Shocktober Revisited: Cabin Fever

 editor's note: while the Cap'n is waiting to watch The Green Inferno or Knock Knock, here's a look back at Eli Roth's first film.

Today the Cap'n will be looking back at a more recent film I have an interesting history with, Eli Roth's Cabin Fever. As the film was partially shot in North Carolina (Mocksville, Danbury, Winston-Salem, and High Point), there was a big to-do made of its release in 2003 at The Carousel in Greensboro: the lobby was covered with camping-related paraphernalia, the insides of the candy displays tainted with bloodstains, and production stills and press information were abundant. I remember this because I saw the film with a soon-to-be roommate in a packed auditorium of gorehounds looking for their horror fix.

And they got it, in abundance: Cabin Fever is, whatever else it may strive to be, an effective and mostly disgusting horror film. In that respect, I recall being impressed with Roth's first feature length film. As I wrote in a 2003 recap:

Cabin Fever - Eli Roth learned a thing or two from Evil Dead. That's crucial to understanding the marketing behind this low budget gem. Cabin Fever is atypical of horror movies, and that bugs a lot of horror fans, but this isn't quite a scare fest. It's a genre bender, pitting the cast of a Teen Sex Comedy in a Cabin in the Woods Horror Movie. While it has problems (the movie doesn't know where to end and stumbles a bit in the final act), it's nevertheless a nice first film to build a career of off, and they marketed the shit out of this movie (when i went to see it, great steps were made to replicate set pieces, "authentic" paraphernalia, etc.) plus it doesn't look as cheap as it was to make, and there are some wonderful nods to past cheapie thrillers.

My compatriot hated the movie. In fact, he still hates the movie, for reasons I can't fault him for. After talking about Cabin Fever several times, I almost totally flipped on the mixed-to-positive review and decided that the film's weaknesses overcame its strengths. I convinced myself that the Peter Jackson blurb on the poster (and subsequent DVD and Blu-Ray releases) was hyperbolic, and that the film's seriously uneven tone rendered the whole experience moot.

But that wasn't the end for me; for whatever reason, I couldn't shake Cabin Fever, couldn't totally sell myself on the write-off, even if there are serious problems with the movie (which I promise I will actually get to in a moment). So I picked up a used rental copy from Hollywood Video (or Blockbuster, I can't recall), and watched it again. I had the same mixed reaction, and ended up selling the movie when money got tight. But then I'd see it used again somewhere when things weren't so rough. Friends began poking fun at me, asking why I'd keep buying "something you hated"? I didn't have a good answer, so I watched Cabin Fever again last night, for the first time in three or four years.

The damnedest thing is that for 90% of the film, Eli Roth made a really good horror film. Yes, it has lots of little nods to The Evil Dead, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, The Burning, and Friday the 13th, but beyond that Roth has the essentials down pat in constructing a solid horror film. He sets up the stakes well, isolates the characters, provides semi-credible reasons why the college students partying in the cabin might have trouble finding help nearby, ratchets up the gore in a disturbing way, and sets the characters against each other without ever feeling forced.

What doesn't work, the other 10% (with one exception), happens either before they're introduced to the virus or after they try to get back to town. Everything in between the set-up and the closing works fine, save for the introduction of Deputy Winston (Giuseppe Andrews), a moment so atypical of the rest of the film, so reminiscent of Twin Peaks (not coincidentally, as Roth worked for David Lynch prior to Cabin Fever) right down to the specially written Angelo Badalamenti theme, that it grinds the horror to a halt.

The rest of the major issues come at critical points in setting up or resolving characters, which is why Cabin Fever leaves many with a bad taste in their mouths. I will provide a handy list, which is vaguely spoiler, although at this point in the review I'm taking it on faith you've already seen the film:

- Bert (James DeBello) and the "squirrel shooting" scene.
- The harmonica guy.
- The really fake deer.
- The lines "because they're gay," "don't be gay," and "what are you, retarded?"
- The "pancakes" kid, his dad, and the strangely effeminate store owner.
- Actually, just about everything that happens at the General Store.
- Marcy (Cerina Vincent)'s opening speech about college.
- A misleading racist joke at the beginning of the film that has a payoff at the end that, at best, feels disingenuous.

I'm torn about Grim, Eli Roth's stoner interloper that shows up right after Bert, Marcy, Paul (Rider Strong), Jeff (Joey Kern), and Karen (Jordan Ladd) show up at the cabin. On the one hand, there's nothing really funny about his stupid dog joke or the fact that he really only exists so that there's one more body for Paul to find. His dog, Doctor Mambo, could have been anybody's around the lake and the threat would be just as credible. On the other hand, I did laugh at how stupid the dog joke is (sorry, I won't spoil that one for you), and it makes up for the random and sort of pointless "bowling alley" story that Paul tells at the campfire.

The problem is that the tone of everything listed above is so incongruous with the rest of the film, so decidedly quirky, that it disrupts the horror, and not in a good way. I'm all for breaking the tension with a well placed joke (Sam Raimi and Peter Jackson do it masterfully), but the "jokes" in Cabin Fever aren't so much funny as they are really strange. They don't seem to belong in the same universe as the horror film we're watching, and their presence while audiences settle and and right before they leave do undermine the rest of the movie, which is, again, really good.

I am aware that the Blu-Ray of Cabin Fever is a director's cut, one that apparently smooths over the jagged edges of the film, and having watched it again and (mostly) enjoyed the experience, I think I'll look into that cut. While I can't find any fault in the criticisms of the Cabin Fever I saw then and again tonight, there is enough of a pretty damn good horror movie inside to keep me from dismissing it again.

Oh, by the way: while it's not apparently on the Blu-Ray, the DVD has an extra called "Chick Vision" that raises a pair of silhouetted hands over the screen during "scary" parts, and it's actually kind of fun in small doses. I don't know that I could watch the whole film that way, but it might be fun for parties.

Blogorium Review: The Man with the Iron Fists

 Expectations are a funny thing sometimes, especially if you live in some kind of film geek "bubble." I didn't realize I lived inside of said "bubble," but the generally blase reaction to RZA's long talked about, long-in-the-making kung fu epic The Man with the Iron Fists, it seems clear to me that very few people were excited about the movie. Or at least, as excited as I thought they would be. This may come as a surprise to Blogorium readers, but the Cap'n is fairly well versed in the Wu Tang Clan, and while not as well versed in chop sockey cinema, I do have an appreciation for how seriously the RZA takes the genre. When you surprise a film scholar with your knowledge about the Shaw Brothers, the Shaolin Temple, and Eastern philosophy (as RZA does on the commentary for The 36th Chamber of Shaolin), then your long gestating entry into kung fu movies isn't just a lark.

 And The Man with the Iron Fists is more than just a series of winking references to Enter the Dragon, King Boxer, and 5 Deadly Venoms although you are going to see all of those and a lot more even before Gordon Liu shows up*. RZA integrates Buddhist philosophy into a serious back story of how Blacksmith (RZA) escapes a misunderstanding that ruins his "freed slave" status in the U.S. and washes him up in 19th century China, where he learns to embrace his Buddha nature and then the art of Chi and pressure points in fighting. This comes in handy when he was to fight Brass Body (Dave "The Wrong Side of Town" Bautista), but I'd better not explain how because that would be a SPOILER, just like how Blacksmith becomes the title character.

*WARNING: NON-MOVIE RELATED TANGENT AHEAD*

 Maybe it's the Eli Roth factor that caused people to tune out of logically being excited. Look, I get that many people hate Eli Roth and Eli Roth movies even though when I talk to them it seems like they've never seen his movies. Okay, so Cabin Fever is a tonal mess and kind of fails to be funny or scary when it needs to be, but hating the Hostel movies sight unseen is a little silly. Technically, because they center around and organization that captures people and auctions them off to be killed (by torture), Hostel and Hostel Part II get wrapped up in the "torture porn" category with the shitty Saw films. My problem with that snap judgment by people who have only heard the term "torture porn" is that the Hostel films, unlike the Saw movies, don't give you torture sequences you want to cheer during. In fact, they make you squirm and feel a little gross, even the second or third time. I laughed the first time I saw the prosthetic eye dangling in the first Hostel, but the second time I saw it I felt bad for that girl and was kinda queasy.

 Anyway the point I'm getting at is that people don't seem to like Eli Roth not because of what they've seen him do, but what they decided about what they didn't see. And maybe you thought he was loud and obnoxious in Inglourious Basterds (which he's supposed to be) and in Death Proof (okay, no argument here) or you just don't like the other movies he produced or his public persona or something. When I get to my Argo review later on we'll be covering similar territory vis a vis Ben Affleck, but I guess the "Screenplay By The RZA and Eli Roth" is turning a lot of people away for some reason. It's silly, because you're missing out.

 *END OF NON-MOVIE RELATED ELI ROTH TANGENT*

 In addition to Blacksmith and Brass Body, there are a bunch of other crazy characters inhabiting Jungle Village, both in and outside of the Pink Blosson brothel. To start with, there are the clans: the Lion Clan, Wolf Clan, Hyena Clan, Jackal Clan, and maybe I just misunderstood Wolf clan but it seemed like there was a Rat clan too. Most of the movie is about the Lion Clan, who are given the task of protecting a shipment of gold. Gold Lion (Chen Kuan-tai), their leader is murdered by Silver Lion (Byron Mann), who takes over with his lieutenant Bronze Lion (Cung Le) and plan to steal the money for themselves.

 Silver Lion, like pretty much every other clan member in Jungle Village, hires the Blacksmith (real name Thaddeus Smith - see what they did there?) to make weapons for them, so when they find out that he might be assisting Gold Lion's son Zen-Yi, the X Blade (Rick Yune) in claiming vengeance with a suit of retractable knives, they don't take it too well. All the Blacksmith wants is to leave Jungle Village with Lady Silk (Jamie Chung), who works at the Pink Blossom, but that's probably not going to work out so well for them. Or anybody else when Silver Lion hires Brass Body to kill Zen-Yi.

 Meanwhile, Jack Knife (Russell Crowe, clearly having a great time) shows up at the Pink Blossom and surrounds himself with women for some good old fashioned debauchery, mostly not involving his gun that also seems to be a rotating blade (or is it the other way around). Also, the gold is being protected by the Gemini Killers (Andrew Lin and Grace Huang), who the Lion Clan decides to take down despite their impressive ability to work together in interlocking fighting styles.

 I feel like I'm not even scratching the surface of the film (which is actually pretty easy to follow) because Lady Blossom (Lucy Liu) is also a major part of the story, for reasons both apparent and also slightly surprising (unless you saw the trailer), and the Lion Clan has another secret ally who fires poisoned darts of mercury (also designed by the Blacksmith) and I'm basically not mentioning Wolf and Hyena Clan who are pretty important until Brass Body shows up.

 Overall I have to say I was pretty entertained by The Man with the Iron Fists, although I have to admit I was underwhelmed by some of the fight scenes. Not all, but some. Whether as a result of budget or because of time, some of them are shot in a haphazard way that undermines the action and choreography, or just don't have the impact they ought to (the end of the Blacksmith / Brass Body fight in particular lacks energy). It's a shame, too, because some of the fight scenes are really entertaining: the Gemini Killers vs the Lion Clan, Brass Body vs Zen-Yi, Zen-Yi vs the Wolf Clan, Jack Knife vs... well, I can't tell you that one, Silver Lion vs Zen-Yi, Lady Blossom and Bronze Lion. It's just that the camera is too close sometimes.

 While I would like to give special props to Russell Crowe for making a guy as sleazy as Jack Knife seem appealing and for clearly embracing the spirit of Ol' Dirty Bastard in order to play this role, since I don't get to talk about Dave Bautista much (read: ever), it is fair to point out that he steals the show as the heavy. I never really feared Silver Lion or Bronze Lion or even Abbott (SPOILER) but Brass Body just enters the film and starts tearing things up. He's unstoppable and he knows he's unstoppable so Brass Body just does whatever he wants to do. When you meet him the first him, he playfully picks up all of the children in the street and carries them around, and you think "hey, maybe this guy isn't so bad" until he tosses them aside with no effort (it's actually funnier looking than I'm making it sound) to talk to Silver Lion. Bautista needs to be in more movies of a non-DTV nature, because he has the same kind of charisma as a Dwayne Johnson, but he seems less genial and more menacing.

 So The Man with the Iron Fists is pretty good, not perfect, but not some hack-y attempt to cash in on fans of kung fu movies. RZA clearly takes this seriously and he did the best he could with a limited budget and relatively novice directing skills and I think he succeeded in a lot of ways. I think that he can and should make more movies and that they're going to get even better as he goes along, but this is far from the "disappointment" that I kept hearing after it came out. So yeah, it isn't perfect, and it's not going to supplant many Shaw Brothers movies in your "what chop sockey flick should we watch tonight" conversation, but I think many geeky types (especially of the Wu Tang Clan variety) will find there's a lot to like about The Man with the Iron Fists. Find a theater that serves beer, or I guess get it on Blu-Ray in a few months, kick back with some cold ones, and enjoy seeing a guy get his head punched off.


 * To be fair, the Enter the Dragon reference is very well done and you don't necessarily see it coming until it happens.

Quick Review: The Shark is Still Working - The Impact and Legacy of Jaws

 If you're the kind of person who reads about movies online (and I certainly hope you are, because otherwise you wouldn't be reading this), you've probably heard about The Shark is Still Working: The Impact and Legacy of Jaws. Chances are you heard about it a few years ago, wondered if and when you'd get a chance to see it, forgot about it, heard about it again, then forgot about it again, and then recently heard it was going to be an extra on the 37th Anniversary Blu-Ray Special Edition of Jaws: The Movie That Ruined Summer Movies Forever.

 Is that a fair characterization of Jaws? Not really, but since it comes up almost every time people mention the slow decline in quality of "Summer" movies, in large part because people get tired of talking about George Lucas and Star Wars, which was the other movie where marketing and promotion factored in as much if not more than the film itself. Of course, Jaws and Star Wars are both entertaining movies that make movies like Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones look like the garbage they are. I chose those two films coincidentally, of course. If I had seen a Transformers film one could argue I should substitute that for either film listed above, but I haven't and won't.

 So before you badger me about getting off on a tangent about the relative quality of "Summer" movies today vs. 30+ years ago, it is worth noting that this exact argument figures into The Shark is Still Working. Not in great detail, because there isn't much in The Shark is Still Working that approaches the phrase "in great detail," but it is a fun and comprehensive overview of Jaws. And by comprehensive I mean that it covers nearly everything you might have ever wondered about Jaws.

  That includes a brief look into the making of (with some discussion of Laurent Bouzereau's The Making of Jaws), voice-over actor Percy Rodrigues' role in the trailer narration, Peter Benchley's book, the poster art, the locations used in the film then and now, the story behind the U.S.S. Indianapolis monologue, Steven Spielberg's reaction to not being nominated for Best Director, interviews with nearly every surviving cast member, crew member, and Universal pictures executives, Jaws Fest, memorabilia collectors, John Williams explaining the shark theme, a beach that uses the theme to warn swimmers to get out of the ocean, the film's impact world-wide, the marketing, what happened to The Orca (and The Orca 2), what happened to Bruce the Shark, how CGI would ruin Jaws, interviews with fans including Eli Roth, M. Night Shyamalan, Greg Nicotero, Tom Savini, Robert Rodriguez, Kevin Smith, and Bryan Singer, and tributes to Martha's Vineyard locals who appeared in the film (both living and deceased).

 This doesn't cover everything you see in The Shark is Still Working, which is narrated by the late Roy Scheider and features Steven Spielberg, Richard Dreyfuss, and Scheider prominently. It's quite impressive for a fan made documentary to manage to bring together nearly everyone involved in the film (especially since quite a few major subject are no longer with us) but I had the distinct impression that there was so much to cover but not enough time to give it all proper attention. As a result, The Shark is Still Working jumps around from subject to subject before viewers really have time to settle in on the significance of what's being discussed.

 Now, I'm not saying that The Shark is Still Working should be Never Sleep Again: the Elm Street Legacy. That's a four hour overview of the entire Nightmare on Elm Street series that covers nearly anything you can think of in detail. The Shark is Still Working is 101 minutes long and manages to cover many bases, and much of what director Erik Hollander and writer James Gelet find was new to me. I don't wish to diminish what The Shark is Still Working accomplishes, but my honest reaction was that it covers as much Jaws ephemera as humanly possible but generally speaking doesn't go into depth about most of it. It's a very entertaining documentary and has some fantastic interview subjects, and the footage of Spielberg watching the Academy Award Nominations is worth the price of admission alone. (Spielberg tries not to be upset that Jaws is nominated for Best Picture but not Best Director, and his faux-disappointment masks the face of a 27 year old genuinely feeling slighted for his efforts).

 Getting back to where my review begin, the concept of Jaws laying the groundwork for Summer Blockbusters (including the repeated statements of Smith, Roth, Singer, and Shyamalan that emulating Jaws' impact weighed heavily on their own careers) is in The Shark is Still Working. But like many other elements of the Impact and Legacy of Jaws that bear more investigation, it only touches on the issue. The Shark is Still Working may not end up as the "Be All, End All" documentary about Jaws, but it is a fine conversation starter. Considering that you get this and Bouzereau's The Making of Jaws as extras on the Blu-Ray for a movie you should be buying anyway, that's a pretty good way to see The Shark is Still Working after all these years.

So You Won't Have To: Cabin Fever 2 - Spring Fever

 Despite the title in question, I didn't actually approach Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever with the intention of tearing it a new one. It is true that I haven't heard a kind word about what could at best be called a "really unnecessary sequel," but the film was directed by Ti West, who made two films I really enjoyed (The House of the Devil and The Innkeepers) and one I'm still looking forward to watching (The Roost). The version of Spring Fever released on DVD may not represent West's vision for the film (more on that in a bit), but I thought that there might be enough of his style left in Cabin Fever 2 that it could overcome the negative buzz.

 Boy howdy does it not. Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever just sucks. I'm not saying that Eli Roth's Cabin Fever is some kind of classic, but it's uneven tone is helped by some impressive gore and mounting tension in the mid-section. Cabin Fever 2, on the other hand, takes all of the offbeat comedic moments, removes all of the tension, and replaces disturbing makeup effects for an onslaught of gore and projectile blood vomit. It's a movie trying really hard to be funny and gross at the same time and feels like it desperately wants to be a throwback to 80s splatter flicks. That would be fine, but there's this fidelity to the first film (in particular, the goofy parts of Cabin Fever that don't work) that leaves the film a jumbled mess.

 Top billed Rider Strong (returning from the first film) is smashed by a bus before the opening credits roll, for reasons unknown. It turns out that the fact he sort-of survived the end of Cabin Fever and is hit by a school bus heading away from the middle of nowhere, North Carolina* to Springfield, where Spring Fever is set. His infected blood and guts being spilled all over the front of the bus is irrelevant because the water source his body was floating in at the end of Cabin Fever was the source for Down Home Water, a bottling company that delivers tainted product to the same school in question.

 We learn all of this in an animated section during the opening credits, just in case audiences a) didn't see Cabin Fever or b) weren't paying attention to the beginning of Cabin Fever 2. Seriously, while Deputy Winston (Giuseppe Andrews, also returning) is being a goofball and insisting the bus driver killed a deer (one wearing a watch and shoes), the Down Home Water truck drives by right before the animated sequence starts, and then flashes back to the same scene just in case we didn't get it the first two times. Later in the film, Deputy Winston watches the truck driver (Larry Fessenden) start spewing blood and there's a flashback to the first Cabin Fever so that we're clear that Winston went through all of this in the first movie. That's 30 minutes into Spring Fever, by the way.

 Anyway, so we've moved away from the discomfort in juxtaposing city college students against dubious hillbillies (something Roth toyed with in Cabin Fever) and to generic "small town USA" with a high school prom, some outcasts, a jerk, his ex-girlfriend, and a few caricatures disguised as school faculty (no, seriously: the biology teacher [Angela Oberer] has a harelip and yells all of her lines). Now, Cabin Fever certainly had its share of stereotypical characters, but at least Roth played around a little bit with our expectations. Not only are the characters in Spring Fever barely more than "types" but they aren't the least bit interesting. It's hard to care about someone, let alone feel invested in their living or dying, when there's no one interesting on screen. Every opportunity to do something fun with them is squandered repeatedly.

 For example, there's an 80s styled montage of high school students going to a Disco-themed Prom that continues setting up that the villainous ex-boyfriend (Marc Senter) has a black belt by having him practice in his make-shift dojo (shades of A Nightmare on Elm Street 4). So we should expect some kung fu action right? It's set up not once but twice that he's into the martial arts, but instead he just beats one guy to death with a fire extinguisher and smashes his ex-girlfriend Cassie (Aliexi Wasser) in the head with a hammer. His idea of "fighting" the protagonist, John (Noah Segan), is to shove him around. Total waste of setup there, gang.

 In deference to West, Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever was taken away from him by the producers and Lionsgate and was subject to reshoots and re-editing without his involvement. He asked to have his named removed from the film (in order to make Spring Fever an "Alan Smithee" joint), but since West wasn't in the DGA, his request was denied. How much of Spring Fever is West's and how much is the producers' is up for debate, but there are certainly chunks of the film that look like The House of the Devil and The Innkeepers.

 Okay, so I'll give him a bit of a pass for not being involved in the final product, but I'm not seeing much of the movie that worked in the first place either. Even the West-ian tracking shots happen during scenes where characters aren't doing anything engaging, and there's zero tension in the film. This is coming from a director who excels at setting up tension. Instead there's non-stop gross out moments: a janitor pees blood into the punchbowl, the sidekick Alex (Rusty Kelly) gets a blowjob from a girl with braces and mouth sores and then later squeezes bloody pus out of his dick, and the aforementioned girl with sores is also a stripper with boils all over her breasts. By the time a biohazard team swoops in, The Crazies-style, to lock everyone in the school, I didn't care that the prom turned into a bloody vomit spewing chaos. That's supposed to be the major set piece of the film, I think.

 There are two moments in Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever that surprised me, and I don't know they it can be attributed to West or not, but they are the rare moments were the goofy tone helped instead of hurt. After Deputy Winston gets Toby (Judah Friedlander), the night guard at Down Home Water, killed, he decides he no longer wants to be a cop and runs away with his cousin Herman (American Movie's Mark Borchardt). While nothing that Winston does in the movie makes any sense, there is a moment where Herman is trying to bribe a police officer into letting them drive through a restricted area. He drops some money on the ground, and as the cop bends down to get it, Herman drops the silliest looking elbow drop you're likely to see and knocks the officer out. I will admit that it was so out of left field that I laughed.

 The other moment comes from something that doesn't serve any purpose in the story but is weird enough to mention: so it's set up in biology class that Frederica (Amanda Jelks), the "fat" girl, has a crush on presumptive Prom King Rick (Thomas Blake Jr.). Rick seems to be making fun of her in class, so when he invites her to come skinny dipping with her in the pool, we expect some high school humiliation of the "fat" girl by the "popular" kids. Nope; it turns out that Rick does want to have sex with her but then the flesh eating disease starts doing its thing on her and he's killed when he accidentally falls into the pool trying to fish her out. It doesn't have any bearing on the narrative (unless you count a quick moment when Cassie sees Frederica's corpse in the pool later) but was unexpected.

 Still, two moments do not a watchable movie make. Ti West fans are best of avoiding Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever, as are fans of Cabin Fever and, well, most horror fans. DTV horror aficionados are going to have more fun with the Wrong Turn sequels than this, and its reputation as a forgettable unnecessary sequel is deserved. There's nothing you're going to get from watching this movie, and in all likelihood we'll never get the third film a superfluous animated epilogue promises (during Mardi Gras, no less). West moved on to better films, and Eli Roth has the satisfaction of knowing that for all of its faults, his Cabin Fever could be much, much worse. The proof is in the sequel.

 P.S. It's worth mentioning that Rider Strong (Cabin Fever), Larry Fessenden (I Sell the Dead), and Judah Friedlander (Feast) have a combined screen time of seven minutes in an 86 minute movie. Giuseppe Andrews is in and out of the narrative, Mark Borchardt has a slightly extended cameo, and Michael Bowen (Lost, Walking Tall) has a pointless role as the "gay for no good reason" Principal who also yells all of his lines. Don't let their names fool you in the opening credits.


 * I'm not positive it's ever made clear in Cabin Fever that the film takes place in North Carolina, or that I just know that it was filmed here. Cabin Fever 2 was also filmed in NC, but on the opposite side of the state in Wilmington.

Blogorium Review: Corman's World - Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel

 I may be totally wrong about this, but one of the points made in Alex Stapleton's fine documentary Corman's World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel is that the average "twenty year old film buff" doesn't know who Roger Corman is. During an interview late in the film, Martin Scorsese (who made Boxcar Bertha for Corman) says "I think it's very important to let the generation of today know who he is, and we all, we knew it almost forty years ago, so it's time to reintroduce him as a director, but also what he represented to American entertainment." It's probably true that the average moviegoer doesn't know who Corman is, and I don't totally disagree with Scorsese or Penelope Spheeris (who makes the earlier point about his obscurity), I would argue among film buffs that the prolific exploitation director / producer is not only well known, he's revered.

 Roger Corman is credited with producing over 400 films, most of which are some variety of exploitation if not outright schlock. He's known for making films on a shoestring budget, sometimes in less than a week, and for providing many writers, directors, actors, and producers their first "break" in Hollywood. That list includes Jack Nicholson, Joe Dante, Dennis Hopper, Peter Fonda, Bruce Dern, John Sayles, Pam Grier, Dick Miller, Johnathan Demme, Spheeris, Scorsese, Peter Bogdanovich, Allan Arkush, William Shatner, David Carradine, Robert DeNiro, Monte Hellman, Francis Ford Coppola, and Ron Howard (who directed his first film, Grand Theft Auto, for Corman). Many of these "Corman School" graduates appear in Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel, to help tell the story of a fiercely independent filmmaker.

 Corman started his career as a script reader at 20th Century Fox, but when the story editor took his notes for The Gunfighter and took credit for it, he decided to go at it alone. He produced and assistant directed Monster from the Ocean Floor, then The Fast and the Furious (using borrowed sports cars from dealerships), and learned the keys to making films cheap in order to always turn a profit. He teamed up with American International Pictures and produced and directed a string of no-budget films (Dick Miller points out a scene in Apache Woman where he, as a cowboy, kills himself as an Indian).

 Corman's World breathlessly covers his stock actors, his period at AIP, the success Corman had producing a series of Edgar Allan Poe stories with Vincent Price, and the development of "teenage" pictures with Nicholson. The influence of The Wild Angels on Easy Rider (a film that AIP refused to make with Hopper as director and accordingly lost Corman a producer's credit), the decision by Corman to take LSD before The Trip, and the only Corman movie that ever lost money, The Intruder, are covered in some degree. Jack Nicholson makes his case why The Terror doesn't make any sense (the film had at least four directors, one of which Corman can't remember), and Scorsese used the "no-frills" schedule on Boxcar Bertha to make Mean Streets (which, had Corman produced the film, would have been changed to Blaxploitation!)

 The Intruder, in fact, may be the surprise for many people who only know Corman for films like Attack of the Crab Monsters or Little Shop of Horrors. Made in 1962 by Roger and his brother Gene and based on the novel by Charles Beaumont (who also wrote the screenplay), the film is a condemnation of the segregated South, told through the perspective of a racist rabble rouser named Adam Cramer (William Shatner), who arrives in the fictional southern town of Caxton to incite riots as a result of court-ordered integration of schools. The film, which is surprisingly un-exploitative, reflects Corman's own view of racial tensions, but was met with hostility when released. When he lost money on the film, Corman opted to go back to the formula that worked, and The Intruder, while highly regarded, remains unseen by many of his exploitation devotees.

 The documentary uses a wide cross section of Corman's output, from the monster flicks to biker films, women in prison films, blaxploitation films, and science fiction cheapies, and once the rating system came into being, the gore and gratuitous nudity required every few minutes. Stapleton also includes the tidbit that when Corman left AIP to form New World Pictures, he not only distributed his own films, but also provided US releases for Bergman's Cries and Whispers, Fellini's Amarcord, Laloux's Fantastic Planet, Fassbinder's The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum, Schlöndorff's The Tin Drum, and Kurosawa's Dersu Uzala. The desire to distribute foreign films when no one else would and, in some instances, play them in drive ins, reflected Corman's actual taste in films, despite his reputation.

 Also appearing in the film are Corman's wife Julie, herself a producer, director Eli Roth and Paul W.S. Anderson, the latter a director of the remake / sequel Death Race. At the beginning and near the end of the film, Corman's World shifts to the production of Dinoshark, one of the new films Corman is producing in a partnership with the Syfy Channel (you might have seen Sharktopus, another entry last year). It's star, Eric Balfour (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake) talks about the guerrilla filmmaking techniques employed and general cost saving techniques that can make shooting the film difficult (including walkie talkies that don't work because they were made for children to play with).

 It's not too far away from the experiences of Corman's previous collaborators, who made do with too few extras, too little time, and not enough money. Bogdanovich's first "job" for Corman was taking a Russian science fiction film and turning it into The Gill Women of Venus, despite the fact that there were no women in the original film. He shot footage with Mamie Van Doren and other scantily clad women on the beach, and was told to shoot it with no sound. Once he delivered the footage, Corman decided that it needed dialogue, so the silent footage was overdubbed even though no one was speaking. Because he delivered the film in time and under budget, Bogdanovich had the opportunity to use an extra day of shooting from The Terror and made Targets. Corman may be fiercely independent and incredibly cheap (Nicholson mentions this repeatedly), but he knows how to spot talent and nuture it. Arkush and Dante started their careers as trailer editors for Corman before going on to make their own films.

 Corman's World manages to be both breezy and thorough in most points of Corman's career, but there are a few points of contention the film raises when dealing with his period running New World pictures. There's a distinct lack of coverage for the films Corman produced at New World (they instead focus on the distribution of respected foreign directors). The reason, at least one might argue, is that those films directly contradict an argument that Corman and Eli Roth make: in the wake of Jaws and Star Wars, Hollywood figured out the "Corman formula" and beat the schlockmeister at his own game. Accordingly, Corman couldn't compete with the major studios.

 What the film glosses over is the fact that a great deal of Corman's New World Pictures were ripoffs of the Hollywood films he claims beat him at his own game. It explains why Joe Dante's Piranha is moved around in such a way that the fact it was designed to cash in on Jaws never seems to come up, and other pictures like Battle Beyond the Stars (Star Wars), Forbidden World (Alien), and Galaxy of Terror (also Alien) aren't mentioned at all. Corman also claims he had no interest in slasher films, even though he put his name on a boxed set of the Slumber Party Massacre films (he produced parts 2 and 3) and The Sorority House Massacre parts one and two.

 It's not a serious problem, but Corman's World does gloss over a lot of the 1980s and 90s in favor of leaping forward into his work with the Syfy Channel (specifically Dinoshark). The "New World Pictures" section of the film is more devoted to footage from an earlier documentary about Roger Corman explaining his interest in distributing foreign films and also including interviews with director Jonathan Kaplan (Night Call Nurses) the late Paul Bartel (Death Race 2000, Eating Raoul). While it may be an odd omission, Stapleton's chronology does smoothly transition from the birth of the blockbuster to the death of the independent film (including a pointed comment from Nicholson to that effect) to the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences awarding Corman a Lifetime Achievement Oscar. At the ceremony, many of the faces we've seen during Corman's World are in attendance, as well as Quentin Tarantino, an acolyte of the Corman style. The section caps the story nicely, although it is clear that Roger Corman is far from done producing exploitation films.

 And folks, that's not a bad thing. Even if it is the Syfy Channel.

Blogorium Review: Hostel Part III

 I feel like there should be some kind of criteria for reviewing direct to video sequels. See, they're almost never going to "hold up" to their theatrical brethren, and even when they do people seem surprised, like it's not possible. I blame Disney for a lot of this, so bear with me here: while DTV isn't by any means new, and the house that Walt built isn't entirely responsible for this, they did unleash a wave of direct to video sequels to their newer, successful films. There were the Aladdin sequels, the Little Mermaid sequels, the Beauty and the Beast Christmas movie, then The Fox and the Hound II, Pocahontas II, Peter Pan: Return to Neverland, The Lion King 1 1/2 and 2, Lady and the Tramp II, Cinderella II, Cinderella III, and even a Hunchback of Notre Dame II.

 What these unwarranted, unasked for sequels all have in common is the same thing that most DTV sequels have in common: they look cheaper, they feel half-assed, and they aren't very good. Disney keeps pumping them out, and parents looking to satisfy their kids' appetite for something new (but old at the same time) keep buying / renting them. The same thing applies for action, science fiction, comedy, and especially horror fans when it comes to DTV: we know it's not going to be good, but what the hell, right?

 In the case of Hostel Part III, we're looking at a trifecta of "uh oh"'s heading in: it's DTV, it was made without the participation of Eli Roth (who wrote and directed Hostel and Hostel Part II but apparently didn't even want to produce this one), and aside from the Elite Hunting Club, has nothing to do with the first two films. I understand that very few people are of the same mind as the Cap'n when it comes to Hostel and Hostel Part II, but I think they're a step about the Saw films and other so-called "torture porn." I feel that the first one plays some interesting games with our sympathies and expectations, and that Part II takes any lingering expectations and turns them on their heads again, both with a gruesome sense of humor while simultaneously generating some serious discomfort during the "kill" scenes.

 Therefore, I walked headlong into Hostel Part III, not knowing much about the film nor wanting to know a whole lot about the "starting from scratch" plot. There are no shortage of terrible DTV sequels (American Psycho 2, any of the Children of the Corn or The Howling) but every now and then there's an unexpected (if unrequested) sequel that surprises you, even with lowered expectations. Hostel Part III is in league with the likes of 30 Days of Night: Dark Days as a movie I was pleasantly surprised by. They aren't great, and to be honest I don't know that the world would even notice if they didn't exist, but for what they are you aren't going to feel ripped off (like, say, Hellraiser: Revelations).

 Hostel Part III's secret weapon is its director, Scott Spiegel. You might not recognize the name, but he was / is a long-time collaborator with Sam Raimi and also directed Intruder and From Dusk Till Dawn 2: Texas Blood Money, which is also a "well, that was kind of fun" DTV sequel from the turn of the millennium. Spiegel is a big fan of strange camera angles and uniquely gory effects, one of which fits in really well with the Hostel series, which he produced (hence the connection).

 In fact, taking the Elite Hunting Club out of Eastern Europe and dropping it into Las Vegas might be exactly what the series needed to keep Hostel Part III from being "more of the same, but less." Once you remove the concept of visitors in a foreign land unknowingly walking right into a trap (what I'd call the "Texas Chain Saw Massacre" template) and put it in "Sin City," where people go to do horrible things and no one ever finds out (for the sake of comparison, let's call that the "Hangover" template), then the stakes have changed. The American assholes out to use the "old country" as their personal playground is gone and now they're wittingly setting themselves up for whatever horrors await.

 This time around, instead of vacationing students, we have some buddies going on a bachelor party: there's the groom, Carter (Kip Pardue), his best friend Scott (Brian Hallisay), his married pal Mike (Skyler Stone), and the guy with the crutch, Justin (John Hensley). After leaving his bride-to-be, Amy (Kelly Thiebaud) behind, Carter is informed by Scott that they aren't going to Palm Springs, but to Vegas where he's hired some "special" company in the form of Kendra (Sarah Habel) and Nikki (Zulay Henao) at a special club off of the strip. If you've seen Hostel, you can imagine where this is going.

 And while you'd be right (eventually), you're going to be wrong almost every other step of the way: Spiegel and screenwriter Michael Weiss are constantly misdirecting the audience, playing to what you assume is going to happen only to discover that they turned left instead of right. It's actually more fun than annoying, because instead of trying to guess what's coming next you just take every possible clue as either a trick or not and wait to see where Hostel Part III is taking you. The only thing you can really count on for sure is that there IS an Elite Hunting Club facility, it is in a run-down building, and that they still manage to sneak in some foreign accents.

 The other contribution to the overall Hostel series is that Part III adds another level to how EHC operates: because they're in Las Vegas and not some decrepit warehouse, the club allows executions to be performed in front of an audience (on the other side of a glass wall) who place bets on tactics victims will use to stall their killers, what kind of weapons, and in one scene how many arrows it will take to kill a guy. Everything is overseen by Flemming (Thomas Kretschmann) and Travis (Chris Coy), along with a couple of overzealous guards (Derrick Carr and Frank Alvarez) who give a different kind of personality to the operation than we saw in Hostel and Hostel Part II. Sure, at this point it's well beyond being "faceless" and terrifying as an "unknown" entity, but that's really something Roth started with the second film.

 Spiegel also doesn't let down on the kills (mostly): there's a "while they're still alive" facial surgery, bugs being poured down someone's throat (with inside-of-mouth POV shot as the bugs crawl in), some skin carving, and death by cattle prod (to be fair, that doesn't happen IN the execution room, but there aren't actually that many of those in Part III). The characters don't amount to much, but instead of douchebags or innocent art students, these guys come off as losers who are trying to be cool but just don't have it in them. They're constantly doing things that should, by all rights, have them killed well before they make it to EHC, but at least you aren't rooting for all of them to die immediately after meeting them.

 Maybe the ending stumbles a little bit, if because it's one of the two possible twists they could have gone with considering the propensity for tricks. Then again, I guess I'm already judging Hostel Part III on curve, so I can't go too hard. I'm comparing it favorably to From Dusk Till Dawn 2: Texas Blood Money, for crying out loud: it's not the kind of movie you're ever going to put on for friends who want to see a "scary" horror movie or who are in for a new experience. It's more the kind of movie you'll rent one night, be reasonably happy with, and maybe mention it to a buddy that's into watching all kinds of horror movies, even DTV ones. By that criteria, I feel like Hostel Part III will be a nice respite from the normal crap passing itself off as a "sequel".

Summer Fest Supplemental: Ack!

 Oh my, Summer Fest visitors, how the day has gotten away from the Cap'n. Work does that, and I just haven't had the time to build up a proper backlog of reviews, but if I can squeeze it in tonight, I'll get you a movie review and then try to get some more content up tomorrow after my shift ends.

 In the meantime, might I suggest a few reviews from earlier this year of films that have a place at any Summer or Horror Fest:

All the Boys Love Mandy Lane

The Boogens

Pontypool

A Nightmare on Elm Street

Cabin Fever

George Romero's "Dead" Saga: Night of the Living Dead

Dawn of the Dead

Day, Land, Diary, and Survival of the Dead


 Okay, I'll see what I can get you before bed time. Until then!

Retro Review: Cabin Fever

Today the Cap'n will be looking back at a more recent film I have an interesting history with, Eli Roth's Cabin Fever. As the film was partially shot in North Carolina (Mocksville, Danbury, Winston-Salem, and High Point), there was a big to-do made of its release in 2003 at The Carousel in Greensboro: the lobby was covered with camping-related paraphernalia, the insides of the candy displays tainted with bloodstains, and production stills and press information were abundant. I remember this because I saw the film with a soon-to-be roommate in a packed auditorium of gorehounds looking for their horror fix.

And they got it, in abundance: Cabin Fever is, whatever else it may strive to be, an effective and mostly disgusting horror film. In that respect, I recall being impressed with Roth's first feature length film. As I wrote in a 2003 recap:

Cabin Fever - Eli Roth learned a thing or two from Evil Dead. That's crucial to understanding the marketing behind this low budget gem. Cabin Fever is atypical of horror movies, and that bugs a lot of horror fans, but this isn't quite a scare fest. It's a genre bender, pitting the cast of a Teen Sex Comedy in a Cabin in the Woods Horror Movie. While it has problems (the movie doesn't know where to end and stumbles a bit in the final act), it's nevertheless a nice first film to build a career of off, and they marketed the shit out of this movie (when i went to see it, great steps were made to replicate set pieces, "authentic" paraphernalia, etc.) plus it doesn't look as cheap as it was to make, and there are some wonderful nods to past cheapie thrillers.

My compatriot hated the movie. In fact, he still hates the movie, for reasons I can't fault him for. After talking about Cabin Fever several times, I almost totally flipped on the mixed-to-positive review and decided that the film's weaknesses overcame its strengths. I convinced myself that the Peter Jackson blurb on the poster (and subsequent DVD and Blu-Ray releases) was hyperbolic, and that the film's seriously uneven tone rendered the whole experience moot.

But that wasn't the end for me; for whatever reason, I couldn't shake Cabin Fever, couldn't totally sell myself on the write-off, even if there are serious problems with the movie (which I promise I will actually get to in a moment). So I picked up a used rental copy from Hollywood Video (or Blockbuster, I can't recall), and watched it again. I had the same mixed reaction, and ended up selling the movie when money got tight. But then I'd see it used again somewhere when things weren't so rough. Friends began poking fun at me, asking why I'd keep buying "something you hated"? I didn't have a good answer, so I watched Cabin Fever again last night, for the first time in three or four years.

The damnedest thing is that for 90% of the film, Eli Roth made a really good horror film. Yes, it has lots of little nods to The Evil Dead, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, The Burning, and Friday the 13th, but beyond that Roth has the essentials down pat in constructing a solid horror film. He sets up the stakes well, isolates the characters, provides semi-credible reasons why the college students partying in the cabin might have trouble finding help nearby, ratchets up the gore in a disturbing way, and sets the characters against each other without ever feeling forced.

What doesn't work, the other 10% (with one exception), happens either before they're introduced to the virus or after they try to get back to town. Everything in between the set-up and the closing works fine, save for the introduction of Deputy Winston (Giuseppe Andrews), a moment so atypical of the rest of the film, so reminiscent of Twin Peaks (not coincidentally, as Roth worked for David Lynch prior to Cabin Fever) right down to the specially written Angelo Badalamenti theme, that it grinds the horror to a halt.

The rest of the major issues come at critical points in setting up or resolving characters, which is why Cabin Fever leaves many with a bad taste in their mouths. I will provide a handy list, which is vaguely spoiler, although at this point in the review I'm taking it on faith you've already seen the film:

- Bert (James DeBello) and the "squirrel shooting" scene.
- The harmonica guy.
- The really fake deer.
- The lines "because they're gay," "don't be gay," and "what are you, retarded?"
- The "pancakes" kid, his dad, and the strangely effeminate store owner.
- Actually, just about everything that happens at the General Store.
- Marcy (Cerina Vincent)'s opening speech about college.
- A misleading racist joke at the beginning of the film that has a payoff at the end that, at best, feels disingenuous.

I'm torn about Grim, Eli Roth's stoner interloper that shows up right after Bert, Marcy, Paul (Rider Strong), Jeff (Joey Kern), and Karen (Jordan Ladd) show up at the cabin. On the one hand, there's nothing really funny about his stupid dog joke or the fact that he really only exists so that there's one more body for Paul to find. His dog, Doctor Mambo, could have been anybody's around the lake and the threat would be just as credible. On the other hand, I did laugh at how stupid the dog joke is (sorry, I won't spoil that one for you), and it makes up for the random and sort of pointless "bowling alley" story that Paul tells at the campfire.

The problem is that the tone of everything listed above is so incongruous with the rest of the film, so decidedly quirky, that it disrupts the horror, and not in a good way. I'm all for breaking the tension with a well placed joke (Sam Raimi and Peter Jackson do it masterfully), but the "jokes" in Cabin Fever aren't so much funny as they are really strange. They don't seem to belong in the same universe as the horror film we're watching, and their presence while audiences settle and and right before they leave do undermine the rest of the movie, which is, again, really good.

I am aware that the Blu-Ray of Cabin Fever is a director's cut, one that apparently smooths over the jagged edges of the film, and having watched it again and (mostly) enjoyed the experience, I think I'll look into that cut. While I can't find any fault in the criticisms of the Cabin Fever I saw then and again tonight, there is enough of a pretty damn good horror movie inside to keep me from dismissing it again.

Oh, by the way: while it's not apparently on the Blu-Ray, the DVD has an extra called "Chick Vision" that raises a pair of silhouetted hands over the screen during "scary" parts, and it's actually kind of fun in small doses. I don't know that I could watch the whole film that way, but it might be fun for parties.

The Blogorium: Home of Second Chances

Here at the Blogorium, the Cap'n has an inexplicable tendency to give movies another chance, especially ones I didn't like the first (or sometimes second) time around. Why I'm willing to give these movies (say, House of 1000 Corpses) another shot when I'm not willing to give others (say, Twilight) a shot at all remains one of the great mysteries of our time.

Friends have pointed out that this is attributable to some masochistic streak in the Cap'n: not only can't I just let a bad movie "go," I won't let it go, returning for more and more doses of disappointment, disgust or, worst of all, boredom. And it is true that in some cases I simply can't understand why it is something clicks with so many people yet is a dud to me, and I'll try to approach the offending feature from various perspectives. The aforementioned House of 1000 Corpses is such and example: to this day I can't figure out why anyone would give something so shoddy a pass, yet almost everyone I know does. Many of them really like it, which boggles my mind further, as I can't find anything to like in that train wreck disguising itself as "homage" horror.

Last summer I found myself yet again sitting through Shit Coffin (many of you might know it by the moniker Friday the 13th the Remake) with Professor Murder because the people who don't want to outright ignore it find the moniker "Shit Coffin" to be a sign of strong emotions, ergo something they should see (The reality is that "Shit Coffin" is a perfectly reasonable name for the film, an adequate descriptor of the content therein, even if explaining why is folly. It's just easier for you to see for yourself that the film is, in fact, a "Shit Coffin").

Anyway, so as not to risk pushing the Not Safe For Work boundaries any further, there I was once again watching Platinum Dunes vomit all over a horror franchise that I counted myself a fan of, still unclear on exactly what was appealing to the people who saw this: Friday the 13th fans had nothing to go for, people vaguely aware of the films might find some cheap thrills but if they thought even half a second about the massive plot holes they'd tune out, and stoners who would overlook all of the above don't go see movies. They can't smoke in the auditorium and the drive is too much for them. I will admit that Friday the 13th the Remake has its own stupid charms, stemming from the lazy way the film is constructed, and I hate it less than Platinum Dunes' A Nightmare on Elm Street the Remake (which if you're wondering, is in fact Shit Coffin 2).

In some instances, I find that second chances work out. While it didn't with Sin City for example, I was more forgiving of The Fifth Element, a film I hated in high school (for reasons I don't quite understand) but am now glad I came back to. If I had stuck with my "I hate Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone," I wouldn't have given Chamber of Secrets a shot and would accordingly have missed out on films that improved as time went on. The same can be said of The Devil's Rejects, functionally a sequel to House of 1000 Corpses (a film I hate) that I found myself pleasantly surprised to enjoy as much as I did. Interestingly, the exact same dynamic is the case with Rob Zombie's Halloween remakes - I hate the first one, but really like the second, and have tried (with no success) to "understand" why people like the earlier remake.

All of this is my way of letting you know that I'm toying with watching Cabin Fever again for tomorrow's Retro Review: Eli Roth's debut is a movie that I kind-of liked when I first saw it, talked myself out of it shortly afterward, watched again on home video, didn't really enjoy for a few particular scenes I'll highlight tomorrow, but can't shake. It's usually the first DVD / Blu-Ray to go if I need to sell something, yet I've been known to pick it up with other used DVDs if the deal is good. I realize that makes no sense, so hopefully we can work through it together tomorrow. Stay tuned.

Special From the Vaults: To the Wayback Machine

Okay, wayback might be pushing a little bit, but this is (arguably) the oldest piece I could find that the Cap'n wrote about film. There may be some high school related ephemera, but as I've lost all of the "year end recaps" prior to 2003 to the vast wasteland of outdated email accounts, what I have left is a recap from nearly eight years ago.

To set things up: as it states in the first sentence, the Cap'n emailed my end of year roundups to friends, family, et al. For years, I didn't do much blogging, and what I did was limited to silly things like livejournal that are almost entirely gibberish*, so this is about as "readable" as they come.

That said, punctuation is still a mess, sentence fragments abound, and I had a very hard time capitalizing letters for some reason, often arbitrarily. I opted not to change anything, so what's below can be embarrassing, at least to me. Still, it's a valuable learning tool, or if nothing else an example of how far I have (or haven't) come. Enjoy.

---

I send this out every year as an email, but there's no reason you shouldn't see it too, so here you go. comment freely.


i'd be remiss not to note that this year is by and large the YEAR OF SEQUELS. it was a good year for franchises (or a bad one, depending on your opinion) but at any rate we saw a lot of remakes, second and third chapters, and reruns of movies we thought had already come and gone.
as oscar season begins the grand ascension to top of all things media, i'll go out on a limb and offer what i think will end up doing the golden globe/oscar strut. Let's see... The Last Samurai, Mystic River, 21 Grams, Big Fish, Cold Mountain, The House of Sand and Fog, Mona Lisa Smile, and Return of the King. How many of these did i see? just one. (i don't anticipate seeing any of the other ones, except Big Fish. i am as curious as anyone else.)

now that we have oscar hogs out of the way ( i can not and will not vouch for the quality of any one i haven't seen, but expect to see some variation on them this spring, depending on advertising dollars) i'll quickly dispense of other movies i wanted to see but didn't get to: Lost in Translation, Max, Intolerable Cruelty, Dirty Pretty Things, Matchstick Men, and ... well, i'm sure there are more. it's always difficult to remember when you're in the midst of a list.

there are, of course, the movies i didn't want to see, but any raves/pans/etc would be appreciated: Underworld, Gothika, Charlie's Angels Full Throttle, Freaky Friday, 2 Fast 3 Furious, ahahaha yeah you got me, i don't really care if these movies were 5 Star brilliant! i don't plan on seeing them. ever. (try me, davis. try me)

normally i rank these fuckers, but to be honest, i just don't know how to put these above/below each other this year. i enjoyed/hated all of the following for various reasons, so i'm just going to list them and tell you what i thought. (to hell with organization!)

in no particular order:


The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King - with a few minor quibbles, i thought it was great. i anticipate the extended version will fix all of the little quirks i had, but nevertheless you have to hand it to Peter Jackson for setting out to make this epic and succeeding in a way George Lucas and The Wachowski Brothers could only dream of. Gollum/Smeagol looked even better this time around, and the arc of the movie kept my eyes on screen the whole time (this is rare) i can dig it. as an entire series, i expect the lord of the rings will be remembered down the line with all other "classics" and for that, hurrah. the cast was uniformly strong, but special kudos to Miranda Otto, Sean Astin, Andy Serkis, Ian McKellan, and Elijah Wood. and Shelob looked better than i thought she would.

Spider - This is the type of movie Cronenberg hasn't tried since Dead Ringers or The Dead Zone; a character study without the obvious horror manifesting. the slow unraveling of Spider Clegg's mind, the use of images and colour, editing choices designed to disorientate... Spider demands to be viewed repeatedly, there are no other options. Ralph Fiennes gets away from dreck like Maid To Order 2: JLo, and makes this fragile, twisted wreck of a man someone we want unravel the mess inside of his brain. kudos to Miranda Richardson for taking a triple role and not letting anything slide into parody. i don't want to spoil Spider for anyone, so go rent it.

The Rundown - Yes, THAT the Rundown. The one with the Rock. And Stiffler. And Christopher Walken (and Spud from Trainspotting, Ewan Bremmer) It sets itself up early to let the audience know this is nothing beyond a popcorn film, and by that criteria it succeeds admirably. Basically, it's just Midnight Run in the jungle, so if you liked Midnight Run, you'll love it. Dwayne Johnson has a steady career ahead of himself if he chooses the action-comedy genre. (he has an amiable, goofy charm, and a physique that lend him well. oh, and a passing of the torch from arnold. watch the beginning carefully) Stiffler is, well, Stiffler. If you like Seann William Scott in general, you'll have no complaints. Christopher Walken is just CHEWING scenery here, and it's worth watching just to see him imitate the "christopher walken" parody (and during a tooth fairy metaphor, no less) dumb fun.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre - would be less polarizing if it had ANY other name. for one thing, it's just not fair to compare it to the original, because OF COURSE it doesn't stand up. as a gritty, high level hollywood thriller, it works pretty well. the camp value of the sequels is nowhere to be found, and leatherface is scary again, not just some guy in a dress. there's an attempt to tie this in to Ed Gein a little more, and to provide a back story to Leatherface, but honestly, who came to see that? TCM is a decent horror movie, and it will only disappoint those expecting the original or better. speaking of the original...

House of 1,000 Corpses - tries too hard to attain the same "shock value" of 70's horror movies (last house on the left, friday the 13th, tcm, etc) but somewhere along the line Rob Zombie forgot that a horror movie needs a story or at the very least someone you care about. House of 1,000 has neither (nor does it have the 1,000 corpses boasted). Instead, we have some hokum about "Dr. Satan", a family that, aside from being crazy, has nothing to do with him, and a gas station/museum/carnival ride owner who curses with intermittent dialogue. this movie is rife with bad choices, and i can't honestly believe that it has a cult audience. i could go on and on about the amateur acting, the miserable "plot twists", or the longest pull back for a death scene ever, but instead i'll just chuckle thinking about Agatha Crispies cereal.

Kill Bill Volume One - Quentin Tarantino's ode to grindhouse flicks of the seventies is a labour of love, and it shows. From his choices in casting to the music or costumes and editing, Quentin lays his inner film geek on the line here. Uma Thurman is a sight to behold in this movie. Cheers to her for coming back strong and shaking off Mia Wallace once and for all. If you haven't seen Kill Bill, know this: This is a VIOLENT movie. I won't say film. This isn't art, this is a loving tribute to a genre with a built in audience, and Tarantino knew it. He doesn't disappoint, and i expect Volume Two to be even better. As a film maker, he's stepping up his game, and Kill Bill is technically superior without being too gimmicky.

Cabin Fever - Eli Roth learned a thing or two from Evil Dead. That's crucial to understanding the marketing behind this low budget gem. Cabin Fever is atypical of horror movies, and that bugs a lot of horror fans, but this isn't quite a scare fest. It's a genre bender, pitting the cast of a Teen Sex Comedy in a Cabin in the Woods Horror Movie. While it has problems (the movie doesn't know where to end and stumbles a bit in the final act), it's nevertheless a nice first film to build a career of off, and they marketed the shit out of this movie (when i went to see it, great steps were made to replicate set pieces, "authentic" paraphenilia, etc.) plus it doesn't look as cheap as it was to make, and there are some wonderful nods to past cheapie thrillers.

The Animatrix, Matrix Reloaded, and Revolutions - First, let it be known i am NOT a matrix fan. when i saw the first movie, i hated it. It felt like someone had taken Dark City and put kung fu in place of acting chops. That being said, the Animatrix was a nice step towards not hating Reloaded as much. Providing some interesting context to the more interesting aspects of this series makes it head and shoulders better than the movies. Now, onto Reloaded. I was shocked how bad this movie was. The actors were half assing it (even Laurence Fishburne looked like he forgot how to emote), the dialogue was stilted and unecessarily complicated (i'm sorry, you can't try to talk over the audiences head to trick them into thinking that it's brilliant. it JUST DOESN'T WORK) and all the new characters were perfunctory and grating. Speaking of which, what the hell happened to the Twins in Revolutions? They just vanished! The Architect was SO unecessary, as was his scene with Neo. ugh. i could go on about the rave, blah blah shitty movie. BAD BAD MOVIE. the only bright spot was Hugo Weaving, who seemed to understand you can still have fun in these movies. Revolutions was better than Reloaded. i'll give it that. This doesn't mean i didn't have problems with it, but at least the sense of URGENCY was back in this one. people cared about their fate, and it seemed like something was actually at stake. BUT, this does not explain how someone with a pipe CLEARLY sticking out of their lungs can talk for seven minutes before dying. i enjoyed anything involving Agent Smith or the Siege on Zion in this one, but not much else. and the ending.... ugh!


Once Upon a Time in Mexico - seemed to disappoint a lot of people. I'm not sure why. Well, i suppose because they forgot this was the sequel to El Mariachi and Desperado, or they at the very least didn't bother to double check those movies. really. in the opening credits it clearly says
"A Robert Rodriguez FLICK". this is not high art, folks. this is his attempt to create the spaghetti western in mexico, and it adheres pretty closely. the ads were misleading, yes, playing up the epic nature of it, altering the role of Johnny Depp and leading people to believe Salma Hayek was in the movie more than she was (in reality, she was shooting Frida) but this is nevertheless the over the top wrap up to the El Mariachi Series. While Antonio Banderas, Danny Trejo, Willem Dafoe, Cheech Marin, Ruben Blades, and Mickey Rourke are having a ball, this movie belongs to Johnny Depp. He is utterly brilliant here, twisting a plot device character and giving him the type of quirks you can't help but admire. He steals the show out from everyone (again, but i'll get to that later...) Robert Rodriguez helms it all with a love for his craft and it feels like he's having a grand time with this film, just like..

Spy Kids 3-D - Yes, i freely admit to seeing the Spy Kids films and loving all three of them. Get past the stupid trailers; these are top rate kids films that adults can watch and enjoy too. the use of 3-D in this movie is more organic than i thought, and it boasts a higher rate cast than you'd imagine.. (don't believe me? check this out: Antonio Banderas, Carla Gugino, Ricardo Montalban,
Sylvester Stallone, Mike Judge, Salma Hayek, Steve Buscemi, Alan Cumming, George Clooney, Cheech Marin, Danny Trejo, Tony Shaloub, Bill Paxton, and Elijah Wood) yep, that's someone from every robert rodriguez movie represented. and finally, someone reminds us why people liked Sylvester Stallone! See these movies, i promise they're better than you'd think.

Freddy vs. Jason - If you liked the Friday the 13th series or the Nightmare on Elm Street series, you've already seen this. If you don't like them, don't bother. I mean, you aren't going to like it. If you love your horror tongue in cheek, you appreciate a film that balances both series with affectionate nods in both directions, then Freddy vs. Jason will not disappoint. The kills are better than even Jason X boasted, and despite the fact it's not Kane Hodder under the hockey mask, everything works. Can you pass up seeing Robert Englund as Freddy again?

Willard - Is not like the original. the original Willard was, to be fair, bad. It was cheap and not really scary (however it's not a bad as Ben, the unecessary sequel) This Willard is a very atmospheric black comedy, and you really just can't beat Crispin Glover and R. Lee Ermey on screen (Mulholland Dr fans, do note Laura Herring is in this movie too). Don't expect scares and i predict you'll find Willard is hilarious and evil. plus the dvd has the most informative commentary you will ever hear (for the music video of crispin glover's cover of "ben")

Final Destination 2 - I didn't really watch all of it, to be honest. Adam was drunk and just too entertaining. the death scenes were more gruesome (and inventive) than the first one...

Pirates of the Carribean: Curse of the Black Pearl - was as much fun as you can have at the movies and SOOOO much better than i could've guessed. Anythin based on a Disney Ride automatically breeds suspicion (and later you'll see my theory validated) Orlando Bloom, Kiera Knightley, Johnathan Pryce and Geoffery Rush all do wonderful jobs playing in the shadow of JOHNNY DEPP. just like Once Upon a Time in Mexico, he owns this film. how people forget him year after year baffles me, but the mere fact he's involved in the sequel guarantees i'll check it out. Gore Verbinski has settled himself into steady groove of successful genre films, and more power to him for it (yes, this is how you follow up The Mexican and The Ring, folks) entertaining all around. yarrrr.

Finding Nemo - It's Pixar, folks. Need I say more? The most consistent animated film company hits another one out of the park. Where does it sit with the others? for me, somewhere between Monsters, Inc. and A Bug's Life. Not quite Toy Story or Toy Story 2, but a damn sight better than any other american kid's animation.

The Haunted Mansion - Why? because it was the Haunted Mansion or Gothika, and Mission Valley was closer and cheaper. Yes, it's as bad as you suspect, save for two things: 1) if you like to mercilessly rip into Terrence Stamp (and oh boy, do we) or 2) you want to see a film that ends with a BRIDGE FROM LOUISIANA TO HAWAII. that's right. Terrence Stamp can't honestly believe he's on par with Richard Burton when he's in a film this bad. Eddie Murphy! Get back together with Steve Martin and Frank Oz! Make good comedies. Sheesh...

Bad Santa - Cannot be advertised. You need to understand that. Ads do not do this film justice. It's true, this is the most mean spirited Christmas movie you'll ever see. Bad Santa earns its R rating in the first two minutes of the film, and it's as funny as anything you'll see next year. i promise. Billy Bob Thornton is laugh out loud funny, and you get Samir from Office Space, the MOST pathetic kid in a christmas movie ever, plus Bernie Mac and Tony Cox. From Terry Zwigoff (Ghost World and Crumb) and The Coen Brothers. ok? get crack-a-lackin (ohhhh you idiot terrence stamp...)

Confessions of a Dangerous Mind - Which i believe came out at the tail end of 2002, but i saw this year and couldn't then, so there. George Clooney and Charlie Kaufman turn Chuck Barris's "unauthorized" autobiography into a whirlwind of a movie, and anchoring everything is Sam Rockwell is Barris. This movie sinks or swims on his shoulders, and he handles it so well i'm amazed he's not a bigger star by now. look for him to break out big time soon. Clooney is no slacker his first time behind the camera, either. avoiding digital effects, he uses in camera trickery to pull off the more surreal elements of the storyline. not perfect, but a fine effort.

X2 - aka x-men whatever. the movie i saw didn't have the words x-men united anywhere in it, so i'll just call it X2. an improvement in almost every way on x-men (hey, i said almost, but i'm getting ahead of myself) there are plenty of sly references toward the x-universe and hints of things to come (and judging by box office receipts there will be an x3 and 4, etc) alan cumming is spot on as nightcrawler, and it's always a joy seeing Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellan on screen together. that being said, the fact that it's a chapter in a larger story means that characters are getting spotty at best screen time (whereas Storm suffered in the first film, Cyclops is pushed almost to a cameo in this film, whereas Logan is still the focus. Rogue doesn't do much but react to Iceman and Pyro, and aside from hinting at the Phoenix to come, Jean Grey isn't particularly important to this movie. the beginnings of the brotherhood of evil mutants was cool, plus a pre-fur Beast, Collosus, and indications of Omega Red and Gambit in the future) a solid, if not perfect, second entry. it won't be the weak link in the series i suspect.

Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines - Was so much better than it deserved to be. Ok, i'll admit i had ZERO expectations for this film (James Cameron, Linda Hamilton, Edward Furlong all drop successively out of this project, early word is terrible) it's true, i never saw U-571, so i didn't know if Johnathan Mostow could handle a Terminator film, but when it's not your franchise, how could you? Yes, this movie is alternately derivative and slyly nodding towards the other terminator films (the sunglasses motif was cute, and seeing dr. silberman again was fun) Nick Stahl and Claire Danes do the best they can with the script they've got, and Kristianna Loken one up's Robert Patrick as the T-X, plus the film boasts the bleakest ending of any summer "blockbuster" you're likely to see. it shouldn't have been fun, but it is.

Bad Boys 2 - Is too much of a guy/buddy cop action movie for its own good. two and a half hours of over the top violence, gay bashing, and car crashes is too much. really. if you like seeing endless shots up women's skirts, digging through corpses, bullets flying or repeated jokes about dating someone's sister, by all means, this is your movie. if you want to see joe pantoliano and peter stormare cash a paycheck, this is your movie. if you need to stop thinking and say "wow, that car flipped twice over the boat" or you love flagrant product placement, whooooa is this your film. it is not something i'll be watching again.

Looney Tunes: Back in Action - I didn't like the movie itself, but Joe Dante has a knack for detail and throwaway gags that is unrivaled. Seriously, just read the names of the Spy Movie Posters in Brendan Fraser's house (all starring Timothy Dalton) or the fact that a new Batman being filmed on the Warner lot has Roger Corman directing it. Or perhaps seeing Scooby and Shaggy berating Matthew Lilliard. Or Ron Pearlman. or the Area 52 scene (complete with monsters from Fiend without a Face, This Island Earth, The Day of the Triffids, Dr. Who, Forbidden Planet, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Them!, The Beast from Haunted Cave and the Man from Planet X) or a scene for scene parody of Psycho's most famous scene. if these things sound interesting to you, see Looney Tunes. otherwise, please don't

Secretary - I can't remember if i reviewed this last year or not. anyway, i'll put it this way for you: it's a more fucked up story about true love than Punch-Drunk Love. Maggie Gyllenhaal needs to stay away from things like Mona Lisa Smile (yes, i just checked imdb, and i came out in 2002, but i don't think i saw it until 2003)

and finally, how can i end this but with the only movie appropriate for such an occasion:


The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen - This is a trainwreck of a movie. first, it's crucial to understand if you like the comic AT ALL, you should avoid this movie. or pretend you never read the comic. please, because the logic leaps made in this disaster will send any rational reader into head-scratching territory. let me begin with the premise of the comic, as it's BASICALLY the same as the movie.

Okay, it's the end of the Nineteenth Century. Imagine, if you will, the Mina Harker, Allan Quatermain, Dr. Henry Jekyll, Hawley Griffin (the invisible man), and Captain Nemo are in fact real and living in different parts of the world. MI-6 (yes, the one that James Bond will eventually work for) recruits them to locate a cavorite capable of defying gravity (from H.G. Wells's The First Men In the Moon) that was stolen by a crime lord. Sherlock Holmes is presumed dead but rumours abound he may still be alive. this is the premise of the first volume of the league of extraordinary gentlemen.

LXG (as the movie will be known from here out) differs in the following ways:

-Allan Quatermain is not an opium addict languishing away in Africa, but a retired legend.

-Mina Harker is a Vampire, rather than just a "scandalized" woman.

-Captain Nemo practices Kung Fu.

-Hawley Griffin is not the invisible man, but rather it's a thief who finds his serum.

-Tom Sawyer and Dorian Gray are added.

ok, some of this is curious (particularly Tom Sawyer, who in the 1890s would be in his 40's or 50's, not a twenty something working for the US Government [why? because the adventures of tom sawyer takes place before the civil war, putting it 30-40 years before the events of this story]) but ok, for the sake of a more "interesting" movie, we take these changes in stride. right? why then would you put Mina Harker in BROAD DAYLIGHT not once but twice?? Why is Dorian Gray suddenly unable to look at his portrait? i will forgive the city of venice for having waterways wide enough for the Nautilus to fit through and streets in which to have a CAR chase (not just a car, but a six cylinder 1930's style rolls royce rip off). Why betray the laws you set up? that's just lazy film making.

to be kind to LXG, there are some cute attempts to copy things from the comics (nods towards previous Leagues, etc) but ultimately the film fails because it can't get around the horrible logic holes it presents. (ok, one more, and that's it. but this one is a doozy. the villain of the film is James Moriarty, who supposedly died with Holmes. ok. same in the comic, except in LXG he's no older than mid-thirties! this is a man who by Doyle's accounts was older than Holmes himself. the movie even goes so far to insinuate it's Rasputin! [yeah, that Rasputin] before some Mission Impossible Pull Away tm makeup reveals the true identity) anyway, the cast seems to realize how rotten this is and hams it up accordingly. and if you're ever planning to use Hyde again, just go digital! please. the prosthetics looked terrible, and the transformation is laugh out loud bad.

anyway, don't see this movie. or do, but make sure you tear it a new one. it won't be hard, believe me.


that's it. i couldn't do any more if i wanted to. perhaps dvds in another one, but for now, you've got your hands full. feel free to respond, critique... oh you know the drill.




* What I could find in the way of "movie reviews" from 2001-2005 were laughable, incoherent, quasi-write ups.

From the Vaults Double Feature: Hostel II and Ocean's Thirteen (?)

editor's note: To give you some idea of how much older Blogorium entries drop off as "From the Vaults" winds down, I present a double review of two sequels. I'd be willing to bet that no other reviewer ever mentioned them in the same post, nor should they. That being said, I believe that both films a (under) represented fairly.


I've attempted to get people I know who like horror movies to at least watch Hostel, but for many of them, it got caught up in the wave of post-Saw garbage and they consider it to be as crappy, and to some of you, it might be. From where I'm sitting, Hostel is light years better than Saw, and this is coming from someone who grew to HATE Cabin Fever for it's inconsistency in tone and inability to end. Eli Roth made a giant leap forward with Hostel, and it really is a more mature picture than anyone will ever believe it to be.

That being said, if I can't convince you all to watch Hostel, then there's no chance you're going to see Hostel Part II, which from everything I've read is at least tonally a departure from the original, and plays familiar notes in unexpected ways. So yes, I do want to see Hostel Part II, without the trepidation I approached the first film with.

On the other hand, I've totally given up trying to convince people to see the Ocean's movies. Again, it's an issue of people already making up their minds about a sequel to a sequel of a remake that many of you probably didn't like anyway. That Ocean's Twelve was Steven Soderbergh's ode to European films of the sixties is beside the point, because you either want to see them or you don't. I remember when I saw Ocean's Twelve with Jenn she enjoyed it, and I think Andrea fell asleep during Ocean's Eleven. Call me crazy, but I really like the group of actors who come together to hang out, and that easygoing vibe permeates the screen and in turn makes for two hours of harmless fun. Is it going to improve your quality of life? Probably not, but it is a good time.

The decision to see Ocean's Thirteen turned out to be both necessary and serendipitous; when I called Liz to follow up on a raincheck for last weekend's movie, it turned out she hadn't seen Hostel or either of the Ocean's movies, and since it wasn't imperative to see Ocean's Twelve or Ocean's Eleven in order to watch Thirteen (whereas it seemed pretty necessary to have seen Hostel), that's what we went to see.

Earlier in the evening, Adam called to give me his two cents on Hostel Part II, and as the conversation went on, it became abundantly clear that his minor problems with the movie were actually HUGE problems and he came to the realization that he really wasn't going to ever see it again, which didn't give me much hope. I saw Hostel because he recommended it, and we have a similar taste when it comes to horror movies. If he truly recommends something (not like when he says "go see *snicker* Venom") then it's worth seeing to me, but his problems with Hostel Part II echo our problems with Cabin Fever, and apparently the plan to replace the more lurid aspects of Hostel to make things creepier may not quite work. He said it was a better rental, so I'll probably do that.

However, Ocean's Thirteen was perfectly enjoyable, as I expected it would be, and easy enough to acclimate to that Liz didn't have a problem keeping up with the who's who. It doesn't hurt that the films all rely on certain key elements: dialogue which is short handed to the point of being impossible to decipher, characters double and triple switching plans, and surprise twists near the end, so that if you're willing to keep up with the movie itself then knowing the character connections isn't crucial. I'm curious why neither Julia Roberts or Catherine Zeta Jones weren't available for even a cameo, but there was more than enough fun in adding Al Pacino, Ellen Barkin, David Paymer, Julian Sands, Bob Einstein (aka Super Dave Osborne), and nice repeat performances from Vincent Cassel and Eddie Izzard (who has a MUCH larger role than in Ocean's Twelve).

Again, I know I'm not going to change many minds here, but I still say Ocean's Thirteen is as good as any of them, and I'm sure it'll fund the next three or four oddball Steven Soderbergh film projects.

From the Vaults: Blogorium Review - Grindhouse

(editor's note: the power situation is far from resolved. That being said, I've been slowly working on a proper review of A Serious Man, though I really feel like I should watch the movie again first. The short version is that I loved the movie. I can't help but feel like another go-round would be helpful, as I get the impression that I'm missing something. Like the first time I saw Barton Fink, but more ephemeral. Anyway, enjoy the review of Grindhouse, from shortly after its release)

It occurred to me that while in Cary, the absolute perfect conditions existed to do something I hadn't done in a long time, which was see a movie with Adam and Cranford, in this case the almost** perfect pairing of theatre to movie; Mission Valley and Grindhouse.

That's right, I watched it, and by golly, I liked it. A whole lot. Cranford and I liked Planet Terror more than Death Proof, and Adam really dug Death Proof. We all liked the trailers equally, and agreed we'd go see any of them that became movies.

The easiest way to digest the experience is just to break it down, because it's more than just two 80 minute movies with trailers, it really is quite a package deal to be involved in.

After stock cards for Coming Attractions and "thanks for coming" spots you might recognize from Kill Bill, we get the first trailer, which is

MACHETE

"He gets the women. He kills the bad guys" "If you hire him to kill the bad guys, make sure the bad guys aren't you" "they fucked with the wrong mexican" Machete plays like the Mark Wahlberg movie Shooter that we'd actually want to see. Danny Trejo kills people in four or five different and brutal ways, and then Cheech Marin is a priest who walks around with two shotguns avenging his brother.

Then we get a title screen that involve kittens and the old R rating screen, one that I admittedly had never seen, and then it's time for

PLANET TERROR

I forgive Robert Rodriguez for Sin City. Really, I do. If you're one of those people who really, REALLY liked The Faculty and From Dusk Til Dawn, or you have a real love jones for the Globus / Cannon era of 80's Sci-Fi / Action / Horror movies that ripped the shit off of John Carpenter and George Romero, then hands down this will be your favorite of the films. Not only does Rodriguez play by those movie rules, he also makes fun of them in ways that don't stand out like a sore thumb.

And look at that cast! Michael Biehn (The Terminator), Jeff Fahey (Body Parts), Tom Savini (please, like I need to tell you who that is), Josh Brolin (The Goonies), Naveed Andrews (Sayid on Lost), Bruce Willis, Nicky Katt (Insomnia), Marley Shelton (Sin City), Michael Parks (From Dusk Til Dawn), Freddy Rodriguez (Six Feet Under), Stacy Ferguson (Yes, Fergie), and Rose McGowan (Scream...?)

I saved McGowan and Ferguson for last because it'd make sense for them to be weak links, but damned if Rose McGowan doesn't really steal this movie right out from everyone else. BEFORE the Machine Gun Leg even. I was beginning to feel like the machine gun looked a little dumb in the ads but much like Shaun of the Dead, context really is everything.Fergie doesn't actually have much to do, but she's actually not sucky in the first great Zombie kill scene in the movie. (Or mutants... it's really up for grabs)

Naveen Andrews... man, if you liked him on Lost, he's really something in what amounts to a cameo. He has a particular fascination with a part of the male anatomy that makes his first scene quite memorable.

I could really rave about Planet Terror, but I'll just leave it at this: Jeff Fahey and Michael Biehn play brothers. One is the Sherriff; the other owns a Bar-B-Que place. And the "missing reel" is f'n funny. And a Nouvelle Vague singing "Too Drunk to Fuck" in a scene not to be missed.

At the point that ended I really had to pee, but there was NO way I was missing my shot at seeing the Thanksgiving trailer again. But first was the ad for:

WEREWOLF WOMEN OF THE SS

Easily the most retarded of the four trailers, Rob Zombie stuck every Ilsa, She Devil of the SS movie into one trailer, added Sybill Danning, Tom Towles, Sherri Moon Zombie, Bill Moseley, Udo Kier, and the BIG surprise, Nicholas Cage. Yes, the same Nic Cage I rip into so readily caught me totally off guard when the announced said "AND NICHOLAS CAGE AS..... FU MANCHU!" and Cage does the most ridiculous Fu Manchu impression ever with the fakest looking moustache you're gonna see this year. The trailer is just quick cuts of every nazi exploitation standby ever, and then repeated shots of some werewolf with a machine gun and two naked she-wolves behind him for no good reason.

After that we got a nice ad for some Barbeque place in Texas called Acuna Brothers with random shots of various foods, and then a trailer to help you vomit said food back up:

DON'T

I'm not even sure I can explain the Don't trailer, because it's really dependent on the Voice Over Guy and how he says things like

"If....You're.....Thinking....of....going....in....that.....house..........DON'T"

and something really strange or disgusting happens. Edgar Wright really fashioned an ad for one of those British movies from the seventies came in the wake of Hammer studios collapsing. Really funny in a disturbing way.

(If it helps, you should think of the trailer as a combination of The Legend of Hell House and The Burning.)

and then, there was

THANKSGIVING

Seeing this online was cool, but seeing the Cheerleader / Trampoline thing with an audience is that much better, as were almost all of the fucked up things Eli Roth does in his two minute slasher money shot homage. I would pay to see Thanksgiving right now if he made it. The same goes for Don't and Machete. I might not pay full price for Werewolf Women of the SS, but I'd see it.

I should mention that in addition to being scratchy, losing audio, and film distortions, in between every "reel" of trailers or movies is a few seconds of white space, as though the projectionist didn't cut it properly and left part of the "tail" on, runing the "illusion". As a former projectionist, I got a kick out of that.

Finally, even though I missed part of the credits, there was

DEATH PROOF

Here's what I don't exactly like about Death Proof: There are VERY long stretches in the beginning and middle of the movie that exist only because Tarantino*** wanted to write Tarantino-esque dialogue for women, and had he only done it the first time, I'd be okay with that, because what happens between those yap fests makes up for it.

What I do like about Death Proof: The driving sequences are the SHIT. When Tarantino drops repeated references to Vanishing Point (going so far as to put the car from Vanishing Point in the movie), he'd damn well better deliver on the car portions, and yes, does he ever. This easily could have been Tarantino slobbering over his standby obsessions again, but instead he simply uses the things he loves about Hot Rod movies and slasher films to make a high octane car chase that rivals The French Connection or Ronin. Really.

Kurt Russell really brings his A-Game to Stuntman Mike, a character that's alternately psychopathic and really, really pathetic, and all of the girls in the second half bring it (including Uma Thurman's stunt woman from Kill Bill, Zoe Bell, who plays herself and does some ridiculous car stunts). The ending will probably remind people a little bit of Faster Pussycat, Kill Kill, as that is the spirit it closest resembles, but there's just that gap between the first time Stuntman Mike looks at the camera and winks and the next time he does that really doesn't need to be.

So anyway, Grindhouse is a SEE IT IN THEATERS, because this is meant to be watched with your rowdiest friends in a raucous crowd in the dive-iest theater you can get to late at night. And don't feel bad if you get up and walk around, because almost everyone else in the theater did at one point or the other, including all three of us. Oh, and we didn't need to say shit, if that tells you anything. The experience is half the fun of the show, so check it out.


** The perfect pairing would've been Grindhouse at The Studio, but since that can't happen anymore, Mission Valley is a close second.
*** I should mention that QT has roles in Death Proof and Planet Terror, but you're not gonna care about the Death Proof one once you've seen what happens to him in the first movie.