REVIEW: BURN AFTER READING

It's been 12 years since Joel and Ethan Coen's Oscar-winning Fargo, and while they're subsequent films have ranged from stoner classic to Bluegrass musical to black-and-white classic noir, one theme remains throughout - if you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans.  The Coen's roster of heroes and antiheroes - Raising Arizona's  H.I. and Ed, Fargo's Jerry Lundegard, No Country for Old Men's Llewelyn Moss - are all at heart good people whose ill-advised plans that,  once set in motion, bring chaos and disaster to the people around them.  Whether these people are completely oblivious to the great obstacles they will undoubtedly face, or so driven that they are indifferent or resistant to the stakes they recognize, is never crystal clear - there is simply a fixed focus on the prize, be it a baby or a suitcase full of money. 

Burn After Reading continues in this tradition, and after a successful foray into darker terrains with No Country for Old Men, the Coen brothers' latest is a return to the type of tale that made them famous and beloved - the hilarious black comedy, set in motion by a small crime that will ultimately bring great misfortune.   In this case it is the attempted blackmail of Osborne Cox (John Malkovich), a disgruntled CIA agent, by two gym workers (Frances McDormand and Brad Pitt, having a blast in the role of airhead fitness nut) who have found a disk containing his potentially scandalous and top-secret memoirs.  Of course the tale expands past its plot - there are other characters and stories in the mix, including George Clooney and Tilda Swinton as lovers who find themselves pulled into the chaos - and a central joy of the film is wondering with wicked curiosity just how messed up this thing will get, and who will end up getting the type of treatment that befalls hapless Coen characters (will anything ever be as great as Buscemi's foot sticking out of that wood chipper?).

Burn After Reading does a fantastic job at presenting a group of characters that, in one way or another, you can root for.  The screenplay takes its time in lining up the dominos, and defining each with its own character, back story, dreams and regrets,  before the thing is flicked into motion and it all comes tumbling down.  I admire the control and investment in character that the Coens are so adept at - Malkovich's character, for example, would be just another villain if not for the fact that we come to witness and understand the cause for his frustration and rage.  Clooney's womanizing is brilliantly treated as an addiction rather than cheap  characterization - in a lesser filmmaker's hands this would be a simple man-whore, but here he is an otherwise kind, charming, somewhat neurotic guy who never mistreats the women in his life even as he goes through them like breath mints.  Fleshing out their characters, and thus giving the audience people they can recognize and relate to, is part of what continues to elevate the Coens' work above their contemporaries.

A sort of faster, lighter Fargo, which manages to be hilarious while paying much more attention to character and to the often flawed connections that exist between your seemingly innocent friends and neighbors - husband and wife, man and mistress, co-workers, etc. - Burn After Reading is a fantastic and very funny descent into catastrophe, boasting great performances by the entire cast, another great score by Coens-regular Carter Burwell, and a great turn by Pitt in the type of role that always saw him at his best - unhinged, hyper and utterly clueless.   Just as they did by following up their acclaimed Fargo with the jovial The Big Lebowski, the Coen brothers' follow-up to Best Picture winner No Country for Old Men reminds us that "quality" is in the details - Burn After Reading may not win any awards come next year, but it is a classic comedy of rich detail and an exceptional command of character, and another stunning example of their enduring talent as two of America's best filmmakers.

6:52 AM - 8 Comments - 14 Kudos - Add Comment

REVIEW: SUKIYAKI WESTERN DJANGO

Takashi Miike is a very busy man.

Churning out more films per year than any other director I can think of - IMDB shows him as having directed no less than five films in 2005 alone - it's hard sometimes to sit through films like 1998's Andromedia and his latest American release, Sukiyaki Western Django, two films large in idea and style, and wonder what may have happened if he gave his wild fantasies a bit more focus, or perhaps a bit more of a tweaking after he'd allowed himself the freedom to shoot everything that came to mind.  Having distinguished himself from more strictly comic, absurdist directors like Stephen Chow (whose Kung Fu Hustle will no doubt be referenced often in reviews of this film), with darker, more stylish and surreal works like Audition and Gozu, Miike has shown his range and his panache for pitch black humor.  And as much as I admire and enjoy his films, there is usually a lingering question of just how much time Miike allows himself to polish his finished works before moving on to the inevitable next project.

No doubt Sukiyaki Western Django will find a fan base - and it really is a very fun, very entertaining piece of work - but it's hard not to pick it apart a bit as a film.  Perhaps it may be best to review it two ways - as a piece of spaghetti pop entertainment (what do you expect with that great title?), and as a "film".  And sure, it may be a bit unfair to criticize a film called Sukiyaki Western Django on its consistency and coherence, but I expect good things from Miike, and this film left me as entertained as it did disappointed.

As a shot of cult spaghetti cinema, the film is a blast.  You want to be entertained? Go see Sukiyaki Western Django.  Really, as a pulpy Western, it succeeds admirably - you've got your rundown saloon town, pistol-whipping cowboys, world-worn women, mysterious quiet hero in a dusty brown trench coat, stark sundrenched vistas strewn with ominously passing tumbleweeds...  Add to the mix some sword play and a penchant for bizarre, near-cartoonish violence and overacting, and you're in Miike Country, where the villains shoot incessant leers at the camera while the comic relief (in this case, a sheriff doing his best Dr. Strangelove impersonation) shuffles about like an attention-starved clown.  As a work of style and just plain fun, it does its best to add a twist to two familiar genres with their familiar settings and cast of characters - the Samurai/Western, with the complete lack of thematic ambiguity that both genres portend.

As a film, this is a bit like what happens when you let a nine-year-old make his own ice cream sundae - you'll get a bowl of ice cream with hot fudge and strawberry sauce and Gummi Bears and sprinkles and whipped cream and maybe some more hot fudge and Oreo cookies and pineapple sauce and Pepsi.  Sure, individually these all taste great - heck, even mix a couple or a few together, in different combinations, and you've got yourself a treat! - but you get the idea.  For starters, for reasons perhaps only known to Miike himself, he chose to make this an English-language film.  Why?  The opinion that this film should have been in his native Japanese will not be an unpopular one - there was just so much potential of impact lost due to the fact that the dialogue was spoken in such thick, sometimes indecipherable accents.  I applaud the integrity of allowing the actors to do their own speaking, rather than hire more proficient voiceover talent, but if you're audience is straining to make sense of what they're hearing, especially when they're trying to put an expansive story and mythos together, what's it worth?  It was hard for me not to suspect that there was a intent of added comedy in this decision - certainly the audience was howling when some otherwise innocuous lines were delivered in heavily broken English.  If that is the case, it's disappointing, because there truly is a good tale to be found buried under this mess, and more often that not I, and the people around me, were having a difficult time figuring out what the hell was going on, especially if there was gunplay afoot.

Perhaps there is a well that says it all! element to the fact that Quentin Tarantino has a cameo in this film, which is not to make the ubiquitous claim that he's a bad actor, but what the hell is Quentin Tarantino doing in an otherwise exclusive cast of Asian talent?  And what the fuck is Stuntman Mike's hood ornament doing on his wheelchair?  Was that an effort to get the audience to cheer, Hey, there's the hood ornament from Death Proof!!  A little treat for the fanboys?  My moment of recognition was hardly as enthusiastic.  But I suppose when you hurl the kitchen sink into your revisionist Western, anything is possible.

Perhaps what I'm getting at is that it felt like there was a lack of integrity to the proceedings.  Or, more specifically, a level of integrity that I assume Miike to have, and that I hope to see again.  There is an honesty and a clarity of vision to Audition, Ichi the Killer, Gozu - they titillate and challenge, they work the viscera with aplomb, but unlike similar genre tales of gore and violence, they never fall into camp or "B-movie" status.   They're not all perfect, but they are honest, as completely insane as they may get.  They may lean towards the absurd, but I'd never felt pandered to before, or my investment taken for granted.

One might argue that this is all supposed to be silly - that this is a silly film, that critics should lighten up.  I don't think this is the case - I give this film more credit than that.  There are many intensely poetic moments in this film, sequences of extreme gravity and beauty, and I am sure there were larger moods to evoke than the slapstick surroundings would suggest.  I would have liked to see a Sukiyaki Western Django that didn't try so hard to thrill and, what's more, connect to a Western audience.  Keep them in Japanese, Takashi, and without the pop guest stars - we promise we'll watch them.

6:44 AM - 6 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

The High School Musical Pep Rally - A Survivor’s Story

So Saturday morning I watched High School Musical at the El Capitan...

And look, before I lose all credibility as a passionate connoiseur and enthusiast of all things gore and sleaze, let me back up...

I suppose it all started that day a couple years back when I read that Billboard's 1 album was the soundtrack to something I had never heard of called High School Musical.  Now even though I don't watch too many mainstream movies, particularly ones with a teen cast (unless said tweens are being picked off ritualistically by a hideously deranged and monstrously deformed hillbilly), I know what movies are playing at my local multiplex.  How did this movie slip past me?  Then I find out it was a Disney Channel movie.  A made-for-TV movie has the 1 selling album?  Had that ever even happened?  

It was another one of those moments where I felt I'd completely lost touch with the mainstream.  And that's no tragedy, mind you, but it's still stunning sometimes to realize there are songs out there that millions of people are crazy about that you have never heard, and what's more, have never heard of.  I know Mariah Carey has new shit out - I haven't heard it, but I know it exists.   This High School Musical movie, on the other hand, had totally slipped right by me.

Flash forward a year, when I took my little sister Gaby to Disneyland and the whole place had High School Musical 2 fever, and our march down California Adventure was interrupted by an insane makeshift pep rally featuring some basketball-playing dancers (most of whom I guarantee you had never touched a basketball before in their lives) and some spazzed out cheerleaders.  Gaby, who at this point was 11, stares the whole thing down with silent contempt.  I want to join in with some crass comments, but I mustn't encourage her already developing bitchy side - it meant enough to me that she was disturbed by the whole scene, particularly the cheering onlookers who looked like they might implode with sheer rapture at any moment.  In Gaby's face I saw a glint of recognition that implied having to deal with girls like this every day at school. She finally grabbed my hand and started forcing her way through the crowd, desperate to get to Grizzly River Run and wash herself of this moment.  As happens often, I was proud to be her brother.

Flash forward to last Tuesday.  Still recovering from the Sick Girl screening, and planning to do little else on the weekend than see Radiohead and perhaps catch an act or two at Sunset Junction, I get an invitation from my friend at Disney to HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL PEPRALLY!, an invite-only event at the El Capitan, where...get this...BOTH High School Musical films would be screened...in sing-along versions (on-screen lyrics)...with sneak scenes from the upcoming 3rd film...AND surprise cast members!  And my gut reaction is, of course, an unfavorable one.

...but then a sick thing happened.  A strange, sick thing.  Some might call it masochistic.  In retrospect, I wouldn't have been surprised if some might have perceived it as a cry for help and had me institutionalized...  But I took my friend up on the invite.  He thought I was fucking with him - and maybe I was, but I meant it.  I would go.  And I would go the right way.

Here was my plan: pick up a like-minded scoundrel.  Pick up a bottle of whiskey. Drink with steadfast forcefulness the entire bottle of whiskey prior to entering the theater.  Sit amongst the throngs, in the thick of it, in The Shit, with no chance of retreat.  Try to regress; try to process; let the mind do what it needs to do to protect, to survive.  Walk out alive, and tell the world.

Step one was the selection of the scoundrel.

You see, it had to be Alicia.  Why?  Well, for one, the first two people I asked were chicken-shit.  Or that is to say, they didn't share my vision.  And in Eric's defense, he doesn't drink or do drugs.  No armor, then, against the onslaught.  I knew Alicia would be up for this.  She is a reliable comrade in wicked times. 

First, we needed sustenance.

Why did I take a picture of the Jack in the Box lady?  Because I was in a daffy mood, dammit.  That, and I loved her name.  Her name is Achy.  Go ahead - check out the name tag.  It says Achy. 

With food came conveniently large drinking containers.  We dumped half the bottle of Jack into Alicia's cup, swished it around with Coke, and hid the bottle in her purse.  No doubt El Capitan's security would be checking purses, so we wrapped the bottle tightly in black plastic.  It would take an asshole to tear through the plastic and to reveal its contents.  Then again, you never know with Disney security.  The suspense was on.

So we get to the theater, and everyone's in white and red.  Seems there is a basketball team at the heart of this film series - the Wildcats - and it seems their colors are white and red.  Who knew?   Anyway, never give two drunken scoundrels a set of pom poms.

Especially when there are children around...

The security guards take a leisurely glance at the contents in Alicia's purse, so we are set loose inside the theater and immediately begin taking the piss out of everything and everyone around us.  Which is immature, to be sure, but we had a plan, and we were sticking to it.

Our plan to sit in the thick of things was thwarted pretty much as soon as we entered the place, and the usher proudly announced that the only remaining seats were in the balcony.  So we stumbled up the stairs and selected two  choice seats towards the center top where we perched like snipers, spewing our childish venom onto the unknowing heads of the children below.  Almost immediately we found our first victim - a little blonde girl at the front of the balcony, who couldn't have been older than 10, gyrating rhythmically to the soundtrack blaring through the speakers, her hands clenched to the bar in front of her as she hurled her hips around like a stripper, her father beside her clapping along lovingly.  We all laugh at Sparkle Motion because we recognize the absurdity and cultural hypocricy of the instituionalized dressing up of little girls into tight sequined spandex to engage in choreographed air-humping - here it was alive and well, in the form of a near-toddler who was putting the girls at Jumbo's to shame with each cringe-inducing pelvic thrust.

Alicia and I soon discovered that she was not alone - across the landscape we saw dozens of little girls on their feet, waving their fists in the air and grinding at the space around them, shrieking indecipherably at the screen.  This thing hadn't even started yet.  The preshow hadn't even started yet.  These girls were already keyed up on candy and an as-yet-uncategorized lust for Zac Efron, they were hungry and ready for anything Disney had cooked up for them in their spoon.

When this thing starts, thought I, it's going to get very, very loud in here...

And sure enough, when the MC took the stage, the place went absolute apeshit. Everyone screamed.  Everyone.  The ushers screamed.  Hell, even Alicia and I screamed.

And why not?  This was Rome, and we were in it.  We'd signed up.  We were part of this thing now.  Complicit.  This was our Sin too.  Our drunken defense would be no match for these ravenous little terrors - they'd smell our fear and let loose on us, devouring us in a haze of pink and white.  It was too late to turn back.  We swallowed our horror, and chased it down with the rest of the whiskey.

For the next 90 minutes, we sat through the first High School Musical.  And may I say, it wasn't a total disaster.  It wasn't.  Was the music any good?  Not really, though I give them props for taking a cue from Bjork on one number and incorporating the squeak of sneakers on a basketball court into the rhythm section.  The film was a simple, innocuous story about a basketball playing dude who meets an intellectual chick, and the internal and external forces that wedge against and between them when they try to sign up for the tituar high school musical.  Pretty tame and simple stuff.  I try to be fair when it comes to movies - this wasn't a complete waste of space and time.  No doubt perfect fodder for a sheltered latchkey kid.

A ten minute intermission between movies, and my comrade was getting antsy.  Very antsy.  She needed to get the hell out.  I encouraged her to stick it out. "We've made it this far, dammit!  We can make it!  Just one more!!" It wasn't that I needed to see "how things turned out" in the sequel mind you - Part One saw the lovebirds get together and land the musical, the bullies ultimately play nice, the team win the big game, etc etc etc - I was just resolved finish this crazed journey.  To sneak out early seemed like a retreat I was not willing to make, despite the fact that Alicia was holding out the empty bottle of whiskey with the sad eyes of a dying poodle, shaking the last drop out onto her tongue and lamenting that we need more fucking booze! if she was to make it through one more ninety minute helping of saccharine taffy.  I felt her pain on that one - the cruel numbing grip of sobriety was sneaking up on me too. 

I was starting to consider a run to the liquor store when the MC came back out to announce the start of Part Two.  And suddenly the words weren't as humorous, the vibe was more painful than gleefully sinister, the screams were no longer entertaining - it was all just noise.  Lots and lots of noise.  And I was gripped with a sudden fear - would I be able to sit through High School Musical 2 while sober?  Or worse, while sobering up?  That would be the next adventure, I thought - that would be the next trial.  Part One drunk, Part Two sober - I'd brave them out and weigh each experience against the other.

Not so.  Three minutes into High School Musical 2, Alicia and I were on our feet and charging like madmen for the exit.  We'd had enough - almost at the exact same time, we'd had enough.  The second film opened with what amounts to a schoolwide musical number - everyone fucking person on screen erupting into song and charging towards the camera.  I knew immediately what Part Two was out to do - capitalize on the success of Part One with a massively-scaled regurgitation.  I could feel it - this would be the one that destroys me.  The next two hours would deliver the blunt throw that would forever dent my soul.  Alicia must've felt it to - we were off our seats and on the street in 10 seconds flat.

We didn't have much to say to each other on the drive home.  Alicia sobbed uncontrollably.

No seriously, we had a blast!  What is life worth if not for such adventures - we do enough shit we already know we're going to totally get into and dig, why not throw some crazy, uncharacteristic shit into the mix?   Man learns from such endeavors.  What did I learn from this?  America is systematically turning its little girls into a nation of whores.  That seems harsh - I'm sure it's not all true - but mostly true.  Don't think so?  Check out the new line of High School Musical kiddie underwear...

Dive In...   No, I'm sure they meant nothing by it.  Big company like Disney - I'm sure not one employee considered the suggestive nature of such words sprawled along the front of little girl's panties...

I need a good Italian zombie movie to wipe my mind of this horror.

3:52 PM - 8 Comments - 12 Kudos - Add Comment

Insanity & Fun at the Vista (or, VICTOR TO THE RESCUE!)

Well holy shit...

First off, thanks again SO much to all of you who came out Saturday night for Sick Girl!  It was a tad of a risky experiment to screen a movie very few have heard of, but I felt Sick Girl warranted the big screen, midnight audience treatment.  It seemed to me the audience agreed - you all just about went through the roof during the climactic...err...strap-on scene...

Unbeknownst to most of you is the mini-crisis that occurred before the screening, a testament to the DIY nature of these screenings (particularly when screening on digital), and to the punk rock spirit of the Mondo Celluloid audience.  As fantastic as the Vista Theater is, and as much work went into recent renovations which resulted in a great sound system and L.A.'s finest movie theater leg room, alas the theater still doesn't have capacity for digital projection.  Moreover, when using a portable projector (as I did with Sick Girl and May's Black Devil Doll clips), the house speakers are not compatible - you have to bring and use your own speakers.

I rounded up the same A/V team that helped out in May - my friend Martin on projector and laptop DVD player (that was his cat Traffic that took over the screen at one point), and Los Angeles punkabilly band Jaime Sol Black & The Dirty Suits on PA system & speakers.  Faithful as always, they were all at the theater at 11pm, hanging out next door at Cafe at the Vista and ready to go as soon as the 9:40pm Tropic Thunder screening let out.

So the movie lets out at around 11:30, and we head in to start setting up as the ushers clean up.  I'm in the ticket booth selling tickets, Martin's in there taping shit up and setting up his shit and whatnot, Jaime's setting up his projector, Sick Girl director Eben McGarr's being interviewed by a horror website, actress Leslie Andrews is out front charming her growing legion of fans - all seemed to be going smashingly!

Then my sister Giselle comes up to me and says, "Hey, the band's looking for you!"  Okay, methinks - I'll keep an eye out for them.  Then lead singer Jaime comes up to me with a look in his eyes that spells disaster, guilt, concern, frustration - just a whole wad of things that don't look promising 10 minutes before show time.   Oh oh...

Seems the band had misplaced the power cable to the PA system.  And look - these things happen.  Did I blow up at you, Jaime?  No, I didn't - I shit my pants a little, sure, but I kept it in man, because I'm a consummate professional dammit.  Sick Girl producer James Keitel even commented on how composed I was considering this news, and coming from a producer that meant a friggin' lot.  As Declan MacManus said, accidents will happen.  And as at ease as I was with this universal truth, this didn't change the fact that I still didn't have a sound system.  Shit.  Shit.

I only had about a minute to process this - a blessed short amount of time, where one is still processing the bad news that's been delivered, before all the possible implications hit and the urine starts to betray the jeans - when the heroes started stepping up to the rescue.  First was Cafe at the Vista owner Shelli, just about the coolest lass in Los Angeles, who had somehow heard the news and offered to let us go up to her office and rummage through her power cables.  Charging into the theater to check out the PA system, she was certain she might have the right cable and high-tailed it back to her coffee house to check.  Jaime offered to go back to the studio to see if he could find the cable there, but with people coming out left and right to check out the PA system and offer suggestions, I knew a drive downtown and back wouldn't be necessary - I was starting to breathe easy, a solution was right around the corner.

Then, reliable and friendly as always, Vista theater manager Victor comes down with a big smile and proclaims, "My Mac cord will fit this!"  He hands me his Mac cord, and with Jaime outside drawing hope from a cigarette, it's up to me to plug it in and nervously throw the switch on the PA system.  I squeeze the cord into the outlet - it fits!!  Victor watches all of this with a look on his face like Patricia Arquette's in Pulp Fiction when Vincent's about to plunge the syringe into Mia - the whole thing is actually quite hilariously theatrical.  Finally I throw the switch, and the little fan on the side starts to hum and spin.  We have power.  There will be blood.

I go outside, find Jaime, and tell him the good news.  He throws a hug on me as if I were a doctor who just told him his wife made it through the operation.  Shelli comes running up and I tell her we're cool, she cheers as I thank her for being so friggin' stellar.  The audience is invited to enter.  I do my little preshow (congrats to the raffle winners!), we all sing Happy Birthday to Sick Girl Leslie (which seems to have become a tradition - at last month's Blue Velvet screening we all sang Happy Birthday to Eric, himself a very sick girl...), and after a very brief technical glitch (at which point, again, the audience was introduced to Martin's cat Traffic!), we were all treated to the bloody opus that is Sick Girl.

Seriously, thanks again to all of you who made it.  Thanks again to Geekscape for interviewing Leslie and I and helping spread the word.  Thanks Eben for sharing your vision and for being an awesome partner throughout the last month - we put on a hell of a fucking show!  Thanks Shelli for continuing to offer the Mondo Celluloid audience free coffee!  Thanks Martin for being Selwyn the Conquistador!  Thanks Giselle for jumping in and taking over as I frantically scurried about to get this thing together! 

Thanks Leslie for pissing on nuns!

11:29 AM - 4 Comments - 6 Kudos - Add Comment

UPDATE ON TONIGHT’S SCREENING: Free Coffee, no Evil Ed

GREETINGS!

I hope to see many of you tonight at the Vista at the Sick Girl screening - no doubt those of you who haven't seen this insanely good slasher flick will love it as much as I do!

OK, so important updates - bad news first.  Alas, Stephen Geoffreys, star of Fright Night and several naughty films thereafter, will not be making it tonight's screening as planned.  Personally, I am not heartbroken - after hanging out earlier this week with both of tonight's guests, director Eben McGarr and Sick Girl herself, Leslie Andrews, I'm excited as hell just to have both of them at the theater tonight, and would have probably given ol' Evil Ed the cold shoulder just to keep rapping with Eben about crazy 70's blaxploitation horror knockoffs and with Leslie about vegetarianism (I'm thinking about it, folks...).

ALSO!  Swing by Cafe at the Vista this weekend for free coffee!!  Just walk right up to the cheery denizen behind the counter, ask him/her "Who neeeds to use the bucket?", and get a FREE small coffee with purchase!  It's just that fucking easy!!  You gotta love Cafe at the Vista - this is the 3rd time they join in the fun of the Mondo Celluloid screenings, and I just wanna smear them on my toast.  (I can still eat toast if I go vegetarian, right Leslie??)

See you tonight!

11:23 AM - 3 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

SICK GIRL! Or, how to win a bloody Catholic Schoolgirl’s skirt!

Violence! Blood! Gore!

At the Vista!

with special guests!

 

Eben mcgarr

director of "sick girl"

 

leslie andrews

"sick girl" herself

 

stephen geoffreys

star of "Sick girl" , & "Fright Night's" evil ed!

 

special raffle for

advanced ticket purchasers:

 

Buy your tickets in advance at

https://www.ticketleap.com/member/event.aspx?event_id=3110718B-06A6-4F2D-93F1-11E7901404F

OR at http://www.myspace.com/mondocelluloid

and be entered into a special raffle to win:

 

 

THIS BLOODY SKIRT! 

Featured in the movie

and worn by one of sick girl's victims!

 

Only pre-sale ticket holders will have a chance to win!

 

 

Visit www.myspace.com/mondocelluloid for more information! 

 

See you on the 16th! 

1:47 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

REVIEW: RE-CYCLE (GWAI WIK)

It's been five years since the Pang Brothers' The Eye (Gin gwai) scared the shit out of me, and I've been losing love for the directors ever since - seemingly stuck on Retread, each of their Eye sequels got worst as they went along, there was that terrible Jessica Alba remake (not their fault, to be fair), their English-language The Messengers was another weak and derivative ghost story, and now they've taken to remaking their 1999 cult hit Bangkok Dangerous with Nicholas Cage  (which begs the question - don't they know what happened the last time Cage was in a remake of a cult classic?).  So it was with some trepidation that I caught the Egyptian's screening of Re-Cycle (Gwai wik) last night, the Pang Brothers' 2006 horror/fantasy that hasn't seen a full American distribution yet.

Starting off as a standard and not particularly compelling spook fest (creepy long-haired woman in the shadows!  creepy phone calls from beyond!), Re-Cycle veers suddenly into a surreal hybrid of What Dreams May Come and MirrorMask.  Without warning or much explanation (and to the film's credit, the explanation does come), our heroine Tsui Ting-Yin (played by The Eye's Angelica Lee), a successful writer working on a novel about the supernatural, finds herself in a dark and seemingly post-apocalyptic nightmare world, complete with eerie ghosts, giant toys, and a journey through one hell of a giant uterus.  She joins up with a sweet and scrappy little girl, as one tends to do when plunged into strange and surreal wonderlands, and the two set off to make their way through the wasteland together.

1:00 AM - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

THE SUPER TROOPERS PICTURE SHOW (or, why the Nuart smells like maple syrup...)

You really have to give it to a Rocky Horror cast.  There is some dedication and devotion there rarely seen outside of Scientology and heroin addiction.   It really is a church, isn't it?  Same group of people get together once a week, at the same house of worship, and ritually call and/or sing out the same responses, week after week, on familiar cues they can recite in their sleep.  First-timers awkwardly take in the goings-on, snickering, baffled, but relatively charmed and bemused.  And then for some of these first-timers (some of you might call them "The Unlucky"), the choke of that first drag lingers, and you go back the next Saturday, and the next, and the next, and before you realize it the humor of vociferously inviting an onscreen wheelchair-bound German professor to suck your dick has been lost to routine.  Then what do you do?

If you're Sins O' the Flesh, the Nuart Theater's Rocky Horror cast for over 15 years, you throw another movie into the mix.  Having lent the "shadow cast" experience to Clue and Grease 2 in the past, last Saturday they screened and performed one of the funniest and, despite its cult following, I think most under-appreciated comedies of the last decade, 2001's Super Troopers.

Rifling through the bag, I went into sudden childlike hysterics when I came across this sticker:

It's Johnny Chimpo!  I think I may have actually screamed that out - "It's Johnny Chimpo!"  Moments of joy like these cannot be contained.  I don't think my friend held it against me - he was already sticking his own Johnny Chimpo sticker onto his jacket, murmuring something about Afghanistanimation.

By the time the theater let in, the show was already sold out.  News had spread widely that some of the members of Broken Lizard (writers and cast of Super Troopers) would be present, and sure enough the film was introduced by the entire comedy group, all but one of which (director Jay Chandrasekhar) stayed until after the movie for an extensive and hilariously candid Q&A.

The entire production was incredibly impressive - I can't imagine how much time and effort went into this friggin' thing, a sentiment shared by Kevin Heffernan (the film's "Farva"), who continually expressed how stunned and impressed he was by the uncanny performance of the shadow cast.  Nuances, gestures, uniforms, moustaches, all painstakingly recreated.  The cast even went out of their way to create and invest in countless props, most used to hilarious effect - the "Bearfucker!" scene brought the house down.  At one point actor Erik Stolhanske, the film's "Rabbit," rushed the stage and replaced his "shadow," taking brilliant advantage of a scene where his character makes out with a female officer, rolling around the stage with her jailbait shadow actress.  The place went absolutely apeshit as Stolhanske's face turned beet-red - the guy couldn't stop grinning and laughing as the audience cheered this singularly surreal moment.

I would imagine the Nuart still smells like syrup... 

When the scene came up where Rabbit and Thorny chug maple syrup, I was so into the movie and its shadow performers that I'd forgotten about the little tubs of maple syrup in the bag.  Suddenly I get this tremendous whiff of syrup, like the entire theater had been coated in the shit.  I gag a little, and turn to my friend who's chugging away at his little tub, as is the person next to him, and the girl next to that guy, and everyone within eyesight.  A sea of elbows pointed at the sky as people shot their syrup like tequila.  By the time the movie was over, the whole place still smelled like an IHOP - my shoes made that smacky-cracky sound as they shuffled down the aisle, suggesting a painfully long night for the cleaning crew.  I don't envy the guys and gals that have to clean that shit up.  But it was so worth it.

Sins O' the Flesh will be doing Clue next, on October 10 (my birthday!).   For more info, visit the Sins O' the Flesh website.  I wonder if they take suggestions...  If so, I nominate Forbidden Zone - that movie has been ripe for a shadow cast since first gracing the planet with its presence in 1980.

...and if you haven't seen Super Troopers, get a group together and check it out.  Good stuff.  Rare is the movie that is just as awesome sober as it is completely high or drunk.  Bearfucking, gigantic cotton candy, chickenfuckers, Afghanistanimation about a cartoon monkey and his butler who go around doing naughty things - what's not to totally love?

9:17 PM - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

MONDO CELLULOID PRESENTS: SICK GIRL! Special Guests! August 16th!

HOWDY!

So for August's screening at the Vista I've decided to do something different - rather than play a cult classic, I'll be screening a cult-classic-to-be, Eben McGarr's bloody slasher opus Sick Girl!

Tickets on sale now - click here!

Eben McGarr
Director of Sick Girl

Leslie Andrews
Sick Girl herself!!

and...

Stephen Geoffreys
Sick Girl's Mr. Putski
and
Fright Night's EVIL ED!!

Come by and support DIY horror filmmaking!  At a time where so many of us are lamenting the state of horror cinema (one lame remake after another, PG-13 horror-lite...), it's so refreshing that there are filmmakers like Eben out there keeping the spirit of the slasher flick alive.  Here's to a return of the 70's, where sick-minded individuals picked up a camera, filled their vans with other sick-minded individuals, and drove out to the woods to film some sick shit!

My original Sick Girl review (some minor spoilers therein...)

Saturday, March 15, 2008

Imagine sitting through the most gloriously depraved mutilation/rape scene you've ever seen - I won't give away the gory details here, but I honestly think it may have outdone anything to be found in Der Todesking.  Not the most disturbing rape scene, per say - it's going to take a filmmaker with a LOT of balls to take that title from Irreversible - but just the most deliciously conceived and executed trasho-horror exploitation ever.  Now imagine that scene set to Mr. Blue Sky by ELO - such genius would be cause to throw up your hands in thunderous applause!  Which I did.

This scene is one of many gems to be found in Sick Girl, writer-director Eben McGarr's smart, sick, and shockingly good independent horror film, which held its L.A. premiere at the Vine Theatre in Hollywood last night.  (...and no, it's not Mr. Blue Sky, but it may as well be - Aaron Moreland and Dennis Haggerty's Familiy Tree is as perfect a throwback to such 70's vocodered summer-fun-in-the-sun classics as one could hope to find).  Smarter than your average slasher film, it's the story of Izzy, a somewhat unhinged teenage girl who spends her time slitting throats, splitting heads, and doing unspeakable things to nuns.  She also has three victims tied up in her barn, who she occasionally visits to dole out increasingly sadistic acts of mutiation. 

That said, where the film transcends is that it also displays, and really centers on, another side of Izzy - a teenage girl who has been forced to raise her little brother Kevin on her own when their big brother is sent to Iraq.  We see that Izzy cares deeply for her little brother, and feels affection and appreciation for kind neighbor Barney (played by McGarr's brother John) who consistently steps in to help raise Kevin.  I always love movies that present psychos with their own sense of code: it is a credit to McGarr that Izzy does not kill a kindly stranger who comes to her aide halfway through the film, nor that she senselessly kills a rat that comes into her possession.  In the hands of a lesser director these would have simply called for more scenes of carnage - despite the bloodbath this girl unleashes, she comes to have a "character," and it's in keeping with her character that she does, or does not do, the things she does throughout the film.  That's very impressive for a film which contains a graphic dismemberment.

Credit is also due to actress Leslie Andrews - she  gives Sleepaway Camp's Pamela Springsteen a run for her money as cinema's most convincingly cheeky slasher girl.  There are so many scenes which have an impact that hinge on her performance, and she nails it every time.  In one scene in particular, when she makes full advantage of a young bully's developing sociopathology, it is her control and her understanding of character that keeps the scene from being at all campy - it's an effective and chilling scene, and one of true horror that, at least for me, was totally believable despite its extreme grimness.  That she doesn't then set the boy loose to continue down his path is, again, a credit to the filmmakers - she knows that kid is sick, and she uses it to her advantage, but that kid's not going anywhere.  He's a bully - bully's are "bad."  Again, without the right performance, such nuances in "code" are lost on villains - it's why we're able to quietly feel for Henry in Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, and why by the end of Sick Girl, we kind of don't want to see anything bad happen to Izzy.

There's a humorous subplot in the film involving Kevin's teacher, Mr. Putski, and his missing rat (I can't remember the rat's name right now, but it gave me a chuckle).  I am glad for this subplot, if for no other reason that it brought back to horror cinema one of its lost sons, Fright Night's Stephen Geoffreys, as the teacher.  It was essentially a cameo role, but it was good to see ol' Evil Ed again.  And again, it lent for another great character moment - Izzy, despite her brutality, rescues and returns Mr. Putski's rat.  How can you hate someone that returns someone's beloved rat?

I really love this movie - it's an indie, so I hope for great things for it, and for more from McGarr and Andrews.  Check out its myspace page for trailer and more info.  If you get a chance to see it, you can't go wrong with Sick Girl.

1:20 AM - 1 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

TARANTINO’S "FASTER, PUSSYCAT!" - THE BACKLASH STARTS EARLY...

Wow!  So apprently I'm not the only one who finds the promise of a Quentin Tarantino-directed, Tera Patrick-starring remake of Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! less than promising... 

5:24 PM - 11 Comments - 8 Kudos - Add Comment

Review: WALL-E

Our film opens to a barren, seemingly post-apocalyptic wasteland.  Pull back to reveal a landscape that suggests New York City, but covered in a thick and endless blanket of flith and debris, its only surviving biological life a single cockroach.  Enter a lone robot with the Sisyphean task of cleaning up the debris, including the corpses of his inanimate fellow robots.  Our robot is lonely and exhausted, and finds his only joy in playing love songs on his tape player and watching the same musical over and over again before the sun comes up and he goes back to work, day after day after day...

Enter a back story of a not-so-distant future where an omnipresent corporation (think Starbucks meets Walmart) has taken over the world and overrun it with consumer waste, forcing humans to retreat into the stars, and you get the point - Wall-E is sci-fi at its most sci-fi.  It is also Disney and its most un-Disney - entertaining and charming, yes, but also sporting a tremendous set of balls, evident from its dystopian and daringly dialogue-free first act.

There have been a number of recent films depicting a bleak and totalitarian future, from Children of Men to Southland Tales, and while they are all different in tone and approach they, like, Wall-E, share an underlying we'll have no one to blame but ourselves motif.  What I really liked about Wall-E was the simplicity of its prophetic back story - we fucked the world up?  No problem - we'll take off to space and let the people in charge clean it up.  It was disturbing because it was such an incredibly reasonable eventuality, especially considering the present command of consumerism, and the politically-charged zeal of at least half our country to turn a blind eye against the concept of global warming.   It was hard not to think of my own trip to New York last week, when I found myself simultaneously seduced by the grandeur of Times Square while marveling at the amount of trash heaps I counted while on the MTA in Brooklyn.  No doubt it won't happen in my time, but doesn't all reason and logic suggest that at same point we're going to run out of room for all our shit?

There is a lot that is quite clever about Wall-E, from the choice to only use actual humans when portraying people from the past while animating the humans in the present, to the inclusion of the letters CEO on the traditional presidential seal (I especially liked this touch...).  While it was a bit distracting to suddenly see Fred Willard's familiar goofy grin after a half hour or so of pure animation, I admired the bold inclusion of a world leader who is first-and-foremost the CEO of a global corporation.  Tremendous credit to the writers, who consistently seemed to take an approach of We'll entertain your kids, people, but we've got something to say to the rest of you...

Of course there is excitement and adventure in store for Wall-E, and though the second act drags a bit while setting up the inevitable conclusion, it all adds up to what may be the most sophisticated, daring, and uncompromising film Disney has put out since Fantasia.  Unafraid to tackle big themes, both global and intimate (loneliness, identity, purpose), Wall-E is as intelligent a movie as it is solidly entertaining. 

...and my hat's off to the individual who chose Thomas Newman to score the film over his Pixar-friendly cousin Randy - like he did with Finding Nemo, Thomas Newman adds an additional great layer of beauty and grace over some of the film's more quiet, visual scenes, such as a space dance between Wall-E and fellow robot Eve.  I shudder to think what might have become of the mood of Wall-E had Randy scored it, with his twee ivory tickling and bassoon humping...

7:42 AM - 3 Comments - 6 Kudos - Add Comment

PABST BLUE RIBBON!! (and Blue Velvet cupcakes!!)

I posted a bulletin about this a few days ago, but for those of you who missed it...

There will be NO Pabst Blue Ribbon given away on Friday night!!

The owners of the Vista felt it might not be in the best interests of the theater to imbibe you all with cans of a wet sticky substance, which could then spill and lead to falls, rats, or worst of all, what I call The Jabberjaw Stench...

...you all remember how bad the Jabberjaw stunk...

So in honor of Blue Velvet, drink your cans of PBR on the way to the theater, and if you plan on sneaking any in, do so with utmost stealth.  And give me a sip.

- Logan

P.S. - The good folks at the Cafe at the Vista, next door to the Vista, will be joining in the Lynchian fun by selling Blue Velvet Cupcakes! on Friday!  Swing by and have one - and get a free cup of coffee (with purchase!) by looking the barista square in the eye and yelling, "SHIT YES, POUR THE FUCKIN' BEER!"

This is true.  If you say "SHIT YES, POUR THE FUCKIN' BEER!" to the folks at Cafe at the Vista, they will give you a free coffee with purchase.  Any time this weekend.  For real.  Try it!

Click on flyer to buy your ticket NOW!

5:04 PM - 2 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

THE INCREDIBLE HULK (Guest Review!!)

Thanks to Mondo Celluloid friend Eric AD for submitting this review!  Friends, feel free to send in your reviews - I'll happily post 'em!

Hulk Smash!!! Marvel Studios is 2 for 2 this Summer

It's almost prophetic that the producers of the 2003 version of this particular Marvel Comics Icon chose to simply title their movie Hulk, instead of the more familiar and well known title The Incredible Hulk. It's almost as if they knew, isn't it? Well, for starters I gotta say I'm not a hater of Ang Lee's version, which came out only 5 short years ago. It has it's moments, to be sure; there's an awesome twenty minute chase sequence from a secret Nevada base through the desert, to the Golden Gate bridge, and to almost outer space even, and that's pretty kick ass. But the rest of the 2 hour and 15 minute runtime is padded with very little forward momentum, and lots of shots of actors whispering and dealing with their childhood traumas. Plus, there's this comic book inspired split screen that Ang Lee does, which is at first really cool, but then gets tedious pretty fast. At the end of the day, I'd chalk up Hulk as a noble failure, but one worth watching now and again. It's the Super Hero version of David Lynch's Dune; a good attempt but really a misfire.

So now Marvel Studios is in the business of producing their own movies, and the first of these was this summer's awesome Iron Man, a comic book movie that did just about everything right. So is this new Incredible Hulk movie as good as that?

Well, no...but you weren't really expecting that, were you? Iron Man was kind of lightning in a bottle. What this movie is though, is a first rate action film. Once this movie really starts, it doesn't ever let up. While the original film was slow and ponderous, this one aims in the complete opposite direction, but without sacrificing elements like characterization and nuance. The cast is pretty spot on; almost as much as Robert Downey Jr. was born to play Tony Stark, Edward Norton was born to play Bruce Banner. I never really bought Eric Bana as Banner, he's a little too square jawed and well built to be the scrawny, nerdy scientest. And while Jennifer Connelly is a far better actress than Liv Tyler, at least Liv emotes more and actually has really chemistry with Norton. William Hurt is a lot more devious than Sam Elliot's portryal of General Ross; here he's a bit like Ahab in Moby Dick, except unlike Ahab, the Hulk is a monster he actually helped to create. And Tim Roth as Emil Blonsky AKA The Abomination ( they never actually call him that in the movie...well, they sorta do ) is pretty much pitch perfect as the once bad ass soldier whose time has come and gone, and now wants his time in the spotlight back, badly.

What's so weird about this movie is that is essentially a sequel to a movie that doesn't exist. The entire "Origin of the Hulk" sequence is kept to a minimum, seen only during the opening credits sequence, almost like the prologue to the old TV show, or the "recap the last movie" opening credits of the Spider-Man flicks. But the origin is almost totally different from the one presented in the previous movie, so we are getting a sequel to a movie that was never really made. Has that ever really been done before? Because it feels like a first. Can you imagine if Aliens had been made without there ever having been an Alien first? I guess the fact that everyone is at least somewhat vaguely familiar with the Hulk's rather simple origin from memories of the old show ( Banner has accident, Banner becomes Hulk, Banner goes one the run, cue "sad Hulk theme" ) probably is the only reason it works so well here.

Director Louis Letterier is no Ang Lee, he'll probably never win an Oscar, but he's much more suited to this material than Ang Lee could have ever hoped to be. He keeps the movie energized even when nothing is really happening. More than any other Comic Book movies, this movie owes a great debt to the Jason Bourne trilogy. I even read one review that referes to this movie as The Bourne Irradiation, and that pretty much nails it. And while this movie is hardly ever a laugh riot, it is actually pretty funny in parts, something totally missing from the last version. Well, there was some unintentional humor in the previous