Catsup, Part 2

Part two in my attempt to recap all the movies I haven't already written about. I'm allowed to keep it to one sentence if I want. Funny that hasn't happened yet.

The Return of Count Yorga (1971, Bob Kelljan) [68]: Kelljan died too early with too few features under his belt to get a Taratinoized rebirth, but dammit, he deserves it. His three vampire films -- Count Yorga, Vampire, Scream, Blacula, Scream, and this, the Yorga sequel -- are all crude and shocking bits of pulp that hit like barbed wire wrapped around a two by four. What Kelljan lacked in subtlety, he made up for in aggressiveness -- his slo-mo running vampires, shock cuts and freeze-frames feel like they're dipped in nightmare. But while the first Yorga is severely crippled by the awful lighting and lumpy screenplay, the sequel (written by Yvonne Wilder, who also plays the deaf-mute housekeeper) is comparatively elegant. There's a definite feminist subtext going on, with focus on the Mariette Hartley character and the gaslighting of the housekeeper (quite similar to the same year's Let's Scare Jessica to Death), that contrasts well with the sexist original. There are lulls, and it doesn't always hang together perfectly, but the set-pieces make up for it. Kelljan tops the first Yorga's tense, gut-wrenching ending with a climactic sequence that's both exciting and dread-inducing, ending with two of the most terrifying freeze-frames in horror film history. That Kelljan never got to grow as an artist, and that his contributions to the mechanics of suspense are ignored by modern filmmakers, is a fucking tragedy.

Day Night Day Night (2007, Julia Loktev) [76]: Key image for me was watching our confused emo protag try on different outfits for her big day, and briefly donning a jacket with "Baby Girl" on the back. She rejects the jacket, but the she never really shakes off the label -- despite the deathly seriousness of her task, she's still a kid, really, incapable of understanding that she's not doing this for any great cause (pointedly, we have no idea what the cause is), but simply because she hasn't figured out who she is (pointedly, we have no idea who she is). This would've been impossible for Loktev to convey (at least, not without making a terrible film) without lead Williams, who does more with her body before six a.m. than most actors do all day. The first half is the best, all controlled, claustrophobic angles, yet comforting in their directness, not unlike the obscure cause that's been embraced by these masked men. Then she's let out into the "real world", the camera goes handheld, strangers start looking at the camera, and the tension, rather than heightened, is diffused (defused?) by the hustle and bustle. It's air squeaking out of the balloon, and while that's mostly the point -- the group's ideology crumbling against the chaos of modern existence, a life intended to be meaningful through sacrifice that suddenly loses meaning in the anonymous crowds -- it's still a bit of a drag. Good job with that last shot, though.

Zombie (1979, Lucio Fulci) [34]: Boring boring cool cool boring boring boring boring boring boring boring boring boring boring boring cool cool how'dtheydothat cool boring boring boring boring boring gross gross gross boring boring boring boring boring boring boring boring boring nice nice nice boring boring boring boring stupid stupid stupid boring boring boring boring boring boring dumb dumb oh thank god it's over.

Fright Night (1985, Tom Holland) [71]: Yeah, I know. This has 80s written all over it, from the hair and clothes, to the way the narrative is honed-down, in the Syd Field manner, to its bare essentials -- there can't be more than eight characters in the entire thing. Still, it enraptured me when I was 13 and still does today. Probably has something to do with a fondness for the Savant-as-Hero, the guy whose head full of useless trivia becomes a weapon against monsters. (Today we'd recognize both Charlie and Evil as a bona-fide geeks, but the movie can only situate them, vaguely, as outsiders, which is probably why we never meet any other kids, apart from Amy). But a monster movie is only as good as its monster, and Chris Sarandon's suave and menacing neighborhood vampire is just as worthy of an Aurora model kit as the Tall Man in my opinion. (Love how the film demonstrates his toughness -- stripping the wood off a banister with his fingernail.) And the disco scene, while a homage to Polanski's ballroom scene in The Fearless Vampire Killers, outdoes its predecessor in sensuality and just plain cinematic snap. Watch Amanda Bearse's Amy become a woman over the course of a cheesy synth-pop number! (Must I turn in my Hipster's Learning Permit if I admit that I found Bearse, pre-Married With Children shrew, kinda hot? Is it significant that we now know she's a lesbian?)

1408 (2007, Mikael Håfsröm) [22]: Here's what's wrong with this movie: the haunted room is omnipotent. It can do anything it wants with Cusack; he's powerless. How can there be any meaningful conflict if one character has literally all the power? The movie tries to make up for this lack of conflict by making the experience about whether Cusack will come to terms with his dead daughter, but you know what? That's not horror. That's Lifetime. Oh, and don't get me started on the Jackson/Cusack scene. Suckas act like it's the second coming of True West or some shit, when it's just a frickin' speed bump on the way to the CGI. Oh, and don't get me started on the CGI. There's a ghost from the thirties, and one from the fifties? Let's make them look like scratched up B&W film and Technicolor, respectively! Woo! Fucking hacks.

30 Days of Night (2007, David Slade) [65]: Here's what's wrong with this movie, and really, it's the only thing that's wrong (without necessarily implying that the rest is "right"): Thirty days is just too damn long for drama. The film does a terrible job of showing how weeks of avoiding vampire-induced death affects the characters physically and mentally, and just a terrible job of demonstrating the passing of time in general. (A "Day 15" title card just don't cut it.) There's very little difference between Day 3 and Day 30, and considering the ferociousness of the vampires, it starts to beggar belief that anyone would make it past day two. But then, what about the vampires? You tell me they got thirty days to eat everyone, and they haven't razed the entire town in a week? What, did they break into someone's house and find a copy of Berlin Alexanderplatz and think, "Well, when are we gonna be back here?" Yet, change the title to "Three Days of Night", and you got a winner. But I guess that isn't horrifying enough.

Hostel Part II (2007, Eli Roth) [59]: So Martin suggested that David Poland was paid by someone to have a shit fit over this, and damn, he might be onto something. Feels like Roth lost his nerve -- he could've really earned that shit fit, but instead backs away from most of the carnage (I can't even remember what happened to Bijou Phillips). All of the ideas here are good ones, from the gender switch to the focus on the torturers' perspective to the "money talks" ending. (Probably the best idea is simply showing the contrast between the boys' trip in the first movie -- an abbreviated sex comedy -- and the girls' trip, which is threatening long before they reach the hostel.) But Roth ultimately doesn't know what to do with his ideas, so the whole thing lacks any kind of depth. Everyone hits their marks, torture set pieces come and go (quickly), and then it's over. Bart tries valiantly to make his character work but can't make his third act change of heart believable. Best scene isn't even in the movie: on the DVD, check out the deleted scene "Rape Shower". Yeah, yeah, I know, sounds tasteless, but it's just two of the women talking. It's pretty funny and lends credence to the rumor that Tarantino has a hand in Roth's scripts.

Catsup, Part 1

Whoah! Dusty in here. Smells funny, too. That's what happens when you leave a blog sitting out for so long, I guess.

Gonna attempt to cover all the movies I've seen since the last update, going in reverse chronological order, why not. Everything will get at least a sentence, in the approved Michael Atkinson mode, but that might be it.

WARNING: Some films may be SPOILED ROTTEN, of course.

No Country For Old Men (2007, Joel Coen & Ethan Coen) [82]: Terrific film, yada yada yada. Let's get to the real debate: Who's the protagonist? Now, understand that I'm talking about "protagonist", a pretty specific and wonky term (so be warned), used here in the context of studying screenplay structure, so I'm not talking "main character", "key character", "lead" or "supporting" characters or anything like that. And I say it's the Brolin character, if only for the simple fact that there's no story without him. The inciting incident (finding the money) and the first act twist (getting caught by the drug dealers) are about him. Without Brolin, Bardem has nothing to do but flip his gorgeous locks, and Jones can only putter around and philosophize. (Oh wait, that's what he does anyway.) That's what makes the last part so discombobulating. It's almost like the film itself starts looking, across space and time, for a protagonist to hang itself on, like a amnesiac child on a cosmic quest. Are you my protagonist? No, I'm just the wife of the protagonist, a side character. Are you my protagonist? No, I'm the antagonist, and all I can do now is kill side characters and get offed myself, now that I have no purpose. Are you my protagonist? I should've been, sonny, but I couldn't find the nerve.

(Of course, Martin McClellan will come in and destroy this argument. And God knows what Todd Alcott's gonna say when he gets around to it.)

The Mist (2007, Frank Darabont) [77]: Nice to see Darabont back to doing disreputable genre work, even if it is another goddamn Stephen King book. Script isn't as tight as his job on the 1988 remake of The Blob, and the "Do We Need The First 10 Pages" question rises again. (I left the theater during a preview to complain about the volume -- the trailer for Awake fuckin' shook the seats -- and when I got back, the family was outside with the tree. Didn't get a proper intro to the characters, but plotwise, nothing lost.) Tense and exciting, but Acting saves the day -- Braugher's character is incomprehensible, but holds it together through sheer talent, and Harden makes an intolerable character tolerable by playing to the cheap seats. Neither performance should work, but do. And great cinematography as well -- verité in the accepted shaky-cam style, but keeping spacial integrity, so fuck you Greengrass. Unfortunately, the ending doesn't work -- the decision comes too quickly, too easily, and then lead Jane is left to express something that's quite frankly inexpressible, yet gives us a rather unimaginative and empty Wail O' Anguish anyway. But 50s-inspired giant bugs are good enough.

Spider-Man 3 (2007, Sam Raimi) [73]: Why the hate, yo? So much better than number two, which was so tonally inconsistent it may as well have been South Korean. Feels like a random issue of the comic book, pulled off the rack circa '81, with a central conflict (Parker and Mary Jane's trouble relationship) that sings compared to the previous one, which was about... what was that about, again? Bitching about the landing of the black goo is stupid; it's clear that Pete's gone dark long before the suit does, making its arrival the period at the end of the sentence. Grace and Howard are well-cast, the former for his ingratiating smarm, the latter for her empty-headed cheer.

Hairspray (2007, Adam Shankman) [55]: More cheeky than I was expecting -- Watered down, if you will -- but Blonsky is awful. She has one look (naive wonderment), one move (a shoulder shake), and no presence at all. High school musical, indeed. Speaking of which, that Efron kid is the real deal (so I get why all the gay five year olds are crazy about him), and I like Bynes all grown up, thank you very much. (Not sure about the deep tan, though -- a foreshadowing of her character's sexual awakening, or just too long at Desert Sun?) Also: no dedication to Divine? For shame, filmmakers.

Mr. Brooks (2007, Bruce A. Evans) [57]: Hi, my name's Bruce A. Evans, and I have directed a feature film called Mr. Brooks. Perhaps you'd like to hire me to direct your next film? I can do low-key drama (roll scene of Costner and wife bantering in car), psycho thriller (roll scene of Costner killing couple in bed), action (roll scene of Moore fighting killers in van), stylized action (roll scene of Moore shoot-out in hallway) and wish-fullfillment (roll scene of Dane Cook getting throat slashed). And that's just the tip of the iceberg. Remember, when you think "directing", think Bruce A. Evans.

Grave of the Vampire (1974, John Hayes) [37]: I've seen this shitty movie three times. Three times. Why. Why. It's Danny Peary's fault, actually -- the glowing write-up in Guide for the Film Fanatic writes checks the movie can't cash, especially in the awful public domain version that seems to be the only way to see it. It's a good premise, admittedly. (Note to writer, Sopranos creator David Chase: Make this your next TV show.) But the Poverty Row production values, stiff acting, and point-and-shoot direction from John "Fomaldehyde Zombies" Hayes just sinks the entire show. One good bit, which we can blame on Chase: the half-vampire son opts to romance not the attractive, age-appropriate woman but the matronly, less pretty one -- yet it's clear to us, if not him, that he's just trying to get back at Vampire Dad.

Interview: Dan Gildark & Grant Cogswell of Cthulhu

(This interview was originally done for ScreenGrab, and it appears on that site in a shortened form here. Many thanks to Peter Smith for letting me crosspost!)


Dan Gildark and Grant Cogswell premiered their debut film, Cthulhu, at the Seattle International Film Festival this last Thursday. A poetic adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft's "The Shadow Over Innsmouth", Cthulhu tells the story of Russ, a gay professor who returns to his hometown for his mother's funeral, only to discover that his family, and the town, conceal a terrible secret. Shot by cinematographer Sean Kirby (Zoo and Police Beat), It's one of the few recent horror films that doesn't draw directly (and solely) from the U.S. government's recent embrace of torture as foreign policy. Which isn't to say it's apolitical -- on the contrary, it's downright angry, finding the connections between religious extremism, homophobia, suburban sprawl, and global warming, but expressing them through the metaphor of Lovecraft's cosmic monsters.

Director Gildark is a graduate of the Northwest Film Center's film program in Portland, Oregon, and, according to the Seattle alt weekly The Stranger, created a series of film clips that MTV allegedly stole for the opening of 120 Minutes. Screenwriter Cogswell is a poet and author, and is the subject of Phil Campbell's book, Zioncheck for President: A True Story of Idealism and Madness in American Politics, which details his failed run for a seat on Seattle's City Council.

How did you meet?

DG: Those sex pages in the back of The Stranger. (Laughs) We've known each other for about fourteen years now. We met when we were both driving the bicycle cabs down on the waterfont. We became good friends, stayed friends over the years, went our different ways, got reacquainted...

GC: In 2003, my girlfriend broke up with me, I lost my job and my apartment, and I was living on his floor. The Iraq war was starting, and we were watching it on a little cheap black and white TV, which made it feel like Night of the Living Dead. I was at a point in my life when I was very open to doing whatever was next, and he said "I want to make a movie and I want you to write it." If I'd known how much work it would be I probably would have said no!

It's clear from Cthulhu that you had a lot to say, politically. Why did you decide to adapt Lovecraft for that purpose?

GC: We wanted to make a piece of art that said something about our alarm over the political condition of the country. And we wanted people to see it, we wanted it to be visceral and intense, but as a horror film, we didn't want it to be the same ol' kind of horror film, and stuff like Hostel -- that's torture porn. But I didn't feel there was a story coming on in me, so we started looking for things to adapt. I immediately gravitated to Lovecraft, who I read for the first time in 2000. I think he really reflects a kind of apocalyptic flavor of the times. My favorite story was "The Shadow Over Innsmouth", and the one that I felt would work best. Some are more atmospheric or beautifully written, but they're not movies. "The Colour Out Of Space" is his best story, but it's not a movie.



It seems to me that "The Shadow Over Innsmouth" has one of the Lovecraft's stronger protagonists, because what happens to him has such a personal cost, which you can't necessarily say about the other ones.

GC: Absolutely. What the story reminded me of, more than anything else, was friends of mine who are gay, who come from these backwoods towns and then escape to the city to make an adult life. And then, fifteen or twenty years later, they're in their thirties, and a parent dies, or the sister has a child, or whatever, and they have to go back and engage with that family and that place. One of Lovecraft's major themes, and I think "The Shadow Over Innsmouth" expresses this best, is the horror of heredity. So I was writing from that feeling of threat, but also the issues of heredity, of anxiety about having children, and I decided to merge the two things.

I also think it's interesting because Lovecraft was very conservative, so to take that and flip it...

GC: Lovecraft thought, perhaps correctly, that immigrants coming to New England were eroding the local culture that he felt a loyalty to. I don't personally have a problem with that (laughs). What I find eroding our world is the militarism and the entertainment state and the willful, blissful ignorance of global warming, which is really gonna bite us in the ass. It's not gonna make the planet unlivable, but it's gonna make it hard to live and civilization is going to be in a lot of trouble in the next 50, 60 years.

Unless you happen to be a fish person.

GC: Right!



Do you consider Cthulhu do be a horror film or a gay film?

DG: Yes. (Laughs)

Are you comfortable, then, with it existing in a kind of middle space?

DG: The genre films I'm most interested in are the ones that are indescribable, that move back and forth across genres. They aren't true horror in the traditional sense; they kind of skirt the edges. To call our film a gay film is misleading, but to call it a straight horror film is misleading as well, so it really is kind of a bastard version of those genres, which I'm totally comfortable with. It makes it hard to market, but anything interesting takes from different fields and doesn't try to be a purist art form.

Lovecraft is usually associated with the East Coast -- Massachusetts, Rhode Island. Why did you choose to film in the Pacific Northwest?

GC: Well, we live here, of course, but it's bigger than that. The film grew out of the town of Astoria, Oregon, at the mouth of the Columbia river. It's the oldest American town on the Pacific. It was founded right after Lewis & Clark came through. It's old, it's weird, it's creepy, it used to be a lot more important and now kind of a little meth town. Very Lovecrafty.

Furthermore, Diabolus Rex, the head of the American Church of Satan, grew up in Astoria. He dresses in immaculate black Victorian goth clothing, and he's got two four-inch long subcutaneous horns in his forehead. And he's really the nicest guy you could possibly imagine -- he does work with pitbull rescue and stuff. At the first public reading of the script in Portland, he approached me and asked, "Where are you filming this?" and I said, "Astoria" -- we were picking out locations as we were writing it. He said: Astoria is Innsmouth, and I'll tell you why. And he listed off forty-some parallels between Astoria and the town of Innsmouth, all true. In the the story and the movie, there are hidden tunnels underneath the town. Turns out, when Diabolus was a kid, his bedroom, which was in the basement of the house, entered into a series of tunnels the Chinese built in Astoria. I thought I'd made that up.

DG: It was very interesting for me to film the Northwest in general because everything you see is either L.A. or New York. To see imagery of another part of the country is a huge production value. A lot of productions are afraid of rainy locales because of continuity, but when it rains all the time -- there's your continuity. When I first started talking to my DP, we talked in terms of imagery we both understand and filmmakers we both liked, but we also talked about the painting that kept coming to mind: Goya's Laocoön. Very blue and grey. It has a very Northwest vibe to it.

GC: Naked guys wrestling with snakes-- that's what the movie's about!

In my previous post on Cthulhu, I wrote, "This is also the film that gained some notoriety by casting Tori Spelling, which turns out to be a wry joke if you're familiar with Lovecraft's "The Shadow Over Innsmouth". Was that intentional?

DG: The "Innsmouth look"? That's what you're alluding to?

Yeah.



GC: I think she's the sexiest woman I've ever met in my life! I really do. She's an unsual looking person, but there's a lot of unusual looking people.

DG: I knew she'd be right for the role. She can be funny, and serious, and we needed this seductress to come in. It's kind of a campy role, but we needed someone who could also take it seriously, and have the weight to carry it. I feel like she's a good actress who's been severely overlooked. She does these crappy Lifetime shows all the time, but she honestly could be a major contender and serious actress if she chose to do that.

GC: It's kind of a minor role, but it really is the pillar of the movie, in a way. If it were done badly, it would wreck the movie.

You're currently looking for distribution.

DG: Hopefully after the premiere we'll have some conversations. Know anybody? (Laughs)

Grindhouse

Some really quick notes about Grindhouse (2007, Robert Rodriguez/Rob Zombie/Edgar Wright/Eli Roth/Quentin Tarantino) [overall: 81; Planet Terror: 66; Death Proof: 87]:

1. All of those complaining that it isn't grindhousey enough to be called Grindhouse: y'all're retarded. No one gives a shit, and more importantly, no one will give a shit in 50 years. It doesn't matter one fuck what it's called; all that matters are the films therein. Todd Haynes fucked up the Sirkian crane shots in Far From Heaven -- boo fucking hoo. Still a fine movie. You want a simulation, go play a computer game.

2. All of those complaining that the dialogue parts of Death Proof are boring: y'all're retarded. All of those complaining about Death Proof in general: y'all're fucking retarded. Recognize.

3. This is the first time I've enjoyed the presence of Jeff Fahey.

4. Rob Zombie, I love you, but put some effort into it next time. This isn't a White Zombie video. It's gotta look like a movie.

5. Now that that's out of the way, let's talk about what's really shocking: I think I finally understand Eli Roth. He thinks he's a horror director, he's been positioned in the media as a horror director... but he aint a horror director. He's a comedian. More than that, he's the straight guy equivalent of John Waters. This isn't to say that Roth's career -- which, to date, is one long "grosser than gross" joke -- has any kind of subversive quality (that straight guy thing again), simply that, like early Waters, he's out to film shit so disgusting, so offensive, that you simply have to laugh. (There's some pretty sick stuff in Planet Terror, but nothing can top Roth's climactic image in Thanksgiving.) While I don't think I've neccessarily underrated Cabin Fever -- I'm sure it's still crap -- maybe I've approached it, and him, all wrong.

Apologies to those who already figured this shit out.

Borat: Cultural Learnings of America Make For Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan

A few short notes on Borat (2006, Larry Charles) [78]:

1. I assumed, after the huge hype, the blockbuster receipts, and the inevitable backlash, that this would never live up to the acclaim and derision. I was very, very wrong. Consistently hilarious -- they had me with "The Running of the Jew".

2. But, as Mike D'Angelo said of A Mighty Wind, there's something to be said for a joke that's been written over an improv. Not that there's anything wrong with Sacha Baron Cohen's improv skills -- how he's able to find just the right (wrong) thing to say and still look like a naif speaks to an incredibly twisted, brilliant mind -- but it's the stuff that's been planned (like the infamous nude wrestling scene) that really kill.

3. And yet -- while the nude wrestling gets all the hosannas, the scene that really stuck with me was the frat boy encounter. Not so much for what they say -- although the bald racism and misogyny is shocking -- but how the filmmakers manage to incorporate the improvised scene into the narrative. (Borat is on a journey to find and wed Pamela Anderson, and the frat boys disabuse him of the notion that she's a virgin.) Charles and Cohen set up a traditional romantic narrative arc -- boy goes after girl on a pedestal -- and let it grind up against the ugly flipside of that, the madonna/whore complex that both supports that narrative and undermines it at the same time. Pretty bracing stuff.

4. Also, this isn't satire. Sorry people. It's just a simple comedy, a road trip not unlike, uh, Road Trip, that just happens to have some modern comedic devices. If you're concerned about "regular folks" ambushed on film, two things: a) Allen Funt, and b) this has more to do with our increasingly mediated culture than any "contempt" on part of the filmmakers. If you don't like it, then make an effort to get rid of MySpace, camera phones, and Bush's warrantless surveillance program. Oh, you can't? Then tough, deal with it.

5. Most Valuable Supporting Player: Ken Davitian. I can only imagine what the conversation at his audition was like.

For The Ages: ScreenGrab Posts (3/4/07 - 3/10/07)

After last week's frenzy of posts, things slow way down as the reality of Laura Mae takes hold. This week, I only have one solo post, a personal history of the Watchmen movie. Watchmen is my favorite book of all time, and I've been watching the progress (and non-progress) of this project for nearly twenty years; now that it looks like Zack Snyder is going to do it for realsies, it seemed like a good opportunity to ponder over the various versions that were never to be.

Also, ScreenGrab ran the Top 10 Most Dangerous Films of All Time; I contributed to the write-up on Orson Welles' It's All True.

300

A few short notes on 300 (2007, Zack Snyder) [40]:

1. Fascistic, misogynistic, racist, homophobic... but ridiculously so, so that what should be offensive loops back around into the hilarious. Don't know about you, but I find it hard to take conservative political positions seriously from guys in leather speedos and capes.

2. Unfortunately, while the excesses of Frank Miller's Sin City are redeemed by the (accidental) leap into camp, nothing so alchemical happens here -- 300 remains earthbound. Despite that 90% (or whatever) of the film is CGI, there's never any sense that anything could happen. While Sin City convincingly created a noirish world, this looks like half-naked people wandering in front of matte paintings, proclaiming sub-Shakespearean dialogue. There's no feeling that these shots conspire to create a world; instead, it's like each scene exists in a bubble. You could argue that it accurately replicates reading a comic, each page and frame in isolation from the other, but then I'd ask, why would you want to replicate such a static medium?

3. Haven't read the comic, so I don't know how much can be placed at Miller's doorstep; nevertheless, I've said it before and I'll say it again: he's a terrible, terrible writer. He's the Ulitmate Fanboy in a way -- for him, the Manichean worldview can always be blacker and whiter, and the heroes can never be badass enough. Will the scrappy army of potters and blacksmiths be allowed a bit of dignity as they fight side-by-side with the Warrior Born? Jesus, of course not. What about the hunchback guy, whom we'll call Rudy? He'll pop up again when everyone leasts expects it and help save the day, right? Nope, outcasts need not apply. And this is what makes Miller such a hack: as cliché as it might be for the little guys to beat all odds, there's a reason why it's rock-solid storytelling. Impossible obstacles stacked against a barely-capable protagonist creates audience empathy. If you don't have that -- if all you have are Spartan badasses who can kill any foe, until, for the sake of an ending, they can't anymore -- you're left with arrogant, boring characters.

4. So what does this mean for Snyder's upcoming Watchmen adaptation? I have no fucking idea. It's still difficult to get a reading on Snyder as a director. This is being generous, but he's almost like a throwback to the studio days of the 40s, a journeyman director who gets out of the way of the story he's telling. Which is good news: if he's willing to let all the godawfulness of the 300 source material stand on its own, then presumably he'll let the virtues and pleasures of Watchmen do the same. Except: the journeymen directors of the 40s that we remember and admire, like Ford and Hawks, still managed to leave a personal stamp on the material. I'm not seeing that from Snyder, but maybe we just need some time and distance to gain some perspective.

5. I liked how Xerxes uses armies from all around the world to take out the Spartans, and when that fails, he's not above reaching into the Lord of the Rings and Hellraiser franchises to shore up the numbers. That's a leader who thinks outside the box.

Bonus! I'm going to go out on a limb and say that if, as reported, Gerard Butler is cast in the Watchmen movie, he'll be playing Jon Osterman, a.k.a. Dr. Manhattan. They'll do some funky body-scan type-thing on him and make Dr. M a CGI creation, of course, but everything else will be him. Reasoning? Well, he kind of looks like Osterman, and I don't think he has the force of presence required to portray the Comedian. You really need to feel the weight of history on the Comedian, and I can't see Butler getting that across. Now, Doc Manhattan, the guy who starts human, then starts to lose those qualities (along with his clothes) until he's kind of a blue blank slate? That I can see.

(Now watch, they'll make him Nite Owl or something.)

For The Ages: ScreenGrab Posts (2/25/07 - 3/3/07)

A really active week for me, considering baby Laura is only about two weeks old.

This week, I have three YouTube videos with the loose theme of "looking for horror in the wrong places", each with a little bit of commentary: an episode of The Smurfs, a Greg Kihn Band video, and a Sprite commercial. I also found a really cool up-close look at the various media used in Children of Men, and two pieces of news/commentary, one about a possible upcoming Writer's Guild strike, and one about a local (Seattle) controversy surrounding a chopped-up movie review. Finally, there's a short heads-up post about a site that offers public domain movies free for the downloading.

Get readin', y'all.

For The Ages: ScreenGrab Posts (2/18/07 - 2/24/07)

Sorry about the lack of new posts, folks. As you may have heard, I'm writing posts for the film blog ScreenGrab, and getting paid for it to boot. There will be new material here -- I swear on my mother's unoccupied grave. (Ideally, I'll be seeing both Zodiac and The Host in the movie theaters for film very soon.) But, to mark time until that day, I'll be posting weekly roundups of my ScreenGrab posts complete with links, so you won't have to bother with that Ebiri bitch.

Unfortunately, my debut week only included one post: a new column entitled The Film Buff's Book Shelf, wherein I review Kim Newman's classic (imo) survey of horror film, Nightmare Movies.

So far, this is the only entry in this "series", but I'm working on a piece about Bill Warren's Keep Watching The Skies that should pop up the week of March 11. Keep watching the blog!

The Descent, Silent Hill, The Wicker Man (2006)

I was the only person, it seems, who was underwhelmed by Neil Marshall's Dog Soldiers. Yes, it was a pretty nifty werewolf flick considering the low-budget, but in terms of characters, story, etc., it came across as boilerplate as the Aliens-but-with-werewolves descriptor made it sound. (It was no Ginger Snaps. Hell, it wasn't even Ginger Snaps 2.) So despite the hype that preceded The Descent (2006, Neil Marshall) [50], I was skeptical.

And for about 80% of its running time, I was pleasantly surprised. The beginning is a little trying, going through the motions of lead character Sara's backstory trauma that's both shorthand and laborious. (Here's an idea, filmmakers: if, five minutes into your film we jump ahead "one year later", how about starting the actual movie one year later?) But then Marshall introduces his other female characters, and for awhile, it works -- a horror film with plausible (if movie-ish) women at its center, not teenagers or bimbos. Not even a nude scene! (Joe Bob Briggs must be apoplectic.) So, even as our quintet of spelunkers find themselves trapped in an uncharted cave due to the hubris of their leader, even as they find themselves stalked by carnivorous ghost-white mole men, Marshall keeps it low-key, never turning the women into invulnerable action heroes nor panicky headcases. And Marshall demonstrates an increasingly firm grip on suspense and action tropes. The monsters are probably unnecessary, but I was impressed by how genuinely scary Marshall makes them, with nothing more than make-up and camera tricks -- no small feat in our jaded, all-CGI-all-the-time age. Yet, while most have commented on the first reveal of the creatures (and it is well done), for me, the moment when one of the women attempts to bridge a chasm with ropes while hanging from the rocky ceiling by her fingers was the white knuckle scene du jour.

But then, in the last fifteen minutes or so, Marshall manages to lose me, not once, not twice, but thrice. (NOTE: Although anyone who reads my shit knows I'm pretty loose with the spoilers, I'm giving the warning here anyway, cuz these are big ones.) The first time is the resolution of a subplot between Sara and expedition leader Juno. In the beginning of the film, there's a quick shot of Juno and Sara's husband that clearly communicates that, yes, these two are having an affair. Amazingly, this is the only time that Marshall reveals this information, other than a throwaway line of dialogue later on from Juno, where she states that she "lost just as much" in Sara's car accident as Sara.

But then these moments of audience goodwill and respect are overwhelmed by that oft-used lazy bit of screenwriting, the accidental killing. While fighting off the creatures, Juno is surprised by Sara's friend Beth, and Juno accidentally slits Beth's throat. I really hate this bit of storytelling; I'm not sure I've ever seen it used where it felt natural and not like the writer dicking around with the audience. But that's not what lost me. What lost me was the film's insistence on making this killing which was clearly unintentional, some kind of moral referendum on Juno. Yes, she lies about it to the others, but one would think that, with monsters on their heels, it's forgivable. But no, there's a whole tortured sequence of events to bring Sara up to speed on Beth's demise, and Juno is increasingly painted, not as a adventuresome woman who made a mistake, but a villain.

And so what does Sara do when it's just the two of them left, trapped in the dark cave with a horde of monsters coming after them? Why, she slices Juno's leg and leaves her to die, of course. (Because saving it for when they make it out alive through teamwork would be too easy.) Any sympathy for Sara, any admiration for her strength gets tossed right out the window. I really have no conception of what Marshall was thinking with this. It simply isn't supported by anything in the movie, and comes across as audience-pandering bloodlust -- the seducer, the adventuress, the independent woman must die.

Then, to add insult to Juno's unnecessary leg wound, we are treated to Sara's escape from the cave and return to the car... which is a fucking "it was all a dream" fake-out. She's actually still in the cave, and hallucinates that she's with her dead daughter as the mole men howl from the darkness, minutes from their prey. So not only is our female protagonist consumed with jealous, homicidal rage, she's also so mentally weak, so fragile in a stereotypically "feminine" way that she suffers a psychotic break at the moment when the chips are down. Can you imagine an action movie where Schwarzenegger suffers a similar mental breakdown at the moment when he's about to save the girl and kill the villain? So what at first appears to be a action-horror movie with somewhat progressive elements turns out to be the same old shit. Fuck that.

I was also wary about Silent Hill (2006, Christophe Gans) [62], and rightfully so. Horror film? Check. Video game adapatation? Check. Radha Mitchell? Check. (I have no problem with the lovely Ms. Mitchell, but damn, she shows up in a lot of crap.) But for once, the conventional wisdom is wrong. The movie pretty much had me in its opening scene, a search for a sleepwalking little girl that's set in a series of locations that, when taken individually, seem natural enough, but when put together create a wonderful imaginary landscape: an overpass over a tiny creek that's just yards away from a yawning abyss. In other words, danger and madness lie just beyond the safety of the quotidian.

A few minutes later, Mitchell's Rose and her sleepwalking daughter Sharon have a picnic, an awkward scene that feels like it was written in a foreign language and then translated into English. By the time it ended with them falling asleep and then waking up again -- blatantly signifying that what we're about to see is, if not literally a dream, then something with the logic of one -- it dawned on me that, even before the gore arrived, I was watching a big budget, art-directed-within-an-inch-of-its-life Lucio Fulci movie.

So in other words, what follows is only for those with a taste for nonsensical oneiro-horror, like mid-period Argento or the first Phantasm. There's a reason why the town of Silent Hill is stuck in some kind of hellish other dimension, why Rose and Sharon are drawn there, why there's a child named Alessa who looks identical to Sharon, but really, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. And as Dread Pirate Steven Carlson points out, when we learn the solution to the central mystery, we belatedly realize that, logically, there's no good reason why Rose should be threatened with bodily harm, which seriously undercuts the horror of the premise.

Yet, while logic flies out the window, I bought into it emotionally, which is the only real requirement for oneiro-horror. (This is what separates your House by the Cemeteries, with its silly scares, from your Phantasms, where the fear of abandonment fuels every moment.) Regardless of the ill-concieved scenes (why is there a secret room behind a painting in a hotel?), the characters, however two-dimensional, are always on-point emotionally. Steve's point doesn't bother me because, while Alessa, the wronged child at the center of Silent Hill (both the movie and the place) needs Rose to exorcize her from her living nightmare, she's also an embodiment of unthinking rage, and she's going to strike at anyone who isn't safe within the church, regardless of their intentions. It's the characters' emotions that shape this world, not any fealty to notions of "correct" screenwriting.

I'll admit that part of my emotional involvement comes from the look of the thing. It's beautiful and evocative, even when showing a bent in half man crawling through a lavatory on his hands, leaving some kind of spreading rust disease in his wake. I particularly liked the shots of Rose driving through the wooded hills, which offer both a storybook quality and the sense of looking at America through a non-native's eyes. And then there's the town itself: shrouded in a fog of ash, cut off at all ends like the cabin in Evil Dead, full of crazy buildings and spaces, way too big for a small town, yet deserted, looking for all the world like a war zone.

(This last bit can't be coincidence. There's some Bush-whacking subtext at work in the film -- Silent Hill's downfall comes about because of a group of puritanical zealots, led by a woman named Christabella, commit a wrongful act -- and bafflingly, even as the town is destroyed, even as they huddle in the comfort of the church as the darkness they've unleashed surges around them, they steadfastly hold onto the belief that they were just and correct. It's doesn't map to Iraq perfectly by any means, but Avary knows exactly what he's doing.)

What's really striking is that the only important characters are female, and this isn't apparent until well into the film. (The two prominent male characters are given a useless, expositionary subplot; supposedly, Konami, the video game's publisher, on upon reading Avary's first draft, asked, "Where are the men?"). Whereas The Descent uses an all-female cast to give the illusion of something progressive only to indulge in the usual, stereotypical notions of femininity, Avary makes the main characters women in order to bust taboos about motherhood. Motherhood touches all of the main characters: Rose can't have children, so she's adopted Sharon; Dahlia gave birth, out of wedlock, to Alessa; Cybil, the cop that accompanies Rose into Silent Hill, is haunted by a kidnapping case that ended tragically. All of them are willing to go whatever length is necessary to protect their kids. At first blush, this looks like standard-issue sentimentality, especially coupled with the twice-repeated maxim, "to a child, a mother is God", intended to offer something "positive" and "human" in the face of flesh-eating bugs and skin-ripping, pyramid-headed monster men. By the end, however, it's clear that it's this very (reactionary) sentiment that has caused all the horror in the first place, from Rose's monomaniacal urge to help her daughter in any way possible, to Cybil's desire to make sure history doesn't repeat itself, to Christabella's outrage at Dahlia's pregnancy, which, by its very existence, spits in the face of her values. Only Dahlia seems aware of all this, aware of Christabella's blindness and hypocrisy, and aware that she could end the nightmare, but doing so would be to submit to the very value system that she's rejected. Rose takes her place, madly rushing to get Sharon back, never realizing that (with an ending that's a kissing cousin to the ones in Fulci's The Beyond and The House By The Cemetery) motherhood is tantamount to being a prisoner.

A few quick notes about The Wicker Man (2006, Neil LaBute) [36]: 1. This is either a nice bit of snark or the best stealth advertising campaign of 2007. Worked on me, regardless. 2. I'd love to report that LaBute's film has been misunderstood, and that it's a penetrating look at male privilege and gender power relations, but no, it's a misogynist load. I don't know what LaBute is trying to work through, but he aint there yet. 3. I never saw In The Company of Men, nor have I seen any of his theater work, so I don't have this perception of LaBute as a promising talent that's been steadily slipping. My first exposure was Nurse Betty, so he's always been a competent, borderline-hack director. That in mind: Theo Sez it's "almost unwatchable", but the problem is that it's compulsively watchable -- beautiful to look at (good job, location scout!), crisply edited, and, the uneven Cage aside, pretty well-acted, given the material. 4. But, oh, the material. Like Feast, it's a premise that's stuck in a ninety-or-so minute holding pattern, waiting for clearance to land. (Seriously -- I don't get why this story should be any longer than five minutes.) One character is written so poorly that any reasonable human being has to conclude that she is either in on the whole thing or stupid beyond belief. I don't know if it's to LaBute's credit that, with the depth of his loathing, I wasn't sure which was true. 5. Strangely, the YouTube clip above neglects one great laugh-out-loud moment. I won't totally spoil it, but it spins the overused character-suddenly-hit-by-a-vehicle gag into something so absurd, one could drop it into a Scary Movie with no alterations whatsoever.