Black Swan

It was immensely beneficial for me to have watched The Wrestler for the first time a couple weeks ago before going into this. They're flip sides to the cinema of personal holocaust gender coin with The Wrestler wallowing in a lunkheaded "can't teach an old dog new tricks" masculinity and Black Swan pulverizing the audience with its visceral feminine emotional instability rooted in crippling body image and self worth issues. Aronofsky is clearly coming into his own as an individualistic auteur with these films, but I don't know if I find them as emotionally devastating or technically fascinating as PI or Requiem for a Dream. The less said about The Fountain, the better. What I'm getting at, is that judging by the critical acclaim and box office his last 2 films have garnered, Aronofsky is moving beyond the precocious, blistering genius of his early work into a stately, masterful confidence. He's attaining a most impressive level of consistency and clarity of vision. Whereas that makes his work more palatable, in my estimation, it also makes it more predictable, and therefore, less interesting.

Don't get me wrong, Black Swan is a masterpiece and certainly one of the best films of the year (definitely the best horror film of the year... more on that later). The pitch perfect casting pays off earth shaking dividends with uniformly excellent performances, especially from surefire Oscar winner Portman. The music, cinematography and costume design are all beyond reproach. It's just..... well, I guess I was expecting something more. It says a great deal how spoiled we as cinema enthusiasts are with the likes of Aronofsky, Edgar Wright, Fincher and the Coen Brothers all putting out a film every year or so that I could conceivably be let down by such a well made piece of art. Perhaps it was due to the proximity of my viewing of The Wrestler which gave it a sense of well fashioned redundancy. Perhaps it was because I recently watched my Criterion collection bluray of The Red Shoes and could see where the narrative framework was laid 62 years ago. During Black Swan, I kept flashing back to The Red Shoes and wondering why it is that film makers of a bygone era would tell an eerily similar story with a comparably sinister tone, yet imbue it with so much magic and wonder, while its modern counterpart would be mired in such oppressive mental illness. I also kept flashing to the Craig Scheffer starring Hellraiser Inferno with its constant lapsing into waking nightmare imagery and familiar "is THIS reality?" territory, and that, my friends, is no film to be brought to mind during a screening of an awards season darling.

In any case, I will gladly state that Black Swan is the single greatest horror film of 2010. It reaches a ferocious fever pitch of spine chilling malevolence for the last third that refuses to release you from its death grip. You feel positively violated and worn out by the end and that is surely the signifier of a great film. A great film, but not necessarily an interesting one. After having my eyeballs and intellect raped by Gulliver's Travels two nights prior, it was a welcome respite from slapdash storytelling and shitty, murky 3-D. I was pleased to see this in a mainstream theater with crisp, stunning projection and a harrowing sound system punishing me for the duration. I can no longer abide art house theaters with their sub-par accommodations and over priced tickets. Judging from how well Black Swan, The Fighter and True Grit are performing in the face of Focker failure and Jack Black's box office belly flop, this appears to be a refreshing trend we can look forward to further capitalizing on. Who knows, maybe in a couple of months I'll be sitting down to an IMAX screening of Tetsuo: Bulletman. Probably not, but a misanthrope can dream can't he?

Antichrist

I just finished watching the Criterion Collection Bluray of Lars VonTrier's Antichrist. I read the Ian Christie essay and watched most of the supplementary features contained within the sterling set to round out my understanding and appreciation of this work of art. For over a year now, I've been hearing tall tales of what an endurance test the film was and how unrelenting its concerted effort to shock and punish whatever audience was brave or self-flagellating enough to watch it. I've heard a great deal about its misogyny and misdirected hatefulness. Let me say, as someone with a strong stomach and consistently well fed appetite for disturbing cinema, all these hushed warnings and hyperbolic accusations are nothing more than reactionary balderdash.

Antichrist is a complicated film that challenges everyone who views it in a fashion unique to that particular individual based on their gender, relationship history, religious beliefs and ability to confront their own prejudices and pre-conceived notions. This is PRECISELY the function of art and the fact that VonTrier exorcised his own demons of anxiety and depression while crafting such an exquisitely beautiful and fascinating film makes his achievement all the more impressive and worthy. That it's reduced in reviews to "the movie with the genital mutilation scene" is indicative of the prurient streak in highbrow film criticism and the salacious nonsense of online blowhards (of whose ranks I suppose I must admit membership).

I detest plot recapping and infer those bothering to read this have seen it, so I'll just get to it. I find it hilarious that anyone can call a film this thoughtful misogynous with the glut of regressive romantic comedies and teen male wish fulfillment crowding screens both big and small. Women in America are ceaselessly objectified, degraded and dismissed on sitcoms, commercials, music videos and print ads without given the benefit of having a voice. Antichrist explores the roots of such ingrained disgust and conflicted lust. It shows how such a pervasive atmosphere of animosity can infect a woman's mind and reprogram it to hate and destroy.

The film turns the generally accepted parable of mother as the anthropomorphic representation of natures bounty into an inverse Edenic holocaust with Satan as the lord of the earth and progenitor of feminine fury. It's a terrifying and discomforting proposition to the men of the audience and Gainsbourg does indeed become an unstoppable villain by the end of the film. Her assault on his power totem with a wood block and subsequent proxy rape and binding of his leg are deep seated male fears, fully realized in a fashion both urgently potent and deceptively subtle. She strips him of his power in a bloody sexual assault and shackles him to prevent escape, something most men attempt when threatened by the ferocity of a woman's emotion. I, as I'm sure most men watching, felt genuine fear for the unpredictability of Dafoe's predicament and sensed a very real, very palpable threat from his jilted, mercurial counterpart.

This is testing the men in the audience to confront their castration fears, which are at the root of all male fear. It's the fear of loss of potency, the fear of imprisonment, the fear of imposed stagnation: it's the fear of death, plain and simple. It also forces us to confront our belief that women are overly emotional and preternaturally sensitive beings that we can somehow control and "put into a place". Dafoe's confident psychologist thinks he has all the answers and will set his injured birds wing so that she may fly again. But the damage is beyond his ken, as its roots are in the millenia of mistreatment and misdiagnosis at the hands of men such as him.

The women who see this film will no doubt have an entirely different take on it than I, so I won't even pretend to interpret it from their perspective. Perhaps I can encourage my wife to give it a viewing and glean from her her thoughts and impressions. There's so many possibilities and permutations, I feel this film will be dissected for years to come and my thoughts will grow and evolve with the passage of time and repeated viewings. One thing will never change though: This film is beauty of the highest order. There are sequences of unsettling violence to be sure, but there is also painterly use of slow motion photography so stunning and arresting I will never get the images out of my head. In time, I will have more to say, but for now, this brief missive must suffice. I needed to get the initial thoughts out of my head in an effort to begin processing the film and making room for more interpretations. So yeah, don't believe the hype, but in a good way.

Tron:Legacy

As you can probably tell if you read my last post, I've been hotly anticipating the release of Tron:Legacy in IMAX 3-D. I'm a sucker for monstrously expensive popcorn entertainment, especially the variety that envelops you in a fantastical world and manages to be emotionally satisfying (well, at least in a moderate sense) while also being visually thrilling. At this jaded stage in my life, it's of the utmost importance that when I spend 30$ for my son and myself to see a 4PM showing, I feel something. I want my breath to be taken away once or twice. I want to genuinely laugh. I want to grow to truly like characters and become invested in the success of their (admittedly ill defined) endeavors. I want tears to well up in my eyes at the overpowering sound and fury of the climax. I want to leave the theater feeling wrung out, yet wanting more. Tron:Legacy delivered on all these criteria.

I mean, I'll go sit through a Transformers movie, or any of these middling superhero properties Marvel is throwing at the back of the theater wall to see which will stick. I just probably won't like them due to the callous manner in which they ingratiate with blustery origin stories, crass, regressive humor and predictable iconography. I enjoy being entertained as much as I enjoy subtext hunting and navel gazing. Hell, I loved Prince of Persia and found Clash of the Titans to be a rollicking, shiny good time. I just need films like this to maintain a sense of wonder and relish in being transported to a time when I was young and wanted to be swept away in such fanciful stories. I'm a father now and the main joy of film for me is imparting the appreciation of it to my son as my father did with me. I'll never forget sitting next to my dad as the likes of Dune, T2, Predator, Robocop and a million others unspooled before my wide eyes. Seeing Tron with my son brought back those memories and fulfilled the next chapter in my cinematic circle of life.

I won't make this a review that endlessly, self-righteously complains about the incoherency of the script or hypothesizes about where the rewrites and re shoots came into play. I will say that I bought the Daft Punk soundtrack a week before the film came out and my son and I listened to it over and over, talking about our favorite tracks and guessing where they would feature in the movie. It was a great primer for the sleek, digital world of the film and it was an invaluable tool to open up the world of cinema to my son so he could understand that movies were a multi layered art form that brought to bear the talents of many artists, all working toward a shared goal utilizing their specific talents. The soundtrack is brilliant. On the IMAX it rumbled and pulsated and glided through my synapses and nervous system. It is the cold, detached funky heartbeat that gives the film life. I suppose I could be either congratulated or condemned that my 9 year old leaned over and whispered to me his recognition of the Daft Punk cameo and quietly enthused how cool that was to him! This is the foundation of film geek building. He's seeing beyond the instantaneous gratification of the finished product to the intricate world behind its creation. One day, he can cultivate a successful marriage of those two fascinations, as I feel I have. Considering my ability to read spoiler and invective filled reviews of Tron:Legacy, yet still react to it with the excitement of a child, I think I'm capable of weathering the storm of Internet conjecture and fanboy entitlement and coming out on the other side relatively unscathed.

It's not hard with a film as flat out cool and fun as Tron:Legacy. The action is breathtaking, the 3-D works to create a fully realized world as opposed to post conversion money grab gimmick and the visual palette is clearly realized without becoming stale and repetitive. Simply put, this was a world I wanted to live in, and like Lynch's Arrakis before it, I look forward to revisiting and getting lost in it again in the future. The performances were all great. I thoroughly enjoyed Hedlund as the lead, he was charismatic and easy to root for. Olivia Wilde is as energetic and likable as she is unnaturally beautiful and Jeff Bridges is as he always is. Pure gold. He plays Flynn as we want him to play him. He's the dude, but when an emotional moment is required, he steps up to the plate and knocks it out of the park. His last minute onscreen is mesmerizing. Through sheer force of his talent and craft, he is able to find the core of the films father and sons life lesson and wordlessly overpower millions of dollars of effects work to make this fantastical story relatably human. I was, in a word, devastated.

So yeah, don't listen to 24 year old misanthropes in their moms basement telling you how the studio system works. Some very talented artists were given a ton of money to produce some mind blowing art. Go give it a chance and allow yourself to be caught up in your youthful naivete and childish exuberance for the possibilities of film.

Happy Chrimbus!

Am I an idiot for being a 33 year old man who is so excited about Tron: Legacy he can barely contain himself? I have so thoroughly bought into the hype surrounding this film that I've actually purchased the Daft Punk soundtrack. I've never given a shit about this band before in my life. But as I listen to it on my Ipod while typing this admission of regressive enthusiasm, my already considerable anticipation is growing exponentially. It sounds huge and sweeping, cold and detached, imperial and fascistic. It brings to mind the work Toto did on Dune and Vangelis did on Blade Runner. I've taken the entire week of the 20th off work to hang with my son during his Christmas break and plan on seeing the film in Imax 3-D with him more than once.

I've taken a bit of a blogging break due to increased responsibilities at work and home. I think I've been putting far too much effort into this stuff and it kind of burned me out. I'll just post when I feel the inclination and am in possession of the time. The theaters have been a barren wasteland since Scott Pilgrim's ignominious run. The Zach Snyder owl movie looked nice, Mega Mind and Tangled were fun and Skyline gave my and my wife's eyeballs a good rolling workout.

I've been primarily hunkering down with the classics on bluray. Good lord do I love my TV, 5.1 surround and bluray player! I completely understand the money argument. But if you're a self professed film fanatic who has the means and refuses to upgrade to bluray, you are full of shit. I've mostly been watching old films. Apocalypse Now, City of the Living Dead, Maniac, The Untouchables, Halloween, Bram Stoker's Dracula and Texas Chainsaw Massacre to name a few. I suppose I have dark taste in film. Not that I'm some deep dude or anything, I just prefer more serious films with a mature tone and subdued aesthetic. I can not for the life of me understand how people can waste their time on schlocky Roger Corman garbage, brain dead slashers or that atrocious Syfy channel afterbirth. I'm a pompous ass I guess, but give me Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, Tetsuo: the iron man and Hardware over piranha 3-D any day of the fucking week. I'm a grown ass man and I can no longer be entertained by juvenile ephemera. Except for Tron: Legacy.

And can we talk about how awful The Walking Dead is please? Jesus Harold Christ on a pair of rubber crutches is that some predictable garbage. Boring too. Boiler plate social commentary with CGI gore, clunky scripts and wildly inconsistent acting. How's this for an idea, have Michael Rooker show up for one episode, set the screen ablaze, then disappear him for the rest of the season?!?!?!?!?!? And that Halloween opener? Snooze fest. I expected better from Darabont and AMC.

In closing, everyone give Profondo Cinema a listen. It's the best podcast going today! I'm hoping to give Antichrist a viewing coming up soon here. That should yield some interesting thoughts. Black Swan is out, True Grit and Tron coming up, things are looking up. All that and I have the Criterion blu of Night of the Hunter on my Christmas wish list! Happy Chrimbus everyone!

Universal Monsters

I'd like to preface this by extending thanks to those who requested films for me to view and write about. I appreciate your readership and involvement! So, without further ado:

Dracula's Daughter (1936)

Apparently (according to this marvelous book about Universal horror), this was to have been filmed by James Whale from a script by R. C. Sherriff which was a loose adaptation of Bram Stoker's short story, Dracula's Guest. It would have been something of a prequel, beginning in the middle ages, with the count ravaging the land and abducting women, one of whom would become his adoptive daughter. The story would then flash forward to shortly after the events of the first film, focusing on said daughter. It seems this take was rejected outright for having such "horrific and sexual implications". I personally would have preferred that to the resulting effort, especially if Bela Lugosi would have reprised his role as the Count.

What we have in its stead is a bizarre, leaden affair with some admittedly decent atmosphere, but an unfortunate preponderance of vaudeville and Keystone cops styled humor. It picks up in the crypt of Carfax Abbey with Edward VanSloan's Van Helsing confessing his murder of Dracula to two policeman who promptly arrest him. In custody, he pleads with the chief of Scotland Yard to send for Jeffrey Garth (Otto Kruger), a former student of his whose eminence in the field of Psychiatry is inexplicably supposed to help prove his innocence. Meanwhile, a strange, mannish woman (Gloria Holden playing the Countess Maria Zaleska) absconds with her father's corpse and cremates it in an effort to free her from the curse of vampirism. This rite does not have the desired effect, so Zaleska fixates on Garth and his Psychiatry to either release her from the bonds of eternal hunger, or failing that, to join her in damnation.

The problems with the film are many. The aforementioned humor, never my favorite element in genre fare, is disproportionate and totally at odds with the tone of the film. Kruger is a terrible lead. A chain smoking, ugly bully of a man. A puny gadfly that is never heroic or likable, let alone seemingly capable of offering any help to the Countess, VanHelsing or his kidnapped secretary he rushes off to ostensibly save in the third act. I frankly can't imagine what it is he's supposed to do for anybody here, so his character is pointless. Gloria Holden as Dracula's Daughter fares better. She has a striking look, that of the haunted, haunting kind. But her presence is undermined by the decision to present her ordeal as a psychological malady as opposed to a supernatural curse. This esoteric approach was done deftly in the Val Lewton RKO thrillers of the 40's, however here it's a total misfire, robbing the film of any right to refer to itself as horror. Much has been made of the purported Sapphic underpinnings that sailed past the censors at the Breen office, but it's much ado about nothing really.

It's not entirely without its charms though. VanSloan is always a welcome presence and the androgynous brute Sandor (Irving Pichel) who serves as the Countess' right hand man is a marvelously off putting heavy with a wonderfully sonorous speaking voice I could have stood to hear a great deal more of. It is an interesting film, if not a successful one.

Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954)

The last significant monstrous creation from the studio, coming more than a decade past the horror heyday of the 30's and early 40's, The Creature is something of an anomaly. Science fiction/Adventure film at heart, the film eschews the blue print of a Gothic, old world European setting for the Amazonian jungle in then modern day. A group of scientists funded by a wealthy, assholish entrepreneur journey down the Amazon in search of the fabled Black Lagoon and the unspoiled wonders they expect to discover contained therein. They of course encounter the Creature, an aquatic missing link who seems intent on carrying off the fetching Kay (Julia Adams), the paramour of the expeditions lead scientist (Richard Carlson). They clash with the Creature several times after he makes some unwanted amorous advances on our understandably recalcitrant heroine, inexorably leading to a violent confrontation between man and fish-man.

I've never been a big fan of this film, but hats off to Voodoo Doll from the Deadpit boards who recommended it to me, cause this viewing really did the trick. It's fascinating how forward thinking and compassionate toward that which we do not understand this film is. Sure, it's action packed and contains the prerequisite monster attacks and human reprisals, but a great deal of lip service is payed to the plight of the natural world and how a commerce based society tends to ruthlessly infringe upon the environment in the interests of financial gain and personal glory. Richard Carlson is remarkable as the lead. The total antithesis of Otto Kruger in Dracula's Daughter, he's thoughtful, compassionate and heroic in a way that makes him a joy to root for and the sort of action film lead we could do with a bit more of these days. Once he's ensured the safety of his woman and crew, he calls off the attack on the Creature, allowing it to slink back into the swamp. A refreshing change of pace to the mass murdering lunkheads who've populated the silver screen this last summer.

The Creature himself is an astonishing example of make-up FX that was surely considered the apotheosis of the craft in its day. The stunt swimming by Riccou Browning adds a believable physicality and credible menace to the monster. The underwater sequences are clearly filmed in a set dressed tank, but, far from detracting from the film, benefits it by lending an eerie, otherworldly atmosphere. In fact, all the film making is beyond reproach. The action scenes are masterfully edited and the underwater photography is crystal clear. All the while choreographed in such a manner that it's clear where people are in relation to the Creature at all times, a much appreciated detail, oft overlooked by today's film makers. All in all, this is an excellent example of film making and open minded, respectful science fiction and I recommend it highly.

The Invisible Man (1933)

Fresh off the monumental success of Frankenstein (1931), individualistic auteur James Whale brought this wicked tale of science, horror and madness to cackling life. The story is simple: A lone man (in possibly the most gloriously atmospheric opening in all of Universal horror) trudges into town through a blizzard, pelted by snow and howling, maniacal winds. He enters the local tavern/inn, cutting a peculiar figure, his face completely bandaged, wearing black goggles and a fake nose. He demands a room, to which he retires and begins performing clandestine scientific experiments with unknown chemicals. After some time dealing with his cursing and general orneriness, the innkeeper attempts to eject him, at which point he reveals that he is completely invisible. He discards all his clothing and runs rampant through the town, mischievously tormenting the villagers on his way out. This creates a panic throughout the countryside and as he forcibly enlists the assistance of a former colleague, law enforcement officials alert the public to this unseen deviant in their midst. A cat and mouse game ensues, with the Invisible Man losing touch with his sanity and humanity, and what was pranksterish tomfoolery rapidly escalates to murder and mass scale terrorism.

Good lord what a wildly entertaining film! James Whale's penchant for dark cynicism, morbid humor and dry wit is given free reign here and the results are brutally hilarious. It's actually kind of shocking to see what a nasty, unrepentant son of a bitch the Invisible Man becomes with the many stranglings, beatings and bludgeonings he inflicts upon the terrified and unwitting. Whale's endlessly inventive use of peculiar camera angles are matched note for note by John P. Fulton's groundbreaking optical effects in this campy symphony of horrors. Special mention must also be made of the performance of Claude Rains as the titular menace. His harsh baritone barks orders and threats as if he were born to do so and he convincingly portrays the characters bitter frustration and eventual descent into an outright megalomaniac.

I can appreciate the humor in a Whale horror film much more than his contemporaries. There's a winking intelligence behind it and one can't help but picture the erudite English gentleman behind the camera giggling with delight at the mayhem he's orchestrating. One caveat though: I know Whale had a profound affinity for Una O'connor and her shrieking histrionics, and I can tolerate her in small doses in Bride of Frankenstein, but he could have reined her in a bit on this one. Her over the top caterwauling threatens to make some of the first 20 minutes a tad tortuous. That minor complaint aside, this is a playful, clever and pitch black film. Shockingly violent and malevolent for the time, it's every bit as entertaining today as it no doubt was when first released.

Thanks again to all for the recommendations. This has been so much fun I'm going to follow it up with a slate of films featuring the inimitable Bela Lugosi. See you all for Part 2!

My 5 favorite films: Videodrome

It's been a while since I made an entry in the favorite films series (having a hell of a time finishing off those last 2!). In honor of the impending bluray release from Criterion December 7th, I give you this brief meditative piece on the horrifyingly prophetic nature of Videodrome.

"America's getting soft Patron, and the rest of the worlds getting tough. Very tough."

Even though I found my initial viewing of David Cronenberg's masterpiece Videodrome to be a frustrating affair, I could intrinsically sense the foreboding prescience in that menacing line. The intervening 15 years since I first tried to wrap my brain around the film have seen not only the meteoric rise of computer technology, but also the advent of social networking and the realization of the disembodied Internet persona. A persona whose lineage can be traced back through the character of media prophet Prof. Brian O'blivion to his basis, the Canadian communication theorist and educator Marshall Mcluhan. In the wake of 9/11, we've also witnessed an ever darkening global situation in which facets of the American intelligence, political and business communities have come to be perceived by some here and abroad as a shadowy cabal endeavoring to achieve world domination. It should be noted that Videodrome tells its sordid tale free from moral judgements and devoid of political allegiances. It is a complex and vague depiction of a world populated by unscrupulous media pornographers and conspiratorial power brokers, both intent on exploiting cutting edge technology in the interests of manipulating the masses to gain ever more power and control. If that's not the world you see staring back at you from your computer and television screen, I don't know what is.

At the time of its release, Videodrome creator Cronenberg was touted as the Baron of blood and credited with the creation of his own sub-genre, referred to as body or venereal horror. Videodrome had plenty of transformative imagery concerning the flesh, but what arguably has left a stronger impression than its literal hand guns or stomach vagina's, is its revolutionary notion that in the future, the body would become an outdated relic. A cumbersome corporeal representation of self to be shrugged off. Free to travel coaxial cables as a pre-recorded ghost, endlessly droning personal philosophy into a labyrinthine echo chamber. O'blivion's monologues detailing a life conveyed through playback of thousands of recordings once seemed like the ramblings of a senile crackpot. Now we have Youtube, where people use accounts under an assumed name to disseminate their most intimate thoughts and deeply held beliefs. There are plenty of these people whose videos we watch that may well have passed on and unbeknownst to us, fulfilled the socio-technological prophecies of O'blivion. In fact, there are very few of us (and certainly less and less each year) who don't use some "special" name to go to and fro in the cyber-universe, electronically walking up and down in it.

The specter of Barry Convex looms large over the second half of the film and represents everything from glad handing politicians to world swallowing corporate behemoths to the almighty military industrial complex at the core of American foreign policy. At one point, he pointedly asks James Woods cable access impresario Max Wren why anyone would watch a scum show like Videodrome. Woods drolly responds that his reasons are "professional". But Convex knows that isn't the whole story. He inherently understands that which titillates the average consumer is also that which makes the most profound impression, and thereby that which can best be utilized to implant product preference and enforce the party line. The medium is the message indeed. When I first saw the film, I found the idea that even a small station would broadcast video of political prisoners being tortured outlandish and distasteful. Imagine my shock when less than a decade later I heard the Daniel Pearl beheading audio played on the local morning zoo during my commute. Suddenly, streaming video of this horrendous act began popping up all over the web, and that was only the beginning. It's not hard to see the through line from Videodrome's electrified, clay walls and stripped, strangulated victims to Abu Ghraib's naked dog piles and hooded prisoners, trussed up with wires in a Jesus Christ pose.

These lamentable incidents seem to have mostly faded from public consciousness, supplanted by the latest reality show meltdown or internet meme, but the psychological scar remains. Extreme, challenging cinema is capable of exerting a similar effect on our psyche and Videodrome exemplifies and personifies that fact. It forcefully questions the very nature of reality and the manner in which we interact and ultimately exist within it. Horror and Science Fiction are the two genres most capable of holding an unflinching mirror up to the society that spawned them. Videodrome is the perfect melding of their respective aesthetics and preoccupations and an eye opening education on who we are and what we're becoming.

What hath Rosenthal wrought?

Good god, do I hate summer. Don't mistake me for some misanthropic goth kid decked out in zippered black parachute pants or anything, but I genuinely detest humid days that go on forever and the endless flood of garbage movies that lap at our nations collective door. This summer's offerings in particular have been most tiresome. The big deal blockbuster of the season, Iron Man 2 was sort of enjoyable at first, but upon reflection was a grating, jingoistic screed that wasted Sam Rockwell and Mickey Rourke while hinging on a predictable Downey Jr. performance that made me wish he'd have a cocaine relapse and do something interesting again. Toy Story 3 was well done and had the most powerful single sequence I've yet witnessed in a film aimed at children, but even that couldn't hide the fact that it was essentially part 2 all over. To think, I was under the impression that Pixar was above such laziness. Oh well, bring on Cars 2 I suppose.

Most of the summer was overstuffed with hi-fiving men on a mission type movies that wore on my frayed nerves like a talkative drunk at a sports bar. Self congratulatory and poorly edited train wrecks that forgot the importance of character development and cohesively staged action. Then of course came the juvenile, degrading experience of Piranha and the less said about that, the better. I will however reassert my belief that all the supporters of that film are going to have an ugly morning after when they try to sit through it again on home video.There were standouts though. Inception, Scott Pilgrim and Machete varied from dumb fun done right to hallucinatory art film made touching comic gold to downright goddamn modern masterpiece. So I shouldn't be so hasty in cursing these last few months. Oh wait, I forgot about Get Him to the Greek. Yeah, fuck last summer.

The point is, through some curious, blessed meteorological mystery, my beloved home state of Minnesota underwent a one-day transformation into Fall. The hateful yellow orb lost its potency seemingly overnight and cool, clean, fresh Fall air started blowing through town. The days instantly felt shorter and the descending gray chill signaled something deep in my reptile brain that Halloween was upon us. Nothing (aside from this scene from my favorite show EVER) encapsulates the feeling and meaning of nostalgia for me like Halloween. It was a fateful sleepover on that most wondrous of all Holiday's in 1985 that cemented my genre fandom forever. After a particularly successful bout of trick or treating, my friend and I retired to his safe, suburban home to gorge on candy and watch festive films edited for television. In succession I took in Halloween 2 and Night of the Living Dead and was irrevocably altered. It had something to do with how Rosenthal slyly inserted the opening graveyard scene from Romero's classic into his slasher sequel and my nascent, burgeoning understanding of the connective tissue and tropes of the genre. I was hooked.

Even before that epochal evening, I had been for some time spending my Saturday nights watching Universal Monster classics on our local Fox affiliates horror host show, Count Dracula presents, which featured a hammy local actor playing the titular bloodsucker with aplomb on dry ice shrouded sets amidst cardboard coffins and papier mache tombstones. I would drift off to dreamland, enthralled by the fog covered moors that made up Talbot's stomping grounds and the impossibly arcane laboratory in which Colin Clive plied his ghoulish trade. I was for some reason especially fascinated by the Lon Chaney Mummy films. No doubt something to do with the blunt, angry physicality he brought to the role.

In any case, time willing and entirely dependent on my inspiration not waning, I plan on having an old school Universal throwdown this coming weekend and should like to relate the affair in no small detail on the hallowed, rarely visited cyber-pages of this here blog. If you'd like me to watch and write up a certain film, respond below and I'll try to work it in providing I have it in my collection and I end up completing this self appointed task in the first place!

Machete and the return of action done right

It's about goddamn time. This summer has been full of preening, snarky assholes pretending they knew how to get the job done and bloated, steroid ridden has-been's phoning it in. I have been shocked this last month to see all my fellow internet movie geeks fawning like brain dead 12 year-olds over The Expendables and Piranha, the two worst movies I've seen all year. It's as if everyone suddenly forgot about the necessity for sound narrative mechanics, even in lowbrow entertainment. Sure, I enjoy grade-A bull plop like VanDamme in Lionheart or Seagal in Hard To Kill and Out for Justice. Not just cause I actually saw that shiznit in the theater and have fond, nostalgic memories of broken arms and gratuitous splits, but because as simplistic and elemental as those films were, they told stories a 10 year old could understand and were populated with larger than life heroes and hissable villains. It isn't difficult to make bone headed morality tales drenched in brutal violence entertaining, but I'll be damned if Sylvester Stallone didn't find himself a way with The Expendables.

For the record, Stallone was a god to me growing up. I'm not exaggerating that assertion even one bit. He was more important to me than God, Jesus or Ronald Reagan. The only person as mythic and all consuming a presence in my warped, adolescent imagination as Sly was of course Arnold, but that is another (no doubt coming soon) post. Rambo: First Blood Part Two was the first VHS tape I purchased with my own money and I probably watched it 75 times over the course of the summer of 1987. I could, upon request, act out the entire film as a one man play, replete with sound effects, musical cues and accurate character impersonations. So, before I move on, let me make sure no one is requesting that, cause I'll do it. No takers? Ok, forget it then. The point is, I should have LOVED The Expendables. I adored Rambo 2008 and am a big time Statham fan, so what gives? I'll tell you what gives. It falls apart before even getting out of the gate with the most excruciatingly unwatchable credit sequence ever filmed. Not even a minute and a half in and I was looking at my watch (I don't wear a watch, but you get the idea).

It only gets worse from there. The hallmark of action films is simplicity and this turd drops us face first into a poorly lit, poorly shot and poorly edited Somalian pirate (topical!) rescue by a group of, oh, I don't know, let's say 38 mercenaries, all of whom have different personalities, hang ups, weapons expertise and interpersonal baggage and then expects us to fend for ourselves while it goes about ham fistedly plowing ahead though their incomprehensible and shockingly dull adventures. Everything from there on doesn't make a lick of fucking sense. Whatever the hell is going on between Eric Roberts and the Hispanic dude from Dexter is NOT the makings of a loathsome, two tiered bad guy structure for the good guys to ass kickingly take revenge on. It doesn't make sense and it doesn't inspire our hatred for anything other than Eric Roberts agent. If your action film doesn't have a bad guy you want to see get his, there is no point in watching it. These films are about righteous vengeance and serve their purpose as wish fulfillment because no such thing exists in the real world.

Also, there is a PAINFUL scene where Mickey Rourke tells this pitiful story to Stallone that's supposed to serve as the powerful emotional push for Sly getting over his reservations about MASS MURDER as a way to save a life. Rourke clearly hadn't done more than peruse the script as he mumbles, doubles back over his lines, drools and generally makes an ass of himself, all of which Stallone frames in extreme closeup on Rourke's ruined face. It was hands down the most miserable five minutes of film I've sat through this year and to read Harry Knowles go on about the deep meaning and significance of it in his predictably moronic review was nearly enough to make me want to stop watching film forever. It's an ugly, pointless, horrible film with jagged action scenes that never manage to exhilarate.

As for Piranha, well, fuck that movie. Fuck its post conversion 3-D hatchet job giving me a splitting headache. Fuck its pandering Comic-Con mentality. Fuck its laziness and obvious distaste for its audience. Fuck its ingratiating, faux for-the-fans hi-fiving. Fuck it being a film made for fanboys without any consideration given to telling a story. It's boring, it has no likable characters and it has no wit. It is a film that is so overtly pornographic in its display of female flesh, it somehow becomes un-sexy. An endless parade of indistinguishable, plastic, blow up doll women grinding robotically to crappy techno so as to pad the run time until the obligatory KNB effects reel. I've seen rubbery limbs and gallons of fake blood done before and done better with the added bonus of actually giving a fuck who was getting torn to pieces.

Of course, people will say I'm just being contrary and prudish and a buzzkill. I will not drink the Kool-aid on this film, folks. You can't just show me boobies and bloodshed and expect me to give a damn. Piranha has no tension, no development, no arc. It's not exciting and since you don't ever once care about anyone surviving, there are no stakes. Alexander Aja went from being the most promising horror stylist of the new millennium to an indistinguishable Hollywood sell-out in less than a decade. There is no indication of any individuality, heart or purpose in Piranha. It's a callous, mean film that treats its audience like date rapists, sadists and perverts. So, if I may iterate again, FUCK THAT MOVIE!

When I stated above that it was about goddamn time, I was referring to Machete showing up with little fanfare and kicking the ever loving shit out of these wanna-be exploitation and action films. Now here is a movie that understands simplicity and structures its story accordingly. You have Machete, a stoic, threatening and bad ass (that Rodriguez need only film Trejo in close up to convey this is astonishingly indicative of his magnetism and star power) ex-federale wronged by Steven Seagal's portly south of the border drug lord. He gets wrapped up in a double cross by some political goons and sets out to settle the score. Throw in a puffy Don Johnson as a shady shitkicker and Michelle Rodriguez as the legendary freedom fighter She, and you've got the makings for a rollicking, rock concert of a movie that moves breathlessly from one action set piece to the next with purpose and style to burn. It also manages to be sexy by having attractive women who aren't vapid whores playing actual characters and not shoving their gyrating torso's in our faces every time the film maker had nothing to offer in the way of character or story development. You see, the titllation is supposed to be a by-product of the films overall aesthetic, not the kleenex box that the wags the dog.

I infinitely respect the film makers for crafting Machete as a response to a real world issue they genuinely feel strongly about. Maybe that's what lowbrow film or just plain genre film in general needs more of these days, a reason to exist outside of arousing its leering core audience with explicit sex and violence, which lets be honest here, can be found in more hardcore and plentiful variety elsewhere. With Machete, Rodriguez has created an entire world of gritty cool that will always be fun to visit. A satisfying diversion from the banality of existence that manages to raise a question or two about the way our country works and posits an entirely new kind of hero through which we can vicariously, murderously vent our frustrations and enact our imaginary revenges. THAT is the point of movie like this and Machete did it a damn sight better than anyone else all year long. Here's hoping we get the trilogy promised before the end credits rolled!

The Last Exorcism

I've always been a big fan of Exorcism films. Even though I count myself among the ranks of non-believers, I am keenly aware of the profound dramatic power of a good Vs. evil yarn done right. To get comparisons to the Friedkin classic out of the way up front, I would say stacked up next to each other, The Exorcist and The Last Exorcism might resemble a side by side look at a Bengalese Tiger and a common house cat. That is to say, they share some of the same primordial traits, but aren't really the same species.

The Last Exorcism is competent enough and boasts a couple of truly nerve wracking sequences that make good use of the camcorder verite format, but ultimately, it's that manner of presentation that proves its undoing. There is a visceral thrill that can be captured by this trendy approach to storytelling, but as it is employed again and again and ad nauseum applied to every single sub genre of horror, it's becoming clear how short sighted and gimmicky it truly is. I see how the facebook/youtube generation is seemingly fascinated by it and I understand that. You're talking about a demographic that values immediacy of content delivery over purity of craft. These are kids who are willing to watch Avatar on a 2-inch cellphone screen, so what do they care if minor things like shot composition, visual metaphor and sound design are sacrificed in favor of ready made stinger images to punctuate television advertisements? Of course I'm not suggesting that ALL of today's youth has such a narrow view of film and that all "first person" films are devoid of subtext or lasting relevance, I'm just saying 90% of the kids going to see this are going to be on their phone though most of the movie. Make of that what you will.

The thing I like about Demon possession films is the battle over faith and The Last Exorcism admittedly has a novel approach to the antagonists struggle. He's lost his faith in some respects, but is still a good man who wants to help people. He's not some alcoholic sitting in the dark nurturing a grudge against his absent creator. He's an imminently likable fellow who wants to do right by his family and perhaps do some good within the confines of a profession he's naturally gifted at. The film also strums some unique chords concerning the schism between tolerating backwards, fundamental belief systems and when action must be taken to protect the powerless trapped in that situation. So there's some strong performances and some genuinely interesting theological gristle to chew on and the film definitely needs to be commended for that.

The problem is that it lacks the courage of its convictions. It sets up a host of well developed characters and when it comes time to bring the hammer down on them with all the histrionic terror and tragedy duelling with the Devil entails, it blinks. It steps back from the brink of being a powerful, thought provoking exploration of faith (which is the heart of why Exorcism films are so compelling) with a hard left turn into silliness courtesy of a telegraphed plot twist that not only strains credulity and rips off a film as shitty and forgettable as The Reaping, it ultimately derails all point or purpose the preceding 90 minutes had.

Which brings me to the ending and the fatal flaw of films of this ilk. The jagged cut is not an ending make. I can no longer abide a movie ending with the narrator/protagonist being quickly killed in an jostling of activity, then a static shot of the ground. It's become such a predictable joke since it was first done in the execrable Blair Witch Project. It's ironic that the only thing that worked in that putrid student film was the chilling ending, and it hasn't meant anything or been nearly as successful in the subsequent 10 years of imitation. When you end a film like that, it invalidates all that happened before it and disregards the emotional investment of the audience. In the case of the Last Exorcism, that tawdry conclusion, coupled with the jarring tonal shift of the tacked-on third act makes for a one-two K.O. punch.

I don't outright hate this film or anything, it tried real hard to tell its little story and had honorable intentions toward its intended audience. It just was too underwhelming, too flaccid and too of its time to be anything other than a missed opportunity. Better luck next time Daniel Stamm. Get yourself a tripod and try not to wimp out when its time to focus on the horrific aspects of your horror film.

The Blood of cowards

In the last couple of weeks, I've revisited what I believe to be the 2 most important American films of the new millennium. The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford and There Will Be Blood. Both films paint a picture of America at the turn of the 20th century and portray its neurotic adolescence as a nation through central characters making soul destroying decisions that irrevocably alter the course of their lives, and by sub textual extent, the destiny of the country that birthed them.

There Will Be Blood (TWBB henceforth) is a towering achievement in individualistic film making. I've never been much of a Paul Thomas Anderson fan frankly. I found Boogie Nights to be exhausting and unnecessarily slimy. An ugly story not worth telling. Punch Drunk Love was well shot and made amusing use of Sandler's volatile man child-persona, but ultimately felt like a minor, floundering work. Never seen Hard Eight and everything I've ever read about Magnolia has made me run in the opposite direction. Point being, all of that was mere prelude to the startlingly assured becoming PTA underwent crafting TWBB. It's a film of undiluted vision, free from committee tampering and popular concession. In the hands of lesser film makers, that's a recipe for flailing indulgence, but TWBB manages to miraculously be about a million things. It understates its case and overstates its rage. Like the North American man's understanding of God and his terrestrial proxy the father figure, it is distant, vengeful, spiteful, self loathing, greedy and entirely full of itself.

Plainview and Eli are two sides of the same coin. Two men who want power and wealth and are willing to put on an act to attain it. The difference between them is Eli, the preacher, the "spiritual" man, wants his fame and wealth to lead to a prominent place among his fellow man, glad handing and accessible to all. Plainview, the unrepentant capitalist, want to use wealth as a means to forever escape his fellow man, who disgusts him so wholly, he only longs to crush them in competition. Plainview is pragmatic and represents progress. He represents strength and the steroidal heart beating in the chiseled chest of manifest destiny. Eli represents duplicity and weakness. He represents the cowardice of clinging to false prophets and is all the more reprehensible for how quickly he would sell out his publicly cherished "beliefs" when push comes to shove. Politicians and religious leaders are nothing more than pop culture figureheads, true power lies in the hallow boardrooms of behemoth corporations and shadowy conglomerates. And you know what? Just like Plainview, those corporations FUCKING HATE US. They are disgusted by us and treat us like cattle who need their minds made up for them. And for the most part, they're right. We are weak and never get anything accomplished outside of gossipping and paying lip service to popular causes.

The final scene, when Eli pleads with Plainview for a handout and gets his head caved in for the effort, is indicative of organized religion's influence over the future of this nations affairs being brutally murdered by the true world power. Wealth. When Plainview says, "I'm finished!", what he's really saying is that the relevance of superstitious, childish belief systems is finished. Us babbling, idiot masses like to think we have a voice and that our traditions are respected by our corporate overlords, but if you've bothered to read anything or watch any of the 489 documentaries detailing corporate malfeasance released in the last couple of years, you know that is folly. You are well aware how much a human life is worth. Plainview and his rise to power, his intractable determinism, IS the industrial revolution and the 21st century it wrought. Poor old Eli with his collapsed cranium, is the antiquated notion of Billy Graham bending the ear of the President. Not only are those days gone, they were a scam to begin with.

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford is an entirely different animal. Where TWBB tells the story of our masters, TAOJJBTCRF is intimately concerned with us, the average, simple minded shithead that actually populates the space between the coasts. It is about little people with big dreams, warped minds and gigantic holes in their hearts. It's about people who want more than anything to be important, to be noticed, and upon achieving recognition, find it to be as dispiriting and hollow as anonymity was. Casey Affleck turns in what is indisputably the most under rated performance perhaps ever. His Robert Ford is a jittery, lilting media junkie in an age when consumption of media required a great deal more effort and participation than today. He forces himself into the life script he read and endlessly re-read by candle light. You've met people like him, he makes you uncomfortable when he's onscreen and his attempts to ingratiate himself with the cadre of bad men and outlaws he so desperately desires to emulate is wince inducing. You see this needy, despicable behaviour paraded on every reality television show, youtube video and supermarket tabloid cover.

Brad Pitt's Jesse James is the quintessential model of despondent, aloof, paranoid celebrity. His violent mood swings and deteriorating mental state give this constant sense of unravelling. It's the same feeling we get watching flavor of the week pop stars go through the public paces of relationship problems, drug addictions and ultimately hospitalization or death. Pitt couldn't have been a more perfect choice and he plays it beautifully. You sense the natural charisma that sets him apart from his fellow man, but there's something sinister and self destructive constantly threatening to take it all away. His Jesse James is Cobain, Ledger, Hendrix and Lennon.

The film tackles the cult of celebrity and how it mangles common folks ability to manage expectations of their own lives, all the while burning out and callously discarding those we cyclically elevate then consume as a means to sate our unending hunger for self worth.

I find it fascinating that these two films found a way to address the institutionalized sickness of the American existence by going back to the beginning and laying bare the rotten foundations of our collective mental illness. I have little faith that anything can be done at this point to step back from the brink of cultural apocalypse, but I suppose I find solace in seeing the strings in any case.

Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer

I've been watching Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer for 20 years. Not consecutively or anything, but I first saw it in 1989 and have revisited it probably 25 times since then, up to and including the viewing I've just completed that prefaces and occasions this writing. Something about seeing it tonight unsettled me in a manner more profoundly than any since my first go round.

Serial killers and their attendant phenomena have always fascinated me. I've read a great deal on them and the social, psychological and economic factors that produce them. I've seen countless iterations of their ilk in film and television and followed the media details surrounding actual occurrences that have played out in my own lifetime. With all that exposure and study under my belt, I think I can state with definitive authority that John McNaughton's seminal essay on the subject is the most compelling and authentic account yet produced. Sure, Hannibal Lecter is a great character and Dexter gets boffo ratings and fawning critical accolades: but Dr. Lecter is a Hollywood concoction through and through, albeit an exceedingly entertaining one and the ludicrous exploits of blood splatter analyst Dexter Morgan are a fanciful, borderline offensive piece of irresponsible wish fulfillment aimed at housewives and hipsters. Henry is the messy, terrifying actuality whereas Lecter and Dexter are boiler plate fluff, no more complex or close to reality than Darth Vader. They are the much celebrated "bad guy you love to hate". You don't love to hate Henry as portrayed by Michael Rooker. You fear him and recognize him and pity him and lament the all too common abuse that gave rise to his tragically warped worldview and his subsequent acting upon it.

The world of Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer is so cheap, ugly and garbage strewn you can practically see the decay of the surroundings infest the characters souls as the film plays out like some poverty row, inner city Shakespearean tragedy. The scene where Becky and Henry bond while swapping stories concerning the sexual abuse they suffered at the hands of those whose charge it was to nurture them is touching, heartbreaking and despicable all at once. These are characters rich with intricacies and pathos. Even Otis, loathsome, perverted goon that he is, is not entirely without charm or sympathy. Unlike say, Jorg Buttgereit's Schramm, which simply wallows in depravity for depravity's sake, Henry tells an actual story. It's the embellished tale of real life drifter Henry Lee Lucas (whose outrageous claims are in some part believed to be an embellishment in and of themselves) and his partner in crime/lover Ottis Toole. In the film, we see Henry introduce his roommate Otis to murder as recreation and stress relief. Otis, after initial trepidation, takes to it like a parasite to dung. Complicating matters is Otis' sister Becky, come to live with her big brother after escaping an abusive husband and leaving her infant daughter back home with her mother. She instantly takes a shine to Henry, unaware of the nefarious influence he's having on her already unstable and dangerous sibling. Otis becomes more and more insatiable with blood lust, to the point that Henry can't control him, leading inexorably to a shattering conclusion that is surely as morbid, bleak and pitch black as they come.

The first frame contains a succinct summation of exactly how grim the proceedings will be. A slow, Kubrickian pan back from the expressionless face of a woman to reveal her body, naked and lifeless in a field. Jump cut to Henry's hand snuffing out a cigarette in an ashtray, a perfect parable for how he seems to look upon extinguishing a life. For the first half of the film, the focus is on the aftermath of his crimes, which creates an uneasy aura of depravity while allowing the characters to develop unhindered by gross-out set pieces that would certainly detract from the integrity of McNaughton's calculated narrative thrust. There is a refreshing sense of the mundane established in the early stages of the film. There's no masked and bound sociopath's winking at the camera, nor is there any remarkably fit and fashionably attired do-gooder killer hiding blood samples in an air conditioner (so I hate Dexter, so sue me), there is simply impoverished ex-cons living together in relative squalor without a hint of style and less than stellar grooming habits. Even when Becky shows up, she's every bit a woman you see everyday, no more than 5 foot 3 and homely in a very plain way. These are real people you pass on the street and that is what makes this film so effective. They drive shitty cars, drink cheap beer and have dishes piled up in the sink. Matter of fact, when I used to paint houses, I worked with a dude that was the spitting image of Tom Towles Otis, except his jacked grill wasn't an appliance.

If you haven't seen Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, do so, IMMEDIATELY. If you've seen it, WATCH IT AGAIN. I'm not a religious man, but I believe in my heart and soul that people like Henry who walk the earth in real life, are as close to demons as it gets. Born perhaps not of fire, but of abuse and neglect. However brought into existence, demons all the same. I can conjure no more horrific an end to life on this planet than to cross paths with such a monster made living, breathing flesh. Look no further than the videotaped home invasion scene for irrefutable proof that Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer is every bit as terrifying as Friedkin's Exorcist or Kubrick's The Shining.

Speaking of that home invasion sequence, I find it vastly amusing that John McNaughton succeeded in one scene with conveying what Michael Haneke attempted to, 10, then again 20 years later with an entire film, than a shot for shot remake of that entire film. Henry showed us the implicit voyeurism of murder for entertainment and forced us to question our complicity in the whole sordid affair by simply panning back to Henry and Otis sitting on the couch, watching their own murderous exploits with mouths agape, exactly as we in the audience were. So, I guess you could express that monumentally complex and debate sparking concept through one wordlessly visceral and expertly shot minute of film: OR you could make 2 laborious, irritating and let's all admit it, BORING movies to get the same point across. Nice job Mike, have fun being an artiste!

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.