"And if something comes to an end, then its beginning will also be important."
It all comes down to this.
In so many ways, Taxidermia feels like the perfect culmination of everything I expected out of these two weeks and exactly the kind of movie I think of when I think of Lerman. It'd be easy to reduce his tastes down to nothing more than the most batshit crazy stuff imaginable, but it's important to remember that he was equally excited to about Little Shop or Babe as he was about A Serbian Film. That takes a very special kind of person and I'm so grateful that he was willing and able to take the time to construct such an eclectic collection of cinema for my personal consumption. I definitely would never have watched the vast majority of these films of my own accord and I totally fell in love with more than a few of them. Besides, I'm always happy to have my tastes broadened in the widest manner possible.
Taxidermia is certainly a film that will challenge your comfort levels as well as your gag reflex. It was also Hungary's official Oscar submission for Best Foreign Language Film, and the idea of Academy voters gathering together to watch a film that starts off with a guy shooting flames out of his dick is endless entertaining to me. The story charts the lives of three men through subsequent generations of the Balatony family, each with his own fleshly form of obsession. Morosgovanyi is a pitiful excuse for a soldier who's posted at a remote family farm in the dead of winter. His chief concern in life is finding new ways to achieve sexual release; in other words, get ready for a lot of bizarre penis imagery involving fireballs, chickens, wooden boards and dead pigs. His story comes to an abrupt halt when his commanding officer realizes that Morosgovyani totally banged the C.O.'s rather rotund wife, who soon gives birth to the little horndog's son. And just for added porcine flavor, the baby has a vestigial tail that gets cut off with a pair of tin snips, in close up no less.
The story then jumps forward about 25 years where the now-grown baby Kalman has become a championship speed-eater, shoveling all sorts of disgusting slop down his gullet in record time and then dispassionately vomiting it all up into a collective trough along with six other behemoths. But in the midst of a major competition he gets so distracted by Bela, a female champion eater in the crowd, that he gets lockjaw and collapses. Luckily, Bela thinks there's nothing sexier than a guy choking on a spoonful of donkey meat and passing the fuck out. So they get hitched, but while Kalman is singing drunken love songs during the reception, Bela is watching him through the outside window while also getting boned by Kalman's biggest speed-eating rival. So clearly cuckolding is a theme here.
Speed eating goes somewhat out of fashion and Bela's pregnancy ain't easy, but eventually she gives birth to Lajoska, who grows up to become a skinny-fuck taxidermist who also looks after his aging father who has now ballooned up to a comically gargantuan size (pictured above). Not only can the old man not leave his apartment, he can't even get up from his chair/perch, leaving Lajoska in charge of feeding pounds of butter to Kalman's tremendous cats. It's an antagonistic relationship which unsurprisingly ends on a sour fucking note and finally leads Lajoska to transform himself into his own greatest creation. It's a completely unhinged bit of surreality that caps off the film, depicted in exquisite detail and presented in such a manner that ensures you know exactly what's going on while simultaneously thinking to yourself, "What the shit is going on?"
Taxidermia is the quintessential Lerman film, chock full of truly deranged, often disturbing imagery that might feel at first like crazy for the sake of crazy, but eventually adds up to a unique, boundary-pushing experience that stays with you for days and changes your perception of what film is all about. For me, it's not going to become my new favorite movie and I may never watch it again, but I'll always remember Taxidermia and years from now I'll be having drinks with a friend and they'll mention some creepy co-worker who's keeps a stuffed gerbil at his cubicle. And I'll end up telling them about this crazy movie I once saw and the madman who made me watch it.
And I'll smile.
What's The Connection? Fat people! One of the hotel victims in The Happiness Of The Katakuris is a sizable sumo wrestler who dies while having sex with his diminutive mistress and subsequently crushes her to death. But he's downright tiny compared to the elder Kalman, who prefers to eat his chocolate bars without removing the foil wrapper.
Up Next: Sanity.
--------------------------------------- Title: Taxidermia Director: Gyorgy Palfi, Starring: Csaba Czene, Gergely Trocsanyi, Marc Bischoff, Istvan Gyuricza, Piroska Molnar, Gabor Mate, Zoltan Koppany Year Of Release: 2006 Viewing Method: Netflix DVD
One night when I was in college, Lerman arrived at my Charles St. apartment with his backpack overflowing with DVDs and he quickly put on a Japanese film called Ichi The Killer. It's a loose riff on Batman in which a Joker-esque gangster with giant slits cut from the corners of his mouth up to his cheekbones squares off against Ichi, a timid would-be hero dressed all in black. In the film's opening scene, Ichi stands outside the window of a beautiful woman, watching her undress. He furiously masturbates and then retreats into the night, leaving a puddle of ejaculate dripping from the leaves of a potted plant. The bodily fluid quickly puddles and forms into the film's opening title.
This is how I was introduced to Takashi Miike.
Ichi is an incredible film that I've been meaning to revisit for years. It's tough because it's obviously not a movie for everybody, but Miike had such a strong cinematic voice that I was almost overwhelmed. I knew right then and there that this was a fascinating director whose work I really wanted to dig into. And yet, I'm just now realizing that I never really followed up on that plan. Sure, I've always kept an eye on his films and seen trailers come and go over the years for various Miike projects that looked really interesting, but as I sit here scanning over his prolific filmography (he makes Woody Allen look lazy) I'm now realizing that it's been over ten years since Lerman first thrust Ichi into my life and until now I'd still yet to watch another one of Miike's films. That seems simply preposterous, yet there it is.
So I'm grateful that Lerman has once again thrown some Miike my way, although I have to say that The Happiness Of The Katakuris probably wouldn't have been my first choice. It's such an absurd mishmash of styles, part going-into-business story, part musical-romance, part crime-drama, part claymation gorefest. In a weird, abstract way, think Batteries Not Included meets Grease meets Fargo meets Mr. Bill. And yet, that doesn't even begin to describe everything that's going on here.
On the surface is the story of the Katakuri family, which has built a bed & breakfast out in the wilderness based on the promise that the government will soon be building a nearby road, thus turning the area into a tourist destination. But in the meantime, the charming hotel remains empty and the family is facing bankruptcy, that is until a mysterious stranger arrives in the middle of the night in search of a room. The Katakuris are overjoyed until their very first guest turns up dead in the morning and they're forced to hide the body before word gets out and the B&B's reputation is destroyed before they can even get off the ground. Soon new guests arrive and the mortality rate continues to rise, all while the Katakuris' eldest daughter gets romantically entangled with a charming criminal posing as an American secret agent/member of the British Royal Family. And let's not forget all of the of incredibly over the top musical numbers, often times smashing onto the screen like the Kool-Aid Man in the most unexpected and grotesque of situations, particularly one song featuring a chorus of dismembered corpses. As if that doesn't sound absurd enough, we're also treated to a handful of scenes which play out as totally bonkers claymation, including the film's completely insane and non-sequiter opening sequence and the finale in which a quietly omni-present volcano finally erupts. These sequences would typically demand heavy effects or green screen work, and since the film was released in 2001 it's not as if digital effects were completely out of the question. Was this a budgetary issue or a style choice? I honestly couldn't tell you, but either way the shit just WORKS.
There's so, so much more going on here, but it's easy to see why The Happiness Of The Katakuris isn't most people's cup of tea. I honestly don't know how often I'll find myself rewatching this one, but at the very least it's renewed my excitement in the singular work of Takashi Miike, which only makes the recent news of the disintegration of his English-language, WWII-era Yakuza film starring Tom Hardy all the more depressing. Ah well. Bring on Audition.
What's The Connection? As you may have already realized, the basic plots of Little Shop and Katakuris are remarkably similar, with a failing business suddenly finding success while simultaneously racking up an impressive body count. Hell, both plots are set in motion a complete eclipse of the sun.
Up Next:Taxidermia
--------------------------------------- Title: The Happiness Of The Katakuris Director: Takashi Miike Starring: Kenji Sawada, Keiko Matsuzaka, Shinji Takeda, Naomi Nishida, Kiyoshiro Imawano, Tetsuro Tanba, Naoto Takenaka Year Of Release: 2001 Viewing Method: Netflix DVD
When I started watching the director's cut of Little Shop Of Horrors, Jamie was astounded that I had never seen it before. In fact, she posted the following on Facebook:
"Not only has Daley never seen Little Shop of Horrors, but he's actively underwhelmed by the prospect of watching it. He just turned it on, and he's already sighing exasperatedly. I had no idea his hatred of musicals extended even to Steve Martin and Rick Moranis."
In truth, it's not entirely accurate to say that I've never seen Little Shop. Lerman and I met in high school, where we were each members of the A/V Crew. (Shocking, I know.) Since it was a day and boarding school, the A/V usually showed movies on the weekends and I frequently volunteered to serve as the projectionist. I definitely remember showing Little Shop one night and, being the guy in the booth, I watched the first few minutes to make sure there were no issues with the picture or sound. But my fiery hatred of all things musical theater kicked in after about five minutes. "Fuck this noise," I thought, and I retreated into the A/V office to play Skittles or South Park Snood.*
If I had stuck around a bit longer I would have discovered that the film is directed by the one and only Frank Oz (!!) and largely populated by a collection of my favorite 80's comedians. I'll admit that it took me a while to realize the full brilliance that is Rick Moranis. Honey, I Shrunk The Kids was a movie that I used to watch on endless repeat as a child, so I only ever thought of Moranis as a nerdy family man until I eventually began to appreciate his amazing work as Louis Tulley in Ghostbusters, a role he snagged when John Candy was unavailable. Speaking of which, Candy has a short but memorable turn here as a wacky radio DJ that was just silly enough to leave me wanting more, while Christopher Guest makes another one of his infamous chameleon-like appearance as the first businessman to notice the Audrey II in the window. And then there's Steve Martin, whose leather jacket-wearing, motorcycle-driving abusive dentist Orin Scrivello is rightfully the stuff of legend. The guy is a nitrous-fueled nightmare, twisting the heads off of little girls' dolls and punching his own nurse in the face. By the time Oz sticks the camera inside the mouth of one of Scrivello's victims/patients, complete with a giant tongue wagging in Martin's face, I was ecstatic.
And then Bill Murray showed up and OH MY GOD WHY DIDN'T ANYONE TELL ME ABOUT THIS?
Martin and Murray are pretty much my comedy idols, so having them share the screen is nothing short of heaven realized. I'd have been happy just to watch them stand around reading people's text messages a la those Sprint commercials with James Earl Jones and Malcolm McDowell, but Oz knows a fucking golden opportunity when he sees one, pairing Martin's dental sadist with Murray as a masochistic patient who's literally jumping up and down in his seat with excitement at the prospect of having his teeth drilled. ("Candy bar!!") It's four and a half minutes of pure, uncut amazing.
And then there's the blood-sucking, man-eating, singing plant from outer space. I'm a well known sucker for practical effects, so it's pretty much impossible for me not to love everything about Audrey II. Along with providing the voice for Yoda, Grover, Cookie Monster, Miss Piggy and Fozzie Bear, Frank Oz was Jim Henson's original partner in crime and puppetry before he went on to direct films like Little Shop, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels and What About Bob? It's therefore no surprise that the execution of Audrey II is, quite simply, some of the greatest practical effects and puppet work I have ever seen, from her humble beginnings in an old coffee can to her gargantuan rampage upon the citizens of New York City. (Pictured above.)
Some of you may be scratching your head in bewilderment, thinking to yourself, "Attack on New York? I don't remember that part." That's because the film's theatrical ending, the only one that audiences have had access to for the past 26 years, has what Wayne and Garth would refer to as "the mega-happy ending." Audrey II brings down the roof of Mushnik's flower shop, but Seymour emerges from the rubble, grabs a severed power cable and electrocutes the plant until it suddenly explodes. Seymour saves Audrey (the human one) and the two get married and live happily ever after. But that's not how it was initially intended to play out. The film's original ending saw all the characters eaten and killed while a horde of giant Audrey II's laid waste to the Big Apple. Apparently this version did not sit well with test audiences, so reshoots were called for. Ironically, this happier ending was largely scorned by fans of the darker Off-Broadway musical, itself based on a 1960 film. The original ending was restored** and released on Blu-ray and DVD in 2012 and it's absolutely glorious in the darkest, most nihilistic way imaginable.
Now if only they could have done away with the damn musical numbers.
What's The Connection? Anthropomorphism! Babe features talking animals and Little Shop has a talking plant. Boom.
Up Next: The Happiness Of The Katakuris
*Historical note: Snood was a very big game when I was in high school, and there was a variation of the game in which all the pieces were replaced with the faces of the boys from South Park, a show that was just coming into its own at the time. We used to get in trouble for playing it because in that version, the Danger bar had been relabeled to simply read "Oh Fuck!"
**The scene with Jim Belushi as the guy who first suggests the idea of selling millions of little Audrey II's in shopping malls was actually part of the reshoots when the original actor Paul Dooley (a.k.a. the dad from Sixteen Candles) was unavailable. Dooley's scene is restored in the Director's Cut.
--------------------------------------- Title: Little Shop Of Horrors: The Director's Cut Director: Frank Oz Starring: Rick Moranis, Levi Stubbs, Ellen Greene, Steve Martin, Vincent Gardenia, Bill Murray, John Candy, Christopher Guest, Tisha Campbell-Martin, Paul Dooley/Jim Belushi Year Of Release: 1986 Viewing Method: DVD
Only Lerman would send me from juvenile detention rape and riots directly to a children's movie about a talking pig. That's the thing about Lerman, he can find genius in the most unexpected of places.
I was old enough that I had aged out of most overtly little kid movies when Babe was released. I know the first one is beloved by many, but the sequel seemed to fill most fans with disappointment or indifference and I suppose I can understand that reaction. I still haven't watched Babe, but I'm familiar with the premise: Babe is a pig who lives on a farm and dreams of being a sheepdog. All the animals can talk (to each other, not to the humans) and the other residents of the farm warn him to give up his foolish goal, but eventually Babe overcomes their doubts and becomes a champion sheep-pig. I'm sure kids and parents alike were expecting a similarly sweet and charming story in Babe's second adventure.
They weren't counting on George Fucking Miller.
Yes, that's right, Babe: Pig In The City was directed by the same man responsible for Mad Max. Miller gleefully eschews everything that people loved about that first installment and instead throws that endearing little pork chop into a gothic, subversive alternate reality. AND IT'S AWESOME. It becomes clear that something is askew right from the film's opening moments. James Cromwell's lovable Farmer Hoggett is only present long enough for Babe to accidentally cause a pump motor to fall on him while he's stranded at the bottom of a well. (I legit thought that Miller was going to violently kill him off five minutes into the movie AND make it all the pig's fault) Cromwell's crippling creates a financial crisis when the farmer's wife is not able to take care of the property all on her own, so she immediately grabs the pig and heads off to attend a state fair that has promised a generous appearance fee for a demonstration of champion sheep-pigging. But the pair is detained by DEA agents during an airport layover when Babe chats up a drug-sniffing dog who ends up falsely implicating the farmer's wife as a drug mule.
Again, this is a movie for children.
Babe and Mrs. Hoggett miss their connecting flight and are stranded in The City, whose skyline includes the Empire State Building, the Golden Gate Bridge, the Eiffel Tower, Big Ben, the World Trade Center, the Sydney Opera House and the Hollywood sign. While The City is never explicitly referred to by name, some onscreen signage suggests that the city is called Metropolis, which almost implies that this whole thing is some kind of insane Superman spin-off. (I like to think this is the version of Metropolis where Nicolas Cage's aborted version of Kal-El would have lived.) After some helpful advice from a janitor that appears to be some kind of pig mutant, Babe and Mrs. Hoggett end up staying in a bizarre hotel that is largely populated by animals, including a choir of cats, a paraplegic dog in a sweater, and a family of circus chimps who perform for sick children alongside elder clown Uncle Fugly who is played by a drooling and sputtering Mickey Rooney. (!!!!) Mrs Hoggett accidentally causes a ruckus on the boardwalk, gets doused with billboard glue and hauled off to jail while Babe gets recruited into the circus act, which includes a lady chimp dressed like a hooker and voiced by Glenne Headley along with her husband who's dressed like a 50's greaser and voiced by, of all people, Stephen Wright. Babe promptly sets the hospital on fire in his first performance.
I swear to god, I'm not making this shit up.
The humans are largely absent for most of the remainder of the film, in which the chimps try to turn Babe into a patsy while they steal food, only to see Babe save the life of a vicious street dog who looks like Spuds MacKenzie and sounds like Don Corleone. The Dogfather then instills the pig as the head of the hotel, taking in all the neighborhood strays who are thus forced to give fealty to Babe. Eventually the Animal Control guys show up and haul most of the animals off, leading to a daring rescue and a wacky climax of destruction in which Mrs. Hoggett, released from jail thanks to a sympathetic judge who is also a pig mutant, ends up bungee jumping from the chandelier of a fancy charity ball while wearing Mickey Rooney's clown pants.
AND THEN IT JUST FUCKING ENDS.
The hotel owner, a woman who looks like an ostrich (were all of these people grown in a lab?) decides to to sell the hotel and take all her animals to the Hoggett's farm, giving them the profits from the sale in order to save the farm from foreclosure. A now-healthy James Cromwell returns to say "That'll do, pig" and collect his paycheck, and that's the whole shebang.
What. The. Fuck.
This thing is dark. This thing is weird. This thing is twisted.
I can't wait to show it to my kids.
What's The Connection?Babe is far less rapey than Dog Pound, but he does end up as the head of a prison-like hierarchy over the neighborhood strays. But much like Butch and Davis, the good times eventually come crashing down.
Up Next:Little Shop Of Horrors: The Director's Cut
--------------------------------------- Title: Babe: Pig In The City Director: George Miller Starring: Madga Szubanski, James Cromwell, Mary Stein, Mickey Rooney, Elizabeth Daily, Glenne Headley, Stephen Wright, Adam Goldberg Year Of Release: 1998 Viewing Method: Netflix DVD
I would not do well in prison. Of this, I have no doubt. I think I could handle solitude pretty well - with nowhere to go and no wifi-based distractions, I'd probably end up doing a lot of reading and perhaps even some long-form writing. But aside from the frequent threat of physical violence, I think the psychological pressure of incarceration would really wear me down over time. I'm generally pretty adaptable and I tend to let a lot of stuff pretty much roll off of me, but I'm certain that serving any appreciable amount of time in prison would have a profound effect on my personality going forward; much like (I imagine) going to war, I'd simply come out the other side a completely different person.
That's the thing that struck me most about Dog Pound, the story of three teenage boys serving time in a youth correctional facility. They suffer gross indignities at the hands of a trio of older kids while the guards are generally indifferent to their situation. Eventually the boys push back and, for a time, usurp their peer oppressors and enjoy the relative good life. But you know it simply can't last and when these guys fall, they fall HARD. I couldn't help but wonder which character I would most resemble if I too had been incarcerated at such an impressionable age. I accept the fact that I would certainly get pushed around and beaten up, although I'd hope that my generally non-confrontational nature and head-down tendencies would at least partially insulate me from violence. Nonetheless, it seems inevitable that I'd eventually get backed into a corner (physically and/or emotionally) and end up with more than a few bruises. How would I react to such a situation is the really intriguing factor. Would I become dominated by anger or despair?
(Spoilers ensue.)
Butch (Adam Butcher) is already a product of the system, a strong and vaguely psychopathic kid who refuses to back down from a challenge and often strikes out with uncompromising lethality. He's intelligent to be sure, but has resigned himself to a dead end future full of rage. Rather than try to turn his life around, he's content to play king of the hill, determined to keep himself from ever becoming a victim. Given enough time and punishment, could I eventually morph into such an individual? Pushed far enough to the edge with no hope of redemption I'm sure I could turn just as dark and violent as Butch, however it doesn't feel like a natural fit. I'd likely end up shivved in my sleep.
Instead I suspect that Davis (Shane Kippel) is a more accurate barometer for my own hypothetical imprisonment. Davis is a charismatic ladies man, easy going and friendly. He gets pushed around and intimidated, but he somehow manages to mostly shrug it all off, entertaining his bunkmates (it's a juvenile facility so they don't live in individual cells) with late night tales of his various sexual conquests. Most of them are probably total bullshit, but who cares? The kid is a legend and you just can't help but like him. Of course that means he's doomed to suffer the most brutal fate of all. Trapped alone in the laundry room, a typical beatdown suddenly and unexpectedly turn into a harrowing rape scene. That's obviously a scarring ordeal, but for a teenage boy whose entire personality is built on his sexual identity...he's left a broken, shell of a person who sees no better alternative than to empty his veins in the middle of the night.
That's not to say I think I'd kill myself if I went to prison, merely that I would likely turn inward rather than face off against my tormentors. To be honest, I'm not sure if I could really bring myself to commit suicide. It's certainly something I've contemplated before, but only as an intellectual exercise and not out of honest desire. I don't necessarily begrudge anyone for pursuing the ultimate end to true physical suffering or psychological pain. I've known one person in my life who's committed suicide, the mother of a friend who had previously passed away from cancer. I would never presume to understand the depth of her grief and sorrow so I couldn't possibly judge whether her emotional state justified her extreme actions, but I do believe she was in serious pain and I'm glad she was able to find relief. My only frustration with her decision lay in the fact that she left behind a husband and a young daughter and, putting myself in their shoes, I can't imagine how I might handle the self-inflicted death of either my wife or my mother, just as I can't imagine abandoning Jamie and any children that might lie in our future. There seems to be an element of selfishness there, but then again is it really selfish simply to desire peace? It's easy to ponder this stuff from my current position in life, happily married and living without any major hardship. In the face of crippling depression or imminent and prolonged physical agony, my opinions might change real quick.
Mostly it's the fear of losing my humanity, of being trapped in a world that slowly robs me of everything that makes me...me. That's the thing that terrifies me most of all, and why I hope to never experience anything like the events of Dog Pound.
What's The Connection?Down Terrace began with guys getting out of prison, while Dog Pound starts with guys going into prison.
Up Next:Babe: Pig In The City
--------------------------------------- Title: Dog Pound Director: Kim Chapiron Starring: Adam Butcher, Shane Kippel, Mateo Morales, Slim Twig, Taylor Poulin, Lawrence Bayne Year Of Release: 2010 Viewing Method: Netflix Instant
"It's not the decisions that are tough, Bill. It's the actions."
Ben Wheatley is a name I've heard buzzing around my head for the past few years. He's a British director, mostly specializing in dark comedies, that has yet to experience the same kind of breakout success here in the states as the likes of fellow countrymen Edgar Wright, Matthew Vaughn or Guy Ritchie. But he's only got a handful of films under his belt and it feels like that success is almost inevitable at this point. I've been meaning to watch his two big successes for a while now and sadly I've yet to capitalize on plenty of opportunity; Kill List has been streaming on Netflix for months and Sightseers played at the Brattle last year, but it was a single showing on a night when I was out of town. Hopefully I'll be able to squeeze one or both of them in before my final deadline. Wheatley's latest film, the psychedelic period piece A Field In England, will get a VOD and limited theatrical release in early February courtesy of the fine folks over at Drafthouse Films.
Down Terrace was Wheatley's big screen debut and it's a real cracker of a story. A sublime mixture of family drama and crime humor, the film plays almost like The Sopranos if that show were actually a comedy about a dysfunctional family of borderline inept criminals. Much of the film is left deliberately opaque; the story opens with Bill and his grown son Karl (real life father and son Robert and Robin Hill) getting out of prison for a crime that is never specified. Bill is the head of a small time criminal enterprise, although their precise racket is never actually specified. But none of those details are really all that important to the plot. It could be drugs, prostitution, dwarf-tossing...the specifics are immaterial. All that matters is that business is bad, the family is in trouble and there is a traitor somewhere in their midst. And what's worse, Karl's ex-girlfriend shows up pregnant! Womp womp! The tone is never as sitcom-y as it might sound on paper, but that doesn't change the actual events of the day. Seriously, at one point a hitman shows up to do a job with his three year old son in tow because he couldn't get a sitter.
But don't take that as a criticism though. The shit is hilarious.
The cast is all pretty strong, but Julia Deakin is absolutely magnetic as Maggie, the quiet and menacing Lady Macbeth of the family. For all of Bill's posturing and Karl's complaining, it's only Maggie that seems to have a proper knack for the business and knows how to get shit done. Deakin should be a familiar face to fans of Edgar Wright's Spaced series (she played Marsha) as well as his Three Flavours Cornetto trilogy, albeit it in smaller roles. I'd love to see Wheatley give her some truly meaty stuff somewhere down the line.
What's The Connection? Bloody Sunday takes place almost entirely on a Sunday (obviously) and the giant onscreen title tells us that Down Terrace starts on a Monday. Feels like a stretch, but it's all that I've got. (I thought that perhaps DT also had a lot of killing happen on a Sunday, but it didn't match up.)
Up Next: Dog Pound
--------------------------------------- Title: Down Terrace Director: Ben Wheatley Starring: Robert Hill, Robin Hill, Julia Deakin, David Schaal, Tony Way, Kerry Peacock, Michael Smiley Year Of Release: 2010 Viewing Method: Netflix Instant
I am now convinced that Paul Greengrass is a goddamn magician.
I have no other explanation for how he is able to make staged drama look and feel so much like documented reality that the two become practically indistinguishable. Lest you think I'm exaggerating, this was the conversation that Jamie and I had just before I started the movie:
Jamie: "What's on for tonight?"
Daley: "Bloody Sunday."
Jamie: "Oh I think I saw that in theaters. It's a documentary, right?"
Daley: "No, but it's Paul Greengrass. So yeah."
I already talked about this with Captain Phillips (as well as in reference to United 93) so I don't really want to harp on it again in great detail, except to say that without a movie star face* like Tom Hanks to keep reminding you that you're watching a film, it's easy to see how folks could confuse Bloody Sunday for eyewitness footage of the violent murder of 13 peaceful civil rights protesters in Derry, Ireland at the hands of British soldiers.
I've been meaning to watch this movie for ages. I fell in love with Greengrass after United 93 and that love was only cemented with his two Bourne films, which are some of the best action/spy films of the modern era. Bloody Sunday is one of those films that I've never heard a bad word spoken about, and all that praise is absolutely earned. It is an absolute masterstroke, with a climax that will tear your heart right out of chest and shred it to pieces in front of you. It is so utterly horrifying precisely because it is so realistic. All the camera work is done handheld with no lighting setups to perfectly mimic the documentary style. I'm assuming that much of the cast is made up of Derry natives and so much of dialogue is delivered in an overlapping, chaotic style that I probably missed about a quarter of what was spoken, but it's such an immersive experience that I don't care. There's no haunting score to amp up the drama, no cutting away to close ups so we can experience the emotional turmoil of those involved...just a cold, dispassionate presentation of slaughter as it would have appeared to any one of the hundreds of innocent bystanders.
Much like Captain Phillips, Greengrass certainly has a point of view about these events, but he isn't totally one-sided about it. In his latest film we see Phillips ignore safety warnings to avoid the Somali coast, but he's never vilified for that decision. The man made a judgement call and the situation didn't go his way, but his ensuing bravery and heroism are indisputable, even if the initial danger was somewhat of his own making. Here we see many of the young protestors throwing rocks at the British troops and a few IRA guys even take a few shots at the barricades. There's no argument that the military wasn't at least on some level provoked, but it's also clear that their response was a grossly disproportionate use of lethal force by both commanders looking to make a public statement and by a handful of bloodthirsty soldiers anxious to make civilians pay for the deeds of the IRA.
I'm sure that, had I lived in Derry at that time, I too would have been marching with the crowd that Sunday, although I highly doubt that I would have been throwing rocks. I've never had a strong propensity for violence and I'm generally a pretty even keel sort of fellow. Jamie and I were just talking the other day about how I don't often get seriously angry, but when I do it tends to manifest itself as a full-on Hulk rage. So perhaps I, like so many others that day, would have been so devastated and filled with hate after witnessing such a massacre that I would have promptly signed up with the militant IRA in order to make the English pay for their savagery. Then again, perhaps I would have simply curled up in the corner and wept. Hard to say. The closest example I can think of to an event in my own life is September 11th, and I certainly never even considered enlisting in the armed forces in the days and weeks following the attack. But I'll be honest, military service scares the pants off me on a number of different levels and I absolutely know that I'm simply not cut out for such a lifestyle. I'm soft. And you can't really get good nachos in Fallujah.
*I'll admit that watching Bloody Sunday now suffers retroactively from a similar condition, as James Nesbitt is currently best known from his work in The Hobbit films as The Dwarf With The Floppy Hat And The Fu Manchu Handlebar Mustache.
What's The Connection? - Brutality at the hands of the system. While Bloody Sunday depicts soldiers killing helpless civilians, Memories Of Murder featured Korean police detectives beating and torturing suspects in connection to crimes of which they were certainly innocent.
Up Next -Down Terrace
--------------------------------------- Title: Bloody Sunday Director: Paul Greengrass Starring: James Nesbitt, Allen Gildea, Gerard Crossan, Mary Moulds, Tim Pigott-Smith, Nicholas Farrell, Christopher Villiers Year Of Release: 2002 Viewing Method: Netflix DVD
Engaging and surprising script? That's a BIG check.
The Disappearance Of Alice Creed details the kidnapping of a beautiful British woman (Gemma Arterton) by two cold and calculating criminals (Eddie Marsan and Martin Compston) in order to secure a hefty ransom from her wealthy father. Plotwise, that's all you need to know going into the film and I'd encourage you to not let anyone reveal any more details. So much of what makes the film so damn compelling is the way that writer/director J. Blakeson communicates all the relevant information in slow drips, delaying every revelation until the last possible second. There's no speechifying, no monologues full of exposition to clue the audience into the characters or their backstories. We are simply dropped into the middle of the story and forced to decipher motivations and relationships from the subtlest of clues, so that when a scene reaches the breaking point and a character finally drops some knowledge, whether it's for the benefit of another character or the audience at home, it catches you completely off guard. And as someone who spent a number of my formative years in the theater, it's hard not to love a story that only has three characters and takes place largely in a single location. The first 45 minutes are simply brilliant, winding up all the players, setting them on a collision course and then letting them loose to see who comes out the other side.
I must admit that, as sometimes happens in this endeavor, my own scheduling dilemma certainly made a big impact on my viewing of the film. Jamie and I got some last minute tickets to the Inauguration Gala for Marty Walsh, the new Mayor of Boston. Obviously it was a fancy affair that required a bit of preparation and would keep us out rather late on a Monday night, so I knew I wouldn't have time to watch the whole movie either before or after the event. Splitting the movie in two seemed like my best option, so I got through about the first 35 minutes and, directly following the first major twist in the plot, felt like I had probably reached an ideal pause point. We got all gussied up, met Warren and his family downtown, and had an absolute blast. There was food, booze, and a lengthy performance by the Boston Symphony Orhestra, assisted by the likes of Blue Man Group, Ellis Hall and The Dropkick Murphys. (Sidenote: I had this very strange moment, standing at a political gala in a suit alongside my wife and listening to a prestigious symphony play backup for the same punk rockers I used to go see in high school while stage diving and jumping around in the mosh pit. Being a grown up is weird.)
After Mayor Walsh came up and gave his remarks, Jamie and I decided to split before the majority of the crowd found its way to the coat check line. By 11:30 I was settled back on my couch and excited to jump back into the movie, having had some time to mull over that big reveal. I pressed play and, within five minutes, was suddenly presented with another twist that absolutely blew the first one out of the water. Thinking back upon it now, I'm not sure if I would have found it awesome or off-putting getting both of those shocks within minutes of each other, as opposed to spaced out with a six hour interlude full of whiskey and political ceremony. Those two scenes are certainly the defining ten minutes of the movie from a tonal perspective and in truth I probably robbed myself of experiencing it properly. But after over 300 movies, sometimes that's just the way it goes.
Regardless, The Disappearance Of Alice Creed is still a phenomenal crime drama, as well as fabulous showcase for the considerable talents of Eddie Marsan, Gemma Arterton and Martin Compston. While I'm unfamiliar with Compston, I'm on record as a big of both Marsan and Arterton, each of whom had some limited success here in the states in 2013 with stuff like The World's End and Hansel And Gretel: Witch Hunters, respectively. Alice Creed was a big moment for both of them and left them each poised and ready to break out in a major way. Sadly it hasn't quite happened for either of them yet, but it feels like only a matter of time before Arterton ends up in a marquee franchise and Marsan snags a nomination for Best Supporting Actor. I'm honestly surprised it's taken this long.
What's The Connection? - As the titles suggest, The Vanishing and The Disappearance Of Alice Creed both feature kidnapped women. Pretty clear cut.
Up Next -Memories Of Murder
--------------------------------------- Title: The Disappearance Of Alice Creed Director: J Blakeson Starring: Gemma Arterton, Eddie Marsan, Martin Compston Year Of Release: 2009 Viewing Method: Netflix DVD
"Either I let her go on living and never know, or I let her die and find out what happened. So...I let her die."
I have very vague recollections of a movie from the early 90's called The Vanishing. It starred Kiefer Sutherland, Jeff Bridges (pre-Dude) and a very young Sandra Bullock. I don't know why I remember this movie. At best it's a footnote in the careers of three actors who hadn't yet peaked, (or, in the case of Sutherland, was in between peaks) I don't remember anyone anyone ever discussing the movie in any way, and I never actually saw it. But I feel like it played on TV a lot when I was a kid, likely because it came out right before Sandra Bullock really hit it big. So far as I can tell, this wasn't really considered a breakout role for Bullock, whose only major lead to date involved some pretty stunning false teeth in the unfortunate romantic comedy Love Potion No. 9. But immediately after The Vanishing came Demolition Man, Speed, While You Were Sleeping and The Net, a movie that's more than earned its spot in the pantheon of Hilariously Inaccurate And/Or Outdated Technology Films. Anyway, my guess is that some network was able to grab the TV rights to The Vanishing on the cheap and played it enough times that the film somehow lodged itself into the hazy memories of my youth.
I had no idea it was a remake of a 1988 Dutch film until I found it listed on Lerman's roster. (He was adamant that I make sure to watch the original.) It's pretty good, but I'll admit that the movie didn't particularly bowl me over one way or the other. I had a general idea of the setup going in based on the American version which, interestingly enough. was also directed by George Sluizer. A young couple is on a road trip and along the way the woman suddenly and mysteriously goes missing. Much like Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan, I can appreciate that the film starts by immediately faking out the audience: the couple's car runs out of fuel in a tunnel and when Rex returns with a tank of gas, he finds the car empty. But Saskia is revealed to be waiting at the other end of the tunnel - she was afraid that a car might collide with theirs in the darkness. When they arrive at a gas station moments later, she goes inside to use the restroom and I was sure she was a goner but in fact she soon returned, and with a frisbee no less! But the third time's the charm, and when Saskia goes back in for drinks, she promptly disappears.
It was at this point that the film sharply deviated from my expectations. I was anticipating a ticking clock film, with the boyfriend frantically chasing down a series of clues in a race against time to save his love. Instead, the story immediately jumps forward three years, where Saskia remains missing but Rex has never stopped looking for her. The man responsible frequently sends him taunting postcards and even though he has a new woman in his life, Rex is really starting to lose it. We then jump back far before Saskia's abduction and meet her captor, middle class father and chemistry professor Raymond Lemorne. This man has resolved himself to kidnapping a woman and we spend a lot of time watching him refine his plan of attack. He goes through a number of false starts and failed attempts - he's incredibly inept as a criminal, but also remarkably lucky in that he never captures the attention of the authorities. Still, it's a pretty novel storytelling approach and not at all what I thought I was getting. Just as we see Lemorne watching Rex and Saskia arrive at the gas station on that fateful day, we jump forward in time once again, as Lemorne reveals himself to Rex offers to explain what happened that day and why he did it if Rex will come with him on a short road trip. He won't say whether Saskia is alive or dead, but promises that Rex will get answers to all his questions.
The final reveal is pretty fucking dark. (Spoilers.) The abduction played out from Lemorne's perspective is really great, a perfect culmination of all his past attempts. But at the same time, in a way it's not very dramatically satisfying. Lemorne basically kidnapped Saskia as an intellectual exercise, just to see if he was capable of it. Eventually he gives Rex a choice: He can take a sleeping pill and when he awakes he will experience exactly what Saskia did, finally getting an answer to that which has vexed him for years. Or he can refuse, and Lemorne will return him home unharmed and he'll never know the truth. Rex points out that if Saskia's dead, it means that he'll essentially be killing himself and Lemorne offers no argument, leaving the decision squarely in Rex's hands. Earlier Rex describes a dream in which he's presented with the opportunity to learn the truth, noted in the pullquote above. It's Schrodinger's Cat personified, and when Lemorne gives him the chance to play the scenario out for real, Rex lives up to his word. He takes the drug and wakes up in a coffin, buried alive while Lemorne goes on living his life with little regret and nobody the wiser.
The American version got a lot of shit for changing the ending - from what I gather, Kiefer Sutherland still gets buried alive, but his new girlfriend Nancy Travis tracks him down and eventually saves him from Jeff Bridges, who looks from the trailer to be doing some really strange character work here. In a way it's hardly surprising that the American producers opted to shift the drama from existential to physical in nature, along with the bad guy eventually getting some form of punishment. What is interesting is that Sluizer actually filmed a similar ending for the Dutch original, but never used it. I suppose he wanted to know how audiences would have reacted to that version of the story, and when he was given the opportunity to find out five years later, he took it. As with Rex, the results were disappointing to say the least.
But sometimes, you just need to know.
What's The Connection? - Thankfully The Vanishing doesn't have much in common with A Serbian Film's more grotesque particulars. But each feature a character whose lover has gone missing, and each would be better off not knowing the truth as to why.
Up Next - The Disappearance Of Alice Creed.
--------------------------------------- Title: The Vanishing Director: George Sluizer Starring: Bernard-Peirre Donnadieu, Gene Bervoets, Johanna ter Steege, Gwen Eckhaus Year Of Release: 1988 Viewing Method: Amazon Instant Watch
Immediately after watching A Serbian Film I found myself relieved that I hadn't yet showered that day, as I would have certainly felt compelled to cleanse myself for a second time. Then again, I'm the one who asked Lerman to find me some "out there" shit. This is what I signed up for.
A Serbian Film was something I'd heard rumors about for years, spoken in hushed tones by those who had seen it and likely wished they hadn't. I read plenty of stuff about controversial films and sometimes it feels like the hype is far more dramatic than the actual material, but the way people talked about A Serbian film...this was different. I still haven't gotten around to watching either of the Human Centipede movies yet, but now the idea of people whose mouths are sewn to assholes seems positively quaint by comparison. To be clear, I'm not generally one who reacts to art with outrage and pearl-clutching. I've never been offended by a joke and, when it comes to narrative film, there's not much you can depict that will make me seriously flinch. But this thing has been haunting me for days now. This is a film that is so fucked up, I couldn't even pull up the IMDb page at work because it was blocked by the office firewall.
When Jamie isn't really interested in a movie I'm watching, she tends to sit on the couch with her laptop and headphones, listening to One Direction. This time, I made sure she left the room entirely.
The story starts off almost playfully puerile, with Milosh, the one-time Marlon Brando of pornography, now retired and struggling to provide for his beautiful wife and son. One of his former co-stars gets in touch with a job offer; a new and charismatic filmmaker named Vukmir Vukmir wants to make truly artistic pornography and he's willing to pay ludicrous amounts of money to his star. He needs the best. He needs Milosh. We're then treated to a Rocky-esque training montage as Milosh tries to get back in shape and focus his skills for his big return to the cameras. In an inspired moment, we even experience Milosh get (and then lose) an erection all from the perspective of his dick. Penis POV! It's exactly the right balance of truly weird and slyly brilliant. I was really starting to enjoy this thing. What was all the fuss about?
Oh Daley, you sweet, naive fool.
Vukmir's production turns out to be pretty fucked up, shooting in a former orphanage with at least one underage girl present and featuring a lot of women suffering physically abuse. Part of Milosh's contract stipulates that he won't know what the scenes entail before filming, but faced with some pretty degrading material Milosh decides to cut bait and go back to retirement. However when he tries to break the bad news to Vukmir, Milosh is drugged and awakens three days later, forced to retrace his steps and piece together exactly what went down and why he doesn't remember it.
Just before Milosh is drugged, Vukmir shows him a clip of a new kind of pornography, something so horrifying and patently immoral that I was convinced that the film had reached peak awfulness. The next thirty minutes proved me so very, very wrong. A Serbian Film was just getting warmed up. I won't detail any of the depraved, abhorrent action that followed for one simple reason: 90% of you don't want to know that someone even contemplated such behavior, let alone depicted it on film, and for the 10% of you (that might be a generous estimate) who, like me, suffer from insatiable curiosity, telling you anything would be counterproductive. You simply have to see it.
I suppose one could make an argument that those behind A Serbian Film are trying to take a stance against the porn industry and all the lives that it destroys. It certainly subverts any kind of playful, Don Jon-esque representation of porn and focuses instead on the dark and disturbing underbelly of the business, taking that representation to the absolute extreme edge of decency. It's not too dissimilar to Scorcese's strategy with Wolf Of Wall Street, fully embracing any and all excess and taking the story completely over the top to the point of near absurdity in order to provoke a specific response in the audience and forever change their perception of the parties involved, be they Wall Street brokers or pornographers.
Or these guys could just be a bunch of sick fucks.
Who can say?
A Serbian Film is such an insane, singular experience that I almost can't believe that it exists on any level. That it was written, shot, edited and then made available to the public seems beyond my comprehension. I'm glad I watched it once, but I'm honestly not sure I can ever sit through it again. And that's saying something.
What's The Connection? - Necrophilia! Plus, both High Tension and A Serbian Film feature some seriously disturbing blowjobs.
Up Next -The Vanishing (1988)
--------------------------------------- Title: A Serbian Film Director: Srdjan Spasojevic Starring: Srdjan Todorovic, Sergej Trifunovic, Jelena Gavrilovic, Slobodan Bestic, Katarina Zutic Year Of Release: 2010 Viewing Method: Digital Copy (TV)
I can't believe it's really been ten years since High Tension came out. I've been meaning to watch this movie forever, but I hadn't realized that so much time had passed. It's a feeling that comes more and more frequently these days, especially when it comes to stuff like attending my little brother's college graduation in the spring. It's little wonder that I missed this film in its theatrical run, as horror films historically tend to fall pretty low on my list of priorities, but my recent month-long horror extravaganza has certainly given me a better appreciation for the genre. This was the film that put director Alexandre Aja on the map in America, and oddly enough I've actually seen his two best known follow-ups, remakes of The Hills Have Eyes and Piranha 3D. (He also has a film coming out this year in which Daniel Radcliffe sprouts devil horns.)
The film's title perfectly captures what makes it so engrossing. The story follows two attractive college girls, Marie and Alex, who head off to the latter's remote family home in order to study for exams. But shortly after arriving, a hulking hillbilly in a rusted out delivery truck arrives and forces his way into the house, silently slaughtering the entire family and kidnapping Alex. Marie is able to hide and then stow away in the van in order to rescue Alex, who Marie is secretly in love with. And so the majority of the film is an exercise in maintaining tension, placing the audience directly in Marie's shoes and drawing out her discovery by their attacker for as long as humanly possible until the two are forced to eventually confront each other in the woods. Taken purely as an exercise in dramatic momentum, the film is wildly successful. I was at the edge of my seat and talking to the screen the whole time.
Sadly, it's easy to see why most people probably walk away from High Tension dwelling not on the film's masterful second act, but instead on the crazy third act twist. Typically I'd tip-toe around the spoilers, but considering the film is now over a decade old, we might as well dig in. When the police finally enter the picture, they watch security footage from a gas station revealing that the killer was actually Marie the whole time, that she's been suffering from a sort of psychotic break and enacting all this violence herself through some imagined persona. It's one of those reveals that works really well in the moment, but quickly falls apart the more you mull it over. Obvious cracks appear, like where did the truck come from in the first place? And, for that matter, what the hell was with that truly bizarre non-sequitur in the film's opening moments, in which the hillbilly is introduced sitting in his truck nearby Alex's home hours before the girls even arrive? Sure, the fact that he's jerking off into a goddamn severed head is disgusting and certainly makes for a memorable moment, but once you have all the pieces it makes no sense whatsoever.
Even still, Aja direction is so strong and Cecile De France's* performance as Marie is so fantastic, both as a kickass final girl and as a creepy as hell psychopath (that final shot is a doozy), that I kind of don't care. It's such an enjoyable ride in the moment that I can't help but love it, and the way the film's opening scene is reframed at the end is exactly the kind of thing I'm always a big sucker for. (One of this year's Oscar contenders pulls off the same trick beautifully, although I won't reveal which one for those who are still playing awards season catch-up.) I fear that High Tension might be a bit of a one-shot deal, that without the element of the unknown to maintain the audience's anxiety, the film might not be nearly so much fun. Nonetheless, I look forward to revisiting it a few months down the road to see how well it holds up.
What's The Connection?- Both Crazy Love and High Tension depict a character driven to acts of insane violence in the name of love/infatuation.
Up Next - A Serbian Film
*I couldn't place why Cecile De France looked so familiar as I was watching the film, but when I looked her up I realized that she also played Isabelle, the lesbian in L'Auberge Espagnole.
--------------------------------------- Title: Haute Tension (High Tension) Director: Alexandre Aja Starring: Cecile De France, Maiwenn, Philippe Nahon, Franck Khalfoun, Andrei Finti, Oana Pellea Year Of Release: 2003 Viewing Method: Netflix DVD
"When I get my wife home, there may be another sexual abuse charge against me."
Halfway through Crazy Love, I texted Lerman the following:
"These people are FUCKED."
Pictured above are Linda Riss and Burt Pugach. Theirs is a classic love story. Linda was a stunning young beauty and Burt was a successful New York lawyer. Sure, he may have been a bit of an ambulance chaser and he might not have been the most attractive guy on the block, but he had a lot of money and he loved spending it to impress young Linda, so she thought, "Why the hell not?" After a whirlwind romance in the late 1950's, Linda eventually discovered that Burt had a wife and a child in another state, and that was NOT cool. He tried to convince Linda that he was in the process of getting a divorce and that worked for a time, but he also became extremely jealous and paranoid, convinced that she was secretly sleeping with other men despite her insistence that she was saving herself for marriage. She even went so far as to take Burt to a doctor so that she could give him medical proof of her virginity. So clearly this is an extremely healthy relationship built on mutual trust and respect. Eventually Linda realized that Burt's wife was never going to grant him a divorce, so she broke off the relationship and Burt promptly went absolutely fucking nuts. His depression became so severe that he was eventually committed to a mental institution, emerging a few months later with a beard that properly reflected his unhinged nature. Linda was now engaged to an attractive young guy and Burt grew so enraged that he began stalking her, even going so far as to wait outside her home with a gun in order to kill them both. But when actually faced with killing the object of his obsession, Burt simply couldn't bring himself to pull the trigger.
So instead he hired two guys to ring her doorbell disguised as delivery men. When she answered the door, they threw lye in her face and blinded her.
The media circus that followed was long and involved, but in the end Burt was sent to prison, where he spent the next 14 years writing Linda love letters in an effort to win her back. Linda, now missing most of her sight, was attempting to get by in the outside world but her handicap limited her employment opportunities and her new physical deformity chased away most potential suitors. (Her fiance had quietly broken off the engagement once the media frenzy had died down.) She was making very little money and growing increasingly lonely and...well I'm sure you can see where this is going. At Linda's request, Burt started sending her money as a form of penance, an act that would eventually get him paroled from prison. The two began communicating directly, started spending time together...and eventually got married.
Like I said, these people are FUCKED.
They remained married, even after Burt was caught in an affair in the late 90's and was accused of threatening to blind and murder his mistress when she decided to leave him. Linda defended her husband to the press while Burt defended himself in court and he was acquitted on all major charges. Linda died last January at the age of 75.
That's all pretty much terrible, a story that's equal parts horrifying and depressing. Burt was a victim of constant child abuse and clearly became incapable of expressing his emotions in any kind of healthy or appropriate way. He seemed to emerge from prison a changed man and all of their friends were forced to admit that, despite the couple's extreme history, Burt spent the rest of his life taking very good care of Linda. And I'm not categorically opposed to the idea that even a man as so clearly disturbed as Burt Pugach can be rehabilitated and earn a second chance in life, but if I were Linda Riss, I simply don't see how I could ever feel safe being alone in a room with that man ever again. Sadly, as depicted by Dan Klores's documentary, Linda comes off as one step short of being the world's most tragic gold digger. Her initial attraction to Burt was largely based on his ability to provide for her and shower her with lavish signs of affection. And when an imprisoned Burt sent a friend to try and talk to her, she told the man that if Burt really wanted to do something for her he could send her some money. It was this financial patronage that eventually brought the two back together, and word of their engagement sparked a whole new media firestorm, including a biography and appearances on a number of talk shows. These were clearly two people who craved the spotlight, regardless of the circumstances that brought them notoriety.
The Pugachs became the darlings of the tabloids and they absolutely ate it up. The more bizarre their story became, the more attention they garnered. It's shocking true crime meets celebrity romance gossip, the kind of grotesque horrorshow that has become inescapable in the modern era of 24-hour-news and rumormongering infotainment. If this happened today, the likes of Nancy Grace and US Weekly would lose their fucking minds. And by the time they were married, I have no doubt whatsoever that the Pugachs would have their own reality show on E! or TLC. I have a longstanding hatred of all reality television, which started as my actor's resentment at seeing so much of the television landscape dedicated to inexpensive nonsense that actively took jobs away from working actors. But over the past dozen or so years, that resentment has morphed into full blown disgust at the amount of time and attention paid to lowest common denominator shitshows that celebrate the reprehensible behavior of shallow attention whores and the intellectually bereft. Sure, there are people who consider stuff like Jersey Shore or Keeping Up With The Kardashians as farce, an extreme theater of the absurd to be looked down upon and mocked for the minstrel show that it is. But these televised clowns are increasingly regarded as actual and unironic role models - look no further than the backwoods bigot from Duck Dynasty being held up as a persecuted hero of free speech while dominating news cycles for two solid weeks. With a story like the Pugachs', this threat feel particularly insidious as it sends a dangerous message to both women and men concerning what constitutes acceptable behavior and a healthy relationship. (Twilight famously suffers from the same malady, exacerbated by the fact that it's inarguably aimed at girls at their most impressionable age.)
I'd say we dodged a bullet in that the modern media machine wasn't around in 1959 to feed on the Pugach saga, but Burt and Linda's influence on today's culture of manufactured celebrity seems undeniable. Jamie saw the first few minutes of Crazy Love, wandered back in around Linda's attack and said, "These two are gonna get married later and I'm supposed to think it's really sweet, right?" To her, the ending was obvious because, "I watch TV. I know how this works." I really can't argue with that logic.
What's The Connection?- I was looking for all sorts of plot-driven or thematic connections. A guy who falls in love with a woman he doesn't really know and tries to impress her with over-the-top methods? Burt and Craig McHugh even drove almost identical cars. But as the closing credits rolled, the connection became obvious: Crazy Love was co-directed by none other than Fisher Fucking Stevens, who I had almost forgotten is now an Oscar winning documentary filmmaker. I've been meaning to watch The Cove for years, especially now that I like sushi so much.
Up Next -High Tension
--------------------------------------- Title: Crazy Love Director: Dan Klores, Fisher Stevens Starring: Burt Pugach, Linda Riss, Bob Janoff, Syliva Hoffman, Rita Kessler, Berry Stainback, Margaret Powers, Jimmy Breslin Year Of Release: 2007 Viewing Method: Netflix DVD
"The Chinese are probably inside making a living."
In the early days of this blog, I made a list of people I hoped would be willing to give me some recommendations and right at the top was my friend Michael Lerman. I've spoken about Lerman before, as well as his varied and completely bonkers taste in film, so I was certain that if I could get him on board, he'd expose me to a variety of cinematic oddities that I'd likely never discover on my own. And when Lerman gets excited about something, the guy goes all out.
I was hoping he'd give me two or three titles. He suggested curating an entire month. We settled on two weeks.
And thus I'm kicking off 2014 with fourteen films (see what I did there?) hand picked by my longtime cinematic sherpa. According to Lerman, "...each day relates to the previous day in some way, which you should try to figure out. It should be fun, but also means that when it gets dark, you're not getting out of it quickly. That being said, I would suggest you read as little as possible on each of them before you begin -- go into them fresh." So no only has he given me two weeks of movie magic, but he's also built a sort of puzzle into it. I LOVE PUZZLES! And for those of you who want to play along at home, all fourteen films are currently listed in the calendar linked above. I've taken his advice and done no prior research, and while about half of the films I'm vaguely familiar with in some way, the other half are complete mysteries to me.
Speaking of mysteries, I started off my journey into madness on New Year's day (after getting exasperated with the BBC livestream of the season premiere of Sherlock and giving up halfway through the episode) with Mystery Date, starring young Ethan Hawke as Tom McHugh, a kid who goes on a sort of blind date with Geena, (Terri Polo) the beautiful blonde girl who's housesitting down the street. You see, Tom's been seeing her around the neighborhood for weeks now and he's totally lovestruck, but he's also pretty shy when it comes to the ladies. Enter Tom's perfect big brother Craig (classic 90's "that guy" Brian McNamara) home from law school for the weekend with his totally sweet baby blue '59 convertible. Before you can say Jesse And The Rippers, Craig has cold called Geena and set his brother up on a date, arranged for a limo, dispensed with all sorts of sleezy and misogynistic advice (like what to do when a girl slaps you in the face) and given Tom a complete makeover in his own image. He even hands over his wallet so Tom can use his credit cards and his ID to get booze. What a guy! After totally stiffing flower delivery guy Fisher Stevens on a tip, Craig skips out with his brother's car to "visit some old hangouts," leaving Tom in the lurch when Fisher Stevens crashes into the limo while backing his comically oversized delivery truck out of the driveway. Tom is left with no choice but to borrow Craig's totally awesome convertible for his big night out with Geena.
And that's where the zany adventures kick in!
Turns out that Craig is a lot shadier than he first appeared, (okay, he was pretty obviously a dick) and he's somehow mixed up with some dirty cops in search of missing evidence as well as some Chinatown gangsters in search of an antique vase, not to mention a host of local floozies looking to slap him in the face (don't worry, HE KNOWS WHAT TO DO!) and Fisher Stevens who still really wants his goddamn tip! And wouldn't you know it, since Tom is wearing all of Craig's clothes, driving his car and using his credit cards, everyone thinks that he's really Craig! Nevermind the fact that they look absolutely nothing alike, he's wearing Craig's blazer. And everytime Tom tells someone that Craig is his brother, they all scoff and say, "Let me guess, he's your evil twin brother?" Apparently this is a whole town full of people who have gained all their life experience from daytime soaps and romance paperbacks. Thus Tom has to make it through the night without being captured by the cops, killed by the mob or run over by the flower guy, all without blowing his chances with the hot girl who's totally into it because she reads mystery novels!
Lerman prefaced Mystery Date by saying, "It might not be as good as I remember from when I was ten, but fuck you, I can make you watch whatever I want!!!!!" With that in mind, I can TOTALLY see the appeal to ten-year-old Lerman. In fact, if I had first come across Mystery Date playing on TV when I was in fifth grade, I'd probably have an irrational attachment to it as well. For one thing, I love young Ethan Hawke as well as Fisher Stevens, although nothing will ever rival him playing an Indian in the Short Circuit movies. (The fact that he got promoted from plucky comic relief to the goddamn hero between films one and two is a miracle for which we should all regularly give thanks.) And for a hopeless romantic adolescent who wasn't great at impressing girls, I have no doubt that this tale of comic misadventure in the name of winning over your dream woman would have totally appealed to me. It reminds me of Adventures In Babysitting, but with a hero designed to appeal more to insecure teenage guys instead of suburban teenage girls.
Everything about Mystery Date perfectly encapsulates the embarrassment of the early 90's, from the hairstyles to the fashion to the music. It's that fuzzy era where people are struggling to get out of the 80's but the Seattle grunge scene hadn't yet hit the mainstream. (Mystery Date was released about six weeks before Nirvana's Nevermind would cause a seismic shift in the pop culture landscape.) But that's a moment in time that absolutely defines my childhood, so I can't help but have a soft spot for it. And the movie is just goofy enough to be appealing, from Ethan Hawke accidentally murdering a police detective and then driving around the rest of the movie with a trunk full of corpses, to the motorcycle cop who can't tell blood from transmission fluid, to BD Wong's babyfaced Chinese mafia boss who occasionally slips into a James Cagney-esque accent. We also get two outlandish and total throwaway cameos by both James Hong and Victor Wong, because most of the third act takes place in Chinatown and there were seemingly only six Asian actors working in the early 90's. I'm almost surprised Long Duk Dong doesn't make an appearance. And let's not forget Fisher Stevens essentially playing a cross between Wile E. Coyote and the newspaper delivery kid from Better Off Dead. Sadly, Terri Polo doesn't really have much to do as the object of Tom's affection, but she's totally hot and a girl who's equally down for exotic drinks at an island-themed hole in the wall bar by the docks or beers at a death metal club in an old warehouse where GWAR (!!!) is playing, so twelve-year-old Daley probably would have been smitten.
Lerman was gracious enough to actually buy me Mystery Date on DVD, so it's now part of my collection. (You can watch the whole thing in mediocre quality on YouTube.) It feels like a movie I can adopt as a retroactive childhood favorite, right up there with The Man With One Red Shoe or Hudson Hawk, although sadly Mystery Date never matches the dizzying heights of Bruce Willis and Danny Aiello as showtune singing cat burglars trying to steal Leonardo Da Vinci's alchemy machine on behalf of The Vatican. Then again, nothing really does. Nevertheless, it's extremely comforting in a way, knowing that Lerman is starting my journey in a place that feels very familiar and even downright nostalgic.
I can't wait to see how he's going to get to A Serbian Film in just three moves.
What's Next?-Crazy Love
--------------------------------------- Title: Mystery Date Director: Jonathan Wacks Starring: Ethan Hawke, Terri Polo, BD Wong, Fisher Stevens, Brian McNamara, Don S. Davis, James Hong, Victor Wong Year Of Release: 1991 Viewing Method: DVD
"I'm twelve. But I've been twelve for a long time."
Mike Lerman is one of my best friends from high school. Ler is a walking repository of all cinema that is insane, awesome and insanely awesome. As the artistic director of the Philadelphia Film Society and a curator for Fantastic Fest, he's always got the inside track on the whatever badass movie is just over the horizon. Thing is, he's been like that as long as I've known him. He used to show up at my apartment in college at one o'clock in the morning with a region-free DVD player and a backpack overflowing with discs, saying to me, "Yo, you gotta check out this thing I just found. This shit is AMAZING." And you haven't lived until you've seen him sing "It's Raining Men" or Michael Jackson's "Man In The Mirror" at a karaoke bar.
Everyone should have a friend like Mike Lerman.*
About six years ago he was staying in my L.A. apartment for a few weeks during a festival (this was a frequent occurrence) and he tried to get me to go a screening of a Swedish child vampire movie called Let The Right One In. He'd already seen it at a previous festival, totally loved it and wanted to watch it again. For reasons I no longer remember, I passed on the opportunity. I should have known better. When I saw the trailer a few months later, I instantly regretted my decision not to join Ler on that Saturday afternoon at the Arclight. The film got a very limited release stateside, but I never made it to the theater before it disappeared. I got close one night when my then-girlfriend Jamie and I had some plans fall through, but she wanted to go see another, sparklier vampire movie instead. Two roads diverged in a bload-soaked wood and that night I took the road more traveled by angsty tweens.
When the Let The Right One In eventually made it to DVD, a controversy quickly arose over the film's subtitles. Apparently Magnet/Magnolia used an alternate translation from what had appeared in theaters, a translation which seemed to lack the subtlety and nuance which won over audiences in the first place. Suddenly I got gun-shy, not wanting to inadvertently ruin my viewing experience with a sub-par version of the film. Before I got the chance to figure out a solution, Overture Films and Hammer Films snapped up the rights and churned out an American remake called Let Me In, directed by Matt Reeves of Cloverfield fame. The film was relatively well received, and when I stumbled upon a DVD copy for $5 a few years ago, I tossed it in my cart with a few other titles (I think this was before Amazon Prime eliminated the need to pad your purchases just go get free shipping) and it's been sitting on my shelf unwatched ever since.
I thought it'd be fun to screen both movies in one weekend to get a sense of where and how they differed, so I started with Let The Right One In, currently available on Netflix Instant with the original theatrical subtitles (Magnolia has since released a new version on disc with both English translations available). It's fucking great. Set in 1982, the story centers on 12 year old Oskar, a smart and quiet boy who's constantly bullied by a trio of cruel older boys at school. When Eli moves in next door with her father, the two quickly become friends and Oskar falls for her hard. She brings out an inner strength in Oskar and she seems to give him more love and attention than either of his emotionally distant parents. However, Eli isn't like other girls: She doesn't go to school, she only comes out at night and she's constantly barefoot, unaffected by the cold Swedish winter. What Oskar doesn't know is that Eli is actually a vampire. The old man with her isn't her father but her caretaker, quietly killing innocents in the dead of night to collect blood for Eli to drink. When one such collection goes awry, Eli is left to fend for herself and Oskar is soon confronted with the truth about his not-so-young love.
The two leads, played by Kare Hedebrant and Lina Leandersson, are simply incredible. They compliment each other perfectly; Oskar is the quiet and withdrawn child of 80s divorce, yet he has a sort of earnest optimism at heart, while Eli is equal parts killer and romantic, conveying a world weariness in her eyes that belies her childlike appearance. The vampire stuff is all handled very minimally yet effectively, and the concept of the caretaker, spending his life killing people both to keep Eli's secret hidden and to keep her violent urges in check is a breath of fresh air in an increasingly stale genre. There's also a group of neighbors who provide some great low-key comic relief, helping to balance out the movie's tone. When Eli kills one of them after her caretaker's failure, they begin to investigate, and each one of these adults has a sort of visually iconic moment in the film, from the fat guy surrounded by cats to the woman who suffers a memorable fate in a hospital room. The ending is simply incredible, with a simply staged, visually arresting confrontation that makes everything up till that feel like violent foreplay. And the very last scene brings the entire story full circle in a beautiful, wordless moment. Director Tomas Alfredsson simply nails it, and you can see a lot of what works here translated into his follow up, the slow burn British spy flick Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.
Now, when a studio decides they're going to adapt a book into a movie, I'll generally avoid reading the book beforehand if it sounds like the kind of film that interests me. As a rule, I accept that the book is almost always better than its adaptation, but I don't want to go into the film knowing what's going to happen in advance. I want to experience the movie with fresh eyes and judge it on its own merits without constantly comparing it to a source material it almost certainly will not live up to. Let Me In makes a strong case that I should take the same approach to American remakes of foreign films.
As I mentioned earlier, Let The Right One In hit American theaters the same year as the first Twilight movie. Considering the instant fever it created at the box office, it's easy to see why a studio would be excited to jump on that bandwagon and produce their own adolescent vampire flick. And to be fair, Let Me In is worlds better than pretty much all of the Twilight movies**. It's got a pair of strong leads in Kodi Smit-McPhee (currently filming Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes) as Owen and Chloe Grace Moretz (appearing this year in the Carrie remake as well as reprising her role as Hit Girl in Kick Ass 2) as the vampire Abby. Both are extremely talented young performers and their interpretations of the characters are reminiscent of their Swedish predecessors, but feel different enough keep you engaged throughout. That's actually a minor miracle, considering that all of their dialogue is almost a word for word transcription of the original. There are a few tweaks here are there, but on paper the two children are virtually unchanged. One the one hand it's a smart choice because that's the heart of the film and there's a feeling of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." On the other hand, it means that director Matt Reeves spends every other scene trying so hard to justify the movie's existence that he actually achieves the contrary.
There's a prevailing sense that movies like Let The Right One In have to be remade because American audiences not only hate reading subtitles, but they don't fall in for slow, moody character films that don't feature Hollywood stars. Essentially, if there isn't an explosion or a car chase every 15 minutes, the viewers mentally check out. So here we get a movie where Abby isn't just a little girl who kills people and drinks their blood, she physically transforms into a demonic creature with dark veiny skin and a deep growling voice. When she attacks, it's usually with the help of some spotty CG so that she moves unnaturally fast. Whereas the original caretaker killed people in secluded locations wearing a simple plastic coat to protect from blood spatter, the American caretaker (played by the great Richard Jenkins) hides in the backseats of cars wearing a black trash bag with cutout eye holes over his head like some kind of hokey serial killer. If the script had actually explored that idea a little bit then it could have been kind of interesting. But no, the real reason he wears a bag is because he has a large birthmark on his face, for no other reason except to make him easily identifiable when Owen comes across some old photographs. This allows Reeves to explicitly explain what was quietly implied in the original. Rather than simply getting caught in the act, Jenkins' caretaker has to get in a huge car accident. Granted it's a well shot sequence, but I could practically hear the studio notes begging Reeves to throw in more action. Even more perplexing, there are a few simple moments, like a disfigurement and a fire effect, as well as the final confrontation in the pool that are jaw dropping in the original but kind of uninspired here.
I felt really bad for Elias Koteas though, as he's saddled with a boring police investigator who is an entirely new creation. He's the spiritual replacement for the entertaining neighbors from The Right One, who are essentially relegated to background extras here. I love Koteas (Casey Jones!) but he's stranded here, given nothing interesting to do and no background to keep the audience rooting for him in any way. It's not only an unfortunate waste of talent, but it's an entirely unnecessary change that reeks of a studio trying to "appeal to American audiences." Similarly, there's a baffling structural change, starting the movie in middle of the story and then quickly jumping back to the beginning. Aside from revealing one of the better moments of the film, there's no particularly compelling reason for the temporal shift other than to start the movie on a more exciting note. But it also presents something of a false narrative, implying a sort of mystery where none really exists.
I know it sounds like I'm putting Let Me In through the ringer here, but I actually think it's a pretty sharp little flick on its own. I like Cloverfield a lot (although it's been a while since I last saw it) and I think Matt Reeves has got some serious chops. I can't wait to see what he does with Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes, as I've got a sneaking suspicion that he might be the perfect guy to wrangle the particular iteration of the story I think they're going to tell. If Let Me In had been an original creation, I suspect that I would have been pretty impressed. It's propulsive, well shot and it's got a top notch cast. But in direct comparison to the original, there's really no contest. The Right One manages to do so much more with so much less, and I kind of believe that if I had watched them in reverse order then the original would have felt like even more of an achievement. But each have their own particular charms and I'm sure I'll find myself revisiting both from time to time, depending on what sort of mood I'm in.
This is hardly the first time a successful foreign film was quickly and less successfully adapted for American audiences and it certainly won't be the last. And thus I'm left wondering, is this kind of thing really necessary? Are Americans so averse to reading words on the screen and seeing unfamiliar faces that we have to take great films and churn them through the Hollywood machine just to make them more palatable to the lowest common denominator? Aren't we essentially taking cinematic filet mignon and turning it into hot dogs? Yes, original will always exist independently and the discerning viewer can always ignore adaptations in favor of the real thing, but there comes a point when the act itself become insulting to the original art.
Who else out there has seen both films? Is there anyone who prefers Let Me In to Let The Right One In? What order did you watch them? I'm genuinely curious about how other people feel about these flicks, so sound off in the comments below!
*Lerman has agreed to guest curate some screenings for me in the coming weeks. Needless to say, I'm fucking psyched.
**I actually enjoy certain sequences in both parts of Breaking Dawn. Bill Condon had an appropriate grasp of just how ridiculous that franchise truly is and he handles stuff like the vampire cesarean and the final head-ripping battle sequence with gusto.
--------------------------------------- Title: Let The Right One In Director: Tomas Alfredsson Starring: Kare Hedebrant, Lina Leandersson, Per Ragnar, Henrik Dahl Year Of Release: 2008 Viewing Method: Netflix Instant
--------------------------------------- Title: Let Me In Director: Matt Reeves Starring: Chloe Grace Moretz, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Richard Jenkins, Elias Koteas Year Of Release: 2010 Viewing Method: DVD
