Blogorium Review: Some Guy Who Kills People

 Some Guy Who Kills People threw me for a loop; it was playing at the Nevermore Film Festival, which leaned heavily in the direction of horror films. It was under those expectations that I sat down to watch the film, of which I knew nothing. I'd deliberately avoided looking at trailers or reading the synopsis on Nevermore's site and the Internet Movie Database, just as I had with Absentia. There are times when title artwork or general assumptions based on "indie" horror films can work against the actual quality of the film. In fact, we'll discuss the terrible cover art for Absentia in that review, but let's get back to Some Guy Who Kills People.

 The first thing you should know is that Some Guy Who Kills People isn't a horror movie. It shares some DNA with slasher films when it comes to the "Kills" part of the title: the murders are rather violent, the gore outlandish, even with a small body count. The film is, however, a black comedy that has more in common with a film like Heathers than, let's say, The Prowler. Now, if\ I'm willing to compare a film to Heathers favorably, you should have some idea that the genre switcheroo didn't bother me too much.

 That's not to say I wasn't a little lost at first - either I was distracted or just missed some critical introductory scene, but for the first ten minutes or so the Cap'n felt like I was behind the curve, narrative-wise. After a flashback / dream sequence where Ken Boyd (Kevin Corrigan) is being tortured by high school students, Boyd wakes up and realizes he's late for work. He arrives at the ice cream parlor where his boss Al Fooger (Lou Beatty Jr.) chastises him for being late and his buddy Irv (Leo Fitzpatrick) asks what's up. Ken doesn't say much, but he does get the luck of the draw and has to cater a birthday party for one of the guys who tortured him while Boyd wears an ice cream cone costume. He also meets Stephanie (Lucy Davis) before being recognized by the now adult terrorizer, and then the film cuts to said jerk being chased down and slaughtered with a knife.

 Now we do eventually learn that Ken tried to kill himself ten years before Some Guy Who Kills People takes place, and that he was in an asylum. He's working for Al because Irv helped him get the job, and Ken lives with his mother (Karen Black). Ken has a notebook he doesn't show anybody, mostly because he uses it to draw pictures of the horrible ways he's going to enact revenge on his tormentors. I was a little confused because some of the people who end up dying are played by younger actors in the flashbacks, but Corrigan seems to be the same age despite the fact that this happened when he was in high school. Anyway, you get past that quickly and move on to the "ah, he's going to be killing off these jerks while the police try to figure it out."

 Speaking of which, the Sheriff, Walt Fuller (Barry Bostwick), is a totally daffy sort of guy that finds the strangest things to fixate on while investigating crime scenes. After one guy is hacked to pieces in a drive-in parking lot, he asks his deputy if there's enough popcorn for both of them while they survey the carnage. He also seems to have total control over the Mayor (Ahmed "Jar Jar Binks" Best) and has an ongoing relationship with Ken's mother. The stage is set for a bizarre cat-and-mouse game between nutty killer and nuttier cop, and then writer Ryan Levin and director Jack Perez throw the kind of curveball that really makes Some Guy Who Kills People interesting: Ken has a daughter.

 Before going to the nuthouse, Ken knocked up Janet Wheeler (Janie Haddad), and now that he's out, his daughter Amy (Ariel Gade) runs into him by total coincidence. Boyd is in his ice cream suit again, being abused by passers-by and Amy helps him pick up flyers that nobody wants. When she discovers that guy is her father, she promptly decides to move in with Ken and his mother, who have no idea what to do with her. She's everything he isn't, it seems: she's a star basketball player, gets along with everybody, and recognizes immediately that Stephanie is into her dad in a big way. Of course, Ken has other plans, shall we say, and this unexpected intrusion into his scheme takes Some Guy Who Kills People in different directions.

 There are some more unexpected surprises, ones that I'd rather not spoil, so instead I'll talk about Kevin Corrigan, who anchors a world populated with people who all seem to be crazier than he is by being a total vacuum in the charisma department. He alternates between irritated and catatonic, revealing on one or two occasions that he was happier in the asylum because it had more structure than the "real" world. I'm not sure that Some Guy Who Kills People would be as entertaining if the main character didn't temper the lunacy of nearly every other character, and aside from Lucy Davis' Stephanie, Corrigan's Ken Boyd is ironically the most "normal" character, despite a predilection for brutal murder and antisocial leanings.

 In closing, I'd like to add how very surprised I was to learn that director Jack Perez went from making Wild Things 2, Monster Island, and Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus to Some Guy Who Kills People. I didn't see that coming; the film is light years of an improvement over those stinkers. Kudos to him. Also, while it's nice to see John Landis' name attached (even as producer) to this film, it did remind me that he recently directed Burke and Hare, which does not earn kudos. But I digress: check out Some Guy Who Kills People - it's right up your alley, providing you like movies with slightly askew logic.

Standing Up is Hard to Do

Hi there. The Cap'n here. As you've noticed, this is also not a review. There wasn't a review on Monday, which is weird, I suppose. It might not be, since the Blogorium is always at the whim of the Cap'n (that being me), and I shouldn't feel as though I've locked myself into some pattern of "reviews now" or "feature then." Anyway, here's what I've been up to, which ought to help in some ways explain why I'm not specifically reviewing something.

I've been watching several stand-up specials (and at least one released theatrically): Louis C.K. - Hilarious, Ricky Gervais - Live Science, Aim Low - The Best of Dylan Moran, and HBO's Talking Funny, which is a sit down discussion between Gervais, C.K., Chris Rock, and Jerry Seinfeld. The problem is that, Talking Funny aside, I don't actually have a good way to review stand-up specials.

Comedy is very subjective, so it's hard to recommend one comedian working through their newest routine in front of an audience unless you know readers are predisposed to liking that comedian. Louis C.K. does a very blue, very working class, non-politically correct set that you either really take to or you don't. A good litmus test would be to watch a few episodes of Louie, his show on FX; it's very much an episodic form of his bits. The same applies for Gervais, who likes to push his comedy into very uncomfortable territory, comment on the uncomfortable nature of the comedy, and move forward. Dylan Moran is going to be a bit confusing for people who haven't seen Black Books, the show I knew him from (his role in Shaun of the Dead doesn't really prepare you) - his rambling, disheveled delivery can be off-putting, I suppose, even directionless at times, but the jokes are solid.

Again, without commenting on specific routines - and thereby spoiling the reason you're watching the special - it's hard to comment on them. You either already know who these comedians are and would be inclined to watch their specials, and if you don't, I can sort-of point towards shows or films they've appeared in to give you a general idea. But that's not actually reviewing the special, per se.

The other problem, at least from the perspective of someone who reviews films as a visual medium, is that there's not much to say about the aesthetic appearance of these specials. They are, with minor variations, exactly the same - two or three camera angles on the comedian standing against a curtain or set with the occasional audience reaction shot. There's nothing inherently wrong with this, but it is the formula of this kind of filmed performance, and I can't say I've seen many people attempt to alter or toy with it. There's no cause to - the specials are designed to replicate the experience of seeing them live, and as someone who's seen Patton Oswalt in person and on DVD, they do the subject justice. Having said that, you've seen the limit of what I have to say about stand-up specials from a technical standpoint: I can see them and hear them clearly.

Talking Funny is at least worth mentioning because the summit does something I really wasn't expecting from comedians ever: an actual conversation about the construction of "bits" of how jokes work and the motivation behind them, or why audiences respond to certain versions of material. Jerry Seinfeld explains why he stopped using "the 'F' word" in his routine by demonstrating the last piece he used it with, and why he felt it was more of a crutch than part of the routine.

And then something fascinating happens - Gervais, having listened attentively to the "bit," explains that the reason it didn't work without language is less about the word than the audience's ability to key in on his frustration, necessitating its use. I'm so accustomed to seeing comedians dodge discussing comedy, or to simply be "on" all the time, that Talking Funny was both revelatory and still hilarious. The section explaining why a stupid song parody being funny isn't ironic on the part of the audience, but how it actually works on a level the comedian didn't plan for, is both fun and surprising. The show is a rare glimpse behind the curtain of what makes comedy funny, of how the really talented comedians do what they do, and how they crack each other up in the process of discussing it.

At the same time, I have no idea if people would want to watch this. I suppose it's a question of whether you're predisposed to be interested in Jerry Seinfeld, Chris Rock, Louis C.K., or Ricky Gervais. If you aren't, then there's not much Talking Funny can do for you, because so much of the discussion is centered around their particular approaches to stand-up. With most movies I can at least steer readers in a number of directions, of points of entry into the film that you can use to build on when watching the rest of the movie. Stand-up is so performer-centric that while I've enjoyed all of them, I have little idea how to give you a point of entry for these specials. I guess you could look for them elsewhere (for example, Louis C.K. wrote a number of Chris Rock's films, most notably Pootie Tang), and then see if their approach to comedy is something you'd like to spend 70-90 minutes with exclusively.

The other thing I've been doing is starting movies and not finishing them yet. Most of them have been bad, like Season of the Witch (which I'll get to at some point in a review) or disappointingly bad, like Burke & Hare (the first John Landis movie in thirteen years, that hasn't been released stateside, and with a good reason; let's just say they could put "From the Director of Blues Brothers 2000" above the title and it would be appropriate). I'm halfway through The Dungeon Masters, a very good documentary that's cringe-worthy in the same way Trekkies is, which doesn't make me feel good about eventually reviewing the film.

I have seen a very recent, large-budgeted summer tent-pole release, and it was pleasantly surprising and more than "just good," but I don't know when I'll get around to writing that up. Let's just say if you were on the fence about a certain Norse God turned Comic Hero, your money will be well spent, just don't see it in 3-D. So yeah, no real review today, but it's not such a bad thing that I switch things up around here. It'll keep me from getting into a rut, and hopefully will give you something unexpected to look forward to.

Recommendations of a Supplement Junkie

Earlier this year, I came clean about the horrible, terrible affliction the Cap'n lives with every day: an addiction to supplements on DVDs and Blu-Rays. In order to help myself (and others), I thought it would be in our best interests if I shared some of my favorite "making of" documentaries found on various discs.

As I said previously, of late there have been some really clever, well designed, and revelatory documentaries (or "extended featurettes"), so I'll be focusing on those as opposed to feature-length "making-of" docs like Burden of Dreams of Hearts of Darkness. Mind you, those are fantastic in their own right, but they tend to have their own releases (or, in the case of Hearts of Darkness, are included as its own disc on Apocalypse Now's Blu-Ray set), whereas the longer pieces listed below are sometimes buried behind EXCLUSIVE INTERACTIVITY POCKET BLU BLAH BLAH BLAH. Don't let the noise and the trivial extras scare you away, because many of these longer pieces are every bit as good as the stand-alone docs.

The Hamster Factor and Other Tales of 12 Monkeys - directed by Keith Fulton and Louis Pepe (Lost in La Mancha), The Hamster Factor is a nearly 90 minute look behind the scenes of Terry Gilliam's 12 Monkeys, focused primarily on the director's working process. Gilliam, who has a partially deserved / partially exaggerated reputation as a "difficult" perfectionist, may do himself no favors by giving the documentary its title: the "hamster" in question is holding up an otherwise perfectly executed and technically elaborate shot because the rodent refuses to do what Gilliam wants in frame, slowing production to a halt. That's one of the many confounding, fascinating elements about making an already confounding, fascinating film.

Beware the Moon - While it balances "making of" stories with a "locations then and now" host structure, Beware the Moon is as thorough document of the making of An American Werewolf in London as you're likely to find. Not only has writer / director / host Paul Davis managed to track down most of the original locations, but he also assembles as many surviving members of the cast and crew to discuss Werewolf's origins, its filming, the special effects, and its peculiar balance of horror and humor. Among the heretofore unrealized tidbits was the fact that John Landis had the idea to make An American Werewolf in London while working as a production assistant on Kelly's Heroes; Rick Baker had already committed to The Howling when Landis finally pulled him back into Werewolf, after finding out the makeup effects artist would be using his designs for Joe Dante's wolf film; and the queasy feeling Griffin Dunne felt after seeing his "corpse" makeup design for the first time.

One By One We Will Take You: The Untold Saga of The Evil Dead, Life After Death: The Ladies of the Evil Dead, and Discovering The Evil Dead - Taken together, this nearly 86 minute story of Sam Raimi's debut film covers nearly every angle of its inception: from the attempt to raise money by knocking down investors' doors, to the extended filming in Tennessee, to the film's release, subsequent success, and controversy after being labeled a "video nasty" in England. While Raimi, Rob Tapert, Bruce Campbell, and much of the cast and crew appear in the first two docs, the third featurette is equally as interesting because it focuses on the film's appearance in Great Britain, and the subsequent trial that Raimi faced after the film was deemed "obscene."

The Making of the Alien Legacy (The Beast Within, Superior Firepower, Wreckage and Rage, and One Step Beyond) - If you haven't seen this epic set of documentaries (which total nearly 12 hours in length) and consider yourself a fan of the Alien series, I highly recommend checking the fifth disc of the Alien Anthology Blu-Ray. I highlight the Antholgy version over the Alien Quadrilogy version if for no other reason than Wreckage and Rage: The Making of Alien 3 is included in its full, uncut format, restoring footage devoted to the battles between director David Fincher and studio executives at 20th Century Fox. Exhaustive might be the best way to put the docs in perspective: nearly everything you can think of about the making of Alien, Aliens, Alien 3, and Alien: Resurrection is covered in detail, warts and all.

These comprehensive stories are not without controversy, divided opinions, embittered participants (Michael Biehn's explanation of why and how he discovered Hicks wouldn't be in Alien 3 is a great example), and various takes on why certain things didn't work, especially in the third and fourth films. That doesn't mean everything on Alien is roses, however: there's a protracted segment about the approach to the script with writer Dan O'Bannon on one side and producer / co-writer Ronald Shusett on the other. In totality, while it will take you a few viewings to get through, you'll learn so much more about the series than you ever thought possible. (This does not, by the way, include the BD's "enhancement pods," which extend all four documentaries by nearly an hour apiece!)

While I'd love to continue, this is going a bit long; also check out Empire of Dreams: The Making of the Star Wars Saga, Indiana Jones: Making the Trilogy, The Battle of Brazil: A Video History, Inferno: The Making of the Expendables, Fear of the Flesh: The Making of the Fly, Dangerous Days: The Making of Blade Runner, 30 Days in Hell: The Making of the Devil's Rejects, and Orson Welles: One Man Band.

Tomorrow: a Retro Review of Jim Jarmusch's Dead Man.
Next Tuesday: a Retro Review of Neil Young's Human Highway.