Crypt: From Comic Books to Television seems a little slight. A more all-encompassing documentary about how the anti-comics culture war affected the entire industry (like the story told in David Hadju's book The Ten Cent Plague: The Great Comic-Book Scare and How It Changed America) is definitely something I'd love to see.

For more on Tales from the Crypt: From Comic Books to Television:
- Movie information at IMDB
- For more on EC Comics, check out Wikipedia.
- EC Comics online
- Buy the DVD from the official site.

The intro for the Tales from the Crypt TV show:

#103: The Fearless Vampire Killers

2008-10-26T21:17:00.001-07:00

The Fearless Vampire Killers
Directed by Roman Polanski
Written by Gérard Brach and Roman Polanski
Released February 1967 (U.K.)

Another Horror touchstone which I must touch on is director Roman Polanski, who directed Mia Farrow in Rosemary's Baby one of the most chilling and disturbing (especially to pregnant mothers) films of the genre.

Just one year before he made that classic, Polanski directed a Horror movie that was much different: The Fearless Vampire Killers (or, known in every country but the U.S. as Dance of the Vampires) is a sort of satirical vampire spoof, the kind of fright flick made for people who'd rather not take this fare so seriously. Clearly, Polanski was taking his biggest shots at the Hammer Studios films I've mentioned before.

The movie stars Jack MacGowran as Professor Abronsious, a wacky and esteemed ex-professor who has donated his life to searching Europe for signs of the existence of vampires. Polanski plays his somewhat dim and quiet assistant, Alfred, while Polanski's wife -- and future victim of Charles Manson's clan -- Sharon Tate, plays the daughter of a strange innkeeper in the small town where the professor and his assistant finally find possible signs of bloodsuckers.

After the abduction of the innkeeper's daughter, Abronsious and Alfred track down the castle of Count von Krolock, played by Ferdy Mayne as a much more convincing vampire than the man who played Dracula in the Hammer kung-fu Dracula movie I reviewed a while back.

The tone, which feels like a combination of fairy tale with hints of Mel Brooks and The Beatles' Help!, is fairly slapstick-y. If you're the kind of person who loves classic old Blake Edwards movies like The Party or some of his Pink Panther stuff, you'll enjoy this, but if you're the kind of person who believes that Horror flicks are capable of generating their own intentional or unintentional laughs, you'll probably be unamused.

I difnitely enjoyed the change of pace that The Fearless Vampire Killers allowed me, a welcome break from the dark evils of movies like Cannibal Holocaust or I Spit on Your Grave. There's a great scene near the end with a ballroom full of vampires that really shows off Polanski's skill at staging a complex scene with dialogue and dancing. I was most impressed with the attention to detail in the movie's art direction and set design, along with the off kilter and effective music score provided by Polanski collaborator Krzysztof Komeda.

For more on The Fearless Vampire Killers:
- Movie information at IMDB and Wikipedia.
- Buy the DVD.

The trailer for The Fearless Vampire Killers:

#102: The Last Man on Earth

2008-10-24T12:54:00.000-07:00

The Last Man on Earth
Directed by Ubaldo Ragona and Sidney Salkow
Written by William F. Leicester, Furio M. Monetti, Ubaldo Ragona and Richard Matheson (from Matheson's story "I Am Legend")
Released March 8, 1964

"Another day to live through. Better get started."

While clearly it would be impossible to hit every important figure in the Horror genre this month, I think I've done a fairly good job. However, failing to include Vincent Price in any October feature would be a tragic mistake.

With Price, there's so much to choose from that it's ridiculous. You could practically do an entire year of daily reports on his career as a Horror icon. In most of them, he plays the bad guy. But not in the 1964 adaptation of Richard Matheson's "I Am Legend." In this, Price plays Dr. Robert Morgan, seemingly the only survivor of a plague that has turned the world's population into one of two things: a pile of corpses or a surviving - and starving - group of vampires.

Morgan spends his days in a depressed funk, amassing his collection of garlic and wooden stakes, and then going out into the world to burn bodies and slay the vampires in their sleep. At night, he comes home, drinks and listens to records as the zombie-esque (George Romero apparently got his idea of the slowly creeping, flesh eating zombie from this movie) vampires bang on his windows and doors, howling out his name.

I'm pretty sure once a giant crew of vampire zombies knows me by name and hangs outside my apartment at night, I'm going to be spending my days finding a new apartment.

The constant narration at the beginning of the movie is almost maddening. I know I complain about narration a lot on these pages, and I should especially cut a movie like this, where there are virtually no other speaking roles, some slack. If there's one thing I will give the Will Smith version of I Am Legend credit for, it's in the way they got the story across without having Smith's voiceover explain his every move.

Luckily, that irritating device is abandoned for a lengthy flashback that tells us the story of how the virus started and how it overtook the world. Here, we learn about the tragic fate of Morgan's wife and daughter, and just who that vampire is that knows the Doctor's name.

Much like Romero's Night of the Living Dead, this movie putts along at a very slow pace. While I have to respect it as the inspirational material for Romero's flick, I just found it so much more boring. Unfortunately for Price, he was typecast as the personification of evil in most of his films for a reason: he just makes a better bad guy.

For more on The Last Man on Earth:
- Movie information at IMDB and Wikipedia.
- Buy the DVD, paired as a double feature with Ray Milland's Panic in Year Zero.
- Download the movie, which is public doman, for free here.

The trailer for The Last Man on Earth:

#101: The Shining

2008-10-22T19:49:00.000-07:00

The Shining
Directed by Stanley Kubrick
Written by Stanley Kubrick and Diane Johnson (based on the novel by Stephen King)
Released May 23, 1980

Having crossed the century mark with Something Wicked This Way Comes, I wanted to celebrate with one of my all time favorite films, the absolutely unnerving Stanley Kubrick classic The Shining. If you were constructing a short list of movies to watch on Halloween night, this one has got to make that list. Hell, if you just upgraded to a high-definition TV set, there are few movies I could imagine that would be better to break in your new system.

The Shining, possibly even more than the original The Haunting, is the ultimate "haunted house" movie. It's just that in this case, the "house" is a massive hotel. The opening shots, which have the audience soaring like a vulture over massive Imax-style landscapes, immediately set the tone for the entire movie. I've seen this flick dozens of times and still watched these opening shots three times tonight before moving on.

When it comes to stunning imagery that is going to stick with you for years, The Shining is pretty much the high water mark. They way Kubrick composes his shots... the incredible steadicam work, revolutionary for its time, by Garrett Brown... the patience the film makers take it lingering on shots to make them unsettling as possible... this movie is a fucking masterpiece before you even consider other important elements like story, acting, editing or music. Just keep your eyes peeled for scenes like the elevator doors, or the sequence where Danny Torrance (played by Danny Lloyd) rides his Big Wheel through the halls of the hotel.

Speaking of Danny, I suppose we should get to the story. You know all those modern Horror movies where they use the weirdo kid who may or may not have supernatural abilities (like The Ring) as a creepy kind of protagonist? The Shining's Danny is like the template of that whole character idea. We find out early on that Danny has a strange psychic sense, along with an invisible friend who "lives in his mouth" who speaks to, and through, him.

This power really begins to manifest itself when Danny, joined by his mother Wendy (Shelley Duvall) and father Jack (Jack Nicholson, in a role that would come to define the rest of his career), move into a Colorado hotel to help with maintenance during the hotel's 5 month off-season. What seems like a simple job to Nicholson's Jack Torrance becomes slowly complicated by what goes on within the confines of the not-so-empty hotel. Unfortunately for Jack, who initially spends his days trying to write the book he intended to complete during the snowy winter, he soon becomes consumed by the strange draw of the hotel and its "inhabitants."

Unfortunately for Danny, he can see what the rest of his family can't. Unfortunately for us, we can see it, too. There's a particular scene with a woman in a bathtub that has been in my head since I saw it as a child. When I saw that I was nearing the scene during this viewing, I pondered skipping it or even stopping the film completely.

If there's a small weakness to The Shining, it's in the fact that Jack's descent into madness doesn't take very long. Stephen King was never a fan of Kubrick's choice of Nicholson as the father because he felt there were more sympathetic actors who would make Jack's character arc more tragic. In this case, King was maybe half right: Nicholson's Jack never really shows any warmth toward his wife and son. Hell, it's Nicholson we're dealing with, so it's like he's gone insane weeks before we even join the events of the movie.

In another regard, Nicholson still delivers a hell of a fucked up, crazy performance. The scene where we find out what Jack has been writing is one of Horror cinema's greatest reveals, and Nicholson eats up the screen in every shot he's in. And really, if you were paying any attention to those opening shots I was talking about, you'd know that Kubrick isn't trying to sneak up on us; he was sharpening his knives before the title of the movie had hit the screen. Who am I to quibble about how Kubrick chooses to tell this story when he does it so unbelievably well?

Sorry Mr. King. I see your point (and I'm sure having Kubrick fuck you around during the screenwriting process didn't help matters), but complaining about this would be like Bob Dylan complaining about the foot pedals Jimi Hendrix used when recording his version of "All Along the Watchtower."

NOTE: If you buy the DVD, make sure you get a version that includes the "Making of The Shining" documentary, filmed by Kubrick's wife. It's incredible behind the scenes footage, including some great stuff where Danny talks about how he couldn't wait to see what his parents were going to buy him with the "5 or 600 dollars" he thinks he's making, and the scene of Scatman Crothers brought to tears talking about how happy he was to be involved with Danny and the other actors on the film.

Plus, watching it is a great way to come down after having the shit scared out of you by the actual film.

For more on The Shining:
- Movie information at IMDB and Wikipedia.
- A pretty interesting FAQ about the movie and Kubrick.
- Buy the DVD, or the BluRay DVD. Both are insanely cheap.

The awesome alternate trailer for The Shining:

#100: Something Wicked This Way Comes

2008-10-22T16:59:00.000-07:00

Something Wicked This Way Comes
Directed by Jack Clayton
Written by Ray Bradbury
Released April 29, 1983

So, when you're thinking of the Horror genre, pretty much the last name that comes to mind is Disney.

Granted, Something Wicked This Way Comes isn't full of the blood and gore that most of the genre has come to rely on. It's smarter than that, but that figures: it comes from the pen of Ray Bradbury.

At the film's opening, we meet Will and Jim, two mischievous small town friends and next door neighbors who seem to really have only each other. Jim's father has gone missing for years, while his mother barely notices him while she entertains strange men. Will's father, played by Jason Robards, wanders around haunted by an incident in Will's childhood, when he's not locked away in the town library feeling old and close to death.

We follow the boys and are introduced to an entire town full of regret and broken dreams. There's the ugly shrew of a teacher who used to be the town beauty, the cigar shop owner who is obsessed with money, and the crippled bartender who can't forget the days he spent as a college football star.

Then, a mysterious train comes to town in the night, bringing with it a surreal carnival owned by the shadowy (and aptly named) Mr. Dark, who employs a smoking hot fortune teller (Pam Grier). As the townsfolk begin to see their dreams realized (but not without a hefty price tag attached) by the carnival's attractions, the boys begin to witness its nefarious underbelly. One night they are discovered sneaking behind the scenes, and Mr. Dark knows he must destroy the boys before they bring his scheme to an end.

Story-wise, it's all a little thin, with no real explanation of where the carnival comes from or why it has returned to this small town. What is Mr. Dark looking for? Why must they travel at all, if what they offer is so enticing to any town where they set up shop? Of course, almost any movie falls apart under that kind of skeptical scrutiny, so I guess sometimes it's best just to let a premise be a premise.

If you're a parent looking for Halloween movies that aren't going to traumatize your children with violence, Something Wicked This Way Comes is a perfect alternative. Of course, there's still plenty of potential for psychological damage, like a late night spider attack, or Jonathan Price's dark, if unsubtle, work as baddie Mr. Dark. Price makes more out of a scene where he tears pages from a book than half of the antagonists in this month's movies.

There's a dramatic payoff on the carnival's carousel that would satisfy anyones taste for revenge, so I suppose if you do wind up watching this with the young'ns, you might want to be handy to cover their eyes.

For more on Something Wicked This Way Comes:
- Movie information at IMDB and Wikipedia.
- Buy the DVD.

The trailer:

#99: Dead of Night (aka Deathdream)

2008-10-20T20:36:00.000-07:00

Dead of Night (aka Deathdream)
Directed by Bob Clark
Written by Alan Ormsby
Released August 30, 1974

"Okay," I thought, "this is my third movie tonight. This one had better not suck."

The elements were all in place for a good time: Deathdream was directed by Bob Clark, whose Black Christmas I enjoyed last week (and whose A Christmas Story is one of my all time favorite comedies), and the make-up was done by zombie expert and Horror legend Tom Savini.

Dead of Night is an especially edgy horror movie if you consider the time period in which it came out, the early 1970s, not long after the U.S. had pulled out of Vietnam (it was actually made in 1972 but unreleased until '74). It must have been especially strange for Savini, who claims to have learned more about Horror make-up as a war photographer than he did in his years of playing around with stage make-up prior to his time in Vietnam.

The movie opens with two soldiers surrounded by explosions in the jungle. Before we really even learn their names, they are shot and presumably killed. The credits roll and then we sit down to dinner with the Brooks family. There is a rapping at their door, and we learn that one of the soldiers killed was their son Andy (played by Richard Backus).

Mrs. Brooks does not take the news well, and her husband finds her awake at nights, denying her son's death and praying for his safe return. As a twist on the classic story The Monkey's Paw, soon Mrs. Brooks' wish comes true: her son returns home, seemingly alive but behaving much differently than she or her family remembers. Andy is a shell of his former self, barely speaking and almost unable to act human.

As a metaphor for the effects of the horrors war on an individual, their family, and even their community, Dead of Night couldn't be more apt. Andy spends his days rocking silently back and forth in a chair, observing his family from afar and scaring the family dog.

Speaking of the family dog, there's a confrontation between Andy and the adorable mutt -- executed in front of a group of neighborhood kids who idolize the Brooks boy -- that really sets the tone for how dark and dramatic of a movie we're dealing with. Dead of Night is fucking DARK. This isn't the kind of scary movie where you cheer the violent death of a bad guy or await the next morbid set piece.

The acting in the movie carries the whole picture, with especially good performances from Lynn Carlin as Andy's mother Christine, and of course Richard Backus as Andy, in what could have been an embarassing one-note performance.

By the end of the movie, you might just be blown away: Dead of Night winds up being a poignant, sad and ultimately thought-provoking movie, "horror" or not. While Clark wound up in his later years filming dreck like Baby Geniuses and Karate Dog (are you kidding me? Karate fuckin' Dog?!), you have to give the guy credit for making something as brave as this movie so soon after America was still tending to its post-Vietnam wounds.

I can't say I've ever really seen a Horror film like this one. It wound up being so much more than I expected, and more than made up for the two disappointments that preceded it.

For more on Deathdream:
- Movie information at IMDB and Wikipedia.
- Buy the DVD.

The Deathdream trailer:

#98: Fiend Without a Face

2008-10-20T18:55:00.000-07:00

Fiend Without a Face
Directed by Arthur Crabtree
Written by Herbert J. Leder (based on Amelia Reynolds Long's "The Thought-Monster")
Released July 3, 1958

Tonight we're jumping back the the 1950s to check out another black and white oldie but goody: Arthur Crabtree's Fiend Without a Face, which struck me as a must-rent when I read that it was one of the first film's to employ bloody/gory special effects.

Fiend begins as yet another 50s Sci-Fi movie that plays on the world's fears of the Atomic Age, with a U.S. Air Force base sharing occupation in Canada coming under fire for mysterious deaths that have begun arising in the local population. While the deaths appear to be related at first to radiation, the town coroner and the Air Force soon discover that something is sucking the brains and spinal cords out of these victims. On top of all that, the damn thing appears to be invisible.

By the time the movie was half over, four people had died and I still hadn't seen a drop of blood (granted, with a 75 minute run time, I hadn't waited that long). Since this long lost B-movie had been released by Criterion, I had been expecting something much more subversive... maybe something from the 50s that really crossed the boundaries of good taste for the era.

One lesson about making movies that Crabtree needed to take to heart is to give the audience a little taste early on of what they're going to get in the finale. The director saves all of the juicy stuff for the last fifteen minutes. In a way, these scenes of the creatures attacking are a kind of precursor to George Romero's Night of the Living Dead, in that the menace is a mass of slow moving but persistent enemies which may be easily dispatched if not for their persistence.

I tried to put myself in the place of a viewer from the 50s, but I could only wonder how much longer I would have waited for a payoff among the stiff acting and silly script before putting the moves on my girlfriend at the drive-in theater. I wondered if my gal would have even lasted through the long-winded description of how the "fiends" were birthed, or if she would have slapped me and walked home in the night.

Now there's a set-up for a decent 50s Horror movie.

For more on Fiend Without a Face:
- Movie information at IMDB and Wikipedia.
- Buy the Criterion DVD.

A scene from Fiend Without a Face:

#97: John Carpenter's Cigarette Burns

2008-10-20T02:15:00.001-07:00

Cigarette Burns
Directed by John Carpenter
Written by Drew McWeeny and Scott Swan
First aired November 2005

In searching around this month for Horror movies I'd never seen, I stumbled upon a batch of really good reviews for an hour-long episode of the Showtime "Masters of Horror" TV series. This particular program, entitled Cigarette Burns was directed by one time Horror god John Carpenter (Halloween, The Thing). Since I'd pretty much seen everything he had directed, good or bad, I figured it was worth a shot.

The plot was appealing, considering my own quest, for both this month and this project:

Udo "I Play Bad Guys" Kier plays Bellinger, a movie collector who specializes in horrifying images. Bellinger seeks the help of Kirby (the shitty Boondock Saints' Norman Reedus), a movie theater owner who helps collectors like Bellinger find high priced obscurities like movies, movie props, posters and more.

Bellinger's quest is to find the sole existing copy of a movie called La Fin Absolute du Monde, which had screened only one time and apparently had the power to drive the audience into a violent, murderous rage. Bellinger claims to be dying, and that his only wish is to view La Fin Absolute du Monde before he dies. For such a rare, infamous movie, it's kind of funny that Bellinger offers such a low price for its acquisition. By the time Kirby doubles the price, you'll be hard pressed to not think of Dr. Evil scheming for "One million dollars!"

Unfortunately, this is the least of the issues with this short film. I guess I should be fair, because for a television series with a low budget, Carpenter does manage to accomplish a lot here, especially considering that he shot Cigarette Burns in only 10 days. There's some great gore, especially a beheading, that will make even the most jaded Horror fan curl their toes.

One of the downfalls of the "movie" is the fact that the story is a bit too ambitious for how little time Carpenter is allowed to tell it. It takes place in three different countries and at least five cities (it all looks like Canada), as if this journey takes a bit of effort, and yet there's no time spent in any location. After making a few brief phone calls and a couple of visits, Kirby pinpoints the rather obvious location of the movie and walks away with it as if he was the only person to ever have the audacity to just ask for the thing. The ending also feels rushed, with characters making some idiotic choices even for people who may have supposedly "gone mad."

Carpenter does do a good job in showing only brief bits of the infamous movie, making it look effectively disturbing enough to have a power over those who watch it. For a short so heavy in exposition-via-dialogue, Cigarette Burns maintains an effective level of tension. As a Horror movie, it still winds up being a bit simplistic (Carpenter dissects the thing so brutally in the commentary that you almost wonder if he even likes the results).

For more on John Carpenter's Cigarette Burns:
- Movie information at IMDB and Wikipedia.
- Buy the DVD.

The Cigarette Burns trailer:

#96: Phenomena

2008-10-17T14:30:00.000-07:00

Phenomena
Written and Directed by Dario Argento
Released August 2, 1985

The opening of Dario Argento's Phenomena is like a Greatest Hits tape of all of the director's trademarks: someone enters a room or house they were not supposed to enter, they get strangled, they get stabbed with scissors, and for some reason they go crashing through a window.

From there, it only gets better, with the introduction of Halloween's Donald Pleasance, thousands of insects and even a highly intelligent monkey wielding a straight razor. Did I mention that it also features the gorgeous young Jennifer Connelly, and the music of Goblin, Motorhead and Iron Maiden?

Did I just hear you say, "Fuckin' A?" Damn right.

Similar to Suspiria, Phenomena (which was released in the U.S. in a heavily edited version called Creepers) is about a girl who comes to a private school and immediately starts to interrupt the normal swing of things. In this case, Connelly is Jennifer Corvino, the daughter of a famous actor who has the strange ability to communicate with insects. As these insects start leading her to clues about the identity of a serial murderer, Professor John McGregor (Donald Pleasance), an entomologist who uses his knowledge of insects to help the police solve crimes, tries to tap into her powers to find the killer before he/she finds Jennifer.

As Jennifer discovers the depths of her own powers, she is ostracized by her schoolmates and from the school itself. She immediately seeks help from McGregor, who (I'll skip the somewhat convoluted narrative here) pairs her with one of his insects, a fly that he believes will lead her to the missing victims' bodies and the killer. It, of course, does. Thanks for that bit of irresponsible decision making, Professor!

Once Phenomena gets to this point, with Corvino trapped in the killer's house, things get good and nasty (like that giant bowl of human soup that awaits our heroine). There's even a fantastic finale with not one but TWO murders you couldn't possibly see coming.

While a lot of 80s horror movies were busy making rehashes of Halloween like the Friday the 13th franchise, Dario Argento was still making skewed, original and creepy horror movies, some better than others, sure, but most of them seem to have elements of a real story and a real passion for the art of filmmaking. Bugs, blood and brilliant monkeys? Phenomena is scary fun.

For more on Phenomena:
- Movie information at IMDB and Wikipedia.
- Buy the DVD. While it is out of print and expensive to buy as "New," Amazon has several used copies for sale.

The Phenomena trailer:

#95: The Brood

2008-10-16T07:10:00.000-07:00

The Brood
Written and Directed by David Cronenberg
Released May 25, 1979

When you do a search on the Internet Movie Database for The Brood, the first thing that pops up in the search results is a link to The Brady Bunch. This would be like going to buy your niece a stuffed animal for her birthday and walking out of Toys R Us with a dead body. If you know anything about the work of director David Cronenberg (A History of Violence, Naked Lunch, Dead Ringers), you know he's about as far removed from The Brady Bunch as any director in the history of film.

The Brood is about family, and more specifically about the myriad of ways a family can pass along its scars and demons. . . in this case both literally and figuratively. It presents a few classic Cronenberg themes as well, including bad doctors, bad doctors and really bad parents. Oh yeah, and a good bit of physical deformity.

Oliver Reed plays creepy Dr. Hal Raglan, a psychiatrist who has invented some sort of new science called "Psychoplasmics." I'm not quite sure what is entailed in Psychoplasmics as it is never fully explained, but it appears to be the practice of fucking with a patient's head and making them confront their inner demons until their psychological symptoms begin to manifest themselves in physical form.

Raglan's star patient, the one with whom he has begun to focus most of his time, is the wife of Frank Carveth (Art Hindle), a dude who isn't exactly winning any Father of the Year awards by leaving his nearly mute, disturbed daughter with pretty much anyone within earshot who has an urge to babysit. That's because Frank is too busy trying to take his wife to court over custody.

In the meantime, Raglan is making some unfortunate breakthroughs with Mrs. Carveth and some of her enemies are beginning to wind up dead. What's more strange is just how the victims are being done in; let's just say that Nola Carveth has gone beyond scars and sores.

In other words, some of Frank's babysitters are winding up dead. While most of these deaths are relatively tame for the director who brought us the exploding heads of Scanners, Cronenberg gets real Cronenberg-y when he stages a murder in plain view of a classroom full of children. At first you think he's just using clever editing, so as to avoid traumatizing a bunch of kids, but no, there's a straight up murder and a bloody corpse laid out in front of these kids. Classy!

The Brood is a decent film that really picks up in the last 10 minutes, when Mr. and Mrs. Carveth confront each other and Mrs. Carveth reveals her latest, um... production. This is the one real point where it totally feels like you're watching a Cronenberg movie, and it's a hell of a payoff.

In the canon of Cronenberg horror, however, the movie is relatively tame and can't even hope to crack his top 10.

For more on The Brood:
- Movie information at IMDB and Wikipedia.
- Buy the DVD.

The trailer for The Brood:

#94: Bug

2008-10-15T17:57:00.000-07:00

Bug
Directed by William Friedkin
Written by Tracy Letts
Released May 25, 2007

Among directing many great films (The French Connection, To Live and Die in L.A.) and a few bad ones (Jade?!), William Friedkin directed the absolutely chilling Horror masterpiece The Exorcist. Among supernatural thrillers, there's virtually nothing that can hold a candle to that movie; it's so effective that even if you turned off the screen and listened only listened to the sound, you'd have trouble sleeping. Throw in the taboo assaulting visuals and you've got a film experience that might literally change you.

Many years have passed, but Friedkin can still work his way around your brain.

Ashley Judd is in full unglamorous mode here as Agnes White, a waitress with a troubled past who spends her free time hiding out in a remote roadside motel. She's not doing such a great job of hiding, however, because her abusive ex (played with convincing menace by Harry Connick, Jr.) returns after two years in jail and almost immediately begins threatening and assaulting her.

White befriends a strange, reclusive man named Peter (Michael Shannon) and as their relationship progresses, he reveals details about his supposed past as a Gulf War veteran who fled the military after a series of medical experiments. What starts as a seemingly small incident -- Peter finds a tiny bug in their bed late one night -- turns into a downward spiral of paranoia between the couple. Is Peter delusional, or is his blood really full of these bugs? Perhaps the drugs that are ever-present on the dresser in the hotel room might have something to do with all of this?

Friedkin works here from a script by playwright Tracy Letts, and the director uses the spacial limitations of a play to his advantage by closing in on the couple and making us a claustrophobic prisoner in the cell they create.

The odd effect of this movie for me was that it really made me want to see the play. I felt like witnessing something like this in person would be far more intense (of course, I guess that's typically the effect of a good play). The cinematic experience falls apart somewhat in the last ten minutes, where the questions you may have had get answered so quickly that the time between the lifting of the veil and the climax might be a little disappointing.

Still, the work here is admirable, with some exceptional acting from the tiny cast, great use of proximity and camera angles, and adept editing by Darrin Navarro. Much like The Exorcist, it is based on a sort of possession or absorption, of the frightening and transformative evil that might be lying under our own skin. Even if the last few minutes, where your questions are finally and almost disappointingly answered, take away from the final product, the journey there is twisted and unlike most psychological horror movies.

For more on Bug:
- Movie information at IMDB and Wikipedia.
- The official movie site.
- Buy the DVD.

The Bug trailer:

#93: The Thing from Another World

2008-10-15T16:04:00.000-07:00

The Thing from Another World
Directed by Christian Nyby (and an uncredited Howard Hawks)
Written by Charles Lederer, Howard Hawks and Ben Hecht (from John W. Campbell Jr.'s "Who Goes There")
Released April 29, 1951

Nearing the top of my personal Greatest Horror Films list definitely has to be John Carpenter's 1982 gorefest The Thing, a remake of tonight's The Thing from Another World. A lot changed in the 30+ years between the two movies, namely the amount of blood and guts an audience could withstand.

I've always been interested in seeing the original, not only because of my love for Carpenter's flick but also because I wondered if the 1951 black and white relic could bring with it even a modicum of that version's suspense. The differences could definitely be seen at their beginnings, with The Thing from Another World taking many more minutes to introduce characters and let the mood build. From the moment Carpenter's Thing begins, you can sense that something is wrong.

Still, once the men in an Air Force Arctic expedition discover a possible flying saucer buried in the ice at the North Pole, things start to get interesting. While attempting to extract the saucer from its icy grave, the ship self destructs, leaving behind a strange passenger. A fast approaching storm forces the men to extract the "pilot" within a massive chunk of ice and leave it in a storage room while the scientists and soldiers argue about whether to thaw and investigate their find.

One notable and interesting detail that makes this movie ahead of its time is the realistic way in which the characters speak to each other. I don't necessarily mean the dialogue, which is very well written, but more in the way people interrupt each other or talk over one another. If it was unintentional, it definitely lends authenticity to scenes. Overlapping dialogue was always a technique that Robert Altman employed in his films, so it was somewhat interesting to see it in play in an older film.

One other notable detail: this movie kinda kicks ass, especially for being almost 60 years old. Once the Thing escapes, losing an arm to the sled dogs outside the Arctic compound, scientists discover that it is actually a form of plant life that uses human blood to feed and reproduce. Soon, "it" begins preying on the crew (it is here where this film departs from Carpenter's movie, with his creature inhabiting the bodies of its victims and using them as human disguises as he decimates his captors).

There's a tense scene with a Geiger counter, which the Air Force men use to track where the creature is, that definitely lead to one of the better scenes in James Cameron's Aliens. This is followed by what looks like one of the least safe uses of pyrotechnics in film history.

My only real complaint, and this is typically a good one to have with a film, was that I could have handled another 10 to 20 minutes of movie. It's probably just the modern moviegoer in me, but I wouldn't have minded a higher bodycount and maybe a more ominous ending, either. My loyalty still lies with the 1982 version, but that's probably because I'm a big fan of fucked up, nasty special effects and the always reliable Kurt Russell.

Still, The Thing from Another World deserves its status as a Sci-Fi classic. Make your grandpa proud and watch it with him some night in the coming weeks. You'll earn extra points if you throw in a little, "They don't make 'em like this anymore," too.

For more on The Thing from Another World:
- Movie information at IMDB and Wikipedia.
- Buy the DVD. Five bucks!

The trailer for The Thing from Another World:

#92: Demons

2008-10-14T20:32:00.000-07:00

Demons
Directed by Lamberto Bava
Written by Lamberto Bava, Dario Argento and Franco Ferrini (story by Dardano Sacchetti)
Released May 30, 1986

I couldn't go to bed with the taste of Cannibal Holocaust in my mouth.

The above sentence would be awesome in a toothpaste commercial.

Seriously though, I had to watch something entertaining after traveling down Ruggero Deodato's shit-paved path earlier this evening. And, I owed the Italians a chance at redemption.

An Evil Dead-level wacky demonic possession flick produced and co-written by Dario Argento, directed by the son of Italian film legend Mario Bava, featuring music from Billy Idol, Motley Crue and Rick Springfield (huh?). Pardon the play on words, but the Italians deliver! (Okay, I'd like to apologize to my Italian ancestors for making a racist pizza delivery joke right there...)

The plot is so simple it's almost ridiculous: a pair of friends, along with a bunch of other strangers, get handed some free golden passes for an early evening movie at a spooky theater named Metropol. The movie starts, shit gets crazy, and the blood starts to fly. It's like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory went smashing into a movie pile-up with Die Hard and Return of the Living Dead.

The idea of character development is so lacking here it's almost respectable. Along with our two female friends, there's The Blind Guy, The Three Black People, Guy Making Out With His Girlfriend, and Grumpy Older Couple. and Two Seemingly Gay Guys Who Are Trying to Mack on Our Female Leads.

Again, we're looking at a Horror film employing the movie-within-a-movie device, and in this case these poor people are suffering through some goofball Horror movie about people unearthing some sort of Nostradamus book of evil, with awesome dialogue like:

Guy 1 (yelling at Guy 2 for almost putting a mask on his face): "Don't do that! You'll become a demon!"
Guy 2: "How do you know?"
Guy 1: "It says here, "Whoever wears it becomes a demon.'"

As the movie on the screen goes violent, so do the patrons in the aisles. Demonic possession starts to spread like a nasty case of chlamydia, and Bava uses it as an excuse to drop the majority of his budget on coming up with a million ways to kill his film's victims. Scalpings, gougings, slashes, scratches and bites ensue.

It's mindless violence with a hair metal heart, and it plays like a nonstop version of the second act of the Tarantino/Rodriguez collaboration of From Dusk Til Dawn. It's not a great movie, but it's that perfect kind of movie to watch with a bunch of friends on Halloween night, laughing at the haircuts and poorly dubbed dialogue as you take turns shouting at the screen.

If you really want to have a good time, take bets on how everyone in the room thinks the movie will end (saying "They escape" does not count). If anyone at your party can even come remotely close to predicting the escape route for the survivors, you should just crown that person your god and give them the keys to your kingdom. It makes that little sense.

For more on Demons:
- Movie information at IMDB and Wikipedia.
- Buy the DVD.
- Trivia note: Bava worked as an assistant director on Cannibal Holocaust. Guess I had an unintentional double feature tonight.

The trailer for Demons:

#91: Cannibal Holocaust

2008-10-14T15:56:00.000-07:00

Cannibal Holocaust
Directed by Roggero Deodato
Written by Gianfranco Clerici
Released February 7, 1980 (Italy)

I've honestly never been more hesitant during this project to not watch a film than I was with Roggero Deodato's infamous, notorious pseudo documentary Cannibal Holocaust. I actually thought of just sending the movie back to Netflix without even putting it into my DVD player. I was that worried about being permanently scarred. Once the disc was in the player, I still avoided watching it for over two hours, flipping around to see what else was on TV.

What was making me so hesitant, you might be asking? Well, first there's the fact that Deodato was forced, after the movie's release, to prove that the actors in this movie were not actually murdered. No kidding. He literally had to produce the living actors to avoid being charged with multiple counts of murder. Second, a number of animals were actually murdered in the making of the film. Supposedly, the natives involved in the making of the picture ate the animals, but that still doesn't excuse Deodato's disgusting decision to murder animals to make the other horrors of his picture seem all the more savage.

Eventually, I gathered the courage and intestinal fortitude to hit Play.

There's no doubt that Cannibal Holocaust had a massive influence on the makers of The Blair Witch Project, as the primary conceit of the movie is that it presents the lost footage of a film crew whose fate is only learned upon viewing of the film they were trying to make. In the case of the former, four young and cocky film makers make an ill-fated trip into the Amazon jungle (constantly referred to in the film as "the Green Inferno") to document the lives of natives.

The first half of the movie focuses on the recovery of the footage, making the crew's documentary a movie-within-a-movie something we hear about but don't actually witness until later. The expedition to recover the footage is lead by Harold Monroe, an anthropologist, and two jungle guides who help him navigate the dangerous tribes inhabiting the jungle and keeping the remains of his film team in a shrine. He negotiates a trade and returns to New York with the footage.

As Monroe views the footage, he also begins to talk to the colleagues of documentary director Alan Yates. It seems Yates was known to be a provocateur, staging scenes for his films and even paying his subjects to commit horrible acts for better footage. Everyone Monroe encounters, from his father to his ex-wife, hates Yates with passion.

It won't take long for you to hate Yates -- or, more aptly, Deodato -- as you watch the first reels of the "lost" footage. The film crew enters the jungle and quickly dispatching animals they cross, whether it be a turtle they disembowel for food or snakes and spiders that threaten them. By the time they get to a certain scene with a monkey (which Deodato filmed two times, meaning two monkeys met a horrible fate), you won't have to be a card-carrying PETA member to want to seriously fuck up the director and anyone else who had anything to do with these sequences. Then again, that organization is so twisted that they could actually hold this up as a positive, making meat eaters confront what happens to their dinner every day.

Soon, the film crew has stumbled upon the same village where Monroe recovered their film, and they waste no time in pushing the villagers around and threatening them with their weapons. Then, they inexplicably force the villagers into a hut and set it on fire. What the fuck?

It doesn't take an intellectual road map to figure out where Deodato is going with these scenes: the Westerners are the real savages. The most retarded thing about Deodato's heavy handed thesis is that he is the one setting up scenes where actors murder animals, and he is the one making a racist movie about people in uncivilized regions eating people (the tribes in the film are actual tribes, who behave nothing like this in real life). He's perpetuating the very thing, the savagery, he's pretending on which to comment.

The documentary crew's film gets more and more ridiculous by the minute. Who would act like this, especially on camera? Killing animals, having sex in front of the villagers they just terrorized, even gang raping a woman from another tribe? It's preposterous, and then Deodato heaps insult on top of everything by then trying to make the retaliatory acts of the tribespeople horrifying.

The movie's final line, "I wonder who the real cannibals are," would have made me laugh out loud if I hadn't been so disgusted by what preceded it. If I could have put up with a second viewing, I would have watched it with the commentary track on to see how the director justified making this exploitative hunk of shit.

For more on Cannibal Holocaust:
- Movie information at IMDB and Wikipedia.
- Buy the DVD. Then, tell no one you own this thing. If you find this in your boyfriend or girlfriend's movie collection, dump his/her ass.

To watch the trailer for Cannibal Holocaust, follow this link.

#90: Sleepaway Camp

2008-10-13T19:08:00.000-07:00

Sleepaway Camp
Written and Directed by Robert Hiltzik
Released 1983

As Sleepaway Camp opens, the audience is presented with the quintessential setting for a 1980's Horror movie: a camp site. Like you can't have Jaws without the ocean, you can't have a slasher movie set in the era of Madonna without a lake and a bunch of cabins.

Unfortunately, you can't have a 80's Horror film without some horrendous acting, and the beginning of Sleepaway Camp has got that in spades. Just watch the way the water skier reacts after her boat drives over the face of a father swimming with his two children. I realize the situation is fucked up, but even in the case of a horrible accident like this one, I can't imagine someone being THAT melodramatic.

By the time you meet the mother of our "heroine" Angela Baker and her cousin Richard, you'll probably find yourself thinking, "They're kidding, right?" If Hiltzik is making an intentionally hilarious flick, he's already knocking it out of the park 5 minutes in.

Part of the marketing campaign for Last House on the Left was the tagline, "Keep telling yourself 'It's only a movie.'" When you're watching Sleepaway Camp, keep telling yourself, "They're trying to be funny."

Angela, who doesn't talk and stares at her more popular cabin mates, isn't exactly quick to make friends. Soon, one of the counselors, who thinks he's doing Angela a favor, introduces her to the beer swilling pedophile cook. She barely escapes being molested when her cousin steps in to save her, and then in the next scene we watch as that same cook is horribly burned by an offscreen "kid." Could the kid have been Angela or her cousin? Is this really going to be that easy?

Regardless, this has to be the worst summer camp in the history of camps. You've got openly hostile pedophiles running the kitchen, kids playing homoerotic pranks on one another, and counselors who spew obscenities at the kids when they aren't wagering on their games or physically assaulting them. At one point during a baseball game, one counselor shouts at a camper, "Fuck a man, asshole!"

What kind of parents would send their kids to a shithole like this? There are virtually no actual adults or authority figures. At one point, a fistfight breaks out between a dozen kids and no one stops it. Almost everyone in this dump is psychotic. It's like Meatballs meets Lord of the Flies up in here! This place is full of so many idiots that I'm only disappointed that everyone didn't get killed.

Sleepaway Camp has a massive cult following, and I can't understand why. It's fucking terrible. The acting is so bad that you have to wonder if everyone just learned to speak English phonetically and never really knew what words were coming out of their mouths. Then, you've got the script, written by a man who apparently barely understands either human behavior (even when a character takes a shower, it's not believable) OR murder. I mean, a guy dies almost instantly from a series of bee stings. Never mind the fact that we don't even see a bee during this entire scene. The budget of this movie can't even produce a BEE.

The only pay-off for the entire film, which also happens to be the only reason why this movie is on DVD it all and not faded into oblivion, is the "twist" at the end. I won't blow it for you, but it's one part obvious and one part mind-blowing. Still, 20 interesting seconds does not make up for 85 minutes of complete ineptitude. And when you really think about it, the twist is totally irrelevant to who the killer is or why they've done what they've done.

Just... crap.

For more on Sleepaway Camp:
- Movie information at IMDB and Wikipedia.
- A Sleepaway Camp website announcing the arrival of a new sequel, filmed by original writer/director Robert Hiltzik.
- Buy the DVD box set. I mean, if you're going to drop coin on this turd, you might as well get something cool out of it.

The Sleepaway Camp trailer:

#89: The Texas Chain Saw Massacre

2008-10-12T22:50:00.000-07:00

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre
Directed by Tobe Hooper
Written by Kim Henkel and Tobe Hooper
Released October 1, 1974

I have a hard time deciding what the best Horror movie of all time is, but that's only because I consider it to be a tie between Tobe Hooper's 1974 The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Stanley Kubrick's The Shining. While Kubrick's film is a masterpiece of mood and composition, Hooper's classic is even more frightening because its low budget and cast of unknowns makes it feels so much more real.

The film plays on that realism with an opening text crawl that falsely claims that what you are about to see is based on true events. From there, the harsh, stabbing soundtrack jumps out as us in between flashbulb-lit imagery of of an unearthed corpse. After a creepy retracting shot of a morbid graveyard "sculpture" left rotting out in the Texas sun, we meet our unlucky cast of victims, a group of young adults traveling in a van. Among the characters are the completely annoying wheelchair bound Franklin Hardesty and his sister Sally.

The group makes the ill advised choice to pick up a hitchhiker, a complete freak of a man played by Edwin Neal. Neal's character, who talks with awe about how cattle are slaughtered before threatening the people in the van with a razor, serves as a warning to the others that they should rethink their journey and head back the way they came, and he plays this weirdo so believably that you wind up amazed to find out he's an actor and not just some extra that Hooper thought would make a good character.

It doesn't take long after the group pulls over for some rest that a few of the other young adults stumble upon the character who would become the basis of the Chainsaw franchise: a mentally handicapped butcher/serial killer who wears a dead skin mask. He would come to be known as Leatherface. His first appearance in the film is as iconic of an entrance as any bad guy could ever get, and if you don't know what's coming, will absolutely scare the bejesus out of you.

Within those same few minutes, we are also introduced to some of Chainsaw's incredible art direction within Leatherface's house, a mess of skulls, feathers and hair, with pieces of furniture fashioned out of flesh and animal bones. You know you're watching a great fright-fest of a movie when a living room can give you chills. Don't worry though, because if you find yourself too tough to get spooked by that, there's a scene with a meat hook around the corner that will make your toes curl.

While Leatherface makes short work of the majority of the cast, it's the final half hour where the real twisted, terrifying shit goes down. Marilyn Burns, in the role of Sally, pretty much spends the remainder of the movie screaming her damn head off. It's really a remarkable performance, and she gets her ass kicked over and over again. She gets put through the ringer so much that you have to wonder if she wasn't permanently disturbed by what she had to go through.

One of the most epic horror setpieces comes at the Leatherface family dinner table. While there is maybe a drop or two of blood shed in this entire sequence, it is probably one of the most batshit crazy sequences in film history. As scary as it might be, you still can't help but laugh at the intentionally dark comedy of scenes like Leatherface's older brother chastising him, "YOU BROKE THE DOOR!"

One of the strangest pieces of trivia about Chain Saw is the fact that the movie uses very little fake blood or gore because Hooper had been trying to score a PG rating. He still wound up with an R rating, and really, thank God for that because I can't imagine people taking their kids to see this thing. The dinner scene alone would pretty much disturb them for life.

I have to add that people should really avoid the sequels to this movie, and especially the remake from a few years back, which is so disgustingly soulless and violent that it is totally without value.

For more on The Texas Chain Saw Massacre:
- Movie information at IMDB and Wikipedia.
- The house in the movie is now a restaurant
- Buy the DVD.

The trailer for The Texas Chain Saw Massacre:

#88: Day of the Woman (I Spit on Your Grave)

2008-10-12T20:20:00.000-07:00

I Spit on Your Grave
Written and Directed by Meir Zarchi
Released November 3, 1978

Alternately titled Day of the Woman, Meir Zarchi's I Spit on Your Grave is a horror/exploitation "classic" in the same vein as The Last House on the Left, with more than a hint of Deliverance thrown into the mix.

The story is pretty simple: a young female author named Jeniffer Hills (played by Camille Keaton) moves to the country to try and find some peace and quiet away from her hectic life in New York City. Of course, country life in a horror movie can mean only one thing: deadly rednecks who don't take kindly to city folk.

Hill isn't 5 minutes into her journey before she makes horror movie mistake #12: going skinny dipping. The movie gods have spoken, and Hill is in for some trouble. Really, her only mistake is in being nice to a small group of dumb hicks when she comes into town and buys gasoline. Oh, and maybe lazing around in a bikini while she works on her first novel. For an exploitation movie, that's all it takes.

Soon, Hill is abducted by the gang, dragged into the woods and repeatedly raped by each of the four men. Yeah, this ain't entertainment. The attacks are filmed in an almost documentary style, with very few camera movements and no music whatsoever. It's unsettlingly realistic and brutal, complicated even more by Keaton's believable performance. Anyone who finds any moment of her attacks enjoyable should immediately seek psychiatric help, because you are an incredibly fucked up person.

By the time of Jennifer's third and final attack, I was pretty much defeated. The only real value or relief one might get after getting through these scenes is watching Keaton get her deserved revenge. No matter what fate awaited these guys, it wouldn't be enough.

I Spit on Your Grave, as a piece of film making, seems at first to be almost hilariously inept. One great example is the fact that all of the "country" boys talk like the closest they've come to the South is being from the South Bronx. But by the time Zarchi gets to Jennifer's attacks, which are as uncompromising and depressing as almost anything I've ever seen, this initially silly little horror movie becomes a firebrand of controversy that even today will shock any viewer.

Some critics have said that Day of the Woman glorifies violence against women, but I just don't see how that is possible. You'd have to be a complete animal to not side with Jennifer, especially in the second half of the movie when she seeks out her bloody revenge. If anything, this movie is brutal revenge therapy.

Don't get me wrong, though: there's virtually no reason for you to see this movie. There's no entertainment value to speak of, and very little production value to redeem it as art (although some might say, and I might agree, that the lack of production value makes it that much more disturbing). If you invited friends over for a viewing of this on Halloween, you'd probably lose a few friends. Possibly before the movie even ended.

As a revenge movie, however, it's probably one of the most honest and realistic ones ever made. When Jennifer steps into a church to ask for forgiveness for the crimes she is about to commit, you'll find yourself thanking God that you didn't shut the movie off because her revenge will hopefully help you feel a bit cleaner after the things you just saw.

As I noted earlier, Day of the Woman is Deliverance for women. By the film's end, I felt like I would write a massive essay on a number of themes, the main one being how the catharsis of cinematic violence (and whether that cathartic notion be good or bad) can so easily be changed by the context in which it happens. When you get to the bathtub scene -- and you'll know what scene I'm talking about when it happens -- you'll really know what it feels like to be internally conflicted about the positive or negative effects of violence in the movies.

I've seen dozens of Horror movies, but few of them have really fucked with my head, gotten under my skin or been more true to the meaning of the word "horror" than the way this one did.

For more on I Spit on Your Grave:
- Movie information at IMDB and Wikipedia.
- Wikipedia information about the "video nasties", a series of movies banned unde the UK's Video Recordings Act of 1984.
- Buy the DVD.

The I Spit on Your Grave trailer:

#87: Profondo rosso (Deep Red)

2008-10-11T12:08:00.000-07:00

Profondo rosso (Deep Red)
Directed by Dario Argento
Written by Dario Argento and Bernardino Zapponi
Released June 11, 1975 (US)

Any fan of the genre knows you can't talk about horror movies without talking about Dario Argento. I previously reviewed Argento's super-creepy masterwork Suspiria, making special note of the director's affinity for the use of bright, striking colors as themes in his movies, along with his appreciation for grotesque violence and use of intense music to heighten tension.

In Deep Red, all of those things are in play. Argento paints this picture in many shades of rich color, with a heavy reliance on black, grey and especially red. Argento was known as a innovator in an Italian genre of film called giallo, which is essentially the Italian version of pulp crime fiction. He infused these movies with elements of horror and the supernatural. Deep Red is one of his most celebrated and well-known giallos.

Marcus Daly (Daving Hemmings) witnesses the murder of a famous psychic in his apartment building, and thinks he may have seen the killer. He meets up with a reporter (played by future Argento wife Daria Nicolodi) at the crime scene and the two work together, in between comedic scenes that play like an old classic Hollywood romantic comedy, to try and find the killer. Of course, the further the two get into their investigation the more strange occurrences -- and murders -- stack up.

Why must he find the killer? Well, I don't really know. I do know from one conversation in the movie that Daly feels conflicted by his inability to remember certain details of the crime. One of the most bizarre things about the DVD release of the movie, and the thing that makes me hesitant to recommend it to anyone, is the fact that the dialogue is not fully dubbed. In other words, it slips from English to Italian (with NO SUBTITLES) constantly throughout the movie, sometimes several times within the same scene. There's no alternate audio track available, nor any subtitle options of any kind. How in the hell does it get released like this?

Honestly, it gets pretty maddening. Without the ability to understand the majority of the dialogue, the element of the detective story here is pretty much neutered. You're left at several points wondering why characters are lead to certain locations, especially when Daly stumbles into what seems to be the killer's old childhood home. Without dialogue, it would seem he just drove by a strange house and thought, "I should break into that place!"

With the unreliability of the dialogue being in a language I could understand, I had to take Deep Red in on a purely cinematic level. Fortunately, in this regard, the movie is an absolute knock-out. The sets and locations are exquisite. Where does Argento find so many great windows? Plus, his camerawork here (stalking tracking shots, intense close-ups that make even a tape recorder seem ominous) is masterful.

A few of the elaborate murder scenes could scare even the most jaded horror fans. Throw in another unsettling soundtrack by Argento's band of choice, Goblin, and you've got as close to a work of art as you're going to find in a horror movie.

I'd recommend this even more to those of you who can speak and translate Italian. Apparently, I would have been wise to seek out the Anchor Bay release of the DVD, which at least features the Italian version of the film with English subtitles.

For more on Deep Red:
- Movie information at IMDB and Wikipedia.
- Deep Red vs. Freud
- Buy the DVD, in Italian with English subtitles.

The Deep Red trailer:

#86: From Beyond

2008-10-09T14:42:00.000-07:00

From Beyond
Directed by Stuart Gordon
Written by Brian Yunza, Dennis Paoli and Stuart Gordon (from a short story by H.P. Lovecraft)
Released October 24, 1986

You know the old saying: another day, another H.P. Lovecraft adaptation from the director of Dagon and Re-Animator. This time Stuart Gordon directs Re-Animator star Jeffrey Combs as Dr. Crawford Tillinghast, a scientist assisting Dr. Edward Pretorius (Ted Sorel) in the creation of a resonator that was supposed to be able to stimulate a 6th sense in the human pineal gland.

The experiments go horribly wrong when the machine begins to conjure up worm-like creatures from another dimension. After Dr. Tillinghast is bit on the face, he runs to get Dr. Pretorius, who is attacked by the creatures and supposedly killed. Tillinghast is incarcerated for murder, but is released into the custody of psychiatrist Dr. Katherine McMicheals, one of the few people who believes his story, along with a police officer played by Ken Foree (the original Dawn of the Dead).

From Beyond comes near but can't match the hilarious, campy brilliance of Re-Animator (come on, that fellatio scene will go down in history), but it certain gets points for trying. When the two doctors and Officer Bubba return to Pretorius's house and start tinkering with the resonator, things start to get truly weird and disgusting. One of the most hilarious lines in the movie comes after Pretorius has made his first return from the dead, his head exploding into a mass of slime and tentacles. Dr. Tillinghast slams the power switch on the resonator into the Off position and yells:

"That will be quite enough of that!"

Of course, for Dr. McMicheals, who has become addicted to the sensation that the resonator brings about, once is never enough. She not only becomes obsessed with the resonator, but also becomes sexually drawn with the constantly mutating Dr. Pretorius. Throw in a little S&M, some brain eating and some nudity and you've got yourself a bloody, fun little horror movie. As with most of Gordon's Lovecraft adaptations, the short story pretty much gets burned through in the first 5 minutes, so who knows what the author would have thought about where the movie goes.

For gore freaks, the DVD includes many restored scenes originally cut by the MPAA 20 years ago. Of course, compared to movie violence today, it's all seemingly tame by comparison. The science behind the ideas in the movie is a little silly, and is barely examined enough to hang a movie plot on. Regardless, From Beyond becomes a damn good time.

For more on From Beyond:
- Movie information at IMDB and Wikipedia.
- Buy the DVD.

The From Beyond trailer:

#85: The Last House on the Left

2008-10-09T12:30:00.000-07:00

The Last House on the Left
Written and Directed by Wes Craven
Released August 30, 1972

It's funny that Wes Craven would go on to write and direct Scream, a meta-horror movie as much about the story it tells as it is about the trappings and cliches of the horror genre. There's a scene in that movie where a character spells out all of the ways that people wind up becoming victims in horror movies: namely, partying, doing drugs and having sex.

At the beginning of The Last House on the Left, two teenage girls get ready to head to nearby New York City with every intention of doing all of those things. Sharing a bottle of alcohol by a stream, they talk about scoring some grass and fantasize about what it would be like to "make it" with the band they're going to see.

On their way to the city, they hear but ignore a police report about a group of escaped killers, one woman, two men and one of the killers' heroin addict son. I'll give you one guess who the two teenagers bump into on their quest for marijuana before that concert. You don't have to be a horror afficionado to get this one right.

Where Bob Clark may have arguably given rise to the slasher movie as we know it today, films like The Last House on the Left used violence to a horrifying extent in frighten and shock viewers. For its time, Last House was brutal and controversial. The killers don't just use physical violence, but also humiliation and rape. There are points where it seems like even they know they've gone too far.

More offensive than the crimes the killers commit is the constant change of tone in the movie, which I don't think was any accident by Craven. He's playing with post-Hippie America here, vacillating wildly from goofy scenes of comedy, feminism, sexual liberation and inter-generational commentary and even the use of ridiculously silly music, including a hillbilly banjo tune that hilariously spells out plot points in the film.

When the killers seek refuge in the home of one of their victims, things get even more twisted. After one of the killers accidentally reveals who they are, the conservative parents becoming sadistic , deceptive and violent. Sure, they could just call the cops, but when you see how stupid the police are in this movie, you'll understand why a little of the "do it yourself" ethos comes in handy.

Actually, everyone in The Last House on the Left, from the good guys to the bad guys, is pretty fucking stupid. While many people were shocked by the movie upon its release, it's such a goofy movie that it almost plays like some sort of really dark comedy. Watching the the DVD's commentary track, which features Craven and his producer, makes this idea seem even more likely, with Craven interjecting pretty hilarious thoughts every few minutes.

It's notable that Craven even admits that once the film takes its turn into intense horror, even he doesn't feel right making jokes during his commentary. It becomes even too real and merciless for the man who directed it.

Still, the movie is a mess. After everything I've read about what a classic, groundbreaking film it is (it's often mentioned in the same breath with Tobe Hooper's Texas Chain Saw Massacre, which I consider perhaps the greatest horror movie of all time), it was definitely a let down. Maybe I need to take the advice I gave with Black Christmas and consider the era in which the film was made, but for the ugliness on display in Craven's film, it's not really worth such consederation.

For more on The Last House on the Left:
- Movie information at IMDB and Wikipedia.
- Buy the DVD.

The trailer:

#84: Black Christmas

2008-10-08T21:12:00.000-07:00

Black Christmas
Directed by Bob Clark
Written by Roy Moore
Released December 20, 1974

John Carpenter gets a lot of credit for birthing the modern day slasher film as we know it because of his seminal holiday horror classic, Halloween. Obviously, we can't forget Hitchcock's Psycho as the progenitor of the genre, but it wasn't until the late '70s that this style of film really started packing people into theaters before becoming a such a parody of its former self that it would virtually die off until Wes Craven infused it with a heavy dose of irony in his Scream films.

The grandaddy of the slasher film revival, however, came from a guy named Bob Clark, who would go on to direct another Christmas-themed film that would become a family favorite: A Christmas Story. Long before Ralphie would nearly shoot his eye out, Clark made Black Christmas. Aside from the Christmas theme, the two movies couldn't be more different.

Black Christmas contains two devices that would become major hallmarks for two other movies. First, there is extensive use of footage shot from the killer's point of view, which would be put to use in Halloween. Second, the film has the killer making threatening phone calls from inside the home that he has targeted, which would become the major plot point of When a Stranger Calls.

The house, in this case, is a sorority house filled with some of the oldest-looking college students to ever try and pass as teenagers, including a pre-Superman Margot Kidder and Saturday Night Live alum Andrea Martin. Inside, the girls are having a Christmas party before many of them go home for the winter break. The house mom sneaks sips of booze from multiple hiding places. The phone rings repeatedly, sometimes bringing the voice of a family member or boyfriend, and other times a frightening, menacing voice.

Soon, the bodies begin to pile up. It's almost disappointing that the DVD uses one of the film's scariest shots (one of the girls in a rocking chair with a plastic bag over her head) as its menu screen. The reveal weakens the effect of the shot in the movie itself. Still, the creepiness factor is high, especially because Clark keeps not only the identity of the killer but also many of the murder scenes out of the open, making the audience wonder if they're ever going to find out whose eyes they're looking through.

Compared to the films that would follow in its wake, Black Christmas is fairly slow moving (but does not feel overly long). It's strange that the phone calls -- and the killer's final line -- are the scariest element. Future slasher pictures would make big, bloody productions out of every kill, but in Black Christmas the murders are the least crucial element in creating the tension. There's even a great downbeat ending that involves a long retracting camera shot and the ringing of a phone.

Black Christmas still holds up as a horror film, but suffers a little because of the trappings of the genre that it helped create. If you can watch it and try to remember that this came before all those movies that made the slasher film tired and laughable (there's a particular scene where you'll find yourself thinking "Get out of the house, you idiot!), it is even more enjoyable.

For more on Black Christmas:
- Movie information at IMDB and Wikipedia.
- It's Me, Billy
- Buy the Special Edition DVD.

The unsettling trailer:

#82 and #83: Alien vs. Aliens

2008-10-07T21:09:00.000-07:00

Alien
Directed by Ridley Scott
Written by Dan O'Bannon and Donald Shusett
Released May 25, 1979

Aliens
Directed by James Cameron
Written by James Cameron, David Giler and Walter Hill
Released July 18, 1986

I'm not sure if it was Friday, July 19th or Saturday, July 20th, but I remember vividly that weekend of my 10th year because that was the weekend my mother took me to see James Cameron's Aliens, one of the scariest, most fun movie experiences I would ever have in my life. Since that night, spent packed in the dark with a theater full of flinching, screaming movie fans, the insanely successful sequel to Alien has been my litmus test for whether a horror or action movie (Aliens is the perfect example of both) works.

I've never been a part of a more rapt or enthusiastic audience. I can still remember my mother jumping in her seat and digging into my arm with her fingernails, as I sat there thinking, "This is AWESOME." You know when movie critics or reviewers refer to a popcorn flick as a "thrill ride"? Aliens is, without exaggeration, like a ride. If you never got the chance to see it in a movie theater, you really missed out.

But, before I rave any more about the sequel, I suppose I should cover the original Alien, directed by Ridley Scott. While both of these films are probably considered Sci-Fi pictures, they really fit more aptly into two other genre molds: namely Action (Aliens) and Horror (Alien). More specifically, Scott's picture is like a slasher movie in the vein of Halloween, but set in space, where the killer is not a man but a deadly alien being. It's Psycho by way of Jaws.

In Alien, the crew of a mining ship, commanded by Tom Skerritt as Dallas, intercepts what they think is a signal from a distant planet requesting help. Against the protests of some of the crew members, they visit the planet and examine the signal, only to stumble upon a giant nest of eggs. Crew member Kane (John Hurt) examines too closely and is attacked by a creature from one of the eggs, which attaches itself to his face.

Kane is brought back to the ship with the "facehugger" still attached, and his eventual recovery from his infestation is one of the most wicked, shocking scenes in cinema. You'd have to have lived under a rock to not know what happens to him, but I will avoid spoilers just in case. Just know that in that moment, a killer is born, disappearing into the bowels of the ship before anyone in the room knows what they're dealing with.

From here, Alien becomes the slasher movie I mentioned before, with a few technological twists (like a frantically paced scene involving Dallas and a motion detector) that breathe life into the genre. It's a perfect movie.

What's more astonishing is that Cameron's sequel is just as good (if not better). It's faithful to the source material while still managing to be an entirely different "beast" that moves at a much faster pace. Rather than dealing with a single alien sneaking around in the nooks of a ship, we're dealing with an army of them.

Over 57 years have passed since the events of the first film, and Ripley is awoken from her malfunctioning sleep pod to find her world completely changed, her family dead, and the company she worked for putting her up on charges of conspiracy about the happenings on her former ship. She is stripped of her pilot's licence and essentially fired, until the company discovers they may need her help: it seems they've since inhabited the planet infested with alien eggs in the first film, and they've now lost contact with the colonists inhabiting it.

While Sigourney Weaver's Ellen Ripley was one of the few surviving protagonists of the first film, she becomes one of the greatest female lead characters in film history in Aliens. I can't put it any better than how the late, great David Foster Wallace put it years ago in an essay he wrote about how Hollywood, after the success of Cameron's Terminator 2, had become obsessed with special effects over substance. In that essay, he praised Aliens, and more specifically the work of Weaver, by writing:

"It is a complete mystery why feminist film scholars haven't paid more attention to Cameron and his early collaborator Gale Ann Hurd. "The Terminator" and "Aliens" were both violent action films with tough, competent female protagonists (incredibly rare) whose toughness and competence in no way diminish their "femininity" (even more rare, unheard of), a femininity that is rooted (along with both films' thematics) in notions of maternity rather than just sexuality. For example, compare Cameron's Ellen Ripley with the panty-and-tank-top Ripley of Scott's "Alien." In fact it was flat-out criminal that Sigourney Weaver didn't win the '86 Oscar for her lead in Cameron's "Aliens." Marlee Matlin indeed. No male lead in the history of U.S. action films even approaches Weaver's second Ripley for emotional depth and sheer balls -- she makes Stallone, Willis, et. al. look muddled and ill."

Weaver is joined by a supporting cast that features actors like Paul Reiser, Michael Biehn, and a hilarious, scene stealing Bill Paxton, all doing some of the best work they've ever filmed. It doesn't hurt that they're working from a great script that fluctuates from funny to dark to intelligent. The special effects are top notch (though some of the miniature work is kind of obvious), especially the introduction of the gigantic, menacing alien queen. The music is propulsive and thundering, and the sound effects work is astounding; this movie will tear your home theater system up.

The version of Aliens that I own is the extended cut, with 17 minutes not in the theatrical version, but I wouldn't necessarily recommend it over the shorter cut. For first time viewers, the material in the extended cut isn't really that vital. Either way, you're probably going to have a blast. Just try to assemble the biggest group of virgin viewers you can, cut the lights and crank up the volume.

Trivia note: apparently, only six alien suits were made for Aliens. This will really blow you away once you've seen the movie, because clever editing makes it appear that there are dozens in various scenes. Check out the IMDB trivia pages for both movies for tons of other interesting tidbits.

For more on Alien:
- Movie information at IMDB and Wikipedia.

For more on Aliens:
- Movie information at IMDB and Wikipedia.
- Buy the Alien Quadrilogy Box Set. You don't really need Alien 3, and you definitely don't need Alien: Resurrection, but it's a great deal for a whole lotta movie.

The completely freaky, narration-free Alien trailer:

The Aliens trailer:

#81: The Descent

2008-10-07T00:22:00.000-07:00

The Descent
Written and Directed by Neil Marshall
Released August 4, 2006

If it had just been a film about rock climbing and spelunking, The Descent would have done suitably well as a suspenseful action movie. For pretty much the first hour of the film, that's what we're dealing with, and writer/director Neil Marshall does a fantastic job of creating a tense, unsettling atmosphere in a setting (dark, twisting caves) that couldn't have been easy in which to film or recreate (apparently, may of the realistic sets were polystyrene models).

The film begins with a tragic accident that happens after a group of friends goes rafting, leaving Sarah (Shauna Macdonald) mourning the loss of her husband and daughter. The credits roll, and then we rejoin this group of 6 women one year later, as they prepare a cave exploring trip in attempt to help the friend get back to her former self.

The fact that their trip takes place in the Appalachian wilderness is just the first of a handful of nods to Deliverance, though Marshall wisely stops short of showing condescending scenes of inbred locals trying to impose a sense of dread. Instead, he wisely sets up subtle scenes that show the kind of tough, adventurous women we're following, like showing how curious - rather than grossed out - they are by the corpse of an elk.

Things become complicated once the group begins their expedition, primarily because of the deception of Juno (Natalie Mendoza) in leading them to a cave not on their map. The eventual reveal that the women have bigger fish to fry, namely a group of bat-like humans called "crawlers", filmed through an infrared camera by one of the characters, is incredibly effective and frightening. Suddenly, this Deliverance homage gets a big taste of Aliens thrown into the mix, and the suspense movie breaks out into a full fledged, gore filled horror movie.

While everything from the performances to the bursts of violence help build the horror, one of the most effective aspects of creating and sustaining tension is the use of lighting. Marshall makes the wise choice of making it look like the only sources of light in the picture are the sources the climbers are carrying with them. The fact that there is so much surrounding darkness in many of the scenes adds to the feeling of claustrophobia and impending danger.

I remember reading reviews when The Descent was first released that made great mention of the fact that the cast was largely female. I guess that could be important to note, but maybe more because of the fact that the actors and their characters are so tough that their sexuality becomes irrelevant. If anything, Marshall's film is remarkable for not being about a group of women who love to get together, drink cosmos and talk about shopping, and it works so well that it proves that you don't need a big breasted female "superhero" like Lara Croft to sell a movie about women who get dirty, take action and kick ass.

For more on The Descent:
- Movie information at IMDB and Wikipedia.
- The official movie site
- Buy the DVD.

The official trailer for The Descent:

#80: Dagon

2008-10-05T08:05:00.000-07:00

Dagon
Directed by Stuart Gordon
Written by Dennis Paoli (based on H.P. Lovecraft's "Dagon" and "The Shadow Over Innsmouth")
Released October 31, 2001

A movie based on the works of horror/sci-fi legend H.P. Lovecraft, about a town full of violent fish people who run around like zombies and want to feed on or sacrifice humans... directed by Stuart Gordon, director of Re-Animator?

Okay, Dagon, you have my attention.

In Dagon, two annoying wealthy couples crash their yacht onto a pile of rocks after a storm overtakes them. With one wife pinned between the ship and the rocks, the other couple (Paul and Barbara, if you must know their names) takes the inflatable raft to the seemingly abandoned nearby seaside village of Imboca. It doesn't take long for things to turn strange.

Paul is soon separated from his wife, and then discovers that there is a curse over the people of Imboca. After fighting off attackers with tentacles and fish gills on their necks, Paul stumbles into the town drunk - and the only person seemingly untouched by the curse - who informs him about Imboca's sordid past. It seems that, decades before, Imboca was a small but prosperous fishing community who fell on bad times. An evil fishing captain stormed the town church and told the townsfolk about a god named Dagon who would bring them all gold.

The citizens of Imboca collectively agree to reject their Christian god and tear the church apart. The evil captain, who murders the head priest with a sledgehammer, becomes the new Head Brother in Charge.

Paul is, of course, unconvinced of the drunk's story until he encounters a few dozen fish folk, a few human skinnings and a man with octopus arms who gives him a near fatal swirlie in a toilet that looks like it came right out of that scene in Trainspotting.

Will Paul be able to save his wife before she gets sacrificed to the fish god Dagon and knocked up with his tentacle baby? Will he become one of fish heads? Will he wind up married to the hottie vampire fish lady he sees in his dreams? What the fuck am I even talking about?

For a pretty low budget B-horror flick, Dagon isn't too bad. It looks and plays like something a step above what might appear as a Sci-Fi Channel original movie, with decent gore but some pretty bad digital effects. Story-wise it's a bit like a mixture of Night of the Living Dead meets... I don't know... maybe, in a very twisted way, Finding Nemo.

For the horror junkies out there, it's probably worth checking out if you think you've seen everything at this point. I wouldn't, however, recommend it to those folks who are extremely picky about their scary movies.

For more on Dagon:
- Movie information at IMDB and Wikipedia.
- A bit on the fish-god history of Dagon, and the alternate "versions" of the same god. Or, here's some more info at Bible History.
- The movie's official site
- Buy the DVD.

The Dagon trailer:

#79: Vampyr

2008-10-03T12:34:00.000-07:00

Vampyr
Directed by Carl Theodor Dreyer
Written by Christen Jul and Carl Theodor Dreyer (based on the novel In a Glass Darkly by J. Sheridan Le Fanu)
Released May 6, 1932

All of the atmosphere and mood that I had read was supposed to be in spades in Don't Look Now can actually be found in this creepy black and white near-silent picture from 1932.

There's no question that Vampyr, with its incredible use of shadows and moving/panning camera techniques, had an incredibly influential impact on the way horror films have been made since its release. If someone told you that this was actually a long lost David Lynch movie, I could see where you might believe them.

The story of Vampyr is relatively simple: a young traveler named Allan Grey (played with Keanu Reeves-esque numbness by financial backer and producer Julian West) lodges in a Gothic mansion and is soon intrigued by the strange sounds and visions he sees. One night, the keeper of the lodge enters his room, mysteriously declaring "She must not die!" and leaving behind a small package on which he writes, "To be opened after my death."

Grey begins following a series of strange visions: shadows of people that move and act independently of their "owners." Grey witnesses the murder of the old man and discovers the package to be a book about vampires.

Here, the film basically takes off into an extended collection of dreamlike (or nightmarish) images that are just as - if not more than - important to the effect of the movie than the story being told. For a movie this old to have so many unforgettable images is nothing short of impressive. There's a particular extended sequence of a major character's entombment and burial that will stay with me for weeks.

It's a damn shame, then, that Vampyr was a critical failure that resulted in director Carl Theodor Dreyer not being able to make another film for a decade. His work here is easily as groundbreaking and influential as a movie like Citizen Kane would come to be.

If you do wind up renting Vampyr, try not to be too alarmed by the look of the film. In addition to the obvious unavoidable aging that happens with a movie over 75 years old, Dreyer intentionally used a washed-out look to add to the surreal, dreamlike mood. Since the film was originally conceived as a silent movie, there is very little dialogue, and what does exist is muffled and faint, which strangely adds to the proceedings.

As for the scratchiness of many of the scenes, I didn't get the Criterion version of the DVD from Netflix, so I'm unsure of how much they cleaned up in their release. If this kind of stuff is distracting to you, you're not going to enjoy the time spent watching Vampyr. For me, it worked in the same way that the hissing and crackling of old vinyl records sometimes - hell, most of the time - make the music sound that much better, that much more lived-in and real.

For more on Vampyr:
- Movie information at IMDB and Wikipedia.
- Buy the Criterion DVD. Let me know how it looks.

An excerpt, the first 4 minutes, from Vampyr:

#78: Don't Look Now

2008-10-03T04:16:00.000-07:00

Don't Look Now
Directed by Nicolas Roeg
Written by Alan Scott and Chris Byrant (story by Daphne Du Maurier)
Released January 1974

As Don't Look Now opens, John and Laura Baxter (played by Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie) are in no danger of winning any Parent of the Year awards. As these two lounge around their country home, enjoying a few afternoon cocktails and ignoring the dirty dishes, their son and daughter are out playing in their massive yard, their son playing with broken glass while their daughter attempts to retrieve her ball from the pond.

John spills a drink on one of his photos and gets a sort of premonition that sends him running to check on his children, but he is too late. He pulls his daughter from the pond, screaming to the skies as they both collapse into the mud. The next thing we the audience know, John and Laura are in Venice (John is hard at work restoring an old church), their son left behind at school. Laura meets two strange sisters, one of whom is blind and psychic. She tells Laura that she can see her daughter, and tells her that she is happy.

Then, the true horror begins: an extended backside nude scene from Sutherland, which segues into an almost too-long sex scene. Roeg thankfully intersplices some nudity from the beautiful Christie, but the damage is done. The incredibly lame, flute-laden soundtrack is so 70s, it's almost laughable.

John is none too happy about the psychic mumbo jumbo, but he allows his wife to pursue it, since she seems happy to finally be able to discuss her daughter's death. John, of course, forgets move rule #456: always heed the words of crazy old lady psychics... especially if they're blind. Soon, John starts having his own visions and begins chasing through the narrow pathways of Venice what appears to be a little girl in a red raincoat (which is what his daughter was wearing the day she drowned).

I have seen Don't Look Now mentioned among the best "horror" and suspense movies, but after watching it, I'd say it barely fits the mold of a horror film. While there is admittedly some suspense, creepiness and a touch of the supernatural, Roeg directs the movie more like a drama. Things don't start to get truly weird until about the last twenty minutes, but there's a nice shocker of an ending waiting for you.

It's not that I wouldn't recommend this movie, but if you tried to have a "Scary Movie Night" and invited some friends, I think more than a few would wonder about your definition of the word "scary."

For more on Don't Look Now:
- Movie information at IMDB and Wikipedia.
- Buy the DVD.

The Don't Look Now trailer, which is WAY more creepy than the movie:

#77: Cube

2008-10-01T18:01:00.000-07:00

Cube
Directed by Vincenzo Natali
Written by André Bijelic, Vincenzo Natali and Graeme Manson
Released September 9, 1997

A room full of strangers who have no idea how or why they got to the place they find themselves imprisoned. A series of deadly booby traps set by an unknown person, forcing these strangers to make life and death decisions based on a series of clues, all while trying not to kill each other in the process.

If anyone out there is thinking, "Hey, this sounds a lot like Saw," you'd be right... if Cube hadn't come out about 7 years prior. Cube, and the viewing audience, also benefits from not relying on the disgusting, sadistic impulses of torture porn. Instead, it is a sort of Science Fiction puzzle game.

Going into too much detail about anything (Who put these people here? Why?) will ruin the way the story moves along. All you really need to know is that this group of people -- which includes among them a doctor, a mathematician, a cop and an engineer -- is trapped in a collection of rooms, all the same size but with different color schemes, which may or may not kill them when they enter.

The entire movie is essentially a gimmick, albeit an interesting and engrossing one. The fact that the entire movie takes place in tiny rooms (there was actually only one cube room made, with different color panels) and never gets tedious is a credit to the filmmakers, and to the concept.

The acting, at times, is the real mystery here. While the cast is full of unknowns, you may recognize Nicole de Boer from a few Kids in the Hall skits, and from their movie Brain Candy. She gives one of the better performances, but her serviceable acting is seemingly amplified by the overbaked acting of Nicky Guadagni as the doctor and especially Maurice Dean Wint as the cop. The script gets a little silly at points as well, but the strong concept behind the movie still holds things together.

For a movie with a rumored budget of only $300,000, director Vinceno Natali squeezes all he can out of the resources he has (that opening scene had to have cost a third of his budget). Cube was followed by a sequel and a prequel, but I'm not sure if I'm interested in knowing more about the story; it's the vagueness and the questions that go unanswered that keep it interesting in the first place.

For more on Cube:
- Movie information at IMDB and Wikipedia.
- Buy the DVD.

The Cube trailer:

#76: The Haunting

2008-09-30T21:11:00.000-07:00

The Haunting
Directed by Robert Wise
Written by Nelson Gidding (based on Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House)
Released September 18, 1963

October is one of my favorite months, for two main reasons: Fall, and more importantly, Halloween.

Sure, when I was a kid, it was all about wearing costumes and grabbing that candy. The more important things for me, even then, were the scary movies. Most of my best costumes were based on movies I loved. One year, I was The Terminator, and another year saw me as a horribly disfigured soldier from Aliens, with bloody, blistered face makeup and a monster bursting out of my chest (since no real Aliens toys existed, I had to duct tape the Rancor Pit monster from Return of the Jedi to my body). Probably my favorite costume of all time, and the only one I repeated a few years later, was Robert DeNiro's greased up and tattooed Max Cady from Cape Fear.

I love "scary" movies, whether they fall under the genres of Science Fiction, Horror or Suspense. As far as I'm concerned, when they are done well, they can be the best pictures ever made (see The Shining, the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre and the aforementioned Aliens/Alien for a few perfect examples). Of course, when executed poorly, they can also be the most disappointing and unbearable of all movies.

This October, I'm going to try my damndest to cover nothing but scary movies, and primarily movies I've never seen before. Since there always tends to be the occasional Netflix delivery gap, I may pepper this month with a few of my favorites. Hopefully, those of you who don't consider yourselves fan of these kinds of movies might be swayed by a few of my picks.

While it's only September 30th, I'm getting an early start tonight with The Haunting, one of the all time fright classics that I've never seen. I did manage to take in the lamentable 1999 re-make that starred Owen Wilson, Liam Neeson and Catherine Zeta Jones, and that was probably what scared me off of seeing the original. Aside from some hammy, embarrassing acting (Owen Wilson is not the only guilty party there), the movie was pretty much ruined by its reliance on computer generated special effects. I'm sorry, but knowing an actor is reacting to a green screen just tends to suck the tension right out of a scene.

There was none of that nonsense to be had in 1963, when The Haunting first reached moviegoers. Miraculously, this ghost story sheds not a single drop of blood in its running time, and relies heavily on the use of music, shadow and some clever camerawork to drum up most of its scares.

Director Robert Wise (I previously praised his work on The Day the Earth Stood Still) sets the tone early by showing us the history of Hill House and the lives that had been mysteriously taken within its walls. He then brings us to present day, where our narrator, Richard Johnson as Dr. John Markway, is attempting to rent the house for use in a paranormal research investigation. Markway is attempting to prove the existence of ghosts, and assembles a team that includes Luke Sanderson (Russ Tamblyn), one of the potential heirs to the abandoned house, and Eleanor Lance (Julie Harris) and a woman named Theodora (Claire Bloom).

It doesn't take long for the house (if that's what is causing all of the commotion) to make its preference for Eleanor known. Eleanor, in turn, grows subconsciously fond of the attention, as we learn that she has spent the majority of her life looking after her sick and unhappy mother. Eleanor loves the attention so much that she claims to never want to leave. Is she the reason behind the strange incidents in the house? Is Dr. Markway playing tricks on his volunteers to observe their reactions? Just where is this lesbian subplot between Theo and Eleanor leading?

The Haunting may be a little slow by today's standards, but if you're the kind of patient viewer who can appreciate the slow building of tension, the movie definitely earns its classic reputation. I highly recommend watching this one late at night with the volume up loud. Without the sound, Humphrey Searle's ever present but constantly changing music combined with the eerie sound effects from Desmond Briscoe and the film's sound department, The Haunting just wouldn't work.

The blood and gore lovers will definitely be disappointed, but for those who long for "the good old days" of movie making, this is a great example of the belief that sometimes you don't need the bells and whistles of technology to get under the skin of an audience.

For more on The Haunting:
- Movie information at IMDB and Wikipedia.
- Buy the DVD.

The trailer for The Haunting:

#75: Richard III

2008-09-29T20:04:00.000-07:00

Richard III
Directed by Richard Loncraine
Written by Richard Loncraine and Ian McKellen (based on the play by William Shakespeare)
Released December 29, 1995

Clerks II. Game 6. Richard III. I sure am watching a lot of sequels lately.

While I've never seen the first two Richards, I was pretty confident in the script, since it was based on the works of the same guy who wrote the Baz Luhrmann's William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. While this film lacked a hip soundtrack and awful actors like John Leguizamo, I was willing to give it a shot.

Okay, don't worry: I'm done acting like a dummy.

Shakespeare's original play is a historical tragedy, telling the story of Richard's attempted rise to power by overthrowing his brothers, King Edward IV and Clarence, the next in the line of succession. Unfortunately or fortunately, I don't have the hours it would take to get into all of the plot machinations and twists of the play (sorry, Shawn). That's why I'm writing about movies, not literature. To put it as basic as possible, Richard is a sociopathic, ugly, powerhungry, killing motherfucker. One of Shakespeare's longest plays, Richard follows themes of fate versus free will, along with religion and the power that one can wield through the manipulation of ideology and belief.

Richard Loncraine and Ian McKellen's adaptation moves the setting to a fictionalized version of England in the 1930s, an England that gradually becomes more than a little like fascist Nazi Germany of the same era.

The movie opens with more than a few bangs as a tank blasts through the walls of a military hideout and McKellen's Richard, hunchbacked and with one dead arm, makes a murderous entrance. This betrayal is followed by a ballroom party where almost all of the major players are introduced, including Robert Downey Jr. as Lord Rivers, Annette Bening as Queen Elizabeth, Maggie Smith as Richard's mother Queen Margaret, plus Kristen Scott Thomas, Jim Broadbent, and even a young Dominic West (McNulty from The Wire).

Before anything else, you can't help but be impressed and dazzled by the set design and costumes. This thing looks like several million bucks.

Then, you're pulled in by McKellen's devious performance as this duplicitous monster. There's a scene early on in a bathroom where he stares at himself in the mirror, and then realizes that we - the audience - are watching his every move. He turns and lets us in on his scheme to disrupt the normal order of things, and then, with the wagging of a finger, invites us along for the ride. He's like Ferris Bueller if he were turn to to the camera and rather than tell us that he's going to skip school, he's going to pit his friends and family into a massive battle against each other.

McKellen's performance is virtuoso acting at its best, as he slithers in and out of every scene, gleefully seducing and double crossing everyone in his path and then marvelling at us as he pulls it all off. His is an especially impressive feat since he has surrounded himself with so many other great actors.

Richard III's most impressive feat is also what many would perceive as its "gimmick," moving Shakespeare's story ahead hundreds of years and turning its themes of fate into themes of power and corruption. This modernization shows, to put it simply, how one bad apple really can spoil the whole damn bunch. In this case, Richard is the bad apple which tears a family, a government and a country asunder. In the same way that Hitler slowly seduced a nation, Richard slowly goes from ugly duckling to protected tyrant. The beautiful art, architecture and stunning colors of the beginning of the movie slowly give way to the streamlined mono-chromaticism of imperialism.

If anything is problematic about the movie, it is perhaps that it crams a massive story into its less than 2 hour running time. It may be initially hard to follow, especially if you're not used to Shakespeare's dialogue. Beyond that, all of the performances are exceptional save for some of Bening's work, and the fact that Downey is unfortunately a bit underused and disposed of too early. Regardless, Richard III is riveting, and features a number of perfect, memorable scenes (like the opening, the morgue scene between McKellen and Scott Thomas, and Richard's coronation).

For more on Richard III:
- Movie information at IMDB and Wikipedia.
- Wikipedia page on Shakespeare's Richard III
- Ian McKellen's website about the movie
- Buy the DVD.

The Richard III trailer:

#74: Game 6

2008-09-28T19:27:00.000-07:00

Game 6
Directed by Michael Hoffman
Written by Don DeLillo
Released 2005

"I could've been happy. I could've been a Yankees fan."

Damn it. Another very good movie pretty much spoiled by a sour, ridiculous and rushed final act.

This one had some great things going for it: a screenplay by novelist and playwright Don DeLillo, with a score provided by one of my favorite bands (Yo La Tengo, whose atmospheric instrumentals give the film a nervy edge), starring greats like Robert Downey Jr., Catherine O'Hara and Michael Keaton. Throw in the fact that it features the Boston Red Sox and their infamous game 6 loss in their run at the 1986 World Series, and this Yankee fan was sold.

Keaton and DeLillo were my two biggest reasons for wanting to check out Game 6. Keaton because it's sometimes good for an actor to get knocked down a few pegs so they can go back doing work for the love of their craft. It's nice to be able to brush aside dreck like Multiplicity and Jack Frost and see him act again in something respectable. DeLillo, an exceptional writer, brings some great, realistic (if sometimes flowery) dialogue to the table.

The flowery dialogue is forgivable because most of the main characters in the movie are playing actors and writers. Keaton plays successful playwright and lifelong Red Sox fanatic Nicky Logan, whose newest work premiers the same night as the World Series game that has consumed him to the point that his own life seemingly hangs in the balance between the Sox's chance at winning or losing. Downey is Steven Schwimmer, a Broadway critic so eccentric that he prays to Buddha and yet carries a gun, and so hated that he lives in an abandoned building with no plumbing because he's afraid of his subjects seeking revenge. To show the power of what a scathing review from Schwimmer can do to a writer's career, Griffin Dunne plays Nicky's friend Elliott, a once talented man whom, in the wake of one of the critic's reviews, has turned into a crazed street urchin.

Taking place over an approximate 12 hour period, Game 6 shows Keaton's Rogan as the tension slowly rises prior to his play. Already just as worried about his premiere (one of the lead actors has just discovered a parasite in his brain that is literally chewing through his short term memory), he also becomes overly consumed with the knowledge that Schwimmer will be attending -- and probably lacerating -- his work.

The downturn for me comes at the point where Keaton goes a bar to watch the game (instead of his premiere) with his cab driver and her son. The endless advice and positivity this woman lays on a character whom she has confused as a murderous gangster is incredibly annoying. Keaton's response to the outcome of the Red Sox/Mets game is somewhat over the top, and the events that transpire between him and Schwimmer are even more ridiculous.

There's a somewhat cliched Hollywood notion that has always bothered me... (skip this part, as it may contain spoiler hints): why the hell are people in movies so forgiving about being shot at? You've got one character opening fire on another, and then when they realize they have something in common, they just cool the hell out. I'm all for bygones being bygones, but give me a fucking break. Especially when they fire multiple shots! I don't give a shit how much we might find we share; if you have tried to kill me SIX TIMES, you're getting thrown out of my apartment the second that hammer goes "Click."

For a film made for under $500,000 in less than 3 weeks, Game 6 is still a fairly impressive and mostly fun piece of work. Don't worry, if you're not a fan of sports movies, the game in this movie is the backdrop and not the main focus. It primarily exists as a symbol of failure, disappointment and the way that we avoid our own problems by becoming deeply attached to things outside of ourselves.

For more on Game 6:
- Movie information at IMDB and Wikipedia.
- Buy the DVD.

The Game 6 trailer:

#73: To the Devil a Daughter

2008-09-28T15:26:00.000-07:00

To the Devil a Daughter
Directed by Peter Sykes
Written by Christopher Wicking, John Peacock and Gerald Vaughan-Hughes (based on the novel by Dennis Wheatley)
Released March 4, 1976

The last gasp of Hammer Horror pictures, To the Devil a Daughter was one of Hammer's few attempts at capitalizing on the success of "supernatural"/occult horror films like Rosemary's Baby and The Exorcist. Obviously, their film was not rewarded with the same level of success.

Nastassja Kinski, just 15 years old and appearing in the second film of her career, shares the screen with Richard Widmark and horror staple Christopher Lee. Kinski plays Catherine, a nun from a mysterious Bavarian church who is allowed to visit her father in England once a year, on her birthday. Little does she know that on this, her 18th birthday, she is being sought by a group of Satanists to be used in a ritualistic sacrifice so that her body may become an avatar for one of the Princes of Hell.

While Lee dons the cloth of a Catholic priest throughout the movie, any knowledge of Christopher Lee's career in acting should signal you that something is rotten in Bavaria. I'm not giving too much away here; it's less than 15 minutes into the movie before we're seeing Lee's evil grin as he watches the bloody birth of an apparently hideous demon baby (or, as they call it in the horror business, "Another Tuesday afternoon for Christopher Lee").

The movie moves along somewhat slowly, but has moments of shock and pure creepiness (shocking like the young Kinski's full frontal nude scene, and creepy like the dream sequence where she lets the demon baby enter her body). The acting is decent, especially Lee, and from Denholm Elliot as Catherine's frightened father. The production itself looks and feels right, with an especially cool use of color near the end as Widmark enters "enemy territory" to attempt to rescue the endangered young girl, and some great camera work and interesting individual shots (like the one above Elliot as the lightbulb swirls around him).

What is an absolute disappointment is the almost hilariously abrupt ending. When you see how easy it is, according to To the Devil, to take on the mighty Satan, you may never be afraid of the Prince of Darkness again. Apparently, just bring a rock and you're going to be fine. This unfortunate turn of events can't help but leave a bad taste in your mouth, turning a pretty decent movie into a bad one in a matter of minutes.

More interesting and entertaining than the film itself is the short but brutally honest documentary included on the DVD, where the filmmakers and a few of the actors discuss (in interviews filmed somewhat recently) problems with the production, including the flawed ending (which greatly angered most of the people involved, including Lee), the end of Hammer films, and Richard Widmark's disruptive, prickish behavior during filming. It's too bad the movie itself was nowhere near as riveting.

For more on To the Devil a Daughter:
- Movie information at IMDB and Wikipedia.
- Buy the DVD.

Trailer for To the Devil a Daughter:

#72: The Foot Fist Way

2008-09-24T23:53:00.000-07:00

The Foot Fist Way
Directed by Jody Hill
Written by Ben Best, Jody HIll and Danny R. McBride
Released May 30, 2008

Dear Kevin Smith:

My apologies. Compared to The Foot Fist Way, Clerks II is the Citizen Kane of plotless, dipshit comedies.

Still, you should be embarassed,
Dylan

This was easily one of the worst movies I've watched out of the 72 I've seen so far. I never knew that 80 minutes could go by so slow. I'd elaborate, but If I spend another second writing a review, I will have spent one more second than anyone behind the making of this thing spent on its creation.

Kudos to Danny McBride for having the audacity to parlay what should have been a three minute (and fifth rate) Will Ferrell sketch into not only a feature length movie, but also into an already fruitful Hollywood career in hits like Pineapple Express and Tropic Thunder.

(Sorry for the short entry. I really did watch the movie, and I really have nothing to add. Total waste of time.)

For more on The Foot Fist Way:
- Movie information at IMDB and Wikipedia.
- Visit the official site.

The red band trailer:

#71: Payback: Straight Up (Director's Cut)

2008-09-22T22:29:00.000-07:00

Payback: Straight Up
Directed by Brian Helgeland
Written by Brian Helgeland (based on Donald Westlake's "The Hunter")
Released to DVD April 10, 2007

I already mentioned the story behind this version of Payback, the 1999 Mel Gibson remake of Point Blank (which I reviewed a couple of weeks ago). Director Brian Helgeland was fired as the film's director mere days after he won an Oscar for his work on L.A. Confidential. Reportedly, the producer's (and probably Gibson, though the star did help to get this director's version out years later) didn't like how dark Helgeland had taken the story.

Dark is right, and in this case, dark is good. Gibson's Porter is not "morally ambiguous" as one reviewer describes him; he's a bad guy. Christ, the movie opens with him choking and robbing a homeless man for enough cash to buy himself a cup of coffee and a piece of pie. Porter just happens to be the better man compared to most of the bad guys in Payback.

Since I've already gone into depth about the story in Point Blank, I'll cut to the chase and say simply that while the original Payback is a pretty damn good movie, featuring one of Gibson's last interesting performances (he's no Lee Marvin, but he still makes for an intimidating heavy), Helgeland's cut is an even better, leaner film. It's 15 minutes shorter, with no voiceover narration and a vibe that seems more like an ode to the late 60s and early 70s crime films that the producers were going for.

The supporting cast is especially good, including Lucy Liu as a sadistic prostitute, William Devane as the head of the crime syndicate, the always lovable Bill Duke as a corrupt detective, and the always shady Gregg Henry as Porter's betraying buddy Val.

While not as as great in that hypnotic, psychedelic sense that Point Blank is, Helgeland's Payback is still a damn good time. Plus, there's even a pretty hilarious cameo by James Coburn.

For more on Payback: Straight Up:
- Movie information at IMDB and Wikipedia.
- A interview with Helgeland about the DVD.
- Buy the DVD.

The Payback robbery (Note: this footage is not from the director's cut... I am having the damndest time actually finding footage from that version online):

#70: Clerks II

2008-09-22T18:56:00.000-07:00

Clerks II
Directed by Kevin Smith
Written by Kevin Smith
Released July 21, 2006

L. Ron Hubbard, douchebag creator of Scientology, once said, "I'd like to start a religion. That's where the money is." He did, and eventually it crept its way into Hollywood and led to awful films like Battlefield Earth.

Kevin Smith is like the L. Ron Hubbard of nerds. His cult is the cult of himself and his little crew of buddies, who have been making virtually the same movie for about a decade and a half and raking in a small pile of money from the reliable geeks who keep eating this shit up. Think I'm being cynical? Even the credits of Clerks II features a call out for shut-ins to visit their website and "buy my shit."

And if you think I'm exaggerating about his fanboy mafia, go check out all of the 9 and 10 star reviews over at IMDB.com. Ten fucking stars for this movie? Really? You think that dialogue amounted to a perfect movie? The embarrassingly cheesy musical montages? The use of cameos with no value beyond getting the audience to whisper, "Hey, that's Ben Affleck"?

The guy found a niche, and you have to respect him for knowing how to milk it for all he can get. And god forbid if he step outside of his universe, because the viewing public gets crapped on by epic fail turds like Jersey Girl.

I'm not saying Clerks II is awful. I'm just saying that 20 minutes into the movie, I started thinking, "I really should get my homework done." I wish I were being anecdotal. I really did have homework.

Honestly, I can't say I was too surprised in my disappointment. Smith's movies have followed a downward trajectory since the beginning. Without Jason Lee, Mallrats and Chasing Amy would be virtually unwatchable. Dogma was so hamfisted and poorly acted it felt like Smith was forgetting more than he was learning. Pretty much the only sign of growth as a filmmaker Smith had shown by that point was the intelligence to know his movies looked like shit so he should hire a Director of Photography.

Okay, fuck it, I'm saying it: Clerks II is awful.

Part of the immense charm of the original movie was that it showed so much potential for Smith, especially as a writer. If this guy could make a filthy, chatty and laugh-out-loud funny movie for $25,000, imagine what else he might be capable of, right?

Turns out it wasn't the budget that was limiting Smith, but rather his own skillset. Clerks II (and I'm sure this is not lost on the writer/director) is the story of Smith himself: a bunch of guys stuck doing the same shit, having the same conversations and pretending to have their eyes and minds on something bigger when we all really know they... he... we... are going nowhere.

For more on Clerks II:
- Movie information at IMDB and Wikipedia.
- Buy the DVD.

The trailer:

#69: Ladies and Gentlemen, the Fabulous Stains

2008-09-22T01:16:00.000-07:00

Ladies and Gentlemen, the Fabulous Stains
Directed by Lou Adler
Written by Nancy Dowd
Released ... almost never (Made in 1980)

Finally.

I've been waiting to see Ladies and Gentlemen, the Fabulous Stains since I'd read of its existence in about 1995, when I found an article about the long lost cult classic in a random zine I'd bought at a record store. How a movie about an all girl punk rock band, fronted by Diane Lane (pretty much the crush of my childhood, beginning with her love-at-first-sight appearance in The Outsiders) and featuring members of The Clash and the Sex Pistols, had escaped me for so long is impossible to explain. I guess the fact that the World Wide Web had just begun to blossom the year prior could be partly to blame.

Prior to the Rhino re-release of this film just last week, I had only seen footage from a terrible Internet-circulated bootleg sent to me by a helpful reader named Ray. I'm not even sure if this movie ever got a proper VHS release back in the day, as every account and review I've read of it mentions the show being aired on "Night Flight" back in the early '80s.

The curious need be no longer, since the Stains have finally made their way to DVD.

Lane stars (and gives easily one of the best performances of her career) as an angry, disenchanted teenager named Corrine Burns, who starts a fairly terrible punk band with her sister and her cousin after her mother dies of cancer. Renaming herself Third Degree Burns, she attends a concert at a local dive and witnesses a life-changing show from opening act The Looters, fronted by an incredibly young looking Ray Winstone and featuring Paul Cook and Steve Jones of the Sex Pistols and Paul Simonon of The Clash.

A bit unrealistically (well, this is pretty much satire), Burns' band is asked to join the tour. After hopping on the bus and performing one show -- where Burns lashes out at the audience and reveals her new look to her shocked bandmates -- the bassist for the lame headlining act dies and the Stains and The Looters continue the tour together.

Burns quickly learns how to manipulate the media to promote herself and her ideas ("We're the Stains, and we don't put out."), and in the process becomes a massive influence on the country... before her band can even properly play their instruments. As media coverage of the Stains' tour continues, young women across the country begin popping up at shows dressed as Burns. The Fabulous Stains predates and yet predicts the phenomenon that would be Madonna. I've always though it was somewhat unfortunate that personalities like Madonna took off while truly powerful women like Joan Jett got left in her dust.

Judging from The Fabulous Stains, Jett (and her pre-Blackhearts punk band The Runaways) had more influence that we may have realized. The Stains may even have returned the favor as a cultural milestone for bands like Bikini Kill or Sleater-Kinney and possibly even The White Stripes (I wonder if they got their name from a line that Winstone says to Lane, describing her great image but lack of talent: "At the moment, you're just too white stripes").

For more on Ladies and Gentlemen, the Fabulous Stains:
- Movie information at IMDB and Wikipedia.
- Buy the DVD, and learn about its background and resurgence here.

The trailer:

#68: The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

2008-09-14T21:37:00.000-07:00

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Directed by Julian Schnabel
Written by Ronald Harwood (based on the book by Jean-Dominique Bauby)
Released May 23, 2007 (France)

If there's a more jarring double feature than the one I had tonight, pairing the ridiculously campy The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires with Julian Schnabel's moving, beautiful The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, I am unaware of its existence. To quote the boys in Monty Python: "And now for something completely different."

Diving Bell is the dramatization of magazine editor Jean-Dominique Bauby's autobiography, which he miraculously wrote after a stroke rendered him unable to move or speak, a condition referred to as "Locked-In syndrome." I say "miraculously" because Bauby wrote his autobiography by working with a speech therapist on a frequency-of-use alphabet and then blinking the entire book, letter by letter, to a transcriber hired by his publisher.

One of my favorite books (which was also made into a film) is Dalton Trumbo's Johnny Got His Gun, a fictional story about a soldier who survives a mortar attack, only to lose his sight, speech and limbs. The book is his inner monologue, and portions of Diving Bell feel much like that book, as if we are trapped in Bauby's body with him as the rest of the world acts upon him.

The effect of seeing the movie from Bauby's eyes is jarring, immediately stirring your emotions and forcing you to sympathize with the character whom you now inhabit. You can almost feel his frustration. Whey Bauby cries, the screen clouds over. As he slowly recovers, you and he fade in and out of consciousness. When he imagines himself in a different place, we go there with him.

The whole thing is emotionally overwhelming, but in a good way... a valuable way. Put in Bauby's place, we confront an affliction in a more realistic way than most movies have ever been able to show us. We learn about what it's like to be on both sides of that eyeball, and we slowly learn to stop taking for granted the immense gift of communication.

In a strange way, and maybe it's just because the news was at the top of my mind, watching The Diving Bell and the Butterfly made me think of David Foster Wallace, one of my favorite writers, who just committed suicide a couple of days ago.

Foster wrote the epic Infinite Jest, possibly the greatest book I have never finished reading. I've often wondered if I haven't finished the book because the act of finishing it will make the act of immersing myself in it complete. When it's over, what will I do? Just scanning over a few pages convinces me of this man's obvious genius, so why rush things?

I felt like that watching this movie, wanting to savor it minute by minute and take away from it all of the sublime moments of beauty, sadness and victory. Ronald Harwood's script is naturalistic and poetic (of course, a lot of credit should go to Bauby), Juliette Welfling's editing is impeccable, and Schnabel (with the help of cinematographer Janusz Kaminski) achieves one of the rarest feats of direction: he manages to turn his camera into a human being. Of course, none of this could be achieved without a half dozen great performances, spearheaded by Mathieu Amalric's moving work as Bauby. His "narration" is the backbone of the entire movie, but Max von Sydow's few scenes as Bauby's father were the ones that sent me into fits of unstoppable tears.

Much like Infinite Jest, I was sure I was seeing something remarkable and extraordinary just a few minutes in. It didn't matter to me how the movie ended, or even where it was heading. I just wanted to keep experiencing it, regardless.

My friend Olivia once told me years ago that she wrote David Foster Wallace a letter after reading Infinite Jest. I think she felt a little silly admitting this to me, but I think I remember telling her that it was absolutely nothing to feel silly about. I once wrote a letter, when I was 15, to Eddie Vedder, and another one years later to Chuck D (who was on the same train as I was, but I was too afraid to approach him).

Tonight, when The Diving Bell and the Butterfly finished with the imagery of crumbling glaciers rising from the sea and reassembling themselves, I wanted to write Bauby a letter. I wanted to write Schnabel a letter. I even wanted to write Joe Strummer, whose "Ramshackle Day Parade" plays over the closing credits, a letter. I wanted to thank them all for what they just gave me, but two of those three men are gone from this world.

I'm not sure if Olivia sent that letter, but I hope she did. You should never feel silly communicating with anyone who may have touched you deeply, regardless of whether you know them or they know you. You never know when that other line will go unanswered, forever.

For more on The Diving Bell and the Butterfly:
- Movie information at IMDB and Wikipedia.
- Visit the official site.
- Buy the DVD or the book.

The movie trailer:

#67: The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires

2008-09-14T19:19:00.000-07:00

The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires
Directed by Roy Ward Baker (uncredited assist by Cheh Chang)
Written by Don Houghton
Released October 6, 1974 (UK)

Hey, William Friedkin: remember when I was saying that sometimes the title is everything? Well, take a lesson from The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires. Now that is a movie title. Not only does it tell you what you're getting before you set foot in the theater (clearly, you're getting a legend, a lot of vampires, and either horror or an adventure movie), but it just sounds cool rolling off the tongue. If you're in line at the movie theater and you feel like you're going to be embarrassed to say "One for The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires, please," clearly you're not going to like the movie.

Clearly, the makers of the Blade comic books and movies owe a debt to director Roy Ward Baker for coming up with this undeniably successful formula: Kung Fu + Vampires = Money. Although, I suppose that the fact that The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires isn't exactly title known worldwide, I guess the makers of Blade really mastered the "Money" part of that equation.

If there was ever a team to pull off the Kung Fu + Vampires part of the equation, it's the combination of the two studios who came together to make this film, Hammer Films and the Shaw Brothers production companies. Hammer was virtually synonymous with horror films from the 1950s through the late 1970s, while the Shaw Brothers are so enshrined in the history of Hong Kong cinema that Quentin Tarantino called them out (and used their studios) in his Kill Bill films. In the mid-70s, you couldn't do Dracula without Hammer, nor Kung Fu without Shaw Studios.

Legend is both studios working at their cheesy, campy best. As the movie opens, a servant of the dormant 7 Golden Vampires has made his way from China to Dracula's castle in Transylvania. He awakens the king of all vampires, begging Mr. D to return with him to his homeland and awaken his masters so that they may once again rule the region. Dracula essentially decides (and I'm paraphrasing here), "You know what, I'm tired of this dump. Yeah, I'll go. But I'm doing it in your body." Dracula makes good on his vow, pulling some kind of Freaky Friday body switch with the servant, who hilariously acts shocked and betrayed. Really, if you woke up Dracula -- on purpose -- would you be surprised if he fucked you over?

We follow Dracula to a village in China, where he now presides over the seven mummified vampires, along with an army of skull-faced zombies (that's right, we've even got zombies in the mix), as he hangs out and sacrifices female locals in various states of undress. I have to admit, it's kind of an awesome promotion for a guy who normally just hangs out in his basement, sleeps in a coffin and occasionally turns into a bat.

Cut to Chungking, where visiting Professor Abraham Van Helsing has become unpopular as he spreads this legend of Dracula and his seven minions to a crowd of suspicious, non-believing students. There is one believer among them, a young man named Hsi Ching, who begs Van Helsing to return with him and a small army of Kung Fu killers to his village and destroy Dracula and his minions.

The acting, with the exception of Cushing, is uniformly pretty awful, while the script is full of unintentional laughs. Still, if you're the kind of person who is able to look past all that and see this for what it is (sword fights, excessive nudity, spraying blood and decaying corpses), you'll probably have a good time.

As someone who spent a good deal of his childhood catching all manner of double feature karate flicks on "Kung Fu Theater," I could tell that this was still a step above most of those movies. Not a big step, mind you, but a step.

And in fairness to William Friedkin, I must add that despite your movie's title, you've got this one beat by several milese.

For more on The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires:
- Movie information at IMDB and Wikipedia.
- Visit Hammer Films or Shaw Studios
- Buy the DVD (though, really, this is more of a rental kind of movie. When you're really drunk.).

An assortment of Kung Fu-lery from the movie:

#66: Sorcerer

2008-09-12T13:45:00.000-07:00

Sorcerer
Directed by William Friedkin
Written by Walon Green (based on Georges Arnaud's Wages of Fear)
Released June 24, 1977

I was talking with a co-worker about this blog, and they were telling me that they had never heard of almost every single movie I've written about here. I told her that there are a few reasons for that, but mostly because I have already seen in my lifetime THOUSANDS of movies and have seen most of the obvious choices.

The other day I did a tally of the movies I've reviewed here and noticed that I haven't watched a single movie that came out between 1990 and 2000. Astounded by this, I started going through Netflix's list of 90s movies. In the 20 minutes it took me to sort through 300 movies on the list, I found less than 10 I hadn't seen.

Growing up in Omaha, Nebraska, going to movies was my #1 pasttime. If you aren't drinking age in a city like this, there aren't that many pasttimes from which to choose. Frankly, there's not much I'd rather be doing.

Anyway, this is all my long-winded way of trying to say that a lot of the movies on this site are movies that even I have never heard of, including tonight's action/suspense movie Sorcerer. A remake of the French film Wages of Fear, Sorcerer was the financial flop that ended director William Friedkin's early 70s winning streak of The French Connection and The Exorcist.

I'm no marketing genius (though I did work in marketing), but I'm guessing the biggest reason this movie bombed was the awful title. There is no sorcerer in Sorcerer (it's the name painted on the side of a truck driven in the film). Why Friedkin didn't just keep the name of the original film is beyond me. It reminds me of what I think is one of the dumbest album titles in recent memory: Mariah Carey's Charmbracelet. What the fuck are you talking about? Really, you worked and toiled over this new album... and the best you can come up with when forced to try and encapsulate all you've put into is... Charmbracelet? (Before you point out to me that it's Mariah Carey and probably no thought or work went into its creation, I know. It's the principle(s).)

Forget about the title: Sorcerer is badass, definitely different and a very interesting entry in Roy Scheider's catalogue of starring roles. It's a strangely suspenseful story of four very shady characters who have been exiled from their homelands and given one very dangerous way to escape said exile. These men -- a small group of terrorists, killers, and in Scheider's case, a robber on the run from the mafia -- volunteer to drive two volatile truckloads of nitrogylcerin through the jungles of South America in the hopes of walking away with enough money to change their fates.

Having never heard of the movie (I discovered its existence after Scheider's passing), I was surprised that it seemed to benefit from a very decent budget. Aside from all of the expensive location shooting, the movie opens with one of the most jarring and realistic terrorist bombings this side of Children of Men. There are several impressive setpieces of destruction, including a massive oil fire, a riot, a violent car wreck and much more. For something as seemingly mundane as a movie about four guys driving a couple of trucks, Friedkin wrings every bit of tension possible out of the action. The creepy score, the first movie score ever done by Tangerine Dream, ups the ante significantly.

All of the acting is pretty top notch, but most impressive is Scheider, whose character gradually breaks down to the point of near insanity by film's end (imagine yourself driving an ancient truck that could explode at any moment over rocky terrain or even a rickety rope bridge and you've got an idea of what his character faces). With equal weight given to each of the four criminals' stories, and with none of them being innocent, you have no idea who will make it out alive. There's even a very cool, Rififi-esque stretch of chatter free planning that makes you long for this kind of moment in a modern film.

Now, a caveat: I cannot recommend renting the DVD for one major reason: it has yet to be released in Widescreen format. To go back to my music analogy, this is like listening to Pet Sounds on one shitty computer speaker. While the framing doesn't take away from the positive aspects, you can just tell when watching Sorcerer in this abridged format that you're missing out on a lot of brilliantly composed action and scenery. Had I known in advance that it was unavailable in Widescreen, I may not have rented the movie.

For more on Sorcerer:
- Movie information at IMDB and Wikipedia.
- If you don't care about Fullscreen vs. Widescreen (you damn fool), buy the DVD.

The Sorcerer trailer:

#65: Fido

2008-09-11T13:21:00.000-07:00

Fido
Directed by Andrew Currie
Written by Robert Chomiak, Andrew Currie and Dennis Heaton
Released March 16, 2007 (Canada)

This might sound crazy to some of you, especially to those of you who might know me and know how busy I am on a day to day basis, but the tally for movies I've seen since starting this challenge is higher than the daily numbers here.

For example, I've seen Tropic Thunder twice. Or, the other night as I finished a project for an online class, I watched Rob Zombie's The Devil's Rejects (the sequel to the much more abominable House of 1000 Corpses). Now, had that movie been worth a shit, I would probably have written about it here. Even if it had been awful enough to be interesting, I would have included it here. But it was just... something that happened for 90 minutes. There was no value to it -- positive or negative -- to even bother discussing here.

I had to chalk that one up as a loss.

I caught Fido, a sort of comedy/horror/satire, as a free digital cable movie a few days back and have been considering my review ever since. Don't get me wrong: there's much more of value in Fido than there is in The Devil's Rejects.

First, it is at least an original twist on the zombie movie, a genre that already has plenty of terrible movies clogging up the pipes. Fido takes place in an alternate 1950s America that has just survived the zombie attacks in George Romero's Night of the Living Dead. In this America, humans have finally overcome the zombie menace with the help of a large corporation called Zomcon, who have cornered the market on menace control with the special collars they've invented to domesticate the walking dead. Zomcon has also created special fencing that keeps cities all over the country safe from "wild zones" that house the remaining uncontrolled zombie population. Picture "Leave it to Beaver" set amidst 28 Weeks Later.

Second, the look of the movie is perfect for the world that director Andrew Currie is trying to create. The set design and use of color perfectly captures that idealized 50s feeling that we've seen so much in advertising and entertainment of the era.

The casting, including Dylan Baker as the distant father figure, Carrie-Anne Moss as the longing mother, and a near unrecognizable Billy Connolly as the titular Fido, the family zombie who handles chores and plays catch with young Timmy, is spot-on. For the normally verbose and wild Connolly, Fido may be his best performance. He does wonders with just the changes in his eyes and the gnashing of his teeth.

What has me sitting on the fence about Fido is the fact that it just isn't all that funny. There are moments of amusement, and one or two moments that may make you laugh out loud (like the scene where Connolly acts as the zombified version of Lassie), but for the most part the movie winds up being a great premise without a complete execution. None of the lampoonable targets (and you can take your pick, from the conservative 50s setting to the commodification of the military to society's desensitization to violence) get skewered as much as they could. The third act, where Timmy and his creepy neighbor (played by Tim Blake Nelson) break into Zomcon, goes a little too dramatic and falls apart in a way that feels like the writers were confronted with, "Shit, we've got to finish this thing somehow!"

So, maybe I've been a little harsh on Fido. If you find it for free on your local digital cable movie channel, it's a worthwhile distraction. It's not substantive enough for me to fully endorse, but I can think of worse things to do with an afternoon.

Like Gerontology homework.

For more on Fido:
- Movie information at IMDB and Wikipedia.
- Watch some scenes at the official movie site.
- Buy the DVD.

The Fido trailer:

#64: Point Blank

2008-09-10T22:51:00.000-07:00

Point Blank
Directed by John Boorman
Written by Alexander Jacobs, David Newhouse and Rafe Newhouse (based on Donald E. Westlake's novel "The Hunter")
Released August 30, 1967

To say Point Blank starts out with a bang would be an understatement. Lee Marvin isn't onscreen for more than a second before he's catching bullets. The opening credits haven't even finished and one of cinema's greatest badasses -- and the star of this movie -- is seemingly dead before our eyes?

Well, of course he's not, but it's a hell of a start to one of the coolest action movies of the late 1960s. Point Blank, directed by John Boorman (Deliverance, Excalibur and one of the worst movies of all time, Zardoz), is the story of Marvin's Walker, a criminal double crossed and left for dead by his wife (Sharon Acker) and his partner Mal Reese (John Vernon). By the time those opening credits finish, Walker is on the war path and out for revenge.

Unfortunately for Walker, Reese has made good use of his time away from his old friend and is now a member of a crime family called The Organization. If this sounds at all familiar, it might be because this film was remade in 1999 as the Mel Gibson vehicle Payback, one of the few movies where Gibson plays a "bad" guy and easily one of his best films. Of course, Gibson couldn't resist fucking with the movie, taking the film from director Brian Helgeland and hacking out 15 minutes that would be restored in a later version (to Gibson's credit, he also added some great stuff as well). I intend to review the Payback director's cut here in the future.

Point Blank, like Walker and Marvin, is a machine of a movie; there's no fat on the bones, and not a wasted second. Even the few moments of dreamlike calm lull you into a sort of false sense of quietude before they're shattered by unexpected explosions of gunfire and violence. Walker moves at such a breakneck pace that you're convinced the movie is only going to last about 20 minutes.

Lee Marvin is pretty much the Terminator, and his $93,000 is his John Connor. Luckily, this Terminator has a little time for Angie Dickinson, who plays his ex-wife's friend (and, as a few lines of dialogue hint, possible lover) and one of the pawns in his game at getting his money back. She's pretty much the only woman who can go toe-to-toe with Marvin, and the scene where she slaps the shit out of him and raises a little of her own hell is so relentless that it borders on hilarious.

Cold, calculating and practically emotionless, Point Blank's shark-like methodology is echoed in the set design and costumes, with splashes of color used sparingly (and usually to distract the eyes of the "bad guys," like Dickinson's clothes or the psychedelic lights in the club scene). Walker's need for his payment is like that shark's need for food: it knows no emotion, and nothing can distract it from its singular goal.

For more on Point Blank:
- Movie information at IMDB and Wikipedia.
- Buy the DVD.

The Point Blank trailer, which - like all 60s and 70s trailers - gives away too much:

#63: Confessions of a Superhero

2008-09-10T19:13:00.000-07:00

Confessions of a Superhero
Directed by Matthew Ogens
Released November 2, 2007

Christopher Dennis is Superman. Well, he thinks he is Superman.

Matthew Ogens' enlightening documentary Confessions of a Superhero documents the lives of four misguided souls who spend their days dressed up as fictional characters who walk the streets of Hollywood greeting and posing for photos with tourists.

While the movie bounces back and forth between the lives of the faces behind Hollywood Boulevard's Batman, Wonder Woman and The Hulk, Dennis in the movie's central focus. True to the good nature of Superman, Dennis is probably the most pure of the people walking around in these costumes. He doesn't get angry when people don't tip him for the photos they take. Early on in the movie, Dennis is shown teaching a man in a Ghost Rider costume the ropes. He chastises the newcomer for smoking cigarettes in front of the public.

Superman: Just remember, superheroes don't smoke. It's an image.
Ghost Rider: Except for Ghost Rider.
Superman: Nope. Ghost Rider doesn't smoke.
Ghost Rider: He's made of fire.
Superman: But still, he doesn't smoke cigarettes. You can't make exceptions for something that doesn't exist.

This amazing conversation is soon interrupted by a woman who barrels out of a restaurant to get her photo taken with Dennis. Before the picture is snapped by her friend, she reaches down and grabs his crotch. To his credit, Dennis is unfazed (though he does offer "Thank you very much" at least one too many times).

Of course, Dennis displays a little bit of insanity here and there as well. For example, he claims that actress Sandy Dennis is his mother, and that she told him on her death bed that he should get into acting. Ogens interviews other members of the actual Dennis family, who all seem fairly certain their mother did not have a secret child. Dennis hints at some trouble in his past, especially when he says, "You know how if you do enough speed, you start getting delusional?"

While Dennis's Superman is the centerpiece, the real tragic character of the film (and that's a feat, especially after you meet everyone else) is Maxwell Allen, a shady character with a dark past who acts as Batman, circa George Clooney. Allen makes a number of dubious claims, including the fact that he learned Kung Fu during his "special forces" training, or that he became a gun nut after being a bodyguard and collector for the mafia (when he wasn't fighting for money as some sort of back alley gladiator). He has anger issues, which we eventually get to experience as he shows up for an appointment with his psychiatrist... in full Batman costume. While he tells the psychiatrist that he killed a man, his own wife later suggests about his wild imagination, "I would believe about 50% of what he says."

Rounding out the "cast" is Jennifer Gehrt (Wonder Woman) and Joe McQueen (The Hulk), two aspiring actors who should serve as a cautionary tale to anyone who believes that everyone can make it in Tinseltown. Both actors take their punches as they struggle to land parts, with Gehrt's marriage crumbling and McQueen's self-image in as many tatters as The Hulk's shredded clothes.

Gehrt gives off the vibe that she can't believe where her road has taken her. Visiting her family in Maynardville, Tennessee, we see home videos of her as a young girl is like watching similar footage on A&E's Intervention, where the junkies and addicts are shown in home movies before their lives became ruined by addiction.

McQueen goes so far as to say he feels like a loser and agrees with the assessment of one of the LAPD officers interviewed: these people, himself included, are essentially panhandlers.

I don't know if it's sad or impressive to watch Christopher Dennis's obsession with Superman, but it's definitely heartbreaking. If your jaw doesn't hit the floor when Dennis talks about the 18 movies he has acted in, followed immediately by a clip of him as an extra in a random movie in 2001 where he's blends into a crowd as they watch a little kid dance with a little person in genie costume, I don't know what to tell you.

Confessions of a Superhero is a complicated documentary in the vein of American Movie. It's one of those perfect "character study" films that piles on layer after layer of humor, tragedy and little nuggets of redemption that puts a smile on your face and then makes you feel a little guilty for laughing at such fragile, real people.

If you're like me, you'll be a little disappointed when it's all over. Make sure you check out some of the hilarious, touching and sometimes super creepy bonus footage, including scenes like the ones where Dennis and "Batman" alternately ask Margot Kidder out (and fail) and sit for Polaroid photos with adult film actresses. And don't miss the revealing scene where Dennis's wife explains her own fetishistic fascination with Christopher Reeve while Dennis sits next to her and smokes pot.

For more on Confessions of a Superhero:
- Movie information at IMDB and Wikipedia.
- The official movie site has bios and more clips to check out, along with a downloadable press kit.
- Buy the DVD.

The official trailer:

#62: Days of Heaven

2008-09-09T17:37:00.000-07:00

Days of Heaven
Directed by Terrence Malick
Written by Terrence Malick
Released September 13, 1978

I'm not sure if there's an Official Dictionary of Film, but if there is, the word "Visionary" had better be followed by the name Terrence Malick. He's one of our greatest living directors, and if you've never heard of him it's probably because in the last five decades the reclusive film maker has made only four feature-length films (five if you count his upcoming Tree of Life), none of which has been hugely successful in the financial sense.

A Malick film is pretty much like nothing you've ever seen (the closest I've seen a "mainstream" film come to the look of his films was Paul Thomas Anderson's There Will be Blood). They move at their own pace: ponderous, poetic and sometimes almost glacial. Nature is always a theme, and one never as powerful as his loose adaptation of The Thin Red Line, where he shows not only the toll of war on man but the natural and beautiful world around him.

Days of Heaven, which stars Richard Gere shows all of the hallmarks of a Malick film, including offscreen "narration" (more like the thoughts and inner monologues of his characters), stretches of natural soundtrack rather than dialogue, and a eye for realism. Gere plays Bill, a hotheaded laborer who travels the country with his young sister and Abby, the woman he loves, working hard jobs and trying to save money. When Bill discovers that the rich farm owner he works for (played by playwright/actor Sam Sheperd) only has a year left to live, he tries to convince Abby to play his sister, marry Sheperd's farmer and inherit his empire.

Since Malick is no Hollywood director, this is no Hollywood love triangle. There's still jealousy, longing, and betrayal (and pretty much every one of the seven deadly sins), but if you're waiting for the story to turn into some variation on Unfaithful or Indecent Proposal, don't hold your breath. When the shit hits the fan here, it's Biblical.

Days of Heaven is undeniably beautiful, a work of art, but I really can't recommend enough the haunting The Thin Red Line if you've never seen a Malick film. It's definitely the best test to see if you like his kind of film. If you enjoy it as much as I did and still do, then check out Heaven and especially his feature debut, Badlands.

For more on Days of Heaven:
- Movie information at IMDB and Wikipedia.
- Buy the Criterion DVD.

The Days of Heaven trailer: