Soiled Sinema

Hour of the Wolf

2012-02-08T21:35:00.000-08:00

While suffering a minor yet artistically fruitful nervous breakdown in 1965, Swedish auteur Ingmar Bergman managed to churn out a most distinguished script that would eventually evolve into two very different (albeit equally personal) films: Persona (1966) and Hour of the Wolf (1968). Both of these extremely intimate works would prove to be among Bergman’s greatest work, but only one would be from a genre the director had yet to work within: the very rarely artistically serious horror film. Of course, Hour of the Wolf is not your typical horror flick and it is certainly the sort of horror film one would expect Ingmar Bergman to bring to the mostly schlocky, cheap shock genre. Instead of dealing with real anthropomorphic hellions lurking amongst the shadows, Hour of the Wolf protagonist Johan Borg (played by Max von Sydow) – a psychologically unstable artist with a dubious and incessantly pestering past – falls prey to the tragic instability of his own mind and the Jungian archetypes that inhabit it. On top of suffering insomnia, most especially during the vargtimmen (‘the hour of the wolf’), Johan is constantly approached by taunting and peculiar beings he believes to be demons. The wholly devoted support of Johan’s beautiful, pregnant wife Alma (Liv Ullmann) seems to be only in vain as even she – a noble woman who stays up and comforts him during the vicious vargtimmen – cannot bring an inkling of solace to his petrified soul. Johan and Alma call a small cottage on a quaint secluded island with an ancient castle their home. This island setting, a virtual microcosm of monotonous metaphysical madness, only adds to Johan’s caustic claustrophobia and unflinching feeling of impending doom. Essentially, Hour of the Wolf is a fresh and new take on the gothic horror story that is full of bold Bergmanian phantasmagorical imagery and typically stark Nordic isolationism and self-imposed alienation.

Ingmar Bergman has made no lie about the fact that Hour of the Wolf is one of his most personal and autobiographical works. Knowing this unsurprising fact (as all of Bergman’s films are to some extent autobiographical) makes the film all the more macabre and authentically confounding. Of course, anyone that knows anything about Bergman’s life knows that he was not the easiest man to like (as expressed most vividly by his own children), but one must certainly respect the Scandinavian filmmaker’s brutal honesty, especially in regard to using the idiosyncrasy of his own internal pain as a proper and constructive outlet to the push the envelope of filmmaking. In Hour of the Wolf, through the character of Johan, Bergman attempts to come to terms with alienation from one’s lover, an irretractable past, homoerotic demons (resulting in the most deplorable of crimes), and the personal validity of one’s art among critical spectators. Unsurprisingly, a couple years before he passed away in 2007, Bergman openly admitted that he could not even watch his own films as he found them intolerably disheartening. In Hour of the Wolf, the cinema spectator can easily see why the Swedish filmmaker found his art to be so emotionally repellant, but, of course, just like any other horror flick, most viewers have the advantage of not fully identifying with the reality of these distinct psychological horrors. Hour of the Wolf is a film about a man on the verge of total, but somewhat unpredictable, self-annihilation; and therein lies the true terror of the film. Johan is a man that has an impossible time dealing with himself, let alone his fellow human beings; a thought that, to a degree, scares even the most fully committed of renegade recluses. In fact, one could easily make the argument that Johan makes the aggressively misanthropic, wolf-like protagonist Harry Haller (also played by Max von Sydow in the 1974 film adaptation) from Hermann Hesse’s novel Steppenwolf (1927) seem like a dandy puppy with too much free time on his hands. The ‘hour of the wolf’ featured in Hour of the Wolf is when Johan is at his most lycanthropic and vehemently anti-social; the time where he feels most susceptible to turbulently transcending his flimsy humanity. The real ‘monster’ of Hour of the Wolf is undoubtedly Johan, but he is a strangely sympathetic monster nonetheless and even monsters have emotions.

As per usual, Swedish cinematographer and longtime Bergman collaborator Sven Nykvist produced some of the greatest scenes ever committed to celluloid for Hour of the Wolf. If any cameraman can be said to have refined and perfected the art of ‘Gothic’ filmmaking, it is most certainly Nykvist; a man who only minutely worked within the genre. In my humble opinion, Hour of the Wolf also features the most brilliant Gothic castle scenes ever featured in a film before and after it. Like many classic horror stories and films, Hour of the Wolf features nefarious aristocrats whose cold, astringent souls are only rivaled by the brutality of stone that holds together their empty, dark dungeons. In Hour of the Wolf, Bergman manages to combine a realistic psychological portrayal of perniciousness bluebloods who are guided by their conspiring idle hands with mythical elements one has come to expect from classic horror films, which is further consummately complimented by Nykvist’s bold, naturalistic (yet strangely somehow supernatural as is the case in Hour of the Wolf) filmmaking. Possibly Nykvist’s greatest achievement with Hour of the Wolf was his ability to make scenes set during daytime seem almost as apocalyptically foreboding as those shot during the dead of night, especially during a scene where a small boy is consumed by an oceanic tomb in what is easily one of the most eerie and memorable scenes in all of cinema history.

Ingmar Bergman described ‘the hour of the wolf’ as follows, "the hour between night and dawn. It is the hour when most people die, when sleep is deepest, when nightmares are more real. It is the hour when the sleepless are haunted by their deepest fear, when ghosts and demons are most powerful. The Hour of the Wolf is also the hour when most children are born." It is also indubitably true that Bergman’s marvelous melancholy masterpiece Hour of the Wolf was painfully begotten during this seemingly untimely hour. Just as German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche stayed wide awake in state of indefinite internal despondency while in an opium trance during ‘the hour of the wolf’ as he codified his timeless philosophies, Bergman channeled his extremely personal anvil chorus into one of the most adept and ominously sublime horror films (and films in general) that could not have been more ideal for classic black-and-white film stock. Antonin Artaud once said something along the lines that, "no one creates except to get out of hell." If Hour of the Wolf is not an expression of personal perdition than I do not know what is. Not only is Hour of the Wolf one of the greatest horror films ever made, but it also one of the most gallant and uncompromising artistic expressions from an artist on the infernal internal demons that possess one – and what one must possess – to create great works.

-Ty E

Tokyo Elegy

2012-02-05T21:15:00.000-08:00

In the year 1999, South African avant-garde filmmaker Ian Kerkhof officially changed his name to Aryan Kaganof. During that same year he directed Tokyo Elegy (1999) aka Shabondama Elegy; a work that was produced by the Japanese porn producers Stance and filmed in the Land of the Rising Sun. Unsurprisingly, Tokyo Elegy features graphic anal sex and cum-drenched yellow faces. Still, these details are more than a little bit misleading as Tokyo Elegy is a work that totally transcends the formless formulas and penis platitudes of mere Jap jack-off material. In the film, a morally unstable white man named Jack (played by Thom Hoffman who was featured in Kaganof’s previous work Wasted and later in Paul Verhoeven's Black Book) caps a couple chauvinistic Japanese cops (who arrogantly believe Japanese tea is the most supreme) and then subsequently begins a heavy and steamy love affair with a thoroughly degraded porn model named Keiko (Mai Hoshino). When not forcing Keiko to recite satirical bible quotes while sodomizing her, Jack basks in the warmth of Cocteau’s kick and unconsciously finds other methods to cease his miserable life of incessant hedonistic nihilism. Kaganof modeled the character of Jack on real-life criminal author Jack Henry Abbott; the born doomed spawn of an Irish-American soldier and a Chinese prostitute who killed himself in 2002 while serving a prison sentence for manslaughter which he received just six weeks after he was released from prison for a previous sentence. Despite his lack of dialogue, Thom Hoffman does an astute job portraying the undeniably haunted and tragic character Jack; an unconsciously suicidal man who anti-ascetically partakes in heavy drug use and wild interracial sexscapades as a way to relieve his unspoken, undying pain. Of course, Jack knows, whether he admits it to himself or not, that dying is the only true way for him to reach the eternal bliss of nirvana.

As one can expect from a film directed by the always experimenting Aryan South African auteur, Tokyo Elegy has a form all of its own. Naturally, the film features a nonlinear storyline that is as erratic as the anti-heroes debauched sex-drive. Everyone knows that one of the most appealing aspects of cinema is that one gets to experience voyeurism from the passive safety of a movie theater chair or their couch. In Tokyo Elegy, virtual sex is brought to a whole new level as Kaganof employed digital cameras that thrust with the motion of Jack's pulsating Johnson into Keiko’s pink pinko arsehole. Indeed, Tokyo Elegy seems to come closer to real sex than a big dollar date with a webcam scam virtual hooker. To be honest, I would be lying if I did not admit that Kaganof sometimes brings the graphic sex featured in Tokyo Elegy to levels that border on irksome. It also does not help that Keiko is a victim of sexual abuse. I can genuinely say that I was particularly perturbed by a scene in the film where a middle-aged Jap tortures Keiko with his sushi-sized member. Keiko's internal suffering is further accentuated by her off-screen narration of penetrating prose taken from Tricia Warden's Attack God Inside (a novel released through Henry Rollin's 2.13.61 publishing company). Although somewhat disturbing, Tokyo Elegy is ultimately more humorous than it is unnerving, thus making for a film that is more sweet than bitter and never failing to deliver. The emotional tone of Tokyo Elegy is further counterbalanced by a normally revolting but uncommonly complimentary soundtrack featuring Japanese jazz and mediocre country-rock music. Ultimately, Tokyo Elegy is a film that defies all categories as it features more sex than your typical degenerate French erotic arthouse film, more art and less sex than the recent works of Bruce LaBruce (Otto; or Up with Dead People, L.A. Zombie), and more humor (albeit somewhat cryptic) than your typical Hollywood comedy. Whereas many independent and arthouse filmmakers seem quite disingenuous and desperate in their attempts to create artistic and groundbreaking works, it is most apparent that Aryan Kaganof’s unclassifiable and diverse technique of direction is instinctive and totally organic. In short, I doubt Kaganof could successfully direct your typical bromidic Hollywood production (whether it be and action or drama flick), even if he tried.

After watching about 10 minutes of Tokyo Elegy, the viewer finds out that the libertine anti-hero is destined for a fancy unmarked Japanese grave. That being said, it is not a film one watches to see the unfolding of a typical linear story, but a pseudo-Cinéma vérité work of random flashbacks that act as an unpredictable sensory overload for the unsuspecting viewer. Tokyo Elegy is also one of few ‘pornographic’ films that has the potential to make the pleasure-seeking viewer feel guilty (unless they are genuinely a sadist of sorts), as the candid and tormenting psychodramas featured during and between moments of hardcore miscegenation sometimes seem like genuine stock footage from behind doors of a psyche ward. Despite being filmed in my least favorite format (digital video), I was impressed by Kaganof ability to fully utilize the schlocky recording system to his advantage by assembling a realist work that rightfully distances the viewer from the unrealistic lavish production of a big-budget Hollywood feature. Essentially, Tokyo Elegy is a deconstructed film noir (or 'anti-film noir") flick that breaks every convention (both aesthetic and thematic) of the classic style, and for that reason alone (among many others), it is a work that will most likely only appeal to adventurous cinephiles and those that love studying various film theories. Of course, I am sure everyone can find a segment or two of Tokyo Elegy that they find enjoyable, most especially the scenes featuring Keiko in the nude being used as the white devil Jack's oriental plaything. Naturally, Tokyo Elegy has inspired me further delve into Aryan Kaganof's unparalleled and mostly unpredictable filmography.

-Ty E

Moon Child

2012-01-29T22:41:00.000-08:00

I do not think it would be an exaggeration to say that Spanish auteur Agustí Villaronga (In a Glass Cage aka Tras el cristal, Black Bread aka Pa negre) is the most proficient director of bleak coming-of-age films. Out of all of Villaronga’s films, Moon Child (1989) aka El niño de la luna – an exotic and sometimes erotic esoteric Adventure-Fantasy work worthy of any adult’s time – is easily the Spanish filmmaker’s most optimistic effort, yet the film is far from an feel-good-flick that one would watch with the entire family, let alone with small children. In the film, a 12-year old orphan boy named David discovers the prophecy of an ancient African tribe that foretells the random appearance of a white child (the “moon child”) that will become their god: The Son of the Moon. Overtime, David begins to believe that he is, indeed, the soon-to-be-all-powerful Moon Child. Due to his budding extrasensory perception, David is adopted by an odd Occult institution with unsavory intentions that is sort of like a dystopian X-men academy, that experiments and does research on idiosyncratic Übermensch children. Unfortunately, for God-in-the-making David, the academy has plans to make their own Moon Child by channeling the energy of the moon into an unborn child. To an extent, the plans of the occult group somewhat resembles that of the conspiring white magicians featured in British alpha-occultist Aleister Crowley’s novel Moonchild (1917). During his dangerous journey, David befriends a blonde girl named Georgina (played by Lisa Gerrard of the ethereal neoclassical music group Dead Can Dance in her only acting role) who becomes a mother figure for the boy and whose slender body becomes a vessel for the evil occult group's man-made Moon Child. Davey also fancies an older woman with split loyalties named Victoria who struggles over her allegiances to the all-power Occult organization she is an unflinching member of and the lost boy that needs her love. On his precarious journey, David encounters everything from institutional lunar sex (featuring Lisa Gerrard totally nude) to the totally devastating and debilitating heat of African deserts. Needless to say, David and his struggles make that of the children in The Goonies (1985) seem like those of young peons on a slightly perturbing playdate.

Like Villaronga’s previous film In a Glass Cage (1987), Moon Child is an aesthetically-splendid work that, despite its stark story, brings solace to the eyes and harmony to the ears. For fans of Dead Can Dance, Moon Child is also quite the rare treat as the ineffable score composed by the music duo was done specifically for the film, thus, the only way to hear it is by watching this unfortunately scarce and mostly magical motion picture. Moon Child is certainly the best and most fitting marriage between avant-garde filmmaker and musical group since the collaboration between Derek Jarman and post-industrial group Coil for The Angelic Conversation (1985). Like the music of Dead Can Dance, Moon Child transports the viewer to various mysterious and nonexistent thaumaturgic lands and sparks emotions that range from delightful dread to indescribable splendor. Thankfully, the storyline of Moon Child is for the most part in tune with the aesthetic qualities of the film. Although, the plot of Moon Child may seem rather incoherent at times, this seemingly glaring flaw inevitably adds to the already persuasive mystique and intrigue of the film. Needless to say, Moon Child becomes more potent upon subsequent viewings. If any cinematic work manages to mix thematic and aesthetic elements of Nicholas Roeg’s Walkabout (1971) and The Witches (1990) and Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), Moon Child is surely that seemingly unreal and otherworldly film. All of the actors featured in Moon Child, including the one who played David, also deserve praise for their talents. I must admit that I find most child actors nothing short of deplorable and ultimately unbelievable, but Enrique Saldana (the boy who plays David) is certainly convincing as a daunted yet daring child who is totally devoted to fulfilling a metaphysical mission that he has trouble verbally articulating. Despite her lack of acting experience, lovely Lisa Gerrard – who is indubitably a modern Renaissance woman – brings a strong performance to Moon Child that is an imperative to the believability of the film. In what is probably the most memorable scene in the film, Ms. Gerrard goes from being in a state of bewilderment as she lays naked on a cold, sterile metal ritual bed; to a mood of total ecstasy as she makes love with her seedman; to a position of total terror as a couple occult members takeaway her lover and surgically pick at her freshly soiled vagina in a most crude and calculating quasi-scientific fashion.

John Waters’ once remarked regarding Villaronga’s In a Glass Cage, “(it) is a great film, but I'm too scared to show it to my friends.” Moon Child is not a film one should fear showing to one's friends, but it most certainly has the capacity to stupefy both small children and Quention Tarantino fans alike. If you’re one of those many individuals who found themselves slightly disturbed by films like Wolfgang Peterson’s The NeverEnding Story (1984) and Jim Henson’s The Labyrinth (1986) as a young and naive child, Moon Child is probably one of a handful of films that can potentially help you recapture those youthful emotions of partially petrified nostalgia. Like In a Glass Cage, Moon Child is a film that neglects to follow the gospel of the Hollywood studio system, as it is a work that is certainly not cognizant of the taboos of political correctness. I am sure that had Moon Child been produced within the strict, authoritarian socio-political confines of a typical Hollywood studio production, the Moon Child would have been a starving and saintly Ethiopian boy who is on a journey to central Europe (with the help of a good liberal white couple, nonetheless) to fulfill an ancient Germanic prophecy for peaceful world unity. Politically incorrect or not, Moon Child is certainly a rare work of 'World-Class Cinema', as the film manages to swimmingly cross both cultural and country barriers (whether they be real or not as none of the locations, aside from the continents, are mentioned in the film). Of course, most important of all, Moon Child is a flavorsome flick that manages to activate the imagination of the most bitter, skeptical, and misanthropic of viewers (myself included), and for that reason alone, it is a must-see film.

-Ty E

The Grey

2012-01-27T01:06:00.000-08:00

Think of yourself, for a minute, unable to move, unable to process the current test fate has began to put you through. Now switch your attention to this instinctual cry for life as your body reacts without a moment's thought or hesitation. Alien in nature, you watch without words as you fumble for an oxygen mask. This problem could have been solved a whole lot easier had you not been harnessed by not one seat belt, but two. For what is surely a danger is not the worst of your problems. Would you know it that not even a couple hundred feet below what is left of your chartered airplane lies a cold, white wilderness whose dark skies were lit up with the fireworks of what is left of your burning plane - many of your own kinds fate. God knows what lurks in the absence of scenery or in the frosted lines of pine because fuck faith. This wordless mantra of Liam Neeson's character Ottway is carved into his own frozen face through the entirety of the film until one of the finer flames decides to finally spew forth a riddance that is worthy of a crack of a smile - one of the few located in the bright hopelessness of The Grey. Boiling are these instances where decisions that amount to life's uncontrollable circumstances seem so sinewy and cruel. You've seen it before. Those moments where leadership must be presumed and the following party's favor is not-so carefully balanced. Had I been thrust into this very same situation, I'm not sure I'd know who to lay allegiance to, either, let alone possess the will to survive. Then again, this is The Grey's strongest weapon, not action, and certainly not taking action. If The Grey had to be akin to anything then I would have to compare its strong sense of questionable camaraderie with John Carpenter's The Thing, only replacing a hostile shape-shifting alien being with a animus wolf and removing almost any sort of weapon and replacing them with doubt.

To briefly summarize, The Grey follows a small group of plane crash survivors, previously oil-rig workers, through the Alaskan wilderness while being stalked by a large pack of gray wolves. The largest step the viewer will have to take in order to accommodate a more comfortable and caring perspective on The Grey is to take a second to pause, contemplate, and eventually realize that the film will not concern itself with a multitude of cliche long action shots featuring wolf carnage. The trailer is guilty of making it seem like such a film, but there lies the portion of the budget reserved for the marketing campaign. With brief glimpses of men freezing to death with the creeping peril of feral beasts should come to the obvious realization that a virtually frozen man isn't the best man for a wild fight for his life. In these frigid conditions where mobility is restricted and where indigenous beasts of prey lay, the only thing one can really do is hopelessly run. Taking a stand is a fool's dream, though I'm sure wrestling with a furry predator and bathing in your own blood would be one way to escape the crushing cold of the weather presented in The Grey. For this and many other reasons, The Grey is careful with its steps, knowing full well that you were enticed by the spectacle of viewing the ever-so stoic Liam Neeson gearing up for a critical culmination of wildlife vengeance. It monitors the life of each contestant featured on this wild game (show) and extends the warranties past their expected due date. The effectiveness of the desolation is only increased by the main antagonist (s); a malevolent pack of wolves whose ground has been trespassed upon. Second weather to wolves and you will begin to see the harrowing implications of their crash and its site. Sure, The Grey does lessen the screen-time with the wolves, subtracting the once possible nature-run-amok aspect of this, but that is not to say they aren't involved enough. In fact, with previous expectations in tow, The Grey not only surprised me with the implied notion of the ever so watchful eyes of the pack, but also the course taken for full development of these contemptuous human characters. As for the wolves and their combined undomesticated omniscience, The Grey perfectly emulates what was done so well in The Ghost and the Darkness (1996); creating a smothering setting in which death paces against the grain of natural landscapes, making all sounds but rare sights.

In this day and age, when it comes to a film from Hollywood that boasts a somewhat unconventional premise, it always seems that politically-correct pitchforks are raised and whining fully commences. It would appear that nit-picking "petaphiles" have gathered up the slack left behind from our mostly satiated responses towards a harrowing survival thriller and begun to spin webs of slander towards director Joe Carnahan (Smokin' Aces, Narc) and actor Liam Neeson for indulging on wolf meat stew for preparation of "hate." It is true that Carnahan purchased a total of four wolf carcasses for use on the set on The Grey as to give way for a CGI intermission because, let's face it, digital animation only goes so far when attempting to garner authentic human empathy. For an example of the brashness and overall creepiness of the Internet com-plaintiffs, simply visit the IMDb forum for The Grey. All you really need to do is observe casual keywords, hell, even screen names (here's to you "mister_wolf"), for my point to be put across. To be succinct, The Grey is a heavy dose of malicious and arctic nihilism; it's a sad, sad cinematic creature liberated by only the attitude of the wounded and the altitude of the setting. For those who enjoy frequenting a couple hours worth of mind-numbing entertainment, you might find your brain to be hurting as experienced by a fellow co-worker of mine during the mid-night screening. I can still distinctly hear the aggravated murmuring and the ineffectiveness of the auditorium's doorstop ringing in my memory banks. The Grey should be seen, if not for the celebration of the archaic human instinct for survival, then surely for a condensed lesson in masculine conditioning, which is quite rare coming from a film market that is mostly populated by liberal pussies. Take it or leave it, as is - The Grey is the best film to come from the early weeks of 2012 and that means a whole hell of a lot more than it should.

-mAQ

Interview with Crispin Glover

2012-01-21T02:14:00.000-08:00

It comes as a great honor that we at Soiled Sinema bring you this insightful interview with modern day Renaissance man Crispin Glover. Although best known as an actor and for playing standout roles in films like Back to the Future (1985), River's Edge (1986), Charlie's Angels (2000) and Willard (2003), Mr. Glover is also a distinguished filmmaker/screenwriter, author, recording artist, and publisher. In this interview, Crispin discusses his It? Trilogy and his extremely exceptional and fruitful career.

Soiled Sinema: How did the tragic premature passing of It is Fine! EVERYTHING IS FINE writer/actor Steven C. Stewart affect the conclusion of the trilogy you both set out together to complete?

You had also mentioned that Steven C. Stewart was subject to cruel

abuse which bled over into much of the work you two created. Care to

elaborate?

Crispin Glover: Steve Steward only wrote “It is fine! EVERYTHING IS FINE.” I incorporated Steve in to What is it? to make his screenplay a sequel and part of the trilogy. Steve did not have any involvement in writing “What is it?” or “IT IS MINE.”

Steven C. Stewart wrote and is the main actor in part two of the trilogy titled It is fine! EVERYTHING IS FINE. I put Steve in to the cast of What is it? because he had written this screenplay which I read in 1987. When I turned What is it? from a short film in to a feature I realized there were certain thematic elements in the film that related to what Steven C. Stewart’s screenplay dealt with. Steve had been locked in a nursing home for about ten years when his mother died. He had been born with a severe case of cerebral palsy and he was very difficult to understand. People that were caring for him in the nursing home would derisively call him an “M.R.” short for “Mental Retard”. This is not a nice thing to say to anyone, but Steve was of normal intelligence. When he did get out he wrote his screenplay. Although it is written in the genre of a murder detective thriller truths of his own existence come through much more clearly than if he had written it as a standard autobiography. As I have stated, I put Steven C. Stewart in to What is it? When I turned What is it? in to a feature film. Originally What is it? Was going to be a short film to promote the concept to corporate film funding entities that working with a cast wherein most characters are played by actors with Down’s Syndrome. Steve had written his screenplay in in the late 1970’s. I read it in 1987 and as soon as I had read it I knew I had to produce the film. Steven C. Stewart died within a month after we finished shooting the film. Cerebral palsy is not generative but Steve was 62 when we shot the film. One of Steve’s lungs had collapsed because he had started choking on his own saliva and he got pneumonia. I specifically started funding my own films with the money I make from the films I act in when Steven C. Stewart’s lung collapsed in the year 2000 this was around the same time that the first Charlie’s Angels film was coming to me. I realized with the money I made from that film I could put straight in to the Steven C. Stewart film. That is exactly what happened. I finished acting in Charlie’s Angels and then went to Salt Lake City where Steven C. Stewart lived. I met with Steve and David Brothers with whom I co-directed the film. I went back to LA and acted in an lower budget film for about five weeks and David Brothers started building the sets. Then I went straight back to Salt Lake and we completed shooting the film within about six months in three separate smaller productions. Then Steve died within a month after we finished shooting. I am relieved to have gotten this film finally completed because ever since I read the screenplay in 1987 I knew I had to produce the film and also produce it correctly. I would not have felt right about myself if we had not gotten Steve’s film made, I would have felt that I had done something wrong and that I had actually done a bad thing if I had not gotten it made. So I am greatly relieved to have completed it especially since I am very pleased with how well the film has turned out. We shot It is fine! EVERYTHING IS FINE. while I was still completing What it? And this is partly why What is it? took a long time to complete. I am very proud of the film as I am of What is it? I feel It is fine! EVERYTHING IS FINE. will probably be the best film I will have anything to do with in my entire career. People who are interested in when I will be back should join up on the e mail list at CrispinGlover.com as they will be emailed with information as to where I will be where with whatever film I tour with. It is by far the best way to know how to see the films.

After Charlie’s Angels came out it did very well financially and was good for my acting career. I started getting better roles that also paid better and I could continue using that money to finance my films that I am so truly passionate about. I have been able to divorce myself from the content of the films that I act in and look at acting as a craft that I am helping other filmmakers to accomplish what it is that they want to do. Usually filmmakers have hired me because there is something they have felt would be interesting to accomplish with using me in their film and usually I can try to do something interesting as an actor. If for some reason the director is not truly interested in doing something that I personally find interesting with the character then I can console myself that with the money I am making to be in their production I can help to fund my own films that I am so truly passionate about. Usually though I feel as though I am able to get something across as an actor that I feel good about. It has worked out well.

SS: Do you see yourself -- years from now -- after all of the legendary tours have become history, releasing the films for the public in any sort of home format?

CG: Right now I have no plans to stop touring. The tour is the way people should see the films. People can find out where I will be touring by signing up for my newsletter on CrispinGlover.com

SS: At a past Big Slide Show, you mentioned how you initially happened to make the acquaintance

of Steven C. Stewart. Would you care to reiterate this story for Soiled Sinema

readers? How did this personal relationship develop into the creation of the It? Trilogy?

CG: When I was 19 I was acting in a film made at the AFI called The Orkly Kid. The character I was playing was based on a person the director had made a documentary about when he was working on a television show in Salt Lake Utah. He was friends with another filmmaker from Salt Lake named Larry Roberts who had made a documentary on Steven C Stewart when Steve was still not able to get out of the nursing home. When Steve got out of the nursing home he told Larry that he wanted to make a movie. Larry was an interesting filmmaker, but was older and doing other things and he introduced Steve to another younger Salt Lake filmmaker that was making unusual movies and said maybe they could work on it together. I had also been shown some of David Brother’s films by Larry and the director of the Orkly Kid. It was around this time that I had been wanting to make a movie from one of my books and I had very much liked David Brother’s movies he was making on video. So I met up with David Brothers and we started making a movie of one of my books called The Backward Swing. We started shooting this on video in 1987. Actually this will be the next movie I edit together as the films took over. In any case while we were working on The Backward Swing David showed me the script for Everything is fine! and as soon as I read it I knew it was a movie I had to produce.

Steven C. Stewart’s own true story was fascinating and then the beautiful story and the naïve including his fascination of women with long hair and the graphic violence and sexuality and the revealing truth of his psyche from the screenplay were all combined. A specific marriage proposal scene was the scene I remember reading that made me think “I will have to be the person to produce/finance this film.”

SS: Would you say there is a connection (whether it be aesthetic, idealistic, or otherwise) between elements of your films and your concept album The Big Problem ≠ The Solution. The Solution = Let It Be?

CG: My films, books and album “The Big Problem ≠ The Solution. The Solution = Let It Be?” contain questions or let people come up with their own questions.

SS: Is it safe to say that most true artists are competent in a variety of mediums?

CG: It is possible and it is also possible that many artists are far better at one medium than another, but I have noticed that many good artists are good in multiple mediums.

SS: Your father, Bruce Glover,is in the second film of your trilogy It is Fine! Everything is Fine.. How was the experience of directing your own father, who we can assume had much weight in steering you towards your current occupation?

CG: My father was easy to direct in “It is Fine! EVERYTHING IS FINE.” My mother is also in the film. When I was born she retired as an actress and primarily a dancer. “Steering” would be the wrong word to use about my choice of profession. My mother did want me to become involved in dance when I was a child. I went to one dance class that she taught and she said “Alright girls... and... boy.” and I never went again.

So my parents were not really able to steer me in an occupational direction.

I am very satisfied with my profession/professions. The one thing I wanted to be before figuring out that it would be a good idea to enter in to acting professionally at age 13, was a geologist. My idea of the profession was that I would find geodes and fascinating geological rocks and formations. I then realized that a geologist at the time I was thinking about it, which was the 1970‘s would probably need to work for a multinational oil corporation finding oil deposits. That did not seem as interesting to me. I am glad I continued on doing what I do. I still have great interest in the tectonic plates and volcanoes and geological formations. My publishing company is called “Volcanic Eruptions”

My father is what I would describe as a blue-collar or working-class actor. I witnessed my father’ struggles as an actor and did not look at the business in a glamorous way.

I made a pragmatic choice to pursue acting as a career when I was quite young around 11 or 12. I got an agent when I was 13 and got my first professional job that year. Having grown up around the business it seemed like something that I would be able to do. My father also teaches acting and has since before I was born. I never formally studied with my father but I am certain that hearing him speak about things had influence. I would say that my personality type is not that of a standard actor’s personality type that would more be someone who enjoys attention for attention’s sake. That in fact makes me rather uncomfortable. For me it is important to have an idea that can be supported with performance or even for media publicity. Because of this I believe that if my parents had not been in the business and I was born with the personality type that I have, I probably would have pursued a very different career path.

> I became a professional actor at age 13 by my own choice. I emphasize that because there is a large difference in that from when a child is forced in to acting by parents who choose that career for a child. I began studying in a professional acting class at age 15. At age 16 I viewed many revival films of the 1920’s through the 1970’s at the revival theaters that were popular in the early 1980’s before the advent of VHS competition that led to most of the revival houses closing. While watching many of the films and being in acting class I began to understand film and acting as art.

SS: How does your father feel about your ambitious taboo-breaking cinema?

CG: My parents have come to see the films and live shows on multiple occasions and are supportive of both the live shows and films.

SS: Censorship and context are both reasons for your choice in creating and controlling the screenings and distribution of your films. How would you imagine a general audience perceiving your film if it was promoted and released like your typical Hollywood Blockbuster?

CG: I love showing at museums, universities, cinematheques and vaudeville theaters. As I tour through the world it is apparent that as much as multiplexes and home theater has become ubiquitous that the single screen cultural center is absolutely vital to a specific audience that is looking to have a thoughtful experience at the theater be it live or by film. Museums can attract particularly thoughtful crowds. The forums are greatly appreciated by audience members. In vaudeville there was an energetic exchange between the performers and audience. The audience is part of the experience as opposed to merely being an audience that has no interaction when alone at home. The Q and A portion of the shows are extremely helpful with the films, particularly “What is it?” which can generate a particular amount of demand from the audience in forms of questions.

All currently corporately funded films by US film ratings must be made for the viewership of children. The reason for this is that when the NC-17 rating came about to replace the X rating multiplexes had become a norm. In the 1960’s and 1970’s films like A Clockwork Orange and Midnight Cowboy were given the X rating in the US. At that time it was easy to control if children were able to get in to a single screen theater or not. When multiplexes came in to being and X was changed to NC-17 the corporations that ran the multiplexes became concerned that a child could walk down the hall and easily enter in to an NC-17 film and they could be sued. So they stated that they would not show films rated NC-17. Being that multiplexes had become the main source of recoupment for the film distributors it was no longer viable to distribute NC-17 films. Without viable distribution of an NC-17 rated film no corporate entities would fund films they cannot recoup on. So at this point in time corporate funding and distribution entities in the US will only fund films that are rated G, PG, PG13, and R. R means under 18 accompanied by an adult. Therefore all corporately funded films in the US must be made with concept that those under the age of 18 are able to view the film. This means all corporately funded films in the US are made for the eyes of children. There is certainly nothing wrong with films that are specifically made for children, but it certainly is questionable when there is not a corporately funded film company that will fund and distribute films that are specifically for the eyes of adults.

Unfortunately I see the corporately funded and distributed films industry currently as having a hugely propagandizing effect on the US population at large. It is an enormous topic. I recently read the book “Propaganda” written in 1925 by Edward Bernays. Bernays was Sigmund Freud’s nephew and utilized his uncle’s understanding of the subconscious and became the literal founder of the “Public Relations” industry. Bernays came up with the word combination “Public Relations” to replace the word propaganda. The book is not an expose but an instruction manual for the monied and privileged class through psychological “Public relations”/propaganda techniques to get the lower class masses to serve the privileged class with the disguise of democracy. I feel like this book should be mandatory reading for everyone in high school so people in the US would have a better understanding of how things genuinely work in the media.

Stanley Kubrick made some of the most beautiful, thoughtful and questioning cinematic films ever in the corporately funded and distributed studio films system. He is fascinating to study. The culture ebbs and flows and waxes and wanes in terms of how much questioning can happen in media. We are in a particularly restrictive time right now with what will be corporately funded and distributed. Questioning could become even more restricted or less restricted. It sort of depends on how much people become concerned about the restrictions. Most current media that is corporately funded and distributed now is designed to make people not question.

I am not against the basic concept of corporations, but I have come to notice a similarity to the “Occupy Movement” and what “What is is?” is essentially protesting. It seems that the “Occupy Movement” is protesting business interests having an influence in what has basically become a legalized form of bribery by corporate/business/banking interests in politicians/political elements which is of course against the concept of basic democracy.

Relatedly “What is it?” is a protest to the corporate corporate/business/banking interests in the content of film/media which ends up leading to corporate/business/banking interest’s propaganda.

SS: For as long as I can remember, River's Edge (1986) directed by Tim Hunter has been one of my favorite films. Naturally, it goes without saying that your performance as Layne is for me (and most other fans of the film), one of the most (if not the most) potent and memorable aspects of the film. How did you prepare for the role of Layne and what are your personal thoughts on the character?

CG: The way the character was written made me think of a certain regional dialect that I had grown up hearing. I am proud of that film. There was an intention change in the character from the way it had been written. The character could have been played as a person who sincerely wanted the best for the murderer character. But I made the choice to play the character as a person who wanted people to believe that intentions of the character were sincere in order for positive attention to be put on to himself.. That is a different intention than what was written. The dialogue was not changed but the intentions was changed. There was a certain dynamic that this brought about in the character within the film. I like my performance in that film and I like the film as a whole.

SS: You mentioned the mainstream media’s influence on Columbine High school massacre killers Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold in your article What Is It? Would you consider Layne a "proto-Columbine killer" of sorts?

CG: The repressive culture brings out troublesome actions. The character in River’s Edge and the film itself is not a repressive film but an explorative film and film that brings up questions which is healthy for the culture. I think right now most films are not explorative and unfortunately are more dictatorial in the approach as to how the audience is approached as to how to think about the subject matter. The business interest’s control on how they want the culture to work for their own benefit. I would say that sort of media control can bring out negative repressed actions from people.

SS: How/when did you get interested in writing/designing books?

CG: The live aspect of the shows I perform before the films I tour with are not to be underestimated. This is a large part of how I bring audiences in to the theater and a majority of how I recoup is by what is charged for the live show and what I make from selling the books after the shows.

For “Crispin Hellion Glover's Big Slide Show” I perform a one hour dramatic narration of eight different books I have made over the years. The books are taken from old books from the 1800's that have been changed in to different books from what they originally were. They are heavily illustrated with original drawings and reworked images and photographs.

I started making my books in 1983 for my own enjoyment without the concept of publishing them. I had always written and drawn and the books came as an accidental outgrowth of that. I was in an acting class in 1982 and down the block was an art gallery that had a book store upstairs. In the book store there was a book for sale that was an old binding taken from the 1800's and someone had put their art work inside the binding. I thought this was a good idea and set out to do the same thing. I worked a lot with India ink at the time and was using the India ink on the original pages to make various art. I had always liked words in art and left some of the words on one of the pages. I did this again a few pages later and then when I turned the pages I noticed that a story started to naturally form and so I continued with this. When I was finished with the book I was pleased with the results and kept making more of them. I made most of the books in the 80's and very early 90's. Some of the books utilize text from the biding it was taken from and some of them are basically completely original text. Sometimes I would find images that I was inspired to create stories for or sometimes it was the binding or sometimes it was portions of the texts that were interesting. Altogether, I made about twenty of them. When I was editing my first feature film “What is it?” There was a reminiscent quality to the way I worked with the books because as I was expanding the film in to a feature from what was originally going to be a short, I was taking film material that I had shot for a different purpose originally and re-purposed it for a different idea and I was writing and shooting and ultimately editing at the same time. Somehow I was comfortable with this because of similar experiences with making my books.

When I first started publishing the books in 1988 people said I should have book readings. But the book are so heavily illustrated and they way the illustrations are used within the books they help to tell the story so the only way for the books to make sense was to have visually representations of the images. This is why I knew a slide show was necessary. It took a while but in 1992 I started performing what I now call Crispin Hellion Glover's Big Side Show Part 1. The content of that show has not changed since I first started performing it. But the performance of the show has become more dramatic as opposed to more of a reading.

People sometimes get confused as to what “Crispin Hellion Glover’s Big Slide Show (Parts 1&2)” is so now I always let it be known that it is a one hour dramatic narration of eight different profusely illustrated books that I have made over the years. The illustrations from the books are projected behind me as I perform the show. There is a second slide show now that also has 8 books. Part 2 is performed if I have a show with Part 1 of the “IT” trilogy and then on the subsequent night I will perform the second slide show and Part 2 of the “IT” trilogy. The second slide show has been developed over the last several years and the content has changed as it has been developed, but I am very happy with the content of the second slide show now.

The fact that I tour with the film helps the distribution element. I consider what I am doing to be following in the steps of vaudeville performers. Vaudeville was the main form of entertainment for most of the history of the US. It has only relatively recently stopped being the main source of entertainment, but that does not mean this live element mixed with other media is no longer viable. In fact it is apparent that it is sorely missed.

I definitely have been aware of the element of utilizing the fact that I am known from work in the corporate media I have done in the last 25 years or so. This is something I rely on for when I go on tour with my films. It lets me go to various places and have the local media cover the fact that I will be performing a one hour live dramatic narration of eight different books which are profusely illustrated and projected as I go through them, then show the film either What is it? Being 72 minutes or It is fine! EVERYTHGIN IS FINE being 74 minutes. Then having a Q and A and then a book signing. As I funded the films I knew that this is how I would recoup my investment even if it a slow process.

Volcanic Eruptions was a business I started in Los Angeles in 1988 as Crispin Hellion Glover doing business as Volcanic Eruptions. It was a name to use for my book publishing company. About a year later I had a record/CD come out with a corporation called Restless Records. About when I had sold the same amount of books as CD/records had sold it was very clear to me that because I had published my own books that I had a far greater profit margin. It made me very suspicious of working with corporations as a business model. Financing/Producing my own films is based on the basic business model of my own publishing company. There are benefits and drawbacks about self distributing my own films. In this economy it seems like a touring with the live show and showing the films with a book signing is a very good basic safety net for recouping the monies I have invested in the films

There are other beneficial aspects of touring with the shows other than monetary elements. There are benefits that I am in control of the distribution and personally supervise the monetary intake of the films that I am touring with. I also control piracy in this way because digital copy of this film is stolen material and highly prosecutable. It is enjoyable to travel and visit places, meet people, perform the shows and have interaction with the audiences and discussions about the films afterwards. The forum after the show is also not to under-estimated as a very important part of the show for for the audience. This also makes me much more personally grateful to the individuals who come to my shows as there is no corporate intermediary. The drawbacks are that a significant amount of time and energy to promote and travel and perform the shows. Also the amount of people seeing the films is much smaller than if I were to distribute the films in a more traditional sense.

The way I distribute my films is certainly not traditional in the contemporary sense of film distribution but perhaps is very traditional when looking further back at vaudeville era film distribution. If there are any filmmakers that are able to utilize aspects of what I am doing then that is good. It has taken many years to organically develop what I am doing now as far as my distribution goes.

SS: On top of appearing in What Is It?, Feral House owner Adam Parfrey published your essay What Is It? in his book Apocalypse Culture II. What is your relationship with Parfrey and do you have any plans to once again collaborate with him in the future -- be it in film or otherwise?

CG: I am friends with Adam Parfrey and he has influence on both the article in “Apocalypse Culture II” and content in the film “What is it?” I am always open to collaboration with intelligent people that I have had positive relations with. So I certainly would be up to collaborating with Adam Parfrey again.

SS: How does your brilliant article What is It? relate to your 2005 film of the same name? Is the film an abstract surrealist portrayal of some of the ideas expressed in your article?

CG: The article in What is it? was written in 1999 after the feature film “What is it?” had been locked as a picture edit. It was conceived as an entertainment essay for Adam Parfrey’s book “Apocalypse Culture II” that would also promote the film “What is it?”

SS: In your film What is It?, one of the roles you played was that of the "Dueling Demi-God Auteur." What are your thoughts on auteur theory and auteur filmmaking in general? Is it safe to say that the films (and upcoming film) in the It? Trilogy are a rare modern example of pure and personal "auteur" works?

CG: On some level the word “Auteur” was used for entertainment purposes with a sense of humor. Although it is true that Steve is the original “Auteur” of “It is fine! EVERYTHING IS FINE.”

I am very careful to make it quite clear that What is it? is not a film about Down’s Syndrome but my psychological reaction to the corporate restraints that have happened in the last 20 to 30 years in film making. Specifically anything that can possibly make an audience uncomfortable is necessarily excised or the film will not be corporately funded or distributed. This is damaging to the culture because it is the very moment when an audience member sits back in their chair looks up at the screen and thinks to their self “Is this right what I am watching? Is this wrong what I am watching? Should I be here? Should the filmmaker have made this? What is it?” -and that is the title of the film. What is it that is taboo in the culture? What does it mean that taboo has been ubiquitously excised in this culture’s media? What does it mean to the culture when it does not properly process taboo in it’s media? It is a bad thing because when questions are not being asked because these kinds of questions are when people are having a truly educational experience. For the culture to not be able to ask questions leads towards a non educational experience and that is what is happening in this culture. This stupefies this culture and that is of course a bad thing. So What is it? Is a direct reaction to the contents this culture’s media. I would like people to think for themselves.

SS: What are thoughts on the blatant decline of great auteur filmmakers in the modern Occidental world? Undoubtedly, you have helped to fill the void in our mostly auteur-less era. Do you believe that Hollywood has consciously sought out to destroy the auteur filmmaker -- and organic art in general?

CG: Consciousness in corporately funded and distributed filmmaking for the most part is difficult to define as propagandized thought processes end up infusing in to what the sensibility of the corporately funded and distributed film entity decides on what is put forth to the population. Every once in a while a film will come out from the corporately funded and distributed filmmaking business from a filmmaker that is both intelligent and deft at making cinematic decisions that have positive cultural messages. It is rare and difficult for that to happen, but when it does I applaud those film makers.

The way that US propaganda works is difficult to describe.

Unfortunately the corporately funded and distributed films industry currently is having a hugely propagandizing effect on the US population at large. It is an enormous topic.

I recently read the book “Propaganda” written in 1925 by Edward Bernays. I recommend everyone read it. The first sentence of the book is “THE conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and options of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country.”

Bernays was Sigmund Freud’s nephew and utilized his uncle’s understanding of the subconscious and became the literal founder of the “Public Relations” industry. Bernays came up with the word combination “Public Relations” to replace the word propaganda. He brought his uncle’s ideas and introduced Sigmund Freud to the US to help influence US corporations, Academia and the government. The book is not an expose but an instruction manual for the monied and privileged class through psychological “Public relations”/propaganda techniques to get the lower class masses to serve the privileged class with the disguise of democracy. I feel like this book should be mandatory reading for everyone in high school so people in the US would have a better understanding of how things genuinely work in the media. Once anyone reads this book they will not be able to see the function of US media the same way again.

The difficult part of the US propaganda is the way it is put in to effect is not be committee dictation but by the way corporate/business interests utilize money to essentially legally bribe people/government/academia/media to do that which is in the corporate/business interest.

SS: What are some of the struggles you have had to dealt with in your ambitious career of simultaneously working within the Hollywood studio system, but also creating uncompromising artistic works independently in various mediums? You seem to be one of the few people that has been able to successfully do that. Why do you think this is?

CG: There is a strange mix of being brought up working within the media business and becoming aware of the amount of control that corporate interests were having on the content of film in general.

The first time I used discretion about choosing films was not till after “Back to the Future” came out in 1985. After that film came out and had made so much money I felt a certain obligation towards finding films that somehow reflected what my own psychologically interested were. The first film I acted in after that was “River’s Edge.”

I am not critical of the concept of corporations. I am critical when the result of corporate control causes people to think less or for media in general to come out with less questioning or question causing content. Corporations do not necessarily cause this, but it currently is happening in great quantity. There are times when corporate entities have been behind great questioning films like ”A Clockwork Orange” or ”2001 a Space Odyssey.” I prefer to not be overly political. I concern myself with things that affect me directly.

The film industry I had thought I had stepped in to was the spirit of when I was a teenager attending the various revival theaters that were so popular in Los Angeles in the 1980’s before home theater business competition forced most 35 mm venues to close. I did not realize at the time that I stepped in to working as an actor that the kinds of films that were being funded and distributed had changed.

As soon as I got my driver’s license when I was 16 in 1980 I attended screenings at revival theaters that were quite popular in LA before VHS competition cleared many of them away. Many of these revival theaters no longer exist such as, one of my favorites, the beautiful Fox Venice with a wide cinemascope screen on Lincoln Blvd.

The films I saw that played in these venues tended to question culturally accepted truths with performances that underscored these concepts.

Films played such as:

Ken Russel’s The Devils,

Roman Polanski’s Repulsion and Chinatown,

Frederico Fellini’s 8 1/2 and Cassanova,

John Cassavete’s A woman under the influence,

Orson Welles’ F is for Fake and Citizen Kane,

Billy Wilder’s The Apartment and Sunset Blvd,

John Waters’ Pink Flamingos and Desperate Living,

Todd Browning’s Freaks,

Stanley Kubrick’s 2001 and Clockwork Orange and Dr. Strangelove,

Werner Herzog’s Aguire Wrath of God, Even Dwarfs Started Small and Fata Morgana.

I was a regular attendee of David Lynch’s Eraserhead at midnight on Fridays at the Nuart.

I studied actors giving performances like:

Jack Nicholson in Five Easy Pieces and Easy Rider,

Timothy Carey in Marlon Brando’s One Eyed Jacks and Elia Kazan’s East of Eden,

Charles Laughton in The Hunchback of Notre Dame

Brad Dourif in One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest and Wise Blood,

Peter Lorre in M

Emil Jannings in The Last Laugh

and Klaus Kinski in Aguirre Wrath of God.

These films and performances characterized the atmosphere of cinema and acting I believed I was stepping into as a young actor. By 1982, at age 18, I began to act in feature films. At this time I believed contemporary culture’s film’s main purpose was to question suspect things in our culture. I enthusiastically supported the idea of questioning our culture. To help support the idea, I also questioned the film industry’s and media’s messages. Sometimes I felt scorned and isolated; other times I felt accepted and admired. Then, at one point, in the midst of my career, I realized that the types of films the industry was financing and distributing had changed almost diametrically from the types of films I had watched when I was 18.

Now, I have put my artistic passions and questions in to my own filmmaking with films like “What is it?“ and it’s sequel “It is fine! EVERYTHING IS FINE.”

SS: Can Hollywood filmmakers like Steven Spielberg and Michael Bay be considered auteur filmmakers due to their somewhat consistent and ambiguously "personal" themes? Or would your consider them "anti-auteur" filmmakers due to their intrinsic lack of thematic, aesthetic, and artistic complexity? In other words, are Blockbuster filmmakers merely soulless and totally lacking in genuine expression and/or are they merely appealing to the lowest common denominator with the sole goal of obtaining a substantial monetary return?

CG: I specifically do not use the term “Hollywood film” because it is overly generalized and “Hollywood” for me is a place I have lived, so I think of that more as a geographical place. The specific term I use is “Corporately funded and distributed film.” I am not so familiar with Michael Bay’s films. I am far more familiar with the films of Steven Spielberg. Looking both of their credits up on IMDB ,which can be inaccurate, it seems that Michael Bay had not written any of the films that he has directed. Bu the definition I understand of “Auteur” this would mean Michael Bay would not be that. The film that Steven Spielberg solely wrote the screenplay and directed is “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” By and by the definition of “Auteur” it would make him that definition.

I would think all films whether one likes the expression held within them or not are forms of expression. It may be that some filmmakers forms of expression are more aligned with business interests. It can be argued whether their personal interests naturally align to business interest or if the business interest had caused what is their personal interest has become.

SS: You have stated in the past that you're a fan of German New Wave filmmakers like Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Werner Herzog. Historically, what do you think are the main differences between Hollywood and European cinema? Why do you think there has been a decline in great European films and filmmakers?

CG: I admire both Herzog’s and Fassbinder’s work as filmmakers and it has been a great honor and pleasure to know Werner Herzog. Herzog of course is still making great films to this day so he is still a fantastic force. I am sure if Fassbinder were still alive he would also be a great force. The decline you may be feeling is probably a general worldwide waxing of control by business interests and control over the content of film.

SS: Are there any modern films/filmmakers that your admire/respect?

CG: There certainly are.

SS: What films and filmmakers have inspired your It? Trilogy? Have any writers, philosophers, or otherwise inspired the Trilogy?

CG: Some of the filmmakers mentioned above certainly have had influence on my thoughts.

“What is it?” started production as a short film in 1996. It took 9.5 years from the first day of shooting on the short film to having a 35 mm print of the feature film. I wrote it as a short film originally to promote the viability of having a majority of the characters that do not necessarily have Down’s Syndrome to be played by actors with Down’s Syndrome.

The way this came about was this. In 1996. I was approached by two young writers and aspiring filmmakers who were from Phoenix to act in a film they wanted to produce and direct. They made a monetary offer to my agents which they really should not have done as they did not actually have financing. Nonetheless it did get me to read the screenplay which I found to be interesting. This screenplay was not What is it? I found interesting things about the screenplay and was interested in the project, but I thought there were things about the screenplay that did not work. I came up with solutions that needed re working of the screenplay and I told them I would be interested in acting in the film if I directed it. They came to LA and met with me and wanted to know my thoughts. There were quite a few things but the main things was that most of the character were to be played by actors with Down’s Syndrome. They were fine with this concept and I set about to re writing the screenplay. David Lynch then agreed to executive produce the film for me to direct. This was very helpful and I went to one of the larger corporate entities in Los Angeles that finances films and met with them. They were interested in the project but after a number of meetings and conversations they let me know that the were concerned about financing a project wherein most of the characters were played by actors with Down’s Syndrome. The title of this screenplay at this point had become IT IS MINE. And will become part three of the “IT” trilogy. It was known yet at this time that there would be a trilogy but it was decided that I should write a short screenplay to promote that the concept of having a majority of the characters played by actors with Down’s Syndrome was a viable things to do for corporate entities to invest in.

This is when I wrote a short screenplay en titled What is it? We shot this short screenplay in four days. I edited that over a period of six months and the first edit came in at 84 minutes. The final feature length film of What is it? is 72 minutes. So the first version of the short film is longer than the final version of the feature film, and it was too long for the material I had at the time, but I could see with more work and more material I could turn it in to a feature film. Over approximately the next two years I shot 8 more days and edited this in to what is now the final version of the film. I locked the edit of the film about three years after the first day of shooting what was supposed to be a short film. Then there were a number of years of very frustrating technical problems that mainly had to do with SMPTE time code. Originally I was going to make the film the now old fashioned way of a complete photochemical process and not digital intermediate. An optical house in New York that did not give me enough information to let me know that the SMPTE time code had not been properly put on when the film was telecined. During this time I worked patiently on the final sound edit of the film with a number of interns. Finally that sound edit was finished and it became apparent that the film optical house was not telling me the truth and prices had fallen during this time so I was able to make the film using a digital intermediate to ultimately go out to a 35 mm print of the film. So from the first day of shooting what was to be a short film to having a 35 mm print for the film took 9.5 years.

> Sometimes people ask me if the length of time it took for me to make the film had to do with working with actors with Down’s Syndrome. This was not the case. Even though the film took many years to make much of the delay were technical issues. What is it was actually shot in a total of twelve days which was spread over several years. Twelve days is actually a very short amount of shooting days for a feature film. The most important thing about working with an actor weather they have Down’s Syndrome or not is if they have enthusiasm. Everyone in I worked with had incredible enthusiasm so the were all great to work with

SS: What can we expect from It Is Mine? Do you have any specific goals you would like to reveal regarding the final chapter of your It? Trilogy? Do you have any plans for directing films after your complete the It? Trilogy that you would like to reveal?

CG: I should not go in to detail for “IT IS MINE.” yet and I will not shoot that next. There are other projects outside of the trilogy that I will shoot next. The Czech Republic is another culture and another language and I need to build up to complex productions like “What is it?” and the existing sequel “It is fine! EVERYTHING IS FINE.” IT IS MINE. Is an even more complex project than those two films were so it will be a while yet for that production. I will step outside of the trilogy for a number of films that deal with different thematic elements.

The sets for my next film productions have started construction. At the same time the sets are being built I am in the process of continuing to develop the screenplay for myself and my father to act in together on these very sets. He is also an actor and that is the next film I am planning to make as a director/producer. This will be the first role I write for myself to act in that will be written as an acting role as opposed to a role that was written for the character I play to merely serve the structure. But even still on some level I am writing the screenplay to be something that I can afford to make. There are two other projects I am currently developing to shoot on sets at my property in the Czech Republic. The cost of the set building will determine which one I actually shoot next. They are will all be relatively affordable yet still cinematically pleasing.

SS: Would you ever consider directing a film within the mostly strict confines of the Hollywood studio system? Additionally, are there any characters (be they historical figures or fictional) that you have always wanted to play?

CG: It may come about naturally that corporately funded and distributed film’s interests will naturally come in to alignment with my own interests. There have been waxing and waning periods of corporate control of the content of film and right now we are in a severe waxing of control. We shall see what the future holds.

For more info on Crispin Glover's Big Slide Show, his company Volcanic Eruptions, and the It? Trilogy, please visit: http://www.crispinglover.com/

Last Performance

2012-01-20T00:18:00.000-08:00

Edwin Brienen’s Last Performance (2006) is quite possibly the first consciously LaVeyan melodrama ever to be made. Auteur Edwin Brienen has been described as the ‘Dutch Fassbinder’, but such a label is merely generous for a filmmaker who – although produces seemingly 'original' films at an unseen speed – lacks the overall artistic talent and integrity of the much greater and more eclectic German filmmaker. Instead, I would describe Brienen’s work as a mix between that of his fellow countrymen Tom Six, Christoph Maria Schlingensief (minus the humor), and Fassbinder-kitsch. Although Brienen does not deserve to lick Fassbinder’s thoroughly decayed, gaping asshole, his films do provide the viewer with a window into the passive nihilism and cultural bankruptcy of hyper-hedonistic, postmodern Europa through a cheap and broken multicultural window. Brienen’s work Last Performance is somewhat different from most of his previous works in that it was filmed in the English language and that it takes place in the typically debauched New York, New York theater world. Borrowing somewhat ineptly from the philosophies of Arthur Schopenhauer, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Church of Satan founder Anton LaVey, Last Performance is an excessively pessimistic yet superficial work that barely scratches the surfaces of the relatively deep barrel of ideas from which it borrows from. What makes Last Performance somewhat interesting is that these philosophies are contained within a megalomaniac microcosm inspired by the real narcissistic (and sometimes tragic) lives of famous NYC-based but mostly unrelated artists like Andy Warhol, Klaus Nomi, Yoko Ono, Lydia Lunch, and various others.

Last Performance opens with the haunting opera track "Dido und Aeneas: Dido's Lament" as performed by otherworldly countertenor Klaus Nomi. Considering that out-of-this-world-alien-Aryan Nomi died nearly a quarter of a century before the production of Last Performance, a pudgy imposter unfortunately takes his place and sports the iconic wardrobe and lip-syncs the somewhat prophetic song of the late New Wave German opera singer. Admittedly, the opening song and scene sets the tone for what will follow in the film: decadent and depressing scenarios mixed with recycled ideas and art. In the film, a self-loathing alpha-homo named Tom starts a clearly dubious sexual relationship with a aspiring European Starlet named Julia, thus throwing his overly effeminate butt-buddy Cooper into an erratic crying game of the most self-torturing kind. Due to its barely controversial themes and NYC setting, Last Performance is strangely reminiscent of William Friedkin’s much tamer film The Boys in the Band (1970); a somewhat revolutionary work that boldly (for that era) yet fairly measures the pros and cons of cosmopolitan gay-dom in everyone's favorite metropolitan city. The cover of the Last Performance dvd should feature the tagline, “to bugger or not to bugger”, as such words quite aptly summarizes the overall feel and postmodern spiel (s) contained within the film. In a sense, the film reminded me of some of the more banal existential eroticism writings written by the thoroughly bored and imprisoned Marquis de Sade had he been more passive and lived in contemporary times, as only an exceedingly privileged individual could find such complaints and needless and manufactured drama as the characters of Last Performance. The only character that counterbalances the white pseudo-aristocracy of boredom in the film is an anti-social Negro in exaggeratedly effeminate neo-pimp garb who enjoys the pioneering “unemotional” (as he describes it) Teutonic-electronics of Kraftwerk and the beautiful words of German genius Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Indeed, Last Performance is essentially a melodramatic sideshow of pointless decadence where pleasure can only be found in the realm of sexual humiliation and self-degradation. After all, how many other films feature a Queenish queer dressing up in drag in a vain and pathetic attempt to lure back his cheating dilettante-heterosexual boyfriend. That being said, the greatest achievement of Last Performance is most likely its proclivity towards embarrassing viewers with its exceedingly shameless and emotionally-ravaging characters.

When it comes to the overall mise-en-scène, set-design, shot composition, and music, Last Performance is surprisingly a distinct and mostly pleasurable experience for the eyes and ears. Had the acting performances, writing, and dialogue matched the integrity of the audio/visual aesthetics featured in the film, Last Performance could have been a minor masterpiece of sorts. Instead, Last Performance is a marginally exciting adventure through a mostly adventure-less and soulless world of miserable self-worship and contrived carnality. To its credit, Last Performance concludes with a quasi-Satanic ritualistic play of sorts, hence the title of the film, but that does not save the film from being an often sterile and mostly impotent journey through the limp-wristed left-hand path of the NYC theater dramarama netherworld. If Last Performance left any notable impression on me, it is that Edwin Brienen, being a young and highly productive filmmaker, is a ‘work-in-progress’ who quite possibly has the embryonic makings to be a great filmmaker in upcoming years. The greatest tragedy of Last Performance is not the one featured in it's storyline, but that a film that had the potential to be somewhat great only ended up being somewhat engrossing and less than thought provoking. With the glaring lack of genuine auteur filmmakers in the 21st century, one can only hope that Edwin Brienen will develop into a director that is worthy of being mentioned in the same sentence as the truly great arthouse auteur Rainer Werner Fassbinder. Of course, after seeing a pretentious and pseudo-provocative photograph of would-be bad boy Brienen receiving a (probably bogus) blowjob while wearing (like fellow hack Hollander Tom Six) a cowboy hat on the front-page of his personal website, I do have some serious and legitimate doubts about the barely flying Dutchman's future artistic potential and integrity as a serious martial auteur to be reckoned with.

-Ty E

Modern Vampires

2012-01-11T23:52:00.000-08:00

Although I have never been particularly fond of Bela Lugosi's iconic portrayal of Dracula, I have always had an instinctive fondness for vampires and their charismatic and hypnotic persona's. In fact, Dracula is my favorite famous monster but I welcome the warm company of any coldblooded bloodsucker; whether it be the cunning cryptic intentions of the grotesque rat-like ghoul and rotting aristocrat Count Orlok from F.W. Murnau’s pioneering silent flick Nosferatu (1922) or the distinctly suave style of Jim Morrison-esque undead shaman David (played by Kiefer Sutherland) from Joel Schumacher’s The Lost Boys (1987); a still fresh and hip revamp of vampire storytelling. Unfortunately, it has been sometime since I saw a vampire film that left a deep enough impression on me to pierce my skin and draw blood. Despite being somewhat entertaining as a whole, the mostly overrated film Stake Land (2010) – a post-apocalyptic flick with vampires that are as mentally defective and undiscerning of eaters as braindead zombies – totally demystifies and demolishes the ancient legacy of vampires. Although apparently featuring roaming conquering armies of the fanged undead, Stake Land is as vampire-illiterate as vampire films come and unfortunately it belongs to a recurring trend. Of course, the teenage-panty-moisting Twilight series has left a completely different but equally odious garlic smell that has overwhelmed the vampire story which I will not even begin to describe. Luckily, I had the honor of recently discovering, watching, and re-watching Modern Vampires (1998) aka Revenant directed by Richard Elfman; a vampire black comedy that is both genuinely humorous and cognizant of the supernatural legend it so lovingly but lethally lampoons. Needless to say, when I discovered that the man who directed the maniacal and malevolent surrealist musical comedy Forbidden Zone (1982) sank his teeth into the age old tale of the vampyre, and reawakened it by setting it in contemporary times, I was instantly entranced and secured a copy for a mere 1 penny online; no doubt a minor but notable investment with a priceless return of infinite replay value.

Admittedly, Richard Elfman was aiming for the most philistinic of audiences with some of the glaringly trashy, lowbrow scenes featured in Modern Vampires. Of course, the gutter-grade neo-vaudevillian comedy contained within the film is indubitably an imperative part of its politically incorrect appeal. The main protagonist of Modern Vampires is Dallas (played by Caspar Van Dien, an actor once described as a "perfect life-sized Ken doll"); a cigar-smoking, undead-rebel-without-a-cause who falls out of favor with the Count (the decadent "dictator" of vampires) decades ago after turning a crippled member of the Hitler Youth named Hans Van Helsing (played by Marco Hofschneider of Europa Europa) into a vampire without permission. Hans was the son of old school National Socialist Doctor Frederick Van Helsing (played by Rod Steiger); a seriously idealistic and unintentionally comical Viennese vampire exterminator whose love for the Führer has never swayed. Proving his undying commitment to the final solution of the vampire problem, Dr. Van Helsing unflinchingly murders his own son immediately upon learning that he is a vampire. Flash forward to modern times, elderly Dr. Van Helsing has traveled to the epicenter of vampire culture – Los Angeles, California; the official sin-ridden city of bloodsuckers – to kill Dallas and any other compatriot of the parasitical subspecies that he can find. As the occult leaders of the city, the decadent vampires of L.A. are stern libertines who don't take kindly to the unwarranted prudishness of mere mortals. Out of desperation due to the feebleness of a golden übermensch heart, Dr. Van Helsing (the real Steiger also had a heart attack before the film) becomes 1/2 of the ultimate comedic odd-couple when he unconventionally recruits black Crips members “Time Bomb” (played by the usually over-sensitive actor Gabriel Casseus) to help kill vampires gangsta style. Being a laidback vampire, Dallas is more interested in finding a baby vamp (who he illegally "turned" two decades earlier) named Nico aka the “Hollywood Slasher”; an intemperate female novice bloodsucker who acts as a pseudo-hooker so as to lure in her hopelessly pathetic and perverted middle-age bourgeois businessman prey. Of course, the Count wants to kill the bewitching trailer park pearl Nico due to her unofficial status as a vampire and her reckless public predacity of humans that compromises official bloodsucker secrecy. Although taking place over the course of a couple days and nights (with flashbacks from decades past), Modern Vampires feel like an unrestrained all-night nosferatu party. Paying tribute to Paul Morrissey’s (not Andy Warhol’s) Blood for Dracula (1974), Homo-Aryan-character-actor and sub-international-superstar Udo Kier plays the hilarious role of the first vampire to be annihilated for the greater cause of the long deceased Third Reich when he is staked by Dr. Van Helsing's loyal but initially reluctant Uncle Tom. Modern Vampires also features a notable performance from the mostly grotesque Sex and the City star Kim Cattrall as a surprisingly sexy and comical German vampire named Ulrike who quite eloquently tells Negro gang members that they are, “untermensch.” Scotsman Craig Ferguson also does a superb job portraying an English vampire whose lucid lingo and mostly dry humor would undoubtedly bring warmth to the seemingly cold-heart of Queen Elizabeth. As one can expect, Modern Vampires is a postmodern take on the vampire tale where were every convention of the horror subgenre is either calculatedly exaggerated or quite consciously terminated. Although on first glance seeming like a half-ass exercise in tasteless depravity, Modern Vampires is a passionate (if sometimes deplorable) homage to a perennial story that is worth any vampirephiliac’s time.

Modern Vampires also antedates the somewhat similar vampire politics and hedonism of HBO’s extremely popular television series True Blood by a decade. Like Modern Vampires, True Blood explores the ancient international microcosm of the coffin-hibernating cryptic vampire elite from a neoteric perspective. Thankfully, the bloodlusting killers of Modern Vampires, unlike like those of True blood, are committed bluebloods who have no interest in joining human society and are stoically politically incorrect. Of course, like True Blood, Modern Vampires features gratuitous nudity, visceral violence, and bodacious bodily dismemberment, but (thankfully) lacks the misplaced and totally superficial melodrama of the HBO show. Unfortunately, Modern Vampires has fallen into the unideal fate of being lost in an abyss of mostly mediocre, forgotten vampire flicks, but, with the notoriety of popular series like True Blood, it does have the potential to become a somewhat revered Cult item in coming decades. It also does not hurt that Modern Vampires director Richard Elfman is the undeniably depraved, audacious auteur behind one of America’s greatest Cult films; Forbidden Zone. If the idea of an 'anti-vampire' film sounds like a bloody delectable prospect to you, Modern Vampires will certainly have you feeling reasonably fulfilled. Just do not expect the film to have a charismatic Count in the tradition of Bela Lugosi and Christopher Lee as the oafish 'alpha'-bloodsucker of Modern Vampires seems more interested in smoking meatpoles and crack than focusing on seducing and turning the most beautiful living female in town.

-Ty E

The Many Moods of Boyd Rice

2012-01-06T23:30:00.000-08:00

If any document presents cunning carny aesthetic terrorist Boyd Rice in a rare moment of relief from metaphysical hemorrhoids, it is his own personal VHS mix-tape The Many Moods of Boyd Rice (2002); a home-video compilation originally only released amongst the proudly untrained artist’s friends, but eventually saw an official release by Predatory Instinct Productions; a precursor to Reverend Kevin I. Slaughter's Underworld Amusements. Indeed, The Many Moods of Boyd Rice might as well be called Boyd Gone Wild as the grainy vhs tape features the NON-man at the height of drunken Dionysian ecstasy; whether he is acting the dipsomaniac with Douglas P. (Death in June) and Albin Julius (Der Blutharsch) in Europa or obsessively spinning obscure thrift shop records for semi-interested bar patrons. With his epic low-budget documentary Iconoclast (2010), documentarian auteur Larry Wessel attempted to unravel the many hats and masks of Mr. Boyd, yet the deranged dilettante noise musician does an especially swell job exposing his most humble self in The Many Moods of Boyd Rice. To say that some of the scenes featured in the compilation are redundant (like a sizable fraction of Rice’s musick) would be more than a little fair (like the nude succubi fans featured cowering amongst the seemingly menacing man during a photo shoot), but like all of his albums, The Many Moods of Boyd Rice has its various special moments of charismatic brilliance. Thankfully, Mr. Rice also chose to include some of his favorite scenes from Richard Wolstencroft’s Pearls Before Swine (1999); a quasi-fascistic low-budget libertine action flick starring wolfsangel-obssesed artist in his most contrived and unconvincing role. In fact, Rice felt a scene of himself being flogged in the ass by a bloated and bald middle-age man in a cheap suit would make for a most captivating introduction to The Many Moods of Boyd Rice. Naturally, the compilation also features Boyd in full Satanic priest regalia on the exceptionally trashy talk show Christina discussing the merits and myths of the Church of Satan. If anything stays consistent throughout the virtual video timeline that is The Many Moods of Boyd Rice, it is Rice’s chameleon-like knack for juggling many subversive and seemingly unrelated roles; an instinctive lifelong talent he explains most proudly and candidly in the RE/Search Publications video Pranks TV! (1988). If Mr. Rice has another talent that even begins to rival his ability to fit in a variety of eclectic masks, it is his scorched earth policy of burning bridges with former friends, artistic co-collaborators and girlfriends that would put Uncle Adolf to shame, hence the many missing central players from his personal story in The Many Moods of Boyd Rice and Wessel’s Iconoclast.

As someone who grew creating and watching many consumer grade skate videos and horror flicks, it would not be a stretch for me to say that I felt a strange sense of Déjà vu and nostalgia while watching the totally amateurish The Many Moods of Boyd Rice. Additionally, it is quite apparent that Mr. Occult Fascist has a glaring amount of sentimentalism for the footage he compiled in The Many Moods of Boyd Rice, which is indubitably a nice change of pace for a man who ex-friend and fellow Gnostic Charles Manson described as a, "black pimp." If one was unaware of the background behind this personal peep show, one would most likely assume it was an unauthorized collection constructed over many years by a completest noise fan with an unhealthy Boyd Rice addiction, as it presents the Gnostic man-in-black in a manner that somewhat undermines his mostly deathly serious posturing. Out of all of the many moods of Boyd Rice, being piss-faced drunk is obviously the most pleasurable as exhibited in a scene in the VHS compilation where he performs an unrelenting full-frontal striptease with an unidentified female at a bar. If anyone wanted to discredit Rice’s dubious reputation as a unflinching evil neo-nazi of the most despicable kind, they would just need to present The Many Moods of Boyd Rice; a personal video diary that also acts as an unintentional Achilles' heel for his various limp-wristed, left-wing witch-hunter detractors. After his fallout with Mr. Rice after devoting 6 years of his life to directing the documentary Iconoclast – a consciously hip 240 minute epic advertisement for the subversive artist and his long, uneven career – Satanic auteur Larry Wessel described his former pal in a interview as, “A lonely, cold-hearted, pretentious, hypocritical sociopath.” What Wessel said may be true, but The Many Moods of Boyd Rice offers a voyeuristic and barely edited perspective that somewhat contradicts the sentiments of the UNPOP documentarian. Personal drama aside, The Many Moods of Boyd Rice is an often entertaining, but sometimes longwinded fart from Rice’s rusted iron heart.

-Ty E

Kill List

2012-01-04T18:18:00.000-08:00

Kill List manifested itself to me in the form of a cautious recommendation pleading for me to remain in the dark. Not long after, the buzz of Kill List took form over the world wide web, brief mutters catching wind of the nonsensical musings of the finale, with so much brevity that visiting my favorite cinema news/review sites proved to be quite the obstacle course. I maintained my position and leaped at Kill List with my all once I noticed its humble emergence. With a cockney swagger, Ben Wheatley directs this somber hit-man drama with a creeping and fleeting eye for family values before thrusting our lead characters into their chore of killing, which at times, proves to be too much with both family and business in tow. Kill List follows the patriarchal rule of most darkly brewed British thriller/dramas with weaving two male British figures and their off-the-pot relationships and values while siding you against the cunty female denizens of unending mischief. In one corner we have Jay, our lead, a thought-upon British soldier who is bewildered by incognizant terrors from war time stress found from a blundered mission in Kiev; who knows what terrors lie in waiting hunger? In the other, we have his more chipper associate-sociopath, Gal, a Ray Winstone if I ever saw one and a through-and-thorough good pal. Together they make up the duo of "mechanics" who have been out of the wind for a decent bit as Jay is balancing financial coordination and family man all too close to each other, obliviously mixing business and pleasure since being off his rocker. Gal, on the other hand, seems all too ready for a new life, a new beginning, which makes up for his +1 to Jay's dinner get-together - a sharp featured brunette whose murky motives play out in horrifying grandeur.

Subtle nuances clear the path for Kill List and keep it ambiguously fresh and enjoyable. Whether or not Wheatley intended for Jay & Gal's client to resemble a wispy-haired Angus Scrimm lookalike, the results scream in favor of a meditated casting decision. Proceeding after the occasional segments of "...what?", Kill List regains its momentum as hit after hit are detailed in a sordid and grisly manner; almost as if Wheatley intended to channel the same drive that fueled the doomed lead of The Horseman (2008). It is alarmingly clear at the point when the first target is made known to Gal that the gut for taking ones life isn't something that can remain as fortified as a simple talent. We witness this with purpose when Gal is disturbed with the idea of executing an ordained priest - an act of business Jay isn't all too bothered seeing through to completion. Allusions of war are applied directly into the bowels of Jay's opening exposition with his family and friend. Wheatley must have decided that flashbacks would have muddled the sense of linear engagement in this tale of curveball carnage and in place, intermittently injected keywords into idle banter to give sense to it all and avoid a confusion possibly more serious than what the ending might offer to a casual viewer. Kill List is a devious joker of cinema, to be quite frank. It ends on such a baffling note that the nearest emotion you might muster up would be a hybrid of anger and bewilderment, as if Kill List had a promise to fulfill other than living up to the elevated hype that has since clouded its release. While the end never seems to justify the means for Kill List and its godforsaken existence, the fate of its characters can be traced back to its opening roots, which speaks volumes in comparison to the brackish body of cinema excess that floods the senses of the modern viewer.

A degree of difficulty can be found in distinguishing the indistinguishable diatribe of Kill List's choice British actors. I found myself constantly on edge tweaking the volume to an acceptable level only to thrash towards the dial when the frequent bouts of domestic disturbances exploded onto the screen, at rarely a moments notice as well. With each "victim" separated into chapters with an appropriately labeled title card, Kill List's pacing, if slow at first, propels towards such an even pacing that reliving the nightmare a second time in the company of friends proved most satisfying as I huddled into the corner, eyes darting to catch every expression that stunk of disbelief. Respected artisans of small-time acting, Neil Maskell and Michael Smiley, respond once the film begins with a spark of friendship that proves charming, even in light of the unexplained incident in Kiev that Jay suffered throughout. The chemistry between the two holds tight, even when Kill List spirals into a sort of inspired madness which must remain unknown until after the film has been ingested. Even the slightest hint of where Kill List draws its life from would go off and spoil one of the more alienating finales in recent memory. Upon my first viewing of Kill List, I admit I felt cheated; I felt myself conjuring a passive fury towards its proposed goal. But upon having it grace my screen for the second time, Kill List warmed its silly cinematic contraband towards my palate. Nonsensical antics in mind, a part of me welcomed in the clumsy culmination of this assassin thriller. While Wheatley handled what he intended to create and project with the elegance of a handicapped athlete, one cannot contest that after examining, scene-by-scene, the good grace of Kill List, that it doesn't reach its finishing line - Even if its visual and lyrical summary liken to a combined hypothesis of every great shocker rolled into one imperceptible package of imperfection. As an added bonus, within Kill List you will find several short glimpses of extreme savagery that had the visitors in my room twitching in repulsion. This more than makes up for the mild misdirection by assuming a role of a grotesque party favor, don't you think?

-mAQ

Silent Night, Deadly Night

2011-12-23T23:01:00.000-08:00

In tribute to my most dreaded holiday season, I spent the last week watching a variety of Christmas-themed horror and slasher films. Although, I have (thankfully) managed to avoid a glimpse of Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer's classic peculiar proboscis during this loathsome winter holiday, I did consummate enough beautiful shimmering blood of the same color in extraordinarily festive and equally therapeutic films like Christmas Evil (1980) and Bob Clark’s Black Christmas (1974). Although Black Christmas is undoubtedly the greatest antidote to the retarded philistine joy that comes intrinsically packaged with the Christ-mass season, I found myself especially taken aback by the anti-nostalgic mayhem of Charles Sellier’s Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984); a visceral and venomous work that manages to tear to shreds -- like a homeless man opening a gift-wrapped crate of 40 oz. malt liquor -- most of the things everyone loves about Christmas. In the film, a young boy named Billy Chapman becomes victim to the ultimate life-shattering carnal Christmas; an event that leads to the death of both of his parents and virtual imprisonment in an authoritarian orphanage where he is further tortured by psychological ghosts of Christmas past. Upon reaching adulthood, Billy takes a job at a toy store as a stock-boy and is eventually coerced into dressing up as Santa Clause, henceforth sparking an eruption in his Christmas-fueled psychosis that inevitably results in a totally irrational campaign of indiscriminate merry martial murder. Needless to say, Silent Night, Deadly Night makes for a somewhat delightful Christmas film for disillusioned Christmas-suffering misanthropes, especially those who find the prospect of a Christmas thyme killer more nice than naughty.

Right from the get go, Silent Night, Deadly Night establishes itself as the definitive anti-Christmas flick. Unlike most slasher flicks, Silent Night, Deadly Night does not open with a formulaic scene of senseless murder and carnage, but, instead, features little Billy and his family visiting mostly silent and always senile Grandpa Chapman. After being left alone with Billy, thoroughly deranged Grandpa Chapman informs his harmless grandson that Santa will punish him if he has been a bad boy. Being an untainted wee lad, Billy is unable to comprehend that Grandpa is lollygagging lunatic, thus, the boy is left petrified by the very real prospect of old Saint Nick's revenge. I found this scene especially interesting as seeing mentally deteriorated family members tends to be an undesirable, guilt-driven Christmas tradition for a lot of people, yet most do their utmost to forget these painful and sometimes (especially for children) traumatizing experiences. Of course, Grandpa Chapman’s unintentionally wise words prove to be quite prophetic as Billy's mother is brutally raped and both of his parents are gutted like Christmas ham before his very weary eyes and defenseless body. After the premature death of his loving parents, Billy is placed into an orphanage and the tender scars of Billy’s childhood are once again ripped open during every Christmas season by a sadistic sexually-repressed nun who can be best described as the Catholic equivalent of the infamous Nurse Ratchet. Upon first appearing as an adult in Silent Night, Deadly Night, Billy seems like your typical all-American white boy, but beneath the phenotypic façade of his boyish good looks lies a lifetime’s worth of nursed demons who are just waiting to be exercised and fully realized by his emotionally-lobotomized mind. Billy’s boss Ira (a name probably derived from the film's producer Ira Richard Barmak), owner of Ira’s Toy Store -- who is most likely is of the Hebrew faith -- also finds the Christmas spirit to be deplorable phenomenon, but it is his capitalist greed that eventually throws his unstable employee into ecstatic bloodlust. Despite being barely an adult and far from a dirty old fat man who enjoys the warmth of small children on his lap, Billy is convinced by Ira to dress up and play Santa for the kiddies when the original pseudo-Santa working at the store is injured. Proving he is nothing short of an overachiever, Billy certifies that he is a much more proficient merry manslaughter than the highly influential psycho Santa he met as a child.

Not long after its initial holiday season release, the prissy and pissy Parent-Teacher Association (PTA) successfully had Silent Night, Deadly Night expelled from movie theaters around the country due to their very public outcry. Despite the rampant backlash against the film, Silent Night, Deadly Night still managed to outgross West Craven’s “slasher” masterpiece A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) during its opening week. To the credit of the PTA, it would probably not be a good idea to show Silent Night, Deadly Night to young children as the film is potent enough in its blasphemy to ruin Christmas for both children and other seemingly innocent beings. Silent Night, Deadly Night is also one of the “better” slasher films as it indubitably manages to do for Christmas what John Carpenter’s Halloween (1978) did for Halloween. One major convention-breaking aspect of Silent Night, Deadly Night that makes it standout from most slasher swill is that by allowing the filmgoer to see how the killer “comes of age”, the film demystifies him, henceforth turning him into a somewhat tragic figure as opposed to your typical coldhearted, born-psychopath. Thus, Silent Night, Deadly Night is not merely offensive due to its figurative rape and murder of Christmas, but also due to its moral ambiguity and seemingly nihilistic stance. If you find yourself more and more disgusted by the taste of eggnog and the sight of mistletoe, and question whether or not it really is a wonderful life, Silent Night, Deadly Night, much like Black Christmas, makes for a pleasurable and somewhat liberating cinematic coal in your tattered, vintage Christmas stocking.

-Ty E

Pastoral: To Die in the Country

2011-12-19T20:20:00.000-08:00

As far as I am concerned, Pastoral: To Die in the Country (1974) aka Pastoral Hide and Seek directed by Shūji Terayamav – a work that manages to bring together the masterful technical precision and craftsmanship of Akira Kurosawa and Stanley Kubrick and the salient surrealism of auteur filmmakers like Arrabal and Buñuel – is one of the greatest , most original, and downright creepiest Japanese films ever created. Not only is Pastoral: To Die in the Country a film of Japanese origin but it is also a complex cultural dichotomy of ancient rural life and the technocratic Westernization of the tiny Übermensch Northeastern Asian nation and an intimate personal history of the country as expressed so vividly yet abstractly by Shūji Terayamav. To say that each individual scene and segment of the film manages to illustrate critical issues that post-post-modern Japan is facing would be an one-sided understatement. Of course, being the refined artistic Renaissance man that he was, Terayamav brings up these issues in a most wonderfully carnal-carnivalesque and self-indulgent manner that would even bring a blush to Maestro Fellini’s tanned ½ Roman face in this brilliant film-within-a-film. Transcending all cinematic conventions, genres, and forms of storytelling, Pastoral: To Die in the Country is a work that revamps cinema in general and demands unwavering attention and commitment from the viewer. But more than anything, the film is Shūji Terayamav’s reflective post-pastoral quasi-tribute and personal-obituary to Japanese rural life and culture. Like fellow Japanese artist Yukio Mishima, Terayamav especially focused on his awkward and hopelessly petrified adolescent encounters with members of the extra-fairer-fairer Japanese sex. In the city, the confessing protagonist is merely a nameless and faceless ant in an intimidating ant metropolis, but his disheartening past life in the country lives on in his memory as if the tortured souls of formerly known ghosts have taken residence in his often tormented mind.

In the world of Pastoral: To Die in the Country, mothers stare in joyous awe at their deceased fetuses, elder women rape young boys, bare-bottom beastesses/temptresses roam wild and the narrator contemplates killing his mother over 20 years after various traumas had taken place during his ominous adolescence. For the thoroughly perturbed protagonist, the past violently bleeds (both literally and figuratively) into the future. Whereas the rural world of Pastoral: To Die in the Country is a kaleidoscope of cut-throat colors and nefarious intrigue, the urban world is a culturally-retarded realm of restricting electronic-based banality where technology has seemingly trumped and triumphed over nature and has turned man into a mere insignificant cog in the machine. Unsurprisingly, this post-industrial phenomenon has left a a somewhat appreciated hole in the soul of the protagonist. For most people, nostalgia is something to be cherished and retained, but for the protagonist of Pastoral: To Die in the Country, past memories are an agonizing and tormenting army of ghosts who have taken his mind hostage. Despite all the unwanted memories that have conquered his mind, the protagonist also seems to have a vague bit of fondness for a past that he has no option of forgetting. Most violently tattooed on his mind’s eye are the protagonist's various female encounters; the most penetrating being the unforgivable sins of his sadistic mother. As a child, the protagonist tells his mother, “Mommy, I want to get circumcised.” Of course, this young man would grow up to live in a spiritually and culturally circumcised post-World War II Japan, a time and place where the ancient code of the Samurai was disposed of in a manner as careless and unsentimental as outdated technology. The folk of the protagonist's rural hometown also suffer from mental and physical degeneration as they no longer have the spirit and organic health that enabled the humble peasants of Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai (1954) to fight for the livelihood and preservation of their community. The world featured in Pastoral: To Die in the Country is certainly symbolic/symbiotic of German historian-philosopher Oswald Spengler’s quote, “It is the Late city that first defies the land, contradicts Nature in the lines of its silhouette, denies all Nature. It wants to be something different from and higher than Nature. These high-pitched gables, these Baroque cupolas, spires, and pinnacles, neither are, nor desire to be, related with anything in Nature. And then begins the gigantic megalopolis, the city-as-world, which suffers nothing beside itself and sets about annihilating the country picture.”

Pastoral: To Die in the Country is a work that certainly demands a lifetime's worth of re-viewings as the man who created certainly assembled of lifetime-size collection of autobiographical mise-en-scènes that encompass the joys of madness, misery, and menacing mammary glands. The fact that Pastoral: To Die in the Country remains a somewhat obscure work in the Occident is nothing short of baffling. Predating the Japanese Cyberpunk explosion by around a decade, Pastoral: To Die in the Country is certainly a first-class film that has failed to get its due as a revolutionary artistic and cultural work of the most grand cinematic kind. If it were not for Pastoral: To Die in the Country – a splendidly freaky flick that acknowledges the miserable death of the country and the birth of the technocratic bureaucracy – it is doubtful that the inevitable birth of the Cyberpunk genre would have been so timely, potent, and necessary. In short, Pastoral: To Die in the Country makes Akira Kurosawa’s nostalgic Dreams (1990) seems like the innocent childlike recollections of a kindly old man suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. I know if I ever live long enough to suffer the retarded delights of that mind-disintegrating old timer's disease, I will still be mentally cognizant enough to name Pastoral: To Die in the Country as my favorite film from the Land of the Rising Sun.

-Ty E

Perdita Durango

2011-12-13T23:09:00.000-08:00

Before becoming the king of international Spanish-Language cinema, a relatively unknown Javier Bardem played the lead role of Romeo Dolorosa – a cracked character with most likely the most hideous haircut in cinema history – in the criminally underrated film Perdita Durango (1997) aka Dance with the Devil directed by Álex de la Iglesia (The Day of the Beast, The Last Circus); a film based on the Barry Gifford's novel 59° and Raining: The Story of Perdita Durango. Gifford’s ultra-venomous femme fatale character Perdita Durango made her first cinematic appearance in David Lynch’s Wild at Heart (1990) and was originally portrayed by the beautiful Swedish/Italian actress Isabella Rossellini. Upon first discovering that beady-eyed Afro-Puerto Rican actress Rosie Perez played Perdita Durango in Perdita Durango, I was more than a tad bit disappointed. After all, few actresses can level up to the hypnotic beautiful insanity of Rossellini’s performances, especially someone as seemingly unappealing as the woman who played Spike Lee’s bitchy Baby Momma in Do the Right Thing (1989) yet Perez, like Bardem, manages to give a performance that is nothing short of fully artistically committed and stripped (both literally and figuratively) in Perdita Durango. In the film, Bardem and Perez star as the Hispanic equivalent of Bonnie and Clyde, the main difference being that the leading man’s sexual potency is fully intact and that he is a Santeria witch doctor. Showing their undying commitment to meszito pride, the loco Latino couple kidnaps a young bourgeois WASP couple and uses them as their own personal sexual playthings. Despite their instinctive proclivity towards psychopathic criminality, Romeo Dolorosa and Perdita Durango – like their killer couple forebears Bonnie and Clyde – are extremely likeable anti-heroes whose charisma and charm is only rivaled by their moral instability. As one would expect from a film directed by Spanish auteur Álex de la Iglesia, Perdita Durango is as carnivalesque as a Fellini film and as sardonically (yet sillily) surreal as a work by Jodorowsky and Buñuel, but assembled in a more cohesive and linear manner, thus making the film accessible to both cultural philistines and snobbish cinephiles alike.

On top of all the cross-genre and thematic insanity of the work, Perdita Durango also features macabre Negro singer Screamin' Jay Hawkins as a spooky Santeria spook that certainly "puts a spell on you" despite his somewhat brief appearance in the film. Naturally, Perdita Durango also features music by Screamin' Jay Hawkins which – like the musical score by Simon Boswell – compliments the overall vivacious and equally visceral feel of the film. Perdita Durango also features an underweight James Gandolfini as a Drug Enforcement Administration officer who has a knack for getting hit by cars like Wile E. Coyote and an ironic cameo from Brit punk auteur Alex Cox as a cop. I am not usually one to describe a film as “cool”, but Perdita Durango permeates divine derangement and subtle (and not so subtle) cultural references throughout, thus it is the kind of work that such would-be-cool contrivers like Quentin Tarantino and Oliver Stone wish they could make but lack the organic-suaveness to do so. After all, I cannot think of another film in the vein of Perdita Durango where race-based Stockholm syndrome is sexy and killing is kinky. In fact, I would go as far as saying that Perdita Durango is the ultimate action-packed cinematic “Meszito-Negro-Europid Western-spiritual” as it is a work that mongrelizes an eclectic collection of cultural, genre, and spiritual ingredients in a melting-pot that, for once, does not reek of repellant anti-cultural decay but smells like a most refined dish of the most delicious exotic and erotic kind. Needless to say, Perdita Durango is just another great example as to why Álex de la Iglesia is one of the greatest – if not the greatest – Spanish directors working today. If Luis Buñuel were alive today, I am sure he would take De La Iglesia out for some fine Spanish cuisine.

Although I am an unwavering fan of David Lynch’s film, I must admit that De La Iglesia’s Perdita Durango is more wild at heart than Wild at Heart. Apparently, a lot of Álex de la Iglesia’s Spanish fans felt that the Perdita Burango was a "sell-out" film and that the director was pandering to mainstream North American audiences for mere monetary gain. I find such masturbatory fan-boy sentiments to be nothing short of patently absurd. When watching Perdita Durango, it feels as if Álex de la Iglesia is boisterously and jovially raping American cultural values, especially mundane white middle-class mores with his uncompromising Spaniard flare, hence the somewhat obscure status of the film in the USA. It can only be assumed that the cult following for Perdita Durango will grow steadily as the years pass as it is surely one of the most underrated films of the 1990s. Luckily, Javier Bardem has finally earned the reputation he deserves as one of the greatest actors working today, but it is still most unfortunate that few have seen his unrivaled performance as the romantic homicidal rapist loon and Herb Alpert fan Romeo Dolorosa. Additionally, it is obvious that Rosie Perez will never again bare her derrière in a film as gloriously gory as Perdita Durango. Although a hyperbolic work, Perdita Durgano is celluloid on speed at the peak of the high and a flick that never leaves the viewer adrift in a muddy swamp of action-packed banality. Perdita Durgano is a lusty and lurid romance film for those that absolutely loathe romance films and for that reason alone (among many others), it must not be overlooked.

-Ty E

Ten Monologues from the Lives of the Serial Killers

2011-12-09T01:33:00.001-08:00

Although most individuals would probably not notice it upon a first superficial glance, South African auteur Aryan Kaganof has a somewhat of an ironic, and arguably even an oxymoronic full name name. Everyone knows the sort of negative connotations that come tagged along with the ancient word “Aryan” but the surname Kaganoff – meaning descended from a ‘Kohen’ (aka Jewish priest) – is a tad less obvious. Of course, Aryan Kaganof uses the word “Aryan” in the sense of the original Sanskrit meaning (derived from 'ārya') of being “noble” and his version of Kaganoff is missing the last letter as if he is one letter short of being descended from the ancient aristocratic Jewish priesthood but his new self-invented name (apparently created after first meeting with his biological father) is interesting nonetheless. While still working under his original birth name Ian Kerkof, the subversive white South African artist completed his first feature-length film Ten Monologues from the Lives of the Serial Killers (1994); a work as aesthetically ironic as the name the filmmaker would later adopt. Although comprised of around ten monologues from serial killers (some are from fictional works and mere non-serial killer criminals like Charles Manson), I found Ten Monologues from the Lives of the Serial Killers to be a relaxing and soothing cinematic affair that never left me remotely shocked nor disgusted as one would expect from the film’s title and dvd cover art. In fact, I found the most obnoxious and repellant aspect of Ten Monologues from the Lives of the Serial Killers to be the inclusion of the Jeffrey Dahmer-inspired Geto Boys song “Murder Avenue" but that is for my own Eurocentric aesthetic reasons and not because I was offend by any sort of bodily dismemberment or what have you. Sure, the film features a scene of Mr. Kaganof himself jerking off to an unintentionally hilarious monologue of Ted Bundy complaining about the supposedly nefarious influence of pornography and slasher films, yet this scene still manages to hold a certain spiritual transcendence (albeit, in a peculiar away).

Aside from including monologues from such charismatic quasi-carny criminal heavyweights as Ted Bundy, Edmund Kemper, and Charles Manson, Ten Monologues from the Lives of the Serial Killers also features lucid literary monologues from the likes of J.G. Ballard and Henry Rollins. I found the Rollins monologue especially interesting as I have always found his writings to be the odious expressions of a barely articulate meathead with a soft side and Kaganof makes surprisingly good use of these wretchedly written works. Recently, I viewed a post-popularity video (during one of his various TV commentary cameos) of Rollins mocking singer Morrissey and the British in general, so I was extra thrilled to see a little limey lunatic fellow act out the anti-Anglo ex-Blag-Flag-singer-turned-goofy-minor-mainstream-media–celebrity’s early borderline-psychopathic writings. Kaganof almost managed to do the seemingly impossible by turning an excerpt from J.G. Ballard’s novel Atrocity Exhibition into a vivid ole thyme Negro spiritual. The first monologue of Ten Monologues from the Lives of the Serial Killers is of a matricidal fellow named Mr. Kemper who naturally has mommy issues and has no problem admitting so, even if he does seem a tad bit apathetic while speaking about it in a most monotonously monotone manner. To his credit, this 6’9’’ tall and 300 pound mommy-killer does give evidence that he is somewhat respectful of his lady kin when after mentioning how he decapitated her, he sentimentally states that he “came out of her vagina” thus by killing her, he “went back in." After watching Ten Monologues from the Lives of the Serial Killers, I must admit that I felt no ill will towards any killer, rapist, nor ex-punk icon featured within, and for that, Aryan Kaganof must be commended.

Before David Cronenberg ever directed a somewhat loose cinematic adaptation of J.G. Ballard’s Crash, Aryan Kaganof already included a homoerotic excerpt from the novel in Ten Monologues from the Lives of the Serial Killers, but, of course, the South African filmmaker’s portrayal of the same material is figuratively and literally from another continent. Starting with a solid black blank screen and eventually sporadically weaving various excerpts (in a manner more erratic than the most ADHD-driven of Soviet montages) from other monologues in Ten Monologues from the Lives of the Serial Killers, Kaganof’s brief adaptation of Ballard’s Crash seems like what a madman’s would see if his whole life flashed before him as he died. More than just serial killers, the film is also a peculiar and sometimes absurdist celebration of the marriage between life, death, and sex in a most aesthetically tantalizing yet oftentimes schizophrenic way. I seriously doubt any viewer will go into viewing Ten Monologues from the Lives of the Serial Killers with certain postulations and having a single one of those expectations met. Not only is the film an ambiguous and idiosyncratic look at the minds and visions of serial killers; Ten Monologues from the Lives of the Serial Killers is also a warped but wonderful audio/visual roller-coaster through the doors of hopelessly damaged and deranged perception. For more info on Ten Monologues from the Lives of the Serial Killers and director Aryan Kaganof, please visit: kaganof.com/

-Ty E

Copkiller

2011-12-02T23:30:00.000-08:00

Call me anti-Guido but I have never been particularly allured by the mostly cheap scent of stereotypically gritty Italian giallo flicks. Of course, I love such giallo classics as Dario Argento’s The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1970) and Lucio Fulci’s odd Catholic-guilt themed work Don’t Torture a Duckling (1972) but I generally rather re-watch a Hitchcock classic than put blind faith in an obscure film from the Italian horror-crime-mystery subgenre. Recently, I took a chance on the criminally underrated giallo Copkiller (1983) aka The Order of Death aka Corrupt aka Bad Cop Chronicles #2 aka Corrupt Lieutenant directed by Robert Faenza and featuring Harvey Keitel and John Lydon aka Johnny Rotten (of The Sex Pistols and Public Image Ltd) in his only starring role. In Copkiller, Keitel and Lydon play a cryptic gay game of back-and-forth homoerotic, sadomasochistic master and slave. Leo Smith (played by Lydon) is a spoiled little boy with nothing to do but confess to Lt. Fred O’Connor (played by Keitel) that he is the sole culprit in a recent string of vehement cop-killings; the most serious and personal offense when it comes to dealing with the men in blue. Immediately upon hearing Smith’s confession, O’Connor finds such claims to be nothing short of dubious and intrinsically ludicrous. After all, Smith looks and acts like a relatively harmless Mick fairy from outer-space, thus O’Connor prematurely concludes that the ladylike lad lacks the testicular fortitude to commit such suicidal cop-antagonizing deeds. O’Connor is more concerned by the fact that Smith has been stalking him and has found his secret “Bad Lt.” apartment that he shares with his fellow crooked “police partner.” After questioning him and bitterly shoving his head in a fully-functional and running oven a couple times, O’Connor decides to imprison Smith in his bathroom and keep him as a barely-clothed personal pet. Naturally, O'Connor is not a totally mean kidnapper as he provides Smith with food via a dog bowl and sympathetically acknowledges to his captive that it is a shame that such a "good looking guy like you, locked-up in a bathroom." To say that Keitel and Lydon have an idiosyncratic, prowling yet strangely affectionate kind of relationship throughout Copkiller would be a gross and naive understatement. The sort of unnatural chemistry the two leads in the film have is the kind that leads to genocide and gang warfare. Simply put, Copkiller may be one of the strangest “buddy flicks” ever assembled.

Right from the beginning, Copkiller is a wonderful filmic present that is quite pleasurable to unravel for those cinephiles that love surprise gifts. Not only does one discover who purported copkiller Leo Smiths is but one also discovers that Fred O’Connor is simply not a corrupt cop with a rough exterior. From the get go, one gets the impression that little midge O’Connor is a posturing brute of sorts, but, as recognized by Leo Smith, the lunatic lieutenant has a 'maternal' Achilles heel. Although seeming like a weak and harmless pervert, it is quite apparent that limey Leo has something much starker lurking beyond his physically and mentally sickly yet strangely charismatic persona. Initially, it seems as if smiley Smith’s aim is to be gang-raped by a precinct of police but his true conspiratorial agenda is not completely revealed until the remaining minutes of Copkiller. Indeed, the film has a couple notable deaths and the killer looks most daft yet delightful in his cop uniform and matching black ski-mask but the real delicious "red meat" of Copkiller is the thoroughly jovial and equally sadistic psychological power-play between Smith and O’Connor. Throughout the film, one is kept wondering who is the craziest partner of this truly odd couple. Of course, stoic O’Connor is the man in the relationship as he personifies the ad hominem-based, cultural marxist “authoritarian personality” type and Smith is surely more effeminate and conspiring in his constantly unpredictable, passive girlish behavior in the sense outlined by Otto Weininger. In other words, whereas O'Connor is a stern 'man-of-action', Smith is a cold and calculating conniver. Like O’Connor, the viewer unravels who Smith really is as Copkiller progresses yet the more one learns about this truly loco sod, the more confusing his true agenda seems. That being said, Copkiller deserves recognition amongst the greatest of giallo films, but it is also entitled to notoriety as a work that totally transcends the restricting and stereotyped subgenre.

One of the most obvious aspects of Copkiller that makes it stand proudly alone (and relatively unknown) amongst most giallo films is its all-star international cast and New York City setting. Of course, there are some other giallo films that take place in NYC (i.e. Lucio Fulci’s The New York Ripper) but Copkiller – unlike any other film of the subgenre – truly manages to capture the violent zeitgeist of the city at that time as if it was directed by Abel Ferrara’s homo-serial-killer cousin. If it were not for Copkiller director Robert Faenza’s fondness for Marxism, it is doubtful the film would have ever been made as the director was forced to work in the good ol’ free USA after his Italian Communist Party-sympathetic work Si salvi chi vuole (1980) was deemed politically incorrect in his homeland. Featuring a musical score by legendary Italian film composer Ennio Morricone, Copkiller permeates a distinct atmosphere that one can only find in the great gritty NYC crime films of the early 1980s, but, at the same time, the film is secluded in a unique "ghetto" all of its own. In a sense, Copkiller is also a “thinking man’s slasher film” as one gets to deeply penetrate the hopelessly tainted mind of a coldblooded, psychopathic killer in a most personal way. Although I am sure many cinephiles see Copkiller as an primer and/or unofficial sequel/prequel (as some greedy fellows later tried to market as) to Abel Ferrara’s more successful work Bad Lieutenant (1992) starring Harvey Keitel, the film stands fairly well on its own two feet as an unconventional anti-giallo that twists and wonderfully warps all of the rules of the subgenre it barely belongs to. Like William Friedkin’s Cruising (1980), Copkiller defiantly (yet more subtlety) enters an area of the gay-world that is most certainly off limits to modern politically correct filmmakers. Although seemingly different, Leo Smith and Lt. Fred O’Connor share a vice that is for them, more naughty than nice, henceforth Copkiller is a work that most significantly enters into the deplorable and forbidden realms of the psyche than the less disturbing physical world of a corrupt cop's secret apartment. If I had to guess John Wayne Gacy's or Jeffrey Dahmer's favorite film, Copkiller would undoubtedly be at the top of the list. Unfortunately, like many Americans, I seriously doubt these two upstanding U.S. citizens had the grand opportunity to watch this lovely piece of cinematic Americana.

-Ty E

The Border

2011-11-29T00:30:00.000-08:00

Any film that enables me to emphasize with the plight of drug-smuggling illegal aliens from South of the border must be doing something right. Thus, it is to my surprise that The Border (1982) directed by Tony Richardson is an undeservedly unknown work, especially considering that it stars veteran actor Jack Nicholson and fellow classic Hollywood macho men like Harvey Keitel and Warren Oates. Equipped with a most delightfully brutal climax that is guaranteed to make any biker whore wet, it is no wonder that Peckinpah player Oates is featured in the film. Walon Green – co-writer of the screenplay for The Wild Bunch (1969) – also contributed his maverick screenwriting talents to The Border. Although set in contemporary Texas on the U.S.-Mexico border, The Border is essentially a testosterone-driven neo-Western with sentimentalist socio-political undertones that paces quite gracefully, like a true proud and stoic cowboy on the prowl. Jack Nicholson plays Charlie Smith, a California transplant who continues his career as a U.S. Border Patrol agent in the luxurious land of steers, queers, and illegal aliens. Early on in the film, Smith learns that dirty beaners are not the only vehemently reeking outlaws of the Lone Star State as a couple of his fellow Border Patrol pals foster the sort of third world criminality that they swore oppose. After dealing with pressure from his corrupt superiors and his unabashedly materialistic dunce wife, Smith eventually gives in to con conformity and decides to get in on the action of embedding illegal drug and human trafficking, prostitution, and related degenerate unlawfulness, but he soon realizes that such dastardly deeds only further contribute to his misery as a lone cowboy amongst legally employed, disguised outlaws.

Aesthetically, The Border resembles the French New Wave-inspired look of revered counterculture works like Stuart Rosenberg’s Cool Hand Luke (1967) and Dennis Hopper’s Easy Rider (1969). That being said, I would not be surprised if The Border was overlooked during its time due to its seemingly outmoded aesthetic that died hard during the reign of Hollywood big blockbusters during the second half of the 1970s and the extremely materialistic and oftentimes fantasy-driven flicks of the 1980s. Like its raw and gritty outlaw predecessors, The Border is big on atmosphere due to its almost documentary-style visuals. Unlike the early counterculture works, The Border lacks the sort of pseudo-rebellious "rebel-without-a-cause" posturing that made the original films famous and influential on American society. In fact, The Border is a tale of rebellion against unlawful rebellion where a marginally crooked Border Patrolman straightens back up and forever annihilates the forever jagged and morally-ragged amongst his authoritarian kind, thus the film was probably not very popular with anxiety-ridden youth like the original counterculture flicks. Another interesting and unconventional aspect of The Border is Jack Nicholson’s humble performance as the Ted Bundy-esque actor refrains from personifying the charismatic cool guy caricature he is eternally famous for. Charlie Smith is a fairly simple man who – unlike his wife and co-employees – is totally satisfied with living a peaceful and humble life of monotonous platitudes. It is only when Smith firsthand encounters the rotten fruits of corruption and exploitation that his rather mundane existence is given greater meaning. Smith, in the tradition of great American renegade heroes like Travis Bickle and David Sumner, takes the law into his own hands when he attempts to rescue an infant that is on the black market so that he can reunite the cute baby cholo with its exceedingly destitute mother.

If one is to learn anything from The Border, it is that corrupt whites (whether black market dealers, border patrol lackeys, or politicians) are the central partakers and promoters of illegal immigration and the slave-driven black market in the United States. Although it is Mexican black marketers and drug cartels that import crime and human suffering via South of the border, they would not be so unpleasantly prosperous without the help of thoroughly monetarily-intemperate Americans with golden dollar signs for pupils. In The Border, Smith’s partner Cat (played brilliantly by Harvey Keitel as per usual) acknowledges that the Mexicans have their “own way of doing things.” I found this scene to be especially symbolic of the film as a whole. While blatantly expressing the dubious facade of being morally and culturally superior to Mexicans, these Border Patrol agents neglect to walk the walk and talk the talk of their assumed gringo superiority. A film like The Border only makes it all the more obvious as to why your typical illegal alien feels that they are owed something by the nation they broke laws to land in. These illegal immigrants would not come to the United States in the first place if it were not for the supremely miserly business owners and globalist corporations that so eagerly and criminally employ them. Of course, as The Border makes clear, a life in virtual slavery in America is still preferable to living in an unsanitary desert ghetto in Mexico, so one cannot honestly blame these people for risking their lives to come here in the first place. In a lot of ways, Alex Cox’s El Patrullero aka Highway Patrolman (1991) seems to be a loose remake of The Border, only set on the other side of the border where crime and political corruption is all the more rampant and socially acceptable. Making its debut nearly three decades ago, at a time when illegal immigration and governmental illegality was somewhat less glaring, The Border is indubitably more relevant today than it was upon its initial (largely ignored) release.

-Ty E

A Dangerous Method

2011-11-21T16:53:00.000-08:00

If any film has ever played out onscreen almost exactly as I imagined it would before viewing it, it is David Cronenberg’s A Dangerous Method; a cinematic portrayal of the bizarre psychoanalytic love triangle between Aryan Christ Carl Gustav Jung (played by Michael Fassbender), the Rebbe of psychoanalysis; Sigmund Freud (played by Viggo Mortensen), and the young and thoroughly neurotic Jewess Sabina Spielrein (played by Keira Knightly). As someone who has read numerous books by Jung and his break with pseudo-father-figure Freud, I was quite surprised by the realistic (and often politically incorrect) portrayal of the inevitablly doomed relationship between the two alpha-psychoanalysts. Like A Dangerous Method director David Cronenberg himself, Freud was a Jewish atheist who had a keen knack for sexualizing the most trivial of everday situations and circumstances. Also like Cronenberg (and unlike their fellow perverted but more sexually ambitious Judaic kinsman Wilhelm Reich), Freud also tended to link man’s greatest fears with the sexual. As fairly accurately portrayed in A Dangerous Method, C.G. Jung was annoyed by Freud’s stern interest in incest and dogmatic anal fixations, thus the two eventually parted ways in a most irreparable way. Freud's jealously over Jung's affair with his Jewish patient Sabina Spielrein would also prove to be detrimental to their already disintegrating relationship.

From the very beginning of A Dangerous Method, it is most apparent that Sigmund Freud is quite conscious of his Jewish identity and the alien Aryan society he lives in. One of the real-life Freud’s heroes was Hannibal because like Carthaginian military commander, he saw himself as Semite who sought to destroy Occidental Civilization. Of course, Freud, being nothing more than a glamorized, penis-obsessed pencil pusher, attempted to battle Western Civilization by corrupting its morals through his less than kosher theories, especially in regard to sexuality. In A Dangerous Method, Freud’s sheer resentment towards the Teuton man is more than obvious and even Jung is not excluded from his hatred. Due to the fact that the psychoanalytic movement was disproportionately Hebraic, Freud championed Jung as the chairman of the International Psychoanalytic Association so as to give the organization a more “Aryan Face.” Cronenberg makes light of this fact (albeit, somewhat subtlety) in A Dangerous Method; no doubt a bold and totally anti-Hollywood gesture on his part. Of course, Freud’s racial chauvinism becomes most glaring when he realizes that his goy boy protégé starts an affair with the kind of stunning Jewess that he could have only dreamed of as a young mensch in the ghetto. Freud sees fit to (in a dishonest fatherly manner) tell Spielrein that she should “never trust an Aryan” and that her affair with Jung is nothing more than the delusional pseudo-love of a Jewess fawning over a mystical Aryan “Siegfried.”

It is undoubtedly an understatement for me to say that I was a bit weary of the thought of seeing stoic Dane Viggo Mortensen portraying a totally emasculated and hopelessly neurotic early 20th century Jewish intellectual yet he managed to pull it off the seemingly impossible in A Dangerous Method. Indeed, Mortensen looks like Freud on 'Roids yet he is versatile enough as an actor to mimic the stewing bitterness and growing quasi-schizoid paranoia of the Viennese psychoanalyst in an exceptionally believable way. It also does not hurt that Mortensen sports Freud’s stereotypical beard. Naturally, just like all of his performances, Michael Fassbender does a notable job portraying young C.G. Jung; a man who has yet to grow as a great thinker in his own right. Only after his break with Freud and his deep immersion in Gnosticism did Jung develop into the highly revered thinker he is today. Fassbender portrays young Jung as a man torn between his allegiance to a somewhat hostile father figure and asserting his own budding original theories. Although his role as proto-hippie psychoanalyst Otto Grass is small, Vincent Cassell performance is also quite notable. Even as a Frenchman, Cassell brings the charming swarthy libertine routine to a new extreme in A Dangerous Method. To my surprise, Keira Knightly had me believing that she was as a neurotic Russian Jewess whose behavior ranges from the severely repellant and dangerously childish to sexually fetishistic and highly professional. That being said, not only is A Dangerous Method a cinematic introductory course in psychoanalytic history but also a work of romantic neo-Victorian decadence.

I have noticed that a lot of diehard David Cronenberg fans are somewhat disappointed by the Canadian filmmaker's more recent non-body-horror works. On the contrary, I found A Dangerous Method to be more subversive and ambitious than much of Cronenberg’s earlier works as the film is merely more intricately packaged with a sleeker and subtler design. Sure, a small scene of sadomasochistic sex between Fassbender and Knightly may be the most visually offensive aspect of A Dangerous Method but the film tells an imperative story – the battle of two cultures and two peoples – a dichotomy about the history of psychoanalysis that even the most dedicated of psyche nerds have yet to understand. Over two decades after her fling with Freud and Jung, Sabina Spielrein was exterminated by SS Death Squad, Einsatzgruppe D in 1942. Although Freud laughed at Jung’s insistence on the importance of myths, his young student would predict – through “dubious ancient Aryan myths” – the outcome of the National Socialist revolutionary via his infamous essay Wotan; a work that describes the Teutonic archetype and what role it would play in the awakening of the German "collective unconscious" (a term coined by Jung) and the war and destruction it would bring to Europe (and its enemies) as a result. Of course, Freud managed to escape from the Gestapo and his anti-Aryan theories live on today in the hearts of Cultural Marxist college professors and Hollywood screenwriters. Seeing as it is virtually impossible nowadays to watch a children’s show without hearing some sort of Freudian sexual quip, it is quite obvious who of the two adversarial psychoanalytic heavyweights had the most dangerous method.

-Ty E

Simona

2011-11-09T23:49:00.000-08:00

Without question, the Italian work Simona (1974) directed by Patrick Longchamps is the best film ever created based on the writings of French transgressive author Georges Bataille. Forget the pompously putrid performance art documentaries (Visions of Excess, The Monster in the Night of the Labyrinth) starring HIV-positive homo-sadomasochist Ron Athey and Andrew Repasky McElhinney's obscenely degenerate porn flick Story of the Eye (2004), Simona is the only film based on the work of Bataille that deserves to be mentioned in the same sentence with the unabashedly decadent French author. Simona is based on Bataille’s 1928 novella Story of the Eye and like the book, the film manages to do the seemingly impossible by successfully combing art with eroticism for a most savory feast of sensual aesthetic overload. Thankfully, Simona is not a mere rehashing of Bataille’s book but a work that uses the original story as a sturdy skeleton for its many exquisite vignettes and delectable erotic scenarios. Simona is a cumming-of-age story about a beautiful and luscious lady named Simona (played by Italian goddess/actress Laura Antonelli) who generously carries along a young and naïve man-muse named George and uses him as a she-devil’s plaything. Simona and George mischievously romp around the countryside, using everything from dairy products to clergymen as unconventional sex toys. Along the way, the twosome turns into a threesome when they virtually kidnap a cute but somewhat reluctant blonde girl. Although featuring deviant sex and nonstop full-frontal nudity throughout, Simona is a rare work of cinematic eroticism with class and without comprise that is guaranteed to titillate and tantalize the coldest of puritan prudes.

Near the beginning of Simona, the leading lady lets her boy toy know that, “milk is for the pussy” and, naturally, she acts accordingly, cooling herself off by sitting panty-less in a pleasant plate of delicious liquid dairy. Simona is certainly a committed proponent of body-wetness as she also finds the ocean to be a grand place for sexual exposure and team-based body ravagement. Some of the most breathtaking scenes featured in Simona are of a seaweed-heavy sex-triad on the beach. Taking cues from Nicholas Roeg (his collaborator Donald Cammell would later re-edit an English language version of the film that was never released), Simona features abstract and non-linear editing throughout, jumping back-and-forth from vulgar yet voluptuous scene-to-scene. Thus, due to the film's consistently erratic editing and always engrossing scenes, Simona proves to be an unflinchingly enthralling experience throughout. Like Bataille’s novella, Simona truly has the feel of a person recalling their precious, pheromone-heavy memories. Thankfully, Simona manages to “cut the fat” when it comes to recalling the most penetrating and stimulating of her infamous personal history. Whether it to be her valiant attempt to seduce a pussy priest with her pussy or life-shattering personal tragedy, not a dull moment is stored in the beauteous lady’s beautiful mind.

Generally, when watching erotic Euro-sleaze flicks from the 1970s and 1980s, I am somewhat repelled by the domineering hippie “free love” atmosphere. Simona is different in that it has a timeless quality that fails to reek of pot smoke and venereal diseases. Featuring Baroque architecture and nude live-human-statues, the film is also a somewhat clever and tasteful erotic mockery of the Roman Catholic Church. Unsurprisingly, the film concludes with the quote, “…you can be Saints, either in a religious sense, or in an erotic sense” by Italian novelist Alberto Moravia. Indeed, Simona has an almost religious and spiritual tone to it, as if it is a perfect therapeutic response to the sexual repression caused by the Catholic Church. I consider it nothing less than the phenomenon of synchronicity that I happened to be reading Romanian philosopher E.M. Cioran’s early work Tears and Saints during the same time as my viewing of the film. Simona is blasphemy gone beautiful; a meritorious trait indubitably shared by source-writer Bataille.

-Ty E

Days of Nietzche in Turin

2011-11-07T22:40:00.000-08:00

If any nation should make a film about German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, it is the ill-fated thinker's own, but Germany, being very possibly the most self-loathing country in the world since their catastrophic defeat during World War II, would not dare make a film about one of their greatest national figures, even if he was an anti-hero and anti-Christ of sorts. Admittedly, I was quite reluctant to watch the Brazilian film Days of Nietzsche in Turin (2001) aka Dias de Nietzsche em Turim directed by Júlio Bressane; an experimental biographical-drama about the German philosopher’s lone contemplative wanderings around the Northern Italian city; the area where the often misunderstood thinker would dream up Twilight of the Gods and his less-than-honest but extremely aesthetically-pleasing autobiography Ecce Homo. It is one thing for a film to feature a portrayal of Nietzsche speaking in the totally alien language of Portuguese but another for the film to have the prophetic Aryan anti-Christ be portrayed by a swarthy, dark-and-greasy-haired fellow whose exaggerated mustache is the only tool that allows the viewer to dispend belief that the man in anyway resembles the great philosopher. Not only is the actor who portrays Nietzsche in Days of Nietzsche in Turin a physical mockery of the terrible Teuton but he also goes as far as fully exposing his wienerschnitzel; the last area of the German philosopher that a diehard Nietzschean would want to uncover. In fact, a good portion of Days of Nietzsche in Turin is dedicated to the philosopher's dubious sexuality and his problems with the unfair, fairer sex. Nietzsche one stated, “Ah, women. They make the highs higher and the lows more frequent” but in Days of Nietzsche in Turin most of Nietzsche's intimate contact with women is voyeuristic and in the imaginary realm of his exceptionally introverted mind. If the film does anything right, it is that it adequately expresses how far the German philosopher had escaped into his own thoughts; a retreat that would prove to be the root of his genius and transcendence into Übermensch status, but also the source of his break into total insanity and an early and lonely death. Indeed, Days of Nietzsche in Turin may not be an extraordinary tribute to a man whose life and work has yet to get an exquisite cinematic tribute that is long overdue but for those individuals interested in the Titanic Teutonic thinker, the film is a passable homage that will have to do for now.

German conservative revolutionary philosopher Oswald Spengler recognized that Friedrich Nietzsche – being a dilettante composer and music addict – was a thinker who philosophized through his ears and that his prose was not “written” but “heard" through a sort of "physiognomic tact." Spengler believed that Nietzsche intuitively felt the rhythm of "culture" and “nobility, ethics, heroism, distinction, and master morality.” In that regard, Days of Nietzsche in Turin also successfully expresses Nietzsche’s inspirations and thoughts as he can be seen throughout the film basking in musical melodies as if it is vital to his very existence (which it undoubtedly was). The film also somewhat successfully expresses Nietzsche’s sensitivity to life and his organic surroundings in general but, of course, most of the film relies on mere speculation in attempting to recapture his last days of sanity. I would even go so far as to nickname the film The Passion of the Anti-Christ as the work permeates a spiritual and almost religious portrayal of his sacrifice as a thinker and prophet of Occidental decline and rebirth (which partially inspired the National Socialist revolution). Nietzsche may have ended his career as a philosopher with a short work entitled The Anti-Christ (1888) but his dire concern for the death of god and reign of slave-morality-based mediocrity in Europe was not in vain. Although his works were written over a century ago, many great thinkers – of all religious and political persuasions – look to Nietzsche’s writings for answers today. What Days of Nietzsche in Turin does best is expressing how Nietzsche – both on an intellectual and personal level – was all by his lonesome. Surely, Days of Nietzsche in Turin is more successful and respectful in capturing Zarathustra’s essence than When Nietzsche Wept (2007) directed by Pinchas Perry. Visually, the film is also flawed in its almost anarchic anachronisms as the work combines modern shaking documentary-style digital video with seemingly vintage film stock from the early days of cinema. Luckily (but certainly unsurprisingly), Days of Nietzsche in Turin features a score by Nietzsche's former friend/father figure and (later) enemy Richard Wagner with excerpts of Nietzsche's writings narrated throughout.

Undoubtedly, the most powerful segment of Days of Nietzsche in Turin is after Nietzsche's mental collapse near the conclusion of the film. In a manner comparable to Woody Allen's underrated mockumentary Zelig (1983) and superior to Robert Zemeckis' Forrest Gump (1994), Bressane was able to animate and give life to the infamous real photo series “The Ill Nietzsche” by Hans Olde in a totally believable and ostensibly authentic way. As someone who has seen these distressing photographs many years and times before seeing Days of Nietzsche in Turin, I could not help but feel awed but slightly saddened by the pseudo-stock footage of the great thinker in a state of total and irrevocable incapacitation. Naturally, the film also portrays the dubious and unverifiable story of Nietzsche’s collapse after witnessing a horse being whipped in Turin. That being said, Days of Nietzsche in Turin is a film that will certainly be of interest to those familiar with Nietzsche and his work but it is doubtful the film will be anything more than a hopelessly tiresome struggle for the uninitiated. Unlike When Nietzsche Wept, it is also obvious that Days of Nietzsche in Turin director Júlio Bressane has a strong passion for the German philosopher’s life, work, and selfless sacrifice. Unfortunately, it is doubtful one can expect a superior cinematic work about the tragic philosopher-poet anytime soon, thus Days of Nietzsche in Turin, albeit flawed, makes for mandatory viewing for those who have gazed into the splendid abyss of the German philosopher's mind.

-Ty E

The Warriors Way

2011-11-05T13:34:00.000-07:00

With the extended release of products like The Matrix, Rush Hour, and The Last Samurai did Hollywood finally make its presence known and its intentions accepted. Accepting the appeal of cross-continent theater fares, it seemed overnight that the formula of East + West = "cool". Perhaps it was the techno-zen of the messianic "One" or even the sudden and obnoxious intrusion of Brett Ratner's smash hit Rush Hour. Regardless of the streamlined roots of this craze, one that has always been hidden beneath the dormant floorboards of the box office, one thing was for certain - American audiences devoured it. Enter the effects of the Wu-tang Clan, translated anime cassette tapes, the circlejerk that is Kill Bill, and Sanrio's mass roll-out of memorabilia and what you will find is that as often as the East is credited to adopting a largely Western ideal, we too, have exhibited symptoms of an impression left on us (although not in a traditional sense). For us it seems to be a fanaticism with no real intention on becoming permanent. This became apparent with the release of Ninja Assassin (2009), an idea so laughable it transcended novelty and leapt directly into its tomb where scripts go to die. Films like these play hooky with the thought of Asiatic stoicism/vigilantism then return home safely with no harm done - utter child's play. One could think that our Western vision is impervious of foreign influence (but how wrong you'd be). What Ninja Assassin adopted was a Western approach to romantic/action storytelling and with coating it with the sauce of Orientalism, had hoped to create a enigmatic character likable enough for a box office Eastern feast. As you can imagine, Ninja Assassin proved to be one of the worst films of 2009. With the slate wiped clean Sngmoo Lee debuted with The Warriors Way, the very same principle except overdosed on steroids reeking of sickening stylization.

Starring Dong-gun Jang, a personal favorite whose many roles encompass several classics (Friend, The Coast Guard, Taegukgi), The Warriors Way took to creating a hybrid all-too literal by crossing a shadowy ninja clan and thrusting them directly into a wild west scenario guilty of minuscule steam-punk influences. After slaying an entire clan on orders of his own, The Sad Flutes, Yang is frozen in his tracks at the sight of the sole surviving member, an infant. Putting his sword to rest and freeing the infant of its cradle, Yang flees the country after severing threads with his clan and jumps aboard a ferry navigating blindly across the stretch of sea. As wanderers do, Yang suddenly finds himself in a sleepy, sickly town whose only life is a waning carnival act. After learning the ways of these people as well as withstanding ridicule and expressing these questionable traits known as emotions, Yang's new home is stalked by his past as well as the town members' own. Like Lone Wolf and Cub before it, The Warriors Way idly juxtaposes beast & baby with a hint of babe (Kate Bosworth) in one of those senseless demonstrations of the monster-with-a-heart device. The film essentially just sputters along with images of the "greatest swordsman who ever lived" performing trivial tasks like "bonding" or doing laundry. The entire ruse of cheating the runtime builds up to the last 40 minutes in which the nature of time is slaughtered in favor of slo-motion scenes of Yang catapulting through the air with delayed spurts of arterial spray following in his jacketed wake. Once the villainous Danny Huston and his bucking cowboy crew meet the Sad Flutes, the level of silly skyrockets into the territory of being wildly unbelievable. For all it had going for it, strictly being on a scale of hardened entertainment, I feel that The Warriors Way wasn't as unnecessarily violent as I would have liked it to be. You never get the sense that his blade and all its soul-sadness, can do any real harm. There's visual mention of the rare head or arm tossed about but only a handful of quick images to support the timid nature of its existence. In fact, The Warriors Way could have just as easily been a PG-13 rated flick and not had any qualms with the idea.

When it boils down to the story of Yang's blade, the action is represented only by blood splatters. I imagined severed limbs, multiple decapitations, and rowdy brutality, something in the same vein as Ninja Assassin (the opening scene being the only decent thing in this case). What I got instead was akin to picking a shy, conservative dame of many Eastern-Western broads. Of this particular formula I'd have to say that The Warriors Way was of the more enjoyable go-arounds with entertaining a ludicrous synopsis. I don't mean to put a spin regarding the actual quality of the film. The Warriors Way is what you'd imagine from the looks of it - stupid, overloaded with digital set-pieces, lacking any distinct aesthetic, overburdened with time manipulation, and to top it all off, boasting a pitiful excuse for romance. When and if you can manage to set aside your differences with the artificial nature of this film, however, you can find it within yourself to actually become engaged by this hammy and juvenile procedure in extirpation of conventions. If you, like me and many others, were sickened and revolted by the excess of Ninja Assassin then mayhaps the candy-painted ninja-western The Warriors Way can provide to you what the aforementioned couldn't. To a degree of certainty, I can validate a sort of inner-warmness towards Yang's plight-with-fight and would enjoy seeing more of his bloody adventures in the future. If your wish is to see an inventive film relating to a ninja assassin the answer shouldn't be anymore clearer than it is with this. The Warriors Way may be shit but it's shit that I don't mind enjoying, even advocating, and in the end, that's all that really counts.

-mAQ

A Nightmare on Elm Street

2011-11-03T20:39:00.000-07:00

If I were to only choose one film that has remained as potent as it was when I first saw at it during my preschool years, it would undoubtedly be Wes Craven’s A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984); a surrealist slasher flick with a charismatic killer who – in terms of depth of personality and bloodlust – shreds all of his mass-murdering human-monster buddies to celluloid pieces. Unlike retarded-mute slasher killers like Mikey Myers, Jay Vorhees, and Pleatherface, Freddy Krueger is a mass-murderer who takes prides in his ability to execute a variety of quasi-illusionary psychodramas and phantasmagorical killings. Like in the much anticipated but dreadfully disappointing movie Freddy vs. Jason (2003), Herr Krueger would indubitably manipulate and ultimately enslave his rival slasher killers. But enough with the redundant and totally irrelevant philistine fanboy gibberish, A Nightmare on Elm Street is much more than a great horror/slasher flick; it is a film that holds its own outside the hopelessly formulaic and schlock-based genre. Not since the delightful daydream delirium days of German expressionism has a film given so much mystique to a malevolent monster-man who finds solace amongst the shadows. Whereas German expressionist films turned reality into nightmare, A Nightmare on Elm Street sliced the seams of daytime and dreams in a manner that has brought psychological unrest to generations of moviegoers. To this day, I have fond memories from my childhood of my little sister waking up in the middle of the night and screaming in fear that Freddy K. would swallow her soul. The wonderful thing about dreams is that no matter how horrible they may be, one ultimately rests with the comfort of knowing that they will eventually awake and the subconscious constructed pseudo-reality is no more. What makes A Nightmare on Elm Street so particularly unsettling to the human mind is that self-assured insurance policy of mind-made REM is severed, thus opening a deluge of unimaginable possibilities during the most incapacitated of moments. Of course, as portrayed in A Nightmare on Elm Street (and its various uneven sequels), cunning Krueger creates a variety of scenarios for his physically and psychologically petrified victims, hence the all-around originality of the franchise in general. What makes the original A Nightmare on Elm Street the greatest film in the series is that, unlike the less serious sequels, the horror is less tongue-in-cheek and more finger-knife-in-gut.

Although contrary to mainstream-media-formed public opinion, the baby boomers are easily the most pathetic and hopelessly degenerate generation in all of American history. Of course, subsequent generations of Americans have proven to be even less morally-inclined and spiritually-sound but it was the baby boomer generation that originally deracinated itself from what was considered sacred among the generations before it. The teens featured in A Nightmare on Elm Street are the first lost generation of children from the aimless, morally irresponsible and careless baby boomer crowd. In fact, before being tortured and murdered by his parent comrades, Freddy Krueger was also a baby boomer. Epitomizing the worst qualities of baby boomers to the most pathetic extreme, Mr. Krueger – a man-child in a state of infinite-infantilism and clearly bound only to self-gratification at whatever cost – treated children as his own person playthings that he used and abused before disposing them like a child does to broken toys. The virginal grade school children in white that jump rope to the infamous Freddy nursery rhyme (One, two, Freddy's coming for you...) in A Nightmare on Elm Street and its sequels are ghostly reminders of Freddy's one-entity campaign to destroy the pure and innocent. As explained by Marge, the alcoholic mother of female protagonist Nancy Thompson in the original A Nightmare on Elm Street, Freddy Krueger was murdered by (rightfully) vengeful parents after he was freed on a technicality after killing over 20 children during the late 1960s. The children of this suburban mob would go on to pay for the sins of the father (and mother), so to speak. What I find most interesting and telling about the parents in A Nightmare on Elm Street and its sequels is that no matter how many of their children are sadistically slaughtered, they stay committed to total ignorance and denial as if they all suffer from a permanent blindness of the mind. Nancy’s mother is an alcoholic, Tina’s mother is a shameless whore, and Rod’s parents are nowhere to be found. Wes Craven, a baby boomer with a strict Baptist upbringing who would go on to be a director of hardcore pornography (before his horror filmmaking days), certainly personifies the "loss of innocence" his generation is well known for to a quite notable degree, thus no other person could have been more suitable for the direction of A Nightmare on Elm Street than he.

On top of telling a unique story, A Nightmare on Elm Street features some of the most iconic and marvelous murders ever featured in a horror film. From the first anti-gravity killing of Tina Gray by a seemingly invisible killer to Freddy’s bodily dismemberment of Nancy’s boyfriend Glen Lantz in his own bed, A Nightmare on Elm Street thankfully ignores all of the clichés of the slasher genre. Of course, A Nightmare on Elm Street writer and director Wes Craven was no comic-book-addicted philistine like his mostly incompetent compatriots as he was an English professor before he ever sat in a director's chair. Craven has acknowledged that the lone sheep featured in the opening dream-sequence of A Nightmare on Elm Street was his tribute to Spanish surrealist auteur Luis Buñuel. I found the killing of Tina to be somewhat reminiscent of the absurdist wall-crawling featured in French poet auteur Jean Cocteau’s early work The Blood of a Poet (1930). Before directing A Nightmare on Elm Street, Craven directed an extremely loose remake, Last House on the Left (1972), of Swedish master filmmaker Ingmar Bergman’s The Virgin Spring (1960). If future horror filmmakers can learn anything from the early films of Wes Craven, it is that a deep knowledge of film history can go a long way in the concocting of a truly distinct macabre movie. I certainly cannot think of another film aside from Philip Ridley’s extremely underrated cinematic gem The Reflecting Skin (1990) that has been created within the past 25+ years that deserves to be compared to A Nightmare on Elm Street (although some could argue that the Candyman of the 1992 film Candyman is the "Negro Freddy Krueger").

Although created nearly three decades ago, A Nightmare on Elm Street still proves to be one of the greatest landmarks in American horror cinema history. The legacy of Freddy Krueger may have been beaten to death by a number of A Nightmare on Elm Street sequels, a tedious TV-series (Freddy's Nightmares) and an endless bombardment of consumer memorabilia (a phenomenon Craven responded to with the reflective 1994 film Wes Craven’s New Nightmare) yet the burned phantasm in the red and green sweater still remains one of the greatest and most memorable villains of cinema history. A Nightmare on Elm Street is also probably the only film featuring Johnny Depp where the much celebrated character-actor’s performance is one of the less interesting attributes of the film. The distinct cinematic quality of A Nightmare on Elm Street only becomes all the more clear after watching the blatantly blasphemous 2010 remake; a cinematic abomination that makes the remake of Friday the 13th seem like the holy grail of slasher sinema. I just hope the A Nightmare on Elm Street franchise is not bastardized and beaten-to-death to the point where Freddy finds himself fingering Madonna or Lindsay Lohan (with unrestrained and overly "ambitious" fanboy horror hack directors like Rob Zombie, anything is possible). Whatever the future holds for the A Nightmare on Elm Street franchise, nothing can extinguish the uncanny yet strangely comforting hallucinatory horror of the original 1984 movie.

-Ty E

Killdozer

2011-11-03T14:12:00.000-07:00

Only due to a strange blue hue emanating from a restless meteorite does Killdozer take sentience and proceed to pick off its blue collar victims one by one. Directed by Jerry London, one who could easily be considered an inner-company chameleon in the television industry, Killdozer represents all the knowledge accumulated at this point in his career while still reflecting just how much he wasn't privy to. Taking a talented cast of rugged actors, some even iconic, London weaves sick desperation through a patchwork quilt of a sci-fi tale that concerns its biggest obstacle as an "aware" and malevolent bulldozer that seeks nothing but extermination of those who awakened and fed its discourse. Now, given the material granted by Theodore Sturgeon in the form of pulp patronage, Killdozer's cinematic cousin can only tread so far before its fuel supply ceases to feed its starved mechanized workings. The reason behind Killdozer's refuse-to-die cult attitude is surely based on marquee jests. That, and Conan O'Brien's meticulous slip of the tongue. How could one not chuckle at the mere mention of Killdozer, as I had when I heard of Death Bed as well as comedian Patton Oswald before me. Film like this serves more duties as an oasis of punchlines hardly tapped than of something considered recreational annulment. These projects are crude comedy resources just waiting to be harvested, really. Had Killdozer been born with humor in mind then maybe the tale would fare differently. Nobody enjoys self-aware shit unless they've got non-conformity on the mind. With London's ability to pick up a television episode at random and direct with iconoclasm in mind - breaking down a once unique vision of primetime luster in order to continue the assembly line of case and trial comes the soul-stretching remnants of something so moderate and tasteless in execution that it becomes near impossible to categorize. Such is the case for Killdozer; an example of a film living in the shadow of its title.

Starting off strong with dead-sight of the meteorite hurtling towards earth almost clumsily, you get the implication that simple serenity wouldn't last on Earth. Civilization would occur in the future, guaranteeing not a short enough rest from the dark abscess of space. But London quickly and briefly abandons the science-fiction badge for the camaraderie and destruction-loving nature of a group of working class construction workers on a Pacific island. Soon after the opening credits are we "treated" to the origins of our catty tractor come-to-life in a quick spurt of virility as man controls machine all too forcefully. As soon as you know it, dozer blade meets rock and sets to course the vindictive nature of the non-material being while simultaneously fatally poisoning the one worker not situated behind the drivers seat. Alien radiation is the only cause of death up for assumption at this point in time. Not before long is when the subtle hysteria kicks in as we watch an often unmanned piece of machinery trample radios, tents, the basic necessities for off-civilization survival, leaving only a handful of perturbed men feigning superstition and hanging on to bare threads of earthly exceptions. After all, that's one thing that makes up the sometimes grand essence of horror/terror - those earthly exceptions - that moment in time we all submit to when nothing can be ruled out. Not to say that your lifetime will include made-for-TV sobriety or a rough tumble act of gymnastics while trying to outrun a remarkably slow killing machine, but this aspect of horror is the last thing one can really cling on to anymore for an effect - which doesn't include a vast amount of differing mutilations. That's really just medical pornography mixed with big-breasted track and field - here's looking at you, slasher films.

During this moment in the Killdozer canon is when the string of continued denial of otherworldly interference becomes tiresome and the short-supply of charm becomes noticeably absent. After witnessing friend after friend fall victim to Killdozer, always in an unbelievable and idiotic fashion (who would hide from a rampant machine in a thin pipe just begging to be crushed?) to the heavy metal plate adorned by the crawling constructor, the denizens of Killdozer's wrath continue to play transparent as to what is occurring. In such an age where people toy with the idea of world-ending disasters and various notes of apocalypse daily, one would think the feeble mind of man would collapse easier than Lloyd Kelly's - leader of the outfit and a disbeliever to the very end (I don't count his scripted acknowledgment, that bastard was too stubborn to turncoat so swiftly). Even at just an hour and nine minutes does the runtime of Killdozer weigh in deep to my dormant filmic narcolepsy. I in turn washed my sorrow away with early morning liquor which only furthered a bad day. A film that drones on as slow as Killdozer should be put to death without trial. I accept fully the label of novelty to Killdozer's name but refuse to acquiesce to the misinformed opinion that is "Killdozer rocks!" Killdozer is not hip, cool, underrated, or amazing. You will not feel better about enjoying it unless you grew up with the film and in turn, allowed it to affect your impressionable mind. Killdozer is slow and painful, a brain-death as agonizing and embarrassing as allowing your friends to know just what you've finished watching. It's not that I hate Killdozer. My negativity is more due to the fact that I hate myself for not stopping while I was ahead and playing something else, anything else. As long as something actually occurred would my spirit rest easy. Stick to snippets for this long-term poisonous experience in dry cinematic mediocrity.

-mAQ

War Requiem

2011-10-28T00:16:00.000-07:00

British Queer auteur Derek Jarman probably never shot a real gun during his relatively short life yet his cinematic masterpiece is assuredly the combat-heavy war epic War Requiem (1989); a BBC-financed film adaptation of English composer Benjamin’s Britten’s 1963 music piece of the same name. Although centered around a musical requiem (Decca Records required that Jarman not include any audible sound in the film aside from Britten’s composition), War Requiem is indubitably first and foremost a visual tour-de-force in a category all of its own. In fact, I would argue that the musical score is the weakest attribute of the film. Unlike most of Jarman’s work, War Requiem neglects to feature hordes of nude gay men galloping along gayly but it does include a most intimate and physically and emotionally visceral look at the tragedy of martial masculinity and the bloody brotherhood of war. Unlike most popular anti-war films (i.e. Apocalypse Now, Platoon), War Requiem does the seemingly impossible by completely shying away from romanticizing and glorifying combat. Sure, the film may feature heavenly firebombings and sensual (but not sexual) soldierly camaraderie but the underlying message of, “war is destructive” permeates throughout the entirety of the bewitching brutality that is War Requiem. I am sure that Jarman – as a sensitive homosexual – saw war as the greatest evil as it kills the most beautiful and valiant of men for – at best – the most trivial and cryptic of reasons. Throughout War Requiem, a beauteous blending of real (stock footage) and fictional theatric deaths of young soldiers are successfully dramatized in a most horrifying manner. Ultimately, War Requiem is not only a tribute to the many British soldiers who needlessly bled blood on the earth’s soil, but, also, a virtual cinematic epitaph for the countless Europeans who died in battle since the dawn of Christianity.

Aside from being a grand achievement in the realm of both art and filmmaking, War Requiem is a strangely spiritual work about the selfless and Christ-like sacrifice so many forgotten soldiers gave for their fatherland. Unlike many anti-war artists, Jarman peculiarly but pleasantly refrained from portraying the deaths of various soldiers as not being in vain, but, instead, as the inevitable "rite of passage" of every generation. In the end, the real victims of War Requiem are those unfortunate individuals who managed to survive the war. In the beginning of the film, the viewer is introduced to a thoroughly melancholic, wheelchair-bound war veteran (played by British veteran actor Laurence Olivier in his last acting role) whose wartime memories still haunt him at his advanced and exceedingly feeble age. While his loyal comrades died in their prime and are remembered for their gallant acts of soldierly nobility, the old war veteran cannot even relieve his bowels without the assistance of a nurse. Had the old man lived during pagan times, his pathetic status as a crippled and elderly survivor would have most likely brought shame upon him as only the most courageous of fighters had the luxury of entering Valhalla upon the end of their mortal earthly existence. The only female charater featured in War Requiem is an angelic nurse (played by Tilda Swinton) who find herself caring for dying men that she acts as a pseudo-mother of sorts for. Although never setting foot on a battlefield, the nurse still encounters the most tragic and soul-shattering results of war. She is undoubtedly a Virgin Mary figure; the soldiers being the many Sons of the European Apocalypse. Like the war veteran, the nurse holds the burden of having to remember the short and painful deaths of those men that are forever lost to fate.

One of the most interesting and symbolic scenes of War Requiem is when a jolly snowball fight between a Brit and a Kraut (played by a youthful Sean Bean) turns into a deadly game all due to a sheer and petty misunderstanding. During the scene, a German soldier appears from the shadowy entrance of a building and jovially throws a snowball at a British gentleman that is playing a piano outside in a most absurd manner. Of course, a fellow Brit (Wilfred Own – the film's lead protagonist – played by Nathaniel Parker) sees his comrade frolicking in the snow with the German but mistakes it for real battle. In the end, the previously friendly German and Englishman lay eternally dead for no reason; no doubt symbolic of war in general. Out of good and keen conscience, Derek Jarman also included a scene in War Requiem featuring a couple greedy and revoltingly effeminate, cigar-smoking Winston Churchill-like capitalists in pancake-make-up. While armies of European patriots slaughtered their fellow blood brothers in the belief that they were protecting their respective nations, the hotshot moneymen of these countries effortlessly relax in a state of constant hedonism as they count their endless downpour of shekels that they undeservedly earned from the noble blood of heroic men that they see as nothing more than ignorant peasants. As I mentioned earlier in the review, War Requiem does not feature a word of dialogue yet the entire story of war and its literal and figurative casualties are told in a most lucid and aesthetically-pleasurable manner. Featuring innocent childhood flashbacks, delightful dirges, and real-life and extremely expressive theatrical deaths, War Requiem is nothing short of being one of the most (if not the most) important filmic war poems ever created.

-Ty E

Night Tide

2011-10-22T23:46:00.000-07:00

Many decades before fully developing the exquisite mental illness that would later contribute to the uncanny and iconic performances he gave as Frank Booth in David Lynch’s Blue Velvet (1986) and Feck in The River’s Edge (1986), Dennis Hopper played in a variety of Hollywood and Indy cult films. Some of these films are somewhat forgotten (and rightfully so) while others – like Curtis Harrington’s Night Tide (1961) – are thankfully not. Night Tide is a fantastic little cult item about a young navy sailor named Johnny Drake (played by a relatively mentally stable Dennis Hopper) who finds himself magnetized to the mysterious pheromones of a cutesy fishy lady named Mora who may or may not be a genuine mermaid. During the film, the audience learns that Mora was found as a child on a Greek Island and adopted by a British sea captain named Samuel Murdock (played by Gavin Muir); a somewhat shifty Svengali man-of-the-world who makes Johnny seem like a boyish philistine. Marjorie Elizabeth Cameron – the Occultist wife of fellow Thelemite and rock scientist Jack Whiteside Parsons and star of Kenneth Anger's color short Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome (1954) – also plays a small but imperative typecast role in Night Tide as a mystery sea-witch who seems to hold psychic powers over Mora. Apparently, Parsons' thought his wife Marjorie was an incarnation of the goddess Babalon (who she played in Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome), thus her ghastly yet angelic appearance in Night Tide only makes the film seem all the more eerie. Night Tide director Curtis Harrington also directed the documentary The Wormwood Star; a work about Marjorie Cameron and her Magickal art. In a sense, the audience is in the same rocking boat as Hopper’s character Johnny as both he and the viewers are bewildered by the dubious motives of Mora and the mystery woman follows her throughout the entirety of Night Tide. Essentially, Night Tide is a Gothic haunted house flick without a ghost-ridden house but, instead, set in a strangely atmospheric beachside vacation spot that can be justly compared to Herk Harvey’s Cocteau-inspired cult masterpiece Carnival of Souls (1962). Curtis Harrington – being a lifelong Edgar Allan Poe fanatic (his first film was a short 8mm adaptation of The Fall of the House of Usher) – named Night Tide after a line from Poe’s popular poem Annabel Lee. At the conclusion of the film, it will be all the more apparent to the viewer as to why the title of Night Tide and its source are all the more fitting.

I must admit that I have some domestic prejudices in regards to my reverence of Night Tide as I live in a seaside habitat similar to the one featured in the film. In fact, I only have to walk about 30 seconds from my condo to reach the beach and the Atlantic Ocean. Like the small beach town featured in Night Tide, my local area is known for its various amusement parks and Oceanside boardwalk. Of course, the only thing scary about my area is the number of extremely unpredictable alcohol-addicted locals and the unneeded number of aggressive police that arrest them. My town also has a relatively popular vintage boardwalk haunted house ride that features the same sort of Gothic horror cheese atmosphere that Night Tide potently permeates. On top of featuring a number of scenes of Johnny strolling down the beach and boardwalk amongst midnight shadows in the hopes of tracking down his ghostly gal, Night Tide also includes a couple phantasmagorical dream-sequences composed of Ed Wood-esque sea-urchins which are quite similar to the ones that can be seen at my local haunted house ride. Simply put, Night Tide is one of those rare Gothic horror B-movies that one could describe as an example of, “they don’t make them like they used to.” The same can be said of counter-culture acting legend Dennis Hopper; one of the few actors in American film history who deserves to be described as a true veteran actor due to his notoriously volatile personal life and uneven and unpredictable acting career. Although Hopper seems seemingly sane in Night Tide; his infamous nervous stoner laugh is still quite noticeable in the film. Night Tide also features some elements that foretell the awakening of the popular hippie movement in American, including a lucid New Age-ish bongo dance performed by the thoroughly entranced Mora, an irrational tribe of drug-possessed youths, and a bombardment of degenerate Jazz. Hopper’s character Johnny is also the sort of emasculated male that is incapable of taming his dominant beastess; a revolting trait oh-so in post-hippie American.

Despite its somewhat crude special effects and superlatively wacky storyline, Night Tide, like Carnival of Souls and the surprisingly neglected work Incubus (1966) starring William Shatner, is a work that still holds up today. Bordering the line between American cinematic art and B-grade schlock, and being of interest to Occultniks, Night Tide is surely a work that deserves to have a larger cult following than it actually has. The film is also an excellent (albeit corny) attempt to adapt Edgar Allen Poe’s ideas for contemporary (at the time it was made) times. Night Tide director Curtis Harrington would end his film career like he started it with a short adaptation of Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher simply entitled Usher (2002); a work featuring Zeena Schreck (aka LaVey); the daughter of Church of Satan founder and High Priest Anton LaVey. Incidentally, to help finance Usher, Zeena acted as a broker for Harrington’s sale of his rare signed copy of Aleister Crowley’s Book of Thoth. Another connection to Crowley in Night Tide is a somewhat unnoticeable street sign with the address 777 Saabek Lane; the number of the address being a favorite of the English Alpha-Occultist. Unfortunately, like most of Harrington’s work, Usher is apparently (I have been unable to track down a copy of the short to view it myself) a mediocre and thoroughly banal work. That being said, I do not think it would a stretch to say that Night Tide is nothing short of being Harrington’s “cinematic magna opera.”

-Ty E

One Man's War

2011-10-16T22:10:00.000-07:00

In many ways, the German World War I memoir Storm of Steel (1920) by Ernst Jünger is a spiritual antidote to Franco-German author Erich Maria Remarque's absurdly popular pussyfoot anti-war literary diatribe All Quit on the Western Front (1928); a work that would by utilized and adapted as anti-Teutonic filmic-ammo by the glorified gangsters of Sunset Boulevard. Not only was Jünger a superior writer but his work would have a much greater influence on the German populous than Remarque's cowardly defeatist work. Although known for his romantic view of war, Jünger would later become quite disillusioned with the Second World War and most specifically; National Socialism and Adolf Hitler. Apparently, Jünger even played an exceedingly shadowy role in the Stauffenberg bomb plot against Hitler. If one thing is for sure, Jünger never attempted to capitalize off his celebrity as a distinguished and nationalistic anti-liberal writer during the Third Reich era, thus one can only conclude that he was a man of honor who never fell so low as to compromise his idealism for the personal benefit of power and monetary return like so many artists and prominent German figures of his generation. In fact, the most telling example of Jünger's character is that he refused an offer to head the German Academy of Literature and was subsequently banned from writing during the Nazi era. Like sage Radical Traditional Baron Julius Evola (who admired and wrote a book on Jünger), Jünger advocated a sort of aristocratic individualism called “Anarch” in response to an increasingly chaotic and totalitarian world. Jünger also defied the stereotypical conventions of a German nationalist by regularly experimenting and writing about drugs, including (but not limited to) cocaine, weed, and LSD (he even went on “trips” with Albert Hofmann; the inventor of the drug). During the German-occupation of France, Jünger was assigned to an administrative position in Paris. Although banned from writing, Jünger kept an intimate diary about his personal experiences in the slimy frog city and his (for the most part, pessimistic) thoughts on the war. In the experimental documentary One Man’s War (1982) aka La guerre d'un seul homme directed by Argentine auteur Edgardo Cozarinsky, narrations of Jünger’s Parisian diaries are cleverly juxtaposed with German and Vichy propaganda newsreels.

Upon first viewing One Man’s War, it will be quite obvious to the fanatic cinephile that the documentary is a lot like Max Ophüls overrated documentary The Sorrow and The Pity (1969); the main difference being that Cozarinsky’s work is all the more potent and groundbreaking due to its inclusion of Jünger’s narrated diaries. From his earliest diary entries on, it is apparent that Jünger feels his job in Paris is dubious at best. In between meeting fellow artists like poet polymath and cine-magican Jean Cocteau and fellow right-wing anarchist Louis-Ferdinand Céline, Jünger experiences the grand pleasure of witnessing a handsome German deserter being executed via firing-squad and hearing rumors about the mass liquidations of Jews in the East. Jünger also does not shy away from describing a friendly chat he had with a comical French prostitute who jokingly saluted him as if she were a patriotic German soldier. The newsreels featured in One Man’s War range from the latest in tacky Parisian fashion to footage of numerous Frenchmen boarding trains to join the German National Socialist military campaign. The greatest irony of the documentary being that Jünger – a committed lifelong proponent of war and a lover of pain (After all, Jünger is the author of the pro-pain/anti-bourgeois book On Pain) has no faith in the greatest war of the twentieth century and fails to take pleasure in occupying a country which has arguably been Germany’s greatest enemy throughout all of European history. In the excellent book on the intellectual history of National Socialist ideology, Metapolitics : from Wagner and the German Romantics to Hitler (1941), written by German-American Peter Viereck (the son of Nazi propagandist/Philo-semite and purported bastard Grandson of Kaiser Wilhelm I; George Sylvester Viereck), the author makes the claim that German nationalism largely sprung from an inferiority complex Germany obtained by being so severely beaten and brainwashed (with ideas of "liberty") by the French throughout a number of wars over a number of centuries. I don’t know about other people but I personally derived some pleasure from seeing various newsreels of the snobbish French being occupied by a nation that they had once felt infinitely superior to.

Edgardo Cozarinsky also added some more subtle contrasting ingredients to One Man's War that might not be apparent to most viewers upon first viewing the film. Throughout One Man’s War, scores by Aryan composers like Hans Pfitzer and Richard Strauss are coalesced together with music works by Jewish degenerate musicians like Franz Schreker and Arnold Schonberg. Surprisingly, the blending of varying musical styles is fairly unnoticeable and is undoubtedly complementary of the film itself. Speaking of blending Aryans and Jews, a rare newsreel of ¼ Jewish-British fascist propagandist John Amery is also featured in One Man’s War. Not only was Amery a committed fascist of royal Jewish ancestry (his father was Lord and conservative UK MP Leo Amery) but he was also a well known sexual libertine who – like many of the prominent French Vichy collaborators (writers Pierre Eugène Drieu La Rochelle and Robert Brasillach included) – was executed for treason by his respective nation of origin at the conclusion of World War II. That being said, One Man’s War not only proves to be an intriguing and solacing portrait of Vichy France but also an important and equally inventive quasi-Cinéma vérité cultural and artistic visual testimonial like no other. I certainly can not think of another film that so seamlessly weaves cinematic poetry with historical document for a most celestially unruly mix. Despite the sometimes depressive narration of Jünger’s writings and the war torn brutality of the imagery, One Man’s War is for the part a relaxing and mellow cinematic timeline that offers a quite pleasurable experience for World War II fanatics (myself including) and cinephiles alike. Although Jünger’s tone may be melancholic and pessimistic throughout One Man's War, he certainly proves comic (whether intentional or not) in his random ramblings, especially when he remarks in a cynical manner regarding Mongolian volunteers (Germany had the largest multicultural army in human history at the time), "whole tribes of yellow ants have been enrolled." If one is to learn anything from One Man's War, it is that the authoritarian racial collectivism of the National Socialist regime was not up to par with Ernst Jünger’s aristocratic Anarch Weltanschauung.

-Ty E

Valhalla Rising

2011-10-15T01:33:00.000-07:00

I do not think it would be an exaggeration for me to say that Valhalla Rising (2009), directed by Danish auteur Nicholas Winding Refn, is the greatest Odinist film that has ever been made. Unlike the multicultural-sensitive and blasphemously cartoonish Marvel Comics movie Thor (2011), Valhalla Rising is an anti-pacifist masterpiece that is lavishly steeped in the old Nordic Odinic religion. The protagonist of the film is One-Eye, who like the Germanic God Odin, is missing an eye. Also like Odin, One-Eye displays a keen affinity for war, battle, victory and death as his life revolves around these things, even as he tragically meets his untimely but prophetic demise. Valhalla Rising can also be seen as a metaphorical portrayal of the birth of Christianity and the death of Odin in ancient Europa. After escaping and killing a group of men who forced him to fight-to-the-death other captured men, Odin meets up with a degenerate Männerbund of hopelessly holy Christian Crusaders who are sailing for the homeland of their alien Christ; Jerusalem, but instead they land in the New World; the Americas. It is immediately apparent upon their initial meeting that, despite being members of the same race, One-Eye and the Crusaders are of a wholly different nature as the band of Christians display nothing short of weary and wimpy behavior when around the unpredictable Heathen Cyclops One-Eye; a man who may have one unflinching eye but seems to have ten more in the back of his all-seeing head. As Valhalla Rising progresses, it is all too apparent that Christianity has severely pacified the blond beast Crusaders of the film. Whereas One-Eye is a bestial barbarian whose instincts are fully intact, the Crusaders display a sort of incertitude and deracination that is most certainly the result of adopting an alien religion that is at odds with their forefather's religion of battle and war. Although Odin apparently sacrificed himself for himself, Jesus Christ (as mentioned by a Crusader in the film) sacrificed himself for all of humanity. In Valhalla Rising, the Crusaders sheepishly become the victims of Amerindians yet One-Eye proves to hold his own, until something changes his mind and he takes an unexpected path……

In many regards, Valhalla Rising is an anti-action-adventure flick as it is a work that is recognized for its breaking of redundant genre conventions, most notably due to its artful and atmospheric prowess and its static yet strangely unpedantic pacing. Simply put, Valhalla Rising is an oh-so unfortunately rare thinking man’s action-adventure film, thus it will most likely leave your typical alcoholic American football fan in an even more drunken stupor of hopeless bewilderment and restless agitation. Although the film may not include as many battles and bloody corpses as Zach Snyder’s absurdly overrated work 300 (2007), Valhalla Rising is ultimately a more visceral and brutal work that – like the ancient Germanic barbarians – takes no prisoners. Also, unlike 300, Valhalla Rising – despite its various bloodstained dream sequences – has a truly organic feel that makes it stand eminent over its superfluous CGI-stylized contemporaries. The themes featured in Valhalla Rising are more in tune with nature and the “law of the claw," thus the film makes for a truly unique cinematic experience that the world has not seen since the films of the Third Reich. In Valhalla Rising, the Crusaders who follow anti-organic Christian laws fall prey to their theological pacifism while One-Eye – a man who still “feels” the Odinist paganism of his ancestors – seems to be invincible. One-Eye can even be seen in Valhalla Rising staring at a Crusader-made crucifix with a smirk. To One-Eye, the cross is nothing more than a false idol that has no more intrinsic value to him than an opera by Richard Wagner has to a crack-smoking and 40 oz.-chugging rapper.

The conclusion of Valhalla Rising – not unlike Ingmar Bergman’s The Virgin Spring (1960) – can be seen as a symbolic metaphor for the death of Odinic German paganism in Europe. When One-Eye – like Jesus Christ – sacrifices himself for someone other than himself, he also takes the religion of his ancestors with him into oblivion. After all, Gods and religions only die when the adherent of these beliefs are no more but it has also been stated reputable psychologists that these religions are passed on (albeit dormant) through the blood of ancestors. In Swiss psychoanalyst C.G. Jung’s essay Wotan (aka Odin), he theorized that the spirit of Odin continues to slumber in the collective unconscious of all Germanic peoples, stating of Germans during the first half of the twentieth century, "But what is more than curious -- indeed, piquant to a degree -- is that an ancient god of storm and frenzy, the long quiescent Wotan, should awake, like an extinct volcano, to new activity, in a civilized country that had long been supposed to have outgrown the Middle Ages. We have seen him come to life in the German Youth Movement, and right at the beginning the blood of several sheep was shed in honour of his resurrection. Armed with rucksack and lute, blond youths, and sometimes girls as well, were to be seen as restless wanderers on every road from the North Cape to Sicily, faithful votaries of the roving god." Jung believed that the National Socialist revolution in Germany was an atavistic awakening of Wotan in the German populous and that every so often, the rouse of the old pagan gods was only nature, adding "If we apply are admittedly peculiar point of view consistently, we are driven to conclude that Wotan must, in time, reveal not only the restless, violent, stormy side of his character, but, also, his ecstatic and mantic qualities -- a very different aspect of his nature. If this conclusion is correct, National Socialism would not be the last word. Things must be concealed in the background which we cannot imagine at present, but we may expect them to appear in the course of the next few years or decades. Wotan's reawakening is a stepping back into the past; the stream was damned up and has broken into its old channel." Although One-Eye Sacrifices himself for the life of another, he does so in an honorable manner by allowing himself to be killed in battle, thus securing a position in Valhalla; the heavenly “hall of the slain” that Odin reigns over. To the ancient Germanic peoples, sins (in the Christian sense) like rape, pillaging, and murder were considered nothing short of honorable. Throughout Valhalla Rising, One-Eye sneers at the Christian Crusaders in a most sinister but deserving manner. In his mind, by killing these passive Christians, he is altruistically giving them a sense of honor that they are indubitably undeserving of.

Recently, a class action lawsuit was taken against FilmDistrict, the distributor of the film Drive (2011), by a soulless and philistinic wench due to her exceedingly petty and pathetic belief that the film’s trailer is misleading, the film features very little driving/chase scenes, and that it promotes violence against Jewish people. I am sure that this disgruntled money-siphoning she-bitch would be even more angered if she were to watch Drive director Nicholas Winking Refn's previous film Valhalla Rising; a work that pisses on the scrolls of the Hebraic Judeo-Christian religions and the very weak and meek kind of society that she is symbolic of. Needless to say, such class action lawsuits would be nothing short of an absurdity in a world where Odin reigns. With the transvaluation of all values and destruction of a master morality that formed in Europe via the slave-morality of Christianity came a lamentable “taming of the blond beast." Although disguised as a mere Viking action-adventure film, Valhalla Rising portrays this suicidal change in a somewhat subtle manner. Through Christianity eventually came the liberal humanism that is now common in the Occident today. If modern Germanic peoples continue to uphold these deracinating and apocalyptic self-destructive trends, they can expect to meet a similar fate to that of One-Eye when he passively offers himself to hostile Amerindians. Aside from being an exquisite work of bloody martial art, Valhalla Rising features an important Odinic philosophy of the warrior spirit that can only bring strength to the post-Christianized Europoid. Set to a score of ambient noise, Valhalla Rising, like a religious ceremony, is first and foremost, a work that is meant to be felt and wholly embraced by the viewer. If any film can inspire a person or a collective to go on the Wild Hunt, it is Valhalla Rising.

-Ty E