A Clockwork Orange

There's a fantastic film podcast entitled http://www.cinephobia-radio.com/ I listen to hosted by the estimable Stuart "FEEDBACK" Andrews of Rue Morgue Radio and magazine fame. FEEDBACK is in my humble opinion one of the more passionate, learned, witty and endearingly curmudgeonly voices in film criticism we have today. The reason I shamelessly plug his marvelous podcast as an introduction to this piece is because listening to it occasioned me revisiting the film in question. Well, that and drawing the parallel between Nolan and Kubrick. You see, FEEDBACK has an unhealthy amount of man love for Malcom McDowell in general and his performance as Alex DeLarge in particular and liberally peppers his show with soundbites from Clockwork's humble narrator. Of course I've long held Kubrick's Burgess adaptation in high regard (as I do all his films), but it had been years since I last watched it and hearing those brilliant quotes over and again forced me to rectify that. As for the Nolan/Kubrick comparison, if you bothered to read my orgiastic gushing over Inception you'd know that I believe that film to be the first perfect one of Nolan's thus far decade long career, whereas Kubrick made them perfectly for over 4 decades. Among other things, when I refer to something as Kubrickian, I also mean as obtaining or possessing elements of perfection.

Kubrick started his career as a photographer and his peerless propensity for shot composition no doubt stems from that. You can point to countless imagery throughout the lexicon of film history as being beautiful, evocative and metaphorical, but the way Kubrick filmed was nothing short of mathematical perfection and certainty. Be it the War Room in Dr. Strangelove or the bathroom in The Shining where Delbert Grady and Jack Torrance have their revelatory conversation (one of my favorite scenes EVER), Kubrick constructed each moment in his pictures so as to be able to stand up to every conceivable notion of geometric scrutiny. From his beloved rule of thirds to the chess master's patience and foresight with which he approached blocking his actors, the man understood the language of cinema in a way no other artist ever has or ever will. This vital component of his mastery is in many ways most readily evident in his creative pinnacle, 1971's A Clockwork Orange.

From the opening tracking shot at the milk bar to the closing, slow motion explosion of jovial coitus, the film is a nuclear blast rendered hypnotic trance through his assured control. In the hands of a lesser film maker, unifying the wildly varied tones and moral issues raised in the piece would undoubtedly lead to disastrous self parody. Kubrick however, holds this volatile hand grenade of a film in his palm as it explodes and doesn't even blink. Its visceral depiction of a generation gone mad with destructive lust and unfocused hate and the despicable measures to control it by duplicitous authority is as unsettling as it is prescient. No small feat for a motion picture nearly 40 years old.


As much as I could go on about the meticulous bliss of the visuals, the thing that struck me most this viewing was indeed the performances. FEEDBACK is dead on with his McDowell/Alex preoccupation. It is damn near without compare the most commanding lead performance ever committed to celluloid. Voice over narration is often seen as a cheat, but the way it's employed and performed here is pure charisma and total necessity. Alex savors his thoughts so deliciously that we can't help but get caught up in his worldview, which is a dangerous spot to put the audience in and in truth the whole point of the film. To compliment his melodious voice, McDowell brings a lithe, playful physicality to the role that demonstrates impish childishness underscoring the viciousness of his more reprehensible actions. The moment when he's dropped off for the Ludovico treatment by the head jailer and does that gloriously exaggerated goosestep and jump stop kills me every time. The prim placement of his hands when he discovers Mr. Deltoid lurking in his parents room is priceless. McDowell stomps through every frame of the film like the acting giant he is with supreme confidence and a knowing wink. Truthfully, the only way to describe his indelible essay on youthful maliciousness is gorgeousness and gorgeousity made flesh.

I would be remiss if I didn't also point out in passing the contribution made by Patrick Magee as Mr. Alexander, the writer who is mercilessly beaten and whose wife is raped by Alex and his droogs at the beginning of the film only to resurface in a physically and mentally degraded form in the pivotal sequence of the final act. It is the only instance of the film where McDowell is upstaged and Magee is so over the top, yet true to the nature of his character, it is literally hard to watch... but in a very good way. I'm dead serious here, Patrick Magee is absolutely terrifying in this film! To understand what I'm talking about, pay special attention to the shot of him after a beaten Alex is sent off to bathe and he fidgets in his wheelchair. Magee somehow, despite all laws of physics and reason, manages to wordlessly convey roughly 432 conflicting emotions and thoughts in a scant 6 seconds. It's absolutely breathtaking and I'm a little shocked more mention isn't made of his deliriously off kilter presence in the film.

Which brings me back to Kubrick. Much is made of his perceived cold, clinical, detached style. I've read and heard numerous assertions that he makes films for the mind and not the heart. I gently advise all who hold that belief to re-watch A Clockwork Orange. The performances are full of more heart and humor than any other film I can imagine. This is clearly Kubrick's influence at work. Yes, the performers are top notch, but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see the connection between the meta-absurdity of Dr. Strangelove and the appalling self reflexivity of the show stopping Singing in the Rain home invasion that defines Clockwork's intent.

A Clockwork Orange stands as the ultimate filmic treatise on the human animals proclivity for violent destruction and how our neurotic self awareness colors the way we deal with, condemn and ultimately ignore it. It is the cinematic forbear of similarly incendiary works such as Fight Club and Natural Born Killers. It is a film that transcends its time while steadfastly being of it.

The real success of Inception

Christopher Nolan's latest film Inception, was a success. I'm not speaking artistically or financially, even though it is undoubtedly both. I am instead referring to the films hidden agenda cleverly disguised by the subterfuge of its narrative. I believe that the aim of the film and its preternaturally gifted film maker was to plant not just ideas in the viewers mind, but a renewed penchant for thinking and coming to our own conclusions regarding our chosen entertainments meaning and subtext.

It goes without saying that this has been a relatively bleak summer. Even Toy Story 3, with its stunning, maw of hell incinerator sequence, was essentially a tiresome retread of its previous installment. Blockbusters have come into theaters, made some quick dough, then exited the financial stratosphere as quickly as our collective conscience. Nothing has stuck. Sure, I enjoyed Predators, Splice and even Prince of Persia to a certain degree, but nothing has really blown me away or made me reassess the nature of film as an artistic medium. I've been vastly more interested in reading tallies on BoxOfficeMojo.com than I have been in studying reviews or critical essays. I've been pinning my hopes on Inception, and now, after seeing it twice, both times on an IMAX screen, I can say without reservation that my expectations have been met, turned on their heads and summarily surpassed.

I'll stop here and give the customary spoiler warning. I'm going to assume if you're reading this, you've seen the film. I will be discussing personal interpretations of the films story and events, not to mention hearsay and conjecture regarding the Director's impetus and intent behind creating it. Let me clearly state that this will be based on conclusions I have made, not necessarily on actual facts or truths. To paraphrase Ricky from Trailer Park Boys, I'm not a journalist, I'm a conversationalist. So, as the Joker from another Nolan masterpiece said, "Here... we... go..."

Inception is and is about more things than any film in recent memory. On the surface, it is about how we perceive our reality and it's about guilt and catharsis. But, like the multiple, ever deeper layers of consciousness the characters go through during the stunning final sequence, it is about a myriad many other things as well. The second sub textual layer concerns itself with the gambit between artist and audience. It is about the unspoken agreement between an entertainer and those who wish to be entertained. It is about our willingness (or unwillingness) to turn over the reins of our own imagination to an outside consult (substitute Nolan as the Director here, or, as portrayed in the film, Dicaprio as Cillian Murphy's subconscious security chief). The third sub textual layer represents how we choose to fill the construct provided us. What sort of denouement will we come to? In the film, Cillian Murphy had a deep psychological scar stemming from his unresolved issues with his father, so when thrown into a highly entertaining snowmobile siege on a Bond villain secret lair, he finds his old man in the vault and proceeds to pour his daddy problems and yearning for love and respect into the scenario. This is the heart of why we go to films, we put ourselves in the protagonists (or sometimes antagonists) shoes so as to experience the power, love or resolution that so often evades us in waking life.

The more I thought about the film in the day after I first saw it, I started to question if the whole thing might not be a dream, which would render whether or not the spinning top toppled at the end a moot point. I believe not only is that not a cheat, it's a brilliant approach to telling the story. The point of the film isn't if it's a dream or not. It might be a dream, it might not be. My personal interpretation is that Dicaprio's character of Cobb is actually an elderly man who has recently lost his wife and the film that plays out is nothing more than a rambling dream he has in order to deal with that loss on a subconscious level. It's all spelled out by Saito and Cobb repeatedly intoning the phrase about being an old man full of regret, waiting to die alone. It's clear as day when, near the end, Moll reminds Cobb that he dreamed they'd grow old together and he replies that they already did, and we see flashbacks of an elderly couple walking through a brightly lit city. But, as I previously stated, it doesn't matter if my interpretation is correct, because all interpretations are correct. Nolan led me into an engaging dream world, and I took out of it that Moll and Cobb lived a long happy life together, most likely because I am married and would like the same thing for myself and my wife. Others will deposit their own psyche into the dream safe and take from it what they will and they will not be any more or less correct than me.

I think Inception is THAT film for Christopher Nolan. The one where he brought it all together that will be looked back upon as the moment he went from being the dude who could make smarter than average superhero movies to the preeminent artist in his field. Film is the most important art form in the history of human civilization. It encompasses all variegated forms of art into one narrative medium and reaches the most people of every age, gender, political affiliation, ethnicity, geographical location and religious belief. It is the apotheosis of what mankind can do to express his or her understanding of the predicament, joy and peril of consciousness and Christopher Nolan happens to be THE best person in the world at it right now. He makes movies that attain both critical and popular acclaim in a way previously unheard of. Thank god he's only 39!

You could pick out any one element to focus on and be blown away by it for the films two and half hour run time. You could spend the whole movie simply studying the cinematography of Wally Pfister, or the sumptuous production design and architecture, or the gorgeous costume design, or the positively unreal Hans Zimmer score, or the superlative stunt work, or the innovative and jaw dropping computer effects work, or the pitch perfect cast, or the mind bending, yet always understandable script and Direction. The point is, there isn't in my estimation even one weak spot in this whole film. Some people point to the coldness of Nolan's approach, the clinical detachment he imbues his films with as his weakness. I disagree. I think that Nolan is a Director who overpowers you with craft to be sure, but he gives you the option to be affected emotionally by the film. He doesn't tell you what to react to and how by manipulative, time tested techniques and editing parlor tricks. That's for Spielberg and Zemeckis and the like. He gives you the thought without you knowing it. He's a film maker who not only believes in the subtle beauty of Inception, but expertly practices it with every film he creates. He allows us to do the thinking and deciding and is such an elegant gentleman about it, he sees fit to make sure our surroundings are lush and agreeable. Then he stands out of the way and lets it happen as opposed to forcing every laugh, sigh, chuckle and tear out of us as with a crowbar. He is a new generation of auteur, and for those of us who place a premium on the art forms importance and meaning, a beacon to light the way.

Twilight

I've known for a while that it was coming. I've winced with nervous dread many a time as my wife scanned through the DVR, looking for something to watch in the interest of making room for yet another Real Housewives of wherever. It has stared back at me from it's spot near the bottom of the alphabetized queue... solemn, unmovable and implacable. TWILIGHT. Being as that my better half has been subjected to sitting through countless Fulci chunkblowers, not to mention the innumerable brain dead slashers and morally questionable Italian cannibal epics, I feel it only fair for me to occasionally tread more conventional waters. But this whole Twilight thing has always irked me. Not for some supposed stake of horror superiority or being able to espouse that "vampires don't sparkle, man!". I simply have long been of the belief that it's something not aimed at me, so why would I bother complaining about or endlessly, breathlessly railing against it. I am neither the gender or age targeted by the brutal media campaign being waged on today's teen girls with the precision and force of Rommel leading the 7th Panzer division into France by skirting the Maginot line.

My point is, I was sort of just hoping they would release all 18 films (or however many they pad this out to) and the Twilight phenomena could run its course without me having to get my eyeballs dirty. No such luck though, not for this pop culture glutton and admitted media savant. So, with much recalcitrance, I braced myself as my wife hit play and the "saga" began to unfold.

I won't make any bones about it, the first Twilight film is utterly horrible. It's cloying, forced teen drama is absolutely embarrassing to behold. It's less a film than a collection of overheated, desirous glances between two of the most vapid leads imaginable. Even if, like me, you'd read enough in the media to know what to expect, it's still somewhat shocking to experience firsthand how heavy handed the nature in which the ham fisted narrative is presented. When Robert Pattinson's "vampire" character Edward Cullen shows his true, sparkling form to Kirsten Stewart's Bella and says something to the effect of "See, I'm a monster!" my wife and I broke into gales of incredulous laughter. But, as the film laboriously plows through such moments of ass clenching exposition, a strange thing begins to happen. One becomes inured to the inanity of it all due to the brazenly dumb earnestness of its presentation. I respect that this film set out to hit an extraordinarily large target and managed to verily obliterate said target through sheer simple mindedness. Despite an admittedly vast tonal gulf between Twilight and the best of my favorite horror films, they manage to do the most important thing that films of their varied ilk can do. They succeed in giving their intended audience exactly what they went to the theater to see.

So, imagine my surprise when I heard the words, "Well, let's rent the next one On demand and see if it gets any better. I guess I kind of want to see the werewolf stuff." escape my lips! Turns out, the second film, New Moon, is vastly superior. The romance becomes a love triangle when one of Bella's friends hits puberty and, with the help of an ancient family curse (and no small amount of steroids), becomes a potential suitor. For you see, he can offer Bella protection without having to turn her into an undead, soulless vampire. This is the Team Edward/Team Jacob stuff you've heard so much about. That's all there is to it friends. Twilight is nothing more than a tale of a young girl coming of age, torn between two men and the decision of choosing what's best for her or choosing what she wants most. Not exactly Videodrome, but it's serviceable and in all honesty exactly the amount of subtext this sort of story needs. New Moon also sees the leads and supporting characters taking on more dimension and the inclusion of some well shot and thrilling (albeit quite tame) action set pieces doesn't hurt either.

Then, as if driven by some completest compulsion, I went with the little lady to the new chapter Eclipse today. The third, and best, of the Twilight films is Directed by David Slade of 30 Days of Night and Hard Candy fame and his signature visual intensity and assured hand with heightened drama between 2 characters in extreme closeup fits the series like a glove. The dynamic between Jacob and Edward as they vie for Bella is dealt with a refreshing amount of humor, heart and intelligence. There is one scene in particular where the 2 monster Romeo's have a measured, thoughtful debate while Bella sleeps that had me hanging on every word and weighing the merits of each of their assertions. It's a quiet, well played scene that engages the viewer and actually lends weight and meaning to the proceedings. The final fight of this film that plays out in a wide open field between giant Wolves and lithe Vampires is exciting beyond belief and void of the insipid editing that robs most current action films of their intensity. As the film concluded, I found myself honestly, earnestly and dumbly looking forward to the next installment. A feat most modern film series cannot lay claim to.

Much, too much has been made of the throwback chivalry and wait until you're married message. I've never read the Stephanie Myers source material, nor do I intend to, so I can't vouch for the validity of the Mormon brainwashing claims laid at its feet. What I do know, is that in an era where young girls are shown sex tape vixens as role models for success and fame and encouraged to "go wild" in the interests of providing lascivious grown men with a tangible porno mag for a partner, Bella is a revelation as a lead female character. She doesn't dress like a Suicide Girl or down shots of Patron trying to win the heart of washed up glam rockers. She's trying to develop a real, lasting relationship with a man whose only wish is to protect and cherish her. I've heard a lot of hullabaloo about a recent film entitled Deadgirl, in which 2 outcast teen boys find a zombie girl chained to the wall of an abandoned factory and take turns raping her for the films duration. So, please excuse me if I find something touching and dare I say important about a film that millions of teen aged boys are going to see that models and glorifies the apparently antiquated and passe notion of treating women with respect and defending their honor at all costs. Edward and Jacob are 2 dudes any father would happily entrust their daughter's well being with, and the fact that they're presented as such powerful figures is a commendable and refreshing choice.

Horror fans of my age need not hate this series of films. They do nothing disrespectful to denigrate the mystique of the Werewolf or Vampire archetype. So they sparkle, so what? We still have Reggie Nalder's Barlow, Oldman's Vlad and Schreck's Nosferatu to keep us up at night. There's no need to spit venom at a group of teen girls enjoying being caught up in a world that appeals to them. I left behind the playground tactics 20 some years ago and to continually harp on these silly, fanciful flicks without even bothering to sit through them smacks of unwarranted bullying. I'll gladly go on the record as saying the Twilight films are infinitely better than the Underworld ones and a billion times better than those interminable Harry Potter atrocities with their suffocating production design and the bludgeoning torpor they induce in the viewer. So yeah, lighten up a bit fellas. I'd even go so far as to say, sparkle a bit.

You hear that Vitus? Even the phone is dead.

Ok, so horror is in the dumper right now. It feels as if even the most ardent of fans have shuffled on to greener pastures. Message boards are tumbleweed strewn ghost towns, fan created audio shows are either taking breaks or struggling to put together content and theaters are a barren wasteland as far as straight genre cinema is concerned. So what is Shloggs up to and watching you might (probably not) ask.

Well, I've been thoroughly enjoying my bluray player for one. I picked up Kill Bill 1 and 2, Apocalypto, AVP, Commando, Predator ultimate hunter edition and the Pirates of the Caribbean box set all on the superior format that is bluray. The Kill Bill films look and sound phenomenal and should be in the collection of any film enthusiast. Volume 1 is pure cinematic heaven. It's probably my favorite QT joint for the simple fact that it boasts his finest shot composition and easily is the best paced of all his work. The 2nd Volume gets bogged down by painfully repetitive dialog and unnecessary sidetracks, most notably that fucking godawful Larry Bishop scene that threatens to go on for an eternity and derail whatever languid momentum he had going. I did appreciate it more this viewing on blu though.

What really blew my mind though was The Pirates box set. Sure, these films are ridiculously involved and perhaps a bit too cutesy for their own good from time to time, but for my money, they feature hands down the most impressive special effects, costumes and set design ever put to film. They should have called the films Production Value 1, 2 and 3. Davy Jones and his crew are so grotesque and monstrous it must be seen in hi-def to be believed. Bill Nighy should have got some sort of a special mo-cap Oscar for what he brought to that character. The films require a great deal of attention due to their convoluted plot lines and the ever shifting allegiances of the many, many characters and this approach to storytelling lends itself quite well to home viewing. I can see myself revisiting this series at least once a year for the rest of my life, much like Jackson's impeccable LOTR trilogy. If you've either never seen the Pirates films or saw them once and weren't impressed, I implore you to give them another look, especially on blu.

I checked out Predators last night and am pleased to give it the Shloggsy seal of approval. It felt like it was 1987 all over again sitting in that theater last night. So, not all is bleak. Don't worry my lascivious brethren, Autumn isn't that far away and before you know it, we'll all be deluged with bluray releases of classic films, theatrical joints of varying quality and all night movie marathons with our buddies. Sometimes a break is good to cleanse the palette, but this is getting rigoddamndiculous!