Lucid Screening - A Film Blog

Oldboy Cinemash

2009-08-04T23:13:15Z

I've been enjoying these cinemashs for a while, but this one is my favorite so far: Milo Ventimiglia reenacts the infamous hammer scene from Oldboy as he lays some woop-ass down on greedy bank execs.

Ghoulies

2009-04-18T19:03:09Z

This post is a part of the 3rd Annual White Elephant Film Blogathon

When I was little I spent a lot of time in the video store fingering through the racks of VHS tapes trying to find stuff I hadn’t watched yet. I remember being creeped out by Ghoulies’ cover, which featured a small green man coming out of a toilet. This scared me because having a green guy come out of the toilet to grab me by the balls while taking a shit was horrifying. I mean that’s a sacred space and should not be violated.

What I didn’t know and didn’t get to experience until just recently was that the cover was appropriate. This movie belongs in the toilet. It is far from the worst movie I’ve had to review here (see blog-a-thon reviews I and II for my rage and hate filled reviews of other films.) Granted the first one was more rage filled than the second. This movie was just bland. The directing by Luca Bercovici is strictly of point and shoot variety and nothing was impressive or so horrible that it was unwatchable. This is the sort of movie that you see late night on Cinemax or Showtime around Halloween. Its something to put on and forget about it. Did I mention it is a Charles Band production? Band is responsible for such classics as the Subspecies series, the Gingerdead Man series, several of the Puppet Master movies as well as the classics Troll, Rawhead Rex, and Creepozoids. Oh and Robojox. Yeah Band is pretty impressive, in a supremely trashy sort of way.

Anyway back to the show. So the basic plot is that Jonathan Graves (Peter Liapis) moves into a spooky mansion complete with a mysterious grave and a groundskeeper named Wolfgang (played by the amazing Jack Nance who is totally underutilized here) with his girlfriend Rebecca (Lisa Pelikan). He finds black magic books in the library and instead of moving out immediately (like any sane person would) he throws a party with a bunch of loser friends and attempts to summon demons using the books. Smart. Also there is break dancing. Really, really bad breakdancing. Oh the best part of this film is Donna who is played by Mariska Hargitay in her first film role. She is totally hot and everytime she came on screen I heard the BUM BUM sound of L&O. I’m like Palov’s dog of cable tv.

Jonathan also immediately is drawn to the dark side. The day after the party he quits school and starts doing spells in the basement while wearing awesomely metal wizard robes. He summons two midgets with horrible teeth and even worse helmets. Things escalate and soon he is brainwashing his girlfriend and summoning his dead father Malcom (played by rocker Micheal Des Barres) from the grave. He also summons the Ghoulies. For a gremlins ripoff this movie lacks weird little guys. The ghoulies don’t even show up until the end of the movie and even then the reanimated corpses of Jonathan’s friends do most of the destruction. Then thanks to some last minute intervention no one really dies and Jonathan’s eyes return from their evil neon green (totally ‘80s) to their normal whatever they are. At least it was a short film, and enjoyable in a cheesy I’ll never watch this again sort of way. The second best part of the movie was Keith Joe Dick playing Dick who, well, was a dick. He got killed by a large rubber tongue that came from a cross-dressing evil wizard: Metal.

In short: the special effects are horrible, the comedy is lame and the horror is non-existent. There isn’t even blood or nudity to make it a late night B-movie. Mariska Hargitay is hot, Dick was a dick and the ghoulies don’t do much of anything. Oh and as far as toilets go? You should be safe.

The Swarm

2009-04-02T21:37:07Z

Insect Warfare

This was posted as part of the Third Annual White Elephant Film Blogathon.

On its surface, Irwin Allen's The Swarm is a run-of-the-mill disaster film. Prone to almost every aesthetic excess symptomatic of American Science Fiction produced in the 1970's, (see: thousands of flashing push-buttons to indicate a very advanced control room, emergency jumbotron correspondence with Washington, etc.) the movie looks about as dated as possible. At its core, The Swarm serves as a ham-fisted comment on monogamy and gender relations in the regressive modern South. While the film grants the majority of its time to its disaster scenario, for our intents and purposes, I will focus primarily on the romantic subplot, its relation to the swarm and the theoretical implications contained therein.

We open at the entrance of a below-ground military installation, orange and white storm-troopers pile out of an armored personnel carrier and enter the base with weapons drawn. In a command center littered with dead soldiers, we meet renegade entomologist Dr. Bradford Crane (Michael Caine) who has an interesting theory on the attack: African killer bees. (Incidentally, later in the film, the enemy is identified as simply Africans, or The Africans. Resulting in unfortunate quotes like, “From now on the war against the Africans will be under military direction” and “Dr. Hubbard has been out collecting live Africans, he's brought them back to the complex”) After a black mass takes down two choppers, Crane's credentials are authenticated and he goes to work assembling a crack-team of the nation's scientists.

Outside nearby Marysville, the nuclear family sits down to a picnic. Annoyed by a handful of bees surrounding their food, the matriarch makes the grave mistake of spraying the insects with a conventional repellent. The parents are then attacked and killed by the giant swarm, the child narrowly escaping in an American muscle car. We then cut to the quaint Texas town in preparation for its annual Flower Festival, where our romantic subplot is introduced.

Clarence Tuttle, the town's Mayor, and a retired mechanic simply named Felix are both desperately trying to win the affection of school superintendent, Maureen Schuster. They bicker and antagonize one another to the same degree they shower Maureen with hokey compliments. Felix is intimidated by Clarence's history and standing in Marysville and Tuttle perceives Felix's outsider status as a threat and as an unattainable mystique. Felix criticizes Tuttle's festival banner as corny and outdated. He explains, “it makes us all look like a bunch of hicks.” An offended Tuttle responds, “No one asked you to leave Houston and come here to retire, you know?” In order to continue to receive the unabashed praise from both men, Maurine remains neutral. She concedes, “Well actually, the sign is rather hicky, but that's what people expect from us.” The trio's adolescent courting ritual exemplifies the stunted progress of Marysville. And the insecurity that reduces these 60-year-old men to jealous teenagers is a social one. Falling into all applicable regional stereotypes prescribed to a Southern town, when Maurine delivers the line, “that's what people expect from us,” she is admitting defeat. She is at once recognizing the town's outmoded aesthetics and at the same time rejecting growth. We are soon shown the punishment for mindlessly conceding to antiquated ideals.

Early the next morning, Felix surprises Maurine on her way to work with a bouquet of roses and elucidates his childlike feelings for her. When pressed for even the slightest bit of honesty, the school superintendent remains non-committal, babbling something about being mindful. Outside of town, in an idiotic attempt to avenge the death of his parents, the young survivor of the picnic attack and two cohorts throw Molotov cocktails at the massive nest outside of town. An obvious nod to revolutionary action and protest, the boys act in an effort to usher in a new era of modernization through the destruction of Marysville. Minutes later Mayor Tuttle enters Maurine's office with a handful of yellow flowers and proceeds to beg Maurine for her hand in marriage. Sensing that her time of stringing these two men along may be coming to an end, Maurine commits to giving her answer by the end of the school term, presumably months away.

When the enraged swarm takes Marysville hours later, the initial shot of the attack is of the school. From the safety of a panicked classroom, Maureen looks on in horror as the bees attack and kill several screaming children. The camera lingers on the aged woman as if coming to terms with the cost of inaction and the selfish manipulation of her two suitors. The swarm subsides after having killed over 200 citizens and the call is made to evacuate the town.

“I have the sudden feeling I'll never see Marysville again” mutters a dazed Maureen, staring through the window of an out-bound train. Encased by her bickering callers, she is wracked with guilt. Felix and Tuttle attempt consolation and eventually Maureen's panic wanes. The calm is short-lived as bees descend upon the locomotive. The train breaks apart and tumbles down the hillside, bursting into flames. The end result of generations of voluntary stagnation; the swarm's final siege on the people of Marysville is an overdue attack in the name of progress. Washington confirms that among the hundreds of citizens evacuated, there are but seventeen survivors. The swarm advances to Houston.

(As a brief but unavoidable aside: Houston-based grindcore band incidentally named Insect Warfare broke up a little less than a year ago. In four short years, IW solidified themselves at the forefront of the oft-overlooked genre. At once channeling the spirit of elder-statesmen Napalm Death, Siege and Terrorizer, IW also embraced radical elements of harsh noise and glitch by way of their Warfare Noise incarnation. Insect Warfare were a credit to the genre and a prime example of forward-thinking in the face of stagnation.)

Predictably, Dr. Crane eventually destroys the bees by recreating the sound of their mating patterns over the Gulf of Mexico, granting the army enough time to set the swarm ablaze. Basked in red light from the burning gulf, Crane's newfound love interest asks, “Did we finally beat them, or is this just a temporary victory?” A thoughtful Crane responds, “I don't know, but we did gain time. And if we use it wisely, and if we're lucky, the world might just survive.” The team halted the current and thus preserved a way of life. A temporary victory for regression and fear, a small victory for a despicable group of luddites.

Hard Rock Zombies

2009-04-02T14:30:41Z

Bad Pop Zombie

This was posted as part of the Third Annual White Elephant Film Blogathon.

How do I even begin to explain this movie?” How indeed. To whoever threw this movie in the digital hat, I salute you sir. Truly, you are a worthy adversary. I would honestly rather have my scrotum skinned and then be dropped in a kiddie pool full of lime juice. Marinate on that thought.

I’m going to give this a shot anyway.

First of all, let’s get one thing clear: there is no Hard Rock in this movie. Every song is an iconic representation of just how sucky 80’s pop used to be. Got it? Good. Thankfully, the zombie quota is filled, but I’ll come back to that later. For now, let’s just try and see if we can make some kind of sense out of this.

*Deep Breath*

The movie opens with two morons picking up a beautiful hitchhiker, who eventually (and single-handedly) drowns them both while skinny-dipping. We then jump to our heroes, the members of the rock band Holy Moses. After performing a show in god-knows-where, the lead singer Jesse receives an ominous warning from Cassie, a cute but weird as hell teenager who tells him his band shouldn’t perform their next scheduled gig. Their brand of “wild music” isn’t welcome in Cassie’s podunk little town, and her father will apparently be part of the opposition. Naturally the warning is ignored; there will be a big record exec at the show, and they can’t miss their shot at stardom. So, the carefree boys of Holy Moses make their way into the shitstorm.

On the way we learn that Jesse has learned a song that is supposed to bring the dead back to life, which we see works when a squashed mosquito is revived every time he plays. Remember this. They pick up our beautiful hitchhiker, who invites the guys to crash at her family’s mansion while they’re in town. There they see all the cliché eerie signals that would tell anybody else to get the fuck out of Dodge: one of her two midget sons pranks them with a real severed hand, uncle Nazi chopping the heads off chickens with an axe and best of all, the sounds of her werewolf mother howling in the attic. Awesome.

I need to take a minute to point out even more awesomeness: the random music videos that are sprinkled throughout this film. This is about a band, of course, but I’m referring more to the timing and the content. The guys prance and dance around in a series of music videos that make them look like the male version of Bananarama… once again, no hard rock. Honestly, these shitty videos take up almost thirty minutes of a 90 minute film.

Our band shows up in town, music video style and gets to know the locals. After running into Cassie, Jessie meets her dad, as well as the town’s council and sheriff, who hauls the boys off to jail for possession – of a van. After Cassie’s futile attempt to bail them out with $37, we inexplicably jump to hitchhiker girl’s parents in bed having sex. Her midget sons walk in, begging to watch, and finally grandpa says its all good, as long as they don’t touch. Important note: Grandpa is 95 years old, but looks 55 thanks to the vitamins he’s been taking. Are you keeping up? Cool. I’m not.

After hitchhiker girl bails the guys out, Jesse gives Cassie a ring as a token of his love before heading back to the mansion to rehearse for the big show. Before they start to perform a song in front of the family, the bassist is kind enough to foretell exactly how every member of the band will die. Thanks, douche. Then the electrical system goes haywire, and the boys are almost zapped to death by “faulty wiring”. The hilarity of the psycho family’s sincere apology is made even funnier by the fact that the sound guy’s boom mike plunges into the shot, not once, but twice. Do some pushups, man.

Things start to really go bad when the city council outlaws suggestive music and night descends on the mansion. The family begins to off the members of Holy Moses, one by one. The gore in HRZ is just sad. The drummer gets into the shower to have a quickie with hitchhiker girl, right? They’re both completely naked, and when she pulls a knife (from where I don’t know; probably her cooch) to stab him to death, it looks incredibly awkward because she’s suddenly bashful, and has to cover herself up with one hand. For some reason, werewolf grandma dual wields switchblades to cut the keyboardist’s guts out… why does a werewolf need switch -- fuck it. There are a ton of unexplainable scenes here; this is just a prime example. Here’s another one. Cassie runs (seemingly teleports) to the mansion to warn Jesse that her father is bringing a posse out to kill him soon, but they’re interrupted when uncle Nazi pins Jesse’s hands to a tree with lawn darts and shreds his chest with a weedwacker. Lawn darts? Really? Jesse, you’re such a bitch. By the way, the death of the entire band happens during a funky music video montage that I won’t even bother to rationalize.

But I haven’t even gotten to the BEST PART OF THE MOVIE! After the boys are all dead, 95-year old grandpa reveals to Holy Moses’ manager that he’s the mastermind behind the council’s outlaw on all music in town… oh, and that’s he’s also ADOLF fucking HITLER. He made a deal with Harry Truman, and he’s been in hiding in California under a new alias ever since, waiting 40 years for the right time to conquer the world. He’s got a mountain cave full of fatal poison gas that he’ll use to continue his life’s work: screwing up the entire world, starting with the west coast. Silly Germans.

Cassie sits by Jesse’s grave, confessing her undying (see what I did there) love for a man she’s barely known two days before playing a recording of his new record – conveniently, a rock version of the resurrection song Jesse has been jamming to all film. The band rises from their graves as zombies, complete with KISS face paint and new outfits. They’ve been hell bent on playing a gig in this town, so what’s a lack of vital signs got to do with it, right?

Of course they have to get revenge and pay the family back. They don't talk anymore, but at one point, the bassist and the keyboardist actually high five each other after killing grandma werewolf. Then, the now deceased Nazi family rises up as newly made zombies -- that’s right, grandma is now a werewolf and a zombie -- just in time to greet the town’s anti-music posse. My favorite part is when Hitler bites a guy’s cheek off and spits it out before he rips his head off with his bare hands; I had to watch it six times before the laughter stopped and I could move on.

The zombie Nazi family and the town posse are now running amok; converting almost everyone they come across. Meanwhile, Holy Moses makes it to the venue to perform for the record exec, who is a complete tool but loves the show. My head hurts when I try to understand how none of the zombies can talk, yet Jesse can sing his jailbait song tribute to Cassie. The zombified townsfolk, arrive at the venue to jam when they all spot still human Cassie and run her off, while her man Jesse continues to rock out, oblivious.

The surviving human townsfolk, along with Holy Moses’ manager, band together and learn of a way to stop the zombies: they have to offer a virgin to the ghouls, who will ravish her, then eat her before going back to sleep for 100 years. Hmmm, virgin, virgin… of course! A fleeing Cassie somehow runs directly to their safehouse, where they carry her off to sacrifice to the zombies.

Holy Moses’ manager, desperate to save our virgin, runs back to the graves of his undead band, where they have returned to after finishing their set. He screams and hollers for them to help, then finally pulls out the ring Jessie gave to Cassie. Ah, the power of love. Totally gay. Holy Moses rises again, and just as the Hitler-led mob is about to pounce on her, the band shows up, playing the resurrection song. How the hell did they know what to do? The crowd turns its attention to the band, giving the manager time to free Cassie. Remember Hitler’s mountain cave of poison gas? It just so happens to be right next to Cassie’s sacrificial altar. I know, small world, right? The band draws the zombies into the cave, which the manager and Cassie lock and flood the mountain chamber with gas, somehow killing people who already shouldn't be breathing. Oh, and the boys of Holy Moses survives the gas attack, then crawl back into their graves. Ugh. I hate this movie.

Clearly, Hard Rock Zombies doesn't take itself seriously. There are a million little inside jokes and jabs that are simply just not funny. Most of the shots (like the one with the clearly visible boom mike) were probably done in one take. In fact, at one point the manager even says, “God, I feel like I’m in a cheap movie.” Truer words were never spoken, friend. I mean, for fuck’s sake, Hitler married a werewolf and has midget grandsons! I’m sitting in front of a laptop, wringing my hands because I don't even see the point of critiquing this. The acting (naturally) stinks, the transition from scene to scene is atrocious, and if you’re wondering why I’ve neglected mentioning the special effects in a zombie movie, it’s because I’m trying to do you a favor. You’ll never meet me, but thank me nonetheless. Everyone who worked on this movie should be put in front of a firing squad.

There’s a good reason I took the time to tell you about this movie: you should never watch it. Ever. But where’s the fun in that? If you even bother to take the time, please: watch it with a friend. And alcohol. Otherwise you’ll turn this off right at the point of the first music video, where they spray underage kids and a baby with beer. Hilarious!

Shaka Shervington is an aspiring fantasy writer, knife-thrower, arsonist and starship captain who enjoys visiting brothels and bitch slapping blue-faced women... ok, everything except the last adjective is a lie, but his pimp hand is still way strong. Look for his handiwork in a Borders or B&N bookstore in oh say, 4 years.

Miami Vice

2009-04-02T11:39:44Z

'Vice' is neither touted masterpiece nor camp classic

This was posted as part of the Third Annual White Elephant Film Blogathon.

When I first received news of my assignment for the White Elephant Blog-a-thon, I thought, “Oh shit!” To the unassuming, movie-going masses, Miami Vice (2006) was just another one of those adrenaline-packed summer blockbusters with a built-in TV audience in mind. To cinephiles, however, it was “a Michael Mann film” – four words that underscore just how polarizing Mann’s films are. To his admirers, Mann is an impressionistic visionary who subverts genre expectations. To his detractors, Mann is the exact opposite: Hollywood’s Emperor without clothing, if you will.

Oddly enough, as a self-proclaimed bleeding heart cinephile, I belong to neither camp - and this viewing of Miami Vice (my second exposure to the Mann oeuvre; the first one was Heat), only reaffirmed my status as a detached non-partisan. Miami Vice was a frustrating film experience, one muddled with as much complaints as compliments. I guess this may explain why prior attempts to articulate my contradictory feelings into coherent paragraphs have since been aborted. And so without further ado, here are some of the fragmented notes taken, during the viewing of the film:

1) One common criticism often leveled against Mann is that he favors “style over substance.” While I am not exactly a Mann apologist, I am more inclined to disagree with this sentiment. One of the things Mann does really well, as a filmmaker, is create mood. I love the first two minutes of the film, wherein the camera opens with the dark blue sea and then, bubbles upwards towards the surface and latches onto the velocity of Sonny and Rico’s speedboats. A few moments later, he catches sight of Sonny and Rico mingling in a neon-lit nightclub – you know – the sleazy, go-to-place where sweaty, anonymous torsos gyrate against one another until dawn. Call me a sucker, but I love it whenever a filmmaker takes the time to establish a strong sense of place as well as dynamic.

2) For a film aware and heightened by the gritty nuances of everyday life – particularly, missed and/or fleeting connections (Sonny’s short-lived romance with drug czar ally Isabella, blocked cell phone signals Sonny and Ricardo experience during pivotal undercover operations, etc.) – Miami Vice sure is glamorous! Colin Farrell’s scruffy Sonny is brooding, sleazy… and inexplicably sexy. What can I say? The truck driver moustache, greasy hair, and five o’clock shadow works wonders for Colin. Ah, the magic of the movies!

3) The bookends of Miami Vice – the beginning as well as the end – are great. The middle parts, unfortunately, lag. Watching the cat-and-mouse game between Sonny and Rico and the evil drug cartels unfold for god knows how many hours, I wondered if a drinking game would have sufficed. We drink every time we see a foreboding Bald Neo Nazi in the car. We chug again whenever we see that bug-eyed drug lord with the receding hairline, whisper and nod quietly to his bespectacled Right Hand Man in a sleek state-of-the-art meeting room. And just because we want to drink ourselves silly and get sloshed for the night, we chug two shots every time we see a shower sex scene - interchangeably between Sonny or Rico and their significant others - that dashes our fragile expectations (“Hold on. Is there going to be a kinky Golden Shower on the way?!?! ... [sighs] Aw, dammit.”)

Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen

2009-04-01T08:46:41Z

Barely even a movie, more than a white elephant...

This was posted as part of the Third Annual White Elephant Film Blogathon.

The apparent happy ending of Sara Sugarman's Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen (2004) begins with a shot of Lindsay Lohan in the arms of the rock star teen-idol she pursued for the middle half hour of the film. It then dissolves to an identical shot of Lohan in the arms of the the barely noticeable bit character who's name had never registered and who's purpose in his few scenes was equally nebulous. Not to worry. A considerate voice over by Lohan explains both: “And then there's Sam. You know, he'd been there all along, but when I opened my heart to him I realized that now that my career is launched, maybe I could have a boy friend.” Well, I suppose that from the character's point of view, he had “been there” at school with her all that time. And I guess it's also possible that she had been harboring feelings for him “all along.” And that she had also been wrestling with an inner conflict about balancing her ambition and her desire to “have a boyfriend.” This would all be news to the audience. It is as if they only had 10 minutes to tell a story, and yet it felt so very much longer.

I have a confession to make myself. I have a disease. Or perhaps it is simpler to call it an addiction. “Cinemasochism” is the monkey on my back, and Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen is like that first high all over again. There are no end of bad movies in this world. They far outnumber the good ones. Yet I find Confessions so unique and so perplexing and so offensive as to worry that all the others left in the vaults have been spoiled for me. That perhaps finding this great new high I've sought for so long will leave me wanting no more, as the heroine addict after one triumphant night on methadone.

Confessions is a Disney film and a vehicle for the rising Lindsay Lohan who was hot off the much more competently executed remake of Freaky Friday. I wasn't expecting a masterpiece by any means. I understand that its a kids movie made for an audience of giggling fourteen year old girls. I did have a basic expectation of competence. What I got was a montage of unrelated and seemingly "found" scenes spliced together in an awful cinematic collage.

The film has no discernible character or drama. What little story is present is tacked together by voice over and coincidence. I'm not saying that you can't make a great film which doesn't conform to the storytelling conventions of Hollywood, or that there aren't worse movies which are even less coherent. But for a film of this type, a star driven kiddie movie from a major studio, Confessions is shockingly schlocky. Huge plot holes are dwarfed by mammoth coincidences and exaggerated but unearned payoffs.

Only in the climax, minutes after meeting Lohan's father for the first time, do we learn that he is the author of a popular children's book series. Interested? In fact, we learn this at the exact moment that it comes in handy for the character, winning Lohan into the good graces of her favorite rock star. On the DVD commentary the director gleefully pointed out (a good 10 minutes before that scene) that an advertisement for said children's book appears in a background shop window. Why wasn't I paying attention? It all makes so much sense now. It's a puzzle!

Yes, I watched the DVD commentary with director Sara Sugarman, writer Gail Parent, and producers Bob Shapiro and Jerry Leider. Before doing so I had worked up an idea that this film was merely unconventional and experimental. That it was attempting a different kind of storytelling than I couldn't understand, where the deus ex machina was a plot twist and the ridiculous coincidence became a titillating surprise. Perhaps, I thought, the artist was beyond myself.

Or at least that's what I might have satirically written about it here. I might have spun some good yarns too. But not now. Now I have journeyed to a place from which I cannot return. I have asked the cinemasochist's question: “What is a shitty movie,” and then I asked one better: “Where do they come from.”

Hacks. They come from hacks. All I can do to explain is to transcribe some of the filmmakers' own observations about their film and the process of making it. Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen is based on a book by Dyan Sheldon, which screenwriter Gail Parent muses “made it easier.” Interestingly, Parent takes full credit for this unmitigated piece of garbage by remarking how glad she is that the film was shot “as is,” with her script intact. I bet she initials her trash bags every Thursday morning, lest the neighbors take credit.

Much of the commentary is spent gabbing about the various consume changes and posses of Lindsay Lohan, who reminds the director of Grace Kelly. “She's a good little actress,” is all Sugarman has to say about Alison Pill, Lohan's ever present co-star. Pill's performance might actually be the only positive thing about the film. Her performace, though nothing special, is on another plane of existence. He failure to illicit interest from the filmmakers' can, I believe, be traced to her purpose as Lohan's homelier friend (she does look like Matt Lucas from Little Britain). Later, the whole gang chimed in to make fun of an overweight bit player.

Better still was when one the producers, having silently searched a good five minutes in a dictionary, cut off Parent mid sentence with the spelling of “non sequitur.” It happened! Perhaps my favorite moment came when Sugarman gave us an incite into her creative mind, a brief peak into the inspiration of cinema. Apparently, the final dance number (Lindsay Lohan and some background dancers stomping and hand-jiving on a high school auditorium stage) was meant to evoke a kind of “Busby Berkeley” feeling like the Broadway ballets of old. Guffaw.

That's all I've got, really. Wait, no, I forgot to mention that Megan Fox is talentless and unattractive. Ok, I can't go on. If this movie is for you, if you're a true cinemasochist, then you have heard the call by now. Good luck.

The Third Annual White Elephant Film Blogathon

2009-04-01T05:32:59Z

It's here! Submissions for The Third Annual White Elephant Film Blogathon are rolling in. Keep checking back as I will be posting links to reviews as they come in.

For those of you unfamiliar with what's happening, the premise is simple:
Bloggers were asked to submit a film that they wanted someone else to review and, in return, they were assigned a film to review and post on April Fool's Day. As you can see from the list of films below, the assignments tend to be of the less than desirable variety...

3 Ninjas: High Noon at Mega Mountain by Stacia

An American Carroll by Tyler Swank

Automatons by Matt Maul

The Blood Shed by Leo Roth

Blue Chips by Josh Wiebe

Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen by Greg Ryan

Cybernator by Robix

DOA: Dead or Alive by Feld

Flesh Gordon by Paul Clark

Forbidden Zone by Filmsquish

Hard Rock Zombies by Shaka Shervington

The Hottie & the Nottie by Rahat Ahmed

Howard the Duck by Steve Carlson

Kaliman and the Sinister World of Humanon by Kevin J. Olson

Les Chansons d’amour by Tasha

Maniac Nurses Find Ecstasy by Jess Faneuf

Men at Work by Ben Lim

Miami Vice by Tram Ngo

Nightmare City by Kent M. Beeson

Rhinestone by Mike Langlie

Spring Break Shark Attack by David Morgan

The Strangers Gundown by Charles

Sudden Impact by Gina Telaroli

The Swarm by Casey Moore

The Tenth Victim by Jimmy Long

The Terror by Andrew Bemis

Universal Soldier: The Return by Britt Parrott

Valley of the Dolls by Alex Sanchez

The Wendell Baker Story by Brad Tilles

If you still haven't had enough, check out blogathons from previous years:
The Second Annual White Elephant Film Blogathon
The First Annual White Elephant Film Blogathon

The Blood Shed

2009-04-01T05:24:56Z

Something Great

This was posted as part of the Third Annual White Elephant Film Blogathon.

In the January 1954 edition of “The Cahiers du Cinéma” Francois Truffaut published an article called “Une certaine tendance du cinema francais” (A Certain Tendency of the French Cinema). This article, which he had been developing at least since 1952, heavily criticized the state of French cinema by pointing out that the styles and features being produced by it were in effect boring, amoral, and so preoccupied with a ”Tradition of Quality” that they where incapable of creating a real “auteur cinema”. He defended the role of the director as the main creator behind each movie calling this concept a “politique des auteurs”; this, he argued, did not exist in French cinema but was ever present in Hollywood movies at the time (the main example of them being Hitchcock, Hawks and Preminger). The argument was appreciation not of the Hollywood filmmaking machine, but of the ability of certain directors to take these violent and exciting plots and concepts and yet make a coherent, highly artistic line of work… an oeuvre if you will.

Right now Hollywood, and I doubt I need to say this, is not the same thing it used to be when Truffaut defended its auteurs. It is independent film where movie lovers have turned to in order to find this particular artistic search of a director who has his own voice. This brings me to the movie I am reviewing: “The Blood Shed” directed and written by Alan Rowe Kelly (who also happens to play the part of “Beeftena”). The movie opens with the aforementioned Beeftena skipping down the street in a Jersey suburb dragging along her pet (a dead squirrel tied to a wooden cart), the suburban inhabitants of the neighborhood criticize her at a distance and in fact some of the children make fun of her. One of these kids actually throws the little squirrel down a stream while verbally abusing Mr. Kelly’s character. Beeftena’s two brothers come to her defense, which leads to a game of tug of war that ends up with a dead neighborhood kid that they hide in the title’s shed.

This movie does not subscribe to your traditional 3-act structure, nor should it attempt to do this. It is not plot driven (as a matter of fact at times It seems to forget to follow a plot) and works more as a character and genre study. This latter intention is where the auteurship of Mr. Kelly’s effort really resides.

The focus of “The Blood Shed” is the Bullion family, a cannibalistic, inbred group of freaks that live in a very dilapidated home and are responsible for a series of disappearances in the area. Kelly brilliantly shows this with carefully crafted moments that shine light on the character of each member of the family. During one dinnertime scene (in which he displays his masterful use of the close up in order to create a sense of beauty through the absurd and grotesque) Beeftena approaches his father with great happiness after being informed that her birthday party is going to be one for the ages. As they converse the father’s hand disappears under her skirt only to retire it after and smell his fingers. In just one little moment of one scene we know that the rumors of incest that have been thrown around before, are in fact truth; that this particularly act is as normal as they come in this particular family, and that Beeftena curries particular favor from her father. This subtlety, completely uncommon in the realms of the horror genre, is exactly what makes this movie more important than what you would imagine just by seeing the cover of the DVD.

If we go back to Truffaut we can see that the movies he, and the other Cahiers critics, loved where for the most part film noir and suspense efforts, mass culture movies that other people dismissed and they propped up as examples of high art. The noir has not stayed with us, at least not as this vilified example of mass culture to be sublimated, and while suspense is still here, it is more or less accepted (in large part thanks to the “politique des auteurs”) as something that can be a product of high art. This is not true of horror, which still lives in the realm of popular to low art. Maybe its time to re-examine that. Mr. Kelly definitively tries to push the, as of now, limited boundaries of the genre to include artistic and societal concerns that transcend the simple act of screaming in fear at a loud noise. We can take his examination and depiction of the grotesque as a very strong example of his pushing to find something new inside the genre. If Jan Svankmajer and Peter Greenaway made a career as directors who make high art by establishing a aesthetic of the grotesque, Kelly sublimates it in couple of scenes, one example is the aforementioned dinner scene, but the crowning jewel in this movie comes at the end of it: A victim of the Bullion family manages to escape Beeftena’s birthday party (a celebration of horrors and excesses that would have felt quite at home in a Buñuel movie) and after running around in the woods she reaches the lawn of a neighboring house. Standing there she sees Mrs. Kiggins and approaches her for help. When there is no answer she gets closer just to see that she has been savagely defaced by Beeftena, the edges of her mouth extended to her ears, while her body is impaled so as to remain standing. Mrs. Kiggins (“Such a beautiful Smile” Beeftena tells us) has been made into a statue of flesh, her features enhanced by the horrors inflicted upon them.

As for the societal concerns that it displays, pinpointing all of them could probably take up much more space than I have in this review. There is of course the more overt theme of suburbia moving on and engulfing the habitat of the poorer inhabitants of the state of Jersey. It is ultimately a class war between the rich suburbanites and the more modest people whose customs and traditions are under attack by the prevalent culture around them. Mr. Kelly, always the rebel, treats us to a victory by the forces that usually are defeated. But he does not stop there; he also pinpoints the abuse of the institutions that are supposed to protect us. A police officer pays a visit to the Bullion family with a pre-judgement of their guiltiness in respect of the murder of a boy, after stepping in with bravado (and no warrant) he searches for the family members, gun out and ready to take them down if necessary (here Mr. Kelly takes advantage to poke fun at the officer by having him perform a sort of a dance, in which he moves carefully through the family compound in usual police mannerisms, but with a grace that is reserved only for a ballet or modern dance routine). He invariably gets caught by the family, who then point out the police abuse that this sheriff was planning to commit (trespassing, no warrant, being judge and executioner), they turn the situation around on him by proceeding to torture him by popping his testicles with pliers. They have attacked his manhood, Mr. Kelly has taken the institution in society that relies the strongest on a mythology of manhood and has, in effect, castrated it. The little man beats the establishment again.

I wish I could say that Mr. Kelly will enter social consciousness and that his work will be appreciated more widely by people of all walks of life, unfortunately that tends to not be the career path of people that fight so strongly for an artistic vision. It is far more likely that he will continue to chug away making movies that expose our society and its vices, that explore a sense of beauty in the grotesque that most of us are not capable of sensing, that transcend the limitations of a genre to become a work of art, an auteur’s oeuvre, without ever obtaining the recognition that several lesser directors (and performers) have been able to attain. This is a sad indictment not of him, but of us and our immaturity as a film going public. I know for a fact that the next time someone asks me if I have watched anything good, I will say “I haven’t seen anything good, but I saw something great: The Blood Shed by Alan Rowe Kelly.”

Leo Roth edits movie trailers, loves the Miami Dolphins, and is a futbol fanatic. He currently resides in Brooklyn and, incase you're wondering, is single.

Valley of the Dolls

2009-04-01T05:21:36Z

Valley of the Dolls? Valley of the Dolls.

This was posted as part of the Third Annual White Elephant Film Blogathon.

Writing a review of this movie must have been a lot like writing the screenplay--where both writers desperately ask themselves: “where do I go with this turd?” Sure the novel was shocking and frank in a way that makes Erica Jong look like Beverly Cleary, but at its nature it was an extended trash novel capitalizing off Hollywood trainwrecks like Marilyn Monroe and Judy Garland. And the movie? Sure it's poorly constructed and Patty Duke's crooning elicits howls from the neighborhood dogs, but at its core, the it's just confusing and boring.

In fact, what redeems the movie from complete obscurity is Susann's novel which chronicles the rise and fall of New York City's boy-crazy stage women. The book is so chalk full of drama it makes it all the more hilarious that the movie is a PG-13 quasi-musical devoid of any of the sexual conquests and pitfalls which made the novel such a page-turner. Granted, we almost-kinda-not-really see Sharon Tate's and Barbara Parkin's tits, the movie ends up looking like a low budget cross between Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and All About Eve with about as much SEXY factor as an episode of Gilligan's Island.

So? Where do I go with this turd?

In a way that almost seems hostile, Susann's novel was adapted to the big screen with wild abandon towards accuracy--often misquoting dialogue and stripping the female characters of any sense of empowerment the novel may have given them. Maybe I'm just as guilty of misinterpretation, but Valley of the Dolls: The Movie breaks new ground in banality and has me asking: why couldn't I have gotten Miami Vice?

Men at Work

2009-04-01T05:21:15Z

Emilio Estevez: A Hero For Hazardous Times

This was posted as part of the Third Annual White Elephant Film Blogathon.

In 1986, Emilio Estevez became the youngest person to write, direct, and star in a major motion picture. Unfortunately, Wisdom, starring Estevez and Demi Moore was panned by critics setting in motion a career that would be fraught with works that would end up being misunderstood by either critics or the public. However, to the open-minded filmgoer, if Wisdom hadn't convinced them that a profound talent had just announced his arrival, his follow up film four years later, Men at Work, surely should have.

Avoiding the sophomore slump that many overhyped artists suffer as a result of high expectations, Estevez presented the world with Men at Work only to once again be greeted with indifference by the critical establishment. It was a setback that would keep him from directing another film for six whole years. When he finally made his return with The War at Home, he did it with a decidedly more serious film. In telling the story of a Vietnam War hero struggling to adjust to life back in the states, it seemed to be a far cry from Men at Work.

When The War at Home was released in 1996, Estevez finally received the attention he deserved. Unfortunately, while the film was well received by critics, it is thought to have earned less than $100,000 in its limited release. In the wake of his film's spectacular box office failure, Estevez considered giving up his filmmaking career. However, like Gordon Bombay, Estevez persevered. Ten years after the release of The War at Home, Estevez premiered his fictionalized account of the moments leading up to the assassination of Bobby Kennedy in Bobby. The film premiered at the Venice Film Festival and received a seven minute standing ovation. It would go on to play at other major festivals and also receive a Golden Globe nomination for best motion picture. Twenty years after the release of his first film, Estevez's time had finally come.

Amongst the four films in his ouevre, from his precocious debut to his breakout in Venice, the only one that doesn't comfortably fit in is Men at Work. Upon closer examination, this turns out to only be true if you also consider Dr. Strangelove to be out of place amongst the rest of Stanley Kubrick's works because it's a comedy. Like Dr. Strangelove, Men at Work is a subversive, comedic masterpiece nestled amidst a body of otherwise serious works. Estvez has demonstrated a very clear social and political consciousness throughout his career and while those tendencies are somewhat obscured in Men at Work, they are undeniably present.

Men at Work is the story of a pair of garbage men, played by Estevez and his brother Charlie Sheen, who become entangled in an illegal toxic dumping operation when they discover the dead body of a local politician while making their rounds. Because they're constantly being pestered by the police, they're afraid to turn the body in for fear of implicating themselves. What follows is part Weekend at Bernies part La Règle du jeu. While avoiding the thugs who killed the politician and are dumping the toxic chemicals, a pizza delivery man, a black Vietnam vet, and their female neighbor all join in on the fun.

The film's unlikely band of protagonists represent elements of society that are too often overlooked or are generally depicted in an undignified manner. The two garbage men and the pizza delivery guy are presented as human beings and, in the case of the two two main characters, as the heroes of the story. Louis, the Vietnam vet, foreshadows issues that Estevez would deal with in his next film while also introducing complex issues of race (especially in the scene where he is confronted by the Los Angeles Police). Meanwhile, the most intelligent of the bunch is the strong independent woman who happens to have been organizing the dead politician's campaign.

By pitting this ragtag group of people against crooked police officers and evildoers bent on polluting the city, Estevez makes clear where his sympathies and ideals lie. His subsequent films are just as radical and socially progressive. Only the vision of a mature, confident director could juggle the serious issues presented in this film with the slapstick humor that the public so adored upon its release. Realizing that Estevez was not even 30 while managing to do this made the film that much more remarkable.

Most importantly: in directing his brother, Charlie Sheen, Estevez had the good sense to let him loose and Sheen did not disappoint. The film is just as much Sheen's as it is Estevez's. My only disappointment is that Sheen's hasn't gone on to bigger and better things the way Estevez has, but perhaps that's too much to ask? Although his brief appearance in Being John Malkovich was great, Sheen's turn as Carl Taylor is a career defining role. Perhaps it happened too early in his career and it's this realization that led to Sheen's problems soon after. Should this be the case, it's unfortunate that Estevez had to use his own brother's career as a stepping stone to progress his own, but ultimately, we should just be thankful that these two monumental talents were able to collaborate in such a brilliant film (yes, they've done other stuff together since then, but nothing this great).

Two More Days...

2009-03-30T23:54:31Z

It's March 30th and that can only mean one thing: two more days until the White Elephant Film Blogathon! My apologies for being so late to post this but Filmsquish has been kind enough to post a guide to enjoying trashy cinema. For all the participants out there who have been procrastinating on your assignments, you might want to read this before you get to work.

Tripping Stardust Through Fetid Film - Part VIII - HECKLEFEST!

One More Day to See Lola Montès

2009-03-03T02:57:50Z

If you live in New York City you've got one more day to catch Max Ophüls’ Lola Montès at Film Forum and I can assure you that it's worth trudging through this miserable weather to see. I saw it last night and was thankful I did. The only Ophüls films I had previously seen were The Earrings of Madame De... and Letters From an Unknown Woman. Madame De... is a straight up masterpiece while Letters From an Unknown Woman was pretty damn good. Lola Montès is maybe a notch below Madame De... but that's absolutely nothing to be ashamed of. The cinematography is dazzling (that might be the first time I've ever used that word and meant it) and is alone worth the price of admission. The very thorough restoration that was done will most likely result in a new DVD release so it's not the end of the world if you miss it, but it's a film ideally experienced on the big screen.

Technical Thoughts on Gomorrah and Che

2009-03-01T04:45:07Z

This past Thursday I was finally able to see Matteo Garrone's Gomorrah after a couple attempts that were thwarted by the film being sold out. It's a fantastic film and also a terrifying one.

Sure, the subject matter is unpleasant but what I really found frightening was the gunshots in the film. I don't think there was a single shot fired in the film that didn't make me jump in my seat. It wasn't even that I was caught of guard, it was just the way the sound was mixed that gave the gunshots such a startling quality. I can't quite place my finger on what it is about the sound effects but, if someone has a theory, I'd love to hear it.

On Saturday afternoon, I saw the first part of Steven Soderbergh's Che. I was pleasantly surprised by the film and was incredibly surprised by the camera they used to shoot it. The film was shot with the Red One camera and the results were pretty stunning. The colors were vibrant, the images were incredibly crisp, and, as far as I could tell, the image sensors demonstrated a latitude more akin to film than digital video.

However, the film led me to a realization that great photography and great cinematography are completely different things in the world of cinema.

The images in Che are beautiful to look at but I didn't find the cinematography to be particularly inspired. It was well shot in a very straight forward manner. It presented the actions that occurred in the film without doing much to enhance them. This isn't necessarily a bad thing but when I think of films with great cinematography I think of the works of Ophüls, Malick, and Wong Kar-Wai. While some of the vistas might evoke memories of The Thin Red Line, Soderbergh (who shoots his own films) is no John Toll.

What I sensed in Che was a masterful technical rather than artistic performance. It's wonderful to look at but lacks the sorts of camera movements and compositions that stick with you long after you've forgotten the plot of the film.

The Housemaid

2009-02-25T23:59:23Z

Korea's Lost Classic

It's an overused cliche but seeing Kim Ki-Young's 1960 film, The Housemaid, truly is a revelatory experience. The thought that a film like this could have emerged from South Korea in the year that it did is pretty mind blowing. This remarkable film explores the chaos that ensues when a sexually forward housemaid is hired by a music teacher to help his wife around their newly built two story home. What follows is a horrific disintegration of one of the basic pillars of a Confucian society: the family.

The trouble begins when a music teacher hires a housemaid who soon begins making sexual advances toward him. The housemaid eventually gets her way and, in the process, ends up pregnant. All hell breaks loose when the teacher's wife finds out. Fearing embarrassment, she struggles to strike a balance between revenge and preserving the family's dignity in the eyes of the community. You don't air your family's dirty laundry in Korean society so instead the household begins to rot from the inside out.

For a film emerging from such a conservative culture, especially in 1960, The Housemaid is incredibly blunt in its depiction of sexuality and violence. A woman stripping, attempting to seduce, then forcing herself upon a man is one of the last things you'd expect to see going into an old Korean film (nowadays is a completely different story). Nevertheless, it's here and it's awkward as hell. The scenes of violence are no less shocking, even eliciting some gasps from the audience I saw it with.

A somewhat superficial but nevertheless accurate way to describe this film is as a Korean melodrama directed by Alfred Hitchcock (one IMDB commentor preferred to refer to the film as "Douglas Sirk on acid"). Tears are shed, there's plenty of yelling, and people keep making irrational decisions for inexplicable reasons: all hallmarks of Korean melodrama. But despite the contrived emotions and many hilarious moments, the tension that Kim manages to generate is almost unbearable. The film is both funny and frightening.

Much lauded contemporary filmmakers such as Bong Joon-Ho (Memories of Murder, The Host) and Park Chan-Wook (Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, Oldboy) have both named Kim as a major influence upon their work. Bong cites Kim as a mentor and favorite director while Park has stated that The Housemaid is one of the films that has had the greatest influence on his career. High praise from two of the country's best known filmmakers but the influence is so apparent that they really didn't need to say anything at all.

As in Bong's work, much of the brilliance of The Housemaid lies in its blending of different genres and the ability to effectively combine horror and humor. However, what really puts Bong's films in a league of their own are their razor sharp observations of Korean society and an ability to seamlessly weave Korea's often tumultuous political climate throughout the fabric of his films. The Housmaid is no different. As someone who lived during the period of Japanese occupation and the subsequent rapid transition from an agrarian to industrial society, Kim's film is rich with observations about the rapidly changing face of gender and class in Korean society.

The newfound economic prosperity in the latter half of the 20th century coupled with a strong American influence (a result of the Korean War that still lingers to this day) proves to be the most fertile source of the events that transpire in this film. Status symbols like a new two-story home and owning the first television on the block are presented as the objects of desire that result in the collapse of this family.

Kim's attitude toward modern amenities and the consumer culture they foster is clear but those feelings don't appear to extend to his filmmaking which is wholly original and as modern as they come. The stark black and white cinematography is suffocating while the well paced editing keeps you squirming with anxiety. Nothing about Kim's film feels old fashioned and I'd even be willing to go out on a limb and say that it could stand toe to toe with another masterpiece released that same year: Psycho.

The Housemaid is a fascinating film and one that deserves much more attention than the handful of paragraphs I've given it here (I didn't even mention the great ending). The film is a true masterpiece and it's criminal how difficult it is to see. Thankfully, that will soon change with it's anticipated DVD release later this year. Maybe then will the film finally be recognized as the classic of world cinema it always has been.

The Muriels Wrap Up

2009-02-23T05:07:11Z

On the biggest night of the year for the film industry, the Muriel Awards wrapped up by announcing the Golden Muriel for Best Picture of 2008 to Pixar's Wall*E.

My personal pick was Gus Van Sant's Milk which came in at a disappointing 12th place. Paul posted written pieces for all the Golden Muriel nominees which received first place votes and you can read what I wrote for Milk in a post from earlier today.

While you're there, you should also check out a short piece I wrote about Mickey Rourke's performance in The Wrestler.

As for that other award ceremony that happened today: eh.

Slumdog Millionaire wasn't a terrible film, but I'm going to predict that it will be remembered the same way Titanic, Crash, and Shakespeare in Love are remembered.

Lastly, I had David Lynch's Dune on this week while I was doing some work and was shocked by how terrible it was. Maybe I need to actually sit down and pay attention to it so I know what's going on but the bits and pieces I saw were awful. Anyway, I'm not writing this to rag on the film, I'm actually here to celebrate a moment from it.

You should watch the entire clip to experience the full effect of one of the most metal moments in film history. It happens at 5 minutes and 2 seconds into this clip.