I really enjoyed the first half of this, but I feel the last half was way too predictable and standard "girl-gets-revenge" fare. Everything was set up nicely, the acting was good, especially the guy playing the security guard (with only a few over-the-top moments from him.) The elvis bit was fun and creepy at the same time, lending the bad guy some depth, but not too much. Funny how she was going to let him live even after all he'd put her through until his true colors came out and he called her a "stupid fucking cunt." Works every time with most women.
It really pulls you in, even when the bad guy is revealed very early in the movie. That's a move you can only make if the character is well-developed and acted, which for the most part was. But past the mid-way point everything becomes inevitable and you're just waiting for the pieces to fall in place.
First half and Thomas' character-- B+
Second half- CWorth a rent for sure.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Friday, April 17, 2009
Top 5 Horror Films
1. Black Christmas(1974)-- There are few false scares, plenty of disorienting camera angles, and a killer who is never fully explained. Some logical flaws in script, but otherwise the characters are written very sharply, creating characters that dont seem trite, flawed but real human beings. The strain of not knowing who the killer is, or even whether or not it is solvable based on evidence within the film itself, makes this movie a private torment for me. It's a puzzle that can never be solved; truly the stuff of nightmares.
2. Suspiria-- From the frenetic score to the wild pulsing nightmareishly colored sets, this movie pushed the boundries of what a horror film can be like few others. Murder becomes intricate art, for better or worse.
2. Suspiria-- From the frenetic score to the wild pulsing nightmareishly colored sets, this movie pushed the boundries of what a horror film can be like few others. Murder becomes intricate art, for better or worse.
3. Halloween-- Too bad you've seen it too many times for it to still be scary, but this film is a blueprint for how to manipulate and horrify audiences.
4. The Exorcist-- The slow, agonizing transformation of Regan MacNeil is the essence of horror. The dread almost oozes off the screen. And it's a long ass movie.
5. (will shock and suprise) When A Stranger Calls Back-- This is the sequel to When a Stranger Calls, which is a decent horror flick in its own right. But the sequel was for me far more terrifying, and had a lot in common with Black Christmas(1974), in that the killer is so void and empty of personality he reeks of the abyss. He is a ventrilloquist, a sham of a performer, a nonentity. This was a made for TV movie and has nary a curse word to boot. And still manages to be a very effective fright film.
Recently watched The Wicker Man again, and may have to move it up on the list to the 5th spot, bur right now Ill give it an honorable mention. Mini-review soon...
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
The Wild Bunch
Every few years I throw, The Wild Bunch, into my video player (I believe I first viewed it on VHS), just to see if Im still human I guess. In a bit over 2 and 1/2 hours this movie packs in more truth about human psychology and ideas of justice, honor and hope than any other film, with the possible exception of the Godfather I and II. It is not a great Western, in fact it is a movie depicting the death of the western, muses over what it was and what it could have been and what it will never be. It is not a movie dealing in strict realism. These events could never really happen as depicted. All the scenes are set up like a chess problem, not meant to show an actual flow of true events but to show, given the crude limitations of reality, a higher arrangement of beauty.
Friday, April 10, 2009
Horror Notes
1) A good working definition of horror could well be: that which remains after all attempts to "draw the line" have been exhausted.
2) When a person's sense of justice is satisfied, this is in indirect proportion to the amount of horror involved.
3) The universe/god does not draw the line on that catastrophic and hypothetical asteroid following a direct path toward earth, hellbent on our removal from existense.
4) My mother did not draw the line on the overwhelming volume of mental suffering her suicide would cause her family.
5) Someone else's tragedy is another's movie of the week, to varying degrees of intensity, depending on your cable network of choice.
--How the reader or watcher's imagination works with the medium presented, is the key factor to being truly horrified.. In other words, horror is almost entirely personal. There are aspects we share, if you give credence to jungian archetypes, but ultimately we color our own world with our very uniquely tuned senses and memories of past events, and horror films and novels will always be sifted through this personal mind set.As for the "boo" factor, it can be cliche, and it is in most horror movies, but certainly the most stand-out horror films use it in new ways-- something carefully planned (like Regan McNiel doing the spider walk down the stairs, truly creepy moment in The Exorcist)-- with well-prepared backstory, atmosphere and score. Something truly shocking rather than this overused one: "Oh it was just the cat!" We briefly recover, then, the killer strikes.
2) When a person's sense of justice is satisfied, this is in indirect proportion to the amount of horror involved.
3) The universe/god does not draw the line on that catastrophic and hypothetical asteroid following a direct path toward earth, hellbent on our removal from existense.
4) My mother did not draw the line on the overwhelming volume of mental suffering her suicide would cause her family.
5) Someone else's tragedy is another's movie of the week, to varying degrees of intensity, depending on your cable network of choice.
--How the reader or watcher's imagination works with the medium presented, is the key factor to being truly horrified.. In other words, horror is almost entirely personal. There are aspects we share, if you give credence to jungian archetypes, but ultimately we color our own world with our very uniquely tuned senses and memories of past events, and horror films and novels will always be sifted through this personal mind set.As for the "boo" factor, it can be cliche, and it is in most horror movies, but certainly the most stand-out horror films use it in new ways-- something carefully planned (like Regan McNiel doing the spider walk down the stairs, truly creepy moment in The Exorcist)-- with well-prepared backstory, atmosphere and score. Something truly shocking rather than this overused one: "Oh it was just the cat!" We briefly recover, then, the killer strikes.
TransSiberian movie review
Transsiberian: why no hyphen or space in the title? seems odd. All in all I liked this movie, although not as much as Roger Ebert. For his take, check out:
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080814/REVIEWS/808140304
Some very good acting here, except for maybe Woody Harrleson, who played his character a bit over-the-top. Still not bad, however. A special nod for Emily Mortimer’s performance. Having not really read the movie description on the back of the DVD, I was pleasantly suprised at several of the plot twists. We can never really pinpoint the villians until really the very end. Grinko is cast as a perennial good cop, but as we learn in the end, has a bit of a dark side as well.
The most interesting character in the movie, is Jessie. This movie is successful mostly because of her, and the fine performance of Mortimer. The scene at the condemned church is the highlight of the film, the most unexpected, and in a weird way, disconnected, scene in the entire movie. In terms of the plotline, this extra bit of drama is not really necessary. And one of the problems I find with this movie is her ultimate redemption from her actions there at the end of the movie, when Carlos’s past is revealed.
Even though Jessie blatantly went overboard in murdering Carlos, her womans’ intuition is proven just and correct, for it just so happens Carlos is a convicted sexual offender. Jessie clearly overreacted to Carlos’s actions, but she just so happened to have the right instinct there. Seems a bit too cute. Maybe he was going to rape her, maybe not.
Another minor quibble– and I understand with movies you have to sometimes suspend disbelief– is with Carlos’s body not being found by the cops. They knew in well enough time that something went down at the church, and would have had plenty of means to discover the body. If not, then what about the wolves? Grade: B+
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080814/REVIEWS/808140304
Some very good acting here, except for maybe Woody Harrleson, who played his character a bit over-the-top. Still not bad, however. A special nod for Emily Mortimer’s performance. Having not really read the movie description on the back of the DVD, I was pleasantly suprised at several of the plot twists. We can never really pinpoint the villians until really the very end. Grinko is cast as a perennial good cop, but as we learn in the end, has a bit of a dark side as well.
The most interesting character in the movie, is Jessie. This movie is successful mostly because of her, and the fine performance of Mortimer. The scene at the condemned church is the highlight of the film, the most unexpected, and in a weird way, disconnected, scene in the entire movie. In terms of the plotline, this extra bit of drama is not really necessary. And one of the problems I find with this movie is her ultimate redemption from her actions there at the end of the movie, when Carlos’s past is revealed.
Even though Jessie blatantly went overboard in murdering Carlos, her womans’ intuition is proven just and correct, for it just so happens Carlos is a convicted sexual offender. Jessie clearly overreacted to Carlos’s actions, but she just so happened to have the right instinct there. Seems a bit too cute. Maybe he was going to rape her, maybe not.
Another minor quibble– and I understand with movies you have to sometimes suspend disbelief– is with Carlos’s body not being found by the cops. They knew in well enough time that something went down at the church, and would have had plenty of means to discover the body. If not, then what about the wolves? Grade: B+
The Bridge
A few weeks ago I watched a documentary called The Bridge. And of course it made me think of my mother, and her own bizarre, and violent, suicide. Here in this film we see a series of sad souls seeking some desperate and morbid last poetic impulse in their lives– who come to this scenic site (indeed most beautifully captured in its shrouds of fog and brilliant sun-lit hues) as final tourists on our mortal plane. Maybe they chose this place not only for its beauty but also for its popularity. Finally these lost, dejected souls can join a club that will never renounce their membership. Here they will forever belong.
This is reality television at its finest. Our hearts are churned up with emotion while at the same time our voyeuristic needs are thoroughly satisfied. This is definitely high brow oprah winfreyesque intrusional fair, only far more understated, better crafted, and dare I say, more sincere. There is in its choppy editting a conscious effort to be unsentimental, and to honestly seek out the reasons, varied and conflicted, why people choose self-annililation. Of course mental illness nearly always is the focal point, the dark heart of the act. These are folks that just can’t handle anymore the demands of cold reality.These are folks who continually lay their own roadblocks to recovery. Their world becomes an unnavigable maze. It’s time to jump ship.
My mother’s suicide could not have been more different than for instance Gene Sprague’s. He’s the black maned Maldoror-type we see sculpted by the wind, pacing back and forth on Golden Gate and certainly, to be fair to the filmmakers, is not an obvious threat for imminent suicide. Of all the people filmed taking the glorious plunge, his is the most elaborate fall, the most self-consciously staged. This man had art in his blood. Somehow he failed to find his medium. Truthfully, and what turns out to be the biggest failure of this movie, we never learn a damn thing about this man. He had plenty of friends. But still felt isolated.We never see his face, no we don’t know if he was burdened with a ugly or attractive face (these things can be vital to a person’s sanity). We are drawn into his mystery and forced to feel deep pity for him.But do we really know him? Maybe he did something so horrible he couldn’t live with himself. Have we been conned into feeling an inauthentic emotion for someone we never knew, nor will ever know?
When I was a boy we lived in the Bay Area, and one weekend afternoon our family went on one of our daylong driving trips to some scenic place or other in northern California. All those beautiful colors come back to me sometimes, haunt me. Split pea soup in a roadside restaurant, bare hills so yellow and lakes so intensely blue you think you were in a disney animation movie.
But this trip Im recalling now was to go across the Golden Gate Bridge. No one wanted to do it, but me. I begged till my mother and step-father relented. As we drew closer my mother begin to show her nervousness. She wanted to turn around. She had a deep phobia of crossing bridges. But usually we crossed them anyway. But this bridge, with its red imposing massiveness, was too much for her. We had to turn around. She wouldn’t let us cross it.
I’ve never crossed the Golden Gate Bridge. It lives like a fairy tale still in my mind.
Short Movie Reviews
Tenebre– 2nd time watching this, and still not sure if I like it or not. It lacks the visuals of a Suspiria or Deep Red (a movie Im trying to get off Blockbuster Online but apparently I have to wait 100 years), or Inferno. There is a fine twist in the end, even though I partly suspected it all along. There are some great murder scenes as well: Peter Neal’s fiance getting her hand chopped off, then spraying blood all over the wall, or the escapade with the vicious dog chasing the girl all the way into the killer’s lair. Plenty of throats getting slit, and even a fake throat slashing in the end. Another perhaps weak link is the score, which may be just a matter of opinion anyway. I absolutely love Goblin’s work in Suspiria and Deep Red, adding even more frenzied layers to those movies, but in Tenebre, the music just didn’t seem as inspired to me. Grade: B-
The Orphanage– This movie is insanely good, utterly captivating, almost a ghost story about absent ghosts. It’s more about paranoia and guilt than about the supernatural. But you dont know that until the end. Ghosts haunt for sure, but maybe all they are are memories, echoes from the past. Awaiting dissolution. The motif of the treasure hunt is subtly used throughout this film to highlight the idea that ghosts speak in riddles. And that clues in the game lead to answers, and that answers lead to revelations. In this case, the revelation is as poignantly sad as anything I can remember in a film, although my memory isn’t world-class. From our human perspective, only melancholy is the truly honest bend to the lense. Grade: A
The Spiral Staircase– saw this on TCM the other night, without much hope for a spectacular viewing experience for a horror movie made in 1945. But I was somewhat suprised here, although I can’t say I was utterly impressed with the film. It definitely had its moments. And might as well be the missing link from film noir/B&W horror classics to the giallo and slasher genres to come much later. Although no outright slashings occur (the method of murder is audience-friendly strangulation), there is a considerable number of brutal murders here, and all of them, women. Had to of been a milestone for American film. {will check to see if not a British made movie} I know that M, by Fritz Lang came ealier, and dealt with a serial killer. And i havent seen the hitchcock movie about jack the ripper. As one of the hosts for The Essentials mentioned, “Inky Black” helps to make this movie effective. But also the generalized creepiness of the cottage, the neverending thunderstorm, the almost goofily psychic old woman, who senses that one of her own sons is the killer. The characters are nicely drawn and devoid– mostly– of melodrama. The quirky Mrs. Oates is a nice minor character, who has some delightful drunken moments. The red herrings are laid out like clockwork, but the killer’s identity was way too easily discovered. And thank god for small miracles: Helen got her voice back! Grade: B
Blow Out-- Recently watched this again after many, many years, and I have to say, it may be De Palma's best. Stylistically, it definitely owes something to Dario Argento, plus the story hinges on an incredible coincidence, that being Travolta's character being on that bridge making sound recordings at the exact time of the botched frame up of the Governor of Pennsylvannia, who is running for the Presidency. What was meant to be just a way to ruin his reputation, turns out to be an assassination.The gunman (Lithgow) only shoots out the tire of the car as a means for the crooked reporter (Franz) to get some film showing the politician with a phony prostitute (Allen). What starts as a small crime, distasteful certainly, but not utterly diabolical, grows into something much more, thanks to the inate pyschopathic tendencies of Lithgow's character. It all reminds me of the hijinks of Fargo, where one man's greed and foolishness escalates by uncontrollable forces into multiple murder. And the ending is perfect noir or giallo fair, with the B-slasher film Jack Terry is sound man for finally getting its perfect scream, caught on wiretap during Sally's murder near the end of the film.
Blue Velvet-- How many get that this movie is a parody of happy ever after endings? It plies you with the stench of sexual and criminal darkness for nearly 2 hours then hits you with the love triumphs over all ending, the cute return to the same images the film started with. The suburban platitudes of blue skies, robins in the air, hope for all. Whether the anger is intentional or not, I dont know, but maybe Lynch is a sentimental cornball after all. Two quotes are the heart of this movie. One is from Frank Booth addressed to Jeffrey Beaumont:"You're the same as me." And one from the aunt at the end ofthe movie: "I could never eat a bug." There's truth to the first and falsity in the second.
The Orphanage– This movie is insanely good, utterly captivating, almost a ghost story about absent ghosts. It’s more about paranoia and guilt than about the supernatural. But you dont know that until the end. Ghosts haunt for sure, but maybe all they are are memories, echoes from the past. Awaiting dissolution. The motif of the treasure hunt is subtly used throughout this film to highlight the idea that ghosts speak in riddles. And that clues in the game lead to answers, and that answers lead to revelations. In this case, the revelation is as poignantly sad as anything I can remember in a film, although my memory isn’t world-class. From our human perspective, only melancholy is the truly honest bend to the lense. Grade: A
The Spiral Staircase– saw this on TCM the other night, without much hope for a spectacular viewing experience for a horror movie made in 1945. But I was somewhat suprised here, although I can’t say I was utterly impressed with the film. It definitely had its moments. And might as well be the missing link from film noir/B&W horror classics to the giallo and slasher genres to come much later. Although no outright slashings occur (the method of murder is audience-friendly strangulation), there is a considerable number of brutal murders here, and all of them, women. Had to of been a milestone for American film. {will check to see if not a British made movie} I know that M, by Fritz Lang came ealier, and dealt with a serial killer. And i havent seen the hitchcock movie about jack the ripper. As one of the hosts for The Essentials mentioned, “Inky Black” helps to make this movie effective. But also the generalized creepiness of the cottage, the neverending thunderstorm, the almost goofily psychic old woman, who senses that one of her own sons is the killer. The characters are nicely drawn and devoid– mostly– of melodrama. The quirky Mrs. Oates is a nice minor character, who has some delightful drunken moments. The red herrings are laid out like clockwork, but the killer’s identity was way too easily discovered. And thank god for small miracles: Helen got her voice back! Grade: B
Blow Out-- Recently watched this again after many, many years, and I have to say, it may be De Palma's best. Stylistically, it definitely owes something to Dario Argento, plus the story hinges on an incredible coincidence, that being Travolta's character being on that bridge making sound recordings at the exact time of the botched frame up of the Governor of Pennsylvannia, who is running for the Presidency. What was meant to be just a way to ruin his reputation, turns out to be an assassination.The gunman (Lithgow) only shoots out the tire of the car as a means for the crooked reporter (Franz) to get some film showing the politician with a phony prostitute (Allen). What starts as a small crime, distasteful certainly, but not utterly diabolical, grows into something much more, thanks to the inate pyschopathic tendencies of Lithgow's character. It all reminds me of the hijinks of Fargo, where one man's greed and foolishness escalates by uncontrollable forces into multiple murder. And the ending is perfect noir or giallo fair, with the B-slasher film Jack Terry is sound man for finally getting its perfect scream, caught on wiretap during Sally's murder near the end of the film.
Blue Velvet-- How many get that this movie is a parody of happy ever after endings? It plies you with the stench of sexual and criminal darkness for nearly 2 hours then hits you with the love triumphs over all ending, the cute return to the same images the film started with. The suburban platitudes of blue skies, robins in the air, hope for all. Whether the anger is intentional or not, I dont know, but maybe Lynch is a sentimental cornball after all. Two quotes are the heart of this movie. One is from Frank Booth addressed to Jeffrey Beaumont:"You're the same as me." And one from the aunt at the end ofthe movie: "I could never eat a bug." There's truth to the first and falsity in the second.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)