From the Vaults: On the Big Screen

I want to talk a little bit about the theatrical experience and the way it impacts how you watch a movie. In the age of dvds, it's certainly easier to avoid loud talkers, cell phone users, screaming children, and sticky floors by just waiting to watch something at home. Most of us have a home set up we prefer and if we can't exactly replicate the movie-going experience, it can be close enough.

That being said, there are some instances where you just can't properly have the same experience, no matter how well you calibrate your audio. The Others is scary, but it was downright eerie in a pitch black theatre with a really good sound system, and I've never been able to watch it with the same dread as that first time. It has less to do with knowing what happens and more to do with the perfect combination of atmosphere, location, and sound design. While The Others remains a great movie to me, it just isn't the same on the small screen.

More to the point is Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino's Grindhouse; a movie designed strictly for the theatre. Since both films were released on dvd, I've noticed that many friends tend to favor Planet Terror over Death Proof, some of them not even watching Death Proof in order to make the comparison. This is fine and well seeing them individual in longer versions, but that's not how you're supposed to see Grindhouse (and it's not just Planet Terror and Death Proof; it really is a package deal). When the opportunity to see Grindhouse came up as I was in Raleigh, I called Adam and Cranford to come with.

Where did we go? Ideally, you'd want to see a movie like Grindhouse at The Studio, a shoebox of a duplex shoved in next to a bowling alley on Hillsborough Street. Both screens were about the size of a living room wall with the nearest seat about four feet away and the farthest no more than fifteen. It's where I saw Trees Lounge and Trainspotting, and for some strange reason The Faculty. If Raleigh had anything resembling the "dive bar of theatres", it was The Studio.

Unfortunately The Studio's been closed for years now; when United Cinemas went under and Mission Valley came up for sale, the people that owned The Rialto, The Colony, and The Studio had the opportunity to take over six screens in primo location near NC State. The catch was that they could either afford The Studio or Mission Valley.

As much as I miss the Studio, I believe they chose wisely. Mission Valley did have Grindhouse, and despite the multiplex exterior, the theatre was more like a larger indie theatre ala the long gone Janus Theatre of Greensboro. Mission Valley kept low prices on tickets and concessions, had comfortable seats that leaned back almost too far, and more importantly, had the aura of a place you could see something like Grindhouse with the right audience.

And was it ever. What you can't possibly understand watching Planet Terror and Death Proof in the comfort of your own home is being able to share the movie with the thirty or fourty other people who came out for the late show (a 10:00, which meant it got out around 1:30 in the morning). A three hour double feature with trailers before and between each film with strange commercials for an Austin based Tex-Mex restaurant led to the perfect atmosphere of people getting up and wandering around, hooting and hollering at the screen, laughing together, screaming together, and registering approval for the myriad of awesome moments.

There was no "pause" button so you could get up and grab a drink. I missed the opening credits of Death Proof because I needed to take a bathroom break, and I passed three or four people on their way in and out of the screen, as well as people just walking around to keep their legs awake. And you know what? That's exactly how it should be for a film like this. Something that I think gets lost watching the dvds is the intentionally bad splices of film that begin Planet Terror and the conscious effort to welcome you to the experience of the film.

I firmly believe that I'll never be able to enjoy Grindhouse the way we did that night, not even when they release the whole shebang on double disc whatever later this year. It was unique to Mission Valley and any other dingy theatre filled with stragglers and people looking to get together and celebrate exploitation cinema. Truthfully, I can't imagine watching Grindhouse at The Grande or The Crossroads 20 or something like that, because it wouldn't feel right. Grindhouse worked because of the confluence of location, crowd, and film, and it's a shame more people didn't see it the way it was intended.

There are other movies I've seen that just weren't the same at home, but hopefully this example helps give you some kind of context to the point I'm making: sometimes it is worth your effort to get out of the house and join other strangers in a darkened auditorium. That's how films were intended to be seen; how they were meant to be experienced. It may take a little more of your time, but the ends more than justify the hassle.

From the Vaults: A review of Going to Pieces - The Rise and Fall of the Slasher Film

Going to Pieces: The Rise and Fall of the Slasher Film is a pretty good documentary, if a little light on content. Truthfully, it's a pretty good overview of the genre (with the exception of never mentioning Black Christmas and only showing clips of it during a montage of kills), but you could make much longer pieces about any number of sub-sections they spend time on. Sure, there are plenty of lengthy docs about the Friday the 13th series and at least three really good Halloween documentaries, and more Tom Savini featurettes than you can shake a stick at. Still, there's some interesting stuff tucked into the middle section of the movie, including the first acknowledgment of Splatter University's existence I've seen. Some lesser discussed slasher and post-slasher movies get their due; movies like The Prowler, Sleepaway Camp, He Knows You're Alone, and April Fool's Day. Even something as shitty as Return to Horror High gets a quick mention.

As noted above, many devotees to the genre are going to wonder why certain movies don't get as much attention (Alice, Sweet Alice, Black Christmas, and a deeper investigation of Suspiria's influence) and the transitional music is a little distracting, even if it is by Harry Manfredini (he of the ch-ch-ch kill-kill-kill). There's sort of a lull between A Nightmare on Elm Street and Scream, but the movie is so front heavy you might not notice.

There's also the curious style of interviewing people: the director really must have wanted something different, because some interviewees are constantly walking or being circled by the camera (the editor of Fangoria and Greg Nicotero stand out) and the camera is sometimes uncomfortably close to people like Tom Savini and Robert Shaye of New Line. Still, the line up of people interviewed is pretty impressive. Of particular note are Felissa Rose (the original Angela from Sleepaway Camp) and Fred Walton, who defends April Fool's Day and its twist ending, insisting that Paramount decided to market the film as a slasher movie. Oh, and kudos to Going to Pieces covering the feminist angle on Slumber Party Massacre during the "Critic Bashing" section.

You may not have the same problem that I did with this, but the movie itself would not play from the dvd menu. In fact, nothing would; I had to press stop and then play again to get the film itself to play. None of the special features would play either, which bummed me out because there was a bonus interview with Bob Clark, director of Black Christmas (and, incidentally, A Christmas Story) which leads me to believe there was some coverage of Black Christmas cut from the film. Bummer.

At 88 minutes, Going to Pieces is possibly too short, but if you're a fan of slasher movies or want to give somebody a good primer on the genre, it's certainly worth watching. Some of the stories won't be new, but the inclusion of lesser known entries and the people who made them more than cover for old anecdotes. If you can get the dvd to play, it comes Recommended.

Now bring on the follow-ups!

Slacktacular without the Linklater Dialogue.

This is going to sound like a total cop-out, and in some ways it is, but the blogorium is going to be a little quiet for the next week while your Cap'n is packing up the AOS in preparation for moving. Where? Not sure. When? Next Friday. There's a lot of packing to do, and when you're working full time and taking summer classes it doesn't leave me with much time to do it.

I hate stepping away from the writing because I take great pride in being able to write every day, even if not all of it is the best. We're going to look at this time off as a hiccup and not something indicative of being away for long stretches of time.

With that being said, I really need to pack while I can. I'm going to put some "classic" pieces from the Myspace days up for all of next week and will try to pop in periodically on top of that with updates, particularly regarding Summer Fest which is going ahead NO MATTER WHAT. The posts, in honor of the pending Horror Festival, will be themed accordingly, with a handful of reviews and at least one piece on why some things need to be seen on the big screen.

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So I'm not leaving you with nothing, here's a goodie from the vaults:

I Escaped from the Planet of the Apes and All You Get is This Lousy Blog

AMC, formerly a movie channel worth watching (that'd be before they switched to censoring and commercial breaks during movies) is running at least one of those Planet of the Apes films, but if I remember correctly this is their annual marathon. This is not dissimilar to the Sci Fi Channel's "it's a random holiday so here's The Twilight Zone" marathon which could very well be on tv before you know it. Nothing says Arbor Day like Rod Serling...

I kid though; I dig the zone and have ten different tapes from two separate marathons plus the first three seasons on dvd to prove it. And the first season of Night Gallery, even if the following seasons may never see the light of dvd (it has been like two years, Universal... I'm just saying is all)

Hopefully you're sober enough to be reading this. Personally speaking, the night time cold medicine is now kicking in so I'm feeling a little sleeptacular. Chris Hansen is entrapping perverts in the other room (clearly this means my apartment is being used for a Dateline investigation... did I not mention that?) so the time to choose something to zonk out to is nigh. Not Con Air again; nothing personal against Con Air (perhaps one of the guiltiest of guilty pleasures a person can have) but I sat through the dumbest possible set up for the film one more time last night, and as much as I enjoy seeing Steve Buscemi play Hannibal Lecter and all of the other ridiculous shit that flick has to offer, I need to stay firmly planted in 2007 as films go. There's still much to be done.

Speaking of which, I'll go ahead and give you hints about what's coming tomorrow from Netflix: Number 1) A film only one person I know has seen, and he hated it. Number 2) A movie no one I know saw but all the critics hated it. Number 3) a movie someone I know failed to bring to horror fest, but he claimed it was worth watching. A co-worker vouched for this. Two of them are certainly "taking it for the team" movies, and that doesn't begin to consider watching the theatrical and director's cut of a movie I'd just as soon never see remade. But this is what it takes to be (pretty) comprehensive, and I'm sure as shit not watching Transformers.

Oh, and none of those movies are War. Speaking of which, Jason Statham seems not to be deeply concerned with what roles he chooses, because he's in not one, but two movies coming out next year by directors I've sworn not to mention until 2009. One involves dungeons and another involves races and death. Such a pity coming from the man who made Crank. Don't look at me like that...

I'm trying not to write a blog tonight based on anything else I saw online, and I'm not cheating with the Statham because a certain ad involving him is appearing on television, which reminded me of the other movie. However, I will borrow liberally from the book of Cranford because he did ask a very logical question:

"How exactly is The Road Warrior an AMERICAN Movie Classic?"

Well spoken, Mr. C. Well spoken.

so pretty much that's all that's going on. Jackass 2.5 is pretty short. Maybe I'll watch that. What could be more terrifying (oh, maybe butchering John Carpenter's legacy worse than he already has *coughGHOSTSOFMARScough*) I'm feeling woozy, not classy, so Paris Je T'aime is out. Wipe out the crap of 2007 with a real winner, that's what I'm gonna do.

Stop reading this while you're driving! We both know you're drunk.

Nuke the Proton Accelerators?

Folks, I present you with a potentially "lose/lose" situation. I ask that you pick your poison:

In this corner, the wave of terrible reviews for Harold Ramis' Year One, which has the exact same writing team as (wait for it) Ghostbusters 3.

In this corner, the one-two punch of news from Shia LeBouf and Gary Marshall that Spielberg and Lucas are working on Indiana Jones 5.

You are not allowed to cross the streams, so which of the potentially disturbing developments worries you more about your "childhood" favorites? You are also not allowed to use the stupid "raped my childhood" metaphor, as it's cheap and wholly untrue. If you don't believe me, I'll hire Doc Brown to take me back in time and show you what that phrase REALLY implies.

See what you did? You made the Cap'n resort to a really heinous joke in order to put that overused phrase in context. As they say in The Princess Bride, "I do not think it means what you think it means."

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Okay, to be serious for a moment, I think I'm a little more worried about Ghostbusters 3 for two reasons:

1) Year One looked bad from the first trailer, but I haven't found a kind review today. This sounds like a Golden Raspberry contender, and that I was not expecting from the director of Groundhog Day and the criminally underrated The Ice Harvest.

2) On the other hand, the folks I know who have been playing the Ghosbusters game love it so much that it can only set up a new film to fail, and fail miserably. Maybe a third film doesn't need to happen, and it's weird for me to say that since I've been championing a third Ghostbusters almost as hard as Tron 2.

Is it a possible apples-to-oranges question? Hard to say. The reason that the two Office writers got the Ghostbusters gig was in part because of the experience Ramis had on Year One. I get the distinct impression Year One is a well intentioned misfire that turned out to be an elevator fart disguised as History of the World Part Two. If the writing and directing are sloppy in Year One, then who's to say Ghostbusters was just what they were really working on?

I'm genuinely curious what you think about this.

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As one of the five people in the world who liked Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (along with Vern, George Lucas, Harrison Ford, and Shia LeBouf), I'm not necessarily saying "no thanks" to more Indiana Jones. If it could maybe possibly be a little less stupid or at least not have the phrase "The treasure was knowledge!", I could even welcome another fridge nuking.

I will not, however, watch Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. Didn't see the first one, not going to watch the second one. I was once told I was "less of a man" for being more interested in Ratatouille than Transformers, but I'm sticking to my guns here. My semi-nostalgia for a toy based cartoon isn't strong enough to blindly trick me into believe Michael Bay has done anything worth watching since Don Simpson died*.

For those not keeping track at home, I made that leap because a) Shia LeBouf is in both films, and b) Steven Spielberg produced both Transformers movies. Michael Bay is not a frequent punching bag in the blogorium, partially because I don't usually feel like wasting my time bringing his movies up. I do still enjoy The Rock and I'll give him that.

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"Cap'n, are you feeling grouchy because of this seemingly impossible housing situation?"

Maybe so.

"Don't you think you should go watch Dr. Strangelove and feel better for a while?"

Perhaps I should.

"We think you should."

Thanks for your considerate advice.



* and yeah, I watched Armageddon, Pearl Harbor, Bad Boys 2, and The Island. I know what I'm talking about here.

Bad News, Everyone!

The Greensboro Summer Fest Massacre Part 2 will most definitely not take place in the Apartment of Solitude. The Cap'n has been given his marching orders by a landlord keenly interested in renting the place out for more money (so interested that he snuck in a For Rent sign while I was at work and won't return phone calls).

While this may not be news to most of you, the unfortunate part is that the new apartment the Cap'n thought he'd be moving into is suddenly not available, so I have a week and a half to avoid being homeless. I'll be hitting the pavement tomorrow in order to avoid this, but considering the time limitations, it may come to the point where beggars can't be choosers. I'm not really thrilled about that since a large living room was a big priority and the no-such-luck apartment met that criteria.

Apologies in advance if things are a bit cramp-y come July 2nd.

Speaking of which, we are starting on Thursday, July the 2nd of 2009 with a field trip to see Drag Me to Hell, followed by night one of Summer Fest shock-o-rama. They will continue, pretty much unabated, until sometime late Sunday night, July 5th. The list of films is nearly finalized and when (if) I know where it's happening, I'll put everything together in an official bulletin.

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Very quickly I'd like to address something I've been noticing online. Since Ghostbusters arrived on Blu Ray this past Tuesday, buzz online has included lots of griping about the amount of grain in the picture. Having recently seen this version of Ghostbusters, I thought I'd compare it to another movie that isn't getting this much grief but has similar grain presence.

First off, you should know that Ghostbusters is grainy. So grainy, in fact, that if you look at some of the books in the library scene, they look like aphids are crawling all over them. It can be, admittedly, distracting; this does in some respects draw away from the "perfect image" reputation Blu Ray is supposed to have. I understand that, and it takes some getting used to.

On the other hand, two things jump out immediately: 1) Many movies released on BD from the 1980s have similar grain issues. Part of this has to do with the film stock being used at the time, and part of it is because in order to "remove" that grain, studios will use something called Digital Noise Reduction. It clears up grain but also robs images of fine details. Terminator 2 has a healthy dollop of DNR and you can tell at times. The other point, 2) is that even with this grain, you can still make out more in the image for Ghostbusters than previous dvd editions. Once you get used to the grain, the picture does admittedly look better and more "film like", however you take that to mean.

More importantly, I don't hear the same complaints about Criterion's The Seventh Seal, which is getting rave reviews about it's "perfect" image but also begins with a persistent layer of grain. Under the grain, sure, it looks great but unless I'm crazy or something, it's the same essential issue. I had a similarly jarring encounter with The Third Man, which looked much grainier than I ever remembered it seeing, improved clarity or no. And yet, like The Seventh Seal, nobody seems to be mentioning it. Ghostbusters, on the other hand, is getting calls of "buyer beware!"

Personally the Cap'n finds it a little ridiculous, but if you want my opinion both of them look pretty damned good considering their age. So does The Third Man, it just took some adjusting to. Truthfully, people with smaller tv's might not even notice the grain. On a larger screen, it's pretty pervasive, but not so distracting I couldn't watch two very entertaining movies. Yeesh.

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Off to bed. I have to find something of Summer Fest is going to be tragic...

Alas, another rant about Remakes.

At this point, I wish I could be surprised or even angered to hear someone finds James Whale's Bride of Frankenstein lacking enough that they can do it better, but we're so far down the rabbit hole of "remake this" and "remake that" I find nothing shocking.

Okay, if Takeshi Miike decided to remake Harvey, that would be a surprise*.

I understand the conventional (albeit trite) argument that "nothing new is left to be discovered, so why are you so upset with Hollywood cannibalizing itself?"; it has its place, even if I find it to be a pretty relativistic argument. Nothing's original anyway, so who gives a shit about anything? Oh boy, that makes enjoying the arts fun. The best part is that this hyper-relativistic argument actually curves all the way around itself so that you can either be a snob who only likes the "classics" in order to escape the "nothing's new" position.

And I'm not saying there isn't something to appreciating the nuance of repetition in art because - yes - it's true that we're building off of existing riffs. The difference is - especially right now - is how transparently lazy Hollywood is about ripping itself off. It used to be that a BIG NAME REMAKE wasn't the norm or half of the movies released in one year. Sure, the other movies that were essentially ripoffs or variations of a theme jockeyed for position, but they did so under the auspices that they were trying to be their own film. These remakes aren't even bothering.

For example: High Plains Drifter and Pale Rider are, for all intents and purposes, the same movie. However, they at least pretend to be different. Even if the basic plot is the same (and, if you want to get picky, the same as many westerns) - stranger protects the locals against evil force - Pale Rider is not trying to BE High Plains Drifter. It's not trying to capitalize on the name or the fact that people liked Drifter; Pale Rider is trying to exist on its own terms, not to usurp the popularity of its antecedent.

Friday the 13th is. The Last House on the Left is. Hell, a movie I liked: The Hills Have Eyes is trying to push the original out of the picture and at the same time capitalizing on the fact that you know the title. Star Trek was so clearly trying to do this that is marketed itself as better than "your father's Star Trek" but at the same time it drew in as it pushed away. I've intentionally been trying not to pay attention to The Wolf Man, and the silence surrounding it doesn't fill me with glee.

Yes, we always have the "old" one. I get that argument too, although I fail to see the usefulness of it. The point isn't merely that two copies of a film with the same title exist on the shelf, but also that the way these films are discussed now change. Now the original film has to fight for its place against a younger, hipper version that only seems to be there because people are too damned lazy to watching something "old." Discourse about cinema is rapidly becoming the discussion of replacements and "improving" outdated films. Homages aren't enough anymore; now if a Blade Runner wants to have any kind of impact, it needs to cut the bullshit and call itself Metropolis so the film can go head-to-head with the "inferior" original.

We've actually reached the point where Peter Jackson's three hour "homage" to King Kong seems quaint because it failed to really take on the original. That's how hard the studios are fighting against themselves to prove that all you need is the youngest stars, the flashiest directors, and the craziest editing to make a "dated" film better. It's funny because in this new wave of "slasher" films, instead of just ripping off the basic structure of the films - like every studio or dude with a camera did from 1978-1986 - they'll just take the whole movie and do it again. Like Funny Games.

So yeah, the remake thing has gone beyond aggravating. At this point I'm more interested in the arguments about remaking than the remakes themselves. Eventually we'll get around to more "original" films that aren't trying to be something you know but better. I can go back to pretending, for example, that Joyride isn't basically Duel and try to enjoy something without being reminded that "you know this movie but this time it's better!" My Yojimbos and my Fistful of Dollars can peacefully coexist as intertextual discursive partners and still be better than Last Man Standing. They all get their relative merits, at least until someone explicitly remakes one.





* And, if by some unholy miracle it does happen, I call creative consultant's credit.

Digressions, Tangents, and So You Won't Have To's

I believe that there's a new movie for the Cap'n to watch So You Won't Have To, although it isn't the one you just thought of. No, I'm not watching Platinum Dune's Friday the 13th (or, as Cranpire calls it: Shit Coffin). I just can't bring myself to that kind of low, even if it comes into the store and I've brought home every other disc I could find worth a damn. Hell, even if I brought home The Underworld Trilogy* - because, hell, if you've watched the first two you might as well watch the last one - I would not watch Shit Coffin.

The only thing good to come out of the release of that movie on Blu Ray is that Paramount decided to put out Part 2 and Part 3 (yes, in 3-D**) in High Definition. They also released new dvd versions of Parts 4, 5 and 6 but since I know those too will be on Blu Ray before the end of the year it's kind of silly to buy them. The point is we're all going to have fun watching Part 3 in 1080 3-D, even if it looks like a cheap movie shot in the 80s (which it is). Now what was I talking about?

Oh, right. I got off on a little Friday the 13th tangent there, and forgot all about the movie I'm going to watch in your stead. The goal with these is to watch something you wouldn't bother with in the first place but have some scintilla of curiosity about, even if it's just morbid at best. With that in mind, the Cap'n will buckle down and suffer his way through the remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still.

See, it's a horrible idea in theory and, as I've read, execution. Yet I think that in some manner this idiotic "re-imagining" of the Klaatu / Gort story needs a better post-mortem than "it sucks." Of course it sucks, but I watched Tim Burton's lifeless retread of Planet of the Apes; I watched Steven Spielberg's mean-spirited War of the Worlds. Hell, I watched I Am Legend and kind of liked it. Not really liked it, maybe not even "liked it the same way I like The Omega Man" liked, but I didn't regret watching it.

What I'm saying here is that there's precedent for the Cap'n to sit through remakes of Classic Science Fiction Films, and you don't get much more "classic" than The Day the Earth Stood Still. I will accept arguments from Tom about 2001 and Cranpire about Planet of the Apes and the one fan out there who hasn't talked himself into hating all of the Star Wars films because of those rotten prequels, but I'll stick to my guns. That's something Robert Wise did very well: he'd take a genre and bend it to his will. The Haunting. The Day the Earth Stood Still. The Sound of Music. The Set-Up. Star Trek: The Boring Picture.

Okay, maybe not the last one; it did have some nice model photograpy, so if he did that then I'll give him points for that. Still, Star Trek: The Motion Picture sure does suck. I guess that's one thing the Star Trek remake has over the "original" first film: lens flares. Robert Wise just didn't anticipate how much people would overlook a lack of coherent plot turns as long as there were lens flares. Poor guy.

Also, I watched the remake of The Haunting, and that sucked too. We all know The Day the Earth Stood Still Because Keanu Reeves Was Too Damned Boring is going to be terrible, but I'll watch it So You Won't Have To.

Except for Cranpire, who already watched it. Sorry I didn't get there sooner, buddy.


* which I may or may not have done. to be fair, I do like the first two Underworld movies, mostly because of how stupid and self important they are. It's not that they're good, but they are silly and sometimes fun.
** I know that I keep qualifying that, but once upon a time no home video release of part 3 was in 3-D and unless you went to the Durham horror movie festival every October you couldn't see it as it was made.

Blogorium Review: Harlan Ellison - Dreams with Sharp Teeth

I'm glad that someone finally made a proper documentary about Harlan Ellison; it's a wonder that someone so well acclaimed, so frequently published, so damned interesting, remains essentially a "cult" author. I don't mean it as an insult to Ellison, because I'm a fan. Anyone who is a fan knows the name immediately and can without pause rattle off a list of their favorite books, stories, essays, or scripts.

My favorite book is and probably always will be the first Ellison collection I ever read: Strange Wine.

And yet I suspect that, unlike Hunter S. Thompson, there is a swath of "hip" readers that don't know who Harlan Ellison is, who don't know his impact on science fiction or imaginative writing. For them, I hope Dreams with Sharp Teeth is an introduction, a gateway drug.

I'll give it this: Dreams with Sharp Teeth shows Harlan Ellison in his many facets - cantankerous old man, gadfly, advocate, genius (and I do not throw the word around lightly), procrastinator, lecturer, asshole, perfectionist. More importantly, it does so without favoring one over the other. There is no attempt to portray Ellison as anything other than he is, and if you are put off by what you see, he admits that he does not blame you.

What I appreciate about the documentary is how it follows a semi-linear structure, covering his career up through the 1980s, but it is punctuated and tends to digress along the way with interviews, appearances, lectures, signings, and home visits that seem to bounce all through his life. There are other interviews with friends and fans; folks like Battlestar Galactica helmer Ron Moore or A History of Violence screenwriter Josh Olson. Fellow writers like Peter David and Neil Gaiman pop up, and perhaps my favorite interviewee: Robin Williams. I had no idea they were friends, and despite a few side jokes, Williams is mostly focused on Ellison in the many ways he relates to him.

Since Sci-Fi Buzz went off the air and the Sci-Fi Channel ceased to be what it started as, I've missed the presence of Ellison on tv. He used to have a segment called "Harlan Ellison's Watching", which was for the Sci-Fi Channel what Andy Rooney is for 60 Minutes, albeit less self-parodic. Ellison's tangents, rants, or essays are as much a part of his appeal as his stories are, and the introductions to his collections are often pieces I go back to frequently. Alas, I'm not talking about the documentary itself. I've let my mind wander, as the film does to fine effect.

The other key component to Dreams with Sharp Teeth as the "readings", which a brief segments featuring Ellison in front of a green screen, with a background appropriate to the segment he's reading from. Reading is a bit of a misnomer, as he simply faces the camera and speaks directly from "Repent, Harlequin, said the Tick Tock Man", "Spider Kiss", or the original version of "The City on the Edge of Forever" as though he's kept them memorized this whole time. Considering the subject, he probably has.

At any rate, I highly recommend this as a primer for people who have heard of Harlan Ellison in a fleeting manner but don't really know anything about him. It may be the best way to understand a person who appears to be many different things coexisting in one body, as difficult as it may be to believe at times. Then comes the hard part: finding Ellison's books. Good luck.

Blogorium Review: Gran Torino

editor's note warning: this post repeats a number of potentially offensive terms that may be offensive to readers. you have been warned.

After debating the relative merits of each last night, your Cap'n chose to go with "grouchy racist old man angry at the world" and watch Clint Eastwood's Gran Torino. I don't regret it one bit.

Let's get the limited negatives out of the way: 1. the acting, Eastwood aside, can be a little lacking. It's not such a big deal that it's going to drive you crazy, but the young priest is particularly awkward. Thankfully, he only pops up sporadically during the film. 2. The story has some contrivances to it, as most "grouchy old dude learns to appreciate yadda yadda" movies do. However, Gran Torino makes up for all of them in a way I'll get to shortly. 3. While it didn't really work on me, I think that Eastwood and the screenwriters are trying to trick you into sympathizing with the way a unrepentantly racist dude sees the world for the first half of the movie. I could see how some people might want to cheer for Clint saying badass, if totally inappropriate, things including a joke I'll just go ahead and repeat here:

"A Spic, a Jew, and a Black guy walk into a bar. The bartender looks up and says 'Get the fuck out of here.'"

I'll admit I laughed, but incredulously. As with most of the things that come out of Walt Kowalski's mouth, I was more surprised at how far they were willing to take this "racist" side than you'd expect. You don't hear much of "punk" in this movie. Instead, Clint growls the following (and many other) insults / epithets:

Wop, Spade, Spook, Dipshit, Mick, Swamp Rat, Chink, Peckerhead, Gook, Shithead, Barbarian, Fish-Eye, and Faggot*.

The frequency that Walt hurls them, both muttered and flagrantly, is a little surprising. I think the movie that comes closest to Gran Torino in its unapologetic use of "offensive" language is Bad Santa, and I like both of them for the same reason. Their protagonists never give up on being assholes.

Both stories about guys who've had it with life. Everything turned to shit and Walt and Willie are angry at the world and take it out in every direction. Walt's wife just died, and his useless children and even more worthless grandchildren go through the motions, right down to suggesting he go to a retirement home. Walt's neighborhood has slowly gone to hell and he's the only non-Asian person still living there, so he's pissed off about that too. Then one of the neighborhood kids tries to steal his 1972 Gran Torino as a gang initiation, so you know he's going to be mad about that. Of course, this being a movie about old guys being grouchy and learning to appreciate life, there has to be some calming down. I mean, even Willie met stupid Thurman and the lady with a Santa fetish, right?

Ultimately, the way that Gran Torino (like Bad Santa) overcomes its story limitations is that while Walt Kowalski softens up a bit towards his Hmong neighbors, he's still an asshole and doesn't know / care that he's doing it all the way to the end. There's a scene where Walt, on his birthday, throws out his kids because they want him to move to a retirement home. One of his neighbors comes over and invites him to a barbecue and he decides "what the hell" and goes over, and promptly makes an ass of himself.

Most movies would be happy to end the scene right there and move to the next sequence of Walt learning his lessons, but Gran Torino keeps him over there. After insulting the Hmong people three different ways, Walt gets to stick around, try some food, and make "nice" with the Fish-Eyes. And it sorta, kinda happens. They're certainly polite to him and he seems pretty pleased to have company. He even fixes their dryer just because he notices it's wobbly. Then, because he's learning his lesson and all, he berates Thao (the would-be car thief) for not picking up on a girl's signals and telling him he "has no balls."

I guess that's what I like about this movie; it's not trying to turn Walt all the way around in a way that never really happens. He calms down a little bit, but most of his simmering rage is still intact and, in some cases, totally justified. It works because Clint Eastwood takes his grizzled bad-ass and let's him change in organic ways. Nothing feels forced about Kowalski, even if some of the other characters (the priest in particular) seem to be plot devices more than characters. You want Walt to cool down a little bit, even if you can understand why he's so angry. I mean, his kids are pretty good-for-nothing, and that gang is full of idiots.

Before I go, I want to mention one other tiny subplot that made me laugh every time: Walt's neighbors include three generations of Hmong, but the one that stands out is the grandmother, who is every bit as old and grouchy as he is. In what's probably my favorite scene, both are sitting on the porch, muttering about how much they hate the other one (in their respective languages), and then Clint spits out some tobacco. The old lady stares at him, then spits out an even bigger wad of tobacco, and Clint just looks at her and says "huh."

Gran Torino may have some built in flaws and shaky supporting actors, but it overcomes both problems (and the potential of being pro-racist) because of how good Clint Eastwood is at playing the tough guy. He's been doing this for years, and something about the grizzled features and that growl of a voice say "do not fuck with me." When he says "Get off my lawn", and the dude tells him to go back inside, you're not worried about the old guy. That punk kid needs to get the hell off of Clint's lawn, and he does. I'll be bummed if Gran Torino is, in fact, Eastwood's last role as an actor (as it has been suggested), but he went out on a high note.



* Yes, I too notice a word conspicuously absent from that list. Instead, Eastwood says spook or spade, but never the "N" bomb.

Seriously, Stay off the Man's Lawn!

I really cannot decide if I want to watch Wise Blood or Gran Torino tonight. On the one hand, we have John Huston directing Brad Dourif, Harry Dean Stanton, and Ned Beatty in a story based on Flannery O'Connor. On the other, we have Clint Eastwood doing what he does best: playing a grouchy loner that hates everyone, except this time he overtly racist to boot.

Honestly, that sounds like I'm stacking the deck in Wise Blood's favore, if only because on paper Gran Torino doesn't sound as interesting. On the other hand, if I'm going to watch a Clint Eastwood movie, I want Clint to be in it and not just directing it (*coughChangelingcough*), and regardless of all the Daniel Craigs and Vin Diesels and the Jason Stathams, nobody does BAD ASS like Clint does. Clint Eastwood is a dude you do not fuck with, and if he says "you damn kids get off my yard" and you expect to live another day, you do it.

So yeah, Gran Torino doesn't read as interesting, but the movie has that intangible quality that is the Eastwood swagger. You could even just put that dude in Space and I'd watch*. It doesn't hurt that Torino is certainly more well regarded than Changeling, which was all right but definitely the "Flags of Our Fathers" of the 2008 two-fer. I watched Changeling mostly because it was something Clint-related while I waited for Gran Torino, although I also watched The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly on Blu-Ray too, but that's just logical.

Now, on the flipside, I didn't know a) Wise Blood even existed or b) the degree of talent involved in the movie even after Criterion announced it. Normally, John Huston alone is enough to grab my attention, but for some reason I never looked carefully at the cast or watched the trailer. Bad call on the Cap'n's part. Once I saw who was in it and, more importantly, that this was a comedy about evangelism, I was sold. To be honest, it's been on "Very Long Wait" for so long on Netflix that I honestly never thought it would get here, but it did.

Or I could watch Valkyrie, which is more of a courtesy to Bryan Singer, who did after all make The Usual Suspects and Apt Pupil and X2. He also made X-Men and Superman Returns which, it turns out, don't have a lot of staying power. Even though pretty much nobody saw Valkyrie because of Tom Cruise, and - more alarmingly - some people didn't know how it ended**, I feel like I should at least give it a try. The general consensus is "meh", but that's what I get for moving new releases to the top of my queue and not paying close attention to them.


* even if it wouldn't end on time. And yes, I watched Space Cowboys.
** seriously. there are people so stupid that not only did they not know that Harvey Milk died, they also weren't sure if Hitler was assassinated by his own men. le sigh.

Yee-ha!

Some days, you find just the right something to make a week full of crap sandwiches worthwhile. It's usually something you never expected to actually see, so that makes it all the better.

Student Bodies, move out of the way. You've been bumped by the only movie that I GUARANTEE will play during Summer Fest:

Hillbillys in a Haunted House

Everything else I said would play is playing, including Terrorvision, Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus, the 3-D stuff, Chopping Mall; it's all good. But something lost its "prime time" slot because an actual damned copy of Hillbillys in a Haunted House came into work.

This is the kind of movie you see on a list like The 50 Worst Movies Ever Made and think to yourself, "that looks special." You then try to find it for Trailer Sunday and can't, and that usually means it's not going to be find-able anywhere. Thank goodness for working at a used dvd store.

So what does this gem from 1967 have going for it? I'm glad you asked. How about John Carradine, Lon Chaney, Basil Rathbone AND Merle Haggard? What about an "entourage of foreign spies" looking to "steal a secret formula for rocket proepllant"? I know, it doesn't even sound like a horror movie, but there's totally a guy in a gorilla suit on the cover, and the mansion is haunted!

"What am I getting myself into?" you ask. Well, how about this:



Now, I just noticed that between the time I watched The 50 Worst Movies Ever Made and tonight that someone put the whole movie up, but I'm politely requesting you not watch it yet. Something this classic needs to be appreciated with others, people who can accurately judge if it really deserves to be one of the fifty worst movies ever made. That's some special company to keep...

Quick Non-Review-Review and More Summerfest Additions

I can't promise that Student Bodies is going to make the already packed Summer Fest list (new additions shortly); it's not a great movie, but this "first horror-comedy"* is much better than Return to Horror High, a movie we already watched two fests ago.

The premise is simple: it's a parody of slasher movies. The one thing I'll give Student Bodies over Scream or Scary Movie is that it came out at the height of "slasher mania" in 1981, and while many of the jokes are misfires, enough of them hit and nail the genre conventions. I considered putting the trailer up here but it does the movie a disservice by playing too broad. Don't get me wrong, Student Bodies is throwing jokes out with Zucker-like speed, it's just that every now and then one of them will be funny, and the trailer is not. It also ruins the first ten minutes of the film.

Because it does fit into the "horror comedy" tent I'm pitching for Summer Fest, I'm giving it some consideration, even if it's not the best thing we're going to see. Speaking of which, let's look at some of the new additions.

Major Tom scored a copy of Terrorvision, which you can read his thoughts on in the "comments" section of the last Summer Fest post. I have a VCR, so this is a sure thing.

I did manage to actually find a 3-D copy of My Bloody Valentine, and despite Neil's protestations, we are going to watch it on Saturday. Friday the 13th Part 3 (in 3-D) will be playing on, appropriately, Friday. If enough of you can convince me it's the right thing to do AND it's still playing in theatres, Thursday's Field Trip movie will be Drag Me to Hell. It's the only horror-related movie playing right now. If The Final Destination were opening before August, we'd be seeing that - in 3-D!

Troll 2. HD. I just need to know, and you're going to find out with me.

I realize the fake Friday the 13th is coming out soon, but we're not watching it. Only legitimate Jason movies are considered Fest-worthy. Movies where Jason becomes a horde of Giant, Man-Eating Bunny Rabbits clearly fall into the "legitimate" category.

The Cap'n is keeping his eye open for a copy of House of Long Shadows on VHS, so if you feel so inclined to also keep an eye out, it would be much appreciated. I'm totally down with more VCR horror if you folks are.

While this is the "Horror Comedy" version of Horror Fest, I do feel the need to include a "classic" of some variety. Thoughts?

This is a smidge early for Horror Fest IV: The Final Chapter, but since Trick R Treat is finally coming out on Blu Ray, we'll be watching that in October, along with Let the Right One In.

Actually, I have a lot of ideas for the October finale of Horror Fest (here, anyway. I will continue it wherever I move to, in this state or not) but I need to focus on other pressing matters between now and July, let alone now and Shocktober.


* Not to get picky here, but I'd say Bride of Frankenstein may be the first "Horror Comedy." If you think I'm applying the standard too liberally, allow me to suggest The Fearless Vampire Killers in its stead.

Nooooooooooooooo!

Today's blogorium entry is brought to you by the best spam subject line yet:

For some reason, this reminds me of Cranpire.

Getting back to my cries of "Nooooooooooooooo!", the remake train has gone way off the tracks, as now some company called Spitfire Pictures is remaking Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires. If this sounds vaguely familiar, that's because it's going to be playing during Summerfest in July.

It's not simply that this is such a random film to remake, or even that there isn't some kind of market for kung-fu / horror mashups; my concern is that Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires was a product of a unique pairing of studios, Hammer and Shaw Brothers. At the time, both were tops in their respective genres and Vampires, while goofy, is exactly what you'd expect from a Shaw / Hammer co-production: chop sockey and Peter Cushing.



The film even features the following quote: "In Europe, the vampire fears the cross. Here, it will be the image of the Lord Buddha."

Or something like that. Strangely, I can't find the quote online, but I have an audio file of it somewhere. Sure, Christopher Lee doesn't play Dracula, but otherwise it's gangbusters. Or cheese-tacular. I don't see a good future for this remake, to be honest with you.

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You are all free to leave early today.

Cap'n Snarky's House of Gripes

Today's Blogorium Post is Brought to You By:


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It appears that Neil was not the only person promised a role in Spider-Man 4 for his enthusiastic endorsement of Drag Me to Hell; I can always count on the internet to shill for this movie, but at least one other person has clearly been given a supporting role in the fourth Spidey film. Good for you guys.

Lucky for the Cap'n, the true judge of how good a film is (other than the MTV Movie Awards), the almighty Box Office is listing Drag Me to Hell at 28 million after two weeks. It's doing slightly better than Dance Flick and we all know that's a winner, right? The Box Office never lies, which means that Terminator: Salvation, a clearly inferior film, is still better than Drag Me to Hell. Better box office means better movie. I mean, that's just common sense, right*?

Now if you'll excuse me, I clearly need to watch Night at the Museum: Battle for the Smithsonian because it is also superior to Drag Me to Hell according to how much money it made. I'm also derelict in my Titanic watching (having never seen it) as it is clearly the BEST MOVIE EVER MADE.

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Speaking of the "feeling like I'm not part of the club but also not sure I want to be", I feel strange about having no compulsion whatsoever to see The Hangover. It's not that anything looks wrong with it or I intensely dislike someone in the cast or that the Cap'n is just taking a haughty "I'm too good for this movie" attitude; I just don't feel anything when I see ads for it. I neither feel compelled to see or to avoid it. I feel no way whatsoever about the movie and accordingly am not all the interested in watching it.

Maybe if I cared more about my newly earned "heretical" status - for turning down Sam Raimi horror and debauchery comedy with Zach Galifianakis - I would feel a deep sense of shame. Instead, I'm going to stay focused on not getting the internet cut off. If it does go down, you can say adios to the Blogorium for a while if not longer and I can fail an online class. Yee-ha!

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Aside from La Haine, I'll have to admit I didn't watch many movies this past weekend or even last week. I did burn through the first disc of Weeds: Season 4 courtesy of Netflix but that's about it. While I haven't mentioned it in nearly two weeks (this must be some kind of record for me), Summer Fest is still in the cards, although it won't be at the AOS because somebody's landlord is REALLY excited about an open-ended notice of "moving out" and is expecting the Cap'n to be out by the end of the month, no discussion necessary.

So even if we have to have it in someone's yard because I can afford to live somewhere else, there will be a Summer Fest, and the lineup looks very good. Since I last wrote about it, several films have appeard out of the woodwork and will probably join in. I'm reasonably confident there will be at least two 3-D films and at least one VCR Classic. More details when I'm less, well, whatever it is I am right now.

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If (and it's a pretty big IF right now) I ever get a refund check and pay off many people who are hounding me for money, I have been looking into Region Free players on Ebay, where they seem to be pretty cheap. This would open up the possibility of having a Phantasm marathon sometime as we could actually watch the copy of Phantasm II I have. The series runs (roughly) sequentially, so there's no point in watching 1, 3, and 4 without part 2.

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To sum it up: Drag Me to Hell - clearly not good but I'll be looking for Kraven the Hunter and Young Vulture in Spider-Man 4, I'll pass on a Hangover, Summer Fest - under the stars if need be, and Region Free if not house-free.



* The question is obviously rhetorical and your pithy complaints to the contrary are not necessary.

Blogorium Review: La Haine

Watching La Haine (Hate) this week was a rather fascinating experience. On the one hand, I find the film itself compelling and at all times a gripping experience. On the other hand, I have to wonder: what happened to the Mathieu Kassovitz that directed this film? Where did he go, because the movies he's making now are at best pale imitations of the talented filmmaker he once was.

But first, La Haine itself; a movie I can envision myself watching again soon. The film itself is a sort of Do the Right Thing for French ghetto life. The film begins with a riot and over the next day, simmering in the background, is the threat of reprisal from any direction: the police, the underprivileged kids, or the skinheads. Kassovitz follows three young men throughout the movie, Vinz (Vincent Cassel) a French-Jewish kid obsessed with boosting his "cred", Hubert (Hubert Kounde) a French-African boxer who lost everything during the riot, and Said (Said Taghmaoui) a French-Arab who bears most of the police scrutiny. Their friend Abdel ends up in a coma after the riot and with nothing to do but stew about it, Vinz, Hubert and Said are headed down a dark path.

Before they get there, Kassovitz has a number of diversions to take them on, the most interesting of which is their night trapped in Paris (ala After Hours) which at least gets them out of the post-riot tension. La Haine leads you to think it's headed in one direction and then suddenly makes not one but two suprise turns near the end. To say much more would spoil the film.

To me, it was interesting the way that La Haine plays out the influence of American popular culture on these guys. In addition to direct references to Taxi Driver and Scarface, the film is littered with songs from Isaac Hayes, The Beastie Boys, Bob Marley, and an interesting take on "Fuck Tha Police." Posters and product placement abound; for example, Vinz spends the entire film wearing an Nike emblazoned jacket and Hubert wears Everlast training gear. Candid Camera is the centerpiece of a story and another conversation asks "who's more badass: Wile E. Coyote or the Road Runner?"

It's curious that Americans tend to think of "foreign" films as one that eschews the ubiquitous nature of U.S. pop culture around the world, but Kassovitz embraces it as though nothing is (or should) be strange about it. For a young filmmaker (he made La Haine at age 28), he's in stunning command of the camera. La Haine alternates between long, documentary-like takes following characters around and highly stylized edits, sound bridges, and a very nice zoom-dolly. The main characters are introduced from behind and Kassovitz often shoots over their shoulders, giving audiences a "first person" feeling during the film, utilized to a similar effect in last year's The Wrestler. This is an assured filmmaker working with an excellent cast of professional and amateur actors on a high level.

So what the hell happened? If anything, you probably know Mathieu Kassovitz as the love interest in Amelie or possibly from Munich (he's also an actor and has a small role in La Haine as a skinhead), and the reason you might not know him as a director is that since La Haine he hasn't done much of note. I haven't seen Assassin(s), but I have seen The Crimson Rivers and chunks of Gothika and Babylon A.D., and they don't even hint at the talent Kassovitz displays in La Haine.

The Crimson Rivers is a strange case, as Kassovitz (working with Jean Reno and again with Cassel) expressly tried to make an "international" film. In trying to reach a market outside of France, the film is a thriller in the Seven mold but has really strange touches, like a fight Cassel gets into that's played out like a Tekken arcade game. The movie doesn't really work and is clearly dumber than it needs to be to interest "foreign" markets. I wouldn't be surprised if you've never heard of it, since I only found it on dvd via Netflix.

But Gothika and Babylon A.D. are just awful. Not simply because they're bad movies, but it feels like Kassovitz is phoning in the directing, even if Babylon was a studio-mandated hatchet job. I really don't understand how you could watch La Haine and any of the movies he made afterward and think the same guy directed them. It's a shame because I first heard of him through Amelie and then was informed of his talents as a director. While I can see how you could say that from this film, his later work leaves me scratching my head. It's a pity too, because he could be doing so much more.