Headquarters 10

The Forgotten Movies, New Year's Eve edition: Allan Arkush's GET CRAZY!

2009-12-31T19:56:00.004-05:00

Back on Memorial Day weekend of 2002, I attended a screening of GET CRAZY that was part of a Malcolm McDowell retrospective at Lincoln Center. McDowell was there for several films in the series, and pretty much the only reason he stuck around for GET CRAZY was because it screened right after A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, which was understandably a much hotter ticket (couldn’t score one myself, sadly). McDowell’s intro was refreshingly honest – he didn’t remember much about the movie, as he’d only seen it once at the cast & crew screening back in 1983 - but he was looking forward to seeing it again. I hadn’t seen it in a long time myself, not since its cable TV days, but my memories of it were good ones, and I’d long loved director Allan Arkush’s ROCK ‘N’ ROLL HIGH SCHOOL, so I was quite enthused to see it again. However, seeing it with a crowd of Walter Reade Theater regulars and Kubrick devotees who were only staying for another Malcolm McDowell film, the film just died; though a few laughs did seep in, I was assuming that my memories of the film made it something more than the film I was seeing. McDowell was almost apologetic afterwords, explaining that he needed some work on his house at the time and that, along with the fun of playing a rock star and getting to do a comedy (which he said he did enjoy) was why he did it. He didn’t seem to enjoy the film much and wondered why they played it (the programmer explained she felt it was a great McDowell performance, which is true), but McDowell flippantly said, “Well, I’m sure it must have some fans”, to which a young man in the audience raised his hand and explained that GET CRAZY was his favorite movie and that he drove all the way from Connecticut to be there. Not that this shut anyone up, but it sure as hell proved that GET CRAZY was sure as hell not a movie for the Lincoln Center crowd.

Moving forward to February 2009, they screened GET CRAZY at the Alamo Drafthouse as part of our Music Mondays series, and I almost wasn’t going to go, in part because of my memories of that screening and also because I’d been having a shitty day. But I’m glad I did. It played a lot better than it did back in 2002, and the audience (and the context of the screening) had most everything to do with it. To go from one audience who couldn’t get into the film to one who openly embraced it made a huge difference, and I’m happy to say that I’m a fan of GET CRAZY once again. It’s not that the Alamo crowd was easy to please and predisposed to like any early 80s comedy (and trust me when I say that it sometimes is the case), but that they went in either as fans of GET CRAZY or were ready to love it because they get where it’s coming from. As it was a Music Mondays show, they were ready to rock, ready to laugh, and knew a little something about what Arkush and his collaborators were poking fun at (and playing tribute to). Based on Arkush’s years at the famed Fillmore East (and, in a very nice touch, dedicated to his fellow staffers) GET CRAZY is certainly an exaggerated account of those experiences (updated to then-modern late 1982), but it gets right its love and respect for the world of rock ‘n’ roll music, at least when it’s all about the music and not the money or the egos. Yes, it pokes a lot of fun at various types in the scene – punk rockers, new wavers, bluesmen, hippies, megastars, tortured artists, the fans – but it’s also an unquestionably affectionate spoof of the scene. As long as you love the music and don’t concern yourself with money, then you’re OK in GET CRAZY’s book.

What I particularly like about GET CRAZY is that Arkush takes the same controlled madness approach that he also applied to ROCK ‘N’ ROOL HIGH SCHOOL; the film flies off onto wild little tangents from time to time that have nothing to do with the plotline, but always finds its way back without any issue. This not only allows Arkush and co-writers Danny Opatoshu, Henry Rosenbaum and David Taylor to come up with lots of crazy ideas (this is one movie that really lives up to its title), but to also give the excellent supporting cast moments to shine. Best of these finds none other than Lou Reed playing a reclusive, Dylan-esque rock star who agrees to play the film’s New Year’s Eve rock show, but spends most of the night in the back of a cab looking for inspiration. Whoever had the great idea to cast Reed (or whoever turned the role down before he said yes) deserves big thanks, because Reed almost walks away with the show, displaying unfathomed dry comic skill and energy (even the first cutaway to him is hilarious). Everyone gets a moment to shine, especially McDowell (as the film’s Jagger stand-in, Reggie Wanker), Lee Ving, John Densome of The Doors (unexpectedly animated as McDowell's drummer), Lori Eastside as new wave star Nada (she gets the film’s best line) and Bill Henderson as King Blues, who does a great rendition of “The Blues Got Soul”. They’re all great, but this truly is Arkush’s show. He never really had it this good again (he’s specialized mainly in TV since, winning an Emmy for directing THE TEMPTATIONS), but with this and ROCK ‘N’ ROLL HIGH SCHOOL he’s proven himself a master of the rock ‘n’ roll comedy, one of the few directors anywhere who really knows how to artfully combine the two (you’re damn right I used the word “artfully”, and I’ll do it again in a second). I think it’s probably more a matter of Arkush being someone who loves rock ‘n’ roll who also knows comedy, but no matter what he’s made two of the best rock movies ever. Perhaps he’s peaked early, like too many rock ‘n’ rollers, but he left us with two great ones, and his place his history is assured because of this. Rock ‘n’ roll and movies; this is what it’s all about, isn’t it?

People I Know Make Stuff

2009-12-21T13:37:00.006-05:00

When I say "make stuff", I'm talking about taking the time out to really make something, to bust your ass for months on a passion project that you're not going to profit on, just something that you know you want that you can only get by putting the pedal to the metal and making it your own damn self. Pal Kayla Kromer had a such a passion this time last year when she decided that she wanted a hamburger bed, which then went on to become an internet sensation that even turned me into an online superstar for a bit. Kayla sold the bed over the summer and quickly went to work on her latest passion project and the results are even more impressive. My inner 10 year-old is pretty damn jealous that Kayla has made her own Millennium Falcon bed, and having seen the damn thing in person I had no idea how much I wanted one until it was standing there in front of me. Aside from being a damn comfortable bed, it looks great, has working lights and a compartment for a keyboard and mouse pad (Kayla works on her bed; she teaches first grade) and even a cockpit for Han and Chewie to zip around the galaxy in. Like its predecessor, the Millennium Falcon bed has become a big internet hit, showing up on the home page for STAR WARS.com and no doubt earning Kayla thousands, if not millions, of online marriage proposals. Kayla's craft making abilities have earned her some much-deserved fame, but it's her desire to make something on her own and her talent at putting it together that truly makes her awesome. Great job, Kayla!

(photo by Heather Leah Kennedy)

I first met Richard Gale at the 2007 Fantasia Film Festival when his short film CRITICIZED screened to a pretty rapturous audience reaction (it won one of the audience awards). He met up again when the film screened at Fantastic Fest and again at a NYC genre film fest that fall and we just hit it off like the right people do. Richard's experience on the festival circuit was so much fun that he decided to make another short with the idea for getting it ready for Fantastic Fest 2008. Coming in just under the wire (I had no idea the short was playing until I saw Richard at the fest), it turned out to be one of the fest's biggest hits and won a special award, the first of what has become a long series of festival awards for THE HORRIBLY SLOW MURDERER WITH THE EXTREMELY INEFFICIENT WEAPON. The list of audience awards for this puppy is pretty non-stop (seven thus far), but the real exciting part is what happened once Richard finally uploaded it onto YouTube this past Halloween. Not only is THSMWTEIW one of the highest-rated shorts in YouTube's relatively short history, it's now approaching nearly two million hits, which is puts this at "Lazy Sunday" level in terms of internet popularity. And I pleased to say it deserves the success, not just because Richard is such a good guy, but also because he made a very entertaining short that takes an admittedly one-joke premise and sustains laughs for ten minutes straight. It's a pretty fast-moving piece and it shows Richard off to great effect (usually the point of most hsort films), so it pleases me to hear about its success. It's down below for those of you who haven't seen it yet.

The Forgotten Movies: Cy Endfield's HELL DRIVERS

2009-12-17T12:37:00.003-05:00

If you want to define the quintessential British movie tough guy, then look no further than Stanley Baker. Over the course of a full, yet too-brief career (Baker died of a lung cancer at 48) he defined postwar British action and tough guy roles in such films as CRIMINAL, ZULU (which he also produced), HELL IS A CITY, THE GUNS OF NAVARONE and ROBBERY, among just a few of his hits. As much of a respected dramatic actor as he was a popular movie star (he played Henry Tudor in Olivier’s RICHARD III and made several acclaimed film with Joseph Losey, including ACCIDENT, written by Harold Pinter), Baker often found himself playing a tough guy with heart - like Cagney, Bogart, or Marvin - types are those who are rough around the edges, but good souls who truly want to be left in peace. But like most tough guys, they find themselves in situations where been pushed too far and have to fight back, and they sure as hell know how to fight when the situation demands it. This, in a nutshell, is Baker’s role in Cy Enfield’s HELL DRIVERS, a guy who finds himself in a situation where it’s a fight for survival, even though it’s the last thing he wants. Of course, none of this is nothing new or really original – even back in 1959, when the film was made – but there’s a fine British grit to HELL DRIVERS that makes it feel just right, and even though it doesn’t hold much in the way of surprises, it’s a solid piece of entertainment that still works, 50 years later.

When I made the Bogart/Cagney comparison to Stanley Baker, it’s not just because he’s in their league, but also because HELL DRIVERS is the kind of picture that Warner Brothers could have made back in their crime drama/social outrage drama heyday of the 1930s. It also takes a page from the likes of Jules Dassin’s THEIVES HIGHWAY to discuss the seedy world of trucking and the exploitation of the drivers – always overworked, always struggling to fill their quota, always in fierce competition with each other – while remaining a tough guy movie all-around. Baker’s character is just out of prison, looking for work, and is sent to a small trucking company (hauling gravel) out in the countryside. He’s without a license, so if he’s caught he’s doubly screwed, and as the new guy he instantly butts heads with most of the other drivers, especially top hauler Patrick McGoohan, who’s also a bit of a psycho. So yeah, the script to HELL DRIVERS was already nothing new back in ’59, and I’m not saying that it’s anything all that special. But presentation is indeed everything in this case, and HELL DRIVERS is certainly a fine example of taking familiar material and making something tasty (if not fresh) out of it.

A large part of this is in the casting, not just with Stanley Baker, although he definitely makes for the right lead needed in a picture like this, but also with a supporting cast that seems like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I’ve already mentioned McGoohan (perfectly scummy), but you’ve also got a young Sean Connery, CARRY ON’s Sidney Havers, Herbert Lom as an Italian who’s Baker’s sole friend and confidant (needless to say, he’s toast), and a young David McCallum as Baker’s brother. Thanks to this cast, HELL DRIVERS is a movie with some personality and they all make it very easy to watch even when you know what’s coming. Enfield (who would later direct ZULU), generally a muscular director to begin with, also infuses it with some tight pacing and always keeps it moving (there’s a lot going on within each frame), so it’s easy to get caught up in it all. But at the center of it all is Baker, easy to like and root for, who is the key to HELL DRIVERS’ success. He makes otherwise tired material fresh simply by showing up and caring enough to do a good job, and it’s no surprise this was one of his biggest hits. It gives the British tough guy movie a good name.

The Greatest Trailers of All Time (Halloween Edition) - EXORCIST II: THE HERETIC

2009-10-26T01:22:00.003-04:00

I suppose it's easy to look at this trailer for John Boorman's EXORCIST II: THE HERETIC and say to one's self, "No wonder this thing turned out how it did", but I think that's beyond the point, really. Think what you want to about the film itself (I find it to be both insane and insanely watchable), but there's no way you can't look at this trailer and not be sucked in. Whoever cut this puppy (might it have been Boorman himself?) knew how to take a movie that no one would like and made a trailer that makes you say, "Whatever the fuck that is, I gotta see that!" EXORCIST II sure isn't THE EXORCIST (or EXORCIST III), but this trailer shows that whatever the hell it is, it's a one of a kind sort of thing, indescribable and crazy on one hand, but absorbing and completely watchable on another. The trailer actually makes the film seem a bit more like an EXORCIST rip-off (thanks to the fabulous Morricone score), but if you know the finished film, then you'll know that EXORCIST II is its own animal that by no means can it be confused with anything else, which is what I like about it.

Fantastic Fest: Five Films You Shouldn't Miss

2009-09-25T15:26:00.002-04:00

Yes, Fantastic Fest 2009 has now begun, and we’re all buzzing about what films we want to see and what films might be the sleepers of the fest. Well, having seen more than a few Fantastic Fest titles already (part of the job), let me tell you that this is as strong a year as we’ve ever had, and some of the best films are (as usual) the ones that are flying under most people’s radar. They don’t come from major studios or big-name directors and aren’t adapted from comic books or graphic novels, but they’re all pretty awesome and damn well worth your time.

LOVE EXPOSURE
Sunday, September 27 @ 2pm
Monday, September 28 @ 1:45pm

Sion Sono’s LOVE EXPOSURE is still my favorite film of the year, and unquestionably one of the most unique, distinctive films of the decade. The first thing everyone mentions is the film’s four hour running time, like that’s a bad thing; all that really means is that you are in for a cinematic journey that’s going to take a lot out of you, but it also means that you’re going to get a hell of a lot more out of it. This epic tale of true love, religious fervor and upskirt photography is a true work of geek art that you’re never going to forget.

DOWN TERRACE
Sunday, September 27 @ 6:55pm
Wednesday, September 30 @ 9:15pm

Some may think that a small domestic drama like Ben Wheatley’s DOWN TERRACE would be out of place at a genre fest Fantastic Fest, and we would like to remind you that the “fantastic” in the title doesn’t just mean fantasy but also films that are downright fantastic in quality. DOWN TERRACE certainly is that. Produced by the Mondo Macabro DVD label, DOWN TERRACE is the kind of dark-as-night, pitch-black comedy/dramas that most film festivals or distributors don’t know what to do with, but genre cinema fans will easily understand and quickly embrace. Fantastic Fest is honored to host the world premiere of DOWN TERRACE, and we strongly encourage you to see this one and spread the word about one of the major finds of this year’s fest.

HUMAN CENTEPEDE (FIRST SEQUENCE)
Saturday, September 26 @ 11:59pm
Wednesday, September 30 @ 11:55pm

Fans of bizarre cinematic sleaze (and make no mistake, this is certainly that) should make a bee line for Tom Six’s HUMAN CENTEPEDE (FIRST SEQUENCE), easily one of the most whacked-out movies at Fantastic Fest this year, and we mean that in a good way. This is one that works best going in blind, because it really goes all over the map into some pretty sick and extreme places; but it’s also pretty damn hilarious and audacious to the hilt, anchored by a wonderfully strange performance by Dieter Laser as a mad scientist whose God complex has gone into overdrive. Outrageous doesn’t begin to describe this one, but fucked up beyond belief certainly comes pretty damn close. And again, we mean that in a good way.

A TOWN CALLED PANIC
Friday, September 25 @ 10:30pm
Sunday, September 27 @ 11:45am

On the opposite end of the spectrum, Stephane Aubier and Vincent Patar’s A TOWN CALLED PANIC is definitely weird, but it’s also squeaky clean and ideal even for kids, albeit hip kids who dig watching movies with subtitles. Based on the Beligian TV sensation, it’s like a feature-length version of playtime with your action figures when you were six years old and your imagination and sense of fun were limitless. It’s also full of wonderfully unsophisticated stop motion animation and anarchic humor that never lets up.

PRIVATE EYE
Tuesday, September 29 @ 1:10pm
Wednesday, September 30 @ 6:30pm

South Korean cinema has provided some of the best commercial cinema over the last decade, a tradition that continues with Dae-min Park’s PRIVATE EYE, which is part of our Next Wave competition. It’s one of the freshest takes on the private eye tale I’ve seen in a while, set in 1910 Korea, a time when private investigators were relatively new to the Korean landscape, with a mystery that goes deep into the heart of the Korean government and crime world. The setting certainly makes it unique, but PRIVATE EYE is also a fresh piece of commercial filmmaking, energetically directed by Dae-min, with delightful performances from Jeon-Min Hwang as the private eye of the title and Ryu Deok-hwan as the med school nebbish who desperately needs his help. It’s a lot of fun.

The Greatest Trailers of All Time: STUNT ROCK (1978)

2009-08-28T14:42:00.002-04:00

Brian Trenchard-Smith's STUNT ROCK, which I wrote about in the early days of HQ 10, has finally shown up on domestic DVD (courtesy of Code Red), and to celebrate this I figure it's time to run the film's now-famous trailer all over again, since it was a major force in getting the film rediscovered. Alamo Drafthouse founder/my boss Tim League likes to tell the story of buying this trailer in his early days of print and trailer collecting and programming it at many of the early Alamo Drafthouse screenings. It became a staple of Harry Knowles' annual Butt-Numb-a-Thon, where the film itself was finally screened in December of 2005 to an unsuspecting (and rather unimpressed) audience.

I'd never seen the trailer (or heard of the movie) until I saw it on a now out-of-print trailer compilation DVD called TRAILER TRASH, and pretty much like everyone else I was literally gobsmacked by what I saw. It's impossible to tell what the film is about (I thought it was a straight documentary), but that's the charm of the trailer, as it's just this bizarre barrage of images and sounds that make absolutely no sense but are also unquestionably appealing. What's this band? What do the stunts have to do with them? Is this just a bunch of crazy stunts set to rock music? What's going on? As stupid as it is, this trailer really does pull you in and make you want to see just what the hell STUNT ROCK is really all about, like great trailers do. The fact that STUNT ROCK itself doesn't exactly live up to this magical trailer is beyond the point. They sold this fucker and they sold it well; years later, those who see this trailer still want to see the movie and that makes this one great trailer.

Now if I can only get the soundtrack...

The New Awful: Mark Region's AFTER LAST SEASON

2009-08-26T00:16:00.004-04:00

There is a fine line between clever and stupid, as the saying goes, and there is an equally finer line between parody and legitimate outright awfulness. If something is so amateurishly put together that it comes across as being awful, like Ed Wood’s body of work, it’s an also incredibly difficult thing to do something like that in an intentional manner. There is a sincerity to amateurism, in how those involved really did try their best but proved to have no real talent, that you can’t fake, so those who try to poke fun are always at a disadvantage. It’s certainly possible to parody these kind of things so that they come close (SCTV being the true masters of this art), but no matter who you are, no matter how talented you may be, you simply can’t fake being awful. That’s something that has to come straight from the heart.

This is what I’ve been keeping in mind when I think about Mark Region’s AFTER LAST SEASON, which has become a bit of an internet sensation of sorts after the film’s inexplicable trailer somehow ended up on Apple’s trailer page. There’s no way this thing could be real, people thought, looking so inexplicably bad that it had to be a phony, and there’s no way this thing is ever going to come out in theaters, they believed, too. Well, on June 4 AFTER LAST SEASON actually opened in four markets in the U.S., one of them being Austin, TX, and there really wasn’t any way you were gonna keep me away from this one, not in a million years. I have a real fascination with cinematic car wrecks - the more obscure, the better – and I figured that whether it was fake or the real thing, I had to check this one out while I could. The first word on the film from someone who saw it (and the first review to pop up online) came from my friend Rodney Perkins, who writes for Twitch and is a pretty smart guy who can spot a fake when he sees one, and Rodney came back with the news that AFTER LAST SEASON was the real deal, not only a legit piece of The New Awful, but a memorable one, at that. And then the weirdness on this one intensified: First, an e-mail interview with Region that seemed to raise more questions that it answered ($5 million? Really!?!), followed by word from one of the cast members that the film was not just legit but that Region, apparently an Asian who did not speak perfect English, was 100% the real deal, a guy with no actual filmmaking skills who lucked into getting to direct a movie.

If you’ve seen the trailer to AFTER LAST SEASON (embedded below), then you have a very good idea of just what kind of film it is, because what you see there is truly what you get. It’s a movie of small talk, lame acting, inexplicable plot lines and amateur filmmaking of the highest order, and it’s like this for 90 minutes solid. I was trying to actually piece together just what the film is about (there’s an experiment in mind reading and the ghost of a murdered grad student) but by saying that it makes AFTER LAST SEASON sound like some kind of genre film, which it most definitely is not. It’s incredibly slow and ponderous due only to Region’s obvious lack of filmmaking abilities, possessing absolutely no concept of plotting, pacing or storytelling, and it prods on filled with scenes of characters discussing little things that don’t have anything to do with the events that eventually transpire, so when the plot kicks in, it’s so amazingly far-fetched and ridiculous (and so poorly thought out) that you slap you head in astonishment. Then there are the scenes filled with 1993-era CGI that take up a large part of the third act, all so bizarre and out of left field that you’ve got to wonder what the point is. And then when they supposedly get there in the final scene, you’re not only left wondering just what was going on, but what kind of lines did Region use to convince a clueless Christian or New Age church to pay for this thing? One hopes they haven’t been bankrupted by their funding of AFTER LAST SEASON.

But there’s always a “but…”, and for AFTER LAST SEASON it lies in it's unmissable sincerity. At the very least, AFTER LAST SEASON tries to be about something meaningful, though I’m really at a loss as to just what that something is. The level of storytelling amateurism on display here is preferable to the fanboy amateurism to be found in the latest zombie or comic book hero wannbe flick because there’s an attempt to say something from the heart here that would be admirable if it weren’t so incoherent and dumbfounded. I’m reminded of a playwriting course that I took in high school that wielded numerous plays about parental troubles, peer pressure, and relationship troubles that were by no means good, but the authors meant every word that they said 100%, and that gave the plays some value. Region believes in his message (which I think is about the power of memory and how those we love never leave us after they’re gone), so at the very least he seems to be trying to say something meaningful (at least to Region), so I can cut him a tiny bit of slack for not making something soulless. If Region knew what he was doing and had some real imagination and storytelling skills AFTER LAST SEASON could have been something interesting and possibly worth discussing, but let’s face it, Region doesn’t really possess any talent, so the point is moot. There’s no question that AFTER LAST SEASON is memorable, and awful, and most likely 100% legit. I feel bad for Region because he’s going to get mocked at for the rest of his life when all he wanted to do was tell a story that, it turns out, he had no idea how to tell. Despite all this, I honestly have to say that as bad movies go I have definitely seen a lot worse, and most importantly, that sincerity is what saves the film from being a slit-your-wrist kind of film going experience. At least they tried.

Fantastic Fest 2009: The First Titles

2009-07-16T14:55:00.003-04:00

What you see below you (or at the end of the post, to be exact) is the first official press release for Fantastic Fest 2009. Obviously, there’s some pretty good stuff here, but if you’re looking for Hollywood blockbusters and big name stars and directors, I suggest you hold tight and wait for further announcements (they will be coming, believe you me). This fest has pretty much been my lifeblood for the last year and the work that’s gone into it from myself and the rest of the staff (along with the work yet to come) will hopefully bring one of the most memorable film festivals of all time, no question. That may sound like a totally bullshit statement, but honest to god, if things pan out like we want them to (and I have a good feeling that they will for the most part), 2009 will be the year Fantastic Fest makes a big motherfucking name for itself.

What you see below you is a lot of the international and independent selections, and it’s a pretty good lot, complete with Sion Sono’s amazing LOVE EXPOSURE, still my favorite film of the year, and a few other goodies (check the website for my write-ups on that and JOURNEY TO SATURN). BREATHLESS, which has won numerous awards throughout the year, is quite good (very Kim-Ki Duk-ish, which I like) while the likes of BUARTINO are outright bizarre (my boss does like the weird stuff). Not much here that hasn’t already been seen on the international scene already, but they haven’t been around too much and there’s no question that they all fit in quite well.

Sponsorship-wise it hasn’t been all that easy a year (not much of a surprise). However, as of this writing I’m ahead of where I was last year and there are some excellent prospects on the horizon that give me a lot of hope that we’ll have a sponsor roster that looks a lot like the kind I want it to look, though I’m not going to get too much into that yet until I really know for sure. No question the economy has been kicking my ass (when one major beverage company can’t even supply you with free product, you know things are in the shitter), but there have also been a lot more folks who want to work with us and are even making an effort to support Fantastic Fest. Again, I’m not going to count all my chickens before they’re hatched, but I like how things are looking and am saying nightly prayers that they pan out. And I am not a religious man.

So anyway, here’s the first official press release, complete with a lot of talk about our 3-D sidebar and Jess Franco retrospective and lifetime achievement award (whoever came up with that idea must be damn handsome), along with some chat about The Highball, our new hopefully douchebag-free nightspot. There’s another one of these coming August 17, with a hell of a lot more goodies on that one!

The Greatest Trailers of All Time: NAKED LUNCH

2009-06-23T19:16:00.003-04:00

It was pretty incredible that a film version of William Burroughs' NAKED LUNCH ended up getting made in the first place. Despite the film's lack of adherence to the actual novel, the resulting film (one of David Cronenberg's finest) is a pretty extraordinary achievement in it's own right. No, what truly strikes me as most surprising about the film version of NAKED LUNCH was that the film was distributed by 20th Century Fox, whose marketing department astonishingly came up with a trailer that not only did a remarkable job of selling the film, but also sold it properly. Not only did they not hide the film's literary origins, but they also didn't make the film out to be anything that it wasn't. They could have sold it as a thriller, a horror film, or even a straight drama, but instead they sold it as what it was: NAKED LUNCH, a weird, one-of-a-kind hybrid of the visions of Burroughs and Cronenberg and a damn great film. Even stupid people would look at this trailer and say to themselves, "Damn, this I gotta see!". Although the film was nothing more than an arthouse success in the U.S.(unsurprisingly, much more successful overseas), you sure as hell can blame the marketing department for the box office on this one.

"The Good News is Your Dates Are Here..."

2009-06-19T11:21:00.003-04:00

(Originally posted on the Alamo Drafthouse blog.)

Man, let me tell you about the weekend I had last week.

When my good friend, Michael Felsher of Red Shirt Pictures, called to let me know that he was producing the long-awaited DVD for the 80’s horror favorite NIGHT OF THE CREEPS, I knew we had to do something. Michael was already thinking the same thing and suggested the Alamo host a cast & crew reunion screening (not unlike the 2006 MONSTER SQUAD reunion screening), which would be filmed for the DVD. Writer/director Fred Dekker was already on board, and it was no problem getting stars Tom Atkins, Jill Whitlow, Steve Marshall and Jason Lively to agree to come in. The good folks at Sony Pictures Home Entertainment agreed to let us screen the original director’s cut that will be made available on the DVD (which hits stores on October 20), Mondo Tees and Jon Smith put together an outstanding glow-in-the-dark poster, and we got Ain’t It Cool News’ Eric Vespe (aka “Quint”) to host the show. And with this, the stage was set for a memorable weekend for all concerned.

If you were at the show (which sold out in a matter of hours), you saw how much fun these people were having on stage, obviously enjoying each other’s company and the thrill of meeting just some of the film’s many fans. But I happened to have the pleasure of hosting this group all weekend long, and let me tell you what a blast we all had. On top of the thrill of meeting the cast and director of a longtime favorite movie, everyone turned out to be super cool and just a pleasure to spend time with, and since it was the first time in 23 years they all saw each other, it was also a major kick to take part in their reunion, even though I was never there the first time out (although I actually saw NIGHT OF THE CREEPS during it’s very brief theatrical run in August 1986). Yes, Tom Atkins is as cool as you think he is (and that’s pretty damn cool), while Jill Whitlow remains a dream girl and Steve Marshall and Jason Lively are cut-ups of the highest order. And what can I say about Fred Dekker except that he’s one of the good guys, as nice as he is talented, smart as a whip and someone you could spend days talking movies with like he’s an old friend. After this weekend I’m convinced that the world desperately needs more Fred Dekker movies.

Alamo pal Heather Leah Kennedy took these fantastic pics that perfectly capture the fun that everyone had that evening (even with that biker rally going on outside), so we encourage everyone to check them out. Big thanks once again to Michael Felsher and the Red Shirt Pictures crew; Jason Allen of Sony Pictures Home Entertainment; the Alamo Ritz crew; everyone who attended, and, of course, Steve Marshall, Jill Whitlow, Jason Lively, the great Tom Atkins, and the man himself, Fred Dekker.

I guess we better that ROBOCOP 3 reunion screening going, huh, Fred?

"Polar Bear Fell On Me" OR "Pain Don't Hurt" OR "I Used To Fuck Guys Like You In Prison" - 20 Years of ROADHOUSE

2009-05-19T14:21:00.009-04:00

Thursday nights at the old HQ 10 were usually the most fun night of the week for the theater staff, because almost always meant an after-closing screening of the new films for that weekend, which could sometimes mean an all-nighter of movies that I was always up for. We would call this process "checking prints", meaning that we had to make sure that the prints were suitable for showing to the general public, but this was pretty much bullshit, because in all my time there this kind of problem only occurred once, when a lab fuck up gave us a print of HALLOWEEN 5 that repeated a scene twice (fitting for such a repetitive movie). These screenings would usually just contain a few of us (usually those who didn't have school the following day), but some of the bigger movies brought in more than a few folks, and our Thursday night showing of PULP FICTION damn near packed the house with staff, managers, and their friends. I wouldn't necessarily say that any of these screenings were among the greatest movie going nights of my life - memorable as the were, it was never a substitute for seeing a film in a packed theater - but there is always one that will stand out in my mind, and it happened 20 years ago last night: ROADHOUSE. Rowdy Herrington and Joel Silver's ode to beatin' up rednecks that has endured a hell of a lot longer than anyone would have anticipated, though it shouldn't have been a surprise, as indicated by that HQ 10 screening.

First off, let's get this out of the way: ROADHOUSE is not a good movie. I know a lot of people love it and it's their favorite movie, but it's so colossally stupid that, as entertaining as it is (and it's pretty damn entertaining), it should not be mistaken for anything of quality. Hell, I seemed to know that even then, as a chubby brat fresh out of high school, though I definitely enjoyed myself and would occasionally stick my head in to re-watch some of the better moments during the film's relatively brief HQ 10 run. It's a very LCD kind of movie, made to appeal to the idiot in all of us, that's also a pretty cynical one; ROADHOUSE knows what it is, knows what it's audience wants, and delivers it all in heaping doses - tits, blood, fights, explosions, macho dialogue, you name it. There's a moment where Ben Gazarra, referring to his mistress's choice of music, shouts, "I can't stand that crap. It's got no heart!" and that pretty much nails down what's wrong with ROADHOUSE. As much fun as it is, it's a rather soulless thing that I've only ever enjoyed on a superficial level, like a cheeseburger. While it's silly to ever expect anything more out of it, I've seen numerous other films of its type that have done much more with much less that I've never really been a fully-fledged member of the cult of ROADHOUSE. Sure, it's a slick and professional exploitation movie - nothing wrong with that - but anyone who tosses the word "classic" before or after this title hasn't a single idea what they're talking about. You want a moronic action movie that's worth remembering? Take a look at Brian Trenchard-Smith's THE MAN FROM HONG KONG, then watch ROADHOUSE again, and let's talk. There's stupid done right for you right there.

OK, so I've aired my grievance about ROADHOUSE, but I must also take this opportunity to confess that I've seen the damn thing several times, have shown it to friends who have never seen it before, and even saw a not-very-good camp Off-Off-Off Broadway theatrical production starring Timak from THE LAST DRAGON in the Patrick Swayze role. It's definitely so bad it's good, even if it is a piece of shit in some ways at least it's a watchably entertaining one. That's been my reaction all along, but this is a movie that the Spike TV audience has taken to heart in ways that I'm not 100% comfortable with and that's always been the problem. That HQ 10 screening 20 years ago was memorable in part because all of us employees - Kev, Cahill, Bender, Strat, Bev, Hatley, Moriarity and whoever else I may be forgetting - were the proper age for enjoying that movie and enjoy it we did, making for a fun night of hooping and hollering and having a good time. But what got to me was that when it was over, everyone loved it so much they decided to run it again, the first and only time that ever happened at HQ 10, while I decided I couldn't do that and watched Savage Steve Holland's HOW I GOT INTO COLLEGE instead (which I also decided I couldn't do either and left halfway through). I won't deny anyone their love of ROADHOUSE, but for God's sake get it out of your head that it's anything more than enjoyable trash. There are better action movies, better hicksploitation movies, better uses of Sam Elliott and, hell, even better Patrick Swayze movies out there to enjoy. The fact that ROADHOUSE is still remembered fondly 20 years later certainly shows that the dumb guys won this battle, but let's not kid ourselves about it. I enjoy a good, stupid movie as much as the next guy - and I enjoy ROADHOUSE - but I also got my standards and I know I've seen better. Yet, I also know I will probably watch it again at some point before I die. Such is it's power.

Dug Alert!

2009-05-04T19:26:00.004-04:00

So Pixar/Disney have sent out the following clip of Dug's first appearance in UP and I'm passing it along to show you all that my love for this animated pooch is completely, 110% justified. Prepare to love him yourself when the film hits theaters on the 29th.

Damn, I can't wait to see this again!

The Greatest Trailers of All Time: MIRACLE ON 34th STREET

2009-04-30T19:45:00.003-04:00

One of the great things about old trailers is how so many of them went out of their way to emphasize how different and unique the films were, even if the opposite was true. There's no better example than the trailer for George Seaton's beloved classic MIRACLE ON 34th STREET, a wonderful film, no doubt, but not one that we think of bizarre and unclassifiable.

Part of the reason for the unusual (but effective) concept of the trailer was to hide the fact that MIRACLE ON 34th STREET is a Christmas picture, since Fox opened the film in May 1947 (actually 62 years as of this Saturday), apparently because Zanuck argued that it would do better in the summer (he was right - it was one of the biggest hits of '47). I love the idea about how it's a film that's so unclassifiable that the studio doesn't know how to sell it ("Is it a romantic love story? Is it an exciting thriller? Is it a hilarious comedy? Make up your minds!"), but it's the word of mouth (supplied by such Fox contract stars as Rex Harrison, Anne Baxter, Peggy Ann Garner and Dick Haymes) that really sells the picture, so no matter what season it is, it's a film worth seeing. It would all be laughable if it were any movie other than MIRACLE ON 34th STREET, but since it really is all those things they describe it as (I had no idea that "groovy" was around back in '47), you've got to let it pass. This is one of the few classic movies that really lives up to it's classic trailer:

"I Was Hiding Under Your House Because I Was Scared and Because I Love You" - Pete Docter and Bob Peterson's UP

2009-04-25T22:57:00.012-04:00

Whenever a new Pixar movie comes around and everyone struggles with superlatives to praise it, they usually tend to focus on one element, lest they sound like they're merely repeating their review of the previous Pixar film. RATATOULLIE has the best script; FINDING NEMO has the best design; WALL-E is the most artistic; CARS is the least good, ect. With their latest film UP, the point of praise is going to be pretty easy, as it's easily the funniest Pixar film to date. The ads may be selling UP as a fantasy/adventure, and it certainly has those elements, but what everyone will be talking about afterwords will be the comedy, and justifiably so. Some of the biggest laughs I've had in a movie in the last few years are in UP, and like any great comedy I find myself looking forward to seeing it again in order to see what I missed when I was laughing so damn much.

My favorite Pixar film to date remains MONSTERS, INC., which was also directed by Docter, and the two share remarkably dense, clever and creative screenplays (this one written by Peterson, Ronnie del Carmen, and an uncredited Thomas McCarthy) to their immense credit. With both pictures they're populating these worlds with not just memorable characters, but unique ones - all of them funny and fresh and unlike most anything you see in movies these days - and then go wild with them. The best example (and my favorite, as evidenced by the accompanying pictures) is unquestionably Dug, the talking dog (voiced by Peterson), who is one of the most charming, lovable and unique characters to come along in most any movie in a long time. I got to see a rough version of the opening 45 minutes of UP at last December's Butt-Numb-A-Thon, and not knowing very much about the picture I was delighted when Dug popped up and had hoped that the filmmakers would keep him and some of his most hilarious moments ("Squirrel!") out of the public eye until the film's opening. Well, if you've seen the film's trail er then you know that idea has gone to hell, and even though the cat (or dog) is out of the bag, I'm still a little reluctant to go into detail as to just what makes Dug so great. But I will say this: Docter and Peterson have created the first movie dog that I can remember that personifies just why dogs are so great in the first place. The unrequited love and affection they give, their excited and inquisitive nature and their honesty and devotion are much of what I love about dogs, and I see all of that here in Dug. He feels to me like what a real dog would say if he could talk (or if his thoughts could be read), and on top of all that, Peterson does a wonderful job voicing him, and his line readings are so hilariously perfect in many cases that Dug may very well be my favorite Pixar character of all. What's also wonderful about him is just how unexpected his presence in the picture is; at no point are you expecting a talking dog to pop up, and when he does, you're wondering jst where they'll go with it, so the fact that he makes UP so wonderful is, to me, a true testament to the creativity if Docter and Peterson. I haven't had a childlike reaction to a movie character like this in ages, but I think that says something about Dug, and I also think it's quite likely that many others will soon feel the same once they see him.

Something else that's refreshing about UP is in how it restores the simple sense of fun and adventure back into Pixar's filmmaking. The last few Pixar films have all been ambitious to a fault, as if they knew that by being Pixar movies they all had to be something other than mere entertainments and had to say something "important" to prove their worth. UP is just fun, plain and simple, though it is by no means lightweight or insignificant, and by not taking itself too seriously it's actually Pixar's best in a while. It's not heavy-handed, self-important or cloying, it's just a well-told yarn that gives off nothing but 100% entertainment and leaves you with a big 'ol smile on your face. There are definitely moments of poignancy (especially at the beginning) and through the sheer likability of the characters it proves it's got a lot of heart to go along with the laughs. Anyone who knocks this for not being WALL-E is exactly the type that this picture mocks, those who can't truly live and enjoy life. Yes, there are a lot of movies about fulfilling your dreams and have an adventure no matter what your age, but so many of them are phony and half-hearted, while UP is one of the few that truly seems to get it. Everything this movie accomplishes it does so because it feels totally genuine and heartfelt, and it doesn't condescend to the audience in any way. UP is exactly how you feel when you leave the theater and how you remember the film long afterwords, and it's going to stay that way with you for a long time. Squirrel!

No More Room in Hell: 30 Years of George A. Romero's DAWN OF THE DEAD

2009-04-20T21:43:00.008-04:00

I grew up in a world of civil servants. My father was a fireman (later a fire chief) and my mother, after having brought up us Kiernan kids, went back to work as a receptionist at a local hospital. Most everyone in my parent’s social circles, be they friends or relations, worked for counties or townships and served the people more than they did themselves – cops, medics, other firemen, telephone men, gas workers, even priests. They all made decent livings and, most importantly of all, were decent people, those who could be depended upon when you needed help, the kind of people who were (are still are) the backbone of America. I’d never met any kind of intellectuals or liberal hippie types growing up; everyone was what you would classify as middle class (the working middle class in this case), and they were never the type to talk trash about the government, have key parties or discuss Moliere, because they simply weren’t those kind of people. It was a good childhood, and although I knew early on it was not a life that I could live for myself, it gave me a core set of values and ideals that I keep with me through this day, along with a respect for those who do the kind of work that my parents and their friends did. It takes a certain kind of person to run into a burning building, chase a purse snatcher or give someone CPR, and I’m proud to say that I’ve known people like this all of my life and can call some of them family. But rarely do I ever see them portrayed convincingly on a movie screen.

I had absolutely no idea what to expect when I first sat down to watch George A. Romero’s DAWN OF THE DEAD on January 17, 1985. I knew it was a zombie movie, I knew it was set in a shopping mall, but that was about it, and Romero’s zombie epic hit me like a ton of bricks. Going beyond all the elements that have made it so popular over the years – the gore, the zombies – DEAD OF THE DEAD was a major revelation to me because (and granted, I’d seen a lot of fantasy-type stuff that appealed to kids of the era before it), it was honestly the first time I’d ever seen an existence like the one I knew of in a movie. The characters in DAWN OF THE DEAD all felt like people I knew in one way or another, and they acted like real people to me, too. The choices they made were the kind that honest, decent people made only in the name of survival and their actions were worth rooting for because of the good people they were. In most similar-type genre movies that I’d seen before it was usually the scientist or the military man who were the lead characters, but here it was cops and helicopter pilots who were people I understood, even related to. Anyone one of them could be my dad, my uncle, a neighbor, anyone I grew up with, and I felt I could follow them through this adventure as a fellow survivor of the oncoming apocalypse and be alright. I knew these people had my back and I'd have theirs, too, even giving my life up to ensure their survival if I had to. And it should go without saying that I absolutely understood the appeal of holding up in a shopping mall. Those places were special to me at the time, the kind of place you went to only on weekends, special occasions or during the holidays, and whenever you did, you’d find something new, something cool. Not just a place to buy stuff, but another town to visit, all bunched together with a roof over it where it would never get too cold or too hot. Beyond just the whole consumer culture satire (which I definitely got), the mall setting remains part of the genius of DAWN because it made the film something everyone could understand and relate to. After all, when all hell breaks loose, who wouldn’t think of holding themselves up in the local mall?

It’s this element about DAWN that is the one reason I believe it’s endured for so long; DAWN OF THE DEAD reaches beyond class systems to become a film that can appeal to most anyone. Romero understands the working class of America better than most any American filmmaker I can think of, and he made a film that showed the bravery and will of these folks in a manner that was completely respectful and honorable. But the film is also very smart, quite clever, and emotionally powerful at points (its many effective shifts from extreme horror to comedy to action to sometimes tender drama can leave a stunning effect on the viewer), so much so that it can admired by intellectuals and even film critics (well, some film critics). And if you’re not that bright then, yeah, it’s as gory as fuck and has a lot of zombies getting blown up and shit, so it’s definitely a picture that can be appreciated with several brews in ya, no question. While you might not look at it as a picture that requires you to think, even dumb folks tend to think about what it says it afterwords, and I think that's saying something, and when you talk about films that have universal appeal, DAWN OF THE DEAD isn’t brought up enough, but it damn well should be. Yes, certain elements seem a little dated (specifically Tom Savini’s makeup FX, so revolutionary back in 1979, but have been outdone by many, even Savini) and it’s not quite as technically proficient as many other great films can be (seen theatrically, Michael Gornick’s cinematography contains so many out of focus shots that it’s sometimes embarrassing to watch). But it’s brilliantly edited by Romero and scored with a perfect selection of Romero-chosen library music and a score by Goblin for an effect that still makes DAWN a one-of-a-kind film experience for me. I look at DAWN OF THE DEAD as being 100% unique and original (amazing when you consider it’s a sequel!), a film that hit upon something in the American psyche that we still carry with us, a crystallization of both what makes us great and what’s wrong with us at the same time, about how the world is going to end due to our own self gratification. It’s not a hopeful film in the end, but it’s still, in an odd way, also a celebration of those people in this country and in this world who are good and decent and are going to be swept up by all this when the shit goes down, as tremendously humane film a film as it is a violent one (and it's pretty damn violent). I doubt anyone would have anticipated that when DAWN OF THE DEAD opened 30 years ago today that not only would we still be talking about it, but that it would be a film whose relevance hasn’t faded one bit. The fact that we are, however, says less about shitty state of the world or movies than it does the power and the greatness of George Romero as a filmmaker. He understands us better than many of us do ourselves, and he brings us to places that we may not want to go, but probably will eventually. This is just part of what makes DAWN OF THE DEAD not only the greatest American horror film of all time, but one of the great American films of all time. And it will most likely outlive us all.

I Heart Zooey Deschanel - Marc Webb's 500 DAYS OF SUMMER

2009-04-07T18:39:00.014-04:00

If you are a heterosexual male with a brain and a pulse, chances are you have a crush on Zooey Deschanel. Since I happen to be such, I do indeed a big ol' crush on Ms. Deschanel, and what I'm talking about here is a crush - nothing more, nothing less - and no reason to call the cops or hire bodyguards or anything. Yes, I'm fully aware that she's engaged to the lead singer from Death Cab For Cutie (lucky bastard), so this is but a mere distant appreciation, but I happen to think she's the bee's knees. I really don't know just what that expression means (honestly makes no sense), but it's meant to denote a certain admiration in a person, and since I also happen to admire Ms. Deschanel for her works as an actress and as a singer on top of her external loveliness, the bee's knees it is, unless I find out that it's not meant to be complimentary. How about I just call her a vision of loveliness and leave it at that?

My feelings for Ms. Deschanel have come to the forefront thanks in part to her starring role opposite Joseph Gordon Levitt in 500 DAYS OF SUMMER, which recently screened as the closing film at the SXSW Film Festival here in Austin. In as such that Zooey Deschanel represents a fantasy girl for men who like smart women, 500 DAYS OF SUMMER feeds off that fantasy by giving us the ultimate scenario of meeting Zooey Deschanel, finding out she likes the same music we like (The Smiths!), discovering that we have a lot in common and that she really is the coolest, smartest and all-around prettiest girl to ever walk the earth. She's hip without trying to be hip and lovely and charming in a 100% natural kinda way, the ultimate early 21st Century dream girl. Like in any other movie romance you need people who you can fall in love with, too, and for my money Ms. Deschanel unquestionably fits that bill, and I suppose if you're a young lady then Mr. Gordon Levitt will likewise suffice, and he makes for a good surrogate for the young men in the audience with Zooey crushes. I have been told that there are some (stupid people, mostly) who are not quite as bewitched by Zooey Deschanel as others are, who find her acting ability lacking and her musical skills wanting, and all I can say to them (aside from, "Are you a fucking moron?") is that they are probably not the target audience for 500 DAYS OF SUMMER and they should probably steer clear. But for the rest of us, this picture is pretty much cinematic Zooey catnip, the sensitive young man's equivalent of a Nora Ephron click flick, although this one is actually good. Directed with much creative energy by music video vet Marc Webb, it's definitely a picture with its heart in the right place and a pretty good feel for many ups and down of young love. It's also got a sense of whimsy to it that I liked in the end, though I suspect others won't take to it, working overtime to throw caution to the wind and be a film that captures a feeling more than a thought, and it's admirable in how sincere it is in trying to do that. More than just getting you to remember what it's like to fall in love and have your heart broken, 500 DAYS OF SUMMER wants you under its spell so it can do that to you, too, and its secret weapon is, no surprise, Zooey Deschanel, and no surprise, it worked on me, though I guess I'm a sucker for it.

Still, 500 DAYS OF SUMMER may not perhaps be a defining film of its generation but it is one that the generation can certainly be proud of. But it does seem to catch the spirit of the moment, at least as best as I can summarize, feeling like a 2009 kinda movie through and through, though I hope that doesn't date it in another 5 to 10 years. And Zooey (we're on a first name basis now) is a vital part of that, the character of Summer being as sweet and lovely and bright and creative a young lady as one would ever hope to meet and fall in love with. Perhaps the character of Summer isn't anywhere close to the real Zooey Deschanel, but it doesn't matter. The real Zooey is indeed young, talented, and unquestionably beautiful in a natural and unforced way, but wherever Zooey ends and Summer begins (if they ever meet at all) it feels like the person you think she is or want her to be, which is kinda what movies are all about. No doubt Zooey Deschanel will go on to many more roles in the years to come and will eventually prove herself to be more than just the character of Summer, but for this moment in time, Summer she is and that's just right for all concerned. It is, in a sense, an ideal Summer movie.

Thank You, Warners!

2009-03-31T18:13:00.006-04:00

If you've been paying attention to any of the film or DVD news sites then you've probably already heard of the new Warner Archive DVD line, wherein Warner Brothers is digging into their archive to make films previously unavailable in the marketplace directly to the consumer via the Warner Archive website. These are the films that have been sitting on the shelf for too long, the ones that get DVD-R'd when they air on TCM, and the ones that most folks wouldn't care much about, but the true movie lovers are most excited to find. It's not quite like there are any long-overdue classics in here, but there are certainly hidden gems a-plenty: WESTBOUND, the last of the Beotticher/Scott westerns to hit DVD; Frankenheimer's ALL FALL DOWN; Coppola's THE RAIN PEOPLE; George Roy Hill's THE LITTLE DRUMMER GIRL; Floyd Mutrux's DUSTY AND SWEETS McGEE; John Flynn's THE SERGEANT and Jack Webb's THE D.I. (what an interesting double feature that would make!); several missing Cary Grant titles (CRISIS; DREAM WIFE; Leo McCary's ONCE UPON A HONEYMOON; MR. LUCKY and ROOM FOR ONE MORE, directed by Norman Taurog); and many, many more, over 150 in total. And this is just the beginning, as Warners has vowed to make pretty much their entire collection available as long as the sales allow it. And I couldn't be happier.

Sadly, it's the erosion of DVD retail that's made the timing of this so ideal; with most retailers going (Transworld) or gone (Circuit City; Virgin), Warners doesn't risk pissing anyone off by going direct to the consumer, and the Best Buy and Target really could care less about these titles. I have to assume that they'll make a deal with Amazon or Netflix soon enough, after their direct sales to inch downward. From what I've heard, Warners is quite happy with the numbers they're seeing, and since there's no middle men or discounts (other than free shipping) anywhere in the equation, it's all pretty much found money for them at this point. While even I have to admit that the appeal for classic or obscure films is limited, Warners has certainly hit upon the correct formula at a point in time when catalog titles on DVD, the only real place where real movie fans can get any satisfaction in DVD these days, are being passed over by the blockbuster-hungry public and retailers. Add to that the fact that Warners has made sure each disc is in its proper ratio, 16x9 enhanced and contain the occasional trailer, the fact that these discs are nothing more than DVD-Rs still makes them worth your time and money, providing you actually have some of that around.

What I'm interested to see now is how the other studios, many of them with similarly deep catalogs, will react. Sony had announced a similar deal way back in the fall of '06, but nothing came of it and no titles were ever announced, so the whole idea is not without precedent. Everyone has been updating transfers over the last decade due to DVDs, new cable networks and satellite/HD broadcasts, so there is plenty of stuff not out there that could keep the fans pleased for a long time. But the question is whether or not they'll take the time and trouble to make this happen. Everyone's laying off staff and home video divisions are being folded into bigger departments, so the attention to detail that a project like this requires could possibly fall by the wayside. On top of that, the majors surely know that even though they will be giving their DVD market a much-needed shot in the arm, none of these titles are going to do more than a few thousdand copies each. There will certainly be profit, but it might not be enough for the bean counters to see the positive side of things. But all I can say at this moment in time is that I'm extremely excited by what Warners has done here and I hope and pray that others follow their lead and get in touch directly with the fans. Like I said before, these are still exciting times for catalog DVD titles, providing the majors still take the time and trouble to make them available. Warners, as always, is leading the way, and it's up to consumers like us to prove to them that we're still ready to support these releases.

And now if you'll excuse me, I've gotta go order WESTBOUND...

The Return of the Crazy Spaniard.

2009-03-31T17:55:00.002-04:00

Since his Fantastic Fest 2007 smash TIMECRIMES finally hits U.S. DVD today, let's pay a return visit to everyone's favorite crazy Spaniard, Nacho Vigalondo and his new short/video I WANT TO SLEEP, which started hitting the internets around the end of last year. I don't know too much of the backstory, except that it's an extended ad for a mattress and that's it damn good. What else do you want? Sit, relax, enjoy...

Is Digital!

2009-03-30T02:53:00.003-04:00

The great exploitation director Frank Hennenlotter once told me an anecdote about the changeover of the various 42nd Street/Times Square porn houses from 35mm to video. This being the late 80s/early 90s, we’re not talking about the multi-million dollar kind of changeover that’s occurring in multiplexs the world over, but a basic addition of a large rear-screen projector (usually the kind on a stand, not the overhead ones) in front of the 35mm theater screen. The 35mm projectors would usually sit silent for months on end, but these theaters would play tapes mainly because that’s where the new product was and also because it was a hell of a lot cheaper than playing them on 35mm (theaters would occasionally screen older porn films, usually because the theaters had prints on hand). But since these theaters were smack dab in the middle of NYC, where the unions wielded a lot of power, all these places would have to employ union projectionist, all of whom were getting paid pretty good union wages to pretty much just change tapes and align rear projection monitors. Digital projection has been around for 10 years now, and while it isn’t quite as simple as changing tapes around, having now experienced how it really works it firsthand (beyond merely as a member of the audience), I can’t help but think about how it really is the end of film as the predominant form of projection and needless to say, that’s more than a little sad.

My office is based out of the Alamo Drafthouse’s Village theater, and starting on Monday we had a small team of technicians (including the Alamo’s tech geniuses, Andrew McEathron and Josh Jacobs) disassembling our 35mm projectors and installing new Sony 4K digital cinema systems (we did keep one 35mm projector on hand, thank goodness). Oddly bulkier than its 35mm cousin, they look like HAL 9000s or Colossus and don’t give the impression that they’re spitting out wondrous worlds of entertainment. Having been a former projectionist myself (non-union), I always marveled at the bizarre little system a movie would go through to pass its way from platter or reel through a projector tree, then the projector and onto the screen itself. With this new system, it’s just a giant box with a little monitor screen on one end and a lens on the other, but fuck me if it doesn’t give you a superb image on that big screen. The first time I look at it at the Village (to check out one of the few decent scenes in WATCHMEN) I had no idea that the digital convergence had taken place and thought it was just the normal film print, so to say I was floored when I was told of the change later is a bit of an understatement. I am usually very nitpicky about my projection and have taken a certain amount of pride in having been able to spot digital projection or photography in the past, but these Sony 4K projectors have fooled even my trained, world-weary eyes. I’ve seen 4K projection in the past and have always been impressed, but I always felt (and still do) that top-of-the-line 35mm projections could beat it outright, so I didn’t feel any need for it. To see it here at the Alamo Village with these state-of-the-art projectors (and in 3-D, too), however, I really do feel like I’ve seen where things are going. Yes, it’s been going in this direction for quite a while, but it feels to me like it’s finally being done right, and while I can’t say I welcome the change 100%, I have to admit that it works like a son of a bitch.

I can recall going to see the first digitally projected movie (STAR WARS EPISODE 1) ten years ago and coming out impressed but not convinced it really was the future, and subsequent screenings over the years have still not turned me into a believer. I think the problem was that all too often, digital projection has looked too digital - too clean, too bright – and never enough like film. The two words I always use to describe the difference between film and digital are "depth" and "texture", and I can always feel that shooting and projecting on film (even if the movie is complete shit) can provide that, while digital very rarely can. Digital seems to me to be about clarity of image – everything is allegedly 100% clear and in focus – which probably why it all looks the same, while film requires much more craft to it, but what you get is an image that feels more substantial and multi-layered. I don’t think that most filmmakers have really been able to make something like this with digital (the exceptions being Michael Mann’s stunning HD work and Soderberg’s CHE, shot with the Sony Red camera), while with film, everything can look distinctive an unique. But with these projectors, I can feel that they’re finally getting it right. This looks like film, never once revealing its digital origins and never once taking you out of the picture with something that doesn’t feel right. This might not seem like a big deal to most any of you, but for me it’s an eye-opener and I’m ready to drink more from the well. Thankfully, the Alamo will never give up its 35mm origins, and it’s also quite nice to know that Austin’s Paramount theater can also give us screenings in beautiful 70mm when need be (I saw WEST SIDE STORY there a few months back and was blown away), while IMAX still kicks all their collective asses. But I’ve seen the future now and it’s free of dirt, is always in focus and looks just right. I’m reminded of a quote from Francois Truffaut (sorry to get all hoity-toity on you here), where he once said, “Even if a film is bad, I like to look at the scratches”, and perhaps that is a pleasure of the moviegoing experience that is fading away, but it might also be time for it to step aside. If we can make it so that you never have to worry about lousy projection ever again, that would take away some of the trepidation we sometimes feel about the experience, and perhaps we can work on getting people to shut the hell up. That would be a wonderful thing.

It Ain't Over 'Til It's Over: Thoughts on the DVD Industry in 2009

2009-03-22T12:41:00.003-04:00

Since the last time I checked in on the DVD industry, things have predictably gotten worse. More retailers are folding (goodbye, Virgin Megastores) and those fewer retailers out there are tightening their belts and are sticking with the hits. Best Buy has announced once again that they are restructuring their buying methods to concentrate on the majors and all of the Indies have to go through an intermediary. Overall DVD sales are down for the first time while rentals are up (thank you, Great Recession) and titles that were doing 2,000 units this time last year are only doing 1,500 units now (one major studio publicist informed me that they’re now seeing sales of catalog titles in the hundreds. Major studio titles!). Many labels have folded (including New Yorker Films, Fantoma Films and the great BCI Eclipse) or are on their last legs. Digital downloads and iTunes have not really done much to pick up the slack, and probably won’t be much of a revenue source to begin with. And the buyers are still idiots.

It is not, however, all doom and gloom out there. Fewer pressings mean fewer returns, so labels aren’t getting hit quite as hard as they used to (don’t mean it doesn’t still happen). Some great indie labels - like Criterion, Synapse, Mondo Macabro, and Severin Films – are still chuggin’ along and doing exemplary work. Blu-Ray sales are growing, albeit slowly, and while they will probably be no more than the laserdiscs to DVD’s VHS, they do represent some growth in the marketplace and sure as hell look pretty, don’t they? But the best news in all this is that, with almost all of the classic DVD holdouts finally released (except for THE AFRICAN QUEEN, apparently currently undergoing restoration), things are getting real interesting in the catalog releases department. Studios are not so much scraping the bottom of the barrel now as they’re starting to look in old boxes that they completely forgot they had. If you think about some of the great films that were finally released on DVD in the last year – The Budd Beotticher/Randolph Scott films; MAN OF THE WEST; AGE OF CONSENT; ROAD HOUSE (with the delicious Kim Morgan/Eddie Muller commentary); THE FURIES; MANDINGO; THE SILENT PARTNER – most die hard movie lovers have to admit that this is the moment they’ve been waiting for, when the floodgates have started to open and the rare and unique titles have truly started to show themselves. The majors may not be that enthused about putting out older catalog titles as they used to be (harder to sell them at Wal-Mart), but they’re still at it, thank goodness, and we can still count on them for at least a little while now. (As long as they make their money back, that is.) Seeing a title like Fritz Lang’s MAN HUNT get announced for May release (as part of Fox’s annual WWII Memorial Day assault) still gives me hope that the majors are not abandoning their catalogs, even if they feel the only way they can sell them is to group them with similar titles. Hey, we’ll take what we can get.

Still, I feel like we’ve got to treat all this with cautious optimism. As long as sales stay within reasonable profitability, we’ll be OK. But once we get out of that zone, it’s going to hurt. Studios are cutting back, budgets are being slashed and people are getting laid off. Playing it safe will be the standard M.O. starting relatively soon (if it hasn’t happened already) and the fun we’ve all been having with DVD may end faster than we want it to with still too many cult films, classics and obscurities yet to be released. While it’s impossible to support every new release that come down the line (especially in this day and age), try and support as many as you can, either by purchase or rental. Try to get your hands on as many of these classic new releases in one way or another to send a message to the studios and the indie labels that you love them and want more of them. If you know you’re going to buy one of them and you know you can find it at Best Buy, then buy it at Best Buy (use the store locator available on their website). If you just want to rent it, put it in your queue ASAP so that the rentialer (yes, it’s a real word, though a diminishing one) will order more copies (or order more of a similar one). I know a lot of this sounds like a simplistic way to keep a complex industry humming, but in all my conversations with DVD industry folks through the last few months, that’s what I’m hearing. It’s an industry mostly filled with fellow movie lovers who care about it as much as you do and don’t want to see it fade out. It’s a great time in a lot of ways, but it’s walking on a wire at the moment and could go either way. Let’s support it enough to keep it going strong.

"Anwar Sadat" - Jon Hamburg's I LOVE YOU, MAN

2009-03-13T19:30:00.002-04:00

I’d like to think that I’m getting past my “guy” stage. I’m sure others will disagree, but while I enjoy hanging out with friends just as much as the others do, I’ve been seeing that this extended adolescence isn’t really doing me much good. There are certain parts of living that I no longer have an interest in that I used to, while others that once seemed alien to me are becoming more appealing. I’m not sure if this is what you would call “growing up”, but the idea of doing things that my parents did when I was young has become more interesting to me (except for playing Bridge), while all those things that have I’ve been doing since graduating high school are becoming passé. I explain all this to you not because I see HQ 10 as an online therapy session, but rather to explain my reaction to Jon Hamburg’s I LOVE YOU, MAN, which opens the SXSW Film Festival tonight before opening nationwide next week. This is a movie about Guydom, about being a dude and hanging out with other dudes away from the wives, girlfriends and kids. Certainly there are a lot of “guy” movies out there these days, and perhaps they do represent a new shift in American culture away from what the definition of a man was over the last, say, 50 years, away from the post-WWII Playboy era that gave us the likes of Lenny Bruce and Lee Marvin, to the post-Iraq (or soon-to-be post Iraq) Maxim era that brings us Vince Vaughn wannabes. Manliness isn’t quite what it once was and may never quite be that way again, replaced by a new dudeness that says it’s OK to keep playing video games and jamming with friends well into your 30s or 40s. I can’t criticize I LOVE YOU, MAN for presenting this situation as-is, because I know it’s not too far from reality, but I can’t really like it too much because I’m a bit sick of it in reality and wish to move off from it, personally. This may sound like the words of a lifeless killjoy, but I don’t care. Maturity sometimes has its advantages.

This is all a bit of a shame to me, because I LOVE YOU, MAN has a solid idea for a comedy, the search for male bonding and a best friend when well into adulthood. This is something that a lot more guys go through than they will probably admit, and I LOVE YOU, MAN is not wrong in portraying all this as a “Bromance”, because it can be like that. It gets some of these moments right, and it shows the awkwardness that goes with it in a manner that I can relate to. But what it doesn’t get right, and what eventually disinterested me in the film, was in how it disintegrates into a movie-version world of relationships between men of my age. Sure, I understand that I LOVE YOU, MAN is a comedy, but a backward celebration into juvenile behavior that treads on a lot of familiar ground for these kinds of pictures. It wants to be the kind of comedy that ruled in the late 70s and early 80s, with an SNL sensibility, some raucous humor and a bit of heart, but there’s nothing new here that suggests anything other than a collection of gags. It’s interesting to see Jon Favreau pop up in a supporting role, since he was the one who practically invented this genre with SWINGERS back in ’96, and the freshness that I felt for that back then is long gone here. I LOVE YOU, MAN is predictable in its plotting and situations and doesn’t really do anything with its premise, nor does it really care to say anything about this. If you look at pictures like THE ODD COUPLE, or even THE CABLE GUY, which was a silly comedy and also a dark, sometimes powerful, statement on loneliness and the attempt to make friends when you don’t possess the right social skills, you’ll know that it can be done right and done smart. I LOVE YOU, MAN is not smart enough.

And now for the confession: I did laugh quite a bit at I LOVE YOU, MAN. The film is well performed by total pros who are very good at what they do and sell a lot of this material better than it has a right to be, so a lot of the jokes hit their mark than should. There was even one gag (about a puggle named after a late world leader) that had me laughing for several minutes straight. Paul Rudd and Jason Segel are both funny guys and they have a good rapport in the film and make it a lot more tolerable than I would have expected it to be otherwise. The film is loaded with talented people – Jamie Pressly, J.K. Simmons, Andy Samburg, Thomas Lennon, and the lovely Rashida Jones – and they all help make it better than the material really is. I also couldn’t help but enjoy the film’s unabashed love and support of the band Rush (who are even in the fucking thing!), which is actually one of the few things that sets the film apart, since there are not of other movies out there that praises this much-underrated band (yes, I’m a fan). It’s certainly a watchable movie, and I won’t deny that I laughed while I watched it, but when it was all over I realized I didn’t like it very much. It’s too easy, too conventional, and too mired in its own cleverness to realize that it isn’t the picture it should be. It’s funny, I’ll admit to that. But it’s also quite unremarkable and stilted of any growth, and I couldn’t get behind it. I guess I’m getting old.

The Forgotten Movies - John Frankenheimer's 52 PICK-UP

2009-03-12T03:48:00.004-04:00

In honor of Larry Aydlette's Welcome to L.A. John Frankenheimer tribute comes this tribute to one of my favorite Frankenheimer films, 1986's 52 PICK-UP. All HQ 10 readers are advised to check out Welcome to L.A. and this wonderful tribute to this great American filmmaker. Great work, Larry!

There are a lot of things you can say about Cannon Films, but you can’t deny that within all of the crap and muck of the Chuck Norris and AMERICAN NINJA, they actually did find the time to make some terrific movies. Golan and Globus were known to be pretty crazy (or at least Menahem Golan was) and pissed away their money on a number of substandard films, but they did know talent when they saw it, which is why the likes of Robert Altman, Jean-Luc Godard, Franco Zeferelli, Barbet Schroeder, Norman Mailer, and Hebert Ross made pictures there. They were generally not known as meddlers, although they were always committed to their release dates and certainly were cheap, no question about that. There are numerous stories about Cannon shortchanging filmmakers (usually at the last minute), but the best Cannon pictures are usually the ones that were delivered by total pros who knew how to operate within the Cannon confines. Quick, cheap but good was not impossible, and for my money there’s no better example of this than John Frankenheimer’s 52 PICK-UP, a film which, the more I think of it, is probably my favorite Cannon film of all. I know I said that about LIFEFORCE some months back, and I love them both, but LIFEFORCE is crazy and stupid, while 52 PICK-UP is crazy and smart, and that every time in my book. It’s great sleaze made with great style and I’ve come to love it to death.

The main thing that makes 52 PICK-UP so damn good to me is in that it’s an excellent match of director and material. The film is based on a novel by Elmore Leonard (which Cannon previously adapted 2 years earlier as THE AMBASSADOR, shot in Israel by J. Lee Thompson with Robert Mitchum), and it seems as though Frankenheimer could have directed nothing but Elmore Leonard adaptations for the rest of his career and he would have made one terrific picture after another. Those who know Leonard’s work know that he really understands the criminal underworld pretty well and never skits back from presenting it as it pretty much is, so part of what’s great about 52 PICK-UP is how Frankenheimer understands this, too, and likewise doesn’t hold back. They give us a great team of villains taken straight out of the book and don’t sugarcoat them in any way; these guys are pretty fucking brutal. But they’re not as smart as they think they are (they attempt to blackmail businessman Roy Scheider with the murder of his mistress, only to learn that Scheider is in debt to the IRS), which makes them even more dangerous. One of the great things about Leonard’s writing is that he knows that criminals are generally not as ahead of the curb as they think they are, which is how they get caught or get the better of, but he also knows that because they’re criminals and murders, they don’t really care about what happens to them or to others, and that’s part of the thrill of the story. When things go south they really go south, and while it’s great to see these guys get theirs, there is also an understanding that they will most likely come back shooting, so the fun is in watching how pissed they’re going to get and how Scheider is eventually going to get back at them. In that regard, 52 PICK-UP ends like a motherfucker.

All of this also makes 52 PICK-UP a great Cannon movie, too. It’s pretty obvious to see the appeal of the material to Cannon – it’s got all the ingredients that the 42nd Street and Hollywood Boulevard audiences would want – and Frankenheimer doesn’t dare class it up. It’s got some pretty brutal killings, lots of nudity, and it wallows in its late-80s porn scene setting (all you fans of that era will notice a lot of familiar faces in those scenes), but that’s what this film needed. Hell, even Gary Chang’s totally 80's synthesizer score works just right. Frankenheimer knew he had to keep this gritty and dirty or it wouldn’t work. He also cast this one beautifully, getting John Glover and Clarence Williams III (later a Frankenheimer regular) as the villains, and they’re two of the best of the era. Glover, with his Philly accent and Wesley education, is terrific, a real hoot in a lot of ways but also smooth and deadly in the most appealing of ways; only Dan Dureya could have delivered a performance this alluringly dangerous. Williams, meanwhile, really does come across as a guy who’s done time, and to see him always cleaning his gun and looking behind his shoulder without cracking a smile you get the feeling that he’s the one who can take this whole thing to hell in a split second. But it’s because 52 PICK-UP has two solid leads in Roy Scheider and Ann-Margaret that it works like a good thriller or film noir should. Both are enormously appealing actors, instantly likeable, and you feel what they’re going through in an instant and don’t want to see them go through all this horrid shit. You want a guy who looks like he can convincingly outwit three crooks and even kick their ass, and that’s Scheider all the way. Once he’s figured these guys out and has them in his pocket, much of the delight in this film goes to seeing him turn it to these guys, and he also does a fantastic job with all of the sweet Elmore Leonard dialogue (Leonard may be the best dialogue writer in all of crime fiction), so much so you wished he could have done all those hypothetical Leonard adaptations with Frankenheimer (though they did reunite for THE FOURTH WAR, which I have yet to see). Big props, too, to Frankenheimer’s great use of backstreet L.A. locations. Hell, there ain’t nothing wrong with this film at all.

Happily, 52 PICK-UP is available on DVD from MGM, and even though there are no supplements, the transfer is lip-smackingly beautiful and the disc is quite cheap (only $15), so it’s definitely worth the purchase. I’m proud to place it with all the numerous Frankenheimer films on my shelf.

How Can We Recession-Proof the Movies?

2009-02-28T19:17:00.004-05:00

As you might have heard, movies are not, at present, feeling the effect of the recession. 2009 was the biggest January on record and February was unusually strong, too. The Alamo Drafthouse is reporting their best Januarys and Februarys to date, and with the big slate of titles coming out through the last week of April (WATCHMEN; MONSTERS VS. ALIENS; FAST & FURIOUS and I’m gonna add DUPLICITY to that list, just to be nice to someone) it’s probably going to be a record spring. Sure, some of the big hits haven’t been deserved (I’m looking at you, FRIDAY THE 13th PART 12), but it’s pretty damn cool that in a search for affordable entertainment, Americans have turned such fine films as GRAN TORINO, SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE, Henry Selik’s excellent CORALINE and even TAKEN into hits. I’d love to think that they would have all been hits anyway, but let’s be honest here, times are tense and people are looking for comfort food at the moment. Some people may have seen our current financial crisis coming, but they should have known that once it hit, people would go back to the tried and true, the movies.

There’s a myth that the movies are recession proof, but that’s exactly what it is, a myth. There have always been times when ticket sales are down, even in much better economic times (remember back in 2005 when everyone thought that movie theaters were going to go the way of CD stores?), and in past recessions movie theaters were not always filled with folks. During the recession of the early 80s hit movies mostly came around in the summer and Christmas with few spring and fall hits, and I distinctly remember the recession of the early 90s being quite bad on the old HQ 10, with many shifts cut and reduced show schedules to keep costs down (I was working two jobs at the time to get by). Yes, they were an important tonic to many during the last Great Depression and they did extremely well back then, but the way movies are in 2009 makes me think that there might be some rough seas ahead. Movies were about $0.25 a ticket back then, affordable for most families, while now they’re about $9 in the suburbs and more in the major cities, and if you’re looking to see a 3-D or IMAX movie, then it’s about $60 or so for a family of five, and that’s without popcorn or parking (or beers and burgers at the Alamo). That doesn’t really strike me as affordable, but most people don’t seem to mind at the moment, though perhaps at some point down the line (especially if this stretches out as long as people think it will), waiting for the DVD might end up being more of an option. Just sayin’.

So what’s the answer? Fuck if I know. You can’t lower ticket prices, since the theater chains and studios would both scream bloody murder, as they’re pretty much all publicly traded and getting hit hard at the moment. Despite the excellent business, it wouldn’t surprise me if ticket prices continue to sneak up (and it’s always a sneak, since they never announce these things). Same thing goes for concession prices, too, though free refills on any size drink or popcorn sounds like a good idea to me, don’t you think? You could offer more discounted shows (wouldn’t hurt), perhaps even some free shows of older films or recent releases that have yet to hit DVD (AMC tried this during the recession of ’91, and while it was certainly an appreciated effort, no one went). Along these lines, I’m curious to know how the $2 theaters (or are they $3 theaters now?) are doing, providing they’re all still around (a number of them closed as DVD became more popular). Does the reduced-rate entertainment they provide have greater appeal to cash-strapped consumers? Ironically, the answers that the studios have provided over the last few years is to get bigger - 3-D, digital projection, IMAX – and though it’s currently reaping benefits, should the shit hit the theatrical fan, these are the places that are going to feel the effect the most. Already the studio’s plans to help theaters pay for digital upgrades has hit a snag, with some of those conversions now having to wait, and with major upcoming 3-D titles like AVATAR and the TOY STORY re-issues lacking necessary screens, some big pictures might suffer (notice how CORALINE took a hit when they lost most of their 3-D screens to that Jonas Brothers thing). Those one-time only satellite screenings do pretty well, I’m told, but they basically help bring up the weeknight numbers, nothing more; if they did something like screen TV shows once a week (like we do at the Alamo) or create new theatrical-only series, then they might have something there. But they haven’t for some reason, giving us only limited-appeal programming like Metropolitan Opera House performances (fine, if you’re into that), concerts, documentaries and occasional classic films (mainly to promote new DVDs), but it’s still pretty uninspired at the moment.

It’s cool that there are new reasons for going to the movies, but what exactly are they giving back to the audience? Once they figure that out, then they can breathe a little bit easier in knowing that the audience will always return. It will be more than a little dangerous to presume that the audiences will keep coming despite the bad times. Movies costs more and it’s always possible that people can give them up to help make ends meet. Cool as much of this new technology is, it might end up going unused if people abandon the movies. Something has to be done. Some new ideas need to be introduced and the audience has to get more in return beyond better sound and picture. Turns out that by thinking bigger is better, the studios have most likely painted themselves into a corner.

Cheezeburger Allowed

2009-02-24T02:45:00.002-05:00

My compliments to the I Can Has Cheezeburger crew for this one. Worth a sold five minutes of giggles from me.

more animals

The Forgotten Movies: Russell Rouse's THE OSCAR (1966)

2009-02-22T04:20:00.003-05:00

I’m probably not telling you anything you haven’t heard when I say that Russell Rouse’s 1966 film version of THE OSCAR is a howlingly bad movie. If you know anything about it (or have seen it) you’ll know its reputation as a classic movie turkey is pretty well deserved. It regularly turns up on “Worst Movies of All Time” lists and is a regular for bloggers who want to write about bad movies. It’s become increasingly popular over the last few years as more and more people discover it, and it seems that every time it airs on TCM message boards light up with notifications to set your Tivos and burn DVD-Rs, since it’s not on DVD and rarely screens theatrically. For those who love bad movies, it provides quite a bit of entertainment and for that reason alone it’s pretty well worth seeing, no doubt about that. And one of the amazing things about it is that it’s not a misunderstood film by any means; THE OSCAR is a poorly made, ineptly written, sometimes atrociously acted film that really is that bad. One can use it as a whipping boy for hours on end and not feel any guilt about it.

The nicest thing that anyone can say about THE OSCAR is that it’s not offensively bad, just…bad. Sadly, it could have been something much better than what it is. I’ve written about Richard Sale’s original 1963 novel, a very entertaining (if trashy) read that I happen to love, and since they pretty much chucked out Sale’s story, with the exception of a few character names, it’s possible that it still could make a good movie some day. (Sale’s novel finds up-and-coming young actor Frankie Fane out to sabotage his fellow Best Actor nominees chances through blackmail and other devious methods, while the film is about the backstabbing Fane’s career up until the nomination, which doesn’t even occur until the film’s last half hour.) The only positive thing one could say about the adaptation is that it doesn’t sugarcoat Fane in any way – he’s still a scumbag – though here he’s a borderline psycho, while in the book here a fascinating sociopath. Sale made it so that you could understand (though not believe) how Fane could get away with what he does through charm and charisma, but the way that Rouse’s script (co-written by producer Clarence Greene and none other than Harlan Ellison, whose modern-day recollections on the film can be found by scrolling down here) portrays Fane, you’ve got to wonder why anyone would go near the guy, or how he could go on to become any kind of a star. Add to this the ridiculously (and intensely) over-the-top performance from Stephen Boyd (an Irishman struggling with an American accent) and I suppose it doesn’t matter much in the long run, because if they did it any differently then THE OSCAR might not be as enjoyably bad as it is. The book is always there for those who want to find it (it’s been out of print for some time, but paperbacks are easy to find online) and can always be read and enjoyed on its own level. But this film is a pretty big failure on a level that not many others can claim.

What I do find interesting about the film version of THE OSCAR is looking at it as a representation of the kind of movie that was strangling Hollywood before the likes of BONNIE & CYLDE and MIDNIGHT COWBOY came aboard to really shake things up. Take away the bad acting and ludicrously awful dialogue (check out the Memorable Quotes IMDB page), this film is about as banal and unexcitingly made as any other second-rate film of its era. Even though Rouse was an Oscar-winning writer (he wrote the story for PILLOW TALK and also wrote D.O.A.) and had directed the classic noir THE THEIF, his work here is as pedestrian as you could ever get, completely studio-bound with the look and feel of mid-60s TV. He directs like a writer, protecting the words with no care of building any kind of creative visual style or imagination, and if it weren’t for the ludicrous nature of the rest of the picture it would otherwise be deadly boring. Yet, this was the norm back when THE OSCAR was made, the kind of safe-bet filmmaking that the studios preferred and hacks like Rouse lifelessly delivered. The book had a life to it, some vitality, while this is a big wasted opportunity that deserved to go down in flames, and it happily took this kind of hackneyed filmmaking with it. Part of THE OSCAR’s modern-day appeal is how it feels so dated, how its clichés and stilted dialogue turn it into high camp from a bygone era. But that out datedness is also what does it in as a movie, proving that by playing it so safe that they have nowhere else go to but into the obvious, it’s driving straight off a cliff and into disaster. This movie never had a chance.

"I wouldn't say I've been missing it, Bob" - 10 Years of OFFICE SPACE

2009-02-19T23:18:00.004-05:00

Like most people, I bypassed Mike Judge’s OFFICE SPACE in theaters when it opened ten years ago today. I’m not sure why, but it didn’t really strike me as something I felt I should see theatrically, so I never saw it. I’m not really one to “wait for the DVD” – if I don’t see something in theaters, I usually don’t see it at all – but when OFFICE SPACE hit video in July of ’99, I did feel far more compelled to check it out than I did before. What had changed was that the subject mattered had suddenly become of interest to me, because for the first time in my life, I was doing office work, as opposed to working retail or at the old HQ 10 theaters. I had been working for a subsidiary of Image Entertainment up until the previous summer, but they shut us down and I was out of a job for several months. I took this as an opportunity to take up some job training, learning Microsoft Office (which was new enough at the time that you had to take a class to learn it) and getting a job as a temp in offices throughout Morris County, NJ. It was then that I learned that a lot of the workplace clichés of sitcoms and movies actually had a ring of truth to them, and the truer the gag was, the funnier it got, which is part of why people love OFFICE SPACE so. Had I seen OFFICE SPACE in February of that year I probably would have just looked at it as a comedy, whereas by July of ’99, it became a social satire, one that I was starting to live in myself and would pop in and out of over the last decade, and one that would become more and more identifiable as time would go on, frighteningly so, in some cases.

One doesn’t necessarily have to have worked in an office setting to have liked (or loved) OFFICE SPACE, though that’s clearly why so many people identify with it. To anyone who works in a soulless office environment, fantasizing of getting out of it and doing something more meaningful (and fun) with your time is the real goal, with the office life becoming a trap that can suck you in and take away your personality and ambition. Sure, OFFICE SPACE is a fantasy, but it’s a fantasy with groundings in reality; beyond just the mundane day-to-day stuff like TPS Reports and broken fax machines, the reality of layoffs and efficiency experts (not to mention asshole bosses) helps to make it a social satire that will (sadly) probably always remain relevant. That’s what’s especially interesting about looking at OFFICE SPACE in 2009, because corporate America, for all of the massive changes on the financial and technological landscape, is still as controlling and dispiriting as it ever was, like it’s another level of high school with a template design that is impossible to stray from. All the credit must go to Judge for putting all of this into a context that captures this essence so very well while still making it fresh and funny. THE APARTMENT excepted, it almost feels as if no one had ever made a proper workplace comedy before OFFICE SPACE, like no one got it as right as Judge did, to the extent that the film has lived on like it has in a way that no was would have ever expected.

What I’ve found especially interesting about the OFFICE SPACE phenomenon – and the film’s effect on people – is to have seen it in action back on February 8 at a 10th anniversary reunion screening here in Austin that just happened to have been put together by we Alamo Drafthouse/Fantastic Fest folk. When the show was initially suggested (I can’t remember by whom; might have been me), the idea was to simply bring Judge in for a show or two (he lives in Austin) and that was it. But when we thought about it a bit more, we knew we had an opportunity to make it special, and we certainly did, renting out the Paramount Theater, Austin’s biggest theater, and bringing in as many of the cast members as we could get (Notable absences were Ron Livingston, who had prior work commitments, and Jennifer Aniston, whose people probably never told her about it). We always figured that it was going to be a successful show (wouldn’t have suggested it, otherwise), but when we sold out the 1,200 seat venue two weeks before the show began, we knew it was going to be special. And it was.

Aside from a projector glitch that denied us a clip from EXTRACT, Judge’s new film, the entire event went off like a dream. The cast were all great to deal with and quite friendly, everything went on schedule, and the whole thing as recorded for posterity by the great folks at G4’s “Attack of the Show”. But was the real surprise for me was in how the film played to this mass audience, no doubt the largest the film has ever played to. Like a crowd of Python fans watching HOLY GRAIL, they knew the film inside and out, so the first time someone said, “Seems like somebody’s got a case of the Mondays”, half the crowd spoke it back. It wasn’t quite like ROCKY HORROR and it wasn’t raging fanboy enthusiasm, either; it was all from the heart, like when even minor characters would get applause by their first appearance, and proved how special the film was to so many people. More than just a comedy, more than just a movie, it was something they could all identify with and relate to, something that spoke to them and for them, an acknowledgement of what everyone goes through on a daily basis in their struggle to get by. That may be overstating things somewhat, but the fan reaction really felt that way to me. People love this movie as more than just a mere comedy, but as a representation of the way they feel, and 10 years later OFFICE SPACE still resonates. I can understand why it’s become a modern classic.

"You're so bad in martial arts. You don't deserve to even be under my foot!" - Wilson Yip's IP MAN

2009-02-10T00:22:00.004-05:00

Wilson Yip's IP MAN may not be a great movie, but it's a great martial arts movie, and that's all that matters. This assessment may not be a startlingly original one, but IP MAN is not a startling original movie, either, which is one of its charms. This is very much a throwback to the more traditional martial arts films of years past, an old-fashioned martial arts biopic of a legendary figure in the world of martial arts (in this case, the man who revolutionized Wing Chun and who later mentored Bruce Lee), that is less about facts and more about fostering the legend. This may not have been the way any of this really happened, but then again, who really gives a shit?

IP MAN follows a classic martial arts movie structure of slight characterization, followed by fights, followed by plotting, then followed by fights, then followed by wrapping up the plotting and ending in more fights. Something like this may seemed tired and cliched, but IP MAN has an earnestness to this structure that gives it credence; it doesn't exactly matter that the film isn't innovative or that creative, just that modern audiences understand what a hero Ip Man is to the Chinese culture. The "true" Ip Man is still something of a mystery, but this Ip Man, as created by director Wilson Yip and star Donnie Chen (in their fourth collaboration together) is a different kind of true; true to his people, true to his family, true to his country and true to his martial arts, a real hero of the people. By sticking with an old fashioned narrative of Ip's refusal to teach Wing Chun, then changing his mind after the Japanese occupy his city and enslave his people, Yip turns Ip into the Wong Hei Hung of his day. However right or wrong this is, it becomes the right approach here because a huge part of who this guy is for contemporary audiences is based in the fact that he was Bruce Lee's mentor, so in turn, Ip Man has to be faster and quicker than Lee ever was, and that's certainly what you get here. Donnie Yen's portrayal of the man is as earnest as can be - Ip Man is pretty much the ultimate patriot and family man - and it's also totally, 100% badass. Yen has never been better, both as an actor and a martial artist; he usually comes off as too cocky and self-assured in his other roles, but he reigns it all in here and he gets it just right. It's said this was a dream role for Yen, and he definitely doesn't waste the opportunity, and he's a huge part of the film's success.

As I said, IP MAN also represents Yen's best work to date as a martial artist, and if you'll allow me to go further than that, IP MAN is also one of the very best martial arts films of the decade, no question. Every fight scene (and there's a lot of them) is as expertly shot, edited and choreographed as the best of Hong Kong action films can be, and they are all refreshingly earth-bound and mostly CGI-free (there are a few moments here and there, but they go by quick). The fighters in this film pretty much keep their feet on the ground and respect the bounds of gravity; while IP MAN pretty much fantasizes the man's life, it keeps it fairly real as far as the fights are concerned, and that's a wonderful thing. All of the fights are tremendously exciting, up there with the work that Yip and action director Sammo Hung did on their excellent 2005 policier S.P.L., and there's an unpretentiousness to them, like the rest of the film, that makes them quite special. On top of all that, sometimes you just want to see guys get the shit beat out them, and few films in the last few years have done that as well as IP MAN has.

Even though it opened in Hong Kong a mere two months ago, IP MAN will be hitting legal Hong Kong DVD at the end of the week, and I'll certainly be getting myself a copy, while also hoping that it doesn't hit Stateside DVD before a certain film festival rolls around in September. Can't wait to see this one on a big screen.

The Forgotten Movies - Jack Arnold's NO NAME ON THE BULLET

2009-01-29T22:42:00.006-05:00

I used to know someone who was downright obsessed with Audie Murphy. He was a fanzine writer who wrote about almost nothing but Murphy and 50s westerns - not very well, despite the passion - and his idol worship of Murphy, who I had never heard of before I met this guy, tainted my initial impression of this unique individual. He'd talk of Murphy like some genius talent we should all bow down to, while Murphy's films were spoken of like they were they were Kurosawa's, and it got to be embarrassing after a point. But I eventually did learn a lot about Murphy (he claimed to be working on a book about Murphy which, no surprise, never materialized): That he was the most decorated solider of WWII and that he stumbled onto acting not long after that (Cagney apparently saw star potential in him and suggested he give acting a try), eventually becoming a star. He specialized in westerns and war pictures with his most famous being John Houston's film version of THE RED BADGE OF COURAGE and then TO HELL AND BACK, where Murphy played himself, based on his autobiography. NO NAME ON THE BULLET happened to be the name of this person's fanzine, so when I finally found out that there was, in fact, an Audie Murphy movie by that title, I was under no real hurry to seek it out. But as the years went by - and as I dropped any contact with this person - I'd read a bit more about Murphy, and especially his westerns, and I took an interest. And now having seen NO NAME ON THE BULLET, I have to say that Mr. Murphy's overzealous fan was at least right about one thing: This is a pretty damn good movie, and Murphy's the best thing about it.

One thing about NO NAME ON THE BULLET I personally find to be interesting is that it comes from the tail end of the 50s western revival (1959, specifically), when the genre had evolved throughout the decade to become smarter, more mature, even darker at times. It was this decade that brought us the best the genre ever had to offer, like WINCHESTER '73, THE SEARCHERS, THE TALL T, 3:10 TO YUMA and GUNFIGHT AT THE O.K. CORRAL, and NO NAME ON THE BULLET was a picture that took the genre as seriously as they did, even though it was, on the outside, a mere Universal programmer. Well throughout the decade, Universal made numerous quickie westerns (and some classics, too, like the Anthony Mann/Jimmy Stewart pictures), and NO NAME ON THE BULLET was meant to be nothing more than that, teaming Murphy with top Universal contract director Jack Arnold (best known for his sci-fi films like IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE). But in what seems to be a fine example of pure luck or the stars alligning, Arnold and Murphy got their hands on a solid script from Gene L. Coon (later a regular writer on STAR TREK) and made a quickie western that has stood the test of time pretty well. The thing that makes NO NAME ON THE BULLET works so well is that it's got a hook, and if you've got a hook, then you're always off to a solid start in my book. Premise finds notorious professional gun Murphy riding into a small town that suddenly grows paranoid over his appearance. It's known that Murphy is there to kill someone, but just who is it? Those with something to hide are suddenly running scared, while those who suspect others of hiring Murphy, call out their enemies. Murphy, meanwhile, just sits out all the paranoia, befriending doctor Charles Drake, and waiting for the right time to make his kill, which he always does by getting the other person to draw first. That, my dear readers, is what I call a good hook.

What sets NO NAME ON THE BULLET apart, aside from said hook, are two things. First, Arnold keeps things small and efficient. Even though he's shooting in Cinemascope (as was pretty much the norm at the time), he's basically got a small cast of capable players (including the always-welcome R.G. Armstrong), not a lot of locations (Universal lot, mainly) and little in the way of unnecessary plotting. NO NAME ON THE BULLET is only 77 minutes long, but it's a tight 77 minutes, with little to none wasted material or ideas. Within all of this, Coon's script is able to bring up some parallels to 50s paranoia (McCarthyism and the Red Scare) while smartly sticking within western genre conventions of the time. And it's also got a good villain, which makes for that second plus, Murphy's lead performance. This was the only villain Murphy ever played, and it's a solid piece of work all-around, especially in how his character spends a lot of time just sitting back and watching others trip all over themselves to discover what he's after. By doing that, Murphy convincingly comes across as the intimidating and cruel man this character is supposed to be, and he stays very much in character throughout (he never tries to show a softer side) to help put this one over the top as a quality picture. What's interesting is trying to figure out if this guy is truly smarter than everyone else, or simply just good at killing and drawing out his prey. He's a legitimately dangerous character, and by using someone like Murphy - who always possessed a simple, down-home Texas charm - Arnold is able to add an element of dread that casting someone who specialized in villians might not have brought to the film. Needless to say, this is very effective casting, and it pretty much makes the movie.

Unlike a lot of The Forgotten Movies, NO NAME ON THE BULLET is available on DVD in a relatively satisfying presentation from Universal. It's widescreen and contains a trailer, but it doesn't cost too much and what matters here is the movie, not any fancy add-ons. It's a quick, easy watch, and you get a pretty satisfying 77 minutes out if it.

The Terrible Twos

2009-01-25T23:52:00.004-05:00

This here little blog turned two yesterday. Perhaps not a reason for a new national holiday, but it's an opportunity for me to reflect upon the last year's worth of posts, and basically the last year in general. In going over the numbers there were actually fewer postings this year than last, which is partly because of the demands of the new job at Fantastic Fest and also partly because the muse doesn't seem to hit as much as it does when you're working a job that actually requires you to work. My previous job was one that afforded me more free time than my bosses realized, which was part of the reason why I ended up doing so much more writing in 2007. The scene changed in 2008, and though I'm not complaining about the job or it's demands, I find myself working on this when I'm off the clock, and that can be draining sometimes. Too tired to think, to tired to write, not always writing my best; it's not always easy. I know that things can be a hell of a lot worse off, but I had more time on my hands when I was making more money and less content with what I was doing. Now I make less and bust my ass more, though I'm much more content. It's a bit odd.

There's also the matter of life itself and how that has changed. The early part of last year was a tough, tough time for me, and it gave way to a lot of self-reflection which gave way to a lot of writing. I think some of my best stuff came from this period, though I'm really not sure I'd be willing to go through it all again if I had that opportunity, because it hurt like a son of a bitch. Still, it was a productive time, and all of the pre-move writing from last year (up to late April) was done with a certain passion that I feel is a bit lost. This time last year I hoped to move onto writing full time (or at least enough to make a living out of it), and while most of my non-HQ 10 writing these days is more along the line of Fantastic Fest sales pitches, it's great to have HQ 10 to be the place to go when I've got something to say about this art form that I love so dearly. Writing is a groove that can sometimes be tough to fit into, but when it's right there's a lot you can get going out of it. I'd like to think that, for the most part, I'm getting it more right than wrong. But that's not really up for me to decide.

Some personal faves from the last two years:

February movies

The George A. Romero interview

In a Lonely Place - The Movies

The Forgotten Movies (all of them)

The Children of George and Steven

Taurog! Taurog! Taurog!

Laserdiscs Remembered

All those Fantastic Fest reviews

Remembering George Willig

That's about it. Thanks for reading!

Happy Birthday, Radley Metzger.

2009-01-21T02:45:00.007-05:00

I first met Radley Metzger almost 8 years ago, back in March of 2001. I’d just started working for the company that was distributing his films on video, and he stopped in one afternoon to drop off materials for a project he’d been working on, a sort of “Best of” compilation of the lesbian scenes from his films (and those of Audubon Films, his distribution company) called GIRLS WHO LIKE GIRLS. I knew of his reputation as the classiest of all erotic filmmakers, but I’d never seen any of his films at the time and didn’t know just what I would be able to talk to him about, other than saying hello and telling him how much I looked forward to selling his titles. Much to my surprise, we spoke for about a half hour (at a distance; I had a cold at the time and he was concerned about catching it) about a variety of things, but mostly about film - about new films he’d seen and liked, about favorites and my own personal interest – and the only reason we stopped was because my boss interrupted us to remind me that I had to get back to work. Radley would show up at the offices once every couple of weeks, and when he did we’d always find time to talk. We became friends outside of the office, too, and when I was (ahem) “let go” of that job at the end of 2003, we stayed in touch. We still have lunch every so often, though less often now that I’m in Austin (though we found time during the holidays), and while he has thus far resisted my numerous offers for us to pay tribute to him at the Alamo Drafthouse, I’m determined to get him down here one of these days. He’s a wonderful man, and I’m honored to say he’s my friend.

More so than that, he’s also an immensely talented filmmaker, and I say that in the present tense, despite the fact that he hasn’t directed a picture since 1984, because I know in my heart that he will direct again someday. Once I finally sat down to look at some of his films, I was more than impressed with what I saw, that being a director who understood very well the importance of the image but never did so at the expense of the story or the characters. His films (even the Henry Paris ones) are not just mere classy erotica, but also classy cinema, period, and knowing what a student and lover of film history the man is I understand a little bit more than others just how they all got that way. This is a total filmmaker, one who truly understands how to make a real movie, and while I suppose he could have moved away from erotica to make other kinds of pictures (which he did – and did well - with 1978’s THE CAT AND THE CANARY) the fact that was the best at what he did certainly helps to set him apart. Like the “other” RM (Russ Meyer) a Radley Metzger film looks, feels and sounds like no one else’s. His pictures are fun and provocative, but never really lightweight; there’s always something beyond the sex and games, a thoughtfulness and maturity to sex and relationships that few other filmmakers (and certainly no other erotic filmmakers) have ever really been able to match. It’s almost a mistake to call Radley an “erotic filmmaker”, because his films were never really sex films as much as they were films about sex; character pieces where sex was the main topic of conversation and the point of motivations for everyone involved. They’re also about intimacy, about the need to understand and care for the people we love as much as they do us, and I always find it interesting how, for the most part, almost every one of his lead characters ends up a better, happier and healthier person in the end. (OK, except for the ones who die, I’ll grant you that.)

The general conscientious among those who know his work is that his best film is 1970’s THE LICKERISH QUARTET (though SCORE and THE IMAGE have their fans, too), and I'm inclined to agree with them. THE LICKERISH QUARTET has become more than just my favorite film of Radley’s, but one of my favorite films of all time, one that I’m inclined to revisit now and again. People who don’t really understand genre films often point out how LICKERISH is some kind of goofy mixture of erotic film and art film, but what they don’t seem to get is that it’s really Radley making his grand statement on cinema, a personal message from him to his audience in the manner that he wants to tell it, and I love and admire the film all the more because of the private nature of it. Some have called the film pretentious - though I think one person’s pretension is another’s ambition – but not everyone is going to get it when you’re laying it all out like this, and perhaps I’m seeing more of my friend than most viewers ever would. But I love it to death. Then again, that’s what THE LICKERISH QUARTET is all about, anyway. The set-up – Bourgeoisie family invite a beautiful young woman back to their home after seeing her in a stag film, then discover the film now features different performers when they screen it in front of her – can really go either way, but what Radley does here is that he lets you in on our shared secret: He knows that you’re not going to see the film as he sees it. The movie that’s going on in your mind may well be 100% different from the one he’s making. Who you are - your life experiences, loves, and sorrow – will make his film what you want it to be and not what he made. We all sit there and share the same experience, but we experience it differently, and the same goes for love and relationships, too. As the film progresses, the young woman (played by Silvana Venturelli, who also co-starred in Radley’s CAMILLE 2000) seduces all the members of the family by being whatever it is they want her to be – their ideal fantasy, the person who really listens to them – and in doing so becomes that thing that most people think eludes them, the one who can bring them happiness, just as moviegoers look to the screen to get some long-lost feeling back. That Radley does all this within the confines of an erotic film also happens to be one of the things I love about THE LICKERISH QUARTET, because by making this a genre film and an art film at the same time, he’s challenging the audience to love the film solely as it is, not as what they think it is or wants it to be. It’s a movie that’s as much about watching and movies as it is about the people in it, and I would think and hope that anyone who loves film as much as I do (or Radley does) would understand this and come to love THE LICKERISH QUARTET, providing they even see it, of course. It’s the film that I instantly think of when I think of Radley. It’s his masterpiece.

Radley Metzger turns 80 years old today. I can tell you that he’s as fit and healthy a man at 80 than I wish I could ever be, along with a wit and wisdom that makes him cooler than most anyone else I know. (He also has a great hair. I don’t know how he does it, but it always looks real good.) To my friend, I say, Happy Birthday and I wish there are many more to come. And to the filmmaker, I say, please get back behind the camera. Nobody makes movies like you, and we need more of them.

Hamburger Dude

2009-01-14T23:29:00.006-05:00

Little did I know when I went to my friend Kayla Kromer's housewarming on Saturday that I would be seen in the shot that went around the world - or certain parts of the internet, at least. I think that it's great that so many people are digging the Cheeseburger bed (Kayla doesn't want to call that, but if it's got cheese on it then it's a cheeseburger bed, end of story) and I can't help but admire all the work and effort that Kayla put into this (fellow pal Jasmine Baker supplied the pickle pillow and sesame seeds). She mentioned to me how much she wanted a Hamburger Bed after seeing one in HAMBURGER - THE MOTION PICTURE (which screened at the Alamo a few months back) and I never doubted she would make it happen, though I didn't think it would capture so many people's imagination. It's a damn comfortable bed, by the way, and incredibly toasty warm, too (helps on those cold January nights). I don't know if this is going to end up the big internet sensation of 2009, but kudos to Kayla for sticking to her vision of a burger-filled slumber and making it happen. The Hamburger Bed should be an inspiration to us all.

Feel free to befriend it on Facebook, by the way.

(photo by Heather Leigh Kennedy)

The Forgotten Movies - Bruce Beresford's MONEY MOVERS (1979)

2009-01-06T02:41:00.004-05:00

The big thing in the cult movie universe these days is Ozploitation, or Australian exploitation films of the 70s and 80s, as highlighted by Mark Hartley's excellent documentary NOT QUITE HOLLYWOOD, due to open in March from Magnolia Pictures. It's nice to see these forgotten pics get their due here in the U.S., and hopefully it will open the gates for several of these films to get a release over here, since the Aussie cinematic golden age gave us a hell of a lot of good films that either never made it here or have fallen out of license. (My pals at Synapse Films have already gotten the ball rolling with such films as PATRICK and STRANGE BEHAVIOR, with the excellent giant croc epic DARK AGE due for release some time in '09.) While many of these films have been released on DVD in their homeland, there's zero market for them, import-wise, and there's unquestionably some hidden gems out there. Having dug into some of these imports recently, one of the first that I've discovered is Bruce Beresford's MONEY MOVERS, a heist flick from '79 that shows that Aussie crime cinema of the 70s was as solid as it was in the states and that the conventions of film noir transplanted just as well to Australia as they did to France in the 50s and 60s.

A film titled MONEY MOVERS could only be a heist movie (or an expose on the life of accountants), though in this case it has a literal meaning, too, since the heist concerns a Sydeny-based payroll company. Based on a book by a former security officer (and inspired by two 1970 robberies), MONEY MOVERS wisely begins by dictating the inner workings of the company itself for its first 15 minutes so that we get a good idea of not just how difficult it would be for someone to knock it over, but also what exactly is at stake. Since this is a security company and not a bank, everyone has guns, everyone has an attitude and, most important of all, most everyone has a reason to knock the place over. It's an inside job all the way, planned by Terrance Donovan, his brother Bryan Brown and another employee, three guys who've been with the company long enough to be trusted and long enough to be enticed by all that money. Their motives are practically secondary; they're determined to do the job they've been planning for 5 years and now there's a fire lit under them to finally get it done. These things don't always go as planned, of course, and there are numerous complications - unwanted third parties muscling in on the job, suspicious co-workers, fall guys who don't fall so easily - and much of what makes MONEY MOVERS so compelling is the matter-of-fact storytelling technique that Beresford employs, while at the same time never losing sight of the genre he's in or pretending that he - or the film - are above it. The fact that MONEY MOVERS feels very much like many of the other quality Aussie films of its era - while at the same time a heist movie - is what makes it feel fresh to me. This is one of the few attempts to make a modern day noir that works on its own terms, especially without feeling like a rip-off or (even worse) a homage. Yes, it could have been made by Fox in the Forties with Tyrone Power or Dana Andrews, or by Melville with Lino Ventura in the early 60s, but with all the bright Aussie locations and Down Under attitudes, MONEY MOVERS is very much its own movie.

That said, it's also very much Bruce Beresford's movie, and it serves as a reminder that this guy used to be a really good director some time ago. Well before he turned Hollywood, Beresford's Aussie films (and the fine TENDER MERCIES, his U.S. debut) had this natural quality to them that helped to define the Aussie cinema of the 70s that felt lived-in and felt organically Australian (the BARRY McKENZIE films excepted, of course). Many of these pictures were quiet, character-based stories about simple people whose problems Beresford was able to make seem enormously important and became intriguing because of that. MONEY MOVERS takes the same approach and it not only proves to be completely the right but also makes it unique for this genre; Making the characters all working class Aussies make them feel more human, easier to relate to and empathetic (for as much as thieves can be), and the lack of a score helps to add to the natural feeling and brings up the tension. At the same time, I'm also impressed by MONEY MOVERS as a thriller and in how respectful it is of the heist film genre. All of the usual trappings are there, but the feeling is fresh and unique.

Apparently, MONEY MOVERS was not a hit in Aussie cinemas back in '79 and its sole U.S. release was on VHS back in the early 80s, so it's ripe for a rediscovery and a re-evaluation. I'm gonna call Don over at Synapse and see what we can do.

8 Hours of Power: Steven Soderbergh's CHE and Sion Sono's LOVE EXPOSURE

2008-12-31T04:15:00.008-05:00

Taking the time out to view a 4-hour movie certainly requires a real commitment beyond that of time, because it also requires you to psyche yourself up, to prep for taking in four hours of story, characterization, themes, and ideas that could prove a bit much by film’s end. Heaven forbid that the film itself sucks, too, because on top of everything you’re going to feel like it’s been time wasted watching “that” other than wasting your time doing something else. But when films reach a truly epic length one often feels that it’s almost a safe bet, because despite the time, if a filmmaker is going to spend four hours (or more, if possible) telling a story, then that story must truly be something special. GONE WITH THE WIND is one of the most obvious examples (though it comes in under 4 hours), because audiences not only accepted the film’s length before they ever sat down, they also respected it, because the story was that big. Granted, not everyone would be into such a thing, but true cinema lovers would relish the opportunity to take in some kind of 4-hour epic if they felt it was worth their while (and the reviews are good). Being one step head and above of most film aficionados (don’t feel so bad, it just comes naturally), I took the time to do this twice in the space of a week, and I couldn’t find two more dissimilar films to do it with than Steven Soderbergh’s CHE, about the famed South American revolutionary and college dorm room fixture, and Sion Sono’s LOVE EXPOSURE, which is about the importance of sinning and mastering the art of the upskirt photograph, among many other things. I did not say that there was any logic to these choices, other than the fact that I simply wanted to see them both. Needless to say, I don’t really possess much logic to begin with.

Soderbergh’s CHE (which is currently screening in its complete form in NYC, L.A., and in the living rooms of Academy members and other screener participants, before being split into two seperate features) was the closing feature of Harry Knowles’ annual Butt-Numb-A-Thon 24-hour movie marathon, and the general conscientious was that it was a bad call to make that the closer. Even though the BNAT crowd are indeed die hard movie lovers, programming CHE – about as non-mainstream a film as you’re going to get these days – after 20 hours of films like MY BLOODY VALENTINE 3-D and I LOVE YOU, MAN – was simply off-base. That said, it also take a real die hard film lover to still appreciate CHE after all that, and on that simple account, some of us emerged victorious, myself included (hooray for me!). Having had not very much knowledge of the events of the Cuban revolution (other than what I saw in THE GODFATHER, PART II), I can’t really judge CHE for its historical accuracy or for its passion for the subject matter, I can only judge it as a piece of cinema, and on that respect alone I give it high marks. Soderbergh doesn’t seem to be too interested in telling the story of the Cuban revolution so much how one man’s belief in a cause can shape the world, and that he makes it compelling for just over four hours is very much to his credit. Like its protagonist, CHE is full of drive and passion, if only to present a portion of this important part of world history, so if you get lost by who’s who and what’s what (like I’ll confess I did), you can still admire it solely on an aesthetic level, like I’ll confess I did, as well. While watching the film I remember that Terrence Malick was once slated to direct, and suddenly it occurred to me that while Soderbergh wasn’t quite out to make a Malick film, he’s used that style to document these events, especially in the second half (due to be released as GUERRILLA), giving the events depicted a serine, but still lifelike, feel. And taking the film out of the context of “history” and simply making it a “you are there” style also makes it more compelling for ijuts like me, because I feel the need to fill in the gaps of the story and go back to it at some point. Can it feel slow and confusing? Yes, but if that’s the case then the problem is probably more me than the film itself, but my interest is certainly piqued and I’m eager to learn more. But I do know that Soderbergh, as uneven as he can be at times, is unquestionably one of the more challenging filmmakers working in the U.S. these days, and after CHE, my respect for him grows more and more.

So while CHE is unquestionably a serious intellectual enterprise, Sion Sono’s LOVE EXPOSURE may seem incredibly silly, even infantile, by comparison, but that’s definitely not the case. Sono, like Soderbergh, has been an extremely erratic filmmaker for me (I rather enjoyed EXTE: HAIR EXTENSIONS, but walked out of STRANGE CIRCUS at the 2006 Fantasia Film Festival, awkwardly bumping into Sono in the lobby as I did), but there’s no question that he’s struck movie gold with LOVE EXPOSURE, a picture that could quite possibly become the reigning cult film of 2009. This is a picture with a hell of a lot going on and a lot on both its heart and mind, so it can’t quite carry its own weight for the entire time (it drags a bit in the final hour), but it packs in so damn much and does it with admirable heart and drive (not unlike CHE) that one it tempted to rate it higher than they might have otherwise. Yet, it’s so admirable that Sono pulls off so much of it so well, that you just want to say, “What the hell” and set up your own distribution company just to make sure this puppy gets seen. What I particularly like about LOVE EXPOSURE is how it rather successfully jumps around genres for those four hours – it’s equal parts silly comedy, meditation on religious beliefs, and a testament to the power of love – but never feels disjointed. LOVE EXPOSURE is the story of Yu (played by Japanese pop star Takahiro Nishijima), who grows up in a devoutly religious (and happy) household. After his mother’s death, his father enters the priesthood, but is lured away years later when he falls in love with a parishioner. After she leaves him, Yu’s father becomes despondent, urging his son to confess his sins and refusing to believe him when Yu tells him that there are none. Yu soon realizes that the only way to please –and possibly save – his father is to begin sinning, which he does expertly. And if you think I’m telling you too much, don’t worry, because I pretty much just described only the opening 30 minutes or so. Needless to say, there’s a lot more, and you soon realize that the 4-hour running time is pretty much justified.

I’m sure that many legit critics will look at LOVE EXPOSURE as nothing more than a cult item, which I suppose it will be, but as a cult items there’s no question it’s more ambitious than many other pictures out there these days. This is a wild and alive film, heartfelt but also giddy insane and reckless; all over the map but also surprisingly restrained. It’s densely packed, but not jammed with so many ideas that it confuses or alienates its audience, and I’m really in awe of it right now. Is it art? Is it something for the intellectuals, like CHE? Probably not (though I’d sure like it if it did get embraced in such a way), but I have no doubt that it’s going to find an audience. I have no idea if it’s ever going to get any kind of release here (it opens in Japan on January 31), but it’s sure to be hot shit on the festival circuit (I know of one festival I’m pushing for it to play at), and with any hope some brave soul will pick it up here. I certainly hope so, because I have a very strong feeling I’m going to discussing it again this time next year. 2009 already has one film in its cannon that’s going to be hard to top. Four hours or not, we need more movies like LOVE EXPOSURE.

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Happy 80th Birthday to Dick Miller!

2008-12-24T12:53:00.003-05:00

With his 80th birthday upon us tomorrow (Christmas day, naturally), I'm reprinting this ode to the great Dick Miller I did this time last year. Can someone forward this to him? That would be just wonderful if you could.

Happy birthday, Dick!

Why Dick Miller is my favorite actor I don’t think I’ll ever know. There are plenty of other actors I love and admire – Burt Lancaster, Harrison Ford, Sam Neill, John Payne – but Dick Miller trumps them all. I see Dick Miller in a movie, usually not for very long, and I’m momentarily very happy, no matter how awful the movie can be, because there’s my guy, my favorite actor. I suppose you can look upon Dick as a guy who comes in, does his thing and does it well, and then gets out, like a true character actor, but there has always been something about Dick to me that has made him more than a mere actor. Dick Miller has a natural quality to him, the appearance that he’s not actually acting but that he’s that guy, a real guy who happens to be in this movie. I’m not talking method acting here, but I’m when I’m watching THE TERMINATOR and I see Dick playing the gun shop owner who tells Schwarzenegger that any one of his machine guns are “ideal for home defense”, I don’t see the actor, I see the gun shop owner, and not just any gun shop owner, but the guy who owns my local gun shop, a next door neighbor or friend of my dad’s who I’ve known in one way or another all of my life. I see Dick Miller on screen and suddenly I get very comfortable. In a rather odd way, I see an old friend up there.

It’s not quite like Dick Miller is an actor who dominates a film with an astounding presence, because he has the look and feel of a character actor, which he unquestionably is. He’s only had one leading role in his entire career, in Roger Corman’s great black comedy A BUCKET OF BLOOD, and though he was terrific in it, Dick didn’t have that “leading man” aspect to him, so he never got those parts. BUCKET apparently did well, but it wasn’t like they were breaking Dick’s door down, so he continued on doing small roles mainly in Corman productions and eventually films made by graduates of the Corman system, people like Jonathan Kaplan, Alan Arkush, Steve Carver and, of course, Joe Dante, the man who has probably done more to grow the Dick Miller legend than Miller himself. I suppose some actors might be bitter about it (and it’s possible Dick has been), but Dick has had a career that’s spawned over 50 years and not a lot of actors can say that. And if you ask me, what a career it’s been.

Dick’s forte has been mainly exploitation and genre films, with the occasional drama or western and a lot of TV work, but so many of those films are among the best of their genres and Dick easily stood out in them. Can you imagine LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS, GREMLINS 1 & 2 or HOLLYWOOD BOULEVARD without Dick Miller? Don’t even try. A lot of Dick’s films happen to be classics of their genres and that’s no doubt led to his respectable following over the years. I think one of the reasons I like Dick so much is because I discovered him at around the same time I discovered the great drive-in and exploitation movies of Corman and New World Pictures as a kid and so I guess I associate my love of Dick with my love of those films, which is pretty vast. Dante also has a big part in this, as he’s another one of my idols and someone who I think is one of the great underrated American filmmakers (and a Jersey boy, too), so they all go together like peanut butter and jelly, and as far as I’m concerned they’re with me for life. You can’t always choose the things you love, because sometimes they just find you. I think this is one of those times.

I was lucky enough to meet Dick Miller once. It was in January 1995 at the Fangoria Weekend of Horrors in NYC; Dick was there to promote DEMON KNIGHT the TALES FROM THE CRYPT movie that he had a sizeable co-starring role in. He doesn’t make a lot of personal appearances, so this was a pretty big deal for me and I got a big kick out of watching the man do his Q&A, even asking him some questions (I can’t remember what they were, though) and it was very fucking cool as far as I was concerned. DEMON KNIGHT was screening later that evening and when I was leaving the hotel with my friend Michael Gingold (Fango’s managing editor), we bumped into Dick and his lovely wide, Lainie, as they were getting ready to attend the show. We suggested that we share a cab, as they didn’t know where the theater was and also because it was ass-freezing cold outside. I can’t begin to tell you how psyched I was on the cab ride up, to be sharing a cab with one of my idols (yes, one of my idols!) but I have to say I never lost it. When we got to the theater (I can’t recall its name then, but it’s the Imaginasian now) there was already a small line to get in, but Mike got the theater to let Dick and Lainie wait inside while I had to freeze it out in the bitter January cold (and trust me, it was really, really cold). Apparently, while they waited inside Mike informed Dick of how excited I was about meeting him and Dick then suggested that Mike and I join them for breakfast the following morning with journalist Tom Weaver (also a friend of Mike’s)! Breakfast with Dick Miller was too good to be true (this shows how big a fan I am – and how big a geek) and to top it off, DEMON KNIGHT was a pretty good little movie and Dick was great in it, so I couldn’t be happier about the entire thing. The breakfast was wonderful indeed; we got stories about the early days of working with Corman, Dick’s pre-stardom friendship with Jack Nicholson, tales of working on DEMON KNIGHT, but even better was just getting to know the man a little and discovering that not only was he a great actor, he was also a terrific person, too. I attended his second Q&A the following afternoon and afterwards did something I rarely, if ever, do with actors or celebrities – I got my picture taken with him. I still have the picture to this day, although I don’t have a scanner or else I would have run it here, and it’s a prized picture not so much for the photo itself (if I could do it over again I would not have worn the sweater I was wearing) but for what happened when it was taken: Dick put his arm around me and said, “This one is special”. The guy knew who I was. He knew I was a real fan and he knew I was serious in my appreciation of him and his work. It remains the best experience I’ve ever had with a celebrity or a person I admire because it was special. Dick Miller is special. I can’t explain why, but he just is.

Dick Miller will be 79 next Tuesday, Christmas Day (a more fitting day for my favorite actor to be born I can’t even fathom), and even though this Blog-A-Thon has not received many fellow contributors (the only other commitment I received was from Ed Hardy of Shoot The Projectionist), I couldn’t be happier to write about Dick Miller. I wish him a Happy Birthday and many, many more years on this planet and hopefully many, many more movies for him to appear in. He’s the best.

The 8 Songs of Christmas: Day Eight

2008-12-24T12:47:00.002-05:00

Well, it's the last in the series. I love these songs, and out of all of them, this one may be the most fun. I love the performance piece that goes along with it, too. I've got zero Wizzard in my collection other than this tune, and I've got to rectify that in '09.

Happy Christmas to everyone!

Santapalooza 2008 Secrets Revealed!

2008-12-24T01:23:00.006-05:00

Every year it’s the same; buy a bunch of new music, put together a CD, burn a whole shitload of copies out, send them to friends, and – viola! – it’s a new edition of Santapalooza. I’ve been doing this for several years now and I seem to have it all down pretty well, but the search for new music will always be there. Sure, there’s a ton of Christmas music out there, but for me to put a song on one of my Santapalooza CDs (which always double as my Christmas card) I’ve got to think that it‘s something truly special, or at the very least it’s gotta be catchy, and if there’s one thing that I really like, it’s a good, catchy song. Santapalooza 2008 is full of them.

(Please Note: I’m not offering any downloads of these songs, so don’t ask.)

Peggy Lee, “I Like a Sleigh Ride (Jingle Bells)” – I used to work for EMI (a horrible experience that I don’t recommend to anyone) and one of the few upsides to the job were the monthly MRI’s, which meant you could order up four CDs or LPs from the EMI catalog (Beatles titles excepted). This time last year I decided I should dive into some classic Christmas music, and not having much Peggy Lee in my collection, this one made a lot of sense to me. This is the first track and I knew that I’d heard it before, but I also knew that it would be perfect to include it on this year’s comp. It’s bright and zippy and fun, and I also like how Ms. Peggy Lee takes a classic song but does her own thing with it. It was nice to read in the CD’s liner notes (written by Lee’s daughter) about how Lee really loved Christmas and was fond of this album, which I am, too.

Lou Rawls, “Good Time Christmas” – I love Lou Rawls. Here was another artist who I took advantage of with my EMI MRI’s, and I got some wonderful stuff out it, such his great Christmas comp, which features this wonderful, soulful piece. This is from Rawls in his prime, a real piece of R&B/soul power, and it’s probably the funkiest thing on here. I do love it so.

The Orchids, “Christmas is the Time to be With Your Baby” – Got this one off of a Universal Music Publishing comp that I picked up in Amoeba Music during a weekend jaunt to L.A. last November. That was a good trip, and I found a lot of tunes for this year’s CD from it, like this one.

James Brown, “Signs of Christmas” – James Brown is a Santapalooza staple, and this slower soul piece fits in just right.

Marvin & Johnny, “It’s Christmas Time” – Took this off of a great early 90’s Christmas comp from EMI (now out of print) that I also found at Amoeba last year. A lovely 50s Doo-Wop piece that deserves to be better known than it is.

The Belmonts, “Wintertime” – Taken off of the same EMI comp, this one almost didn’t make the list because it barely mentions Christmas itself. But it’s a beautiful little song that fit perfectly with Marvin & Johnny, so I couldn’t say no, and I didn’t.

Barry and the Highlights, “Xmas Bell Rock” – From Doo-Wop to rockabilly, taken off of the majestic Rockabilly Christmas from Buffalo Bop. One of the great Christmas CDs of all time, I will continue to use it as a source of holiday joy for all my friends.

Cathy Sharpe, “North Pole Rock” – Rockabilly Christmas once again, and what’s wrong with that? Sharpe has a kind of Wanda Jackson presence, which make me love this track all the more.

Albert King, “Santa Claus Wants Some Lovin’” – I accidentally labeled this as Rufus Thomas (I owe everyone an apology, especially Misters King and Thomas), but it’s a great piece that I couldn’t pass up. Some CDs don’t include this, as it is not all that family-friendly. Sorry if you’re one of those folks.

Isaac Hayes, “You, the Mistletoe and Me” – I had already planned to include this well before Mr. Hayes’ passing this August, and it’s unfortunate that it’s included as a tribute. It’s a great piece of soul music and one of my favorites of Hayes'. R.I.P., Black Moses.

Manfred Mann, “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” – A fairly quick instrumental, but so good I couldn’t pass it up. Jaunty and jazzy are probably the best ways to describe it, and though I’m sure it was a throwaway track for the band, they still made it special.

Nat King Cole, “Oh Holy Night” – I tend to stay away from the mainstays – which this number most certainly is – but I’ve loved it all my life, so I knew it was going to end up on one of these eventually. To me, there are few more wonderful moments in song than when Cole sings “Oh night divine”. Real magic.

Absinthe Blind, “Silent Night” – Never heard of this band before until I took a chance on a Parasol Records comp called Stuck in the Chimney at last year’s Amoeba haul, and I knew once I’d heard this track that it would make its way onto this year’s comp. It’s ambitious and modern, but also very respectful of the piece and they really get this piece right. I should look into more stuff from this band.

Apples in Stereo, “Holiday Mood” – I love these power poppers, and I was completely expecting a full-on power pop track from them, but no. This one’s softer, quieter and very easy to listen to, but it strikes the right cord and is a really nice holiday tune all around.

Bobby Goldsboro, “Look Around You (It’s Christmas Time)” – You certainly expect the man who gave us “Honey” to give us a holiday bummer and he certainly doesn’t disappoint, but he doesn’t miss his mark, either. The holidays ain’t always easy and it’s not a bad idea to remind folks of that. A bit of a downer, yes, but a good downer, says I.

Sufjan Stevens, “Get Behind Me, Santa!” – This track comes from the 2005 portion of Steven’s mega Christmas box, and it’s a really fun piece, with Santa defending his actions against those who think he’s a nuisance. Very peppy and lots of fun.

Tralala, “Everybody Christmastime” – This three song EP from Brooklyn hipsters Tralala is full of #1 hits like this one, which is even peppier than the last song. Compliments the Stevens song really well, but I think this is the better track. Expect song #3 to show up next year.

David Carwell and Megan Barnes, “I Wanna Kiss You This Christmas” – More peppiness abounds, courtesy of the It’s a Team Mint Christmas Volume 2 collection, featuring artist found on Mint Records. Nice little ditty, I think.

“Merry Christmas, Baby” – The Beach Boys – Resisting the cry to put “Little St. Nick” on one of these comps (it’s great, but it’s overplayed), and realized that this one fits the bill just fine. Interesting thing about it, if you listen to the lyrics (which you always should), it’s not a song about a jilted lover, but about a cheating jerk who realizes his mistake. Not really great holiday fodder, but I’m still giving this one a pass.

“Christmas Time (Don’t Let the Bells End)” – Just after The Darkness’ Permission to Land was a big hit in the U.K., they released this single, which failed to reached the coveted #1 Christmas spot (a big deal in the U.K.), but it’s a new Christmas classic as far as I’m concerned. I had no idea The Darkness broke up. Damn shame; I liked their stuff.

“A Merry Jingle” – The Greedies – This is one of the great Power Punk singles, and if you’re looking for supergroups, then look no further than this melding of Thin Lizzy and the Sex Pistols. This was one of those songs I’d been trying to get for years, and finally have thanks to that Uni comp I got at Amoeba.

“Truckin’ Trees for Christmas” – Red Simpson’s Trucker’s Christmas gets a play once again, and I think I’ve got one or two more track to use before I’m through with it. And I say without any irony or facetiousness, but we should remember the truckers this Christmas, as they will be out there on the roads, away from their families (or without families), and they deserve to have a Merry Christmas, too.

“Christmas in November”, Slim Pickens – OK, this is the big one, the one I’ve been looking to get on here since I started Santapalooza back in ‘o2. Here’s the story: 20 years ago, I was a freshman at Union County College in Cranford, NJ, where I was DJing on the campus radio station. I found this one in our 45 bin and, knowing who Slim Pickens was, decided to give it a whirl on my Christmas show (which I taped, and still have). Stunned by what I’d heard, I would play it for a few folks over the years with a similarly stunned reaction. When I started Santapalooza, I was hoping to find an MP3 or it (or maybe on CD), but there was nothing out there. Finally, I lucked out last year – a .45 was available on Ebay. Not only was I the only bidder, this was a promo copy that had never been played – insane! I had to send it to a friend of mine in L.A. to get it on CD (no one else I know here has the ability to do this), along with another track, and once I got it I knew it was going in. So what’s so damn weird about it? Well, how many Christmas songs dedicated to dying kids do you know of? Add Slim Pickens to this mix and you’ve got the strangest Christmas song of all time. I had to leave this one off of a few CDs that go out to friends with kids, but if you’ve got then cherish it, because it’s a rarity. And I’m never selling that .45, so don’t even ask. Merry Christmas, Slim Pickens!

“Reggae Christmas Eve in Transylvania”, Count Floyd (Joe Flaherty) – The second track I had my L.A. pal burn on CD for me, this is another rarity, although not quite up there with “Christmas in November”. After the success of the Bob and Doug McKenzie album in 1982, Joe Flaherty cut a 4-track EP as Count Floyd, which I picked up a few years later in ’84. Good thing, too, because I’d never seen or heard of it since and it contains this odd, but amusing, Christmas track that’s probably the highlight of the EP. One never really thought to mix Reggae music, Christmas time and Transylvania before, so kudos to Flaherty and crew for coming up with something unique.

“The 12 Days of Christmas”, Bob and Doug McKenzie (Dave Thomas/Rick Moranis) – Could not follow up Count Floyd without Bob and Doug, and I don’t think the two have been heard together since my 1988 WCPE Christmas show. Still pretty funny, and I still love Bob & Doug (and SCTV, of course).

“Sexy Elf”, Canned Hamm – Wrapping it up with one more Canadian comedy Christmas tune, courtesy of Vancouver’s Canned Hamm, off of their 2007 opus, Sincerely Christmas. Sexy elves don’t get enough ink these days, so bless the Hamm duo for this tuneful tribute.

That's it for this year. For more holiday tune info, get an earful at Mistletunes.

The 8 Songs of Christmas: Day Seven

2008-12-23T12:26:00.001-05:00

There's a lot of things you can say about Gary Glitter - and we all know what those things are - but I have to say this: Very few rock 'n' roll performers can dance around in a Santa outfit and not look like an idiot, and Gary Glitter is one of them. Here's wishing a Glam Christmas to everyone!

The 8 Songs of Christmas: Day Six

2008-12-22T12:09:00.001-05:00

What happend to The Darkness? Everyone loved them so much when they first hit the scene, and then no one cared. Well I care, and I'm happy - and unashamed - to present this contemporary holiday classic to you all. Enjoy it - I know you will.

The 8 Songs of Christmas: Day Five

2008-12-21T13:38:00.002-05:00

Band Aid's "Do They Know It's Christmas?" is a rarity - a holiday-themed charity song that's just a great song in and of itself, a tune that would have been a hit no matter what the reason or the season. I think people don't give co-writer Midge Ure (or Ultravox) for the success of the track, as he composed the music (Geldorf wrote the lyrics) and was actively involved in the production. It all took a lot of hard work, but the result is magic and is still one of the best Christmas songs of any era.

The 8 Songs of Christmas: Day Four

2008-12-20T10:15:00.003-05:00

Greg Lake's "I Believe in Father Christmas" is one of the downbeat holidays songs, but it's a powerful piece, one that would have been a hit had it been about the Easter Bunny or something like that. Still, it's probably Lake's masterpiece, and the guy had a lot of hits. OK, he had a lot of good songs, in addition to hits. Kinda painted myself into a corner there.

The 8 Songs of Christmas: Day Three

2008-12-19T13:07:00.002-05:00

Slade's "Merry Xmas, Everybody" is one of the all-time great rock Christmas songs, but it's unusual in that it never received much attention (or at least I'd never heard of it) until the past decade or so. Had Slade fallen in favor that much? No matter, we've been making up for lost time with a big resurgence in this one, and it's unquestionably a favorite. I know that in the U.K. it's almost like "White Christmas", and it may even be the better song. Yes, I did just say that.

It's also worth noting that the entire Christmas Day '74 episode of Top of the Pops (where this clip come from) is available in segments on You Tube. Great stuff.

"I Finish Things". - Clint Eastwood's GRAN TORINO

2008-12-19T02:25:00.003-05:00

One other highlight of the L.A. trip was attending a screening of GRAN TORINO, Clint Eastwood’s latest, on the Warner Brothers lot. Though I’ve been on the lot once before, this was the first screening I’ve ever attended there, and though it’s not like Clint himself was there, it was still a cool experience to be on the famed lot to see a movie there. Granted, if you live in L.A. then it’s probably a common thing, but it was a new experience for me and I’m still a little jazzed by it. What also made the experience fun was seeing GRAN TORINO with my friend Devin Faraci of CHUD.com, and it was especially nice that we both liked the picture – me perhaps a bit more than him – and to see a bit of our conversation afterwards show up in Devin’s review of the movie. We both couldn’t help but remark that others in the online film community, particularly those who are in their twenties, are passing off the film and Eastwood’s performance as camp when it seems pretty obvious to me that they’re just not getting it. First off, there’s a lot of intentional comedy to be found in GRAN TORINO, mostly in it opening third, and some of it is really quite wonderful.

Just as Eastwood’s reputation as an actor took a little too long to get recognized, it’s also time that we acknowledge that he’s a wonderfully dry comedian, albeit when the material’s right, which it is here. The opening suggests that the film will be a bit more broad than it ends up as (though it’s not really a problem), so bits like Clint’s scowls and “Get off my lawn” are, rest assured, there for your enjoyment. But I’m also seeing that these younger viewers aren’t getting the film’s message of intolerance, either, and though it’s something that I don’t agree with, I sort of understand it. Some seem to think that the film itself is racist because it wallows in stereotypes and expects us to sympathize with a racist, but once again, that’s not quite right. To start, Clint Kowalski isn’t a racist – he’s prejudiced. That may not seem like too much of a difference, but having grown up among many Irish-Americans who believe that no race or nationality is above the Irish, I understand this character a little bit better than I’d like to. The most telling scene that proves this comes in the film’s second half, where Kowalski takes his Hmong neighbor to the local barbershop to “man up” and trade quips with the Italian-American barber, who jokes with Kowalski about his being Polish while Kowalski mocks the barber for being Italian. It’s all a back-and-forth; rude, yes, but by no means insulting because it’s just all in fun, and if you’ve proven you can take it then you’re OK and you’re part of the group. We used to do this all the time at the old HQ 10, everyone joking on the others nationalities, race or character traits, and it does a lot more to diffuse any possible racial tensions than it does anything else. Clint’s Kowalski is from an older time when certain people “knew their place” and can’t adjust to the changing world and his changing neighborhood. But once he’s able to get people to meet with them on his level, then they’re OK, and one of the joys of GRAN TORINO, for me was watching this character finally learn that he’s never really understood others like he thought he did, and with the shame he feels, there’s also a sense of peace that comes with it. He’s realizing that it never is too late to learn.

This element is another of GRAN TORINO’s joys, its position as a “twilight” movie and as a story of people in the later days of their lives. I groused about this some months back, but it’s obvious that only a talent of Eastwood’s caliber could get this picture made – without studio interference – and it’s nice to see a story about the aged that’s not GRUMPY OLD MEN, THE BUCKET LIST or some such nonsense. Of course, there’s much talk about how this may be Clint’s swan song as an actor - which would be unfortunate, since he so good – but if it is, it’s a fitting coda to such an incredible, iconic career. It’s especially fascinating that it’s Eastwood himself doing this with a story that smartly encompasses so much near-mythic work that came before it. You see traits and elements of so much of Eastwood’s work – from DIRTY HARRY to UNFORGIVEN to A PERFECT WORLD – that it could only have been Eastwood to play this role. And as I think about the film more, I’m finding interesting comparisons to another finale for a film legend, John Wayne in Don Siegel’s THE SHOOTIST. The similarities are numerous: Older man, unable to adapt to a changing world, is looking to leave his violent past behind him and takes a young man under his wing in his final days, but finds himself drawn into one last confrontation. Siegel’s film likewise played to Wayne’s legend with the knowledge that it would probably be the actor’s swan song, but both films are also statements from these men about their lives and careers, but while Wayne pretty much stayed the course and played the same role that Duke Wayne was famous for, Eastwood’s is a bit of a reactionary piece about some of the roles he’s played and the choices he’s taken in his career. It’s funny that this was once rumored to be another DIRTY HARRY movie, because it’s almost an apology to the part that cemented his legend. It seems like Harry’s legacy troubles him, as it personifies itself in the Hmong gangsters who threaten his neighbors, and in Walt Kowalski, a man who has known violence his whole life and can be quick to act on it, but can no longer live with it. One can’t help but think that is Eastwood himself, and if this really is it for him as an actor, it’s doubtful he could have gone out on a piece as soulful as this.

The 8 Songs of Christmas: Day Two

2008-12-18T12:53:00.003-05:00

Some people love Paul McCartney's "Wonderful Christmastime", while others loathe it as too sugary and simplistic. I'm not one of those people. Funny thing, I don't remember the song when it was new (it's from 1979), and it took me several years to hear it. And then I wouldn't hear it too often, and I could never find it on .45 or LP. For some reason - though I could be wrong about this - the song too some time to take off, at least here in the States. Nevertheless, you here it all over the place now, so I guess all is right with the world. If you actually like this song, I mean. Enjoy!

The 8 Songs of Christmas: Day One

2008-12-17T14:46:00.002-05:00

Don't know if this will become a new holiday tradition here, but I'm finding lots of good stuff online and I feel like sharing it. We start off this year with Mud's "Lonely This Christmas", not my favorite Mud song (that would be "L-L-L-Lucy", no question), but it's works well and this vintage video is fun cheese.

Expect seven more of these. Happy Holidays from HQ 10!

Highlights from My Recent L.A. Trip...

2008-12-15T03:04:00.002-05:00

If you’re wondering why I’ve been inactive for the last week (admit it, you’re dying to know), I’ve been in L.A. on official Fantastic Fest business, and I do mean business, going around to various companies to pimp the festival and sell them on the idea that it’s a good idea to use the festival to market their upcoming releases to this crowd. I had about nine different meeting all around town, and I have to say I feel it was a pretty successful week overall, although no actual deals were made, though that wasn’t the point. Get to them before next year’s budgets are put together, convince them we’re worth their time, keep in touch and hopefully all my efforts will bear fruit in nine months time. I’m planting the seed for the little baby that will become Fantastic Fest, and this week was filled with lots and lots of sweet, sweet lovemaking.

God, that is the worst analogy ever. I can’t believe I wrote and published it, but there you go.

What I came back with from this trip to L.A., however, is in seeing the business end of the town more than ever before. I’ve been working in film-related jobs all my life, and have done numerous business trips to L.A. before to attend things like the AFM, but this time out I got much more of a taste of the business of things than probably ever before. Not that it was a bad thing, partly because my meetings went well and the festival and I were well-received, but also because it was that everywhere I went I was surrounded by friends and acquaintances that were all in the industry and all presently working. The economy and the actor’s strike were certainly discussed, but at this point in time most everyone I spoke to had plenty of work to do and were all keeping quite busy (it probably helps that they’re all quite talented). Things can always change (and I’m anticipating that they will), but for this moment in time it was business as usual, and it was somewhat reassuring.

It was also a bit of a kick to see L.A. at Christmastime, which I’d never done before, except in Joel Silver movies. It’s just a bit unusual for me to see Christmas lights on houses in neighborhoods where everything is in full bloom and it’s in the 70s outside, but I like the differences about it, and although the various L.A. homeowners don’t trump the lighting enthusiasm of those back in New Jersey (some of the best you’ll ever see), it was quite nice to drive through West Hollywood, Beverly Hills, and Hollywood Boulevard itself to see them all lit up (especially loved to see the giant tree on top of the Capitol Records building), so I was happy to see that L.A. is indeed a town with an unquestionable Christmas spirit. Happy holidays, Los Angeles!

The highlight of the trip for me was unquestionably my traditional Sunday brunch with my friend Mark Loughlin at The Milky Way restaurant on the tip of L.A. and Beverley Hills. It’s a lovely little place with a fine menu of delicious kosher food (I’m not Jewish, but I certainly enjoy the food) and an interesting milieu, because it looks like a shrine to Steven Spielberg, which makes sense since it’s owned and operated by his mother, Leah Adler. She runs the place herself and is usually in attendance; though in my previous visits our paths have failed to cross. This time, however, she was there from the moment I opened the door, as if she were waiting for me, this petite little woman who gave birth to one of my favorite filmmakers, and as I walked in and said “Hello”, she looked at me like only a mother could and said, “I know who you’re here to see. We’ve been waiting for you!” OK, so I was a bit late (hey, I called!), but this was a more that surreal experience for me, to have Spielberg’s mother just standing there waiting for me, but as she sat me at my seat she couldn’t have been lovelier, and she, Mark and myself chatted a bit about the restaurant, the food (I had a very tasty Salmon on potato pancakes and some delicious cheese blitzes), and a bit about her son; nothing too gossipy and none of which I shall repeat, except to say that he’s a nice boy who loves his mother very much. After Mark and I finished, we spoke to Ms. Adler for a bit more, who informed us that she is about to turn 89 this January! Having now finally met this little fireball, I can say that I certainly hope that she’s around for 89 years more.

All in all, a pleasant and productive trip. Hope I get back there soon.

Michael Curtiz's WHITE CHRISTMAS: Not A Classic

2008-12-06T01:39:00.005-05:00

With the holiday season upon us, we’re once again besieged by those so-called holiday “classics”; songs, TV specials, books, and movies that claim to be classics for no reason more than that they’re set during the holidays. Since Christmas only comes but once a year – and since people most have short memories – distributors all tend to believe that if it’s got anything to do with Christmas, then it’s got to be a classic, even if it is A VERY ROSIE CHRISTMAS, RUDOLPH & FROSTY’S CHRISTMAS IN JULY or CHRISTMAS WITH THE KRANKS. Most people love the holidays and all that goes with it – the songs, the sights, the food – so they seem to be willing to cut second-rate crap a lot of slack if it’s merely fairly Christmasy, and because of that a lot of stuff passes muster that simply shouldn’t. I know that the holidays are all about peace on earth and goodwill to all, but that shouldn’t extend to the likes of the New Kids on the Block Christmas album (astonishingly re-issued this year), don’t you think? Lame is lame no matter what the season, so with that in mind, HQ 10 respectfully asks, can we please stop calling Michael Curtiz’s 1954 schmaltz epic WHITE CHRISTMAS a classic?

Look, I understand that there’s a lot of talent behind WHITE CHRISTMAS: Curtiz, of course, although he seems to be phoning it in; Irving Berlin; the four leads; beautiful Vista-Vision lensing by Loyal Griggs; great Edith Head costumes, ect. There’s no doubt that WHITE CHRISTMAS is a class production all the way, but that doesn’t forgive the film it’s many flaws, namely an incredibly flimsy script and some second rate songs that don’t do much to inflict entertainment upon the viewer. For all that talent, there’s also zero real inspiration, other than to make a little extra money off of the most famous song ever written. All they did was basically rip-off HOLIDAY INN (a much more entertaining movie, albeit a flawed one – that “Abraham” number still makes me wretch) and slapped what feels like a first draft script onto it; there’s nothing of any significance anywhere in this movie. They must have thought this would be an easy sell back in ’54 (and it was, as the film was a major hit), but the fact that it remains so for a lot of people is still a head-slapper. When was the last time you actually watched the damn thing, people?

Now just so you know, I’m not a total WHITE CHRISTMAS hatin’ Scrooge, because it’s not without its pleasures. This is all due mainly to the four leads, the only ones who seem to be making an effort and the only one who give it any value. Crosby is, of course, Crosby, and he’s great at it, though he was a hell of a lot better in HOLIDAY INN, but this slick, stylish crooner could sell pretty much anything and he sure as hell almost sells WHITE CHRISTMAS. He’s well-matched with Kaye, who gives more than the script gives back, and the same can be said for Vera-Ellen and Rosemary Clooney, who really does steal the show. Clooney had the goods to become a real movie star of the era, and why that didn’t happen I don’t know; great voice, good performance, and is a major hottie, too. Why wasn’t she in more movies? If WHITE CHRISTMAS is the best she ever got then Hollywood obviously didn’t know what to do with her, and that’s a shame. The other thing I love about WHITE CHRISTMAS is the look of it, magnificent Technicolor Vista-Vision photography (the first film shot in the format) and even on regular TV airings (which happen every Christmas Eve) it’s still a beautiful-looking picture. I once had the pleasure to see the first reel of a mint IB Technicolor collector’s print of WHITE CHRISTMAS projected in true Vista-Vision and it was sincerely a site to behold. Even with some dirt and scratches it had more depth and texture and brilliant colors than any HD/digital photography or projection will ever have, and I must say that once Paramount gets around to releasing it on Blu-Ray I will probably buy a copy just to look at it with the sound off. Actually, there’s one scene I’d watch with sound, and that’s the number “Snow”, sung by the four leads. Most every song in the film is sub-standard work from Irving Berlin (even the Maltin book claims that “What Can You Do With a General?” is the worst song he ever wrote), but “Snow” gets it all right and I’d buy the soundtrack just to have that one track. Or maybe I’d just download the one song, if it’s available. That should just about do it for me as far as WHITE CHRISTMAS is concerned.

Now here’s a question for you: Do you actually like WHITE CHRISTMAS? Could you tell me why? What is it about this film that brings you back to it? Because I’ve never known who claims to love this movie, and I’ve never once heard it referenced, like by saying, “Remember that great scene in WHITE CHRISTMAS?” or some such thing. If I’m missing something, please tell me, cause I’d sure like to know what it is. We could all use a little more holiday cheer (especially this year), but I’ve never looked in WHITE CHRISTMAS’s direction for it and I doubt I’m going to start any time soon.

Humbug? No, just good taste.

3 for 3: TRANSPORTER 3

2008-12-02T02:13:00.003-05:00

So the good news is that TRANSPORTER 3 is as likeably goofy, lunkheaded, fast-paced and as entertaining as the previous entries in the series. The even better news is that TRANSPORTER 3 is probably the best of the series thus far, with a really good plot hook that helps to keep everything moving, an excellent lead villain in Robert Knepper, and one more rock-solid performance from Jason Statham that not only puts him near the top of crop of the current action heroes, but also adds more weight to the argument that Statham has it in him to go on to be one of the all-time action movie greats, if he wants it. It’s nice to see that the slick, efficient, but not totally overblown action film not only survives, but has a champion in this fun little series. It’s the third film out, and the TRANSPORTER series is, amazingly, 3 for 3.

TRANSPORTER 3 credits may say it was directed by one Olivier Megaton (no comment), but this is Luc Besson’s baby all the way. Besson once seemed like the devil himself, churning out one soulless action production after another, but he and his crew have gotten their act together in recent years and have come up with a solid batch of action films, like these TRANPORTER films, Louis Lettier’s UNLEASHED (probably Jet Li’s best English-language vehicle), and Patrick Laugier’s DISTRICT 13 (Laugier’s TAKEN, starring Liam Neeson, finally opens here in January and I have to say I’m looking forward to it). Besson uses mostly French crews, imports Hong Kong action crews (like Corey Yuen-Kwai, credited director of the first TRANSPORT and martial arts choreographer on many of these films), shoots all over Europe, but is ever-mindful of the international market. Usually working with regular screenwriter Robert Mark Kamen, the premises are typically very pat and always lend themselves to some pretty wild and original stunts that are shot and edited in such an expert style that they always happen to impress. TRANSPORTER 3 is really no different in this regard (although I felt that the constant editing in the fight scenes in this one took away from the inventiveness of Yuen’s choreography), and while it doesn’t ever really feel anything more than part of a franchise, at least it stills like there’s life in it. I think a lot of this has to do with the addition of a hook – Transporter Statham and his lovely companion are both rigged with explosives that will go off if they move more than 75 feet away from the car – that keeps the film on its toes. It makes for a whole lot of clever ideas and unique action (that car can find itself in the oddest places) and in a sense, it makes it the ideal TRANSPORTER film, since the car and the driver are never separated, guaranteed that the chase will keep on going. And thank goodness that it’s Statham behind the wheel, because he’s one of the few modern-day actors who can make a role like this work. The guy is chiseled in every place and is all the more right for it (Jealous? You bet I am!), but beyond the arch stare he does create a character here; we don’t know much about his Frank Martin, nor do we care to, but we understand that this is a guy with a code of honor in the best tradition of such characters, and it’s great that Statham already has a signature role down pat.

Still, let’s not kid ourselves – TRANSPORTER 3 is an incredibly goofy movie, never to be taken seriously, often ludicrous to the extreme and on a few occasions, downright bad, with horrendous dialogue and a few awful performances (lead Natalya Rudakova is lovely, quite fetching looks great next to Statham’s black-suited Transporter, but she can’t act to save her life). As much fun as it is, it’s also incredibly disposable and full of empty calories. Of course, any attempt to make it more of a “real” movie, with believable characters and good dialogue, might not help its entertainment value, but it’s also not going to make it much of a keeper, I think. It is what it is and shouldn’t be faulted for it, but I suppose because Statham and the crew are doing so much good work, I sort of wish that it were a bit more substantial. Look at a picture like CASINO ROYALE, which has all that TRANSPORTER 3 has and more, and you’ll know that this sort of thing can be classic material, and since I can’t wait to see a TRANSPORTER 4 (nothing confirmed on this, but why would they not?), I’d also like to see them kick it up a notch and put some meat on those bones. The car is a beautiful, sleek machine that runs like a beauty, but at this point in time it’s a Lexus. Let’s get it up and running to Porsche quality and see how fast she’ll go.

The Forgotten Movies (Thanksgiving Edition): Richard Brooks' FEVER PITCH (1985)

2008-11-26T00:43:00.008-05:00

Another Thanksgiving, another "turkey" edition of The Forgotten Movies. Unlike most other sites that decide to focus on "Thanksgiving Turkeys" and just end up re-hashing the same titles over and over again (BATTLEFIELD EARTH and SHOWGIRLS are really bad! Thank you, Ben Lyons.), I like to focus on movies that are truly, unquestionably, unmistakeably bad, but bad in ways that most other movies - be they good or bad - would be jealous of. Truth is, most "bad" movies are actually mediocre ones that don't have a lick of ambition about them, so when a film with certain pretensions flop endlessly like a whale on the beach, it's much more intriguing. It's also a bit more difficult to watch, partly because someone usually had a good idea or had a passion to say something and they simply couldn't do it right. Richard Brooks' FEVER PITCH, I think, is a perfect example of this, because Brooks was a smart filmmaker who could usually be counted on to make smart, slick, professional movies, and he was also a director who would bust his ass to go all-out on making films that would possibly be the ultimate word of that certain subject matter. Ambition was never his short suit, but a misplaced ambition, like the kind on display in FEVER PITCH, is pretty embarrassing to watch. A part of me wants to cut Brooks a break for this, but you can't watch this film and not think to yourself, "Just what the hell was he thinking?" If FEVER PITCH were any more of a car wreck, the prints would have been delivered to the theater in a tow truck.

Pretty much from the outset, you know FEVER PITCH is in trouble thanks to the tone that Brooks sets with his opening montage, set to narration spoken by star Ryan O'Neal that sounds like it comes out of a 40's Monogram rip-off of a 30's Warners social outrage picture. It tries for this hard-boiled, seen-it-all, DRAGNET approach that even in 1985 people would ask the person sitting next to them, "Does anyone really talk like that?" Unfortunately, this is the approach that Brooks takes throughout the entire picture, as most every character speaks like that, putting this film in a non-reality that is just way too out there. ''Gambling. Series. How many people gamble. How. Why.'' is but one example, and it keeps rambling on and on like that for the whole film. People talk in clichés all throughout FEVER PITCH that it becomes maddening, and very quickly in you're thinking, "Does Brooks truly expect us to take this seriously?" But then beyond the dialogue, it's an entire film full of clichés, one where every moment is maddeningly predictable (O' Neal's sportswriter turned gambling addict is writing a series about a gambler named "Mr. White" who is, unsurprisingly O'Neal himself) and laughably hokey; when O' Neal's daughter says, "I sure miss mommy", we're treated to a ridiculous flashback of how his wife died in a car crash while on her way to bail him out of a gambling debt. I mean, this thing is just stupid beyond belief.

What hurts here is that there's a good movie in here somewhere, or at the very least a good movie somewhere in Brooks' honest intentions. FEVER PITCH seems to know a thing or two about gambling (leading one to wonder just where Brooks' inspiration came from) and for 95% of its running time it has its heart in the right place about the subject. Someone could (and should) make a searing film about the subject, but when Brooks ends his picture by having O' Neal - having settled with loan shark Chad Everitt (in the film's one decent performance) - winning back all his debt in one night at the tables, you know this thing is not - what's the word? - good. It's quite possible this was a studio-imposed happy ending (though Brooks commanded enough respect in his career to have achieved final cut), but since this ridiculous is so much in line with the film that came before it, you have to assume that Brooks thought he knew what he was doing. Now, with all this said, I do feel the need to say that FEVER PITCH is also a very entertaining bad movie, and if you're indeed looking for a Thankgiving turkey then this is your cinematic Butterball. It does provide certain unique pleasures, such as the sight of the great Giancarlo Giannini sharing the same frame with Everett and William Smith (strangely enough, I know Quentin Taratino has expressed a certain admiration for it, and even screened it at his 2nd QT Fest back in 1998, but I don't know just what his approach is to this), but it's all still something of a shame. It's a head-scratcher, head-slapper of a motion picture that is out of time and out of place (I didn't even get to the weird Thomas Dolby score), and if it came from anyone else I would say give it a Golden Turkey award, but from the director of THE PROFESSIONALS, BITE THE BULLET, and IN COLD BLOOD, it truly does register as a "What the fuck?" kind of movie. But it does have to be seen to be believed, there's no question there.

The Spaces In-Between: Catching Up to Kim Ki-duk's 3-IRON

2008-11-21T23:36:00.004-05:00

I suppose that around a year from now I’ll be putting together – be on here or just in my mind – a list of the best films of the decade, and when I do, Kim Ki-duk’s SPRING, SUMMER, FALL, WINTER... AND SPRING will most certainly find its way onto that list. Not just the best Asian film I’ve seen this decade (and that is saying a lot), it’s easily the most beautiful, serine and peaceful, a motion picture of absolute beauty and poetry that few other have matched. While I was already a fan of Kim’s output (such as THE ISLE and BAD GUY), SPRING amazed the hell out of me due to its positive, hopeful, Zen-like spirit, which very much went against the brutality of his earlier work (THE ISLE boasting the most infamous use of fish hooks in cinema history). As fine as those films are (and THE ISLE, which floored the hell out of me at the 2001 Fantasia Film Festival, is another one of my favorites of the decade), they were not easy films to sit through, because they seemed to have a bitterness to them, an anger at the world and modern society that were brutal as you watch them, but once you spent time thinking about them (which you always do with Kim’s film) you began to see a different side. Boiled down to their essence, Kim makes films about our inability to express love to those around us, and despite the very extreme methods his characters go about making their feelings known, most of his films are love stories, in a way, albeit extremely fucked up ones. But SPRING proved to be his breakout feature because it not only featured none of the violence of the previous films, but it was something truly unique and visionary, a film that adhered to Buddhist philosophies that could be understood and appreciated by pretty much any audience. Sony Pictures Classics picked it up here, and when I got to see it in '04 I took a date who was aching to see 13 GOING ON 30 instead (she’d just turned 30), but who took a chance on my recommendation and it earned me points for having good taste in movies (the relationship didn’t work out, but she genuinely loved the movie). Later that year, Kim returned to Venice with 3-IRON, a further mediation on some of his past themes in a less violent, more audience-friendly package, and he won the Best Director award and another pickup from Sony Pictures Classics. Despite many raves (with some calling it Kim’s best film to date), I never got around to seeing it until just recently, and it’s proved to be an interesting film for me, proof once again that Kim is a filmmaker whose work I should continue to follow, no matter what.

One thing about 3-IRON that I like is that it’s got a tantalizing premise: A young man passes through Seoul dropping off leaflets for various restaurants, placing them in the doorways of apartment buildings and houses. When he returns the following day to see them unmoved, he knows that the tenants are not at home and he moves in. He’s no thief, however; he cleans the houses, does people’s laundry, fixes things, and replenishes the food he eats. If the people come home, he makes his way out quickly and finds the next place to stay, not really squatting per se, but just experiencing other people’s lives for a bit. But what’s interesting is that he does not seem to be destitute, as he rides a rather expensive motorcycle and is very quick-witted. Of course, he does end up getting involved in the life of one of the homeowners, and yes, it does blossom into a romance, but 3-IRON does not go into any of the directions you think that it would. While there are cases of mistaken identity and hiding from spouses, what Kim does with 3-IRON is what he did with SPRING… and make it a mediation on Buddhist philosophies, here about how we relate to one another in the space that we share. It’s a film about love and about relationships, yes, but it’s also about noticing, understanding, and utilizing all of the world that surrounds us, about how many of us don’t really see or appreciate everything that’s there. It’s about an abandonment of the material and practical world into one where those things that matter, those things that are truly essential, are simply those that appear right in front of us. I know this does not make a lot of sense if you haven’t seen the picture, but once you do, we’ll be on the same page.

What has made 3-IRON particularly endearing to me is how it’s stayed with me for so long after I’d seen it. My initial reaction was not as impressed as I would have wished it’d been, especially after being so knocked out by his other works, and I felt that it wasn’t so much that I didn’t "get it", but that Kim was trying things that simply didn’t work as best they should. But again, what 3-IRON is about is perception in how we truly understand things by seeing them only after we become one with our environments, and while I certainly didn’t have a massive awakening of any sort to make me see the light, 3-IRON just kept creeping its way into my consciousness again and again until it finally began to become clearer and more translucent (and I believe this is the first time I’ve used that word here, so you know this film is something special). Once this got into my head, I also began to see what a hopeful and romantic film it was, because what it really does say is that we don’t have to have anything in our lives except those around us in order to live and that everything else is simply irrelevant (like, say, other spouses). This also makes 3-IRON a bit of an original film, something that can’t be contained or described as anything other than an experience more so than as a movie, although it’s not a blockbuster-type of experience, by any means. It’s a beautiful piece of work, one that I think also speaks to this new world of streamlining, downsizing, and struggling to survive that we’re finding ourselves in. It places the emphasis on what’s important in life and is about finding love and peace in this world. It’s a hopeful film for hopeful times and I think more people need to see it.

Oh... Fudge: 25 Years of A CHRISTMAS STORY

2008-11-18T23:45:00.006-05:00

Anyone who knows me (or has been paying attention) knows that I’m a bit of a Christmas nut. Not overly religious by any means, just someone who truly enjoys the sights, sounds and smells of the holidays. I love how it makes the onset of winter bearable, perks people’s spirits up, brings about a reunion of friends and family, and yes, I sure do love getting gifts (I love giving them, too, but the getting’s the real fun). The major downside of the holidays is their over-commercialization, which has always been the case but seems to get worse and worse every year, and the really crappy holiday movies, specials and music that pops up every year. There’s always been second-rate holiday entertainment, but the amount of lame animated movies, TV flicks and albums out there these days is too much for me. It doesn’t exactly take away my holiday spirit, but it’s annoying, especially when you see things that shouldn’t be over holiday-ized but are. This came to mind the other day when walking through a massive Wal-Mart the other day (hey, sometimes you’ve got to go to Wal-Mart) and as I was looking through the holiday section of the store I couldn’t help but roll my eyes at what I was seeing: An entire endcap devoted to holiday merchandise from Bob Clark’s A CHRISTMAS STORY. It went beyond just mere wrapping paper and Leg Lamp ornaments, but there were also snow globes, t-shirts, stickers, and a few too many other items to count. Listen, for the likes of Rudolph, Frosty and Peanuts this stuff is fine, but when I see all these CHRISTMAS STORY products on the shelves like clockwork this time of year, I always get a little sad. Something that’s so good, that began in such a genuine and honest way is now a cash cow that the marketers don’t seem to understand. I’m sure these people have seen A CHRISTMAS STORY, but do they understand it?

Listen, you don’t need me to tell you that A CHRISTMAS STORY is a terrific movie, because we all know that. It’s one of two classic Christmas movies directed by the late Bob Clark (the other being BLACK CHRISTMAS, of course) and I’m happy that it’s become a modern day classic, because it deserves to be called one. I’ve always loved how A CHRISTMAS STORY got what it was to be a kid in pretty much any age and how was very level-headed and down-to-earth about the holiday, about families, and about childhood in general. It’s not about saving Christmas or Santa or elves and reindeer or anything like that. It’s got very modest ambitions and it’s refreshingly not out to give you an important lessons about life and the spirit of giving, it’s just a slice of life and it comes across as pretty true, which is part of its appeal. So to see all this merchandise is more than a little disconcerting, because that’s not what A CHRISTMAS STORY is all about, either. You’ve got to remember that Ralphie nearly does shoot his eye out with that BB gun, and that the leg lamp is to be mocked, not proudly displayed in your own home or on your tree. People don’t understand the bitterness and disappointment that exists through most of Jean Shepherd’s work (even this one) or that A CHRISTMAS STORY was meant to be a sort of anti-Christmas movie that presented (no pun intended) the holiday as it truly was, not how advertisers thought we wanted it to be. Everyone has stories about Christmases that don’t always go right, which is part of the reason why this one has connected with so many people. Its current incantation as an annual source of revenue for Warner Brothers and the estates of Shepherd and Clark is great for them, but for what A CHRISTMAS STORY is supposed to represent, it kinda sucks if you ask me.

Despite all this, it won’t take away from my own pleasant memory of seeing A CHRISTMAS STORY 25 years ago this night at the old Madison Triplex. The place was packed – rather surprisingly, since I hadn’t seen much pre-release press on it – and everyone loved it. Having a bit of a holiday buzz in me already, it was the perfect way to start the holiday season (back in those days the Christmas movie season actually started in December). But what made it even better and all the more memorable was walking home to see the 1983 Madison Christmas tree finally up in the center of town, knowing damn well that the holidays had arrived. The Christmas that followed was a good one, as I remember it, with the usual kids vs. parents crud that went with it, so I'm happy A CHRISTMAS STORY came along when it did, as I wasn't going to be a kid much longer and its magic might not be as potent on me the older I got. It gets childhood just right, and that's why it's a classic.

The Real First Black President

2008-11-16T13:47:00.000-05:00

No commentary to be made here, just an opportunity to showcase the genius of Richard Pryor in his prime. Certainly attitudes have changed and history has caught up to it, but it's still great stuff.

Note John Witherspoon, Marsha Warfield, Tim Reid, and Johnny Yune also in there. Thanks to Ant Timpson for reminding me about this one.

Is That Your Final Answer? Danny Boyle's SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE

2008-11-13T03:47:00.003-05:00

While it shouldn’t be this way, “feel good” (or FG) movies have become suspect. Movies that are supposed to make you feel good about life and the world around us have become so tiresome, so routine, so fucking mediocre, that you want to run away from them as far as you can. Pictures about long shots with gumption who go all the way are among the worst pictures I’ve ever seen, and I’ve come to avoid them over the last decade or so. Of course, when these pictures are good, like ROCKY or even ROCKY BALBOA, then they’re great and well worth seeing and worth praising, too. But for every ROCKY there’s a KARATE KID PART III that just goes through the motions and are so uninspired that it kills the whole genre. In order for a FG picture to work, it has to earn those good vibes, and way too many of them don’t seem to bother or don’t understand how to properly present the struggle. It’s not just that someone has to go through hard times in order for their triumph to work, it’s that the triumph has to be believable, something that the audience must relate to in some way. This is where Danny Boyle’s SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE succeeds where many others fail - you understand the struggle. It’s not just that the lead character goes through a very tough life to get to where he is, or even that he’s a quite likable fellow, it’s that his story is one that you can see happening to people the world over, and it truly makes you feel good to see it resolved in the way it does.

What’s interesting about SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE is how Simon Beaufoy’s script (adapted from Vikas Swarup’s book, Q & A) hits so many of the standard feel good clichés (dead parents; tough childhood; lost long love; organized crime), but it doesn’t condescend. What the lead character goes through is fascinating to watch because it hits its emotional marks extremely well, and one feels that what they’re watching is a fairly true representation of life in India. I also admire how it’s not afraid to get into the dirt and grime of it (though I could have done without some scatological humor - not a fan of that stuff), presenting some things that most U.S. audience members wouldn’t be able to stomach unless they saw it in a FG movie. The balance of tough life to good life is not an easy to maintain, so it’s going to take skill and talent to do it right and SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE does. It also helps to have someone like Danny Boyle directing, since he’s been able to balance dirt and grime with style throughout most of his career, and with SLUMDOG the balance works so well that this proves to be one of his finest to date. There’s no cheap sentimentality on display here; Boyle is very much interested in the tough times as he is the ultimate triumph, which very clearly shines through. He may have been the ideal director for this material (and let’s also give credit to his co-director, Loveleen Tandan, for her contributions), and what you see here feels very much lived-in, not merely in the Indian surroundings, but also in what the characters are going through; it seems honest, which is the only way this could have worked. While there certainly are parts of SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE that play into fantasy, there’s zero Hollywood sheen felt, and that’s what makes the difference.

There’s a lot else to like here, too. I love that Boyle doesn’t commit his subtitles to the center of the screen, but rather places them where it emphasizes what the characters are feeling, and that’s damn effective. The picture also looks excellent (shot on a mix of both HD and 35mm) and the Mumbai locations are often quite striking, and you feel like you’re getting a true taste of what the city and country are like. The film is also extremely well cast, with a tremendously appealing Dev Patel and the lovely Freida Pinto in the leads, and a terrific Anil Kapoor as the host of the game show where the center of the film’s action takes place. So sure, SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE is a total FG movie, but it actually does make you feel good when it’s over and that’s rare that an FG movie can actually pull that off these days. It’s certainly a crowd pleaser, but it’s one that even curmudgeons can get caught up in, which is the greatest compliment one can give it. Definitely worth your time.

Fantastic Fest: Mabrouk El Mechri's JCVD

2008-11-06T18:46:00.004-05:00

I think there's no shame in confessing a certain love for Jean-Claude Van Damme. Of all the late 80s/early 90s action stars, Van Damme was always the most likable, although that likability had as much to do with a certain goofball factor than any real talent. There was always something silly about Van Damme, even though he's not a bad martial artist by any means and is certainly physically imposing enough, but you could never look at this guy and buy him as any other kind of character than as Jean Claude Van Damme. I distinctly remember watching KICKBOXER with the old HQ 10 crew the night before its September 1989 opening, and we laughed our asses off during his drunken dance scene (to the tune of the cheap James Brown sound-alike, "Feeling So Good Today"); sure it was supposed to be funny, but he looked real stupid, endearingly so, and as he moved on from project to project - DEATH WARRANT, LIONHEART, DOUBLE IMPACT - trying to become the next Schwarzenegger, you could sense an eagerness to please, an attempt to grow, but no real talent. Unlike Seagal, who one would later come to dispise, Van Damme always seemed like he was trying, and when he started working with directors like John Woo on HARD TARGET and Peter Hyams on TIMECOP, the results were starting to show. The pictures were better, he was better, and you could sense a certain professionalism coming through. But then he pissed it away on second-rate material like STREET FIGHTER, SUDDEN DEATH and THE QUEST (which he directed) and it was all over. Although his two Tsui Hark epics, DOUBLE TEAM and KNOCK-OFF, were wonderful returns to the silliness of old, it was too late for Van Damme. Direct-to-video seemed just right, and that's where he went. Though those pictures typically do well for their limited budgets (they can apparently be depended upon for a few hundred thousand units sold), no one has really missed Van Damme on the big screen; he seemed to be at home on DVD. In an odd way, his latest, JCVD, can not only be deemed as a theatrical comeback but also as a re-introduction to those who forgot about him while the Jason Stathams of the world took his place. More so than putting Van Damme back in the spotlight, it does something for more important: By re-inventing Jean-Claude Van Damme, action star, as Jean-Claude Van Damme, human being, he makes himself relevant for the first time in his career.

There's no question that Van Damme desperately needed a film like JCVD. He had become a joke to some people, an afterthought to many, and an example of the perils of Hollywood. His E! True Hollywood Story is one of the most sobering because he himself participated, coming clean on his many years of drug abuse, failed marriages, and bad career choices. So the fact that Van Damme likewise lets it all hang out for JCVD, portraying himself as a washed-up, desperate version of himself, is to be commended. And that he does it quite well, putting a side of himself on camera that he's never been able to do before, is the film's greatest strength. Van Damme, the man, is what's on display here, not Van Damme, the movie star, and you can tell that JCVD is an opportunity for him to exorcise some demons and make peace with himself and his audience. Other stars have poked fun at themselves before, but I honestly can't recall the last time one disassembled themselves so mercilessly, like Van Damme had hit a brick wall and came to hate himself with all his might. Is it the real Jean-Claude Van Damme? No, of course it isn't, but it's about as close as we're ever going to come to seeing it in a movie and what you see here is pretty heartbreaking, no matter who it really is on screen. There's a moment in the film where Van Damme really lays it all on the line and gives a speech that unquestionably comes straight from the heart, and it's a beautiful thing to see. Other action stars have shown their sensitive sides, but what you see here is Van Damme emotionally stripping himself bare, and it's a hell of a moment. In what you see of Van Damme in JCVD, I now have little to no doubt that he can have a career as a legitimate actor if he really wants one, and if he goes back to the direct-to-DVD stuff he's been doing, he'll have lost my respect. But for now, for this moment, Jean-Claude Van Damme has finally become an actor.

So far as good as Jean-Claude Van Damme is, one wishes that JCVD were a better movie overall. I'd heard about it from the now-famous Cannes market screening where Van Damme received a standing ovation, and have even been driving around a van with "Van Dam" license plates around Austin, all because of Tim League's enthusiasm for the movie. So maybe the hype was a bit much, but JCVD, fine as it was, didn't blow me away as a movie like it has some others. The problem is tone; while El Merchri is admirably trying to make a picture that keeps the viewer on their toes, he's not quite doing right by the material. One scene is comic, the next is tragic; one scene is fantasy, the next is meant to be realistic. He can't really find the right one and it can be a bit annoying. While shooting the film with an intriguing bronze tint, he also robs some of the more dramatic, down-to-earth moments of any kind of impact they might have had because they look like they come from a movie. His non-linear narrative approach is admirable, but also disjointed and somewhat hard to follow at times (and I'm usually pretty good at following non-linear narratives - seriously, I am!). It doesn't derail JCVD - there's still plenty of entertainment to be found here - it just takes a potentially great movie and makes it merely good. I don't want to harp on El Mechri too much, because he's obviously trying and certainly loves his subject matter as much as we do, but it feels like he doesn't exactly have the steady hand needed to make JCVD more than what it is. I respect that it's not another Jean-Claude Van Damme movie (though I wouldn't mind another KNOCK OFF, to be honest), or even a mainstream Hollywood-type movie, but it's still lacking a certain focus that could have put it over the top. Still, it has Jean-Claude Van Damme, and that's what really matters. Before JCVD, a statement like that was meant facetiously, but here it's 100% genuine; Van Damme has made you care about him for the first time in well over a decade. He's getting these kudos and respect because he's finally earned them, and you have to admire that. JCVD is his ROCKY BALBOA.

All Right, America, I Love Ya! We Gotta Go...

2008-11-05T17:20:00.003-05:00

Watched the election returns last night with my friend Maria and a crowd of about 200 at the Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar, with footage alternating between CNN, Comedy Central and various SNL clips and movie clips (whenever a state was called for McCain, they cue up the White House explosion from INDEPENDENCE DAY). There wasn't a single McCain supporter in the room, and like pretty much every place you went there was a lot of excitement and applause for what we all felt was inevitable. So when the word finally came down from Jon Stewart (yeah, THE DAILY SHOW was on) at 10pm CST, it was a moment to remember always, with much hugging and kissing going around.

It wasn't always like this. A lot of people felt he was never going to make it past the Hillary juggernaut, but he was stronger than most had ever anticipated, and he has proven himself to be a master politician who you feel is unquestionably the right man for the job. It's a strong feeling, and feelings can't always take the place of facts, but we've seen enough of this man under pressure (under a lot of pressure) that you have to be a complete nutter (or my old landlady) to not have hope. Hope for the future, hope for renewal, hope for change, and a change for the best at that. This feels right, and that's a wonderful feeling.

Happy to be an American right now. Very happy.

Chewin' Bubblegum and Kickin' Ass - 20 Years of THEY LIVE.

2008-11-04T01:29:00.003-05:00

The first presidential election I ever voted in was back in 1988, the big Bush vs. Dukakis dust-up. It was a pretty exciting thing for me to experience, finally being part of the democratic process and maybe playing a role in the future of America. I took a lot of pride and pleasure in voting for the first time, and the '88 election came at a time of great change and new freedom in my life, so it helped to mark an important time for me. No matter that my guy lost, I remember it all quite well: "Read my lips - no new taxes"; Willie Horton; Dukakis in that damn silly helmet; Jon Lovitz's "I can't believe I'm losing to this guy" line from SNL; and best of all, Lloyd Bentsen's legendary put down of Quayle during the debates. It wasn't anywhere near as exciting as this election, but I got a big jolt out of it, mostly because I felt like I was finding my voice a little bit, and I've always made sure I've voted in pretty much ever major election ever since (even took part in early voting here last week).

But one aspect of election '88 that I will also always take to heart was John Carpenter's THEY LIVE, which opened on November 4, 1988, 20 years ago today, and 4 days before the national election. No, THEY LIVE wasn't a major part of either party's campaign, and it sure as hell didn't make any waves in the election, but it was one of the first pieces of political satire that I really got and I loved the hell out of it. Looking at it again a few weeks ago, I was not especially surprised that it held up perfectly (the only Carpenter film that doesn't - at least for me - is HALLOWEEN, actually), nor was I surprised that it's still resonant (unfortunately). It was a perfect coda to the Reagan era, 8 years of the rich getter richer, the poor getting poorer, big business, increased consumerism and corporate greed taking over the country (like I said it's strangely still resonant). But what got to me about THEY LIVE in 2008 is the scope of the piece, which is a surprisingly ambitious one, as it has a lot on its mind and works hard to accomplish a lot with very little. It was the second film in a two picture deal (the first being the under-appreciated PRINCE OF DARKNESS) that Carpenter had with Island Films to make two low budget films (both under $4 million) with complete creative control. Carpenter, obviously relishing the opportunity, went to town with his ideas and desire to make a mainstream, subversive entertainment. It's actually a pretty big story that Carpenter's telling (based on Ray Nelson's short story, "Eight O'Clock in the Morning"), but like such great genre directors of the past as Don Siegel and Phil Karlson, he knows to keep the focus on just one character and let all this stuff happen around them. And like those greats, that character is an everyman, a guy who's seen tough times; who's down but not out and is able to survive on street smarts while the Powers That Be. The thing is, it becomes a pretty big story, but Carpenter just keeps us focused on Roddy Piper's John Nada, and it all makes sense to us in the end. There's a lot going on here, and a heck of a lot of setups for a low budget movie, but Carpenter knew how to shoot fast and knew what he wanted on screen and there isn't anything there that he doesn't want on there. Carpenter is in full control here, and this is what makes THEY LIVE so great.

Another huge part of THEY LIVE's success is Carpenter's obvious joy in what he's doing; this is one unapologetic B-movie, and it's really damn fun. Goofy, silly fun, and yet subversively so, because for all of its action, violence, and machismo, there's a lot going on underneath the surface, beyond the social commentary. For one, THEY LIVE is also a terrific satire of the 80s (one of the definitive of the decade), with Carpenter making sure he lampoons (and literally destroys) everything about the decade that he hates. It's not just the consumerism, but also TV, so-called "entertainment", and the moral and social crusaders of the day (Siskel & Ebert are shown to be aliens, too), making it a damn funny picture, at times. The alien makeups (often cited as one of the film's problems) are lovably goofy, certainly not to be taken seriously, but also outrageous enough and otherworldly to pass muster, so if anyone tells me they hate the movie because they hate the makeups, I can't take their opinion seriously. Even back in '88 you knew that if Roddy Piper was the lead in a movie then you should allow for some silliness, but while Piper does allow Nada some dignity, it's when he says the now-classic line (which Piper improvised), "I've come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass. - and I'm all out of bubblegum", that you know he's a willing conspirator in all this. It's not trying to be stupid so much as be cleverly silly, a fine line to walk, but one that THEY LIVE does incredibly well. It's as much of a lark as it is anything else, but one from the heart and one with something to say, told with a lot of muscle and a style that is very much its director's, so as a longtime fan I'm happy to see that it's lived on and become a cult classic. 20 years to the day, THEY LIVE is still living, thriving and potent, yet another earmark of a great movie. Second only to THE TERMINATOR as the ultimate B-movie classic of the 80s, I'd watch it again in a second.

Happy Halloween!

2008-10-31T03:48:00.004-04:00

Uh... boo!

Fantastic Fest Horrors: Jon Hewitt's ACOLYTES and Pascal Laugier's MARTYRS

2008-10-30T22:07:00.010-04:00

I don't know who it was who coined the phrase, "I may not know art, but I know what I like", but whoever they were they sure made it easy for plenty of us who may not quite understand the inner workings of true art to cop out real easily. Some people may look at something and say it's art and others may look at it and say it's garbage, while those of us stuck in the middle, the ones with an average or slightly above average intelligence who can't really reason why we like something, simply say that we just do. You don't have to necessarily have to understand Tarkovsky or Bunuel fully to enjoy them, you know?

Pascal Laugier's MARTYRS is easily the most talked-about Eurohorror film of the year, and if were to be seen by more people here in the U.S. it probably will get a bit more attention than it's currently getting. The genre crowd certainly know what it is, but it's being pretty much ignored by the mainstream press, despite a midnight slot at Toronto, though I'm willing to bet $5 that it will turn up at next year's Film Comment Selects at Lincoln Center. But within the genre scene it's been the subject of some intense debate, with some saying it's just another torture movie, while others are calling it one of the most profound horror films ever made. And then there's me, in the middle of both arguments: While certainly intense and incredibly gory, MARTYRS does have something on its mind, something to say, though you have to go through a gauntlet of serious horror to get there. The torture horror sub-genre (I refuse to call it porn) has been the whipping boy of most horror haters over the last few years, but like most things that push the envelope, if someone knows what they're doing with it then whatever they want to do is pretty much justified, as long as there truly is a purpose. Miike's AUDITION is the perfect example of this, a film that goes as far as it does for a reason, though that doesn't make it an easy watch, while the numerous lesser titles in this subgenre (the titles shall remain nameless) just do this stuff because the filmmakers have no real imagination or intelligence. So MARTYRS takes a while to get where it's going and a lot of people are not going to want to stay with it; I myself was eager to get to the point, because there truly was a lot of rough stuff and no matter if you know it's all fake, it's never easy to sit through. So when the point is made, my reaction is, "OK, I'll go with that". It's not "Oh my god, that's so amazingly profound. What a masterpiece!", or "How stupid and pretentious can you get? Fuck this shit!", it's just, "OK, I can go with that". I was down with it, I felt it was an interesting idea, an interesting approach, I appreciate the idea and the concept, but I'm not doing intellectual backflips. MARTYRS goes somewhere where a lot of horror movies don't usually go, but in doing so I'm not 100% convinced that Laugier is the Robert Bresson of the horror genre; I give it a lot of points and respect, but I'm also not thinking that my life has been changed. Is Laugier so many miles ahead of me intellectually that I just don't know it? I am so dense that I don't really "get it"? Or is MARTYRS just a good movie - smart, well-made, and exceedingly well acted and respectable - but not the end-all-be-all of the horror genre? I'm sorry, but I don't know. I do know that I liked the movie, that I recommend the movie providing that people know that they're in for a tough time for a while there, and that the haters are looking at it wrong. But it is art? Is it profound and possessing an intensity that makes it something truly special? I don't know, but I know what I like and I liked (but didn't love) MARTYRS. However, please allow Blake Etheridge and Rodney Perkins to convince you that I'm wrong. You can see for yourself when it hits DVD here on February 24.

In a sense, it's a good thing to have a more straightforward film like Jon Hewitt's ACOLYTES around, because a film like this is a lot easier to take while it's also quite admirable in its more modest ambitions. ACOLYTES doesn't aspire to the heights that MARTYRS does, it merely wants to tell a story and provide some suspense, and it does that very, very well. And I should say that the film does have something to say about the effects of abuse, but it's not trying to be MYSTIC RIVER, it's just trying to do its own thing. To me, the great thing about it is that it has a hook, a killer of a plot point that - providing it's working for you - sucks you in all the way through to the end. ACOLYTES is actually just a really smart mainstream movie, one with a lot of intelligence behind the camera as well as on the screen, and that's what I dig about it. It's a smart thriller; it keeps you guessing, it puts the characters and the audience through an ever-shifting maze that keeps you on your toes, and when it's all over you admire it for that. ACOLYTES is slick and stylish, but smart enough in the filmmaking and storytelling to not let that overwhelm a solid little story that sucks you in pretty easily. Hewitt (a real nice guy and very much a Fantastic Fest cheerleader) has been around a while (I remember liking his shot-on-video vampire opus BLOODLUST back in the mid-90s) and it feels like he's hitting his stride now and deserves to be someone to watch. He's got a really good eye, a solid sense for storytelling, is good with actors (the three teenage leads are all quite natural, while the villains of the piece are appropriately sleazy), and understands how to keep you on your toes. But all in all, what really put ACOLYTES over for me was the hook, the plot points that made you think it was going one way, then went another and you're not sure how it's going to resolve itself. Not a lot of movies can do that right, so all the more reason to respect ACOLYTES for getting it down so well. I know that the film has U.S. distribution (though I'm not sure it's been announced, so I'll just shut my trap on the for the moment) and I hope that you get to see it soon, because it is worth a look. Maybe it's not as deep as MARTYRS, but MARTYRS isn't as slick and entertaining as ACOLYTES, and there's nothing wrong with one not being the other. There's room for everything, you know.

PS - I can't finish this piece without saying this: If anyone has any plans to make a Gram Parsons biopic, all they have to do is teach ACOLYTES lead Joshua Payne to sing like him, because god damn if the kid isn't a ringer for the guy. Strap a nudie suit on the kid and watch the Gram fans lose it. That's all.

Fantastic Fest Horrors: Darren Lynn Bousman's REPO! THE GENETIC OPERA and J.T. Petty's THE BURROWERS

2008-10-28T23:52:00.009-04:00

There are those who view Fantastic Fest as strictly a horror film festival, when the last few weeks of reviews should prove to you that we're obviously anything but. We love our horror, no doubt about it, but we're not horror exclusive. Still, what kind of a genre film festival would we be without horror films, and as the largest genre festival in the U.S. we certainly had the pick of the crop this year (and yet they still wouldn't let us screen REC). Either way, it's been a good year for the genre, with one absolute masterpiece (LET THE RIGHT ONE IN) and some solid stuff scattered about the disastrous remakes that are killing the genre at the box office. I haven't seen all of the horror films screened at the festival yet (got a stack of screeners to plow through), but of what I did see I have to say that they've all been interesting at the least and damn good at best. Since we're in the Halloween home stretch, there's no time better than the present to dwell on the horrors that is... Fantastic Fest!!!

Of all the horror films I saw at Fantastic Fest this year, Darren Lynn Bousman's REPO! THE GENETIC OPERA is perhaps the least successful at what it's trying to accomplish, but it's trying to accomplish so damn much that I have to respect it. Combine two of my favorite genres - horror and musicals - and usually you get something great out of it, like PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE, THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW or the more recent SWEENEY TODD, but for all its ambitions, REPO! still doesn't muster much beyond decent. It's a rock opera with an emphasis on the opera part, not just in that everyone sings their dialogue but in that the story is one of human tragedy, hidden desires, family secrets, and melodrama sandwiches. Which is all fine - as it should be, pretty much - but what there isn't is much drama or suspense to it all; in the end, REPO is a little too respectful to the opera genre, and as such it's also too predictable. I saw where it was going from the start and couldn't muster up enough enthusiasm to really get behind it. But that doesn't mean that it doesn't have its moments or its better qualities. There are about four really good set pieces with good songs to go with them, and during those sequences I felt what I thought REPO! should be, something with more energy and electricity than it already has. It's also a great piece of eye candy, perhaps a little too Hot Topic mixed with BLADE RUNNER for some people's taste and not 100% original, but there is always something worth looking at and it certainly keep your eyes glued to it. It's also a very well cast film, without a single bad performance, and that means, yes, I'm also talking about Paris Hilton here. It has to be said that she's actually pretty good and she certainly commits herself full blast to it, so no matter what you think of her, you've got to give her credit for the work. Same is true for Sarah Brightman, the queen of the suburban concert halls, who likewise knows damn well she's in a horror film and doesn't care what the housewives of Westchester think, and to Anthony Heald, who is actually the best performer in the film who really needs to commit himself to more musical projects. The fine work of the cast and the obvious devotion of the crew makes me wish that I liked REPO a lot more than I did, but in the end I don't exactly wish I owned the soundtrack so much as I think I'll download a few of the tunes. Still doesn't mean I can't admire the hell out of it for trying so damn hard to be something out of the ordinary, and its place on the Fantastic Fest schedule was certainly deserved.

A much more successful genre melding can be found in J.T. Petty's THE BURROWERS, an outstanding piece of work and second only to LET THE RIGHT ONE IN as the best horror film of the year. THE BURROWERS is not only an excellent horror film, one that understands that feeling of dread and hopelessness that the truly greats have, but also an excellent western, one that works hard to deconstruct the myths of the west while still showing great love and respect to the genre. These are my two favorite genres, so I may seem a little predisposed to liking this one, but I don't really fucking care, because I like what I like and I damn well like THE BURRORWERS a hell of a lot. And that really is what makes it so effective is that it's a superb melding of the two genres; it's scary because it's set in the old west, at a time when the land was still a vast unknown and there was a tremendous amount of ignorance and superstition running things, but because it's a western it's also not going to meld into a typical horror creature feature that gets dumber as it goes. Writer/director J.T. Petty (a real smart, super nice guy who is getting better and better with each feature) is obviously a guy who not only understands both genres, but he's not a slave to either; he's telling this story not because he wanted to make a horror western, he's doing it because he wants to tell this story and tell it in this manner, and he's very much on target throughout. One thing I particularly loved about the film is the locations he used (it was shot in New Mexico), because it certainly looks like few western locations, very fresh and beautiful, but at the same time it's unsettling for that same reason. It feels like virgin territory that you're traveling through, so you feel it's quite possible that some monsters might make their way up from the depths of the earth to attack you, and that's a good thing for the film. Petty is going for a Terrence Malick meets early Pekinpah look (Phil Parmet was the cinematographer) making it one of the more unique-looking horror films of recent years, but once again, I have to stress that he does this not at the expense of the horror, but rather to enhance it. So add to all this an excellent cast with a wonderful performance from the great Clancy Brown and THE BURRROWERS is one of the best of Fantastic Fest 2008 and one of the genre greats of the past few years. Of course, it's not going to get much of a theatrical release (the distributor is dumping it), but it deserves to be seen under any circumstance. THE BURROWERS is a much-see for fanatics of both genres.

Fantastic Fest - Natasha Arthy's FIGHTER and Prachya Pinkaew's CHOCOLATE

2008-10-26T01:20:00.008-04:00

No one likes getting kicked in the face. I'm lucky enough to say that it's never happened to me, but I've seen it happen and I know it's not pleasant. The meeting of foot and face is anything but a harmonious one, and all it does is bring about a lot of pain. Seeing it on the big screen, however, is often an unrivaled cinematic joy. I can't explain why, but I sure love seeing people kicked in the face in movies. It's not that it's an unrealistic thing - like I said, I've seen it happen - but it can be a very cinematic thing, like a dance move that only an Astaire or Kelly can properly accomplish, and it makes its point very succinctly. I must admit, I likes the kicking and punching a lots.

Two of this year's Fantastic Fest features both contain inordinate amounts of kicking, and both of them are enjoyable for that reason alone. But one of them is a little bit better, and that's because it's got heart, while the other one has entertainment value simply due to the kicking and punching. Natasha Arthy's FIGHTER has gotten comparisons to THE NEXT KARATE KID for some reason, probably because no one else can seem to think of another martial arts film with a young female protagonist, while we just happend to have two this year at Fantastic Fest. FIGHTER is unquestionably the better of the two, but what makes it good is not the kicking (which is just fine), and the martial arts, while certainly an important part of the equation, is not the film's reason for being. FIGHTER was one of four Danish films to screen this year (nothing we had planned, but it ended up being a good year for Danish genre films) and the fact that it's Danish would make one think that it's going to be off-kilter and silly, but like that Swedish vampire movie, it turns out that its country of origin is one of the strongest things about it. Actually, FIGHTER deals with matters of nationality and identity better than most any Hollywood picture ever would, telling the story of Muslim Turk Semra Turan, a headstrong young woman with a passion and skill at martial arts who struggles for acceptance from her own family and fellow Turks. As Muslim women are not supposed to learn martial arts (and especially to study a physical activity in the same class as men), this becomes the heart of the drama, because you really understand just what eats her up inside. This is a true struggle of identity and not just mere martial arts phooey like, "you killed my master" and it works very well. Following her heart and staying true to herself carries a very deep price, not only for her but for her family, too, and combining the martial arts with the Muslim aspect makes FIGHTER all the better. But Arthy's real secret weapon is Turan, just terrific in the lead role and a true star in the making. In additon to being god damn gorgeous and an excellent physical performer and martial artist, Turan also hits all the right notes in the dramatic category, and without her FIGHTER would not be as good as it is. Admittedly, FIGHTER hits a lot of the same notes that films of this type do (she has to win the respect of her teacher; she has to hide her training from her parents; she falls for a boy in the class, ect.), but with Turan in the lead it feel fresher than it has any right to, so bless her for it. I also thought it was interesting in how we got to see the plight of a Muslim family in Denmark (where, as we all know, there have been some serious conflicts), and that element felt much more organic and essential to the story's success. The film is also very serious about martial arts as a positive influence on this young woman - another plus - but too many of the martial arts scenes are done to annoying techno with fast cuts that undercut the drama. But in the end I suppose it doesn't matter, since what we see works so well otherwise, making FIGHTER an honest-to-goodness uplifting film that earns the uplift. A very nice surprise.

Less of a surprise is Prachya Pinkaew's CHOCOLATE, one of the most anticipated films this year by the geek crowd, and I'm sure they got what they wanted out of it, which was the kicking and the punching. Pinkaew's previous pictures, the Tony Jaa starrers ONK BAK and TOM-YUM- GOONG (a.k.a. THE PROTECTOR), were famous for their kicking (justifiably so), and if all you want is kicking, then CHOCLATE is your movie. But like FIGHTER proves, if you've got some heart in there with your kicking you can accomplish a lot and CHOCOLATE is, in the end, basically about kicking. As such, it does the kicking incredibly well and is fun to watch for that reason alone, but yeah, I wished there was more. Like FIGHTER, it features a female protagonist (the incredible Yanin Vismistananda, who Pinkaew created the part for), and some great martial arts, but as CHOCOLATE is really nothing more than a fantasy it doesn't resonate in anywhere near the same way. Perhaps it's unfair to compare the two films (why did we have to show them in the same year, Tim?), but FIGHTER proves that martial arts alone are not what's going to make your movie worth watching. CHOCOLATE's plot is a pretty standard revenge thing and the lead character's autism its only the only original aspect, but that actually takes away from whatever emotional connection the film could have made, since it's difficult to relate to her. Vismistananda's martial arts skills are outstanding in every way (she trained for two years for the role) - she's certainly what makes the film worth seeing - and the action climax certainly does deliver just on an action level. But with just martial arts alone watching CHOCOLATE is like eating a lot of chocolate: tasty and sweet, but unfullfilling and packed with empty calories. Listen, I've very much enjoyed some of the other Thai action films I've seen (Panna Rittkrai's BORN TO FIGHT got by on insane, jaw-dropping action alone and I loved it for it), but if a picture doesn't click then all you've got is kicking, and a lot of it. It's great kicking, but you could simply get by with a 10-minute YouTube reel and not see the entire movie and you'd be OK. I do loves the kicking, but I need a little something more to give it a bit more, um, punch.

Fantastic Fest: Gil Kenan's CITY OF EMBER

2008-10-21T01:29:00.008-04:00

It's always a bit distressing when a good film fails to find an audience - because, in theory, good films should always make money - but it's even more distressing when it fails to find both and audience and critics to help support it, and that's what's happened with Gil Kenan's CITY OF EMBER, which is tanking big time when it really shouldn't. The reviews keep going back to the movie's length (only 95 minutes) to insist that it got hacked up in the editing room, and while I did feel like it could have been given a bit more breathing room, it's still a good story that's quite well told. You really feel like you're in this world, and I think it's the realization of the world of Ember that gives the film its spark of life. By realization, I'm not merely talking about the huge, incredibly impressive set, or the costumes or the visual effects (all equally impressive), but realization in how Kenan allows us to see and even understand this world so well. It's only his second feature (after MONSTER HOUSE), but I can already tell that Kenan has the eye that's required to be a great cinematic fantasist, one that combines suspension of disbelief with giving the audience a world that they can touch and feel, which Ember certainly is. I was as taken with the environment as I was with the characters and their plight, and that, to me, gave the film more heft. There's a feeling that Kenan truly believed in this story (I understand he was a huge fan of the book) and there is a passion to be found here, which is what it truly needed to succeed. Many will say that's he sacrificed the story and characters for the sake of the design, but don't believe them; all these things are interwined, and it occurs to me that they've said the same things about Gilliam and Burton and those naysayers have been long proven wrong. Add to that that it's a pretty good fantasy/adventure story, and you've got a picture that can (and should) be taken in by families that are looking for something that will entertain and enlighten both kids and their folks, so it's definitely worth seeing. But if you want to see it in a theater (and you should), you better go fast. Too bad.

Strange thing for me is, I only saw CITY OF EMBER just this past Sunday afternoon, but it's a picture that I've had on my mind for the past few months. One of the worst-kept secrets of Fantastic Fest 2008 was that CITY OF EMBER would be screening at the festival, which it did as our closing night show. It was the last of our secret screenings, though everyone pretty much expected it, since an EMBER ad graced the back of our program guide, while EMBER posters graced our lobby and the EMBER logo was prominently branded on all festival materials (ads, banners, ect.). I have to say that of all my 2008 sponsorship duties, it was EMBER that went how I wanted it to, took the most work and went the best in the end, except for that whole bombing at the box office bit. Having gone through a bit of work on its behalf (not nearly as much as its makers and the Fox Walden folks), I think have a decent understanding of the disappointment they're all going through there.

Given pretty much a wide berth by Fantastic Fest head honcho Tim League, I made a concentrated effort to find sponsors who would appeal to our core audience of film geeks, those being the upcoming releases of movie studios. I got in touch with pretty much everyone (their DVD divisions, too) and spoke to a lot of good folks, but things did not quite go as I really wanted them to. While some gave me a flat-out "no", others would cite budgets or time lines (I started in May and had a mid-August deadline, still not enough for some studios to get approvals), and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't discouraged any. But the good folks at 20th Century Fox saw the light and were extremely supportive; they got what we were all about and said yes when others said no. In talking to one of their marketing reps, I asked about CITY OF EMBER - knowing only that it was a fantasy film that was opening in October - and was referred to the crew at Fox Walden, an in-house sub-distributor for films produced by Fox and Walden Media. The Fox Walden crew also understood the festival's importance, and while it didn't seem like there would be any kind of huge investment, I would have been more than happy just to get an ad for the program guide. And that might have been the case, if it wasn't for the fact that Tim League likes to think big.

One of my biggest grievances about some of the companies I've worked for in the past is how you would suggest an idea to them that cost even a little bit of money, and they always come back to you with a no. The thing about Tim is, he's OK with big, crazy ideas that just sound like fun, like putting a 35mm projector on the back of a truck and showing movies in famous locations. So one's of Tim's big, crazy ideas this year was to hold our closing night party at Longhorn Caverns, a mile-long cave that's now a state park here in Texas. The place is about 60 miles outside of Austin, but who cares? Just put everyone on buses for a 90 minute ride, get some DJs, lots of booze, and you've got yourself a party. In theory, it sounds like a lousy idea, a recipe for disaster, but Tim knew what he was doing. He'd done events there (like a screening of THE DESCENT) and knew that it would be an incredible party, one to remember, one that would be talked about for a long time to come. This idea came to him well before EMBER was a glimmer in his eye, but when Fox Walden was presented with the concept, they got it, too, and with the proper pitch in place they came on aboard as the party's official sponsor, being the start of a unique, one-of-a-kind event to life.

Thing was, no one was quite sure just what would make it even more special. We talked about screening the film in the cave (an idea I pushed for), but that seemed to go against the party concept that Tim wanted, so out it went. We spoke of a bringing in a band, but again, it didn't get very far. Branding the cave with cool lights and whatnot was a given (party co-sponsors Red Bull and 42 Below made sure of that), so we all knew it was going to work as a party, but putting it over the top was what we all wanted. The elephant in the room was getting Bill Murray to attend, but that was an unknown element even to the studio, as they had little contact with him (Murray doesn't have a manager or agent). Gil Kenan was in, we knew that much, but what else? Well, it turns out that was all that was needed, since Gil had Bill's ear. And so it was on Thursday the 11th that I received and e-mail from Heather Philips in Fox Walden's publicity department that Bill Murray was indeed coming to the screening and the party that I knew we were going to have something here. And we most certainly did.

Of course, Bill Murray's appearance was not to be publicized (although we were going to have a camera crew there to patch footage over to Entertainment Tonight), so that became the secret within the secret, which thankfully didn't leak out before the show began. This was the first time I'd ever worked an event where a "star" was involved, complete with security and press and such, and I can easily understand why the likes of Murray don't want to work publicity on their movies, because you suddenly don't become a person, you become a commodity, bandied about from spot to spot until you're no longer needed, gawked at by strangers who take your picture without asking and talk about you behind your back. I also saw what the publicist and press people at work, doing their jobs the best they can in the midst of a sandstorm (and not even that big a sandstorm here), and I saw all the hard work and long hours that went into it. It was a bit disconcerting, but at the same time, that's showbiz, as the saying goes, and even though it's not quite right, that's the nature of the business and there's not much that can be done about it. But like anyone else who throws a big party, when you see people drinking, dancing, laughing and having a good time, you know that you've done your job, and by that account the party was a raging success. Having been there myself, I've got to tell you that it was an incredible party, and even though it was a major pain in the ass to plan and execute, I've got to give Tim props for his vision.

So I'd like to take a moment out to single out some of the folks who made this party so memorable, be they so who busted their ass on it or those who just showed up. There's Tim, obviously, and Henri Mazza, the Alamo's main events planner; the guys from Red Bull (whose names I don't recall, unfortunately) who did a lot of the lighting and the DJ set-up; Daniel Osbourne, the Alamo's roadshow manager, and Josh Jacobs, who set up the video in the cave; the Alamo crew who worked the party as bartenders and the Longhorn Caverns crew who gave us the clearance and worked with us to make the event happen (and never once complained); a huge thanks to Gil Kenan, for getting Bill to show and for making a good film, and to Bill Murray, of course, for coming on down and sticking around to make it an event to remember (sorry about all the douchebag party goers who insisted on getting their pictures taken with you). But the final thanks goes to the Fox Walden folks who understood what it was all about and made everything possible, those being Heather Philips and, especially Susie Hayasaka, who was a dream to work with. I can't stress just how much hard work Susie put into this event, and if it wasn't for her efforts this party would not have been as cool as it was. Thanks again, Susie.

So once more, ignore the reviews and go see CITY OF EMBER. It deserves your support.

R.I.P., You Bad Motherfucker!

2008-10-20T19:00:00.000-04:00

It's very sad to hear of the passing of Rudy Ray Moore - the star of DOLEMITE, AVENGING DISCO GODFATHER, THE HUMAN TORNADO, among many others - today at the age of 71. I had the pleasure of meeting Moore and joining him for dinner upon my first-ever visit to Montreal at the 1999 Fantastia Film Festival, and I was quite taken aback by what a kind, soft-spoken man he was outside of the persona we all knew. His films may have gained him a legendary status to a certain extent, but anyone who knew of his work outside of them (or anyone who saw him perform live, like I did back in '99) will know that he was not only a great stand-up comic, but also an accomplished R&B singer and a great raconteur. He was also a symbol of an era in comedy now long gone, that of the dirty joke teller, the kind who paved the way for the likes of Pryor, Carlin and Murphy and whose jokes are still pretty damn hilarious today. He was a fascinating fellow in a lot of ways, and even if DOLEMITE is solely how he'll be remembered, you can honestly say that for someone who made his mark in the world of film, doing so in a movie that's not very good at all is a bit of an accomplishment.

Farewell, Mr. Moore.

Fantastic Fest: Nacho Vigalondo's CODE 7

2008-10-16T22:01:00.001-04:00

One of the most anticipated events of Fantastic Fest 2008 by pretty much everyone was the return of 2007's golden boy, Nacho Vigalondo, whose film TIMECRIMES was picked up by Magnolia Pictures at the festival (it's finally due to be released in December) and is due for a big Hollywood remake by United Artist. While Nacho wasn't returning with a new film, it was decided that to justify bringing Nacho back (like you actually need a reason) that the festival would show a batch of Nacho's short films, one of which, 7:35 IN THE MORNING, was nominated for a 2004 Academy Award (no foolin'). The Nacho Shorts show turned out to be one of the festival's hottest tickets (both shows were packed) and Nacho proved that he had a mastery of the short film format, with many of the shorts providing (such as CHANGING THE WORLD, which I wrote about back in January) some of the biggest smiles of the entire festival.

But it was CODE 7, Nacho's very own science fiction trilogy (inspired by the works of Philip K. Dick) that stole the show and it might have been the single best thing I saw during the entire festival this year. Endearing himself to me by also claiming that he's no fan of Peter Jackson's LORD OF THE RINGS trilogy (just like me!), Nacho gave us a true science fiction epic in three 3-minute segments that are some of the most thought-provoking, spellbinding, and heart-rendering works I've ever seen in the genre. The Palmer Eldridch/Joe Chip story arc, especially in part 2, outdoes even the greatest of Shakespearean tragedies. This is, without question, a masterpiece, and it is my pleasure to present CODE 7 in its entirety to all of you know. You can thank me later.

CODE 7: EPISODE ONE

CODE 7: EPISODE TWO

CODE 7: EPISODE THREE

Fantastic Fest: Kim Ji-woon's THE GOOD, THE BAD, THE WEIRD

2008-10-13T20:17:00.005-04:00

There's no other way of saying this: THE GOOD, THE BAD, THE WEIRD is a big ball of fun.

Ever since STAR WARS, many have tried to make films that are simply nothing more than giant bunches of entertainment - the perfect blockbuster, if you will, that throw everything at you in an effort to bring a smile to your face - but so few have succeeded that it's almost become futile to even expect anyone to reach the glorious heights of RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK or THE ROAD WARRIOR. While not quite in that same classic league, THE, GOOD, THE BAD, THE WEIRD (which won the audience award for best film at Fantastic Fest) comes about as close as any movie I can remember in many years and I can't help but tip my hat to it. It's maybe not a perfect mixture of action and comedy, but it's a god damn great one while you're watching it, no question. People will ask me what I liked so much about it, and all I'll be able to say is, "Everything". And yet, that's the right answer.

I do wants to take a moment to focus on the "but..." part of this review, and get it all out of the way so that I can go back to the praise. THE GOOD, THE BAD, THE WEIRD (there's no "and" in there) is pretty much all about fun. It's not an allegory for anything. There's no hidden meaning, no subtext, no deep thought to engage in afterwords, it's just a good time, a real good time. Director Kim does try to sneak something in at the end of the movie, but when you go back and think about it afterwords, you realize that even though there's an attempt at a statement, it's actually kind of hollow because it isn't what the film is really about. Also, the film is a very obvious tribute to Sergio Leone and THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY specifically, but what separates Kim from Leone is that Leone always had a point, he always had something to say, and I don't think Kim does. Leone's films are certainly fun, but you think about them afterwords and say to yourself, "OK, I can see how it's a Vietnam allegory" and stuff like that, and you don't here. This doesn't exactly kill THE GOOD, THE BAD, THE WEIRD as an entertainment, but I feel it's what stops it just short of being a true classic. It will become a classic, no doubt, but a lower-ranked one, I think. But that's pretty much it.

Having said all that, this is such a beautifully realized and executed film that it's going to take someone - anyone - years to catch up to it for sheer entertainment value. The action scenes here are like Spielberg and George Miller at their peak, just incredible stuff, and there's a 15 minute chase scene towards the film's end that is unbelievably outstanding in every way, and it got applause at the Fantastic Fest screening I attended. It looks beautiful, features superb use of the Manchurian desert locations and incredible sets (many of which become spectacularly destroyed) and it moves like an S.O.B., even though it runs over two hours (I gotta say that this one must be seen on the big screen). Kim is also helped immeasurably by the great Song Kang-ho (the "Weird" of the title), one of the great movie stars of our time (he also starred in THE HOST and Park Chan Wook's JOINT SECURITY AREA and SYMPATHY FOR MR. VENGEANCE) and the glue who really holds it all together. There's a hell of a lot of action and eye candy, but you can't take your eyes off Song, and he's a big part of what makes it all fun. It's funny, I didn't care much for Kim's last two films (the dull A TALE OF TWO SISTERS and the vastly overrated A BITTERSWEET LIFE), but he's knocked it out of the park here. I don't know how that happened, but I'm glad it did.

Other than that, I don't really have much more to say, except that you gotta check it out. IFC Films has it, but they haven't announced a date, though more than likely it'll be early 2009. See it.

Fantastic Fest Fan Fiction: Rain Johnson's THE BROTHERS BLOOM and J.L. Vera's SOUTH OF HEAVEN

2008-10-11T00:45:00.013-04:00

The ex-wife of a dear friend of mine had a thing for STAR TREK fan faction. As a Trekkie and would-be writer herself, she had this fascination with what fellow fans would dream up for the TREK characters, especially if they took things into wild directions, like the ones where Kirk and Spock are gay lovers. These kind of things are fascinating and depressing by equal measure, since so little of it is actually any good, but it's certainly of interest to see just what exactly people make of a favorite TV series or movie or comic when it's put into the hands of its fans, because that's when their fantasies really come out into the open. Whether it's finally giving Uhurah the chance to pilot the Enterprise or to find out just what would happen if the characters from The Lord of the Rings visited FANTASY ISLAND, one thinks that their imagination is truly going wild,when in fact their imagination is incredibly limited, since they really didn't create any of this stuff to begin with. If I put my French fries on top of my hamburger, it doesn't make me a great chef, it just means that I'm slapping two favorites together to spice up something I already love, nothing more.

I couldn't help but think of this equation while watching two of this year's Fantastic Fest features, Rain Johnson's THE BROTHERS BLOOM (which screened as one of the Ain't It Cool News Secret Screenings) and J.L Vera's SOUTH OF HEAVEN, which take a fan fiction approach to pulp materials and both come up short. It's very obvious that both writer/directors have a love of the works of writers like Mikey Spillaine, James M. Cain, Jim Thompson, Donald Westlake and a host of others, and they both work at adding their own personal spins to it, though not quite hard enough. Vera's is more cartoonish, saturating his screen with bright digital colors and very over-the-top violence, while Johnson wants a comical con men fairy tale mixed with a love story. Both are operating on the director's love of this kind of material, along with fantasies of what their ideal pulp fiction-type story would be and neither of them work, though one works much better than the other. I could give them points for wanting to mine material that isn't some comic book or Spielbergian early 80s fantasy flick, but the fact is that neither film is successful in their attempts, so I can't. It's OK to make something in the style of a favorite subgenre, but you can't wallow in its excesses and think you're going to come up with something unique because you're just going to end up looking like a geeky fanboy, albeit one who happens to read.

SOUTH OF HEAVEN is the worst offender of the two, a movie that reels solely of the director's fantasies of what his ideal movie would be, other than the idea of (god forbid) actually entertaining an audience. I would lump it in with all of the Tarantino wannabes of the mid-90s, but the cartoonish spin that Vera puts on it (a very obvious Warner Brothers influence here) separates it from the rest of those, if only slightly. This doesn't excuse Vera for the talkative hit men, serial killers and thieves, though, and I'll tell you all right now that I actually walked out of this one about halfway through. After a certain point I'd figured I'd had enough, though at what point exactly I can't remember, but at about the thirteen monologue in (no joke, though I'm probably not right on the number), I knew I wasn't going to subject myself to this anymore. This thing was not going to improve and I was not going to see the light, so it was best that we part. So while SOUTH OF HEAVEN does not represent the typical kind of fanboy cinema of this days and age, it nonetheless is a movie made only because someone has seen too many movies but doesn't really know how to make a film that is really their own as opposed to making a smorgasbord of their favorite kind of movies. And that's the kind of movie I no longer have any patience for, so include me out.

Much better by comparison (which is still damning with faint praise), Johnson's THE BROTHERS BLOOM is a dangerous balancing act of a movie, an attempt to make a whimsical crime movie, and when was the last time we saw one of those work? Again, Johnson is playing favorites here - a desire to replicate a dream movie in his mind - but unlike his previous film, BRICK, which was a picture that took a subgenre and successfully turned it on its ear, BLOOM just doesn't come together. Johnson is packing in too much here - it's a family story, a comedy, an action movie, a heist movie, a love story, a travelogue, a con story - and there's no real focus, at least none to my point of view. I was with it for a bit, but eventually I was lost in one double cross too many and I started to not care a little after halfway through. The plot isn't really what Johnson cares for, anyway; it's really more about the characters, which is as it should be, but everything is pretty damn predictable, so once you've figured out where that's going to go well before the film actually gets there, you don't really care. The performers are all pretty good - not that there are any bad ones in the bunch - with Rinko Kikuchi offering the real spark of life that the film needs. Even though she only has a few lines, she lifts the film up through sheer presence and I think I stuck with the film mainly because I wanted to see what she was going to do next. She's sensational, and I'd love to see her get an Oscar nomination because she does this all so well that she makes the film a little better than it really is. It's one of those situations where you ask yourself why they couldn't have made the film about her instead of the Brothers Bloom, because she's so much more interesting. Nevertheless, you're glad she's there, and at least as far as she's concerned Johnson's fantasies and my own happen to coincide, so I have no complaints there. As for the rest of THE BROTHERS BLOOM, thanks for giving us this peek at your bookshelf, Rain, but can you go and make a real movie next time, OK?

Fantastic Fest: Kevin Smith's ZACK & MIRI MAKE A PORNO

2008-10-08T23:07:00.007-04:00

Kevin Smith has gained a lot of weight. A lot of weight.

I'm not saying this for the sake of gossip, as Smith himself was the first to acknowledge all this when we got on stage after an admittedly stellar introduction (complete with the THUNDER COPS trailer on the big screen at Austin's huge Paramount Theater) at this year's opening night of Fantastic Fest. Having not seen Smith enter the building, I really was more than a little stunned to see just how much he's put on - he's got to be tipping the scales at close to, or over, 300 pounds. Smith quickly addressed the matter by explaining that he's started to smoke pot again on a regular basis, and with that has come the munchies and the weight gain that goes with that. The opening night crowd laughed all this off, but as I sat there watching ZACK & MIRI MAKE A PORNO, I couldn't help but equate Smith's current physical state with what ended up on screen. Bigger than it needs to be (it's 102 minutes but feels longer) and overly talky (not much of a surprise where Smith is concerned), ZACK & MIRI, while certainly amusing at many points and filled with some good laughs, is also yet another trip down the same unambitious road that Smith has been coasting on all decade long. The fans will be pleased, but those of us who saw him as the voice of the SLACKER generation will have to resign themselves to the fact that he has become nothing more than a creative slacker as the years have gone by.

In a sense, the Kevin Smith who made CLERKS is still on display throughout ZACK & MIRI MAKE A PORNO; CLERKS took a "write what you know" approach, giving audiences an idea of the working-class world that Smith came from (0ne not too removed from my own - he's from Red Bank, NJ, about an hour south of where I'm from) and ZACK & MIRI seeks to revisit that a little bit, moving the action to that most working-class of American cities, Pittsburgh (a few Romero jokes and a Romero regular cameo are nice touches). Its leads are two late-twenties longtime friends who find themselves struggling to make ends meet; after attending their 10 year high school reunion, they also realize that they have made nothing with their lives, and once the power and water are turned off, desperation leads to inspiration as the saying goes, and so henceforth the title. With this, the film goes into several predictable places - their porno starts as a STAR WARS spoof and then becomes a workplace porn; Zack and Miri confront their feelings for each other after their sex scene; Zack finds himself motivated to accomplish something for the first time in his adult life, ect. So basically, it's Smith telling the story of CLERKS but with tits, and once again it feels like he's refusing to challenge himself. He mined the unrequited love element much better in CHASING AMY and CLERKS remains one of the great workplace comedies, while this is not, and all of the dick and sex jokes (with some scatological humor being an unwelcome addition) are pretty much what you would expect. When Smith made CHASING AMY, and especially DOGMA, which is still his best work, you felt that he was growing artistically and starting to talk about what he thought about rather than what he was feeling. But ever since then he hasn't tried to do anything other than what would make audiences laugh. As the old PIECES tag line goes, ZACK & MIRI MAKE A PRONO is exactly what you think it is, and that's very disappointing.

With all of that out of the way, I do want to say that ZACK & MIRI isn't a complete washout, because it's probably Smith most polished film, technically, and there are certainly some good laughs. The performers are all fine, and Smith very nicely allows everyone in the cast an opportunity to prove themselves. It's nice to see Smith regular Jason Mewes clean, sober and not doing his old "Jay" act; Craig Robinson makes an excellent second-banana to Seth Rogen and gets some of the film's best lines, while Traci Lords is solid as a dominatrix and current porn star (and all-around sweetie) Katie Morgan proves that, yeah, she actually has some talent and could make it in the world of straight movies if she gets a shot. Rogen is good (likewise does not seem to be stretching himself too far), while Banks proves herself once again as an excellent comedienne who deserves more opportunities like this. It's in part because of the cast that you wish the film was better than it is because you know Smith has it in him to do superior work, but he's not applying himself, he's just sitting there getting stoned. Sure, ZACK & MIRI will probably go on to be Smith's biggest hit to date (he seems to top out at around the $30 million mark) and audiences probably won't be too disappointed, but for me, seeing Smith become so big, followed by seeing ZACK & MIRI, I could help but feel this was a Twinkie of a movie: Kinda tasty, but filled with nothing bu empty calories that are only going to fatten you up, not enrich you.

A Cult Classic in the Mistaking.

2008-10-07T00:14:00.006-04:00

I was quoted in an ad for the first paid writing gig I ever did. It was a Fangoria Magazine review of Mario Bava's RABID DOGS, which had been released in a limited edition DVD (at a time when DVDs themselves were limited) back in early '98, and no more than a month after the quote arrived than the ad arrived in the next issue of Tim Lucas' Video Watchdog magazine. My Fangoria editor took issue with the quote, only because I got quoted for the first thing I'd ever written for the magazine, and while I've had quotes hit here and there, I've never seen my name on the back of a DVD box. Until now.

Last summer, I saw Chris Stapp and Matt Heath's hilarious THE DEVIL DARED ME TO at the Fantasia Film Festival and loved the hell out of it. I wrote a very positive review here at HQ 10 that I know was seen by the film's producer, Anthony Timpson, who also happens to be a damn good friend of yours truly. So while I knew that THE DEVIL DARED ME TO had been sold to Vivendi Visual Entertainment (distributed by Universal), and retitled DICK: THE DEVIL DARED ME TO (apparently due to the film's lead villain, the brilliantly named Dick Johansonson, and because the word "dick" also means "penis"), I had no idea that not only had it already come out, it's been on the shelves since early August. Thanks for the head's up, Ant! So with this in mind, I planned on doing a little write-up to let everyone know that the film is finally available here (avilable at most best Buy locations) and well worth seeing. What I didn't know until I was pulling artwork for the title for this very piece is that the back of the box features a quote that comes from this very website ("A cult classic in the making") that is attributed to another source, that being Fangoria Magazine.

Now, I've written for Fangoria for many years (though in a much more on-and-off basis these days) and that's what many people associate me with, but the source is simply incorrect. More so than that, Fango's Michael Gingold positively reviewed the film from the same Fantasia screening on the Fango website back in July '07, so if you want to credit that then you should go ahead. I can understand that more people know Fangoria than they do HQ 10, but then again I'd never heard of eatmybrains.com and yet, they're quoted, too. I have the feeling that this came about when someone associated me as a Fangoria writer without checking to see if Fangoria was the source, but I don't want there to be any confusion. I'm sure that the packaging is probably never going to be recalled, so I'd just like people to know that Fangoria called THE DEVIL DARED ME TO "A crowdpleasing riot", which is just as good a quote (if not better) than "A cult classic in the making". I'm more than happy to have my name on the back of the box, but I don't want to step on the good toes of the Fango folks while doing so.

Regardless of all this, DICK - THE DEVIL DARED ME TO is out now and well worth seeing. You can quote me on that.

27 Days Til Halloween/Halloween/Halloween...

2008-10-04T23:48:00.002-04:00

While everyone and their uncle will be dressing as Heath Ledger's Joker this Halloween, I've already got my costume all selected: Mike Meyer's Guru Pitka from THE LOVE GURU. And thank goodness that I don't have to go searching for materials, because - lucky me! - it's already available in costume stores everywhere.

Like most of you, I didn't bother to see THE LOVE GURU, but I know exactly just how this whole costume thing came about. While the film was in production, the marketing folks at Paramount held a meeting to determine what would be the best way to merchandise THE LOVE GURU; since Meyer's AUSTIN POWERS character was a success (though do you know anyone who still proudly displays their old McFarlane action figures?) and an extremely popular Halloween costume for several years, the LOVE GURU outfit certainly was a no-brainer. The fact that everyone hated THE LOVE GURU (and it was a box office disappointment), obviously put a damper on the whole LOVE GURU costume scheme, but I have to guess that materials were already assembled and produced by the time the film's brief theatrical engagement came and went, so they damn well couldn't stop it. No doubt the orders were low and stock is readily available. In fact, I dare you to buy one and wear it for Halloween. Gotta wonder what kind of looks you're going to get.

Jeez, that poor model looks embarrassed. That's all I have to say about that.

Fantastic Fest 2008: Closing Night

2008-09-26T06:09:00.001-04:00

Yes, this actually happened:

I met him briefly, shook his hand and expressed my thanks. His appearance helps put Fantastic Fest on the map more so than ever before and I look forward to exploiting it for sponsorship opportunities for the next year. :) But seriously, he was a prince of a man and I can't begin to describe how grateful we are that he showed. And a big thank you to the Fox Walden team for working with us on this.

I know I've been silent during the fest, but now that my duties are finished I'll have some updates. Stay tuned.

Fantastic Fest: Five Films You Shouldn't Miss

2008-09-16T15:44:00.010-04:00

Like a kid who can't wait for Christmas, I'm all giddy these days at the thought of Fantastic Fest coming to town and sliding down the Alamo's chimney with its big bag of movies for all the good little boys and girls. Even though I work behind the scenes at the big show, I'm just as excited as everyone else is, if not more so, since I've seen some of this year's batch and I know how good the selection is. With this in mind, here are some of my suggestions of five films you must see at Fantastic Fest 2008:

LET THE RIGHT ONE IN - Saturday, Sept. 20, at 6:30pm and Wednesday, Sept. 24, at 1:15pm.
I'm sick to death of stupid vampire movies, but this is something completely different altogether, a remarkably moving look at childhood, loneliness and friendship, in addition to being an excellent horror film. Every so often someone comes along to re-invent the genre, and there's no question that Tomas Alfredson has done that here. This isn't just the best film of Fantastic Fest, it's the best film of the year.

LA CREME - Sunday, Sept. 21, at 4pm and Monday, Sept. 22, at 4:15pm
A big surprise for me when I saw it at the Fantasia Film Festival in Montreal this year, Reynald Bertrand's comedy has a great premise and a superb execution, in addition to a shitload of laughs. It may only dabble in fantasy, but LA CREME deserves a spot at Fantastic Fest for being a fantastic movie.

TREEVENGE (running as part of SHORT FUSE) - Thursday, Sept. 18, at 4pm; Sunday, Sept. 21 at 9pm and Wednesday, Sept. 24 at 1:50pm.
Proof positive that HOBO WITH A SHOTGUN was no fluke, TREEVENGE may only be 17 minutes long, but they may also be the most entertaining 17 minutes you will spend during all of Fantastic Fest - and that's saying something. It almost singlehandedly marks the return of the great gore comedy after too long an absence.

THE MAN FROM HONG KONG - Monday, Sept. 22, at 1:45pm and Wednesday, Sept. 24 at 11:59pm.
The centerpiece of our NOT QUITE HOLLYWOOD Ozploitation retrospective this year, I've written about this one before, but suffice to say I think the film is a bit of a discovery, if only for it's incredible action scenes and perfect use of Jigsaw's #1 hit, "Sky High". Trust me when I tell you that Aussie action does not get more batshit insane than this.

I THINK WE'RE ALONE NOW - Saturday, Sept. 20, at 1:50pm and Monday, Sept. 22, at 4:40pm.
This is unquestionably the creepiest, scariest film playing at Fantastic Fest, but by no means should that keep you away from it, because it stays with you for a very long time. You may think you're not anything like the two people featured in the film, but at some point you're going to see yourself in them and it's going to freak you the fuck out. Disturbing, but also pretty much unmissible.

See you at Fantastic Fest!

Fantastic Fest Brings the Festival to YOU!!!

2008-09-14T02:11:00.007-04:00

I know what you're thinking: I'd love to attend Fantastic Fest next week, but I can't afford it. Or, I don't have the time; or, I have to attend a seance in the desert; or, I hate your fucking guts, Matt Kiernan. Everyone has their reasons for not attending Fantastic Fest, but in a stroke of genius that I admittedly first thought was a bit nuts, Fantastic Fest and our pals at AMD have teamed up to bring a little bit of Fantastic Fest to you, no matter where you are. And we do know where you are! (Insert maniacal laughter here.) Can your heart stand the shocking truth of Fantastic Fest Online!?!

For the next week, if you sign up to B-Side (the fine people who host the Fantastic Fest website), you will have the opportunity to view 5 features and 5 shorts all for free on the Fantastic Fest website. One of the features, the terrific French comedy LE CREME, is one of my absolute favorites of the festival, while one of the shorts, Jason Eisner's TREEVENGE, is a brilliantly funny gore masterpiece that damn near had me pissing in my pants. There's also the terrifying Tiffany stalker documentary I THINK WE'RE ALONE NOW and a whole bunch of stuff that, to be honest, I haven't seen yet. It's only up there for a week, from September 14 to September 20, but this is a film festival first from what I'm aware of, so take this opportunity while you can to see some of the hottest selections of the coolest festival on Earth.

And now, for the record, the press release:

AMD Fantastic Fest Online

September 14-20

11 films from Fantastic Fest 2008 Streaming for Free!

http://www.fantasticfest.com/online

As 2008 Fantastic Fest badges are sold out and some folks don't have the money to travel to Austin for the festival in the first place, we have teamed up with two of our festival sponsors, AMD and BSide, to give everyone a taste of the fun for free. From September 14-20, AMD FANTASTIC FEST ONLINE will provide five feature films and six shorts from the official 2008 Fantastic Fest lineup to also be available for online viewing for free via the BSide network. All films will stream in low-resolution for slow connections and in beautiful high-resolution for those with blazing speed.

You must be a member of the BSide community to watch the films, but the good news is that it is quick, easy and free to join. We encourage those who participate in AMD FANTASTIC FEST ONLINE to also rate and review the films, as we will be awarding cash and technology prizes courtesy of AMD to the 'online audience favorite' short and feature films. Awards will be presented on Monday, September 22 as part of the official 2008 Fantastic Fest awards ceremony.

Go to http://www.fantasticfest.com/online and check out the 11 films in competition at this year's AMD Fantastic Fest Online. If you return to this site from September 14-20, 2008 and are logged into BSide you will be able to click and view all 11 of these amazing films, it's as easy as that.

"I am personally very excited to be working with these filmmakers, BSide and AMD to provide this unique new experience for genre film enthusiasts across the globe. Utilizing technology to provide simple and free access to great new film talent, Fantastic Fest Online may very well be paving the way to redefining what the term 'film festival' means in the future." - Tim League, director, Fantastic Fest and Fantastic Fest Online

The AMD Fantastic Fest Online Films

The following 11 films are the official selections of the 2008 AMD Fantastic Fest Online Features:

Dr. Infierno (Spain)
A demented gynecologist discovers a cure for all the world’s illnesses and uses it as leverage to become sole dictator of the earth. Jam-packed with monsters, kung fu, battling robots and deviant sexual practices, DR. INFIERNO doesn’t let budget get in the way of executing a mountain of crazy ideas.

I Think We're Alone Now (USA)
This fascinating and deeply disturbing documentary takes you deep into the worlds and obsessions of Kelly McCormick and Jeffery Deane Turner, who have been separately stalking 80s pop icon Tiffany for nearly 20 years.

La Creme (France)
Under the Christmas tree, unemployed loser François Margin mysteriously finds a jar of face cream that once applied, temporarily turns him into the most famous celebrity in France.

Rule of Three (USA)
Set in one night in a seedy hotel, cult Novelist Eric Shapiro’s debut feature intertwines two stories of sexual encounters gone horribly awry.

South of Heaven (USA)
Two brothers on the wrong side of everyone must face an endless array of torture, terrors and indignities in this darkly comic and visually striking noir.

Shorts:
Cam to Cam (France)
Technology and intimacy are at war. This movie is a genuinely creepy exploration of the casualties.

Fish (USA)
The filmmaking team behind last year's FF hit THE BIRD, THE MOUSE AND THE SAUSAGE are back with a new stop-motion food tale that reveals the secret nature of pescatorial reproduction.

Kingz (Germany)
A botched drug deal spirals out of control in a subterranean night club filled with unnameable evils. The action is furious and so are the villains, so be prepared for some whirlwind brutality!

Rojo Red (Colombia)
Some people complain about their life unraveling, but it's rarely as pronounced as in this whimsical, bizarre short from a young Colombian visualist already on par with mighty artists like Michel Gondry.

Treevenge (Canada)
HOBO WITH A SHOTGUN creators Jason Eisener and Rob Cotterill imagine a yuletide season where the Christmas trees finally evens the score for decades of living under the axe of mankind.

Fantastic Fest: Getting More Fantastic By the Minute

2008-09-07T00:13:00.007-04:00

So the final schedule for Fantastic Fest 2008 is online, as is a PDF of the entire program guide, which won't be hitting Austin until the end of this week (if we're lucky). You see those ads in the program? All my doing. That's the magic of sponsorship coordination for ya right there.

In addition to all that coordinatin', I also took the time to do the write-ups for the features ESTOMAGO, TERRA, CONQUEST OF THE PLANET OF THE APES and LA CREME. Of all those film, LA CREME is unquestionably my favorite, although I think I come off sounding a little bit too effusive in my praise (read for yourself to decide), but god dammit, it really is that good a movie (and a damn funny one, too).

What's that you're saying? CONQUEST OF THE PLANET OF THE APES? Why yes, we are screening that underrated '72 classic in its original uncut version, with more violence and politics than previously seen. This version of the film will be available on the upcoming PLANET OF THE APES Blu-Ray set (coming out November 4), but Fantastic Festers get to see it first on September 20 at 12pm. For free. This screening? All my doing. Even wrote the press release. Why yes, this is pretty damn cool. You're welcome.

(Seriously, Fox Home Entertainment has been great to us this year, and I love them for it. Fox Walden has also been phenomenal, and even though Fox itself opted not to do anything sponsorship-wise, they've been nothing but supportive. Great buncha folks over there.)

Fest is less than a two weeks away and things are super crazy this year, but if we don't screw this up it's going to be one to remember. Wish us luck!

Fantastic Fest 2008: The Last Batch

2008-09-01T21:58:00.002-04:00

So, here it is, the final batch of titles announced for Fantastic Fest 2008, with a full schedule to be announced on Thursday. We had the announcement that ZACK & MIRI MAKE A PORNO would be the opening night film last week, and now here's the rest of the fest.

My life is currently a whirlwind of craziness and I don't really mind:

PRESS RELEASE: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Subject: Final Slate of films announced for Fantastic Fest 2008

Where: Alamo Drafthouse Cinema South Lamar, Austin, TX

Fantastic Fest, September 18-25, 2008

We are proud to announce the final slate of feature film programming for the 2008 edition of Fantastic Fest in Austin, Texas. With over 100 films representing over 30 countries, Fantastic Fest is the largest festival of its kind in the United States. The 2008 schedule will be announced online on Thursday, September 4, 2008. If you are planning on coming to Fantastic Fest and have not yet secured a badge, act quickly as we only have 30 film badges left and expect to be sold out by the end of the week!

final batch: Fantastic Features:

Alien Raiders

Special Advance Screening / dir. Ben Rock / USA / 2008 / 85 min

Director Ben Rock live in person!

A squadron of trained gunmen lay siege to a supermarket at closing time. What first appears to be a robbery soon takes on otherworldly dimensions.

Astropia (Dorks and Damsels)

North American Premiere / Dir. Gunnar Gudmundsson / Iceland / 2008 / 93 min

Director Gunnar Gudmundsson and screenerwriters Otto Borg and Johann Grimson live in person!

Hildi, a high-society socialite, is left bankrupt and alone after her corrupt husband is whisked off to prison. With no other prospects, she gets a job selling role-playing games and accessories at Astropia, the town's geek Mecca.

The Burrowers

US Premiere / Dir. J.T. Petty / USA / 2008 / 97 min

Director J.T. Petty live in person!

A cross-country manhunt searches for an abducted woman and a marauding Indian tribe, but the real villains don't ride horses... they burrow from beneath the ground.

The Chaser

North American Premiere / Dir. Hong-jin Na / South Korea / 2008 / 123 min

A serial killer is preying on call-girls from various escort agencies. In the midst of police indifference and incompetence, Jung-Ho (Yun-Seok Kim), an ex-cop-turned-pimp must dust off his old flatfoot skills to find the killer and save the life of one of his girls who has gone missing.

Fanboys

Special Advance Screening / Dir. Kyle Newman / USA / 2008 / 90 min

Director Kyle Newman, producer Matt Perniciaro, screenwriter Ernie Cline and star Jaime King live in person!

Desperate to see STAR WARS EPISODE 1: THE PHANTOM MENACE, five high school friends break into Skywalker Ranch to steal an early cut of the film.

The Good, The Bad and The Weird

Regional Premiere / Dir. Ji-woon Kim / South Korea / 2008 / 139 min

Directed by Ji-woon Kim (A BITTERSWEET LIFE, A TALE OF TWO SISTERS) and setting an all-time Korean box office opening weekend record this year, THE GOOD THE BAD AND THE WEIRD, an homage to Leone's similarly named classic, is one of the year's most anticipated genre titles.

Just Another Love Story

Regional Premiere / dir Ole Bornedal / Denmark / 2007 / 100 min

JUST ANOTHER LOVE STORY is not as benign as the title might suggest. A mild mannered forensics photographer is involved in a traffic accident with a young woman. Curious, he visits her in the hospital only to be mistaken as her boyfriend. When she awakens blind and suffering from mild amnesia, he continues his charade. As you might expect, things don't turn out so well.

Late Bloomer

Regional Premiere / dir. Gô Shibata / Japan / 2004 / 83 min

In Gô Shibata's controversial film, Masakiyo Sumida, a severely disabled mute, is driven to madness and violence by his loneliness and isolation.

Left Bank

Dir. Pieter Van Hees / Belgium / 2008 / 75 min

A young woman moves in with her new boyfriend on the fashionable "left bank" in Antwerp only to discover that the building may have a very disturbing past.

Repo! A Genetic Opera

Special Advance Screening / Dir. Darren Bousman / USA / 2008 / 98 min

Director Darren Bousman and star/co-writer Terrance Zdunich live in person!

Darren Bousman, director of the 2nd, 3rd and 4th installments of the wildly popular SAW franchise, pulls a "what-the-f..." 180 degree turnaround to create a very personal, very demented, bloody goth rock opera about organ repossession with lead performances by Paul Sorvino, Paris Hilton and Ogre from Skinny Puppy.

Sauna

US Premiere / Dir. Antti-Jussi Annila / Finland / 2007 / 93 min

While mapping the new border between Russia and Finland after the war, the joint task force stumbles upon a mysterious sauna in a remote swamp, a sauna that allegedly has the power to wash away all sins.

The Wild Man of the Navidad

Regional Premiere / Dir. Duane Graves and Justin Meeks / USA / 2008 / 86 min

Directors Duane Graves and Justin Meeks live in person!

Purportedly based on actual events, THE WILDMAN OF THE NAVIDAD tells the story of a small Texas community along the banks of the Navidad River who were terrorized for years by a mysterious creature.

The Wreck

World Premiere / Dir James Koya Jones / USA / 2008 / 79 min

Director James Koya Jones live in person!

A very pregnant woman and her husband are trapped in the woods in a demolished sedan and her water has just broken. They are in a really bad situation, and it gets a LOT worse.

The complete festival schedule including our patented secret screening times will be posted online on Thursday, September 4 at www.fantasticfest.com

IMPORTANT FESTIVAL DATES:

Important dates have been announced for the 4th Annual Fantastic Fest in Austin, Texas.

Thursday, September 4, 2008: Final schedule announced

Sunday, September 14, 2008: Fantastic Fest online begins

Thursday, September 18, 2008: Fantastic Fest begins

Saturday, September 20, 2008: 2009 Festival Badges go on sale

Monday, September 22, 2008: 2008 Fantastic Fest Awards Ceremony

For more information about Fantastic Fest, please visit our official website: www.fantasticfest.com.

ABOUT THE FESTIVAL:

Fantastic Fest is the largest genre film festival in the United States featuring over 100 films from over 30 countries. The event highlights the best new sci-fi, horror, fantasy and genre films, as well as choice classic and obscure cult titles from all over the world. The festival director and head programmer is Tim League (Alamo Drafthouse Cinema), with additional programming by Harry Knowles (Ain't It Cool News), Todd Brown (Twitchfilm.net), Blake Ethridge (Cinema is Dope), Karrie League (Alamo Drafthouse Cinema), Zack Carlson (Alamo Drafthouse Cinema) and Lars Nilsen (Alamo Drafthouse Cinema). Fantastic Fest is a supporting member of the prestigious Melies European Fantastic Film Festivals Federation and a founding member of the North American Fantastic Festival Alliance. Fantastic Fest is sponsored in part by Gamecock Media, AMD, Fosters, Embassy Suites, 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment, CITY OF EMBER, DVD Empire, Best Buy, Dark Sky Films, Envy Magazine, Anchor Bay Entertainment, Texas Film Commission, Image Entertainment, Viz Pictures, HungrymanTV.com, Book People, Room Service Vintage, Media Blasters, Big Top Candy, Austin Chronicle, The Onion, Fangoria Magazine, Rue Morgue Magazine, Twitchfilm.com, Ain't It Cool News, and Simply Australian.com.

Product Placement I Can Really Get, Uh, Behind.

2008-09-01T21:00:00.002-04:00

Movie product placement are such a dime-a-dozen these days, but it's always a lot more fun when movies make up products of their own, items that might possibly be real. The likes of Red Apple cigarettes and Duff Beer, when they work, add to the fun of a movie, helping to create a world that these characters live in that's just a little bit different from our own. Occasionally, such fake products become real (like Scooby Snacks and Cheezy Poofs), but are any of them any good? Not really. That said, I've got to admit that I've been enjoying a fair amount of Booty Sweat these days.

For those who haven't seen Ben Stiller's entertaining TROPIC THUNDER yet (not the funniest thing I've ever seen, but still a good time) Booty Sweat is an energy drink from one of the film's characters, hip-hop star Alpa Chino (played by Brandon T. Jackson) and it plays into the plot at certain points, even showing up as a commercial at the start of the film (seen below). Thing is, Dreamworks actually produced a run of Booty Sweat and made it available at theaters showing the movie and it turns out a be pretty damn good. It might even be the best energy drink I've ever had, although I'm no expert. It's pretty much a spikier version of Cherry 7up, but it goes down pretty easily and it certainly does supply one with a lot of energy; I've been using it to help me stay up for the Weird Wednesdays and Terror Thursdays midnight shows here and it works real well. Best thing about it is that it really does taste like booty, and fine, curvaceous booty, at that. I know that it won't be around very long, but for as long as Booty Sweat is on the market (and I've seen it on shelves) it's my energy drink of choice. Love that Booty!

Now where's Bust-a-Nut?

Do You Remember Back in Old L.A.? The Power Pop Genius of "Beach Baby"

2008-08-29T18:00:00.002-04:00

Some songs you merely like for a long time. They're either hits or just songs you like and they're always there, be it on the radio or in your iPod or on CDs you listen to, and you know you like them, but you don't always give them much thought. You don't turn them off when they're on, but you don't hit the repeat button on them, either. But then at some point, something about you changes and all of a sudden that song that you'd always passed over in favor of other songs suddenly hits you as a masterpiece. It's not a matter of "Where has this song been all my life?" so much as, why haven't I noticed it's brilliance until now? So you spend a lot of time listen to this one song again and again, extolling its virtues to friends and enemies alike and, if you're anything like me (don't go there), you devote an entire blog posting to it. As if you haven't read the headline, such a song is The First Class's 1974 hit "Beach Baby" and as we reach the end of summer (for some of you - I live in Texas now, where it's going to remain in the 90s for the next two months or so), let's all take one last dip in the ocean of one of the best - if not the best - summer songs ever written.

I listened to the radio a lot as a kid, be it in the car as mom ran errands (we always insisted on 77 on the AM dial, WABC, NYC's pop station of choice in the 70s) or on my little clock radio, and I remember when this song was new, although I couldn't have told you who sang it or what most of the lyrics were because I was, like, 4 at the time. I'd hear it off and on throughout the years, a bit more so when I'd start listening the Glen Jones on WFMU, who would play it during summer shows (his archives - 8 years of them! - are available here). But it was in early '03, when I was working on a show on FMU and raiding the new bin by making burns of all the new CDs that I happened upon "Beach Baby" again on a compilation of the works of John Carter, the song's co-writer and producer (Tony Burrows sang lead vocals), called Measure for Measure: The John Carter Anthology, from the amazing RPM Records. Although you can constantly hear the inspirations (Spector, Brian Wilson, Roger McGuinn and The Beatles) throughout the compilation is one of my favorite CDs, since it's loaded with one brilliant pop ditty after another. When "Beach Baby" popped up during my first listen to this set I got very enthused, mainly because I'd never had a copy of the song before, and coupled with the rest of Carter's significant pop output my admiration of the song increased significantly. I can only assume that the Carter comp sold well for RPM, because two years later they released The First Class: Summer Sound Sensation, devoted to the best of Carter's group that recorded "Beach Baby", and I couldn't help but love that, too. Both albums have spent a significant amount of time in my CD players throughout this summer and I can't help but listen to each again and again and again. All of these songs are so sugary sweet that they'll give you cavities, but it doesn't matter one whiff because god dammit they're good, and I have declare "Beach Baby" as one of the all-time power pop greats.

One of the things that makes "Beach Baby" so incredibly fucking brilliant in my mind is that it builds. It starts at a high note (the perfectly harmonious opening crescendo), stays at an even level, goes down, then builds back up in a manner of pop genius that's rivaled only by "September Gurls" and "Hey Jude" in my mind. It's almost a pop opera in a way (it's 5 minutes long, for Christ sake!), just getter bigger and fuller, even more dramatic, as it reaches the climax. Carter had masterstrokes like this before (such as The Flower Pot Men's "Let Go to San Francisco" and Kincade's "Dreams Are Ten a Penny"), but "Beach Baby" is something truly transcendent. It's such a happy song, one that doesn't just give you happy memories of days gone by but it's also saying that today and tomorrow can be just as good as yesterday, if not better; "Beach Baby" is like happiness in a bottle, musical crack that's addictive but not destructive. In an odd way, it gives you false memories of California teenage years spent at the beach and even though it's totally phony and nothing more than a nostalgia piece (early 60s nostalgia was just starting to become big in '74) it feels like the real thing. "Beach Baby" is easily the best Brian Wilson song Brian Wilson never wrote, but more so than that, it's a great tribute, honoring Wilson and the California sound while completely being a song that can stand on its own. Sometimes the tribute can match the master, and "Beach Baby" is one of those rare occasions where that happens. It's a beautiful thing and I'll love it to the day I die.

Powder 2 The OVER THE TOP Sequels.

2008-08-27T21:00:00.004-04:00

Well, POWDER 2: POWDER 2 THE PEOPLE wasn't enough to beat its rivals at this year's Unnecessary Sequels Filmmaking Frenzy, coming in third behind THE MONSTER SQUAD 2 and OVER THE TOP: THE RISE OF MIKE HAWK. I have to say that if POWDER had to lose to any of the other sequels then those two would be the ones, but POWDER 2 will always occupy a place in my heart that the others never could. No offense.

That said, who could have predicted that this year's competition would give us not one, but two excellent mini-sequels to Menahem Golan's arm wrestling epic of awfulness? THE RISE OF MIKE HAWK is the better of the two, no question, but I've got to hand it to the team behind OVER THE TOP 2: ARMAGEDDON for their brilliant Robert Loggia impression and superior subtitle. Looking at these two almost makes me want to revisit the 1987 Stallone original for shits and gigs, but I realize that I have much more important things to do with my time, like never watching OVER THE TOP again in my life. These sequels will do just fine:

OVER THE TOP: THE RISE OF MIKE HAWK

OVER THE TOP 2: ARMAGEDDON

Hey Gang, It's Gordon Liu!

2008-08-27T21:00:00.003-04:00

While attending last month's Fantasia Film Festival in Montreal, I had the pleasure of meeting Hong Kong film legend Gordon Liu at a special exhibt of original Hong Kong movie posters from the collection of HK film expert, Toronto International Film Festival Midnight Madness programmer and all-around good guy Colin Geddes, whom I'd traded various phone calls and e-mails with for years but never met before (and it turns out we had a lot more in common than I thought). Liu, a special guest of the festival, was also there for a screening of a newly restored print of DISCIPLES OF THE 36TH CHAMBER. This magic moment was recorded by good pal (and Fantasia programmer) King-Wei Chu and here it is for you to enjoy:

Look how excited we are to meet each other!

But seriously, Gordon Liu is total coolness. And I met him, which makes me cool by default.

People I Know Make Videos

2008-08-21T21:00:00.004-04:00

Filmmaking competitions are sweeping the globe these days, and I've got several friends taking part who are turning out fine little works. It seems as though all of my filmmaking friends are talented, which is truly no surprise to me since they are, after all, my friends.

I first met Montreal filmmaker Giulia Frati back in 2001 when her short MISTER E. screened at the (you guessed it) Fantasia Film Festival and we've remained friends ever since. Giulia divides her time between Paris and Montreal these days, but she's spending her summer in the latter city and took part in a 48 Hour competition back in July while I happened to be in town for this year's fest. We only got to see each other for a little bit before I had to catch my flight back, but our time together is always one of the highlights of my Montreal visits and she's one of those people I always wish I could see more often. Here's a lovely piece she made with filmmaking friend Ian Cameron that says a lot in a short period of time (that's Giulia handing the sparkler to the little girl at the beginning, by the way):

Something sparkly is in your future. from Ian Cameron on Vimeo.

I also want to mention that PUPA'S GARDEN, an excellent documentary Giulia made about her grandmother in Italy, will be screening on PBS some time soon. I'll keep you posted as to the dates.

Well, if the Alamo Drafthouse is having another filmmaking competition, expect Thomas Humphrys, Nick Robinson and the rest of the Black Magic Rollercoaster team to get involved. This time it's the 2008 edition of Unnecessary Sequels and the team now brings us the sequel no one really wanted: POWDER 2: POWDER 2 THE PEOPLE. Take it away, boys:

POWDER 2: POWDER 2 THE PEOPLE from BLACK MAGIC ROLLERCOASTER on Vimeo.

Love it (and not just because I'm in it)!

Freedom's Just Another Word for Nothing Left to Lose...

2008-08-15T22:13:00.010-04:00

Like most people, I like cars. I love the look of the great classic cars, from the mammoth Buicks of the 50s to the slick and stylish Corvettes of the 60s to the muscle cars of the 70s. I've never actually driven any of them, but when I see them out on the road - which is actually often on the streets of Austin - I turn to admire them, gazing at the tremendous workmanship that went into their design and the care that the current owners put into their upkeep. I occasionally gaze at classic auto mags and have wandered around one or two auto shows in my time, but also like most people I couldn't tell you the first things about most any of them or what the difference is between this make and model over another. My feelings for them are always of great respect and admiration, but they're not exactly where my passion lies. They're truly wonderful things, but I personally can't see myself devoting a lot of time and money to them. But I can, however, truly understand the passion.

I'm on this rant because I've had a lot of thinking about cars lately, pretty much since the beginning of the year, and I'm not done them yet. Back on June 19th, following a Weird Wednesdays screening of Franco's 99 WOMEN, I got into an accident that has left me without one. No one was hurt, thankfully, and the matter has just recently been settled (I've made out fine), but it's still not a fun experience by any means. I've been through it once before (only 18 months earlier) and it was worse then (though likewise not my fault), but I'm now going to have to go through the process of finding a new car, registering it, and all that other bullshit, and I'm not looking forward to it. Don't get me wrong; I love driving and get very, very restless without wheels, but this sure isn't the fun part of owning a car. That said, there is absolutely nothing compares with a great, long trip behind the wheel, despite all the occasional hassles, and it's something I try to do at least once a year if I can. When I made the drive from N.J. to Austin at the end of April, I did so not just because it was cheaper than flying (though not that cheap these days) but because I had to - the opportunity to see and experience America (at least half of it) was something I could not pass up and I'm glad I didn't. Seeing America from the behind the wheel of that somewhat crappy 1997 Toyota Corolla I had was wonderful, a reminder of a transition to a new life versus the one I was leaving behind and it was the only way to go. The open road is one of the most oft-used metaphors any writer can steal, and with that in mind the road movie has a great tradition in American cinema. It's certainly one of the finest contributions to culture America has given the world; there are definitely some great European road movies (Chris Petit's RADIO ON instantly comes to mind) but we own this genre, no question. Monte Hellman has been quoted as saying that all great movies are essentially road movies, and maybe he's right. But for as many great American road movies as there are (IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT; SULLIVAN'S TRAVELS; SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT) there is truly is none finer than Hellman's own TWO-LANE BLACKTOP, which I recently viewed again and found to be not just better than I remembered, but the genuine cinematic masterpiece that so many others have found it to be. Not that I didn't like the film, but after having gone through so much lately because of automobiles, I feel like I finally get it.

Like so many great films, TWO-LANE BLACKTOP is completely open to interpretation - it is whatever you want it to be - and my assessment of it isn't going to tell you anything new. What I can bring to the discussion is that in watching TWO-LANE BLACKTOP this time (at the Alamo Ritz, with Hellman in attendance) is that I feel like I understand the era in which I was born a little bit better now. BLACKTOP was filmed in the fall of 1970, 7 months after my birth, and released the following summer; though it's probably not 100% all of it, what I sense from the film now is that this was indeed America in 1970. The country had broken in two and these differing sides - the careless, free, zen-like, and liberal Driver, Mechanic, and the girl opposite the uptight, delusional (always pretending to be something he's not) and materialistic GTO - pretty much paint the proper picture. Not trying to get too deep here, TWO-LANE BLACKTOP is no more about cars than it is about life - the point of the journey is not to arrive - but what's also wonderful about it, at least to me, is that it also carries with it the feel and spirit of the low-budget genre cinema of the time, drive-in cinema, if you will. It's the greatest Roger Corman movie Corman never made; it's got all the elements - young people, fast cars, chases - while at the same time it's so much its own thing. The fact that Hellman got his start working for Corman shouldn't be forgotten, and while I'm sure that Hellman will deny it, I couldn't help but feel the Corman influence all over it. But that's probably just me.

More so than pretty much anything, the automobile and the open roads represents freedom for a lot of people, and I include myself in that list. Put yourself behind the wheel and just drive to where you need to be or want to be, in charge of your own destiny for the most part for however long you're out there. Some of us, like GTO, are out there because they have no home, while others, like myself, are just travelers, going from one place to another. The Driver and Mechanics of the world have achieved a kind of inner piece by simply staying on the road. What they need to get by the most is freedom and everything else - food, shelter, sex - are mere roadblocks to more freedom. I couldn't live like that myself, but I can respect those who take that route, and whenever I think of them, I will always have TWO-LANE BLACKTOP in mind.

I've got other reasons why cars, car lovers and TWO-LANE BLACKTOP have been on my brain as of late, but I'm not going to go into that here. I do, however, want to direct your attention to Kim Morgan's appreciation (a massive understatement - it's a fucking love letter) of the film that is unquestionably one of the best things this gifted writer has ever done. The film is obviously one of great importance to her and her passionate, perceptive and heartfelt piece is 100% spot-on, as always.